~*~The World Turns~*~
The boy's transformation looks promising. It will take a fortnight before he can handle another proper test. Limit his exercises to extremities. Double dose of blood-replenishing mixed with a revitalizer seems to stabilize him but maintains the need for healing magic. Perhaps he is not ready for further change. Perhaps I've been rushing him.
The ink drifted off as though he meant to say more. Voldemort gazed at his own handwriting, the rushed thin letters, the blots, and smirked. It had been far too long since he had been excited about something. Albeit, his success had robbed him of challenge outside of the mundane, but this primal vigor had fled him since he had conquered his biggest enemy.
Maybe it was because he had spent decades struggling against a foe, but he was not as engaged now that there was no test on the horizon. He had no way to grow without adversity, no way to learn his limits and how to expand them. Voldemort was a student of the world, regardless of what title he assumed, and was in no better a place than a classroom. His laboratory had become a sort of island from the trivial dramas he encountered in the foreign realms, where many different faces shouted at him to cease him cancerous regime.
Was he a cancer? How many other men had passed through this mortal life, had taken up the flag he waved, had fought and died for the same values that he carried? Was he so different to them?
Pureblood supremacy had seemed like a distant dream, one hoped but never asked for, for centuries. A thousand other men had stood where he stood and thought what he thought. He was Salazar reborn, but how many others had been reborn before him? He could admit it was not an original cause, but an old and tireless one that should be respected not only for its universal truth, but also for its longevity.
In every species, in order to evolve, there must be an upheaval. It ranged from catastrophic natural events to mass migration to the invention of the written word. All it took was one event and the course of human history changes as though through the turning of a page. The time for upheaval had come again and it was his destiny to ensure that the process went smoothly. There would be blood, and the dead would at one time outnumber the living, but this was part of the process; a step in a complicated potion. For life to develop, death must first come to reap its bounty.
The ignorance of the foreign ministers, and their small-minded notion that the world could be made equal and whole simply by each man embracing the other in harmony, was going to be the undoing of all forward progress. It was the time of evolution and they must learn their place in it or be destroyed.
As Voldemort closed his research notes and left the laboratory, which still smelled faintly of copper, he heard a commotion. The silent children were rushing toward him, which was bizarre in its own right, and many of them were huddling behind him, a couple of the children even clutching his robes. The boy holding his sleeve was the brother of the girl that had taken the killing curse for him, his little sister held his robes at the knee. Perhaps inspired by the actions of those two, more hands pulled at him, hiding behind him like a shield. Not a one of them spoke and he was at a lost as to why they clung to him.
"Release me before I take another part of you." He said it as icily as he could and reached for his wand. The boy had the audacity to look him in the eye when he let go, but it was not anger in his gaze. It was trust.
"Milord!" It came from further down the hall and the children rushed away at the sound of the voice, even the boy. Voldemort, newly frustrated by the oddities of this day, continued to the foyer where Rodolphus Lestrange stood, covered in blood and ash and dirt.
"What has happened?"
"The Light! I told you and you did not listen! All this time beneath our feet and you denied their survival! Your inaction enabled the capture of my brother!"
"Must I remind you to whom you speak?" With ease, he came closer to Rodolphus and laid his hand on the man's shoulder. "Did they take your sense along with your kin?"
The anger and the fear fled the man as he came back to his senses. "Milord, they've taken Rabastan."
"Define 'they'."
"Moody, some Weasleys and the fools he managed to take with him from the Aurors. They ambushed our meeting with the Snatchers who brought us Ollivander. We were outnumbered and they had rigged the warehouse against us."
"Did you take one of theirs?"
"Milord?"
"A captive for a captive. Is it not fair practice?"
"The Light that was left were dead..." Rodolphus ran a hand over his face. "Or I killed them out of fury."
"Your emotions unman you. We could have used a hostage. How many are they?"
"In total, I cannot be sure. We killed seven of theirs and they destroyed the Snatchers. They were waiting for us and they had supplies. They must have been planning this for some time."
"Two thefts a month, every month, for two years. That's forty-eight supply caches, wand shops, bookstores, apothecaries...they've been amassing an arsenal while we slept. Greyback complained that packs were turning against him, the goblins at Gringotts admitted to working with a wizard not of my influence, the giants and the centaurs will not hear me. One thousand, four hundred sixty-one days of scheming and planning." Voldemort couldn't say he was surprised and honestly, he was a little relieved. A little challenge was exactly what he had been missing.
"Milord, what do we do?"
Now that was the question. How best to approach this new little aggravation? He could declare war publically, which had worked for the First War and he had deemed that useless upon the second. He could continue on as though nothing had occurred, while quietly gathering his own army and supplies, just as he had when he regained his body. That seemed the course to take as he had found it much easier to work in the shadows as his enemy was doing now. But Voldemort was master of shadows and he could traverse them unlike any other. Besides, that tactic had been succeeding until the fiasco at the Ministry, which he was certain would not happen again.
"Retrieve your dear wife and find Cerberus. Torture who you must but keep it discreet. Bring me all three heads, alive." He waved his hand and Rodolphus hurried to do as he commanded. A touch to his temple and he knew another of his number was coming. If the Light wanted a war, then they would have one.
"You shouldn't be out. I don't know what Moody was thinking."
"What, am I invalid because I'm pregnant?"
"I wouldn't have let Fleur come."
"And she would have told you were to stick it."
"As amusin' as this conversation is, why are ya usin' my livin' room for it?"
Tonks uncrossed her arms and Bill held his wand behind his thigh. Colin of Rathangan, an average-sized man, if very fit, with dark auburn hair and curious grey eyes, stood half-naked in the archway between his dining and living room, a mug of coffee in his hand. He had a brand across his chest that looked to have been made by a long piece of metal.
"Annie let us in. She said you wouldn't mind guests." Bill spoke calmly but she could see the training he had in every muscle in his body.
"Well, I didn't let Annie go to a dance with her boyfriend because her marks were horrid, so that tells you how much her word is worth." Colin spoke about his daughter fondly and sipped his coffee. "Well, have a seat and put your wands away. I'll let you say your peace, but don't think you can start duelin' in my house or I'll show you why everyone knows me as the Bonebreaker."
The seats were draped with handmade throws of various color that didn't seem to match the gold walls. The fireplace was low, but the mantle was covered with pictures and awards from Quidditch around the world.
"Did you play?" She asked, pointing at the trophies.
"Oh, yeah. Irish National. Been ten years, though. Do you play?"
"Not really my expertise."
"Better at bein' a lawkeeper. Auror red had to have made your hair hard to look at." He pointed at her hair, which was ruby red. It had been blue just yesterday.
"You know who I am?"
"Nymphadora Tonks, as I hear it, and he's Bill Weasley, the Ghost of Gringotts." Colin wriggled his fingers at them. "Philip said you'd stop by. War on yet?"
"Nearly."
"That's good. I was beginnin' to think you'd given up the cause." He took another sip. "Any particular reason for your visit?"
"Moody thinks the king will be coming to you soon to side you against us in the coming hostilities. He wanted us to have the first word."
"Makes sense, but I don't think you'll convince me one way or the other. I'm not Philip. I don't take sides in spats with wizards, I sit back and let them kill each other, then swoop in and take what they've left behind." He pointed at his trophies. "Worked so well back then that I made it my occupation."
"This could become personal for you." Bill warned and Colin's angular face seemed to become more so as he grinned.
"The Light is goin' to what, kidnap my daughter like you kidnapped Rabastan Lestrange? Who's the dark one, then?"
"The King would do far worse."
"He has done and he will do and two wars haven't stopped him. Do you think another will? Don't know if ya noticed, but I'm Irish. This entire problem is yours not mine. I sell information when the price is right and I stay outta political fights."
"If you won't join us, then we are here to convince you to not join the King."
"Did ya not hear what I said? I don't take sides. Last time I was on a team, the captain made sure I got bludgeoned so bad that I couldn't play anymore. My wife left me and every witch and wizard from this side to the other knew my name: Colin the Cripple. Every man for himself, I say."
"So you won't aid the King?"
"I'll aid who I like and cripple those I don't. It won't matter if you're wearing dark blue robes or black ones. It won't matter if you've got a snake and skull tattoo or a pretty little butterfly. This is your war and your land. I don't need to risk a damn thing to support either army. Now, it's very early and I've got things to do." Colin stood and shook their hands. "Get the fuck outta my house."
The Nest was still the meeting place for them, but Severus knew they would have to change that soon if what he had heard was true. He had left the King's manor and had went back to Hogwarts to finish up his modifications to the statues and listening devices he had scattered around. He had spent his day closing up shop so that he would have nothing unfinished before he had to leave for France.
He would have to broach the subject with Persephone, but he just didn't want to put himself around her. He had sworn to not love her until this war was over and he was going to stick that out. Besides, she had yet to call on the King and that was no way to go about winning his heart. Now, though, Severus was not so sure that that plan was going to work.
Rabastan Lestrange kidnapped and in front of Rodolphus Lestrange at that! According to the rumors he had woken up to the next day, Moody, Ron and Bill Weasley had all been identified in the kidnapping. Fenrir Greyback had been taken as well. How did Moody think to win a war with foolish actions like this?
The man in question came through the door of the Nest with a hop in his limping step.
"Ah, Slayer. Do you have that information you said you had ready for us?"
"Are you mad? I didn't realize I was signing myself up for suicide!"
"It is under control."
"How? You kidnapped one of the King's loyal number, let your faces be seen, and let a formidable member of the Death Eaters get away. I fail to see how any of this is under control."
"This was planned. We've been working for years on this. We've got supplies, we've got the numbers, we've got allies outside of the refuge and within Court. Half the world's against him and he was almost killed by the killing curse at his own manor. Now is the time."
"You don't have the numbers or the supplies. Hermione told me-"
"She told you what she knew. She thought we were running out of supplies faster than we could store them, but really we were stockpiling them. Life in the refuge is heaven compared to what it could be and everyone eats their fill. Not a single soul goes without and if they do it is by choice."
"You've been lying to your own about that as well?" Severus could hardly believe that there was so much the Auror hadn't told anyone about anything and even the members that were willing to give up the most for the Light.
"I told them what they needed to hear to get the job done. Two years of a steady income of everything we would need to fight the King, allies both inside and outside the refuge. We are more than ready for whatever the King has to offer. Now, that information."
"The king will be suspicious of Hermione now. It will not go unnoticed that the moment she comes to Court an attempt is made on his life, I've been more alive, and then Rabastan Lestrange is captured by upstanding members of the Light thought vanquished. Questions will be asked that I cannot answer. If he finds even a shred of proof that Persephone is a falsity, he will torture her until she dies. He will come for me next and no amount of loyalty will save me." Severus did not truly care that his life would be forfeit, but he found himself terrified that Hermione would die, never knowing that she was not some pureblood named Persephone Damasca.
"It is under control. He will not find out about her and she will be the calm hand he needs now that everything is stirring. You will see." Moody held out his hand for the information and Severus let him have it.
"I'm going to France, today. I'll be gone as long as it takes to convince Ariel Boudin that the King is worth following."
"Why don't you convince him to believe in the Light? If you want to help us end this, give us the means of his destruction." The old Auror left him standing there and Severus wondered, not for the first time, what exactly he was willing to give up for this.
Severus had no owls and neither did Persephone, so it was a welcome change to see one fly through the open window of her room and come to rest on her cluttered desk. It had a note attached to its leg, one with a somewhat royal seal. She was quick to open it.
"Miss Damasca,
Since you bear no mark of my design and Severus is undoubtedly busy preparing for his departure to France, I am forced to write you. This owl is swift and proficient so this should reach you before noon.
I require your presence as soon as you are able. The children are adamant that you return and I am loathe to deny them. I have prepared a meal for you and the children should you wish to dine with them. There are thirty-two of them, so be warned.
Your sovereign lord, V."
"It's about time." She was not about to call on the King since she was meant to be fetching and desirable but decidedly not interested in him beyond how he pertained to Severus.
The king must, in his own time, desire her presence. Which was highly inconvenient as it was subject to his whims and she was not sure she could predict those as well as Severus'. The space around her heart still ached when she thought of Severus and she hurried to get ready to see the king. But what was the mention of Severus and France? He had told her no such thing...she hadn't even seen him since their fight. Perhaps it was for the best now.
Persephone knew that the king had been baiting her by mentioning the children and she was not ashamed to say that it had worked. She wanted to see them and make sure they were healthy and happy. She felt obligated to them.
Her closet contained many different things, but she wanted a certain kind of attire. She must proclaim her eligibility while remaining distantly unclaimable, appear as radiant as a queen, but also as loving as a mother. This was difficult to achieve and took her another hour to put together.
She ended up settling with silk witches robes in a soft purple that held her breasts without drawing too much attention to them and fluttered loosely from beneath them to brush her toes. She wore shoes that were easy to kick off should she need to get comfortable around the children and shorts beneath her robes should she need to tie the skirt up and run after them.
The king, despite calling on her, was still not her main focus. Or at least he could not appear to be.
The crown sat in an unassuming box, polished to a light shine to counter its rustic exterior. It was charmed to fit the first person to wear it and remain that size for the duration of its existence. She hoped it was well-received.
When she arrived at the King's manor, her cloak keeping her warm in the frigid wind and fat snowflakes falling into her face at an angle, she was more than prepared for this.
The children greeted her before the king could, smiling and swarming around, each one demanding more attention than the last. Their hands were hot on her skin and she returned their smiles with genuine happiness.
"Hello, darlings. Are you well?"
"M-m-mummy!"
Tears were suddenly in her eyes but it wasn't because of contentment. A sadness gripped her heart because she knew these children's parents were likely dead, in Azkaban, or so far away they could not find a way back. Half of the children were ten or younger, the oldest couldn't have been more than thirteen. They weren't in school and none of them had wands, they were housed here but they were not really being looked after.
"Mother, now?" The king was quiet and he seemed to form like a vapor from the shadows. "Mother of mudbloods."
"Do you teach them, my king?" She did not respond to the title as part of her felt an indignant pride at being called as such.
"They are mudbloods, they know all they need to know with a mop and bucket."
"Your teachers taught you the same way?" Her anger seeped into her tone but she did not regret it.
"Are you implying I am not pureblooded?"
"You cannot test blood for purity, my king, because it does not exist. It is a dream of insecure men who have nothing better to do than persecute others. Or of entitled men who think themselves high enough to decide another's fate. It would not matter if you were half-blood, because it is not blood that dictates our destiny."
"My servants do not talk to me that way."
"Good thing I am not your servant, then." The children seemed frightened and Persephone did not break the king's gaze to look at them. The king grinned.
"You overvalue yourself."
"As do you."
"I am the King of Britain."
"And I am the Mother of mudbloods."
"Yes, you are." The king gestured behind him. "Dinner awaits you."
"Thank you." The children guided her past the king and their gaze fell.
The boy holding her left hand looked up at her and he was smiling so wide that his eyes crinkled in the corners. He began to tell her, in slow, halting sentences, all that she had missed she they had buried Virginia. His name was Cadeyrn and his little sister was Vanessa. She had lost a tooth just yesterday and he had been telling her about the tooth fairy because Vanessa was still young enough to believe in that kind of magic.
Persephone was supposed to be pureblood but she understood the difference in muggle magic and her own. She knew that sometimes belief was more powerful than possession. She leaned down to Vanessa as they settled around the long table and told her a grand story of the trip the tooth fairy would have to take to get her tooth. The rest of the children listened eagerly.
The king watched them silently, a pensive look on his serpentine face. Every once in a while, between pauses she took for dramatic effect, she would look up at the king and smile. Her tale stretched beyond the first course, helped along by the many questions the children asked, and she began to spin another tale from within that one, linking the tooth fairy and the fairy godmother from Cinderella. Her new epic awed the children and they ate with wide eyes as she painted a rich fairy kingdom and its denizens, where the fairy godmother was an outcast who favored humans over her own kind and sought to bring happiness to them, despite stringent laws against using magic for undeserving humans. It was midway through her explanation of how the godmother had acquired a wand after her own had been broken, that the king interrupted.
"A grand tale, but the children must finish their own chores and go to bed." The children groaned, if quietly, and Vanessa bounced over to the king with a pout. She tugged on his sleeve, speaking gibberish as she was trying to say a whole lot in one breath, and smiled at him. He shook his head. "It is late."
"I can continue the tale another time, yes?" Persephone asked, hoping she could help the king get the children to bed. The king waved his long fingered hand imperiously and the children clapped. Vanessa pressed a kiss to the king's pale hand and darted off with Cadeyrn and the rest of them after they had all been hugged and kissed goodnight by Persephone.
A warm silence dominated the room after the children had left and Persephone sighed.
"Thank you for this. I do not have much to do at home and I am grateful for the children. You're good to keep them safe."
"I am not good." He said it with derision. "I am evil and that is not a shameful identity. It is what I am and have always been."
"I do not believe you." She looked him in the eye, sipping the red wine she still had left in her cup. The king had not eaten much, and what he had eaten had been taken slowly.
"It has been a night of tales. Shall we have another?" The king sat forward, crossing his arms on the table before him. The elves had cleared away the silverware and the decorations, leaving only two tall candles to light the space around them. It made the shadows darker behind the king's head and gave him an air of mystery.
"I would welcome any tale you would gift me with."
"It is curious what you perceive as gifts. That box you brought with you is a gift as well?" When she nodded, he chuckled coldly. "For the children?"
"For you." Her glass made a distinct clink as she set it down. "After your tale, I will give it to you."
"I could demand it now."
"And I could refuse you. A gift, my king, is not required of any person and can be denied at the giver's whim. I put effort and thought in yours, please do not make me throw it away." She granted him another smile and gestured for him to continue.
"I grew up in an orphanage." He began, a wry smirk on his face. "A filthy muggle one, far from the grandeur I have acquired. My father was unknown to me then and my mother was rumored to have been a circus performer who died giving birth to me. The woman who ran the orphanage told me that my mother had made sure to brand me with a name before her weakness claimed her and it was this name that I came to despise."
"What was that name, milord?"
"Tom. Unimaginative, plain, and little. Three letters to encompass all that I was and would be, to identify my power and my mind. Tom, like a back alley cat that no one chose to adopt, a beggar on the street that was content with crumbs, a martyr for the faith of a dead man's blood. I was to carry that name like the brand she meant it as, a sign to all who would know me that I was born of the wretched and the unworthy, that I was an anonymous soul destined for a nameless occupation and a silent passing through life because I was no one. The last gift my mother gave me was obscurity."
"Surely she did not mean it as a slight against you. Tom is a strong name, carried by strong men who did amazing things with what time a mortal life affords us."
"A mortal life like hers? She was of Salazar's blood. We are not mortal who come from such ancient magic, we are the first immortals and we shall be the last to succumb to death. But my mother succumbed and she forfeited her place in the honor of our ancestor, she gave up all of that for the love of another. The love of a man that had left her and remarried before she could grow cold, before I could take my first breath.
"It was his name she gave me. A reminder, perhaps, of her love but a token for me of the man that slew her before my birth could harm her. I was named for her murderer and her father, both men unworthy of a claim to me. I thought myself pointless for many years, until one day, in my anger, I made things move and twist to please me and I knew then what my purpose was. I was powerful, I was strong and I was more than three letters on a piece of paper. When I was old enough, a man came for me. He was the first man to come for me alone and I thought of him as a savior once he had proven he was also like me. I thought he could show me power...but there are some things one must learn on their own.
"I excelled when I was out from underneath the shadow of mediocrity and I sought out the bloodlines of my parents. First, I looked to my father as all patriarchal minded do, but I found nothing in the whole of the records of him. He was no wizard and he possessed no power on this earth beyond the might of the love my mother felt for him and he had wielded that like a sword. So next I looked to my mother, the last of my desires and here I found my lineage. I trudged through the mud of incestuous marriage and debauchery, of fraud and of the squandering of all their gold and status. I traced the horrid smear to the father of my line, to Salazar Slytherin himself."
"You're the heir to the the line of Slytherin?" She stared at him with wonder, with awe, and she gave voice to her musings. "No one could have looked down on you, then. You were of the noblest blood."
"I was of half-filth. I was the mere reflection of his disgusting visage and I was no noble. I had not earned that title...not yet." He leaned back and she followed him, scooting closer with her chair to hear more.
"What did you do?"
"I swam up from the depths of the mud surrounding me, climbed above the heads of those that would name me less than them and I enthroned myself at the height of the world. Along the way I cut the parts of my father and his kind from my body and my soul. I erased him so I could place myself on the page of time and no one would remove me. No one could."
"Erased him? How?"
"I tracked him down. I found him and his parents in their manor and I released them from the bonds of mortality. I searched out my mother's brother and, having found the hovel in which they had been reduced, I released him as well. I left a trail of the dead through the streets to mark my footsteps." He held her eyes as though to delve into them. "You see, I am not a good man."
She was quiet. Persephone wanted to ask a question but she wasn't sure how to. Instead, she spoke.
"You keep these children. You take care of them and I have not seen you lift a finger to harm them. You are not as evil as you believe yourself to be." She was close to him and he reached out, pressing a hand to her cheek and pulling her nearer.
"I keep them for political reasons," he spoke in a whisper, his breath both sweet and sour brushing by her skin. "but when these children you love so much become a burden and not a boon, I will set them loose on the grounds and I will hunt them one-by-one, ripping them limb from limb, from eldest to youngest. And when only one child is left, that sweet little girl you spun a tale of fairies for, I will make her gather the pieces together into a pyre and I shall burn her alive on it. Do you believe me now?"
His hand was rough against her cheek and she was trembling. Tears had welled up in her eyes and she was reminded of what her fear tasted like. The blood red eyes that bored into her own were shining with victory and she tried to stem the tears from falling but a few escaped. Her hand rose to the one at her cheek and she held it. Held it because that meant it was real and alive, that meant it could die. Persephone gasped in a breath, trying to steady herself so her voice wouldn't break, but she knew it would anyway.
"You delight in mocking the love of others because you do not possess it yourself. That does not make you an evil man, it makes you a lonely one." She turned her head and kissed the king's palm. "A lonely man and an atrocious king."
"Atrocious?" He breathed, eying her.
"Your pride is larger than your sense and you strut about like an emperor while every minister from here to Albania laugh at you in their firewhiskys. If more of your loyalists told the truth, Severus wouldn't need to be so far from home cleaning up a mess you made. Do you think a serving army of children will convince men who survived the muggle World Wars and Grindelwald that you are any different than the last pig-headed conquering villain? And if you kill them now that you've broadcasted their existence to the world, they will only see you as a coward child-killer or an insane wizard with homicidal tendencies that wants to employ mass amounts of 'labor camps' for muggleborn children. It has been done, I will have you know, by a muggle. Your former allies will not forget that. So long as you declare peace with a clenched fist, war will rage on." She glared at him, trying with all her might to ensure he knew how she loathed him for his earlier threat against her children.
"And what would you have me do?" It was the second time he had asked her that and she thought before she spoke.
"You must appear as more than an unfeeling, narcissistic sovereign. There is more to you than even you know." She reached out and gripped the king's face as he held hers. "Your hatred cripples you. You are just as wounded as I thought."
A look came over the king's face and he shoved her away. Her chair fell sideways and she caught herself on her knees. The king was standing and she used the table to rise herself.
"It should be frightening to you how quickly you lose your common sense. I will return when you have regained it." She spun and made her way out, taking her cloak from the hook right before the door. Persephone opened the door, but it was snatched out of her hands and closed with force by the king's magic. She looked over her shoulder at him, where he stood with his hand in the air. He had obviously commanded the door closed wandlessly.
"I did not dismiss you."
"I am not yours to dismiss."
"You are beneath my roof, on my land and you are involved with one of my own. You are mine to command."
"Is that what you think?" She could feel her whole body change as she filled with rage. The door was forgotten and she faced the king, dropping her cloak.
"It is what I know."
"You know nothing. I bear no mark, I answer to no king and I go where I please as I please. The respect I have shown you thus far was but a courtesy, nothing more. You presume all living beings will rise to serve you. You are gravely mistaken."
"I could destroy you utterly."
"I'd like to see you try. I am the only one besides Severus to speak to you as you should be spoken to. The only one willing to see your faults for what they are. I do this because I am not a servant. I do not live to make you happy. I live to continue to do so until I achieve something more profound. But you have ceased living in exchange for the excuse of an immortal life. And it has stolen the one thing, the only thing, worth having."
"And what is that?"
"Love." The king scoffed at her, folding his hands before him condescendingly.
"Every speech is reduced to love. You possess no other tool?"
"It is the sharpest one and, in its truest form, is more powerful than the darkest curse. Love is why I did not succumb to the misfortune of my family. Love is why I do not run from your broken face, how it reflects your soul, because I am made strong by the love of my family, of Severus. Do not doubt love."
"I do not doubt it, I simply do not believe. It is nothing more than a dream. A phantom in the shadows that all good men chase. Dumbledore chased love, as did that boy, but they are all dead now. The few that fight me will fall because they love. Every single light in the world will go out and what will love be then?"
"The one thing you won't have." Persephone picked her cloak up from the floor and left, not once looking back to the king. She vanished into the night.
A/N: I'm not sure I'm satisfied with this one, but I don't know what else to add to it, so I'm going to leave it as is. Tonks and Bill would be visiting Rathangan the morning after the kidnapping, and Severus would be meeting with Moody around the same time. Persephone would be going to the king's that night. Everyone should be on the same day or roundabouts in the next chapter. Tell me what you think, please review. Tickle2Kill.
