Chapter 37

Why am I not in the cell anymore? Gemini opened her eyes to the unfamiliar place that wasn't her cell at the bottom of the Ministry. She recognized this place, but only faintly: it was the run-down manor she apparated to the night she found out about her parents. Only there was no village below the hill. It was all dark except for the manor in front of her, its gate opened and the front porch lit by the dim light by the door.

This is all just a dream. A really bad dream. She closed her eyes, hoping she would wake up, but instead she found herself in a hallway just as neglected as the manor. It was dark and cold, and the only source of light was now coming from a room on the side, which looked like a sitting room, where the fireplace was well-lit.

"Gemini," She heard a male voice call her casually. "You're late."

Hesitantly but bravely, Gemini walked to the sitting room threshold. The room was a stark contrast to the rest of the manor, and looked tidy, adorned with old but tasteful furniture. There were couches and chairs around the room, but in the middle of the room, across the fireplace, there were two chairs on either side of a glass table, and only one of the two chairs was unoccupied.

Though the light spread across the room, the person seemed to be the only thing shadowed by darkness. Gemini could see his black robes, his pale hands, and his dark red eyes, but apart from that, looking at him, you couldn't tell there was a light source just a few feet away.

"Don't just stand there." He said reproachfully. "You're already late as it is. Sit down."

Gemini took a deep breath before entering the sitting room and making her way to the chair in front of him. "Who are you?" She asked as she sat.

She could tell he was smiling patronizingly. "The best in your classes, one of the smartest witches of your age, and you don't know who I am?" He laughed. "But I'll bet you already know the answer to that."

The fire grew slightly, and Gemini could see him clearly, but at the same time, she couldn't. At first she saw a middle-aged man with pale skin, black hair, and facial features she could see in herself. And then the fire flickered, and she was looking at a decayed monster with red eyes and snake-like nostrils that couldn't possibly have been human. She stifled a gasp, and the monster turned back into the middle-aged man.

"You're my father." Gemini said. "Voldemort."

A smiled curled in Voldemort's lips. "Quite late, but naturally I shouldn't blame you, considering your mother's traitorous family. But then again, I alone found out who I was at fifteen. Tsk, tsk." He gazed observantly at her. "You've got your mother's hair and eyes, more of a Black than a Gaunt. But if you've met your grandmother's family, you'd be relieved at that. Still a Slytherin, nonetheless.

"You know…" Voldemort continued when Gemini said nothing. "That incident in the Ministry this morning…"

Gemini scowled. "I was just upset. I thought Hermione really wanted me locked up. I didn't mean to say those things!"

"No?" He asked coyly. "That's funny, because I did."

"What?" Gemini asked, confused as to what he meant. "Wait…if you're dead, how did you know about what happened in…"

"Horcruxes are not the only way of keeping my existence immortal." He said in a way that he himself found out that fact. He stood up and walked around the room. "I shall spare you the details—it was a lot of research on my part when I was in Hogwarts and looking for ways to be immortal—but I shall tell you this: the fact that my blood runs in your veins means that a part of me still lives, even if my body and soul does not. I never expected to have a child, you know, as I figured Horcruxes were much easier, but it was luck that you were born, which means I still exist inside you. That bumbling old man was right to fear your heritage. Your blood alone keeps me connected to this world."

"So you were there? In the Ministry?"

"I am stuck in limbo, but I can connect to your mind and see what you see, yes. But it was not without great difficulty." Voldemort stood next to her chair and ran a thin, spider-like finger on her shoulder. "It was difficult whilst you did not know I existed, but ever since you did, it's become less so, as your knowledge of who I am to you created a clear path for me to get to you. I can't connect to you for long periods of time, but just enough that I can get your attention. Like this dream."

Gemini was listening, but there was something about what Voldemort said that sounded suspicious. "You said you meant what I said in the Ministry…" Gemini said slowly. "Wait, so that means…"

"You had a suspicion of that Mudblood in your head." Voldemort shrugged. "I just made sure you voiced it out correctly."

Gemini gasped. It all makes perfect sense now. The unexplained rage, the sudden desire to hurt and kill everyone in the courtroom, how I couldn't understand why I said that, even if part of me knew for certain I didn't mean it. The Veritaserum Alpha worked, but it wasn't the potion's voice she was hearing before she destroyed her own reputation.

It was a third voice, one who controlled her long enough to say all those hurtful things.

"You!" Gemini said violently. "It was you who said those things, didn't you?! You made me say that to the Wizengamot!"

Voldemort smiled. "They wanted a monster. They were expecting a monster. I just gave them one."

"YOU ASSHOLE!" Gemini screamed, getting out of her seat and backing away from his touch. "You're the reason why I'm going to Azkaban! You're the reason why I've just destroyed any chance I have of being free!"

He shrugged carelessly. "You said you didn't care. You said you were done trying to be the good person."

"Did I say that or did you make me?" Gemini asked coldly.

"Does it matter, Gemini?" Voldemort grinned. "You or me, the Ministry doesn't really seem to care, do they?"

Gemini screamed as she punched Voldemort in the face. Her arm hurt, but she was too furious to notice. He fell to the ground with a heavy grunt, and Gemini kicked him in the gut with a swift kick. She tackled and straddled him, punching him wherever she could.

"My life…is ruined…BECAUSE. OF. YOU!" Gemini said in between punches. That feeling of adrenaline coursing through her veins was back, but this time, she knew the rage was really hers and not some trick of his. She was so angry that she started to cry. "I could have been free! I could have done that stupid Unbreakable Vow and be done with it!"

"You couldn't have survived the Unbreakable Vow not to perform the Dark Arts…" Voldemort coughed. "Not while I'm your father."

Gemini punched his one last time as painfully as she could administer. Her knuckles were bleeding, but she didn't care. She reached for his throat. "How about you just die for real this time? Maybe that will end all of this."

As though he hadn't been beaten by his own daughter, Voldemort looked up at her and laughed. "Do what you have to do." He said, spitting blood on the side. "But take note, Gemini…"

"What?" She asked suspiciously.

"What you did just there—you did all that, not me." He said proudly. "You are my daughter, every little bit like me. Ambitious. Clever. Vengeful. Kill me, and prove what you really are."

Gemini tightened her grip, but then slowly released him and stood up. Her legs were shaking and she struggled to stay still. "I am nothing like you." She spat with quiet fury. "I'm not a bad person. I'm your daughter, not your heiress."

She turned to leave the house, but there he was, no longer on the floor, but standing by the sitting room's threshold. "You're engaged to a Longbottom, you think I don't know that?" He laughed coldly. He approached Gemini, his presence colder than it was before, but Gemini tried not to show her budding fear. "Did you really think that life would have worked out for you without you finding out? Let me show you what your Happily Ever After fantasy would have brought you…"

Without warning, Voldemort grabbed Gemini's hand. The room spun and Gemini began to see visions in her head that were too fast for her to recognize. "This the life you would have gotten!" Voldemort shouted.

It was a vision of her, only older and more weary-looking. Gemini recognized the room as the office room in the house she and Arnold rented, only it looked like time had begun to wear the house down.

"You think you would have remained happy with a Longbottom even if you remained ignorant about your past?" Voldemort's voice echoed, though lost in the vision, Gemini couldn't see where he was. "The novelty wears off, Gemini, and when you're done romanticizing everything and look realistically at it, do you think you two will be happy? The glorified librarian and the overworked potioneer?"

"Of course we would have!" Gemini said, but the older Gemini groaned and banged her head before slamming a book shut. Gemini stepped closer and saw that it was a Muggle book on medical diseases, but her attention went to the bottles around her table, all of which look like they had been smashed deliberately. The sound of hooting came from the window and Gemini saw three owls landing at the same time, one of which being Draco Malfoy's owl. Older Gemini stood up and snatched the parchments from the owls, not bothering with a thanks or feeding them. She sat back down on her desk and opened the first one, which turned out to be a Howler which immediately opened into a mouth.

"Dear Mrs. Longbottom, at 4:34 this morning, an explosion erupted from your laboratory and destroyed most of the room's content. Your belongings have been moved to safekeeping in your main office. After further investigation, Maintenance have diagnosed this explosion from a forgotten Stem Cell Potion Prototype #32 left brewing overnight. Fortunately, no one was hurt. However, we would like to discuss the damage done to the facility. Please drop by the Accounting Department for a meeting at—"

Older Gemini crumpled the mouth before it could finish, too tired to notice the parchment catching fire in her fingers that she dropped it on her table, yanking her hand away. "Fuck my life…" She muttered under her breath. Gemini tried reading the other letters beside Older Gemini, but it was too blurry. However, the next two made Older Gemini visibly more irritated.

The vision changed, and this time it was a shouting match between Older Gemini and a younger girl who looked like Gemini but had blonde hair. "I HATE YOU!" The girl screeched. "WHY CAN'T I GO TO THE SCREAMING SISTERS' CONCERT?!"

"Because I said so, that's why!" Older Gemini said firmly. "And don't try asking your father just because I said no or I swear to Merlin I'm going to buy your dress robes next year at a second-hand shoppe."

The girl look aghast. "You wouldn't."

"Alice Longbottom, I am your mother and I will do whatever I can to teach you obedience. Even if it means making you look like a traffic cone in the Yule Ball this year!"

The teenager screamed before running up the stairs. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady!" Older Gemini screamed back. Gemini cringed, thinking: Crap, I'm going to be that kind of mother in the future?

"Let her go, Gem." Older Arnold said from the couch. He looked older too, a shade fatter, and dark circles were around his eyes. "I don't even understand why you won't let her go…"

"She snuck out last week, Arnold, or are you trying to be her favorite parent that you choose to forget again that our daughter's becoming too rebellious for her own good?"

"Of course I remember!" Older Arnold said, offended. "But I don't see why sneaking out and going to a concert on her friend's birthday is co-related…"

"That's just it! You never think!" Older Gemini said shrilly. "You do nothing but spoil our kids and that makes me look like the bad guy!"

Arnold grunted. "Maybe you are." He said quietly.

Gemini saw Older Gemini's face contort in anger as she grabbed a nearby figurine and threw it at Older Arnold's head. "Bastard." Gemini grunted.

The visions changed faster now, staying only long enough for Gemini to see what horrors awaited her in the future. She and Arnold were constantly fighting about every little thing, and soon it became a pattern of Gemini wishing she stayed in the Ministry and became an Auror. Gemini saw her broken family, her job that began to lose its excitement and had become menial and overworking, her boring life that was no different from a boring Muggle's.

"Is this the life you really want?" Voldemort's taunting echoed. "Seems boring, doesn't it? You know why? It's because girls like you weren't meant for this life. For some unexplainable reason, you think this is the life you want. A normal life. Wizards like us don't get normal lives. And it's utterly amusing how you've convinced yourself otherwise when in fact, throughout your life, it's been clear what kind of life you want."

The visions clouded and Gemini could see her younger self this time, and she recognized every moment Voldemort wanted her to see. It was the moments when she was adopted, and animals were disappearing, accidents were happening, and people Gemini didn't get along with got hurt. It was her first week in Hogwarts, and she was remarkably excelling, for an alleged Muggle-born who knew nothing about magic. It was her and those time she were with friends, and how she laughed and smiled at their taunting and bullying of others. It was her and all those Slug Club parties, and how Gemini could manipulate Professor Slughorn into getting her out of detention from other professors and how he would keep promising to introduce her to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement after Hogwarts.

Finally, it was after the graduation ceremony, and she and her other friends were at the Three Broomsticks. Their table, along with other Slytherin tables, cheered as they celebrated winning the House Cup on their graduation. She could see herself smiling smugly at the other Slytherins before raising her glass at a couple of glaring Gryffindors before flipping them off. The friends who saw what she did were in a fit of giggles.

"This is who you are, Gemini." Voldemort whispered. "A Slytherin. A real Slytherin. Someone who knows the right people to mingle with—purebloods, all of them. Someone who basks in their glory, knowing it is theirs to bask. Someone who gets what she wants because she knows how to get it. Someone undaunted by peers whom she knows to be lesser than her—not even the wrong look at her goes unpunished. This is who you are."

Abigail stood up and raised her glass. "Here's to Gemini, the Queen of Slytherin! Happy Birthday to the Queen!"

"To the Queen!" The rest of the table and all the other Slytherins in the pub cheered for her, much to the scowls and eye-rolls of the rest of the pub. It was so evident that the Slytherins were victorious, and there was no denying that most of their glory came from the fact that Gemini Ridley was in their House.

The vision slowly dissolved, and she was back in the sitting room, seated in the chair once more. Voldemort was seated across her, and Gemini quickly wiped the stale tears welling in her eyes. "What I want isn't quite different from what you want—and no, I didn't make you believe in that ideology of ruling Muggles for the greater good, you thought of that on your own. I agree: Wizards should have the right to rule over Muggles."

His voice was charming, like a best friend's dad who treated you like his own, but Gemini was quick in thinking and wasn't buying any of it. "All wizards." Gemini corrected. "Including half-bloods and Muggle-borns. The possession of power itself should give us the responsibility to take care of Muggles, no matter their parents. And no one has to die for it."

"Are you certain about that?" He asked coldly. "Because something has died for half-bloods and Muggle-borns: Wizarding tradition. As you have said this morning."

"I said the possibility they're changing us."

"I wasn't born seventeen years ago, Gemini. I have lived long enough to see the Wizarding community change because of Muggle-borns and Half-bloods and their Muggle ideals and traditions. They change us. It affects us. In fact, it's affecting you right now." Voldemort pointed at her. "Last descendant of Salazar Slytherin, the last legitimate heiress of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black: in a pureblood world, you would be celebrated! One of the remaining few who could honestly say they have no Muggle relations, the last of two noblest bloodlines. And yet…here you are. Arrested for it. Condemned for it. Treated as a threat by the public because the Ministry is aware that you could revert the Wizarding World if you wanted to."

"That's a load of crap." Gemini scoffed, though part of her wondered if that were true. "You know what? I'll play your game. What is it you want from me? Because I know you wouldn't try to contact me if it wasn't necessary for you to…" She noticed Voldemort's smile and realized it. "You want to come back to life. Is that it?"

"You are smart." Voldemort said condescendingly. "But before we do that, I'm going to need you to escape the Ministry first. Then you can start thinking about that."

The room began to shake slightly. The fire fluttered, causing shadows to dance around the room. Voldemort looked nervously around the room. "I don't have much time. This connection won't last very long now."

"Let's say I did want to escape." Gemini said sarcastically. "How would I plan on doing that? Have you seen the Aurors guarding me? Escape is impossible."

"No, it isn't."

"And why is that?"

Voldemort shrugged like the answer was so simple. "Because you're my daughter."

Gemini rolled her eyes. "In any case, assuming I want to escape and assuming I escape successfully, what am I supposed to do? It's not like a "revival-potion-for-my-father's-remaining-piece-inside-me" potion is out there somewhere. And it's going to be a manhunt for my head, and I'm pretty sure Voldemort's daughter on the loose will warrant Aurors to use the Killing Curse for the public's alleged safety. Everyone will be out to get me, and I'll be alone when I get out of the Ministry."

He laughed softly. "Everyone will be out to get you, yes," he nodded, "but you are not alone. From time to time, when I have established a connection with you, I have peeked into the minds of those near you. Believe me, you are not alone. There are others. Others who remain loyal—loyal for their own reasons, some good, some with unstable faith that you should not trust—but they are loyal, and they will arrive when you need it most."

Gemini wondered if this was just a lie, a ruse he was making to convince her that escaping the Ministry would not be in vain. She was certain it was, but she wasn't sure about anything anymore.

"I see…" She said dryly. "Is there anything else?"

Voldemort pursed his lips thinking before shaking his head. "None. What do you say?" He smiled toothily. "Join your father, fulfill the wishes your mother and I had planned for you, not which you have blindly believed to be your future. You were born to greatness, Gemini Black."

Gemini didn't need to think, but she kept quiet for a while, watching the tension on her father's face. Finally, when he was starting to look impatient, she smiled. "You can go to hell." She snarled.

He didn't look surprised, much to her disappointment, but he looked oddly at her. It was like controlled anger, disappointment, and determination. And for a moment, Gemini could see delight in his eyes, and she wondered if it was just the light or if he was really that twisted. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me: no." Gemini said, her voice hard. "I don't believe my future was going to be that bad and I sure as hell am not going to help you come back. You've already ruined me in that interrogation, I'm not going to make things any worse for myself. You can go to hell and stay there because I'm not helping you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to wake up. Nice talking to you, dad."

She stood up and walked out of the sitting room. As she passed the threshold and into the dilapidated hallway, she was actually surprised that Voldemort didn't try to stop her. I'll find a way to block him out. But if I do, how can I prove that I wasn't the one who said that? She wanted to turn around, but she didn't want to seem hesitant. I'll figure something out.

"It's alright with me if you refuse." Voldemort called out. She could see him looking at her from the corner of her eye, and she had to look. He was the decayed red monster again, and his wide smile made her feel cold on the inside. "Lucky for me, it's a good thing I have more than just one night to, er…convince you."