AUTHOR'S NOTE (please read): I'm back again, apologies for the extended hiatus. I fell out of love with writing. But I'm determined to finish this story and am so happy and grateful that so many of you stuck around, and kept reviewing, and kept reading! I lost a bit of faith in this story for a while, and started doubting my abilities to tell it. Particularly with the few OCs I had created, but again, I'm grateful that throughout that so many readers stuck around. This chapter has been in my Google Docs for nearly a year. It was difficult to write and still reads awkward and stilted and rushed to me, but if I didn't upload it as it was, I never would. So here.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thursday 19th December 1997
Tom was beginning to become very irritated by Granger's constant moping. Yes, he understood that she missed Malfoy. And yes, he understood that Malfoy's abrupt disappearance was partly down to his own actions. And yes, Tom understood that it had only been a few days, that normal people needed more time to become accustomed to new environments. And yet still, Tom wanted to remove the witch from his presence. Permanently.
She doesn't even mope properly, he complained to himself, she pretends nothing is bothering her and then proceeds to snap at or argue with everyone over everything. Fucking tiresome.
Tom might've been slightly more sympathetic towards the Muggle-born if he too, wasn't also missing his better half. Adrienne was gone too, and unlike Draco, had very good reason to never return. Yet still, Tom didn't force the world and its' mother to tolerate his constant moping. Sighing, as he noticed Luna and Hermione approaching him, Tom reminded himself of Adrienne's explicit instructions to look after her friends.
"How might I help you today, ladies?" He asked.
Luna returned his withering smile. "Dumbledore's been officially suspended."
Tom had known this already, of course, but nodded along with the Ravenclaw as if this was news to him. "Good riddance," he returned.
"This means Adrienne and Draco are coming back, right?" Hermione asked, a tad too demanding for Tom's tastes, but he let it slide.
"I should think so," Tom told her. "Why not ask him yourself, Miss Granger?"
"You know why," she replied bitingly.
"He wouldn't ask if he knew why," Luna pointed out, frowning. Then, she turned to Tom, "It's because she thinks his father or Bellatrix will punish him if they know he's dating a Muggle-born," she explained earnestly.
"We're not dating," Hermione snapped.
Already exhausted with the exchange, Tom waved a silencing hand. "The approval of your relationship from Draco's assorted family members is irrelevant. I approve of the match, and that is all that matters." Surprisingly, Tom's self-important statement seemed to put Hermione at ease. "However, if you persist on being extraordinarily irritating, then I will write to Cassiopeia and inquire after her cousin's return to school. Satisfactory?"
Hermione nodded tightly. "Thank you," she forced out, before pulling a book out of her bag and seating herself opposite Tom.
Luna murmured something quietly to herself before she too, took a seat at the Slytherin table.
xxx
From across the Great Hall, Harry watched the exchange between Riddle, Hermione and Luna. Harry tried hard to see the girl he'd met and befriended all those years ago, and found that he couldn't. He searched for any trace of the obnoxiously loud, and desperately maternal Hermione he'd been friends with. The one who'd purse her lips at Ron's atrocious table manners before relenting and cracking a smile at the ginger's ways. Who'd sigh in exasperation even as she reached over for his essay, promising that yes, she would check over it, but no, she wouldn't write it. The one who'd sulk for weeks if Ron or Harry or Ginny excluded her from a prank due to her rule-abiding ways. But she wasn't there. In her place was this new witch who sat opposite Tom Riddle with ease, even going so far as to exchange notes with him. Who rolled her eyes at Ron in Potions, while sat next to Draco Malfoy, off all people. Who duelled by the Great Lake and stayed out after curfew with Slytherins.
"Sickle for your thoughts?" Harry felt Ginny's strong, slender arms encircle him as she planted an unusually chaste kiss on his cheek.
Seemingly, she followed his gaze and sighed. "Not now, Gin," he said quietly, wanting to avoid an argument about the Crown Snakes.
"I haven't done anything," she huffed.
"Sorry. I just ... " He faltered, well-accustomed to his girlfriend's aversion to Hermione. "I miss her. She's different now."
"She was always like this," Ginny muttered. At Harry's hurt look, she added, "But Riddle's an awful influence. The things Dumbledore told Mum that he did back in the forties - " she shuddered.
"I know, I know." Harry didn't like speaking about it.
Harry also didn't much like the expectations his parents, and Sirius and Remus and Ron and Ginny and Molly even, put on him. As if they expected him to vanquish Tom Riddle with good intentions and the power of love. Like they weren't all just children. And he hated that he'd have to do it. Because as much as he loved Hermione, like a sister, even if his sister was dark now, and dated blonde, entitled purebloods, who were Slytherin no less; and even he still cared for Adrienne, the small slip of a thing who'd been on the outskirts for so long she became forgotten, he also loved Ginny. And Ron. And his mum and dad, and Sirius and even Dumbledore - and he just couldn't let them down.
Yet sometimes, he wanted to. Sometimes, when Ron was being particularly hard-headed, and Ginny kept talking about Quidditch players or kissing his neck, he sometimes wondered what it was like at the Slytherin table. What it was like messing about with dangerous Potions, and pulling apart spells as if they were toys, or duelling at lunch, just for fun.
Then Harry reminded himself they didn't do it just for fun. They did it for power. For control. For darkness.
xxx
Curious, Tom thought, sliding out of the Gryffindor's mind he'd been reading. Seems Harry Potter wasn't quite so light as Hogwarts liked to imagine. Funny how Dumbledore's little pets grew so disillusioned with the Light side.
"Hermione," Tom said, hoping the witch might prove useful despite the bad mood that occupied her. "Harry Potter, friend of yours, no?"
Hermione levelled him with an unimpressed stare. "Formerly."
"Like a brother, yes?"
Luna looked interested as Hermione answered, "once upon a time."
"You miss him," Luna surmised.
Tom was pleased to see the look of apprehension the Muggle-born gave him, scared of saying the wrong thing. Good, he thought, they should all fear me.
"If you miss him," Tom said lightly. "Perhaps we should invite him for a round of duelling."
At Hermione's shocked expression, Luna suggested, "maybe a game of Quidditch? He does seem to like that. Draco likes Quidditch too, doesn't he? Blaise has never been one for sports though I'm sure he flies well enough–"
"Harry's not like us," Hermione interjected. "Draco wouldn't … Adrienne wouldn't either. She hates him."
"You leave Adrienne and Draco's protestations to me. Organise a game of Quidditch and I'll ensure that we will all be on our best behaviour," Tom said.
Hermione looked spectacularly uncomfortable about the idea, but outwardly only offered Tom a stiff nod. Luna wore a bright smile as she commented, "oh it's going to be such fun duelling Harry, he's quite talented at Defense."
"It's a game of Quidditch Luna, not a duel," Hermione muttered.
"Not yet perhaps," was all Luna said.
xxx
"I'm ready to go back to school," Adrienne announced during the newly customary family breakfast.
Her mother's butter knife dropped ostensibly, clanging uncomfortably against the marble floor; Narcissa of course, remained calm, though anyone who knew her well would be able to tell she, too, was rattled by this news. It was silent until Rodolphus spoke,
"Adrienne, I'm not sure that's for the best."
"Why not?" She asked with a challenging undertone. "Dumbledore's no longer teaching."
"Like he ever did," Lucius scoffed under his breath.
"You don't need that school," Bellatrix said dismissively. "You and Cassiopeia are both magically talented enough to abandon any further instruction. You can remain here, in your home."
"It's not just the lessons," Adrienne defended, her chest beginning to clench at the thought of spending the rest of her life in assorted Black manors with only assorted Black family members. "I need to be around people."
"You are around the only people you need," Bellatrix insisted.
"Mum . . . " Cassi said pleadingly.
"What? It's true. Tell her, Dolph."
Rodolphus sighed before turning to his newly returned daughter. He saw the desperation lingering in her eyes and how hard she was suppressing the urge to snap. "You do realise Draco and Cassi will leave Hogwarts too and stay at home with you. Your assorted followers will graduate in just six months time."
Adrienne almost rolled her eyes. He saw it, the same look of annoyance that often graced his wife's face. It almost made him laugh. "They need me now. And whatever your thoughts about professors having nothing to teach me - the library at Hogwarts is unmatched."
"It really is madness to expect the girl to be content spending every day with the same six people for half a year," Lucius intoned.
"We're family," Bellatrix stressed. "I have happily spent my entire adult life with only my family."
Lucius sniffed. "Perhaps your daughter wants a bit more than that, Bella. I don't begrudge her the desire to speak to those who do not have an ounce of Black blood in their veins."
Bellatrix almost growled. "Your beloved wife is part of that category."
Lucius offered Narcissa a loving glance and took her hand in his own, "Narcissa is jewel amongst the masses, of course, but perhaps not who Adrienne seeks to spend all day long with."
"But she's only just found us," Bellatrix said the earlier sharpness of her tone, absent.
Adrienne wished that their obvious desire to wrap her up in Black cotton wool did anything to lessen her need to return to Hogwarts, to return to Tom, but it did not. She had a family. What she had always wanted, and yet, none of it mattered if she didn't also have Tom. Or the rest of the family that she had created.
At that moment, Draco chose to enter the tension filled room. He looked at Adrienne, his eyes swimming in concern. "What happened?"
"We're going back to school," she replied firmly, inviting no further argument.
The room stood still. Draco and Cassi were both quite used to Adrienne giving orders - no matter how she might wrap them up in smiles and laughter - and the rest following them. If she said they were going back to school, then they were going back to school. The adults in the room however, were unused to the hierarchy that Adrienne and Tom sat atop of. Bellatrix simmered in anger and outrage and shock. Adrienne could tell; it made her uncomfortable. She had never had such a strong anything figure in her life. Dumbledore had never been a disciplinarian, allowing her to do as she pleased for most of the year. The disapproval that sat in each one of her adult relative's faces was new and foreign and something she had never dealt with.
"If you're sure," Draco simply said. "Surprised you lasted this long without Tom, to be honest," he added, reaching over Cassi in order to grab a slice of her toast.
"Draco," his mother admonished, as he took a bite, smearing some jam on his chin. "Manners, please."
"Cassi?" Adrienne turned to her sister. "You'll come back with us too?"
"Obviously," the witch said.
The casual way Adrienne ignored her elder's wishes did not go unnoticed. Lucius seemed quite amused by how effortlessly this small slip of a girl wielded her power. Black women, he thought with no small amount of exhaustion, will do as they please. He garnered some relief from the fact that the job of keeping them safe and out of any serious trouble could now be passed to the youngest Malfoy. Lucius felt he had done more than his share in keeping that family out of Azkaban. He cast a look at his wife, as pretty to him as she had been at sixteen, and knew he would do it all again. Idly, he wondered if this Tom Riddle felt the same way about the newest set Black sisters.
"We do need to go back," Draco said, quite conversationally. As if they were simply discussing the weather. His father mentally applauded him for his tact and ability to defuse what could have become a disastrous situation. "Adrienne's training us all up in the Dark Arts, and whilst I might not need any further instruction, I'm quite sure the rest do," he finished, inserting just the right amount of conceitedness into his tone to be endearing.
"You could do with more instruction," Adrienne replied, a small smile adorning her face for the first time that day.
Bellatrix regarded her daughter, before bursting into rather unattractive cackles. "Dark Arts," she said. "Right under his nose." The nose, of course, belonging to Dumbledore.
Rodolphus shared her pleasure with a smile of his own. "It is quite charming the brazen way you all . . . do as you please."
Adrienne dimpled at her father, knowing she had won them round. "I'm going to change the world," she declared. "I can't do it from here."
Narcissa shared a coy smile with her husband, before turning back to her niece, "of course, dear. You need to network. Establish dominance within the group."
Adrienne did not bother correcting them. She was a Slytherin, so of course, the promise of power and influence was attractive to her. More than attractive. But she supposed it was the Dumbledore-ness in her that made the promise of friends, and laughter and safety and that innate sense of belonging she felt with her fellow Crown Snakes seem much more attractive. She did not bother telling them that she fancied herself in love with the half-blood Tom Riddle, and that going this long without him was affecting her quite negatively.
"You make us sound like a pack of dogs, Mum," Draco teased.
And so, the family fell into easy laughter and the near argument of Adrienne's return to Hogwarts was forgotten.
xxx
Rodolphus caught his daughter packing her things when he entered her new room that night, "Excited to go back?" He asked.
She looked up at him. "I hope you and . . . I hope neither of you were offended by my wish to go back."
Rodolphus furrowed his brow in concern at her inability to call Bella 'Mum'. Would it have been so hard for her, had Narcissa been her long lost mother instead? "Of course not. Your mother, she is a unique woman. She has always been happy enough with just her sister, myself and Cassi for company. I do understand most enjoy friends and the like."
He had expected her to smile at his light joke, not frown. "Cassi's like that too. Like her. She spent most of Hogwarts alone until this year."
Rodolphus sighed and moved to sit by Adrienne on her bed. Drawing her into his arms he murmured, "There's nothing wrong with you. You are perfect the way you are."
As she let out a long breath that she had seemingly been holding quite a while, Adrienne whispered, "she scares me."
"That's wise," he said, poking her ribs as he did so. "She scared me when I was your age, and I had known her quite a bit longer. The trick is to remember she loves you. There's nothing she wouldn't do for you or your sister."
"I'll keep it in mind," Adrienne said, wrapping her own long arms around her father in a rare moment of vulnerability.
xxx
The next day, Professor McGonnagall took a large sip from the mug that contained a bit more than just coffee. Since Dumbledore had left, she'd been indulging in that special blend of coffee more and more. She had always shouldered much of the day-to-day work, and a significant amount of administrative work too. But this, the complaints, the whispers, the absence of the monthly funding the Blacks and Malfoys made to the school, the refusal of several seventh year pupils to attend classes, the disappearance of three others - it was, she found, a lot. Minerva McGonnagall considered herself a very capable witch and educator but she had no idea how she was going to handle the imminent return of Adrienne and her new family. She had not even allowed herself to meander down the lane in her mind that wondered whether Albus had known who the child was when he took her in. She took another sip, flinching slightly at the harsh taste of the firewhisky.
xxx
"And she returns to your establishment, under your care, under the condition that Albus Dumbledore is to go nowhere near her." Rodolphus emphasised, not for the first time, to the acting Headmistress.
McGonnagall remained calm and collected as she responded, "of course. Nobody would want to put Adrienne in such a position."
"Thank you, Professor," Adrienne said, before her father could say any more, placing her small delicate hands in his. "I just hope my transition into school can be seamless and with as little disruption possible."
McGonnagall pursed her lips at the easy way the father and daughter interacted before her, but said nothing. "As do I. If there are any issues do feel free to come to me, or Professor Snape as your Head of House."
"I should hope that your students and staff know better than to cause any issues for either of my daughters."
A muscle in the woman's jaw tightened at the subtle threat hidden in Rodolphus Lestrange's statement, but aloud, said, "As I said, do not hesitate to come to me with any problems Adrienne."
And so, Adrienne Lyra Lestrange returned to Hogwarts. Her sister and cousin in tow. Minerva had no clue what to make of the girl. Before, As Albus' charge she'd always been a quiet, polite little thing. Minerva had often thought Albus could do with spending more time with his adoptive daughter; and she had told him as such whenever she caught him being far too invested in the lives of those such as Harry Potter or the Weasley twins. You should send for her, Albus, Minerva would say, leaving her alone with Nick and his wife is simply not right. And the elderly wizard would only chuckle at his close friend, and assure her that Adrienne was perfectly safe and content.
Safe and content, Minerva scoffed. A small part of her knew Albus had hidden his charge away for as long as possible to avoid the spectacle that had occurred just a week and a half earlier. It was quite odd, the witch decided, that Adrienne had returned to school so quickly. Must not have been a bed of roses at the Black manor. Lestrange manor? Whichever mansion they had taken her too. Both Bellatrix and Rodolphus had escorted their twins back to school, yet Minerva could count on two fingers the amount of times mother and newly reunited daughter shared so much as a glance. Adrienne stood, quite awkwardly away from her. And once Bellatrix felt she had made quite clear how she expected her children to be treated, she'd vanished through Floo back to wherever it was she went, placing a quick kiss atop Cassiopeia's head and only offering Adrienne a meaningful look before she left. Interestingly, Rodolphus had stayed. Even when Cassi trudged back to Ravenclaw. Other than the Malfoy boy, it seemed her father was the only new relative Adrienne was completely at ease with.