Chapter 26: Dream Rune, Part 2: Freja's Womb

It was daytime again. Narcissa stood in the house's kitchen along with Hildegard. Hildegard's hair was messy the way it went after sleep. She was being careful about making too much noise. She'd put the Dark Lord on the larger of the keeping room couches. He snored lightly in sleep. His wand was on the kitchen counter next to the stove.

Hildegard put together some breakfast. She ate it while idly studying the Dark Lord. After washing her dishes, she headed into the keeping room and took a seat on the other couch. The Dark Lord started to rouse when Hildegard's eyes luminesced.

He sighed, and then his head lifted quickly off the couch. He faced the back of it. The Dark Lord looked over his shoulder, brow low, and stopped when his gaze landed on Hildegard.

She smiled. "Morning."

"Who're you?"

"Hildegard," she replied. "I'm the one that was trying to talk to you last night."

The Dark Lord's copper eyes darted all about the room as he eased himself to sit up. "Where are we?"

"This is my home."

"Was it near our camp?"

Hildegard shrugged. "In a sense. I tracked you down. I've been watching you for a while, actually."

"I'm getting the sense you're not from the Ministry."

"The what? No." Hildegard idly played with her hands in her lap. "You've been all over, right? You know about all sorts of different magic? I noticed you're a Legilimens."

"I am."

"Have you met any other knowledgeable or powerful wizards in your travels?"

"None I couldn't handle."

"Any that might be practiced in constructing death golems?"

The Dark Lord blinked.

Hildegard's shoulders slumped. "That's a no, I take it?"

"I can surmise what it is, by the name," the Dark Lord replied. "Are you looking to build one, or what?"

"Someone sent one after me about fifteen winters ago. I've been trying to find out who, and how I ended up with an enemy like that. It nearly did me in. I don't know if the constructor knows I'm still alive or not, and I'd rather not deal with that again. I can move around and I have eyes over my home, but there's always that niggling thought in the back of my mind."

While Hildegard spoke, the Dark Lord's brow lowered again to where it had been when he first woke up.

"You can't be older than thirty," he finally said. "This happened fifteen years ago? How do you make that kind of enemy when you were that young?"

Hildegard shrugged. "It happens. I'm not thirty, anyway. I've long lost count on how many bodies I've gone through."

The Dark Lord blinked again. His brow was stuck. "You're a Parselmouth. You put all my Death Eaters to sleep. You took me from my camp. You've been watching me. I'll ask again: who are you?"

"I already told you," Hildegard replied in a lightly teasing manner. "I'm exactly who you're looking at."

"You're immortal?"

"Haven't felt much like it in the last while." Hildegard sighed. "I guess you could say that. I can live on and on, but it doesn't mean I can't die. I came the closest I have in a long time when that golem came onto my island. Wizards nearly did me in before that. That's why I watched you for so long before reaching out. Your kind don't get a lot of trust from me."

"My kind? So what's your kind?"

"A druid," Hildegard said. "If you've never heard of those before, I wonder if the wizards managed in killing the rest off."

"Depending on what exactly that is, it's not impossible. The Ministry's done quick work since before there even was a Ministry to make sure that anything magical other than wizards stays in their place."

"That's what you're fighting against, aren't you?"

"One thing." The Dark Lord sat up straighter. "Certainly for a preservation of magic, since lots of it is falling to the wayside now. The disdain you've experienced has turned inward, lately. At the same time the Ministry wants to keep a boot on creatures such as goblins and giants, it's distancing itself from the families and blood that created our world in the first place. They want it both ways, no accountability for the past while reaping its benefits."

"I see."

"The politics of it honestly bores me." A glint of humour showed in the Dark Lord's eye. He sized Hildegard up again. "It's important to those who serve under me. They've helped keep me out of dodge while I seek out the types of magic that may have been lost to time. How interesting that you should seek me out when you fit the bill for someone I would be looking for."

"I'm skeptical I have a lot to say that you wouldn't already know. I was just curious what you might have encountered about death golems. I don't travel inland, and most of my knowledge comes from experience."

"So what's your experience, then?"

Hildegard bunched her lips all to one side as she considered the Dark Lord. She stood. "Come with me."

He followed her down the hallway. Hildegard led him into the library. The Dark Lord stopped just inside the doorway, peering around. A hunger manifested in his gaze.

"I like to document it," Hildegard told him. "You probably can't read any of it, is the thing. Even if I ran into other druids, I've been around long enough to see how languages change over time. They deviate."

"Most," the Dark Lord said. "You and I are still able to talk in Parseltongue."

"Yeah, I could still speak to other druids if I met them," Hildegard agreed. "Writing changes, though. I've tried not to come up with shortcuts or new characters, but sometimes it's hard. Dagmar really likes wordplay too, so there are times she'll come up with something new that ends up in our vocabulary."

"'Dagmar'?"

"My daughter."

"Can I see your written language?"

Hildegard headed over to the nearest shelf. She pulled down one of the tightly rolled pieces of parchment and unfurled it on her way back over to the Dark Lord. His brow furrowed as he glanced it over.

"Certainly not anything I've ever seen," he said.

"I'm not surprised."

The Dark Lord considered Hildegard anew. "If I could learn to read it, would you let me use your library?"

Hildegard's mild smile faded. It ended with pursed lips.

"If I learn to read it, I could learn to write it," the Dark Lord said. "I could contribute."

"To what end, though?" Hildegard asked. "Wizards taking our knowledge has never exactly ended well for me."

"Which me and my followers are working to end," the Dark Lord replied. "They won't let goblins have wands. They've banished giants to live in the most remote, inhospitable locations of the world. They refuse to empathize with creatures such as werewolves and vampires, who have little choice but to succumb to the illnesses that plague them. Wizards would rather kill them off than try to help. What exactly did they do to you? Help me, and I can help you."

Hildegard remained leery. Before she could say anything about it, a door opened upstairs. When Dagmar reached close enough to the bottom of the steps to see into the library, she stopped. What had probably started as a good mood for a new day darkened as Dagmar stared at the Dark Lord.

"Who's that?" she asked Hildegard in a tone every bit as disapproving as her expression.

"We have a guest," Hildegard told her. "He can understand you, so be polite."

"Polite?" Dagmar descended the last few steps and turned toward the kitchen. "Never heard of it."

While Hildegard rolled her eyes, Narcissa's attention was more focused on the Dark Lord. He'd turned a critical eye on Dagmar. Through their exchange, something akin to realization dawned over him. Really, even though he hadn't been explicitly told the connection between them, seeing a mother-daughter pair identical in appearance living on their own like this wasn't much of a leap to make.

"I'll think about the library," Hildegard told the Dark Lord, bringing their conversation back. "I should let you go. I imagine the people you were with are concerned about you."

The Dark Lord shrugged. "Perhaps."

"Will you be moving on from where you were camped?"

"Soon enough."

"I'll keep an eye on you," Hildegard told him. "If you happen to see a raven with one blue eye, that'll be one of mine. If you're still interested—if I'm interested—we could meet back here sometime? The winter solstice should give us both enough time to think everything over. What do you say?"

"Sure."

"Come alone, this time." Hildegard smiled. "It'll just save me a step with your followers."

The Dark Lord followed Hildegard back toward the kitchen. "I take it you want me to keep this all between us?"

"If you don't mind." Hildegard passed Dagmar by where she ate some berries over the sink to grab the Dark Lord's wand. "I trust you enough. I don't know your followers."

There was another jump forward in Hildegard's memories. She'd thought about everything in the Dark Lord's favour, and waited on the same beach as before for him. A robed figure emerged from the woods. The Dark Lord pulled down his hood. Although he looked quite serious about the whole thing, Hildegard just smiled and gestured at Chelone out in the bay. Her head was up. From here, she was very clearly a massive turtle.

"Shall we?" Hildegard asked.

The Dark Lord nodded. Hildegard's memories took Narcissa to them approaching the house together. Lys and Dagmar sat on the front steps. Dagmar looked a little older. With it, she was beginning to eerily resemble Hildegard in appearance. The Dark Lord seemed to notice too, given how hard he studied her.

"You remember Voldemort?" Hildegard said to Dagmar.

She nodded. Rather than be rude like last time, Dagmar had turned shy in the way Narcissa personally knew her. Dagmar waved. "Hi."

"He's going to stay with us for a little while."

"Okay."

"A room will have appeared for you upstairs," Hildegard told the Dark Lord. "Feel free to use the library at your leisure."

Time passed again, from which Narcissa got a few glimpses. The Dark Lord sat meals with Hildegard and Dagmar, and Hildegard checked in frequently on the Dark Lord in the library. Dagmar spent time in there as well. There was a memory of both sitting in there ignoring the other, the Dark Lord at the table and Dagmar reading something on the couch. In another memory, Dagmar had joined him at the table. She was pointing at something on the parchment he was looking at.

The next memory took Narcissa upstairs to Dagmar's room, where Hildegard was sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I feel bad for him, is all," Dagmar whispered to Hildegard. "He doesn't even know how to read."

"Just not our writing." Hildegard giggled anyway along with Dagmar. "That's sweet of you to teach him."

In the next memory, it was daytime again. Hildegard and the Dark Lord walked along one of the island's beaches. The Dark Lord's eyes looked tired the same way they had in real life recently. Reading all day everyday was starting to burn him out.

"You don't ever think about leaving here?" the Dark Lord asked Hildegard. "After being here so long?"

Hildegard shrugged. "This is home. It's not as if I can't move around. I like to go up north during the summer, and this sea is lovely in the winter."

"What about people, though?" The Dark Lord looked down at her. "There's just the four of you here. That doesn't get lonely at all?"

"No," Hildegard answered. "Lys is good company. Dagmar is, most of the time. I've learned to give her space when she's going through the first parts of puberty. She's not much to talk to when she's a baby, but she grows up before I know it."

"Just in time for you to start the cycle over again."

"We're both happy. It can't have been all that long ago that you were young. Don't you remember how even the simplest things in life were a mystery to solve? How lovely the world was because you never had to know the heartbreaks that come with adulthood? Dagmar never has to grow up. If she does too suddenly, like when my clan was attacked, she's able to forget when we start over. Surely there are things that happened in your life you would love to forget."

That put the Dark Lord into thought. He pocketed his hands and looked out at the sea.

"Do you remember it all?" he eventually asked.

"The highs and lows," Hildegard replied. "I'm too old to remember what I had for breakfast on whatever day, and I've never been much for keeping track of time."

"What can you even say you've done with all your time other than compile everything you know in your library? You've raised the same child countless times. You didn't even pay attention to anything beyond this island spare what season it was until someone bewitched a chunk of metal to find you and put you down. What's the point of it all? Just. . .survive? Live?"

"It was certainly easier to feel a point to everything when I was with my clan," Hildegard said. "I found Chelone afterward. I have everything I need here on the island. We had everything we needed with the clan too, but we had to work for it. That makes for some sort of purpose. I still really miss them all."

Hildegard's eyes welled up. She wasn't comfortable with it, whether because she and the Dark Lord were still not too well-acquainted or she just didn't want to think about it. Hildegard turned her face away from him.

The Dark Lord spoke again when Hildegard had things more under control. "I'm shocked you're content to hide and let the wizards responsible just move on to the next target."

"They'd be long dead now."

"True enough." The Dark Lord paused. "I learned about that all in school, you know. In History of Magic class. They called it a genocide."

"Nice they acknowledge it, I guess." Hildegard's eyes grew irritated again.

"Just in time to move on to the next group." The Dark Lord shrugged. "As far as I could ever tell you, you're the only one left. There's no issue admitting what happened back then when there's no one left to make right for. Oh, but it's different now for this creature because of such-and-such. . ."

Hildegard pressed her lips together. She studied the Dark Lord. He returned her gaze, although eventually looked away. He didn't appear uncomfortable with it, just bored or something.

"You look like you're older now than I've ever been during a life cycle," Hildegard commented. "These goals you talk about, how do you think you'll even have time to do it all? And then ensure it all stays in place once you're gone?"

The Dark Lord stiffly chuckled. "Time is indeed ticking for me. I'll be fifty in another year, and I've hardly even started on what I want to do. The more I look for new types of magic to learn, the more I realize I don't yet know. I was already uncomfortable with the idea of death, that maybe by the time it comes for me I will have achieved nothing meaningful."

"The first time we met, you said I was someone like what you were looking for." Hildegard tucked some hair behind her ear. "You were looking for a way to extend your life, weren't you? You want to live long enough to accomplish your goals, and you want to watch it proliferate."

"I do." The Dark Lord's voice turned almost soft. "I was hoping for information on lichdom, but is that ever hard to track down. I'd hoped of all places that the Balkans would have some answers. That's sort of what you are, isn't it? Instead of an object holding your soul, you just have a child."

"Yeah." Hildegard shrugged. "It's not a failsafe for living forever, but it's something. I don't think there's anything that can truly make life permanent."

"I was surprised to learn that Dagmar comes back every life cycle with you. They taught in school that your child gets sacrificed by you regenerating." It was slight, but Narcissa caught a thoughtful side-glance from the Dark Lord at Hildegard. "I suppose that's how they justified it. You were all just a bunch of child-killers, so what right did you have to live?"

The corners of Hildegard's mouth turned downward toward a pout. "That's what they think?"

"And what they teach." The Dark Lord nodded. "That you were monsters."

Hildegard's gaze grew long. A breeze pushed some of her hair back over her shoulder. "I wonder what else they say."

"They say it's only a magic someone in a female body can perform, which seems like it would be true." The Dark Lord looked down at her. "That's also why I haven't asked you about it."

"Well, there were men in my clan too," Hildegard said. "It's just a big commitment to make."

"How do you mean?"

"The female has to carry the male's child. So if you have somebody that you want to spend eternity with, sure, but otherwise it's asking a lot. If the couples don't get along so well, you could see how the male half might grow resentful. The female has complete control."

The Dark Lord hummed. Although he looked like he was thinking, he didn't seem to notice Hildegard studying him hard.

"Is that something you're interested in?" she carefully asked.

"I won't deny it would be nice to be young again." The Dark Lord gave her a small smile. "Every other means to immortality I've found just lets you grow old forever. Your way is much more refreshing."

Hildegard's cheeks glowed a bit as she laughed. "I'll admit, it's nice. Toward the end, my joints and things start to ache. When Dagmar and I start over, that goes away. I never have to have a grey hair. You've got a couple, huh?"

"Thanks for pointing that out."

Another laugh lightened the mood between them, although Hildegard still seemed nervous. "I mean, if you're curious, we could talk about it. We barely know each other. That's my primary concern. Dagmar seems to like you, though."

"Would you expect me to be something meaningful in her life?"

"You would be, but I don't expect you to do anything about her." Hildegard waved a hand. "I could raise her with my eyes closed. She prefers to be independent, anyway."

"What all does it entail, then?" The Dark Lord paused, appraising her anew. "You said the female has to carry the child? So we have to have sex."

"Just the first time. At some point, I have to take a piece your soul. Part of mine is in Dagmar. That's how I take her body when mine dies." Hildegard turned a little playful, stepping sideways so that her arm bumped into the Dark Lord's. "Would you trust me enough for that?"

The Dark Lord opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. His eyes were slightly narrowed when he looked at Hildegard.

It was enough to turn her serious again. "Think about it, anyway. I certainly don't expect you to be much in my life either, especially if you're busy. You'll have to leave that piece of your soul with me anyway, unless you care to raise the child on your own."

"Hm."

"If you want to see the process, give it a few more years and this body will die," Hildegard said. "I think I'd be okay with all this. We could work out some sort of deal. It'd be nice to see what kind of world you're looking to build. I wouldn't mind helping with that or raising a second child either, I don't think. Dagmar might like having a sibling. It'd be someone for her to boss around that might actually listen."

"Yeah, I think we ought to talk about it more before we make any decisions." The Dark Lord grew more subdued—serious. "My soul is very precious to me. I'm sure you can understand that."

"If it makes you feel any better, nobody can remove your soul from a body without your consent. Not without murder involved, anyway," Hildegard replied. "If it would make you feel better for the first pregnancy, I could remove my soul fragment from Dagmar and you could put yours in there. When the boy is born, we could move it over. You have more control over everything, that way. I'll be mortal temporarily, and you'll have something in the meantime."

"You're that confident in the process?"

"I've done this myself for too long not to be. I've seen it be done with men."

"Is that a common practice?"

"Common enough." Hildegard said. "I don't expect you to trust me blindly. I think you would after the first time it happens, but for now. . ."

"We're still only acquaintances," the Dark Lord agreed. Although he looked uncertain, he exhaled through his nose. "I'll think about it."

Hildegard's memories grew dreamy again as time moved along. Although the things Narcissa saw were focused on times that the Dark Lord visited the island, she could still tell how many years passed by keeping an eye on Dagmar. She was approaching adulthood, and she and Hildegard were becoming very hard to tell apart in appearance. Hildegard looked tired, while Dagmar was bright with vitality.

Everything stopped again with Hildegard and the Dark Lord sitting alone out on the porch. It was the middle of the day, but Hildegard looked knackered.

"It'll be happening soon," she told him. "It gets like this. I'm so tired and I sleep all the time, but it doesn't help. Eventually I'll just pass in the night."

"You don't feel anything?" the Dark Lord asked.

Hildegard shook her head. "Not even when my head was bashed in by that death golem. Are you sticking around for it?"

The Dark Lord nodded, and Hildegard's memories shifted ahead. Narcissa was in Dagmar's room. Since only Dagmar was here, Narcissa took that to mean that it had happened. Sure enough, when Dagmar roused, she looked around as if she was in the wrong room.

Understanding quickly came over Hildegard. She got up. The Dark Lord was downstairs. When Hildegard joined him in the kitchen, the Dark Lord studied her.

"I died," she said.

"So what now?"

"Bury the body and move on." Hildegard shrugged. "I'm glad I'll be older this time when I have Dagmar. She was only a few winters into adolescence last cycle."

The Dark Lord followed Hildegard back toward the stairs. When they made it up to Hildegard's room, her old body indeed just looked like she'd been sleeping. The Dark Lord's gaze was shrewd and serious as he watched Hildegard levitate it out of the bed, out of the house, and to the graveyard. Hildegard set it down next to where she'd buried the last one. Her eyes luminesced as she sunk it into the otherwise cold, hard ground. This time when she returned Dagmar's soul to her womb, Hildegard stayed in the keeping room so that the Dark Lord could witness it.

"That's it?" he asked when she was done.

"Yep." Hildegard leaned back on the couch and idly rubbed her lower abdomen. "She'll be born toward the middle of summer. I'll sure miss her in the meantime."

Amusement crinkled the Dark Lord's eyes. "This house is quiet without her."

"Yeah."

Like the last time Hildegard was pregnant with Dagmar, Narcissa gauged time by how her belly grew. With a funny lurch of Narcissa's stomach, she realized that she herself was pregnant at the same time with Draco. When Hildegard started showing signs of discomfort and impending labour, Narcissa had already been falling in love with her own newborn.

The Dark Lord was there when the time came. Hildegard paced the keeping room while he sat on one of the couches. Narcissa could almost laugh at the Dark Lord's edgy uncertainty. Even if he and Hildegard weren't involved to the same degree Narcissa had been with Lucius, Narcissa recognized that look.

"I think she's close," Hildegard said with a gasp as she took a step toward the hallway. "I'm going to head up."

"You don't want me to do anything?" the Dark Lord called after her.

"Bring me some food when you hear a baby crying, if you wouldn't mind."

Hildegard's labour definitely seemed easier this time. She didn't struggle for quite as long before she had a newborn Dagmar wrapped up in a small blanket and attached to her breast. The Dark Lord found her then, leaning against the doorframe with a bowl in hand.

"How was that?" he asked.

Hildegard laughed. "You're kidding, right? The worst pain imaginable, but so worth it."

She ran her thumb lightly over Dagmar's head, glancing up when the Dark Lord approached and took a seat on the edge of the bed. He stared at Dagmar with something akin to curiosity and intrigue. He reached out to touch her head. The thin hair she'd been born with shifted.

"Never seen a baby before?" Hildegard teased him.

"Not really." The Dark Lord shrugged. "One of my followers just had one a few months ago. Little boy."

"I bet he's perfect." Hildegard moved Dagmar up to her shoulder since she was done eating. As a bit of an afterthought, Hildegard covered her breast. "They truly are when they're born. Everything that comes after that is what shapes them. I have the advantage of knowing exactly who Dagmar will be. Sometimes I think a surprise would be nice, but Dagmar still manages to find new ways to surprise me."

"Right," the Dark Lord said quietly as Hildegard pat Dagmar lightly on the back. "I think I've made a decision. I want to do it."

The glow about Hildegard faded a little as she grew serious. "Okay."

"I heard something earlier this year. . ." the Dark Lord trailed off. "Sooner is perhaps better than later."

"Well, it certainly won't be right away. I need time to heal up," Hildegard replied. "A year or so."

"All right."

"Should be plenty of time for either of us to rethink it, too." Hildegard's smile returned. "I'm a mess of hormones right this minute, so it's easy for me to say I'd do it again."

Time started moving again, along with Hildegard's memories. Dagmar went from being an overly-pink newborn to a chubby one, her blue eyes big as soon as they were open. Maybe Hildegard only intended to show Narcissa how much time the Dark Lord spent at her home in the next while, but every memory from that summer to winter had him in it.

The two of them sat out on the front steps one evening, looking up at the sky. Red faded to purple against the western horizon.

"Once she hits her stride on sleeping through the night, that's it," Hildegard said. "You won't have to hear her anymore."

"It doesn't really bother me." The Dark Lord replied. "I'm up half the night anyway, way I sleep."

"I suppose you'd leave if it really bothered you, huh?"

"I guess. I just don't have a lot going on at the moment. My followers are trying to find someone for me. With this on the horizon, I've started to feel more like I'm able to take my time on everything. I'd like this in place before I make any moves that are too serious."

"I don't blame you." Hildegard shivered and budged up a little closer to him. "I always feel my most vulnerable when I'm pregnant. I guess I am just because it's hard to do much of anything in that condition, but all my eggs are literally in one basket."

The Dark Lord chuckled. "I'm trying to get into that mindset of knowing there's a backup plan if anything happens. People certainly want me dead. Even though we're closing in on overtaking some institutions and it's made some nervous, I don't feel as invincible as they make me out to be."

"We never really are, no matter what." Hildegard rested her chin in her hand, elbow digging into her knee. "This works well, so long as you're careful. I'm cautiously optimistic that that death golem might have been a one-off encounter. It's been almost twenty winters since it came. I think another one would've found me by now. Time helps put things into perspective. That was scary, but things are back to normal. I guess I got to meet you out of the whole thing."

She regarded the Dark Lord with the same sort of soft smile Narcissa had seen on Dagmar's face when she looked at Draco. Knowing the Dark Lord as Narcissa did, her stomach sunk for Hildegard. The Dark Lord she'd come to know was certainly different from reality. Was this just how she remembered him?

"I mean. . ." the Dark Lord shrugged, his smile small but there. "You spend five years around someone, you start to get a little attached. If we're still both committed to moving forward on everything, it's probably a little important, right? We're going to know each other for a very long time."

"Yeah." With a sigh, Hildegard's gaze shifted up to the sky. There were some clouds, but not enough to hide the few stars that poked light through the dark canopy above. "Did you know that the constellations change? It's happening very slowly, but they do. The way they look in a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten-thousand—nobody alive right now will see those. I haven't thought about it much since my clan died. I didn't want them just to be mine. I wanted to share them with somebody. I guess I'll get to, after all."

"You really think we could live that long?"

"Why not?" Hildegard looked back to him. "We can do whatever we want."

The Dark Lord grew quiet with that, and Narcissa could see where this was going when the two of them studied each other. Sure enough, the Dark Lord shifted so that the gap between their hips closed, and Hildegard's eyelashes batted a little with her anticipation as he leaned in. What turned into a snog here moved up to Hildegard's bed in a shift of memory. She seemed to glow in the room's darkness, while the Dark Lord was too much in shadow to properly read. He stayed close to Hildegard with his arm around her middle.

"As much as I would love to say I didn't see that coming. . ." Hildegard said, trailing off as they shared a chuckle. "I've never had a man in my life before, so I have no idea what's normal."

"Normal is whatever we decide it to be."

Hildegard curled up closer against him. "Yeah."

Night became day again. Hildegard, the Dark Lord, and baby Dagmar were all down in the keeping room. Hildegard bounced Dagmar on her knee, making her squeal with glee, and the Dark Lord sat beside them. When Dagmar calmed down, Hildegard looked at the Dark Lord.

"Are you ready?" she asked him.

He nodded, serious.

Hildegard placed a hand gently over Dagmar's eyes, then bent her neck down to kiss the top of her head. A blue glow came through Hildegard's fingers, and Dagmar's little smile slackened into a gaped mouth. When Hildegard pulled her hand away, Dagmar was subdued and looked confused. Her little brow furrowed as she twisted around to look up at Hildegard. Hildegard nuzzled her again, which seemed to bring Dagmar back toward her previous contentment.

"Does it hurt to split a soul?" the Dark Lord asked as Hildegard shifted more to face him.

"Not if you do it gently," Hildegard replied. "You'll feel tired for a while. A little empty. You get used to that feeling."

"All right."

The process didn't look much different for that than it did Hildegard removing her soul fragment from Dagmar. Dagmar seemed to realize that something had changed—or maybe she just didn't like the sensation—and the Dark Lord rubbed his eyes afterward. He looked a little gaunt.

"Nothing's stopping you from having a kip," Hildegard told him with a squeeze of the knee.

The Dark Lord stood. "I might just do that."

Hildegard's memories became loose again, a lot of them centred around the bed she now shared with the Dark Lord. Narcissa caught slivers of pillow talk. Hildegard wanted to name the baby Bjorn. The Dark Lord didn't have an opinion on the matter.

They made pretty constant work of trying for him, although for the sake of propriety Hildegard didn't show Narcissa much of that. The focus gradually shifted from the bed to Hildegard using her druidic abilities the same way Dagmar had at Olaf Kyrre. Hildegard kept a hand on her lower abdomen while her eyes glowed. What was probably a few months later judging by Dagmar's growth, Hildegard sought out the Dark Lord in the library during a day's early hours.

He glanced up from what he was reading. "Morning."

"Morning." Hildegard came around the table and set her bum on the edge. "I'd like to show you something."

The Dark Lord allowed Hildegard to take his hand. She placed it on her lower abdomen and rested her own on top of it. While her eyes luminesced, the Dark Lord's eyebrows jumped.

"You feel him, right?" Hildegard asked. "His heartbeat?"

"I do."

"He'll be born around the winter solstice." Hildegard sat down in the chair beside the Dark Lord.

The Dark Lord studied her, what he was reading forgotten. There was a fondness in his gaze that Narcissa was certain she'd never seen before. She couldn't tell if it was real or if Hildegard had just imagined it. "All right."

"So since we managed, it doesn't mean we have to stop sleeping together, do we?" Hildegard asked.

The Dark Lord laughed. Yet again, Narcissa couldn't tell if it was with the same warmth Hildegard perceived. They didn't stop, so there was that. Narcissa started seeing more occasions of the Dark Lord leaving and returning, which didn't seem to strike Hildegard as out of the ordinary. Her belly was starting to grow again, and she looked tired. Taking care of a baby who had yet to wean off breastfeeding with another one on the way ran Hildegard down. She looked a little lost too whenever the Dark Lord wasn't around. She was always happy for him to come back.

Autumn approached. Hildegard was in the process of moving Chelone from north to south in attempt to catch some better weather. They stopped somewhere, and Hildegard walked with the Dark Lord to the beach. The way her belly pressed out against the shawl she wore, Narcissa guessed her to be past the second trimester.

"I might be a while," the Dark Lord told Hildegard. "I have something important to do."

"All right." Hildegard shifted Dagmar on her hip so that she could pull the Dark Lord into a hug. "You'll know where to find us."

The Dark Lord nodded before kissing her goodbye. Time moved on again, this time making it apparent that Hildegard was waiting for something. She took care of Dagmar and played with her a lot, Hildegard's belly grew, and every night before Hildegard went to bed she'd stand out on the front porch for a little while. Lys appeared in the memories again as more than just a passing face.

"He'll be back," she told Hildegard. "You have his baby in your belly."

"I'm worried," Hildegard replied. "He's never taken this long. I should've kept an eye on him."

The Dark Lord hadn't returned by the time Bjorn started ramping up for his great escape. Dagmar was being particularly fussy while Hildegard's labour progressed, so Lys played with her while Hildegard went upstairs. Bjorn's birth ended up easier than Dagmar's.

"Well, look at you," Hildegard said to Bjorn after he latched onto her breast. "What a perfect little boy. I can't wait for you to meet your papa."

The waiting went on. Hildegard moved Chelone back north a ways. Bjorn had plumped up into a healthy baby, and Dagmar was much more confident with her walking. She tried to help with Bjorn between what looked to Narcissa like fits of jealousy.

Hildegard put Dagmar to bed one night, and Bjorn was looking to settle in his bassinet in Hildegard's room. She looked tired too, yawning and growing dozy as she ran her fingers over Bjorn's dark hair.

Her head came up as if she'd heard something. Although Hildegard couldn't see anything but sky out the window, she looked toward it. She jumped up as carefully as she could without waking Bjorn, made quick work of the steps, and ran full speed across the clearing toward Vann's pond.

Lys stood beside it, looking down. Bubbles rose from the pond, and Narcissa could see dark hair along with Hildegard.

Hildegard gasped. "What are you doing?"

Before she got an answer, Hildegard jumped in. She grabbed the Dark Lord out of Vann's grip and jetted back for the surface. The Dark Lord was unconscious. Hildegard pulled water out of his lungs the same way she did the babies when they were born. With that, the Dark Lord's features changed. He was younger and different. It wasn't the Dark Lord after all.

The man trembled from cold as he came to, coughing away. Hildegard stared at him dumbly, then looked up at Lys. Vann peered out of his pond as well.

"Did you want us to take care of him, then?" Lys asked.

"Er. . ." Hildegard narrowed an eye in thought. "No, it's okay."

Lys and Vann headed off. The man's teeth chattered as he looked up at Hildegard, and Hildegard sighed. He said something to her, which sounded like a garbled mess of consonants and vowels.

"I don't speak that language," Hildegard said in the other human language she knew as she extended a hand. "Here. Let's get you somewhere warm."

"Old Norse?" the man weakly replied. "I speak that."

"Okay."

They were back at the house. The man was wrapped up in probably every blanket Hildegard owned on the keeping room couch. He still shivered. Hildegard was making tea in the kitchen.

"You live here?" the man asked.

"Mhm," Hildegard answered. "Got a name?"

"Magnus. You?"

"Hildegard."

"Pretty."

While Hildegard looked flattered, her smile was still a little reined in. "What brought you here, Magnus?"

"A dare," he sighed. "It was silly. Thanks for saving me, though."

Hildegard handed him a cup and took a seat on the other couch. "Have you ever heard of a man named Voldemort?"

Magnus' eyes widened, and he nearly spluttered as he tried to sip his tea. "Heard of him? Are you joking?"

"So you have?" Hildegard perked up.

"When someone terrorizes the wizarding world like that for a decade, ja, you hear about him," Magnus said. "Good riddance. I don't think I've been properly sober since it all ended, celebrating."

"What do you mean?"

"Fucker got himself killed trying to murder some family over in Britain." Magnus waved a hand. "Killed two of them, but couldn't do the baby in for whatever reason. The Killing Curse bounced off the kid and hit him instead."

Hildegard stared at Magnus.

"You never heard about that?" Magnus asked. "I guess you probably don't get much news here, do you?"

"Nei." Hildegard's gaze darted around. "I don't know if I believe it. He tried to kill a baby?"

"Pretty par for the course, far as it goes with him." Magnus shivered. "He's left bodies in his wake all over Europe. Now his followers are being rounded up. I heard two of them tortured a couple Aurors until their minds were gone. Utterly depraved, the lot of them."

Hildegard's cheeks darkened. "Oh."

"Why, did you know him or something?" Magnus looked leery.

"Nei," Hildegard quickly answered. "I just know his name. I was curious."

Magnus ended up falling asleep on the couch. Quite mindlessly, Hildegard went upstairs. She looked in on Dagmar, who was still asleep with her arms wrapped around a doll. Bjorn too was out, his head lolled to the side and his cheeks looking plumper than ever. Hildegard's breath grew uneven as she ran her thumb over his head.

"He can't have been that bad," she whispered. "Could he?"

Magnus was still downstairs when Hildegard checked in the morning. Hildegard couldn't hide the kids from him, so Magnus met both when Hildegard brought them down for breakfast. She excused herself for some privacy while she fed Bjorn, and Magnus had Dagmar giggling when Hildegard returned.

It was the start of something new. Hildegard kept her distance, guarded after learning what she had about the Dark Lord, but Magnus was animated and exciting in the way Hildegard had merely imagined the Dark Lord to be. He answered all of Hildegard's questions about the Dark Lord, and Dagmar got sad whenever Magnus left the island. Her happiness was raw whenever Magnus returned to visit, and Hildegard started catching that too. While the two of them sat up after putting the kids to bed, the advancing spring seemed to catch up to them. A kiss turned into a snog, which turned into Magnus taking the spot in Hildegard's bed where the Dark Lord used to lay.

His affection for Hildegard bordered on admiration. Magnus' eyes always seemed to light up when they were near each other, and Dagmar started calling him Pappa. Maybe it was because of that Hildegard hesitated before saying no when Magnus mentioned them all coming ashore to Trondheim.

Magnus looked crestfallen. "Why not?"

"I don't really trust wizards. You're okay," Hildegard added in a joking manner, but it didn't seem to stem Magnus' disappointment.

"My mates would love to meet you." A little smile crept back up. "Half of them don't believe you even exist."

"So?"

It became a point of contention. Narcissa could see it from Magnus' perspective, that he'd gotten attached to Hildegard and certainly the kids. If he was firmly rooted in Trondheim, his lifestyle was incompatible with Hildegard's more nomadic one. After Hildegard's experience with the Dark Lord, Narcissa could also see that he did no favours for the mistrust Hildegard had already harboured prior to their meeting.

And yet, Hildegard and Magnus tried to keep on as they were through the summer and fall. There were some good fights. After one, Hildegard stomped out to the beach once Magnus went ashore and told Chelone that they were heading further north for the summer. They were on their way, and then Dagmar started crying because she missed Magnus. Hildegard couldn't stand to see her that upset, so she turned Chelone back. The next time Magnus came up to the house, Hildegard burst into tears instead of returning Magnus' careful greeting.

"Whoa, hey," he replied, eyes wide. "What's wrong?"

So Hildegard told him. She told Magnus about the magic that had kept her alive for centuries, how Dagmar fit into that, and then where Bjorn had come from. By the end of it, Magnus' gaze had grown long.

"You put Voldemort's soul inside of Dagmar," he hollowly repeated.

"Just a fragment." Hildegard sniffled. "She'll be fine. It hasn't affected her that I've noticed, and she'll just live a normal life. Like me, I guess, because I'm stuck mortal now with Voldemort gone."

"But that means he's not dead, doesn't it?" Magnus asked.

"Not fully, but he might as well be." Hildegard's cheeks looked raw as she wiped them with her tissue. "He'll just be part of a soul wandering around. When Dagmar dies naturally, the half of his soul in her will return to him. By then, all his followers will be dead. He still won't have a body. He'll be nothing."

Magnus seemed much more realistic about everything, judging by the look on his face. He still came to the island. His and Hildegard's relationship declined in quality. Dagmar and Bjorn were very attached to Magnus, and Narcissa could see how that made the decision to part ways far more difficult for both adults than if it was just the two of them.

Hildegard woke up with Magnus briefly when he answered Bjorn crying in the middle of the night. The next time Hildegard woke up was because of more crying, more distant than before. She jolted upright and out of bed. The kids' bedroom doors were closed, but the crying came from outside.

Hildegard let out a small scream when she saw Lys coming up on the house, bloodied and with a bawling Dagmar in her arms. "What happened to her? Why is she outside?"

"Magnus was trying to take her." Lys' voice shook. "He's still got Bjorn, but he might bleed out before he reaches the beach."

Hildegard sprinted across the clearing in the direction Lys had come from. Her eyes were wild, searching, as she passed through the trail. There was blood on the path. It stopped abruptly on the beach, along with Hildegard. The scream she let out as she realized her son was gone was one Narcissa hoped she never had to hear again.