Hogwarts, June 1st, 2013
She had told herself that she would wait, that she could wait, until she was done with her O.W.L.s, but two days prove too much, too long.
She has the Stone. She has the means to truly meet her parents for the first time. Oh, she knows she had nine months with them, but those do not count, for she has no conscious memory of it. She wishes she had a way to remember those days, to somehow access such memories, but none of the books she has read, both here and at home, mention any of it. There are plenty of memory spells and potions, but nothing she can use.
She has been reading other books, too. Mostly lore about the Hallows, from forgotten books under a layer of dust so thick she could peel it off. They had always been dismissed as fantasy and children's tales. And even after the existence of the Stone had been confirmed, not many Hogwarts' students were interested. They were all oblivious to where the Stone lay hidden. All but her.
Delphini is well aware that her parents may not be her parents, exactly. That people behind the Veil are supposed to be a little different. She shrugs her shoulders. She doesn't even remember them properly, she won't be able to tell the difference. All she can think of is Mother. And Father. The Dark Lord and his Most Faithfull. Darkness made power made flesh in the two of them. In her.
She is in the only place she feels safe doing this. The only place that feels right to do this in. The Chamber of Secrets. She takes a moment to observe her surroundings. Delphini took the time to improve them greatly. She has perfected her Conjuring skills mostly. None of the furniture here existed before she deemed it so. There is a large armchair by the bookshelves, but also a table that looks like a smaller version of the dinner table at the Manor, and a chair with intricate detail in the armrests. The bones of the Basilisk still lie here, undisturbed. Orbs of light float in sconces between the snakes that line the walls, illuminating the Chamber, and creating a thousand swimming reflections on the walls from the water. She has cast every water repellent spell and charm she knows so that the centre is pristine and dry before the enormous face of Salazar Slytherin himself, but she could not do away with the water, not completely.
This is her place. Dark in more ways than one, cold but not unbearably so, with the soft music of water rippling against the stone, ominous perhaps, but more the welcoming to her for it. She is proud of it.
She hopes they will be proud of her. Her left hand instinctively searches for the bird skull pending from her neck, her right hand embracing her bone pale wand as her fingers caress it.
She moves to the box where she keeps her treasures. Guivre's first shedding is carefully coiled. There's a blood red rose from the gardens of her house, frozen in time and in its beauty. The little note from Scorpius. Her first Hogwarts letter. She can name every single object in it, and she knows exactly where they are. But all she needs now is the bundle made of her gloves that sits expectantly in the right corner.
She very slowly removes one glove, then the other. The Stone is cold in her palm, and mind-bogglingly black. It's as if it absorbed all light and let none escape, safe for the shimmer of the three symbols carved on the top facet.
It's time. It's finally time. She closes her hand around it and moves to the centre of the Chamber, where she has room to stand unimpeded. Her breathing has become shallow and fast, her heart feels ready to leap off her chest. But she has one more choice to make. She needs to decide who to bring forward first.
Her mind is lost, dwelling. This is the one thing she has not planned. The one thing she could not decide. Father or Mother? Both, that was easy enough. She has the Stone and the time to use it freely. But Mother first or Father first? Absent for a moment, utterly lost in contemplation, her body takes charge.
Her right hand does what it's wont to do when she is fretting over something. It moves. It fidgets. And then it starts rolling the Stone between her fingers and her palm.
When her mind catches up with the movement, it's too late. The Stone has been turned three times in her hand, and she has no idea whatsoever of whom she was thinking of precisely. She suspects she was thinking of both of them at the same time, of how much she would like to see them together. Potter saw a bunch of people, did he not?
The air in front of her shifts. Something is not quite right, but it isn't completely wrong. It's just different. Like the density has changed. Then, a flimsy membrane comes to exist before her eyes. Pale blue but very nearly transparent at that, dancing as if it were made of water, shimmering were it would ripple. The first thing she sees in it is the waving of wild curls in a breeze that does not caress her skin, but that moves akin to the ripples.
"Mother?"
The full figure emerges, as if coming from a mist Delphini cannot see. This is not the witch she had seen in Potter's memories. She seems younger, happier. She is dressed all in black and the contrast to her pale skin is almost glaring. But her eyes are what capture Delphini. Her eyes are the same shape as hers, as long lashed, but they are grey. And she sees exactly what she expected in them.
Bellatrix takes a second to look at her, really look at her, and then gasps. A long hand flying to her lips, a brim of tears to her eyes.
"Little bird?"
And Delphini knows, simply knows, despite never hearing her Mother address her so in her life, that she means her. It's what Aunt Narcissa always called her, what Draco always called her. So she nods, devoid of words that she is in that moment. Her body is not sated in its yearning and fidgeting, though, so it moves forward, straight up to the veil, her left hand reaching up to her Mother.
And then it stops. Just shy of her Mother, her fingers touch the membrane and it will not give. She stares at the point where her fingertips seem to dig in into the blue, but never breach it. She is still staring when another hand joins her fingers. Her Mother's fingers do not touch hers, but she can see the ripples being pushed by them from the other side. Between them there cannot be anything wider than a hair, and yet it feels like the thick walls of Azkaban, locking them apart.
"You've grown, my precious augurey," her Mother's voice comes to her as if nothing stood between them, "how old are you now, Delphini?"
She has to force her mind from the tourbillion of frustration and anger she is lost to momentarily. So much effort put into this, and she cannot even touch them. She cannot even build a memory of being held by her Mother, of feeling hair other than pale silver drift over her, of having her curls tucked behind her ear by the hands that used to hold her engraved brush. She forces a sob back down her throat. She cannot touch her, but she will not waste her chance. Gripping the Stone hard in her palm, feeling every apex and edge of it, as if that keeps her Mother better tethered to her reality, she raises her eyes to Bellatrix Lestrange. Tall and proud, and head held high, and she sees the smile grow in her Mother's lips.
"I'll be sixteen soon," she answers, not a waver to her voice, "Mother." She cannot help but add that word to the end, savouring it, felling her lips come apart at the beginning and the curl of her tongue as it detaches from her teeth and curls again at the end.
"I never thought I wouldn't see you again that day, little bird. The Battle, I was so sure I would come back to you and lift you from Dolph's arms and present you to the world under the Dark Lord's glory… I'm sorry I left you-"
"You didn't leave me, Mother! You… you were killed. You never meant to leave me."
"I lost that day, Delphini. I should have been there to raise you, to teach you like your Father taught me. Where is he? Is he here?"
There is such a glimmer of hope in her grey pupils, such a yearning perspiring through her whole body. Delphini knows exactly what people mean when they talk of her Mother's devotion to Lord Voldemort. It's a physical thing, her very bones seem to crave the presence of him. Then she shatters.
Her Mother notices the change in her demeanour and looks into her eyes, a multitude of questions behind hers.
Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's Most Faithfull, does not know that her Master failed. And it falls to Delphini to let her know.
"He died too, Mother. Pot-Potter killed him."
She has to take a step back such is the intensity of the fury exuding from her Mother. And then Bellatrix shatters as well, true tears coming down her cheeks, leaving wet tracks on a face that is so much like hers.
"He didn't win? He, he-" it's as if she can't even bring herself to mention it. Even in death, she cannot fathom the possibility that her Master was something other than immortal and invincible.
Delphini shakes her head, approaching her again.
"But then, where are we? Who raised you?"
"This is the Chamber of Secrets, Mother. We're at Hogwarts," and her heart flutters in her chest for the sparkle in her Mother's eyes must be pride, "and I was raised at Malfoy Manor. I live there."
"Rodolphus stayed there?" She looks positively puzzled, before her features change to a scowl. "He wouldn't. Did Narcissa?"
"Yes, Mother. I was raised by Aunt Narcissa and Uncle Lucius, with Draco and Astoria."
But her Mother's scowl remains.
"You were raised by cowards then. What happened to Dolph?"
Delphini doesn't really understand what is going on, but answering her Mother seems to be the best way to get her own answers.
"Rodolphus came to Hogwarts that day. When Aunt Narcissa went back home, he left. He wanted to fight, I guess. He watched you die, and Father, and he was captured. He is in Azkaban."
That jars Bellatrix, her eyes go wide and she is lost from reality for a moment.
"He has been there ever since?" Delphini nods, and Bellatrix carries on, "The Malfoys should be there as well. Narcissa had no right to raise you after running from battle. We had plans, a safety for you to be raised properly, in secret, should something go wrong and keep us from returning to you."
A string is pulled in Delphini's mind. Something she has promised to leave alone until July.
"Madam Rowle?"
Her Mother's eyes shine with what she thinks is pride again.
"So you know? Delphini, if you know, if you managed to do all this by your own," she talks in a hurry, gesturing to the room around her, "then you must do what is right. You must bring your Father back. He's not dead, not really. He has done this before, you must find him-"
"What? Mother, he is dead!"
"Don't' you dare talk back at me! He is not dead. He can't be. He is not here! He must be alive. It's just like before. Go to Madam Rowle, Delphini, she can show you how to find him-"
"But Mother, I saw it! I looked into Potter's mind. I saw you die in his memories. And then I saw him die. I saw his body on the floor, there was a burial!"
All the joy leaves her Mother's eyes. Her very shape seems emptier, like something was there before, holding her straighter, but is no longer. Delphini realizes just how very complex her devotion to her Father must have been. How very integral to her.
"But the Dark Lord is not here…"
"Where is my Father? What do you mean with he isn't here?" Her Mother looks so very sad, so broken and her words seem to only break her further, "I summoned you both, but maybe I did it wrong, maybe I can only have one of you at a time…"
"I never saw him again. He never made it here. Or he chose never to seek me in here," there is the glimmer of a tear under her left eye, and then under her right eye, and then Delphini can't see her eyes anymore because her Mother has fallen to the floor on the other side of the Veil and she cannot reach her.
She realizes just what her Mother means by "here". Lord Voldemort is not beyond the Veil. That is why he is not here, that's why he didn't answer her summoning. Delphini too falls to the floor. Her body lacking the will to rise again, lacking the will to do anything but cling to the Stone in her hand. If she won't have her Father, she will not let go of her Mother.
"Don't you dare pity me. Don't you dare pity the Dark Lord. Or yourself for that matter. Pity has no place in the minds and hearts of the Blacks. The Gaunts would never forgive you such a slight. Never pity the losing, Delphini. There is a reason they lost."
Her Mother is still on the floor, but her eyes are back on hers.
"You have his eyes. You had his eyes from the day you were born. You learned to mimic his eyes that night, too."
She shows her. She lets the red pupils she has known in her dreams for her entire life shine through, and that puts the smile back in Bellatrix's lips.
"You are extraordinary, my precious augurey. I don't know where the Dark Lord is, but if anyone can find him, it's you. You alone were meant for it. Promise me, Delphini, promise me that you will bring him back."
Her eyes falter from the red, settling on their natural green again. It's as if her Mother is two people at a time. The loving mother and the indomitable Death Eater. And she has a feeling the latter is gaining ground.
So she must find Euphemia, it seems. To find her Father, she must track down the woman that grabbed her at the platform. Maybe she knows why Lord Voldemort is dead but unable to come to her. Even when she holds the Stone so hard in her palm.
And then she sees something change beyond the Veil. The mist that she can only feel seems to change again, the ripples in the Veil start anew, with a different rhythm. Until something else comes forth. Someone else. The red eyes alone first, then the whole of him. The dark flowing robes around his pale figure, the bare feet run through by blue veins, the hands that hold a wand like hers. And the kindness in the red.
She is in awe. She has seen him in her dreams, time and time again, but she had never felt his presence. Even through the Veil, the magic seems to pulse with him, from him. She feels at home, it's the same feeling of protection, of close affection, that she gathers from the veil around her bed. It's like being held in someone's warm embrace. She wonders if the wizard before her, her Father, ever held her in his arms like that, if that is why she feels so comfortable, so safe, when most wizards and witches would be bolting for the closest door at the sight of such a creature.
A creature, she understands, is what her Father truly is. Not a monster, not a simple wizard anymore either. He is made of dark magic itself, he is its creature, wholly.
He doesn't smile. She doesn't think she could pick up a smile on lips so thin, and his skin seems to be pulled just a bit too tight over his cheekbones for even the possibility of a smile. And yet there is a form of kindness in the red, one she recognizes as hers and only hers.
Her Mother is still on the floor, looking up in adoration, with both hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes, running down her face. A blasphemous thought comes to Delphini. Her Mother looks like the saints in the Muggle paintings she has seen, when they are allowed a vision of their gods.
The Chamber remains utterly silent for long, long minutes.
Lord Voldemort has approached the Veil, his eyes on Delphini the whole time. Appraising her, she thinks, gauging her skill. She feels like her very essence is being weighted, as if her magic were being measured.
But he does not speak to her first. No. With a grace that no one could ever even hope to match, he turns his right palm up and moves his hand towards her Mother, offering her help to rise. Delphini is transfixed on that single, so very, very pale hand. The long gracious fingers so familiar, and she knows it's not the dreams. She has hands like his. Not so large, but equally long, equally slender.
"Bella," that is the first thing he says, and there is something so deep running in such a simple sound, "rise."
Bellatrix left hand leaves her chin and travels the short path to his hand so surely, but so softly, as if caressing him through the air that separates them. She touches her fingers to his, just to the fingertips, and he is careful to move them just so that the nails, almost claws, stay clear of her skin. Then her fingers drift up to his palm, as his thumb comes down, ever so slowly, to brush her knuckles.
Delphini knows this is something very intimate, something that she is only allowed to see unfold because she is theirs. Because she alone has brought them together once more. And the only thing she regrets is not being able to touch them, too.
"My Lord," her Mother whispers, almost afraid to blow him away, "Master. You have come."
It's only then that, with the softest pressure, Lord Voldemort pulls her hand upwards, barely moving it but still coaching Bellatrix's gracious rise to stand. His hand drifts up her wrist and then her forearm, and she hisses when his fingers touch, no, caress, the Dark Mark there.
Their eyes disconnect at that, but her Mother moves closer to him, so close that she could lean for just a fraction and she would be pressed to him from hip to shoulder. Their eyes disconnect so that Lord Voldemort can look into hers.
She can't help but let her eyes turn grey for a second. His thin nostrils seem to move in what would be a flare, but there's amusement in his eyes.
"I see you have kept your abilities. Both of them. Well done, Delphini," he tells her, nodding to her and gesturing with his left hand to the Chamber, "I expected nothing less."
And she knows he is proud. The glint she saw first in her Mother's eyes lives in his eyes too.
"Have you Conjured all of this?"
She still can't find her voice. Her senses are overwhelmed by what she has just seen, still sees, by the very magic that floats about around her since he came to her. So she nods.
"Your wand?" His eyes drop to her hands, and she takes a step closer to the Veil yet, so close that she can almost push it with her whole body.
"Thirteen inches, yew and a core of dragon heartstring. Flexible enough," she manages to say. The very words Olivander used. Those were not the words she imagined she would say to him, at all, but very little has gone according to plan since she felt the Stone in her palm.
"Fitting."
Silence falls upon them once more. It is not awkward, it's simply a prelude.
"Show me," he tells her, and her brain takes a second to register his request, and another to register the Parseltongue they have been talking in.
"What would you like to see, Father?" And there's such exhilaration in her chest that she can finally call him Father, that she can finally use the word and mean it, knowing that it is true. But this is a word that she savours through its hissed syllables. It only feels right.
"Change."
And she knows exactly what he means. She thinks of her alternate persona, and her inky curls are now silvery, soft tresses with ends of blue, and her eyes are brown, and her skin tone is somewhat different even if it still looks like porcelain. She looks older like this, her features losing the roundness of youth that she still has.
Her Father's eyes are the only proof of his approval, but her Mother smiles in wonder, even if there is the shadow of a memory to the grey. Delphini knows why it's there, has seen it before in Aunt Narcissa's eyes, and knows to leave it alone. A bridge long burned.
"And are you an Occlumens?"
"And a Legilimens, Father. It's how I tracked the Resurrection Stone."
"What did you do?" he has changed back to English, and she suspects he has done it for the benefit of her Mother alone. And that makes her smile, even if she does not grasp his meaning immediately.
"What did I do?"
"I heard your calling. I heard a voice in the place where I was and I knew it was yours. But I could not leave that place, I was very weak you see. But then, you called again, and again. I grew stronger with it and then, I could cross into another place, warmer, lighter. I had returned to this shape, but this is not how I began. In that second place, your calling was clearer, and I could move freely and come here. For academic purposes, what did you do to make it possible?"
"You weren't where Mother was? I-I don't know what I did. I turned the Stone thinking of you both, and when you weren't here, I kept a hard hold of it, but I didn't turn it again. I was just thinking of a way to find you."
"Interesting…" there is something ominous to his tone now, "I believe your magic may have healed me somehow. My soul, you see, I only have a small portion of it left. You brought me back, in a way, like you were supposed to do."
"Just as you are meant to do, Delphini," her Mother jumps to cover the silence, "this must mean you can do it, my precious augurey. You can bring the Dark Lord's cause back."
"You mean, bring you back to life?"
She is startled by the thought so badly that she physically jolts back a couple of steps. She raises her eyes to her parents, full of hope, mouth slightly open in shock. Could she be so powerful?
You're the Dark Lord's daughter, of course you can. You are of the Blacks as much as you are of the Gaunts, your blood is made of magic itself.
What if she can have her parents back? Because if she can bring Father back, surely she can bring her Mother too. What if she can have all she ever wanted? She brought them this far. What if she can bring them past the Veil? What if she can touch them?
But her Mother had scowled at the mention of the Malfoys, calling them cowards, claiming that they belonged in Azkaban, and she fears she might think a much grimmer end fitting. Bellatrix Lestrange is feared to this day, perhaps more than Lord Voldemort, for all her unpredictability, her cut throat ways.
The ambition dies in her chest. A shadow descends on her Father's eyes. This is the glare in the mirror. This is the raging red in Rodolphus' memories. She will not be allowed the mercy of second thoughts. She has proved herself worthy, but not capable.
What if bringing the Dark Lord back means condemning her family? They won't be allowed to live, she knows, leniency was never found in Lord Voldemort's ranks. She suspects her own Mother would find a way to eliminate any shred of it from her. Draco would pay for throwing his wand at Potter, Aunt Narcissa… Merlin, Aunt Narcissa lied to him! Uncle Lucius would probably get himself killed trying to save her, spare her. And Scorpius would surely be made an example of. Astoria wouldn't survive it.
And Teddy!
The panic flares inside her and she feels the control escaping her. She knows her eyes and her hair have taken on a life of their own. Her heart is galloping against her ribs and her lungs, punching the air out with every beat. She squeezes her wand, tight, so tight, trying to hold her magic inside.
Her eyes find those of her Father and he is truly proud now. Now that her might is so close to being unleashed, that her magical outburst makes her potential so obvious. Her Mother is overjoyed, actually holding on to his right arm, looking ravenous. They are proud of what she has become.
Except she knows her potential, she knows her might. It's destructive. The last time she felt this unhinged, she killed someone.
This is what they tell her she is meant to be, meant to do.
But this is all wrong.
The panic is so strong now that her lungs have lost the ability to breathe. She feels like she is drowning. Her left hand clings to her wand, feeling it sear itself into her palm. Her right hand hurts even more and she realizes it's the Stone.
This is all wrong! This is all wrong! I can't do this, I can't lose control again!
Her mind reels and reels and the pain in her hands is so bad, so deep. She has the presence of mind to notice that her dress and her hair are whipping about her, flailing wild in the waves of her magic. Her head hurts from the effort of trying to gain control, her mind screams.
She screams. And her hands let go. For a moment, both Stone and wand cling to her already blistering palms. Then they fall.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
It's her bellow.
It's her Father's.
It's her Mother's.
It's all of them wishing for a different result, all of them wishing that they could stay.
The Veil shimmers violently, from her magic and from that of her parents. The ripple stops.
And they fade.
First their voices, leaving only her screams. Then their bodies, vanishing into thin air like her Patronus does. Their eyes linger the longest. But even they are gone, the grey and the red.
"No," she whimpers into the Chamber, not knowing what she wishes to undo, to deny, "no, not this." She collapses unto herself. She remains there, folded upon her own body, letting her forehead touch the cold stone floor, sobbing in earnest, letting her tears run free, fists tight against her chest, trying to ignore that pain and succumbing to a much greater pain, at her very core.
She turns her head and she sees what her magic has done to the Chamber. The furniture is all over the place, the books somehow all still out of the water. Her armchair is broken and the sconces hold no light. The basilisk's bones have been moved for the first time in over a decade and they are spread all around. Some of the snakes on the walls are marred by her magic, as well.
The wand and the Stone lie just next to her, well within reach, but she moves away. Sobbing silently now, she crawls to the water. Not to where it's deep, just to a couple of inches high, so that the cold can soothe her aches, so that her burns can be washed, so that her body can lie mostly in it, while the water ripples against her chin, every now and then touching her lips, so that her tears can mingle away with it.
X
Hogwarts, June 13th, 2013
Somehow, she finds it in her to keep it together through her O.W.L.s.
After what felt like years in the cold water, she had mustered the will to get up. The jar of Dittany was fortunately still in one piece, and so she applied it profusely to her palms, bandaging them. Then, she had collected her wand. The Stone was left on the floor. She did not bother to fix anything, merely piled up the books in neat stacks, or as neat as her injured hands could manage, over the remnants of a shelf. Her box was open on the floor, but she could account for all her treasures. All but for the rose, that had drifted away into the water. She left it behind. The note from her Father, the one that had been in the necklace box, was still stubbornly inside. She couldn't bring herself to toss it in the water as well, but she had left it in the Chamber.
She has still to return.
She had gone to Madam Pomfrey, explaining how she had hurt her hands when she was trying a Transfiguration spell on a pebble. She was so nervous with all the exams and she had been so furious that she could not make it work… It was a blatant lie, and one not carefully constructed at that, but she had run out of Dittany and she needed her hands. The matron had heard enough tales of students trying to keep themselves out of trouble. And wass well acquainted with Slytherin's duelling mishaps. And if that weren't enough, one look at her palms was. Spells, ointments, fresh bandages and stern orders to be at the infirmary every day just before dinner were all Madam Pomfrey had for her.
Somehow, she found it in her to lock that terrible night in a corner of her mind and focus excusively on her studies. No late night talking with her friends. No shenanigans with Teddy. No letters home other than those she promised Scorpius.
And it has worked. So far, she has taken exams on Charms, Transfiguration and Herbology. And she knows she will have straight Outstandings in all three. As she will once today's exam is over.
Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Auror Potter is watching her from the top of the Great Hall. His greeting is much colder, but she expected nothing else. She walks demurely to her desk, arranging her cloak while she waits for the remaining students to be seated.
She writes away, answering every question without the shadow of a doubt. She skims through her answers when she is over, ensuring nothing is amiss. When asked to perform spells, she does so effortlessly, producing even her Patronus with ease. The examiner assures her of her brilliancy after every single spell, hex and jinx.
She has no intention of speaking to Potter, but Harry comes to her in the end, anyway.
"I would like to talk to you, privately, right away."
She nods, her face a closed mask. She waves her friends goodbye, telling them that all is well, while she makes a mental note to find out which question, exactly, is responsible for Sigmund's messy hair and scared eyes.
She walks silently to an empty classroom, to which he holds the door open for her. Potter ensures no one will barge in or listen to their conversation with swift movements of his wand and murmured words.
They haven't even faced each other before he speaks.
"Have you kept the stone, Delphini?"
She can hear the worry in Auror Potter's voice. There is a little swell of pride at knowing he thought it unnecessary to ask if she had found it to begin with. But it dies as swiftly as she thinks if her nature is so evident that, out of all the memories she had seen, he can tell her attention was captured by that particular figment.
"Yes, it's safe and hidden if that's what you're worried about." She can't keep the bite off her voice.
"No. I'm worried about you. Don't use it again. Let go of it as soon as possible."
"And how do you know I've used it already?"
"Because I wouldn't keep away from it either," he tells her with that kind smile that means he cares for her, "but I mean it. Do not use it again. Get rid of it."
"Why would I do that?"
"That stone was made to drive people to Death. To make them long for the ones they lost badly enough that they would choose to end their lives. If you keep using it to see your parents, you'll wish…"
He doesn't finish the sentence, simply raising his eyes to her face. And she can see the care in there. And she hates it.
"Right. Because you'd be so concerned if I wanted to die. Like me being alive makes your life any easier-"
"Don't ever say that again!" he cuts in and his anger is almost palpable, "I do not want you to die, I care and worry about you as much as I do for Teddy, believe it or not."
She hates his worry. She hates his care. Because she cannot understand how he can possibly worry about her after what she did to him. Because deep in that place where she locked that night away from her thoughts, she locked her realizations about it, too.
He couldn't possibly worry about her if he knew what happened, if he truly knew her, if he even thought her a tenth of how dark she really is. In her anger, she decides pushing him away is better now, before she crumbles before him and spills her hurt.
"You were never more powerful than him. You were never the better wizard! You only succeeded because you were the Master of Death, because the Elderwand was yours and not his that day!"
"That and a little something else, Delphie-"
"Don't call me that! I'm Delphini to you. Actually, Miss Lestrange in these walls! And don't tell me you still believe that silly thing about love. I happen to know a few things about my Father and he could love. He did love. He loved my Mother, I saw it. He just wasn't stupid enough to put love above everything else, like you do."
Because that is what hurts her the most.
She storms out of the room, desperate to be distracted. Wishing that Teddy is waiting for her somewhere, with his smile and his chocolate. If he is not, then she can spend her time revising for Ancient Runes. Anything to keep her mind away from the pain.
Not the wounds in her palms, not even the memory of the pain that caused them. What hurts her the most is not that she saw love between her parents, not that she saw love in her Mother's eyes at first, even if it was replaced by something else altogether in the end.
What hurts her the most is that there was no love in her Father's eyes.
X
King's Cross Station, June 30th, 2013
She stands at the platform, waiting for her grandson to jump off the train. She soon spots the bright blue that gives his presence away. He is in the middle of a loud group of young students, rising fifth years she guesses, promising each other that they'll write and even visit during the summer. She enjoys the view from the shadow of a pillar, trying to appease her still bleeding heart over the memories of an unruly girl that used to be just the same, and of a man that used to welcome her with open arms and warm laughter every time.
Teddy comes away from the small crowd, but doesn't move towards her. He is standing on the platform, looking around, raking his hair with his fingers. Until he sees a girl with a shock of black hair that emerges from the train. She too is followed by a group of her friends down the steps. She is ahead of them or in front of them, never in the middle, she notices.
Andromeda didn't really notice the girl the other times. She would rather not face her existence. She nods to Narcissa from a distance, acknowledging her presence there and their shared past, but there is no future for the two of them together. So she did not pay much attention to her sister's niece. This time, she notices. Even if she can't bring herself to think of her as her niece too. She is so much Bella's that it is hard to see anyone else in her. But Andromeda insists on looking for her father in her features. She doesn't find Rodolphus, not at all. That is very Bella too, making sure she has the whole of her daughter. Getting all the attention in a room, as per usual.
She has the curls, the raven black hair, the look of superiority, the beautiful chiselled features of old blood, the disdainful laughter, the mischievous smirk. The entirety of this girl looks like Bellatrix. She has the willowy but graceful build, the height, the long legs, the pale ivory skin, the wide eyes.
She even tosses her hair over her shoulders the same way, for Merlin's sake!
The omnipresence of Bellatrix in this girl that had a mother for no longer than ten months drives shivers down her spine. She knows the girl is different. She knows the girl did not kill her daughter, or served the most powerful Dark Lord in Wizarding History, or went mad in Azkaban as punishment for terrible crimes. She forces herself to abide by her beliefs, that a name doesn't make a wizard or a witch, that a surname does not define you, cannot define you. It's why she was burnt off the tapestry at Grimmauld Place after all.
You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood.
She keeps chanting in her mind, forcing herself to shed her prejudice.
She is not like Bellatrix. She is not like Bellatrix. She is not like Bellatrix. She is not like Bellatrix. She is not like Bellatrix. She is not like Bellatrix.
But she does look a lot like her.
Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix.
There are some differences though. They are not Rodolphus little pieces, more like slight deviations from the image of Bellatrix. A bit off on the cheeks, something a tiny bit different about her nose. It's all very slight, but it's all not Bella's and that somehow makes it easier.
Except Rodolphus wasn't any better.
You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood. You will not judge the girl for her blood.
And then the girl's wide eyes claim her attention as Teddy walks away from her. She is watching him go, throwing one last teasing joke before walking the other way, to her own family.
Her eyes are not grey like Bella's. But Rodolphus' were dark…
Her heart sinks to her feet. The green. She sees her father now.
And it is not Rodolphus.
She remembers that green, that undeniably gorgeous shade of green. Slytherin. Emerald. She remembers it from the eyes of a man who used to hold an entire room on his whims. Before he became a monster that held entire rooms on terror.
Her heart almost beats out of her chest. Then stops altogether. Then beats again, frantically, no rhythm whatsoever. She feels faint, and her right hand travels to the pillar while the left flies to her forehead.
You will not judge the girl for her blood. She is not like Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix. Not Bellatrix.
Worse.
So very much worse.
It's much, much worse. How could they let it happen? How could they let her live? Why would they keep her?
She must find Potter, she must let him know. He must not know, she figures, or he wouldn't let her be around Teddy. He loves that boy almost as dearly as she does. He would let no harm come to him. He will keep the girl at bay once he learns the truth.
Andromeda hurries to his side.
"I need to talk to you. It's urgent. Not here. Not now. But soon." Her hand grasps Potter's arm like a vicious claw, her nails digging into the fabric.
"Mrs. Tonks?" Potter's eyes are round as saucers. They are also clueless about her distress. They are also green and she simply cannot stand it right now.
She walks away from Harry at that, and he stays behind wondering what sort of jinx it her. He quickly remembers to move and catch up, reaching Teddy at the same time Andromeda does. After the caring welcome, he invites them over.
"How about you two come by? You can have dinner with us. Ginny and the kids will love to see you again."
"Oh yes, Teddy. We should go." She can tell her grandson is picking up on all her eagerness, and finding it very excessive. Unusual. Unlike her. He is the one who accepts invitations to Grimmauld Place, she always declines and counters with dinner at their own house. But she needs to get Potter alone in a secure room. And if that means she must go back to Grimmauld Place and stay for a few hours, she will go to the damned place and stay. Because she must keep Teddy safe.
X
Delphini knows something is up the second she catches a glimpse of Andromeda out of the corner of her eye. When she allows her eyes to focus on the witch, she feels the panic irradiating from her mind, the hatred, the realization.
Andromeda knows who she really is.
Andromeda can destroy everything with that knowledge.
Delphini won't allow it. Cannot allow it. Not for her sake, but for the sake of her family. They will be utterly destroyed by Wizarding Britain should the truth ever be known.
But she doesn't have a way. No path is clear. She flexes her hands, feeling the still healing tissues fight the movement, using the pain to remind her of all the people she kept safe by dropping the Stone.
X
Number 12, Grimmauld Place, London
It's not as she remembers it. It's far brighter now, happier. Much of the artefacts are gone. All the things meant to trap and hurt and maim that she grew up with are gone. She asks Ginny if she can wander about for a while. She needs to come to terms with this house. She makes her first stop in the hallway upstairs; remembering the one time Narcissa had pulled her wand on her, to stop her from going. She doesn't dwell long on that night. It's gone, over and buried with her memories of her childhood. She climbs to the very last floor, where her cousins had their rooms. She remembers being invited over to her Uncle and Aunt's and quickly making it up here, dragged by either Sirius or Regulus. There used to be two names on these doors, and very different rooms beyond them. Both doors are ajar now, and the rooms are different. But so are the names on the doors. James and Albus. As unlike as the previous brothers, as similar as them.
Potter kept his promise. He turned this house into a place where two boys can be happy.
She can hear the laughter of those boys, mixing with their sister's and her own boy. She can't make out the words, but she can tell Ginny is scolding them for something.
She has heard and seen Teddy laugh with his cousin on the platform so many times now. And in Diagon Alley, where they are careful to go separate ways far from her. Or she is, and Teddy finds a way to escape her sight and reach Delphini every time.
It's for the better,she keeps telling herself, if Teddy and her never meet again. He'll be torn,she knows, but he'll come to peace with their decision. They'll just find a way to keep her away. For the greater good.
There is someone climbing up the stairs. Potter's messy hair pops into sight from behind the bannister.
"Dinner's almost ready. But I thought maybe you wanted to talk first, Mrs. Tonks."
"No, Harry, thank you. After dinner will be fine." She owes Teddy a careless dinner at his godfather's house before the storm breaks. And so she follows him downstairs, to a dining room she is quite sure never saw such joy in all its years under the Blacks.
X
She realizes it then. She can see the why now. She can see the reason.
Morgana save me! He was right… he, of all people, was right.
She laughs loudly. For a couple of minutes, she cackles and she is well aware that she sounds just like Bellatrix. Just as mad and unhinged as her crazed sister.
I might just be crazier, after all. He was right. They love her and they are weaker for it. They do not see the danger, they do not see the darkness hovering above them.
She has been in this room alone with Potter for the last hour. Trying to convince him desperately of the absolute need to eliminate the threat that the girl poses. Letting him know who her real father is. Only to learn that he already knew, has known since the day of the Battle. That he took part in this plan, in keeping her concealed for as long as possible when she was little, in keeping her a Lestrange before the eyes of the world… the Golden Trio has been siding with the Malfoys for over a decade and a half, keeping a very dangerous act going right under the nose of the Ministry. She can see it now. He won't change his mind.
He keeps giving her reasons. That the girl doesn't know, never will know, of her origins. That she is good, and kind, and warm. To a very select group of people, he'll give her that, but so is she. She is a brilliant student, a sharp mind. She has complete control of her magic and she is skilled. She is not dangerous, or dark, or vicious. She would never use her wand with the purpose of causing harm for the fun of it like her parents. She is not hungry for power as they were. She was raised in tolerance and in love. She has light to her. She knows everything about her Mother and the War. Andromeda stops him there.
She does not know everything about her Mother, or she would know who her Father really was. A brilliant student? So was he. A sharp mind? So was she, before Azkaban. One by one, she tears apart every argument, every reason. Because she sees nothing but a promise of darkness made human, made after their image of perfection, and she sees it too close to Teddy.
All those rumours about Scorpius and Astoria and the answer is right there! And no one sees it!
They stay in that room for hours still, going nowhere. Teddy comes up to check on his Grandmother, but the door is closed and silencing spells are on it. Ginny comes up later to let them know that the kids are going to bed and that Teddy is sleeping over too, but no one answers her knocks.
Andromeda does see an opportunity at that. She can tell Ginny and trust her to not let matters go unnoticed. She has a hold on the doorknob when Harry stops her in the most painful way.
"Andromeda," he never addresses her like that, "you know what it feels like to be in exile, to be shunned by the world you've known all your life. Would you cause another sixteen-year-old girl that kind of sorrow?"
She lets go of the doorknob as if it burns her. Her mind is under a wave of memories of two seventeen-year-olds, a Slytherin girl and a Hufflepuff boy, of a girl who became a castaway so that they could be together. Tears of anger and pain stream down her high cheekbones, down her chin, dangling from the angle of her jaw, falling from her face.
"I'll keep your filthy secret then, Potter. I'll tell no one of the Dark Lord's daughter. But I will not have Teddy grow even closer with her. The moment she is out of Hogwarts, he'll see her no more."
She doesn't allow him the chance to answer. She opens the door and proceeds to march outside, not even acknowledging Ginny's presence in the corridor. She takes a deep breath of cold night air once she is standing in the steps outside number 12. She should know better than to hope for good things when at Grimmauld Place.
Author's Notes: So, I let myself run with it and this thing is two thousand words about what it's supposed to be. But I was done cutting things and moving events to the next chapter, so, I hope you don't mind.
I've never been so nervous about a chapter in this past year. Because I needed Bellatrix and Voldemort to be in character enough to be right, but out of character enough to be their beyond-the-veil versions. And now I'm here, dreading what you may have to say about it
*Taps keyboard nervously and runs the F away*