Author's Notes: Hello? Is anyone still reading this? Sorry for the long interlude, but new year, new job, new hospital, new city, new housemates. In short, a lot to handle and not enough time to sit down, write and edit.
With that being said, enjoy.
Malfoy Manor, August 24th, 2013
Narcissa can't remember being this worried ever since the Battle of Hogwarts and the two dreadful days that followed it. Narcissa can't remember such emptiness in her arms ever since the day Delphini was first placed in them.
She knows that Delphini can stand her own ground, and that she is clever and sly enough to make her way out of troubled waters without even drawing her wand, but she is deeply concerned for her all the same.
She does not know who Andromeda is anymore, not after four decades apart, but Merlin knows they are both Blacks, and that drives a shiver down her spine every single time her brain ventures down that path. Black means something to her, something very obvious, something all children in her family learned from a young age, until it was simply taken for granted, part of their nature. Being a Black means ruthlessness, and a sort of controlled madness, a weird and vicious bravery when it comes to protecting those they love, a twisted pride in their own blood that they are taught to call love, a mean streak in all of their minds, more vibrant in some than others. Blacks, as she well knows, stop at nothing to see their ends achieved. Blacks never shy from trimming the family tree with their own hands.
Merlin knows her mother didn't shy from it, neither did her aunt nor her sister. All women of Black blood and Black pride, taking ancient and noble hands to smother new blooms that weren't Black enough to be allowed usage of the name.
Andromeda and she were different, though. One had been trimmed where the other had flourished, but one doesn't simply cut away the Black, one doesn't simply marry into something else. The blood of Black lingers, deep and thick, clinging to their bones, the distorted bravery showing through the purity and nonchalance of their flesh, to inflict unnameable blows to those that cross them. To those that dare endanger what they hold dear. One does not burn the Black blood away. One does not erase it under a ring.
Narcissa lied to the Dark Lord's face to keep her family safe. Andromeda may decide to punish Delphini for his crimes. For Bella's crimes. It doesn't matter that Andromeda has denied her family or that she has refused to use their name, her nurture remains. Perhaps buried deep inside, hidden away in a dark little corner of her, still the way all three Black sisters were taught to navigate the world lingers. Even if Andromeda never took the same pride in displaying it, or any pleasure in flaunting her superiority, the blood of Black runs in her veins, and Narcissa fears for what it might mean for her niece.
It is late now and Narcissa has worked herself up into such frenzy that Lucius has had to physically hold her still at least twice this evening. Draco is senseless, completely beyond himself. The only reason he is not pacing the room alongside his mother is Astoria, who, in true Slytherin fashion, decided to turn her weakness into a weapon, and lay across her husband's lap tonight, head on his shoulder, legs on the soft cushions of the sofa they share. Draco dares not move her off him now, for fear of waking that frightening rattle-like cough that has taken hold of her chest, but that does not mean he keeps still.
His fingers play with Astoria's skirt the whole time, his feet tap the floor repeatedly, his head is stuck in a loop of looking towards the door, then to the window and the night beyond it, then a huff with a hopeless shake for good measure, and back to the door. Astoria pets his chest in small circles, in the measure of her fingers, her breath quick on her lips, sometimes whispering words in his ear. Words he is well beyond listening to.
Her husband is the only person keeping still, but he is all the more dangerous for it. Being still, frozen in place, is the gravest depiction of Lucius Malfoy's wrath. A thing he learnt from his father, he doesn't fret, he doesn't bellow. He stays still, a wall of ice, eyeing the night sky as if silently cursing every star he can see, his hands holding one another behind his back.
The air in the room feels wild, and Narcissa knows their magic is at that dangerous stage in which it will spark at the slightest provocation. If poor Scorpius were here and not in bed already, his magic would have already flared, no doubt.
Then a new energy, as frazzled and charged as theirs, though darker, joins them, just inside the wards; coming closer every second, fidgeting with theirs and Narcissa knows that her youngest child is home.
She nearly runs out of the room, determined to dash to the entrance hall, but the moment she opens the door there is a mass of black curls crashing into her, sobbing silently just once, then gasping as someone who hasn't taken a breath in days.
She is here, her mind realizes, long after her arms have wrapped themselves tightly around Delphini. She is here, safe, in her arms again, and Narcissa's heart feels safe when it resumes beating.
"What happened, little bird?" Narcissa asks her precious girl, raising her face to look her in the eye, caressing the girl's cheeks with her thumbs.
"It was awful. She hates me, she hates us all. She didn't hurt me, I didn't let her. All she wants is to keep Teddy safe, but she thinks I'm dangerous to him, and I don't understand why... I love Teddy, why would I want to hurt him?"
Delphini is rambling. A stream of words pours from her lips, the majority going unregistered to her ears, let alone noticed by her mind. She talks and talks and talks, but all that Narcissa hears is that Andromeda did not hurt her, though she wanted to. All Narcissa sees are two large green eyes that seem lost in the distance, and two wide pupils that reflect her own shocked grey irises.
Her little bird looks beyond exhausted, but there's a light in her eyes, one that she knows well. Resolve. Whatever she has set herself to do tonight is not finished. Delphini is not done, not yet, and she quickly tries to pry her arms from around her body, telling her that she must go upstairs, that she must know. Narcissa lets go. There's no stopping a star in its burning path.
But Delphini does not leave the room. She finds herself trapped in Draco's arms, then in Lucius', and she is forced to calm down by them all, to come down from whatever fright-induced high she's experiencing.
"I need to know," she keeps whispering into Lucius' embrace.
"What do you need to know, sweet star of darkness?" Her husband's voice is honeyed, slow, calming, but Delphini shivers anyway.
"I have to know what's in the box. In the chest I found at Euphemia's house."
Before any of them can offer help or counsel or comfort, Delphini slithers away from Lucius' arms and runs out of the room, into the depths of the manor. They stay behind, standing by the door, watching her mane of black curls disappear down the hall, listening to her feet as they run up the staircase and then through the corridors, the click-clack-clicking of sensible heels fading in the distance.
X
Delphini shuts the humming doors behind her, leaning heavily against the mahogany. The doors aren't the only things that hum in her rooms. No, there's a box hidden beneath blue velvet that hums as well, always does whenever she is inside.
She has decided to own her ancestry, to stop fearing her blood, but she needs some measure of control over her fate from now on. She will not act on the prophecy, she will not try and make it come true, but she no longer believes in ignorance being the best way. She has to know. She must know as much as there is to know, so that she can avoid setting things in motion by accident.
Right now, there are two obvious sources of knowledge that she has been ignoring. The box, kept right here, in her rooms, for over a month now, and whatever lies beneath the boards of Gaunt Shack. Ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge will always be powerful, it will always be a weapon, and she needs to armour herself with as much of it as she possibly can. It isn't just her own fate that she is battling, it's her blood, her nature. Should her manipulation of Andromeda's mind fail, she needs to know what her Father planned for her, before the world is made aware of such plans, before the world is made aware of her true nature. Should the prophecy come true anyhow, she needs to know, precisely, what such an event would bring about.
Delphini walks across her bedroom, with even steps and a false sense of confidence. She can feel the fear being pumped through her veins, pulsing with her blood, she can taste it at the back of her mouth, and she can feel it prickle her skin and running frozen fingers up and down her spine. She retrieves the bag of blue velvet from its hiding place, taking some comfort in the fact that she does not have to touch the dark cube inside at once.
She always feels safer under the veil, so she walks to her bed, sitting on the plush quilt and setting the bag before her. Guivre is quick to slither up to her, looking for a way up to her collarbones, but she holds him away from her arms and sets him to the side with an apologetic hiss. Vicious jumps on the bed, rubbing against her in a purred greeting before teasing the twined cord that keeps the bag closed with a couple of quick pats. As if sensing the danger of doing so, her Kneazle is quick in its retreat, walking up the bed to her pillows and sprawling on them. Delphini envies him for a second, and then sets her mind to the task ahead.
She should probably sleep for a couple of hours first, but her thirst is too great. Her mind is frazzled, and she's having trouble thinking straight, but then opening a box is not that hard. Her magic is utterly exhausted, to the point that she does not believe herself capable of levitating a feather, but then her Father's gifts to her never required any show of magic from her.
All they ever required was her touch. Her skin upon delicate locks of silver, the caress of her fingers on tiny serpents that never fail to slide over one another leisurely. The mere allusion of her blood through her skin touched to the cold metal, and her Father's gifts come undone.
Delphini pulls on the twined cord around the neck of the bag, watching the knot slid on itself and then come apart, while the velvet slips off and down from the box, exposing the dark, ominous cube.
It's a dark, angular thing, just like she remembers; all sharp edges. The lock is not the usual work of snakes wrapped around each other. There is a snake, yes, a silver serpent with eyes of jet, but it is wrapped around one single rose, carved into the cube, dead centre on the front. She lets her fingers trace the shape of the box, abstaining from touching the silver. There are no seams that she can feel, no obvious way for the strange cube to come apart and reveal its secrets.
She can't help but feel serene, for the magic that the box exudes is something that she has learnt to mean Father, and Mother, and the familiarity of it feels right against her skin. She lets her fingers drift randomly across the sides and over the top, until she can't delay touching the snake and the rose anymore.
Delphini does feel a little like Pandora before this mysterious box of hers. It sure looks like it could hold curses to befall the world, all dark things hidden away inside it, waiting for a curious girl to set them free. But she must know; there is no other way for her, so she must open the box and hope that the world does not pay the price.
She presses two fingers to the head of the snake and the magic encompassed there stirs immediately. The small snake blinks, its head comes apart from the box, rising slightly, as if to look at her, and then it moves away, sliding. It circles the rose once, then the rose blooms before her eyes, its silvery petals spreading wider. The snake slithers a path through them and into the centre of the rose, where it coils and remains still.
From the rose depart straight, shimmering lines, revealing that the cube is not truly a box. Delphini pulls drawer after drawer to the side; there are three pairs of them, all containing small vials of crystal in neat rows. In every vial, a liquid, looking akin to the smoke that danced in the orb of prophecy, shimmering in blues and whites, moving of its own volition, dancing inside, a beautiful, charming dance meant to lure.
She knows what these vials are, she has read about them.
Memories.
This gift of her Father is a collection of memories. She tips a vial within the small wooden partings that keep each of them, not daring to lift it, and hears it clink back in place when she lets go of the stopper. There are so many of them. She wonders why her Father did not mention this in his letter, but maybe these had not been collected at the time.
Or maybe, just maybe, they are not his, her minds whispers. These memories could be anyone's. What if these memories are of others? What if all that these vials hold are sights like those Andromeda has just shown her?
Her heart flutters in her chest, frantically beating. She pulls the drawers further apart, assessing the vials, as if she could discern their contents by the colour of the dancing liquid wisps inside, as if they were not all the same. There are some thirty vials, all looking the same, all the height of the distance between her thumb and middle finger, all shimmering even when the light does not reach them. All pretty things that make her more curious; all tiny little jars that could each hold an evil inside, for her to release upon the world.
But the bottom of the box holds a little secret, in which she finds hope. For beneath the last pair of drawers there is a carefully folded piece of parchment, just the right size to fit into the thin gap between the drawers and the bottom of the cube. And the writing is not her Father's, nor is the wax that holds it shut branded with the Dark Mark.
The writing belongs to her Mother, she knows it, she has seen it in Aunt Cissa's papers. The wax is black, not deep green, and in it has been seared with the seal of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
So she lets herself hope, unwise as it may be, because the words inside are not of doom, nor of fate, nor of her mission, nor of her duty to her Father's cause. The words in her Mother's letter are of love, of a mother's love, and of her need to tell her.
'I do not know what you will get to know of me, or of the Dark Lord. Our magic has changed us, my precious little bird, in ways that we could not foresee. We are better for it, my precious little girl, but I fear what you'll know of us in the future. My lovely augurey, we may have lost the ability to show it with the years, but know that your parents cherish you, know that we love you. I would never dare to speak in the Dark Lord's name, but I'll do so, just this once, because I know he has already lost that particular ability, Delphini. He cannot show it, and I fear I'll become more and more like him, but know that you were wanted for more than a prophecy; you were wanted well beyond your magic or your fate.
The Dark Lord knows only that this vault contains memories of mine, memories I've persuaded him are important to you. I could not be explicit in my reasons to ask this of him, though he probably saw them in my mind. I fear he may judge these figments of me for maudlin nonsense, completely unnecessary to you. I can only hope you do not think of them so. Look through them, my precious augurey, look through them whenever you might doubt our affection.
You shall be great, and you'll do great things for the Dark Lord, but I alone understand the effects of his nature on another's. Don't ever doubt him, Delphini, he leads the path to a better world, but don't ever doubt me when I tell you that you are cherished. I love you, my precious little bird. Your Father may do it differently, and be incapable of showing it, but he has never cared for anyone as he does for you.
Look through my memories, my augurey, and learn of us, of what and who we were before, for I fear magic will take much of it in the coming years.'
The letter is signed 'Your Mother, Bellatrix Black', with sharp movements that carved her pride into the parchment. She is claiming her. There's an undeniable urge to possess in her words, to let whomever may read this letter know that Delphini is the Dark Lord's and hers, and no one else's. To let the world know that she belonged to the Dark Lord alone, refusing to use her husband's name.
Bellatrix Black was of the Dark and never denied it, but she apparently feared her darkness when it came to her daughter. She feared even her Master's darkness when it came to her. Her Father would certainly disapprove of such thoughts, but her Mother had been right in the end.
Delphini never was given the chance to know them, to remember them properly, to form memories of her own. All she has are versions of them, those that she has learned of through others' recollections, through the Stone, through the books and the newspapers. This time, she'll truly have them, though she will never belong to them. She is the Malfoy's, and Teddy's, and her friends', and she is of the Dark, but she shall never be the Dark Lord's, she shall never be His Most Faithful's.
She caresses the parchment with her long fingers, letting her polished nails drag on the ink etched there. This is Mother's gift to her, and she cannot keep a shy little smile from spreading through her lips. She worried about her, she thought of her as more than an omen, and she made sure she'd have a way to know it. She defied her Father to do so.
There's only one small detail. She does not have a way to see these memories. Not yet, at least. She knows about the Pensieve at Hogwarts, she saw it in Harry memories, but she would never risk taking the vials with her. So she closes the drawers, one by one, with longing gestures, watching as their contour disappears to the blackness of the cube, as the serpent travels once more, out of the rose, to guard her mother's memories.
She puts the box of memories away, but does not hide it under the velvet, nor in the nook where she has been trying to forget about it. She leaves it on her desk, with her mother's letter next to it, by the side of her father's letter. It feels right to do so.
Then, she takes a seat at her desk and lets all of the exhaustion come over her, like a wave, allowing herself to feel everything at once. Her head falls into her hands, and her curls tumble over her knees and legs, waving and bouncing for a moment before they, too, become still. Delphini remains silent and motionless, even her chest moves as little as it can with each breath, while her mind is engulfed by everything that's happened. She allows herself a moment of despair, of utter fright for what's to come, before shoving it all down into the boxes that keep her mind neat.
The day could have ended much differently, because Andromeda might have ruined everything, but there's hope in the end, and the sun is rising, slowly pinking up the night sky and drowning out the stars.
And she is more than an omen.
She waves her hand in the air, closing the curtains over her windows, and she feels a little nauseous at the effort even that requires. Deciding to give up magic for a while, she walks to her chest of drawers and changes into a nightgown, leaving her clothes scattered over the furniture. She snorts a giggle, thinking on how she never really learned to fold clothes with her own two hands, and how much messier she would be if she couldn't use her magic at home. She moves slowly towards her bed, taking a seat at its foot and leisurely braiding her hair.
Once her curls are somewhat tamed into a loose braid, Delphini lets her body fall backwards, onto the softness of the light quilt and the mattress beneath it. She ponders sleeping like this for a second, but her feet hang quite uncomfortably in the air, and her pillows do look so very comfortable from this angle, so she orders her exhausted body to crawl all the way to the headboard, then lets it drift down to in between the sheets.
Guivre is back on top of her, his long body slithering over the curves of hers, looking for her warmth, reaching for her skin with his forked tongue. This time, she lets him curl about her arms, revelling on his cool scales against her neck and chest, lulled to sleep by the cold that always soothes her.
She is more than an omen, she is. And she'll prove it.
X
Tonks House, August 25th, 2013
Andromeda knows that something is off the moment she wakes up. It's not altogether wrong; it's just that something is not quite right.
For all she remembers, last night was actually a pleasant evening, even if she was not at ease with the girl. And yet, there is something creeping up her spine; something cold climbing all the way up and lodging itself at the back of her mind, unseen but not forgotten, lurking, irking.
She rises from the bed, walking calmly to the window. Her owl is perched on the sill, turning her head from side to side, as if assessing why it hasn't been allowed inside yet. Andromeda lets the brown owl in and offers it a treat with absent-minded gestures. She must have sent a letter yesterday, though she can't remember what she wrote, or whom she wrote it to.
She realizes she still has the same clothes on, which is deeply confusing. Surely she changed for bed, is she really so distracted this morning that she does not remember getting dressed? But then she looks to the bed behind her, and sees that the sheets were never turned down. She sees the blanket that covered her through the night and wonders. Her mind is fuzzy, as if some magical creature had crawled into her ears and climbed up to her brain for the sole purpose of turning it into a useless mush.
Something is off. Something must be quite wrong with her today. How can she remember next to nothing about last night? About having dinner with Bellatrix's daughter? Her mind refuses to think of her as niece for some reason, but she cannot clear the mist that obscures the motive.
The girl had come for dinner with Teddy and her. Her brain screams 'Teddy' at her through the fog. The warning is clear, but she does not know the danger it pertains to. She remembers going to sleep as if nothing were out of place, so why can't she shake off the wrongness that plagues her mind?
She moves through the house, keeping one hand on the walls, wandering into the kitchen without any real purpose, just hoping to see something that will stir up her mind. Maybe it's something she forgot to do last night. Some task that she left unfinished.
The kitchen is a bit of mess, she must have been too tired to clean up properly before going upstairs. She frowns as she notices the unfinished dessert on the counter. Because she remembers eating that dessert, right? At the table, with Teddy and Delphini, of course she did. How would she have a memory of Delphini complimenting her for it otherwise?
Andromeda moves towards the counter, cautiously, slowly, as if she could trigger some sort of trap by simply walking up to an unfinished meal. She steps on something, hurting her foot and nearly slipping. She is astonished to find her wand on the floor, but she probably dropped it just now, because she was holding it, right? She was going to clean up the kitchen, she thinks, before Teddy comes down for breakfast.
Teddy! Teddy is in danger! Her mind screams to her. Not her mind, just a tiny bit of it, a little corner of conscience, one that speaks to her very survival.
In a hurry, she runs out of the kitchen, climbing up the stairs without caring about all the noise she's making, her breath stuck in her throat, afraid of what she'll find down the upstairs corridor, where her grandson sleeps.
But before she can think whether to knock or to simply push the door open, Teddy steps outside. He looks at her with the happiest smile on his lips, which spreads all the way to his eyes and makes the blue of his hair brighter. One that she can't help but to return. One that erases all concerns.
Teddy is fine, and happy, and here, so there's no danger. There can't be, right?
X
Malfoy Manor, August 25th, 2013
It is late when Delphini wakes up. Her body is sore, and her mind is pulsing against the inside of her skull, but her magic has recovered enough to be of use. She waves her hand in the air, casually, and the curtains on her bedroom windows are pulled back. The daylight that pours inside is almost painful on her eyes, but the sun is so high up in the sky now that she cannot possibly stay in bed any longer. She has plans to make, things to sort in her mind, problems to solve.
Her Father was the most powerful Dark Lord that ever walked the earth, and he had plans for her. Plans that she does not mean to fulfil.
Her Mother was his most faithful servant, his best lieutenant and the most dangerous of his dark creatures, and yet she defied her Father's orders by putting together a box of memories that she currently has no way of seeing.
According to Teddy, sitting by her grave and talking might help, though she has talked with her dead mother, and her dead father, and has no inclination whatsoever to do it again. Also, she hasn't got a clue about where Bellatrix Lestrange, or Lord Voldemort for that matter, happens to be buried.
There's also the matter of Astoria's sickness on top of it all, and of Draco being slowly torn to pieces because of it, and of Scorpius being ever nearer to becoming an orphan. Not to mention the terrible rumours that follow her little cousin, and the darkest plans being made because of them.
She pushes her braid off her shoulders, taking a deep breath into her lungs and disturbing Guivre in the process. The dark snake hisses a greeting, but she knows he is not happy about being kicked out of the warmth of her sheets. Delphini unwinds him from her body and carries him gently to the branch by the window next to her desk. Guivre hisses again, this time content, and she deeply envies him for a moment.
What she wouldn't give for the chance to spend her days leisurely in the sun, moving only to feed. But she isn't a snake of abnormal size, she isn't someone's familiar, to be petted and fed and live carelessly by the grace of a master. So she moves to her bathroom to have a cold shower and emerges wrapped in a white fluffy towel, her fingers dancing in the air as her magic opens and closes drawers, levitating items of clothing towards her, drying her hair, dragging a pair of shoes from across her bedroom.
She leaves her rooms with Vicious Mist on her heels, trotting alongside her until she gives it leave to go hunt his breakfast, after watching her have hers with his tail swinging from side to side the entire time. She watches as the agile creature runs away swiftly, in complete silence, while she follows at an easy step.
This wing of the Manor is quiet, she has no sounds to guide her, but she knows precisely where to find her family. Uncle Lucius will be reading the newspaper in his study, while Aunt Cissa lounges in the sunroom, by the tall and wide windows and doors that open to the gardens.
She finds her Aunt exactly where she expects her to be. On her favourite upholstered wooden bench, sat on burgundy softness, wearing white as she so much likes. She is holding a book, and facing away from the door, so she cannot see her, leaning on the doorframe, in her own light summer dress, made of a pale mint green with floral motifs. She would never wear such a garment in public, she would never allow the world to perceive her as soft and pretty like other girls her age, but she is home. For now, in here, she'll simply be a pretty girl in a floral summer dress, for soon she'll have to don her sharpness as armour and step into the world.
With a mellow voice, not to startle her aunt, Delphini calls for Narcissa's attention, walking towards her, her heels softly clicking against the marbled floor.
"Aunt Cissa?"
The blonde hair, gathered in a simple but haughty looking updo, slowly turns to the side, giving way to a beautiful profile of sharp angles. Her aunt does not answer her with words, but with slow, kind gestures, motioning for her to approach, gently patting the cushion, inviting her to sit by her side.
Delphini restrains from talking until she's taken her seat. She sits upright, hands in her lap, knees together and ankles crossing, just like Aunt Cissa taught her. Grey eyes look for hers, prompting her to speak, as a soft hand with long fingers caresses her cheek, flowing down the curve of her jaw while a thumb travels the path of her cheekbone.
"I opened the cube last night… you know, the box from Euphemia's. There were vials inside it. They're memories. My Mother's memories. I need a Pensieve to see them. I know there's one at Hogwarts, but I don't think I can get to it."
She speaks quickly, rushing to have the words out in the air between them. Aunt Cissa doesn't even blink before she delivers the most precious piece of information, that leaves her brain reeling.
"You don't have to worry about getting to it, little bird. We have a Pensieve."
"What?" Her sculpted eyebrows meet over the bridge of her nose, rumpling the skin there, but only for a second, before they climb up her forehead.
"We have one. Your Uncle managed to keep it from the Ministry because it's inherently neutral; it's not Dark and it's not Light, it just is. It's has been in the family for generations."
"Can I use it? Where is it?" If it weren't for the fact that this is family, Delphini would never let herself sound so eager, so curious, but this is the place where she lets all of her façades falter. She has no need for them here, not with them.
"Somewhere upstairs, I'll help you look, if you want." Her aunt has a peaceful smile on her lips, and a loving look in her eyes, but she has absolutely no intention of rising from her seat. She knows Delphini far too well, and knows exactly what she'll answer.
"I'll find it myself, Aunt Cissa, thank you." Always the velvety touch of manners softening her iron will, disguising the edge of her voice, which would be sharp were it not for her careful upbringing.
She receives a kiss on the cheek, and at that she knows that she has been dismissed. She nearly runs out of the room. She has a wide grin on her face.
'Somewhere upstairs' is one of her favourite places. The Malfoys use it to refer to the attics, which spread all across the top of the manor, under the bulky wooden beams that support the roofs. It's a world of forgotten things, originally stored carefully but turned into piles of artefacts and conundrums of old furniture. Delphini used to spend a long time up there, looking for odd objects, magical broken things that were as likely to work after her attempts at fixing them as they were to backfire. There are things as old as the Malfoy family, and some older than that, and one can't simply summon objects, for there is real danger of starting an avalanche of chairs, or books, or curtains and tablecloths.
Yes, it will be quite the task, but she has nothing else to do today. She thinks that a Pensieve wouldn't go unused for very long in Malfoy Manor, so it can't be that far back into the mountains of things.
X
Delphini takes the Pensieve to the closed wing of the house. It levitates within its wood and leather case, following her steps while she carries the velvet bag and the precious box inside. The portraits that line these halls greet her solemnly; fully aware of whom she is now.
It seems right to do it here, in her Father's chambers, so she sets the box on the desk that belonged to the Dark Lord, pulling the strand that holds the bag closed. The velvet glides down the box, just has it did before, and she touches the small snake on the lock.
She does not watch as the drawers materialise in front of her, though. Her attention is focused on the Pensieve's case. It sets itself on the desk, and she carefully slides the three small bronze bars that hold the lids shut out of their latches. She opens the lids, one to each side, and reveals the wide but shallow bowl inside.
It looks empty, but she touches her wand to the surface of the water anyway, making sure that no thoughts were left behind. There was a large armoire in the attic, next to the Pensieve's case, with beautifully and elaborately carved doors to it. A pretty façade that hides an Expanded storage space, with shelves and shelves of Malfoy memories. She didn't touch them, could never do so. Those belong to her family, but not to her. Draco and Scorpius may one day turn to them for guidance, but she will make sure not to pry.
The tip of her bone white wand comes up empty, no shiny string attached to it, so she sets the wand on the desk as well. She uses both hands to lift the Pensieve from its case, feeling the carvings in the cold stone. Runes, she can tell. Once she places it on the desk, she can observe them, as well as the gems that decorate the bowl. They're not chosen for their beauty, or placed at random; there are patterns to them and the runes, rituals of old magic that's neither Light nor Dark. Then, and only then, does she turn her attention to the box-turned-chest-of-drawers. She pulls all the drawers open, haven't quite decided yet where to begin.
Some flasks hold long strings of bright white light, others seem to hold several smaller strands of memories. But they all look the same, now. All the same size, none shinning more than the others. She lets her instinct take over, hoping to make the right choice this way.
She takes a vial from the box, picking it up with only two fingers, almost plucking it like one might a flower. She removes the crystal stopper with measured gestures, setting it aside on the blue velvet, so that it will not roll away and off the desk. She tips the vial into the Pensieve, watching as three shiny pale worms fall into an apparently empty bowl. Then, she leans forward, immersing her face in the light-water, letting her curls tumble inside with her.
It does feel like being under water, but only for a moment. She soon finds herself being sucked inside the Pensieve, falling, and falling, deep into an abyss where light and shadow play, until she stops. She doesn't land, she merely stops at the precise moment she must stop for her feet to touch the ground
Everything is light at first, but shapes and colours come forward from the blindingly white mist.
She is home, in her own chambers, back when they were a nursery. Her mother is here, too, so close that she could probably touch her. The detail of the memory surprises her; she never thought things could be so clear inside Bellatrix Black's head. But she can hear Mother's laughter, and she can see what's making her laugh.
A baby with green eyes too big for her face and black soft curls is laughing and shrieking in utter glee, sitting on the floor, tickled by the forked tongue of an immense serpent, as thick as a man, so long that she loses track of its body in the coils. Mother picks her up, the months old version of her, that is, and murmurs soft words into her curls. Nagini, for it is her Father's familiar and Horcrux, raises her head to Mother's hands, which quickly adjust Delphini on her lap so that Bellatrix might pet the serpent. Little Delphini tries to hiss something, a command if she had to guess, waving her hands before he, demanding to caress Nagini as well.
"Nagini, it's time for the little augurey to sleep."
Mother's voice isn't brisk or commanding, it's as if she were asking for the serpent's permission to put her daughter to sleep. Then she realizes it wasn't permission she wanted, it was help.
The mighty snake, described as feral at least, slithers across the floor and into her crib. The veil that covers it glides open, awaiting her. Mother lays her on the coiled body of Nagini, who adjusts around her so that her scales become a crib inside a crib. Baby Delphini is sound asleep after only a moment. Mother fetches a small pearl blanket and covers her daughter with it, within the coils of the serpent. She lets her skinny fingers caress her forehead, letting them caress the scales one more time as well.
It should be a chilling vision, a terrifying thing, but to her it's simply a picture of family, even if her Father is absent. She feels like walking around the memory, observing every tiny detail, absorbing it all, but the Pensieve removes the floor from beneath her feet and she falls again, until a different floor emerges beneath her. She finds herself home again, but in different rooms.
Dark, regal chambers. Her Father's. Things aren't as detailed here, as if her own Mother couldn't quite capture her surroundings completely. Bellatrix is kneeling on the floor, much skinnier than before, eyes on the floor. Father is sitting on a tall wingback chair, almost a throne, his pale feet emerging from the folds of his smoky robes that pool around him. He gestures with his hand for her Mother to rise and speak. Nagini is here as well, but coiled in a corner behind Delphini, apparently looking right through her with her molten gold eyes, observing Bellatrix as if she could become dinner.
"You wished to see me, my Lord. Here I am." Her mother speaks, raising her chin, and Delphini can see the pride in her eyes.
"So I did, Bella," her father replies, rising from his seat, "because I've chosen your reward." His tone is cold, almost detached, but she can see the yearning in Mother's eyes. Lord Voldemort approaches her in a predatorily way, but she does not waver. No, she steps toward them.
"What's my reward, Master?" Mother doesn't sound greedy, she isn't teasing, but there's a new glint to Father's red irises that makes her feel like she doesn't want to see the rest of this.
"I find myself in need of an heir, Bella," Lord Voldemort answers, threading his long white bony fingers through her mother's wild curls on both sides of her head, "and I've determined you shall be the one to bring it to life."
Mother gasps, and Delphini can see tears in her eyes. What's more, there's something akin to tenderness in the Dark Lord's eyes, perhaps a hint of affection.
But the floor disappears beneath her once more, and she is falling again, as she thinks that she'll have to isolate each memory and give it a vial of its own if she is to have a semblance of control over them. The third time she reaches the floor without truly landing, she is in the dungeons. She barely knows of their existence at the Manor, and her family acts as if the place doesn't even exist, but she has seen enough of them to recognize her surroundings.
"That's enough, Bella, you're overexerting yourself."
The Dark Lord's voice resonates behind her, and she turns just in time to see him come down the permanently wet steps, his familiar slithering at his feet, winding down the stairs while tasting the air.
Delphini notices the smell of blood, she can almost feel the metallic taste at the back of her mouth. She knows that the sight before her will be gruesome, but she can't keep herself from looking. There's a poor creature that used to be a wizard at the feet of her mother, who is panting, a hand on her protruding middle.
"I am well, my Lord, and this filth isn't done talking yet."
She is frazzled, but frenzied, unable to understand why her body cannot keep up. Delphini can see the confusion in her eyes.
"Bella, stop," Lord Voldemort commands, walking up to her, reaching for her expanding waist, "you must save your strength for the Augurey."
Her mother's grey eyes grow wider, her lips fall apart. Her hand flies to her neck, pulling on the silver chain from which the bird skull pendant hangs. Her other hand draws circles on her belly, not daring to touch the Dark Lord's.
"Had you forgotten again?" Her Master inquires.
"No, my Lord. I haven't forgotten about your Augurey for weeks now," she replies in all honesty, looking him in the eye, "but I want to do more for your cause, I want to serve you-"
"You served me above all others for years, Bella. You still do. You are carrying my heir, and I'm ordering you to take care of your body, to stop exerting yourself for days at a time in these dungeons. Do you not want me to have a healthy heir?"
His words are poison served with wine. Sweet on the surface, but deadly nonetheless. She can see him manipulating her, pulling her strings and pushing her buttons to the very limits of her.
"Of course, Master, I beg your forgiveness," her mother replies. Already on her way to kneel on the floor, forgetting about the puddles of gore, Bellatrix is stopped by pale hands on her arms.
"Don't," he orders her, though he almost sounds caring, "I want you to go upstairs and rest." He helps her to the first steps of the staircase, and then watches her go. The memory follows her mother, so Delphini has no choice but to be taken upstairs with her. Still, her mother remembered the hissing of her father, ordering Nagini to follow her and watch over them both.
The memory dissipates and she finds herself being sucked up, as if there were a wind beneath her, driving her up for as long as she had fallen before. She is kicked out of the water, emerging from the Pensieve with a gasp. The first thing she does is look to the side, and wonder if she has enough time to watch all the memories unfold around her before she goes back to Hogwarts.
There is no order, no logic. Her mother's memories are as jumbled as her own mind was, simply stored together in whatever vial she seemed to have at hand. She suspects that five days are not even nearly enough. There's far too many flasks, with far too many wisps of her mother's mind inside.
Still, she has time today, and tomorrow, and the next day, so she gathers the memories in the Pensieve with her wand, pulling them up and storing them in crystal once more. She sets that vial to the side of the Pensieve, fetches another, and watches as four strands of light pour into the bowl. She shakes her head off her shoulders, and dives inside once more.
As it turns out, the box contains a subtle kind of poison, one that she'll consume willingly. Love. All of these prove to her that Bellatrix Lestrange loved her daughter; that she meant more than what she was intended for. There's more to her than being the Augurey, and she was loved for more than being an omen.
And only now does she realize that her Mother never doubted the Dark Lord. She never went against his will; these memories are not some safeguard should it all go awry. These memories are her Mother's way of ensuring that she knows the wizard and the witch that her parents were once, that she would get to know them beyond the ruler and his best lieutenant. They show Delphini a new side of her mother, one her father would certainly disapprove of, but also a new dimension to her father.
There was no love in her Father's eyes that night in the Chamber, but there was something akin to it in his letter. This box seems to hold a piece of the truth, by virtue of holding a piece of him without ever having chained a piece of his soul.
X
Delphini looks faint when she joins them for dinner. Lucius has warned her not to pry, for fear that it might drive their precious girl away, but Narcissa can't help but ask. They haven't made any more questions about what happened at Andromeda's, so this they must learn about. The last thing she wants is for her little bird to be hurt by whatever plans her parents may have made for her.
"Where you right about the vials, little bird? You look exhausted."
"They do contain Mother's memories, but there are so many of them. I only made it through three vials, it's just so draining," she answers, blowing a strand of curls off her face.
"Using a Pensieve to look through another's memories is a lot like using Legilimency to do it, Delphini, you should be careful with it."
"But there's so much to see, still. And I leave for Hogwarts in less than a week-"
"And unless you intend to spend your last days before the new term bedridden and being fed replenishing potions and the like, you would do well to pace yourself" Lucius' tone is stern, but not uncaring. "They are memories, sweet star of darkness, things that have already passed and that cannot be altered; there is no point to being on a rush. The Pensieve is yours to use whenever you need it, you know that." He smiles that smug little smile of his, and Delphini replies with her best smirk, so Narcissa supposes that the matter is closed for the night.
She is wrong. Delphini is eager to ask questions about what she saw, curious about the change in her mother's behaviour, apparently evident to her in the vividness of the memories.
"Your mother was always a passionate creature, to an extreme sometimes. Azkaban made it worse, Delphie," Narcissa explains, as best she can, "and the war made it worse, much worse. She would lose track of time, she would forget things. Her mind had to be sharp for battle, but not for everyday living. It was too much for her to keep up with, at least until you came along."
"My mother did better after I was born?"
"No, it started when she was pregnant with you. About halfway through, everyone in the Inner Circle noticed. You seemed to anchor her mind in reality. It's why you stayed here, with us, until the Battle."
"I wasn't supposed to?"
"Oh no, Euphemia was supposed to take you to Rowle House pretty much the moment you were born," her husband clarifies, chuckling slightly at the thought of Delphini being raised anywhere else. As if Bella would have it. "But your mother was stable enough by the time you were born, so Lord Voldemort decided you could stay for a few days."
"A few days? Was I ever taken from here?"
"You were taken away once," Narcissa tells her, "when you were very little, only a couple of weeks old, Lord Voldemort determined that Madam Rowle should take you from then on and raise you."
"Why?" Delphini seems truly confused by the notion. She understands having Euphemia Rowle as a back-up plan, but not as the original intention for her rearing.
None of Mother's memories showed her this, Narcissa is sure. She will explain it to her someday, but for now she does not need to know.
"I think the Dark Lord was jealous of you. Of how much more attention your Mother gave you… of how she was free to display care and tenderness with you, in a way he, himself, had prohibited her from acting around him. Anyway, it backfired stupendously, because no one had ever seen Bell that unhinged, ever. She had terrible mood swings, we had seen those, but that day was something else. There was a mission intended for her, and she went about it in the most destructive, cruel way she could think of, and that's saying something, but she came back and went to sleep at night, and she seemed fine."
"She didn't try to keep me?" Delphini asks, nearly managing to keep the hurt from her voice.
"She knew she wouldn't be allowed to raise you. I think she recognised she wasn't fit to do it. That night, I found her sleepwalking in the nursery, mumbling about her lost treasure. She ran outside when I tried to take her back to bed, and all but destroyed the gardens in the fight that followed. She killed a couple of wizards that night, and she left at least half a dozen out of action for months with some well-placed curses. She was unstoppable, no one could reach her through the anger in her mind, no one would even dare go near her. She kept trying to Apparate to Rowle House, but the wards on the Manor had been extended and fortified by the Dark Lord. He was the one to stop her in the end, but she never apologised, never showed any regret. She had reached her breaking point, and they both knew it. You came back the next morning."
"And you never let me leave again," Delphini says, with a happy little smile.
"I saw my family being taken away from me for far too long without doing anything to stop it. The moment the Battle was over, I swore I wouldn't let them take anyone else without a fight."
"About my mother, though, I have something else to ask you."
"Anything, little bird."
"Where is Mother? I mean, where is she buried? Teddy said something the other day, it made me wonder…"
Her husband places his hand over hers, squeezing it a little, assuring her that he'll take matters from here on.
"She's at Hogwarts."
Author's Notes: Knowing that I'm in no position to make demands after so long, I gently ask that you leave me your thoughts on this chapter. I will get back to you.