September 22, 1968

Bellatrix awoke with a roaring headache, and reached for the small vial of Invigoration Draught she kept hidden in a chest of drawers by the bed. She had drunk most of Evan's firewhiskey after Andromeda left the party. It was already after 12 o'clock, which meant she had less than eight hours to get ready to meet Professor Riddle in Hogsmeade. Both Acantha and Lucy were out, so perhaps they awoke in time to have breakfast in the Great Hall and were now enjoying the sunny autumn weather.

As the potion began to work its magic, she decided to make a start on reading the stack of books next to her bed. The Halloween plot was still in its early planning stage, but her other goal in reading was simply to be able to make intelligent conversation tonight. Bellatrix was exceptionally well-read, but she knew that her knowledge of the Dark Arts was pitiful in comparison to Professor Riddle's.

His copy of the classic Dark tome, Magick Moste Evile, was bound in what felt like green velvet to the touch, but was almost certainly something more sinister. Burying her doubts about the cover, she scanned the Table of Contents, searching for anything that struck her as interesting. A chapter called 'Partial Death and Other States of Prolonged Suffering" looked promising. It contained curses far more gruesome than any she had come across in her standard textbooks. One curse would make the sufferer believe themselves to be possessed by demons, and cause a slow but unstoppable descent into madness.

After reading in bed for most of the afternoon, Bellatrix took a shower and changed into a casual skirt, v-neck cardigan with jewelled buttons and black robes. She finished her look with a delicate opal necklace and matching earrings that had been part of her present from Narcissa. The Three Broomsticks was a cozy and rustic pub, so she didn't want wear anything that might make her look like she had just come from a London nightclub. She lined her eyes in thick kohl but chose a soft cranberry lipstick, toned done from her usual bold red.

Bellatrix wondered what Professor Riddle's intentions were in asking her to have a drink with him. She knew it would be presumptive to assume that just because they had kissed, among other things, that this was his acknowledgement that there was anything between them. Lord Voldemort did not have reciprocal relationships with other people; he was known to use people to achieve his goals and discard them the moment they were no longer useful. If he wanted to spend any time with her at all, she knew she must consider it a great honour, be thankful for the smallest sliver of his attention.

The argument with Andromeda last night came flooding back to her memory. Bellatrix wondered if maybe her obsession did qualify as "twisted." She had been a fiery, domineering child known for severing the heads of Narcissa's dolls and smashing Regulus' and Sirius' toy broomsticks if they angered her. Her father had frequently used corporal punishment in these situations to attempt to force Bellatrix to act more like a dainty girl, but it had only backfired and made her more rebellious. Then once she started school, her parents tried to scare her into behaving by sending howlers that would explode when opened in the Great Hall, humiliating her in front of her peers. These were often for offences such as firing bat-bogey hexes at boys who taunted her for her wild, curly hair, for which she would be dragged into Dippet's office. Bellatrix felt more empowered by asserting herself and gradually gained a reputation that she was not someone to be messed with. What, then, had gotten into her lately to make her behave so submissively? What strange, mysterious force was it that could reduce her to a doe-eyed, love-struck girl when she saw Professor Riddle?

She desperately wished she had someone she could confide in about the confusion she felt. Acantha's parents were not Death Eaters, and Lucy, although she was a Greengrass (one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pureblood families) and thus likely to be sympathetic to Voldemort's goals, could be rather ditzy at times. Neither one could be entrusted with such an important secret. They obviously knew she fancied Professor Riddle, but Lord Voldemort's identity was shrouded under a thick veil of secrecy. Part of generating fear of his movement among the broader public relied upon his alias being kept ironclad. Bellatrix was sure that Death Eaters made an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal that Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort.

The afternoon dragged into the evening, and finally Bellatrix went to get a bowl of carrot and ginger soup in the Great Hall. She nodded along in conversation and made pleasantries with her fellow Slytherins. When the time came for her to leave, she told Acantha and Lucy that she was going to visit a great-aunt who was currently renting a house in Hogsmeade Village.

"My mum sent me an owl last night, insisting that I had a duty to visit my great-aunt Rosier since she's very frail and has taken a sudden turn for the worse. She might not be with us much longer."

"I had wondered what that sound was." Acantha briefly woke up during the confusion when the owl almost flew into the window.

"Yeah, my mum only uses the nosiest owls. I think she does it just to get on my nerves."

Both of her companions nodded.

"I'm not sure when I'll be back. I'll see both of you sometime tomorrow."

"See you then."

"Bye, Bella."

If Acantha and Lucy had any doubts about her story, they certainly had not thought about voicing them.

The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade

8:45 p.m.

Bellatrix wandered around the vicinity of The Three Broomsticks, nervously re-applying her lipstick in a small pocket mirror that she carried in a velvet pouch tucked inside her traveling cloak. She looked good; a passerby might assume that she was in her mid-twenties and not a seventeen-year old finishing her last year at Hogwarts.

A few more minutes passed, and she figured it was probably fine to go inside the pub and wait for him to make mental contact with her. When he had read her mind previously, she had been unaware he was doing so—most Legilimens were not as powerful as he was, she knew—and the spell would ordinarily be more invasive.

Suddenly, she felt something poking at the back of her brain. It wasn't too painful, but it was a concentrated, precise sensation. Her attention immediately fell upon a cloaked figure sitting in the corner of the pub who had dark auburn hair and glasses wearing well-draped burgundy dress robes. He was tall and slender, and looked anywhere from his mid-thirties to late-forties. He sipped a glass of firewhiskey while running his hands through his hair absentmindedly, as if lost in thought. Bellatrix had observed this very same habit from Professor Riddle in class, when he would run his hands through his wavy black hair.

"Good evening, Bella. Have a seat."

The man gave a friendly half-smile and gestured for her to pull up a chair next to him. Bellatrix immediately complied.

"Thank you for inviting me to come out tonight, Professor. I must say I was a bit surprised as I'm sure you had other more important business."

"Well, it isn't every day that one's brightest pupil turns seventeen. What can I get you to drink, Bella?

"Firewhiskey. Neat."

Her choice seemed to surprise him, but he signaled to the barmaid, an older witch, to bring him another tumbler of the strong liquor.

"And tonight, you must call me Tom. It's a horribly common name, but the present situation calls for it."

"Okay, Tom." Bellatrix felt awkward using his birth name, but some part of her also found it slightly amusing that she was permitted this degree of familiarity with the man who styled himself as Lord Voldemort.

Professor Riddle put the sickles and knuts on the table to pay for Bellatrix's drink, and the older witch scooped them up almost immediately before retreating behind the bar.

"You look more grown up tonight, Bella."

"I feel more grown up, Tom."

"I wonder, how much does that have to do with my own influence?"

"Perhaps more than a little."

"I've thought often in the last couple days about how…very eager you were to please me. As I said then, I've rarely encountered such profound Darkness in a witch. Perhaps I've made a considerable error by not recruiting women to serve in the ranks of my confidantes."

He sipped his drink, as if considering his next words carefully, "You will be serving me in multiple capacities going forward, will you not?"

"Yes sir, it is an honour beyond my wildest dreams to serve you, my L— I mean Tom." Bellatrix almost slipped up, overcome by a peculiar, deep sense of her destiny as bound up with his.

He lowered his voice and drew himself closer to Bellatrix, so that his eyes seemed to penetrate her mind, "You were all too pleased to follow my orders then, but I don't think I will be content to only have you serve me as my whore. That isn't all that you want either, is it, my Bella?"

"No, Tom. I want to fight for you and destroy your enemies, limb from limb. I won't rest until every single witch and wizard in the world is brought to their knees before you." She felt the flesh on her skin prickle as if something had suddenly shifted in the atmosphere inside the pub, but as she scanned the room, there were no visible changes to their surroundings. The barmaid was still making small-talk with a grubby wizened old man seated at the front, and a couple rowdy villagers at a table across from them slammed their butterbeer steins down as they discussed the latest Quidditch cheating scandal. No one was particularly interested in them.

"I can always count on you to give excellent answers to my questions," he chuckled, "So, tell me, will you be attending this Halloween Ball with one of your many admirers? I see one particular name jumping out from your mind—ah, Lestrange's son—he has asked you, and is someone whose company you enjoy."

"Rodolphus Lestrange is a boy. Not a real man like you, Tom. You are the most handsome man I've ever seen, and I believe I will always think it so." His disguise did little to displace her strong feelings.

"But you will eventually be expected to marry to fulfill your role in pureblood society, is that so?"

"I have no desire to marry, and will reject any betrothal my parents arrange. They can't legally force me. I want to be more than just a wife and mother. And babies disgust me; I grew up having to help out with my younger sisters, and it turned me off of ever wanting to have my own."

"I suppose then I should tell you a story that might be pertinent to you. I once met a Seer on the Continent. Her name was Madame Elizaveta Berisha and she lived high in the mountains of Northern Albania. She made me a prophecy on my thirty-third birthday. Do you want to hear how it went?"

Bellatrix nodded.

He whispered, "The one who styles himself as the Dark Lord will ascend to power only after the daughter of his servant, whose name reveals her true nature as clearly as it reveals her nobility, would pledge her soul and kill for him."

Bellatrix was dumbfounded; she didn't know how to respond to such a statement.

Professor Riddle continued, "This Seer had a reputation of accurately predicting the outcomes of wars, famines, and plagues. She was probably well over one hundred and fifty years of age. I came across many charlatans in my travels, but she did not strike me as one. As you may know, Avery, Malfoy, Lestrange and Nott only have sons. Mulciber had a little girl who died in infancy. What do you make of it?"

"I don't know what to make of it, Tom. But I should like to hear more stories of your travels. Only what you are able to share with me, of course." Bellatrix gave him a nervous smile.

"I've pushed the boundaries of magic further than they have ever been pushed. The things that I've done would make weak, small-minded wizards like Dumbledore shudder. Much of the magic I practiced is not recorded in books. There are rituals, Bellatrix, that only exist as part of inherited memory and oral tradition, persisting in isolated regions. These are some of the most ancient and dangerous forms of magic. I once met a witch who was suffering from an 800-year-old blood curse that afflicted each of her maternal ancestors; she is foredoomed to wander the earth as a beast unable to transform back into human form."

"A maledictus? I didn't know there were any verified cases."

"Well, they lose their capacity for human language, and thus they are considered a topic of folklore. But they are very real. I was able to talk to one in her bestial form. She was a serpent, and I am a Parseltongue, you see.

"What? But I thought that ability died out with the Gaunt family?"

"Not quite."

"I've looked through all the records of magical families in Britain, and never came across the name Riddle. My father suggested that could only mean one thing. I told him that a wizard as powerful as yourself could only have the purest blood running through his veins. I beg forgiveness for my father, but I have—"

"Cygnus is too much of a coward to raise these concerns to my face. I do not take offence to your curiosity, Bellatrix. You're interested in history just like I am; as I said, some of the most powerful magic is passed through the blood. But, if your aim is to serve me faithfully, and you do not wish for the last thing that you see in this life to be a flash of green light, you will put those concerns out of your mind now and never speak of them again."

"I am so sorry my L- I mean, Tom. I am your humble servant. I beseech your forgiveness for my insubordination."

"Do not grovel, Bellatrix. It's unbecoming. And you have the potential to become more to me than just a humble servant. How would you feel about finishing your drink and coming back home with me?"

"You mean back to the castle?"

"No, of course not. I have a modest home that one of my followers acquired for me. It's where I spend part of summer and holidays when I'm not in London. You can apparate there with me by Side-Along."

"I would like that very much."

"Well, follow me then."

Inverlochy, Scottish Highlands

10:00 p.m

Bellatrix felt like her body was being stretched in infinite directions in time and space until everything stood still and she could feel the damp earth beneath her feet. She looked around and could see Professor Riddle had removed his facial transfiguration.

"Where are we?"

"We're only about 30 miles away from Hogwarts. You shouldn't feel the illness that comes with apparating longer distances."

"Oh, okay. I told my friends I was visiting with my dying great-aunt. Hopefully they buy that story."

"You can always obliviate them if they don't."

Bellatrix grinned at his suggestion of memory tampering. While not Dark magic exactly, those whose memories had been improperly tampered with often had lifelong mental issues.

"Here we are."

Professor Riddle beckoned for Bellatrix to follow him over the threshold into the dimly-lit stone house which was larger than a typical cottage, but not so grand as a manor. The furnishings left something to be desired to a girl who was accustomed to opulence, although Bellatrix would never say this. The entranceway led to a small sitting room with a walnut coffee table, cozy armchairs and sofas, and shelves overflowing with books and magical artifacts. Simple wooden paneling, old maps and astronomical charts adorned the walls in lieu of paintings, and she also spied a bar cart laden with decanters, wine glasses, and bottles of elf-made wine. It looked quite like the home she expected an intellectual unmarried bachelor to have.

"Further back is the study, and a small dining room. Upstairs is another parlour that can be used for larger gatherings, and two bedrooms. The guest bedroom is not yet outfitted with a bed, I'm afraid. But something tells me that won't be a problem."

"Oh, it does? That's rather bold of you."

"I should think you've been rather bold this evening, Miss Black."

"If I have, it's only because you have corrupted me. I was just a silly girl studying for N.E.W.T.s until you took notice of me" she teased playfully.

"Would you care for wine?"

"Oh yes, I'll have red, please."

Professor Riddle laughed while pouring both of them glasses of red wine. They were seated in the smaller of the two sofas, and Bellatrix longed to be even closer.

"This one is a Bordeaux. 1951 vintage."

"That's the year I was born."

"You're making me feel like an old man."

"Sorry."

"It's alright. Do you want your birthday present from me now or later?"

"Depends what it is."

"Why don't you guess?"

"I'm awful at guesses. Don't torment me, please."

"Close your eyes and hold out your hands."

Bellatrix complied, feeling a combination of excitement and trepidation. She felt a small box plopped into her outstretched palms. When she opened her eyes and removed the lid, she saw a silver-tipped quill that came with a bejewelled ruby and onyx dagger.

"If you screw the writing tip off, you can replace it with the dagger attachment. It has a chamber to fill with poisonous ink. I advise you think carefully about when and how to use it."

"I promise. I love it; it's perfect."

She leaned in and kissed him; he responded by lifting her onto his lap so she could straddle him, and their tongues met in a passionate embrace. Her lips were on fire; she had never known that anything could feel so intense as she rocked her hips against the erection forming in his trousers. A combination of the alcohol in her blood and her pleasure building between her legs made the room spin.

"I need to take your body soon. Wait for me upstairs while I put away the wine glasses."

"That sounds good."

"See you upstairs, my Bella. I want you to be wearing nothing when I get there."

Bellatrix wandered into the upstairs marble bathroom, feeling queasy. Her stomach wretched and she knew she was about to be violently ill. She just made it to the sink, and ran the tap for a long while. After brushing her teeth and getting a glass of water, she slowly made her way back to the master bedroom. He was waiting for her at the foot of the bed.

"Are you okay, Bella? You were in there for a while."

"I was ill. I think I would like to sleep now."

Bellatrix felt scared that Voldemort would punish her, and wondered if she would be allowed to go to sleep, or if he would make her undress anyway. He had already seen her almost naked, so she wasn't uncomfortable about that, but would like to be more in the right mindset so that she would actually enjoy her first time.

"No. You didn't do anything to deserve a punishment. And I'll let you have this nightshirt," he said as he read her thoughts. He pointed his wand at something in the closet. He levitated the garment near them and shrunk it until it was roughly her size. He wordlessly helped her to button it up, and she sank into the black brocade duvet.

"Tom? Can I still call you Tom?"

He looked a little annoyed, but nodded.

"I didn't want to displease you. I'm sorry."

He pulled out the covers and climbed into bed with her, encouraging her to wrap her arms around his chest. He hugged her tightly before replying, "You didn't displease me, my Bella. You're a good girl, my finest pupil, and I shall make my finest Death Eater." He gently kissed her forehead and tucked the sheets around her.

"Try to get some sleep. I think you should cut down on the firewhiskey. You should only drink a glass of wine or two with me. You drank on an almost empty stomach for one thing, and you're just a wisp of a girl."

"I'm sorry I'm a wisp."

"No, I don't mean it as a bad thing. You're very pretty."

"Am I?"

"No more silly questions. You are going to fall asleep now, because I command you to as your Lord."

"Okay, I will try, my Lord."

"Goodnight, Bella."

She was soon blissfully asleep in his bed. Truthfully, he was looking forward to taking her young body, and was more than a little displeased that she had already teased him thoroughly to the point that he was painfully hard. Sighing, he cast a non-verbal spell to deal with the problem and reflected that it had been a long while since anybody had been allowed to be so familiar with him as to call him by his first name and share his bed. He contemplated everything that had already happened between them, and by his own standards, he had crossed several lines he had not intended.

At first, he had only wanted to use Bellatrix Black as a distraction from all the stress that came with spearheading a movement to infiltrate the Ministry and undermine their project of peaceful co-existence with muggles and full integration of muggle-borns into society, whilst simultaneously teaching a full Hogwarts course load. His Death Eaters were not yet as successful as he needed them to be; they had torched a couple Aurors' homes last week, but progress wasn't happening as fast as he hoped. He deserved something to take his mind off his troubles, and Bellatrix was all too willing to provide it.

But then he had purchased her a gift, and expressed sentiments toward her that most people would consider thoughtful, or dare he say, even caring. He could have made her at least get on her knees for him. Maybe he was becoming soft. He'd have to re-establish their hierarchy tomorrow and make her know that she couldn't get away with calling him Tom, or any other haughtiness. She might be a Black, which was as good as royalty in their world, but he was her master and the Dark Lord.

If you're enjoying reading this, please leave a review. This is the first fic I've shared with the world, so that means I am just stumbling around in the dark. I write these two characters the way I picture them in my head. Young Bellatrix looks like Helena Bonham Carter in the early 90s, and Professor Tom Riddle is like if Cillian Murphy in the upcoming Oppenheimer film was mixed with his character Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders. He is not disfigured from Horcrux making (he has only made 3 when this is set.) And his character has the the potential to feel love (I firmly believe the love potion conception does not make him incapable of love; if Merope had lived to raise him, he would have been capable. So other life events in theory could also make him capable).