Then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day.

- Plato

*

We buried her beneath the trees, where she would always be covered with shadow and pale yellow flowers. Bellatrix chose the spot. She refused to look at the child, refused to answer its screams until she had said goodbye to her sister. We stood over the hole for several minutes before we lowered Narcissa in, looking into the darkness while the darkness looked into us. I wondered what it saw. I had changed considerably since this morning, both in body and in mind. Bellatrix, wrapped in waxy grief, had not noticed. She had paid as little attention to me as she had to the baby.

The April evening air bit at our fingers and breathed coldly through our robes. Dark blue clouds bruised the sodden sky. I could hardly see Narcissa's body through the gloom, it was so translucent and ghostly at the bottom of the hole. Solemnly, unflinchingly, Bellatrix threw a handful of earth into the open mouth of the hole. Then another. I watched as her sister slowly disappeared. First the pallid, angular face, then the slim shoulders and long white arms, the spindly legs. Once the first layer of earth had covered her, had blotted out any remaining colour, her toes still pointed upwards through their deathly covering and strands of fine, ice blond hair snaked out and wavered in the breeze. I looked swiftly at Bella, wondering if this was to be the first time I would see her cry. Her eyes, luminescent as each pupil mirrored the rising moon, remained dry, though deep lines of pain cleaved her face. I knew she had to do this now. Had had to bury Narcissa as quickly as possible, if she were ever going to start her journey down the path to a new future. Though it broke her heart to throw mud into her dead sister's face, though every time she covered a little more of her body from view her arm resisted with increased vigour, she still continued. Even through the grief of her sister's departure, Bellatrix was looking after her own best interests. It was easier to let go now while the pain was still fresh then to let herself stagnate, wallow in the past, refuse to believe her sister was gone for weeks on end. Subjecting herself to the rawest of cruelties now would save her from creating them later.

I watched her pat the last of the earth on top of the grave with palms that, although healed, must have still stung. I watched her through new, appreciative eyes. Every movement she made had some sort of purpose, every decision she reached sparkled as if it had been cut cleanly from reams of disorder with a sharp razor of truth. Not just her truth, but an ultimate truth that only few could envision. She made believing in it seem so easy. I was a testimony to how hard it really was. Having to accept that my whole outlook on the world was wrong, that I had never realised the existence of something with such vital importance, was unbearable. I wished Bellatrix had never discovered the truth. If I had not allowed myself a few minutes' superfluous exploitation of power, she never would have. I realised that at this very minute, we could still be enjoying the old type of life, cocooned away in our own delirious, desirable world. I was to blame for where we were today.

The child's splitting wail erupted from inside the house, carried through the dark air to spoil the graveside reverie. A rude interruption from the future, like the last call of a near-departing train. Go now or stay here forever. Her eyes, for the first time, focused on mine.

"We won't be coming back" she said quietly, her voice blending in with the surrounding gloom.

She turned away from me and walked back in the direction of the house. With the weary, hateful acknowledgment of one who loves, I followed her.

I watch him. He does not return my glare. Of course he doesn't, that is not something this new, half-person would do. I think of all the different Voldemorts I have known and admired. The proud young stranger in the kitchen of Grimmauld place (though he wasn't a stranger, not really, not ever). The master in his chair, face under-lit by flames and shadows for eye sockets. The resurrected God, power made flesh. I think of these and smile at the memory, smile at former feelings that, however disagreeable now, still carry a vestige of beauty, like the whisper of a dream between sleeping and rising. Now I look upon what all these creations have amounted to, and whatever heart I have seems to sink. His figure was fixed, in my mind at least. For as long as I was alive, so would he be, an unchanging monument to hate. What place does he hold now? What place is there for a creature who has lost his self?

"It's a girl" Bellatrix says dully, plucking one swollen, blue webbed breast from her robe and feeding it into the baby's mouth. "You always said it was going to be a boy."

I watch her in mild interest for a moment before I reply.

"I assumed it would be a boy. I expected an heir, and believed the sheer power of my will would make it so. Do you remember when Wormtail showed us the photograph of it? I was so sure of its gender I did not ask him to check."

We ponder this in silence. She sits cradling the baby at one end of my bed, I sit watching her from the other. The air between us seems leaden, impenetrable. The thought of moving through the gap and actually touching her seems impossible. I wonder, tentatively, shamefully, testing untrodden ground in my shifting mind, whether I want to touch her. Isn't that what being in love is about? I do not feel in love at all. More like an unwilling acceptance that this woman will always be on my mind, wherever she is, whatever she is doing. I could live without ever laying a finger on her again as long as I knew that she was still with me.

She's looking at the child with a strange, soft gleam in her eye. Narcissa was right. Love is possession, among other things.

"I'm going to call her Mirach. She has her own star, just like Sirius and I."

I don't reply. It is hard to look at this child, now it has a name. A name makes it harder to confront my supposed responsibility. Bellatrix seems to know this. She looks at me from beneath lowered eyelashes for several minutes, as if assessing the risks, before softly unhooking the baby from her breast and holding it out towards me.

"There's something about you that's changed" she says. "Somehow, I feel I can trust you to hold her without killing her".

I regard the small, black haired, pink skinned child proffered to me. It squirms like a fish on a line. It screws its face up and begins to scream. I do nothing. Sighing, Bellatrix retracts the child and begins to feed it again.

"I trust you won't be killing her, Bellatrix. I never imagined you as a mother. I'm sure you didn't either. I'm sure you thought about killing her a thousand times, before now."

"I did. I will always hate you for what you did to me, but I cannot hate Mirach. I can only love her. It isn't her fault how she came into this world."

I pause, suddenly frightened. How she came in to this world. I hope Bellatrix doesn't remember - she was unconscious, but I still feel nervous. I hope she doesn't remember what I did, to save them both. Even I don't want to remember that. The memory makes me physically sick with pain. I spent hours recovering afterwards, while Bellatrix slept on the painkilling potion. Even now, I feel a dull aching all over, especially when in close proximity with either Bella or the baby.

"Are you going to explain your new appearance?" she asks me, still looking down at the child, a little smile playing on her lips. "Or how I survived at all?"

She doesn't remember. I am elated. I try to look into her mind, just to check, but come up against a blank wall. She's giving nothing away. The truth has made her mind her own.

"You had lost a lot of your own soul. Souls can rebuild themselves if there is anything left as foundations, but it takes a long time and you were nearly dead. Narcissa performed some spells that would speed up the process and revive you. I got in the way of one of them."

She considers this as a teacher considers a transparent excuse for forgotten homework.

"You should have killed me. That's what you brought me there for. But you didn't kill me at all, you let me be saved, have the baby, even…"

She was about to mention burying Narcissa, but finds it too painful. Her sister is only an hour in her grave. She composes herself and continues.

"And now we're sitting here together with our baby, and we're having a conversation, and you still havn't killed me, even though you know I couldn't stop you if you tried. Why?" She looks at me intently, penetratingly.

I can think of no answer to give her.

He's changed. It is like he's been replaced with a watered down version of himself. Where he once resonated power, he is left with weak will. Where he once exuded cold calculation, mathematical blood-tinted vision; he now sees in dreams and wavering suggestions. Most people progress, are re-written, when they experience a change. I am proof of that. Voldemort, however, is steadily fading away into nothing. The absence of tyranny does not reveal any underlying character. Instead, it reveals thin air. This was all he had, all he was, and now it is slipping away.

I brought this about. I was the key. The answer to how I was the key is waiting, somewhere between those precious, unconscious minutes I lay almost dead. This space of time still exists inside me. I can still answer the question, unlock the secret. It is simply a test of how determined I am to know it. At this moment, all I am concerned about is Mirach.

Mirach. Another Black with another star to guide her. I hold her deep in my arms, and wonder what to do, how to feel. Of course, I already know. Love her. It scares me, to think that this is it, the rest of my life. Loving another, dedicating it all to her. I have never doubted I could do it - I never doubt anything of myself. What worries me is whether I want to do it. I want to want to do it, but when I search and try to grasp something solid that tells me I am a mother and I love her and I care for her, I draw a blank. It is all very well, preaching about love and how we all can possess it - I know I have the capacity, but can a woman such as me ever have the ability? Loving is a talent. You can either master it or you cannot. I am beginning to wonder whether my particular talents may lie elsewhere. Saying the words, feeling those same old mundane, muggle bonds between parent and child, they do not rise the thrill in me as a killing would. I always thought loving another would be explosive, technicolour, sparkling with emotion. Yet, I hold Mirach in my arms and I feel…comfortable. Serene. Content. My life has always been one long scramble, a race to avoid being killed, ecstasy after ecstasy in bloodshed and in bed. I cannot conceive of a life any different. A life where the pace is easy, and there are boring days when I wish I had never learned the truth, and Mirach is screaming because she did something as normal as scrape her knee.

Then I look at Voldemort, and know these days are not upon me quite yet. Not when he is around. I cannot truly continue towards my future, whatever it may be, with my past still unfinished business.