Shortly after the four wizards and witches convened, Voldemort began to delicately stroke the pad of Bellatrix's thumb with one of his own bony, rather bloodied fingers. He had decided sometime earlier that their relationship was rapidly advancing to the handholding stage and had prepared appropriately. While all the perfumes in Arabia may have notoriously failed for Lady Macbeth, they succeeded in endowing Voldemort's paws with the endearing scent of gardenias. Hermione thought it looked quite painful, having your thumb poked by a claw like that, but Bellatrix didn't seem to mind. Miss Granger glanced down to the notepad in front of her, in which her questions had been scripted in intricate detail. She wondered if they were pointed enough. Meanwhile, Bellatrix wondered whether everyone approved of her nail polish (aubergine.) Voldemort wondered if he could grab Bellatrix by the hand (which he found was looking temptingly white against those aubergine nails) and wrestle her to the ground, where he would ravish her in a mad, lascivious tussle. Severus wondered whether or not this meeting was a good idea.
"So," asked Hermione, "Why do you never attack Hogwarts until late May? Do you just forget?"
"Maybe it has something to do with forgetfulness," suggested Bellatrix. "I mean, we're not really planners. Remember that fable by Aesop about the ant and the grasshopper? The ant spends the summer collecting food for the winter, and the grasshopper spends the summer playing his fiddle and dancing? We're more the grasshopper."
"But the grasshopper dies," Hermione replied with a faint look of horror.
"Maybe in your version," stated Bellatrix, "in my version, the grasshopper lands a record deal and buys a penthouse in Madrid where it never gets too cold. Life must not be very much fun if you live according to the precepts of your version."
Severus and Voldemort both looked bewildered – Severus in response to Bellatrix, and Voldemort as his reasons for delaying an attack Hogwarts were quite different, indeed. "Well," he stated, "if we didn't attack in late May, how would you know we were coming?"
"Pardon?" asked Hermione.
"It wouldn't be proper to do it without warning. This way you're prepared. I mean, if we attacked in the middle of February, certainly, we could kill everyone, but there would be no sporting element to it, Miss Granger. It simply wouldn't be cricket. It would also interrupt your school work horribly."
"So you refrain because you... don't want to interrupt any mid-terms?"
"As a Dark Lord, I like my actions to be seen as magnificent and horrible. I don't want them to be marginalized to such an extent that they're just a nuisance."
"Oh!" cried Bellatrix, snaking her index finger about Voldemort's wrist, "I almost forgot! Elfton. I brought you a syllabus. I'm afraid my friend there isn't too fond of you though – is it true you tried to demolish his childhood home? Apparently he was only able to save a few pictures of me and Auntie. He was awfully blue about it. I think he feels he's failed on some level, poor dear."
"So moving along then," murmured Hermione hurriedly, "if you don't see yourselves as good or evil, how do you see yourselves? Where do you fit in the moral spectrum?"
Bellatrix stared for a moment at the red daisies floating in a pool beside her, before remarking, "I see myself as the kind of woman who can drink a glass of Bordeaux without leaving those disgusting lipstick stains on the side of the glass."
"That's not a slot marked on my moral spectrum." Hermione said. She held up her moral spectrum illustration to demonstrate.
"No, no, it's much more descriptive," exclaimed Bellatrix, "you see, first off, it shows them I'm fastidious. I have a personality that's finicky about things being messy - I like them to be done well, even if it means going out of my way to do them well. It demonstrates that I maintain my femininity - the lipstick - yet I want to be able to be taken as seriously as a male counterpart. Men don't leave lipstick stains, neither do I. It shows that I drink Bordeaux, which is indicative of my good breeding – yet it's not a dainty little drink that I can see Narcissa guzzling. It's not a kir royale, for instance, but it's not firewhisky either. I can picture the grapes going into the Bordeaux being harvested by barefooted bronzed men in the hills of France, and I feel for them, which shows that there is so much of the peasant in me. I am not an indoors aristocrat. I could caper about with them, singing their provincial songs, wild, and grape stained, and free! I could drink rough red wine, and sit with my aging lover on the sun baked rocks at midday, and then I'd go inside our humble hut, and tie on my apron to make pasta, while he goes off to pluck more grapes."
"Uh-huh," replied Hermione, finishing her notes and drawing a small grape and smiling peasant next to Bellatrix's response. "Where do you fit, Professor Snape?"
"I wasn't finished," noted Bellatrix.
"I'm sort of good, Miss Granger. But then, I'm sort of not. Put me halfway down on the moral spectrum."
Hermione marked away dutifully before turning her attention to Lord Voldemort. "It's my turn?" asked Voldemort, "Oh, this is such fun. Well, I'm someone who likes Venice. Staring out on the waters from the balcony is quite an experience. I'd die there, if I were going to die at all, which I'm not. I also like the color aubergine." He paused, and beamed shyly at Bellatrix. "I'm someone who's been known to dance naked in front of a mirror, just to watch the light play on my scales. I'm someone who has an unusual empathy for lizards. I'm someone partial to strawberry ice-cream. I'm someone who used to be very sexually driven, but there are far fewer women interested after... the accident... so I'm a solitary figure. I'm a lot like James Dean, you know. I'm a good figure, but I'm not a saint, yet. I'm a murderer. I'm a demonic overlord. I'm immortal. I'm a mudblood. I'm a genius. I'm a God. And I like peanut brittle, too."
"Would you say that ranks high on the moral spectrum?" asked Hermione, turning to face Severus.
"Put him at exactly the same spot you put me," replied Professor Snape.
Voldemort seemed about to protest when a frantic thumping was heard outside the door.
"Oh, God," said Bellatrix, "Should we apparate? It might be aurors."
The thumping continued at the same monotonous rate.
"I think they would have come in by now," mentioned Voldemort, as he walked towards the door, and peered through the keyhole. Voldemort chuckled and flung open the door to reveal a toddler with wild, frizzy hair and an enormous nose. The child weaved its way towards Hermione, placed its grubby pink hand upon her knee, and pronounced, with deep solemnity, "Moo. Moo, moo, moo." Hermione drew back her notes in horror. The toddler then began her path towards Severus – falling once, but bravely bearing on, and upon reaching him declared, "Duck. Da Duck."
Voldemort nodded politely, and withdrew to the kitchen.
"Oh, no," whispered Bellatrix, as the child sat resolutely at Professor Snape's feet, despite the fact that the Professor had turned upon it with his best sneer, "oh no, that would be too, too horrible."
"What? What would be?" enquired Hermione.
"Well, by 'Moo," stated Bellatrix, "the child clearly means 'ma.' And by 'duck' she means 'da' or 'dad.' She must belong to you."
"That's absurd," said Severus. "For one thing I would absolutely never raise a child to address me as 'dad.' He would call me sir, or, on a particularly affectionate day 'pater.'"
"Oh, if only it were so absurd," breathed Bellatrix, "just look at it. That hair! That nose!"
"It hasn't been a very good month for feeling attractive," sighed Hermione, "my hair really isn't that awful."
"It's clearly your illegitimate offspring sent to this specific destination in a bizarre time turner accident!"
"Illegitimate?" said Snape, "I bred a bastard?"
"Unless you're happily married in the future," suggested Bellatrix blithely.
"You," replied Hermione, pointing at Snape with a trembling finger, "you raped me, didn't you? I'll lock you up for this. I'll see you rot in Azkaban. It was probably a teenage pregnancy wasn't it? How could you Professor? I have aspirations; I have projects, for God's sake. Just right now, for instance, I've been trying to breed lilacs out of dead land. Well, now that's over with, isn't it?"
"I'm shocked that you would consider this my fault," replied Severus, "clearly you tried to trick me into a marriage by impregnating yourself. Or worse, you probably didn't even tell me about the child, did you? You've just been keeping it for yourself to insure that I wouldn't take action with the ministry and obtain sole custody. You wench."
"You want sole custody? Take the illegitimate bastard, I don't want it. It certainly doesn't seem clever enough to be mine. It can't even enunciate 'mama' properly."
"Mama!" replied the possibly illegitimate, time turner carrying child of the future, "mama!"
"See?"replied Severus. "See what you've done?"
"See!" replied the child. "See!"
Voldemort trotted back in, rubbed his hands together briskly and stated brightly "Well, that's all taken care of. Can we carry on with the questions? I thought they were a lot of fun."
"How can you think of that now?" cried Hermione.
"Really," replied Voldemort, "I'm aware that you and Severus may not like children, but there's no reason to be so dramatic about it. It shouldn't change anything you're doing here. Just carry on."
"You're right," murmured Hermione bravely, "we must just carry on, as best we can."
"It's not too late for an abortion!" declared Severus.
"But it's alive now. That's murder," noted Hermione, who seemed to be considering the prospect nonetheless.
It was at that moment that a light rapping emanated once again from the other side of the door. Voldemort opened it, and a frazzled looking woman with a long nose and untamable hair walked though, scooped up the child – who was recently thought to have been a time traveling product of teenage pregnancy - and exclaimed, "Matilda!."
"Moo," replied Matilda, scrambling back towards Severus.
The woman turned and embraced Voldemort, and then stated, in a breathy babble, "I don't know what could have happened! We were playing the farm game in the garden and I turned to fetch something to get rid of the Jarveys and she must have wandered off. I'm so sorry. Thank goodness you managed to find her, Willard!"
"It's my pleasure," noted Voldemort, as Mrs. Mullivan took Matilda – who seemed emotionally attached to Severus's legs by this point, a fact which repulsed Snape considerably – by the hand, and led her from the room, proclaiming she would have no more adventures until she was eleven and a student at Hogwarts, at which point she would have to fight Basilisks on a semi-regular basis.
"Who was that?" Bellatrix asked.
"Mrs. Mullivan. She lives across the street. Matilda's her little girl. I was just in the kitchen contacting her. Didn't you know?"
A languorous hush descended upon the inhabitants of the room. After a few moments, Hermione stated, with a light twinge of guilt, "I'm sorry, Professor. I know you'd never rape me. But be aware that if you did, under any circumstances – whether they be too much firewhiskey or some bizarre quasi-magical dark impulse that you don't often reveal – I would not find it an exciting type of foreplay. I would find it to be a repugnant abuse of power. And I wouldn't decide to settle down with you and start picking out curtains for the nursery. I would throw you into Azkaban really, really fast."
"Quite appropriate, Miss Granger. You needn't worry about the firewhiskey though, I don't drink."
"Ah. Alcoholic father? I understand. My father had a problem with nitrous oxide. He's a dentist, you know."
"That's a terrible pity, but no. My father wasn't a nice man, by any standards, but not every abusive parent is necessarily an alcoholic. I just don't drink; I prefer to be in control."
"I'm sorry," said Hermione, looking intensely uncomfortable.
Voldemort, who had shifted so that he was pressed against Bellatrix on the couch, whispered, "Look, Bella! They're OTP!"
"Pardon me?" replied Bellatrix.
"One True Pairing. I read it in a muggle story. It's a silly phrase. I thought everybody was using it, these days. I'm worried a little, being immortal that I'm going to end up seeming rather behind in the modern world. Then I'll never have a chance with a sophisticated modern witch. I'll have to resign myself to hags like Minerva."
Bellatrix leaned over, blew lightly in his ear slit and whispered "I think you're copasetic. The elephant's eyebrows, even." Outdoor aristocrat Bellatrix might have been, and fashionable though she was, she wasn't the most modern of witches.
Voldemort snuggled closer and whispered in response, "Really? Because I think you're the eel's hips."
"Umm," declared Hermione briskly, tapping her notepad with her quill, "I think we should carry on, now."
Voldemort straightened himself up into a position more becoming of a Dark Lord.
"Now," said Hermione, "Harry received a scar on his forehead from you. Did you receive a similar scar in turn?"
"Maybe you didn't fully grasp what happened in the accident. I died. I had to live a slimy spirit thing in the forest, reassembling myself. I am a scar."
"So do you experience physical pain when you feel yourself in Harry's presence?"
"Why would I?"
"Because Harry does when he feels you advancing. His scar aches."
"I doubt it."
"What?"
"As we established, I'm advancing for the entire year. I don't think there's particularly good evidence that Harry's not just being dramatic. Or that he gets," Voldemort affected astonishment, "prepare yourself for this – the occasional migraine. Just like other people."
"Oh. Really?"
"Toss him some Advil, and see how he reacts. If that doesn't take, he may have a brain tumor."
'Advil' Hermione scrawled into her notebook. "On a more serious note, is it true that you believe muggles to be inferior to wizards?"
"That's not a belief. That's an objective truth. Well, I suppose it could be dependent on what you mean by superior, but if you qualify it by our sheer force over the world surrounding us, I suspect we hold the upper hand. Our beasts are more dangerous, our lives are longer, and our powers allow us to accomplish our daily tasks with such efficiency that we have twice the time left over for arcane intellectual pursuits than any muggle would. Now – that doesn't mean that I hate muggles. I do resent them to a certain extent because maintaining their ignorance of our culture requires a great deal of time and energy. Think of the multitudes in the ministry assigned to act as a liaison with the muggle community. Those people could be using their energies more fruitfully by working with beings who have direct impact upon our culture yet remain largely unwilling to share their knowledge with us, such as centaurs or giants, or merepeople – yet instead, their efforts are spent working to appease a community that we have no desire for any significant interaction with. Now, even with those efforts being taken – and constantly draining the energies of some of the most competent wizards and witches in the ministry, to my mind it's a total inevitability that eventually muggles will be drawn into a wizarding conflict. And when that happens there's no conceivable way they'll be able to defend themselves. Their guns will be rendered useless against invisible enemies, they'll be confronted with poisons no technology could detect and they'll be unable to restrain a wizard within any jail. It's in their best interest, as well as ours, that we cut off all interaction between the two societies."
"Hence the pureblood fixation."
"It's not the actual introduction of muggle-borns into the wizarding world that I mind. It's the simultaneous introduction of their muggle parents into the world. The child I can trust – somewhat – not to tell their schoolmates that they're a wizard. And if they do, at the age of eleven, that would be viewed as an absurd lie. Most adults will allow a child's sanity some leeway until the child reaches thirteen. But when parents get together, and begin discussing this brave new world of ours, and wanting to share the news, well, I hope you can understand why that would unnerve me. If the child were plucked from say, an orphanage, as I was, well, that's not such a worry. People will be less likely to wonder about their whereabouts, and they can reside at Hogwarts during the summer thus becoming entirely a part of the wizarding world. However, when you've got a child shifting back and forth between the two worlds, you're setting yourself up for the clash of the cultures. Their mother will pass the news onto granny, who will tell the other folks in the nursing home, who will tell the nurse, who probably won't believe them – but then, she just might - then she'll go tell her aunt, who also has a child at Hogwarts, and so on and so on. If we continue to accept muggle-borns it seems logically to be only a matter of time before almost all muggles know about us. And when they do, I don't think they'll take it cheerfully. Historically, the muggle reaction towards witchcraft hasn't spoken volumes for their rationality."
"But aren't you concerned about inbreeding?"
"It's a misconception that I want historical purebloods. You really needn't be toujours pur as the Black family is." Bellatrix smiled modestly. "I just say, stop the integration of muggles into our world now. We have more than enough wizards and witches to insure that there will be no inbreeding."
"Do you believe you could do things better than they're being done? If you gained control. And how can you justify the murders?"
"Better never means better for everyone. It means better for some. I have always been aware that there were small minded wizards and witches in my outer circle who would interpret my sentiments to mean that muggles were worthless excuses for potions ingredients. That is regrettable. Likewise, there are some aspects of muggle culture it would be disagreeable to lose entirely – though with the two worlds separated, I can foresee there being more difficulties in obtaining their music, or literature. It is certainly regrettable that some muggle children's potential magical powers will never be trained and thus will lie dormant within them for their lives."
"Poor muggles," sighed Hermione.
"Well, life is very brutal and very bleak. We bear on," replied Voldemort. "That said, yes, I think for the majority things will improve. This isn't just a blind, childlike ambition to take over the world so that I can do anything I like. I genuinely believe that I could rule with greater sense than that idiot Fudge or anyone else who currently holds a place of rank in the ministry. I think Dumbledore could do it as well, he's a great man, and I am afraid of him, I think he could best me, if it ever came to it, but he seems disinclined both to seize power and to seek me out and defeat me. He leaves that to a twelve year old each year. Thus, I am the only person in the world with a plan and the gumption to carry it out. Do you want to hear my plan?" Voldemort's cheeks blushed blue with excitement.
"I'd like to hear your plan!" replied Bellatrix, "I always like hearing your plan."
"I like telling it! Alright, I think we can foster a domestic policy that means we'll be able to use the skills of people who used to work with muggles to work with other wizarding creatures. Vampires, for instance. Centaurs. Merepeople. Giants. Spiders. House elves. Fairies – if they'd stop being so bloody bouncy. The possibilities of what they might teach us would be endless. I also have a special spot in my heart for the dementors."
"I don't," replied Bellatrix.
"I think there must be a better way to feed them. We can – I am sure of it – make them beings who will lead more fruitful lives than they're resigned to at the moment. Along those lines, I wish to eliminate Azkaban. My oft jailed followers have forced me to see it for the unforgivable and unjustifiable institution that it is. As a muggle might say, it falls under the lines of cruel and unusual punishment – though in this case it's far too usual. I want to end the distinction between mudbloods and purebloods – after cutting off muggle integration for one generation that will take care of itself. I want to improve the quality of the teachers at Hogwarts. For God's sakes, it's not as though we have a lot of public wizarding schools to staff, there's very little reason you should put up with incompetents like Binns, who I've already heard makes suggestive comments to the students. I want a renewed reverence for the old ways – I'm a traditionalist at heart and wizards sitting around in blue jeans saddens me."
"What about khaki?" asked Hermione.
"It would make me want to kill myself."
"Oh, dear. And the murders? You feel this is worth killing people for?"
"There are very few bloodless revolutions. Yes, people who fight against our aims and hinder us in our progress have been eliminated on a regular basis. Likewise, my followers have been eliminated by them. I have already noted that there are aspects to all of this that I find regrettable."
"But you bear on."
"Of course I do, Miss Granger."
"How do you manage? What keeps you going? It can't be the mass adulation."
"I should think that the answer to that would be very simple. As I have already explained to my followers, I dream of a day when yellow roses will dot every plain of the wizarding world."
"So," asked Hermione, "Why do you never attack Hogwarts until late May? Do you just forget?"
"Maybe it has something to do with forgetfulness," suggested Bellatrix. "I mean, we're not really planners. Remember that fable by Aesop about the ant and the grasshopper? The ant spends the summer collecting food for the winter, and the grasshopper spends the summer playing his fiddle and dancing? We're more the grasshopper."
"But the grasshopper dies," Hermione replied with a faint look of horror.
"Maybe in your version," stated Bellatrix, "in my version, the grasshopper lands a record deal and buys a penthouse in Madrid where it never gets too cold. Life must not be very much fun if you live according to the precepts of your version."
Severus and Voldemort both looked bewildered – Severus in response to Bellatrix, and Voldemort as his reasons for delaying an attack Hogwarts were quite different, indeed. "Well," he stated, "if we didn't attack in late May, how would you know we were coming?"
"Pardon?" asked Hermione.
"It wouldn't be proper to do it without warning. This way you're prepared. I mean, if we attacked in the middle of February, certainly, we could kill everyone, but there would be no sporting element to it, Miss Granger. It simply wouldn't be cricket. It would also interrupt your school work horribly."
"So you refrain because you... don't want to interrupt any mid-terms?"
"As a Dark Lord, I like my actions to be seen as magnificent and horrible. I don't want them to be marginalized to such an extent that they're just a nuisance."
"Oh!" cried Bellatrix, snaking her index finger about Voldemort's wrist, "I almost forgot! Elfton. I brought you a syllabus. I'm afraid my friend there isn't too fond of you though – is it true you tried to demolish his childhood home? Apparently he was only able to save a few pictures of me and Auntie. He was awfully blue about it. I think he feels he's failed on some level, poor dear."
"So moving along then," murmured Hermione hurriedly, "if you don't see yourselves as good or evil, how do you see yourselves? Where do you fit in the moral spectrum?"
Bellatrix stared for a moment at the red daisies floating in a pool beside her, before remarking, "I see myself as the kind of woman who can drink a glass of Bordeaux without leaving those disgusting lipstick stains on the side of the glass."
"That's not a slot marked on my moral spectrum." Hermione said. She held up her moral spectrum illustration to demonstrate.
"No, no, it's much more descriptive," exclaimed Bellatrix, "you see, first off, it shows them I'm fastidious. I have a personality that's finicky about things being messy - I like them to be done well, even if it means going out of my way to do them well. It demonstrates that I maintain my femininity - the lipstick - yet I want to be able to be taken as seriously as a male counterpart. Men don't leave lipstick stains, neither do I. It shows that I drink Bordeaux, which is indicative of my good breeding – yet it's not a dainty little drink that I can see Narcissa guzzling. It's not a kir royale, for instance, but it's not firewhisky either. I can picture the grapes going into the Bordeaux being harvested by barefooted bronzed men in the hills of France, and I feel for them, which shows that there is so much of the peasant in me. I am not an indoors aristocrat. I could caper about with them, singing their provincial songs, wild, and grape stained, and free! I could drink rough red wine, and sit with my aging lover on the sun baked rocks at midday, and then I'd go inside our humble hut, and tie on my apron to make pasta, while he goes off to pluck more grapes."
"Uh-huh," replied Hermione, finishing her notes and drawing a small grape and smiling peasant next to Bellatrix's response. "Where do you fit, Professor Snape?"
"I wasn't finished," noted Bellatrix.
"I'm sort of good, Miss Granger. But then, I'm sort of not. Put me halfway down on the moral spectrum."
Hermione marked away dutifully before turning her attention to Lord Voldemort. "It's my turn?" asked Voldemort, "Oh, this is such fun. Well, I'm someone who likes Venice. Staring out on the waters from the balcony is quite an experience. I'd die there, if I were going to die at all, which I'm not. I also like the color aubergine." He paused, and beamed shyly at Bellatrix. "I'm someone who's been known to dance naked in front of a mirror, just to watch the light play on my scales. I'm someone who has an unusual empathy for lizards. I'm someone partial to strawberry ice-cream. I'm someone who used to be very sexually driven, but there are far fewer women interested after... the accident... so I'm a solitary figure. I'm a lot like James Dean, you know. I'm a good figure, but I'm not a saint, yet. I'm a murderer. I'm a demonic overlord. I'm immortal. I'm a mudblood. I'm a genius. I'm a God. And I like peanut brittle, too."
"Would you say that ranks high on the moral spectrum?" asked Hermione, turning to face Severus.
"Put him at exactly the same spot you put me," replied Professor Snape.
Voldemort seemed about to protest when a frantic thumping was heard outside the door.
"Oh, God," said Bellatrix, "Should we apparate? It might be aurors."
The thumping continued at the same monotonous rate.
"I think they would have come in by now," mentioned Voldemort, as he walked towards the door, and peered through the keyhole. Voldemort chuckled and flung open the door to reveal a toddler with wild, frizzy hair and an enormous nose. The child weaved its way towards Hermione, placed its grubby pink hand upon her knee, and pronounced, with deep solemnity, "Moo. Moo, moo, moo." Hermione drew back her notes in horror. The toddler then began her path towards Severus – falling once, but bravely bearing on, and upon reaching him declared, "Duck. Da Duck."
Voldemort nodded politely, and withdrew to the kitchen.
"Oh, no," whispered Bellatrix, as the child sat resolutely at Professor Snape's feet, despite the fact that the Professor had turned upon it with his best sneer, "oh no, that would be too, too horrible."
"What? What would be?" enquired Hermione.
"Well, by 'Moo," stated Bellatrix, "the child clearly means 'ma.' And by 'duck' she means 'da' or 'dad.' She must belong to you."
"That's absurd," said Severus. "For one thing I would absolutely never raise a child to address me as 'dad.' He would call me sir, or, on a particularly affectionate day 'pater.'"
"Oh, if only it were so absurd," breathed Bellatrix, "just look at it. That hair! That nose!"
"It hasn't been a very good month for feeling attractive," sighed Hermione, "my hair really isn't that awful."
"It's clearly your illegitimate offspring sent to this specific destination in a bizarre time turner accident!"
"Illegitimate?" said Snape, "I bred a bastard?"
"Unless you're happily married in the future," suggested Bellatrix blithely.
"You," replied Hermione, pointing at Snape with a trembling finger, "you raped me, didn't you? I'll lock you up for this. I'll see you rot in Azkaban. It was probably a teenage pregnancy wasn't it? How could you Professor? I have aspirations; I have projects, for God's sake. Just right now, for instance, I've been trying to breed lilacs out of dead land. Well, now that's over with, isn't it?"
"I'm shocked that you would consider this my fault," replied Severus, "clearly you tried to trick me into a marriage by impregnating yourself. Or worse, you probably didn't even tell me about the child, did you? You've just been keeping it for yourself to insure that I wouldn't take action with the ministry and obtain sole custody. You wench."
"You want sole custody? Take the illegitimate bastard, I don't want it. It certainly doesn't seem clever enough to be mine. It can't even enunciate 'mama' properly."
"Mama!" replied the possibly illegitimate, time turner carrying child of the future, "mama!"
"See?"replied Severus. "See what you've done?"
"See!" replied the child. "See!"
Voldemort trotted back in, rubbed his hands together briskly and stated brightly "Well, that's all taken care of. Can we carry on with the questions? I thought they were a lot of fun."
"How can you think of that now?" cried Hermione.
"Really," replied Voldemort, "I'm aware that you and Severus may not like children, but there's no reason to be so dramatic about it. It shouldn't change anything you're doing here. Just carry on."
"You're right," murmured Hermione bravely, "we must just carry on, as best we can."
"It's not too late for an abortion!" declared Severus.
"But it's alive now. That's murder," noted Hermione, who seemed to be considering the prospect nonetheless.
It was at that moment that a light rapping emanated once again from the other side of the door. Voldemort opened it, and a frazzled looking woman with a long nose and untamable hair walked though, scooped up the child – who was recently thought to have been a time traveling product of teenage pregnancy - and exclaimed, "Matilda!."
"Moo," replied Matilda, scrambling back towards Severus.
The woman turned and embraced Voldemort, and then stated, in a breathy babble, "I don't know what could have happened! We were playing the farm game in the garden and I turned to fetch something to get rid of the Jarveys and she must have wandered off. I'm so sorry. Thank goodness you managed to find her, Willard!"
"It's my pleasure," noted Voldemort, as Mrs. Mullivan took Matilda – who seemed emotionally attached to Severus's legs by this point, a fact which repulsed Snape considerably – by the hand, and led her from the room, proclaiming she would have no more adventures until she was eleven and a student at Hogwarts, at which point she would have to fight Basilisks on a semi-regular basis.
"Who was that?" Bellatrix asked.
"Mrs. Mullivan. She lives across the street. Matilda's her little girl. I was just in the kitchen contacting her. Didn't you know?"
A languorous hush descended upon the inhabitants of the room. After a few moments, Hermione stated, with a light twinge of guilt, "I'm sorry, Professor. I know you'd never rape me. But be aware that if you did, under any circumstances – whether they be too much firewhiskey or some bizarre quasi-magical dark impulse that you don't often reveal – I would not find it an exciting type of foreplay. I would find it to be a repugnant abuse of power. And I wouldn't decide to settle down with you and start picking out curtains for the nursery. I would throw you into Azkaban really, really fast."
"Quite appropriate, Miss Granger. You needn't worry about the firewhiskey though, I don't drink."
"Ah. Alcoholic father? I understand. My father had a problem with nitrous oxide. He's a dentist, you know."
"That's a terrible pity, but no. My father wasn't a nice man, by any standards, but not every abusive parent is necessarily an alcoholic. I just don't drink; I prefer to be in control."
"I'm sorry," said Hermione, looking intensely uncomfortable.
Voldemort, who had shifted so that he was pressed against Bellatrix on the couch, whispered, "Look, Bella! They're OTP!"
"Pardon me?" replied Bellatrix.
"One True Pairing. I read it in a muggle story. It's a silly phrase. I thought everybody was using it, these days. I'm worried a little, being immortal that I'm going to end up seeming rather behind in the modern world. Then I'll never have a chance with a sophisticated modern witch. I'll have to resign myself to hags like Minerva."
Bellatrix leaned over, blew lightly in his ear slit and whispered "I think you're copasetic. The elephant's eyebrows, even." Outdoor aristocrat Bellatrix might have been, and fashionable though she was, she wasn't the most modern of witches.
Voldemort snuggled closer and whispered in response, "Really? Because I think you're the eel's hips."
"Umm," declared Hermione briskly, tapping her notepad with her quill, "I think we should carry on, now."
Voldemort straightened himself up into a position more becoming of a Dark Lord.
"Now," said Hermione, "Harry received a scar on his forehead from you. Did you receive a similar scar in turn?"
"Maybe you didn't fully grasp what happened in the accident. I died. I had to live a slimy spirit thing in the forest, reassembling myself. I am a scar."
"So do you experience physical pain when you feel yourself in Harry's presence?"
"Why would I?"
"Because Harry does when he feels you advancing. His scar aches."
"I doubt it."
"What?"
"As we established, I'm advancing for the entire year. I don't think there's particularly good evidence that Harry's not just being dramatic. Or that he gets," Voldemort affected astonishment, "prepare yourself for this – the occasional migraine. Just like other people."
"Oh. Really?"
"Toss him some Advil, and see how he reacts. If that doesn't take, he may have a brain tumor."
'Advil' Hermione scrawled into her notebook. "On a more serious note, is it true that you believe muggles to be inferior to wizards?"
"That's not a belief. That's an objective truth. Well, I suppose it could be dependent on what you mean by superior, but if you qualify it by our sheer force over the world surrounding us, I suspect we hold the upper hand. Our beasts are more dangerous, our lives are longer, and our powers allow us to accomplish our daily tasks with such efficiency that we have twice the time left over for arcane intellectual pursuits than any muggle would. Now – that doesn't mean that I hate muggles. I do resent them to a certain extent because maintaining their ignorance of our culture requires a great deal of time and energy. Think of the multitudes in the ministry assigned to act as a liaison with the muggle community. Those people could be using their energies more fruitfully by working with beings who have direct impact upon our culture yet remain largely unwilling to share their knowledge with us, such as centaurs or giants, or merepeople – yet instead, their efforts are spent working to appease a community that we have no desire for any significant interaction with. Now, even with those efforts being taken – and constantly draining the energies of some of the most competent wizards and witches in the ministry, to my mind it's a total inevitability that eventually muggles will be drawn into a wizarding conflict. And when that happens there's no conceivable way they'll be able to defend themselves. Their guns will be rendered useless against invisible enemies, they'll be confronted with poisons no technology could detect and they'll be unable to restrain a wizard within any jail. It's in their best interest, as well as ours, that we cut off all interaction between the two societies."
"Hence the pureblood fixation."
"It's not the actual introduction of muggle-borns into the wizarding world that I mind. It's the simultaneous introduction of their muggle parents into the world. The child I can trust – somewhat – not to tell their schoolmates that they're a wizard. And if they do, at the age of eleven, that would be viewed as an absurd lie. Most adults will allow a child's sanity some leeway until the child reaches thirteen. But when parents get together, and begin discussing this brave new world of ours, and wanting to share the news, well, I hope you can understand why that would unnerve me. If the child were plucked from say, an orphanage, as I was, well, that's not such a worry. People will be less likely to wonder about their whereabouts, and they can reside at Hogwarts during the summer thus becoming entirely a part of the wizarding world. However, when you've got a child shifting back and forth between the two worlds, you're setting yourself up for the clash of the cultures. Their mother will pass the news onto granny, who will tell the other folks in the nursing home, who will tell the nurse, who probably won't believe them – but then, she just might - then she'll go tell her aunt, who also has a child at Hogwarts, and so on and so on. If we continue to accept muggle-borns it seems logically to be only a matter of time before almost all muggles know about us. And when they do, I don't think they'll take it cheerfully. Historically, the muggle reaction towards witchcraft hasn't spoken volumes for their rationality."
"But aren't you concerned about inbreeding?"
"It's a misconception that I want historical purebloods. You really needn't be toujours pur as the Black family is." Bellatrix smiled modestly. "I just say, stop the integration of muggles into our world now. We have more than enough wizards and witches to insure that there will be no inbreeding."
"Do you believe you could do things better than they're being done? If you gained control. And how can you justify the murders?"
"Better never means better for everyone. It means better for some. I have always been aware that there were small minded wizards and witches in my outer circle who would interpret my sentiments to mean that muggles were worthless excuses for potions ingredients. That is regrettable. Likewise, there are some aspects of muggle culture it would be disagreeable to lose entirely – though with the two worlds separated, I can foresee there being more difficulties in obtaining their music, or literature. It is certainly regrettable that some muggle children's potential magical powers will never be trained and thus will lie dormant within them for their lives."
"Poor muggles," sighed Hermione.
"Well, life is very brutal and very bleak. We bear on," replied Voldemort. "That said, yes, I think for the majority things will improve. This isn't just a blind, childlike ambition to take over the world so that I can do anything I like. I genuinely believe that I could rule with greater sense than that idiot Fudge or anyone else who currently holds a place of rank in the ministry. I think Dumbledore could do it as well, he's a great man, and I am afraid of him, I think he could best me, if it ever came to it, but he seems disinclined both to seize power and to seek me out and defeat me. He leaves that to a twelve year old each year. Thus, I am the only person in the world with a plan and the gumption to carry it out. Do you want to hear my plan?" Voldemort's cheeks blushed blue with excitement.
"I'd like to hear your plan!" replied Bellatrix, "I always like hearing your plan."
"I like telling it! Alright, I think we can foster a domestic policy that means we'll be able to use the skills of people who used to work with muggles to work with other wizarding creatures. Vampires, for instance. Centaurs. Merepeople. Giants. Spiders. House elves. Fairies – if they'd stop being so bloody bouncy. The possibilities of what they might teach us would be endless. I also have a special spot in my heart for the dementors."
"I don't," replied Bellatrix.
"I think there must be a better way to feed them. We can – I am sure of it – make them beings who will lead more fruitful lives than they're resigned to at the moment. Along those lines, I wish to eliminate Azkaban. My oft jailed followers have forced me to see it for the unforgivable and unjustifiable institution that it is. As a muggle might say, it falls under the lines of cruel and unusual punishment – though in this case it's far too usual. I want to end the distinction between mudbloods and purebloods – after cutting off muggle integration for one generation that will take care of itself. I want to improve the quality of the teachers at Hogwarts. For God's sakes, it's not as though we have a lot of public wizarding schools to staff, there's very little reason you should put up with incompetents like Binns, who I've already heard makes suggestive comments to the students. I want a renewed reverence for the old ways – I'm a traditionalist at heart and wizards sitting around in blue jeans saddens me."
"What about khaki?" asked Hermione.
"It would make me want to kill myself."
"Oh, dear. And the murders? You feel this is worth killing people for?"
"There are very few bloodless revolutions. Yes, people who fight against our aims and hinder us in our progress have been eliminated on a regular basis. Likewise, my followers have been eliminated by them. I have already noted that there are aspects to all of this that I find regrettable."
"But you bear on."
"Of course I do, Miss Granger."
"How do you manage? What keeps you going? It can't be the mass adulation."
"I should think that the answer to that would be very simple. As I have already explained to my followers, I dream of a day when yellow roses will dot every plain of the wizarding world."