Chapter 27: Line's End

Luca returned to Romania with his grandparents for the remainder of the week. Come Friday, he said his goodbyes to them after dinner and made it to London in time to meet Blaise in Diagon Alley. Luca ended up running into Potter on the way to Gringotts, so was properly introduced to Sirius Black after merely glimpsing him in Courtroom Ten on Tuesday.

He didn't mind so much being sized up by Sirius, considering Luca did the same in turn. Both their names came with baggage they'd much rather not have. There was a strange comfort in that—an easiness. It didn't hurt that Sirius was funny. Luca ended up jumping when Blaise put a hand between his shoulder blades in greeting.

Luca hadn't paid enough attention to his surroundings in Diagon Alley to know if he was being stared at. With both Lestranges sentenced to death, the man responsible for turning the Potters over to Voldemort in Azkaban for life, and Professor Snape's role as a spy now public knowledge, Luca had hoped he himself might wind up on the back burner. A glance at the Daily Prophet the next morning showed otherwise. Luca rolled his eyes at the picture taken of him chatting with Potter and Sirius. Of course, everything still happening had something to do with Luca. It was his blood and genes that had made these stupid trials necessary in the first place.

Dread to return to Hogwarts came heavy as the weekend ticked away. Luca felt like one of McGonagall's sloths in how he clung to Blaise. Sunday afternoon came too fast. With it, the need to connect through Ramstad Manor up to Hogwarts.

Madam Bones was there with Professor McGonagall. She nodded at Luca in greeting. "All right?"

Luca shrugged. "Other than the Sunday night blues, I guess."

"I wanted a quick word with you about something," Madam Bones said. "If you have the time?"

"Yeah, I mean. . ." Luca shrugged again. He had nothing planned but to mope around the dorm until Sophie and Ginny made it on the train.

"I'll walk you out of the office, then." Madam Bones turned back to McGonagall. "I shouldn't be too long."

"Of course."

Like Ginny and Potter before her, Madam Bones led Luca to the classroom closest to the Headmistress' office. Luca set his levitating trunk down by the door and slipped his hands into his pockets. He wondered if he ought to brace himself, although Madam Bones didn't seem particularly anxious or anything.

"Voldemort has agreed to leave Dagmar's body," Madam Bones opened with.

Luca's stomach flipped, and he blinked. "That's. . .good, right? He's giving up?"

"In so many words." Madam Bones rested her bum on one of the desk edges. "He has three demands. Two are easy enough to accommodate. He wants to talk to Bellatrix, and he'll sit his own trial at the end of the month. The third demand was he also wants to talk to you."

Luca's stomach flopped again, dropping. It left him vaguely nauseous.

"Why?" Luca asked. "Since when is he actually interested in me? All I ever was to him was a body."

"He's securing his legacy, is my theory," Madam Bones replied. "You're more than just his flesh and blood. You're him. He wants to know what he's leaving behind. It's why he wants a meeting with his favourite follower—and why he wants a trial. He wants to know what the Ministry is acknowledging he did, and to correct the record—maybe add to it—where he can."

The room felt a little too warm to Luca. He swallowed. "And then he's leaving?"

"Presumably, so long as his demands are met." Madam Bones paused. "I already told him that should he leave Dagmar, any Death Eaters the Wizengamot sentences to death will be commuted to life instead. He was quite upset about Bellatrix. He's still upset, although it's hard to say if it's because of the Lestranges or because he's essentially scheduled his death."

"Mm."

"Certainly no one would blame you if you didn't want to talk to him, Luca." Madam Bones' tone softened. "Compared to something like Bellatrix possibly being executed, I'm sure it's small potatoes to him. I haven't set things up with Bellatrix yet, and I could always cancel the trial if Voldemort starts trying to play power games again."

Luca chewed on his bottom lip. "I'll think about it. I won't lie, I'm a little curious what he might want to say. Even if it's bad, I'd do it for Dagmar."

"He'd hoped you would say that." Madam Bones quirked an eyebrow. "Send me an owl, either way. If you decide to, we'll set things up."

"All right."

She left Luca with his thoughts. Not entirely sure what to do with himself now but carry on with his intended afternoon, Luca levitated his trunk anew and headed down the castle.

He'd decided by the time he reached the dungeons that he would write Blaise about it. Words waited for him when he opened his messenger: We never did anything with the locket.

"Fuck," Luca said under his breath. He wrote back, I guess we got distracted. Oops

Luca had debated testing the limits of the locket's magic over the holiday. Blaise had volunteered to try opening it by imitating the Parseltongue sounds for open, but he'd yet to manage it the few times Luca coached him. They'd also thought about asking Dagmar or Potter, as fellow Parselmouths, if either of them could see Salazar inside once they got it open. Then Easter happened, and—well. Luca forgot all about it.

That thought must have occurred to Blaise before he ran for dinner in Diagon Alley. Luca sighed after about ten minutes of checking for a reply to his second message about what Madam Bones had dropped on him.

There was someone else Luca could ask for advice, if he was desperate enough. . .

Luca nibbled on his bottom lip. His anxiety about possibly meeting with Voldemort far exceeded his tentativeness to talk to Salazar. Nothing had happened when Luca accidentally opened the locket before. What exactly did Luca expect? That Salazar would hurt his last blood relative? That he might possess him? But if Salazar had the capability for that, then why did he never do it to Voldemort?

Almost as if by their own volition, Luca's feet carried him to his trunk. He'd buried the locket down in the corner, wrapped in a tea cozy. His heart pounded as he returned to his laying position on the bed. He only hoped his dormmates wouldn't return in time to hear him speaking Parselmouth aloud to a voice that only existed inside his head. There was still plenty of time until the Express pulled in.

Luca stared hard at the emerald snake on the locket's front. "Open."

Even though he expected it, Luca still froze in apprehension when the same eyes as before gazed back at him. He waited for something to happen—his vision to blur, or to black out. The grey eyes darted back and forth as they in kind studied Luca. Since nothing changed, Luca exhaled the breath he'd been holding. As his breathing returned to normal, so did his heart rate.

"You're not Voldemort, are you?" the voice asked, sounding again as though Salazar spoke directly into Luca's brain. "I don't think he would have reacted as you did. You're younger, now I have time to properly look."

"Yeah." Luca unstuck his tongue. "I mean—no. I'm not Voldemort."

"You're his son, then. He told me he'd met a druid, and how all of that would work. Considering you're—how old? Eighteen?—it's been a while since he and I last spoke."

"I'm seventeen," Luca said. "You haven't spoken to him since before I was born?"

"No. Has he passed? I wondered if he would get in over his head." Salazar chuckled mirthlessly, eyes rolling ever so slightly before his gaze returned. "What's your name?"

"Luca."

"Luca," Salazar repeated it to himself, as if trying it out on his tongue. "Bringer of light."

Shifting, Luca nodded. "My mum that named me said it was what I did to her life. Corny, but you know what mums can be like. Well, maybe you don't."

"I remember." Salazar's eyes narrowed in a thoughtful way. "'Your mum that named you' is a strange way to refer to your mother."

"I was adopted. I don't mean my birth mum. She named me something else first."

"What happened? You didn't answer my question as to whether or not Voldemort is dead."

"Not yet, but shortly, I think. That's weird you haven't been able to talk to him. He had the locket when he was arrested. That's how I ended up with it." Luca paused. "Voldemort disappeared for a while. When he came back, he wasn't in his own body anymore. Is there something about this locket that you have to have Slytherin blood to open it? To talk to you?"

"Not to open it, but to talk to me, yes," Salazar confirmed.

"I guess he hasn't had his own blood for a while, then."

"The plan he made with your birth mother must have worked in some part," Salazar said. "You're here, after all."

"Like I said, he disappeared. There was a major spell cock-up when he tried to kill a baby. It happened before I was born. Someone found out who I was to him, kidnapped me, and dropped me off where my mum that adopted me worked. Voldemort found me here at Hogwarts, but he got arrested. He's still possessing my sister. He said he'll leave her body pretty soon. There're a few things he wants first. One of them is to talk to me. That's kind of why I wanted to talk to you."

A glint of humour came up in Salazar's eyes. "Not just for your own sake?"

"Potentially, maybe." Luca shrugged. "The Dark Artefacts office at the Ministry said this locket had no magic that they could trace. I didn't expect to see someone looking back at me when I opened it."

"I don't expect my presence here would count as magic," Salazar said with a thoughtful narrow of one eye. "It's just my soul."

"Your soul is in here?"

"Yes."

Luca furrowed his brow. "Are you a lich?"

"Ah, learned that word, have you?" Salazar lit up. "An incomplete one, unfortunately. Alas, I never did learn how to regenerate from my phylactery. I ran out of time in my own life to sort it out. I figured that if I got myself this far, one of my descendants would eventually finish the job. Considering the way our bloodline has gone through the generations that separate you and I, Voldemort was my best bet in a very long time. He stopped searching for an answer after he met your birth mother. I wasn't surprised. Although certainly the soundest mind I've encountered in a very long time, his sociopathy lended him to selfishness. Meeting a druid—someone he suspected might actually be a god—proved very distracting, especially since she could offer immortality in much simpler fashion than I."

"I guess so."

"You don't seem fazed at mention you may have been borne of a god," Salazar commented. "I take it that's been settled?"

Luca nodded.

"I suspected Demeter, based on what Voldemort told me."

"Er—no. Freja."

"Ah, a Norse god," Salazar replied. "I assumed Greek because they met in the Mediterranean. Plus, your mother's acquaintanceship with the mythic nymph Chelone."

"Hm."

"You said Voldemort will die soon?"

"At the end of this month, maybe." Luca sat up straighter against his bed's headrest. "He wants to talk to me first. I don't really know what to expect."

"I can't say I know him as having a single fatherly bone in his body."

"But you know him, right?" Luca asked. "He must have talked to you. I was told he took this locket off his uncle when he was a bit younger than I am now. That was over fifty years ago."

"How the time flies," Salazar said in a wistful tone. "I suppose I knew him, yes. I knew his ambitions more than anything. Based on those, safe to assume he was quite disappointed by me. With every new face that passes through on the other side of this mirror, I'm reminded of my legacy. Lots has changed in a thousand years. Some hasn't."

"How did you disappoint him?"

"He didn't appreciate my nihilism." Salazar shifted in a way that suggested a shrug. "It's a natural end-point to reach, given enough time."

"What about blood purity?"

"Ah, there it is." Salazar laughed. "My legacy."

Luca let himself smile before returning to seriousness. "You don't believe in it anymore?"

"Oh, I believe it exists." Another laugh. "Well, maybe. Purity is all relative. Do I value it anymore? No. Had you paid first-hand witness to what that value has done to my descendants—your ancestors—you would understand."

That reminded Luca of some information he'd tucked deep in his subconscience. "I was told they were inbred."

"Yes." Salazar turned solemn to match Luca. "If a fate worse than death exists, it's creating a monster you cannot contain and then being forced to watch it flounder. The Gaunts were the most extreme cases in a long while. Voldemort inherited their madness, yes, but in a quieter way. Where Marvolo and Morfin had hot tempers, Voldemort had cold intellect. He had some conflicted feelings about blood purity, seeing as his father was a Muggle. He wanted to believe that it didn't matter so long as he was a Slytherin. To be immortal would mean more. With meeting your mother, he became infatuated with the idea of godhood. It only required three things, by his reckoning: power, time, and a material rejection of death. He was working on the first, your mother would have given him the third, and the second would have been the natural outcome of those two other things."

Luca squirmed a little with how close Voldemort had come to achieving that. If he just hadn't gone after the Potters. . .

"So. . ." Luca started, then pressed his lips as he thought. "Is this something I should anticipate? Will I end up like them?"

"I think that's mostly up to you, Luca. I will say that this is the most pleasant conversation I've had in a very long time. You look like Voldemort, and yet, you don't. It's in the eyes."

Windows to the soul, Luca thought. He smiled, touched.

"I've been doing some thinking," Luca said. "I've only got another couple months or so here at Hogwarts until I'm done. I was going to go into dragonology, but I'm not entirely sure my heart's been in it since my adoptive mum died. She was an Auror, see. She was killed by Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Ah." Salazar's eyes widened in a way that matched his knowing tone.

"And now, I learned all of this about me and Voldemort. I can't really help but think it's up to me to try and make up for everything he ever did. Maybe I can't bring back people he's killed or undo the pain he's caused, but I could do some good to try and offset it—to compensate."

"An understandable conclusion," Salazar said. "His sins are not your sins, though. You might drive yourself mad by assuming that burden. It's not one that could ever be righted."

"No, I know," Luca replied.

"That sort of self-flagellation. . ." Amusement rose in Salazar's gaze. "I just realized you never told me what Hogwarts house you're in. You wouldn't happen to be a Gryffindor, would you?"

Luca laughed. "No, I'm in Slytherin."

"You remind me in ways of Godric. Gods, I'm glad he isn't here to say he told me so about those fights we used to have. If he could only see me now."

They kept on chatting. Salazar had missed a lot since he last spoke to Voldemort, and he was a wealth of information. He talked about generational cycles, how there would be something like a war, people would feel united afterward, then individualism would circle back around before those individuals pitted against each other. The unifying agent this time around was Voldemort, and Luca ought to count himself lucky to find himself in the period that followed. Optimism would grip a thriving wizarding world through the best years of Luca's life.

Through the course of their conversation, Luca ended up laying on his back with his head toward the end of his bed. One foot dangled off the edge, his socked toes grazing the floor. "I could always give this locket to the Department of Mysteries. They'd probably be your best bet to help you regenerate."

"Honestly wouldn't mind this damn thing being destroyed, at this point." Salazar did a long blink where he would shrug if he had shoulders. "Immortality is not as great as I hoped. I've seen enough in a thousand years. I think I'm done."

Even though they'd only talked for an hour or so, Luca felt a sadness well up at the thought of losing him so quickly. "Would you want me to find out how to do that instead?"

"It doesn't matter," Salazar replied. "Maybe if our bloodline is about to experience a heyday—a revival—I wouldn't mind sticking around to see."

"Would you want to see it from the locket, or wouldn't it be worth trying to regenerate?"

"Either or. I can barely remember what it's like to have a body. It could be interesting to talk to non-relatives, for a change. What a ridiculous charm to place on this locket. Follies of youth, Luca—watch out for them better than I did. In my naïveté, I didn't believe there would be anyone else worth speaking to. I didn't think I could trust anyone else."

"Maybe I'll bring this to the Ministry sometime when I—"

A bump and whoop in the common room made Luca jump. He glanced at his watch, then cursed under his breath.

"The train must have pulled in," Luca told Salazar. "I'd better go before my dormmates hear me speaking Parseltongue and think I'm plotting to blow up the school up before exams."

The laughter in Luca's head faded after he'd closed the locket. He clutched it in his hand, laid on his chest, and sighed.

Blaise had wrote back in the messenger: What do you think Voldemort wants?

Luca pulled out an inkwell and quill. Guess I'll find out.

You already decided? Blaise came back right away. You don't want to think about it?

There's nothing to think about. While Luca wrote that, his dormmates came into the room. He couldn't be bothered to be annoyed at the amount of side-eye he received while they unpacked. Even if I didn't want to, I'd do it for Dagmar. Who cares what he wants, really? It's not like there's anything he can say that could cock me up more than I've already been through all this bollocks.

I guess.

I opened the locket.

You did?

While Luca recounted that, his focus floated back to Enoch, Timothy, and Thomas. It struck Luca's funny bone that they all walked on eggshells around him.

"Good holidays?" Luca asked without looking up from his messenger. All three of them jumped in the corner of his eye.

"Erm. . ." Thomas was the one to say. "Er, yeah. Good, I guess. You?"

"Fantastic."

Sarcasm dripped off each syllable, lighting the air in the room since the other boys cautiously laughed.

Luca wanted to go up to the owlery before the welcome back feast. He wrote a quick goodbye to Blaise and gathered some needed supplies up from his trunk. On his way, Luca penned two quick notes. One went to Madam Bones, telling her to go ahead with setting something up with Voldemort. The second required some work to prepare to send. Luca used a magically resized piece of parchment to securely wrap Potter's invisibility cloak up. He stuck the note to it.

Wish I thought to return this when I ran into you in Diagon Alley. Realized tonight that I probably don't need it anymore. Thanks for lending it to me when I did.

Luca's return to Hogwarts went about exactly as he expected it would. The stares only got worse, and the whispers changed in nature now that speculation was based on facts. The biggest change was that Luca had a hell of a time caring about it.

Ginny was in the same boat. It was announced on Monday that her dad would be taking over Madam Bones' old position in Magical Enforcement, and all the students seemed to think she was the source of trial information trickling into Hogwarts. To be fair, Ginny was. She heard it from her brother Ron, though—not her dad.

Monday and Tuesday, Thorfinn Rowle and Isaac Gibbon were sentenced to life for Scrimgeour's assassination. Wednesday was Rabastan Lestrange's trial. It was also the day Madam Bones sent a note to Luca that it had been arranged for him to sit down with Voldemort on Saturday at noon.

Antonin Dolohov was the next one sentenced to life, Thursday. Friday, Enoch Mulciber. As the week wore on, Luca noticed that less attention came his way as everyone obsessed instead over the crimes described in the Daily Prophet. Homework too, especially for the OWL and NEWT students, became a serious issue. Luca sat with Sophie and Ginny in the library until curfew every night trying to keep up. Even on Saturday morning, it wasn't until a bit past half-eleven he packed up his things. He left his bag with Sophie for safekeeping and headed up to McGonagall's office.

McGonagall's lips were thinned into nothing as she invited Luca in. As she sized him up, her expression relaxed. "You don't seem very nervous."

Luca shrugged. "What do I have to be nervous about?"

A few answers likely occurred to McGonagall. Rather than supply them, she gestured toward the fireplace. "By all means, then."

As Luca stepped up to it, some nerves belatedly kindled in his stomach. The trip down to Berkshire felt like it took longer than usual. Luca almost started to wonder if there'd been a change to the floo network when the familiar great room appeared. With it, a slew of Aurors. If Luca didn't know any better, he would say that something had happened for how serious they all looked.

Kingsley was there. He stepped up to greet Luca. "You'll have to forfeit your wand."

"I left it at Hogwarts."

"All right. Take a seat."

Luca lowered himself onto one of two chairs facing each other. He felt a little less vulnerable when pressed flush against one of the armrests, although the Aurors backing away into posts at the room's edges undid that a little bit. Luca rested his ankle on the knee opposite, and had to force himself not to jiggle his foot. He took a deep breath as Kingsley told the two women standing on the second landing that they were good to bring Voldemort down.

He returned to Luca. "Voldemort has requested privacy through a sound shield. Is that all right with you?"

"Erm. . ."

"If he makes you uncomfortable, the conversation will end with your signal," Kingsley told him. "That'll be the case anyway. Just do this to me."

Luca nodded as Kingsley cut his hand at his neck. "Okay."

Kingsley went about setting the charm. With each wave of his wand, the house grew quieter. Although Luca spotted movement up on the landing when Voldemort's guard escorted him out of Dagmar's room, he couldn't hear any of the footsteps that brought him down to the ground floor. Luca swallowed despite a dry mouth when he and Voldemort made eye contact through the foyer. Even surrounded by the Ministry's best in Magical Enforcement, Luca felt vaguely like a fly on a spider web.

Voldemort wore men's robes today. Luca had a feeling, with the fact that the knot Dagmar's hair had been pulled into was plain and she wore no makeup, that Voldemort had been completely in charge of presenting himself today. Despite the lingering feminine edge, a masculine air surrounded him. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, or the way he squared his shoulders and jaw.

Unbidden, Luca recalled this face peering at him through the Chamber of Secrets' green aura. Please. Please, no.

Voldemort sat down opposite Luca. His study bordered uncomfortably on a stare. As much as Luca wanted to break eye contact, he held it.

"I haven't decided yet if I'm surprised you agreed to meet me," Voldemort said. "On one hand, I could've made a better first impression. On the other, perhaps you're as curious as I am."

Luca unstuck his tongue with a stabilizing exhale. His gaze travelled around the room. No less than eight Aurors watched them, unblinking. "Or maybe I just came to tell you to go fuck yourself."

Voldemort chuckled. "Is that mutually exclusive with anything else that might be achieved here?"

"I suppose not." Luca paused. "So why did you want to meet me? I can't say I would've thought on my own to set something like this up."

"Curiosity, in part. I'm assuming you've been told there's a timeline for my departure?"

"Yeah."

"Impending death has turned me a little sentimental." Voldemort crossed his legs. "Had things worked out the way they were supposed to, I would have had a very long time to get to know you. I might have had a little hand in who you are, although Hildegard wasn't much concerned about help raising you."

Luca wrinkled his brow. "There wasn't. . .you didn't have a certain way or anything you wanted me to come up? You would've just left it all to her?"

"Childrearing doesn't interest me. Hildegard knew that. It was for the best you remain out of the line of fire, anyway. My closest followers would have likely known about you, of course. You were to be my backup if someone tried to kill me. That's not something wise to bandy about, is it? I wouldn't want anyone to go after you, as means to keep me from coming back."

"I guess."

Voldemort leaned more on one of his chair's armrests, his fingers curled as he supported his chin with them. "Were you imagining something different? Perhaps a more traditional family?"

Luca shrugged. "Considering what the families are like that got involved with you, tradition seemed like an important value."

"When you're powerful enough, you decide the traditions."

"Or you get to be a special case," Luca hesitantly added, to which Voldemort smiled.

"Exactly," he said.

So maybe Luca wouldn't have been raised like a miniature Voldemort, then. If only Hildegard would have ever had say over that, maybe Luca would have still resembled who he was after growing up with the Parasca family.

"Because I'm technically your father—" Luca registered a slight ungainliness to Voldemort when he said that, "—my material possessions will pass along to you once I'm gone. I confirmed with Amelia that that remains true even for me. I don't have much of anything really, other than one thing I'd like you to have: my wand."

Luca had to fight against wrinkling his nose. "I have my own."

"Use it or not, it's up to you." Voldemort lifted his shoulders in a makeshift shrug. "For the sake of sentimentality, it's something that I can leave you. I'm not naïve enough to believe it would mean the same thing to you as it would me. You never had a father though, if my understanding of your life after being taken is clear. I'm sure you wondered who created that void in your life. Perhaps you would sooner forget me once I'm gone. If not, you'll have something tangible to hold as evidence of your origin."

"I already do," Luca replied. "The Ministry gave me the locket."

"Ah." An amused glint developed in Voldemort's eyes. "Have you opened it?"

"Yes."

"And how is old Granddad?"

"As good as he could be, I guess." Luca shrugged. "I told him I might talk to someone at the Ministry about how to get him out of there. Department of Mysteries, maybe."

"That's your best bet, I imagine. I never had any luck sorting him out on my own. I thought if we ever took London, I'd see what the DOM had to say about the matter."

"He said you were disappointed by him."

Voldemort exhaled in place of a laugh. "He's a bit of an old fool, don't you think? Time hasn't treated him well."

"I think it treated him the way it treats anyone that lives that long." Luca pulled the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands and toyed with them in his lap. "Do you really think you'd be any different after you've seen so much? He said he was disappointed to see how his descendants went."

"He lacked control in his destiny," Voldemort replied. "Had he properly finished turning the locket into a phylactery, things would have probably been very different. All he could do was sit back and watch things unravel without his steadying hand."

"He doesn't value blood purity anymore."

"So he told me."

"Did that disappoint you?"

"No. I never did either."

"So what do you believe in?"

"Power," Voldemort said right away, a smile creeping back up. "It's one of few constants. It can come from many things, surround many ideologies. . .yet only few may wield it, lest it dilute into something else entirely."

"Everyone tells me how smart you are," Luca replied. "They say that even when you were at Hogwarts, you had everyone wrapped around your finger. You got straight Os on your NEWTs. If you just wanted to run the Ministry—run the British wizarding world—why didn't you go about it the legitimate way? You probably could've even started work in the Minister's office. Last year's head boy did. Even last year's head girl runs the new druid office. Why start from the outside like you did, if you just wanted power?"

Voldemort pursed his lips as he considered the question. His dangling foot flicked side to side like a metronome. "Political power isn't exactly what I sought. It always seemed secondary, as if it would naturally manifest as a result of everything else I achieved. I was sixteen when I came by Salazar's locket, and nineteen when I realized it could be opened the same way as the Chamber of Secrets. Considering you discovered that right away, I'm nearly embarrassed it took me so long.

"I wanted immortality. What would be the point of achieving anything, only for future generations to dismantle my work and build something new on top? Helping Salazar seek escape from the locket gave me a road to that. If we could solve the regeneration issue, then lichdom would be possible for myself as well. Then your mother approached me."

Voldemort referring to Hildegard as that created a flash of sour heat in Luca's stomach. He knew it was technically true, but nobody had really drawn such a straight line so casually between them before.

"Of course," Voldemort's smile returned, more in his eyes than his mouth, "I shouldn't sell myself short. I know who I am. I know what I am. I never would've been free to be myself sitting behind the Minister's desk. Living two lives while at Hogwarts was tedious—torturous—enough. At the same time I was a model student, I opened the Chamber of Secrets. I dealt with our disappointing Muggle relatives. I had to hide who I was, while that person burst at the seams. I chose the company of like individuals. I chose to embrace myself rather than pretend. I couldn't pretend anymore. Not for a moment longer."

Luca shifted in his seat. He hated that that struck a personal chord with himself. He felt no differently about being gay.

Voldemort's gaze flicked over him. "That makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?"

"Probably not the way you think," Luca replied. "For a monster, you're remarkably human."

Voldemort laughed, trailing off into a wistful look. "Too human."

"Would being a god mean you'd stop being human?"

"You and Salazar talked about that, did you?" One of Voldemort's eyebrows quirked. "Semi-human would've been more than acceptable, for all the latitude it provided."

Luca balled a loose thread from his jumper sleeve between his thumb and forefinger. "Did you love Hildegard?"

Another pause. It surprised Luca that Voldemort actually considered it. Maybe, considering how things had ended up between them, the answer wasn't so straightforward.

"In my own way, I suppose," he eventually said.

"I'm shocked you're capable of saying anything other than no."

"Oh, give me some credit." Voldemort raised his eyebrows. "It's not as though I'm incapable of developing attachments. I'm just aware it's not as warm as most people would experience it."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Because I'm a monster, apparently."

Voldemort's tone teased, but Luca sought a genuine answer. He shrugged as he tried to put his thoughts into words. "You're my—you know. Even if I didn't grow up with you and Hildegard, it still threw me to hear you'd tried to kill her. Did she love you?"

"She never said."

"Surely you could tell."

"Most likely." Voldemort paused. "I think so. Yes, she did."

"You don't feel bad for what you've done to her?"

"Why would I?" Voldemort's upper lip curled as his eyes grew cold. "She would've done the exact same thing to me. It's what she intended all along, ever since I returned."

Luca steadied himself against fresh nerves and reminder of who he sat here with. "You knew?"

"No, but I'd prepared for the possibility." Voldemort idly scratched at his neck. "I wasn't taking any chances, although I believed we were on the same page. Something in her had changed from before my disappearance. She lost a piece of herself when she lost you. The chance to start over was one I think any mother in her position would have snatched without second thought. She could have had both her children back. I wouldn't have minded carrying on with her, should she have one day been interested in that again. I liked her. I was fond of her. If that's what you call love, then so be it. I always enjoyed my time with her. She was special to me. She was special, period."

"But you would have just as easily killed her."

"I can't imagine she's losing much sleep right now knowing she will kill me on the thirtieth," Voldemort replied. "That's the deal, you know. She removes me from Dagmar, and then my soul will be shattered. It bothers you that your father tried to kill your mother. Is it different with the roles reversed, knowing she'll follow through?"

Luca shrugged. "I don't really want to think about it."

"That makes two of us. And yet, all I can do is obsess about it."

"Are you afraid to die?"

"Afraid?" Voldemort repeated. "I don't appreciate the uncertainty, surely. I'd say I'm more disappointed than anything. It's difficult to accept that this is truly the end, when I've managed to work myself out of tight places before."

Luca nodded.

"Is there anything you want to ask me, before that?" Voldemort asked. "Anything you want to know?"

The thread Luca played with in his sleeve had come free of his jumper. He kept on balling it between his fingers as he thought. "I don't know. It seems kind of pointless to ask things like whether or not you cared for me. I don't think you do as I am now, because me sitting here talking means you failed. Is that right?"

"No." There was a petulance to Voldemort's tone, almost as if annoyed. "Perhaps that would be so if you didn't have a means at a second life with a body of your own. You would have still been my son. I would have been able to feel your heartbeat again by now in Hildegard's womb, had our capture of Hogwarts panned out properly. I would have seen you next winter, when you were born."

"But I'm sitting here talking to you instead," Luca pressed. "I'm living on past the end of the month. You're not. Doesn't that make you resent me?"

"Your mother trapped me here, not you." Voldemort lifted his chin as he studied Luca. "I don't feel anything like that at all. It's strange, certainly, to sit across from myself, in a way. It's like looking into a mirror. The longer we talk though, the more that feeling fades. I wasn't a stranger to the fact you would be your own person as my doppelgänger. I never saw Hildegard and Dagmar as one in the same, either—not even when I witnessed Hildegard take Dagmar's body at the end of her last cycle. I somehow knew, as soon as she walked in the room."

"Right." Luca understood completely, although he couldn't expressly vocalize how that was. It could be for him just that he had distinctly different relationships with both women. Dagmar had been his friend long enough before she became his sister, and Hildegard—well. There wasn't much a relationship there to speak of, other than occasionally sharing a room. Sharing trauma. Sharing grief.

"I'm enjoying this," Voldemort continued. "I think, had everything gone to plan, I might have enjoyed knowing you. Even as young as you are, you're remarkably intelligent. I'm glad to know that your potential was never wasted."

Like yours, Luca thought to himself. "I ended up in a good place. My mum and grandparents pushed me hard to do my best."

"You're finishing school a year ahead, aren't you? I left Hogwarts at eighteen, not seventeen like you will. What NEWTs are you writing in June?"

"The base five plus Care of Magical Creatures."

"I heard you're interested in dragons."

Luca shrugged, hesitating. "I always liked animals. We had them on the farm. Cǎlimani Reserve is only a couple hundred miles from our villa, so I grew up with them on my mind. Now. . .I'm not so sure. I'm thinking about taking up the Ministry on that mass recruitment they've been doing for Enforcement."

Telling Voldemort that was different from Salazar. Luca had to temper himself against shifting in discomfort under the knowing smile he received. The irony was far from lost on Voldemort.

"A potential Auror for a son," Voldemort mused. "Interesting."

"I don't know about being an Auror," Luca replied. "My mum was one, as you should be well aware."

"I remember her." Voldemort nodded. "When I came back to in Bergen, she was laying in the living room. I'd hoped she was Harry Potter."

Luca's breath stopped of its own accord. He refused to cry in front of Voldemort. He already knew all the specifics of his mum's death, but it hit differently coming so casually out of Voldemort's mouth.

"She must have been a good mother." If Voldemort noticed Luca's reaction, he didn't show it. "I often wonder how I would have been different with a proper home and support system. Perhaps I too would have gone out into the world a year earlier. Maybe I wouldn't have wasted my time working in Knockturn Alley. I could have had a different avenue that allowed me to travel abroad. I couldn't afford it on my own."

"She was a very good mother." Luca cleared the emotion from his throat. "I miss her horribly."

"I never knew mine."

"Do you wish you did?"

Voldemort shrugged. "I didn't even know what she was like, so I don't know what exactly to feel sentimental about. I asked Salazar, but he never talked to her. Marvolo and Morfin would never let her touch the locket."

"That's too bad."

"What's one more disappointment in life?" Voldemort exhaled through his nose. "What was it like, growing up with yours? You didn't have a father?"

"My mum never married or anything, but we lived with my grandparents," Luca said. "Tataie was like a dad to me, and Mamaie like a second mum. My mum would still consult with the Ministry from time to time, like when she took chase after you for a while in Albania."

Voldemort smiled, amused.

"Mostly, she was home with me." Emotion welled up again in Luca, touching his throat enough for him to need to clear it. "I got plenty of attention. She taught me lots before I even started at Durmstrang. I learned to fly a broom early. Shoot a Muggle gun, although that never came in handy."

Voldemort laughed.

"She taught me Russian in preparation for school. And French, in case I decided to go to Beauxbatons instead. Basic English, mostly because she could. She believed that knowing lots of different languages would keep my brain malleable."

"So you speak how many, then?"

"Four, fluently. I grew up with Romanian as my first language. I can't really do French anymore. Ditched it once I decided on going to Durmstrang, although I can still read it well enough. I ditched English for a while too, but got back on it when I decided to come to Hogwarts with her. Russian still, although it's been a while. Parseltongue, if that counts. I've picked up some Italian from my boyfriend, but I don't know that I could hold a deep conversation in it."

"I've seen pictures of you and him in the Prophet." Voldemort readjusted how he sat, leaning his weight more on the other armrest now. "It surprised me you prefer men."

"Because you don't?"

"Not that I experienced in seventy-two years," Voldemort said. "Perhaps it's another way your soul differs from mine. Or maybe it's your mother's influence. She's about as feminine as they come. I don't know what sort of effect that might have on sexuality."

"Dunno." Luca shrugged. "It just is what it is, far as I'm concerned."

"Some things we have control over, some we don't."

The longer Luca talked to Voldemort, the more he became aware of burgeoning hunger. Luca ignored it in favour of conversation, although a growl from his stomach during a moment of silence caught Voldemort's attention.

"It could easily be arranged for the house elves to bring you some lunch," Voldemort told him.

"I don't doubt it." Luca paused, inwardly sighing. "I should probably head back to Hogwarts soon, though. I have a lot of homework due Monday and Tuesday. Something for each class."

Voldemort's neutral expression fell a little. That made Luca feel bad, even though it was very true. McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, Snape, and Vance had all been heavy-handed on their assignments before the weekend.

"You life goes on, I suppose." Voldemort straightened in his seat. He studied Luca anew with a narrowed eye. "Will you be at my trial?"

"It's on a Friday, isn't it?" Luca asked. "I have Defence and Transfiguration. I'll see what Professor McGonagall and Professor Vance think about me missing lessons. I'd like to go. Or would I? I'm not sure what I think about witnessing you—you know. Especially if it's Mum—Hildegard that does it."

If Voldemort caught that slip of the tongue, he didn't show it. "I'd like you there."

"For any special reason, or. . .?"

"I think the same reason anyone wants family around them in the end. Also, I doubt any of my Death Eaters will be allowed to attend. I'd like just one person there who isn't completely ecstatic about my death."

Out of context, that was such a sad sentiment. It could be sort of true after this afternoon, for Luca. He didn't know what to think about himself that he might have actually enjoyed talking to Voldemort. Was it a trick of charisma that Luca simply enjoyed him?

"It's too bad you're not different," Luca said. "Different enough to not have wound up in this situation. We could've had more time."

"Or perhaps just done things a little differently," Voldemort added with a cold humour about the eyes. "It is what it is, like you said."