"Muggles?"
Bellatrix hissed the word as she leaned in close to Mr Riddle. He smelled of spearmint and clean linen, since she'd cleaned him up with spells. He turned toward her and rubbed at the beard that Bellatrix had kept neat and trimmed during his hospitalisation.
"The Suffocation Draught was intended to be used on the Muggle Underground," whispered Mr Riddle. "I would, of course, shield myself magically. I underestimated the fumes whilst brewing; I had an Invisible Mask on, but I still went into a coma."
"Wait." Bellatrix felt her eyes go wide. "You were planning an attack on Muggles?"
"I have very strong feelings about those without magic." Mr Riddle narrowed his eyes. "Do you find my plans repulsive, Miss Black? Are you going to go running to the Ministry to get me arrested?"
"No." She gulped. "I'm going to plant Flobberworms in your garden so they think you really did have an infestation. That's what I'm going to do."
He smirked at her and nodded. "You're a very good Mediwitch."
"I have to go." Bellatrix flicked her eyes up and down his form, her gaze settling on the spot in his arm where she'd placed his line. "Keep getting your nutrition through your arm for now; I'll remove the line and get you food by mouth when I come back. I have to go quickly if I'm to get to Diagon Alley and handle all of this. Oh! But I don't know where you live."
Suddenly Mr Riddle's face reddened. He cleared his throat roughly and said, "I live in a modest place. Very modest. 21 Bassett Gardens, Isleworth."
"21 Bassett Gardens, Isleworth," Bellatrix nodded. She licked her lips and said, "I'm going to purchase a Flobberworm and multiply it, spreading them throughout your garden, Mr Riddle. And then I'll come back here."
He blinked and smiled a little. "What a very fine witch you are, Miss Black. I think you and I could be good friends."
"Could we?" She grinned. "All right. I'll be back soon."
He nodded and reached for her hand. She was shocked when he squeezed at her fingers a little and whispered,
"You're an ally, I think?"
She felt her lips curl up, and her breath accelerated in her chest. "I'm an ally, Mr Riddle. I'll be back."
Bellatrix had been only moderately skilled with Human Transfiguration, so when she looked in the window she passed, she found herself hoping desperately that she'd changed her features enough to be inconspicuous. She'd changed her matron's dress and apron into a flowing purple set of robes, and she'd altered her face to make her seem like an old crone. She would need to lower her voice, to gravel it up like an old witch's. She blinked a few times and hobbled into Magical Menagerie on Diagon Alley, and she hacked a few fake coughs. Then she heaved herself to the front desk and croaked to the young wizard behind it,
"Have you got a Flobberworm?"
The young man frowned. "May I ask why you need one? They're pests in gardens. Making a potion? Need the mucus?"
"My, what a terribly invasive boy you are," Bellatrix scolded him. "What I'm doing with the Flobberworm is my own business. As it happens, I will be using it to make Flobberworm fritters for my grandson; he does so love them."
"Right." The young wizard looked very sceptical but turned around to a wall full of glass cases. He picked up some rubber tongs and opened the lid of one case, picking a jar up off the counter. He reached into the case with the tongs and carefully pulled out a gelatinous-looking Flobberworm, which he dropped into the jar. He screwed a brass lid onto the jar and handed it over.
"Five Sickles, please."
Bellatrix pulled out her coins and made her fingers tremble with apparent age as she gave the boy the money. She took the jar from him and said,
"You're Yaxley's boy, aren't you?"
"I am," he nodded, and she gave him a broad, toothy smile.
"So good to see you, boy. A fine day to you, then." Her words were silk and honey, she thought, and the boy had completely believed that she was an old woman wanting to make Flobberworm fritters. She left Magical Menagerie and edged around the corner of a stone building, into a tiny alley filled with scraps of newspapers and the shadow of rats in the distance.
Bellatrix shut her eyes and Disapparated, thinking of 21 Bassett Gardens, Isleworth. She disappeared into the pinching black void, and when she came to, she was standing before a row of unassuming semi-detached houses. They were of brown plaster with red brick accents and bright white window panes. They were simple houses for simple people, Bellatrix thought. But Mr Riddle was not simple. Bellatrix's father had told her that Tom Riddle had been the most brilliant pupil Hogwarts had ever known. He'd led a group of Slytherin friends in school and had gone to the Continent to learn magic. Bellatrix's father had said that he liked to go by Lord Voldemort these days, a mysterious moniker for an aspirational and ambitious man.
So it seemed strange that he lived in a house as modest as this. She frowned a little as she walked up to Number 21, feeling a thud as she approached. There were wards on this house, she thought. Why hadn't he warned her about the wards? She scowled and pulled out her wand, aiming it at the house and swiping it through the air. She thought of every ward he could have placed - Salvio Hexia, Repello Muggletum, Protego Maxima - and she removed them one by one. Suddenly she realised that emergency responders had been here, and probably Aurors, too. And yet the house was warded up again. That seemed strange. She finally felt herself able to walk up to the door of the house, and she pointed her wand at the doorknob.
"Alohomora," she murmured, and the door clicked and slowly swung open. Bellatrix gulped as she pushed the door open and stepped inside, looking around the house. It looked as though Mr Riddle had simply taken over the house from the previous owners, because the interior did not seem like anything he would have designed himself. There was busy floral wallpaper in the lounge, an aged yellow background with pink roses. The furniture was pink velvet, and there was a rickety-looking piano against the wall, appearing as though no one had touched it in ages. Bellatrix continued down the corridor, ignoring the staircase that probably led to bedrooms and a bathroom. She walked into an area with a little round table and mismatched wooden chairs - the dining space - and observed the kitchen on the right. It had pale green tile on the backsplash and a wooden countertop, with electric Muggle appliances. Yes, Bellatrix thought. Tom Riddle had commandeered this house from some Muggles, and he'd simply moved right in.
Where had they found him, she wondered? She eyed a little door that was propped open, and she could see stairs going down into a cellar. Had he been downstairs when his friend, Rickard Avery, had found him? How long had he been alone, in a coma on the floor, before Avery had called for Emergency Response from St Mungo's? Bellatrix's chest twisted strangely, but she knew she had no time to dawdle. She went out behind the kitchen and pushed open the door that led to the back garden. She descended into a crouch and opened up the jar in her hands. She tipped the jar, but the Flobberworm was stubbornly stuck to the glass. Bellatrix poked her wand into the jar and jabbed at the Flobberworm until it came unstuck with a little pop. It fell onto the grass and began to slowly move away. Bellatrix aimed her wand at the Flobberworm and said softly,
"Geminio."
The Flobberworm instantly doubled. An exact replica of the creature appeared beside the original, both of them moving in opposite directions. Bellatrix smirked and aimed her wand at the original Flobberworm.
"Geminio. Geminio. Geminio. Geminio. Geminio. Geminio. Geminio."
Suddenly she thought she ought to have obtained both a male and a female Flobberworm so that they'd mate, but then she remembered what she'd been taught in Care of Magical Creatures - Flobberworms were asexual and reproduced on their own if they had enough room. Soon enough, the nine Flobberworms she'd set loose in Mr Riddle's garden would turn into dozens. Just to be safe, Bellatrix doubled the original worm six or seven more times.
She went back into the house and thought she ought to get rid of all the evidence she'd been there. She Vanished the jar in which she'd brought the Flobberworm, and she Scoured the handle of the door that led from the house to the garden. She walked backwards, erasing her footprints on the tile and then the carpet. Back through the lounge she went, and out the front door, Scouring and deleting everything she could. Finally she was out on the front stoop again, and she looked around to make sure no one was watching before she swept her wand in elegant swoops and warded up the house again. She Disapparated hard to her right, deliberating on St Mungo's, and when she appeared in the Mediwitch lounge, she was mercifully alone.
"Well?" Mr Riddle studied Bellatrix's face, and she studied him right back. His chin, beneath his short beard, seemed to have had a chisel taken to it, with part of it hacked off. His face was angular but crooked. Pale white scars crossed his cheekbones and the jagged bridge of his long nose. His eyes were dark and shining, though, and he seemed more alert now than he'd been before. Bellatrix sank into the chair beside his bed and murmured,
"Quite a Flobberworm infestation you've got in your garden, Mr Riddle."
Half his mouth quirked up. "Healer Comstock says Aurors will be searching my house tomorrow to check my story. It doesn't seem believable, according to the good Healer, that I would have been brewing poison to kill the worms."
"Well, there are a great many of them," Bellatrix sighed, "so I can't imagine anyone would blame you for wanting to rid your garden of them."
He nodded. "You've done good work for me. I ought to reward you. How does… twenty-five Galleons sound?"
She laughed softly and shook her head. "Mr Riddle, I'm the daughter of Cygnus Black III. I don't need your money."
He looked abashed all of a sudden, chomping his lip and curling his lips into a mirthless smile. "Yes. Of course. You're very wealthy; you don't need my Galleons."
"I didn't mean to offend," Bellatrix worried, holding up her hands. Mr Riddle shook his head and said seriously,
"Most of my old friends had loads of money. I was the odd man out - going home to a Muggle orphanage, without a Knut to my name."
Bellatrix felt her eyes burn. She'd been rude to him, she thought. She whispered softly,
"Things change. My father says you've got grand goals for wizarding Britain."
"Your father is right," Mr Riddle nodded.
"Miss Black," snapped a voice from behind Bellatrix. She whirled around to see Healer Comstock glaring at her. "You can remove Mr Riddle's line. We're going to have him eat and drink by mouth and use the head himself."
Bellatrix's cheeks went warm. She nodded. "Yes, Healer Comstock. I'll get everything removed straight away."
Healer Comstock turned to go, his robes billowing about him as he left. She could hear him at the next bed over then, murmuring gently to a witch who had taken too much Thinning Potion. Bellatrix gave Mr Riddle a serious look as she pulled out her wand.
"You want to get out of here?" she whispered. "Show them that you're fine."
"I am fine," he answered. "I can eat just fine."
"We'll see about that," Bellatrix warned. "If you vomit up your dinner, they'll put you back on the intravenous nutrition."
At that, Mr Riddle took his free left hand and touched it to his stomach. He shut his eyes and muttered,
"Nonemesis Maxima."
"Brilliant," Bellatrix scoffed. "Wandless magic. An anti-nausea charm. We'll see if it works, Mr Riddle. But I confess myself impressed."
"Why don't you go ahead and get that line out of my arm?" asked Mr Riddle. Bellatrix smirked at him and Scoured her hands. She opened the cupboard beside Mr Riddle's bed and pulled out gauze and a bandage. She sat down in the chair and pulled at Mr Riddle's arm. She palpated the area around the insertion site and asked gently,
"Does it hurt at all? I need to make sure there's no inflammation or infection here."
"It feels fine." Mr Riddle's voice was soft and low, and Bellatrix raised her eyes to him. She pulled carefully at the tape binding the peripheral line to Mr Riddle's arm, and she thought suddenly that he was very handsome. He winced as she pulled the tape, and she whispered,
"So sorry."
"I'm sure all the wizards you treat tell you this," Mr Riddle said, clearing his throat, "but you're very pretty."
Bellatrix felt heat flush from her forehead to her neck. "No one's ever told me that."
"Except for Titus Malfoy, I'm sure," Mr Riddle said quietly. Bellatrix shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them and placed gauze under the IV site. She occluded the line with the metal clamp and held the line in her left hand.
"You really were listening to all that blathering I was doing," she noted. "About my sisters, my parents, my stupid boyfriend…"
"And the stupid Hufflepuff girl," Mr Riddle laughed. Bellatrix grinned at him and shook her head.
"It doesn't matter now. Titus is marrying her."
"You won't be at that wedding, I suppose," Mr Riddle said. Bellatrix huffed and told him,
"Of course I will. It's the wedding of Titus Malfoy and Aster Greengrass. I'm of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, just like them. So of course I'll be there."
"Sorry to hear that," said Mr Riddle softly. "You can take my line out any time."
"Sorry." Bellatrix gulped and turned her attention back to the intravenous line in her hand. She pushed on his skin and pulled out the catheter. There was just a little bleeding, which Bellatrix daubed away with some gauze infused with Essence of Dittany. She watched as the little hole in Mr Riddle's arm healed up, and as she bandaged the area, she said quietly, "There we are."
She began to Vanish the biologically hazardous materials from Mr Riddle's intravenous line, along with the nearly-empty bottle of nutritive liquid. Mr Riddle stared at her from where he lay in his hospital-issued pyjamas, and he said again,
"You did me quite a favour. How can I repay you?"
"Well," Bellatrix said, rubbing her hands together, "I suppose you could write to me, after you're discharged. I wouldn't mind getting a letter from the wizard who has such wondrous plans for wizarding Britain."
"A letter," he said curiously. "What sort of letter?"
"I don't know. It's a stupid suggestion," Bellatrix admitted, but Mr Riddle cleared his throat and said,
"Perhaps, once I am discharged, you and I might have a regular correspondence. I admit I found your five days' of talk illuminating."
"And I'd like to hear more specifics about your ambition," Bellatrix said. Mr Riddle smiled a little and said,
"Letters, then, once I'm out of here. Which should be soon, given that I am perfectly well now."
"Are you?" Bellatrix reached for his hand and squeezed a little. "I am so very glad to hear that."
He tipped his head. "You're teasing me."
"I just suspect you're rushing yourself, sir," Bellatrix worried. "You were in a coma. You don't just wake up from a coma and walk out of the hospital."
"I am not ordinary," Mr Riddle warned her, and Bellatrix felt a tingle come over her. She jolted then, because a House-Elf had appeared with a tray of food at the foot of Mr Riddle's bed.
"Your dinner, sir," said the House-Elf. Bellatrix bent down and took the tray from the elf, watching as Mr Riddle pushed himself up to sit straighter. She pulled his table over his bed and placed the tray of food upon it.
"Looks like… pumpkin pasty, roast goose, and creamed spinach." Mr Riddle curled up a lip. "It doesn't smell so good."
"Just go slowly," Bellatrix advised. "One bite at a time."
"I know how to eat. Thank you." Mr Riddle cocked a brow at her.
"Anything else, sir?" asked the mangy-looking House-Elf. Mr Riddle shook his head and said,
"Go."
The House-Elf snapped its long fingers and disappeared into thin air with a crack. Bellatrix watched as Mr Riddle used his knife and fork to cut a bite of pumpkin pasty. Bellatrix quietly moved towards the cupboard and pulled out an emesis bucket. She was fully prepared for Mr Riddle to hurl up the entirety of what he attempted to eat.
But he made it through half the pumpkin pasty and four bites of goose without vomiting. He poked at the creamed spinach but shook his head and whispered,
"Not that."
"You're doing so well," Bellatrix cooed. He gave her a look and then took another bite of pumpkin pasty.
"Wandless anti-vomiting charms help."
"I won't tell Healer Comstock that you helped yourself out," Bellatrix promised. "I understand that you want to go home."
"You saw my home," Mr Riddle smirked. "Would you want to rush back there, if that was where you lived?"
"It could use a renovation," Bellatrix laughed. Mr Riddle didn't laugh back, though. He said seriously,
"Transfiguration spells wear off. Real renovation takes money."
"Sorry," Bellatrix mumbled, realising again that she'd been rude.
"I goaded you," he said. "I'll be kinder in my letters to you."
"Letters," Bellatrix murmured. "Yes. Once you're out of here, we'll exchange letters."
"Bellatrix," trilled Madam Carte from behind Bellatrix, "Jessamyn is here for the night shift. You can go home."
"Yes, Madam Carte." Bellatrix set down the emesis bucket on the table and said softly to Mr Riddle, "Just in case. I'll be back at seven tomorrow morning."
"Until then," he nodded. "Good evening, Miss Black."
She smiled and bowed her head, tugging at her apron. "Good evening, Mr Riddle."
Author's Note: Oh, this is just way too fun to write. Thank you so very much to all those who have joined me on this story after a long absence from writing fanfic. I appreciate your feedback more than you know.