Dear Bellatrix,
Don't tempt me. You know how badly I want you home with me once you've turned seventeen. Please don't make this any harder than it needs to be. You can expect a fine birthday gift sent by owl. I do hope Rodolphus Lestrange is coping well with his grief in having lost you as a wife, and that Albus Dumbledore doesn't have his claws in you. Are you already learning so very much? I know your Herbology professor will instruct you more thoroughly than I ever could. Your education is important, Bella. You know it as well as I do.
I care very deeply for you and miss your presence already.
L.V.
Voldemort wound the letter up into a scroll and sealed it with wax. He pressed his ring into the wax and blew on it, and he barked loudly,
"Dobby!"
The Malfoys' House-Elf appeared in the office, dissolving into the air. Dobby gave Voldemort a curious, expectant look. He served the Malfoys, and the Malfoys had instructed him to do Lord Voldemort's bidding. So Dobby obeyed Lord Voldemort, though not as subserviently as he did Abraxas Malfoy.
"Dobby," said Voldemort, "take this letter to the owlery and send it to Bellatrix Black at Hogwarts."
"Straight away, sir," nodded Dobby. He Summoned the letter to his hand and Disapparated with a crack. Voldemort chewed his lip. He rather wished now that he had not sent that letter to Bellatrix. He wished he'd sent something else - something saying she was right, that she ought to come home straight away after her birthday. But that was folly, he knew. He had a movement to build. He had things to do. He couldn't spend all of his time teaching Bellatrix what she'd be missing if she left Hogwarts. He couldn't spend all his time instructing his wife in the Dark Arts.
And yet, nothing in all the world sounded better than that. He shut his eyes and imagined her sitting in his office, learning about which plants would induce paralysis if accidentally ingested. He imagined her concentrating on Occlumency. He imagined her practising the Cruciatus Curse on a cockroach, or casting little Killing Curses on ants. He imagined her eyes shining through it all, her smile growing wide with pride as she accomplished one Dark act after another.
He could wait until Christmas holidays, he tried to tell himself. He would have a few weeks then to instruct her, and then a week at Easter, and then a few months over the summer. Then the cycle would repeat itself for another year. Somehow, it all started to stretch out interminably before Voldemort like a neverending road to be travelled, an endless path to be walked, and all he wanted was Bellatrix.
There was knocking on his door then, and he jolted to attention. He called for the wizards - Mulciber and Avery, if they were the ones he was expecting - to enter. The door creaked open, and Mulciber and Avery came striding inside. Mulciber was short and stout, having lost most of his hair over the last decade. Avery was his foil, tall and lean with a thick head of black waves. Both men nodded respectfully as Avery shut the door behind him, and Voldemort flashed them a little smile.
"Both of you have sent children back to Hogwarts," he noted. "How well I remember our days as schoolboys."
"Those were fond days, indeed, sir," Avery nodded. "Tom Riddle was a fearsome leader, even then. We were all rather in awe of you, I think."
"You all did exactly as I bid you," Voldemort pointed out. Mulciber folded his hands before him and said,
"You left us little choice."
"On the contrary," Voldemort insisted. "I gave you a very clear choice. Stick with me and carry out the deeds I asked of you, or get left behind. You two made the right choice back then. Tripping enemy Gryffindors down entire flights of stairs. Poisoning Professor Puntworth with Hairless Serum as revenge for her treatment of us. You both made a conscious choice to follow my lead, and that was the right choice. Now I give you another choice."
Mulciber shifted on his feet and looked anxiously at Avery, who licked his lip and asked,
"What sort of choice, sir?"
Voldemort smirked, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk. "I want a Mudblood to disappear."
Avery's brows flew up, and Mulciber looked amazed. "A Mudblood?"
"Yes." Voldemort nodded and stepped closer to the men. "I want to sow some fear into the Ministry about our movement. I want a Mudblood to vanish into the ether. Will you choose to do it, Mulciber? Avery? Will you make the right choice like you did all those years ago?"
"Which Mudblood?" Avery asked, and Voldemort nibbled his lip before he said,
"Any one will do. They are countless in number now, aren't they? They've managed to infiltrate every department at the Ministry. Mulciber. You work in Magical Games and Sport. Avery. You work in International Cooperation. Between the two of you, I should think you'll be able to track down some hapless Mudblood somewhere in the Ministry and make them simply… disappear. The means are yours to sort out. Be creative."
"And if we do this, we do it for you," Avery said cautiously. Voldemort shook his head.
"You do it for all of us," he said. "In service of our great cause. You do it loyal to me, like you were all those years ago. Are you loyal to me still, Avery?"
He stared straight into Avery's dark eyes, and Avery seemed profoundly afraid. He shirked backward a little and nodded.
"I am loyal," he said. "I am."
"And you, Mulciber?" Voldemort turned his head. "Will you make the right choice?"
"I will, sir." Mulciber seemed anxious, but he nodded with vigour. "Avery and I shall see to it that a Mudblood gets eliminated. We'll get planning straight away. We were your very good friends when we were all boys. We're your friends now, too."
"Friends." Voldemort flicked up the corners of his lips. "But it is more than that, isn't it? I am to be the Dark Lord ascending, and you shall be my soldiers. Isn't that how it shall be?"
"Soldiers," Avery replied in a numb voice. His throat bobbed. "Soldiers, like in a war?"
"There will be war. Of that you can be certain," Voldemort vowed. "Will you make the right choice when the time comes to choose sides, Avery? Oh, do you know… that time is now. Choose your side. Do you stand with the Ministry and its hordes of filthy Mudbloods? Or do you stand with your old friend, Lord Voldemort?"
Mulciber and Avery looked at one another, and then back up at Voldemort. Mulciber said quite firmly,
"We stand with you."
"We do," Avery affirmed.
Voldemort smiled with warmth then, and he put one hand on each man's shoulder. He nodded.
"I miss those glory days of our youth," he said, "but I also know what lies ahead for us - a glorious future. And you shall be a part of that future, the both of you. Go now, and begin planning. Dismissed."
Mulciber and Avery scurried out of the office, shutting the door behind them. Voldemort was left with his heart racing. Yes, he knew. There would be war. He had an army to build. But how could he possibly spend the next two years building an army that did not include Bellatrix? How could he possibly spend two years acquiring the Mulcibers and the Averys of this world without teaching her everything she needed to know, without training her properly? How could he spend the next two years waiting whilst she wasted her time in lessons like some kind of child?
She was no child.
He sat at his desk and put his head in his hands. He shut his eyes and wondered what she was doing right now. He imagined her in Potions lessons, hovering over a cauldron with a textbook beside her. She didn't have any real friends at school, she'd told him. Rodolphus Lestrange, the stupid boy, might be giving her trouble over their broken engagement. Albus Dumbledore would be watching her like a hawk. And she would be the odd one out - an engaged young woman in a sea of giggling girls. After Christmastime, she would come back to school a married witch, which would only set her further apart and enrage Dumbledore all the more. And still she would waste away in Defence Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic when Voldemort could be teaching her Unforgivables and ways to manipulate giants.
Why was he being such a fool about this, he wondered? Why was he being so foolish about her? Why was he making her stay at school for the next two years instead of bringing her home and making her a soldier now? If he could make Mulciber and Avery soldiers, surely he could make his wife one. She was already more intelligent and fearless than either Mulciber or Avery. All she needed was some duelling training in Malfoy Manor's gardens, some more practise with poisons and curses. All she needed was a practical education, instead of a theoretical one, and Voldemort could give her that. He wanted to give her that. He craved time wand-to-wand with her on a rainy lawn. He longed for late nights curled up in bed with her, lecturing her about goblins. He wanted nothing more than to see her curls fluff up from the steam in her cauldron as she brewed a Bleaching Draught to prove her potioneering prowess. And all the while she would be his wife, and she would be here. Not locked up in Dumbledore's school. Not spending her nights in a curtained bed in a dormitory, hundreds of miles away from him. She would be here, at Malfoy Manor, in Voldemort's arms, at his beck and call. She would be…
She would be his.
So why on Earth had he sent the letter he'd sent earlier, Voldemort wondered? What the blazes had he been thinking? He gulped hard and pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and a self-inking quill. He began to write so quickly that his hand quickly ached and his script was a bit of a mess.
Bella,
Ignore the last letter that I sent. I wasn't thinking clearly. I need you to come home. I will meet you at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade at noon on the twenty-first of September and bring you back here by Side-Along since you haven't got your Apparition licence yet. Levitate your trunk down to the village. If Dumbledore gives you any trouble, remind him that you'll be of age and you're free to leave the school at seventeen.
Your education will continue here, under my tutelage. We will marry as soon as you see fit. I shall see you on the twenty-first unless for some strange reason you decide against coming back to me.
L.V.
Author's Note: Oh, my. So they've got just a couple of weeks of waiting it out before she drops out of school. Next chapter will be from Bellatrix's POV at Hogwarts. Will Dumbledore find out about their plans in any way, and if so, what will he do about it? Thanks for reading and reviewing.