"You said that you wanted Calpurnia and me to help change what the public thought about you." Isabel says while staring at Tom on the other side of the bed. They both are lying on their sides, facing each other. "Isn't that what happened? Why did it upset you so much?"

He sighs and turns on his back, placing his head underneath his head. "The people were supposed to like me better; my enemies weren't supposed to see me as weak."

"You didn't have to take it out on me." She says quietly, staring at the bed sheet.

She feels a hand on her hip as he scoots closer to her. "Who should I take it out on then?" he asks with a smirk in his attempt at turning the conversation.

"It's not funny." She says, not quite looking at him. She still can't find herself to become comfortable with him or his apology.

It's one thing to say that you love someone, it's a totally other thing to show it.

He opens his mouth to speak but a cry from the other room cuts him off. "When is she going to learn to speak?" He asks annoyed as Isabel stands up to go get their daughter.

"She's only a baby." She answers walking towards the nursery door. "Don't be mean to her about it, she doesn't understand yet."

He grumbles something and she leaves him in there to fetch the baby. The little girl is sitting up in her crib, just wanting to be held and talked to. So Isabel takes her back to Tom and lays her down on the bed beside him. The baby sits up and smiles a goofy smile at him as he settles down on his back, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't let her crawl off the bed." She tells him, getting her clothes together and building a wall of pillows on the other side of the baby.. "I'm going to take a shower."

He nods his head as she walks away and then settles back down on his pillow. Calpurnia makes a gurgling sound that causes Tom stare at her as she chews on her fist. "Stop doing that." He says, pulling her fist away from her, watching in disgust as the drool forms a bridge between her mouth and hand. "It's not very lady like." He tells her but she giggles at him and crawls towards his body.

He doesn't move or try to play with her so she crawls on top of his chest to get his attention. She gets more drool on his naked chest and he scowls.

"That is disgusting." He says, trying to sit up and be brings a hand up to her back to secure her.

Her little hands comes up to help balance herself as he moves them in a different position and her sticky fingers find perchance in his thick black hair. She pulls. He instantly grabs her hand to pull it away but she doesn't let go.

"Fuck, let go!" he scolds as she yanks on his hair. "Goddamnit, Calpurnia!" She hates it when he yells and hearing her name said so hatefully scares her. She immediately lets go of him and starts crying. "Oh, no." he says tiredly. "You're fine." He tries to calm her down by bouncing her up and down but she doesn't stop.

"What did you do?" Isabel storms out of the bathroom in a dark robe with her wet hair clinging to her face.

"I didn't do anything. She pulled my hair."

She sends him a hateful look as she takes the baby in her arms. "What is your problem?" she asks hatefully. "You can't yell at her like that."

"I didn't yell at her. I just yelled in general. It took me by surprise."

"She isn't even a year old, Tom." She says sharply, staring him down. "And you are a full grown man. You shouldn't be acting that way around her." She rubs Calpurnia's back and rocks her back and forth. "She loves you more then anyone and all you do is scare her when she tries to get close to you."

Before he gets a chance to respond she shakes her head and stomps into the bathroom with Calpurnia against her hip. She slams the door and Tom narrows his eyes at the wood. What the hell just happened? It's like Isabel has turned into this new strong willed woman since she became a mother. She's grown up a lot since the first night she was here.

He can't decide if he's angry or not. He stands up to get ready with a thoughtful expression on his face. 'She loves you more then anyone' Isabel had told him. His daughter is probably the first person who loved him with out being forced or manipulated into it. She just loves him, for no reason at all. Tom likes that and he decides he likes her too.

Once completely dressed he lightly knocks on the bathroom door. "Are you ready yet?" he asks, trying to keep the edge of his voice and telling his temper to forget the way his wife walked away from him earlier.

"Almost." Was the short reply.

He's done trying to be patient so opens the door. Calpurnia is sitting on a towel, playing with her bath toys while Isabel does her hair. Tom comes up behind her and watches her reflection.

"When we go there, you can't talk back to me or question anything I say." He tells her sharply and her eyes snap to his in the mirror. "I'm serious. I won't be pleased if you undermine me in front of everyone." She nods her head to avoid a fight. "Smile and agree with everything I say."

"What time is it?"

"It's five till ten now." He answers, staring at his watch. "I told Octavian to meet us in the main hallway at ten."

"We're going to be late." She states while drawing in closer to the mirror to fix some of her make up. "I still have to get Cali ready."

Tom turns towards Calpurnia as she chews away on a rubber duck. She's wearing a light yellow footed sleeper and her dark hair is all over the place. "How long will that take?" he asks sharply. He hates being late.

"I have the dress she's going to wear set out on the changing table in her room." She answers watching him closely out of the corner of her eyes. "It would save time if you did it." He glares at the wall and a small, amused smile comes to her face. "You'd have to change her diaper too."

"How long are you going be?" he snaps angrily, with his hands on his hips.

She almost laughs at him but she covers it with a small cough. "I still have to put on my dress." She answers and he scowls at the towel she's wearing.

He sits and fumes for a few moments, tapping his foot and glancing at his watch before swearing under his breath. He picks his daughter up off of the ground and goes to leave the bathroom.

"Be nice to her, Tom." Isabel scolds before he shuts the door.

"Be nice to her, Tom." He mimics in a terrible female voice as he walks towards the nursery with Calpurnia against his chest.

He sets her down in the center of the crib as he walks over to the changing table and picks up the black velvet dress with the red sash that tie in a bow in the back. Next, he notices the small white tights and the shiny black dress shoes. He flicks a glance at his daughter who's watching him curiously through the bars in her crib. There is no way that he's changing a diaper.

He calls for a house elf. As soon as the small creature enters the room Calpurnia panics and scoots to the furthest corner in her crib, closing her eyes and crying.

"What the fuck are you crying about now?" he demands to know with his hands on his hips as the house-elf lowers the crib wall to take her out.

A strange scream leaves her lips as she turns her body away from the elf and Tom quickly silences the doors so Isabel doesn't stomp in here demanding to know what he did to her this time. The house elf tries to touch her but she screams again and starts to shake.

He walks over to where she sitting and pats her head. "Stop crying." He tells her flatly. She looks up to him with panicked eyes and reaches her arms up to him, bouncing her body on her knees to get closer.

With a frustrated sigh he picks her up and she buries her head into his neck, gripping his shirt with her hands. "You can leave." He says harshly to the elf that pops away with wide eyes. "See," he whispers into her ear. "The big bad elf is gone now. You don't have to be afraid anymore."

It takes a while for her body to stop shaking and when she's finished he lays her down on the changing table. He unzips her sleeper very carefully, having never done this before and when he takes it off of her he stares in complete loathing at her diaper. "This is foul." He says hatefully. "I shouldn't be doing this."

He makes the most unattractive face as he takes it off of her and he turns his head away as he throws it in the trash bin. As she's lying there, naked staring up at him with wide blue eyes he realizes he has no idea where anything is in this room. He starts sorting through drawers, looking for diapers and wipes with one hand on her stomach so she doesn't roll off the table.

"Damnit." He says to himself when he doesn't find them right away. He looks across the room and sees a whole pile of what he needs on the table. "Why is it way over there?" He snaps hatefully as he picks the naked baby up and storms over to the table to grab what he needs.

As he's stomping back to the changing table he feels something hot and wet on his shirt. He freezes and holds her out away from his chest. He looks down at his soaked clothes and then back up to her. He narrows his eyes.

"You just peed on me." He says in a disbelieving voice. "You just peed on me." He repeats again. "How can one little thing pee so much." He snaps hatefully. He's the freaking Dark Lord! He shouldn't be doing this.

She laughs at him, clapping her hands, and he raises and he eyebrow as he stomps back and lays her down on the changing table for the second time. "Do you think that's funny?" he snaps and she giggles a little bit more. He puts the second diaper on her a little forcefully. "It's not funny." He says but she still smiles at him, trying to grasp his fingers.

When he's done with that he puts the white tights on her legs and he thinks he just may outlaw the damn things. They are way to fucking hard to put on a little wiggling baby. Next comes the velvet dress and it takes him a good fifteen minutes to figure out how to get it over her head as she moves around, trying to get away from him. Finally he snaps on the little shoes and runs his fingers through her hair to tame it. He sits back and stares at her for a few seconds feeling almost proud of himself.

He picks her up, making sure to hold her away from the parts of him that are covered in her pee and as he turns to the doorway he sees Isabel leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and a amused smile plays on her lips. "How long have you been there?" he snaps. She could have comes in and helped him.

She pushes off the door and walks towards him. "Since you told the house-elf to leave." She admits and smiles widely at the scowl on his face. She walks closer to him and takes the little girl from his arms while placing a soft kiss on his cheek. "We're going to be very late, by the way." She says against his cheek before pulling back. "That took you over half an hour and you still have to go change." She states, eyeing the wetness on his shirt up and down.

He cusses loudly and storms out of the room, leaving the doors open so they'll follow him. Isabel laughs and touches Calpurnia's nose.

"Daddy's silly."

X

He's wearing the silver serpent crown again. Isabel watches him from the corner of her eyes as he gives his speech to the crowd of people about the new policies he's introducing. They sound more like restricting rules the anything else. She tries to ignore that he's a horrid dictator but sometimes she can't escape it.

"We can not allow our opposition to think they still have a hold over us." He says 'we' to the crowd of common people like they were together in this, like it wasn't just him making all of the decisions. He rests his hands on the podium and looks around the audience with a fierce look on his face. His voice is booming as he speaks into the microphones that filter his voice through the wireless radios for people to listen at home, across the world.

"We have to prove a point to war criminals that we do not tolerate that kind of behavior. It has to stop now. They're midnight attacks and kidnappings pose a major danger to our society." Isabel looks out to the crowd as they watch him in perfect silence, taking in everything he's saying. Agreeing with everything, whether they like it or not.

He pauses for a moment and looks back to her, almost challenging her with his eyes. She's confused by that but his next words make her realize why. "Starting next week there will be public executions of any man or woman who goes against our progress to make the Wizarding world a better place. I can not let this selected terrorism go on any further."

Isabel's mouth has gone dry as she watches his profile. The crowd has gone so silent that you could hear a pin drop. "Don't worry." He says with smirk, unable to hold back his snide self. "If you aren't a criminal of war, you have nothing to fear."

Half the audience claps enthusiastically while the others look around with nervous eyes and clap because they have to. Isabel keeps her face blank but inside she's scowling. How can he be this way? He was so cute this morning with their daughter but now he's back to being the ruthless Dark Lord.

"I have proven to you many times that I am setting our world on the right track. We will live in fear no longer of being found out by the muggles. We live on this planet too and we don't need to hide anymore, no matter what the rebels think. We use force because we have to, not because we want to." She almost snorts when he says that because it's not true. "There must be violence before there is peace. It's the only way."

He makes a motion with his hand and Isabel watches closely as a woman is brought out from the side of the stage. She narrows her eyes trying to see who it is but a tap on her shoulder makes her look away.

"Ma'am." The young woman whispers. "The little miss is crying for you." She says and Isabel flicks one last look at the brown haired woman on the stage before turning around and following the young woman into the building.

Tom had hired these maids to watch Calpurnia during his speech but Isabel knew it wouldn't last long. Calpurnia is rarely ever around other people then her and Tom so it would make sense that she would cry when she was left with out them. When Isabel enters the small sitting room, a young girl with blonde hair is bouncing the screeching baby in her arms.

"I'll take her now." Isabel says, as she walks over to the stressed looking maid who looks up to her with fearful eyes. "She's probably getting hungry."

The blonde looks pale as Isabel takes the baby and she looks at her suspiciously. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. She wouldn't stop crying." She says with a shaky voice and Isabel can sympathize with her. It has to be nerve wracking to baby-sit Lord Voldemort's child. "I promise we did all we could."

"Don't apologize. You're fine." She tells her lightly, going over to the corner to sort through the baby bag for a bottle. She kisses Calpurnia's hair as she takes one out of the temperature controlled bag and as soon as the little girl sees it she stops crying and grabs it. The baby furrows her little dark eyebrows as she sucks on her bottle. "See, she was just a little hungry." She says with a smile.

She looks around the small room and sees a wireless against the wall. "Turn that on." She says, nodding her head towards it. She wants to hear the rest of Tom's speech.

"…One of Harry Potter's allies against me." His deep voice booms into the room through the radio. Calpurnia settles down a little more when she hears it and Isabel smiles down at her. It's cute that her father's voice can calm her…. when he's not yelling. "This woman and her friends attempted to burn down our army bases that held the young soldiers that were fighting for our freedoms." Isabel wants to roll her eyes. His cryptic words sound good to someone who doesn't really know what's going on. "Miss Granger is a menace to our new society and she'll be the first in our campaign to rid the world of our opposition."

Miss Granger? As in Hermione Granger? Isabel knew her from the burrow so long ago, the last time she saw her alive was when Tom was sworn in at the ministry over a year ago. What had become of her? She wants to panic. No wonder Tom told her she can't talk back or question anything he was going to do today. He's going to kill her. She can't stop him now and if she tries then he'll just hurt her again like always… and it's just another thing their daughter shouldn't see.

She clenches her jaw shut and turns away. "Turn it off now." He says quietly and one of the girls turns it off with a click. She waits there in the little room until some one comes to fetch her.

When she returns to Tom's side there is a red tint to his eyes and that strange smirk that he gets when he over powers someone, when he kills someone, rests on his lips. She can't look at him like that. He leads them back to their apparition point where he dismisses his guards and takes out his wand. His pale fingers come up and run down the side of Calpurnia's soft cheek as he smiles at her.

"Are you ready to go home, little one?" She reaches for him and he takes her in his arms, feeling very sentimental. "Are you ready to go home too?" he asks Isabel softly.

Home. She doesn't know if that's what she'd call it but she nods anyways.

"Did you enjoy my speech?" he smirks when they land in the main hallway.

"I think you know how I felt about your speech." She snaps.

He raises and eyebrow at her and she looks away. "So you liked it?" he says with a smirk. Sometimes she hates him so much. She starts to walk away from him. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to my room." She turns around with her arms crossed. "Do you want me to take her?"

"No, and you can't go to your room."

"Why not?"

"Because I said so."

She closes her eyes and takes a very deep breath before responding. "What do you want?"

He watches her for a few moments with a blank face, ignoring the babbling from his daughter. His eyes narrow and she waits for his outburst. He's always angry at her for something or the other. "We're having dinner with a few of my follower tonight."

"Okay," she says slowly.

He turns around and starts walking away from her. "You can go to your room now." He mumbles over his shoulder and she watches his narrow back with a strange look in her eyes.

"Tom," he stops, but doesn't turn around. "You're a good orator but I didn't like anything you said." She says, giving him a compliment because that's what he was waiting for.

"I can't stand you some times." He snaps and continues walking.

"I can't stand you either." She mumbles to herself, totally honest. She watches him walk away before going upstairs and collapsing on the bed.

X