Iridescent

Written by, AvalonTheLadyKiller

Beta'd and Cowritten by, UnburntKhaleesi

A Harry Potter Fan Fiction

No Copyright Infringement Intended

All rights belong to JK Rowling

As we continue onwards darlings, this story will continue to rise and fall through several dark concepts. I want to state that though I may write these characters to be hateful or cruel at times, I in no way condone their monstrous acts. This is fiction. Above all, it will get dark.

Chapter Four: Vera

A beatific grin took hold of Vera's curling lips in response to his demand. The action magnifying the curvature of her features tenfold, as triumph illuminated her natural radiance. Deep within her opaline depths; she personified a sort of child-like innocence. Raising her hand, she indulged them both with yet another shared touch. Easily forgetting the decades that had past since her fingertips last grazed the curve of his strong jaw. Gently smoothing the pads of her nimble fingers across his skin, like a touch starved lover. One that spoke of deep fondness and intimate familiarity.

Unlike the time before, the Dark Lord didn't shy from her; but merely gazed at her questioningly. As though he didn't know what to make of such a gesture. She slowly grazed her fingertips affectionately down his cheek, leaving a fiery trail in her wake. Igniting his cool skin, as though she'd drawn an incendiary rune into his flesh with hers. The warmth caused his bones to nearly melt from within. The seemingly charred flesh surrounding his body, became ever more pliant under her caress.

Making it all the more deplorable when she suddenly, without rhyme nor reason, turned away abruptly. Veiling her troubled visage from his riveted stare. A stare that had sent many a weaker wizard into near cardiac arrest. But this time however, he did not feel the same predatory need to kill, as he had them. His senses detected no such stench emitting from her skin. In fact, if he were to put a name to her scent, he might go so far as to call it pleasant. Had he the time to pry apart each node in her web of pheromones, he might have been driven speechless from utter confoundment. But as it was, his mind revolved time and time again around one word in particular. Fascinating.

He had been dissecting her every move, long before she took those two steps away from him. He watched her as though she were the one not fully human. Her temples throbbed from her mounting anxiety. Memories of things that had long ago passed, echoed through her mind. Nearly splitting her skull in two from the violent intrusion. Feelings of things that she had long ago let die inside her, when she'd disappeared from the world. And as she ripped herself away from his immediate reach, they both heaved in a disorienting breath. Each left gasping at the sheer juxtaposition between their warring emotions.

The Dark Lord himself, suffered a devastating loss the moment she ceased to warm his skin with hers. The derelict feeling in the pit of his stomach cumulated into something unlike anything he'd ever felt before. He could but liken the sensation to his discovery of his diary's complete and utter destruction. Her abandoning touch nearly withdrew a reaction most undesirable from him.

Were it not for the reining Dark Lord's tightly gripped control, he'd have exposed his burgeoning desires of the flesh quite spectacularly. A weakness, he'd forbade himself from suffering. It was in this moment of clarity, that he cast his fascinated eyes from following the unyielding line of her spine down into more dangerous territory. His troubled eyes instead, falling to the space between their bodies; revealing his own body's treacherous response to her.

Leveled beneath his fearsome stare, he willed his half-erect cock into submission. Disgusted by the emergence of such a base animal mating instinct, infecting his tightly gripped control. He sought to deny any culpability, blaming it entirely on his form's unnatural mutations. It might have worked if not for the fact that he was much too analytical, to be completely lulled into believing his own paltry excuses.

His wand arm raised, fingers extending out in a ravenous need to return her skin to his. Fingers closing around air, as he clenched his fists in repugnance. He glared down at the betraying limb in disgust, lowering it back down to his side. Flashing his violent crimson orbs once more in her direction, as he suddenly wished he had not lowered his arm so thoughtlessly after all. But rather desiring to cradle his long deft fingers around the unyielding yew wand, Garrick Ollivander had handcrafted some years previous. Long before the wandmaker had any knowledge of the man whom Tom Riddle, would turn into.

Alas, as his orbs waned from their bone-chilling carmine hue, they settled back to their natural state. A blue so frigidly pale, that he'd often wondered how he had ever lured another to his side with false sincerity and warmth. Something he didn't think himself capable of, in the least. Though if he sought to achieve complete transparency, he'd long ago given up on truly understanding the human condition. Humans, they were as insignificant to him as the lowly ant underfoot. Running around aimlessly before they died, without a hope to grasp true genius with their simple minds.

Her actions though, perplexed him and he was not one to allow his attentions to deviate needlessly. She'd proven herself quite worthy of his study, just moments before. The sheer existence of a seer at his beck and call, would bolster his followers' fidelity exponentially. A thought which both pleased and confounded him immensely. For the idea that he might require such reinforcement, spoke of weakness in his ranks. It voiced an underlying impotence in his ability to lead his followers into a new era.

His conflicting emotions had at first, felt quite alien to him. Though he was discovering quickly that the longer their encounter lasted, the further his mind distorted. Yielding discord from within the depths of his mind, along with accompanying responses which he struggled to conceal.

Unused, as he was to suffering such conditions experienced by those of inferior intellectual pursuits, he felt infuriated by the woman that stood beside him. How dare she encumber his thoughts with unnecessary feelings, he seethed internally. The actions themselves seemed to be done offhand, but he remained ever vigilant, nonetheless.

The way that she was, dare he say, comfortable at his side, astounded him greatly. For while even though she shied away just moments before, he got the distinct feeling it was contradictory to her body's true desires. Her actions came off as if it were second nature to glide her skin along his flesh. Thoughtless of how dangerous he indeed was. Almost as though she was flippantly ignoring how easily he could brutally slaughter her. As if he hadn't done just that, to the hundreds or perhaps even thousands, before her. The very idea caused him to bristle, at the mockery. He would not be disrespected in such a manner!

What knowledge did this beautiful woman possess that made her act in such a foolish way? That gave her such security despite the comprehension of just who he was? He ached to obtain that kind of knowledge, the cognition that should have never been extracted from his mind in the first place. For even with but a portion of his soul, he felt whole; but take his mind, and he was but a sliver of the wizard he truly could be.

Since having begun his acute observations of the woman claiming to be his sister, he'd come to a very intriguing realization indeed. For as her slippery tongue alleged one thing, her actions spoke a truth far displaced from modern society's readily accepted ideals. Alluding to scandal, larger than anything his mind could have suspected. Something which if true, and he greatly suspected it was, would make this next conversation infinitely more interesting.

"Tell me sweet Vera," He slowly began, savoring the dulcet tones her name brought to his sibilant speech patterns.

"You have laid claim to have been my sister of long-lost. Flesh of my flesh. That we share the same blood that ran through my greatest of Slytherin ancestors. Yet," he paused for dramatic effect.

"You do not touch me like I am your brother." He affirmed to her boldly, his voice growing soft the more he spoke but it seemed he couldn't stop himself from consciously eyeing her form with narrowed crimson orbs; a visible attempt to unveil her secrets.

"Nor do you look at me like we are family." Stepping just a hairsbreadth from her back, he allowed his thumb and forefinger to stroke a line down her jaw. Firmly delving into his newfound ability, to 'see' as she saw. Magic crackled in the air around them, as his skin found purchase upon hers. Turning her chin to face him, he stared into her radiant orbs like she was his equal. For as he had previously discovered, her 'sight' offered her something far greater than any normal pair of eyes could. For not simply anyone could connect with one's magical core on such a raw and instinctual level. And look she did, for he could feel her magic calling his to every available surface on his body. Just as his did hers. Like two contrasting magnets desperately seeking out the other's touch.

"Why?" He hissed; eager to pry the tabooed admission from her, before she could secret away the true nature of their connection. If she truly had some rancorous knowledge of a sordid incestual affair, he would hear of it now; before truth reached him by other means. For while his mind abhorred the idea of her truly being his kin, he was completely at a loss for any other plausible explanation. It would certainly explain the pull he felt toward her. As he didn't easily befall attraction of the bodily sort. Nor magical.

After all, he had met women before who molded others around them; twisting them into little more than mindless pawns. With nary a whisper of resistance on their victim's lips, they'd find themselves strung up as fools. Dancing to the every whim of the seductress, who could no more counter a curse than a Squib. A foul waste of air in his opinion, for he despised those without any real magical talent. But he didn't feel bewitched or possessed, as those wizards had so blindly felt.

Contempt and some other emotion he had yet to put a name to, licked up the back of his throat, like a thirst he needed to quench. From the depths of his body, he felt the predatory call of his ophidian senses, seeking to quell his enmity with blood. Her blood. But he stayed his hand, until he had proof of such deceptions.

The wizened Dark Lord would not be left at some simpering witch's mercy. For while she was as talented with her touch as she was her tongue, he was no thoughtless simpleton. And if she dared gift him with a lie, she would be delivered a most painful death.

He was Lord Voldemort after all. A connoisseur of the Dark Arts. A devious manipulator and known sociopath. A mass murderer. He craved nothing more than dominating others; exhibiting absolute control. The thrill he got from holding a life in the palm of his hand, could not be matched. He was a wizard who could suss out the most deceiving of lies, which was why she caused him such internal duress. She shook his constraints as though he were naught but an inexperienced novice. Something he hadn't felt since he failed to deceive Albus Dumbledore, all those years previous.

The intricacies of the human mind, were something he didn't quite understand, so much as instinctively know. He had no real grasp on the emotional workings behind love or true despair. He was bereft of such a capacity. Such had always been the case for him; even as a child he could read the wants and motivations behind others' actions. Long before he had developed his magical gifts into something wholly extraordinary, he'd discovered something equally as remarkable. A natural talent for stratagem, buried deep in his subconscious. A supremacy that had once more hammered into him, the notion that he was more than those simpering rats living in the orphanage's walls.

He'd taken to carefully cultivating his machinations over his years. His need for complete control was unexplainable. Born to him out of hate and envy of others. But more so, of his own greed. It enabled him to compartmentalize. While others his age barely grasped the concept of letters, he'd already begun to realize the power which language held. Authors carved their thoughts into the minds of the masses. Defying death through their literary talents. Their name, alive on the lips of the people, centuries after their bodies perished; subordinate to no force or governing body. They were immortal.

Though the art of manipulation was more than just speech and perception, it drove the mind to identify certain markers with offense. For the young Slytherin heir, such a knowledge was tantamount to success. One could be whatever they wished to be under the proper guidance. Under the right rules. For years, the future Dark Lord studied people and their reactions to positive and negative stimulus. He learned how far children could be pushed before madness broke. Before tears wet their little cherubic cheeks, when they finally realized they'd been deceived; a delicacy he could savor like the finest of wine. The power he held was seductive; the more he used it, the more he yearned to use again.

Although it was within facial features that told a story all their own; a hidden truth that bled to the surface. Unlimited to such seclusive constrictions, so unlike vocalization required. It was a fascinating study and happened to be one in which he'd used throughout his life, as his most effortless way of reading someone. The older purebred lines made note to teach their young the art of neutral deceptions early on. Such was how they thrived in the political world.

Mannerisms were a thing to be dissected and studied, as well. Fleeting in their ephemeral existence. Here one moment, gone the next. They were weapons, waiting to be harnessed. They provided transparency. Broadcasting the truth, when all else was lies. And in that moment, he saw many a veracious piece of the puzzle that was her.

Interrupted by an almost bell-like laughter, his thrashing thoughts stilled.

"I suppose your query is meant to send me off-balance. Make me loose lipped and frightened of what secrets I could be hiding," Vera began to speak in a softened voice that echoed around her and conflicting with her body language as she swiveled around to meet him head-on, glaring magnificently at his snake-like visage without fear.

"Perhaps I'll lie to you and tell you I'm Dumbledore's lackey, since you're so obviously trying to bait me into revealing some form of trickery," she continued daringly, fueled by the outward suspicion dripping from his lips. It caused her anguish to watch him regard her with such provocation, looking through her eyes but not acknowledging just who she was to him..

"As if I would lower myself to accept anything beneath what is rightfully mine," she sneered, contemptuous of the battle that she knew would come to pass before he discovered she was exactly who she was. So distrustful, as always brother of mine. Some things never change no matter our time apart... Vera just never expected to be on the receiving end of it.

"But that would also imply that you're too short-sighted to listen to your instincts, when they so clearly just told you that there was indeed a Dark user in the school." She stabbed her finger in his direction. "You felt it." She said confidently. "I know you did."

His top lip curled back at her assumption; at her daringly behavior that went farther than any other before her in all his recollection on this earth. How resilient and durable she was with her strength. It was something to be respected as much as it irked him at this very second. It was the assumption that she knew him better than he himself did, how she picked up on his near undetectable habits.

"Did I, witch? You seem to know quite a significant deal of things you shouldn't. Things you couldn't know."

The subtle tilting of her head paired with the minor shift in her brows, left her looking somewhat cocky, no - expectant, he supplied. It nearly pained him to ignore the distractingly refined arch of her neck. It was almost as if she was indulging him in continuing the charade. He supposed, if she could indeed see future events, this conversation may seem quite rehearsed. Though it was the first time he could ever recollect speaking to the girl, not quite woman. Even the elegant clasp of her hands at her back, gave him the impression that his questions had, as planned, provided just the prompt she had been waiting for.

"Perhaps, I am not lying at all my Serpent King. Have you stopped to consider your enemies may not be who you think?" Her sibilant tones giving her voice a far more desirable quality. Even as she spoke in riddles, his eyes were drawn to her lips. Which had once more appeared their natural sanguine hue, as he struggled to keep up his enhanced vision.

Her matter-of-fact smile turned rather shadowed, as she continued sadly. "It's quite the tragedy really, our story. I'm the only woman you have ever found worthy of your touch, and you can't even remember it." Looking down, she disappeared deep into her mind for a moment, causing his brow to furrow from his absolute emotional ineptitude.

Her somber pout curled up in the corners, until she tried to grin playfully back at him. "Alas, I guess I'll just have to settle for being the only one alive to know just how to make a Dark Lord beg." She finished with a teasing smile that made his blood burn hot with indignation, at her playful quips. She, who seemed to know such intimate details that he, himself was unawares.

Her pulse held steady, as she remained surprisingly at ease in his presence. Voldemort tightened his jaw instinctually at her almost arrogant manner of speaking. For while the Dark Lord could grasp nearly every known subject of magical theorem, joviality seemed beyond his comprehension. Something he'd neither understood nor ever found wish to. Completely impeding his senses to be able to detect the underlying fondness, of which she had spoken to him. He felt his temper rising, as he sought to lash out at her for her disrespectful words. Punish her.

"You seem to have neglected to remember, the near fifty years I have spent out of your reach while you remained locked in your little cage. What would you know of a Dark Lord's desires? A boy's perhaps, but certainly not a wizard of my caliber." They were face to face by this point. It was while observing her minute facial movements, that he delivered his final blow to her heart; like a dagger of ice penetrating her soul.

"Surely, you don't think I remember the sweet sounds you might have made under my hands, for I certainly do not." He finished with a grin; enjoying the way she hissed in a slow intake of breath, in retaliation. He took great pleasure in burning her, as she had him.

It was with an unnatural quickness that she latched her wrist around his throat, throwing him up against the wall at his back with an unyielding strength. Immobilizing him initially from shock, before he realized she had disallowed him any movement in this memory world, which she had absolute control over. Paralysis held him utterly at her abhorrent mercy. Her jaws snapped menacingly, in his direction like an animal. While he found himself reminded of Bella in that moment, for some inexplicable reason. Their prideful natures forced a sort of primitive violence to the surface.

"If you think I won't rip you from throat to balls, if you make one more demeaning comment, you are far more stupid than I previously thought. You are already on thin ice over that Potter nonsense you allowed to happen. Tsk, tsk, brother mine."

He was half encouraged to laugh at her threat, but that Potter business was in bad taste. His magic flared out at that last comment, but hers overwhelmed his. In her company, he found himself flailing in his attempts to reinforce his mental barriers. Tremors wracked the walls which encapsulated his vicious magical core. Her foreign presence contaminated his mind's impregnable defenses with unknown desires. The likes of which he had no interest in entertaining. But he was vexed tenfold at the way she tried to cage him in. No one laid their hands on him.

He could feel his magic pulsing haphazardly from within the depths of his body, lashing out in vociferous wrath. Enraptured as he was by the mere taste of her body's pheromones in the air between them, he was overcome by a tantalizing hunger, burning through his sternum. It was as if she called to every base instinct he'd buried long before. He felt altogether possessed by the woman, like a moth to flame. Enthralled by her ghoulish beauty. Her ferocity. Like a lioness ready to land her final blow. Such magnificent violence.

The sinfully addictive magic that mirrored his own in both control and capacity, wrapped around her like a cocoon. This woman who claimed to be of the prestigious Slytherin bloodline, matched him in ways that no other individual had succeeded before. He felt his eyes growing hot, as if his fragmented soul had risen to the surface to watch this beautiful creature. For indeed, he would not discount her beauty, her power as anything less. With his eyes flaring a blood-red hue, he looked demon possessed.

She saw his feral desires, crashing upon her own with reckless abandon. Instead of quivering in fear, her body shivered in anticipation. Almost like she planned to devour him whole.

Slyly, she ran her nose up along his neck, viciously sinking her teeth into his flesh. Punishing him for his waspish words, before soothing his flesh with her tongue. Physically claiming him as hers. Causing him to let loose a strain of Parseltongue, before she devoured the words right out of his mouth. Sucking, coaxing, and biting his tongue in some battle to claim his mouth as her own, as well. He tasted both her and her blood, and he couldn't tell which ensnared him more. But he suddenly felt ravenous for more.

She even seemed to understood his monster's base need to dominate, to conquer. Wordlessly allowing him to reach out and wrap his arms possessively around her lithe frame. His demanding hands laid claim to her long pale locks, twisting and pulling with a mind all their own. Descending all the way down her spine to the full curve of her hips, which would never feel the weight of child-bearing. Her lush curves laid untouched by time and malnourishment, even after the withering years locked inside the cavernous walls of Azkaban. He claimed her in that moment with just as demanding a touch as she'd felt, binding him against the wall.

Whatever the Dark magic she was using to whittle his defenses into dust, he felt like he had already gained something infinitely more substantial than a wounded pride. He'd gained her. Something that, if the current placement of his hands had any meaning whatsoever, he would not be releasing anytime in the near future. She was his, and he would make sure she never strayed from his side again. For once he discovered the source of his mental afflictions, he would force upon them immeasurable pain unlike any he'd ever delivered before. His vengeance would be absolute and there would be no mercy for the filth who dared lay a hand on what was his.

After that, he would drown in her. Her blood, her body, and her secrets. Just to see which tasted the sweetest.