October 11, 1968

Tom Riddle spent the morning feeling on top of the world, undeterred by the foolish actions of Rodolphus and his father. The figure of Bellatrix snugly wrapped around him upon waking brought him greater happiness than any of his other accomplishments (perhaps barring opening the Chamber of Secrets while still a student himself, creating his three Horcruxes and inveigling Dippet to hand him the job that had enabled him to get close to Bellatrix). Merlin, she was the prettiest witch in the whole world when she smiled with her eyes still half-full of sleep, kissing his ear and cooing Good morning my Lord. Her faith in Lord Voldemort lit a fire inside Professor Riddle. He was even beginning to accept that his feelings for her did not make him weaker at all, but had quite the opposite effect. She made him more ambitious, more desirous of speeding up the time-frame he had envisioned for achieving his goals of infiltrating the entire Ministry and installing a puppet regime. He would do it all with this witch by his side.

He had debated whether or not to even share the letter that had arrived for him late the previous evening with Bellatrix. With his quarters tucked away in the Dungeons, he had developed an enchanted letter retrieval system to instantly transfer incoming mail from the Owlery into a locked drawer in his desk. He ultimately decided that they could strategize together, and she reached the same conclusion that Rodolphus had not come by his suspicion through innocent guesswork, but that someone more observant had tipped him off. Tom had initially feared the boy might make some kind of scene or outcry if they didn't bring him to heel first, but his father had likely advised him that his life was worth more than whatever teenage hormone-fuelled rage was coursing through him. Rodolphus might not be the smartest student Tom had taught, but he didn't have a death wish.

Since breakfast in the Great Hall was always buzzing with students, Tom decided that it would be the easiest place to stand close enough to Misses Selwyn and Greengrass to stealthily obliviate them of their knowledge that Bellatrix did not return to their shared dormitory. He took extreme care to only disturb the previous night's memories, and implanted a new memory of Bellatrix returning just before curfew with her book bag overflowing from a trip to the library, with the implication of a late-night study session for an Arithmancy test. Bellatrix informed him that a test was in fact happening this week, and neither Lucy nor Acantha took the difficult elective. He seized upon the excuse of needing to speak to the Slytherin prefects, Proserpine Travers, a pug-nosed fifth year, and Alaric Crouch, a bookish second-cousin once-removed of the rising politician Bartemius, cajoling them to assist as extra eyes and ears on the night of the upcoming Halloween Ball.

Professor Riddle's appearance in the Great Hall quickly turned into a spectacle. It was well known that he usually preferred to order his meals directly from the Kitchen's house-elves, transfiguring whatever wasn't to his liking using Gamp's Law to avoid unnecessary fraternizing with students and faculty alike. Given the rare occasion, several Slytherin girls, and even one or two of the boys, wore coy smiles and giggled to each other. Everyone was so distracted that it would have been miraculous if someone had noticed the girls' eyes glaze over for a half-second.

As he crossed the Great Hall to the Professors' Table, several of the staff gawked, wondering what had brought their colleague out of his reclusion.

The most glowering pair of eyes belonged to Minerva McGonagall, a dour-looking witch of forty-eight, who sat next to Dumbledore at the centre of the table. She wore a woollen fisherman's cardigan of the sort likely procured from a muggle shop, paired with a cream blouse and tartan skirt; her dull brown hair was pulled in a bun so tight that it surely must have given her migraines. Tom and Minerva had only overlapped one year as students at Hogwarts, and she had gone to work for the Ministry immediately after graduation, meaning they were never in direct competition with each other. But she had always been close with Dumbledore, and it seemed like his grudges and suspicions about Tom were transferred to her.

He began piling a few slices of bacon and tomato onto his plate just as he spied Bellatrix, who was only now emerging through the entranceway. She wore leggings under her loose-fitting athletic robes, as they had decided she would pretend to have gone for an early morning jog along the Black Lake, something she did on occasion to clear her head. That would suffice to answer the questions of any of the other Slytherins who might have recalled her being missing from the Common Room that morning. Tom thought to himself that Bellatrix could have a successful acting career, should she desire it.

He found a seat at the very end of the table next to Slughorn. The Potions' professor was halfway through his second cup of coffee, and could not have exhibited a more contrasting reaction to Minerva. He greeted him uproariously, "Tom, my boy! What a treat that you've joined us this morning! Solving Golpalott's unfinished fourth theorem, were you? Or perhaps wrapped up your innovative trace magic approach to dealing with the vampires?" Horace gave Tom a genuine smile.

"Ha. Well, I have been quite busy. Working with an assistant is of some help, but I find myself needing more hours in the day than there are," Tom said, casting a subtle glance over to where Dumbledore and McGonagall were apparently now discussing knitting patterns.

He always made sure to raise his Occlumency shields whenever he was within sight of Dumbledore, even with Professors Flitwick, Kettleburn, Binns, and Sprout separating them. It would be unwise to underestimate his enemy, as much as Tom felt it tempting to pass him off as a senile crank whose glory days of duelling Grindelwald were well behind him.

"So, Tom, did you ever go on a date with Miss Winnicott?" Slughorn asked slyly.

"Oh. Erm…she's a nice person. But I think we were not compatible with one another." Tom wished that he was anywhere else but having this conversation.

"Why, Tom, what could possibly have been the problem?" Slughorn's expression shifted from glee to mild irritation. "I refuse to believe that you are incompatible with such a lovely career-minded witch as Emma; very fine sartorial taste, not unlike her mother, Eugenia—who was a knockout in her day, I'll have you know—we met at the Society of British Potioneers, where she was one of the first witches to join the society. But I was too late. She was already smitten with a dashing herbologist from Wales. We kept in touch through the years, you see. She's quite upset that her only daughter is about to turn thirty and still living at home." Slughorn delivered his monologue without bothering to check if Tom was still listening as he poured out his heart into praising the daughter of the witch that got away from him. Professor Riddle finally seized an opening as Slughorn crunched on a particularly dense oat cake,

"Miss Winnicott keeps two kneazles, and I am very allergic. She was quite insistent that she would not part with the kneazles," Tom lied.

"Is that so? She never mentioned that to me. How very odd," said Slughorn with the faintest hint of a frown.

This was followed by something of an uncomfortable silence. Tom gulped his breakfast in record time, and casually mentioned that he still needed to prepare for his third-year class on werewolves. As he got up from the table to leave, he pulled out a bag of candied pineapple from his pocket.

"Just a token of thanks for your earlier gift, Horace."

"Now, Tom. You know candied pineapple is my weakness. You really must stop spoiling me," he said, wagging a finger.

If Slughorn had his suspicions about the date that didn't happen, he was now more than compensated, Tom thought. He gave a curt nod to acknowledge the rest of the staff as walked away.

It had been imperative as a student to be on good terms with his professors, and to preserve his carefully-crafted image as Head Boy, but now that he was a professor himself, Tom found it difficult to go out of his way to be polite to anyone, besides Slughorn. The Slug Club was the first place where he received positive acknowledgement that he was worthy of being in the same room as the Malfoys, Notts, and Lestranges of society. If nothing else, he didn't want the man to think he was some kind of ungrateful fraud. Though, fraud he most certainly was: he'd already spent one year recruiting students for his army who would take over wizarding Britain under everyone's noses, and had now begun to mould a slavishly devoted seventeen-year-old girl into his perfect follower. A feeling of triumph returning, he set out in haste to find the young Lestrange boy.

Rodolphus Lestrange was not in the Great Hall that morning, feeling entirely unmotivated to rise from bed. When he finally pulled back the green curtains from around his four-poster and dragged his body to the washroom to look at himself in the mirror, he noticed that his face was especially wan and ill-looking. Somehow, he found the strength to clean his teeth with magic and shave the stubble of his beard with a razor. He hadn't needed to shave until earlier this year, and found that doing it by hand was more precise than by magic. The depilatory charm was liable to sometimes also remove his eyebrows—Rodolphus had always been told in Charms that he lacked focus.

He was completely alone. He didn't bother to show up to first period Transfiguration, and figured the day was already sufficiently a lost cause and that he might as well mope around. At one point he considered smashing something, but as he glanced around the room, the only option seemed to be his prized Quidditch figurines depicting players on the Appleby Arrows team. Unable to commit to damaging his collection, he kicked over a chair in frustration. Rodolphus had not cried since his mother's funeral, but he figured he was long overdue, and probably wouldn't get a more private moment than now, in the very room where he had spent the past six years imagining his future with Bellatrix Black.

After all of the pent-up emotion was released, he picked out a clean set of school robes and slammed the dresser drawer shut. He wanted to scream at Bellatrix that she was making a huge mistake by giving herself up to someone who could never marry her, or be with her in any meaningful way. They were supposed to have the traditional pureblood wedding ceremony in the gardens of Lestrange Manor with all of their family members in attendance. Would any of that now come to pass?

The traits that Rodolphus had admired most about Lord Voldemort: his charisma, power, and obvious sense of accomplishment with which he carried himself, now filled him with burning envy and rage. Rodolphus could still remember the intense shock when his father, after a few glasses of bourbon, had blurted out to him and Rabastan that the Dark Lord had returned to a muggle orphanage every summer when they were in school together. It had seemed then that Tom Riddle must have overcome great adversity to rise to his current position. What if he had just hoodwinked everyone? Undoubtedly, he was an intimidating man who seemed something more than human, but his behaviour with Bellatrix suggested a lack of regard for pureblood customs, and an inability to control himself. But Rodolphus also knew that he must serve the Dark Lord. He hadn't yet taken the Dark Mark, but his branding was all but guaranteed by his father's own high rank. There was no such thing as a former Death Eater; his father once said that only way to get out was to be killed.

As Bellatrix alighted from History of Magic, her final class of the day, Rodolphus lay waiting for her in ambush behind the hidden staircase that led to the Dungeons from the first floor. He was somewhat nervous that she might overpower him with her magic, but he grabbed both of her wrists and used his superior strength to pull her into a shallow alcove. She did not have time to protest or hurl a hex his way before she saw clearly that it was him. His tie was on backwards, his shirt was buttoned up in all the wrong holes, while his sandy brown hair was unwashed and stringy; he looked as if he had hardly slept a wink, and just tumbled into the corridor.

"So, it's true then?" Rodolphus demanded, his eyes flashing with a touch of madness, "He walked into the bloody Common Room, cast a massive silencing and invisibility dome around us, I didn't even understand whatever the Latin was, like he was using this arcane magic to just shove it in my face just because he could, said I could either pretend to be a happily betrothed sham couple with you, or he'd erase all of my memories of us. And then he said he was paying my dad a visit later today," he blathered, words spilling out faster than Bellatrix could respond to them.

"Slow down, Dolph. Let's have a calm conversation."

Bellatrix used his childhood nickname, which he had given up as a eleven-year-old. He had exclusively adopted "Rod" when he started Hogwarts, probably because it sounded more like the name of a bully. Druella and Madame Lestrange would spend afternoon tea in the parlour of Black Manor on occasion, while she and "Dolph" would entertain themselves, which usually meant Bellatrix besting him at games of Exploding Snap. But Bellatrix needed him to be pliable and ready to follow instructions. A little nostalgia wouldn't go amiss.

"Look, Dolph, I never expected for things to happen this way. But the way things are with him…it's so perfect that I can hardly believe that it's me that he's chosen to be with. I can't say exactly what type of arrangement we have. I suppose it's very unconventional."

"I'd be a good husband to you, Bella. Please give me a chance. I'll read more books. I can try…I can try to be more like him," Rodolphus pleaded. Bellatrix found the notion of Rodolphus trying to emulate Lord Voldemort to be ludicrous; it was almost pathetic enough as to be charming, in that it revealed he really was blinded by his naïve idealism.

"We would never be anything more than platonic friends if we married, you understand. I think you deserve to find someone more suited to you, who would love you exactly for who you are."

"I don't want anyone else, Bella. It's always been you for me." His eyes glistened from a combination of holding back tears, and the candlelit sconces on the Dungeon walls, which partially illuminated the dark alcove.

"I'm sorry. But you have to promise me that you will speak nothing of this. You are bound to protecting the identity of the Dark Lord now. No one can suspect Tom Riddle of anything untoward happening with a student. Got it?"

"Yeah. I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"How did you even suspect? Was it Laetitia Culpepper? I'll kill that bitch."

"No, I didn't hear anything from her; well, that's not entirely true. I think I overheard some talk of you getting to be his research assistant. Just her whinging about how unfair it was."

"Then how did you figure it out? We've been beyond careful. There's zero evidence," Bellatrix flatly insisted, crossing her arms.

"I…bumped into someone, and she just started to talk to me about how you were behaving differently, and I said I noticed it, too. Anyway, I know that you lied about your aunt dying, and apparently making yourself up with spells."

"Andromeda! She'll pay," seethed Bellatrix. The gears in her head were already turning, dreaming up suitable punishments for her sister. A little torture followed by a confounding promised to be a fun time; she had already committed to at least the confounding as a necessary first step in carrying out her plan for attacking students at the Ball.

"For what it's worth, I think my father will probably insist I marry you," Bellatrix leaned in closer, "unless our Lord forbids it."

"Why do you call him that? You've not even been initiated!"

"I will be soon, and I'll be his finest Death Eater."

"Yeah, I'll bet. Sleeping with the boss. They'll know exactly what you are to him at meetings."

"Oh, I'm sorry. But only a few weeks ago I distinctly remember you telling me I would be made the first female Death Eater because of my skill."

"There's a reason it's only men, Bella. Do you know what they do to the women they capture? Have you ever witnessed Dark rituals, or do you just research them?"

Bellatrix was silent for a moment, too shocked to speak. She knew, but hearing it spoken aloud made it real.

"That's what I thought."

"I have no sympathy for muggles, nor witches who are blood traitors, nor those who did something to anger our Lord and obstruct him from carrying out his plans. They deserve to die in the worst way possible." Bellatrix surprised even herself as she said this. Rodolphus looked terrified.

"He's really got you wrapped around his finger, hasn't he? He's so much older, Bella. He's been manipulating people since before either of us were born. And what'll happen when he's too old to do certain things?"

"Certain things like what? He's the Dark Lord. He can fly unassisted and raise the dead." Bellatrix had never seen a display of him flying, but believed him when he said he had pioneered the theory behind it; she added the last part without knowing whether it was exactly true, either. Creating Inferi wasn't quite the same thing as resurrection, she knew (and even then, she had only suspected that he'd done it). But Bellatrix wanted to emphasize just how much more powerful her Master was than a useless teenage boy.

"Uhh…when wizards get older, it sometimes stops working, and then there's potions, but-"

"Rodolphus Corvus Lestrange, I highly doubt the Dark Lord will ever be unable to satisfy me."

"Ughh. That's too much information!"

"Well then, you should bloody well accept the way things are going to be."

"Right, then I guess I'll be escorting you to the Ball. Am I allowed to dance with you, or will he decapitate me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You'll be permitted to dance with me, at least once. But you can't kiss me. Touching me is forbidden apart from whatever is necessary for the dance. I'll inform you of the colour tie you will need to purchase. Now, if that's all, and you promise to be a good boy, I shall be heading to the Common Room."

Bellatrix tore open the envelope she had been saving all afternoon- she recognized her family's owl, Coda, who dropped it on her plate at lunch, but she had been too afraid to read it in front of the others. Unfolding the parchment, she held her breath as she recognized her father's script.

Bellatrix Irma Black,

You have brought SHAME AND IGNOMY upon yourself and upon our House with the situation between yourself and Tom Riddle, of which I have lately been informed by Rodolphus' father. As you are aware, Rodolphus Lestrange comes from a highly respectable family, and is a boy of upstanding character who I would welcome as a son-in-law. For reasons beyond me, he is willing to look past your behaviour and proceed with a betrothal if you stop debasing yourself at once.

Your mother and I cannot prohibit Tom Riddle from seeing you; we cannot pull you out of Hogwarts, nor can we involve Dumbledore for obvious reasons, which puts us rather in a bind. But what I will tell you is that Tom Riddle has never wanted to be close to anyone. You are not special, or clever, or whatever dragon dung lies he has used to beguile you, just as he has beguiled everyone else and wheedled his way into our society. He would drop you in a second for some other young harlot with similarly loose morals. I might respect what he intends to do for the wizarding world, and Merlin knows I have thrown my share of Galleons his way, but I have no confidence when it comes to his intentions with you.

If you defy my orders and refuse to marry Rodolphus, it will be impossible to secure another match of equally high rank. No one wants used goods, especially not ones that have been used and discarded by such a notorious wizard.

I am, with deepest concern for your honour,

Your father

Cygnus Black III

Bellatrix pulled out a scrap of parchment and immediately began scribbling furiously. She had deliberated putting the small bottle of poison ink in the barrel chamber of the quill that Professor Riddle had given her, but letting out a small sigh, she wrote in plain black ink,

Dear father,

I believe myself to be bringing great honour upon the House of Black by associating with Lord Voldemort, a supremely powerful wizard whose influence grows daily. I plan to serve my Lord's movement after graduation and devote my life entirely to his cause. I will not marry Rodolphus.

P.S. – You do know what happens to those who cross Lord Voldemort, don't you daddy?

I will happily take my chances,

Bellatrix

She folded the letter inside the envelope and made Narcissa, who looked much too cozy on the Common Room sofa with her face pressed up against Lucius Malfoy's long hair, take it up to the Owlery. If her father insisted on meddling in his daughters' love lives, he might have instead chosen to make sure that his thirteen-year-old daughter didn't accidentally get pregnant with the spawn of Abraxas' son. Perhaps someday Cissy and Lucius marrying might put an end to the dreadful feuding between Cygnus and Abraxas. For now, though, Bellatrix felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she next began to worry about how her other sister had been presumably putting the pieces together for weeks.

October 14, 1968

Black Manor, Hampshire

Druella Rosier Black wiped her tears with the corner of her lilac charmeuse silk robes where she sat apprehensively looking to her husband at the kitchen table. The owl from Bellatrix carrying a letter dated Friday had been sitting on the table since it arrived. It was now Monday, and the passage of two days to digest its message had not helped to lower Cygnus' blood pressure. He dismissed the family's house-elves, barking orders at them to remove themselves from sight and perform an inventory of the manor's attic that should take them until nightfall to complete. The couple could not understand what had gotten into their eldest daughter in the two short months since she had departed the family home to begin her final year of study at Hogwarts. Bellatrix had been an odd child with a fiery temper, but they had never imagined the possibility that she would land herself in a crisis of this magnitude.

"I will get her signature on the damned contract! I will not see my daughter debase herself and the Noble House of Black!"

"Oh, Cygnus! I know you see it as what needs to be done to rescue her honour, but it doesn't bode well to be at odds with him."

"I will not have people whispering about my daughter being some self-important half-blood's harlot!" roared Cygnus.

"Cygnus, darling, if you force her signature, she implies that he might do something! Think of our other girls. Don't you want to keep them safe? And what if Tom would marry her, once she's graduated, of course?"

"Tom Riddle has never wanted a wife, believe me. All he sees is the opportunity for an easy lay." Druella sobbed more loudly than ever at the implied loss of her daughter's virginity as Cygnus went on, "Do you really think Bellatrix is that sophisticated that she could trick Tom—I'm sorry, Lord Voldemort—into giving her some kind of commitment?" he added with a sarcastic rolling of his eyes, "Did you notice how she only calls him Lord Voldemort in her letter? I mean, that ridiculous name, it just spells out how deeply-rooted his insecurities are."

"Darling. Please calm down," pleaded Druella, her grey eyes wet with tears.

"I'm not finished! Confringo!" he raged, shooting blasting curses carelessly from his wand, shattering a coffee pot that sent glass shards flying; a series of shelves holding canisters of flour blew up with a poof; immense vases of orchids that Druella had sourced from Myanmar left strewn petals and broken earthenware everywhere. Catching his breath after destroying the kitchen, Cygnus resumed his raving, "A half-blood bastard son of a Gaunt slut who got knocked up by a dirty muggle! That's who Tom Riddle is! I'll not stand for it anymore! Playing at Knights was all well and good as teenagers at Hogwarts, and I've always supported him with funding—yes, he can be quite charming when he wants to be—this, however, this is one step too far. Thank Merlin I never got his stupid tattoo like Abraxas Malfoy!"

Meekly, with utmost care not to set off her husband again, Druella offered, "Well, it's always been the case that the Malfoy family hitches its broomstick to whoever's power is on the rise. The Lestranges are in deep with him. Gaston has the Mark, does he not?"

"Yes, well?"

"Like it or not, he is powerful, and becoming more powerful each day. It might not be so bad."

"Not so bad?!" he fumed, as the veins of his face and neck protruded and coloured his skin with a tinge of purple.

"Of course, I would hope Bella could convince him to marry her, but even if he won't, it doesn't mean certain loss of status. Times are changing, Cygnus. Some pure-blood men would even look the other way, if Rodolphus won't."

"You've no aversion to our daughter being spoken of like a common whore? No, I suppose you wouldn't, after all, you spread your legs for Abraxas!" He spat the name with particular venom.

"Please, I refuse to rehash this. That was fifteen years ago. It has no relevance to the matter of Bellatrix's future."

"Well, I think it has everything to do with it! No witch from the House of Black has ever been swept up in such a mess. Unlike that Rosier witch—a courtesan of the French muggle King, wasn't she? It must be a defect of the Rosier blood that encourages Bella."

Druella bawled uncontrollably, her body shaking like a leaf in a windstorm. She had only ever heard of those nasty rumours from Cygnus, but upon consulting historical records, one distant ancestress, Clotilde-Marie Rosier, had seemingly ensnared some of the most powerful men of eighteenth-century France, including great statesmen and royalty, into her bed.

A chestnut-coloured owl suddenly smashed into the glass windowpanes of the kitchen. Druella jumped up in fright before flicking her wand to open the window, allowing the owl to drop a carefully sealed scroll from its beak.

Cygnus and Druella,

No further action to be taken on your part. The appearance of a betrothal needs to be kept up, but there is to be no marriage.

Yours truly,

Gaston Lestrange

"Merlin protect us!" she exclaimed, setting the letter down to dab at her eyes with her handkerchief. "He must've threatened the Lestranges."

"That's it. My mind is made up. I'm going to Hogwarts."

"Cygnus! Don't play with fire!"

"I owe it my House, Druella. After Alphard's defection, someone needs to put their foot down. Father no longer has the strength for it. I've always thought my sister would have made a fine patriarch, if it wasn't for being born the wrong sex. The duty falls to me."

"Darling, be careful!"

Cygnus dressed himself in a suit sewn from premium Italian wool that had cost over four thousand galleons; he smoothed his dark hair (which would have been entirely grey had he not dyed it using a potion) with a brush of thestral bristles, and sprayed on his headiest cologne that smelt of saffron and exotic oud wood. He looked every bit the part of patriarch of the House of Black as he stood in the fireplace and disappeared into the Floo Network, ready to give Tom Riddle a piece of his mind.