Well it only took me several millennia to update. I've been insanely busy this month. I was in a show in the beginning of the month and once that ended it was all about getting ready to go back to school. Blah. Anyways. Thank you for waiting patiently.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled fanfiction…

Now what? I wondered.

Lord Voldemort and I sat in silence for a moment.

"I should be going," I said. "My… my family is expecting me. My mother is throwing a dinner party and I kind of ran away because I just… needed to clear my head, you know? Like the idea of sitting in that room and everyone watching me and Rodolphus and trying to make us into a perfect pureblood marriage and I'm only seventeen and I want to get out of school and see the world and be someone but I can't and I'll go straight from being Bellatrix Black to being Bellatrix Lestrange and that hardly seems fair because I don't even know who just plain Bellatrix is!" And stood up and tried to gather my thoughts. "And is having ripped up tights and unbrushed hair really the worst sin in the world?"

Lord Voldemort smiled. "Why, of course not. I find it quite… attractive." He paused a moment. "So there is a dinner party at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black and you chose to spend your time cavorting with me instead of around other powerful, pureblood wizards. Interesting… Why?"

"I just told you why," I muttered. "I'm just sick of it all, you know? And this arranged marriage to Rodolphus actually really bothers me! Doesn't everyone deserve to love?"

"Oh, Miss Bella, I don't know a thing about love," he murmured. "But I do know that you shouldn't have to become Mrs. Lestrange if you don't want to. I think Bellatrix is a perfectly wonderful, talented, gorgeous young woman who deserves a chance to see the world and be something." He looked at me closely. "You're only seventeen?"

Shit. I knew I shouldn't have said anything, but it had just slipped out. He wouldn't want me now. He would think I was too young for him. I probably was too young for him. "Yeah," I acknowledged.

"And yet wise beyond your years," he mused. He was quiet for a moment. "Well. I should let get back to your dinner party. Wouldn't want to keep them waiting for too long."

"Yes," I said.

We stood in awkward silence for a moment.

"Will I ever see you again?" I asked.

"It would be my pleasure, love," he said. "And I do believe it shall also be fate's. I have great plans for you."

I smiled.

"A kiss, before you go?" he asked.

He had hardly finished the question and my lips were on his.

After what could have been seconds, or hours, or centuries, we pulled away again. "I'll send you an owl," he whispered. "Good-bye, Bellatrix."

"Good-bye, my lord."

Dazed, I made my way back to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. I brushed off my skirt, tried to collect myself. I mentally prepared myself for the land of 'please-pass-this' and 'isn't-it-lovely' and 'toujors pur' and 'Bellatrix-and-Rodolphus', so different from whatever I had just experienced with Lord Voldemort.

No matter how hard I tried to turn that part of my mind off, the last thought that entered my head before I went back indoors was, The man who claimed to not know love in fact called me that. 'Love.'

Of course it was only a colloquialism. I'd heard it used before.

But not by anyone who had only moments earlier kissed me, and then asserted their disbelief in the word as a concept.

Ah! There! You have a chapter! Please continue to review, because it makes me feel awesome. Like seriously. I don't know how real authors do life without being crazy conceited. If I was someone super legit and awesome, like J.K. Rowling, I would just walk around all the time like "LOOK HOW MANY PEOPLE LOVE ME!"