It was, I decided, a very good thing that no one ever remembers what happened when they were born. No one wants to be that embrassed. I was going to be scarred for the rest of this life. It was terrible.
We had gone over all the ceremony of 'oh,she's a girl!' the day/night/whatever of my birth. The responses varied. My mother was pleased enough, and decided that I was quite a pretty baby. She, I might add, was quite pretty too, and didn't seem very old, twenty seven or eight, perhaps. I quite liked her. My father was another story altogether. He coldly expressed his disappointment in that I was something so worthless as a girl, and asked my mother if she would mind terribly if he killed me off and tried again. My mother replied that she would prefer he didn't, and he settled for ordering me never to be brought into his sight. You can imagine how I feel on that, especially since he was about twice as old as my mother, not half as pretty, and had the most terrifying red eyes.
I really had, by the way, been born into the middle ages. My parents wore robes, my mother called my father 'my lord' and defered to him in everthing, and appeared to adore him to a point which his sensibility was not deserving. Oh, and they also appeared to be part of a cult, and I had seen both do strange things like making things fly to them through the air (my mother, who wouldn't get out of bed), burn paper in their hands (my father, the scary thing), and so on. I wasn't as surprised as I would have been had I not died once. Perhaps reincarnation wasn't really the thing. This wasn't remotely like the world I had been a part of before I died. Time appeared to have gone back a couple centuries, people could do…let's call it magic…and everything was delightfully insane. I was not so concerned. I had spent so much time doing absolutely nothing that although the life of a baby was amazingly boring I had plenty of fun observing my mother and father, though one was ridiculous, and the other was cruel.
My mother's name was Bellatrix, or Bella, as my father often called her. She appeared to have little personality beyond her adoration of my father. It was obvious that my father didn't love her. He didn't even pretend he did. He seemed to me a cruel man, though I could vaguely understand my mother loving him in that he was a very powerful man. I suppose that must count for something. He was not handsome, there was a gross twisted nature to his features that prevented him being so, and coupled with the red eyes I previously mentioned, and the threat to my life, I was quite afraid of him. I was determined not to show it, however. The worst he could do was kill me, and I was 90 percent sure at this point that nothing would happen but that I'd have to go through the pain of being in a womb again, perhaps this time without my memories. If losing them was enough to never see him again, I suppose I wouldn't need them. But as time went on, he appeared to like me a little more than at my birth-I say a little.
"Well," he remarked to my mother one day upon seeing her feeding me, "the thing seems the less ugly with time."
My mother smiled, and didn't bother to remind him that I was not a thing. As for me, I was perfectly happy with mutual dislike. Anyway, I'm sure it was just the sight of my mother's breasts.
Oh, did I forget to mention? I have a new name. My mother told me. My name is Lacole Natasha Riddle. Lacole, she told me, meant 'victorious ones' and Natasha, oh irony of ironies, means reborn. I laughed aloud at hearing that. Fortunately, I'm a baby, so it was just a gurgle, and none of my bitterness showed. Yes, I am bitter about this. How could I not be? I was perfectly happy with my parents at least, of not my world. My mum and dad loved me. My mum might have been at times a little overbearing, and my father so affectionate as to be annoying, but I had loved them, and never wished for a different pair of parents. Was this, then, my punishment for detesting and despairing of the world I lived in? Is this God's way of telling me to feel myself lucky? I never used to believe in God, thought it ridiculous, scorned God for being hypocritical in fact. But after this, after dying, how could I doubt the existence of a higher being? I may still think bad of him, but of his existence I've been assured.
For Bellatrix, I feel little other than contempt. Perhaps sometimes I pity her, for being so hopelessly smitten with a man who obviously isn't about to return her love anytime soon. Perhaps I am doing her injustice in supposing that she has no personality; perhaps she does and it's only smothered by him. I don't know his name. My mother calls him nothing but lord and master. And she has very few opportunities to speak to him at all. For most of the time, he's gone. Every one or two or three days, he drops in for a few minutes, to insult us, crush her, and stare at me.
This life continued for six months, which was the time when I stopped needing my mother's milk. Bellatrix very eagerly stuck me in my cot with a flying ball to play with, and then disappeared herself. Now that was boring. There's only so long you can play catch before it sucks. I withstood a whole fortnight of it before appealing to my father's very slim good nature, in the only way a baby could. That day on seeing him I plastered a nice big baby grin on my face and called, "Father!"
The man was amused.
"Why, Bella," he said to my astonished mother, "the thing seems to have some merits after all."
I scowled at being called a thing again. As a result of being a baby, it scrunched up my whole face, and I sneezed.
"But then again," he murmured, staring at me with a calculating expression, "she is…my child…"
From then on, my father grew considerably nicer to me. On thinking about it, I realised the advantages of being in my father's good favour. Despite his being a horrible man. But then again, when has good and bad ever mattered? All people want is power, and all they have is deceit. For now, my father had the power. And as much as I hated the necessity, I had to make him like me. Only when he was unable to influence me anymore would I be free, free to roam this world of which I knew nothing and cared nothing. When I thought about these points, it was not difficult to cry, as babies do.
So I remained in his good favour. After another month, I said 'Bella', which amused him to no end and made him think I liked him better than Bellatrix. On retro-reflexion, it was true in a way. I was disgusted with Bella. I just didn't like him. Considering, my dislike for him was actually milder. It was rather hypocritical, wasn't it, that I prefered the cruel to the weak? Does that make me a hypocrite? I'm not sure. I'm not sure of a lot of things anymore. I'm not sure who I am, and that scares me. Will I lose my memory after all? Will I lose all that I have hated and loved in the fourteen years I once lived? I would not let it be, and so I took time, each day when I was left alone, which was less often now that my father liked me more, to remember my previous life. I cried over my friends and my mum and my dad and my grandma and all my cousins, and came out of it feeling a lot better.
I should try to expect from this world something better. Human nature is not inclined to learn from its mistakes, and I have made the mistake of pessimism repeatedly. Perhaps if I look forward it will be good? It might work, for in my first childhood, before I had reason to doubt, I was always happy. But then, when is a well-loved child not happy?
Things continued in the boring manner of a baby's life. I turned one. Not much was made of it, and I didn't really care. After a year of knowing my mother and father, I have reached a conclusion. They aren't good people. That's an understatement actually, my father for one is evil, and my mother very close to it. My father speaks of murder carelessly, and my mother listens and joins in in the same vein. I listened as he was talking to my mother of the 'muggles' he had killed today with relish. My heart seemed to harden as I listened. It was the same way I used to feel, going drinking with my friends and boasting to each other how badass we each were. I felt bad, wrong. I'd wanted to take pleasure then in taking part in such a cool activity. Here, I wanted nothing but to get away from these two people.
And my wish was soon fulfilled.
Well, perhaps not soon, exactly.
By the time it happened, I was four going on eighteen. During that time, I had, as soon as I could walk, found the library and started reading. There weren't any novels or anything. These were books on the Dark Arts, but I read them anyway, with the same feeling I'd given once to drinking with friends. I had wanted to be bad, so that I'd fit in with the rest of the world. I couldn't have a better chance of doing that now, really. I was surrounded by nasty, cruel, stupid, hypocritical, prejudiced people. These, are my father's followers. His cult.
After a long time, I'd finally heard my father refer to himself as Lord Voldemort. It was a weird name, but at least he had one, and I was starting to get worried that he didn't. Then I found out his day job. Apparently, his sole occupation is Taking Over the World and All the Surrounding Worlds, But Mostly Just Great Britain. It's probably the most badass occupation that ever was, so I refrain from laughing at that and appear to be Very Impressed. He's a strange person, a complicated mix of wit and ambition, insanity and cruelty. He thinks I'm a genius and spends some time teaching me when he's bored. I seriously don't know whether to hate him, admire him, scorn him, or fear him, so I do none of those, and just keep my original feeling of not liking him.
Four years of living, and I'm not allowed to see a single human being apart from my parents. My father is a very paranoid man, and an infant daughter is a weakness to him. I'm not so convinced. In fact, I'm sure that if someone killed me, he'd be no more than vaguely annoyed. I'm not even sure he wouldn't kill me himself. He said so, after all.
"Lacole," he said, intruding on my library, "where are you?"
I say nothing. He still finds me, though, rather irritated.
"I called you."
"I didn't hear," I lied. I'd long since learned that he knew whenever I was lying, and not to care.
"What is it you are reading?"
"French," I replied.
"What in French?"
"It tells me how to learn the language."
"You do not need to learn French, there are spells for that. I told you to read The Secret Art."
"I will." Sometime after I have finished the rest of the library.
"You are the most stubborn girl I've known in a long time," he remarked.
"That's because no one survives meeting you, father."
He seemed to like this idea. I don't need to talk about the ridiculousness of a person actually enjoying their own evilness.
"Still, I am sure none of them were quite as stubborn as you."
"You can tell them to read books instead, then."
"That's an absurd idea. My followers would be honoured if they were allowed a book from my library, let alone to be allowed free reign in here like I allow you."
"This is my library."
"Never in a thousand years, girl."
I looked up with interest.
"Is that how long it takes you to die?"
He gave me a nasty glare, and a nasty hex, which I ducked.
"I don't die at all."
"Oh. Did you finally get your way with that vampire, then?"
"That vampire no longer exists. I was immortal long before he was made."
I shrugged. Perhaps I should mention that. Lord Voldemort has a huge fear of dying. I would have assured him that he could continue his world conquest after dying, and told him exactly how to escape being memory wiped, but I have far too much campassion for the next world he's going to impose himself on for that. So I made no answer and carried on learning french. He watched me.
I think I must have made a strange picture. A little four year old girl, an adorable four year old girl if I do say so myself, sitting on the carpet with a huge book in my lap and a serious expression, I reminded myself of Roald Daul's Matilda. The difference is that Matilda is truly gifted, while I'm just luck.
"Do you know who I killed today?" He asked after a while.
"No. I'd rather it stay that way."
He ignored me, as was usual, and gave me a detailed description, including how to work the spells he used. I gratefully tuned him out by concentrating very well on my french, and only spoke when he had finished.
"You know, you have this idea of you and me side by side killing off Britain's supply of muggles, but it isn't going to happen."
"And why not?" He asked softly, daring me to moralize at him.
"…I don't like to share."
He stepped forward, crouched in front of me, pulled my book from my hands, and cupped my face in his hands. His red eyes were already scary at a distance. This near, it was horrible. It was like they were stained with all the blood of his victims.
"Understand this, daughter mine, that if I ever find you to defy me further than your clever little insults, if you ever seek to pull away from my control, if, in short, you are of no use to me or are a percieved threat to me, I will take your life as I have given it to you, and I cannot promise that my fatherly concern for you would render you a quick death."
To punctuate his words, the book about French burnt to smitherns, and as he left, threw at me The Secret Art.
Well. It was no loss of mine. It was his book, after all. I shrugged, and told myself he didn't scare me. But I still had nightmares that night, of Lord Voldemort's face before me-'I cannot promise that my fatherly concern for you would render you a quick death', I dreamed that he was tormenting me with the spells he had told me of before his threat. I woke with a scream in my throat, and could not sleep again until dawn. Natrally, I attempted to avoid my father for the next century, and then, upon seeing him at dinner, pretended I wasn't bothered at all.
Such things happened with such a strange man for a father, and I told myself I didn't care, didn't like him, didn't love him or want his love or want to love him, but it hurt, even when I didn't want it to, and I missed my normal, caring, overly affectionate dad more than ever.
Then something happened, and I didn't even have a father. I suppose every reader knows this event, and thinks that I'm a retard for not expecting it. Yes, I am talking of the events of Halloween 1981, The First Fall. My father tried to murder one time too many. I wasn't sure, at the time, how I felt about that. A sort of numbness, perhaps. I had wished to be freed from his control. Am I so much a favourite with God that I am to get my every wish? The thought wasn't really a happy one, and I thought, perhaps, I should be careful what I wished for.
Soon, I wasn't to have a mother, either.