June 1968

Malfoy Manor

"Cygnus." Bellatrix watched as the handsome Tom Riddle - or, as her father had told her he liked to be called, Lord Voldemort - came walking into the dining room and clasped her father's forearm in greeting. He looked a bit frazzled, she thought in confusion. The last time she'd seen him, ages ago, he'd seemed sharp and focused, but today he appeared distracted and anxious as he listened to her father blather to him near the doorway.

"... so, anyway, hopefully we can earn good dividends on those major accounts this year. We shall see. For the goblins, it's rarely about making ample profit for the bank's customers, which is frustrating for the wizards involved. It is, admittedly, a tenuous relationship we have with them. For almost a hundred years, it's been this way. Ugly dealings, the way things are, mired in distrust, and yet we are condemned to respect that we each play a role in the financial dealings of the wizarding world, eh?"

Her father certainly knew how to talk someone's ear off, Bellatrix thought grumpily as Tom Riddle just nodded and seemed to force a little smile. Then Mr Riddle benevolently said to Cygnus Black,

"I'm sure your work is valued highly, Cygnus. Quite literally. Now. Do reintroduce me to your eldest daughter. I haven't seen her in an age."

Bellatrix confidently strode up to him and flashed him a winning smile, probably a bit too flirtatiously. She curtsied just a little, sending her black skirts poufing about her legs. Her mother Druella had insisted she wear a "proper dress" for this luncheon, even though the June weather was quite warm. Bellatrix brushed her curls over one shoulder and nodded to Mr Riddle.

"So good to see you, sir. Bellatrix Black."

His face was strange then. Unreadable, and yet there was something deep and powerful in his dark eyes. It was almost like longing, very different from the lusty glances and lascivious stares Bellatrix suffered from hormonal boys at Hogwarts or married wizards at social events. It was like Mr Riddle wanted to say something, but simply couldn't do so. His lips twitched a bit, seeming to struggle to find the right position, and finally he just said,

"It is very good to see you, too, Miss Black."

"Well, I'm famished!" boomed Cygnus, clapping his hands and startling his daughter. "Shall we eat?"

Her father cheerfully made his way to the dining room table, as did Bellatrix. When she reached her chair, she was surprised to see that it had pulled itself out, and she glanced up and saw that Mr Riddle was standing nearby, his hand extended. His face was a bit odd again, almost pained. Bellatrix smiled gratefully at him as she realised he'd pulled her chair out with impressive wandless magic, and when she sat down, she smirked, for her chair pushed itself back in. She put her napkin on her lap and watched Mr Riddle arrange himself into a chair opposite her. A chicory salad with walnuts appeared on their plates, and Bellatrix picked up her fork as Mr Riddle said lightly,

"Miss Black, Abraxas Malfoy tells me you managed quite a heap of trouble at school just before the end of term."

"Quite so," Bellatrix laughed, and Cygnus huffed a sigh, swigging from his glass of juice. Bellatrix ignored him, gleefully leaning forward as she tipped her head and confessed, "These two horrid Gryffindors… their names are Janet and Markus, but that doesn't really matter. Well, anyway, Janet and Markus are somewhat notorious for their public displays of affection. They're sickeningly in love, you see. Have been since third year. The snogging never ceases. At first, we all rolled our eyes about it and laughed, but then it just became beyond insufferable. I simply could not stand it anymore."

Mr Riddle was stifling a laugh, and he kept glancing over to Cygnus, who seemed quite cross. Bellatrix stabbed at some chicory on her plate and proudly boasted,

"Well, finally, at Hogsmeade Station, I epoximised their mouths together. I'm sorry, but if you insist on snogging nonstop, then you shall be glued together in a kiss. They got what they deserved. It was hilarious."

"It was not hilarious. It was… that was ugly behaviour, Bellatrix, and you know it," Cygnus hissed, but Mr Riddle choked out a laugh at last. He did not appear to be able to help himself any longer. He took a long drink of pumpkin juice to try and keep from laughing more, but finally he shook his head and smiled at Bellatrix, his dark eyes shining. Suddenly her breath was gone. Oh, he was handsome, she thought. So very handsome. Her stomach twisted and her chest thudded. She shouldn't be thinking about him like this. She was dating Rodolphus. He was her father's age. But he was very handsome.

"Six weeks' worth of detention!" Cygnus was saying in despair, holding his hands up and shaking his head. "Six weeks!"

"Worth it?" Mr Riddle asked gently, and Bellatrix grinned.

"Quite." She raised her juice glass to him as if to toast the occasion, and his cheerful demeanour seemed to dissolve a little then as her father loudly shifted the conversation by saying,

"You need to marry the Lestrange boy straight away after school, Bellatrix, and become a good wife and mother!"

Bellatrix heard herself audibly snarl in distaste. "Father, let's not discuss such wretched matters as motherhood at a perfectly pleasant meal. I've other aspirations."

"Yes, yes, we all know you want to do miserable things to people, Bellatrix, dear," Cygnus mumbled, stuffing his mouth with chicory salad. For his part, Mr Riddle just dragged a fingertip around the rim of his juice glass and sniffed lightly.

"You've just finished your fifth year at Hogwarts," he noted, and Bellatrix nodded.

"Yes, sir." She watched as the salads gave way to a dish of roast goose with crispy skin and herbed potatoes with some greens. Bellatrix frowned; it was entirely too heavy a meal for a summer's luncheon, but she dared not complain. She just poked at a potato, spearing one eventually as she listened to her father tell Mr Riddle,

"Bellatrix wants to be a guard at Azkaban. Or an Auror. Or work with the Hit Wizards… or be an Unspeakable. It changes by the day. She doesn't know what she wants. Her mother and I wish for her to follow the old ways of the House of Black."

"Which is to say," Bellatrix said sourly as soon as she'd swallowed her potato, "I am expected to sit at home whilst the House Elf does all the work raising a few lovely little Pureblood offspring and cleaning house. I'm not exactly certain how I'm meant to spend my days. Mummy does Magical Crafts and hosts tea parties. I'm not suited for such things as that."

"No, I don't suppose you are," Mr Riddle said a bit brazenly. Beside her, Bellatrix's father straightened his back a little, seeming slightly defensive, but Mr Riddle licked his lip and said carefully, "As I'm sure you've heard, Miss Black, I've recently returned to Britain after many years spent on the Continent. I was studying, you see, and I learnt a great many valuable skills. Skills that I know will assist me in bettering wizarding society. I wish to help craft a better wizarding Britain for us all. It will take work. Hard work. Dedication. Loyalty. I wonder if you'd be interested, sometime, in hearing more about such things."

Bellatrix tipped her head and smirked just a little, feeling the skin on her arms prickle beneath the sleeves of her linen dress. Her father cleared his throat and said in a low voice,

"Tom, she's much too young to hear about -"

"I don't think she is, Cygnus," Mr Riddle said firmly, shooting her father a very meaningful look. To Bellatrix's surprise, Cygnus shrunk back a bit in his seat and nodded. Mr Riddle sniffed once and raised his glass to his lips, seeming to let the quiet in the room settle deliberately before he said to Bellatrix, "I quite like your reputation for… darkness, Miss Black. I think such proclivities would suit you quite well in the movement I'm developing. I should like for you to be a part of it all. Shall we meet, you and I, to discuss things further?"

"Yes," Bellatrix said at once, without thinking. Her heart was thunking, metal on metal, inside her chest. She nodded desperately and gripped the edges of the table. "Yes, sir. I'd love to talk with you more. I'm home all summer, so…"

He curled up half his mouth and nodded. "Tomorrow, then. Here at the manor. I've an office. Your father can bring you; he knows where my office is. Don't you, Cygnus?"

He stared pointedly at Bellatrix's father then, and Cygnus bowed his head to stare at his roast goose, his cheeks flushing darkly as if he'd been humiliated. "Yes, sir," he said quietly. "We'll be here tomorrow."

"Good man," said Mr Riddle. Then, picking up his fork and knife, he said lightly, "Hm. Abraxas is such a loyal creature; he does know how I so enjoy goose."

Voldemort stared out the window of his office, his hands knitting anxiously behind his back. The afternoon and evening before, he'd spent his time attempting to figure out exactly what had happened to transport him from Halloween of 1981 to June of 1968. He was not able to discern the series of events. For the life of him, he could not imagine what had transpired as a result of the curse gone wrong. There had been no Time Turner involved, no Portkey. There had been no one else present to curse Voldemort, and as far as he knew, the effects of a Horcrux, even in an obscenely bizarre case like a rebounded spell, did not involve anything like decades' worth of unintentional time travel. Not only had Voldemort moved through time; he'd come from Godric's Hollow to Wiltshire. Furthermore, as far as he knew, there was only one of him here, so it was almost as though he'd moved backward into a parallel situation - another thread of existence, as it were. Voldemort found that just now, he wished not to undo any of it. He could try all of this again. He could win the battles he'd lost, save the Death Eaters who had been slain and imprisoned, exterminate the enemies who had evaded him, eliminate James Potter and Lily Evans as children before Harry Potter could ever be born. He could win. He could become the triumphant Lord Voldemort, whose power had no rival and whose reign was long and glorious. He could say the proper things to Bellatrix to keep her from marrying the brute Rodolphus…

He'd played along at the luncheon with Cygnus and Bellatrix in large part because Abraxas Malfoy had shown up at his apartments and had gleefully announced that the pair were awaiting Voldemort in the dining room. He hadn't had time, in those moments, to perseverate on how or why his Killing Curse hadn't worked properly or the fact that he'd awakened in Malfoy Manor. So he'd made conversation and he'd eaten his goose.

Bellatrix had been as young as he'd ever remembered her being, which had been very odd indeed. It had unsettled him a little, seeing her at sixteen. She'd not yet come of age; she would do so in September, and it was June. Voldemort had reminded himself of that fact when he'd pulled out her chair for her with wandless magic and had realised he'd been thinking that she looked awfully pretty. He'd forced himself to focus on discussing her misbehaviour at Hogwarts, on recruiting her into his movement.

He couldn't remember, honestly, how soon after their first real meeting he had invited her to discuss his cause. He knew that he had not done, in his previous lived existence, what he'd done the day before. He'd not insisted that she come the next day to his office for a private conversation. He'd not pulled a dominating tone over Cygnus Black III the way he'd done yesterday. Things had felt a bit different this time round, Voldemort knew. He chewed his lip now as he gazed out his office window and watched as the great front doors of Malfoy Manor opened.

Lucius Malfoy went bounding down the front steps, a broomstick in his hand, and he instantly took to flight in the gardens. The boy's blond hair whipped about him as he soared round the trees on the grounds on a leisurely flight. He was on the Slytherin Quidditch team here in his youth, Voldemort thought distantly. Lucius had been in his mid-twenties and had fathered a son, Draco, with Narcissa Black when last Voldemort had seen him. He'd grown to be a Death Eater like his father, unflinchingly committed to Blood Purity and brave enough in battle, but certainly more loyal to his own family and fortune than to the Dark Lord himself. In that way, Voldemort had always thought, Lucius was so different from his sister-in-law Bellatrix, who cared nothing for herself and had surrendered her whole being unto Voldemort. His stomach turned a little as he thought of her, as he thought back to the sight of her the day before picking like a bird at the too-rich food on her plate. She was not married here, Voldemort thought absently. She'd said no vows. She wore no rings. His eyes burned just a little.

Suddenly a black whorl appeared just beyond the iron gates that surrounded Malfoy Manor's carefully warded grounds. Voldemort stood at attention, Lucius Malfoy soared down on his broom and effortlessly landed inside the gate as it swung open and granted admission to the two figures who came walking in from beyond - Cygnus and Bellatrix Black. Voldemort gulped as he watched Bellatrix wave in greeting to Lucius. She and her father paused for a moment to talk to the boy, who tossed his silvery mane pompously and threw his head back in laughter in response to something Cygnus said. Bellatrix appeared to have tied her curls into twin plaits, which made Voldemort feel strange. It was a childish style, ill-suited for her, he thought. She was sixteen; she'd be coming of age in just a few scant months. She ought to wear her hair in a style more appropriate for a grown witch. It was off, he thought, for her to come to him dressed like a child. Just a few days ago, at least for him, he'd seen her at thirty years of age, mature and lovely, dressed in velvet and speaking in a hushed tone with him over glasses of rich Spanish wine as they plotted and schemed.

He scowled as she approached the steps of the manor with her father, and he rather angrily pulled out the chair at his desk and sat down. Then he restlessly stood back up, stalking quickly over to his drinks table and considering pouring himself a tumbler of firewhisky. But before he could do so, there was knocking on his office door. Voldemort considered going over to the door and opening it to greet his guests, but instead he chose authority. He walked to stand in front of his desk, where he leaned back, folding his arms over his chest, and called in a sharp bite,

"Do come in."

After a moment, the door pushed slowly open, and Bellatrix peered around it. She looked shy, much more so than she'd appeared the day before, and Voldemort knew why. Cygnus had left her alone. She crept into the office as though afraid, and she hesitated with the door, uncertain of what to do. Voldemort almost told her to close it, but then he thought that might make her uncomfortable, so he said lightly,

"Your father is off to play Wizard's Chess with Abraxas on that precious family heirloom set he keeps down the corridor, I take it?"

Bellatrix choked out a little laugh and nodded. "How did you know?"

Voldemort tipped his head. "Those two have been hacking one another's chess pieces apart since they were boys. Stupid endeavour, in my view."

"You don't like games, sir?" Bellatrix asked from where she stood, and he raised his eyebrows.

"Mm. I like games, just not the sort that have no real consequences. Let's just say I prefer to do… actual damage."

Bellatrix's pouting dark lips parted in wonder, and a spike went up Voldemort's spine. He looked away from her for a moment, thinking that perhaps he did want that firewhisky, after all. He made his way to the drinks cart and pulled the stopper from his crystal bottle of Blishen's, pouring a few fingers into a tumbler as he murmured,

"You've got a craving to do terrible things."

She was silent for a very heavy moment, until at last she asked once again, "How did you know?"

Voldemort stared at her as he took a sip from his glass, relishing the burn of the liquor as it went down his throat. He took a step toward her and said softly,

"What if I told you that I believe you are perfectly capable of committing the most hideous atrocities wizardkind can dream of, Miss Black? And that I shall require a very loyal soldier beside me to commit these atrocities on my behalf? Hmm? What would you have to say to that?"

Bellatrix's tongue crept out and danced over her lower lip as her eyes shut for a moment. Voldemort sipped deeply from his firewhisky as he waited for her response. She murmured,

"I would say, sir, that it seems you know me far better than most. And that you present me with a career opportunity more appealing than anything the Ministry has to offer."

"Hmm." Voldemort's ears were ringing, and his pulse was leaping as his blood raced through his veins. He sipped from his glass again and then somehow found his manners enough to ask distantly, "Would you like a drink, Miss Black?"

She tipped her head and gave him a crooked little smile. "I'll have what you're having, sir."

He raised his glass a little and teased, "This is firewhisky, little girl. You'll get me in trouble."

She scoffed. "Oh, I hardly think you're one for rules… Lord Voldemort."

He froze then. So few people had used that name for him so soon after his return from the Continent. He remembered meeting Bellatrix in his first lived experience; she'd been newly home from her fifth year at Hogwarts. His mind raced as he thought over that summer. He'd only seen her a scant few times at social events. She'd never called him Lord Voldemort then. Not at Christmas that year, either. He tried desperately to think of when she'd first done it, and he realised it hadn't been until she'd been a seventh-year Slytherin. Yes. Christmas of her seventh year, when she was eighteen years of age and newly engaged to Rodolphus Lestrange. She was on the verge of becoming a Death Eater at that point, and she had said the term for the first time instead of Mr Riddle, like she'd addressed him previously.

But now, here she stood, staring at him with her wide chestnut eyes that shone with all the promise in the world, speaking his proper title like it was right and good. Voldemort's throat felt tight, constricted, and it was not from the firewhisky. He set his glass down on his desk and took a moment to gather himself before he nodded and walked over to the drinks cart. She'd asked for liquor. She deserved some liquor.

He poured her a few fingers of firewhisky, his hands trembling a bit as he did, and as he approached her with her glass, she flashed him a contended little smirk and dared to say,

"You think me capable of atrocities, sir. What sort of atrocities do you have in mind?"

Voldemort passed over the firewhisky, and she shocked him by confidently taking it and murmuring her thanks, and then sipping from it and just wincing a little at the burn. He raised his eyebrows and said,

"I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter, Miss Black."

"Bellatrix. Please." She stared up at him, and when he breathed in, the spice of the firewhisky mixed with the feminine aroma of vanilla and sweet, smoky oud from her perfume. It was somewhat overwhelming, and he took a half step back as he said a bit desperately under his breath,

"No, Bella."

She looked quite confused then, furrowing her dark brows, and Voldemort felt his cheeks colour and go hot. He shook his head and whispered,

"I didn't… it's not…"

He had no idea what to say to her. You don't understand, little girl. I've wanted you for thirteen years, and you've been following me around like a loyal dog the whole while. You've killed for me, over and over, and you've looked beautiful the entire time. I've wanted to kiss you. I've wanted to tell you a hundred times that your face bathed in the green light of a Killing Curse is the most magnificent sight on Earth. I woke up yesterday to find out I was here and that you were young and did not know me. You don't understand.

Of course he could say none of that. Instead he just shut his eyes and bowed his head and listened as Bellatrix asked in an awkward tone of voice,

"Should I leave?"

He did not respond. There was a long moment of quiet then, until at last Bellatrix said very quietly,

"I think someday people will die by my wand. I'm destined for it. Some people are destined to snuff out life. It is the way of things. You mean to be a very great wizard, don't you? So you will have enemies, surely. And they will need to be destroyed. Some of them will need to be…"

"Snuffed out." Voldemort raised his face to look at her, and she nodded. She sipped her firewhisky and then passed the glass back to him. He took it from her as she assured him,

"I shall become the very loyal soldier you say you need, sir. The one capable of terrible atrocities. Perhaps I shall surprise the both of us with the things I do."

"Perhaps." His fingers tightened around the cut glass tumbler she'd given back to him, and he nodded as he told her, "Go home to your silly mother with her crafts and her tea parties. All the ridiculous things you're going to be much too busy to do."

Bellatrix toyed with one of her childish braids, and once again Voldemort found himself thoroughly annoyed by the hairstyle. He wanted to scold her, to inform her that she'd looked almost shockingly gorgeous at her sister Narcissa's wedding in 1974, when her curls had been drawn into an elegant formal knot adorned with silver decorations, with a few stray ringlets falling about her face. Voldemort's breath hitched at the memory, but here in his office, the painfully young Bellatrix stood before him and petulantly brought his attention back to their conversation about Druella's cross-stitching and social events.

"Didn't you hear my father, sir?" Bellatrix pouted. "I'm to marry Rodolphus Lestrange and become a paragon of Pureblood womanhood."

Voldemort shook his head and said, "No need to marry anyone. Not when your path as a soldier is so certain. You've no desire for children, I take it?"

"None whatsoever," Bellatrix rolled her eyes, and Voldemort's chest felt tight as he stumbled through his words then.

"Then don't get married. You're entirely too young to sign away your adulthood in such a way when you've no longing for domesticity or motherhood. Anyway, you'll be engaged in something far more important if you decide to… you know, commit atrocities, as both you and I seem to think you so capable of doing. And it is my understanding that the Lestrange boy is dull and uninspired; I think he is probably insufficiently exciting and prepossessing for a witch like you."

He was breathless then, and he felt like a fool. His cheeks had gone warm again, and he suddenly swigged from the glass in his hand, the glass of firewhisky that he'd given to Bellatrix earlier. She watched him do it, and then she just stared at him for a long moment. She seemed to be studying him, taking in the shape and form of his facial features, and Voldemort was more self-conscious than he could remember being.

What? He wanted to yell at her. For thirteen years, you stared at me like a starving woman eyeing a steak, like a woman in the desert seeing water.

Instead, he just drank more of the firewhisky he'd poured for her, his head now buzzing as he distantly realised he was mildly intoxicated before dinner. He gulped and said gently to Bellatrix,

"Go find your father and have him take you home, Bella."

He winced then; he'd said her shortened name again entirely on accident. It was a force of habit. He hadn't even begun calling her that in his own lived experience until she'd been in her mid-twenties, when the two of them had fought so many battles beside one another and had endured so much exhausting struggle together that Bella had begun to feel comfortable for him to say. She had always relished hearing it from him, he knew. She would always shiver a little or give him a doe-eyed smile when he said that name, in a meeting in front of her husband, or in his office. Sometimes he would scream her name across a battlefield, in fear or desperation, and in wild moments where he thought she'd been taken out by a Killing Curse, Voldemort would always default to crying out for her as Bella.

But right now, in this odd new reality where she did not know him, where she was young and untested and he had yet to prove himself as Lord Voldemort, he knew that he had not earned the right to call her that, to be using a pet name with her as though she were the beloved little servant who had worshipped him for thirteen years. He finished off the firewhisky in his hand and wandlessly Vanished the tumbler, saying in a very rough voice,

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today, Miss Black."

"Thank you for having me," she replied, and in her voice he heard the hint of adoration, the wonder that had seeped in between them later in her life. He found himself staring into her eyes then, into the very wide brown eyes before him, until at last she bowed her head and turned to go. She was at the door when he sniffed a bit and asked,

"Do you play? Wizard's Chess?"

Bellatrix turned round and smiled a little at him. She chewed her bottom lip and shook her head.

"A stupid endeavour, sir, you said."

"Just the same," he shrugged. "I might like to have a go sometime, for old time's sake. Abraxas is entirely too skilled and is therefore no fun at all to play against, I'm afraid."

Bellatrix nodded. "I'm positively atrocious. You'll win."

"Don't be so sure." Voldemort said, curling up his lips wryly. He swallowed hard, not wanting her to leave and knowing she needed to go. He raised his hand to wave to her, his head swimming from all the firewhisky, and he said at last, "Goodbye, Miss Black."

"Goodbye, sir," she replied, and then she was gone.