"Oh, Bellatrix, darling. I'm so glad you've come. The Dark Lord has been asking for you for hours."
"Mrs Malfoy." Bellatrix kissed Tullia Malfoy's cheeks and nodded. "Dolph told me the Dark Lord had sent for me, but that he was… well, that he wasn't doing well. I'm worried sick over our Master."
She twined her hands before her and sniffed a little. If she was honest with herself, she was barely fit to be here today. She'd taken Moody's Blood on Fire Curse and had writhed in absolute agony for long minutes before Lord Voldemort had dashed in front of her and then had absorbed all of the detritus of a stray Blasting Curse. Bellatrix, too, had been hit by some rubble and scree, her chest taking a solid hit from a great hunk of muddy earth thrown forcefully by the Curse. Bellatrix had recovered at home, for the most part, since the battle in Cornwall, but was still achy and sore, and when she moved too quickly, her veins still stung from Moody's Blood on Fire Curse. It didn't matter, though. She was here to see Voldemort, who had apparently been most grievously injured and who had earlier today summoned Rodolphus through his Dark Mark and asked that the wizard send his wife to visit. The Dark Lord had specifically told Rodolphus, in a low and unintelligible mumble, that he needed his 'most able servant,' his 'fiercest little ally,' and then, Rodolphus had said, he'd fallen back asleep from the Anodyne Draught whilst whispering Bellatrix's name.
So Bellatrix was here, in Malfoy Manor, clad conservatively in a floor-length dress of black velvet with long sleeves and a high neck to cover the unfortunate-looking marks through her veins from the Blood on Fire Curse. They would fade, but she would not show them to the Dark Lord. She'd even covered the backs of her hands and her cheeks with Stay All Day makeup to conceal the way her veins were darkened obscenely from the Curse. She would show no weakness to her Master. Not now. Not when he himself was healing from the battle. War was no time for a warrior to show weakness.
Bellatrix hurried up the staircase, her flat shoes making hardly any sound on the steps as she pattered toward the suite where Tullia Malfoy was leading her. It was the suite where Voldemort came whenever he stayed at Malfoy Manor, and Bellatrix knew that, years earlier, he'd lived in these very rooms. She remembered, as a Hogwarts student, meeting him here at Malfoy Manor, before he'd become as great and powerful as he would eventually be. He'd boarded here at the Manor then, though of course he'd grown much too influential and powerful to be a guest of the Malfoys in just a few years' time.
Tullia brought Bellatrix to a doorway and opened it, and she gestured inside. Bellatrix stepped into the rooms and felt her pulse pick up, sending a sting through her wounded veins. She listened to Tullia Malfoy shut the door behind her, and Bellatrix continued on. She knew he'd be in his bed-chamber, so she went in there, even though it felt intimate and awkward to do so. She expected, perhaps, to find a Mediwitch with him, or even a Healer. But there was no one else in the bedroom; the Dark Lord was all alone. There was a fire crackling in the great marble fireplace, bathing the space in a warm amber glow and a radiant heat. Bellatrix sighed as she drew up alongside the enormous four-poster bed and sank onto the stout, velvet-seated chair that had been situated at the bedside.
Her Master lay sleeping on his back, clad in a white sleeping tunic, his face marred with a deep gashing wound from his receding, greying hairline all the way down past his angular jaw. It looked incredibly painful, for it was still partially open and shimmered in the firelight as it healed. His left eye socked looked swollen, the area around it alternately sunken and marbled, apparently having been badly smashed. His shoulder and arm were braced and cast, and there were gauze and bandages on wounds he had on his neck and collarbone. Bellatrix's stomach churned to see him so badly hurt, knowing he'd only gotten so grievously wounded because he'd leaped in front of her after she'd taken Moody's Blood on Fire Curse. Her eyes burned so badly then that she couldn't see, and she struggled to breathe until she heard a soft whisper.
"Bella? Is… is that you?"
She sniffled and choked a little, leaning forward on impulse and reaching to touch at Voldemort's blankets. She grasped near his chest, not thinking clearly, and said desperately,
"Yes, My Lord. It's me. It's Bellatrix. I'm here, Master. I'm so sorry. I am so very sorry you're hurt, Master; I feel so silly that you -"
"Are you all right, my beautiful creature?" Voldemort murmured, reaching with his right hand to cover Bellatrix's left one. She stared in shock at the way his good hand, the one that wasn't in a cast, caressed gently at her fingers. He stroked over her wedding rings and then curled his fingers around hers and turned his face to her. She saw then that his left eye, the one that was badly injured, was clouded over and seemed to be blind. But his right eye focused on her, even through the very evident intoxication he had from all the Anodyne Draught and other Healing potions and painkilling spells. He hummed at her, "I saw you fall. Heard you scream. I thought… mmm, I thought, if I lose her… Bella, my beautiful Bella…"
He shut his eyes for a moment, his hand going still on hers. For a terrifying second, Bellatrix worried he'd stopped breathing, and she reached to shake gently at his good shoulder. He roused and gasped a little, and Bellatrix realised she was hovering over him. Voldemort reached up and cupped her face in his right hand, meeting her gaze with his one good eye and his cloudy one, and he just nodded a tiny bit. Then he whispered, so softly Bellatrix could barely make out what he was saying,
"You are incredibly precious to me. The most precious thing of all."
He pulled himself up just a bit off the pillow and brought Bellatrix's face down just a little, and suddenly, before she knew what was happening, she was kissing him. Her lips were on his, touching once, twice, three times, just softly little presses. He let out a noise of almost urgent want, and then out of shock and very visceral need, Bellatrix parted her lips and applied more pressure. His tongue threaded up into her mouth and coursed around, and Bellatrix squealed quietly. She frantically grasped at the blankets, wanting so much more, finding herself curious about what his hands would feel like all over her, what he might feel like inside of her.
But then Voldemort gasped in pain and yanked his face back, his face twisting, his eyes wrenching shut as he hissed through clenched teeth in Parseltongue. Finally, he managed to groan,
"Anodyne… please, Bella, the pain…"
"Of course, Master. I'm so sorry." Bellatrix gathered herself then, hauling herself off the bed as her head spun and her heart raced. She uncorked the little bottle of Anodyne Draught on the bedside table and dropped a bit into Voldemort's mouth as he writhed on his pillow in misery. After just a moment, he was lying still and quiet again, on his back, almost entirely unmoving, and he murmured,
"Thank you for coming."
"Of course, My Lord," Bellatrix said, pursing his lips and twisting her fingers together. "I'm sorry to see you so hurt. I hope you heal quickly. You know I want nothing more than your health and success."
"Bella," Voldemort whispered. "Bellatrix… my beautiful Bella."
She started to cry a little then, feeling like she ought to leave him but wanting nothing more than to stay. She bent down and planted a kiss on his forehead and murmured onto his skin,
"Be well, Master. I will slay your enemies beside you when you are well."
"Bella… My Bella." Voldemort reached up and touched carefully at her cheek and then his fingers fell from her to the blankets and his breath slowed again, and she knew he'd fallen back asleep from the Anodyne Draught. Bellatrix kissed him once more and then stood, feeling tears stream freely down her cheeks as she rushed out of his bedroom without another word. She hurried out of his suite and ran down the stairs, sprinting down the corridor of Malfoy Manor, determined to get out to the Apparition Point before Tullia Malfoy could see the way she'd dissolved into sobs.
Bellatrix gasped and blinked her eyes open. She rolled over in the bed she shared with Voldemort in Praelia House and saw that he was already gone from bed. She grabbed at the sheets where he usually lay, and she cried out desperately. She burrowed her face into her pillow and heaved with a sob, realisation sinking in that her dream had been a vivid memory, not just some esoteric vision. It wasn't a memory she had lived in her own sixteen years, not in this lifetime. But they had been lived; that scene had played out in reality. The Bellatrix that her husband, her lord and Master, had known for so long, had lived that scene. The witch who had suffered Alastor Moody's Blood on Fire Curse in Cornwall in 1977 and then visited Lord Voldemort in Malfoy Manor had been real. She had kissed him - or, perhaps, he had kissed her. He had called her beautiful; he had called her his.
Bellatrix hauled herself out of the bed and dragged her feet across the floor of the bedroom until she reached the bathroom. She sat numbly on the toilet and relieved herself, crying quietly as she relived the dream, the memory of a life she did not know, a life she knew had been real. Voldemort was unaware of this, Bellatrix realised. She washed her hands and scrubbed her teeth with mint powder, and as she rinsed her mouth, she thought to herself of how he'd told her that he'd just repeated her name in a haze from the Anodyne Draught. That was all he remembered. He'd told her that he'd spent years wanting to touch her, wanting to kiss her, wanting to tell her how he felt about her, but that he'd never drummed up the courage. He didn't know what had happened that day at Malfoy Manor. He didn't know that they'd kissed, that he'd told her she was beautiful, that he'd called her his Bella over and over. He didn't know any of that, Bellatrix thought as she dragged a wide-toothed comb through her ringlets.
She studied her reflection and saw a very young witch, someone on the verge of her seventeenth birthday. She set down her comb and studied her wedding rings, the dark grey diamond engagement ring Voldemort had made for her and the matching wedding band he'd put on her with vows in the Ancient Tongue. She blinked a few times, realising that when he'd accidentally come back thirteen years in time, he had seen one benefit in all of it in that he could, at long last, tell Bellatrix he loved her. He could kiss her; he could touch her. He'd married her here. Her stomach twisted terribly. The memory from her dream had been after a battle in 1977. He had last seen her in October of 1981, when she'd been thirty years of age and he'd been fifty-five, when he'd thought he'd never properly touched her, much less vocalised any of his real thoughts to her. So she'd kept all of it secret for four years. She'd kept fighting for him in the war. She'd stayed dutiful and loyal. But she'd also stayed married to Rodolphus Lestrange and had apparently never given Lord Voldemort even the slightest indication that he and Bellatrix had shared a kiss, that he'd repeatedly whispered and murmured in the quiet room, "My beautiful Bella." She had never told him any of that. She'd just danced with him at her sister's wedding whilst he had apparently ached for her. He'd let him gift her a necklace to honour the star Bellatrix, and all she'd done had been to thank him and then go back into Rodolphus' arms. What an ungrateful little snit she'd been, Bellatrix thought ruefully. She had no memory of any of it, and yet she despised herself for all of it.
Suddenly the figure of Lord Voldemort himself appeared in the threshold of the bathroom, startling Bellatrix and making her jump a little. She gripped the sides of the bathroom sink and tossed her curls over one shoulder, sniffling as she gazed at him with a tear-streaked face. He scowled at her from where he stood, dressed in neat but casual black linen robes. He'd been downstairs eating breakfast, Bellatrix suspected, and he'd let her sleep in a bit. Now he took a step into the bathroom and licked his bottom lip.
"You are upset about… is it about Thomas?" he guessed. "About Freya Travers? You know that they don't matter a bit to me, Bella. For all I care, the lot of them can die in a house fire. Honestly, I haven't made up my mind about any of them yet. You know that you're the only thing that matters to me. You and… and my movement. You must know that."
Bellatrix nodded frantically. She turned her attention back to the bathroom sink and hung her head. "I'm sorry, My Lord. I'm just a bit emotional this morning. I'm fine. Promise. It's nothing to do with Freya or with Tom. I'm being silly. Please, don't concern yourself with me. I'll take a shower and get dressed."
Voldemort shifted a bit where he stood and cleared his throat. "I would like to leave your mind to you, Bella, but I am a Legilimens, and I've not yet taught you Occlumency in this time."
It was a threat, an outright threat to invade her mind and see for himself why she was upset. Desperate to keep him from seeing what she'd dreamed, what she'd relived in her sleep, Bellatrix shook her head a little and quickly lied,
"I was just overthinking again. I was being a stupid, insecure little teenaged wife, that's all. Couldn't help thinking about all those witches, the girls you shagged at Hogwarts who are grown-up wives and mothers now. It's so ridiculous, I know, to be jealous of something that happened before I was even born."
Voldemort huffed a breath. He approached Bellatrix and threaded his fingers into her curls, playing with them and making her tingle as his hand massaged her scalp. She turned just a little to look up at him, and he bent a bit to kiss at a dampened spot on her cheekbone. Then he said quietly,
"You know, I would comfort you about that by telling you how gangly I was back then, how quick it had to be sometimes, hidden away in dormitories. I would tell you that the girls were often so unskilled that, no matter how hard I tried, it was just animalistic rutting with no nuance and certainly no romance. I would reassure you, once again, that when I'm stripped down with you, I'm aroused because I am in love, and because I'm stricken through with desire to the marrow of my bones. I could tell you all of that to make you stop crying, couldn't I?"
He kissed her cheek again, very gently, and Bellatrix just stayed silent and gulped. He pulled back and met her eyes, and suddenly she could see him, older, a massive wound going down his face, his eye swollen and cloudy. Her breath hitched, and Voldemort's mouth twitched as he nodded.
"I could tell you all of that to soothe you, Bella, but I won't, because that isn't why you're crying. You're lying to me. I don't have to use Legilimency to know when I'm being lied to. I'm very good at feeling out lies, you see, and I feel it now. You are lying to me. So, please… do tell. Why are you disquieted this morning?"
She opened her mouth and tried to make up another story - something, anything to cover for what she'd seen in her dream. But she just shook her head as fresh tears burst from her eyes, and she trembled where she stood as she whispered,
"I did kiss you. And you did tell me… you called me beautiful. My beautiful creature, you called me. Precious. You said I was precious to you, and you kissed me, and… and I don't think you knew. I hid it from you, I think. I'm sorry. I feel awful."
He looked very confused, and then abruptly wounded, like an animal struck through with an arrow as it seemed to sink in that she was referencing one of the dreams they'd both had of the life he'd already lived. He just stared at her then with reddened eyes and shaking lips and steadied himself, and he planted both hands on her shoulders firmly as he incanted,
"Legilimens."
Bellatrix stumbled a bit where she stood at the feel of him invading her mind. A spike of a headache crackled through her consciousness and didn't let up until he settled on the vision, which he yanked forth with a painful pinch. Suddenly it was playing out before Bellatrix - the entire phantasm unfurling between them like horrific footage. Bellatrix crumpled in on herself, her face wrinkling up with sobs as the painful memory played out. She could see herself walking into Voldemort's bedroom. She could see herself speaking softly to him as he held onto her hand whilst lying in bed, his mind obviously thickly drugged. She could see herself panicking that he'd stopped breathing, rousing him and then hearing him whisper that she was precious to him. She could see herself kissing him, could feel his tongue in her mouth, could feel his fingers curled around her jaw. She could hear his voice humming onto her lips and then yanking away in pain, begging her for Anodyne Draught and then falling asleep after murmuring her name quietly again as she kissed his forehead. She saw herself crying and leaving quickly. She saw herself here in the bathroom at Praelia House, thinking of what it all meant, of how she must have spent years knowing what had happened between herself and her Master but that she'd stayed married to Rodolphus anyway, that she'd accepted his diamond pendant and had just served him in battle and had never kissed him or touched him again. Then Bellatrix felt Voldemort pull rather roughly out of her head, yanking so hard from the Legilimency link that it felt like a rope had broken. Bellatrix gasped and felt queasy, whirling to lean heavily on the edge of the sink again. The room was spinning badly, and she tried not to faint as she shut her eyes and panted.
"I don't know if it's real," she mumbled helplessly. "Perhaps it's not real. Perhaps it was just a dream, just a hallucination."
"I remember that dress," Voldemort said softly, his voice oddly calm. "That black velvet dress you were wearing; I don't know why I remember it. But I do. I hardly remember speaking to you. But I remember seeing your face and I remember your… your simple black velvet dress. It's real. What you dreamed… that's what happened. I know it. I have no idea why the Universe sees fit to put these visions into your mind, to show you things you did in the years I knew you, when you were older, when…"
He trailed off then, and Bellatrix turned her face as she sniffled and coughed a little through her quiet crying. She swiped at her tears with rough drags of the backs of her hands and drew a quivering breath as she tried to look at her husband through the thick veil of water in her eyes.
"Why didn't you know?" she whispered hopelessly. "Why didn't I tell you? For years, you… you thought you'd never touched me."
Voldemort pursed his lips. "I suspect you stayed silent because you didn't wish to rock the boat, as it were. You probably suspected I was acting under the influence of the Anodyne Draught, or that I would have never kissed you or said such things if I'd been in my right mind. So you kept it all to yourself, and you fought valiantly for me, and you remained by far my most… my most loyal Death Eater…"
He sounded oddly emotional then, and he actually turned away for a moment. He was silent, thoughtful, and at last he said in a broken sort of a mutter,
"It can't be changed, you know, the fact that years went on with me oblivious to the fact that I'd kissed you. I can't change the fact that, for years after that battle in Cornwall, I fought with you alongside me and I loved you ferociously and I wanted nothing more than to confess myself to you and thieve you from Rodolphus Lestrange and make you mine. I can't change that. But it doesn't matter, does it, Bella? I've come here, through coincidence, through what seems to have been the most beautiful accident in the history of magic, and I am with you, and you are mine here. Aren't you?"
"Yes, Master," Bellatrix choked out desperately. "Yes. Yes, I am yours. I am yours today and until the day I breathe my very last breath."
Voldemort just stared at her then, for a long moment, until at last he said, quite firmly indeed,
"I patently refuse to lose you, Bellatrix, to mishap or battle wound or disease or whatever other calamity attempts to claim you from me. I will not surrender you to death. I'm sorry. It's impossible."
Bellatrix frowned and shook her head. "Everyone dies."
"No." Voldemort sighed. "Not everyone."
He turned to go, walking out of the bathroom and leaving Bellatrix very confused where she stood recovering from her sobbing episode at the sink. She stared in the mirror and realised her face was tomato red and swollen, that she was hideous from her piteous crying. She splashed cool water on her cheeks and rubbed her cream deodorant under her arms, spritzing herself with perfume with shaking fingers. She shut the cupboard and sniffed, hurrying to braid her curls and tie them with a simple ribbon. She dashed out of the bathroom and made her way to the wardrobe, stripping off her black satin nightgown and yanking on a black cotton bra and knickers. Voldemort was watching her intently from where he stood in the corner of the room, and as Bellatrix hustled to dress in a black velvet skirt and a simple black peasant blouse, she said quietly,
"I wish I knew what you were talking about, My Lord. But I won't push it further. I trust you."
"We'll continue this conversation downstairs over a light lunch. It's nearly noon; I let you sleep quite late," Voldemort said primly. Bellatrix's ears flushed hot then, and she gulped as she slid on flat black ballet flats and whirled to face Voldemort. He'd walked toward her without her realising it, and when she turned, he was looming over her. He cupped her face in his hand and leaned down a little, brushing his lips lightly against hers as he whispered,
"I was telling the truth. In my past, in a time you will never see. When I told you how precious you were to me. That you, the you I knew then… she was indeed precious to me. And I loved her almost savagely, almost beyond comprehension. But you… you…" He deepened the kiss, delving his tongue into her mouth and using his other hand to hold her at the small of her back. Bellatrix sighed and touched her hands to his chest, feeling the linen of his robes scratch just a little beneath her touch. She struggled to breathe as he kissed her, and when he pulled away, she listened to him tell her, "You are my wife. This you, this Bellatrix, I adore so passionately, so furiously and frantically, that sometimes I honestly fear my heart shall detonate from the very force of it all. But I wouldn't mind, you understand. It would be a beautiful demise, succumbing to the flames of my love for you. This you. The you have here in my arms. I need you to understand this, fully and completely. Tell me that you do."
Bellatrix just stared. She could find no words in response to such an address, but finally she managed to nod and to form a few words with her shocked lips.
"I understand, My Lord. And I love you. And I am yours, mind, body, and soul. Forever."
"Forever." He nodded. "Yes. Let us go downstairs and discuss forever, shall we?"
He pulled away from her then and stalked briskly from the bedroom, leaving Bellatrix in shocked silence.
"A Horcrux," Bellatrix repeated, ignoring the boiled dandelion greens and roasted potatoes with sheep's butter on her plate. She shook her head. "I know that you spent many years learning of arcane and hidden Dark magic, My Lord, but this… this seems like something I ought to have heard of."
Voldemort pinched his lips. He folded his hands on the dining table and seemed to carefully consider his words. "For a very long time now, the witches and wizards in power, the ones who claim all Dark magic is without any merit whatsoever, have sought to suppress even the vaguest hint of knowledge about craft like this. I had to hunt down the idea of a Horcrux over a good deal of time in my Hogwarts days."
Bellatrix stared at her food. She picked up her fork at poked at her dandelion greens, her stomach churning with nausea. She set down her fork and picked up her bottled Butterbeer, swigging from it and clenching her eyes for a moment.
"Are you willing to tell me about them?" she asked cautiously. "About the ones you made?"
Voldemort seemed to hesitate. He huffed a little breath. "I intend on teaching you Occlumency," he cautioned, "but until your mind is quite secure, there is much about my Horcruxes I simply can not reveal to you. In part, Bella, that's because I do not know for certain how to implement them in the case of bodily death; I've never actually had to do so. I don't want to find out that they've been stolen when I need them because someone snuck into your mind and snatched their locations or even what they are… but I will tell you about the circumstances. About the murders I committed for a few of them."
Bellatrix tipped her head curiously. She nodded. Voldemort finished off his own goblet of crisp apple cider and stared at the wall rather wistfully.
"The first one I made by killing a girl called Myrtle Warren. It was the thirteenth of June, 1942. I killed her in a girls' bathroom at Hogwarts. She was the first. You will discover, as I watched you discover with my own eyes, that there is nothing on Earth quite as sweet as your first kill, Bella."
Bellatrix's mouth fell open. "Moaning Myrtle? That annoying twit in the girls' bathroom? You? Master, that was you? That little wench wouldn't shut up; she made the place intolerable. Nobody even used that bathroom. She was a miserable little snit of a ghost."
Voldemort smirked and looked back to Bellatrix, shrugging. "As obnoxious and useless a Mudblood dead as she was alive, then."
"Oh, goodness." The gravity of what Voldemort was telling Bellatrix began to set in, and she huffed a little and listened to Voldemort continue,
"In August of 1943, I killed my filthy Muggle father in his ancestral home and used the man's soul to feed my next Horcrux. That killing felt divine. He was, you understand, the part of me that felt wrong. He was the contributing part of my blood that diluted my worth, that made me aspirational among my fellow Slytherins, among people like your mother. Because of Tom Riddle, Sr, I would forever be marked by the stain of Muggle ancestry. But I murdered the father who had ensnared the heart of my weak and impressionable Gaunt mother, and once he was dead, another vessel for protecting my soul was made."
Bellatrix just nodded, feeling queasy, feeling anxious. She reached for her fork on instinct and, for some reason she couldn't explain, shoveled some dandelion greens into her mouth. She chewed the bitter greens, tasting lemon juice and oil on them, noting the flavours as Voldemort studied her. She swallowed her bite and speared a potato.
"There were more, I reckon, Master," she said quietly, and he scoffed a little.
"In 1946, just after leaving school and soon after gaining employment under Caractacus Burke, I met a woman called Hepzibah Smith. She had… some very peculiar old artefacts that were of distinctive note. I went to visit her, wanting to purchase the objects. I charmed her incessantly, using the old wily ways I'd used on the girls at Hogwarts. Only, this time, I wasn't trying to wind up with a young witch in a bed. I needed an old witch compliant in giving me information and objects. And she did. She gave it all up in spades. And I killed her when I had what I wanted. What I needed."
"What did you need, Master?" Bellatrix asked, but Voldemort shook his head and said firmly,
"Perhaps someday I'll tell you. That's nothing I want anyone able to see in your head. Not even the faintest whisper of any of it. Suffice it to say that good old Hepzibah gave me the vessels for not one, but two Horcruxes. I created one by killing her, and another a few years later by killing a stray Muggle tramp in Whitechapel. If you're keeping track, what's happened is that by the time I left for the Continent, I'd created four Horcruxes. The final one was made in 1964 in a forest in Albania; I took out a local peasant for that. I was killing in earnest. I was eager to create my Horcrux, having recently gotten my hands upon the specific vessel I wanted."
Bellatrix let out a very shaky breath and shut her eyes. "So your soul, Master, is divided. It's split into five pieces. If you died, if you were murdered or died of disease, you'd be protected. You'd be able to access these Horcruxes somehow and… and…"
"As far as I know," Voldemort said cautiously from across the table, "with some very deep and difficult magic, a Horcrux is used to regain or possibly even maintain a corporeal form, to regain a body, once death has occurred. For all intents and purposes, my soul is immortal. I can not truly die. I have redundancy; I have five Horcruxes. It is incredibly unlikely that I should face mortality now, even if someone destroyed one of my vessels. And I've checked on them recently, because of course I questioned the effects of the time travel on the Horcruxes themselves. They are secure in their hiding places. Just where I knew them to be. The magic is sound. My soul is safe. And I want - need - your soul to be safe, as well, Bella. I refuse to lose you."
She opened her eyes and gazed at her lord and Master, her husband, across the table. Suddenly she was taken back to how she'd awakened this morning, panicked about the memory of her older self kissing him and being told by him that she was precious and beautiful. Her eyes burned like fire. She shook her head a little.
"I don't mind killing, of course, My Lord, but I admit fear. Splitting my soul five times? Surely there are side effects."
"I'm not as handsome as I was," Voldemort conceded, shrugging. "The process sapped me of my good looks more than the years did, to be certain. But you are unfathomably beautiful; that's of no concern to me. It is a remarkably painful endeavour. I shall help you through it. I had no assistance, and I never asked for or even wanted any help of my own, but I shall gladly help you. I will hold your hand and never let go."
Bellatrix felt her throat go thick then, and she felt like crying again, for what felt like the tenth time today. She felt stupid and childish, crying so much. She just painted on a weak little smile and promised him,
"Of course, I shall make as many of the Horcruxes as you bid me, Master. I shall do whatever you want. If you think it best that my soul be guarded against destruction, as yours is, so that you do not lose me, then, of course, I shall do it."
"Only one… for now," Voldemort said with a small smile. He looked enormously relieved then, and he licked his bottom lip and hesitated. He reached across the table and covered Bellatrix's hand with his, and she was taken back to the memory of him healing up from battle, of the way he'd covered her hand and touched at wedding rings from another wizard, the way he'd murmured her name and then drawn her into a kiss he had not later remembered. She stared at him now and wanted desperately to go upstairs and make love to him until they were both spent and sweat-slicked, until he was panting on his back with satisfied exertion and she was curled up against him, naked and content. But instead, she just listened as he informed her,
"Bellatrix, I have made a decision as your Master about what the vessel shall be for your Horcrux and who your victim will be… what soul shall feed your spells. You will create your Horcrux using the diamond bracelet you inherited from your great-grandmother, Violetta Bulstrode Black. A Horcrux is best when it is valuable, meaningful, and of personal significance. Your great-grandmother's diamond bracelet fits all of these qualifications. I have seen you wear it in this time, and I saw you wear it many times in the years I knew you before."
Bellatrix nodded. She gestured toward the stairs. "I've got it in my jewelry trunk, Master. Of course."
"You will create the Horcrux on the fifth of October, on the day of the first Hogsmeade visit for the Hogwarts students," Voldemort continued seriously. Bellatrix froze. Did he mean for her to kill her sister Andromeda? Not that she minded, of course. He'd told her that Andromeda would go on to marry the Mudblood Ted Tonks and to birth a mewling little Metamorphagus. Andromeda would become a full-blown enemy, a liability. Bellatrix would be happy to eliminate her sister now, before she could become as treacherous as Voldemort had warned she would be. She nodded and confirmed,
"I'm to meet up with Andy and take her somewhere? Eliminate her? Is that it?"
"It's not your sister. We'll save her for later," Voldemort said. "We need to be very careful with Andromeda. She'll come at a later time, as will your cousin Sirius. I've got patience in spades for the both of them. They were thorns in my side, and I mean to take them out, but they're still young. Plenty of time for the both of them to vanish seamlessly. Care will be taken, and that demands patience. This kill is more urgent."
Bellatrix's blood went even colder then as she wondered frantically if she was going to somehow be tasked with the unholy and impossible deed of attempting to assassinate Dumbledore, one of the most powerful sorcerers who had ever walked the Earth. She opened her mouth to protest, but Voldemort scoffed lightly and shook his head.
"Bella. Your very first kill is to be savoured. And I admit, perhaps you won't savour it deeply. I know for certain that I will savour it very deeply indeed, after thirteen years of, perhaps, subconsciously wanting it."
Bellatrix scowled and felt Voldemort squeeze at her hand. His dark eyes bored into hers then, and he said with a mirthless sort of smirk,
"Bellatrix Black Riddle, your first kill, with which you shall craft the Horcrux that will guard your soul from death, will be to eliminate Rodolphus Lestrange."
Author's Note: Whew! Again, so much to digest. Raise your hand if you feel sorry for Voldemort having kissed Bellatrix and not remembering it and then spending years wishing he could kiss her! And who's ready to see a Horcrux made with real bits of Rodolphus?
Once again, I find myself rather frantically apologizing for an unacceptably delayed upload. I am run ragged this Christmas season, and all I can say is a profound thank you to those still reading for your patience and persistence, and I promise to continue updating with increased frequency after Christmas.
As always, your feedback is immensely appreciated.