It was an unseasonably mild winter's night in Denmark. In the post-Christmas miasma of apathetic inertia, the people of Viborg had gone to bed early. The cobbled street outside Asmild Kirke glittered in the flickering streetlight as soft, nearly icy rain pattered the stones and rendered them slick. Tom Riddle walked past the small, humble church, clad in a waterproofed traveling cloak with his hood pulled up over his head and his wand clutched in his right hand. His dragonhide boots splashed a little through a small puddle on the cobblestone street as he walked quickly around a corner and used a quick spell to unlock the door of the house he meant to enter.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, feeling an instant rush of glowing warmth inside the little house from the cosy fire that was raging off to the right in the centuries-old fireplace. Tom shut the door behind him and pulled the lock shut. He peeled his hood down and shook off the rain before unhooking his cloak and hanging it up beside the door. He stepped into the house and adjusted his grip on his wand.
"Gry? Er du her?"
Gry Alba, the entrancing Danish witch with whom Tom had begun an affair, walked out from the kitchen and flashed him a little smile. She had her dark ashy blonde hair tied into long twin braids, and her almond-shaped eyes of piercing pale blue gazed at him from where she stood holding a loaf of bread.
"I was baking," she explained. "I saw your hunger in my mind."
Tom smirked at her and kicked off his dragonhide boots. He stepped into the cluttered, close quarters of the parlour and happily accepted the small, crusty loaf of bread from Gry. He bit into the warm bread and chewed, moaning softly with gratitude and nodding.
"Det er lækkert. Tak skal du have."
Gry closed the gap between them and stroked at Tom's arm. She leaned forward and kissed his sternum. Tom sniffed a bit and chewed another bite of the bread she'd baked him. He felt parched, all of a sudden, after a long evening of work with Cursing objects. He started to move into the kitchen, and Gry followed him, saying gently,
"There is warm caramelised chocolate milk for you in a mug. I knew, too, that you would want for it."
"The gifts of your seiðr are not to be underestimated," Tom chuckled. He picked up the warm, velvety smooth drink and sipped, tasting the cocoa and the little hint of spice. He took another bite of bread and another drink, and then he set his sustenance down and told Gry, "You look wonderful tonight, especially to a wizard as tired as I am. I hope you know."
Gry's lips quirked up. Her grey linen dress swished around her as she stepped across the kitchen and wrapped her arms around Tom's shoulders. He bent and brushed his lips to hers and hummed quietly, feeling stirrings of want. Gry shook her head a little and guessed,
"You wish my hair was black, that I possessed wild ringlets springing in all directions. That would be so much more beautiful than my straight blonde hair, wouldn't it, Tom?"
"What?" He scoffed softly and kissed her a bit roughly, trying to make her stop talking. He wanted to take her to the bed, to strip off her dress and fuck her. He pawed at Gry's breast, feeling the soft heft of it in his hand and caressing it with his calloused hand. He moved his mouth from hers and intended on attacking her neck with a kiss, but she whispered,
"My eyes are as pale as a cloudy dawn, but you wish they were the colour of a freshly roasted chestnut, don't you, Tom?"
"Gry," he growled, standing upright and glaring at her. "I'm aroused and I want you right now, if you can't tell."
"No." Gry shook her head and swallowed hard. She did not smile. "You accept me right now. But your soul craves a witch with wide, searching eyes that are precisely the same shade as a good cup of tea. Your heart, Dark and hard though it is, yearns for a warrior, not for a Seer. And you need, very deeply, a witch consort, not a provisional companion."
Tom scowled at her. He stroked at her face and moved to kiss her again, determined to get her into bed and be done with all of her gossamer, perplexing declarations. She often devolved into a sort of transfixion like this with Tom, murmuring to him about the power he would wield someday, but also sometimes painting for him, like an enigmatic eidolon, a young witch that would someday mean much to him. Gry moved away from Tom's face and took a step back, her old leather ankle boots creaking on the wooden floorboards in the kitchen.
"Jeg er ikke hende, Tom. I wish you did not have to wait so long for her. I am sorry."
Tom narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Wait. Wait for whom? What are you on about, Gry?"
She stared for a very long moment, her pale eyes distant. She was seeing something, Tom realised. She was engaged in seiðr, right here before him. He could counter her gift with his and look into her head with Legilimency. Or, at least, he could try. He'd been rudely informed by her once that such an effort would confront him with a black velvet nothing. He wouldn't be privy, apparently, to Gry Alba's prescient consciousness. So he just waited until her face softened and she smiled weakly. She just nodded a little and said in a very quiet voice,
"You must be tired after Cursing objects all day. To bed with us, hm?"
"Yes," Tom said firmly, raising his eyebrows and seizing Gry's hand. "To bed with us."
Bellatrix gasped slightly as she blinked her eyes open, taking a moment to calibrate the reality that she was in her childhood bed in her dark bedroom in her parents' house in Mayfair. Bellatrix sat up slowly, pushing back the black bedding just enough to reveal her crisp white sheets. The bright light of late morning was shining through the windowpane, and Bellatrix realised dawn had long since settled on her seventeenth birthday.
She blinked a few times and glanced over to the chair in the corner of her room, where her black dress from the Malfoys' party the evening before lay carefully strewn across the arm and cushion, with her diamond star pendant glittering where she'd placed it atop her outfit.
Bellatrix huffed a breath and thought quickly about what she'd just dreamed. It was a memory, she knew, though not her own. She had no idea why she sometimes dreamed of the lifetime her husband had lived. For some reason, the Universe seemed to find it necessary to show her bits and pieces of what he'd experienced. She'd dreamed, it had seemed, of Lord Voldemort's time with the Danish witch Gry Alba. He'd told Bellatrix of the woman, of his brief but steamy affair with her over a winter in which Gry had presaged all manner of things, including the idea of Bellatrix herself. And now one scene of that had played out in Bellatrix's dreaming mind as she slept in her parents' house on the night leading up to her birthday, after what had been, without question, the most disastrous interaction with Lord Voldemort she could have ever imagined.
He had left her birthday party immediately after Druella Black had sharply ordered him to do so, contritely making his way from the garden with his head held high but his cheeks flushed scarlet red. His robes had fluttered about him like the wings of a bird flying away as he'd walked so quickly he'd almost been running toward the Apparition Point. He had not spared a glance back to Bellatrix. She'd watched him disappear beyond the Malfoys' gate in a whorl of black and colour, and then he had been gone.
The jazz music had continued, albeit with a series of awkwardly solemn and almost melancholy song choices, for a little while longer whilst partygoers brazenly gossiped about how Tom Riddle had shouted like a madman at his very young wife. Bellatrix had heard them; she'd been with her father trying to convince him that she was not being abused by the Dark Lord every night at Praelia House when she'd heard the titters and whispers from those assembled.
"Did you hear him? He screamed at her as though she was his insolent daughter. Well, I suppose he must act like her father. Oh, it's a bit vile, isn't it?"
"He called her 'Bellatrix Lestrange.' D'you suppose he meant to do that to humiliate her? How odd."
"He threatened her life like a bloody lunatic! I always knew he was a sociopath."
"Tom Riddle is nothing but a dirty Half-Blood orphan. He was homeless without a Knut to his name until the Blacks let him marry their little girl. For shame."
Bellatrix's eyes had boiled over with tears as she'd stood talking with Cygnus. She'd guzzled Elf-Made Eiswein until she'd felt sick.
"Bellatrix," Cygnus Black III had said quietly, "He has a temper. He didn't mean any of it, surely."
"He meant it," Bellatrix had said in despair. "He meant all of it. He just didn't mean to say it here."
Then, suddenly, she realised she'd started to give away a very important secret, and she shook her head roughly and insisted,
"He was mocking me, calling me by Rodolphus' last name. It was an act of cruelty intended to mortify me. That's all. It's just… obviously, the party's ruined. I'd like to go back to London for the night. Just get some space from one another, take a little breath."
Cygnus had given her an uneasy look, but he'd sent her home with Druella, who had put her into a bath in Mayfair and let her sob out her humiliation and her anger and her frustration without any commentary. Bellatrix had left the party without apologising to Tullia Malfoy for all the grand and nasty drama that had spoilt the splendid get-together Tullia had planned and paid for. Bellatrix knew Druella would handle all the social niceties regarding that.
Bellatrix had sat in the white porcelain clawfoot tub until the milky water had gone cold, and then, shivering and exhausted, she'd yanked on one of her old nightgowns and climbed into her childhood bed. She'd curled up into the foetal position and wrenched her eyes shut where she lay on the pillow, her damp curls sprawled messily on the white bedding. She thought of Praelia House, of the bed she shared with Voldemort. She thought of waking beside him, of kissing his bicep in the morning, of languid goodnight kisses, of curling herself onto him to sleep. She fell asleep alone, and she slept, unmoving in hours of halcyon slumber until the images of Tom Riddle in Denmark with Gry Alba disturbed her mind before waking.
And now, she sat up in bed and thought of him, thought of her husband, who was undoubtedly at Praelia House, and she wondered how he was spending the morning of her seventeenth birthday. She ought not hate him, she thought. She couldn't despise him, anyway, even when she put effort into doing so. She knew, intellectually, that she'd served him in his lived existence for well over a decade. She had been thoroughly devoted to him. Even here, where she had known him for so scant a time, she had managed to fall deeply in love with him, very thoroughly, as completely as any witch could love any wizard. He was not just a husband, as so many matched Pureblood husbands were to their wives. And so this was not just a spat, as had been so many ugly arguments been Cygnus and Druella Black when Bellatrix had been growing up here in Mayfair. No. This was something entirely different. Aside from the fact that he was Lord Voldemort and she'd already pledged him a lifetime of servitude and promised to make a Horcrux to better pledge herself in perpetuity, there was the fact that she actually did love him.
She thought of his face, the face she knew here in this time, unmarred by war, untouched by age. It wasn't the face of the young Tom Riddle from the visions, either. She thought of her Lord Voldemort, of the wizard of her life. Her husband. She thought of the man who had come downstairs from his suite and eaten goose with her that first day after he'd arrived here, him still bleary from time travel, her wanting his attention rather desperately. She thought of tricking him into thinking she was no good at chess, of taking him down move by move until at last… Checkmate, sir. She thought of her suggesting marriage, terrified he would reject her, of him acting like it was the most wonderful idea anyone had ever advised. She thought of stepping into Praelia House for the first time, of him taking her body for the first time, giving her the star pendant necklace and explaining that it honoured her namesake, Bellatrix. She thought of him, just a few nights early, holding her naked in bed, whispering to her about how there was only a month left until she would murder Rodolphus Lestrange and make her Horcrux, how the two of them would live forever, how he would never let her go.
Suddenly Bellatrix was crying where she sat in bed, her tears boiling out of her eyes and streaming down her cheeks. She dashed out of bed and hesitated, realising that today she was seventeen and she could do magic without the Trace tracking her. She gulped and reached for her wand where she'd set it on the bedside table. She examined her odd, bent wand and turned it around for a moment, remembering the day she'd gotten it in Diagon Alley. She'd imagined then that she would one day graduate Hogwarts like everyone else. She had had plans, as a child, of working for the Ministry. But now, even with what he'd done to her at her birthday party, Bellatrix found herself thinking that she wanted nothing more than to study the Dark Arts under the master who had professed his love for her. She did not want a Ministry position; she wanted to fight for him, even if that meant waiting, as he said she'd have to do.
She let out a quivering sigh and aimed her wand at her bed, noting that this would be her first spell legally cast outside of school. She cleared her throat and incanted firmly,
"Beneservetur."
She flicked her wand up toward the pillow a bit, and instantly the black bedding and crisp white sheets moved at her command. The bed was neatened, everything straightened and smoothed as though no one had ever mussed it, within just a few seconds. Bellatrix smirked at her work. She went across the room and stood in front of her full-length mirror. She could go into the bathroom, she supposed, and use toothpowder to scrub her teeth and apply deodorant cream. She could use a wide-toothed comb to tame her curls a bit. But why do any of that when she'd come of age overnight? So instead, Bellatrix cast a series of spells - she Scoured her teeth and Deodorised her entire body. She cast a Perfuming Charm on herself and some styling spells on her black ringlets to tame them.
She walked across the bedroom and pulled open her wardrobe, examining the small selection of older clothes that had been left at her parents' house at Druella's suggestion. Perhaps, Bellatrix thought, her mother had been thinking of times like this, when Bellatrix might need to spend the night for some reason and access fresh clothes in the morning. Bellatrix selected a simple dress somewhat at random, a long-sleeved black velvet frock that reached her ankles. Once she'd pulled it on, she froze, for she realised at once that it closely resembled the dress she'd been wearing in the memory she'd dreamed where she'd visited the ailing Lord Voldemort at Malfoy Manor, when he'd kissed her, the time he'd told her she was precious to him. She blinked quickly now, thinking perhaps she ought to change. Instead, she put on her star diamond necklace, though it was much too formal for modest and unassuming daywear. She slid on her black satin dress flat shoes from the night before, and she hung up her formal black dress in the wardrobe. She'd retrieve it from her mother some other time.
Bellatrix pattered downstairs with her wand in her hand, and once she reached the foyer, she saw both Druella and Cygnus sitting in the parlour as if they were waiting for her. They didn't have tea or breakfast or anything; they were sitting side by side on one of the formal divans looking anxious. Bellatrix gulped and walked into the parlour, and she nodded.
"Hello, Mum. Dad."
"Take a seat, Bellatrix," Druella said without pretense. She did not bother wishing her daughter a happy birthday. Bellatrix went straight to the armchair adjacent to her parents and sank down, folding her hands in her lap. She crossed her ankles and shrugged expectantly. Druella pursed her lips and looked to Cygnus, who seemed to be silently prodding his wife to do the talking. Druella met Bellatrix's eyes and said solemnly, "Your father and I will help you arrange for a divorce, if that is what you wish. Though you made sacred vows in the Ancient Tongue, misconduct by a spouse is grounds for severing the marriage. We are more than happy to help you -"
"That will not be necessary. Thank you." Bellatrix sniffed. She tipped up her chin imperiously and tightened her hands around one another. "The Dark Lord lost his temper. You have known him far longer than I have. I'm sure you're aware that he can, at times, be slightly volatile. But he would never harm me, not really. I'm sure of that."
Cygnus sighed and said quietly, "Bellatrix, dear… your mother and I fear that perhaps Tom Riddle is not everything he has painted himself to be. When we were in school… this is difficult, but… he was quite manipulative. He did things, Bellatrix, to his fellow students, that were… vile and devious."
Bellatrix felt her cheeks go very hot, and she snapped. "Oh, I know all about the girls. And about how prim little Druella Rosier refused Tom Riddle and lectured the others not to give themselves to him. I know about the first encounter that started it all, with Sadie Crouch. I know about him making cuckolds of the Pureblood boys to wield power over them. I'm aware."
Her parents looked shocked. They stared at one another for a long moment, and then Druella stammered,
"We… we were all confused when he went to work in a shop and then disappeared, Bellatrix. He seemed changed, improved, and impressive when he came back. That's why I suggested the marriage. And you two seemed quite attached. Suited for one another. But now… I'm not so certain. I've received four owls so far this morning from friends of mine, asking how you're feeling, whether you're all right. But they're not concerned, you understand. It's gossip. They want to know if Tom Riddle's gone mad. They want to know if I regret marrying you to him, if I was right all those years ago when I used to pontificate to the Slytherin girls about him being a social climbing, indigent Half-Blood orphan."
Bellatrix smirked and choked out a bitter little laugh. "And?"
"And what?" Druella said through clenched teeth. She looked very angry. "What am I meant to tell them, Bellatrix? The man bellowed like a beast at you in front of everyone at your seventeenth birthday party, raging on about you fighting at his command, threatening your life, calling you Bellatrix Lestrange. Of course he sounded deranged. Of course he sounded like the demented, narcissistic, status-seeking, destitute, filthy-blooded stray cat he'd always been. Of course I feel like a fool for having wed you to him. But what am I meant to tell them?"
"You tell them the truth, Mother," Bellatrix said in a lethally calm voice, rising slowly from her chair and staring down at Druella. "You tell them that I have withdrawn from Hogwarts permanently to receive a proper education from the husband I have wed in perpetuity. And you tell them that no mistakes have been made. Is there anything else?"
"There were many owls received early this morning," Cygnus noted. "One of them was from your Uncle Orion. Last night, your cousin Sirius went to bed along with his brother Regulus at the family home in Grimmauld Place. The House-Elf, Kreacher, heard a commotion sometime around three in the morning in Sirius' room, and knocked on the door to check on the boy. Sirius did not answer. Kreacher alerted Orion and Walburga. When they went to Sirius' room, the boy was gone. Missing."
Bellatrix's blood went very cold. She swallowed past the knot that had abruptly formed in her throat, and she struggled to keep her face impassive. She gave a nonchalant little shrug and said, as emotionlessly as she could,
"Perhaps the child ran away. He'd always been a hellion."
"Sirius is a firebrand, true enough," Cygnus conceded, "but Orion writes that the boy's window was shut and the room appeared undisturbed, which is all quite confusing as Sirius is far too young to do magic, and his room is much too high up to have climbed out of on his own."
Bellatrix huffed and shrugged again. "Do you want me to go searching for the boy? On my birthday?"
Druella gave Bellatrix a very meaningful look and said sternly. "Do ask around. Ask everyone you know if they have seen or heard anything of Sirius' whereabouts. Hm?"
"Yes. Well, to that end… I ought to get home. I stayed here because my husband and I quarreled, but it is my birthday, and I mean to reconcile with him." Bellatrix put her lips in a line, trying to think of how best to get to Praelia House from here. It wasn't on the Floo Network, and she couldn't Apparate yet. She frowned then and said aloud, "I suppose I could send him an owl and ask him to come get me…"
"He wrote an hour ago to request we inform you he'd be found in his office at Malfoy Manor," Druella said smoothly. She gave an imperious little sniff. "I think you know I wish you would not go see him."
"I'm very sorry you loathe him so," Bellatrix said, raising her eyebrows. "It was one error, a lapse in judgement. I thnk you shall come to regret raging against him so harshly. I'm going to Malfoy Manor."
She walked away from her parents without another word, snatching a fistful of Floo Powder from the cut glass container on the fireplace mantle. She stepped into the flames and tossed down the powder, shouting out for the Manor and feeling herself get sucked into the cold void. A few seconds later, she was stumbling out of the fireplace in one of Malfoy Manor's parlours, and as she used her wand to Scout the soot and dust off of herself, she heard Tullia Malfoy chatting animatedly out in the corridor. Bellatrix walked quickly out of the room, thinking it improper and rude to have come without permission and not immediately announce herself.
"Mrs Malfoy," she said, emerging into the corridor and then freezing at once. Tullia Malfoy was dressed impeccably as always, wearing peacock turquoise robes in raw silk. Her golden blonde hair was tied into neat milkmaid plaits across her head. She looked like she'd prepared for a pleasant day. But the witch she was talking with looked utterly piteous. Dressed in a long, grey woolen skirt and a somewhat mismatched burnt orange silk top as though she'd selected random clothing items and dragged them on, the witch's hair fell in a frizzy mess and her pale face was blotchy and swollen as she continued to sob. Freya Travers was an absolute mess.
"Hello," Bellatrix said somewhat helplessly. "May I… is something… what's happened?"
"It's Thomas," choked out Freya. "There was Quidditch practise yesterday, and he… he fell, and he… oh, I can't… Bellatrix, you know the truth about him. You know who he is…"
Tullia Malfoy wrapped Freya up in her arms and gave Bellatrix a grave look. She gestured down the corridor and said,
"He's in his office. He already knows."
"Erm. All right. Thank you. I'm so sorry, Freya. Mrs Travers." Bellatrix gulped and trotted down the corridor, hammering her fist on the door when she reached Voldemort's office. It took about twenty seconds for the door to open, and when it did, he was staring down at her with an expression she could not quite read. For a long moment, he did not invite her into his office. He just stared. Finally, he acknowledged,
"Happy birthday. I am more deeply sorry than you can imagine."
"None of that matters right now; the silly party doesn't matter. Where is my cousin Sirius and what's happened to your son?" Bellatrix hissed. Voldemort sighed. He pulled at Bellatrix's elbow gently and guided her into his office. He shut the door and walked into the office. Bellatrix followed him until he stopped before the fireplace, inside which burned a small but intense flame. He crossed his arms over the chest of his white dress tunic and glared at her.
"Sirius Black is dead. Change of plans on the timeline of that. I… Abraxas was not ashamed to inform me that people freely disparaged me at your birthday party after I left last night. My image has sustained much damage. I am acting aggressively and proactively right now. I hope you'll understand. You can expect some quick movements on other fronts; I hope to eliminate Dumbledore as quickly as possible. But I thought about it, and I thought… you know, Sirius Black was eternally a wretched thorn in my side, and he nearly killed you a few times. Last night, after the disaster at the party, I wanted him dead. So, I snuck into the house at Grimmauld Place and I killed him and I Vanished the corpse. There's nothing to find. Any other questions about Sirius Black?"
Bellatrix studied his face, his obsidian eyes, and she touched at her diamond pendant. She shook her head and whispered,
"No, My Lord."
"Good." He reached to cup her jaw and bent to plant a very gentle kiss on her lips. "I really am very sorry, and I really do love you. I will never hurt you so egregiously again. Not ever. I promise you. I will never make fools of either of us like that again. I pledge it."
"Master," Bellatrix whispered, "What on Earth did you do to Thomas Travers?"
Voldemort stood up straight and shook his head. Suddenly his eyes rimmed red, and Bellatrix recoiled a little in horrified shock as she realised he was on the verge of shedding actual tears. He cleared his throat very roughly and seemed to recover himself, shifting on his feet before he said,
"Believe it or not, Bella, I didn't do anything to that boy. To… to my son. From what I was able to get out of Bram, because Freya was much too upset to really tell me much, the Slytherin Quidditch team was practicing yesterday and a Beater hit a Bludger from a terrible angle. Thomas wasn't expecting it, and the Bludger came rocketing toward him and hit him on the head. It immediately knocked him unconscious and sent him hard against one of the hoops. He fell hard and awkwardly; his neck broke and his spine severed in the fall. The Healers tried… there was… there was nothing they could do. He was gone almost at once."
"He's dead? From a fall off a broom in a Quidditch practise? And it was actually an accident?" Bellatrix gawked in utter amazement, in complete dismay. She shook her head, unable to comprehend the gravity of it. She planted her hands on Voldemort's chest and found herself whispering, "I know you didn't know him. And I know you couldn't have loved him as a father loves a son. But, still… I am so very sorry, My Lord."
He held her hands in his and brought her knuckles to his lips, kissing them gently. He stared at her, his eyes visibly damp again, and he nodded.
"You'll kill Rodolphus soon," he hummed onto her fingers, and Bellatrix nodded at him.
"Dumbledore will be dead soon, too," Voldemort affirmed. "And the Squibs will be subdued. I did damage last night, but power will begin unfolding in my hands. I can feel it."
"Yes, Master," Bellatrix whispered.
"And you," he told her, kissing her fingers again, "will be my consort."
She felt her heart race at the word, and then all she could do was silently nod as she was drawn into a long, deep kiss.
Author's Note: Forgiveness! Murder! Accidental death! Scheming! Oh, my! As always, thank you for reading and please do review!