It was a hot night, so hot Bellatrix thought she might faint if she had to wear a corset. Voldemort watched her from across the ballroom as she tensed her shoulders and pulled them back, rolling them. She was a picture of pureblood perfection. She was fanning herself and sending a sparing glance to a girl next to her who seemed to have the same idea. They looked fairly alike, he thought faintly, but their minds couldn't be more different. Bellatrix was predatory. She was a tigress waiting for the right kind of prey to come along. Her mind bobbed and weaved, she picked things apart and she drank in everything around her. The girl beside her — Andromeda, he picked up on — was far less liberal with her scrutiny. Unlike her sister, she was only focussing where she needed to focus, her mind wasn't as sharp, but it was still nimble. She was a dreamer, rather being in her own world, rather being anywhere but here. He could feel magic radiating from them both, manifesting differently but undoubtedly born of darkness as becoming of them as their name. Black.
He was thirsty for more he realised, so he peered as he was wont to do. All these minds would one day belong to him after all. He peered into the mind of the elder first. A brush of legilimency against her mind pulled out the most recent memory from that night, the girls getting ready together earlier on.
"Why are we doing this again?" Bellatrix grumbled to her younger sister as she glanced over a corset strewn over her bed.
"Because mother said if we didn't she'd disinherit us." the monotonous reply came.
"So dramatic." She clicked her tongue nonchalantly. Bellatrix leant, pressing her lipstick stained lips together for just a moment as she thought about it. "I hate corsets." Bellatrix decided then as she turned to watch Andromeda who was almost fighting with her dark purple silk dress, "Give it up Andy, that dress no longer fits."
"It fits," she insisted, hoisting her dress up once more until she was finally in it, "see!"
"You look like you've stuffed two turnips in there." Bellatrix said as she rolled her eyes, dropping her dressing gown and pulling on the well fit dress. She threw the corset aside, zipping the dress easily and taking note of her own appearance. Vain, she was so very vain. Then, she had every reason to be. There was no denying she was a beauty. Her eyes were a tarnished silvery grey, juxtaposed by specks of ash so dark without the aid of light they looked eerily black.
"You're not going to wear it?" Andromeda asked without attaining her sister's full attention, "Merlin, if I have to wear a corset, so do you."
Bellatrix smirked in the mirror as she studied herself and glanced to her sister beside her looking in the mirror and tugging at the uncomfortable dress she had just put on while trying to adjust her cleavage in it. She wasn't as slim as her older sister, curvier, heavier, bustier, but she was as tall if not just an inch taller. Her hair was chestnut brown and shorter than Bellatrix's, whose inky waves and curls spilt to her mid-back. Her eyes were softer and rounder where Bellatrix's were glittering grey and cat-like. Andromeda had softly shaped lips and a charming, warm smile where Bellatrix had full, shapely lips and a wicked grin. They wore their senses of self well, knowing each was beautiful in their own right. Knowing the other was beautiful in each other's eyes too.
Bellatrix was proud of herself tonight. Her hair fell down her back in rippling inky waves, like a sheet of satin sewn by the midnight sky. Tonight she opted to leave her tresses open, a risqué choice considering how hot it was and how inevitably her hair would soon become a mess. Her body, tall, cut lean, all smooth lines and slender curves was encased in dazzling dark silver — the same colour as her eyes. It left her looking resplendent, and she liked knowing every eye in the room would be on her. Andromeda had opted for the more 'ball' type dress which cinched at her waist and flowed beautifully to her ankles. Yes, unlike her sister, Bellatrix had determined she would go as daring as she could. She liked trouble, where the younger of the pair was far more sneaky about the kinds of trouble she was willing to risk being caught out for. The trouble Andromeda Black liked to indulge in were nowhere near as vivacious, reckless and loud as the kinds Bellatrix Black liked to indulge in. Bellatrix it seemed from her thoughts, was attempting to anger her mother — or in the hilarity of her dark mind, at least try to give Druella a heart attack. She decided as she dragged her gaze over herself that mother certainly wouldn't approve, and Bellatrix certainly wouldn't care.
She was a troublesome girl, Voldemort realised as he rifled through her memories easily. Somehow she had wrangled her way to becoming a prefect, perhaps because she had the top marks in her year, by far the smartest student Hogwarts had seen in a while. Voldemort wondered with a faint hint of amusement if her marks were as high as his. She felt wasted at the school, it was clear from the confections her mind thought up. He found that easy to believe. She grew up with tomes of magic, knowing exactly who she was and what she was born for. He had no knowledge of magic, only for what the young Tom Riddle had been reprimanded for as strange tricks and the devil's touch in Wool's Orphanage. Hogwarts had begun quenching a thirst he only realised by the time he'd read everything in the library, would be endless. It seemed her mind wanted for the same things.
She slunk like a cat, seductress that she was, as young wizards approached her once the ballroom filled. Two wizards seemed to have managed to engage her in conversation — and earned enough attention she might laugh at whatever joke the taller and broader of them was saying. Rodolphus Lestrange, he realised. That meant the slimmer and slightly more handsome of the two was Rabastan. Bellatrix was not displeased to have their company, even if it was for a few moments. She was in demand, heavily sought after. Rabastan grasped playfully at Bellatrix, perhaps in his hope to pull her for a dance. His mind was clouded by desire, so was Rodolphus' — interesting. Two brothers who both fought for the affections of Bellatrix Black, neither paying much mind to Andromeda and she seeming to prefer it that way.
It was Andromeda's turn to have her mind invaded. Voldemort was met with Andromeda's overwhelming sense of disgust for the way boys seemed to trip over her sister's seductive purrs. Bellatrix was playing with them, why were they so stupid? Bellatrix certainly wasn't stupid. She liked to toy with them, a game Andromeda didn't find half as interesting. Her mind was a technicolour nightmare compared to her sister's starry dystopia. Her relationships were meaningful and Bellatrix wouldn't know meaningful if it hit her in the face. She hadn't had a meaningful relationship with her dolls as a child, and that's how she treated these wizards now. Toys. Didn't they know she'd chew them up and spit them back out? Still, Andromeda loved her sister fiercely. Flaws and all. Games and all. She liked games too, she just played hers very differently. Andromeda was sneaky where Bellatrix was brazen. She was cautious where Bellatrix was curious. She was organised where Bellatrix was careless. She was friendly where Bellatrix was challenging. She was nervous where Bellatrix was confident. But she was smart, perceptive and calculating too. She was fiery when she had to be too. She never backed away from a fight if it was a slight against someone she loved. She was ruthless in the pursuit of love. She was loyal and steadfast and determined and certain of who she was. She was certain she didn't fit in here, but she knew where she did fit in. . .
Bellatrix denied Rabastan easily and turned around to pluck up her drink from the table. From this distance, Voldemort could see her smirking as she sipped her champagne and Rabastan pleaded with her. She didn't care. She was just wishing she had something stronger to drink.
What a curious witch Bellatrix Black was.
The girls father pulled him from his invasion of the young witches minds. Cygnus was equally as dark of hair — now with a touch of silver, and grey of eyes, "my Lord, how lovely to see you."
Cygnus didn't simper. He wanted something. Voldemort managed to tip his head aside and feign politeness. These were his biggest funders, whatever Cygnus Black wanted, it was fine. So long as he remained loyal and the gold continued to flow, his purpose would remain, "and you my friend."
"Have you enjoyed your evening so far?" He asked, seemingly keen to maintain the conversation.
"I have. Mulciber certainly knows how to throw a party. Then, he did when we were mere boys too, you remember?"
That made Cygnus smile. He had him hooked now, he thought, "I do! Merlin, I always wanted in to those parties — even as a third year!"
"Look at you now." He said lightly, the serpent offering a smile. Cygnus didn't fail to recognise the double meaning but he laughed, a touch of nervousness in his laugh. He didn't have the mark. Voldemort didn't give it to just anyone. His mark was for his very most inner circle and there weren't many of them. Cygnus was not one, but Voldemort, like a teacher he once knew, liked to collect. He wanted a Black. They were hard to catch and hold, they may have agreed with him but they thought themselves too good to work for him. Cygnus was careful not to think it, but the Black blood bred arrogance. Prideful creatures like them never changed. No matter. Voldemort continued, "you're here with your family?
"Ah, yes sir!" He said quickly, glad for change of topic, "my youngest, Narcissa, is there dancing with Lucius Malfoy." He pointed to a thin little creature with a halo of blonde hair and buried in periwinkle blue, "my eldest two being — er — entertained by the Lestrange boys, are there. Bellatrix and Andromeda."
"Bellatrix." He said softly as though he'd no idea that was her name, and liking the way it sounded on his tongue. She had a magnetism about her. Right now she was weighing up Michael Mulciber, the hosts' son who it seemed had asked her if she'd dance with him.
Cygnus nodded at the name, "yes sir, she's home for the summer, just finished her sixth year at Hogwarts. Very bright girl. Though ah — quite a trouble maker."
Voldemort looked down at Cygnus who came in just a couple of inches shorter than him. Cygnus seemed like he was trying not to elaborate. Voldemort quirked his lips into a half smile, "I see. Enjoy your evening Cygnus."
Cygnus nodded and left without asking for whatever it was he wanted to ask for and Voldemort continued to survey the room. He engaged in a few more bouts of conversation. No one here knew him, not really. They didn't know what more to say to him than to profess their loyalty to his burgeoning cause or to ensure him that they were giving him gold, or to offer their services in whichever useless jobs they possessed. Then, there were some useful ones. Ministry positions of importance, for instance. Nevertheless, he eventually grew tired of amusing simpering creatures of variably less intelligence than himself in conversation, and found himself on the large balcony overlooking the Channel.
Somehow, by fate's strange design for the evening, he wound up outside with the most intriguing aspect of this party. Bellatrix stood facing the water and listening to the crashing shore against the sandy beach below. She was looking up at the sky, her palms pressed to the thick balcony made of white stone. With her back to him, he could feel for the first time this evening she was dreaming up worlds far away from this one. She was reading whispers of magic in the stars, murmuring magic to the heavens. She was protecting herself — and protecting her sisters. Her eyes were fixed. Her magic could be done here without fear of invasion. For a long few moments he didn't want to interrupt, so he didn't. He heard her incant in the old tongue, her countenance darkening until her eyes reflected stars upon stars upon stars above them. The air around her vibrated with magic, as though he was looking at her through a sheet of water. It was young, untamed but well practiced. She had done this a hundred times before. She would do it for the rest of her days. Her whispers became nothingness and she almost half faltered. She pushed her body against the cool stone, palms meeting it and relishing the feel beneath palms which burned. She was strong with her magic. She could be stronger.
"Not interested in the party?" He asked, prompting her to turn to the unfamiliar voice, inky hair tumbling over her shoulder.
"Not interested in being asked to dance and being trod on." She corrected as though she hadn't just encased herself and her sisters in a shroud of magic as ancient and dark as he'd witnessed, and instead allowing her gaze to linger only a second longer on him.
He exhaled a laugh from his nostrils, "aren't you flattered? Turning wizards into fumbling fools?"
"No." She answered easily, turning her back to the sea to face him, "it just proves all they're looking at is outside."
"Ah." He nodded his assent and paced a little closer, "you hope for a wizard who can see beyond your veil."
She seemed to study him then. His own veil was construed of familiarity to her dextrous mind, she was rifling through faces and names and memories but to no avail. Then, he hadn't been such a social creature since his last adventure to the continent. This was the first time he'd seen her out in society since she was merely a child, and he doubted she remembered that. She didn't, as it happened. One look into her mind told him as such. Still, as she studied him now, drinking him in and calculating every step he took to determine whether he was friend or foe or neither or a ploy sent by her father to bring her back inside and act the society lady she was born to be, he read her thoughts plain as day.
Oddly handsome. The first two words she threw together in her mind. They made him smile a little. He was not as handsome as he had been in his youth. He was a forty-one year old wizard who now had five horcruxes and who had sunk so deeply into the dark arts he'd left his old self so far behind he hardly remembered him anymore. The toll that had taken on his physical body was immense. He didn't care. Why should he? He invented himself and became immortal, what were a few scars, a paler complexion and bloodshot eyes? Drawn. That was the word Abraxas had used in his placated simpering, 'you look drawn, my lord, I hope you're well?'. Not many said their choice descriptors aloud, but he read them all from their fumbling, tumbling minds. He's not as handsome as he used to be, is he? The witches he remembered from school thought it. None dared say it. Not when they heard from their husbands in his inner circle just how dangerous he'd become, just how far the extents of his magic really went. Scarred. Unappealing. Strange looking. But her choice of words were ones he'd never heard from a mind. Well, he decided resolutely, he rather liked being considered oddly handsome.
"On the contrary sir, I'd rather there have to be no wizard at all." She was struck suddenly, by a chip of doubt by him, it rolled from her in waves. He looked around her father's age, perhaps he was one of his friends (A set up? A friend of the Mulcibers then? A stranger? A captor?) and he wanted her for some nefarious purpose. That thrilled her. What nefarious awful things could she get up to with this wizard? He did want her for heinous acts, just not the kind she was thinking of. She seemed to find freedom in not only being alone with him but to not know his name. She didn't ask, not yet. She liked not knowing who he was. She could make him to be anyone she wanted in her mind. He could be here to take her away and make a meal of her. She'd like that. Another tale, another adventure. "Although unfortunately, I don't think that'll last too long." She tut lightly and he tipped his head as if asking her to elaborate which she did, "one of the boys at this party is to be my future husband."
"Hopefully not one of the ones who steps on your toes whilst you dance."
"No, hopefully not. How unpracticed do you think one must be to get a two step wrong?"
"Exceptionally. I'd thought most wizards were taught such a simple dance by the time they could walk."
"Were you taught to dance by the time you could walk?"
"Ah, my world wasn't so kind to me."
Strange. That was the next thought which popped into her mind. She liked it however because she smiled in her curiosity. A predator's heart. A predator's gaze. She was dangerous and wicked. He saw it all in her mind. If they trod on her feet she would stamp on them. Boys were expendable. Boys were useless. It was men she liked. If she was going to want one — and that was a big if, then she wanted a sorcerer and not a boy still practicing to be a sub-par wizard. She'd never happened across one she liked enough to consider keeping. But marriage and making more pureblood babies, as she'd been told all her life was all pureblood society witches eventual purpose, screamed nothing but boredom to her. It was a life she didn't want for herself. She would marry if she had to but she'd use it to grant herself the freedoms that came with being away from her parents home. Druella was sharp with her, Cygnus was lenient. She'd make a man bend to her will and take lovers, travel the world, live a life of adventure, mystery and luxury. She had everything she could want being a Black, and all the men around her were the same. He was not. He was strange.
"Have we met before?" She asked before she could stop herself, abruptly putting an end to her fantasy. She pulled a little from the balcony as though magnetised towards him but unwilling to let go of what was keeping her in place, her fingers still touching stone. Let go, he willed her silently as she tipped her head a little and narrowed calculating, dark grey eyes, "you seem awfully familiar."
Magical. He did however, doubt she was ever the kind of witch who'd mind her tongue. Perhaps it would make no difference to her today, perhaps it would. To understand what she thought of Lord Voldemort he'd have to make his presence in her mind known. He was currently swimming along in the undercurrents of her mind, undetected, hidden in the passages of her mind she wouldn't feel him. He wanted to swallow her whole, indulge in her mind, feed himself and gorge himself on her. She was a tempest and in her eyes, he was magical.
"Not for a very long time." He paced closer then, offering her his palm. She let go, falling to his depths. Her fingers raised and placed to his palm and he brushed his thumb along her knuckles, feeling the ring which sat on her middle finger — something he did not study as yet as he held her gaze instead. "I doubt you remember it at all, but never mind." The devil leant, pressing a kiss to the backs of the witch's slender fingers, "I am Lord Voldemort."
Her mind quickened through a series of sudden strong emotions, surprise, anger at herself for being so careless with her words, intrigue, hunger. Her fingers tightened in his hand involuntarily and just as soon as they had, they slackened in his grasp. He however, was not yet ready to let her go. So he held onto her fingers for a moment longer as he watched her chest rise and fall a little faster and her breath catch until she said with steadying resolve, "you must think me awfully brash."
"No." He said plainly, "I was rather enjoying conversing with someone in such a manner. I find I have rather a need for it."
"Oh?" She couldn't think to say anything more, questioning on her tongue and in clever grey eyes. Perhaps her fantasy could become reality.
He felt her heart thrum and her magic crackle even as he let go of her hand. She was a well of untapped potential, and he rather liked the idea of exploring it. He liked the idea of exploiting it more but curiosity it seemed, was an undeniably shared trait between them.
"Everyone in that room knows who I am." He explained, "for the first time in a while, I find myself bored of the simpering proclivities that come with my title."
She hesitated then, but he released her fingers and urged her to continue as he joined her beside the stone balcony.
"If you don't mind, Miss Black," he said, as though she had a choice. She didn't, and she wasn't stupid to deny him what he wanted, "I should like to speak with you again."
"Of course." She said almost instantly.
He tipped his head, a smile slowly coming to his lips. Tom Riddle may be dead and gone with his good looks, but Lord Voldemort was still charming beyond belief, "then I will write to you." He said without question, tucking his hands behind his back, "goodnight, miss Black."
Ethereal. There it was, the last word that crossed her mind as he turned to head back inside and leave for the night.
"Good night, my Lord."
Ah, but that one, the words he heard so often on the lips of others but which sounded like a delectable sin on hers — my Lord — yes, that was his favourite of the night.