How was it that something Fleur had always known as true could be false?
She knew what she had felt that Christmas night. Perhaps no one else in the room had, as fleeting as it was, but she had. There had been no mistaking that strange, wonderful, terrible magic—the Allure. Different than hers or that of other Veela, so very cold, but unmistakable for what it was.
They were out of that awful Grimmauld Place, at least—and what an apt name it was. How she loathed British humor. Bill, sweet Bill, had found them a lovely cottage on the seaside, where some of the cold of winter was warded off by the sea and he could finally recover in peace. The Healers had said he would never walk without a cane again, but that was all right. If he could not run, she would run for them both.
She should have been happy. But how could she accept happiness when she didn't even know who or what she was?
To her, the Allure had always been a simple thing. Complex in its effects, but simple in its nature. It was a blessing and a curse, but that had felt right.True. After all, why should something beautiful not be terrible too?
And then Violet Potter had shown her that perhaps the curse that she had slowly grown to accept, that all Veela would have to accept, was of their own making.
If the Allure was truly wild and uncontrollable beyond the slightest of guidance, how had Violet wielded it as deftly as an artist her brush? The girl was not Veela. But in that moment, it was as if she had been what Veela could be, only twisted, inverted. Beautiful, but terrifying.
Fleur was not a woman easily shaken, but in that moment she had felt terror. Not just intellectual, at what it could mean that a human, born to two human parents, could not just manifest but control the Allure, but instinctual too. Like she was without her wand and faced with a stalking tiger.
Without control, strength is weakness.
The words rang in her ears. She sighed.
China rattled as she walked into the sitting room, two cups carefully balanced on plates. She smiled.
"I made tea."
Bill looked up from his book and thanked her, but she didn't miss the flash of desire in his eyes as she leaned down to offer it to him. Bill never seemed to react to her nature in the undesirable ways others sometimes did—anger, jealousy, servility—which was part of what she loved so much about him. But she noticed it all the same.
And, again, it was not all curse but blessing too. Should a woman not hope to inspire lust in her husband? She certainly would not wish to lose that part of her nature. Besides, it had never really been the desire that bothered her. It was the all-to-common feeling that she was somehow manipulating others simply by interacting with them, the awful discomfort at realizing the prejudiced stories of Veela were not entirely without truth. But in the end she had accepted it, for what else could she have done?
Now, the thought, the possibility, had been planted in her mind. Control. To wield the Allure as Violet had, not be controlled by it. It had been a child's foolish dream once, but now she felt more foolish for giving it up. She would not be content as a witch if her magic constantly acted without her will, so why should she have accepted it as a Veela?
What even was Violet? Fleur was not officially a member of Albus Dumbledore's Order, but people found it easy to talk to her, and her relationship with Bill had been enough to allay any suspicion. The most common subject of discussion, after You-Know-Who, was Violet Potter, whom they seemed to paradoxically view both as a savior and potential menace. The girl herself seemed completely oblivious to their discomfort, of course—or perhaps not oblivious but uncaring.
What teenager was as at home on a battlefield as a veteran Auror, thoughtlessly ignored the judgment of those around her, and occasionally slipped into painfully formal language when her ire was raised, as though it was more natural for her than normal speech? None of the Order Fleur had spoken to had any knowledge of her past. A part of Fleur felt terribly sad for her, for it must have taken a very cruel environment to leave someone so young so sharp and cold. But another part of her was glad for it, because Violet was living proof that the Allure was not an uncontrollable force for everyone.
It was like being back in the damned lake. Tangled, helpless, hoping only not to drown. The key to the secret dream she had forced herself to forget so long ago might finally be in sight, but the only clue she had was a girl whose very presence disturbed her and who was, by all accounts, profoundly dangerous.
"Something wrong, love?" Bill asked gently.
Yes.
"No. Nothing at all."
~#~
"Would you stop doing that?" Tracey hissed under her breath. "It's getting distracting."
"Stop what?" Violet asked, blinking innocently. "We're just walking."
"Oh, sure," she said, with an ever so slightly manic laugh. "It's totally normal for every boy we pass to stare at you like potted plants to the sun. You're just that insanely attractive. Sure."
Pulsing her glamour around her, Violet gently bit her lower lip and locked eyes with Tracey. "Are you sure it's just the boys?"
"Seriously, stop!" Tracey yelped, pushing Violet away and flushing slightly. "Seriously!"
Violet smirked in response but allowed the glamour to fully unravel. Really, with how much fun this was turning out to be, she wasn't sure why she hadn't made more use of glamours of beauty earlier. Maybe she actually had something to thank Fleur for.
"How was your holiday, then?" she asked.
Tracey grunted. "Painful. Mum invited some of her family who don't know about magic, and we had to call the Obliviators twice. You?"
Violet thought about it for a moment, then said in a tone that suggested the vilest of profanity, "Very French."
Her comment earned her a muffled laugh. It was nice to be able to talk to Tracey again without having to skulk about out of sight of others. Apparently she'd come to some sort of accord with Greengrass over her concerns about Tracey getting too close to Violet, the details of which she had little interest in. Whatever the case, Tracey had smoothly slid back into her role of lightening the mundane drudgery of life at Hogwarts. Her unique blend of chipperness and cynicism made her some of the best company you were likely to find in the school.
"I mean to ask you, actually," she said as she deftly recovered from a false stairstep. Those little annoyances—shifting stairways, Peeves, obnoxiously talkative portraits, Peeves, small children, and especially Peeves—had stopped pestering Violet since she asked him, very politely, if he was interested in being fed to a Dementor. It seemed he had taken the hint and spread the message around. "Are we ever going to do the rest of that dueling tournament?"
Violet rolled her eyes. "Not unless Dumbledore dies an untimely death. He was quite clear on that matter."
Potions was next and was the usual disaster. Snape seemed to have nothing better to do than stare at her—not comment or criticize, just stare. Ron's drama with Malfoy continued, which managed to attract Snape's attention long enough to assign a detention, and Longbottom's cauldron exploded. That was right about the halfway mark.
Lavender, Violet's partner, tentatively sniffed the fumes rising from their potion, then glanced at her textbook, frowning in consternation. "It says that if it smells like woodchips, you need to keep stirring until it smells like summer rain, and then you can let it simmer. But we've been stirring for ten minutes, and it still smells a bit woody to me."
Violet, who had taken to vindictively staring back at Snape, glanced toward her out of the corner of her eye and shrugged.
"Do you really care?"
Lavender promptly decided that no, she really didn't, and settled back to let the potion simmer while reading a magazine carefully concealed between the pages of her textbook. That was why Lavender made the best Potions partner. She was simultaneously competent enough to avoid disasters of an explosive nature—cough, Finnigan, Longbottom—and lazy enough not to stress over an A in a class no one really cared about anyway. Violet shuddered to imagine being paired with Granger.
The clock's hand advanced with merciless patience, but eventually the lesson came to an end. After bottling a decidedly mediocre sample of potion, Violet sent a spiteful jab of Legilimency at Snape, then hurried out of the classroom before he could get the satisfaction of retaliating. Tracey waved briefly at her before splitting off with the rest of the Slytherins.
At least, most of the Slytherins.
"Well, well, who's surprised," Draco Malfoy pronounced in a poor approximation of his usual drawl. There was a clear, simmering anger at odds with his usual affectation of boredom. "Weasel here managed to get another detention. That should make it, what, one thousand and one detentions left?"
"Give it a rest, you great wanker," Dean Thomas snapped as he bulled his way through the small confrontation. "It's like the bloody Hippogriff all over again. Malfoys never miss a chance to wuss out."
"Oh!" Malfoy cried, scoffing derisively. "I'm sorry I can't live up to the brute strength of your proud heritage. How will I ever cope with such a deficiency?"
He smirked, an idea seemingly occurring to him. "I don't know why you're even upset. We're the ones who have to deal with Weasley's shoddy work, after all. Say, Pansy, did you happen to notice that the salamander stomachs had some of the lining left in them?"
With a coy bat of her eyelashes, Parkinson nodded. "You know, now that you mention it…"
Ron shot them both a glare of absolute hatred. Malfoy was taking this all a bit too lightly in Violet's opinion—that was not the look of a person who regretted almost killing someone. It was the look of a person who intended to succeed on their second attempt.
The other students, sensing the brewing storm, were slowly trying to distance themselves. Even Crabbe and Goyle looked like they were thinking twice about provoking the now notoriously volatile Ron Weasley. Violet leaned against the wall, watching impassively.
Malfoy nodded obnoxiously, ignoring Ron completely. "Yes, I thought so too. Perhaps I should have a word with Professor Snape. After all, Weasley should really be learning how to do menial labor properly. That way he'll be worth something." An expression of unholy glee suffusing him, he continued, "Really, it's a shame what happened what happened to little Ginny. She was probably the only one of you lot who could have offered something useful to the world. I figure she would have made a passable Knockturn whore if she'd made it a few more years, don't you? Maybe your family would even have had more than two coppers to rub together then."
Here we go again…
Predictably, Ron's hand plunged into his robes for his wand. "Reducto!"
Malfoy, who had of course been waiting for just that reaction, merely conjured a shield and watched as the silvery ribbon ricocheted off and shattered a sizable chunk of the ceiling. Bits of stone and dust clattered to the , his wand slid through the motions of a Bludgeoning Hex, and the ensuing flash of light struck Ron mid-torso before he could react. He was hurled backward, head striking the opposing wall with an unpleasant crack before slumping into a heap.
"Not so tough when someone's ready for you, eh, Weasley?" Malfoy said. He stepped forward and planted a boot in Ron's ribs as he tried to rise, sending him groaning back to the ground.
"Coward," he hissed, quietly enough that Violet would not have been able to hear if not for the keenness of her hearing. "Just like the rest of your traitorous bloodline. You're going to die, you know. So will your pig of a mother and fool of a father and—"
Right, that was enough. Violet pushed herself off the wall and strode over. Malfoy looked up, eyes widening as if he hadn't quite realized she was still there.
"Now, Draco," she said softly. "Think twice before finishing that sentence, lest I decide this has grown beyond a childhood rivalry."
Malfoy's eyes narrowed, but he didn't respond, some unseen calculation behind his impassive, aristocratic features. Violet cracked her neck.
"Have you had the chance to see your aunt's new eyes, perchance? I am told they shine like obsidian."
He flinched, and the memory of those sunken black spheres rose to the forefront of his unguarded mind, along with the horror and disgust he had forced himself to conceal at the sight of her. Violet smiled coldly at the fragment of a memory of Renée, whom he had never really liked in the first place, in the foyer of his home, her eyes black and weeping blood. A vibrant, raw Dark Mark rested on her forearm, more vividly remembered than any other part of the memory.
Violet scoffed. "Leave, boy. Your mind has already betrayed you, and you think yourself fit for war? I suggest you do not pledge your meager talents to a doomed cause unless you desire for your family's esteemed name to be extant on these isles nevermore."
His eyes widened in horrified realization, and he stumbled backward before more or less composing himself. Crabbe and Goyle moved to support him, but she noticed they were being very careful not to even appear to be considering confronting her. For all their reputation for stupidity, they had more sense than Malfoy in this.
With Malfoy and his escorts soon gone and the remaining onlookers slowly dissipating, the hallway was left empty but for Violet and Ron. Somehow, Snape's supernatural ability to sense an opportunity to punish a Gryffindor hadn't gone off, and it didn't look like any staff was going to show up. Ron lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and groaning miserably.
"Come on then," Violet said, offering him a hand up. He hissed in pain as he did and clutched his ribs, then coughed wetly and flinched at the pain. His hand came away from his mouth red.
"Fuck," he said succinctly.
"You'll be all right. I don't think he hit you hard enough to break anything, and you'd be bleeding a lot more if something went through a lung. Next time, try not to get hit at all."
"Reckon I don't need to see Pomfrey then?" Ron asked, swaying unsteadily. Violet shrugged.
"I'm not your mother."
"Right. That means I probably should." He grimaced. "Could you, ah, give me a hand there?"
Madame Pomfrey's domain was one of precise order, with every bed made neatly and every vial of potion sorted impeccably. It was a far cry from the fevered chaos of the dead and dying it had been the last time Violet saw it, smelling now of pungent potions and medicinal alcohols in place of irony blood and suffering.
Pomfrey's job was not one Violet envied. Between the ever innovative ways the students found to injure themselves and their generally ungrateful attitude toward treatment, she suspected she would be switching potions for poisons by the first week. Ron was hardly an exception.
"Bruised lungs," Pomfrey said, tutting in disapproval. "Bruised ribs, bruised skull and possibly a concussion. You're lucky you have such a thick head."
"Oi!"
"Sit—yes, sit. The potion takes time, you see, and unless you like the idea of coughing up more blood, you will sit quietly for at least an hour.
Ron, his head wrapped comically in a great white bandage, sagged into the bed he sat on in resigned acceptance.
"And that," Violet said dryly, "is why we're not going to have any more of our little meetings."
Ron flushed. "What was I supposed to do, not react at all? You heard him. He was going to just keep needling and prodding until I attacked him, just so that he could pretend to be defending himself. What the bloody hell did you expect me to do differently?"
"Hm," Violet said, rubbing her chin in a pantomime of consideration. "Perhaps you could have started by not trying to murder him in front of half a dozen witnesses? Again."
"I didn't—"
"Have you seen what a properly cast Reductor curse does to a person?" Violet smiled without humor. "You smashed a solid kilogram of stone with yours. Flesh and bone is far more easily rent."
"And you'd know."
"I would know."
Ron nodded and fell into a silence, glaring at the white sterility of the Hospital Wing. Perhaps it had been a mistake to instruct him as she had. She had underestimated the volatility of his emotions and the extent of his anger over the death of his sister. He was starting to resemble a ticking bomb, with a catastrophic explosion inevitable and no solution at hand.
Ah, well. Hopefully it would at least go off in the general vicinity of someone she didn't like.
~#~
The following weeks passed in a whirlwind of press conferences, dry meetings, and simpering socialites. If any of the witches and wizards poised in the highest echelons of government took issue to a teenager being abruptly and unsubtly thrust into their midst, they dared not show it. In the end, Violet's thesis that a suitably impressive display of power would trump any concern so mundane as age seemed to be proven correct. By now, everyone had heard about the bloody toll she had exacted on Halloween.
The initial plan had been for her to pay only the occasional visit to the Ministry, just long enough for a convenient photo or two to be taken and maybe a reassuring word or two to be shared with some of the jumpier workers. But they had met with so much immediate success that she was now spending almost as much time there as at Hogwarts. She missed half her lessons in the process of course, but that was inconsequential.
She was certain of her ability to pass her OWLs in any subject she cared about, and Hogwarts's professors seemed no more eager to confront her over her absences than the Ministry officials were for her presence. Even Snape had made do with a single acid observation that if only there were such a subject as Governmental Evangelism, she would surely achieve an Outstanding. Dumbledore too was not excessively enamored with her new highly beneficial relationship with the Minister, but he had diplomatically refrained from making any comments.
Thankfully, the Minister himself made for reasonable company. His outwardly straight-laced demeanor made for witty banter, and he was pragmatic enough to be flexible when it actually mattered. It was also quite fascinating to see the machinations of government from the inside, reminiscent of the infinitely complex patterns of a hive of insects that arose from creatures individually meaningless and unremarkable. And when Violet said the right words, those patterns shifted like ants fleeing from a boot.
The Atrium was brightly lit, a strong contrast to the shadows that had dominated it the night she and Sirius had broken into the Department of Mysteries. It was also packed with hundreds of Ministry employees and visitors, shuffling through reams of parchment or carrying out hurried conversations as they rushed from one department to the next. Here and there, Violet picked out a few who flipped through their memos without really reading them and who managed to mill about without actually moving anywhere and whose gazes were just a little too hard, postures slightly too rigid. Aurors, or perhaps Hit Wizards, in plain clothes to avoid spooking the paper-pushers but nonetheless poised for an eruption of violence at any moment.
"Where to next?" Violet asked under her breath, walking abreast with Scrimgeour. It felt like they'd dropped in on half the Ministry's departments today, sometimes for him to briefly confer with the department head on matters of some import, but more often just to buoy flagging morale. The word among some was that Scrimgeour had taken her on as his protege, which she supposed was the whole point of having her follow him around like a lost child. It would be worth it, though. Once they won the war, Scrimgeour would surely be the most celebrated Minister in recent memory, and Violet would only look better for her association with him. If she compounded that by slaying Voldemort in single combat—well, youngest Minister of Magic ever elected had a nice ring to it, she thought.
"The French ambassador," Scrimgeour said, speaking out of the corner of his mouth to avoid disturbing his camera-ready smile. "We're hoping they'll crack down on Death Eater recruitment within their borders, and I have it on good authority that the man's daughter is a fan of yours."
"Wonderful. Perhaps next time we should try to branch out from hero worship. I've been on a bit of a seduction kick lately, so maybe that and a spot of blackmail?"
Scrimgeour pinched the bridge of his nose, but before he could reply, a commotion from somewhere in the crowd drew both their attentions.
"Minister! Minister!" A reedy-voiced man with a visible overbite shoved his way through the shuffling workers, drawing more than a few disgruntled looks as he did. He clutched a notepad in his hand like unwound yarn in a labyrinth. "Minister, is it true that after the Halloween massacre, the Auror force is woefully lacking experienced veterans? Are new recruits being sent into battle without sufficient training?"
Scrimgeour's smile became noticeably strained, and he jerked his head at one of the escorting Aurors on his personal security team, distinct for their black sashes and absolute lack of humor. The way they flanked Scrimgeour and her made her feel vaguely like a canned sardine.
"Get that clown out of here before people start panicking. We'll find something or other to charge him with."
Two of their escort peeled off, spreading out and cutting through the crowd in a pincer motion. The reporter continued shouting, seemingly oblivious, despite the fact that if he made a break for it now, the Aurors were unlikely to bother pursuing him through the crowd.
What was he thinking would happen?
No, seriously, what was he thinking? Legilimens.
Violet went from bored curiosity to thundering adrenaline in split second as the reporter's mind unfolded before her. There was no frustration at being rebuffed, fear of imprisonment, or whatever the fuck normally went on in bloodsucker's heads. Only cold, undeniable intent that was certainly not his own.
The reporter was still pushing closer, but the Aurors had closed in by now. "All right, mate. That's quite enough from you," one said, unknowingly drawing his final breath even as he clamped a hand down on the belligerent man's arm.
Like an uncoiling serpent, Violet's arm snapped out, and the crushing weight of Winter's power descended, anathema to light and heat of any kind. Simultaneously, the reporter crushed a tiny glass vial he had concealed in his hand, and a concussive shockwave ripped through the air to stab Violet in both ears.
Similarly to boiling water thrown into freezing air, the brilliant explosion drew Winter's ire, a million droplets of ice and mist forming around the fire wherever it went and slowing the crushing shock like a leaden blanket. Immense plumes of steam rose toward the cavernous ceiling of the Atrium, while flickering flashes of secondary explosions lit up the clouds of suspended ice that slowly drifted downward.
A crater had been blasted a meter deep in the floor, and there was not a sign of either the Imperiused reporter or the two Aurors. Those standing nearby ranged from dead to horribly injured, crawling away with whatever limbs still functioned—and were still attached. Others had escaped the worst of the deadened explosion, but at the cost of feeling the freezing bite of the magic that had contained it, clutching blackened skin flash-frostbitten in an instant. Violet's hearing gone, the whole scene was surreal in its silence.
She shook her head, two pops sounding as her eardrums repaired themselves, and was immediately assailed by a wall of noise—screams of pain and terror, shouted orders, the thunder of hundreds of running feet. She wicked away a drop of blood that had run from her ear down her neck.
Moments later, the rest of the Minister's guard organized enough to begin whisking them away from the scene, bowling their way through the panicked crowd with interlocking Shield Charms and drawn wands.
They watched the grisly proceedings from high above in a cafe hastily converted into a fortified position. Healers thronged like bees to bright red flowers. Somehow, Violet suspected that no amount of "popping in and out" of the Ministry would be enough to add a positive spin to this.
"Well," Scrimgeour remarked, "at least someone thinks we're going about this war the right way."
~#~
It didn't take long for the security team to decide that the cafe was an untenable defensive position in the event of a secondary attack. They were soon shuffled though a network of internal tunnels that Violet had no idea even existed. With each step, the weight of earth above them seemed to grow heavier.
"You should technically be blindfolded for this," Scrimgeour had remarked. "But seeing as you just saved my arse, I think we can fudge the paperwork on that one."
They were eventually deposited into a grim bunker of a room with no furnishings aside from a table and a few straight-backed chairs. Violet sighed and settled in for a long, boring wait.
She formed a crystal of ice in her hand and divided it. Two; four; eight; sixteen…
A constant stream of Aurors and other important-looking officials were escorted in and out of the room, where they spoke with Scrimgeour in quick, harried undertones. Violet amused herself briefly by eavesdropping, but it all seemed like the typical aftermath of an attempted assassination and didn't hold her attention for long. Eventually, the visits slowed, then stopped, and Scrimgeour was left as unoccupied as she was. He shifted irritably.
"We can use this. Spin it."
Violet suspected Scrimgeour was talking more because he didn't have anything better to do than for her benefit, but then again, she didn't have much better to do than listen.
"Some poor fuck got Imperiused into bombing the Atrium in broad daylight. It was well executed, indiscriminate, carried out without any cost to Voldemort's forces, and frightening in its implications for the future. How are we supposed to spin that?"
"That's exactly the point," Scrimgeour said, tapping the table with a finger. "There's a whole theory to it, the muggle Minister was telling me about it. Terrorism, or the like. The idea is we make a great show of the enemy using tactics that are supposedly 'worse' than normal warfare, which they frankly make quite easy for us, while also implying that they're too weak or cowardly to confront us 'honorably'. It's supposed to be great for recruitment. Plus, we can play up that you were able to mitigate the attack—without mentioning how close it came to offing me, of course. That would just depress people. We scare them, but in a useful way, and then we give them a ray of hope—that's you. Half of 'em already think you're destined to kill the Dark Lord again already."
"And," Violet said, amused, "if people are, ah—usefully scared, I'm sure that's a great way to push through any controversial legislation in the name of regrettably necessary security."
"Exactly!" Scrimgeour crowed. "He actually mentioned that too, now that I think about it. Great bloke, really."
"Interesting," she said, as the haze of ice surrounding her hand collapsed into fog that she dispersed with a lazy wave. She tilted her head, a thought occurring to her. "What's that you were saying about people thinking I'm destined to defeat Voldemort?"
Scrimgeour's eyes narrowed. He was always quick on the uptake and clearly knew she wasn't asking out of idle curiosity. "The standard nonsense. Accidental magic this, destiny that. Why?"
"Nothing. Just curious," she said, meeting his scowl with a grin. Just to aggravate him, she leaned back in her chair until the front legs lifted high above the ground and lolled lazily. He clearly never fully relaxed when alone with her, so it amused her to act as harmlessly juvenile as possible.
He diligently ignored her. That wouldn't do, so she retaliated by resuming her experiments with glamours of beauty, all while obnoxiously batting her eyelashes and squirming in her chair.
The dull grind of Scrimgeour's teeth made the next hour much more bearable. His birthday was in February, she was pretty sure. Maybe she'd buy him some tooth-hardening potion.
By the time the Aurors finally arrived to give the all clear, she'd nearly worked him into a state of true apoplexy. Unfortunately, he seemed to catch on to her game at some point and began lecturing her on the finer points of the proper way to format an interdepartmental communique. She'd have to write up the whole exchange as a draw.
She briefly greeted Tonks on her way out of the Ministry, who gave her an exaggerated thumbs up. "Nice one, Violet. You're liable to put us out of a job at this rate," she called sarcastically.
"Love you too, Nymphadora!" she replied, and one of Tonks's colleagues lit up with glee at the opportunity to rib her.
She was about to return to Hogwarts—there was an ancient tattered notebook filled with dark musings and darker magics, courtesy of Dumbledore, calling her name—but a brief moment of sentiment overcame her. Brief encounters at Order meetings aside, it had been a long time since she had the chance to properly catch up with Jon, haunt his dingy tavern, and drink his awful, awful troll whisky.
By the time Jon kicked her out between fits of inebriated laughter, claiming that keeping up with her would see him to an early grave, she had drunk enough to stretch her supernatural constitution to its limits and left several of the Old Oak's regulars with a number of stories about the Savior of Britain that absolutely no one would ever believe.
~#~
Curse the girl who was born to stand in his way.
Curse Fate who had sought to undo him.
Curse the world, for he would sooner watch it burn than allow it to wind on without him.
He offered no sacrifice and spoke no Name. His interest alone was incentive enough, and if whatever creature that answered his call should prove unworthy, it would have little time to regret its mistake.
Losing the Unspeakable had been a setback, but perhaps he had erred to seek him in the first place. He was Lord Voldemort. There were no secrets beyond his reach, and he had always forged his own path in all things: Horcruxes, refined from Herpo's crude concept into the greatest work of magic ever wrought; the Dark Mark, the perfect union of sympathetic and European magic that reached beyond countless so-called laws of magic; a hundred eerie and terrible curses that struck terror into his enemies, and a dozen more that had never left the confines of his own mind. In this realm too, he would outdo those tentative researchers who had come before him.
He stood alone on a black volcanic crag blasted of any meager signs of life, on a nameless island near the equator. He may be willing to allow the world to be consumed by flame, but he would brook no strange invader in it. This world was his, and should any nameless being fail to respect that, it would never leave this place.
He put out his call to those who would listen. Flame followed, then ice, then nothing but a whirling void filled with points like stars, of which he could offer no explanation. Finally, it settled on one, and Tom Riddle's charming smile settled on his face as he greeted the one whom he suspected would prove to be very worthy indeed.
Curse the girl who had dared to wield magic beyond his understanding. Curse her, for she would come to regret showing him the power of the Fair Folk. Curse her, for Lord Voldemort was not the only one who would like to see her existence brought to an end. Let it be a knife in the back for the girl who thought herself cunning enough to defeat him.
AN: Thank you all for reading and leaving reviews! I really enjoy hearing your thoughts.
Recently I posted some ideas for possible future fics to my discord. They won't come into play for a long time yet as Sleet and Hail still has at least 150k words to go, but if you're interested in reading some sample text or sharing your own ideas, you can join at: discord . gg / HfyNqfMqfJ