A/N: Two people develop feelings which transcend time. Bellamort. Lakehouse!AU. Time-travel fic. There may be loopholes in this fic because there seem to be even loopholes in the original movie, or maybe I just can't see it properly. At the beginning of the fic, Bellatrix is about nineteen, Tom is twenty-five.

Submission for:

The Pirate Ship Battles: Second Mate - Bellamort: Time-Travel

Bellatrix looked around her bedroom, all traces of her removed and already sent ahead to her new flat. She had finally packed the last of her clothes and was ready to say goodbye to the place she called home for the past few months. She didn't think she would feel such longing for an inanimate object but it had grown on her. It was her first place after moving out of her parents' house and she had had many fun memories in this house by the lake.

She pulled her bags towards the fireplace before taking out a letter she had written and placing it on the table for the next occupant. With one last look, she stepped into fireplace with her trunk, dropped the floo powder at her feet and disappeared into the green flames.

Tom stepped out of the fireplace, dusting the soot off of his robes as he gave the lakehouse an appraising once-over, walking from room to room. Everything was adequate, but it would need a bit of work. Some of the floorboards were missing and the paint was peeling off the walls to start with, but it would do on his meagre salary from Borgin & Burkes.

He ended his tour in the kitchen, spotting a lone piece of parchment folded on the table. He picked it up and began to read.

"To the next occupant of this lovely lakehouse, I hope you have fond memories in this place as I have. I have left it in the best condition possible, exactly as I found it, including the large pawprints on the the deck.

Please forward any letters addressed to me should an owl be stupid enough to deliver my mail there.

- Bellatrix Black"

Tom walked towards the glass doors which separated the living room from the outside and peered out onto the deck. There were no pawprints out there. Tom sneered before tossing the letter to the ground. What a charming woman.

He walked back towards the fireplace and stepped in. He had a bit of work to do before he could move his belongings in.

A month later found Tom dressed in comfortable clothes standing out on the deck, his wand controlling three paintbrushes as they applied a fresh coat of paint to the wood siding. He could have spelled the house white but there was something soothing about painting he would never let anyone else know.

Once he was satisfied, he let the paintbrushes fall and admired his work. He was about to move onto the next side of the house when he heard loud barking in the distance. He looked up the shore of the lake to see a large dog bounding towards his deck.

He scowled and drew his wand, aiming a quick spell at the dog. The animal dodged the spell by a hair, but his fear increased his speed. He changed his direction slightly, causing him to run through the trough of paint on the deck, leaving white footprints in his wake.

Tom cursed out loud before he remembered that woman's crazy letter about footprints. Were these the ones she was talking about? But how had she known they would happen?

He ran back inside to find a piece of parchment and a quill before writing down his thoughts. He folded the paper and placed on the table, vowing to visit Post Office in Diagon Alley the next day.

Bellatrix held her head high as she walked down the street towards her flat. She had moved only a month ago and she was still getting used to the change of scenery. Instead of the calm lake view from her bedroom, she now watched as people walked up and down the street every morning. The sounds of chatter and laughter lulled her to sleep instead of the creatures of the night. While she did miss the quiet of her lakehouse, she was within walking distance of her new job, the whole reason she moved in the first place.

She was about to cross Daley Plaza, the entertainment centre of the town. Many restaurants and stores lined this square and if she wasn't in such a hurry to fall right into bed, she may have stopped to grab something to eat.

There was a loud crack in front of her, the tell-tale sound of Apparation, and she paused, not wanting to walk right into the person as he appeared out of thin air.

The man fell to the ground, his whole right arm missing as he splinched himself. She crouched to him, dread filling her heart as he began to lose blood at an alarming rate.

"Someone, anyone, help me!" Bellatrix cried to the crowd of onlookers. "Call a healer!"

His eyes were opening and closing slowly as he grew weaker, his body going limp in her arms. "B-" he began, his left hand trembling as he brought it up to her face.

"No, save your strength," she said, putting it back at his back at his side. "Someone help me!" she cried out.

People were running about, into the shops and sending patronii, but it was too late. His eyes closed and he stilled in her arms. She could feel as his life slipped through her fingers, the blood staining the cobblestones beneath him and dampening her dress.

"He's gone," Bellatrix said, placing him on the ground gently. "He's gone."

She rose to her feet, uncaring that his blood stained her clothes and her hands. Her eyes began to sting from the tears which threatened to fall, but she wouldn't cry, not here, not in front of all these people. She turned on the spot and Apparated home.

She opened her eyes to find herself not in her flat but back at the lakehouse. In her state, she had not been thinking clearly and went to the place she still found comfort in. It was dark, only a bit of light streaming through the wide glass doors which faced the lake, but she could tell no one had come to claim it yet.

She was about to turn again, to go to her flat when she noticed her letter on the table had changed. The paper she had written on was a neat white square while this parchment was yellow with raw edges.

She picked it up and was amazed to find foreign words written in elegant script.

"Miss Black, I don't know how you know about the pawprints and the dog that just ran across the deck. I always thought Divination was complete and utter madness but you seemed to be very knowledgeable about this house. Maybe some other magic is at work here.

-Tom Riddle"

Bellatrix read the letter over two more times, noting he had put the date at the top of the parchment: February 17, 1951. A note from the past.

She flipped the parchment over, using her wand to write a message on the back of the parchment before folding it over and replacing it on the table. She turned on her heel and disappeared with a crack to her home.

After a quick shower, Tom entered the kitchen, his stomach growling for food before he left to go to work. He walked past the table, his eyes catching the yellow of the parchment on the table, but this time he saw his own writing on the outside. He picked up the parchment and unfolded it to see another message from Miss Black.

"What are you going on about? It's 1970, not 1951. If this is some type of cruel joke, I am not amused. The pawprints have always been there since I moved in.

-Bella"

He refolded the paper, bending it idly in his hands. 1970, almost twenty years ahead. Was this letter passing between times, somehow allowing communication between him and this Bella woman? This was unheard of though obviously not impossible if it was happening right now, and he was almost certain of his assumption, but how would he test it out?

Then he had an idea. He grabbed another piece of parchment, scribbling a few quick instructions on it before following them himself.

"Miss Black, if you would indulge me while I test a theory, then we will see if I am joking or not. Visit Diagon Alley and walk to the narrow alley on the right of Borgin & Burkes. Look for my message on the third brick from the corner at eye-level."

Because of this note, Bella was standing among filth and grime, her eyes moving frantically across every brick on the outside wall of the establishment. She had begun with scanning the bricks at her eye-level and yielded no results, before she realized something: she and Riddle were different heights and being a man, he was possibly taller than her, his eye level with bricks above her.

After fifteen minutes, she was ready to give up, chastising herself for falling for this note's lies. Somewhere, Riddle was probably laughing at her expense. She was about to step back out onto the main road when she saw faint markings on a brick just a bit about her eye-level.

"I'm not sure how tall you are, so I hope you eventually find this. -Tom"

She stumbled, her hands catching her on the opposing wall. So maybe this wasn't a cruel joke. She looked in disbelief between the message on the brick and the one in her hand. Time travel.

Bella began to look forward with her letters from the mysterious Tom Riddle from the past. She shared her hopes and dreams with the man, her desire to actually become an artist instead of a journalist, and her feelings towards her sisters. In turn, he shared his irritation with the monotony of working at the Borgin & Burkes, and aspiring to bigger and better once he accumulated enough funds.

She had found a true confidant in Tom, feeling now like he knew her more than anyone else in the world. He was on her mind constantly whenever they could not communicate and her heart raced whenever she visited the lakehouse to see a message waiting for her. Bellatrix had never been in love, but from stories she had heard, she was sure this was close.

"I want to meet you," his message said one evening. Bellatrix sat at the table, the lone light of the candle she had lit illuminating the parchment before she wrote her response.

"We don't know how this time loop works, Tom. It may have disastrous consequences if we meet."

"I don't care. We've been talking for almost a year. Pictures and words can only do so much."

Bella smirked at his response, sharing his sentiment, she too growing tired of reading his words and wanting to hear his voice.

"How should we go about this?" she asked.

"We can meet at your favourite restaurant, two days from now," he wrote back.

"Trummond's, Daley Plaza, near my flat," she wrote.

She waited with baited breath after her note disappeared into the air. When his finally came back, she snatched it off the table.

"It's a date."

The anxiety that had been building in her chest for two days since those three words threatened to spill over as she walked from her flat towards the restaurant. It was quaint little eatery which served light food such as sandwiches and soups, as well as heavier meals like steaks and pastas, catering to a variety of people's tastes.

She hoped her date would go well. Due to the time gap, he would appear twenty years older than the few images he had sent her, but that didn't matter to her. She had fallen for him long before knowing what he looked like, if she thought about it, possibly from even the first note when she trusted his time-travel theory.

She entered the restaurant and requested a table on the terrace, giving her a clear view of the street and him a clear view of her when he arrived.

Ten minutes passed... thirty minutes passed...

After an hour, Bella tossed her napkin to the ground, feeling to flip the table in her anger. Tom hadn't shown. She had fallen for his trick like an idiotic school girl waiting for her first crush.

She twisted on her heel and appeared in her flat, throwing off her dress and jewels in a huff and scrubbing her face free of the makeup she painstakingly took time to perfect. She should have known he would just walk away, just like her parents who wanted nothing to do with her once she didn't want to marry Rodolphus, just like her sister who ran away with that Muggle, just like her other sister who got too caught up in her perfect life to care about her.

This is why she never loved. It made your expectations higher and your fall more painful. She trusted him and he had failed her. She may have been over-reacting but she didn't really care that night. She vowed to never visit the lakehouse again. She would move on from her old life, and Tom.

Tom tried to forget about Bella, the woman who he refused to admit had stolen his heart through witty words which thinly-veiled love and concern. He would wake up every morning, hoping for another note from her, only to be disappointed. He left countless for her, wondering about her whereabouts, her health and her emotional state. He apologized, something he never thought he would do, for something he wasn't even sure he had done. But every letter remained untouched in the exact place he left it.

Days turned into months into years and into decades, and the woman would never completely leave his mind. He remembered her at the oddest moments, imaging her reaction to the class of people who frequented Borgin & Burkes, and her opinion on the crickets that sang to him as he fell asleep at night.

As the years drew closer to 1970, Tom frequently visited Daley Plaza, taking a seat on Trummond's terrace, hoping to glimpse the beautiful woman, but he never does. It seemed that their relationship had come to an end and the magic had stopped, but he promised her he would make their date. So he waited patiently for that day to arrive when he would finally meet her.

Bella walked along the street, heading home after a long day at the newspaper office. After two years, she was ready for another move, another change to a new town. This town no longer excited her as it did when she had first gotten here. As she crossed Daley Plaza, she remembered what exactly had made that month so exciting.

She walked up to the familiar spot, right outside Trummond's actually and crouched down as she had that night. She could remember the man's pale face, his wide eyes and his blood oozing out of him. She hadn't thought of him in a long time but he was still a part of her. It was a frightening experience but at the same time, she was thankful for it. If she hadn't been scared, she never would have gone back to the lakehouse and she never would have gotten Tom's first letter.

Tom. She hadn't thought about him in a while either, though if she were honest with herself, she thought about him everyday. She imagined his voice whispering in her ear while she worked, making the odd comments on the days news and saying how everything would be better if he were in charge instead of that incompetent Minister Bagnold. She would laugh in the quiet of the lakehouse when he said that, knowing in her heart that if he were to rule, she would follow him in a heartbeat.

"You remember too?" a voice called from her right.

She rose from the ground to look towards the doorway of Trummond's. The doorman was gesturing to her to come closer. "The man?" she asked.

He nodded solemnly. "He was always a gentleman. He came by the restaurant a couple times. I remember his face because I always found it odd that he never ordered anything, just sat on the terrace like he was waiting on someone."

Bella nodded, swiping tears from the corners of her eyes. She could imagine him sitting on the terrace, looking up and down the street with hopeful eyes but sauntering away afterwards as if it was all planned that way. He seemed like that type of man.

"Yes, never thought it possible but it's a shame Tom splinched himself that night," the doorman added.

Bella froze before grabbing the doorman's hand. "Who?"

"The man's name was Tom. I asked him once and he said if anyone came looking for him to tell him he was sorry. No one ever came though," the doorman said.

The man who died in her arms was Tom?

Without another word, Bella turned on the spot and disappeared.

She appeared in the lakehouse kitchen, her eyes taking in a piece of parchment on the table.

"I don't know what I have done to you, Bella, but I am truly sorry if I have hurt you. You have not returned my letters in months so I assume you no longer want to speak to me. I will respect your wishes though it hurts me to do so.

I am also leaving the lakehouse. I'm sure someone else will find happiness here as I once did, and eventually you will become one of its occupants. I wish you the best."

He had been trying to contact her, trying to make amends but she never came back. She never wanted to see him again. But she could save him now. She could prevent him from dying.

She flipped over the parchment and wrote a hasty note before folding it on the table. Though he said he didn't live there anymore, she had to try. She had to do something.

She waited. For two days, she sat in the dark lakehouse, allowing the sunlight streaming through the glass doors to wake her and the crickets to lull her into an exhausted sleep. She did not eat, drink or bathe, but she just stared at the letter, hoping against hope that he would get it.

What if the magic had disappeared and the letter would never send? What if she had let her pride and emotions get in the way of something great?

There was a loud crack, jolting Bella awake, her head flying off the table having fallen asleep during her watch. She focused her eyes on the table before her. The letter had disappeared!

"Bella?" a voice asked.

She turned to see a man standing in the room with her. His hair black and slicked back, expertly groomed about his face. His features were chiselled, his black looking deeply in hers and his mouth slightly opened. He was taller than she was, his arms and legs long but his body strong. It was him, the man from the pictures, the man in the street.

"Tom?" she asked, rising from her chair at the table to greet the older man.

He closed the distance between them in two strides before pulling her into an overdue embrace, kissing her as he had wanted to from the day he realized he loved her.