JULY NINTH, NINETEEN NINETY-FOUR

I was a little girl when I realized I had a fascination with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and his Death Eaters. While everyone shivered in their houses in fear, I would be sitting outside, hoping that they would come knocking at the neighbor's door, or perhaps if I was lucky, mine. I even had a list of people who were in the Inner Circle. However, it was childish of me to hope they would come to my door, and childish of me to assume they would take me into their ranks. Childish of me to think I would enjoy it. However, as I grew up, I found I still was interested in it. Any scrap of information someone could tell me about the days of fear under Lord Voldemort – and yes, I say his name without fear in my head, just not aloud – was like Candy to me. I became the head researcher in the entire field of that war. I was being conscripted to teach people how to make sure such a thing is not repeated. Voldemort's patterns (very hard to track), possible followers (I had lists of them), anything they asked of me. And it was in this way that I learned of Cassius Lestrange. A friend in the Ministry spoke of him when he was wondering if I thought I knew who the right hand man of Voldemort was. Of course, I named off who I had suspicious of – Cygnus Black was always the man I thought was important, perhaps that Vampire woman who died by Crouch's hand a couple decades back. The guy ended up laughing at me. Of course, I was very insulted. He told me those people begged to be more important to Voldemort. The man I was looking for was at the near bottom of my list. Cassius Lestrange.

"But… the man had been deemed harmless. He is harmless. Especially now!" I had argued.

My friend had shrugged at me, picking my brain. "Who said the second in command had to be a ruthless blood sucking killer?" He had said, amused at my shock. "Voldemort did enough of that. No, his second was the one who did everything Voldemort didn't do – business stuff, research, giving the Death Eater's assignments and making sure they did their job. That sort of thing." Of course, I had immediately wanted to know how he knew. "Oh, he's been getting better, and mumbling about old times lately. Let that slip when someone was wondering about his old jobs. You could probably ask to see him." The idea was juicy. A man, albeit, a sixty-eight year old man, was alive, not driven completely insane by Azkaban, and nearly coherent enough to talk about what actually happened. I practically jumped into St. Mungo's, asking for a chance to speak to him – Cassius. One of the only survivors of the original inner ring of the Dark Lord. The only one that could maybe tell me a thing or two about it. Of course, he was still completely insane. But not in the way the one's at Azkaban were. Cassius had been taken care of, not tortured. I knew for a fact his family had paid Mungo's a severe amount of money just to give him his own comfortable chambers. He was locked up at all times, but had been seen as "not a threat to humanity" for the last ten years. Just to himself, sometimes.

It was this day. This glorious rainy day that I was finally able to talk to him. Cassius. His name had been ringing in my head for the past few days. I was met at the front entrance by a very tired looking witch. Her hair, which was probably proper and tight that morning, was loose and frizzy. Her surgery robes were off center. Heck, even her eyes looked like they had been losing touch with reality since this morning. "You are Ariana?" She asked me, her voice quiet but stern. "Yes. I'm here to talk to Cassius?" She hid a mocking laugh. "This way," was all she said to me ever again. The rest of my visits were conducted in complete silence. It was a long walk to Cassius' rooms. They were quite a bit down in the basement, as if they feared any closer to the other insane and people would start dying. It seemed to me as we went down in the elevator, the woman beside me became more anxious. I was as well, but in an excited way. I even had my quill (which would write for me, all I had to do was listen) out and my large amount of paper. When we reached the near bottom of the place, the doors opened, and I heard beautiful music and flashes of red. The woman nodded for me to go, and shocked I stepped into … what looked like the most beautiful rooms I had ever seen. I was in a state room. Deep mahogany book shelves lined the left side of the room, with a elegant desk made of the same mahogany gracing the back wall. On the other side, huge and expensive looking paintings that held colors to match the deep red of the room adorned the walls. A huge mahogany fireplace (with a nice and gentle fire making gentle crackle noises in the background) was in the dead center of the wall, it's great mantle holding small and old photographs of what I guessed were family. Around this fireplace were huge lounge seats – made of mahogany and a very comfortable looking deep red velvet cushions. I touched them as I walked on my way to the mantelpiece, curious about the photos. They were soft.

On the mantelpiece itself, a beautiful picture of a blond woman took the right hand side, the place of honor. She was radiant, her blond hair blowing back gently in a breeze, brown eyes admiring the world around her. She saw me and gave me a sort of smile, gently pulling out the lines she may have had in her deep blue outfit. This elegant woman then, with a poise I envied immediately, wandered into the next photograph, where two boys sat, playing in the sand at some old and forgotten beach. One was a little older than the other, and he acknowledged what I guessed now to be his mother's presence. The other, ran to her arms, yelling "Momma!" as loud as he could. I guessed this must be Cassius' family. The woman, in all her radiance, was probably his wife, Octavia. The boys were probably Rudolphus and Rabastan Lestrange, who in my books, were legends. Rudolphus had even married Voldemort's only future female member – Bellatrix. Lucky man, I guess. So poised already as a boy of about eight. The next photo over showed two young men. One was quite dark, yet very handsome, and the other equally handsome, yet very light. Almost complete opposites of each other, and they both seemed to be sharing an equally hilarious joke. I wondered who they were, and something above the mantelpiece, something I should have noticed long before I had gotten there, caught my eye. It was this... black screen. Nothing on it, just a screen of complete blackness. I stared at it with a curious look on my face, and suddenly a picture popped up on it. I jumped, and backed right into something that wasn't there before – a man.

I turned around very quickly, and found myself staring up – way up – into the very blue eyes of a much older version of the blond young man in the picture. Cassius Lestrange. Then, the man beside him must have been –

"Tom Riddle. Yes." His voice was quiet, and had a creepy gentleness to it. "How did you know that's what I was thinking?" I immediately asked of him. He raised his eyebrow, a perfectly formed eyebrow, odd on a man in his sixties, as if to ask my why on earth he would tell me that. He shook his head and backed up to couch, letting his slender, and well taken care of body slide into the largest of his lounge sofas. "It's a TV." He said simply. "What?" I said with after trying to comprehend what he had said. He pointed to the screen, now showing a room in what I recognized as Hogwarts. "A TV. A little screen that will show me whatever I want it to, if I know of it." He said simply. "I had it made for me a few years ago. Takes my mind off of things, makes me feel less cut off from the world." He inspected something on his hand, which looked completely clean to me, and didn't say a word more. "Oh." I said simply after a moment of silence, and stood awkwardly in front of the mantle place, suddenly questioning my foolishness at this idea.

After a long silence, Cassius seemed to remember my presence. "Are you not going to sit?" he asked me, waving to a love seat in front of him. In an uncomfortable manner, I shuffled my way over, sitting on the edge awkwardly. I waited, trying not to let my feet bounce with impatience, and trying not to just simply stare at how young he seemed. For an insane man in his sixties, Cassius seemed to be living fairly well. Not only such amazing and wonderful quarters, but his person as well. He had an athletic build, though he was a little on the thin sides. His face seemed smooth, not really lined like my mother's was starting to become. Sure, he had crow's feet on the outside of his wide eyes, and laugh lines – if you could call them that – definitely appeared whenever he grimaced at whatever it was that was bothering him on his hand. I still couldn't see anything. The only thing that showed huge amount of change from the photograph on the mantelpiece was his hair. It had gone completely white. And not in the creepy washed out way where you could see the scalp underneath like you could on some men, just completely, wonderfully, thick and white.

"When you are quite done admiring my odd manner of looking young, do remember that I'm in a hospital which keeps me in almost excellent health." He looked at me sharply, and out of automatic fear I looked at the floor. There was a heavy sigh, and suddenly I felt a weight next to me. I looked slightly to the left to see shiny black shoes and a tailored black pant leg. That moment was very uncomfortable. The gentle voice came again. "I hear you want to ask me about my life. Now, I must ask. What exactly did I do to have this little thing get a crush on me?" I jumped at the last bit and saw simply a quizzical eyebrow staring back. He was only being half serious, yet at the same time it seemed like a sixty-odd year old man was nearly successfully flirting with me. I stumbled over words for a moment, and then finally came out with "I heard you were the right-hand man of Vold-" His eyebrows went up. I stumbled again. "That guy." I pointed shamefully at the photograph of the two of them. After a second, Cassius gave a bit of a chuckle.

"Yes. I was. Friends since childhood. Since the first moment we met on the train to Hogwarts." I nodded, not really seeing the Dark Lord as an eleven year old, neither really this man beside me, perfectly comfortable at making me uncomfortable. "Come along," he said suddenly, standing and stretching. "I want dinner." He lazed off into another room, and I followed him, assuming that I was going to be stepping into a kitchen. I found myself very surprised to actually see just a small table surrounded by comfortable looking, deep red chairs. And yes, the table was mahogany. Bravely, I asked "I'm guessing your favorite color is red?" "Yes." He answered immediately for once. "I was always pissed that the Gryffindors could have such a majestic color, but I believe I was one of the few people who thought that. Anyway, have a seat, we'll have some dinner and I can tell you what you would like to know. Will take some time though." I placed my quill on a piece of parchment, finally releasing them from my death grip of a hold, and put them to the side. The quill was poised on the parchment, waiting to write. It started to scratch away as soon as I spoke next. "It's a long story." He said simply, looking sidelong at me and then pressing… nothing. On the wall. And speaking to it. "OI. PEOPLE BELLOW THE FLOOR. FOOD." I stared at him, and horridly enough, my jaw dropped in shock a little. What was he doing? Then I remembered – right. The man is crazy. However, maybe not. Just like in Hogwarts, food popped up on the table. I guessed that "the people below the floor" were probably house elves, could hear him shouting, and just sent up food when he did. At least, that's the only explanation I had for it.

Surprisingly enough, there was a spot for me. I was being treated to mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables, and a weird tiny looking chicken. "Quail." Cassius said to me as he sat next to me, and picked up his fork and knife. "So," he looked at my quill going away in the background. "Where should I begin?" I shrugged a little. "Sorry, not a biographer," I said, tasting the Quail… which happened to taste just like a tiny chicken. "Perhaps where you want?"

"Hmph." Cassius sat and thought for a while, I guess having expected to be answering questions, not just saying whatever came to his head. "Well, I guess I should give you a bit of past," he said after a few mouthfuls of food. "My parents were French, and while my mother was pregnant with me, they moved to England. This is where most of the better families of purebloods are, you see. You are pureblood are you not?" He looked at me very seriously. I nodded quickly. My mother had been a half-blood actually, but he didn't really need to know that. "Good. You can be trusted. I was born in this very hospital on January 6, 1926. Tom, as I'm guessing you are much more interested in, was born somewhere off in the middle of nowhere on December 31, 1926." I tried to hide my surprise, not expecting to get information on Tom so early in the story. "Don't be foolish." Cassius said easily. "Everyone prefers to know about Tom, but seeing as you are here for me, I will tell you of us both. Our childhoods are mainly irrelevant. Mine was going through stupid amounts of schooling and the birth of my brother, and Tom's was spending lonely times in an orphanage, waiting for something interesting to happen. It wasn't until – AH." He suddenly grabbed his head, and then stumbled out of his chair, landing on the floor. Then, he grabbed at his arm, hissing in pain. I was immediately to my feet, always the good citizen.

"GET IT OFF." He was yelling loudly on the floor, tears entering in his eyes. "GET IT OFF ME!" He ripped at the dinner jacket he was wearing, and I noticed a light went off on the wall behind him. I dropped to the floor and helped him rip off his jacket as he screamed on the ground. There, on his upper arm, pulsing beneath his shirt, was the mark. The death eater's mark. I had always thought they were on the lower arm. Suddenly I was grabbed by the collar, and was brought very close to Cassius' face as he hissed at me. "The first version of the mark. Get if OFF. It burns every time he moves, every time he walks, every time his thoughts are turned nasty. He's killed tonight, I know it." During this last little bit, nurses came flooding into the room, explaining the beeper on the wall. One of them landed right behind Cassius and started to pry his hands off my neck while another nurse pulled at my back to get me away. "Another day," she kept on saying, as the other nurse kept on consoling Cassius on the floor. "It's alright, Cassius, he's not alive. He's not here. He's not killing anyone." But they hadn't been here a few seconds ago, they hadn't seen the mark go bright as I had. Something was ailing Cassius. He wasn't just crazy. Something had made him that way… but I couldn't ask him today. It would have to wait. I scheduled the next meeting as soon as I could, a time in August.