I.3. DARKNESS DONE

She was fourteen now. Her eyes told me the story as though she were speaking the words.

She stood by one of the many windows in my great recipient hall, still and broken as though carved out of glass splinters. Her hand was clenched around her other arm, which she held close to her chest. as though protecting an inner flame from dying out. Watching her made my blood run cold and my tongue sneak out to meet the centre of my upper lip.

My sluggish servants, observant of her even under my ordinance to never behold the girl when she isn't in my presence, tell me of her nights and hides.

"She shivers in her sleep, Master. Her mouth is a straight line. She doesn't seem to know where home is."

I listen in my high chair, composed and compelled.

Two weeks since the death of her mother and she has been under my care. Her family had not protested much when the Dark Lord called upon them for Cassiopeia's eldest daughter; they had most likely suspected a more pressing interest on my part long before the mother Black's eyes had been opened to it, and too late for her in any case.

Her sister Narcissa had sobbed in a corner sheet of her robes, and had not wanted to hold Bellatrix for what would be her last opportunity for over four years. Bellatrix said nothing, requested nothing, only held her sister's eyes bound to her own in a silent promise, one that I did not embark on. I permitted my little child some secrets, even if over time she would have to relinquish them all to me. In no time at all the flaxen girl stepped back and was silent, only the occasional sob escaping her throat.

Bellatrix only briefly stepped into little Andromeda's hug. Only eleven years of age and by the far the most impressionable of the sisters, she cried in earnest as though parting from a most beloved toy. Bellatrix' eyes were only a degree off freezing point as she looked upon her sister; clearly, she did not appreciate such an open display of affection before her. My fascination with her grew and grew.

Then she had turned and stepped to my side, looking neither back nor forward. Her eyes were fixed resolutely on the object in her hands: a snowglobe, presented to her by Narcissa. A tear flowed to the side of her eye and vanished in a wink.

I heard my servants' reports of her behaviour, watched my soon-to-be ward from the corner of my eye as she sat by the window and continued her silence, and said nothing. But my mind was astir. She had had her moment's peace, and my plans called for execution. Even though she may try and hide it, her mind was presently in a state which allowed for me to mould it, and I could not let escape this opportunity.

The amount of days passed in my care was exactly equal to the amount of years she had bestowed upon the earth her life. I felt a rebirth was in order.

I stepped to her side from behind her, all the while letting my advances upon her be heard in the echoes of the resounding room. Other than a renewed vigour in her stillness, there was no noticeable acknowledgement of my progression. I cared not.

I folded my body neatly around hers, imitating the warmth of a mother's womb in doing so. She would never dare pull away. My hand found hers and slipped into it, a tiny scrap of parchment. Not moving another inch of her form, she raised it to her face and read it carefully.

Her eyelashes fluttered briefly, and I stepped out of the mockery of an embrace that I had unwillingly coerced out of her. My hand still felt cold from where I had touched her.

She turned to me, standing away from the window, her topaz eyes expressionless. The parchment note was in her hand, just barely holding on. The briefest of winds would have blown her over.

"A promise?" Her voice was but a breath of falling leaves.

"On paper." I had promised her the avengement of her mother's murderers, with my help. I would train her in the Dark Arts so that one day, she might act as a goddess of vengeance, and take upon her target list their deaths as her own accomplishment, if brought about by my conduct.

Refusal was inadmissible, but it was a nice show to put on nevertheless. She must have known of this, though her eyes told me nothing yet.

Her body did a half-curve as her eyes looked to the parchment again, and a portion of bare neck was exposed to me. "Carved in stone..." Still, her voice carried little weight, but I could hear the slightest tone of consideration. I pounced on the chance.

"My word to your mouth and back again." Surely the promise of the Dark Lord would secure her in her doubts? But I had miscalculated this young girl's pride; had momentarily forgotten her background, her Black blood, running through her as iced fire. A liquid destruction, and I had not foreseen.

"Ah." Short, noted, considered and discarded. Her hand crushed the paper in her fist.

"I work alone." She started to walk away, but my soft voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Please don't." The effect of my words was not lost on Bellatrix. She instantly turned on her heel to face me, an incredulous look on her features.

"Please, from you?" She asked the question mockingly, yet I did not scold her. She had not walked away.

I allowed myself to perform upon my then aristocratic face a hint of something akin to a smile, hereby confusing her even more, and ploughed on. Her perception was keen, but she had no skill at manipulation... and I had plenty between the two of us.

"You perceive pleas and apologies as nothing more than weakness." I brought level to my eyes the fingers of my hands and stapled them together, keeping my gaze upon little Bella. A raised eyebrow, the hint of a smile again. "You have no idea yet of how effectual selective forgiveness can be."

I could see how she was trying to figure me out, perhaps even to imitate in a way the insinuations at kind behaviour that I was exhibiting. She would be an eager student, I knew. But all wasn't done yet.

I had her full attention now. Her hand still curled around my written promise, she used her other hand to fling her hair back from her face, and looked me straight in the eye, much as on the day we had met. The grief in them felt too near to my skin; I had to take a step back from her, and she instantly perceived my blatant pretence at compassion. Her eyes hardened; approvingly, I looked on as she prepared herself for a battle of the wits.

"You have need of me." Ah, the brow raised was a superb touch, just disdainfully enough. But her eyes were too cold yet.

"I do." Obliging of an answer, leaving room for elaboration. But she knew better than to follow up her previous triumph with another query.

Adopting a manner of insouciant relaxation, as though entering a comfortable area of conversation instead of a mental battlefield, she began stepping across the room in not exactly a pace but on the move nevertheless. I followed in her footsteps, a perfect mockery of submission, when it was really I pulling all the strings.

"So this is why you parted me from my remaining relatives... so that you could train me?"

"Indeed, yes." I was still a few steps behind her and beheld her face from the side. Empty of expression: good. The eyes to intrigue me so still of undercurrent. But I knew her rational, inquisitive mind had to be working overtime beneath that calm façade, and I welcomed it. This was the mind after all that I had sought to own... almost from the beginning.

I looked ahead, deliberating prolonging a return to view of her face. "Indeed it was imperative that you be trained under me. All Death Eaters seek this privilege, only few are ever granted the very distinct honour of studying under me the perfected practice of the Dark Arts."

I waited a beat, then: "They are, also, taken from their families by time of birth. So you were fortunate in this regard, as your mother did not present you to me until your eleventh birthday.

"I of course would not have wished to take you from your kin so young and... green..." Bellatrix' right hand clenched around the parchment again. Ah, but she gave away emotion too explicitly. I would have to work on that first and foremost. A house of ice for my followers, but not glass.

"I had seen your potential upon your first visit to me. You will be a fine student, Bella... and now, no longer bound to your family's wishes of a life for you. In a manner of speaking you could well call me your rescuer... though, naturally, you shall have to marry sooner or later. Preferably later, however." She was red-hot now, scorching coals underneath her feet and fire in my belly as the air gathered us close.

"So my mother's death was... convenient to you, then?" A hardening in her complexion gave away the warning sign. I had no obligation to lie in order to spare her feelings, besides of which I had no wish to begin with. I answered simply.

"Yes."

In a glorious fury (or furious glory, if you prefer, as both would suit my darling), she turned on me, and in a rush of Legimency-induced insight I perceived in a flash of blackened fire her pain, her discomposure, her grief, and her all-encompassing taste for revenge. Open soar was what I called her then: a child of ruin, making free flight.

"What was my mother then, huh?" She flung the by now useless note to my face, missing me by inches in her by anger affected aim. "Well? A necessary sacrifice? Blood to the cause? Her womb gave me to you —"

"No, I gave you to me." Authority now. No one, not even this girl-woman consumed with grief, can speak to me in such a manner. "You are my choice and my creation."

Her hands, thrown up in defenceless defeat, were caught in my hands. It is all the same from here. Consolation, now. I lowered my voice to a nigh tender whisper, and her breath stilled audibly in her throat. Comfort, now, or the illusion of. Can a child tell the difference? She was perceptive beyond her years, but young yet.

"Tell me something, Bella: If, right now, you could wish for something — anything — and you would receive it, what would it be?"

Her answer was immediate and well anticipated. "My mother's murderers dead at my fingertips," she said, licking her lips at the thought with a quick, serpentine tongue.

I smiled then, and she knew she had been caught in a web of reasoning she could no longer escape. We had, after all, never forfeited our wordplay, only suspended it for awhile. I held her gaze to mine.

"Oh? So you would not wish your mother back, safe and sound? Or to be back with your left family that I so cruelly parted you from? Or perhaps even to be as powerful as I, so you could defeat all your present demons yourself?"

She flinched, closed her eyes, and I forced her chin up with my index finger to return her eyes to me. I could look into her so well in this present state of mind, I could not forego the consequence as of yet. And there was still more to say.

"Such haste, my dear. While calculation is the key element in this matter, if you seek success."

She had to understand... she was being taught, even now, by myself how to work your favour into that of another. The key to conquest is to have both parties be satisfied with the end result, even if this result in question was directed into existence from point go, and so were the other party's interests. Calculation, and observance, were your ideal comrades. She had to learn. And so I say.

"Bellatrix, all your life consists of for this time is revenge. Are you aware of the inherent sadness in this? No —" I held my hand up as she began to protest, "I know you don't consider it so. But don't you realise the inherent effectiveness of the longer approach, when both lead to the required result, and yet you would gain so much more from the guided road? My guidance."

I stressed the possessive pronoun as to proclaim a very real sense of possession in her, as to not give her the wrongful presumption of choice. She did not object again.

Closure, now. My fingers wrapped around her hand, my eyes lowered to her level.

"You are more, much more, than your revenge, Bella."

Her anger rises like a tempest and subsides... reluctantly. That first time of abandon was little different in execution, however quickly she regained control of her emotion and brought down her eyes from mine.

Her tone of voice softer, she addressed me with her eyes cast down. "What else am I?"

I smiled, though she could not see it. "My follower, for one. My most faithful, I hope to say one day."

At this, she laughed, but I could hear an undertone of disdain through the clear bells of her amusement. Indeed, her next words confirmed this. "You hope, you wish, you dream..." Her eyes were once more upon me, though questioning now rather than accusative, as they had been during her tirade.

I chuckled to compensate for her burst of laughter, whilst also introducing a note of reproach through my chuckling. "And what is wrong with that? As long as there is the will behind all these wishes to make them come true. The strength beneath the sunset, sort to speak."

My timing was just the right mix of elegance and self-mockery in my language that she could not discern the reasoning behind it, and so she laughed again instead. To find herself in the presence of the Dark Lord, showing an altogether undiscovered side to himself, was clearly puzzling her. She was more careful in her phrasing and actions... learning ahead of my agenda the proper forms of conduct. All well, all good.

"You talk in metaphors." Imploring eyes, uptilted lips and a questioning brow.

"I talk to you the way in which my perception tells me the message may be heard." I spoke firmly, once again establishing authority. Then I took the self-invoked liberty of taking her chin into my hand to raise her face up to mine. "Was it?"

A nod dutiful of nature. "Yes, Master."

I released her chin, but not her eyes. "Repeat it for me."

"I am to be instructed by you in the Dark Arts." She missed not a beat. The lesson was learned.

"Good, my child." I had succeeded. My elation was of short duration and kept on a tight leash, for it should not matter any more than upon reaching a desired stage in my planning. Indeed all I allowed for was self-congratulation on a job well done.

But I indulged in the closeness of her nevertheless, for she had proven a most worthy verbal sparring partner. After the last syllable had ridden the current of echoes, I took her by her shoulders, bent to her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

At fourteen she was Bellatrix mine, an intoxicating promise of a queen. She would just become a goddess of vengeance; and ever under my command. I smiled to myself.

To new horizons, and a promise of tomorrow.