Disclaimer : I own nothing.

Foreword : I have some words of advice - Don't watch Eraserhead and Harry Potter movies back to back. You'll get terrible nightmares. That's how this story was spawned - kind of the two stories mixing together into a big jumble of somber horror and tragedy that came into my dreams. So I decided to take a short break from my Sirius/Bellatrix epic to write this. Hope you like it, despite the squickiness. Oh, and if infanticide is something you'd rather not read/think of, don't read this please.

A Handful of Ashes

The tiny grip was featherlight on his finger. The little hand was soft, weak, and now clinging to him.

Voldemort stared down at the deformed baby. It wasn't so much deformed as just premature, but it was small and wrinkly and red.

For a moment he pitied it, it was a pathetic little thing, just barely clinging to life. It gave a feeble cry and opened it's eyes, looking up at him. It wanted to be picked up.

He didn't want to touch it, it was much too hideous. He could see little bits of blue shining through it's swollen eyes, and he could also see it was struggling to breathe through it's nonexistent nose. It had no lips, and it's skin was thin enough that he could see blue veins in it's face. It's a hideous little demon.

But it wasn't the baby's appearance that displeased him. This child wasn't fortunate. This child wasn't of pure blood.

He couldn't well have a little half breed in his ranks. Maybe if the thing was pure he would've been able to stand keeping it around, even if the child had to trail him around constantly. But not this one, he wouldn't take it.

He eased his finger out of it's grip, and it gave a little cry, lamenting for the loss of it's only human contact.

It began to fuss, flailing it's arms about, screaming. It was probably hungry too, and cold as it laid naked on the table. He noted it was a girl.

Part of him told him to have mercy. To spare this one. It wasn't it's fault it's father was a half blood. It wasn't it's faul that it was born the way it was.

Yet he knew, in his own mind, that mercy would be to put it out of it's misery.

His large hand came over it's mouth and nose, watching after a minute as it struggled and lost all it's air. Voldemort took his hand off and looked down at it, for once in his existence actually regretful for taking a life. After all, he'd delivered this baby into the world.

Scooping it into his arms, holding it more delicately than anything he ever had, he carried it back to Bellatrix.

"It was too weak," he said, "It couldn't breathe. It suffocated."

She looked at the baby and nodded, "A shame." was all she said, taking it's death as a mere fact of life. Of course, with that woman almost everything led back to death in some way, and from the beginning she was only waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Voldemort nodded and walked away, the child still in his arms, completely limp and silent.

No, it wasn't her fault. None of it was. But he'd set her free from the fate his parents had doomed him to. Wasn't that the greatest gift he could give his own child? Spare her from the pain of being a half blood?

He tried to imprint the serpentine features of her face in his memory. She wouldn't have lived through childhood, he thought to himself.

It didn't take long for him to cremate the tiny body. The ashes were only the size of a coin, not even a handful, and he swept them into a vial.

Corking it he put it into one of his robe pockets, and went back about his business.

He couldn't explain the strange feeling that hit him whenever his hand happened to brush against the vial. It passed quickly though, and he thought of it no more.

Deep within him, past the anger and viciousness, past the facade of a fearsome warrior, the monster grieved.

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