Darkest Desire - English

28

12 Grimauld Place was not what Liz had expected. From the outside, it was a fancier row house in London, but no sooner had she and Mattheo stepped through the front door than that impression faded.

"I don't know if they really value you as much as you think." Liz stroked a finger across the small table at the entrance, leaving a distinct mark in the layer of dust.

"Maybe I should have given them advance notice that I was moving in here after all."

As Liz went from room to room, Mattheo cast some cleaning spells. "Shouldn't there be a house elf around here somewhere?" muttered Mattheo in frustration as he pushed open the windows in the common room.

"If we're unlucky, we'll find him somewhere just as dusted and dried out." Liz bent over an orchid that had been dead for a very long time.

"Not too bad for now." Mattheo flopped down on the old-fashioned sofa. He patted the empty seat beside him, but Liz didn't feel like sitting. She hadn't been able to hold still for a minute since she'd said goodbye to Luna.

"Why are you doing all this?" It was the question that had been on Liz's mind for weeks.

Mattheo's cheeky grin was replaced by a serious look. "Sit down. I owe you a story."

Liz had almost forgotten what he was talking about. Although it had been less than twenty-four hours ago. His mother's story. His story.
Instead of taking a seat next to him, she chose the sofa across from him.

"My mother was not unlike Bellatrix. They were both so obsessed with this man that they would have done anything for him. Well," he lit a cigarette. "Since I met Bellatrix, I do see the difference clearly. My mother wanted to be the dark queen at his side. She wanted the fame, the recognition." Bitterly, he exhaled smoke.

"How do you know all this? If Bellatrix told you, then."
He shook his head. "My mother kept some sort of diary herself. Narcissa found it after she died and kept it."

"Instead of giving it to you?"

Mattheo frowned. "Let me tell the story."

"Of course. Sorry." Liz dragged her feet onto the sofa. She was still wearing her school uniform. Maybe she should have looked for something more comfortable.

"When my mother realized she didn't stand a chance against Bellatrix's madness, she came up with an insane plan. She traveled back in time. To a time when the dark lord was still Tom Riddle. In fact, to a time when he was at Hogwarts."

Liz didn't like the direction this was going at all. "She didn't, after all. So. I mean. A child has to be conceived." She scrunched up her face and reached for a pillow beside her.

Thankfully, Mattheo laughed at her interruption this time. "No. I wasn't conceived that way. I thought you knew that spell. It's pretty old." A deep drag on his cigarette before he propped himself up on his knees. "When pureblood families had more open arranged marriages, it was a common spell. Both parties consented, a magical handshake, that's all it took, and with a little skill, the wife got pregnant by her husband without ever sharing the bed."

Liz hugged the pillow to her chest. "I don't know if that makes it any better. She still fathered a child with a minor."

Again Mattheo laughed. "Well. To father a healthy child, she had to go back far enough in time. Before my father became Voldemort."

"Why did he agree to it then?"

"She told him the access to the chamber at that time. She picked up that information in our timeline and thought that would convince him. She was right. My father would have done anything for more power even then."

So many questions swirled through Liz's mind. But the first one that crossed her lips was, "Didn't he recognize her? I mean, you don't forget someone you made a contract like that with, do you?"

Mattheo simply stubbed out his cigarette on the table in front of him. "If they had met face to face, I'm sure he would have recognized her. But my mother was such a small light in the ranks of his followers that they never met until that day." He lit the next cigarette. "She must have suspected something. I can't explain otherwise why she waited nine months before finally revealing the father of her child."

Liz knew what happened next, but that didn't make it any less horrible.

"When a paternity test confirmed her claims, she was summoned to the Dark Lord himself." A snorted laugh. "She thought she had finally reached her destination. But my father supposedly didn't even say hello to her. He simply raised his wand and killed her." Ash trickled over Mattheo's knees and onto the carpet, but he was fully caught up in his thoughts. "He ordered his followers to take her away and that was the end of the matter for him."

He couldn't have gotten that part from his mother's journals, but Liz didn't dare ask anything more either. His hands were shaking and his leg was bobbing up and down nervously.

"One of the women who took my mother away noticed that I was still alive. She cut my mother open and brought me into this world. This woman clearly had more sense than my mother. She killed the man who helped her and took me to a Muggle orphanage so my father would never know of my existence."

"And," Liz began anxiously, "how did they find out after all?"

"The woman escaped, of course. She killed another Death Eater. They tracked her down. It must have been pure coincidence. After more than ten years, I don't think they expected to hear from her again. Your adoptive mother tortured her until she figured out why she escaped back then. Well." He also stubbed out that cigarette on the table. "I was already registered for Hogwarts when they found me."

It had all happened after Liz had withdrawn from her family. She hadn't known what part Bellatrix had had in the whole thing. But did it change anything? Mattheo was alive. His mother wasn't. She watched Mattheo tear a piece of fingernail off his thumb. His father had not wanted him. If the dark lord ever returned to power, as some Death Eaters still believed, would he welcome his son with open arms? Or would he finish what he had failed to do over a decade ago?