What if…. Someone is trying to kill Delphi?
Bellatrix sleeps alone when the Dark Lord isn’t around. She has long since grown used to being beside him, his arm draped over her waist and his breaths gentle in her hair, or the slow rise and fall of his chest lulling her deeper to sleep where she lays her cheek. She’s been alone for four nights when she feels magic pull her so abruptly from her sleep it makes the blood pumping her veins all she can hear, loud and beating in her head to the tips of her fingers, the surge of magic calling to her making her reach for her wand without hesitation.
The magic that calls to her is innate. She feels the pull without really knowing where it is she’s going. For all that’s happening, nothing could be more important in that moment. Her daughter is a frightfully dangerous creature in her own right, but she’s barely four, her magic still unstable and she is entirely inexperienced with anyone outside the world of her parents and those they trust. They have also come in the middle of the night.
Fury rips through Bellatrix like nothing she’s ever felt as her eyes fall onto the scene about to unfold. There is a wizard stood in her daughter’s bedroom. Bellatrix awoke the moment she felt someone come near Delphini who shouldn’t be near her, crossing the threshold of the manors.
“Mama!”
Her magic is loud. Loud enough for the right mind to hear her hundreds of miles away. Loud enough to call him.
The wizard is quick, but Bellatrix is quicker. She slashes down on him with emerald fury and he deflects the curse by a hair, almost tripping in the process at the force of her magic. His face falters as though he didn’t expect her to be ‘mama’, though they both know he knows who he’s attempting to kill. Bellatrix’s next curse is vicious and thrown before the wizard can understand what’s happening. It sears the wizard’s fingers so agonisingly he drops his wand, yelling out in pain. She’s about to kill him when the magic in the air shifts.
“Daddy!” The little witch cries.
The wizard stills entirely, his burnt hand raised from where he had dropped his wand. The air goes frightfully cold around them, the wizard turns frigid with terror. The wand which had clattered to the floor has burnt to ash and dust before he can so much as tear his gaze from the figure of Bellatrix Lestrange, the tip of her wand pointed to his face. A twitch at the edges of her lips tells him exactly who is stood behind him, the steadiness of a predator on the verge of sinking her teeth into her prey shining in dark grey eyes which remain fixed and unmoving on the wizard who raised a wand at her daughter.
Before he can turn, his hand comes to his forehead and his face contorts with agony. It looks as though he’s being torn apart from the inside out. Lord Voldemort watches on as the man falls to his knees, screaming out into the room silent save for Delphini’s short quick breaths and the dying out crackle of Bellatrix’s lingering magic.
“Bella.” Lord Voldemort says with every pleasure in the world as the wizard’s screams finally go quiet and he is released from his torture, “kill.”
The assassin opens his mouth but before he can so much as utter a word of anger — or a plea — he’s been hit with a violent jet of emerald green, slamming into his chest and dropping him backwards from where he knelt.
All is silent in the room for a moment as Bellatrix and Voldemort meet each other’s gaze. Bellatrix is first to tear herself away in order to pull their daughter into her arms. The little witch desperately grabs onto her mother, arms wrapped tight around her shoulders, her legs clinging either side of her waist, face burying into her neck. Bellatrix hushes her gently, a soothing hand hot with the force of magic she’s used her final curse coming to her daughter’s back as Delphini’s heart beat thumps through her little body.
“Hush, dear heart.” Bellatrix says into her daughter’s soft curls as Voldemort vanishes the body with little more than a wave of his fingers, “you’re safe.”
“Can I stay with you?” Delphini asks her mother in a mumble.
“Yes.” Lord Voldemort answers as he moves closer and Delphini reaches for him instantly. She needs her father. He obliges her without hesitation. Thank you daddy, she whispers against him and he turns his gaze to Bellatrix. They both know he was no Auror. He was an assassin. An assassin sent with direct orders — one who could only get in because someone who knew of Delphini’s existence had told someone who shouldn’t have known.
It’s a couple of hours later into the night when Delphini is curled up in the middle of their bed finally sleeping peacefully that Bellatrix and Voldemort make their decision. They need to leave — and no one can know where they go next.
