Chapter 24: Practice
Bellatrix and the Lestrange brothers were taken into custody by the British Ministry of Magic, for countless acts of terrorism and extensive use of illegal Dark Arts.
They were served a life sentence in Azkaban, and their estate seized by the government as evidence for a nonexistent trial. The information was passed along to Adrian's father almost immediately due to his ministry ties. The public was quick to celebrate.
Word of the arrest spread faster than the court issued search warrant. Adrian was able to call upon the Lestrange house elves and order them to remove everything of Adrian's from the building. There was to be no proof or sign that Adrian existed.
From there, evidence had to remain to suggest that the house was actually being lived in; beds had to remain unkempt, the questionably edible cake Bella had made earlier that day sat out untouched, and the training room still messy from the blasting curses and burn marks.
Lutain appeared in the hands of a terrified House Elf. The magical creature nearly screamed as it practically flung Lutain towards the bed. The bed was the only spot in Adrian's room that wasn't magically being filled with boxes and random knick-knacks.
"Master?" Lutain grumbled, disoriented and confused with the sudden change as well as his sudden flight through the air, "Where are we, Master?"
Adrian grabbed Lutain and rapidly began to slide his fingers down the soft scales behind his neck. The action was repeated, over and over as the room began to fill with books and trunks. The longer he spent tracing the scales and belly plates of his closest friend, the more relaxed he became. He was finally able to fight and dispel the rising nausea.
"Master?" Lutain was alarmed, seeing as the stack of trunks began to include the trunks of dark artifacts Bella had obtained over the years. That along with Adrian's uncharacteristic behaviour was starting to alarm the serpent.
"Master where is the witch?" Lutain asked, nearly flailing to break free from Adrian's grip.
"Bellatrix has been captured," Adrian choked out hoarsly, "and imprisoned for life. We're going to live here, with Nagini and my father."
Lutain stilled, looking at Adrian with the reptilian version of confusion, "Live here? Den-mates with Nagini?"
Adrian smiled softly and stroked Lutain's chin and the small bulges of his jaw muscles, "She asked about you earlier. She likes you, you know."
Lutain cheered up, looking eager to find his serpentine companion.
Something empty was carving a cavern in Adrian's throat, "I'm glad you have a friend."
The unspoken 'Now that Bella is gone' rang loudly in the silence.
"Oh Master." Lutain sighed, voice conveying pity and sorrow.
"No!" Adrian snapped, standing sharply and knocking the snake off of him. "You said it yourself a long time ago. There's no use having friends when they'll always leave you in the end."
"Master, the witch did not mean to leave you." Lutain argued.
"If she really cared," Adrian snapped out, ignoring the feeling that something was crying inside, "she wouldn't have gotten herself captured."
"Mast-"
"She's just as bad as the Potters!" Adrian spat out, stalking to the door and slamming it on his way out.
The first time Adrian ran into his father, he found the older man in a clearly muggle kitchen.
It was old, equipped with stone countertops but rather rustic stoves and refrigeration. The accessories looked like they hadn't ever been used, leaving Adrian to only guess where the food was actually stored.
His father, holding a half eaten red apple in one hand observed him with a bored expression. It was unsettling, mostly because Adrian had the mental image of some horrific pale creature resembling the mandrake root body his father had inhabited before.
Seeing his father looking so positively normal was a sort of terror unique to itself that somehow was more horrific than even a face mauled by werewolf claws.
And as such, Adrian froze in the doorway feeling his entire body go cold.
"Well?" The older man sighed, voice tinged with annoyance, "are you going to stand there all day?"
Adrian mechanically walked into the kitchen and quietly sat on a chair.
His father eyed him critically and bit the apple again. The crunching sound drew an instinctive flinch from the boy.
The crimson eyes were terrifying, they unnerved him and watched his every move as his hands curled into fists under the table.
"You're so terrified," his father dryly stated, somehow sounding pleased with the arrangement.
"It seems, that I owe you gratitude for returning my diary to myself."
Adrian's head jerked around and watched in bafflement as his father snatched a plate of tarts from somewhere hidden. Voldemort walked over, setting the glass platter onto the table with a loud clatter. The tarts shook slightly, almost bouncing off of the gilded surface.
The tall figure slid into the chair opposite of Adrian and arched one expressive eyebrow into an inquisitive look. Adrian timidly reached out and selected one of the flaking pastries from the dish. His father didn't look any more pleased but he didn't look insulted either, Adrian assumed he was in the clear.
"I was informed of your progress, prior to Bellatrix's...absence," Voldemort's nose wrinkled in distaste, "I've been led to believe you are adequate with spellwork."
Adrian wisely didn't respond.
His father cleanly placed the remaining apple core on the table between then, just shy of the pastries. "Burn it."
Adrian swallowed and let the bubbling rush drag through his body in a dissociated exhale. His vision warped, tunneling slightly as the apple smoldered a pathetically wispy plume of white smoke. It thickened slightly, before sputtering pathetically.
Adrian felt like he was on the edge of desperation. If he couldn't satisfy his father, then it was likely that he would be disposed of.
He needed it to burn. From that desperation and incentive something in Adrian's skull squeezed his brain just so; the apple burst alight with a shimmering orange flame.
He watched the fire burn and char the remnants of the apple until it was a shriveled thing. It proved a distraction to avoid the man sitting across the table from him- until he felt strong fingers grasp his jaw and force his head upright.
At once the fire ceased, and he found himself inhaling sharply at the sight of the deep scarlet irises surrounding oval pupils. It was an uncanny reminder of the events in the chamber, which his father also grabbed his jaw and observed his face for resemblance. This time though, the scarlet eyes were not surveying his features. They were locked with mesmerizing force on his own eyes and searing into his memory.
He felt a buzzing in his skull as his mental barriers were nearly obliterated. They were pathetic, even with the pride that Adrian had felt with their construction.
Adrian was breathing heavily as he felt sharp needles stab into varying levels of his consciousness. A low tingling buzz near his spine warped with the sensation of an Eagle's quill jamming just behind his left eye.
He could feel a low whimper slip from his mouth as the thorny presence withdrew from his mind; the scarlet eyes broke contact and left Adrian reeling and withholding tremors.
He could tell his father was disturbed over something; he could tell in that small portion back in his skull which always instinctively told him how his father felt.
Then, metaphorically before his eyes, the presence of his father's emotions retracted.
"Fascinating," His father murmured under his breath, glancing off at a point past Adrian's left ear. His father lifted a long pale finger, pressing it to his own temple to heighten concentration. The dark eyes flickered back to Adrian who quickly looked away.
Adrian kept searching in his mind, navigating around the wreckage of his occlumency walls to investigate the portion which felt numbingly separated.
Then it opened, unveiling like an eyelid to stare into the ruins of Adrian's mind. With an absence of subtly or caution, something intruded with searing black limbs from it. Squirming limbs of a thousand octopus' grasping and reaching and touching.
Adrian gasped outright, collapsing heavily against his chair as the sensation of cold water filled his skull. It was spreading, filling him and leaving jaw chattering tremors in its grasps.
He was torn away from his own eyes, his vision darkening as his mind separated from his own sense of sight and sound. He was wrapped and entangled in the confines of something long and nimble; endless with no distinction between head, body, and tail.
The thing hissed something wordless and without meaning. It tightened, stealing his withheld breath and caressing his flesh like a dementor's grasp.
Then it was retracting slowly and leaving Adrian alone.
Adrian gasped something discourteously and blinked.
His eyes somehow recovered from their blindness. He was once again aware of his own body and how his limbs had spasmed and curled in. He pried his limbs away from where he had hunkered into a fetal position on the chair. He jolted his head upwards from the strange position it had been holding. He didn't remember holding his neck so stiffly during the...
"None of that," His father hushed without kindness, voice loud against the pulsing in his head.
Adrian swallowed and shakily wiped aside the tears that cascaded down his cheeks. His hands were curling tightly into his trousers, the knuckles burning with the intensity of his grasp. Water brushed down his cheeks in a tickling sensation, dripping from his chin onto the polished floor. He was crying- in front of his father...
"Those muggles," the elder mused, voice sharp and cutting in the air.
"The...Dursely family?" His father asked out loud although his tone was entirely rhetoric.
"Don't hurt them." Adrian's voice was automatic, he paled once he realized his flaw, "I- I meant please, Father."
His father had a frown curling on his lips. His eyes seemed to glow and once again Adrian felt himself quivering.
"How long have you had access to my mind?"
Adrian's eyes widened in shock and noticeable confusion. "I...What?"
In return, the presense in his mind made itself noticeable once more with a pulsing flare. It almost echoed a heartbeat, slower and deeper than Adrian's own fluttering.
"That?" Adrian asked, voice nearly a whisper as he felt it leave a soothing sting in its wake, like the burn of hot water after a bitter cold.
"Always," Adrian tried to speak firmly, mentally criticising himself as his voice cracked uncomfortably partway through.
His father frowned, displeased with his answer.
"Always?"
Adrian was right, he was displeased.
"I take it Bellatrix didn't place the chalice in your room, then."
Chalice? What chalice?
"No," Voldemort scoffed, blinking quickly in thought while a thin finger tapped against his lips.
"Perhaps... boy."
Adrian's head snapped around to stare at his father once more.
The man drew his wand this time, and Adrian couldn't help but flinch away from the dangerous weapon.
The wand slowly pointed at his face, carressing his jaw and cheekbone before resting on the bridge between his eyes and eyebrows.
Eyes once more locked together.
Red met green.
His father bit out, "Legilimens."
Adrian struggled to consciousness with the exhaustion of spending an all day awake. His head throbbed and he felt like something was compressing his chest.
No, something was compressing his chest. Something long and somewhat chilled.
"Master!" Lutain hissed excitedly, sliding his way over and onto Adrian's chest, "You are awake!"
"Get off me Lutain," Adrian slurred, blinking awake exhaustedly and knocking aside his excited serpent, "My head is killing me,"
"Likely due to the hour I spent unravelling the lamentable shields you called Occlumency."
Adrian jolted awake, recognizing the voice neither as Lutain or Nagini. He struggled to right himself, pressing his back flush to the wooden headboard.
His father was sitting in a chair, reading a book near the foot of the bed. The book closed with a clatter. It was thrown onto the bed near Adrian's feet.
"They would jeopardize your work at Hogwarts," his father drawled, a small smirk playing on his lips, "A greeting gift, from father to son."
Adrian blinked in confusion and in slight amusement at how awkwardly the words sounded. He had no idea what the man meant.
What gift? The book? Adrian couldn't read the cover from where it landed upside down. It looked old and well beyond his own reading level.
If not the book, what else did the man mean?
Adrian poked around in his mind, preparing to scrape over the mess of his walls- before brushing against something secure and strong.
"How-" Adrian blurted out without thinking, testing the barriers; they were more impressive than anything he could cumulatively structure over years.
"It seems that there is a connection between us," his father explained regally and politely, "a passageway from my mind, to yours."
"You felt true feelings, Master!" Lutain enthused, butting his snout against Adrian's arm excitedly, "You spoke true! Not yours but felt!"
"Indeed, he is rather observant," his father slipped into Parseltongue easily while holding one arm out for Lutain to coil through the fingers.
"Remarkable for his age." His father admitted after a slight pause, not bothering to look at Adrian as he complimented him.
"Silly hatchling," Lutain agreed, flexing his body between the nimble fingers.
Adrian wanted to grab his familiar and pull him from the older man's arm.
"The shields will last against that headmaster of yours. Of course, I'll make sure they're still operating on a regular schedule. Be sure not to challenge him directly, it will only arise suspicion as to why yours are now so advanced."
"Will you be entering my mind again, Father?" Adrian scraped out hoarsely, bowing his head to appear as humble as he possibly could in the situation.
"None of that," his father scowled, crossing his leg over his knee.
"You are not a servant."
"I..." Adrian's breathing stuttered and left him awkwardly pausing in the middle of his thought.. He wasn't a servant? He had been led to believe he would become a Death Eater once he had matured enough to partake in raids.
"You're my heir," his father explained stiffy, "My followers are expendable. You, are not."
Adrian's mouth fell open quietly in shock.
"You are to be raised as a weapon," Voldemort continued, swiping his hand to adjust his dark hair from his eyes.
"A weapon-"
"But, given recent information that has now presented itself, that has changed."
Adrian looked at the equally baffled Lutain.
"You are to be trained," Voldemort continued as if Adrian understood everything he was saying, "Originally Bellatrix was to be your teacher. Given her absence and your new position, I shall be your teacher."
Lutain tensed, staring at Adrian with resignation.
"You?" Adrian nearly whispered out, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and fascination.
Voldemort stood, glancing back at Adrian with some sort of amusement, "I would not kill something precious to me."
Adrian echoed back the word in a considerably higher pitch, "Precious?"
Voldemort smiled something wicked, and left the room. Adrian could have sworn that his father's eyes glowed.
Adrian hit the ground painfully with a crunching rattle that vibrated through his left shoulder.
The curse soared over his head, leaving him safe for only a moment. Adrian scrambled to his feet, already attempting to run to avoid the next flying spell.
Each spell was lazily flung at him; nothing difficult yet obviously the caster was enjoying himself.
"Incendio," He heard the voice loudly drawl, a pathetic first year spell just to spite him. Adrian yelped as a plume of fire nearly incinerated him, something impossibly strong for a first year spell. Adrian almost doubted that it even was that spell, even as he heard it cast.
"Aguamenti," Adrian gasped out, hacking from the sudden soot in the air. The water collided upwards to snuff out a small portion of the flame. It hissed angrily, erupting in a dark plume of steam
The fire... Adrian couldn't see anything through the inferno. It meant that his attacker wouldn't be able to either.
Adrian's eyesight tunneled and his vision flickered. He swooned, nearly collapsing as his head ached against the painful pressure. He coughed, nearly rolling into the movement which transformed into a dry retch. The ground around him sparked and flared with heat, adding to the stifling temperatures.
"Come on," He breathed exhaustedly, swallowing harshly against bile as his magic fluttered and the flames began to falter, "Come on,"
They grew, dancing around him in a careful circle of fire, concealing him and protecting him in the middle of the blaze.
He released the nauseating pressure, allowing the tongues to lick the floor hungrily; he keeled and braced his arms on his knees for a moment to catch his breath.
"Alright," he whispered under his breath, trying not to cough as he struggled to focus- where had all the spells been coming from?
He pointed his wand in the desired location, and with as much hope and blind luck he could feel at the moment, whispered the spell he had learned from Theo.
"Langlock," He casted, seeing the nearly invisible spell shoot off and counted to three.
The flames lowered like a curtain dropping and Adrian felt himself beam as his father glared at him, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth.
He was too exhausted to laugh but he felt the bubble of hysterical glee press on his chest. He felt winded and exhilarated from finally getting higher ground...
Then he felt winded for real, as the air from his lungs suddenly was yanked out.
Adrian's eyes bulged and he fell to the ground, hands clawing at his throat as he gasped soundlessly. Almost at once, the sensation left; his father waved a contorted hand over his face, silently casting the counter spell.
"You forget that you are not unique in your ability to cast wandless and wordless magic." His father explained calmly, eyes almost flickering in the reflections of the surviving embers decorating the floor.
Adrian grinned silently, "Doesn't mean I didn't get you." He wheezed, his throat burning from the effort.
His father flicked his wand without even looking, accurately sending a minor stinging hex. Adrian yelped and hissed in pain once it hit; his shoulder throbbed mutedly from his botched dive for the ground once the blaze started.
"Why didn't you shield?" his father asked critically, looking him over for major injuries while absentmindedly conjuring two chairs.
"I wanted to dodge, make a distraction instead," Adrian shrugged with one shoulder, already feeling that his tactic was lacking. His father gave a heavy sigh, as if he too had assumed Adrian's strategy would be ridiculous.
Adrian used his forearms to pull himself upwards, clambering over to settle into the conjured chair with a small grimace.
"Evasion is not a reliable tactic," Voldemort scoffed although his tone made it seem that he had repeated that phrase to others often.
Adrian shrugged, keeping his head low and relying on how much his father hated when he stewed.
"That's not the real reason," Voldemort spoke lowly, although not as threateningly as he was well capable of. The man ran one of his long pale hands through his hair, shifting the bluish strands to rest behind his ear.
Adrian checked his shields to assure himself that they were still in tact. He still knew better than to flat out lie to the man, plus it was unlikely he would be cursed for simply not having been taught.
"I can't cast it," Adrian muttered under his breath, admiting the truth although not being especially happy about it.
"Bellatrix never taught me to shield." Adrian elaborated once his Father pulled his hands up to rest them under his chin in a long suffering look of annoyance.
"She likes to have her targets run like headless chickens" Adrian almost smiled at how pinched his father's voice sounded. Obviously he had problems with a similar tactic before, although he still spoke of Adrian's mother figure fondly.
"Then we'll have to teach you. Come."
"What... now?" Adrian gaped, stumbling to his feet whereas his father gracefully rose, "I...I don't know an incantation-"
"I'll show you," Voldemort stared at Adrian as if his child had said something momentously idiotic, which, Adrian considered, he likely had.
"The incantation is protego," his father instructed, drawing his wand before flicking his wand and summoning the whitish shield spell insanely quickly.
"I..." Adrian elegantly articulated around how fat his tongue felt in his mouth. He struggled to recall what he had just seen, as well as what he had heard. After using wandless magic, his head always pounded like there was a Manticore loose in his skull.
"Watch," his father sighed yet repeated the action considerably slower. He didn't seem as irritated as he led on, in fact, Adrian suspected the man actually liked teaching
Voldemort casted the spell once again, performing it in careful slow motion of the actual process. Adrian knew casting any sort of spell in such a slowed state actually was more difficult than normal casting. Of course, if anyone could do it, it would be him.
Once, twice, three times more until he lowered his wand and looked at Adrian expectantly.
"Er..." Adrian stumbled, pulling out his Holly and Phoenix feather wand he used only inside the house and out of public eye.
"Protigo-"
"Pro-Tay-go," his father repeated, nodding for Adrian to continue.
"Protego." Adrian corrected himself, trying to flick his wand in the semi circular movement his father had executed before. It was awkward and jerky in his grasp.
They repeated it for a long period of time, until the pounding in Adrian's head was reaching a crescendo.
His father was actually a very good teacher, Adrian knew he made much more progress than he would have otherwise.
By the time Adrian was panting and bracing his head between his knees protectively and the ground was swirling ever so slightly from his small vantage point, he could summon the barest film of a protective barrier.
A considerable improvement.
He found himself actually looking forward to the next dueling practice.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
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