When she finally turned back around, her violet eyes had narrowed almost to slits as her gaze bored a hole into him as she stood, looking for words. A storm of emotions crossed her eyes before she re-asserted her mental control and schooled her features into stoic indifference once more.
"Look, Ashworth, aside from me being on the bad side, I don't know what happened between us in this future of yours. You even said you knew the way I fight inside and out, so I assume we were enemies, and that we've fought sufficiently often. I know that the future you come from is probably anything but pretty, and that you're used to this whole fight-or-flight thing. I'm probably not one of the people you'd ever have thought would be on your side, but fact of the matter is, I am ." Bellatrix intoned slowly, carefully.
"As you said yourself, I am not who I was in your time. Or will be. Whatever. I'm not her, not yet, hopefully not ever, if I'm reading what you told me correctly," she appealed to him, "and this time, I'm with you. I'm on your side. If you don't want to believe me, then at least believe that I have as much reason as you do to want to avoid the future you were in. We're in this together, Harry. I can help you. I want to help you, but you've got to let me. I'm not letting you fight this war by yourself."
She'd taken a few steps toward his desk, and had leaned forward, placing her hands on the polished wood as she leaned down to look at him. He could see the honesty in her eyes, so clear of the deception and madness that marked her future self. It was ironic, he mused, that one of his most hated enemies would become his confidante. And he did trust her, he realized with a start. Harry had no idea how it had happened, but somehow, despite their ceaseless bickering and her superior attitude, he'd come to trust her, even rely on her. Since he'd appeared in the past, she'd been a constant presence by his side, refusing to leave him alone by sheer stubborness on her part.
And as much as he might not have liked it in the beginning, he was grateful for it now. He had none of his friends with him in this past that magic had thrown him into, but he had Bellatrix. Bellatrix, who had helped him, who had taken it upon herself to involve herself in his schemes and who refused to be shackled by the idea that her future was going to be written for her by someone else. Bellatrix, who even now wanted to remain by his side even though she knew that he was going to do something that any sane person would've deemed a lost cause, leading a resistance against a dark wizard by himself.
Her presence had been something constant at least throughout all the whirlwind of action and chaos his life had been in the last few months, something he could hold on to. And Harry suddenly found the thought of not having her by his side nearly unthinkable, knowing that it would leave almost as gaping a hole as Sirius's loss had left him with. She deserves to know, he decided, not everything, for now, but at least the gist of it.
Straightening in his chair, Harry gestured for her to sit back down and placed a locking and privacy charm around his office. "What I'm going to tell you is not to leave this room under any circumstances, is that understood?"
Seeing that he was dead serious, she nodded curtly. "Got it."
"First of all," Harry began, "you have to know that there's things I can't tell you, because it would simply be too risky. Tom is an expert legilimens. I'm not putting down your abilities, but I've seen him break through even the best occlumency shields. I can't risk having him scan you and find out that you know too much. It would be too risky for you and for this whole effort."
"I understand," she replied.
"Good. All right, then, where to start." Harry ran a hand through his hair in thought. "In my time, Tom is a dark wizard who managed to rise to power once before. That time is now. There was a war, which I don't know much about, because apparently it was so bad that everyone refused to talk about it-"
"Typical," Bellatrix snorted in disgust.
Harry nodded in agreement. "Right. Anyway, by some freak accident, Tom managed to get himself killed. Ten years the wizarding world spent rebuilding, recovering. And then, he rose again."
"Wait, what?" Bellatrix interrupted. "How'd a dark wizard just 'get himself killed'? Did Dumbledore kill him? And how in the world did he manage to come back?"
"How he got himself killed is… complicated. Knowing how he got himself killed is extremely sensitive information, so I'm not going to tell you the details. Let's just say that when it happened, his physical body was destroyed, but his soul, somehow, survived."
Bellatrix's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You're involved in this somehow, aren't you?" She could see the way he was shifting uncomfortably, and decided to relent just a little. "I won't push any further… for now."
Harry continued with a grateful nod. "The first person he ran into while he was trying to stage his return was… me. I'd just started Hogwarts, and he'd just started scheming on how to get a physical body back. I foiled his plans several times over the following four years."
"You're telling me that you," the witch looked Harry up and down appraisingly, "screwed with a dark wizard's plans for resurrection for five years, and lived ? And you expect me to believe you?"
Harry shrugged. "I reckon he was just a shadow of his former self by then, and looking back on it, I really had more luck than I deserved. Fact of the matter is, me and my friends kept him from getting a physical body back for four years."
"I take it then that things went downhill from there?"
"Right. In my fourth year, he succeeded. He managed to finish a blood ritual that created a new body for him."
Bellatrix smirked in amusement. "I'm also guessing he was pretty miffed at you for messing with him for the past couple of years."
"That's putting it mildly," Harry muttered under his breath, knowing that her keen hearing had picked it up, anyway. "With his return, things quickly degenerated into open warfare. And yes, he was pissed. Little old me managed to make the number one most wanted spot."
"And then what? I take it the war went badly?"
"It actually went okay at first, we were doing pretty well," Harry recalled. "At least, until Tom decided to send out kill-teams to target anyone important enough to rate one. Dumbledore rated three. A couple of the other leaders got one or two."
"And you?"
"I rated five." Harry sighed. "That's how I got captured. And you know the rest about how I ended up here."
"That I do," Bellatrix agreed. "Now, not that I find all of this back-story enlightening, but how does that tie in with the letter that had you white as a sheet?"
"I know Tom's real identity."
"I gathered that," Bellatrix said, "and?"
Harry pulled the letter from his drawer, and showed her the last three lines.
I look forward to meeting you in person.
Sincerely,
Tom Marvolo Riddle
"And he just sent me an invitation to meet with him."
....
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