Chapter Text
Reverence: (noun) a feeling of respect or admiration for someone or something.
The air felt thick, heavy with the metallic scent of blood, a smell that clung to every breath. The floor slick and dark, the crimson liquid pooling in uneven patches, glinting under dim, flickering light. Drops dripped steadily from unseen heights, the sound echoed like a relentless metronome.
Drip
Drip
Drip
Splashes of red across the walls, some patterns chaotic, others eerily deliberate, as if someone painted with purpose. The oppressive silence, broken only by faint dripping. The room filled with a chilling, visceral unease.
The room on first glance looked to be empty, no evidence of where the blood had came from or who had left it. Yet there in the middle knelt a child.
Shoulders bowed slightly forward, spine curved in submission. Their hands rested lightly on their thighs, fingers trembling faintly. The boys head inclining, eyes cast downward, not in shame, but in profound humility, as if the very air around them demanded a reverent acknowledgment of its power.
Drip
Drip
Drip
In the slightest of movement the boys attention is drawn up, dark eyes under heavy lashes. Blood streaked across his cheeks, his lips, his long curled hair.
The flash was sudden, sharp, a glint of silver catching against the light, a fleeting spark that triggers instinct before thought. The boy holds a knife; knuckles tight and intent. The light dancing along its edge reveals its lethal sharpness, the cold metal gleaming with a predatory sheen.
A smile creeps across the boys face, slow and deliberate, never reaching his eyes. His lips curved upward, but there's no warmth, no joy. His gaze held steady, piercing and unblinking. Like the frost just before a storm. "
Do not be afraid" he talks with a gentle voice, his words barely above a whisper, "our fate cannot be taken from us; it is a gift"
A Time After
"Forgive me father"
Aries lack kneels at the alter, rosary beads in hand, head bowed. His knees bent, a quiet connection to something greater.
"Young Mr Black".
He looked up at the priest in front of him. An older man with a kind smile. A muggle but he suppose that couldn't be held against him, he was a man of the cloth after all. Aries had chosen to be here amongst the muggles, as much as he hated them for their weakness. They're impurity, a thought he had to thank his pureblood upbringings for. Yet here he was putting his faith in a muggle god.
"Father". He bowed his head again.
"Are you here for confessional?It had been a long time since you did last." Aries only visited the church in hours of need, in the darkness of night when his family wouldn't notice his absence and the church would be as empty as his heart. If he prayed enough perhaps God would grant him a miracle, yet it was unlikely there are things that even God would struggle to forgive. Murder. Torture.
"No father, even your God wouldn't absolve me of my sins." The rosary beads slipped through his fingers, a sense of peace as each smooth bead passed through his finger tips, the slight clink as they hit off each other.
"Is he not your god too?" The man chuckled, "you'd he surprised how forgiving our God is." Aries stood up, brushing the dust off his suit trousers. This man would never understand the things he had done and if he did he would not be offering up forgiveness. He couldn't linger here long. "Forgive me father but I must be getting home."
The man nodded, "of course, it does not do for a young man like yourself to be wandering the streets after dark. But please do not be stranger young Aries, when you are ready our God is always willing to listen."
He muttered a goodbye to the man and pocketed his rosery, making his way for the door. His hurred footsteps echoing across the empty church.
Aries's home was only a 15 minute walk from the church, one of the reasons he had found the place. A sanctuary away from home, it's stained glass windows and intimidating grandure only adding to its appeal.
By the time he had snuck back in the door of his family home he had hoped that nobody would have noticed his absence.
"Ah the prodigal son returns." Aries turned to see Bella leaning against the handrail watching him. "Always sneaking out, where is it you go? Why can't I come? Father is looking for you."
He nodded, ignoring her questions and starting up the stairs to his father's office. As he passed her he leant over placing a kiss against her temple.
"You promised me that next time I could come with you." she said in a small voice for only him to hear. Aries felt his mask cracking slightly as he bit back a smile, Bella had a way of worming her way under his skin and staying there.
He smiled gently at her before turning away and continuing up the stairs. He loved Bella more than the world, she was the only real thing he believed in. Not even his muggle god came close to her. Being her twin brother had bonded them in more than blood, a connection that felt soul deep. Bella was the only one he could ever imagine spending his life with.
Even now at 18 years old they shared a bed most nights, finding comfort in the feeling of her heart beating against his chest as they're limbs combined. They rarely did anything apart, he knew her teasing was never illment.
He knocked on his father's door.
"Enter"
He pushed open the door and walked in. His father sat behind the large mahogany desk, the room only lit by candle light. The shadows stretching across the wall.
"Father." He bowed his head in respect. Despite the secrets he kept from the man he respected him. Blacks were loyal to blood. Aries was no different, he would die for his family. He would kill for them and he had over and over and over.
"Aries my son, take a seat." He did, sitting down in the wingback chair across from the man. His father slipped a folder of paper across the table to him, he took it. "Your next target."
Aries opened the file, looking down at the image of Tom Riddle staring back at him. "You wish for me to kill the Dark Lord?" He questioned. Not shocked as he knew of his father's dislike for the man, a feeling he shared.
His father nodded, "he is becoming a threat to us all, demanding loyality. The house of Black kneels to no man, especially a half blood like him." A sneer spread across the mans face.
"This won't be easy father, he might be a half blood but he is not weak. There is something unnatural about that man." Just being in the man's present had been enough to make Aries feel sick.
"I'm not saying it will be easy Aries but you must protect this family. He.. he has shown an interest in your twin sister, he wishes to take her under his wing."
Aries felt his blood boil, "I will not allow it."
"I know you won't, that is why you must be the one to kill him." His father leant back in his seat pulling out a bottle of Firewhisky and pouring two glasses before handing one over to him. "What have the stars told you Aries? You have always been wary of that man."
"I have seen the fall of an empire and the ashes it leaves behind." He takes a sip of his drink, the firewhiskey warming his body.
"Why must everything you speak of be in riddles?"
"I do not choose what I forsee, the stars tell me only what they are willing to lose." He sighed, the gift of foresight was often useless to him, he had been blessed with being able to read the stars. Yet the stars often made that hard, they whispered things to him. They never stopped, things about a boy with green eyes and a lightening bolt scar, things that made no sense to him. Things that would wake him in the middle of the night shaking with a fear that did not belong to him, that had him warding his room with his shadows and cuddling into Bella's thick hair, as though only her warmth could break the chill in his bones. "You know this will not be a quick job this could take me years. I will need to get close to him, to learn his secrets. A man like him does not die as simply as my dagger in his heart."
"I am aware, you will do as you must."
He nodded, "And Bella?"
"What about her?" His father finished off his drink, pouring another. It was often that his father was found with a glass in hand, the man was not an alcoholic like the muggles had but he did have some control issues when it came to the dark liquor.
"If I do this you will end that horrific bethoral contact you have between her and the Lestrange brother."
"Why do you care so much Aries? This does not affect you."
"She is mine." He growled, his shadows slipping between his fingers. The room growing darker, as the candles struggled to find oxygen to burn.
"She is not yours. She is a person and your sister... put your monsters away Aries, you will get nowhere using them on me." He wanted to laugh, as though his father could stand against them. His shadows, an extension of his magic was all consuming.
Yet he would not harm his father, he pulled his magic back into him masking it behind his shields. "She doesn't want this marriage. You are trapping her in a cage."
"And what do you propose instead? A marriage between you two. It wouldn't be a first in this family." His father wasn't wrong, the Blacks did like to live by their family moto. "A cage is still cage no matter who holds the key Aries."
"You know I don't see her like that. I would never hurt her, I would never ask for anything from her. I love her but not like that."
His father laughed, a sound so deep it echoed of the walls. "You are lying to yourself Aries. This discussion is over, you will kill the Dark Lord."
"And Bella will be free?" "I will let Bellatrix decide her own fate." He nodded his head, "that is all I ask."
"You may leave now Aries. I grow tired of arguing with you and I have work to do."
~~~~~~
The pair of them lay on the grass, hands clasp together looking up at the stairs. Magic had cushioned them from the hard and damp ground below them, as if laying on a feather mattress.
Aries felt so small, so insignificant staring up at the stars. It was a feeling he often associated with his god. Who was Aries next to the all mighty, next to all the stars in the sky. The stars that whispered to him, sharing secrets and snippets of a world he does not yet understand.
"Do you believe there's anything out there?"
"Out where?" Bella replied. "Beyond the stars." Bella hummed as she thought about his question. "Like the gods?" She finally replied.
This question startled Aries, he had never once heard any of his family refer to a God or God's or anything divine before. "The gods?" He asked in response.
"It's a muggle thing I suppose, the Gods are meant to be all powerful and immortal beings with all sorts of bizarre superpowers."
"And where did you learn of such a thing Bella?" He turned looking at her raising his eyebrow.
She shrugged, "it's all bullshit anyway, why would we need to believe in a God with superpowers when we have magic. If anyone is a God it would be the Dark Lord not some mystical being that nobody as even seen." She rolled on the front propping herself up on her elbows, "so no Aries, there is nothing out there beyond the stars."
"Bella the Dark Lord is no God, he will bring nothing but pain" spoke Aries. "Do not fall for his theatrics." He reaches out and ran a hand through her hair, "if you have to believe in anything, believe in me dear sister. I will always keep you safe."
"But..."
Aries cut her off, "no buts Bella. You will not go to that monster, don't make me lose you."
"You're being dramatic, you will not lose me."
"It is spoken of by the stars, you walk that path and you will lose yourself and I cannot bear to witness it. Promise me, swear it Bella."
"You and those bloody stars" she sighed and looked at him, her grey eyes twinkling in the moonlight. He continued to twirl her dark hair around his finger. A small smile spread across her face. "All right then" she sighed in defeat, "I swear it Aries."