i am lord voldemort • Tom Riddle

Alternative Timeline: XXXVIII

Lae followed Tom's gaze to her uncle, taking in the evident pinch between his brows, concentration pulling his skin taut around his neck and down further where the second button on his shirt obscured his chest from view. His lips mouthed a fluid stream of enchantment meant for no ones ears besides his own. Even though whatever spell he used taxed every ounce of focus he had reserved, if she didn't know any better Lae thought he might be smirking.

She didn't share his confidence. His exposure alarmed her. Without thinking, without a wand or a plan, she scrambled to join him.

Tom noted her intent before she made even the first step and manoeuvred into her path. "You obviously have a death wish."

The stillness in his hands and expression was telling. Her proclivity for throwing herself into dangerous situations without discussing it first obviously wore hard on him, but it's not like he warned her about the giant snake lurking beneath the castle ahead of time, either. Fair was fair.

"Tell me something we don't know," said Lae, following a nervous laugh holding a narrow edge of mania. Her head felt funny, too light from too much adrenaline pumping through her veins for too long. "And because only the insane would think to follow me here, you can't have had any sense to begin with. What a match we make."

"Don't wax on poetically to me about sanity when you were about to throw yourself into that," he gestured somewhat disdainfully towards her uncle, "mess without so much as a stick to defend yourself."

"Just because you don't like him doesn't mean you should call him a mess," she replied reflexively
.
The words were barely out of her mouth before she caught Tom rolling his eyes. "I wasn't talking about him." He appeared to give it a second thought, amending, "This time."

Luckily, it seemed her uncle had things under control. Finally, she might add. His supporters had circled in close to defend and aid in equal measure, warding off those who sought to use his preoccupation as an opportunity to fell the single greatest threat to the magical status quo in existence. As for his enemies, well, most stood gobsmacked at his awe inspiring display of power. If they doubted his abilities before, the did so no longer. To quarrel with him, they seemed to realise, was to quarrel with death itself.

With her ill-fitting wand, Lae could barely hold off a single falling piece of debris, let alone all the earth above their heads seeking to rejoin with the earth beneath from which it had for so long been cleaved. Only her uncle could manage something so unbelievable, and only with the Wand of Destiny.

Only with the Elder Wand...

She filed the rest of that thought away for later.

Pressing her lips into a thin line, she turned her back on Grindelwald, slowly at first, but gaining confidence with each step. He had this under control, and despite his assurances that he trusted only her for protection, his honor guard had him covered. More than covered. She felt the division between them more than ever before, like a symbolic shift. Five years ago, she would have been at the center of the retinue encircling her uncle, stuck close to his side, almost an extension of his own body. Now... well, now all there was to do was watch the magic happen from outside their bubble. She somehow had evolved to be apart.

With the melancholy also came peace, two sides of the same coin, or perhaps the different sides of the moon. Dark and light and together made whole. To grow, she had to leave the gilded cage she loved and hated and called home in the same breath. Without realising, she'd outgrown his protection. Outside was Tom and Rabastan. Even Fenella, it seemed. There was freedom with power. While she could move in tandem with her uncle if she wanted, she wasn't obligated to.