Title: Piano
Rating: PG (mild oddness, talk of death)
Genre: General
Characters: Voldemort, Bellatrix Lestrange, Amara Jugson, A. Dumbledore
Summary: I don't get it. But I wrote it for my sister Leigh, and she was pleased, so hey. One shot.
Additional Copyrights: Amara Jugson from VeeTee

Voldemort always said there was something about the sun.

Yes, he likes the dark. It's different and faded and the stars come out and sing, and suddenly everything is velvet and silk.

But there's something about the sun.

He says to Bellatrix, "Darling, there's fifteen candles on the piano; twelve white roses in the vase. For thirteen and a half years I lay dead and dying, and I did not see the sun."

The candles on that piano are never lit, and no one asks why.

The piano; now that was something. He used to play the piano. Play it well, at that. His fingers would flick over the keys, and he made music with angels in the notes; beating their wings and bleeding from their mouths; and maybe for a moment, something was happening.

But he doesn't play that piano anymore.

And Voldemort, he used to tell the future too. He had a gift. But later he decided that no one wants to read a book with a story they already know; and least of all, live it. So he stopped telling the future. He stopped seeing visions in bowls of water and someone else's face in the mirror, though it could be argued that that's still happening.

But no, that's just simple fancy; Voldemort knows who he is - which sort of means he doesn't know it all - and he's fine with whatever face he'll wear.

He still eats jam and toast, too, and he still knows how to waltz. He even tried to teach Amara, but the steps confused her, so instead they went out to enjoy the sunshine.

He doesn't know he loves her.

Voldemort understands fear, but not love. Foreign and unattainable, that concept is to him; he reached for it once and it flit from his fingertips and winged away. So he doesn't go for love anymore.

Voldemort just kills people. He meant to do good, but in the end it went bad. He doesn't really realize it, though, because he's a bit mad.

But he wasn't too terrible before. People change all the time. After all, he used to play the piano, but he doesn't anymore.

But sometimes, without thinking, his fingers move in a little dance, over invisible ivory and sable. And the angels start to bleed, and their wings sing with the wind outside when the window's shut. And for a moment, he's back at the piano.

He says, "Come closer, darling. I'll tell you stories of spices and jaguars and seas of sand; and I'll take you to a place where the sun rises in the west."