Bellatrix Nicklaus

Nelson and his companions left the orphanage and made their way through London's filthy, chaotic streets. After crossing two blocks, they arrived at a street even more dilapidated than the usual London roads. It was an unnamed street on the outskirts of the West End, with two rows of old, standardized two-story houses standing silently along its sides. These houses looked very different from the styles commonly seen in London. Most had tall, steep hipped roofs, with narrow doors and windows arranged in vertical grids, giving them a strong French character. If it had been clean and tidy, this should have been a neighborhood pleasant enough to soothe both body and mind.

Scruffy-looking men could be seen everywhere on this street, speaking French. Tired women occasionally hurried past. When Nelson, Tom, and Dumbledore came around the corner, some of the residents nodded to Nelson in greeting, while more watched Dumbledore warily.

They stopped before one house. Compared with the filthy, rundown homes of its neighbors, this household lived far more elegantly. The doors and windows had been carefully cleaned, and the lawn before the entrance was relatively neatly trimmed. A stuffed-full mailbox stood by the door, engraved with the surname of the man of the house: Nicklaus.

Nelson stepped forward and pulled the doorbell. A pleasant, crisp metallic chime rang out, seeming somewhat abrupt amid the murmuring street. Soon, a thin woman in a black dress and apron pushed open the door, crossed the lawn, and opened the front gate for them.

The moment she saw Nelson, she smiled in delight. "Nal, weren't you supposed to go to church today?" She came forward, bent down, and hugged Nelson. Then she noticed Tom beside him. "Tom came too! I made stew today. It'll be ready soon." She bent down and hugged Tom as well. Tom looked a little awkward, stiffly returning the hug before turning his face away, looking somewhat shy.

She straightened up and looked at the unfamiliar man behind the two children. "Hello?"

"You must be Nal's aunt. I am Albus Dumbledore." Dumbledore placed his right hand over his chest and gave a slight bow. "I am a teacher. I have come to invite Mr. Williams and his friend, Mr. Riddle, to attend our school, and to seek your advice as their relative."

"Ah... all right. Please come in." She led the three of them inside. "I'm Bellatrix Nicklaus. As you can see, I'm Nal's aunt," she introduced herself. "Nal is the son of my younger sister, Elizabeth."

"Hello, Mrs. Nicklaus." Dumbledore bowed once more.

"You said you came to invite Nal to study?" Bella invited the three of them to sit in the living room and took out four teacups to pour tea. "Ah! I'm sorry." As she poured Dumbledore's tea, she spilled some over the rim and onto the table. She turned and headed for the kitchen to fetch a rag, her voice drifting back from afar. "May I ask what kind of school this is?"

"It's quite all right, madam." Dumbledore lifted his teacup and took a sip, introducing the school where he worked for the third time that day. "Our school is called Hogwarts. It is a—"

"Smack—" The rag in Bella's hand fell to the floor as she emerged from the kitchen. She stared at Dumbledore wide-eyed. Realizing she had lost her composure, she hurriedly covered her astonished open mouth with her right hand, then slowly bent down and picked up the rag with her left. Yet her gaze never left Dumbledore. Nelson and Tom sat nearby, sensing the heavy air around them and growing restless.

"Mrs. Nicklaus, you seem to know something about... Hogwarts?" Dumbledore was somewhat stunned as well. He felt as though he had spent the entire day being shocked: discovering two extraordinarily gifted young wizards in an orphanage, and now finding that this non-magical woman seemed to know about the wizarding world... He composed his expression. "Forgive me. What I mean is, I feel that you seem to..."

"That's right. I know Hogwarts." Bella placed the rag on a nearby rack and shook her head, as though trying to drive some unpleasant memory from her mind. "I knew someone would come for Nal once he grew up. I thought it would be a letter from Beauxbatons—we moved to London from France. Oh!" She turned and saw Nelson and Tom listening intently to the story. Perhaps she felt it was inappropriate for them to know such things, so she said to Dumbledore, "Why don't we talk in the study? Let me wipe the table first—" She picked up the rag she had just set down.

"There's no need to trouble yourself!" Dumbledore pulled his Wand from his suit pocket and waved it at the table. The tea stains vanished at once. Then he rose and walked toward Bella. His own teacup and Bella's floated up after him, drifting leisurely behind him and occasionally clinking together.

Bella told Nelson and Tom to drink tea in the living room, then led Dumbledore toward the study.

"Your aunt might be a witch!" Tom began excitedly speculating as soon as they had left.

"Impossible. She's never used magic." Nelson rejected the idea outright.

"Who knows? Dumbledore told me that wizards aren't allowed to use magic on Mug... what was it again... Muggles. So maybe she's never shown it to you because she wasn't sure whether you'd become a wizard." Tom smugly showed off the new word he had just learned, then added, "Muggles are ordinary people."

"That's possible..." Nelson leaned back against the sofa cushion and began considering it.

"At least we can be sure there's magic on your mother's side. I have no idea about mine." Tom began pondering his own origins as well. "My mother couldn't have known magic, or she wouldn't have died like that."

"Not necessarily..." Nelson recalled Merope Gaunt's bloody love story.

"Then it must have been my father," Tom went on, as though analyzing it for Nelson, yet also speaking to himself. "They said my father had the same name as me, Tom Riddle. Once I start school, I have to see whether there's anyone with that name..."

Tom narrowed his eyes and lay back against the sofa's other cushion like Nelson, beginning to imagine his life with magic.

But Nelson's thoughts had drifted somewhere else. He was filled with curiosity about his biological parents, yet his aunt had only told him that he was a war orphan and that he must cherish peace in the future. She had never mentioned his background. Precocious as he was, Nelson understood that pressing for answers would be useless, so he had always restrained the urge to ask. But this meeting between Dumbledore and his aunt had stirred that curiosity again. He intended to do the same as Tom.

"Tom, what kind of magic do you think we'll learn?" he asked Tom, who was lying beside him.

"I don't know, but magic should be able to do anything, shouldn't it?" Young Tom Riddle's dark eyes shone faintly. "I think magic can help us gain strength, earn honor, seize power, prolong life... It can surely fulfill every one of our dreams!"

"Tom..." Nelson felt a little worried at Tom's answer and called his name weakly.

"What is it, Nal? What about you? What magic do you want to learn?" Tom grew excited, finally seeming like a child his age. He had long been impatient to unleash his extraordinary talent.

"I... I wonder whether there's magic that can travel through time and space."

"Do you want to be a traveler? That sounds pretty cool too."

"Ah, maybe. There are places I want to see. I've been in London for so many years."

"Haha, Nal. Once we learn magic, where won't we be able to go?"

"Mrs. Nicklaus, forgive me, but I feel that you seem to..." Dumbledore voiced his confusion to Bella as soon as they entered the study.

"I'm just an ordinary person," Bella explained. "But my younger sister, Elizabeth Williams, was a witch. Eleven years ago, she and her husband entrusted Nal to me, and after that, there was no further word from them. I knew Nal would definitely be a wizard, but I thought he would be admitted to Beauxbatons—the French school of magic." She introduced Nelson's parents. "I thought magical schools recruited according to personal affiliation. I didn't expect it to be based on territory." Before marriage, she had been a shrewd accountant.

"Yes, madam, that's right." Dumbledore agreed. He did not understand what Bella meant by the latter part, so he could only go along with her. "So Mr. Nelson Wiltening Williams is the child of Elizabeth Williams and Melgan Wiltening?" He had just heard familiar names.

"That's right! Those are my sister and brother-in-law's names! You knew them? They—" She gripped Dumbledore's sleeve tightly and spoke in a sharp, rapid voice. Then her voice suddenly sank, as though she both hoped and feared something. She released his sleeve and swallowed the rest of her question.

"I'm sorry, Miss Williams." Dumbledore lowered his head, his voice heavy. "Your sister and brother-in-law died in battle eleven years ago. They were both admirable people."

Bella's vision went black. She stood there blankly, her thoughts returning to the two people who had suddenly appeared in her home eleven years ago. Her sister had merely gazed tenderly at the child in the basket, as though she could never look enough. Her brother-in-law had smiled as he explained the child's name. "The child's name? Oh, my name starts with M, so the child can use N! We'll think of it later. It's not as though we won't come back. There are so many people in Paris—how could I stupidly charge in and fight the Dark Lord? Hahaha!" Melgan seemed amused by his own assumption. Laughing, he said in fits and starts, "Bella, if I really kick the bucket, let Jonas name the child. He's an educated man..."

Dumbledore looked at Bella guiltily. He knew that couple. They had been the most outstanding talents of their class at Beauxbatons. Everything had begun with the attack his old friend had planned in Paris in 1927, and all of it, all of it, had to be blamed on himself. To prevent even more pain, he had to find a way to end it all.