1934

Wol Hee tossed and turned in bed, her body trapped in limbo between fatigue and restlessness. She kicked the duvet off, only to shiver straight after and pull it back up to cover her body. She couldn't understand what was happening to her body these days—one minute she felt fine and then the next she literally couldn't drag herself out of bed. In fact, she often felt like rolling up into a ball and sitting in a cool spot for hours on end. No matter how lazy she was, she'd never before desired such a thing. At first, she'd wondered if it was a sign of her imminent final transformation but when she thought about her mother's final year, she couldn't recall her behaving like that. Corvus stirred beside her, reminding her of his presence, and she held her breath, forcing herself to stay still until she heard his telltale steady breathing. She slowly exhaled, glad that she hadn't woken him up this time.

Most nights, her late-night antics jostled him awake but he always said no whenever she asked him if she should sleep in her former bedroom. He wanted her to know that she could sleep in his bed every night, viper or not. She knew he'd been increasingly worried about her as of late, especially because it felt like they were living out their last days together before they were torn apart forever. Oddly enough, the thought of her impending doom quelled her unease and she soon found her eyes drooping to a close...

The next time she woke up, sunlight was streaming in on her through the wide diamond studded windows. She grimaced, turning away from the sun and blindly reaching out for Corvus. Her eyes flew open when she felt cold bedsheets instead of his warm body in the spot he was supposed to be occupying. While it was true that Corvus usually woke up before her, he never woke up this early—a quick glance at the antique clock told her that it was seven past seven. She yawned, still tired, and closed her eyes. She needed just five more minutes.

A knock on her door roused her out of her state of almost sleep and she looked at the clock to see that she'd slept another three hours. She mumbled permission for her visitor to enter the room. A weeping Dot ran into the room, snivelling as she repeatedly apologised in what sounded like garbled French.

Wol Hee immediately sat up and leaned forwards, cold dread filling her at the state of the house-elf. She'd never seen a house-elf cry before, not even the one back at Le Cirque Arcanus who was almost always on the receiving end of Skender's unprovoked cruelty and anger.

"Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé?" she asked hoarsely, swallowing deeply as her hands clammed up.

"C'est—c'est Monsieur Lestrange."

.:. QK .:.

The next day, Wol Hee stood in the mausoleum long after everyone else had left, staring at the ornate coffin that'd been reserved for Corvus Lestrange V but now held the man who'd been impersonating him for the last five years. She still couldn't believe everything that'd happened in the last twenty-four hours. He was gone, just like that. It was ironic, really, that the two of them had been worrying about her early demise—her descent into her blood curse—when he'd ended up being the one to die first.

It'd all happened so fast. Even now, she could still remember the shock horror of finding out that he was already dead a few hours before she woke up from her snooze and that she'd been the last one to find out. No one had bothered to tell her until her poor, devastated house-elf found the strength to approach her and break the news to her. She blamed Dumbledore and her so-called friends for hiding her own loved one's death from her but most of all, she blamed herself for not being vigilant enough to spot the signs of trouble sooner. She should have known something was wrong when he wasn't in bed at seven past seven but instead of investigating, she went back to sleep.

A painful lump formed in her throat as her red-rimmed eyes welled up with tears for what felt like the millionth time. She held back a sob, forcing herself to turn away from his coffin. Her tears wouldn't bring him back to her or tell her why and how he died.

"Adieu," she whispered as she was assaulted by a crushing sense of finality. She wavered as she walked towards the exit, barely stopping herself from turning back and climbing into the empty coffin—probably meant for Leta—next to his.

When she got outside, she was surprised to see Yusuf and Jemila sitting on a bench near the entrance. Ever since she'd more or less demanded that Dumbledore and his allies move out of her manor house, she hadn't expected anyone to be waiting outside the mausoleum for her, especially hours after the funeral proceedings had finished. But, of course, Yusuf and Jemila were here. They were her friends before being Dumbledore's associates and, since they lived in France anyway, they weren't part of the group she'd thrown out of her home. She felt guilty for having forgotten them.

"Merci d'être là pour moi," she said, hoping they understood just how much she appreciated their company during such a difficult time. Yusuf nodded politely, giving her a compassionate look with that piercing gaze of his, and Jemila put an arm around her back, comfortingly squeezing her other arm as she led her to her specified mode of transport. Yusuf raised an eyebrow at her choice. "Je ne peux pas transplaner aujourd'hui."

"Ça va," Yusuf said, tipping his head at Jemila before offering Wol Hee a reserved smile. "Nous viendrons plus tard chez toi."

Wol Hee nodded at him, trying to return the smile but ended up churning out a grimace instead. She and Jemila said bye Faire la bise, and the latter and her husband Disapparated on the spot. Wol Hee sniffed, beginning to make her way home.

.:. QK .:.

After dinner with her friends, Wol Hee walked through the Great Hall on her way to the library, specifically the antechamber he once used as his study. It had come to be her sanctuary, the only place in the manor house that she hadn't allowed herself or anyone else, besides Dot, to touch. With a small sigh, she entered the room, the comforting atmosphere immediately enveloping her. Looking around the room, she could almost imagine him sitting behind his desk, grinning at her as she sauntered in and started talking to him but she frowned when she reminded herself that he wasn't there and he never would be.

She wiped at her bloodshot eyes, staring listlessly at the empty desk. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She was the one that was marked to go first, not him. Between the attempt on her life and her blood curse, she should've been long gone yet here she was, standing idle in his library study. It wasn't supposed to happen like this at all. He was supposed to be the one sitting there and reminiscing about her before ultimately moving on with his life and finding someone else and continuing the Lestrange line. He was supposed to be aiding Dumbledore in his fight against the despicable Grindelwald.

Dumbledore. She scoffed. The man had been the first one to locate the body but had instructed everyone, even her house-elf, not to inform her until he allowed them to. At first, she couldn't believe his audacity but then she remembered just how manipulative he could be and the disbelief soon gave way to suspicion. She'd always known that Dumbledore, like Grindelwald, could sacrifice anyone for what he deemed to be the greater good. She couldn't help but think he had something to do with the death or at least knew something she didn't. She refused to accept his view that the (dormant) Obscurus had killed its host even though the rational part of her mind told her it was the most likely explanation.

Perhaps it was because she had been crying on and off the entire day or because she was overthinking things but as she stood there in the library, she was hit by a sudden bout of dizziness and blindly reached out for something to grab onto, bracing herself against the desk as she lost her balance. Unable to stay on her feet even a second longer, she dropped into his chair and put her head in her hands, her elbows planted firmly on the desk. Requiring a handkerchief, she reached for the handle of the top drawer of the desk, momentarily forgetting that it had an enchantment on it that prevented it from opening. By the time she realised, she'd already gripped the handle and pulled the drawer open, revealing stacks of letters and a few vials of memories. She frowned for two reasons: firstly, the drawer had never opened before; she had tried more than a few times, and secondly, all of the memories she knew of were stored away in the pensieve room on the second floor.

Wol Hee wasn't the type to snoop—she had learnt the hard way that it wasn't worth it when her childhood sneaking around caused her to discover the horrible truth about her lineage—but she couldn't help herself from taking a peek at the letter on the top of the pile. She swiped it and opened it, scanning the contents as her eyes almost popped out of their sockets in shock and re-read it a couple of times to let the new found information sink in. Sticking her nose where it didn't belong hadn't done any good for her back when she was a child but it would've given Corvus all the answers he'd been looking for. The thought gave her pause. She'd never seen him try to open the draw; maybe he already had done some digging of his own.

No... surely he would've told her if he knew?

.:. QK .:.

Sometime later, Wol Hee stopped by the nursery she'd redesigned a few years earlier and approached the crib, recalling the time Corvus had stood in that very same spot and lamented about being the last of his line. She sighed inwardly, thinking about how wrong he was. He'd just needed a little more time to see himself proven wrong. He should've been here now. She had always assumed that he would be here with her during her last few days, holding her in her last few hours of humanity but life really was full of surprises and such a thing, such a comfort to her, was never to be. It was, undoubtedly, yet another consequence of her blood curse.

She hissed, basking in the knowledge that although her ancestor's wife had ensured the suffering of at least twenty generations of her people, the bitch's triumph had finally come to an end. She, Wol Hee 'Nagini' Lestrange, the bastard descendant of the jealous witch's husband by his concubine, had subverted the curse. No woman would suffer a fate like hers again.

She stared at the crib one more time before turning away from it. She would forget it, in time. One by one, she'd forget everything and everyone she'd once held dear. She could even attack a loved one. It was only right that she left her beloved Lestrange Manor and her beloved France behind and exile herself to a faraway land. She went to the door.

Adieu, Corvus.

She slithered out of the room and down the stairs, ignoring the sobs of her house-elf who was running after her. "Madame, Dot servira bien le jeune Monsieur Lestrange!"

Adieu, Dot.

Wol Hee, now a true Nagini forever, left her home of the last five years without hesitation.

It was time to move on.