Fic: The Kindness of Dark Lords
Blanche DuBois/Voldemort for the "it hurts my Brain" crossover


New Orleans rotted in the summer heat, all mausoleums and humidity. Tom Riddle mopped his brow
for the umpteenth time since leaving the air conditioned hotel. They didn’t have heat like this in England,
and he was near to melting.

He checked the map and the street signs. This was it, the Rue St. Anne in the Vieux Carrere. He knocked
on the door.

A woman with almond eyes, high cheekbones and skin the color of a gold galleon opened it. “Oui?”

“I’m Tom Riddle. I’m looking for Marie Laveau.”

“Oui. I de fifth of dat name. You dat sweet English boy who been writing me about all the secrets. You wanna
learn about Papa Legba and the dark loas, no?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You a good boy, Tom. You stay wi’ old Marie and she fix you up.”

***

Tom swirled the teacup three times round as his divination teacher had taught him, and flashed the nervous blonde
woman his most charming and soothing smile. Reading tea-leaves for muggles. He ground his teeth sometimes at the
very thought, but it was the price Marie exacted for her knowledge.

“Miss DuBois, I see you are near the end of your journey.” It took no great effort to see that. She was rumpled from
days on the train and a valise sat beside her. “I see a man. A young, handsome man. And a woman.”

“My sister and her husband, surely,” she sighed.

“Yes, and you’re going to stay with them a while. In the French Quarter.”

“No, no, in the Garden District, silly. They have a lovely place called the Elysian Fields.”

Tom continued, charming, flattering and playing on what both the leaves and the woman told him. He did not tell her
he saw danger, sorrow and madness; that her Elysian Fields would turn to Tartarus all in a moment.

Blanche left in a euphoric cloud, vowing to return to the handsome young reader who was so right and so wonderful.
She caught the streetcar, Desire, and transferred to Cemeteries before getting off at the Elysian Fields.

***

“Good afternoon, Miss DuBois,” Tom said. “Please, have some tea.”

“Thank you, my dear.” She smiled at him. He couldn’t be any older than the boy had been when they were married,
so long ago now. The polka played in her head and she drained the teacup hastily so Tom could silence it.

He was so good at silencing her fears, making her worries evaporated, as if by magic. She felt safe with him. The tea
room was comfortable, cozy, even, unlike the squalor of Stella’s apartment, or the sick smell of Belle Reve at the end.
Tom was charming and sweet, as kind as Mitch, but less manly. There was less violence about him than about the rough
 men that congregated around Stanley.

She came as often as she could, twice a week if she could manage it, an escape from her sister’s house.

***

It was a rainy afternoon when she burst into the shop, all in disarray. “Tom, please,” she shoved her palm at him.
“Help me.”

Tom read what was on her hand and contained his pleasure. “My dear Miss DuBois, someone has hurt you.”

“Yes, yes, that dreadful Polack. My sister, she had her baby.” Blanche fumbled for a tissue in her reticule and let Tom
ead her to an empty alcove with a little table in it.

“That’s lovely, Blanche. I may call you Blanche, mayn’t I?"

“Please, please do, my dear.”

He poured tea to steady her nerves while the tiresome woman spilled all that had happened. Yes, her death would go
into making the third horcrux splendidly. He was almost looking forward to it.

She looked over at him, and he did not like the look in her eyes. When her over-painted lips grazed his cheek, he knew
the time was right.

“Dear Blanche, my feelings for you cannot have escaped your notice. I work until nine tonight. Would you allow me to call
on you after I leave work?”

“Certainly, darling Tom. I thought you’d never ask. But you must hurry. For my sister says we’re leaving on a trip to the
sea-side soon.” Her distress was gone and she was almost gay again.

“Yes, the sea would be lovely this time of year.” Tom worked his way through her reading, his wand warm in his pocket
 tempting him to the avra kadavra even now.

****

He knocked on the door of the rundown apartments, and greeted the big stupid man in the undershirt graciously.

“Blanche ain’t here. She’s gone to the funny farm, and they’ll never let her out.”

“Oh dear, I knew she was unstable, but this is a blow. Well, should you see her, give her my best regards.” He caught the
streetcar to a deserted cemetery and apparated back to Marie’s.

***

Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen, found dead of natural causes, the headlines read. Tom merely relished the cooler air and
gentle mists of Boston before he went back to London and began work on the fourth.