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He looked down at her small form. Delphini was crying softly, arms reaching out for comfort from her father. He stared. He offered nothing else, glowing crimson eyes piercing the darkness. Voldemort grit his teeth, the panic of an unknown fear surging in his chest.
There cannot be two. There cannot be a mimic. They cannot do better there should not be a chance- an opportunity. The fear clawed at his throat, dragging him farther and farther. There was not supposed to be a child.
His-
No. He refused. The burn of stomach acid was strong at his chest. The fury building there as well, Bellatrix had the fucking audacity.
The audacity to try and make another of him. A copy, a fake, a- a replacement.
Others may say he is paranoid. Others may say he is fearful for no reason. He's never listened to them anyway.
Delphini is crying louder now. Tears and disgusting snot covering her face as she begs for something, anything.
There are silencing wards. No one will hear her.
Bellatrix had been so proud. Flaunting her and her Lord's child.
Voldemort raised his arms, the rustling of his robes buried under her cries. He stepped closer, feeling his disgust building with the proximity.
His hands wrapped around her head, the gentle touch of his thin, long fingers being mistaken for the affection Delphini so desired.
He breathed out. His anxieties disappearing for just that moment. And in that same moment, with his magically-enhanced strength, he squeezed.
The cries momentarily got louder, piercing his ears, before the solid crunch of a skull shattering and the gushing of viscera and blood coating his pale fingers faded into silence. A few drops had splattered on his face, the linens of the crib were soaked with red and the remnants of brain.
He dropped the body that was Delphini, now completely unrecognizable, back onto the soaked sheets. He pulled back his hands, covered in all matter of gore and laid them by his sides. The room was silent aside from the blood dripping on the floor, an uneven pattern that soothed him. A reminder of himself, of that day when his father had met his fate.
He was a copy, too. Another. He could not be left alive.
And that's what it was, wasn't it? Fate. Those that believe in God say that he has a plan for everyone, so why can't this have been the plan?
He walked out of the room, undoing the silencing wards as well as the ones keeping the room shut. The fear, the one oh-so-reminiscent of that of death, had been settled. He would not make that mistake again.
Later in the night, when he heard the blood-curdling scream of Bellatrix having come across Delphini's body, he relaxed at the further proof the copy was gone. He returned to his paperwork. A drop of blood, forgotten from on his face, splattered across his signature.