Title: Seven ways to commit a murder
Author: woldy 
Characters/Pairings: Isolde Zabini/husbands
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: Snuff films
Other Warnings: lots of character death, including references to the death of a real person; graphic violence; domestic violence; (mostly offscreen) sexual abuse of a child; irresponsible BDSM; breathplay; electrical play.
Word Count: ~7,300 words
Summary: Divorce is something that happens to other people - people who don't have her contacts.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to the lovely nuclearsugars for betaing; any remaining mistakes are, of course, my own. All the events portrayed in this story are fictional, and I don't condone any of the behaviour depicted. This is the first time I've written a het pairing and I get the sense that this story is, um, not typical of the genre. Don't say I didn't warn you...



Prologue

Isolde is eight when she first hears her family connected to a murder. Her father is careful to keep his family and work separate, so the men in dark suits who follow him around rarely set foot in their house. She's heard whispering in the playground, of course, but nobody dares to say anything overt. Hers isn't the sort of family that people can afford to offend.

So it's shocking when she walks down the street hand-in-hand with her father, and a young woman throws herself into their path.

"Why? Why did you do this?" the woman shouts, falling to her knees in front of them. "My brother was a good man! He never harmed anyone!"

The woman grabs her father's suit jacket, and Isolde lets go of his hand and backs away. What does this crazy woman want? What kind of person behaves like this?

Her father doesn't flinch. "You should be careful," he says, and for the first time Isolde hears threat in his voice. "Death can be contagious."

"I don't care if you kill me!" the woman screams, and a chill runs through Isolde as she realizes what this is about.

She's old enough to know what her father does, but it's always been unimaginable - he's her daddy, the man who brings her sweets, pushes her on the swings, and conjures fireworks and songbirds to entertain her. He still reads The Tales of Beedle the Bard to her little brother at bedtime.

"Murderer!" the woman is shrieking. "You're nothing but a murderer! May the devil take you!"

Then an older woman runs out to pull the screaming girl away, and Isolde's father turns and reaches out his hand for hers. Her father's big hand is familiar and reassuring, and Isolde takes it, but she never sees him in quite the same way again.

Soon afterwards, her parents tell Isolde that she'll no longer be attending the local school.

"How will I learn?" she asks and her mother smiles kindly.

"We've arranged a tutor for you and Rino. It'll be better than school, because you'll have a teacher all to yourselves."

"Why?" Isolde asks, staring up at them in bewilderment.

"You're special," her father replies, kissing the top of her head.

"When I'm old enough, can I still go to magic school?"

Her parents exchange a glance.

"We'll see, darling," says her mother.


One

At Hogwarts, Isolde stands out. Her memory of the sorting feast is of long speeches in a foreign tongue that she struggles to understand and a huge room filled with pasty white faces. She wonders if there's something wrong with the wards in this country - if their anti-apparition spells somehow block out the sun. None of the other students have skin as rich and dark as Isolde's, and her father's words come back to her: you're special.

The Slytherin common room is full of intrigues, as the older students murmur about blood, loyalty, and occasionally she hears the words 'Death Eaters'. Isolde's mother taught her it's the height of bad manners to bring those sort of discussions home with you, so she raises her chin and pretends not to hear them. Besides, she's not interested in the odd politics of these chilly islands - if Isolde wanted to declare her loyalties, she'd do it at home in Sicily.

As she grows older, Isolde realises that she's not only unique, but beautiful. The other girls make envious comments about her high cheekbones, almond eyes, and elegant neck, and the boys become increasing awkward in her presence. Isolde tries to take all their comments gracefully, but she refuses the offers of private walks in the grounds or accompaniment to Hogsmeade. She's here for an education, not for romance, and her fellow students have the unappealing, sickly look of plants deprived of light.

As she boards the Hogwarts Express for the final time, Isolde looks back at the turrets and misty grounds of the school. It hasn't been unpleasant, but it will be good to go home - to feel the sun on her skin, to smell the citrus trees, to watch the waves lap on the beach. Perhaps she'll even meet a man.

Only a few months after receiving her Owl results - Exceeds Expectations in Potions and Charms, Acceptable in Transfigurations and Arithmancy - Isolde's father introduces her to Luca.

"He's a man of honour," her father says, his hand resting approvingly on Luca's shoulder.

Luca gives her a wide smile that Isolde can't help being charmed by.

"Delighted to meet you," he says, and the bass rumble of his voice sends a shiver of anticipation through her.

They spend the whole evening together, and as Luca steers her through a waltz, his hand curled warm into the hollow of her back, Isolde decides that this is a man she could marry. A month later, he proposes.

At first, everything goes to plan: they have beautiful wedding, and spend the whole honeymoon making love in the sunlight. Luca touches her gently, almost reverently, and smiles as he kisses his way down her body.

"Every part of you is beautiful," he tells her.

"Not my feet," Isolde says and laughs as he captures her ankle.

"Yes, even your feet," Luca says, dropping a kiss on her instep and she squeals.

Isolde soon learns that she's pregnant, and she gives birth to a beautiful son.

"Blaise," Luca says, beaming down at the baby in his arms. "We'll call him Blaise, after the saint."

With her family gathered proudly around, offering their prayers and well wishes for her and the baby, Isolde thinks that this must be what happily ever after feels like.

For a year, perhaps two, everything is perfect...and then her fairytale veers off track. Luca spends less and less time at home, and there's tension in the set of his mouth and the line of his shoulders. Both Isolde's father and brother behave the same as always, and the dissonance between their mood and her husband's creates a knot of anxiety in Isolde's chest.

She isn't certain that there's something wrong until the day she comes home early and hears Luca and one of her father's best clients talking in the dining room. As she tiptoes towards them a floorboard creaks beneath her foot, and by the time Isolde reaches the door to the room Luca is sitting alone.

"I thought I heard Giacomo," she says, frowning.

"Then you were mistaken," Luca snaps, turning away so that she can't read his expression.

There's only one reason for him to lie to her about it, and the thought of it makes her sick. This wasn't meant to happen! This was why she married a man introduced to her by her father, a man of honour. Why would Luca betray her father like this? Why would he risk her safety and Blaise's with dangerous games, and force her to make impossible choices?

That night, Isolde watches Blaise sleep, finding comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Perhaps, I don't need to tell daddy until I'm sure, she thinks. Until I have proof.

It never comes to that. A fortnight later, Luca doesn't come, and Isolde waits until an hour after they were due at their evening engagement before going without him. Apparating to the party alone makes her nervous, and Isolde has a horrible feeling that this won't be the last time she does it.

"Where is Luca?" her father demands, almost as soon as she arrives.

Isolde takes a deep breath. Her mouth is dry, and she wishes she'd left to get a drink before needing to do this.

"I don't know," she says, hearing the tremor in her voice. "He's... He hasn't been home much. I heard him with Giacomo, but he denied it. I think..."

She can't seem to make her tongue and lips form the words, but her father seems to have heard them anyway.

He bows his head slightly, mouth a thin line, and Isolde thinks that maybe this isn't much easier for him than it is for her.

"I'm sorry," he tells her.

Her father and his men leave the party early, and Luca doesn't come home that night. A few days later, his body washes up on the beach.


Two

She meets Alvise at a party in Venice. He is tall and silver-haired, with a patrician elegance that she finds instantly attractive. Most men back away when she mentions Blaise, but Alvise smiles and leans closer.

"With you for a mother, he must be a beautiful child."

"Yes," she says, smiling back at him. "Would you like to see a picture?"

Later that week they have a candlelit dinner on the waterfront, and he escorts her back to the hotel by his personal boat. Isolde was scheduled to return to Sicily at the end of the week, but she cancels her portkey. She spends the days exploring the churches and squares with Blaise toddling beside her, and the evenings with Alvise.

Venice seems to be a city of hidden treasures; soaring medieval mansions, a glittering labyrinth of canals and bridges, chocolatiers, glassmakers, and perfumers nestled away in narrow streets. It's not until later that Isolde remembers Venice is the city of masks.

She introduces her son to Alvise over gelato, and she sits Blaise on his lap and sees him smile down at Blaise with the expression of one who truly adores children. Luca was a fond but absent father, and she can already see that Alvise will be different.

At the end of her second week in Venice, Alvise proposes. They're sitting on his balcony overlooking the Grand Canal, the sky pink above them, and the diamond glitters from the velvet box in his hand - it couldn't be more romantic.

"Yes," Isolde says, smiling at him. "Yes, yes, yes."

Alvise kisses her hand, and then slides the engagement ring onto her finger. The diamond is twice the size of the one Luca gave her, but what else would she expect from a Venetian aristocrat?

The great and the good of Italy come to their wedding, and dozens of her family make the trip from Sicily. Isolde glances from Alvise to Blaise as she recites her vows in the soaring medieval church, and fully expects to live happily ever after.

Five months later, she returns from a shopping trip and hears Blaise screaming at the top of the stairs.

"No, I won't! No, daddy!"

She drops the shopping bags, and sprints up the stairs, kicking off her high heels as she runs. In the drawing room she finds Blaise cowering behind a chaise longue and Alvise clutching a pair of children's underpants.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing-" Alvise says defensively, backing away. "The child is hysterical!"

"What did he do to you?" Isolde asks Blaise.

Blaise hesitates for a moment, eyes wide and scared.

"Daddy touched me," he says, and chills run down Isolde's spine.

"He's lying!" Alvise says sharply.

"Where, darling?"

"M-m-my..." Blaise has never stammered before, but his eyes dart from her to Alvise, as though he daren't look away from the monster for too long. "My peepee, and m-m-"

"Get out!" Isolde says, turning to Alvise, whose eyes narrow.

"How dare you speak to me like that in my own house?"

"How dare you abuse my child!"

"Quiet!" Alvise orders, grabbing her arm with a hand like a vise. "I won't have you both screaming-"

"Get off me!" Isolde cries, her free hand scrabbling at his face. Alvise slaps her across the cheek with such force that she sees stars.

By the time Isolde can focus again, Alvise is moving towards Blaise, who is crouching behind the chaise and screaming at the top of his lungs.

She lunges for Alvise's legs, knocking him to the ground, and they crash onto the marble floor. Alvise's face contorts into a snarl, and he raises his arm again. Isolde turns her head to absorb the blow, holding on to him with all her strength. If only she had her wand! Stupidly, she dropped it with the shopping bags - she hadn't thought to need it, hadn't expected a threat in her own home.

"Mummy!" Blaise screeches, and Alvise struggles to get up.

"Don't touch him!" she shouts, tightening her grip on Alvise.

Alvise squirms in her arms, raising his arm to hit her again, and her hand slides over his throat.

"Bitch!" Alvise spits at her, and his fist hits her cheek with a crunch.

The pain sears through her face, but Isolde knows she can't let go - if he'll hurt her like this, what would he do to Blaise?

"You're no better than a whore," Alvise says, trying to push himself upright. Isolde's fingers clench around his windpipe.

Alvise chokes, and thrashes beneath her, and she holds on, summoning strength she didn't know she possesse. Blows rain down on her head, as Blaise howls and sobs, and Isolde presses her thumbs into the hollows of Alvise's throat and vows, you'll never touch him again.

She doesn't let go until Alvise's body goes limp beneath her, his face white and his neck a riot of bruises. Isolde can barely see from her left eye because of the swelling on her broken cheekbone, but somehow she can't feel the pain.

"My darling," she says, holding out her arms for Blaise, who runs into her embrace. "My brave, brave, darling. You're safe now."

Isolde Floos her mother from the grand marble fireplace in the hall, and they watch together as her father's people take Alvise's body away.

"You did the right thing," her mother says, stroking Blaise's hair. "I would have done the same for you."

Later, under her mother's protective eye, she Obliviates Blaise. It's too little, too late, but it's the best she can do.

The next day, her mother buys her a Pensieve.

"Use it," she says, kissing Isolde on the temple. "It'll help you sleep."

After a week of nightmares, Isolde summons the courage for the charm that will remove the memory of Alvise's death from her mind. She finds an empty perfume bottle, and with shaking hands directs the curling wisp of memory into it. Afterwards, she stoppers the bottle firmly and places it on the shelf.

Her mother meant well, but a Pensieve is for things one wants to examine or re-live. Isolde can't imagine ever wanting to see that scene again.


Three

It's almost five years before Isolde makes love to another man. She meets Davi while holidaying in Portugal, and there's something about taking a break from her ordinary life that enables Isolde to leave her everyday self behind. In Italy, she's the widow Zabini, dedicated and loving mother, but here she can just be a woman flirting with a good-looking deckhand.

Davi fucks her on the deck of a yacht at anchor, where her moans carry across the rippling water. They fuck on the beach, her knees buried in the sand as she rides him, and Davi's hands cupping her breasts. Finally, she trusts Davi enough to invite him to her hotel room, where he buries his face between her legs until she screams with pleasure, and only then does he slide inside her, pressing her to the mattress as her nails score lines down his back.

For the first time in her life, Isolde understands why people put so much emphasis on sex, because when the sex is this good there's no need for conversation.

"Come home with me," she says on impulse, while they're fucking in the shower, Davi's fingers slipping back and forth over her clit in time as he thrusts.

"Yes," he says, breathing the word against the back of her neck. "What man would choose to give you up?"

She waits until they are dry and clothed before telling him. "I have a son."

There's a long moment of silence, and Isolde watches his face closely. She's not sure what she's looking for exactly - too much enthusiasm or too little, anything amiss - but Davi just shrugs.

"It does not matter to me. I have brothers and sisters. I'm used to children."

Isolde releases a breath she hadn't realised she was holding.

"Okay, then," she says. "Do you want to...meet my family?"

Incredibly, Davi seems unconcerned by the dynamics of her extended family in Sicily, and with Blaise he behaves like an affectionate older brother. He's more alarmed by the revelation of her magic, but even this doesn't worry him for long.

"You don't mind?" Isolde asks, when she notices him staring as she conjures water into a glass at the bedside.

Davi shrugs, and says something in Portuguese that she doesn't understand.

"I don't know what you said."

"A woman as beautiful as you could only be magic," Davi translates.

Isolde puts down the glass and kisses him.

"I want you," she says.

"That's good, because I want you too," he murmurs, sliding a hand between her legs.

The wedding is small and Davi's family don't attend, because Muggle transport from Brazil is too expensive. For the first year of their marriage Isolde is blissfully happy, making love to Davi once - sometimes twice - a day, and watching fondly as Davi teaches Blaise to play football. Isolde thinks that perhaps she's finally found happily ever after.

It's too good to last, of course. Davi starts drinking too much, going to bars and casinos until late in the night, then stumbling home and waking her with his clumsy movements.

"Why do you have to do this?" Isolde demands, as he staggers across the bedroom one night.

"It's my choice," he says, slurring, and knocks the bedside table over with a crash.

"You'll wake Blaise!"

Davi mumbles something in Portuguese, and collapses onto the bed. Isolde doesn't understand the words, but the tone sounds like 'fuck off'.

"I'm starting to regret marrying him," she complains to Narcissa over the Floo the next day.

"Perhaps you shouldn't have married for the sex, then?" Narcissa replies. It's a rather less sympathetic response than Isolde had hoped for.

"And your political marriage was such a good idea?"

Narcissa makes a face. "It's fine. In a few years people will have forgotten the whole thing. Lucius makes generous donations to the right people, and that buys a lot of forgetfulness."

"What shall I do?" Isolde asks.

"If you regret the marriage, then get a divorce."

"It seems so...déclassé," Isolde says weakly.

"Then poison him. Potions were always your strong suit."

That night, as Isolde lies alone in bed, she ponders Narcissa's words. Divorce is something that happens to other people - people who don't have a family like hers - but she's not willing to poison Davi. Not yet, anyway. There has to be another way...

For Davi's twenty-first birthday, Isolde buys him a Ferrari. His joy at the gift is almost infectious, and Blaise begs to be taken for a ride in it.

"Get in!" Davi tells him, grinning.

"No, darling," Isolde interrupts, catching Blaise's elbow with her hand. "Not yet. Let's give Davi a chance to get used to the car first."

"I'm a good driver," Davi says, sounding hurt.

No, Isolde thinks, you're an aggressive driver. That's not the same at all.

"Of course you are, but the mountain roads are so treacherous," Isolde says calmly.

That night, she hears Davi roar away in the direction of the bar, and knows he'll be showing off the Ferrari to his drinking buddies. She wonders how he'll manage to drive home along the narrow, winding roads after a few drinks.

The Ferrari is less than a month old when Isolde is woken by a late night telephone call.

"I'm so sorry," the chief of police says. "Your husband has been involved in a fatal accident..."

"I heard about your husband's convenient - I mean regrettable - accident," says Narcissa dryly, several days later.

"It's a shame about the Ferrari," Isolde replies.

"Poison would certainly have been cheaper, but no doubt the car was insured."

"I don't think I could bear to replace it," Isolde tells her. "Perhaps I'll invest in a flat in Geneva, instead."

"I hear Geneva is an excellent place to find a husband," says Narcissa, and Isolde knows she's smirking.

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Isolde says innocently, and Narcissa laughs.


Four

She meets Lars at a gallery opening. He's tall and blonde, with the physique of an athlete and bronzed skin that speaks of hours on the ski slope or sailing on Lake Geneva. Isolde would have found him attractive even if she didn't know what his investments were worth.

Lars is more restrained than any of her previous lovers, so it takes Isolde six weeks to persuade him into bed, then almost a year before he proposes. For the first time, the engagement ring isn't a diamond, but she supposes that platinum set with sapphires is more in the Nordic style.

The marriage is elegant and understated, and they honeymoon in the Alps for a mere three days before Lars is called back to deal with a takeover.

"I'll make it up to you," he says, kissing her cheek.

"Of course," Isolde says, pasting on a smile. "I hope it goes well."

She returns to the flat in Geneva, and gives Blaise's nanny several days off.

Perhaps it's a cultural thing, or maybe it's just Lars's personality, but he's her most inattentive husband to date. He works late most nights, takes frequent business trips abroad, and Isolde quickly tires of his apologies and promises.

Isolde might forgive Lars for neglecting her, but he displays even less interest in Blaise's welfare.

"I don't know where would be best for him. I went to Hogwarts of course, but it's so dark and depressing there. Beauxbatons is closer. Do you think Durmstrang would suit him?"

"Whatever you think best," Lars says, without glancing up from the papers in his lap. "I really don't care."

"He's your son," Isolde says icily.

"No," says Lars, finally looking up. "He's your son. I never wanted a child."

The final straw is when Isolde opens her morning newspaper to find a photograph of Lars leaving a restaurant with a model dangling from his arm. The girl looks barely eighteen and is wearing a dress that leaves little to the imagination, and Lars's arm is curled round her waist.

It's all too easy to believe that Lars is fucking the girl - wrapping his hands around her hips and pushing her back onto expensive cotton sheets at one of the ski resorts he favours. Regardless of whether he's having an affair, or was simply photographed at a bad moment, Isolde knows that their marriage is effectively over.

She tosses the newspaper into the fire, and watches the picture of her husband and the laughing model crinkle, turn brown, and then burn away into ash. Then she pulls on her cloak, steps into the Floo, and pays discreet visits to several shops in the magical part of Geneva. It's been a long time since Isolde brewed a potion, but the skill comes back to her quickly and her hands are nimble as she manoeuvres the knife, and stirs the cauldron.

Three days later, the front page of her newspaper announces that her husband has been found dead of a suspected drug overdose. Isolde reads the article carefully, judging the nuance of every word, then tucks it away on the bookshelf and goes to wake Blaise for his breakfast.


Five

They move to London a month before Blaise is due to start at Hogwarts. There's no sense in organising an international portkey for every holiday, Isolde reasons, and she's been told that London is a wonderful place to live if you're rich. Most of Lars's wealth was in investments, which she directs the goblins at Gringotts to manage on her behalf, but there's more than enough in her bank account for Isolde to while away hours in Harrods, and buy Blaise whatever he wants in Diagon Alley.

Isolde still hates the cloudy skies and thin sunlight, but buys herself a fur-lined cloak and practices her atmospheric charms. In any case, most of her time is spend indoors as she renews old friendships from her time in Slytherin. When Narcissa and her son Draco come to lunch the boys take a liking to one another, and Isolde is glad to know that Blaise will have at least one friend on the Hogwarts Express.

After waving goodbye to Blaise on the platform at Kings Cross, the house in Kensington feels achingly empty. Without her son stomping up and down the stairs, or listening to Quidditch on the Wizarding Wireless, the house is too orderly and far too quiet. Isolde tries to personalise the place, but no amount of antique furniture or expensive vases makes her feel more at home.

"Perhaps you need another husband?" Narcissa suggests, glancing appraisingly at a Ming vase.

"Perhaps I do," Isolde agrees.

She meets Stephen at a donors event at the Royal Academy of Art. He's not as handsome as any of her previous lovers, but he's clever, charming in his own way, and seems to know almost everybody in the room. At the end of the night he presses his phone number and Owl details into her hand.

"I'd love to discuss this with you further," he says.

Isolde purses her lips and gives him a nonchalant shrug. "I'll think about it."

The next morning, she pays a visit to Malfoy Manor and asks Narcissa about him.

"He's very well-connected," Narcissa tells her approvingly, as the house elves pour their tea. "He knows the Muggle Prime Minister, and I'm told he's tipped for promotion. I don't know if there's much money to speak of, but you're not exactly short are you?"

"I get by," Isolde says, and Narcissa smiles.

"I think you should get to know him better," Narcissa advises, taking a sip of tea. "And I'll see what dirt I can dig up."

Isolde sends an Owl to Stephen that afternoon, and on Friday he takes her to lunch at Parliament.

"One of the few advantages of working here," he says, smiling crookedly and gesturing at rather impressive view from the window of the Strangers' Dining Room.

"Surely the power is fun?" Isolde asks, and Stephen blushes bright red.

"It, er, that is to say-"

There's a buzzing noise, and Stephen reaches quickly for a small, black device attached to his belt.

"Shit, I'm afraid I'll have to go in a moment. Will I see you again?"

"I think so," Isolde says, flashing him a smile. "Owl me."

"Done," he says, squeezing her hand on the tabletop, and gives her a rueful look as he hurries away.

Later that week, Narcissa drops by with gossip that explains Stephen's blush.

"I hear he's a pervert," Narcissa says, as Isolde is taking a sip of champagne, and she narrowly avoids spitting it over a very expensive woollen rug.

"What did you say?"

"Whipping, domination, crossdressing, you name it. Kink is his thing, apparently."

Isolde stares at her.

"You did ask," Narcissa says pointedly, sipping her own glass of champagne. "Better to know these things, I always think. Oh dear, have I put you off?"

"I'm not sure." Isolde says, imagining Stephen bent over a desk with his pinstriped trousers around his ankles and his arse pink. "It's unorthodox, but it might be...rather fun."

"Yes," replies Narcissa, fingers playing around the rim of her champagne flute. "I had a feeling you would say that."

Seven months later, Isolde and Stephen marry in a private civil ceremony with only two witnesses present. It's the first time Isolde hasn't held a party to celebrate her wedding, but Stephen insists in keeping things quiet.

"I can't mention magic at work - I mean, the PM knows, but he doesn't want to be reminded, and the Statute of Secrecy stops me telling anyone else. Without them knowing that, it would be hard to explain our relationship," he says when she asks. "I'm not ashamed of you, far from it, but it's better to keep some things private. You know what the media are like. I hope you understand."

"I understand," she assures him. "I like having you to myself."

It's not that her sex life before Stephen was boring, but there's far more variety now. Isolde is surprised how much she enjoys tying him up and slapping a ruler or leather strap across his thighs and arse cheeks. Buying new shoes is more than ever now that she gets to after watch Stephen lick them clean, and the way he sucks stiletto heels into his mouth is obscenely sexy.

Almost every week he brings home a new toy for them to try: a corset for her, suspenders for him, a rare book of ancient sexual spells, and a little box that generates an electrical current. Whatever she does to Stephen, he always wants more.

"Harder!" He rasps, as she tugs on the cord wrapped around his neck.

She jerks it a little harder, and his cock seems to swell inside her. Isolde rocks over him, and savours the sight of Stephen bound and begging. The dynamic between them seems so obvious and natural that it's hard to understand why she didn't marry a masochist earlier.

"Again," he gasps, as his face starts to turn blue.

In retrospect, it was inevitable that things would go too far - that she would choke him too much and mistake his shudders for pleasure, instead of desperation. It's difficult to hold back with a partner who constantly craves more intensity and danger. Most of all, Isolde finds it hard to restrain herself when she's beginning to tire of Stephen already, and has chosen an elegant black dress suitable for a funeral.

Isolde has had plenty of practice being a widow, but she's never before had to dispose of a dead husband wearing nothing but suspenders. Unfortunately, she doesn't think a friend of the Muggle Prime Minister can simply go missing - people would ask questions, and it's just possible they would find the answers. No, she needs a solution that will leave people reluctant to look closer.

Isolde pulls out her wand and meticulously casts the cleaning charms to remove every trace of her from Stephen's body. Then she grasps of his wrist, Apparates into Stephen's flat in Westminster, and positions his body on the bed. The electrical cord is still wrapped around his throat, with a flick of her wand Isolde drops the end of the cord into Stephen's hand.

To anyone entering the room, it looks like a tragic scene of autoerotic asphyxiation gone awry. Stephen is known to have a predilection for kink, but his marriage to Isolde is a secret. There's no reason for the Muggle police to be suspicious.

For the next week, the scandalous death of a government MP is all over the news. Isolde half-expects to find Rita Skeeter on her doorstep, but when she mentions this to Narcissa her friend looks amused.

"She knows better to than to poke her nose into this."

"Because she doesn't want to know?" Isolde asks hopefully.

"Because she knows already," says Narcissa, with a smirk. "My dear, who do you think told me that he was a pervert?"

The image of Rita Skeeter abusing and fucking her dead husband isn't one that Isolde particularly wants in her mind. She narrows her eyes at Narcissa, who laughs.

"You're very squeamish for a murderess."

"Never say that outside this house!"

"Of course not," Narcissa says, waving her hand carelessly. "Your secrets are safe with me. They're the least of what I'm concealing from the Ministry."

Later that night, Isolde takes an empty perfume vial and murmurs the now-familiar charm to remove her memory of Stephen's death and direct it into the flask. She stoppers the perfume bottle, and places it on the shelf beside the others - a collection just as neat and orderly as the row of engagement and wedding rings in her jewellery box.


Six

After having five husbands die in as many years, Isolde is aware that she's become notorious.

"You're that murderess!" a woman shouts at her in the street. "What d'ya do, Imperius them all?"

"My dear," Isolde says, with a smile. "If you were as beautiful as me then you'd know I don't need to."

The woman's face twists with anger, and Isolde walks away. That very night she meets her next husband.

Isolde is never certain what Roger does for a living, because he only describes it as "property, very dull I'm afraid", but it's obviously lucrative. He takes her to dinner in the best restaurants in London, and invites her and Blaise to spend the summer holiday on his private island in the Caribbean.

It's been over a year since Isolde felt sun warming her body, and she jumps at the offer. Blaise spends his summer swimming, learning to sail, and staring curiously at the diricawls that wander around the island. Isolde passes the time stretched out in the sun, drinking rum cocktails, and fucking Roger.

Compared to Davi or Stephen, her sex life with Roger is sorely wanting, but Isolde has grown more pragmatic with age. Outside fairytales, there isn't a happily ever after, and there are always compromises. Having bad sex on a private island with soft, white beaches, clear skies and warm blue sea are compromises she's willing to make.

As the summer draws to a close, Isolde finishes her cocktail one evening and finds an engagement ring glinting at the bottom of her glass.

"I - I don't know what to say."

"You'll accept, I hope?" Roger says, entwining his fingers with hers on the tabletop.

"Do you have to do this in front of me?" Blaise protests.

On one hand, boring sex; one the other hand, a private Caribbean island. Isolde wavers for a moment, and then pragmatism wins out. Ever since she left Sicily, Isolde has been craving a place in the sun.

"Yes," she says, leaning across the table to kiss Roger.

"Eugh, mum!"

"Have some manners, Blaise," she tells him and Blaise pulls a face.

"Congratulations, then," he says, sounding bored. "May I be excused?"

"Yes, go on," she says, shooting Blaise a reproving look.

"Does he mind?" Roger asks, frowning, and Isolde turns back to him.

"He's a teenager," she says. "He'll complain about anything his mother does, but he knows I have his best interests at heart."

Roger looks relieved, and then the look comes over his face that suggests more dull sex is in the offing.

"So we have the evening to ourselves..."

"Yes," Isolde says, trying to summon some enthusiasm. "I suppose we do."

She puts up with two full years of tedious, lumpen sex with Roger, until the mere sight of his pale, flabby body makes her feel ill. There's only so many times she can claim to have a headache, and divorce would mean giving up the island, which only leaves one option. It's shocking to realise how natural murder has become to her now - something as predictable and necessary as planning Christmas presents.

Isolde waits until Blaise goes back to Hogwarts in September, and then takes the electrical device Stephen bought out of its box. The safety instructions are still clear in her head: never run the electrical current through the chest or torso, because it could stop your partner's heart.

Roger is sprawled in the centre of their bed, snoring slightly. Carefully, so as not to wake him, Isolde attaches one of the leads to Roger's left arm and the other to his right. She sets the electrical current to maximum, and then flips the switch to 'on'.

She and Stephen used the electrical device together, so Isolde is familiar with the sensation of electricity tingling over her skin. Now, she can't help wondering how Roger feels as the current crackles through him.

His eyes are wide, mouth gasping like a fish, and Isolde reflects that he's just as unattractive when dying as he was when fucking. Calmly, she waits until he has finished shuddering and then turns the device off. She checks that he has no pulse, then casts a spell to be certain, and feels the quiet satisfaction of a job well done.

Isolde puts the electrical device back into its box and then goes downstairs to the study. She slides the box into a desk drawer amidst a set of Muggle electronic devices the Aurors will never understand, and picks up a glass vial. Calmly and efficiently, Isolde extracts the memory of tonight from her head, directs it into a perfume flash, and sets it on the shelf.

Then she goes back upstairs, pulls her dressing gown more tightly around her, and sends an urgent message to St Mungos. Within thirty minutes Roger has been pronounced dead.

The attending Healer gives her a sympathetic look as he says "a heart attack, I'm afraid. It's not unusual at his age and, er, physique."

I never realised Isolde thinks as the Healers take her husband's corpse away, that fat men were easier to murder.


Seven

Isolde marries Christopher out of sheer force of habit. Life wouldn't be full without the cocktail parties and opening nights, and there's never a shortage of rich men looking for beautiful women to fuck. Many of the women at these events are half her age, but Isolde has confidence, couture, excellent bone structure, and she suspects that some of these foolish old men find her 'exotic'. She has no real desire to share her life with someone, but she's Slytherin enough to take advantage of any chances that come her way.

Christopher isn't much older than her, but he made a fortune on something she doesn't understand in some place called 'Silicon Valley'. He has a tan, sparkling white teeth, and spends an hour each day in the gym honing a rather impressive set of muscles. Whatever flaws he'll turn out to have - and all her husbands do seem to have them - at least she has no reservations about fucking him.

They fuck in his sports car, rocking together on expensive leather seats, and on the balcony of his flat in Canary Wharf, where the London skyline stretches out beneath them. Sometimes he fucks her ass, pressing in slow and slick, whispering filthy words into her ear as Isolde gasps and arches back against him.

"Can you come for me again?" Christopher murmurs, rolling her clit between his fingers as he thrusts slowly in and out of her ass.

"No - I - too much," Isolde pants, hands scrabbling on the countertop.

"I bet you can," he insists, thrusting deeper. "I want to feel your ass clenching around me. Come on, just one more..."

Unfortunately, his curiosity extends beyond the bedroom.

"What's in there?" he asks, eying the collection of perfume flasks on her shelf.

"I could tell you," Isolde says lightly. "But then I'd have to kill you."

He smiles fondly at her, and wraps an arm round her shoulders.

"That's what I love about you, darling. You're so dramatic."

The next day, Isolde moves her collection of perfume flasks. It seems a shame to put them away, out of sight, because it's a collection she's grown strangely fond of over the years.

Six ornate, glittering glass bottles, each containing her memory of a dead husband: officially identifying Luca's swollen, drowned corpse; strangling Alvise; the charred heap of Davi's Ferrari; Lars's body at the postmortem; riding Stephen's cock as he choked; Roger's body shuddering as the current stopped his heart. A decade ago, Isolde never expected to watch those memories again, but now she's lost count of the times she's tipped one or other of the bottles into the Pensieve.

Some nights, the only way to believe that she and Blaise are safe from Alvise is to watch herself kill him. At other times, she watches herself fucking Stephen to death for the sheer eroticism of the scene. Occasionally, she watches them all, one after another, to relive the sheer thrill of having someone's life in her hands. Isolde isn't sure how she turned into someone who gets a kick out of murder, but she knows it has to be kept a secret.

Carefully, she places the perfume bottles into a heavy wooden cabinet, locks the door, and places the key in her desk drawer. If Christopher has any sense, then he'll leave the subject alone.

A month later, Isolde walks into the study and finds Christopher bent over her Pensieve with a perfume bottle in his hand. His mouth is open, eyes wide and shocked, but he doesn't seem to have heard her enter.

Isolde has carried her wand for every waking moment since finding Blaise screaming and hiding from Alvise. Now, she instinctively raises her wand, and then stops.

If Christopher doesn't know she's here, then she has time to do this properly. There's no point in committing a clumsy murder, when she could derive satisfaction from a clean, efficient one.

Isolde tucks her wand back into her pocket, slides open the top drawer of her desk, and takes out her spare wand. It's for moments like these that her family has spare wands made - wands that no official wandmaker has recorded and no government will ever trace.

"Avada Kedavra!"

There is a flash of green light, and Christopher crumples to the floor.

Isolde walks over to him, checks that there's no pulse, and then painstakingly collects her memories back into their glass vials. She retrieves the key from Christopher's hand, locks the cabinet, and deposits another memory into the Pensieve - an innocent memory, of the first night they spent together.

One of the advantages of buying a house from a Russian oligarch is that it comes with excellent security, and Isolde makes use of that now. With a flick of her wand the carpet rolls back, and she kneels to touch her wand-tip to one of the floorboards, murmuring her password. The safe concealed beneath the floor flips open, and Isolde places the glass vials and her spare wand in it.

When the floorboards and carpet have slid smoothly back into place Isolde counts to a hundred, adopts a suitably shocked expression, and then Floos the Aurors.


Epilogue

The Auror who knocks at the door is tall and handsome, and Isolde reflects that she's never yet married a man in uniform.

"Mrs Zabini?" he says in a low, smooth voice. "I am Auror Shacklebolt. I'm here to question you about your husband's death."

"It's nice to meet you, Auror Shacklebolt," Isolde says, extending her hand.

The Auror doesn't hesitate about shaking her hand, and Isolde leans in just slightly, enough for him to glance a flash of her cleavage as she says, "You can call me Isolde."