Do newer fans not realize that Bellamort absolutely existed prior to Cursed Child? I first read the books in 2008 and immediately suspected there was something going on between them. And when those suspicions morphed into me actively shipping them and I went looking for like-minded people on the internet, I found plenty. There were lots of fics and fan art and people pointing out the same things I’d noticed—Voldemort rescuing Bella at the end of OOTP at great personal cost, his reaction to her death, her “longing for closeness” and speaking to him “as if to a lover,” him calling her “Bella” even when angry with her, her faith that he would return and proud declaration of her loyalty at her trial, him being “the happiest he’d been in fourteen years” after reuniting with her, practically everything Bellatrix says at Spinner’s End, etc.