Written for the Pairing of the Week Drabble Challenge, for Bellatrix/Voldemort. Word Count: 654.


she's fifteen when she meets him first, the dark, mysterious man that her parents so often discuss, when he obliges to introduce himself to the daughters of his faithful Blacks. He's in is forties, old to someone of her age, with a face marred by conspicuous scars and abnormalities: the pale ivory-grey colour of his skin, the raised red lines across the back of his neck, the eyes that flash scarlet at the right angle. Unsightly, however, he is not; exceedingly handsome, the wizard retains an ironically boyish quality that seems inappropriate for a man leading a revolution and puts forth an air of gladly received contradiction that makes a young Bellatrix Black want to know him, to understand the inconsistencies and ideals.

[she adores him for showing her power; she despises him for not inviting her to share it with him]

she's eighteen, fresh out of Hogwarts, when he arrives unexpectedly at Bellatrix's wedding to Rodolphus. He was sent an invitation, naturally, but it was only a formality, so the Blacks wouldn't be punished for implying that their Lord was unimportant to them; neither Cygnus nor Druella, and certainly not Bellatrix herself, expected him to be there. Although the Dark Lord never attempts to make conversation with her, she can't help but feel that he is telling her something – that she is somehow special.

[she worships him for putting people in their rightful places; she loathes him for not putting her with him]

she's twenty-one when she begins to get more and more involved in the Death Eater movement, and the powerful, contradictory man seems more and more pleased, cumulating on a stormy afternoon when he tells her to stay back after a meeting of his followers and, after the last Death Eater leaves and the boomof the closing double doors rings out in the hall, grabs her waist and pulls her to him. She reacts immediately with equal fervor, kissing his lips, his neck, his face, not caring or even thinking about why he's expressing this sudden, never-before-seen rapture. Bellatrix becomes more immersed in his cause than ever, disregarding her husband, who's probably having his own affair; theirs was a marriage of convenience. The Dark Lord responds to her devotion with increasing passion, teaching her to love more than detached parents and a listless husband ever would.

[she glorifies him for his magnitude; she abhors him for keeping her in the dark, for not loving her enough to tell her his ideas]

she is twenty-seven when his most trusted confidante is killed. Bellatrix ascends to that position in fervent hope that he will command her and her husband to terminate their marriage so that she and he may be together. Instead, his amorousness all but disappears, and he acts as if they are nothing but business partners. Bellatrix is left without any explanation and a hunger to be the recipient of that adulterous passion once more.

[she is captivated by him; she detests him]

she is twenty-eight when she realizes that his undying love for her was little more than a strategy, a tactic, a way to recruit an idolizing new Death Eater to join his ranks. But this realization does nothing to decrease Bellatrix's infatuation with the man; on the contrary, it only makes her itch to prove herself, to help him understand that she could in fact be the woman he could love.

but she'll never be; her Dark Lord was never taught to love, and nor was she, until he pretended to lust after her, unknowingly teaching her to feel, to care. He will never love her or anyone else, and she loathes him for making her so weak, for bringing her down to the level of the rest of the world, for allowing her to fall in love with him when he could never feel love himself.

[love is a learned emotion - but so is hate]