Author's notes: I wrote this fic two years ago, and I figured I might as well post it. If Bellatrix seems out of character, I was going for borderline tendencies, which didn't really come across. Title and lyrics from the Rolling Stones' song You Can't Always Get What You Want.
I saw her today at the reception, a glass of red wine in her hand.
It was the wedding of the year.
He felt his parents' eyes on him the entire time, watching him and waiting for him to slip up like he had at the Smiths' boating party.
He downed a glass of wine and tried to ignore them.
He didn't hold alcohol well.
He didn't have enough time to make it to the bathroom.
He vomited in an armchair in the library.
He panicked.
And then he shrugged and turned over the cushion.
It was just too bad that he wasn't going to be around to see Lucius Malfoy's face when he sat in it. Or smelt it.
"What're you doing?"
Bellatrix Black stood in the doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. Her grey eyes, under hooded lids and long lashes, were narrowed.
"Oh. You know. Just vomiting in armchairs."
The thought crossed his befuddled mind that he'd done it – he'd slipped up – and he expected his parents to storm into the room, armed with lectures and threats.
And then she smiled.
It was small and slightly sadistic, but it was a smile.
And he found that he didn't care whether or not his parents disowned him.
Because they wouldn't.
She needed someone to get drunk with and to talk to.
He'd do.
She sat down on a black, leather sofa.
She removed her shoes and her silk stockings and tucked her feet underneath her.
She uncorked the bottle of wine and poured it into the two glasses.
"I don't hold alcohol well."
But he took the glass of wine that she offered him.
"I hate weddings. I hate this wedding. Fucking Narcissa. Fucking Lucius. And fucking pastels – she chose mint green on purpose, I know she did," she ranted.
"Of course she did. You can't have been her maid of honor in black."
He was lightheaded.
He was drunk.
That was it.
It wasn't because the neck of her mint-green dress was drooping.
It wasn't because her leg was touching his.
It wasn't because the glass of wine in her hand was the colour of her lips.
He wasn't even thinking about her lips.
"First Andromeda abandoned me. Now Narcissa abandoned me," she said.
"They didn't abandon you," he slurred, gesturing with his glass and spilling his wine on the upholstery; "They got married."
"Like I said."
He was thinking about her lips.
"There's Beatrix. But I can't be friends with a girl named Beatrix. Not when my names's Bellatrix. And Judith and Lucretia aren't my friends. They're my sidekicks."
"What about what's-his-name?"
"Rodolphus?"
"Yeah."
"What about him?"
"You've got him."
"Yeah. And he's an idiot."
"Yeah."
He wanted to kiss her.
He was going to kiss her.
He was going to vomit.
She lifted up the bearskin rug and he vomited on the hardwood floor.
"My parents are going to kill me."
"'Cause of this?"
"And 'cause of what I did at the Smiths' boating party."
"Oh. That. That was in all of the papers."
"Yeah."
"But it wasn't that bad."
"Yeah?"
"You only capsized your boat."
"Yeah."
"And Azelma Smith's boat. A ninety-nine-year-old woman. The matriarch of the Smith family. The heir of Helga Hufflepuff."
"Yeah."
"And she almost drowned."
The bottle of wine was empty.
"I won't tell."
"And I won't tell."
"Tell what?"
"That you're human."
"Let's dance."
They swayed to the music that drifted to them from the ballroom.
He kissed her.
He tasted like vomit and wine.
It was gross.
And not at all romantic.
But she didn't care. Much.
"You're drunk, right? You're going to forget this, right?"
"Yeah."
And he did.
He met up with Sirius, who told him about a girl he'd snogged in the garden.
He went home with his parents.
Shit, he was tired.
He didn't have enough energy to make it to his bed.
Or to his room.
He fell asleep in the corridor.
When Ninny woke him up the next morning, he had a hangover, a headache, and no idea why.
His parents read The Owl over breakfast.
They said thank Merlin that he hadn't done anything to get himself in it.
Two months later, Luclus and Narcissa Malfoy returned from their honeymoon.
Narcissa went to take a bath.
Lucius went to unwind with a glass of whiskey in the library.
He sniffed.
Was that vomit?
It was. In his armchair. Who the bloody hell had vomited in his armchair?
And under his bearskin rug?
And spilt wine on his sofa?
(He was beginning to regret having brought the house-elf on the trip.)