A/N: Written for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry February Event The New Year's Zodiac Writing Challenge (Snake, prompt #2: Write about any major Slytherin character. Include 'fire' in your story.)

WC: 500


Bellatrix's arms and legs were in shackles. She felt a chill in her bones and in her heart from the Dementors that guarded the place that was to be her new home. Still, she walked into Azkaban with her head held high.

She was proud of herself. Even after the Dark Lord's downfall, she remained loyal to him. She didn't turn tail and run, like her brother-in-law Lucius. She knew that one day her master would return for her. And when he did, her loyalty would be rewarded ten-fold.

So Bellatrix sat in quietly in her cell. She refused to cry out for her mother, the way Barty Crouch did. She wouldn't let the Dementors break her. At least, that's what she told herself.

By the end of the first week, she had started having nightmares of her beloved Dark Lord dying. She would wake up in a cold sweat, telling herself it was just the Dementors preying on her worst fear, that he could never die.

By the end of the second week, she'd started talking to herself. Pleasant little things, like what she was going to do to all the Muggles and Mudbloods once the Dark Lord came for her.

By the end of the third week, some of her hair had started to fall out. She wasn't sure if it was from stress and fear, or because she'd began pulling it out. Possibly a combination of both.

By the end of the fourth week, she'd stopped noticing the Dementors at all. They'd faded into the background, become just a part of everyday life.

By the end of the 780th week, the Dark Lord had persuaded the Dementors to allow Bellatrix and her husband – she'd forgotten she had a husband – to escape from the prison. And Bellatrix was reunited with her master.

Slowly, Bellatrix recovered from the toll Azkaban had taken on her. With every Muggle life she took, every Mudblood and Muggle-sympathizer she slaughtered, she felt herself getting stronger. Her greatest source of strength came when she killed that traitor to the Black family name, her cousin Sirius.

And when she got to witness the death of the 'great' Albus Dumbledore, the person everyone said the Dark Lord had always feared, Bellatrix felt a joy she hadn't felt in a long time. As she set fire to the grounds of the school that Dumbledore had loved so much, she felt like a child again. It was as if all the years in Azkaban had never happened.

With the Dark Lord's rise in power came Bellatrix's own rise in his inner-circle. She'd been right about him rewarding her for her loyalty.

But then came the downfall. First her own, at the hands of Molly Weasley of all people. Bellatrix never would have seen that one coming. And then came the Dark Lord's, shortly afterwards.

Perhaps it was best Bellatrix didn't survive the Battle of Hogwarts. If she had witnessed her master's demise, it would have broken her heart.