Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I don't.

Devotion

By Abigail M. Brickler

Setting: Summer before Harry's 6th Year…

"You've been quiet all evening," Bellatrix Lestrange remarked to her husband Rodolphus, after the two of them Disapparated back to Malfoy Manor from the Great Hangleton Cemetery after yet another Death Eater meeting.

Rodolphus did not respond right away. He was wondering how to say what he'd been wanting to say. He knew he had to exercise self-control about it. He didn't want to have it all just explode inside of him and come bursting out of his mouth. He wanted his words to be thought out.

How to bring it up? How?

"Rodolphus, you're normally quite outspoken during meetings—almost as much as I am," said Bellatrix. "What's going on with you?"

"You keep telling the Dark Lord you would have done anything to find him—to get back to him, restore him to power—but Azkaban prevented you. It kept you away…" said Rodolphus.

"Yes…" said Bellatrix slowly. "So what, then?"

"Your devotion…" Rodolphus murmured in a sad, quiet voice, not meeting her dark, heavy-lidded eyes.

"My what?" asked Bellatrix.

"Your devotion—your devotion to the Dark Lord! Sometimes I wonder if you—" Rodolphus broke off, afraid to keep talking.

"Wonder if I what?" Bellatrix inquired.

Rodolphus hesitated, wondering how on earth he was going to verbalize what had been running through his mind—what'd been haunting and constantly ragging on him for years.

"Rodolphus, what?" Bellatrix reiterated.

Rodolphus sighed and placed both of his hands gently on the sides of her face, looking directly into her eyes.

"Bella," he spoke softly.

Bellatrix met his gaze.

"What?" she asked him.

"I need you to tell me that I have never been in competition with the Dark Lord for you—or that I have been. I just need to know either way. You are just so devoted to him, and I need to know how far that goes," Rodolphus confessed.

"Have you asked this of Alecto Carrow? Do you think that, as a woman, she must be a Death Eater because she is madly and blindly in love with the Dark Lord? You have not. I know you have not. Yet you ask it of me—you ask it of your own wife! 'Bellatrix just must have joined the Death Eaters because she lusts after the Dark Lord! She hopes to find herself in bed with him! It's not that he stands for everything she believes in and allows her a means of being the activist that she wants to be—not that he gives her an easy method for acting on her beliefs, a simple way to dedicate her life to the cause of the Dark Order! No—she just wishes herself his whore! Or perhaps she is his whore! How dare you!" Bellatrix found herself shouting lividly at him. "You dare think that of your own wife! How about I stay at home and live like some lowly domestic servant? Would that make you happy? I feel nothing for him, Rodolphus! Nothing at all! Drug me with Veritaserum if you must, but I assure you, you will get the same answer! I love you, Rodolphus, and the fact that you believe otherwise is disgusting! I have dedicated my life to promoting and restoring the power of the Dark Order, and belonging to the Death Eaters makes me able to act on that dedication, to be the activist that I have always wanted to be! I don't believe this! My own husband—my own husband—thinks so lowly of me! How dare you!"

She then paused, breathing heavily and glaring furiously at Rodolphus.

"And it was you—you—who pointed out that we are a package deal—that everything we have been through, we have been through together," she went on very edgily, trying very hard to prevent another irate outburst. "You told me that you are drawn to me, that you love me. I wholeheartedly trust you, assuming that you trust me, as well and to the same degree. Can you only feel jealousy and paranoia when it comes to me? Can you only wonder if I am pretending to be faithful to you whilst I sneak out and make love to the Dark Lord when you least expect it? It's called wanting power and being able to do what you want, Rodolphus! The Dark Lord has power beyond reckoning, and he has influence. Come on—can't you see how serving someone like that serves me? All my fellow Death Eaters want what I want, do you not? The Dark Lord's cause is our cause, his victims become our victims, his power and glory become our power and glory! He stands for what I believe in, so why not have him as a leader? The Death Eater cause is to fight for the domination of the Dark Order! That is something anyone who joins the Death Eaters believes in, that's why they join! And that includes me! Like every other Death Eater, Voldemort is giving me the means to act upon my beliefs, the means to be the Dark Side activist that I want to be, the power and glory that I want! I am no different than you or Yaxley or Amycus Carrow or any other Death Eater! Their reason for entering the Dark Lord's service is the same as mine! Hopefully you believe me because I truly do not know how much clearer I can be! So that's it…I really don't know what else to say to you…"

She ended with a heavy sigh.

Rodolphus felt completely overwhelmed by guilt. What on earth was he supposed to say in response to that? She was right—everything she said was absolutely, one hundred percent true. He knew that she had been faithful to him all along. She had been true, and it should not have taken her going completely off on him to get him to trust her and believe that. For once in his life, Rodolphus could honestly say that he felt guilty and regretted something he'd done. How in the world was he supposed to reply to such powerful and true words? He would have to at some point and soon. The two of them couldn't just stand there in horrendously awkward silence forever.

"I am so sorry," he finally said. "I am so sorry to have made you feel that way. Forgive me, Bella, please. I have never believed you were something like the Dark Lord's whore. I never believed that. I just got insanely jealous, which caused me to misconstrue your perception of the Dark Lord. I was wrong to insinuate that you love him."

"Damn right you were!" Bellatrix asserted.

"I've been such a bastard, I know. Do you know what? There are only two things I care about: Dark Side activism and you—most importantly you. I was so damn wrong to think that I was losing you or had lost you or never even had you to begin with. I'm just sorry, and I really, truly hope that I will someday earn your forgiveness," Rodolphus said.

"You are half wrong," Bellatrix then said. "The only man I've ever loved is you, but I know that I often let my Death Eater duties take precedence over you, so you have the right to feel cast aside but certainly not jealous."

"What made you choose me?" Rodolphus asked out of curiosity. "You had other suitors."

"Yes," said Bellatrix contemptuously. "Gulliver Sewlyn, Octavius Yaxley, and Boethius Borgin. And the only ting even remotely attractive about them is that they're all pure-bloods. Other than that, Octavius Yaxley is as tall, idiotic, and bumbling as his brother; Gulliver Sewlyn is as magically adept as a Squib, and Boethius Borgin was a lying, underhanded bastard who was hoping to help his father's business to greater prominence by attaching himself to the Black family. Well—you know what I do to people who try to deceive me—people who think I don't know it right away when they're lying to my face."

Rodolphus couldn't conceal a smirk as he caught onto her allusion to her torture of the Longbottoms.

Bellatrix continued.

"I will admit I was happy that you finally expressed interest in me. During our Hogwarts years, I would steal a glance in your direction every now and then, whether it was in class or from all the way across the Slytherin common room, but I couldn't catch your eye. That made me assume that you were too idiotic to notice what was right in front of you, so I abandoned what I believed to be the stupid and foolish hope that you would pursue me," she said.

"Bellatrix, I would try to catch your eye, too, try to see if I could tell by your expression whether or not it would be a waste of time to pursue you. We did make eye contact a few times, though, remember?" Rodolphus said.

"Yes, I do, now that you mention it," said Bellatrix.

"And, unfortunately, we didn't see one another for a few years. But then I decided to join the Death Eaters. And when I arrived at the Great Hangleton Cemetery, who just happens to be there? Bellatrix Black, the beautiful, noble pure-blood woman who I'd set my sights on. I wondered if you remembered me because I realized that I was still attracted to you. I hoped you did, so I decided to talk to you," said Rodolphus.

"It was nice to see you, you know, as I thought I probably never would ever again. And you were being ridiculous—of course I remembered you. I was glad that we met up again because I never forgot you."

"Nor I you."

"You crossed my mind every now and then, and I wondered whether I'd ever see you again. Narcissa was already engaged to Lucius and living at Malfoy Manor with him, and my revolting, disowned other sister had recently become dead to the whole family by eloping with some filthy, contaminated Mudblood. I felt left out, I'll admit. I'd been wondering if I would ever find a well-bred, respectable pure-blood man that I loved and could marry. I refused point-blank to marry a relative or someone far too old or too young for me, I didn't want to be alone, and Sewlyn, Yaxley, and Borgin neither impressed nor deserved me. I had started to fear that I would never find someone and be forced to die a spinster because none of the pure-blood men I knew satisfied me. And since marrying far below me to some filthy, contaminated non pure-blood was not an option, I figured I would have to be alone. But then I showed up at the Death Eater recruitment meeting— and there you were. And we talked, and I realized how much we have in common. And I realized that I was still drawn to you. I felt even more drawn to you after that meeting, after we talked," Bellatrix said.

"And our relationship grew," Rodolphus said.

"And I'd found my partner for life—pure-blooded, intelligent, extremely similar to me, very attractive. I was set," Bellatrix said.

"I was, too. And everything you just said you see in me, I see in you. And as an added bonus, Cygnus and Druella approved of me," Rodolphus said, referring to his in-laws, Bellatrix's parents. "I love you, Bellatrix."

"I love you, Rodolphus," Bellatrix responded.

Each placed a hand on the other's neck, and they kissed.

THE END