Author's Notes: Written as a birthday present for the incomparable Mrs Bella Riddle. I hope you like it, darling!
)O(
Bellatrix's first murder was not as clean as she had expected it to be.
She had seen people kill before – the Dark Lord had allowed her to accompany him on missions, and allowed her to accompany Rodolphus, and she had seen the manners in which both of them disposed of victims. Quick slashes of their wands, and whoever they had sent the spell at would crumple to the ground in a silent heap and that would be the end. Bellatrix had thought it looked so easy.
Her first time had not been so easy.
Perhaps she had not moved quickly enough – perhaps she would have been saved the trouble if she had cast her spell just a little sooner – but her victim caught sight of her before she could whisper "Avada Kedavra", and he dodged out of sight behind a rubbish bin before she even had her wand raised.
And Bellatrix knew how to deal with targets who were hiding, of course.
She shot a single spell at the bin and it exploded, and that was the end of her victim.
But it was a much messier death than she would have liked.
She darted towards the wreckage, chest heaving as she drew deep, sharp breaths, and she looked down at the man who she had shot the spell at. He laid on the ground, clutching a wound in his chest where a shard of metal from the bin had buried itself in his chest, and Bellatrix found herself breathless, leaning over him with interest as the light faded from his eyes. She felt a little sickened, but not so sick that she could look away.
Bellatrix found herself dizzied by the sight of the dying man. She knelt beside him and touched the wound and he shuddered beneath her hand before he lay limp. There was an incredible sense of power in laying her hand upon a dying man – as if she might hold, for a moment, the power of life and death over him.
When she went back to the Dark Lord, she was still reeling with the memory of that power. She felt half-unreal, wandering into his study as he had told her to do when she had finished.
He was sitting at his desk, engrossed in a sheaf of parchments, and he looked quite stunned when Bellatrix stepped in and closed the door behind her.
"Why are you covered in blood?" he asked sharply.
Bellatrix looked down at herself, feeling a little chill run down her spine. She hadn't realized how much blood the man had spilled on her, but the whole front of her dress – which had been dark grey when she had set out – was stained dark, slick crimson, and it dripped onto the floor. She looked up at her master, and she wondered if she looked as bemused as she felt.
"I… I killed him, my Lord." Her voice didn't sound like her own. She sounded surprised at herself. "It was… bloodier than I thought…"
The Dark Lord raised a hand and brushed the blood from Bellatrix's cheek. She blushed a little at the gesture of tenderness.
"You look lovely," he murmured, and Bellatrix thought that she registered the slightest twinge of emotion in his voice, the slightest catch of… what? Desire? No, though it was almost that. Affection? Perhaps, though she thought that she knew the Dark Lord well enough to know that he did not feel affection.
"I look lovely when I'm spattered in blood?" She wiped another drop from her cheek, watching him carefully to register his reaction. Would he say no, you look lovely as always, or would he say yes, it shows your strength as a Death Eater? She could not imagine him saying the former, but if he meant the latter, then you look lovely seemed a strange choice of words.
"Yes. Spattered in blood." His eyes fixed on the trails of crimson running down her cheek and Bellatrix shivered a little under his stare.
"And I think, Bella," he said, and a fresh chill ran through her at his use of her pet name, "you would look even lovelier drenched in your own blood for me."
)O(
Fin