A/N: Back again, and pretty quickly might I add. Must be the holidays. Okay so this is something that's been playing on my mind for a while. This is set in the First Wizarding War. This is also set in my own Potter-verse so there are a few of my head canons thrown in here but, who knows? You might like 'em. Reviews are greatly appreciated so I am totally okay with you just taking a little bit of time to tell me what you think.

Warnings: Mention of miscarriage.

Disclaimer: I still don't own any recognisable characters or places. Juts playing around in JK's vast, magical sandbox.


She stood at the bottom of the steps to the Town Hall, chin lifted slightly to the air. Her eyes were closed and a gentle smile played at her lips. Bellatrix was beautiful in serenity. The long, dark curls fell to her lower back, a strand or two flying gracefully across her face. She was at peace. And that, by no means, meant that the rest of the world was.

A small village, North of Stornoway, burnt auburn and black against the night. Great dark clouds of smoke billowed into the sky and fire surrounded Bellatrix.

Rodolphus looked around at the destruction and chaos that circled him, realising how many muggles and muggle-borns were dying in those houses. No one was dying in the one on the corner across the street from him, he knew. Bellatrix had seen to their painful deaths already. He looked at her from across the Town Square, finding himself okay with anything that might have happened, as long as she looked like that forever.

He heard footsteps trotting up behind him over the flurry of broomsticks over his head. He turned to find Rabastan at his side, looking at the woman across from them as well. "It's sort of odd, isn't it?"

Rodolphus furrowed his eyebrows. "What is?" He looked down at his brother.

Rabastan tilted his chin in Bellatrix's direction. "Well- look at her. Surrounded by chaos and destruction - of her own causing, might I add - and yet, that has to be the most peaceful I've ever seen her." Rabastan's eyes were dark and definitely afraid of what they were seeing and Rodolphus decided that, never before, have words better described his wife.

Rabastan spoke again. "C'mon, The Order will be here soon, and I don't want to stay to greet them."

Rodolphus took no more than 3 steps towards his wife before the shouting broke out. A new fleet of brooms rained down from the sky, putting out fires like a real storm. Bodies apparated all over the town, three of them within walking distance of the square he was in now. Instantly, explosions were sounding. Spells and curses, blasting bodies and brick alike.

He turned to find Bellatrix's small frame replacing his brother's. A vicious smile had crept along her mouth and her jaw was set in determination. He looked into her eyes and saw a cold, black bloodlust burning there. She was terrifying.

Bellatrix's wand dropped from her sleeve, into her hand. She brought it up to her lips and bit the tip of it gently between her canines in a sort of sadist mock of innocence. She looked up at him. "Let's have fun, Roddy."

He took her hand and half dragged her behind him into a back alley where they met two women of The Order.

Neither Bellatrix nor Rodolphus knew or cared who they were and in their split-second hesitation, the blonde had been thrown against a brick wall by Rodolphus and the brunette was on the floor writhing in agony.

A sick, twisted laugh floated from Bellatrix's mouth and Rodolphus was entranced in the sound alone. He chuckled darkly too.

Bellatrix stopped her torture of the girl screaming at her feet and Rodolphus lead the way down the alleyway until they reached the back door of a burning garden. He opened it and stepped aside, Bellatrix smiling sweetly at him before she walked in ahead of him, both of them heading for the fight going on in the house at the other end of the garden.

They reached the back door to the house and Bellatrix blew the glass apart, sending shards into the flames of the kitchen.

Jugson had been backed into a corner by a small man of The Order. Rodolphus grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him back to face Bellatrix. She stood there, wand at her side, at least half a foot smaller than all three men in the room and infinitely more menacing.

She batted her eyelashes at the man in Rodolphus' clutches and gave the smallest whisper. "Crucio."

The man contorted into an inhuman angle and Rodolphus dropped him to the floor. Bellatrix bent down and held the man's jaw lightly before pushing the tip of her wand into his chest. "Avada Kedavra." She said flatly and stepped over the body to skip ahead of Jugson and Rodolphus.

They continued to carve their way through bodies, muggles still clinging to life, and the Order members fighting for them, fell at their feet. The couple were deadly. Bellatrix continued to skip her way down the deserted road, Rodolphus chuckling behind her until a large crack stopped her in her tracks.

Two men had apparated not twelve paces from their position in the middle of the empty road. Silence lay between the four figures if not for the deafening crackling of the fires around them and the distant shouts and screams of others fighting.

The dark-skinned man looked out at Bellatrix and Rodolphus from beneath a mane of wild, dark hair with unadulterated loathing in his eyes. Bellatrix recognised him immediately and a large grin split across her face. She tipped her head back and laughed. "Well isn't this a surprise?"

Rodolphus grinned at his wife's confidence. "The mudblood lover." He let the slur hang in the air.

"Itty bitty Potter." Bellatrix announced to the men before them. "Come to play, lovely?"

Before either James or Bellatrix could even react, the other man had stepped between them with a practised wand trained at Bellatrix's chest. Grey eyes met grey eyes and Bellatrix's grin faltered and dropped from her face completely. Her eyes stormed black upon seeing him and and her lipped curled in a snarl to match his own.

Rodolphus stood, stunned.

"What are you doing?" Her voice no longer cocky or confident, instead quiet and full of hatred.

"What do you think I'm doing? I've certainly not come to visit." Despite his words, there was no humour in Sirius' voice. "Merlin, Bella. Look at what you've done!" He spat, gesturing to the town, alight around them.

Her eyes never left his but Sirius' eyes dropped to her stomach where a six-month-pregnant swell lay the last time he saw her. He looked back at her face and she knew he knew. They'd lost this one too.

"Go home, Mutt. Before I hurt you." She ground out.

The threat was evidently valid but both Sirius and James stood their ground. The latter looking between the conversation in front of him.

Sirius shook his head slowly. "Why Bella? Why is any of this okay? Because he said so?" His voice rising the more he spoke. "Don't do this to yourself, Bell. Don't let them kill whatever's left of you!"

Bellatrix looked at him, her eyes softened for a fraction of a second before she spoke. "Go. Home. Mutt." She spoke each word quietly, her voice weak and breaking. "GO HOME!" She shouted, tears shining her black eyes.

Sirius heard James utter his name but didn't turn, instead looking at his cousin with pity and desperation in his eyes. He lowered the wand still pointed at her chest causing Bellatrix to look at him with wide, bright eyes. Her tears threatened to spill over.

Silence hung between them until she spoke again.

"And the next time we meet, I won't be able to save you."

A breath of dark, deadened laughter escaped him. "The next time we meet, there'll be nothing left of us to save."

Sirius took two steps backwards before he and James spun on the spot, apparating away after each other. Bellatrix copied, him and took a step back, bumping into Rodolphus' hard body behind her.

She threw brutal hexes and curses at the empty space where Sirius had been, screaming in anguish. Tears falling freely, she turned into Rodolphus' body and held his chest close, his arms coming around her protectively.

He apparated them back into the lounge of their manor. Both of them crumbled to the rug, Rodolphus holding her for hours as she shook, until the sobs ceased to wrack her body.

She looked up to him, blackened tear tracks down her porcelain cheeks and whispered. "I'll kill him." There was no threat to her words, and her voice lacked its menacing hatred. She looked at him with wide eyes as if her words were just a sad truth of life.