Thought One
It was strange, the attraction that one could exert on another, without ever voicing anything to indicate that such an attraction could be justified. I had often thought about the fact that I was drawn to the Dark Lord more so than the rest of us. I knew I wanted his power, his fame - but it wasn't just that. I admired him for his steel will and his determination to make his aspirations come true, despite the resistance that the Wizarding World continually opposed him. He was a man of strength and power, and for that I was convinced that nothing would ever bring me to leave him.
He was cruel, and ruthless, and I knew that that at least was not a produce of his creation of his Horcruxes. Even when I had first known him, when I was still a young woman in Hogwarts and had just joined his ranks, he had been as dark and unforgiving as he was now, thirty years later. His appearance had been altered in the same proportion as his personality, ideals and soul had remained the same. How I envied his stability... How I adored his ability to shed off such humanly weak emotions as pity and fear... And despite everything, through everything, I had loved him. I had gladly accepted the inevitable fate that had been made mine after his downfall; had proudly been led to Azkaban and been locked away, condemned for the things I had done under his rule. What greater pride than to be imprisoned for him? What greater proof of loyalty could I have given him? I gave Azkaban thirteen years of my life, in his name. And in return, when he came back, he freed me - freed all of us -, and made me his right hand lieutenant.
Of course, there was the problematic fact that I was married - to Rodolphus Lestrange. But Rodolphus did not love me; ours had been an arranged marriage, one of convenience, and had remained as much ever since our first encounter. He made no move to regain my affection once I made it clear that I had no interest in him; he himself had many women to bury himself in - and none of them had been me. Not that I did not think him worthy enough; I had to give him credit for what he had done. He and his brother Rabastan were part of the very few of them to have stepped into a cell right along with me. The others - Lucius, Avery, the Carrows, Crabbe, Goyle, Gibbon, Jugson, Karkaroff, McNair, Nott, that coward Pettigrew, Rosier, Rowle, Scabior, Selwyn, Snape, Yaxley... All of them had somehow evaded or attempted to avoid prison after the first Wizarding World; either by selling others of our ranks, or by claiming to have been under the Imperius Curse. The liars - the cowards. I myself had seen no use in doing as much. I was proud to go to Azkaban - and even today, had I to do it all over again, I would follow the same route that I had first taken.
It's true, I was in love with him. A man that bore little resemblance to a human being; one who's soul had been fractured seven times and dispersed to the four corners of Britain; one who tortured me daily when our weaker apprentices failed to complete the tasks they were given and did not survive the assaults that he would repeatedly perform on them as their punishment... They were weak, all of them. And as I endured the blows and the Cruciatus for them, they ran and cowered behind their wives to escape the Dark Lord's wrath. The fear he inspired...I was drawn to him like a fly to a lamp. And despite the fact that never once did he respond to my affections, I stood by him, and rarely failed him. When I did, I punished myself nearly as bad as he punished me. There was no better recompense for me than the bittersweet pain of the Cruciatus as my Lord washed me of my mistakes.
Through the limitless admiration I felt for him, I desperately sought to be like him. I became sarcastic, scathing, pitiless; cruel to the point that I knew the look in his eyes was one of pride and not contempt. I revelled in the pain I inflicted to our targets, came to love the excitement, the blood-rushing adrenaline that came before the kill. I didn't know what more there was to love in this life. I had found what I was best at; inflicting pain and receiving it.
The day we assaulted Hogwarts, I wasn't sure what to expect. I suppose I was expecting a bunch of school kids running into hiding; underage wizards just about able to look us in the eyes and passing out in fear as they pissed themselves dry.
Yet we were met with resistance. There were very few official Aurors there, mostly just Order members trying to buy Potter some time as he looked for the last of my master's Horcruxes. Many seventh years fought also, and their faces were lined with exhausted determination. A strange combination; but they fought all the harder for it. But they were no match to us.
We were in no hurry; my Lord was convinced that the pieces of his soul that had not yet been destroyed were safe, and on my part I had a trust in him that bordered on the visceral. But I must say I was surprised when Potter showed up in the forest. Though I had taken pleasure in killing a few of his friends - of which my sister's bastard daughter - I had been convinced that he would be too selfish to give himself over to us. Doing so would mean to die - and I truly believed that he would never give his life in favour of others'. But it turns out I had overestimated him. He came, and he died at the hand of my Lord. But no later had he fallen - finally, after seventeen long years of waiting and expectations! - that Narcissa betrayed us. She wanted to save Draco, I suppose. I would never know.
For, not an hour after Harry Potter's death, I was dead.
Even now, I wish I had had more time. More time to eviscerate every Weasley that came into my way - more time to explore the connection that I had managed to strike up with the weakened Dark Lord. As much as he had been enraged and had tried to hide his unrest, my Lord had been anxious and fidgety from the moment he realized that Potter and his friends were destroying his Horcruxes. I would have despised such a weakness had I had a glimpse of it in any other of my companions, but in him I welcomed it. It allowed me to get closer to him in a way I never had before. I was able to understand him, to shed part of the veil that he had wrapped around his own feelings so many years ago. His pain - his past - his rage - his vengeance - by the time what would later be named the Battle of Hogwarts came, I knew more about him than any other of our ranks.
But Harry Potter and his friends had taken my only chance away from me - and for that, I wished for them to suffer as low and dishonourable a death as my Lord had been cruel and all-powerful in his lifetime.