Not As Mad As You
Bellatrix Lestrange watched as they dragged a dark figure into the cell next to her. The figure had been here a while, probably about as long as she had. They were moving the prisoners around again. Maybe he didn't get the kiss yet…
The figure's prison jumper was dirty and ripped. As the dementors moved the figure more into the light, she saw that the figure was a man. She eyed his greasy hair with disgust, not wanting to think about her own. As his head moved upward, she turned away, not wanting to be caught staring. Warmth staring returning to her flesh as the dementors left.
"Bellatrix Black, it has been a while. Who would think we'd end up in side by side cells?" Bellatrix knew the figure's identity now. She grew up with it teasing her only because of his own insecurities.
"It's Lestrange now, mutt." Her voice was sharp and impatient. How could she, Bellatrix, forget the last name of Lestrange she now carried? The marriage was for the Dark Lord only, of course. Rodolphus, her husband, had occupied that cell until that morning and then the dementors moved him and brought her this scum as company. Not that Rodolphus was pleasant company in jail, anyway. Blaming her for everything was just his nature.
"How would I ever know that when I didn't receive an invite to my own, dear cousin's wedding?" He chuckled and leaned against the opposite wall of his cell from her, giving Bellatrix a full look at the man.
He still looked like the same pathetic blood traitor. Only, slightly more pathetic seeing as Azkaban had withered away most of his once moderately charming looks.
"No blood traitors were present." Her voice still was cold and sharp, but her smile wicked. It was a fact; The Dark Lord wouldn't have accepted it. Bellatrix never displeased her Lord.
"So how did this happy union come about?" He smiled lightly, but his eyes looked as if he knew her darkest secret.
"It was needed." Bellatrix loved to lie, but she couldn't on this subject. She could torture muggles for no reason other than sport, and yet she couldn't bring herself to simply say she loved Rodulphus. Not when her heart was so dedicated somewhere else. So dedicated to her faith in a man, a man who was no longer. The lie would be too hard to bear.
"Voldemort's wishes then?" His eyes sparkled.
"Shut your mouth! You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips? You taint it! You fowl creature!" She narrowed her eyes down on him. If only she had her wand. A cruciatus curse would suit him well. She could feel the simple incantation on her lips, she hadn't said it in so long.
"I do dare actually but I think my lips are very worthy." He didn't even laugh. He was serious, dead serious. Bellatrix cast him a furtive glare. "You never liked Lestrange, trying to get rid of him at every turn, always throwing yourself after your pathetic Lord."
Of course it wasn't what she wanted. She had to convert Rodolphus to their side, the right side. The Dark Lord had proclaimed it and marriage had become the only way.
"Now, my dear Bellatrix. I need Rodolphus Lestrange as my follower. You could manage that small task couldn't you, my most faithful?" His voice was light and his eyes dug into mine.
My Lord never praised me like that, never acted as though he felt any emotion towards me, the emotion I so desperately craved. The emotion I had craved since I had read his name in a newspaper, since I had let him mark my flesh, make me his.
"Of course, my lord." I smiled showing all my teeth. This was a mission I could easily accomplish. I left the house, not bothering for once to curse anyone blocking my path.
I knew Rodolphus from school, we were the same age and had both been in Slytherin. He used to fancy me, beg me for a lunch together at The Three Broomsticks. Of course that's why the Dark Lord gave me, his most faithful, the assignment.
One little favor for the girl he fancied since they were eleven. He couldn't refuse.
"Rodolphus!" I sat impatiently in his living room two weeks after the task began. I heard my voice echo in the room sharply. "He would help you achieve the greatest things! You've even agreed that his ideas need to be carried out! Pledge your allegiance to him!"
Rodolphus sat across the coffee table on the opposite couch. "Tell me, why I interest the Dark Lord so much for him to send his favorite death eater to me day after day?"
"You're powerful and a pure-blood. You are the kind of wizard that should be the only to exist!"
He was being so difficult! "What in Merlin's beard do you want? We've been having the same conversation for two weeks! The Dark Lord grows impatient, he won't wait much longer." My voice kept rising in volume.
"Marry me Bella, and I will become a faithful death eater." His eyes twinkled but his lips lay curled in a very serious manner.
I felt my body freeze in position. I never wanted to marry, and if I did only to one man, who happened not to be Rodolphus Lestrange.
"It's the only deal I'll make with you Trixie." He threw in the childhood name he used to call me so casually, it felt like we were only children again, sitting in the Slytherin common room, nothing of importance to discuss. It bothered me how he seemed to so simply forget we weren't children anymore.
I stood to leave. I would go discuss this turn of events with my Lord. He wouldn't make me subject myself to this. The Dark Lord would find another way. "This offer only lasts until you leave my home. This isn't a decision to make with your Lord."
I couldn't fail my Lord. Rodolphus wouldn't make the offer again, which I knew after so many years of experience dealing with him. He had me stuck. The Lestrange boy knew me too well.
"He'll kill you anyway if you don't become loyal to him soon." It was my last desperate attempt of hope. She tried to muster up a smile.
"I'll either convert with you as my wife or die knowing you failed the Dark Lord's assignment. Not to unpleasant of a way to die I think, knowing Bellatrix Black, the most faithful Death Eater, had finally failed at something."
He knew I couldn't refuse. Serving the Dark Lord was my life now. I had worked so hard to get the status of most faithful and I wasn't about to lose it, not over something as minuscule as this. How much was marriage really?
"If I marry you, you promise to pledge your loyalty to the Dark Lord?"My voice grew shaky.
"I do."
I took a deep breath. "Will you make the Unbreakable Vow?"I shoved my arm towards him.
"I will." He took my arm smiling widely, his eyes twinkling once more.
"Touching, very touching. Your loyalty to him is rather disgusting." Sirius smiled at her, as her mind was thrust back into the present.
"When did you learn Legilimency?" She did not want to believe he just witnessed her flashback.
"I don't know any Legilimency. Your face tells me enough. I've known you since we were children and I've had my guesses for years." He chuckled. That man laughed too much, and nothing irked Bellatrix more than any Black giving her the famous family laugh. She used it on her victims she was preparing to curse or kill, and yet Sirius was using it on her. "How about your own sister, are you still classifying her as a blood-traitor? Andromeda wasn't at the wedding either?" His eyes stared into her.
Bellatrix cringed again. Dromeda wasn't there. She married a muggle. Bellatrix couldn't communicate with her after that, even if she was her favorite sister when they were little. Andromeda never tried to get Bella in trouble like Narcissa and wasn't so obsessed with being perfect. Bella couldn't help her sister's decisions, it was Andromeda's fault. Andromeda knew what she was getting into, but pained Bella to not hear about the birth of her niece from the girl's mother herself.
No! She screamed at herself. Nymphadora wasn't her niece. Andromeda wasn't her sister anymore. And yet, Bella thought back to that day, one of the few when her family was truly happy and whole.
My mother was holding a little baby as the family gathered around her.
"Bella. Dromeda. This is your little sister." Dromeda and I crowded together for a closer look. The baby was small, pink in the face, and fast asleep.
The baby reminded me of one of my dolls, the only one I ever liked, the one that Regulus had dropped down the well in our yard. It had been my favorite one and I had called it Nymphadora.
"Mummy? Can we name her Nymphadora?" My little voice was excited, and it was one of the few moments I smiled as a child, truthfully innocently.
"No, Bella. Her name is Narcissa." I felt my smile fade. I had loved that doll and had especially loved the name.
"I'll name my baby Nymphadora when I become a mummy, Bella." Andromeda watched my smile return slowly.
"Promise?" I asked.
"I promise." The two girls hugged and than turned their attention back to the baby.
They were always close as children, but today if it was Bellatrix who had made the promise, it would have never been carried out. But, Dromeda made the promise and Dromeda had kept it.
Bellatrix didn't know why either. They were complete opposites now. Andromeda was a muggle-loving blood traitor and she, Bellatrix, was powerful. She served the Dark Lord faithfully and still would every second to the death. That's why she was locked in this musty cell, with such unpleasant company.
"Reminiscing a bit today, Bella? Perhaps rethinking your decision to forever shun your sister?" Sirius looked smug from what Bella could see of his face not hidden in shadows.
Bellatrix's voice became teasing. "You're pretty cheery for someone who has no family and all their friends have perished, mutt." His smile and laughter quickly faded.
"You're wrong. I still have family. Andromeda and Narcissa are still walking." He snickered. "Sadly you are too." Bellatrix only gave him a dirty scowl. "And I can only hold James's death to your people." His voice was laced with anger.
"My people? You mean the pure-bloods in this world that act like pure-bloods? You should follow their example! Potter got what he deserved!" Bellatrix was proud that her Lord had killed that man and his mud blood wife.
"I will never take advice from you on how to live successfully. Your locked up in here aren't u?" For once, Bellatrix had no reply. "Tell me, who told him about the prophecy? Who can I blame for James and Lily having to raise their child in hiding while they could, never getting the chance to see their little boy grow?" His eyes were cold, but the anger had been replaced with sorrow.
She didn't mind telling him. The answer surprised even her. "Severus Snape." That man had never fully served the Dark Lord, Bellatrix was sure of that. But when he came to her Lord with the prophecy…
"I always knew Snivellus would be our downfall, one day." Sirius looked out towards the small square window, and laughed softly. "Good old, Snivelly."
This wasn't the reaction Bella hoped for. She wanted some outburst from him to ruin the daily monotony. "I never liked him either."
"At least we have one thing in common." For the first time, the two laughed together.
Days passed into weeks, weeks into months.
The dementors aggravated Bellatrix more than anything. They caused her pain and suffering daily. She shivered under their presence from cold and fear that she would be the next to suffer a kiss. In her mind she relived horrible memories meant to be forgotten.
She saw her mother lying weak and helpless dying from a sickness none of Bella's charms could heal.
She saw Andromeda in tears after being disowned and had to tell herself over and over that Andromeda deserved it.
She saw her standing at the altar with Rodolphus, then the days of their marriage and him screaming at her.
And she saw the worse one too many times. She saw Lucius enter the Malfoy's parlor where she sat with Narcissa to bear the news of the Dark Lord's fall.
And Sirius only made it worse. He didn't care about the dementors never had to relive the pain and feel the cold trickle up his spine. When the two heard the screams of the prisoners down the hall, he morphed into a black shaggy dog, chasing his tail while she endured the misery.
Bellatrix knew they were close. She had collapsed to the floor and out of the corner of her eye saw Sirius morph once again. But she couldn't fight him now; she was trying to push the terrible voice from her head.
Bellatrix! You worthless bitch! God damn you, Bella, God damn you!
The cold left her, and Bella was able to sit herself up straight again.
"Take what you deserve coward!" She shouted at Sirius when he became a man once more. Her voice was weak from Rodolphus's shouting lingering in her head. That line was from before they were in Azkaban. Since they had been captured, worse things had been said.
"Bella, dear Trixie."
"Don't call me that!" She snarled.
"I don't deserve this. Can you see me murdering a bunch of muggles? You know I'm an innocent man as much as I do." He tried to smile sweetly, and to Bella's great annoyance, he succeeded.
And even worse, Bellatrix believed he was innocent. No, she couldn't see him having the power to kill muggles. That was a special job reserved for her and other Death Eaters.
"The rest of us endure the dementors." Her teeth were clenched as she spoke.
He laughed his barking laugh that drove her mad. "You'd give anything to be an animagus like I am. I only do it because I still hope to leave here with my sanity intact! Unlike the others who are forever damaged by those foul things." He looked towards the cell door.
Bellatrix replaced the anger in her voice with a slight taunting rhythm. "What's out there for you, mutt? The world thinks you're a murderer. Your best friend is dead and Pettigrew betrayed his location to the Dark Lord." Sirius didn't anger at her taunts, as she had desperately hoped. He only lightly smiled.
"There's still Remus, and one other who I'd like to play a role in their life." His smile grew wider and his eyes lit up. "Perhaps you've heard of him? He's my godson, Harry Potter."
Bellatrix froze. That name was death to her. Death of all she worked hard for before she was locked up. Itty Bitty Baby Potter had brought the downfall of the Dark Lord, her greatest hero. That pathetic child was the reason she was in here. If the Dark Lord still walked, those Aurors would never have dared.
"God father of a half-blood! Let alone that child! It is a shame that we are related." Her eyes became narrow slits.
"Well, you won't have to live with me in agony much longer." Sirius looked out the small window at the setting sun, as Bellatrix's eyes grew wide once more.
"What are you talking about, blood-traitor?"
"I'm going to meet my godson." He smiled walked over to the cell door.
"Sirius! Are you mad?" He gave the famous family laugh, sending shivers of annoyance up Bella's spine.
"Not as mad as you, I'm afraid." He got down on all fours like he did when he was getting ready to change into a flea ridden mutt.
"Take me with you! You can't just leave me here! You can't leave your own cousin!" Bellatrix screamed at him.
"Bella, Bella, Bella. I will only release you into the world when everyone is sitting in a circle singing Kumbaya. When that happens, some terror could bring us a bit of adventure." He morphed into his dog form.
Bella watched as he slipped through the bars and trod down the hall.
She took a deep breath. "I'll kill you one day Sirius Black! I WILL KILL YOU!"
Bellatrix Lestrange had never heard a dog laugh until that night.