Qritten for QLFC Round 8
Team: Wigtown Wanderers
Position: Beater 2
Prompt: What would life be like two years after Voldemort rises to power?
Additional Prompts: 5. (dialogue) "Who cares? We could be dead in a couple of hours", 15. (dialogue) "Well played, Voldy"
Words: 917
Bellatrix smoothed down her black dress to further expose her cleavage and checked in the mirror to see if her hair was suitably tousled. Her wand, polished the night before, went into her corset. With a final dab of black lipstick, she turned to Rodolphus and cackled. She had an image to maintain, after all.
"Come on, Bella, we're already twenty minutes late," he grumbled, not looking at her. "We can't always—"
"'Make a scene when we come in', I know, I know," she rolled her eyes. "But we can be fashionably late. It's the only interesting thing that happens nowadays, isn't it?"
"You're abusing your power," he teased. He shoved the keys to their mansion into his pocket and grinned. "You're using it for yourself. Wrongly."
"Oh, stop it!" Bellatrix slapped her husband's chest to stop the teasing, then grabbed onto the collar or his robes. She leaned in, licking her lips. "We'll never leave if you keep that up."
"Who says I want to leave?"
"You just did!"
"I spent ten years in Azkaban," Rodolphus pointed out. "I'm allowed to be a little unhinged."
Bellatrix giggled as she remembered their time in the prison. They'd been half-starved, spending days without food or water, not to mention forced to relive the worst moments of their lives. Wandless, nameless, they'd lost themselves in an endless circle of pain and suicidal ideation.
She danced out the door, not waiting for Rodolphus to follow, letting the hem of her dress scrape the ground. It was her own song that was playing, that she was swaying to; she didn't know the name.
"Come on, Rodolphus," she crowed, "we'll be late!"
With a pop, she Apparated off the stone walkway. Rodolphus sighed and followed. They landed, at the same time, outside of a large door.
Bellatrix flicked it into motion with her hand and let it slam against the wall as it swung open. A hush descended upon the room it had revealed. Several long tables stood against the walls, two longer ones in the middle of the room. It was those that Bellatrix strutted in between. Reaching the head seat at last, she bowed down.
"My Lord," she whispered.
"Bella," none other than the Dark Lord himself grinned. "Fashionably late?"
"My Lord," she said again, her voice throatier. "My Lord . . ."
"Well, we've saved several games for you," he waved towards them, already set up. Then, Voldemort spared a look for Rodolphus, who had slunk in behind his wife. "And you, of course. With your brother, I believe."
Rodolphus obeyed the command and walked over to sit next to his brother. Bellatrix stayed at the high table, where Voldemort motioned for her to sit at his right side.
"My Lord," Bellatrix set up her dominoes.
"So tell me, Bella," Voldemort set up his own pieces. He placed the first, a double blank, onto the table in front of him. "How are the killings coming?"
"Rapidly," she grinned and placed down the adjacent piece. "A bit—my Lord, forgive me for saying this—boring. It's all we've been doing for the past two years. The Order's gone, so are all the Mudbloods . . . I don't even have a nemesis!"
Voldemort placed down a piece. "I don't recall you needing a nemesis."
"You don't even have a nemesis! My Lord," Bellatrix added quickly.
"I also don't seem to have any sixes," Voldemort frowned and dug through the domino pile. "But, tell me: how do you suppose I make it more interesting?"
"I don't know, my Lord," she sank under his gaze. "But this killing, it's as good as any other. But it's easy. It lacks the chase, the thrill, the . . . pleasure."
"You know what that does to me, Bella," Voldemort threatened, undone by her purring tone.
"My Lord, I . . ."
Sitting across from his brother, Rodolphus was facing away from Voldemort and his wife. Good thing, too, given how they made eyes at each other. It was annoying, but not as annoying as losing a game of checkers for the seventh time in a row.
"Rab, you're cheating!" Rodolphus complained as he set up his chess pieces again.
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Your wife's cheating."
"On who?"
"On you."
"She—" Rodolphus stopped when a loud whoop came from the head seat. "Not on the Dark Lord, at any rate; he's just won their game."
"Well played, Voldy," Rabastan snickered, watching Bellatrix fawn over the victor.
"He'll hear you!"
Rabastan waved his hand. "Who cares? We could be dead in a couple of hours; look, he's got out monopoly."
"Oh."
"He killed Slinky last time, right?" Rabastan tried to remember the name of the House Elf who had fallen victim to Voldemort's gaming rage. "Blinky? Hooves? I don't know anymore."
Rodolphus shrugged. He thought it pointless to try to remember, given how many creatures had been killed. The only ones not touched by the Dark Lord had been Pure-bloods, with the exception of Scabior. The rat had been killed when he'd won the last monopoly game. Now, months later, it seemed that Voldemort wanted to attempt to play the game again.
"Typical," Rodolphus ground out when he'd lost yet another game of checkers. "Not only are we out of work because the Dark Lord rules the world, but all we do is play games that I never win."
Rabastan snickered. "Well, someone's a sourpuss."