disclaimer - not mine
My first story for ages! This is just a little intro chapter, and there should be more pretty soon. It's AU book 6 onwards which means everything up to book 6 has happened. I decided to make Bellatrix really quite sensual because I imagine that she is and that's one of the reasons she likes the cruciatus curse so much. Please review and let me know what you think so far!
The first morning
Bellatrix Black woke up slowly and luxuriantly. She loved this feeling; the cool silk sheets beneath her, the rich red curtains tumbling around her slowly shimmering into focus. Dilly was just scuttling out of the room. Bellatrix twitched her hair in annoyance. To be woken by a house elf! It was beyond frustrating. Beside her bed steamed a glass of the raspberry tisane she adored, and she lifted herself up on the plumped cushions and reached for it. As the warm liquid slid down her throat she considered the day ahead.
Her Lord had said that he wouldn't need his most faithful Deatheaters for the next week or so. No raids, no attacks, just the usual routine of plotting, planning, waiting-and-seeing. And Yaxley had proposed a get together this evening, for a spot of muggle hunting. She sighed and leaned back into the plump cushions, feeling the silk nightdress sliding under her thin shoulder blades. That would be a fun; the thrill of the chase, the blood of the hunt, the way her heart would race, the delicious feeling her own dark spells spread through her. Perhaps she'd take her son this time… he never seemed to show an interest in blood sports though. Her face wrinkled a little. How had she allowed this to continue? She'd had him for almost all of fifteen years now, but still he seemed so very different to her. Still, and she let the frown slip away, he was her son and nothing changed that. She lifted her eyes to the picture on her wall opposite the bed. It was taken before she'd aged, before she'd spent that terrible year in Azkaban, before her Lord had inexplicably disappeared. She was young then, and very beautiful, with her dark hair long and gleaming. In her arms sat the fat little baby, chubby and smiling, his black hair mirroring her own. She smiled back as the baby in the photo lifted his little paw and waved at her.
It had been hell, that year apart. Just after her Lord had vanished (and he hadn't returned for thirteen years!) she had gone looking for him. She'd left her son at home and gone to the Longbottoms with the Crouch boy, and tortured them for information. Bellatrix squirmed a little, remembering her hysterical panic. 'Where is he? Tell me where he is! Where? Where? Tell me!' She'd not been concentrating and had let it go too far too fast. She hadn't meant to turn them insane before they could tell her anything, and then someone had raised the alarm and she'd been sent to Azkaban. 'My son? What about him! Where is he? Is he safe?' The Crouch boy didn't last long, but she was still there a year later, when the storm had come and torn Azkaban open. She'd fled, and spent weeks hunting for her baby. He had been found by the Ministry when they raided her house and Dumbledore, cursed Dumbledore, fiddling Dumbledore had given him to a family of purebloods. Her face twisted. If you could call the Weasleys purebloods. She'd whisked him away at the first opportunity and taken him home, but they'd already allowed him to be damaged.
A knock at the door made her glance up and she placed the tisane back on the tray on the bedside table.
"Come in." The door opened and a boy of about sixteen walked in, his black hair still uncombed after his sleep.
"Good morning mother." She was instantly alert, wary to his tone.
"Is something wrong? You dreamt again?" He sighed and threw himself carelessly on the bed at her side.
"I can't help it mother. I try so hard not to, as you told me, but it won't stop." She reached down and stroked the strange scar on his forehead. They'd let that happen, the Weasleys. Somehow.
"We shall practice some more occlumency today then." He nodded obediently.
"Yes mother. Would you like me to write and apologise to the Dark Lord again? I do not mean to intrude on his dreams." And yet somehow you manage it so effortlessly, Bellatrix thought ruefully. It confused her, this ability of her son's, and she didn't like it. He was not a powerful occlumens at all, in fact quite the contrary. And yet somehow when it came to the Dark Lord the mental barriers just melted and their minds meshed. Her Lord had made several pointed comments about curbing this ability, and she tried to help her son. Deep down she suspected he didn't truly want to relinquish this connection to her Lord and it made her angry and jealous that he should be so favoured with such intimacy. But there was nothing to be gained with bitterness, so she tried (perhaps a little harder than she might have done otherwise) to curb his extraordinary power.
He reached up and entwined his fingers in her long hair thoughtfully.
"You slept well, mother?"
"Deeply," she replied. "My favourite type of sleep." He smiled.
"Then Severus came up trumps after all!" She laughed.
"I admit it! He can make a fair sleeping potion." She paused and then said tentatively, "Are you doing anything this evening?" He yawned.
"No. Why?"
"We're going hunting… if you'd like to come?" A conflicted expression crossed his face.
"Mother, you know how I feel about that sort of thing."
"Just give it a try," Bellatrix wheedled. "You don't know what it's like… to use the cruciatus spell for real. Not in practice like when I was training you but for real, with the wind whirling and your blood dancing." He squirmed uncomfortably.
"Mother, you know how I hate to disappoint you…"
"Then don't!" she interrupted. "Harry, you are my son. You can't avoid this destiny all your life." She reached down and turned his face up to her so that their eyes met. Deep blue bore into the dazzling green. "You are of the noble house of Black and you are a pureblood. We have a duty to our own kind to cull the filthy muggles." She laughed. "It's not too bad. You know they don't feel pain like we do."
"They still scream," he protested.
"An animal screams when hurt," Bellatrix countered. She held his gaze a little longer then sighed and released him. "Sometimes I do not think you are my own son, Harry!" He jerked as if slapped, then reached up and wound his arms around her.
"Don't say that mother. I'll come if you really want. I will try, I promise I will." She smiled, placated.
"Good boy." Idly she reached down and resumed stroking his hair off his forehead, her fingers sliding across that strange scar. 'Sometimes I do not think you are my own son?' It was only words to frighten him. She knew, from her toes to her fingertips, that Harry James Black was wholly and completely hers.