Disclaimer: I don't own any rights around Harry Potter and no money is being made with this story.
AN: This is an entry for a challenge by the Bellatrix Lestrange-the Dark Lord's Most Faithful forum. Prompt was "dreams."
Warning for inhuman theories, not that this wouldn't be expected from Bellatrix.
Purify our World
Bellatrix was surrounded by screams. Screams of pain, screams of mental agony, screams of people driven insane by their suffering, screams that were the last means of communication from those who had been robbed of any other chance to make their presence felt; screams of death.
Bellatrix was an expert on screams, it came with her occupation. Telling them apart wasn't difficult.
Some of her fellow prisoners were different from the rest, even in their screaming. Rodolphus kept shouting the names of potion ingredients to the prison at large, seemingly oblivious to the people who told him to leave them alone with that. They had stopped doing so a long time ago anyway.
He was strange, her husband, whatever he did. Quite aptly named. Every time she told him so, he would glare at her and she would laugh.
She didn't remember what it felt like to laugh.
Cold was welling up inside her like acid. There were no more coherent thoughts. She screamed, which kind of scream she couldn't tell. Her haggard body failed to remain standing and dropped onto the heap of straw writhing like a fish thrown on the dry shore.
How shameful, bedding her pure-blood skin on dirty straw, she thought when the cold had passed. Then she remembered. She was doing all this for a reason. She was here for him. She was suffering for him. The Dark Lord would return. She was enduring this for him, for him, for him.
"The Dark Lord will rise again," she screamed into the darkness. "The Dark Lord will rise again and come for us." Her voice was hoarse, why she didn't know.
Somewhere, someone was laughing. The voice seemed familiar. From another life.
She couldn't tell what else she had expected but she knew it didn't come.
Her head sank back onto the straw. Shouting had made her tired. Cold again. Part of her hoped to fall asleep and never wake up. He wasn't coming back. He wasn't coming back and if he did, he'd leave her here. She had failed him. The Dark Lord didn't tolerate failure least of all from her.
No, he did not and that was why she had to keep living. She could not run from her punishment by Him.
"Bellatrix"
Someone, somewhere called out her name. She was too tired to answer.
"Bellatrix, Bellatrix"
With every call, the voice became more urgent. Bellatrix realised that it belonged to a woman. A female voice, clear and pure like fresh spring water untainted by dirty Muggle hands. The woman called her name, her complete name, not "Bella", the shortened version she had become so used to.
She forced herself to look up. The woman stood in front of the barred door, how she had entered, Bellatrix couldn't tell. Magnificent white robes which seemingly had never been touched by anything dirty covered her body, waves of dark hair were falling over it, held by a golden circlet. Everything about her was strange and familiar at the same time.
"Finally," the woman said. "I thought I was late."
"What do you wish?" Bellatrix asked. Her voice worked surprisingly well again. "Forgive me, I wish I could welcome you like a pure-blood lady deserves."
"Let's not waste our time with such formalities," the woman said. "They are a thing of Muggles, true magic can do well without. Do you know who I am?"
Bellatrix didn't want to admit that indeed she did not. There was something familiar about the woman but she couldn't place her.
Her visitor seemed to guess the truth. "My name is Morgana and I'm the first of your kin."
Bellatrix bowed her head. "It's an honour, kinswoman."
"An honour you have well earned. My time is limited however so let's not waste it on niceties. You know what you must do, don't you?"
"Yes, I must stay true to the Dark Lord no matter what."
"This isn't quite what I hoped to hear," Morgana responded. "Yes, the Dark Lord of your days espouses the values we need to defend but it's not about him as a person. It's about the cause. You know what has happened from the days of the traitor Merlin onwards. True magic has been contaminated by the Muggle ways. They've robbed us of our ways and our kin was forced to concede it for reasons of "good" and supporting so-called Muggle-born witches and wizards. We both know that no such thing can exist."
Bellatrix nods her head. Of course she knows. How would a daughter of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black not know? Well, even her house gave birth to traitors such as her worthless sister Andromeda but a real Black knew.
"These actions have brought much suffering over our kind. My beautiful Avalon has been despoiled by the blood traitors and turned into this place of despair. The Muggles have hunted down our own and cruelly slaughtered our children but never before have they threatened us the way they do now. Muggle-kind has laid hands on things they should never have touched and the consequences can be disastrous for everything that lives, magical or mundane."
"Yes, kinswoman," Bellatrix said eagerly. Her mother had told her all these things many years ago.
"Our kin had no choice but to go into hiding. Still, they didn't keep themselves from letting the Muggle spawn infest our world and even promote unholy alliances between Muggles and witches or wizards. It's not hard to see the foolishness of this."
"No, it is not," Bellatrix agreed.
"Do you remember now what your true cause is?"
Before Bellatrix could respond, Morgana already gave the answer. "You have been chosen to purify our world, courageous daughter of the House of Black. Cleanse it of those who will destroy it from within and make sure that your children and grandchildren will still practice magic like you do today, like we used to. Purify our world and reclaim this place!"
Bellatrix was alone among the screams once more. The Dementors' rattling breath only left fleeting images of the meeting she had had before but one thought remained. "Purify our world. Cleanse it of the Mudbloods."
That she would do, one day when these walls would crumble around her as they surely would. Each and every one of them deserved to die so that her people would live. They were a disease that had befallen the magical world and there was only one thing to be done with germs; they had to be killed.
Rodolphus the Healer knew that better than anyone else in here so she would tell him first in case he too had forgotten.