Disclaimer: I hereby disclaim any ownership of Harry Potter or anything affiliated with it. This is a strictly non-profit making story.
Author's note: All grammar errors that you are kind or pedantic enough to inform me about will be corrected. Thank you.
The Last Supper
It was bound to happen.
With most of the Dark Lord's servants lodging more or less perpetually at the Malfoy Manor and with Mr. Malfoy no longer having a house elf at his service – the once influential Lucius Malfoy was disgraced as it was, and his incompetence at keeping even a simple house elf under control was overshadowed only by his inability to get a new one – they were all forced to take turns in preparing the meals. It was a source of much discontentment, but all agreed that it was preferable to being fed to Nagini, which had become the designated punishment for any complaints about matters the Dark Lord considered irrelevant.
The task itself was menial and degrading but not that time-consuming with the use of magic – especially if you got Pettigrew by the tail to make the actual supper, so all you had to do was set the table with a flick of a wand – but it did show in the quality of the food. The Dark Lord's meal had to be personally prepared – or at least supervised – to avoid his wrath, but otherwise the cooking arrangements didn't cause that much trouble.
Yet the dread that no one had realized in time was that eventually it came Bellatrix's turn to make the supper. Suddenly everyone feared for their lives and very souls, and many left the manor on unspecified missions presumably given by their Dark Master. Not all death eaters understood the threat at first, but after hearing the bizarre noises coming from the kitchen and sensing the unrecognizable yet unnervingly familiar stench that filled the air of the manor even they began to reason that skipping the dinner might be imperative for their continued survival. The odours reminded some of dementors with a touch of basil and some fresh sap of Mimbulus Mimbletonia and were enough to make anyone's guts turn. No one tried to be the hero, and so more thinly veiled excuses were made that would keep the death eaters safely away for the day and most of the night. Following leads on Harry Potter's possible whereabouts were a popular reason, and some even preferred running errands for Umbridge to waiting for the inevitable and possibly fatal dinner time.
As a result the manor seemed drastically emptier than usual that day, and the most prevalent sound was Bellatrix humming while dicing and stirring and doing other things that had begun to seem much less mundane and harmless of late. The humming was cheerful and characteristic to Bellatrix only during long torture sessions and her time in Azkaban, and the thought of either was menacing enough to keep the people far away from the kitchen and from seeing what it actually was that she was cooking.
Would even the Dark Lord himself dare a taste when returning from the Ministry this evening? Or would Bellatrix's cooking prove to be the second undoing of him after the Boy Who Lived?
Not nearly all the death eaters had been able to flee the manor: Wormtail and a few others were on duty watching the prisoners, Lucius was no use anywhere without a wand and several other people were kept from leaving by paperwork and various other urgent tasks. The rest of the Malfoys were at home, too, seemingly resigned to their fate.
The ones staying at the manor spent the day in a state of steadily growing terror, dreading what was to come and whether the disappearance of a familiar face in the halls was due to them being safely on a mission elsewhere or Mrs. Lestrange requiring fresh ingredients. Perhaps the most disturbing thing was the sudden absence of the Dark Lord's pet snake that usually slept the days in the main hall or the master's study.
Goyle had asked Rodolphus about his wife's cooking habits, and everyone had waited intently for his response, for surely it had to be a good sign that he hadn't fled like so many others, among them even his own brother, Rabastan. Mr. Lestrange was, indeed, remaining significantly calm but had stated that Bellatrix's cooking habits were much like her other habits.
That hadn't served to soothe anyone, but several jokes were still made in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Nott had told Lucius that had he still had a house elf, by the end of today the position would surely be open and the main course would include at least one pair of bat-like ears. Macnair had laughed and said that Bellatrix had always been so devoted to her job that she might take the concept of "eating death" a bit too far.
The echoes of eerily humming filled in the silence that ensued.
Come nightfall the death eaters who hadn't checked the roster when leaving that morning returned to the manor one by one. They brought news that Rabastan had turned himself in early that day and was already on his way back to Azkaban. Many thought that this was a bit too much, even though he was admittedly one of those who had known Bellatrix the longest. However, by the time they gathered around the dinner table most of them envied Rabastan for his courageous choice and hoped that whatever it was that they were subjected to would at least be poisonous enough to kill them quickly.
What Bellatrix had prepared turned out to be soup that's most threatening feature was that it looked perfectly inconspicuous to the naked eye. No flobberworms or house elf ears were to be seen floating about in it, nor anything else out of the ordinary. Gone was even the ominous stench that had wafted in the house all day, and in the minds of the people present nothing could have been more ominous. They eyed their food in fervent hope that there wouldn't be more courses to follow and made nervous glances at the expectant-looking Bellatrix. Perhaps they had somehow displeased the Dark Lord and he had ordered Bellatrix to kill them all for his dinner entertainment?
But no, for when their lord joined them at the table he was served a plateful of the same soup. He hadn't tasted it yet, though, for he was conversing with Severus Snape, who had also arrived shortly before dinner time to give his reports to the Dark Lord. The new headmaster of Hogwarts had seemed completely unfazed by the knowledge that it was Bellatrix who'd be serving the meal. That had made the other death eaters regard him with highest admiration, and when he casually and without a flinch swallowed the first spoonful they thought in unison that he was beyond a doubt the bravest man they had ever known. What they saw before them was the resolve that had earned him the place so close to the Dark Lord.
However, this didn't encourage anyone to follow the example as they were all fairly sure that Snape might be immune even to freshly invented poisons. Lucius, on the other hand, looked like he actually wished for death to free him from his pitiful existence and dug in with no hesitation, and others slowly followed when he didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. The taste of the soup was as innocent as its appearance, for it was somewhat like the French vichyssoise, although no one could precisely identify the origins of the meat in it.
No one died that day, which was a surprise to everyone. No one asked for seconds but their master paid a compliment to the chef, which had never happened before. He and Snape weren't affected by Bellatrix's cooking in any way, whereas several death eaters experienced a strong burning sensation in the bathroom for more than a week. Not much about it was said out loud, but a remarkably similar phenomenon was characteristic to the blast-ended skrewts. Mr. Lestrange had no doubt built a tolerance over the years and had only minimal symptoms, but the rest of them would have killed for an antidote. Unfortunately, Snape had already returned to Hogwarts by then and wouldn't be back for some time.
The one who had the worst of it was probably Wormtail, as he had soon afterwards developed a bad case of testicular cactosis and now had to remove the spikes each morning with garden shears to prevent searing pain with each move. So far it was unclear whether the condition would be permanent.
Other than that peace was restored in the manor, but only to be broken again just a few weeks later when something sent the ranks of death eaters into disarray. A miraculously high number of the Dark Lord's servants turned themselves in or joined the Order of the Phoenix as a result, and it all happened on the same day that the death eaters discovered two things: that Fenrir Greyback had gone missing and that tomorrow it would be Bellatrix's turn to cook again.