Caring
He doesn't love me.
What, are you surprised? Surprised that I have not disillusioned myself into thinking, hoping, dreaming that he feels the same way about me that I do him? I am not so naïve, you foolish person. The Dark Lord feels few emotions, love not being one of them. I am well aware of that.
That does not stop me from feeling the way I do.
I am not stupid. Cissy has asked me before, why I love the Dark Lord- she says that it is wrong, that it is hopeless, that I am married, so why don't I just stop? Why don't I just give up, when I already know nothing will happen, that he doesn't love me?
He doesn't love me.
But he cares.
Yes, I know, you are probably beside yourselves at the moment. You're probably thinking to yourself, The Dark Lord? Caring? What's wrong in this woman's head?
Nothing is wrong in my head. I am just as sane as you are. The Dark Lord does care- this, despite what you may think, is indisputable.
When I first approached him, my intentions only to serve him, I was scoffed at. Laughed at. They told me- those sniveling males, those pathetic bags of filth that shouldn't be allowed to call themselves Death Eaters- that I was in the wrong place, that I would never become one of them, that I should just go home and make babies like a good little pureblood wife.
The latter line was courtesy of Rodolphus, in case you were wondering.
But I stayed. I ignored them all; I stayed, and I spoke to the Dark Lord, and he agreed to give me the Dark Mark- provided that I could hold myself in a duel with him.
I promised him that I could.
The men, with their condescending smirks, made bets. They all agreed that the Dark Lord would win, that I would be humiliated, that I would go home after not even a minute.
They were wrong. The duel lasted for an hour, and it ended with a draw called by the Dark Lord himself.
From that moment on, I became the Dark Lord's protégée. He schooled me in magic beyond my wildest dreams; he made me the woman I am today. In turn, I became his right hand aide. I was his most loyal, his most faithful, his most trusted. On the rare occasions when he was in need of someone else's opinion, I was the one he would go to.
He taught me. He spoke to me. He chose me, against all odds, above all others. Is that not caring, in its most basic form?
Time passed, and my feelings grew, blossoming into the love, the adoration, they are today. The Dark Lord, even when I was new enough to my feelings to be rubbish at hiding them, has never known. He has never known me to think of him as anything besides a Master, a leader, a Lord.
My Lord.
When he disappeared, supposedly "vanquished" by that tiny baby, I knew it wasn't true, that it wasn't for good. I knew he was just hiding, biding his time. He had gone through far too much- the full extent of which I did not know, and even today still do not- to prevent being defeated, especially by a child who had yet to be able to say their own name.
And so I searched. I hunted for him. I was thrown into Azkaban for it. Yet I have never regretted it, not even as the Dementors glided past my cell, because when I was freed, my Lord restored me to my rightful place at his side. He honored me, told me that I was the best, thanked me- and even though I was not the only one he directed his words to, his eyes, that striking shade of blood red, never left my own.
Later, at the Ministry, he could have fled. He had time to leave before the Ministry of Magic employees arrived for work; he could have gotten away, his return would have remained a secret, the Minister would have continued destroying the lives of the Dark Lord's two greatest enemies.
Instead, he stayed. He stayed to grab me before he Disapparated, and he is too intelligent to have underestimated the impact those few seconds could have had.
He freed me, praised me, saved me, even at the expense of himself. If that is not caring, then I do not know what is.
I was his last Death Eater. The last one standing, fighting for him, with him, against the masses of people opposing us. We both fought three, we were the last left for our cause, we were equals.
Then, I was challenged anew, and I made one small, simple, fatal mistake: I underestimated my opponent. And so I died.
The Dark Lord could have won. He could have defeated those three teachers single-handedly, even without me battling enemies of my own. But he didn't. Instead, in a fit of anger unlike any that I have seen from him before, he attacked my killer.
This made the difference between life and death for him.
The Dark Lord does not love. He cannot love. But he cares, and he cares for me.
And that is enough.
(*)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, let alone the simply fascinating character that is Bellatrix Lestrange.
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