Into the Eternal Darkness
prompt: blackness drips down from both of my hands (afi, the sinking night)
WARNING: GRAPHIC TORTURE AHEAD. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
The dress is red and orange silk twisting around her curves like a flame, and she is an inferno walking through a field of rotting black flowers as she enters the chamber. She walks like a panther, all swaying steps and sashaying hips and that deadly, deadly smile that isn't really a smile at all; and they watch like the prey they are, eyes drawn like magnets to her majesty, as she surveys the room with her glinting eyes, looking for him, always him.
And the silence in the room is ringing, a gaping breath of suspense, when their eyes meet. He's at the head of the room, on his golden throne as if this were his party, as though they all belong to him – but the thought is not angering. It's comforting. Perhaps it is because he carries himself like the ground is lucky to bear his footfalls, and their eyes privileged to see his glorious form, and fate genius for having devised the body he resides within, or the magic he wields. And his magic is a phenomenal masterpiece, humming in his bones like it were stitched there by the stars themselves, with his heart pumping to the beat of forever. They all feel it, singing to them, singing loudly, because it is what they crave.
She curtsies, stopping in front of him. "My Lord," she breathes, the words slipping off her tongue like sweet, sweet wine that she knows she will spend the rest of her life getting drunk on.
He quirks his lips at her, half smirk, and she appears to burn brighter, chest heaving, pulse racing.
The red of his eyes would be disturbing if it weren't enthralling, calling to her in the same way she longs to tear skin with her bare hands and bathe in blood, but she has no right to look him in the eye when she does not even bear his mark. Her gaze falls away from his pale face, which in itself is defiant of expression – emotion is weakness, after all – and to the hem of his pristine robe, the black material caressing the floor like a lover. But although she does not look at him, she feels his magic touching her skin and it is pleased.
"Bellatrix Black," he hisses.
The words carry through the chamber, echoing in the corners, and they all shiver at the power in them. She nearly moans.
"You seek to wear my mark," he pauses. "But you have yet to prove that you deserve such an honour."
Eagerness wells up in her. She will level mountains, kill children by their dozens, burn cities and desecrate churches to prove her worth, and she will do it with pride, and she will do it for him. He is the darkness that calls to her, the supernova that churns in her veins, the infinity she has been searching for her whole life. She aches for him.
"I will do anything, my Lord!" There is fire in her voice, and she is burning, burning. She raises her gaze to meet his, furious brown into chilling red, and this is when he knows.
His smirk becomes a full one, and it is a cruel, callous thing. She may rage in all her fiery glory, but he is a chasm of icy darkness that will consume her, and she knows it just as well as he. His Death Eaters have told him of Bellatrix Black, of the rotting soul that is as dark as her name, of her dreams of blood and murder, of the dismembered animals littering her childhood and the ancient tomes of archaic magic in her library; and the men who tell him of her, men who have raped and killed and tortured, they shiver at the thought of her – but darkness understands darkness.
Many types of monsters thrive in the shadows, but they all crave the same things – death, destruction, blood, fire. Any man can cause pain. It takes something more to enjoy it, to need it like oxygen. And this is something they both understand.
"I have heard that many times, but you are the only one I believe truly means it, Bellatrix." He opens his arms in a wide, sweeping gesture as if to welcome her. "Come," he says. "It is time to prove your worth."
Those terrible eyes watch, along with the rest of his people, as she straightens, her bust straining against the fabric of her tight dress, and moves gracefully towards him. She does not look him in the eye anymore, perhaps ashamed of her previous vehemence, or too well trained in etiquette, but her walk is sure and measured. She feels his magic wrap around her tighter with each step and it is a magnificent, pulsing presence that sooths her own magic; when she is just shy of him, her breath is ragged from the sheer sensation of it.
His skin holds the pallor of ice, and feels just as frozen as it touches her face, his forefinger tracing the distinct line of her cheekbone. It is a gentle touch, almost akin to the caress of a lover, but the pale skin is rough and calloused enough to send her eyelids fluttering shut, knees weakening. He is intoxicating, the Dark Lord.
"My Lord," she breathes, inferno flailing into steaming embers, simmering under an icy wave of sheer desire.
If he were capable of human emotion, his eyes would perhaps hold something like tenderness as they gazed upon her; her passion is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It makes her look so alive. But Lord Voldemort does not know compassion, only manipulation and an anger set at his bitter core, and so he only thinks of how useful her loyalty will be, how valuable she is to him.
"There is a child," he begins, their faces so close that his breath wafts onto her cheek, "The Minister's son. I would like to send him a message. Do you understand, darling Bellatrix?"
He ignores the way she shudders. "Oh, yes, my Lord," she purrs.
"Bring the child." He calls, louder. She flinches slightly at his change in volume, but does not blink as Abraxas Malfoy's grand double doors slam open to admit two cloaked Death Eaters and a screaming four-year-old boy struggling in their arms. Those in the ballroom, already silent, fall back to create a clearing in which the boy is dumped, knees cracking painfully on the marble floor. She turns around at the sound, and smiles toothily.
"All for me, Master?" She looks back at him, wide-eyed; the glee in her voice is unmistakeable and sickens many watching. The Dark Lord, however, laughs cruelly, sweeping his arm in a welcoming gesture.
"All for you."
And once more she is a vibrant flame, sashaying predatorily towards the little boy, who would be adorable if his face was not bruised and overly ruddy from crying. The boy seems frozen as she walks closer, tears falling down his face silently, eyes almost humorously wide as he takes in first her, then the Dark Lord lounging behind, red eyes eager for bloodshed despite his passive face. It is only as she stops several feet away that he remembers the impending danger and begins to scurry backwards desperately, looking around wildly for mercy and finding none.
Bellatrix watches him with dark, heavy-lidded eyes and makes a disapproving noise from deep in her throat. The Black family is known for their dramatics, and Bellatrix, it seems, is no exception from this. The Dark Lord settles into his seat to watch what promises to be an entertaining show.
"Didn't your father teach you any manners?" she speaks loftily to the child, voice ringing clear and cold through the room.
A moment of silence. The boy stops moving, freezing as though it will stop the inevitable, and blinks at her.
"Well? Don't you know it's rude to interrupt a grown up's party?" The smile on her face is dreadfully wicked, malice spiking the corners of her lips upwards into her cheeks like needles. The child whimpers. "Hmm, I think perhaps I should teach you a lesson in respecting your betters."
The movement she makes to draw her wand is smooth and unembarrassed, despite having pulled it from in between her impressive cleavage. The wand itself is curved like a talon, the wood stiff and black as her name, fitting in her hand like an extension of her limb, wielded effortlessly. She holds it by her side, lounging casually but her body is tense, her heart pounding ferociously inside her chest. In her fiery dress, she looks almost like an avenging god, arousing in the way hurtful, deadly things are. The sight is oddly pleasing to Lord Voldemort.
She raises the wand slowly, lazily. That wicked smile is still on her face. "Immobulus," she whispers. There is a twist of her wand at the end of the normal wand movement that leaves the child's face mobile before her wand twirls again, this incantation silent, raising the child's body off the ground, straightening him into a spread-eagle stance in mid-air. A quick charm banishes his clothes, leaving his naked body bare for all of their eyes.
The audience's unease is palpable; a female sob is heard before it is brutally shushed. The little boy himself has begun to bawl again, great heaving breaths making his voice hitch, panic settling on to his face like a blanket. His eyes dart from side to side desperately, looking for an escape to this nightmare and growing ever more distressed at the lack of viable exits.
"Shh," Bellatrix coos, eyes bright, taking three measured steps forward until she is within touching distance. She considers his pale, infantile body for a long moment.
She mumbles something and all bar the Dark Lord notice the tip of her wand spouting something metallic and sharp. His smirk is wide at all the potential he sees in front of him, feeling nothing for the child he is about to see brutally mutilated. The thing that they all fear the most about him is that he commits atrocities without feeling anything either way, good or bad; it shocks them, alarms them even. Now, as his eyes scan the audience, feeling their fear and disgust at Bellatrix's enthusiasm, he thinks that they feel the opposite about her: her emotion scares them – the fact that she can harm an innocent child with a smile on her face is horrifying to them, as bad as his apathy.
The single step she takes towards the child is hypnotising; they all watch as if they are moths drawn to her flame. Her next movement is quick, a strong swipe of her wand-turned-knife underneath the boy's right clavicle. It's a thin, shallow cut – though the way the boy whimpers, it might as well have been much deeper – that takes a moment before sluggishly welting, blood rising to the skin's surface slowly.
She laughs, delighted.
Her face is flushed with pleasure as she makes the next cut, a slow, deliberately deep one that makes the boy scream. It runs vertically down his torso, perpendicular to the previous shallow one, all the way down to his bony hip. The cut gapes open once the blade leaves it and blood wells in it, spilling onto his porcelain skin. She laughs once more, and makes an identical cut on the left side of his torso. Two more slices and she has a square of flesh; the walnut wand is slipped behind her ear so both of her hands are free to dig into the cuts to pull the skin away. The wet squelching sounds, the hysterical sobs of the boy, the uneasy murmurs of the audience, the feel of her Lord's gaze upon her back, the blood coating her hands – it makes her near delirious.
The wound bleeds crazily, so she lets the square of skin flop messily to the floor to grab her wand, casting a clotting charm on it lest he bleed out before she's done. The boy's innards are strangely captivating, twitching and moving in his body, trying vainly to keep him alive. Human biology is fascinating – just how many organs, vital and otherwise, can it live without before death?
"Oh, but what should I do to you now, bitty baby?" she whispers, completely focussed on the carnage marring his torso. A few tense seconds pass, each weighing heavily in the air; the child's pallor is awfully pale and his breath incredibly laboured. "Oh!" she suddenly cries, breaking the silence. She jumps a little and claps her hands together. "I know! Catocaleo!"
A whip of twisting, pulsing fire coils out of her wand tip, smouldering against the floor. Her face has a maniacal expression on it as she looks fondly down at it, like she recalls pleasant memories with it. A few meandering steps take her to the child's untouched back. She raises the whip, and cracks it down sharply, mercilessly. It sizzles through the air, slicing through the child's flesh as if it were butter, gouging deep into the muscle and bone beneath, leaving only a smoking laceration, the whip hot enough to cauterise the wound as it occurred.
The child gives an inhuman howl that is cut off halfway through when the pain overloads his body and he falls unconscious. Bellatrix frowns at the back of his slumped head. She walks back around to his front, cancelling the whip to Ennervate him back into consciousness.
The sight of his back, unblocked by Bellatrix's body, makes more than one person vomit noisily in the audience.
When his eyes snap open again, pain etched deep into the lines of his face and another scream building in his throat, she slaps him. The force of the blow snaps his face to side, a hand print shape already blooming in red amongst the bruises already on his skin.
"It is rude," she snarls, her anger sudden and overwhelming. "To sleep when someone is teaching you!" She sighs, anger melting away. "I guess I'll just have to punish you. Flamma."
The tip of her wand alights with a blue flame. She presses it into the tender skin of his neck, holds for five agonising seconds while the skin burns, ignoring the way the child's body writhes, before releasing and repeating on his sensitive left thigh.
"Now," she exclaims, excited again like a child. "Where were we?"
Four hours later and she is kneeling before her Lord, dress stained irreparably with gore, along with her skin and hands and hair. Behind her, the mutilated husk of what was once a child lies. She has left the face unmarred – it wouldn't do for the body to be completely unrecognisable, after all – with the only damage coming from the eyes being gouged out; she holds one in her hand like a trophy.
Halfway through, around when Bellatrix started hacking off body parts, the Dark Lord decided it was time for the party to end, fed up of the constant heaving sounds of his weaker-stomached guests. Therefore the room is empty bar from Bellatrix, the Dark Lord and his most trusted. They stand to the sides of his throne, not directly next to but a little way in front; no one is worthy of standing directly in line with Lord Voldemort.
Their eyes gaze upon the near delirious form that is Bellatrix. Her mouth, lips and chin reddened with congealing blood that she licked from his skin, is curved up into a drunken smile, hands so soaked in blood that they drip onto the previously white floor, the child's eyeball staring right back at her. Her wand has a red hue from all the blood soaked into it; it rests between her stained breasts. She looks utterly debauched; he finds it a good look for her.
"Bellatrix," he hisses. "I find myself pleased."
Her head snaps up, their eyes locking once more. Her breath catches in her throat as his magic surrounds her again, pulsating pleasantly on her skin, making her feel like she belongs, like he is her home.
"That was truly beautiful." He praises. Several of his men exchange incredulous looks, deeply terrified and disgusted of the monster of a girl before them, who tortured a mere child with a perverse joy instead of a grim sense of duty and self-loathing. Both Bellatrix and Lord Voldemort ignore them.
Her smile grows wider. "T-thank you, my Lord!" She stammers in happiness, elated to find someone to share her love of torture with, someone to understand the darkness inside her soul.
"I hope, therefore, you will wear my Mark with pride." His own lips twist into a smirk, cold eyes glinting in satisfaction.
"Of course, Master!"
"Come forth and present you arm." He draws his wand from the sleeve of his elegant robe, the yew distressingly white even next to his pale, pale skin. She rises swiftly, walking that predator's walk to him before bowing her head, dark blood-soaked curls falling heavily around her delicate face, her left arm held out, forearm bared.
He runs the tip of his wand down the skin of her forearm, watching as goosebumps rise in its stead, pleased to be able to control her so much. Her loyalty will be invaluable, he thinks. She looks on with heavy-lidded eyes, feeling overwhelmed with the thrum of his magic so close to her. It is like a drug, tantalising and perfect and addicting; she will always come back for more. Her breath shudders out of her throat.
They stay like so for several moments, the Death Eaters watching curiously but silently, as his wand lingers on her flesh. Bellatrix bites her lip, wanting it desperately, no matter the pain. She has never wanted anything more. All the while they stand like this, the blood from her fingers drips lewdly onto the floor.
"Morsmodre!" Her Master hisses, and his mark blooms on her flesh like a tattoo.
She is holding the eyeball when she reads about the child's disappearance in The Daily Prophet the next morning. Then, a few days later, she reads the Minister's devastated reaction to finding the body, and proudly displays the eyeball on a prominent shelf. Her Dark Mark tingles when she thinks about it, and it comforts her to stroke it. She feels her Master's magic within it, calling to her.
It feels like salvation.