Author: The Absynth Fairy

Date Finished: Sept. 15th, 2003

*Note*. My friend challenged me to do this about three weeks prior to me writing this. It's been a joy trying to work out the delicious little details of this story's beginning, middle and perverted (and delightfully so!) end. Though this fic will most likely. umm disturb the reader, you must understand that this was written under the influence of boredom and profuse embarrassment (and a little bourbon on the side, I must confess). I like to call this fic one of my homoerotic enigmatic insanity pieces. BUT I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I WILL NOT, AS LONG AS I LIVE IN THIS PIT WE CALL EARTH, BECOME A ROMANCE NOVELIST! Just remember, this wasn't made to offend, so don't go complaining to the maestro when the aria's done!

Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, sadly, wish they were, but they're not. I'll have to live with that..

MADNESS CALLING

"If I had my wand, I'd kill you right at this moment, wolf." "Don't you think I'd do the same? Keep quiet, we need to hear if anyone is approaching."

His eyes were all but flashing in the dark. "Why are you helping me? Just kill me and get it over with. The Dark Lord will have his revenge either way." His face was smug, though I could barely see it in the dimly lit chamber. I sighed, more out of exasperation than irritancy at all. I was way beyond that anyway. "The Dark Lord will do nothing, Rodalphus. You're weak, and you're tiered. Give it up, already." I don't know whether it was the dull, unaffected, bored tone in my voice that shut him up or the fact that I was regarding him with such calm that it was quickly deflating his ego.

His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed in red, shadowed eerily by the faint dark shadows beneath them. A muscle in the corner of his mouth kept twitching as he sat there against the damp stone wall, arms folded, with one leg stretched out in front of him and one drawn up. His once shiny black hair was now horrifically tangled and matted around his angular face. For one mad instant, I had the wildest desire to take a comb and tear through it. to at least tidy it up a bit, make it look just a little bit better. His nose was broken a little, bruised, where rivulets of dried blood caked his upper lip. Just a little blood was caked and flaking all down his chin and the jerking corners of his colorless mouth.

I feared that in that suffocating corridor, he looked truly insane. The only source of light we had was the moonlight pouring through a series of small gaps where rocks had fallen into the windows. Dust was drifting through the humid air, which made it all the more hard to breath. How many hours had we been stuck in this crumbling, humid, damnable little hole?

Immediately, I raised myself painfully from my position, despite the pain from the throbbing, open wound in my leg, and I began to pace. At once, as if resurrected by a spell, the old Remus Lupin came back to me. The old way of thought, the old devious plotting raced back into me as though it were a vicious, brilliant gust of wind. Memories of maps and passageways and different maneuvers and procedures came back to me. And then I began to think. How could we get out of here? How could all of this hellish debris be annihilated without magic?

Well, pacing surely wasn't going to help, because the pain in my leg wasn't going to allow me to concentrate on anything. Angry and disappointed, I flopped back down in my old spot in the musty, damp corner and let my head lull weakly on the damp, uncomfortable wall. I totally, utterly despised this place! Yet I was trapped here, and not with a person that I would like to be trapped with, either.

Suddenly, he spoke up. "Just kill me. Take that jagged rock over there," His long white bone-thin finger indicated limply to a tall, sharp rock in the far left corner. "And jam it into my head. It will be painless if you do it quickly."

I shook my head. "And what's to stop you from doing the very same thing to me, Rodalphus?" I said kindly, raising my head from the wet wall to stare at him with widening eyes.

A momentary serenity passed over his whole expression. The half-closed blood-shot eyes were wonderfully calm. I could no longer see that garish red lining his lids, or the sunken dark circles beneath them. The sickly white of his skin was no longer visible and all I could see was the moonlight shining on his face. And the blood, the broken nose, they were nowhere to be found. In that moment, he looked truly beautiful to me, like a woman is appealing, pleasing to look at, and, perhaps, if I just got close enough, pleasing to. But then, he spoke, and it was a beautiful, serene sound. Not smug, not full of disdain or mocking, or even zealousness. "It doesn't matter anymore. the Dark Lord is gone. far way from here with." He didn't continue. He was not facing me anymore; he was looking through the gaps that allowed only so much moonlight to shine through.

I was dumbstruck.

Before this moment, he was nothing but zealous, ravenous, savage insanity. Just sitting there, blood-shot eyes sliding shiftily from side to side, mouth twisted into an ugly colorless, demented grin, which I found particularly impossible to look at, hair matted and tangled like a course, insipid imitation of Medusa's mane of serpents. Sometimes he mumbled incoherent words to himself, ghastly, incomprehensible. Now and then I heard in the thick of this undistinguishable chatter the name Bella. It didn't automatically launch me into some complicated thought process, or a thorough memory search of where that recognizable name was first seen or heard. But the word did strike some rare recognition within me, and I wondered just a little bit until the pain in my leg threatened to drive me mad again.

But now, there was only a mystical calm that shrouded over him, a dark cloud of serenity, if you will. But I liked it, and for the time being, I had no problem at all with being in his presence. It made me recall all that had happened before

It was when Bellatrix had hit Sirius, and I was silently breaking down, trying to comfort Harry, wanting myself to push him aside and to rip the veil back from that arch, to see Sirius smile back up at me and jump back out again to be the hero; to fight and protect. But I simply didn't have the courage. And to tell the truth, no one else did.
In a mad rage I went after the only Death Eater I could chase after: Rodalphus. Through narrow corridors and arches and passageways I chased after him, shooting spells, curses, obscenities at him. All I wanted to do was hurt him, kill him, to avenge Sirius' departure from us. A hot, liquid hate coursed through my veins as I shot curse after curse after curse after curse at him and as curse after curse after curse after curse wore off within minutes.

Finally, I had him trapped in a chamber. It was an empty one, though. But I didn't care that much about that. All I wanted was to get him. But, before I could do anything, he yelled "Explliarmus!" and disarmed, I was. He sent another spell after me and it missed, but it hit a stone wall, causing a literal avalanche. A sharp rock hit the back of my calf, tore my robes. I hid in the corner as Rodalphus sought a hiding place of his own, having lost his wand in the avalanche.

After the rocks stopped falling, and heavy clouds of dust and dirt floated through the air, he was running around like a madman, trying to get free, trying to escape. That's when I socked him. I flew at him, arms flailing, and I punched him everywhere that my fists could reach. I hit him till blood was flowing freely from his mouth and nose. I walloped him in the stomach till his eyes were bulging and he was doubling over with pain. But he still stood erect and he swung his fists at me as hard as he could. One of his blows struck the side of my face, and another hard in the chest.
Finally, he dealt a blow to the wound in my calf and I went down with a yelp to the dusty ground beneath me as he dove on top of me and pounded my face and neck with blow after blow. And I hadn't the strength to fight back, so I lay there as he beat me, blood pouring from my nose and mouth. And then I realized: He's going to beat me to death; I'm going to DIE here! And then I gathered up what little strength I had to throw him off, and I succeeded.

The back of his head hit the wall, and his limp, unconscious body slid to the ground.

Panting, I hobbled over to the corner, collapsed on the stone floor, and slept. And when I woke, Rodalphus was sitting in a distant corner, sitting in the fetal position, staring at me with red rimmed, bloodshot eyes.

And that is what led to this. And I sat there now, wide-eyed, staring at Rodalphus with the utmost amazement as tears began rolling down his cheeks. He was mumbling something under his breath, and then it gradually became louder, and I could make out the name "Bella" in between his frenzied sobs.

"BELLA!!! BELLA!!!! BELLA!!!!" He wailed while clamping his hands to his ears and rocking back and forth, convulsing as if the Cruciatus curse had been cast upon him. He sobbed like a frightened child and shuddered in his own tight embrace as I watched at my uncomfortable vantage point with disgust. and utter amazement.

His sobbing drove me mad with sympathy for him, suddenly, He looked so pathetic, so frail, laying there, sobbing like a child.

Suddenly, ignoring the pain in my leg, I silently rose to my feet and walked over to him, each footstep faltering more than the last. And then I knelt down beside this sobbing boyish creature and gathered him to myself.

He gave no protest, nor any insults. He just lie there, his head on my shoulder, and sobbed. "Bella.Bella.Bella.Bell-." I stroked his matted hair and silenced him softly. "Shh.."

And then, as if awakening from a dream, I heard a soft, crazed laughter in my ear. Hands clutched at my shoulders, urgent, dangerous. And I broke way. He was kneeling on the stone floor, backlit by the silver light of the moon, laughing insanely, loudly. There was something crude and frightening in this laughter, something menacing. This was pure insanity.

I backed away from him, as his ringing laughter grew infinitely louder. He was mad. He brought himself clumsily to his feet and threw his head back, his menacing laughter all but echoing. "BELLA!!! HAHAHA!!! BELLA-BELLA- BELLA-BELLA!!!!" He howled.

This was more than I could bear; this was absolutely impossible to listen to. I pressed the heels of my hands to my ears with deafening force and screamed as loud as I could. "STOP IT!" I said, "STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!!!" Tears were rolling profusely down my cheeks as if someone had turned the spigots in my eyes. I tried to shut out this sinister laughter with all the force I could muster, it was killing me, I could take it no longer, I was angry, I was maddened. I was passionately CRAZED.

And in madness and madness alone I rushed at him. My body crashed against his, slammed him against the wall. Though I knocked the wind out of him, he still laughed. Though I hit him hard in the jaw, he still laughed. And with one nudge from his hands to my shoulders I fell over and he was pinioning me to the wet ground. And then I realized that the sound of my own crazed and menacing laughter was mingling with his. Languid, liquid arms held me, as if they were there, but they weren't. Or were they? I was going insane, laughing as if I were on some drug.

Insane? Mad? Delirious? What I was at the moment, I had no idea. But my vision was clouded, I couldn't stop laughing, and I was giving in to the liquid arms, the teeth on my neck, the wet tongue that traced the line of my jaw. The world wasn't the world anymore, place and time made no difference, as I was drifting in a void of sudden pleasure, of release and disclosure. Lips on mine, wriggling, writhing tongue drawing out what little breath and jumbled words were there, what little beads of sighs were clinging to my throat. His breath on my cheek, soft and rapid, the ringing laughter louder and louder, bouncing off the walls which no longer seemed boundaries, a sinister siren in the sea of my consciousness.

I had to find some solid place; I had to feel what was real.

I was swimming in the smooth onyx of his eyes; I wanted to feel his long dark eyelashes through the tips of my fingers and through my lips. Love you, I whispered, just love you. His mouth was locked to mine, tongue probing inside me. I found it so hard to break away, but I did and I moaned with abandon as his lips sucked at my neck and drew a line of fire down my chest to the pit of my stomach. We were on a blanket made up of our clothes and we were writhing against each other.

For now he seemed so wonderfully beautiful to me. Yes, kiss me. touch me. Love me.

Do you love me? Pale lips curling into a grin, onyx eyes teeming with dark, blasphemous passion. Yes. I wanted him so badly; I wanted something solid, something that was there. And I had it. His hand traveled down the length of my inner thigh and from there he moved to touch the most secret part of me. I gasped, tried not to make a sound, but I could hold it in no longer and he silenced me by clamping his mouth to mine, my sex clasped tightly in his hand.

He sucked the breath out of me as I struggled to keep my arms around him, to keep my mouth locked to his. But he broke away too soon, and then I felt his weight on top of me, my legs being hoisted up over his shoulders, felt the first terrifying jabs, and then, welcoming him into me, let the ecstasy consume me.

Each cruel thrust was blended together into a sea of pleasure, his fire and mine consumed me until the climax came, and that was the end of it. I went cold with the exact opposite of satisfaction. When I came, I died, and every particle of passion, of life, of energy, of coherency flooded out of me in a creamy gush.

Afterwards, we lay together. My eyes were glazed, without sight as I sought still to find solidity in this soundless void, this new opaque labyrinth I call my sanity. And he was kissing me again with a tender mouth, lips that seemed cold and alien to me as I lay on top of the discarded robes with him, and I ran a finger down the colorless, shapeless reptilian flesh of his arm.

"Why do you love me?"