Shields Before Hearts
Written for the Heirs of Slytherin Short Story Challenge
They fear us not, but issue forth their city.
Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
With hearts more proof than shields. Advance,
brave Titus:
They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,
Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:
He that retires I'll take him for a Volsce,
And he shall feel mine edge.
- Coriolanus, William Shakespeare
Forest of Bowland
Spring 1973
"Bellatrix!" Voldemort screamed through the thudding rain, "Go get Faulkner! Lestrange, get Grover!"
Rodolphus Lestrange dashed off, leaping over a low stone wall as the rain began to fall harder. He stumbled and his boots slipped on the grass, but he quickly made his way to his feet and jerked his right arm outward. A blast of green light shot forth from his wand; he'd aimed a Killing Curse at Petra Grover but had missed. Bellatrix, for her part, whirled away from the jade green explosion of the Dark Lord's own successful Killing Curse, and she began to run madly in pursuit of Benedict Faulkner.
This battle had erupted after Rodolphus, Bellatrix, and Lord Voldemort had tracked down an Auror. Within moments, members of the Order of the Phoenix had come to their friend's rescue, and everything had erupted from there. Bellatrix aimed her wand at the back of the sprinting Benedict Faulkner, and she screamed,
" CRUCIO!"
The red flame of torturous magic burst forth from her wand and snared around Benedict Faulkner in an spidery embrace as he fell to his knees. Bellatrix saw out of the corner of her eye that a massive conflagration had erupted. She managed to tightly maintain her Cruciatus Curse on Faulkner, but her eyes went round as saucers as she realised that none other than Albus Dumbledore had appeared. Voldemort had set the trees surrounding Dumbledore on fire, and they burned ferociously despite the torrential rain. The two legendary wizards were now locked in a mighty duel, and Bellatrix knew that Benedict Faulkner was the last person she needed to worry about just now. She needed to get rid of him, quickly and efficiently. She snapped her wand up, breaking the Cruciatus Curse, and she cleared her throat as she gathered her magic, letting it swirl and boil up through her core.
" Avada Kedavra! "
Faulkner collapsed flat onto the ground, the mud squelching as he toppled ungracefully, his body still and silent. Bellatrix had no time to cast the Dark Mark into the blackening sky. Usually, after a good solid kill, she sent the glittering emerald symbol skyward with a hiss of pleasure rushing through her veins. Tonight she felt only urgency. There was no time to tattoo the clouds. She dashed over toward where Voldemort and Dumbledore were throwing all manner of spells at one another. Finally, she heard Lord Voldemort growl,
" Avada - "
Before he could finish incanting the Killing Curse, Dumbledore was gone, having Disapparated in perfect silence. The place where he'd been standing was utterly empty, as if no one in the history of wizardkind had ever been there. In the distance, Bellatrix saw a green shimmering Dark Mark fly up through the spindly ceiling of the forest. Rodolphus had caught Petra Grover, then.
"Albus Dumbledore, you bloody spineless coward!" yelled Voldemort, slashing his wand through the air with explosive rage. His magic sliced straight through the trunk of a mighty oak, and it creaked and moaned in protest as it began to topple over. Bellatrix watched the tree fall, watched her husband snarl and hiss angry words about his enemy's cowardice.
Husband.
Sometimes it still felt odd to think of him like that, to think of the way he'd let her get so close, the way he'd claimed ownership of her before Rodolphus could do it. What they had was hardly a standard marriage, hardly a harmonious union or a syrupy romance. What they had was Dark and snarling, two angry souls bound together by magic. She made him stronger, he often said, with the way she worshiped him so dutifully, the way she served him in battle and then went home and let him kiss her until their lips bruised. As for Bellatrix, having him as a spouse was all she could have ever dreamed and more. Groveling at his feet would have been more than enough. Pressing her lips to the dragon hide of his boots, whispering from a distance about how she adored him, would have been more than enough. But he'd put a ring upon her and made her his in a way the rest of them could never claim. And that was so much more than enough that sometimes it overwhelmed Bellatrix a little.
She felt overwhelmed now, staring through the downpour at the way Voldemort stood heaving with vengeful fury. His wand shook like the last leaf of autumn in his long fingers, and a distant rumble of thunder was a war drum, an undertone to the Dark Lord's crackling anger.
"Go home, Bellatrix," he said finally, his greying hair plastered to his head by the rain. She opened her mouth to protest, but he took a step toward her and said in a menacing voice, "Don't you dare defy me now. I told you to go home."
"Yes, My Lord." Bellatrix shut her eyes and whirled to the side, Disapparating without another word. She came to in the entryway of their home in London, and she huffed in frustration as she thought back over what had happened. It was meant to be an ambush. Three on one. It should have been quick and easy. There ought to have been laughter and celebrating afterward. But it had quickly turned into an actual battle. They hadn't expected the Order of the Phoenix to materialise so quickly or in such great numbers. There had been too many wands, and a few of them had been too strong.
Every single time Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort had come face-to-face, it was as if their indomitable powers canceled one another's out. Someone always wound up leaving, unwilling to stare down a Killing Curse. That someone was usually Dumbledore. Voldemort could spit and heave all he wanted about Dumbledore's cowardice, but even Bellatrix had to admit the man possessed a rather obnoxious sense of self-preservation.
She gasped quietly and turned on a slippery heel as Voldemort himself appeared in the entryway beside her. His pale face - far more pale than it had been even a few years earlier - had rage etched upon every feature. He looked, all of a sudden, as though his face had been cast into white marble, and it unnerved Bellatrix to see him like that. He said nothing to her; he just paced in his soaked robes and aimed a nonverbal Reductor Curse at the painting of roses in the stairwell. The canvas exploded into tiny scraps that fluttered and landed upon the floorboards; the stalwart wooden frame buckled and burst all over the ground in splinters and sawdust. Bellatrix stayed silent. She could clean that up later. She had grown rather accustomed to picking up after her master's outbursts. Tonight was different, though. That much was obvious.
"Tell me Benedict Faulkner is dead," Voldemort barked finally, raking his fingers through his wet hair. Bellatrix nodded.
"He's dead, My Lord. I had a Cruciatus Curse on him, but then I saw Dumbledore, so I quickly eliminated Faulkner."
"Well, at least we took five of them out in total, then," Voldemort nodded. "No casualties on our end. Dumbledore's still a bloody fool. An invertebrate deserter, a frightened child. He's nothing but a hypocrite, spewing empty, maudlin sentiments about justice and mercy , but he's a coward all the same."
"I reckon he always will be, Master," Bellatrix said softly. "He always flees these duels because he is afraid. He's afraid of you . They're all afraid of you."
Voldemort gave her a withering look. "The least he could do is give me the opportunity to stand over his corpse and admire my work. I don't ask for much."
Bellatrix curled her lips up a little, though there was no mirth in her smile. These last few years, war had become the essence of their existence. Her master was never satisfied. The body count was never high enough. No one was ever loyal enough… no one but Bellatrix. She made him happy, she knew, or at least as happy as he could be under the circumstances. She knew she could make him feel marginally better now, too.
"Master, if you've any anger to take out, I beg you to take it out on me," she murmured, and he just nodded. Without any further warning, he shoved her hard against the wall at the base of the stairs and put his wand to the neckline of her sopping wet work robes. He pushed her hard enough that her head banged backward against the plaster, and she yelped in surprise. He murmured a quick apology, something he was rarely wont to do, and Bellatrix reached up to hold his face in her hands.
" Diffindo Vestimentum. "
She gasped as he dragged his wand down, his specialised Severing Charm cutting only through her clothes and leaving her flesh untouched. His hand shook a little as he brushed his knuckles along her collarbone, and his face twisted a little. He smashed his face against hers, making her head bash against the wall again as he kissed her ferociously. Teeth clacked and lips fumbled; it was messy and harsh and a little painful, if Bellatrix was honest. Voldemort pushed Bellatrix's destroyed clothes away roughly. The wet, sliced-up robes and undergarments stuck stubbornly to Bellatrix's skin as he did. He started to yank, to rip the sleeves down her arms, and Bellatrix winced from how forceful he was being.
"Get down. Get down on your knees," he commanded her, and Bellatrix sank down at once. He moved quickly to unbutton his trousers, but Bellatrix could tell he wasn't hard. He did not seem embarrassed in the slightest of that; it was her duty to get him hard, to arouse him in times like this. After a great victory, he didn't ever need help. Difficult nights like tonight were times for Bellatrix to assist him. She did just that, working with expert movements of her hands and lips born of years of contact. She knew what he liked. He liked when the fingers of her left hand played with his orbs. He liked when she took her time wrapping the fingers of her right hand around his shaft, as though she'd never seen it before and was exploring it for the first time. And he liked when she suckled on just the tip of his cock, moaning quietly, like she was savouring sweet candy. She did all of that, and soon enough he'd grown inside of her mouth. She could feel the dull, distant throb of his pulse through his skin, and this time when she moaned, it was real, visceral, low and originating somewhere in her chest. Voldemort seized Bellatrix's head in his hands and jammed himself down her throat, making her gag and splutter. He ignored her discomfort and pulled back, pushing himself even more deeply down her throat.
"Mmph!" Bellatrix cried in desperation, her mouth feeling invaded. He didn't stop. He didn't slow down. She would have never asked him to, anyway. His hands tightened in her wet hair, and the tip of his cock bashed against the back of her throat over and over again. Tears began to stream unbidden from Bellatrix's eyes, and she shivered where she knelt, chilled from the rain. Voldemort surprised her then by brushing the tip of his wand along her shoulder and whispering,
" Sicco Duo ."
She was warm and dry then as his spell washed over her, and she stared up at him, full of gratitude and admiration. She pulled herself off of his length and murmured up to him,
"He'll die by your wand, Master."
Dumbledore, she meant. Her husband's eyes flashed darkly in response to that. Voldemort's teeth dragged over his bottom lip, and he jerked his head toward the stairs. "Hands and knees."
Bellatrix was confused for a moment, but she finally realised what he wanted. She felt strange and a bit awkward kneeling on one step with her palms pressed three stairs up. She yelped in alarm when Voldemort plunged himself into her from behind, and it took everything she had not to wind up knocking her forehead on the hard wooden step as he thrust into her. His hands squeezed at her waist and then rubbed around her back as his hips moved fluidly against hers. For a long moment, he moved like a machine, pistoning in and out. It felt good, but Bellatrix wouldn't climax. Not tonight, not after everything that had happened. She blinked slowly and looked to the place where her fingers curled around the edge of the stair, and she heard Voldemort's breath grow shallow and frantic. When he came, he groaned and tightened his fingers so hard that Bellatrix knew there would be bruises on her waist. She didn't even come close to a finish of her own; she was hardly aroused by any of this. But it wasn't for her. It was for him.
Suddenly something metallic landed with a clatter on the wooden step beside her, and as Voldemort slipped out of Bellatrix's body, she studied the item. It was a locket, silver and delicate with a B etched onto the front. She picked it up and moved off her aching knees to sit naked on the stair. She opened the locket with shaking fingers. Inside was a small rolled bit of parchment, upon which Voldemort had written in tiny script,
Now I am yours, and you are mine.
It was the vow they'd given one another exactly two years earlier, the day that they'd stood in silent solitude and made official the connection they'd forged through combat and conversations. Bellatrix shut the locket and wordlessly clasped it around her neck. She dragged the pad of her thumb over the oval pendant and raised her tired eyes to her husband.
"Thank you, My Lord," she said sincerely, and he nodded as he sniffed lightly and said,
"Happy anniversary, Bella."