Special thanks to Jess.91 for letting me write this story. Based on her wonderful 'Again' Series. Title stinks...
When Bellatrix Lestrange awoke, she jumped to her feet, scrambling for her wand at the place her pocket should have been. But there wasn't a pocket. Bellatrix was naked. She clenched her teeth and crouched down on the cold marble floor, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering. She nearly leaped out of her skin when a set of robes appeared right in front of her. Snatching them up, she rifled through them as fast as she could.
She ended up disappointed. No wand.
Scowling, Bellatrix put on the robes and examined her surroundings.
Four huge tables were lined up, with a fifth table stretching across one end of the hall. Thousands of sparkling candles floated high above her. They drifted about like lost ghosts, searching for a remnant of their living selves. The night sky, all its stars hidden by clouds, loomed far above Bella, like a blanket of darkness, or a reflection of her own darkness. The darkness that made her a Black.
This, the Great Hall of Hogwarts.
But it was empty, and just moments before she'd been fighting against that Weasley woman. War had been raging, filling the wizarding school with the shouts of angry voices, the echoing thunder of statues falling, portraits shredding. Even parts of the great building itself had been crashing, shattering. There'd been bodies, stacked one atop the other, some of which she'd been responsible for, and proud of it, too. Wizards, running and yelling curses. The dying, screaming their last scream. Smoke, filling her lungs. Acrid or sweet smells. It was hot, so hot sometimes she felt as if her skin was on fire, so hot she could not sweat, or it was cold, as cold as ice, as cold as death.
...and now, the Great Hall was empty...
Bellatrix listened to the silence.
But then footsteps, ringing through the Hall, broke the silence.
Bella turned to face them, clenched her fists and her teeth. Why couldn't there have been a wand in the robes?
She crouched down behind a table, where she could see but not be seen, and waited.
"Bella," a voice called, cold, but soothing, coaxing. "Bella, come out."
She paused, searching one more time for the wand. When still she came up empty handed, Bellatrix wanted to tear apart the robes, rip them and burn them and laugh at their ashes.
Instead, her hands refused to obey this wish, and her feet carried her forward.
"That's it," the man's voice said again. This time she could see him.
Bella hissed, "But you're dead..."
"Yes, I am," Rodolphus answered.
Bellatrix stopped and glared suspiciously at her husband. She started panting. "Then...then how did this happen?" She loathed the unknown with a vehemence stronger than steel and hotter than fire.
Rodolphus chuckled. "You don't know, then?"
She sneered at him, drew herself up, crossed her arms. "Would I ask you, my dearest husband, if I had known?" Her voice dripped with cynicism and poison, her lips curled upward disdainfully.
"Of course not." Rodolphus raised his chin, his eyes narrowed. "You're dead too."
Dead.
The world flipped upside down.
Dead. Bellatrix had never thought about death. She hadn't needed to. She'd always known—or thought she'd known—her lord would tell her his secret to surviving things any normal wizard, no matter how powerful, would never survive. His secret to immortality. She deserved to know. She needed to know. Voldemort would tell her, Bellatrix was sure. He had to tell her. He owed her.
Yet, he hadn't.
She clenched her teeth, ground them together. Anyone who looked at her face in that instant would have screamed and fled. Damn him!
...and now she was dead.
"Dead." Bellatrix laughed hysterically. "I'm not dead. The Dark Lord—"
"The Dark Lord is battling for his own life right now." Rodolphus held out his hand. "We're watching the war."
She shrank back from his hand. "The Dark Lord will win," she declared.
"Maybe he will. Maybe not."
"He will!" Bellatrix insisted, tossing her head.
Rodolphus shrugged. "I've given up caring. We are dead, after all. It doesn't matter."
Her eyes blazing, she glared at him, then stuck her chin up haughtily. "So we're dead," Bella said, taking a deep breath, closing her eyes.
"Yes." Thrusting out his hand again, more insistently, Rodolphus smiled at her. "Are you ready to move on?"
"On? What do you mean, on?" Bella demanded.
He shrugged again, moved closer to her. "You see the Great Hall's entrance?"
She nodded.
"Through there. That's on."
Bellatrix looked from the huge double doors, to the brilliant, starlit sky ceiling overhead to the house tables as long as the trees in the Forbidden Forest were tall, to her husband. She hadn't really loved him when she married him. It had been arranged, of course, her pure-blood husband.
Yet, as she looked straight into his big, sad eyes, warmth spread throughout her body, and she found herself wondering if she'd just overlooked something. Something wonderful and beautiful. Something unique and special.
"Yes," Bellatrix Lestrange whispered. And she'd never been so proud of the name Lestrange. Ever. "I'm ready. I really have discovered the secret to immortality. Dumbledore was right, for once; love can fix anything."
Rodolphus took her hand, his face gentle. "Then walk with me," he said. "Walk with me down the aisle again."
Their smiles beamed like the stars high above them, shining for eternity.
Love.
A/N: 'Tis a bit...off-topic, I guess you'd say.
Anyway...
Thanks for reading! Would you be willing to be so kind as to leave a review? I would be honoured! Even a few words or a sentence or two would just make my day! Thanks!
ily!
-Wings-