Title/Link: The Stalker

Team: Tutshill Tornadoes

Position: Chaser 3

A/N: Welcome to the eighth round of The Quidditch League FanFiction Competition! This round's all about the Black family!

Guideline:

Chaser 3 must write about Bellatrix Black

Prompts:

2. Destruction

5. Sleepless nights

8. "How is that a joke?"

Details: 1000 – 3000 WORDS. Rated M

(2185 words)

AU

I'm not a stalker. He thought to himself, it was his mantra to help justify his actions. I'm merely an observer. He was surrounded by trees, the cover of the setting sun illuminated shadows that hid his looming figure. He was on a mission but not just any mission, a mission of information. He had always been curious, guarded, quiet and somewhat mysterious but he was getting older and school was almost finished, he needed to know her now. He needed to know if his assumptions of her character were just as inky as his, if she could keep up with his defaults.

He could hear her ominous cackling throughout the forbidden forest, he could even hear her wand firing off spells, hear roaring and charging animals. It made him venture closer, no wand, too enthralled by mere curiosity to even piece together her actions. Why couldn't she be enjoying the last day of classes with her fellow Slytherins? He marvelled at her energy, her exuberance for she had yet to stop laughing. It was what had called to him while strolling around the castle, he could hear her and he knew that it was now or never to make his move.

Why couldn't she be more like Narcissa? So peaceful and calm, even Andromeda was rather likeable despite her muggle loving tendencies… Bellatrix Black was too much herself, too quick to respond, quick to judge, she knew what she thought and knew her personality and was not ashamed of her rather blackened heart. She attracted too much attention was his conclusion and he wanted to know if she could ever contain her itch of adventure, of violence, of duelling to a minimum. Just long enough for him to take her out on a date.

He reached the little clearing area and saw her, pitch black robs, shimmering dueling cloak, billowing around her as she with such surprising agility, ran around, hopping over fallen trees, dodging charging wolf attacks, ducking under the dark eagles that swooped toward her, blasting their beam of grey light filled with sonic waves. It was pure chaos.

He took a minute and stared at several unicorns and centaurs and even threstles attempting to charge her left. She ran up against a tree and used it to push off firing stunning hexes at the lot of them. His eyes widened in shock and awe as she fired killing curses at the wolves, bouncing it off the pools of unicorn blood, unicorns covered in scratches presumably from her long claw like nails… The animals of the forest were working together to subdue her and all she was doing was swinging from branch to branch, dodging laughing and knocking them down, killing a few of them. His breath hitched at her beauty, she was really something when she was doing something she loved… Her long thick wavy black hair danced around her, as if this was a mere exercise or spiritual enlightenment dance for a tribe. She looked primal; her teeth barred her hair holding a few feathers from the dark eagles and leaves from when she used a blasting hex on a unicorn onto a tree…. Her robes remained untouched and he was noticing that the animals were dropping, stacking up one at a time. Soon it was her and a lone centaur.

This centaur looked relatively older but had yet to have any grey hairs. His brown beard and brown hair did not match his more burgundy horse bottom, tattoos all over his back of what looked like a mathematical layout of the alignment of the plantes and the stars, he pulled out a sword from his rucksack attached to his side and they circled the other. His mean orange eyes continued to glare while Bellatrix licked the tip of her nails, almost swaying as they eyed the other down.

"Why do you come and wreak havoc on the forest?" He asked, his short sword gleamed in the dimming light, the sun was going away and his jagged wide blade looked as if it would be troublesome for Bellatrix to deal with, especially in the dark. Would she be alright? He asked himself, watching the angry centaur and a calm still smiling Bellatrix. He fished around his pockets for his wand finding it in his inner robe pocket and squeezed it tightly. He would step in if the centaur got too close. "Every new moon you decide to come here and lay waste to my brothers and friends!" He was getting loud, the hurt and anger in his eyes and voice. "Have you no heart? No soul!?" He demanded and Bellatrix stopped moving and tilted her head to the side.

"Ahh, Mattheus this is but a game." She spoke so delicately in her baby voice, so high and breathy though she was a deadly witch, it contrasted greatly and enticed the quiet watcher even more. He liked hearing her speak, he liked the way it made others drop their guard and she'd show them just how much they should have never underestimated her.

"Bellatrix! I've told you countless times not to create your path of obliteration leaving nothing but blood in your wake! I told you you will be forever cursed, I warned you of the ramifications of your actions yet you continue to instigate a fight with the keepers of the forest!" He was almost pleading with her. "You've led my tribe no choice, they have decided that this is the last time you shall step foot here."

"Mattheus, you're taking things so seriously, I'm just having a bit of fun!" She was twirling her wand with her fingers so quickly it was rather distracting. Mattheus clenched his jaw, tightened his hold on his sword.

"Bella, you know how much I care for you, you were like a student and this is how you repay me! You slaughter the forest as a joke? How is that a joke? How is this funny?" He stomped his hooves and Bella stopped smiling. The air tensed and the night sky settled upon them. "I took you under my tutelage in the hopes I could change your path, you had two in the stars, and judging by the shed unicorn blood, you have delved deeper in the dark arts." He sounded so upset and Bella's face turned serious.

"You're wrong… It's the Black Arts, more sinister, and I can obtain pure power if I kill my dearest friend." She admitted as she stopped twirling her wand and raised it at him.

"And I suppose you'll be doing a ritual with my blood?" He asked coldly, quietly. Her eyes glittered in unabashed happiness.

"I bathe in it."

The silence returned as Mattheus pulled out another short sword, this one sharp and pointy, almost like a rapier. He sharpened them against each other.

"Well Bella, you've made your decision. You are merely sixteen and already sacrificing your humanity, no wonder why you spend your nights here, haunting and roaming the forest in a daze of guilt and blood, you will forever be an insomniac, your rituals will turn you into something nearly human and you will have a thrust for blood that will be unquenchable. Already you have lost your sanity and you will only get worse." She was still smiling at his words. "If I don't kill you now, I fear what you will do in your future if you are not sent to prison." Bella let out a boisterous laugh and he charged her, she seemingly unguarded. He swiped at her neck and it lopped off, BELLA! His thoughts screamed at him as he stepped out from his hiding spot to get a closer look at her decapitated head. He watched as it turned to black sludge and gathered behind the centaur, noisily and she reappeared grinning. Mattheus attempted to turn all the way around but was forced to do a wide turn due to his horse bottom half and Bella didn't even wait for him to turn, she merely kept her wand pointed at him still smiling and quickly casted her curse.

"Crucio." She said casually. The centaur buckled and screamed, his tremors and cries of agony sending the forest to rustle and quake in protest. Bella threw her head back and laughed, enjoying the jerking and withering old mentor before her. She didn't stop it when he began to tear at his eyes, when his legs snapped from twisting and twitching too much, when he was knocking his body against the hard forest floor and debris from the fight. She kept it going, his screams echoing and vibrating the night before she turned around and faced the direction the admirer stepped out from. She tilted her head to the side, smiling and he approached slowly.

He couldn't help but find it romantic, though the new moon made everything darker, she still looked so beautiful, so perfect. Even as she tortured what was once her friend he couldn't get passed her smile, how mature she was for her age, how ready to face the world, accepting who she was. He loved it all and he was certain she would be his soul mate.

"Rodolphus Lestrange! Such a pleasant surprise." The way she spoke made him believe that she had known all along that he had been following her, that he too was an insomniac and would spend the night as her guardian, always around… He knew about the Most Ancient and Noble house of Black, he knew the history, how they were key players in any aspect of wizard life. His family was the same in France, chased out like all the other dark families after the war of Grindelwald. He took her hand and she continued to smile, unscathed from her bout in the forest. He merely leaned forward and kissed her, she kissed back and unbeknownst to them wisps of dark energy twirled around them. They pulled away and she licked her lips.

"Marry me." He demanded in his usual dark tone. He was a seventh year and he was leaving in a week, they both knew this and he hoped she'd agree to such a rushed but sure way of being together for eternity. She nodded slowly and chuckled to herself before wrapping her arms around his neck while Mattheus' cries of pain turned into whispers, he yelled his throat raw and gurgled in blood. Bellatrix walked over to him and pulled his shaking head into her arms. She sat down on the ground, pulling his head into her lap.

Rodolphus watched as her eyes became fully black, no white in her eyes and her hair floated up, carefully and delicately as she began chanting in latin, he could barely make out the whispered words as they left her red lips. He watched as she snapped his neck and the centaur stood motionless. Her eyes returned to normal and she looked up at him.

"Would you be a dear and help me carry him back to the castle?"

"You're really going to bathe in his blood?" He asked as he walked over and hoisted the large centaur over his shoulders. She shook her head.

"It's too much of a hassle to fill up the tub in the dorm. I can make a potion with his blood and body parts. He's right though, I've sacrificed my humanity to be able to practice the Black Arts. I already feel its hold on me every moment I cast a spell." She waved her wand over the body and it became lighter against his shoulders, he watched as little dark wisps left her wand and circled around her wrist. She lifted up her sleeves and the darkness looked like black ink tendrils against her pale ivory skin around her forearms. "It'll go away after the ritual." She explained.

"I practice the dark arts." He explained as they began walking back to the castle. "The black arts is somewhat of a foreign concept." He admitted. They walked side by side and he felt her presence, it was comforting and empowering.

"I only decided to master it because it makes my dark spells stronger, and opens up a new arsenal of ways to travel, to be untraceable, to harm someone without even firing a curse at them, it will make it easier to torture someone, and I even had rituals to improve my vitality. The first Black Magic Master was my ancestor, I wish to follow her footsteps."

They exited the forest and she used her nails to dig right near Hagrid's hut and bury the centaur. She vowed to come for it again and turned to him smiling. He pulled out his family stone, a silver band with a ruby red gem lodged in the middle. She slipped it on her finger and removed a ring from her necklace, an onyx gem and silver band she slid onto his ring finger. With a kiss they parted ways both with a content smile. Though neither of them could sleep, their daydreams were spent on each other.