Written for acciomemorie's Star Challenge on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum for the prompts Acrux and Canopus. Enjoy!
"Second-in-command! I'm his second-in-command! His best lieutenant! His bravest lieutenant! His most loyal! His favorite, you maggot! Crucio! Crucio!"
Rodolphus Lestrange sighed, partly amused, partly irritated. His wife was having another one of her tantrums. This had been Rabastan's fault, as usual. Rabastan had always loved to goad his sister-in-law, and, shockingly, that hobby had only flourished when there were heavy stone walls two feet wide separating him from her and her wrath. Rodolphus normally did not mind his wife's tantrums so much, but he had just been woken up at what must have been the middle of the night. (Had there been clocks or windows in Azkaban, he might know for certain.)
"Crucio! Crucio! Crucio!" Bella shrieked. Though she hadn't had a wand in at least five years, Bella still loved to "curse" Rabastan.
"Poeni! Morsio!" Two more highly illegal curses that would have landed her in Azkaban if she hadn't already been in there. Rodolphus shuddered. He had been at the receiving end of his wife's Poena curse enough times dislike the word on principle, whether or not the caster actually had a wand or a shred of sanity. And the Morsus Curse? That seemed like a bit of an overreaction, considering the usual quality of Rabastan's barbs.
Rodolphus could hear Sirius Black's snickering.
"I can really see why Voldy wanted her as his second in command. She the perfect example all the obvious benefits to pureblood inbreeding!" Sirius taunted, "Great recruiter, too. She can go door-to-door, saying, 'Join the Death Eaters and marry your cousins and you can be just like me!' "
Bella whirled around and began screaming at her cousin, intermixing threats and insults and curses. Sirius laughed loudly, enraging her even more, which in turn made him laugh harder until she was hoarse from shouting and he was hoarse from laughing.
Before he had been sent to Azkaban, Rodolphus might have responded to the blood traitor, too. Now...well, he didn't quite see the point of any of it anymore. After all, Bella would do it, and enjoy it, too, so why should he? The Rodolphus from before Azkaban seemed like a different person. That Rodolphus had so much more energy and resolve. The Rodolphus in Azkaban didn't really care about the Dark Lord and The Cause. This Rodolphus only pretended to care because of his wife, the only person he still really loved. Rodolphus supposed that he had once cared about other people, too, but five years of close quarters with Rabastan had rid him of any remaining affection, and he was still resentful of the Death Eaters that had managed to stay out of Azkaban. The ones without crazy wives obsessed with a doomed cause, as he thought when he was at his most bitter.
He did love Bella, even if it was her that had gotten them into this mess, and even though it was her that would get them back into that mess once the Dark Lord, and even though she had always loved the man who has ruined both their lives more than she loved him. Well, if he was to be precise, 'love' was probably not the correct word for Bella's undying, fiery, obsessive, adoring devotion. And man was probably not the right word for the Dark Lord, not anymore.
Still, even with her infinitely more intense zeal for the Dark Lord, even though he knew she would sacrifice him in a second to help the object of that zeal, he liked to think that she loved him, in her limited way. He liked to think that that the love of his life had some sort of affection for him. But he could never be certain. But then again, that was what he had fallen in love with - her inconstancy, her fickleness. Bella was inconstant even at being inconstant, as her feelings for the Dark Lord proved. No, it was more than that. Bella was inconstant at everything, including being inconstant and in this she never changed. Her impermanence was the one thing in his constantly changing world that was permanent, and it was beautiful, the only beautiful thing left to him.
No matter the consequences of her and her tantrums, and her violence, and her silly enthusiasm for the Dark Lord and his cause, he loved it and he loved her. Bella had boundless, childlike energy, and a childlike lack of restraint. The tantrums and the violence and the obsession were simply the less than comfortable manifestations of the traits he had fallen in love with, and he couldn't love her any less because of them.
Bella was convinced that the Dark Lord would come back. She was convinced that he would free her from Azkaban. Rodolphus hoped he wouldn't, but a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach made him just as certain as Bella that the Dark Lord would be back. Azkaban was hellish, but life under the Dark Lord was worse than that. Here in Azkaban, he didn't have to push back every traitorous thought as soon as it came to him. In Azkaban he didn't have to watch his wife constantly risk her life with feverish delight (even if he guiltily loved that feverish delight, too). She faced nothing worse than Rabastan's derision, and a few dementors. When she lay down next to him at night, she never smelled like blood. In Azkaban, she clung to him. In Azkaban, he could pretend that all that obsession, and violence, and power, and energy, and love that he loved was directed at him. In Azkaban, he could pretend that he wasn't second best.
But it would all end when the Dark Lord came back and freed them from Azkaban. Bella would die, Rodolphus knew that with ice cold certainty. The way Bella threw herself into combat, heedless of her injuries and weaknesses: she had been lucky to survive the first war unscathed. In the next war, she would let her guard down, and she would fall.
And still knowing that, knowing that the love of his life would die, that her death warrant would be signed the moment she was reunited with her 'savior', still knowing all of this, he would follow her and her Lord. If her days were truly numbered, it would be foolish to waste any of them away from her.
"Crucio! You filthy blood traitor! Crucio! Crucio!" Bella wheezed these last words before swaying back into the wall. Rodolphus moved to help her up, more out of habit than anything. Bella waved him away, as usual, pulling herself to her feet. The Dementors drained their prisoners of energy; this combined with the meager rations lead to frequent collapses.
Rodolphus sighed again, but it was a sadder sigh than the one before it. The certainty of Bellla's death made every moment agony. The happier he was, watching her and spending time with her, the sadder he was that these moments were limited. But Bella was worth every second of the misery she caused him.
Thank you so much for reading! This is my first fic on this account, so I am very excited. I would be hugely grateful for all feedback. Please feel free to be brutal (though I would prefer constructively brutal).
Morsus and Poena are both Latin words for pain, according to Google translate. I included them for variety in curses.