Bella, Bella I love you.

A low whisper, sweet and serpentine, gliding over, under her skin. The heat of it not reaching the surface, cold marble flesh glowing white under its coat of earth.

Bella

Growing louder, pulsing hard through her, filling her head, her body. The voice turning dark, turning red, washing over her, she could taste it like a mouthful of blood. It was colder, harsher, cruel and sibilant, writhing through her veins, winding around her, constricting her.

Bella

It roared in her ears now, high and fierce. She twitched. The voice was screaming at her, drowning her in its thick red rush. She moaned and tried to turn, heavy irons twisting at her wrists, her ankles. The resistance of the chain cut through the voice still shrieking at her, and her wide, preternaturally bright eyes snapped open.

The flesh under the manacles was so destroyed it no longer bled. The thick iron cuffs rubbed on scar, on rawness, on bone. Bellatrix no longer felt them; the pain no longer came. After years of imprisonment she no longer felt anything on her skin, her body distant, dead. All that made Bellatrix remember she was alive was the voice, constant, thrumming everywhere. When she was awake the voice was His, smooth and threatening, powerful, sexual, licking at her ears, biting at her, sliding sinister, languid through her brain, whispering secrets to her, promising her glory, the palpable yearning for His presence given subtle promise of satisfaction by His voice, and she strained against her bonds, aching to break free and go to Him. Dried blood tracked down her hands and feet, she had been pushing so hard against her chains for so long, so many years of desperate yearning for Him, for His presence, His power, that they were stained deep red.

Her arm pulsed and writhed with the Mark, the snake-tongue lapping at her flesh, the icy coldness of it twisting, undulating beneath her skin. He was growing stronger, He was returning, He would remember her, He would look at her years spent waiting for Him, crying out His name, and He would accept it as her punishment and allow her to sit at His side once more.

When she slept it was the girl's voice, and her dreams were dreams of the girl. Vague, insubstantial, flashes of red, of green, warmth sliding up her body like smoke. The girl's face had faded, her features obscured by long-developing madness. She was a blur across Bellatrix's mind, her name forgotten but the hard pull of her blood still raging through Bella's veins. The physical girl was only a fogged impression now, but the feeling of her tore at Bella, ripped her apart, the girl's heavy blood settling under her own but always present, always calling to her.

Years before she had been much clearer, Bellatrix could still feel the girl's fingers on her, stroking her cool skin, the girl's mouth on her own, the heat of it still crackling though her body. She could remember them together, twisting limbs, fingers woven through hair, the rushing, crashing pressure, the sensation of drowning as the girl's lips and tongue sent her into spiraling orgasm. How she had laid the girl out, arms bound above her head, the girl's eyes closed, Bellatrix kneeling between her legs drawing her fingernails across the girl's skin, raising bright red lines on her white flesh. How she had writhed, moaned when Bella bit at her, when Bella sucked the blood from her lip, the heat of her sex around Bella's fingers, mouth, the whimpers, the cries the girl made, the agony and dark need in her voice as she screamed Bella's name.

Now all she knew was the deep feeling of the girl's blood in her body, her memories shattered by His voice, when she was awake she thought only of the dirt in her veins, the impurity, the unworthiness of her blood. His voice would twist around her then, hissing insults and insinuations, but never leaving her, promising her that the sacrifice of her blood had been worthy, had been made out of devotion to Him. In her sleep the girl was muddy and faint, her voice often thin, almost inaudible, but sometimes it would grow strong, tangible, and her body would respond, flushing with warmth. Sometimes her dreams were unbearably clear, but senseless. Bellatrix could not identify the girl in the dreams, she was always turned away from her, walking just beyond her reach, and Bella would look down, the ground beneath her turning liquid, turning red, the girl's voice echoing across every part of her, and the girl was stepping into a vast red sea, her knees, her hips, her breasts, her voice swelling and rippling, the flash of bright hair brilliant against the matte gleam of the sea, and she would turn, slowly, a wrenching pull at Bella's core as if she were drawing her in on a long cord, the girl would turn to her, guiding her to the waves, Bella would see the piercing green of her eyes, the words urgent, undulating, making the air ripple—

Bella, Bella I love you

--and before Bellatrix could see her face she would dive deep beneath the surface, pulling hard on the cord between them, Bellatrix rushing forward, the voice turning loud, angry, violent, and she would stop, caught on something invisible, something cold and sharp, the tug at her center becoming painful, unbearable, the voice roaring and pounding around her—

This is what happens when you disobey me.

She would wake, confused by the image of a featureless girl drifting silently in a red sea, hair billowing around her.

His voice was only furious when she had the dream. The girl's voice was only clear when she had the dream, otherwise it was a low, murmuring counterpoint to the dark violence that cluttered her mind as she slept.

The years made her raw, all bone and crackling nerve, the years ate away at her beauty, leaving her emaciated, her cheeks deep hollows, her skin tight across her cheekbones, her eyes black embers burning in her ravaged face. Fingers spider-thin, the manacles shrinking to fit as her flesh was stripped by time, the threads of veins trembling as her blood circled His voice through her body.

Bella

The hiss had been ever-present, but it had gradually swelled, becoming more powerful, louder, harder. She could feel His cold breath on her cheek, the faint flick of His tongue as her name rolled through the air in His voice. He was coming. He was coming for her. She raised her chained arm and traced the Mark with her tongue, its urgent wriggle shivering through her. He was coming for her. My Lord, I am ready.

She slept less and less, her dreams fragmented, obscure. A silver knife tipped with blood, a curving B drawn in the air, a figure always at the edge of her vision, trailing a corona of red. The girl's voice, unbearably loud, making her ache in ways that were more painful than the tortures of her imprisonment, aching in places not even the dementors could touch, places so black and endless that looking into them amplified her fever-pitch insanity. Bellatrix was terrified of that blackness, it was not the rich, intoxicating blackness of Him, not suffused with power. The blackness that hid the girl was cold, suffocating, annihilating. Bellatrix knew, even through her madness, that the girl was behind it, standing just at the end of that passage, waiting for her. When she slept it began to infect her dreams, drifting in like a fog, the chaos of her mind being swallowed in black, the girl calling her, being pulled so close to it, to the emptiness. Her few moments of lucidity came then, when she was dreaming, the entirety of her failure, of the destruction of everything she knew, the destruction of the person she had come so close to loving absolutely, and she woke screaming.

As long as she stayed awake, as long as His voice supported her, held her upright, held her eyes open, she could vanish under the cloak of madness. As long as He was with her she forgot about the girl, about the crushing grief.

As long as the Mark continued to pulse under her skin she knew He would come for her, would release her. He would allow her to use her rage, her fury, to open the deep well of hatred that had been steadily rising in her. He would allow her to kill again in His name.

She laughed softly to herself, a metallic, alien sound. Her throat unaccustomed to anything but screaming, working to adjust itself to the cold, high shrieks of laughter that ripped out of her, her mad keening reverberating off the stone walls of her cell. Allow her to kill. Allow her to have her vengeance. Allow her to find the boy for Him.

The boy.

Bellatrix never let herself think about the boy. He had been the impetus behind all this destruction and grief; he had defeated her Lord, he had been responsible for the death of the girl. She knew her blood ran in his veins, but the knowledge only amplified her hatred. He had been meant for her Lord, a gift, a sacrifice, and his blood was still whole, was still hidden.

She would find him for her Lord. She would not kill him, but she would find him, deliver him.

The winds whipped and screamed around Azkaban. The temperature was dropping, the gale whistling even through the cracks around the door.

His blood is owed You, my Lord. I will find him.

A fine coat of dust rained down on her as the mortar shifted.

I will bring him to you.

Heavy cracks split across the rocks of her cell.

My Lord, I will come to you.

A thunderous crash as the walls fell away, the wind whipping at her, searing her raw, bloodstained skin. She felt it then, the cold fingers tearing at her, heard the sea far below pounding an unmistakable rhythm.

Bella. Bella. Bella.

She stood unsteadily and stumbled to the jagged platform that had once been a solid stone wall. Lifting her head high, blinded by even the dull light, she raised her hands and shrieked into the endless night.