Chapter 4

It was during Draco's fifth year at Hogwarts that a travesty occurred. It was a black, black day in my life. Ironic, really, given that this tragedy of a day was the result of the Black family. Bellatrix Black Lestrange, her husband Rodolphus, and his brother Rabastan were released from Azkaban. And by "released" I mean the Dark Lord broke them out along with a handful of other Death Eaters who'd been rotting away since 1981.

An outside observer might think that the return of my wife's relatives would be a happy occasion, but they would be mistaken. Bellatrix is insane. Full stop. This is painfully, blatantly obvious to anyone who has ever cared to look.

My wife, regrettably, does not care to look. Never has, probably never will. Let me take you back in time for a moment.

Many years ago, my father decided that his only son and heir should wed a member of the Black family. I suppose I can see how father might think this appropriate. The Malfoys have long been a small family, and the Blacks tended to produce several children apiece. They're purebloods, Sacred 28, and closely associated with the dark. Seems like a winning idea, does it not?

He suggested Bellatrix for a wife.

I threatened to cut off my glorious mane of blond hair, snap my own wand, and take up life as a muggle.

It's possible I was a wee bit dramatic in my response, but I lived with the witch in the Slytherin dorms for years and had ample opportunity to witness her special brand of crazy firsthand. She once neutered a niffler in the Slytherin common room, using utensils taken from dinner in the Great Hall. That's not the sort of witch a wizard wants near his 'wand,' if you know what I mean.

I suggested Andromeda, which seemed like a brilliant idea if I do say so myself. A wizard is of course superior to his witch, and I let Andromeda know what I would expect of her as a wife. That vicious bitch punched me in a rather sensitive location. It was totally uncalled for! I simply could not abide by that level of violence against my person. She ran off with a mudblood Hufflepuff, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

And so I ended up with Narcissa. Beautiful, cold Narcissa who seemed to be perfect for me until I realised she was utterly incapable of seeing what an absolute lunatic her sister is.

I attended Bellatrix's wedding to Rodolphus Lestrange, as Narcissa was then my betrothed. The groom spent most of the ceremony eyeing the bride's cousin, Regulus Black, and after the ceremony, I accidentally stumbled across the bride getting it on with a wizard I immediately recognised as the Dark Lord. Infidelity isn't exactly unheard of in our world, but for Merlin's sake, at least close the goddamn door before you cheat on your husband at your own wedding reception!

Narcissa nattered about at the reception, rambling about how lovely a couple "Bella and Roddy" made together, until I finally told her what I'd witnessed. She blinked at me for a moment and said, "Oh how lovely for Bella to receive such favour from our Lord. Roddy must be so proud. I'm sure he and Bella will be most delightfully happy together."

She said it with a straight face. I thought perhaps she was being facetious, but no. She was serious.

If I thought that was bad, my own wedding was even worse when it came to the Black sisters.

Bellatrix's 'wedding gift' to us was the bloody heart of a thestral.

At the time, I was already in service to the Dark Lord and had cast an avada or two of my own, so I knew what it was, and I could see it clearly, resting on a soggy bed of black velvet.

Narcissa's reaction? "Oh, look Lucius! Isn't that thoughtful? What a unique gift!"

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

I thought at first she was just being polite and could only see an empty box with wet velvet inside, so when Bellatrix wandered off to wreak havoc elsewhere, I asked Narcissa if she knew what was actually in the box. She looked up at me, all wide-eyed and beautiful and said very innocently, "It's the bloody heart of a thestral, darling. Surely you've killed enough people to see it."

Well, yes. Yes, I had, but I did not think my virginal, prim wife had witnessed death!

Narcissa wandered off then, murmuring about needing to find "the proper place to display this lovely gift," and I was left to wonder if perhaps I might have been better off with Andromeda after all.

It was a relief when Bellatrix was sent to Azkaban. I'd grown weary by that point of trying to keep her away from little Draco. I'd really like my heir to live to reproduce and carry on the family name, thank you very much, and his aunt seemed to think that torture is an appropriate part of raising a child. I'm still seriously questioning how Cygnus Black and Druella Rosier raised their daughters.

But then Bellatrix was released, and it was painfully clear that Azkaban had not done anything for her mental constitution. Or her hair. Or her teeth. For Merlin's sake, what the fuck was that woman chewing on in Azkaban to have teeth like that? I was afraid to ask. Knowing Bellatrix, she was probably giving a blowjob to a dementor.

Her release was an unfortunate reminder that my wife is apparently insane as well.

"Oh darling, won't it be lovely for Draco to spend time getting to know his Auntie and Uncle?"

No, no it won't be. My son - it pains me to admit this - has a rather weak constitution. Apparently I was too soft with him in his tender youth. It would not take much for someone as insane as Bellatrix to break him. I could not allow this to happen. If I lost Draco, I'd have to start all over again with Narcissa to make a new heir, and I simply cannot guarantee any future offspring would inherit the Malfoy sensibilities. My little dragon may be more delicate than I prefer, but at least he seems to have escaped the Black family's madness.

Or, well, at least I think he's escaped the Black family's madness. His ongoing obsession with the scar-faced Potter brat and the mudblood is troubling.

It wasn't just Narcissa wanting Draco to spend time with his Black and Lestrange relatives though. No, she wanted us ALL to be subjected to them.

"Oh darling, we simply must have Bellatrix and Rodolphus stay with us!"

No, no we mustn't.

Except apparently we must because the Dark Lord thinks it's a bloody good idea. Had I known then that he apparently wanted her close by for a quick shag, I would have just refused him and accepted torture. Maybe he would have killed me then and I'd have been free of this misery because damn it, no one wants to see Bellatrix getting it on with the Dark Lord.

Oh sure, it might have been vaguely stimulating to watch once upon a time, before Azkaban wrecked her looks and the Potter brat cost the Dark Lord his hair, fair complexion, and, well, his nose. There is nothing arousing now about watching Bellatrix skip down the hall with her tits out, singing about bathing in the blood of muggles while worshipping the Dark Lord's, ahem, wand. If I must be brutally honest, I am amazed that his body is intact enough for that. How do you resurrect yourself and come back without a nose but with a functioning dick? I guess that just goes to show you his priorities…

Not that I would necessarily prioritise my nose over my own dick because I am rather attached to my "anaconda" as I nicknamed it years ago, but when one is left with the snakelike visage of the Dark Lord, surely there aren't a lot of witches beating down his door.

Just Bellatrix, apparently.

I'm still having nightmares about that time I witnessed them shagging on my dining room table. I have to EAT there! Is nothing sacred?

I told Narcissa what I saw, and she looked at me blankly and said, "Poor Rodolphus must feel so left out. Perhaps you can find a muggle for him and Rabastan to torture."

And then she walked away. Like nothing untoward had happened.

Who does that?

I am rather concerned about the upbringing my wife apparently endured. Did her parents drop her on her head as a small child?

Bellatrix then took to ruffling my perfect hair and calling me "Luci" every time she saw me. The indignity of it all! I complained to the Dark Lord about this because honestly, how can I be expected to command respect from fellow Death Eaters when Bellatrix mocks me so? He said unless I was planning to fuck him in her place, I could quit complaining about her.

I have nightmares now from the mental picture THAT produced.

I suppose it was naive of me to hope that Bellatrix's husband would rein her in in some way. He never was good at that before Azkaban, but once out of prison, he and his brother wandered my glorious ancestral home, as if under a permanent confundus spell. Oh they'd happily engage in a spot of torture, but they were otherwise worthless. I had only one thought as I watched the pair of them try to carry on a conversation with a suit of armour in my home: 'Thank fuck they're not all on the team of Death Eaters I'm expected to lead.'

~oOo~

As it turns out, I was cursed. Cursed by Merlin himself, apparently, and doomed to an existence of misery and despair because I somehow displeased the Dark Lord, and as a result Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan were all put on a team of Death Eaters I was expected to lead.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

The Dark Lord had an utterly preposterous plan to retrieve a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries. I told him that you can't just imperius Ministry workers to steal a prophecy if the prophecy does not apply to them, but he doesn't listen to reason. If you're going to imperius someone to steal a prophecy, imperius the person whose name is actually ON the prophecy. Hello? Is this not common sense? I understand the allure of devious schemes and complex planning, but that's for large scale plans, like the takeover of the whole wizarding world.

The prophecy, according to Severus, who heard it from Trelawny and Dumbledore, who told the Dark Lord, who then told me, should have Lord Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore, Sybil Trelawney, and Harry Potter's names on it. The easiest solution would be for the Dark Lord to go get his own bloody prophecy. Avery tried to tell him this and was tortured for his impertinence.

Okay, fine, the Dark Lord would prefer to keep his resurrection a secret for the time being. I can't say I agree with that strategy, but so be it. Right now he is deriving a great deal of glee from the Ministry's denials about his return. He tends to wave the 'Daily Prophet' about at our regular Death Eater meetings (with everyone in formation of course), cackling about how Rita Skeeter is painting Harry Potter as deranged. I see this eventually backfiring, as at some point, the Dark Lord will reveal himself to the masses, and Potter will get to give the whole wizarding world a giant "fuck you, I told you so."

If the Dark Lord wouldn't go get his own prophecy, the obvious solution then was to simply use the imperius curse on Sybil Trelawney. The old bat was rarely in her right mind anyway, and the word from Severus was that she spent most of her weekends getting soused at the Three Broomsticks. I could imperius her, get the prophecy, and get her back to Hogwarts before the weekend was out, and she'd probably think the whole thing a hallucination brought on by too much firewhiskey.

But no.

The Dark Lord, in his infinite 'wisdom,' devised an elaborate plan involving the use of false images shared with the Potter brat to lure him into the DoM to get the prophecy instead, and then have us lying in wait to take it from him. Whilst the mind connection the Dark Lord appeared to share with Potter was indeed curious, testing it in such a way was a vast waste of resources, as it required that I break into the Ministry and just sit there with a whole bloody team of Death Eaters and wait for Potter to act. It also assumed that Potter WILL act.

Oh hell, who am I kidding? Of course he was going to act. Never in my life have I met a more deliberately reckless individual than Harry Potter.

Well, Bellatrix perhaps, I suppose, is rather reckless as well, but she's always been crazy. I don't think Potter is crazy…

Regardless, it was an utter waste of my valuable time, although I must confess that the mental picture of myself appearing in a swirl of fog and magic in my Death Eater robes and mask, surrounded by thousands of glass prophecies is a rather impressive sight, and I do appreciate aesthetic™, after all.

Then the hammer fell. He made me take Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan with me as part of my team. HAD I NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH? This was a delicate operation requiring finesse, and I had to take the equivalent of three rabid blast-ended skrewts with me.

I should have known the entire mission would go tits up.

The mission nearly did not happen at all because Umbitch apparently did not get the memo - thanks a fucking lot, Dolohov - that she was supposed to turn a blind eye to Potter and his friends sneaking out of the castle. I found out much later that Potter's mudblood actually lured Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest and handed her over to the centaurs to do with as they pleased. Knowing what centaurs are prone to do with female humans, I was a bit surprised by the mudblood's actions. Who knew she had that kind of darkness in her? Unexpected evil like that is a bit arousing, even if it does come from a mudblood.

I wondered if perhaps I'd misjudged the chit and thought that perhaps when the Dark Lord secured a glorious victory, he'd let me have the mudblood as a reward. Except that then I'd still have to listen to Draco bitch and moan about her. Then I thought that maybe I'd give her to Draco as a pet. That might be better. Potter dead, Granger as Draco's playtoy. I thought perhaps if that came to pass I might play with her as well.

Where was I? Oh. Yes. The combination of Potter and Bellatrix was just too much. Potter blew up no less than 3,000 prophecies. The sheer volume of prophecies in that godforsaken hall makes me question the validity of whatever Trelawney supposed viewed in her mind's eye or however the fuck seers get their visions of the future. I have a hard time believing that someone could predict everything in that Hall of Prophecies with accuracy. If they could, such wizards or witches would already be making a killing betting on quidditch matches the outcomes of which they already know. I suspect that some of the prophecies Potter destroyed were of utterly mundane things.

I guess now we'll never know how many of them were accurate. If a prophecy is destroyed, does that nullify it? I have pondered that question a lot, given everything that happened. It's sort of the equivalent of 'if a centaur shits in the woods and there's no one there to see it…' I don't know. I don't have all the answers here.

Back to the mission.

I was given strict orders to NOT harm the scar-faced Potter brat, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. He was a thorn in the Dark Lord's side, and he must be removed. Why not let someone cut him down in battle? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

But no. No, none of us were allowed to touch him. The Dark Lord was adamant that he and he alone must be the one to end Potter. His obsession with the brat was most counterproductive. Who cares who ends Potter as long as SOMEONE does it?

In my frustration over the lack of permission to kill Potter and my admitted difficulty controlling a bunch of bloodthirsty and mostly insane Death Eaters, I might have been a tiny bit over-indulgent with my team. If I wasn't going to let them kill Potter, per the Dark Lord's orders, I had to give them something.

So I told them they could kill everyone else.

I didn't MEAN it.

Not really.

I am not a vicious wizard. I am dark, yes, and sure, I've killed before, but they're CHILDREN. I have no issue with killing muggles, but I generally try to avoid the murder of magical children, no matter how filthy or traitorous their blood. Really, it's poor form to murder children. It's better to let them grow up before you kill them. There's more sport that way.

And then of course, we lost a lot of wizards and witches in the Dark Lord's original rise to power. We - magical Britain - are already a small and insulated community. It's not like there are a lot of us. Simple mathematics, really. If we kill off too many mudbloods and blood traitors, then eventually we'll all be marrying close kin, and frankly, that's not a good thing. If you inbreed any species enough they go mad. Dobby is proof of that. Hell, Bellatrix is probably proof of that too now that I think about it.

Also, if you kill off ALL of the underclass, who will be left to be my lackeys and worship me?

So no, I did not really mean it when I told them they could kill everyone else. To be brutally honest, it was a flippant throwaway statement made in the heat of the moment because Bellatrix would not let go of my arm.

She kept tugging on me, whinging, "But I wanna kill something! My Lord told me I could kill something. Pleeeeeeease! Luci, you don't understand! FOURTEEN YEARS! I served my Lord, I waited in Azkaban! I deserve to kill something! Why can't I kill ickle, bitty, baby Potter? It's NOT FAIR!"

It was worse than listening to Draco whinge about wanting a pony or bitch about that scar-faced Potter brat. That I did not snap and kill Bellatrix is the real miracle here, and NO ONE seems to appreciate that.

Ever the strategist, I divided my team and sent them off to round up the unruly miscreants and get back the prophecy. This should have worked. They're SCHOOL CHILDREN for fuck's sake.

I know what it's like to try to track down Draco. It's not fucking hard. Hell, if you just yell something about Harry Potter or his mudblood, Draco will probably come running.

I've realised something though. All this time, I had railed against Dumbledore for the Little School of Horrors he was running - three-headed dogs, basilisks, werewolf professors, wizard death tournaments, etc. - but he was apparently using the school as a do-or-die training ground for his precious Gryffindors.

I decided then and there that I'd have to speak to Severus about setting up some sort of obstacle course for the Slytherins. Perhaps my son and his friends would be properly motivated to train and compete in a Death Eater obstacle course if the winners received some sort of prize and the losers got the cruciatus curse turned on them. That seems like sufficient motivation, does it not?

My plans for a non-lethal training ground for the next generation of Death Eaters were rudely disrupted by the appearance of a rag-tag group of wizards and witches who were apparently part of Dumbeldore's precious Order of the Phoenix, which I maintain frankly sounds like a cult.

I may have gotten into a muggle fistfight with my wife's escaped convict cousin. Not proud of that, by the way, but he started it. For the record: HE STARTED IT.

Sirius Black was heir to an ancient and noble house and a relative of my wife's. It's a damn shame we couldn't convince him to see the light so to speak and support our side. The Dark Lord really should have reconsidered that whole 'join us or die' recruitment model.

The situation deteriorated in a spectacular fashion and eventually both Dumbledore AND the Dark Lord showed up, which was when I wanted to say, "WHY THE FUCK COULDN'T YOU HAVE SHOWN UP EARLIER AND JUST GRABBED YOUR OWN DAMN PROPHECY!"

The prophecy was broken. Bellatrix shoved the last named Black heir through the Veil of Death. The Death Eaters fled, and yours truly was captured by the Ministry and arrested. Oh the indignity!

I sat in a Ministry holding cell whilst awaiting trial, but to be honest, I was not all THAT concerned. I had politicians in my pocket after all. Galleons were liberally passed about, and I figured it would be just fine. I mean, what we were they going to do? Send me to Azkaban?