Across the ocean, the Dark Lord swept into Azkaban prison. The dementors had joined him at last, and now he could free his faithful followers, the ones who had been put in Azkaban, and the three who had been truly faithful and accepted the punishment with pride.
"My Lord!" Rodolphus Lestrange cried, clawing at the bars of his cell. "I knew you would come, I knew-"
"Your wife knew, you knew nothing," the Dark Lord said shortly, flicking his wand at the lock and continuing towards the cell where he knew his Bellatrix was kept. He had waited so long for her.
The cell was at the very end of the corridor. The Dark Lord sprung the lock and let the door swing open, expecting to be greeted by a shriek of pleasure, by his Bellatrix, his most faithful Death Eater and the one living human who he felt anything akin to love for throwing herself at his feet and sobbing that she always knew he would come for her. Then he would take her up and push her against the wall and-
There was no movement. He stepped inside the cell, looked around.
"Bella?"
A woman who had been curled in the far corner of the cell looked up. Her eyes were dull and flat, her jaw slack, but the Dark Lord recognized his Bellatrix. Just barely.
"By God, what have they done to you?"
"Who are you?" she whimpered, pulling closer against the wall. Her eyes and eyebrows twitched spasmodically, and her voice was flat, several notes lower than the Dark Lord had ever heard his Bellatrix speak.
"Bella," he said. "I have come to free you from prison. I will reward you for your faith. You have been loyal, Bella."
She looked nothing but dull and confused.
Of course, Azkaban won't have been good for her. She'll be better when she gets out, gets home, sleeps for a while.
He wrapped his hand around her upper arm, and apparated with her back to the Riddle House, where he had made arrangements to keep her, ignoring the niggling sense that something was very, very wrong.
