Voldemort was well aware he had just made Bellatrix Black a very happy woman.
He had just slept with her, given her a wonderful go at torturing a traitor to the Death Eaters, and handed over one of the people she disliked most for her exclusively to question. Bellatrix would be looking harder than anyone for an excuse to banish Lucius Malfoy from their circle, and even harder than that to look for an excuse to cause him pain. Voldemort was certain he had put the right person in charge ten minutes after he had locked Lucius and Bellatrix in the same room and the screams started turning into pleas for mercy.
"My lord, she might just kill him," Fenrir Greyback muttered, flexing his long-nailed fingers. "Are you concerned for Lucius's sanity?"
"Not much, admittedly," Voldemort sneered. "His life, perhaps…but his sanity I am almost certain Bellatrix will destroy. But really, Lucius will destroy it himself, defying her." Voldemort chuckled as another screech from Bellatrix preceded more fruitless pleading from Lucius, even though most of the Death Eaters present shivered. "Oh, my, such a shame…but then again, Lucius never was good under torture." Voldemort shrugged and swept off again, hunting for a new way to kill time. Snape could do with some time to himself to sort out his whirling thoughts, Bellatrix was fully occupied with Lucius, and probably would be until the man passed out, and the rest of his Death Eaters weren't proving very entertaining or productive. He had been looking for some time to get together a list of Death Eaters to send into the Ministry…he could use this time to develop a new battle plan, he supposed. That, and a plan to get more followers. Oh, and more Horcruxes…he would need more Horcruxes…
"Talk, you vicious, sniveling dirt!!"
Oh, Bellatrix, Voldemort thought vaguely as he passed the room in which she held Lucius Malfoy under her wand. Bellatrix really was going to torture him into insanity, wasn't she? Same way as the Longbottoms. Well, Draco had already replaced his father, and Voldemort could always drag Narcissa into it. The woman certainly knew enough already, and had sympathized with the cause for years. However much she had lost her zeal for the case over the years wasn't her fault; she was too obsessed with Draco, always babying him and shielding him from everything. Wake up and smell the dead bodies, Narcissa: you can't hold him close forever.
"Bellatrix-please-I can explain, please!"
"Never, you foul, ignorant, deluded piece of-"
"Bella!!"
For a moment, the entire room was silent. Voldemort stopped in his tracks, took a step back, and listened at the door for a moment; all he heard was Lucius's ragged panting, and everything else was silent. Bellatrix's silent rage, however, was heavy enough to taste.
"You have no right," she breathed, after a moment of silence. "You have no right…" Her voice was gathering strength, and Voldemort knew she was winding up to explode. "You have no right! How dare you address me so familiarly! How dare you appeal to me as your sister! How dare you-? Crucio! CRUCIO!!"
There was one last, gut-wrenching scream, and then, the room fell silent.
Voldemort slowly shook his head, and walked away. He could just…go upstairs…pretend nothing happened…no one needed to know…oh, Bellatrix. Bella…she would be the death of them all, wouldn't she? She had finally succeeded in knocking out Lucius. And, as Voldemort began ascending the steps, he heard the door wrench open ahead of Bellatrix, and then slam behind her. For a moment, she paused in the middle of the hallway; then, Voldemort heard her footsteps coming closer, and her voice called out, surprisingly soft,
"My lord?"
Voldemort considered just moving on, and letting her chase him: but then, the thoughts of her rage came back, and her faithfulness, and Voldemort decided to humor her. He stopped three steps from the top, and turned halfway around to acknowledge Bellatrix.
"My lord, I…he fell unconscious. Shall I continue?"
"Wait until he wakes up of his own accord," Voldemort said slowly. "For now…he and Snape can share the basement. Make sure both of them are secure. Snape did not have his wand when he returned, but Lucius did. Find Lucius's wand, and snap it. Neither of them needs temptation. When Lucius wakes up, don't bother moving him, repay him for his kindness there."
Bellatrix nodded once, and Voldemort took the gesture to mean she was finished. But, as he turned around again, he heard her soft voice again, "Wait," and then, she Apparated up the steps to stand on the one right below him, nothing but a near-soundless crack!
"Bella-" Voldemort started, but Bellatrix cut him off without saying a word. She leaned up, briefly pressed her lips to Voldemort's, and then, just as quickly, Apparated away again. Voldemort felt an uncharacteristically small amount of rage swell up in him-then, it abated, just as quickly as it had come. Was it crime to realize at last how soft her lips were? Shaking his head, Voldemort blamed their hours-ago tryst for the physical attraction. Just hormones, nothing more…within a few days, his raging body would come down off the high it was on, and all would be back to normal. So, did he assume she was suffering from the same affliction and cut her some slack, or make sure she still knew her place?
Oh, she'd already left. No sense in wasting the effort to find her. Voldemort climbed the last three steps to the top of the staircase, turned left, and somehow found his feet travelling towards the door that read, on a fancy gold engraved plaque, Regulus Arcterus Black. Something was making him curious about the room of his former follower, the one who had offered his own house-elf to hide a Horcrux…the one who had then stolen the very same Horcrux…
Voldemort tapped the lock once, commanded, "Alohomora," and then entered the locked-up room.
Lucius Malfoy awoke…and his first thought was that he would have rather not.
His first conscious thought was something along the lines of, I'm going to personally slaughter that filthy little slut. His next thought was of how much everything hurt. His bones were still aching with the heat of being lit aflame, and his muscles still burned with the pain of having a thousand hot knives impaling them over and over and over again. His skin felt like it had been flayed, itching and stinging, and his entire body felt like lead whenever he tried to move. At even the simplest of commands his nerve endings would sing with pain, and his very brain screamed in protest. At a sharp gasp of pain, something-or someone-moved on the opposite side of the room, a movement Lucius caught out of the corner of his eye. With heart in throat, fearing whose dark robes those actually were, Lucius looked up.
At first, his heart soared: that was very clearly a masculine figure that sat against the far wall, and certainly not the womanly curves of Bellatrix Black. Black hair, not her dark, muddy brown-but a sharp, hooked nose and a sallow face and-
Lucius gave an audible groan, and allowed his head to fall back to the floor. He angrily pillowed it on his arms, slammed one fist into the concrete floor, and groaned again. Stuck in the basement with Severus Snape. Oh, this would be a simple joy of a few hours…days…weeks…how long would he be stuck here, anyway?
"Oh, don't act so disgusted with me, Lucius," Snape drawled, slinging one arm over his knee. He was spinning something between his fingers: a wand? That would certainly explain the lack of restraints on either of them. Lucius doubted that anyone in their right mind would have allowed either of the two wizards to go unbound, and they would have to be madder than a box of frogs to leave a wand in their presence. Even if it wasn't their wand specifically, it would work all the same.
"I'll be as bloody disgusted as I wish," Lucius snapped, not bothering to look up at Snape. "Bellatrix Black just unleashed what I count to be years of hatred and rowing back and forth upon me, and I'm not feeling very well-disposed towards anyone right now, let alone you."
"And here I thought you would be a bit nicer to the man currently holding a wand," Snape said slowly, turning over every word in his mouth and spitting it out contemptuously. "Seeing as you, Lucius, have been reduced to such a miserable pile of slime, I would think that it wouldn't matter what you did. You can't possibly sink any lower…it shouldn't matter your pride anymore when all you need to do is beg me to leave the door open behind me long enough for you to slither out in my shadow." Snape gave a little snicker of what might have been laughter; Lucius closed his eyes in humiliation, and buried his face further into his forearms. Why did it have to be Snape?
The Potions master continued his ruthless attack. "What with all the brown-nosing you've done as of late, Lucius, I should think that convincing me of this small favor should be nothing more than a few minutes' work for you: and your son, Draco, following in your footsteps, learning exactly the right way to exchange money with someone so that no one else sees past that handshake, mm? And word on the street is your wife isn't too happy with your infidelity, and she's seeking to give you a taste of your own bitter tonic-"
"Enough."
Lucius was surprised at how hoarse and cracked his voice was; still he couldn't bear to listen to Snape's toneless mocking of him and his family. No matter how far-fetched and ridiculous, it still hurt to even get the words driven into his skull.
"Don't presume you can end this torment, Lucius," Snape said coldly. "It is only a matter of time before Bellatrix comes back: and trust me, she can make your worst dreams come true."
"And what's yours?" Lucius had finally come up with a way to get to Snape. "Being confronted with shampoo-?"
"As opposed to your worst nightmare, which is going without it for a day, I should think not."
Damn; thwarted again. Lucius sighed and turned over, resting on his back instead of his stomach. It wasn't even worth the effort to try anymore. Snape seemed to acknowledge Lucius's defeat with one last stinging comment:
"Now that you've fallen out of favor with the dark lord, don't expect to live very comfortably. I predict Azkaban for a little while, and then he'll quietly murder you in bed."
"You must be immense fun at parties."
Snape just gave a little snicker, as if to shake off this unfortunate comment. He said nothing, though, mercifully: at least he had a heart, Lucius thought sullenly. Unlike Miss Bellatrix, who preferred to turn her heart into a cold, dead lump of coal with ice frosting over the exterior-
"You've been out for four hours."
Lucius gave a small start at Snape's next words: partly because it wasn't a sneering, nasty, scathing, caustic remark meant to spear Lucius's every hope and dream to death, partly because of what Snape was actually saying. Was he even telling the truth, or was he just trying to be difficult?
"I have never seen someone pass out for that long because of the Cruciatus Curse," Snape was saying.
"And you've certainly cast your fair lot of them," Lucius snickered. Snape's eyes briefly flashed with some unreadable emotion, but it vanished before Lucius could even really register it. Snape instead continued, a bit hesitantly.
"I know…Bellatrix is…not the nicest of people…but I could hear what was going on down here. How powerful a curse she lay upon you, exactly?"
"You seem to have answered your own question."
"Lucius, if I were you, I would think long and hard about incensing Bellatrix Black again. You know what she did to the Longbottoms, you know she is touched in the head, you know she has no scruples, you know she hates you, you know what she wants and I do pray you find it in your pea-sized brain to give it to her because if she layers up more than three Crucio's in a row she is almost guaranteed to kill you and completely guaranteed without a doubt to purge you of your sanity. If you want to keep on living for a few more years, I would start kissing her lovely ass!"
For a moment, Lucius wasn't sure if it was really Snape sitting across from him. He could do nothing but stare incredulously, mouth hanging open, gray eyes wide with shock before he finally snapped out of his stupor and was able to close his mouth and his eyes again. Snape, for once, had a good point, and he was probably speaking from experience. Lucius had seen personally what Bellatrix could do, but Snape spoke from directly under her wand. Snape would know what he was talking about. Ruefully, Lucius would admit that he should trust Snape, because he was in a very bad position to trust anyone else.
"Th-the dark lord wouldn't let her," he finally said. "He-he wouldn't let her kill me…"
"You've failed him a few too many times, Lucius. The dark lord doesn't carry around dead weight."
Lucius was silent again. All his arguments were fizzling out.
"If I caught the person posing as me-"
"You'd have equally as bad a case, because now you've got someone saying that you are trying to make them into a scapegoat."
"The dark lord has Legilimency on his side-!"
"Would he do you that much of a favor? I think not. Maybe if you were at your former level of favor, maybe…someone on the level of Bellatrix, who is in the dark lord's graces, he might allow them the benefit of the doubt and take the trouble to use Legilimency, but I doubt very much, Lucius, that unless you do all the work for him, this is not going to bode well for you."
Suddenly, Snape stiffened visibly, as if he had just heard the door opening. With a flick of his wand, Lucius found himself tied hand and foot, and Snape's hands were behind his back, his wand nowhere to be seen.
"Whatever you do, Malfoy, keep your mouth closed."
Lucius was about to angrily retort when he heard the door at the top of the stairs opening; he suddenly understood Snape's every action, and closed his mouth again. Bellatrix's tell-tale skirts and heeled boots came into view as she walked around the bottom of the stairwell, boots making sharp taps against the floor. Her crooked wand was out. With a flick of the thick, pointed instrument, Lucius's bonds vanished once again, but they were replaced with the unpleasant sensation of having freezing cold air slithering over every inch of his skin. "Up," Bellatrix said monotonously. For a moment, Lucius hesitated: then, he felt a stinging, itching, and burning in his skin, and hastily obeyed. The sensation vanished.
"Enjoy your time with Severus?" Bellatrix purred. Lucius gave a slight twitch, but said nothing. Bellatrix gave a vicious cackle, and flicked her wand towards the stairs. "The dark lord wants to see you, Lucius…and I hope, for your sake, you've seen some manners in my hexes!" Still viciously laughing, Bellatrix directed Lucius up the stairs, ignoring the Malfoy's trembling limbs.
