Albus Dumbledore aimed his wand at Voldemort, who shot a nonverbal Stupefy right back. Bellatrix hissed out a Cruciatus Curse that snared around Alastor Moody. The wizard's shriek of tormented pain ripped through the night air. Cato Burke and Rabastan Lestrange were duelling someone Bellatrix couldn't see. Older Death Eaters - Yaxley and Nott and Mulciber - had locked wands with more of Dumbledore's minions.
'Tom, see reason!' Dumbledore bellowed, and Bellatrix flicked her eyes to where her master aimed a Killing Curse at Albus Dumbledore. The elder wizard disappeared just in time, and one by one his allies Disapparated. Voldemort's Killing Curse struck the ground on the lawn outside Malfoy Manor, where the battle had exploded. The lawn burst into flames, sending blades of grass fluttering to the ground. Voldemort snarled in rage as he looked around. Bellatrix held her curse, wondering if she should break it before Moody lost his mind beyond usefulness in interrogation.
All of a sudden, a ginger-haired wizard came dashing brazenly up to where Alastor Moody was convulsing beneath Bellatrix's Cruciatus. The red-haired wizard snatched Moody's sleeve and Disapparated, leaving a Splinched eyeball behind on the grass. Bellatrix scowled, angry that she'd lost her foe by Side-Along. She stared down at the eyeball, crouching down to look at it, remembering the way she'd Splinched half her left hand the day of the Quidditch attack.
"Bella. You take the grounds inside the gate. Search for anyone hiding."
She looked up to see that Voldemort's face was steely and stern. They'd been packing their luggage for their trip to the Isle of Man when his Dark Mark had seared hot and black. They'd come to Malfoy Manor, to where Abraxas Malfoy had been ambushed by a cadre of the so-called 'Order of the Phoenix.'
"They were angry about Arabella Figg," Bellatrix said quietly, rising from where she crouched and glancing once more at the eyeball Moody had left behind. "You did say you were goading him."
"I told you to go check inside the gate," Voldemort said quietly, and Bellatrix bowed her head.
"Yes, Master." She scurried off then, dashing around the gardens in the darkness, whispering over and over, "Homenum Revelio."
She could hear Abraxas Malfoy talking in a low, hurried voice with Lord Voldemort, discussing new wards to turn this place into a fortress, talking about the need for everyone to be secure as Dumbledore's rage unfolded. Bellatrix realised there would be no trip to the Isle of Man, and she sighed a little. She couldn't help being disappointed, though she knew their responsibility was here. Her master had kicked a hornet's nest by having Bellatrix take out the pathetic Squib woman.
"Homenum Revelio." Bellatrix aimed her wand into a tangle of rose bushes. Nothing. She took a few steps forward into the gardens and then felt a hand close around her shoulder. She whirled around with her wand extended, a Curse on her lips, but Voldemort murmured,
"Expelliarmus." He snatched her wand as she lost her grip on it, and she huffed out a breath.
"There's no one here, My Lord," she informed him. "They're gone."
"Get on the ground." His voice was a low snarl, his eyes shining very strangely in the moonlight. Bellatrix frowned and glanced behind her to the manicured garden grass.
"On the… the ground?"
"Yes. Lie on your back on the grass. Now." Voldemort's icy voice left absolutely no room for discussion, and suddenly Bellatrix understood what he meant to do to her, right here in the gardens whilst his Death Eaters clustered just outside the gate.
"Please," she whispered, shaking her head, "not here."
"Embarrassed, are we? A little shy? I said to lie down, Bellatrix. Do it." He pushed at her shoulder a little, which shocked her. She blinked a few times as he tucked her wand into his outer robe. Bellatrix sank to her knees, still shaking her head, and then she clumsily arranged herself on her back. The grass was cold and wet beneath her, and it poked at her wrists and neck in a way that made her feel profoundly uncomfortable. She shut her eyes and whispered,
"Please don't do this."
"I will take what is mine," Voldemort hissed, his voice smooth and sharp all at once, a dangerous icicle in the night air. He was crouching beside her, she could tell, and she heard the rustle of fabric as he fumbled with his robes and trousers. His voice cut straight through her as he reminded her, "All of this is mine. You are mine."
"Albus Dumbledore may refuse to acknowledge that, but your followers know it very well." Bellatrix opened her eyes and glared at him, knowing she was risking punishment but feeling as though she had very little choice. She reached to wrap her thin fingers around his wrist, and she pulled his hand from the placket of his trousers. His eyes flashed a little, and she kept her voice very quiet as she added frantically, "Please. This isn't the power move you think it is, rutting me on the lawn like an out-of-control animal. They won't respect you for it; they'll think less of you. Don't degrade yourself like this. Please. I beg you not to -"
"Bellatrix? Bella, dear, are you hurt?"
Bellatrix shut her eyes and felt a tear worm its way out as she answered her father in a cracked voice,
"No, Daddy. I'm fine."
"Go away, Cygnus," growled Voldemort, and there was a heavy pause as another tear boiled from Bellatrix's eye.
"Yes, Master," her father said at last, his voice trembling. Bellatrix lay still and listened to the night sounds - the little critters who only spoke in the darkness, the rustling of tree and bush leaves around her - and then she heard Voldemort make his way off the ground.
"Stand up," he barked harshly, and Bellatrix tried not to cry any more than she'd already done as she heaved herself off the lawn. Voldemort grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the gate, and she hung her head as she beseeched him,
"Please, just let them see me dragging behind you. Scold them for being sloppy. And then leave. Please; they know what's yours. They know who you are."
"Malfoy!" Voldemort yelled as he sped up his long strides. Bellatrix trotted to keep up with him, whimpering softly as his hand tightened painfully around her wrist. He nearly tossed her out before him as he came into the circle of tired-looking Death Eaters. Cygnus Black looked very concerned for his daughter, but of course he said nothing. Bellatrix lowered her eyes and stood a half-step behind Voldemort as he reprimanded Abraxas Malfoy. "Thanks to your lacklustre security, our headquarters were very nearly breached. Albus Dumbledore and his little scamps will be made to feel our fury, but for the next stretch here, I command you all to find secure locations so that no one is captured. You all have your vials of poison in case someone does take you. Fail to kill yourself upon capture and I'll make you wish you'd taken a thousand of those vials. Understood?"
"Yes, Master," mumbled a dozen voices from around them. Bellatrix let her curls fall in front of her face and kept her eyes on her boots as Voldemort snapped,
"Cygnus. Find the little souvenir Alastor Moody left us - his eyeball, courtesy of Splinching during a rescue from your little girl's vicious torture. Jar up the eye for me; I should like to keep it in a shelf on my office."
"Yes, Master," Cygnus Black said at once. Voldemort let silence fall, let it settle until it grew very, very uncomfortable. He controlled the speaking here. No one so much as flinched whilst the Dark Lord stood in serene quiet. Finally he said in a jagged, aggressive voice,
"If I am disturbed over the next few days, know that I will be punishing whomever is responsible for that sort of emergency. I am not to be bothered. I have… things to do."
With that, he yanked Bellatrix closer to him, his hand cinching so tightly around her wrist that she cried out. She tucked her face against his arm, submissive, like a little child who'd gotten into mischief.
"Isle of Man," he whispered suddenly, and Bellatrix understood. He didn't want her to Splinch again; she needed to be deliberate in going with him by Side-Along. A half moment later, they Disapparated, and Bellatrix thought of the little white cottage.
When she came to, she crashed down onto the rocky ground and stumbled. She tried to stand, but she couldn't see; it was cloudy and dark here. She tripped on a rock and struggled to stand, hearing the crash of waves very nearby. Suddenly she was swept up in Voldemort's arms, cradled in a rigid embrace. His breath huffed in shallow, anxious pants above her, but it was so dark she couldn't see his face. How he made his way into the cottage, she had no idea, but the door slammed open and then shut again, and Voldemort mumbled,
"Illuminario."
All the sconces and ceiling-mounted candle fixtures in the cottage sprang to life at once, bathing the little house in a flickering warm glow. Voldemort veered to the right and plopped Bellatrix unceremoniously onto the quilted bed, the place where she'd healed after Splinching her hand, after making her Horcrux.
There would be no healing tonight, she realised.
He ripped her leggings off so forcefully that she gasped; he tossed her shoes over the side of the bed and yanked her knickers down so that she had to wriggle madly to keep up. He didn't seem to care about her blouse. He just needed access to the lower bits.
"Lubrico Duo." He aimed her own wand between her legs, and as Bellatrix felt a warm, slick feeling wash over her, he tossed the wand down onto the quilt. He yanked off his outer robe, pulled open the placket of his trousers, and shoved them down just enough. His cock seemed especially intimidating tonight, particularly when he commanded Bellatrix,
"Get on your stomach. Now."
She rolled over as quickly as she could, staring at her wand on the quilt as her hips were grabbed and angled. He pushed in harder and farther than she could ever remember him doing, thrusting in at once as though it was his intention to split her in two. She shrieked, her fingers cinching around the lace pillowcase as he buried himself far more angrily than he'd ever done. He was too big, she thought suddenly. Her body couldn't bear him. Not like this.
"Interminagaudens!" she heard him incant, and she gasped as a sudden, very unexpected orgasm hit her like the shock of a cold winter wind. It was powerful, at least as powerful as any climax she'd ever had before, but there was still pain as an undercurrent to the unforeseen pleasure. It was odd to come so suddenly, with absolutely no foreplay and having not been even vaguely aroused. It was odd to feel heat in her ears, to hear distant ringing as her heartbeat pumped satisfaction through her veins, under these circumstances. It was very strange for her walls to be clamping around Voldemort's mercilessly pumping cock when just a moment earlier she'd been very afraid of it. What was even more odd was the way it didn't end, the way it just seemed to go on and on.
She kept coming even as Voldemort grunted and slid his hands around her hips and back, as he squeezed her little waist and toyed with her breasts through her blouse. She kept coming even when he thrust so hard that she screamed in a blend of pleasure and agony. And she kept coming when he did, when he stilled his jerking hips and whispered her name, when the hot jets of his seed filled her and leaked out, when it dribbled down between them onto the quilt.
"Finite… Incantatem…" Voldemort whispered breathlessly, and then his own wand landed on the quilt beside Bellatrix. She studied its yew shaft and handle, the angry curls and points of it, and she blinked slowly. She was exhausted, far more exhausted than she'd ever been. She felt Voldemort pull himself from her, and she shut her eyes against the obscene trickle that followed him. She felt his finger play with the come that drizzled down her thigh, heard his breath shaking as he murmured,
"Mine… mine."
"Of course, Master," Bellatrix nodded, drowsy and sore and overwhelmed by it all. An odd thought occurred to her then. "We don't have any of our luggage."
"We have wands," he reminded her, "and dry goods in the kitchen. We don't need anything more than that."
"Well," she said, eyeing his wand again, "I need you. I'll always need you."
A few moments later, she was curled up against him beneath the quilt, both of them stripped naked and Scoured clean. Voldemort twirled one of Bellatrix's kinky curls around his finger, and he said quietly,
"You were right. My instinct was to fuck you in front of all of them as a show of force, but it wouldn't have done that. It would have made me seem base and crude and undignified. You were right. So… thank you."
"I wasn't trying to be disobedient, Master," Bellatrix whispered, and he shook his head.
"You were being my very best Death Eater, looking out for the advancement of your master. You were being a very good wife, trying to protect your husband's image. You were being the Dark Lady, the witch you were born to be, and I am grateful for it."
Bellatrix shut her eyes and pressed her lips to the warm, smooth skin on the side of his chest. She breathed him in for a moment and then thought, Goodnight, My Lord.
"Goodnight, Bella," he whispered back, and then Bellatrix completely lost herself to fatigue, the waves on the beach outside and her husband's heartbeat combining into a very fine lullaby.
Author's Note: I invented the Inteminagaudens spell for a Snamione fic I wrote a long time ago, and I thought I'd revive it here for use on a witch. ;) I'd love to hear your thoughts on this fic as the dynamic between Voldemort and Bellatrix evolves. Thank you so much for reading.