Warnings: Dark Themes, Insinuation of Abuse, Incest, Rape.

They turned down the left corridor at the first floor, reaching Sirius' and Regulus' twin room. Sirius opened the door and stepped back for Rodolphus and Andromeda to walk through.

"Which bed is his?" Rodolphus asked in a hushed voice so as not to wake the sleeping boy in his arms.

Sirius pointed to the bed furthest from them. Rodolphus reached the bed and started to gently shift Regulus in his arms. He placed the boy on the bed, Andromeda taking off Regulus' shoes, trousers and áo gấm. Sirius watched as Rodolphus brought the duvet to Regulus' chin and turned the lamp off.

All of Rodolphus' movements towards Regulus were soft and kind but the man's face was set in stone, worry and hate lining his expression.

Andromeda kissed the top of Regulus' head whilst Rodolphus stood back, his arms crossed and his forearms bulging with tension.

They walked out of the door and shut it behind them. They hadn't taken two steps before Rodolphus had yanked Andromeda back by the arm. "He's got her, hasn't he? Where are they?" Andromeda's eyes were wide as she looked into his incredibly threatening face.

"I don't- the guest bedroom! There in the guest bedroom on the second floor!"

He pushed her back, further into the wall. "How long?" He said, his lip curling in the anger that wasn't meant for Andromeda.

"I- I don't know." She said, almost shaking.

He stared at her and blinked a few times, suddenly realising that he was terrifying her. He quickly backed away from her with an apologetic "c'mon" and they left towards the staircase.

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, walking past the house plant. Sirius thought Rodolphus was going to barge into the guest bedroom and rip Cygnus to pieces. Instead they stopped short of the guest bedroom, turning into a room on the left.

Andromeda opened the door and walked in, towards the king-sized bed in the middle of the room. Rodolphus drew his wand and flicked it at a lamp on the bedside table, lighting up the room around them. Andromeda's room was large. Dark, polished furniture filled the room accented with pale greens and greys.

Andromeda had seated herself on the edge of the bed and stared into her lap. Sirius sat on a dark, cushioned chair in the corner of the room and watched Rodolphus as he paced.

"Why are we just waiting?" The two adults looked to Sirius when he asked the question.

Andromeda sighed heavily.

Sirius asked again, "Shouldn't we be helping?"

She looked up at Sirius, and patted the bed next to her for him to come over. He sat down next to her and she pulled him close to her. "Look, Sirius. We can't do anything."

"But we have Rodolphus now-" Rodolphus looked over at the mention of his name.

"I know that, but Uncle Cygnus is a very powerful man. If Rod did anything, Daddy could have him sent to Azkaban without a trial." She spoke lowly, her voice empty of emotion. "And then Bella would be without a husband to take her away from here." Sirius looked over to Rodolphus and saw the man swallow his emotion. His eyes were glossy and his arms were crossed against his chest before he started up his pacing again.

They waited in silence for what felt like years, Andromeda sat hugging Sirius into her chest, rubbing circles over his back and Rodolphus wearing a line into the carpet.

They heard footsteps on the landing but they were soft. It was only Narcissa heading to bed.

In reality, it had only been half an hour before they heard a door at the end of the corridor open. They all looked up to the closed door, staying silent as a man's footsteps lead off to the staircase.

About a minute later, they heard much softer footsteps approach the door, the handle turned and Bellatrix opened the door.

She looked terrible. There was no nice way of putting it. She held her shoes and ripped stockings in one hand. Red lipstick was smudged against her jaw and mascara was running down her cheeks. Her áo dài was fastened haphazardly, most of the hooks loose from their loops.

Rodolphus instantly rushed over to her and brought her to his chest. Her small frame was encompassed by his arms and she seemed to completely sag against his body, exhausted.

Andromeda quickly got off the bed and hurried over to the door. She looked out into the corridor to check if it was clear. She turned back to Rodolphus and Bellatrix. "C'mon, Bella, to your room," she said.

Rodolphus held her up right as they followed Andromeda across the hall to Bellatrix's room, Sirius following in their wake.

Andromeda opened the door and Sirius' eyes widened at how Bellatrix it all was. Solid, dark floorboards gleamed up at him and Bellatrix's feet stumbled over the deep burgundy fur of the rug on the floor. All of the furniture was made with a near-black varnished wood and deep burgundies and blood reds accented the room.

Rodolphus directed Bellatrix to the chair that Andromeda was pulling out from the vanity table and seated his fiancée on it. She swayed slightly where she sat before she looked up at her reflection in the mirror, a deadened look in her eyes.

"How do you feel? Rodolphus will you go to the bathroom and get the potions?"

Andromeda was keeping up a stream of one-sided conversation whilst she pulled the black silk from Bellatrix's body and started unlacing the binding corset from her back. It was made from a sort of swimsuit type material, meant to keep the contours of her body flat for her áo dài to cling to her curvy form.

Perhaps Andromeda's constant chatter was to give Bellatrix comfort or maybe it was just to fill the otherwise toxic silence. Either way it was helping Sirius to process seeing his cousin that way.

Sirius watched her and Rodolphus move around the rooms. They did everything quietly, like they knew what to do. Like they had practised it. And it suddenly dawned on Sirius, that they had had practice in it. They knew what to do because they had done this so many times before. They were used to it.

Andromeda unlaced all of Bellatrix's corset and walked around her to slide the trousers and fabrics completely from Bellatrix's body, chucking them to where the shoes and stockings were discarded on the floor.

Sirius suddenly couldn't think of what to do but stare at his now naked cousin. He averted his eyes to the en suite that Rodolphus just went through. They were both doing things. Rodolphus and Andromeda were doing things to help but Sirius just stood by the bed watching.

He looked back over at Bellatrix. She didn't seem to care that she was naked. She just stared and blinked. She wasn't sad or scared either, she just looked tired. He looked at her. She was curvy, definitely. Her skin was soft, porcelain apart from the places it wasn't; places like her thighs, which were marred with blueish-blackish bruises. Her breasts were also littered with an array of colours, blue and black contusions marking where hands had grabbed at her too rough.

Andromeda was taking wipes to where her make up had run, whispering words of comfort to her. She must have said something funny because Bellatrix looked up at her, the corners of her mouth turning up in a small laugh. Andy rubbed away the garish red and pink that stained Bella's lips and cheek, and softly dabbed at the watery black flakes of mascara and eye liner, freeing the marble white skin beneath.

Rodolphus walked back into the room with a basket of various vials and jars. He placed the basket on the vanity and looked down at Bellatrix.

He didn't say anything, instead just stroking her hair behind her ear. She looked up at him and smiled. "Hi." She said softly.

He gave a sad smile too. "Hi."

Andromeda finished wiping Bellatrix's face of make up and moved around the back of the chair, picking up a brush, and started on the tangled mess of her hair.

Rodolphus bent down in the space Andromeda had just vacated and grabbed a jar of clear paste from the basket on the vanity. He looked up into her eyes. "Is this okay? It's just Healing Salve." He gestured towards the jar in his hand, as if they didn't use it every time this happened.

She smiled weakly. "Of course, Rod." She said, as if she had never had to say it before.

He nodded and opened the jar, gathering a lump of the salve on his fingers. He reached out and started rubbing the bruises across her chest. Again his movements were explicitly soft despite the dark anger that lined his face.

Sirius moved closer and watched as Rodolphus' fingers brushed over the blueish lines that made the shape of fingers. Rodolphus looked almost pained as he brushed the salve over the ugly marks. Rodolphus was careful not to touch her as if to grope her, to make his caress clinical rather than intimate. The marks were clearly going to darken by morning but a few nights of reapplying the salve and her body would be clear of them altogether.

He brushed the white-ish paste over her biceps and covered the bruises there too.

After a soft touch to her split lip from being slapped in the hallway earlier, he shifted so he could reach her thighs and hips. Bellatrix winced as he brushed the bruises on her hips. He paused then and looked up at her. "Trix, I need you to-" He swallowed thickly and lightly tapped her knee.

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion for a moment before her expression cleared in comprehension and she opened her legs for him. He continued to treat the bruises on the inside the of her thighs, moving higher along her legs until he reached her center. Rodolphus could already see the bruising there too and his jaw tightened in cold hatred as he tried his best to coat the torn flesh with the salve, also trying his best to block out Bellatrix's soft whimpers and winces as he touched the place it hurt most, making sure ripped labia so that it healed properly without infection.

After a few minutes he pulled back, screwed the lid back onto the jar and stood.

Andromeda looked over at Sirius. "There's a silk nightie in that drawer. Could you get it for me?"

Sirius nodded straight away, happy to finally have the ability to do something and walked over to the drawer, rooting through various night gowns and shirts until he found the nightie Andromeda had asked for.

He pulled it out, handed it to her and watched as Andromeda lifted the nightie over Bellatrix's head and pulled it down to the middle of her thigh.

If Sirius listened carefully he could have sworn he heard Bellatrix whisper a 'thank you' to Andromeda.

Bellatrix made to stand but Rodolphus caught her at the waist and steadied her as she wobbled. He bent and lifted her bridal style. He carried her to the King bed and carefully climbed onto it, settling himself against the pillows. Bellatrix shifted so that she rested comfortably between his legs, her head on his chest.

He stroked her hair, kissing the top of her head every so often. Bellatrix looked around the room and her eyes settled on Sirius for the first time that night.

"You shouldn't be here." She said to him, her voice soft and tired.

Andromeda stepped forward. "Sirius was the one who came and got us."

Bellatrix looked from Andromeda, back to Sirius. "Yeah? You did that?" Her voice was immensely tired but her eyes were staring into him undeterred.

He nodded at her.

Her mouth turned up in a sad smile. "You're a very brave man." Sirius had never been called a man or even brave before and he felt himself swell with pride at her words. He felt an overwhelming feeling of duty flood him, a duty to protect the nasty, cynical woman who was really quite broken inside, but then she spoke again. "I'm sorry you have to be so brave."

And all of a sudden he deflated again. All of a sudden he was reminded of the fact that he couldn't protect her - he couldn't protect anyone. Because he was eleven and he was a Black and the bad people are bigger. And bigger people win.

He wasn't a courageous knight in one of Reg's stories. He wasn't the underdog who would overcome his adversaries. He was a boy who had to keep his head down and his mouth shut and watch as the bad guys do bad things and get away with it.

Sirius watched as Bellatrix blinked herself to sleep. Rodolphus kicked off his shoes and sighed heavily. Andromeda continued to potter around the room, putting the basket back in the bathroom and rummaging through Bellatrix's drawers. He presumed she was laying something out for Bellatrix to where the next day.

When she was finished, she came over to where Bellatrix was curled up on Rodolphus, bent low and kissed her older sister on the forehead. "Goodnight, Bella." She whispered and left the room quickly, slyly wiping a tear from her eye.

Sirius looked at Rodolphus, the only other awake person in the room. "I'm not leaving." He said immediately, and climbed up onto the foot of the bed as if to prove his point.

Rodolphus looked him up and down, shrugged slightly and turned back to Bellatrix to stroke her hair again.