One pleasant day at the tail end of February, Bellatrix was walking in the gardens with Narcissa. It was warm enough that she didn't need gloves, though she was a bit sad not to put on the ones Voldemort had made for her.
"So," Narcissa said as they strode through the spindly rose bushes, "I am willing to try some extreme measures."
"Extreme measures?" Bellatrix repeated, looking up at her sister. "About trying for a baby, you mean?"
Narcissa looked queasy as she blinked slowly and said, "Fertilinatis Serum."
Bellatrix gasped. That stuff was more than a little dangerous, known to cause death in up to a tenth of the witches that consumed it. For that reason, it was entirely illegal. Bellatrix chomped her lip as Narcissa shrugged.
"I shall have to brew it myself and take it. I will do whatever it takes in order to get pregnant, and by all accounts, this is a last resort that actually works."
Bellatrix huffed a breath and then sighed heavily. "Well, I wish you all the best, Cissy."
"Aren't you going to try to talk me out of it?" Narcissa asked, looking highly sceptical. Bellatrix shook her head with conviction.
"I know you, Cissy. You're my sister. And if you really believe that taking Fertilinatis Serum is the key to your happiness, in spite of all the risks, then who am I to stop you?"
Narcissa opened her mouth to say something in response, but suddenly Bellatrix yelped, for her Dark Mark was searing like fire. She clasped a hand over her left forearm and focused on the call. She wasn't being Summoned to the meeting room. Wales. She sensed Wales.
The main doors of the manor flew open then, and Lord Voldemort came soaring outside with his black robes billowing about him and his wand extended. He was trailed by Lucius and Abraxas Malfoy. Voldemort neared Bellatrix with dashing steps, and he barked,
"We have to go; I've been called by Yaxley and Avery. They're in Wales doing a routine Muggle attack. Something's gone wrong."
Narcissa looked frightened as her husband, father-in-law, and sister joined their master in running toward the gate, but she fretfully stayed behind in the garden. Narcissa was not a soldier. Bellatrix trotted beside Voldemort toward the gate, thinking of the fact that they were going into battle unmasked owing to the urgency of the circumstances. She felt Voldemort seize her hand, and as soon as they were at the Apparition Point, he took her by Side-Along to Wales.
When they came to, they were in a run-down coal mining village in the mountains. It appeared they were on the outside of town, near the mine itself. It was drizzling here. Bellatrix looked around and saw that Avery was lying on the ground, unmoving and staring. Was he dead? Yaxley was throwing hexes and Curses at the four Order members before him - Albus Dumbledore, Alastor Moody, and Gideon and Fabian Prewett.
Abraxas Malfoy made a move to Curse Moody, but Moody quickly Stunned Abraxas, then turned his wand on Lucius and cast a nonverbal Stunning Spell on the younger Malfoy. Soon enough, both of the blond wizards had shot backward into the mud, unconscious and slumped. Bellatrix aimed her wand at Moody and screamed with all the air in her lungs,
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Alastor Moody rocketed backward and skittered along the muddy hill, rolling a little before coming to a stop. He didn't move again, and the green light faded. He was dead. Before Bellatrix could properly process the fact that she'd just killed one of their most skilled and feared enemies, she saw a blue light out of the corner of her eye. A Stunning Spell, headed straight for her from Gideon Prewett. She moved very quickly to deflect the spell, sending silvery-blue sparks flying. Almost instantly, Fabian Prewett sent a Killing Curse her way, but Bellatrix shrieked and dodged, rolling into the mud as the light rain soaked her through. The Curse shot past her and kept going until it hit the hillside behind her, sending dirt and rocks soaring through the air.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Bellatrix shouted another Killing Curse right back at Fabian Prewett, and when it hit him, he smacked backward and collapsed onto the rainy grass. Gideon, his brother, dashed over to him to see whether Fabian was actually dead, and the second he realised the truth, he raised his wand to Bellatrix and yelled,
"Immobulus!"
As soon as the Freezing Charm hit Bellatrix, her thought process involved wondering. Why, she wondered, hadn't Gideon just killed her? Why was she now lying in the mud, staring sideways, unable to move, instead of being dead? In any case, Gideon's cowardice - or perhaps his desire to take her as a prisoner - allowed her to witness the duel happening between Voldemort and Dumbledore.
The spells were being cast nonverbally, with lightning-fast ricochets of multi-colored light. Voldemort threw up a massive shield at one point after enough of the spell-block-spell-block dance. Dumbledore then cast a spell that sent lime green and purple sparks bouncing quickly off of Voldemort's shield. Voldemort ripped down his shield, jabbed his wand toward Dumbledore, and screamed,
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
A hair's breadth separated Dumbledore from his death. He Disapparated just in time. He vanished from the spot where he'd been standing, disappearing into thin air, and the Killing Curse hit the bare-twigged tree behind him, making it shudder and quake. Gideon Prewett ran toward Fabian again and grabbed at his dead brother's arm, Disapparating just like Dumbledore had done. They'd left Moody's body behind.
Voldemort let out a loud, frustrated yell. He slashed his wand through the air, and the tree before him was sliced through its thick trunk, toppling over with slow, loud, crackling authority. Voldemort came dashing over toward Bellatrix, finding her immobilised, and he quickly waved his wand over her.
"Finite Incantatem," he snapped, and Bellatrix felt life come back into her limbs and lungs. She sat up, muddy and wet, and she mumbled,
"I killed Alastor Moody and Fabian Prewett, My Lord."
He snatched at her hair and yanked her close, kissing her roughly. He drove his face against hers and insisted,
"You are a good girl, and I do love you."
He stalked over to Lucius and Abraxas, murmuring a few Rennervates until they woke, and he roused the immobilised Avery. Yaxley was moaning on the ground with a bloody injury that ran up the side of his thigh and hip, and Voldemort crouched beside him and muttered a few healing spells to tide his soldier over. Bellatrix walked over to Moody's body, kicked at it, and asked,
"Shall I Vanish him, My Lord?"
"Leave him there to rot," Voldemort commanded. "They know he's dead. They know where we battled. Leave no Dark Mark. Let them come fetch his muddy, stinking corpse. Let's go."
The next day, there was to be a grand dinner party for Abraxas and Adelaide's thirtieth wedding anniversary. Cygnus and Druella Black had been invited, along with the Malfoys' good friends, the Yaxleys and the Mulcibers. Bellatrix dressed in a slinky, sexy black gown for dinner, a strappy confection that showed off her skinny arms and the bit of cleavage she possessed. She went into Voldemort's bathroom and stood before the mirror, arranging her curls into a low chignon. She hummed as she pulled her hair just so. Suddenly a reflection appeared in the mirror - her master.
"Hullo, My Lord," she said quietly, and he smirked at her in the mirror as he declared,
"You are unfathomably beautiful."
She sucked in air as he dragged a knuckle along her shoulder blade. He looked so handsome just now, she thought. She whimpered a little, and he licked his lip.
"I wish to tell you that once you have killed Severus Snape, you will create a Horcrux."
Bellatrix froze. She stabbed the last pin, the ornamental black and silver one, into her hair, and she asked in a shaking voice,
"Wh-What made you change your mind?"
"I was concerned, whilst dueling Dumbledore, that you had been killed. It was eating at me, the thought of that," he told her. "I can not have the weight of that worry on my head in battle. You will need to be protected. You will need to be safe."
Bellatrix nodded, trying not to think of all the pain he'd described. "What will I use as my vessel? What object will I use to hold my soul?"
Voldemort opened his left fist and held out his palm to her, revealing a pear-shaped emerald that glistened like a star. There were little rivers of inclusion within it, but it was beautiful just the same.
"This was a glove," Voldemort said. "A glove that I made for you. Now it is a fine, expensive emerald of distinctive shape and quality. It will be stored in your Gringotts vault."
"After I kill Severus Snape," Bellatrix said breathlessly, and Voldemort shut his fist again and nodded.
"After you kill Severus Snape."
They walked down to the dinner party hand-in-hand. When they entered the dining room, everyone rose respectfully. Bellatrix's parents seemed shocked to see their daughter clutching the fingers of the Dark Lord himself. The Mulcibers and the Yaxleys appeared similarly surprised. But nobody dared say anything about the matter, not even when Voldemort pulled out Bellatrix's chair by hand and pushed her in. He took his own seat and raised his wine glass, and everyone else did the same.
"To Abraxas and Adelaide," he said warmly, "and thirty years of a beautiful marriage between them. You have produced Lucius, and you have given one another such joy. Here is to the next thirty years, and the thirty after that. I wish you both a most happy anniversary. Cheers."
"Happy anniversary, Mum and Dad," said Lucius sincerely. Everyone drank, and the mood was quite merry as the first course of carrot soup appeared before them. Bellatrix sipped at her soup and flashed Voldemort a happy smile as they ate. But then she noticed that Narcissa was just stirring her soup and not eating at all. She scowled, wondering if her sister was being negatively affected by the dangerous fertility serum she'd brewed herself. She stared at Narcissa, who just pinched her lips back.
Yaxley began to discuss the battle where Bellatrix had killed Moody and Fabian Prewett, where Voldemort had dueled Dumbledore.
"It was a glorious display of our power," he said happily. "Of course, I managed to wind up immobilised."
"Only after fending off Dumbledore and the others until we arrived, Mr Yaxley," Bellatrix pointed out.
"Bellatrix displayed a spectacular degree of valour and vicious, quick wit," said Voldemort, speaking up from where he sat holding a glass of wine. Bellatrix's eyes went wide at the praise, and she stared at him. She gulped heavily and looked to her mother, who had set down her spoon, and then back to Voldemort, who carried on, "I am exceptionally proud of the way she killed two of our enemies in quick order."
He set down his wine, reached for Bellatrix's hand, and brought her knuckles to his lips to kiss. The room had gone quiet and still by this point. Bellatrix nodded.
"Thank you, Master."
"And I thought I could adore you no more, Bellatrix," Voldemort said, raising his eyebrows, "but then, there you were, rolling away from one Killing Curse and hitting Fabian Prewett with another one a scant moment later. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant."
A little round of quiet applause worked its way through the room, and Bellatrix's cheeks went hot. Voldemort slowly released her hand, and she felt the pressure of her family's stares upon her. Lucius Malfoy mercifully shifted the conversation to talk about Abraxas' and Adelaide's wedding day thirty years earlier, and the celebrated couple began to talk about their marriage.
As Bellatrix ate her roast duck in silence, she thought over just what had happened to her over the past months. In the autumn, she had accidentally killed the husband with whom she had been madly in love. She had attended his funeral. She had mourned him. She had descended into a deep depression, a bland and useless haze. She had returned to her master's service, and she had begun to fall in love with that same master. Now she was living in his quarters, and he apparently loved her back. She was going to kill Severus Snape. She was going to make a Horcrux.
It was a complicated life Bellatrix Lestrange was living, she thought, eyeing her sister and her mother and her master. But she would not have it any other way.
Author's Note: Whew! Always good to see Bellatrix in peak killer warrior form, no? So, he does want her to make a Horcrux, after all — and he wants her murder victim to be Snape. How will these logistics work out? Hmmm.
Side note - Ginny the St. Bernard puppy is really cute but very time-consuming (even more so than my five-year-old human), so my writing may be a bit more sparse for a bit. Thanks for understanding.
Thanks for reading and reviewing!