A/N: Okay, Harry gets a wee bit dark in this one, as does Bella. I think that it's justified, but if you don't like torture then look for the warnings and skip it.

Harry James Potter-Black; the most wanted man in Magical Britain, and Bellatrix Felicia Potter-Black; his wife, and the most wanted woman in Magical Britain, both walked into the Daily Prophet completely undisguised with a very specific destination in mind. Silence followed their progress, but it was blown apart when Harry blasted the door in front of him right off its hinges, where it flew inside and crashed directly into the snarky blonde's face with a wet crunch; knocking her right off her seat and into unconsciousness. Harry thought that went better than planned.

Bella concurred.

The room was small, cramped, and just screamed conceited, nosey hag from ever centimetre. The shelves were filled to overflowing with books of lies that she herself had written; the walls were plastered with articles that had ruined lives, families and reputations while bringing her own even higher; her desk was scattered with confidential papers that she most certainly shouldn't have been in possession of, and her window sill had a long line of model beetles that were slowly crawling around.

Harry shook his head at the sight and summoned the door back to where it belonged while leaving Bella to erect the myriad of powerful locking, protection, and privacy spells around the room; nobody in the bloody place could keep their mouth shut for long, so company from The Ministry would likely be arriving in a few minutes. Harry, on the other hand, levitated Rita Skeeter back onto her seat, still unconscious with a broken nose, and then proceeded to crack up laughing as it reminded him of Lucifer's similar experience with a hard surface.

Bella snickered when she caught the gist of his amusement, and then returned to him; joining him on the plush, black leather chair that he had summoned. She wiggled around to get comfortable in his lap, and his hands automatically went under her shirt to gently caress her smooth stomach. Then she enervated The Gossip Queen. Rita snapped to, and then just as quickly clutched her hands to her nose with a cry of pain. Harry snorted; if she thought that was pain then she had another thing coming. "Rita, I'm rather pissed off to see you again, but it had to be done."

The woman looked at Harry and Bella with something akin to fear, but it would take an idiot to miss the look of greed and prospective gossip in her eyes. She practically exuded exploitation. Harry had known that for years, but he still found it repulsive; how could a person even live with themselves with what she did? He shook himself and returned to tracing holy runes on Bella's smooth skin; sending shivers of joy and delight through her. "Rita, ever since the Triwizard Tournament you have dragged my name through the mud. You wrote one, single flattering article the day after I defeated Voldemort," shudder from the blonde, much to Harry's disgust, "but apart from that you have set out to do only one thing, and that is to ruin my life."

Rita smirked, and her nasally voice ruined the intimidating effect she was going for. It wouldn't have worked even if she hadn't had her nose broken. "The people have the right to know the truth Harry-"

A loud snap sounded out in the quiet room, and Harry looked coldly on as Rita screamed and clutched at her now-fractured arm. He glared at her; his green eyes burning with barely restrained anger. "Not a word of what you printed was truth save your name; you slandered the Potter name; everything that my parents worked for, and you slandered the Black name; however fucked up it was, it was still the name of my Godfather; the man who was like a father to me!"

The pressure bearing down on Rita was frightening, and she could feel her joints groaning in protest under the strain. Her mouth however, still let out her vile, riling words. "You ruined those names by becoming the Dark L-"

Another snap, this time more of a crunch, as her leg was crushed under the force of Harry and Bella's combined magic, and she screamed once more. Harry was furious. "You dare accuse me of things you know nothing about you lying, manipulative little bitch?" and an agonized scream once more. She started to fade into unconsciousness, but Harry sent an electric shock tearing through her body; eliciting another scream and bringing her back to full awareness. In an instant her bones were brutally mended; one of the reasons that Harry took his time to heal his friends, and she screamed again. The people outside the door must have been shaking in their boots. "I was an Auror you wench, a bloody Auror! Of course I studied the Dark Arts; I studied them just like every other single Auror in existence, because we bloody well fight the people that use them!"

Struggling to withstand the pain of her bones rapidly stitching back together she managed five words through gritted teeth. "Y-you're using d-Dark Magic now!"

Harry shook his head with a scowl, and Bella was tempted to slap the reported right across the face. This was the woman that made her husband's life a misery, but unlike her she wouldn't change. There was nothing to evolve to; all that was there was one hundred percent manipulative, lying, glory-seeking bitch – and that wasn't going to change any time soon. "That was a light spell Harry used you ignorant cow; it is usually employed by laundry maids and house elves to squeeze the water from washed clothing." She snarled, "This is why you are such a horrible person; you ruined my husband's life because you don't understand a thing about what he goes through."

"Well apparently something good happened between you two to warrant getting married." Rita whispered gleefully, thinking about the next headline she could make out of this meeting.

Bella stopped that thought right in its tracks by closing the woman's windpipe. "The only people that will even know about what happened in Azkaban are Harry, me, and our family. If you come after any of us through your disgusting excuses for articles, we will come after you."

Harry nodded his agreement, and released the spell restricting her breathing. She coughed and spluttered as she drew in huge gulps of air, and Harry shook his head in revulsion; even a Flubbering Humdinger had a larger lung capacity than that. "One day Rita, I will come for you. You have denied my Godfather his freedom by spreading lies even after his exoneration; you have ruined my family name by the same token; and most of all, the thing that pisses me off the most, and you can confirm that with- oh, wait, he's dead. Never mind. The thing that pisses me off the most is that you even considered going after Bella." Rita looked shocked and Harry rolled his eyes with a scowl. "I've been reading your mind since I entered this room Rita, and don't for a moment think of accusing me of lying; your shields were so weak that I simply slipped inside without your notice."

Rita gaped, "That's illegal!"

This time it was Bella's turn to roll her eyes. "And breaking your bones isn't? What the hell do you think we're doing? Everything we're doing is illegal, since both of us are once again wanted felons due to the lies that you bloody published in your article last week." She froze, and then turned to Harry with a questioning gaze.

Harry raised an eyebrow, and then looked proudly at her before kissing her pleasantly on the lips with a wide smile as he pulled away. "What a wonderful idea my Love; I wouldn't have thought of that."

Bella smiled with delight at the praise, and then turned back to Rita before forcing the rapist's memories into hers…and then ramming the woman's consciousness into every single horrific recollection. They watched as her face went white, then a light green, then puce, before finally settling back onto a deeper green as she came back to reality several minutes later and threw up into her rubbish bin. Bella scowled at the woman who was still gagging. "Your ignorance causes more harm than you can imagine. That man that I killed deserved to die; I murdered him to avenge each and every poor, innocent, lost life that was stolen from those young girls. They all had beautiful futures; I know because after we left the Ministry Harry took me to Gringotts to help me find out who they were. He knew that I needed to have closure for what I had just done."

She pulled a stack of papers from mid-air and threw them onto the desk in front of Rita, and the reporter blanched when she saw the very secure and untamperable Gringotts folders. "Harry and I, with the help of our friend, searched and researched every single one of those fifty three innocent girls." She leant forward, just enough to make the blonde shrink back into her chair, and scowled with pain palpable in her eyes. "Each of them had a lover, and we visited each and every one of them that was still alive. The twenty six that were soul bonded to the girls after the blocks were removed had already committed suicide; the loss of their lover with the connection was too much for them and there was nothing by loneliness left in this world.

"They killed themselves to be with their other halves, and do you know the only thing that I find good about what happened?" She didn't wait for an answer, "Suicide isn't counted if you do it after the death of your soul-bonded; so they will be with their lovers forever."

Harry smiled sadly at the pain and passion in his lover's voice, and pulled her back to him; where she gripped his hands tightly in hers. Her brutal rapes still affected her more than she cared to admit to anyone but Harry, which was why what she did meant so much to her. He raised his eyes to the shocked woman behind the desk, and the ever-present scowl he had for her deepened. "You condoned what that mass-murdering, serial-raping bastard did through your article; and all because of your arrogance and ignorance. You seem to think that your opinion is truth; that only what you see in something is what counts, which is why from this moment forth you are going to change."

She snorted in reply, "And why would I do that?"

Harry shrugged noncommittally. "Or I could just crucio you to death right now." While Rita gaped at him he looked down at Bella and whispered in her ear. "Are you alright Bella?"

She nodded slightly, and wiped at her eyes with a sad smile. "I- I'll be okay once we've closed this."

He shook his head and kissed her nose that was turned up towards him. He made sure to erect a temporary privacy charm as he spoke the next words. "You won't be alright until we kill the man that did all those things to you. That is when you can truly begin to heal." She moved to interrupt, but Harry placed a finger over her lips, and then glared as, with a loud zap, the beetle that had been flying towards them was transformed back into the reporter, and then smashed right back across the room where her spine snapped against her desk. Harry blocked out the terrorized screams with a wave of his hand and then turned back to Bella with a loving, thankful smile. "The fact that you think that my love alone can heal those wounds means more to me than- well you know what it means to me, but although I can heal them, they will still be raw until he is gone and you have hurt him as he hurt you."

"I-I…" she buried her head into his chest and nodded with a muffled, saddened, "Y-you're right…I-I'm sorry."

He smiled and ran his hands gently through her hair. "There is nothing to be sorry about; as I said, it means a lot to me that you even think that I could heal it at all." After a moment he turned to the door and frowned. "How are the shields holding?"

She sniffed and then pulled back, wiping her eyes; there would be time to let it all out when she was in his arms back at their home. "There must be a battalion of Aurors out there, and from the power imbued in the magic I think that there must be a circle of warlocks amplifying the spells. I can hold it for another couple of minutes, but I'm too exhausted from this morning to hold it for longer."

Harry nodded in understanding. At nearly three o'clock that morning he had awoken to Bella squirming and screaming in his arms, and he had been distraught with worry as he slipped into her mind. What he found there horrified even him, and did the same thing that always happened when somebody was a threat to Bella. Mere centimetres away from burying themselves in Bella was Rudolphus at her front, and the serial-rapist she had murdered at her naked back, groping her breasts. Harry was furious. A blanket of safety, love and warmth had wrapped around Bella comfortingly as she shivered in horror, and Harry brutally attacked the men in front of him.

He knew that they weren't real; that they were mere figments of his beloved's imagination, but they had been about to hurt her, and he was going to make sure that her subconscious knew damn well that no man but him was ever going to touch her like that. He was going to make sure that if she was going to dream about sex that it wouldn't be in a dungeon; that she wouldn't be shackled to the floor and beaten; and she would not, under any circumstances, ever be raped; instead she would be in their bedroom, lying willingly beneath him on their silken sheets as he worshipped and made love to her like royalty.

Never before had Harry taken so much pleasure in torturing and killing somebody, let alone two. By the time he was finished the only thing that was left was blood splattered on the walls and scraps of their remains slammed brutally into a corner of the miserable dungeon. With a wave of his hand he was cleaned of their gore, and an instant later he had engulfed his shaking lover in his arms where she clutched desperately and began sobbing.

That was why his Love as mentally exhausted, that was why they were in Rita Skeeter's office, and that was why they had another destination in mind after their visit. Harry healed all of Rita's bones once more; and she collapsed into unconsciousness as the pain of her snapped spine repairing itself overloaded her brain. A moment later she was evervated by Harry, who was hugging Bella from behind, and he glared at her as she gritted her teeth; determined not to show any more weakness. "You wouldn't kill me!"

Harry's eyes darkened, and then he forced several of his non-sexual fantasies across their mental bridge. Rita's jaw dropped, "B-b-but yo-you're the golden-"

"Crucio." Harry watched coldly as the woman screamed herself hoarse under the torture curse, before finally releasing her after nearly half a minute; he didn't want her to lose her mind. She whimpered as the aftershocks of the dark spell wracked through her body, and Harry growled at her. "I will kill you, but when depends on your actions. Indirectly you ruined my life, so you don't warrant the torture that the ones who directly did so – but you still owe me your life. You will change because from this moment forwards your life is rented from me.

"Your payment is to research everything in this folder," he threw it onto her desk, "and to write an article on each and every single one – with the proper research. I don't care how you do it; if you get another person to do the research because you're so useless so be it, but you will write those articles or I will kill you. You will not mention me or Bella, or my good friends Artemis and Holly in a bad light at any point for the rest of your life, articles or by other means; you will do a thorough, truthful job; you will criticise those that deserve to be criticised; and you will do all this while thinking; 'what would Harry want me to do?'" He paused, glaring dangerously into her frightened eyes. "Am I clear?"

"Half a minute," Bella whispered; the strain apparent in her voice, and Harry nodded.

Rita looked torn; half wanting to reject the offer because of her pride, but eventually she relented; a defeated expression spreading over her face. "I agree." She held out her hand, "I suppose you'll want an oath?"

Harry nodded, and a small smile whipped across his lips. "Good, you're thinking about what I want already."

He took her hand in his, and she sighed, overthrown, before she spoke. "I, Rita Jane Skeeter do swear upon my life, my magic, and my eternal soul to abide by Harry James Potter-Black's terms as I live – so mote it be."

"So mote it me," intoned Harry, and a spiral of magic engulfed their hands before sinking into their skin.

Harry took his hand back, slightly shocked at the lack of any loopholes in the agreement, and Rita sat down behind her desk before rubbing her brow. "Please leave, I need to work."

Harry nodded; Bella's magic was about to give out – he could feel it. "Of course Miss Skeeter."

With a wave of his hand he ensured that she was the only person that could see the folders on her desk, and it was at that moment that the door was disintegrated with a loud hiss. Bella looked up at Harry, tears in her eyes, "I'm sorry I'm weak."

Harry shook his head and pressed a finger against her lips with a smile. "It's understandable, no apology needed." The tears turned happy, and Harry felt a rush of love run through his body and settle inside of him. He turned around, and saw Hermione with her pistol pointed at him, and six warlocks with their staffs' crystals pulsing ominously at them. Umbridge was at the very back of the procession, and Harry smiled mockingly. "Oooh, is this where I get my Order of Merlin 1st Class?"

"This is where you go back to the place you belong, as well as your slut of a wife." Hermione smirked, "And I'll separate you for the entirety of the rest of your lives."

Harry could see two Aurors take two steps forward; magic-inhibiting handcuffs at the ready, and Harry's eyes steeled themselves. "Today is a really bad time. Perhaps when we next meet?" And with a flash, and a bang from Hermione's gun, they disappeared. They reappeared in a dark forest, and Harry clutched at his shoulder angrily. "That bitch actually got me!"

Blood pulsed out of the bullet hole and through his fingers, and Bella gasped. "Merlin, Harry!" She rushed to his side, and then called out loudly, "Jen!"

With a pop the petite Asian appeared at their side, and quickly begun healing Harry as soon as he saw what the situation was. Harry gritted his teeth as the bullet popped out of the healing wound, and Bella picked it up off the ground as she held his hand lovingly. She held it up to the light; his blood still glimmering on its surface, and shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry; I could have erected a kinetic barrier if I was prepared. I should have stayed home today."

Harry smiled as Jen worked on removing the scar that was now where the wound had been and shook his head before squeezing her hand. "It was worth it; I needed that."

She looked at him like he was mad. "You needed to be shot?"

He nodded. "I needed to be reminded that I can still get hurt; that I'm not impervious to everything. If I sink into that mind-set then I could get people in our family hurt, or worse, killed." He turned to Jen who had just lowered her hands, and hugged her; much to her shock. "Thanks Jen."

Awkwardly she hugged him back, and Harry smiled to himself – perhaps his little side plan could go ahead earlier than he had anticipated. "…It was no problem Master Harry."

"Just Harry," he said as he pulled away and took Bellatrix's hand again, and Jen frowned.

"I'm sorry?"

"Just call me Harry, none of this Master crap; we're friends, and I'm not above you."

Jen looked astonished for a moment, but then gave Harry and Bella both a brilliant smile; her eyes happier than either of them had ever seen. "Thank you…Harry, and…Bella?"

Bellatrix nodded with a smile. "Of course you can call me that Jen."

The Source's embodiment's smile widened even further, and she thanked them both again before popping away to return to her duties at The Sanctuary. Harry and Bella walked along a seemingly invisible path; following the putrid magic traces, and slowly but surely Bella's core begun to recover. At the same time however, she got tenser, and Harry paused mid-step before pulling her into a warm, comforting embrace. She accepted it without hesitation, and relaxed for the first time since they arrived. "I'm scared Harry."

He nodded. "I know."

"I'm afraid that I'll freeze up and something bad will happen."

Harry smiled into her hair. "Not going to happen, because I'm here, and you know what happens when you're under threat."

He could feel her smile through his shirt. "Yeah; you do your lover-thing."

He chuckled, "Yes I do, are you still afraid?"

"Yes, but not of something bad happening."

Harry nodded his head, and then took her hand before walking again. It was completely understandable her being scared. Today was the beginning of their revenge; they had both decided that if they had any personal demons then it would interfere with their leading of Phoenix, and more than that – their personal lives. They were fed up with the constant nagging in the back of their minds which prevented them from moving on to completely enjoy their new lives, and today was the time where Bella was to take care of her private war that she had chosen to share with him. Tomorrow was his turn, and he was feeling more than a little scared as well.

Finally they came out of the forest into a small clearing, and Harry disillusioned them both to allow Bella to continue regaining her magic reserves. They moved silently across the field to the small shack that was against the cliff-face on the other side, and stopped nearly one hundred meters away from it where the wards began. Harry turned to Bella and a after a deep breath she nodded. Harry placed his hands near the dome of the ward that was visible to him, and carefully and stealthily removed the alert, and replaced it with an anti-travelling function – before reinforcing it with a wave of demonic magic.

They re-joined hands once more and stepped through the wards undetected, before continuing on towards the place where Bella's only link to her past remained. The shack was a mess, and both of the lovers wondered whether it was even possible to live in such a hovel. The Shrieking Shack was a five-star hotel compared to what was in front of them. The wood was rotten; mould and moss covered almost every surface, and the stench of rotten food and rubbish came from a disgusting pile that was further along from the poor excuse for a dwelling. Bella's fear dropped right out of her, and she turned her head upwards to Harry with shock written all over her face. "Harry, the man who did all those things to me lives here? Here of all places?"

Harry nodded. "Griphook tracked him down and triple checked; there's no mistake my Love."

Her eyes sharpened, and then darkened as she nodded. "Good; he can finally die in the dump where he belongs." Harry almost smiled at the venom in her voice, but the situation was far too serious for it to actually break out onto his lips. This would be the first time he had ever seen the man who he had experienced brutally abusing and raping the woman who Harry loved more than anything else in the world, and he was silently chanting a mantra in his head; forcing himself to restrain his anger and fury. This was Bella's revenge; not his.

She walked up to the door, Harry only a step behind, and after a deep breath knocked twice. Several seconds later and some thumping came from inside, and then the door swung open. "'Bout fucking time Rowl-" He cut himself off when he saw that it in fact wasn't Rowl on 'fucking time', but instead a young woman that looked vaguely familiar, and a man who for some reason made him tense up. Tense though he may have been, it was in his nature to do what he did next, and Harry only just managed to restrain himself – only just – as he reached for Bella's breast. "Fucking yes!"

Before the man could blink his hand had disappeared, and all that was left was a cauterized stump where it had previously been. It took another several seconds for his nervous system to get over the shock of the whole situation, but it was glaringly obvious when it did. A scream ripped itself out of his throat, but his anger was just as Bella remembered it when he immediately charged her. She wasn't however, prepared for the sudden movement towards her, and put her hands up helplessly in defence. Harry however, had been ready since the moment they had passed through the wards. With a movement that was a mere blur he appeared in front of his lover, and had delivered a savage jab at the man's face. Harry felt all of the bone under his fist collapse, and grinned grimly as the bastard who dared touch Bellatrix ever gurgled on his own blood.

He looked to his lover, and saw her looking thankfully at him, even though she knew that to him a thanks wasn't required; he was simply protecting her, and to him that was as natural of an action as breathing. She healed her rapist's face, and then paralysed him after clearing his airway so that he didn't die.

Yet at least.

She stepped over the threshold into the house and wrinkled her nose in disgust at the smells that hit her. A moment later however, she felt energy swirl around her and sink through her skin, and all she could smell and feel was Harry. She turned back to the doorway and immediately leapt to him; pressing her lips to hers desperately and happily. Harry loved the look of fury in Rudolphus's eyes as he kissed the woman who he wanted to have his way with, and made sure that the bastard saw his tongue enter Bella's mouth. After several long minutes Bella pulled back and smiled with deep emotion at Harry. "I love you so much."

"I love you too Bella."

The silencing charm was removed, and it was then that Rudolphus snorted with a smirk. "Love is bullshit; it doesn't last forever. All you really want is pussy you fucking tosser, and all you want you little skank is dick – and that's what I'm gonna give you, you little bitch!"

WARNING! There's a fair bit of sadistic'ish torture about to happen, so if you're not interested in it then just skip to the next bolded text.

As soon as the last word left his mouth there was a huge bang, and Harry watched as a ball of black tore towards Rudolphus's crotch from Bella's hand. When it connected it disintegrated everything in its path, and Rudolphus's eyes boggled from both the pain and the knowledge of what had just happened. He roared in agony and anger, and Bella smirked at him before lifting her hand and blasting him into what she assumed to be the lounge. She couldn't really tell, because every room looked like a rubbish dump. He smashed into the wall and collapsed onto the ground in a heap, groaning pitifully.

Bellatrix summoned his wand from across the room, and then disintegrated it while it was flying through the air. It was at this point that Rudolphus got some understanding of just how much trouble he was in; defenceless, and with no skill in wandless magic, he scrambled back against the wall. "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

Bella nodded thankfully with a smile at Harry who had conjured a leather couch, and she sat down beside him with his fingers entwined in hers. When her eyes turned back to the scourge of her past however, they turned deadly, cold, and held a deep, burning fury. "You truly can't remember me can you? The woman who you abused and raped day after day after day; the woman whose life you made a misery; the woman whose life you fucking ruined."

Once again his mouth curved into a smirk and opened before he thought about the consequences. "Sorry bitch, I've don't recall which one you were."

A crunch sounded in the small room, and Lestrange's body sunk down a couple of inches as his pelvis was reduced to little shards of bone. A scream once gain ripped itself free of his throat, and his dark grey eyes widened and begun to roll back from the overload of pain. Bella stood and brutally tore his consciousness back into being, eliciting a hoarse bellow of agony from the broken man. He was in no state whatsoever to fight back, and Bellatrix liked that just fine.

It was how she had always been to him.

Through his screams and tears he peered at the woman who was glaring coldly down at him and tried to place her. It took several moments, but it finally clicked, and his pain was forgotten for a moment as he laughed cruelly. "Oh Bellatrix! I knew that you couldn't keep your desires to yourself forever."

He didn't know just how true that was, but he got an inkling when a second later he heard the yell of "CRUCIO!" All Rudolphus knew after that was pain. The Cruciatus curse required anger and hate to truly work, and the stronger those emotions the more powerful the curse, just as Bellatrix had once told Harry when he had cast it on her in the Department of Ministries. After nearly a full minute, bringing the man to the point of insanity, she released him from the curse and lowered her arm before turning to Harry, a wondrous look on her face. "My Love?"

He looked up from his piece of parchment, his pen poised to add to the next mission plan, and nodded with a smile. "Always."

She smiled at his reply, even though it wasn't what she had been expecting. "When we fought in the Department of Mysteries you cast the Cruciatus on me." Harry looked down guiltily and she hastened to reassure him, "No, I'm not angry or anything I was just wondering why you only held it for a moment? And I know that you had more than enough hate and anger to cast it and retain it for hours, so why did it last barely a second for me?"

Harry raised his head after her clarification and smiled warmly and caringly at her. "You're right; I did have more than enough of both of the emotions to torture you far past insane; far past where even Mister and Missus Longbottom were." He stood up and engulfed her in an embrace; his hand lovingly running through her hair. "I felt so horrible after casting it at you. Even though you weren't in control of your body I knew that you were there, restrained deep inside. By hurting your body, I was still hurting you, and I couldn't stand the thought of harming you in any way."

She hugged him tighter, and smiled into his chest. "I know I've already said it more times than I can count today, but I love you."

Harry smiled. "You can tell me that as many times as you would like; I will never get tired of hearing those words come from your mouth, and besides, when you say that I can do this." He leant down and kissed her tenderly for several, long, gentle seconds, and then broke away with an affectionate smile. "I love you too."

Her smile widened and she beamed at him before nodding happily. It took several minutes for Bella to come down from her high from what the Love of her life had said to her, even with Rudolphus's hoarse screams still burrowing into her ears. Finally she turned away from looking at Harry write with one last, loving look, and then fixed her eyes cruelly back on the man whose voice was now just a gravelly whisper. He shrunk back from her gaze, which caused him to croak in agony as the shards of his ruined pelvis cut him inside.

She knew that it hurt, but he had only experienced a fraction of what she had gone through by his hands. Before Harry had healed her it wasn't just her hymen that was broken, but everything past that as well. She had been stabbed in the stomach right into her womb, she had been tortured sexually by tens of Death Eaters, and she had been forced to service Voldemort in every way possible. She didn't feel disgust for herself now; she hadn't ever since the soul merge with Harry had begun, because now she truly believed that she was beautiful, and a wonderful person – and since Harry had not a hint of doubt about that fact, neither did she.

Over the next four hours Bellatrix tortured and drove Rudolphus past insanity and pulled him back so many times that she lost count – but finally she did the one thing that she had promised herself and Harry when they had first made love. She spat in the man's face that was twisted in agony, and he didn't move to wipe it off, not that he could because his arms were in several pieces in the furthest corner in the room along with the dead body of Thorfinn Rowle, who had finally decided to turn up two hours after they arrived. Harry looked coldly down at the nearly-limbless man that was propped up against the wall; silently screaming with his eyes full of fear. Bella twirled gracefully around, and then with a force that belied the finesse she sent her foot crashing directly into the man's face; breaking his nose and jaw. Anguished croaks left his hanging lips, and Bella found tears in her eyes.

Okiedokie, torture is done.

For four hours she had been clinically torturing the man that had ruined her life since she was fourteen, but now the emotion had finally cracked through – and it wouldn't stop; she knew that. Harry saw her and wrapped her in his arms from behind, and she allowed the tears to fall in the safety of his embrace. "I fucking hate you Lestrange."

"You're still one too," he managed to croak out with a triumphant snarl, and Bella glared down at him; the tears running down her cheeks.

She lifted up her hand, and it was then that Rudolphus noticed that the wedding ring he gave her was no longer there; instead there was a far more beautiful and elegant band resting where his had used to. He felt his temper flare, but his voice had finally given up trying to work. "I never have been a Lestrange, I was a Black until I was fifteen, and then I was forced away, deep down within myself." Harry turned her around and carefully kissed away the tears until she rested her head on his chest; her hands wrapping around his back. "And now I am a Bellatrix Potter-Black; I am with the man who I actually love, and who I will be with for eternity." Once more she saw his smirk through the pain and grinned herself. "You can sneer all you like, but the reason you are smirking is invalid."

Rudolphus shook his head, all the while grinning evilly at Harry, and his voice came to him once more. "So Harry, how does it feel to get sloppy seconds, or fiftieths?" He coughed in laughter, and Harry's grin turned feral as he mirrored Bella's earlier actions but instead sent his kick to where the man's pelvis had previously been. His eyes rolled back into his head, and Harry quickly enervated him before he could fall completely unconscious.

Bella kissed Harry sweetly on the lips with a loving smile, and he returned her actions before turning coldly back to Rudolphus, whose blood was slowly making a puddle on the ground. "When I entered Azkaban and met Bellatrix Black I healed her. I had been in love with the woman that was suppressed for years, and she was right in front of me at that moment. I restored her to what she truly was, what she should have been; a beautiful woman filled with love and hope and life, and a virgin."

Rudolphus's eyes boggled, and Bella leaned forward, this time with a sneer of her own. "When I made love for the first time with Harry, where I gifted him my virginity and he gifted me his…it was the most beautiful moment of my life up until that moment. Ever since then I just get happier and I fall in love more and more with my soul-mate every single second." She raised her arm, and Rudolphus's eyes widened in shock at the suddenness, "You are the only link to Bellatrix Lestrange's existence. Now you are gone. Sectumsempra." A bolt of red light slammed into the man's neck, and everything froze.

Slowly a red line appeared, and then Harry turned them both away from the sight. Even though he knew that it had to be done, he still found himself feeling slightly sickened by everything that they had done. He was worried for Bella, worried that she would begin to see herself as a monster for what she had done and would do.

"With you by my side I will never fall." Harry looked down in surprise, and she looked right back at him; a small, sad smile on her face. "Whatever I do, however much in danger I am of falling into darkness and who I once was, I know that you would never let that happen. You would hold me and bring me back."

He stood startled for a moment, but then slowly a smile spread onto his face as he leant down and kissed her chastely on the forehead. "Of course I would Bella."

She nodded and then buried her head into his chest once more, mumbling tiredly into his shirt. "And tomorrow, no matter what happens, I will catch you. I won't let you fall into the darkness."

At that moment; standing in a dilapidated dump of a shack, with two dead bodies behind him and the woman that he loved more than anything held in his arms, Harry felt safer than he had in his entire life.

A/N: Well I hope you enjoyed the chapter! R&R if you did; it only takes a moment and it makes my day.