Getting ready in her new dressing area was an absolute pleasure. Bellatrix had plenty of space to paw through her clothes and choose just the right outfit. For today, she decided upon something demure, something that would seem appropriate for an autumn tea with her parents. She pulled on a black silk bra and matching knickers, along with a pair of black silk stockings that she charmed not to slip down her thighs. Then she pulled on a high-necked black blouse with lace sleeves and a flared black skirt with a wide leather belt, and she slipped on black kitten heels. She made her way to her boudoir and cast deodorising charms upon herself before running a wide-toothed comb through her hair. She sat and pursed her lips, finally deciding to pull her hair into a tight, dancer's-style bun at the back of her head. She poked in her opal pins and pulled on her opal necklace, and a voice from the doorway of her dressing area said softly,
"You look divine."
Bellatrix smirked into her mirror and opened a tin of Dr Fyne's Smoothing Foundation. She rubbed a bit onto her skin and then dabbed on some deep plum eyeshadow with the pads of her fingers. She applied some mascara and dark burgundy Stay All Day lipstick, and then she used a Self-Cleansing Cloth to wipe her fingers and turned where she sat.
"Master, you're all dressed, too," she noted. "Where are you off to today? Have you got meetings on a Sunday?"
"Just one," he said dryly, "with my in-laws."
Bellatrix's stomach flopped, and she felt her lips part a little. Voldemort raised an eyebrow, and it was only then that she noticed how neatly he'd trimmed his mostly-grey beard and hair. He shrugged.
"Sorry; am I not welcome?"
"Of course you are, Master." She stood shaking her head vehemently. "Of course, Master. I just… I wasn't expecting you to come."
"No, but I am coming," he said. She examined his robes, midnight blue wool-silk cut in a double-breasted style that still evoked the flowing, magical way of dressing. He'd worn the pair of glasses he had that were black wood on the top and rimless on the bottom, which were exceedingly elegant. He was achingly handsome in a powerful, intimidating way. He held his hand out to Bellatrix and asked her,
"Ready?"
She gulped and took his hand, walking with him out through their powder blue-and-red reception room and down the enormous sweeping staircase.
"Plinky!" Voldemort called. "The formal cloaks!"
Plinky came tottering out of the mud room then, two cloaks hovering in the air before him. Bellatrix slid into hers - the cloak that Voldemort had bought her the year before when she'd been under house arrest and she'd needed a lined cloak for autumn and winter. She pulled her leather gloves from the pockets and pulled them onto her hands, and she sighed nervously as Voldemort suggested,
"Why don't we go by Side-Along Apparition, Bellatrix?"
"All right, Master." She cleared her throat and waited, but nothing happened. She frowned, looking up at him, and he smirked.
"You take us," he said, and she gasped softly. She'd never Apparated that far. From Oxfordshire to her parents' house? She'd Splinch! She shook her head a little, but Voldemort insisted, "You've got five and a half weeks until you need to be Apparating in and out of Josephine Glass' house without leaving any bits behind. Practise starts now. Let's go. Take us to your parents' house."
"Yes, Master." Bellatrix felt queasy then as she shut her eyes and deliberately thought about the front door of her parents' townhouse in London. She imagined the bright white door, the grey exterior. She squeezed at Voldemort's hand, and she hurled herself into the void. They were whooshing, pinching, yanking. They landed hard on the street then, and when Bellatrix opened her eyes, she smiled. Suddenly she was being wrenched hard up onto the sidewalk, and she realised she'd landed them in the middle of the road. A Muggle laid upon his car horn angrily as he drove past, and Voldemort chuckled.
"Very well done," he said, sounding almost proud. Bellatrix looked up at her parents' house and huffed out a breath. She was dizzy and a little nauseated, but it was passing quickly. She started to release Voldemort's hand, but he kept hold of her and started walking up toward to the door. She was confused; did he mean to hold her all the way up to the door? It seemed so. She frowned in bemusement as he led her up the stone steps and pressed his finger on the black button that sounded the doorbell.
"Master?" Bellatrix pulled at her hand again, but he stared right ahead and squeezed her fingers a little. He did mean to keep hold of her. She was wide-eyed then as as the manic little voice of Mappy the House-Elf cried from behind the door,
"I'll get it, Masters!"
The door flung open, and Mappy looked frightened as she exclaimed, "Mistress Bellatrix! And… eep! It is Lord Voldemort! Do come in, do come in, do come in! Master Cygnus! Madam Druella! Mistress Bellatrix has come with Lord Voldemort!"
Mappy slammed the door shut and scampered away, muttering something about adding a place to the tea table, and suddenly Druella and Cygnus Black had appeared in the foyer. Druella was dressed in elegant brown robes with a lace cape, and Cygnus was appropriately clad in heather grey robes, but neither had dressed up. They'd only been expecting Bellatrix, after all. Druella quickly dipped into a low curtsy, and Cygnus stared for a moment at where Voldemort held Bellatrix's gloved hand.
"Mummy," Bellatrix said breathlessly. "Daddy. I hope you don't mind; the Dark Lord wanted… erm…"
"You and I had planned on meeting about Gringotts tomorrow, Cygnus, and I'd hoped we could just do away with all that with a quick five-minute chat," Voldemort said with a smirk. "In the parlour?"
"Oh. Erm… of course, Master." Cygnus seemed as though he were in shock, and he led Voldemort into the parlour after Voldemort hung his cloak on the rack by the door Bellatrix followed suit, taking off her winter cloak and gloves and putting them on the rack with Voldemort's. She smiled awkwardly at her mother and followed her into the dining room, and she asked,
"How's Cissy?" she didn't dare ask about Andromeda; so far as Bellatrix knew, her parents hadn't heard from Andromeda in months. Andromeda, as far as Bellatrix knew, had spent the summer holidays at a friend's house, had bought her school supplies with money Druella and Cygnus had sent in an envelope, and had seen herself off to Hogwarts for her fifth year. But Narcissa was still just a third-year; she had so much schooling left. As Bellatrix and Druella sat at the dining table, Druella cautiously poured hot tea into their cups, offering Bellatrix a wooden box of teabags, and she said,
"Cissy says she despises Divination, but she and Lucius are quite enjoying Potions this term. She tried out for Quidditch. No idea why."
"To spend more time with Lucius, no doubt," Bellatrix said with a little smile, and Druella scoffed.
"Well. No matter. She didn't come close to making it, and I'm glad. She could fall off the broom."
Bellatrix plucked out a bag of rose tea with her left hand and dropped it into her cup, and her mother asked softly,
"What is that on your finger, Bellatrix?"
For a long moment, she said nothing at all, but she knew why Voldemort had brought them here. She raised her eyes to her mother, then reached for a small tea biscuit.
"Bellatrix," Druella said again, and Bellatrix shrugged.
"What do you think it is?"
"He's got one," Druella noted. "Your father saw it on his hand at your birthday. Your eighteenth birthday."
Bellatrix just sighed and ate the biscuit. Ginger. Too strong of a flavour. She set the biscuit down and sipped her tea, which hadn't steeped to strength yet. She stared across the table at her mother, who hadn't touched anything, and said,
"Who cares how old I am, or how old he is? He's not exactly an ordinary wizard, is he?"
Druella narrowed her eyes. "He is twenty-five years older than you. Did he touch you before you were of age?"
"That is absolutely none of your business," Bellatrix said in a clip, and Druella gasped.
"He did, didn't he? It is my business; I am your mother."
Bellatrix tipped her head and shrugged. "That was then, and this is now. I'm eighteen. I'm of age. I'm married. Everything's all nice and proper, isn't it?"
"You are a fugitive," Druella said tearfully. "We got a letter from the Ministry. It said that if we were in touch with you and failed to report it to the Ministry, we could be arrested."
"Well, do you mean to report this tea time to the Ministry?" Bellatrix asked tightly, and Druella shook her head as a tear dribbled down her cheek.
"N-No. Of course not. It's only… this is not the life I had in mind for you, Bellatrix."
"Oh, do tell me what life you did have in mind, Mummy." Bellatrix swigged down her tea and slammed down her cup. "Do tell me what you envisioned. Selling me off to be the meek little wife of Rodolphus Lestrange, serving my probation without a wand, without a finished education? Yes, you would have been perfectly happy for me to be some Pureblood little housewife, sitting at home, spending my life shitting out babies, just like you, would you?"
"Bellatrix," said Voldemort's voice from beside her, but she held up her hand to silence him as she stood, sending the teacups clattering on the table as she yelled at her mother in a shaking voice,
"You would have been perfectly fine with Father's plan to sell me as a bride to whatever man was desperate enough to agree. You would have made a whore of me to whatever wizard had a fetish for felons, eh? And that life would have been fine. But goodness forbid that I marry a man who happens to be twenty-five years my senior, because I -"
"Bellatrix!" bellowed Voldemort, and she screamed at him,
"I am not finished!"
"Oh, yes, you are," he snarled, and he snatched her wrist so roughly that Bellatrix yelped in pain. Cygnus and Druella looked so distressed that Druella seemed on the verge of losing consciousness. Voldemort Summoned his and Bellatrix's cloaks from the foyer, and he said to Druella and Cygnus,
"Yes, we're married. Sorry to inform you this way. Report this meeting to the Ministry and you'll regret it. Cygnus, fix that mistake or you'll regret that, too. We'll meet again under happier circumstances, I'm sure. Bellatrix, we're leaving."
"Bella…" Cygnus shook his head frantically, and Bellatrix growled in a low voice,
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I lost my temper. I'm sorry."
"Let's go." Voldemort Disapparated then, and Bellatrix chomped her lip as she was wrenched through the black void of Disapparition. She yanked her arm away from him as soon as they landed in the foyer of Adderbury House.
"You're hurting me!" she cried, stomping up the great winding staircase. She watched Voldemort toss their cloaks onto the ground, then saw Plinky come dashing out to fetch them. Voldemort raced up the stairs, and Bellatrix started to run away from him. She ran through the corridor toward the reception room of their quarters, but in there, he caught her arm, forcing her to whirl around. She tried to hit him, very much out of instinct, but he caught her hand and forced both her wrists down.
"What the blazes is the matter with you?" he demanded sharply. "Screaming at your mother like that?"
"Don't ever put me in a position like that again!" Bellatrix demanded. "Having to defend my wedding band! Having to defend you! Don't you ever do something like that to me again. I was meant to go alone to tea, and you invited yourself. Don't do that to me ever - agh!"
His hands tightened on her wrists until she was sure they would snap, and she winced.
"Tell me I just heard you incorrectly," he said through clenched teeth. "Tell me I did not just hear you bossing me about as though you were my equal."
He let that sit in the air for a long, heavy moment, and Bellatrix's eyes welled so thickly that she couldn't see him. His hands cinched more tightly on her wrists, and suddenly his lips were beside her ear.
"Before you were my wife, you were a girl whose seventeenth birthday I was awaiting so that I could fuck you into the sheets." He shoved her then, pushing her roughly against the mirrored wall. Bellatrix gasped, rolling out the wrists he'd squeezed. His voice was still a low hiss as he reminded her, "Before that, you were just a sixteen-year-old facing a Ministry sentence, a little girl I rescued because I wanted you as a slave. Have you forgotten this story, Miss Black?"
Miss Black. That hurt so much worse than the wrists. She didn't know why, but it did. She shook her head and whispered,
"No, Master; I have not forgotten."
"Who is the servant in this relationship, Bellatrix?" Voldemort demanded, and she shut her eyes and tipped her head back against the mirror.
"I am."
"Who is the master?" he purred against her ear.
"You are," she whispered back.
"I will not rape you," he informed her. "Consent to your punishment."
"I consent," she mumbled, though she had no idea what he meant to do to her. It didn't matter. She belonged to him. He pushed her shoulders down, down until she was kneeling on the ground, and he instructed her,
"Keep your eyes and mouth shut. Do not open your mouth or eyes."
"Yes, Master," Bellatrix nodded, pinching her lips and eyes shut and feeling her breath rickety in her nostrils. She'd upset him. She'd lost her temper with her mother and she'd made him very angry. He was angry with her. She was going to be sick. Her stomach was tied in knots; her chest was tight and her mind was a mess. Did he hate her because of this? Would he leave her over this? Would he move on to some other witch who obeyed him and made him happy?
"Lubrico," she heard him mutter, and then there was the sloppy sound of his hand moving on his cock. After a few moments, the sound cleaned up a little, and she could tell he was getting harder. She knew his body well; she knew what it sounded like for a hand to be moving on him. She could hear him breathing, too. She could hear shallow little pants of his breath far above her, but she kept her hands folded on her skirts and kept her eyes and lips shut like he'd said.
"You look so pretty," he said softly, "kneeling there in the hair pins and necklace I gave you. Do you know why I gave you those things, Bellatrix? Hm? Do you know why? It's because I'm in love with you. That's… oh. Oh. Fucking hell… oh. That's why. Because… oh. I love you."
She startled then, for there was wet heat getting all over her. His come was landing on her face, and she tipped back a little to better receive it. She could feel it striping from her forehead down to her chin, landing in puddles on her cheekbones and lips. She breathed in the musky smell of it, and then she heard Voldemort tell her sharply,
"You stay here. Do not move. I'll be back in a few minutes when I feel like cleaning you up."
Author's Note: Uh-oh. Someone got a little too comfortable and forgot her place. Just in case you forgot that this guy who's all mushy and romantic and builds dance studios is also the Master in a bloodlusty, extremely dysfunctional relationship. Yeah. And there goes that damned temper of hers again. Whoops. Well, next up, we have a reeeeeeeal Death Eater meeting, starring… Rodolphus Lestrange. :} Woo hoo! PLEASE do take a moment to leave a quick review if you can. I'd be very grateful. :)
