"Well," Bellatrix said, spitting out her toothpaste and rinsing her mouth in the sink, "I feel as though that meeting went very well, Master. Don't you?"

"Couldn't have gone any better, I don't suppose," he said from inside the shower. His soap smelled like cedarwood, and Bellatrix breathed in the masculine aroma. She pumped a bit of Dr Dredge's Face Cordial onto a wet wash rag and began to scrub the makeup off her face, and she asked,

"Did you really get a good read on his mind, My Lord? Moreno, I mean."

"Yes," Voldemort replied confidently. "He thinks there's something missing from your story - some tragic detail perhaps - but he isn't suspicious or untrusting. In fact, he's eager. Kind, almost gentle. I wasn't kidding when I said I pegged him as a Hufflepuff. And part of that's loyalty. I can sense it. He'll be a good ally. I know I did the right thing in putting the Dark Mark on him. He's the seed I'll plant in America. Things will be different this time round."

Bellatrix smiled as she ran the rag under the faucet and rinsed her face. She wrung it out and dabbed at her skin, and then she stared into the mirror and wondered what she would have looked like as a forty-five-year-old in 1996. She pinched her lips and wondered aloud,

"Do you think Adalie's baby came from Abraxas?"

"Erm… I don't know." Voldemort sounded more than a little hesitant. He shut off the shower, and Bellatrix reached for a fluffy white towel. She was already in a skimpy little black silk nightgown, but she'd forgone knickers, having realised she was more comfortable at night without them. She'd been allowed to shower first when they'd come back from the Malfoys', mostly so that Voldemort could send off a few owls notifying his closest Death Eaters that they had a new American comrade. Now Voldemort accepted the towel and peeled back the curtain, and he admitted,

"I looked into Malfoy's mind before we left. He could feel me in there, so I got out fast. I saw a snippet of a conversation between him and Yaxley… I think I know what it was about."

"Yaxley." Bellatrix shut her eyes. "They're both blond."

"Right." Voldemort stepped out of the shower, wrapping the towel round his waist. "It doesn't really matter, anyway. The child would be Pureblood. Adalie would stop complaining. Abraxas would be functional again. Lucius Malfoy is from our memories; he doesn't have to be born the same way here. We need to forget the way things happened in our remembered timelines. This way is new. Speaking of which, there's someone who has to go."

"Who's that?" Bellatrix asked, stepping aside so that Voldemort could pick up his steel comb. He looked in the mirror as he combed his hair, and he said firmly,

"Charlus Potter, the grandfather of Harry Potter, is a Pureblood. It seems unwise to take him out. I thought about it. More intelligent by far is to eliminate the Muggle side of his family."

"Oh. Yes, that makes sense," Bellatrix nodded. "Will you let me do it, Master?"

He turned round slowly. "Geoffrey and Wendy Evans. They've just married earlier this year. Bought a rather hideous little place in Cokeworth; the man works in a factory there. This time, I don't want a clean disappearance. These people's grandchild was the reason that I spent over a decade without a body. Their offspring was the reason I vanished, the reason I lose my power. The reason you went to prison for fourteen years. I want them to suffer. I want them tortured. Dismembered. Bloodied. I want the Muggle police to find a horror show in that house in Cokeworth. You understand?"

Bellatrix felt her eyes water, and she nodded. She smiled just a little and promised him,

"I will exact revenge for you, Master. But I have to ask… why don't you do it yourself?"

"Do you not want to do it?" He threw up an eyebrow, and Bellatrix scoffed.

"Of course I want to," she murmured, and he approached her.

"Well. That's why I'm sending you. Shall I come with you and watch you, or would you rather go alone?"

She shrugged. "Whatever pleases you. You must have whatever you want."

He sighed then, a very long sigh, and he chewed his bottom lip. "We need to discuss what happened last night, I think."

Bellatrix's eyes seared like fire, and she said apologetically, "I really am so sorry for striking you."

"That is not what I meant." He huffed a breath and brushed his fingers over the thick, damp braid she'd made of her hair. "Bella… the years that I remember that you never lived… both before and after you knew me… those were not ideal years, you understand. I was not a good man. I am still not a good man."

"I think you are," Bellatrix insisted earnestly, but he shook his head.

"No. No. I've just ordered you to torture and kill a couple," he reminded her, but Bellatrix laughed a little and said,

"A couple of Muggles, Master!"

"Still," he said. "I taunted you during the years we were together, and those memories are real for me. I made you feel small, and I did it on purpose, and those memories - real memories - come to me in dreams. Nightmares. Edna Flint and Noam Wood just serve as reminders of the fool I was, a half century ago to me, but so recently here. And so I do struggle. But it is not your fault, and you deserve far better than a husband who's two-thirds of the way through a bottle of firewhisky and Vanishes your Christmas gift. And for that I apologise, and I more than earned getting struck."

"You are my master," Bellatrix said, trying not to cry. "I will always obey you. I was disrespectful."

"Stop that," he murmured, shaking his head. "You needed more of me the first time round, and you need more of me now."

"No. It's me who must do better," Bellatrix said, feeling rather stubborn. She watched him scowl at her, but she continued, "If I were serving you more adequately, you would not be feeling so conflicted. I must find ways to be a better soldier, a better wife, so that you can more effectively -"

"Stop it!" Voldemort snarled, and he snatched Bellatrix's jaw. She was shocked at his force, and she gasped when he bent to crush her mouth with his. He backed her up until she hit the wall, and then suddenly he was ripping his towel away from his waist. He drove his tongue between Bellatrix's lips, and his free hand squeezed very hard at her breast. She squealed loudly, feeling pain and liking it, and her own hands desperately clenched at his biceps for support.

"Do you not realise, you silly creature, that without you, I am nothing? Literally nothing? Without you, I am a shadow, a wisp, a failure? I failed, Bellatrix, when I let you go! The prophecy you delivered to me is real. I know it! I need you. I need you. I love you."

He kissed her again then, far more carefully this time, and when he pulled away, his hand released her breast, and he whispered,

"I am sorry for every single time that I have been a monster to you. I will be the most terrible man that has ever existed - to everyone but you. I will be the greatest Dark wizard in history; I will reign and I will rule. But to you, Bellatrix, I will be better this time. I promise it. We both need it to be better this time, you understand?"
"I think so, Master," she whispered, her voice shaking against his lips. He seized her waist in his hands and lifted her up, and Bellatrix yelped in surprise. On instinct, she tightly snared her legs round his waist and her arms round his shoulders, and her eyes met his as his half-hard cock slid into her. His breath hitched as they linked up, and she felt him going firmer inside of her. He started to rock his hips, pushing her against the wall, and she knew that he'd Lightened her to help his burden. The feel of him grinding her just so was good, especially as he got harder, so she let her head push back against the wall, and she whispered,

"It's always right with you. Always feels like a puzzle that's come together."

"That's because we were never meant to be ripped apart. You were an essential organ ripped out of my body the day you married Rodolphus," Voldemort growled, pumping his hips a little faster, and Bellatrix reminded him,

"I've never married him."

"You certainly never will. Not now," he mumbled breathlessly. He bent a little to kiss her, and she tightened her legs and arms on him. He was going so deep inside of her now, each thrust filling her completely, each retreat leaving her empty.

"I want you to come and watch," she panted, and he let out a low laugh. She nodded frantically. "The Muggles. The Evans. I want you to come and watch me play with them. Make a mess of them. Destroy them before they can destroy you."

"Yes. Good girl." He quickened his hips up, somehow deepening his thrusts more than ever, and the angle shifted until Bellatrix's clit was getting stroked perfectly with every pistoning motion. She cried out, and Voldemort kissed her exposed neck as she neared her peak.

"Oh!" she moaned desperately, wanting nothing more than to bury her fingers in his hair. "I love you. I love you, I love you…"

She sounded like a blithering idiot, she knew, but if he minded, he didn't show it. Everything was hot and ringing, made worse by the steam from the shower. She was clenching, flushed with pleasure, and she could hardly hold onto him. He pinned her hard to the wall as she finished. A few moments later, as she caught her breath and felt thirst come over her, he bucked his hips a few times and then stilled, and he buried his face into the crook of Bellatrix's neck. His breath huffed, hot and deep and quick, and she could feel the bursts of his come from his twitching cock inside of her. His body seemed to lose its strength then, but he managed to ease her down from the wall.

They stood there for a moment, red-cheeked and breathless, and Bellatrix finally murmured,

"Would you hand me that wash cloth on the sink, Master?"

He did, and as she cleaned herself up, he reached for their wands off the ledge beneath the mirror. He Scoured himself and then hung up his towel, and he cleared his throat as he said,

"I'm going to get some water. Would you like some?"

"Yes, please."

She watched him go, and she stepped out into the bedroom, flopping down onto her back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. She was drowsy and lost track of the minute or two that he was gone, until she heard him say,

"If you sleep like that, I think we'll both wind up uncomfortable in the morning."

She giggled and sat up, accepting the water he'd brought her. She sipped it and then studied him as he pulled on some pyjama trousers from the wardrobe, and she said,

"Perhaps you will be the most terrible Dark wizard in history, Master. But to me, you are a very good man."

He smirked over his shoulder to her and nodded. "Thank you, Bella."

Author's Note: Awwwww. Good old Bellamort fluff and make-up sex after a political meeting. Always fun, right? And Adalie's baby is (probably) Yaxley's...? Makes you wonder about Lucius, no? Mwah hahaha. Next up… the destruction of Lily Potter's parents! *Gasp* But we have to make sure that Harry Potter can't be born, and Voldemort's right - messing with a Pureblood family probably isn't the right way. Time for Bellatrix to start having fun in the most Bellatrix-y way. Uh-oh.