[summary] - Rita/Bellatrix - Sleeping Beaty - "Five! Four! Three!" Rita glances about her desperately, not wanting to be the only person standing alone when the clocks across the city chime loudly that midnight has arrived, and with it, the start of a new year.

A/N: This is heavily inspired by Girl, Serpent, Thorn, which I thought was an amazing book, and I would definitely recommend!

Written for Hogwarts Assignment 3 - Cryptology - Task 5: Write a fic with the setting of a party or a fun gathering for any occasion

Thank you so much to Amber for beta'ing!

Warnings: Minor character death


"Five! Four! Three!"

Rita glances about her desperately, not wanting to be the only person standing alone when the clocks across the city chime loudly that midnight has arrived, and with it, the start of a new year.

She needn't have worried. As the partygoers shout out a gleeful, "One!" soft lips of the deepest red descend upon her own just as the fireworks begin to go off in what Rita is sure must be a spectacular display.

But all Rita can focus on are the soft lips pressing to hers, tasting faintly of cherry liquor, and the delicate hand reaching for her waist, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss.

Dark curls escape from the cover of her mystery woman's hood, their inky blackness spilling across deep emerald robes. The woman's soft curves press into the hard angles of Rita's own body, and Rita cannot help the breathy moan that escapes her parted lips. She thinks the woman laughs at this, though she cannot be sure.

Only when Rita's head is fuzzy with more than just champagne, when she can postpone the inevitable no longer, does she pull back from the woman to draw in a ragged breath.

"Who are you?" Rita asks when she is finally able to form words, though she fears her tone is more accusatory than it should be.

The woman does not offer up a name, does not remove her hood, doesn't even renew the kiss, much to Rita's chagrin. Instead, she parts her lips to reveal too-white teeth, and laughs a deep, throaty laugh, the sound such a contrast from her gentle curves that Rita cannot help but think how perfectly it fits her.

But then the woman is slipping away, fading into the crowd seemingly without moving, and Rita is left standing alone surrounded by hundreds of people celebrating the arrival of the new year.

.oOo.

Several hours later, the party only just beginning to wind down, and Rita has found no trace of her mystery woman. No one even recognises the description she is able to give, although that could be due to the copious amount of alcohol provided for guests. Rita herself has not touched any since losing track of her midnight kiss, although the effects of her earlier indulgences still linger.

Her vision — although not the best, since she has forgone her spectacles in favour of one of the festive half-masks provided at the doors — is clouded, the room seeming to spin and sway in time with the lively beat of the band playing on stage. The floor rolling below her feet like waves crashing upon the shore in a way that is making her feel quite dizzy.

Actually, she might well throw up.

She takes the nearest seat, though the undignified yelp of a young lady who has found herself meeting with the floor rather suddenly indicates that it had not in fact been unoccupied.

Distantly, Rita is aware of the woman picking herself up from the floor, dusting off her dress, and making her way onto the dancefloor as if nothing has happened.

Rita, on the other hand, feels as though she is swimming through mud, the air too thick to allow movement, let alone adequate breathing. Her skin prickles with sweat which she feels is largely down to the stress of the situation, or perhaps her body trying to remove the toxins of alcohol, for Rita cannot remember a time that she has ever felt colder.

And she's so itchy, all over, like her body is crawling with tiny insects intent on making her life a living hell.

"Are you alright?" a stranger asks, lowering himself to one knee to bring him down to her eye level; he's wearing one of the provided masks, though not everyone has chosen to, but Rita doubts she'd have been able to recognise him even without it. Everything is hazy, and vaguely … green?

"This isn't right," she whispers through numb lips. The man laughs, and whilst it is deep and throaty, it is not the laugh Rita is looking for and she feels an irrational swell of anger at this.

He reaches towards her, his smile twisting across his face like a careless brush of paint by a lazy artist. "You've had too much to drink," he says. "Let me help you to your room."

There is something off about the way he says this, something not quite right about his tone of voice, his gestures.

She pushes him back, dimly aware of the look of shock on his face. But what really grabs her attention is that she can now see him, surrounded as he is by the clouds of murky green that fill the room, she can see this man clearly amongst the swells.

His face pales as she watches, and he grasps for his throat in an almost rabid desperation. There is a gasp from someone near her, and another, and another.

But Rita pays them no heed, her mind filled with thoughts of escape, and she stumbles unsteadily through the halls, up flights and flights of stairs, until finally she is safe in her room.

.oOo.

Rita wakes with a pounding headache, still in the dress she wore the night before. One high heeled shoe has been abandoned in the doorway, the other still adorns her foot.

She rubs her eyes, forgetting for a moment all the powders and pastes that still coat her skin; she had wanted to look her best, wanted to soften the harsh features of her face with artfully applied makeup, most of which she is sure has wound up on her cream pillowcase.

The room is still hazy, and she is beginning to think someone may have slipped something into one of her drinks, for the green fog is still present. It's strangely beautiful, in a way only something so wrong can be, with the way it eddies and flows just like water, swirling around everything in her room and leaving them with a light coating of green.

Even her skin seems coated in the fog, to a much greater extent than the room. It does not swirl around her, but clings to every part of her like oil to an unlucky bird, its colour ranging from the palest green at the tips of her fingers, gradually darkening as the green creeps up her arms.

There are darker patches, too, almost like freckles maring her skin, though Rita has never had so many freckles even when she was really young and used to spend most of her summers outdoors.

She reaches out to touch one such freckle, a seemingly innocuous looking thing near the crook of her elbow, and draws back with a gasp, her finger bleeding.

Ripping back the skirt of her dress, revealing far too much of her skin than she would normally be comfortable with, Rita lets out a soft moan of distress.

She pulls her dress higher, squirming out of the thick layers of fabric until she stands clad only in her undergarments, and cannot help the scream that rips itself from her chest like the last cries of a dying creature.

They're everywhere.

Thousands of tiny, needle-like spikes dot her skin, each sharp enough to draw blood.

And, when she finally brings herself to look in the full-length mirror, there are angry, hateful tears in her eyes that catch on the delicate spikes lining her face as they fall. Even her back — her buttocks — is covered in them, the sharp protrusions poking through the thin fabric of her underthings.

Distantly, she wonders how she had managed to sit down with such things covering her body, but that is far from her most pressing concern. Because what has happened to her? She is suddenly living in a nightmare with no clear way to escape, and so soon after her fairytale of a night.

At the memory of that dance, that kiss, Rita does something that she has never done before. She allows herself to collapse to the floor, deep sobs wracking her body, as she cries all her frustrations and fears away.

Eventually, she will have to get up, assess the situation, figure out how to proceed. But now? Right now, she would just like to cry.

.oOo.

A pounding knock at the door raises Rita from her post-cry stupor, but before she can pull herself to her feet the door is already being forced open. It hits the wall with a loud bang and four guards enter the room, shields raised and swords pointed straight at Rita.

"What —" Rita croaks, her throat dry and aching from her earlier sobs. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Y-you are under arrest, witch!" one of the guards shouts. And had that been a stutter in his voice? It takes Rita a moment to remember why the sight of her might bring about such fear, especially from one with palace training.

"What for?" Rita asks as calmly as she is able, though her heart is pounding in her chest and her breaths come quick with fear. "You have no right —"

"For murder!" a second guard interrupts. Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Witch!"

"I am no witch," Rita says, to which she receives no response. She supposes it is a fair assumption, given her current physical state, but still … "Murder?"

"The murder of Prince Gilderoy!" one of the guards shouts, seemingly on more stable ground now.

Another, who has remained silent up until now, shoots Rita a look of such abject disgust that she cannot help but cringe back. "To think," he hisses, "the Lockharts would show the likes of you such kindness, and this is how you repay them."

"Please don't do this," Rita can only gasp out in confused protest — because, seriously, what is going on? — before two of the guards are reaching for her to shackle her wrists together. "I beg of you," she moans, the words catching in her throat.

They each draw back with startled cries, though Rita suspects it has little to do with her words. She watches with a distant sort of horror as the green fog slithers away from each of them, leaving them starkly pale amongst the green haze as they each fall to the floor, gasping for breath. One of them is crying, snot dripping down his face as he cries out for help.

The other two guards do nothing, backing away slowly and leaving their comrades to their fates.

"Three," one of the remaining guards finally whispers when the cries of the men upon the floor fall silent. "You are under arrest for the murders of three men."

And, with that, they slam the door to her room closed, and she hears a key turning in the lock.

.oOo.

Eventually, Rita decides she has wasted enough time crying. She rises slowly to her feet, pulling off her one remaining shoe, and wraps a robe around her body to cover her underthings. She does not yet feel ready to try battling with one of her new, pretty dresses, bought specifically for her stay in the palace, for fear of ruining them.

A quick investigation reveals that there are none of the needles on her palms or the soles of her feet, and so Rita slips on a pair of flat shoes in an attempt to give herself some small feeling of normalcy whilst her world has been turned completely upside down.

But Rita has never been one to just wallow in her self-pity; she didn't get where she is today — a famed writer, invited to party after party across the kingdoms in the hopes that she might deign to write about it in her gossip gazette — by simply waiting for a solution to her problems to land upon her lap.

What Rita needs is a plan.

Leaning out the large window, she discounts that idea almost immediately. The drop is far too steep, and there are no convenient balconies, trellises, or ivy for her to use in the way of a ladder. And she doubts there are enough sheets, tapestries, and curtains on the entire floor to enable her to reach solid ground.

If she had woken up with wings instead of spikes, things might have been different. Hells, if she had woken up to discover herself in the form of a beetle, she could have simply slipped under the door. But it is no good dwelling on things out of her capabilities.

She tests the door — still locked — and there is a loud thud from the other side, like that of metal hitting the wood.

"None of that!" a man shouts; Rita can only assume guards have been stationed at the door to prevent escape until they are able to devise means of transporting her to the dungeons.

Good. It seems that they are in just as much of a pickle as she. She can work with that. Maybe.

.oOo.

As it turns out, she had not been able to work with that. The guards had been quicker than Rita had hoped in devising their — incredibly undignified — plan, and so Rits finds herself wrapped in several sheets, leaving only her eyes visible, whilst the guards prod her along with sticks.

Each guard appears to be in full winter gear, too, every inch of their skin covered, which personally Rita feels is overkill. But at least they look almost as ridiculous as she does.

It's small consolation as she is prodded and poked like cattle, paraded through the palace halls in full view of all the guests, who make a particular show of slowing their steps and halting their conversations to gawk at her strange procession as they pass.

They pass through so many steep staircases and winding corridors that Rita's legs are shaking so much she is barely able to continue walking when finally they reach the dungeons.

Cell after cell is empty and in disrepair, yet still they lead her further. Down another flight of stairs, and through a dark, narrow corridor that ends with a single cell.

"In here," one of the guards says gruffly, although there is just the one cell in this entire stretch of hall.

Rita is shoved unceremoniously into the dank prison with the butt of several sticks, and she trips and falls to the floor, her tired legs no longer able to hold her, much to the apparent amusement of the guards.

"'S where she belongs," one says with a particularly vicious smile, baring long yellowed teeth.

"Hope she rots in here!" says another with a gleeful laugh, sounding more boy than man.

Rita turns her back to them and hunches in on herself, drawing her knees to her chest.

Things are beginning to look really rather hopeless.

.oOo.

"Well, aren't you a curious little mistake," a strange voice croons. It is clearly that of a woman's, although deeper than would normally be pleasing to the ear, rougher. And yet, there is no mistaking who the voice belongs to.

"You!" Rita gasps as the woman steps into view, her mystery woman from only the night before.

Her hood is down, revealing smooth skin of the palest alabaster, deep hooded eyes, and plump lips twisted into an amused smirk. "You!" the woman repeats gleefully, something almost mocking in her tone. "Had I known you'd prove so interesting, I might not have left."

Rita has never been called interesting before, and she can already feel the blush heating her cheeks. "Do you know what's happened to me?" she asks, pressing herself against the bars to get as close to the woman as she is able. "Who did this? Do you know?"

"Poisoned, I suspect," says the woman distantly, as if to herself, one delicate hand reaching out as if to touch a needle-like protrusion on Rita's arm before dropping back to her side. "How novel," she says instead, her lips parting in a wide, toothy grin. "What a little treasure you will make."

Feeling somehow both wonderfully flattered and incredibly small, Rita cannot help the scared question that slips from her lips. "Am I cursed?"

The woman tips back her head, and practically roars with laughter, her entire body shaking with the force of her mirth.

"Cursed?" she asks. "You think this is a curse?" She wraps her own hand around one of the bars, as near to Rita as she can get without brushing against one of her spikes. "Oh, you poor dear."

"Did —" A horrible realisation is beginning to dawn on Rita, and no matter how she wishes it weren't true, she knows even before she asks that it must be. "Did you do this to me?"

The woman smiles, looking so incredibly pleased with herself; it is a smile that on any other face would look simply angelic, but on her it is so much more. "I gave you a gift," she says in the way one might whisper a secret to a lover. "Have you ever felt scared or afraid? Defenseless?"

Rita's mind slips back to the night of the party, to the man who she now knows to have been Prince Gilderoy. "Of course you have," the woman says in those same low tones. "Every woman has." Rita cannot imagine her ever being scared or afraid; her very presence seems to drip confidence and power.

"I have worked very hard to be where I am now," Rita says with a surprising amount of stubbornness, but the woman only laughs.

"In a prison cell?" she asks. "Where they have locked you away because they are scared of one with such power?"

A very small, petty part of Rita wants to argue — "It's your fault I'm locked in here!" she would say, "You did this to me!" — but doubt has already set in.

How many times have people laughed at her credentials, thinking that the work of a woman means nothing when there are men to take care of all important matters? How many times has she had to fight so much harder than her male colleagues simply to get her foot in the door?

"I know you," the woman says, "I've been watching you. There are hundreds, thousands, like you." Rita's lip curls back at this; she doesn't want to be like thousands of other people. She wants to stand out, to — "And I see my words have such effect on you," the woman continues. "So, when you are ready to prove yourself different, stronger —" she steps away from the bars, falling back into shadow, "— come find me."

"But first," Rita hears her call out over the sound of retreating footsteps, "you must free yourself."

Rita flexes her fingers where they still grip the bars of her cell, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady her racing heart. But things have already been set in motion within her, and she cannot return to who she was merely a day ago.

No, her mystery woman is right. She needs to be better than all the hundreds and thousands of people just like her. To start her life anew, from this point onwards, and turn herself into someone no one would dare to cross.

And if, in doing so, she proves herself worthy to this woman? Well, Rita wouldn't complain about that at all.

But for now, she just needs to get herself out of this cell.