A/N: I'd just like everyone to know that I'm more motivated to write this fic than to work on any of the multiple final projects I have going on because it's finals week for me, because yeah, covid burnout is killing us college kids. I'd also like to apologize for only being able to write in present tense anymore because I tried it out once and found that for short bursts of writing I really like it - I tend to overuse 'was" and "had" and I hate that so this is my response to that.
I haven't written Bellatrix in a very long time, so this was kinda fun to return to her character. She's just such a mess and I think that's what makes her fun to write.
Written for round 5, S9, of the QLFC.
Prompt: You cannot write about someone who shows that flaw in canon.
Seeker: Cowardice
CW: descriptions of panic, mentions of torture
Word Count: 1,008
Her fingers are trembling.
The pale digits shake against her wand, sending shockwaves up her forearms. Bellatrix Lestrange stares at them in horror. Immediately, it is evident that fear is the wrong response as her fingers shake only harder, forcing her to loosen her grip.
"Ah," the figure across from her gasps from where he's tied to the chair. "Whatever could be the matter?"
He's a wily one. She hates him.
"Nothing." She says, baring her shivering teeth. Why are her jaws shaking?
"Sure doesn't seem like nothing." He says.
His name is Thomas. A stupid name, an insignificant name. And yet despite his insignificance, she cannot bring herself to curse him again.
"What did you say before?" She tries to hiss out. It comes out sounding choked.
Her free arm is wrapped around her chest. Why is it there? When did she tell it to do that, as if she's protecting herself from this man who is at her mercy?
"I said," He starts, "That you, ma'am, are not my first rodeo."
"No. Before that."
He's silent for a moment as if trying to recall his terrible words. She's still shaking, wand lowering slowly.
Then - "Oh."
He had threatened her. This man, Thomas whatever-his-last-name-is, had threatened Bellatrix Lestrange while she was torturing him.
"I know your family, Bellatrix Lestrange. And I know you care not for them."
"And what of it?"
"I've got connections, woman. I can do a lot more damage than you can imagine."
The words carried a weight that did not need to be voiced aloud. Her shaking fingers are what tells Bellatrix that somewhere deep inside, she still cares for her stupid family. How dare her mind betray her like this!
Instead of screeching, instead of throwing another Crucio! at the helpless man before her, she is stuck in time, staring at him. Thomas stares back, and his eyes are as dark as hers normally are. He knows he's hit a nerve.
"You're sick." She says. Thomas smirks.
"I'm sick? Have you looked in a mirror recently?"
She refuses to play along, the fear still gripping her stupid human heart as she turns away from him. Bellatrix's hands cannot raise her wand, they refuse to aim at this man out of fear for a family she'd believed were only obnoxious obstacles in her way for her entire life. If they knew what was happening in this room they'd have far too much to say about disappointments.
Bellatrix may hate her family, but she never wished to disappoint them.
"So what now?" asks Thomas.
"Shut the hell up, Mudblood." She says. "I will return."
She walks out of the basement.
The creaking stairs greet her one step at a time, announcing her presence louder than the crack of a bludger hitting a skull. Bellatrix finds Rodolphus at the top, watching her idly.
"Is he finished?" He asks.
She doesn't reply. She can't. The wand in her fingers still shakes along to the fear that still courses through her veins. It is too much for one person to handle, she thinks. Her mind flashes between distant memories of childhood terror, memories from so long ago she isn't sure where they were hiding. Murmurs of the darkness of her bedroom, whispers of a thunderstorm. Insignificant details of a life long-gone.
Bellatrix finds her way to the dark and grimy parlor of the house they've been operating out of for months now and throws herself onto the couch, curling up into a tight ball, face in knees and arms wrapped even tighter around them. A tearing sound comes from her dress that has been riddled with holes since the first day she wore it.
It is evident that no one has followed her. Rodolphus knows better than to interact with her after she's finished a job. He should know better than to even think of speaking to her after she's failed to finish one.
"So childish… so childish…" She mumbles into her skirts.
The shaking is subsiding, the fear slowing it's constant stream through her body. Still there remains a firm wall in the part of her mind that normally allows her to achieve her goals. To kill men as if they are rodents.
What's so special about Thomas? She panicked over a man who will be dead in a few days. He has no way to access the outside world, the basement is where the strays they catch stay until someone takes pity on them and ends their suffering.
Bellatrix never takes pity. She simply tires of their endless grumbling.
Has she taken pity now? Is this fear she felt because she feels as if a man named Thomas is deserving of such a ridiculously useless emotion?
The answers are so far away from her now. She is still swimming in a sea of despair at the thought that he might possibly touch her mother, her father, her sisters, her despicable, useless husband. As if the Blacks lack the ability to protect themselves.
This is perhaps what should frustrate her most. What would, if she could see past the last vestiges of fear that cloud her vision.
The Blacks have always been capable of a solid defense. A Mudblood will never be their downfall.
Yet she still whispers words of comfort to herself in the corner of a dark room where no one will find her. No one will wonder if perhaps the Mudblood in the basement still breathes, they assume he is dead because she has always completed a job. Shaking limbs or not, Bellatrix is a Black. She does not grind to a halt in the face of danger, because she has no reason to. To stop would be to admit exhaustion, weakness.
There is no rest for her weary body. She is a jar of confused, muddled emotion, left out in the cold years before by a family she never believed she cared for.
Bellatrix Lestrange is capable of love, and that terrifies her more than anything else in this whole damned world.