"Is that it? Is that where the traitor lives?" Alecto whispered, eagerly eyeing the shack on the hillside.

They hid just beyond the shadow of the tree line: the Carrows, Draco, Snape, and their unenthusiastic chaperone, Bellatrix. It was the twins' and her nephew's very first mission, so the Dark Lord had chosen something appropriately … instructive. A trial run before tomorrow's main act.

"First we need to dismantle the wards, Draco," Snape said, placing a reassuring hand on his student's shoulder. "Use the spell I taught you."

"No thanks," Draco bit back, shrugging off the hand in annoyance. "Aunt Bella says it's better to throw up an Anti-Apparition jinx and just trap the target in his own wards. It's faster."

"Well your Aunt enjoys playing with fire," Snape sneered, turning to glare at Bellatrix, who raised her flask to him in mock salute. "Many of us are neither so reckless nor so - "

"Effective?" Bellatrix cut in, smirking. Leaning casually against a tree, she swilled the dregs of her whiskey, and realized that there was hardly a sip.

Damn, she cursed silently. It was her life's perpetual conundrum: bring a bottomless flask and risk getting accidentally drunk on a mission, or bring a regular flask and risk confronting her conscience dead sober.

But it was much too late to start feeling sorry for herself. There were entire Wizarding villages who feared her more than a natural disaster, too many children whose nightmares she haunted, too many people whose worldview would crumble if she was anything less than pure evil. And who was she to disappoint them?

"Let's move it along, Draco," she told him. "Your mother will have my head if you're not back in time for supper."

"Mother should know there's nothing more important than serving the Dark Lord," Draco announced, throwing the Potions Master a pointed glare. Evidently, Bellatrix was not the only one who had noticed that greasy little opportunist sniffing around Narcissa's skirts, and Draco seemed to have lost all respect for the man as a result.

Before Snape could even sigh in irritation, the boy had cast the jinx and forged ahead into the night, walking right through the invisible barrier with the Carrows at his heels. They were halfway up the hill when a dark figure emerged from the little house and took off sprinting in the other direction.

"Look! He's actually trying to make a run for it!" Amycus cried in disbelief.

"STOP!" his sister bellowed at the retreating figure. "Come back here, you coward! You filthy traitor!"

Her nephew, for his part, turned to her with a gleam of excitement in his eyes. "Aunt Bella...remember when you told me I couldn't practice Fiendfyre because we were inside? Well, now seems like the perfect - "

"Shut up," snapped, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of her nose. "All of you - just shut up. Haven't I taught you anything? Just - get into formation. Alecto, head him off at the right. You two, go left."

There was a moment of silence as three faces stared back at her blankly.

"NOW!" Bellatrix growled, startling the lot into action. They took off in pursuit, Draco stumbling over his feet in his haste, Amycus tossing out one sloppy Stunner after another, and Alecto unable to hold in her incoherent raving. Coming to stand next to Snape on the path, Bellatrix observed her scrambling recruits with disgust.

"Tomorrow is going to be a complete bloody disaster," she announced matter-of-factly, cringing as Draco stumbled head-first into the mud.

And now I know how Moody must have felt, the unsettling thought popped suddenly into her head.

"Don't blame yourself, Bellatrix," Snape said, almost - but not quite - weeding the laughter from his tone. "Teaching is a vocation; it's a rare wizard who excels at it."

As if of its own volition, her eyebrow quirked skyward. "And how would you know?"

"Fair enough," Snape admitted with shrug. They stood quietly together as he seemed to grow pensive; when he spoke again, his voice was almost regretful. "Karkaroff, you know, was one of the good ones. He may be an utter bastard and a sniveling coward, but he was a damn good teacher. Once."

"Yeah, it's a damn tragedy," Bellatrix sneered. "Leave it to you to pity a traitor."

This tense exchange was cut short as the Carrows suddenly reappeared, dragging a bloodied Karkaroff between them. Draco, looking decidedly the worse for wear, brought up the rear with his wand resolutely pointed at their captive. But Bellatrix noticed that his hand was shaking.

"We've got him, Aunt Bella!" the boy panted.

"Bellatrix! Severus!" Karkaroff cried, an odd mixture of dread and relief on his face as he sighted his old colleagues. "Who the hell are these morons? Tell them to get their grubby paws off me!"

"These are the 'morons' that caught you," Alecto sputtered, flushed an unflattering shade of purple. "You're a sneaky one, but we got you in the end - didn't we Amycus?"

"Not bad for our first time, eh, Madame Lestrange?" her brother crowed, tugging his labels self-importantly.

"Oh sure," Bellatrix said. "It took the three of you twenty minutes to capture a single half-starved wizard. How will I ever contain my praise?" Draco alone had the decency to look away in embarrassment, while Amycus merely stared at her blankly and Alecto took out her anger with a vicious kick to their prisoner's shin.

Karkaroff gave a cry and fell to his knees, eyeing them in turn for any hint of mercy. He seemed to single out the Potions Master as his best bet. "Severus...Severus please…." he begged, "We're old friends. I know you don't want to do this!"

Snape crossed his arms in a gesture Bellatrix could have easily called defensive, though his demeanor remained otherwise indifferent. "It's entirely out of my hands. You made your bed when you abandoned the Dark Lord."

"But I was loyal to the cause!" Karkaroff insisted. "Always! I was the one who banned Mudbloods from Durmstrang; I was the one who started teaching the Dark Arts again! Me! I did more for the cause than anybody!"

Bellatrix was not convinced. "If you had nothing to be ashamed of, why did you not return?"

"Because this whole thing is madness!" he burst out desperately. "Absolute madness! Can't you see it?"

When no one showed even a glimmer of understanding, he went on, no doubt hoping to convince them to spare his life: "I didn't sign up to get myself killed for the whims of some half-blood megalomaniac! Can't you see, he doesn't give a damn about preserving our customs! He doesn't give a damn about protecting the pureblood lineage! And he certainly doesn't give a damn about his 'loyal servants'!"

"Lies! Filthy lies!" Alecto shrieked, her fists balled in fury.

"You're raving, Karkaroff," Bellatrix scoffed, even as some unnamable pang shot right through her gut. "How dare you blame your cowardice on the Dark Lord? You can't begin to comprehend the sacrifices he's made to insure that our cause is victorious!"

But even as she said it, Bellatrix caught sight of her nephew's face, where the seeds of doubt had already taken root. The Dark Lord loved to assign new Death Eaters to hunt down traitors - as a warning - but she feared that tonight's mission would not have the desired effect on Draco.

Karkaroff shook his head sadly. "You were always the most deluded of the bunch, Bella. Everything the Dark Lord ever did, he did for himself."

"That's...that's not true!" she protested. "He saved us! He rescued us from Azkaban!"

"And he threw everybody right back when it suited him! Look around, Bella: look who's replaced the old guard! You're rubbing shoulders with inbreds," here he gave the Carrows a look of utmost disgust, "with werewolves, guttersnipes, and common theives. While the Dark Lord is busy ingratiating himself with every filthy creature and half-breed, the old great families are dying away right under our eyes!"

Bellatrix could hardly summon the energy to be correct him; her head ached worse than a Bludger between the eyes and somewhere in Malfoy Manor, there was a large bottle of whiskey with her name on it.

"We prune the tree to make it stronger," she tonelessly quoted the famous saying of the Moste Noble House. "You may be a pathetic waste of magical blood Karkaroff, but you can still be useful. You should be grateful for that, at least."

She tossed his wand at his feet. "Get up. My students need the practice."

Watching the man stumble gracelessly to his feet, she turned to her nephew. "Draco, you can begin. The Imperius."

They went in rounds, casting the Unforgivable for the first time and forcing the poor wizard to do all manner of ridiculous things. The Imperius required formidable powers of concentration, so it was not surprising that her nephew mastered it quickly, while the temperamental Alecto could hardly maintain it at all. She did, however, show a talent for the Cruciatus, which proved difficult for the apathetic Amycus and the squeamish Draco. The Carrows tossed a Knut for the final round and Amycus, the winner, was the one to put Karkaroff out of his misery.

As the shimmering green of the Killing Curse faded into the night, the three recruits stood staring dumbstruck at the body, unexpectedly solemn in the face of death's finality. Even Snape and Bellatrix, battle-hardened and cynical as they were, observed a moment of silence for their fallen comrade.

Then, Karkaroff's body emptied its bowels, and Draco promptly lost his lunch onto his boots. Embarrassed and seemingly on the verge of tears, he turned away and ran to the forest, where he continued to heave up bile, leaning on a tree for support.

"Someone should check on him," Snape told her pointedly.

"You do it. He's your godson!"

"True, but he's your nephew." They glared at each other until Bellatrix was forced to admit defeat.

When she caught up with him, Draco was quivering, mopping the sick from his robes and refusing to meet her gaze.

"Oh Merlin, I didn't realize …" he shuddered, voice rough with half-suppressed tears."I didn't think it would be like...like that…"

"Buck up, Draco." She gave him an awkward thump on the back, but it only made him flinch. Casting about for some words of reassurance, she went on: "Er…the first time's always the worst. It's just like sex."

Apparently it was the right thing to say, because the boy seemed to snap out of his daze to stare at her in confusion. "Death...is just like sex?"

"Well...ahh….just don't over think it," she finished uncomfortably, grabbing him by the arm before he could ask her more questions. "Come on, we need to get back."

They disapparated, and no sooner had they landed that Narcissa was prying the boy from her grasp. She hugged him close, then clasped his face in both hands and peered into it earnestly. Apparently what she saw there was not to her liking, because her eyes grew hard and accusing as she turned upon Bellatrix. "What happened?!" she demanded. "What did you do to him?! Tell me!"

Bellatrix could only stutter indignantly until Snape broke in. "It's just shock, Narcissa," he reassured. "A Calming Draught and straight to bed, and he'll be fine in the morning. Off you go, Draco!"

It was a mark of the severity of the situation that the boy complied silently, without sparing the Potions Master so much as a glare. He trudged miserably through the Manor's Great Hall, but stopped just short of the staircase.

"What's...that?" Draco pointed to the round table in the middle of the hall, where they noticed an enormous bouquet of dark flowers now stood.

"Those weren't there a moment ago!" Narcissa exclaimed. They waited as she summoned and interrogated each house elf in turn, but none could produce an explanation.

Meanwhile, Draco had sidled up to the table and plucked a white envelope from amongst the foliage. He squinted at it for a long moment, as though he couldn't quite believe what was written there, before turning a weary face to the rest of them. "They're for you, Aunt Bella."

Narcissa scoffed, reaching to grab the note from her son, but Bellatrix beat her to it. She unfolded the parchment carefully, half-expecting some hidden hex - or at the very least another terse summons - but there were too many words on the page, all formed with the uniform script of an Auto Quill.

Still, there was no mistaking the sender.

"Well? What does it say?" Narcissa asked impatiently.

Bellatrix just shook her head in astonishment. "It's...poetry."

"And Muggle poetry at that," Snape pointed out disdainfully, reading the words over Bella's shoulder. "Byron, if I'm not mistaken."

At that, Narcissa gave a scandalized little gasp.

"Really, Bella? 'She walks in beauty like the night'?" Snape quoted, one sardonic brow inching upward. "It seems you've somehow acquired yourself a deplorably sentimental admirer."

"Oh, you should have seen the fan mail I used to get in Azkaban," she smirked, being deliberately flippant to divert attention. "And there were photos too. Some were very, uhh...stimulating."

Snape threw up a hand. "Please. Spare me the details." He claimed to have a pile of grading awaiting him at the school, and soon disappeared into the emerald flames of the Floo.

When they were finally alone, Narcissa gave voice to her barely-contained disapproval. "But isn't this all in rather poor taste, Bella? Quoting muggle poetry? And the bouquet - you know black irises are traditional funeral flowers!"

Tracing the delicate stalk of a bloom with her fingers, Bellatrix couldn't fight the grin tugging insistently at her lips. "As usual, my dear sister, you've missed the point entirely."

When Narcissa stared back in confused irritation, Bellatrix was forced to elaborate.

"Someone had to deliver this," she explained. "It wasn't us. It wasn't the house-elves. Someone walked right into this house and put it here. Right under the Dark Lord's very nose."

Bellatrix watched her sister's eyes widen as the implications sunk in. "So what is it then? Some kind of threat?" Narcissa asked fearfully.

A threat. That was certainly possible, but Bellatrix suspected that it wasn't really the girl's style.

"No," she said, something uncomfortably akin to fondness in her voice. "I think ... I think she's just showing off."


In an unexpected twist, the Ministry decided to do the noble thing and refused to surrender to the Dark Lord. Of course, the timing for this uncharacteristic display of valor could not have been worse.

Bellatrix woke at the crack of dawn to the unbearable burning of her Dark Mark. She was already out of bed and kneeling with her forehead to the wall before the daze of sleep begun to clear and she remembered that she wasn't in Azkaban any more. Stumbling around her room half-blind, by some strange miracle she managed to get ahold of some boots, a cloak, and her last good vial of hangover cure.

"To your newfound freedom," she hailed her reflection in the mirror, downing the potion, which brought a foul-tasting but mercifully-swift relief. "Cheers."

Downstairs, the others were already assembled in the hall; they stared as she rushed in, robe hanging off one arm and hair askew. The scene reminded of Hogwarts, where she was habitually late to every class she didn't like (nearly all of them, save flying and lunch). But in this Hogwarts, the Professor handed out the Cruciatus instead of detention, and took limbs instead of house points.

"M-my apologies, M-my Lord-" she panted, taking her place beside a scowling Yaxley and trying to look as unobtrusive as possible.

"Never mind, Bella," he dismissed with a wave of one ghostly hand, never raising his eyes from the maps laid out on the great table. "You'll be taking in the sights of Muggle London today. Yaxley, you will join her. And...hmm, Greyback, why don't you pay Diagon Alley a visit?"

"It would be my pleasure…" The werewolf gave a throaty chuckle, his monstrous lackeys rushing to laugh along with him.

"With all due respect, My Lord," Selwyn burst out, giving voice to what no one else dared say (though they were all thinking it), "Is it wise to let this … this creature ... loose in our district? Certainly he could be put to better use among the Muggles-"

"You dare question me, Selwyn?" the Dark Lord hissed. For a moment it seemed he would strike the man dead in his boots, but he held back, closing his eyes as though praying for the patience to deal with his idiot subordinates. Bellatrix almost sympathized.

"This is not the time for your sniveling. It's the time to show the Ministry what lies in store should they fail to reconsider. And to that end - I explain though I doubt most of you have the capacity to comprehend - we contemplate tactics."

He eyed their fearful faces with contempt. "Does anyone know what I'm talking about? No?" His gaze finally settled on her, softening just a hair. "Bellatrix?"

"To motivate the Ministry, we need to maximize terror," she recited obediently, standing taller when she saw his satisfied nod. "And the wizarding public is most terrified by..." she gave Greyback and his cronies a sidelong glance, "our furry friends, the Dementors and the Giants - all the creatures the Ministry prides itself on controlling. And should it look like they are losing that control…"

"Indeed," the Dark Lord nodded. "Remember, my friends: we must never lose sight of our ultimate goal!"

The ultimate goal...yes, Bellatrix was one of the few who understood, who saw the bigger picture. Unlike that poor sod Karkaroff, she knew that sometimes you had to dig around in the dirt to plant the seeds of victory. Sometimes you had to play the game the opposition had set out.

Sometimes you had to get in bed with the enemy.

Bellatrix caught herself smirking distractedly at her boots, and tried to stuff that particular thought back into its murky corner, hoping that no one caught on to her embarrassment. How much of a fool was she, really, to go down that path again?

There were much more important matters at hand, she told herself firmly. This was her chance to show her Lord something spectacular. She needed to reclaim his regard and to improve the family's position, which was precarious enough after Lucius's blunder at the Ministry. And to assist her with this worthy task…

"Alecto, Amycus - Rowle too - go with Bella," the Dark Lord ordered.

…were arguably the dimmest three of the whole lot. Which was really saying something.

She should have known right then that things would go to shit. But that queasy, foreboding feeling only began to prick at her heels when they apparated to the location.

Brockdale Bridge. She watched it from the shadow of an alley between two warehouses. The Ministry had drastically increased security Muggle-side after the Dark Lord's ultimatum, so they had chosen some out-of-the-way tourist trap for their target. Usually, Bellatrix hated moving in without proper reconnaissance, but this was meant to be a simple smash-and-go job: just blow out the bridge supports, help some Muggles into a watery grave, and hopefully find her way back to a cold beverage in the garden before noon.

The first Stunner nearly caught her mid-flight, and she twisted around on her broom to see no less than a dozen Aurors on their tail. How they had found them, and so quickly, Bellatrix couldn't begin to guess. The Carrows, having apparently forgotten everything she'd ever said about defensive maneuvers, fell in a frantic dive towards the water, bringing the fight right along with them.

The Aurors gave chase, jets of light streaming in every direction, glimmering across the icy waters of the Thames and bouncing off the stone supports. A loud crack reverberated through the air a moment later - the bridge trembled, someone screamed - and just like a pack of rats before the flood, the Muggles started scrambling to the shore.

For a second, Bellatrix considered just apparating out of the air and leaving them all to it.

But then somebody fired another hex at her…and before she knew it, she was dueling three, maybe four, dodging curses on her broom with the agility of a Golden Snitch and cackling madly at their poor attempts to bring her down. What made it sweeter still was watching the Ministry dogs inadvertently help them with their plan as the bridge took hit after hit, crumbling before her eyes.

Talented as she was, even Bellatrix found it hard to fight off multiple foes in such an open field; so, she took them to ground, weaving between the buildings on her broom and trying to draw as many Aurors as she could away from the others. It wasn't that she cared if her fellow Death-Eaters got themselves killed - in fact it would make her life a lot easier - but she knew the Dark Lord would not be happy to lose his new 'friends'.

Unfortunately for her, whoever was training Aurors these days seemed to be doing an admirable job; they split off in pairs, flying around to try and corner her on all sides.

"Fuck," she cursed, feeling the unmistakable pull of wards as she tried to apparate but couldn't. "Fucking bloody hell. Merlin's thrice-damned baggy sodding Y-fronts."

"Get her!" someone yelled as she dodged a curse flying overhead. "She's down there! Look!"

"Leave her, she's mine!" a familiar voice yelled back. It took Bellatrix a moment to place it: it was her niece, Nymphadora.

"LESTRANGE!" the young Auror bellowed, hurtling through the air in mad pursuit. "Get back here and fight, dammit!"

"If you think you can take me, you're a fool," she called out, leaping off her broom and rushing down a covered passage where they couldn't see her. They'd ended up in some sort of deserted Muggle industrial area.

She heard the muffled thump as they landed just around the corner, then her niece's wary, taunting voice. "Why don't you come out and prove it, then? Don't you want to purify the family tree, weed out the blood traitors and half-bloods, and all that rot?" Her voice grew cold as she mocked the pureblood rhetoric. "Well, come on then! Here's your chance!"

Looking about, Bellatrix spied a metal monstrosity of some obscure purpose at the mouth of the passage - she wondered how the Muggles came up with these awful things - and prepared to blow it up right as they turned corner. But the inexplicable happened: magic surged through the air, and they passed by her hiding place, looked right through her, and kept going.

Letting out a breath of relief, Bellatrix was about to make her exit when she heard a shuffle in the corner. With impossible speed, she spun on her heel and pinned the intruder with her wand. But she was stunned into silence as none other than the girl walked from the shadows, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender. Bellatrix didn't lower her wand, waiting for the girl to speak.

Long moments passed as Bellatrix yielded to the girl's intense scrutiny, feeling her pulse quicken in response.

"I have a... proposition for you," the girl said at last.

"Oh?" Bellatrix murmured, a thrill of anticipation running down her spine - only to be supplanted suddenly by disappointment as the girl withdrew a scroll of parchment from her robes, the Ministry stamp on it clear as day. So it turns out to be a tedious political offer, after all.

"What a surprise," she huffed. "Well, you're wasting your time. I don't make deals with the devil anymore."

Perhaps this wasn't the response the girl had been expecting, because she furrowed her brow. "The new Minister is prepared to offer you pardon in exchange for your cooperation."

"Is he, really?" Bella's reply practically dripped with cynicism as she glowered at Scrimgeour's new errand-girl. The Ministry had been tossing her these empty offers for decades now, and it was really starting to grate on her nerves. "Well, you can tell Mephistopheles that I've already sold my soul."

"Surely there must be something I can do…" The girl walked cautiously closer, her arms still raised. "To convince you to think about it."

Oh, you've got to be kidding me, Bellatrix though, narrowing her eyes in irritation. Did they really think she could be bought with a pretty face and a nice arse? And then, unexpectedly: I'd hoped it was more than this.

"You can tell me who killed Emmeline Vance," she growled. "For a start."

The girl visibly blanched at this. "The … the Order Member? I … don't see why you'd care."

"The Dark Mark was over her body, but it wasn't one of us," she explained. "You know something," she tossed out - guessing really - though it was only the girl's reaction that raised her suspicions.

"I know a lot of things," the girl evaded, coming closer in a bald-faced attempt at distraction - which Bellatrix had to admit was working. "Auror Black."

Bellatrix shook her head, and to her infinite shock, she actually found herself stepping back. What the hell was wrong with her? Since when did she back away from a fight?

"They never made me a full Auror."

"Oh, that's right," the girl conceded, finally lowering her arms as she came closer still. "They kicked you out the day of your initiation."

There was maybe a foot between them, and Bellatrix could feel her gut twist painfully in anxiety - that familiar aversion to having anyone too near. Her hand shook furiously as she thrust her wand right at the soft spot where the girl's neck met her collarbone.

"Moody finally found what he'd been looking for for years." She gave the girl her best ominous sneer. "Proof of where my loyalties truly lay."

"And where is that?" the girl whispered, so near that Bellatrix caught the slight hitch at the end of the sentence. But the eyes that looked back at her held not a trace of fear, and Bellatrix found the sight incredibly unnerving. Surely, only a madwoman would look at a convicted Death Eater like that.

And more to the point: she wasn't entirely sure she knew how to navigate interactions not ruled by fear. It left her nothing to work with. Nothing to hold on to.

Bellatrix coughed uncomfortably. "Give me a reason why I shouldn't just kill you right now," she said, though the demand came out more like a plea.

In response, she felt something cold and hard prod her ribcage. "Because bullets are faster than spells," the girl announced, as though that explained everything.

"And what pray tell, is a bullet?" Bellatrix asked her, exasperated for reasons she couldn't fully articulate.

But before she could get an answer, she heard the distant echo of voices. "Madame Lestrange!" Alecto's voice rang out. "Madame Lestrange? Are you here? We followed you!"

"I'll show you, next time," the girl promised, the shadow of a grin dancing about her lips. "You know where to find me."

Bellatrix scoffed at this unbelievable arrogance - angry, offended, amused, and flattered all at once. "What makes you think I would even consider it?" she bit out.

Evidently there was no end to the girl's insolence, because in the next breath she actually dared to lay her hand on the front of Bella's robe...from which she withdrew the envelope with last night's letter. An envelope Bellatrix had no earthly reason to be carrying on her person.

"Call it a hunch." The girl smirked, apparating on the spot just as the Carrows rushed in.

They found Bellatrix standing still as a statue, staring blankly at an empty spot on the floor, as the ghost of a blush spread across her cheeks.