Desecration
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Disclaimer: Not mine.
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Bellatrix Lestrange was desperate.
Desperation ate away at her very soul, pushing her to rush through her actions and driving her to
commit awful mistakes that would undoubtedly haunt her later. She was no longer the languid, slow
predator that had made her so useful. Now hurried, she acted with all the grace of a gazelle pursued
by hungry lions.
The years in the hell called Azkaban had ruined her. She could try and pretend all she wanted, but
deep inside she knew that she was not the same woman who had sneered, laughed, and treated the
entire concept of imprisonment with a detached facade.
What a fool she had been. A prideful, arrogant, fool at that. She had thought that by staunchly
supporting her Master, her Lord, she would rise even higher within the dog-eat-dog ranks of the
Death Eaters. She had thought that it would earn her a place of honor when He returned.
She had been right.
But the cost, the cost had been too much. Night after night of her imprisonment had been spent
crying and screaming at an uncaring world. Bleakness and depression had marked her days,
huddling in the icy chill of the Dementors' presence had become her home.
Through all this, she had remained true, pious, reverent to her Lord. The thought of brighter days
had lifted her soul. Thoughts of the day that she escaped that hell and returned to the world of the
living at the side of her Master buoyed her spirit above the dreary muck that her existence had become.
But her hope had been misplaced.
She realized that the second that her dream came true and she had been released from her cell. She'd
stood there, in the cold stony hall, shivering and shuddering from the freedom that had suddenly
been opened to her. She'd smiled at the cloaked figures who had become her saviors, and stumbled
after them as they swept through the halls on strong legs and with no hesitation. They were the
complete antithesis to her own weakened form and stumbling, halting walk.
It had been then that she had realized how far she had fallen. None of the eyes she could see through
the masks showed any flicker of the desire she had come to expect from others, only disgust or
impassivity. She was no longer the beautiful woman she had been, and the realization hurt.
Later, alone in the room she had been put in, she looked in the mirror and realized why desire was
no longer sparked in those who saw her. She was gaunt, faded, a mere shadow of the woman she had
been. She didn't know if she would ever be mended, restored to her original state. That left her
feeling more hollow than the years pining away in Azkaban had.
She could never recall how long she spent that night, staring into the mirror, learning the new curves
and angles of her face, the new tangle that was her hair, the new look that haunted her eyes. All she
remembered was the next morning she felt as though she had not slept a wink and that she looked
worse than ever.
She saw Rodolphus that day. Azkaban had not been any kinder to him, and she mourned for the loss
of the wicked glint in his eyes and the years they'd spent apart. She had tried to approach him but he
turned away and simply said, "It's over, Bella. Everything is gone."
She wanted to tell him that she was not gone, that she was right there, but could not because that
would sound like she cared. Though her soul was fractured into a thousand glittering, sharp pieces,
she still had to maintain her facade of cold indifference. It was who she was, who she had always been.
She walked away from her despairing husband, and went straight into the arms of someone who
cared even less.
She found her Lord to be an attentive lover, the knowledge that she alone shared his bed to be
gratifying. He was the most feared wizard to ever live, and in that small way she was his alone as He
was hers. It returned her some of the power that she had lost in her long years in Azkaban, making
some of the sting of losing her beauty fade.
Months of freedom passed quickly, much too quickly. She felt at times as though she was still
imprisoned, however, now in a gilded cage rather than in that cold, dank cell. Other times she felt as
though there was never anyone in the history of wizardry to feel as free and joyous at the mere lack
of the icy presence of guards as she.
Then came the fateful day, the day that she fought with the other Death Eaters, the day she killed her
cousin. The day she watched the last son of the Noble House of Black fall back through the veil,
pushed by his own kin. The day that she felt as though she had committed the gravest desecration of
her own pureblooded family possible.
Not a single one of the other Death Eaters seemed to realize what had happened.
She had destroyed her family, the Blacks. Never would another child bear the name. They would
fade into the endless chasm that was history, and she was solely responsible. She had murdered her
family with a thoughtless curse, had destroyed an ancient tradition. The worst was, she had done it
in the name of purity.
She continued to act exactly as she had over these long months since her rescue from Azkaban. She
was cold, impassive, and maniac. She fought fiercely for the Cause, condemned others, and laughed
at the memory of tortured children, broken adults, and freshly dead bodies.
But deep in within, she was desperate for an escape. She did not want to right her wrongs or
condemn what family she had left. She wanted to be free of the lies and the hypocrisy and the
twisted, faded face she saw in the mirror.
She would die, that was all the hope she had left. She would die, either at her hand, an Auror's, or at
her lover's, and then she would no longer be desperate or have to recall her sins and the desecration
of what she held dear. So she acted, waiting for the moment when she would finally pay her dues.
fin.
