Black Night
Part Nine
Rated R
Narcissa/Lucius, Bellatrix/Severus
Bella was asleep by the time Severus got back.
He ignored Sirius altogether, moving swiftly to Bellatrix's side and sitting down, face bloodless and eyes glinting angrily. He sat there a moment, and then reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking it slightly. "Bella," he whispered. Her eyes shot open.
"What is it?" she demanded. "What did you find out?"
He moved his hand off her shoulder and took her hand, squeezing it tight as if he was afraid she would vanish. "Severus," she said softly, more carefully. "Is she. . ."
He looked away breifly. "It wasn't the Dark Lord."
There was a silence. "But Sirius said that the Dark Mark had been slashed into the furniture," Bella whispered. His hand squeezed hers painfully tighter. His eyes were those of a child - uncertain, emotions overlapping one another, such a hint of suddenly lost innocence that she could have cried just looking at him. "And Nymphadora - Andry -"
"It wasn't him," Snape's voice became duller, flatter, and something else flickered behind his eyes - pain.
"What happened?" she asked him. He let go of her hand as if it had burned him and stared blankly at the wall. She reached out and touched his cheek; he pulled away, startled, as if he was a stranger. She let memories of time with him cascade back, and the truth dropped on her hard - the only time he had IeverI flinched away from her was when he had been put under the Cruciatus Curse. Several times in a row - the Dark Lord wasn't one to go lightly. "Oh," she said, and he looked back at her. "Oh, no, Severus, why?"
"Perhaps he was displeased with my story," he said, softly. "Perhaps I was not paying attention to what he said. Perhaps he was bored. Or a mix of the three. I do not know. When he does, you never do." He said this all as if he was teaching her something. Bellatrix, after all, had been one of the lucky few never to have been subjected to the Cruciatus.
He took her hand again, almost convulsively, and shuddered, his eyes rolling breifly into his head, perhaps as he let himself be absorbed in the pain. She sat up carefully, and touched his cheek again, and he only shivered, and opened his eyes, and pushed her gently back onto the bed. "Don't hurt yourself," he whispered, and kissed her.
It was a harder, fiercer kiss than she was used to, and also a more deliberate one. But he was clearly also pained to do it, because he was still shivering as he did so.
Slowly, though, slowly, the shivering stopped.
***
Regulus was actually having quite a good time.
Not that he would have admitted it to anyone, of course. His friends were all living out their seventh and last year at Hogwarts, but he wouldn't be returning until December due to circumstances beyond his control. Not that his parents blamed him, of course, with the Mudblood-lover as Headmaster.
No self-respecting seventeen-year-old Slytherin would have ever admitted that he was having fun with the three-year-old half-blood daughter of two Gryffindors. Despite this, he was having the time of his life.
He'd told Kreacher to clean something in the attic - just to keep the stupid house-elf out of their hair. Nymphadora had been quite refreshed when she woke and had demanded to 'play'.
Thusly, proud Regulus Black, Slytherin and pride of his family, seventeen years old, spent almost three hours, running in circles from the little girl and yelling his lungs out, occasionally on command picking her up and twirling her around in circles until she screamed with laughter and her hair turned from brown to blond to fiery red uncontrollably.
She was actually quite a cute little toddler, and when the two of them sat at the table, breathing hard and laughing, Regulus actually wished that he had had a little sister.
Throughout this her father had been watching and sleeping at intervals, and Ted wasn't a half-bad fellow either. He was very respectable.
Of course, he was still a Gryffindor and a Mudblood.
***
The next morning dawned cold and clear. Crystals of frost still clung to the grass, and Sirius' breath misted before him. He had, in a determination to prove his manly resistance to the cold, not worn his cloak, and instead walked down the Muggle street shivering madly. Apparition or Floo Powder would of course have been quicker, but it would also have meant having to wait around until visiting hours, and at least this way he felt as if he were doing something.
Bella was going to be released at nine, in only three hours.
Damn, that seemed like a long time.
So Sirius decided to go shopping. He found a Muggle car lot and began to carefully examine all of them - he had learned to drive at the age of fourteen and was actually not as bad a driver as everyone suspected - he wasn't reckless and he didn't go over the Muggle speed limit.
Well, not much.
There were sports cars or all colors and makes, from America, the Orient, one from Egypt that looked as if whoever had made it had rather an obsession with gadgets. There were also more luxurious cars, with smooth leather seats that screamed industrial. There was also a convertible, which Sirius looked at for quite a time and actually considered investing in.
Then he saw the motorcycles.
It was love at first sight.
There were six of them, but one looked terribly bulky and another two were as tacky as a motorcycle could ever be. Another was too - well - IMuggleI - it had far too many extra attatchments and uses. The other one he dismissed because the color of paint was wrong and it had an ashtray. Honestly. Not that Sirius didn't have the occasional cigarette - all right, more than occasional, but an ashtray on a motorcycle was far too impractical.
It IwasI an ashtray, wasn't it?
The last motorcycle on the line was perfect, and she was also on sale.
That did it. She was his.
He went into the mens' room and Apparated instantly to Gringotts. He had a fair amount of money from his Uncle Alphard even after buying his house, so he asked the goblin how much gold the scribbled Muggle amount was.
In the end, he gave the salesman his money - all of it - without a test drive. Oh, no. This sweet baby was going to have some adjustments made. The highways were not Sirius Black's land.
He named her Maria.
***
Severus was beginning to get impatient. Black was twelve minutes late.
Twelve minutes, sixteen seconds. And counting.
He could tell that Bella should probably still rest for the next few days from the way she clung to his hand. He was not, however, stupid enough to mention this. He had made that mistake before.
They were standing outside the enterance, both shivering. Bellatrix looked worried. She shot him a look, and then said nervously, "Do you think something's happened to him?"
Snape suppressed the urge to tell her not to get her hopes up, and settled for, "It's not impossible, I suppose."
Bella opened her mouth to say something else but was cut off by an ungodly roar from down the street.
Both of them jumped, and Snape started to go for his wand. He froze with his hand in the pocket of his Muggle jeans and let out an audible sigh. Bella shot him a look, perhaps wondering if it had been a sigh of relief or exasperation.
Sirius Black, grinning rougishly with gleaming eyes, sat before them on what Snape could only describe as a nightmare.
"God, Sirius, were you ItryingI to attract attention?" Bella asked.
Like an eager child, Sirius nodded frantically.
A grinning Muggle boy was staring at the contraption. "Hot cycle!" the child cried out.
"Thanks!" Sirius shouted back. Then to Bella and Snape, "Isn't she a beauty?"
Snape looked torn, as though he wanted to still be clutching his heart in horror, but had settled instead for glaring at Sirius and grinding his teeth.
"By the way," Sirius added, turning off the engine and steering it closer, "did you find out when Remus is getting out?"
"He had an argument with the mediwitch," Bellatrix said with a bit of a grin. "They compromised on eleven this morning."
Sirius bit his lip. "Well, there's not much we can do in two hours."
"Are you crazy?" Snape demanded. "He'd only slow us down, now, Black. There's no use, your pet will have to stay at home."
"Severus -" Bella began in annoyance. Sirius cut her off.
"Snivellus, I've warned you time and again, but I swear, if you don't stop with this little let's-see-how-far-we-can-go-in-insulting-the-ickle- Gryffindors game, I swear I'll boil your skin off and make you eat it."
Bella had a hand over Snape's mouth before he could respond. She glared at both of them. "We're never going to find Andry if you two don't shut up. Stop with the threats, stop with the insults, stop with the glares. I'm sick and tired of this. We're not here so you two can have a chance to argue. Now, we'll wait for Remus to really start looking. The Ministry's doing what they can now at Ted's, maybe they'll pick up something we didn't. That's where we want to start now, anyway - tracing her steps. Agreed?"
Neither of them answered. Bella nodded as if they had, however, and made as if to start to walk away. She didn't make it very far, however - after only a couple steps, she stumbled a bit and stopped, leaning on the wall. Sirius and Severus were there in an instant.
"I'm all right," she whispered, protesting as they both tried to help her. "Don't. I'm all right."
They sat down on a bench, waiting, and finally, Sirius broke the silence.
"So," he said with an air of greatness, as if they should be anticipating something, "want to come for a spin, Bella?"
Bella was asleep by the time Severus got back.
He ignored Sirius altogether, moving swiftly to Bellatrix's side and sitting down, face bloodless and eyes glinting angrily. He sat there a moment, and then reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and shaking it slightly. "Bella," he whispered. Her eyes shot open.
"What is it?" she demanded. "What did you find out?"
He moved his hand off her shoulder and took her hand, squeezing it tight as if he was afraid she would vanish. "Severus," she said softly, more carefully. "Is she. . ."
He looked away breifly. "It wasn't the Dark Lord."
There was a silence. "But Sirius said that the Dark Mark had been slashed into the furniture," Bella whispered. His hand squeezed hers painfully tighter. His eyes were those of a child - uncertain, emotions overlapping one another, such a hint of suddenly lost innocence that she could have cried just looking at him. "And Nymphadora - Andry -"
"It wasn't him," Snape's voice became duller, flatter, and something else flickered behind his eyes - pain.
"What happened?" she asked him. He let go of her hand as if it had burned him and stared blankly at the wall. She reached out and touched his cheek; he pulled away, startled, as if he was a stranger. She let memories of time with him cascade back, and the truth dropped on her hard - the only time he had IeverI flinched away from her was when he had been put under the Cruciatus Curse. Several times in a row - the Dark Lord wasn't one to go lightly. "Oh," she said, and he looked back at her. "Oh, no, Severus, why?"
"Perhaps he was displeased with my story," he said, softly. "Perhaps I was not paying attention to what he said. Perhaps he was bored. Or a mix of the three. I do not know. When he does, you never do." He said this all as if he was teaching her something. Bellatrix, after all, had been one of the lucky few never to have been subjected to the Cruciatus.
He took her hand again, almost convulsively, and shuddered, his eyes rolling breifly into his head, perhaps as he let himself be absorbed in the pain. She sat up carefully, and touched his cheek again, and he only shivered, and opened his eyes, and pushed her gently back onto the bed. "Don't hurt yourself," he whispered, and kissed her.
It was a harder, fiercer kiss than she was used to, and also a more deliberate one. But he was clearly also pained to do it, because he was still shivering as he did so.
Slowly, though, slowly, the shivering stopped.
***
Regulus was actually having quite a good time.
Not that he would have admitted it to anyone, of course. His friends were all living out their seventh and last year at Hogwarts, but he wouldn't be returning until December due to circumstances beyond his control. Not that his parents blamed him, of course, with the Mudblood-lover as Headmaster.
No self-respecting seventeen-year-old Slytherin would have ever admitted that he was having fun with the three-year-old half-blood daughter of two Gryffindors. Despite this, he was having the time of his life.
He'd told Kreacher to clean something in the attic - just to keep the stupid house-elf out of their hair. Nymphadora had been quite refreshed when she woke and had demanded to 'play'.
Thusly, proud Regulus Black, Slytherin and pride of his family, seventeen years old, spent almost three hours, running in circles from the little girl and yelling his lungs out, occasionally on command picking her up and twirling her around in circles until she screamed with laughter and her hair turned from brown to blond to fiery red uncontrollably.
She was actually quite a cute little toddler, and when the two of them sat at the table, breathing hard and laughing, Regulus actually wished that he had had a little sister.
Throughout this her father had been watching and sleeping at intervals, and Ted wasn't a half-bad fellow either. He was very respectable.
Of course, he was still a Gryffindor and a Mudblood.
***
The next morning dawned cold and clear. Crystals of frost still clung to the grass, and Sirius' breath misted before him. He had, in a determination to prove his manly resistance to the cold, not worn his cloak, and instead walked down the Muggle street shivering madly. Apparition or Floo Powder would of course have been quicker, but it would also have meant having to wait around until visiting hours, and at least this way he felt as if he were doing something.
Bella was going to be released at nine, in only three hours.
Damn, that seemed like a long time.
So Sirius decided to go shopping. He found a Muggle car lot and began to carefully examine all of them - he had learned to drive at the age of fourteen and was actually not as bad a driver as everyone suspected - he wasn't reckless and he didn't go over the Muggle speed limit.
Well, not much.
There were sports cars or all colors and makes, from America, the Orient, one from Egypt that looked as if whoever had made it had rather an obsession with gadgets. There were also more luxurious cars, with smooth leather seats that screamed industrial. There was also a convertible, which Sirius looked at for quite a time and actually considered investing in.
Then he saw the motorcycles.
It was love at first sight.
There were six of them, but one looked terribly bulky and another two were as tacky as a motorcycle could ever be. Another was too - well - IMuggleI - it had far too many extra attatchments and uses. The other one he dismissed because the color of paint was wrong and it had an ashtray. Honestly. Not that Sirius didn't have the occasional cigarette - all right, more than occasional, but an ashtray on a motorcycle was far too impractical.
It IwasI an ashtray, wasn't it?
The last motorcycle on the line was perfect, and she was also on sale.
That did it. She was his.
He went into the mens' room and Apparated instantly to Gringotts. He had a fair amount of money from his Uncle Alphard even after buying his house, so he asked the goblin how much gold the scribbled Muggle amount was.
In the end, he gave the salesman his money - all of it - without a test drive. Oh, no. This sweet baby was going to have some adjustments made. The highways were not Sirius Black's land.
He named her Maria.
***
Severus was beginning to get impatient. Black was twelve minutes late.
Twelve minutes, sixteen seconds. And counting.
He could tell that Bella should probably still rest for the next few days from the way she clung to his hand. He was not, however, stupid enough to mention this. He had made that mistake before.
They were standing outside the enterance, both shivering. Bellatrix looked worried. She shot him a look, and then said nervously, "Do you think something's happened to him?"
Snape suppressed the urge to tell her not to get her hopes up, and settled for, "It's not impossible, I suppose."
Bella opened her mouth to say something else but was cut off by an ungodly roar from down the street.
Both of them jumped, and Snape started to go for his wand. He froze with his hand in the pocket of his Muggle jeans and let out an audible sigh. Bella shot him a look, perhaps wondering if it had been a sigh of relief or exasperation.
Sirius Black, grinning rougishly with gleaming eyes, sat before them on what Snape could only describe as a nightmare.
"God, Sirius, were you ItryingI to attract attention?" Bella asked.
Like an eager child, Sirius nodded frantically.
A grinning Muggle boy was staring at the contraption. "Hot cycle!" the child cried out.
"Thanks!" Sirius shouted back. Then to Bella and Snape, "Isn't she a beauty?"
Snape looked torn, as though he wanted to still be clutching his heart in horror, but had settled instead for glaring at Sirius and grinding his teeth.
"By the way," Sirius added, turning off the engine and steering it closer, "did you find out when Remus is getting out?"
"He had an argument with the mediwitch," Bellatrix said with a bit of a grin. "They compromised on eleven this morning."
Sirius bit his lip. "Well, there's not much we can do in two hours."
"Are you crazy?" Snape demanded. "He'd only slow us down, now, Black. There's no use, your pet will have to stay at home."
"Severus -" Bella began in annoyance. Sirius cut her off.
"Snivellus, I've warned you time and again, but I swear, if you don't stop with this little let's-see-how-far-we-can-go-in-insulting-the-ickle- Gryffindors game, I swear I'll boil your skin off and make you eat it."
Bella had a hand over Snape's mouth before he could respond. She glared at both of them. "We're never going to find Andry if you two don't shut up. Stop with the threats, stop with the insults, stop with the glares. I'm sick and tired of this. We're not here so you two can have a chance to argue. Now, we'll wait for Remus to really start looking. The Ministry's doing what they can now at Ted's, maybe they'll pick up something we didn't. That's where we want to start now, anyway - tracing her steps. Agreed?"
Neither of them answered. Bella nodded as if they had, however, and made as if to start to walk away. She didn't make it very far, however - after only a couple steps, she stumbled a bit and stopped, leaning on the wall. Sirius and Severus were there in an instant.
"I'm all right," she whispered, protesting as they both tried to help her. "Don't. I'm all right."
They sat down on a bench, waiting, and finally, Sirius broke the silence.
"So," he said with an air of greatness, as if they should be anticipating something, "want to come for a spin, Bella?"
