Mary immaculate, star of the morning,
Chosen before creation began
Chosen to bring, for thy bridal adorning,
Woe to the serpent and rescue to man
-hymn, F. W. Weatherell
*
She's curled up and frightened, barricading the world with a sliver of blue-webbed skin. I watch her, and, though I hide my disbelief behind an impassive mask, I feel a terrible surprise and anger at the behaviour of my closest follower. It wasn't meant to be like this, I realise. I automatically assumed things would remain the same between us, that Bella would accept my actions with the same tireless diligence to the Dark Order as ever. What could be more of an honour than to bear the child of your master, the child who would change the fortunes of all? Rodolphus feels more pride than she does.
I don't understand this uncharacteristic fear, shame…this sense of betrayal that hangs around her room like a sobbing black cloud. I have punished her with crucios far more painful. I once removed her little toe for a mistake she'd made, yet still she looked up at me with faith in her eyes, my hand still wrapped around her heart. If I looked into her eyes now I'd see a blank. I'd see right through her.
Heliopath. My footprints, melted into the floor. Freedom. These things, in the haze.
I cannot find the connection yet, not quite. It's like a flicker at the corner of my eye, a bare bulb I can't quite look at. But I'll get there. I think of Voldemort (not the Dark Lord, not my Master. Voldemort.) and his pathetic Order and know what I'm doing is right. I'm piecing together my own power, finding it deep inside myself in a place I'd locked away. For the first time in an age, I'm thinking clearly, each thought a bright flash on the surface of a lagoon. He doesn't know. He believes I'm broken and lost, a thin shadow hiding beneath the sheets. He doesn't know what to do, all that power and he's still confused, he still doesn't realise what's really going on.
All those years of fierce monogamy paid off. I watched him use Legimency on a daily basis. Without understanding, I learned to block it, to use my own unforced brand of Occlumency that allows me to pull a curtain of outdated feelings between us, work unwatched behind them. Work on a plot to kill him.
The Prophesy states that only Harry Potter possesses the power to kill Voldemort and only Voldemort the power to kill Harry Potter. There is no mention of Bellatrix, how she is going to be the only one to be doing any killing around here. So I'll have to take destiny into my own hands, using a curious sort of loophole that would never have occurred if Voldemort had not chosen me to bear his child. I am going to murder Harry Potter. It is possible, while the essence, the genetic coding of Voldemort is inside me. After Potter's death, the Prophesy will be fulfilled, yet destiny will have twisted to accommodate the new, real threat. While the only known hope for Voldemort's demise will have perished, I will be reaching for the heights of my power, calculating exactly when to strike. The child will play a role. My pregnancy, so precious to Voldemort, will protect me from any counter attack he might produce. It amuses me to turn what he holds in the highest esteem against him. Kill me, kill his child; his last weapon. I am invincible.
Four months. Wormtail holds up a picture of the child he took with his specialised camera. The heart beats as a black blot behind its filmy skin, the jelloid legs kick feebly. A strange thrill rises inside me, like the swell of an icy wave crashing against a rock. This is how I feel before I kill.
Bellatrix stares on with the dull, Azkaban look that has filled her eyes since she finally opened them a week after the rape. Since then, she's sustained a level of blankness that I would admire if it did not frustrate me so much. I know this is not Bella. Yet I look into her mind and strike against an emotionless void. I find it hard to admit she is now a shell, dead wood around a budding green shoot.
Wormtail, seeing he is not going to get a response from either of us, proceeds to explain how all the child's organs have now formed. How we can see the heartbeat and, though the baby has been moving since the first month, that only now Bella will be able to feel it kick. He asks her, stuttering, if she's experienced anything of the sort yet. She turns her corpse's eyes on him and mutters. Leaves the room. From the bathroom along the corridor, we hear her vomit hit the tiles.
Now that I know what I'm going to do, I find it harder and harder to block him out. As I go stronger and my mind grows like a fat ripe grapefruit, all those bright, juicy sacks of new knowledge full to bursting, it becomes more of a struggle to keep my face blank and my body limp. Especially when my body is behaving so negligently, throwing up its food one minute and cramming in strange concoctions of the stuff the next. Raw pickles. Bananas dipped in peanut butter. I feel disgusted with myself. Since when have I ever behaved like all the rest? I feel like the caricature of a pregnant woman and hate every minute of it. Hate the spawn inside, hate the creature that put it there. This ability to hate of my own accord is the only thing that keeps up the act. If I can feel the extremity of hate, then I truly exist within myself. I can truly achieve what I'm setting out to do.
The journey starts tonight, I think, waking up from my evening nap. Over these months, suppressing myself, blocking him out, I've learnt I must never plan, only make impulsive decisions. If I think too far ahead, I'll forget myself and blast into colour. All my careful work will be ruined. He'll see immediately what's going on and imprison me with no hope of escape. I do not let myself imagine what would happen next, for different reasons.
Rodolphus makes his weekly visit. I always forget he exists until he enters the room, water grey November light scraping roughly against his pitted skin. His smile doesn't reach his eyes, which shine like tiny metal beads quivering on unstable ground. He always looks the same, except for the hands. Today they're powdered in dry blood.
-Just got back from a mission, Bellatrix. Ten more Ministry officials killed! The world really is on its knees now…only a few months to go, before the little one is born. Then everything will really kick off. Did you hear what the Dark Lord plans to do? As soon as it is born, it goes in one of those time bell jars, like we saw in the department of mysteries. Except this one will make it grow up, not shrink back into nothing - isn't it amazing? A fully grown warrior, ready to do his father's bidding! Aren't you proud to be a the mother of such an important figure?
A child without a childhood. Even I, who was never truly young, had a childhood.
-Wormtail says the boy will be a fanatic supporter of the Dark Order, he will not retain a baby's brain in an adult body. Of course, the question arises; how will he learn about his father if he has to grow up so unnaturally? It was explained to me that as soon as he develops all organs and a heartbeat the foetus will be subjected to a programme of charms and spells. These will implant all he needs to know into his mind. As his body rapidly matures in the bell jar, the knowledge will be activated. Do you realise, Bellatrix, that you are doing more than giving our master a son? You are part of the creation of the first perfect follower!
I'm sure Rodolphus sorely curses not being able to bear the child himself, judging by the look of manic ecstasy that transforms his hollow face. I smile dully up at him, marvelling at his stupidity as he pats my head, the way he would stroke a dog if it brought him a newspaper. Does he really not suspect? Has he really forgotten who he's married to? Even Voldemort hopefully suspects.
Conspiratually, like a husband, Rodolphus sits on the bed beside me, creaking the sheets that are heavy with my vomitty breath, the sour sweat of many hours of boredom.
When we have gained the highest power, the Dark Lord plans for all pregnancies to be as yours, he says in an exited undertone. All opposition will be wiped out by a new generation of perfect followers. Children will kill dissenting parents. The world will be entirely in the control of our master, with no false love or hate or good or bad. All will be bound in his power.
With a soft kiss to my temple and a loving hand briefly rested on my swollen belly, he rises and leaves the room. I stare at the space of air he left for several minutes, horror holding me leaden in my bed. Ironic, I think as I twist off my wedding ring and prepare my escape, the safety of all lives rests in the hands of the closest Voldemort ever got to a perfect follower.
No!, I scream, really scream, from the blackness of my core. The scream of a victim.
I run, tripping over my robes, beating a path through the grass, stamping stars from the rock hard earth. Fumble for my wand, aim blindly and set fire to a tree. I am alone, wild and pathetic, rage and humiliation and sorrow tearing at me from three different angles; tearing me apart.
She sweeps high above my head on my old Hogwarts Quiddich broom, filched from the hall. I watch her disappear above the night clouds. She must be able to see the stars.
Wormtail and Rodolphus come puffing out, too late, useless. I Crucio them both before they can ask me what happened and stride back into the crumbling, hated house, leaving them to scream on the lawn. I cannot have them see me in this distress.
She tricked me. She wanted me to know. Just as I had run out into the garden after seeing her, defiant and alive, on the front steps mounting a broom, she had turned to me as she flew upwards and it was as if a curtain had been swished aside. I could see with clarity the bright depth behind that carefully constructed void, see that she no longer believed in me. She believed in love, in hate, in a new brand of truth. She had found her power.
I collapse. The day I had never believed would come has, indeed, appeared. I have no idea where she has gone, or what she intends to do, but I know I must stop her before she begins her damage. I know this, but I cannot seem to function. After seventy years of decisive action, I have been disabled by a pregnant woman. But, of course, she is different from all other women, pregnant or not. She is Bellatrix. The only one who could deceive me, or rival me, or captivate me. The only person I ever specifically wanted power over, set apart from the nameless blur of other faces. Only she could disappoint me in her dull submission, or fill me with such a cocktail of rage and admiration that she was able to escape. Bellatrix; the only person I will ever be sorry to kill.