I'm sorry Bellatrix is such a freak.

She's not sorry, though.

Same copyrights apply.

Dynamics

Lucius Malfoy had been, in his own way, a somewhat legendary figure. He had been a man of power, and control, and utter sophistication - the sort of man who had dozens clamouring to his beck and call.

And yet despite it all, even Lucius Malfoy could never deny his best friend; soft, womanly Bellatrix, with her alien eyes and crooked grin. Bellatrix, who, if ever those eyes shone with need, and heartbreak, Lucius would drop everything and dash to her side and try in vain to make it all better. Not even the Dark Lord so had Lucius under his sway, for the Dark Lord was, and never could be, what Bellatrix was to Lucius.

Severus had remarked on it, once. "One of these days I'll be gone, and you'll be the one she goes to," Lucius had replied, somewhat irritably. "And when that happens, you'll do anything to make her happy. Now shut up and pass the scotch."

Severus' hand closed firmly around Bellatrix's wrist, stopping her in her tracks halfway through the living room.

"Tomorrow." He said, annoyed. "We'll go tomorrow."

Bellatrix's face, angular and hardened by life, softened somewhat. "Do you want to know where we're going?"

"Bella," Severus said, looking rather resigned and disgruntled at the same time; he hated it when Lucius was right. "I don't think it matters."

.x.

Night time in Severus' household was quite different than night time at Longbottom's Institute. For one thing, there weren't any muffled shouts and the creak of trolleys moving medication, and for another, there was a great, great amount of sharp objects hanging on the walls of the room she was staying in, which was Severus' room.

It had been a rather confused arrangement. Severus worked in a manner quite unlike gentlemanly men in romance novels, so Bella had been forced to take up the pen, as it were, and start the topic of Bedding Arrangements.

"Want me to sleep on the couch?" she asked.

"I'll take the couch."

"You're so gentlemanly."

"Actually, no. The couch is more comfortable."

"Are you lying?"

"Would you believe my answer?"

"I want the couch."

"No. You get the bed."

"You get the bed."

"No, I get the couch."

"But I don't want the bed. I want the couch."

"How can you not want the bed? It's a bed."

"Does it have a down comforter?"

"Yes."

"Okay, maybe I do want the bed; but I don't want you wanting the couch."

"You cannot stop me wanting the couch. You have no control over my wanting."

"That may be so, but I can stop you getting what you want, which is the couch."

"How so?"

"By making you take the bed."

"Then that means you don't get what you want, which is the bed."

"But I also want you not to get the couch… so it's halfway."

"Bella, just take the bed."

"I'll take the bed if you take the bed."

"So we both get the bed?"

"Yes."

"But you talk in your sleep."

"So do you."

"Do not."

"I can prove it."

"No you can't."

"Well. Can you prove that I talk in my sleep?"

"Well, no. But I could think of a way in roughly seven minutes time."

"Shut up. We both take the bed."

"I won't be able to sleep, with you talking."

"I won't be able to sleep with you talking."

"So we shall both sit awake, will we?"

"Precisely."

"I fear inbreeding has fogged your mind."

"Yes," Bella had said, in the middle of trying to make a castle out of playing cards, "That is my fear also."

Severus had knocked it down.

"That was very cruel of you." Bellatrix stated, hiding under the infamous down comforter, clad in simple black robes. They had once fit rather splendidly; that was before she had dropped roughly twenty pounds. "I hadn't been able to make a card castle that tall in ages. It had six levels. Six levels, you pompous little slime ball."

"Greasy," Severus corrected. "Not slimy."

"I'm not going to call you a grease ball." Bellatrix said firmly. "That's mean."

"What the hell have they been injecting you with at that treatment centre?" Severus asked. "A sub form of heroin?"

"The only time I get injected with something is when I chew on another patient," Bellatrix said with a sniff, "Oh… and it's an ongoing habit, as a warning. You might wake up without a hand."

Severus made a sound in his throat that could either have been annoyed or amused; Bella wasn't sure which. She peeked over the top of the blanket and watched as Severus, with his back to her, pulled his white, button-up shirt off over his head. There was a splash of colour on his pale, sallow skin, right on his left shoulder blade. It was the souvenir of one rather wild night on the town, which still stood out in Bellatrix's memory as the only time she had ever seen every single one of her mates truly, hopelessly drunk.

"Butterfly," Bellatrix said, and immediately burst into some rather unladylike snickering. Severus didn't seem to mind it.

"At least I don't have Lucius' tattoo," He remarked dryly, sliding into bed. "That one was all over his back."

"But it was a very lovely, artistic tattoo," Bellatrix pointed out, even though it had been more than artistic; it had been a practical plethora of magical symbols. "He did the design himself, didn't he?"

"But it was a wizard tattoo," Severus reminded her. "It's magical. Burns like hell for a week until it truly sets in."

"Ha, now I remember," Bella said, "and we kept hitting him on the back when he didn't expect it! That was great. But you can't escape the fact you have a butterfly on your shoulder."

"It keeps me company." Severus said. "However, at least we had the good sense while inebriated to stop by a Wizarding Parlour. A muggle tattoo would have dampened the whole experience."

"Why?" Bella asked. "Is poor Severus afraid of needles?"

"Of course not," he answered, "but a muggle tattoo is basically ink imbedded in the skin. However, high content of alcohol in the blood spreads the ink, and your tattoo becomes blurry. I'd rather a butterfly than a colourful smear."

"Where do you get this information?" Bellatrix asked. "Books? Because that would be really sad."

"I get it from talking to people, of course," Severus said. Bellatrix stared at him.

"Despite the danger of getting stabbed to death by your elbows, can I curl up against you?" she asked suddenly.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why ever for?"

Bellatrix shrugged slightly and twisted the comforter around her fingers. She was a proud woman; not the proud, arrogant sort that wanted everyone to know how great she was, however. She was proud because she was not afraid to admit a weakness, or to be stranger than usual, or to bow before a man she had truly loved, even if he had probably never loved her back.

"At the institute," She said, thoughtfully, "I was always isolated at night. And I didn't like it. I like to know there's someone around, but someone I can trust, but when I was there I didn't have anyone with me, and every night I was reminded and it was depressing. So. Can I?"

Severus sighed a bit. "I suppose so."

"Thank you," she said. Then, after a moment of shifting around, "You're bony. Did you know that?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Just checking."

.x.

Try as she might, Bellatrix couldn't sleep. She spent hours lying next to Severus (who she wasn't entirely certain was sleeping, either), trying to come to terms with her head, and mulling things over.

One of the first things she realised was that Severus smelt strongly of cloves. Then she became aware of textures; the smoothness of the sheets, the slight dampness of her companion's skin. Then, the bigger things concerning her situation; the fact her Lord was dead and she had no idea what on earth she was doing, and her reputation would affect her for the rest of her life, and her best friend was in jail and she had no idea where her husband was. She didn't know how Severus could stand it; having to be the last one standing as friend after friend was brought down, some by his own hand, some not.

Bellatrix was someone who lived on the emotions of others. And now she was in the real world, and her only companion was Severus, who found company irritating. It disturbed her, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to just find her feet, and that would be that.

Bellatrix untangled herself from Severus and slid to the floor. If he wasn't awake before he would be now, but she didn't care. She crawled to a large, empty space on the ground and lay there, staring at the ceiling. The carpet was very cool on her back, and the solidness of the floor was somewhat reassuring.

The mattress of the bed creaked and she knew Severus was looking at her in the dimness of the bedroom. Light filtered in through the half-curtained windows from the streetlights outside, and cast the chamber in semi-darkness.

"Confused?" He asked.

"Are you looking in my head?" Bella whispered, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I don't like it when you look in my head. Please stop."

"Don't worry," Severus murmured, "I'm not. I was guessing."

"Because I am confused," Bella admitted. Night time did such things to a person; loosened the mind and the tongue, and even managed to soften the sharpness of Severus' disposition. "And I miss a lot of people. We're going to the Forbidden Forest, did you know that? I never wanted to go in there. Some things are forbidden on purpose, you know…"

"And some things are unforgivable," Severus replied. "Yet, you used those curses all the same…"

"Oh, don't throw that bullshit at me, please," Bellatrix said, sounding somewhat disgruntled. "You've got to be one of the few people that actually get it."

"Get what, exactly?"

"Everything," Bella sighed. "Everything we did. Everything we wanted to do. We were just warriors, Severus, on the other side… but nobody seems to understand that anymore, not since that new generation came along to muck things up…"

Severus didn't answer.

"Do you think I'm crazy?" She asked suddenly, tipping her head to the side, her cheek cushioned on the carpet so that she could give him a proper look. "Like, really? They say I'm sane but we both know that what they think doesn't matter."

"I personally don't think there's a difference," Severus said. "You've always managed to destroy all the rules, Bella."

"It's not my fault," she muttered, "it's not my fault I think differently. Or feel differently. It's not. Is it?"

"No."

"Good."

She used her elbows to get herself into a sitting position, and stared at her bare feet. She resisted the urge to wiggle her toes. "Because, you know, everything else is my fault. Like the Longbottoms. Isn't that ironic? I incapacitated those two wand-happy maniacs and then I have to receive treatment in a facility owned by their son. Like, what the hell is going on? Do I attract irony and other assorted poetic devices?"

"You were using apostrophe a moment ago when you were talking to the ceiling," Severus pointed out helpfully.

"Shut up, Severus."

Ten minutes later, Bellatrix said, "… I didn't mean it."

"I know. I was going back to sleep."

"You know what you remind me of? Mushrooms."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, like…" Bellatrix paused. "It's difficult to explain. You remind me of old-fashioned wizardry. You know, like those stories. Where everything is sort of… tan. And pleasant. And there's good and evil and no shades of grey. Except more of a forest. A very nice, dark forest… with mushrooms beside the path…"

Severus didn't answer.

"And there are magicians," Bella continued softly. "I don't know. It's kind of sad because the world isn't like that anymore. I mean, it's never been like that. That's why I can't remember."

"I don't know how whatever you are talking about relates to me," Severus said dryly.

"Neither do I," Bellatrix said, "it's quite unlike you. But it's like… very simple on the surface, but then you go down and it gets really complicated."

"I hope you know that the forest we're going to enter won't be like that," he pointed out.

"I know." She sighed gustily. "He told me about it."

"The Dark Lord?"

"Well, yes," Bella admitted, "but mostly Lucius. The Dark Lord merely told me never to go in there. Lucius, though… he talked about it…"

Severus made another one of his noncommittal throat sounds. He didn't like to talk, or think, about Lucius too much; but that was because he had known Lucius, and liked Lucius, and they had both carried so much complication and confusion that, frankly, he'd rather be without it.

As usual, Bellatrix didn't give a damn.

"He said it's old," Bella murmured, "very old. He said it reminded him of… the world, before humanity came along to fuck things up. It's from before axes and fire and electricity. He was scared of it."

"And you're prepared to go in?"

"Yes."

"Bellatrix, this might trigger another war. Are you prepared to do that?"

Stupid question. What a stupid, stupid question - even Severus knew that.

"Tell me, Severus," Bella said coolly. "How do you know the Dark Lord wasn't talking about his memory being immortalized? How do you know his 'immortality' isn't just the fact that he will never, ever be forgotten?"

"Because," Severus said, "he was afraid of dying."

.x.

They were three figures, passing silently through the wood. All of them were slender, almost willowy in figure; but other than that, the similarity ground to a halt.

If Voldemort had had his way, he would have undergone this journey with Regulus, and Regulus alone; but he was a child, a frightened child who may want to run, and in the Forbidden Forest Voldemort was more interested in his surroundings than the safety of the young Black.

Which was why Lucius came along; beautiful, silent Lucius, who followed the path of the Old Way with light footsteps and phantom grace. Lucius, his right hand man, who had a firm grip on Regulus Black's elbow, and who wasn't about to let go very soon.

They were silent. Voldemort had ordered it, for sound was not something one wanted to make in the Forbidden Forest. Here was when reality became slightly frayed, and everything was dangerous, and only prey crashed on through without a thought.

But Voldemort was a predator.

It was raining, but the only proof of that was the pattering of water on leaves, high up in the canopy of trees, and the dampness in the air. Only a few raindrops slid to the loam below, and one of them hit Regulus on the top of his head, and he nearly took out Lucius' eye in his panic.

It wasn't that Regulus Black was a weakling, or a coward. It was the forest itself, and the way it slowly began to unravel you… as if it had taken a stray thread in the fabric of your own reality, and tugged away at you and watched you slowly come apart…

"Not far," Voldemort said. It was, in fact, very far; but the path he took jumped space and time and logic and quickened the journey so that days became hours, and they passed through danger and went to the heart of their destination quickly, silently, and efficiently.

It didn't take very long, once they got there. Regulus didn't resist… would never resist, for he had denied the Dark Lord but now, in some strange, surreal way, he was being spared…

And in the end, Voldemort had placed in Lucius Malfoy's palm a ring. "Don't lose it," Voldemort had warned, "I will ask for it, before the end."

Lucius - distrustful, wily Lucius, bound to Voldemort's feet by something as deep as blood - closed his slender piano fingers around the signet ring, and it was sealed.