Disclaimer: Anything that you may recognize from anywhere else, I do not own. Thank you.
Note: Everything that is said through this piece, it's is all from her perspective. Anything remotely unjust or evil, is all her thoughts.
Born from a random idea on a Sunday afternoon, this story is my first ever fic that wasn't humour. Please review and tell me how I did. Well, enough banter. Now I present:
A Fate Worse than Death
I stared at the wall lifelessly.
That was it. All of my life dreams, gone. Sure, I had volunteered for this, in fact, I was even the one who suggested it. Still, even though I had very well known the consequences, I had charged in, bared my teeth, and done it. One of the most unforgivable things you can do. Worse than killing, far worse.
"It's all your fault, Bella!" whines Crouch Jr.
"Shut up, Barty."
To have driven someone to insanity, two people to insanity, two people with an infant child to insanity, is even something that the Dark Lord always told us to do only if all else had failed, if we were at the peak of defeat, and even so, we could always give in that one time, surrender, run away, and later retaliate with a better, more well thought out strategy, but no. We had to attack the Longbottoms on a whim that they knew the whereabouts of our fallen Master.
Still, I deserve it, just like he deserved it. Stupid bastard. All through Hogwarts, even though I didn't full out let him know that I cared, he still should have picked up on the signs. The other Slytherins certainly did.
I put up with the taunts, the sniggering. All of it. Only to be forced to endure seven years of pain with nothing in return. In the end, he runs of with that bimbo, Alice McKinnon, while I'm forced to marry that ogre, Rudolphus Lestrange, just so that I'm not banished from the family, like my dear older sister, Andromeda.
"What's gonna happen now?" whines, once again, Cockroach Jr.
"We get thrown into Azkaban, Crouch."
Some whimpering from the Cockroach.
"Shut up, Barty."
Every day, whenever I had the chance, I would watch him across the Great Hall, or follow him to the library, just so that I could stare at him, gaze at him, study him.
By the end of third year, I had already fallen in love with the way his nose would wrinkle up when he didn't understand a question, the way he would throw his head back when one of his friends would tell a funny joke, and the way he triumphantly throw his hands in the air and silently cheer when he finished a particularly hard essay set by Professor Slughorn, the fat son of a bowtruckle that taught us potions.
Day after day, he invaded my thoughts. Day after day, he tempted me, the forbidden fruit, the one thing a true Slytherin, a person who truly wants to help the Dark Lord, can never have. A Gryffindor.
He was a very popular person. In the fifth year, he started to date. First, it was Lucy Edwards, a mudblood from Hufflepuff. That was my first slap in the face. I should have known by then, should have been prepared.
After that, came many more, Lisa Medion, Ravenclaw. Ellen Kelley, another Hufflepuff. Beatrice Herrald, Gryffindor. Alicia Moon, more from Hufflepuff, and too many to name. Finally, in the middle of seventh year, it became final. I had no chance. He had settled on it.
Alice McKinnon. Blonde, beautiful, intelligent, Gryffindor. They went steady, and eventually became the item, the couple, the lovebirds, whose names graced every single gossip conversation that you could possibly over hear, even over in Slytherin. Except here, it was more bashing that cooing.
Ever so many talks long into the night. Annalise Higgs, shrieking with laughter over how Alice's hair was ever so last century and how her makeup tones made her look like a demented clown.
These, I always participated in heartily, but when it turned to the flaws of Frank Longbottom, then, it became time for me to draw the emerald green curtains around my bed, and try to block out any criticism about his hair, his face, his body, or in total, him.
"I swear, Bella, if you hadn't…" pipes the Dung beetle.
"I said shut it, Crouch"
Even past graduation, I live under the delusion the he was perfect, flawless. Even after I married Rudolphus shortly after my eighteenth birthday, he still kept my heart. After, and even at the wedding, I never let the ogre touch me.
We never explored the treasured realms of pleasure that husband and wife often venture in the bedroom. We never even kissed, except when we dated, to make him think that I loved him, and at the wedding, which was for tradition's sake.
I feel bad now. Rudolphus truly cared, though I never did. I continued to dream about Frank. Three years later, when the Daily Prophet announced the engagement, then the wedding of the now Frank and Alice Longbottom, I lost all control. Internally, I wept and mourned. Externally, I raged, screamed, and fought.
My husband and I, we joined Lord Voldemort's ranks shortly after our wedding. We fought bravely, quickly became one of his favourites, alongside the Malfoys, my own little sister and her husband. Then, came the day. Scouts had reported a prophecy, telling of the doom of our Lord, and then, on the word of that rat, Pettigrew, our master learned of the location of the Potters and their son, a possible threat judging from the prophecy.
He went. Attacked the house, and at the hand of an infant, he met his downfall. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to him. The Death Eaters panicked. We searched every inch of the country, trying to find information. Word reached us that he might not be dead. That perhaps, he was only considerably weakened, and had fled.
We tried finding the means to find him, restore him to strength. We scattered. Three weeks later, in a small cave outside Plymouth, my dear husband suggested that maybe, since they were such fabulous aurors, that the Longbottoms might know where our Lord was. They then also had a child, a son, who had, like the Potter's child, matched the description of the prophecy. A fire was lighted within me. Finally, a chance for revenge.
I presented my idea of an ambush to torture them for information. It was not very widely received, but my husband, ever loyal, announced that he would assist me. His brother, soon volunteered to go with us, and then Bartemius Crouch Jr., a rookie, eager to prove himself to somebody, jumped to the idea of helping, so that was it, my fate was sealed.
"I hate you, Bella. It's completely your fault…"
"Didn't I just tell you to shut up?"
We proceeded with the ambush. We performed the Cruciatus curse. After a while, even the most idiotic person would have gotten that they had no clue about where our Master was, but fourteen years of pent up rage, betrayal and tattered love burst from me.
I mercilessly continued to torture them, even with everyone else begging me to stop. I continued to unleash my anger through my curse, until their hair turned grey, and their minds were reduced to goo. Soon, the authorities, after being called in by the neighbours, arrived. We were arrested, put on trial, convicted guilty, and now here we are.
"I swear, Bella, I'm gonna kill you…"
"Shut up, Crouch, I hear voices…"
The voices drifted in from the hall.
"Are you sure, Healer Gordon?"
"Very sure. There is absolutely nothing we can do to save the Longbottom's minds now. All we can do is put them in our permanent ward and hope for some miraculous development."
sigh "Very well, and the living placement of their son, Milroy, what about…"
So, they are permanently damaged. Well, it serves them right. He was my everything. I granted him my heart on a silver platter, and he threw it out the window.
I still love him, even now, but he never did. He's the one who did this to himself. If he had even paid me a smidge of attention, it would be very different now.
The guards have just entered.
"Come along, Ms., we'll be taking you to your cell."
The books and old tales always tell of a person's last words before they leave. Well, here are mine:
I do not regret what I did. Nor do I regret anything I have ever done. It is you that sealed your fate. Everything that I said in the courtroom, about loyalty to our lord, was all a lie. This was all about revenge, about shattered love. You fully deserved this, Frank. Every little thing that you ever did, will not save you from the fact that it was you, who deserved this fate worse than death.
The End