Disclaimer: I don't presume to own Bellatrix. Last time I checked, my name wasn't Rodolphus Lestrange.
Rodolphus returned home at midnight with his younger brother, minds set and hearts pounding. The meeting had been very informative indeed, and the Dark Lord, eyes a strange shade of piercingr ed, had hissed to him before they left.
"I demand absolute loyalty," the new Dark Lord said with a hint of menace. "Those who serve me well shall be richly rewardeddd, and the ones who stray shall barely live to regret the error. Such... oblique considerations as paltry, superficial friendships and relations have no place here. Your fealty belongs to ME."
Avery, ever the tactless idiot, blurted out a fearful "We're not allowed to answer to the wills of our families?"
"Fool!" Lord Voldemort cast him to the ground with a casual flick of his wand, "Let us hope that you shall never have to choose between your family, and between ME. YOU shall be the one to bring them down, if it came to that."
It was not a matter of fear or apprehension, really. Rodolphus knew that his whole family had been waiting for a saviour like Lord Voldemort. But what of potential additions to his family?
An image of a raven-haired beauty with flashing eyes arose in his mind, and he smiled to himself. It wasn't that sweet, stupid love nonsense heralded by the bourgeois, of that he was fairly sure. She was simply the best-- the woman that was everyone else's unattainable dream. A Black, but furthermore, the most audacious, imperious woman he'd ever met. An angel's face that hid the tongue and temper of a pit viper, and she saw through the pretensions of their world.
She wanted more, just as he did.
And she responded to him-- venomous eyes and crimson cheeks and icy words. He made her explode in glorious, volcanic rage that night at the Malfoy estate, and then she kissed him back with the same bruising force that he used with her.
She wouldn't be scared of a husband who served the Dark Lord.
She would be faithful... once he'd caught her. And a Lestrange deserved the best in a wife.
Now, he had to figure out how to catch her, and catch her thoroughly enough that she could not find a way to escape. It would require some planning, to be sure.
By Mephistopheles, she'd be furious afterwards.
His grin widened. It would be worth the effort and the fallout to have the best.
And Bellatrix was beautiful when she was angry.
At her family house, Bellatrix was unaware of these machinations, though as it was, she was angry enough with the way things were.
The holidays had drawn to a close-- Andromeda and Narcissa were going back to school, and so were Sirius and Regulus. It was only that evening that Mordred and Claudius Black, along with their wives and children, dined for the last time at 12 Grimmauld Place, and the parents gave their errant offspring their list of expectations for the upcoming year.
It had started innocently enough. Regulus had complained that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Bones, disliked him and treated him unfairly. Claudius Black had been unmoved by this excuse for Regulus' unsatisfactory marks-- did not both Bellatrix and Andromeda receive Outstandings on their Defense Against the Dark Arts OWLs under the same teacher? Regulus was a BOY, and it was insupportable that his female cousins should do better than him in their studies. Sirius declared that Regulus was merely stupid, and Regulus, unchildlike venom in his sharp gray eyes, shouted that in the very least, HE was not friends with Muggle-loving filth like James Potter.
Narcissa had gasped, big blue eyes wide with horror, and Bellatrix recalled a day three years ago when James Potter had practiced a hex he'd considered particularly amusing on her youngest sister. Narcissa's golden locks had been transfigured into straw, and Bellatrix had been enraged. Then, she had been in sixth year, both Sirius and Narcissa in first, and even after she had taken 50 points from Sirius' house for his housemate's transgressions, Sirius had understood the necessity. The next day, Potter had appeared at the Great Hall sporting a black eye magnified by his glasses, and Sirius had worn a vindictively pleased expression. Narcissa had been left alone afterwards, and Bellatrix had seen to it that both her sisters were immediately caught up on casting curses.
But now, Sirius' face betrayed defiance, and no contradiction of his brother's accusation.
And then, as both Claudius and Medea Black railed at Sirius, and Bellatrix sat, somewhat too shocked to speak, Andromeda stood up from her seat to declare that whom Sirius befriended was his own business. If Potter proved to be an unworthy, unpleasant acquaintance, Sirius should be given the chance to find out for himself.
By the time both sets of parents had screamed themselves hoarse, with no apparent effect on either Sirius or Andromeda, it had gone past midnight.
It was only Aria Black's muttered reminder that the children had to go back to school the very next day that recalled everyone. Bellatrix and her sisters left #12 Grimmauld Place to the sound of a whipcrack coming from the direction of Sirius' room.
Bellatrix held Narcissa like their mother had stopped doing after they'd passed age seven, and waited until her youngest sister had fallen asleep before returning to her own room.
She was not completely shocked to find Andromeda waiting for her there.
The two sisters glanced at each other rather tensely, and Andromeda was the one who finally broke the silence.
"You understood what I meant, right?"
Bellatrix wasn't quite sure that she did. Her skepticism must have shown on her face, because Andromeda's face took on a slightly beseeching look.
"If Sirius finds out that he is doing something wrong, he'll stop," Andromeda murmured. "If we force him, we'll lose him."
"If he doesn't know what's right and what's wrong-- in something as important as THIS-- he deserves to be lost," Bellatrix's voice sounded cold even to herself. "It isn't a small issue."
Andromeda nodded slowly. "I... I think that Sirius couldn't really be made to anything, anyhow," More silently. "None of us really can."
It was one of those vague statements that didn't mean anything, that Andromeda was wont to give whenever she was trying to dodge a question or hide something. And Bellatrix knew her sister too well to be satisfied with that.
"I need to go to bed," Andromeda might have sensed Bellatrix's growing feeling of discontent, and gave her volatile older sister a half-hearted embrace before stepping out of the room.
It was three o'clock when Bellatrix finally went to bed. In Narcissa's valise, placed carefully within the pages of her favourite fashion magazine, was a note that she'd given to one of the House Elves.
It felt somewhat wrong to ask Narcissa to keep a very close eye on their other sister.