IV
Bellatrix started her car. The seats were blisteringly hot, and burned her shoulders. She rubbed at them as she turned the radio up and it pounded on her ears.
Her mouth twisted a little.
Kingsley Shacklebolt, the paper had said. She had checked her sources, looked through old files. Auror. He graduated two years after she did. Ravenclaw. He was clever.
Did he kill on someone else's orders, or on his own whims? Did he actually do the killing, or was he merely just randomly involved? The trouble was that the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters were, in several ways, almost leaderless. Often, they did what they thought would be best for their respective organisations without consulting other members, since there was usually an eighty percent chance that it was the right thing to do and wouldn't foil any larger than life plans their leaders had carefully crafted. Not only that, but if there had been an order for Rodolphus Lestrange's death, then that order would have probably spanned over several people - a sort of chain. It happened within the Death Eaters, and it happened within the Order. A mixture of chaos and stability - just the right edge to make both groups dangerous.
Bellatrix was one of the worst when it came to both of these organisations. Bellatrix did what Voldemort told her to do. But Bellatrix also had the ability to do whatever she wanted without being told, because usually that was what Voldemort wanted her to do. She had free range.
And he supported her.
That was all she needed.
She gripped her steering wheel.
It was too hot out. Summer. She bit her lip and tasted blood. She parked somewhere downtown, she didn't know where, and got out onto the pavement, and walked around within the crowd. She needed money. She needed a new persona, or several - she had no intention of hiding her identity from the Order of the Phoenix, at least not fully. She wanted a disguise, to get her into the right places, to get the right equipment.
She would have to start at the bottom, and work her way up. She would go to her sources, and then use that to go higher, and higher.
She got back into her car, and sat in it for a long time, thinking. Then she bought a packet of toffee candy, and went back to headquarters, driving like a bat out of hell, if that bat owned a car.
x
"My lord," she cried, bursting into the kitchen. But Lord Voldemort wasn't there. She found him in the backyard, stretched out on his back in his dark clothing. An abundance of electrical tape was the only thing that stopped his shoes from falling apart.
"What?" he asked, his eyes closed.
"My lord," Bella said, kneeling down on the grass beside him. It looked prickly. "How do you change your face?"
"There is more than one way," Voldemort said. His eyelashes were long and dark and his hair was short and shaggy. He looked young, she thought. Very young. How old was he? Did it matter? "There is physical changing, but there is also altering the perceptions of those around you."
He opened one scarlet eye and looked at her. "I have never used the latter on you."
Bellatrix asked, "Why not?"
"Because it would not work." Both eyes were back to being closed. "You are too clever. I suggest physical changes above perception altering, were I you, if you plan on looking face-to-face with someone. Perception is usually only a guarantee in crowds."
"Will you teach me?"
"No."
Bellatrix's shoulders slumped. "Please?" she whispered.
Voldemort sat up. There was grass in his hair, and stuck to his back. "Alright."
As they went back inside, Bella asked, "What were you doing?"
Voldemort paused, and looked over his shoulder at the yellowed lawn. "Just thinking," he said.
x
She could time this perfectly. She could.
x
"Too much sun can do things to your head," Pyrites said to the mirror, his eyes tired and weary. "It can make you think you're strong, when you're not."
"Too true," his reflection said.
x
"Why are you still here?"
Tonks looked up from her game of solitaire on the table. Severus was leaning against the frame of the doorway, his black hair glistening in the afternoon sun.
"Didn't feel like leaving," she said, vaguely. She gathered up her cards. Quickly, snakelike, she began to shuffle them. "Poker?"
"Not in the gambling mood," Severus said.
"There's something wrong with you," Tonks said, looking shrewd. Her hair was blue; she had changed it while Severus was sleeping. "Granted, there's always something wrong with you. There's always been something off. Mother says you've been like that since you were little. But it's something different this time. I wish I knew what it was."
Severus sat at the table. He scratched the back of his neck. She could see the skull and snake design upon his arm, inked out in red, like blood. She didn't know how it was put there. No Death Eater, traitor or otherwise, could tell the Ministry of Magic how they received the Dark Mark. They could never remember.
"You're very perceptive," he said.
"I know," Tonks said, dryly.
"I suggest you stop it," he said, "before it gets you killed."
"Nah," Tonks said, setting the cards aside. "I can either live life and die young knowing things, or waste life and die old not knowing things. There's no fun in that."
"Life isn't supposed to be fun."
"Life isn't supposed to be anything," Tonks said.
Severus looked at her. "Do you want to know who you sound like?"
The corner of Tonks' lips quirked upwards. "Yes, I do."
"No," Severus said, digging in his pocket, "you don't."
He set a matchbox on the table. Tonks stared at it. They were silent for a moment.
"It's a matchbox." she said.
"Your stupidity knows no bounds," Severus said, testily. "Look inside it."
Tonks picked it up. There was a slight clunk within. She opened it.
She looked inside.
"I can't take this," she said, quietly.
"Yes, you can," Severus said. "And you will. Now excuse me, I have business to attend to." And he got up and stalked out of the house. She said nothing to dissuade him.
x
She sounded like her aunt, before her aunt went mad.
x
Lucius Malfoy was to be held at trial in two days, on July the eighteenth.
But a lot of things could happen in two days.
x
Peter was carefully going through files in the kitchen. He looked up only twice. The first when Bellatrix had peeked in, seeking Voldemort, and then when Bellatrix and Voldemort passed through - Bellatrix gave him a pained look, and Voldemort seemed very interested in the ceiling - but other than that his attention was centred on the papers.
He'd just started a half hour back, but already the type was beginning to blur before his eyes. He sighed, and looked at them again.
He read:
P. I. Weasley.
Large source of information. Weak-willed. Gryffindor, therefore brave, but ambitious. Best bet is to trick into becoming loyal. Wealth of information. Protected little. Slender built, almost fragile, 5'9, slightly nearsighted. Intelligent and righteous, believes certain sources above others, workaholic. Normal working hours 8 am to 8 pm. Lunch break 11 am to 11:30 am, but usually never takes them. Red hair, brown eyes, somewhat haughty. Family within OotP.
Breakable (?). Location still unknown.
Peter sighed. "Good enough," he said to himself, shifting the sheet aside to the small pile at his elbow. Bellatrix did not like him, and truthfully, he didn't really like Bellatrix. But she was violent, and she frightened him - sometimes more than Voldemort, who was at least semi-predictable - and Peter wasn't stupid.
Bella would want as much information as possible.
Peter would help her get it.
x
Voldemort radiated warmth from his time in the sun, even more so in the shadowy confines of the house. It clung to his black jeans and mangy black shirt and even his hair. He smelt sweetly of dried grass. There was still some in his hair, in fact.
He was chewing on one of the toffee candies Bellatrix had purchased. He was forever consuming sugar - it gave him quick energy, and sated his sweet tooth.
He was back at the kitchen table, and he was sharpening a knife that he planned to use on her.
Bellatrix sat beside him, drinking lemonade. Across from her, Peter was carefully going through a pile of papers.
"What are you doing?" she asked, bluntly.
"He's doing something nice for you," Voldemort said, a sickly smile playing about the corners of his mouth. "So be nice to him, Bella."
Peter raised his eyebrows somewhat, but didn't respond to the remark.
Bellatrix stirred her drink with her finger. The ice cubes clicked loudly against the glass. "Are those our files?"
"Yes," Peter said. "I'm separating out potential sources for you."
"Oh." Bellatrix said. She looked somewhat surprised.
Sometimes, it was hard to hate his fellow Death Eaters. Peter was confused by it. He knew they were horrid, and they had made him do things that made him horrid as well - but there was an underlying sadness to some of the Death Eaters that Peter couldn't explain. Like Bella.
His journey into the centre of the Death Eaters was a long story that Peter didn't care to think over.
"You're welcome," Peter said.
"Oh," Bella said, startled out of some inner reverie. She smiled in a quirky, girlish way. "Thank you, Peter."