XV
Bellatrix had gone.
Remus went upstairs, and saw Buckbeak, Sirius' hippogriff, still squealing in pain. Remus suspected Kreacher, but the house elf was nowhere in sight.
Remus stepped over and patted the hippogriff's beak, soothingly.
x
Bellatrix wanted to phone Voldemort, but didn't. Instead she made her way to her car, and she drove away. She was covered in dirt and, in some cases, her own blood. Or had it been someone else's blood? The thought made her gag.
Houses - especially old houses - were the creepiest things Bella had ever, in her life, encountered. Even Malfoy Manor made her shiver. She could never understand how Narcissa could live in it.
She felt miserable, because Severus had betrayed her. And he'd even given her a lead on the case - perhaps he had realised right after that he had done a stupid thing, and that Bellatrix would see this through, to the end, all the way back to Severus.
"You helped with the arrangements to kill my husband and you didn't even stop them," Bella said to her windshield as she drove, with a sigh. "You bloody bastard."
She wished that Severus had had the guts to kill Rodolphus himself, and not to have delegated it to Remus. It would have made Bellatrix feel a lot better about killing Severus if he'd had had more of a hand in it.
x
So she was waiting for him when he came home.
There was dried blood down her front from when she'd vomited it up. Her hair stuck up in strange places, and she was covered in dust.
"You're such an asshole," She said from where she was sitting at the dining room table. On the tabletop before her was a gun, black and dull and menacing, even though it was unloaded, the cartridges laying next to it.
Severus dropped into the seat across from her, looking tired.
"I don't feel like explaining," he said.
Bellatrix stared at him, and then stared at the gun.
"Alright," she said. She had a good idea, anyway. They called Bella crazy, but she wasn't the worst, just more obvious.
For Severus was excitable, antisocial, and in serious need of counselling sessions concerning the area of anger management. He was a borderline sociopath and had random fits of anxiety when overwhelmed by a feeling that he was going to die, even though there were no grounds for that sort of emotion. He was also obsessive compulsive.
Severus liked things even.
Bellatrix stood up, and she took the gun with her, along with the ammunition. She motioned for him to push his chair back from the table, and he did. She sat in his lap, matter-of-factly, straddling him, and began to load the gun.
"I don't think I can do it," she said while she worked.
"I'm not doing it myself," Severus said, firmly.
Bellatrix looked at Severus, raising one thin eyebrow. "Why? Are you afraid there might be a Hell after all? You're not a very good atheist if you're not even sure, Severus."
He shrugged. "I don't want to take the chance."
"Fine," Bella said, cocking the gun in a sharp, cold motion.
They stared at each other for a very, very long time.
Then Bella said, softly, "Open your mouth, Severus," so softly that he almost didn't hear her. Except he did.
x
The gun's kick shocked her, sent her hand jarring back, as damning as the sound of the gunshot itself.
She should have kept hold of the gun and bought it with her. Instead she dropped it, trying her best not to scream - though in horror or anguish or something else entirely, Bella herself wasn't sure - and scrambled off of Severus, before the blood began to pool beneath the chair, careful not to knock anything over, and tripping through the sitting room to get out the back door and flee, because she'd parked her car at the end of the street and didn't want anyone to see her running. She didn't want to see anyone while she ran, either.
There seemed to be no disturbance in the neighbourhood. Some protection that Severus had put up - protections that Bellatrix had managed to bypass (and this sort of thing she was starting to do, her ability to walk through wards, was frightening her along with everything else, away in the back of her mind) - had blocked the sound of the gunshot from reaching the ears of anyone outside the house.
Bellatrix ran, and tripped, and collided with someone.
She apologized, pulling away and starting to run around, hoping it wasn't a wizard. But it was.
More accurately, it was Dumbledore.
He seized her wrist, and Bella found herself halted, unable to take another step without wrenching her arm. How could an old man be so strong? She threw herself away, pulling and tugging and straining, and still Albus Dumbledore did not let go.
Voldemort was standing at the mouth of the alley. He looked angry.