Title: Dead Starlight
Author: Rhelle
Summary: Sirius x Bellatrix, Sirius x Remus When Remus takes it upon himself to hunt down Sirius's killer, he doesn't know what to expect from Bellatrix Lestrange. Certainly not what he finds: someone who loves Sirius as fiercely as he does
Disclaimer: I told J.K.R I'd ro-sham-boh her for it. Unfortunately, I lost. Poor me.
A/N: Yep, I'm a Bellatrix fangirl. I have no idea why. No, wait, I do: it's all Meg's fault. Anyway, this fic was inspired through a combination of wanting to write a Sirius x Bellatrix (Meg's most favorite pairing) without abandoning by Sirius x Remus OTP, and the persistent desire to see Remus kick some ass. Remus actually doesn't end up kicking much ass in it, which disappointed me greatly. If Remmy and Bella seem somewhat OC in this, rest assured, they were meant to be; I wanted to show different sides of their personalities. Arr, mateys.
Dead Starlight
The light of dead stars shines down upon the darkened city. It is past midnight, and the only living creature in sight is walking down a shadowy cobblestone road, her brisk footsteps and quiet breath the only sounds. A shadow detaches itself from the night, following her soundlessly. She gives no indication of awareness, although both her footsteps and breathing quicken slightly.
The road dips under an old railroad bridge, plunging them both into darkness. Suddenly, the woman whirls around, wand in hand, but finds herself violently slammed up against a concrete wall, a wand at her throat and the face of Remus Lupin mere centimeters from her own.
"Bellatrix," he snarls, countenance twisted with rage. His wrath is magnificent and primal. Even Bellatrix looks slightly taken aback, though she recovers quickly.
He would have killed her, right then and there, but her dark eyes lock with his, considering him mildly, and she says, "Sirius was right about you."
Remus freezes, and his eyes narrow. "What?"
Eyes glittering, Bellatrix recites with practiced grace, "'He moves like a wolf, even when he isn't one; wild, shy, unconsciously graceful. He has a quite beauty that's easy to miss, but once you notice it, you can never look at the world quite the same way again. I'm at peace when I'm with him, I'm finally whole." Bellatrix smirks and tosses her head. "He loved you to distraction, you know."
Remus chokes down the shock of hearing words Sirius uttered so long ago falling freely from the lips of the one who killed him. Remus has the momentary feeling of one who sticks his head in a tunnel expecting a kitten, and comes face to face with a lioness instead.
"What do you know about Sirius?" he says.
Bellatrix's eyes are like mirrors, reflecting everything and revealing nothing as she says, "I know that he always cries out your name when he comes. I know that he has a small, deep scar on the inside of his left thigh that he will not show to anyone - I was the one who gave it to him. And I know that when he loves you, it is with his whole heart and mind and soul. Yes," she added, seeing the look upon Remus's face; "It is possible to love more than one person at once. The human heart is not something easily constrained by the laws of monogamy."
What is there, really, to say to that? Some things are proof beyond all shadow of a doubt; this is one of them. Remus does not know what he expected from Bellatrix Lestrange. Certainly not what he has found - a woman the equal of Sirius.
Bellatrix spoke. "We loved each other before we knew what evil was, when we were still essentially children and innocent of the world's cruelty. I was his cousin, his playmate, his closest friend, the only one crazy or brave enough to accompany him on all his wild adventures. It seemed only natural that we become lovers.
"Even as we stumbled down our separate paths, this attraction never faded." For the first time, Bellatrix smiled slightly, sadly. "Even a false love can be tender. Remus, do you remember the way he would look at me?"
Oh yes, he remembers. He remembers sitting next to Sirius in the Great Hall every morning and night, and he remembers the way Sirius's eyes would seek out a single figure way over at the Slytherin table. A tall, pale-faced, dark-haired girl. And he remembers the strange emotion that would come over Sirius's face, the one he could never quite place, somewhere in the shadowlands between love and hate.
Remus remembers because he has nothing else left, thanks to the woman who stands here before him.
He asks, "How did it end?"
"When I discovered he had told his mother all the details of our sordid little affair. I think he staged the whole thing in an effort to mortify her, and apparently it worked; a few weeks later, the news reached me that he had run away. By then, I was already long gone."
Remus snorts dismissively. "Ah, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. It that why you killed him, then?"
Bellatrix shakes her head. "No, I killed him because duty required it." She gave him a long, slow look. "There are more important things than love."
"No," Remus replies. "There isn't."
Silence hangs heavily between them. Remus bites his lip, his eyes gone distant. He's lost in his own memories now. "I was never foolish enough to believe that our love was exclusive, but…. When I was young, I thought love was like the summer wind as it caresses the open fields. Later, he became the face of love for me, as we lay together in the grass, our hands gentle as breezes over each others' skin."
"Poetic, aren't you?" Bellatrix remarks dryly.
Her voice snaps him out of his reverie. He glares at her, feeling a familiar rage bubbling to the surface once more. "What would you know?" he sneers. "You were the one who killed him, and…." And left me alone. He cannot bring himself to say those words, but he forgets he is speaking to an accomplished Legilimens; effortlessly, Bellatrix plucks the words from his mind.
She laughs. "Do you imagine you are alone, Remus Lupin? You, who will leave my corpse here on this roadside and go home to your precious Order; Albus Dumbledore, the Weasley family, Nymphadora Tonks, and all the rest. People who love you and who will dab your eyes with perfumed handkerchiefs when you weep." She pauses for a moment, her expression unreadable. "Do you know, Remus, that if I were to tell my fellow Death Eaters half of what I have told you here tonight, I would be killed on the spot?"
His wand, Remus realizes, is still pointed at her throat. Apparently, Bellatrix realizes this also, because she says, "Do you expect me to beg? Do you expect me to plead with you for my life?" She gives a harsh laugh, utterly devoid of humor. "If so, then I fear you will be sorely disappointed. There is nothing left in my life that I would beg for."
All laughter, even the empty kind, fades from her face. She leers at him wildly, recklessly, all restraint gone. "So go on, kill me," she snarls, and the words crack under the full weight of her agony. "Isn't that what you came here for? Do it. I have nothing more to lose. I am already dead."
And suddenly, Remus sees something he hadn't expected before: he sees in her a hurt he has only ever before seen in himself. She is his enemy, yet she is the only one who can ever truly understand him. She is Sirius's killer, yet the only one who can share the full anguish of his loss.
He had come here thinking to find a murderer, and instead he has found his own reflection. No, he hadn't expected that.
Seeking confirmation that this is truth, Remus reaches out and very gently touches Bellatrix's face, eliciting a slight blush from the paleness of her skin.
For a moment, there is no love or hate or good or evil. There is only bond of shared loneliness, the simple understanding of two creatures who have lost everything.
It is Bellatrix who ends it, Bellatrix who pulls away shaking her head like a confused animal. She has never taken kindly to compassion.
Remus looks at her with sorrow in his eyes, all anger forgotten. He removes his wand from her throat, takes a step back. "No, I will not kill you," he says; "You shall live, and that shall be punishment enough."
He walks away. But he looks back, just once. Just once. "If we ever meet again, it will be on the battlefield," he says very quietly to this woman named for a star.
It was not mercy or compassion that stilled his hand. It is just that he cannot bring himself to kill her; he sees too much of Sirius in her.
After all, she had loved him too.
So he strides off into the night, ignoring her cries of anguish, ignoring the pain in his own heart. Focusing instead on the beautiful burned-out stars, dead before their time, that continue to spill a faint light into this world of darkness.
FINIS