Chapter Ten - Finding the Horcrux
A/N - N/A :p
Bellatrix refused to speak to Snape as they walked down the long, dark stairwell. Snape tried to ignore this behaviour and pretend that it didn't bother him. With thier wands alight, at last they came to a series of glowing barriers blocking the way, seeming to push them back. Even if he could, Snape would not dare to touch them.
'What is this?' Snape said in spite of himself. The Dark Lord hadn't told him about a series of glowing, green barriers. With a bored flick of her wand, Bellatrix melted the barriers away.
Snape turned to her, his eyes narrowing. 'How did you know how to do that?'
'Hmph.' Bellatrix answered. 'The Dark Lord might have told you how to find the fissure in the wall, but he instructed me how to get past the barriers.'
As they walked on, Snape thought darkly to himself. Why did the Dark Lord only tell him a few things and Bella a few things? He must have wanted them to work together, to need each other. But for what? There must be something that they were yet to face that the Dark Lord had told neither of them about, that they would be forced to work together in. Or perhaps he had sensed thier growing affection for one another and was playing them like puppets. All this testing. It wasn't unlike the Dark Lord.
The tunnel twisted and turned and grew thinner and smaller so that there was not enough room for both of them to walk side by side. Bellatrix pushed herself ahead without a word and Snape followed.
At last they came to a set of steps leading downwards and widening out towards the end. They followed the steps to find a large chamber at the bottom, Snape had to clench his teeth shut to stop him from gasping aloud.
There, in the middle of the chamber, was a rather crude throne; covered in large grisly spikes, still bearing remnants of old blood. Lined up against the wall there were several iron maidens, skulls peering out, thier faces still twisted in horror. Against the other far wall there was a stretching rack, a rotted and spider-web covered body still lying on it, streched so much that it hardly resembled a human. Old, frayed ropes hung from the ceiling, for what purposes Snape could only guess. And on a large table straight in front of them there sat many instrumets of torture, some of them still covered in dry blood. The smell of rotting flesh had long since dissapeared from the chamber, and spiders had taken to dwelling in the crevaces of the room, and on the corpses.
Bellatrix let out an eerie laugh. 'A torture chamber. I should have known.'
'We should have known.' Snape corrected her. 'The Dark Lord did not tell me either. He just said that there was a chamber at the end of this passage and it it lies the Horcrux.' He drew his wand up so they could see to the far corners of the room.
Bellatrix did not answer, continuing to act as if he were not there. She stepped forward, her hand brushing over the large stone table. Approaching the iron maidens she wrenched one of the doors open, hardly grimacing as the crushed skeletal body landed on her, it's arms splayed over her shoulders as if begging for freedom. She brushed it aside.
'Not in there.' She muttered to herself. She opened all the iron maidens to find nothing but corpses in tattered, ragged clothing. Disspointed, she turned to the stretching rack, Where Snape stood already, surveying the body. He tapped it with his wand, and it flew into the air.
'Not here.' he muttered quietly to himself.
It became almost a race against each other as they swept around the chamber, searching for the Horcrux.
But it was Bellatrix who found it, nestled under a pile of skulls in the very corner of the room. She reached for the glowing armband. The eyes of the snakes flashed red as she drew back. Snape was standing next to her, wand held over the pile of skulls.
'Better not touch it.' He said. 'Remember what happened to Dumbledore when he tried touch that blessed ring?'
Bellatrix grimaced at the thought of a blackened and withered hand. Pulling off her sweatshirt, she wrapped the horcrux in it.
'Wait!' Snape touched her shoulder, she shrugged his hand off.
'What?' She answered impatiently. But both of them fell silent, as the distant sound of rock moving met thier ears.
'What the-' But Bellatrix did not have time to finish her sentence, as the floor beneath thier feet caved in suddenly and they were falling into a deep, dark pit.
PR&R/rigamortis.