After another hour, they reached a smaller cave with a pool. Harry filled a flask, cast several cleaning and purification charms on it until he was sure it was drinkable, and drank deeply. Then he handed the flask to Bellatrix, who hesitated, but took it.
She drank while Harry transfigured some nearby rocks into food. Rather heavy food.
Harry then got a few items out of his pack.
"What are you doing?" Bellatrix asked, curious despite herself.
"Make yourself useful and cast a Lumos, I need some light here and I can't hold my wand. I'm making a torch so we don't have to spend magical energy. Besides, I'm tired of walking by a beam no wider then a flashlight."
"Flashlight?"
"Muggle."
"Oh," she sneered.
"You'd be surprised. Muggles don't need us, you know. They get by perfectly well. Better then us, in most cases."
"Why's that?"
Harry had found Hermione's invention. It wasn't ENTIRELY Muggle. The torch was made of the same material that Muggles use, but had been charmed to repel water and burn indefinately. Harry cursed himself for not thinking of it earlier.
"Inflammare," he said, setting the rags at one end on fire. An orange glow filled the cave.
"Better."
"What did you mean, Muggles get by better then us?" Bellatrix demanded.
Harry grinned inwardly. Seems he had gotten to her somehow.
"The Wizarding World doesn't evolve; it degenerates. Well, so does the Muggle world, but nowhere near as fast. Purebloods especially, since there is so much inbreeding. Tell me, is there anyone you could nowadays marry that is not related within at most five degrees?"
He could almost hear the witch's brain groan under the pressure of finding one.
"No," she finally admitted.
"See? Inbreeding becomes a problem. Eventually, my friend Hermione assures me, too much inbreeding will also weaken magic. Pureblood families are the only ones to produce squibs, for instance. It hardly ever happens to children with one Muggleborn parent. In fact, half blood children are often much stronger then purebloods. They seem to combine the best of both worlds. Tom Riddle and Severus Snape are both extremely powerful, and both have a Muggle parent. I myself…well maybe I'm not very powerful, but I'm not bad either…I have a Muggleborn parent as well."
Bellatrix opened and closed her mouth like a fish, unable to contradict Harry's reasoning.
"But…but…Dumbledore…he was very powerful…"
Harry nodded. "Yes. But need I point out his eccentricities, or his brother's? Besides, how do we know for sure that he WAS a pureblood?"
Bellatrix nearly fainted on the spot. There were two things about Dumbledore that no one, not even his enemies, had ever doubted: That he was a pureblood, and that he was a Gryffindor.
"Soon you'll tell me he was really a Slytherin," she sulked decidedly.
Harry shrugged. "Dunno about that. But I certainly am. The Sorting Hat wanted to put me there."
"NO!" She yelled, "That is just not possible! The Boy Who Lived, in OUR house!"
Harry snorted. "Don't be insane. If Wormtail was a Gryffindor, then I could certainly be a Slytherin. But I had just met your nephew, and well, you know how it is with kids. I didn't want to be in the same house as he was."
They settled down to sleep after a long and weary day. Normally, they would not even have thought about turning their backs to the other, let alone sleeping, but that was pointless now; they both knew they needed each other if they were ever going to get out.
But Harry could hear Bellatrix turning and tossing for ages before he fell asleep himself; it seemed he had underminded quite a number of the'truths' the witch had been brought up with.
The next day they took a supply of water, not knowing how long they'd be and when they'd next encounter drinkable water, and followed Harry's wand.
Now that they had a proper light source, Harry noticed the carvings on the walls. In elementary school he had been taught about cave-men drawing paintings, but this looked far to sophisticated for that.
"I wonder who made those," he said out loud.
Bellatrix answered indifferently,
"These caves were here long before the Hogwart's Four. Salazar Slytherin explored them, together with Rowena Ravenclaw. They concluded that a secluded sects of witches and wizards had once lived here. It's in Hogwarts: A History. The paintings had lost their animation over the ages, but not the faint trace of magic on them. Too bad they can't speak any longer, they could have shown us out."
Harry stopped dead in his tracts. "Wait a second. Can't we reanimate them?"
Bellatrix sneered at him. "They are probably warded, imbecilic child. We don't know a thing about them."
Ignoring her, Harry looked more closely at the paintings. There were some very strange creatures that he did not fancy reanimating, scantily clad witches doing…things Harry wasn't yet ready to think about, before he discovered one painting that still moved slightly.
It was clearly a nobleman.
Harry thought about it.
"Do you know about feeding magic into a painting?" he asked.
Bellatrix sighed.
"Very well, then, if we must," she grumbled.
"You put your hand on it, and focus on your magic. Then you say 'Reanimatus."
Harry looked up in surprise. "That is just ridiculously easy."
She rolled her eyes.
Harry put his hand on the picture.
"Reanimatus," he said, and felt his magic flow out.
"How do I stop?" he asked in a panic.
"You just do," Bellatrix said lazily, leaning against the opposing wall and cleaning her fingernails.
It took immense concentration, but finally Harry managed to pull out. He panted, reached for a vial of Pepperup and downed it.
"Drat. You could've told me before I did this!"
"Wouldn't have been half the fun," the witch said, completely unconcerned.
The painting glowered a bit before all the magic was absorbed, and smiled.
"Why hello," he said, "I was afraid I'd be stuck on that wall, unmoving, forever. Consciousness lasts longer then movement, you know. Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. I am Oswy."
"I know you," Harry said, "You were in my history books. You lived about three hundred years before Hogwarts was founded."
"Stop chatting up a painting and get on with it," Bellatrix snapped.
"I'll say, you don't have much patience! You kind of remind me of my wife," Oswy glanced nervously at a nearby painting, "But don't tell her I said that."
Harry snickered.
"We need to find the way out of here, you stupid two dimensional artistic interpretation of a geriatric painter!" Bellatrix snarled.
Harry looked up in surprise. "Why, Bella, I never knew you could use really big words," he said innocently, "you must've been hanging out with Snape a lot lately."
He easily dodged the hex that came flying his way.
"Oho, you two fight as much as me and the missus do," Oswy gushed happily, "anyway, what can I do for you?"
"We need to find the other exit. The one nearest to the castle collapsed."
Oswy beamed with pleasure. "That is easy enough. At least I think it is. Don't know how these caves have held up since I was last able to travel the walls. At the end of this corridor, you go to the right. Then at the end of that, you go left. And at the end of that, you go right. And at the end of that…"
"Yes, we GOT IT!" Bellatrix spat out. "Left, right, left, right."
"No, no, no," Oswy said, looking worried, "right, left, right, left. Or you'll end up in Penda's cave. And you don't want to be there."
"Why not?" Harry asked.
"Well, Penda stored some nasty stuff there."
Harry nodded, and waited until Bellatrix had started walking, bored.
"Do you happen to know if a man came here, a few decades ago, to hide stuff?" he whispered hastily.
"Yes," Oswy replied equally soft, "he did. In Penda's cave. If you ever venture there, I will assist you, but not with the dark witch with you."
"I know," Harry sighed, "I hate her. But we're stuck together if we want to get out alive."
"Quit talking to the fucking portrait and get MOVING, Potter," Bellatrix shouted.
An angry look crossed Harry's face, but then he ran to catch up with her.
"Idiotic tendency to talk to a piece of canvas," she muttered.
"Wall."
"What?"
"He's painted on the wall."
"Potter?"
"Yes, Lestrange?"
"Shut up before I curse you and die here of old age."
Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right…
"That roof doesn't look stable."
"Do you see another way?"
"No. Still…"
"Awww, is the wittle baby scawed again?" Bellatrix taunted.
"To have an entire cave and lake collapse on our heads? I think I have the right to be slightly nervous."
"Don't be ridiculous, it's been here for 1500 years or so and nothing happened. Why should anything happen on the one day we walk through it?"
"Erm…because we both attract bad luck?" Harry ventured a guess.
"I do not attract bad luck!"
Harry snorted and coughed something that sounded like "CoughAzcoughKabancough".
Fortunately for him, the witch had already walked on and didn't hear.
"Can I ask you something?"
"…"
"Well, why DID you join Voldemort?"
"I don't suppose you could stop saying his name, and use 'My Lord' instead, could you?"
"Of course not, he's not my Lord, and never will be."
Bellatrix sighed.
"Rastaban and Rodolphus joined. All parents of everyone I knew had the same ideas. The Malfoys, the Notts…MOST of the Blacks…" she glared at Harry, as if Sirius' estrangement from his family was his fault.
"Muggles are inferior. It is sickening to even consider marrying one, let alone being conceived by one."
"But why join Voldemort? I thought Slytherins were proud. Why do you all grovel at his feet?"
"We do no such thing! Our Lord provides us with power, and glory."
"He provides himself with it."
"And it reflects upon us. Besides, he welcomed Slytherins. Made us feel like we were worthwile. In school we were the outsiders, the unworthy ones. When a Slytherin got into a fight, it was automatically our fault. Then, at our seventh year, our Lord came and told us we had a glorious future, away from those prejudices. With him, who could still appreciate purebloodedness for what it was worth. So we joined."
"And the killing, and torturing?"
The witch smirked evilly. "Added bonusses, Potter. I was squemish about it at first too, before I realized I was doing it for the betterment of our Lord, and against those who would interfere with his plans."
Harry sighed. "But innocent children?"
She looked at him, taxing. "Potter…you are too young to know, but in a war, if you spare the children of your enemies, they will grow up to be enemies themselves. That is a luxury you cannot afford. Mercy is something that has to wait until you are established and peaceful times arrive, when all bow before you. That is when you can afford to be kind."
Harry paled. "Sacrifices for the greater good?" he asked, his voice trembling.
Bellatrix looked at him in an odd manner. "Yes, exactly," she confirmed.
"I just don't like those stalagmites…stalagtites…whatever their name is."
"They are just hanging out, Potter."
"Oh ha ha."
"Look, will you stop worrying so much! I bet I could even send a reducto and they wouldn't come down!"
"NO!"
"RE…"
"NO, DON'T"
"DUC"
"STOP!" Harry lunged at the witch's wand.
"TO!"
The entire ceiling rumbled, and the pointed rocks hanging from the ceiling began to fall. Harry ran like mad for a cache in the wall 15 feet ahead as he was pelted with debree. Bellatrix was close on his heels, a bit pale at the result of her little joke. They huddled together in the small alcove, trying to get all limbs and other bodyparts inside and out of the way of the avalanche of stone.
"YOU STUPID BITCH!" Harry yelled over the noise, "YOU BLOODY NEARLY MURDERED US, YOU INSANE COW!"
"IF YOU HADN'T BEEN SUCH A LITTLE SHITE ABOUT THE ROCKS I WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN TEMPTED…"
They both screamed as a rock hit only a foot away from their hiding place.
Later, Harry didn't know how it happened, but suddenly they had their arms around each other in pure terror.
As the rocks continued to bombard, their lips suddenly found each other, and with a vicious snarl, both still pissed as hell at the other, they were lost to the world in a passionate kiss.
Not noticing when the rocks stopped falling and the dust settled.
Not noticing when they slipped out of the alcove a bit, scraping their legs against sharp rubble.
Aware only of the anger that burned in them and took its revenge on their companion's lips.