A/N: This story was written and completed long before the dichotomy of the Black family was revealed, and long before HBP was written and released.

One: My Beautiful Boy

I've been watching you sleep, my pretty boy, gauging your vulnerability and listening to the sound of your slow, unsuspecting breath. At ease. . . how dare you be at ease in my bed when time and time again you've made it perfectly clear that I am no more than a game you like to play to keep up with Lucius Malfoy? You think I don't know your little secrets. You think me daft, but most insulting is that you think me easy, my dear, sweet Rodolphus. You treat me like some silly little girl unworthy of your full devotion. You think that you can come and go with me as you please, but why do you keep coming back if I am just a game? Oh, my sleek and beautiful lover, the toy has been you all along, and I have played you with such skill that you will never wash the remnants of me from underneath your skin. I've won, and you don't even know it. I own you; you are mine…

Rodolphus Lestrange stirred from sleep and drew his foot along the warm skin of his lover's calf as he stretched out of slumber's embrace. She was watching him, her wild, blue eyes wide in the semi-dark, half-hues of morning. It unnerved him, waking up with her hovering over him that way, and with a quick, jerking revelation he darted upright.

"Jesus, Bella," he started. "What the hell are you doing?"

Bellatrix Black smiled; her razor-sharp, crooked grin sent chills through him. "I was watching you sleep, love," she cooed, leaning over and caressing the side of his cheek with her lingering mouth. Her breath stole across his skin like a puff of steam, chilling him from the inside out. "So vulnerable," she murmured, a dangerous, drawling laugh following her statement. "So beautiful."

"Stop," he pushed her away. "I can't believe I fell asleep!"

Chided, Bella withdrew herself from him and brought her long, slender legs up under her chin. She wrapped her arms around them, hugged them to her chest and tilted her head to rest a cheek atop her knees. "You must have been tired," she narrowed her eyes over him. "You really outdid yourself last night." There was a hard edge in her voice, her familiarity with him pretended to wane now that he had pushed her away in the callous hues of coming dawn.

Rodolphus turned his back to her and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. Pale as moonlight, his back was perfect, she thought, deliciously defined in all the right places and with trembling finger she reached over and traced a pattern on his skin. Chilled, he shook her touch away, "Come on," he sighed, "that's enough." Lifting a hand into his disheveled, black locks, he dropped his arm back onto the bed, and she kept on touching him that way.

"Awwe, poor ickle Rudykins," she purred.

It happened so quickly she almost hadn't seen it coming. Rodolphus spun around and grasped at her wrist in mid-stroke, wrapping his strong fingers around it and squeezing. "I said that's enough, Bella!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "Grow up, already." His last words evoked a powerful reaction, a sneer to be reckoned with, but his cold, green eyes didn't waver, and his hand lingered there in the air where he had clutched her wrist. For a long time they regarded one another that way, neither of them ready to give, and when he felt he'd made his point with her, he broke away from her stare and began searching the floor beside the bed. He gathered his clothing piece by piece and stood up. Head turning curiously, he craned his neck, ducked down again, and asked, "Where is my other shoe?" He took out his wand, " Accio shoe." The black, leather shoe came right into his hand and turned around, laying the pile on the bed where he'd been sitting.

"He won't care if you come down to breakfast, you know." she said. "He knows you've been staying here."

"I don't really care if he cares or not," he muttered into his shoulder as he stretched into his undershirt. "Besides, I'm not hungry."

"No," she was still sitting that way, head resting on her knees, the layers of her rich, blue-black hair falling sharply across her cheek. "Of course not."

Bellatrix watched as he pulled into his trousers, tucked in the undershirt and then buttoned and zipped in a well-practiced gesture. The whole morning looked like a black and white photograph to her, the shades of grey falling across his chest, accentuating the moonlit tone of his bare, white skin. "Don't wait for me tonight," he didn't look up while he buttoned his shirt.

"I wasn't planning to," she said.

As though she hadn't even spoken, he went on in his self-important tone, "I've been asked to oversee Rabastan's first assassination, and in his infernal incompetence, it could take all night." She rose up on her knees in the bed and leaned in, taking over for him by buttoning the last three and then the collar. It annoyed him, but he let her proceed, looking everywhere but down at her until she finished.

"I won't be here tonight anyway," she told him. Come on , she lifted her eyes to dare his, the dull surface of his steel-green gaze searching her face, ask me where I'll be .

Rodolphus took a step back, her hands hesitating in the air where only moments before the collar of his shirt had been. "When do you leave to go back to Hogwarts?"

"Sunday morning."

"Perhaps I'll see you Saturday evening, then," he said.

"If I don't see you first," she winked, a clever gesture that unnerved him. "Be a good boy, Rudy, or at least think about me when you're being bad."

He didn't even kiss her goodbye before he disapparated from the house, but even worse was the fact that he hadn't even said the words. Just like that he was gone, and she was left alone in her black and white photograph morning. He liked to think he'd hurt her, left her feeling vulnerable and weak, but Bellatrix Black did not keep either of those words in her vocabulary. She was stone, chiseled away only by time and weather, but never circumstance. Rising from her bed, she slipped into her silk bathrobe and then slid into the hallway. Quietly she tiptoed through house until she arrived outside her sister's door. She didn't knock, but turned the handle and stole into the room.

The lighting of Narcissa's room was different, perhaps because it faced the west, but Bellatrix believed it was because Narcissa herself was different and the room reflected her mood. She walked to the bed quietly, pulled back the coverlet and slipped in beside her sister. She snuggled close, Narcissa barely stirring as she did, but just enough to whisper, "Did he say goodbye this time?"

Bella sighed, "No."

Rolling onto her side, Narcissa draped a lazy arm over her younger sister. Strands of honey hair fell into her face and hid the delicate structure of her features. Bellatrix closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath through her nose and held it inside. "He's a horrible person, Bella."

"I know."

"Don't let him come back," Narcissa said. "He's hurting you. I hate that he's hurting you."

"He can't hurt me," she said. "Nothing can hurt me."

Underneath her hear, Narcissa was smiling weakly, "My baby Bella, you forget who I am. I know you. He is hurting you."

"Only because I let him."

"That is why you shouldn't let him come back. You're encouraging him."

"I know." Bella buried her face deeper into the down softness of her sister's pillow. She closed the heavy lids of her tired eyes and said, "I can't stay away from him."

"You can," she replied. "You're strong."

"He makes me weak."

"Nothing makes you weak."

"He does."

"No, no, my love. You're only being silly," Narcissa reached up and stroked her sister's cheek, and then tucked the hair behind her ear, "Don't say you love him."

"I do," she said. "I hate it, but I do love him."

"Oh, Bella," Narcissa sighed. "He doesn't deserve you."

"I think that's why I love him."

"Shh. You're tired," Narcissa said. "You don't know what you're saying."

Bella knew that her sister was just trying to protect her. Narcissa was the only one who would, the only one who loved her. She didn't speak again, but drifted off to sleep there in the warmth and comfort of her older sister's protective embrace.