I can't in good conscience pretend this chapter is T-rated, so M it is.
June 1974
"Merlin's beard, why would you want to marry me?"
"You're hardly a horrible match." The only 'proper' match Bellatrix could bring herself to consent to.
Rodolphus rolled his eyes. They were outside one of their training areas, the sheep-shed Bellatrix had first dueled with Greyback in. Only a couple of frozen solid to-be-eaten sheep still remained in the haphazard pile in the far-right corner.
"I mean why would you want to marry me?"
"We're a good team. We... things are simple between us."
"Yes." Rod said, now more serious. "I trust you too, and I don't say that lightly. But Bella... marriage?"
"Why, who'd you want to marry?"
"Well... For one, I didn't plan to marry for another decade at least. Then I figured I'd charm a hot ambitious witch ten years my junior, in awe of my maturity and life experience." He grinned. "I mean, you're hot and ambitious too, just... On good days, you look fond of me. You don't quite pet me and say 'good dog', but -"
Bellatrix had been clasping her hands, her throat dry and her insides twisted from all this. His teasing loosened something. She punched his shoulder, hard.
"Ow!" Rodolphus exclaimed. "Merlin, you add so much romance to my life." His insolent smile fell. "You want kids with me?"
"No! Not... not now." Not ever.
The relief in Rod's eyes mirrored hers. "Uh... shouldn't we see each other before?"
What? "See-"
"Naked." He stood stoic and solemn, but his cheeks glowed pink. "I can't remember you with anyone, ever, actually."
"I know how it works, thank you. I can't see how adding a man would be better than what I can do by myself. But well, perhaps you'll surprise me."
Rod shut his eyes, as if wracked by spasms. He was struggling not to laugh. "So. Much. Romance," he mouthed. All mirth vanished from his face as he took a good look at her. He didn't bother to hide his concern. Bellatrix swallowed back a scream, an urge to blow up something.
"Bella, I'll marry you. I mean, we can separate if we end up not standing each other... But only if you tell me why."
She took a shuddering breath. "My favorite curse is Silencio"
"No, it's Incarcerous."
"Obviously. My favorite curse is Silencio."
Problem with curses, and blood ones, was that informing someone of them could be tricky. Amanda had found out herself, but Bellatrix had had to bind the witch to silence to be able to control the foreign urge to wipe the witch's memory entirely.
"My favorite pastime is genealogy," she added.
Morgana, that man looked constipated when he thought too hard.
The seconds were painfully long until he spoke again. "You can't tell me."
Finally. She smiled extra-sweetly. "You're the smartest man I know, Rod."
He scowled at her sarcasm. He then leaned backwards against the shed, his narrowed eyes far away. "The wedding will fix it?"
Sharp giggles bubbled out of Bellatrix's throat. "I just love the sound of Mrs. Lestrange. The idea of your family magic absorbing mine."
She could see understanding fill his eyes. She'd read everything, she'd asked all the questions. She had an ally in Cassiopeia because Aunt Cassy wanted to be on Bellatrix's good side. Bellatrix had significantly more power than Rod : no matter the name they chose to use in public, or how inheritance would be decided, the Black magic would absorb the Lestrange one during their vows. This... this vassalage Lord Black had forced her into drained her magic but did not decrease her overall power levels.
But there were ways of blocking one's magic temporarily. Ways taught to mediwitches. And the moment Bellatrix became magically a Lestrange, the Black blood curse would loosen its hold.
It would mean marrying as barely more than a muggle. A necessary price for freedom.
She'd told no one else of her plan. As far as Cassiopeia was concerned, Bellatrix had decided to put off finding a solution. Not that marriage had been her first choice. But even with her decent occlumency skills, she couldn't seem to be able to contemplate much else. She couldn't even muster much anger at Lord Black, only annoyance at what it meant for her. Her minds twisted itself into knots to avoid thoughts of vengeance, to find everyone excuses. Enforced loyalty. The curse affected her very thoughts, no wonder it ate up half her magic. Bellatrix figured the Blacks had stopped using it when they'd realized they were making their kids functionally squibs.
"Fine," Rodolphus finally said. "I'd rather marry you than see you... diminished by whatever this is. I have nothing to lose. Mother will be pleased. You should hear her, moaning about her two stubborn bachelor sons."
Rod stuck out his chin and pointed at it. Bellatrix placed a purposefully slobbery kiss on it, hiding her gratitude behind a cheeky grin.
"Will you invite Lord Voldemort? 'Stan told me he said you had to decide where your loyalties lie, and that he'd made it clear the subject was not to be brought up again."
Bellatrix stiffened, her lips thinning.
"I'm asking because nobody would have been shocked to see the two of you get together."
Nobody talked to her like Rod. Not even Cissy. Meda had once, but that had been long ago. That... probably was an argument in favor of marrying Rod, actually.
She wasn't sixteen anymore. Now she thought of Voldemort as older rather than just old. Only, it was his magic, his admiration she craved. The rest... Narcissa had always made it sound fun, the seduction, the sex. Cissy was restrained in her letters, out of respect for her future husband, but Bellatrix was quite aware those two had fun. Bellatrix sometimes fantasized about Voldemort desiring her, about the power she would hold over him were he so entranced, but when she actually was in his presence, she was content with his attention, and with the magic he showed her.
They hadn't spoken since Beltane, almost two months before. He was doubtless expecting her to crawl to him. Ha. People like him, like Aunt Cassy, lost all respect for those who gave in to their whims. And people like Lord Voldemort crushed you when you lost their respect. As infuriating as it was, Bellatrix had to be patient.
July 1974
Duncan McMillian and Evander Ross came from loving, protective families. When he thought of 'danger', Evander thought of the time he'd realized rule breaking would not fly despite Prof. McGonagall's mam being his great aunt. Duncan was of the same mind : disappointing loved ones was the worst. Physical danger wasn't something they much pondered, ever. After all, magic fixed most ills and even broken bones could be fixed overnight.
The boys were Gryffindor, thirteen years old, and tired of being treated like little kids during the Summer break. They thought of nothing of going out to play hide and seek during the full moon. Teenage recklessness, a dash of rebellion and thirst for adventure. And maybe the fact no adult had taken the time to sit them down and explain exactly what had been going on while they had been sheltered at Hogwarts. The boys knew well the hills around home: there wasn't a road for miles and the most exciting thing they could hope to run into was an escaped sheep.
The McMillians were a light-aligned great house, one that did not disown its squibs and did not oppose the occasional mixed marriage. But they treated lycanthropy like a moral flaw, like something that befell those who associated with the wrong crowd. They did not advocate for the persecution of werewolves, but they opposed initiatives to help. The Ross, a minor mixed-blood family, distinguished for producing skilled artisans, had no political voice. They were just to be a warning to Albus Dumbledore, because everyone knew he had a soft spot for Minerva McGonagall, born of Antonia Ross and a muggle farmer.
Fenrir Greyback believed that if enough people became werewolves, those in power would be hard pressed to deny them person status. If important mages and their kids started being bitten, things would change. Today, the high and mighty (and many less high and mighty) likened a bite to a death sentence, but really, it was so because they decided to make it so. Without the social stigma, lycanthropy didn't have to be such a curse. Greyback had long ago embraced his wolf.
Tonight the wolf hunted, his mind empty but for the awareness of prey as his powerful legs swallowed the distance between him an the oblivious boys. A golden chain glinted around his massive neck. A portkey Bellatrix Black had given him, that had activated the moment he had transformed.
Two days before, the Wasps had come to Scotland, for a friendly match with former Hogwarts players who had turned down Quidditch positions to pursue other careers. It had been quite a sight, these twenty-somethings from the four houses flying together against the professionals. That's where Bellatrix had overheard the kids making their summer plans, and tonight's sleepover.
Despite Lord Voldemort's pretty words, Greyback had felt collared these last few years. There was always a reason to play nice. To wait. Truth was, few of the high and mighty had a true stomach for violence : violence compromised their comfort and position. Bellatrix had no stomach problems. Tonight, she was Greyback's favorite.
The werewolf's snarls drowned the boys' screams. Dripping yellowed fangs sunk into Duncan's tender flesh, his ears singing at the boy's screams. Yards ahead, Evander clambered up a tree, eyes wild with terror. Silly little prey. He was skinnier than Duncan, bones cracked as Greyback snagged his leg.
Bellatrix, using a conjured owl as her eyes, activated the second portkey she'd given Greyback before he could tear the boy apart, transporting the werewolf to the warded barn he'd finish his night in. Clad in a mask and disillusionment charms, she made both unconscious kids float and grabbed them by their shirts.
Blood soaked through the cloth and onto her hands and arms as she apparated them at Saint Mungo's, sending shivers of disgust and excitement up her arms.
She'd behaved for three months. Three months to give Voldemort a chance to explain what exactly was the problem with attacking Diagon Alley. Three months of being ignored. Enough.
She smiled at the panic bleeding from the Prophet articles the next day. Minister Jenkins' credibility was at its lowest. Bellatrix's grin broadened as Dumbledore made a statement on the wireless about Greyback, and pointed out, again, that this 'Lord Voldemort' was rumored to have associations with him. Good old Headmaster, daring to speak up in a world where people cowered in shadows.
It had been a while, since they'd attacked wizards. Last Beltane to be precise, (this Beltane didn't count, nobody had been truly hurt), and people had started feeling safe again. Now the not-rich and not-magically talented of Britain were painfully aware once more of how shitty their wards were. And of how their addresses were pretty much publicly available if they lived in Ministry-approved wizard-built houses.
With fierce werewolves now on the prowl... Finding comfy, hidden, muggle houses to live in, like wizards had traditionally done until the eighteenth century, was suddenly a very attractive option.
Crouch declared he was organizing a squad to round up all known werewolves. But honestly, who entrusted their security to the Ministry of Magic since Grindewald? A teacher had had to step in. Yes, Albus Dumbledore was extraordinary, but you could spin it how you wanted, it still looked bad. (And now Britain's werewolves were pissed, angry enough to listen to Greyback who promised them revenge and wands. Tit for tat, Bellatrix didn't stiff her allies.)
Finally, things were moving again. It distracted Bellatrix from the fact that all but the mildest dark spells left her feeling dizzy. From the fact she'd be wed soon, on the last Wednesday of August.
Despite the whispering about the short engagement, Orion Black hadn't wanted to delay. It seemed he didn't trust the blood curse fully. He thought he had her cornered. The fool.
August 1974
Natural light filled the music room of the Westham Black Manor. The piano Cissy still occasionally played was in a corner, but the rest had been moved so that Bellatrix could get ready. The Manor's grounds were too small for a reception, the wedding would take place on the roof, charmed into a flat terrace for the occasion.
Narcissa spelled the silver ribbons in Bellatrix's hair and adjusted the black lacework across her plunging neckline. The dress was white, hugging her chest and hips then fluidly falling in loose lace-edged waves down to her feet. The gown was slit: Bellatrix could not have worn something that forbade her brooms or restrained her movements.
The sisters were silent. There was little to say. Bellatrix liked Rod. She'd be able to control him if he stopped being likable. Narcissa knew something had transpired, but as Bellatrix had made it clear that she blamed Cissy in part, for all but eloping with Malfoy, they both pretended things were fine.
An odd emptiness filled Bellatrix. For two weeks, she'd been sleeping with goblin-made armbands that sucked all magic out of her. After two days, she'd had to stop going to work (her colleagues had winked and gushed about her wedding, and she'd struggled not to hex them right there). Three days ago, she'd stopped wearing the armbands. Rod was no squib: she didn't need to be entirely drained. Amanda had anyway promised it would take at least a week for her magic to get back to its natural levels.
Amanda thought the armbands were one of the many objects that had ended up in the Black vaults over the centuries. Rod had gotten himself admitted to Saint Mungo's for curse damage (a hex that made random body parts switch every time that he cast a spell or that his magic reacted to a spell being cast on him.) The plan had been to hit him with something that would have required his magic to be briefly bound so that the medimages could do their job. Coming in to visit her poor fiancé, stealing the armbands, and replacing them by fakes had been child's play (the curse symptoms disappeared as expected, no one was the wiser). The armbands weren't used every day at the hospital, not nearly, so Bellatrix would be able to return them by the time she became a suspect. She might even tell the truth. A smile quirked her lips as she pictured Uncle Orion's face. Blood curses on your own kin didn't make you popular, even among the dark-aligned.
Suddenly, Narcissa stilled, frozen in mid-movement. A lock of blonde hair hung in an impossible position, as if it had been petrified. Bellatrix bolted upright in a room where everything had been frozen in time.
She saw him in the mirror, a swirl of dark robes. His fingers grasped her bare shoulders before she could turn. She shivered at the darkness pulsing under his skin. Her temper flared at his dramatic entrance and utter disrespect for her personal space, yet she was thrilled to see him. Finally, he'd come to her. After he'd ignored her after Greyback's attack, she'd started to despair.
"Am I not worthy of your guest list, Bella?" His breath was hot on her neck.
"I like it better when you take what you want instead of waiting for permission." Her teasing smile froze as she gazed upon Narcissa, still as statue, her eyes dull and unseeing. "Let her go," she whispered. "I'll send her away."
He vanished, but his touch stayed. Time flowed through the room once more. Narcissa blinked at seeing Bellatrix standing.
"We're done, Cissy. Please leave for a while."
Cissy frowned. "Did you just obliviate me? Did I say something?"
Bellatrix felt a flash of annoyance towards Voldemort. His invisible hand was tight next to her neck, the creases it made on her skin hidden under her hair. "I need some time to myself, to be in the right mood."
Eyes still tight, Narcissa squeezed her arm. "If something's wrong, I'm counting on you to tell me." She smiled, that true smile that she saved for very few, and that very few people gave Bellatrix. "You're beautiful, Bella."
Bellatrix weakly smiled back.
Dark eyes stared back at her in the mirror the second Narcissa shut the door. Voldemort's free hand slid to her stomach.
His eyes narrowed. "I almost expected you pregnant."
Laughter, a touch hysterical, burst out of her lips. "Oh, you know me so well, my Lord!"
He let her stomach go, but not her shoulder. He didn't move back. "Then why this wedding?"
"Get rid of that face," she muttered, twisting against his grip so she'd face him. He still didn't move. She had to tilt her head to look at him. Her elbows brushed his chest.
The dark haired man with the classical handsome profile left place to pale rough skin and slanted red eyes. It was right there, at the edge of her mind, the telltale grasping of legilimency.
Fury rose in her, hot and flustered and full of loathing for the blood curse she could not speak of. Voldemort frowned, his lips inches from her forehead, and she realized that her mind was shut off from him. Even he could not casually foil ancestral magics.
She sucked in a breath, swaying as he pushed harder. The blood curse, fed by her trapped magic, lashed out. Only, there was little magic to use, and who knew what would happen if the curse used too much -
"No!" she whispered furiously, tugging back. This was her magic! How dare this curse use her like –
Voldemort's own magic flared, his grip tightening as the assault tore a surprised gasp from his lips. She stumbled, her chest pressed against his.
A new shiver coursed through her as their magics clashed. Hers was much weaker, slippery like a grasping mist : even at her best, she was not so steeped in dark arts that her magic was a force of its own. His darkness surrounded her like a mantle of electric fire. She could barely breathe. Yet she didn't pull back, too curious, too exhilarated. It chafed, threatening to absorb her. It was invasively close.
But so was her bare thigh, which had slipped out of the slit of her gown, and somehow ended between his legs. His right hand slid from her shoulder to the small of her back, a grip different than a mentor's possessiveness.
She met his eyes and found them all too focused on her. Impulsively, she moved her leg and shifted his robes just enough. "After, I'll be married, it'll be quite improper," she breathed.
The wedding dress, the ribbons in her styled hair, had felt like a costume, yet now, as he lifted her off the ground through muscle and magic, his mouth against her neck, the thrill sent fire through her limbs.
She gasped, arching her back as he slid inside her. It had been fast, too fast for her to be fully ready. But it was him, his breathing ragged in the crook of her neck, his overpowering magic somehow stilled, cradling her. Her hand grasped the folds of his robes while the other roamed over his face and head, those disturbing, magnificent features. Her teeth were against his shoulder. She bit him through the cloth of his robes, willing his attention on her, and not just the sensations her body was offering him.
He hissed in pain and for a second she thought he might shove her off and hex her. "I don't enjoy pain, Bella."
"I just might," Bellatrix managed, a rumbling moan building in her throat as he thrust harder.
His teeth sunk in the soft flesh above her collarbone. She wrapped her legs around him tighter, hissing as she arched her spine. It hurt and yet somehow it didn't, like a searing flash, heightening all her senses.
His breathing quickened and finally she understood what Cissy had meant, about the power. Never had anyone felt enough of a prize to Bella for her to see the point, until now. She abruptly shoved him off, landing gracelessly on her feet. He caught her as she spun and trapped her against him, his chest against her back, his hands on her breast and leg, something raw in his red eyes.
"You're not going anywhere," he warned. It was there, the way his voice caught. The desire. Her power.
She shifted to welcome him once more and gasped as she found him. From behind her, his thrusts struck deeper. She clenched her teeth as it became almost painful. "Harder," she hissed. Moans of pleasure escaped her lips as his fingers dug painfully into her skin. It was both too much and not enough. She focused on him, the hiking to his breath, the rumble in his chest, and purred in satisfaction that she was doing this to him. He shuddered and stopped moving against her. She smiled upon feeling a tingle of magic. A contraceptive charm. Good man.
The look in his eyes was that of someone taken by surprise. But not one of regret. One that said they should do this again sometime. Bellatrix grinned and shifted back in place. She checked her hair, biting her lip in (pointless) worry. He'd barely touched her face.
"Your magic seems... feeble today."
Morgana, of all the things he could choose to say! A compliment wouldn't have killed him. "Perhaps you should educate yourself more on Ancient and Noble dark families, my Lord." Riddle, you halfblood. But if she said that, there was no coming back.
"Why didn't you come to me to remove the blood curse?"
How- It struck her then. She'd been a child. A brainless flobberworm. Orion and her parents had conspired against her, but for all that Rod was the only one who dared say it to her face, it was no secret that she and Voldemort were close, and that Lord Voldemort wasn't one to cross. Her family would never have bound her like that, especially without involving Cassiopeia, the only Black with a sliver of a chance against him, without Voldemort's blessing.
He had orchestrated this. This man who wanted to own, to be bowed to. He must have expected her to rush to him, eager to claim a debt once he freed her. At least it meant he knew a way to undo the blood curse, because he couldn't have wanted her to be Uncle Orion's.
A lesson a loyalty, huh? "Rod has one advantage over you," she hissed. "He knows he can't own me, and he doesn't mind."
She stole a kiss then, because stealing was necessary when one wouldn't give, and no girl wanted their first time with another to go without a kiss. "I must go to my wedding." She raised her chin in challenge as he didn't move. "Unless you want us to leave this room together, my Lord? I don't care if people talk."
His expression was unfathomable as he disapparated. Perhaps he'd expected her angrier. But why would she be: she'd found a way out on her own. She'd won. Not against Uncle Orion, but against Voldemort.
She giggled, half exhilaration, half madness, as she charmed the teeth marks off her skin, and mustered her best innocent smile for Narcissa and Amanda, who were waiting right outside the spelled door.
September 1974
Lounging in her new bed by the morning light, Bellatrix should have been happy. It had worked. Uncle had to know, he'd been avoiding her. But since Voldemort had let slip that the blood curse had been his plan, Orion didn't occupy much space in her thoughts. Still, she could fantasize once more about stripping the skin off Lord Black in layers, proof the magicked loyalty had evaporated.
Along with her last name. Bellatrix Lestrange. It sounded so very odd.
Rod had surprised her with a muggle property in Belvedere, near London. Highly skeptical at first, she'd had to admit she much preferred it to living with either of their parents, and there was something fun about fixing up a place which had never been touched by magic. She'd taught the furniture to stack itself, and charmed the floors and walls to partly vanish for when she wanted space to fly indoors. She was now working on the ceilings, inspired by the Hogwarts' Great Hall (but why stop at showing the actual weather? Why not the night sky or, say, a firestorm depending on the mood, or on what message one wanted to give guests?).
"We should hang a sign saying you're a medium, Bella. Get our dear neighbors scowling. Then we'll make those wooden crosses over their beds bleed. We'll buy their property and expand when they become convinced you've made a deal with the Devil. The Ministry will never suspect." Rod smiled thoughtfully. "I could charm enlarged termites into their walls..."
He witty husband. She couldn't deny he was handsome enough, and he was an attentive lover. Her body seemed to like him more than it liked Voldemort, probably because Rod bothered to pay attention to it.
Yet there was no thrill. She was thoroughly satisfied and yet didn't particularly want more. She hadn't asked him to bite her. It just... hadn't come up.
Rolling over on the bed, he kissed her forehead. She slung her arm around him and she didn't worry about where her wand was or if he could physically overpower her. Because Rod was safe. His magic was the barest whisper as she let her head rest against his chest.
And she was bored. There had to be something deeply wrong with her. Rod didn't seem to mind. He was eager to show her off at whatever function or gathering they attended.
She did like Rod. Perhaps that was life : realizing compromises had to be made.
A handsome pigeon with a snake-shaped mark on its wing swept through the open window seconds after Rodolphus had left for the Ministry. Bellatrix, who'd hoped to snag three more hours of sleep after her night shift, shot an incinerating curse at it. It made for a satisfying pile of ash.
The doorbell rang. She'd charmed it to make muggles violently vomit if they touched it. No retching was heard. She huffed and went to open the door.
"You're right."
Bellatrix, hair disheveled and half-naked under her outer robe, found her annoyance replaced by curiosity. "No doubt, my Lord. About what specifically?"
She stiffened as Voldemort swept into the house, but she saw no sneer in his eyes at its very unfinished state, nor even any surprise. Then again, raised muggle. Not that anyone would suspect, the way he carried his dark robes.
"I have been delaying unnecessarily. It's time to stride forward and see who follows. Those who don't will be dealt with. I need you to help me with a ritual." He pulled a old tome out of his robes and gave her a charming smile. "For the newlyweds' library."
Runic receptacles, by Kehinde Òkúsànyà, translated by Moira Lovegood.
Bellatrix's heart hammered as she took it. After their last encounter, she'd had no idea how this one would go. Relief was slowly unknotting her muscles. "Will we use this today?"
"Yes, runic receptacles can be made to hold magic. They can be used to power enchantments and wards, or to maximize casting power. With a few days' work we should have enough receptacles to double our magic for a half-hour." He smiled thinly at her. "Orion came to me in quite a state. It seems you're a Lestrange not just in name but in magic. Free from the curse."
She crossed her arms, a sardonic smile on her lips."To think I'd not be happily married if not thanks to your meddling!" She giggled at the annoyance that flashed over his features. "What did you make Uncle promise you? "
"Full access to his library, for you, not me. I'll have to ask you nicely. Also: Bean!"
Bellatrix's eyes widened in delight as her childhood elf popped in the room and bowed. Bean had never bowed to her. "Mistress. Old Master and Mistress have been treating you like bad child one time too many." There was a hint of sardonic amusement in the old elf's tone, one born of serving three generations of dysfunctional dark families. "Bean serves Mistress Bellatrix now."
Bean. He'd gotten Mother and Father to surrender Bean. That was as much backpedaling as she was ever going to get from Lord Voldemort. Fine. Bellatrix didn't want to fight either. Especially with him dangling the possibility of storing her magic for later use. The things she could do with twice her magic...
"So what are we going to do with all those runic receptacles?" she asked eagerly.
They didn't sleep together that time. Or most of the times. Not that she didn't enjoy his body, or, even more, feeling him want her. But magic had come first, and it still did. And in the same way, while her body could get his breathing to quicken, it was the fearless way she struck back, the times she challenged him in private, that put that glint in his eyes. He once pointed out that being married didn't remove her right to refuse Rodolphus, and she replied she didn't see why she couldn't have both. It was a lot of fun, to see him jealous. But he'd learned his lesson: push too hard, and she'd choose freedom.
She told Rod then, because secrets encouraged blackmail. He'd looked mildly hurt, then crossed his arms and asked her to vow she'd not magically or physically harm any woman he'd get involved with. She did, and they'd had to laugh about it, their very proper pureblood marriage. 'We have more fun together than our parents,' Rod had pointed out. And she'd had to agree.
Yes, she liked Rod very much.
October 1974
The cotton mill next to river Grwyne Fawr in the Black Mountains had once belonged to the Notts. They'd sold it to muggles in the late nineteenth century, a lean period for the family finances, turning a much greater profit than if they'd waited for a wizard buyer. They'd never meant for it to stay muggle. Fifty years later, Arisha Nott had 'persuaded' old Andrew Yandle to alter his will in her favor. But the persistence of Yandle's family, friends and lawyers had been such that Arisha and her brother, fed up, had been less than subtle in getting rid, permanently, of the muggles. Both Notts had been locked up in Azkaban and ministry wards had ever since surrounded the mill, forbidding any wizard or witch to set foot on the land.
The old mill, now in the possession of Dylan Yandle, had been sold to be destroyed and built over. It should have happened generations ago : since the advent of steam, there was no profit in traditional cotton mills, but as ancient magical buildings were wont to do, it had charmed its owners into cherishing it, until the lack of magical inhabitants had left the building too weak to triumph over plain old greed (or, some would say, pragmatism).
Tiberius' remembered his Aunt Arisha fondly and had never forgiven the Wizengamot for condemning her so harshly. So much hand-wringing for six dead muggles, when those beasts had killed each other by the millions during the '40s. Today his family was reclaiming their property, and the Ministry was welcome to stop him.
Tiberius Nott had gone to Hogwarts with Tom Riddle. Along with Nero Mulciber, Brannon Rosier, and Ladon Lestrange, they were among his oldest allies (Nott didn't delude himself into thinking they were truly friends.) They sported the Dark Mark on their arms, because they knew Voldemort from a time he'd been more impulsive, less polished, and didn't need any more convincing.
They'd gathered with a squad of younger folk : Elric Jugson, Thorfinn Rowle, Gaius Flint, the Lestrange brothers and Rodolphus' new wife. Those were the new guard, those ready to fight for a Britain where muggles made space for wizards instead of the other way around.
Serena Selwyn nee Rowle and her husband Mithras stood next to Lord Voldemort. In her velvet blue robes and dragonhide heels, Lady Selwyn looked rather out of place in the muddy field, but she had that bearing of people used to being the center of attention, and of power. And perhaps that was why she and her husband seemed to not know how exactly to place themselves around Voldemort. What were great aristocrats to do with the unstoppable rising general?
"Cousins, thank you for indulging me today." Charming and charismatic, Voldemort stole everyone's attention with seemingly effortless ease (Nott remembered Riddle's social fumbling during those first Hogwarts years, his cold fury when he was sneered at, and his colder revenge). "The Wizengamot was established to unite the great houses into a true nation. I want to show you it's time for Britain to stop fearing to be great."
"We're curious to see what you have prepared for us, my Lord," Mithras replied. The Selwyns, after the Gaunts, had the closest claim to Slytherin's line. The latter had preserved the gift of parseltongue, but the former had preserved everything else.
Mithras looked cautiously pleased to be here, too intelligent not to know that his kind of power meant little if it couldn't be enforced. He'd had to notice by now that little could be enforced when it came to Lord Voldemort.
Voldemort signaled Bellatrix Lestrange, and together, they choked and burned away the alarm wards the Ministry had buried in the ground thirty years ago. It wasn't threads but pulsing ropes of magic shooting from their wands. And the flow of magic just wasn't stopping.
Every high-born mage knew the taste of magic : it stuck to the gnarled trees infested by garden gnomes, permeated the most lived-in rooms of their manors and floated around ancient portraits like invisible dust (unless a ghost was in residence, those swept away all residual magic like an enchanted feather-duster chased after cobwebs).
It now filled the air as Voldemort and his apprentice tore down in minutes magic that should have resisted an hour under the assault of a team of twelve. It wasn't the usual kind of magic, soft, persistent, accumulated over centuries, it was alive and raw. Dark. And most of it was his.
The Dark Marks twitched, recognizing their master.
"The way is open," Voldemort finally declared, eerily relaxed for a man who'd just done what should have exhausted a team of ten. "Take what is yours. The muggle who claims these lands received a letter and a check, and will not come back, there has been no crime against the Statute." A smile twitched his lips, one that said : and soon, we'll not even bother with such details.
They had to ward the mill now, or the Ministry would just take it back. Their temporary anti-apparition wards were only to gain time.
None of them were weak mages. Even Rabastan Lestrange was still solidly average, and side by side with his brother, he more than made up for it with perfect coordination. Voldemort let them cast for a few minutes, before gathering his power once more. Not to recover from his earlier feat, but to make sure they all took notice of the before and the after.
He should have been only a voice, albeit a loud one, among twelve, instead he all but drowned them out.
"Let the Ministry come," he said, threatening laughter in his voice, "let them decide if they want to lay siege. Let see if Mr. Crouch asks his aurors to attack. Let see what others will think, of the Ministry stealing ancestral property."
The strands of magic wove into a shimmering translucent dome, fed by united purpose : shield, keep out intruders. They all watched the rising wards, mesmerized.
Suddenly, the incomplete wards buckled and twisted. Like a tense bow suddenly loosened, they snapped backwards.
Closest to Voldemort, who himself was standing where the ward strands had converged and magic was strongest, Tiberius Nott was sliced in half by the thunderous whiplash of unraveling magic.
The last thing he saw before he died was the slumped, broken form of Lord Voldemort. The last thing he heard was his old friend Nero's screams of agony.
Dark arts bowed to the strongest purpose. Nott had fiercely wished for his mill, but for the others, the wards weren't all that personal, at best a symbol for their own dreams of greatness. The Selwyns' fear of Lord Voldemort overpowered them all. Wards of the permanent kind were tricky magic, even the simplest were raised in a matter of hours, not minutes. Pooling together that much power in so little time was recklessly volatile.
And too good an opportunity to pass.
Serena and her husband could recognize a dangerous madman when they saw one. They liked Britain just fine as it was. With them at the top. They'd discussed it with Gaius Flint, a smart young man who could see they had so much more to offer him than this freakishly powerful self-styled Lord. Flint had told them how the man used legilimency on those he knew he could bully. They'd had to have the conversation twice, obliviating Flint the first time to avoid discovery. Serena had no illusions: this was not a man who would keep treating her and her husband well. Voldemort's arrogance and vanity, his certainty they would acknowledge his superiority, would be his downfall.
An illusion shimmered around Jugson, making it seem like he had released the wards. Her husband's invisible confundus charm stole the halfblood's focus and heightened his panic. A stunner shot out from his wand towards the nearby gasping Ladon Lestrange. Had the older Lestrange been just a little closer to Nott, he'd be just like Mulciber, screaming with his bones crushed and his body flayed, instead the man had been trying to crawl to his wand, thrown five yards away by the blast. Brannon Rosier wasn't in a much better shape.
As one, the shaken Lestrange brothers turned their wands upon Jugson. Rowle, wide eyed and panicked, jumped between them, shouting out as hexes slammed into his shields. It was chaos. Nobody had been looking at her and her husband. Nobody would know.
Her escape was stopped by an army of cutting black ropes. Her blurring vision was filled with Bellatrix Black's murderous eyes.
Bellatrix hadn't been thrilled to see Gareth Selwyn's parents at a place of honor next to Voldemort. Really, it should have been her place.
'Politics. It's what society is all about.' Gareth had mocked years ago, before he'd grabbed her, so certain she'd been using their duels as an excuse to flirt. Arrogant arse. Bellatrix hadn't thought of him in quite a while. But his mother looked very much like him, in a wholly irritating way.
And so, even as she cast the wards, her few unspent runic receptacles in her pocket (you should have seen their faces when she and Voldemort had undone the Ministry's alarm wards, burning through enough magic-charged receptacles to triple they magic, priceless), Bellatrix had kept part of her attention on Serena Selwyn.
She shielded herself reflexively before the wards violently unraveled. She didn't bother to look around before going straight for the treacherous witch.
Bellatrix's conjured ropes twisted into Selwyn's skin. Swallowing down the urge to Reducto the witch's head off, Bellatrix turned and conjured paralyzing tentacles all around Mithras Selwyn. A vicious smile curled her lips as he flailed with his useless frontal shield spell, slamming into the ground as one of the tentacles grabbed his leg.
Bellatrix suddenly swayed, her eyes losing focus as Serena Selwyn and her husband vanished, transported to safety by personal portkeys.
...
...
...
Where is she? What is she doing here? What is happening?
A field. A mill. A small river. She recognizes nothing. Noise assaults her ears.
Rod and 'Stan, screaming at Jugson and Rowle. Throwing curses like drunken men.
More screaming: Mulciber. Oh, eww. Not good. Nott. Morgana! Even worse. Uncle Ladon. Covered in blood, but moving. Fixable. Uncle Brannon was fretting by Ladon's side, looking like he'd been pushed through a burning barbed-wire fence. Gross, but fixable too.
She sees him then, on the ground. The noise around her dims to a meaningless buzz. It can't be.
A healer. They need a healer, now!
Her mind is blank while her body moves and her magic flares. Her mind is still blank as she apparates at Ladon's house and flies through the corridors until she finds Amanda.
Her mind slowly clears when Amanda says he's not dead.
"He should be," Amanda muttered, fighting away her shock. "The damage to his body..."
Bellatrix had realized she'd been obliviated by now. She was missing today, most of yesterday, and chunks farther back. She could remembers enchanting her first runic receptacles, yet a half-dozen drained pure gold marbles weighted down her pockets. She took out the two still undrained and pressed them to Amanda's hand.
"Just fix him. Tell me what to do." She didn't dare act herself, scared that if she just willed him better, she'd drain herself of all her magic, and for nothing. Every single bone looked broken, his deathly pale face was this limp, squashed thing. His robes stank of blood.
"Well, he's stable, somehow, so we fix him piece by piece." Amanda's voice was shaking, but she sounded certain. "You do the bones, it's easiest. One by one, Bella, patiently.".
Bellatrix had never realized just how many bones were in a body. And especially in your bloody feet.
"Merlin -. What has he done?" Amanda suddenly shrieked. "How-. It can't be!"
Her face had lost all color. Her hand, and wand, shook above Voldemort's face.
"What," Bellatrix snapped. "Should I be doing something other than mending bones?" Voldemort's chest was moving, but it was still a horrifying mess. At least his face was recognizable now. Oh. Perhaps that's what was tripping Amanda up. "That's his true face, you won't fix it more."
"He should be insane, his self-control is ridiculous considering, but it won't last." Something had changed in Amanda's bearing. "I can't. It's obscene. This isn't saving a life. It's making a monster!"
Amanda wasn't making any sense, and, truly, Bellatrix didn't care what Amanda was thinking right now. She was thinking of Voldemort, of that broken puddle of a man that couldn't be Voldemort, of the nothing around him where there had always been magic.
"Fix him. Fix him now."
"You don't understand. It's not just the face. I've never seen anything like it. I don't even know the name for it, but he... he's not whole, Bella! He -"
The words blurred. Because they didn't matter. Why was Amanda talking? Why wasn't she healing him! Bellatrix needed her to. Now!
"Imperio!"
Bellatrix's willpower strangled Amanda's sense of self. Amanda was nothing. A tool, a second pair of hands. Amanda's magic echoed back through the Imperius bond. It was a beautiful feeling, control.
"Fix him," Bellatrix snapped. "So he wakes up!"
Fixing people was what Amanda did. Something that felt right to her. There wasn't enough inside her to oppose the command.
"And tell me if I can help," Bellatrix added, her panic receding as Voldemort slowly became himself.
After a few excruciatingly long minutes, his red eyes blinked, and the healing accelerated. He was healing himself, his fingers curled around his last runic receptacle. A shuddering gasp escaped his lungs. His snake-like eyes shone blood red.
"Who tried to kill me?"
"I... I saw Rod and Stan dueling Jugson and Rowle. There was also... Ladon's hurt, Brannon is barely better. Mulciber's dying."
"Flint? The Selwyns?"
"What? Which Selwyns? I don't... I don't even know what we were doing today..." Fury was slowly replacing her earlier panic. "Someone obliviated me."
She grasped his hand to help him up, because he had no place being on the floor (conjured mattress notwithstanding). His magic was barely a whisper.
He started as Amanda jabbed her wand in his neck. "What are you doing?" he snapped.
"Fixing you, Lord Voldemort," Amanda said with a patient but concentrated smile before muttering some spells. She displayed neither fear nor unease. Because Bellatrix had none.
Voldemort narrowed his eyes at the blonde. His eyebrows then shot to his hairline and he turned back to Bellatrix.
Somewhat regretfully, Bellatrix hit Amanda with a slumbering jinx and released the witch from her control.
"Is there nobody you don't legilimize, my Lord?" Bellatrix teased, still breathless from relief. "My first imperius, you'd better be grateful."
He blinked. "I don't forget," he said after a pause. "Wasn't Wilkes being efficient enough?"
"She said you did something. She's soft... must've been too dark for her. She didn't say what exactly. Will it make you not die next time too?"
He stiffened, eyes glinting dangerously, but his searching case grew softer as he drank in Bellatrix's sheer relief. He smiled smugly, glamours painting back Tom Riddle's handsome features on his face. "I told you I'm immortal."
He had. She'd stupidly thought he'd been boasting. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her lungs. "You did. Bean!" Bellatrix grinned at the old elf. "Go get Rod and the others, tell them to stop horsing about and get their arses here. Before they kill each other."
She shook Amanda awake. The way the imperius muddled memory was very detailed in accounts of real or fictional magical crimes. Bellatrix was careful not to overpower her obliviate, not willing more than the curse, and the minute leading to it, erased.
"What-" Amanda's eyes widened when she realized Voldemort was standing and right next to her.
"I stunned you because there was an unexpected magical flare up," Bellatrix lied. "It was hurting you. I finished healing him myself."
Thick confusion darkened Amanda's face. "I can't quite remember wh... Well, I'm glad you're fine, Lord Voldemort."
"I'll go get some answers out of the lads," Voldemort said, striding away. He wasn't quite meeting Bellatrix's eyes. Good. It wouldn't do, that he'd take too lightly the fact she'd helped him so.
"We're dark mages," Bellatrix warned as the two witches were left alone. "And playing nice gets you nowhere. You're going to have to toughen up, Amanda. If this is too much for you-"
"Don't be daft, you're my second family."
Amanda's smile didn't quite erase her confusion, and Bellatrix felt a stab of guilt. A silly reaction, she was protecting Amanda. The witch was Hufflepuff, a trained healer. It was better like this, to not upset her.
"I don't blame you for overpowering your stunner after such a shock. Just tell me what I missed." Amanda winced as she took in Bellatrix's dishevelled appearance. "Hey, I'm so sorry. What happened at the mill? It must have been awful."
She hugged Bellatrix and Bellatrix hugged her back fiercely. She couldn't allow Amanda to break. She couldn't bear to lose Amanda. Amanda was hers.
Bellatrix had never been prone to much introspection. She didn't quite piece together that most of her reaction was the imperius. That curse was one that stayed with you, nesting itself in your mind. People, and especially those you'd mind-controlled were suddenly much easier to see as things. Things that should behave as you willed. A few days later, that little dark voice quieted, slumbering but not dead, ready to awaken, louder, next time the spell was cast. The mind-control curse was addictive, fueling the caster's most primal selfishness, their hunger to have the world cater to their whims. Rare were the witches and wizards who had cast one imperius in their lives and stopped. So rare that the magical community had agreed on a qualifier for the curse : Unforgivable.
Bellatrix was playing drunken explosive snap at home with the guys (Rod and 'Stan had paid for a case of expensive wine to apologize to Jugson for having nailed him to the ground after thinking he'd made the wards snap, and for having cast an explosive diarrhea-inducing debilitating curse on Rowle for trying to defend his friend) when the doorbell rang.
Bean let Voldemort inside. He was holding a rather terrified looking mouse in his hand. The five put their cards down and stood up.
"There's a spell I'm going to teach you," Voldemort said.
He set the mouse down. The mouse became Gaius Flint. The wizard desperately scrambled backwards, his short brown hair matted by sweat and his eyes wild with fear. "I found the man who obliviated you, Bella."
"You bastard," Rod hissed. He was almost as angry as Bellatrix, because the obliviate had stolen moments and conversations, the kind of early-in-your-arranged-marriage conversations you didn't want to have to have twice. Rod elbowed a half-drunk Rabastan who already had his wand out, as if it was his revenge to dish out.
"What spell?" Bellatrix said, her eager smile not reaching her eyes. It had better be something good. Flint deserved to burn.
"Let me demonstrate."
"Please, I -" Flint's voice was a pathetic mewl.
"Crucio!"
They all took sharp intakes of breath, flinching at the sudden screams. Rowle wrapped himself in a ball of silence. Jugson stepped backwards. Both nevertheless watched on pitilessly. None of the others moved.
Bellatrix's eyes glittered as Flint writhed in agony, screaming himself hoarse. Bastard. Memory-stealing bastard.
When Voldemort stepped aside and let her try, she realized that she found it easy, very easy, to wish Flint pain.
The cruciatus, like the imperius, was a spell that begged repeat, that sunk its teeth in you like a drug. That erased others' humanity, and the caster's with it. Pain begot more pain.
Nobody ever saw Serena or Mithras Selwyn again. Nobody had known about the mill incident, but rumors begin to spread. They grew more urgent, more fearful after Voldemort, in a rather ominous toast during a reception hosted by Ladon Lestrange, promised he'd know if someone plotted against him. Whispers of a taboo begin to spread. By the time Alastor Moody had pieced the Selwyn case together, the name Voldemort had fallen into disuse in favor of another : the Dark Lord.
Gareth Selwyn was not killed. He was more useful alive. He accepted to serve Voldemort in exchange for his life mere weeks after his parents' disappearance. Bellatrix's smirk reached her ears as he screamed, the Dark Mark etching itself in his pale skin. He'd once thought to lecture her about power. Ha. How she would enjoy to see him now, fear never leaving his pretty face.
February 1975
"I have been working on the Mark," Voldemort said. "For you, I have altered it to hold memories, as long as they are linked to me in some way. Any such memory will be impervious to alteration."
Bellatrix didn't hesitate. "I'll take it."
His red eyes widened. She'd refused to take his mark for almost five years. "I'll display it proudly. Either they'll bow to us, or we'll make clear what happens to those who refuse to stand with us."
She'd seen him not die when he should've been dead. She knew he trusted her more than anybody, because she wasn't loyal out of fear or greed for her future, but because she loved their present. She didn't doubt anymore her ability to stand by his side, and not under him, even with his magic bound in her flesh. She didn't want to forget, ever again. Besides, she liked the look of that dark, pulsing snake.
Receiving the Dark Mark felt like finding her true family. She was naked for the ritual, because she figured it'd make the whole night more fun. She was right. She didn't tell Rod. It would've been mean.
Voldemort could not have predicted that, with that enchantment, he'd guaranteed that after Azkaban she would remember him better than she remembered herself. The Dark Mark was an instrument of control, of subservience, it could not protect the memories without altering them. There was no more Voldemort as Bellatrix returned to his side, only my Lord, no more thoughts of independence or defiance. For all that he grew even crueler, less human, the Dark Lord was everything to her. There was nothing else left.
An that's it for Bellatrix ! Admittedly, much longer than I'd planned for (okay, let's be real, this is the less planned story I've ever written). At first, I'd wanted to integrate the Longbottoms in Bellatrix's arc, but I couldn't find a way to do it justice here (the Longbottoms aren't a defining character moment for Bellatrix, for all that it's the crime that she's most remembered for). So I'm going to end with her firmly a Death Eater.
We'll soon go deeper in the war with Regulus, who's still a young teen right now (Sirius is disowned in the summer of '76, after his 5th Hogwarts year and Regulus' 3rd). I'm pretty excited with what I have planned for him.
