Paul: about Lily and Dark Arts in your last review, it's a call to my other HP fics (Lots of Love and Some Dark Magic, and the in-progress Defiant Until the End). A fair amount of what Sirius references too will be covered in those fics as they are much more Marauders and Order-centric.

Happy reading^^.


Father's magical ropes, burning against her skin, crushing her ribs.

Selwyn, grabbing her, telling her magical power meant nothing.

Cassiopeia, showing her her wishes meant little.

Uncle Orion, stealing her magic.

As dementors floated just behind the bars to her cell, Bellatrix shivered, trapped in nightmares eager to remind her that she had never been truly free.

Meda, gone.

Regulus, weak. Dead.

Sirius, writhing in pain. Loyal to the enemy. Traitor.

Bellatrix snarled. "TRAITOR!" Her own voice anchored her in reality. "TRAITOR!"

Dead.

How! How could they have defeated the Dark Lord !

Dead, they said. But she'd seen him die before. In minutes, he'd been back on his feet. Now... how long has it been? Days, weeks?

"Where are you? Why aren't you back!" The Dark Mark is cool beneath her lips. Once pulsing with familiar magic, his magic, it was silent, the snake and skull, once a vibrant black, were washed out and gray.

But gone it was not! Soon, he'd rescue her. Yes, soon, she'd be free.

Unnatural cold burned her lungs with every breath.

'Crucio!' The Longbottoms' screams sing to her soul. 'Crucio!' As magic flows through her, she feels more alive then ever, yet everything feels wrong. The rush doesn't smother the hollowness. 'Crucio!' He's gone. Lord Voldemort is gone.

That accursed prophecy. Half-prophecy. How useless Snape had been! Played like a pawn by Dumbledore. And blubbering Wormtail, so convinced the secret keeper switch had eluded Dumbledore's notice. Ha. They'd foolishly thought the Champion of Light him too good to ruthlessly sacrifice his troops. The two-faced Headmaster had doubtless pretended to weep at the Potters' funeral while congratulating himself at having exchanged two mere lives to get rid of the Dark Lord.

Bitter chuckles echoed against the cell's walls. Voldemort was gone, but not dead. They would pay. They would all pay.

Her hand slammed against the bars.

"Rod! Rod can you hear me!"

Her husband couldn't be far, yet there was only silence. Silence and cold. And her own nightmares.


The Prewett twin, the one with the mocking smile, vanishing in a cloud of white wisps. Behind him, on the ground, Uncle Ladon. His eyes still open, staring lifelessly at her. As if to say 'Look at you winners. I told you war was messy. I told you to end it.' The last time they'd talked, they'd argued. She'd called him weak, indecisive. He'd told her she was power drunk and aimless. Then they'd had drinks. Because they were family.

They had been family.

Screams of fury burst from Bellatrix's lungs. Azkaban was warded, against summons, conjurations and assault to its walls. Even house-elves could not penetrate inside. But Azkaban's runes couldn't ward it from everything. Magic bled out of Bellatrix's red-stained hands.

The dementor suddenly screamed.

The nightmare faded.

Bellatrix grinned weakly. They'd come back of course, their hunger was stronger than their aversion to pain. But she had hurt them. Soon, she'd do worse.

"Traitors, you were to fight for us." She would forget nothing. Those creatures would soon be dust.

When her rage faltered, Bellatrix would punch walls and scratch her bleeding arms and legs to the bone. Pain for power, like Cassiopeia had taught her long ago. After fifteen years of dark arts, a decade apprenticed to the greatest Dark Lord the Isles could remember, there was no need of accidents to push her magic outwards without a wand.

"I'm a witch," she howled. Laughter was agony ever since she'd broken her foot with too-hard kick. "I'm a WITCH!"

Most days were pain. But her exhausted body always knit itself back together.

She's a witch and they can't take that from her.


The wardens did not dare come, not after the gruesome death of auror Locke, foolish enough to come taunt her.

But from afar, they could poison her food.

"I'll kill you !" she vowed, on her back on the floor, writhing in pain and her skin erupting in boils. "He's not dead. Look at the mark ! He's alive. He'll come for you, your children, everything. You'll pay. YOU'LL PAY !"

They must have heard. And decided it was not worth it.


Her back against the cool wall, Bellatrix blinked. Why wasn't she angrier at her sister? Andromeda's departure burned hot, more vivid than it had been in years. Bellatrix had cursed for less, she had killed for less.

Andromeda had betrayed her, and yet -

She could remember that she had decided to leave Meda alone. That it hadn't been that hard. But why?

As she tried to recall, memories from her childhood and teenage years resurfaced, but those she was looking for were faded, slowly melting away like spun sugar under the rain. There had been laughter, but the sound of it was just out of reach. There had been trust and warmth, but she couldn't quite -

Bellatrix blinked again, more rapidly, her breathing quickening.

Meda was slipping from her grasp.

No. NO! Andromeda was hers! They couldn't take that from her. She wouldn't let them!

Meda was a traitor. Meda had betrayed her. It was personal. Every good memory, every promise: poisonous, fake, lies. Bellatrix began to lovingly nurse every grudge, every negative thought and feeling she had held for her big sister.

Rage came easy, hate came easy, raising a barrier between Bellatrix's memories and the wraiths torturing every last drop of warmth out of her.

Better hate Andromeda and remember, than lose her forever.

With Narcissa, hate was harder to summon than scorn. Her pretty little sister, hiding behind Lucius Malfoy, too proper and squeamish to get her hands dirty. Cissy, ungrateful, blind to her own weakness, who now gazed upon Bellatrix in distaste. Bellatrix would show her. Cissy would agree that she was right.

When after fourteen years of captivity, Bellatrix gazed upon Narcissa again, she smiled faintly. Her sister. This was her sister. Everything was tatters, everything except Him, but Narcissa, Cissy, was hers and it mattered. When Narcissa hesitantly smiled, Bellatrix realized she wasn't so cold anymore.


Unleashed magic couldn't be tamed, it lashed out indiscriminately. Flayed from its protective enchantments, her mattress had been burned to crisp, the small tub fractured, leaking water into the whole cell. Nobody had come to replace any of it.

How long would Voldemort make her wait?

On the days without dementors, Bellatrix stared at her ravaged cell through hooded eyes. She'd always been better at destroying than fixing.

Her heart hammered and her limbs shivered as she forced herself into a state of constant rage-fueled panic. In the throes of Dark Arts induced-madness, she dismissed her growing exhaustion.

One day, her body finally gave out.

When she woke up, hours, days, a week perhaps? the furniture was new.

She felt calm. Too calm. What had they done to her ? She felt no pain. Bones, scratches, down to the last bruise, everything had healed. Or been healed.

As the realization hit, Bellatrix could only lie back in detached appraisal.

In calm and comfort, she had no magic.

If she didn't eat or didn't drink, in the hope of purging whatever calming draught they were dosing her with, she would die. Now that she bothered to pay attention to her body, she realized she'd come much too close.


The draught wasn't powerful enough shield her from dementors, but the nightmares were different. Less visceral and violent. Instead of screams, pain and despair, they left her with questions, with doubts.

Amanda Wilkes staring at her in horror. 'Obliviate !'

Amanda still, saying 'that's enough!' 'Obliviate!'

Why had it been necessary to obliviate Amanda so often? Weren't they friends?

Rodolphus huffs, exasperated. "This is such a waste of time! When did it stop being about overturning the Ministry and about us becoming a pack of wolves..."

She raises her wand, not in the mood to hear him whine. Not that she's thrilled that chasing down Moody's protege had turned into this fruitless cat-and-mouse game.

Rod flinches violently. "Sorry, I'm just impatient..." His voice is uncharacteristically subdued. His eyes on her wand instead of on her.

When had Rod of all people become scared of her?

Narcissa turns away after an argument, one of many, distaste in her eyes. Narcissa turns away without a word, fear in her eyes. They don't argue anymore. Because they don't talk. Her stare has become a stranger's stare. Her smile a stranger's smile.

Alone. Bellatrix was so terribly alone.

'The attempts keep failing, my Lord. Perhaps we should craft a counter.'

'No, the Fidelius is as strong as its keeper. I have a better plan.'

They'd stopped crafting spells. Sometimes in 1979, or maybe even a little earlier. Why had they stopped?

A sea of black robes and silver masks, bowing, cowering, spewing excuses. Weaklings, opportunists, fools. Pawns on a chessboard. Magpies attracted to the glint of gold. Scattering when she raised her wand.

When had Bellatrix become a herd dog? Once she'd sought out the powerful, those who could knock her down in a duel. When had she become surrounded by barely-competent bootlickers ?

'Crucio!'. Those who said pain didn't leave marks knew nothing. 'Crucio!' The Longbottoms scream. They writhe, they weep. The woman's body twists so violently her ribs crack. There's snot on their robes, shit and blood. The Heirs to Longbottom House, pathetic wrecks.

Wasn't that who she'd respected once? The powerful, those who stood for something. Why had it mattered so much, to destroy them? Why go after them instead of searching for Lord Voldemort? Instead of being stuck in this wretched place she would be with him by now, helping him back to power.

"Why? Why kill Potter? Prophecies are... And it's half a Prophecy, My Lord. Steal the baby. We'll see if he's anything special."

"Dumbledore's afraid I'll kill the Potter whelp. He knows that if I kill him, I'll be invincible."

"There was never talk of invincibility. Sevvie just told you that he thinks that Dumbledore believes that you want to murder baby Potter. For all we know, the half-blood's a decoy. This is dumb."

Bellatrix gasped in shock invisible ropes pushed her down on her knees, constricting the breath out of her lungs. Her eyes misted in agony.

Her vision barely cleared as he shoved his wand against her neck. "Perhaps you want to take my place, Bella? Perhaps you're tired of not being the most powerful person in the room."

Bellatrix had sneered then. "My Lord," she'd said pointedly. "I'll join the servant's ranks and make sure to say only what you want to hear, with a lot of bowing."

His eyes were always red and merciless these days. Once she'd been certain he wouldn't ever cast the cruciatus on her. Now she couldn't help feeling relieved when he lowered his wand. "No, you're more useful when you're not afraid to speak your mind."

'Useful.' It wasn't a disguised apology. His voice held but a shadow of the fondness he had once had for her. 'Useful.'

When had she become a pet?

Without Dark Arts to cloak her, to drown her, things that had stopped mattering, things she hadn't noticed, began mattering once more.

He's gone insane, Bellatrix admitted to herself after months of forced calm. She'd gone a little too far herself. Losing sight of what mattered chasing the thrill of unforgivables.

Bellatrix hummed, detached boredom her default state these days. Hurry up, Voldemort.

If the Dark Lord had access to his magic, he'd have freed her by now. So he didn't. And if he didn't, then time would heal him from the callousness, the madness, brought along by too much dark arts use.

They would start over. It would be like their early years.

Hurry up.


The guards returned. Bellatrix immediately recognized the glint in their eyes : opportunism. She wasn't the only one who knew that the Dark Lord wasn't dead.

She asked to see her husband. Hollow-eyed, emaciated, constantly muttering to himself. She learned it had been a little over three years. With her body on stasis, no cycles, her hair and nails growing at snail's pace, she'd lost all notion of time.

"Bella," Rodolphus whispered, horror in his eyes despite his smile. He pawed at her, grabbing roughly and not letting go, as if scared she'd vanish.

What's wrong with him? Rod has always been softer than her, born in comfort, gliding through life. He never to fight like she had, but this -

"'Stan?" he begged.

But the guards would not allow them to visit Rabastan, or even write. It was right there in the rule-book, the permission to let married couples together, but the wards would signal unauthorized visits.

"I don't remember... why did we get married?"

Bellatrix side-eyed him. Purely happy bliss for him, had that been? "Uncle cursed me."

She then smiled faintly, realizing she'd just felt. Exasperation. That the sight of her diminished husband made her taste fear, weak, like a memory, but definitely fear. It seemed that the potions' effect on her wasn't what it had once been. Too many doses. Her body and magic were growing accustomed to it.

Unfortunately, the little she felt was nothing compared to what she'd need to draw upon her magic.

Rodolphus had questions. Endless questions. Bellatrix could tell a lot of her own life, the nicest of her life, had been eroded, but nothing like this.

"How... when did we meet the Dark Lord?"

"At Ladon's. Summer of our fifth year." Cassiopeia's letter that evening remained vivid, and so the rest, while faded, was not forgotten. "Remember Morty? Or the unicorn he conjured? Come on, that was terrifying."

He was forgetting, forgetting everything.

"You need to keep dementors away from him," she finally asked the guards, hating how she was close to begging.

"There's more of the creatures than before the war... They can't up the exposure for minor crimes all that much, so it's worse for life-sentences, and especially Death Eaters. But look on the bright side, needing dementors fed is what's saving you from being kissed. People asked for it, guards even. They're still afraid of you."

Bellatrix smiled thinly. They wouldn't break her. Not the dementors. Not anybody.

These days, when dementors would come, Bellatrix sometimes saw her present. Her once good-natured husband, unraveling before her eyes. While true that she wasn't sure anymore why she'd liked him enough to marry him, in this wretched place, he was company. He was warmth. And he was becoming a mewling pile of nothing.

She'd been forged in unhappiness and bad memories. Take the rest away, she could still stand upright. Take happiness away from Rod, and he crumbled.

They shared a cell years, five maybe, less than eight certainly, before she couldn't stand it anymore. She was sad, upset, and restless because she'd never been meant for a cage. She was furious even, but it was a level-headed fury. Not enough for magic, but still too much to make Rodolphus ... decaying next to her bearable.

After one of the guards had walked Bellatrix back inside her own cell, she handed Bellatrix some chocolate.

Bellatrix sighed contentedly, and a little sad because she knew the taste of the chocolate would be snatched before the week's end.

"You're late," she accused, eyes riveted on her mark once she was alone once more.


As even more year passed, she forgot enough of Rod to not think much of him as an empty husk in a nearby cell. She stopped caring and soon stopped thinking of Rodolphus at all.

Instead she thought of him vividly. Memories who weren't closely linked to nightmares had fallen one by one to dust, unless they were of him (well, only after '75, but it was enough, more than everything else she had left).

"You captured Sirius four days ago, and you kept it from me!"

Voldemort meets her gaze with infuriating calm. "With the scene you made when Rosier tried to burn down your sister's house?"

"Note how very loyal I was, not killing him." Andromeda was hers. Nobody but Bellatrix decided what happened to her family.

There is a shadow of a smile on the Dark Lord's lips. Stronger was the glint in his eyes, the one daring her to protest. "I've let the lads play, but Black won't give away the secret. He'll be bait."

"My bait," she warns. "Those... playing truly think cousin Sirius is theirs to play with?"

"What can I say... Intelligence is a rare commodity. Just don't kill them." He did not bother to hide his glee at the prospect of witnessing her fury.

Grateful for the permission to not hold back, she strode to find her cousin.

"That's not what happened," Bellatrix muttered. The facts seemed accurate, but the feeling? She hadn't been grateful. She'd been annoyed. The others would pay, but they had just been following orders. He had chosen to keep Sirius' capture a secret. He had known she'd be upset. More and more, he pushed her, acting like he owned her. Letting her have Sirius hadn't been a bloody favor.

Her faded Dark Mark stared back at her. Slowly, Bellatrix began to understand what was happening.

Because of the protections Lord Voldemort had woven in her mark, the ones to shield her from any obliviate after the Selwyn's assassination attempt and Flint's treachery, the Dementors couldn't access her memories involving the Dark Lord. But, subtly, those memories were shifting.

"You can't change everything to make you right!" Bellatrix told the snake. "I argue with you, that's what I do. You say you want me to bow, but you don't, not really."

"Stop it," Bellatrix muttered later, as she felt her independence slip through her fingers. "I can't fight you in here."

But the Dark Mark couldn't alter its nature. It couldn't protect the witch's memories of Voldemort without smoothing over everything rebellious about Bellatrix. It was first and foremost an instrument of control.

Bellatrix was increasingly angry, but mostly, she was relieved : as long as the mark's magic worked, then the Dark Lord was alive. She'd make him fix the memories.

Until she forgot they needed fixing.

She was, and as far as she knew had always been, the Dark Lord's most loyal servant.


At first, when she'd felt her magic stir, she'd not nursed her anger, wanting to make sure that this time, she'd stay in control. She also hadn't wanted to alert the guards, afraid they'd switch the draught's formula and numb her once more.

Father's magical ropes, burning against her skin, crushing her ribs.

Selwyn, grabbing her, telling her magical power meant nothing.

Cassiopeia, showing her her wishes meant little.

Uncle Orion, stealing her magic.

She dug her fingers into her palm, hard enough to draw blood, and screamed, fed up with the powerlessness.


New guards came. The new ones were hard-faced and hateful.

"You must've known how Black escaped!"

"Who?" Had that big-nosed twit really said 'escaped'? From Azkaban?

"Sirius Orion Black, your bastard cousin who betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord!"

Confused, Bellatrix finally recalled there had been a mention of cousin Sirius in the paper after the Dark Lord's fall. She'd not been in a state to pay much attention.

"You will tell us what dark magic-"

Hysterical laughter began bubbling out of Bellatrix's chest. Sirius. In Azkaban. For betraying the Potters. The guards' dumb expressions only increased her mirth until a stab of pain had her fall to her knees. His wand was pointed straight at her.

"You think you're the only one here who can inflict pain?" Bellatrix screamed as her skin burned, as if surrounded by incandescent coals. "You think you can shit all over the Ministry -"

She suddenly couldn't remember why not using Dark Arts had mattered.

She'd stopped, but she'd never forgotten. If she'd had her wand, perhaps it would have been a cruciatus, but wandless magic could not be so harnessed. It was neither subtle or precise. Unleashed in fury, unleashed to cause pain, it dug itself like hooks in the guard's skin and tore.

Her own pain gone, Bellatrix grinned as blood splattered all over her and the screaming guard's partner. The bint started screaming herself when she realized her healing spells weren't working.

Bellatrix had forgotten how alive magic made her feel. Why hold back? The now unconscious guard's blood splatters became glass shards, slicing into the other auror's skin. With a howl, the woman fell to her knees, clawing at her bleeding eyes. Her head cracked against the wall as an invisible hand shoved her. She stopped moving entirely.

New guards intervened before Bellatrix could finish off the first guard. A stunner threw her against her cell's wall, but not before she'd heard them all scream.

She expected them to come back, to poison her food, to drug her back into calm. None of these things happened. Bellatrix would never find out that the calming draughts had been Narcissa's idea, smuggled by the Malfoys to corrupt guards. Forbidden to visit, Narcissa had hoped non-abusive guards and weaning from dark arts would buy them time until Narcissa figured out a way to get Bellatrix out, or at least talk to her. But after Sirius' escape, the Ministry tightened security, and all was lost.

After the incident with the guards, Bellatrix only saw dementors.

But she was not afraid anymore. All that remained was the Dark Lord and not even those abominations could take that away from her. Once again, Bellatrix made the creatures scream. With the unrestrained used of wandless magic, the most pure form of dark arts, fury became once more Bellatrix's second skin and the madness returned.

Bellatrix laughed maniacally when the first time, she saw a dementors hesitate giving her cell a wide berth. They had other people to torture, people who didn't wandlessly fight back.


It wasn't long (only a small eternity, perhaps a year) until her Dark Mark stirred.

A forgotten feeling, joy, had her smile at her branded arm. She almost didn't dare breathe. She began to laugh, chastising herself for her doubts.

Finally, he was back!

She willed her own magic into the mark, like she had done a thousand times to allow the Dark Lord to apparate by her side. She shivered when a familiar pulse, weak but there, answered her.

He didn't come, but her bitterness was nothing compared to her elation. Azkaban's wards were too powerful, even for Lord Voldemort, but he was back and he now knew where she was.

She was the Dark Lord's most loyal servant. He would see this and reward her.

He would make all the traitors, all their enemies, pay.


He came wearing no glamours, paler, more snake-like, than in her memories. His magic sang as loudly as she remembered and she couldn't help grabbing onto his hand, made breathless by his presence.

Finally. Finally!

He transfigured her prisoner's robes into a gorgeous black dress and two cobbles of stone into the very pair of heels she could remember having worn the night he'd marked her.

He gave her a wand and Azkaban's guards.

"Crucio," Bellatrix whispered, reveling in the feel of her magic properly bound to her will once more.

The delicious pleas gave way to even more delicious screams.

She was home.


Author's Note

In an alternate universe, Bellatrix could possibly have been saved from madness had she been taken from Azkaban in time, and by people who cared about rehabilitating criminals as opposed to torturing them. Perhaps if she'd spent the fifteen years under house arrest at Malfoy Manor, she might have come out a different person.