His rooms were capacious, with high ceilings and walls covered in elegant damask wallpaper of dark brown and bronze. Stately, stout mahogany furnishings adorned the sitting room into which Voldemort led Bellatrix, with a heavy brown velvet divan flanked by two complementary wingback chairs before a mighty marble fireplace. As in his office, there were bookshelves along one wall, and Bellatrix found herself wondering where on Earth he had accumulated sufficient books to fill them. A drinks cart sat in one corner of the sitting room, and there was a doorway to the left that led to the bedroom, in which Bellatrix could see a dignified and masculine wooden canopy bed with dark brocade curtains that matched the bedspread and the drapes hanging from the window.

She let out a nervous sigh as the door that led from Voldemort's sitting room to the corridor of Malfoy Manor shut quietly behind her, and she heard a lock click. Again, she wondered why Voldemort was acting with such extreme secrecy. They were alone, weren't they? The Malfoys were on holiday. Only Dobby was here, and he was unlikely to come snooping. But she just licked her lips and stood in silence until she felt his presence behind her, and then she held her breath and froze, for his fingers were at the nape of her neck, where her black velvet dress buttoned up. Bellatrix's eyes fluttered shut as Voldemort's fingers brushed around the skin and the dress as though he were a bit distracted, or perhaps like he were observing something, and she heard him murmur,

"I wonder if my dream accurately predicted the way the flush of your cheeks would spread down over your neck and chest…"

"My Lord," Bellatrix choked out. She perceived a button being undone at the top of her back, then another, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she clenched her fists and whispered helplessly, "Oh, but I do want you, Master."

"Do you?" he chuckled somewhat playfully. He kissed her hair, and his breath was warm against her scalp as he mumbled, "Beautiful creature."

More buttons came undone, and before Bellatrix knew what was happening, she was being encouraged to shimmy out of her fitted dress. She turned slowly around as Voldemort dropped her velvet dress into a pool on the ground, and she faced him, standing in black cotton undergarments and her lace-up boots. He studied her, his breath shaking audibly through his nostrils as his fingertips grazed over Bellatrix's shoulders and went behind her back. He unlatched her bra and dragged the garment off of her, dangling it lasciviously on a fingertip for a moment before letting it fall onto her piled dress. He never once broke their eye contact, and he said a bit sternly,

"Knickers and boots off, Bellatrix."

"Yes, My Lord."

Bellatrix lowered her gaze from his as she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and slid them down. She manoeuvred them past her knees and over her boots and stepped out of them, kicking them aside and unlacing her boots whilst she was bent down. She yanked her boots off her feet one and a time and peeled off her socks, and then she sucked in air hard, for she was completely naked. She rose slowly, feeling very vulnerable and entirely exposed as she stood before Voldemort.

His dark eyes flickered and flashed and his lips parted a bit as his fingers drifted up to slowly and carefully caress the cushion of Bellatrix's left breast. She stared up at him, dizzy with want, as his hand compressed the soft tissue at her chest and his thumb dragged over the peak of her puckered nipple. He was taking his time, she noticed. He was moving so deliberately today. She was desperate for more, so she wantonly took a risk and made a move for the front of his black dress shirt, unfastening the buttons that went down his front. When he didn't protest, she made her way all the way to his stomach and then yanked at the hem of the shirt, pulling it from the waist of his trousers and encouraging him to shuck the shirt entirely. He did, baring his torso and arms to her, and Bellatrix shivered with desire as she massaged his biceps and shoulders and stared right into his deep eyes.

"Master," she whispered, and he nodded.

"That flush," he confirmed, "it's spreading. From your cheeks…" His fingers of his left hand danced over her jaw and then down until they settled at her collarbone, and he murmured, "You are scarlet with anticipation."

Bellatrix tipped her chin up a little and nodded. "As I said, My Lord, I do want you. Badly."

"Well, then," he said, making a move to kick off his dragon hide shoes, "into the bedroom with us, hm?"

He laced the fingers of his hand with hers and pulled her toward the doorway of his bedroom, and then there was an electric anxiety filling the space as they both seemed to realise just how intimate this all was. This was his bed; he spent his nights here. And she was climbing up onto the brocade coverlet, and he was stripping off his trousers and underwear and socks and then following her naked onto the blankets. He hovered above her, leaning heavily onto his arms as he bent to touch his lips her forehead, and she could feel and hear the quiver in his breath as he informed her,

"In my dream, your curls were loose."

"Oh. Of course, My Lord." Bellatrix reached for the velvet ribbon binding her braid and unfurled it, taking apart the plait in her hair and fingering her ringlets until they formed a halo around her head on the pillow. Voldemort pulled back and stared down at her for a long moment, seeming to take in the entire picture of her like he was photographing her, and then he confirmed,

"Quite accurate indeed, it would seem. Dreams."

She smirked just a little, remembering that he'd told her this was just an experiment to sate his curiosity, that he'd brought her to his bed to test his theory about the precision of dreams in predicting the details of situations like this. He was a speculative, analytical wizard interested in finding answers to the questions his mind presented him, she knew. She'd made him feel inquisitiveness, he'd said. About kissing, about sex. This was all just experimentation. There was no real feeling in it. No emotion. Of that, Bellatrix was too keenly aware; she knew that she felt far more toward her master than he would ever feel toward her. Just the same, she breathed in his presence like he was the air she needed to survive, drank in the sensation of being around him like he was water in the desert, and knew she would never regret this time spent with him.

"Bella, I've been in your mind for three solid minutes; you're making no effort whatsoever with Occlumency. Did you even feel me pry into your consciousness?" Voldemort snapped, and she blinked a few times, her cheeks going quite hot with humiliation as she realised how she'd been thinking of him. She shook her head minutely and opened her mouth to speak, but Voldemort bent and touched his lips to hers and then said against her mouth,

"Reject my presence now."

She felt a dull prod somewhere in the back of her mind and knew he was sifting through thoughts, memories. He was seeing something, but she wasn't sure what. She wrenched her eyes shut and focused hard, and she was socked with a vision of herself curled up in bed in the girls' Slytherin dormitory at Hogwarts, curtains drawn around her bed. She was dragging her fingers over the sheets and thinking about joining Lord Voldemort's cause as a soldier. In his bed at Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix stomped roughly on the vision, imagined blasting it to bits with spells, lighting it on fire, and draped it with a heavy dark cloth to blot it out. She replaced it instantly with the thought of opening Christmas gifts at her parents' house as a child, a mundane and harmless memory, and then she reached for the pulse in her head that she knew was Voldemort's Legilimency, and she shoved so roughly at it that she heard herself grunt. Suddenly her ears were ringing and she was dizzy, and when she opened her eyes, Voldemort's black gaze was glittering and his lips were curled up contentedly. He nodded, looking proud, and reached down to pet Bellatrix's curls.

"Well done," he purred. "My brilliant little lieutenant."

Bellatrix could sense energy crackling around him then, as though he'd been excited by her skilful Occlumency. She was unsurprised when he bent to kiss her again, though she did reach to clutch at his arms for purchase when he crushed his mouth roughly with hers and groaned against her lips. She couldn't breathe then, for she was entirely overwhelmed by him, and when his tongue sought hers out, she could hardly manage to coordinate a kiss properly. She let him drag his tongue over the roof of her mouth and shuddered at the sensation of her tongue being pulled between his teeth, and when she felt fingertips slide between her legs, she gasped. Voldemort began to pulse two fingers slowly at her entrance and to expertly caress her nub with his thumb, and Bellatrix let her face fall the side, away from their kiss, as her hands collapsed off his arms. She grasped the brocade coverlet and felt her back arch up a little when he twisted his fingers into her body, and then a dark laugh escaped him as he said,

"Just as I dreamed. Fisting my blankets and desperate for more. Hmph."

He wanted to sound controlled and condescending, she knew, but his voice was shaking badly. She could tell he wanted her right now, not least of all by the way his cock was leaking fluid onto the inside of her thigh where it was grinding against her. Bellatrix started to feel pressure and tension coiling in her lower belly as Voldemort's thumb dragged circles on her nub, as his fingers hooked and twisted inside of her. She stared at the straight arm beside her, the one he had all of his weight leaned upon, and she noticed just how masculine it was. He was lean but muscular, with a dusting of dark hair upon his pale flesh. Bellatrix choked out a noise, feeling paralysed by how powerfully he affected her. Heat took her over from head to toe, and her ears began to ring, and she whispered helplessly,

"I'm going to come."

"I wouldn't object," Voldemort clipped. She turned her face back toward him, her eyelids feeling heavy as her breath came hard and fast between her dry lips. She scratched a little at the brocade coverlet and twined her hips beneath his, feeling his cock rub at her thigh again. He grunted at that and let his eyes shut for a moment, his face twisting just a little, a crack showing in his dominant exterior. His hand faltered in massaging her womanhood for a second as she squirmed and his member ground against her leg, and he quickly pulled his hips away until there was no more contact there. She knew why. He didn't want things to end for himself prematurely. The thought of that, that he was supremely aroused right now, made Bellatrix unable to stave off her climax any longer, and she desperately squealed and then cried out over and over, Master, Master, as her walls clamped arrhytmically around Voldemort's sodden fingers. She contracted in her pleasure for a very long moment, gulping in air in erratic breaths with her eyes screwed shut until she slowly came down from her high and realised that Voldemort had pulled his soaked hand from her body. She finally opened her eyes and looked up to see him looking very serious indeed as he told her,

"It wasn't… I dreamed that I was on top of you, but right now I should like something else."

Bellatrix's cheeks were scorched then as she nodded, her mouth and throat dry in the aftermath of her climax. She croaked out, "Whatever you want, Master."

He glanced away, out the window at the rain that had let up into a gentle drizzle now, and he said thoughtfully, "I am convinced, at this point, that my dream was remarkably accurate in the detailed portrait it painted in my mind. How my imagination so properly cooked up the experience of… well, in any case, I should like to have you atop me now. It's what I want, so."

His cheeks were dark pink then, as though he were embarrassed of something. Bellatrix boldly reached up to stroke him there as was surprised to feel how warm his skin was. She waited for him to meet her gaze, and she nodded again. Voldemort moved then, rolling onto his back on the bed and letting his eager cock stand at attention. Bellatrix struggled not to reach out and play with him. She knew he had been on the brink of finishing and wanted to be inside of her. She knew not to taunt him. Instead, she tossed her left leg over his hips and carefully lined her body up with his, hissing a bit with delight as she sank down onto his length and soaked in the feel of him.

He felt huge like this, she thought to herself. He felt good all the time, certainly bigger than Rodolphus and delightfully skilled with a witch in general, but right now, sheathed within her as she knelt above him, he felt huge. She tipped her head back and let her mouth fall open in wonder, her black curls tickling the bare skin of her back as her hands reached out and grappled for purchase. She was surprised then by the way Voldemort seized her hands in hers and laced their fingers together, encouraging her to move. Bellatrix moaned a little, rocking up and forward, then down and back. Up and forward, down and back. She lowered her gaze, bleary with desire, and saw Voldemort chewing his bottom lip as he studied her. He said, far more gently than she was expecting,

"You're remarkably beautiful, you do realise."

She coughed out a little laugh and shook her head a bit. "You're far too kind, My Lord."

She moved with a bit more urgency then, and Voldemort made a sound of satisfaction as he moved his hands from hers to her waist, caressing the skin there with his fingertips as he confirmed,

"I daresay you are among the most beautiful witches I have ever seen, Bellatrix."

She froze then, unable to move after receiving a compliment like that from him. Voldemort's hands cinched on her hips and forced her swaying to recommence, and Bellatrix's heart beat a war tattoo inside her chest as she brought her knuckles to her lips in shock and felt her eyes well heavily. She struggled to keep moving then, to please him, to make him feel good. She leaned down a bit until her hands touched the blankets, and she began to thrust her hips more urgently up and down atop his cock. Suddenly Voldemort's face contorted into an expression that seemed like he was in pain, though of course she knew full well that was not the case at all. He groaned, more loudly than she'd been expecting, and she felt him swell and twitch inside of her. His face went still and peaceful, though he was panting for a long moment after he came, and his eyes stayed shut. Bellatrix, without thinking, bent down to kiss him square on the mouth, and he was more than a little receptive. He tangled his tongue with hers and suckled her lip and planted delicate pecks on her mouth for a very long while until Bellatrix could hardly breathe. Finally he'd gone soft and she was exhausted, so she carefully climbed off him and away from the bed, feeling dirty and a bit awkward. Voldemort stared at the ceiling, his throat bobbing, and he said quietly,

"Clean yourself up and get dressed."

"Yes, Master," Bellatrix said obediently. She rushed out into the sitting room and found her wand on the ground, where it had been carelessly discarded in the process of undressing her. She aimed the wand between her thighs with a trembling hand and nonverbally incanted spells to Siphon and Scour the mess her master had made. She dragged the tip of her wand from her knee to her shoulder and shut her eyes, cleansing her body of the salty tinge of sweat that had come from the sheer exertion of undergoing pleasure at her lord's behest. Feeling much more fresh, she began to dress herself then, pulling on socks and boots and knickers, bra and dress, doing up the buttons of the garment with a simple binding spell. She glanced toward the bedroom and caught a flash of movement, seeing Voldemort buttoning his trousers. Bellatrix realised her hair ribbon was in his bedroom, and she contemplated going in there to ask for it, but she didn't dare. She just braided her loose curls again, bringing them over her shoulder as they'd been before, and she Conjured herself a simple black cord to tie the braid up. Then she stood in the sitting room and waited, and a few moments later, Voldemort came striding out of the bedroom, wearing a different shirt than he'd been wearing before.

Without a word, he nonverbally Banished his rumpled shirt from the floor of the sitting room into the bedroom, and he stood before Bellatrix and stared down at her for a moment, twirling his pale yew wand in the way that always made Bellatrix tingle, impressed and oddly excited. It a supremely erotic thing that he did, spinning that bone-like wand about as though it were an extension of his body and he were lost in thought. Now he gazed down at Bellatrix and his throat bobbed again as it had done on the bed, and he said quietly,

"My dream was not only incomplete; it did not do you justice, Bella."

"Oh." Her eyes felt thick with tears once more, and her throat felt as thought there were a large knot trapped inside of it. She tried to swallow past the knot, to speak, but she couldn't. She shook her head a little, and Voldemort spun his wand in a more complex pattern as he continued,

"I underestimated the depth of pleasure you would be able to bring me. The degree to which I would… enjoy you."

His wand stopped spinning then, and he slowly lowered his hand. Bellatrix managed to gulp at last, still not able to muster up anything to say, and Voldemort shrugged, his cheeks pinking a little as he said,

"It was meant to be a trial of my own curiosity… a study of what it might feel like to kiss you. That was it, you see. That was meant to be the end of it. And yet… since then… there has been a great deal of…"

"Nonsense," Bellatrix whispered. Voldemort licked his lips and confessed at last,

"Somehow, Bellatrix, it no longer feels like nonsense."

Bellatrix sank her teeth into her bottom lip and gazed up at him for a very long while. Then she watched him open his left fist and reveal the black velvet hair ribbon she'd left in the bedroom but had not dared ask him for. She reached with trembling fingers to take it out of his palm, muttering quiet thanks, and she tucked it into the wand pocket of her skirt. Voldemort's eyes trained to her hair, to the place where she'd tied up her braid with a newly Conjured cord, but he said nothing. Instead he cleared his throat and reminded her,

"When the Malfoys and your sister return from Scotland, I'll be putting the Dark Mark on Narcissa. It is my expectation that she serve me as the developer and facilitator of Death Eater society. Harmony and goodwill among my inner circle are essential. I require a young, dynamic follower to coordinate meetings, parties, and such things to keep everyone happy and cordial. I wish for you to prepare Narcissa for life as a Death Eater, to make her fully understand her commitment to me. I know you understand what I mean, Bellatrix; she must comprehend fully what vows she is taking when I tattoo the Dark Mark upon her forearm. Speak with her as soon as she returns."

"Yes, Master," Bellatrix said compliantly. She watched then as Voldemort walked with confident steps over to his bookshelf and scanned his eyes over the third row from the bottom. He dragged his fingertips along the spines of the titles on the shelf, pausing at last when he reached a faded red leather title. He pulled the book out from the shelf and sniffed, walking back to Bellatrix and handing her the tome. She gratefully accepted the book and read the flaked gold foil title that had been stamped onto the cover.

Viking Maledictions: Darkest Magic as Utilised by the Northmen.

"As part of your ongoing studies," Voldemort said, "I should like for you to become intimately familiar with spells from history that have, for whatever reason, fallen out of favour or into disuse. Some were replaced by more efficient or effective modern alternatives. Some were outlawed for various reasons and became unpopular as their use began to be systematically punished. Others were rumoured to impart danger upon the witch or wizard casting them. Still more were simply forgotten. When I studied on the Continent, I learnt all sorts of forgotten magic, some of it incredibly impressive. I learnt spells Roman wizards had used, learnt incantations that hadn't been uttered in five hundred years. It is good to revisit abandoned, repressed Dark magic. Begin with the Vikings."

"Thank you, My Lord. I shall read quickly but carefully," Bellatrix promised. "And I shall speak with my sister when she comes back."

"Good girl." Voldemort reached for a stray curl and tucked it behind Bellatrix's ear. He bend and touched his lips to her cheekbone. "You are indeed my very best soldier, Bella. Now. Go home."

"Hello, Cissy. How was Scotland?"

"Oh, it was dreary and rainy and much too cold for this time of year," Narcissa complained, "but it was also beautiful, and I had a grand time walking about with Lucius. I always have a grand time with Lucius."

"Yes. You are so very in love with him," Bellatrix said lightly, walking with Narcissa into the sitting room of the house she shared with Rodolphus. She gestured for Narcissa to sit opposite her. There was already a tea tray on the table between them; Bizzy knew Narcissa well enough to have prepared her a cup of black tea with far too much milk and sugar for Bellatrix's liking. Narcissa picked up her cup of tea and sipped at it, but Bellatrix left her tea untouched as she asked,

"Has the Dark Lord spoken with you? You know, individually?"

Narcissa pinched her lips and nodded. She lowered her voice and said discreetly, "He wants me to join his ranks officially. To serve in an ex officio capacity as the Death Eaters' hostess and social coordinator."

"I think it's important for you to understand, Cissy," Bellatrix warned, "That taking the vows the Dark Lord asks of you for this won't just make you a party planner. You'll be a Death Eater in your own right. That is, of course, an immeasurable honour to be bestowed upon you, as it was upon Dolph and me. But it is also the greatest responsibility one could ever undertake. You must comprehend that you're giving him your life. Your soul. Your very being. Every shred of you from the inside out will belong to the Dark Lord until the day you die. You know this?"

Narcissa looked frightened, setting her cup of tea down upon the table, but she knitted her hands in her lap and nodded quickly.

"I do understand what is being asked of me," she said quietly. "Lucius and I discussed the matter ad nauseam in Scotland. I admit that I considered telling the Dark Lord I wasn't ready, but Lucius insists there could be no higher purpose in life, for any of us, than to serve him. There could be no greater aim for any of our souls than to work tirelessly for the Dark Lord's glory. I could never do for him what you do, Bellatrix. Fighting in battle as a soldier, slaying enemies the way you do. I know the combat you undertake, Bella. It frightens me. I could never… I am not a warrior like you. I'm just a silly little girl, I admit it. If I can serve him by keeping his personnel contented and harmonious, I will have fulfilled my duty. I will have done what I was able to do for him. And then there will have been no higher purpose in my life."

Bellatrix curled up half her mouth and reached for her cup of tea. "Yes," she told her little sister. "I think you're going to do just fine."