"We are here to find someone for Harry, Bella," says Sirius in a greeting. "It's a good graduation present, don't you think? Much better than another racing broom or a chess set. My boy already has all of that anyway."
Bellatrix giggles at that. "You are so rarely right, cousin-mine!" Then she turns to Harry and grasps his cheeks, her long, red nails digging in. "But is this ickle boy ready to have an alive toy like that?"
Harry scowls at her, his cheeks aching. He pushes her hands away and rubs at abused flesh.
"I am perfectly capable, auntie," mutters Harry. "Would you give us a tour?"
"Gladly!" She beams with energy when she leads them through the glass door that opens only when she puts her palm on the surface. Harry recognizes one of his mother's inventions designed specifically for the Ministry's needs.
Lily Potter has hated introduced by Grindelwald system of institutionalized enslavement. That didn't deter her from creating the best runic array she was able to. Harry is proud to see his mother's work being in use as he heads to choose his slave.
"Come in," urges Bellatrix.
Harry and Sirius step into the corridor after her. There are no bars. Instead of that a clear plane of glass separates the corridor from a row of cells. The floor and walls are white and the glass is clean, no trace of dirt visible.
"The slaves are not going to hear you until I tap the glass with a clear intention of speaking with any of them," says Bellatrix with a lazy smirk. "We put them into the cells in the order they arrive here. That being said I made extra effort to put forward some particularly fine specimens." She giggles, covering her mouth with a hand.
"Fine specimens?" asks Harry when they find themself in front of a cell inhabited by a witch. She rams at the glass surface with unsettling verve. He is not able to hear what she shouts at them.
Bellatrix gives the women a toothy smile. "This one is simply a problematic vermin," she states and the woman spits in her direction, her saliva dashing against the glass.
"Disgusting," mutters Sirius while Harry looks at the witch with curiosity. Did she understand somehow what Bella said, maybe from the movement of her lips? Or was it a pure hate against her keeper?
"So what is your perfect slave like, Harry?" she asks, turning to him.
Harry shrugs. "I am not really sure. Can I get a look at them first?"
"Sure!" she agrees and winks at him. She makes a stop in front of a few cells, inviting Harry to give its inhabitants a closer look. It's mostly witches that she shows him, all of them dressed neatly into uniforms provided by Ministry, their faces lifeless and depressed.
"Fuck-" murmurs Sirius "-I would go crazy sitting like that and staring at the fucking wall day after day."
Later on, they stop in front of one of the many cells. Its inhabitant is slumped against the wall, his legs crossed in a lazy pose. Only when the man turns to them, his handsome face is revealed, high cheekbones and unexpectedly cold eyes.
They are defiant, contemptuous and as Harry looks into them, he feels the pull. "I like this one," he says before he even registers his lips moving.
"This bloke?" Sirius raises his eyebrows. "Don't you want to get some pretty girl instead? Nice bird to look at?" he suggests intently.
The man has already turned away, his face obscured by shade. Harry feels bereft. "Yeah," he says, "this bloke is just what I want. What is his name?" It's not like he can explain this sudden desire.
"Oh well," sighs Sirius. "I suppose I can't argue with you. It's your present, so you get to choose." He shrugs, enthusiasm leaving him and turns to Bellatrix. "He is not some deviant, is he?"
The woman opens her file and lazily flicks through its pages. "This one is called Tom," she reads. "The information is mostly classified. I doubt he is a deviant as you call it, there is not a word about his sexuality."
"How old is he?" demands Sirius.
"There is no information on his age." Bellatrix squints at the pages.
Her words do nothing to calm Sirius. "Look, Harry, he doesn't look much older than you and he is a criminal already!" he exclaims, his voice pitching. He shakes his head.
Harry narrows his eyes at his godfather. It was the man's idea for Harry to choose some pretty witch - preferably a debtor to avoid trouble with handling her. Until Harry laid his eyes on this guy, he wanted to do exactly that.
"So if we buy him, I get him forever?" he asks, swallowing down his exasperation. It would be the usual case with serious criminals while debtors would be enslaved only until they cleared off the debt with their work.
Bellatrix clucks her tongue. "Yes, he got a life sentence," she confirms. Her brow is furrowed as she reads on. "Maybe you should listen to my cousin here and choose someone more fun? You don't need to be shy if you are after all after blokes," she titters. "We have a nice blonde a few rows further that will be just right, will offer you some reprieve from your girlfriend."
Harry looks at this bloke again. Do their think he wants to fuck him? That wouldn't be unreasonable, the bloke is handsome. At the end of this train of thought, inevitable conclusion waits for him. Hermione would condemn him for using a slave for sex even more than for simply having a slave. He voices that.
"Hermione will have my head, if she ever hears that I agreed to this idea, Sirius. I pray you never mention buggering them in her presence." Harry considers hiding it from her. How difficult it can be to conceal one extra person in a house as big as Grimmauld Place? Hide them in the closet?
"She is your girlfriend, right, Harry?" asks Sirius, scratching his beard.
"Hermione is my friend."
Bellatrix claps her hands happily. "It's little Weasleyette, cousin. I have seen them!" she claims excitedly and Harry doesn't wish to know how or when.
"Oh yes," agrees easily Sirius, ready to hide how he can't remember names of Harry's friends. "How do you even know that, Bella?"
She taunts him until Harry steps in. "So can we take him away today?" And while the man lost his interest in the proceedings, many others remained watching with their unhappy faces almost glued to the glass. People aren't brought into such places by happy circumstances, Harry understands.
"Are you so eager, little Harry?" giggles Bellatrix, almost dancing around them.
"Of course!" he says in mock offence. "He is supposed to be my present!"
Sirius sighs again. "So it's set, it has to be this bloke. Alright, Harry, he is not so ugly at least. Let's fill the papers, Bella, and then you can take him home, Harry."
Bellatrix draws her wand and murmurs some spell so quietly it's unintelligible even in a place so quiet that Harry almost hears buzzing of magic. A chain materializes in her hand, hook on one of its ends.
"We will take him with us to the office," she informs them. Then she reaches into the cell, her hand passing the pane as if it didn't exist in the first place. She clamps the chain to the man's throat and pulls sharply to see how it holds. The man is jerked to his side, collar around his throat suffocating him for a moment. "Get up," orders Bellatrix.
Tom looks at her disdainfully and then he stands up with deliberate slowness. It's not very graceful – how long has he been sitting there, waiting for anything to happen? – but it communicates well the man's lack of eagerness to follow anyone's command.
Bellatrix grabs Tom's collar and drags him from his cell to the corridor. He tilts his head, purses his lips. "Is that all necessary?" he seems to say without uttering a word.
Harry smiles sardonically. It's such a play, he thinks.
Bellatrix leads them to her office, swinging keys and swaying her wide hips as she walks. Harry tries not to look - it only makes his eyes to follow down her long legs to her high heels that click with every step she makes. Tom follows close behind her.
As his aunt proceeds to open the glass door that isolates the prisoners from the ministry building frequented by free people, he looks one last time at this row of cells, every one of them looking the same from his perspective, inhabitants hidden from the view.
"Come on!" rushes him Bellatrix. "We need to figure out some things and then he will be your property. No need to linger here!"
Bellatrix's office reminds Harry keenly of Grimmauld Place. There is a painting of a woman being torn apart by horses, several gin bottles and flowers, some of them withered. As she stands next to Medusa's bust whose hair keeps wiggling and hissing, Harry notices how tall and thin Tom is. He towers over Harry's aunt even with her wearing high heels, his attention firmly set on the stone snakes.
"You will stand here," she informs the man. "Take a seat, Harry, Sirius."
The pink, velour chair Harry chooses, makes him slump instantly. Sirius follows his example, dragging a camp chair from the corner of the room. Bellatrix extracts an empty form for them to fill and throws it on the desk.
She flops into the chair and crosses her legs.
"Before Tom is handed over from Ministry to you, I need to explain the terms of this agreement to you," she drawls. She opens the files she has browsed earlier and dictates: "Write: the name of the slave - Tom. Date of Ministry coming into possession of a slave - 28th June." At her words, the quill jumps from the tabletop into the air. It dips into ink and then quickly writes what she says.
Then she points her wand at Tom and mutters another spell Harry can't hear clearly. When he leans forward he sees weight and height being noted down.
Bellatrix turns to Sirius. "It will make a smaller dent in your budget than you expected, cousin. While you need to pay debtor's debt to buy them, criminals are sold by Ministry for a small fee of one thousand galleons."
"What's the catch, Bella?" demands Sirius.
"You will be responsible for his behaviour," says Bellatrix. "You must control him, keep him from committing crimes against the Ministry."
"You should tell us what he did," says Sirius and folds his arms. "How are we going to predict his actions otherwise? We need to know what kind of sick he is."
Bellatrix shakes her head, her locks bouncing. "You won't be told, cousin. You will make do as you are. Now. Once he becomes your property, Harry, you are free to use any means to see fit to control him. He is not expected to be ever a free man and his existence will depend on your fancy."
"Didn't people buy some criminals in the past to brutally kill them?" cuts in Sirius, raising his brows.
"They did, yes," confirms Bellatrix calmly, not rising to the bait. "Ministry will provide you with a tool to control your slave, Harry, but as I said, you are under no obligation to use our methods." Then she narrows her eyes at him. "But you should. I don't believe you are able to discipline another man without our collar. Use it."
"Harry will do as he likes," interrupts Sirius again.
Harry sighs. "Can you tell us more about this collar, auntie? You mean the one he is already wearing, right?"
Bellatrix smiles toothily. "Yes. Ask him to hold your wand, Harry." The glee lightens her eyes. She is giddy, Harry notes and he doubts it is a good idea to follow her advice.
"What will happen?" he asks instead, his fingers clasping his wand. He twists it in his pocket. He is unwilling to part with this, his wand feeling almost like another limb.
"Suggesting my godson to hand his wand to criminal, Bella, it's really.."
"Go on, Harry," she urges him, her voice low and husky. "Hand it over to him."
He is tempted by the things her eyes promise if he listens to her. His hesitation lasts several seconds. It's unfortunate he shares a trait with Blacks. He wants to see.
Bellatrix smiles wider when Harry draws his wand with a jerky movement of his arm.
He rises to his feet and approaches Tom slowly, each step measured. The man looks at him dispassionately. With a feeling of premonition and excitement simmering low in his belly, Harry offers Tom his holy wand, handle first.
It takes a moment before the man decides to reach for this. Harry hears Bellatrix giggle.
Tom's fingers make contact with wood and there is a ripple in his face. His hand reflexively clenches on the wand. His brows furrow and his mouth twists until his teeth are bared in animalistic grimace. Harry drinks in his expression as the flash of pain is the first emotion he sees on this handsome face.
Tom screams, his voice hoarse, high. Harry's wand clatters to the floor and the slave falls to his knees. Bellatrix still laughs and Harry's body is stiff with tension.
"You see now?!," she exclaims giddily as Harry bends down to collect his wand. "There is no magic without a wand! There is no wizard without a wand!"
