The Houses Competition Round Two

House: Gryffindor (stand-in)

Class: Potions

Drabble

Prompt: "Wait, which one?"

Betas: charlotteredmond99 and Ash Juillet

Word Count: 802 (wordcounter .net)

There is dirt streaked through her hair, grime on her skin, and heavy metal chains dangling from her wrists. Her fingers are blue, turning black, and there is a spike being stabbed through her skull, but no matter how much she screams, it will not hurry up and pierce her brain to put her out of her misery.

She'd take a kiss over this, she thinks, and closes her eyes.

"Have you even finished your homework, Bella?" Cissy asks across the Slytherin table, and Bellatrix gasps and looks up.

"What homework?" she croaks, and blinks around her. She is surrounded by children, and her skin crawls even more than usual.

Was breakfast always this busy? She hates it.

"I don't know; any of it?" Cissy says impatiently, then, indignantly, "Bella!"

Bellatrix can't help it. She feels as though she hasn't eaten in 14 years. Butter has never tasted so good. She decides to add some toast to it.

When she looks up, Cissy is gone, and they are at home. Her mother glowers at her, pure poison and acid and everything bad in her gaze.

"We will not discuss this any more!" she screams and jerks her wand. Bellatrix feels her body move like a puppet, painful and unnatural. She is jerked from her mother's sitting room, and the doors swing shut loudly, though not before she is hit with a powerful stinging hex.

When she turns, He is there.

"My Lord!" she squeals excitedly. He is younger than the last time she saw him, though only slightly. His eyes are just as red, and he is just as commanding.

"Bella,." Lord Voldemort greets. She is certain his voice is just slightly warm as he says her name. A shiver of glee travels down her spine. She tries to smooth her hair, her dress, anything, but her hands are still chained. "I trust you have done the task I asked of you?"

That's right, the thing, the thing…. She wants to say yes, she wants to please him, but she doesn't remember what he has asked of her. He's asked so many things, and she's done so many, but what task is this? She cannot say she has if she hasn't, and face the disappointment. What did he want? What did he need?

He's already turning away, shadows lunging to grab him, his form wavering.

"Wait!" she screams after him as he disappears. "Which one?"

Nothing.

"Bella?" Cissy asks, her hand on Bellatrix's shoulder turning her around. Her ball gown is lovely, the dark chocolatey brown making her blond hair seem even lighter, the onyx droplets in her ears dangling just over her bare shoulders. "Have you seen Andy?"

Bellatrix blinks and looks around. Their sister is nowhere to be found, and there's crumbs on her dress, presumably from the tiny pomegranate tart she's holding. She dusts them off with disgust and takes another bite. She can't remember the last time she ate something so sweet. She wants to scarf it down, but years of her mother's screaming keeps her from doing so.

"Probably hanging out with that filthy muggle." She spits, and looks around again. "Narcissa? Did I tell you about anything recently? I needed to do something, but I can't remember what."

"You've not said anything to me. Oh, there's Euphemia, I should go talk to her…."

Bellatrix watches her sister go, then finishes the tart and leaves while the Yule Ball is still in full swing. She heads towards the dungeons, opens the first door to a classroom she finds, and she's standing over a body in an alley.

A hag, she thinks. Is this Knockturn?

"Stop wasting time, Bella. Our Lord is waiting for us." Her husband's voice echoes, the first time she's heard him do anything but scream in a long time. "He wants to tell us about a new…. project."

"What? Why?" she asks, and steps over the hag towards the meeting place. There's blood on her shoes, and she casts a spell to clean them.

When she looks up, her Lord is leaving, Severus and the rat man following, and she is struck by an odd feeling of foreboding, but she has things to do and she knows there is nothing her Lord can't handle.

Now if only she could remember what she has to do….

The dementors sweep past her cell, the temperature plummeting from how close they are.

"What is it?" she whispers, as her skin cracks from the cold.

A task, one he'd given her. She racks her brain, ignoring the agony and exhaustion, too frantic in her search to stop. Each thought hurts, but she doesn't know.

Which one?

There is no answer present, so with a terrified hiss, she closes her eyes again.

"Have you even finished your homework, Bella?"