Written for QLFC: Season 8, Round 11
Team: Kenmare Kestrels (Captain)
Prompt: This Seems Familiar - Who's Afraid of the Dark? (S7)
Warnings: Ooooooh angst, insanity, depression, brief mentions of blood, brief mentions of torture. It's a Bellatrix fic… what more do you want from me?
Word count (excluding AN): 1247
Disclaimer: This story's timeline is backwards. Aka, it is told from the present to the past instead of the past to the present.
Afraid of the Dark
January 14th, 1996
Bellatrix stepped up to the mirror and nearly screamed. Her hair was no better than a rat's nest, dark tangles protruding from her skull. It crackled with magic, but that wasn't new. Her hair had always been lined with magic, fizzing and humming along with her emotions. She had always liked her hair, but now? She suppressed a shudder.
And that wasn't all. Her skin was sallow, clinging to her bones like soggy paper; her eyes were wide, slightly yellowed, and dark circles clung beneath them; her teeth were uneven, chipped, and discolored; and she was thin. That's what gnawed at her the most. Gone were her smooth curves and the muscles that tightened so beautifully when she dueled. She was left with nothing—just skin over a skeleton.
She couldn't stop staring, her hands running down the length of her torso, touching her face, trying desperately to detangle her hair. She was horrified. Scared, even.
But then her left arm began to burn, and she was torn from her reflection. She was relieved; she didn't like to see what the darkness had done to her.
It was time to see her Master.
After so long, she finally would see him, alive and well, and for that she would suffer lifetimes in the dark as a gnarled and weakened witch.
…
January 13th, 1996
"It is time," Antonin Dolohov said, his voice barely shifting through the small hole that separated their cells. The sound of it was rough from disuse, and his attempt at a whisper sounded more like grinding rocks than human vocal chords.
Bellatrix made a soft humming sound to let him know she heard. She was sitting at the back of her cell, her head hanging between her knees. She seemed to disappear in the shadows, curled in a ball and lifeless.
But it was time.
She was finally getting out of there.
She was finally going to see him.
She stood when something thin was pushed through the meal slot of her door. Her steps were wobbly, but she pressed on. A slight giggle slipped from her lips as she bent down to retrieve the object.
Finally.
Her wand.
The Dementors held up their end of the bargain.
She raised it with a shaky hand, the feeling of walnut comfortable in her grip. The dragon heartstring pulsed as she fed it magic. When her eyes opened, so did her cell door with a blast. She was past using childlike unlocking spells.
This place had been her prison for too many years—she would destroy it as she left.
…
?
Bellatrix screamed, her voice hoarse. She had no idea how long she had gone on like this. Maybe only minutes, but maybe it had been days. It hurt like the devil, but she couldn't stop.
If she stopped, she would be subjected to the darkness. The cold. The despair.
But slowly, her voice gave out completely. Slowly, she became nothing more than a crazed woman, kneeling on the floor, mouth torn open in a silent scream. Slowly, she let it fade and crawled to the back of her cell, pulling her knees chest and letting her head drop between them.
Slowly, she began to disappear.
…
?
Bellatrix writhed as she tried to break free from her captors. They were moving her to a new cell, as she had done so much damage to her previous one. Somehow, she had clawed at it enough to have made a hole to the outside, letting in the smallest patch of sunlight during the day.
Her fingers were bloodied and broken, but it didn't matter. She had seen the sun, even if only for a short while.
Too bad the Dementors discovered what she had done.
So they dragged her, kicking and screaming, through the prison, taking her up the stairs to a more secure cell. No matter what she did, how she moved, she couldn't break free. After some time, she went limp, needing to catch her breath.
And as she caught her breath, she caught sight of someone that renewed the gleam in her eyes. "Cousin!" she called cheerfully as she was dragged past Sirius' cell. "How wonderful it is to see your…" she paused, looking over his wilted form, "beautiful face."
Sirius didn't raise his eyes. He just stayed, slumped against the bars of his cage. The sight made Bellatrix cackle, and she found she couldn't stop.
Not even when she was placed in her new cell. Not even when those cackles turned back into wretched screams.
…
?
At first it wasn't awful. During the day, she paced the perimeters of her cell, able to see well enough with the very weak amounts of light that filtered from various windows out in the hall. She muttered, too, her voice relatively quiet, spells dancing on her lips—it was becoming increasingly more frustrating that she was unable to cast any of them.
She mourned, too. She mourned the death of her master, her Dark Lord... her lover.
And she mourned the silent support of her husband.
Night time was when it got difficult. It's when she felt her sanity slipping. The darkness was like the sea just outside, swallowing her soul and corroding her mind. It whispered to her, telling her to give up.
When the whispers became loud enough, she began to yell at them, pleading for the voices to leave her alone. Eventually, they began to block everything else out until she couldn't see the weak light of the day.
And she began to scream.
And she began to claw at the walls, desperate for a way out.
But there was no way out of her own mind.
…
January 3rd, 1982
There was no use denying it. She was guilty, and she was proud of what she had done.
"His work is not over," she yelled as her life sentence to Azkaban was laid upon her. "He may be gone—" she ignored how her voice cracked at that. "He may be gone, but another will rise to take his place, punishing those who defy the natural order of things. The Dark Lord's ideals will be realized and the world will become clean!"
She continued shrieking, but it didn't stop her from being dragged away, chains around her wrists and fury in her eyes.
…
November 20th, 1981
All she felt was rage.
Her husband and brother-in-law flanked her sides as they marched through the doors of the Longbottom household. She saw the woman first. She was pretty, Bellatrix reasoned: pale skin flushed with fear and blue eyes narrowed with concentration. She was petite, but stood with her shoulders squared and wand raised steadily, aiming for Bellatrix's heart.
"Why couldn't it have been your son," Bellatrix said, her voice warbled with grief. She blocked the non-verbal spells that Alice Longbottom sent her way. "If it had been your son, maybe my Lord would still be alive."
Alice shook her head. "No, Voldemort was meant to die," she said, her teeth gritted. "The side of the light will never give in."
Bellatrix snarled, feeling a spike of adrenaline rushing through her. "No, the light will fear the dark," she said, advancing on Alice, her wand raised menacingly. "You all will be punished until you are nothing but shadows."
"I'm not afraid of the dark," Alice said, her voice infuriatingly calm. "But I believe you are."
And before Alice could say another word, Bellatrix screamed, "Crucio!"