Somehow, before Bellatrix knew it, it was the first of September. She rose early in the morning, having spent the previous evening with Lord Voldemort. They had dined together and had touched one another to completion. And then they'd said goodbye, in a manner that had made Bellatrix cry outright like a little fool.
Now, this morning, she struggled to pack up all of her school things into her trunk and to pull on the pieces of her Slytherin uniform. One bit at a time, she transformed herself back into the Hogwarts student she really was. She stared at the black metal ring round her fourth left finger, the ring binding her to Lord Voldemort, and she remembered what he'd told her the night before.
Albus Dumbledore will be incredibly suspicious of you. Interested in you. He'll be watching you carefully now. Do not give him any fodder. Watch him back.
Bellatrix pulled on her tie and began to knot it, wondering what she would wear at Christmastime to the Ministry to marry Lord Voldemort. A plain black dress, probably. Nothing too fancy. She just wanted to marry him. She would move from her parents' home to Malfoy Manor. And then she would sleep with him at night - at least on school holidays. Somehow, they'd managed to make it to the first of September with only kissing and touching. No sex. That had involved a great deal of self-control on Voldemort's part, Bellatrix thought, for she had given him every indication that she was amenable to making love before she left for school. But he'd insisted that they would wait until she was of age, for his own conscience, if nothing else, as he'd said. She'd teased him about having a conscience at all, and he'd kissed her again.
Now Bellatrix screamed for the House-Elf to come haul her trunk downstairs, and she padded down the staircase to find Andromeda and Narcissa in the breakfast nook, already in their own Slytherin robes. Bellatrix sat morosely at the breakfast table, sliding into a chair, and spooned a bit of porridge into her mouth.
"Sorry to leave your precious fiancée, are you?" teased Andromeda, and Narcissa immediately swatted her elder sister's shoulder.
"Don't taunt her! It must be terribly difficult to leave him," Narcissa reasoned.
"Why?" Andromeda sipped her orange juice and scoffed. "He's an old man."
"Andy!" Narcissa hissed, but Bellatrix just shook her head and said,
"It's all right, Cissy. Andy's just jealous. Don't you remember last term how she had such a massive crush on Bishop Pearce, that Half-Blood Gryffindor boy? Bishop didn't seem too fond of our dear Andromeda. What was it he told you to do, Andy? Ah, yes… eat rocks."
"You shut up." Andromeda narrowed her eyes. "Marrying a man Mum and Dad's age. What's the matter with you?"
"You won't be asking that in five years' time," Bellatrix asserted. "You'll be bowing down to him, just like everyone else."
"Ha! Not likely!" Andromeda spat. Narcissa looked flustered, and suddenly Druella Black walked into the nook and exclaimed,
"Girls! What the blazes is going on here? Are you bickering?"
"No," Andromeda lied. "Bellatrix was just mocking me about Bishop Pearce, that's all."
"Well. Bishop Pearce was just a silly fancy of yours, wasn't he?" Druella said, stepping into the nook and putting her hands on Narcissa's shoulders. "That Half-Blood Gryffindor boy. Not exactly your cup of tea."
"He seemed to be precisely Andy's cup of tea last term," Bellatrix murmured, and Andromeda shot back,
"And apparently your cup of tea consists of greying old men."
"Oh, stop it, the both of you!" Narcissa seemed genuinely distressed, pounding her fist on the table and sending her tea spilling over the rim of her cup. She huffed a breath and cried out, "I shan't have our last morning at home consist of my sisters fighting. I simply shall not."
"Right, well. It's nearly time to go to King's Cross, anyway," said Druella, pinching her lips.
At the train station, Bellatrix pushed her trolley with her trunk on it and felt a pit of dread in her stomach. She'd said her goodbye to Voldemort the night before, but she felt a horrid, awful sense of discontent now in approaching the train. She watched as her father, then Andromeda and Narcissa, went through the barrier between Platform 9 and Platform 10. She finally pushed her own trolley through, hearing the high scream of the Hogwarts Express whistle. She moved out of the way as her mother came through the barrier, and then she froze.
He was there. He'd come.
Standing further down the platform, wearing lightweight black robes and looking for all the world like the most handsome man who had ever lived, was Lord Voldemort. He had his hands folded before him, and as people passed by, he nodded his acknowledgement. A few people - Gryffindors and Mudbloods, mostly - gave him looks of horror or fear as they went by, but he paid them no heed. Finally he raised his eyes to Bellatrix, and he smiled just a little. Bellatrix's breath hitched in her throat, and she exclaimed,
"Daddy, will you see to it that my trunk gets on the train? I've got someone to see!"
"What? Oh!" Cygnus Black took the trolley that Bellatrix shoved at him, and she heard him promise to get her trunk aboard as she dashed away from her parents. She picked up speed as she approached Voldemort, and when she finally reached him, she brazenly and shamelessly threw her arms round his shoulders. He wrapped her up and whispered into her ear,
"I couldn't help coming."
"No?" Bellatrix looked up at him, feeling her eyes well. "We said goodbye last night, you and I."
"I couldn't help coming," he said again. He tucked her hair behind her ear and murmured, "You'll do all sorts of learning this term at school. So much more learning than you ever got from me."
"Nonsense, Master." Bellatrix touched at his chest and hummed, "I've learnt more from you than I could ever learn from Slughorn and all the rest. Divination. Pah! I want to learn Occlumency. And as for Potions at school… I know how to make Dittany and healing potions; now teach me more poisons. What use have I for the ability to Transfigure paint into fabric? I want to learn how to -"
"Yes, I get the idea. You're ready to move beyond the confines of a Hogwarts education. But you've still got two years before I can make you wholly mine in the ways I mean to do. I'll start this Christmastime, but… for the rest, I must wait."
"Why?" Bellatrix gave him a desperate look. "Don't make me on the train. Don't make me go back to school, Master. Let me study with you. Let me be your soldier. Properly. Let me yours. You can teach me so much more than they ever could, and you know it."
"Bella. Don't make this any harder than it already is." Voldemort sighed and brought her knuckles up to his lips. The train's whistle sounded, warning students that the train was leaving momentarily. Bellatrix frantically glanced over her shoulder to see Andromeda and Narcissa embracing their parents. She turned back to Voldemort and begged him again,
"Please don't send me back to school, Master."
"Bellatrix, you will go and you will earn good marks, and you will come home in December and marry me. That's the end of it. Now go say goodbye to your mother and father and get on the train."
She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. "Yes, Master."
"Bella." He bent and brushed his lips against hers, pressing them once and then saying softly, "You know I care for you more than anything, don't you?"
"Mmm-hmm." She kissed him back and whispered, "I adore you."
"Go," he told her again. "Be well."
"Write to me?" she beseeched him as she pulled herself away, and he promised her,
"All the time."
Bellatrix bid her mother and father a quick farewell and then heaved herself up onto the train. She was still on the stairs of a carriage as the train pulled out of the station, and she watched Voldemort raise his hand as the parents on the platform waved desperately to their children. Bellatrix blew Voldemort a kiss, and he smiled at her. Finally, they left the station behind, and the wind of the outside air whipped at Bellatrix where she stood in the entrance to the carriage. She went inside the train at last and decided to impose herself on a compartment. It wasn't as if she had much choice; she didn't have friends.
There appeared to be a debutante compartment of sorts; Posie Parkinson, Aurora Rowle, and Margot Crabbe were all seated together talking. They were seventh-years, but Bellatrix had gotten to know them a bit better through all the preparation for the Debutante Ball this summer. She opened the compartment door and asked bravely,
"May I sit?"
"Oh. Bellatrix. Yes, of course." Posie slid over to make room, and Bellatrix plopped down on the seat. The compartment was suddenly very quiet, and Bellatrix asked,
"Everyone looking forward to term?"
"Bellatrix, is it true that you're in love with Lord Voldemort?" Aurora Rowle burst out. Bellatrix raised her eyebrows and swallowed hard. In love? Was she? Yes, probably. Deeply. She licked her bottom lip carefully and said,
"I broke off my engagement with Rodolphus Lestrange because he and I were not at all a good match, for one thing, and because I already had a very strong attachment to someone else."
"To him," breathed Posie Parkinson. "I saw you with him just now on the platform. His hands were all over you."
"Yes, well, we are getting married," Bellatrix said in an awkward voice.
"But he's so much older," Posie complained. "If my father matched me to someone his age, I'd say no."
"We weren't matched," Bellatrix reminded Posie tersely. "We made our own decision. And, anyway, why does everyone care how old he is? Why is it so very concerning to everyone how old he is? I don't understand!"
"Sorry," Posie mumbled. She knitted her hands together in her lap, and then Margot Crabbe mercifully changed the topic.
"I got word that there might be a position for me in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, if I get a good number of NEWTs," she said. "You know my father's quite high-ranking in the department, and he's told me that his connections have assured me some sort of place if I score highly enough. So I mean to really keep to my studied this term."
Bellatrix stared out the window. She still had so very long to go before school was over for her. Sixth year, then seventh year. For what? All so she could be Voldemort's soldier. Why was he making her go back to school? Why couldn't she just study under him? She scowled deeply as the other girls talked.
Later that night, after the Welcoming Feast and the Sorting Hat ceremony and all the pomp and fanfare, Bellatrix curled up in her curtained bed. She put a fresh sheet of parchment on a book and used a self-inking quill to scratch out a letter.
Master,
Here I am beginning my penultimate year of studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Only twenty-one months until I graduate this school and am your soldier forever.
That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? We both know that I could be spending my time far more effectively learning under you. Is it that you do not have time to teach me? Simply give me books and I will study! I will not require much of your time at all; I swear it. When I am of age, in your free time, we could practise duelling and Curses and all the things you need me to know. Occlumency, Master. I am of age in just a few weeks' time.
Please, allow me to come to Malfoy Manor when I turn seventeen and can legally leave this place of my own volition. Please let me come to you. Please let me be yours in every way. I can not wallow here. I simply can't. Please do not make me stay.
Write to me and tell me that you will let me come. I beg it of you.
Your humble servant and soon to be loving wife,
Bellatrix