The place in Ireland was a grey stone cottage on a little hill overlooking the sea, just outside Squince in County Cork. Voldemort had packed food in an Expanded bag, and once they got to the cottage, he Banished the food to the pine cupboards in the tiny kitchen. Bellatrix smiled at the quaint little place, and she stared out the window as it began to rain. She pressed her hand to the cold glass and observed the vibrantly green grass round the cottage, leading in a rocky tumble down to the beach where the waves were crashing in on the sand. It began to rain just a little harder, and Bellatrix murmured,
"It is peaceful here."
"Come," said a voice from just behind her. "Come with me and let us begin our lessons, Bella."
"Now, Master?" she turned round to face him, pressing her hands to his chest as she studied his face. He nodded.
"Yes. Now. We can't stay here forever, and I want you to become an expert with this. With Occlumency. So come sit by the fire and let us begin."
She walked with him into the tiny sitting room, where two peach-coloured wingback armchairs were facing one another. There was a fireplace, whitewashed stone, and Bellatrix gazed into the fireplace as Voldemort pulled out his wand and aimed it at the charred bricks.
"Incendio," he murmured, and flames suddenly burst into the fireplace and licked the bricks. Bellatrix sank into one of the chairs, and Voldemort sat opposite her. She pulled out her wand, and he told her in a calm, steady voice,
"Occlumency involves ridding the mind of all thoughts and emotions such that memories, ideas, and sensations can not be properly pulled or read by a Legilimens. Ultimately, the goal is to become skilled enough with Occlumency to trick a Legilimens with false memories or fabricated emotions. But for now, we shall focus on complete and utter blankness, on nothingness."
"Nothingness," Bellatrix repeated. She blinked, staring at her master's scarred and damaged face. He was her husband now, she thought to herself. They were married.
"You are not at all blank at the moment," Voldemort smirked, and Bellatrix's mouth fell open. She shut her eyes and whispered,
"I don't know how to make my mind blank."
"First, you must become aware of what is in your mind," Voldemort told her. "Once you are aware of what is in there, you can become far more attuned to the task of shoving it away. Let us begin with an exercise. Make yourself comfortable in the chair and close your eyes."
Bellatrix put her wand in her lap and put a hand on each arm of the chair, tipping her head back a little. She shut her eyes and listened as Voldemort instructed,
"Now I want you to count your breaths. Count ten breaths, and try your best to focus on your breathing."
In. One. Out. Bellatrix tried to direct her attention to the way air filled and left her lungs. She repeated the action a few times, counting in her mind. In. Five. Out.
"What are you thinking about?" She heard Voldemort ask suddenly. Bellatrix jolted and realised she'd been thinking about Rodolphus Lestrange and Albus Dumbledore, at the meeting where she'd announced she was leaving school. She cleared her throat.
"Dumbledore and Rodolphus, Master."
"Shove the thought of them away. Focus on your breathing. Count to fifteen," Voldemort said. Bellatrix nodded. She shut her eyes a bit more tightly and breathed in again. In. Six. Out. In. Seven. Out.
She reached fifteen, and then she kept breathing slowly. Her mind felt empty, except for the sounds of the fire crackling every now and then.
"What are you thinking about?" murmured a voice, and Bellatrix responded,
"The sounds of the fire, Master."
"What do you smell?" he asked her. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the aromas of the room.
"The oldness of the room," she said. "The fire. You."
"What do you hear?" he pressed. Bellatrix listened.
"The fire. Rain on the windows. My own breath."
"What do you feel?" Voldemort asked, and Bellatrix gnawed her lip.
"Anxiety in my belly, Master. The chair beneath my hands."
"What do you taste?"
"Spearmint toothpaste," she replied at once, and after a long while, he finally said,
"Open your eyes and tell me what you see."
She did as he said. She opened her eyes, blinking like a newborn, and looked round the little room.
"I see my husband and master," she said, "sitting opposite me in a salmon-coloured chair. I see a fire in a fireplace. I see whitewashed walls and a beam ceiling. I see a window with rain streaming down it. I see the grassy hill out back. I see into the kitchen."
Voldemort nodded slowly. "Clear it all away. Make your mind as blank as you possibly can. Clear it of absolutely everything. No thoughts. No emotions. No sensations. You see, hear, feel, taste, and smell nothing. You think of nothing. Shut your eyes and imagine a great void. Fall into it. Keep falling."
Bellatrix shut her eyes and heard the rain pattering on the window. She could see Dumbledore's face in her mind. Then she remembered what Voldemort had said. See nothing. Taste nothing. Hear nothing. Feel nothing. She imagined herself leaping off of a cliff into a great black abyss, falling and falling and never stopping. There was just black emptiness around her.
Suddenly the sound of the rain faded away, and Dumbledore's face was gone. Her mind was empty and black and cold. She was falling. Falling, falling, falling.
"Bella! Bella!"
She jarred to attention, realising that someone was shaking her. She looked up to see Voldemort kneeling before her chair, his hands on her shoulders. He was grinning like a madman, and Bellatrix smiled a little.
"Sorry… I…"
"You went into a trance," Voldemort told her. He petted her hair. "You are truly a gifted Occlumens, with raw talent for this. All we'll have to do is hone your ability so that you can control your blankness and come out of it at your own will. But I went into your head and searched and searched, and I found nothing, Bellatrix. Nothing. I encountered you falling through a great black emptiness, and I couldn't push through it. You did brilliantly. Absolutely brilliantly. But, then, I've always known you were brilliant."
Bellatrix's eyes watered at that. She nodded a little and whispered, "So we shall try to refine what I can do until I can control it better. Shall we begin now?"
"No, not now, Bella. You've been in a trance for almost an hour," Voldemort told her, and Bellatrix realised then that it had stopped raining. She blinked rapidly a few times and rolled her shoulders, feeling achy.
"I might like to go for a walk," she said. "I'm sore."
"I'll bet you were; you were wound up like a clock," Voldemort told her. He rose and held out his hand to her, which she gladly accepted. Voldemort went to the coat rack and fetched their cloaks, and Bellatrix pulled hers on over her black velvet dress. She followed Voldemort to the little robin's egg blue door of the cottage and walked outside with him. He took her hand and laced it through his arm, and as she walked beside him, she was reminded of just how short she was and just how tall he was.
"So I did well, then, Master?" Bellatrix asked, and he scoffed as they began to walk on the grass. Bellatrix glanced down to the sea and then back up to Voldemort.
"You did spectacularly well," he told her. "All you needed was a little push. Now all you'll need is a little pull. You're brilliant with this; I'm terribly impressed."
"Was it this easy for you, when you learnt it?" Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort laughed a little. He scratched at his thinning hair and said,
"I taught myself. Both Occlumency and Legilimency. They came quite intuitively to me. When I showed off my skills on the Continent, nobody believed I was self-taught."
"Do you think I could be a Legilimens?" Bellatrix asked Voldemort. He frowned at her and nodded.
"Yes. Probably. But it's a burden as much as a gift. Sometimes you go prying and find out things you didn't want to know."
"I'm nosy," Bellatrix said. "I'll bet I'd love being a Legilimens."
"Well. Let's focus on your Occlumency and your duelling first, shall we?" Voldemort suggested, and Bellatrix nodded.
"As you wish, Master."
He stopped walking then, and he turned to face her. He licked his bottom lip and said,
"I feel that there is a rather glaring matter of import between us that has not been properly addressed, and we are already married."
Bellatrix blinked. "Is something wrong?"
Voldemort scuffed his dragon-hide boot on the mossy ground and huffed a breath. He stared at the sea for a long moment and then finally asked,
"Do you want children?"
"No." Bellatrix answered him immediately. He turned his face to her, tipping his head as if curious, and she clarified, "No, not really. I will be far too busy being a soldier for you to be a mother, I should think."
"Right." Voldemort sucked on his bottom lip. "Good. I am glad that is settled. When we go back to England, I shall brew you up a long-term contraceptive potion. No mistakes, right? It's cold out here."
"So it is, Master." Bellatrix reached for his hand and dragged her thumb over his knuckles. She met his eyes and asked him, "Do you really love me?"
He bent down to brush his lips against hers, and when he stood, he mumbled, "Do you know, I really, really do. Let's go have tea."
THE END
Author's Note: Well, this was a fun little romp (if you know my writing, you know I break my stories up into romps and novel-length works). It's time to get back to To Be Beguil'd By One, so I'll finish this one here. Thanks very much for reading.