"And so the wizard Yarba became one of the most feared pirates in the Caribbean Sea. He used his magic to communicate with Beasts and Beings in the water, including Merpeople, which frightened his crew terribly and convinced them that he had powers none of the rest of them could fathom. He was never, therefore, the victim of a mutiny. And during battles against captured ships, Yarba would use magic to protect his ship from cannon fire, making in Impermeable. Meanwhile, his crew found that their swords and pistols fought far more accurately than -"

"Master!"

Voldemort set down the book from which he'd been reading to Bellatrix and turned his head to see Ronky standing in the doorway of the rainbow quilt room. Voldemort raised his brows and glanced at Bellatrix.

"I apologise, but we shall have to interrupt our tale of wizard pirates," he smirked. Bellatrix laughed a little and insisted gently,

"You must get your report, My Lord."

"Ronky." Voldemort barked at the elf, who scampered backward against the threshold of the door. Voldemort turned in his chair a bit and demanded, "What did Abraxas Malfoy say?"

Ronky came creeping into the bedroom, knitting his hands together. He noted,

"Ronky quite likes the Malfoy elf Dobby, sir. Dobby is a most kind elf, sir."

"I don't care about their bloody stupid elf, you ridiculous creature!" Voldemort snarled. Ronky yelped and nodded.

"So sorry, sir. Anyway, sir. Mister Abraxas said the following. The people at the funeral all escaped safely to their homes and understand that the Ministry ambushed the funeral, sir. The Black family is understanding and has privately cremated Madam Irma Black, sir. There were no casualties, sir."

"Everyone made it out? Everyone's laying low?" Voldemort confirmed, and Ronky nodded.

"Yes, sir. Yes, sir." Ronky continued, "Mister Abraxas Malfoy also said that the Ministry of Magic is quite distressed over the loss of the Aurors, sir. The Minister has ordered that the Daily Prophet stay silent on the deaths to avoid giving you press coverage, sir. Mister Abraxas Malfoy says that the Departments of Mysteries and Magical Law Enforcement are very upset about the prophecy and the fact that the Aurors were Vanished and have essentially disappeared. Mister Abraxas Malfoy says, sir, that he recommends that you and Miss Bellatrix stay hidden and that the rest of the Death Eaters continue undercover work or lay low for several weeks at minimum, sir. He says the Ministry is on guard, sir."

Voldemort nodded. He shut his eyes for a moment and licked his lip. He finally looked at the House-Elf and said,

"Go back to Malfoy Manor. Tell Abraxas Malfoy that his message has been received. Tell him that I'll send you for reports every few days."

"Yes, sir. Yes, Master. I shall go back at once!" Ronky exclaimed. He was about to snap his fingers and Disapparate, but Voldemort quickly said to him,

"Ronky. You have my permission to stay for one hour and socialise with Dobby, if Abraxas permits it."

Ronky grinned very broadly and nodded happily. "Thank you, Master!"

He Disapparated, and Voldemort turned back to Bellatrix. She gave him a weak little smile and said to him,

"You were merciful toward the elf." She pet her kitten, and Voldemort rolled his eyes. He picked at the quilt and fretted,

"I'm going soft. I need to kill something or else I'm going to lose myself. Perhaps I'll kill Maelstrom."

"No!" Bellatrix snatched her kitten up into her arms and whispered, "Please, Master. I beg you. Not Maelstrom."

Voldemort scowled at her. "It was a joke. A bad one, apparently. I wouldn't kill your cat."

Bellatrix slowly set Maelstrom down and gulped. She nodded. "I'm too sensitive on this Anodyne Draught. I hope I can stop taking it soon."

"Your pain would be immense," Voldemort said, shaking his head, but Bellatrix insisted,

"I can make it through the pain, Master."

"I don't want you in pain," he seethed, reaching for her hand. He squeezed a little and whispered again, "I don't want you in pain."

"Oh." Bellatrix blinked a few times at him and stared at the book he'd set down. "Will you finish telling me about wizard pirates, My Lord?"

"Perhaps tomorrow." He stared at their linked hands, and he dragged his thumb over hers. He shut his eyes and felt a wave of want come over him. "You're due for more medicinal potions now."

"Yes." Bellatrix's voice was soft and distant. Voldemort sucked in breath through his nose and released her hand, and he reached for the potions on the table beside Bellatrix's bed. First he reached for the Sanguinalis Serum, and he filled the dropper of scarlet fluid and brought it to Bellatrix's lips. She dutifully drank it down, and he murmured,

"Good. You'll keep making up that blood you lost."

He put the lid back on, and he reached for the Anodyne Draught. He filled up the dropper with the sickly sweet syrup. He drizzled it between Bellatrix's lips, and he smiled just a little at Bellatrix as she finished swallowing the draught. As he shut the bottle, she muttered,

"Oh, dear. Woozy."

"Lie down and rest, Bella. I don't want you in pain." Voldemort rose slowly and set down the bottle on the table. He bent and kissed Bellatrix's forehead, but she rather impulsively took his cheeks in her hands and made their lips touch. He tasted a hint of the sweet Anodyne Draught on her lips, just enough to numb his mouth, and he whispered against her, "Rest, my beautiful girl."

She let out a rickety breath at that, at the way he'd called her beautiful and his, and she settled back against the pillows. She shut her eyes and was quickly lost to sleep, but just before her breath truly slowed, she whispered,

"I do love you, Master."

Voldemort nodded and cleared his throat, deciding that he needed a shower.

Lord Voldemort turned on the taps in his black and white tiled shower and let the hot water pour over his head. He coursed his fingers over his scalp and reached for his kelp and salt soap. It smelled like the sea, like the waves that crashed outside this house. He rubbed it over his arms and chest and then sudsed up his thinning hair.

And then he began to think of Bellatrix.

She was absolutely beautiful, Voldemort thought. He contemplated her youth. She seemed so very, very young. Had he ever been that young? What had it been like to be twenty years old, working at Borgin and Burkes, with witches fawning over his handsome self? He barely remembered now. Youth had slipped away from him in its entirety. He was old now, and Bellatrix was so very young. There were no lines round her eyes or lips like there would be in twenty-five years' time. There were no threads of grey in her hair as there would eventually be. For now, she was young and so beautiful, so achingly beautiful.

Her hair was an explosion. Voldemort reached out for the tile on the wall in the shower and blinked, thinking of what it felt like to twine his fingers into her springy mass of wild curls. He thought of her eyes, wide and dark and shining. Her lips, full and usually just a little parted… her nose, narrow and long. She had perfectly round, small breasts that fit just so into Voldemort's hands. He shut his eyes and imagined squeezing them, imagined cupping one and playing with the nipple.

Suddenly he found himself growing a bit hard, and he grunted softly as he began to think more about Bellatrix. He thought about her sitting on the lawn with her painting before her, carefully brushing green onto her Cornish palm. She'd been so expert in her movements, even though she was an utter novice at painting. He'd been sitting at the table on the patio, sipping white wine and watching her paint, and the sun had been setting, and her hair had been blowing in the wind, and she had been unfathomably beautiful.

Voldemort wrapped his hand around his cock and started to stroke under the flow of the hot water. He wrenched his eyes tightly shut and imagined kissing her. He thought of the taste of winter upon her - cold and crisp and delicious. He thought of lathing his tongue along the side of her throat, of nibbling beneath her ear. He thought of threading his fingers up into her hair and holding onto her as he entered her, feeling her warm and tight around his cock.

His hand moved faster as he leaned with his left forearm onto the tile wall. He groaned a little and let the hot water rush over his back, and he finally whispered,

"Bellatrix."

He could see her face now, quite clearly. He could see those wide eyes, those full parted lips, staring up at him as though she were beneath him in bed. She was marveling up at him, whispering Master, Master… she was finishing, her eyes rolling back and her breath hitching and her fingers convulsing against his chest. Voldemort slapped the tile wall and gripped the tip of his cock, stroking quickly a few times as everything snapped. He came hard, his come leaping in jets out into the puddle of water on the shower floor. He watched it wash down the drain and trembled mightily.

When at last he'd recovered, Voldemort stood upright and stared at the taps. He thought more about her, about the witch who had absolutely consumed every portion of his being as of late. He thought of the way Bellatrix had so quickly taken to her tasks. She had mastered painting with one piece - her work of the sea and sky and palms was beautiful. As a Death Eater, she was a young fighter with almost immeasurable skill. She fought valiantly in battles. She tortured and killed for him with abandon. She duelled elegantly and fearlessly. She was a warrior in the truest sense of the word.

His warrior.

She was obedient, too. He could tell her to bring him the Moon, and she would try her damndest. She'd be sitting with spellbooks all round her, searching for a way to Summon the Moon. She'd run and leap if he told her to jump off a cliff into the sea. If he told her he wanted her wand broken, she'd snap it in a second. She would do absolutely anything for him. Anything at all. She would give him her whole self and she would attach herself entirely to him. She had already done so. She would continue to do so. She was his. She belonged entirely to him, and he liked that.

Voldemort thought about something else he rather liked, which was how Bellatrix made him feel when he was around her. She made him… well, comfortable. She made him feel at ease, as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. When they were in bed together, he slept far more soundly and deeply than he'd ever slept before in his life. Drifting off into oblivion with her curled up against his chest was the most peaceful way to slumber that he could imagine. And waking up with her beside him, both of them groggy and smelling of sleep and neither caring about the sloppiness of it all, was magnificent. He very, very much liked that - waking up with her. He cared now that bed felt empty without her. It was a singularly bizarre and heady sensation to almost need her at nighttime.

The water started to go cold, so Voldemort shut the taps off and stood in the quiet tiled shower, staring at his feet and thinking about what he'd done earlier when he'd read to her. It had been so undeniably pleasant to do so. And she was in love with him; she'd told him so. Did he… could he ever…?

Voldemort scowled, raising his eyes to the black and white tile of the shower wall and shivering a little as the water evaporated off his skin. He gulped hard and remembered the sight of her blood on the rocks and grass when he'd come here from her grandmother's funeral. He'd seen the corpse of the Auror she'd slain, and he'd seen her blood. And the spike of fear that had gone through him had been unprecedented and heavy and very real. He had thought, for a good solid moment, that Bellatrix Black was dead, and that thought had made him feel abject panic. She mustn't be dead, he'd thought, because if she were to die, he would lose something extremely important… not just to his success, but to his happiness.

What did all of this mean, put together in sum? She was beautiful. She was skilled and obedient and intelligent. She was wicked and Dark in all the right ways. She brought Voldemort happiness and made him very comfortable in the times they spent alone together. And the thought of losing her made him feel deeply afraid.

Was that love? When people spoke of love, it seemed they spoke of less. So often, people spoke trivially of love in ways that made it seem like so much less than what Voldemort was feeling now.

She was almost everything. And she was beautifully sufficient in pleasing him in every way imaginable. He longed for her in every moment they were apart. He craved her, not just sexually, but to the marrow of his bones. He wanted to keep her, not just claim her. He cared for her, so profoundly that the foreign feel of it made his head float a little.

Was that love? When people spoke of love, it seemed they spoke of less.

Voldemort huffed a breath and stepped out of the shower, snatching a fluffy black towel off the rack and drying his hair before wrapping it round his waist. He stared at his reflection in the half-fogged mirror and knew that Bellatrix was probably asleep in the rainbow quilt bed. Maelstrom was likely curled up beside her. He imagined her peaceful and quiet and then thought of the healing scar worming its way in a harsh diagonal across her torso. He frowned and shook his head at his reflection, pained by the notion of her being cut open. He blinked a few times and whispered,

"Bella."

What was this, this strange sensation that had taken over his consciousness? People seemed to speak of less.

He decided quickly that he did not need a word for it, that he didn't need a label or a category. It didn't matter what he was experiencing. It simply was. They simply were, the two of them. She was his. And, perhaps, just a little bit, he was hers, too.

They were more than just a prophesied pair, he and Bellatrix. They were… they were together, weren't they? Not just physically. Not just in proximity. They'd become rather a couple, as dreadful a notion as that was. Did Voldemort mind that? Did he mind the idea of being hers whilst she was his?

No, he thought, dragging a comb through his damp hair and staring into the mirror. He did not mind that one bit.

And it didn't matter if it was love or not. People seemed to use that word for so much less, anyway.

Author's Note: I apologize for the delay in updating. My son has epilepsy and had a brain MRI under general anesthesia today, so I couldn't write until tonight. Thanks for your understanding.

This story will likely have about three more chapters - just a heads-up.

I value your feedback more than I can say! Thanks for reading.