If this story were comparable to a roller coaster, at this point you would be at the top of the first hill, looking down upon the nerve-wracking loops and twists you have yet to overcome. For those with a sick sense of humor, do read on, but rest assured that, since I do not own this brilliant universe into which you are delving, unlike on a roller coaster, you have the option of clicking the red X in the corner and picking up the more pleasant volumes of canon.
It was the middle of June. Harry still had a whole summer to spend in the unpleasant company of Bellatrix, as returning to the Dursleys was completely out of question, seeing as he couldn't leave a half-mad criminal alone in his house. He was reluctant to get out of bed, the only things convincing him to do so being his hunger and his desire to make some sort of sarcastic remark--fighting fire with fire, as he liked to think of it. "Bellatrix, your rent is due!" he shouted as he wrenched the door of his bedroom open, greeting the day with a scowl.
A loud pop behind him made him jump and nearly fall over the banister of the stairs, and he turned around to find none other than Bellatrix, having Apparated rather loudly, presumably on purpose, into his bedroom. "I know," she said flatly, failing to recognise his flustered gestures of annoyance. "And I'm paying it. It's time to train."
"Train? What?" he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Yes!" she snarled, grasping his hand and leading him down the stairs despite his grunts of protest. "In the Dark Arts, you idiot! Do you honestly think I'm going to stand by and let you get annihilated by Voldemort?"
"What do you--"
"We've already discussed this!" Bellatrix barked, pulling him urgently into the living room. "I may be a fanatic, but I'm not stupid! I'm not going to sit around and miss my oppurtunities, and I'm certainly not going to allow Voldemort to keep me from my goals, so just learn what I teach you!"
Harry's eyes darted around uncertainly. He wasn't sure what Bellatrix was trying to pull. She let go of him and wiped her hands on her robes as if she'd just touched something foul and diseased, and he debated himself on whether to say something, ask for an explanation or quietly comply, taking each of Bella's actions as a piece of information in itself. "Now, people have probably told you that the Disarming Charm, Stunner, and Shield are your essentials. THEY'RE WRONG!" Bellatrix snapped, standing opposite Harry on the other side of the room. "So long as you can cast the Unforgivables, you stand a pretty good chance against most any adversary. Now, my personal favorite is Crucio, so we're going to try that one first. Well, go on, try and cast it on me," she prompted.
In his state of confusion, Harry was sure to flop miserably. He was completely unsure of his self-declared trainer's intentions. Somehow, this fact spurred the slightest hint of ferocity inside him. Perhaps this was a good opportunity to get answers from her. He knew, of course, that torturing a fellow human was immoral on so many levels, but she had committed more than her share of immoralities...without a further thought, he drew his wand, aimed it at her, and bellowed, "Crucio!"
For the first few seconds, Bellatrix did nothing. Then, a jerking twitch flowed through her limbs, she jumped a bit in place, and her fingers contorted as if she suffered from rhuemetoid arthritis. She began to cackle cruelly, an amused smirk creeping across her face. When at last she stopped laughing, though her unpleasant smile still lingered, she said, "Fool! That was completely pathetic! It's done like this!" She raised her wand and lazily pointed it at him, not even square in the chest, but in the shoulder: another inch upward and she would have missed. "Crucio!" she screamed. Instantly, every nerve in Harry's body twinged painfully. He crumpled to the ground, the impact of the fall adding to his pain. Each of his bones were searing, feeling as if they had snapped, his blood was on fire, his skin was dissolving, every inch of his being was being penatrated by a jagged, invisible knife...in short, he was undergoing every physical discomfort known to mankind, and then some.
"Get up, and let's try again, shall we?" Bellatrix insisted brutally. "Ready?"
Harry was anything but ready, but he refused to show it, and he stood up to try again, his every movement devoid of motivation. "Cru--"
"Crucio!" Bellatrix exclaimed, cutting off Harry and sending him to the ground, flailing and writhing in pain once more.
People nowadays seem to be under the impression that troublesome things, like falling off of a broom and skinning your knee, or getting tortured, get less troublesome the more times you do them. In the words of Bellatrix Lestrange, THEY'RE WRONG! Just as falling off a broom a second time and rupturing your already infected epidermis is just as troublesome, if not more so, than the first time it happened, and the second blow from Bellatrix left Harry even more uncomfortable, to say the least. His breath, which he'd struggled to regain, was knocked out of him even faster, and the stabbing, searing pain was more intense. Looking up before the torture forced him to close his eyes, he could see that she now had her 'game face' on, an expression which here means 'was looking exeptionally cruel and deranged'. A small pool of hatred seemed to bubble up from the pit of his stomach, but was supressed by overwhelming pain.
Five Crucios and much screaming later, Harry was on the ground, dripping with sweat and on the brink of begging for death: he would have done so if it were an actual duel. If anyone was efficient with this curse, it was the woman standing before him. It would be an understatement to say that he was experiencing excruciating pain, and unless you have ever been run through a dangerous piece of machenery, you have no idea what anguish was pulsating through his body. He had lost feeling in his legs, and all he could do was drag himself across the floor, sieze the front of Bella's robes, and beg for mercy. "Please, make it stop!" he pleaded. "I can't take it anymore!"
Bellatrix jerked backward. "I will not tolerate you begging and groveling at my feet!" she commanded. "Don't put the both of us through more indignity! I've already done enough of that before Voldemort for the both of us. It stops when you can make me stop. Now get up and curse me or leave!"
Harry's face contorted with rage as he gazed into her figuratively empty eyes. She no longer respected her Lord, or she had lost enough respect to start using his name, but still, she pushed Harry to the extremes with what she called a lesson. And yet, he was still in the dark, for the most part, and enraged that she could do this to him. He lowered his gaze and let go of her as he struggled to his feet in moments that may have well been years. She raised an eyebrow in mockery, watching coldly as he staggered from the room, he could feel her penatrating stare on him. You are weak, her expression seemed to say. He picked his wand off the floor and continued departing, but the burning in his nerves lingered--not from the Cruciatus Curse, but from his own fury--how dare she! She'd killed his godfather, and he wasn't going to let her get away with making him suffer this atrocity. A clear picture formed in his mind of Bellatrix's crumpled form, writhing on the floor on the other end of his wand, feeling the pain she'd inflicted on him a hundredfold...her torturing days may well have been over...It's time to pay for your sins, Bella.
A step away from the doorway, Harry spun around, pointed his wand at her chest, and shouted, "Crucio!" He'd forgotten completely the wrongness of this deed, morality temporarily subsiding to madness, which, as he felt at the moment, had its perks. He watched her fall, screaming at first, her limbs contorted painfully, then filling the room with elated laugher, covering the sound of popping joints. Was she laughing because it hurt? Had she gone quite mad? "Yes!" she screamed, "You've done it!" She gave him the thumbs-up sign, while he stood in a daze, unable to comprehend her reaction. "Don't worry about stopping," she choked out sarcastically, "I can keep this up for another couple of hours."
Coming back to his senses, Harry lifted the curse and rushed to Bellatrix's side. "I'm sorry," he stuttered, helping her to her feet.
"Me too," Bellatrix said sheepishly, unwilling to admit that she should have gone easier on him. "No more apologies now," she said, panting and clutching a chair to support herself. "That wasn't bad, you now officially pose a threat, that was almost as painful as when the Dark Lord does it! But I think from now on we won't use each other as targets." Harry was satisfied to hear this and rather surprised that Bellatrix's cruelty would lapse at that moment. "Shall I see you tomorrow for another lesson?"
Harry simply nodded, limping into the kitchen. "I'll make breakfast," he grunted, gathering cooking utensils and a bag of bread. As he began to fry some eggs, Bellatrix followed him in and attempted to help, but her shaky movements were sure to spawn disaster, and Harry soon ushered her to the breakfast table.
"I was wrong," she said, "when I doubted you before."
"You invoked my rage," Harry grumbled.
"It was you." Harry blocked out her words. He didn't want to believe he'd done it on his own, that a few minutes under her curse had made him go mental. It was a simple reaction, what would any sensible person have done? "You'll stand a chance against the Dark Lord, and his last words will be, 'Tell Bella I'm sorry...'"
"Unlikely," Harry muttered, barely taking in what she was saying. He felt reluctant to listen, for fear of the awkwarness of takling to someone who he'd just tortured and been tortured by, but it wasn't nearly as awkward as he'd thought. After all, it seemed as if she was working in his interest. Her features softened into a sad expression.
"I can never go back to Mum and Dad now," she murmured. "I'm helping you...they won't have it..."
"Why would you want to?" Harry mused, putting some eggs and toast on the table for the both of them. "Aren't you tired of being trodden on by superiors? I can't say I advocate you taking over the world, but you shouldn't let them tell you what to do." He sat down beside her and her heavily lidded eyes met his as she grasped his hand a bit too tightly, her long nails digging into his skin--he figured it was just in her nature.