Though I'm sure you grow tired of these conveniently placed disclaimers, only after I've told you that I don't own Harry Potter and that this is in no way canon, though the bits that hold some resemblance to canon are happening a year ahead of schedule, can the story legally progress to the point at which Harry and Bellatrix climbed through an open window, immediately heading in different directions as to not arouse suspicion. A massive battle was already clearly underway, so it wasn't difficult to make an entry, but more disturbing was the number of unconcious people strewn across the floor. Parvati Patil was staggering to her feet, bleeding from the shoulder--Harry desperately hoped she hadn't been bitten. Lavender Brown had just been stunned by a Death Eater, Neville, despite putting up a good fight, was faring poorly against two Death Eaters, Ron and Hermione had each others' backs against a handful of cloaked figures, and Dumbledore was dueling, and winning, against a party of five or six. The Order of the Pheonix was spread throughout the room, but they were greatly outnumbered, and in the middle of the hall, two werewolves, in full form, were battling, everyone giving them a twenty foot radius.

"Stupefy! Stupefy!" Harry shouted, Stunning every Death Eater he could aim at as his first reaction. Bellatrix yanked him into one of the darker corners. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

"You're going to let everyone know you're really you!" she hissed. "Act more reluctant!" She pushed Harry back into the fight, not realizing the flaw in her reasoning, that the students and Order would grow suspicious if he held back on the curses. Another flaw that she failed to realize was that, in pushing him onto the floor covered in fluids that are best left unmentioned, he fell onto Luna Lovegood, whose wand fired a jinx knocking Michael Corner to the ground, who fell on Dean, who in turn fell on Arthur Weasley, who elbowed Tonks, knocking her into the middle of the battle between Fenrir Greyback and Remus Lupin, setting off a chain of events that somehow led Crookshanks to aquire a wand and fire a hex at Walden Macnair. By this time, Harry had regained his footing and was discreetly firing curses at Greyback. He could see that Bellatrix was doing the same, only her jets of red and green light were a lot more aimless.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Bellatrix moved her ai from werewolf to werewolf. "Frankly, I'm not sure who I want to shoot," she answered with an unreasonable amount of calmness.

"That one's Greyback and that one's--" Harry began to point out, but Bellatrix's expression obviated her feelings more efficiently than a large, blinking sign reading 'I despise Remus Lupin'. "Never mind, just go and duel someone else!" Bellatrix slunk away, doing as he said and dueling a few Weasleys, and he fired a last Stunner, hitting Greyback in the head whilst Remus continued to tear at the unconcious werewolf. Was it vengance? It definately wasn't madness, as he had not harmed Tonks: in fact, he seemed to have kept her out of harm's way. And speaking of madness...

"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Molly Weasley was shouting at Bellatrix only a few feet away. The remnants of a Killing Curse originating from Bellatrix's wand soared an inch above Ginny's head. Harry was unable to tell of it was part of the act or if she'd indulged in an attempted murder, though he had trouble believing that she would try to kill students while they were fighting Death Eaters. At the moment, Bellatrix was firing curses and indulging in a fit of gloating, maniacal laughter. The two women were engaged in an apparent fight to the death, one of the most unpleasant types of fight to find yourself in the vicinity of, and, in light of the circumstances, Harry wasn't sure who he wanted to shoot.

"Stay back! She's mine!" Molly declared as Harry tried to break up the battle. "Avada kedavra!"

Harry felt as though he had frozen with shock, but his limbs acted of their own accord as he impulsively jumped into the path of the curse and pushed Bellatrix to the ground, both of them missing the curse by centemeters. There was no denying it anymore: without Bellatrix, Harry's life would be empty, he couldn't stand idly and watch her die, he needed her company as much as he needed her lessons in the Dark Arts. As all of the present Weasleys and several more onlookers gasped in confusion, Harry grabbed the front of Bellatrix's robes, pleading, "Please, Bella, don't be dead...don't be dead, Bella..."

For several moments she refused to stir, and then she whispered with a cynical smile, "I would be if you'd have slammed my head to the floor any harder." Harry smiled gratefully, but Molly was flustered.

"You laughed too soon."

"It runs in the family."

"Harry? What are you--you saw her, she tried to kill Ginny! What's the meaning of this?" she asked, and, much to everyone's surprise, she was mirrored by a sinister voice coming from the gates. Commanding the silence of everyone were three men, Lucius Malfoy, the almost-untied Antonin Dolohov, and Voldemort.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, examining the fallen Death Eaters. Bellatrix stood up, much to Voldemort's shock, which said an awful lot, considering the shock he must have already experienced upon finding his servant in the arms of his arch nemasis.

The expression 'in the dark' literally means to be somewhere with little or no visible light, but it can also be used when a person is in ignorance of the goings on around him. For example, you may find yourself lurking in a corner hidded by large objects blocking the light, but be completely aware of the plans your followers are carrying out on your orders, making you in the dark not in the dark. You may possibly step into the path of visible light in realization that one of your followers has been plotting behind your back, thus making you no longer in the dark having been in the dark, and this was exactly the situation Voldemort found himself in as he heard Bellatrix mock, "What is the meaning of this, indeed?"

Without waiting for a lenghty speech on Bellatrix's part, Voldemort bellowed, "CRUCIO!" Bellatrix dodged with a small scream.

"Crucio!"

"Expelliarmus!"

"Sectumsempra!"

"Crucio! Expelliarmus!"

"Crucio!" Bellatrix wore a triumphant grin as she watched her former master fall, seemingly unable to believe it. A wave of passionate laughter escaped her lips as she continued to channel the curse, becoming more exhausted by the second since she was once again channeling magic through a plastic wand, having been disarmed twice, but showing no signs of caring. "You think I'll just be around forever to do your bidding, eh?" she droned betreen fits of cold cackling. "You have driven me off the deep end, you have. Do you hear me?" Voldemort stifled a cry. "I'm not going to stand to be your little plaything. No more second chances! No more relapses! BELLATRIX LESTRANGE HAS FINALLY SNAPPED!"

Her curse seemed to intensify, as Voldemort moaned in pain. Death Eaters and Order members alike gasped once more, and a rather dim-witted Hufflepuff girl asked feebly, "Who's Bellatrix Lestrange?"

"Me, you blooming idiot! Crucio!" Bellatrix shrieked, evidently intent on a rampage to let out the madness. "Harry, hurry up! Finish him off before he gets up!"

Harry contemplated obeying Bellatrix, but he had also picked up her habit of playing with his food before he ate it, so to speak. "Legilimens," he stated, wand pointed at the head of a still bewildered Voldemort. Albus Dumbledore sat before Tom, explaining that he was a wizard...A young Tom Riddle tortured Muggles in the very cave he and Bellatrix had visited in the other memory..."Not my son, please!" Lily Potter pleaded, but Lord Voldemort had no mercy for the Mudblood... Harry cringed, trying to withdraw from Voldemort's mind to kill him at last..."I've told you about my Horcruxes, Bella, and now it's time for you to keep your end of the bargain"...

As to the details of the last memory Harry witnessed before pulling out, there is a gaping hole in my research, which works out fine in your advantage. After all, when asked what you've recently read, it would be embarrasing to have to answer 'the intimate life of Lord Voldemort.' So, the plot forges forward, to the point when Harry moves his wand in an arc, aiming through said Dark Lord and blasting him clear out of our dimension: "Avada kedavra!"

"Avada Kedavra," Bellatrix repeated, "Just like your eyes." In a split second, Harry's emerald eyes met Bellatrix's violet ones, she looked hopeful, and he too was hopeful, hopeful that she might switch sides all together, forget the 'world conquest' rubbish, and come home with him, but he was undeniably wrong, as he would come to realize minutes later.

Death Eaters screamed, everyone else cheered, and the dim girl from before shouted, "'Abra Kadabra?' What the hell?"

Bellatrix applauded slowly. "He'll be back," she said darkly. "He always comes back. But when he does, he'll find all his followers acting on my orders."

A wave of confusion overswept the Death Eaters once more. The students were still cheering, but Harry was feeling nautious: would Bellatrix be even worse than Voldemort, taking action and burning down cities instead of fretting over immortality with the occasional attack? "But you--you were his most loyal--most faithful--" Alecto stuttered, completely flabbergasted.

"Most loyal, most faithful," Bellatrix mocked. "Are you all completely blind? We can't just serve one master forever, with his flawed plans and no action? What about your needs? Hell, what about mine?" She paced the floor as she ranted under her breath. Amycus Carrows fired a misaimed hex at her, the Death Eaters began to mumble amongst themselves, and Harry didn't know what to make of the situation.

"After all this time?" he asked. "Bella--"

"I thought you knew what I'd do at this point," Bellatrix said.

"I thought you'd changed," he explained, realizing how foolish his statement was after he'd said it. Bellatrix? Changed? Unless it was by reason of insanity, the very idea was near impossible. Also seemingly impossible was what she did next: a single tear ran down her face before she turned on her heel and stormed out of the castle, having given up, hurt, defeated by Harry's words.

Though words are made of ink, pixels, or vibrations in the air, uncapable of harming human beings or any other life forms, the meaning they hold can be more powerful than an Unforgivable Curse. As Harry heard the clinking of Bellatrix's shoes grow more and more distant, he tried to piece together an understanding of what his sentence had done to her. Had she come to a sudden realization? A surge of guilt? He could think of nothing that might fully explain her reaction, and, as she finally walked out of view, while Rabastan Lestrange cast Harry a nasty look, he tried to call something to her that might convince her to return, but he found he couldn't find the words.