A/N – here it is! The very end of Lady Black. This entire fic is dedicated to celestialuna, XxMookinexX, The French Dark Lord, Matt1267, Fibinaci, Shaitanah, minerdude, Moony126, Stygius.Magic and the Wolf at Bay, who have supported me with lovely, encouraging reviews.
I also want to thank all of you who favourited this fic, or put it on story alert. Writing reviews isn't to everyone's taste, and I really do appreciate that you still show your interest in these other ways. It would be nice if you could perhaps leave me one review, to tell me what you thought of the whole thing.
Disclaimer – Harry Potter is not mine. The stuff in italics at the end is all J.K's own words. I claim no credit for it.
The misty heights
Bellatrix spun the tiny hour glass in her fingers. She'd never used a time turner before, and the thought frightened her. What if she changed time so that everything went wrong? Yet surely the world could not be more wrong than it currently was. Bellatrix Lestrange wished for nothing more than to make her own life as it was before in sunnier times, from the black depths of her innately selfish heart; whilst Bellatrix Black grieved for Harry, trapped in the wrong life, and wished to give him back his place in the world. So her actions would not be totally self-centred; or so she told herself. She did not have room inside her soul, so wrapped up in loving herself, to consider Lord Voldemort and the effects of changing time on him.
Yet still she hesitated, unsure where to go or what to change. She vaguely thought that it had been Snape who had told Voldemort that Potter was a Horcrux, but she could not swear to it, and the thought that she might be wrong made her hesitate and run over the options available to her again and again. Theoretically she could reach any time in the past, and change any part of her life, but the consequences of such actions had to be carefully weighed up.
A knocking at the cell door told her that her time was up, and frantically she looped the slender gold chain of the time turner over her neck. The door crashed open; Rudolphus stood there, and Lucius. The pain of seeing her husband was almost unbearable. Rudolphus had come to take her to be executed. Rudolphus. The one man she had always loved. Frantically she spun the tiny hour glass between her fingers, desperate to escape him. As it whirred she grasped with her mind for a time to travel to. You had to hold the exact time very clearly in your mind, or the Turner wouldn't work. It might try and take you to several times at once. It might just drop you somewhere along the way. Both scenarios were known to be lethal. Take me to the day before Snape told him, Bellatrix thought desperately, and she prayed that it really had been Snape who had told.
Rudolphus gave a shout of anger, but it was too late. The dim cell dissolved, his shout wobbling like a badly tuned radio, and she had the feeling that she was whizzing backwards, unbelievably fast. It didn't take as long as she'd expected it to, but then it was only a month at most for her to travel back. Her feet hit solid ground and she stumbled onto one knee. Carefully Bellatrix lifted her head, taking in her surroundings. She had landed in a filthy mill town, characterised by the large, disused factory chimney hovering above the rooftops, wreathed with the smoky fog. The smell of a dirty river nearby floated between the houses, which loomed oppressively around her. Underneath her feet rested uneven cobbles, whilst above her the remaining street lamps which were not broken threatened to follow their smashed compatriots with their dim flickering. It was cold: the chilly mist rolled through the streets and the dark boarded up houses didn't offer any comfort at all. Bellatrix pulled the strap of her flimsy night dress back onto her shoulder (it had slipped down as she had travelled), and rotated herself warily, unsure as to why she had been brought here.
The street sign at knee level read 'Spinner's End', and a glimmering of recognition rushed back to Bellatrix. One house at the end of the street looked vaguely familiar, and she approached it cautiously, the cold cobbles bruising her soft feet. She'd never felt as naked and exposed before, without either her wand or her clothes, and the cold mist drew wet lines over her bare arms. Her night dress stuck to her, entirely unsuitable for the atmosphere.
She stopped outside the end house, and somewhat timidly rapped on the door. There was a long pause where nothing happened, and she was afraid that no answer would come, but eventually she heard the sound of a bolt being scraped back, and the door slid open a crack. Beady black eyes, sheltering under a greasy curtain of hair, peered suspiciously at her, and then the door was wrenched open and Snape stood there, his breath misting in the frigid air.
"Bellatrix!" he exclaimed, a little suspiciously, for there was no love lost between them. Swallowing her pride Bellatrix bowed her head in a sign of humility and raised it again to meet his gaze.
"I need to come in please," she hissed, her teeth chattering. Snape hesitated, as if preparing to deny her entry, but she looked so white and cold that he relented and gestured for her to enter. Carefully Bellatrix stepped into the stale interior of the house, and Snape ushered her into his tiny sitting room, ringed with walls of books. She curled up on the warmthless sofa, wrapping her knees to her. In a rare show of compassion Snape conjured up a blanket for her. It was musty and moth eaten, but warmer than the night dress alone, and she snuggled gratefully into it. Snape walked to the door and carefully checked the corridor outside.
"Wormtail likes to listen in on my most private conversations," he explained, when Bellatrix questioned him with her eyes. He sat himself down opposite her. "Why are you here?" he asked, his tone no warmer than the tendrils of mist outside. "You seem sadly the worse for the wear." She drew the time turner out from under the blanket and threw it to him.
"I'm from a time to come."
"A time which does not seem to favour you," he observed mockingly, turning the hourglass contemplatively in his fingers. She swallowed her angry retort, painfully aware of his wand, which he held loosely in his hand.
"A future which you can avert," she said softly. "If you will. Please. I am begging you to." Snape snorted.
"And what could I possibly have done to drag you so low as to beg for my help?" he laughed.
"You know that Harry Potter is the Dark Lord's seventh Horcrux," she said quietly. Instantly he fell silent, and lifted his wand higher. She sighed. "I don't know how you know. I don't care. But you must not tell Voldemort." Snape rolled his head to the side warily.
"Why not? To prevent your humiliation? That seems insufficient reason." Bellatrix wanted to strangle him, and tear his infuriating smile off his face.
"It's not just me!" she snapped. "Narcissa was hurt too! And Rudolphus!" Snape rolled a smile along his cold mouth.
"And for these few I am to lose the chance to win great favour with the Dark Lord? He would reward me greatly for this information." Despair sank through Bellatrix Lestrange. Without a wand she had no way to make him do what she wanted, and instead had to rely on the power of persuasion. And it wasn't working. "I have no proof you are from the future," Snape continued. "This could be a trick. A low attempt to steal my information or even an attempt to make me appear to betray the Dark Lord. I won't be fooled."
"He'll hurt Harry!" Bellatrix Black shouted on an impulse. Snape raised his head.
"And why would you care?" he said softly. Lady Black lowered her head, and the tears crept from her eyes to slide down her icy cheeks, the hot trails gliding over the tip of her nose.
"He is everything to me," she whispered. "I was cursed this way. An attempt by Voldemort to keep his Horcrux safe. But it didn't work. It'll never work. And now Harry is in grave danger." She didn't mention that the person she most feared would kill him was himself. Snape regarded her for a long time without a word. Eventually he spoke.
"I shall consider what you have said," he told her. "Beyond that I can make no promises." She gulped and nodded. They were both silent for a little while more, and then she plucked up the courage to ask her next question.
"What's the date today?" Snape told her, and she leapt up, startled, throwing the blanket aside.
"But I am visiting you today! With Narcissa. Perhaps at any minute!" She ran forward and grabbed his hands, fighting her revulsion at kneeling before him. "Please! If we do come; I mean, if Narcissa and my past self come, then believe me! You must promise that you will not tell, if we come. Swear it!" Snape's black eyes regarded her impassively for a minute, and then he said quietly, "I swear it."
Bellatrix nearly ran out of the house, fear hammering in her heart. She could not bear to meet her past self; nor was she strong enough to answer questions or make up lies. Instead she raced away, down the streets, back towards the river. Clambering up the bank, she viewed the cold, winding grey ribbon of water with relief. A fox rooted nearby for scraps in a torn bin bag. Bellatrix had not escaped a minute too soon either, for barely had she mounted the bank when she heard the unmistakable bangs of two witches apparating into the area, beside the river, one after the other.
"Wait!" her own voice cried, although she had not opened her mouth. She slithered along the bank towards the street, to stay out of sight, hugging the ground, and her movement startled the fox which leapt nervously from her, along the bank. She heard a killing curse shouted, and then her past self spoke again. "Just a fox. I thought perhaps an Auror – Cissy wait!"
A scrabbling sound, as Narcissa clambered up the bank, and then the arguing of the two sisters. Bellatrix Black crouched behind a bin on the other side of the railings topping the embankment, and watched as first the blonde witch and then her unmistakeable self mounted the bank and set off back to Spindle's End.
"He lives here?" the past Bellatrix spat contemptuously. "Here? In this Muggle dunghill? We must be the first of our kind ever to…" She broke off as Narcissa Malfoy trotted ahead like a fretful colt, long legged and wobbly. "Cissy wait!"
Bellatrix Black didn't bother following them. They turned into the labyrinth of dark streets, with the ruinous chimney looming over them, and she went and stood on the top of the bank. The cold air caught in the back of her throat as she examined the dead fox down by the gently pulsating river. Amazing, how a single flash of light could so swiftly rob a living creature of something so important. They'd be nearing Snape's house now. Harry would be happier, wouldn't he, with his friends? Even if Voldemort did kill him eventually. Would Snape keep his word? She'd used killing curses so often, without fully considering the destructive power she wielded. There was something rather terrible about that. To kill without understanding the significance of it. Perhaps Snape would be opening the door now.
Bellatrix Black's breath caught in her chest, and she gasped as a strange icy feeling spread through her. The frosty breeze which had restrained itself to teasing her hair now bit at her finger tips, her shoulders, her nose. The cold was combated by a warm feeling of incredible bliss which feathered its way through her. Snape would keep his word then. Bellatrix Lestrange would stay with Rudolphus. Harry would stay with his friends. And Bellatrix Black would rest in peace.
She gave herself up to the wind, and allowed it to dissolve her, carrying her away, up to the misty heights.
"NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU BITCH!" … Bellatrix spun on the spot, roaring with laughter…and Bellatrix Lestrange's smile faltered, and became a snarl… both women were fighting to kill…"What will happen to your children when I've killed you?" Bellatrix taunted…curse…hit her squarely in the chest, directly over her heart. Bellatrix's…eyes seemed to bulge: for the tiniest space of time she knew what had happened, and then she toppled, and the watching crowd roared, and Voldemort screamed.
And the mother that never was died in humiliation and anguish.