Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't even own Bellatrix. Given that she is holding her wand to my head as I write this, I think it could safely be said that she owns me.

A/N: Wow, it's been months since I updated last. Sweet zombie Dumbledore tap-dancing naked with a pogo stick.

There are several reasons for the story going on hold. One, I discovered that I couldn't really keep up with the one-chapter-a-week strategy without a major drop in quality (see chapters eight and nine for an example of a major drop in quality). Frankly, I was getting burned out, and the last few chapters were dreadful. Forgive me. Two, the last few chapters were dreadful, which I did not realize at the time but sure as hell realized two weeks later. They read like Crabbe and/or Goyle wrote them while under the influence. Bellatrix was abused by her mother? Rabastan was rapidly becoming a Marty Stu to end all Marty Stus, without ever appearing onscreen? There was more purple prose than plot? All three of those developments will henceforth be ignored, if I have to make Druella into Mickey Mouse, kill Rabastan prematurely in the most ignoble fashion possible, and narrate every single chapter from the point of view of someone who can actually speak coherent English! And three, I'm lazy. And I had a lot of other obligations. The typical excuses.

Anyway, we return to our regularly scheduled pennydreadful. I think I'm going to get rid of the updating schedule or relax it a little; you saw what happened when I was working under a deadline, right? Don't worry, I won't let it become a deadfic. (I even wrote an ending during the hiatus that is to be posted if I die horribly before I complete the story. See, I DID take precautions.)

We think Bellatrix blew up the popcorn in a fit of frustration, but we do have soy crackers. (watches audience members, who are really only here for the food, leave yet again)

The Story So Far: Bellatrix gets on Umbridge's bad side, which you should never do, but Bellatrix is reckless and a bit crazy and that did not occur to her until it was far too late. Now she has Agatha Jugson under prefectorial orders to follow her around at all times. Yes, that Agatha. Hilarity ensues. Everyone except possibly Rodolphus frankly thinks she got what she deserved.

In This Chapter: Three and a half weeks later, Bellatrix mopes, most uncharacteristically. She gets what she deserves: no pigeons for YOU! Rodolphus demonstrates a certain degree of badassery. We are reminded that Hufflepuffs exist for a reason. Bellatrix makes a deal.

Warnings: Violent fantasies. Some bad language (mostly in the Hufflepuff segment). Cruelty to Hufflepuffs.

"Bella..." His shaggy brown hair was unkempt and matted with blood. It was stuck to his forehead. A trickle of blood was running down into his eye. Unfortunate for him. Another stroke.
"Close your eyes!"
He smiled, unbelievably.
"I...can't..." Another stroke. He screamed. Like a pigeon. He really shouldn't, she thought tranquilly, carelessly, be alive right now. "Bella," he said. Not pleading. Just saying it, perhaps, for something to say. An acknowledgement of his feelings for her. It might have been tiresome, she was so easily bored, but the situation warped it and turned it funny. So funny. He wasn't even pleading. She laughed.
"Bella," she moaned, imitating his deep voice. "Bella. Merlin," she added, switching back to her normal voice, harsh and critical, "are you just too stupid to know that you should plead?"

He was.

She killed him anyway.

She had gone on to Avery by the time Professor McGonagall rapped her sharply on the head.

"Kindly pay attention, Miss Black." In her mind's eye, something rather grotesque happened to Avery, and his face was replaced by McGonagall's. The incongruity persisted even as the fantasy dissolved around her, McGonagall's face remaining where it had been in Bellatrix's field of vision, but this time attached to the correct body. She was standing across from Bellatrix's desk in the front row, her arms folded.

Bellatrix might have felt better about the whole thing if McGonagall had been foaming at the mouth and dragging her off to detention. Then she could have struggled. She could have righteously hated McGonagall. But she was a teacher, wasn't she? She was doing her job; as Rita had leaned over to whisper to Avery, McGonagall had silenced them with a look. For that, Bellatrix could be grateful.
She hated it. Being indebted to the woman who had caught her slacking off. Who had exposed her human weakness to the whole classroom. They would remember. And Bellatrix had no way to erase their memories. They wouldn't speak of it around her, of course, Lestrange would stop them even if Bellatrix herself was being smothered under Agatha's watchful eye and her unspoken prohibition against violence. But even he would remember that Bellatrix had been shown up.

Had McGonagall planned that? Catching Bellatrix in a trap? If you're a good girl, McGonagall's eyes said, you'll get off probation early. But to be a good girl, the slights that you'll have to ignore will be tremendous. Even if you do ignore them, the cost to your pride, your honor, the respect that you used to have...why bother? It's your freedom on the line either way.
And it didn't cost the stupid old woman a thing. Bellatrix's mind was ripping itself apart at the seams, one half straining for freedom, the other half holding back. It was only a flimsy connection at the best of times that held together all the different elements of her psyche. It was unraveling.

Under the table, Agatha Jugson, sitting directly to Bellatrix's right, squeezed her hand.

Bellatrix's anger, surging through her mind to the effigy of McGonagall she had set up to destroy, hit a solid barrier and changed course to strike Agatha instead. The imagery that flashed through her mind, a hundred fully realized fantasies playing out in the space of a second, had never been bloodier or more perverse. Agatha and McGonagall had starring roles.

"Yes, Professor," she said. Said it calmly, with a thin veneer of pleasantness, not snarled. Albeit through clenched teeth.

McGonagall glared at her for a moment, an infinitesimal second, before returning to her lecture on the limits of Transfiguration. It was an interesting one, thankfully. Interesting enough to keep the filthy bloody daydreams out of her head for once. She couldn't afford to get lost in them again. Oh, she knew why they were so frequent now, so insistent, so horrifically gory. It was because of deprivation.

When was the last time she had seen blood in real life? Three weeks at least. The blood in her dreams was far redder than in reality. No one screamed as much as her mental Avery had. Her subconscious knew what she should be doing, what she wanted to be doing.

Agatha and Umbridge had died more than a few times in her mind. Especially Agatha. Umbridge gave the orders, true, but it was Agatha holding the reins...

The lecture was only just barely interesting enough to stop her reaching over and making those dreams a reality. (Not that she knew how. She couldn't kill. She was too young and inexperienced. But she could, in all probability, wound...)
She almost missed the end of it, left staring blankly at McGonagall for a few seconds before her consciousness reasserted itself. In the last few minutes, she had slipped back into a daydream; oh, she had kept one eye and one ear on her teacher, but that had only been to avoid another scolding and she had been incorporating the concepts into the script for her fantasy in any case. No doubt her little murder-plays were more realistic, adhering more strictly to the true laws of magic, than they had been. She had done her homework religiously in any case, because everyone knew that slackers learned nothing and those who didn't watch and learn and remember lost. But she had been spending far more time on it lately.

It wasn't as if there was anything else to do.

Bellatrix was one of the last to get up and hand in her homework. Merlin, she had been sliding out of reality more and more lately. The thoughts were piling up inside her mind and forcing themselves out into daily life, now that she couldn't process them in her usual bloody way. It was like trying to deal with a truculent, pushy stranger who insisted on having a say in every aspect of her existence. She would be walking down the hall, calmly as ever, not talking much, not that there was much to say, and for no reason reality would grow thin and blood would spatter across her vision and she would be dead to the world for far, far too long. They were noticing.

She dropped her essay (three rolls of parchment, slaved over for two nights, even when the pretty drops of red ink on the parchment tried to tempt her into her more usual activities) on McGonagall's desk wordlessly. McGonagall looked up, raising her head subtly, and their eyes met for a second. Woman and girl sized each other up; it was not a meeting of equals. Neither of them was foolish enough to think that it could be. Not then, at least. Someday, Bellatrix said silently. She was getting worse at keeping her thoughts to herself, too: her lips moved.

She didn't even try to join her friends (friends?) as they left the classroom. There wasn't much to say. She followed them, a few paces behind, watching their conversation. No doubt Avery was whining again, and Wilkes regarded all and sundry with the same suspicious eye, and Rosier was doing his best to lift all their spirits with his upbeat, chipper manner. Good for them. Doing the same thing that they'd done for weeks on end now. The same thing they'd probably be doing in five years, in ten. Such a friendship, built on backstabbing and false smiles. Oh, that wasn't to disparage them. She'd never been good at it, sadly, but she did understand the need. Didn't Mother and Father play politics? She knew about false friendship.
And she liked the four of them, as much as someone like her really could.

Some part of her (she'd be embarrassed to admit to it) wished, in weakness and in emotional fragility, that she was up there with them, laughing her head off with them.

She watched. She listened. And she corroded and twisted with resentment.

Bellatrix was sure that Lestrange wanted to speak to her again. He'd followed her, as it happened, for a few days after Umbridge laid down the ruling, but Bellatrix had been too angry and disgusted to speak to him then, and horror of horrors, he'd eventually given up. He stared at her, sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking, but he never approached her now.
All he would have to do was ask. Angry and in despair as she was, she would still have welcomed some companionship that wasn't sickeningly-sweet Agatha. Merlin, Rodolphus got on with Agatha, even! They were like sister and brother! And he wasn't talking to HER either!

That was when it finally occurred to Bellatrix that, just possibly, Lestrange was under the same sanctions. 'No fighting, Roddy, or I'll have to report you--and you can stay away from that girl!' Yes, Umbridge would want to get them both out of play, no doubt. Lestrange was even more of a 'troublemaker' than she was, if only because he was stupid enough to get caught...
Well, that was interesting. She considered it. She hadn't seen Umbridge talking to Lestrange, but that didn't mean anything, she could have done it later or sent a male prefect in her place. And come to think of it, she hadn't seen Lestrange doing his usual scrapping and fighting in the corridors either.

Maybe, said her mind, he was just disheartened by the loss of his dear Bella and he didn't want to continue on his own. Yes, she said, because when he broke little Rabastan's fingers back at home, he was really thinking of a girl he'd never heard of. No, Umbridge had him, she was sure of it, he was chafing under the same restrictions that were killing her slowly. Oh, of course, he didn't have someone watching his every move, because he was trustworthy enough, and...it didn't make sense. Her little theory didn't make sense. Oh, yes, of course Lestrange was her best friend, as much as she had one, anyway! That didn't mean she understood his psyche.
Bellatrix, to her great displeasure, found herself once again running up against her own mental limitations. She was an intelligent girl--wasn't that enough? No. No, it wasn't. Merlin, strategizing and controlling and making plans for all eventualities had never been her forte. It was almost sad, she thought in disgust, that she was reduced to mental gymnastics. Who cared if Lestrange would get his throat slit for disobedience?
And yet, frustrated and defeated and wondering what in Merlin's name she was doing, she quickened her pace to catch up to the four boys, forcing Agatha to trot after her at double speed to prevent from losing her entirely. Which, of course, was a nice little side benefit.

Coincidentally, several hallways down, after listening to the boys prattle for ten minutes of her life that she would never get back, Bellatrix turned a corner with the rest of them and nearly ran over a Hufflepuff. The corridor was full of them; they were scattered along its entire length like cockroaches. Most unfortunately, she didn't see Abby Paternoster among them, although of course the stupid girl might have taken to her heels as soon as she heard the Slytherins coming.

'What were Hufflepuffs for?' she found herself wondering. Surely Hogwarts could have made do with three houses, without one designated specifically for victims?

The leader of the Hufflepuffs, a tall, monumentally ill-favored ginger-haired boy with narrow brown eyes, was glaring at them. Oh, well. That wasn't good. At least she'd have an excuse for the carnage she wasn't going to be participating in...
"What're you doing down here?" he demanded. "This is our hallway." Avery, Wilkes, and Lestrange exchanged glances.
"Sorry," said Rosier sheepishly, to universal disgusted stares, "we didn't know." Bellatrix had never found herself hoping for a mob of Hufflepuffs (a mob? Of Hufflepuffs? Probably all Mudbloods) to maul an innocent (innocent?) Slytherin before. "Come on," Rosier added, half-turning back, "we'll find another way through."

"We," said Wilkes, rolling his eyes in the most blatant manner possible, "will not."
"Yeah," said the Hufflepuff, perhaps imagining that he sounded fierce, "you will."
"Bugger off," another Hufflepuff goon chipped in. The entire mob immediately started chattering. (To Bellatrix, it sounded rehearsed.)
"We were here first!"
"Yeah, bugger off!"
"Make them pay to go through!"
"Stupid rich Slytherins!"

The leader stepped forward, away from the rank and file. To Bellatrix's surprise, the Slytherin boys looked nervously at one another, as if assessing each other's capabilities in a fight. More than one set of eyes flew to Bellatrix, and she distinctly heard Avery whisper,
"Not her! She's a lunatic!" Bellatrix would have been angry if it hadn't been so pathetic.
"So you'll do it?" Wilkes whispered back, equally loudly.
Avery looked even more nervous. The Hufflepuffs were a lot bigger than he was, poor thing.
"I didn't say that! I just thought that maybe we should go with someone...well..."
"I'd prefer not to," Rosier said in a perfectly normal tone of voice. If he had been standing one inch closer, Bellatrix would have violated the terms of her probation just to be able to kick him. Her fingers closed around her wand. She should do it. They needed someone who knew what she was doing in a fight. Agatha (Rita was probably miles away) could be a witness for pesky Umbridge and say that the Hufflepuffs had attacked (Hufflepuffs? Attacking?) first. She stepped forward, not bothering to do it unobtrusively--what would be the point?

"I'll do it," said Lestrange. Merlin. So Bellatrix's theory was wrong after all. He wasn't under any sanctions. And she was.

Sometimes she wanted to strangle Rodolphus Lestrange.

What made him think he could do it? He was an idiot. Oh, certainly, he was a big strong boy and he was used to blacking his adorable baby brother's eye once or twice a week, but from what she had heard about Rabastan that wasn't much of a challenge. It would be a magical duel, anyway, older students rarely had to resort to physical violence. He was in first year, and hardly the best student in the class.
It was as if Narcissa had decided to fight a dragon. If they were lucky, they might find her hair ribbon after it was all over. (The image briefly filled Bellatrix's mind.)

Even the Hufflepuffs didn't take him seriously. What an insult.
"Oh, God, what is that?"
"Is it human?"
"I think it's a first year!"
"I thought you only got those in museums!"

Lestrange regarded them impassively (he seemed capable of only one expression, but the Hufflepuffs didn't need to know that).
"Shut up," he said, and then sank his fist into the stomach of one of the gawkers.

In seconds they were upon him. Howling, attacking as one. Spells danced across the stone floor. Someone's glasses clattered against the wall. The tapestries on the walls deadened the cacophony.
It really didn't take very long for it to be over. There wasn't much to watch. It couldn't have been a minute (Bellatrix checked her watch) from the time the first punch was thrown to the time the Hufflepuffs stepped back, victorious, leaving Lestrange moaning, sprawled on the floor in a private symphony of pain, the other Slytherin boys staring idiotically down at him.
Merlin, what was next? Avery was standing right in front of Bellatrix. Ignoring his tiny yelp, she yanked him out of the way and knelt down by Lestrange's side. Amazingly, he smiled warmly at her.
"Bella?"
Her hand was on his stomach, close to his ribs. She felt around briefly until her fingers found the bone, and shoved her hand underneath and down. Hard. She didn't really expect it to hurt; it was a pleasant surprise when he shuddered.
"We," she said, mustering all the ferocity she could put into her voice, "will talk later." And, still on her knees, she slid her wand out of her pocket, pointed it up and backward, and sent sparks dancing and glittering into the faces of the Hufflepuff goons.

That was when Agatha quietly, with the minimum of fuss, pulled her into an empty classroom and closed the door.
"Miss Bellatrix?"
Bellatrix ripped her wrist out of Agatha's hand, glaring. Agatha, unperturbed, smiled at her as sweetly as ever. More bloody, filthy fantasies blazed through Bellatrix's mind, most of them things that she could easily accomplish...she was probably in enough trouble already, wasn't she?
"What?" she spat, all of her stored-up anger from the past three weeks beginning to spill out. She should have been in that fight. Lestrange didn't know what he was doing. None of them knew what they were doing. She was the only one who could even begin to spare them. "I know," she added, deliberately unpleasantly. "This is about the sparks, isn't it?"

Agatha looked around the classroom nervously, her fingers locked together in a gesture of...prayer? Bellatrix didn't understand. Agatha had her trapped, didn't she?

"Well," Agatha said reluctantly, "not exactly." She looked down, chewing her lip. Bellatrix was in no mood to be sympathetic.
"Go ahead, Aggie," she snapped, pressing into service Evelyn Burke's nickname for her shy niece (why did she remember these things?). "I can hardly BREATHE at you without risking detention, can I?"
Agatha smiled again.
"Well," she said softly, "that's true. Miss Dolores" (it took Bellatrix a second to remember that Dolores was Umbridge's first name) "really is being very hard on you."

Something about this, about the way she dismissed all Bellatrix's misdeeds, struck a nerve.

"No," Bellatrix said proudly, and rather stiffly, "it's what I deserve. Did Rita tell you what I've done?"
Agatha kept smiling.
"Well, yes, she did mention it." Her smile faded briefly. "Did you really do all of those things?"
"Aren't they too outrageous to make up?" said Bellatrix, pretending to be shocked. Agatha smiled again.
"I suppose so," she said in her breathy little-girl voice. "You're an awful person," she added cheerfully.

Bellatrix wasn't sure whether to be offended or not.
"Yes," she said after a minute, "I am."

Agatha nodded seriously.
"That's too bad, Miss Bellatrix," she said earnestly, "I'm afraid that I now find myself atoning for misdeeds that I know you don't regret."
Silence. Atoning? Images of Agatha with a whip, flagellating herself as penance for the unashamed sinner, floated to the surface.
"You should have known that before you started," she said irritably. "Lestrange told you about the pigeons, did he not?"
Agatha looked blank.
"Pigeons?" Her irrepressible smile came back a little. "Oh...I understand. You're really not a very nice person at all, are you?" She turned slightly to stare wistfully out the window. Bellatrix had to fight down the urge to jinx her. "I thought Roddy had told me everything," Agatha added after a minute. "I noticed that you seemed depressed, so I thought I had to ask. I wasn't snooping," she added hastily, "I thought maybe I could help. But he didn't tell me about the pigeons."

"You're judging me," Bellatrix snarled.
"No," Agatha said serenely, "I'm not. I don't really like you," she added with disarming honesty, the sort of honesty Bellatrix had nothing to say to, "but that's personal."
"You don't understand," Bellatrix half-shrieked, her rage and...fear?...discharging themselves again. Oh, so much emotion had piled up in her mind over three weeks of depression and intermittent stifled rage...
"I think I do," said Agatha.
"Narcissa never did!" whispered Bellatrix.

Silence. Bellatrix tried to take it back, but it was too late.
"I didn't mean that," she muttered, her emotions dropping away.
Agatha smiled understandingly.
"Knowing about the pigeons doesn't bother me," she said simply. "Auntie Evelyn and Miss Juliet, yes, but not me. I'm willing to let you keep doing it."

More silence. Oh, it was a revelation for Bellatrix. Some small part of her worldview seemed to have fallen away, throwing the rest into confusion and disorder. Her persecutor...wasn't her persecutor...but she had to be...what was she doing?
"You are?" came tumbling out of her mouth. Too fast.
Agatha raised an eyebrow. The expression looked so wrong on her innocent face.
"Yes, I am."
"What do you want from me?" Bellatrix hissed. Suspicion didn't seem unwarranted. Who knew what went on in the mind of someone like Agatha? Nothing was for free, unless you were hopelessly naive, and even little Agatha wanted to play...
"Well--" Agatha hesitated. Bellatrix took a step forward: their faces were now almost touching. Agatha shivered. "I would be in a lot of trouble if Miss Dolores found out. I would need you to keep it secret."
"You think," Bellatrix scoffed, half amused, half insulted, "that I can't do that?"

Agatha smiled.
"And I'd need proof you'd reformed."
"I can give you that."
"Well..." Agatha hesitated again. "I want you to try to make friends, real friends, with all the Slytherins in our year."

Bellatrix, much to her own surprise, barely hesitated. The blood was already pouring down the insides of her eyelids. And after all, she could always break the promise later. Who cared about Agatha Jugson's hurt feelings?
"Fine, then," she muttered, "I'll do it." And she smiled. It was obviously forced, but Agatha smiled back anyway and they shook hands. It was so nice to be on speaking terms with someone at last.

As they walked to the door, something occurred to her.

"And the Hufflepuffs? Am I allowed to avenge poor Lestrange and the honor that he never had?"
Agatha smiled once again.
"You're on your own with that one."

Late that night, after everyone had gone to bed, a mouse scuttled across the Slytherin common room.

It only got halfway before Magister-Smith the tabby cat pounced. Pounced, trapped, but didn't kill.

And Bellatrix detached from the shadows in the corner and stepped forward, an evil smile lighting up her pretty face.

She slept well that night, for the first time in weeks.

A/N: Just for a change of pace, a mouse dies instead of a pigeon.

(dodges angry PETA rioters)

And, because I know I'll get flamed for this, I'll say that Rodolphus isn't (that) stupid. Neither is Agatha, apparently. Bellatrix thinks everyone is stupid.

The Hufflepuff mob will be making more appearances in the future.

Next Chapter: Plans for Revenge

Reviewers will recieve a dead mouse. A yummy tasty dead mouse.