A / N : This . . . . this is another strange one, I'm afraid. It sticks to the theme of imprisonment and insanity, but barely. I would put it in something else, but there isn't anywhere it quite belongs, and it's too short to be really justified as a oneshot. So please, feel free to tell me it doesn't really fit, you find it weird, it seems out of place etc. The reason this chapter found its way into my head at all was because porschejacker XD requested, very kindly, that I do a Voldemort chapter from when he was in his bodyless, spirit-type phase. I pretty much discounted the idea, but when I woke up . . . this had wormed its way into my head. I truly do have no control over what emerges when I put pen to paper. (By the way, there's a tiny nod to one of Daring D's fics in here too, though I doubt anyone would notice on their own. It's the word loathe. :P )

Let me have it if this is completely nonsensical, honestly. I'm sort of expecting it. This is rather strange even by my standards. (And anyone who knows me knows that's . . . strange.) Enjoy!

The Dark Lord

Bella has failed again.

And failure requires punishment, does it not? She know this. She has always known this.

He raises his wand, prepares to bring it down like a whip, to lash her thin and broken frame with red light and watch her shudder and shake, watch her bleed as she fights so hard not to scream. She trained herself not to scream a long time ago.

He knows, of course, that the fiasco at the Ministry was not entirely her fault. But Lord Voldemort is not feeling merciful. He showed mercy enough in saving her, did he not? Mercy she scarcely deserved.

And he is angry. Bella of all people ought to understand anger. She has always been so disinclined to control her own, after all. The thought displeases him, and once again it is easy – too easy – to find the will to repeat the incantation, to torture her again. She does not scream, but the effort is beginning to show in her ragged lips, in the blood streaming down her throat and soaking into her robes. This displeases him even more. Screams are a weakness. Blood is a weakness. Tears are a weakness. And Bella always finds a way to prove her weakness. A way to contradict her own strength, a way to make him loathe her all the more.

He watches as she coughs and splutters, choking on her own blood, and he pauses. It will not do for her to die, after all. That is not his aim. He stands above her, watching her shoulders shake as her hair falls across her face, and he wonders, briefly, which weakness she is expressing now.

He ought to stop.

He knows this, of course. If he does not stop soon, he will kill her. This is an old game. He knows how far he can push Bella, knows how much she can withstand. He knows he is close – perilously close – to breaking her. But he is angry, and today, he does not care enough to be careful. If she dies, so be it. It will be nothing more than final, irredeemable proof of her weakness.

He is close now – so close – to breaking her. He has tortured her for her own foolishness, for Lucius, for Lestrange and Rookwood and every other follower who failed him today. For Potter and his friends, for Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, and for his own failure, his own arrogance and carelessness . . . . Every surge of anger, every mocking rememberence brings him closer and closer, and he does not realize how close until she ceases to respond at all as the curse strikes her, over and over again. She has closed her eyes and is mumbling under her breath. "Master." Over and over again. A prayer for mercy, or a vain declaration of her loyalty?

He raises his wand, and he waits, considering. Bella. She suffered for him, did she not? She surrendered her sanity. In Azkaban . . .

It takes her an age to become aware of the fact that he is no longer torturing her, an age to summon the strength to open her eyes. She stares up at him, glassy-eyed and ethereal. He laughs - a cold, mirthless laugh. He has shredded her nerves, torn them into splinters as fine as spun glass and with a word, he can break her heart, silence its stuttering song forever.

He watches her, considering. They are a strange pair, he and Bella. Bella relinquished her sanity, surrendered her mind, so that she might live to serve a master she truly believed would return for her. And he . . . he abandoned his body, and fled from death itself. He stole life from snakes and rodents, from the weakest of the weak. He lived – if living it could indeed be called – he existed – in a state that was more disgusting than anything he had ever known. The endless, sleepless agony of it, the sheer effort it cost to endure, to anchor his weak and splintered soul in a world of painful reality, a world so solid his ghost-and-vapour form had no place in it. Bella had been imprisoned behind iron bars and cold stone. He, on the other hand, had been too free. Insubstantial. Unable to force his essence into a solid form, weaker than the tiniest insect, the most miserable rodent. A howling wind might have torn him apart, had he not somehow found the strength to hold himself together. And yet he endured. He survived.

Bella distracts him at this moment by falling unconscious.

He bends down beside her, carelessly turning her over. Whether he has killed her or not is at this point uncertain. She certainly bears all the hallmarks of the dead. He watches her, silent and speculating. Yes. They are a strange pair, he and Bella. Her body, abandoned by her mind, and his mind, ripped from his body. He might have used her, then, had he thought to do so.

Why did he not think to do so?

He places one cold finger on the bloody space above her heart, where he can feel nothing but a resounding emptiness, and he waits.

Azkaban, he decides at last. Her body would have been no use to him in Azkaban.

Still nothing. Silence. Emptiness.

He straightens up again. So it ends . . .

And then she coughs, unexpectedly, and her eyelids flicker, signalling a return to consciousness. To the land of the living. Bella, apparently, is more resilient than he had assumed. Azkaban has broken stronger men, and he - Lord Voldemort - most certainly has. And yet . . . . she endures, as he endured. He contemplates this as she awakes, and he smiles. A cold thing. She may have surrendered her sanity, but she has not yet succumbed to death.

Perhaps she is not so weak after all.