"Colloshoo," incanted Rodolphus Lestrange, and Bellatrix immediately flicked her wand in a straight line down and cried out,

"Protego!" A Shield Charm was built around her, which she quickly dissolved as she swished her wand and murmured quietly, "Flipendo! Flipendo!"

Rodolphus, and then Rabastan, were taken by surprise by Bellatrix's quickly materialised Knockback Jinxes. Each brother was sent flying backward through the air, landing with thuds upon the rain-soaked grass outside Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix turned and smirked at Voldemort, and he applauded her with his leather-gloved hands.

"Well done," he said as her husband and brother-in-law staggered to their feet. He walked down the stone steps outside the manor and out onto the grass, pushing down the hood of his waterproofed cloak. He watched then as Bellatrix snapped the tip of her wand quickly toward Rabastan, who was still standing up, and cried,

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Silencio!" Rodolphus cried, and Bellatrix absorbed the Silencing Charm as Rabastan went rigid and toppled over, his thick form hitting the ground hard. Bellatrix scowled rather playfully at Rodolphus and aimed her wand at him, and suddenly he was screaming, breaking out in boils. Voldemort raised his eyebrows, impressed that Bellatrix had managed a Stinging Hex nonverbally, even under Rodolphus' Silencing Charm.

"All right. Let them go. You win," he told her. She crossed her arms over her chest, and she said petulantly,

"I think I'll let the spells wear off."

Voldemort gave her a sour look and demanded, "Do as I say. Release them."

She went serious then and bowed her head. "Master. Finite Incantatem. Finite Incantatem."

The brothers shivered in the chilly rain as they staggered over toward the steps, and Rabastan complained,

"I'm going to be all bruised up, Bells."

"Well, that's why they make Butterfly Weed Balm," she teased him, and Rodolphus asked,

"How'd you know how to duel so well if you've lost your memory?"

She shrugged. "I've lost my experiences, not my skills or knowledge. It's all instinct. I just sort of… know."

"Well, I for one am grateful to see that Pinky Tarlington was a complete idiot in how she managed Obliviating you," Voldemort said. "If she'd been intelligent, she would have gone the other way. She would have taken your memory of spells, of skill sets. Instead, she took your memory of your childhood. What good did that do her?"

"Well, she's dead now," Bellatrix shrugged nonchalantly, "and, frankly, the Auror force is probably the better for it. She seems like she was a complete idiot. Pinky. Stupid name."

Voldemort curled up his lips and told the trio, "It's damned freezing, and I'm sure you're all soaked to the bone. Who's in the mood for hot Butterbeers and shortbread, eh?"

"Oh, that sounds delicious," Rabastan exclaimed, seeming to forget entirely about how Bellatrix had tossed him about. Soon enough they were all in the lounge inside with Abraxas Malfoy, sipping on clear glass mugs of heated Butterbeer and nibbling on warm shortbread, and Rodolphus said,

"Bella, you don't remember this, but every Christmas for the last few years, the Death Eaters have had a great gathering, and we've always had hot Butterbeer and shortbread there."

"And do you always have it in April?" Bellatrix asked. Rabastan winked and said,

"I have hot Butterbeer whenever I possibly can. Even in July."

"When is everyone's birthday?" Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort realised that made sense for her to ask. She didn't know things like that. Rabastan answered first.

"The second of June," he said. "Nineteen fifty."

"Second of June," she repeated, "and you're a year older than me. Right. Second of June. Rabastan."

She was good at committing things to memory, Voldemort thought. He sipped his Butterbeer, savouring the caramel notes, and Rodolphus said,

"Mine's the seventeenth of November, in nineteen fifty-one. So, not quite two months after yours."

"Right. Seventeenth of November. Rodolphus is the seventeenth of November," Bellatrix nodded. She found out then that Abraxas Malfoy had been born in March of 1928, and then it got to Voldemort, and she hesitantly asked,

"Well, My Lord? What about you?"

He considered telling her that Lord Voldemort's birthday was precisely no one's business. But Tom RIddle's birthday had been celebrated by his gang, so of course Abraxas knew it. He cleared his throat and said,

"The thirty-first of December, nineteen twenty-six."

She grinned. "New Year's Eve?"

He shrugged. "What of it?"

"Your birthday is New Year's Eve?" She giggled a little and drank from her Butterbeer. "What a marvelous excuse to get doubly drunk."

Rabastan and Rodolphus seemed surprised by her candid, frank attitude toward him, and Voldemort flicked his eyes to see a look of shock on Abraxas Malfoy's face. Voldemort just shrugged again, but Bellatrix barrelled on,

"I'll bet you throw the grandest New Year's galas and insist that everyone pay strictest homage to the Dark Lord's birthday."

"Bella!" Rodolphus hissed, and she glared at him.

"What? It'd be fun."

"Bells." Rabastan reached for her elbow and leaned close to her, and he said gently, "Watch your tone, Bells."

"She's fine," Voldemort affirmed, though Malfoy and both Lestrange brothers seemed afraid to be in the presence of someone speaking to Voldemort in such a way. He tipped his head up and decided to play along so as not to look the fool.

"Would you get spectacularly drunk, Bellatrix, to celebrate my birthday? Vomit all over yourself? Pass out in the middle of the floor before the clock even struck midnight? A marvelous excuse to get doubly drunk. Hm."

He sipped his Butterbeer, and she smirked as she took a bite of shortbread. She washed it down with some warm Butterbeer and informed him,

"There's an art to getting drunk. Just drunk enough to be ridiculous without losing consciousness or being sick."

"Oh, and you speak from experience, I take it?" Voldemort said mockingly. "You've got memories of drunkenness, have you?"

"Perhaps you'll show me in the Pensieve, Master," she suggested lightly, "or perhaps you'll show me at the bottom of a bottle of Firewhisky."

There was silence in the room then, and Voldemort narrowed his eyes at her.

"Go up to the burgundy suite and wait for me," he said firmly, and she stared at her half-finished Butterbeer and biscuits. He snapped, "Now."

"Fine. Master." Bellatrix rose, and as she walked by him in a huff, Voldemort snatched at her wrist. She gasped in pain and whirled, and he sent wandless magic seething through her Dark Mark, making her cry out in agony. She writhed where she stood, and he snarled at her,

"Don't you ever speak to me with such disrespect again. Remember what will happen to you if you do not recover as my Death Eater properly. You will be eliminated. Go upstairs and wait for me. Now."

She stood up straighter, glanced over her shoulder at her husband and her brother-in-law, and then bowed her head contritely to Voldemort.

"Yes, Master."

"You wanted to see a memory of drunkenness," Voldemort said as he came walking into the sitting room. He shut the door behind him, and Bellatrix sat opposite him as he sank onto the sofa and opened the wooden box containing the Pensieve. He brought his wand to his temple and shut his eyes, remembering a time when Bellatrix and Rodolphus had arrived to Malfoy Manor very drunk after celebrating New Year's Eve. They'd been unable to fulfil their duties their night, which had irritated Voldemort, and he'd scolded them afterward. Bellatrix had been worse off than Rodolphus. He drew the memory out from his temple and put it into the Pensieve, and then he pointed in, and he and Bellatrix dove downward.

"Malfoy Manor," Bellatrix observed, looking around. "I was drunk here?"

"You could have Splinched Apparating this drunk," Voldemort's voice was saying. Voldemort took Bellatrix by the wrist and led her toward his office. Inside, the washed-out shadows of the two of them stood facing one another, and Bellatrix asked,

"Where's Rodolphus?"

"I'd already sent him home," Voldemort said sharply.

"When was this?' Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort sighed deeply.

"It was… New Year's Eve."

"Oh." Bellatrix looked like someone had poured cold water on her. She slowly approached the conversation between herself and Voldemort, and she studied their faces. "I didn't know it was your birthday, I don't think."

"No, you didn't. I called you and Rodolphus here for a strategic meeting, but you were both already very drunk," Voldemort said. His shadow said sharply,

"Bellatrix… Bella."

"So sorry, M-Master." She stumbled a little, giggling, and he caught her in his arms to keep her from falling. She held the front of his robes and stared up at him, and he just glared angrily down at her. He noticed something in his eyes then, a glint he would have never noticed before. It was a sorrowful sort of shine, a longing, a need. He let go of Bellatrix's biceps, and he rubbed at her shoulders and told her gently,

"I'm going to take you home so you don't get hurt. Don't ever get this drunk again, no matter the date. There could be an emergency; I need you in fighting order."

"Yes, Master," Bellatrix drawled.. She was still holding his robes, still staring up at him, and in her face, he now read desire. He could see it so plainly now. She wanted him. If he'd had offered to bend her over his desk in that moment, she'd have Vanished her own knickers, he could see now. He blinked and watched Bellatrix stare at the memory of herself, and she raised her eyes to Voldemort as she said seriously,

"I craved you."

He just nodded, and then she looked at the memory of him, and she observed,

"You were confused. You were angry with me, but you… wanted something."

"I don't know." Voldemort turned his face away, and he confirmed, "I was angry."

"You only look a little angry," Bellatrix said. He glanced back at himself and watched as he stroked at Bellatrix's arms with his thumbs, as he brought one hand up to her curls to pet them, and he heard himself say very softly,

"You must be more careful. Understood?"

"Why did you speak to me like that if you were so angry?" Bellatrix demanded, and Voldemort just shook his head. He decided to pull out of the Pensieve, yanking Bellatrix with him. He'd had enough. He hadn't realised the memory would reveal so much. He'd only wanted to show her that she'd been to drunk on a New Year's Eve. Instead, he'd shown her a conversation that had been more intimate than he'd realised. He had not known at the time that it had felt like that, looked like that. If he'd known, he would not have shown it to her.

Now he sat on the sofa, staring across the little table, and Bellatrix cleared her throat as she folded her hands on her lap and demanded matter-of-factly,

"Tell me the truth about us."

"What truth?" Voldemort snapped. "There is no truth to tell. You and I were never a couple. We were never physical. We were never in love. I am not hiding anything."

"Not even from yourself?" Bellatrix raised her eyebrows, and Voldemort felt his heart thunk like metal on metal inside in chest. He seethed a breath through his nostrils and insisted,

"I had no idea that I… looked at you like that. I didn't know that I spoke to you like that. I didn't remember it that way."

"Apparently you did," Bellatrix countered, "My Lord."

He licked his lip and tried to speak, but no words came out. Bellatrix tipped her head and suggested,

"Is it possible that, because you'd sworn off witches entirely, you made a conscious decision to view me as a sycophant, no matter what your words and actions suggested? Is it possible that you allowed yourself to behave one way and feel another way? Master?"

"Stop." He stood, walking over to the window, and Bellatrix quickly followed him. She wound up standing beside him, and he was tempted to fling her against the wall with a charged Knockback Jinx. But if her show on the lawn had been any indication, she'd just block it and hit him with a hex. He turned his face to her and said angrily,

"Yes, Bellatrix, it is possible that I suppressed emotion toward you so that I could focus entirely on the pursuit of my goals. It is possible that I chose to interpret everything as one-sided adoration, despite what my eyes and my hands and my words tell you in the memories. Yes. That is possible. Are you happy now?"

"No," she whispered, "because I am different, aren't I?"

"What?" He furrowed his brows. "Yes, you're a bit different since your memory was wiped. What of it?"

She was silent for a moment until she finally asked,

"What do you think of me right now?"

"I am not going to be subjected to this line of interrogation." Voldemort started to storm out of the room, but then he felt something pulling at his fingers, and he whirled round angrily, ready to strike. Bellatrix was holding his hand, staring calmly at him, and she asked him again,

"What do you think of me these days, Master? I'm obviously not the groveling sycophant your mind conveniently painted me as before."

"No. You're a bit obnoxious now, if I'm honest," he growled, and she threw up an eyebrow.

"Is that all? A bit obnoxious?"

And beautiful, and intelligent, and terrifyingly skilled, he wanted to say. Instead he just blinked and took her face in his hands, and he shrugged.

"Go on, then. Read my eyes, since you're so damned skilled with it. Go on and read my eyes and tell me how I feel toward you right this moment."

She stared up at him, and he let his gaze reveal everything. He thought about how lovely she was, about how impressive she'd been dueling her husband and her brother-in-law. He thought about how her snarky new personality almost aroused him, about the way he liked to kiss and touch her. He stared down at her and thought about all of that, and she nodded up at him and whispered,

"All right, then."

"I'll show you moderate drunkenness sometime," he promised, "but not on New Year's, and not at the bottom of a bottle of firewhisky. Understood?"

"Understood, Master," she confirmed. He bent to kiss her forehead, then her cheekbones, then her lips, gently, and he turned and walked out of her suite.

Author's Note: Oh, my. He's been hiding things from himself, not just from her. And Bellatrix is a lot more able to pick up on emotion because her mind is a "clean slate," unburdened by preconceived notions from her previous memories. Now that it's becoming obvious that they're a bit like magnets, how long before they just sort of let loose and have a full-fledged affair? And when will Bellatrix fight in battle again?

I have a wedding I'm standing up in this weekend, but in between updates, thank you very much for reading and reviewing. Twenty points to your House if you leave your thoughts! Haha!