BELLATRIX LESTRANGE STUNS AUROR IN DIAGON ALLEY!

Bellatrix Lestrange, 19, catapulted to the position of Undesirable Number Three, behind only Lord Voldemort and Conleth Avery, after Stunning an Auror in Diagon Alley. The Auror, Winston Weasley, was attempting to convince Madam Lestrange to come into the Ministry for questioning regarding her suspected use of the Cruciatus Curse against Albus Dumbledore at a conflict last month. When confronted by Weasley, Madam Lestrange spoke ill of Dumbledore, threatened Weasley, and then Stunned him before Disapparating.

Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Bartemius Crouch said that he had visited Castle Lestrange to attempt to meet with Bellatrix, but her husband Rodolphus insisted she was not there, and a search of the property found no trace of her. A visit to her parents, Cygnus and Druella Black, likewise turned up no sign of her. For now, she is considered exceedingly dangerous and volatile, as she seems willing to use any means necessary to evade Ministry apprehension and to avoid questioning.

If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Bellatrix Lestrange, please contact the Auror Office at once.

Bellatrix set down her copy of the Daily Prophet and paced slowly in her sitting room. She wanted to go outside, but it was cold and rainy. She'd thrown open the windows anyway, not minding the way the chilly air and misty rain was blowing into the room and sending the curtains billowing. She wore a heavy black velvet gown and let her curls blow round her face as she paced, reading the newspaper article for the third time.

"It's fucking freezing in here," said a voice, and when she looked up, Rodolphus was standing in the doorway. Bellatrix set down the newspaper and shrugged.

"I don't mind it."

"Well, I'm here to work with you in the Pensieve," Rodolphus said. "Mind if I shut the windows? Please?"

"Go ahead." Bellatrix sighed and set down the newspaper on the little table, sinking onto the sofa and staring at the wispy silver inside the Pensieve. She heard Rodolphus shut the windows, and then he joined her and said tightly,

"The Ministry searched your rooms and everything. You can't come back to Castle Lestrange any time soon. You have to stay here."

"I know. The Dark Lord's warded this place up like a virgin's cunt, he said," Bellatrix huffed, and Rodolphus threw up an eyebrow.

"He said that?"

"Well, no." Bellatrix smirked a little, and Rodolphus snorted a laugh. He glanced up and down Bellatrix's form and asked,

"Has he given you your wand back yet?"

"No," Bellatrix said uncomfortably. "Today, he said. I've earned it back."

Rodolphus just nodded. He shrugged and asked her, "Are you sure you want to see this? You don't have to…"

"I want to know what it's like for people who aren't in love," Bellatrix told him crisply. "I did it when I wasn't in love, and I want to know what that was like."

Rodolphus pinched his lips and nodded. "All right."

He brought his wand up to his temple and shut his eyes, looking pained for a long moment, and then he dragged the silky thread of silver into the bowl of the Pensieve. He gulped visibly and told her,

"I'm going to stay out of the memory. I'll stay up here."

"You certain?" Bellatrix frowned, but Rodolphus looked away and asserted,

"Quite certain, thanks."

Bellatrix rubbed at his knee and told him, "Thank you for showing me."

Then she pushed her face deeply into the silver liquid mist of the Pensieve and felt her body tumble end over end through the space above the memory. When she landed, she was in a washed-out bedroom. Powder blue. Her bedroom at Castle Lestrange.

"You can leave your nightgown on," the shadow of Rodolphus said awkwardly, approaching the bed. Bellatrix's memory, where she lay, let out a shaking breath and murmured,

"I'm fine naked. I'm already naked."

"Oh." Rodolphus stripped off his nightshirt, and Bellatrix was surprised to see that his penis was flaccid and much smaller than Voldemort's. He rubbed at it a bit with his hand and climbed into the blankets, and he asked Bellatrix carefully, "Can you… could you try and help me…?"

"Oh. Erm… all right."

Bellatrix could see then that she was touching him beneath the blanket, that he was panting and driving his head back, concentrating hard on what she was doing. She kissed at his chest and he moaned a little, but it sounded rather fake. Suddenly Bellatrix was mounting him, climbing atop him, and as she slowly rode him, Rodolphus' hands went to her waist and he helped her sway. Bellatrix's memory said quietly,

"Feels good."

She didn't sound like she meant it very much. She tipped her head back but seemed to just be staring at the ceiling. After what seemed like an eternity of nothing, of empty movement, Rodolphus' hands tightened a little on her waist and he let out a choked sort of sound, and then Bellatrix wordlessly climbed off of him and reached for her wand, hurriedly cleaning herself up between her legs and wrenching on her nightgown. She lay back down beneath the blankets and covered herself back up, and Rodolphus seemed to be catching his breath as he kissed her forehead and said softly,

"Night, Bella."

"Night," she replied, and she watched him pull his nightshirt back on and leave her bedroom without another word.

Bellatrix pulled up and out of the memory, and when she did, she found Rodolphus' eyes and gave him a sad little smile. She shook her head and insisted,

"It would never feel very good between you and me, I don't think."

"Perhaps not," Rodolphus agreed. He licked his bottom lip and admitted, "I had Clara over for dinner last night."

"Just dinner?" Bellatrix asked with a crooked little smile, and Rodolphus chuckled.

"Dinner and a few drinks. I kissed her goodnight. I don't want to rush her. She doesn't seem one to be rushed."

"No. Take your time. She seems like a good one." Bellatrix cupped Rodolphus' face and leaned forward to kiss his cheekbone gently. Just as she did, the door to the suite opened, and Lord Voldemort came striding rather confidently in, saying,

"These damned reporters think… oh. Rodolphus."

"My Lord." Rodolphus flew to his feet and bowed respectfully, and Voldemort pursed his lips, glancing at Bellatrix as he raised his brows. He held up his copy of the newspaper and said simply,

"I just came to discuss the Daily Prophet."

"Oh. Rodolphus was just leaving," Bellatrix said. "He was showing me a memory in the Pensieve."

"Was he? Hm. All right. See you some other time, Rodolphus," Voldemort quipped, and Rodolphus immediately took the hint. Once he'd gone, Voldemort shut the door behind him and noted, "You were kissing him when I came in."

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "I was giving him a kiss on his cheek to tell him that I like his new mistress."

"Oh." Voldemort took the place on the sofa where Rodolphus had been, and he told Bellatrix, "I wrote to your father to follow up after the Ministry visited their home. He said they didn't find anything. But he made a good point - he worries that they will attempt to use Andromeda as a weapon. He vowed to stand strong against any such attempts and to treat Andromeda as an enemy."

"And do you think my mother will be able to treat her own daughter as an enemy?" Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort dragged his teeth over his lip.

"I… I certainly hope that your mother is strong enough to resist the temptation to invite Andromeda in for tea if she were to show up at her door, yes."

"You don't sound so sure," Bellatrix said concernedly, and Voldemort sucked on his teeth and said,

"I think it would be wise to Confound your mother into completely rejecting Andromeda. I have confidence in your father."

Bellatrix nodded. "You want me to do it."

"It would be less suspicious if you did," Voldemort told her. "She wouldn't see it coming, and she could be invited here for tea with you."

"Anything you ask, My Lord," Bellatrix nodded. "Anything you command."

Voldemort cracked his knuckles a little and said, "I'll have her brought here in a few days. Give it all some room to breathe. In the meantime, I wanted to show you a memory of my own. I have no idea what Rodolphus was showing you, but this is something I've wanted to show you for some time. I confess it's not terribly productive for battle strategising, but… anyway."

He brought his wand up to his temple and shut his eyes, taking a very deep breath, and Bellatrix was mesmerised by the sight of him. Breathe in, breathe out. At last he drew the wand away from his head and deposited the silver stream into the Pensieve, and then he gave her a little smile and said,

"Let's go."

She lowered her face with his, feeling anxious all of a sudden, until they crashed down and landed on their feet in a space Bellatrix recognised at once.

"It's here," she said. "It's Malfoy Manor."

"It was your father's thirty-fifth birthday party," Voldemort said. "Abraxas Malfoy threw it for him. He had it here at the manor. It was one of my first major social events upon coming back from the Continent. You were… oh, I suppose thirteen?"

"There I am," Bellatrix breathed. She walked quickly across the ballroom floor in the memory, past slightly younger versions of Avery and Mulciber and their wives. A little Lucius Malfoy, too young for Hogwarts, went scurrying by with a giggling little Narcissa in tow. Bellatrix neared the memory of herself, a gangly, awkward little creature, all limbs and no curve. She stared at herself as she plopped a tart into her mouth and sulked a little. Druella Black was off with Andromeda, chatting with some witches Bellatrix didn't recognise. Suddenly the shade of Lord Voldemort, just a bit younger with less grey in his hair, marched up to the memory of Bellatrix, walking beside Cygnus Black III.

"And this, sir, is my eldest daughter, Bellatrix. She's a third-year Slytherin. Bella, this is a man who calls himself Lord Voldemort these days, though when we were in school together, he was Tom Riddle. He's going to be very important, so you'd best make yourself known to him."

"Very important, eh?" Bellatrix looked sceptical, and Voldemort smirked a bit at her.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Black."

"Cygnus! Come here. The cake's dry," complained Irma Black, and Cygnus excused himself as his mother dragged him away. Voldemort put his hands behind his back, and Bellatrix demanded,

"Why are you going to be important?"

"Because I am going to unite all of wizarding Britain," Voldemort said simply. "I am going to use whatever means I must to put witches and wizards in their rightful place again."

"Atop goblins and Squibs and Mudbloods, I hope," Bellatrix said, eating another little tart. Voldemort took a step toward her and tipped his head.

"That's right," he said. "Have you got any interest in such things, Miss Black?"

Suddenly she stopped chewing, and she set her plate down and used a glass of lemonade to wash down her bite of tart. She nodded and said seriously,

"I wish I'd been alive to fight for Grindelwald. I would have been a soldier for him. A good soldier."

"A good soldier," Voldemort repeated. "Is that what you want to do, Bellatrix? Do you want to fight?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Have you got battles planned, Lord Voldemort?"

"Perhaps I have," he said cryptically. Cygnus rushed back over, mumbling apologies about the chocolate layer of cake being drier than the vanilla. Voldemort shrugged and insisted it was no matter, and all the while Bellatrix stared at him like he was a flame and she was a moth drawn to him.

"If you'll excuse me," he said at last, "I've got a bit of mingling to do. It was good meeting you, Miss Black."

"And you, Lord Voldemort," she said quite breathlessly, her eyes locked on him as he hurried away.

Bellatrix tore her head up and out of the Pensieve, blinking quickly as she realised the memory had happened only six years earlier. She turned her eyes to Voldemort's, and she read a bit of uncertainty there, as if he were waiting for her reaction. She finally scoffed and told him,

"I was entranced by you from the first, Master."

"Not this time round," he reminded her. "You called me an arse and a right git this time round."

She laughed a little and reached for his hand as she said quietly, "You were being a bit of an arse, shoving me onto the ground just because you didn't want to show me the whole of the memory of us dancing. You were being a right git."

"Was I?" Voldemort brought her knuckles to his lips. "Sorry about that."

She smiled a little and studied the lines on his face, the threads of silver in his hair, and she whispered,

"I love you."

He just nodded, pulling out her wand and placing it in her lap, and he told her,

"Clara Abbott is a good choice. I think she'll make him happy. I'll send that owl back to your father to get your mother out here for tea, and you can Confound her about Andromeda whilst she's here."

He kissed her hand again and rose, and as he started to leave the room, Bellatrix called,

"You came here to discuss the Daily Prophet."

"No." He turned smirked, his hand on the door. "That was just an excuse. You keep the newspaper. I got what I wanted."

Author's Note: Fair warning that this story is about ⅔ of the way done. I'm having tons of fun writing it and loving how many people are reading it, but I'd be super grateful if you get a quick moment to leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks so very much. :)