Days became weeks rather quickly, and habits, routines and rituals formed themselves against Bellatrix' will. She compared it to Azkaban. She had started one day with counting things. The bricks in the wall. The cracks in the ceiling. The time before the torches got replaced. The steps of the guards bringing her food. The bites of food before the plate was empty. She had started doing it one day, and then suddenly she noticed that she couldn't stop doing it anymore. That it just didn't feel right when she hadn't checked how many cracks, bricks, bites, steps, flickers there were. Not that anything ever felt right in Azkaban, but the counting provided a little bit of solace for her perpetually tortured mind, solace she just couldn't do without. The first thing she had done when she got out of that hellhole, besides screaming euphorically, was banishing all useless numbers from her mind. Yet still, when she was nervous or agitated, her thoughts automatically wandered to the first countable thing she could lay eyes on. It was like a pathway burned into her brain; she could work around it but in case of emergency that would always be the path she'd take.
The habits and patterns that formed into life at the cabin weren't surprising, although some were somewhat disturbing. Every morning Bella would wake up, go down to the kitchen, and prepare tea of birch bark and leafs for herself and Lucius. She would then bring it back to the bedroom and spoon-feed Lucius the tea, while occasionally sipping her own cup, pulling faces at the horrible taste, and making derisive remarks about her companion's stoicism. After that she would get Lucius somewhat dressed, and carry, drag or levitate him to the sitting room -depending on the day's fancy and her mood- and depositing him on the couch. There she would take one of the few books in the cabin and read out loud to him, often interrupting herself to comment on the author, the situation, the subject, or something completely random. When she got enough of that –most of the time rather quickly, as dramatic reading was a bit of a strain on her voice- she went outside to collect edible things and have some sunshine on her face. When she returned she prepared the food, which was always meat, with meat, and in the best case something else she had found. She fed Lucius, then ate her own, non-gooey meal, and played cards against herself with a pack she had made from old parchment, until the evening fell.
On some days there was also laundry to do, or hunting, but generally not much changed in their routine. The disturbing parts were those that featured the bathroom. Scourgify only went so far, and after three weeks Bellatrix had realized she would have to actually wash Lucius. She had thus braced herself and done the job, mentally counting the tiles on the floor (56), the flowers on the wallpaper (still 153), and the seconds until the ordeal was over (too many). It wasn't that she couldn't appreciate a male body, and Lucius certainly was a rather attractive specimen despite everything, but… something about washing an adult man like a doll made her skin crawl with awkwardness. The toilet wasn't much better. No, actually the toilet was much worse. Bellatrix thanked whatever deity there might be for the simple fact that Lucius was still capable of keeping up his piss until he actually reached a toilet. A couple unfortunate accidents however had reminded Bella that he required her to reach said toilet, and that forgetting toilet duty would result in lost dignity and extra laundry.
The most disturbing of it all, Bella thought, was that even the disturbing parts were becoming routine to her. She cursed and insulted Lucius, she never ceased to express her absolute disgust of him, but since he never seemed aware of that it never had the desired effect. Sometimes she got out, cruciating anything and anyone she could find, screaming at the sky with a sound-muffling charm around her, simply to remind herself that she could not give in to this, this was temporary, she would break free, eventually. She wouldn't spend the rest of her days living on meat and birch leaves in the company of a male houseplant! And then, as soon as the anger and frustration were out of her, she returned to the cabin to take her book or her cards and do exactly the same things as before, soothing her mind with the comfortable familiarity of it all. She was counting the steps of the guard again, and she knew it, but at the same time she couldn't help it.
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"Please… Not again… NOT AGAIN! I can't take it… I can't TAKE IT!"
Bella woke up to find Lucius caught up in a delirious nightmare again, and once again she took him in her arms, like she always did. She softly cradled him until the fear left him, whispering comforting words and caressing his hair… yet this time, instead of the vacant look she had gotten so used to, she met a confused, frightened gaze, silvery eyes that actually saw her. He tried to say something, but no words left his lips. With a surprisingly caring gesture, Bella put a finger over his lips.
"Ssssh. it's okay. You're safe."
She continued to caress his hair and rub his back, until the man was asleep in her arms. So often she had done it before already… She put him back under the covers, but lay awake herself. Had she imagined it, or had Lucy the houseplant actually given a sign of intelligent life?
The next morning, when she came into the room with the breakfast tea, she knew she hadn't imagined it. Lucius sat up in bed, looking at her, seeing her. She raised her eyebrows.
"Well, well… decided to show a sign of life after all?"
"I… I d-don't know…"
His voice was scratchy from disuse. Bellatrix put her platter down, took a chair and sat her feet on the bed, trying to appear relaxed. She chuckled.
"What don't you know, Lucy? Where we are? How we got here?"
There was something oddly disarming in the way he looked at her. Confused, apprehensive, and also… innocent. Not a look she had ever seen on Malfoy's face. For a moment Bellatrix could imagine him as a child, just for a moment before he opened his mouth again, torturing his vocal chords to bring forth another croaked sentence.
"I d-don't know… a-any-t-thing. W-what h-happened?"
Bellatrix' eyebrows rose again.
"You have amnesia? So, you mean to say you don't remember anything at all?"
"T-things… m-magic… words… but n-no names, places, e-events."
"Do you even know your name?"
He sadly shook his head. Bella contemplated giving him an embarrassing nickname, but experience told her things like that tended to get old real fast and come back to bite her in the ass later on. She decided to go with the truth.
"Your name is Lucius Abraxas Malfoy. You were my sister's husband. You are a wizard. You and I, we both fought in a war. Our side lost, and now we're hiding from the authorities. You were injured, some unknown curse I think, and that has caused you to lose your memory. You were unconscious for quite some time."
He slowly nodded. It clearly was a lot to take.
"Y-you… who are you?"
"I am Bellatrix Lestrange, your sister-in-law. Call me Bella."
"A-Alright… Bella."
Lucius tried to smile, and the result was so different from any expression Bellatrix had ever witnessed on Malfoy's face that she almost cackled in glee at the sight. If only she had a camera, the blackmail! Too late she realized there was no one left to share it with.
"I brought you tea. I warn you, it tastes like devil's piss, but it's warm and will probably be good for your throat. Can you hold the cup yourself?"
Lucius took the cup from her, but his hands trembled too badly. Eventually Bellatrix held the cup to his lips so he could drink. His following expression was another one for the records… Who had ever thought Lucius Malfoy was capable of looking something other than arrogant, smug or uninterested, let alone so positively disgusted! After the cup of tea, Lucius sent her a pleading look.
"P-Please d-don't leave me."
Ad to her surprise she answered him,
"I won't leave."
And she sat by his bed until confusion and exhaustion got the better of him, sending him off to an unquiet sleep.
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Lucius being awake threw quite the wrench in the system of carefully built up routines that shielded life in the cabin. Bellatrix found that she didn't mind as much as she had feared she would. The man slept a lot, and when he was awake he asked questions. About himself, about his life before the war, about his family, about her… Bellatrix had wanted to give him a detailed account of the memory of Cissy's body, just for the sake of shocking him and getting a rise out of him, but against all odds she hadn't.
There was something about this new, rebooted version of Lucius Malfoy that fascinated her. His expressions and questions held some kind of naivety you didn't usually find in adult death eaters. It fascinated her, and she wanted to learn more about what made him tick before she set loose her horror stories on him.
Bellatrix had a rule of thumb concerning torture; you couldn't hurt what you didn't know. Of course some things always worked; cruciatus, a little burning, a cut here and there, a solid pounding… but mental torture was something else; it required understanding of how someone's mind worked. You couldn't torture effectively if you had no inkling of what throve a person, what made him the person he was. And Bellatrix didn't know what made Lucius the person he was, simply because he didn't seem the person he had been anymore.
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She tried her best not to work out her frustration on Lucius, why she didn't know, but his incessant questioning drove her bonkers. She tried to deal with it in the way that had always worked on their colleague-death-eaters, giving generic answers at a venomous tone, accompanied by a run-or-I-cruciate-you-glare. This didn't work on the new, amnesiac Lucius though. Apparently he had forgotten the strength of her torture curses along with everything else.
"Bella… What happened in this war you spoke of?"
"We lost."
"Why did they…"
It was the fourth time that day that Lucius breached the war subject, and although Bella could understand that he was curious after what he had forgotten, it irked her. She didn't want to think or talk about the war. Never again.
"They killed all of them, okay? Fuck, Lucius! Your family, my family, your friends, my friends… they're all dead, and if they're not dead they're either hiding, fleeing the country, or waiting for their execution! Can't you just fucking leave it alone?! Shit happens, it has no fucking why!"
Bella burst out in mad laughter, and Lucius was quite taken aback by it. Bella's lips twisted in a vicious grin as she pointed her wand at him.
"I have missed hearing you scream, Lucy…"
The curse was on the tip of her tongue… but she didn't pronounce it. She just glared at a pair of anxious silvery eyes that looked too young for the face they were in. Bella hadn't missed hearing him scream. She heard him scream every night and it made her feel mighty uncomfortable. Of course, she would never tell him that. She just held him at wandpoint for a moment, until she lowered her wand, chuckled, and said,
"You are lucky I'm feeling merciful today."
With that, she stalked out of the door. Her merciful feeling didn't extend to the couple of muggle picnickers she encountered close to her usual hunting ground... She tortured them from in the bushes, relished in their screams, and at last petrified and obliviated them. Instead of returning to the cabin immediately, she wandered through the forest, practicing various nasty dark spells on unsuspecting critters and counting trees (too many), branches of trees (more than there were trees) and leafs (why did she even try?)
It was dark when she finally returned home, and the anger she had felt was gone. However, so was everything else. She felt empty and spent when she dropped herself on the bed next to Lucius, blatantly ignoring the man. Thoughts of Cissy kept her awake. Cissy, proudly getting fitted for school robes, wreaking havoc on her toy broom, lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. Her baby sister. She hadn't been horrified, only angry. Now she wasn't even angry anymore. She just felt drained. It took almost all night before she finally fell asleep.
The next morning, Bellatrix woke up resting against Lucius' chest, his arms around her. It was disturbing, but it was also surprisingly comfortable, and Bella found herself reluctant to break free. Only when a sudden memory of another complete idiot she had known entered her mind, she escaped from Lucius' embrace. He woke up and sent her a questioning look, which she answered with a glare. They never spoke about the incident again.
Lucius stopped asking questions about the war. Bella liked to think it was because she had frightened him… a small voice in the back of her head whispered that it was out of pity.
(Author's Notes)
New chapter! I want to ask all of you people... please review this. If you think it's awful and you don't tell me, how am I supposed to get better?
Lucius is awake! Amnesiac!Lucius is cute, I think. Bellatrix does not share my opinion, just so you know xD And yes, I kind of gave Bella some type of OCD. It's that what the title is referring to, sort of. Also, anyone who thinks having to wash coma patients is a disturbingly gross but necessary evil, please raise your hand! (It's like washing old people, but worse. Brrr. Respect for the people who have this as a job, I volunteered one day and the bathing freaked me out.)
Oh, and birch bark tea... it takes some getting used to the taste, but it's actually quite healthy. I did not make this up, I'm serious!
Let me know what you think! PLEASE REVIEW!