Lucius slept on the couch that night. He missed Bella's warm body against him, was feeling uncomfortable without her. Yet he was exhausted so soon sleep overwhelmed him anyway, comfortable or not. And that's when it started.

"You have failed me, Lucius."

Pain. Flashing images. Red eyes.

"Your family has failed me."

Despair. Cold floor tiles. Glass shattering.

"The consequence of failure is punishment."

Fear. Pain. A rustling black cloak. Trembling voice.

"Do you know what will be your punishment, Lucius?"

Agony.

Bathing in sweat, Lucius woke up on the couch, his heart racing and his mind still half caught in the warped mental images when he looked around in panic. He calmed a bit when he realized where he was… the calm fleeted however when he realized he remembered his nightmare. Usually he never remembered them, yet now the images and the raspy, threatening voice still echoed through his head. Shocked, Lucius lay back down. He tried to fight the sleep to prevent another nightmare, but it was no use…

"Your son."

No. More begging. Pain.

"Stop that pathetic snivelling, Lucius."

A wand pointed, limbs sprawled out in odd angles, screaming.

Stiff. Can't turn away. Eyes forced to watch.

"Please! Please father! AAAAARGH!"

Too much. Far too much. Far too long.

Screaming reduced to mewling. Dead eyes.

"You asked for mercy, didn't you? Well, have some yourself!"

Cold laugh. A green flash. Crying.

The second time he woke up, his mind was full of incoherent images that filled him with dread and fear. He knew he had to get away, he had to so something, he had to stay awake… but it was as if his mind was determined to make him remember. Lucius had only just gotten off the couch when sleep overcame him like a curse and he sank down on the floor, too tired to keep his eyes open.

Defiance. Courage from pain. Terrible mistake.

"You dare defy me? Have you not had enough punishment?"

Angry red eyes. Fuzziness.

"Lucius? What is wr-…?"

Waking up. Pain. Blood. Frightened blue eyes.

"See what you have done, Lucius?"

Fuzziness. Vague screaming. Everything is vague.

Waking up. More blood. Cold laughter.

"Still feeling defiant now?"

Begging. Laughter. Fuzziness.

Waking up. High pitched screams. Red, red everywhere.

"And to think you could have avoided this…"

Cold steel. Red, painted red. Laughter, laughter echoes.

Waking up. No more screaming. Nothing left. Such agony.

Lucius woke up, screaming this time. He didn't understand it. He didn't understand anything of it, but the delirious nightmares had him caught up in panic. He didn't want to remember. He had to stop it. He didn't want to remember.

"Lucius? Is something wrong?"

Andromeda in a nightgown, holding her wand. Her wand…

"Andromeda…"

"Lucius, what happened? You look terrible!"

Breathless, he whispered,

"Please. N-need to borrow your wand."

"What?"

Another person entered the room. Bellatrix, half dressed and limping, resting herself against the doorpost.

"What is going on?"

"Bella I told you to stay in bed!"

"Fuck you, I just wanted to see what was happening here…"

Andromeda's attention was gone, she had turned her head to scold her sister. Lucius grabbed his chance and quickly plucked her wand from her hand.

"Lucius! What the…"

He looked pleading at her and whispered.

"I'm sorry. I d-don't… don't want to remember."

Bellatrix' sleepy eyes widened when she realized what was going on… From the door-opening she yelled.

"Andy don't let him…!"

Lucius held the wand to his temple and said.

"Obliviate."

Everything became vague, disappeared into a mist. Then… nothing.

(Pagebreak)

Andromeda and Bellatrix watched how Lucius' eyes glazed over, and he dropped to the floor. Andy caught him before he could hit the ground, putting him back on the sofa.

Bellatrix limped into the room, seeking support on the furniture.

"He… he obliviated himself…" Andy sounded as if she still couldn't believe it. She eyed her sister. "Did… Did he cause his own memory loss?"

Bellatrix scowled, but Andromeda could see the worry in her eyes.

"No… You can't obliviate yourself properly. To remove memories the caster needs to focus on them. Removing the thing you have to focus on from your mind is not good for your concentration, if you know what I mean. It makes the spell unstable. That can turn out in a multitude of ways, all of which are… undesirable."

She looked at Lucius. He wasn't waking up in complete confusion after having irreversibly damaged his mind, so that only left one other option…

"That idiot. Right now he's probably reliving exactly the memories he tried to remove. Whatever those might be."

"How… how do you know?"

It was four am, and Andromeda wasn't really prepared for any of this.

"I took a specialized course in obliviation once. Always wanted to work in that sector before the war. Tinkering with thoughts, messing with people's minds… you know. It still comes in handy sometimes."

She looked at Lucius, and Andromeda couldn't really place her look.

"The positive thing is, however, that while he's reliving those memories, they are brought to the forefront of his mind. If you happen to have a pensieve we can extract them and join the fun."

Bellatrix let out a dry cackle. Andy didn't think it funny, but she nodded.

"I have a pensieve."

(Pagebreak)

The memories they extracted from Lucius' mind were horrible. Andromeda had only watched the first one when nausea overcame her and she had to pull back, throwing up her dinner in the nearest flowerpot. Unexpectedly, Bellatrix pulled out of the memory as well, holding her sister's hair while she emptied her stomach. Andy felt tears burn behind her eyes, the sour taste of bile lingering in her mouth.

"T-that monster…"

Bella didn't say anything at first. She just patted Andromeda's back until the worst was over.

"We have to watch the rest as well. Are you going to keep it in?"

Andy nodded weakly. There was nothing left in her stomach anyway, and how much worse could it become?

It turned out it could become much worse. The first memory had shown Voldemort, torturing Lucius first, and then Draco. He had tortured the young man into insanity while forcing his father to watch, unable to move or make a sound. Then he had laughed at the drooling, empty shell that was Draco Malfoy, and told Lucius to have mercy on his son, to kill him. Lucius had killed Draco with a swift Avada Kedavra, trembling and crying. That had been the moment Andromeda had pulled out.

The rest was far, far worse. Voldemort had then told Lucius to follow him to the battlefield. Mad with rage and despair, Lucius had defied him, told him no. Told him he would never follow him again. In answer, Voldemort had put him under the Imperius and ordered him to Narcissa's parlor, where he had been forced to rape his own wife. As soon as he had fucked her until she bled, Voldemort had lifted the curse for a moment, making Lucius realize what he had done, mocking him for his weakness… Then he put him under the curse again, increasing the brutality of his orders. Bellatrix and Andromeda watched how Lucius forcefully cut their sister apart, every cut deeper and more vicious, how he kicked her until her bones broke through her once so fair skin. And every so often Voldemort lifted the curse, confronting Lucius with what he had done, only to mock him and make him do even worse the next time. They didn't know how long it lasted, but it lasted too long. Eventually Lucius lay broken on the floor of the parlor, a sobbing mess in the blood of his own wife. Voldemort left him there and disapparated.

They watched how he got up, and saw how he washed himself, redressed, and combed his hair… all on autopilot, his eyes expressionless and vacant. He sat himself down at the dinner table; wand in front of him, hands on the tabletop, eyes emptily staring at the wall. With that the memory ended.

Andromeda threw up again, on the floor this time; sour stomach acid for that was all there was left to come up. Her eyes met Bella's, and she saw her sister was crying as well. For a while they just sat there in the half-dark, the only light coming from the softly glowing pensieve full of horror…

"How… how can anyone b-be s-so evil?"

Andromeda's voice trembled with shock and disgust, while despite her tears Bella sounded oddly pensive when she answered.

"He had no soul. Or at least, no mentionable one."

(Pagebreak)

Bellatrix' mind was working in overdrive, while tears kept running over her cheeks. She just couldn't stop crying. She didn't cry for Cissy. She had already seen her sister's corpse back at the Manor, she had known what to expect. She didn't cry for the cruelty and horror of what had happened either; Merlin knew she had done some pretty horrific things in her days, in a deranged way she was used to it. It was to her own surprise that she realized she cried for Lucius. Lucius, who had killed his own son, raped and mutilated his own wife, all that while controlled like a puppet on strings but just aware enough for it to be torture. All that time she had lived with him… lived with the murderer of her sister… Bella mentally shook her head before she could start to get angry with him. The murderer of her sister was dead. Harry Potter had killed him, and for the first time since the end of the war Bella realized she didn't mind him being dead anymore. She didn't mind at all, actually. It wasn't the death of her sister that made her think so, it was the way her old Master had gone about it. Honourless. Not a display of power, but one of weakness, Bella thought. The Malfoys hadn't been enemies to his cause, even in punishment they should have been treated better.

It would be easy to hate Lucius, to hold what he had done against him… She had always taken that road, hating on a convenient scapegoat because that gave her life direction. The moment she thought that, she knew she wouldn't take that road this time. Maybe she would have to try follow her sister's example and be the better person this time.

Lucius… His mind must have been so terribly damaged… it probably still was. Pain, shock, guilt, lots of unforgivables used on a short timespan… It was a miracle he had even woken up from that plant-like state she had found him in. And now he was reliving it all, again. Everything his mind had been so desperate to make him forget. Everything that had begun to mend and heal in those months of amnesia would be raw and bleeding again soon…

Bellatrix noticed she was holding her sobbing sister. She didn't push her away. Andromeda might have taken care of lots of ugly, bloody battle-wounds… but she had never seen war. Now she had, the worst face of it, the cruel, insane and disgusting one. Bellatrix held her sister close, because in her own way she understood. That didn't mean she liked the women any more, of course.

(Pagebreak)

Lucius' waking up was every bit as painful as they had expected. He woke up with an agonizing scream, and that was only the beginning. He cried, screamed, pulled his own hair out... They couldn't approach him, as violent outbursts of accidental magic made his surroundings dangerous. It lasted for two days, and in the end he sat trembling and whimpering in a corner, knees to his chest, one hand tangled in his hair and the other one wrapped around him. His look was somewhere between vacant and panicked, as if he drifted between the detached state of catatonia and the harsh reality. Andromeda had theoretical knowledge about mental illness, trauma and curse damage… but still she didn't have a clue of what she was supposed to do now. Bellatrix did though. Andy watched in astonishment how Bella approached Lucius on hands and knees and sat next to him, gently freeing his cramped hand from his tangled hair.

"I know you wanted to forget. I know."

As soon as his hand was free she calmly rubbed it while softly whispering things to him. Andromeda couldn't make out all she said, but one thing she heard clearly.

"Come back to me. I'll protect you, I promise. Just come back."

And at last, Lucius turned his head and looked at Bella. She took him in her arms and held him close, and as soon as she had him firmly in her embrace he began to let it out. Pained, desperate sobs coming from somewhere deep inside racked through his body, and Bella just sat there and let him cry in her arms. Andromeda felt she was too much all of a sudden…

(Pagebreak)

After a rather heavy dose of Dreamless Sleep potion Lucius was unconscious at last, cradled in Bella's arms. She looked questioning at her sister.

"You know we can't stay here."

"Bella, you have seen the state he is in. At least let me try to help."

"Do you want Teddy to see this? Honestly? Not to mention that I have no idea how well Lucius can still control his magic, being around him could be dangerous. It's better if we go back, we've managed all the time before."

"Bella don't do this. Please."

"I'm right and we both know it."

Andromeda closed her eyes. She wouldn't want Teddy to see Lucius in this state indeed… If she was entirely honest, she didn't want any of the two death eaters in her house. Why was she even doing this, practically begging Bella to stay? She should be happy that they were disappearing from her life again! But the thought of the two of them alone in some small forest cabin, living on meat and birch bark? And how could Bella collect food if she had to watch over Lucius all the time? Somehow, it didn't sit right with her.

"If you go, I'll send you food and medication. No one ever has to know."

Bella looked unexpectedly grateful.

"Thanks… sister."

"You're welcome."

(Author's Notes)

YES! So now the mystery has been cleared up at last. I bet you all saw it coming big time (I'm kind of transparent in those things, I know...) This was definitely my favorite chapter to write. I'm terrible, I know, but I just love having my characters in various states of illness and desperation.

Also, Bella cries. O_O *shock* For those who think it's unlikely that she would cry...We all know that Bella likes torture, duh... but in this story I've tried to portray her as someone who is perhaps mentally damaged, but not entirely lacking in honor and dignity. She likes torture, but back in the war she tortured for a Cause, not "just because". Voldemort's behavior disgusts her not because he did what he did, but because he betrayed his own Cause with it, technically.

(Yes, I know that Bellatrix' torturing of hikers and picnickers is "just because"... But she erases their memories so they're not left traumatized, and she doesn't make them go insane, so I don't think it counts. She's a sadist, and sadists have needs too, I can know.)

PLEASE REVIEW!

I love, love, LOVE reviews. I need them. I thrive on them. Especially now! I want to know whether you liked my big plot development, yes or no. Every time someone lets me know they've read the story and what they think of it, my heart is warmed. Critics and compliments are equally welcome!