The Taste Of Your Magic Chapter 8, a harry potter fanfic

Bellatrix followed the four Imperious'd guards to the massive doorway marking the sole entrance, and more importantly exit, of the previously inescapable Azkaban. Well, technically they hadn't really escaped, but still.

Everything had gone well, and she was now in possession of a chest containing the entire population of prisoners, all neatly incapacitated and ready to be used however she saw fit. It was all just so boringly simple, after all their planning. She sighed. Oh well, the next bit at least would be fun.

The drugged guards were levitated into different defensive spots around the entrance, enervated, and promptly killed with whatever spells she felt like. Cutting curses, some fireworks, a few Killing Curses to show the 'attackers' were ruthless, and she had the beginnings of a battleground. Their wands were destroyed in varying fashions as well to prevent their lack of defensive magic giving the game away. It was not unusual, wands were important and their desecration hardly a new idea.

Then the real fun began. The four guards were ordered to battle imaginary enemies to the best of their ability, using every possible spell and tactic as if in defense of all they held dear, and not to aim anywhere near her, naturally.

So Bellatrix conjured a chair and observed the show, sometimes throwing a hex or two into the fray to bloody things up a little. She even learnt a few neat little tricks, like a modified stunner that moved more slowly but could be made to bend a little around obstacles. Not all that useful, but the idea had some merit.

Eventually though the Aurors grew repetitive, so she banished her chair at them and ordered them to fight her.

Twenty seconds later Bellatrix was sending cutting curses at their wands with a sigh. It was probably for the best anyway, she had wasted enough time as it was. The chest was easily charmed to follow her which was not nearly as much fun as making others carry it, she snickered, and the sacker of Azkaban left its walls without a backwards glance.

Bellatrix briefly wondered how long it would take the Ministry to find the little presents she had left for them, before leaving the protective wards, taking hold of the chest, and vanishing with a flash of blue.

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Never in a thousand years would she have guessed interrogation could be possibly boring. She, Bellatrix, master of the Cruciatus Curse and mistress of all things painful, was bored with interrogation!

The first week had been oh so utterly glorious. Over two hundred victims from somewhat varying walks of life, a torture chamber designed by some anonymous ancestor, and unlimited time on her hands... It was a waking wetdream.

The Cruciatus Curse rolled from her tongue, caressed by her perfect lips with such adoration time and time again. Her silver knife drank more blood than ever before, sometimes healing its bloody trail, more oftentimes not. Partially transfigured men blubbered and wailed out their life's knowledge, lest she leave them in their painfully, freakishly deformed bodies. Weeping women choked out their secrets, lest her wandering hands with their sharp claws leave scratches that glittered with dark pain and her soft voice coo more horrible, horrible possibilities.

All in all, a fantastic week. She even introduced her little love to her favourite hobby! Harry had watched with wide, curious eyes as she explained each and every curse used, why and how they worked, and every little nuance to knowing how to break a 'bad' person. Granted, she had used a few muffling charms to dull their screaming, and had held back a little as some things weren't child-friendly, but he had surprised her once more by nodding along with every word.

By the end of the week, he had even offered a few ideas! Bellatrix indulged him with smiles, loving praises, and extra kisses and soft touches, of course. Simply positive reinforcement. So the man's arm had burnt off, a small price to pay for rewarding the inquisitive nature of her little dark prince! The man wasn't worth much anyway.

But then it had all gone so horribly, horribly wrong!

She had charmed the torture chamber to relay the sights of every victim writhing in agony to several large mirrors where the other prisoners could observe. And of course their screams were loud enough to be heard; it was only good sense to soften them up a little, after all.

But then they had to go and confess everything right away! No longer was any torture necessary, each and every prisoner she brought in would sing their secrets even before she said a word! They would make a copy of their entire memories to be labelled and stored carefully away, answer under a vastly diluted truth serum, as the stuff was expensive and more importantly difficult to come by in any great quantity, that lasted all of five seconds that, yes, it was indeed all of their memories. And then they would rattle off a disjointed list of everything they thought she might find important or useful while several legal dicta-quills scrawled out every word.

And she had to trawl through all their blubbered confessions for anything noteworthy!

The agony of it was mind numbing. She had already procrastinated for whole three hours perfecting several new curses to inflict this very same torture on others, and another five to try and find a counter. None existed. How fitting.

Bellatrix would have begged Narcissa to take her place, but her sister was too busy working her way and spreading her influence in the Ministry. And for some reason the prisoners felt more inclined to confess their secrets to her, whilst becoming less talkative without her presence. Both sisters had laughed at this. Narcissa could give Bellatrix a run for her money, she was simply quieter and less obvious about it, as a handful of their new playthings discovered.

Now after almost the third week, with far too many prisoners still remaining to be processed, Bellatrix made a decision. It was almost time for lunch, Harry was busy with his lessons in the pensieve and the timing was as good as it would ever get. So she stroked the little black gem on her ring three times, sending three pulses to the paired ring on her sister's finger, and waited.

Narcissa appeared in a blue flash several minutes later with a questioning look on her face. Bella knew she was busy today and nothing else was planned, what new plan had she thought up?

Bellatrix wasted no time.

"Cissy, I want to place a full Imperius Curse on one of our guests to help me go through... all this." She waved her hand at the plethora of papers and flasks of memories. The reasoning was simple; a perfectly loyal, obedient servant who retained full use of his or her faculties, intuition, logic and common sense could handle all of this and many other tasks, for them and free up a lot of their time. And, much more importantly, it would make sure Bellatrix never had to perform such a tortuously tiresome task ever again.

Narcissa sighed. They had been discussing this lately, and there was really only one person worth the effort, and the risk. Their cousin, Sirius.

The only other real contenders were other Inner Circle Death Eaters. While some had more skill in certain areas, none matched his intelligence. Sirius had been one of the brightest in his year, and for all his pranking and foolish behaviour, he was more cunning and powerful than all the others they held captive. Bella knew for a fact that the Dark Lord- that Voldemort had been most displeased when attempts to recruit him proved worse than fruitless.

And he was family, which had to count for something. Sirius as their servant could be much more useful than his corpse. And if not, it would be easily rectified.

"Fine, but be sure to get a copy of his memories before you meddle with his mind. I am certain they will contain many things of use."

Bella snorted. "You just want to know for sure if it was he who pranked your hair Gryffindor red back in, what was it, your third year?"

Narcissa did not deign to reply and sniffed haughtily, which prompted outright snickering from her sister. "And it was just in time for the ball, too!"

"I seem to recall you were similarly pranked several years before that. At least I kept my hair."

Bella's glare would have frozen lava. She sniffed, unconsciously mimicking her younger sister and changed the subject.

"I'll fetch our beloved cousin while you collect Harry from his lesson. I'll signal you when."

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The first thing Sirius Black felt when he started to wake up was the lack of cold. His ripped, ragged, coarse clothing had been replaced, likely transfigured into soft black fabrics that reminded him of his play-clothes as a boy. His eyes were open before he was aware of it, taking in the smooth rock floor he was kneeling on. That it was warm and sloped gently down to a grate should have raised a few red flags, but he was just so glad to be warm.

Something shifted before him, and several seconds later he looked up.

"Hello, Sirius. You're looking better."

He squinted as if she were much further away. "Bella? What- where?"

Her smile was one shade away from feral and this time he knew he was in trouble.

"You are my guest, dear Sirius. I have freed you from Azkaban when no other would. Your Dumbledore didn't even get you a trial, did he? You and I both know you are no Death Eater. Guess what?" Bellatrix flashed her left wrist.

"Neither am I."

He goggled. "Wha- but you- I saw- how?"

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I am not a Death Eater, I rescued you when no one else would, as I have Harry." With that, she reached down to pat what could only be the child of James and Lily Potter. The spitting image of James in miniature, Harry was standing close to his cousin and holding onto her robes with one hand in an unmistakable gesture that countless children had made in the presence of strangers.

Little Harry, Prongs junior, pup, his godson and only living link to his father, was taking comfort in the presence of Bellatrix.

Because he was afraid of him.

"Harry? Harry! You've got to go, run! Get out of here! G-"

A coughing fit wracked his weakened body, sucking what strength he had managed to summon in his terror for the boy. The sticking charms holding him in place had prevented his lunge, but they were unnecessary. Few survived half as long as he in the presence of Dementors without succumbing to illness.

Sirius shivered as he overcame the last few tremors, and was startled to feel the unmissable presence of a warming charm. He looked up to see Bellatrix putting her wand away, and goggled once more. This was even less believable than seeing her without the Dark Mark.

"I've cracked, haven't it? Soul-suckers finally got me. Huh. Thought it'd be more messed up than this."

She smiled. He frowned. "No, Sirius. You are more or less as sane as you ever were. You remember Halloween night, when Hagrid took little Harry off you to take him to Dumbledore? Your precious Headmaster left him with muggles who starved him. I found him half dead, locked in a cupboard to die. What's more, all the while his magic was being drained by Blood Wards."

She was soothing Harry without seeming to realise what she was doing as she continued talking. He wished that she, or rather anyone at all, was doing the same for him. Dumbledore left Harry to starve with muggles? Where Bellatrix could get him? There were no words for his rage and sorrow.

"So I saved him. I took him and fed him, and now Cissy and I care for his every need. We want him to have some male influence, and we believe yours is the best suited. It will take some time before you recover, and even longer before we trust you enough with our Harry, so we ask that you make a copy of your memories so he can watch them in our pensieve."

Sirius was quiet for several long moments as this sank in. With James... no longer around, Remus off who knew where, and the traitor in hiding, there was no one else to pass on the Marauders Legacy.

It would be the only way young Harry could see his parents as they were in life...

Choked up, he asked, "How did you know?"

She shrugged elegantly. "I asked you beforehand while you were under Veritaserum. Apparently you are worse off than we thought if you can't remember. And before you ask, Wormtail has not been seen since he faked his death, and has been awarded the Order of Merlin for seeking you out. We have an eye out for rats, but there is not much we can do."

He nodded absently before locking eyes with those echoing Lily's brilliant green ones. "Are you happy with her? Are you treated well?"

Harry nodded enthusiastically. "Yep! Bella and Cissy are the best! Cissy's busy lots now, but she brings presents now and she got me a faster broom and it can go higher than me and its really really fast and I like it lots. And-"

Sirius grinned at the excited tone and the speed of his answer, and listened as Harry went on and on about all the neat presents Cissy brought him and how his days went. He could literally see the happiness welling up inside the boy, but it was the soft, warm smile on his cousin's face as she watched that settled the matter.

There was no way she had been capable of that smile before Harry.

Eventually Harry ran out of things to say and suddenly he was bashfully shy once more, ducking behind Bella's robes a little to the accompaniment of the adults mild chuckling. Sirius looked up at Bella and gave his answer

"I'll give you my memories. Please let me be a part of his life. I'm his godfather, let me help raise him. Please."

She nodded and retrieved both her wand and another. He recognised the second wand, it was a generic spare used by Aurors and low-class assassins. It's five inch length and weak core left it easily concealable yet underpowered and difficult to direct at any distance over a few feet.

A quick Accio had a flask flying into reach, and Bella passed him the generic wand point first before stepping back, her own wand trained on him at all times. He smiled wryly at the thought that he might be capable of attempted to escape; he felt like he would collapse at any time.

Slowly so as not to startle the deadly witch with her wand pointed at his heart, he raised the wand to his left temple, drawing it across his forehead to his right, before twisting it slowly and pulling it away. There clinging to the wand was a thick strand of silver-grey, swirling like mist. He kept pulling as more and more flowed from his temple, before the strand broke free and he placed it in the flask, leaving the wand behind as he did. He doubted she would be upset with him for not including details about the Order of the the Phoenix, such as faces, places, names or in fact anything beyond a few pranks and private words with Remus, James and Lily.

Hell, Bella would probably be disappointed if he didn't give her the opportunity to torture something out of him.

Bellatrix summoned the flask and pocketed the second wand, before a flick of her wand left the name 'Sirius' printed across it in black ink and then the whole thing was banished to the cupboard of other memories.

"Thank you, Sirius. That will help little Harry a lot, I think. Do you want to help Harry beyond that? To be in his life, always?"

"Yes. Please." Came his thick reply. He'd do anything for Harry. More importantly, he'd say anything for the chance to get Harry out of her clutches, no matter how happy she seemed for now. Sooner or later she'd snap and he didn't want Harry anywhere near her when that happened. Even at best if she didn't hurt him, she was the absolute last person he'd want raising Harry, bar none. Well, maybe except Greyback. But only just.

She smiled, and this time it was not so warm. "Remember that, and this will be easier. Cissy!"

Narcissa strode into the room and smiled as Harry waved up at her. She took a position behind her sister and looked down at Sirius, who was starting to feel anxious. Something about the situation reminded him of something bad, made him want to crawl back under his covers in bed and hide from the monsters...

"Now Sirius, we want your help. Truly, we do. You would be a tremendous asset to us, if only we could trust you not to run off with our beloved Harry."

Something about her flat tone, but excited expression...

"So we decided to make sure of your loyalty, to make sure you can never betray us. Or do something foolish with Harry."

Something about the glint in her eye...

"Don't worry though, you won't regret this."

Something about the way her voice lilted just so...

"You won't regret anything ever again."

Something about their now unmasked glee...

"Imperio!"

Made him want to scream and run away.

But then it had always been far too late for that.

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I am not finished with the previous chapter, but thought it best to move on before writer's block grew. What do you think of this?

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