Bellatrix sat at the table, twirling the liquor in her glass, contemplating the events of the past few weeks. Her former lord, the most powerful dark wizard she had ever even heard of, lay slain.
-o-o-o-
The foolish boy had brought his friends to die, or so she thought.
"These three muggle children, Tom. I've brought them to show you what I am capable of," Harry said brightly.
"You mean to tell me you've come to join me?" her Lord had enquired.
The boy actually had the stones to laugh in amusement at her Lord.
"Join you? Oh no, Tom. You've misunderstood. I've come to end you," he'd said, his green eyes shining brightly.
Her Lord stood petrified for a moment, as did all of his ranks, as the boy filled his mind with memories.
-o-o-
The boy and his mudblood bitch were sitting before the three muggle children. All five of them had tears tracks on their faces.
"We tried," he explained. "We took all of you. Not just you three, but all of the children who were beyond the means normally available medically. We were able to heal all of them. All of them except you three."
All three of them had Stage IVb metastatic osteosarcoma.
"We can't heal you, and we cannot extend your lives," the mudblood explained. "But we can..." her voice broke and she stopped and closed her eyes for a moment to gather her thoughts, "we can make your deaths painless and meaningful. We can use your deaths to truly stop a great evil," she explained.
The boy then went on to describe her Lord's mission and the successes her Lord had experienced in cleansing the world of the blight that was muggles.
They showed the three children the wonder that magic was to muggles, then explained how their deaths would have meaning. How the energy of their deaths would be used.
All three agreed without hesitation.
-o-o-o-
It was one of the darkest spells, she knew. To imprison a soul within its corporeal being.
It had required the sacrifice of three innocents, and they had been chosen so appropriately. It had even been explained to them what their fate was, and all three could not have been happier. They had, in fact, felt as if their wishes had been answered. In a way, they had been.
He spoke the incantation and, with a single stroke of his sword, neatly severing the children's heads, bathing himself in their innocent blood.
Her Lord screamed in impotent rage as he felt the fragments of his soul reforged into a single, though scarred, whole once again.
"I will end you and your pathetic minions today, Potter!" her Lord had screamed, frothing at the mouth, his spittle flying across the emptiness between them.
She had thought fiendfyre was hot, powerful, and dark. It was fire as hot as lava, could only be controlled by the most powerful, and was based on hatred. She could summon a whip made entirely of fiendfyre. A five-metre long whip. And even then, she had to stay entirely focused on it lest it get away from her and, as with all who lost control of their fiendfyre, became instantly consumed by it as it flared then winked out.
Her lord had been able to summon a force of fiendfyre the size of a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon. He could control its manifestation for days, so great was his control and his hatred.
Once her lord had been imprisoned within that all-too-fragile body, his adversary had called upon a force of magic so mind-numbingly black that it absorbed the light in the room, giving off an eerie violet glow at its very edges.
The room chilled and their breath was frost, causing the faint violet glow to scintillate in the darkness. And it was cold – an all-consuming cold she instantly felt burning in the marrow of her bones. It took the shape of a Hungerian Horntail, and fought the Norwegian Ridgeback.
The fight was terribly one-sided.
The Ridgeback hurled a ball of fire the size of an adult acromantula at the Horntail. The ball of chaotic fiendfyre did not have the expected effect.
Had it struck anything else, it would have given rise to the birth of a conflagration so powerful, it would only have been stoppable by the removal of all fuel within a large area – a task which would have required the efforts of hundreds, if not thousands of wizards. Or merely a look from her lord.
It struck the Horntail, and the Horntail grew incrementally larger. Four more fiendfyre balls struck the Horntail. Four more times the Horntail grew. The Ridgeback reared its head again to hurl a sixth ball of fire when the Horntail struck, decapitating the Ridgeback in a move so frighteningly quick that her lord did not have time to react.
The energy contained within the Ridgeback was enough to level everything within miles, and leave a crater big enough to take a month to fill with the reverse flow of sea water coming from what remained of the banks of the Severns.
That energy winked out of existence in less time that it took to blink, ending with a sharp POP! The Horntail had closed its unholy green eyes as it had struck and seemed to have a self-satisfied look on its snout.
She had thought she had known fear before.
When the Horntail opened its eyes and looked at Bella, she knew that whatever the worst fear she had ever known before in her life was as nothing compared to the all-consuming fear that struck her dumb and immobile. What the Cruciatus was to pain, the gaze of this dragon was to fear.
It then looked about and focused its gaze on her lord.
He stood motionless for what seemed an eternity, the only noise in the room was the consuming crackle of the Horntail. When it snorted in what Bella could only assume was amusement, her lord began mewling like an injured kitten.
The smell was from the depths of Hell itself. It wasn't until days later she had realised it had not been just her lord who had soiled his robes. It had been every death eater, every person who had no idea what this malevolent monstrosity was capable of - in other words, all but thirteen people in the room - had soiled themselves.
The Horntail reached out one of its impossibly black forearms and lifted her lord in its crushing grip. Even before the dragon had begun squeezing the life force from him, her lord had begun screaming insanely. No discernible words. No pleas for mercy. Just a scream of abject terror as the dragon lifted him, almost gently, and held him carefully.
She knew her lord was burning. She could see great rips in his robes where the dragon's talon had burned through them and was burning deeply within his flesh. She then felt the dark mark on her arm painfully, chillingly burning. More pain and cold than she had ever experienced before, even more painful than the Cruciatus. Her body felt as if her blood had frozen and great, jagged splinters of ice rammed through her veins, slicing and tearing as they flowed.
And then the pain was gone. She looked at her forearm and could see blood pouring from between the fingers of her other hand that had reflexively gripped her arm. It stopped after a moment and, as she removed her hand from her arm, could see that, where her dark mark had been before, a wound was closing up and healing rapidly.
Then she noticed the scream.
She did not see her lord's final moments. Her hands were over her ears. She had knelt down, and her eyes were as tightly closed as she could get them, trying to drive the screaming of her lord from her mind.
The screaming stopped. It took some minutes for her and the others to realise it as, even now, it still echoed in her mind.
Then the boy had looked down at what remained of her lord. The boy was tisking at her lord as her lord's body burned until not even ash was left.
The black-fire Horntail set its head down in front of the boy and he actually touched it; stroked its neck, pet its head, and cooed at it in amusement. It seemed to purr at the attention and shrank slightly with each stroke. Their leader did not seem to tire of petting this creature of pure, unadulterated evil and he continued to pet it until after it was reduced to the size of a small dog, he pet it once more from the tip of its head to the end of its arrow-like tail and it softly popped out of existence.
He looked up at the collected remains of those who had been loyal to her lord with those same malevolent, glowing, green eyes.
He slowly withdrew his wand from a wrist holster then bent down and picked up the only remaining piece left of her lord – his wand.
"By right of conquest, I, Harry James Potter, Lord of House Potter, do claim dominion and ownership of all properties and vassals by oath, allegiance, or conquest to Tom Marvolo Riddle, the self-proclaimed Lord Voldemort. Further, I claim all titles, lands, rights, privileges, chattel, vassals to all said vassals, and all other rights or privileges so granted, earned, or taken. So mote it be!" her new lord said.
Before the purebloods present could even gasp in realisation of what had just been done to them, intense white spikes of magic burst forward from her new lord, piercing them through their foreheads and exiting to find all whom owed allegiance or servitude to them. All who were struck by the magic were dazed for some time.
When they regained their senses, they were all kneeling in a half-circle around a raised dais where their new lord was seated in an ornate throne. To either side of him sat three witches. At the base of the dais stood a young man with a young woman on either side of him. To the left of them stood two smiling men, one of whom she recognised as her cousin Sirius, with a young red-haired woman standing between them, who looked decidedly dejected.
She did not need to look to know that her now-dead lord's most trusted advisers were those sitting closest to the platform. Their families were immediately behind them.
Those who were the muscle of the organisation, and their families, were furthest away.
She had wondered what was intended and she had immediately wished she had squelched that thought, because hers had been the first name called.
"Bellatrix Dysesthesia Black, please step forward," a man called. Bellatrix looked up towards the sound of the voice calling her maiden name and corrected her thought. Not a man but merely a boy. And one she recognized all too well. The Longbottom heir.
She was surprised that he looked at her with little more than indifference as she stood and walked to stand before those gathered.
"Kneel before us, Bella, so you may know our pleasure," the golden-haired girl on the right edge, wearing the silver and green of Slytherin House, said in a crystalline voice, her insane, intense blue eyes boring into Bella's mind, and a smile filled with contempt washing over her as the girl bypassed Bella's occlumency shields as if they weren't there.
Bella tried. She really had tried, until sweat broke out on her forehead. But it was no use. She could not even think of insults to demonstrate her disrespectful attitude to this girl, either of the boys, or any of the others before her. She would never kneel before these... these... THESE... people. Her lord.
So she knelt. Her new lord stood, walked to her, and caressed her cheek. She wanted so much to tilt her head back quickly and bite the hand. To turn her head and spit into his face. To tear his hand from his wrist with her teeth.
Instead, she crooned into his hand's delicious warmth. She so did not want to enjoy his attention, but she was enjoying it. She swooned at his touch. It filled her with more happiness than holding the pain spell, whose name she had now forgotten. She became excited as he placed his hand upon her head and pet her hair, stroked her neck, and rubbed her ear.
"Bella is to be my Princess Tracey's praetorian prime. Should any wish to speak with Tracey, they will be examined, in minute detail, by Bella. Should Bella find anything," Harry paused for a moment, tapping his chin with his free hand, then a smile once more came to his face, "untoward, those poor, misguided individuals will have to speak to Bella and the other members of Tracey's praetorian guard to explain their findings."
Harry then looked down at Bella, his glowing green eyes boring into her.
She felt the room grow cold once more as her new lord caressed her cheek again. This time instead of pleasure, it felt as if all the dementors from Azkaban were but a moment from kissing her, and her cheek felt as if a hole was slowly being burned through it. The pain and fear were so intense, she couldn't move. She could only moan pitifully.
"Should my Tracey somehow come to harm, the praetorian guard, and especially the praetorian prime, shall answer to me directly, and I will not be nearly as merciful with them as I was with Tom Riddle," he explained, removing his hand from Bella's cheek and releasing her from his gaze.
Bella wanted to vomit from the pain and fear. Waves of nausea had rolled over her body, and the loss of contact with her lord had not yet relieved her of the pain.
A small, soft hand came in contact with her cheek and the pain evaporated, to be replaced by the sensation of being immersed in warm, delicious honey. Her eyes looked up in adoration at her new Lady.
"Bella will, of course, select from amongst you to make up the ranks of my guard. Should some of you fail to grasp the concept, being a member of the praetorian guard is an unparalleled honour," Tracey explained, briefly looking down at Bella and smiling.
"Bella, you may arise and select from those present to become my guard. Select no more than twelve this evening," Tracey said, sliding her hand off Bella's face. "Choose wisely," she said, then peered down into Bella's eyes.
Bella stared up into the twin blue orbs and the barest thread of sanity that remained within her snapped at the scene which played out before her eyes.
-o-o-o-
"I am Lord Voldemort" painted itself in flames then slowly shifted to "Tom Marvelo Riddle". He stood on a field, surrounded by a swirling, sickly green miasma of energy. A maelstrom of fire and debris swirled beyond. He turned as movement caught his eye. Through the maelstrom strode a tall demonic creature. The man turned to run, but the creature, lightning fast, pierced the man's chest with an impossibly-long, barbed, triple-tined pitchfork.
"Where are you going, Tommy?" the creature hissed in a voice filled with taint and corruption.
The man began gibbering insanely, trying to free himself from the implement.
"No, Tommy. You're not going anywhere. This is, after all, your welcome party. It really is too bad you had no friends, or else we could have invited them. We'll have to make due with your victims," the figure rasped.
The veridian vortex began to coalesce into figures standing at the edge of the field of fire. They lurched forward as one, stumbling closer. The demon raised the man up and drove the tines of the pitchfork into the rock floor, pinning the man down even as he desperately clawed at the fork. As if he knew what was coming.
There were hundreds of them. Perhaps as many as a thousand. As they shambled forward, they became packed so tightly she could no longer see gaps between them. As they reached him, a corridor opened amongst them and she could finally see what they looked like. Grey, faceless creatures with hideously long, tapered fingers ending in ebony claws. The had no eyes or nose, but a lipless mouth filled with row upon row of jagged, yellow teeth.
And their hunger was palpable.
As the first one reached him, it tore a strip of flesh from the man's bare foot with its claws, causing him to scream in intense agony. As it tore the flesh slowly from him, his flesh sizzled and smoked where the claw contacted, filling the air with the overpowering stench of burned meat. As she watched, the wound healed, but not completely before another tore a fist-sized gobbet from the man's thigh. The first one was chewing on its morsel as it walked down the cleared corridor. Each one in turn took its piece and left, only to queue once again at the outer edge. The horror to continue to the end of days.
-o-o-o-
Once again, she was immersed in the cool, healing blue water of those eyes and the nurturing, loving touch upon her cheek. Tracey bent down and kissed her forehead. "This is the failed Dark Lord's punishment. Do not fail me, Bella. Do not fail our Lord," Tracey whispered then pulled her to stand.
Bella closed her eyes and in a moment, their names of those she would choose for her ranks raced across her mind.
This Lady would be protected. This Lady would live to see tomorrow every day. This Lady would know a life fully lived. She stepped back, swooning at the love she now had for her new Lord and Lady.