Chapter 2: The Wedding

June 1998

Malfoy Manor

(Bellatrix)

The grounds outside of Malfoy Manor gleamed unrecognizable in the glow of afternoon sun fading slowly into twilight. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had put up a small white gazebo in the center of their back fountain garden and strung it on all sides with red and black roses. The fountains on either side of the gazebo were bewitched to spurt scarlet water and a sea of chairs stretched out before this elegant scene, all of them black and backed in red silk intertwined with more roses. Suspended in the air, about ten feet above each seat, were smoky jars each containing a live fairy that would glow when the sky got dark enough. Even the Malfoys' trio of rare white peacocks sported streaks of red and black feathers for the occasion, the coronation of the Dark Lady. But when Bellatrix emerged out the veranda door to walk down the aisle, the decorations were the last thing she noticed. In fact, she could hardly see anything due to her attempt to take in everything all at once.

She first felt everyone's eyes on her at the same time as every guest shifted in his or her seat to look at her. She tried to smile, tried to make a mental note of every Death Eater in attendance, but couldn't because at that precise moment, she felt the round crown of red roses perched atop her head lurch horribly forward. Narcissa, of course, had wanted to be traditional and put Bellatrix in a veil, but eventually decided against it as she thought that either black or red would look either "too funeral" or too "hag in a balaclava" respectively. It was Bellatrix who picked out the red rose crown. She tilted her head ever so slightly to one side under the guise of smiling at Travers and Sedona, successfully managing to resecure her crown, but it was too late for her heart, which was already pounding to raise a whole army of Inferi. She forced herself to look at the ground in front of her, a red-carpeted path lined with still more black roses, so that she wouldn't trip and she clutched her bouquet tightly so that she'd have something to do with her hands. The band played a delicate Celtic ballad called Earth, Wind and Sky that seemed to quicken as she approached the gazebo with some trepidation, as if it was her destiny.

(Voldemort)

Voldemort could not remember any occasion on which Bellatrix had looked so beautiful as she did approaching him down the aisle now. All traces of her having died a month ago seemed to have vanished and were replaced by a renewed vigor. Her cheeks were once again tinged pink and the entirety of her visage seemed to radiate heat, power and wonder.

Meanwhile, Voldemort stood under the gazebo in a black tuxedo beside their Minister of Magic, Pius Thicknesse, who was to officiate the wedding.

Bellatrix tottered a bit in her heels when she stepped up onto the gazebo's raised platform, but Voldemort caught her by the arm with one hand and pulled her up towards him. That feeling of heat flooded him again when he touched her, affirming that it might be true-he might really, actually be in love with her. He still didn't know...and maybe he never would, but that didn't matter. He needed to marry her. If he didn't, they and their cause could both be in unimaginable danger...but he was trying not to dwell on any of that. She'd saved his life. She deserved to at least believe, for now, that he was marrying her for love.

(Bellatrix)

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today on the eve of the Summer Solstice to celebrate the joining of this man and this woman into eternal partnership."

Bellatrix's heart raced. She and Voldemort had made a number of alterations and scratch outs on these "traditional" wedding vows Thicknesse had produced. She didn't want it to be anything like her first wedding and Voldemort, well, he thought he was better than all of that.

"To all their guests, they are happy to share this moment with you. Our ravishing bride, Bellatrix, is pleased to have her sister Narcissa Malfoy beside her as her Maid of Honor...close to her for the ceremony. Bellatrix thanks her sister for growing up by her side, always being there…" Thicknesse trailed on.

Bellatrix grinned and met Narcissa's eye. Thicknesse neglected to mention that if not for Narcissa, Bellatrix wouldn't be standing there looking so ravishing at all. Her sister smiled beneath her demurely straightened blonde hair. She wore a long, fitted gown of an elegant soft gray to complement all of the harsh blacks and reds in the wedding color scheme.

"...And Voldemort, our groom, appreciates all the support his Death Eaters have given him over the years and is grateful that they could be here today." Bellatrix had to suppress a snort and avoid looking at Voldemort...the idea of him being grateful for anything the Death Eaters had done was more unbelievable than the idea of him getting married. Besides, if they hadn't been forced to attend and bribed with free booze, she sincerely doubted many of them would be here.

"...And so it is that Voldemort and Bellatrix present themselves to be married today...surrounded by the people they value the most." Thicknesse continued and Bellatrix struggled to swallow the bile that was slowly rising to her throat. She was amused and excited, sure, but she'd also never felt more nervous in her life. It was starting to set in that all of this...wasn't just another crazy dream she'd wake up from only to be scolded by Narcissa for her wild fantasies. It was real. She was getting married to the man she'd always loved, but who'd also always continued to be too far out of reach. She'd never been so happy, but she was also afraid. Was it a set up? Would he change his mind? Could her heart handle such a horrible, public rejection? The resulting mix of all her emotions, rather than flood her with adrenaline as it maybe should have, left her feeling like she was going to either throw up or cry...and it took all the sanity she had left to try to keep herself together while everyone she knew was watching her as though waiting. Waiting for something to go wrong. Some sort of spectacle. Some validation for wasting their time to be here...and she was determined not to give it to them.

(Voldemort)

"As Voldemort and Bellatrix prepared for the ceremony part of this wedding celebration, they reflected on what it is that they love about each other."

Voldemort suppressed the urge to roll his eyes because they most certainly hadn't done any of that. 'Preparation' for this wedding had mostly included snatching an absurdly hackneyed wedding script out of Thicknesse's hands at the pub one night and scratching out half of it. And he was starting to wish they'd taken out more.

"The reading Bellatrix and Voldemort selected for their wedding ceremony is an excerpt from a piece titled "Red as Blood," by Tanith Lee. The words talk about the intense reawakening a person experiences entering this kind of partnership...it is a coming together and a pulling apart, a compromise, a rebirth, a presentation of one's best self. The reader is Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix's nephew and the Best Man today.

Voldemort watched Draco rise from his seat in the front row and climb the gazebo steps to stand on his other side. He pulled from his breast pocket a folded piece of parchment and from it, he began to read:

"Into a thousand shards the coffin shattered, and Bianca sat up. She stared at the Prince, and she smiled.

"Welcome, beloved," said Bianca.

She got to her feet, and shook out her hair, and began to walk toward the Prince on the pale horse.

But she seemed to walk into a shadow, into a purple room, then into a crimson room whose emanations lanced her like knives.

Next she walked into a yellow room where she heard the sound of crying, which tore her ears. All her body seemed stripped away; she was a beating heart. The beats of her heart became two wings. She flew. She was a raven, then an owl. She flew into a sparkling pane. It scorched her white. Snow white. She was a dove.

She settled on the shoulder of the Prince and hid her head under her wing. She had no longer anything black about her, and nothing red.

"Begin again now, Bianca," said the Prince.

(Bellatrix)

Bellatrix was now trying consciously to keep the tears at the corners of her eyes from leaking out. How that excerpt from her favorite fairy tale had only a week ago seemed fitting...but now it only scared her more. She didn't want to lose the black about her or the red. She didn't want any light, but instead to be loved for her darkness.

"We come now to the words Bellatrix and Voldemort want to hear the most today...the words that take them across the threshold from being engaged to being married.

A marriage, as most of us understand it, is a voluntary and full commitment. It is made in the deepest sense to the exclusion of all others, and it is entered into with the desire and hope that it will last for and in their case, beyond, the boundaries of life…"

It was strange to her to hear Pius Thicknesse talk about she and Voldemort as if they were getting married at the end of a long engagement just because it might have been more proper if they'd gone about it that way...but it just hadn't been like that. There wasn't exactly an engagement at all...or a proposal for that matter...more like they realized getting married was the thing to do after both being spared from death at the hands of each other. And everything else, much due to Narcissa and Lucius's well-meaning meddling, had fallen into place after that.

"Before you declare your vows to one another, I want to hear you confirm that it is indeed your intention to be married today...Bellatrix Black, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Voldemort in marriage? If so, answer "I do."

She finally risked a glance away from her bouquet and up at Voldemort. Her heart might as well have been on fire for all that was going on within it. She wanted to be closer to him-closer than they'd ever been. Skin against skin. Fucking like dragons. But she also wanted to take off running into the woods and never look back. After today, everything was going to be different forever...but that wasn't so much as a reservation as an inescapable truth.

"I do," said Bellatrix.

"Voldemort, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Bellatrix Black in marriage? If so, answer "I do."

Bellatrix's mother once said that the greatest honor in her life would be to give herself wholly, fully to a proper man. A former suitor of hers had once said that one day, a lucky man would sweep her off her feet and keep her forever. He meant it to be a compliment...probably. But Bellatrix never wanted to be kept by anyone.

It was easier to exist as smoke...weightless and empty and alone...free to do whatever she wanted...Never to be caught by anyone...except Voldemort. He stood the closest out of anyone. And here was the moment. He could catch her...she promised to let him...or he could lose her indefinitely.

"I do," said Voldemort.

"Bellatrix, please give your bouquet to Narcissa," said Thicknesse, but Bellatrix hardly heard him. Happiness and fear once again buoyed up inside her and threatened to make itself known very very visibly. Man you love says he'll marry you...Bellatrix reaction: vomit. Because logic. Maybe it was because her heart had never pounded inside of her with such ferocity. Yes heart, I know. I have a heart. She happened a glance at Voldemort again to see if anything in his expression had changed since he said "I do," but he looked as frustratingly stoic as ever.

"Voldemort and Bellatrix, having heard that it is your intention to be married to each other, I now ask you to declare your marriage vows. Bellatrix, perhaps you'd like to go first," offered Thicknesse and Bellatrix finally grinned. This was the part she was actually most looking forward to. What could be easier (and more fun) than finally getting to tell everyone why and for how long she'd loved Voldemort? She took a deep breath to squelch the potential vomit situation and took the piece of parchment Narcissa held out to her, on which Bellatrix had composed her wedding vows.

"It was once said that until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have embraced someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is," she read, but then without really thinking, she tossed the script to the ground."Okay, I've got to be straight about it...I feel really fucking messed up right now," she said and judging by the gasps and amused chortles of laughter from the audience, her f-bomb drop had woken about half of them up. "I can't just stand up here and read anything off a piece of paper about being happy to be marrying Voldemort, because those few words, those...vague exclamations of emotion...could never begin to cover all of what I actually feel." She could feel everyone's eyes on her again and was starting to wish she could get away with picking up the script again and just reading it off like she'd originally planned, but she knew she couldn't and at the same time retain any semblance of her dignity.

"I can't tell you how long I've loved V..Voldemort...because the truth is that I don't know," she continued aware that she was struggling to keep her breathing steady and her pitch even. "To you, he is the Dark Lord, but to me he's my past, present and future. Our fates are bound to each other like ribbons entwined to make a bow."

~11-year-old Bellatrix sees Tom Riddle for the first time and learns what it feels like to want to think about someone until she falls asleep each night.

~ She is only a first year, but she longs to know him, this older boy who has everything. He is beautiful, that much is a given. Professors call him the brightest wizard to come through Hogwarts since Albus Dumbledore's time...and she especially likes his expression when she knows he's thinking deeply. She can scarcely get close to him because he's a seventh year, Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, everyone's favorite, always so surrounded by admirers he doesn't seem to care about but must indulge all the same, though it is in his face that Bellatrix sees the whole world.

~Anyone would think she would hate him for having everything she wanted, for always being one step ahead of her in everything...but this is part of why she admires him so very much. She already knows she is talented...doesn't need anyone else to tell her they can see it, too. She wants to be challenged by him...so when she sees his Quidditch Beater's record hanging in the trophy room and complains about it, she's really hoping, deep down, that she never beats it...even if she can. If she reaches the top, what will she have to strive for? Maybe it's the challenge he presents, more than his intelligence, his charisma, his beauty...that arouses her so intensely.

~14-year-old Bellatrix finds Tom Riddle working in Knockturn Alley and feels tingly all over. Her skin is hot and her breath feels hotter as she struggles to find something cool and meaningful to say to him that isn't 'I'm old enough to be with you now…' So she tells him she believes in everything he stands for not just because it's the truth, but because she wants him to fall in love with her mind.

~Her sisters don't understand...won't understand that she can't just 'get over it' like she has some stupid school girl crush or a bad head cold. Something inside her came alive so profoundly when she met him that any memory from before him existed in her mind as part of a meaningless half life when she was only a girl. She was a woman now. A woman who desired a man she knew would be legend long before anyone else did.

~15-year-old Bellatrix learns all sorts of things she'd never have learned in school. Dark magic. Spells to make people hurt that make her wand feel like a dagger in her hands. How to orgasm with her mind and how to use Occlumency to protect these dangerous erotic impulses so he'll never know she uses the mere idea of him to succumb to something so dirty and human.

~16-year old Bellatrix mixes Amortentia in Potions class and smells everything she didn't notice seduced her on their own...but all together like that...she doesn't want to be away from it, so she brings her nose to the level of her cauldron, closes her eyes and inhales deeply, trying to discern each individual scent in her mind. There's licorice wands, her favorite candy, mixed in like sweet absinthe. A campfire burning in the woods at the Quidditch World Cup. A drizzle of cinnamon and firewhiskey ready to scorch her throat all sticky and hot...And Voldemort in the midst of it all, like Bianca in the Tanith Lee story. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow...and later, in his new body, eyes red as blood.

And now she was here and made of all these other Bellatrixes rising to her surface so powerfully she knew something in her was going to explode...but whether it be her vagina, her tear ducts or her gag reflex, she still wasn't sure.

"You'll spend your whole life hearing people tell you about the need for balance in love, and about how opposites attract and how you can only grow in a relationship if you find someone who is completely different from you...but it was never like that for me," she continued, completely aware that the Death Eaters and even Voldemort were probably going to tease her for this speech and quote it at her for the rest of her life, but in the moment not caring. She had to get this out.

"Call it self-centered, I don't care. I never wanted to be with my opposite...because I don't believe total opposites can exist. Even still, many would consider the Dark Lord and I to be more similar than can ever work in a marriage, but he's everything I've ever wanted. V..Voldemort," she said, turning away from the sniggering Death Eaters and finally facing him, though still unable to look him in the eye. "You have been my mentor, my teacher, my leader, my confidante, my friend, my daydream lover...And I've always stood behind you, but today, I'm here to stand beside you. As equals...And I love that when I'm with you, I don't have to give up my black and my red and pretend to be anything other than the woman I am, because that's the woman you chose to be with...and shit I'm just so fucking lucky…"

"You're crying, Bellatrix," said Voldemort. As if she didn't know. But she couldn't help it anymore. She was marrying Voldemort. Voldemort was going to be with her-to see and touch and stay up late in the night talking about the universe with and invent spells with and lay beside at night...she'd never believed it possible to be so happy you cried until it happened to her.

"Yeah, I am crying because I've never felt so...alive...like this in my life and this is how my body is choosing to react, which is honestly the best we could have hoped for because about ten minutes ago I thought I was going to throw up all over everyone but I'm also scared to lose all of this and never feel alive again and could you please just say your piece before I go on anymore? I'm making a damn fool of myself."

"Oh Bellatrix...dear loyal Bellatrix...how I've always admired that in you...your ability to say what you feel with such earnest and zeal...even when you doubt yourself. You have proven yourself, especially this past year, to be important to me. Just how important, we have eternity to come to understand and it is my wish that we can come to that and other further conclusions together.

It wasn't the sweet declaration of romance that another witch might want...but it was so very simple and truthfully Voldemort that it made her heart swell to fullness. She didn't need him to say anything else.

(Voldemort)

When they were silent and he knew they were finished speaking, Pius Thicknesse stepped forward again to stand between them.

"Your wedding rings are the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible bond which already unites your two hearts in love," he said. "The ring that Bellatrix will receive today was designed by the Dark Lord himself. As this ring symbolizes her coronation as the Dark Lady that comes with her marriage to Lord Voldemort, may it be a joy for Bellatrix to wear for the rest of her life.I ask our Best Man, Draco Malfoy, to give Bellatrix's ring to Lord Voldemort."

Voldemort watched Draco produce the ring on a red velvet cushion and as he'd expected, Bellatrix's eyes widened and she became speechless at the sight of it. He had quite literally put everything into it in the hope that she would wear it forever-the band was silver and encrusted with tiny emeralds, all from the hilt of a sword that had once been Salazar Slytherin's. The centerpiece, a black diamond containing, he was sure, the last Horcrux he would ever make. It swirled inside now, he could see it spattering the inside of the diamond like ink, a tiny piece of his soul-the last he could possibly splice from himself without incurring significant irreparable damage. It was essential that she never take it off. As essential as it was that they be married, sealing the love magic that hopefully, would protect the both of them when...it came to that. As he knew it would.

"Voldemort, my Lord, now you place the ring on Bellatrix's finger and repeat after me...

'I give you this ring.

Wear it with love and joy. As this ring has no end, My love is also forever.' Draco, now please give Voldemort's ring to Bellatrix."

He plucked the ring off the velvet cushion as tenderly as he could and held it out to Bellatrix's outstretched ring finger.

"It's breathtaking," she whispered not knowing just how much. And when he slid the ring tightly onto her finger, he could feel her trembling. He liked when she did that. Maybe he should have mentioned it in the wedding vows. Then again, after all she'd shared, maybe he shouldn't have.

"Bellatrix, place this ring on Voldemort's finger and repeat after me...

With this ring,

I marry you.

Wear this ring forever As a sign of my love."

His groom's ring was also silver and adorned with more emeralds from the same sword as on Bellatrix's ring and inscribed inside: Exitus Acta Probat. The result validates the deed. The saying from Slytherin's tomb.

"May the wedding rings you exchanged today remind you always that you are surrounded by enduring love...and with that, I now pronounce you: Mr. and Mrs. Black!" Thicknesse exclaimed. They'd chosen to take Bellatrix's maiden surname to honor her sacred 28 family and because they didn't exactly want to be referred to as the "Demorts" forever. Besides that, he'd finally shed his filthy Muggle father's surname and that, he thought, certainly validated everything. So it was with no reservations, that Voldemort Black kissed his bride.

~If everything you see is what you're believing

Then she'll be holding your heart

And by the time the sun goes down

You won't know who you are

She likes to do it in the dark~

A/N: Hi! I hope you liked reading this chapter as much as I did writing it! I spent a lot of time on the internet looking at non secular wedding ceremonies and combined a few (as well as made up a bunch of my own stuff) to cobble this one together and do these two justice (I hope)

some questions to consider for the coming chapters:

-when will Bellatrix finally tell Voldy all that she saw in her vision the night she died?

-when will Voldy tell Bellatrix her wedding ring is a Horcrux and that there is danger in their future?

-what are Harry Potter and the light side up to and how will they react to Voldemort and Bellatix's wedding (if they find out)?

as always, thanks for reading!

Xoxo

SunDance