Chapter 6: Rat Poison

August 1998

Slytherin Manor

Master Bedroom

(Bellatrix)

It was better as soon as it began, or so she thought. One moment it was like everything was collapsing in around them, their life, their world...then seemingly as quickly as it began, Bellatrix woke up feeling like herself again. It was a day like any other, except that when she awoke, Voldemort wasn't there. Sunlight streamed in through the window in that just born kind of way like it was just after dawn, but Voldemort's side of the bed was meticulously made up and only single, folded sheet of parchment rested on the pillow there.

B,

Had a sudden engagement with an old acquaintance in Albania. Didn't want to wake you. Keep well,

V

So short, so simple, some she knew would even say cold-but those were just the qualities of the note that filled Bellatrix with a rush of familiarity, like everything was alright again.

Before they were married, but after Bellatrix began staying at the Manor, he used to leave her notes like this one. He would leave for days, weeks, almost months at a time and she wouldn't hear from him, but would trust that he was alright, taking care of something important and would tell her all about it when he returned...just as he trusted that she would keep well enough on her own.

And then since the wedding...no...since the battle in May...he'd been all...up in her shit trying to take care of her, worrying all the time and not telling her what about...always around...maybe some witches considered this behavior normal, even expected, from their partners...but Bellatrix felt cramped and violated, much preferring the days when he didn't treat her so delicately.

Maybe she was reading too much into it...in act, she most certainly was. But in the present moment, she was looking at an entire day (or longer) to herself to do...what exactly? Raise a little hell, she thought, a familiar amused glint returning to her eyes.

1410 Jackson Avenue

New Orleans, LA

(Voldemort)

Voldemort didn't like being in a place so unfamiliar, so weakly armed, but that aside, he followed Fiona up a set of stone steps up to an expansive front porch wrapping around a 19th century American manor home about an hour or so by train from the swamp witch shack he'd visited on previous occasions.

Fiona hadn't offered much preface. It's a school, she'd said. A school for witches. It was also Fiona's home, it seemed, and the headquarters of the anti witch-hunting movement. She pushed open a set of wide double doors and led Voldemort inside the mansion, where everything hit his eyesight at once, all the same brilliantine white-the walls, the floor, the chandeliers hanging from the white ceiling, the tall Roman columns, the fireplace, the backing of the high-backed chairs-all white.

"I brought you here..." Fiona paused and swept her arm across the parlour area before them in a gesture of dramatic grandeur. "...to discuss how we are going to proceed."

"You speak as if I've already made agreement to join you," said Voldemort, his patience thinning.

"Well pardon me, Lord Voldemort, but once you hear what I have to say, what I have to offer you, you'll wonder why I didn't come to you sooner...please, take a seat."

"As for the witch hunters, what I know is this. The Delphi Trust-sound familiar to you?" Fiona prompted. Voldemort shook his head. "No? Anyway, it was founded in the 19th century by the remaining descendents of a brotherhood dating back to Salem and before. They're Muggles who claim dedication to stamping out witchery on the North American continent, though they have conducted attacks overseas as well. The Delphi Trust is disguised as a financial institution," she explained. "It was founded by three brothers and we at this coven have been trying to track down its current members, but we're moving too slowly."

"What does any of this have to do with me?" said Voldemort impatiently.

"You don't understand. Attacks and disappearances are getting more frequent. Like I told you, a young witch was recently burned at the stake not too far from here for being seen using the power of resurgence on a baby bird. She was accused of necromancy and executed by her community without a trial, she-"

"Her first mistake was being seen," said Voldemort quietly. "Or maybe that was her second mistake. Her first mistake was trying to help an inferior creature, defying the natural order of things…"

"The natural order of things?!" hissed Fiona. She drew herself up higher on her sofa perch, looking positively imperious and cat-like. "Who was it trying to exterminate muggle-borns and part-bloods when all of our magic, every single one of us, defies the natural order of things?! If there's one thing I can't stand it's a racist. Those of us with magical blood need to unite and protect each other because when we start to divide and turn against our own, that's when the Muggles and their Delphi Trusts can swallow us whole. They are united under a common goal waiting to ruin those of us who aren't destroyed by our own kind first. You may not have raised a wand to Albus Dumbledore yourself, but you're the reason he's dead. Dumbledore, Scrimgeor, Alastor Moody...I understand wanting to secure your own power, but god damn it, we've got to save our necks first and what the hell does killing valuable allies accomplish?!" She flicked her wrist aggressively and a crystal goblet zoommed out of another room towards her outstretched hand, brimming with a green-tinted liquor. He could tell she was angry, but Voldemort thought she owed him an explanation or several.

"Why do you know so much about Dumbledore, my Death Eaters and myself?" He was simultaneously flattered and a little concerned, for flattery didn't seem Fiona's intention. Not this time, anyway.

"I've had my eye on you and your community a long time. We have reason to believe here that Delphi's movement is spreading or already has an established chapter in Europe flying below the radar of your Ministry through the use of an insider-one of us, betraying the rest of us to them." She took another sip from her drink without having ever offered Voldemort anything. Not that he would drink it if she did. He needed his wits about him-she knew too much. Apparently sensing his lack of argument for complacency, she went on.

"We need to cooperate. I'm trying to forge an alliance with the voodoo practitioners of New Orleans, meanwhile you need to find and eliminate the Delphi connection in your Ministry," said Fiona. She flicked her wrist again and a leather bound book sped towards her from its position on a high white shelf. She caught it in the hand not holding the drink and flipped it open, exposing a stack of newspaper clippings, photographs and handwritten notes stuck between the yellowed pages of a very old book.

"This is Harrison Renard, the CEO of Delphi Trust," she said, holding up a muggle photograph of a light-skinned, balding, middle-aged man in a suit.

"He's too high up to get to him right off. On top of that, he almost never goes out in public, preferring to stay in his cowardly shelter, the Delphi Trust building, which seems to be both unplottable and impossible to apparate in or out of, again contributing to my theory that a few of us have sold our souls to help them. What we can do is try to eliminate Renard's worker bees-quietly, and getting as much information out of them as we can before we get rid of them. As for you? If you're as in charge of things over there as you say you are, then you need to find your rat and terminate it."

Voldemort snatched the book out of her hands and began to skim through it-mostly glossy muggle photographs of rumored Delphi affiliates, some of them with notes scribbled in the corners like "Believed Responsible for Chattahoochee Forest Witch Burning" and over some of the pictures, a large red "x" accompanied by the word "eliminated." Then Voldemort's eyes landed on a picture that made his blood run colder than usual. A picture of a stone crest of sorts, bearing a triangle intersected by a circle and a straight line-the symbol of the deathly hallows.

"What is the meaning of this!" he demanded, but Fiona merely smirked at him and examined her shiny red fingernails like this was all a waste of time to her.

"Oh, that? That's the symbol of the Delphi Trust. Probably been in use since its founding." The symbol of the Deathly Hallows was the same as the symbol for an ancient witch hunting organization (if Fiona was to be believed)? What did it all mean? Was it merely a coincidence, or something more? And how old was she that she knew their history as if she'd lived it, yet looked no older than Bellatrix and had a face as smooth as glass? He had little time to dwell on this, as Fiona quickly snatched the book out of his hands and slammed it shut. He longed to pull out his wand and use the cruciatus curse on her for treating him like this-like an ignorant child in need of proper education, but he knew that he was no longer magically strong enough to do so and it was destroying him inside. How long could his rage boil inside of him before he turned to some sort of brash muggle violence they'd both regret? Fiona seemed to sense his unease because she relaxed her posture somewhat and shrank back into the white sofa cushions.

"You need to stop pussying around and take charge of this-or our kind will lose all the freedom we've come to know. Take responsibility for the influence you now hold. You wanted Scrimgeor's job and Dumbledore's position and now you have it-use it. Save your own ass before you ask anyone else to kiss it."

The Silver Eye Tavern

Knockturn Alley, London

(Bellatrix)

"I wouldn't have called you here if I didn't feel the circumstances were...bordering on dire."

"Dire?"

"As in I'm in dire need of an escape from the day-to-day insufferable boredom of being married." Bellatrix laughed, but Narcissa looked scandalized.

"Insufferable? You don't mean that." Narcissa sat next to Bellatrix at the bar, her light eyes wide as silver sickles.

"Alright, well maybe most new brides aren't stuck shoved up at home pretending to be dead. Maybe that's just me," said Bellatrix bitterly.

"The Dark Lord is only trying to protect you, Bella."

She scoffed and ordered two firewhiskies from the one-eyed bartender. Together, scattered several knuts on the counter as tip and took the drinks to a rickety table furthest to the back of the bar. Bellatrix thought coming here, to the furthest corner of Knockturn Alley, would safeguard her best against prying eyes. Or she just didn't care. But Narcissa had other ideas.

"I still say you should have taken Polyjuice Potion, what if someone recognizes you?"

"What's life without a little risk?" Bellatrix said, echoing a Black family sentiment. "Besides, it's better than staying at home getting dry rot."

"What's wrong with staying home? I've been doing it for years," said Narcissa, who had very little color in her face (not that she ever had much to begin with). Her long blond hair was pulled back in a tight, thin ponytail adorned with a silver ornamental butterfly. She looked stressed and drawn, with bags under her eyes and visible signs of aging Bellatrix hadn't noticed before.

"Maybe that works for you Cissy, but it's not for me….I need excitement, a fight every once in a while even if it's just knocking a few death eater's heads together for being stupid."

"Always so gracefully fearless, Bella." Narcissa offered her a thin-lipped smile, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Honestly what I wouldn't give for someone to knock me around right now so I can prove I'm still an extraordinarily powerful witch, even if the Dark Lord wants to lock me away like I can't take care of myself," said Bellatrix, half-kidding and half-serious.

"Bella, you can't!" whispered Narcissa urgently. "You'll give yourself away and then where will we be? The Light thinking you're dead is about the only ace we've got to play right now!"

"Fine!" hissed Bellatrix. She took a long, slow sip from her drink and smiled mischievously. "Then we'll do something else fun like when we used to sneak away from mother as girls. What'll it be? Shopping? Trying on absurdly expensive lingerie? Flirting mindlessly with everyone?"

"Bella, you can't! Flirting mindlessly with everyone? How could you betray him like that? I thought you were with the one you've always loved." Narcissa looked close to tears. But why couldn't she understand?

"I am. I just need to stretch a bit, and besides, when has the Dark Lord ever cared who or what I do as long as I come back to him at the end of the night?"

"That was before. And you know it." Bellatrix bit her lip.

"Fine. Honestly, I should have hit up Rosmerta for a drink. At least she knows how to have fun," she snapped. Narcissa turned away and fiddled with something in her handbag, shielding the side of her face with her ponytail. Bellatrix knew she should be careful not to hurt her sister, especially with her condition being questionably delicate, however, Bellatrix had been in quite the funk lately herself and was grateful to be feeling more like herself than she had in a couple of months.

"Bella you can't have true love and total freedom, it just doesn't work that way," murmured Narcissa. She turned round to face Bellatrix again, her eyes hollow and empty.

"Well maybe it should." Silence. They finished their drinks and Narcissa gathered the empty glasses to take up to the bar for a refill. Bellatrix glanced around the dingy tavern. It was fairly dark and mostly empty save for a few women gathered in the opposite corner, concealing their faces with thick cloaks and whom she was very sure were hags.

"Well well, what do we have here?"

Bellatrix froze. A cool shiver ran down her spine. The voice behind her that had spoken was not Narcissa's.

"Bellatrix Lestrange...I knew all along you were alive...when we never found your body, I wasn't fooled for a minute. Turn round and face me why don't you?!"

"We've got to take her alive, Neville. McGonagall will want to use her as collateral." Bellatrix put one hand on the handle of her wand and twisted the side of her neck so she could see the young men behind her. One of them was unmistakeably the Longbottom boy-not really a boy anymore, but still the round-faced son of those Aurors she'd landed in St. Mungo's all those years ago. The second one to speak was tall, red-haired and likely a Weasley mad about what happened to his brother at the battle...like he didn't have others. And the third, a sandy-haired young man, youthful-looking in his face, stood quietly behind them with his wand pointed directly at Bellatrix's heart.

"What the hell is going on here?" Narcissa returned in a panic, slopping the two drinks down the front of herself as she rushed to stand beside Bellatrix, who remained seated and expressionless. They could them, couldn't they? Sure it was two against three but these boys were barely beyond Hogwarts age-wasn't this just what Bellatrix had been hoping for, deep down inside? A little fight, nothing dangerous, but a chance to prove herself nonetheless?

"And Narcissa Malfoy, too. Stil got her nose up like she's smelling something bad even though her entire family's disgraced," said the Weasley boy, scrunching up his face like he was the one smelling something bad. He too, drew his wand.

"Boys, I believe there's been a misunderstanding...whoever you think we are, I've never heard of them before...oh no, we're just out for a bit of shopping and if you don't mind, we're going to leave now, although I do help you find whoever you're looking for," said Narcissa in a surprisingly even albeit high-pitched tone.

"Bloody hell, who'dya take us for?" the third boy said menacingly with a touch of Irish-sounding brogue. Bellatrix couldn't resist laughing.

"Where's your Mummy? Does she know you're here threatening two respectable ladies of society?" She teased.

"Society?! I'll give you society-"

"SEAMUS! NO!"

"CONFRINGO!" Bellatrix and Narcissa jumped to opposite sides as the table they'd been sitting at was blown to pieces. The glasses of firewhisky in Narcissa's hands fell to the ground and shattered, staining the stone floor ominously in dark red as the one-eyed bartender ran over to them.

"What the eff is going on here? Outta my bar!"

"Shut up!" growled Bellatrix.

"Nonsense, they attacked us!"

"They're Death Eaters! Prisoners about to be taken into custody by order of-" but Neville was cut off by a jet of red light Bellatrix aimed at Seamus.

"GET OUT OF MY BAR, ALL OF YOU!"

"STUPEFY!"

The bartender fell backwards into a table while the hags in the corner watched the entire exchange with apparent interest.

Narcissa drew her wand now and pointed it at the three boys. Neville and Seamus shot a few well-aimed at hexes in Bellatrix's direction, but both narrowly missed her, sailing behind her ears instead and shattering a window in back of the bar. Bellatrix began dueling both boys at once while Narcissa took on the Weasley boy.

"EXPULSO!"

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

The table to the right of Bellatrix exploded, catching the side of her face with a jagged chunk of wood.

"CRUCIO!"

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Neville Longbottom made to disarm Bellatrix to deflect her cruciatus curse but she grabbed her wand as it made to leave her hand, deflecting the curse into Seamus instead, who collapsed to the floor, writhing.

"BOMBARDA!" shouted Neville at the ceiling above her, where the hanging candelobra swung back and forth with ferocity.

Bellatrix jumped aside when it fell, but everything around her seemed to go up in flames at once.

"AGUAMENTI!" one of the boys shouted, but Bellatrix had a better idea. One that would ensure no living member of the Order of the Phoenix had seen her alive.

"Fiendfyre Maxima," she whispered and as the flames grew in height and took on personalities of their own against the three boys-some as chimaera and others as snakes, eagles and wild boars, Bellatrix searched for her sister.

(Voldemort)

"And now, now on to that wife of yours," Fiona said. She was on her second glass of absinthe now and Voldemort remained sober, observing her, learning her mannerisms, developing a way of charming her or at least lulling her into a false sense of security in the way only he was able to do. "You must have noticed the changes overtaking her," Fiona went on. The sun setting outside cast the all-white room a harsh shade of orange, with Fiona's blonde hair at the center of the inferno.

"You said she was with child."

"...and becoming more powerful by the day. As you grow weaker, she grows stronger. Curious, isn't it?" She prompted. Voldemort's mind traveled once more to that early morning in May. Bellatix was dead, lying on the gold-backed chaise in Madam Rhiannon's main room. Rhiannon said Misty could save her, but Misty needed something of Voldemort's-his blood. Drained it from his body. Pumped it into Bellatrix. Brought her back with blood and swamp mud and incantations in languages he'd never heard before…

"You mean...my power...I gave it all...to Bella?"

"...and by proxy, you spread it to this baby."

"If I had known...I never would have…" The reality he probably knew all along was sinking in.

"Saved her? You can't mean that. You know you don't mean that." How could it be? How could magic work like that?

"There must be a way to fix it." He'd conquered death, preserved himself without a body and returned to a body and, with access to Fiona's type of magic, brought Bellatrix back after she was hit by the killing curse. He was master of the Elder Wand...nothing could defeat him. Not even this.

"Perhaps. I'm sure with the proper research we could find a way, but for now just assure no harm comes to her-as I believe you already knew, her body is to be thought of as a protective casing over your magical power, your lifeblood and your heir-a vessel if you will. And right now that's the best place for it as long as we protect her."

"And if she becomes suspicious?"

"Lie. Lie with all you've got. I will do the rest. Do not tell her anything. In time she may become more aware of her power, but don't tell her. Do as I say and we shall both be rewarded in the end. Now, go get your girl-you'll find her stirring up trouble in a tavern called The Silver Eye in a rather dodgy part of London. Then...exterminate your rats and wait for my next instruction."

~Bring on the wonder

Bring on the song

I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long

Bring on the wonder

We got it all wrong

We pushed you down deep in our souls for too long~