It took Bellatrix very nearly an entire week to gather up the courage to sever her relationship with Rodolphus. She sat in her bedroom at the Black family home in Mayfair in London and pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, inking up a quill as her tawny owl, Scipio, waited patiently on the windowsill.
Dear Rodolphus, Bellatrix wrote in her somewhat messy trademark scrawl, I wish I had the integrity and the valour to do this in person, but, alas, in matters such as this, I confess myself an utter coward. You have been nothing but kind to me, so please rest assured that the decision I have made is not at all a judgement of your character, nor a condemnation of what has passed between us. I have considered our time together pleasant, sometimes even wondrous. And yet, I am a restless and free-spirited soul by my nature. You know this of me. I have made my decision, Rodolphus. I shall not be adhering to the traditions of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. I shall take no husband after school in the ways of our families. I have my own path to forge, and I intend to do so with conviction and dedication. I must do so alone. I release you with a heart full of adoration for you, wishing you nothing but happiness in whatever life you choose for yourself. May you find love and contentment along your own way. With thanks, Bellatrix.
She waited for the ink to dry, then rolled the parchment into a neat scroll. She heated some sealing-wax and used her Black family crest to seal the scroll shut, and as she tied the letter to Scipio's leg, she instructed the owl,
"Take this to Rodolphus Lestrange. He's almost certainly at Lestrange House outside King's Lynn. Go quickly and wait for a reply."
Scipio flapped off across the rooftops of Mayfair, and Bellatrix stared as the bird disappeared into the cloudy summer sky. She shut her eyes and thought back to the week before, to when she'd beat Lord Voldemort at Wizard's Chess. Bella. He'd called her Bella again, like he'd done in his office. Why did he keep doing that, she wondered? Every time he did it, he acted like it was agony, like he was trying not to say something, not to do something. But he hardly knew Bellatrix. It was horribly confusing, and just a bit unnerving. She should feel frightened by it, she knew, but instead she was just intrigued.
And she found herself desperately seduced by his promises for her future. Atrocities, he'd said. She would commit atrocities. Bellatrix knew she had a cruel undertone to her personality, that she was inclined toward violence in a way that shocked others, that she mocked and bullied on instinct, that she felt little genuine emotion in the way so many around her did. She knew that she felt deeper hatred than her peers, that she held grudges, that she was more committed to the ideals of Blood Purity than even the rank and file of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. She knew all this, and yet, no one in her life before Lord Voldemort had come out and promised her a future in which people would die by her wand and she would be rewarded for it. It was an alluring, intoxicating possibility. That probably made her a sick and demented creature, Bellatrix thought, but she didn't care.
She wanted to be near Lord Voldemort, to work with him, to work for him. He was not very influential yet, but he was charismatic and confident and very intelligent. Cygnus Black III had told his daughter that Tom Riddle had been the most skilled and able pupil Hogwarts had seen in centuries. He'd won all sorts of awards; he'd been Head Boy. People had been in awe of him when he'd been in school, and then they'd apparently been shocked when he'd gone to work in Knockturn Alley at Borgin and Burkes, procuring rare goods for the shop. Everyone had thought for certain that the gifted and magnificent Tom Riddle would climb the ranks at the Ministry. Then, Cygnus had said, he'd disappeared, going off to the Continent. When he'd come back, he'd told everyone that he'd spent years learning everything from Necromancy to Viking shamanism, from obscure poisons and ancient Curses to secrets from the Vampires of Oradea. He was a new wizard, he'd told people, educated in the Darkest magic and flush with energy for a movement to bathe wizarding Britain in a future where Blood Purity and Magical order were prioritised.
It was all wondrous to Bellatrix. She wanted to be a part of it all. She didn't want silly little Rodolphus, who seemed now like a childish brute with potatoes for brains in comparison with the Dark wizard who had given her firewhisky and lost to her at Wizard's Chess. Bellatrix gazed out her window, utterly lost in thought, until a voice behind her said somewhat gently,
"Sandwiches downstairs, if you're hungry, dear."
Bellatrix pushed back her chair at her desk and stood, turning round and facing her mother, Druella. She licked her lips, preparing for the worst. She knitted her hands before her and studied her mother, who was living out Bellatrix's worst nightmare. Her parents had known one another their whole lives; her mother was born a Rosier and had grown up in the same social circles as Cygnus Black III. They'd been young loves at Hogwarts and had married the summer after leaving. It hadn't taken long before they'd had Bellatrix, and then Andromeda, and finally Narcissa. But Druella had little to show for it. She'd been distant as a mother, for the House-Elf had been the one to feed and rock the girls as infants, to change their clothes and put them in fresh dresses for dinner after they played all day as children. Once her daughters boarded all year at Hogwarts and Druella was left with an empty home cleaned by her servant, she spent long days doing Magical cross-stitch, designing her own fragrances using expensive ingredients, Conjuring floral arrangements, staining glass in colourful designs, and doing other mindless things to pass the hours. She hosted tea parties with other similarly bored Pureblood witches whilst their husbands worked like Cygnus, who was an executive wizarding banker alongside the goblins at Gringotts. Druella was in her early forties now, but she seemed thin and drawn, utterly depressed and tired, though there had been nothing of substance to have worn her down. Her life, by Bellatrix's measure, had been a complete failure.
"Mum," Bellatrix said carefully, reaching for her mother's hands and steadying her voice, "You know that Father and I recently met with Lor- with Tom Riddle. And I met with him again, you know. Over a game of Wizard's Chess."
Druella gave her daughter a suspicious look. She raised her brunette brows, which had been carefully penciled onto her face, to urge Bellatrix to continue. Bellatrix said,
"I don't want to be a guard at Azkaban, anymore, Mum. Nor an Auror. I don't want to work for the Ministry. And I certainly don't want to stay at home and have children. I mean no offense to you. I know you're happy with your life. But it isn't the life for me."
Druella pursed her lips and said nothing, tipping her head and looking irritated. She squeezed a little at Bellatrix's hands as Bellatrix carried on determinedly,
"I have decided to end my relationship with Rodolphus. He wasn't hurting me in any way, but there was nothing… I was not in love with him, Mum."
"Well, who cares about that?" Druella snapped, looking baffled. "I was not in love with your father at sixteen, either. That came later. It was a good match."
"A good match," Bellatrix repeated, releasing her mother's hands slowly. She shook her head. "Mum, I don't want a good match; I want a good life. I know my path, and it does not involve being the wife of a beefy, stupid, if well-intentioned, simpleton."
Druella scowled. "You do realise that whilst you are a member of the House of Black, you have gone out of your way to make yourself utterly unappealing to the most desirable young wizards in recent years, Bellatrix? Many of the best ones want nothing to do with a witch who is known for such petty and fiendish behaviour as you continuously exhibit."
"None of them have any idea what I am capable of," Bellatrix scoffed, "and believe you me, Mother, I am capable of far more than epoximising together two idiotic Gryffindors in a kiss."
Druella looked like she was going to slap her daughter. Instead she just set her lips into a very straight line, folded her hands before her, and made her posture perfect. She eyed Bellatrix with fiery judgement for a moment before she hissed,
"Do as you please. I can scarcely compel you to keep seeing the boy. Your father and I can't force you to marry. It's your life to ruin, you spoiled little girl. You've always been so very contrary, haven't you? You've always just had to be so very different, so very odd. Hmm. Well, go on, dear. Live whatever life you please. So long as you're happy."
Bellatrix nodded. "Sandwiches downstairs, then?"
Druella sniffed and just turned on her heel, stalking quickly out of eldest daughter's bedroom.
Bellatrix followed her downstairs and greeted Narcissa and Andromeda at the table, and sandwiches and tea were consumed in relative peace, though Druella's face was painted with obvious displeasure, and she kept glaring at Bellatrix. Finally, Andromeda looked up from the novel she'd been reading, and she asked suspiciously,
"What on Earth is bothering you, Mummy?"
"She's angry because I ended things with Rodolphus Lestrange," Bellatrix huffed, and little Narcissa gasped in alarm as Andromeda glanced curiously between her mother and her elder sister.
"Oh?" Andy shut her book and leaned forward, narrowing her hazel eyes. "Did he cheat on you?"
"Andromeda Black!" snapped Druella, but Bellatrix chuckled and shook her head.
"No. He was too stupid and dull, that's all. And, anyway, I've got grand plans for myself after I leave Hogwarts, and they do not involve being the trophy wife of an impressive husband."
Suddenly, there was a great clamour that came from the parlour, and all four witches flew from their seats in alarm, sending cups and dishes clattering. Bellatrix snatched at her wand on instinct, though of course she was still underage and couldn't perform Magic. She dashed down the corridor into the parlour and felt her mouth fall open in shock as she saw the hulking form that was pulling itself to rights in front of the fireplace. Clad in bright crimson silk, which had been modeled very recently for her at Twilfitt and Tattings, was the soot-covered figure of her recently released boyfriend.
"Rodolphus." Bellatrix adjusted her grip on her wand and gulped. From behind her, she heard her mother say carefully,
"Come now, Andromeda. Narcissa. Let's go out back to the garden. The sun isn't shining brightly; it's a pleasant day to relax."
It wasn't a pleasant day to relax in the garden. It was about to start raining. But Bellatrix's sisters obediently went with their mother to the tiny garden. Rodolphus Lestrange stared at Bellatrix, his eyes blooming with tears and rimmed red as though he'd already been crying. He shook his head frantically and held up his hands, and once the other witches had gone, he asked in a cracked voice,
"A letter, Bellatrix? You sent me a letter to tell me that you no longer wanted me?"
She shifted on her feet and shrugged. "I had thought it best not to make the whole affair too maudlin, but I suppose… here we are."
"Yes, here we are." Rodolphus closed the gap between them in two giant strides and seized her hand in his. His grip was too tight, almost painful, and Bellatrix chewed her lip hard as she stared up at him. She knew, suddenly, what he meant to do, and she shook her head wildly and whispered,
"Don't do it."
"Why not?" He cupped her jaw in his hand and bent down to kiss her, but Bellatrix whipped her face away from him before he could do so. She whirled on her foot, spinning away from him, and tore her hand from his grasp. He let her go, but looked shocked and wounded. His face crumpled and his tears boiled over onto his cheeks. "Don't you know how much I love you, Bellatrix?"
"You and I are ill-suited," she informed him, putting her hands on her hips. Rodolphus shrugged helplessly.
"No, we aren't. We have fun together."
Bellatrix rolled her eyes a little and reminded him, "When I tried to talk to you about Wendelin the Weird's Flame-Freezing Charm and its potential uses in other situations, do you remember what happened?"
Rodolphus' enormous face coloured darkly. He said nothing. Bellatrix raised her eyebrows as if to taunt him just a little. Finally, Rodolphus said,
"I didn't know who she was. Didn't know what you were on about."
"Right. You had no clue who Wendelin the Weird was, even though, Rodolphus, she was one of the most famous witches in the History of Magic." Bellatrix sighed deeply.
"So you're calling me stupid," he mumbled, and Bellatrix shut her eyes.
"No. I am pointing out that there is a fundamental incompatibility, a mismatch between our interests, and a terrible misalignment between our individual aims and needs."
She opened her eyes to see Rodolphus staring at her with confusion and despair, and he shrugged a little before he asked,
"So that's it? You won't even let me have our sixth year to try and prove myself to you? To try and show you that I'd make a good husband for you?"
"I'd much rather you spend that time sorting out a proper wife for yourself," Bellatrix told him, and he said,
"I only want you."
"That's very kind," Bellatrix said patiently, "but I've other things planned for myself besides marriage, you see."
"Other things." Rodolphus looked more hurt than ever. He sniffed just a little and nodded. "Right. Got it. We're over. It's all over. Message received loud and clear, Bellatrix. See you, then."
"See you." Bellatrix felt very awkward as she watched him approach the fireplace again and take a fistful of Floo Powder, stepping into the empty fireplace before shouting,
"LESTRANGE HOUSE!"
He was swallowed up by vibrant green flames, and then he was gone. Bellatrix waited for the blinding light to fade, and then she glanced over her shoulder. Her mother and sisters were still outside. She acted rashly then, foolishly. She rushed toward the fireplace and sunk her fingers into the glass container of Floo Powder on the mantle. She stepped into the fireplace and threw down the Floo Powder, and she yelled loudly and clearly,
"MALFOY MANOR!"
Voldemort sat at his desk and turned the page of the Daily Prophet, thinking to himself that the news of this time was catastrophically dull. He'd forgotten how incredibly simple and quaint life had been before he'd begun ripping up everyone's sense of normalcy with his political campaign and then with his war. Right now, people's most pressing concerns were Squibs, who felt singularly oppressed. Voldemort knew that he had seized on the Squibs' marches to organise early violent incidents by his Pureblood followers. He would do so again this time round, though he intended on coordinating things a bit differently. He seemed to remember the riot simply feeling chaotic and purposeless. This time, it would be focused and properly intimidating. He would gather his closest allies soon to discuss the matter, he thought. He knew the Squibs would not march until late in the autumn, which was a shame, for Bellatrix would be away at Hogwarts. But he intended on capitalising on the opportunity to fix his mistakes, and this time, the Pureblood response to the Squibs would terrify the wizarding public.
There was knocking on his office door, breaking his reverie, and Voldemort glanced up from the newspaper. The door slowly opened, and he heard Tullia Malfoy's voice say gently,
"Just in here, dear. This is his office."
"Thank you so much, Mrs Malfoy. Again, I'm very sorry for showing up unannounced," said a familiar voice, and Voldemort's mind suddenly lurched as he realised it was her. Bellatrix. He shoved his newspaper aside as she came into his office, as Tullia Malfoy assured her,
"It's no trouble at all, my dear. Hello, Tom. Miss Black is here to see you."
"Oh. Thank you, Tullia. Miss Black." Voldemort pulled himself up from his chair and stood behind his desk. Then, quite meaningfully, he noted, "What a surprise it is to see you."
"I'll leave you two to talk, then," Tullia said, and Bellatrix watched as their hostess left. Then she shocked Voldemort by rather assertively shutting the office door and striding toward his desk, looking agitated and anxious. He gestured to the chair opposite his, inviting her to sit, and he offered,
"Firewhisky, Miss Black?"
"Erm, no. Thank you. Perhaps just a bit of water, if you don't mind." Bellatrix sounded deeply troubled. Voldemort scowled, but he went over to his drinks cart and reached for a highball glass. He aimed his yew wand at it and cast a nonverbal Agumenti spell to fill it. Water sprayed from the tip of his wand and filled the highball glass, and then Voldemort nonverbally chilled it until it was icy cold. He walked over to Bellatrix and wordlessly handed her the drink. She gratefully accepted it and sipped, swiping a little at the soot that was on her face from having come here by Floo Powder. She couldn't use Magic to clean herself, Voldemort thought, for she was still only sixteen. He hardly wanted to embarrass her by Scouring her face for her, so he ignored the dust and sat back down at his desk.
"Have you come to beat me at Wizard's Chess again?" he asked, expecting a wry smirk from her. But she did not smile. She just sipped at her water again and stared numbly down at her fingernails. She finally set the highball glass down on Voldemort's desk and raised her enormous dark eyes to meet his.
"I broke up with Rodolphus Lestrange," she said plainly, and though Voldemort felt his stomach wrench with shock, he kept his face impassive. He nodded a little and quirked up a friendly expression on his face.
"Would congratulations be inappropriate?"
"I told him he'd been nothing but kind," Bellatrix said, "but that I had much different plans for my future than being a traditional wife of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Rodolphus did not take the news terribly well; after he received my owl, he arrived at my home by Floo Powder and cried actual tears over it, trying to convince me not to end things."
"But you did?" Voldemort asked, his voice cracking a bit in a way that surprised him. "You did end things?"
Bellatrix blinked and nodded in silence. Voldemort sniffed a bit and pursed his lips. He glanced at the Daily Prophet on the desk and suddenly felt compelled to inform Bellatrix,
"These Squibs are getting entirely too bold. Their half-baked, futile crusade is not only fruitless; it is an opportunity for me to gather supporters of my politics. I intend on attacking them if ever they should decide to be foolish enough to make a public show of their idiotic ideals."
Bellatrix picked at her skirts for a moment, but then said quite firmly, "I certainly hope you'll allow me to be part of such a thing, sir."
"Well, of course I would, Bella, but you won't be home." Voldemort froze. His ears went hot. He cleared his throat a little and then shook his head, staring at Bellatrix as he amended, "I mean to say, the odds are that you'd be at school. But of course, if you were at home and of age and such a thing occurred, naturally I would involve you deeply, Miss Black."
Bellatrix's round chestnut eyes narrowed, and her perfect full lips parted in curiosity. She just studied Voldemort's features, as if she were trying to parse out what was happening, trying to make sense of it all. Voldemort seriously considered, for the first time in many years, reaching into her mind with Legilimency. Bellatrix wordlessly reached for the glass Voldemort had filled with chilled water for her, took a drink, and then set the glass back down. She sat up straighter in her chair and folded her hands on her lap before asking somewhat determinedly,
"I'd like you to tell me, please, sir, why it is that you keep calling me Bella with such familiarity, and why it is that you seem to know me far better than you should given how few times you and I have been in one another's company."
Voldemort's breath shook in his nostrils. His heart accelerated in his chest, and his ears blazed hot. He wrenched his eyes shut and scranbled helplessly to think of a satisfactory reply. Unable after a long moment to think of anything that even vaguely made sense, Voldemort cracked open his eyes and admitted,
"I feel as though I know you far better than I do, perhaps. Miss Black. Forgive me."
She shifted in her chair and shook her head a little. "It's so very, very odd, you know. The night before you and my father and I ate our luncheon of goose together here at Malfoy Manor, sir, I had a rather peculiar dream. A dream about a wizard called Lord Voldemort. Somehow, I knew it was a dream about him, though he looked different whilst I was asleep. Older, with a scar down his face, with grey hair and a tired face."
Voldemort's blood ran cold, and his stomach sank like a stone in water. His mouth fell open, and he whispered carefully,
"What happened to the wizard in your dream, Miss Black?"
She gave him an odd look. "He burst into a house and duelled a young man. That younger wizard fought valiantly but died on a staircase. Upstairs, a red-haired witch screamed at Lord Voldemort to spare her child's life. She died, too. Lily, her name was. And then Lord Voldemort made a move to eliminate the baby in the cot. Harry Potter, the child was called. There was a flash of green. A Killing Curse. And then there was darkness. And then I woke up in Mayfair in London. My sisters Andromeda and Narcissa were loudly arguing in the corridor outside my bedroom; Cissy was accusing Andy of stealing her new silver hairbrush."
Voldemort fought to keep his face taciturn, and at last he sniffed in a laconic tone, "Who were those people in your dream, Miss Black? The young wizard on the staircase? The red-haired witch? Lily, you said. The little boy."
"Harry," Bellatrix murmured. She shook her head. "I didn't know any of them. Harry Potter, you said. I presume he's one of the Potter family; they're aspirational Purebloods. Fleamont made a veritable fortune developing Sleekeazy's. I wouldn't know about that redhead. I don't know of a Lily. But, as I said, sir, the wizard I was certain was Lord Voldemort was much older. In any case, it was nothing but a dream."
"Hmm." He just bowed his head and cleared his throat a little. For a long while, he said nothing at all. He just considered the fact that Bellatrix seemed to have dreamed about what had transpired in Godric's Hollow almost exactly at the time that it had actually happened. She said she'd dreamed of it the night before the luncheon at Malfoy Manor. Voldemort didn't know how long he'd been lost in the black void after his Killing Curse had rebounded, how long he'd been gone before he'd awakened in his apartments here, but it seemed at least plausible that Bellatrix's consciousness had somehow been attuned to what had happened in October of 1981. That was ludicrous, of course. What was far more alarming was what it might actually mean to have had her mind meld with his during that incident, to have had her viewing that horrid scene just before he traveled through time and space. The potential sequelae of such a reality were terrifying.
Voldemort raised his eyes to her and glared, thinking he ought to Obliviate her. He should wipe her mind of the dream, of the times he'd called her Bella by accident. But when her beautiful eyes, almost metallic brown, met his, he found himself lost, and his breath hitched in his lungs. His fingers curled around the handle of his yew wand, and he tried to convince himself to wipe her memory, to do something to fix this situation. Instead, he decided to tell her something that was neither truth nor lie.
"I called you Bella because you do feel familiar to me, Miss Black. You are correct; you have not spent much time in my company. And, yet, I feel very much like I know you well. I suspect it is because you and I have so quickly established a camaraderie, and I should like to think that I understand your desires and potential in a way few before me have done."
"That is true enough," Bellatrix conceded.
Voldemort pushed himself out of his seat and stepped slowly around his desk, looming over her where she sat in her chair. She stood, and he thought that she seemed even a bit shorter now than he remembered her being. At thirty, when he'd last spent time with her, she'd been very petite, but right now she just seemed tiny. He winced just a little at that and looked away, staring at an etching on the dark wood paneled wall, a hunting hound that repeatedly chased a fox through a wood.
"I do think, sir, that somehow you have untangled my personality more adeptly than anyone else I've ever met. I'm not quite certain how you've managed to do so," Bellatrix said, and Voldemort kept staring at the etching as he said softly,
"It's because we have quite a lot in common, you and I."
"Have we, sir?" she whispered, and he nodded, his eyes trained on the penciled hound as it kept chasing its hapless drawn prey.
"Mmm-hmm. We were born to destroy things. Born to defile, to raze and kill and sabotage. But you and I were also created for control. We were intended to sit on a great throne of glory, to clamour over the corpses of enemies we'd gleefully slain, and to perch ourselves on their bones. I can see it, Bella… I can see it very clearly. I can see you casting the Cruciatus Curse, the spell curling from your lips, velvet and sacred in the night air. I can see the malachite glow of your Killing Curses bathing your ecstatic and beautiful face as you eliminate my adversaries. You will be my most cherished acolyte, my fiercest ally, and I shall command you and teach you and guide you with devotion. That shall be the way of it, Bella. You've no need of a silly brute like Rodolphus Lestrange. Not when I can see what I can see."
When at last he caught his breath and tore his gaze from the etching of the hound on the wall, he looked down to see Bellatrix staring up at him, wide-eyed and filled with wonder, tears sliding in silent streams down her alabaster cheeks. On instinct, Voldemort brought up his left hand and dared to touch her, to use the pad of his thumb to gently sweep her tears from her skin. She did not seem to mind. Finally, he dragged his thumb over her full bottom lip, tipping his head a little, feeling powerfully hungry. He'd wanted to kiss her for thirteen years. For all that time, she'd been forbidden to him as the wife of another wizard. She'd been his slave, his soldier, his married and obsequieous little guerilla. He could have touched her; he had always been Lord Voldemort and he could have claimed her for his own as the Dark Lord. But he never had. Now she stood before him, very young and very beautiful, having freshly detached herself from Rodolphus Lestrange, and it took absolutely every ounce of self-control he possessed not to crush her mouth with a kiss.
Instead he just danced his fingertips along her jaw and felt her shiver, watched her eyes flutter shut, and he heard her whisper,
"I look forward to fulfilling everything you have seen, sir."
He gulped. "My Lord."
Her cocoa eyes opened, and she eyed him curiously. Realisation settled over her, and she nodded against his hand, repeating, "My Lord."
Somehow, he let her go. There were quiet words exchanged about her needing to get home; she'd apparently left London without letting her mother know where she was going. Somehow, Voldemort managed to limit his farewell to her to a gentle squeeze of her fingertips and a brush of his lips against her forehead, which admittedly was more than he'd ever really done to her when he'd known her before. He'd watched her blush and sheepishly smile, seeming more than a little pleased as she made her way to the door. She did not seem much like she wanted to leave, and Voldemort nearly suggested that they send an owl to Druella. Bellatrix could stay; the two of them could kiss and drink firewhisky. But that was absurd, of course. So he just bid her farewell and listened to the office door shut heavily behind her, and then he was left alone again, his mind whirling and his heart pounding.