Lord Voldemort's boots landed with a thud on the damp grass outside his manor house in Danby, and he stood still for a moment, unable to think straight. His eyes seared like fire as stared down at Bellatrix beside him. He was still holding her mask in his hand, along with his wand, and he was struggling to breathe properly, to calibrate what had happened at Eliza Atlas' house.

Not since the night he'd released the Basilisk at Hogwarts had he felt such a profound sea change in his life. Everything was completely different now, he thought. From this moment on, the world had shifted, like a wave had washed over the chess board of the Universe and moved all the pieces in play. Bellatrix had always been a beau ideal of a Death Eater, a paragon of a warrior's virtue. She had always been Lord Voldemort's most reliable servant, his most loyal companion and his most ferocious soldier. Her service in combat had been violently beautiful for years. She had been cruel, unfeeling, effective.

But tonight, there had been an evolution, a great leap, a shift, a warp, a modulation. Lord Voldemort shivered in the November air, in the wind that blew around his home outside Danby, and he stared down at the witch he had loved so fiercely for years, the witch he had married in her youth during his brief stay in a past hallucination. He stared at her, studied her, and he could see the way she'd slaughtered his worst enemy. He could see her Disarm Dumbledore, could see the old wizard's knobby wand soaring through the air until Bellatrix snatched it deftly and turned it on Dumbledore, casting a delectable Killing Curse that had curled through the air like an emerald ribbon. Suddenly Voldemort's breath hitched, and his knees went slightly weak beneath him, and he found himself whispering down to Bellatrix,

"Wondrous creature…"

"Master." She grinned up at him, clearly still flush with the thrill of what she'd done, her veins still coursing with the Felix Felicis that would remain in her system for many hours. She put her hands on his chest and murmured gently, "Dumbledore is dead. Albus Dumbledore is dead."

"You killed him. Magnificent treasure that you are, you've murdered that disgraceful charlatan and rid me of him once and for all. And for that, Bellatrix Black, you must be duly rewarded, as promised."

He put his wand hand between her shoulders and guided her up toward his house, keeping her close, maintaining a protective and guarded sort of stance. She didn't need protection, he knew. She didn't need a guardian. She was powerful and dangerous. Still, he cherished her. He wandlessly flung his door open and walked inside with her, calling out loudly for Fan and barking at the House-Elf to bring him two opened bottles of mineral water. Fan scampered off, and Bellatrix smiled up at him.

"How did you know I was thirsty, My Lord?"

He smirked. "I'm parched; goodness knows you must be shriveled and withered with the way you were running around screaming spells and Blasting apart Eliza Atlas' house."

Bellatrix giggled a bit, gladly taking her bottle of mineral water when Fan brought them back into the foyer. Voldemort stood and drank his water down, quenching his deep thirst, and Bellatrix did the same. He hadn't realised, until this moment, how tiring the battle had been. He glanced at Bellatrix and saw that she was filthy; her curls were tied back tightly in a braid but had visibly soil and a few pebbles caught in them. Some soot had gotten beneath her mask and was smeared across her cheek. One of her sleeves had torn when she'd fallen to the ground or taken part of a stray spell. Somehow, she looked especially appealing like this, battle weary but victorious.

"Bellatrix," Voldemort whispered, and she turned her enormous doe eyes to him, huge and chestnut and glistening. Her lips curled up contededly, and she nodded. Voldemort sucked in a breath and informed her, "What I feel toward you… right this moment… it is overwhelming."

She looked emotional at that. Her brown eyes shone and her full bottom lip trembled just a little. She took his empty clear glass water bottle from him and set both the bottles down on the side table against the paneled wall. She neared her master then and gave him an almost cheeky look, suggestively murmuring,

"I was promised a reward in exchange for slaughtering your worst enemy, My Lord."

"Mm. Yes." He put his fingers at the back of her neck and felt grit there, where some dirt had smashed against her skin beneath her hood, beneath her braid. He guided her toward the stairs and walked with her up the carpeted, wooden staircase until they reached the landing. Down the corridor they went, until they reached Lord Voldemort's grand bed-chamber. He shut the door and locked it by hand, relishing the little sound of the lock clicking shut in the heavy silence, a haptic reminder of how very private this all was.

He turned to face her and flicked his wand toward his stout, handsome marmoreal fireplace. Immediately, flames flickered into being and illuminated the room in a tender, amber glow. Bellatrix stood near the foot of the bed, waiting, staring, seeming to look forward to orders from her master that would drive her mad immediately. Perhaps, he thought she was thinking, he would command her to scramble up onto the bed and strip off her clothes, and he would drill her roughly from behind. Perhaps he would sway atop her and spill himself inside of her once they were sweaty and panting. Perhaps he'd deign to finger her to completion and kiss her before he attended to himself, but then there would be some quick rutting and a triumphant climax from the Dark Lord who had tasted sweet victory tonight.

Except, Lord Voldemort had every intention of dragging her reward out far more deliciously, and, he admitted to himself, more tortuously, than in any of those scenarios. He intended on making her plead, making her beg him to just fuck her already. He needed that, for some reason. He needed her to be frantic with desire, for her to be absolutely insane with want. He needed to drive her mad with anticipation and then practically overwhelm her with satisfaction. That was what she'd done to him tonight. She'd made him taste tension and a hint of fear, and then she'd delivered the most luxurious feeling of conquest that Voldemort had ever experienced. So he would take his time with her.

He took two steps toward her, his dragonhide boots creaking just a little on his wooden floorboards, and he swallowed hard. He could smell smoke on the both of them, and for some reason that just made him sting with need. He tipped his chin up and pointed his wand lazily toward Bellatrix, mumbling in a lazy sort of tone,

"Unfasten those serpent buckles of yours, Bella. One at a time."

She just nodded, though he could have sworn he heard her whisper a Yes, Master as she set Dumbledore's wand and her own, which she pulled from her belt, down on the bench behind her. Her shaking fingers worked at the elaborate silver clasps that Thabo Shacklebolt had designed to bind her into her supportive corset-style bustier. Voldemort observed hugrily as the clasps came undone, one by one, opening up the corset, releasing her, and he watched her take an enormous breath once she was free. She peeled off the bustier and held it out for a moment. Voldemort flicked his wand and sent the garment across the room to the armchair in the corner; it landed on the velveteen cushion and folded itself perfectly.

Voldemort tipped his head. He bent and set Bellatrix's Death Eater mask carefully on the floorboards, the metal scraping the wood as he did. As he came up, he unbuckled his dragonhide boots and then kicked them off, and when he rose, he stared right at Bellatrix and made a move to peel off his loose outer robe, which he let flutter to the ground in a flimsy sort of puddle. Then his fingers worked at the silver buttons that ran down the front of his battle tunic, opening them one by one as his chest became revealed. He was no Adonis, he knew, but he watched as Bellatrix became more evidently hungry with each passing moment. Her lips parted, and then her tongue peeked out to lick her bottom lip like she was watching candy being made. Her large eyes narrowed intently, and her high cheeks pinked a little. Voldemort pulled off his tunic and dropped it to the ground, bare-chested with his arms revealed, and he shrugged.

"Off with the tunic, then."

Bellatrix silently reached for the hem of her black top and stripped it up and over her head, pulling it off and revealing her milky white flesh, which set Voldemort's heart to racing. Blood began flushing to his cock, filling it, making it rigid inside his breeches, and he could feel his underwear starting to strain and tent. He gulped and chewed his lip a little as he studied Bellatrix's gorgeous chest. She'd worn a bra meant for activity tonight, it seemed, a cotton piece that covered her round and perfectly sculpted breasts far more than the garments he'd grown accustomed to pulling off of her when she'd been his teenage wife. He jabbed his chin toward her, and she got the idea, peeling off the black bra and tossing it onto the ground obediently. She rolled her shoulders back, and he could see that her nipples were already puckered with arousal, that her breasts were smooth and soft-looking in the glow of the firelight. It was all Voldemort could do not to reach out and cup one of them, to caress them with his calloused hands. But he just shut his eyes for a long moment and cleared his throat before reaching down for the laces on his own breeches.

He luxuriated in the act of untying them, keeping his eyes shut and feeling the way his cock was straining against the fabric. He was pulsing and throbbing between his legs, and his breath hitched as his fingers brushed over his crotch, teasing his own manhood a little. He had to stop for a moment, and then he heard himself say in a low, serious voice,

"Albus Dumbledore is dead, and you have killed him for me."

"Yes, Master," Bellatrix's voice replied, a velveteen hum. The fire was crackling audibly behind her. Voldemort opened his eyes slowly and saw Bellatrix staring at him, and he whispered to her,

"Take off your leggings and your skirt."

She obeyed whilst he worked on his leggings. They each removed the bottom halves of their sooty, slightly damaged clothing. Bellatrix wriggled out of her tight, black leggings and her wispy overskirt, stepping out of them with a graceful elegance that made her look more like a ballerina than a murderer. Lord Voldemort, for his part, shoved his breeches over his hips and backside and let his cock spring forth, glancing down to see that a lustrous pearl of precome had already materialised and was drizzling off the tip of his member. He would have to be careful, he thought, licking his lip a bit. If he was not a bit more cautious, he would spill himself prematurely, and his fun would all be over. He took a deep, trembling breath, and he continued to push his breeches down and off, yanking them off his feet and standing upright.

Bellatrix was gazing directly at his cock then, not bothering to meet his eyes. Voldemort laughed a little, amused by the way her lovely cocoa eyes focused straight on his manhood. She was incredibly aroused, he could see. One of her little hands went to a breast and fondled, toying with a nipple, pinching and playing, flicking and rolling. Her other hand slid down over her flat stomach and slid between her thighs, her fingers pressing at her clit. Her eyes fluttered shut, and a breathy little moan escaped her parted lips.

"Mmm. You want me inside of you," Voldemort noted. He brushed his fingertips along the length of his cock, afraid that if he gripped himself, he'd start stroking and would not be able to keep from coming. He took a step toward her and teased in a very low voice, "You want to feel my cock inside your little cunt, don't you?"

"Oh, Master." She blushed scarlet at his ridiculously filthy language; he'd never said anything remotely as vulgar as that to her, in this time or in the past. His own cheeks went hot at having spoken to her so obscenely, and his voice was hoarse as he touched lightly at the tip of his cock and whispered,

"You want a to feel a stream of my come running down the inside of your thigh… proof of my pleasure leaking out of you, flowing down your flesh… you crave me, don't you, Bella?"

He had closed the gap between them now, and Bellatrix was panting, frantic, desperate. She just nodded, silently, seeming wholly unable to form even a single word. Voldemort smirked at her and took her jaw in his left hand, putting his right hand on her wast. He began to stroke her there, going up and down her ribcage, all the way down to her hip. He brought her close to him, folding up his erection between them, and he bent a little as he murmured,

"You are a phenomenal soldier, and you are the most beautiful witch who's ever lived, and I love you so ferociously it physically hurts."

He crushed her mouth with an aggressive kiss then, giving her little warning and no time to truly react. She yelped as his lips pressed hard onto hers, as his tongue delved straight into her mouth. She accepted the kiss very willingly, responding with enthusiasm as her hands searched him for purchase. She finally settled on his biceps, squeezing at his lean muscles a little in a way that made him groan. His tongue teased the roof of her mouth, eliciting a whine from her and a cinch of her little fingers, and when she nibbled his lip in response, he found himself caressing her torso more urgently. They kissed for a long moment, until at last Voldemort broke the kiss and whispered down onto Bellatrix's lips,

"I want to kiss you all over."

She let out a low little laugh and reminded him, "I'm covered in dirt, Master. I smell of fire."

"I could not possibly care less at the moment," he said a bit sharply, planting a kiss straight on her lips. She hummed onto his mouth and moved with him toward the bed, holding fast to his arms as he guided her by her waist. She let him pull her up onto his chocolate brown, luxurious bedding, and as he arranged her on her back, he realised this was what he'd wanted for thirteen years. He'd wanted to bring her home after a hard-won battle, to celebrate with her, to tell her that he was proud of her and that he adored her. He'd wanted her to be his. So this was all right, wasn't it? And it was better than he could have ever dreamed; she'd murdered Albus Dumbledore for him. His eyes seared like wildfire suddenly, thinking that, somehow, this was even better than being married to the teenager he'd hardly known. Bellatrix looked up at him, touching at his scarred cheek and his shattered orbital bone carefully and whispering,

"Are you all right, Master?"

"Yes," he choked out. "You are sublime."

He bent and kissed her forehead, and she let out a happy little noise. Irritated abruptly with the way her gorgeous curls had been yanked back for battle, though understanding the motivation for doing so, Voldemort reached for the leather tie binding her braid and undid it, pushing his fingers through her hair and liberating her wild ringlets until they made a raven halo around her head. She smiled up at him and noted,

"Sometimes my curls get in the way when I'm fighting. Didn't want to risk it tonight."

"I know." He just nodded and brushed his knuckles over her hair, taking the sight of her in for a moment. He bent and kissed the swell of the top of her breast as one hand drifted down between her legs. Two of his fingers touched at her nub, and he moaned softly onto the skin of her chest when he felt that she was flushed wet and swollen with arousal. He began to pulse his fingertips onto her clit with a careful, slow, deliberate rhythm, circular and with just enough pressure to make her squirm. Bellatrix's back arched and her fingers curled onto the blanket. Beneath Voldemort's lips, her nipple peaked and went completely rigid, and when he suckled on it, lathing his tongue over it and seeking to pleasure and soothe it, she keened with apparent gratification. After a moment, Voldemort released her with a little pop, dipping his fingers into the wet heat of her entrance, pumping and twisting as she sighed and made little crying noises.

"M-My Lord," she whimpered repeatedly, like a chant, like a prayer. "Please, My Lord…"

"Please what?" he teased, kissing at her sternum and then trailing his mouth down to her skinny little stomach. She gasped and arched her back harder, and he returned his attention to her clit, working intently to give her just enough pressure and rhythm on the right spot. Bellatrix pounded a fist in a blend of frustration and intense arousal, and when Voldemort flicked his eyes up to her face, he saw that her mouth had fallen open and her cheeks had flushed violently red.

"Oh, I want it… I want it… please," she was whispering frantically, and Voldemort smirked onto her flesh, his fingers covered in dripping fluids now. She was seconds away, he could tell. He pushed just a little harder on her, worked just a little faster.

"What do you want, Bella?" he growled, even as he felt her explode. He felt her walls clenching erratically, felt the way she was snapping round him in her fits of ecstasy. She yelped and twisted and then groaned, and as she panted her way to a recovery from her climax, Voldemort demanded again, "You said, I want it. What do you want, Bellatrix?"

"I want to feel my master inside of me," Bellatrix gasped, staring at the ceiling. She was breathless now, her chest heaving. Voldemort was so hard now; his cock was agonisingly erect and leaking precome continuously. He was fit to burst at this point. He wouldn't last long, he knew. Still, he obliged Bellatrix happily, arranging himself atop her and encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist. When he slid into her, it felt like going home, like being welcomed. She was so warm, so wet and pulsing, that he almost finished at once. He had to take a long break once he was sheathed within her, his lips pressed to her forehead and his cock buried in her body, in order to calibrate the feel of it all.

Finally, he started moving, and when he did, his voice began coming out in uncontrollable, animalistic grunts. He tried to keep his motions smooth, to stay as cadenced and metrical as possible for the sake of intrigue. But all he could manage was to buck his hips, to flail in a way that felt almost out of control, for Bellatrix's body was entirely too soft, too beautiful, too warm, too inviting. She felt divine beneath him. She felt sacred and luscious around his manhood. So there was nothing to be done when it came to pacing himself or staying elegant; Voldemort resigned himself to frantically fucking the witch he had been enamoured with for so many years. And she moaned beneath him, stroking at his arms, at his shoulders, at his face, kissing the skin of his bicep, murmuring for him with breathy little repetitions of My Lord, My Lord.

After a while of drilling into her body, after a positively transcendent experience that had rendered him dizzy and drunk with mounting pleasure, Voldemort's satisfaction detonated like one of Bellatrix's vicious Blasting Curses. His climax hit him head-on and made him cry out rather desperately, and he stilled his hips against Bellatrix's pelvis as he found himself suddenly unable to move.

"Bella," he heard himself choke out hoarsely, thinking with a distant, frantic whisper of an idea that he needed more mineral water. His veins rushed through with his orgasm, and he felt himself pumping his seed into her body. His ears rang for a brief moment, and he saw spots in his vision. He was kissing her, he felt, though he was not certain how or when he started doing that. He was petting Bellatrix's cheek and kissing her lips delicately, letting out little moans onto her mouth as she whimpered and whined in return.

At some point, he managed to disentangle his body from hers enough to climb off and get onto his back beside her. He was profoundly dizzy, lying there on the bed staring at the ceiling. He shut his eyes and let the room spin, and then he felt Bellatrix's curls against his shoulder. He kissed at the top of her head and hummed a little noise of contentment to feel that she'd tucked herself against him.

"I love you so very much, Master," Bellatrix said, sounding much more grave and serious than she'd sounded throughout the night under the influence of the Felix Felicis and flush with their victory. Her fingertips traced over an old battle scar on his pectoral muscle, and she whispered again, "I love you with all that I am."

"Bella." Voldemort's voice sounded dry to his own ear. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes to look at the ceiling again. "Rodolphus is dead. I've killed him."

"Yes, My Lord."

He sighed. "Albus Dumbledore is dead. You've killed him."

She hesitated for a half second. "Yes, My Lord."

Voldemort turned his head just enough to stare down at her. "Everything is different down. You aren't married to… for almost thirteen years, I pined after another wizard's wife, but he is gone now. And my worst enemy is gone now. The war will end quickly now; I will rule over wizarding Britain soon enough. I will have everything I've wanted, won't I?"

"Yes. You must. You're the Dark Lord; You must have everything you want." Bellatrix sounded very enthusiastic. She pushed herself up on an elbow and looked right into Voldemort's eyes, her curls hanging round her face. Voldemort reached to tuck her hair behind her ear and said softly,

"I need a witch consort, not a provisional companion. I need… I desire… that the witch I have loved for a very long time fight and remain with me as I take my place atop this new order."

Bellatrix grinned and nodded. "My Lord, you know well that I will always -"

"Bella." He shook his head and gulped. He cupped her jaw in his hand and clarified, "I want you with me. Formally. Completely. I don't want there to be any confusion. Do you understand?"

Her eyes watered heavily, but she nodded and murmured with a little smile, "Yes, Master. I understand. Thank you. Th-thank you."

He brought her face to his and kissed her lips carefully, and he said against her skin, "You killed beautifully for me tonight, little soldier, just as you always do. Now. Go relax in the bath. You must be very sore and very tired."

Author's Note: Well, that was a fun little interlude. Next up, we have to see the political and social fallout of Dumbledore's death and what will happen to wizarding Britain now that no serious organised resistance to Voldemort remains legitimately cohesive. Can he finally rise to power with Bellatrix at his side? We shall see. Thank you as always for reading and please do review.