Northern France
1460
Whilst British Muggles feuded away in their own series of civil wars in England, the wizarding world was engulfed in its own vicious strife and struggle that led to death and suffering beyond measure. At the core of this conflict was the rise of Lord Voldemort in wizarding Britain and the subsequent fear across the Channel that his ascendant power would spread and devour France. War was declared; battles were fought. In the heart of northern France, the tendrils of Darkness and power sprawled across one battleground after another, weaving a grim tapestry.
On this day, Lord Voldemort himself had come to lead his forces against a small army led by Basile Beauséjour. The battle had been hard-fought and hard-won; spells had flown for hours, flaring through the air and sending screams of terror and pain aloft all the while. Snowflakes pirouetted like ethereal spectres, alighting upon the frost-draped black earth. A frigid gust carried with it whispers of the bellowed spells and the cries for mercy from those who had fallen in the battle. The field bore the scars of ancient vendettas between families across the Channel and new fears. Spells, like venomous serpents, had cleaved through the air with their hissing promises of torture and murder and annihilation and conquest. Now that the battle had been won, the very atmosphere resonated with the reverberations of Voldemort's own magic, each pulse charged with a wicked energy.
Among the combatants, Bellatrix Black Lestrange emerged as a figure of both charisma and dread. Her mien and demeanour bore not a single hint of hesitation, her laughter rattling through the battle, an unnerving and terrifying gleeful sort of cackle. Every spell she cast was a symphony of chaos, a work of painful and deadly art. She was gifted in inflicting pain; she was brilliant with the act of committing cold-blooded and remorseless murder. Her dark eyes glittered with an unholy flame, and she danced the battle like a violent ballet, her movements fluid and precise, as though perfectly choreographed.
Of all the devoted Death Eaters who served the Dark Lord, she was the most devout and steadfast, the most unswerving zealot, the one who was willing to not only give her own life but who was evidently willing to destroy the world entire for her beloved master, whom she worshipped as a god. And today, she had done her best for him. She had fought hard, and the battle had been a victory for the forces of wizarding Britain in large part thanks to her.
The French forces refused to succumb without a ferocious struggle. The clash of wands, the resonating cries of defiant incantations, had pierced the snowing skies, birthing a discordant song of desperation. The champions for the French Ministry, their hearts ignited by unwavering patriotism and unyielding opposition to the very idea of Lord Voldemort, had refused to waver unto the death, but die they had done just the same. The French army had been dwarfed in number and outmatched in might by Lord Voldemort's soldiers and had teetered precariously on the precipice of surrender. Panic, akin to an infectious miasma, had threatened to engulf them entirely. Bellatrix had scoffed at one point as she'd sliced through three French fools who had not come in armour, and she'd snickered mercilessly as she'd watched them helplessly stain the snow red with growing pools of blood. One by one, the French had fallen, until at last they'd sent up giant white fluttering banners of surrender into the air and had gathered some of their dead and Disapparated, presumably back to Paris.
Like rats.
Now Bellatrix surveyed what was left of the scene. Beside her materialised a figure from the behind a scorched and shivering tree — the stalwart Rodolphus Lestrange, her husband and fellow devoted slave of the Dark Lord. Rodolphus was dragging a wizard, bound and shackled in Conjured chains, who was silent and evidently injured. The French captive, fettered by desperation, was hauled before them, his countenance a canvas of defiance confronting impending demise. Bellatrix watched as Rodolphus used quick and fluent French to spit threats and malice at the captive, informing him of the Dark Lord's inevitable rise, of the stupidity of the man, thinking it was wise to resist the British.
With a fluidity akin to the swish of a wand, Rodolphus transitioned to his native English. He looked to his wife, tipping his strong chin up proudly as he gave a rough tug on the chain in his gloved hands.
"My dear wife. Ought this accursed soul be granted mercy, a quick death, or a protracted existence ensnared within the clutches of torment? What say you?"
Bellatrix's smile, cruel and beautiful, gleamed like the polished edge of a steel blade. Her eyes, twin pools of obsidian, bored into the depths of the captive's own pleading gaze, as though peeling away the layers of his fear and fortitude. Somehow, she saw no humanity there. She sniffed and shrugged nonchalantly.
"Certainly, he should be eradicated quickly," she purred, her voice velveteen. "He is an enemy of the Dark Lord, and he merits nothing but death. Let us not waste any more time with him, husband."
The malign beauty and depravity of her reasoning lingered in the cold air, a testament to her unyielding sense of ethics. Rodolphus curled up his lips and bowed his head, his gaze unwavering upon the condemned man. He raised his wand and held it aloft for a solid ten seconds, as if to allow his prisoner time to contemplate that these were his very final breaths. With the enunciation of an incantation, the prisoner's doom was sealed — a life extinguished, a spirit obliterated. The French prisoner's body crumpled rather pathetically, slumping inelegantly onto the snow. Bellatrix's chuckled, her laughter entwined with the echoes of the battle that still lingered over the snowy field.
"Bravo, husband," Bellatrix cooed, her eyes ablaze with an intensity that only witnessing violence could evoke in her. "That is precisely how we address enemies of our master. Hmm?"
Rodolphus's proud little smile, a mirror of his wife's endorsement, was triumphant unto itself. He seemed to luxuriate in the warmth of her approbation. He was, to be certain, a firm believer in Lord Voldemort's mission and purpose and aimed to please the man, but to impress the witch he'd been matched to wed had always seemed like an even higher purpose.
Poor man, Bellatrix found herself thinking.
Bellatrix silently summoned Rodolphus away from the inert, executed prisoner with a little motion of her hand, and the two of them started to walk away. Bellatrix felt very cold indeed now in her unforgiving armour. She glanced about again, taking in the sights of what had happened here. The battleground, now an expanse of desolation, bore the indelible marks of their conquest. Huge burn marks seared the snowy, muddy ground. There were cavernous holes; a few trees were still smouldering. The enemy had left some bodies behind, unable to retrieve all their casualties before fleeing. As the anguished cries of the battlefield transformed into haunting murmurs, a figure materialised from the recesses — an unmistakable silhouette Bellatrix knew very well by now. Lord Voldemort, a portrait of ominous magnificence, approached Bellatrix and Rodolphus, his very footfalls resonating with a pounding, drum-like rhythm of dominance.
His deep green velvet robes cascaded about him with an ethereal grace, the opulence of their hue juxtaposed against the monochromatic tapestry of death and decay that surrounded them. His eyes, twin coal-black irises, consumed the sight of Bellatrix's armoured form — a gaze that conveyed a strange form both yearning and possession he reserved exclusively for her.
Bellatrix, attuned to his predilections, discerned the allure she radiated in her battle-hardened attire. She knew he liked the look of her in the suit of armour she wore for combat. She shifted now where she stood. He did not look at any of his other female fighters this way, she knew. Only her. A provocative duet of sovereignty and submission unfolded between them, each flick of his eyes a testament to the slightly sinister but very meaningly rapport they had shared for some time now, the two of them having long since accidentally and magnetically taken one another into a bit of an abyss.
As a consequence of stolen glances that had escalated into fiery physical possession, a wartime revelation lingered — a shared secret as profound as it was unanticipated. Nestled within Bellatrix's womb rested the promise of a new epoch, spun forth from passion and recklessness. She was carrying the Dark Lord's heir. The truth was, at this stage, absolutely undeniable, but neither she nor Voldemort had orchestrated this development. It was an entirely unplanned repercussion of a likewise undesigned liaison. She was now far enough along that she could only just conceal things, her armour pushing against her belly in a way that would not realistically work for much longer.
Voldemort's regard now, a fusion of scrutiny and intrigue, mirrored a reflection within her. Concern, she saw in his eyes. It was a rare thing from a wizard like him. She stood in his presence, adorned with their battle victory, her body carrying his offspring. But her master just surveyed her with eyes that harboured something cryptic and with unspoken gravitas.
"Bellatrix," his silky voice . summoned her from her reverie. "You have certainly acquitted yourself admirably today. Your service to me has been commendable. But that is hardly a surprise."
Her reply to him, a bow of deference, was as much her constant pledge of fidelity as it was a renewed offering of herself to him.
"I fought as hard as I could, My Lord," she murmured, her voice little more than a whisper as she attempted to convey her devotion to him.
Voldemort's pivoted his face and attention to her husband then.
"And you, Rodolphus," he said lightly, the tension in his tone underscoring a complex dynamic. "A commendable final move with LaCroix, though I did hear Bella tell you in no uncertain terms to put the creature down like a beast. Hmm. In any case. A battle well-fought."
Rodolphus's very deep bow and bringing of his wand to his chest, a gesture graced with humility and submissiveness, acknowledged his appreciation of Voldemort's acknowledgement and seeming obliviousness or willingness to ignore any subtle criticism.
"Bella, accompany me," Voldemort's fresh words cleaved through the cold air, and Bellatrix's eyes fleetingly brushed over Rodolphus before she acquiesced to the sharp command that left precisely no room for debate. Rodolphus curled up his lips just a little and touched at her armoured shoulder. With an unspoken communion shared between spouses, Bellatrix relinquished her place at Rodolphus's side, her boots piercing the icy ground as she fell in stride beside her master. The snowy expanse beneath her feet emitted a spectral crunch, haunting now that the once chaotic and overwhelming battlefield had fallen silent.
Amidst the barren tableau, Bellatrix strode alongside Voldemort, moving as quickly as her armour and her few months of pregnancy would allow to keep up with his longer strides. His gloved hands, clasped behind his robes, betrayed the fact that his mind seemed lost in labyrinthine thought.
Finally, in a deep and steady voice laden with the gravitas of his dominion, with his breath fogging before him in the winter air, Voldemort murmured again, "You've performed splendidly, Bella. You have once again made me proud."
A very grateful smile graced Bellatrix's lips. "My life belongs to you, Master," she replied, her voice an oath inscribed in dark ink upon the parchment of her soul. She had repeated such words to him many times. She would repeat them over and over again, ad nauseam, and never grow weary of doing so.
"So," Voldemort huffed as they walked, "Who were your kills this time?" His query, a gateway to the core of the aftermath of battle, paved the way for the macabre symphony of names that fell from Bellatrix's lips. Each name, akin to a wisp of smoke in the night, bore the echoes of French bloodlines snuffed out, members of esteemed French families excised from the loom of existence. Ancient and revered, they had met their demise by her wand.
Voldemort's amusement intermingled with pride — a twisted harmony resonating with his own sadistic elation. They shared such emotions, the two of them, after every battle. They always revelled in her slaughter. Voldemort's gaze, a perverse look of delight, alighted upon her, reflecting the way he thought so highly of her monstrous artistry.
"I confess that I am hardly surprised that you personally inflicted triple the casualties of anyone else today," Voldemort commented, his words a tribute to her unchecked ferocity. "Though I'm pleased to have an army at my command, they all seem rather inept in comparison to my most skilled and ruthless servant... the mother of my..."
He trailed off then, his voice going quiet as his breath formed an icy crystal cloud, a phantom thread left suspended. Voldemort's gloved hand bridged the gap, his touch akin to both ice and fire as it brushed Bellatrix's cheek. He'd stopped his steps altogether, and so had Bellatrix, and now she stood facing him, letting him touch his face, staring up at him and feeling her face go warm even in the winter air. In that fleeting contact, their familiar wordless affinity resonated — their Dark and unholy communion.
"You are splendid, as always, in your armour," Voldemort murmured, his normally steady voice faltering like an uncertain heartbeat. "Is it causing you any real discomfort now?"
Bellatrix's head shook, a cascade of dark tendrils falling from where she had tied her hair back for battle. The stray curls framed her unwavering resolve. "No, my Lord," she affirmed, her voice a hushed assertion. "I am well. I can still fight. No one suspects. No one but you and I."
The suspicious flicker within Voldemort's black eyes mirrored the obvious tempestuous conflict that raged beyond. Another rarity, unease and perhaps even a hint of anxiety, crept into his aura, perching just on the precipice of his gaze. Bellatrix watched his throat swell as he gulped.
"Perhaps I should consider withdrawing you from the fray," he pondered aloud, his tone bearing the gravity of a decision of consequence. "These circumstances are turning perilous. We lost six of our own today. These aren't mere skirmishes; this is unrelenting warfare. The war we fight makes the Muggle endeavours in England look like child's play."
The atmosphere about them thickened with desperation, and Bellatrix's voice quavered, uncharacteristically fragile.
"Master," she said in a tremulous whisper, "I implore you to permit me to continue serving you. I beseech you. If necessary, deceive them. Lie to them all Claim the child is my husband's, or..."
"It is common knowledge that no progeny of yours could be sired by Rodolphus Lestrange," Voldemort interrupted in a hiss. His tone was a sharp interjection that sent a shiver rippling down her spine. Bellatrix recoiled, the clinking of her armour clumsy and unsynchronised.
The silence that opened up like a canyon then was heavy and meaningful. The truth was laced thickly through the words Voldemort had sent flying towards Bellatrix. It was undeniable. Her husband, a solid presence in her life and a good wizard, sought solace not within her embrace, but within the arms of other men. This did not make him a bad wizard, Bellatrix knew. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, and war was no time for them to be producing offspring, anyway. This realisation, which had come privately very early in their union was an unstated reality woven into the tapestry of their existence—a mosaic of secrets lurking in the corners of their world. But there were constant whispers about Rodolphus in Pureblood society in England, and here in France, it was rumoured that he made his way into certain soldiers' tents at night.
Besides, Bellatrix and Voldemort had been a bit too obvious, perhaps, in their open admiration toward one another over the course of the war.
No, no one would believe that Bellatrix's pregnancy had come because of intimacy with her own husband.
Bellatrix gnawed at her lip, feeling her tooth pull until she sensed real pain. She bowed her head and let the gusting winter winds whip her hair about, her voice scarcely more than a murmur as she asked her master, "What would you have me do, My Lord?"
Voldemort's gaze impaled her then, his eyes seeming to calculate their way through strategy, through consequence. At last he spoke, his voice firm and unyielding.
"You shall return to England, for your sake and for the sake of my heir," he proclaimed, the decree resonating with an irrevocable weight. "You shall remain safeguarded whilst I wage and win this war. In due course, you shall bear our child in secrecy. And when the opportune moment presents itself, I shall retrieve you and our... I shall return in triumph."
Bellatrix's heart raced, a frenetic rhythm leaping against her ribcage. Tears welled within her eyes, her emotions a tempest that threatened to tear her apart. She could comprehend what he was saying and why he was saying it. She couldn't linger here, his child in her womb beneath her armour, in the crucible of war, fighting hard and risking death. She could not stay here, beside Lord Voldemort, not now that she would struggle to conceal her pregnancy and that it would be relatively obvious that the child was his.
The child was the heir of the Dark Lord, the world's most incredible secret, a delicate treasure demanding protection and shielding from the maelstrom of this war.
And so, her heart beating a tattoo and her lungs searing with the effort of taking in breath, Bellatrix resigned herself to the idea of leaving combat, of leaving him . Her tears were frozen liquid diamonds on her cheeks in the wintry wind, and her armoured hands did not allow her to easily wipe them away. She was only a little surprised when her master reached with a leather glove to brush her tears from her cheekbones, and she flashed him a grateful half smile in return.
Suddenly, the memory of night after night spent shrouded within the Dark Lord's grand tent on campaign washed over her — nights of his hands all over her, of him inside of her. Nights of her swearing fealty to him even though she'd done it a hundred times already. Nights of war reminiscence and pilfered gazes. His touch lingered upon her skin, the imprint of his affection etched onto her very soul. She could feel his lips upon her neck, his fingers entwined in her raven-hued curls.
"My Lord." She bowed deeply to him now and touched her oddly bent wand to her chest as a show of respect. As she turned away, the fresh snowfall enveloped her, the bleak and frosty landscape a fitting canvas for this agonising parting. She did not wish to trouble him or burden him by whining, by protesting, by drawing any of this out. He'd made himself plain. She was to go home to England. And she would always follow his orders.
But then Voldemort's voice, in an oddly wary sort of tone, reached her ears—a final note laced with desperation. She turned round quickly to look at him through the falling snow, and he just stared at her for a half second, seeming to seethe through his teeth.
"Exercise extreme caution," he beseeched, his words a very atypical plea. "There exist many who seek your demise, and even more who would not hesitate to imperil my heir."
Bellatrix's eyes were hard as stone with an expression of dutiful determination then. Amidst the flurry of snowflakes, she locked her gaze onto his and spoke with unwavering resolve.
"I shall safeguard your child, Master," she vowed, her voice a declaration sculpted from the depths of truest devotion.
For another half second, he just stared at her, and then, very abruptly, he bridged the distance between them, his strides purposeful and unyielding. Beneath the surface of it all, Bellatrix could fel the weightiness of their predicament, the vulnerability they shared, and the Darkness that intricately wove them together. In the few seconds that Voldemort spent walking towards her, she felt all of that.
Bellatrix's breath caught in her throat as her beloved master's strong and calloused hands — hands that had wrought both power and devastation — seized her face with a possessive, desperate sort of urgency. His mouth crashed onto hers with a force leaving no room for uncertainty, sending Bellatrix staggering backwards and almost losing her balance until Voldemort wrapped one arm around her armoured waist. The kiss seemed to go on forever; his tongue twined with hers and he pressed his lips to hers a few times as she grew breathless. Bellatrix's entire universe contracted into the moment where she was now, standing here on a snowy field in Northern France, kissing her master, his heir within her, and she somehow could not remember ever having been anywhere else at any other moment in time.
At last, he released her from the kiss, though that was the very last thing in the world Bellatrix wanted. Voldemort peered into Bellatrix's eyes, his own depths veiled in the sort of darkness she could never quite read properly. Their connection, as complex as it was profound, lingered in the air. They just breathed for a little moment, and finally, his arm slipped from her armour where he'd been holding her.
He murmured, his voice a brush against her lips, "Go."
The word lingered - an echo of finality, a whispered mandate signifying the close of this era and, she hoped, a signal that something new was to come. She would go home to England to hide whilst he fought and won his war in France. She would stay safe from the Muggles' civil wars. She would bear his heir, and he would come home victorious.
Go, he had said. It had been an order. She was his servant. She would always follow his orders. So she pulled back from him, and she bowed deeply again, and without another word, she whirled to the right and Disapparated.
Notes:
This is intended to be a one-shot, unless people are interested in it becoming a longer story, in which case I may expand on it. Let me know what you think! :) Thanks for reading.
