Author's Note: I have a confession.

*Sigh.* I have made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment: I think Bellatrix is hot, you guys.

She sucks so hard, I know. But damn. Partly, that's Helena Bonham Carter's fault — because she somehow manages to make me fancy her in every single role she plays — but still. This story is part of my continued efforts to drag the Hellatrix pairing into relevance with my own two hands. This is me pulling on my golden glove and saying, 'Fine, I'll do it myself.'

Oh, and like all of my stories, this one has a theme to the chapter names. I'm interested to see how long it takes someone to figure it out.

Harry

There were a few basic mistakes Dark witches and wizards tended to make when trying to keep their arcane rituals secret.

The first was throwing up a concealment ward over the ritual area: the only thing more conspicuous than a sudden spike in Dark magic was an absence of all magic.

The second was staging their ritual in remote wilderness locations far from human eyes. Thus exchanging the wilful obliviousness of disinterested humanity for the constant vigilance and sensitivity of animals. As soon as the ritual preparation moved in, all those animals decided it was high time they moved to a nicer neighbourhood.

Muggles — and wizards, to be honest — were perfectly willing and able to ignore strange sounds, lights, and even smells. They were decidedly less willing to do so for a sudden influx of spiders, snakes, and deer into their gardens. They complained to the authorities, those complaints were intercepted by the Ministry, and suddenly the ritual site could be found by 'following teh spiders' as Hagrid liked to say.

The third, and most damning, was assuming that, just because they were in the middle of nowhere, there was no need to put up a silencing ward.

As anyone who had ever shared a wall with Mr and Mrs Weasley's bedroom could tell you, always put up a silencing ward.

Harry shook the traumatic memories off with difficulty, continuing his journey toward the source of the inhuman chanting that rang out through the otherwise silent forest. Ordinarily, he would've had Ron beside him, mumbling profanity and doing his best to avoid stepping anywhere near the steadily increasing stream of spiders scurrying along the forest floor from the direction of the ritual. But, with the number of amateur mistakes the Dark witch or wizard had made, it was decided he could handle it alone.

The number of Dark magic users still alive and at large who could actually pose a threat to him could be counted on one hand with fingers left over. All were leftovers from Voldemort's old disciples, and none of them had managed to remain at large by erecting the magical equivalent of neon signs saying: 'DARK MAGIC RITUAL HERE! AURORS AND HITWIZARDS EAT FREE!'

That said, the malevolent flickers of violet lightning lashing hungrily through the air — devouring entire trees in an instant before ripping their way up through the screaming air into the tortured amethyst vortex of arcane energy steadily growing in the sky above — were making him think that perhaps there had been a slight miscalculation.

Maybe, just maybe, the mysterious dark magic user wasn't incompetent, merely overconfident.

Or, perhaps, they were cunning enough to have faked incompetence, knowing that the ascendant Auror forces would likely send only a few operatives, almost certainly one or both of their two best, to deal with a perceived amateur.

The vicious triumph twisting Bellatrix Lestrange's haggard features suggested it might have been the latter.

"Ooooh, Itty-Bitty-Baby-Potter! Out all alone in the woods at this time of night?" Despite the taunting babyish tone of her words, her wand remained a blur of movement. Bolts of eldritch energy thicker than telephone poles writhed and swirled between the points of the glowing pentacle surrounding her. "Didn't my dear cousin ever teach you better?"

The holly of Harry's trusty wand creaked under his white-knuckled grip, a barely restrained snarl of fury the only response he trusted himself to make.

"No?" Bellatrix laughed with savage amusement, her free hand coming up to her mouth in a mock-embarrassed expression. "I guess he didn't have time." She winked cruelly, her eyes raking up and down his form appreciatively.

"Still, you've grown into quite a fine young specimen despite his influence, and we'll have plenty of time for fun after I'm finished." Her expression swiftly melted into one that might have been called smouldering on a less twisted individual, her tongue darting out to twirl around her finger suggestively.

Harry suppressed a shudder of revulsion at the gesture, refusing to let the monster before him throw him off guard with taunts or her repugnant flirtations.

"You'll have all the time in the world once you're back in your cell at Azkaban. The Dementors may be gone, but I hear the magic suppressing wards leave you weaker than the meanest squib."

"Taking me away to prison, are you?" Bellatrix cackled, "Not even man enough to take care of me yourself. Sirius had many flaws, but-" a bolt of roiling blue-green magic burned its way across a crystalline cocoon of amethyst power mere millimetres from Bellatrix's grinning face. The shield slowly fading back into invisibility as the magic of the attack drained away.

"You. Don't get to speak his name." Harry said. Very coldly and quietly, but the words carried through the howling of the untamed magic as if he had roared them through a Sonorus.

"Ohhh," Bellatrix's shudder looked almost orgasmic as her violet eyes flared, "you're not planning on taking me alive after all. I'm impressed."

"It's always so difficult when apprehending a dangerous felon such as yourself. The Minister will be disappointed, but I'm sure he'll understand when I tell him you forced me to end your life rather than surrender." Harry shrugged, a perfectly crafted aura of resigned disappointment failing utterly to conceal the fury that still burned in his emerald eyes.

"And you really think your Minister's dear assistant will believe that? Filthy mud-"

"Oh no," Harry interrupted the tirade before Bellatrix could truly begin, "she'll see through it before I even open my mouth." He paused, a vindictive smile twisting his lips, "But, you forget, you tortured Hermione when we were hunting down Riddle's horcruxes. I don't think she'll be too upset when she hears I wasn't able to bring you in alive."

"Such a naughty boy you are," Bellatrix cackled, "I'll have to put you over my knee once I'm done here. But, first, I have a ritual to complete." Then, she turned away and resumed chanting.

As if the most powerful wizard in the world hadn't just announced his intent to murder her and pass it off as an unfortunate accident in the course of attempting to subdue her. Harry almost would've admired her brazenness if he weren't already half-drunk on the idea of killing her at last.

Still, that didn't mean he was going to waste the free shot that she had so graciously granted him.

Taking a moment to centre himself, Harry called upon the power roiling deep within his core. He stoked the furnace of arcane energy until it felt as if his skin would start smoking from the barely restrained magic.

With a flick of his wrist, his wand disappeared into his wrist holster. As useful as it was for refining and shaping magic, it was unlikely to do well channelling the amount of raw power he was preparing to unleash.

Finally, when the air around him had begun visibly distorting from the concentration of magic pooling inside him, he thrust his arms forward with a guttural roar and released the collected magic.

The magic seared its way through the air separating him from Bellatrix, a mix between a spray of plasmic lava and greedy tongues of electric fire that reduced the undergrowth and even the oxygen of the intervening space to constituent atoms. With a roar like a planet-sized dragon, the energy collided with the same amethyst shield that had deflected his initial spell.

The impact sent out a shockwave strong enough to knock him off his feet, hurtling backwards through the air until his back collided with a tree. The wood split with a creaking groan of protest at the impact. The energy itself flowed forward, billowing up and around the point of impact in an explosion of such force and brilliance that Harry's world disappeared into ringing blue-white oblivion.

With a groan his ruined ears hadn't a hope of hearing, Harry felt himself fall through the directionless void. He impacted heavily with what he could only assume was the ground from the sensation of dirt and decaying leaves against his fingers.

Pushing himself in the opposite direction, he managed to retrieve his wand from his holster and — after a few tries — poke himself in the eye with it. Swearing loudly, he was relieved as the rudimentary healing spell allowed him to actually hear the words before staggering back up to his feet with a snarl.

The trees surrounding Bellatrix's ritual site had been either flattened or incinerated and the magical vortex in the sky above had gained a malevolent emerald core he recognised as the remnants of his own assault. The witch herself remained perfectly unharmed, too absorbed in her ritual to even spare a moment to taunt him for his failure to so much as scratch her.

So, brute force was out. That was fine. Harry had spent his entire childhood overcoming enemies and obstacles he couldn't hope to overpower. Reaching out with his magic, Harry sunk himself deep into the surrounding undergrowth, pouring his magic into the world around him.

The world responded.

Jagged tendrils of twisted stone and plant matter tore themselves from the earth surrounding his quarry. The clearing transformed from a flattened crater to a nightmarish thicket of writhing vines. They reached for Bellatrix with questing fingers of jagged crystal and monstrous thorns, smashing themselves against the invisible barrier that guarded her and sending ripples of amethyst energy across it.

Within moments, she was invisible as the assault made the shield visible in its entirety. Bellatrix was sheathed in a crystalline shard of violet power jutting from the earth in a hexagonal pattern surrounding the ritual pentacle at its core. Its tip connected to the base of the swirling magic in the sky above, providing an invisible tether between the storm above and the ritual creating it.

Satisfied, Harry withdrew his questing tendrils, allowing the shield to fade back into invisibility. Flicking his wand down toward the ground, he focused on shifting the strongest crystalline and mineral materials he had collected into a single mass deep underground.

As he did so, he watched Bellatrix's continuing orchestration of the foul energies she had conjured. She was wasting no time, despite the apparent indestructibility of her defences.

Her gaunt body was now encased in a spectral hourglass that joined the pentacle at its base and seemed to be drawing the collected energy from the sky above into a crackling cyclone centred on the witch herself. Within moments, she had been swallowed completely, her voice ringing out through the storm with an unnatural resonance, as if the magic itself was joining in her chant.

This needed to be stopped. Immediately. Even the ritual to resurrect Voldemort hadn't felt as powerful or malevolent as whatever Bellatrix was attempting, and he had little trouble imagining that it might be something old Tom hadn't been crazy enough to try himself.

With a sweeping movement of his wand, Harry brought the grasping dragon's claw of crystal and metal he had forged underground tearing up through the unshielded earth beneath the ritual circle. The palm vaporised instantly upon contact with the whirlwind enshrouding Bellatrix, as did most of the claws when attempting to slice through the circle itself. But one, the 'thumb,' punctured a blazing glyph at the junction where hourglass, star, and circle met just as Bellatrix's chant ceased, replaced by triumphant howls of laughter.

In an instant, the laughter became a scream of animalistic anguish, shifting a moment later to an inhuman screech of agony as white light flared from the ruined glyph, expanding in a shroud of blinding radiance that washed away first Bellatrix, then the ritual circle, and finally the world with an emphatic sizzle.

Bellatrix

Baleful violet eyes regarded flowing waves of ivory acromantula silk with enough venom to make a Borgia swoon. Delicious thoughts of how delightfully those waves would burn whispered seductively past the heavy weight of the fifteen-hundred-year-old earrings that had been foisted upon her by her 'doting' mother. She smothered them with brutal efficiency, glancing instead at the iridescent face of the opalescent clock adorning the wall above her palatial vanity: 6:30 am. Less than an hour of freedom remaining. Unless things went according to plan, of course.

Every passing moment was making that possibility seem increasingly unlikely, however. Hence the ever more insistent urge to incinerate the garment that marked her imminent enslavement. The last flickering embers of hope within her were all that kept her from reaching for the wand concealed within her painfully tight bodice and indulging in a last moment of rebellion.

That, and the whispered words her mother had impressed upon her before abandoning her in her gilded prison: "You'll have a visitor before the ceremony. A man with the power and vision to arrest the creeping decline of our society and restore the majesty of magical Britain. He's responsible for our host's sudden good fortune, and, if you impress him, he can do the same for us."

Druella Black was a far more reserved woman than her sister-in-law Walburga, for her to speak thusly of anyone implied more than enough about their formidable capabilities. A man capable of impressing her to such a degree might even be able to convince her to change the plans for her eldest daughter. Were he to be suitably impressed.

And Bellatrix Black was nothing if not impressive.

With a shimmering whisper, the outline of the door leading from the room flickered back into existence, the heavy wood once more breaking the formerly smooth wallpaper that had surrounded her since her father had enchanted the door to seal her within. A deep inhalation steeled her nerve and strengthened her resolve, the determination on her face disappearing beneath an alluringly dangerous smile as she turned to face her mysterious visitor.

She had expected a man who wore power and danger like the mantle of an ancient sorcerer king. A man with the poise and bearing of the wizards who had once bent the very fabric of reality to their whim and used it to carve the world their lesser descendants inhabited to this day.

The handsome features were little surprise either. The subtle influence of innate magical strength often worked to mould its wielder according to their subconscious whims, making most powerful magicals strikingly attractive.

Even the finely crafted but practical clothes were not unexpected, although their cut and cloth were significantly less traditional than she would have expected of a man capable of impressing both the Lestranges and Blacks.

What she had not expected was to find him — and herself — standing in the centre of a forest clearing that, although seemingly untouched, threatened to sear her skin with the fading electricity of powerful magic. It was only when his expression shifted from swift assessment to wary confusion that she realised her mistake, and the finely formed danger of her crafted mask shattered in the face of unmitigated relief.

She wanted to laugh, to cry, to sink to her knees and scream her relief and triumph to the world until even her bastard family could hear the clarion call of her freedom. But, even if she was unlikely to remain a member of the House of Black for much longer, she was still Bellatrix Black. She had a reputation to maintain.

"Cut it a little close there, didn't we?" She drawled, cocking a hip as she raked her gaze up and down the man with naked appraisal. "Andy did say you had a flair for the dramatic," she snapped her eyes back to meet his smouldering gaze, letting her pearly white teeth capture her crimson lower lip in a way that never failed to make an impact.

"She didn't mention Ted's friend being quite so…" She trailed off as if searching for the correct word and letting his imagination run wild with her suggestive silence, "striking."

The man was so close she could taste the distinctive flavour of his magic burning behind his emerald eyes.

He hadn't moved, not even the twirling warp of apparition.

One moment, he was twenty feet away from her across the clearing, the next he was so close she had to crane her neck to look up into his face. The air was suddenly heavy with barely restrained power, the fading potency of the forest clearing lost in the mounting electricity of living magic attempting to tear its way into the world.

The shift occurred so suddenly that she gasped, not even registering the iron grip holding her wrists above her head or the rough bark digging into her back through the sumptuous fabric of her gown.

The breath stolen from her by the sudden electricity of his proximity returned in something that might've been a laugh or a breathless moan.

"So forward!" She breathed, the words little more than an excuse to empty her lungs so she could drink in more of his scent, a mixture of wood and treacle that sent her own magic coiling up her spine. "Does this mean Andy mentioned my offered reward after all?" She'd been joking when she said it, but here? In the grip of her overwhelming relief and half-smothered by the intoxicating embrace of her saviour's presence? She was more than ready to follow through.

Her eyes fluttered closed as his face descended toward her, lips opening ever so slightly in anticipation of his searing kiss.

She received only the warmth of his breath across her face, his voice low and tight with suppressed emotion, "I don't know what game you're playing, Lestrange-"

She laughed, a ray of relief momentarily piercing the sultry shroud the man had woven for her, "It's Black, silly! That was the whole point, remember?" She opened her eyes, violet meeting emerald and now, with bare inches between them, finally recognising the murderous rage churning their viridian depths.

This was not the man her sister had sent to rescue her, and the only escape he promised was death.

Fear and fury surged within her, rage at the utter gall of the man who dared to dangle the possibility of regaining control of her life only to snuff it out exploding from within her in a raw scream of mingled magic and emotion.

The hand holding her wrists captive above her head disappeared as her startled assailant was blown away by a roiling purple inferno of raw magic. A howl of incandescent fury echoed off the trees as she tore her wand from her bodice before his body had even hit the ground. The movement ripped the suffocating neckline of her dress, allowing her to draw an unrestricted breath for the first time in hours. She stalked forward as the man flowed back to his feet with inhuman grace and fluidity, his wand already out and sparking with murderous intent.

His arm flickered up, a half-formed spell flowing from the tip when a more controlled burst of violet fire issued from her wand. His magic flared in response, the spell shifting into a crimson hemisphere of magical energy that sent the fire flowing around him with contemptuous ease.

Then the shield shattered when the blue-white spear of magical ice she had concealed in the fire punctured through it, coming close enough to slice a thin line across his handsome cheekbone.

"Neat trick," he growled, tracing the wound with his thumb even as his eyes remained locked on hers, the anger burning there seemingly a match for her own. As his finger passed, the wound disappeared, as if he were simply wiping away a smudge of dirt.

"I have plenty more where that came from, fucker!" To prove it, she slashed her wand through the air as if she were carving her opponent up with a knife. In response, the tree behind him became a mess of serpentine coils, venom dripping from a hundred heads as the snake-headed hydra lunged for its helpless prey. Without pause, she continued the movement, parlaying it into a corkscrewing jab that released a deafening bolt of pure sound: drowning out the hissing of her transfigured beast and disguising the twin spells as one.

The sound, visible only as a rippling distortion in the air, disappeared into a hole in reality. A spot of darkness that seemed, not so much black, as so stark a void in the fabric of the universe that colour itself was rendered meaningless by its presence.

That wasn't an issue, she'd fully expected him to counter that more obvious attack. It was when the hydra's multitude of fanged maws — darting through the air toward the man's seemingly defenceless back — dissolved into a cloud of onyx smoke and searing embers that dread began to pool in her stomach.

The incendiary cloud flowed around the man before streaming across the clearing like a river in spate, swallowing her in an instant.

She threw up a dome of ice, gasping as a hissing cloud of steam enveloped her, the heat of her own melted shield reddening her skin and threatening to cook her alive. A desperate twirl of her wand sent the steam swirling into a poisonous green cloud billowing back across the clearing. The formerly verdant undergrowth withered at its passing as it swept forth to choke the life out of her assailant.

Only her assailant wasn't there.

Pain lanced through her back as a booted foot impacted with the base of her spine, sending her tumbling forward into a rising bed of grasping earth and stone that flowed around her arms and legs and twisted its way into a choking noose about her neck. Terrible crushing pressure made the cartilage of her neck crackle and groan as her throat was cruelly constricted. Her wand dropped from nerveless fingers, dark spots of oxygen deprivation eating away at the corners of her vision as she dimly felt her helpless body twisting and lifting in the air.

Cruel green eyes regarded her with malevolent satisfaction, "This is for Sirius, you heartless bitch."

Sirius? An image of her fresh-faced eleven-year-old cousin flickered before her fading eyes. I didn't think he'd take the joke about Gryffindorks so hard… It was a ridiculous thought, made possible only by the encroaching delirium of unconsciousness and death, but even as it crossed her mind, she saw her killer's eyes widen.

The tendrils choking the life from her dissolved into smoke, sending her crashing to the ground as they coiled protectively around the man's form like affectionate serpents. Her body drew deep, heaving breaths through her ruined throat, the need for life-giving oxygen overpowering the searing agony of her burning trachea. An awful panic seized her as she felt herself convulsing uncontrollably, retching coughs squeezing her diaphragm so tightly she feared she might suffocate after all.

The struggle grew easier as her shoulders were seized, rough hands forcing her onto her back so she could draw air without the smothering obstruction of withered plants and dessicated dirt. The wand pressed roughly into her jugular did little to ease her heaving gasps, however.

"Who the fuck are you?" The man above her snarled, jabbing the wand even harder into her neck to emphasise the question.

"You-" her words were interrupted by a hacking coughing fit that the man seemed to bear with patience stretched so thin as to be translucent. "You kidnap me from my wedding, try to kill me, and don't even KNOW WHO I AM?"

"Wedding?" The man's gaze flicked down as if noticing the formerly magnificent acromantula silk wedding dress swathing her for the first time.

"I'll kill you, you fucking PSYCHO!" She screamed, her hands flashing up to latch around his throat the instant the momentary confusion lowered the would-be murderer's guard. Her fingers had barely brushed against his skin before his blazing eyes met hers and her world disappeared in a sickening lurch.

"Bellatrix," the single word was more closely guarded than a Malfoy's purse, but she could still detect the warmth behind it. It gave her hope. "I was under the impression all true Blacks were forbidden from speaking to a filthy blood traitor like me."

She doubtless had more, Andromeda was never short of biting remarks when the mood had her, but they cut off when red-rimmed violet eyes rose into view, "They're selling me off. To the Lestranges, Andy."

The mask of biting politeness shattered in an instant, replaced by an overwhelming surge of horrified empathy, "What!? Sel-"

"It's a chattel marriage, according to the old customs." Bellatrix interrupted, careful not to meet her sister's horrified gaze lest her wavering voice break completely. "'Only appropriate for the union of two ancient pureblood houses' Aunt Walburga said."

"What can I do?" The steely certitude in her sister's voice actually managed to bring a smile to Bellatrix's face, the first since she'd heard the news three days prior.

"Help me escape." Her plea made, she finally met her sister's eyes. No words were needed.

The scene dissolved in a sudden swirl of sickeningly twisting unreality.

"So, it's settled?" She asked, casting a wary eye around her room as if one of her parents, or, worse yet, the Lestranges, might be lurking behind a bookshelf. Andromeda nodded, her face appearing stressed but certain through the communication mirror Bellatrix had stolen from her uncle's mansion.

"Ted has a friend who's agreed to help. He's strong enough to get you out and knows enough about pureblood customs to bluff his way onto the ceremony grounds. We're getting you out of this, Bella." Bellatrix nodded, the words filling her with hope, her freedom so close she could almost taste it.

Except, Ted's friend had never shown up. Because this had already happened. She wasn't curled up on her bed plotting her rescue with her formerly estranged sister, she was on her back in a forest trying not to die. And the bastard who'd tried to kill her was poking around inside her head.

With a force of will she emptied her mind. Emotion, thought, even the false sensations of the memory she was reliving faded away into nothingness, and when her eyes opened she was again back in the forest, glaring into the face of the man who'd tried to kill her.

He was frowning, no longer the murderous rage that had first twisted his features, but a wary frustration. As if she'd prevented him from solving a particularly complicated puzzle. He had also, she belatedly realised, bound her hands together with some kind of heavy metal handcuffs. As subtly as she could, she tried working her wrists against the cuffs, but, whoever he was, he clearly knew how to use the things.

Which, on reflection, wasn't particularly comforting.

"That was Andromeda you were talking to." The man said, his face carefully neutral.

"She is my sister." Bellatrix bit back, trying to marshall enough magic to apparate away from the bastard before he could go back to trying to kill her but finding her power strangely unresponsive.

"Who hasn't spoken to you in over thirty years." He spoke with such certainty that she couldn't help but laugh at the cruel irony of her death coming at the hand of such an obvious nutter.

"We spoke last night, you were just playing the memory in your little legilimantic jaunt." The words were practically dripping in derisive scorn. If she had to die, she was going to make damn sure she went out being as much of a bitch to him as possible. The insult seemed to have no effect, however, as the lunatic merely stared at her for several long moments before standing and pulling her up to her feet with him.

"Ready to kill me now?" She spat, even as she tensed to begin an apparition twirl.

"We'll see." Was all he said, before the squeezing pressure of apparition ripped away the forest with nothing but a soft 'pop' to mark their passing.

End AN: And so, it begins.

I wrote this because I've seen a lot of stories where Harry goes back in time to the seventies and ends up with Bellatrix. I've even seen a few where Bellatrix gets de-aged or just hooks up with Harry (or someone else) in the present at her current age. I'm going to tentatively say this might be the first story where a seventies version of Bellatrix ends up in the present. Let alone post-Hogwarts.

I'm probably wrong, there's so much HP fanfic out there that someone must've had this idea before, but, until someone inevitably writes a review pointing out that other fic, I'll let myself hang on to this little delusion. (Also, I originally wrote this idea down in August 2022, so if it's from later than that I'm still holding onto the title.)