Lestrange Manor sat in the Oxfordshire countryside, and even under mid-morning sun it managed to look bleak.
Servants moved through the corridors in matching dark uniforms, silent as ghosts. House-elves were rarer still, glimpsed only when a candelabra needed replacing or hearth ash needed sweeping. They'd flicker into existence, finish, and vanish.
Green flames roared to life in a lesser fireplace tucked in the corner of the parlor. Bellatrix stepped out and landed hard on the carpet.
The manic thrill hadn't fully left her face. Her eyes glittered. That strange smile still clung to the corners of her mouth.
She didn't go looking for Rodolphus. Instead she turned and climbed the stairs.
Her bedroom occupied the far end of the east wing corridor. She pushed through the door into a large, lavishly decorated space: a carved four-poster bed, silk hangings. Sinister magical portraits lined the walls. A glass cabinet displayed an assortment of dark artifacts that looked dangerous at a glance.
She tossed her cloak onto the foot of the bed, pulled a robe from the wardrobe, and changed.
This was the Lestrange household. She owed Rodolphus a brief account. Then she'd go see the one who mattered.
Back out of the bedroom, retracing her path along the corridor. Near the family council chamber, she rounded a corner and walked straight into someone emerging from the library.
Rodolphus Lestrange.
He stood a full head taller than her, broad across the shoulders.
He glanced at her without breaking stride, continuing toward the council chamber.
"Done?" His voice was low, flat.
Bellatrix lifted her chin, wearing the satisfied look of a task well executed.
"Of course." She injected deliberate brightness into her tone. "The Dark Lord's gift was graciously received by Regulus Black. Quite a promising reaction, too."
In her estimation, the boy's performance had met expectations. Perhaps exceeded them. A twelve-year-old encountering the Dark Awakening for the first time, holding steady, even grasping something from it. The talent deserved recognition.
More importantly, it proved she'd carried out her assignment beautifully.
And a beautifully completed assignment meant Voldemort's gaze would linger on her a little longer.
Bellatrix felt nothing for Rodolphus. Theirs was a political marriage between pure-blood houses, nothing more. A Black daughter wed to the Lestrange heir to cement the bond between two ancient families, to trade advantages, to keep the bloodline pure.
She'd known what Rodolphus was from the start. Cold, rigid, a man who placed family interests and pure-blood ideology above everything. Incapable of warmth toward a wife, demanding only that she fulfill her obligations as Lady Lestrange. The social functions. An heir, eventually. A bridge between the Black and Lestrange families when needed.
His view of her was its mirror image. He knew what Bellatrix was: fanatical, obsessive, nursing a devotion to Voldemort that bordered on pathological. He'd married her for her surname, her blood, her standing at Voldemort's side. What she was like as a person didn't concern him, so long as she didn't damage Lestrange interests.
The name Black carried more weight in pure-blood circles than Lestrange. The Blacks had produced more Wizengamot members, more senior Ministry of Magic officials. Their holdings were more extensive, their network of connections broader.
And her position at Voldemort's side, as one of his most fervent followers with direct access and important assignments, granted her a kind of diplomatic immunity under the Lestrange roof.
Rodolphus could be cold to her, but he couldn't afford to dismiss her. Dismissing her meant dismissing the trust Voldemort placed in her.
Now Regulus had drawn the Dark Lord's attention.
That meant the Blacks' weight within Voldemort's camp had increased by another degree. As a daughter of the House of Black, Bellatrix's own standing rose with the tide.
So when she emphasized Regulus's promising reaction, the real message was aimed squarely at Rodolphus.
Another wizard the Dark Lord values, from my family. Mind your manners.
One corner of Rodolphus's mouth twitched. The movement was so slight it was impossible to tell whether it was mockery or something else entirely.
His eyes settled on her. "How did Orion react?"
Bellatrix let out a derisive laugh.
"How do you think?" She mimicked Orion's calm, subtly oppressive tone. "'The House of Black is grateful for his regard.' Gratitude on the surface. Bleeding inside, I'd imagine."
Rodolphus grunted. Nothing more.
"The Dark Lord is waiting for your report. In the study." He turned without looking at her again and walked off in the opposite direction.
Bellatrix watched his back disappear around the corner and curled her lip.
They each knew what the other was. Neither bothered pretending otherwise. Even surface courtesy was a wasted effort.
She straightened her collar, drew a deep breath, and reassembled the expression of reverence and fervor before setting off toward the study where Voldemort waited.
The study occupied a separate wing deeper within the estate, a small standalone building Voldemort had commandeered. Bellatrix passed through a long corridor lined on both sides with portraits. Lestrange ancestors tracked her with sullen eyes from their frames.
At the corridor's end stood a heavy oak door, shut tight. No ornamentation on its surface. Only a brass handle, polished bright from use.
She raised her hand and knocked three times, gently.
"Come in," said the voice inside.
The room was small, sparsely furnished. A massive desk of dark wood, a single high-backed chair. The only light came from a magical lamp on the desk, its shade fashioned from some translucent, bone-like material, casting a sickly white glow.
That light stretched Voldemort's silhouette across the stone wall behind him, the shadow's edges blurred and faintly shifting, as though it breathed on its own.
He sat in the high-backed chair with his back to the door, facing an iron-barred window on the room's far side.
Bellatrix entered, held her breath. She stopped roughly three paces from the desk, pressed her right hand over her heart, and bent into a deep bow.
The gesture was theatrical, steeped in ritual.
"My Lord."
Voldemort turned, slowly.
The Voldemort of 1973 had completed the critical metamorphosis from Tom Riddle into something no longer entirely human, though he hadn't yet reached the extreme serpentine appearance of later years.
The face was still recognizably a human face, though the features had shifted in disturbing ways.
A biting pressure radiated from him. He wasn't projecting magic deliberately, wasn't doing anything at all. He was sitting in a chair. Yet the temperature in the room felt several degrees lower than the rest of the manor. Thin wisps of black mist drifted through the air now and then, magic bleeding from him like heat off scorched stone.
A book lay open on the desk.
Its cover was unusual. A dull yellowish-brown, its surface marked with fine pores and the creased texture that had once belonged to a living thing.
Human skin.
Voldemort's long, pale fingers rested on the edge of a page, the nails sharp and hard.
He raised those red eyes and looked at Bellatrix.
Under that gaze, a stare that dispensed malice and crushing pressure in equal, indiscriminate measure, Bellatrix trembled. Color flooded her cheeks. Her face was the face of someone lost in rapture.
She was soaring.
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