A Life Together

A Life Together

He'd expected her to be put in Slytherin. Where else, for a Black? But that didn't mean he had to like it.

Bellatrix flounced her way to the Slytherin table, basking in the cheers and shouts that greeted her. She wore a supremely smug expression, her pretty little mouth pulled in a satisfied smirk. Rodolphus found himself wanting nothing more than to give one of her bouncing raven curls a good, hard tug.

She looked down the table, and a sharp gleam entered her eyes as she saw Rodolphus, and grinned. 'Great,' he thought. 'Six years of Bellatrix bloody Black.'

--

"Glad to see you've finally learnt your place, Black!" Rodolphus called behind him. "Five steps behind me!"

Bellatrix scowled, and started walking faster. No sooner has she shoved in front of him than Rodolphus quickened his steps as well. They jostled their way down the hall, then broke into a run, racing each other back to the Common Room. In trying to careen around the corner into the door, they tripped over each other and crashed to the floor, both laughing raucously.

Lucius Malfoy sneered as he stepped over the giggling pair. "When did you two stop hating each other?"

--

By his sixteenth birthday, Rodolphus had finally gotten taller than Bellatrix, and looked pleased as a peacock to have her on his arm at the spring ball.

"I can't believe she let him take her," Demetria Wilkes whispered to one of her cronies. "I was sure it would be Raphael Eldridge."

"They do look pretty together..." Mallory Twiddle sighed. With Bellatrix gowned in jade silk and Rodolphus in resplendent navy robes, they seemed to echo the future, but as soon as it whispered, it faded away; they danced on the edge, not shaken of childhood, but not immersed as adults.

--

After Rodolphus spent himself in her, they lay quiet, only their panting breaths breaking the silence. With her chest rising against his, he brushed sweat-damp curls from her face, looking as though he might kiss her, then shied from it. He wondered, irrationally, if she was cold, or uncomfortable, if his weight on her was too heavy, or if now that the haze of passion had ebbed, she felt the pain of her breached maidenhead.

"Bella," he whispered, uncertain what he would say. Certainly no apology, but some words feel necessary. "If I'd known..."

"Stop," she interrupted. "Don't spoil it."

--

Rodolphus would have been shocked to see Bellatrix kneel if he hadn't been so moved himself. Never before had he encountered anyone with such an aura of power, of design; Rodolphus knew in an instant why Bellatrix had signed over her soul.

"My Bella," the red-eyed Lord began, and Rodolphus was surprised at the jealous twinge those words evoked. "Who have you brought me?"

"Rodolphus Lestrange," her dark voice replied. "He will serve you well."

"You trust him, then?" His voice hissed, and Bellatrix shivered.

Her head lifted, and Rodolphus could see passionate sincerity in her midnight eyes. "I do."

--

The ceremony had been short, as befitted the patience of both parties, and its beauty was only eclipsed by the dazzling glory of their reception. The couple spent as much time as they could dancing together, and sending flirtatious glances across the room when they were obliged to be apart.

"Lucky thing," remarked one of Bellatrix's ancient aunts, "to have made a love match."

Her expression somewhere between confusion and outrage, Bellatrix protested, "I did no such thing!"

Arching her brows, the aunt glanced across the room, to Rodolphus, who was giving his wife a devouring gaze. "As you say."

--

"She hasn't cried," Rodolphus said. "I suppose I'm not surprised. She never does."

"I've never seen that woman so... subdued," Rabastan commented, and shivered slightly. "Unsettling, that. Still, to lose a child... I suppose she's coping in her own way."

Rodolphus wasn't sure. She had lost weight, grown so pale, but what troubled him most was the dull sheen of her eyes. Since the accident, he had not once seen that ardent spark, that inner fire that so defined her. As she refused to confide her feelings or show any weakness, he was at a loss to help her recover.

--

Despite being disarmed and cornered, Bellatrix looked ready to claw someone's eyes out as her last defence. Alastor Moody stalked forward, putting a binding spell on her and locking her wrists behind her back, then looked to Rodolphus, similarly bound and snarling. "This'll be a nice story for the papers. Azkaban's most wanted couple, felled together."

"You'll regret this," she hissed. "You'll see. He'll be back, and you'll regret it." Rodolphus looked at her, and saw that the snap of madness hadn't left her eyes, that the half-crazed fury still raged in defiance of her fetters, and he felt proud.

--

He recognised her step, the sound of his wife's boots clicking against stone. When the door was blasted open, he was not at all surprised to see Bellatrix standing there, smirking slightly. She looked like the goddess Nemesis, all the beauty of revenge glowing in her features, and Rodolphus did his best to maintain dignified despite his shabby appearance. He made her an elaborate bow, ludicrous in his prison robes, and Bellatrix responded with an elegant curtsey before laughing, leaping up, and throwing her arms around his neck. "Land yourself in here again," she teased, "and you're on your own."

--

Knowing the Aurors close, Rodolphus felt his wife tremble slightly in his arms, and knew it was not from the chill of the evening. She had always defied Death, been his deliverer, brought his wrath on her foes. She had never expected to be afraid. For himself, he felt only resignation; better to make a noble end of himself than to live in defeat.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, and drew him down into a soft kiss. Once, it would have been too sentimental, too vulnerable, but it would be the last, and they had nothing now to lose.