Conjugal Visit

The room was small and square and dark. It had a bed pushed against one wall, a barred window, and a wide door. That was all.

Presently, the door opened. Framed in the doorway were three men: a prisoner with his hands bound and a guard on either side. The guards stopped at the doorway while the prisoner entered the room.

The prisoner had brown hair and eyes. He was large-framed, but painfully thin. With some added weight, he would have looked perfectly ordinary. The guards closed the door behind him. The man walked to the bed and sat down.

After a short time, the door was opened again, and another prisoner, similarly bound, was ushered inside. Tangled, roughly cut black hair hung past her shoulders, and her eyes glinted beneath their hooded lids. She was as gaunt as the man, but otherwise bore no resemblance. When the door was closed, she spoke.

“I’m not sure what they expect us to do with our hands bound.”

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” The man replied automatically, without looking up. Their voices were rusty from disuse. The woman gave a short, sharp bark, not quite a laugh. She examined her bonds more closely.

“I think maybe . . .” She sat down on the bed beside the man and pulled her hands apart. Stood up and they snapped back together. “Clever. Probably only works when we’re both on the bed.”

The man didn’t seem to be listening. The woman sat down again.

“Rodolphus?”

“Bellatrix, do you think he’ll really come back?”

The woman’s head turned sharply.

“Don’t be a fool, Rodolphus. He’ll come back, in time, and we will be avenged.”

“But all that bother with the Muggle-lover and his wife, and they never said a word until they broke.” The man began talking faster, and his agitation increased with every word. “What if he really is dead? What if he’s gone forever and we never leave this place?”

“Shut up, Rodolphus. He is beyond death, you know that. He eats it, for God’s sake.” The woman spoke with absolute confidence, her eyes alight with a manic fervor. “He is gathering his strength, even as we speak, and when he comes back he will exalt us and we will crush the world beneath our feet.”

The man turned slightly to face the woman, but could not quite meet her eyes.

“And what do we do until then? Sit here and rot? Lose all our magic to the Dementors and become useless?”

The woman gave the man a look of absolute disgust. “Lost our magic, ickle Roddy?”

“Don’t call me that. And no, I haven’t.” He didn’t add the “not yet”, but they both heard it.

“Well, unlike you, ickle Roddy, I have been making myself useful. I’ve been talking to the Dementors, and I think I can persuade them to join our side.” The woman’s tone was triumphant.

The man regarded the woman with utter horror. “What could they offer us, and why would they come? We’re trying to get away from them, remember? How,” he whispered, shrinking away from her. “How can you stand to go near them?”

“Gods, Roddy, I know you weren’t always this dense. The only reason they stay here is because they have access to all our happy thoughts without any annoying Patroni to rebuff them. But they’re Dark creatures just as we are. We can offer them a world full of Muggles and Mudbloods and blood traitors to Kiss at will.”

“But speak to them, Bellatrix? Don’t you feel it when they come near?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet? I think even the blood traitor has worked out how to stay sane in this place, Roddy. Do you need me to spell it out as if you were still a schoolboy?”

“If I was going to go mad, it would have happened already,” the man replied acerbically. “But that doesn’t mean I enjoy being around them. There’s no pleasure in thinking of all we’ve lost.”

“Did you expect enjoyment, ickle Roddy? Did you think Azkaban would be a walk in the park?” She hissed suddenly. The man had grabbed her forearm and was squeezing it tightly.

“Don’t call me that, Bellatrix.” The man was scowling, his face inches from that of the woman, his eyes burning into hers.

The woman’s eyes showed no fear. She retained her scornful expression. “Admit that I’m right. Admit that I was always the stronger one. Admit it!”

The man released the woman’s arm. He slumped his shoulders and lowered his head, becoming the very image of defeat. “You were always stronger,” he said dully.

“And don’t forget it.” Some of the tension drained out of the woman’s body, and her expression softened slightly. “Anyway, enough talk. We only have until morning, and I for one would like to make the best of it.”

After that, there was very little conversation.

In the morning, the guards came to take the prisoners back to their cells. They found the woman asleep on the bed. The man was staring blankly out the window at the courtyard where the low-security prisoners exercised. They woke the woman up so she could kiss her husband goodbye.

“See you next Christmas, Rodolphus.”

“You too, Bellatrix.”