Flames

Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man:

Preserve me from the violent man

-psalm 140

-Crucio

The dull beat of her fists on the blackened boards, juddering the reflected firelight. Hoarse screams splitting an open, wet hole. Power is beauty.

A break. Her heaving figure, face down, nails leaving deep gouges as they scrape down the floor.

-Look at me.

Her face turns towards mine, a luminous moon with craters for eyes. I see the polished lacquer of the floorboards have been fogged with a circle of rasping breath.

-You let the prophesy be destroyed. You let your fellow Death Eaters be caught and returned to Azkaban. You knew I would do this. Lord Voldemort does not forgive. Not until he is paid back what he is owed.

The mouth opens, tries to catch words from the air, like she's trying to pick apples from a tree with her hands tied behind her back.

-Crucio

A howl sings through the room. The fire in the grate flickers and roars, like a prisoner ripping out of his shackles. Something is happening. The fire gradually sinks to ashes, the life inexplicably drained, as if the prisoner has been suddenly hit with a killing curse. The only light in the room seems to be Bellatrix herself, the flashes of flailing skin glowing brighter and brighter. Unicorn flesh. My wand hand quivers. Something inside of me breaks loose and rattles against my chest. I do not know what is happening but I do not wish to stop. Fear is overridden with a fresh pleasure in finding a new form of pain. I watch as the skin bubbles white hot and webs over as channels of fire, flames which feed from the body as it arcs and screeches and sends black ash scattering across the floor.

His fingers were pale, like fallen twigs from a silver birch. They touched the sleeve of my dress, appearing suddenly unclean against the stiff bright fabric, and I felt a great desire to grab his hand and hold it to my chest forever, branded by a dirty print that would grip around my heart.

Somewhere outside the dream, the wedding march began to play. His fingers fell limply to his side and he looked into my upturned face, lips stretching into a grimace of a smile.

You know what you're marrying into, he said.

I told him yes, I knew, and I wanted it. I wanted to follow him too, be part of what Rodolphus was part of.

-We've never had a woman. Perhaps...perhaps you'll be the end of all that. Do you swear to follow me, do you swear to kill and torture for my benefit and only mine? I ask you as if you are making a choice, but we both know you are not. If you lie to me in your reply, if you say you are ready when you aren't, then you will not be leaving this kitchen alive. Similarly, if you turn away from my offer, it will be the last you ever turn from. So I ask you this: Do you swear to follow, honour and obey me, in freedom and in jail, through capture and torture, until death parts us?

-I do.

The music outside faltered, wrong footed by my absence. Insistently, it started again, from the beginning. I ignored it.

-Meet me in yours and Rodolphus's bedroom at midnight tonight. Bring Rodolphus. We will perform the ceremony there.

He left, leaving me cold against the wall, mind racing with excitement and quite forgetting the waiting families outside.

I lower my wand and watch as the fire sinks back into her skin, as if doused in water. Her body smokes in a crackling heap, she coughs and flecks of brittle black charcoal spray out in front of her.

Slowly, carefully, she straightens out, flexing arms and legs, arching her bank, wincing as boiling skin stretches across her skeleton like an ill fitting robe. Her own robe has been reduced to cinders and she lies in the suddenly dark room naked, though all I can see is a faintly pale white outline and the glitter of angry eyes.

-An interesting reaction, Bella. Strange that, although you are obviously in agony, there is not a burn that marks your body.

-Yes, master.

Her voice; rasping, dry, destroyed.

-You may go. We will discuss this in the morning.

-Yes, master.

She gets to her feet and crosses the room, walking as if on hot coals. The next day, when it is light, I will notice a path of footprint shaped burns and bubbled varnish that no magic can repair.

There is no colour in Azkaban. The walls are rough and grey and solid, but they are not what holds us. We hang suspended in thick liquid air, trying to break out of invisible chains, but eventually falling backwards further into ourselves, drowning in memories. If ever I find myself near the sea, I will think of the cold water surrounding my prison and my nostrils will contact at the damp salty smell and imagine it is tinged with unclean bodies and foul, rotted breath, and I will begin to scream.

I brood in my chair for the remainder of the night. I rarely sleep, or even rest. Constantly, my mind is working, shifting like sands in an endless desert. Whichever way I regard the problem, the landscape never seems to change. Prophesy gone, Potter escaped, death eaters behind bars. I should be formulating a plot, on my feet, torturing new ministry workers for information. And yet I am inanimate in my chair, the outline of Bella's body walking through the darkness in my mind.

Rodolphus and I, we do not love. We seek power. We seek power in each other, we follow power in the Dark Lord. Power can be found in every living object, it is just a question of your ability to unlock it. There is no such thing as a 'good' wizard wielding power. It cannot be controlled, it cannot be siphoned or packaged with a nice neat label. Power is handled so much better, put to so much more just use, if it is used by those who truly understand it, do not try to tame it. Who am I to question that? I am who I am who I am. These words he told me, these words I cherish, like I cherish all that is his. He

is all that is.