Not About Love

Bellatrix remembered when she had first received her Hogwarts letter. She had greeted the invitation with a childlike excitement, but also seeing it as an escape from the boredom of her days in the Black household. As the eldest of the three Black sisters, she had been expected to spend her days playing dolls and hide-and-seek with Andromeda and Narcissa, her two younger sisters. When she was younger, she enjoyed dressing them up in her old robes, teasing their hair and using them as a sort of willing servant in whatever escapade she conjured up as amusement. But as she turned nine, and then ten and eleven, day after day engaging in child play began to annoy her. She hated having to shoo her sisters away while listening in at the door of her father's study, while running off spying on the neighbors, or terrorizing their pets.

That letter had meant people her own age, and something meaningful to pass the time. It had meant she would learn to use the extraordinary powers she'd known she'd had since she was a child. She thought back to the summer before she started, dragging her mother through Diagon Alley, gleefully trying on robes and obtaining her wand, and to the day when her entire family dropped her off at platform 9 ¾ of King's Cross station. They stood, forming a portrait-worthy frame, the parents and the two young girls all smiling and waving her off. Bellatrix quickly returned the smile and hopped onto the train, not once looking back.

The wonders of the first few days at the school had, over time, whirled together in her mind. She had been overwhelmed by the majesty of the school, the groups of children her own age and older, and by the spirit that pervaded the student body. It was not until years later that Bellatrix would realize she did not like this feeling of being overwhelmed. The Great Hall seemed a spectacularly large and beautiful room, and the sorting ceremony so full of anticipation and whimsy. She'd taken her seat upon the small stool and had the large hat placed atop her long, black hair, falling over her eyelids. She heard a voice coming from the hat, deep into her own head. "Yes," the voice had said, and then it suddenly bellowed out, for the entire room to hear, "SLYTHERIN."

She had then followed the group of students down to the dungeons. Although it seemed strange to Bellatrix that they would be led]to the dungeons, of all places, she felt a certain thrill at following the dark passageway into the cold stone dregs of the castle. A portrait of a royal-looking man with icy dark eyes stood sentinel on the wall beside a heavy wooden door. One of the older students explained that a password was needed to enter the Slytherin common room, which was to be their gathering space and also the gateway to their dormitories.

After saying the password, the door released itself, swinging forward to reveal a high-ceiling stone room, with spiral staircases winding their way up the two furthest corners of the room. Gothic arched windows high up on the far wall let in a small amount of natural light and candles on pewter sconces provided more light along the walls. A large fireplace held a crackling fire. Around the fireplace was a black couch with wooden arms, as well as several chairs.

It was in this room that Bellatrix would spend much of the next several years. As the initial excitement of the school receded, she soon found that she felt as adrift there as she had at the Black home. While she knew that, somewhere inside herself, she was instinctively bright, her classes held little interest for her. She didn't have the patience for Potions, the temper for transfiguration, or any inkling of hope in Herbology. While she had felt that her schooling would prepare her for great things, it seemed more like a general introduction in all things magical, yet nothing of use to her greater ambitions.

She did not so much dislike the other students as she felt that she had little in common with them, and little interest in making friends. Growing up, she had always either been with her younger sisters or prying into the affairs of her parents and their friends, and so had never developed an easy banter with those her own age.

Her professors liked her and knew she held potential, yet she frustrated them immensely. She seemed unwilling to apply herself. Every now and then, as when medieval family curses or will-weakening potions were discussed, a glimmer of interest would cross her face. She knew she was capable of being a brilliant pupil, if only she had any interest in what took place behind the fortified walls of Hogwarts.

It was Christmas break in her sixth year, when she met Him. She had evaded her sisters' attentions and stood flush to the wall outside her father's study. She knew the room well, as he had invited her in whenever he felt the need to discuss her grades- they were very good, but her professors commented every term that she did not apply herself- or her plans for after graduation- he suggested a well-bred marriage and volunteering for various causes. She also knew that this was where her father met with his associates once every couple of months. She knew little of who these men were, or what exactly her father had to do with them, and the mystery of their identities and purpose fascinated her. Whatever it was, it was far more interesting than the textbooks and gossip that seemed to occupy everyone her own age.

The door opened, and with a surge of cold energy, a dark-cloaked man emerged. As the rest of the men scurried around the study, aimlessly saying their farewells, Bellatrix followed the stranger through the hallway. She was surprised to find him take the back stairs down to the dungeons. Her family rarely used them anymore, and she had not known that anyone outside of her and her parents (and her only from her frequent prying) knew of their existence. He turned a left after reaching the bottom of the stairs, into a hallway lined with barred cells. Bellatrix followed him down to the end of the hall, when she noticed he had stopped and was looking straight at her.

The stranger's face was paler than anyone's she'd ever seen. His eyes seemed like slits cut out of the thin white paper of his face, and his thin lips curled into a sort of smile. Bellatrix wanted to scream under the red glare of his gaze, but felt him softly put his hand- it was cold, with long, thin fingers- across her mouth.

"Do I scare you, Bellatrix?"

She was, in truth, terrified that he knew her name, and she was alone in the dank dungeons with this pallid man. "This is my house. Why should I be scared of you?" Her voice trembled, but she held her ground, not letting her feet shift backwards. Before her eyes, the ghost of a man, however, had transformed himself and now seemed barely older than her sixteen years, with curly black hair and haunting green eyes.

"This is better, is it not?"

She stood silent.

"I remember when I was your age, Bellatrix. I looked much as you see me now, and in some ways, I felt much the way you do. Do you like Hogwarts, Bellatrix?"

Not wanting to criticize her school in front of the stranger, she fumbled a noncommittal answer. "It's okay, I guess."

"You don't mean that, Bellatrix. You have little in common with the other students, and though you excel in your classes, they teach you little of interest."

"How did you know?" That was, in fact, exactly how she felt about Hogwarts.

He smiled at her. "I want to help you."

"Help me what? Why?" Who was this strange man, who could alter his appearance so dramatically and who seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, she wondered.

"You have great potential, if you are taught what you need to know. And I think you have the desire, Bellatrix. Tell me, what do you want above all else?"

Bellatrix thought for a moment. "I want them to know that I'm better than they are."

"You want who to know?"

"Everyone. My family, who takes me for granted and sees me merely as a free babysitting service. My teachers who see that I have potential, but not how brilliant I could be if I cared in the least, and everyone at school, who ignores me. I don't care what they think of me, but I'd rather they thought of me somehow." She was surprised that she was telling this to a total stranger, yet at the same time knew the same information would be provided to anyone, no matter who, that decided to ask. After all, it was how she had been feeling for years, and she'd never had anyone she felt she could share her feelings with. They'd merely stayed bottled up inside, making her angrier and angrier.

"I will teach you," he said slowly, "what you want, and what you need to know."

She looked him up and down slowly. In contrast to his earlier form, he was now quite handsome. "What do you expect in return?"

"I expect nothing. But once you know what I will teach you, there will be nowhere to use that knowledge but in my service."

With that, he started up the narrow stairway back into the house. "Wait!" she yelled.

"Yes?" he asked impatiently, turning around.

"Who are you?"

He smiled at her. "If you don't tell anyone, you may call me Tom."

Their lessons had continued throughout those Christmas holidays. He began teaching her dark curses, the things that aroused her interest in classes, but on which her professors would never elaborate. This, at last, was something for which she could use her talent. He knew the anger she'd kept inside and the bitterness she harbored, and helped her channel those and concentrate her dark powers. She was a quick learner, but her master knew many centuries worth of dark magic, and she knew that there was so much she didn't know, so much she knowledge she craved.

He always met her at the end of the left-hand corridor in the Black family dungeon. There was little danger of anyone finding her there, as the dungeons were left over from a time when the family lived up to its dark and glorious past, as now such prejudices were more in words than action, and the dungeon lay empty and unused, except by Bellatrix and her mysterious teacher.

On the last lesson before she would be returning to school, after explaining advanced memory charms, Tom summoned several rats out from behind the stone walls. At first she let out a short squeal, but became rapt with attention as he proceeded to ignite a flame on the end of one's tail which quickly, like a lit candle wick, burned up the tail and incinerated the rat. It took her a couple of tries to get the spell right, but once she did, she and her companion laughed as they disposed of the remaining rats in the same manner.

She looked up at him longingly as dinnertime approached, and her presence would be required again upstairs. "When will I see you next?" she asked.

"Next Tuesday, of course." Their lessons had always taken place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while her father was at work and her mother had her wizarding bridge meetings.

"But... but, I'll be back at school," she pointedly out wistfully.

"And you think that would stop me from seeing you?" She realized then how silly she'd been. Of course her lessons would continue. He would find a way. "I'll meet you in the Forbidden Forest, after dinner. There is a clearing just east of the North Tower. I'll be waiting for you." She was about to point out that the Forbidden Forest was, well, forbidden, when he spoke as if reading her thoughts. "I wouldn't think you'd be so worried about rules, Bellatrix."

"No, not at all," she answered, and hurried up the dungeon stairs to dinner.

The winter term was full of the same monotony as her previous five and a half years, with uninspiring classes and distant classmates, yet Bella minded little. Her newfound confidence seemed to change other's opinions of her as well. No longer was she a loner, but more of a mystery, and she noticed the other Slytherins actually wanting to sit with her at meals, to work with her on assignments, and inviting her to Hogsmeade weekends and social events.

Despite her new popularity, which she occasionally enjoyed but more frequently ignored, by far the favorite parts of the week were Tuesday and Thursday evenings, which were spent learning the Dark Arts in the Forbidden Forest.

"Tom" continued to appear in his sixteen-year-old form. One spring day, she remarked on this.

"You can show me your true face, I won't be scared," she said gently.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Quite," she responded, and before her eyes, he became what he was to the rest of the world, a pale, long-faced man with glowing red eyes and a bony figure, on which his fine black robes hung unevenly. She did not gasp or scream, like most did upon seeing this figure before them, but merely smiled at him.

"I am ready for the lesson now," she pronounced.

It was a warm evening in early May, the lengthening days of late spring meant that it was barely twilight at the appointed start of the lesson. The Dark Lord waited impatiently: it was the first time Bellatrix had failed to show at the appointed meeting time. She finally arrived, ten minutes late, with flushed cheeks and a rushed gait that was unusual for a young woman who almost always walked with a steady, determined air.

"You're late," he said coldly, his red eyes glaring at her. While to most, ten minutes was nearly always forgivable, he was unaccustomed to having even his most mundane orders disobeyed.

"I... I'm sorry. Walden kept me after dinner... he wanted to ask me to the spring

dance."

"And did you accept?"

She hesitated. "I... uh... yes. Is that a problem? The dance is on Friday, it won't interfere with our meetings."

"No. I suppose it is not a problem. His father, Frederick MacNair is an associate of mine. He is a housemate of yours, is he not?"

"Of course. As tedious as the other Slytherins are, the rest of the school," she scrunched up her nose in a way that was ever so typical of her age, yet her eyes seemed wiser and full of the glimmer of hatred.

"Bellatrix?"

"Yes, my Lord?"

He put his hand softly on her cheek. "Tom," he corrected. He looked her in the eyes. "Bellatrix, how well do you know the MacNair boy?" His stare turned as his red eyes looked into her black ones.

She took in his glare with her dark, cold eyes, and they momentarily warmed into a smile. "No, Tom. Not at all, not like that," she said, with a bit of a laugh.

He reached out to her and touched her shoulder. "You know, Bella," he began, "there are other kinds of power besides spells and violence, if you wish to learn to use them."

She leaned in towards his ear, and in responded in a hushed whisper. "Are there really, Tom? And would you teach me?" He put his free hand on her other shoulder and pushed her away.

"You," he accused. "You lied to me."

"No," she said quietly. "I'm yours. I mean, Walden and Antonin... there's been others, who've been interested, but I've never let anything come of it. I wouldn't do that. They're not worth it."

The Dark Lord smiled. She would, indeed, be a very powerful weapon. "Come here, Bella," he said, as she stepped towards him. He took her hand and walked with her through the darkened forest. Somewhere along the way, the two figures disappeared.

Bellatrix was hardly surprised to find herself reappear in a dark and shadowy bedchamber. "Is this where you... live?" she asked in amazement.

"I suppose you could say that," he said, slowly transforming back to the handsome sixteen-year-old boy who had originally begun teaching her.

She reached out to him. "No," she spoke clearly, "I don't need that." He was again the pallid, shadowy figure, and then he pressed his mouth towards hers. She looked at him and smiled. She confidently placed her hands on the back of his head, clasped him towards her.

He pulled away slightly, giving his fingers room to slowly unbutton the front of her robes. He slipped them off her shoulders, underneath was a dark gray blouse and simple black skirt. As he undid the fastening of her blouse, her movements suddenly lost their arrogance. She pulled away from the kiss and looked in his eyes.

"Teach me," she said longingly.

That night, he taught her what men wanted, and what she herself wanted from men. For the rest of that year, her lessons continued as usual, with no mention of the other things she had been taught. Among the other sixth year Slytherins, Bellatrix found herself even more confident and more popular than ever. She gave herself to other men, knowing that these were gifts of her Lord, and that someday she would repay them.

It was not until she gave too much of herself that he felt compelled to intervene...