Dealing with the Devil

Bellatrix Black leaned over the table separating her from a stocky Auror, a smile playing about her lips, making sure that her exposed bosom was directly in his line of sight.

"Come now, sir," she purred. "You seem like a sensible man. Can't you just make all this unpleasantness... go away?"

The Auror could not help but glance at her chest, and he colored visibly, to Bellatrix's pleasure, but when he tore his gaze away, his eyes were harder than before, and he looked displeased. "Miss Black, I am afraid that you are too deeply involved in so much ... unpleasantness over the past few months that even were I to want to, I could not make your troubles disappear. Please sit down."

Bellatrix pursed her lips. The man was an absolute rock. She had tried, less and less subtly, to influence him since he'd picked her up from a pub down in Knockturn Alley, but aside from a few appreciative glances, he had resisted her entirely.

She changed tack. "I've done nothing illegal this summer. I've merely expressed my opinions - I admit, rather vocally - in public places. If people have overreacted, it's hardly my fault."

The auror was unimpressed. "I'm afraid that their overreactions were the causes of several riots. You're quite the hate-monger, Miss Black. The auror office is quite interested in you and your ... motivations. Those of your persuasion have been far more vocal of late, and the violence it has provoked is worrying to the Ministry and the larger Wizarding community."

"Sir - might I inquire of your name? - I merely speak the truth to a community that has been stupefied, in recent years, by continuing pro-muggle propaganda. I seek to enlighten my peers, not cause any violence. Some who listen to me believe so fervently they can be rash, but I assure you the last thing I want to cause is any instability."

The auror stared at her, his face not revealing anything. His eyes were hard as flint, and his lined, scarred face remained implacable. Finally, he grunted, "Moody. Tell me, Miss Black, from whom are you receiving your instructions? Your little pep-talks are obviously coordinated with the other signs of unrest throughout Britain."

Bellatrix drummed her red fingernails on the table, trying to mask her frustration. The man wasn't going to budge an inch, and he certainly didn't buy her innocent routine. "I coordinate with no one. I think you're seeing conspiracies, Mr. Moody - just because the wizarding community has finally awoken to the dire consequences of blood dilution doesn't mean there's anything more behind it than the truth."

"A riot in front of Gringotts in late June," Moody said, ticking off points on his fingers. "A brawl fight in Knockturn alley in early July. An assault on an Auror in Kent and on a Muggleborn in Bath. All after a young woman answering to your description gave a speech about blood purity and the failings of the Ministry. Only tonight you had the bad luck to give your spiel in front of an auror who'd been following these incidents." He ended with a self-satisfied smirk.

Bellatrix wanted to scratch the smugness of his face, but she contained the anger, and bottled it away. She'd deal him back double what she took tonight, but later. Later.

"I was unaware that it was illegal for me to sample the nightlife of wizarding Britain!" Bellatrix said, careful to keep her indignation under control. She was angry and indignant, yes, though not for the reasons stated - but she could still funnel that emotion. "I have stayed to have a drink or two with my compatriots in the wizarding world, and we've engaged in friendly conversation over a beer or two - hardly something the Ministry needs to crack down on!"

The auror, Moody, stared at her. "Don't play games with me, Miss Black. You have been inciting anti-Ministry riots. You know it, I know it, and I intend the entire Wizarding World to know it, too. I could charge you with inciting violence against the Ministry - up to twelve years in Azkaban - or of using the Unforgivables - a life sentence! I have no proof of that, Miss Black, but I know what you've done it before."

Bellatrix felt fury rising up in her again. How dare he threaten her! How dare he? She, a daughter of the Blacks, a pureblood witch of impeccable breeding and background - and simply for speaking publicly? He couldn't know about what she'd done at the Gringotts riot - she'd have recognized him - and she had let the crowds do her dirty work at the other rallies...

Time to change tack again.

"Mr. Moody," Bellatrix said, "You can't believe all the rubbish the Ministry of Magic forces upon its employees. You're an auror, the best of the best, and hardly one to take the Ministry's hypocrisy at face value. Your business is tracking down criminals - not hauling in women for expressing opinions contrary to the Ministry. I know Minister Bagnold has become more and more arrogant of late, with her constant crackdowns on the old traditions, but surely - surely - you are not willing to side with the Ministry to the point of chaos in the wizarding world?"

Bellatrix thought she saw his face flicker for a moment, thought she saw a hint of interest in those implacable black eyes, and pressed on eagerly. "The Ministry is leading our world to destruction, Mr. Moody. They have let the old customs fall by the wayside - and have even begun to forbid some! - and in the place of the wizarding tradition that has kept us strong, they have substituted a growing tolerance for incursions from the Muggle world. Our blood is dilute - mingling and intermarriage with muggles and mud- muggleborns has drained away wizarding vitality. We're a proud people, a proud race, and yet we now hide our glories and our powers as if they were shameful secrets rather than our birthright."

Moody didn't tell her to stop, but Bellatrix paused momentarily, unsure. He was listening, intently, in fact, but the glint in his eye did not look altogether friendly. She couldn't tell whether she was convincing him, and if she played her cards wrong... well.

"Sir," Bellatrix said, placing both of her hands on the table, leaning forwards slightly, the picture of youthful intensity. "I do not wish for the dissolution of the Ministry. I do not wish for chaos, or disruption. I wish for a wizarding world that is strong! A world where we can raise our children with honor and open pride. I want a world where witches and wizards use the powers endowed on them as their birthright, without kowtowing to the needs of muggles and - well, there is no other word - and mudbloods!"

The auror smiled for the first time that whole hellish evening, clasping his hands behind his head and tilting back his chair. He fixed Bellatrix with an amused gaze, and said, "Sorry, missy. You missed out on this one. My father's a muggle." He laughed.

The rage Bellatrix had been so tightly suppressing bubbled up to the surface. How dare he - how dare he laugh at her! Him, the son of a dog and a bloodtraitor, not worthy to look her in the face - and here he sat, laughing at a Black!

Some of that anger must have shown on her face, for Moody chuckled again and said, "Calm yourself, Miss Black. I wouldn't want you to do anything rash because your usual rabble-rousing failed."

"How dare you? How dare you! I am Bellatrix Black, daughter of Orion Black, and if you think I'll tolerate your cheek -"

"Are you threatening me?" Moody said, and he had the gall to sound mildly amused.

Bellatrix stood, her robes billowing around her as she strode towards the door. To her fury, it was locked.

"Release me!"

Moody stood, his hand drifting towards the leather sheath that held his wand. Bellatrix sorely regretted having handed her wand over, but at the time she had assumed she would soon be free. She had underestimated this auror's nerve.

"You are going nowhere, Miss Black, certainly not tonight."

"If you think," Bellatrix said, her voice high and angry, "that you, or anyone in your pathetic Ministry can long hold me against my will, you are more of a fool than you look."

He just laughed.

There was blood rushing in her ears, its pumping drumbeat drowning out all other sounds - rage was like a drug with her, blotting out coherent thought and leaving only a white, fiery stillness in her mind. She did not speak, but simply stood, darkly, and stared at the upstart auror in front of her, as he laughed.

Had she a wand, she would have cast the Cruciatus; she was tempted to attack him physically, to score his already scarred face with her fingernails, but present in her mind, despite the fury, was the knowledge that her Master would not be pleased if she were to lose control entirely. He always cautioned prudence....

And she was back to herself, though her chest still heaved with anger, though her cheeks were still flushed with high color; the presence of her Master in her mind had cleared away the blind rage.

"You will not let me go. With what do you intend to charge me? On what grounds do you hold me here against my will? My family's solicitor will free me forthwith, I have no doubt, but it would amuse me to hear your pathetic pretext for this injustice."

"I don't actually have to tell you, you know," Moody said. "New Ministry laws passed by the Wizengamot only two days ago, authorizing detention of dark wizards or witches for unspecified periods of time. I could hold you for years before even charging you with a crime. I'm under no obligation to inform you - or even to let your solicitor see you in your cell."

"Liar!" Bellatrix spat, but she felt a touch of fear in her heart. Cell?

"I'm not a liar, no," Moody replied. He was lounging in his chair, utterly at ease; the office was small, and without her wand, Bellatrix could not burst through the warded door. She had been a fool to surrender it....

"I do not wish to remain in your presence," Bellatrix said, imperious as a queen. "Take me to my cell!" If she were to be held against her will, at least she could dictate the terms of her imprisonment.

"As you wish," the auror said, getting to his feet. He was not tall, but he was thickset and strong, with a square face that bespoke determination. Scarred and battered at well under forty, he carried himself like a veteran of sixty years. With a flick of his wand, he summoned chains around Bellatrix's wrists.

She wanted to scream with the indignity - she had no intention of escaping, as she knew she'd be freed by legal means before long, and wished to retain her identity as a presumably law-abiding citizen as long as possible. The chains were simply to humiliate her.

The auror escorted her from his office - he merited one entirely to himself, instead of one of the busy cubicles so many of the others seemed to use - and down winding stairs, ever lower into the Ministry. There had been talk of replacing the stairs with lifts, but traditionalist elements still clung to the old trappings of wizarding architecture.

The torches cast a flickering half-light in the lowest levels where, Bellatrix knew, the old courtrooms hosted the Wizengamot; and beyond the courtrooms, the holding cells used for prisoners not yet in Azkaban.

There was a stench of fear about the place, in the dark, deep below; dank earth, sour sweat, and oppression were etched into the very stone walls.

Moody took her to the very end of the long row of cells, past an array of petty criminals and thieves who stared at her as she walked imperially past them.

"It even has a pretty spelled window for you, so you don't get scared of the dark," Moody said, sneering. "Good night, your Majesty."

He slammed the iron doors in her face, and spelled them shut. Bellatrix followed him with her eyes, his footsteps echoing back to her as he strode away.

Moody was right - the spelled window did banish the dark, with a perpetual view of a gibbous moon. It was a waxy yellow, like a silver sickle seen from under a film of oil - as if everything in this prison, even the view of the world outside, was filthy and contaminated.

When all was silent again, and the prisoners were utterly alone but for their bewitched chains, one of the ragged men in a cell adjacent to Bellatrix spoke. He was young, little older than Bellatrix herself, but he was ragged and coarsely bred - pureblood, perhaps, but without any nobility.

Bellatrix found herself repressing a sneer as he asked, "Well? What are you here for? That wasn't no hitwizard who brought you in, neither, that was a bloody auror."

"I am here for defiance," Bellatrix said in ringing tones. She was as a queen in chains, and in the now respectful silence of the other prisoners, she felt her energy and passion return. She might be able to turn this situation to her advantage - perhaps, among this assorted riffraff, there would be one or two worthy enough to serve her Master.

"What's that mean?" said the young man, his dark eyes fixed on her curiously. "Stirring up trouble, like?"

Bellatrix met his eyes, staring directly at him until he looked away. "I am here for speaking truth where before there were only lies. I am a daughter of the House of Black," and she heard respectful murmurs throughout the prison row, "and I am here because the Ministry could not stomach any resistance to its foolish, even treacherous policies."

"You're one of them, aren't you? The ones who follow this new -" The young man stopped, looking worried. "Best not to speak of it here, there's dark rumors and you don't want to be talking where there's others to hear."

Raising her voice so that she was sure all could hear her and oblivious to the young man's cringing, Bellatrix declared, "You are correct, for all your cowardice. I serve the Dark Lord. My Master is greater than any who have come before, and none shall come after him, for his power shall be eternal. The Ministry placed me in this cell, and chained me in the darkness, because they are too afraid to hear the truth, too proud to bow to His will, and too befouled by muggles and trash to allow the purification of the Wizard Race!"

A new voice spoke up, surly and cautious. "You're jes' making trouble for the rest of us. Was like this wi' Grindelwald, and it'll be like it again - th' Ministry'll crack down hard on those of us as are jes' trying to make a living as best we can and you revolutionaries'll do jes' fine. I'm not taken in by you, and not by any of them, either!" He spat, noisily.

Bellatrix new this sort of man - angry, hostile, cautious, but a furious soldier if brought into a passion. This was, after all, what she was good at. "Would you rather have the Ministry? The Ministry which forbids the old ways, and drives honest wizards out of business by hiring the worst sort of mudblood filth over the sons of the old families? Wizards, listen to me!" She paused for a moment to let her clarion words ring in the darkness.

"I know I am young. My life, compared to your lives, has been easy. I know I cannot begin to comprehend all that you have seen and done. But I know this: as long as the Ministry of Magic stands, there will be no justice for men like you, or for women like me. The Ministry is content to let the sons of the Wizarding race rot in prison, or in the back alleyways of our towns and markets. My Master promises more: he is a Dark Lord, and he dispenses dark justice. When he is victorious, he will break the chains of oppression that tie down wizards such as yourselves: he will herald in a new age where honest work will be met with honest rewards, where the Old Ways will be honored and revered, not stamped out. When I look into your eyes, I see men driven only to dishonesty by hard times, men who, if they lived under the rule of a fair and noble Lord, would prosper, and bring honor to their family names.

"Tonight I was brought to this foul prison by an auror of the Ministry for Magic - halfblood filth unworthy to grasp the wand with which he chained me - for spreading the truth among other wizards like yourselves. Those wizards were still free, still relatively unharmed by the tyrannical Ministry for Mudbloods and Muggles, but if we allow the Ministry's despotism to continue, soon all Wizards, even those of the greatest and most ancient Houses, will be forced to bow to the will of bloodtraitors and mudbloods. After all, I am a daughter of the House of Black, and here I stand, jailed and chained as if I were not born to the highest nobility known to man - to a legacy of pureblood wizardry extending back for millennia."

She paused, and peered through the darkness at the listening prisoners. Were she not chained by spelled iron, she would have conjured light - she hardly needed her wand for the more trivial spells, after her Master's tutelage - but iron dampened magic, and the chains kept her powers in check.

The young man who had spoken first replied slowly, "I think what you say may be true, but don't you see that it's easier for us just to go along with the Ministry. I'm here for selling lycanths, as are Class C nontradable goods," and he spoke the official term with the ease of one long accustomed to hearing it, though it jarred with his more colloquial speech. "And you know, I'm no happier than any to be here, but they'll just keep me here for two weeks and maybe put a monitoring spell on me so as I don't do it again. They won't send me to Azkaban, I'll just have to live careful for a few months until they forget about me. But if I join with you, and with your Dark Lord, they'll stop forgetting about me real fast, and the next time they catch me they'll send me to Azkaban. Maybe you can get out of here, but I'm no Black. I'm just a poor wizard trying to make his way, see? There's nobody to plead my cause, and no gold to pay the Wizengamot to look the other way for me. And I think most everybody here is like me - we don't love the Ministry, Merlin knows, but if we start making trouble it'll all be the worse for us."

There were murmurs of assent. Bellatrix studied the scruffy youth carefully. She knew she was making headway - he was sympathetic to what she was saying, she could tell - but he was complacent, cautious. Not cowardly, she thought; he could be stirred to action if she prompted him hard enough; but he was unwilling to take a chance without any guarantee of protection or safety. That caution was not in Bellatrix's blood, but in her past few months of spreading her Master's word, she had met many cautious men like these.

"You are afraid that if you should stand and fight with me, and with my Master, you will be punished in our stead," Bellatrix said, softly, and saw the young man flush in recognition of the truth. "Take heart, wizard. My Master protects his servants, rewards the faithful, and avenges the fallen. His might is so great the Ministry will crumble before him, inevitably. If you are to join him now, the Ministry will simply fall all the faster, and he will reward you greatly for your aid once he is risen and mighty. Even now, his servants are spreading throughout Britain, and throughout all the world, expanding his influence and power. Should you, or any of his followers, be captured by Ministry dogs, he will free you. He will not leave his loyal servants to rot in jail. I cannot offer proof now, simply my word - my word as a daughter of the House of Black, as a pureblood witch, and as a servant to the Dark Lord."

She stopped her speech again, and this time there were no replies. More gently, even apologetically, Bellatrix said, "I am sorry. I would speak more, I would answer all your questions and show you the true power of my Master, but I am tired, and hoarse. The Ministry's trained brutes have not treated me quietly, and I am in need of rest."

She fell silent for a final time, and there was no more speech in the prison row. There was only the light of a waxy yellow moon through the bespelled, and the soft sound of breathing from those prisoners sleeping - and those still awake.

Bellatrix did not sit, or crouch in a corner like some of the other prisoners. She would not bring herself to huddle like an animal in the Ministry's prison. Instead, she stood, imperious as a queen, for hours, kept company only by the tainted moonlight.

She thought of her Master. She was not good at resignation, or patience, but she knew she had to learn them. Her Master had said so - had told her, "You must master your rage, Bella. It is good to be angry, but it is better to bottle up your anger and save it until you can use it profitably. Use your anger; don't let it use you."

She smiled at the thought. That had been the day she had dedicated herself, body and soul, to her Master. She had fled Hogsmeade during a school excursion, guided by Avery, who had first spoken to her of a new order of witches and wizards who honored the Old Ways and the Dark Magics. They had travelled first by apparition to Avery's house, then by portkey to a range of German mountains she did not know except by name as the Harz, then by broom to a silent lake that breathed of ancient magic, and then by foot, through wood and cave, to a hall carved out of the very Mountain where the Dark Lord, her new Master, watched his servants from a throne of yew.

There had been other recruits, other witches and wizards brought to serve the Dark Lord. Two he had killed - when he looked at them, there had been only shrinking fear in their eyes, and no willingness to serve Him utterly. Three he had inducted without a second glance, searing their skin with his mark and assigning them to other Death Eaters for training and instruction - they were loyal, but insignificant to him. She had stood alone, the last to receive his attentions. When he turned his glance on her, she had curtsied to him so deeply her head touched the floor before standing to meet his eyes; and he had seen the devotion in her soul, her loyalty, her eagerness to serve him.

He had smiled at her. He did not smile often, her Master, only when truly pleased, and to receive such a smile was an honor which few Death Eaters ever received. Bellatrix had known, then, that she would be his most devoted and faithful servant. She was young, she was passionate, she was brave and loyal and strong; and when the inductions were over, and the other Death Eaters dispersed to their duties, he had held her back, and asked for her to walk with him.

Thrilling to his presence, she had accompanied him as he strode with dark purpose to the cold Welsh lake. He had spoken to her, then, of His intents and ambitions, had shared some of what burdened His mind with her. She had longed to speak herself, to renew her vows of eternal devotion, but she had held her peace, and listened. She had never before tempered her will for any man, but her Master was different.

He was not a man. That night, over the lake, her Master had asked her whether she knew the Cruciatus curse. She had told him no, filled with shame that she could not serve him in that manner, but he had smiled at her, again. He had taken her hands between his own, her wand grasped between both their fingers - hers small and finely-boned, his long and white as ice on the mountain lake. Had whispered instruction in her ears as she learned to create pain, to funnel all her rage and anger through her wand and into the torture curse.

He had led her bow to him once more, after her first lesson in his presence, and then he had sent her back to Hogwarts, back to living as a student and suffering under the foolish tutelage of professors without an ounce of the power that flowed within her Master, her greatest teacher.

For hours, Bellatrix dwelled on her Master, wakefully dreaming of the Dark Lord, until it was morning, and the false window in her cell no longer showed the moon.

She stood in meditation until footfalls marred the perfect silence of her cell.

It was the solicitor, Martin Ambrosius Nott, and her father. Orion Black looked tired and angry, and Nott looked as oily and supercilious as ever. Accompanying the two wizards was an irritable-looking Ministry witch wearing an auror's badge, who shot Bellatrix a glare of utter contempt. Bellatrix sneered in return.

"My humblest greetings, Miss Black," Nott said, with a short little bow. "I hope I find you well? I know your stay overnight cannot have been pleasant - most regrettable - but, I hope to your satisfaction, your father and I have achieved your release. The Ministry finds itself unable to charge you with anything substantial, and I am happy to say you are now free to leave this deplorable ... cell. I assure you, your father and I intend to inquire how it is possible that the Ministry could allow a girl such as yourself to be detained like a common criminal."

Bellatrix cut her solicitor off with a wave of her hand. "I was proud to share this prison row with these wizards. Any place where men are held for their resistance of an unjust Ministry is as a palace to those who are determined not to suffer the Ministry's oppressions without defiance."

She stared directly at the female auror, then, who had opened her cell door. "Unchain me."

The auror glared at Bellatrix's command, but complied, and Bellatrix could not contain a smirk. "Be so good as to tell your comrade Moody that I shall not forget his trespasses against my person."

Bellatrix smiled as she saw the rage build in the Ministry witch, but the auror could do no more than clench her wand more firmly.

Orion Black had already begun to stride out of the cell row, the solicitor Nott following in his wake, but Bellatrix called them to a halt. "Martin, come back here for a minute, if you would be so kind."

The auror watching her every move, Bellatrix spoke the young man who had questioned her during the night. "I am sorry, but I did not ask your name before."

"I'm Edgar Jugson," he said, scrambling to his feet. In the increased light of day, Bellatrix could see that he was a tall and skinny youth, no older than twenty-five, with a shock of unruly brown hair obscuring his eyes; Bellatrix vaguely recognized his surname as being one of the lesser families, which had fallen on hard times since the 1800s.

Turning to her solicitor, Bellatrix said, "I am convinced that Mr. Jugson is as innocent as I am. I would be very pleased if you would do your utmost to see that his release is secured quickly. Please, Martin, for me?" She gazed at Nott with such pleading entreaty that the normally reserved man softened somewhat. "For you, Miss Black, anything."

Bellatrix turned to smile at Jugson, extending her hand through his cell bars. He kissed it, though he could not grasp it with his hands chained, and Bellatrix smiled at him once again.

Then, advancing to meet her father, she spoke to the auror, imperiously as before, "I shall be expecting a full apology from your superiors at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and, I dare say, from the Minister, too. Bagnold is growing more arrogant if she allows her underlings to put their hands on the daughter of the House of Black!"

Leaving the auror to fume, Bellatrix joined her father, the solicitor staying behind to inquire about Jugson's case. Bellatrix new her father would be unhappy, would question her, interrogate her for hours on what her activities could possibly have entailed that she had been jailed by the Ministry.

Perhaps, she thought, it was time to tell her parents everything. But, looking into Orion's disappointed eyes, she knew she would have to wait. In any case, Rodolphus Lestrange would soon offer her escape to a home outside her parents' control - and Rodolphus, she knew, was a loyal servant to her Master.