killer queen

bellatrix black. seventh year. slytherin. ❝i will be wild. i will be brutal. i will encircle you and conquer you. i will be more powerful than your boats and your swords and your blood lust. i will be inevitable.❞

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Go ahead, Bella. Cry into your puddle of angst driven tears- I have just as much interest in your numerous conquests as I do hearing about which virgin Lucius defiled this week. You being a classless whore has nothing to do with what type of genitals you possess.

Shut your fucking mouth you slimey twat. At least it’s better than a badger slag.

Her amusement vanishes at the drop of a hat as anger flashes across her features, cruel and biting, and she steps closer, body taut like a wire. “You’d do well to know your fucking place, Severus,” she says, her speech rapid and her eyes cold as ice. “You are literally --  literally -- nothing. A cockroach under my shoe at best, a parasite sucking the life out of this house at worst. While I’ve tolerated your presence within my circles until now, if you don’t control that insolent fucking tongue of yours, I won’t be so benevolent.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Not all of us wave our badges of fornication up for the world to see- it’s called class. And I wouldn’t underestimate a sardine….about as slippery as a snake. 

The only way you’d be featured in my spank bank is if i were interested in frigid harpies. I’ve got no doubt that there’s a death trap lying between your legs for any man foolish enough to venture into the deep unknown, and somehow that doesn’t get me in the mood to wank. 

“If you were as open as I am about your conquests -- should they ever exist -- you’d be praised to the fucking rafters for being a ‘real man’. But god forbid that I, as a woman, like sex without attachment and talk about it freely because then, I’m a classless whore. Hardly fair, is it? But then again, expecting fairness from men is a bit like expecting to find water in a desert.”

“Alright, so then, what does? Ginger mudblood cunts from the lions den?”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

I make it my business to know what I need to know. 

Congratulations, Bella. You’ve lowered yourself into a vile cesspool of cretin teenage girls. Perhaps you’d like a medal or trophy? Maybe bronze breasts? I mean, I wouldn’t , but then again I don’t make it my job to get every bird in the bag.  

“If you’d managed to get any in the bag, I might have managed to be a little offended, but considering you’ve got about as much sex appeal as a fucking sardine, I literally do not give a shit.”

“Also. Loving the whole ‘unsolicited opinion of my sex life’ thing. I know you probably need some new material for your spank bank, but really, Severus. Have some dignity.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Is that what you’d call your intimacy with the inside of Fortescue’s mouth?

And a Hufflepuff no less, honestly Bella. 

“-- You saw that, then?”

“Don’t really feel the need to justify myself, though, because I’ve definitely fucked more women than you have, and you’ve got that whole self-proclaimed hotblooded man thing going on. Do you wear shame as well as you wear squalor, Severus?”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

And yet I should be your greatest challenge- a hotblooded male with no interest in sleeping with you. I thought you were a fan of the hunt. 

“Please. I do have some standards.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Save it for the third years, Bella. Lord knows they need it more than you, though perhaps a loss in eyebrows might force you to gain some charm to compensate. 

“Just because I don’t choose to waste what charms I have on you, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

[brcw-glory]

“You’re really going to add that crushed lavender? It’s your choice, but I didn’t know that having no eyebrows was the latest trend.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

“A little bang never hurt anyone. Might actually liven things up around here.” Still, she puts the lavender aside.

[zoeybarkow]

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Regulus had never heard someone speak of him like that - except maybe Micah, but his belief was that Regulus was good, and smart, and worth someone. Bellatrix believed he was strong and promising: there was a kind of strength that underlied her words that fed into what Regulus needed, had always needed: someone to tell him he could make it. His pain - all of it, from when he was a boy to that very moment - had always been a burden, both to himself and everyone around him, but if he could use it like Bellatrix said - if he could make it all mean something… His eyes slid closed as she told him to, and he tried to imagine a box. It was heavy iron, not wood - wood was too breakable. Into it he tried to push everything: the anger at Sirius and the fear of his mother; he tried to shove it all down into the darkness, waiting like a serpent in a bush for the right moment to strike. Regulus had never thought he was the best Slytherin, but this – this he could do; he could control his emotions best if they were locked away. There was a brief moment of peace, where he felt the wind stir his hair: everything was contained – and then Bellatrix opened the lid.

It coursed through him as though it were venom, and he opened his eyes as he cast the spell. “Diffindo!” he yelled, and the tree that Bellatrix had pointed him toward exploded, a sharp crack! in its trunk that cause it to stand still for just a moment before toppling over. But it wasn’t enough – the anger, Sirius, his mother - it wasn’t enough, and his wand turned on the spiders that had been running along the ravine. “Arania Exumai,” he said, watching as white jets blasted the spider he’d aimed toward. It wasn’t enough. “Incendio!“ Regulus screamed, advancing toward where the spiders were, throwing fire and only stopping when several caught alight. They screamed in their own way, and Regulus watched as they danced, legs held to the sky as they burned alive. When he lowered his arm, it was heavy, and he blinked several times to find that his cheeks were wet. Regulus wiped them with the back of his hand and turned to Bellatrix. He felt like everything was locked up, and now he felt hollow. “That–” His hand shook as he contemplated his wand. “That felt good – to do something. To not be weak,” he told her, looking up again. “Thank you.”

Watching Regulus lash out, Bellatrix knew, intellectually, that this was for the best, that if he stayed soft and naive to the world, it would rip him apart, but she couldn’t help the guilt that welled up in her at the sight of him. His pain was raw and malleable, and she was guiding him down her chosen path of darkness instead of helping him deal with it and move past it. She was turning him into her, broken, bitter soul, too tattered to be of any good. And for that, she felt guilt. Nobody should be like her, if they could help it; but it was the only way she knew how to give him strength. “You’re not weak,” she repeated, her voice earnest. “That was-- good, Reg. Really good.” She had a whole slew of other things planned for the night, wanting to push Regulus to the point of breaking in order to build him up again, but she herself couldn’t continue with this. The more she pushed him to destruction, the more she destroyed herself. “We can go back to the castle now. You’ve had enough for tonight.” A part of her -- the stupid, humane, empathetic part of her -- wanted to apologize, but she bit it back. She was doing him a favor. She wouldn’t apologize for who she was.

As they walked back to the castle, making their way through the thick forest, she said, her voice quiet but still audible over the crunch of their footsteps and the whistling of the wind, “When I was thirteen, we went to the south of France for most of the summer. We stayed in this huge manor house, but there was a small town just down the road, and I liked to spend most of my time there because frankly, being around my parents for more than five minutes is absolutely exhausting. A few weeks in,” she sucked in a sharp breath, forcing herself to press onwards -- she hadn’t told anyone this story, not even Evan, but it felt important to tell Regulus right now, so she did it, “I met this girl. She was my age, and she was a muggle. Her father manned the docs, so she was always just. Around, I guess? And so was I, and because I was new to the area, she sort of took it upon herself to show me the area. We called them our little adventures.” She smiled in spite of herself, looking back at the memories with a bitter sort of fondness. “I knew that I wasn’t supposed to like. Be talking to her or associating with her, but it felt really nice, and I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told. One day, I wanted to kiss her, so I did, and then-- that was just that. I started sneaking off more to see her, and it was honestly. It was wonderful.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat, eyes fixed on the ground, before saying, “And then my father found out.”

“He was furious, of course, but he didn’t-- he didn’t tell me he’d figured out where I went nearly every night. He just sort of. Waited. And then, in our last week there, he. He told me that we were going to have a lesson, and I was confused, but I didn’t question it because when Cygnus Black says that you’re doing something, you better fucking do it, y’know? So, I went with him back to the house, and she was-- there.” There was a reason Bella didn’t talk about the things that had made her into who she was today. There was a reason she kept all of this locked behind a plethora of doors and traps. If she didn’t, it would eat her alive. She could inflict pain so easily and so thoughtlessly because she’d felt more than her fair share of it in her brief lifetime. “It was the first time I’d ever seen the Cruciatus Curse used on another human being, and he didn’t stop. She was begging him to, but he didn’t. It felt like it was happening for days, and then finally, it was over, and he said to me, ‘If you don’t hate me right now, then she’s suffered for nothing. Remember this, Bellatrix. Remember how this feels. I’ve never given you a better gift than this pain. And if you let it go to waste, then you’re just as foolish as her.’” She looked up at Regulus with cold, remote eyes, trying to calm the erratic racing of her heart. “It was the first time I ever thought of pain as a gift. And it made-- a lot of this, a lot of what I have to do, easier to deal with, honestly. If you turn your weaknesses into weapons, nothing will ever hurt you again.” She didn’t wholly believe in that, but she needed him to believe that she did. For his sake more than her own.

[bitchellatrix-retired]

At first, Regulus thought Bellatrix was referring to him as the cause of why Sirius had left, but it turned to his mother. Walburga. A chill chased itself across his skin as he tightened his jaw at the mention of her. He loved his mother - she had raised them, hadn’t she? She had done the best she could, she was human, too, and she struggled; Regulus and Sirius hadn’t made thingseasy for her. He swallowed thickly as she asked if it had gotten worse – they both knew what she was referring to, but he stayed silent, still. Regulus wasn’t supposed to talk about it – it was nobody’s business what went on in their home – but was it revealing anything if everyone knew? The touch of her hand preceded the final question – and he almost dropped his wand. Regulus remembered the last time, of course; it had been the day before he’d left for the Hogwarts Express. The extra month had been too long. “I got called into father’s study,” Regulus said, heart racing inside his chest, as though he were about to start running. He’d wanted to run - he’d known what was coming before he’d even walked into the room. “He was sitting at his desk, finishing a letter. Mother, she was by the fireplace,” he said, voice detached. “They started talking, taking turns telling me what was expected of me this year. About who to talk to and who to trust.”

Regulus could almost see his mother turning from the fire, face cold but angry. He’d seen that looked aimed at Sirius too many times - knew what followed; he’d experience it, too, but not as much - never as much as Sirius. “She made sure I remembered what she and father told me,” Regulus concluded, and it wasn’t hard to remember the places that she’d bruised that night; wasn’t hard to slip right back there, kneeling on the floor with his lip cut and body sore as he looked up at his parents, who looked back at him like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. His free hand curled into a fist, nails biting into his palm as he allowed the anger to fill him up - that feeling of being weak and small and controlled surging in him as he listened to Bellatrix’s words. “I don’t feel strong,” he confessed, words bitten off. “I feel – small. Caustic. Breakable,” he added, shoulders tight as he thought about Sirius and his parents, how they’d each held him back and pushed him down. Why? What were they scared of? Bellatrix wasn’t scared - she was helping; she was listening. He didn’t think she cared, but she was the onehere; where was everyone else? The anger consumed him as he stood thrumming, wanting to explode something, but he waited on her command – it was her word he counted on now.

Hearing about this point blank versus inferring it from the way Sirius used to flinch whenever Walburga entered a room, from the way Regulus sometimes favored one side at family gatherings, from the way her aunt looked at Bellatrix with untempered pride whenever she was caught being cruel or malevolent -- it was far worse than she’d imagined. She felt sick to her core for Regulus -- something she never thought would happen, considering the two of them weren’t exactly close. He needed this. He needed her. Perhaps once, Sirius had needed her, but he was gone, and Regulus was here. “You’re not small. You’re not breakable. You’re iron,” she said, fervor rising in her voice. “Don’t hide from your pain, Regulus. Embrace it, and it’ll never be able to hurt you.” She paused, composing herself, before saying, “I might not-- know exactly what it was like to grow up under your circumstances. But I do know pain. And I know that you and I both have our fair share of it welling up inside of us. We can let it break us and let it ruin us, or we can become its master.”

Her onslaught on Regulus’ mind had been three pronged -- one, Sirius, two, Walburga, and three, the blonde boy she’d seen him with at the Ball. But it seemed that she had him exactly where she needed him after only two, and the last of the three went untouched by Bellatrix -- for now, at least. “Close your eyes,” she said softly. “Imagine all of the anger you feel, all of the bitterness, and force it into a box in your chest. Let it rest there, hidden, but not forgotten so that, when you need it, you can open it up and let yourself feel it.” Nothing fueled power better than anger. She drew away from him, stepping backwards until he had space to breathe, space to be. “Think of Walburga,” she said slowly, enunciating each word. “Think of Sirius. Both have left you in the dust, disregarded. Both have hurt you, thoughtlessly and needlessly. Both have ruined you for this world.” And, after a long moment, she said, finally, “Now. Cast your spell.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

He listened and watched Bellatrix with rapt attention - his brain felt aware and alive, but his body was flagging - he wasn’t built for physical exertion like this. Everything that belonged to him hurt, not to mention the cold was seeping into his bones - but he couldn’t break. He refused to. Instead, he allowed her to manipulate his body and grip on his wand, adapting to the changes that she made or suggested. You’re a Black. He let that fill him up, making the wounds feel like they had a purpose - he tried to shut everything else but that fact out of his head. Regulus nodded as she straightened his back and shoulders, wondering if he could remember everything that she was showing him - if he could call on it when alone, perfecting it so that it became second nature to assume the posture for proper spellcasting. Just as he was preparing himself for a harder Diffindo, thinking that would be the next step, she instead asked about Sirius. His stance faltered, shoulders sagging and chin falling before he quickly straightened himself again. “Sirius?” he echoed uncertainly, swallowing around the lump in his throat. He could try lying - say he hadn’t seen or heard from his brother since he walked out of Grimmauld Place, but he knew Bellatrix would see it written all over his face. Regulus’ hand tightened around the wand he held aloft, as per Bellatrix’s instruction.

“He spoke to me, right before the game in the Forest last week,” he said, and the memory came swarming back - the way Sirius had told him to look after himself, as if he had actually cared. “He– he tried to tell me to look out for myself, and I– I asked why he would even care. I told him to leave me alone. He said there were things I didn’t know,” snapped Regulus, feeling the creeping bitterness in his chest, “as if wasn’t obvious that he left me. I told him he wasn’t my brother, and left.” His bottom lip was trembling, and even though he hated Sirius, he wanted him there the most out of anyone in the whole world. Regulus wanted Sirius to lower the arm that held the wand out, and he wanted Sirius to protect him from Bellatrix, like he always had. But there was only Regulus, Bellatrix, and the forest - and the quaking bitterness, the anger that coursed through him. “I hate him,” Regulus said, jaw clenched and fingers curling tighter around the wand, that seemed eager to help him express that anger. “For leaving me. For– for leaving us, his family.”

Asking about Sirius was twofold -- one, she knew it was the easiest pressure point Regulus had, and two, she found out whether or not Regulus was in any danger of following in his older brother’s footsteps. She listened carefully, lips pressing together, trying to keep herself as emotionally removed from this as possible. Bellatrix refused to be vindicated by her cousin’s pain; she was cruel, but she wasn’t that cruel. But try as she might, she couldn’t help the small stabs of savage pleasure that Regulus was hurting just as much as she was about this whole situation -- probably (definitely) more. “Can you blame him?” she said, voice soft as silk. “I mean. What with your mother being the way she is...” she trailed off, unable to say anything more. Speaking about Walburga to Regulus often felt like putting a mirror up to herself and exposing her every flaw she had, and she felt guilty for being deterred by such selfish reasons. She should leave Walburga alone out of respect for the knowledge of what goes on in Grimmauld Place, not for the protection of her own image. “Has it gotten worse?” she asked quietly. “Since he left?”

She braced a hand on the small of his back, refusing to let him crumple the way he had when she’d asked about Sirius. He was going to be strong, he was going to be iron, if it was the last thing she bloody did. “Tell me, Reg,” she murmured. “When was the last time she-- hit you?” She cursed herself for stumbling on the words and letting this facade of cool indifference fall, but she just couldn’t ask that without a lump rising in her throat. “Memorize the way this feels,” she said after a long moment, her voice soft and almost kind, the way she imagined drowning might feel -- something smooth and luscious enveloping you before your lungs gave out. “All of this anger, all of this pain -- it’s made you weak for so many years, but now, you can let it make you strong. I can teach you how to use it.” I’ve got so much sadness in me, and it would have killed me if I hadn’t turned it into a weapon. “I promise.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

“What the hell is tragedy? I am.” -- Sylvia Plath

( graphic by @ofregulusblack​ )

[bitchellatrix-retired]

Bellatrix led him toward the ravine, and across it were trees - and spiders, the sound of their pincers and legs on the dry leaves making the back of Regulus’ neck prickle. What she asked -knock those trees down - made him look at her dubiously. “You want me to fell an entire tree? What if someone hears and comes looking?” he asked, glancing around. He couldn’t see the lights of Hogwarts for the trees, but– surely someone would hear something. But, Regulus feared Bellatrix more than the Headmaster; she was the one who’d tossed him around like he was little more to her than a plaything. So he raised his wand, thinking through what spells he knew that would do the job most effectively. “Diffindo!” he said, curving his wand through the air as he aimed it at the thick - impossibly round - trunk of the tree. It took a sizeable - but still relatively small - chunk out of the tree. “Diffindo!” he said, again and again, until he’d hacked enough out of the base of the tree that it start to splinter and topple until its own weight, falling backward but caught by the boughs of the other trees. Slightly breathless with the exertion, Regulus glanced at Bellatrix, wondering how he could impress her. His brain racked itself for a spell before he pointed his wand at the next tree. “Diminuendo!” he said, and the once tall tree shrunk to the waist-height. Smiling, Regulus reaimed his wand. “Diffindo!” And this time, the tree exploded, bark and leaves shooting up into the air and raining down on them. Regulus looked at Bellatrix. “Was that… okay?”

Bellatrix watched Regulus with infinite patience, her expression neutral in the face of his efforts. She waited for him to finish, pointedly ignoring his question, before raising her wand, pointing it at the tree that stood out among all of the other trees across the ravine as the tallest and the widest, and said, “Diffindo,” her voice cool and seasoned with years of experience. The spell slammed into the base of the trunk, the tree wobbled precariously for a moment, and then it fell with a loud, resounding thud that left Bella’s ears ringing. She probably should have thought through that one a little more. “I did what you did in many with one spell,” she said, and this time, her voice lacked its usual, harsh judgement, instead replaced by a strange, calm patience. “You need more force in your spell work,” she stated critically. “Otherwise you’re just wasting potential for efficacy by putting spells out into the world that aren’t as strong as they could be. It’s useless magic, Reg.” She cleared her throat, drawing close to him and wrapping a hand around his wrist to point it at the second largest tree across the clearing. “Don’t cast your spell until I say so,” she ordered quietly. “Hold your wrist tighter. And strengthen your grip -- not too hard, though. It should be like a handshake. Firm, but not too tight. If you don’t hold your wand with the confidence of the greatest wizard in the world, it will never perform any better than average. Impotence breeds weakness, and you’re not weak. You’re a Black.” Once she was satisfied with his technique, she lined him up, squaring his shoulders to the tree and forcing his stance into one of rooted, planted confidence. “You won’t need to do this every time,” she said, pointedly straightening his back and forcing his shoulders into the perfect arch. “Once you understand what power you truly have, it’ll all be different.” She frowned, surveying her handiwork, before reaching back in to tip his head up ever so slightly to give him that quintessential haughty, aristocratic edge. “Now. When was the last time you spoke to Sirius? Tell me everything. Focus on the way it made you feel.” Bitter and angry, she hoped, were the first things that came to mind. If not, all of this would be more difficult than she’d planned for.

[kim-wonshiks-blog]

[bitchellatrix-retired]

“If that’s the case then shouldn’t you be pleased that he got out of that mess? If you actually cared about him for his own sake I mean. Don’t judge him for doing what you can’t and getting the hell away from it all.” Of course Bellatrix ended up answering that right away. James couldn’t think of anything that would be made worse by Sirius leaving but then something occurs to him and he scoffed. “What? Black family without an heir. You still have Regulus, don’t you?” But then he shook his head. “That’s all you care about isn’t it – legacy and propriety? You don’t give a shit about Sirius for his own sake. That’s part of the reason why he fucking left you know. Because you lot wanted him to be something he isn’t and he couldn’t take it anymore! He got away from the people, the family, that was hurting him – that takes more bravery than merely remaining resilient.” It was probably the bravest thing James knew of anyone doing, other than Remus going through the full moon every month.

Perhaps James had a point, but she refused to see it. Why does he get a way out when I don’t? she wanted to ask. What makes him more deserving of happiness than the rest of us? But she refrained because she knew the answer without even having to ask -- he was good, where she was not. James’ words about her intentions, however, stung more than she cared to admit. “You know that my aunt-- she hit both of them. Sirius and Regulus. I never saw it, but we all knew. It clung to every wall of that fucking house like a disease.” There was a calmness in her voice, in her stance that was absolutely disconcerting. Behind it lay cruelty that the other couldn’t even imagine, but for now, she hid it behind cold words and sharp smiles. “Aunt Walburga’s always been a fucking bitch. And-- I am glad that Sirius got away from that. Everything else aside, I’m happy about that. But if you think, for one second, that I’m going to forgive him for leaving his younger brother, alone in that house with that cunt of a woman? No fucking way.” She didn’t feel protective over Regulus often, but it was moments like this, moments where she saw how clearly Sirius was to Regulus as she was to Narcissa that she couldn’t help herself. The very thought of leaving Narcissa alone, in danger, unhappy, made her stomach churn with discomfort. "I could never do that to my sisters. Even if I was dying and miserable and hated everything about where I was, I'd stay. For them. The fact that he could just disregard his brother that way-- it's crueler than anything I've ever done, I can tell you that."

[bitchellatrix-retired]

He’d heard that Bellatrix Black laughed as she made people writhe in pain, a cold, high, cruel sound in the blackness of night. Yet to him, it didn’t sound cruel. Merely weary & covering for it. ❝ That does make it easier for you, doesn’t it? That people BRAND you with that Scarlet Letter, that they make you into their nightmares. It wouldn’t be easy if you felt you had a choice. But we all have choices, & more than that, we choose whether or not to see them. ❞ She had the uncanny ability to take up power regardless of height differential, which made her a formidable woman. An adversary, he reminded himself. You’ve chosen to remove her from that category,& you cannot concede now. Yet there was something reluctantly admirable in the ferocity of that mind. Something that screamed into the yawning abyss just as he did. A hungry darkness that told him, this is a WORTHY rival. This is someone against whom you may test your mettle. ❝ If I told you the truth, you would use it against me. ❞ Somewhere beyond all the righteousness in me, right down to the marrow in my bones, I respect you.

In spite of the provocation in the challenge, Caradoc wasn’t surprised to see her take it. It seemed she was UNABLE to concede a loss. That may prove an advantage in the future – he filed it away for safekeeping in the many recesses of his mind. What did surprise him was the strength of her response. Her pride, her need to prove him wrong in some manner, was far stronger than he’d anticipated. ❝ Or maybe I know too much. When a conclusion is inevitable, you cannot rail against it. When someone provides evidence that a foregone conclusion is mutable, the stability of the world can fracture. ❞ He wasn’t blind enough to think she didn’t seehim. For lack of a better term, they were queen pieces on their chessboards, protecting the more valuable kings by going wherever necessary to defeat the opposition. ❝ You’re right, of course. I do assume. Perhaps too much. What would you assume of me, then? Or are you far too LOFTY to judge people upon anything more than merit? ❞ It was a gently venomous taunt, a reminder that she was nothing better than he, just as he was nothing better than her. The quick turn around threw him, & he took a moment’s pause to speak. It was never good to fire off the first thing that came into your head. Better to be seen thinking than to respond poorly. ❝ Another round, then. Firewhiskey? ❞ He wasn’t made of money, but his allowance was suitable, considering almost all he did with it was save & accumulate interest. He was planning ahead, after all. 

“Easier and far more entertaining,” she said without missing a beat, grinning with a certain untamed wildness that always twinkled in her eyes -- only to mask the dark, cloying thing that threatened to extinguish her at any moment. Bellatrix had given him a glimpse of it, the void that was her heart, only a few days prior, and she had absolutely no desire to do that again. “To be the thing of nightmares is to have power, and whether I chose it or not, I’ll never give up that leverage for anything.” She leaned against the bar, taking both of the shots the bartender had laid out for them, and tipped one back before handing the other to Caradoc. The firewhiskey burned through her, but she didn’t mind it. Yet another reminder that she was still living. “Free will is the greatest illusion of the 20th century, and you’d do well not to buy into it. We’re all on preordained paths that we’ve been tricked into thinking are our own ideas.” And that’s what’s killing me, she wanted to tack on, but instead, she smiled, wide and with fervor. “You’re not going to keep this up all night, are you?” she pouted theatrically. “There’s no need to be so bloody uptight and guarded all the time.” The words were mere show; he knew her surprisingly well, and she knew that he wouldn’t give her an inch because of it. He had a more iron will than she because, she suspected, he had more to lose. She was already careening towards death or insanity -- whichever came first -- at an alarming rate, and she lived every moment as though it was her last. He, on the other hand, had ties and roots, and even if she didn’t know what they were, she saw them.

She signaled at the bartender for another round of shots -- after all, her plan for the night had been getting gloriously hammered -- and, as she waited for him to comply, she considered his question, sizing him up, staring him up and down with sharp, inquisitive eyes. “You think too much,” she said finally, expression shrewd. “You’re going to waste away analyzing the hypotheticals and predicting the outcomes instead of actually living. A pity, I must say, considering that life isn’t something to be wasted, but you seem to be doing a bang up job of that.” He thought too much; she thought too little. But she had her reasons. Her mind had never been a friendly place, and the less time she spent there, the better. “You see the worst in people first,” she continued, after a long pause. “Because that’s safer than assuming the best.” It was a habit that she herself had never been able to break, and given some of their other similarities, it wasn’t a total shot in the dark. The bartender lined up their next round of shots, and she took hers, raising it slightly in a toast before swallowing it down with practiced expertise. Wiping her hand on the back of her mouth, she grinned wickedly, before stepping close to finish with, “You know my mouth would taste like sin and tragedies, but you still wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from drowning in it. Poison’s never tasted as good as this.”

[bitchellatrix-retired]

❝ You’re right, ❞ he seethed in return, ❝ I DON’T understand. ❞  With a feeling as though he was being dragged out from underwater, Caradoc realized he was angry. More with those like Bellatrix than any others. The ones who showed glimmers of understanding, of nuance to their natures. The ones who reminded him of himself. He was furious at all of them for forcing him to fit into a box, for putting him on a path set for destruction. Just because he didn’t shy away from violence, because he thought in schemes & plans for revenge, he might have been thrown to the wolves. It was only his heritage that saved him, the love of his family & friends to bring his own emotions to the surface. & because of them, he had to hide, had to pretend not to give a damn in the world in fear that someone would turn that emotion against him. He had becomeworse than he was already inclined, & being on the side of good didn’t change that. ❝ I don’t understand why someone intelligent & capable would see an entire group of people as worse than USELESS. I don’t understand why the history of someone’s blood should matter when anyone with eyes can see it all bleeds the same color. I don’t understand why you, who have all the makings of a leader, choose to subordinate yourself & remain lesser to someone who can’t even imagine something scarier than an inferus. I don’t understand that at all. ❞

In spite of his anger, there was a rationality to his outburst. Bellatrix may see weakness& decide to pounce, which, in itself, would be a learning opportunity. The CLARITY of his anger didn’t belie the nature of it, but it meant that he could see past it, cross into the advantageous parts in ways that so many could not. ❝ Not an angel, no. If I was, I wouldn’t be able to make the hard decisions. ❞ No pretense at thinking himself unworthy of such a station, though he was. His pride had a flaw, and it was the darkness inside him – as long as he remained inclined to acts of murder and revenge, he could not consider himself truly good. Righteous, yes. Just, most definitely. But not good. Not quite. ❝ You can’t spit your own insecurities back at me, ❞ he said, bluffing based only on intuition. It stood to reason that if he was who he was because he was loved, she may have been what she was because she had never been. ❝ I’m important to people who care about me. I have no desire to be important to anyone else. ❞ If he was lucky, no one would even remember his name, so stealthy would his plans emerge. The reason he matched Bellatrix toe to toe so well was that the manipulators she used on others – DOUBT, insecurity, hate, fear – were present in his mind through awareness. Because he stopped his flaws before they breached his inner sanctum, they didn’t affect his actions. He was in a constant state of correction. ❝ It hurts, but not in the way you might think. ❞ A moment for truth when hiding it was pointless. ❝ It hurts to be better. To see the paths & know that if I was worse than I am, I would slaughter each & every one of you while you slept without REMORSE. To take the harder path, the slower path, because it follows morality standards I don’t particularly care about most of the time. ❞ A slow smile grew on his face, and it was chilling. ❝ But then, I enjoy a bit of delayed gratification. ❞

She stared at him as he spoke with wide, unmoving eyes and continued to do so long after he stopped. No one, no one, had ever dared to speak to her this way. But what shook her more was that no one had ever been so dangerously close to the truth. She didn’t have an answer to his accusations -- or at least, most of them, anyways. They plagued her day in and day out, and sometimes it was easier to ignore them, but at other times, they drowned everything else out. It was her indecision and her uncertainty that made her cruel at these times. If her mind could never rest, she would distract it with something else -- something crimson. “Sometimes,” she said coldly, “we’re dictated by forces greater than ourselves.” She didn’t mean the Dark Lord or his path; she meant her own quest for immortality. Not in the same way that Tom Riddle sought to prevent true, physical death; all she wanted was her name to outlast her body. If she died and was forgotten, all of this would have been for naught, but if she was remembered -- every sleepless night, every desperate cry for help she muffled down, every person she broke, every life she ruined, it would all be worth it. “If there was any other way to get what I want, I would take it,” she conceded quietly, swallowing around the thick pressure in her throat. “But there isn’t. So I do what must be done. Besides,” she added, laughing a little too cruelly for comfort, her savagery directed at herself rather than him, “I was carved into a weapon before I had any say in the matter, and weapons have no purpose outside of a war.” I will not be disregarded. I will not be forgotten.

His honesty chilled her -- something that, before then, she had thought herself incapable of. She was Bellatrix Black, already frozen to her core, and yet this strange, strange person was unwinding her in ways that she’d never imagined. They were made of the same cloth, built from the same mold, but in him, kindness had won, and in her, cruelty. She didn’t like having a mirror thrown up to her, putting everything in such stark relief, and, unable to stop herself, she looked away, jaw tight and hands clenched. “You should be worse,” she sighed, a bone deep sort of exhaustion settling into her. She was tired of fighting. “All of this would be much easier if you were worse. If you were cruel like I was, if you were cold like I was.” She paused despite herself, and words tumbled from her lips before she could reign them in. “I don’t want to hurt people, but-- there’s something inside of me that doesn’t know how to stop.” The honesty seared through her, branding her like the liar she was. If she could only say these things to perfect strangers or with too much liquor loosening her tongue, she was no better than her cousin -- a coward and a fraud. “I don’t want your pity,” she added after a long moment. “I just need...someone who understands.” She hoped, for her own sake more than his, that she was not making a grave mistake in exposing herself this way; although, she’d made mistakes like this before, shown herself to the wrong people, and she always always made them pay in blood. Caradoc would be no different.