Estranged | Narcissa, Andromeda & Bellatrix Black

03 | bella

━   i i i   ━

b e l l a

SHE MATERIALISED IN a swirl of black smoke.

As the heavy plumes dissipated into the air, Bellatrix Lestrange assessed her surroundings. Her heeled boots clicked threateningly on the stone as she strode towards the back of the musty room. It was dark, but she recognised the place well — she had been here many times before.

"Lumos." The tip of her wand illuminated, revealing dust particles suspended in the stagnant air. It looked like an ordinary living space, only it had been abandoned; everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. Yellowed wallpaper was peeling off the mildewed walls and the once-opulent rug on the floor was frayed beyond repair. A wooden dining set was rotting in a corner, and the lone window was boarded up, rendering the moth-eaten curtains useless.

Bellatrix looked at the decrepit furniture with interest. Paper, rugs, wood, curtains: how flimsy, how — She smiled to herself — flammable. The place seemed empty until something scurried across the room. She turned sharply; a ray of green light and the rat keeled over on the ground, dead. Nudging the rodent with the toe of her boot, she examined what she had killed. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, "This place is infested with vermin."

"My apologies." And a figure that was completely hidden in the shade, except for his unnaturally pale complexion, spoke. "Bellatrix," Lord Voldemort sat in a tattered armchair, his robes splayed out almost regally behind him, "at last."

At the sight of her master, Bellatrix bowed down subserviently. "My Lord," she simpered, her voice sugary with devotion, "it has been done." She looked up at him, making his desired eye-contact.

His glowing red eyes pierced her dark ones intensely before a hostile voice rang in her head that wasn't her own. Show me. And her memories were forced to the surface.

Snape's face, suffused with hatred, his wand pointed at a weakened Albus Dumbledore.

"Avada Kedavra."

The killing curse hit the old man square in the chest. And as Dumbledore's dead body plummeted to the ground, she heard her own manic laughter.

"Perfect."

The images vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Disorientated, Bellatrix fell to her knees, her palms slamming into the cold floor. She was no longer at Hogwarts, but back in the secret room.

Lord Voldemort stood unfazed as Bellatrix slowly righted herself, a look of satisfaction warping his snakelike face. He spoke, his high-pitched voice spiked with mirth, "Now that Albus Dumbledore is dead, I believe it is time to find our friends."

In response, Bellatrix retrieved her wand from inside her boot and, without warning, a stream of roaring flames flowed out of it, mutating into a giant, fiery serpent. It leapt to life, crackling menacingly as it coiled around her, still tethered to her wand. With a flick, Bellatrix unleased the Fiendfyre, and the serpent lashed at the walls, swelling into a feral inferno. It was insatiable, consuming everything — the wallpaper, the rug, the wood, the curtains — until the furniture disintegrated into ash. Tendrils of black smoke saturated the room, which was filled with a lethal orange haze.

Bellatrix stood in the centre of the destruction; the fire didn't touch her. And as she stood, cackling gleefully while the room collapsed around her, she had never looked more alive. It was common knowledge that Fiendfyre was deadly: it could destroy, it could maim, it could kill. And Bellatrix Lestrange had tamed it.