killer queen

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.”

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.”

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.”

And a Hufflepuff no less, honestly Bella. 

“-- You saw that, then?”

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

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.”

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.”

“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?”

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

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."

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.

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.