The Discordant

ladybellatricks:

He knew her to be a dangerous creature. The fixation of an athlete or an addict, who shone brighter than any of her Black forefathers, she was burning her way to the very top. An immeasurable force. But he also knew she was human, and young and if there was any urge compelling Augustus to seek Bellatrix Black out it might have been called preservation. She was an Icarus if he ever saw one.

And he had seen her, just then as he drifted out of Dervish and Banges after they had robbed him blind. He had sought to purchase a particular manuscript from the native wixen of Ecuador. Bange couldn’t even read the bloody thing, let alone know its real value and yet had wasted Augustus’ entire afternoon charging almost double their agreed upon price- The Swindler. Next time he needed something of this nature he would simply bully Borgin into importing it for him. Carrying the document in a neat roll he marched up Hogsmeade’s highstreet when he had spied the young heiress stepping from that awful tearoom, exuding an unearthly power. As if Bellatrix was gracing everyone in her vicinty with her presence. He supposed she was.

“Ms. Black,” He called, almost impulsively, his large frame moving through the bustle to approach her with a polite smile. Bowing slightly, he tucked the parchment into his robe. “It’s been so long.” It hadn’t, but what in the world reason would Augustus and Bellatrix have for seeing each other regularly? “How are you, madam?”

His figure was a familiar one, the shape of his shoulders beneath a cloak all that it took to identify the formidable wizard. Truth be told, one got surprisingly good at identifying people by their silhouette when masks were worn. A smile sliding over her features with a chilling ease, she pleasantly dipped her head, dark curls bobbing. 

“Far too long, if you ask me.” She replied with a quirk of the lip. “As well as one can be expected in these dark times.” The smile didn’t falter, and the tone of voice remained eerily pleasant. Lip service to sorrow had to be paid, for even the streets had ears in this day and age. Offering him a gloved and delicate hand, she fell in step beside him. 

“Out for business, or pleasure, Mr. Rookwood?” Her voice lilted suspiciously, and her eyes flicked from face to face in the crowd. Those that caught her gaze averted their eyes, and she enjoyed their response far too much, unable to hide the pleasure found in fear. Her look was one of haughty pleasure, although her eyes spoke of other delightful horrors buried somewhere distant in her mind, far from the gross reality of the streets that brushed her skirts. 

ladybellatricks:

He had tried to remain calm, to soothe the wild panther as she roamed the room around them, to allay her fears and breech the subject as subtly as possible but now the cat was out of the bag and the woman was poised to pounce, his own ferocity unleashed.  “I am not blindly accusing, I am simply asking.” He shook his head at her, teeth clenching at her reaction.

“You’re not, but I’ve got eight people who are. Four of which are our own. They’d all be dead had that daft idiot known what he was doing so spare me your hubris and let me do my damn job.” A darkness washed over his features as his firm voice rang out into the space between them.

“Someone turns against us, and you assume it’s me?” Her eyes grew wider, and she paused for a moment, the air growing electric. The silence drew on longer, becoming as wide as the space between them. Bella stared intensely at him, focused on memorizing every detail of his anger.  

“I am more loyal than you can comprehend. I would not...” She took a deep breath, “Will not...harm anyone unless bidden to do so by my Lord.” 

ladybellatricks:

He knew he’d flipped the lid off the can of worms by mentioning his fear, by saying it out loud but if he did not, then who? And answers had to be found. As much as he cared for Bellatrix, he had to know the truth.

“Are you sure?” He asked, tone low as he held his full height. Eyes flicked down to the movement of her hand, the edge of her wand just grazing against the sleeve of her robes. “Careful, Bella… Just doing my job.”

She laughed at his question, and it was a humorless sound, harsh and cutting. “Am I sure? I don’t know, let me just try to remember if I’ve poisoned anyone lately.” Edging towards him, she was too angry to be scared, too horrified to be anything other than rash. 

ladybellatricks:

His expression changed to realization at her comment. He’d been so vested on the topic he was about to breech that his discovery had completely slipped his mind. “Under better circumstances, I would be… but this one hit a little too close to home, Bella.”

He cursed under his breath as he noticed her slipping away, backing out towards the door. Long legs ate up the distance between them easily, and he had her backed up against a wall a minute later. She couldn’t escape before he’d had the chance to ask her… “You don’t know… anything about this, do you, Bella?”

Anger flashed across her face like a thunderclap. She was at once caged animal and enraged queen upon her throne. This was an accusation, and her pulse quickened, as she visibly bridled at his remarks. Her back hit the wall as she stepped backwards, attempting to find some sort of escape, her hands bracing herself against the cold hospital tile. 

ladybellatricks:

How inconvenient that even though where they were wasn’t exactly a busy place at the moment–hardly any others around at all, it still wasn’t isolated enough to just have free rein and teach this guy a lesson. She wasn’t in a very forgiving mood, especially since she’d had a major bust-up with someone who worked at the Daily Prophet.

So when another figure appeared behind her, Rosemary was all but ready to add them into the mix as well. Yet her expression changed a little when she saw who it was.

“Bella…”

There was no pulling away from the hand on her shoulder, which would have had her firmly doing so with most others. Her gaze just remained on her for a moment. She liked Bella and that was saying something for Rosemary. She knew her through school, but never really got to know her well until she was with Rodolphus.

“He is blaming his wand for nearly planting a bloody spell on me and frankly–I’m not too bothered about letting him be around for tomorrow.”

Her dark hues slid to the young male wizard and she raised her own wand.

“Don’t you dare fuckin’ move.”

He turned towards Bella hoping she would help him out.

“It really was an accident.”

Bellatrix wasn’t sure if this was a blessing in disguise, or just yet another addition to a very long day. She sized up the offending party once again, surprised at his unfamiliarity. This boded well for him, as it meant he was likely someone of little consequence, who truly meant no harm. Still, she sneered slightly, and rolled her eyes. 

“Accidents still have consequences. Or didn’t your mummy teach you better?” She released Rosemary, satisfied for now that she wasn’t going to kill the man outright. 

Releasing the the young wizard from her steely gaze, she turned to Rosemary, her tone shifting suddenly. “It’s been too long, we really should see each other more often.” These lightening quick emotions were a particular mannerism she’d always had. She flipped between emotions and personalities with a suddenness that could give you whiplash if unprepared for it. 

There were people she rarely saw anymore, unless they were behind masks. In a way it was strangely freeing, and isolating at the same time. It felt almost unnatural to find excuses to socialize outside of the context of a war fought under the cover of darkness and anonymity. 

Once more returning her focus to the unfortunate man before them, Bellatrix quickly crossed the distance between them and snatched the man’s wand from his fingertips. 

Rosemary was clever and she could be very calculated when it came to displaying a false facade of an innocent journalist who was just driven in her career. Yet she did possess quite a temper and on occasion, it could boil over to the point where it usually took someone to bring her back in line. The trouble with this witch is that there weren’t many who were able to do that and not gain a dangerous enemy with her.

So with irritation bubbling through her veins, she made her way through Diagon alley after a particularly busy but unproductive afternoon. It’s only as she passed a small snicket which led to knockturn alley that a bolt of lightning, clearly from someone’s wand, hit the brickwork just to the side of her.

Quick reflexes have Rosemary slip her wand into her hand and send a bolt of power back to the culprit, only she hits her mark and the young wizard is projected through the air and slams into the wall behind him.

“I’m sorry! please…please!…just wait a minute. That really wasn’t meant for you!…I-I dunno what’s happened…my wand…something wrong with it I just…”

Rosemary was quick to cut him off in mid-sentence.

“You really picked the wrong fuckin’ day to do this….”

Her language was colourful even when her accent was refined–it made for very interesting conversations sometimes, especially ones with family and relatives who would chastise her for it.

The panic in his eyes was noticed by her and she raises a brow.

“L-Listen….I know you…K-Know ‘of’ you…you’re related to Rodolphus and Rabastan, right?…you do anything to me–they will hear about it…you don’t want this…I know you don’t..”

The mention of her cousins was enough to send another bolt from her wand and hit his shoulder.

“I can do what I want…they have nothing to do with this and who says I care if they do hear?? You are lucky you aren’t dead. “ Okay, so it might not entirely be the truth about doing what she wanted, but her mood wasn’t very forward thinking at the moment.

“And guess what?”

She pointed her wand again and within a second, the males own wand was far from reaching distance of him. She wasn’t interested in whether something underhand had gone off with his wand, this was just an opportunity or perhaps an excuse to vent some of her anger.

“It’s very dangerous down here you know?…and with you doing that to me first…it is now classed as self-defence….”

A wicked smile makes the edges of her mouth turn upwards. That is until she catches the silhouette of someone in her peripheral vision just off to the right, behind her.

“Stay out of this. Walk away. It’s not any of your business.”

Visiting her mother always had a strange effect on Bellatrix. It stirred something deep in her stomach. It bordered on pity, or as close as she had ever come to feeling such an emotion. Yet it also triggered a disgust and fear that she could taste in the back of her mouth, bitter and biting. Disgust that a woman once so powerful, refined, poised, could become whatever it was that she was evolving into. 

Yet it was the fear that lingered, that she couldn’t wash off her skin. Fear that it could happen to her. 

Lunch had dragged on far too long, and Bella had finally excused herself on false pretenses, claiming she had appointments that didn’t exist. The sunshine in Diagon Alley felt strangely out of place after hours spent inside the cool darkness of the Black home. It was a jarring difference, almost painful in how abstractly different the atmosphere was to breath in. 

Her feet carried her forwards without much coherent thought necessary. A familiar voice carried across the crowd, speaking in none to pleasant a tone. Bellatrix searched the crowd, a slight sigh falling from her lips as she saw its owner. 

They’d been two year’s apart in school, Bellatrix the elder, and impressively, the more unruly of the two. Yet time had taken them in different directions, even as it had ensured they remained within the same circles. Bellatrix saw it as a rather ironic turning of the tables, adulthood had saddled her with responsibilities and titles, denying her certain freedoms she openly envied. Yet many of them had come with the name Lestrange tied to them, strangely connecting her back to the younger witch. 

Slipping between bodies, she approached Rosemary from behind, placing a hand on the witch’s shoulder. 

ladybellatricks:

An unsurprised and equally disinterested huff breathed from his nostrils when Bellatrix admitted to having a certain affect on people. The kind that required a bit of alcohol to take the edge off. Or a lot, in his case. Fenrir didn’t care enough to comment, though anything he might have said in reply would’ve been to wonder if alcoholism ran rampant among her friends and family. 

Repartee, bitter and biting as it would have been, wasn’t something he was interested in sharing with the witch. 

They spotted their target at the same time. Fenrir could feel a dark swirling energy pulse from around the witch beside him. Excitement and something else tinged the air, something sinister that spoke to the beast behind his breast. In that second he recognized something of himself in her and bared his teeth. Loathing sharpened his eyes to pin pricks. She’d better not get in his way.

Where she was lithe and graceful like a cat poised to pounce, Fenrir was all beast. His shoulders squared. Fingers rolled to fists at his sides. Upper lip twitching with a snarl, he lowered his head a bit to glare at his prey from under his furrowed brow. Anticipation for the scent of blood, the slick feel of it on his hands, made him rumble an eager sound. 

“I hope he screams,” Bellatrix’s giggle was spine chilling.

He will, Fenrir promised to none but himself. Before he could catch her arm and pull her back, Bellatrix was out of the alleyway and in the lantern light. Fenrir growled again, this time with his irritation. She was going to cock this up, he fucking knew she would. Watching the path she’d taken, Fenrir decided to flank the misbegotten wizard. He also left their alleyway and crossed the dark street, ducking into the alleyway there. A few turns and he’d reroute behind their target. Hopefully coming up on him the same moment that Bellatrix did, so that he’d have nowhere to go but right into Fenrir’s waiting arms. 

But with Bellatrix in the mix there was no knowing how well that plan would play out. Badly, if he felt like guessing.

Bellatrix stood in the lamplight for a moment, completely still, and unnoticed by the man who she watched. It was a beautiful moment in her eyes, seeing without being seen. She smiled at him, a hungry and vicious grin. Then her voice rang out into the otherwise empty night. 

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” Her voice was thick with a seductive tone, but it was the sort of sickly sweetness that hunters used to bait their traps. She made no effort to hide it, enjoying playing with her prey. She saw him freeze, then pretend not to hear her, before turning sharply and picking up his pace. Bloodlust and impulse drove her forwards relentlessly, with no concern for anything other than the game she played. 

Pouting in mock disappointment Bella twisted in one smooth motion, apparating with a pop to appear in front of him. “It’s rude to ignore a lady.” She shook her head. 

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you any manners?” She tsked lightly, “I suppose not, given that you also planned to leave us without saying a proper goodbye.” 

ladybellatricks:

He hated being out in the open, the shadowed corner of the room they happened to be in did little to ease his mind as he mulled over exactly how to approach the subject. If he were in fact right in his assumptions than Bellatrix Black was a looser cannon than any of them had realised…

Only, her words through him off some. He needed to ask her, the question burning the tip of his tongue as it remained within him but he had absolutely no idea to what she was currently referring… “Congratulations? For what?”

She shook her head, not sure if he was playing dumb or just being modest. “I hear you’re the one who figured out what’s ailing everyone. I assumed you’d be resting on your laurels.” She mocked a curtsy. 

There was a calculated way in the manner that he moved, and the realization that she had been backed into a room slowly dawned on her. Suspicion rising, she began to step around the empty bed, and towards the door. Reminding herself that this was Amycus, a friend, she kept her breathing even and her face calm. Each breath in stung her nose, a forced inhalation of antiseptic smell, and she forced a smile. 

ladybellatricks:

The breath that expelled from him, misting in the cold night air, was amused. Her jab at his ability to tell time was unsurprising. Highfalutin little pure blood witch was a little too short to be looking down her nose all the time. Fenrir didn’t bristle because he didn’t care. His hand could cover her whole face. If, no, when he lost his patience with her all he had to do was smack her around a bit. It’d be like a lion batting down a badger.

He glared into the night, teeth grit while he gave the building across the way a visual sweep. Fenrir tried to ignore the petite figure he’d had forced upon him, but the scent of her perfume made his nose twitch and scratched at the back of his throat. Standing downwind of her was going to be a problem. A distasted vibration churned behind his breastbone. She was going to get in his way tonight. He knew it without a doubt and wanted to curse He Who Must Not Be Named for forcing her on him. 

Stepping away from Bellatrix, toward the wall of the building beside them, he peered around the corner to scan the empty street. The witch explained that their target would be arriving soon and he made no indication that he’d heard her beyond an exhale that clouded the night. The sooner they caught the boy the sooner he and the witch could part ways. Soon was not soon enough.

This time when she spoke Fenrir did growl. It was a low and menacing sound that rolled through his rib cage like the distant churn of thunder. He glared at her from the corner of his eye for just a second before refocusing on the street. “I’m not here to behave, witch.” He was here to catch their guy and make him scream. If she expected compliance she was in for one hell of a night.

Fenrir smelled her irritation before the question spat out of her, and it pulled an impish smirk to the edge of his mouth. He huffed an amused breath, smirking an unabashed smile that didn’t wilt under the severity of her glare. “Had to,” he grumbled, still smirking into his beard. “It’s the only way to put up with you.”

Before anything else could be said between them, movement down the street caught his attention. Fenrir nodded Bellatrix’s focus in the man’s direction. And they both watched his shuffled approach of the building across from their shadowed alleyway. The man stepped under the lantern light, it’s flickering glow illuminating his face. It was their guy. Thrill for what would come next made his blood shimmer with excitement. 

There was something about being outdoors at night which quickened her pulse in a way that she enjoyed far too much. The darkness contained an absolute freedom that she was rarely allowed, and she’d be damned if this man would take it from her. The taste was sweet on her lips and she drank in the night air like a child wasted by dehydration, unable to stop themselves from taking great drowning gulps. It was enough to (at least briefly) attenuate her anger.

His response elicited a soft laugh, sardonic and twisting her lips. “I have that effect.” There was no pride in her tone, simply a statement of fact. Harping on irresponsibility wasn’t a habit of hers, mostly because she had very little room to talk. However, this particular action rubbed her the wrong way. It was arrogance mixed with a disrespect that she didn’t take lightly.

She fell silent and refocused her attention on the figure that approached. Her posture shifted, shoulders dropping low, knees bending, eyes narrowing. Every motion was that of a predator, recoiling before the strike. One hand pulled her hood back from her face, wanting full use of her peripheral vision. Her dark hair loosed to the wind, tendrils caught in the wind and she was unable to stop the wild grin that seized her face into a joyful expression. 

The man looked scared. His obvious fear was written in the lines that furrowed his brow and the hunching of his back. Perhaps he felt the eyes on him from the shadows. More likely, he knew that his actions had consequences he had not yet felt. 

“I hope he screams.” The words fell from her lips with a slight giggle, spoken to no one in particular.