#bullocks.

Y/N, a grey witch, watched with the same horror as everyone else when she saw Bellatrix go by in the hallowed halls. She would press to the wallpaper, also dark, and hope to become one with it so as to avoid the feared witch. If only her brother had not vowed her family to his Lord, Y/N might have been spared the horror of being so near. Or, that’s how she felt when she first arrived.

As it was, Y/N happened to owe Bellatrix for a favour the dark witch had done for her. A year into her occupation of the Malfoy Manor, Y/N was very nearly accosted by a band of foot soldiers on the Malfoy grounds. Six wizards, however unskilled they were, outnumbered her too much for Y/N to be confident in any sort of escape. A heavenly blessing in the incongruous form of Bellatrix had appeared as though summoned and had wiped the pristine lawn with the foolhardy wizards. Thus securing Y/N’s debt in her.

It had been a snowball effect after that encounter. Bellatrix would look at Y/N if they passed by each other in the halls. That became solicitous nods, then Bellatrix asking after Y/N’s wellbeing, only ever impersonal small talk (which was frankly more terrifying). It became eating together, and Bellatrix teaching Y/N the odd spell or finding an intriguing book here and there. Y/N, personally, was terrified in every single one of these encounters. She had heard (everyone had) of the insanity that danced behind Bellatrix’s forehead. And with insanity came unpredictability.

“Alrigh’ there, miss?” said one of the more respectful snatchers. Y/N, starved for conversation and pleased to see a familiar face in the endless hallways, smiled.

“Quite well, Scabior. And yourself?”

Scabior was well, he said. Said he found a mouse to keep in his breast pocket for company should there be no charming witches about. Told Y/N about how his mam used to have mice for him and his little sister when they were children. Y/N listened to the stories, not for how compelling they were (for surely tales of Scabior’s childhood were hardly nail-biting thrillers), but for how little she was provided with the opportunity. It was cut slightly short by an enraged shout.

Startled out of the only bit of stimulation she’d gotten in weeks, Y/N turned to see the visage of Bellatrix Lestrange, hair writhing and eyes sparking with magic and fury and power. The witch, relieved of any sense of propriety, charged at Scabior, who’d been resting against the wall near to where Y/N was standing.

“You filthy lout!” Bellatrix screeched. “How dare you speak to her,” continued the ear-splitting screaming.

Y/N had stumbled backward to the floor, her skirts landing around her in a heap and her heart hammering. Bellatrix had her wand pointed to Scabior, who was white as a sheet but trying to calm Paris, his mouse (“Fancy name for a fancy tyke”). Bellatrix, now cackling at the horror on Scabior’s admittedly pretty face and the fear in his lined eyes, began to taunt the wizard with words the Y/N would have never believed to come from the witch.

“You want a piece of my pretty witch! Well! You can’t have her!” she sung in a taunt, her head tilting so far to the right that Y/N thought it might turn all the way around her neck. “You can’t have her!” was the final pronouncement before Scabior was hit with several complex hexes that were sure to be painful to him as she fled down yet another hallway. Bellatrix turned to Y/N, smiling in a syrupy sweet, deranged manner.

“Hop up, pretty witch,” Bella cackled, “You’ll get your dress dirty!”

Y/N leapt to her feet, stumbling only for a moment before meeting the dark eyes trained on her. She gulped at the assessing look on the tormented face.

“No more talking to people! You’re supposed to talk to me,” said Bellatrix, pouting like a child. Something in Y/N’s chest sunk at the statement, knowing somehow that she had been caught by Bellatrix. She’d heard that Bellatrix liked to keep her things close.

“I-”

But Bellatrix had spun on her impressive booted heels and slithered down the marble hall and into a shadow, out of sight and with a departing cackle.

Y/N was grateful to be alone, especially as a quiet “bullocks” left her mouth.

Bellatrix Lestrange had, alarmingly, claimed her.

Again: “Bullocks.”