A Surreal Tale: Prologue

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Title: A Surreal Tale — Prologue
Rating: R to NC-17 overall.
Warnings: Cursing, descriptions of adult activity, torture
Story Summary: The year is 1981, and it is rapidly becoming a bad one for Bellatrix Lestrange. A shocking revelation is followed by shocking betrayal, and soon Bellatrix is out of her depth - stranded from all she holds dear. She fends for herself, somehow - no Black could do less, and, years later, re-enters the public arena once more, with her erstwhile son and companion, Antares Black.
But wait - what on earth does this have to do with Harry Potter, ostensibly dead at the hands of Voldemort in the year of his defeat?
Pairing: Several are mentioned in passing, but only one gets any significant screen time. And it really should be a spoiler. So, therefore: Severus/Bellatrix.
Wordcount: ~170,000 overall. About 3,000 for this chapter.

Chapter Rating: R, for references to torture and other nasty things.
Chapter Summary: It all begins, as you will see, in a small room, between a husband and a wife.

A/N: This is now (and really, has always been) massively AU, for all the hints I’m dropping in on the rewrite. It’s already completely posted elsewhere (here, to be helpful) in its unedited glory, so if you get impatient with my (re)posting schedule (once a week is about as high as I’m willing to aim, since I’m still writing the third part of this series and actually continue to leave my house on a regular basis), you can always satisfy yourself that way.

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Prologue

Bella stared at the results one more time. It was inconceivable. This could not be happening, not to her—

She looked up and felt an unfamiliar feeling blossom its way into her heart. She could not for the life of her remember exactly what it was—but, as she looked into her husband’s dark eyes, full of rage, she remembered. Faintly.

Fear.

Rodolphus gritted his teeth—a bad sign. She dropped the scrap of parchment onto the desk before them, the numbness seeming to swamp her like a tide of angry water, fiercely purging away all feeling.

We regret to inform you that you are unable to bear any magical offspring.

What did that mean? She was a Black, for Morgana’s sake, she—

“Did you know about this?” The low tone of her husband’s voice did nothing to conceal his anger. Bellatrix could only reread the scrap as it lay on the table, her brain screaming in confusion and anger. The sharp tickle of her husband’s dry hand hitting her face helped to bring her to. “Did you know?” Rodolphus hissed.

Within her, Bella’s heart seemed to shrivel. He’d never used that tone—not when it was not needed—what did he think her, a fool like her simpering twit of a sister? Of course she’d not—

“Answer me!” But before Bella could form the words on her leaden tongue, Rodolphus was already seizing her, throwing her against the wall.

Almost the same way he’d thrown her on the bed the night before, dark eyes gleaming with hunger and anticipation.

Almost.

She tried to shake her head. This wasn’t fair—this was better off in the lives of Muggle-loving fools who wouldn’t care—she was a Black, and she was supposed to bear offspring—for the Dark Lord’s bidding—

Bella let out the first sob that had emanated from her lips in years.

And, as Rodolphus poured out his rage, lashing out at her with his wand and his fists, she gave into it. It was only what she deserved—failing her Master—

Darkness descended in like a heavy, smothering blanket, drowning out her vague, useless pride that at least she had not screamed.

---

She woke up in the room later, alone. It was bloody, the couch she had been laid on; there was damp, cooling blood, unpleasantly slick on her face, all of it hers. She reached for her wand—the first time she’d done so since she’d read the damning result of the simple magical test that even now continued to tear at something deep inside of her.

It wasn’t fair. It simply wasn’t fair that Narcissa had got her blond man and blonde son—wasn’t fair that Andromeda, the little Muggle-loving slut, had got her own abomination of a half-blood, when she, she who had done everything right, she who had upheld the Black name, was to be forever cheated.

Bella closed her hooded eyes tiredly, her mind running through the familiar cadences of the healing spells she knew. It was so odd, so—so unreal, somehow, realising she’d ended up with one of the rarest Wizarding conditions a witch could have—being able to bear only Squib or, even worse, Muggle children.

She was now of no use to the Dark Lord—to his plans—

Bella sobbed for the second time that evening. There was nothing for it—for her—she’d craved to help, so much, and now Narcissa would get the glory—the fame—the attention—

In that moment, Bella hated her. Hated her for having the child that Voldemort could sanction, a child that would grow in his presence, be taught from birth—

Bella screamed at the empty room, lashing out at the worn-down furniture with her bloody wand, because it was the only thing she could really do.

The magical drain had certainly not been what her tortured body needed, and she sank back onto the couch, heaving with dry sobs. Lights seemed to flash on and off behind her eyelids as she closed them, as she sobbed for breath.

The last thing she could hold on to before she drifted off into the darkness was that her life—was—not—fair.

---

She woke up this time to find Rabastan Lestrange uncomfortably near, with an odd, intense look on his face. Bella closed her eyes, trying to shut the sight of him out. His annoying fixation on her had only ever triggered her contempt. Today, with her life feeling so thin and useless around her, it would be harder to hide it.

Well, as much as Bella hid anything. And now his hand was slipping beneath her head, his fingers stroking her neck. Angry, Bella tried to reach up and shove away his too-warm fingers, and found herself unable to move.

Smiling, Rabastan stood, threw down his wand, and began to unbutton his robe, his dark eyes sliding up and down Bella’s helpless body. She stopped trying to move— she knew the spell he had her under, because she could feel herself shiver in disgust as he touched her.

Carnatitio, she thought distantly, around the unwelcome feel of Rabastan’s hands exploring in places she’d never welcomed them. Rodolphus’ favourite.

Rage filled Bella, and poured out of her in a spell when she felt Rabastan tear open her robe front. She could not close her eyes— all the better to watch him dance in the grip of her weak Crucio. Her strength failed, and she was forced to let him drop, but the damage was done. Rabastan’s hold on her broke cleanly as he concentrated on gathering up his wand with shaky hands, leaving her free to rise and retaliate. Bella began by kicking him in the face with relish, and again in the chest, driving him from his wand. It felt hot in her hand, as if it knew of the injury she would now wreak on its owner.

“Bella—”

She slapped him, incanting raggedly under her breath. A bruise rose on his sullen, pale face, satisfying in its size, and a refreshing amount of fear began to cloud over the lust on his face when she began to bind him in chains. For a long moment, she toyed with several ideas for punishing him. Heated chains did not appeal— they were so simple, and so easy to brave out. Sexual assault was out of the question, since she hadn’t the least desire to touch him. And the shivers travelling down her arms now did not assure her of being able to maintain the Cruciatus curse on his wretched body for as long as she wanted.

Then, looking at him, an awful thought squeezed in amongst the others, and made itself known. Shaking, Bella slid her hand into Rabastan’s hair and made him look at her. “How dare you?” When his expression did not change, she struck him, and decided heated chains would suffice. He flinched when she said the spell, but did not move when they began to burn into his skin. Incensed, Bella struck him again, as hard as she could. “How dare you?”

Rabastan smiled, and the look he gave her was laden with lust and contempt. “You’re barren,” he said. “Useless to us. Rodolphus doesn’t need you. Doesn’t want you.” He looked up and down her, smirking. “Opportunity knocked, so I took it.”

Bella smiled at him, and was satisfied to see his own smile falter. “I’ll show you knocking,” she said calmly, ripping a cushion from the couch and transforming it into a mace. “I’ll show you.”

The third blow brought forth the first scream. By the fifth, Bella’s arm ached, and Rabastan would not stop screaming, and there was fresh blood on her face. Someone hammered at the door, shouting, and Bella smiled, realising that Rabastan had probably spelled it shut, in order to take advantage of the…opportunity. He sobbed now. Begged.

Bella rose his wand, and cast the strongest Crucio she could summon from her shaking limbs. Then the door blasted open, pelting her with shards, and darkness descended again.

---

When Bella came to, she found she could not breathe. She fought to draw in some air, shaking and thrashing against the inexorable grip around her neck.

It loosened abruptly, and she could see. And her wrists were burning now, where the chains on her had dug into them as she fought for breath.

“My lord,” Rodolphus said, from close above. “She is awake.” His tone was frozen with malice, underlain with such rage that Bella blinked. His hand felt improbably warm on her neck as he dragged her to her feet. The chains gave, but in such a way that Bella bent in pain, and found it hard not to struggle, despite the consequences she knew would follow.

“My lord!” Rodolphus’ voice was loud now, and she could feel the heat of his anger in the grip he had on her neck. “I beg you.” It was in his tone, what he wanted; Bella did not need to hear him say the words to know that Rabastan was dead. “Let me avenge my brother.”

“We do not have time,” the Dark Lord said, his tone the sort no one dared argue with. “We’ve spent too much time here already.”

Rodolphus’ grip was now so tight that Bella could not breathe. “My lord—”

“One strike, Rodolphus,” the Dark Lord snapped. “One, and we continue our business.” His footsteps were heavy, amplified in the quiet of the circle, half by his magic, and half by the rapt silence of those surrounding them. He touched Bella’s cheek. “Such bloodthirsty folly is beneath our notice tonight.” He stepped back, not even bothering to cast a glance in Bella’s direction. “One strike, and one only.”

The chains dragged Bella to the ground, and the last thing she clearly felt was the point of Rodolphus’ wand against her neck.

She could still hear; the Cruciatus was strange like that. Pain coloured her former master’s words, enlarged them, distorted them; when Bella wept, it was partly for what he said. Useless, he called her. As useless as a squib.

For some moments, the pain drowned him out. When sound returned, Bella felt as though she was floating, floating far above the scene.

“A pity,” the Dark Lord was saying to Rodolphus, no pity in his tone. “Your son would have been great; greater, perhaps, than that ill-gotten child from that useless prophecy.” But his tone did not do much to hide his anger, and in the next moment, Rodolphus was bent double under their Lord’s own punishing wand. “If you or yours fail me again—”

Rodolphus’ cry was taut, ragged with pain. “Master, I will not!”

The Dark Lord did not seem to hear him, already turning to another in the circle. And Bella was floating higher and higher, farther away from them all. And all she could think of was how she had been thrown aside. See, the circle was beginning to disperse, leaving her for dead— like she was too useless to care about.

Closing her eyes, Bella turned and strove for darkness. It will be better than this, she thought. Better than this pain.

It came to her, and it was.

---

A tired, filthy Severus Snape stared down at the remnants of the woman before him, wondering what to do.

The Dark Lord had become even more erratic over the last few days. But that only halfway explained this loss, this purposeful destruction of such a resource.

Severus grimaced. It was folly in the extreme, just another example of his Lord’s unease, just another example of his incapacity to add to the overgrown stock in Severus’ keen memory. He bent closer, examining her impartially; she did not seem to be breathing, and her face and limbs were rapidly losing colour. She was almost certainly dead, or would very swiftly be so.

Severus deliberated with himself uneasily. It was one thing to shun the more foolish, inhumane acts of what he’d increasingly begun to regard as the madman he served, but quite another, quite another entirely, to disregard one of his commands. He’d expected Dark Lord to detain him while the others Disapparated, questioning him closely on the Potters’ whearabouts. But he’d not expected to be told in no uncertain terms to finish Bellatrix off, and had not relished the venomous look Rodolphus had given him when he’d nodded his acceptance of the task.

Now, faced with the prospect of carrying it out, Severus found himself hesitating. His head ached from the Dark Lord’s suspicious, unvoiced assault on his mind’s defences, and even the rather less taxing idea of simply burying Bellatrix’s half-dead body and letting the weight of the earth sort her out seemed like an unnecessary amount of effort to spend on such a pointless task.

Severus looked down again at her body, feeling a sort of grim satisfaction surge up in him. He sneered, watching silently as the wind played with her ragged, blood-encrusted robes. She’d been pompous, grating and not a little fanatical— the sort of person he mistrusted and despised on principle. But one less Lestrange in the world did it some good, really, even though the same recklessness with which Bellatrix had robbed Rodolphus of his brother would eventually have lead to far more unpleasant problems. The raid last week had nearly gone sour just because she’d insisted on torturing someone for longer than neccessary, and there had been other times before then, when Bellatrix’s bloodlust had prevented them from laying hands on actual information instead of another body to dispose of.

Then again, there had also been the grand attack on the Fawcetts, when she’d fought near the Dark Lord and mowed down everything in her part. Thinking about her fearlessness on that day first made Severus’ blood run cold, then made his head hurt with the reality of what Bellatrix was, now. Useless, the Dark Lord had repeated, again and again, though it was not hard to imagine what she might have become had her remorse at her childlessness been channelled into the rage she’d already displayed against Rabastan. She could only have become more hateful of the Dark Lord’s opponents, more determined to see every last one of them dead.

And really, the only way Severus thought anyone could have ignored Bellatrix’s deadly potential was to not have seen it in the first place. And that thought, Severus could not help but entertain, along with other, traitorous thoughts that had been plaguing him of late. Why had the Dark Lord sent lesser Death Eaters against the Longbottoms last month instead of sending the full strength of his Inner Circle? And why was he so fixated on a prophecy that he only seemed to be making a possibility with every misstep he made? A month ago, Severus had repeated the Prophecy to his Lord, taking care to dismiss it as nonsense. Now, it was all that was discussed within the Circle. How to counteract the prophecy, how to strike it down before it could hurt their cause, how to thwart it if it could not be struck down.

It was enough to make Severus turn mad. Tonight, his growing despair was working its magic. Bellatrix was still there at his feet, unmoving. But colour was returning slowly to her face, and she still seemed to be bleeding, if slowly. And, as he watched, she began to take hoarse, rattling breaths.

For a long moment, Severus could not prevent himself from calculating her chances of survival, could not help but think of what she might do if she woke. Then, shaking his head, he was Obscuring her carefully, burning the Mark from her arm, preparing her bleeding body so none of the blood on her would remain on him.

Moments later, he was turning his back on the huddled mass of black that he’d left in the muggle graveyard of a town he did not know by name. She’d been breathing raggedly when he settled her against one of the sturdier headstones, and was presumably doing so now. Her wand, which he’d had to Summon to find, was in pieces underneath her. And Severus was burning with a singleness of purpose that he’d thought reserved for those days when he craved destruction.

His wand was clean of murder tonight, and his mind clean of the last few arguments that had bound him to his Lord. It was time to extricate himself from the mess that was the Death Eaters; Severus could feel it. And he’d be damned if he did it how Bellatrix had done it, with her wand in pieces beneath her, and her body stamped with death.

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A/N: To repeat myself, for anyone who has read this before, yes, this is a sort of kind of partial rewrite. I was formatting it so I could post it here, and just couldn’t help myself once I’d changed a few words. Hopefully, the rest of the story won’t need as much rewriting.