Iridescent

Written by, AvalonTheLadyKiller

Beta'd and Cowritten by, WarriorHime53

A Harry Potter Fan Fiction

No Copyright Infringement Intended

All rights belong to JK Rowling

Chapter One: Azkaban

Breathe in.

Breathe out. Focus.

Breathe in. Strengthen your shields.

Breathe out. Block out the pain. Find the white place. The place where no thoughts, and no voices disturb us. Again.

Her thoughts trickled through her subconscious. Forcing their way to the forefront of her mind, much like the air rushing in and out of her lungs. It was a repetition she'd long since mastered. Her mind, a safe haven. Her only escape in this relentless place. Within these cold walls, she strengthened and manipulated her mental capacity beyond the ordinary. Not that she ever was ordinary, given her bloodline.

Utilizing what she knew of Occlumency, she'd sculpted and developed something unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. Inside her mind, she built a fortress. Behind its windows, her every memory lived; never to be lost. Warding them behind locked doors, she sealed them in a way to protect their contents from eroding into the forgotten. Much as the vaults under Gringotts, she forged rooms riddled with hidden treasures and poisoned memories to punish a trespasser. She took no chances knowing whom might one day come looking.

Preserving each and every memory became her priority, upon arriving at Azkaban. Though she was physically unable to age, her ruthless captor was an extremely patient man. She knew naught the length of her stay, only felt the pouring of sand; counting down until he returned to rape her mind and end her suffering.

She established patterns only she knew; rivets in the Orphanage's brickwork, notches in the wooden floors she used to scrub, ridges in her favorite tree to read against on summer afternoons. Repeating patterns that most never realized existed, and could never be deciphered. After decades of work, she declared her work finished. She assaulted her barriers from every imaginable angle, but her shields never shook.

For the next few years, she drifted more into her mind than ever before. Reliving memories, as though they were happening right before her eyes. Capturing the senses, she could spend days reliving a specific moment in time. Decades were spent in complete silence while she perfected her Mind-Arts. Her solitude would have been enough to drive her completely insane, if not for her already questionable moral ineptitude. Her memories were her last protection against the one that put her here. And one day in the near future, her salvation would arrive.

She had foreseen it.

Years after arriving at Azkaban, she was taken ahold of by her first vision. Late at night while she had laid down to rest, her senses became enraptured by the approach of a middle-aged woman. Shuffling down the hall past her cell, dementors looming over her every step. Her eyes wild and her stance tense, as if ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Only no other woman lived in this wing, or any other at here at Azkaban. Befuddled as to what she'd just seen, she closed her eyes and willed an explanation to surface. Slithering through long buried memories and forgotten dreams for naught. For she could never have anticipated an awakening so profound.

Days after envisioning that first glimpse of a new arrival, the cell beside hers took up a new resident. Just as she had foreseen, Bellatrix Lestrange was thrown into the cell adjoining hers. The temperature, having dropped to near freezing the moment they entered the hall. Every prisoner froze mid-breath from fear. The entire wing instantly grew as quiet as death, so as not to draw the dementors' attention. After sealing her cell, they glided back down the hall out of sight.

The banshee of a woman proceeded to lash out at both the surrounding walls, as well as her fellow prisoners' ears. Nothing stood safe from her wrath. It was not long after, that she began raving in agony over her Lord's demise. Causing the young woman one cell over to bite down on her fingers, silencing her violent cries. Over the years, Bellatrix screeched of fading tattoos and hundreds of other illegible things. It was difficult to decipher every piece of her rants, for they rose and fell like raindrops in a monsoon. Seemingly without rhyme or rhythm, they would disappear into the unchanging abyss before drowning them in the night.

Weeks went by before the ghoulish woman could steady her mental activity to a calm baseline. Her thoughts, while at first thunderous soon faded into a deathly silence. After finally achieving a pure immutable placidity, the ghostly pale young woman began to experience more and more contact from the Otherside. These short premonitions, continued on; never lasting more than a few minutes at most. Her whispering appeared nonsensical to her neighbors, but Bellatrix's interest piqued. Pressing her ear to the wall at her neighbor's broken ravings, in hopes to disentangle their disheveled meaning.

The once ethereal young woman, now looked as though all color had been drained from her body. Ashen, like death incarnate. After having only briefly laid eyes on her young neighbor's appearance, Bellatrix quickly came to call her Spectre. The dark eyed brunette briefly considered that the girl was in fact one of the dead or rather undead, but was unsure why she would partake in meals if that were the case. Bellatrix's nickname became echoed by the others, as their silent neighbor never revealed her true identity. Lost in her own world of visions, the pale beauty became dislocated from the others. Memories and foresight took her to a world beyond desolate concrete and metal.

During her short stay at Hogwarts, she'd quickly became intrigued with the study surrounding the origins of Magic. Though many subjects revolved around the topic, Divination itself once stood at the heart of ancient civilization. A religion, once practiced by those of magical means; attempting to connect with the world beyond. The delicate subject stands apart from most modern teachings, as it's rooted so deeply in tenuous belief. Though a less than impressive study itself, she'd begun sorting through every word she'd read regarding The Sight.

Countless witches and wizards had attempted to force The Sight, with little success. Anything from taking opiates, to weakening their bodies to the point of magical exhaustion; brought nigh a result. From what she'd understood, the mind had to reach a higher plane; untouched by her surroundings. Only then, would she be allowed a glimpse into the fabric of time. Quickly realizing her newly discovered ability, she cultured her mind to attune itself to magic's fervent call. At times while forgoing sleep, she could maintain her meditation for days on end. Not a month later, while she fought to escape her neighbor's barbaric caterwauling, she was given a glimpse into the happenings of the world outside those cursed walls.

She quickly discovered how temperamental each vision could be. How quick a vision could turn. Each decision made, altered the consequences in some way, shape, or form. Countless possibilities began to assault her senses, even in sleep. In this place of overwhelming darkness, she dreamed of the past and the future intertwined.

SHUDDER.

Forced from her thoughts, she felt the floor beneath her quake. Eyelids slowly rising, her pupils remained unchanged in the darkness. Rubble fell from the ceiling around her, long after the disruption.

SHUDDER. Again the room shakes. Voices. She could hear her neighbors crying out, pleading for release. Plebeians, she scoffed.

SHUDDER. Its getting closer, she decides.

Slowly, she arose from her cot. Running her hand along the wall to the gate. Grasping these cold metal bars, between her bony hands. Designed to keep her inside, as much as her jailers out. The dementors, who rarely lingered outside her cell; much preferring to feed from the others' memories. Those who'd once lived pleasant little lives before winding up locked in a box. Such memories were far more delectable than her flavorless void.

Turning left and right, she tried to find the cause of her awakening. Though to be truthful, she hadn't been sleeping. The thought of such dream filled splendor, had abandoned her long before. Her visions had both blessed and cursed her, with their ever-frequent flashes into the world beyond. Her happier memories, drowned out by the devastating news surrounding the fall of the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Within these walls, meditation was her savior. Her protector. Her salvation.

Days turned into nights here. Everlasting night. Filled with nothing but the cold, dread-filled horror that the dementors brought. She wondered sometimes, if her silence was worth it. When all she wished to do was scream. Join her voice with her neighbors' cries of anguish. But instead, she keeps her silence. Waiting for the day, she'd glimpsed over a decade before.

That vision haunted her the most. It gave her such foul, tainted hope and because of that, every day stretched on an eternity. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the moon's rays shining down on her skin. That shadowy figure stepping forward to liberate her. His dark aura pulsing through the air between them. Wind whipped his robes out around him. Her manacles falling to the ground, unbinding her magic once more.

SHUDDER.

She can hear the walls tearing themselves from their home. Blasting inward. Who visits those that have been forgotten, she wonders amusedly. Laughs of maniacal glee resound from the cell next to hers and she finds herself eager to join. He's here.

BOOM. Everything inside of her rattles from this blast. Bellatrix begins cackling in dark amusement. Possibly the first bit of joy the blustering bat had felt, these past 14 years. Dreams do come true, she sarcastically thinks. Tilting her forehead against the bars, and turning to eagerly face the destruction behind her.

She steps lightly over fallen debris to the far wall. Her dry cracked fingers run down the wide rivulet in the concrete, from between their cells. Oh Salazar, what a pleasant day this was turning out to be. She edges closer, hearing Bellatrix climb to her freedom, over the remnants of the crumbling wall. Something must catch her wild eyes, as they pan over the night sky. She drops to her knees, sending the gravel scattering around her form, or digging into her skeletal-like knees. The ghostly pale woman tries to imagine what could bring this fierce woman to her knees, jaw slackening, at it's glory.

"My Lord." With those words, she honors this man.

With both palms flat against the wall the blonde listens raptly, gasping in pleasure as soon as his title leaves the brunette's mouth. The sound is quickly swallowed by the salty breeze, picking up off the rising tide outside. A few stray blonde locks fly up around her face, from the wind seeping in. She can feel a few try to make their escape back through the breach. She thinks this is what catches Bellatrix's eye.

The raving madwoman turns back toward her cell in surprise, knees scraping across the dirt. Her wild eyes finally catching an undisturbed view of the young girl, who had been her silent companion ever since her hasty arrival, all those year previous. The piercing eyes that could penetrate through the thickest of walls, burned into the girl's skin. Those flint-like Black family orbs yearned to peel back the girl's pure alabaster skin, uncovering her every secret and desire.

It was at that exact moment that the aging witch asked not who are you, but "What are you?"

Causing the most luminescent of smiles to emit from the pale young woman's cell. Her deftly feminine fingertips began to run along the cleavage, of what used to be, a reinforced slab. She hummed quietly to herself, as she let her unerringly powerful senses creep outside the confines of the magically famed prison.

She could feel it. Or rather it's what she couldn't feel. The magic that once kept these walls strong against weathering and attack throughout the ages, was torn asunder in just a few seconds time. Sickeningly weak against the thunderous force of his magic. Fallen to ashes, under this man's sheer power and will. I will soon be free, she thought. Free to run. Free to hunt. Free to kill, she hissed at last. For trivial things like the lack of a wand, mattered naught to her. For she knew magic in its purest form. Her very heart pulsed with the raging thrum of her power. No, she would not be confined to the mercy of a meager piece of wood when she'd been forced to endure these walls for coming upon 50 years, while her body remained ageless. Her everlasting youth stood as tangible proof of her abilities.

His piercingly carmine eyes glowed brightly back at her. Fiercely determined to uncover who dared interrupt his most loyal follower's feverish praise. Her mind raged, as the Dark Lord stared questionably back at her long-awaited reappearance without recognition. No longer did she cage her temper in the calm pulsing eye of the storm. In that moment, her fury sustained her. She could taste vengeance on her tongue.

And with her cage weakened, she could feel his aura; just as he could hers. Dark magic flowed through his veins stronger than ever before, as her ever elusive vision had alluded. His magic pulsed with life, death, and untempered power. Such dark beauty. Such strength, she purrs inside the confines of her demented mind. She feels his magic reach out to touch hers, and like feeling sunlight bathe your skin in warmth, she shivered.

Shuddering in euphoria, she thought: It's been so long since I've felt such a pure seduction to the Dark.

Only one such a man could carry such a weight on his soul. Containing it tightly in a vice-like grip, rivalling even the deadliest of snakes. She can hear him inhale sharply, as her magic stroked his with the lightest of touch; like feathers on the bare skin. Testing hers. Tasting the Dark Magic surging up to the surface in silent greeting. Though her heart had leapt into her throat, she could not help but to breathe out her haughty impatience.

"Brother, mine. You've kept me waiting."