The Black Widow's Web

Lucius observed her with cold, grey eyes, his mouth set into a small frown. She unsettled him greatly with her erratic demeanour and her wild appearance—intimidated him more than he felt comfortable with. A woman, he thought irritably, was supposed to be feminine, not savage.

Compared to her sister, as different as two blood relatives could possibly be, she seemed too violent and untamed. Unlike her, she was not immaculately groomed—gentle, classy, polite. There was only a lack of self-control, emphasised by violent instincts and a tongue like poison.

She could not refrain from speaking her mind—did not know how. She talked, she acted, wildly and impulsively. And for this reason, Lucius had never been in the dark about how she truly felt about him. She had never shied away from speaking her mind and making her feelings towards him perfectly clear.

And the feelings in question?

Hatred. Disgust. Pure loathing.

So why, he had to ask himself, was he there? Why had Bellatrix Black, of all people, extended an invitation to him, Lucius Malfoy, whom she'd always belittled and sneered at during their time at Hogwarts, to join him for dinner, alone, at her house?

He had been too curious to refuse. Knowing he was probably walking straight into a trap, which he likely wouldn't fare well from at all, Lucius had willingly accepted her offer. She had made it perfectly clear he was to come alone—Narcissa was not to be brought. And though Lucius was deeply sceptical of the whole arrangement and suspicious of his future sister-in-law's intentions, he had not been able to resist. His burning curiosity to know what she was up to had overpowered any sense of logic he might have had.

Hence why he was there in that moment, surveying her with those cold, grey eyes.

"What do you want, Bellatrix? Why am I here?" Lucius snapped. No introduction, no falsely cheerful welcomes. She was up to something, and he was not going to dally around and fall into her trap.

Lucius' guard had never been more up.

"Sit down," Bellatrix ordered with a firm tone but a sickeningly sweet smile. She was dressed in black from head to toe, which didn't surprise Lucius at all. He had never seen Bellatrix in any colour other than pure, soulless black, save for her old Hogwarts uniform. It seemed a way for her to exemplify the darkness within.

He had always questioned her sanity. And he had always questioned how somebody so ruthless and dark could be so closely related to the elegant, angelic form of Narcissa Black. Light and shade, day and night—they could not be further from each other in both a physical and personality-based sense.

Narcissa had many attributes. Thankfully, just enough to make up for the fact that in gaining her as a wife, Lucius would also be gaining such an unruly, vicious woman as a sister.

Lucius deepened his frown, refusing to move at all. "What do you want, Bellatrix?" he repeated in his drawling accent. How dare she order him around! He was her guest, her elder, her superior.

Bellatrix glared at him through her heavy-lidded eyes, and her false smile, meant to coerce him into doing what she wanted, slipped away in an instant. They were stood at opposite ends of the dining room, watching, glaring, emanating anger for the other.

"Sit down," she repeated through gritted teeth, looking no less dangerous than a panther intent on killing.

Lucius was about to demand why he was there again. He was a stubborn man, and she a stubborn woman. Neither one would admit defeat first, neither one would cave. They would willingly play that game all night.

But Lucius, not because he was the weaker of the two, or because she asserted dominance over him (or so he tried to convince himself), but because he didn't have the patience to waste an entire evening playing mind games with a woman he detested, reproachfully settled into the seat at one end of the extensive glass dining table. He did so, however, slowly and without breaking eye contact with her.

A flicker of a smirk played on Bellatrix's lips as she observed the movement. Lucius tensed, feeling the smugness she conveyed.

"Drink?" she offered, smiling at him sweetly again.

Lucius was about to refuse when she suddenly snapped her fingers. A tall gilded goblet appeared in front of him, filled almost to the brim with a shimmering red liquid. Lucius peered into it with deep suspicion. A fruity smell wafted from within, tantalising and tempting.

"I thought we were having dinner," he said suspiciously, looking up to glare at her again.

Bellatrix ignored him. "Drink up."

Everything in Lucius' body screamed at him not to consume a single drop of the seemingly harmless concoction before him. It looked and smelt like Firewhisky, of which he was not unaccustomed to. A deep crimson red, it reminded him of blood, and therefore death, and there was not a chance of him touching anything Bellatrix had offered him when he could do nothing but associate such disturbing images with it.

Lucius resented that Bellatrix hadn't joined him in sitting down. She towered above him even from the other side of the room, dominant.

"No, thank you," he drawled, pushing the goblet away ever so slightly.

Bellatrix scowled at him, and Lucius felt a rush of internal triumph.

"I will ask you once more, and only once more, before I walk straight out the door. Why," he enunciated clearly, "am I here?"

"I wanted to congratulate you," Bellatrix said through gritted teeth, struggling to keep up the pretence of polite sophistication. "To congratulate you on your engagement to my sister and to raise a toast." At this, she raised her hand, and there appeared, from thin air, an identical goblet to that which Lucius had pushed away.

Uneasiness prickled his skin, but something in Lucius' stomach relaxed nevertheless. Perhaps she was not intent on murdering him then. But even still…

"Why?" he snorted, deeply amused. "You have openly despised me even before I set eyes on your sister, and your hatred since our affiliation began has only deepened. I would have assumed our engagement would have instilled in you only feelings of bitterness and deeper hatred."

Lucius could not help but notice Bellatrix's bosom heaving beneath that absurd corseted bodice she was wearing, like she was struggling for breath, and struggling to keep calm and retain control. He was winning, he thought smugly. He had all the power.

"I wanted to put our differences aside," Bellatrix insisted, though her warm assurance promptly fell short on her lips, never extending to her eyes. "If you're going to be part of our family, I wanted to personally make you feel welcome."

"So why couldn't Narcissa come?" Lucius challenged.

"Because then it wouldn't be as personal," Bellatrix hissed, something dangerous briefly flickering in her eyes. It had passed in a second, and she was back to smiling at him with all the falsehood she could muster.

"But why—"

"To marriage!" Bellatrix yelled across him, raising her goblet. "To marriage," she said drily, lowering the goblet to her lips. She never broke eye contact with Lucius as she took a sip, quickly draining half of the goblet's contents in one.

"To marriage," Lucius repeated, pausing to watch her for a while, waiting for any ill effects to take place. Once satisfied, he too raised his goblet to his lips.

The effect was immediate, and regret had consumed him instantly. Why, why, would he ever willingly trust her?

As the liquid trickled down his throat, burning hot and fiery, something else seemed to be spreading through Lucius' body, coursing through his veins. Fruity and alcoholic, there was no doubt what he'd consumed genuinely had been Firewhisky, but there was something wrong. The flavour was stilted, distorted ever so subtly. Connoisseur as he was, Lucius knew something was wrong.

He could taste it.

"What have you done?" he hissed at her. "What have you added to this?"

Bellatrix's lips curled into a wicked smirk, and her eyes glowed with mirth, confirming his worst suspicions. She had spiked the Firewhisky with some kind of potion, and whatever it was, it was quickly spreading through his bloodstream, overriding his senses.

Lucius felt his breath shorten as he sat helplessly in the chair, staring up into the face of sadistic delight. Those crazed eyes seemed as soulless and dark as her heart surely was. That would be the last image emblazoned in his memory when the light faded from his eyes. That was the last face he'd see before he died.

"Poison?" he choked out when she made no response. He was quickly losing any dignity he might have had, squirming in his chair, breathing so quickly he was almost hyperventilating. His whole system had gone into panic, and he couldn't be sure whether it was because of the potion or because of his fear for what it might have been.

"You're no use to me dead," Bellatrix said calmly, clear amusement in her whole demeanour as she watched her prey squirm before her. "And besides"—she casually inspected her nails, like she couldn't be more bored by the interaction—"Cissy would never forgive me."

Lucius' body relaxed only slightly. Poison had been his worst fear, and her assurance that she meant him no harm allowed him to calm. But Bellatrix was playing dirty, and if she didn't intend to harm him then she surely meant to humiliate him.

There was any number of cruel, tasteless fates she was forcing him to succumb to for her own amusement. For revenge.

"What then?" he growled at her, waiting for something outrageous to happen.

Bellatrix paused, looked thoughtful, smirked again, and calmly said, "Veritaserum."

Lucius blinked several times and cleared his throat. "Veritaserum?" he repeated uncertainly. That name rang a bell but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He knew it was rare, and he knew it was expensive, and somehow he knew it was a lot more exquisite and dignified than he'd given her credit for.

Potions had never been his forte at Hogwarts, and Lucius was struggling to recall exactly what Veritaserum was. He felt assured, however, that it was not as bad as he'd thought it was. Well, certainly not as bad as poison.

Bellatrix was still watching him with a wicked smirk, revelling in the power she asserted over him. "The world's strongest truth potion."

The cold dread of absolute horror that engulfed Lucius' body felt almost like a repetition of the way the potion had spread through his body. He froze. This was bad.

"Bitch!" he hissed at her, leaping to his feet, snarling ungracefully, and hell-bent on strangling her. Forget dignity, forget Narcissa, he would kill Bellatrix.

But the shady vixen had whipped out her wand in an instant, aiming it directly at his heart with unrelenting fierceness. Lucius stopped, a few feet in front of her. Her eyes, so cold, so dark, seemed to pierce him straight through to his very soul—something she clearly did not possess.

"What do you want from Narcissa?" Bellatrix snarled, her wand held steady. "Why are you marrying her?"

So she didn't want revenge, or humiliation, or anything like that, Lucius thought. She wanted answers.

Lucius could feel the Veritaserum in his veins, forcing the truth through him like a bubble, ready to burst from his lips. He was deeply vulnerable. They used Veritaserum for things like interrogations, he recalled—it was impossible to conceal anything when the potion was at play. Bellatrix could have him spill his darkest, deepest secrets. There were things he had hidden deep inside that he would tell no one, least of all her.

He was well and truly at her mercy. He had walked straight into her trap, like a fly caught up in a black widow's web.

Lucius said nothing. He had taken a substantial enough sip that he knew resistance was futile. He could not fight the potion, no matter how much his tried. And if he could only speak the truth then the answer was clear to him.

He would say nothing.

"What do you want from my sister?" Bellatrix almost screamed at him, the wild, violent woman he knew her to be, finally breaking out from beneath her mask of nicety. "Money?" she guessed wildly. "Status? Security from our family name? Protection? Connections? What's in it for you?" she snarled. "What do you mean to achieve by marrying her? You're trying to sponge off our family's nobility? Our wealth? You think Narcissa can open doors for you, is that it? You repulsive, vile—"

"I am in love with her!" The words burst from Lucius' mouth like a phoenix bursting into flames: forceful, uncontrollable, urgent.

Lucius and Bellatrix were both hit with sudden shock at the confession. It had knocked them both off guard, with Bellatrix actually lowering her wand to regard Lucius with the same look of shock he knew was plastered on his own face.

Lucius' first feeling was of morbid humiliation. Had he just said he was in love with Narcissa? It was positively mortifying! He had never so much as thought those words, much less spoken them aloud. And he, Lucius Malfoy, was not the type to declare himself in love at any costs, not even to the woman who had captured his heart, and much less to Bellatrix.

And the worst part was that he knew he could not lie.

And with that revelation, an instantaneous sense of relief and triumph broke out, and so too a smirk that exuded the smug satisfaction Lucius now felt within. Not because it had been forcibly brought to his attention that he was in love with the woman he was engaged to—all the things Bellatrix had listed had been motives for entering into this engagement, he couldn't deny that, but he was now delighted to realise, at the core of it all, he was very much besotted with his bride-to-be—but because it meant he had valid justification for his engagement to Bellatrix's sister. She, as dark and twisted as she was, could not be dissatisfied to hear that Lucius had been motivated primarily by love, rather than selfish desires.

She had wanted a confession out of him, but clearly this was unexpected. "You're lying," she stated calmly, though her face was as pale as snow.

"I can't lie," Lucius reminded her with that same smug smile.

Bellatrix aimed her wand back at his heart. "You're in love with Cissy?" she sneered, back to her manipulative, degrading method of interrogation.

Lucius pressed his lips together tightly, determined not to let another embarrassing outburst like that escape from him. "So it would seem."

"You mean to tell me," Bellatrix said indignantly, "your reasoning for wanting to marry my sister is because of love?"

She said the word with total disgust, like it left a foul taste in her mouth. And Lucius didn't blame her. If it weren't for the fact that love appeared to be working in his favour, he too would have been disgusted.

He paused. "Yes." The word came without resistance, and Lucius felt even more giddily excited by this revelation. He wasn't lying; he wasn't cheating the potion.

"But you—"

"Bellatrix, this is ridiculous," Lucius snapped impatiently, before luck stopped working in his favour and she got something incriminating out of him. "Narcissa and I are both mature adults, and I'm sorry that you are ignorant to what constitutes an adult relationship. We are engaged, we shall be married, and there's nothing you can do to change that. Your lack of emotional integrity and stability is pitiful."

Bellatrix looked dangerous, and Lucius felt mild trepidation at having baited her like that. He was hoping he could infuriate her so much that he could storm from the house as soon as possible, or even better, she'd send him away in a fit of rage.

"Do not patronise me," Bellatrix hissed, moving her wand to jab it into the base of Lucius' throat. "Your intentions for marrying my sister are not based on love—"

"Really?" Lucius asked in a patronising manner, despite Bellatrix's warning. "Because your spiked Firewhisky begs to differ. Let me leave in peace, and I shan't tell Narcissa what you did," he said with the coldness of a snake.

Bellatrix glared at him for a while, summing up her options. "And I suppose she loves you too?" she sneered.

Lucius didn't break eye contact. "You'll have to ask her that."

"Why Cissy would willingly marry such a spineless, boring—"

"Your lack of emotional integrity and stability is pitiful," he repeated coldly, cutting across her before he lost his patience.

Bellatrix only looked riled up. "Why anybody would get married is beyond me."

"Perhaps you'll change your mind when Rodolphus asks," Lucius said before he could stop himself.

Bellatrix's eyes flashed. "What?"

A new wave of coldness had engulfed Lucius' body. Rodolphus Lestrange's intentions to marry Bellatrix Black were information he was not supposed to have departed to anybody, least of all the intended bride herself. "I, err, I meant—"

"Rodolphus Lestrange intends to propose to me?" Bellatrix scoffed in disbelief, looking enraged.

No, Lucius tried to force himself to say, but the word wouldn't come. "You're saying you wouldn't say yes?" Lucius inquired, trying to find a loophole. Damn the Veritaserum…

"Of course not!" Bellatrix shrieked. "Marriage is for fools. You and Cissy are fools, Rodolphus is a fool, and I am not a fool!"

A daring thought flickered into Lucius' mind, an impulse. Before he could fight it, he'd pulled his wand out, disarming the distracted Bellatrix. With a scream of protest and a dirty glare, she stalked off to retrieve her wand from the other side of the room where it had fallen. Lucius made sure to make the goblets clink as he moved them around, working with the speed of the Holyhead Harpies' Seeker.

When she returned, eyeing him with disdain, he put on his most patronisingly false smile. "Drink?" he offered, indicating to the goblet closest to her. "To calm yourself…"

Bellatrix continued to glare at him, matched his false smug smile, and wordlessly switched the two identical goblets. Without breaking eye contact, she drained the rest of the Firewhisky from the goblet Lucius had not offered her.

When she was finished, she slammed it down on the table with an air of satisfaction. "Nice try," she goaded, "but I'm not stupid."

Lucius' smile did not falter. "So you knew I'd switched the goblets?"

"Obviously."

"But you didn't anticipate I'd switch them back?"

The colour drained from Bellatrix's face, and her smile dropped. "What?"

"I knew you'd know I'd switch the goblets, so I switched them back," Lucius explained. He could not help but feel overwhelmed by his own wit and cunning. The tables had turned—the black widow was now caught up in her own web.

She was the vulnerable one. She was at his mercy.

He would get her to confess that she would marry Rodolphus. He would get her to confess the ultimate secret—the one that everybody suspected—that Bellatrix shielded even from herself. It was her weakness.

Her obsessive love for the Dark Lord.

He would get her to reveal that she, too, was as much a fool as any of the rest of them were, susceptible to her own emotional instability. He would squeeze every last bit of truth from her.

Bellatrix looked at him with pure hatred burning in her eyes and, for the first time that evening, and perhaps in her entire life, fear. Lucius could almost feel the Veritaserum coursing through her veins in the same way it had done through his own.

"Bastard!"

Author's Note: Shout-out to my 'Rose and Scorpius: A Forbidden Love' readers, for the use of the Veritaserum-spiked Firewhisky ;)

Originally written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Season 3—Round 7

Team: Holyhead Harpies
Position: Captain
Task: The potion 'Veritaserum' and/or its effects must be a major plotline