Author's Notes:

Warning! This story contains strong sexual content.

2006 April. Warning spoilers: this story has been re-edited to fit The Half-Blood Prince. So read book six first.

I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful reviews I've received. It really makes what I'm doing worthwhile.

I want to thank my wonderful muse, Slave4Severus, for convincing me to update this story. Her praise keeps me writing.

This chapter was beta'd by Nakhash Makashefah. The fiery brunette with green eyes from Texas ropes my bad grammar with a lasso, then herds my punctuation into their proper places, all the while screaming: YEEE- HAAAAA.

Disclaimer. J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter and Co. I own nothing.

The Improper Use of Potions

Chapter 07. Escape.

The creaking floorboards overhead alerted Bella that Wormtail had returned. He was most likely coming to bring her some dinner and to have a quick fondle before he crawled off into whatever hole he slept in.

For the past week, Bella had not resisted any of Wormtail's efforts. She ate what he gave her and didn't flinch or recoil at his unbearable touch. A small bit of trust was all she needed. She would have to use all her wits and what God had given her if there was to be any chance she would leave this basement alive.

Wormtail was a loathsome little creature, but he wasn't completely stupid. If she simply used flattery and flirtation to try and seduce him, it wouldn't work. He was used to people treating him like vermin; anything else would draw his suspicion immediately. She would have to seduce him in the only language he knew: self-pity.

"Good evening, my jewel," Wormtail announced as he descended the stairs. "I'm afraid dinner will be a bit light tonight. I only found a small carton of noodles and a couple of egg rolls. You know how the Chinese are, they never throw anything away."

Bella tried to hide the revulsion on her face. Wormtail sat down next to her and began to remove her gag. He always stroked her cheek with his fingers as he did so. After removing her gag, he gingerly fed her the stale noodles and hard egg rolls. He also gave her old coffee from his dirty thermos. Bella ate like she had a ravenous appetite. The truth was she could barely stomach the swill he brought her lately. For nearly a week, she had been plagued by fits of nausea. She had attributed it to being forced to suck up to this pathetic creature.

After he finished feeding her, Wormtail removed a bottle of rejuvenation potion from his robe pocket. Without reluctance, Bella swallowed the potion as he poured it into her mouth. Wormtail wiped her lips in a motherly fashion.

"Why?" she quietly asked as he put the empty bottle back in his robe pocket.

The question seemed to startle the short wizard. Bella hadn't said a word to him in almost three weeks. "Why what?" he finally choked out.

"Why do you give me that potion?" she asked, just above a whisper.

"To make you beautiful again," he answered, as if the question was silly.

"But why me? Why would you want me, of all people, to look beautiful?"

This question seemed as baffling to him as the first. "Because you're mine," he simply stated.

"You're a wizard, Wormtail. You could have someone pure, untouched if you wanted. Why waste your time on a filthy whore like me?" she asked, looking away from him, pretending shame.

"You're clean; I've made sure of it," he told her.

"You know what I mean. You know what the Dark Lord made me do," she pitifully said.

"It doesn't bother me," he assured her.

"I'm trash, Wormtail. I wasn't even good enough to be a proper whore. I failed at everything. I failed our Lord at every turn. I deserve to die for my failures." Wormtail just stared at her with a more puzzled look on his face. "Why did you save me?"

"I wanted you. It's as simple as that," he explained.

"But why all of this if you just wanted my flesh?" she asked. "The daily care and food. Why not just heal my wounds then take me?"

"I want you pretty, clean and healthy. I want you like you were when the others got to have you," he told her.

"I'm not worth your efforts, Wormtail. You know this. I should be tortured and taken until you're sick of me. Then you should bring our Lord my head like you promised. It's what a filthy failure like me deserves," she told him. She suspected that the lower the opinion he thought she might have for herself, the better his chances with her were.

"That would be a waste, my love. You're a Black. Every pure-blooded boy wanted to marry a Black sister when I was at Hogwarts. There were only three of you. Only the wealthiest had a chance. Lucius doesn't deserve your sister, and that poofy, nancy-boy husband of yours certainly didn't deserve you."

"My family is a disgrace," she said. "My older sister betrayed us all by marring a Mudblood. My younger sister's husband is in Azkaban for life. My cousin Sirius turned blood-traitor, backing that fool Dumbledore and the Potters. Regulus was a coward that had to be disposed of. And I was the Dark Lord's gift-pussy to anyone that asked. I'm too used up to even be good at that anymore."

"I don't care," he told her as he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. It was hard not to laugh at the pathetic little man's stupidity.

"You just want to fuck me like the rest of them," she accused.

"NO," he said firmly. "I've wanted you ever since I was a teenaged boy with no friends except the ones that pitied me. I knew you could never be mine, but I still loved you."

"No one has ever loved me, Peter," she responded. Bella thought this was the perfect opportunity to start using his given name. "They only wanted my body for a night's pleasure. I was nothing to them when they were done. I'll be nothing to you once you've finished with me."

Wormtail took her face in his freaky hands and made her look him straight in his beady eyes. Bella's eyes were on the verge of tears. She didn't have to pretend to cry; Wormtail's foul stench was making her eyes water.

"You're wrong, my love. You will be mine forever. I will never tire of you for as long as I live."

"This is impossible, Peter. It doesn't matter how you feel about me. Before long, the Dark Lord will demand you bring him my head. You will have to kill me soon," she solemnly told him.

"No, we have all the time in the world, my love. I've already taken care of the Dark Lord," he said with a smile that showed both his yellowed, ridiculously large front teeth.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"I gave him your mother's head," he told her.

"What?" she asked with complete shock.

"I retrieved your mother's head from your family's crypt. I remembered that she had similar hair to your own. Her face was partly rotted, of course. He never suspected it wasn't you. I just told him you died the day after I took you. I said I made the mistake of leaving your body where the rats could get at it. He didn't really care. He made me throw your mother's head in the fire before he got a close enough look at it. I think he barely remember that you existed, isn't that great?" he joyfully told her.

Bellatrix just stared at him with a dumbfounded look on her face. Inside her head, she was screaming at the top of her lungs. This vile little shit had desecrated her mother's grave, decapitating her. Then he threw her head into the fire like a piece of rubbish. She wished to God her hands were free. She wanted to squeeze the asshole's head until it popped like a zit.

"Why would you do such a thing for me?" she asked with concern in her voice, putting on the performance of a lifetime. "If the Dark Lord finds out, he will kill you, Peter."

"Don't worry, my love. He's not concerned with what I do outside of his presence. As long as I do as he asks, he'll leave me alone," he said as he ran a finger along her jawline.

Bellatrix could tell he was becoming aroused by her pitiful sympathetic performance. "I don't believe you, Peter. I think you're just toying with me. You're just pretending to have feelings for me; you will use me and eventually kill me once you've had your fun," Bella said as she closed her eyes, letting the first false tear creep down her left cheek.

Wormtail gently brushed the tear from her face and said, "I have loved you for decades, Bellatrix Black. I always will. One day I will prove it to you."

Narcissa saw her opening. With sad desperation in her voice, she asked, "Why not prove it to me now? Show me that you can love me with warmth and compassion. Make love to me now because you want me, not my body. Prove to me you're really the man I have looked for all my life."

Wormtail's lust overtook his common sense. He greedily took her head in his hands and sloppily kissed her. Bella almost gagged as she felt his slimy tongue invade her month. She forced herself to return his kiss, tasting his foul breath in the process. Without any smoothness or tact, Wormtail roughly thrust one of his hands between her legs, groping at her sex. He slammed the other down on her right breast, squeezing it painfully. Bella wondered if this was the first time he had ever been with a woman that gave herself to him willingly; maybe it was the first time, period.

Chills went up her spine as he licked his way down her jaw and started to suck on her neck like an oily leech. He quickly made his way down her throat to her right breast and began to suckle her nipple like a starving infant. Bella reached out as far as she could, placing her right hand on his knee then squeezing it.

"I need you, Peter. Oh, God, I need you," she whispered in a low, husky voice. He responded by rubbing himself against her knee. She could feel his erection through the well-worn fabric of his trousers. She made an attempt at reaching for his fly, only to have the chain holding her wrist pull tight.

"I need to feel you, Peter. Release my hand. I need to feel it; I need to taste it," she said with lustful desperation.

Peter released his suction on her nipple and stared urgently at her. He removed his stubby wand from his robe pocket. He pointed it at the shackle around her right wrist and said, "Alohomora." The shackle made a soft clank and fell from her wrist. Bella greedily reached for his manhood. She began to stoke him through the material of his trousers.

As he let out a whimpering moan, Bella glanced at the dirty thermos bottle that still sat on the edge of her cot. His wand was still in his right hand, or what should have been a right hand.

"Come closer, Peter, so I can release you," Bella said as she fumbled with his zipper. "I can't wait to take you into my mouth."

He leaned closer without hesitation.

Like a snake striking its prey, Bella grabbed hard onto Wormtail's right wrist with her still-shackled left hand. With her right, she reached back and grabbed the handle of the dirty thermos bottle. Just as he looked up to see what she was doing, Bella violently smashed the thermos into his left temple. Wormtail instantly sank to his knees with a dazed look on his face. Not wanting to give him any time to recover, Bella slammed the bottle into the side of his fat head again. He would have collapsed onto the floor had it not been for her iron grip on his right wrist. She raised the now-dented thermos high over her head with the intention of caving his skull into his brain. But before she could, Wormtail morphed into his rat form. Fortunately, she was able to grab onto his wand as his hand began to shrink out of her grasp.

Bella hastily dropped the thermos bottle on the cot and took the wand in her right hand. She quickly pointed the wand at the still-wobbling rat on the floor and shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" There was a very small flash of green light, and the rat jumped a foot in the air and landed on its feet. Bella was shocked. Snape had been right when he said she wasn't able to kill a helpless human being with the Killing Curse, not unless it was an Auror in the heat of battle. But Bella didn't think her mental block would include this filthy rat. She had always been able to kill animals without trouble.

Still quite wobbly, Wormtail made a dash for under her cot. Bella bent down and looked under it. If she couldn't curse the rodent to death, she would torture him with the Cruciatus Curse until he was unconscious; then smash him with a rock. Unfortunately, she never got the chance. By the time she got her head and the wand under the cot, Wormtail was disappearing into a crack in the baseboard.

Bella looked at the wall. She could hear him scratching behind the wood. She aimed the wand at the noise and shouted, "Crucio!" Only a small bit of red light left the tip of the wand. It hit the wall, barely disturbing the dust. She then realized that Wormtail hadn't been completely dim. He had put something in the potion to weaken her ability to use magic.

Bella pointed the wand at the shackle holding her left wrist and shouted, "Alohomora!" The shackle twitched but didn't unlock. "Alohomora! Alohomora! Alohomora!" she bellowed. Finally, the shackle clanked and fell open. She quickly repeated this on the shackles holding her feet. She had to scream the command four and five times to get it to work. Once free of her tethers, Bella tried to stand. She had to lean on the wall, her legs barely underneath her. She had been lying or sitting on that cot for at least a month. She looked at the stairs across the room. They looked a thousand miles away. With shaky legs, she moved toward them, her strength returning with each step she took.

A soft squeak and some movement caught her attention. Running along a waist-high wallboard, about five feet away, was Wormtail. Just as she raised the wand, the rat leaped at her. In midair, he changed back into his human from, crashing into her. They both slammed into the wall behind her. Bella almost fell to the floor. Wormtail grabbed hold of the hand she held his wand with and tried to pry it from her while she was still stunned. Bella tried to thrust the wand skyward out of his reach, but he held on. She grabbed his hand and tried to pull free. They continued to struggle over the wand for what seemed like an eternity. Being five-ten, and half a foot taller than him, she was able to keep it over their heads, denying him any leverage. But he was still stronger and outweighed her by a good four stone. The only good news was that the rejuvenation potions he had been feeding her made sure her body was in top physical shape. Her only hope was to try and tire him out.

"TREACHEROUS, FUCKING WHORE!" he screamed at her. Wormtail was able to wrap one of his stubby fingers around his wand. He started bellowing out hexes and Stunning Spells. The curses shot around the room, some barely missing her, most crashing into the basement ceiling, splintering the wood.

Around and around they went until a Severing Charm hit the main support beam in the ceiling. There was a thunderous cracking sound above their heads. At once, the whole ceiling caved in, bringing most of the old shack down to the basement. Bella let go of the wand and ran for the safety of the stairs. She only made it to the nearest wall before falling debris blocked her path. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wormtail morph back into his rodent form and disappear into the rubble. She prayed that one of the falling beams would squish him flat.

After just seconds, it was over. Bella could look up and see the night sky above her as the dust cleared. Only part of the shack still stood above ground. She quickly climbed over the rubble and headed for the stairs. A large wooden beam had crashed through them, but she was still able to climb the broken supports nailed into the wall. She pulled open the stairway door and leapt into a small kitchen. It was bare, with the exception of an old rusted sink. A noise from the basement spooked her. She didn't know if it was just the rubble settling or if it was Wormtail coming after her. Not wanting to take any chances, she bolted for the kitchen door and ran into the cold dark night.

Bella kept running. She was naked, running in her bare feet across frozen ground, but she didn't care. She was free, that was all that mattered now.

Eventually, the adrenalin rush wore off, and Bella realized the pain she was in. Her throat was raw from breathing the cold night air at a run for so long. Both her feet were completely numb with cold. She didn't know how far she had run. Maybe a mile, maybe more. She wanted to keep going but knew she had to get out of the cold. She would die of exposure soon if she didn't.

There was an old millhouse just to her left. It didn't look like it had been used this century. She entered the building through the back where half a wall had fallen down. The building was empty with the exception of a few large piles of trash. She ran to the first pile of trash, hoping to find something to wear. There wasn't any clothing in the pile. She did find an old, dirty packing blanket with dried yellow paint spilled all over it. Using a piece of broken glass, she cut a small hole in the center for her head. She put the blanket on like a poncho, securing it around her waist with a piece of cord.

In one pile, she found an old boot, in another, a partly torn tennis shoe. She found an old pair of gym socks, but decided to use them as mittens instead of putting them on her feet. She looked ridiculous, but at least she wouldn't freeze to death. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in one of the rubbish piles and sleep until morning. But that wouldn't be wise. There was a good chance Wormtail had survived the cave-in. He had his wand back and might be searching for her right now. She was no match for him. He could easily kill her at a distance. He might even call for help from his fellow Death Eaters, but that was highly doubtful due to the fact he would have to reveal that he had lied about her death. After stuffing old newspapers into her boot and tennis shoe for insulation, she left the old millhouse and headed east along the river, using the dark, moonless night as cover. Her best chance at survival was to get as far away from Wormtail as possible.

Bellatrix knew what she had to do. First thing was to find herself a new wand. She knew where to get one: her family crypt. It was a Black tradition to be buried with your wand. She would relieve Regulus of his. The thought of desecrating a relative's grave, like Wormtail had done to her mother's, was disturbing, but she was defenseless without a wand. It had to be done. She hadn't liked Regulus that much anyway. Hopefully, whatever Wormtail had put in the rejuvenation potion would wear off quickly. After she got a wand, Bella planned to seek vengeance on the one person most responsible for her current condition. Severus Snape.

...

Next chapter coming soon.

Don't worry. The next chapter marks the reunion of Severus and Hermione. We'll see how he takes the news about becoming a father. Should he curse Hermione for putting him in this situation, or should he throw her across another table, hungry for what he only got a taste of in the Potion's classroom?