Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter & co. I have nothing to do with it but what I do here, which is all my own. I profit nothing.

Dedicated to Mrs Bella Riddle who is really good at manipulation. XD

The wand was familiar and comforting in his hand. The sleek wood was pitted with age, but still smooth, shiny, cared for. The elm wood thrummed with magic, the unicorn hair core like a familiar wash of cool water against the nape of his neck.

Rodolphus tried to focus on the sensations of the magic from his wand, anything was better than what was happening around him. It was all he could do not to yell out – to scream and scream, which would give him nothing more than pain – more yet than what he already had.

The dark dank stones of the mansion that he was in reminded him of a prison. The smell was fetid, blood and urine and decay. The place was exactly as you would have thought it to be, for one of the Dark Lord's favourite haunts.

His robes brushed against the gritty stones of the floor, the hem picking up filth the further he walked. It was enough to make him heave, but he couldn't show weakness. Not in this place. Not ever.

Rodolphus turned one last corner and entered the room where the Dark Lord did most of his… entertaining.

Death Eaters littered the room, hovering around the edges like carrion. Their dark robes made their appearance even more similar to that of birds of prey, and Rodolphus wished that he were anywhere but where he was.

Next to the Dark Lord himself stood the most trusted. They were the only ones that did not cover their faces, and their haughty expressions were plain for the rest to see. They did not care to hide their pride at being the most trusted, did not hide their disdain for those below them, they flaunted their position, and almost invited attempts at their lives. They were firm in the belief that the Dark Lord would protect them. Rodolphus sneered. That – thing, for it wasn't a man, cared nothing for those he surrounded himself with, except as tools and a means to his own end.

But Bella, Lucius and Severus never learnt that.

Rodolphus halted his progress towards the dais where the Dark Lord sat and hovered like the rest of the flies. He was good at blending in, at being what everyone thought he should be. And he watched.

Next to the Dark Lord, Rodolphus's wife was fawning over him.

The familiar heat rose in Rodolphus. He hated it. Beneath his Death Eater mask, his skin was flushed red with rage. His heart beat quickly, unsteadily, and it took a supreme amount of restraint to keep himself from letting that rage loose.

"My Lord," Bella simpered, her voice pitched in servitude, everything about her stance and expression revealing for the entire world to see her worship of this shell of a man. "We are ready,"

The Dark Lord's red eyes glinted as he surveyed the room. "Very well," he murmured, and his voice, sibilant as that of a snake's, sent a cold shiver through Rodolphus.

"My faithful servants," the Dark Lord said, standing to acknowledge the entire room. "I've brought you here today for a special purpose. I've brought you here so that you may share in my glory, and know again that my victory is assured. My power is great. Greater than any other's."

Rodolphus snorted to himself. He knew now that it was folly to be a part of this. The arrogance of the Dark Lord, his conceit and his inability to acknowledge anything but his own merits and strengths left him open to so many attacks, and he did not know it – and neither did the fools who were slaving after him.

The Dark Lord gestured with his wand, that piece of wood that was so much more. Rodolphus looked at it with an expression crossed between horror and awe. It was one of the most deadly weapons in Wizarding Britain. It had killed so many, fractured so much hate and deceit. It had been the instrument to split the Dark Lord's soul so many times, the number seemed infinite.

Two Death Eaters carted in a struggling child. From the state of the thing, Rodolphus deduced that it was a Muggle child. A hush fell over the room, and Rodolphus could almost hear his wife's excited breathing.

A feeling of dread washed over Rodolphus. The magic in the room thickened and swirled as the Muggle child – a young boy, no older than eleven – was placed before the dais, on top of an area marked with runes of all sorts. Rodolphus could practically taste the energy crackling in the air.

The Dark Lord approached the child, and took from within his robes a sacrificial dagger, which was also littered with runes. There was a glint in the Dark Lord's eye as he held the weapon, and Rodolphus knew then that the man was truly insane, without redemption.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rodolphus spied his wife stalking as close as she dared to the ritual. Her eyes were sparkling with madness, so similar and yet so different to that of her master. There was a feral grin set on her full lips, and Rodolphus felt a part of himself tear away. This was his wife, the woman he had married, and he didn't know her.

The sounds of the child whimpering and crying, the slash of the dagger, and his wife's mad cackling seared through his mind, creating a decade's worth of nightmares.

All of the Death Eaters filed out of the room afterwards, and Rodolphus would have followed them, but the Dark Lord called out for him to stay.

"Rodolphus," that voice, so familiar, hated, and feared in equal measure.

"My Lord?" he knelt before the creature, and tried to swallow his disgust.

"What did you think of my little ceremony?"

Rodolphus tried not to panic in the few seconds it took him to think of an acceptable answer. "It was well planned, My Lord. A perfect example of your power and willingness for sacrifice."

Those pasty white, soulless lips twisted into a grotesque smile. "Yes, I rather thought so myself."

"Was there anything else, My Lord?" Rodolphus asked, when the silence had stretched for a few moments.

"Why, yes, Rodolphus." The Dark Lord paused and gestured for someone to step forward. It was Bella. "Your wife has proven herself to me once more today. Her support and loyalty to the cause is admirable. I want to congratulate you on such a prize."

Bella was preening with the praise, her heavily lidded eyes focused on the Dark Lord with something one could only describe as hero worship. It made Rodolphus sick to the stomach. She was his wife, damnit.

"I have decided to…reward her." The Dark Lord continued, and Rodolphus felt his stomach sink. Surely – surely he meant something else?

"What an… honor for me and my house, My Lord." The words were forced; it felt like there was something wiring his jaw shut, trying to keep him from speaking. The rage built once more.

Bella looked like she had found Utopia after ten lifetimes of searching, her expression was so enraptured by what the Dark Lord was saying. Surely she had dreamt of his attentions. Merlin only knew what she thought of even as she warmed Rodolphus's bed. Her esteem for this shadow – this snake of a man – burnt his skin. The humiliation was a tangible wound to his already damaged appearance.

"Very well. It is settled." The Dark Lord rose from his position. "Send her to me tonight, Rodolphus, nine o'clock. I will not accept tardiness."

"As you wish, My Lord."

Rodolphus watched his Lord leave the room, and then turned to his wife, who was still staring at the empty doorway through which he left. A snarl ripped through his throat, and Rodolphus grabbed Bella's wrist. He pulled her after him as he made his way toward the Apparation point.

"Rodolphus!" Bella cried, knocked out of her daze. She tried to reach for her wand, but Rodolphus was already Side-Along Apparating her to their estate.

When they arrived in his study, he threw her at a chair, uncaring when she fell too heavily, and instead landed on the floor. She looked shocked and stared at him, surprised and incensed.

Rodolphus didn't care. He was seeing red. On one level, he knew she was a dangerous witch, feared by Wizarding kind all through Britain. But on a different level, the level on which he was thinking at the moment, he was too filled with rage, too humiliated, and needed to release his pent-up aggression.

He Summoned her wand, and snatched it up before she could.

"Bella," he said her name so firmly, so harshly, that she stopped struggling and stared at him. But her surprise didn't last long and she rounded on him.

"What is the meaning of this, Rodolphus!? You are acting like a fool, a child. You disgrace me!"

Something in Rodolphus snapped. "I disgrace you! You disgrace me! Fawning over the Dark Lord, acting like he's yours, thinking that it's okay if you throw yourself at him like some common Muggle whore!" He breathed deeply, but the words kept pouring out of him. "You are my wife! Mine! Is nothing sacred to you? Do you not understand that what you do reflects on me, and everyone knows how much you worship the Dark Lord. They see your interest in him as my failure. What you must think of me, if you turn to another man."

Bella stared at him for a few moments in silence, but that did not last long. Her face transformed into one of mockery and disdain – a mask he knew so well, now. She opened her mouth and laughed. It was a laugh that would do any villain proud, but was transformed into so much more by the glint in her eyes. Nothing Rodolphus said would get through to her now. Never again. She wasn't his wife any longer – she was Bellatrix Lestrange, favoured by the Dark Lord and doomed to a life of madness. Madness and pain, the things she always held above all else. The things she creates in her prey.

Perhaps that's what he was, Rodolphus thought sadly as he watched the woman he had once loved, but no longer. He was her victim. Just in a different way to how people would usually assume.

Her dark hair fell over her shoulder as she laughed. It was an inky black curtain, and it shone in the candlelight. He had always loved her hair. The way it fanned out over the pillows, the way it made the linen smell of her shampoo. He would run his hands through it, when she was asleep. He would lie close to her and breathe in deeply of the scent. It had always been his, that scent, his to smell and his to covet because she was his wife. But not now. No longer. She wouldn't give herself to him, not after the Dark Lord.

He had to give it all up, for her, for the Dark Lord, for the decision he had made to be one of the others, to be what everyone else had always imagined him to be. A Death Eater. A husband. Loyal to the Dark.

That was who he was, because it was all he could be.

Bella stopped laughing, still lying on the floor where she had fallen. Her hair was askew, mussed and tangled, but still that same long, shiny, amazing hair that Rodolphus had always loved about her. She breathed deeply, just laying there.

Rodolphus helped her up, grabbing hold of the wrist he had latched onto earlier. He pushed the hair from her face and stared into her eyes – heavily lidded, flickering with madness and hate and spite and contempt. But they were still Bella's eyes, even if this was no longer the Bella he had married.

He rested his hand on the back of her neck, and despite her resistance, he pulled her closer to him, and kissed her.

It was their last kiss, and he knew it. He put everything into it, pouring his hate and his love and his passion for everything that was and was not to be and that was to be. Bella was like a limp doll in his hands. She simply let him kiss her, and though it marred his kiss, he sensed that a part of her – the part that was the old Bella, before she was mad and before she lost sight of who she was and what she was, felt the kiss, and mourned.

Finally, he broke away, and simply looked at the lips he had just kissed. The corner was bleeding, from where he had bitten her in a moment of keen frustration. The blood welled on her red and swollen lips, and fell down her chin. The contrast of the blood on her white skin was startling, but beautiful at the same time, and Rodolphus was mesmerised by her, just as he had been all those years ago when they met the day of their wedding.

But this was the end, and he tore himself away from her.

"Go now." He said softly, and when she didn't move, he got angry that she wouldn't leave him. "Go!"

She stared at him a moment longer, and then left, her eyes dead, her posture defeated and weighed down.

Rodolphus delivered Bella to the Dark Lord's door at nine o'clock precisely.

END.