AN: Reviews are awesome! :)

Kill.

The word echoes in her mind. Kill him, Bellatrix. If she closes her eyes, she can almost see him, pale and handsome, standing before her, his face livid with anger. Kill the despicable piece of scum who dared to speak to you that way.

She fingers her wand. It would be easy to do it, now— she is already there, already standing outside his bedroom window. But she is afraid— afraid that when she looks in the window, she'll see him there, lying on the bed, his brown hair messy, tangled, and she won't be able to do it.

He is nothing, Bellatrix. He is unworthy of someone with blood as pure as yours.

It was nothing, she tells herself, trying to laugh it off. A passing fancy, a little crush— she wasn't even completely sure of his name, and certainly not his blood status. She had thought he was a pureblood, perhaps a half-blood—certainly not a Muggleborn.

They had traded looks in the hallways, sometimes— he was a Ravenclaw, a sixth year, like her. Once or twice, they had bumped into each other in Hogsmeade or a hallway and flirted, like teenagers did.

But then… then he had been stupid enough to try to ask her out when Tom was standing next to her, listening, watching. You think that you're worthy of her? Her? She is more than you will ever be.

And then later, that night: Kill him, Bellatrix.

She had told him it wasn't necessary, told him it didn't matter, but he had not listened.

Do it this summer, Bellatrix. Prove to me that he is nothing, that you are not weak.

And she had told him that she would. Of course she would. Anything for him.

She swore she would do it.

And now she will.

She takes a deep breath and pushes open the window, staring in at him. She forces herself to smile. This is a good thing, she tells herself, the death of a scummy little Mudblood.

Kill.

She lifts her wand, her pale arm glowing in the moonlight, and points it at him.

A good thing.

Kill.

"Avada kedavra!" she shouts, and with a flash of green light, it is over. He is dead. Killed.

The wand slips through her fingers, falling to the ground, and she falls after it, kneeling in the mud of his mother's rose garden. She feels a rush of power spread through her and lifts her face to the clouds, silver beams breaking through them, shining down on her.

Kill him, Bellatrix.

I want it done.

"Done," she says aloud, tasting the word. "Done. Done, done, done." She begins to laugh, a high, sharp sound with an edge of insanity to it. For a long time, she stays there, laughing, until her chest burns and her knees are sore from kneeling in the mud. Then she rises and picks up her wand.

Tom will be pleased, she thinks, as she walks away. He'll be happy. I have earned his trust.

She remembers the reluctance she was feeling, before she killed the boy, and laughs at herself. Why would she resist that feeling of complete power, that rush of elation that comes with killing?

Now she knows better.

Now she is ready to kill again.