I hit a bit of writer's block on updating "A Keen Observer" so I bring you a one-shot instead. As far as the title, "Deliberate Consent" is one of the conditions for committing a mortal sin. I'm not sure if that's a purely Catholic concept or if it exists in other branches of Christianity, but a mortal sin is one so bad it kills your soul. Approrpriate, non?

Deliberate Consent

It had never bothered her before.

Bellatrix had been seventeen the first time she killed someone. It had not been, as one might expect, a muggle. It had been a young man from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who had gotten too close. He hadn't even known what he was looking for when he came across them, it had been a plain case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so she killed him. Despite the fragmented memories she had now, she remembered that with surprising clarity. He had been delicate, with wispy blond hair and girlishly pink cheeks. He had raised his own wand to defend himself, but there was no blocking the Killing Curse. The flash of green from her wand had been beautiful, and it had been so easy.

So easy.

She had been nearly drunk on the thrill of it, the power. Bloodlust was stronger than any drug to her. Later, when the thrill had faded and the excitement was no longer pounding through her blood, she wondered if she might feel bad. Rodolphus asked her if it bothered her, and she laughed.

That had been only the first one. There had been so many others, so many she couldn't possibly say the number. Men, women, children…it had never mattered, it had never bothered her. Some had been muggles and mudbloods of course, some had been purebloods who had defied the Dark Lord.

Her willingness, the ease she killed with, had made her valuable to Him. It pleased Him that she could kill without any hesitation, and without any guilt. The thrill of it had never worn off, even when it had become routine, it never stopped giving her that heady thrill. The green flash of Avada Kedavra never lost its beauty to her.

She paced back and forth across Narcissa's room, black robes swirling around her feet, her wand tapping nervously against her thigh. Unable to sit still and unable to shake off all that had gone wrong in the Department of Mysteries.

The Dark Lord was angry with her and she felt his anger keenly, for she was accustomed to his favor. He had ordered her from his presence, which for her was a far greater punishment than any pain he could inflict with Cruciatus.

Rodolphus had been captured in the Department of Mysteries, and returned to Azkaban, and the very thought of that made Bella go cold.

But it was not the Dark Lord's anger or her husband's imprisonment that made her come to Narcissa, it was the guilt that clawed at the edges of her mind.

She had never actually cast the Killing Curse at him. She didn't know exactly what the veil had been, but she didn't really need to. The Dark Lord had a great interest in many of the things in the Department of Mysteries, and she knew what it meant.

It was the first time she had seen him since they had brought her to Azkaban, and even then it had been just a glimpse. She had never seen him after he ran away, and she had barely thought of him since.

His beauty, as hers, had been destroyed by Azkaban, but for just a second in the heat of a battle, when he had laughed and said "Come on, you can do better than that!" she had seen her little cousin. Perhaps that's what had stopped her from using the Killing Curse, but the end result was the same.

She was the one who had taught him to duel.

But he was a blood-traitor.

When he had been just little, three or four, he would tear down the stairs at Grimmauld Place and hug her first whenever they visited.

But he fought with Dumbledore against her Lord.

He was her blood.

But she believed that when blood betrayed you it was no longer blood.

Killing had never bothered her before, and it would not now. She would put it out of her mind. But first, she would make her confession. To Cissy. Cissy would understand like no one else could, and Cissy would absolve her.

The door opened and Narcissa stepped in, her skin drained of even the slightest color except for the dark rings around her eyes. Bella didn't have to ask to know she had been at the Ministry, trying to keep Lucius out of Azkaban, and had been unsuccessful. Bella felt sorry for her. True, her own husband was suffering the same fate, but he was stronger than Lucius, always had been.

Narcissa was not surprised to see her there, she seemed to have expected it, and she didn't speak immediately, just threw her cloak over the back of their chair, weakly so that it missed and slithered to the ground. She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed with a sort of exhaustion that made her look foreign, for she always moved so gracefully, so elegantly.

"Will you stay for a little while, Bella?" she said, her voice small. "The Aurors are busy tonight, they won't come now…"

She crossed the room and fell to her knees before Narcissa, gripping her hands.

"Sirius is dead. Sirius is dead and I killed him."

Narcissa sat very still for a long moment, then she sighed and took back one of her hands, placing it against Bella's cheek.

"It's for the best."