I can't post this without crediting the wonderful author dress without sleeves. While this isn't intentionally related to her work, her stories have heavily influenced how I see the Blacks and other purebloods, and as a result, this does bear some resemblance.

The heavens are hazy as Rabastan Lestrange approaches the Malfoy's end of summer bonfire. Wild sparks leaps towards the sky and dance with the stars as all of Pureblood society—Parkinsons, Greengrasses, Macmillans, Boneses, Notts—gather beneath the night.

And above all of them come the Blacks, young and strong and unstoppable as they sweep in a quarter hour late, knit so close together that it's impossible for Rabastan, standing half hidden in shadows as he is, to imagine them any other way. They stretch across the darkness behind them, blocking it out in rippling cloaks and breathtaking faces. The boys are on the outside; eleven year old Regulus who stares in wonder around his first society gathering like this and untamable Sirius who always looks a little on edge. Even tonight, the outline of his wand is evident along his robe as the wind tugs it back.

The next tier of Blacks is even more daunting, for there begins their women, magnificent even as young as they are. Andromeda and Narcissa's faces are wiped clean of any emotion as they stride towards the bonfire, hair blowing free across their faces and smirking slightly as though they know that no one else here can match them.

And then there's Bellatrix. Flanked by her family, her hair glows in the firelight as it tumbles loose around her shoulders. The rest of the Blacks, they're content in their supremacy—but Bellatrix revels in it, flaunting the power in every twist of her hips; every snide, cutting, and downright seductive smile she flashes towards those around the bonfire.

Rabastan is addicted, but so are half the young men. He remains silent, standing without a movement as the five Blacks spread themselves through society, laughing, flirting, and dancing as the mood takes them. And always in the thick of it all is Bellatrix: Bellatrix throwing back her head in apparent mirth, Bellatrix snubbing a poor suitor who doesn't come close to matching her standards, Bellatrix mincing around in her dress robes that could barely be considered a dress, much less a robe. She is beautiful and terrible, feral and wild, and Rabastan feels that he is the only to appreciate those attributes.

Bellatrix moves and twists and snickers and just doesn't stop, so nor does Rabastan move from him vantage point by the side of the fire, not until the moon is bright and high in the sky. He's pushed away several people and is thoroughly disgracing the etiquette adhered to by the rest of his family—but for tonight, he just doesn't care. Bellatrix is too entrancing to allow Rabastan to look at anyone else.

At last, at last, her chain of suitors runs dry. The bonfire descends into a madness induced by a little firewhiskey, the end of the summer, and the intoxication of being at the top of the world. And for Bellatrix, alone for the first time that night, the intoxication has heightened into a stunning frenzy.

That's what gives Rabastan the courage to approach her. If she's this wild now, come dawn when she has to return to society, maybe she won't remember his mistakes. And so he walks towards her, feigning boldness, for if there's one thing that he can imagine Bellatrix Black hexing him over, it's stammering and sputtering and being utterly inferior to the brash man that she needs to control her.

She's right beside the fire when he approaches. The magicked green flames shoot high into the air, seemingly engulfing her as she stands proud, surveying her kingdom spread before her. As Rabastan comes closer, he can feel the blistering fire against his face; feel it scalding his skin and consuming his robes—and ahead of him is Bellatrix, laughing in the face of those flames.

She whips around to face him, robes fanning almost into the fire, and it's all Rabastan can do to not drag her away from the danger. But he values his life, and he values this night, and most of all, he values her. So he waits, and as he knew, she escapes unscathed and turns to him with still-smouldering eyes.

"Dance with me," he says. Then, lower in nearly a growl that would sound utterly stupid at any other time and probably utterly stupid even now, "Dance with me, Bella Black."

She laughs at him. Laughs at him. With a snarl in her voice, she replies, "You'll have to tame me first."

"I'll do it."

It might have been a business proposition, but for the passion in him when he looks at her, and the rawness of her when she stares back.

"No you won't," she finally says, the coyness of her tone a disarming contrast to her harshness of moments ago. "Too many have tried, and I am still above all of them; still here at the top of the world. How could you?"

How could he? Rabastan looks at the wild woman before him and imagines her hair neatly slicked back, her dress robes properly unrevealing, the shade of her lips something less than a shining crimson—and the image hurts, because it would be something that would be so, so different from his Bella. One Andromeda is enough for any family, just as one Bellatrix is enough for any world. And taming this woman would make everything just wrong, wrong, wrong.

So he grins at her and tries to flick his hair assuredly like Rodulphus can and says, "I'll tame you by letting you run free."

She snorts. "Child," she calls him, and the way she says it it's not quite an insult.

Rabastan reaches his hand out slowly and brushes it against her arm. "Tag," he whispers, locking his eyes to hers the whole time. If she wants him to be a child, then by Merlin, he will be.

Bellatrix grins with real pleasure and steps slowly towards him. "You really, really shouldn't have done that."

And then she's launched herself at him and they're dancing or spinning or fighting, and if everyone else wasn't so drunk off of summer's end then they would never live this down. But they're Bellatrix Black and Rabastan Lestrange; they're at the top of the world; they're allowed to do this.

And oh Merlin, it's bloody magnificent. Rabastan is no child anymore, not with her hands raking up and down his arms, clutching him tighter, tighter and her hair whipping around her head and stinging his cheeks; the way she smiles wide and joyous and dangerous at him. Never a child, not when he has this force of nature in his grasp.

They spin around the bonfire and beneath the stars, cutting a swath of impropriety through society for Salazar only knows how long. And no matter how long it really was, minutes or hours or days, it could never be enough. Because Bellatrix Black is untamable, and something in Rastaban realizes that he will never have her any more than he does now.

Sure enough, she slips out of his grasp like the snake she is. She slithers away; straightens her robes and musses her hair—and doesn't look back. Not once.

She's never been more beautiful anyway. Rabastan watches her go and wishes that she could come back, even as he knows that she never, never will. Not to someone like him; a younger son with little to offer her beyond all the love and adoration she deserves. And no matter how much she might deserve love and adoration, those are two words that mean nothing to Bellatrix Black.

So she leaves, still wild and frenzied and untamed. Not by him, at least. And even left standing in her wake, Rabastan's heart breaks a little with the knowledge that one day someone will tame her: tame her, and break her.

He would never be that one, so like a sensible younger son, Rabastan leaves his dreams of the enticing Bella Black along with the Firewhiskey and summer's end in the ashes of the bonfire.

Rabastan's brother picks up those dreams from their place in the embers and destroys them. He shatters her spirit and represses her madness, slotting her as best she fits into the society that the Lestranges belong to, that the Blacks were always a smirk and sneer ahead of. But Bellatrix as a Lestrange is a little less spirited and a little less mad, and Rodulphus is a little more forgiving.

Even though Rabastan, watching from the shadows as always, hates what his brother has done to her, he can't help but be glad that he had her when she was whole—and even more, that he didn't have to be the one to break her.

(He could never have lived with that broken woman.)

I would love to hear any thoughts.