InsaneJournal

[Fic] fly up high and burn the sky (Bellatrix, PG-13)
Title: fly up high and burn the sky
Author: Envinyatar (aka envinyatar15)
Character: Bellatrix
Rating: PG-13
Highlight for Warnings: *child abuse/death, canon character death*
Canon-compliance: up to Deathly Hallows
Word Count: 1,139
Summary: The fires of Hell, they burn in her.

Notes: Intended for femgenficathon, but since one of the rules of the fest quite rightly states "use a bloody beta" and I didn't find one, I'm not officially entering. So beware of non-native language with all its possible grammatical incorrectness and non-English phrasings and suchlike, yes? My prompt was #15: Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned - not to see what is not. -- Maria Mitchell. This fic was written during a major bout of writer's block and was only possible thanks to the inspiration I drew from a) Three Days Grace's "Burn" (as quoted in the beginning), b) The Dark Knight's Joker, and c) the ever-amazing fleshdress/fleshflutter and her writing for giving me an inspirational mini-burst when I was completely stuck after a couple hundred words.
/epic A/N

For 100quills: #47 seek; challenge_the: #038 red.



I won't let it show that
I'm not always flying
So on the way down
I'll watch you burn


Bellatrix Lestrange wants to see the world burn.

Azkaban has set free a fire in her. Where others are left as empty shells, she is filled to the brim with red-hot flames she can't extinguish. They lick at her from the inside, making her flesh sizzle, blister – but it doesn't burn.

She doesn't sleep, sweats from the heat when she lies in bed next to her unworthy husband. She screams from the pain, trashes about on top of the sheets. She sees neither friend nor foe, the fire showing her them all in the same light; she strangles two formerly trusted servants within the first week of her escape from Azkaban. Whoever is careless pays promptly as she takes them down into the bottomless pit she continues to exist in.

The fires of Hell, they burn in her.

Maybe she isn't aware what she's doing; it's difficult to tell. In the darkness she thrums with fever, her body running hot and her mind heating up along with it. What does she see, what doesn't she? What way is her reality coloured?

She wants to see it in bright reds and yellows, that much is sure. The flicker of a thousand fires shall destroy the earth's surface, eating up the landscape and its inhabitants without thought of mercy. Her mind is fractured and broken, and everything else shall be, too.

Blacks are raised as kings and queens, and what they see fit to happen, happens.

*~*~*

Bellatrix is the Dark Lord's queen.

She is the epitome of fire, and the Dark Lord of ice. His cold aura soothes her frayed nerves. She basks in his presence the way a lizard basks in the morning's sun; it gives her strength, holds her insanity at bay. The flames cool down when he is close, and she doesn't feel too full, like she's going to explode from the energy filling her up. When she is with him, she seems to possess an almost sound mind. There's heat burning in her eyes, her speech is just a little too affected to come out of a normal person's mouth, her gestures are too grand; but she pierces the core of the matter at hand with a surety that few people in the Dark Lord's circle possess.

She loves chaos, confusion and destruction. Her desire is not to build up a new wizarding world. Her ideals are lost to the depths of Azkaban, eaten up by the fire its darkness has enkindled.

What she wants is to cause as much distress as she had to live through. Pay like with like, and when your revenge is executed the fires shall die, and you shall be at rest.

*~*~*

"What's with you, boy?" she coos at the little one in her arms and flutters her eyelashes at him. One carefully manicured finger caresses his cheek, her fingernail pressing along the trail his tears leave on his dirty skin. The boy looks up at her with panic in his eyes, wide-open and staring, and he doesn't move. His breathing is ragged, he chokes on his fear, and his heart frantically beats against the cage of his chest, trying to escape.

Bella laughs under her breath. Delight fills her, burning, burning, ever-burning, but there's satisfaction thrumming underneath the familiar ache. "Are you scared?"

The boy doesn't move, frozen in terror and acting dead like a fawn lying in high grass. Except there is no grass to cover his presence, and Bella sees him as clearly as she does the flames dancing in front of her eyes. The single tear that drops from his eye is enough of an answer to her earlier question. She smiles at him sweetly, rocks him gently in her arms.

Then she takes her wand, looking the boy squarely in the eyes, whispers an incantation, and slices open his throat with a slow, precise motion. He gurgles, blood beginning to well up from the deep cut. He starts to trash in her arms with the last of his small body's strength, which soon bleeds out.

Bellatrix watches dispassionately. The blood that runs down his neck she catches in a glass. His little body doesn't have much to give her, and after a while the trail of liquid runs empty. She carelessly discards the body on the floor to join his parents in the embrace of death.

The boy has fulfilled his destiny.

Raising the glass, she inspects its contents, all the while humming under her breath. She feels hot, red fog hazing over her vision, and the only thing that will calm her is this. She lifts the glass to her lips and drains it in two long swallows. Copper fills her mouth. Blood is the essence of life, and she drinks it as if her own life depended on it.

When the blood has settled in her stomach, she instantly feels calmer and strengthened. Her mind settles, the red fog recedes.

For another moment she keeps hanging onto what force of mind she has left.

*~*~*

"Early one morning, just as the sun was rising," she sings as she swipes her wand across the wall in swift movements. First red, then orange, then yellow: the shape of a flame begins to develop. Then, when she touches the painted lines with the tip of her wand, they come to life and stretch for her. They recognise their master, and they will do as she bids.

This flame is her personal sign that she combines with the Dark Mark into a distinguishing feature of her presence. Bellatrix Lestrange has been here, it announces for the world to see. Run for cover in fear!

Bellatrix is satisfied, leaves off the wall and looks at the result. Still singing under her breath she lets her gaze sweep over the room, nods once, complacent. She leaves the bodies of the house's inhabitants behind, not moving, not breathing. Terror is burnt into their eyes and follows them over into another world.

Cold-blooded peace washes over her as she returns to the Dark Lord's side, red still marking her fingers and lips.

*~*~*

Death is second nature to her. She knows how it tastes when it runs down her throat. She knows how it looks when she causes it, knows how it smells and sounds.

What she doesn't know yet is how Death feels.

When the day comes, Death hits her squarely in the chest. It is brought to her by a redhead, and the last thing she stares at in comprehension is flaming hair as something flares up inside her. It isn't terror, and it isn't pain. What she feels is mild confusion - and then the heat in her slowly begins to subside, leaving coldness behind. She feels chilly.

The fire goes out, and with it the light in her eyes.