Fic: "Angels in the Abattoir," Bellatrix/Gabrielle, NC-17 Title: Angels in the Abattoir Author:green_amber Rating: NC-17 Pairing: Bellatrix/Gabrielle Warnings: slight D/s, flogging, many secondary character deaths Disclaimer: JKR pwns all. Summary: Bellatrix takes on a protégée. Word Count: 3950 Notes: Written for a prompt by sweetcarolanne at hpde_smutathon 2007. The title comes from the song "Mainstream," by Thea Gilmore. Beta-read by the lovely stephanometra.
i. the fall (summer 2003)
In the Muggle world, the prison fell two hundred and fourteen years ago. There is a place there now, with cafes and nightclubs and a grand monument. If the Muggles milling about the square chance to hear a scream, or a mournful cry, they shiver in delighted terror and whisper to their companions of ghosts, echoes from the horrific past, but none know the truth.
It was too convenient an opportunity, back in those days of blood and fire and gunpowder: a fearsome Muggle prison reduced to rubble, a trembling populace who would not go near the place for fear of specters. The French Ministry seized their chance, and today another prison, a secret one, lurks in subterranean coils beneath the place where the placid tourists wander.
Tonight it, too, will fall.
Bellatrix shouts orders to the Death Eaters under her command, then runs into the fray herself. She never feels so alive as when she is fighting, killing. She laughs as the guards die one by one.
"Release the prisoners!" she cries when the guards are all gone. The Death Eaters set to work, and sparks fly from a dozen wands and a dozen shattering locks. The prisoners blink their eyes in disbelief, and stretch their limbs. These are not Death Eaters for the most part—the Dark Lord never gained much of a foothold this side of the Channel in the First War—but the conquest of the prison will help to break the spirit of the French Ministry, and perhaps the released criminals will sow a little chaos of their own. It can't hurt. More shattering locks, now, as the Death Eaters free every smuggler, thief, and counterfeiter they can find.
At last there is only one cell left. Bellatrix nearly passes it by; it looks empty but for a heap of grey rags in one shadowed corner. Then, a movement, so slight as to be nearly imperceptible.
"Well?" says Bellatrix. "You want to get out of this dump, or no?"
The heap of rags uncurls, rises to unsteady feet. An unlikely sort of criminal, muses Bellatrix, as she realizes the prisoner is a young girl in her late teens, with ethereal beauty that seems to glow even in the dim half-light cast by the flickering torches.
"What are you in for, little girl? Plying the oldest trade?" Bellatrix laughs.
The girl lifts her chin in a gesture that would be regal and defiant if her chin weren't so rounded and so bloody young. She speaks English, though with an enchanting accent. "For being part-veela. Zey rounded up all of us…part-humans…and tossed us in here. I sink zey thought it would buy them some leniency when you came." She meets Bellatrix's eyes with no visible fear. "I expect you have come here to kill me?"
"No," says Bellatrix, and surprises herself by meaning it. Abomination, whispers an old and tyrannical serpent in Bellatrix's mind, a serpent with her aunt's voice, but for some reason she doesn't care, not this time. There's just something about this strange girl, something that feels right and fated, some reason Bellatrix happened to see that subtle shift of the rags rather than walk on by and leave the child to starve, or be tortured by a new round of jailers—
Chills run up and down Bellatrix's spine as she realizes how close she came to missing the girl entirely. She breaks the lock messily, her wand imprecise in her trembling hand. She holds the other hand out to the girl. "You, come with me."
***
It feels like being underwater again.
It had been a warm spring day, and the water had been so deliciously cool on Gabrielle's skin, and she remembers slipping in and out of sleep: strangely murmuring voices waking her and her eyes opening upon green dappled light, then the same voices blurring together like watercolors in the rain and lulling her back into slumber.
That's what it feels like now, or maybe it just feels like being a child again and dozing in her mother's lap as the adults' voices rise and fall in the half-understood patterns of their gossip. The woman is reclining regally in a large wingback chair, and Gabrielle is sitting at her feet, soothed and entranced by the woman's hands drifting softly through her hair.
No. Not a child. Seventeen now. Need to listen. It could be important. And she's not Mother. Gabrielle surfaces from her dream of water, forces herself to hear and comprehend.
"I'd love to get my hands on that virgin skin of hers. What'll you take for her, Bella?"
The woman, who must be Bella, tightens her hand in the girl's tresses; her grasp is pleasure-pain as she pulls. "No, Macnair. This one is mine."
Another voice from another corner. "Just for one night?"
"She is mine," says Bella. "Leave me."
There is more murmuring as the men leave the parlor. Bella pulls back on the hair, turns the girl's face so that she's looking into the fathomless black abysses of Bella's eyes. "Mine," she says again. "What is your name, little girl?"
"Gabrielle," she says.
Bella laughs. "Of course it is, sweet angel. Come with me."
Gabrielle follows Bella to her room. She knows that Bella must be Bellatrix Lestrange, and that Bellatrix Lestrange is Evil and Dangerous, but she doesn't care any more about the war or who wins. Her parents are buried on their estate at the edge of the Forest of Broceliande, and her sister is buried in England, and there is no one left to fight for. The ones she was brought up to think of as Good are the ones who threw her into a dungeon for the sins of her grandparents. And Gabrielle was one of the lucky ones, spared harsher treatment because veela are considered a less-dangerous species of Dark creature; she shudders and tries for the thousandth time to banish from her mind her last sight of Madame Maxime and what was done to her.
Bellatrix Lestrange, Evil and Dangerous as she is said to be, has treated Gabrielle with more kindness than the authorities that were supposed to protect her from evil, and Gabrielle follows with a willing step, accepting her fate.
ii. the shadow of her wings (summer/fall 2003)
Gabrielle sleeps soundly in the morning, a picture of desperate peace on Bellatrix's pillow. No doubt the poor girl is exhausted. Bella is able, in these long lazy hours, to slip away to the shops in wizarding Paris. Despite the heat, she pulls her hood tight around her face and keeps her wand at the ready in case she needs to Obliviate someone. She does not believe any of the freed prisoners will betray her to the Aurors, but one can never be too sure.
She sings to herself half under her breath as she runs her fingers over lengths of fluid satin and frothing lace, weighing the merits of white and rose and seafoam green. When she sees the velvet gown of midnight blue, however, she knows this is the one. It is an old-fashioned piece, empire-waisted with puffed sleeves, and the sudden image of Gabrielle clad in the dress makes her heart catch in her throat.
Lingerie, too, and then the utterly out-of-character frivolity of a bouquet of roses, but how can she resist when their not-quite-pink translucence and unbearable softness reminds her so much of the girl's skin? Bella laughs at herself, infatuated with a young girl at her age, gathering precious gifts to lay at those delicate feet.
Which reminds her that she needs slippers to match the gown, and the gold flows from her purse like water. At last there is only one more thing she needs, and when the money has changed hands she slips the precious item into the pocket of her robes.
When Bella returns, Gabrielle is in the bath, and Bella stifles a moan at the thought of the girl's body rising goddess-like from the foam. She nudges the bathroom door open just far enough to leave the garments there, then closes it again to give Gabrielle her privacy. For now, she will against all her natural inclinations play the lady. Give her time, she tells herself; Bella is not accustomed to patience.
Gabrielle emerges some thirty minutes later, her posture regal in the velvet gown even as her eyes are bewildered, lost. She has already performed a spell to dry her hair, and the heavy pale softness of it is an aureole around her seraphic face.
"Come," says Bella. "Let me brush your hair."
Gabrielle blinks, reminding Bellatrix of an expensive doll, but obeys. She seats herself at the vanity table as Bella takes up the heavy silver-backed brush.
The girl's hair is soft beyond description, a light brush of feathers over Bella's hands, and nearer white than blonde. Bella remembers, as she smoothes the pellucid ripples with the brush, that Narcissa's hair was once like this, before she grew up and it darkened to burnished gold.
Bella's gaze moves back and forth from the back of Gabrielle's head to her face in the mirror; to those impossibly wide, improbably blue eyes, to the high round swell of Gabrielle's breasts beneath the blue velvet.
And if I set down the brush, gathered those breasts in my hands, what would happen? Bellatrix bids herself be patient, and reaches instead for the treasure in her pocket.
She pulls it forth, a white collar of supple leather with a pendant of pearl, and lifts the cloud of Gabrielle's hair to slip it around that slender neck. "This signifies that you are mine," she says. "It will protect you from the men you met last night. They want you, yes, but they will not cross me. I am high in the Dark Lord's favor."
"Yes, Madame," Gabrielle breathes, and for a moment Bella considers telling her not to call her madame, that it makes her feel older even than she is, but then she remembers that it means my lady and decides it will do.
***
They sleep together the second night in Bellatrix's bed, a great expanse of satin sheets with four posts of ebony. Gabrielle knows she must have slept here the first night as well, though all she remembers of it is the pillow rising to meet her and the blessed slide into dark oblivion.
The second night, she is self-conscious about it, and remembers—it must have been in the news reports from across the Channel--that Bellatrix has a husband. "Madame? Your mari? He will not mind my sleeping in your bed?"
Bellatrix laughs. It is a harsh sound, ringing from the stone walls. "My husband! I have not allowed him in my bed for years."
Gabrielle changes into the short white nightgown Bellatrix has laid out for her, and slips between the sheets. Bellatrix casts Nox and climbs in next to her, and Gabrielle does her best to breathe and let her mind fall into silence, to ignore Bellatrix's soft breath on the back of her neck and the rose-myrrh scent of Bellatrix's perfume.
She rises from the darkness of sleep, unknown hours later, called back to her body by a sensation of intense pleasure. She feels a heated hand stroking the cool curve of her breast, fingers sliding over her nipple, the barest scratch of nails.
I'm dreaming, she thinks, but the tongue that licks at the shell of her ear is as real as her own flesh. Bellatrix trails her hand down Gabrielle's waist, drawing lightly on her with her nails, then Gabrielle feels a tug as Bellatrix slips her fingers into Gabrielle's panties.
Can't move. Can't say anything. She might stop.
Her gown is rucked up around her shoulders, she can see that now as her eyes adjust to the gloom, and Bellatrix lowers her head to claim Gabrielle's breast with her mouth, coarse midnight hair blanketing Gabrielle's skin. Bellatrix's fingers move expertly between Gabrielle's legs, circling and kneading against hot wetness, and Gabrielle hears a soft laugh as she cries out, arching against Bellatrix's hand.
Then sleep ravishes her again, and she sinks back into darkness. In the morning, she wonders if she dreamed the whole thing.
***
"Your first lesson," says Bellatrix. "It is one that has served me well all these years. I have said before that all of the men in our little enclave desire you, have I not?"
"You have, Madame," says Gabrielle.
Bellatrix nods. "Your beauty is a weapon. My beauty--before Azkaban stole it from me--was one of my most powerful tools, equal to the Cruciatus and Imperius Curses in its usefulness. But it must be used carefully. With beauty alone you can influence any man--once. To lure him again with the same prize, you will need more."
The girl says nothing, but watches Bellatrix intently as though wishing she had a quill and parchment to take notes. Bellatrix smiles in satisfaction and continues.
"I will be your slate, your practice ground. You will learn to please me, and the knowledge will serve you well throughout your life."
Gabrielle's eyes are wide with confusion. "But…you are a woman, how will that teach me to please men?"
"The bodies are different. The fire is the same. Every man and every woman wants to be desired, to be wanted. A lover can forgive awkwardness, flaws in technique, that sort of thing, especially in a young one such as you, but the one thing no one will tolerate in bed is lack of attention. Let it slip through your actions or your words that you would prefer to be elsewhere, and you have lost. This is the lesson you shall learn today. Now tell me, have you ever been with a woman before?"
"Not…not fully, no."
Bellatrix closes her eyes and imagines the girl fumbling in a dormitory bed with a school chum. The picture sends the blood racing to her clit, heavy and insistent. "Then this experience will be new to you," she says. She slips out of her crimson silk robe and reclines on the bed, assuming what she prays is a seductive pose, flicking her wand at the lamps to mute their unforgiving light. "Come."
Gabrielle seems to glow in the half-light as she slowly approaches the bed. Bellatrix isn't sure if this is reluctance, or merely shyness. She closes her eyes, not wanting to see disgust in Gabrielle's celestial eyes, not wanting to read her own age reflected back to her there.
And then Gabrielle's hands are upon her skin, questing, lightly brushing in feather-light touches, and Gabrielle's breath is warm and sweet against her cheek. Bellatrix opens her eyes, opens her lips to claim Gabrielle's.
She means to teach Gabrielle about how to watch a lover's face for the signs of impending orgasm, but when the girl's delicate fingers part her lips and circle just so over her clit, Bellatrix forgets the lesson in the sudden surprise of her climax. She feels she is floating, then falling, then caught safe in Gabrielle's arms.
"Don’t ever say you've lost your beauty, Madame. Never."
It sounds like empty flattery of the sort she's used to, but the girl's eyes are so earnest, and there are tears on her petal-soft cheeks. And Bellatrix, who has received the obeisance of a hundred men and near as many women but who has never knelt to a lover in turn, gently presses Gabrielle down to the bed and pays reverence to her sacred flesh, tasting heaven.
***
There are other lessons, of course. The bed is Gabrielle's classroom for some of them; others are taught in a more vertical position: disguise, dueling, the application of the Unforgivable Curses. When Gabrielle can hold her own on the field against Bellatrix, when she can cast Avada Kedavra on a rat without flinching, Bellatrix takes her protégée into battle.
The men snicker and nudge one another, speculating on how "Bella's little toy" will stand up to the realities of war, but Gabrielle focuses within herself and lets their voices become so much futile wind. The only opinion that matters is Madame's, and she will not let her down.
"This is the home of the Head of Magical Law Enforcement," says Bella as they approach the grand house. "This is the man who decreed that a part-veela was less than human and not entitled to the rights of a witch. Do with that knowledge what you will."
Gabrielle does.
It is later, in the safety of Bellatrix's chambers, that it catches up to her. Suddenly Gabrielle is trembling, weeping. "I k-killed him," she sobs, humiliated to show such weakness in front of Madame but unable to stem the flow.
"Hush," says Bellatrix. "It is always hard, the first time." She holds Gabrielle until the shaking subsides.
"I am weak."
"You are young. You have been blooded for the first time. It is no shame."
Bellatrix helps Gabrielle to her feet and walks her over to the vanity table, guiding her so that she stands before the table with her hands braced against its surface. She Vanishes Gabrielle's robe, leaving her standing in her bra and knickers. The cool air is sweet against her skin after the night's fighting.
"This is something that has always helped me," explains Bellatrix as she rummages in a drawer. Gabrielle holds her position but cranes her neck to see what Bellatrix is doing. Bella pulls a flogger from the drawer, a cat o'nine tails made of soft heavy rope, and returns to Gabrielle's side.
"Madame…I thought you said there was no shame…"
"I am not punishing you," says Bellatrix. "Pain is healing. You shall see."
Gabrielle learns the truth of Bella's words as the cat flicks over her shoulders with a spray of hot, soothing pain, again and again and again. The pain burns away her guilt and fear, washing it from her in a wave of molten gold, leaving her flushed and content.
Afterward, Bellatrix bids her sit down again in the chair, just as she did on their first day. Gabrielle moans, forlorn and inarticulate, when she sees what Bellatrix is doing and feels the collar loosening from around her neck. No, not that, that is who I am…
"Ssssh," whispers Bellatrix. "I have something better for you now." She pulls a tangle of gold and gems from her pocket. Gabrielle recognizes them; they belonged to the dead man's wife. The metal is chill against her skin as Bellatrix adorns her wrist with a chain of sparkling tears; as Bellatrix encircles her neck with a choker studded with drops of crimson blood.
iii. the last trumpet (fall 2003)
"What's that?" asks Gabrielle, peering over Bellatrix's shoulder as she opens the parcel.
Bellatrix draws forth a large horn, battered and twisted and dull. It doesn't look like metal and Gabrielle's arms break out in goosebumps as she realizes this instrument was made of a real horn, from some uncanny beast that no longer walks the earth. A note flutters from the coils of the horn as Bellatrix raises it. Bellatrix seizes the note, reads it and shoves it into the pocket of her robes before Gabrielle can make the mental shift and decipher the English. Bellatrix's face, however, is another matter entirely.
Bellatrix has trained Gabrielle well. Gabrielle can read every nuance, every shade of blush and every tiny muscle-twitch in Madame's face, and she knows that nothing good is afoot when Bellatrix's face drains to corpse-white. "Madame. What is wrong?"
"Nothing."
"But I want to help--"
"I should punish you for your prying little nose," snarls Bellatrix. Bellatrix has been angry with Gabrielle before, but never has she spoken to her with such bile dripping from her voice.
"Do that, then." Gabrielle draws in a deep breath, calling upon all the courage she can muster. She knows deep down that Bella's venom is born of fear, and doesn't really have much to do with Gabrielle at all. "But tell me what's wrong. I want to help. You can punish me later."
Bellatrix's eyes flick up and down, taking in Gabrielle's defiant posture: hands on hips, chin raised high. Bellatrix bites her lip; it is a strange and girlish gesture from her. She retrieves the note from her pocket and hands it to Gabrielle. You will raise the dead of Ys. They will fight alongside my wizard armies as I take the French Ministry. "You see the trouble, Gabrielle?"
"No," says Gabrielle.
"Ys is a fairy tale."
"It exists. I can lead you there. The Muggles explain it away as a trick of the light, but it is there."
Gabrielle doesn't miss the brief sigh of relief that passes Bellatrix's lips, but nor does she overlook Bellatrix's hands, twisting and writhing restlessly in her lap. There is still something terribly wrong. "Madame?"
"I shall die," says Bellatrix. "I cannot do it." There is a long silence, then Bellatrix speaks again, and every word sounds hard-won from the maw of her pride. "I have never been able to raise the dead. The horn does not respond to everyone. I believe there is a certain innocence it seeks, something I have never possessed. The last time my Lord commanded me to blow upon it, I forced my cousin Regulus to do it. Regulus is dead now, and cannot help me."
"Why does the Dark Lord not do it himself?"
"He means to test me."
Gabrielle nods. Privately she wonders whether the Dark Lord has other motives; perhaps he himself cannot use the horn. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Bellatrix is in danger if she does not meet him with the undead army at the appointed time. "Let me try, then."
Bellatrix's eyes widen, as though she has seen a miracle unhoped-for. "You would do that for Him?"
"No. For you, Madame."
***
All her life Bellatrix had dismissed the tales of Ys as myth, yet now she stands on the cliffs of the Pointe du Raz, staring down at a legend made truth. The ruined walls seem to undulate beneath the shifting twilit waves. Beside her stands Gabrielle: her slave, her salvation. She does not doubt that Gabrielle can summon the Inferi. Bellatrix is a woman of faith. She believes in the Dark Lord. She believes in her angel.
Gabrielle seems born to this tableau of water and sky: her cloud-white hair flutters behind her in the wind, and her mother-of-pearl skin is kissed by rose in the last rays of the sun. In her hands she wields the heavy horn. Her face is a mask of concentration.
Bellatrix waits, and one small tendril of doubt twines its way around her heart: why does Gabrielle not raise the horn to her lips, why does no sound come, what if we fail...
Then we will die together, and even in Hell I shall have my angel's love.
Bellatrix smiles then, knowing that nothing can touch her, nothing can sunder her from that seraphic devotion now. "Call them, mon ange. I know you can do it."
Gabrielle lifts the horn, closes her lips around its ancient orifice. The blast rings Bella's very bones. There is a long silence and then the muted crash of ruins shifting beneath the waters, the subterranean groan of a thousand crypts opening. The pale skeletal hands of the Inferi rise above the waves and grasp the open air, obedient to Gabrielle's command.
We are saved, thinks Bellatrix. We are victorious. She smiles through tears of triumph and relief, and enfolds Gabrielle tightly in her arms.