Bellatrix Lestrange (blackest_heart) wrote in snitched, @ 2008-11-24 16:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: bellatrix lestrange, character: neville longbottom |
Who: Bellatrix Lestrange and Neville Longbottom
When: Monday morning
Where: Ministry of Magic
What: Torture, duh. But Bella gets stabbed for her troubles, so that's fun.
Rating: Violence and bloodshed, undoubtedly
Status: Completed log
Truthfully, Bellatrix did not care one bit about whatever nonsense Neville Longbottom chose to spew at her through the journals. He could make all of the empty threats and insulting comments that he wanted and it did nothing but amuse her. Yes, he likely was setting a poor example for the other slaves by his continued defiance and that was something that should be addressed, but mostly? She just wanted the excuse to torture him. It was as simple as that. Of all of her toys, he was her favourite. They had a history after all, and the only thing she continued to be angry about was that Umbridge's little committee had refused to allow her to claim him as her slave. Of course if they had he would likely be dead by now but that was not the point.
Of course by giving him to Cornfoot, they still gave her quite easy access to the boy and under the guise of demonstrating how to properly discipline a slave for his quite public misbehaviour, she had instructed Stephen to bring Neville into the Ministry and leave him in her personal interrogation chamber that morning. It was a strangely simple room considering it's true purpose - just an old office adjoining her own that she had stripped down to nothing more than bare walls and floors. She had been known to bring in the occasional torture device for her amusement, but at the moment the only thing sinister about the room were the faded bloodstains on the tile floor.
Longbottom had been left alone in this room for a couple of hours as Bellatrix dealt with the morning's work. Apparently Avery was attempting to get her to do paperwork again - a foolish notion that he entertained every few months. Once that was properly incinerated and the ashes returned to his office she decided she was deserving of a brief diversion in the form of one Neville Longbottom. Letting herself into the interrogation room, she locked the door behind her before folding her arms across her chest and tilting her head curiously at the boy. He really was oddly fascinating to her with all of his continued defiance and resolve. "Do you particularly enjoy being tortured?" she asked by way of greeting, with genuine curiosity (and more than a little condescention) in her voice.
It had been no surprised when Stephen had told Neville to get ready to go with him to the Ministry this morning. He knew, already the night before, what was to come. What had surprised him a bit was that he had just been put in a room, a torture chamber or something like that, and then Stephen had left. He glanced around, the faded spots of red standing out clear from the walls. And the floor. He shuddered.
Neville looked up as someone opened the door. He was not surprised to see Bellatrix Lestrange enter the room, as he knew that his entire reason for being here was of disciplinary reasons. He had been placed on the floor, magically bound so he couldn't move. He had no idea how long he had been sitting here, hours maybe even, but one thing was for sure, nothing good would come out of it. The faded bloodstains on the walls and floor told him that much.
He was tempted to fight the bonds, his fingers itching to reach out for her and put his hands around her neck. He just glared at her, one eyebrow raised in a sort of mix of really now? and whatever. "No," his head tilted to the side as he observed her, trying to figure out how best to handle the situation. "Just love spending time with you," he finished, followed by a snort. He briefly wondered if this was how she had greeted everyone who had left some blood in here and what the heck they had then answered.
He refused to cowered, yet his insides were turning. His eyes flickered to the locked door, then to her arms that were crossed over her chest. He hoped she couldn't see how nervous he was.
"Hmmm," was her only reply as she paced around him for a moment like a predator circling her prey. She didn't actually care what his answer was, really she hadn't even been listening. She was too busy entertaining the various possibilities of just what she was going to do to him. She could cast the cruciatus on him or inflict various other methods of torment and undoubtedly she would get to that point soon enough but first she had something else in mind.
As she finished her circle and ended up standing in front of him once again, she gave a quick flick of her wand towards him, releasing him from his bonds. She knew what this boy wanted more than anything else was to kill her, to get his revenge for what she had done to his parents (and really she could hardly begrudge him his desire for vengeance, although she did find it rather laughable all the same.) And so she was going to attempt to show him just how ridiculous his promises and threats really were.
"Go on then," she taunted him. "You want your vengeance for dear old mummy and daddy? You want to kill me? To wrap your hands around my neck? Or maybe..." Grinning evilly she pulled a small knife out of her robes and tossed it to the floor in front of Neville. No, he would never get the chance to get within striking distance of her with it, but she did so love the thought of seeing him try. "Maybe you want to make me bleed," she sneered.
He knew what she was trying to do, yet he found himself looking at the knife that had been tossed in front of him. Oh Merlin how he wanted revenge, how he wanted to kill her or at least make her feel the pain that she had caused him and his family. His breath hitched in his throat by the mere thought of grabbing the knife. He looked up at her, his insides boiling of anger and then reached blindly for the knife. No longer bound to the floor, he got up slowly.
"Oh, there's nothing I want more," he hissed, and clenched his hands around the knife. Mind no longer on wands or magic, he attacked quickly, not focusing on hitting a specific place, just on hitting something, but all he managed to do was swing it in the air, too far from Lestrange to even touch her. It was no secret that Neville was no warrior. He could barely cast a proper spell without messing it up. Sure, being a part of Dumbledore's Army had given him a bit of a backbone and more than once he had been able to cast a spell that worked and had helped - though that had been some time ago and this was not magic, this was not his wand he was holding in his hand.
"Argh!" he screamed, and tried to attack again. All he saw was the red spots of blood on the floor and the walls and all he could hear was that evil laughter that made his bones chill. "I'll kill you," he hissed and attempted another attack.
No, Bellatrix really could not stop laughing at the angry desperation of the young man in front of her as she batted him away with her wand time and time again. "No, you won't," she replied simply before finally deciding she'd had enough of this game. She gave another wave of her wand, this time not to simply buffer him back, but to send him flying across the room and crashing into the wall.
"Pathetic," she declared. "Can't even land a single attack. Your parents would be so disappointed in your failure." She didn't bother taking the knife from him. If he wanted to come at her again, she was hardly concerned but she rather doubted he'd be capable of attacking for much longer. "Of course, I could have you sent back to Azkaban. Attacking a Ministry employee is a very serious crime, after all. But I think it better if we handle this little discipline problem between us, don't you?"
She let out another short, sharp laugh before sending a particularly nasty bit of dark magic at him, to make him feel as if he were burning up from the inside out. Actually that was precisely what the spell was doing, although she fully intended to stop before causing any permanent damage. A cooked spleen was quite difficult to undo, after all, but she did love to watch someone panic as they slowly grew intolerably warm and realised just what was happening to them.
He had barely gotten up from the floor where he had landed after having been thrown into the wall when he was hit by a curse. The pain in his shoulder was forgotten as he nearly stumbled over his own feet, the free hand going up to touch his head and the other barely able to keep his hold on the knife. He wanted to scream, and he quite possibly could have been screaming for the world to hear, but all he could focus on was the pain.
He managed to look up and seeing her standing not that far from him, clearly amused by his pain, made him move slightly forward. Only to end up on the floor. One step was all it had taken before his legs had given in and decided to no longer support his weight. "I'll..." even speaking hurt, his throat feeling like he was being burned from the inside out. His eyes averted to the floor, and he wanted nothing more than to give up, to surrender and let her do whatever the hell she wanted. He grasped the knife in his hand, the handle feeling odd against his warm sweaty hands.
He would never give up. He owed his parents, his Gran, the Order and the DA for at least trying. Screaming, he got up as fast as his legs allowed him and ran towards her, knife held up high, the silver looking dull and worn in the light. He knew very well that she was the superior in this fight, but that didn't mean he would just give.
Oh, now this was just too amusing for words. Even suffering, the idiot boy still had delusions of fighting against her. "Careful, you don't want to break my concentration or I might forget to remove that curse," she taunted as she swiftly sidestepped out of his path. Well she always had thought it would be interesting to get into a ring with a raging bull. Aside from the size difference, this didn't seem that dissimilar at the moment.
Still laughing, she figured it was likely better if she did remove the curse now (really, forgetting was something of a concern) but instead quickly replaced it with a strangulation hex to cut off his airway. At some point she had decided that she was not going to leave any physical marks on Longbottom, not this time anyway. It wasn't that she particularly cared if Cornfoot knew what she had done to his slave and Salazar knew she didn't exactly have respect for the personal property of others. No, it was more that it just amused her to make him suffer this way. Blood always brought such sympathy and concern from others, but would they be as worried if there was no actual evidence of his torture?
Stepping to the opposite side of the room, she kept her eyes carefully trained upon him, a cruel smirk spread across her lips. "Care to try again?" she taunted, holding her arms wide in offering.
The knife fell to the floor as his hands moved up to his throat. He felt as if he was suffocating, as if something had cut off the air. Tears of desperation filled his eyes. He was too focused on not being able to breathe properly to care about what Bellatrix Lestrange said or thought. His nails clawed on his skin, desperately trying to remove the hex from his throat, breaking the skin ever so slowly and leaving red deep marks.
He tried to move closer to her, tried to get her to remove the hex, but all he managed to do was trip over his own feet and landed not so graciously with a thump on his knees. It hurt, really hurt, and it felt as if he right kneecap broke underneath his weight, but still all he could concentrate on was his throat. He felt faint and his eyes started to roll in his head. As much as his pride told him not to, he begged her, pleaded her to remove it, "Pl-ple-please re..."
His mind worked as if it was on overload, images appearing so quickly in his mind that was he not being strangulated right now he might have gone crazy from the never ending images. All he could hear was her evil laughter - and he wasn't sure if she was really laughing at him right now or if this was but a memory as well. His eyesight was too blurry for him to make out anything else than a darker figure not that far from him. "S-st-stop."
Her eyes flashed with an odd combination of both malice and amusement as he pleaded with her. She let the curse linger on him for just a few more moments until his face began to turn a thoroughly unhealthy shade of blue and then finally she deigned to lift it. She didn't want him to think that she was particularly sympathetic to his ridiculous pleadings, after all. She wasn't.
"Now do you see just how pathetic your promises of retribution are?" she asked after taking a moment to wait for him to recover his breath. "I could kill you any time I wish. The only reason you still live is because you amuse me. But you will learn to restrain yourself from whatever indignant protests you feel the need to write in your journal. We can't have you setting such a bad example for the others, after all." Despite her lecture, there was still a mocking, sing-song tone to her voice that made it quite clear this really was nothing more than a game to her.
"Now scream for me. Scream like your mummy," she demanded, her voice suddenly becoming hard and cold as she waved her wand at him with a flourish. "Crucio!"
Neville was too busy inhaling and exhaling, his lungs burning rather horribly, to answer back. Truth was, Bellatrix Lestrange could probably kill him fairly easily without a worthy fight from him, but that didn't make him want to back down. He was about to give her a piece of his mind when he was hit with the Cruciatus curse, and though his lungs were still burning and his throat sore from his scratching he screamed like he had never screamed before.
He tried to look up from his place amongst the faded red spots covering the floor, but was hit with another wave of severe pain, which made him squeeze his eyes close together and grit his teeth. His screaming had stopped only moments before, no sounds left in him. He wondered if this was how his parents had felt, wondered what their last thoughts had been. And then he wondered if he were to pass out now would he then wake up in a bed next to his mom and dad.
"You..." he tried to form the words, but they sounded odd in his mouth, almost like he had eaten something bad, something that had remove his voice and left the words empty. His blood was pumping fast through his veins, his head feeling like it was about to explode. "Not... fair..." Childish yes, but right now he didn't care what she thought of him. What anyone thought of him. All he wanted was for her to stop and leave him alone.
For some reason his ridiculous insistence that this was not fair only made her laugh harder, although this was more of a laugh of genuine amusement than the pure malice of only moments before. "No, it isn't," she replied as she lifted the curse, feeling quite satisfied with herself. She did not care one bit about what was fair in the world of Neville Longbottom, she only cared about her own desires and the one to hear him scream had been satiated quite impressively. For the moment anyway.
She leaned down to pick up the knife from where he dropped it and pressed the handle into his palm (blade pointing towards him, of course, she was arrogant and perhaps more than a bit reckless, but she wasn't an idiot) before quickly stepping back out of his reach. "Still have delusions of killing me?" she asked, smirking down at him as she kept her wand trained on his body. At this point she would have been impressed if he could manage to get off the floor but then again even the most wounded of dog often managed to find the strength to lash out against its tormentor.
"Or better yet, you can always kill yourself. Put yourself out of your misery. I'll even see to it that your dear parents quickly follow you into the afterlife."
He barely felt the blade pressing against the palm of his hand and he didn't even flinch when drops of red slowly started to run down his hand and into his sleeve. It would be so easy to just end it all, but something inside him made him want to not give up just yet. He liked the idea of it being his parents guiding him, but he knew that it was more likely his pride. He had promised to kill her one day, to return the pain she had inflicted upon him. Giving up was not a choice.
He looked up at her from underneath his hair, a slow but nevertheless amused smile starting to grace his lips. He hurt, his entire face and body hurt from that movement, but it didn't stop him. She had stepped out of his reach, which gave him a tiny bit of satisfaction. He could barely move let alone get up, yet she had moved away to make certain?
"Piss off," he muttered and let go of the knife. His hands ached, but all he could think of was not to look away first.
His smile was noted with some confusion on Bellatrix's part and she tilted her head curiously at him before kneeling down at his side. Her left hand wrapped around his neck, fingers pressing into his jaw as she forcibly turned his head to keep looking up at her. "I am afraid we are just going to have to stay in here until you learn how to speak respectfully to your betters," she chastised, her wand still held firmly in her other hand, the tip pressing into his side.
Yes, she was very much now within striking distance of him and the knife if he should get any crazy ideas about sudden movements and attacking her, but the presence of her wand ensured that any attack on his part would be swiftly met by a retribution far worse than any damage he could manage to inflict. What an interesting dilemma.
"And just what do you find so amusing about your current situation?"
He looked at her, eyes filled with disgust and confusion. He tried to move his head, but her grip on his neck was too strong. Unladylike was the first word that popped into his mind, strongly followed by murderer. The wand was visible from the corner of his eyes and so was the knife he had just moments ago let go of. He silently cursed himself for doing so, and tried to come up with a way to move to get it without looking too suspicious.
"I will," he said and jerked his head away from her without success, "talk respectfully to my betters when I am in the company of one!" The words were snarled at her, head moving towards her to make her back away. His fingers reached for the knife and caught the edge of it. Slowly and silently he raised it, hand moving along the blade until he reached the handle.
"And now for the amusing part," he said, eyes narrowing into tiny slits and teeth bared and moved the knife as quick as he possibly could manage. It stabbed her somewhere around her middle, though it could have been her arm as well. He didn't know and part of him was too scared to actually look. He stared at her with wide eyes and mouth hanging slightly open.
What had she been telling herself about rabid dogs and bulls and all the other animal metaphors running through her head? (For truly, Longbottom was no more than an animal in her mind.) Either way, she realised a bit too late that perhaps she had underestimated his idiocy as the blade pressed into her side. Her teeth clenched together as she let out a hiss of pain and she immediately fired off another hex to send him flying across the room and crashing into the wall yet again.
So much for not leaving a mark. Now she was just angry and she stalked across the room, pulling the knife from her side without flinching (not because it didn't hurt - it did, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction.) "That was just foolish," she spat. "Just as I thought, you can't even kill me properly. Crucio!"
As she cast the spell, she glanced at the bloodied knife still held in her other hand, only vaguely paying attention to Longbottom for a moment. Of course she could quite justifiably kill him now, or see him returned to Azkaban and while she might have to come up with an explanation for how he had obtained the knife in the first place, that would not be terribly difficult. But no, she decided, she liked him just where he was. She wasn't done with him yet.
He groaned as his body was once again thrown through the room and against the wall. He landed rather awkwardly on his hand and heard the breaking of a bone. Wincing, he looked up as she came closer. He searched frantically for an escape, but unsuccessful. He was trapped, head dizzy with pain yet his eyes were still wide open as a deer caught in the lights.
This was the end, he thought, and tried to sit up. She had no reached him, her words barely reaching him before she had casted the Cruciatus curse again. It hurt, and for the second time in a short while, he screamed until his voice was gone and his throat dry. He knew that it was his own fault, but there was still a tiny bit of satisfaction inside of him. He hadn't killed her, but he had managed to get to her, which for now was something he was proud of.
Her attention turned to the bloody knife, and though the curse wasn't lifted it still got a bit easier to endure. He was tempted to apologize, to beg forgiveness once again, but the words were stuck in his throat. Then the curse returned with full powers and anything he might have said was forced back. "S-stop," he muttered through his teeth, tears of pain rolling down his cheeks. "Anyth..." the words trailed off.
The casting of the cruciatus curse had actually managed to satiate at least some of Bellatrix's anger at the boy and now that the need for immediate vengeance had passed (and he was apparently willing to cooperate) she lifted the curse. Ignoring him for a moment, she applied a quick healing charm to the throbbing wound in her side to stop the bleeding temporarily (one of the few healing charms that she was actually proficient with, although Rosier or someone else would have to actually fix her later. Stabbed by Longbottom. That was going to be fun to explain.)
She knelt down by his side again, this time the knife firmly clutched in her own hand and she pressed the edge of the blade to the side of his neck, just enough to break the skin. "This is how you kill someone. Now as amusing as your silly banter may be, you will learn to speak respectfully to me. Understand? Or we can have another round or two of the cruciatus and see just how many it takes to send you to Mungo's with your parents. You do seem to enjoy it," she growled, giving him a toothy, predatory smile.
He swallowed, uncertain how to react with a knife pressed against his neck. He felt something warm running down the side of his neck and realised that it had cut his skin. Pick your battles, he thought and looked down at his hand. The wrist was swollen and starting to colouring into a dark shade and it slightly turning the wrong way. He didn't want to give in, didn't want to be weak and disappoint his friends.
His eyes closed and he leaned against the wall. It felt very much like loosing, the small victory of managing to stabbing someone like Bellatrix Lestrange pushed to the back of his mind, nearly forgotten until a slight movement of his head reminded him of the knife.
A short nod followed by a barely audible, "Yes." For now, at least, he thought and opened his eyes again to look at her.
"Good," she replied, although his answer did not stop her from drawing the blade across his neck in a carefully controlled, shallow cut before smoothly rising back to her feet. She had obtained the concession she wanted from him, reduced him to begging with her and despite getting stabbed in the process, considered this to be a satisfactory session. Of course she had no doubts that he would return to his defiant ways before long and they would find themselves in this room again soon enough. She hoped as much, anyway.
But she did not wish to ruin her toy too quickly and so she decided it was time to make her exit. Not to mention that she really did need to get Rosier to look at that cut. She realised a bit after the fact that Longbottom had reopened one of her wounds from her duel with Hestia. Oh Rosier was going to be annoyed with her, a thought that amused her more than it should have.
She swept out of the room, locking the door behind her and making her way out of her office only to pause and stop at Stephen's desk. Dropping the bloodied knife on top of whatever papers he was working on, she gave him no explanation, only instructions to have the knife cleaned and returned to her desk and to leave Longbottom to suffer until he took his lunch break.