What game are you playing, Bella?
Who: Bellatrix What: She and her father have a little...talk. When: Thursday Night Where: Black Ministries Status: Complete Rating: R for Dark Marks in the Sky Warning: Violence and mentions of molestation
Bellatrix strode up the stairs to Black Ministries, and into the building. With a flick of her wand, the cameras shorted out. She made her way through the building, either shorting cameras out or simply making them not see her as she went. She stepped into her father’s office with an air of authority, turmoil and resignation in her eyes.
The man looked up, studied her, then looked back down at his work. “Yes, Bellatrix?”
The woman regarded him, not saying anything for a long moment. She was wrestling with herself, with what she had to do. Part of her was excited, another part terrified. The rest of her was as disgusted with herself as she was with the man before her.
He looked up again. “Can I help you?”
“‘Never tell anyone, Bellatrix,’” Bella quoted, her eyes blazing. “‘If you really want to protect your sisters.’”
The man’s expression didn’t change, but there was a sudden change in his demeanor. His shoulders stiffened, and his eyes seemed to bore into her. “What game are you playing, Bella? I told you, these delusions of yours are just that. Delusions.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she flicked her wand out of her sleeve. She toyed with the edge. “Delusions? I’ve always wondered what you told yourself to sleep at night.” She leaned forward, pleased and yet sickened when his eyes darted to her chest. “Was it okay, because God told you it was, Daddy? Was it okay, because I was willing?”
“God chose us to deliver his message to our flock, Bellatrix. Think of all the lost work if any of this became public.”
He spoke evenly, and without remorse, but Bellatrix could smell the fear. She slammed her fists onto his desk, her voice booming and a wind scattering the papers on his desk every which way. “You only care about the money!”
Her voice echoed in the chamber for several long seconds. When it had died down, she lifted her wand, flicked it while muttering under her breath, and watched as her father was against the wall. He stayed there, hovering. “I hate. You make my skin crawl you twist up my insides until I hate myself and my sisters and Caprica.”
“You chose to give yourself for them,” he insisted, terror at the abomination his daughter had become clear on his face.
“Silencio!” Her father was blissfully silenced, and agitated, Bellatrix dropped him to the floor and started to pace. Her anger and her hatred of him, and herself, and the world all boiled over. No matter how hard she fought it, it came like a tsunami, breaching her defenses. She’d lost Caprica forever, and two women who felt like bolts when they touched her were out of reach. One because it was her own damn crazy fault. Bella didn’t believe in love at first sight. But at first kiss? Oh yes.
The parts of Bellatrix that had been a bulwark against the madness crumbled. Screaming, she turned her wand onto her father, shouting, “Crucio!”
Agony lanced through the mans body. He convulsed, mouth open in a silent, tormented scream.
Bellatrix laughed, giddiness and glee rippling through her as she twisted her wand, turning it, increasing the suffering her father was feeling. Two lifetimes of pain she inflicted on the man over the course of three hours.
It was anti-climatic when she killed him. A simple flick of her wrist, a half-mumbled Kedavra, and her father was gone from this world. Not a trace of his torture or what killed him remained. With her magic, she righted the damage caused by throwing him, and returned him to his chair. Then she stepped outside to the balcony of the mega-church.
Pulling her sleeve up, she looked at the mark there, her eyes maddened with joy and grief. She pressed her wand to the tattoo and lifted her arm.
In the sky overhead there was a deathly green glow. The clouds roiled and the image of a skull appeared, monstrously huge, a snake winding it’s way out of the mouth.
Bellatrix started to laugh, tears streaming down her face, and then with a crack, she was gone.