Literatti: Fiction By Deslea

Folie a Deux (Madness of the Two)
Deslea R. Judd
Copyright 2012


Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairings: Voldemort/Bellatrix Lestrange
Rating: NC17
Spoilers/Timeframe: First War.
Summary: Voldemort rewards his most faithful servant with her greatest wish. It summons memories he'd have rathered stayed buried, and sends them both tripping deeper into madness. Voldemort character study.
Warnings: Worship-imagery that some may find highly blasphemous, Oedipal complex, mild lactation fetish (oh, don't look at me like that. Have I ever led you astray?)
Length: 3500.
Disclaimer: Characters not mine. Interpretation mine.
More fic: http://fiction.deslea.com
Feedback: Please. deslea at deslea dot com.



"You have done well, Bellatrix."

Voldemort said this in the vast dining room of Malfoy Manor, late one night, when the celebrations of a successful mission were done and they were alone. The low, shuffling sounds of the elves cleaning up around them were oddly soothing. To Voldemort, they were like rustling leaves, pleasing to the ear, but otherwise insignificant and insentient.

Later, he would not remember what she had done well. Certainly an Unforgivable - it always was! - but whether against a Mudblood, a blood traitor, or some combination of the two, he couldn't have said. Couldn't have said whether it was death or torture, either.

But then, it didn't really matter. Did it? What mattered was she was faithful and she was his. When you got right down to it, pushed aside the spouses and children and parents and all the other allegiances that plagued all the others, she was the only one who truly was.

She bowed deeply. "Thank you, my Lord."

The Dark Lord considered her thoughtfully. Considered what ought be her reward.

By rights, of course, she should be his second in command, but that was unacceptable. Firstly because she was a woman - his other followers would almost certainly revolt - and more importantly because he would never - ever - concede any part of his command. Not to anyone.

Nor was he in the practice of granting rewards routinely. That sort of thing led to entitlement, and after that, all discipline fell away. But some reward was necessary to maintain commitment and motivation, so he gave them, erratically. It was always deserved but never predictable.

Of course, there was something. Something she had wanted for a long, long time. Bellatrix was not cursed with most weaknesses of her sex, but she remained mired in lust. Commendably, though, her lust for sex and her lust for death were interchangeable, so this had never interfered with her work.

Voldemort did not suffer from this condition. He lacked the interest in others to desire sexual relations, and even the more basic need for sexual release was something he had learned to control, as with his other needs. It was unacceptable that anything should have dominion over his mind.

So he had embraced asceticism and mastered himself. He dined lightly, and drank alcohol not at all, looking with contempt on the indulgences of his aristocratic followers. Too arrogant, too willing to surrender their self-control to pleasures of intoxication and flesh. Too much fat living. His favoured soldiers were spare and restrained like him, Malfoys and Blacks and his equally austere Severus. In time, he would re-train his less acceptable followers, or else weed them out, but that was in the world after victory. He could take his time then and mould what was left into the world he wanted.

He was somewhat less ascetic in his habits now than as a young man. He had mastered himself; now he only need maintain that mastery. Once upon a time he had fasted almost completely; now he fasted only a couple of days a week and ate sparingly the rest of the time. (It was this practice that would help him endure the starvation that followed his near-annihilation at the hands of a little boy, but that was in the time to be). Alcohol he still completely avoided - too dangerous to allow his awareness and control to lapse.

He allowed himself occasional physical release at his own hand, usually to alleviate the frustration of failure. (Voldemort did not celebrate success as such, though he allowed his followers to do so; that was only one step away from taking success for granted, and that was a dangerous thing to do). He had never indulged with a woman, or a man; decades of Legilimency on his followers had demonstrated all too clearly that this risked granting dominion to another. Release mixed with torture was an option, one indulged in by some of his followers, but he would cut the offending organ off before he would sully it with a Mudblood or a traitor.

However, his asceticism, his mastery of his needs was such that it had never become a pressing problem. As a question, it was an academic one at best.

Bellatrix, though. Bellatrix was also mastered. Completely. He could let her straddle him, let her hold him down, even let her remain with him as he slept, and she would think only of service. He could indulge her without (not fear the Dark Lord does not fear) concern for what power the act might give her.

The thought was intriguing.

He approached her. "On your knees, witch."

The corners of her mouth curled up as she sank to her knees. Looked up at him with glittering, hungry eyes. Oh, how she loved being on her knees before him - it was there in the column of her throat, long and bare as she sank back her head to look up at him, revering him.

He gripped her chin and raised it even higher. "Do you love me, Bellatrix?" he demanded.

She did. Oh, she did. He knew that. But she gasped out, "No, my Lord."

"Love is a weakness, is it not? It is unbecoming of our kind."

"Yes," she whispered.

"One should never give one's self without condition, Bellatrix," he counselled. "Submission should be earned."

"Yes, my Lord."

He loosened his grip on her jaw. Sank his fingers into her hair. Bearing the weight of her head in his palm. "But worship, though. Reverence of that which is greater than you. That is a noble thing indeed."

Her chin trembled in the moonlight, casting light and shadows across her features. "Yes. Oh, yes, my Lord."

He drew closer. Almost touching her now. Vanished most of his clothes from beneath his cloak, leaving only his trousers, Transfigured into thin silk. Let the cloak fall open. His hips close to her upturned gaze. "Worship can take many forms, Bellatrix. I have decided to grant you the indulgence of the one you desire."

The jolt that ran through her was instant. Her form stiffened, but the fluid movement that preceded it was electric, waves of shock, desire. Her eyes widened and her lips parted, expression filled with exquisite gratitude.

Though her answer was self-evident, he latched onto her silence, stepping back a little. "Have I misjudged what it is you want from me, Bellatrix? Because if I have, we will say no more of it." He knew, of course, that he had not, but Bellatrix was a proud woman. It was bad for her, led her into battles without merit and lapses in judgment, and he wanted to break her. Free her to be the perfect servant they both wanted her to be.

She shivered, cold chills of desperation seeping into her voice as she reached for him with shaking hands. Beyond artifice, beyond humiliation, beyond anything but begging him to stay. Her hands landed on the flanks of his stomach, beseeching. "No - no, you haven't - please -"

He relented. Stepped closer. "Very well."

She needed no more permission than that. Grasped his trousers at the waist and tugged them over his hips. Took him into her mouth with a single stroke.

He watched her dispassionately, dark curls bent over his lengthening shaft, as wild and mad as the woman herself. He had some insight into her madness, and even into his own, but viewed neither as a problem. The measure of extremism was not whether it was extreme, but the results it brought. And the results of his madness and hers together were superb. Better, perhaps (he would only ever admit this in the privacy of his own mind) than he could have achieved alone.

Presently, he became aware that she was looking up at him with hungry eyes. Breasts rising and falling heavily beneath where they were joined. Agonised with need and trying not to let it show.

"Take your pleasure, witch," he counselled. "There is no shame in being pleased by what you revere."

She groaned, sound vibrating against his cock (and that sound, unexpected, broke through his carefully-schooled detachment and really aroused him where the strokes of her mouth had not). Gripped the top of her dress and tugged it down beneath her breasts, still high and pert, held there by the corset that rose under her bust. Her strokes became erratic as she kneaded them, as her fingers fell to her parted knees and dragged her skirt up her thighs. More sounds rippled over him as her fingers disappeared into shadow, and she took him deeper, more frantically. She came, and released him, working him with her hands until he spilled over her breasts, moaning, "My Lord, my Lord, my Lord." Kept moaning it as she spread him over herself, down over her breasts and their peaks, up over her throat, still undulating against him.

And oh, how that My Lord pleased him, pleased him that she hadn't called him Voldemort (it was, after all, more brand-name than identity, no more him than Weetabix - he winced at the hated intrusion of Muggle memory) or worse, Tom. He was simply he, earth child, fruit of the world's own desire for restitution of its rightful shape, and she alone understood that.

She cleaned him, with her hands, then her lips. She did it tenderly. Her face, sinking into the rise of hair like a young maiden delicately inhaling the scent of a spray of flowers. Reverent. Her hands sliding over his hips with more tenderness than he could remember from anyone. In fact, he was unsure if anyone had ever touched him from anything but necessity at all.

He sank his fingers down into her hair as she straightened his trousers at last. Lifted her gaze to his. "My good faithful servant. Your offering is pleasing to me."

Her chin trembled once more. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. "I desire only to serve you, my Lord."

"Bellatrix," he warned, "worship is something done in the dark. It is not a thing for boasting or for gaining the esteem of others. If it were, it would not be worship. You understand?"

Panic entered her expression. "I wouldn't! I wouldn't! Tell them - they don't revere you as I do, they would never understand -"

"No," he agreed. "They would call you my whore, would they not? Think less of you, not more? And Rodolphus - he would not understand that while he is your husband, I am your Lord even in this."

She nodded. There was still enough of the aristocratic girl in her to care for such things, he thought. Murder did not trouble her. Words like adultery and divorce would. No more was he keen for his followers to be distracted by gossip, to envisage his pleasure. One does not picture one's Lord in such a way, any more than one pictures him attending to his toilet. It wouldn't be fitting.

Satisfied, he held out his hand to her. "Come to bed with me, then, Bellatrix. You shall worship me as you please."

Unbelieving gratitude flooded over her features, and she took it with shaking fingers. Let him draw her up. Watched in a state of trembling shock as he Transfigured the dining table into a four-poster bed. (An elf, cleaning the silverware, was rudely thrown off with an involuntary squeal; Voldemort heard and dismissed this as you might the indignant sound of a cat underfoot).

He went to the bed and sat, upright against the bedhead. Opened his cloak for her. Did not Vanish his trousers; he had no intention of being naked while she was clothed, and he certainly wasn't about to do something so undignified as bending to remove them before her eyes. She could Vanish them when he was ready for her to do so.

"Come," he ordered, and she did, scrambling onto the bed. "Undress."

She did, unfastening her corset, dragging out one string after the other, Levitating it to rest neatly on the mantle. Took her dress at the bottom hem and lifted it over her head, laying it with the corset in turn. He watched her with interest. Strange how a man's undressing was undignified and a woman's was not. Her panties would have been undignified, he supposed, but she Vanished those.

"Begin."

Uncertainty spilled over her face. "I don't know what you like."

Neither did he, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "Do as you like. If you displease me, you'll know."

She shuddered a little at that, but nodded. Hesitantly, she straddled him. Nestled her bare bottom down against the silk of his trousers. Tentatively, she ran her palms down over his chest. Up again, over his shoulders. Down over the lines of his arms, trailing over his hands before returning to his shoulders, stroking down his neck and collarbone with surprisingly tender fingers. He knew from her memories that she was never tender like this with Rodolphus.

But then, she didn't worship Rodolphus.

The tenderness was pleasant, as a tactile sensation, but disconcerting, too. He was uncomfortably reminded of Mrs Cole at the orphanage when he was a tiny, tiny boy. She'd been young then, early twenties at a guess, and she'd had plenty of kind touches for all the babies. She worked in the nursery then, and in retrospect, babies were what she loved. He'd never much liked being touched, but Mrs Cole was different. She'd made every child feel like he was hers.

It wasn't until he'd graduated from the nursery that he'd realised it was a lie (but then, didn't all Muggles lie?). She had other babies now; he was a toddler, and he was shooed away from the nursery when he tried to go back.

He only tried once.

Bellatrix was different, he counselled himself, schooling himself not to flinch away (that would give her far more power than what he was allowing her to do now). She was devoted, and more importantly, owned. Also a Pureblood, touch noble and honourable where Mrs Cole's was filthy and tainted, if only he had known it back then.

"Would you have me touch you, Bellatrix?" he wondered. It wasn't for her. It was to do something else, to keep the memories at bay.

"I want only what my Lord wishes to give," she whispered from beneath heavy-lidded gaze. She wouldn't look at him.

He slapped her face. Not hard, but enough. "There is no place for falsehood in worship, woman." He lifted her chin. More softly, "You may speak freely."

Tears sprang to her eyes. "Yes," she whispered. "Please, my Lord."

"Very well." He ran long fingers down over her shoulders, sloping and white in the moonlight. Down between her breasts (she gasped and pressed into him) then back up over her nipples. He felt just the slightest trace of moisture there, beading out under his touch, thin and white; another miscarriage, then. She'd never breathed a word of them to anyone, but he knew about them anyway. He'd found them in her husband's memories first, suspected her of taking herbs, but when he'd finally found one in her own mind, he'd discovered her grief was real enough. Privately, he thought it a factor in her escalating madness - not that the Blacks needed much help in that department.

It occurred to him fleetingly that he could give her a child, if the problem was with Rodolphus. The idea was vaguely tempting (a son! he thought with an unexpected jolt, lieutenant, heir, moulded in his image from the cradle) but more than one rebellion had sprung up around upstart spawn. He of all people knew it; he himself had committed patricide. The one wizard who might best him was the one with the best of him and the best of her.

He continued his course, down over the planes of her belly, down onto her hips. Tugged her forward, against him; she whimpered as his cock dragged over her sex through sliding silk. Found himself flesh-to-flesh with her; something he hadn't planned, but not unwelcome either.

He bent his head to her breast. Took it into his mouth, first experimentally, then demanding. Greedy. She flung back her head, dark curls cascading down her back into his hands. The scent of milk rose, fuelling his hunger.

He knew this smell; had smelled it on Mrs Cole after she'd had her first, though he hadn't known that then. He'd only known that he wanted; had pressed to her as he'd never pressed to anyone. At first she'd been pleased, had petted and praised him, but when his little hands had found her neckline, she'd pushed him away. That's what Mums do, not nurses, she'd laughed, and he hadn't understood, but he'd remembered. Remembered it later when she shooed him away. Put it together. Firemen were firemen by day and went home to families of their own by night. So were policemen.

So were nurses.

Mrs Cole wasn't his. Mrs Cole had lied.

Anger rose up, and his erection with it. Fury, flooding through him. He sank down fiercely on her breast; Bellatrix arched with a little whine of pleasure and pain, spilling out her need, warmth and wetness rubbing hard on his cock through silk. With a cry of frustration, she Vanished his trousers and sank down onto him in a single stroke. Her breast was still in his mouth, that milk scent still rising, now laced with something metallic. Trace of blood where he had nicked her with his teeth.

"My Lord, my Lord, my Lord," she cried out, beseeching, in time as she rocked against his hips and his mouth. Hands on his neck, cradling him, as tender as the rest of her was fierce and strong.

"Mine," he growled, sucking hard on her. "Mine, witch."

"Yes," she groaned ecstatically. "Your servant. Your slave."

He let go of her breast; pushed her down onto her back, slipping out of her. Rose up before her, cloak streaming out behind him. Terrifying and glorious in her eyes; he could see it in the feral parting of her lips and the wild gleam in her eyes, fearful and ravenous in turns.

He rested over her, on his hands, straddling her. His cock pushed hard against her pelvis, her sex pressed closed between her thighs. She was trapped there beneath him, pushing up uselessly, trying to rub against something - anything - but it was all hidden between swollen, tender lips. She wriggled and made little whining sounds. Oh, how she wanted him.

She wanted him.

That thought made him hungry and angry and hungry all over again (whether angry at her or himself, he couldn't have said). He didn't just want her worship. Didn't just want her enslavement. He wanted to consume her. Fill her until she knew only him throughout her being, until everything else fell away, her vacuous sister, her useless husband, the lost babies that haunted her dreams. So much his that there was nothing left of her addled mind but him.

He parted his thighs, just a little. Just enough for her to part hers. Just enough to give access.

He took her then, parting her tightened entrance, thrusting from above, stretching her near her clit at the opening and her spine at her core. Plunging down into her, angle all wrong yet somehow right. She bucked the little she could, taking him, head flung back, throat arcing, her jaw wide as she cried out with every thrust. Silently, he cast the Engorgio, felt himself grow bigger. Expanding out, like creeping fingers, slowly pushing the limits of her body, like the child she would never bear. Filling her more than she could ever take through her opening, and her cries grew deeper and harsher as he rocked against her, no longer able to thrust.

He clasped his mouth over hers. Thrust into her, deeply, rudely, brooking no resistance, no movement of her own, his tongue as hard and thick as another cock inside her. She sucked on him eagerly, that widened jaw filled, and he could see utter relief in her eyes. It was madness giving way to a greater measure of it, but her hurts were gone. He had driven them out, eclipsed them. Left her empty of everything but her adoration of him.

Without him, she was nothing. Her enslavement was complete. And she knew it. He had extinguished the terrible fires of her sanity, and she was grateful for it.

He released her mouth at last. Loosened his grip on her thighs with his, released the Engorgio. Thrust into her slowly. Almost gently.

He rasped again, "Mine."

She sank back into the bed, slumping gratefully, all at once. "Yes," she whispered. "Always. Always yours."

He bent his head to the heady, soothing scent of her breast once more, never realising that in her irrevocable supplication, she had soothed away the last shreds of his own sanity too.

It was an irony that was completely lost on them both.

END


Author's Note: Whoa, holy Oedipal Complex, Batman! I totally didn't see that one coming when I sat down to write. I'd love to say there was a master plan, but there wasn't. The idea was flimsy, built around the love-versus-worship thing and the asceticism thing mostly. But it went some very strange places, very fast. Of course, this is Bellamort we're talking about, so. Yes.