Author's Note: Hello my lovelies. So while working out the kinks of the latest update for LODD, this thing kept nudging at the creative corners of my brain and I just had to get it out. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Though when I first began writing, I considered it a stand alone short one-shot, you can actually look at it as something like a preview for what is to come, a hypothetical 'endgame' in the development of feelings for these two in some distant future after LODD is complete. Consider it a hump day present :) That said, happy reading! -bellanoire, over and out!

Bella's Love

"I admit she had a little madness. But I didn't care; she was magic and I was on the edge. She wanted to fall and I wanted to fly. And somewhere in between we lost direction in our heads. We collided, and I lost my heart on impact..." - R.M. Drake

To be loved by Bellatrix Black is to be struck by lightning. Twice. In succession. Bella's love is a pulse of raw electricity, a hot and steady voltage of energy that courses through your body, quicker than your own blood. It is paralyzing in the way that it completely entraps your will, robbing you of all control and even the desire for said control. It surrounds you, her love, encompassing and consuming. Hardly a shudder or tremble, but a mighty, rattling quake that you can feel through to your bones.

Bella's love is blinding; it robs you of sight like a shroud of darkness over your eyes. It ensnares the senses. Though sound, smell, touch, and taste, they remain. For Bella's love is a low vibrato bowed on the strings of a Stradivarius, heavy and deep, mournful yet beautiful. The type of sound that makes you want to laugh and weep at the same time. A sound that no word in any language could ever do justice. Bella's love is pungent, an ambrosial aroma that can be sweet and lingering, acrid and overwhelming. Too much sometimes, a woman in an elevator wearing half a bottle of perfume, cloying. Subtle other times, a hint of citrus wafting from the steam of a strong tea, the smell that remains after a heavy summer storm or a walk through a pine forest. Bella's love is barbed wire, a garden of thorns that draws blood indiscriminately, vicious and unforgiving. It protects and conceals vulnerability and weakness, it defends. Beneath the venomous exterior, Bella's love is velvet, coarse when rubbed the wrong way though soft when stroked just right. Her love is a shot of Firewhiskey, a burst of flavor in your mouth, the slow burn as it goes down. Heady. Wild berries that have only just begun to ripen, tart enough to make your lips pucker and your tongue sting, though the promise of sweetness is there if you are willing to be patient, willing to give the fruit a little more time.

Bella's love is as gentle as spring rain though raging and devastating as a hurricane. It is playful, a toddler splashing in a bubble bath. It is unpredictable, yet sturdy. Her love ebbs and flows like the tide, drawing back so far that its own rocky shore is naked and exposed only to come rushing back as strong and whole as ever in a frothing, foamy wave. You are but a fish therein and her love, it is the water.

Bella's love is pain. Wounds long ago scarred, the tissue just thin enough to break open once more at the tiniest bit of pressure. Her love is an ache that cannot be rubbed away, an intangible agony that cannot be soothed. A throbbing pang, like hunger gnawing away at your insides. Bella's love is passion, hot flames of desire that renders every fiber of your being molten. Scorching heat and thick smoke that chokes you, leaves you breathless and gasping though content in your lungs' deprevation of oxygen. Utterly. Bella's love is pleasure. A mind numbing, intoxicating pleasure. Open mouthed kisses with a wicked tongue that elicits both the softest moans and the loudest cries from your lips. Her love is scratches on your back, fingers locked in your hair. Bruises the morning after that tingle under your touch. Bella's love is the pulse between your legs, the clench of tired muscles in your thighs. It is satisfaction, though ever a wanton need, a craving for more.

Bella's love is submission, total surrender, to lose yourself completely in the rapture that is Bellatrix Black. Her love is posessive and easily incites to jealousy. It is remorseless rage. The three words "I am sorry" are not compatible with Bella's love. Apologies manifest themselves in rare soft carresses and butterfly kisses that are not so much like Fiendfyre but the gentle flicker of the flame on a candle wick. A single red rose left by your plate at mealtimes. The whisper of your name in your ear. "Hermione?" A thin line of worry between dark brows, the pout of a lush mouth. Naked vulnerability and a visible, almost tangible fear that you may have had enough. "I'm here." The evaporation of that fear, the resurgance of a tentative joy that only you are allowed to see. The starved candlelight kisses devour the fuel that is your forgiveness, growing in intensity coupled with hands reassured, encircling your waist and pulling you close, until you are contentedly drowning in a sea of black curls. Bella's love is affectionate when it wants to be but unquestionable always.

Bella's love is intelligence and curiosity. It desires to know that it is reciprocated. It is inquiring. It is the face behind a mask of madness, confidence, and pride. It is defenseless. "Do you love me?" It asks because it needs to know, more so it needs to feel yours. Her love is instant gratification personified, spoiled like a pampered child. It is demanding and tempestuous, prone to tantrums. It requires patience and understanding. "Yes, I do." Her love is easily appeased.

To be loved by Bellatrix Black is to be surrounded by the night sky, the diamond glow of a star, the light of the moon on your cheek. It is constant; it is what it is and always will be. It is the rotation of the earth. With both you and her in the center of it or above it rather, watching the world go 'round, everything changing but you and her love.

And you would have it no other way.