Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise. A/N: So, this is just a bunch of Bellatrix oneshots, there will be parody, femslash, canon, weird stuff, whatever. Pretty much anything that's a oneshot.
"Where were you?" Alice's eyes grew wide with fear as Bellatrix asked the question. Bellatrix had cornered Alice in the corridor demanding an explanation as to why she hadn't been at the coffee shop during the Hogsmeade visit they had just returned from, Alice seeming rather joyful, Bellatrix exasperated. "Where were you?" she repeated.
"Honeydukes," Alice answered timidly. Her eyes darted around helplessly, not daring to meet the intimidating gaze of an irritated Bellatrix.
"Did you forget our plans? I set up a double-date with the Lestrange brothers. Rabastan was asking where you were, and I had to put up with two Lestranges for half an hour before a fight broke out and everyone scattered!" She was breathing hard now and fuming; the snow on her robes seemed to melt spontaneously.
"Where--where were you?" Alice asked, trying her best not to sound like she was giving Bellatrix a challenge.
"In the fight," Bellatrix admitted. "But that's not the point! Alice, you bailed on me! You just left me to do whatever--"
Just then, Frank Longbottom crossed the corridor, nodding at Alice and Bellatrix. "I had a great time today, Alice," he said. Bellatrix's eyes narrowed.
"Frank Longbottom? He is the reason for you completely abandoming me?" Bellatrix fumed in disbelief. Alice was her friend. Mulciber, Avery, Nott, and Macnair could only give her so much, they shared her love for the Dark Arts and affinity for the quickly rising Lord Voldemort, but Alice, who knew nothing of her darker intentions, accepted her, in all her irritability and outbursts. She was smart, funny, and a Pureblood: what else could Bellatrix have asked for in a friend?
Perhaps a greater loyalty, she thought. Frank had turned the corner now, and Bellatrix had continued glowering at Alice, who was trembling in fear. The two of them had never had a fight before. "Bella, I really like Frank--"
"It's time for you to decide where your loyalties lie, Alice," Bellatrix spat, instantly regretting it. Had she really become so possessive of her friends? "I'm sorry," she muttered, before instantly regaining her angry tone. "But next time we have plans, you'd better show up." Alice's eyes were glued to the floor.
"Bellatrix? You're not going to hurt me, are you?"
Bellatrix brushed a lock of vision-obscuring hair out of her eyes in disbelief. "Why would I di that?" she asked.
"I saw you performing the Cruciatus Curse on Davies--"
Bellatrix nodded, recalling fondly the first time she had used the curse, lucky to have not been expelled, let alone arrested. Davies had writhed and screamed horribly, and Bellatrix had let out a snicker: he wasn't going to insult her friend Alice again anytime soon. I did it for you, she comtemplated saying, but thought better of it, as her friend would hardly approve of such methods. "You're my best friend. I would never hurt you," she said, slipping back into the present. She held out her hand and stroked Alice's adorably round cheek, watching a single tear fall from her eye, and the two of them embraced like sisters.
Times had changed. Bellatrix used to think she needed a friend who could at least act like she could understand her, but now, there was nothing to understand. People debated whether there had ever been. Bellatrix had new friends now, more powerful friends, or at least, she did until just recently. The Dark Lord had fallen, but it was only a matter of time before his rise to power again, and Bellatrix had never been one to sit around and let others have the so-called fun: she, her husband, and brother in law had set out to restore their lord, but first, they needed information, and, conveniently enough, they were able to find Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom.
"Enough with the technicalities," Bellatrix insisted as the three of them were barely ten paces away from the door. Rodolphus and Rabastan were consulting plans they had drawn up, but Bellatrix was eager to proceed. She didn't think as she rapped a twitchy fist on the door before blowing it into a million splinters that stuck into the fibers of her hooded cloak; it was common courtesy, after all.
"What do you want with us?" a familiar voice demanded. "Stay away from my family!"
"Crucio!" Bellatrix shrieked, her mind descending into chaos as she aimed her curse at the man. She wanted one thing and one thing alone, to bring Voldemort back to power, because once he was on top again, she would be powerful, too. Her twisted logic made the connection that by torturing Frank Longbottom, she could achieve her ends, and even if this wasn't so, she would still relish his screams. An infant wailed in the next room. "Tell me the whereabouts of the Dark Lord!"
"Neville!" Frank screamed desperately, barely able to hold onto conciousness. The infant wailed harder.
"Hey, I think he likes it," Rabastan remarked cruelly, covering Alice with his wand. Bellatrix kneeled beside Frank, running a sharp, jagged fingernail along the side of his face.
"You were never anything but a wedge," she drawled. "A wedge between me and my friend..." She said no more as she cast curse after horrible Cruciatus curse on him, but did more thinking than she usually did on these occasions. What if she and Alice had stayed friends? Would she have been able to persuade Alice to follow her down the path to domination? Would they be Voldemort's favorites, together, torturing some other couple side by side on this night? Or would Bellatrix have been turned toward the light, just as Alice had, secured into a future of fighting against the darkness? "I suppose it was for the best," she said, leaning closer. "Which is why I'm sparing your life." She smacked Frank hard across the face, and Alice let out a shrill scream as Bellatrix threw her head back with laughter, causing her hood to fall back and reveal her face.
"Bellatrix?" she shrieked.
"Yes?" Bellatrix asked, beckoning her husband and his brother away from the terrified woman: she wanted to cast the first curse. Alice seemed to be tearfully debating herself on the inside, something Bellatrix could never bring herself to do for more than a few seconds. At last, she looked Bellatrix straight in the eyes.
"Best friends forever, Bella." Bellatrix only scoffed in a quite deranged manner. She didn't know what to say. Alice was below her now, and if she did waste syllables on this creature, however, she would say that she had better friends, that she herself was a better friend, and she would never be such a bed friend as Alice had been, holding no respect for the amount of influence her family had on the wizarding world. She was loyal, devoted, and torturing the inhabitants of the house out of devotion for her master, her Dark Lord, her best friend forever. Instead, she held out her wand, revoking the promise she'd made so many years ago, determined to hurt Alice to any extent to obtain the wherabouts of the Dark Lord.
"CRUCIO! Now tell me where the Dark Lord is! What's happened to him?" Alice shook her head sadly, her eyes assuming a glazed look.
Perhaps if it had been someone other than Bellatrix, Alice could have accepted it. Perhaps she would have handed over the information and stopped pretending she wasn't being tortured, and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have cracked. But, as it was, Alice and Frank were both insane to some degree and completely incapable of telling Bellatrix a thing, so she and her cronies walked back through the shattered doorway, barely aware of the Aurors surrounding the house. All hope seemed lost, and, as the condition of the Dark Lord was uncertain, so was everything else. Everything else but the one wisp of hope, a single shred of sanity Bellatrix had to hold on to:
"THE DARK LORD WILL RISE AGAIN! THROW IS INTO AZKABAN, WE WILL WAIT!"
A/N: So, how did I do on my first oneshot? Please review!