Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

A/N: Hi! This is my first story. It is an idea I have had for a while and since I put it to print I decided that I should share it with you. We will have to see if I actually continue the story or not. I am not really an author. If anyone like the idea and want to run with it that is OK with me.

Chapter 1: Free

"Gone." She could no longer feel his presence in her mind. He was gone.
She was in control again for the first time in many years.

"What?" She looked up at the sound of someone speaking. She was sitting at a small round table in a large room. Opposite of her sat a man in dark robes. Death Eater robes. Around them were a dozen or so other tables. Some held more Death Eaters, some were empty. The man had long pale blonde hair and cold grey eyes. She knew him well.

"Did you say something?" Lucius Malfoy asked looking at her curiously.
"No need to look so lost. The Dark Lord will be back from the Potters any minute now, and I'm sure he will have something for you to do then. Maybe he will let you accompany him when he deals with the Longbottoms." he grimaced at this, it seemed he was not happy with the thought of pure-blood families being killed.

"I don't think he is coming back." she said. She was quickly regaining her mental faculties now. It was like coming out of a thick fog, everything suddenly much clearer. She knew were she was and what she had been doing for the last years. Or rather, what she had been made to do.
"What do you mean? Is he heading directly to the Longbottoms then?" asked Lucius frowning a little at this. "I thought.."

"I don't think he is coming back. Ever." she cut him off. He looked shocked at this.
If the shock was because she had interrupted him or because of the idea that the Dark Lord was not coming back she would never know. She had already shot up from the table and was well on her way toward the nearest exit before he could continue the conversation.

As she swept through the tables she thought back on how she had come to be here in the Dark Lords hidden mansion. One of his most favored Death Eaters, a part of his inner circle. Or so it seemed to most.

When she had graduated from Hogwarts her family had been all set on her marrying a "fine young pure-blood" and becoming a Death Eater. It was her duty they said. The problem was that while she agreed that pure-bloods were better wizards and witches then half-bloods and muggleborns, she didn't think there was a need to discriminate against them. After all, the pure-bloods would come out on top even without discrimination, it was the natural order of things. And she didn't hate muggles, which seemed to be common amongst the Death Eaters. She really had no thoughts about muggles at all. As long as they stayed away from the wizarding world she was happy to forget that they even existed. Who she did hate was more of a problem. She really really hated the person her family considered a "fine young pure-blood" and wanted her to marry.

How they had convinced her to go to a marriage meeting so she could "get to know" her prospective husband she couldn't remember, but it had probably revolved around it being her "duty". That she had already spent years at Hogwarts getting to know, and learning to hate him, was inconsequential.

She had arrived at the meeting planning to spend the minimum amount of time that was polite and then return home and inform her family that while he was very nice, they simply hadn't "clicked". She might even have gotten away with it, she was her fathers favorite after all. But it was not to be. He had been there. And he had not been pleased when she wouldn't conform to his plans.

She was not sure what spell he had used. Some variant of the imperious curse, or perhaps an obscure binding ritual. The result was the same. Her mind had lost control of her body. She could still see what she was doing, hear and feel what was going on, smell the death that so often surrounded her. But when she tried to take control, when she sent out impulses to move a muscle or to stop what her body was doing, it was like her mind was lost in a thick fog and the impulses could not find their way to her body.

It was a frightening experience. She often had to withdraw her mind into a sort of slumber, or she would have gone insane from her lack of control and the things her body was made to do. As it was she couldn't really be sure if she was still sane. She thought she was, but she had no way to prove it. She kept her mind awake often enough that she had an idea of what was happening in the world around her, and more importantly, to her. Her body, she didn't like to think of it as being her, had married and become a Death Eater just like her family had wanted. It had become a fanatical follower of the Dark Lord, no surprise really since it was his essence that controlled it. She was not sure how to describe the .. entity .. that controlled her body. It was a dark presence that was both the embodiment of the Dark Lords will, and totally subservient. It seemed to have no ambition of its own except to follow the Dark Lords orders and what it though the Dark Lord wanted when no orders were given. She knew her body was not directly controlled by the Dark Lord, he was to often surprised by its actions, and it seemed to have no knowledge except for what she had known before, and what it had learned since it took control.

Very few knew that she was being controlled. The Dark Lord and her husband were the only ones she was sure of, but she thought a few more of his inner circle might know. To her family and the rest of the Death Eaters she was upheld as an example of a pure-blood devoted to the cause, none of them aware that she was an unwilling participant in the Dark Lords mad crusade.

She had reached the apparition point. A number of low rank Death Eaters were standing guard around it, but they didn't dare stop her. In their eyes she were still who she were, or who her body had been. It was confusing. When the presence that controlled her faded from her mind, the part that was the Dark Lord had been first to go, this in turn led to the entire entity coming apart at the seams, leaving her disoriented mind in control. It was lucky that her mind had been awake at the time, or her body might have collapsed like a puppet with cut strings. As it were she was still processing what had happened, her mind unused to being in control of her body, bit and pieces of her mind floating around in her head waiting to be reintegrated, others still asleep after not being used for so long. She knew one thing though, the Dark Lord was gone. She couldn't be sure that he was dead, she knew he had attempted ways to become immortal. What he had done, and if he had succeeded she did not know, but he had had seemed so sure he would never die that she dared not hope that he had failed. She was sure that his body had been killed though, it was the only way she could think of that she could have been freed from his control. Either way, dead or alive, someone had defeated him and set her free. That meant that she owed this someone a debt. The greatest debt she would ever owe anyone in her life.

She was Bellatrix Black. And the Blacks of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black always payed their debts.

With a pop she was gone.