Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Harry Potter.

Written for the OTP Prompt Competition

Bellatrix/Rodolphus.

Prompt: A Proposal

Thank you to Kenziescott54 for betaing this

Bellatrix Black wasn't the type to sit around daydreaming about marriage proposals.

But if she had been, she certainly would not have been daydreaming about Rodolphus Lestrange saying, "Considering you aren't getting any younger, Bella, and no one else is going to propose to you, do you want to marry me?"

And yet, only seconds before, this was exactly what had happened to her.

Bellatrix stood still for a moment, stunned, struggling to decide whether she wanted to laugh at him or smack him.

"I'd rather marry a lump of Hippogriff dung!" she declared finally, settling for neither and deciding on insulting him instead.

Rodolphus just grinned, and Bellatrix had to grudgingly admit to herself that when he was smiling he was rather handsome. But she would never tell him that.

"We'd make the perfect team," Rodolphus coaxed, "and like I said before, you're not getting any younger."

"I'm eighteen! Stop making me sound like an aged spinster already surrounded by her cats," Bellatrix snapped at him, mentally cringing at the whininess in her own voice. She liked Rodolphus; they had known each other since they were small children.

But spending the rest of her life married to him was an entirely different thing than being friends with him.

What she couldn't figure out was whether or not that was something that repulsed her, or something that appealed to her.

"Your mother was married with three children by the time she was eighteen," Rodolphus reminded her - as if she'd forgotten; her mother found a way to slip that fact into almost every conversation these days. "And if you were married, your parents were probably get off your case about joining the Death Eaters. You know I support you being one, by the way," he added quickly.

He was, in fact, correct; Bellatrix was already aware that he admired her dedication to the Dark Lord, and that he was one the few that did support her being a Death Eater. She'd noticed that he never once complained when she was picked for a mission, and never once made snide remarks when she was praised for her service to the Dark Lord.

"You should probably know that I don't want children," she blurted. "And I'm serious about that, Rodolphus. I don't care if it's my duty as a pureblood witch or not; I am not having children."

"I can't have children," Rodolphus said, smiling a little, "so that isn't a problem for me, Bella."

"Ask me properly, then," Bella told him, much to her own surprise, "and maybe I'll consider it." She stopped, realizing that her feelings had spoken before her brain had.

To her even greater surprise, Rodolphus got down one knee in front of her and took a ring out of his pocket; Bella knew that ring. It had been passed down in the Lestrange family for generations.

"Bellatrix Black," Rodolphus said, "will you marry me?"

Bellatrix looked from the ring, in its glittering magnificence, to his face, his dark eyes shining hopefully.

"Oh, all right," she said. "I think I probably will."