Well, I said I'd do it, so here it is!

Hello everyone, I'm the Lonely Lorekeeper, and welcome to my second Harry Potter fanfiction. A while ago, I accepted a challenge from another Fanfictioneer on this site, timbarney110. The challenge, listed as Loyal Pet Challenge, caught my attention some time ago, and so I got permission to write a version of that challenge. I won't be posting the full explanation here, as that would probably just take way too much space, and you can just go find it for yourselves since I listed where you can find it here. However, I will go over the basics.

Essentially, Harry ends up picking up a cat the night he summons the Knight Bus and brings it along with him, eventually deciding to make it a second familiar, after Hedwig. Turns out, though, that cat isn't just any cat, but is actually Bellatrix Lestrange, who decides to make Harry the most powerful wizard ever, as well as such an absolute alpha male that literally no woman can say no to him. Basically, this will be about a Harry that gets into a relationship with Bellatrix and several other woman while becoming a very powerful grey-side wizard.

And, of course, there will be lemons! However, since this starts in Harry's third year, and I feel uncomfortable writing lemons about a 13 year old with a 30-something year old, I've decided to tweak the ages slightly. in this fanfiction, students start at Hogwarts at age 13, meaning Harry is currently 15 years old. Not a whole lot older, but old enough that I feel less uncomfortable about the shipping.

Anyways, that's enough for me, let's just get to the story!

Chapter 1: Midnight

The wheels of Harry's trunk rumbled over the rough asphalt road as he walked in a frustrated march away from Number Four Privet Drive. He tried not to think too hard or too much about the events of the past hour, as to do so would only further foul his already terrible mood, as well as bring him no small amount of anxiety and fear for the situation he now found himself in. Instead, he simply kept his eyes forward, looking for some place to go, to escape.

As the streetlights began to flicker on with the setting of the sun, however, and darkness began to fill the street with the approaching night, Harry came to a stop with a sigh. His goal was to get to the Leaky Cauldron, possibly buy a room with what little gold he still had from the end of last term, but the fastest way he knew was by broom. He doubted it would be wise to fly in plain view of the nearby houses, but they seemed to go on forever, no matter how much he walked. And, even if he tried to fly in the dark of the night, he wasn't so confident in his skills yet to try night flying with heavy cargo.

So, with a sigh of frustration, Harry turned and trudged over to a nearby bench, sitting not far from the neighborhood park, and sat down for a moment to collect himself. Once he did, though, his thoughts returned to the evening he'd just come from, and his worries spilled over him.

How could he have been so stupid?

He had known that Aunt Marge, the utter bigot that she was, would spew such hateful remarks about him and his parents. He had been expecting it, ever since Uncle Vernon had mentioned that she would be coming to visit for the week. Still, she had been in rare form that evening, her words spewed with even more venom and disgust than he had heard in a long time. Perhaps it was due to the brandy she had been drinking—she had sipped more than her fair share of the bottle, after all—but it was no excuse for the attitude she'd had.

Looking back in the moment, Harry was glad he'd managed to convince Aunt Petunia to sign his permission slip to visit Hogsmeade during the school year before Marge had shown up. He'd doubted he'd have the patience with Marge to last through her visit, as Vernon had suggested as a test for him. As it was, he'd been right, but Hedwig had already flown off with the signed slip to Professor McGonagall before anything could happen.

And oh, did something happen.

Harry sighed, leaning forward to rest his head in his hands. In the fourteen years that he'd been living with the Dursleys, he'd met Aunt Marge often enough to know a few things about her. And, for whatever reason, though she'd mock and demean him and his father very often in her little tirades with her brother, she had never spoken ill of Harry's mother. He assumed it had something to do with Petunia, rather than any kindness towards him, of course.

Again, though, Marge had drank a lot of brandy that evening, and so her words came much easier than normal. And the things he'd heard her say, the hateful words that she'd used against his mother, it had both shaken him to the core and filled his soul with rage. All his attempts to calm himself, all his tricks to calm himself, wouldn't have helped him in that moment, and he'd turned back to Marge, more than willing to hit her back with those same hateful words.

Unfortunately, Harry's magic had different plans, and rather than simply shutting her up with his own tirade of insults and slurs, Aunt Marge had found herself shut up by a sudden swelling as all the hot air she'd been spewing built up inside her and blew her up like a hot air balloon. Even as she screamed for Vernon to help her, and even as he had tried to help her, Aunt Marge had floated up out of her chair, out the back door of the Dursley's house, and up and out into the sky.

Harry had been gone before they could even get to him.

As soon as he'd left Privet Drive, his mind had started whirling. He'd been reminded of the previous year, when the house elf Dobby had tricked the Ministry into thinking he'd cast a spell in front of Muggles, breaking the Statute of Secrecy and being given a harsh warning in return. That had just been for dropping a cake on someone, too—this was literally blowing someone up, and then letting them float off for who knows how long, where who knows how many people could see her?

Harry shivered at the thought. No doubt about it, he would be expelled for what he'd done, there was just no other way. But if that were the case, he wasn't going to stand around waiting for it. At the very least, he wanted to go someplace where he wouldn't have to worry about the Dursleys anymore. If he wasn't going to be able to go to Hogwarts anymore, then he would grab whatever sanctuary he could find.

Those had been the thoughts Harry had held to that night, as he'd walked off into the bleeding sunset, and those were the thoughts that were now, once again, troubling his mind. He had no plan of how to go forward, other than get to the Leaky Cauldron and…see where to go from there. Maybe he could get a job working at one of the shops in Diagon Alley? It would likely be better than anything he could get in the muggle world—he'd only had two years of schooling before Hogwarts where he hadn't had to worry about Dudley forcing his grades lower, and he doubted that would fly.

Before he could follow that line of thought any further, Harry was roused from his despondent attitude by a nearby rustling. The young wizard paused, his nerves standing on end—and after fourteen years of living with the Dursleys and two years of being faced with life-or-death scenarios at the school he called his home—he knew well to listen to those nerves.

Harry drew his wand.

The rustling was coming from a group of bushes just on the other side of the road. A nearby lamppost was shining a wide circle of light in front of them, and he could just make out the faintest of the bush's movement. He gripped his wand tightly, and slowly moved behind the bench, using it as a makeshift barrier between him and whatever might come at him through those bushes. Whatever it was, by the sound of the crashing and snapping of branches, it must've been something large.

At least, that was what Harry had assumed. But as he stood there, slightly crouched behind the bench, the disarming spell resting in the back of his mind ready to be released, the bushes parted for a second, and bounding out into the light of the lamppost was a jet black cat.

Harry's whole figure slumped from unneeded tension, and he slowly stood back up, his eyes on the cat. It was clearly a stray—not only did it not have a collar around its neck, but it also looked more than a bit mangy and sickly. He was certain that he could see its ribs from where he was standing, and its fur looked dull and drab. Sighing, Harry slipped his wand back into his pocket and cautiously walked closer to the cat.

"Hey there," he softly called out, and the cat perked up, looking over at him. Harry knelt at the edge of the road, patting his knee and gesturing to the cat. "Hey there, pal, you alright?"

The cat stared at him for a moment, its tail flicking, before it slowly padded over to him, a noticeable limp in one of its legs. As it got closer, Harry noticed that there was some blood on its flank—clearly, it was not only unwell, but had also been in a bit of a fight, and recently. His soft heart went out to the feline as it limped closer, and his hand slowly reached out to gently stroke down its back—which it only shied away from for a second, before leaning into his touch with a soft rumbling purr.

Harry began to rub his hand along one of its ears as he looked over its wound. It wasn't deep, but clearly it was bad enough to cause some discomfort for the cat. He could probably fix it up once he got to the Leaky Cauldron—over the years, he'd gotten used to fixing up his own Dursley-inflicted injuries, so it couldn't be that hard for a cat. "Oh Merlin," he murmured softly, "what happened to you?"

His answer came not from the cat, but from another rustling in the bushes.

Harry froze once more, and the cat he'd been petting seemed to freeze as well, before spinning around quickly, arching its back, and hissing ferally. Harry's eyes shot up to the nearby thicket, and once more he saw the bushes begin to part. This time, though, there was no small and sickly cat that stumbled out of them—instead, slowly stalking out of the shadows was some kind of large beast. It was a dog, just as black as the cat, but standing what looked to be almost four feet tall. In the dark, its eyes seemed to glow, and its gleaming teeth appeared as it let loose a growl.

This time, Harry did not hesitate. As soon as he could clearly see the threat, Harry stood tall once more and snapped his wand out in front of him. The disarming spell, Expelliarmus, shot from his wand in a flash, summoned by his pure instincts and adrenalin.

Harry wasn't able to see if he'd hit the dog at all, though, as no sooner had the spell shot from his wand than had an enormous, gaudily painted purple double-decker bus suddenly and inexplicably appeared right in front of him. Harry's eyes widened, and the cat at his feet yowled in surprise, both of them falling over in shock. Harry stumbled back, his wand still in hand, as the bus' doors slowly swung open, and a man in slightly shabby clothes stepped out.

The man, who only appeared to be five years older than Harry, if that, pulled a card from his pocket and began to read. "Welcome to the Knight Bus," he read, "Emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Shunpike, and I will be your conductor for this evening."

"I…I'm sorry?" Harry asked, the words spilling out of him without him really thinking them.

The man, Stan Shunpike as he'd called himself, slipped the card back into his pocket and stared back down at Harry. "Well, it's just like I said, this here's the Knight Bus, emergency transport. Anywhos, I's'posing you're the one that called us down here? Whacha doin' on the ground, though, you that knackered?"

Harry's head spun from the sudden barrage of questions from Stan, his accent not helping him understand him much, but he soon figured out what he was trying to say. "I'm not tired," Harry replied, slowly dragging himself back up to his feet. "I just…tripped. You startled me, I hadn't been expecting you."

"Oh…oh, is that right?" Stan asked, frowning, before adjusting his suit and looking back to the Knight Bus. "Well den, I'm guessing you ain't in need of a ride, then, eh?"

"Oh, no! Actually, I could use that," Harry shook his head, grabbing his trunk and dragging it towards the bus. The threat of the dog was still looming nearby, he felt, and he didn't want to linger and longer than need be. Besides, hadn't he just been bemoaning the fact that he didn't know another way to get to the Leaky Cauldron besides flying on a broomstick? Perhaps this was a sign that his luck was turning around.

Stan turned back to Harry and snapped, shooting the young man a lopsided smirk. "Well, that's good to hear—we've got a long night tonight, after all, can't be wasting anytime on false alarms and layabouts, now can we, eh? Alright, where are you headed? It's eleven sickles for the ride, but for fifteen, I can fix you up with a warm cup of chocolate if you're interested."

"Just the eleven's fine," Harry hurriedly replied, fishing some silver coins out of his trunk before passing them to Stan. "And I'll be heading to London—Leaky Cauldron, to be specific."

"Alright then," Stan nodded, shooting Harry another grin, before reaching forward and taking his trunk from Harry's side. "And now, is that cat coming with you? I noticed it with you, is it your familiar?"

Harry paused, and he glanced back down at his side. Sure enough, the cat had not run off when the bus had arrived, and in fact was still sitting there, a bit behind him, and staring up at Stan with piercing eyes. Harry thought about correcting Stan—he already had a familiar, Hedwig, wherever she was—but he remembered the dog again, and the wound that was still bleeding in its leg. Before the cat could complain, Harry leaned down and picked it up off the ground.

"Uh, yeah, the cat's with me," Harry nodded, and without another word he stepped onto the Knight Bus.

"Well, alright then!" Stan replied, taking Harry's trunk, and with a labored grunt lifting it onto the bus behind him. Once he was on, and once Harry and his new feline companion had found somewhere to sit, Stan turned and spun a grin at the both of them, leaning on a nearby handrail. "Let's get this show on the road! Ern! Next stop, London!"

And with that, they were off.

Harry was quickly coming to realize that there was no good method of transportation in the magical world besides broomsticks. Though the Knight Bus was a quick and effective method of getting to the Leaky Cauldron—perhaps even faster than on broomstick—it was also the most nauseating and annoying ride he'd ever taken. The Knight Bus made wild twists and turns down streets and alleyways, and since none of the beds that made up the seats of the Knight Bus were secured in any way, he and his feline companion had been tossed about the whole way.

When they finally reached the Leaky Cauldron, the Knight Bus came to such a sudden halt that, had Harry not been expecting it, he would've likely been thrown clear across the bus and out the window. As it was, only all of his internal organs smashed against his ribcage as he held tightly to the handrails with a white-knuckled grip. Stan, who had leaned casually against another set of handrails the whole way, smirked back at Harry.

"Here you are, boy, the Leaky Cauldron. Thank you for riding with the Knight Bus, and enjoy the rest of your night."

Harry nodded shakily back at Stan, and slowly stumbled off of the bus and out into the street. The cat, who was looking possibly even more ruffled than when it had been chased by the dog from before, padded out after him, coming to stop at his feet. He reached down and picked the cat up, holding it in his arms as he waited for his trunk to be set down beside him.

"Thanks Stan…see you later, I guess," Harry said with a shrug, though before he could even finish his sentence the Knight Bus had taken off once more, disappearing so fast he could've sworn it had simply disapparated.

Sighing, Harry looked down at the cat in his arm, then reached over with his one free arm to grab his trunk and turned around to enter the Leaky Cauldron. Before he got close, however, Tom—the owner—appeared in the window of the front door and quickly held it open for him. Harry smiled as he noticed the old wizard, and nodded to him.

"Hey, Tom, thanks—I'm sorry for coming in so late, I need a room if you can give me one for the night."

"Oh, there's no need for that, Mr. Potter," Tom quickly replied, smirking back at him as he closed the door once more and walked back towards his bar. "You already have a room ready for you."

Harry froze and glanced back at Tom. "Uh, what do you mean, I already have a room ready?"

Tom paused, and he blinked in surprise. "Well, uh…I thought you knew…"

"That's alright, Tom, I'll take it from here."

At the sound of the new voice, Harry turned around quickly, and he felt the cat in his arms begin to become a bit uneasy, squirming about anxiously. Harry blinked in surprise, as standing in the doorway of a nearby room—one of the pub's private room's, Harry assumed—was a man in a lime-green bowler hat, and fine wizard robes to match. Harry had only met this man once before, and only while hidden by invisibility cloak, but he recognized him all the same.

"Minister Fudge," Harry stated, looking up at him. "What are…you doing here?"

Fudge smiled over at Harry, and his smile attempted to be warm, but it only set Harry more on edge. The cat in his arms only hissed in annoyance. "I was wondering if we could talk, Harry my boy."

Harry doubted that this was an open invitation that he could decline, and considering the events of earlier that evening, he had a good idea what this was about. Seeing no other option, Harry sighed and turned towards the private room Fudge was standing in, pulling his trunk in behind him. Fudge, for his part, merely smiled back at Harry, before stepping to the side and letting him enter.

"Now then!" Fudge began, walking towards the table that had been set up in the room for him, and sitting down at the far end where the window showed the street beyond, and where a few books and quills were set out. "Harry, it's my understanding that you ran away from home, didn't you?"

"Well, yes sir," he replied, but he quickly added, "but I had no choice! You see, I—"

"I know, I know, my boy," Fudge sighed, leaning against the table as he smiled down at Harry with that false warm smile of his. "We know all about you blowing up your aunt this evening—I can only assume how you must've been feeling at the moment, but it's all in the past now. Let's just let it be, and move on."

Harry blinked in surprise. "Wait…so, I'm not in trouble? I'm not going to be expelled?"

"Expelled?" Fudge asked, before barking out in laughter—like his smile, this too felt faked. "Harry, don't be absurd! You're not going to be expelled for something as minor as blowing up your aunt! Especially not when you didn't even mean to do it! Students don't get expelled for accidental bouts of magic—just whenever they purposefully use it, or in direct confrontation with the laws of our kind. Don't worry, you're fine!"

The cat sitting in Harry's arms summed up how Harry felt about the situation rather well by hissing at the minister again, and curling tighter into Harry's chest. Harry tried to comfort it by gently petting it, and it eased up, some.

"So, if I'm not getting expelled, then why are you here?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

At this, the minister seemed to deflate a bit, and he sighed to himself. "Well, when we found out that you'd run off, we decided that we must find you as soon as possible. After all, it's not safe for you to be out and about on your own right now, my boy, especially considering the state of things currently." He glanced up at Harry and frowned. "I'm sure you've already heard, from the paper?"

Harry frowned and shook his head. "Uh, no…what?"

Fudge slowly sauntered up to Harry, and the cat in his lap backed closer into his chest. "We have two killers on the loose, Harry. Sirius Black, and his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. Both were notorious murderers during the previous war, and fanatic followers of You-Know-Who. It's not safe for any of us to be out with them about, so it's best if you stay somewhere safe." He smiled that fake-warm smile again. "The Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley should be safe enough for you until the school year, then you're off to Hogwarts."

Harry swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. He hadn't known about that. Followers of Voldemort were on the loose? He remembered hearing about Azkaban last year, when Hagrid had been taken away. He'd asked Ron about it, but all he'd really gotten from his ginger friend was that it was a terrible place for criminals, and no one had ever escaped before. No one until now, it seemed—and not just one, but two.

"Thank you, Minister," Harry said, swallowing tightly again. "You're too kind."

"Well, I try, my boy," the minister replied with another smile, before clapping Harry gently on the shoulder. "Now then, why don't you head off to your room—I had Tom fix you up a very nice one, room fifteen—and head to bed for the night. It's rather late, after all, and after the day you've had, I'm sure you'll like the rest."

Harry nodded, moving almost numbly out of the private room and back into the main room of the pub, the cat in his arms noticeably calming as they finally left the room. A small sigh escaped his lips, and he stroked its ear with his thumb, hoping to both calm it and himself down. "Yeah…I didn't like that either…" he murmured, a soft, nervous chuckle breaking through.

The cat murred in agreement, curling closer against his chest.

Sighing, Harry quickly mounted the stairs up to the room, Room Fifteen, and found a set of keys already waiting for him. After unlocking the door, Harry fumbled a bit with his trunk and the cat, eventually setting the cat down and holding the door open for it. The cat dashed in, and Harry quickly followed.

The room was actually rather nice, considering the conditions—it was larger than his room back with the Dursleys to begin with, so clearly it was a rather nice upgrade, and the bed was much nicer than his at the Dursleys too. There was also a desk at the far end of the room, with a chair sitting in front of it, and an open window that looked over the Alley below them. And sitting on that chair, ruffling her feathers a bit, was a very familiar figure.

"Hedwig!" Harry exclaimed with a smile, walking up to his familiar and stroking her feathers. "How did you know I was here, girl?"

The snowy owl merely barked softly back at him, before nibbling his fingertips as he pet her. Hedwig's attitude shifted quickly, though, when she noticed the other occupant in the room—the cat that had curled up on the bed. Almost instantly, Hedwig puffed herself up at the cat and began to screech angrily.

"Whoa whoa whoa, Hedwig, it's okay!" Harry exclaimed, standing between the bird and the cat, hands held up protectively. "It's okay, they're with me! They hurt themselves, and I'm trying to help them feel better. You don't need to get all attack-bird, okay?"

Hedwig stared up at her master for a moment, golden eyes meeting green, before she seemed to huff and turn around, shuffling on the back of the chair for a moment. She took a moment to shoot what looked to be another warning glare at the cat, before tucking her head under her wing.

Harry sighed, but simply shrugged and stepped away from the his familiar and back to the bed. "Sorry about that, Hedwig's usually better around other animals," Harry murmured, sitting down on the bed beside the cat and reaching into his trunk. "Now then, let's see if we can't get you fixed up, eh?"

The cat purred softly and moved closer, rubbing up against his side. Harry chuckled softly, and reached down to start rubbing its side. Soon enough, though, he found what he was looking for—a small bottle of cleaning alcohol, a medical cream, and some bandages. "Now then, this is going to hurt a bit," Harry murmured, as he reached over to the wound on the cat's leg, dabbing a bit of the alcohol onto a scrap of bandages, before pressing it into the wound.

Much to Harry's surprise, the cat did not fight too much during the procedure. It yowled and hissed in pain, but not nearly as much as he had been expecting, especially from one that had previously been a stray. Before too long, Harry stepped back with a self-assured smile, looking down at the bandage that wound around the cat's leg, holding the wound in place, and hopefully would help it heal quicker.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, you're free to go," Harry said with a smile, gesturing to the open window and the ledge beyond it.

The cat, however, didn't move.

Instead, it stood from where it had been laying during the procedure and began to nuzzle his hand again. Harry blinked in surprise, before smiling and rubbing the cat's head again. "Don't want to go, I see?" he asked, smiling down at the cat. He remembered back to what Stan had mentioned earlier, mistaking the cat for his familiar. Back there, he had thought to correct him…but did he really need to? Perhaps he could have two familiars after all—and anyways, the cat seemed to like him enough as was.

"Well, if I'm going to make you my familiar, you'll need a name," Harry murmured, still gently petting the cat. Slowly, his hand moved over the cat's fur, making it flop over onto its side and expose its underbelly. Harry paused, before smiling and gently rubbing its tummy.

"How about Midnight?" he asked. The cat perked up, and he grinned. "Well, you're a black cat, and a girl, if I'm seeing that right, so it sort of fits. You like it?"

The cat sat up and gently butt her head against his leg in reply, murring once again. Harry smiled and nodded, rubbing her forehead again. "Well then, Midnight," Harry said, before sitting upright and pricking his thumb, causing a bit of blood to prick up on his skin, "I do claim thee as mine, as my companion and partner, to serve me and protect me, and to aid me in all my future endeavors. This I state as truth, as bound by my blood."

As he spoke the ritual—a ritual he had only used once before, with Hedwig when he first got her, but had memorized since—Harry held out his thumb to Midnight, who quickly lapped up the droplets of blood on his skin. Once more, Harry felt a rush of familiar magic weave around them, the forming of a bond. It was familiar, yet different, though he chalked that up to him now having two familiars, rather than just one.

Smiling, Harry stepped back from Midnight and gently rubbed her head. "Well then, welcome to the family, Midnight. Just try to get along with Hedwig, and we should be fine," Harry said with a laugh.

Midnight, for her part, just purred.

Sighing, Harry turned and looked at the clock on the desk. Coincidentally, it had just rolled past twelve, as well, and suddenly Harry felt the full exhaustion of the day roll over him. Groaning, he stepped away from the bed and over to his trunk, pulling out a set of sleep clothes and tossing them onto the bed.

Harry quickly stripped himself of his clothes and tossed them back into his trunk, only idly noticing Midnight seeming to watch him as undressed before her and pulled on his sleep clothes. Then, stepping up to the bed, he turned out the lights, set down his glasses, and pulled back the covers of his bed. "Goodnight Hedwig, goodnight Midnight," he called out into the darkness as he nestled down into the bed and closed his eyes as he finally fell asleep.

And for a while, there was silence.

But not for long.

Midnight, who had been sitting at the foot of the bed since Harry had stood to change, shifted her violet gaze over to her master in the bed. She listened to his heartbeat, to his breathing, getting slower and slower, until she was certain that he was asleep. Once she was certain, what appeared to be a smirk slipped onto the cat's face, and she slowly sat up and at attention.

And then, she transformed. She grew in size, quickly, with soft pale skin replacing the jet black fur, long raven tresses pooling out of her head, her tail and snout disappearing, to be replaced by two smooth globes of flesh, a cute button nose, and full lips. Her eyes, though, were the same vivid and iridescent violet that they had been before.

In on sudden flash, what had once been a cat sitting at the foot of Harry's bed had been replaced by a beautiful woman. She took a moment to take stock of herself, briefly shocked by the sudden change of her own physical state, before turning to the one who caused it. The woman, her eyes gleaming, smirked, and she slowly stood from the bed, swinging her legs over the edge and softly setting her bare feet on the wood floor, which creaked under her weight as she stepped her naked form out into the moonlight shining into the room.

Bellatrix Lestrange smirked to herself in the moment. So much had changed since she'd managed her escape from Azkaban. She had to thank her dear cousin Siri for helping her figure out how to—the man must've murmured his plan to himself over and over again in his sleep, and she'd caught on enough to come up with an escape plan of her own, as well as come up with some rough plans of what she'd do once she made it back to the mainland.

The first of those, of course, being the death of the boy who had defeated her former master.

She had almost done it, too—she had managed to find him before Sirius, and had been so close to getting to him, had the mangy mutt not caught up to her and bit at her leg before she could get a spell off. She only managed to escape by changing form into her animagus form—the common black cat—and dashing off away.

And that, of course, had been when everything had changed. She had felt Harry's power radiating off of him for a moment before she'd appeared. She felt it again when he cast his instinctual magic to protect the both of them from her cousin, and the feeling—even just thinking of it now sent pleasurable shivers coursing down her frame and towards her core. It was unlike anything she'd felt before—stronger than when she'd first felt her former master's magic, more pure and wild—and it drove her insane.

It was in that moment that she knew she had to have him. Bellatrix was drawn to power, and from what she'd felt of Harry in that moment, he was capable of so much more than she or her former master could've ever expected. And he was only fifteen years old, not even a third year at Hogwarts yet. There was so much she could teach him, so many ways that he could grow—and she was eager to help him do so.

She was especially eager after he gave her that unintentional show, too. It was clear that Harry was going to be quite gifted once he was fully grown, in many, many ways.

Bellatrix smirked, her hand ghosting up her arm towards where her Dark Mark had previously been located. Though the ritual Harry had used was for a master and his familiar, it was close enough to that of a master and his slave that it had become so for her—and so, replacing the Dark Mark was the mark of her new master, the symbol of a lightning bolt with a serpent coiling around it.

A symbol of power, beside the most powerful of the beasts.

Bellatrix shivered again. She just couldn't wait to see what her master would soon become.

Smirking, the witch turned and slowly sauntered up to the bed where Harry slept soundly, unaware of the sudden transformation that had occurred in his room. Bellatrix smirked at her master, before pulling back the sheets and covers of the bed and slipping in behind him, spooning up behind him and wrapping an arm around his waist.

"Sleep well, my master," she cooed into his ear, softly kissing his neck as she nestled beside him and prepared to sleep as well, "Your loyal pet is here for you."