Shadows in the Dark

Notes- This came off of someone who reviewed 'Drowning', thinking it was a Lucius/Bellatrix fic and not a Voldy/Bella. I felt the muses running, so she came up with this scenario and I took my take on it. Hope you enjoy it!

Wrote this and let it out for the one year anniversary of OoTP. Enjoy.

"This is not happening," a low female voice groaned from the corner of the dark room. "There is no way you got us stuck in this situation."

A male voice hissed from the other side of the room. "You may as well stop complaining because we are here, and we need to start thinking of a way out of it."

A sudden light came from the tip of Bellatrix's wand, and Lucius Malfoy practically jumped on her to get to her wand.

"What the hell are you doing, Lestrange? Put that out now, before the Auror wakes up!" he yelled, glaring at her with his dark eyes.

Bellatrix glanced up to him emotionlessly. "We are in here because of you, Malfoy. If we're going to be caught, I want to at least play a part in it."

"They were right," he whispered, sitting on the ground across from her. "You really are insane."

"Must run in the family then, considering who my sister married."

With that, she put out the light and stared at him through the darkness. Or at least stared where she thought he was- it was as though there was a wall between them, painted black. Silence reigned in the room for the next few minutes, as Bellatrix stared at the darkness and Lucius closed his eyes.

Their espionage on an Auror had been going fine until Lucius yelled at her, the Auror wandered upstairs, and they were forced to retreat to a small walk-in closet. The Auror hadn't noticed them, but he was sleeping in the room that the closet was in. Meaning that they had to remain there until he left the next morning, or risk getting caught.

"Our lord is going to kill us, you know that?" Bellatrix finally whispered. "We were supposed to be back three hours ago. If we go back there, he will kill us for disobeying him."

"So what do you want to do, Bellatrix? Not go home? Then what? We can't go into the real world or ask for help. We're at his mercy. We have no choice."

"This is what our lives have come down to, then, hm?" she asked. "Simply accepting death, or whatever life throws at us? Whatever happened to the powerful dreams that we had, the influence of the Black and Malfoy names, the fear we once struck?"

Lucius opened his eyes and looked in her general direction.

"You know as well as I do that our Lord has no chance any longer. This war is as good as over."

Bellatrix didn't respond. She couldn't believe what he had said, and in a way he couldn't either—it was something that ran through the Death Eater's minds nonstop. And even though they never voiced it, it was still the truth—Voldemort had become too obsessed with Potter to focus on his goals and aspirations any longer.

"It's not as though you don't believe it either, Bella. Don't try and pretend. All that 'most faithful' talk- it's to mask that you know the truth. When this is over, Azkaban will be home for you until the end of time. It Azkaban, soulless. For all of us."

She began to laugh, flat and soulless in itself. "It's funny how someone who claims to hate me and loath me so sometimes knows me better than myself. I wonder how that would have changed things had we gotten along in the beginning..."

Lucius lit his wand, and Bellatrix froze to see his pale face completely serious.

"The ends are what justify the means, Bella. You're a fool if you say otherwise. If we're going to end up dead wither way, what does it matter if we got there as friends of enemies?"

"Is that why you never attempted to make amends with me?"

"That and the fact that you are an insufferable bitch sometimes."

She shook her head, allowing the long locks to frame her face.

"Weren't you the one to jump on me earlier for having my wand lit, Lucius?" She purred.

He grinned cockily. "Of course."

The wand stayed lit, and he hovered it dangerously near the cracks in the door to the closet. The Auror groaned in his sleep and shifted, blocking his eyes from the light.

"Light and dark. Is that what this really all is?" she muttered, looking to Lucius. "Is it all just a game that we play, taking the side of white or black? Even now we're here in the shadows while the Auror is in the light. It's nothing more that a story, told y some old grandparent to their grandchildren. The story of how the light overtook the dark."

Lucius looked hard at her. "Is this a game or a story, Bella?"

She looked thoughtful. "Both. We live in a story, but in that story we are playing a game. Because the game has a winner already, we just don't know it yet. Who is the winner, Lucius? You or me? Who is weaker than the other? And the best question... what does it matter who the winner is, when the story already has an ending?"

Bellatrix and Lucius watched the Auror fidget in his bed, trying to keep the light out of his eyes without having to bring himself to reality.

"Does that mean all we are doing is playing a game that we are condemned to loose?" She whispered, softer than a breeze. "Then why not throw it all away?"

Lucius broke his gaze at the Auror, and stared at Bellatrix.

"Why not?"

He threw himself at her without warning, and pushed her against the wall. She was about to yell out when she realized the game that they were playing.

"I won't loose, Lucius-" she whispered haughtily into his ear. "You will be the one to break. Don't scream."

With that she moved her hand, and he let out a tiny gasp of both shock and pleasure. He retaliated by grasping her, and pulling her underneath him.

"Still not ready to break, Malfoy? I think you will. I think you will scream when they take your soul."

"I don't believe so, Lestrange. I believe that you will, however, I won't have the enjoyment of listening."

A moment of silence.

"I wouldn't really enjoy it, you know." He muttered.

"Get of your goddamned emotional steak, Lucius. We're still in the game."

"It's not a game anymore."

The two prisoners were walked out into the clearing, where over a hundred Ministry members and two dementors waited.

Lucius sighed. "Weren't the dementors all gone from here?"

Fudge looked away. "We were able to convince these two to remain—the promise of all Azkaban to themselves..."

"I understand, Minister."

The two hooded figures were almost leaping at the sight of the two before them. As Fudge turned to complete the final steps, Lucius looked out into the crowd. Narcissa and Draco were there, watching the proceedings emotionlessly. He felt Bellatrix's hand on his back, and he turned to face her.

"White horse overtakes the two black bishops. Isn't that an illegal move?" She muttered, trying to smile. "They should be disqualified."

"This isn't a game anymore." He repeated.

She laughed richly, as though she were nineteen again. "But it is! In a game people loose, Lucius. In a game there are sacrifices that must be made. There are white and black pieces. There are winners and losers. And we, my dear, are the losers. The black. The sacrifices. We're in every story ever told, every great novel, every legend. We're the ones who turn the table in the end. With our deaths, the story can end. Something this one has been dying to do for so long." She stopped laughing. "But it can't be a story, can it? Because there's something in every story that we don't have. That our pride keeps us from having."

Their eyes matched, and for the first time, he understood her.

Fudge walked over, and put his arms on Lucius'. Without blinking, he moved backwards, and to the dementor. Without breaking gaze with her. Without her.

She watched as the dementor swooped over him and he gave into it without a fight.

Some of the crowd began to cheer and clap roughly, as though trying to overtake her. She only smiled, staring still into the spot where Lucius had fallen.

And she stayed smiling, even as the dementor began to steal from her the very essence of her life. Her smile faded only when she closed her eyes and faced the body that was below her line of vision.

"We can't love, can we?"