Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy or Harry Potter. Buffy and related characters belong to Whedon. Harry Potter and related characters belong to JK Rowling.
Originally for TwistedShorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge (Day 10)
Warnings: None
A/N: The setting for this is pre-Buffy series, but the only relative thing you need to know from that is that Anya is a demon. And this is also set pre-Harry Potter series. And I apologize if this is a little weird… I wasn't feeling all that great when I wrote it.

A Done Deal

"Bloody bastard!" nineteen-year-old Bellatrix Lestrange hissed as she dumped another powdered ingredient into the cauldron. "After all I've given to him?"

Her marriage to the pure-blood wizard, Rodolphus Lestrange, was less than two years old, and already… She hissed again, tossing in more ingredients to the spell. She had left her house for Knockturn Alley, had only been gone for two hours, and what had she come home to? Her loving husband, rolling in the hay with some trollop! She had been too angry to even hex him. Instead, she had whirled on her heels, stomping from the room. Of course, that had not been immediate. She had been angry enough to torture Rodolphus's little whore under Cruciatus Curse for a full thirty seconds. Which, as anyone who had had to endure that little spell, was a lifetime.

But Bellatrix had something different in mind for her dear, dear husband. Brushing a lock of her ebony hair out of the way, she smiled as gray-blue smoke started to rise from the mauve colored liquid. She inhaled deeply, exhaling more of the smoke as she began her chant. She walked in a circle around her large cauldron, keeping her top half leaned in over it. Finally, after a third cycle around it, she put her hands to the cast iron and tipped it, spilling the potion across the floor of the deserted room she had—magically, of course—kept hidden from Rodolphus.

The liquid evaporated into smoke the moment it hit the floorboards, rising high until it curled and disappeared against the ceiling. When it had cleared, a demon stood before Bellatrix. His skin was the same color of the smoke that the potion had produced, with two small, slightly curled horns set into his forehead. And his white beard was bound in the middle, leaving two thick locks of it to hang down on either side of the middle. Bellatrix inclined her head ever-so-slightly.

"D'Hoffryn, demon of vengeance," she said.

He raised a single brow, looking just a tiny bit bored. "You sent for me?"

"Yes. I want to make a wish. I need vengeance."

"You know, I have a whole army of women who do this sort of thing for me."

Bellatrix pursed her lips, nostrils flaring. She took a single breath, calming herself.

"I wanted the king, the best vengeance demon."

D'Hoffryn cocked his head slightly to the left, a questioning glare in his eye.

"What's your name?"

"Bellatrix. Bellatrix Lestrange."

Something changed in the demon. His back went rigid, and he seemed a lot more concerned with Bellatrix. She found this curious, but her anger outweighed her curiosity.

"I wish my husband knew how it felt."

"I'm sorry, dear, but you'll have to be a bit more specific than that. Knew how what felt?"

Bellatrix was not a crier. When she got hurt, she made damn sure that whoever hurt her got hurt back. So she bit, hard, on the inside of her lip to stop the quivering that was beginning both there and on her chin.

"He cheated on me. I caught him in bed with some tramp. I want him to know the anger, the hurt, that I'm feeling. I want him to know what it feels like to be betrayed, to be made a fool of."

"And that's it? That's all you want? You don't want him to, like, be a troll or anything?"

She blinked. "I think he would enjoy being a troll, so no. Most definitely not. I want him to hurt."

"Very well. Put 'I wish' at the front of all that, and it shall be done."

Bellatrix restated her wish in the proper format, and when she was done, all D'Hoffryn did was nod. The two stood in silence a moment or two afterward before, finally, Bellatrix looked around.

"It's done?"

D'Hoffryn laughed. "You were expecting a tangible result, with a wish like that? This wish takes time to unfold. I suggest you go about your life, and it will unveil itself in time."

"I want him to know this hurt now!" Bellatrix demanded.

She was never one known for her patience, but D'Hoffryn only smiled.

"You should have specified."

She howled, kicking the overturned cauldron, sending it rolling across the room. She screeched and yelled, but D'Hoffryn only stood there. Finally, she whirled and stomped out of the room. D'Hoffryn sighed.

"She's not your type of vengeance," an accusatory voice said from behind the demon.

He grinned, turning to see his Anyanka standing there, her dark hair cut short.

"I know. Usually, vengeful women are your deal. But this one… even demons are play things for The Powers That Be."

Anyanka huffed, crossing her arms. "I could've granted that wish, though. Hells, I could have gotten her to make a better one! Why didn't you try to urge her to make a better one? Is it because of the one you granted for her husband?"

D'Hoffryn shook his head, remembering well the wish that Rodolphus had granted—that his wife knew what it was to be married to someone who did not love her. After all, he had confessed to the demon that he had known for a long time that she had married him because it had been "expected" of her, not because she had loved him.

"Sort of, my dear. You see, The Powers needed a very powerful, very old vengeance demon for this little arrangement."

"What arrangement?"

"She will fall in love with the Dark Lord Voldemort. They wanted this so. And I was the only one with the power to grant the wishes that would lead to this, the one for Rodolphus and the one just now for Bellatrix."

Anyanka raised a brow. "I don't understand."

"They both get what they want this way, and so do The Powers. She will play a key role in the war that is to come. And she will know what it is like to love someone who does not return it… as Rodolphus will know what it is like to be betrayed in such a way."

"And The Powers That Be commanded this?"

"Yes. And even I cannot argue with Them. Now, let's be gone from here, Anyanka. We're no longer needed."

End Note: I hope everyone enjoyed this little piece. If you're interested, I have a fanart done for this one, and you can find it by going to the deviantart link at the bottom of my profile. Please review!