firecracker ???

6-17

Draco nodded. "Yes, my Lord."

"You did what many grown men could not."

Bellatrix gasped, delighted. "I told you!"

Voldemort turned his gaze on her at last. "And you witnessed it?"

She grinned. "Every moment. I felt the magic in my bones."

He studied her a beat longer.

Then nodded once.

And vanished with a whisper of robes.

The moment he was gone, the room exhaled.

Draco slumped into the nearest chair.

Lucius kept his hand on Draco's shoulder. 

Regulus and Snape let out shaky exhales.

And Bellatrix—

Bellatrix laughed.

"Oh, Draco, my darling—you should've seen yourself, that little hand of yours didn't even shake when you said it!"

He didn't answer.

She didn't care.

She twirled, once, arms lifted. "Oh, to see Dumbledore fall! It was better than I imagined."

Draco pressed his fingers into his temples.

She kept spinning.

Her voice bright, her eyes glassy.

"Do you think the Dark Lord will ask you to do it again? Oh, wouldn't that be delicious? He might want a matching set! McGonagall, perhaps!"

Draco rose from the chair, shaking.

"Enough." Lucius said.

She didn't hear him.

She was too far gone.

Draco left the room in a flurry.

Bella kept singing. She was still drunk on the moment, breathless with delight.

Regulus suddenly appeared, hand grabbing Bellatrix's wrist mid-step.

She turned sharply. "What—"

"We're going now," he said. "You and I."

Before she could speak—

CRACK.

They landed in the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place with a jolt.

Bellatrix staggered.

"What are you—why the hell—where's Draco?!"

Her voice was sharp, shrill, manic.

"Where is he, Regulus?! We have to go back— Master will be waiting to celebrate!"

She turned, wild-eyed.

But Regulus didn't answer.

He stepped back.

Watched her.

And waited.

She spun in a frantic circle, heart still pounding from the high, from the death, from the—

Her wrist burned.

She stopped.

Mid-step.

A jolt of pain seared up her arm, sudden and sharp.

The Unbreakable Vow.

The one she'd sworn to Lucius.

The one that flared only when she strayed too far from their true mission.

From the real side.

It pulsed, violently.

She froze.

And it was like a switch flipped.

Her breath slowed.

Her eyes changed.

The madness—the high—it vanished.

And what replaced it was cold. Revived. 

Bellatrix Black.

Not the shrieking Death Eater.

But the girl who'd once sat beside her cousins under Black family portraits, watching with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue.

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"...Christmas."

Regulus nodded once.

She looked down at her wrist, the mark still glowing faintly.

"The cup was destroyed."

Another nod.

"The ring. The diary. The locket—"

"We're nearly there," Regulus said.

She blinked.

Staggered back.

"He's going to fall."

"Yes."

"And Dumbledore...?"

She looked up.

And in his eyes—she saw the answer.

Her knees buckled slightly.

She didn't fall.

But her hands gripped the banister of the old staircase like it was the only real thing in the world.

She remembered.

All of it.

The vows.

The meeting of December 1995.

The decision.

The plan.

Working with Dumbledore. With Lucius. With Narcissa. With Regulus.

The pain they'd endured pretending otherwise.

The trust they placed in her despite everything.

She remembered.

She had been playing the part too well.

Her frayed mental state from Azkaban had disassociated from the truth. From reality.

She had let herself sunk back into madness as she performed their act for Voldemort.

She performed so well she herself had believed it.

The high from Draco's spell burned to ash inside her chest.

When she finally spoke, her voice was almost nothing.

"He really thought I didn't know."

Regulus moved closer, steady. "You didn't. Not tonight. That was the point."

Her jaw tightened.

And slowly—deliberately—Bellatrix straightened.

A different fire burned in her now.

Not mania.

Resolve.

The kind only true Blacks ever carried.

"We have to keep it perfect," she said. "He must believe it."

"He does."

"He saw the spell?"

"Lucius performed the wand check himself. You were too busy performing your singing dancing two-in-one."

She ignored his comment. "And Draco?"

"With Snape and Lucius. Still at the manor. Safe. He thinks your insanity saved him. It's the truth."

Her eyes narrowed at the remark but chose not to comment.

"Good."

She turned toward the fire.

And for the first time in years—

She didn't feel like a servant.

She felt like a general.

She waited for them to come home.