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| Courtesy: Seth Cooper (HarryPotter.Wikia.Com) |
Rabastan Lestrange sighed.
His sister-in-law turned out to be incorrigible at times. Finding a way to ward
off the Azkaban Dementors had been difficult enough: they had to work
tirelessly for months — he and his brother Rodolphus — along with Rosier and Dolohov
and Rookwood, to find a way to handle the creatures even Death Eaters called
filthy.
Bellatrix was there,
of course. Bellatrix, prodigal and prodigious Bellatrix, perhaps the most
gifted witch Hogwarts had ever produced, the sadist he had seen perform the Cruciatus
curse on innocent Muggle teenagers for the sake of a laugh, the torturer he had
seen drive the Longbottoms to insanity, the servant who had vowed to come back
when sentenced to Azkaban.
He remembered her shriek
echo in the courtroom, probably sending a chill down the spine of those
present: “The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will
wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of
his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!”
Rabastan remembered
the day vividly; he remembered the maniac gleam in her glistening eyes; he
remembered the unshakable confidence in her voice; he remembered her wild curls
covering her eyes as she shouted back at Bartemius Crouch; in a way she was very
attractive in an illicit sort of way.
They were left
wandless, powerless, at the mercy of Dementors. They could sense Crouch Jr swap
his position with his weak, pitiable mother, leaving her to die. They knew
exactly how Sirius Black managed to keep himself sane; unfortunately, none of
them had bothered to train to become an Animagus — something Black had managed
as a schoolboy. They knew Black would escape one day.
In those dark days, Bellatrix
seemed to be their only hope. It had seemed an uneven battle, but she was up to
the task. She always was. It was for a reason that The Dark Lord considered her
his most loyal lieutenant. Bellatrix knew they would break out of Azkaban when
the time was ready. She, with her incredibly strong mind, resisted the Dementors
relentlessly, warding against them...
It had always struck
Rabastan odd that Black had been assigned a separate cell and Bellatrix was
not. Of the two Bellatrix was easily the more dangerous. It was true that
Black’s crime was graver (of course, the people involved were the Potters, no
less — those two pets of Dumbledore), but it did not need an Arithmancy Professor
to realise that Bellatrix was easily the more dangerous and cruel of the cousins.
It had been ten years
since they had been sent to Azkaban. Rabastan had vaguely heard of Potter’s son
having felled The Dark Lord that day — though exactly how an infant could do it
to the greatest wizard in known history seemed unfathomable. Once The Dark Lord
disappeared from view, the Aurors spent no time in rounding up the Death Eaters
one by one. Those traitors — Malfoy and Snape — had somehow managed to weasel
out.
Rabastan had heard of
Dementors before, but had never gauged the full impact an army of them could
have on him. Contrary to popular beliefs, Death Eaters were human — or, at
least, Dementors treated them like humans. They were worse than Rabastan had
imagined.
Fleeting memories came
to his mind whenever one went past him... memories of a disturbed childhood and
adolescence… those days of being bullied by Rodolphus… of being humiliated by
Rookwood in the Slytherin common room for his apparent feelings towards Aphrodite,
that Muggle girl, in First Year...
Bellatrix made things
easier for Rabastan and the others. It was not that she made a conscious effort
to help them. One did not ask Bellatrix Lestrange for help — unless you were
The Dark Lord, of course — whose orders she always executed to perfection. Bellatrix
was not the helping kind, but to cut things short, she did something
that kept them warm, and even happy at times.
Rabastan was happy
and relaxed enough to think of Aphrodite — about every minute detail of how he
had slow-tortured her husband before killing him. A smile appeared on
his face every time he recalled the murder. He wished Aphrodite
saw sense and joined him. That she would take her own life to “teach him a
lesson” was something Rabastan had certainly not expected.
For some odd reason
Rabastan was the only one Bellatrix talked to in Azkaban. Not even to
Rodolphus, no. Rabastan had always wondered why. Maybe it was the Aphrodite
episode. It was, after all, the closest anyone had managed to achieve after the
Longbottom incident; perhaps Bellatrix thought Rabastan was the closest she had
when it came to cruelty.
She often sat down
next to him and continued with her rants — why she was the most devoted lieutenant
The Dark Lord ever had, how proud she was about the entire Longbottom incident,
why Muggles should be enslaved, why Snape and Malfoy should be tortured to
death, and some random Death Eater pep talk about there being no good or bad,
only power.
But that did not
answer Rabastan’s question. He had to know. He had to find out how
Bellatrix had repelled the Dementors. He had to coax it out of her. What if
anything happened to her? How would he ward off those creatures who even the
Death Eaters could not match in foulness? No, he needed to gain her trust and
find out the answer. He had to.
What kept Bellatrix
going?
How did she repel the
Dementors, day in and day out?
***
It was another of
those mornings — or was it an evening? One could never tell in Azkaban. He
could sense rain outside, but he was not sure. It did not matter anyway. He sat
next to Bellatrix, their backs cold against the mouldy stone wall; it could
have been minutes, or hours since they sat silently; Rabastan could not tell.
Then he mustered the
courage. He had to find out. Of course he had to find out.
“Bellatrix, I have always
wondered something.”
No response.
“I have seen you stay
firm despite these — these abominable creatures. How did you do it? What kept
you from going insane?”
Still no response.
Rabastan felt
desperate. Why would she not answer? He thought.
He asked again.
Still no response. Rabastan
grew impatient with every passing second.
Then the unthinkable
happened. Bellatrix’s lips twitched a bit before and curling into what was
unmistakably a smile. Rabastan was so shocked that he was at a loss for words.
“I used the Patronus
charm, Rabastan.”
“But how did you do
it? You do not have a wand!”
Bellatrix smiled. Again.
“Not very good at wandless, are you?”
“But this is
Patronus, Bellatrix. Patronus is complicated magic.”
“Not when The Dark
Lord teaches you himself, Rabastan.”
“He — he taught you
himself?”
“Of course he did not
want to. But then, I persisted. I had to learn this, for I knew that I may
have to go to Azkaban some day, and escape unscathed. I persisted long enough
to make him realise. Then he taught me.”
“How could he do it?”
The curls covered her
eyes, but she did not seem to care. “It takes immense concentration, Rabastan,
but you have to remember that The Dark Lord is greatest wizard of all time — do
you know he can fly?”
“I’ve heard Snape can
fly, too. Can you fly as well?”
Bellatrix nodded. “Flying
requires deep concentration as well, for you need to defy gravity, which is an
exceptionally strong force to counter.”
“What about Patronus?”
“Wandless Patronus is
even more difficult. It had taken me years to master it.”
“I have never seen
your Patronus take shape, Bellatrix. I remember the panther you used to conjure,
but I have never seen it in all these years.”
“You will not notice
it. It does not take the full shape. Only The Dark Lord can do that, for he is
the greatest wizard the world has seen. However, what I can do is to summon something
strong enough to keep them at bay, at least when I feel terribly depressed.”
“So you mean to say
that you had anticipated all this and had prepared yourself for years? That
does not sound right. You have always come across as someone… someone…”
“Someone too
confident?”
“No, it is not that. You
have come across as someone who would not care about being sent to
Azkaban. These meant nothing to you. Were you scared?”
“Do you really think
it was me I was concerned about?”
“No?”
“For me? Do you think
I did all this for my sake?” shouted Bellatrix. “Expecto Patronum!”
From the tip of her finger
wand emerged a wisp of silver. It looked nothing like a panther. It landed on
the floor, slithered across the room, and wiggled its way out of the narrow slit
that was the only source of light in the ward. Rabastan watched it disappear,
and as its silvery glow faded he turned back to Bellatrix, and his eyes were
full of tears.
“After all this
time?”
“Always,” said Bellatrix.
