Voting Post For Week #179
It's Voting Time!
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1. Do not vote for yourself and do not ask others to vote for you.
2. If you entered the challenge, you are required to vote.
3. Please vote for a MOST and SECOND favorite drabble. If you do not fill out the entire poll, your vote will not be counted.
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5. Please remember the prompt must when voting: Picasso Paintings
Results will be posted on Thursday. Have fun!
1.
Author: ashindk
Feedback: yes please
Title: Are you insane?
Words: 315
Rating: R
Warnings: Very vague mentions of torture and hints at past dubcon
Using this painting: Girl before a Mirror
”Are you insane?” The young woman asks in a dreamy voice.
Bella can practically feel the layers of paint resist her, when she turns her head to get a better look at her guest. She seems familiar. Ah! She’s one of the girls who tried to kill her, before Molly Weasley finished the job.
It’s not often, that people ask her direct questions. Mostly, they avoid her. The portraits never visit her frame, and the living hurry past with their heads turned away. Some stare. Or scowl. Or break down crying. A few spit or get their wand out and try to curse her. But they don’t ask questions.
That’s why it takes her a while to answer. She considers the question carefully. Is she insane? She knows she was, once. But this portrait was painted when she was still young, hopeful and in love with Rabastan. She hasn’t thought about it in years, but she wasn’t insane then. A fundamentalist, maybe. But not insane.
The blood thirst, the lust for causing pain, and the endless devotion to her Lord and his cause had come later, after her parents and the Lestranges agreed that an arranged marriage to Rodolphus was far more suitable, than a love match with his little brother. The burning devotion to her Lord had been her sole focus in long years spent in Azkaban, and ultimately it had been the cause of her downfall. Or perhaps her liberation. And there’s her answer.
“No. Not anymore.”
The young woman smiles.
“That’s odd,” she muses. “Do you think death cured you?”
Bella answers her smile. It’s been a long time since someone smiled at her. She has to focus very hard to make the corners of her painted mouth move upwards.
“Yes,” she says. “I think it may have.”
The girl nods and skips off, down the damp corridor and around the corner.
2.
Author: imera
Feedback: yes
Title: Crazy
Words: 647 words
Rating: R
Warnings: Childplay
When the young pureblood girl was brought in to the Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix knew at once she wasn’t like all the other prisoners. She didn’t fight and she wasn’t afraid, instead she stared at them with a curious look.
“Do you know who I am?” Bellatrix asked her, wondering if the reason she wasn’t afraid was because she hadn’t heard of them.
“You’re Bellatrix Lestrange,” she replied, continuing to stare at Bellatrix with large curious silver eyes.
It wouldn’t take long before Bellatrix concluded that the girl was not normal, and even if she wasn’t the same kind of crazy as Bellatrix, she was still crazy.
After meeting the girl for the first time Bellatrix couldn’t get her out of her mind, or her dreams, until one day she decided to go on with her plan.
“Come with me,” she ordered the girl one night after most people had gone to bed. The girl didn’t say a word as she stood and followed Bellatrix up to her room.
“Take a shower, then put on the clothes that I lay out for you, and come here.” Luna continued to stare at Bellatrix with her big curious silver eyes, but she didn’t question Bellatrix. Instead she followed Bellatrix’s orders and entered the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
A strange pleasing feeling passed through Bellatrix when she thought of what would happen next, it was one of those feelings she got when the Dark Lord praised her for something she had done, sending a warm and fuzzy feeling through her otherwise cold body.
Bellatrix listened as the water was switched on, she continued to listen as Luna showered, wanting to enter the bathroom, to help cleaning her, but decided to wait until another time. Ten minutes later the water was turned off, and Bellatrix heard Luna exit the shower. Patiently she waited, hoping it wouldn’t take long before the door opened.
When the door finally did open, and Luna entered the room in a pink lace dress which Narcissa would have most likely wore when she was young, Bellatrix struggled to breathe and think straight. Luna’s large eyes made her look even younger than she was, which pleased Bellatrix in more ways than she could express.
“Come here,” she said, her arms open and welcoming. It was the first time since she was a young girl that she allowed anyone to see her weaker side, but Luna wasn’t like everyone else, she was special, just like Bellatrix.
“What will happen now?” Luna asked, her arms resting on Bellatrix’s hips. Bellatrix smiled because Luna asked what would happen, not what would happen to her, or what Bellatrix would do to her.
“I want you to pretend I’m your mother,” Bellatrix answered. It took a few seconds, but when Bellatrix felt Luna’s head nod against her chest, her heart warmed.
It was her deepest secret, but she always wanted a daughter, and the day she discovered she wouldn’t be able to carry any child was one of the hardest days in her life. When she saw Luna, and how unafraid she was, she knew there was something special with her, that she might make Bellatrix feel complete, even if it was only for a few hours.
“Yes, mammy,” Luna whispered, wrapping her arms around Bellatrix’s waist.
“Good. Now, why don’t you sit down and let mammy take care of your hair.”
Slowly Luna released Bellatrix and sat down on the chair in front of the mirror, staring at Bellatrix’s reflection with her pretty large eyes, faintly smiling.
Pulling out her wand to dry Luna’s hair, Bellatrix smiled back, but not with one of her twisted evil smiles. “Why don’t you tell mammy how your day’s been,” Bellatrix asked as she ran her fingers through Luna’s hair, watching it disappear between her fingers a few times before using magic to dry it.
3.
Author: gamma_x_orionis
Feedback: Please!
Title: The Dream
Words: 600
Rating: PG
Warnings: Violence
Luna Lovegood was dozing against the wall of the Malfoy’s cellar when Bellatrix came in. She had been sent to break her - just a little torture, nothing she hadn’t done a dozen times before, “child’s play”, as it were. She had expected Lovegood to be pacing the dungeon, or cowering in a corner, but she was curled easily against a wall in the centre of the dungeon, and she was fast asleep.
The girl must have been mad to sleep so easily in such a terrible place. Perhaps the things that Draco had said were true. Draco had warned Bellatrix that Luna was out of her mind, but Bellatrix had heard the same description applied to herself so often that she had learned not to trust it.
But this girl, this Lovegood leaned against the wall with her head lolling easily to the side, her hands in her lap, and her face peaceful as death.
Bellatrix edged closer until she stood over her, and still the girl did not move, except the steady rise and fall of her chest. She should at least have been aware of her presence, Bellatrix thought, with a little flicker of annoyance. She could not remember a time when she could not make people cringe in their sleep: Rodolphus did; her sisters always had; even the Dark Lord seemed aware when she looked at him while he slept. The girl should have the sense to be afraid.
Bellatrix raised her wand - a hex thrown on her would bring her to her senses; a hex would teach her to fear her superiors - but still Lovegood was unmoving, and Bellatrix found herself frozen, wand raised, unable to cast a spell. It was uncanny, how oblivious she seemed. Bellatrix would have considered that she had died, were it not for her breathing, still steady, unchanged.
“Wake up,” Bellatrix said, and then, louder, “Wake up!” She leaned down and gripped Lovegood by her shoulders and shook her back and forth. Her head fell backwards, and for all that Bellatrix shook her, she remained limp.
She had to be pretending. No one could sleep like that.
Bellatrix pulled on the string around her neck, dragging it backwards so it pressed against her windpipe. The girl’s breathing became shallower, but it did not speed, nor did she twist away as every human instinct dictated that she should have. A Cruciatus curse did not wake her either, and at last, Bellatrix threw her flat upon the ground and kicked her hard in her side.
“You can’t sleep forever, little girl,” she told her. “You’ll have to wake up and face us eventually.”
She stormed out then, fuming at the prisoner, and at herself for allowing herself to become so agitated (the Dark Lord would never have worked himself into such a state), and only when she was gone did Luna open her eyes, though they were swelling now from the attacks and it would have been easier to keep them closed.
Luna heaved herself back up against the wall, slowly, every movement hurting some part of her that Bellatrix had hit, and closed her eyes again.
Bellatrix had said that she couldn’t sleep forever, that eventually, she’d have to face them.
Bellatrix didn’t know Luna.
Pretending not to be hurt by anything was what Luna had done since she was eleven. It was second nature to her. The Death Eaters could not have picked a more difficult prisoner.
She let her head fall back again, and practiced going limp for the next time that Bellatrix came into the dungeon.
4.
Author: valkyriekat_47
Feedback: yes
Title: The Dementor Inside
Words: 636
Rating: PG 13
Warnings: angst, torture
Bellatrix walked down the stairs with her wand out, illuminating her way. There was sparse light from behind, but it didn't penetrate the underground gloom of Malfoy Manor's prison very well at all.
Talk, a little talk, maybe a chance to perfect a few curses. Leave a few more reminders on the body of Luna Lovegood. If she was released as Draco wished her to be, after the war, she would remember her imprisonment forever.
Bellatrix' buckled black boots, black ruffles and lace, and the wild tangled hair, made her look the precise opposite of a Muggle fairy princess. Her lopsided smile leered as she spotted the sleeping form of Lovegood. Bellatrix strode forward and gave the dirty-blond Lovegood a sharp toe in the kidneys.
Luna jerked awake.
“Oh, hello. I was dreaming such a nice dream. About the twelve Wrackspurts of Hogwarts. I didn't know how many there were until the dream told me.” Luna's eyes were far too large for her bone-thin face. Ollivander was watching silently. He would try to escape any wrath, if he could. He was still and silent as a graveyard.
“You tell me, little girl, and you don't lie. Legilimency shows me you speak the truth, but you are insane. You believe anything you wish.” Bellatrix' laugh was mocking. “I'm here to leave you another reminder.”
“I wish I could believe that the Dark Lord would free us all, and you too. He has planted the seed of a Dementor inside you, the chill mist must have let it enter your chest.” Luna nodded vaguely and picked at her long, filthy fingernails. If only they were clean and shining. Luna looked at Bellatrix' hand. Long, immaculate nails that ended in sharp points. Was Bellatrix madder than Luna, was?
“Dementor inside me?” Bellatrix shrieked and cackled, her ravaged face twisted, marring her once-beautiful face. “If only it were so, The Dark Lord could and would make much better use of me. Would you like me to call him down to speak to you?”
“Yes,” said Luna simply. “I would thrust my thumbs through his eyes into the back of his head, though it would be my final act. But I don't matter to him, and he's not a true human being. His soul is lost. Did you take it?”
“Me, take the Dark Lord's soul? If I could have a smidgen of it I would live a life of ecstasy.” Bellatrix hair was now all over her head, and she shook with madness and mirth. She lit a cigarette, and blew the smoke insolently over Luna's face. The walls glistened wetly, damp and dark but for the lit wand of the darkest Lestrange.
“You're Guernica, the art dementor.” Luna smiled vaguely and looked slightly to the left of Bellatrix. “Every time I see it part of me dies. It's a painting. It looks just like you. Ravaged and painful. Picasso was a famous wizard, you must have heard...”
“Your left arm, girl - now!” Bellatrix snapped.
Luna very obediently produced her left arm. Her sleeve was ragged and torn and the basement smelled like asbestos and arsenic.
Bellatrix had been looking forward to this all day. She smoked her cigarette almost down to the filter, and placed the hot butt on Luna's arm.
“Your own mark,” Bellatrix whispered with her face very close to Luna's.
Luna's arm shuddered as the burn pain increased. “I don't hate you. It's the dementor. This is Muggle torture. Sadism is nothing new to human nature. If I cry it is because you are beyond saving.”
There was wetness in Luna's grey gaze. Bellatrix snarled and looked away from the indecent tears of the girl who was insane enough to feel compassion.
Luna thought Bellatrix was insane, yes, but it really was the dementor inside.
oooOOOooo
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Poll SHD Week 179:Lestrange/Lovegood