Commentary: "Muscle Memory"
Jun. 24th, 2006 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stephanometraBecause I can't deny Shannon anything ever (<3), I give you Fic Commentary on "Muscle Memory."
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First, a bit of backstory: I wrote this for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_springsmut as a gift for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sionnain. When I got my assignment (here), I was at once incredibly excited and horribly intimidated, because I lovelovelove Sionn's fic - I have her story "Frost" memoried and I rec it all the hell over the place to people who think that fandom is all about Snarry chanporn. So I really wanted to write something that she'd like, and I was less confident about my writing abilities a few months ago than I am now. This was a surefire recipe for worried!Rachel, as many of you probably remember.
My original idea is here. I don't remember the story I was reading when I caught the notion, though. As is wont to happen, the porn started to demand an actual story to go with it, and Rabastan fell by the wayside as Bella's personality came out more.
It's always cold in Azkaban.
There is a permanent Warming Charm in her cell – in every cell, she supposes, when she's lucid enough to suppose anything at all – and yet she never seems to stop shivering. The chill is ever-present, and the drop in temperature that accompanies the dementors as they make their rounds has long since ceased to register.
Not that she needs to feel the changes in the air to sense
leave me be must find Him (the D/s connotation of her mental and vocal emphasis on the capital is I think the most persistent aspect of my Bella's characterization, and the biggest way I know how to show how different her attitude towards Voldemort is from those of a lot of the other DEs. I just help can't seeing her devotion as a little more personal - not necessarily sexual, but definitely *something* other than loyal minion.) (wall explodes before her) look look the Mudblood bitch (she steps over the corpse) can't feel Him where is He kill the brat myself (voices outside, arms hold her back) let me go let me go kill him kill them too (too-narrow blackness strangles her and is gone) why why hate you let me go after Him (red light) no (That was actually longer when I wrote it the first time. I cut it down when I finished being obscenely pleased with my own cleverness in how I'd phrased the flashback.)
their approach.
When none are near, Bellatrix looks out the tiny window and can almost remember how it feels to be free. The portal is enchanted, of course, because Dangerous Criminals can't be given things so nice as real windows, but sometimes a false ray or sunshine or glimpse of stars is all she needs to hold onto the tatters of her other memories, ones that don't leave her nauseous and weeping with hysteria – past or present, real or imagined; she can't remember, and it doesn't matter anyway. I thought this sentence paired with the flashback was really effective with regard to communicating the confusion about Bella's character that I was actually feeling when I wrote it; I didn't know whether or not I felt sorry for her or not.
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I hadn't hit my stride yet with regard to Bella's voice, so these first bits were pretty slow going.
The warden allowed her to keep her wedding ring when she arrived. He wasn't supposed to, but even wandless and shackled and condemned, Bella frightened all of the junior staff enough that none would approach her to remove it, and she refused to willingly give it up.
Her husband's ring and her Master's Mark are the only tangible remnants of the life she once led. She spends days at a time staring at them, twisting the silver band on her finger – she wears it on her middle finger, now, because her fourth finger is too small – and rubbing at the quiescent, almost-invisible brand on her forearm. I see this very clearly in my head, possibly moreso than anything else in the story. Poor Bella.
The Dark Lord and Rodolphus may have all but disappeared from her brain, but Blacks honor their alliances, especially when those alliances are all they have left. I was trying to make a larger point with this sentence, which is why it refers to Blacks instead of just Bella. We can infer, actually, that Blacks are reasonably laissez-faire about their alliances - just look at the family tree! All of the marriages there might be purebloods, but several of them are from families that are neither connected to Voldemort nor practitioners of Dark magic (because as we all know, all Dark wizards are in Slytherin :rolleyes: It's canon, what can you do?). And they burn out their sons and daughters for pretty minor things as well. What Blacks hold on to is their own delusions of grandeur and importance; I genuinely think that Bella is the only one of her generation that actually believes in something in practice as well as theory. Sirius, as we know, has remarkably different ethical standards for people he likes and people he doesn't like but aren't necessarily "evil." I don't see Bella as having that kind of a double-standard.
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On good days, she remembers faces with a little effort and names to go with them with just a little more, but the details are always lacking; no single recollection even approaches complete, and none feels right, as if she is wearing her robes backwards and inside out. There were a bunch of snatches of memories in the middle of that sentence originally. I took them out because they didn't help the point enough to justify the gross assault on readability they turned out to be.
On bad days, the dementors leave her sufficiently aware of herself to recall many names and faces, but not enough to match them up, and she spends hours screaming at the cloying wrongness of being lost in her own head. Bad days leave her feeling naked, stripped bare and empty, with only a tiny scrap of silver and a faded tattoo for comfort.
Cruelly, she has no trouble remembering Regulus or Andromeda
no no (head in her hands) never see you (she won't let her see) blood traitor whore bitch (as she cries) how could you (Flagrant Bella/Andromeda subtext? Why yes, don't mind if I do!)
in vivid detail on any day. Often she wishes the dementors would take those memories, too, and give her back others – of her husband, her Lord, her family – which is why their betrayals will always be fresh and raw and brutal.
Bellatrix distantly recalls a strong embrace soothing away her pain after her vengeful rage had exhausted itself; her own skinny arms are a poor substitute for the comfort she can barely remember she craves. I don't even know who I'm referring to here, although I knew that everyone would think immediately of Rodolphus with the way I worded it. IT IS A MYSTERY!
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Sometimes, she sees memories that – she thinks – don't even belong to her. Children her barren womb never bore call her Mum and tug on her skirts; men and women she has never met writhe in ecstasy above or beneath her. Once, she felt a mechanical chrome-and-leather Muggle monstrosity purring between her legs, and the stolen thrill of it had almost made her want that memory for her own. What can I say, I love the flying motorcycle, as well as the irony in her wanting to steal one of Sirius' memories.
It slipped away, though, like so many others. Dementors might occasionally lose track of stray bits of happiness, but they always find them again.
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Long after she has stopped counting new moons, she watches the Mark come to life again, burning black and terribly beautiful on her white skin and inundating her mind with memories her brain has long since lost, but which slumbered whole and patient beneath her skin. The joy of it is staggering, absolute. I really like the thought of there being a psychic or psychological aspect to the Mark, and if you think about it, it fits with the image Tom has of himself as TEH GREATEST LEGILIMENS EVAR!!!~
It feels like coming home. When I wrote this line, I thought of the Bright Eyes song "You Will (etc.)," because when I went to see a Bright Eyes show in 2003 (BEFORE HE TURNED INTO A COCKSUCKER OKAY), Conor said, "This is a song about coming home," by way of introduction for that song, and I've never forgotten it.
Bellatrix pulls off her ring, then, and holds it in her palm, gazing at the tired metal and willing herself to see something more of her husband than what few flickers
are you alright (hot, sticky fingers on her face) of course you are (white teeth flash) my incomparable Bella
she has managed to keep close, but all she finds is the peripheral awareness of Rodolphus at her side formerly locked away in the Mark, now taunting her with its incompleteness.
She cries that night, a raw mixture of elation and misery that confuses the dementors so much that they do not visit her corridor for a full day.
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Bella starts counting days again after that, and somehow the dementors bother her much less. They don't seem to want to touch the memories attached to the Mark, and the memory of stepping over the wreckage of the Potters' pathetic little bolt-hole, searching fruitlessly for her Lord, is much easier to bear when she has proof that He lives smoldering in her flesh.
She has no such assurance about her husband. She still toys with her ring almost constantly, the touch of her fingers keeping it bright and free from tarnish, and she still hopes that they've a future to write once the Dark Lord liberates His faithful – as she is certain He will – but Bellatrix has given up trying to recover the past she's lost.
Thus it astounds her when little bits and pieces of memory suddenly begin to return to her, like flotsam washing up on a beach. ("Flotsam" is one of my favorite words; I gleefully pounced on the chance to use this simile.) One second she is half-asleep, watching the full moon through her window with her mind blank and empty; the next, she remembers dancing at her wedding with crystal clarity and blinks in bewilderment. Fandom absolutely needs more adorably-confused!Bella.
More follow. She remembers the feel of magic coursing through her – not even dementors can make her forget that – and more vaguely, the beauty of Crucio or the Killing Curse, but soon she recalls learning to cast those spells. She remembers the faces of the rest of the Dark Lord's followers who are in Azkaban, and for what crimes – and therefore, in what sectors of the fortress – they are imprisoned. Segregating inmates by crime seems to me to be one of the stupid mistakes the Ministry, in its infinite lack of common sense, would very likely make.
She knows that these are not her memories, for all that once she had many like them, and when suddenly she remembers the entire layout of the prison, remembers walking its corridors in a dreamlike trance and committing them to memory like so many lines on a map, she suspects that the time must be coming. The "dementors communicating with Azkaban inmates by regurgitating stolen memories" thing is probably one of the best plot-device ideas I've ever had. It makes a lot of sense to me that the dementors had been on Tom's side long before they left the prison, and that he'd use them to his greatest advantage before calling them away from their posts.
When a dementor passes her cell and drops a wand – beech, not mahogany like her old one, but it hums contentedly in her hand – and sees a new-moon night in her mind's eye, she knows.
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This is the section I wrote first. It went through several iterations as the story before and after it changed - at one time it was like 400 words and included a conversation between a couple of the escapees and Rodolphus staring at Bella in a creepy-sexy way.
She meets the others, all as gaunt and unkempt as she, all clutching borrowed wands and thinking borrowed thoughts, on the cold sand of the beach. They talk in hushed, rough voices for a minute, and then ten ragged figures look up at the January sky. The night is cloudy and moondark, but it's blinding bright to eyes so used to cells black with fear and loathing.
Ten identical Marks burn, and the echoes of ten Disapparitions rend the air as lighting strikes the prison's tallest tower.
The clap of thunder never comes. OOOOH, SPOOKY!
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The wards open just enough to allow them in and the gardens spread snow-kissed and lush all around, blooming in defiance of the chill. Nobody appears to meet them, and since none of them remembers the way to get to the house without tripping the security wards – which Bella can feel humming in the air – they wander aimlessly through the hedgerows.
Bellatrix kneels and plucks a rose from the nearest bush. "Beautiful," she whispers. Like I said yesterday, this is the genesis of the entire story, much moreso than the silly AIM conversation about the foursome.
"Love?" Rodolphus is behind her, hand on her shoulder, and close enough to heat the air between them.
Childlike with wonder, she caresses the petals with thorn-punished fingers, smudges of crimson on the flower's creamy flesh. "How beautiful," she repeats, cupping the bloom in her hands, bringing it to her nose and breathing deeply.
She had forgotten that anything could be so lovely.
Bella looks up at her husband, the weight of her lost memories somehow less, and she smiles a guileless, innocent smile. This mental picture to me is extremely striking, because if there's one thing we know Bella isn't, it's innocent.
His breathing quickens and his eyes darken with hunger, and warmth floods her
now do it now (cold marble under her back) yes yes (Actually it would probably be really uncomfortable to have sex on a stone bench, but hey, whatever floats their respective boats.)
in recognition. He pulls her to her feet, a possessive hand clasped tight around her wrist, and kisses her bruisingly, attacking her lips and her neck. She begs him with her hands to touch her, to make a new memory on another garden bench, but then a willow-thin blonde woman
hold still (pale-gold silk snags the brush) almost done now (the scent of gardenia hangs in the air) of course you are lovely don't be stupid
turns the corner, stopping dead and staring into Bella's eyes for a moment after she sees them before politely turning her back and giving them a moment to compose themselves. Narcissa is so ladylike, all the sex with her sister notwithstanding.
Bella steps away from Rodolphus, taking his hand again and squeezing it in apology and promise. "'Lo, Cissy," she says. She feels a little awkward, but not nearly as much as she thinks she should feel, and she blinks away her confusion. I hate this sentence, but I couldn't figure out another way to say what needed to be said for the sex scene later to make good sense.
Narcissa turns, her cool smile a model of composure. (See? Such a lady.) "Bellatrix." She closes the distance between them and embraces her warmly, kissing Bella's cheek and holding her a little bit longer than is proper, as if she expects something.
As she leads them up the hill to the Manor, collecting the others on the way, Bella wonders what Narcissa had been waiting for.
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She shows them to a spacious suite on the second floor and tells them that dinner will be served in two hours.
"I expect you will wish to freshen up," she says with a half-smile as Rodolphus laconically thanks her and ushers her towards the heavy oaken door. Again with the ladyness! She's almost sickeningly polite, isn't she?
I wrote about 2/3 of the rest of this scene on paper in the middle of the night after Leslie had gone to bed, so I couldn't use my computer without waking her up (and that makes for a cranky Leslie, and nobody likes that). Chad probably remembers swinging by the second-floor landing and seeing me furiously scribbling in a notebook. He probably gave me shit about writing slash, and I probably vehemently protested that I was writing het this time.
Narcissa leaves the room, and Rodolphus slams Bellatrix against the door a split-second after he shuts it, fingers tearing at the fastenings of her tattered clothing and lips moving desperately against her own. She moans into his mouth, shrugging out of the hated prison robes with unconscious grace before winding her arms around his neck.
His hands are everywhere, tangling in her hair and mauling her breasts and tearing at her knickers, electric like static (I amnot ashamed to say I stole that phrase from a Lisa Loeb song) wherever he touches her.
He fumbles with his trousers and presses hard and wanting against her, and her body sings with pain when he slides into her though she is dripping wet. (Been there, done that. -_-) He rests his head in the arching curve of her throat. "So tight," he groans, shuddering, and despite the ache, she craves more.
She wraps her legs around his still-clothed hips, centering her weight on the ache of their union and biting her lip against the pain. "Move," she demands, and he does, splaying a hand across her belly and finding her clit with his thumb.
His shallow thrusts pound her up against the polished wood of the door, and stars explode behind her eyes when she hits her head a little too hard; she feels his cock twitch inside her when she cries out, so she does it again and again, until he bites down hard on the flesh where her neck joins her shoulder, pulsing and emptying himself inside her.
And though he can't have lasted more than a handful of minutes and her cunt still aches from the strain of taking him after such a long absence, Bella comes too, hard and fast and sobbing at the long-forgotten feel of it before slumping against her husband and taking a deep, slow breath.
He trembles with the effort of supporting her weight, muscles tired and weak from disuse. Staggering, still inside her, Rodolphus carries her to the richly-draped bed in the centre of the room. He lays her down and moves to disengage himself, but she grips him a little more tightly with her thighs.
"Stay," she whispers. I actually think this is the sexiest thing in the whole damned story, but I'm a weirdo with abandonment issues.
He leans down, settling his weight onto his hips, and kisses her gently before resting his head on her chest. "Yes," he says, absently stroking the curve of her hip.
They rest in silence for a while.
"They tried to take you from me."
She takes one of his hands in hers and gently strokes his dirty, matted hair (just in case you forgot that they were FUCKING FILTHY - no pun intended - whilst the hot hot door!sex was transpiring) with the other.
"There were days I couldn't remember you." He swallows hard and lifts his head to look at her. "I thought I would die." Bellatrix gazes into his eyes, his mind laid bare before her, and sees herself reflected there with an intensity that startles her, pleases her, and breaks her heart all at once.
Her thumb unconsciously finds her wedding band and twists it halfway around her finger. "I wept for want of you," she says, simply, and she presses a kiss to the top of his head.
He nods and looks as if he wants to say something else, but he resettles his head on her breasts and is silent.
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They bathe together, first a shower that runs black with grime and then a long soak in the enormous chrome-fitted bathtub. Neither seems willing to stop touching the other, although the violent urgency has abated. They fuck again in the hot water, Bella swallowing Rodolphus' moans and whispered obscenities with kisses as she rides him.
After, she stands naked and dripping in front of the sink, combing fourteen years of accumulated knots from her hair and humming tunelessly. When he comes up behind her, resting his hand on her arse and inhaling the clean scent of the potion she'd used to wash, she steps forward and continues to detangle her hair. "You're insatiable." Shit, woman, do you blame him?
He presses close against her again and kisses her throat. "You're beautiful."
Bella scoffs. Even in her worst memories of her own appearance
oh hell not another one (she pokes her cheek impatiently) that freckly bint Prewett never gets spots (swears) stupid cow, sleeping with a blood traitor to boot (Just in case you forgot that Bella was in school with Molly and Arthur, I guess.)
the mirrors show herself a thousand times more lovely than the skinny, sun-starved and careworn creature she sees now.
"Cissy will miss us," she says softly.
"Narcissa," Rodolphus says, taking the brush from her hand, "can wait." He bends her at the waist with one hand, fingers skating over her vertebrae (because every sex scene needs more words like "vertebrae") and pushing down at the small of her back, and slips the other between her legs. Bellatrix braces herself against the counter as he fucks her, and her eyes fall shut at the sweetness of it.
Then she hears a sharp gasp, and her eyes snap open again to lock on Narcissa's in the mirror. In general, this is one of my favorite things to see in sex scenes of any sort. Mirrors are fucking hot.
Bella hisses and twists away from Rodolphus, snatching her discarded towel from the floor to cover herself and casting about for an excuse and coming up only with a blush, but her eyes harden even as colour stains her cheeks. She is no schoolgirl to be ashamed at being caught behind the broomshed with her knickers around her knees.
The edge of the low counter is sharp against her thighs as Narcissa approaches her and touches her hair, the line of her jaw, a slender arm. "Oh, Bella," she says, voice soft and tinged with grief, eyes shining with tears. "What have they done to you?"
Bella's eyes widen in confusion as the hand skims her hip, her waist, the curve of her breast, as Narcissa insistently tugs on the towel until it falls to the floor again in a damp heap. "Cissy," she whispers, "what –"
Narcissa's lips silence her, insistent and sweet, and as Bellatrix breathes in the air from her sister's lungs she desperately casts about for a memory, a mere hint of why her sister's taste excites her, why Cissy's hands are so familiar in their attentions. She finds nothing.
But her body remembers, even though her mind cannot, and she leans into Narcissa's touch and moans against her mouth when the nimble fingers tweak her nipples and ghost over her belly. Bella slips her hands into the neckline of her sister's robes, fingers fumbling on the buttons as she frees Cissy's décolletage and slides the silk from the white shoulders. I love the world "décolletage," too, just in case you were wondering.
She can see Rodolphus out of the corner of her eye, mouth slack with astonishment and one hand gripping his cock. She caresses Narcissa's breasts, and he chokes out a moan as he fists himself. Again, do you blame him?
Narcissa starts, looking at him as if she'd forgotten he was there – which, Bellatrix thinks, she likely had – and then she steps back, ridding herself of her robe and the lacy knickers beneath it before sitting delicately on the edge of the counter, leaning backwards and holding out her arms. Bella moves between her sister's legs and wraps her arms tightly around the other woman, scattering kisses against her collarbone and shaking at the feel of Narcissa's groin pressed against her own.
Cissy moans, a breathy, intoxicating sound. "Yes," she says, throwing her head back and grinding against her, fingers digging into the flesh of Bella's hips. "Gods, Bella, missed you, missed you, don't stop."
Bella keens in pleasure, inarticulate at the feeling coursing through her, and then moans again as Rodolphus moulds himself to her back. (I had to have him still involved, else the reunion sex becomes pretty cheap and meaningless, yeah?) His cock throbs against her arse before he shifts her hips and sheathes himself inside her once again, his thrusts driving her against her sister's body. (The physics of this are actually pretty complicated, if you think about it. Pretty much any way you look at it, Cissy's thigh is going to be squashing Rodolphus' balls.) She finds Narcissa's lips again, sucking desperately on her tongue.
They cry out, all three of them, Rodolphus against Bella's nape with his face buried in her hair, and Bellatrix and Narcissa into each other's mouths. They're close; Bella can feel it as they move together in a dance her mind has long since forgotten. Damn, I was probably a little heavy-handed with that concept.
One of Narcissa's hands moves beyond Bella's hip to grab at Rodolphus' arse (I doubt he's complaining about either this or the balls thing); the other strokes Bella's torso, cupping her breast on the way to her neck. "Trust me," she breathes, licking at Bella's lower lip, and white fingers gently bear down on Bella's throat. Bellatrix jerks her head away from the contact, but Narcissa makes a soothing noise, saying, "You loved this, once." And Bella has no chance to protest, surrendering to the insistent pressure of that hand. I sure do say "insistent" a lot!
Bellatrix's lungs spasm as they are denied air, and the rhythm falters for a moment before Rodolphus picks it up again. The delight is unbearable; Bella's vision goes spangled and white as her body screams for oxygen. She claws at Narcissa's back, writhing, and Cissy screams out her pleasure, waiting a split-second for Bella to follow before releasing her throat.
Air rushes into her lungs, unbearably, dizzyingly good as her cunt clamps down on Rodolphus' cock and waves of shockingly intense pleasure seem to stop time and narrow her world to the throbbing flesh between her legs. (For those of you who've never tried oxygen deprivation, that is, in fact, what it feels like. Nnggh.) She moans, exhausted, as Rodolphus spills inside her.
They slump against the counter, a sated, panting tangle of limbs (and if that mental picture doesn't turn you on, you are either sexless or dead). Rodolphus pulls away after a moment, presumably to clean himself up again, but the sisters cling fiercely to one another for a while longer.
"I thought I'd never see you again," Cissy says quietly against her hair. "I never thought to be afraid that you wouldn't remember me if I did." Awww, poor Narcissa. :(
Bella raises her head, but her protest dies on her lips, because she knows that Narcissa does not want to hear that her foremost memory of her younger sister is of brushing her hair. "I wish I could," she says, hiding in the curve of her sister's throat and fiddling with her ring again, as if it would help. Behold, the power of nervous tics.
Narcissa sighs. "I know."
-
They enter the dining room together, Bellatrix on Rodolphus' arm and Narcissa, looking every inch the gracious hostess, leading the way. Most of the people in the room are already eating, but Bella can hardly fault them for their rudeness. Yeah, delaying dinner to fuck the lady of the house is pretty damn rude.
Lucius' eyes follow Narcissa as she sits down. "So kind of you to finally join us," he says over his untouched plate, addressing his sister-in-law but still looking at his wife. Shit, Malfoy Manor must be positively drowning in politeness when Bella's not around.
"Terribly sorry, Lucius," Narcissa says, nonchalantly spearing an artichoke heart with her fork. "We must have lost track of time." Translation: I just had sex with my sister and her husband; fuck off. (I kid, I kid; Lucius/Narcissa OTP!)
Bella smiles into her water glass and remembers.
I don't like the ending much, but I usually don't like my endings anyway. Somebody on an anonymeme said that it seems like I run out of steam and/or interest somewhere in the middle of my stories, and that's probably a legitimate criticism (it's also why I always put the sex at the end, because porn keeps the reader's attention pretty much no matter what).
But all my worrying about whether or notsionnain would like it was completely baseless, I'm pleased to say, and more importantly, I really feel like I accomplished exactly what I wanted to with this story. starrysummer probably should have smote me for turning it in so late, but it all worked out in the end.
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That's all she wrote, folks!
And y'all will be pleased to know that I got some more hetporn written, although the story is still not finished.
First, a bit of backstory: I wrote this for
hp_springsmut as a gift for sionnain. When I got my assignment (here), I was at once incredibly excited and horribly intimidated, because I lovelovelove Sionn's fic - I have her story "Frost" memoried and I rec it all the hell over the place to people who think that fandom is all about Snarry chanporn. So I really wanted to write something that she'd like, and I was less confident about my writing abilities a few months ago than I am now. This was a surefire recipe for worried!Rachel, as many of you probably remember.My original idea is here. I don't remember the story I was reading when I caught the notion, though. As is wont to happen, the porn started to demand an actual story to go with it, and Rabastan fell by the wayside as Bella's personality came out more.
It's always cold in Azkaban.
There is a permanent Warming Charm in her cell – in every cell, she supposes, when she's lucid enough to suppose anything at all – and yet she never seems to stop shivering. The chill is ever-present, and the drop in temperature that accompanies the dementors as they make their rounds has long since ceased to register.
Not that she needs to feel the changes in the air to sense
leave me be must find Him (the D/s connotation of her mental and vocal emphasis on the capital is I think the most persistent aspect of my Bella's characterization, and the biggest way I know how to show how different her attitude towards Voldemort is from those of a lot of the other DEs. I just help can't seeing her devotion as a little more personal - not necessarily sexual, but definitely *something* other than loyal minion.) (wall explodes before her) look look the Mudblood bitch (she steps over the corpse) can't feel Him where is He kill the brat myself (voices outside, arms hold her back) let me go let me go kill him kill them too (too-narrow blackness strangles her and is gone) why why hate you let me go after Him (red light) no (That was actually longer when I wrote it the first time. I cut it down when I finished being obscenely pleased with my own cleverness in how I'd phrased the flashback.)
their approach.
When none are near, Bellatrix looks out the tiny window and can almost remember how it feels to be free. The portal is enchanted, of course, because Dangerous Criminals can't be given things so nice as real windows, but sometimes a false ray or sunshine or glimpse of stars is all she needs to hold onto the tatters of her other memories, ones that don't leave her nauseous and weeping with hysteria – past or present, real or imagined; she can't remember, and it doesn't matter anyway. I thought this sentence paired with the flashback was really effective with regard to communicating the confusion about Bella's character that I was actually feeling when I wrote it; I didn't know whether or not I felt sorry for her or not.
I hadn't hit my stride yet with regard to Bella's voice, so these first bits were pretty slow going.
The warden allowed her to keep her wedding ring when she arrived. He wasn't supposed to, but even wandless and shackled and condemned, Bella frightened all of the junior staff enough that none would approach her to remove it, and she refused to willingly give it up.
Her husband's ring and her Master's Mark are the only tangible remnants of the life she once led. She spends days at a time staring at them, twisting the silver band on her finger – she wears it on her middle finger, now, because her fourth finger is too small – and rubbing at the quiescent, almost-invisible brand on her forearm. I see this very clearly in my head, possibly moreso than anything else in the story. Poor Bella.
The Dark Lord and Rodolphus may have all but disappeared from her brain, but Blacks honor their alliances, especially when those alliances are all they have left. I was trying to make a larger point with this sentence, which is why it refers to Blacks instead of just Bella. We can infer, actually, that Blacks are reasonably laissez-faire about their alliances - just look at the family tree! All of the marriages there might be purebloods, but several of them are from families that are neither connected to Voldemort nor practitioners of Dark magic (because as we all know, all Dark wizards are in Slytherin :rolleyes: It's canon, what can you do?). And they burn out their sons and daughters for pretty minor things as well. What Blacks hold on to is their own delusions of grandeur and importance; I genuinely think that Bella is the only one of her generation that actually believes in something in practice as well as theory. Sirius, as we know, has remarkably different ethical standards for people he likes and people he doesn't like but aren't necessarily "evil." I don't see Bella as having that kind of a double-standard.
On good days, she remembers faces with a little effort and names to go with them with just a little more, but the details are always lacking; no single recollection even approaches complete, and none feels right, as if she is wearing her robes backwards and inside out. There were a bunch of snatches of memories in the middle of that sentence originally. I took them out because they didn't help the point enough to justify the gross assault on readability they turned out to be.
On bad days, the dementors leave her sufficiently aware of herself to recall many names and faces, but not enough to match them up, and she spends hours screaming at the cloying wrongness of being lost in her own head. Bad days leave her feeling naked, stripped bare and empty, with only a tiny scrap of silver and a faded tattoo for comfort.
Cruelly, she has no trouble remembering Regulus or Andromeda
no no (head in her hands) never see you (she won't let her see) blood traitor whore bitch (as she cries) how could you (Flagrant Bella/Andromeda subtext? Why yes, don't mind if I do!)
in vivid detail on any day. Often she wishes the dementors would take those memories, too, and give her back others – of her husband, her Lord, her family – which is why their betrayals will always be fresh and raw and brutal.
Bellatrix distantly recalls a strong embrace soothing away her pain after her vengeful rage had exhausted itself; her own skinny arms are a poor substitute for the comfort she can barely remember she craves. I don't even know who I'm referring to here, although I knew that everyone would think immediately of Rodolphus with the way I worded it. IT IS A MYSTERY!
Sometimes, she sees memories that – she thinks – don't even belong to her. Children her barren womb never bore call her Mum and tug on her skirts; men and women she has never met writhe in ecstasy above or beneath her. Once, she felt a mechanical chrome-and-leather Muggle monstrosity purring between her legs, and the stolen thrill of it had almost made her want that memory for her own. What can I say, I love the flying motorcycle, as well as the irony in her wanting to steal one of Sirius' memories.
It slipped away, though, like so many others. Dementors might occasionally lose track of stray bits of happiness, but they always find them again.
Long after she has stopped counting new moons, she watches the Mark come to life again, burning black and terribly beautiful on her white skin and inundating her mind with memories her brain has long since lost, but which slumbered whole and patient beneath her skin. The joy of it is staggering, absolute. I really like the thought of there being a psychic or psychological aspect to the Mark, and if you think about it, it fits with the image Tom has of himself as TEH GREATEST LEGILIMENS EVAR!!!~
It feels like coming home. When I wrote this line, I thought of the Bright Eyes song "You Will (etc.)," because when I went to see a Bright Eyes show in 2003 (BEFORE HE TURNED INTO A COCKSUCKER OKAY), Conor said, "This is a song about coming home," by way of introduction for that song, and I've never forgotten it.
Bellatrix pulls off her ring, then, and holds it in her palm, gazing at the tired metal and willing herself to see something more of her husband than what few flickers
are you alright (hot, sticky fingers on her face) of course you are (white teeth flash) my incomparable Bella
she has managed to keep close, but all she finds is the peripheral awareness of Rodolphus at her side formerly locked away in the Mark, now taunting her with its incompleteness.
She cries that night, a raw mixture of elation and misery that confuses the dementors so much that they do not visit her corridor for a full day.
Bella starts counting days again after that, and somehow the dementors bother her much less. They don't seem to want to touch the memories attached to the Mark, and the memory of stepping over the wreckage of the Potters' pathetic little bolt-hole, searching fruitlessly for her Lord, is much easier to bear when she has proof that He lives smoldering in her flesh.
She has no such assurance about her husband. She still toys with her ring almost constantly, the touch of her fingers keeping it bright and free from tarnish, and she still hopes that they've a future to write once the Dark Lord liberates His faithful – as she is certain He will – but Bellatrix has given up trying to recover the past she's lost.
Thus it astounds her when little bits and pieces of memory suddenly begin to return to her, like flotsam washing up on a beach. ("Flotsam" is one of my favorite words; I gleefully pounced on the chance to use this simile.) One second she is half-asleep, watching the full moon through her window with her mind blank and empty; the next, she remembers dancing at her wedding with crystal clarity and blinks in bewilderment. Fandom absolutely needs more adorably-confused!Bella.
More follow. She remembers the feel of magic coursing through her – not even dementors can make her forget that – and more vaguely, the beauty of Crucio or the Killing Curse, but soon she recalls learning to cast those spells. She remembers the faces of the rest of the Dark Lord's followers who are in Azkaban, and for what crimes – and therefore, in what sectors of the fortress – they are imprisoned. Segregating inmates by crime seems to me to be one of the stupid mistakes the Ministry, in its infinite lack of common sense, would very likely make.
She knows that these are not her memories, for all that once she had many like them, and when suddenly she remembers the entire layout of the prison, remembers walking its corridors in a dreamlike trance and committing them to memory like so many lines on a map, she suspects that the time must be coming. The "dementors communicating with Azkaban inmates by regurgitating stolen memories" thing is probably one of the best plot-device ideas I've ever had. It makes a lot of sense to me that the dementors had been on Tom's side long before they left the prison, and that he'd use them to his greatest advantage before calling them away from their posts.
When a dementor passes her cell and drops a wand – beech, not mahogany like her old one, but it hums contentedly in her hand – and sees a new-moon night in her mind's eye, she knows.
This is the section I wrote first. It went through several iterations as the story before and after it changed - at one time it was like 400 words and included a conversation between a couple of the escapees and Rodolphus staring at Bella in a creepy-sexy way.
She meets the others, all as gaunt and unkempt as she, all clutching borrowed wands and thinking borrowed thoughts, on the cold sand of the beach. They talk in hushed, rough voices for a minute, and then ten ragged figures look up at the January sky. The night is cloudy and moondark, but it's blinding bright to eyes so used to cells black with fear and loathing.
Ten identical Marks burn, and the echoes of ten Disapparitions rend the air as lighting strikes the prison's tallest tower.
The clap of thunder never comes. OOOOH, SPOOKY!
The wards open just enough to allow them in and the gardens spread snow-kissed and lush all around, blooming in defiance of the chill. Nobody appears to meet them, and since none of them remembers the way to get to the house without tripping the security wards – which Bella can feel humming in the air – they wander aimlessly through the hedgerows.
Bellatrix kneels and plucks a rose from the nearest bush. "Beautiful," she whispers. Like I said yesterday, this is the genesis of the entire story, much moreso than the silly AIM conversation about the foursome.
"Love?" Rodolphus is behind her, hand on her shoulder, and close enough to heat the air between them.
Childlike with wonder, she caresses the petals with thorn-punished fingers, smudges of crimson on the flower's creamy flesh. "How beautiful," she repeats, cupping the bloom in her hands, bringing it to her nose and breathing deeply.
She had forgotten that anything could be so lovely.
Bella looks up at her husband, the weight of her lost memories somehow less, and she smiles a guileless, innocent smile. This mental picture to me is extremely striking, because if there's one thing we know Bella isn't, it's innocent.
His breathing quickens and his eyes darken with hunger, and warmth floods her
now do it now (cold marble under her back) yes yes (Actually it would probably be really uncomfortable to have sex on a stone bench, but hey, whatever floats their respective boats.)
in recognition. He pulls her to her feet, a possessive hand clasped tight around her wrist, and kisses her bruisingly, attacking her lips and her neck. She begs him with her hands to touch her, to make a new memory on another garden bench, but then a willow-thin blonde woman
hold still (pale-gold silk snags the brush) almost done now (the scent of gardenia hangs in the air) of course you are lovely don't be stupid
turns the corner, stopping dead and staring into Bella's eyes for a moment after she sees them before politely turning her back and giving them a moment to compose themselves. Narcissa is so ladylike, all the sex with her sister notwithstanding.
Bella steps away from Rodolphus, taking his hand again and squeezing it in apology and promise. "'Lo, Cissy," she says. She feels a little awkward, but not nearly as much as she thinks she should feel, and she blinks away her confusion. I hate this sentence, but I couldn't figure out another way to say what needed to be said for the sex scene later to make good sense.
Narcissa turns, her cool smile a model of composure. (See? Such a lady.) "Bellatrix." She closes the distance between them and embraces her warmly, kissing Bella's cheek and holding her a little bit longer than is proper, as if she expects something.
As she leads them up the hill to the Manor, collecting the others on the way, Bella wonders what Narcissa had been waiting for.
She shows them to a spacious suite on the second floor and tells them that dinner will be served in two hours.
"I expect you will wish to freshen up," she says with a half-smile as Rodolphus laconically thanks her and ushers her towards the heavy oaken door. Again with the ladyness! She's almost sickeningly polite, isn't she?
I wrote about 2/3 of the rest of this scene on paper in the middle of the night after Leslie had gone to bed, so I couldn't use my computer without waking her up (and that makes for a cranky Leslie, and nobody likes that). Chad probably remembers swinging by the second-floor landing and seeing me furiously scribbling in a notebook. He probably gave me shit about writing slash, and I probably vehemently protested that I was writing het this time.
Narcissa leaves the room, and Rodolphus slams Bellatrix against the door a split-second after he shuts it, fingers tearing at the fastenings of her tattered clothing and lips moving desperately against her own. She moans into his mouth, shrugging out of the hated prison robes with unconscious grace before winding her arms around his neck.
His hands are everywhere, tangling in her hair and mauling her breasts and tearing at her knickers, electric like static (I am
He fumbles with his trousers and presses hard and wanting against her, and her body sings with pain when he slides into her though she is dripping wet. (Been there, done that. -_-) He rests his head in the arching curve of her throat. "So tight," he groans, shuddering, and despite the ache, she craves more.
She wraps her legs around his still-clothed hips, centering her weight on the ache of their union and biting her lip against the pain. "Move," she demands, and he does, splaying a hand across her belly and finding her clit with his thumb.
His shallow thrusts pound her up against the polished wood of the door, and stars explode behind her eyes when she hits her head a little too hard; she feels his cock twitch inside her when she cries out, so she does it again and again, until he bites down hard on the flesh where her neck joins her shoulder, pulsing and emptying himself inside her.
And though he can't have lasted more than a handful of minutes and her cunt still aches from the strain of taking him after such a long absence, Bella comes too, hard and fast and sobbing at the long-forgotten feel of it before slumping against her husband and taking a deep, slow breath.
He trembles with the effort of supporting her weight, muscles tired and weak from disuse. Staggering, still inside her, Rodolphus carries her to the richly-draped bed in the centre of the room. He lays her down and moves to disengage himself, but she grips him a little more tightly with her thighs.
"Stay," she whispers. I actually think this is the sexiest thing in the whole damned story, but I'm a weirdo with abandonment issues.
He leans down, settling his weight onto his hips, and kisses her gently before resting his head on her chest. "Yes," he says, absently stroking the curve of her hip.
They rest in silence for a while.
"They tried to take you from me."
She takes one of his hands in hers and gently strokes his dirty, matted hair (just in case you forgot that they were FUCKING FILTHY - no pun intended - whilst the hot hot door!sex was transpiring) with the other.
"There were days I couldn't remember you." He swallows hard and lifts his head to look at her. "I thought I would die." Bellatrix gazes into his eyes, his mind laid bare before her, and sees herself reflected there with an intensity that startles her, pleases her, and breaks her heart all at once.
Her thumb unconsciously finds her wedding band and twists it halfway around her finger. "I wept for want of you," she says, simply, and she presses a kiss to the top of his head.
He nods and looks as if he wants to say something else, but he resettles his head on her breasts and is silent.
They bathe together, first a shower that runs black with grime and then a long soak in the enormous chrome-fitted bathtub. Neither seems willing to stop touching the other, although the violent urgency has abated. They fuck again in the hot water, Bella swallowing Rodolphus' moans and whispered obscenities with kisses as she rides him.
After, she stands naked and dripping in front of the sink, combing fourteen years of accumulated knots from her hair and humming tunelessly. When he comes up behind her, resting his hand on her arse and inhaling the clean scent of the potion she'd used to wash, she steps forward and continues to detangle her hair. "You're insatiable." Shit, woman, do you blame him?
He presses close against her again and kisses her throat. "You're beautiful."
Bella scoffs. Even in her worst memories of her own appearance
oh hell not another one (she pokes her cheek impatiently) that freckly bint Prewett never gets spots (swears) stupid cow, sleeping with a blood traitor to boot (Just in case you forgot that Bella was in school with Molly and Arthur, I guess.)
the mirrors show herself a thousand times more lovely than the skinny, sun-starved and careworn creature she sees now.
"Cissy will miss us," she says softly.
"Narcissa," Rodolphus says, taking the brush from her hand, "can wait." He bends her at the waist with one hand, fingers skating over her vertebrae (because every sex scene needs more words like "vertebrae") and pushing down at the small of her back, and slips the other between her legs. Bellatrix braces herself against the counter as he fucks her, and her eyes fall shut at the sweetness of it.
Then she hears a sharp gasp, and her eyes snap open again to lock on Narcissa's in the mirror. In general, this is one of my favorite things to see in sex scenes of any sort. Mirrors are fucking hot.
Bella hisses and twists away from Rodolphus, snatching her discarded towel from the floor to cover herself and casting about for an excuse and coming up only with a blush, but her eyes harden even as colour stains her cheeks. She is no schoolgirl to be ashamed at being caught behind the broomshed with her knickers around her knees.
The edge of the low counter is sharp against her thighs as Narcissa approaches her and touches her hair, the line of her jaw, a slender arm. "Oh, Bella," she says, voice soft and tinged with grief, eyes shining with tears. "What have they done to you?"
Bella's eyes widen in confusion as the hand skims her hip, her waist, the curve of her breast, as Narcissa insistently tugs on the towel until it falls to the floor again in a damp heap. "Cissy," she whispers, "what –"
Narcissa's lips silence her, insistent and sweet, and as Bellatrix breathes in the air from her sister's lungs she desperately casts about for a memory, a mere hint of why her sister's taste excites her, why Cissy's hands are so familiar in their attentions. She finds nothing.
But her body remembers, even though her mind cannot, and she leans into Narcissa's touch and moans against her mouth when the nimble fingers tweak her nipples and ghost over her belly. Bella slips her hands into the neckline of her sister's robes, fingers fumbling on the buttons as she frees Cissy's décolletage and slides the silk from the white shoulders. I love the world "décolletage," too, just in case you were wondering.
She can see Rodolphus out of the corner of her eye, mouth slack with astonishment and one hand gripping his cock. She caresses Narcissa's breasts, and he chokes out a moan as he fists himself. Again, do you blame him?
Narcissa starts, looking at him as if she'd forgotten he was there – which, Bellatrix thinks, she likely had – and then she steps back, ridding herself of her robe and the lacy knickers beneath it before sitting delicately on the edge of the counter, leaning backwards and holding out her arms. Bella moves between her sister's legs and wraps her arms tightly around the other woman, scattering kisses against her collarbone and shaking at the feel of Narcissa's groin pressed against her own.
Cissy moans, a breathy, intoxicating sound. "Yes," she says, throwing her head back and grinding against her, fingers digging into the flesh of Bella's hips. "Gods, Bella, missed you, missed you, don't stop."
Bella keens in pleasure, inarticulate at the feeling coursing through her, and then moans again as Rodolphus moulds himself to her back. (I had to have him still involved, else the reunion sex becomes pretty cheap and meaningless, yeah?) His cock throbs against her arse before he shifts her hips and sheathes himself inside her once again, his thrusts driving her against her sister's body. (The physics of this are actually pretty complicated, if you think about it. Pretty much any way you look at it, Cissy's thigh is going to be squashing Rodolphus' balls.) She finds Narcissa's lips again, sucking desperately on her tongue.
They cry out, all three of them, Rodolphus against Bella's nape with his face buried in her hair, and Bellatrix and Narcissa into each other's mouths. They're close; Bella can feel it as they move together in a dance her mind has long since forgotten. Damn, I was probably a little heavy-handed with that concept.
One of Narcissa's hands moves beyond Bella's hip to grab at Rodolphus' arse (I doubt he's complaining about either this or the balls thing); the other strokes Bella's torso, cupping her breast on the way to her neck. "Trust me," she breathes, licking at Bella's lower lip, and white fingers gently bear down on Bella's throat. Bellatrix jerks her head away from the contact, but Narcissa makes a soothing noise, saying, "You loved this, once." And Bella has no chance to protest, surrendering to the insistent pressure of that hand. I sure do say "insistent" a lot!
Bellatrix's lungs spasm as they are denied air, and the rhythm falters for a moment before Rodolphus picks it up again. The delight is unbearable; Bella's vision goes spangled and white as her body screams for oxygen. She claws at Narcissa's back, writhing, and Cissy screams out her pleasure, waiting a split-second for Bella to follow before releasing her throat.
Air rushes into her lungs, unbearably, dizzyingly good as her cunt clamps down on Rodolphus' cock and waves of shockingly intense pleasure seem to stop time and narrow her world to the throbbing flesh between her legs. (For those of you who've never tried oxygen deprivation, that is, in fact, what it feels like. Nnggh.) She moans, exhausted, as Rodolphus spills inside her.
They slump against the counter, a sated, panting tangle of limbs (and if that mental picture doesn't turn you on, you are either sexless or dead). Rodolphus pulls away after a moment, presumably to clean himself up again, but the sisters cling fiercely to one another for a while longer.
"I thought I'd never see you again," Cissy says quietly against her hair. "I never thought to be afraid that you wouldn't remember me if I did." Awww, poor Narcissa. :(
Bella raises her head, but her protest dies on her lips, because she knows that Narcissa does not want to hear that her foremost memory of her younger sister is of brushing her hair. "I wish I could," she says, hiding in the curve of her sister's throat and fiddling with her ring again, as if it would help. Behold, the power of nervous tics.
Narcissa sighs. "I know."
They enter the dining room together, Bellatrix on Rodolphus' arm and Narcissa, looking every inch the gracious hostess, leading the way. Most of the people in the room are already eating, but Bella can hardly fault them for their rudeness. Yeah, delaying dinner to fuck the lady of the house is pretty damn rude.
Lucius' eyes follow Narcissa as she sits down. "So kind of you to finally join us," he says over his untouched plate, addressing his sister-in-law but still looking at his wife. Shit, Malfoy Manor must be positively drowning in politeness when Bella's not around.
"Terribly sorry, Lucius," Narcissa says, nonchalantly spearing an artichoke heart with her fork. "We must have lost track of time." Translation: I just had sex with my sister and her husband; fuck off. (I kid, I kid; Lucius/Narcissa OTP!)
Bella smiles into her water glass and remembers.
I don't like the ending much, but I usually don't like my endings anyway. Somebody on an anonymeme said that it seems like I run out of steam and/or interest somewhere in the middle of my stories, and that's probably a legitimate criticism (it's also why I always put the sex at the end, because porn keeps the reader's attention pretty much no matter what).
But all my worrying about whether or not
sionnain would like it was completely baseless, I'm pleased to say, and more importantly, I really feel like I accomplished exactly what I wanted to with this story. starrysummer probably should have smote me for turning it in so late, but it all worked out in the end.That's all she wrote, folks!
And y'all will be pleased to know that I got some more hetporn written, although the story is still not finished.
