Paradox | T. Riddle ✔

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~ T.W: This chapter contains content that might be upsetting. Reader discretion is advised. Mentions of psychological manipulation, sexual assault and torture are included so please don't read if it makes you uncomfortable.~

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"Do you like to be held in chains, Bella?"

His silken yet deadly voice made her hair stand up on one end, each cell of her body fired up in a mixture of fear and curiosity.

"If it pleases you, my Lord, then so be it," she replied, her shrill voice lowered to a light quiver.

Her wrists were bound together tightly with the metal chains suspended from the ceiling and her bare feet hardly touched the ground. She was strung up in the cold prison cells down in the same dungeons where Regulus and Esmeralda had been kept.

"You have failed what I expected from you," he resumed in that lethal tone, "as a loyal servant, you're supposed to know your place and your duty. You are supposed to follow orders. Yet you disobeyed me. And you know very well that I punish those who are disobedient."

She knew what would happen next and braced herself as a Cruciatus curse struck her, each fiber of being setting alight with excruciating pain. Her body shook violently under the curse and at first she tried to hold in her screams but couldn't any longer as the curse intensified.

A shrill scream of pain ripped apart from her but the dungeons were enchanted to not let any sound out. No one except lord Voldemort could hear her screams at the moment.

By the time he withdrew the curse, she was panting for breath, her body feeling as if a thousand knives had brutally cut her up. Tears welled up in her eyes but she held them at bay, knowing full well that if Lord Voldemort was punishing her, it was because she had been the one on fault.

She deserved that punishment and she would have to bear it.

The Cruciatus was just the beginning.

"Eleanor is mine," he hissed, the chains tightening on Bellatrix's wrists so much so that red marks were beginning to show on her pale skin, "only I am allowed to hurt her. Only I am allowed to see to it whether she should be chained or not."

"I beg mercy, my Lord," her voice trembled and was no more than a rasp, realizing that his mood was worse than she had expected and that could end up in even terrible punishment for her. Even if she was a sadist and a masochist, the pain he could wreck on her in his anger would be unbearable. "I only chained her up so that she wouldn't escape. She was trying to poison my Cissy's ears, begging her to help her escape."

"She can not escape whether she's chained up or not," he stated, confident in his words, "and Narcissa knows very well what would befall her if she dares to help Eleanor. Your sister is a smart woman, Bella, she will not put her own life at risk. You acted out of your own accord. You disappointed me."

"I am sorry, my Lord, please forgive me."

His finger fitted under her chin as he tilted her head up, making her look at him. Those serpentine red eyes were glistening in amusement as if the entire ordeal was giving him some sick sort of pleasure.

She had a pretty face, he thought, with her large ink black eyes, cupid bow lips and her sharp tongue. She was indeed very striking.

He remembered the first time he had seen Bellatrix Black and taken a twisted fantasy to her because she somehow reminded him of Eleanor.

Fiery, independent, cruel with her words and dangerously beautiful.

But in spite of all, she could not compete with Eleanor Troy. There could not be another like her.