In Shadows & Sun

Home Again

Oh, no, no, don't leave me alone lonely now
If you loved me how'd you never learn?
Oh, coloured crimson in my eyes
One or two could free my mind
This is how it ends.
I feel the chemicals burn in my bloodstream
Fading out again.
I feel the chemicals burn in my bloodstream
So tell me when it kicks in
Bloodstream
Ed Sheeran

Bellatrix apparated to outside her home and then quickly decided she couldn't go in . She left again landing instead in Diagon Alley. She headed to Knockturn Alley and picked up some things to take her mind off the events of the last two days.

She'd found escaping reality to be the only way to deal with it. She was slipping, losing more and more of herself. She no longer cared.

She rented a room at the Leaky Cauldron where she cried until she felt the effects of the Knockturn smokables and illicit potions in her bloodstream, letting them take over her mind.

Narcissa had it out with Lucius. He telling her Bellatrix was right, telling her that Bellatrix was right. Of course he didn't tell her who it was. He finished his glass of fire whiskey and stayed in his study, Narcissa crying didn't want to be near him and went out into the gardens.

~~~~~~~~

Bellatrix awoke sometime the following day with a splitting headache in her bed at home. She jumped, startled not knowing how she'd gotten there. Rodolphus came in, having heard her wake, with a glass of water. She jumped at the sight of him reaching at the bedside table for her wand. It wasn't there and she began to panic.

Until she saw his face.

He looked contrite, he looked like he was choking back tears.

"I'm sorry Belle. I was so worried when I sobered up and you weren't here. And I remembered. God. I remembered what I had done. Belle I'm so sorry. I spent all day looking for you. The Cauldron notified me when you showed up. "

He held up a few empty vials.

"You have to stop taking things like this. You're going to kill yourself" he said sitting across the room, knowing he had no right to be near her.

"Maybe I want to. "She replied, bringing them both to tears.

~~~~~~~

That evening Lucius drank a few fire whiskeys and then slunk into bed, passing out in the bliss of the fire whiskey and woke some time in the morning with a glass of water on the bedside cabinet and the space next to him empty. He sat up and drank the glass of water and went into the bathroom to take a bath. '

~~~~~~

Bella and Rod talked most of the night, mostly consisting of him apologising and crying and Bellatrix feeling sick at the course her life had taken.

She finally asked him to hold her and fell apart in his arms sobbing until she fell asleep but not before her own apologies were spoken and offerings, not promises, she never made promises, to try and give them a chance. That she'd focus on him.

She'd lost Lucius. Rod didn't know that, but she had and so she was going to try and have a real marriage. They both awoke early in the morning to a burning on their left forearms.

~~~~

Lucius was undressing to get ready to have a bath when he felt the burning on his forearm. In all the fog of the last few days he'd forgotten he even had the mark so it took him especially by surprise. He dressed quickly and tried to gather his senses. He went down and found Narcissa in the dining room, eating her breakfast.

"I need to go. The mark." He said from the hallway.

She waved him away. He was certain she didn't believe him but he'd probably return with some sort of proof. He went into the hallway and apparated to the meeting point. His stomach turning, his anxiety at its worst.

**********
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars to go waltzing out in blue and red.
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit Seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
"Mad Girl's Love Song"
Sylvia Plath