Voldemort felt Bellatrix’s breath against his neck as they lay in his chambers at Malfoy Manor. Her dark curls spilled across his chest, her body pressed against his, still shaking from their passionate encounter. The peace shattered when someone rapped at the chamber door thrice. Nagini.
Voldemort extracted himself from Bellatrix’s embrace, summoning his robes with a flick of his wand. Opening the door, he found his massive pet snake waiting. The great serpent slithered past him, her scales rustling on the carpet as she wound her way around his legs before stretching her head towards Bellatrix, who reached out to stroke it.
“Master,” Nagini hissed in Parseltongue, “two women have arrived. One older, one younger. The little one…” She made a sound remarkably like a snake’s version of disgust. “Her hair resembles regurgitated prey. Most unpleasant to look upon.”
Bellatrix, understanding every word thanks to the child growing within her—Voldemort’s child—let out a delighted laugh. Her hand went to her still-flat stomach as if on its own, though she quickly dropped it. She had to keep their secret.
“What do they want?” Voldemort demanded coldly.
Nagini’s coils tightened around his ankles. “I care not, Master. Though they would make a satisfying meal.”
Bellatrix cooed at the snake, trailing her fingers along Nagini’s scales. “Such a dear girl you are…”
“I’ll see to them,” Voldemort instructed Bellatrix before he left the room. Bellatrix’s face fell, but then she remembered the reason he’d left her there and smirked. She rose from the bed, pausing in front of the mirror to admire her naked body before summoning her clothes. She would join him, of course.
Voldemort’s black robes billowed behind him as he descended to the manor’s main hall. His lipless mouth curled in distaste the second he reached the bottom of the stairs and watched as Lucius and Narcissa struggled to contain two hysterical women—if one could call the shorter one a woman at all. The elder appeared to be in her early thirties, unremarkable in every way save for the desperation oozing from every fibre of her body. The younger one, barely more than a child, possessed what had to be the most unfortunate hair colour Voldemort had ever seen—a sickly shade between yellow and green that indeed resembled vomit.
“My Lord,” Lucius began in a constricted voice as he attempted to maintain his dignity and—Voldemort suppressed a smirk—regain his authority as he failed to restrain their visitors. “These are…Rose and Mila Monvoisin. They insisted upon seeing you.”
The older woman, Rose, suddenly yanked her companion aside. Pulling out her wand, she muttered a spell that transformed the girl’s revolting hair to a shade of golden blonde. With presumption as shocking as her audacity in thinking she could come here, she then shoved the girl, Mila, toward Voldemort.
He recoiled at once, every line of his face twitching with disgust. The sound of footfall made him turn to the stairs. Bellatrix was coming, and the stark contrast between his lover and these unwelcome visitors shocked Voldemort as much as it made him proud.
He curved up his mouth as he watched her descend the stairs like a queen. Her beauty was magnified by her haughtiness as well as her air of superiority. At forty-six, she was just as striking as she was before Azkaban—tall and sensual, with high cheekbones that could cut glass and a strong jaw that reminded him of the women in the Muggle magazines Mrs. Cole used to read. Of course, she was far more appealing to his sensibilities than any Muggle could ever have been. She tipped up her head, watching the scene with her heavy-lidded eyes and curled up her round lips disdainfully.
The transformation in Rose and Mila was instant and jarring. They hissed and snarled with ugly jealousy and then began shrieking like banshees, pointing their fingers accusatorily at Bellatrix.
“Old!” Mila screeched in the most grating voice Voldemort had ever heard. “Look how haggard she is!”
Rose joined in, both of them screeching so shrilly it hurt Voldemort’s ears. They hurled insults at Bellatrix whose wand appeared at once in her hand, a Cruciatus Curse forming on her lips, but Voldemort cast a Silencing Charm on the women before she could strike. What would cause two individuals to behave so vilely? He had to know. It was an almost scientific curiosity.
Emboldened by the spell, Mila lurched forward and clutched at Voldemort’s robes with her stubby fingers. His reaction was immediate and violent. He snarled with revulsion and cast a powerful cleaning charm on the spot she had touched. Taking Bellatrix’s hand, he pressed it against the same place, as if her touch alone could purify what Mila had sullied.
His foot shot out and hit Mila squarely on her head—too big for her tiny body, but without the brain to match its size—sending her sprawling. Blood spurted from her nose as she collapsed, crying pathetically on the marble floor. Rose rushed to her side and healed the injury with her wand, muttering about the wound making her ugly for the Dark Lord. She was horrible at magic, having to cast one spell five times for it to work.
“Please,” Rose begged Voldemort but avoided Bellatrix’s gaze. “Just hear us out.”
Voldemort’s fingers tightened around his wand, ready to end this farce and feed them both to Nagini. However, Bellatrix’s laughter stayed his hand.
“Oh, let’s hear what these creatures want, my Lord,” she said to him. She was amused and clearly wanted to play, and her exhilaration had never failed to arouse his own excitement. “Their desperation entertains me so much.”
Though Rose and Mila stiffened at the sound of Bellatrix’s voice, clearly fighting the urge to start shrieking again, they had no choice but to comply. They rose unsteadily to their feet—or rather, Rose rose while Mila merely achieved a slightly higher position. Her diminutive stature made her appear even more childlike. It was grotesque.
Standing beside the tall Bellatrix, Mila’s various…physical shortcomings became glaringly obvious. Her pudgy, childish face, coupled with her minimal height and the banshee-like quality of her voice, was profoundly unerotic. Even Peter Pettigrew, watching from a corner as always, stood at least a foot taller than her—a fact that only emphasised the wrongness of her presence. This wasn't just a very short woman. She had to be an actual child, and yet, she’d been trying to imitate the seductive qualities of older women—specifically, Bellatrix—since she’d arrived. Voldemort couldn’t help but grimace. He was many things, but into children he was not.
Rose began a rambling monologue about her infatuation with the Dark Lord, though her actions betrayed her words. With each declaration of attraction, she shrank further into herself, cowering and hiding as if terrified he might actually look at her. Her insecurity radiated from everything she said and her every movement.
The more she spoke, the more disgusted Voldemort became with her. Beside him, Bellatrix and Nagini glanced amusedly at each other, clearly mocking their guests. Draco, watching from where he stood with his parents, made a gagging sound. Even Wormtail no longer looked sycophantic as he usually did. Instead, he was looking at them with the same pity Voldemort imagined he looked in the mirror with.
“My Lord,” Rose stammered, but her eyes were fixed on the floor, “I know I’m unworthy—too old at thirty-three and plain…” She trailed off, leaving everyone stunned. At her age, she could hardly be considered old, though her plainness was undeniable. “But Mila…” She grabbed the shorter girl and thrust her forward again. “Mila could please you!”
Learning from her previous mistake, Mila kept her distance this time. However, her next actions was even more grotesque than her previous ones. She began mimicking Bellatrix’s every gesture—the tilt of her head that enhanced her heavily-lidded eyes but did nothing for Mila, the way she stood languidly yet regally, and even her manner of speaking.
“My Lord,” she simpered in a poor imitation of Bellatrix’s resonant voice, “I can be just like her.” She whirled suddenly, pointing her wand at Rose. “Crucio! That was just a taster!”
Bellatrix’s lip curled at this pathetic imitation of her earlier words to the Longbottom boy. This mockery of her moment of joy only made her more contemptuous towards this thing.
Rose, seemingly impervious to pain or dignity, pressed on. “She’s fifteen!” she shrieked, as if this fact would somehow appeal to the Dark Lord. “Fifteen! Young and blonde, while she,” she jabbed a finger toward Bellatrix, “is old and dark-haired and haggard!”
Voldemort let out a cold laugh while Bellatrix rolled her eyes, and Even Narcissa went saucer-eyed. Draco and Lucius shrugged at each other exasperatedly.
“And where exactly do you see this supposed haggardness?” Voldemort’s red eyes swept appreciatively over Bellatrix’s figure—her slim waist, full breasts, endlessly long legs, all emphasised by her velvety crimson robes. The contrast with Mila’s stunted, childish body could not have been starker.
“You misunderstand entirely why Bellatrix is the only being I’ve ever truly cared for,” he continued dangerously. “Her beauty, extraordinary though it is, remains secondary to who she is. She alone has accepted me completely—embraced my darkness rather than attempting to transform me into someone who is…weak.”
“But she’s just useful to you!” Mila protested again. Voldemort winced, his hand shooting up to cover his ears to protect them from her irritating voice. “A servant!”
Voldemort laughed bitterly. “How I wish that were true. If usefulness were all she offered, I wouldn’t have sacrificed so much to save her at the Ministry. I had the chance to escape unseen, but my…” his lip curled, “weakness for her compelled me to save her before disapparating. I revealed myself to the entire Ministry, risked capture and attack, sabotaged my own plans, and lost the opportunity to see Dumbledore imprisoned. No one wishes more than I that Bellatrix were merely a servant, but she’s far more—a weakness I’ve learned to manage while enjoying her…considerable charms.”
Those words triggered the hysteria in Rose and Mila, and they kept shaking their heads in denial though they had learned enough to swallow their shrieks. They clutched at each other and wept.
“No,” Mila wailed softly, “you can’t want her. You’re just trying to make me jealous.”
“Make you jealous?” said Voldemort contemptuously. “You don’t even exist to me. You are nothing. I am seventy-one years old—how exactly is Bellatrix, at forty-six, old? And whatever your sordid little fantasies might be, I have no interest in children. This isn’t about morality—you simply repulse me on every level.”
Mila stared at him, her childish features looking even rounder with the shock. “How can you not want me?”
“You’re my age,” Draco interjected, “and you disgust even me.”
“It’s the desperation,” Bellatrix observed, “far more than her obvious aesthetic shortcomings. First, she’s a mere child, and the Dark Lord has no patience for stupid children. Second, her pathetic attacks on me—someone so clearly her superior in every conceivable way—reveal such profound insecurity. It’s really quite beneath contempt.”
Their assessment hit its mark. Rose and Mila sank further as their dreams shattered before everyone’s eyes. They had come seeking validation and found only the brutal destruction of their delusions.
Anyone with even an ounce of dignity would have left then, but Rose, in one final act of desperate idiocy, turned to Mila. “Show him!” she commanded. “Take off your robes—seduce him!”
Before anyone could stop her, Mila obeyed, and chaos erupted.
The moment her robes fell away, Voldemort spun away at once, his wand already at his temple as he cast a memory charm on himself to obliterate the horrific image. Bellatrix collapsed into the nearest chair, cackling wildly. She was unable to stop.
Draco’s reaction was the most visceral still—he doubled over and violently emptied the contents of his stomach onto the marble floor. Lucius appeared moments away from joining his son. His pale face had turned alarmingly green, and Narcissa, practical as always, had seized both her husband and son, attempting to drag them from the hall. Draco, however, resisted her efforts, continuing to retch—now directly onto Rose and Mila.
The sight of Mila’s body explained everyone’s extreme reactions. She possessed the physique of a child, completely devoid of any womanly development, which made sense given her age. No curves, no breasts, nothing to suggest physical maturity. The contrast between her and Bellatrix could not have been more stark—where Bellatrix was sensual, Mila appeared as nothing more than a grotesque parody of a human.
“Well,” Bellatrix managed between peals of laughter, “it seems Draco has solved our nudity problem. You’re quite covered now, aren’t you?”
Indeed, both Rose and Mila stood drenched in vomit, looking horrified and humiliated. Draco, still heaving, seemed intent on ensuring no inch of them remained untouched by his involuntary contribution to their degradation.
“My Lord,” Bellatrix called out, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, “you may turn around now. I assure you, Draco’s vomit has made the view far less offensive.”
Voldemort turned cautiously, his face relaxing slightly when he saw she spoke truth. With a casual wave of his wand, he eliminated the worst of the smell, though he left the visual evidence of their shame intact. His red eyes blazed murderously as he raised his wand toward the pair.
“Wait!” Bellatrix straightened in her chair, eyes darting from Voldemort to Rose and Mila, her chest heaving. “The fun has only just begun, my Lord. Surely we shouldn’t end their suffering so quickly?”
Voldemort gave her an indulgent smile as he lowered his wand. “Always so creative, Bella. Very well—what did you have in mind?”
Rose and Mila remained frozen in their misery, soaked in vomit and still sobbing. “You can’t,” Rose whispered brokenly. “You can’t possibly want her.”
“Can’t I?” He crossed to where Bellatrix sat, pulling her to her feet roughly. She complied, gripping his arms as he tangled his long fingers in her dark hair and kissed her hard, making quite clear exactly how much he wanted her.
Bellatrix submitted eagerly and passionately, letting him do whatever he wanted and moaning in response, though she kept enough presence of mind to cast a quick silencing charm on their unwanted audience. She followed this with conjured ropes, binding Rose and Mila in place, forcing them to watch. Between kisses, she cast Cruciatus Curses.
When they finally broke apart, Bellatrix wrapped her arms around Voldemort’s neck, pressing herself against him. He stroked her hair, but something in her demeanour made him pause. “What troubles you, Bella?”
She cast her gaze down, letting out a shaky breath before glancing up at him through lowered lashes. “My Lord…when I’m truly old…would you leave me for a younger woman? Perhaps not now, but…”
Voldemort’s laughed, shaking his head. “Oh Bella,” he murmured, tilting her chin up. “For someone so brilliant, you occasionally display remarkable foolishness. I, the only man who saw you beyond your extraordinary beauty all those years ago and made you into the prodigious witch you are today, leave you? Is that not why you are so deeply devoted to me?”
He stroked her chin as he continued, “I see you, Bellatrix, stripped of all illusions—just as you see me. That acceptance binds us in a way that pains me, and yet I cannot get rid of you. How could anyone else compare?”
A smile played on Bellatrix’s lips. “And yet…”
“I allowed you to carry my child,” he reminded her, pressing his hand over her stomach. “Would I entrust any other witch with such a part of myself? How can you doubt after that?”
Nagini slithered forward then, wrapping herself around the couple. For a brief instant, they created a strangely perfect picture—the feared Dark Lord, his devoted lieutenant, and the great serpent. Beautiful but dangerous.
The moment shattered when the silencing charm wore off. Rose and Mila’s hysterical sobbing resumed, their vomit-soaked bodies thrashing where they were bound.
“Kill us,” Rose begged. “Please, just end it. We can’t…we can’t bear…”
“Shall I let you play with them a bit longer, my dear?” Voldemort offered, his fingers still gripping Bellatrix’s dark curls.
Bellatrix considered the pitiful pair for a moment before shaking her head. “They’ve grown boring. Let Nagini have them—she’s been so patient.”
“Very well.” Voldemort pressed one more kiss to her lips. “Clean them up first—I’d rather not subject even Nagini to Draco’s…contribution. I’d do it myself, but I refuse to look at that child again.”
He turned to leave, then paused, pulling Bellatrix against him once more. He squeezed her waist as he whispered, “Join me soon. I find myself…hungry for you again.”
After he left the hall, Bellatrix cast a quick cleaning charm on the two prisoners. Switching to Parseltongue, she called to Nagini, “Dinner’s ready.”
The great snake uncoiled herself, tongue flicking out to taste the air. “Thank you, Bellatrix,” she hissed. “No wonder Master chose you. You truly are the best.”
Bellatrix’s proud smile turned into a grin as she watched Nagini approach her prey. Mila’s shrieks grew louder and even more desperate as the snake began to unhinge her jaw. Rose had gone quiet, resigning herself to their fate.
Satisfied that Nagini had everything well in hand, Bellatrix turned toward the stairs. After all, she had far more pleasurable things to do in the Dark Lord’s chambers.