Bad Romance

Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Those Were the Days

Rodolphus suddenly rose from his chair, nearly knocking it over. His expression was strained and his entire body was tense.

"Rod," Bellatrix said, the word half question, half demand. "Where are you going?"

"Nowhere," he replied. "I'm just standing up. I needed to stop looking at that. I needed space from...that memory, to put physical distance between me and it."

Finally he was showing some emotion about what happened to them, Bellatrix thought. She supposed looking at it gave him no choice.

"He was horrible," Lyra breathed. "So inhuman. His expressions were even cruel! If I didn't know better, I never would've believed he was sitting among loyal followers. He didn't give that impression in the least."

She still held Bellatrix's hand as she spoke, and Bellatrix clung back, glad of any affection or support from her daughter, even if it was inspired by the horrors of their former Dark Lord.

"Yeah, he seemed to be slipping for sure, and we were all frightened and confused most of the time," Rabastan said.

Taking a deep breath, Lyra returned her gaze to the Pensieve, and Bellatrix forced herself to do so as well. She watched as the Dark Lord insulted her family because of the stupid Tonks girl. She watched herself cry and cringe, recalling the acute shame and humiliation she'd felt over that. More than that, though, she'd felt entirely worthless because she belonged to the family that so displeased the Dark Lord. It undermined all of her accomplishments and everything she'd done for him. It must, else why would he be so disgusted and unkind?

Everyone except for Rod watched as Bellatrix's tears switched from those of shame to those of gratitude when the Dark Lord ever so kindly allowed her to wipe the blemish from her family tree. She was so elated and grateful! She could've kissed his boots and, in fact, very much wanted to do so in order to fittingly display her gratitude. She knew he was volatile, though, and did not wish to do anything he may consider unnecessary. Recalling those memories made her shudder in horror and disgust. "It's horrid recalling those feelings while now understanding why they were so all-consuming," she murmured, huddling in on herself in the chair.

"I...umm...I now know you did what you did to keep me from him, and...just...thank you," Lyra said, voice shaking slightly. "I'm sorry he messed with your heads like that. I can see it in everything you do in these memories. Knowing what I do now, it's so obvious."

"Thanks," Rodolphus said tightly, but the smile he gave his daughter was genuine. Lyra nodded and extended her free hand to him. "Come and sit with us again. Let's look at a better memory. I want to see you all when you were younger."

Rodolphus nodded and resumed his seat as Bellatrix returned her memories to her head. She was glad those were over, though re-examining them had been...enlightening. Rodolphus extracted some of his own memories and placed them into the Pensieve. Curious what he considered worthy to show Lyra, Bellatrix leaned forward eagerly to see.

In the memory, Rodolphus and Bellatrix were ten and Rabastan was five. The families had gotten together for some sort of summer solstice party at the Lestrange home. Bellatrix quickly grew bored with the other girls talking about dresses and hair styles so wandered outside to look for Rodolphus. He and Rabastan were going up into their tree house, and she asked if she could join them. Rod was such the gentleman as he carefully placed his hands onto her waist to swing her up and inside.

"You made me feel so safe and protected," she told him with a fond smile. She liked this memory. In truth it was one of her most cherished.

"Good," Rodolphus said, grinning back. "I was thinking how pretty you were, even then, but at that point I was too young to know what I wanted to do about it."