Lightning Strikes Twice Ch. 36 (Harry Potter) (Patreon)

A/N: Harry lets Bella make her move. Narcissa finds her pleasant if overbearing life suddenly interrupted.

-x-X-x-

After a moment more of quiet contemplation while bouncing Bellatrix up and down on his cock, Harry makes his decision.

“Very well, Bella. I will allow you to try to convince your sister to willingly betray her husband and join our cause. But you will have to be careful about this. I don’t want you to risk yourself for Narcissa, alright? You matter more to me than her.”

Bella actually blushes a little bit at that, before all but lunging forward to cup his face in her hands and kiss him deeply.

“Thank you, Master. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Harry just grunts as their sex grows far more enthusiastic and energetic after that, Bellatrix’s excitement proving to be contagious. Even still, as he rolls them both over and pushes her down onto the bed, Harry looks her in the eye.

“Thank me once your sister is kneeling at my feet of her own volition, Bella. And I’m serious… I can’t afford to lose you. So… I suppose I’ll have to empower you.”

Bella moans under him, right up until he slides fingers into her mouth for her to suck on. At the same time, Harry opens up the connection between them, letting some of the magic he’d taken for himself flow down to Bellatrix. Of course, it’s still his magic, which means he can direct it in the way he wants. He’s not giving Bella any more power than she already had. She doesn’t need to be any better at killing or torturing others than she already is.

Instead, he focuses this gift of additional magic towards one thing and one thing only… subterfuge and stealth. For a moment, Bellatrix actually fades out of view completely underneath him, though he can still feel her lips and tongue on his fingers, her breast beneath his other hand, and her cunt wrapped tightly around his cock. He can also still feel her through their magical bond. Others however… even all but the most powerful revealing charms won’t expose her presence.

When she fades back into view a moment later, having quickly gained control of her newfound ability, Bella blinks up at him and then sucks all the more fervently at his digits, almost reverent in her actions as she gurgles happily at his gift.

Harry just grins.

“No excuses now, Bella. The only people who will see you are those who you want to be seen by from this point on.”

Pulling his fingers free, he watches as she nods her head.

“Yes, Master.”

Then, grabbing her by her tits and giving them a good hard squeeze, Harry sets out to really make Bellatrix scream. He’s done all he can to assist his loyal pet in her newest venture. What happens next will be up to Bella.

-x-X-x-

“Ta-ta for now, ladies!”

As the serving staff escort the last of her guests out of the private room of Diagon Alley’s fanciest and most expensive dining experience, Narcissa Malfoy leans back in her chair, sipping from the wine glass in her hand and letting out a soft sigh.

The rigors of holding court over the other noble wives of the Wizarding World are as exhausting and time consuming as ever. And for what, so that she can report on the latest gossip to her husband so that he has more tidbits of information to use against his peers in the Wizengamot?

Oh, but Narcissa knew she couldn’t truly complain. Not that much. Even if there was no love lost between her and Lucius, even if their marriage was one completely of convenience… at least their marriage had lasted. And at least they’d managed to stay out of Azkaban Prison.

Like happened all too often these days, Narcissa finds her thoughts moving in the direction of her sisters. She, Andy, and Bella had been thick as thieves when they were younger. Then Hogwarts happened and though they’d all been in Slytherin, at some point they’d begun drifting apart. Maybe because they were all in different years? If they’d been triplets, perhaps they could have stayed together better.

… Or perhaps Andromeda would always have married a Muggleborn who would foist a daughter on her before inevitably betraying her by taking some muggle woman into his bed and ultimately breaking up their marriage. Merlin that whole debacle was frustrating to say the least. And yet, even though their parents were gone, even though House Black was all but dead… Narcissa’s sister had made no effort to contact her. Not even once. Despite being a divorced single mother with a metamorphmagus of a daughter, Andromeda hadn’t even tried to apologize for her poor judgment.

If she had, Narcissa would have immediately accepted Andy’s apology and happily claimed her as sister again, damn whatever Lucius might have had to say about it. But alas, Andromeda was stubborn. Even the letter Narcissa had sent to give her condolences over the muggleborn’s infidelity had ultimately been rebuffed with all subsequent attempts at communications ignored.

Still, as… nonexistent as her relationship with Andromeda was at this point, Narcissa was well aware that things could be worse. Bellatrix was evidence of that.

After the Dark Lord’s fall, Narcissa had tried to reach out to Bella. She’d tried to get her older sister to listen to reason. Lucius had a plan, and it was one of the few times in her life where Narcissa had agreed with his plan. With Voldemort dead and their Dark Marks faded to almost nothing, it was their one opportunity to be free of all that foolishness. They could claim they were under the Imperius Curse and be exonerated of all their crimes.

But Bellatrix wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t hear of it. And so she and her husband and brother-in-law had rounded up a couple of other Death Eaters and done the unthinkable to the Longbottoms. The Lord and Lady of an Ancient and Noble House, tortured into insanity. The entire act was senseless, gratuitous, and overdone.

Narcissa supposed in Bella’s fractured mind, it was what had to be done. She couldn’t believe the Dark Lord was actually dead, so torturing two prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix for information on his whereabouts just made sense. As did disrupting the celebrations surrounding Voldemort’s defeat, which Bellatrix had taken as a personal insult.

And yet… in the end, what did it get her? She, Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Barty Crouch Jr. were all captured within a fortnight, and then shuffled off to Azkaban Prison. Narcissa had considered visiting once or twice over the years, but fear had stayed her hand. She didn’t want to experience the Dementors, even as a visitor. And more than that, if they wanted their Imperius Defense to continue holding up to any scrutiny, she and Lucius had to make it clear that they cared little for even former family members who claimed to have served the Dark Lord of their own volition.

… So yes, Narcissa supposed she could be doing a lot worse. She had a husband she had little love for, but who kept her in comfort and gave her quite a sizable allowance. She had a son who she loved, though with every year he became a little bit more like his father despite her efforts to curb his worst personality traits. And she had her freedom. Above all else, she had her freedom.

Truly, Narcissa Malfoy had no right to complain. So then why was she just so… done with it all?

“Hello Cissy.”

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Literally. Narcissa watches, nonplussed, as Bellatrix shimmers into view in the chair right beside her, coming out of absolutely nowhere. There’s a wide grin on her big sister’s face, even as she licks her lips and giggles.

“My, that was a rather boring and overbearing affair, wasn’t it? I thought they’d NEVER leave. Ah… please don’t scream.”

Raising an eyebrow, Narcissa looks down at her wine glass. Had she been drugged? Or was this just her own mind playing tricks on her? Either way… why not play along?

“Hello Bella. Good to see you.”

The look of surprise and confusion on the hallucination’s face almost makes Narcissa giggle, but she has more self-control than that. Still to see her sister so stupefied is quite the treat, even if it isn’t really her sister.

“… You don’t seem all that surprised to see me, Cissy.”

Shrugging, Narcissa takes a sip from her wine glass.

“That’s because it’s not really you, Bella. You’re a figment of my imagination. A product of a bored and weary mind.”

‘Bellatrix’ narrows her eyes at that.

“Is that so?”

Letting out a sigh, Narcissa nods before gesturing with her free hand.

“I mean… look at you. Sure you look older than the last time we saw each other, but you also look spectacular. Pretty much as good as me. Not like a woman who has spent the last fifteen years in Azkaban would look. Not to mention, if you’d escaped from Azkaban, we would have heard about it through Lucius’ contacts by now. Just like we heard about the loss of poor Rudolphus’ magic. Ergo… you aren’t really here. I’m just hallucinating you.”

It all made perfect sense to Narcissa. She wondered how a hallucination of Bellatrix being told she was a hallucination would react though. For a moment, Bella just sits there quietly… and then in a surge of motion, lunges forward and slaps Narcissa’s wine glass from her hand.

Now it’s Narcissa’s turn to be a little stupefied as Bellatrix looms over her, grabbing her by the jaw and digging in her nails just enough that it actually hurts a little bit.

“Real enough for you, sister?”

But…

“H-Heh… this is exactly what my mind would show me Bellatrix doing, so I’m afraid not.”

Sure, you weren’t supposed to be able to feel pain in a dream, but Narcissa had already clocked that she wasn’t dreaming, she was hallucinating. Her hallucination seemingly being able to interact with her was par for the course. Key word being seemingly.

A look of frustration spreads across Bellatrix’s face as she leans back for a moment. The hallucination doesn’t quite seem to know how to proceed.

That’s when the door to the private room opens and a server steps inside with their head bowed as they turn and close the door behind them.

“Lady Malfoy, may I-!”

Only, instead of vanishing like a hallucination would under the gaze of another, the server looks up and freezes, eyes wide as they behold Bellatrix Lestrange looming over Narcissa Malfoy in all of her prison broken glory.

“Stupefy!”

Just as their mouth opens to scream, Bellatrix snaps up a wand and hits them with a stunner, sending them to the ground in a heap. Cursing under her breath, the escaped convict walks around the table and kneels down over the server.

“Obliviate.”

Narcissa watches as her sister pulls the server up and sits them in a chair, draping them over it before finally looking back at Narcissa.

“We need to talk, Cissy.”

Oh fuck. She wasn’t hallucinating. Unless… but no, a quick check shows that her own wand is still in its holster. It wasn’t her. Bella wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Oh… fuck.

“Cissy… I told you not to scream before, remember? Please don’t make me do anything unfortunate.”

Swallowing thickly, Cissy leans back in her chair as Bellatrix comes back around the table to loom over her once more.

“B-Bella… how… how is this possible?”

A grin spreads across her crazed sister’s face as she flops back down into the chair she’d originally appeared in.

“Easy. My Lord freed me. And it would appear that nobody has noticed my disappearance yet, or you and Lucius would already know I was out and about. Merlin, the Ministry really is incompetent.”

Narcissa’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly as she processes all of that. First, the mention of a Lord. The Dark Lord couldn’t be back… could he? She ached to check her arm, to see if the Dark Mark had returned to full prominence on her flesh, but she didn’t dare move right now. Second… nobody had noticed her disappearance?! As horrifying as that was, it sort of made sense. The only reason that the guards at Azkaban Prison had even learned about Rudolphus was that the man hadn’t stopped screaming for help until they’d come to check up on him.

At which point… at which point he’d claimed some stupid story about how the Dark Lord himself had returned and taken Rudolphus’ magic. Utterly ridiculous of course… and yet…

There was the third thing that Narcissa noticed about Bellatrix’s speech. How… strangely sane she sounded. More than that, Narcissa had already noted it before, but Bellatrix looked good. She didn’t look like she’d spent a decade and a half in Azkaban, she looked amazing… she looked restored.

In the end, Narcissa sees no choice but to placate her sister.

“What… what does the Dark Lord ask of me and Lucius, Bella? We are his loyal s-servants of course, we never-!”

Narcissa cuts herself off as Bella gives her an unamused look. She starts trembling as her older sister leans closer.

“… You don’t have to lie to me, Cissy. Did I say the Dark Lord freed me? Of course not. He abandoned me. He abandoned all of us. He was… an unworthy Master.”

What? Narcissa’s mind blanks for a moment on Bellatrix’s words. To hear such a thing from her sister’s mouth… was this a test? Was Bella trying to test her loyalty?

“I… I am sure that-“

But Bellatrix presses a finger against Narcissa’s lips.

“Hush. Just listen, Cissy. You’re being silly. I serve a new Master now. A new Lord, even stronger than our old Lord. Look.”

Bellatrix bears her arm and shows Narcissa her Dark Mark. The Lady of House Malfoy’s eyes damn near bulge out of her skull at what she sees there. It’s the Dark Mark alright, and not faded like the one she and Lucius had had for years. It’s back to full prominence on Bella’s flesh… except it’s covered in chains. Wrapped up in them, like someone else had come in, usurped the Dark Lord’s control over Bella’s soul, and made it their own.

“Do you see, Cissy? The Dark Lord is a weak, worthless fool. But my new Lord is worthy of my loyalty and devotion.”

Something catches in Narcissa’s mind at those words and she can’t help herself.

“I-Is? The Dark Lord DOES still live?”

Here, Bellatrix scoffs.

“Of course he does, Cissy. The Dark Marks would have disappeared entirely had Voldemort died completely. The fact that his brands still exist means he exists as well. But not to worry, my Lord will deal with him in time. And he could be your Lord as well.”

Narcissa shivers as Bellatrix suddenly looks at her intently.

“Do you want to hear more, Cissy? Or do you want me to leave you alone? It has to be your choice. My Lord is very particular about consent. You must tell me here and now whether I should stay or go.”

Narcissa hesitates, curiosity warring with caution, interest warring with fear. And then she opens her mouth.