The Wild Hunt

At the casual mention of her impending death, Rita Skeeter began to scream.

"I've already cast a silencing charm in here, so go ahead and howl your throat ragged," Rabastan called to the blonde over her own racket. "No one shall hear you but us, and we enjoy the sound of screams."

Rodolphus smirked. "That we do."

Bellatrix smiled in satisfaction as Rod lowered Skeeter into the bathtub with a flick of his wand. With a flick of hers, she thrust the woman under the water, effectively silencing her screams. She struck her with a body bind when she started to thrash. After around five seconds, she yanked Skeeter back up with another flick. While Skeeter choked, spluttered, and gasped, Bellatrix drained the bath with a final flick, leaving the woman sopping wet and huddled in her tub.

"Move and I kill you," Bellatrix said calmly. "Now are you ready to answer my questions?"

Skeeter's hand was shaking as she used it to push dripping hair out of her eyes. "I told you, I don't know what you want!"

"Well, that isn't exactly what you said, and we don't believe you regardless," Rabastan spoke from where he idly leaned against the door jam.

"Why did you say I shagged the Dark Lord," Bellatrix asked carefully. She was struggling not to lose it, because she hated the very thought so much. She wanted to make Rita Skeeter pay for writing those words until she was beyond sorry.

"I mean she said so, didn't she?" Skeeter demanded. "Delphini. So I wrote it."

"She said it first, not you?" Bellatrix demanded, truly not knowing what to believe.

Rita blinked in confusion. "That is...I think she did… Sometimes I have dreams that give me ideas, so if I had a dream… but no, I think she said it first."

She didn't sound fully certain of herself. The comment she made about dreams unsettled Bellatrix, due to what Roger Bulstrode had revealed about Jekyll and his family having some dream enemy who was dealing with Delphini for whatever fucked reason.

"Crucio," Bellatrix screamed, and Skeeter screamed back only with no words as she thrashed in the tub.

"Watch she doesn't hit her head," Rabastan warned and Bellatrix turned to glare at him.

"You bloody watch her head! Use a padding charm or something. Can't you see I'm busy? Make yourself useful!" Turning back to Skeeter she continued, her voice restored to calm, until Skeeter set her off again. "What about Dumbledore? Why did you say he was gay with Grindelwald, of all people? It isn't even as if the two would be friends, for Merlin's sake. One sickeningly kind, wise, and open minded. The other a respectable Muggle-hating soul who had plans to fix the wizarding world until he was so rudely interrupted."

Skeeter blinked in surprise. "I… Well, that one I honestly didn't think anyone would believe! Besides, he was dead at the time or at least everyone bloody thought he was! That's hardly my fault that he faked his death. Rather inconsiderate of him, I might add," she complained. "I just wanted to...you know, write something that would sell. Please stop hurting me! I...well, I hadn't sold anything big in months, nearly a year, actually, and...I need to pay my rent too, you know. Besides, if we're being honest I missed the sensational attention."

She peered up at the three Lestranges incredulously. "I'm expected to believe that you really care about what I say of Albus do-gooder Dumbledore? And if it's Grindelwald whose reputation you care about, which is frankly more logical to my mind, he's long dead so I should hardly think he'd mind a girl making a galleon or two."

As she was the last person on earth, or any other world, that they'd tell Grindelwald was actually alive, they made no comment. Instead Bellatrix asked her another question. "Why the Lily/Snape rubbish? Because we all know that wasn't true. I mean it's bloody Snape," she sneered.

Skeeter looked momentarily confused, but when Bellatrix scowled impatiently and lifted her wand, the blonde gasped and began talking. "Just...I don't know...it came to me one night, you know… And I knew how he'd hate it, you know people thinking he was after James Potter's lady. And most important of all, I believed him dead at the time, just like with Dumbledore!"

There went the dream rubbish again, Bellatrix thought darkly. It was beginning to give her a headache, mostly because at this point it was quite beyond her comprehension. She should speak to Grindelwald on the matter as gaining a tighter grasp on it may not be unwise if it was possible.

"You believed me to be dead when you wrote that filth about me shagging the Dark Lord too. Talking about powerful wizards only when you believe them to be dead and unable to defend themselves is disgusting and pathetic. You make me sick," Bellatrix hissed, leaning over the tub to jab her wand into Skeeter's face.

The woman shrieked and cringed back satisfyingly before Bella even cast a curse. She chuckled.

"So afraid of a little well deserved pain, but not too afraid to keep your mouth shut or your quill still," she said scathingly. Leaning closer, backing Rita into a corner of her bathtub, Bellatrix continued. "Shallow perverts like you who confuse religious fervor with animal lust, or romantic interest, taint the very concept of true religious commitment to a cause and thus to its grand leader. That is a thing you are too shallow to grasp. When it truly comes down to it, you believe in nothing but fear."

Laughing, Bellatrix leaned into the tub, jamming her wand into Rita's chest. "And tonight, Queen of the Quills, we will teach you all the ins and outs of fear!"

Bellatrix traced little circles on the wet fabric of Rita Skeeter's business style blouse as if idly considering what to do next. In truth, she was just drawing out the woman's fear, making her wait for it, and allowing her dread to build.

Skeeter began to scream sob as Bellatrix chuckled, relishing the woman's rising hysteria as though it were a drug. In its way, it was… and for the other two Lestranges as well.

Rodolphus and Rabastan pressed in on either side of Bellatrix against the edge of the tub, their wands also pointing at Skeeter.

"Formidilosus," Rodolphus murmured and Bellatrix cackled with glee, because her husband had just cast a very potent fear spell on Skeeter. As was the case for all of Rod's spells, it was beautiful in that it served to enhance what the woman already held closest to her heart of hearts. If she wanted to live a life of fear, twisting the lives of others to suit her needs, she would die the same way.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix screamed, jabbing her wand wildly at Skeeter's chest, throat, and face while the woman thrashed in an attempt to evade her.

Sighing in boredom, Rabastan hit her with a body bind.

"And this is for Snape," Bellatrix said, smirking at her own wit as she spoke the next curse. "Sectumsempra."

Skeeter's chest was suddenly peppered by small cuts, and the sight of the pretty red blood seeping through the matching holes in her shirt made Bellatrix's eyes glitter.

"How do you get that twisted wrong energy into the words that you write, Skeeter," Bellatrix asked, her voice mostly calm but still testy. "If you don't want this to get way worse, answer truthfully and answer well."

Skeeter's eyes rolled up to Bellatrix, and the look in them was crazed with pain and terror. "I don't put anything into my words," she cried. "You bloody crazy..."

"Wrong answer," Bellatrix sang out, interrupting the pathetic excuse for a journalist with another Crucio followed up by a far more vicious Sectumsempra than the last one. Causing far deeper cuts on the woman's arms and consequently shredding the sleeves of her boring blouse.

As she opened her mouth to scream, Rabastan cackled and leaned forward, aiming his wand at her open mouth. "Watch this," he told his brother and sister-in-law. "Sectumsempra!"

The next time Skeeter screamed, blood came gushing from her mouth from the cuts Rabastan had made on her tongue and the insides of her cheeks, as well as her lips.

"Sweet, Bro," Rodolphus murmured with an appreciative chuckle.

Rabastan grinned at his older brother before turning back to Skeeter. "That means stop lying, Cow," he told her, fixing her with a hard glare as he shook his wand menacingly at her mouth. "More lies come out of there and I bleed it again. Got it?"

"I didn't lie!" Rita screamed, hysteria rising in her voice.

"Ah," Bellatrix crooned. "So you're just too stupid to understand the truth we need you to tell. I see." She scowled. This was going to get complicated and thus require a bit more finesse. That always tended to put a damper on the fun, but they were all intelligent and skilled wizards. They would manage.

"Are you aware that your words have magic and can cast spells that negatively affect those about whom you write," Rodolphus asked carefully.

Skeeter blinked, seemingly struggling to piece Rod's words together into something she could process. This was her night for looking stupid, Bellatrix thought in frustration as she scowled darkly down at her.

"I won't break your mind as we did the Longbottoms. You shan't receive that mercy," Bellatrix said in a nearly gentle whisper.

Skeeter must have seen the solid promise in her glittering gaze, for she dropped her head and began to sob in racking terror-filled hitches. "I don't mean to DO anything to anyone with my words," she managed after a few seconds. As she spoke her eyes were pleadingly on Rod. He had asked her the question, after all. "Of course I don't expect people to like what I write about them, but who does when it's the sort of stories I report? I am aware of that, but it's journalism."

"No," Bellatrix said tartly. "Yours is far worse in so many ways." Lunging forward, her wand flashed out at Rita's face again. "Crucio! Crucio! Crucio! Sectumsempra!"

The cuts on Skeeter's upper body deepened and the blood began to flow down her torso like tears. Bellatrix smiled, appreciating the concept of Skeeter's body crying. Her gray blouse was nearly in shreds and the blood pattered down onto her matching gray pencil skirt.

Perhaps the woman was aiming for some classic style from the early fifties with her business outfit, but to Bellatrix it reeked of Muggle fashion influences. Of course it would, she thought contemptuously. Her reporting tactics, if one could even call them that, were very Muggle-like as well. This didn't truly bother Bellatrix, though. It was just one more thing Rita Skeeter deserved to suffer for.

"I suppose she might be telling the truth," Rodolphus mused idly as he tapped his wand thoughtfully against his right thigh. "If she does believe those she writes the worst things about are actually dead, I suppose she can't intend her words to do anything unpleasant to them."

"Exactly," Rita bleated desperately. "And I wouldn't know how to do anything to anyone with mere words if I tried! If I could, would I be sitting in my own bloody bathtub allowing myself to be tortured by you lot?"

"Good point, actually," Rabastan said with a grin.

For some reason, Rita was encouraged by this and attempted a weak smile in return. "I mean, you know what they say about sticks and stones breaking bones and that words can never hurt us," she said.

"Well...as it turns out, they were wrong," Bellatrix hissed, leaning toward Skeeter again. "In fact, this one right here is going to hurt you quite a lot. CRUCIO!"

Rodolphus gave a low chuckle and aimed his wand at Skeeter's feet. "Infernium."

Bellatrix cackled gleefully because that was a good one! The spell would not cause the feet to physically burn, but it certainly made them feel as if they were on actual fire.

Rita kicked and screamed, heels pummeling against the bottom of the tub in agony.

"Talk about the magic in your quill or I shall make you dance on those feet," Rodolphus promised flatly.

His eyes were now glittering just as eagerly as Bellatrix's. He caught her right hand in his as her left held her wand, and the two began to sway together to the rhythm of Rita's drumming heels. Bellatrix grinned happily up at Rod. Now things were getting fun. It was exulted moments like these when the Lestranges truly felt alive.