The manor crouched on the edge of the wasteland, a black scar against the sky. Its ancient stone drank the moonlight and gave nothing back. Since the day his father's heart gave out under the curse, Elias Thorne had lived here alone—a boy who already carried too many secrets now left to guard the manor and its own.
Tonight the study smelled of old wax, rust, and something sharper: blood.
Elias knelt inside a circle drawn in obsidian dust and belladonna residue. The runes weren't Latin, nor any recognized runic script. They were older, the sort that would turn Ministry scholars pale and make the Silent Ones hungry. He had copied them line by line from the scorched pages of a book his great-grandmother tried to burn before she died.
At the center lay three things:
A small silver box, once the property of the Black woman who married into the Lestrange line.
A vial of Elias's own blood, still warm.
A single long black hair, taken from a Death Eater cloak he'd bought six months earlier in Knockturn Alley.
Three years of preparation. Not madness—though plenty would call it that—but exhaustion. Exhaustion with the war, with the Ministry's strings, with two old men playing chess using everyone else's lives. Voldemort wanted dominion. Dumbledore wanted control disguised as salvation. Elias wanted neither. He wanted power that answered only to him.
And Bellatrix Lestrange, sane or not, was the sharpest blade he could find.
He spoke the incantation. Each word tasted of rust. The air grew thick, pressing against his skin. The candles burned unnaturally straight, as if afraid to flicker. At the final syllable he drew the knife across his palm again—deeper this time—and let the blood fall onto the hair.
The circle ignited.
Not with fire. With absence. Light bent inward and vanished. A cold wind fell from nowhere. Elias felt something hook behind his sternum and pull. He didn't fight it. The entire ritual had been built for this moment.
Then the world tore.
A scream ripped through the room—high, furious, more animal than human. The air snapped back to normal, and she was there.
Bellatrix Lestrange stood barefoot in the ruined circle, still wearing the ragged Azkaban robes. Her hair hung in black ropes around a face shaped by rage. Her wand—somehow still in her grip—snapped toward him.
"Cruciatus—"
The word never finished.
An invisible chain snapped taut between them.
Elias felt ribs shift, blood surge, two hearts slamming against each other trying to find the same rhythm. Bellatrix staggered, eyes wide, pupils swallowing the irises. Her arm froze mid-motion.
She tried again, lips tight.
"Avada Kedavra—"
Nothing. The green light sparked and died before it could form.
She screamed—wordless this time—and lunged, free hand reaching for his throat.
Elias didn't move. The bond wouldn't let him. They were locked together like flies in amber.
Her fingers stopped an inch from his skin.
She stared at her own hand as though it had betrayed her. Then her gaze crawled up to his face. Recognition came slowly, cold and lethal.
"You," she hissed. "Thorne. That half-blood who calls himself pure."
"Pure enough," Elias said quietly.
He rose. Slowly. Every movement careful, so she could feel it. The connection between them throbbed—hot, alive, forged in blood and will. He could feel her pulse beating in his own wrist.
"What have you done?" Her voice cracked—not with fear, not yet. With a fury so complete it sounded almost like grief.
"I married you."
She laughed. The sound was glass breaking under deep water.
"Married." She tasted the word like poison. "You think a ritual can claim me? Me?"
"The ritual doesn't ask. It binds. Soul to soul. Blood to blood. You can't kill me. You can't leave me. And while it holds…" He let the sentence hang.
Her eyes narrowed. "I feel it. Chains inside my veins."
"Good. Then you understand."
She took a step forward. The bond allowed it. Another. She stopped close enough that he could smell Azkaban's cold damp still clinging to her, mixed with old blood.
"You think this makes me yours?" she whispered.
"I think this makes us each other's. Like it or not."
She studied him then—really studied. Not the quiet boy from the back of the Slytherin common room, but the man who had dragged her across years and death to stand in his library at three in the morning.
"You're taller than I remember," she said at last.
"Six years will do that."
"And stupider, apparently." Her lips curled. "Do you have any idea what you've pulled me out of?"
"I know exactly what I pulled you out of. A cell. A madman who treats you like a favorite knife. A war you were losing."
Her face changed—something quick and vicious. "I don't lose."
"You were losing," he said. "The Dark Lord was coming apart. You felt it, didn't you? The cracks in his mind bleeding into yours."
She said nothing. That was answer enough.
Elias stepped closer. The bond thrummed, low and dangerous.
"I'm not him," he said. "I don't want worship. I don't want followers screaming my name. I want someone who can stand beside me when the world burns and not flinch. Someone who knows mercy is a luxury we can't afford."
Bellatrix tilted her head. "And you think that's me."
"I know it is."
She laughed again—sharper, more dangerous. "You're delusional."
"Maybe. But you're here."
Silence stretched. The candles had burned to stubs. Outside, wind hammered the windows.
Bellatrix raised her wand until the tip rested over his heart.
"Test it," she said softly. "See how far the leash goes."
Elias met her eyes. "Go ahead."
She whispered the killing curse.
Nothing.
She tried again. Louder. Angrier. The green spark flared and went out like a match underwater.
Her hand shook—not with fear. With something darker. Betrayal, maybe. Or recognition.
"You bastard," she breathed.
"I know."
She lowered the wand. Then stepped closer until their bodies nearly touched. The bond beat between them like a second heartbeat.
"You think this is love?" she asked. Her voice was silk over steel. "This… tether?"
"No. This is necessity." Elias lifted his bleeding hand. Blood dripped slowly between them. "Love might come later. Or it might not. Either way, we're bound now. You can fight it. You can hate me. But you can't run."
Bellatrix stared at the blood. Then at his face. Something shifted behind her eyes—curiosity, perhaps. Or hunger.
"And if I decide to make your life hell instead?"
He gave a small, tired smile. "Then at least it won't be boring."
For a long moment neither moved.
Then she reached out—not to strike, but to touch. Her fingers brushed the cut on his palm. She pressed hard. Fresh blood welled.
Elias didn't flinch.
She lifted her red-stained hand and dragged it slowly across his cheek, leaving a deliberate, possessive mark.
"You'll regret this," she said. Not a threat. A promise.
"I already do," he answered. "Every second since I started the ritual."
Her mouth curved. Not quite a smile. Something hungrier.
"Good."
She turned and walked away, bare feet silent on the stone. The bond let her reach the edge of the circle before it tugged—gentle, unyielding.
She stopped. Looked back over her shoulder.
"Where's my room, husband?"
The word sounded wrong and exactly right coming from her.
"Upstairs. Third door on the left. It was… prepared."
"Prepared." She lingered on the word. "How thoughtful."
She left without another glance.
Elias stayed in the study until the last candle died. The circle had already faded, runes smeared into nothing. Only the blood remained—his and hers, mingled on the floor.
He touched the drying mark on his cheek.
Outside, the wind howled.
Somewhere above, a door opened and closed.
Six years of planning behind him. An eternity of consequences ahead. And Bellatrix Lestrange—his wife—was already scheming.