Bellatrix From Keep My Candle Burning | Art On AO3

I HC that when Bellatrix got pregnant with Delphi everyone was expecting her to be really good looking because both Bellatrix and Tom were very beautiful but instead she took after her paternal grandparents, the Gaunts.

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As mad as each other.

They fucked. Get over it.

Cunk on Earth 1x04

Sappho, 630 BC–570 BC.

Perhaps my favourite piece of poetry.

Very interesting that he said men AND WOMEN. Voldemort our feminist icon.

The way I didn't know Bellamort was a thing and now I know that not only is it a thing but the drama in the fandom is insane. Oop

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Did Voldemort love Bellatrix?

Bellamort is canon, but whether or not Voldemort loved Bellatrix is open to interpretation.

Voldemort is a villain, with a warped, distrustful and disdainful view of emotions. When Bellamort fans talk about his feelings for Bellatrix, they are not suggesting he loved her the way she loved him, and certainly not the way Harry or any hero loves.

When Bellamort haters claim the books contradict Bellamort because Voldemort never spoke kindly to Bellatrix or did not fall to his knees when she died, I wonder if they realise we are talking about Voldemort, not Harry or Dumbledore.

Voldemort refuses to love. It is not that he is incapable, but that he actively resists it. Any impulse he might feel is twisted and suppressed. Bellamort fans argue that if he felt anything for anyone, it was Bellatrix, and the books subtly suggest this.

His tragedy is that he rejected love and its power. He likely despised Bellatrix for loving him, and himself for allowing her so close. She is the last Death Eater standing, the most loyal, and often portrayed with sexual or sensual undertones. She understands him and mirrors his evil. He manipulates her, but still, she knew about the Horcruxes, was his confidante for years, and even Snape acknowledges their closeness.

At Spinner’s End, her passionate defence shows tension and history between them. Unlike Lucius, who is repeatedly punished, Bellatrix is never tortured in the text despite her great failures. She approaches Voldemort freely and he allows it. But of course, he is never going to say, “Thank you, my love.” That would be completely absurd coming from Voldemort.

I would even argue that if Voldemort had treated Bellatrix kindly, it would have seemed highly suspicious. Voldemort is only ever charming when there is something to gain. He is never kind without reason. In fact, he is never truly kind at all. He is a villain. He shows charm to his most useful Death Eaters, but always with a purpose.

Being nice to Snape did not stop him from killing him in the coldest possible way.

Bellatrix, on the other hand, makes mistakes, yet she is always protected, always spared. Yes, she is mocked and humiliated in The Dark Lord Ascending (DH1), but that only reinforces the point. Voldemort distrusts her feelings, and his own. He tests her loyalty, as if daring to keep loving him despite his being cruel to her.

At the end of Deathly Hallows, the reader understands that if Voldemort had listened to Bellatrix, he might have survived the war. In other words, had he trusted her feelings—and perhaps his own—he could have won. And yes, this feels entirely intentional on J.K. Rowling’s part. At the beginning of Deathly Hallows, he turns to Snape the most, despite Snape being the most treacherous of his Death Eaters, and places Bellatrix halfway down the table, despite her being the most loyal of all.

Here again, Rowling wants us to see how Voldemort’s distrust of emotions leads him to trust a man he has probably lost years ago, who likely despises him, rather than the adoring follower who has been unwaveringly loyal for thirty years. He doesn’t trust Bellatrix completely because of her feelings for him. Yet, he trusts Barty, who seems to feel enormous affection for his master. My personal hunch is that Voldemort did feel something for Bellatrix, and instead of making her more important or closer to him, it made him push her back and keep her at a distance—at least in public. (We know that there are things going on in private between the two of them, such as discussions about very sensitive topics like the Horcruxes’ hiding place and an intimacy that allows Bellatrix to approach him in the forest when others keep their distance.)

Why does Voldemort prefer to listen to Snape rather than Bellatrix, his most loyal lieutenant, "his best lieutenant", if not because he would rather turn to the Death Eater he has no feelings for, rather than the one who is devoted to him and his personal (shameful) favourite?

Only a truly twisted witch could ever love Voldemort, and Rowling gave us Bellatrix. But why would she bother creating a character who is genuinely in love with Voldemort if not to explore, on multiple levels, how his downfall is rooted in his contempt for love? Did Rowling really intend for Bellatrix to be just another mindless groupie? That role was already filled by Barty Crouch Jr.

Why write Bellatrix as a married woman, with a conveniently absent husband who is barely mentioned? Why is it so? Why give her such a rich backstory—two contrasting sisters, two key cousins—if her only narrative purpose was to be yet another Death Eater mistreated by Voldemort?

If J.K. Rowling had simply wanted to mock female Death Eaters as foolish or deluded, she already had Alecto Carrow to serve that purpose. But I don’t believe Rowling is sexist or careless. She gave us a very particular character in Bellatrix. Cruel and evil, yes, but not stupid. She is proud, haughty, and yet submits to no one but Voldemort. And that makes sense, because only a witch like her could ever hold the attention of a dark wizard like Voldemort.

Only someone like Bellatrix could make a thirty-year association with Voldemort believable. Who else could have kept his interest without being discarded, destroyed, or betrayed? Bellamort had to be believable, and Rowling made it so, enabling us to reflect on the countless ways Voldemort failed in life—not just through his actions, but through his rejection of the little humanity he might have had, the only love he ever received, and the only love—albeit twisted and unhealthy—that could have saved him.

In other words, had Bellatrix been less important in the narrative, less mentioned in key scenes, and less presented as an important Death Eater—his best lieutenant—despite her many failures and less strategic roles in several missions, I would have concluded that Bellatrix was just a groupie for whom Voldemort felt nothing. But for her to be the last standing Death Eater, for her to elicit such a strong reaction when she died (with the force of a bomb), for him to feel the happiest he had in fourteen years when she and other Death Eaters escaped Azkaban, for the narrative to place the most emphasis on her (by far), for her to be able to approach him in the forest, for him to use sexual innuendos when speaking to her in DH1, and for her not to be punished for the same mistakes that led to Lucius being sent to Azkaban and later tortured—given all of this, I think Lord Voldemort felt something for her, and he hated that, rejected it.

He refused to listen to the one person who truly had his best interests at heart and trusted Snape instead. He despised Lily’s sacrifice and diminished Snape’s love for her, and that ultimately led to his death. He disregarded Snape’s feelings for Lily, just as he disregarded his own feelings for Bellatrix.

There is only Bellamort and those too weak to ship it.

What if…. Someone is trying to kill Delphi?

Bellatrix sleeps alone when the Dark Lord isn’t around. She has long since grown used to being beside him, his arm draped over her waist and his breaths gentle in her hair, or the slow rise and fall of his chest lulling her deeper to sleep where she lays her cheek. She’s been alone for four nights when she feels magic pull her so abruptly from her sleep it makes the blood pumping her veins all she can hear, loud and beating in her head to the tips of her fingers, the surge of magic calling to her making her reach for her wand without hesitation. 

The magic that calls to her is innate. She feels the pull without really knowing where it is she’s going. For all that’s happening, nothing could be more important in that moment. Her daughter is a frightfully dangerous creature in her own right, but she’s barely four, her magic still unstable and she is entirely inexperienced with anyone outside the world of her parents and those they trust. They have also come in the middle of the night. 

Fury rips through Bellatrix like nothing she’s ever felt as her eyes fall onto the scene about to unfold. There is a wizard stood in her daughter’s bedroom. Bellatrix awoke the moment she felt someone come near Delphini who shouldn’t be near her, crossing the threshold of the manors. 

“Mama!”

Her magic is loud. Loud enough for the right mind to hear her hundreds of miles away. Loud enough to call him.

The wizard is quick, but Bellatrix is quicker. She slashes down on him with emerald fury and he deflects the curse by a hair, almost tripping in the process at the force of her magic. His face falters as though he didn’t expect her to be ‘mama’, though they both know he knows who he’s attempting to kill. Bellatrix’s next curse is vicious and thrown before the wizard can understand what’s happening. It sears the wizard’s fingers so agonisingly he drops his wand, yelling out in pain. She’s about to kill him when the magic in the air shifts. 

“Daddy!” The little witch cries.

The wizard stills entirely, his burnt hand raised from where he had dropped his wand. The air goes frightfully cold around them, the wizard turns frigid with terror. The wand which had clattered to the floor has burnt to ash and dust before he can so much as tear his gaze from the figure of Bellatrix Lestrange, the tip of her wand pointed to his face. A twitch at the edges of her lips tells him exactly who is stood behind him, the steadiness of a predator on the verge of sinking her teeth into her prey shining in dark grey eyes which remain fixed and unmoving on the wizard who raised a wand at her daughter.

Before he can turn, his hand comes to his forehead and his face contorts with agony. It looks as though he’s being torn apart from the inside out. Lord Voldemort watches on as the man falls to his knees, screaming out into the room silent save for Delphini’s short quick breaths and the dying out crackle of Bellatrix’s lingering magic. 

“Bella.” Lord Voldemort says with every pleasure in the world as the wizard’s screams finally go quiet and he is released from his torture, “kill.” 

The assassin opens his mouth but before he can so much as utter a word of anger — or a plea — he’s been hit with a violent jet of emerald green, slamming into his chest and dropping him backwards from where he knelt. 

All is silent in the room for a moment as Bellatrix and Voldemort meet each other’s gaze. Bellatrix is first to tear herself away in order to pull their daughter into her arms. The little witch desperately grabs onto her mother, arms wrapped tight around her shoulders, her legs clinging either side of her waist, face burying into her neck. Bellatrix hushes her gently, a soothing hand hot with the force of magic she’s used her final curse coming to her daughter’s back as Delphini’s heart beat thumps through her little body. 

“Hush, dear heart.” Bellatrix says into her daughter’s soft curls as Voldemort vanishes the body with little more than a wave of his fingers, “you’re safe.”

“Can I stay with you?” Delphini asks her mother in a mumble.

“Yes.” Lord Voldemort answers as he moves closer and Delphini reaches for him instantly. She needs her father. He obliges her without hesitation. Thank you daddy, she whispers against him and he turns his gaze to Bellatrix. They both know he was no Auror. He was an assassin. An assassin sent with direct orders — one who could only get in because someone who knew of Delphini’s existence had told someone who shouldn’t have known. 

It’s a couple of hours later into the night when Delphini is curled up in the middle of their bed finally sleeping peacefully that Bellatrix and Voldemort make their decision. They need to leave — and no one can know where they go next.