The moon and stars are hidden from view by dense clouds, and the winter wind rushes through the trees in an almost unnatural fashion. A small hut sits on a hill, surrounded by skeletal trees; a lone light shines from the top window, flickering as the candle begins to die, casting large, haunting shadows across the curtains.
Bellatrix Lestrange sits in this room, her brow scrunched in thought as she stares at the vial in her hands. It is a simple object, a small vial filled with milky grey liquid that would barely fill a thimble. Yet it holds her mind captive with all its plainness and contents.
Bellatrix runs her hand with its chipped black nails through her hair, bitting her lip in deliberation.
‘Bellatrix, take this vial filled with Nagini’s venom and drink it. If you are true to me no harm will come to you.’
The voice of her master echoes in her mind as she rolls the vial around in her hand. Surely her master would not give her something that would kill her?
Anger consumes her for ever doubting, for she is his truest supporter, his most devoted servant. She would gladly suffer a lifetime of torture if it meant that he would triumph. Yet she cannot open the vial and consume the contents. Deep in her mind, a voice that she has long ago locked away niggles to be heard and it causes doubt to form.
Her master is a heartless man, power-hungry, bitter, sadistic. He thinks nothing of killing anyone, whether it is his enemy or his own soldier- why was she any different?
Bellatrix stands and storms across the room as she attempts to talk herself into drinking the snake venom that she had been told to consume almost 24 hours ago.
A flash catches her attention and she whirls around to find herself staring at her own reflection. She raises a hand to her gaunt, grey cheeks with a look of sadness in the depths of her haunted hooded brown eyes. She has already paid dearly for serving the Dark Lord; perhaps this venom will restore her beauty?
The clock begins to chime, and Bellatrix makes up her mind. Ashamed it has taken twenty-four hours, she has made the right decision in the end. She removes the stopper and raises the vial to her lips, but Bellatrix feels a coldness envelope her, her mind becomes fuzzy as she feels her life spill from her body as she collapses in death, the vial spilling its contents onto the floor.
Lord Voldemort looks down at what he had thought was his most faithful servant with a disappointed frown, she had not drunk the liquid within twenty-four hours, she had failed his test, for the poison was on the container itself, and the moment he had given it to her she had been given exactly one day to drink the antidote before dying, it had been a simple request, and she had failed him.
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