"Since when do you use big words?"
"I use them all the time, just not when you're around. Wouldn't want to overload that pea-sized brain of yours."
"This pea-sized brain of mine has done something no one else has, you know," Harry smirked.
"What's that? Being stupider than anyone else on the planet?"
"Pissing Voldemort off royally."
"You know, regular people call that idiocy."
"I call it fighting for freedom."
Bellatrix snorted disdainfully. "A fight you're losing, Potter. Face it, you suck at this."
"No," Harry replied, his eyes hardening. "The wizarding world is losing this war. They're the ones cowering behind a few, tossing their loyalties behind whoever seems to be winning for the moment."
"And you still fight for these morons?"
"I fight for myself. Voldemort is after me, so I fight back."
"The war's over, you know."
"What're you talking about?"
Bellatrix sighed and took a few moments to answer. For a while, it seemed as if she wouldn't answer him at all when she finally spoke. "The Order of the Phoenix is gone. The Ministry is shattered, the Aurors disbanded. You lost. Once the Dark Lord finds the last couple of survivors, he'll come back to finish you. He's hunting them right now and it's only a matter of time before he finds them. When he returns, we're both dead."
Harry froze in disbelief. Part of him screamed that she was lying, that the Order couldn't have been destroyed in such a short time. It was impossible, there were so many of them left when he had been captured, they were too secure, too spread out, for Voldemort's forces to break them up. Unless . . . a sickening realization hit Harry like a physical blow. Unless the traitor had provided Voldemort with more than just information about the raid on Malfoy Manor. He briefly entertained the thought that she might be lying, but discarded that quickly. In here, in their situation, she had no reason to lie to him.
He sunk down into himself, slumping into his corner of the cell in defeat. He opened his mouth to refute her claims, but found himself unable to utter a sound. The war was over. The Order was gone. He was going to die. Those three phrases repeated themselves over and over in his mind.
He was lost in his thoughts for the rest of the morning. Eventually, his days fell into a sort of sick routine. Every afternoon or evening –he found it hard to tell exactly how late it was – a group of Death Eaters would come down, drag her up for torture, and return her late at night. From what little he could glean from their taunts directed at him, he could tell Bellatrix had been correct. The war was over. Voldemort was off somewhere, hunting down the remnants of the Order.
After the cycle had repeated itself for a few days, Harry discovered something interesting. Whenever Bellatrix returned from being tortured, if she was still conscious, she would be relatively sane, giving as good as she got in their verbal duels. He even came to enjoy their conversations a little, as much as two people who were practically dead could bond. However, when morning came, she always was more subdued, and rarely spoke. It marked a sharp contrast that made him wonder. He had heard a few things about her, about what she had been like in her younger years. Sharp tongue and quick wand, Flitwick had told him once—that was what she'd been like in her youth.
It made him wonder how she'd become a Death Eater when her sister hadn't. Was she just that twisted? Had she always enjoyed torturing other people? It was a morbid curiosity, but it beat sitting around and waiting to die. After a few days, it was the only thing to occupy him, after he had resigned himself that he would not be breaking out without help. He attempted to ask her about it several times, both at night and in the mornings. She never answered those questions.
Their familiar routine ended one day. How long it had been, he found it hard to tell, but assuming that the food and water – a bowl of stale liquid he assumed was water, anyway, and a piece of mouldy, crusty bread that hardly qualified as food – came once a day, it must have been at least a week since his capture. The Death Eaters came and took Bellatrix early in the morning. They didn't return her until very early the next morning. The moment they dumped her body back into the cell, Harry could tell something was wrong.
She didn't move.
Harry moved over and gingerly rolled her onto her back. Her violet eyes were vacant, and her breaths were coming short and pained. She coughed a few times, and when she did, her hand came away slick with her blood. Unsure of what to do, he gently propped her up against the wall until she was sitting up.
It took a few minutes until her ragged breathing calmed somewhat. "Potter . . . that you?"
"I'm here."
"Turn around."
"What?"
"Turn around."
Harry didn't quite know what to make of that request, but did as she had asked of him. There was the sound of tearing fabric. When she stopped rustling, he turned back to face her. She was in the process of buttoning up what was left of her blouse, but what caught his eye was the object in her left hand that hadn't been there before.
It was an exquisitely carved hairpin four inches long, cut from a shimmering black crystal. The tip looked razor sharp and glinted in the dim light in the cell; it widened at the top to accommodate a teardrop-shaped piece of black onyx, from which dangled a small chandelier of crystals that were equally as black as the rest of the ornament. He blinked in surprise; this wasn't something he'd expected her to carry around with her.
Bellatrix finished with her blouse, leaving the top buttons undone as her fingers failed to respond the way she wanted, and let her hands drop into her lap. She stared down at the piece of jewelry in her hands, her expression vacant. Finally, after what seemed like a small eternity, she slowly turned her head and extended her hand, offering the pin to Harry.