Harry shrugged. "Hey, if you can torture someone into insanity, it figures you'd be able to torture them out again, right? Sort of like knocking you on the head will give you amnesia, and another knock on the noggin gives you back your memory."
Bellatrix chortled. Was that a chortle? It certainly sounded like one. Or maybe she was just choking on her own blood. Harry liked to think it was the latter, rather than believe the crazed witch was capable of humor. "Are you certain I'm the insane one, Potter?" she commented.
"Quite," Harry replied dryly. "Especially since I don't enjoy torture, unlike someone else in this room that shall remain nameless."
If he could see her, he was certain her look would have frozen him solid. "Do I look like I enjoy this, Potter?"
He shrugged again, more for his own benefit than hers. "I can't tell. You usually look insane to me, so you'll forgive me if I can't tell the difference."
"Potter . . ." Bellatrix growled.
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
"I'll kill you!"
"Get in line. I think Voldemort wants first crack at it, so you'll have to get past him to do it. And speaking of going up against dark lords, your record with that isn't doing too hot now, is it?"
Bellatrix was quiet for a minute, and Harry wondered if she had died, when a gargling sound rose from her body. In the dim light, he could barely tell that she was shaking, even as the sound grew louder, until he realized, to his shock, that she was laughing.
"If you were as quick with your wand as you are with your tongue, Potter," she managed, "the Dark ord would be dead a dozen times over!"
"Strange, and here I thought they kept me around for my charming personality and winning looks."
"Your father you are not."
"Odd, I'm usually told the opposite."
There was no response from Bellatrix. Harry was starved for conversation, so he pressed on. "So, you betrayed Mr. Dark and Ugly. What exactly did you do?"
"Nothing that concerns you," Bellatrix growled.
"Okay," Harry shrugged. "Suit yourself." There was a brief pause before he spoke up again. "But, y'know, I thought in order to be able to betray someone you'd need to be able to think first, so I'd reckon that rules you out, right?"
"Potter?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Harry made several further attempts at conversation, but Bellatrix did not respond. Owing to the lack of light in the cell, he was unable to tell whether she was asleep, unconscious, or simply ignoring him. He decided that he may as well wait until morning. At least he would have a little more light to see and gauge her by.
It was a long night for Harry. There was no mattress or furniture of any kind, the floor was hard, and he was in chains. Consequently, he was unable to sleep for more than a half hour or so at a time without getting cramped and waking up. To the best of Harry's knowledge, Bellatrix didn't even shift or turn over. He began to wonder if she had died, or maybe if she was just used to sleeping in such conditions. The thought sent a shudder down his back.
Sunrise eventually came and revealed to Harry that Bellatrix was awake, though unresponsive. "Good morning," Harry said brightly. "Y'don't suppose they'll serve us breakfast in bed?"
Bellatrix's eyes shifted to look at Harry; however, her only response was a sigh.
Harry smirked. "Because, you know, considering how much I'm paying for this place, breakfast is the least I'd expect. Not to mention a decent cup of coffee. Maybe a morning paper, too."
When she still didn't reply, he shrugged and leaned back, the chains on his wrists clinking together. "You know, I'm trying to be nice here. I could try and kill you . . . "
"Why don't you, then? You hate my guts. I hate yours. If I could move myself off this bloody spot on the ground, I'd be at your throat, Potter."
"No point." Harry shrugged again. "We're stuck in this. Killing you isn't going to get me out of here. As much as you'd like to believe, you're not important enough to me that I'd place killing you over escaping."
"And here I thought killing me was your life's work," she muttered sarcastically.
"You clearly missed your calling," Harry replied evenly. "You should've been a comedian."
"That's your job, Potter."
"Maybe." Harry glanced from her to the barred door.
"What's percolating in that tiny head of yours, Potter?"
"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."