The purpose of her letter had been straightforward. A warning. A reminder. Letting him know she was watching.

She’d raised this during the holiday. Sheltering those two half-bloods was unacceptable.

Regulus hadn’t responded then. No promise, no refusal. She’d wanted to force a clear answer, and Orion had intervened.

But in her mind, the matter was settled.

And it was a small thing, really. Using it to remind Regulus that she was watching, that the master was watching, carried more significance than the half-bloods themselves.

But Regulus hadn’t listened.

Starting last week, the two half-bloods had appeared in the core section of the Slytherin table, seated beside Regulus. The protection had gone from private to public, from possible to fact.

When Bellatrix learned of it, her first reaction was confusion.

She didn’t understand why he’d done it.

Two half-bloods. They weren’t worth the trouble. For the heir of the House of Black, shielding two half-bloods offered nothing.

No one in the pure-blood circles would think more of him for it. Voldemort’s side wouldn’t regard him any differently because of something like this.

She’d written that letter with care. Warnings, threats, and a final ultimatum, all precisely worded.

She’d expected at least a reaction. An explanation, a justification, silence, even a retort.

Regulus had sent back: SO?

She didn’t care about the half-bloods. They were trivial. What she wanted was his compliance.

She’d married into the Lestrange Family, but she was still a Black. A married daughter didn’t sever ties. Pure-blood logic didn’t work that way.

Regulus was the Black heir. If she could keep him in line, her voice within the family would be secure. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Before Orion, before Walburga, even before Voldemort, she would be the person who could shape the future of the House of Black.

The master would gain a fully controlled Black family. Not only the heir, but the vast resources the Blacks had accumulated over centuries.

Regulus’s reply made her feel control slipping away. She’d treated his obedience as proof of her authority, something she could present to Voldemort as evidence of her value.

If Regulus disobeyed, she couldn’t dismiss it as the boy having his own mind.

She could only feel one thing: her authority had been challenged.

An insult, without question.

The underlying logic of the pure-blood inner circle was simple. Hierarchy.

The House of Black stood high, but she was its eldest daughter, Regulus’s older cousin, part of Voldemort’s inner circle.

In her understanding, her letter was a superior correcting a subordinate. Regulus’s reply had yanked her down from that position. He’d met her gaze as an equal, perhaps even looked down.

The source of her fury was simpler and sharper still: she knew Regulus hadn’t taken her words seriously at all.

Bellatrix wasn’t stupid. She knew Regulus had talent. Knew he was improving quickly.

But in her framework, a second-year had a ceiling. No matter how strong, still a child.

She had confidence in her own power. She had faith in Voldemort’s.

A twelve-year-old. What gave him the right to reply to her like that?

Unless he held something she didn’t know about.

The moment that thought surfaced, it smothered the anger.

She began to think. Where did his nerve come from? Who was backing him? Dumbledore? Something else?

Then a different emotion rose from deeper down. Fear.

What Bellatrix felt for Voldemort wasn’t simple loyalty.

She was consumed by him. That fixation had grown from somewhere inside her bones. Seeing him, hearing his voice, being held in his gaze, all of it made her tremble.

But she feared him too. Feared his disappointment. Feared being seen as incompetent. Feared the day he’d glance at her and never look again.

Loyalty was too small a word. It couldn’t hold everything she carried.

She was terrified Voldemort would think she couldn’t even manage a child.

Regulus’s reply wasn’t only an insult to her. It was a denial of her competence.

If Voldemort found out, he might think: the person you recommended, and you can’t handle him.

So she had to shut this down before Voldemort learned of it. Or frame it as Regulus’s problem, not hers.

She sat there, gripping the letter, chest heaving, breath harsh, as if something were lodged in her throat.

She stared at the "SO?" and the corner of her mouth twitched, pulling into something brittle and sharp.

Then she drew a long breath. Her shoulders dropped. The heaving in her chest slowly settled.

She folded the letter, pressed it flat under her palm, and reached for her goblet with the other hand. A deep swallow.

Her first impulse was to go after the families of those two half-blood students herself. Give Regulus a lesson he wouldn’t forget.

But the thought died the instant it formed. She couldn’t do that.

The moment she touched the half-bloods’ families, the nature of the situation changed entirely.

It would go from a cousin disciplining a cousin to the Lestrange Family declaring war on the House of Black.

She could disregard Regulus. She couldn’t disregard the Black name.

Harming those half-bloods’ families meant striking the House of Black in the face.

Regulus was the Black heir. To a certain extent, or when it mattered, what Regulus did carried the weight of the family’s will.

Orion wouldn’t tolerate it.

She could disregard Orion too. But she couldn’t disregard Voldemort.

Voldemort was still in the courtship phase with the pure-blood families. He hadn’t yet reached the point of crushing them outright.

The House of Black ranked among the top of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Voldemort needed their support, or at the very least needed them not to oppose him openly.

If she pushed the Blacks into opposition over something as petty as disciplining a younger cousin, her standing with Voldemort wouldn’t improve.

Voldemort wanted people who got things done, not people who created problems.

More critically, Voldemort’s stance toward Regulus was observation, not elimination. The Dark Awakening had been a test, not a verdict.

He wanted to see how far the Black heir could grow. Whether the boy was worth recruiting.

If she made decisions on Voldemort’s behalf at this stage, taking out the people Regulus protected, she’d be overstepping his authority.

Mad as she was, she didn’t dare act for Voldemort.

There was an even more immediate reason.

If she turned around and went after the families of two half-bloods, she’d be admitting she couldn’t handle Regulus and could only vent her frustration on the people around him.

That was humiliating.

She could be cruel. She couldn’t afford to look weak.

The holiday. She’d wait for the holiday. Force Regulus to face her again, in the drawing room of the Black ancestral home, with Orion and Walburga both present. Let him say "SO?" one more time.

She was betting he wouldn’t.

Bellatrix stood. The chair legs scraped against the floor, a sharp, brief shriek.

She folded the letter twice, crushed it in her fist, and walked out.

Rodolphus hadn’t looked up once. When Bellatrix stood, he was cutting pigeon. When she left, he was chewing it.

Her footsteps faded down the corridor. He swallowed the last bite, set down his knife and fork, and picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth.

Then he leaned back in his chair and turned his head, glancing toward the corridor.

Empty. Only the firelight illuminating a small patch of floor.

He sat still for a moment, then raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

The house-elf was still curled in the shadow beside the chair, body bent, forehead nearly touching the tile, knees pressed into the stone.

Rodolphus curled a finger.

The elf scrambled up and scurried over, stopping beside his chair, body folded at a right angle, nose aimed at the floor.

"Master."

"That letter just now." Rodolphus’s tone was flat, no inflection. "What was it?"

The elf’s voice shook. "Begging Master’s pardon... it was... it was the young master of the Black family’s reply."

"The contents."

The trembling worsened. It didn’t dare look up, words coming in broken pieces. "The reply... the reply had... two letters... S... O... and a question mark..."

Rodolphus said nothing. One finger tapped the armrest once.

The elf hesitated, then whispered even lower. "The reply... appeared to be written in ketchup."

Rodolphus turned his head and looked at it. His expression barely shifted, but something passed through his eyes, something that might have been surprise, or might have been amusement.

He was quiet for a moment, then waved his hand.

The elf bowed and vanished.

Rodolphus settled back into his chair, looking across the long table at the empty seat opposite. He lifted his goblet, took a sip, and set it down.

The Black family heir. Second year. Had replied to Bellatrix with "SO?", written in ketchup.

Bellatrix had been dismissed by a twelve-year-old with condiment.

One corner of Rodolphus’s mouth twitched.

But regardless, this had nothing to do with him. Internal Black family business was for the Blacks to sort out.

The Lestrange Family stayed out of it.

He picked up his knife and fork, and continued eating.