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Voldemort considered many things during his stint in his body. He considered, among many others, Bellatrix. When he had first met her Bellatrix had been instantly devoted and almost frighteningly loyal to Voldemort. She was pretty, dare he say, supermegafoxyawesomehot. And she liked him. They had fun, in bed and on murder sprees. She cared about him too, which was new for him. And that had been enough for a long time.
But then that rotten Harry Potter had killed him and complicated everything. Without his body, he'd been forced to bind his soul to the nearest willing wizard. That wizard just so happened to be Quirinus Quirrell.
Quirrell was not instantly devoted, although he got the hang of it. He was undoubtedly evil, but the outright revelry in murder was absent. He was nowhere near as loyal as Bellatrix, although that loyalty need not be tested. He could have easily reported Voldemort to the authorities many times. He could have claimed to have been imperioed and bailed on Voldemort whenever it looked like he was about to get caught. But he didn't.
Somewhere along the line, Quirrell became more. More than a servant, more than a friend, and finally, more than Bellatrix had ever been.
Then Bellatrix returned with her usual murderous flair, the flair that he still found delight in after all these years. Everything seemed to be settling into place (despite the back of his mind insisting that he had to think about the whole Sending Quirrell To Azkaban situation sooner rather than later) when Bellatrix herself brought up the subject. He had to remind himself that she didn't know Quirrell as he did. That was why she was so delighted in the thought of sending him away.
As he was fumbling through the conversation, trying his best to craft alternative schemes. he was about to suggest pinning the blame on one of the other Death Eaters, maybe one of the traitors who hadn't looked for him while he was gone, when Quirrell stepped into his line of sight.
As soon as Quirrell appeared, Bellatrix's eyes lit up. He knew the look quite well and had sported it himself on several occasions. He watched with his heart in his throat as Bellatrix scolded Quirrell for his casual tone. The same casual tone that Voldemort had insisted on. The one that comforted him when he was having doubts about their evil plan. The one that had so gently offered to turn around so he could enjoy his favorite parts of High School Musical. He assured Bellatrix that it was okay, that this was fine. But somewhere deep in his gut, he knew it wasn't fine. Quirrell was mad at him, rightfully so, but it still hurt to see the usually only mildly snarky Ravenclaw staring at him, disgusted. That was not the kind of staring Voldemort had been hoping for.
He tried to explain to Bellatrix what Quirrell meant to him. He was a friend, right? Just a friend. Yet as the word began to pass his lips, it felt wrong. Bitter. The Dark Lord Voldemort did not have friends. Not even friends that made him feel soft inside, like his insides weren't made of a thousand knives and tiny glass shards anymore. Not even friends like Quirrell.
He changed tactics. Bellatrix doubted Quirrell's loyalty, right? He assured Bellatrix that Quirrell had been an excellent servant of the Dark Lord. Surely, Quirrell would appreciate the effort he was putting in just to keep Bellatrix from killing him on the spot, right?
Yet when he looked, Quirrell's face was twisted into a mask of horror. His soft brown eyes steeled and narrowed as he stepped towards Voldemort, chest puffed out, boldly invading the Dark King's personal space. Of course, what was personal space without Quirrell?
Quirrell made a reference that Voldemort didn't understand, but it was clearly an insult. Voldemort stepped toward him, practically begging him to listen, but before he could get through, Bellatrix crucioed his poor squirrel, who was sent flying and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor. Voldemort didn't understand why Heap-Quirrell was different from any of the other writhing heaps of people he'd crucioed. He didn't understand why what Bellatrix did sent his heart plummeting into a pit of spikes. He'd done worse for less before and would again. As Bellatrix gloated he simply reminded himself that she didn't understand and scurried to Quirrell's side, kneeling next to the man. Quirrell looked so small and fragile, curled up on the ground there, but he still had some bite in him.
Voldemort decided that the spike pit wasn't actually that bad in comparison to the flying leap so high into his throat it felt like someone had stuffed a baseball in there that his heart performed when Quirrell asked if he had known all along that Quirrell was meant to be framed. Voldemort assured him that it was before they had become closer, before Voldemort had started feeling things, that he would never have agreed to it if he had known how he would feel for Quirrell later on. Voldemort reached out a single pale hand to rest on Quirrell's shoulder blades, but Quirrell flinched and shifted away from him. "Don't touch me!" the smaller man spat, and Voldemort recoiled. He knew he deserved all of Quirrell's hate, but to feel the full force of it felt like his heart was being steamrolled.
Voldemort wasn't sure when it devolved from there. It was all a blur, grim and hazy. But there was one moment he remembered with painful clarity.
"It'll be pretty hard to make that roller-skating date from Azkaban!"
Voldemort might as well have been crucioed on the spot. A million thoughts whirled around in his head at the speed of light, flickering by only to disturb him later when he was lying awake at night without Quirrell in his bed, and zooming away before he could process what they meant. A few of the offending thoughts included: "Did he mean date like, date date or as just a hangout?" "Did he think that as what I meant?" "Was that what I meant?" "Do I want that?" "Does he want that?" "Is this all just a ploy to make me feel even more guilty for sending him away?" "Why would he think being gone wouldn't be enough to break me? Didn't I tell him enough how amazing he is?" "Oh god Quirrell what have I done?"
Voldemort pondered these thoughts one night at the warehouse where he was hiding out with his Death Eaters when there was a knock at the door. It was a sharp rhythm that only two people knew. And one of them was him. "Come in Trixie."
Bellatrix stepped into his room, which was, naturally, the largest in the warehouse. She was dressed in a very revealing slip and a small bathrobe, but her demeanor made it clear that seduction wasn't her goal at the moment.
"Good," thought Voldemort, "I'm not in the mood right now."
Bellatrix made a hand motion and Voldemort patted the spot on the bed across from him. The whole mattress was tucked between two walls, and as Bellatrix leaned up against the opposite one of him, Voldemort sat up. He grunted, which meant "Nightmare?"
She mumbled something in response, which meant "Yeah, and a panic attack." They continued with this kind of nonverbal communication for several minutes, with Bellatrix relaying through a series of muttered phrases, barely audible whispers, and humming noises what had happened. It had been another recurring nightmare. She'd had a lot more of those since Azkaban. Sometimes, before Azkaban, it felt like the haunted look in her eyes had almost disappeared, but now it was constant. He pitied her. At least he'd had Quirrell to talk to over those long years. Not only had she been alone, but she'd been alone in one of the harshest, traumatizing prison environments in the wizarding world. He thought about what that place would do to Quirrell. If it could break one of the strongest wizards he knew (other than himself, of course) even a little, then he didn't want to think about it. He wondered if things would have been different if she would have been different if she had someone like Quirrell all those years ago. Someone soft and only slightly less evil to forgive her worst actions but still celebrate her triumphs. Maybe she wouldn't be here now, with haunted eyes and a thin, forced smile.
No matter. It wasn't like you could change the past. He allowed her to scoot under the thin blankets and curl up next to him, but it wasn't the same as it was before Azkaban. Before Quirrell. There was a space between them, not physically, but they could both feel it. Still, for warmth or comfort or perhaps just to lie to themselves, they slept curled up together until the next morning. When Bellatrix left his room to put on the usual charade implying that they fucked, she flashed Voldemort one bittersweet but genuine smile. Voldemort returned the look, and there was a silent agreement to never acknowledge anything beyond that.