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When Bella turns eighteen, her cousin turns into a demon. Nine really is a ghastly age, and it does not become Sirius any more than eight became him. Or any more than eight becomes his brother now. She fights him, naturally, even though Mother has told her that she’s far too old for their nonsense. Mother is right. Cissy doesn’t bother with the boys anymore, and she’s still a girl. Far from a woman. Dromeda always seems to be down in the muck with them, but that’s her way. She runs around more often than they do. Her sisters begin to suspect that the boys’ presence is just an excuse.
Bella never had much control over her temper. Not since she was a little girl. Not since her magic started manifesting, anyway. She remembered quite distinctly causing Dromeda’s swing to collapse after she caught her eating the last of her acid pops. Dromeda was five, and had cried for most of the afternoon.
She would love to make Sirius cry. Certainly, she could have worse cousins, but what exactly they would be like Bella couldn’t quite imagine. He’d gained a passion for a particularly irritating charmed juggling set since she’d last seen him, and the steady thunk of the weighted balls was beginning to drive her insane.
“Shut up.” She snapped, glancing up only once from her book. This was the library, for Merlin’s sake. Aunt Walburga would throw a fit if she saw him in here. “Go and play outside.”
Sirius stuck his tongue out at her, and the thunking increased. “Make me.” He said, his stupid little sing-song voice grating on her last nerve.
From somewhere across the room, Cissy shushed them both.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll charm your stupid balls to follow you around and knock you repeatedly about the head.” Bella hissed. It might do him a bit of good, really. Knock a little sense into him. At least he had the sense to look worried.
“I’ll tell.” The little boy threatened, such a simple phrase even rousing Regulus. The younger boy didn’t much enjoy their fights, but if Mummy was going to get involved, he certainly wouldn’t be missing it. Although he did take a cautious step back when Bella got up. She was a grownup, really, with a real wand that she was allowed to use. That she liked to use. Thanks to her Regulus still couldn’t eat liquorice wands without tasting the worms she’d conjured in their place.
Mother would be ever so cross if Sirius told. So would Aunt Walburga, but she was perpetually cross, so that didn’t especially count.
“You will not.” Bella advanced, coming at Sirius with alarming speed. “You’ll sit here and be quiet or-” There was a moment of absolute silence immediately following another dull thunk. This time, the dull thunk that a weighted juggling ball makes when it collides with the side of someone’s head. With Bella’s head. Cissy looked up again, an eyebrow raised. Regulus debated hiding behind the chaise lounge. Bella seethed.
And then she exploded. She leapt across the table that separated her from her cousin, her face red with rage. “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE, YOU LITTLE WORM!” She screeched, sending a lamp flying as she went. Sirius scrambled, and she scrambled right after him. “How DARE you. Come here! I’m going to flay you alive with a lovely new spell, and jab my fucking wand in your eyes!” She sent a few sparks flying at him just as he reached the door to the library, his socks slipping almost comically on the wooden floors. He laughed as he went, glancing back over his shoulder to watch Bella charge down the hallway, her hair flying out behind her and her teeth bared. And promptly ran headlong into a large, solid chest. Bella’s delighted cackle echoed throughout the house, a door even banging open upstairs to see what all the noise was about. Not Mother, luckily. She would be downstairs with Aunt Walburga for several hours yet, and then Sirius would go home. Once Bella was done with him, anyway. Although, now that he was snivelling on the floor it wasn’t nearly so much fun.
“Poor little baby,” Bella crooned, giving him a sharp jab with her toe. “Silly itty bitty little crybaby.” Sirius always went the most wonderful shade of mortified purple when she talked to him like this. So easy to wind up.
“I hate you!” He shouted back at her, the impact of the words lost a little in the crack in his voice. He sat up rubbing furiously at his eyes with one hand, and a skinned knee with the other. Bella only laughed again, the sound mean and harsh. “Go away! Can’t you go away now instead of later?”
“You’re in my house, stupid.” Bella spat back at him, her wand whipping out and digging into his cheek. “You can go away.”
“That’s not what Aunt Dru said! She told Mother that you’re going away.” The little boy’s rage had turned a little nastier, and he clenched his jaw defiantly up at her. “Cissy’s going away with the blonde man when she leaves Hogwarts, and you have to go away too, because you’re a ‘useless girl who wouldn’t be able to find a man if they sprouted from the ground’!” Sirius wasn’t entirely sure what it was that that meant, but it made Bella drop her wand from his face, so it must have been good.
“What?” Bella asked, her voice low and dangerous. She looked more terrifying in that moment than Sirius had ever seen her look before. Even when he accidentally set a small corner of her bedroom on fire. He swallowed.
“She said you have to do your duty to the family. You’re not pretty, you’re not a boy, you’re not clever and funny like Dromeda, so you have to go away, and I never have to see your stupid mean face again, because I’m the Black heir and you’re useless.” For once, Sirius had the power. For once, it was Bella who took a step back. For once, Bella didn’t shout.
“What?” She asked again, her voice quiet and, if Sirius didn’t know better and wasn’t pretty certain this was a trap, sad. Her eyebrows pinched together. “You’re a liar.” Even as she said it, her hands shook. When Sirius stood up, she backed away, looking a little like she might curse him into next week or burst into tears. Possibly both. He opened his mouth to speak, his anger going away and a faint flush of embarrassment and regret filling the gap, but before he could make a sound Bella was gone, running down the stairs, skipping several steps at a time.
He was a stupid little child. Whatever Mother had said was nothing like that. He was just too stupid to understand adults properly. Or maybe he was just lying. It wouldn’t be the first time. Aunt Walburga saw him steal a ridiculous muggle toy from one of their shops when he was little, and then he swore blind that it was charmed and had jumped right into his pocket on its own.
“Mother?” She called, her voice barely concealing her imminent tears. She could hardly see by the time she reached the door to the downstairs drawing room, and even furiously blinking it all away wasn’t doing much. “Mother!” She called again, louder, more insistent, more devastated. But when she got her hand on the drawing room door it wasn’t Mother who opened it. There was a man in the doorway. Older than her, and taller. A little frightening. It took her a moment of standing there staring at him, trying not to cry, before she realised that she knew him. He came to one of Father’s parties. Mr Rodolphus Lestrange. He had a brother too, who surely must be around. They didn’t appear to ever go anywhere without each other, but Bella couldn’t see around this one into the drawing room to check. She should say hello to him, greet him properly and politely, but he’d already met her with her hair tumbling about her and bare feet, so nothing could really be done now. The panic that she had felt before hadn’t gone away, and certainly wasn’t eased by the appearance of her mother’s face at Mr Lestrange’s shoulder. The smile she had in place was a little terrifying.
“Bella, my dear, what is all this commotion?” Druella moved elegantly around the still silent man, pulling her daughter into a hug that was only here to disguise her attempt to tame her hair. It was a near constant source of annoyance for her that not all of her daughters had inherited her single sweep of thick, glossy hair. Bella had just turned eight when her mother mastered silent spells, especially for this reason. She could keep even the most unruly locks at bay for a considerable time with one of her charms. She turned back towards their visitor, her arm locked around Bella’s back most uncomfortably. “She’s been entertaining her cousins, you see. Very natural maternal figure, my dear Bellatrix.”
Bella didn’t hear any more. Her attention was fixed dually on the twisting smile that Mr Lestrange gave her mother, and the feel of fingernails digging into her arm. Lestrange. Old family, excellent lineage. Ties with the new dark movement that was creeping up around the ridiculous ministry. Rumour had it that Rodolphus and Rabastan’s father had been one of the very first, there in the beginning at Hogwarts, with Him. Bella’s face had frozen into a blank mask, faintly tinged with horror. As she stood there her chin wobbled, her nostrils flared; anything to keep the waterfall at bay. She would not cry. She isn’t Cissy, silly little girly Cissy. She would not cry.
Her mother and Mr Lestrange talked some more, but about what Bella had very little idea. She felt a little like she was in a divination lesson, attempting astral projection. She’d always been rather good at that. Now it made her feel a little sick.
And then he was gone. Druella turned to her daughter, gripping her tightly and saying an awful lot of very excited things, along with the usual lecture about behaving more like a proper young pureblood woman, not some mudblood hooligan. She felt like screaming.
“Oh, and sweetheart, did you see his little smile? Such a good line, and so handsome, too. I think he liked you, even with all your quirks. At you know, he’s so mature and interesting. Doing a lot of work for the movement, fighting the good fight.” At some point Walburga had joined in, coming through from the drawing room into the hall.
“It seems to be the done thing to find yourself a suitable match at Hogwarts, so you’re very lucky, young lady, that we’re not a year too late. Very wasteful of you, to not spend every moment of your time in that ridiculous place hunting down any pureblood man that might have you.” Walburga spat when she talked, a fleck landing on Bella’s cheek. “Of course, he’s been finished with schooling for quite some time…”
“I’d almost given up hope for you, you know. Narcissa did wonderfully, of course, but then there’s this business with Andromeda and her terrible snubbing of the dear Dolohov boy. I had to act fast, just in case you were thinking of having a little rebellious streak like your sister. You understand, of course.”
“Of course she does, she’s a Black. The pride of the family, loyal and pure to the core.”
Eventually they dismissed her, and she took the long walk upstairs, her feet dragging a little over the rugs. It was mournfully silent, growing more so with every step she took. She knew they’d be waiting, wanting to know what Mother had said. Waiting for her to hex Sirius from here until Christmas. Her fist clenched around her wand.
“Bells?” Her sister’s voice was tentative, and Bella looked up to see both Narcissa and Andromeda standing at the top of the stairs. For a moment, all Bellatrix saw was red. “Are you alright?” It was Dromeda who spoke, so soft and caring. Stupid girl.
Bella laughed. It was a horrible sound, in the quiet of the house. It didn’t so much as cut through the tension, as feed into it, making it all the more suffocating. “It was you.” She said, through the peals of laughter. “It was both of you. You did this to me.” She took a few steps further, only one separating them now. She stabbed a finger into Narcissa’s chest, “You, with your ridiculous little boy. Thirteen years old and already half way to married? So desperate for approval. It wouldn’t do for your pretty little face to get all messed about with. Would he love you so much THEN?” She screeched at her, Narcissa’s eyes widening in utter shock. She was their sister. Their friend. They backed away. Good. They should be running.
“I’ve been just as good as you!” She was screaming now, her face inches from Cissy’s, teeth bared. “Better, purer. And you ruined it!”
“Bells-”
Bella rounded on Andromeda. Oh, this was going to be easy. So very, very easy. Ridiculous Andromeda, who had somehow always been able to get away with anything. Not anymore. “DON’T YOU DARE.” She spat. “Don’t talk to me like we’re family. You did it too. Would it have killed you to stay on the proper path? Don’t think we don’t all know what you’re doing at school! I’ve seen it, Cissy’s seen it, I bet Mother’s even seen it.” Bella was gesturing wildly, her eyes wide and half crazed. Andromeda had the gall to look confused. She leaned in, hissing against her ear, “How many half breed freaks have you been chummy with, Andy? Even a few mudbloods in there too I bet.” Andromeda pushed her away, shoving her against the banisters. Her face was ashen.
“That’s not funny.” Dromeda ground out, even as Narcissa let go of her hand. She managed to look disgusted, even through the tears Bella had triggered.
It was getting more difficult to control herself. Her left hand clenched in empty air, her fingernails digging into her palm. “IT’S NOT FAIR!” She bellowed, and if she had been more aware she would have noticed two little heads pop out from between the rails of the banisters several floors up, startled. Even the portraits, usually so dignified and removed from their surroundings, took notice. One grumpy old which tutted, and Bella blasted a hole in the canvas right where her head had been. She felt weak, leaning against the banisters. “Its-“ She tried for another shout, but her breath caught in her throat, and suddenly her knees weren’t all there. No. No no no. Don’t cry, don’t know it. She hardly seemed to notice that she was speaking aloud. “No..” She said, quietly, desperately, until that wasn’t enough. She chanted it like a mantra to herself, sliding down onto the stairs, her fingers winding into her hair, until the word “No” was little more than a horrible, animal scream. Neither Narcissa nor Andromeda had ever heard a person howl before. They stared.
“Its not fair.” she said into her own hands, her shoulders shaking and each word punctuated by a sob.
-
Cissy put her to bed.
Bellatrix Black held her head high, and cursed Sirius in the morning for good measure.
-
She held her head high when she married him, for the family name.
She held her head high when she shared his bed, for her own sense of pride.
The Dark Lord called her an exquisite creature, and from that moment on Bellatrix Lestrange held her head up high for Him.