Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part I: Snake

“The nerve!” Druella spits. The powder puff in her hands slams down roughly against its case. A small whiff of glamour powder bursts around it.

Bella decides to ignore her, if only for a little while longer. Hobble, a decrepit old house-elf who is somehow miraculously alive despite having endured three generations of Rosiers, is doing a dreadful job of dressing her. His fingers shake and fiddle uselessly with the clasp of her silk cloak.

“Use magic, you oaf,” she snaps. She’s not usually so harsh with him, but the idea of spending her afternoon at a stupid luncheon with even stupider children has put her in rather a foul mood.

Hobble nearly keels over in fright. With a soft, tremulous snap of his fingers, the clasp is set and the cloak is righted over her shoulders. Bella’s in deep purple and silver today (Druella says bright colors don’t suit her), and she tugs a little at the cuff of her sleeves. It’s scratchy and bothersome, but she doesn’t bother voicing the complaint. She’ll only be told to bear it.

Bella turns and catches her mother’s gaze in the vanity mirror. Druella’s eyes are a stark blue, pale and piercing as an icicle, and set so intently on her daughter.

“The nerve,” Druella repeats, this time slower. Her eyes draw over Bella carefully, expectantly.

“Yes?” Bella ends up saying after a measure of silence. She doesn’t much like talking to her mother, but she's really the only one around to do it. Andy and Cissy are too little to have conversations that make sense.

“Of your father,” she finally finishes with a slight huff, “to reject today’s invitation.”

“Oh.” Bella’s fairly certain her father doesn’t have any nerve, but who is she to contest Druella? “Where’d he go?”

“Goodness, who knows,” Druella answers in an ever-suffering tone. She can only ever complain about Cygnus to Bella. Family affairs stay in the family, after all. Still, Bella wishes her mother might try someone else for a change. She hardly understands what the issue really is half the time. “Likely off playing that abominable sport of his, or run off to your grandparents for a night.”

Again, Bella fails to see the problem. She wishes she were with Cygnus, even though he doesn’t seem terribly fond of her. She’d rather be chucking balls in the sky than standing in an itchy dress under the sun while Portia Travers huffs and puffs at her like an erumpent.

“It’s at least a small consolation knowing Eulalia will be there. Her husband’s just left her. She must really have rocks for brains, coming regardless,” Druella sighs, rising from her wishbone chair. She sends a side-long glance Bella’s way and beckons her over, one pale hand reaching out, fingers long and spidery. “Let’s take a look.”

Bella comes to her side. Druella appraises their reflections in the mirror, and Bella watches sullenly. Druella’s blonde hair is up in an elegant twist, her lids dashed with pretty, shimmering colors, her cheekbones high and glistening with radiance. She looks like a fair and pretty flower. Bella looks like the flower’s shadow: dark hair that’s been forced into a plait despite her protests, eyes that neared the black of night, and a surly grimace that could not in any way be called pretty.

“Perfect,” Druella says, content, and presses her hand against Bella’s scalp. It almost feels warm. “Off we go.”

It’s quite unsettling, being at a social gathering where nobody seems to like each other very much, but it’s all Bella has ever really known. Her mother smiles demurely in a shaded seat and titters at Eulalia Flint, who looks suitably flustered, while the others around the table share deceptively pretty smiles. They’re all very close. Friends stab you in the front, after all.

Florence Bulstrode shows off her baby for a little while, after which all the parents call their children over and have them stand and pose for a bit. Once all the pomp and parading is finished, Bella and the other children are free to toddle around the garden.

She stands by the hedge row, collar tight, cuffs itchy, waiting for someone to dare approach her.

“Hullo,” Tiberius Flint greets, picking his nose. He’s two years older than her and the stupidest of the lot, which is really saying something considering they’re all quite stupid.

“You’re disgusting,” she informs him.

“What?” he replies.

Before she has the chance to degrade him further, Portia Travers flounces over. She’s only a smidge taller than Bella—a slight in it of itself—and very deliberately makes it known by raising herself to her fullest height.

“Drusilla, Thelma, and me are going to play selkies and sirens,” she tells Bella. “Do you wanna join?”

The question feels like a challenge to Bella, so she accepts. The play a round, during which Bella discovers that there is no actual point to the game. No one wins or loses, it’s just the four of them pretending to swim in what is very much not water while singing ridiculous songs and chasing each other. It’s boring.

After a small break to snack on cucumber sandwiches and biscuits, they begin another round, during which Bella makes the executive decision to make things interesting.

“I’ll be a hag,” Bella announces pompously. “And I can chase and catch you.”

“No,” Portia vetoes immediately. “This is selkies and sirens.”

“Then let’s play selkies and sirens and hag.”

“I don’t want to play that!”

“Why not?” Bella demands. “We already did selkies and sirens, so now we have to do mine.”

“Well, I don’t want there to be a hag.”

“Well, I do.”

“Of course you do ‘cause you’re ugly like one—”

Bella launches herself at her in an instant. She knows quite well by now that one mustn’t lose one’s temper, but she’s seven and her body can only hold so much fury at a time. It’s got to come out somehow, and what better way than kicking at Portia? They go rolling in the muck and dirt, Bella shrieking, Portia wailing. Bella grasps onto a thick handful of Portia’s wheat-blonde hair, and she pulls. It’s the most fun she’s ever had at one of these, and it—unfortunately—ends rather abruptly as they’re magicked apart with a blast of pure force.

Bella lies dizzy in the soil. A long shadow falls over her.

“Bellatrix,” Druella calls.

She wishes the ground could swallow her whole. Sadly, it does no such thing, and Bella is forced to very ungracefully gather herself and rise. Her mother’s face is tight and pinched, but not angry. Anger is unproductive and unladylike, so Druella never gets angry, which is what makes it so much more worse when Bella does.

“Yes?” Bella says, feigning great interest in dusting off the soil and blades of grass that caught onto her robes.

“You will be returning home.”

“Okay.” Hardly a punishment. It’s what she wanted anyway.

“We will discuss this later.”

“Okay.” That’s not very good. Still, Bella puts out hope that Druella may conveniently be met with some sort of hex before the day is up, forcing her to forget today’s events—or, better yet, die.

Druella’s eyes drift away loftily. Hobble is called, and he appears with his usual fanfare of pathetic groveling. While Druella lists off a series of rapid-fire instructions to Hobble, Bella’s grumpy little frown make a reappearance. She watches as Portia is gathered in her mother’s arms, still teary-eyed and blubbery. Portia’s little brother is toddling by their mother, a fistful of her robes gathered in his tiny hand. Bella doesn’t quite understand why she’s in the wrong here. No one particularly likes Portia and her brother, anyway, so what does it matter if she pushes and kicks them? Dummy and Dumpy, her mother calls them in private, snickering. Like their mother. If Druella can do it with words, why can’t Bella with hands?

When Hobble takes her by the hand and compresses them through the atmosphere, back to the country home, Bella finds herself wondering what her mother’s friends call them behind closed doors. Pretty for Narcissa, probably. Like their mother. Andromeda would be Shy. Like their father. And Bella? Angry.

Like no one.

The country house is large and empty, save for three little girls and one dumb house-elf. This is to say, Bella virtually has full rein to do whatever she likes when she returns home.

Hobble has Apparated her straight to her room, where she washes up and changes into new, far more comfortable house robes. She shakes her dark hair out of its plait, letting it curl over her shoulders. Druella won’t be back till much later, so she can keep it unkempt like this for at least a few hours.

She strolls through the house, peeking into Narcissa’s room (she’s down for a nap), before taking the steps of the main, spiral staircase two at a time. She’s only halfway to the pantry, intent on swiping a few fizzing whizzbees, when Hobble comes to her in sniffles.

“Miss Bella,” he begins, both his large, eerie eyes shiny with tears, “Miss Andy is wanting to go to the grove.”

“She can’t,” is the immediate reply. If Andromeda goes to the grove, Bella has to come with to watch over her. And Bella isn’t particularly in the mood to lie in the sun while Andromeda tries to coax bowtruckles down from their hiding spots.

Hobble’s face crumples, and he explains, “Miss Andy is ordering Hobble to go to the grove,”

“Don’t listen to her,” Bella advises, but she knows Hobble doesn’t quite have a choice in the matter. “I’ll talk to her. Where is she?”

“Miss Andy is lying in the back garden.”

Bella frowns at him. “You can’t just leave her outside there, Hobble. She might go to the grove on her own.”

At once, Hobble lets out a tremendous wail. “Hobble is having done wrong! Hobble is deserving to be—”

She doesn’t have the time nor patience to listen to this. Sidestepping Hobble, she continues on her way, changing course for the garden. There isn’t any sort of fencing that encloses the garden, it just goes on and on, somewhat structured with a few hedgerows and exotic bushes, but largely confusing and easy to leave. Bella’s almost certain Andromeda will have left the area entirely, in favor of the distant grove—but, to her pleasant surprise, she finds that’s not the case. Andromeda, five years old and full of childish enthusiasm for even the most mundane of things, is sprawled across the ground watching in fascination as a line of ants carry bits of leaves and flower petals back home.

Bella comes forward and stamps on at least twenty of them at once, halting the steady stream of production. Within seconds, the ants have decided to go around her shoe. She stamps on those, too.

“Bella!” Andromeda protests, jumping to her feet. Her deep brown hair flutters behind her. It’s loose and wild, and if Druella were here, she’d scold her senseless. But Druella is never here, not when it matters. “Stop!”

“Stop what?” Bella drawls.

“I was watching them!”

“You’re not supposed to be out. Come inside.”

“Why’d you squash them,” she complains.

“Bugs are supposed to be squashed.”

“I was watching them,” she repeats, this time with more whine in her voice. “You can’t squash ants!”

“Yes, I can,” Bella counters. She just did, after all.

“It hurts them.”

“No, it doesn’t. Bugs don’t feel pain.”

“It hurts their feelings.”

“You’re being stupid,” Bella says plainly. “Ants don’t have feelings. They’re not people. And you’re not supposed to be out here. Come back inside.”

“No!” Andromeda cries petulantly. “You squashed my ants!”

“If you don’t follow me inside right now, I’m going to leave you out here the whole night.”

“I don’t care! I’ll sleep in the ants’ house.”

“You can’t fit inside there.”

“I’ll use magic,” Andromeda, who has just recently begun to exhibit signs of accidental magic, responds triumphantly. “And I’ll make a dirt blanket.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“You’re ‘gusting,” was the curt reply.

Bella lets out an annoyed breath. She kicks at the dirt, sending a few more ants flying, much to Andromeda’s horror.

“Will you come inside if I let you have a scoop of ice cream after dinner tonight?” Bella relents.

All care for ants and dirt blankets are immediately forgotten. Andromeda beams. “Okay!”

Bella turns swiftly on her heel, marching back to the house. Andromeda follows dutifully. Once they’re back inside, Bella makes her way to the family library. To her annoyance, Andromeda clings by her side, their shadows intermingling.

“Can I have more than one?” Andromeda asks.

The library is not very large, but it is absolutely crammed with shelves and books. Bella wanders to the shorter shelves, which are filled with children’s stories, some bought, others carefully passed down through both her mother and father’s families. She passes over the picture books and looks for something harder, doing her very best to ignore Andromeda.

But Andromeda’s voice is so very loud for someone so small.

“I want more than one,” Andromeda repeats, this time tugging on Bella’s robes.

“More than one what?” she asks absently. She takes out a stack of five books at once and looks through them. She wants something with unicorns and wars and princes.

“One ice cream.”

“No. You can only have one scoop.” And it’s going to be extra small, because otherwise Andromeda will have too much energy to sleep—but she doesn’t need to know that right now.

“What about two?”

“That’s more than one, so no.”

“What about five?”

Bella shoots her a side-long, exasperated look. “No.”

“Why not?” Andromeda demands.

“Because you’ll get sick if you eat five scoops of ice cream.”

“No, I won’t! I promise!”

“Last time you snuck sweets into bed and got sick because you ate them all in one go,” Bella reminds her.

“That’s because I’m not used to it. I need to practice.”

“You’re not supposed to get used to eating too many sweets. You’re only supposed to have a little at a time. You need to eat veggies and meat and only a little dessert.”

Andromeda, predictably, pouts. “That’s not fair!”

“Yes, it is,” Bella mutters.

“It should be equal veggies and equal meat and equal ice cream.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just not.”

“But why not?”

“I don’t know!” Bella huffs. “And stop annoying me! I’m going to read now.”

“Oh. Okay,” Andromeda says all too easily.

She toddles off. Bella relaxes, letting the irritation ease out of her, and turns her attention back to the books. After a quick look at all the covers, she chooses the one that shows a beautiful, long-haired woman riding a unicorn. She takes it to her reading nook near the back of the library. It’s a small alcove in the corner of the room, where she’s had Hobble collect old blankets and pillows and arrange them in a neat little nest.

She’s scarcely allowed to flick to the first page when Andromeda falls in next to her. She eclipses the book Bella has in her hands with one of her own, a picture book entitled The Hungry Flobberworm. A fat, ugly flobberworm that Bella is all too familiar with stares at her from the cover.

“Read this one,” Andromeda says.

“I don’t—” Bella pushes the book back toward Andromeda, “—want to!”

Andromeda’s face crumples into a storm of emotion. “But I want this one!”

“I don’t want to read your stupid books to you! I want to read my own books.”

“But—I wanna read this,” Andromeda responds, lip wobbling. “I can’t read it, so you have to.”

Bella really doesn’t want her to start crying because once Andromeda starts, she just doesn’t stop. And it’s so much harder to get Andromeda out of a strop than Narcissa.

“Okay, fine,” she says hastily. “I’ll read it to you, but only one time, okay?”

Andromeda nods her agreement, and Bella opens the picture book up. For what must be the thousandth time in her very short life, Bella reads aloud The Hungry Flobberworm, which may very well be the top contender for Stupidest Book Ever Written. What’s even more annoying than Bella having to subject her eyes to the atrocious drawings is the fact that Andromeda is mouthing along to every line Bella reads. Andromeda can read a few words now, but that’s not what’s happening here. Bella’s just read it so often to her, that she’s actually memorized the whole book.

She wants to stop and snap at her, tell her that if she knows the whole story already then she might as well tell it to herself—but Andromeda would likely start bawling. So, Bella swallows the messy, festering emotion and continues reading.

Thankfully, it’s a short story. Bella finishes soon, hands the book back to Andromeda, and starts to read her own real book.

Unfortunately, Andromeda returns.

“This one,” she says, showing her Mr. Billywig & His Family.

Bella frowns at her, upset. “I said I would only read you one, remember?”

“But I want this one now,” Andromeda protests.

There is a nasty trick Bella sometimes plays on Andromeda, who is only five and too young to really understand tricks yet. It goes like this:

“How about we do something else?”

It’s an intriguing idea to Andromeda, who smiles and asks, “What?”

“Let’s play hide-and-seek. I’ll count to twenty and find you, okay?”

Andromeda nods eagerly. “Okay!”

“You need to find a really good hiding spot to beat me,” Bella tells her. “If you can find a really good one, and I can’t find you, then I’ll let you have extra ice cream later.”

It’s Andromeda’s greatest dream. She squeals with delight and runs off before Bella can even begin counting. Once Bella hears Andromeda’s footsteps taper off beyond the library room, she sinks deep into her burrow of blankets and begins to read.

She falls asleep somewhere in the middle of her book, and enjoys a light, dreamless rest—until Hobble comes to wake her.

“Dinnertime, Miss Bella,” he informs her.

He has Narcissa with him, who is passed off to Bella while he shambles away to find and ready Andromeda. Neither Druella nor Cygnus are back yet, which isn’t terribly uncommon. Bella finds herself happy for the chance to sit at the head of the table; it’s meaningless, really, but it makes her feel important.

“Bella!” Narcissa says happily.

“Did you have a nice nap, Cissy?”

“Mhm.”

Narcissa is too heavy to carry nowadays, something Bella sort of misses, but holding her hand is a fine alternative. Once they’re at the dining table, she helps Narcissa onto her chair. She doesn’t quite reach the table, but Hobble mostly feeds her anyway.

“What did you do today?” Bella asks.

“Toys.”

“That’s nice. I went to a luncheon today,” Bella tells her. “It was really boring.”

“What’s lunch-in?” Narcissa asks. She’s very stupid, still. Bella is hoping she’ll grow out of it soon, hopefully faster than Andromeda did.

“It’s when you have lunch, but you also have to fight your enemies at the same time.”

“Emenees?”

“Enemies are people I don’t like.”

“Huh.” And then, “I wan’ jam.”

“For dinner? No.”

“Peese.”

“Fine,” Bella says, knowing that this back-and-forth will last ages because Narcissa has no concept of exhaustion, being nearly three and all.

They wait for Hobble to return with Andromeda and serve the first course, but he doesn’t show. After Narcissa starts to whine, Bella summons the house-elf. He arrives in a mess of tears and plaintive whimpering.

“Miss Bella,” Hobble says, trembling all over like a branch caught in a gale, “Hobble is not finding Miss Andy.”

“What do you mean?” Bella asks, frowning deeply.

Clearly, he cannot bear repeating it again because he throws himself to the floor with such force that his forehead bangs against the hardwood. “Hobble is deserving to be punished, he is! Hobble is having lost of one of Madam’s children. Hobble—”

“Shut up!” Bella cries out. She flies to her feet. “Did you check the whole house?”

Hobble nods shamefully.

She doesn’t believe him. With terror bleeding into her heart, Bella sprints from the dining room. She goes to Andromeda’s room first, checking under the bed, then the inside of the wardrobe, and even the drawers of her dresser. Naturally, she doesn’t find Andromeda, and resorts to rounding the interior of the country house while shouting for Andromeda. Still, the girl does not appear.

Narcissa starts to cry, somewhere in between, having realized something is amiss. Bella finds herself back in the dining room, watching dejectedly as Hobble—who is also crying—attempts to calm down Narcissa. Bella feels very much like crying herself, but she is too afraid to lend the energy to sit down and sob. It is a near-paralyzing fear: Andromeda has hid too well this time. What if Bella cannot find her by herself?

“Hobble,” Bella begins shakily, “go get Father.”

It is the better option, between Cygnus and Druella.

Hobble disappears and reappears with Cygnus in tow. He’s a tall, tense man, and Bella is not certain she has ever seen him smile. He glances over crying Narcissa to face Bella. His eyes are as dark as hers.

“What has happened?” Cygnus asks.

Bella explains in one breath, and Cygnus is off to check the house. He has the advantage of actually having a wand, so Bella sits at the dining table, confident now that the problem is solved. Hobble takes Narcissa to her room, to be calmed and put to sleep after a quick meal. Bella remains in her chair, alone and patient.

Eventually, Cygnus returns—and Andromeda is not with him.

Panic crests into Bella once more. It is a sharp and hard thing, and though Bella has had her fair share of sharp and hard emotions, panic is one she still finds hard to swallow. Her fingers knot together and she rises unsteadily.

“Hobble,” Cygnus calls. His voice is low and tired. “Fetch Druella.”

“Wait—” Bella cries out, but Hobble has already vanished.

Cygnus’s dark eyes turn to her expectantly. He doesn't say anything, he rarely does, but he’s clearly waiting for her to finish speaking.

“It’s just…” Bella’s palms are slick with sweat. She presses them against the front of her robes. “Mother is busy. She’s out.”

There is a shadow of something in Cygnus’s otherwise stiff, aloof expression, but Bella can’t quite tell what. She doesn’t know him well enough. “Your sister is missing.”

Bella swallows thickly. “I know! It’s just that—maybe she’s—”

She doesn’t quite get to finish whatever garbled thought she was trying to get out. Hobble arrives with a thunderous crack, alongside a very annoyed Druella. Her ice-blue eyes catch onto Cygnus immediately, which only serves to irritate her further.

“What is it?” Druella snaps. “The Selwyns invited me for dinner, and the first course had hardly come out when—”

“Andromeda is missing,” Cygnus interrupts quietly. 

Druella’s lips thin into one small, severe line. “What do you mean?”

“Bellatrix sent Hobble to fetch me. They haven’t been able to find Andromeda since dinner. I checked the house, she isn’t here.”

At once Hobble collapses to the floor and bursts into sobs. “Hobble is having failed Madam. Hobble is—”

“Be quiet,” Druella commands him, and though the house-elf continues to shudder and cry, he does so noiselessly. Druella’s sharp gaze flits to Bella. “Explain.”

“I—” Bella’s tongue is heavy, she struggles to get the words out, “—I was with Andy in the library after I came back from the luncheon. We were reading and then she went off to play. I stayed to read and then I fell asleep. Hobble woke me up for dinner—he’s the one who said he couldn’t find Andy!”

It’s not a lie. It’s not, because they weren’t really playing hide-and-seek, because Bella wasn’t actually participating. Andromeda was playing by herself. And it’s Hobble’s fault for not finding her.

Druella looks to Hobble, allowing him to speak once more.

“Hobble is not having seen Miss Andy after Miss Bella came back.” His words rush into each other, afraid and desperate. “Hob—Hobble is wondering if perhaps Miss Andy is having snuck to the grove. Miss Andy is wanting to go to the grove all day.”

Druella gives Cygnus a look, and he Apparates without another word. She takes a seat at the table, one hand rising to rest on the polished oak. Her fingernails clack against the wood. The sound rings loud in the otherwise quiet room, and it reminds Bella distinctly of something falling over and over and over again. Tack. Tack. Tack. She doesn’t want to sit near Druella, so she simply stands, trying her hardest to ignore the fast beat of her heart. Tack. Tack. Tack.

When Cygnus returns, it’s with a sleepy Andromeda in her arms.

“She was by the grove, asleep,” Cygnus informs Druella.

Andromeda rubs her eyes. “I got tired…”

Druella’s face softens just the tiniest bit, but her voice remains sharp: “Just what were you doing out there, Andromeda? Have you any idea how—”

“Me and Bella were playing hide-and-seek,” Andromeda answers drowsily. “But I got tired waiting.”

Bella feels as though a bucket of ice water were dumped over her head. Druella’s gaze, harsh and unforgiving, glances to her.

“Is that so?” Druella says in a tight voice.

“‘M hungry,” Andromeda whines.

Hobble is called to tend to Andromeda. Bella remains rooted to her spot.

“You will be called up to the study in a bit to discuss your behavior today,” Druella informs her. “Your father and I need to discuss something first.”

And the two go off, Druella surging ahead, Cygnus trailing behind. Hobble takes Andromeda to her room, along with a small plate of today’s dinner. With resignation clouding over her face, Bella quietly goes to sit at the head of the table.

Her plate is still empty.

The study is bare and vacant. Cygnus doesn’t spend much time here, not that that’s news to Bella. He’s sitting behind his desk, chair half-angled out towards her but still mostly hidden away. Druella’s standing in the center of the room, her heels sinking like daggers into the otherwise unblemished rug.

“First,” Druella begins primly, “let us address your misconduct at the luncheon.”

“Portia started—!”

“I have not given you permission to explain yourself yet,” Druella cuts in. Her voice is quiet but deadly, a pinch of poison in an otherwise sweet cup of tea. “Your outburst at the luncheon was entirely uncalled for. If you are insulted with words, Bellatrix, then you respond—with words. If that foolish woman’s foolish daughter bothers you so, then ignore her. You embarrassed me today.”

“But—”

“Your conduct today has left me embarrassed twice, in fact. You cannot possibly imagine the look on Thelma’s face when a crying house-elf appeared by my side in the middle of dinner.” Druella’s lips purse. “There should have been no need for you to fetch either your father or me. If you were playing hide-and-seek as Andromeda said, then you should have found her—and indeed noticed her missing much earlier.”

Bella bursts in defense of herself. She’s the only one there who will. Fear recedes in favor of anger, and Bella relishes in the taste of it. “I didn’t know she would go all the way to the grove! She’s not supposed to go outside if someone older isn’t with her! She’s the one who broke the rules, so why am I in trouble?! It’s not my fault!”

Druella’s response lashes her like a whip: “If your sisters are at fault, then so are you. It is your duty to look after them. Andromeda did not listen and went outside by herself. Where do you think she learned to so flagrantly disobey rules? From you, Bellatrix. It is your obligation to—”

It’s more than Bella can bear. Didn’t she bring Andromeda back inside the first time? Didn’t she read to Andromeda, even though she wanted to do anything but? Didn’t she forgo her dinner to search for Andromeda? “BUT I DON’T WANT TO! I NEVER ASKED FOR SISTERS. IT’S NOT FAIR—IT’S NOT!”

Druella looks to Cygnus with some measure of disbelief. “Really,” she says, as though Bella is nothing more than an unsightly stain on the carpet. “I’ve no idea where she gets this from. It’s appalling to think she is at the forefront of the next generation of Blacks, that Andromeda and Cissy have only this to look up to.”

Cygnus, meek and weak-willed as ever, simply nods bleakly. Bella’s hands curl into tight fists, which she hides between the folds of her dark robe. Her heart thunders dangerously in her chest, ready to roar, and she finds herself more excited than afraid at the prospect of what might happens if she lets it.

Druella’s pale eyes flit back to her, and she continues in the same lofty tone, “You know very well you’re not to raise your voice. There are rules one must abide to, publicly and privately. So long as you live under your father’s house—”

Bella’s mouth twists into an ugly sneer. (She is young, but she knows how to twist her mouth into the most wretched of shapes.) She isn’t allowed to scream. She can’t use her fists. As Druella said, she can only respond with words, and Bella wants her words to be a weapon. An arrow, sharp and barbed. “It’s not even really his house, so why—”

Druella’s wand moves so fast Bella almost doesn’t notice what’s happened until it’s over. With one quick swish, Bella’s voice is snatched from her throat. The rest of her sentence falls empty in the air, and she stares at her mother with horror. A hand reaches up to touch her throat, but it feels just the same as before, simply absent of sound. Druella might as well have plucked Bella’s soul out of her body. Without her voice, she has nothing, is nothing.

Now, under Cygnus’s blank stare and Druella’s haughty one, she feels small and vulnerable. It is a feeling Bella grows to detest with every dark fibre of her heart.

Pleased, Druella neatly folds her hands together, silver wand peeking out from underneath. “That’s better. This is how a lady ought to behave, especially to her parents. I will not tolerate disrespect towards your father nor myself.”

Her body is tight-strung with rage and wrath alike. Her heart is filled with such insidious loathing, she finds herself vaguely stunned that she can hold the feeling within herself at all. It seems potent enough to disintegrate her.

“It’s clear that there is no point in attempting to hold a civil conversation with you tonight,” Druella continues. “You will go back to your room and reflect on your actions today. You are to remain Silenced until tomorrow morning, when you will be called back and asked again to politely admit your faults and take responsibility for your actions. Is that understood?”

Cygnus looks away, to the polished surface of his desk that Bella is certain holds nothing.

“Bellatrix,” her mother presses.

Hateful eyes meet calm ones. Bellatrix gives a jerky nod and is let out of the study. She stomps her way down the stairs, shouting all the way, though there is no satisfaction of the sound being let out. Once she’s in her room, she takes every stupid toy and worthless bauble in her sight and throws it. She flings cards from her deck of Exploding Snap, and they leave singe marks all along the cream-colored walls. The glass unicorn that sits atop her music box shatters as it collides against the floor, and a thousand glittering shards bathe the room in colorful lights. The music box itself creaks and a version of its song, shaky and distorted, begins to play.

It’s still not enough. Bella dives into her drawers and tears a sheet out of a moleskin journal that she once used to help teach Andromeda her letters. Diligently, hatefully, she begins to write every nasty thought in her heart. She can neither whisper nor scream it tonight, but she can still write it: with thick, bold strokes, in capital letters, stark and black against the white of the sheet.

Her anger has much abated by morning. She wakes feeling exhausted—and hungry.

She kicks aside some of the mess from last night, uncaring, and freshens up before heading downstairs for something to eat. She is the only one at the table. Druella sometimes has her breakfast separately, and Cygnus has likely left again. She wonders about Andromeda and Narcissa, but she cannot voice the question to Hobble. So, she simply polishes off her food and sets back to her room, waiting for Druella to call on her.

When she returns, her room is sparkling clean, completely righted. The bed is made, all the broken trinkets repaired and organized neatly across her dresser. She flops onto her bed, and then, like flame crawling up her spine, remembers the note she wrote last night.

She checks her writing desk, undoes the neatly-made bed—but she cannot find it.

Right, of course. She wills her heart to beat slower. It doesn’t. It’s gone because Hobble cleaned. Because he’s supposed to clean. He collects rubbish and throws it away. And that was just rubbish.

Can house-elves even read? Probably not. They’re stupid creatures, weak-minded, inferior in every way. Hobble can’t have known what was written there, and is too dull to even be curious about it. He’d simply gone and thrown it out. He must have.

Still, she can’t quite settle after discovering the parchment’s disappearance. She tells herself that it’s nothing, really, not even worth worrying over, that the note is likely being used for tinder in the fireplace by now—but there’s an unshakeable truth taking root in the pit of her stomach: Hobble is her mother’s house-elf, not hers.

All too quickly, she is called to meet Druella in the private parlor room.

The drapes are pulled back, letting warm, bright light spill into the interior. It’s decorated in lovely creams and pale yellows, with floral patterns covering every available surface. Bella shuffles inside awkwardly, feeling very much like a smudge of shadow against the otherwise pearly room.

“Ah, Bella,” Druella begins, bright-eyed and full of exaggerated cheer. She’s at a small table, where Hobble has set up tea and a light breakfast for her. “Good morning.”

Good morning, Bella mouths.

Druella’s brows lift almost imperceptibly. With a single flick of her wand, she dispels the charm. “Try again.”

Bella doesn’t feel any change to her body, but she opens her mouth and repeats, “Good morning.”

She struggles to stifle a smile at the return of her voice. Relief floods her, cool and quick, and she finds that she no longer cares about her punishment, about Druella’s irritation or Cygnus’s absence. She can speak again, and that is enough for now.

“Have you reflected on your behavior yesterday?”

Bella nods with what she hopes is an appropriate level of solemnity. She’s been through conversations like these so many times now that she has an idea of what to say in every possible scenario. “Yes, Mother. I should have kept better watch over Andromeda and realized she was missing sooner—”

Druella’s brow rises.

“—I shouldn’t have let her go missing at all,” Bella amends quickly. “I won’t play hide-and-seek anymore. I’m sorry.”

Usually, Druella nods and accepts the apology without complaint, waving Bella off so she can get ready for the next function on her itinerary for the day. Instead, Druella merely folds her hands together and regards Bella coolly.

“Is that how you really feel?”

Bella blinks. “Yes…?”

“Are you certain?” Without lifting her gaze from her daughter, Druella tugs out a folded piece of paper from under her teacup platter. Primly, she opens it up and shows Bella the writing: her own untidy scrawl, the letters hurried and rushed. “Are you certain you don’t feel like this?”

Bravery flees Bella’s body. Her mouth is left numb and dry. There isn’t a single excuse she can summon to mind.

“Nothing to say? But you had so much to say in here. Let me see…” Druella flips the writing to her side, holding it at a distance, and begins to read, “‘I hate Mother and Father so much, I wish I could get into their rooms to pour ink all over their robes but Hobble never lets me go in there. It’s stupid that Mother took my voice and it’s even stupider that Father didn’t do anything about it. How come no one ever takes Cissy’s voice away when she’s crying? I’m going to learn this spell at Hogwarts and take everyone’s voices away and I am never going to give it back. That way everyone will finally leave me alone.’”

Druella peers at Bella over the edge of the paper. Bella swallows thickly and remains silent, mind whirring, dark eyes staring intently into the floral detail of the rug.

Setting aside the paper, Druella continues, “Putting your atrocious spelling aside—you must know ‘voice’ is spelled with an ‘i’ not a ‘y’—this was quite alarming for me to read. Pouring ink all over our clothes? Are you truly so childish, Bellatrix?”

The seconds tick between them. Bella realizes, dimly, that this is her last chance to explain herself, but she doesn’t know what to say besides yes. Yes, she wants to pour ink on their clothes (now more than ever). Yes, she wants to take their voices away, too. Yes, she wishes everyone would leave her alone. It’s all true. Why is she being scolded for being honest?

When it becomes clear that Bella will not speak, Druella leans forward. In a tight, strict voice, she says, “It is a privilege to be born into this family. How dare you express your ungratefulness in this manner. Don’t you think you owe your father and me an apology?”

“No,” Bella answers resolutely, though her chin trembles.

Druella’s lips purse. “Bellatrix—”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” she bursts. “I didn’t know Andromeda went to the grove, and it’s not even my fault she did—it just happened! And it was stupid you took my voice away becaues you wanted me to explain myself, but then you casted that spell on me! It’s not my fault! You can’t punish me for—for thinking my thoughts and writing them—it’s not fair—!”

Druella looks as though she’s swallowed an entire lemon. “Very well then,” she replies in a quiet, strained voice. “I will not punish you. I will reward you. You want everyone to leave you alone, isn’t that right? You will be sent away until this year’s Yuletide Soirée—”

“Sent away?!”

“Do not interrupt me,” Druella snaps. “I will send you to one of our relatives, and hopefully there you might learn a thing or two about respect, etiquette, and the traditions of our family. If you have not yet understood and corrected your faults by Yuletide, I will send you back until you do. Is that understood?”

Bella feels dizzy with disbelief. Yuletide is nearly six months from now. She’ll miss Narcissa’s birthday, and won’t be able to celebrate her own with her sisters. With her heart hammering, she asks, “Which one of our relatives? Yours or Father’s?”

“Is that understood?”

“Yes, I understand,” Bella bites out.

“Good.” Druella leans back and appraises her carefully. “You may go to your room, where you are to remain until the day of your departure. You are allowed to leave only for meals in the dining room. There will be no outings. You may begin packing, as well. Hobble will oversee to ensure you do not bring along anything unnecessary.”

Bella nods stiffly and turns to leave, to stamp her way down the stairs, to fall into her bed and kick and scream and hate with her whole, horrid heart.

“Bellatrix,” her mother calls once more, forcing her to turn back around. Druella blinks at her sweetly. “Surely you are not going to take your leave without a word. I taught my daughter better than that.”

“…Goodbye, Mother.”

“And where is my thank you?”

Bella grits her teeth.

“I’m giving you what you wanted most, after all.”

Druella smiles and reaches for her tea cup. For all her preoccupation with formality, etiquette, and respect, the truth is Druella is a simple person. Bella knows it well. Her mother has only one smile: a small and soft curve, sweet and flattering. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. It never has.

“Thank you.” For nothing.

Chapter Text

She’s to be sent to Arcturus the Elder.

Bella doesn’t know anything about him expect that, presumably, he is an utter bore—because Hobble does not allow her to pack anything even remotely fun. Of the many books she owns, she is only allowed to bring the educational ones. Toys and board games are out of the question, as are her paints and violin (which Bella doesn’t even like to play). The only thing she is allowed to bring plenty of are clothes; she is fairly certain that Hobble has prepared her for every possible occasion. As to why formal dress is necessary during her exile, she has no idea. At the very least, all the options will mean she can play dress up if there is absolutely nothing else to do.

Druella calls on Bella the morning of her departure, warning her to remain on her best behavior. Cygnus does not see her off (Bella wonders if he’s even aware she’s leaving). It’s only Andromeda and Narcissa, really, who come down to the foyer to tearfully wish her goodbye.

“Here,” Andromeda sniffles, giving Bella a crumpled dandelion pulled from the garden.

Bella’s small hand curls around the ragged, yellow thing. It’s rubbish, really, but her heart feels warm from the gesture. She hugs her sisters close. “Thanks. I’ll be back soon, and we can play in the grove then—okay?”

Andromeda nods tearfully. Narcissa doesn’t quite understand what’s happening but she pats Bella’s arm comfortingly. When they let go of each other, even Bella’s eyes are misty.

Hobble takes her by the arm, and they warp through the atmosphere. It’s a quick trip, as expected. Bella is left on the dusty porch of a rickety, two-story building that sits atop a hill. When she turns, Hobble is already gone.

Steadying herself and her heart, Bella raises a hand and knocks on the front door. It takes a moment, but eventually the door swings open and she’s met by the sight of Arcturus. He’s old and crotchety and has very bad breath.

“From the Ministry?” he asks her the moment his eyes flicker down to meet hers.

“No,” she responds stoutly. “I’m Bellatrix.”

His white, bushy brows furrow. “Gringotts?”

“What?”

“You’re here to tabulate, no?”

She’s not familiar with the word, which makes her feel stupid. She bristles with annoyance, and scowls, “I’m supposed to stay with you ’til Yuletide.”

His eyes are dark like hers, and they flit up and down her expensive, lace-trimmed robe, then to the trunk that’s been unceremoniously dropped beside her. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Bella repeats indignantly, but he’s already shuffled inside, leaving her to heft the heavy trunk inside herself.

She leaves it by the front door and wanders further inside. Her nose wrinkles as she appraises the shelves and stacks of bric-a-brac: ancient books and tomes stuffed in all corners of the room, strange artifacts that are shoved in every available space, a collection of robes spread across the couch and chairs. In short, his house is crammed with junk. It’s distasteful and ridiculous, and Bella cannot help but wonder why her mother thinks she’ll learn respect from a man who appears to have lost his mind some fifty-odd years ago.

“Here,” Arcturus grunts once he catches sight of her. He hands her a sheet of yellowed parchment and a self-filling quill. “You can start with the upstairs.”

Bella bats the parchment away. “I’m not—” she falters for a moment, unsure what exactly it is Arcturus even wants her to do, “—I’m not taking notes for you. I’m tired. Where’s my room?”

He shrugs. “Take whatever you can find.”

The rooms are just as disheveled and disordered as the rest of the house. After a fair bit of exploring, Bella finally finds one that at least has a bed instead of several boxes. She returns back to the living area, intent on lugging her trunk to her newfound bedroom, when she spots a house-elf preparing lunch in the kitchen.

She stalks over to him and begins, imperiously, “You—”

The house-elf startles, jumping nearly three times his height. He stares up at Bella with wide eyes and squeaks, “Sorry, Miss! Miss is coming from the Ministry—?”

“I am not from the Ministry,” she snaps.

“Oh.” A pause, then: “Gringotts?”

“No!” She scowls at him. Unlike Hobble, he doesn't seem the slightest bit afraid. “I’m from Berkshire.”

The house-elf nods. “Miss is coming to buy, then?”

Bella’s mouth twists with confusion. “Buy what? This rubbish?”

“Master Arcturus is having treasures, not rubbish, Miss. Master Arcturus is selling for very good prices, Miss.”

“Is Arcturus…” she hesitates here, then whispers the word, “…poor?”

The house-elf bows his head solemnly. “Master Arcturus is having lost his fortune, Miss. Master Arcturus is having to sell his treasures, Miss. But Master Arcturus is selling for very good prices, Miss. Miss isn’t finding better prices anywhere!”

Revulsion and distaste curl into Bella’s bones. Druella has sent her to live as a pauper for six months.

She avoids Arcturus for the first few days, afraid his poverty may infect her. But she quickly grows bored of her books and useless dresses, so she soon ventures out to follow Arcturus around the house—while keeping a safe distance, of course.

“What’s the most expensive thing you’ve sold?” she asks as he appraises a golden harp that’s been propped up against a spare wardrobe. “Have you even managed to sell anything at all?”

“If you’re going to simply follow around and ask meaningless questions,” Arcturus begins crossly, “then you might as well do something useful at the same time.”

He hands her the same sheet of parchment from the first day she arrived. It’s a template, she realizes now, with blank areas that ought to be filled. He’s cataloging all the rubbish he owns.

“I don’t want to do that,” Bella says haughtily, once again throwing aside the papers.

But there is quite literally nothing else to do in this crammed, cramped house atop a hill, so by suppertime, she’s gathered the papers and begun to fill them out. It’s somewhat interesting, as she has to ask Arcturus certain questions about his possessions in order to fill out the more detailed sections of the form. She ends up learning a great deal about the many magical instruments owned by Alberta Toothill, who, along with being a famous duelist, was apparently a very passionate musician. How Arcturus has managed to collect this bizarre hodgepodge of items, she still doesn’t know. Still, taking Alberta’s harp and shrieking in delight as butterflies issue from the strings she plucks alleviates her boredom at least a little bit.

After a week and a half of routinely cataloguing and playing with Arcturus’s many relics, something new happens: a guest arrives.

She’s a witch, certainly, and seems just as poor as Arcturus (unfortunately). She arrives in a rush, her rich, brown hair piled high into a hasty bun, her arms laden with bags of vegetables. Her eyes are as green as moss, and they catch onto Bella very quickly.

“Oh, dear,” the guest says, looking at Bella as though she’s an out-of-place shoe, “where did you come from?”

“Berkshire,” Bella responds.

The guest frowns. She glances at Arcturus, who is pointedly ignoring the scene, and then asks, “Why are you here?”

“My mother sent me away,” Bella says sourly.

“What?” She looks slightly more baffled—and a touch affronted, too. “Has the Ministry placed you here?”

Why does everyone always mention the Ministry?

“No, Mother sent me here,” Bella repeats, this time much slower, in case the woman is exceptionally thick. “Arcturus is my…great-great-uncle, I think? I’m only here until Yuletide. I’m Bellatrix. Who’re you?”

“Oh,” she says faintly. “I’m Cedrella. I suppose—we’re related, quite distantly. I’m not very familiar with the family tree anymore.”

Bella has never seen Cedrella at the family functions, so the relation must be distant indeed. She watches curiously as the house-elf, Gadrey, happily comes to greet Cedrella and guide her into the kitchen, where she can sort away the groceries. 

Once she’s out of the room, Arcturus turns to Bella and says, “Don’t speak to her.”

Bella frowns. She doesn’t like being told what to do. “Why?”

“She’s a blood traitor,” Arcturus spits. “Ran off with a Weasley. She’s no daughter of mine.”

Bella knows what a blood traitor is, of course. Her mind reels at the thought that someone from their family could be one. Her lips purse with disgust, and when Cedrella returns, now empty-handed, Bella ignores her just the same as Arcturus.

Still, when evening comes and they’re hungry, it’s Cedrella’s food they eat.

The months pass in this steady rhythm: cataloging objects with Arcturus, enduring Cedrella’s biweekly visits, and playing Gobstones with Gadrey (they use crumpled up parchment for marbles). The initial charm of the untidy house and the morbid curiosity Bella harbors for Cedrella quickly wear off, and she finds herself dreadfully homesick by the time her birthday comes around.

The day starts off bad enough, with Gadrey informing her they don’t have any cake, but it quickly grows much worse because she doesn’t get any letters or presents from her family—and today happens to be the day Cedrella is dropping by with groceries.

“Are you all right, Bellatrix?” Cedrella asks when she notes Bella’s stormy expression.

Bella has slipped up and talked to her on occasion, much to Arcturus’s irritation, but she never does it on purpose. Despite her sinister and treacherous background, Cedrella has rather a gentle disposition and Bella sometimes cannot help but lower her guard and tell her something or the other. It’s dreadfully lonely having only a houes-elf and a crackpot old man for company, so who can blame Bella for using Cedrella as a conversation partner?

“It’s my birthday,” Bella tells her grumpily.

“Oh—Happy Birthday!” Cedrella’s tender eyes trace over her. “I’m sorry, if I’d known, I would have brought something for you. As it happens, I only have radishes and soup—”

“I don’t want radishes and soup,” Bella cuts in petulantly. Unease and annoyance stir in the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t like when Cedrella, poor and disloyal as she is, cares for her. It makes the fact that Druella hasn’t even bothered sending an owl sting all the harsher. “I want—I want to have cake—and I miss Andy and Cissy—!”

The pots and pans in the kitchen begin to shake and shudder. The open window above the faucet slams shut with such force that the entire room seems to sway.

“Calm yourself,” Arcturus says lowly. It is the first thing he has said in Cedrella’s presence. “You are not some callow child.”

It is, perhaps, the single worst thing to possibly tell her. Arcturus’s empty bowl rises on its own and flings itself into the wall, fracturing on impact. Bella’s body trembles with barely-restrained rage, her hands curling into fists. Her nails dig deep in the flesh of her palm, but the prick of pain does little to distract from the torrent of anger stirring in her heart. If she is not a child nor an adult—then what exactly is she? Is she some beast, some common animal to be passed around from person to person simply because no one quite knows what to do with her?

“I don’t care!” Bella roars. Her voice cracks terribly, a strike of thunder. “I don’t want to be here anymore! I don’t want to—!”

Her voice collapses into itself, her eyes burn with tears she refuses to shed. She spins around blindly, and begins to break every little thing she can get her hands on. No one stops her, which surprises and maddens her. She rips up the papers she’s been filling out so diligently and flings the pieces into the air. She grabs two plates at once and throws them against the wall, where they shatter and fall to the floor in jagged shards.

“Bella—” Cedrella tries, at last, but it is too late.

Bella lunges for a spindly, wooden staff that sits propped against the arch of the hallway. In one swift motion, she cracks it over her knee, snapping it clean in two. From the break, the faintest wisp of silver floats out. It curls into the air and is quickly snuffed out, like flame under water. The moment it does, Bella collapses.

.

.

.

Light does not reach this place, this stinking recess of human filth and failure. Beyond the edge of her cell, her small, rotten life, cold and dark creatures roam. She can’t see the Dementors anymore, can’t quite see anything beyond the visceral lash of her memory, but she still feels them. The air chills whenever they glide by, and the dread in her heart grows so potent it almost chokes her to death.

Her mother smiles at her. She’s dead, Bellatrix knows full well, and yet here stands Druella, forever smiling. Those thin, humorless lips, so delicate and careful. Druella’s favorite mask, her only weapon.

“Bella, I raised you better than this,” Druella says smilingly. Even in the dark, her pale hair and eyes seem bright. She has an angel’s face. “What sort of example are you setting for your sisters?”

What sisters? Andromeda, who betrayed her? Narcissa, who abandoned her?

“I have no sisters!” she snarls into the darkness.

For all its absence of light and warmth, the one thing Azkaban does not lack is noise. Bellatrix’s voice is lost among many others, some shouting or screaming, others muttering and wailing. She doesn’t know how long she’s been here for, but there hasn’t been a day since her arrival when it was quiet.

Druella’s eyes flash. For a moment, that pretty, perfect face cracks. “Andromeda would not have left had you set a better example.”

Left? But Andromeda is right here. Of course she is. Freshly twenty, her thick, dark hair falling over her shoulder in a loose braid. Her eyes are warm; they always are, and yet it never fails to take Bellatrix by surprise when they blaze. Andromeda stands tall and unflinching, chin leveled up. She always did try too hard to appear imposing. Not once did it work on Bellatrix. Even now, with herself in tatters on the floor and Andromeda standing high above, she sees her sister only for what she is: an errant little girl in the garden, refusing to come inside.

“You can’t stop me.” Andromeda’s wand is out, a handsome white, made of fine-grained aspen. It was Bellatrix who took her to Ollivanders that day, Narcissa two years later. “I won’t let you.”

“Let me?” She lets out a harsh, mocking laugh. “I’ll give you one last chance—”

“The only thing I want from you is to leave us be.” Her wand drops just a centimeter. Andromeda swallows thickly. “It—it doesn’t need to be like this, Bella. Please. We won’t bother anyone. Turn a blind eye, and you’ll never hear from us again. You can simply ignore—”

“You and I both know that’s not the issue here.”

“Bella, please.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “I love him!”

“You love him,” she spits, disgusted. “You don’t know what love is. If you did, you wouldn’t do this to us. To me. This isn’t love, it’s betrayal. Cowardice of the highest form. You are running away from your duty.”

“It doesn’t need to be like this,” Andromeda repeats uselessly. “I wish I didn’t have to leave like this, run away—but what other choice do I have?”

“What other choice do you have?” Bellatrix agrees. “You have to run, Andromeda. You’d better run. Run and hide him far, far away, because if I catch him, I’ll kill him. Him and—”

Andromeda blasts her with a hex so mighty it makes Bellatrix’s head ring even now.

“Just you try.” Her voice trembles with fury. They’re seven and five, in the garden, the sun beating down. Andromeda’s hands are balled in fists and she is yelling about how ants have feelings, of all things. “Do not underestimate me.”

And Andromeda leaves her there, just like that, slumped on the floor. She vanishes soon after. Say what you will about her inclinations, she at least takes her sister’s advice. It is her last act of obedience. Bellatrix searches far and wide, but she cannot find Edward Tonks.

Days stretch as long as years. Within the four corners of her dingy cell, Bellatrix repeats the wicked motions of her life, waiting and waiting and waiting for the day she’ll be let out. (Soon, soon… Just a little while longer and he will return, free her, avenge her…) Somewhere down the shadowy, never-ending halls of Azkaban, she hears Sirius howl wretchedly—and laughs at the sound while her mother tuts behind her. 

.

.

.

She wakes within minutes, with Cedrella fussing over her. Arcturus is busy repairing the items Bella has broken.

“Are you—oh, thank Merlin,” Cedrella says with relief as Bella’s eyes flutter open.

Groggy and wobbling, it takes Bella a moment to adjust to her surroundings. The light streaming down from the window is brighter than anything she’s ever known. The kitchen air is so warm and snug, she almost melts into its embrace.

She pushes Cedrella away, tottering back. Her throat feels raw and sore, yet still she manages to rasp out, “Don’t touch me!”

Cedrella lets go, face still shadowed in worry. Arcturus does not care to look. Bella rises to her feet, unsteady, lifting a hand to catch her throbbing head. She swallows thickly, trying to tamp down the strange despair that fills and clogs her chest.

“I—I’m going to my room,” she says shakily, quickly. “Don’t bother me.”

No one does.

Cedrella leaves shortly after. Bella stays in her room for the next week, beset with dreadful nightmares of a prison she should have no knowledge of but does. She leaves only occasionally, mostly to use the bathroom or swipe leftovers from the kitchen, trying very hard to keep out of Arcturus’s sight. When she notices the staff back in its place, repaired, she takes it with her to break again. But when she does, what happened before does not happen again.

Finally, she decides to gather herself, pack away her shame, and ask Arcturus upfront.

“What is this thing?” she says, holding out the two pieces of the once-again broken staff.

He glances at it, frowns, and repairs it with a tired flourish of his wand. Rather than respond (perhaps he is still upset about her outburst), he ruffles through a stack of papers and pulls out a sheet of parchment. He tosses it to her.

Bella reaches desperately for it, eyes scanning through Arcturus’s small, neat handwriting.

Staff of Tiresias

Procured at auction in Boiotia, Sept 1910 - seller Georges Xanthopoulos

Conduit for prophesying, family heirloom, purportedly defunct since 1100 BC

Value: 35 Galleons

Notes: Used by Mopsus to best rival Seer Calchas. Historical significance may increase resale value to ~100 G.

It takes her a moment to work through the unfamiliar words, but she soon lands on the most important one. Prophesying. She knows what that means. She knows, too, that what she has been seeing in her sleep, in quiet moments between bites of food, in between the rare pauses of her wayward thoughts, may not be echoes of a nightmare after all. She glances up at Arcturus, who seems entirely unperturbed. (Bellatrix Lestrange studied her family well. She knows Arcturus the Elder has three daughters, two good, one rotten.)

Bella keeps the sheet with her, though it doesn’t offer anymore answers, and tries to return to some semblance of normalcy. But when she wanders through the rooms and glances at the polished surfaces of Arcturus’s many relics, it’s Bellatrix Lestrange’s haggard face she catches in the reflections rather than her own.

When Cedrella returns again with a new batch of soup and more radishes, Bella gives her a mumbled apology. Blood traitor or not—Bella is supposed to use her words not her hands (or, by extension, her magic).

Cedrella, weak and obtuse as she is, accepts the insincere apology far too easily and pours Bella some of her soup.

“Is this what you eat at home, too?” Bella mutters, pooling the watery soup in her spoon.

Cedrella gives her a somewhat strained smile. “Ah, we make do with what we can.”

“That’s pathetic,” Bella responds, lip curling with disgust. (She’s using her words, so it’s fine to be mean.) “You used to be one of ours.”

Cedrella glances at her and says, plainly,  “You seem to think I married into a bad family.”

It’s the wrong way to phrase it, though she’s not altogether certain why. (Bellatrix Lestrange kneels across a man with a smudged face. He speaks in a whisper, soft and sibilant, but it sounds so harsh in the otherwise silent room. “There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.”) 

Bella winces. Her head throbs, still. Will it ever stop aching? “No—there’s no such thing as good or bad. I think you married into a poor, weak family.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” Cedrella’s voice is so stupidly soft.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Bella answers, nose wrinkling. “It’s just that you shouldn’t be surprised when a powerful family destroys yours. It’s the natural order of things. It’s stupid to marry a Weasley. It’s like you want to hurt yourself.”

“Is it the natural order of things? Are there only powerful people and powerless ones?”

“Yes.”

“I rather think, then, the powerful should seek to protect the powerless. Not trample on them.”

“But that’s not going to happen,” Bella protests. “You wouldn’t ask a wolf to protect a rabbit. He’d eat it.”

“People are not wolves and rabbits, Bellatrix.”

“Yes, they are.” She says it in the same way she says so many things. Bugs don’t feel pain. But there’s a shadow of something else, someone else, now. It shivers under her words, and she finds her stomach twisting with a feeling she cannot quite place. “People are animals, too. We’re better, of course, but we’re still animals in the end.”

Cedrella merely chuckles. “I see, and being the poor, helpless rabbit I am, are you surprised a wolf hasn’t come along to eat me yet?”

“I didn’t say you were a rabbit,” Bella scowls. She feels as though she’s being made fun of, but none of this is silly. Not to her. It’s real, it’s true. “Just your husband. And your sons.”

“I’ll tell them you said so.” Cedrella’s still smiling. It’s distinctly dissimilar to Druella’s: amiable and amused. Bella finds it uncomfortable. “They’ll find that rather funny, being compared to rabbits.”

Bella scowls at her. “There’s nothing—it’s not funny! Is everything just a joke to you? You do realize you’re disowned and poor, right? Life isn’t simple and—and funny and silly!”

If Cedrella is upset, she certainly does a good job of hiding it. A long silence passes between them, during which Cedrella finishes putting away the rest of the vegetables she’s brought. Then, she turns and appraises Bella quietly. Her gaze is not so bright anymore, and it satisfies and saddens Bella to see it.

“I find life very complicated, actually,” Cedrella confesses. “I think it is very strange that a father who adored two daughters and shunned one now has only the one he cast out to rely on. I think it is very strange that a mother would send away a child for simply acting as a child would. And I must say, Bellatrix—all this talk of power, wolves, and rabbits… You didn’t speak this way the last time I visited.”

Bella doesn’t answer. She stares into her thin, runny soup. In the sheer, translucent surface, she can just barely make out her reflection. She looks young and healthy, with plump cheeks and glossy, thick hair. Still, even now, she can see the traces of Bellatrix Lestrange—gaunt and hollowed out, skin waxy and yellowed, sunken eyes that remind her of Cygnus. It shouldn’t startle her, but it does. Their Cygnuses are the same, after all. So are their Druellas.

Worry shadows Cedrella’s face. Not for the first time, she appears tender, filled with compassionate concern. Strange jealousy flares in Bella at the sight. To think her sons—Weasleys, born blood traitors—have her for a mother while she is stuck with Druella.

“Does it have to do with the staff? Your collapse?” Cedrella presses gently.

Bella’s gaze flits downward. Her hands fist into her robes tightly. Her eyes burn with guilt and unshed tears. Yes, it has to do with the staff. But more than that, it has to do with her—and Druella, and Cygnus, and Andromeda, and so many, many more.

“I’m going to Azkaban,” she chokes out. “I’m—I was wrong—there is good and bad, and I’m—”

A warm hand presses itself against her scalp. Bella stills with surprise and shame; she didn’t notice Cedrella coming to her.

“You are not bad, Bellatrix, you are just a child.”

Her chin trembles. “No—you don’t understand—I’m going to Azkaban because I did—do—awful things, and I wasn’t even sorry about any of it—and I—I’m going to hate Andy, and she’s going to hate me—and—and—”

She bursts into a staccato of sobs. Cedrella pulls her into a soothing embrace, and Bella falls into it without protest. She wraps her arms tight around Cedrella’s neck and shuts her eyes tight, willing her hiccuping cries to cease and failing miserably.

“It’s all right,” Cedrella murmurs, “none of that was real.”

“Y—you don’t understand!” she wails. Her sobs are shrill, more shrieks than anything. Everything about her is hard to bear, it’s always been like that. And she knows, now, that it will always be like that, too. “It’ll happen—it will—!”

How can she explain it, when she hardly understands it herself? It almost feels like a child’s phantasm: the bogeyman under the bed, the boggart at the back of the closet. But Bellatrix knows it can’t be. It can’t, because—I understood her. That other me, I knew her heart. I knew its hate. The hate of Bellatrix Lestrange is a devastating thing, potent as poison, hungry as a flame. It frightens Bella to think she’s to hold such a terrible power. It frightens her to realize she already has some kernel of it, some black and rotten seed that, despite all impossibility, will bloom into a roiling, rapturous wrath. It will happen. It will, because—

“I wanted Andy gone that day!” That final, awful admission rips from her heart painfully. Not once does Cedrella’s hold waver, and this only emboldens Bella to continue. “I always have to look after Andy, and—and—I can't read in the library myself if Andy is there because she doesn’t know her letters yet, so I have to read for her and she doesn’t like the books I like so I need to read the ones she likes but they’re boring. I never get to do what I want to do because Mother and Father are never there, and Hobble’s too stupid to play with Andy and Cissy. And—she throws so many strops during bath time because she hates getting wet—and Mother and Father don’t even know half the strops she has because she’s always happy when they’re there but that’s only because I have to make her happy whenever she has a strop so she can stop—and—and—”

“Bella, darling, it’s all right,” Cedrella tries. “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not!” She’s screaming now. It always ends up this way. She’s such a rough, prickly thing, it’s a wonder Cedrella’s been able to hold her for as long as she has. “I wanted her gone, so I told her to hide—and I didn’t even care to find her! I didn’t want to! And—when she was missing—I thought that maybe—maybe if she’s never found, I’ll never have to be responsible for her again!”

Strange bursts of emotion seize her heart: longing, desperation, remorse, resentment. You must set an example. You must be perfect for your sisters. Everything is for her sisters, for her family. Bella wonders if there’ll ever be anything she can have for herself.

Slowly, her breathing grows less harsh, more steady. A wave of exhaustion swoops over her, and she curls deep into Cedrella’s arms, who has still not let go.

“It’s hard,” Cedrella whispers to her, “being a child in our family, isn’t it?”

Eyes shut tight, Bella merely nods wordlessly. In the dark world of her mind, she sees a version of a life she wishes were not hers: Andromeda and Narcissa, two sides of the same coin, with their own warm and lovely families. (Bellatrix Lestrange has no one, needs no one.)

“We all have our secret desires. It’s hard not to give in—but you found your sister in the end, didn’t you? It’s all right now. It’s over, and you are not at all bad, Bellatrix. You only acted out, as a child would. It’s done, you didn’t want to find her but you did.”

But she didn’t. (Bellatrix Lestrange never sees Andromeda again. She’s informed that Edward Tonks has been killed, and she’s only sorry she couldn’t have done it herself.)

She does not see Cedrella again because she’s called back home only one week later, an entire month before Yuletide. The heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has been born and there’s to be a dinner party to celebrate the fact he hasn’t come out with an extra limb or two.

“Will you be coming to see the heir, too?” she asks Arcturus on the morning of her departure. Hobble is due to pick her up in a bit.

Arcturus is busy with his papers. Absently, he repeats, “Heir?”

“My aunt gave birth,” she supplies.

“Congratulations,” is the dry, uninterested response.

“Did you even get an invite?”

He doesn’t bother responding. Come to think of it, she’s never seen Arcturus at any of the big family celebrations. Did he simply stop leaving the house after his wife died and his daughters married?

“You’re going to die alone,” she mutters, sour about the lack of attention. She stops to think on it for a moment. Not-memories (flashes of life that belong to Bellatrix Lestrange) swim through her head, some too slippery to grasp, others too easy. “Actually, yes. In a month and a half, you’re going die. I don’t know if you’ll be alone, but probably. It’ll probably be pathetic and miserable, too.”

He merely grunts in response.

Bella huffs.

When she returns home, it’s almost like nothing has changed. She might as well have been gone a week. Narcissa is taller now, but she can still only manage a few words at a time. Andromeda seems to have entirely forgotten the incident that precipitated all this, and constantly begs Bella to play pretend in the garden or find wayward pixies in the grove or paint (very ugly) portraits of each other in the tea room—and so many other things that Bella thinks she might have found much more enjoyable if she didn’t have so many strange not-memories coloring every one of their activities together.

Druella references Bella’s visit once, but seems largely disinterested in hearing about Arcturus Black’s hoarding problem. She only asks what Bella has learned and is reasonably pleased with her response that “it’s important to preserve the things that have been passed down in our family.” Cygnus is still largely absent, but what else did she expect? The only person who has changed is Bella, who now wakes in cold sweats in the middle of the night and hates being in dark, tight spaces.

The day of Walburga and Orion’s dinner party arrives quickly. Bella and her sisters are dressed in matching robes of decadent blue. They’re paraded around a little, much to Druella’s satisfaction, and then everyone fawns over the newly born Sirius Black—until he begins to bawl, at which point he’s whisked off to the nursery. After a smattering of hors d’oeuvres (deviled eggs and prawn cocktails), the adults sit down for drinks. Bella watches the children chase each other through the halls of Grimmauld Place.

In the parlor room, the grand piano plays by itself, accompanied by a floating violin. Bella has never been much for music, but she likes the way this song sways. Low and slow, it drifts through the air. Adelheid Acker’s Sonata No. 17, she recognizes. They played it—will play it—at her wedding.

Souring at the not-memory, she wanders along the shadows of the room, brushing by drapes and chattering portraits. It’s distinctly upsetting, having the not-memories sputter and spark, like there’s another set of bones in her body, one she doesn’t have room for but can’t refuse. Sometimes there are layers to it, like she’s only caught the surface of the not-memory, the broad strokes. Later, when she smells a particular brand of cologne or a hears the rough timbre of a low laugh, she’ll fall further into the pull of it, the not-memory flaring in her head like a supernova, the whole of it wrenching through her, like it’s really happening, playing out in real-time so it’s no longer Bellatrix Lestrange’s memory but hers.

She ducks into the nursery and the door clicks quietly behind her. Sirius Black is snoozing away in his cot, dressed in fine, white frills, hair already dark and wild. He used to be—will be?—her favorite cousin, even though they fight often. She never could get him to fall in line. They’re alike: war-hungry, gusty as a tempest. Maybe that’s why she kills him. Sometimes, she can hardly stand herself.

Eventually, Sirius’s lids flutter open and he stares up at her, eyes wide and empty, mouth agape, so ridiculously helpless and dumb as all babies are. He babbles a bit of nonsense at her in greeting, which Bella finds a touch amusing. He’s cute, in a stupid way.

“Hi,” she says. Her finger ghosts over his scalp, and then bops his nose. He squeals. “I’m Bellatrix. I’m going to kill you one day, probably.”

He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about it. His large eyes, as grey and innocent as Cissy’s, stare up at her without even an ounce of fear.

“I don’t want to,” she tags on lamely. “Not right now, at least. It seems stupid to kill a baby. You can’t even do anything.”

“Abububu.”

The song outside has changed into something slightly more fast-paced. Bella hears the guests prattling and tittering and being altogether very useless. The heir to the House of Black is in a room all by himself, and she could very well smother him with a pillow if she wanted.

“I don’t really get it,” she confesses to him very quietly. A not-memory of Azkaban presses against her skull, and she shivers under the weight of it. “I think I—she got worse after Azkaban, but you seemed the same. Mostly. How come? Is it because you could be a dog?”

He sneezes. Bella dutifully pulls his blanket over him.

“Should I become a dog, too?”

As soon as she says it, she finds she hates the mere idea. Her? Become some slobbering, frothing beast? She’d rather have dogs than be one. But isn’t that what she was—will become? She doesn’t have all the pieces, not yet, but there is something very sinister, very crucial edging into her temples. His most devoted follower. Whose? Why? His most loyal servant. A servant—like a house-elf?

The more she tries to dig into it, the harder it becomes to grasp. The not-memories are all hazy: a man with a face that looks like it’s been stretched and then squeezed back, blurry and distorted. His eyes are bloodshot, but the red is more potent and striking than any blood she’s seen.

This is all to say: he’s uglier than Portia’s mother. She doesn’t want to be his house-elf, nor anyone else’s.

Chapter Text

The not-memories flicker and fade as the years pass. She forgets many of them, regarding them as nothing more than the fantastical imaginings of a child with too much time on her hands, a strange and terrifying story she dreamt up while roaming the cramped rooms of old Arcturus’s house. She reads to Narcissa and Andromeda in the family library, suffers through soirées with them, argues with them about sweets past supper and bedtimes—and altogether forgets that there will come a time when they will both leave her behind. She forgets that one day Bellatrix Black will become Bellatrix Lestrange. She forgets her philosophy of wolves and rabbits and lives, for a little while longer, in a world where all that truly matters is whether or not there really is a unicorn hidden somewhere in the nearby grove. 

There is only one thing that never quite escapes her memory: Azkaban. The four rotten, cramped corners of Bellatrix Lestrange’s cell visit her near-nightly, and though Bella isn’t certain anymore if it is the future or simple night terrors, she knows that she is afraid of that place.

She mentions Azkaban, off-handedly, to Andromeda once, but her sister hardly understands what she’s talking about. When Bella quietly confesses that there is actually a place worse than their mother’s social gatherings, Andromeda’s reaction is confusion. (“But there’s no point in being scared of Azkaban,” Andromeda declares. “Only bad people go there.”) After that conversation, Bella decides to simply keep these things to herself.

It’s a decent plan, until it isn’t.

When she gets her wand in preparation for her first year at Hogwarts, she’s bombarded with not-memories of every awful thing Bellatrix Lestrange did—will do?—with the same wand. Bella finds a world of dark curses and illegal hexes flitting in the shadows of her mind. It’s enough to drive her to sleeplessness, and she ends up going to her mother in desperation.

“St. Mungo’s?” Druella repeats. “Whatever for?”

“I just…don’t feel well,” Bella says.

Druella’s wand flicks in the air, a hazy blue light emanating from the tip before being snuffed out. “You’re not sick.”

Bella swallows thickly. “It’s that…I’ve been having these bad dreams…”

“Bad dreams?” Druella looks a tad affronted. “Bellatrix, there is no need to go to the hospital simply because of a bad dream. I’ll have Hobble pick up some Dreamless Draught.”

Bella is a little miffed she won’t get to talk to a Healer about the matter, but she’s appeased by the mention of a potion. It’ll at least give her a good night’s sleep, which is all she really wants at this point.

Once she’s changed into her nightclothes, pillows freshly fluffed, all tucked into bed, Hobble appears with her potion. Bella takes it eagerly, uncorking the bottle in one swift motion and tipping back her head to gulp down the contents. The taste is bitter and sharp, but Bella’s far too keen on her night of peaceful sleep to give in to her revulsion.

When she’s done, she hands Hobble the empty bottle and lies down to sleep. Her eyes flicker shut and she happily awaits the sweet, quiet lull of sleep.

It comes quickly enough, but it is anything but sweet and quiet.

.

.

.

The night air is stiff and sharp, some terribly dark cloth that’s been cut from the fabric of fear itself, but Bellatrix scarcely has the time to enjoy it.

She’s here with Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Bartemius tonight. With only the pale light of the moon overhead, they seem little more than shadows, sinister phantoms come for their nightly haunting. It feels quite accurate, all things considered; Bellatrix feels more like a ghost than a human being at the moment. She’s not felt despair and desperation quite like this since she was a child.

“Please,” Alice Longbottom begs. She’s twitching, reaching for her husband, who went under long ago. “Please—we—I’ve told you—we know nothing—”

Bellatrix cannot accept that. She has exhausted all other leads. She peers down, face cold and unflinching, and drinks in every wretched wrinkle of pain engraved in Alice’s face. It’s a soft, round face that she has; there’s some shred of resemblance to Andromeda, and Bella finds some new swell of malice and hate leaking into her wand.

She raises it, draws it in the familiar pattern of the curse. “Crucio.”

The scream Alice lets out is the sweetest thing Bellatrix has ever heard. Her wand thrums in her hand, buzzing with some sinister energy that Bellatrix eagerly allows. She imagines, for a moment, that it is her sister screaming, her sister begging, apologizing, sobbing.

It’s only too bad. Bellatrix isn’t so sad and soft to hold a hand that has already let go of hers.

.

.

.

Bella awakens with a start, a horrible sob wrenching itself from her lips, her chest heavy with misplaced panic. It takes her a moment to adjust to her surroundings, and then another to realize that the Potion of Dreamless Sleep did not work. There is only one explanation, really, and it chills Bella, sends her right back to the annals of some nascent, childhood fear.

These are not dreams she’s having.

She’s bombarded with so many not-memories on the Hogwarts Express that she spends most of her time in the train lavatory, desperate to avoid all the new faces that quickly become familiar ones as she recalls Bellatrix Lestrange’s memories of them.

By the time the boats arrive at the castle and the first years are marched inside the Great Hall, Bella is decidedly very over the whole Hogwarts experience. She is familiar with most of her fellow first years, save for the ones from insignificant families. As they’re being called up to be Sorted, she silently announces their new Houses alongside the Sorting Hat.

Very soon, it’s her turn. She scans the four, long tables that stretch near the entire length of the hall. She spots a happy-looking Arthur Weasley snug in the middle of the Gryffindors—and shivers unconsciously when she sees Molly Prewett across from him. Very quickly, she turns her attention to the Slytherins. She will have to wait till next year for Rodolphus to arrive, and the only Slytherins she really recognizes are her distant cousins: Cyrus and Drusilla Crouch. Oh, Tiberius Flint is here, of course, but before she can gauge if he’s still got the same dull, sloe-eyed expression, her vision is eclipsed by the Sorting Hat’s raggedy brim.

“My, my,” the Sorting Hat whispers in her ear, “what have we got here?”

This is a waste of her time. She knows where she’s going, and urges the Sorting Hat to hurry it up.

“Why there?” the Hat asks. “Your greatest ambition is to not end up in a prison cell, which likely nine-tenths of the population manages to accomplish just fine.”

Bella glowers. Her fingers curl over the edge of the stool, nails scraping against wood.

“Hmm… You’re capable of great devotion. There is no friend more loyal than you.”

(Bellatrix Lestrange smiles cruelly as the wizard below her begs for mercy. “Forgive you, Karkaroff? Would you have us simply forget? Join hands again? Ha! Once the hand pulls away, I will never hold it again.”)

There is no enemy greater than me, when loyalty has been broken.

The Hat stays silent for a long moment. It’s perplexed, Bella can tell. It’s found the not-memories. To her right, Dumbledore calls a Hatstall. How positively embarrassing.

“It would have been Slytherin,” the Hat murmurs eventually. “I wasn’t wrong, you know.”

Get on with it!

“But you’re different from the other one, so it’s not quite Slytherin. Not anymore.” The Hat hems and haws for a little while longer, as though it’s been ambushed by an unexpectedly difficult piece of arithmetic. “How very interesting… You’re quite honest, very often to your own detriment. Mere belief outpaces your sense of self-preservation by leagues.”

She can hear whispers rumble through the Great Hall. There’s nothing quite so powerful and intimidating as the curiosity of the entire Hogwarts student population.

Just choose something—anything!

And the Hat, that bastard, bellows out, “HUFFLEPUFF!”

It takes her a moment to parse the word, at which point Dumbledore has very rudely whisked the Hat off her head.

“Huh?” she says very intelligently.

“Hufflepuff, Miss Black,” Dumbledore repeats in that insufferably kind tone of his.

“Huh?” she repeats.

He discreetly begins to guide her down the dais while waving the next first-year forward. “Center table, yellow and black. Off you pop.”

She walks toward the Hufflepuff table in something of a daze. She is the first Hufflepuff of the school year, and her cohort is eager to greet her. They welcome her with pomp and cheer and a slew of horrible little smiles. Bella collapses into the nearest available seat, where she dimly hears the next student Sorted into Hufflepuff as well. The entire table explodes with applause while she hunches forward, staring into her empty plate. Her distorted reflection stares back. There are a great many doubts and questions pressing into her skull (Druella will lord this misstep over Bella for the rest of her days—oh, and what does this mean, exactly, for the not-memories if she’s no longer in Slytherin?), but there is still some small shred of satisfaction in the realization that, at the very least, she will not have to endure seven years of sharing the same dormitory as Portia Travers. Still, she would have liked it more if the Hat had picked Ravenclaw instead.

More first-years collect around her. A few try to start conversation with her, which she pointedly ignores in favor of glaring daggers at Dumbledore and the Sorting Hat. It’s their fault, if anything. The Sorting Hat didn’t understand her, was confused, surely, by her not-memories. And Dumbledore, that irritating old fool, should have at least waited a tick before sweeping the Hat off her head.

Once the Sorting is concluded and Dippet says a few words, dinner begins. Bella finds herself in the uncomfortable position of having to now suffer through small talk.

“Cyril Cragglerook,” says a boy with dark, curling hair and bright eyes, shaking the hand of a fellow first-year who Bella recognizes as Clarence Macmillan. “Pleasure.”

“I’m Nola,” announces one of the girls excitedly. She’s nearly bouncing in her seat, honey-blonde pigtails bouncing with her. “It’s so great to meet all of you! I can’t wait for classes to begin tomorrow and to explore Hogwarts and to—”

“Oi, d’you mind passing some of the roasted potatoes?” the boy to her left calls out.

“Not at all!” another girl says (Enid Fawley, Bella dimly recollects), reaching forward to secure the platter. “Here you are, Ian.”

It’s a far cry from the bragging and slighting that the first-year Slytherins go through as they establish the pecking order for the school year. Bella’s not quite sure how she feels about it yet; there’s some strange, disjointed feeling stirring through her bones. If she were at the Slytherin table, she’d have half the first-years clamoring for her attention and favor based on her last name alone. But here, Bella finds herself at a table where even the notion of power is powerless.

“Are you feeling all right?” the girl to Bella’s right asks. “You’ve been awful quiet.”

Bella shoots her a fleeting glance, finds she doesn’t recognize the loose chestnut hair or round spectacles, and promptly loses any and all interest in the girl. “I’m fine.”

She starts to feel a little better about her whole situation by the time they’re escorted to the common room. If there’s any House whose members don’t end up in Azkaban, it’s probably Hufflepuff. Crime likely goes against their core tenets of frolicking in gardens and eating raspberry pies—or whatever it is the Prefects are babbling about. She’s only really half-listening.

The gaggle of first-years separate toward their respective dormitories. Bella trudges up the stairs while Nola eagerly announces that her mother sent her off with a batch of homemade brownies, and oh, wouldn’t it be such great fun if they all traded stories and ate brownies together before going to sleep tonight?

Bella has to physically stop herself from gagging.

Still, once they’re upstairs and everyone has changed into their nightclothes, Bella does not protest when Nola hands her a brownie. It’s quite nice, flaky and not too sweet; she deserves a little treat, really, for putting up with this disaster of a day.

“Who wants to go first?” Nola says, putting aside the now half-full box of brownies. They’re all sitting in a circle in front of Nola’s bed. Bella has angled herself out somewhat, but she keeps herself close by to swipe more brownies when the need arrives. “We can talk about our families or our pets or the funniest thing that’s ever happened to us or—or anything, really!”

“I can go,” Enid announces. She’s quickly becoming the bespoke leader of their little group, which Bella rather dislikes. She’ll need to do something about that later. “I’m Enid, Enid Fawley. My family’s all wizards, and we have a bunch of pets. My mum loves rescuing kneazles, and she’s got a whole room set up just for them—”

“Er, what’s a kneazle?” the bespectacled girl who’d sat next to Bella at dinner interrupts.

“A kneazle?” Enid repeats. “It’s, er, well, it’s a kneazle. It’s just a pet, but they’re wicked smart.”

The girl’s brows furrow. “But what does it look like?”

“It’s like a cat, Jane,” Nola answers kindly.

“Oh, I see.” Jane’s lips purse with worry. “Are there a lot of differences like that? I didn’t realize wizards and witches would have separate animals, too…”

The last girl, who’d introduced herself as Hypatia Leach earlier, smiles at Jane. “Don’t worry too much. You’ll catch on quickly, I’m sure.”

Enid shuffles forward a bit. “I’m sorry, Jane, I didn’t realize you wouldn’t know kneazles.”

“No, no—it’s all right,” Jane says profusely.

“I don’t know much about what Muggles do or don’t share with us,” Enid confesses. “You’ve really never seen kneazles roaming about? They’re all over where we live.”

“Er, well I’ve seen some stray cats before, maybe one of them was a kneazle?” Jane’s expression turns thoughtful. “You know, we went to a shelter last year to see if we ought to get another pet so Barkley—that’s our dog—could have a friend, and there were a lot of cats there. I wonder if they accidentally picked up a kneazle.”

“A shelter?” Enid asks. “What’s that?”

“It’s like a place that has a lot of rescued pets or pets that owners had to give away.”

Enid claps her hands together. “Oh! That’s like what my mum does. Isn’t it so fascinating that we end up having the same ideas anyway?”

Bella scoffs. She almost feels sorry for Enid, so close to snatching the hearts of all the Hufflepuffs; but of course, the girl just had to trip over her own bleeding heart right at the finish line. Just so. This is how it ought to be, anyway. Now Bella can swoop in and establish the correct hierarchy here in Hufflepuff.

“I think you mean disgusting,” Bella says.

Enid jumps to her feet. The remaining girls simply stare, aghast.

Jane’s expression crumples. “W—what?”

“You’re a Mudblood,” Bella acknowledges with a smug laziness, all the while munching on Nola’s mum’s brownie. “It’s disgusting that you’re even here. You shouldn’t be; you’ve basically just stolen magic from a witch who actually deserves to be here.”

Hypatia gasps, Jane’s eyes grow misty with barely restrained tears, and Nola—that petty prat—actually has the gall to reach forward and snatch back the brownie.

“How could you say something like that!” Enid cries out. “That—that’s so, so untrue and—”

“Untrue?” Bella repeats stormily, rising as well. “I haven’t said anything that isn’t fact, and you know it—”

“Of course that’s not fact! And I can’t believe you actually used that word—”

“It’s the only word that fits to call someone like that—”

“It’s so nasty! You—you’re horrible for using something so, so—”

Jane erupts into a series of sobs as she realizes that Mudblood isn’t some word Bella just made up. Nola and Hypatia clamor to comfort Jane, while Enid’s horrified expression slowly freezes over into something more stern and icy.

“You’d better apologize,” Enid says. It almost sounds like a threat. Bella finds herself wanting to laugh.

“Apologize?” she sneers. “The only thing I have to apologize for is not having told her what she is earlier.”

With that, she stalks over to her bed, clambering in and closing the hangings. She’s annoyed at how wrong all this went. It’s an unfortunate consequence of being in Hufflepuff, she supposes. It’s certainly no fault of hers, of course.

Beyond the too-yellow hangings, she can hear the slightly muffled voices of her fellow Hufflepuffs as they swear up and down that it’s not what Jane thinks, that most people aren’t like that, that Bella is just a bully, and on and on. Bella glowers to herself as she sinks into the plush, quilted blanket. She finds herself missing her sisters desperately. It’d be far too easy if they were here. Narcissa always listened without complaint, and while it sometimes took a scolding or two, Andromeda would usually follow along eventually as well.

Oh, well. Bella will simply have to find lackeys elsewhere

Besides the slight prick of guilt (only because Jane’s sniffling is impossibly high-pitched and difficult to ignore), she has a peaceful sleep. There isn’t a not-memory that features the Hufflepuff dormitories, so, for once, Bella gets to enjoy her own dreams.

When she goes down for breakfast in the morning, she finds a touching (read: irritating) display of solidarity when her fellow first-years refuse to let her sit with them.

“We won’t let you sit with us until you apologize to Jane,” Enid Fawley announces.

“Fine, then,” Bella snaps. “You’re doing me a favor, really.”

It’s not enough to simply sit further away from the first-year Hufflepuffs. Bella makes a point to stomp all the way to the other end of the lengthy Hufflepuff table for her breakfast. The seventh-years here look at her bemusedly, one going so far as to ask if she’s all right, but one hefty glare is enough to have them ignore her, too.

When she looks at today’s first-year schedule, she finds that the majority of her classes are with Gryffindor, the few left are spent with Slytherin. It hits Bella, all at once, just how lucky Slytherins really are. They only ever shared Potions with Gryffindor during the first couple of years at Hogwarts. But, with Bella in Hufflepuff now, the majority of her classes were shared with Gryffindor or Slytherin.

As she flits from class to class, she finds herself growing immeasurably disheartened by her new status as a Hufflepuff. Her own House refuses to partner with her during classes, she’d rather die a million times over than partner with some blood traitor from Gryffindor, and all her childhood “friends” who’re now in Slytherin simply laugh at her when she approaches them.

Her last class of the day is Transfiguration, taught by Dumbledore, and by the time she’s trudged inside the classroom, she’s resigned herself to simply sitting alone in the back. Transfiguration isn’t a subject that requires pairs, so Dumbledore, thankfully, doesn’t force someone to partner with her.

Today’s lesson is focused on turning a matchstick into a needle, and Bella welcomes the opportunity to focus on something other than her pitiful social life. The rest of the class is struggling quite a bit with the spellwork, some managing to turn their matchstick into a slightly sharper matchstick, others not even managing to turn their matchstick into anything at all, so Bella anticipates it’ll be something of an uphill climb even for herself.

But when she flourishes her wand for the second time, she finds she’s succeeded.

(Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange takes particular pride in transfiguring each of Druella’s decorations for her upcoming summer soirée into wasps.)

“Wonderful work, Miss Black,” Dumbledore compliments. “That’ll be five points to Hufflepuff.”

She’s miffed that it’s Dumbledore giving her the points, though there’s no denying she’s pleased about getting points at all. Smugly, she finds herself figuring that this ought to be enough to get her fellow Hufflepuffs to ease up a bit. She earned their first points for the year, after all.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this small display of House patriotism doesn’t move the first-years in the slightest.

Annoyingly, Bella finds herself turning to optimism. Surely, everyone will just get over this and forget about it by the week’s end, right? It’s a charming exercise in escapism, and Bella hopes to soon find herself well-acquainted with her fellow first-years before the week is up.

Instead, by Thursday, she finds herself in Professor Sprout’s office.

It’s a distinctly Hufflepuff office, Bella feels. Very bright, a vexing amount of plants, a plush chair that she (annoyingly) finds all too comfortable to sink into. Pomona Sprout sits across from her, behind a honey oak table spilling with rolls of parchment, used mugs, and Remembralls. There is a tin of cookies that Bella eyes but decides to ignore in favor of her pride.

“Miss Black, it’s come to my attention that there is some intra-House discord,” Sprout begins. “I’m to understand that all this began during your first night at Hogwarts. Miss Jane Bowen very kindly framed the incident as an argument, but the other girls in your dormitory have told me that the encounter was more one-sided. I’m sure you know that Hogwarts has a zero-tolerance policy in regards to bullying.”

Bella finds she can’t quite take this woman seriously. Sprout looks at her benignly, with an expression that imparts just as much warmth as it does firmness. Her robes are a disgusting shade of earthy green, the edges of which are frayed and stained with what Bella has to assume is fertilizer. She’s nothing like Druella: there’s no sharp, urgent edge to her voice, no immediate dissection of Bella’s faults, no irritation, no derision. It’s an altogether pathetic attempt, really, to make Bella reflect on her actions.

“I haven’t been bullying her,” Bella responds haughtily, crossing her arms over her chest, daring Sprout to correct her. “I’ve only talked to her once, and all I did was point out that she doesn’t belong at Hogwarts. Not in the way the rest of us do. Her parents don’t have magic, after all. All I did was say the truth.”

“It is true that Jane is a Muggle-born,” Sprout acknowledges. Bella almost wants to lift her chin triumphantly in response, but she halts, knowing that there is a caveat fast approaching. “But is it necessary to point it out, Miss Black? Is it necessary to deride her for it? Is it necessary to use such a vulgar term for it? I don’t think so, and I don’t think in doing so you are pursuing any kind of truth. It’s simply mean. Do you understand what I’m getting at here?”

Bella understands that it’s mean. She’s well aware of it, in fact, but being mean is as unavoidable as breathing air for her. It’s the simple fact of her existence. Doesn’t Sprout realize this? All it takes is one look, really. One long glance at the thick bramble of her hair, the heavyset glare of her eyes, the permanent scowl attached to her lips: Bella was born mean.

But that doesn’t in any way make her wrong, and Bella bristles under the assumption that she is. As far as she’s concerned, if being mean to a Mudblood is a crime then so should stepping on dirt, or throwing out rubbish, or squashing a bug—or any of the other myriad of small, cruel things people do on a daily basis.

“I’m not stupid,” Bella spits out, because all she really hears in Sprout’s careful tone is yet another patronizing voice that has made up its mind about her. “I know that. But if she’s so hurt about it, then that’s her fault. And I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

A crinkle appears between Sprout’s brows, and Bella finds herself growing steadily angrier. There isn’t an iota of frustration in Sprout, just concern.

“How would you feel if someone were to say you didn’t belong at Hogwarts? If someone were to insult you and your family? Wouldn’t you be hurt? And wouldn’t you feel even more hurt if someone were to say, ‘Well, it’s your fault for feeling so hurt about it’?”

“I wouldn’t be hurt,” Bella says defensively. “I’d be angry about it, but I wouldn’t be hurt because I know that that’s not true. It doesn’t even matter really, because that wouldn’t ever happen.”

“Then suppose it’s something else. Suppose, simply, that you’ve been hurt by someone’s comment or actions. It’s not a good feeling, is it, Miss Black?”

Bella actually rolls her eyes.

“Miss Black—Bellatrix, I’m not trying to purposefully make you feel bad. All I’m trying to do right now is help you recognize the weight of what you said and understand why your fellow first-years have reacted the way they did. If you don’t want to have an open conversation, very well. I cannot force you. But, at the very least, surely you do not enjoy being ignored by your House?”

(Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange do not have a marriage; they have an arrangement. When Narcissa announces her pregnancy, Bellatrix Lestrange smiles and congratulates her. But when she returns home, it’s an empty house that greets her and the cold reality that the last time she was touched was when Rodolphus kissed her after their wedding vows six years ago.)

“I do enjoy it, actually,” she snarls out. “I don’t want to be bothered by idiots with weak hearts. The only thing I really feel hurt by is the fact that I need to talk to you about any of this. It’s insulting, really, that you think you can get me to change my mind. You can’t make me feel bad for some stupid Mudblood. I am never going to listen to some dumpy, crackpot witch tell me that—that—”

She stops in one sharp breath, suddenly aware of the fact that she is, at the end of the day, an eleven-year-old girl at a school and in front of her is a much older, very beloved professor.

Rather than expel her outright, Sprout merely sighs and says, “That will be a fortnight of detention, Miss Black.”

Bella’s first detention with Sprout is the following Friday, after dinner. While all the other students shuffle off to their common rooms, eager to relax and sleep in for once, Bella gets to trudge along to Sprout’s office by the greenhouse. It’s terribly depressing for her to realize that even if she didn’t have detention, it’s not like she has anything better to do. Unlike Enid Fawley, who has quickly become Hogwart’s resident social butterfly, Bella has no friends.

“Hello,” Bella announces dully, plodding past Sprout’s door.

Sprout looks up at her and gives a rote smile. “Miss Black, how are you?”

Awful. No one sat with her at dinner, and Bella didn’t want to suffer the indignity of having to go to another House’s table so she simply sat at the lone edge of the Hufflepuff table and slurped soup in silence.

“I’m okay,” she ends up answering, and doesn’t bother reciprocating the question. “What should I do for detention?”

“Ah, well, I have a feeling writing lines won’t quite have the lasting impact I’m hoping for, so I thought we might offer our help to Hagrid and pitch in with the caretaking of the grounds.”

Oh, joy. Certainly, there’s nothing in this world Bella loves so much as community service.

Sprout hefts herself from behind her desk and grabs a cloak to throw around her shoulders. Bella watches with grim silence and finds herself seriously wondering if she might be able to feign some sort of grievous illness in order to get out of this.

Unfortunately, Bella’s well aware she’s not the best actor, so playing dead will have to wait for a target who’s easier to fool.

Stuffing down a sigh of resignation, she follows Sprout out of the castle. They take a long, winding path down to some wretched hovel in the earth that Bella soon learns is supposed to be Hagrid’s hut. It almost tugs at her heartstrings, to think there are some people who live in slipshod shacks—and then she remembers Hagrid is a half-breed oaf who probably deserves to live like this anyway.

“Hagrid’s preparing his garden for pumpkins,” Sprout explains as they head around the hut. “But the area’s currently overrun with weeds, so he’s asked if I might be able to help clear it out without ruining the current crop of vegetation.”

“Okay,” Bella responds blandly. She glances at the garden, which is absolutely teeming with all sorts of plant-life. She’s not certain which ones are weeds. “What spell do we use for that?”

“Spell?” Sprout says. “We’ll be doing it by hand.”

Bella frowns. “It’ll take forever if we do that! It’ll be much easier if we use magic.”

“Detention is not supposed to be easy, Miss Black,” Sprout answers concisely. “Now, let’s get started.”

Sprout quickly leads her into the garden and points out the difference between a common weed and the crop of plants that Hagrid actually wants to see to fruition. Bella dawdles for a moment or two, hoping that some convenient natural disaster or the apocalypse itself might lend itself to her aid, but very quickly resigns herself to kneeling down and tugging at weeds.

She’s played around in the dirt and muck enough times with Andromeda and Narcissa back home (obviously without Druella’s knowledge), so it’s not that she find the task inherently distasteful. It’s that she’s not doing it for herself. She feels woefully out of control, beholden to what Sprout wants. She’s certain that feeling is only exacerbated by the not-memories. She’s still a child; listening to adults is what she’s supposed to do. But somewhere, in the phantom shadows of her mind, Bellatrix Lestrange wanders a cell that she is queen of.

Bella wants to be in charge. She wants to be listened to. She wants the Hufflepuffs to stop ignoring her, the Slytherins to stop laughing at her, and the whole of Hogwarts to stop being so unbearable.

“I find uprooting weeds to be a particularly good outlet after a taxing day,” Sprout says happily, wiping away the thinnest veneer of sweat from her brow. “There’s nothing quite so rewarding as some honest labor,”

“Really?” Bella bites, grasping a fistful of weeds and tearing them out with all the rage and ferocity of one manticore fighting another to the death. “Because I can name several things that are infinitely more rewarding.”

“Now, now, Miss Black,” Sprout tuts. “Time’ll only go by slower if you’re not enjoying it.”

It’s the last thing she wants, but Bella can’t very well force herself to enjoy something so completely unenjoyable, can she?

She lets Sprout prattle on with her proselytizing without interruption. She’d rather do the work as quickly as possible and move on from what she’s pretty sure at this point is hell on earth. Is it really not enough that the Hufflepuffs—students with hearts so stupidly soft that they can’t help but forgive someone every time they so much as sneeze—hate her? She has to lower herself by plucking weeds from a vagrant’s backyard, too? And she has to do it while listening to some daft woman preach about goodness and kindness and charity?

Bella rifles through the sparse vegetation and pulls at weeds with an almost mechanical rigor. So deep in stewing, wrathful thought, she hardly pays attention to the plants as she uproots them. Somewhere along the process, she hurriedly digs her hand forward—and immediately yelps in pain as something sharp digs into the soft flesh of her palm.

Sprout rushes to her side in an instant but before she can ask Bella what happened, Bella has hunched forward again, digging into the dirt furiously to find what dared hurt her.

The culprit is laid bare within seconds: a small creature no larger than her hand, covered in dark quills, with a thin, quivering snout sniffing the air.

“What is that?” Bella says with heavy revulsion. (Bellatrix Lestrange never stooped so low as to take Care of Magical Creatures.)

“How precious!” Sprout says, reaching forward to cup the disgusting, writhing ball of needles. “It looks like a knarl got into Hagrid’s garden.”

“It’s horrid,” Bella says, eyeing the animal.

The little thing is squealing horribly, and Bella winces at the noise. She’s acquainted well enough with all types of shrieks and hollers that she’s certain the knarl is in pain. Sprout flips the animal over to more closely examine it. Bella wonders if it would be inappropriate to suggest they simply throw it away and move on.

“Hmm, I don’t see anything outwardly wrong,” Sprout says, clicking her tongue. The knarl protests with a shrill squeak as she rights it in her hands. “I know Hagrid’s been complaining about something getting into his vegetation. He might have sprayed the area with some kind of anti-pest potion. Poor dear probably got sick off it.”

“Is it going to die, then?” Bella asks stolidly. She has a very certain feeling that today’s detention might go a lot faster if it does.

Sprout mistakes her question as some marker for fear. “Oh, no, of course not! Some proper care, and it’ll be right as rain in due time.” She smiles reassuringly at Bella and adds, “I’m glad to see you’ve taken such an interest in this knarl’s wellbeing, Miss Black. Perhaps for tomorrow’s detention, I’ll have Hagrid instruct you in the proper way to care for it? We can house it in my office until it gets better.”

Truly, anything would be better than getting on her hands and knees and weeding through the dirt, so Bella simply stays her tongue and nods.

Schoolwork is the least of Bella’s worries and while her worsening ostracism in Hufflepuff is certainly a problem, it’s not one she cares to deal with at the moment. This is all to say, by the time the weekend rolls around, Bella finds she doesn’t have much to do. She doesn’t have the friends she’d normally have to while away the time, and she’s comfortable enough in her classes to put aside studying.

To put it bluntly, she’s woefully bored. 

After a day of dithering and writing letters to Andromeda and Narcissa, Bella decides to spend the remaining one researching Azkaban in the school library. It’s said to be an impenetrable prison, she knows, but Sirius got out—gets out—one way or another, so perhaps there have been other escapees or some known routes that were documented. This isn’t to say she’s preparing for the (very slim, potential) eventuality, of course. It’s simply…with her current status as the pariah of Hufflepuff, it might be best to be prepared. Just in case.

She’s one of a handful of other friendless losers in the library today. After collecting three volumes on the history of Azkaban, Bella finds she has her pick of tables to sit at. She looks around for an out-of-view alcove she won’t be disturbed at, and in doing so, notices a fellow first-year surrounded by a wall of books: a girl with dirty-blonde hair pulled back in a neatly-tied plait and a pair of wide, pale eyes focused entirely on the first of her many, many books.

Bella has only seen the girl in Potions, which is the only class Hufflepuffs share with Ravenclaws, and vaguely recalls the last name Warrington. Beyond that, she doesn’t quite care to know who this is. Still, she finds herself curious about the stack of books and purposefully moves closer to see what on earth a first-year other than herself could be researching so voraciously.

Her eyes scan over the title of the nearest book: An Incomplete Glossary of Parseltongue.

She scarcely registers the last word before falling unconscious.

Chapter Text

It’s a familiar darkness that greets her. Lapping at the corners of her mind are dark waters, a memory that is not her own, a shard of future that cannot be allowed to pass—but she accepts it anyway.

.

.

.

They’re having tea in the study.

Bellatrix isn’t supposed to be with them, but she was already here when they arrived so now she’s stuck.

Rodolphus stands stiff and immovable by the bookcase. He’s a wiry man, with a thick tuft of dark hair that Bellatrix sometimes still finds herself wishing she could card her fingers through. But that sort of thing is reserved for people who are actually close, and the closest Bellatrix has ever really gotten to Rodolphus is when they found a common interest in belittling Rabastan.

Mr. Lestrange hesitates from behind his desk. He’s not a nervous man by any means, but there’s the slightest bit of apprehension clouding over his face today. Perhaps it’s because the Dark Lord has brought a snake with him.

“Is it, er, poisonous?” her father-in-law asks eventually.

The Dark Lord’s gaze, so disinterested and indifferent, slips over him like he’s nothing more than a mote of dust in the air. He returns his attention to the snake winding its way through his spindly fingers, and, as though it were completely rote, squeezes a hiss past his lips.

Mr. Lestrange is not so surprised by this display, though Rodolphus’s reaction looks suitably more unnerved. Bellatrix finds her interest piqued at last. She’s been lounging against the head of the study chaise all this while, but decides now it might be worthwhile to actually sit up and pay attention.

Her eyes flit over the Dark Lord as he talks to his snake. He’s taller even than her husband, though his frame is far slighter. This isn’t to say he appears weak: power rolls off him in such intense, effortless waves that Bellatrix cannot help but wonder what it might feel like to carry so much authority, to wield magic as though it’s some simple notion that can be reinvented and reassembled with a single incantation. The effect is helped, too, by the fact his eyes are so inhumanly red: some spark of flame he’s managed to imprint into his gaze.

“He is a garden snake, and a new spy,” the Dark Lord intones. He holds out the snake to Mr. Lestrange. “Take him to the herpetarium.”

It never ceases to fascinate Bellatrix how her father-in-law, such a stuffy, proper old man, folds into some subservient schoolboy at the Dark Lord’s behest. Without question, Mr. Lestrange loops the snake between his hands and leaves the study.

Rodolphus stays a moment longer, before muttering something about an expected owl and taking leave.

Bellatrix keeps to herself in the chaise. It’s not the first time she’s been left alone with the Dark Lord; they’ve had some light conversation before. Sometimes, she finds it easier to talk to him than her own husband.

She sneaks a furtive glance his way. No one ever mentions it, but the Dark Lord has freckles. It’s the faintest thing, the smallest smattering across the bridge of his nose, perhaps only made evident by the fact that his skin has turned so pale and waxy that everything seems stark against it now. It wasn’t always like that; Bellatrix remembers seeing a much healthier tone some months back.

“Are you okay?” she finds herself asking.

He looks up at her. There’s bemusement rather than annoyance lurking behind those unnerving eyes. “Better.”

“Right,” she responds dumbly. Of course he is.

His gaze is careful and watchful. Bellatrix isn’t certain she likes being paid attention to this much; she coughs weakly and rises, clearing away the empty teacups even though it’s not her job. She’ll take any excuse to leave the room.

“You are a formidable duelist,” he says before she can quite make it out the door.

She nearly drops the cups. “Pardon?”

“I’ve seen your arguments with your, ah, husband.”

Bellatrix flushes, two blotchy patches of red blooming across her cheeks. It’s the height of embarrassment, Druella would say, having your marital affairs aired out like this.

“It’s—we—” she begins, searching for some explanation.

“Would you like to join us?”

This time, the cups do drop. They never reach the ground. With one lazy flick of the Dark Lord’s wand, they vanish into oblivion, so inconsequential they might as well have never existed.

“Join…what, exactly?” she tests.

She knows the broad strokes of it, that they’re mapping out a new world, an ideal world, where Muggles are rightly inferior, Mudbloods and Squibs are pruned entirely from society, their kind free to roam the seas and skies without worrying about something as absurd as the Statute of Secrecy. Still, there are things she doesn’t know, like where Rodolphus and Rabastan go to during the late hours of night, why her father-in-law tugs the cuffs of his robes down even during the summer heat.

“My Death Eaters,” he says simply. His eyes are dark and starless. Bellatrix has to force herself not to shudder under the piercing gaze. “At the moment, we’re merely consolidating power. I think you’d rather enjoy it—if you take as much pleasure in dueling as I believe you do.”

Bellatrix swallows thickly. She’s alone in this manor with a family she doesn’t quite fold into right. When the Dark Lord offers to brand her with his Mark, voice soft and sibilant, eyes needling and hungry in a way Rodolphus’s could never be—what else can Bellatrix do but take it? She wants every bit of it, every swell of power, every word of praise.

When he touches the tender, pale skin of her forearm, when he digs his thumb right into her vein and lets the magic, black and inky, pool straight from his flesh into hers, Bellatrix finds herself certain of one thing and one thing only: there is no coming back from this. They have joined hands. She will follow him to death.

.

.

.

“Collapsed how? When?” A sharp voice questions.

“I don’t know,” another voice, younger and brighter, responds. “She was behind me, and I just heard her fall—over here, see!”

Bella blinks blearily against the honeyed light of the library. She feels groggy and heavy, like a cinderblock has squeezed itself into her stomach, and only manages to hunch into a ball on the floor. Not-memories ram against every fibre of Bella’s being; it takes everything in her to simply hold her body together. She feels she might be blown away to dust if she loses the thread of herself.

“Are you all right? Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine,” Bella mutters. She hauls herself up with some degree of effort, and finds herself face-to-face with Madam Pince and the Ravenclaw girl.

Pince eyes her suspiciously. “You ought to go to the Hospital Wing.”

Bella doesn’t want to. “I just need to sit down for a moment.”

Dutifully, because she can feel about a dozen pairs of eyes on her, Bella takes the nearest seat she can find, which also happens to be the one the Ravenclaw girl was sitting in earlier. She takes in a long, deep breath, then releases it shakily. Pince watches her for a moment longer, keen eyes tracing over Bella’s huddled form, before eventually retreating back to the front of the library. The girl, who doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed that a student just collapsed, cheerfully takes the seat across her old one.

“Why did you faint?” comes the all-too-curious voice.

Truth passes through Bella’s lips only because she’s too preoccupied with the scrambled state of her mind to come up with a suitable excuse. “I saw your Parseltongue book.”

The girl’s faint brows scrunch with confusion. “Why did that make you faint?”

Now that’s a question she can’t truthfully answer without being escorted to the Hospital Wing to be evaluated by Madam Pomfrey.

Bella presses her eyes shut for a moment. The dark of her mind is hardly a quiet place. There is so much of the Dark Lord, every iteration of him, every one of his coldly inhuman faces, so dutifully memorized by Bellatrix Lestrange, pressing against the thin walls of her skull. Bella doesn’t understand why this man inspires so much in her other self, why power needs to be followed after rather than taken.

(Bellatrix Lestrange snarls at her husband like some rabid dog that’s been abandoned for too long.)

“Er—it reminded me of Salazar Slytherin,” she answers blindly. “And I—I don’t really…like him.”

(Bellatrix Lestrange sits in the parlor room of the Lestrange manor and wearily helps Narcissa pick out fabric swatches for her upcoming wedding.) 

It’s a bland and flat lie. It peels off Bella’s tongue unnaturally. She’s not meant for lying, she knows, but she doesn’t quite know what else to say.

(Bellatrix Lestrange watches the Dark Lord release magic from his wand like he’s unraveled the universe simply by pulling on a single thread.)

Thankfully, the girl believes her without complaint. “Oh, right, I suppose he wasn’t the best person.”

(Bellatrix Lestrange leans forward curiously as her father-in-law recounts a particularly thrilling escapade during his sixth year.)

“Yes,” Bella agrees readily, “he put a basilisk in the school, after all.”

(Bellatrix Lestrange stays quiet during her first Death Eater meeting. There are many wizards far older, far more experienced, than her and she finds herself feeling uncomfortably small.)

“Basilisk?” the girl repeats with raised brows. “What do you mean?”

Oops.

Bella shoots to her feet. “I—you know, I think I ought to go to the Hospital Wing and get checked out.”

She hurries out of the library before she can be stopped. When she arrives at the Hufflepuff common room, she races up to the girl’s dormitory and collapses into her bed. She buries her head into her pillow and watches Bellatrix Lestrange’s life flash and fade in her head until, eventually, she falls asleep from sheer exhaustion.

She arrives late for breakfast the next morning, and spends the precious time left numbly chewing on digestive biscuits and puzzling over this so-called Dark Lord and the cocoon of devotion Bellatrix Lestrange has so meticulously spun around him. They’re both locked away in their own prisons for a little while, after the first war: Bellatrix Lestrange in Azkaban, the Dark Lord in a festering shell of a body, only a whisper away from death. But that distance, that decade and a half, does nothing to temper the ignoble reach of Bellatrix Lestrange’s want. How deep her desire stretches, how inexhaustible her faith runs.

Bella finds she doesn’t want what her other self has, gets. She doesn’t understand it, only sees a woman passed between birdcages, ramming herself against the bars until she’s some bloody, unfearing thing.

A book thuds against the space in front of Bella, and she flinches at the abruptness of the sound. Peering up, she finds the very unwelcome face of the Ravenclaw girl from the library. She’s buttoned up in a cloak that isn’t school regulation, one with many pockets, all seemingly stuffed. She smiles down at Bella genially.

“Hullo,” she greets, sitting across from Bella. “We met yesterday, remember? I’m your year, actually. Pandora Warrington.”

Her pale eyes trace over Bella patiently, expectantly.

“I’m Bellatrix Black,” she eventually responds. And then, because Pandora happens to be one of the few students who hasn’t met her with open hostility, she adds, “You can call me Bella.”

Pandora beams. Her face is bright, open and honest. Bella finds that confusing tangle of thoughts around the Dark Lord receding in favor of cautious hope. Perhaps things are looking up for her, after all. It’s a bit late into the term, second week and all that, but it seems a potential friend (read: subordinate) has found their way to her at last.

“Do you not have any friends?” Pandora asks. Her tone isn’t rude, just tactless. Bella finds herself souring already. “You’re eating all alone, and I noticed Slughorn had to find you a partner during Potions.”

Bella’s hesitant half-smile has long collapsed into a frown. “I have friends,” she says, a tad defensive. She has that knarl in Sprout’s office, which is an animal, yes, but it owes her a life debt. Not to mention her sisters—sort of. “They’re just not here. And it looks like you’re all alone, too, if you’re coming to the Hufflepuff table for breakfast.”

“No, I have loads of friends,” Pandora says, still smiling. “The problem is that they just don’t last very long.”

It’s a concerning statement to make, and Bella finds herself horribly disarmed by it. She purses her lips and turns her attention back to munching on biscuits. From the corner of her eye, she watches warily as Pandora fills up her plate with a few tarts.

“Is it true you called one of the first-years a Mudblood?” Pandora asks next, like this isn’t a civilized breakfast but rather some sort of interrogation. “I heard that—”

“What do you care?” she snaps.

Pandora considers her for a moment. “When people react so emotionally, it tends to be because they feel guilty.”

“I don’t feel guilty!” Bella says immediately, voice rising. “All I did was tell her what she is. Everyone’s just being stupid and unreasonable and childish about it.”

“Huh,” Pandora says thoughtfully. “What if they think you’re the one being stupid and unreasonable and childish, though?”

“I’m not,” Bella growls, and hopes that will be the end of that.

“You might not be, but they could still think that,” she points out. “My dad says sometimes it’s best to apologize and move on, even when you think you’re correct.”

“Your dad’s stupid.”

“I don’t think so,” Pandora disagrees. She’s not the least bit insulted; it’s sort of astonishing. “He’s published a lot of books.”

“Look, I’m not going to apologize—and—it’s not any of your business anyway!” She can practically see the gears of logic turning in Pandora’s head, a rebuttal soon forthcoming. Bella hastily searches for a way to deflect the conversation away from herself, if they must have a conversation at all. “Is that your Parseltongue book?”

She points to the volume on the table. It’s flipped over, and she can’t make out the title from the tiny text on the back.

It distracts Pandora suitably, who looks at her book proudly. “Oh, yes! I turned it over, so you won’t faint this time.”

“I—” Bella falters, searching for the words. “I’m not going to faint again. It was just that I was…surprised.”

“How do you know you won’t be surprised again?”

“Because I’ll be expecting it next time,” Bella answers with heavy exasperation. There’s already another question forming in Pandora’s mouth, so Bella quickly adds, “Why’re you reading about Parseltongue?”

“Oh! It all started when my Dad got me two pet parakeets for my ninth birthday,” she begins, like the connection between parakeets and Parseltongue is so obvious, so innate and extant, that it’s a wonder no one has already mentioned it. “They’re very smart, you know, and can mimic a few words. I got to thinking I could train them to use magic, if they could just imitate the incantation properly. Currently, we’re running into issues regarding inflection, but I think the theory still stands. Anyway, I started to wonder—why couldn’t parakeets and other birds use magic in their own language. You know, with chirps and trills, like how wizards and witches from other countries can cast the same spells we do in different languages. And then that started to make me wonder: what would happen if you mixed different languages while spellcasting? Would it enhance the spell? Or change its effect? So, I started researching languages to see what might be the best ones to mix and match, and then I discovered Parseltongue! It’s super, super rare. Hardly anyone speaks it since it’s difficult to learn unless you’re born knowing it. And that got me to wondering, if Parseltongue is passed on in families—what happens if someone learns it by themself? Would they still pass it on to their child? So, right now, I’m learning Parseltongue to see if, one day, it would be passed on to my child, assuming I have one. It’ll be a very long study, of course, but no one’s done it before so I think it’s necessary someone does.”

She finishes all this in, more or less, one breath. Bella stares, uncertain if the girl is daft or brilliant. She decides to settle on the former, if only to feel better about herself.

“Er, okay,” is all Bella can manage to say.

“This reminds me,” Pandora starts up again, eyeing Bella eagerly, “what did you mean yesterday? When you said Slytherin put a basilisk in the school?”

“Right,” Bella winces. It’s not her knowledge, really, but Bellatrix Lestrange’s. She’s not certain if she ought to be divulging any of this to students. “Well, I’m not certain there’s a basilisk. It could be something else. That was—that was just a guess of mine. It could be anything down there.”

“Down where?”

“The Chamber of Secrets,” Bella answers, and then realizes that, actually, she is the daft one in this conversation.

Pandora’s mouth forms a perfect, excited ‘o.’ She’s absolutely buzzing in her seat. “I read about that in Hogwarts: A History, but they said it was just a legend. It’s real, is it?”

“I don’t—I don’t know.” There’s a certain sixth sense Bella has, which eldest children often develop. It’s the sort of sense that alerts her when Andromeda or Narcissa are up to something particularly stupid—and it’s going off right now. “It’s just a story I heard once. You’re right, probably. I mean, Hogwarts: A History is probably right. It must just be a legend. Just—forget I ever mentioned anything. It’s silly, not even worth thinking about, all right?”

Pandora smiles at her. It’s not the least bit comforting to see. “You’re quite funny, Bella.”

Bella avoids Pandora best she can after that awful, botched encounter. It helps that they only share Potions once a week, and Pandora only ever spends a few minutes in the Great Hall to grab a sandwich before leaving for Merlin-knows-where.

She does her best to keep her head down from here on out. The Hufflepuffs don’t ease up in the slightest, just as guarded and opposed to her as the first time she came down to the Great Hall for breakfast. She finds herself just the smallest bit impressed by their resilience, though she hates that she’s on the receiving end of it.

Her only solace during these abominable first few weeks of school is, oddly enough, detention with Professor Sprout. It doesn't start off particularly enjoyable (nor does it ever truly reach any semblance of joy, to be frank), but there’s a certain comfort she finds in the office. When it’s the end of the day, evening cascading down in torrential blues and purples, the buzz of the Great Hall so insistent and strong during dinner that Bella feels, all at once, overwhelmed and lonely—it’s only the quiet of the cramped, warm office that’s able to put her at ease. It helps, too, that she has her first real friend, the knarl, which she named Dummy out of her initial annoyance for being forced to care for a creature (short for Dumbledore Jr., she makes up when Sprout questions her about the disparaging nickname). She didn’t like Dummy at first, but sometime after Hagrid taught her how to hold the creature without pricking herself on its quills, she found herself warming to it. It’s got a certain charm: a soft and sweet nose that bumps excitedly against Bella’s hand when she brings daisies for its dinner, a chipper and happy squeak whenever she plays tug-o-war with it using a discarded stem. It’s funny that all this was hidden under such a harsh and prickly surface; there’s certainly a metaphor lurking here, but Bella’s content to simply enjoy the moments for what they are.

All too soon, it’s her last day of detention.

Bella arrives right after dinner to Sprout’s office. There are quite a few more potted plants than usual inside, wide leaves springing from a two-shelf trolley that’s been parked right by the front door. Sprout is at her desk, in frumpy cotton robes, a half-eaten plate of shepherd’s pie pushed aside in favor of a growing mound of parchment.

“Miss Black,” she greets, looking up. There’s a splatter of mud still stuck to her ear from some earlier class. “Oh, do mind the trolley on your way in. Seventh year project, highly volatile.”

Bella frowns and sidles by them, giving a side-long glance at the plants. “Maybe you should store them somewhere safer?”

Sprout waves her off. “It’s quite all right, so long as no one bumps into them too roughly.”

Bella merely shrugs in response and heads straight to Dummy’s cage. It’s a black wire pen, complete with a small wheel for the creature to get some exercise in. Bella feels quite proud of it, even though it was Sprout who did the conjuring.

“Hello, Dummy,” she greets, giving the little thing a swift scratch on the chin. Dummy squeaks up at her. “Daisies for dinner again, then?”

Another squeak.

Bella smiles and collects the flowers from a growing collection of stray foliage Sprout has dumped in the back of the room. Once she’s gathered the best and brightest of the bunch, she gives the pickings to Dummy and stands aside to watch the knarl eat.

Beside the occasional crunch of a leaf, the only prominent sound is the flick of parchment as Sprout grades papers. After a few minutes of dawdling, Bella peels her eyes away from Dummy and approaches Sprout’s desk.

“Professor?” she begins in what she hopes is her most polite tone.

Sprout turns to her. “Yes?”

“I was wondering, since this is my last day of detention, if I could keep Dumbledore Jr. in the dormitory with me.”

Sprout blinks with some measure of surprise. She sets down her quill and says, kindly, “Miss Black, I’m sorry to say—knarls are not one of the eligible pets students may keep with them.”

Bella frowns. There’s some strop threatening to kick up in her heart, but she tamps it down for now. In as level a tone as she can manage, she argues, “But I can’t keep coming to your office every time I want to see it.”

“Ah, yes, well… Now that it appears the knarl is back to good health, it might be time to release it back onto the grounds.”

“The grounds?” Bella repeats, aghast. “But there are all sorts of dangerous things there! Dummy could be eaten by something!”

“It may be a possibility, certainly, but I think you would agree with me when I say, er, Dummy belongs there and not here.”

“I don’t agree!” Bella bursts. Horrible, hot fury spills from her throat. “Of course Dummy belongs here! Knarls are basically the same as an owl or a cat or a toad. I mean—okay, fine, they can’t deliver letters like an owl and probably aren’t as smart as a cat, but they’re leagues better than a toad. If a toad is allowed to stay in the dormitories, why can’t Dummy? I—I want her here. She’s mine.”

Sprout’s expression turns from sorry to thoughtful. “Like any other pet, you say? Just like how Jane Bowen, let’s say, is just like any other student?”

Bella actually groans. She doesn’t want this to be some stupid lesson, which might very well be what Sprout was planning from the start; she just wants her knarl. She wants to go to sleep in her bed with the knowledge that there’s at least one creature in the room who doesn’t absolutely abhor her.

“I’ll tell you what, Miss Black,” Sprout continues, “I will speak to Headmaster Dippet about bending the rules ever so slightly in regards to keeping a knarl as a pet. In return, I expect you to have apologized—and I mean properly apologized—to Miss Bowen by the end of the week. Does this sound fair to you?”

Annoyingly, perhaps because she’s the only other person Bella’s talked to about the matter, she recalls Pandora’s words: Sometimes it’s best to apologize and move on, even when you think you’re correct.

“Fine,” Bella harrumphs. A pyrrhic victory is still a victory, after all. “I was going to do that anyway, you know.”

Sprout smiles. It’s a merry thing, her smile, full and happy. Not at all like Druella’s sparing ones. “I’m glad to hear that, Miss Black.”

Bella decides to apologize the very next day. Painful things are best done quickly and all that.

Still, it takes her all the way until dinner to really work up the nerve. When she at last feels prepared, she marches up to the front of the Hufflepuff table, strides long and sure, hands stiff and balled against her sides, a somewhat forced, unnatural smile plastered against her face.

“What are you doing here?” Enid demands. Her blonde hair is slicked back into a tight, severe ponytail. Her eyes flash dangerously, and both Nola and Hypatia are already rising to lend support. Truly, Bella thinks, she is a worthy adversary. Portia Travers has nothing on Enid’s ability to command. “We’ve told you already—”

“I know,” Bella says harshly. “And I’m not here to talk to you.” Her eyes flit past the wall of Hufflepuffs, landing on a downcast face fanned by dark hair. “Can you meet me by the Transfiguration classroom after dinner?”

Enid gapes at her, fiercely moving forward to block Jane from Bella’s view. “Are you mad? She’s not following you anywhere alone!”

“I don’t recall you being her spokesperson, Fawley,” Bella snipes. “I’m fairly certain she can speak for herself. And what exactly are you implying? I’m only going to talk to her about what happened our first night here—and Sprout said I can talk to her privately. If you’re so worried, you can take it up with her, not that it’s any of your business to begin with.”

“Of course it’s—”

“It’s all right, Enid,” Jane’s soft, timid voice interrupts. She peeks up at Bella and smiles weakly, hesitantly. “I’ll just hear what she has to say after dinner. We’ll be outside a classroom anyway, so I’m sure there’ll be professors about.”

Bella harrumphs triumphantly in Enid’s face, and then flounces off to the other end of the table. She piles her plate high with everything that looks good and begins to shovel food into her mouth at a pace that would put even the speediest Abraxan to shame. She needs to get into the right frame of mind, you see, and a hearty meal will lend her the strength necessary to bend her iron-strong sense of pride.

After polishing off her meal, Bella hurries over to the Transfiguration classroom. It’s the last room on the ground floor of the castle, and partially hidden behind the staircase. The perfect place, Bella feels, to give an apology without being seen by anyone.

She paces aimlessly in front of the classroom, trying to figure out what exactly she can say to make Jane feel better without making herself seem wrong. Briefly, she considers charming Jane to believe that Bella has already apologized—but while Bellatrix Lestrange knows that spell, Bella’s not certain she can cast it on her first try.

All too soon, she hears the scurry of feet as someone approaches. Taking a deep breath, Bella turns around and lets out a slight, embarrassed cough before beginning.

“Look, do you think we could just put this all behind us—”

“Hi, Bella!” Pandora’s beaming face interrupts.

Bella’s lips curl with annoyance. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was heading up the staircase, when I noticed you standing here and muttering to yourself.”

“I—I don’t mutter to myself. I was just practicing—it doesn’t matter. Did you need something?”

“Not really,” Pandora says. She’s doing her best to keep still, Bella can tell, but there’s this current of excitement racing through her body. Pandora’s hands twist into each other, and her face threatens to break in half from the force of her grin. “I just wanted to let you know that I found it!”

“Found what?”

“The Chamber of Secrets!”

Some strangled, choked sound escapes Bella’s throat. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I know you told me to forget about it, but I just couldn’t! It has secrets in the name, and I just had to figure it out. I did boatloads of research on it, and guess what I found out? The last time it was opened, a student died!”

If anyone else were to hear Pandora sound so happy about a student’s death, she would surely have been reported to a professor ages ago. Lucky for her, it’s Bella—who, quite frankly, doesn’t give a rat’s arse about any of this.

“I don’t care—”

Pandora streamrolls right over her, much to Bella’s (mounting) irritation. Though there’s something to be said about willpower, she supposes. “And do you know who that student was? Moaning Myrtle! That’s right—she’s still a ghost, and she’s haunting the place she died in. So, I went to talk to her about it, and she was more than happy to tell me all the details about her death. She told me that it all happened in her bathroom. A boy came in one day and said something in a weird language—which I think is Parseltongue—and then she saw something and died. I think you were right all along, Bella; it has to be a basilisk down there! What else could kill with a single look?”

“Can you—”

“I’m pretty sure that boy must have used Parseltongue to open the Chamber of Secrets, and that’s how the basilisk got out and killed Myrtle. That’s my working theory, at least. I’m going to go there right now to confirm. Do you want to come with?”

Bella’s so stunned it takes a moment for her to grasp for the words. When she does, they come rather easily, a torrent of incredulity: “What? Are you insane? You want to go looking for a monster that you’re well aware has a kill count?”

Pandora cocks her head. It’s evident to Bella that she hasn't considered the fact the basilisk could kill her, too. “Hmm…that’s a good point. I don’t actually want to go in the Chamber, of course. I just want to see if it’s actually in the bathroom. Afterward, I suppose I can tell a professor, and they can shut it down permanently? It’s probably not good to have a basilisk roaming inside a school.”

Bella feels like she’s talking to a brick wall—or, worse, Andromeda. “Why not tell a professor now? And they can check it out, and you can go and sit in the library and do literally anything else?”

“But then I won’t have discovered anything,” Pandora says, as though not pursuing the unknown should perhaps be considered a cardinal sin. “I feel a bit bad about finding it without you, since you’re the one who brought it up and figured out it’s probably a basilisk down there to begin with.”

“I—I didn’t figure anything out!” Bella all but shrieks. “I didn’t do anything! This is all you!”

“There’s no need to be modest,” Pandora says reassuringly. “I would have never come so close to discovering one of the Founder’s secrets if it weren’t for you.”

Bella knows those words are supposed to sound inspiring, but she finds they fill her with dread instead. She watches, at a loss, some strain of disbelief strangling her throat, as Pandora rights her cross-body knapsack and begins to race up the stairs. It’s no wonder Pandora’s friends don’t last. Bella’s not certain if Pandora will even survive Pandora.

Before she can stop herself, Bella chases after the bright-eyed Ravenclaw. The last thing she needs is a student death on her hands; that would land her with a first-class ticket to Azkaban, she’s sure. 

Though Pandora looks as though a light breeze might knock her over, she rushes forward at a pace that Bella struggles to keep up with. By the time she reaches Pandora, they’re both in the abandoned girl’s bathroom on the second floor. Pandora’s pulled out her book, An Incomplete Glossary of Parseltongue, from her bag. She cradles it in her hands while moving forward to closely examine the sinks and mirrors that line the latter half of the room. Bella hunches forward, hands on her knees, as she catches her breath. Thankfully, Moaning Myrtle seems to have chosen tonight to go haunt one of the Hornby descendants rather than mope around her bathroom—though Bella wouldn’t put it past Pandora to have planned tonight’s escapade in anticipation of Myrtle’s absence. 

“My hypothesis,” Pandora begins, as though someone asked, “is that the Chamber is opened with Parseltongue. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? How only a descendant of Slytherin could open it. And it looks like—” she bends forward, squinting at one of the sink faucets, “—there are snakes engraved in the handles of a few sinks. Maybe it’s a sign?”

“Or maybe,” Bella wheezes, “it’s just a stupid decoration, and we should get out of here.”

Pandora takes a step back, but only to regard the sinks better. “If it’s a door that only opens when you speak Parseltongue, the issue is figuring out what the phrase is…” Pandora glances down sullenly at her book. “Parseltongue isn’t widely studied, so I only really have a handful of words to choose from. I thought I might start with the easiest words, and we’ll build from there?”

Bella finds herself relaxing somewhat. Amid the chaos that is Pandora, she’d almost forgotten that the Chamber of Secrets was constructed by Salazar Slytherin himself, the most cunning and covert of the Hogwarts founders. If the Chamber indeed lies here, it surely won’t be so easily accessible. The password needed to open it must be some archaic phrase, some ancient secret that Slytherin himself passed down to his descendants. There’s no chance Pandora would ever, in any lifetime, figure it out. Bella’s been worrying for no reason.

Pandora flips open her book. “Hmm… How about open? That’s a simple enough sound. Er—ssra. No, it’s more like hssrah, isn’t it?”

Bella scoffs. “There’s no way the phrase is just open—”

The center three sinks begin to rumble. Then, they lower to the ground, melting gracefully into the tilework of the bathroom, leaving behind a cavernous tunnel that appears like little more than the deep, treacherous maw of some enormous creature.

Bella gapes with some combination of horror, disappointment, and utter disbelief.

“Huh,” Pandora says, peering forward to stick her head down the tunnel. “It really was that simple. Sssahssra.”

The sibilant hiss of Parseltongue bounds down the tunnel, sending a series of soft echoes in its wake. Bella pulls Pandora back in an instant.

“You—what are you doing? What did you just say? You said you only wanted to find the stupid thing!”

Pandora merely blinks at her. “Oh, it’s nothing bad. I just said ‘hello,’ just to see if there really is a basilisk down there. It might respond, right? Then, we’d know for sure.”

Bella’s mouth opens and closes several times before she finally bursts into flurry of words. “Why—why—would you do that? What do you think is going to happen? Do you think the basilisk, one of the deadliest creatures in the magical world, is going to be up for small talk? ‘Oh, hello to you, too. Fancy coming down to my evil lair and having a cuppa together?’ Pandora, this is—”

“Er, what exactly are you two doing?”

Pandora inclines her head, looking past Bella, and smiles bemusedly. Bella spins around with alarm. She can feel her palms growing slick with sweat. Everything is rapidly falling out of her control, and there’s no feeling on this planet Bella detests more than helplessness.

It’s Jane Bowen standing by the remaining few sinks, because of course it is. The copper brown of her hair catches in the mirrors, a warbling reflection following after her as she steps forward and peers into the very obvious, incredibly conspicuous hole in the bathroom.

“What are you doing here?” Bella gasps out.

Jane peels her gaze away from the tunnel and glances at her sheepishly. “You told me to meet you after dinner. I was walking up to the Transfiguration classroom when I saw you running off with her.” She points at Pandora, who happily waves in response. “At first, I thought maybe there was some emergency and I followed in case you needed help. Er, and then I sort of just got curious about what you two were doing. So—well, what exactly is this?”

“It’s a discovery!” Pandora crows, bounding forward. “Congratulations, you’re the first to hear about it. Bella and I have unearthed Slytherin’s Chamber of Secrets.”

Bella stumbles forward and presses her feverish forehead against the cool metal of one of the toilet stalls. It would be nice if she were in a coma, and all this was actually some ludicrous story her brain conjured to keep her occupied while she drifted through never-ending sleep. Certainly, being here is still leagues better than being in Azkaban—but Bella has a sinking feeling that if she continues to keep company like this, she might end up in that cell regardless.

Behind her, she hears Jane ask Pandora to explain half the words that have just come out of her mouth. Pandora, of course, eagerly obliges, and soon Jane has been caught up. Her reaction, thankfully, is one of agitation.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Jane says tremulously. She reminds Bella of a mouse. “And especially not just because you want to find out something. Curiosity killed the cat and all, you know.”

Pandora’s response is blithe denial: “Satisfaction brought it back.”

“You do understand that’s not the point, right?” Jane stresses. Bella does not like that it’s a Muggle-born who’s speaking sense right now, but she finds herself more grateful that anyone is attempting to grapple with reason at the moment. “I think we ought to close this hole right now. Or, better yet, inform a professor and—”

Her tinny voice is drowned out by a deep and long hiss. It’s Parseltongue, Bella knows that much, but the sound is far more fluid and sinister than what Bella has come to expect from Pandora’s mouth. She finds herself going shock-still. The hairs on the back of her neck rise to attention and an unconscious shiver travels up the length of her spine.

“Pandora,” Bella begins with a nervousness she has seldom felt, “is that you speaking Parseltongue?”

“No,” Pandora replies shakily. “It’s not.”

There’s some heavy, wet squelch against the porcelain tiles of the bathroom. A shadow rears over the trio. The basilisk slithers forward, and it brings a chill to the air along with it.

“What—what’s—” Jane stammers.

“Don’t look at it!” Bella shouts. She sinks down to the floor, shutting her eyes tight. She feels forward for the stall door, thinking she might be able to slink inside without the basilisk’s noticing. “Are either of you by the door? Someone can keep low and run out to get a professor!”

“I—I can try to go,” Jane cries out, “but I’m not sure what direction I’m facing anymore. I got all turned around—”

“There are still the other mirrors along the walls,” Pandora suggests. Bella can hear her footsteps shuffling forward, her voice drawing nearer. If Pandora is coming closer to Bella, that means she’s farther from the door. “If we keep our gaze low, we might be able to see our way out by glancing—”

“All right,” comes Jane’s agreement.

“—but you need to be really careful because—”

“Oh, I’m facing the—oh, no—”

There’s a thud, and then another series of guttural hisses from the basilisk. Bella knows two words of Parseltongue, only because Bellatrix Lestrange does. (The Dark Lord’s lips crack open, and a harsh sound squeezes out, like flint scraping against rock. Nagini hears the command and strikes at the bound man, fangs baring against his heart.)

“…Kill…” the basilisk says. “…Eat…”

Bella’s no expert in herpetology, but this can’t be a good thing.

“Pandora—!” she yells.

“Yes?!”

Bella nearly jumps at the sound. Pandora is right by her ear, and that knowledge makes her want to weep and laugh all at once.

“Speak to it in Parseltongue!” Bella urges. “Tell it to leave—it’s probably waiting for instructions since you’re the one who called for it!”

“I—I—I don’t know the word for leave,” Pandora stutters out. It seems all the fear Pandora’s been ignoring her whole life has finally caught up to her now. There’s a paralytic quality to her words, a terror so bone-deep that even Bella finds herself wondering if they might not make it out of here. “And I dropped my book somewhere—”

“Just tell it to GO!”

Pandora lets out a stark and sudden hiss, something so primal and afraid that it surprises even Bella. The basilisk pauses, and Bella hears it move once more—the quiet sound of scale clacking against tile as it recedes. Very carefully, nose against the floor of the bathroom, Bella opens her eyes.

There’s no shadow.

She grabs Pandora and, like a tempest, throws her toward the discarded book. The basilisk is no longer in the bathroom, though they can hear it lumber down the murky, unlit tunnel.

“Close it,” Bella commands. “If the way to open it was just ‘open’ then closing it must be ‘close.’”

“Right,” Pandora mumbles. Her fingers tremble as she picks up the book and flips to a page close to the beginning. “Ssseeha.”

The sinks rise from the floor in a perfect reversal of their concealment. The stonework rumbles as it grinds over the tunnel. Slowly, surely, the hole leading down to the Chamber of Secrets is covered, and the nightmare that lies within is sealed away.

Bella’s gaze skitters over the sinks, down to the white, glossy tiles of the bathroom, and stops just as it reaches the splayed body of Jane Bowen. Her brown hair’s scattered around the crown of her head like a halo, hands frozen in mid-motion as they reach out in front of her, eyes wide and horrified, glassy and unseeing behind the round, wiry frame of her spectacles.

“Is she dead?” Bella asks. Her heart thunders horribly in her chest.

“No,” Pandora whispers. “Petrified. She was looking in the mirror.”

There’s this terrible storm of a headache brewing in Bella’s temples, some skin-piercing exhaustion and fear that churns through her, a heart that won’t stop its too-loud, too-human beating. Bella feels disjointed from reality. There’s so much noise and havoc squeezing inside of her, but the bathroom is so still and quiet, save for Pandora’s soft, shaky breaths.

“What are we going to do?” Bella says at last.

For the first time, Pandora looks well and truly worried. She hovers over Jane, trying and failing to rouse her. “I—I don’t know! I suppose we should tell the professors what happened, and maybe they can figure out how—”

“No!” Bella cries out. “We can’t just tell them the truth! Don’t you understand what we just did? We opened the Chamber of Secrets, and a student got hurt! We’ll go to Azkaban if we tell the professors what happened!”

Understanding leaks into Pandora, whose lips twist with worry. “But—then what are we going to say? That we just found her like this?”

“We could—” Bella struggles to say it, because it doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t want to leave the body behind, doesn’t want to run away. Fleeing would be like admitting she did something wrong, and Bella has done nothing wrong beyond befriending a maniac. (Bellatrix Lestrange sits tall and proud before the Wizengamot. She wears her shackles like fine jewelry, and when she is asked to admit to her crimes—she does so. Happily.) “Maybe we can say we were going to the toilet, and we just found her here…”

“But no one ever goes to this toilet,” Pandora argues. “Moaning Myrtle is always here.”

“Well, we can say we didn’t know! We’re only first-years. We’ll just play dumb if they start asking too many questions, okay?”

Pandora’s face is tight and drawn. Still, she swallows down her shakiness and nods.

Everything happens rather quickly after that. Pandora fetches a Prefect, and then the Prefect escorts them (while levitating Jane) to the Hospital Wing. Bella mumbles through her half-lie and finds herself well and truly relieved when it becomes apparent Madam Pomfrey doesn’t believe any first-year could have petrified another student. Still, the matron passes Pandora and Bella along to Headmaster Dippet, so he can hear their version of events firsthand.

It’s the same weak lie they give. Bella can only hope that Dippet simply assumes she is too shaken up about Jane’s state to sound more certain and self-assured.

When they’re finally allowed to return to their respective dormitories, she catches sight of Dumbledore in the corner of the office. He doesn’t seem the least bit pleased.

The news sweeps through Hogwarts like a storm-front. It’s all anyone can talk about for the next week or so.

Bella finds her panic and paranoia over the whole situation ease considerably when Dippet announces that as soon as this year’s crop of mandrakes has matured, they will be able to brew a cure for Jane’s condition. That’s that, she supposes. The Chamber is closed, the basilisk trapped inside as Slytherin intended; the only consequence, really, is Jane’s petrification—and the fact that Dummy the knarl remains stuck in Sprout’s office until Jane can be revived and apologized to.

Unfortunately, the rest of Hufflepuff don’t quite share her blasé attitude. There’s a ridiculous rumor swirling that it was Bella who saw Jane last that night, which, technically, is true but Bella has steadfastly maintained that she only saw Jane after she’d already been petrified. It’s only too bad, really, that her fellow first-years remain suspicious.

Bella solves this problem by simply removing herself from Hufflepuff’s vicinity. She sits with Pandora during meals, where they quietly discuss how much longer it might take for everyone to forget about what happened to Jane.

Their wish is granted soon enough.

When Bella returns to the Hufflepuff common room the next Thursday, she finds a commotion awaiting her. Students of all ages clamor around the brightly lit area. In the center stands Professor Sprout, a beacon of calm safety with her warm, worried face and an icon for poor fashion sense in her mustard yellow robes.

“Now, now—one at a time, please,” Sprout begins.

“Will there be a curfew?” an older student shouts out.

Sprout shakes her head. “Not a formal one, though we do suggest students return straight to their dormitories after dinner. Certainly, no student should be roaming about after hours.” 

“Er,” Bella glances around for the nearest Hufflepuff. She tugs on the sleeve of one of the seventh-years she recognizes from meals. “What’s going on?”

“Another student’s been found petrified,” he responds quickly. “Hufflepuff again—someone’s out to get us, I’m sure of it.”

Bella blanches, then hurriedly approaches the center of the room to ask Sprout herself. Surely that student must be exaggerating. It’s not possible for another student to be petrified; Pandora sealed the Chamber that night.

She scarcely reaches the front when she’s accosted by a weeping Nola.

“It’s you!” Nola wails. “You’re doing it!”

“What—let go of me!” Bella roars, shaking the girl off.

Unfortunately, they’ve already captured Sprout’s attention—along with half the common room’s. Hypatia approaches as well, misty-eyed and with a certain choler chasing her footsteps.

“What’s going on here?” Sprout says, alarmed. “Miss Strickland, please—”

“It’s Black!” Nola cries out with deafening pitch. “Enid—Enid was investigating, you see, because she knew Jane didn’t go off alone after dinner. They were supposed to meet and talk, that’s what Black said—but then all of a sudden Jane’s petrified and Black ‘just so happened to find her.’ We all know she did it, and Enid was going to—she said she was going to figure out what Black did—and now—now—”

Nola collapses into a mess of sobs, but Hypatia comes forward to gladly continue. With an icy voice and a blazing glare hefted at Bella, she finishes, “And now Enid’s been petrified, too. You probably got her because she figured out what you did to Jane.”

There’s not much Bella can do besides gape. It’s so ridiculous, so awfully ludicrous—and it doesn’t help that, already, murmurs and whispers are flitting through the crowd of Hufflepuffs. She didn’t think it was possible for her reputation to go further down than rock bottom, but it turns out anything is possible with just enough absurdity.

“You two must be delusional,” is all Bella can muster out. “I’ve been in the library half the day finishing my essay for Charms. I don’t even know what happened!”

“You’re lying!” Nola weeps.

“Now, Miss Strickland, really…” Sprout says, but her voice has little to no authority. She shoots a furtive glance all around the common room. “Listen here, everyone, this isn’t the work of a student. And we mustn’t turn on each other during such upheaval. Hufflepuffs stick together—remember that. And Miss Strickland, I know you miss your friend terribly, but assigning blame like this is hardly productive. The staff are looking into the situation. Be rest assured, we’ll have this resolved very soon.”

Bella doesn’t think they will, actually.

After an uneasy, quiet dinner, she tugs Pandora into a hidden alcove far away from the Great Hall.

“What’s going on?!” Bella bursts.

“In general?” Pandora asks. “Or—”

“With the you-know-what,” Bella hisses, glaring at her. “Enid Fawley’s been petrified, and everyone’s blaming me now because apparently she was investigating what happened to Jane.”

“Right, I was going to talk to you about that,” Pandora says with far too much calm than Bella is fond of. “I heard that Fawley was found in a bathroom. A different one than where the Chamber is. I think, if she was looking into what happened that night, she might have been looking in some of the school bathrooms for a clue—because Dippet mentioned that Jane was petrified in the lavatory, but he didn’t say which one.”

“But—” Bella’s mind whirls with confusion, “—but, how could she have been petrified, still? You closed the Chamber. And even if it wasn’t all the way closed, she was in a different place entirely. I’m sure someone would have noticed if an enormous snake was roaming the halls.”

“Well… I’ve been thinking about that, and I re-read my copy of Hogwarts: A History. The section about what Slytherin supposedly said about his Chamber. He told the other founders that he left a secret in Hogwarts, one that could be awoken by his descendants. I think—I think, Bella, that the basilisk was asleep down there. But when I opened the Chamber and said hello, I woke it up. And when I told it to just go back, I don’t think that was the right thing to say to get it to go back to sleep. It’s awake now, the basilisk. Awake and hungry, and it’s in a tunnel behind the bathroom. Don’t you see, Bella? It’s in the sewers of the school. It’s traveling through the pipes.”

Bella finds herself feeling faint with knowledge. “So, we didn’t actually shut it away that night. We just let it loose, really. What are we going to do now?”

“Well,” Pandora begins with all the confidence of a toddler about to stick her hand in the fireplace, “I was thinking we could kill it.”

Bella’s eyes nearly bug out of her head. “I’m sorry?!”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” Pandora shakes her head sympathetically. “It was both of our faults, really.”

“It was decidedly just your fault, actually!” Bella cries out. “And what do you mean kill it? Kill the basilisk? The thing that we can’t even see, because we’ll die if we do?”

“Well,” Pandora begins again, in that awfully optimistic voice of hers, “I’ve got an idea.”

“Stop having ideas!”

“This one is a good one, though,” she assures.

“I’m almost certain it isn’t,” Bella counters.

Pandora ignores her. “The basilisk’s hide is impenetrable, save for a few vital weak points, like its eyes—but we hardly have any hope of killing it like that. A rooster’s cry is fatal to basilisks, but I don’t know where to get one and I’m certain it’ll probably just attack immediately if it sees me approaching with one anyway. The only other thing that can kill a basilisk is another basilisk.”

“Pandora,” Bella finds herself pleading, “please tell me you didn’t somehow procure a second basilisk.”

“Why would I do that when we already have a perfectly sound, albeit aggressive, specimen here?” Pandora says. “No, I was thinking we could get it with its own gaze.”

From her knapsack, Pandora pulls out a silver hand mirror. She spins it around to face Bella, who’s forced to confront her weary, agitated reflection.

“The basilisk will petrify itself, and we can kill it any which way after that,” Pandora finishes cheerily.

It’s not an altogether hopeless plan, but Bella has very little faith in the two of them and a simple hand mirror. Slowly, she reaches a hand out and pushes down the mirror.

“Maybe, instead,” Bella suggests, “we can send some sort of anonymous note to the teachers? And have them take care of it?”

“But how will they open the Chamber without knowing Parseltongue?”

“I don’t—I don’t know!” Bella exclaims. “But I’m sure they’ll figure it out!”

“They couldn’t figure it out the last time it happened,” Pandora points out with that insufferably know-it-all tone of hers. “Twenty years ago, it was a student who put a stop it. I think it’ll probably have to be a student again.”

Bella finds a familiar irritation pierce through her, a jolt of terrific lightning. She’s panicked and tired and growing incredibly furious at the fact that this has all been Pandora’s fault but, somehow, according to nearly half the Hogwarts population, Bella is to blame.

“Then you be that student!” Bella snarls. “If you’ve got it all figured out in your head and you know precisely what it is to do and you’re so sure that your hand mirror can save the day—then you just do it! I’ve had enough of my House hating my guts for no good reason, so why should I do them a favor and actually stop the thing that’s been hunting them down?”

Pandora blinks back at her, pale brows raised with faint surprise.

Before she can respond, Bella turns her back and stalks off. She doesn’t go back to the Hufflepuff common room, lest she be cornered by Nola and Hypatia again. Instead, she winds her way slowly to Sprout’s office. There’s nothing she particularly wants to say to the idiotically nice professor, though she is fond of her ginger nuts; mostly, Bella wants to sit solemnly by Dummy’s cage and watch the little thing run rings around its water bowl. Some repetitive, simple motion, certainly, will lessen the strange hammer-hard beat of her heart.

Unwillingly, she finds stray thoughts clinging to Pandora. This whole mess is her fault, certainly, but there is no not-memory of the Chamber ever opening in Bellatrix Lestrange’s youth. So, really, Bella begins to think, it must be her fault. Worse still, if Pandora does decide to play the heroic Gryffindor tonight… Well, there’s certainly no universe in which Pandora, who has all the self-preservation of a pebble being kicked down the road, successfully subdues the basilisk.

Bella stops short in the corridor, an awful, annoying guilt pooling down from the nape of her neck to the pit of her stomach. There’s some confusing, tangling knot tightening in her chest. It feels like Andromeda, this knot, left alone out by the grove during what she thinks is a game of hide-and-seek. It feels like Narcissa’s pretty, plaintive face whenever Bella shrugs her aside because she’s bored of playing dolls. It feels like responsibility, like regret, like every one of Druella’s harsh and stinging criticisms raining down against her poor, sodden back. It feels like the tired yet taut thread of love, unfaltering connection reaching back, belief that outpaces self-preservation by leagues.

She turns around and races for the second floor girl’s bathroom.

Her feet stamp and grind against the stone. She’s run faster than she ever has in her life, she’s sure, but she still arrives far too late. The scene that greets her is anything but triumphant: Pandora, pale blue eyes frozen with horror, lies unmoving on the floor. Her right hand is outstretched, knuckles tight around the handle of her mirror. In front of her petrified body is the Chamber of Secrets, open and very obviously missing its occupant.

Chapter Text

Dippet’s a frail old man, lean and feeble-looking, with a somewhat pasty, wan complexion. He seems easy enough to pull one over, but Bella’s learned by now that looks can be deceiving. Dippet wasn’t made Headmaster on whim alone; he’s got enough intellect left in his brain to aptly interrogate her. And if Dippet does happen to make a lapse in judgement, Dumbledore, that meddling fool, is just behind his shoulder to lend a helping hand.

All in all, Bella finds herself to be in a much more precarious position than her last visit to the Headmaster’s office. Near the back of the room, by Dippet’s bookcase, Dumbledore stands particularly grim. Around her, the portraits of past Headmasters discreetly peek at her between fake snores. She glances back, just for a moment, and finds a familiar pair of dark eyes staring back: the lofty, disapproving gaze of Phineas Nigellus Black.

Family’s a peculiar thing, she thinks as he frowns at her. No doubt he’ll worm his way to Grimmauld Place and tell the whole family about this later. She shouldn’t have closed the Chamber and informed a Prefect of what happened, Bella decides silently. She should have simply left the scene of the crime as it was and allowed some other poor, unknowing student to stumble upon Pandora’s petrified body.

But Bella’s never been much for running away.

“Miss Black, please,” Dippet sighs. He’s leaned forward in his chair, elbows against the desk, fingers steepled together. “There must be more to the story than you simply finding her as is.”

“I’m not sure I follow…”

“You have been found now with two of the victims.”

Bella shifts uneasily in her seat. “Maybe I have a talent for finding petrified people?”

No one laughs.

“Pandora,” she tries again, beginning haltingly, “was very…concerned about what’s been happening. And she had this plan to put a stop to it. She thought that Myrtle’s bathroom was the source—since we found Jane Bowen there. She went there tonight by herself. I didn’t think… I got worried, so I went to see, but I found her only after she’d been petrified—I didn’t do anything!”

“We are well aware that you yourself are not responsible for these incidents.” It’s Dumbledore who speaks this time. While Dippet’s expression is crumpled, a bundle of worry and desperation, Dumbledore’s is one of quiet calm. “But, as the Headmaster said, it appears you harbor some connection to the goings-on. What, precisely, was Pandora Warrington’s plan?”

“She just—” she’s mumbling now, unsure of how much to say, what to tell that won’t implicate her, “—she didn’t tell me much, just that she had a plan. She knew how to stop it.”

“And what is it?” Dumbledore asks.

“The…thing that’s been petrifying students,” Bella answers vaguely.

She avoids Dumbledore’s piercing gaze, settling back on Dippet’s unthreatening face.

“And the mirror?” Dippet continues. “Why did she have a hand mirror?”

“I think—that was a part of her plan,” is all Bella can say.

“She didn’t explain any specifics of her plan to you?” Dippet announces disbelievingly.

“I didn’t really…want to listen,” Bella murmurs. “I was very—I was angry with her, because—everyone’s been blaming me for no reason, and I just didn’t want to hear about it anymore.”

Dippet merely lets out a heavy sigh, looking away from Bella in favor of contemplating what appears to be the end of his career as a Hogwarts Headmaster. Having students petrified once during a tenure is, perhaps, explainable—but twice?

Dumbledore’s gaze remains trained on her face. “If there is anything else you know, or remember, you may approach us or any member of the staff at any time, Miss Black.”

She nods stiffly, and is relieved when they allow her to leave the office soon after.

Somewhere in the messy tangle of the next few weeks, yet another student is found petrified. Oh, and Bella’s birthday passes—though it’s hardly an enjoyable occasion. It’s not as though anyone’s clamoring to celebrate her within the castle walls. She gets two letters, one from Druella and one jointly sent by her sisters. Even though it’s just ink on paper, Bella can still feel the lack of warmth behind Druella’s neatly written ‘many happy returns of the day.’ Her sisters’ letter is far more affectionate, well wishes written in Andromeda’s clumsy hand and an accompaniment of jumbled drawings from Narcissa. It’s meaningless but sweet, and Bella’s only ray of light during what is otherwise her darkest hour.

After enduring yet another day of Nola’s accusations, Bella decides she might need another letter from her sisters to lift her spirits. It’s gotten all too lonely at Hogwarts, now that Pandora’s been petrified, too, and Bella’s the last one standing who actually knows what’s going on.

She heads to the Owlery, wondering what to write to them about. She hasn’t breathed a word about the petrifications, of course, but there’s painfully little else going on in her life besides that. She supposes she could tell them about lessons. Andromeda’s always eager to hear about what classes are like.

“Oi, Black!” a stout voice calls. “Off to petrify another student?”

The last time this happened, the student ran off in fear before Bella could hex them. This time, Bella decides not to take out her wand yet, so as not to send a warning about her intentions. She turns slowly, eyes blazing, jaw set.

Three Gryffindors stand at the start of the corridor. She recognizes them from classes: Rosborough, Brown, and Prewett. It’s Brown who spoke, judging by the smug, pleased little smile gracing his lips. Rosborough stands nervously near a pillar, dark eyes darting around the hall, hands twisting into each other. Prewett is similarly silent, though not out of anxiety; he watches her coolly, waiting.

There a hundred or so barbs ready to sling from her tongue, but she decides to take a leaf out of Prewett’s book and simply wait a tick. It’s not clear to her if they happened to come down the hall and spotted her, or if they’ve been looking for her.

Brown’s lips purse and he says, “What? Not going to admit to it?”

“Alder, maybe this isn’t such a good idea…” Rosborough begins. “If she is petrifying students, I mean…”

“No,” Brown insists, shaking his head. “If she is, then we’ve got to stop her!”

Bella finds herself almost stunned by the sheer stupidity of it. So, the Gryffindors have sent their Idiot Brigade to deal with the problem, is it?

She actually laughs. It’s funny to her, ridiculous that three little boys think they could stop her. She reaches into her robes to pull out her wand. She was all but threatened, right? Only a fool would let something like this pass unchecked.

Unfortunately, Brown’s already got his wand out. With a mighty cry, he says, “Flipendo!”

Bella’s got three decades of Bellatrix Lestrange’s merciless approach to dueling floating somewhere in her head. But, right now, she’s a twelve-year-old who’s never cast a spell on another person beyond classes.

Brown’s spell catches her before she can jump away. The jinx sends her flying back a meter, tumbling against the floor. Her wand rolls away from her, down the hall.

Fury lights every beat of her heart. She gathers herself, her gaze so dark and wrathful it’s a miracle the world doesn’t turn to ash under it. She juts forward frantically for her wand, ready to curse Brown into oblivion—but finds, to her horror, that Brown has already picked it up.

Light streams from the large, arched windows. Under it, Brown smiles horribly, his pale eyes proud and domineering. Bella’s shaky on her feet, a fear she’s seldom felt replacing her quickly fading anger. The moment seems slow, fragile. Bella’s afraid a single breath might move it forward.

“W—wait!” Rosborough stutters out. Clearly, this isn’t a part of their stupidly Gryffindor plan. “What are you—”

Brown’s plump hands grasp onto either end of her wand, and Bella’s entire soul blazes. Her eyes widen and she reaches a hand out, desperate. “No—!”

With a hefty grunt, Brown snaps her wand into two splintery halves. The wood bends with relative ease, but the dragon string core—resilient to the very end, a taut and stark violet—remain to connect the two ends. Brown attempts a final tug to force a complete snap, but he’s quickly knocked to the ground as Bella rams her entire body into his.

Her broken wand scatters across the floor. Bella’s heart thunders against her chest. Her wand, that was her wand—and it isn’t the same as any other snotty first-year’s wand. This is the same wand her other self carries, will carry, for decades. This is the wand that will fell the strongest wizards of their generation, and all it took was one stupid, senseless, worthless boy to snap it. A dark and terrible wrath envelopes her, rising through like a greedy flame. She raises a fist and it collides violently against Brown’s face. A sickening crack issues from his nose, and her knuckles throb with delightful, welcome pain.

“Stop! I—I’m sorry—I’m—!” Brown cries out in a helpless, blubbering mess of fear and panic.

It pleases her to see him this way, under her fist, beneath her heel, ground against the stone. (In another life, in another time, Bellatrix Lestrange shrieks. Every worthless bauble in the Malfoy’s parlor room shatters under her rage. She is wandless, bested by a filthy Mudblood.) Brown is a fool for not realizing who he’s up against. Bella doesn’t need a wand to subdue someone; she went eleven years without it and still kept her sisters in line. Brown is an even greater fool for apologizing. Remorse means nothing to Bella. Once the hand pulls away, once it strikes, she will never hold it again. (Cruel, merciless Bellatrix Lestrange tortures the Longbottoms into oblivion even when it becomes clear they know nothing.)

She raises her fist again, but before it can meet Brown’s cheek, she’s hauled back. There’s a shock of red hair in her periphery, bright and blurry, and she knows it’s Prewett who’s pulled her off Brown. She shakes against the grip he has over his shoulders, but his frail-looking hands are deceptively strong.

“Let go of me!” she snarls. Her gaze is still set on Brown, her wrath sharpened to a razor’s edge, itching to strike again.

Rosborough helps Brown up, who’s clutching his nose with both hands. Delight spikes through Bella when she notices red peek through his fingers.

Brown looks up at Bella, still struggling against Prewett’s hold, and says, voice stuffy, “Y—you’re mad!”

“I am!” Bella screams. Her heart beats violently alongside each syllable. “I’m stark, raving mad! And if I ever see any of you again, I’ll—”

“Just what in Merlin’s name is going on here?” a horrified voice echoes through the hall.

Prewett immediately lets go of Bella, and she stumbles forward from the suddenness of the release. She doesn’t even need to look up to know that it’s McGonagall who’s arrived. Of bloody course it just has to be the Head of Gryffindor. Bella’s fairly certain at this point the universe might be playing some sick and cruel joke on her.

“Black attacked me!” Brown says immediately.

At the same time Bella cries out, “They broke my wand!”

McGonagall’s face is severe and drawn. Her sharp gaze snaps to Prewett, Rosborough, and Brown before noting the two halves of Bella’s broken wand scattered against the floor. With thin, pursed lips, she asks, “Is this true?”

“It—it was self-defense!” Brown exclaims. “She was threatening us and all, and I was afraid—”

It’s more than Bella can bear. She launches herself at him again, fists flying. “You—filthy—little—liar—!”

McGonagall blasts them apart with one strict swish of her wand. “Miss Black!” she roars. “I will not stand for such displays. Rest assured, there are nonviolent methods—”

“They broke my wand!” Bella says again, voice shrill and grating, desperate for something that cannot be repaired. Her chest heaves. The air snags around her, slips over her like some spoilt, sludgy thing. She feels tears prick her eyes, and it takes everything in her to keep them from falling. She glances down at the two halves of her wands and says, this time much more quietly, “You don’t understand. My wand is broken.”

McGonagall’s face softens just a fraction. “I understand perfectly well, Miss Black.”

No, she doesn’t. How could she understand? How could she know what this wand means? It’s her most loyal follower, her obedient pet, her very best friend. She willed—would will—this wand into doing the worst a wand could possibly do. It’s the only thing on this earth willing to follow her to wickedness.

“She’s telling the truth,” an unexpected voice speaks up. Prewett glances uneasily between Brown, Bella, and McGonagall before continuing. “If anything, she’s the one who used self-defense. Alder told Roland and me that he only wanted to talk to Black about what’s been going on at Hogwarts, since everyone knows it’s Black who found the two of the four students. But then he just insulted her, took her wand, and snapped it. If it was me, Professor, I would’ve done a lot more than just punch him.”

McGonagall’s expression pinches, and she eyes Brown with mounting fury.

“Yeah,” Rosborough says instantly. “Gid and I didn’t really want to join, but we didn’t want to leave Alder alone either. For what it’s worth, we tried to stop him.” 

“Mr. Prewett and Mr. Rosborough,” McGonagall seethes quietly, “kindly escort Mr. Brown to the Hospital Wing. I will call on the three of you later to go over today’s incident.” Her steely gaze turns to Bella. “Miss Black, follow me to my office.”

Bella’s still assigned detention for breaking Brown’s nose.

Thankfully, even Sprout seems to think it’s a tad unfair. So, rather than have her write lines or do gardening, Sprout takes her to Ollivander’s to get a new wand.

“Miss Black,” Ollivander greets. “Walnut, twelve and three-quarters inches, dragon heartstring, quite swishy.”

She sours immediately. “Yeah, it was.”

Ollivander’s pleasant smile dips into a slight frown. “Was?”

“There was an altercation,” Sprout informs him with some hesitance, “and her wand was broken. We’ve come for a new one.”

Bella scoffs at the choice of word, for which Sprout sends her a sympathetic look. Bella finds her contempt sour, some churn in her stomach pulling her from annoyance to misery. Certainly, she did not like McGonagall’s stern handling of the situation, but Sprout’s pity feels somehow worse.

Ollivander’s smile slips away completely. His eyes, washed-out from age or use, regard her sadly and he says, simply, “I’m very sorry to hear that. Shall we find you a new one?”

Bella extends her right arm. A floating tape measure snaps to attention and begins to circle her wrist. Ollivander circles the many shelves of his shop. He hands her a great many wands, which Bella takes in hand, tries, and returns. There is no enjoyment in this, not like how she felt the first time she entered Ollivander’s during the summer; there’s no eager thrill running through her, no greedy reach for the pretty wands sitting in the display case. She’s got too much in her head and her heart to lend herself to the simple joy of a new wand. Bellatrix Lestrange’s life flares against her own, an echo shuttering behind her, some long, never-ending specter looming over her back. She knows none of these wands are hers. Even worse, she knows which one will be.

“Ash, eleven and a half inches, dragon heartstring,” Ollivander informs her, handing the latest wand in his search for her perfect fit.

Something stutters in Bella before she even takes it. This is Bellatrix Lestrange’s second wand, after the first was stolen. It’s a reliable wand, stubborn and powerful, though she never did manage to wield it as effortlessly as her first.

The wand warms in her hand, a shower of sparks spilling from the tip. Bella finds she’s not quite pleased to have this one in her hand, but it’s chosen her.

When Bella got her first wand, she hadn’t yet received not-memories involving it. Their first meeting was untainted; when hand touched wood, something undeniable slotted into place, like she’d finally come home. When she learned Bellatrix Lestrange had the same wand, she found her enjoyment of it decrease—but she still loved the wand, loved that it was her first, that it was a part of her, a bond so old and insistent that it could have very well existed since the creation of the universe. Taking her first wand in hand was like reuniting with a friend she hadn’t even realized she missed.

But with this second one, Bella finds that the feeling that drapes over her is anything but comforting. A shadow not entirely dissimilar to her own presses against her heavily. She looks at this wand, its gold-rimmed handle, its fine and sharp point, and only sees the wand Bellatrix Lestrange was—will be—buried with.

Early next week, a fifth student is petrified. A Gryffindor this time, which has Alder Brown insisting to just about anyone who’ll listen that Bella’s turned her sights on their House since he was the one who broke her wand.

If that were the case, she thinks bitingly as the Gryffindors all glare at her from the other end of the Hall, wouldn’t I have just petrified him? The older Hufflepuffs she’s been sitting with at meals since the start of term have slowly started gravitating away from her. Bella’s now at the end of the table with quite a large breadth of space between her and the nearest student. Things have gotten so bad that even a few professors have begun to steer clear of her, particularly Horace Slughorn, though she wasn’t exactly desperate for his attention to begin with.

Still, things can’t go on like this. Bella’s beginning to think there might have been some truth to what Pandora said: a student may very well be Hogwart’s last hope. The staff seem too incompetent to find and subdue the basilisk themselves, if they’re even aware that it’s a basilisk they’re up against, and Bella’s too afraid to even covertly point them in the right direction, lest they figure out that she is involved in all this.

After a brief think in a hidden alcove in the library, Bella wonders if she might be able to take care of the mess herself. Pandora mentioned a rooster’s cry is fatal to basilisks, and Bella thinks that might be the easiest of the available options for defeating Slytherin’s beast. It takes her a moment to figure out where she might get one, but the answer comes easily enough: Hogwart’s very own caretaker ought to have a rooster, right?

Bella leaves the castle right before dinner, desperate to put all this to bed, but she’s hardly reached Hagrid’s hovel when she finds the man being led out by two Aurors, a wizard in formal wear, Dumbledore, and Dippet.

“We will comply in every way, of course,” she hears Dippet say as she nears.

Bella stays herself by the garden, off the beaten path. She sticks close to the rickety walls of Hagrid’s shack, just out of sight, and edges closer to see if she can’t figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, she’s not quite as stealthy as she thinks because she hardly makes it over another half-meter before one of the visitors spots and intercepts her.

He mumbles something to the Aurors, then discreetly slips away and rounds the side of the hut. Before Bella can realize that he’s coming to her, he’s already in front of her. The official is a smartly dressed man with pale blond, neatly coiffed hair and a pair of sharp grey eyes. Bella finds she recognizes him: Abraxas Malfoy, who is in no way actually affiliated with the Ministry. Though it was likely child’s play for Abraxas to worm his way into today’s proceedings; gifted with both a near-endless fortune and a silver tongue, he’s managed to get his fingers into nearly every major department of the Ministry.

He raises a brow at her, gaze skirting across the Hufflepuff colors of her uniform.

“I’m Bellatrix Black,” she introduces. Doesn’t hurt to drop the family name, now and again. “I came by to, er—well, I’ve got a knarl and… Hagrid’s been helping with that.”

His expression shifts into one of mild annoyance, though Bella’s not certain if it’s because he doesn’t care in the slightest about her knarl or because it’s obvious she’s lying.

“I see,” Abraxas says. “As it so happens, I do not believe the, ah, groundskeeper will be around to help any longer.”

“Where is he going?”

It’s not a question Abraxas has to answer in the least, and they both know it. Still, he regards her a moment longer, and Bella finds some shard of curiosity glance across his face. He has his questions, too.

“Azkaban,” Abraxas responds, “where he will be held and interrogated. Some odd years ago, he was expelled for unleashing a beast at Hogwarts, causing several petrifications and a student’s death. The same is happening now, and the Ministry believe he is responsible, though…”

Understanding slides into Bella’s head easily as she recalls the vague details of her future father-in-law’s story. Hagrid, it seems, was the one who took the fall for the Dark Lord’s escapade.

“Oh,” Bella says, and simply stares at Abraxas a moment longer. He’s expecting something from her, his lips stretched into a small, polite smile, grey eyes keen and waiting. “Okay.”

It’s not the response he was looking for.

Abraxas clears his throat slightly and continues, “I cannot help but wonder how a man tending to the outskirts of the castle has the time and means to so quickly unleash then immediately hide his beast…”

Another expectant look. Bella glances down at her feet for a moment. Right—Abraxas knows full well Hagrid’s not responsible for the incident. What’s worse, Abraxas knows who the real culprit was, twenty years ago. The Dark Lord is not currently at Hogwarts, and Bella, with startling clarity, finally sees why Abraxas is really here. He’s not come to simply meddle in Ministry affairs; he’s come to find out, either at the Dark Lord’s behest or of his own volition, who has taken command of Slytherin’s serpent.

“Er,” she begins, searching for something to say. “Sure…”

A third flash of disappoint crosses Abraxas Malfoy’s otherwise smooth, untroubled face. He looks discreetly behind him, where the officials are far off talking to Dippet, Hagrid in the back with his head down.

“This is all to say,” Abraxas continues, voice leading quietly, “perhaps there is another, more suspicious individual residing within the castle itself?”

Unfortunately, the most suspicious individual at Hogwarts is currently Bella.

Abraxas’s voice drops even lower. “Of the Slytherins in the school, are there any who—”

“If you have questions regarding Hogwarts students, I am more than happy to oblige you, Mr. Malfoy,” comes the hard yet not altogether unkind voice of Dumbledore.

His shadow mingles into Bella’s as he joins her side with a flourish of his robes. At once, Abraxas’s needling expression sours into one better suited for a person sniffing spoilt milk.

“Is that so?” Abraxas says, gaze angling up to meet Dumbledore’s. Something heavy passes between them. The grip Abraxas has on the head of his cane tightens. “You and I must have different understandings of what it means to oblige someone.”

A pleasant smile floats across Dumbledore’s face. “To oblige one person does not mean I shall forsake another. Student information is private, as you well know.”

“You must understand—these incidents will not cease without some degree of outside intervention,” Abraxas sniffs imperiously. “Be reasonable: we work toward a common goal.”

“I think not,” Dumbledore answers softly. “On both counts. Rest assured, I am close to the root of the issue.”

Abraxas’s nostrils flare, but before he can retort, Dumbledore withdraws his gaze from him entirely.

“Miss Black,” Dumbledore addresses quietly, glancing down, “it may suit you to return to the castle now. A curfew will be announced later today, along with several new restrictions to protect the students. You should not be out.”

Bella merely nods and turns on her heel, hurrying to the castle. The sun sets against her back, a brilliant flurry of orange and purple flaring over the lake. She flits like a phantom over the hillside, a black shadow racing toward the castle. Her heart strikes against her ribs like a hammer, with such powerful paranoia her whole body seems to shake in response. She cannot allow Dumbledore and the Dark Lord to investigate this issue. She cannot have her involvement revealed. She cannot let herself go to where Hagrid goes now: that grotty old cell, bars made of memory and fear alike, a coffin packed under dread rather than soil, death without dying.

A final curtain of dark comes to drape over the world. Bella must end this tonight, one way or another.

When Bella reaches Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, she finds it’s been cordoned off. Clearly Dippet and Dumbledore have finally put two and two together and figured there’s something not quite right about this particular bathroom. Thankfully, they seem to have not realized that a mere rope and an ‘out of order’ sign isn’t quite enough to deter a student; Bella slips inside rather easily.

It takes her a few tries to imitate Pandora’s Parseltongue, but she eventually gets the sound right. The sinks shudder and melt into the ground, revealing the cavernous opening to the Chamber of Secrets.

She hesitates at the mouth of the hole for a moment. She has in one hand a hand mirror stolen from Nola’s trunk, her own wand gripped tightly in the other. She takes a deep breath, letting in the stale and rancid air of the Chamber.

“It’s now or never,” she declares, and slides down.

The way down is bumpy and difficult to navigate. After what feels like an eternity of wading through rubbish and lapping sewage water, she arrives at an empty cavern. The inner room of the Chamber is enormous, ancient stonework cut directly out of the land Hogwarts was built on. The entrance is embellished with gilded snakes, the effect only slightly diminished by the truly awful smell that emanates from this place. Bella’s scarcely stepped into the hollow, when she hears a rumble through the pipes overhead, Slytherin’s serpent come to investigate the rodent that’s dared crawl into its home.

She shuts her eyes on instinct, backing up against a grimy wall, and silently prepares herself. She’s at just the slightest bit of a disadvantage, because she’s a twelve-year-old girl and the basilisk is, well, a basilisk—oh, and her eyes are closed, too. But Bella has faced worse odds before (a blatant lie). She can do this, if she tries hard enough (a charming Hufflepuff thought, but very much untrue).

The floor shakes under the heft of the basilisk as it enters. A challenging hiss ruptures from its mouth.

Bella steps forward blindly, eyes screwed shut. She digs her wand into her pocket and lunges the mirror forward with both hands wrapped around the hilt. For a moment, there’s nothing but near-silence: a drop of water leaking into the cavern, Bella’s own heavy breaths. It’s long enough for her to wonder, tentatively, if perhaps she’s succeeded.

But that brief ray of hope is smothered by one swift swing of the basilisk’s tail. It collides into Bella’s stomach, sending her reeling. The mirror is flung out of her hand, and Bella’s head rings dizzy as the wind is knocked right out of her. Dimly, she manages to reach forward and hug the length of its tail, fingers scratching into scale, trying—impossibly—to hold on for dear life as the snake thrashes.

Bella hears the mirror shatter, then hears its shards tinkle against the floor. It’s an unfairly beautiful sound for what’s happening right now. Perhaps it’s the last pretty thing Bella will ever hear.  Under her grip, the snake writhes, attempting to flick Bella off—but she’s stuck as a mosquito. Persistent to even the bitterest of ends. She does not want to die here, in some fanatic’s plumbing.

Bella Black is a talented witch, certainly, but perhaps her greatest talent is not what she can accomplish but what she can endure.

With every ounce of strength in her small body, she begins to climb. She feels her way up the basilisk, its hard and sharp scales cutting into her soft palms. It takes an eternity to reach the top of its head, and at that point the thing is shrieking like a banshee. Bella feels down, a finger poking into the slit of its nostril, before pulling her hand back to grab her wand from her pocket. She uses its fine tip to tear into one of its eyes. It howls with pain, then knocks its head against the wall. Bella almost falls—almost.

The basilisk wails beneath her, thudding against the walls in an attempt to shake her off. Bella’s not certain how much longer she can hold on. Robbing the basilisk of its sight is all well and fair, but she must kill the thing if she wants to get out of her alive. 

But how? She doesn’t quite know how to kill it, not when her mirror is shattered, when she’s woefully bereft of a rooster. The basilisk’s hide is impenetrable. She can’t exactly magic it to death—oh, but she did just poke its eye out, didn’t she? That part, at least, is vulnerable.

Her hand acts of its own accord, guided by memories of another life. She doesn’t know the spell until it leaves her lips—and then, how could she not have known it? She’s used it so many times, casting it is like second nature, like greeting an old friend. Even in another life, another time, another body, it’s all too easy.

“Avada Kedavra!”

The spell spits out of her wand, rough and vicious, and collides directly into its remaining eye. The basilisk lets out one last, almighty shudder. Then, it simply falls, and Bella falls with it, thudding roughly against its back as it lands on the floor.

She rolls down, body meeting stone. When at last all movement stops, Bella simply lays still a moment, staring up at the cavernous ceiling of the Chamber of Secrets. It’s dark and damp, craggy from the shape of the harsh rock. She takes in a huge gulp of air, then shakily gathers herself so that she’s kneeling against the floor. In her right hand is the wand that felled Slytherin’s serpent.

Her heart’s a distant drum. This wand is a plain sliver of ash, a honey brown, but she doesn’t see it that way anymore. There’s some sickly green rot cracking through it, acidic and sinister. It’s been ruined. She’s ruined it. She wants to scrub the stain out, but she knows nothing she do will ever get rid of it. It’s ingrained into the wood, this sin of hers, webbed against each nock and catch of the handle.

So much has changed, has been laid undone, not always by intention but it still must have meant something, right? Hufflepuff rather than Slytherin, her first pet, a frantic attempt to help a Mudblood, of all things. Fate felt like something easy to buckle, an errant lock of hair to be swatted away, but it seems it’s rather more stubborn. It seems that deep in the cavity of Bella’s heart is a person itching, waiting to get out. (Bellatrix Lestrange’s cheek presses against the cold, grimy bar of her cell as she counts down the days.) Even the sheer, desperate heft of Bella’s want is not enough to outweigh the totality of Bellatrix Lestrange’s patience.

But there is something greater even than Bella’s desire, something that will not just outweigh the lurking shadow of Bellatrix Lestrange but eclipse it entirely: anger. Indignation. Fury—because it’s not fair.

She grabs her own wand and snaps it in half. (Bella’s four, a child in a strop, throwing every worthless bauble in her bedroom until it breaks, until it looks just the same as she feels.) She does not want destiny, curses the mere idea of fate, and throws her wand as far as her arm can manage. She hears the broken pieces clatter down the pipes, traveling deep into Slytherin’s stinking sewage pit. Once the damp, musty air is filled with silence again, Bella lets exhaustion overtake her body at last.

She slides to the floor, legs weak, and the world goes dark.

When she wakes, it’s the mint green of the Hospital Wing’s curtains that greet her.

“How are you feeling, Miss Black?”

Oh, and Dumbledore, too.

He’s sitting in a conjured chair by his bedside, looking remarkably tired. Bella’s bleary gaze flits over him before landing on the goblet of water by her cot. She eases herself on the bed, back against the headrest, and reaches greedily for the water, guzzling it down.

When at last her thirst is sated, she returns her attention to Dumbledore and answers, “I’m okay. I guess you, er, must know…”

“It was clear that only a basilisk could petrify a person to the degree the students were found. I only began to suspect the bathroom you were found in after Pandora Warrington’s petrification. It became clear to me Ms. Warrington was trying to rectify a mistake. But how to enter the Chamber of Secrets and how to dispose of the basilisk… These were plans that needed more careful thought to develop, so imagine my surprise when a patrolling Prefect informed me a hole had miraculously appeared in the second-floor girls’ lavatory. I could not have anticipated a student might enter the Chamber of their own volition.”

Bella squirms under his heavy, unrelenting gaze. Her eyes catch the gold rim of her goblet and she mutters out, “Pandora found it. None of us knew what would happen. I didn’t realize that… I just wanted to stop it from petrifying anyone else, and—I did, right? It’s dead now.”

Dumbledore’s eyes are a shade of blue that remind Bella of her mother. “There is no doubt that in slaying the basilisk, you have done an enormous service to the school. Still, Miss Black, how were you able to kill it?”

He already knows how. Bella didn’t close the Chamber before she collapsed. Surely Dumbledore went down there, saw the corpse, examined it. She isn’t the slightest bit fond of the old man, but there’s no denying he is one of the greatest wizards of their age. Detecting the basilisk’s cause of death must have been like child’s play.

Bella swallows thickly. Her eyes drop down, her fingers curl into the scratchy fabric of the hospital sheet. For the first time, she lies: not to Dumbledore, but to herself. She wants to deny the truth, that unfailing future that seems, all at once, both far and near. She’s been trying so hard, how can she still be so close to becoming Bellatrix Lestrange? It can’t be. It wasn’t the Killing Curse she cast. It was a fluke of her wand, surely, the adrenaline of the moment. She can’t even recall the words of the spell anymore.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles lamely. She sounds unconvincing, even to herself. “I stabbed its eye, and it just died…”

Though she is no longer looking at him, she is well aware of Dumbledore’s gaze. She can feel his eyes on her, suspicious, calculating.

Bluntly, he asks, “Have you ever been exposed to the Unforgivables?”

Bella’s entire body stiffens. “…What are those?”

“Miss Black.” He sounds almost disappointed.

With great effort, Bella lifts her head and meets his serious stare. “I’m only twelve, sir.”

“Indeed,” Dumbledore agrees. “That is the primary cause of my concern, for—”

“Right here, Headmaster. I administered the draught only a half-hour ago, so she must be waking soon,” comes Madam Pomfrey’s warbling voice.

Dumbledore stops himself and rises from his chair, crossing to the slit in the curtains to pull them apart. Genially, he greets Dippet, who is a frantic ball of distress and joy alike.

“Albus, wonderful,” Dippet says approvingly, “I was about to have someone fetch you as well—and, ah, Miss Black is awake.”

Bella blinks up at him sluggishly.

“I am very disappointed, Miss Black,” Dippet begins with a finger wag, “that you did not approach a professor for help. It might have saved us a few more petrifications. But I certainly cannot deny the enormity of your deed yesterday. I believe—”

“Armando,” Dumbledore begins urgently, “perhaps we ought to slow down and—”

Dippet waves his words away. “Slow down? I think not! Half the board is calling for my dismissal, Albus. Miss Black here has provided an incredible service to the school. I rather think an award is in order—and we can neatly tie up this mess and put it all behind us.”

In short, it seems Dippet is hurrying to cover his misgivings with Bella’s triumph. It’s not an altogether bad plan of his, but she’d rather not have her name get tangled into all this any more than it already has. However, just as Dumbledore’s warnings fall on deaf ears, so, too, do Bella’s wishes. Dippet will give his speech, Bella will get her award, and Dumbledore will simply have to let it go.

She watches quietly as Dippet declares the matter closed and flounces off. Dumbledore follows only a moment later, although not without shooting her one last, deeply troubled look.

“How are you feeling, Miss Black?” Pomfrey asks, coming to her side with a slew of potions and draughts floating behind her.

Bella sighs and stares down at her hands. They’re slight, with long, spindly fingers and neatly trimmed nails. Rosier hands. Druella’s hands. Bellatrix Lestrange’s hands.

“Like shit,” she answers honestly, and ignores Pomfrey when she tuts.

Just before the winter holidays, Sprout’s batch of mandrakes come to maturity and the potion to cure the petrified students is brewed.

Bella’s not certain what Pandora and Jane’s reactions will be once they awaken, so she avoids them for a little while after they come to, but the two accost her after classes one day. Pandora’s all eager eyes and rapid-fire questions, supremely curious about how Bella felled the basilisk, what it looked like, if it said anything before it died, and on and on. Jane’s reaction to their small reunion is decidedly more emotional, with a heartfelt thanks directed toward Bella for getting rid of the monster that petrified her.

It’s not a perfect ending to Bella’s first term at Hogwarts. The Hufflepuffs remain wary of her, despite her award, and Dumbledore’s started to keep a close eye on her. Still, Bella finds herself in a better place than when she first came here. Rather than walk through the halls of the castle, surly and alone, she now has Pandora chattering in one ear while Jane quietly voices concern in the other.

Certainly, it’s better than being in Azkaban.

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea to mesh spells together like that,” Jane insists, shaking her head. “What if something terrible happens? Like an explosion?”

Pandora’s eyes are wide and avid. “Really? Do you think so?”

“Don’t sound excited about it!”

“But it’s just so exciting,” Pandora says happily. “I’ll experiment over hols and let you both know how—”

“Oi, Black!” a familiar voice calls.

All three of them turn around together. Coming up the staircase is a smiling Gideon Prewett. Behind him is a visibly irritated Alder Brown.

Bella’s wand is out in an instant. Jane jumps at the sudden display, shooting a worried glance at Pandora, who merely looks on with interest.

“I’ve never seen a duel before,” Pandora says eagerly.

Prewett puts his hands up and, still smiling, says, “We come in peace.”

Bella frowns. She hesitates a moment but ultimately lowers her wand. “What do you want?”

“We came to apologize, of course,” he answers easily, and then all but shoves Brown forward.

Brown twists back and gives him a nasty scowl before turning back around. He doesn’t quite make eye contact with Bella and mumbles out, “Er—sorry about the wand…”

How completely useless. Bella’s gaze flits over him and she answers, haughtily, “An apology will never be enough.”

“Well—then what do you want me to do?” Brown cries out, frustrated.

Bella shrugs. Apologies are meaningless to her. She can’t very well fill her belly or decorate her room with empty words, can she? “You could get on your hands and knees and swear your undying fealty to me.”

Pandora and Jane giggle. Brown glowers at her. Prewett, that idiot, actually kneels down.

“What are you doing?” Brown hisses at him, hauling him back up.

“Better her than you, mate,” is all Prewett says in response.

Brown’s face reddens. His hands ball into fists and he mutters, “This was stupid. You only brought me here to humiliate me, didn’t you?”

Prewett grins. “Guilty as charged.”

Brown shoots him a rude look before scurrying off. Prewett watches him go with mild amusement before turning back to meet Bella’s gaze. He’s all scrawny limbs and bright features: too-red hair and too-blue eyes. Bella finds it hurts her eyes to look at him for too long.

Grinning, he asks her, “So—is there anything I get in return for swearing my undying fealty?”

(Gideon Prewett grows to be a formidable duelist. Once he and his brother refuse to join the Dark Lord, their deaths become unavoidable. Such powerful foes cannot be allowed to live in opposition to the Dark Lord. Bellatrix Lestrange sees them fight, relentless, furious, and feels some sting at the knowledge that the brothers, pure-blooded as they were, could have belonged to their side. What a waste. Gideon Prewett’s eyes cut through her like ice, flashing with a hate so abhorrent it rivals even her own. When they duel, the world trembles before them.)

She squints at him, unsure. “My forgiveness.”

He looks almost disappointed. “That’s all?”

“You should be grateful,” comes Jane’s scolding voice. Bella finds herself oddly touched by her defense. “I heard what happened, and it sounds just awful, snapping someone’s wand like that. I wouldn’t ever forgive someone for doing that to me.”

“I wasn’t the one who—” Prewett begins with protest.

“No, you just stood there and watched, didn't you?” Jane frowns.

Prewett at least has the decency to look ashamed. “Right—well, I didn’t think he’d, you know, actually do it. Still, I’m sorry.”

He waits a moment, perhaps thinking Bella might say something in response. She’s not certain what he’s expecting. It’s not like she’s about to step forward, misty-eyed, and tell him it’s not his fault.

“Bye, then,” she says at last, and tugs Jane and Pandora along to the library.

Jane’s very upset about the whole situation. “It’s sort of rude, isn’t it?” she tells Pandora and Bella. “To just interrupt someone and demand they listen to your apology?”

“Is it?” Pandora wonders. “When else could they have done it?”

Jane huffs. “What I mean is—they could have written a letter. Or actually thought about what they were going to say. It’s clear they just came on a whim. I just can’t bear when people give an apology without being the slightest bit remorseful.”

Bella halts abruptly, suddenly remembering that she’s never quite apologized to Jane. It’s a horrible realization, something panicky and stomach-flipping settling into her. The apology is how all the basilisk business began, which has Bella dreading it even more.

“Er, Jane?” Bella starts. “You know, that first night in the dormitory…”

“Oh,” she responds quietly. “I was meaning to ask about that, too. I…didn’t really care about the word because I didn’t know what it meant. But when you said that I didn’t belong here—that was really mean, because I feel like I really do belong here. I used to be bullied all the time in school because strange things happened around me, and I was really happy when I found out that I wasn’t alone and all sorts of people could do the same strange things I could do. The first time I walked into Diagon Alley, I saw a man levitate ice cream cones, and I thought—well, I thought I was home.” 

It’s never occurred to Bella that Muggles wouldn’t like magic. She frowns as she listens to Jane, some strange, stilted feeling bridging into her heart.

(When Bellatrix Lestrange first learns the father of the Dark Lord is a mere Muggle, she nearly curses off Bartemius Jr.’s tongue. Then, she decides, very strangely, like many other Death Eaters, that it’s different. And there are many reasons, really, to justify that: because the Dark Lord is still the heir of Slytherin, because the Dark Lord is the most prodigious wizard of their era, because the Dark Lord has bested Death itself—because and because and because—)

“Would you forgive me?” Bella finds herself asking, because she knows she wouldn’t if the roles were reversed.

“Yes,” Jane answers. “If you apologized and promised never to say anything like that again, I would.”

It doesn’t make sense to Bella. “But why? What are you going to do with my apology? What if I break the promise? Why not just find someone better who you’re certain won’t be mean to you?”

A crease appears between Jane’s brows. For a moment, all they do is simply look at each other, stuck at an impasse neither of them understand, some fundamental difference that keeps them from reaching to the other’s side.

“Oh, I get it,” Pandora says suddenly, looking between the two of them. “Jane, you want words but Bella’s not a words person.”

“What?” Jane frowns.

At the same time, Bella scowls. “I know how to use words!”

“Debatable,” Pandora tells her. “But what I’m saying is: Bella, you don’t apologize with words. You do it with actions—like when you yelled at me about my idea to kill the basilisk, but then you went ahead and did just that anyway. Which, by the way, I forgive you for.”

“I—” Bella exhales with exasperation. “That wasn’t my fault. And I’m not saying sorry to you for that—it was all your fault to begin with!”

“See,” Pandora sends Jane a side-long glance. “Not good with words at all.”

“Yes, I am!” Bella’s hard gaze swivels to Jane. “Look—I am sorry. It’s a mean word I said, and I used it because I wanted to be hurtful. But really, I’m sorry for saying you don’t deserve to be here. Because, honestly, I think you’re one of the few sane people actually here and I’m glad you are. I think this place could use a few more people like you.”

She sends Pandora a withering glance at the end, which the blonde merely responds to by smiling and giving a thumbs-up.

“All right,” Jane smiles, content. “Thanks for apologizing.”

“Friends!” Pandora cheers, slinging an arm each around Bella and Jane’s shoulders, drawing all three of them closer together. “We should visit each other over hols. What do you think?”

“I can’t,” Bella says sourly, easing away from her. “My family has Yuletide events.”

“My parents really want me home,” Jane says apologetically. “The petrification stuff really spooked them, so I don’t think they’d be thrilled about me visiting a wizard family. Maybe next time?”

Pandora deflates but acquiesces. “Oh, all right. Another time, then. I guess I should use the time to plan my next experiment anyway. You know, I was thinking, once we’re back and it’s the new year and everything’s died down a bit, we could go back down to the Chamber and—”

“Absolutely not!” Bella barks, batting away Pandora. “Are you mad?”

“I’m never going into that bathroom ever again,” Jane agrees.

“Well, I was thinking we could use the basilisk fangs for—”

Bella gapes. Pandora and basilisk venom must never mix. “No!”

“But—”

“No,” both Bella and Jane chorus.

Before Bella can well and truly return to classes, she needs a wand.

It’s a bit embarrassing, she thinks, entering Ollivander’s shop for the third time this year, but the man merely smiles and shuffles over.

“I wasn’t fit for the ash wand,” she tells him quietly, so Sprout cannot over hear. “I know it chose me, but…”

It chose wrong, or perhaps Bella was simply not yet ready for it. The timing was wrong, or the person, or the memories, or all manner of things, really.

Ollivander’s pale, eerie gaze is curious indeed. As though sensing the tangle of her thoughts, he says, “A wand’s choice is never wrong. Perhaps you ought to give it some more time?”

She drops her gaze and mumbles out, “I don’t have it anymore.”

Thankfully, Ollivander does not ask her to elaborate, though his lips do tighten in response. Still, he rounds the expanse of his shop and begins to dutifully pull out wands. He seems to have a handle on the temperament of his customer at this point, and mainly hands her those with a dragon heartstring core.

Each one protests in her hand, perhaps because they sense her reluctance. She’s used to this kind of core, certainly; her last two were of dragon heartstring, and they were powerful, magic flowing like a river bursting from a dam. She could accomplish many a great thing with any of these wands, but she does not want anything with dragon in it. Not anymore.

She wants a wand touched with unicorn. She wants something silvery and shiny, agleam with hope. She wants—

She wants to be nothing more than a surly, spoiled girl again, six and trouncing down the dirt to the not-so-far grove by the estate, grass long and frail and tickling her ankles. She wants her sister’s hand in hers, wants Andromeda to be Andy again and not some phantom hanging loose in the corner of her vision. She wants to sink into the shrubbery, Andromeda’s eager, babbling voice straining up to reach bowtruckles in trees, the cant of the sun honeyed and dappled and slipping all too easily over her. It’s noon again, the light sears against her soul like something willful and wanting; when Bella turns to shield her eyes, she sees a flash of swift movement amid the trees, the golden, dazzling hind of what could only be a unicorn. And she’s up, wide-eyed and reaching with her whole, greedy heart because what she wants more than anything is to be her favorite character in her favorite storybook, magic like a storm cloud hanging from her fingertips, a unicorn as her steed. Anything is possible for her, when she knows nothing. She can have her unicorn and her thunderous magic and her sister, red-faced and panting by her side as they run and holler and shriek for something that they do not know is uncatchable.

She wants that unicorn, and tells Ollivander as much.

But every wand with a unicorn hair core trembles in her hand, and she cannot coax even the faintest splinter of magic from it. (When is a child no longer a child? Is it really supposed to be something as simple and certain as an age? Shouldn’t it be the moment they realize there are some things they can never get, cold truth sinking into their chest like some anchor drawing them down from fantasy?)

Ollivander is sympathetic to her upset. He’s dealt with demanding, fickle children before.

“They make for loyal wands, those with unicorn hair,” he tells her, “though there is a limit to what they can accomplish. Unicorn hair makes for famously inflexible wands. Perhaps we shall try a few of phoenix feather?”

“All right,” she answers glumly.

The first few do not react to her touch, but neither do they hate it, as the ones of unicorn hair did. It is only when Ollivander presses the third against her palm does she feel a familiar rush of warmth, the elation of a wand that has finally met its match.

“Black walnut, thirteen inches, quite swishy.” Ollivander watches as golden sparks erupt from the tip. “And, of course, a phoenix feather core.”

Bella doesn’t know much about phoenixes beyond the fact that they die only to live again. It sounds like a lonely, tiring existence.

“That will be seven Galleons.”

It’s Sprout who hands the money. Bella rolls her latest wand over her hands curiously. She’s not died yet, but she knows, vaguely, how it goes. (Molly Weasley’s curse hits Bellatrix Lestrange right in her wicked, crooked heart. When she falls, the final breath of life strangling out of her mouth, the last thing she hears is the Dark Lord scream.) She supposes they could get along, this phoenix feather wand and she; they could both try again.

Chapter Text

Part II: Crow

“You’re so lucky,” Jane complains as she thumbs through the pages of Bella’s textbook. “Swott gave a list of eleven books and all sorts of measuring tools. I didn’t even know Arithmancy used measurements! If I’d known Divination only required one book, I would’ve signed up in a heartbeat.”

Pandora merely shrugs. “Well, I’m glad you decided to take Arithmancy with me. Divination seems far too sparse. What happens after you read the one book? I’d be bored to death.”

Jane pushes the copy of Unfogging the Future back to Bella. The smooth purple cover gleams under the warm light of Pandora’s bedroom. Bella lifts the book into her lap gingerly, fingers curling along the edge of the hardcover, thumb brushing against the jut of paper. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange never holds this book in her hands. She elects for Study of Ancient Runes and Arithmancy before the start of her third year.) This book has become one of Bella’s most prized possessions, a wealth of knowledge she believes will help guide her through the ever growing tangle of not-memories in her head.

The two parakeets kept in a bronze cage in the corner of Pandora’s room chirp excitedly. “Death! Death!”

Jane shoots Pandora a suspicious look. “Why’ve you taught them that?”

“Taught who what?” Pandora responds innocently.

“Why are your pet birds chanting ‘death’ at us?”

“Probably because they heard me say it?”

Jane’s eyes narrow. “I know this is our first time coming to yours, Pandora, but I think even by wizard standards everything here’s a bit odd.”

Pandora cocks her head thoughtfully. “Really? I don’t think so.”

“There’s all those metal objects floating in the corner of your foyer,” Bella says matter-of-factly. She nearly bumped into the lens of a bizarre-looking telescope when she first entered.

“Oh, that’s—” Pandora hesitates a moment, then continues, “—that’s just some of my mum’s stuff. Dad’s waiting to hear where to send it to. Did you know we have more vertical space to spare than horizontal?”

Bella’s lips dip. She glances at Jane, whose expression has softened considerably. Pandora’s parents separated near the end of second year. Pandora seemed to take it rather well at the time, since apparently the two were prone to debating over every little thing. But once it was decided Pandora’s father would be taking primary custody (the Statute of Secrecy made it difficult for Pandora’s mother, a Muggle, to assume guardianship), her tune changed. Now, Pandora’s issue seems more directed at the fact she can no longer see her mother as readily or easily as before.

“Maybe once she’s settled down, you can take her stuff to her?” Jane suggests optimistically. “I bet she’d like the visit.”

Pandora’s smile seems strained. “Yeah, probably.”

“What does she use all those objects for, anyway?” Bella asks, hoping to veer the conversation into something Pandora can ramble about.

Her plan works fairly well. Pandora beams, excited, and begins, “Oh, have I never mentioned? It’s mostly telescopes, but there are other things like, er, speck-o-meters? I can’t remember the name, but they measure light! Isn't that fascinating?”

Bella’s not certain. “Why would you want to measure light?”

Pandora blinks at her. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because it’s point—”

Jane, perhaps sensing an argument, interrupts to ask, “Wait, what does your mum do exactly?”

“She’s an astrophysicist,” Pandora says proudly.

Bella frowns. “A what?”

“Really?” Jane says with interest. “Does she work for the space agency?”

“She studies the universe,” Pandora explains. “And no, she works in a university.”

“Wait, hold on—what do you mean the universe?” Bella says dubiously. “Like the whole thing?”

“Well, no, she looks into black holes specifically, which are stars that have collapsed into themselves—”

“That can’t be true,” Bella interrupts, looking to Jane for confirmation.

“You haven’t heard of black holes?” Jane says instead of agreeing with her.

“That’s not real,” Bella continues to protest. “People don’t name things black holes. That’s rubbish. And what do you mean stars collapse into themselves? They just blow up one day? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Pandora and Jane exchange a look that has Bella bristling because she can’t decipher it.

“What?” Bella demands. “What is it?”

“Wizards really could benefit from science,” Jane shrugs.

“This isn’t just a Muggle thing, actually,” Pandora says. “Wizards study black holes, too, though they have different theories about it than Muggles do. Bella, you just ought to read more…”

“I do read!”

“What’s the last book you read?”

“This one!” she cries out, holding out her divination textbook.

Pandora eyes it with slight distaste. “You should read more practical books.”

“How is this not practical?” Bella challenges.

“Hardly anyone has the Sight, so it’s not like anything in there can be widely applicable to—”

Before Pandora can really get into the finer points of why Divination is an absolutely useless subject, the door to her bedroom is flung open. Bella flinches with alarm, but before she can look up to see what’s happened, darkness sweeps over the entire room. It’s pitch black, darker even than the cut of night, and Bella freezes under it.

“Nestor!” Pandora shrieks from somewhere to Bella’s right. Her voice warbles up. “I told you—”

“It worked!” Nestor, Pandora’s older brother, crows from the doorway. A mad cackle wrests from his mouth. “Wait till I tell Dad!”

“Wait till I tell Dad!” Pandora yells. “Get rid of it right now—my friends are here!”

There’s yelling that follows, a steady current of squabbling, but Bella can hardly hear anything beyond the rush of her heart, the blood pounding in her head. The dark that covers the room is all too potent, so deep and dense it seems almost tangible, some blanket of darkness come to smother her whole. (Sight does little good in Azkaban. Bellatrix Lestrange has been in her grotty, hopeless cell for so long she doesn’t even have to look to know a Dementor’s passing by. The shudder of darkness that ripples through her heart is more than enough notice.) Bella can’t breathe under it—or she can’t tell if she’s breathing. Each draw of breath feels all at once painfully long and far too quick to give her the relief of air. Every intake pricks, less like a cool stream and more like an endless torrent of cold funneling straight into her lungs. 

Dimly, she feels herself move, led beyond the barrier of darkness. When she emerges, her eyes strain to adjust to the light. There’s a hand locked around hers, and Bella grips back just as tightly, dizzy and dazed.

“Are you okay now?” Jane asks worriedly.

The lens of her spectacles glint under the light coming through the hall window. Bella finds herself feeling nauseous from it. Her body feels clammy, jolted. She’s not certain she can get the words out right now. Somewhere beyond them, Pandora chases her brother around the foyer, demanding he make up for ruining her friends’ day.

“I don’t like thunderstorms much,” Jane says after a moment, voice soft and middling.

“I’m okay,” Bella eventually manages to croak out. “It’s nothing. Really.”

“Okay,” Jane agrees, and thankfully doesn’t press any further.

Bella’s third year officially begins with Andromeda whining for the entirety of the train ride.

“It’s not fair,” Andromeda huffs, shooting Bella an evil look. “It’s my pocket money, too.”

“If you buy the whole trolley, you won’t eat anything at the welcome feast,” Bella says with exasperation. “And it’s not your pocket money. Mother entrusted it to me, so I get to choose what to do with it.”

Pandora, ever unhelpful in these situations, shoots her a thoughtful look and asks, “But doesn’t entrusting money suggest you ought to use it for more than just yourself?”

“Whose side are you on?” Bella demands.

“The side of truth,” Pandora answers serenely.

“See?” Andromeda wails. “Even your friends think we should have gotten more sweets!”

“You haven’t even finished your pumpkin pasties yet. What more do you want from the trolley?” Bella snaps.

“Chocolate frogs,” Andromeda says instantly. “I need Ottaline Gambol for my collection. You know that.”

“Here, you can try my chocolate frogs,” Jane tries, handing the few she purchased to Andromeda. “I don’t really save the cards.”

Andromeda looks both grateful and scandalized to hear that. Still, she spools the chocolate frogs into her lap eagerly and begins to unwrap the first one. Bella’s not very happy about Andromeda managing to get her way, but decides to keep her mouth shut so they won’t have to endure any more argument. Unfortunately, even with Bella staying her tongue, the compartment is anything but quiet. Jane mutters and mumbles under her breath while attempting some strange crossword of numbers in a puzzle book she’d received for her birthday; Pandora quietly continues to teach her parakeets some new words, eager to have them one day participate in fluent conversation; and Andromeda groans every time she noisily rips open a chocolate frog wrapper and finds it doesn’t contain the card she’s looking for.

Bella does her best to tune out the cacophony, fishing out her divination textbook for a bit of reading. She’s been going through the chapter on visions repeatedly, drilling the contents into her head so she’ll be ready for class. She’s already got about a dozen questions to ask on the subject.

It’s easy enough to get lost in the sea of familiar words, but she doesn’t have much time to enjoy it. Very soon, Bella hears the frantic, cheery squeaking of her knarl, Dummy. When she looks up, she finds Andromeda attempting to feed her pet some of the leftover chocolate frogs.

“Andromeda!” Bella erupts, scooping up Dummy. “You’re not supposed to—”

“She wanted it!”

“Knarls don’t eat chocolate!”

“She wanted it!”

“Oh, my God,” Jane murmurs, huddling closer toward the window to presumably tune out the rest of the argument.

“Chocolate actually isn’t dangerous for knarls,” Pandora offers.

“Ha!” Andromeda says triumphantly.

“That’s not the point!” Bella cries out, frustrated.

“Then what is?” Pandora questions seriously.

Thankfully, Bella is saved from entertaining that absolutely ridiculous question as the train pulls in. Andromeda quickly brushes any stray crumbs off her robes and scampers away to join her fellow first-years. Bella’s too irritated about the train ride to wish her good luck, though she still makes sure Andromeda gets to the boats all right.

The trio head forward together. Bella’s gaze traces over the dark carriages that line the clearing. She’s still not quite used to the thestrals that pull them. They stand at attention, eerily still, with bony faces and milky white eyes.

“Are they doing anything?” Pandora asks eagerly, following her gaze.

“Not really,” Bella answers.

Jane’s eyes flutter over the front of the carriages unsurely. “I still don’t understand why you can see them and we can’t.”

Bella shrugs. She doesn’t quite understand it either. Does it really count as witnessing death if it’s a future death she’s witnessing?

Pandora begins to explain every bit of information she’s read about thestrals over the summer. Bella’s not too interested in listening, preferring to poke her head outside the small window and relish in the rush of the night air. Beyond the close quarters of the carriage, the world seems quiet and calm, as restful as the still and shadowy surface of a lake. Bella finds herself hoping the feeling will last, but it quickly dissipates once they reach the castle and filter into the Great Hall.

Dumbledore stands tall and imposing by the Headmaster’s podium. Bella sours as soon as she catches sight of his smiling face. Rumors of Dippet’s retirement started spreading halfway through Bella’s second year. Still, she hoped the old fool would stick around for a little while longer; he’d become awfully fond of her ever since the whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco. Dumbledore, naturally, remains decidedly less fond of her.

The front doors open once more, and McGonagall glides inside, escorting the latest batch of first-years. Bella leans forward, quickly catching onto the familiar head of deep brown hair that belongs to her sister.

The Sorting Hat is brought out, and very soon Andromeda is called forward. Bella’s proud to see that she’s not the least bit nervous. Andromeda all but runs for the stool, eagerly tugging the Hat onto her head the moment McGonagall has it brush against her. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange watches her sister’s Sorting from the Slytherin table. It takes all of thirty seconds for Andromeda to join her.) Andromeda’s Sorting takes a fair bit longer than Bella expects. It’s certainly no Hatstall, but it’s not as quick and dry as her not-memory either. Bella can’t be certain what’s changed, though she welcomes the alteration with open arms. Perhaps Andromeda will join her in Hufflepuff, after all.

“SLYTHERIN!” the Hat declares.

She ought to stop hoping for useless things.

The Slytherin table clamors with applause. Bella joins in politely, despite some of the suspicious looks her fellow Housemates send her. Andromeda’s always been too ambitious for anywhere but Slytherin, Bella supposes. Too dissatisfied with her lot. What but ambition could push Andromeda for more than one chocolate frog? For more than an arranged marriage?

Bella’s gaze skirts through the throng of remaining first-years. None of the names McGonagall calls out pique her interest, until—

“Tonks, Edward.”

Bella doesn’t really know what he looks like. (Bellatrix Lestrange never pays attention to Edward Tonks, not until he becomes relevant.) She expects someone stout and self-assured, someone worthy to topple a legacy over—but she’s surprised when she finds Edward Tonks is no more than a nervous boy with sandy-brown hair and an irritating habit of chewing his bottom lip.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” the Sorting Hat announces after a brief moment.

Bella bites back a groan. Of course it has to be her House.

She watches him scurry on over to the Hufflepuff table. The newly Sorted first-years aren’t too far off from where she’s sitting. At her vantage point, she’s got a good view of him and makes full use of it. She narrows her eyes as he acquaints himself with the other Hufflepuffs, anxiety quickly discarded. He glances around the table, drinking in the new sights and sounds, and soon catches her looking at him. The expression she’s wearing must be terribly frightful, because he immediately frowns at her. Then, as though it were completely rote, he lifts his left hand and flips her off.

Bella gapes, astounded. She scowls and looks away, quickly deciding to do everything in her power to prevent Andromeda running away with this depraved boy.

While certainly important, coming up with a plan to keep Andromeda and Edward Tonks separated comes second to Bella’s research into visions.

Her first class of the year is Divination—a sign, surely—and it’s the first one Bella actually shows up early to. The classroom is out of the way, at the top of a desolate staircase and hidden beyond a circular trapdoor, though Bella still finds it in record time. The inside is far cozier than she expects something in a school to be, with plush armchairs and dainty tables for two, cupboards of fine china lining the walls, and strings of warm, hazy lights hung across the ceiling.

Bella rounds a few of the tables. There are pots of tea already set, which means they’ll likely be starting with tessomancy. It’s a bit depressing to realize, but hopefully they’ll get to visions quickly enough.

She chooses a seat near one of the cupboards and pulls out her textbook for some last minute reading. Dimly, she hears a few more students filter in. She doesn’t pay them any mind, until one clambers over to her table.

“Hullo,” Gideon Prewett greets. He places a hand on the chair opposite hers, ready to pull it out.

Bella glowers at him. “Don't you dare sit—”

“Ah, very good, looks like everyone’s chosen their seats,” a portly man with a bushy mustache says happily as he enters the classroom. “I hope everyone chose very carefully. These will be your seats until the end of the year.”

Gideon gives her a smug look as he sits down. Bella scowls at him. Some time by the end of their first year, he started acting very friendly with her, Jane, and Pandora—as though they were all great pals and the whole wand snapping incident was simply some inside joke they shared.

“It’s wonderful to see so many students have chosen to pursue the art of Divination,” the professor continues, rounding through the tables and beaming at any student who so much as catches his gaze. “I am Professor Eufrasio Durante, your instructor for the foreseeable future. Now—what better way to introduce ourselves to one another than with a spot of tea? We shall begin, of course, with some good, old-fashioned tessomancy…”

Bella endures the too-jovial lecture. She keeps an ear out for any mention of visions, though none come up. Once Durante finishes going over the basics of reading tea leaves, he encourages everyone to drink their tea and make conversation while he bustles about the classroom.

Bella wrinkles her nose as the teacups are charmed to dance their way to the students. “Ugh, this class is stupid.”

“’S perfect for you, then, isn’t it?” Gideon says cheerily.

She scowls at him. He doesn’t seem affected by it, which is really his only admirable quality, that he can withstand her hate.

“Just drink your tea and be quiet,” Bella commands.

Of course, Gideon lives to disobey her. “But we’re supposed to talk to each other, Bella! How else are we supposed to get to know each other, like Durante wants?”

She narrows her eyes at him. “Don’t call me—”

“I see a few of you are making quite a bit of conversation,” Durante chuckles. “But do remember to finish off your tea. I’ll be coming around to check on the predictions you make.”

Bella pours herself a blisteringly hot cup of tea and finishes it off in two mighty gulps. She tosses the cup over to Gideon, and glares at him while he daintily sips at his own tea.

Eventually, he hands his over. He takes Bella’s cup with some measure of interest, flipping open his textbook to examine the tessomancy index.

Bella doesn’t even look at Gideon’s cup.

“It says you’re going to trip and fall and die,” she makes up, pushing his teacup back to him.

“You barely looked at it,” Gideon protests. He glances down at the tea leaves in his cup, frowning over them quizzically. “Besides, this looks like a rabbit, doesn’t it? That means success.”

“Sorry,” Bella says, not sounding very sorry at all. “I must’ve gotten confused with what the cup says and what I want to happen.”

Gideon rolls his eyes. “Is it that you’re allergic to being a decent person or something?”

“I didn’t ask you to sit here, you know.”

“It’s not like anyone else’d bother partnering with you if I wasn’t here,” he points out with more than a little bite.

Bella frowns at him. It’s annoying when the people she doesn’t like are right. Bella’s reputation is certainly better than it was in her first year, but she’s hardly the most approachable person in school. Most of the students in her year still prefer to steer clear of her, lest they get caught up in some nefarious basilisk business again.

“Fine,” Bella says loftily. “I’ll allow a truce for Divination. But you have to stop interrupting Jane and me in the library when we study.”

“No deal. And what do you mean you’ll allow a truce?” he says, exasperated. “Good Godric, does your back ever get tired of hefting around that gigantic ego of yours?”

“Does your mouth ever get tired of spewing all your nonsense?” she snaps back.

He sneers at her. “Think about my mouth often, do you, Black?”

It takes everything in her not to lunge across the table and throttle him right there and then. It’s times like these when she wishes she’d inherited her mother’s better traits. Druella’s mastery of slights and snipes is unparalleled. Bella can throw out a good insult or two, but when it drags on this long she starts to lose patience.

“I think about cursing it shut, absolutely,” she responds icily.

Thankfully, she’s spared from more of Gideon’s idiocy when Durante approaches their table. He smiles at the two of them, cheeks flush from laughter and enthusiasm.

“Miss Bellatrix Black and Mr Gideon Prewett, correct?” he says.

They both nod.

“Excellent! And how have you been finding this first exercise? Any insights? Questions?”

Bella plucks Gideon’s cup and shows it off to Durante. “I think this is a rabbit, which should mean success is on the way.”

From the corner of her eye, she sees Gideon scoff.

Durante beams. “Very good, Miss Black! I see you’ve been studying the tessomancy chapter very thoroughly. I have a follow-up for you, then: is Mr Prewett’s success close at hand?”

Bella glances at the brown sludge of tea leaves nestled at the bottom of the cup. How in Merlin’s name is she supposed to tell that, exactly? It’s not as though the leaves are spelling out an exact date for her.

“Er…”

Durante smiles kindly. “Ah, I’ll give you a hint, shall I? If the symbol lies close to the top of the cup, the sooner the prediction comes to fruition.”

The rabbit doesn’t even touch the inner walls of the cup. It’s crumpled very close to the bottom, almost like it’ll melt away into the base entirely. Bella looks up to face Gideon, a shadow of triumph fluttering across her face. “Looks like it’ll be a long, long time until you succeed.”

“Not to worry,” Durante says, facing Gideon. “The future is prone to change, after all. Now, shall we look at the progress you’ve made, Mr Prewett?”

Gideon lifts up Bella’s cup. “I’m not certain. It’s either a triangle or a mountain. I can’t really decide. Maybe it’s both?”

Durante takes out a pair of small spectacles form the inner pocket of his robes and places it precariously near the tip of his nose. He takes the cup from Gideon’s hands and peers thoughtfully at it.

“Certainly, the triangle is preferable,” Durante expounds. “Good luck is always a welcome prediction. But I am inclined to interpret this as the mountain.” He twists the cup back toward Gideon. “The leaves don’t collect as neatly at the top, leaving just the porcelain of the cup. Reminiscent of the snowy peak of a mountain, no?”

“Right,” Gideon says. He flips through the index of his book. “So, mountain is…a powerful friend.”

“Or a powerful enemy,” Durante reminds him. “It depends on whether or not the peak faces the drinker. Do you remember which direction you held the teacup while you were drinking out of it, Miss Black?”

“No,” Bella answers, nor does she care to figure it out. “But it’s probably an enemy. I have a lot of those.”

“Oh,” Durante says, taken aback. He coughs slightly. “Well, perhaps… In any case, do pay attention to how you hold your cup next time. Now, if there aren’t anymore questions—”

Bella perks up. “Actually, sir, I did have a question.”

Durante’s pleased to hear it. “Is that so? Do ask.”

“I was wondering about visions,” she says hurriedly, acutely aware of Gideon listening with interest. “I read the chapter on it in the textbook, but it’s not clear about how to trigger one. How do Seers have visions? And what if their visions come in dreams: how do you tell the difference? And what if they have visions of themselves doing something but then they decide not to do the things their future selves do? Does it make sense for a vision of the future not to happen? I mean, it’s the future, so shouldn’t it happen? And—”

Durante laughs lightheartedly. “My, my, Miss Black, it seems you’re quite eager to learn. Now, we will be covering dream interpretation later in the year. Visions, on the other hand, are higher-level material. There is a great deal of theory one must understand about the Sight before we can even approach the topic of visions. Certainly, if you continue with the course until sixth year, we will go over all your—”

“Sixth year?” Bella blurts out. “But this is urgent!”

Durante’s brows furrow. “Urgent, you say? Why?”

Bella decides she really ought to think more before she speaks. “I mean—I’m just…really curious is all…”

“Ah, well, I shouldn’t like to stifle a student’s curiosity! Still, the subject of visions is not one to be tackled until after a thorough study of preliminary divinatory practices. There is a reason the curriculum is ordered as such.” Durante glances at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. “I must continue my rounds, but do stick around after class and perhaps we can discuss further, Miss Black.”

Bella watches helplessly as Durante waddles off. A sinking feeling washes over her: she’ll have to take this stupid course to N.E.W.T. level, won’t she? As if that realization weren’t bad enough, Gideon decides now is the time to grace her with his words of wisdom, too.

“You’re a really terrible liar,” he informs her.

“Shut up.”

Bella invites Andromeda for a picnic by the Great Lake during the weekend. She hardly sees her sister at Hogwarts, being in different Houses and all. (At least Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange got to see Andromeda during meals.) Though, truthfully, today’s little get-together has less to do with simply seeing Andromeda and more to do with gathering intel. Bella has absolutely no idea how Edward Tonks approaches Andromeda—how any of that even begins. She’s rifled through her not-memories to find some or the other explanation, but Bellatrix Lestrange never took notice of Edward Tonks until it was far too late.

So, Bella will have to figure this one out on her own.

She spreads out a striped sheet borrowed from one of the many linen closets, and pulls out an array of sandwiches and biscuits she’s swiped from the kitchens. Being in Hufflepuff does have its perks, after all.

Andromeda arrives quickly enough, lunging forward happily to tackle Bella into a hug. Her deep brown hair is loose and tangled, eyes bright and honeyed with an exuberant warmth.

“Bella!” Andromeda chirps. She lets go, looking at the small pile of snacks. “Oh—this is so nice! Where’d you get all this from?”

“The kitchens,” Bella shrugs, grabbing a cucumber sandwich to stuff in her mouth. “I can show you how to get in later. It’s very easy.”

Andromeda nods eagerly. “Perfect! I was wondering what to do if I wanted a late-night snack. It’s not like I can have Hobble come here, can I?”

Bella cocks her head thoughtfully. That’s an idea. “Hmm… I suppose it’s not technically allowed, but what’s really stopping you?”

“You mean I can?” Andromeda says, eyes wide. “Do you think he’ll mind?”

Another one of Andromeda’s little idiosyncrasies: considering whether or not Hobble would mind, as if his feelings were more important than her own. Bella half-wonders how no one in her family saw it coming, the elopement with a Muggle-born. Sometimes, it feels so obvious, written in the very stars.

Bella shrugs. “He won’t mind if it’s you.”

Andromeda beams, then begins to babble about how she’d like to have Hobble bring Narcissa over but they’d probably get into trouble for that. The conversation bounces from how Narcissa must be holding up at home, being the only person Druella has left to take to events, to how happy Andromeda is that she doesn’t need to go to all those stuffy tea parties anymore, to how much she’s been enjoying her classes, to the mountain of homework she has waiting for her in the library, to all the new and wonderful friends she’s made who can help her with homework, and on and on.

Bella listens without complaint, silently munching on a few crackers. She’s pleased her sister has adapted well into Slytherin; part of her was worried about it, since she’s not in the same House. Perhaps Andromeda’s always been more independent than Bella gives her credit for.

They reach a lull in the (one-sided) conversation. When Andromeda pauses to take breath and actually eat something, Bella decides to strike.

“So,” she begins carefully, voice leading, “does anyone, er, seem particularly interesting in your year? That you want to get to know or—or something?”

She winces as the words come out, awkward and abrupt. She has no idea how it starts—Andromeda and Edward, that is—just that it does, and she’s worried that even now, just a week into term, it’s already begun and she’s far too late. She’s worried that their family, that careful, weak tree she’s tried so hard to prune and care for despite being so prickly and dreadful, will collapse anyway.

Andromeda’s brows furrow and she glances over at Bella like she might be ill. “No? Everyone’s just the same, students like me.”

Everyone’s just the same rings with particular power in Bella’s ears. How can she say that, when it isn’t true in the slightest? When Edward Tonks will certainly become more than just the same as everyone else? When Bella won’t matter anymore?

“All right,” Bella says after a moment. “Well, let me know if…y’know…someone does.”

Andromeda squints at her, suspicious. “Do you…?”

She halts, hesitant. Usually, Andromeda has no qualms about running her mouth. Truthfully, it’s more difficult to get her to shut up than to start talking, so her reluctance to continue startles Bella.

“What?” Bella presses, curious.

“Does someone seem interesting to you?” Andromeda eventually asks, and the gaze she casts on Bella is awfully keen.

Bella frowns. “No, not really.”

At once, Andromeda’s face splits into a mischievous, cunning little grin. “You’re lying! There is someone, isn’t there? Do you fancy someone?”

Bella flushes despite herself. What’s more embarrassing than actually fancying someone is having someone think you do. She wants to quash the thought, stamp it out of existence, but speaking truth and denying it will only make Andromeda believe it even more.

“No,” Bella tries anyway.

“You do!” Andromeda crows happily. She’s practically skipping and leaping around Bella. “Who is it? You have to tell me, Bella, you have to!”

“I don’t like anyone!” she snaps. “Half this school is filled with gormless idiots, anyway. Why on earth would I like anybody—”

“You do, you do, you do,” Andromeda continues to sing.

“Never mind,” Bella grumbles, rising.

Needless to say, her first go at preventing Andromeda and Edward from running off together ends as an absolute disaster.

Care of Magical Creatures starts off quite entertaining, with Kettleburn showcasing how an ashwinder fends off predators in the wild by introducing a jobberknoll in close quarters—but then he ends up losing a hand while trying to separate the two animals. After a few cancelled classes and an impromptu announcement by Dumbledore, it’s decided that Kettleburn will be going on sabbatical and they’ll be having a substitute for the remainder of the school year.

The problem is, of course, that Professor Grubbly-Plank is an utter bore who won’t let them study anything even remotely dangerous.

“This is worse than Divination now,” Bella complains to Jane as they collect the flobberworms they’re supposed to be taking care of from the terrarium Grubbly-Plank’s prepared.

“I thought you liked Divination since all you ever do is get to drink tea?” Jane says politely, gathering her flobberworm between her hands. She gives it a little pet before carrying it back to their workstation.

Bella follows glumly behind, all but tossing her flobberworm on the table. “It was nice in the beginning, but my tea leaves almost always show the same mountain. The meaning’s not even the same every time, like the future can’t even decide if I’m supposed to have a powerful friend or a powerful enemy, which is just rubbish, isn’t it? Shouldn’t the future know? It’s the future.”

Jane begins cutting up her lettuce leaf into little bits to feed to her flobberworm. Bella all but ignores her own, more engrossed in how awful all her classes have been lately instead of actually participating in them.

“And whenever I ask Durante why something like that would happen, he just smiles—like it’s some wonderful joke only he gets—and tells me, ‘Oh, well the future can be fickle, can’t it, Miss Black?’ What is that even supposed to mean?” Bella huffs angrily. “I’m starting to think Pandora was right. The whole thing is nonsense. Whenever you drink from a cup, you have to tip it back at an angle, right? So, naturally, the tea leaves always form a mountain shape. It doesn’t actually mean anything, I don’t think.”

“Less talking and more tending, Miss Black,” Grubbly-Plank calls out.

Bella glowers silently, looking down to face her flobberworm for the first time. It looks far too similar to the one on the cover of The Hungry Flobberworm, which all but furthers her abhorrence for it.

“This is ridiculous,” Bella continues to complain under her breath. She rips a chunk of lettuce from the head they’ve been given. “I was expecting more.”

Jane, with her bleeding heart and all, merely shrugs. She taps her flobberworm, a fat, wriggling mass of green, on its head. “They’re a little adorable. In their own way.”

“Like how a baby is ‘adorable’ because it’s so useless and helpless?” Bella says. She scowls at her own flobberworm, who seems decidedly more lazy than the rest.

“Bella,” Jane protests.

“I’m just saying we could be doing something better with our time,” she argues. “What’s the use in taking care of flobberworms, exactly?”

“Bella—” Jane begins again, more urgently.

But Bella’s too frustrated to listen. Absently, she continues to gripe, “They’re so stupid and unnecessary that there’s no point in feeding them. Surely the world would be better off if they all simply died of starvation and saved us a bit of air.”

“The class is called Care of Magical Creatures, Miss Black. The point,” comes Grubbly-Plank’s severe voice, “is to care.”

Bella looks up to find Grubbly-Plank frowning down at her. She’s not an altogether terrible teacher, Bella knows, but that’s not exactly the issue here.

“It’s just not very fun,” Bella tries vainly.

Grubbly-Plank raises a brow. “Helping animals—helping anyone—very rarely is. Now, let’s stick to the purpose of today’s lesson. Make sure your flobberworm finishes off that entire leaf of lettuce.”

Grubbly-Plank swishes off to inspect another student’s progress. Bella crumples her lettuce into a tight, dense ball.

“I tried to warn you,” Jane whispers to her sympathetically.

“I know,” Bella grumbles quietly, forcing the wad down her flobberworm’s throat. “But it isn’t fun.”

Jane shrugs. “I don’t always like taking Barkley on walks, and sometimes he tears apart my shoes if he’s bored—but I don’t really mind it in the end. He makes it worth it, you know?”

Bella supposes she can understand that. She likes Dummy, but Dummy’s easy to like, easy to take care of. And, certainly, Dummy is far better than some stupid, slobbering flobberworm.

“Yeah,” Bella murmurs eventually.

Later, when Bella turns into a hallway on her way to the library, she finds Titus Mulciber laughing raucously while levitating Edward Tonks by his ankles. Her immediate reaction is one of exasperation. It’s already the third time this week she’s seen this kid narrowly escape some horrible fate at Mulciber’s hands.

Sighing, she shoulders her knapsack roughly and jabs her wand forward. “Flipendo!”

Mulciber trips over thin air, yelping as he skids against the floor. He clambers up wildly and catches sight of Bella. “You again!”

“Yeah,” Bella shrugs. “Get lost, or I’ll set your hair on fire like last time.”

Wisely, Mulciber scampers away. Bella glances up at Edward, whose face is slowly turning blue as he dangles upside down in midair. She lets him sit in it for a second longer before performing the countercurse. She merely watches as he comes crashing down, wondering what on earth the explanation could possibly be this time. She’s half-certain Edward Tonks must be the luckiest bastard in the universe, because she cannot fathom how this idiot managed to survive to adulthood in any other timeline without her assistance. Just two months into his first term at Hogwarts, and he’s somehow gotten himself into over a dozen scrapes with other students, two of which—in her honest opinion—could have ended in his near death had she not been close by.

It takes Edward a moment to gather himself and catch his breath. Once he does, he looks up at her with an expression approaching defiance and huffs, “I don’t need your help.”

Petulant little brat. Bella’s quickly finding she likes Edward Tonks less than she likes—will like?—Lucius Malfoy. Why do her sisters have such poor taste in men? Though perhaps she’s not the best person to comment on the matter.

“Then next time I’ll leave you in their clutches,” she snaps back.

“Fine!”

Bella narrows her eyes. “Fine.”

Edward turns to half-heartedly gather the quills and books that have fallen out of his bag. Bella makes no move to help him, even when he looks back at her expectantly.

“Why’re you stalking me, anyway?” he mutters when it’s clear Bella’s not going to collect his school items for him.

“Stalking you?” she repeats indignantly. “Why do you keep getting bullied whenever I’m walking by?”

“I’m not being bullied!” he denies fiercely. “S’not my fault Yaxley told all his friends I was badmouthing him. And I only started spreading rumors about him because he cornered me after class one day and stole my homework!”

“Why haven’t you told Sprout?”

“I did! He got detention out of it, but then he realized I tattled on him.” Edward’s expression darkens. “He really wasn’t pleased about that…”

Bella startles. Yaxley’s one of the more vicious new students. Even the older ones were getting a bit concerned about his behavior. “He—Yaxley got a hold of you? How did you manage to get away from him with your limbs intact?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs with far too much nonchalance than she cares for. “The bells started to ring, and since we were close to the clocktower, it was really loud, so we all got kind of surprised by it. And then the Grey Lady came through the wall and passed right through Yaxley, which—by the way, do ghosts hurt when they go through you? Because Yaxley went all still and pale, and—well, I dunno what happened after, because I just left. Seemed a good moment to scarper.”

She gapes at him, taken aback for a moment. “Didn’t something similar happen when Parkinson cornered you last week?”

“Sort of, but it was Peeves that time. He swooped in and blew a raspberry in Parkinson’s ear.” Edward shrugs, as though being saved at the very last second by seemingly divine intervention was a fairly normal occurrence. “There are a lot of weird ghosts and shite in this school, in case you haven’t noticed.”

She’s astounded. Were it not for the fact she was absolutely certain Edward Tonks came from an entirely Muggle family, she would have thought he’d been accidentally dropped into a vat of Felix Felicis at birth. No wonder he eluded—would elude?—Bellatrix Lestrange for so long.

Before she can question him further, a shadow falls in line against her own and an arm’s thrown over her shoulders.

“Aw, Bella—bullying firsties again?” Gideon tuts.

She knocks her elbow into his ribs, forcing him to remove his arm as he keels forward with pain. “I told you not to—”

“Who’re you?” comes Edward’s obnoxious voice.

“Gideon Prewett,” the boy in question wheezes out, rubbing his chest. He shoots Bella an annoyed look. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you to use your words?”

Bella’s nostrils flare. Before she can do something she’ll almost certainly regret, Edward snaps back, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to butt into business that’s not yours?”

It seems Edward hates Gideon’s intrusion more than her own. Perhaps they were not so dissimilar after all. Certainly, Bella finds she prefers Edward for his direct approach to matters than most of the people in this school. She supposes Andromeda chose well—or would have. Bella’s still not too keen on letting them gallivant off into the sunset together.

“What sort of business could you possibly have—” Gideon begins protestingly.

He’s cut off by Edward, who simply turns back to Bella and says, “Anyway, stop stalking me.”

“I’m not—”

He flounces off before she can get another word in. Bella glares at his receding form before turning to Gideon and spitting out, “What do you want?” 

He seems confused by the question. “Nothing? Just saw you in the hallway, and thought I’d say hello.”

Now Bella’s the one who’s confused. There’s certainly no universe in which Gideon only wants to pop by to exchange pleasantries; surely, he meant to come torment her. “Why?”

“Because we’re friends?” The statement comes out tentative, almost like he’s hoping it while saying it.

“No, we’re not,” Bella says readily.

To Gideon’s credit, he doesn’t seem hurt, just struggling to understand. “Really?”

“You’re very mean to me,” she sniffs.

“You’re mean to me,” he points out.

“Of course, because we’re not friends.”

“You do see how nothing about this conversation makes sense, right?”

She scowls at him. He returns it mockingly.

“We’re not friends,” she repeats. “So, you don’t have to say ‘hello’ to me in the halls.”

He scoffs. “Fine, I suppose that makes us enemies, then? I’ll just spit and curse at you whenever I see you.”

(Gideon Prewett’s curse slices clean through the air, nearly taking Bellatrix Lestrange’s arm off with it. When she swerves around to return the favor, she finds Dolohov has already gotten to him first.)

Bella shifts, uncomfortable. “No, we’re not enemies.”

Gideon rolls his eyes. “Then what?”

She doesn’t know. She doesn’t like him enough to be friends: he’s too loud, too obnoxious, and never listens to her without complaint. But she wants to avoid collecting Bellatrix Lestrange’s enemies for herself. What lies in between, exactly?

“We’re…classmates,” she says eventually.

He stares at her.

Bella crosses her arms, defensive. “What?”

“You weren’t lying when you said you were stark, raving mad, were you?”

It’s a blustery Tuesday afternoon near the end of first term when Bella and Jane head to Defense Against the Dark Arts. It’s one of the few classes they share with the Gryffindors, though she doesn’t mind their presence much for today. They’re doing boggarts and Bella’s eager to see Gideon’s, hoping to use it against him the next time he bothers her.

Professor Tyre goes over a few ground rules for the class before ordering them into a single-file line. A covered wardrobe is levitated to the front of the room. Tyre whisks off the sheet and opens the door. For a moment, nothing happens—then a stream of steady flame begins to leak out the door. The fire coils around the wardrobe, flames fanning higher. The student at the front of the line, Edrin Wildsmith, yelps.

“Simply envision something calming or funny, Mr Wildsmith. Something similar to what you see. Perhaps the hearth of your common room?” Tyre suggests.

It takes Wildsmith four tries before he successfully turns the boggart into the warm, roaring fireplace of the Gryffindor common room. A few cheers and claps ripple through the students. 

“I practiced the spell a ton yesterday,” Jane whispers to Bella as they wait in line. “I really hope I get it first try.”

Bella shrugs, noting that Nola’s fear is a spider. Just one. It’s not even that big. How boring.

“Wildsmith’s was better,” Bella tells Jane.

She frowns. “Don’t rank them!”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not right.”

“What else are we supposed to do while we wait?”

“You should practice the spell,” Jane insists.

Bella rolls her eyes. “I know the spell. It’s not that hard.”

Jane’s indignation is swiftly replaced with anxiety. “I suppose you’re right… The hard part is imagining something funny, isn’t it?”

Bella nods absently, watching with interest as the boggart turns into a thunderstorm, a hot air balloon, a frothing chimaera, and so on. The queue steadily dwindles down. All too soon, it’s Bella’s turn. Unease casts over her. In her excitement to see everyone else’s worst fears, she half-forgot that she would have to face her own, too.

Bellatrix Lestrange had many boggarts: common beasts, being forgotten, her sisters hurt or dead, herself tortured or dead, the Dark Lord defeated, the Dark Lord dead, the Dark Lord abandoning her, everyone abandoning her, the Dementor’s kiss, becoming a ghost in her own body… Bella fears a few of the same things, though there are many more that diverge. Certainly, she doesn’t think today’s class will be the same as her not-memories. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange recoils back as a werewolf leaps from the wardrobe. It snarls something vicious. Bellatrix’s heart stutters for a moment—and then she snarls back.) Bella’s not been afraid of werewolves or manticores or any other children’s book beast for quite some time now. The only thing she’s certain she truly fears are the cells of Azkaban, that shivering, hopeless dark. She wonders how the boggart will show it, wonders if anyone will really know what it is besides her.

Bella steps to the front. The eyeless, groaning ghoul that Macmillan failed to subdue shifts in an instant. It does not vanish, does not spread thin into darkness, does not flatten into a cell. Rather, its body compacts, limbs elongating, face growing sharp, eyes snapping out. Bella scarcely blinks and finds the transformation complete.

Bellatrix Lestrange stands tall and proud by the wardrobe, hair dark and wild, eyes wide and frenzied, with a horrible grin dashed wide across her face. The Dark Mark sits stark against her pale, gaunt skin.

The world fades into a dim roar around Bella. She realizes, all at once, how stupid it was of her to think the boggart would have become her cell. Bella’s already experienced that, hasn’t she? She’s sat in that hopeless dark, trembled in that tight space, not that she’s become any less afraid of it. She’s only ever proven to herself that she can stomach those fears of hers, at least for a little while. And those are fears of hers, but the boggart doesn’t just become any old fear. It becomes one’s greatest fear. With Bellatrix Lestrange sauntering forward, every bit of her radiating menace and power, Bella realizes that she has a greatest fear after all.

Bellatrix Lestrange looks down at her like she’s nothing more than a discarded teacup. Her face is thin and haggard, her teeth yellow and rotting, hair stringy and matted but still piled high into something vaguely resembling a chignon. Bella’s never seen her other self so closely before. There’s detail the boggart has captured that Bella doesn’t recall: a cloak embellished with fleur de lis hanging in tatters off her shoulders, a silver bird’s skull strung through chain round her neck, and a gaze so haughty, so dark, so manic—it reminds Bella of every adult in her family all at once.

Unlike every adult in her family, Bellatrix Lestrange does not scream. When her mouth cracks open, she sings the words instead of saying them. “I know what you did to the snake.”

Bellatrix Lestrange throws back her head and laughs. It’s a harsh and wicked sound, a mad cackle more than anything. Somehow, it reminds Bella of Druella, though she knows her mother has never laughed so recklessly in her life.

Bella raises her wand. The spells sits on the tip of her tongue haltingly. She can’t find even the slightest sliver of humor in this. More than fear, more than disgust, more than panic, Bella feels ashamed. She wishes she were better than this. She wishes she weren’t afraid of the truth.

“I know who you are, who you truly are. I know where you belong.” Bellatrix Lestrange’s lips split into a jagged, cutting smile. “Where we belong.”

“No,” Bella chokes out. “I don’t—”

“You don’t—what? Don’t know? Don’t want to?” She pouts, and in a mocking voice, continues, “Little Bella’s feeling lost, is that so? Little Bella’s feeling lonely, isn’t she? Too small in this big, big world?”

Tyre clears her throat and calls out, “Miss Black, try to think of something you found funny or lighthearted earlier today and apply the spell. Perhaps…”

It’s well-meaning advice, but unfortunately it slips right over Bella’s head. She’s too preoccupied with the image of Bellatrix Lestrange, eyes stuck on the emaciated yet regal woman as she speaks.

“That’s why she snaps her sisters’ dolls and ruins her mother’s parties.” Bellatrix Lestrange’s eyes shine hungrily. “That’s why you gave your hand when he asked—because you were weak and he wasn’t—”

When boggarts take on a form, they gain that form’s weaknesses. Bellatrix Lestrange isn’t real, of course. She’s hardly even a memory. Just some splinter of a future diverged, a nasty nightmare.

That doesn’t mean she’s not human, at least in this moment.

“Expulso!” Bella roars.

Fury lights her blood, rushes through her head like a tidal wave of force. Her wand arcs through the air in a way a third-year’s shouldn’t. Harsh blue light overwhelms Bellatrix Lestrange as a boom shudders through the classroom. The boggart is blown into dust, forced to transform into an aching darkness that spreads across the front half of the room.

Too little, too late.

“Glacius Tria!” Bella cries, frost spiraling into the darkness with dartlike precision. The boggart weaves and spins through the spell, quickly transforming into other fears in order to avoid the onslaught: a wriggling mess of centipedes, an eerily still and foggy lake, a lethifold. “Deletrius!”

The boggart dodges. Bella’s spell hits Tyre’s desk, disintegrating it on impact. Her hand zig-zags through the air once more, but before the curse can be completed, her wand is blown out of her hand. The boggart uses the moment of reprieve to retreat back into the wardrobe.

“Miss Black,” Tyre calls out sharply.

Cold panic seeps through Bella. She turns around slowly, noting her disarmed wand by the pile of ash that used to be Tyre’s desk.

“Today’s lesson is about the Boggart-Banishing Charm, not about dueling boggarts.”

“Sorry,” Bella grounds out because that’s what she’s supposed to say.

Unfortunately, Tyre is less susceptible to apologies than Sprout. Her strict gaze doesn’t lessen in the slightest and she continues, “That will be ten points from Hufflepuff, and I will be arranging detention with your Head of House.”

Bella merely shrugs and goes to pick up her wand. Detention with Sprout is hardly a threat. When she rejoins the pool of students, she finds many of them watching her with wide eyes.

“What?” she snarls.

Most of them avert their gazes. Bella ignores the brave few who don’t, choosing to find and sulk by Jane’s side. Tyre attempts to salvage the remaining time by trying to coax the boggart back out of the wardrobe. When that doesn’t work, she decides to lecture them on the finer details of boggart banishment, much to the class’s chagrin.

“Way to go, Black,” Araminta Fancourt mutters as they’re dispersed and herded back to their seats.

Bella hardly pays attention for the rest of the lesson. Once they’re dismissed, she ignores Jane’s voice of concern and barrels away from the other students. She decides to skive off her remaining classes and soon finds herself in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. One burst of anger and a stray spell later, she’s successfully scared Myrtle off and has the bathroom to herself.

It’s the perfect place to have a think—or a sulk, which is what Bella’s really doing. The few students who did use this bathroom despite Moaning Myrtle’s presence certainly stopped after the events of Bella’s first year. The only person who ever comes here is Pandora, who’s certifiably insane.

Bella huddles into a corner by the sinks that lead into the Chamber of Secrets. She throws her bag across the floor, watching disinterestedly as a few of her quills slip out of a pocket. She pulls her knees close to her chest, forehead thumping against her legs. She’s not certain what emotion she’s feeling, just that it’s too big, too furious, for her to really know what to do with. She wants to break something, wants to scream at someone, wants to sob until her chest is raw and aching. She wants to find the boggart, have it become Bellatrix Lestrange, and tell her that she’s wrong.

But Bella doesn’t know that. She only hopes what the boggart said was wrong.

She screws her eyes shut and scours the shadows of her mind for not-memories that might make her hope true. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange burns one of her mother’s best dresses the night before the Selwyn’s dinner party. Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange isn’t some commonplace bully, though that isn’t to say she doesn’t shoot a stray curse or two whenever a Muggle-born student happens in her way. Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange likes to think she has friends, but none of them sit up late with her and talk about the latest gossip or their favorite sweets like they do with Portia Travers.) Bella’s not certain how much they do and don’t share. There’s more overlap than she cares to admit. She’s had her fair share of tantrums. She’s not intentionally made a Muggle-born’s day worse in this school, but that isn’t to say she hasn’t snapped and pushed at a student at all. She has friends who aren’t scared of her—but how much longer will that last for, really?

She doesn’t know how long she stays there for, wading through snippets of Bellatrix Lestrange’s life, comparing them to her own. She only notices the sky’s gone dark beyond the windows when someone steps into the bathroom.

“Jane’s very worried,” Pandora says in greeting. She sounds calmly detached from the words, as though it were all mere observation.

“I’m okay,” Bella mutters.

Pandora’s gaze studies her. Fairly quickly, she concludes, “No, you’re not.”

“I am,” Bella insists. Then, because it’s easiest to distract Pandora with a question, she asks, “How’d you know where I was?”

“You weren’t anywhere else,” Pandora says simply, as if she combed through the whole castle. She comes to sit by Bella, easily sliding down against the wall and sprawling cross-legged against the tiles. “They had cornish pasties at dinner. I took a few. Do you want one?”

As if on cue, Bella’s stomach grumbles.

“Yeah,” she says begrudgingly.

Pandora dutifully pulls out a neatly folded napkin and hands it over to Bella, who picks it open and reveals a crumpled pasty. It’s cold and too crumbly, but she wolfs it down.

Of course, Pandora cannot let a moment pass unpunctured by a question. While Bella eats, she begins, “Jane told me you attacked your boggart during Defense, though apparently it was very mean so maybe it was deserved. She said it looked like the boggart might have been your mother. Was it?”

Bella finds herself more amused than offended. Pandora and Jane would be surprised, perhaps, to learn that Druella shares few features with Bella. Beyond the shape of their eyes and the bend of their hands, there’s little else in common. Still, she wishes the boggart had been her mother. It would have been leagues easier to deal with, probably because Bella’s never really been scared of Druella.

Pandora waits expectantly for a response. The truth rolls languidly in Bella’s head, some mush of memory and feeling she can’t quite arrange into words. Perhaps Pandora’s been right all this while (she usually is): Bella’s just not good with words. She doesn’t know how to explain the boggart’s not a relative, not any person, really, but some version of herself, some shard of her soul that was blown out of her that one day at old Arcturus’s.

“No, she’s just…a ghost,” Bella answers, because that’s the closest thing to what Bellatrix Lestrange is. Not quite alive, not quite dead. Some idea floating in between.

Pandora’s eyes widen. “You have ghosts in your house?”

Bella shrugs noncommittally.

“Oh, do you know how she died? Why has she kept to your house? Is she an ancestor of—?” Surprisingly, it’s Pandora who stops herself with one sharp intake of breath. The gleam in her eye dims considerably, and she shoots Bella a pensive look. “Ah, sorry, I shouldn’t bring it up, should I? Since you’re scared of her?”

Bella’s not certain why it’s that sentence that upsets her, but it is.

“I’m not scared of her,” she snaps.

Pandora cocks her head. “But the boggart—”

“It was wrong,” Bella decides. “It didn’t understand.”

“…I don’t think that’s how it works, Bella.”

“It is,” she insists. “I’m not scared of her. It’s not her, it’s—you wouldn’t understand.”

Pandora seems mildly offended by that. “We did boggarts today, too. Mine was my mum. She said she had a new family now, one that makes sense.”

Bella’s not sure what to say to that so she keeps quiet.

“Of course, it’s not my mum I’m afraid of. It’s what she said, or what the boggart had her say—but then I started thinking about it, and I realized my mum would never say anything like that,” Pandora continues after a brief moment. “I think she finds magic overwhelming and confusing…but she doesn’t hate it. She always asks Nestor and me what we learned in Astronomy, and she’s always sending us books about magic from Muggles’ perspectives.”

“Okay, and?” Bella snipes, feeling annoyed that Pandora’s fears are, apparently, unfounded while Bella’s very much aren’t.

“Well…that’s the point of fear, isn’t it? To trick you?”

“I hardly believe the boggart was tricking Carlotta Sparks when it turned into a hag.”

“But it tricked you.”

Bella sours and turns her head.

“It tricked you because it used your thoughts against you, like it did for me. But I’m sure if you really think about it, you’ll find that what you’re afraid of—what you’re thinking—isn’t actually rational.”

“Mine is.”

“I’m sure you think it is, but if you look at the evidence—”

“What if the evidence supports what the boggart said?” Bella snaps. “Because that’s what I realized. It doesn’t matter what I think about it. It doesn’t matter if it was a trick or not because, really, what the boggart said was true. I know it’s true. It was all fact, and—and, really—I’m not afraid of her. It’s not about what I saw. It’s that—I’m afraid I’m…becoming a terrible person.”

Pandora merely cocks her head thoughtfully. “That’s odd. I haven’t seen you do anything terrible.”

“Not yet,” Bella grumbles.

“Maybe it’s good you’re afraid of that, then,” Pandora wonders. “Terrible people aren’t afraid of being terrible.”

Bella frowns. “What?”

“Truly terrible people don’t care that they’re terrible. Why else would they be so awful?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

Bella’s not certain. “It’s that—I could become someone who doesn’t care about being terrible.”

“How would that happen?”

“I don’t know!”

“Then why worry about it?”

Bella huffs. “You’re not getting it.”

Pandora’s shoulders slump. “I suppose not…”

Some wriggle of guilt peeks into Bella’s heart. She exhales slowly, trying to find the words. “I don’t really know how to explain it. I just can’t help but feel like what my boggart said was true. Maybe you’re right and it’s just me tricking myself, but how can I know? It’s not like with your mum: I can’t just ask someone to make sure, because the fear is myself.”

“Oh,” Pandora says softly. “It’s not an actual ghost, is it?”

Bella doesn’t answer.

For the first time, Pandora seems well and truly stumped. She’s silent for a long while, slowly mulling it all over. Bella doesn’t want Pandora to figure it out, if there even is anything to figure out. There’s truth to what the boggart, what Bellatrix Lestrange, said. Bella’s sure of it. It’s only a matter of what she chooses to do about it. Thinking circles around it won’t solve anything, not for Bella at least.

“Would you still be my friend?” Bella asks at last, silence cracking under her voice. “If I end up doing something awful?”

“No,” Pandora says immediately, “so you’d better not do anything awful because I really like being your friend.”

Strangely, Bella finds herself more relieved to hear careful rejection than blanket acceptance. A yes would have hurt, would have felt like Narcissa’s sole visit to Bellatrix Lestrange’s cell in Azkaban, her choked and hurried sorry followed by a decade and a half of abandonment. A yes now only means betrayal later.

“Okay,” Bella agrees. She quietly folds that consequence into her heart because, really, despite Pandora’s tactless approach and flurry of intrusive questions—Bella rather likes being her friend, too.

Rather than return home for the holidays, Bella elects to stay in the castle. It’s the first time she’s ever done so (even Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange prefers the chaos of home to the dreary, empty hallways of Hogwarts). Unfortunately, word’s gotten back to Druella that Bella’s been hanging around Muggle-borns and blood traitors galore, and she simply doesn’t feel like going home to deal with that mess. Also, Bella would rather find the person who’s been gossiping about her to their parents first. (Portia Travers seems the likeliest suspect.)

It takes her all of one day to regret her decision. While she certainly wouldn’t have liked her mother’s confrontation and lecture, it would have only lasted a moment. She would have spent the rest of holiday playing with Andromeda and Narcissa, attending the family functions, enacting (harmless) tricks on Sirius and Regulus. She won’t get to do any of that now. Worse, it seems she won’t get to do anything at all. There’s bugger all to do in the castle besides gorging on food and wandering through the halls.

After happening upon a not-memory of the Slytherin dormitories and subsequently learning the common room password, Bella takes it upon herself to try to break into the other Houses’ common rooms. Slytherin is easy enough with her not-memories, but she’s quickly found and chased out by a few seventh-years who have stayed back to work on their projects. Ravenclaw’s next, and though Bella spends the better part of an hour arguing with the knocker, she eventually finds her way in.

It’s not nearly as exciting of a place as Bella hoped it would be. Light floods the room through large, arched windows. Towering bookcases circle the walls, each packed tight against the other in such a way that Bella wonders if perhaps Rowena Ravenclaw tried to use the shelving as wallpaper. She examines a self-playing chessboard, accidentally knocks over an agate vase, and then quickly leaves before something worse can happen.

She winds her way to the Gryffindor tower. It’s the trickiest place of them all. Bella hasn’t the slightest clue what the password could possibly be. If she had to guess, it’s something equal parts ridiculous and pretentious—like ‘chivalry’ or ‘bumfuzzle’—but she doubts the Fat Lady will let her sit there and rattle off every word that comes to mind.

When she reaches the seventh floor, she spots the flap of a long, dark cloak disappear around a corner. Thinking an older student must be returning to the common room, Bella slows her steps and slinks down the hallway, hoping to overhear the password. She presses herself against the stone of the wall, and peeks round the corner.

The Gryffindor common room lies at the end of another bend in the corridor, but the person she’s spotted stops right in the center, just across the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. He’s tall, taller than perhaps a student should be, with pale hands and a neat swoop of dark hair. His back is turned, but Bella doesn’t need to see his face to know who he is. It’s almost an instinct, prey sensing the approach of a predator. The hairs on the back of Bella’s neck risk to attention, and a bone-deep shudder clamps over her. She finds herself rooted to the spot, numb with a dread she cannot even begin to decipher. Her throat is tight, choked, some strange tangle of emotion clawing into her heart: reverence and fear blending together into some awful mess of a feeling that has her wanting to keel over and vomit. The ridges of her spine press hard against the stone as she huddles against the wall. She watches breathlessly from the shadows, eyes wide and disbelieving.

The Dark Lord crosses the wall three times. On the third pass, a door appears. One thin, spidery hand darts forward to twist at the knob, and he disappears inside.

Bella stays still for a few seconds longer, making certain he’s gone, before peeling away from her hiding spot and running as fast as possible to the Hufflepuff common room. Her knuckles nearly bruise against the barrels as she forcefully taps out the rhythm for entry. When the door swings open, Bella rushes straight to her bed, drags her hangings to a close, and shuts her eyes tight as she tries to calm the frantic beat of her heart.

Every nerve in her body trembles. For a brief moment, fear of Azkaban, fear of Bellatrix Lestrange, is eclipsed in totality by fear of the Dark Lord. It is a near-debilitating thing, panic cresting sharply between her ribs, a dagger against her chest. (Bellatrix Lestrange is no fool. The Dark Lord lauds Snape’s return and his supposed gift of Dumbledore’s allegiance. Of all the Death Eaters, Bellatrix alone questions the decision, though she is careful not to advertise it. When the Granger girl arrives with the sword of Gryffindor, it is Bellatrix who stops Lucius from calling the Dark Lord, fearing he may kill them all if he finds the Lestrange vaults have been breached. Bellatrix Lestrange fears the Dark Lord just as much as she loves him, which is to say: deeply.)

She feels all too alone in the dormitory without her fellow Hufflepuffs. Every shadow seems sinister, every noise the first breath of a curse. Why is he here? Bella wonders, peeking her head through the hangings to watch the door closely, as though the Dark Lord may barrel through at any moment. Why is he here?

It takes her one night of sleeplessness to tease out the answer: the jinx. The jinx on the post of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange spends her fourth year studying under perhaps the most incompetent Defense professor the world has ever seen. No one is surprised when the teacher is sacked. But when fifth year, sixth year, seventh year, comes and passes—the same happens. No one can say they’re not surprised then.) The Dark Lord came to apply for the Defense position, Bella realizes, but the entrance to the Headmaster’s office lies on the second floor of the castle. Why did he disappear into a room by the Gryffindor tower?

After a few days, she returns to that empty wall. She is well aware the Dark Lord cannot return to Hogwarts on a whim, so there is no chance of her being caught. More than that, Bella finds she can’t let go of her curiosity despite her fear. It is, perhaps, more than curiosity that plagues her. Some phantom of confusion flitting through her body. Bella knows more about the Dark Lord than she cares to admit. Bellatrix Lestrange was—is? will be?—meticulous in her study of him, equal parts dutiful and obsessive, but Bella cannot find a not-memory that mentions his visit to Hogwarts. She cannot find any reason that would explain why he came to this particular corridor nor what he did once he disappeared into the wall.

It worries her that Bellatrix Lestrange does not know. (Even with Dumbledore dead, even with the Ministry within their grasp, the Dark Lord is adamant about breaching Hogwart’s walls. Bellatrix Lestrange obeys without question. Still, she cannot help but wonder.) Bella’s starting to think this school is more important to the Dark Lord than either of them realize.

She examines the wall, crossing from side to side in imitation of the Dark Lord, wondering what awaited him beyond stone, where the door led, what he did once he went through. On the third pass, much like it did for the Dark Lord, a door appears. Made of smooth mahogany, with a burnished copper handle, it sits stalwart against the otherwise ordinary wall.

Bella fishes out her wand and tests a few cautionary spells against the door. She cannot detect anything harmful, and after a moment of hesitance, decides to throw caution to the wind. One hand grasps the knob and twists.

The door swings open, and Bella is greeted by a near-endless room of junk. Broken furniture hangs crooked in nearly ever corner, piles of books dot the floor, malfunctioning broomsticks spark and stutter as she wades through the room. Clearly, not all of this belongs to the Dark Lord, but Bella still can’t tell what any of this is besides rubbish that’s been collected in some commonly used hiding place. She flicks through old textbooks, picks through damaged jewelry, shakes out a few discarded cloaks. She can’t fathom why the Dark Lord would want to visit such a place.

On her second pass through the mountain of old textbooks, she notices one that’s been haphazardly tossed into the pile in such a way that the inner flap lies open. Against the aged page, she sees a familiar name spelled out in neat, careful strokes: Property of Cygnus Phineas Black.

Chapter Text

Her father’s textbook is nothing more than an old edition of Charting the Cosmos. It’s not a book Bella is overly familiar with, since the material is for fifth-years and she’s all but lost interest in Astronomy after discovering her namesake star isn’t even the brightest in the sky. (Apparently, that honor goes to Sirius.) Still, the book’s presence in the mysterious room is enough to have her dive into its contents headfirst.

It’s an utterly droll book, crammed to the brim with strict fact and diagrams of planets’ movements. The only thing that makes reading it even slightly bearable is her father’s annotations. His handwriting is careful, each letter inked attentively. When Bella traces over the words, she finds it’s the closest she has ever felt to Cygnus. There are question marks dotted next to the relative positions of Saturn’s moons, dark ink underlining definitions, arrows pointing to hasty summarizations in the margins. There are even a few snarky remarks, like the one under the section about Alphard. The textbook describes Alphard as “a giant star,” though Cygnus has crossed out “star” and replaced it with “arse.”

So, the book isn’t completely boring, but it doesn’t offer any insight into the room Bella found it in or why the Dark Lord was there. Which means Bella will have to ask the person who put it in there. Which means she needs to actually talk to Cygnus. With her mouth. And words.

She can’t quite muster the will or want to talk to him until it’s halfway through summer holidays. It’s chance, really, that has her bump into Cygnus in the pantry room. It’s rare that he’s around the estate, and rarer still that he’s come down to find a snack rather than have Hobble fetch it for him.

“Oh,” Bella says when she catches sight of his dark, huddled form.

She wrinkles her nose in perfect imitation of Druella as he turns to face the source of the footsteps. It’s been some time since Bella got a proper look at him, and she’s surprised to see that he’s not quite as tall and looming as she remembers. (This is, perhaps, due to her recent growth spurt rather than some mistake in memory.) He’s only marginally taller than Druella. It’s just that he looks so thin and sallow that he seems even more so. There’s a shadow of a beard overtaking the latter half of his face, and dark smudges underlining his tired eyes. Bella can’t recall if he’s always looked this depressed, or if something in particular has happened. Though, even if something brought this on, she finds she doesn’t quite care.

“Bellatrix,” Cygnus greets, stepping aside to grant her unobstructed access to the pantry.

She stops him before he can leave and disappear again. “Er, I was wondering if I could talk to you?”

He stares at her, taken aback. It takes a second or two for him to collect himself and ask, “What about?”

“I found something of yours at Hogwarts. I wanted to ask you about it. It’s in my room—I could bring it up to your study to show you?”

Confusion and discomfort work through Cygnus’s face quickly. He looks so much like Bella, but the truth is that he’s most like Narcissa. His face is so open, so bare of pretense and deceit.

He gives a jerky nod. “Yes, I’ll be up in a moment.”

Bella’s shoulders sag with relief. She agrees, then turns on her heel to her bedroom. It takes her a few minutes of digging through her trunk to find the old Astronomy textbook. Once she has it in hand, she rushes to the seldom-used study on the floor above.

Hobble’s done a good job of keeping it spick and span, even though its owner has hardly, if ever, used it. The idea of work certainly lives here, made known by a few tomes carefully arranged in a glass cabinet and an array of beautiful, expensive quills scattered on the desk, but Bella knows full well Cygnus has no job besides spending his family’s money. Even worse, he has no ambition to even pretend to have a job, like Orion at least does.

“Ah, is that it?” Cygnus asks from the desk, where he’s been arranging the quills in an obscure pattern. He points at the book in Bella’s hands. “It looks like a textbook.”

“Yes, for Astronomy.”

She lays the book on the desk, where Cygnus curiously takes it in hand. He flips through a few pages, occasionally pausing to take in his own handwriting.

“Where did you find this?” he asks. “You mentioned Hogwarts, but I’m fairly certain all my schoolbooks are in the attic of my parent’s townhouse.”

“It was in a concealed room on the seventh floor, opposite a tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. It’s the room I wanted to ask you about, really, because I don’t understand what it is. I asked around, and no one’s heard of it.”

Realization crests into Cygnus. He nods thoughtfully. “Yes, the Room of Hidden Things… As the name suggests, it’s a room that only reveals itself when you wish to hide something.”

“The Room of Hidden Things,” Bella repeats quietly. So, it isn’t a glorified bin. The Dark Lord wanted to hide something—or retrieve what was already hidden. “Can it show something in particular, like what a specific person hid? Or is it always the same room of rubbish?”

“I’m not certain,” Cygnus murmurs. He’s far more relaxed now, fingers drumming against the cover of the book. “The Room is exceptionally good at its job. Summoning Charms do not work; you must physically search for the object you seek. I doubt it would reveal only a certain item, even if asked. It always seemed intent on keeping the hidden objects, well, hidden.”

Bella frowns. “Right…”

Cygnus regards her curiously. “How exactly did you stumble across the Room? I admit, I was told its location by a friend while I was at Hogwarts. It’s impressive you managed to find it on your own.”

She hesitates before eventually saying, “I saw a visitor enter the Room. I think he was applying for a teacher’s post, but I saw him disappear into the corridor. I got curious later and managed to enter the Room, too, which is how I found out about it. I was wondering what reason he would have for entering what seemed to be a room of junk, but I suppose he was hiding something.”

“Or taking something,” Cygnus adds.

Bella grapples with that thought. The more she thinks on it, the more certain she is that the Dark Lord hid something that day. (One fine evening, the Lestranges are gifted a golden cup and told to guard it with their lives.) There were a few items he seemed particularly protective of, like that ratty diary Lucius somehow winds up—will wind up?—with. (When the Dark Lord asks for the diary after his return from Death, Lucius Malfoy artfully dodges and evades the question. But the truth reveals itself eventually: the diary was destroyed. The fury that engulfs the Dark Lord is nothing like Bellatrix Lestrange has ever seen—so wrathful, so furious it seems almost absurd. Truly, Bellatrix cannot help but wonder later, all this for a diary?)

“Is that all you wanted to know?” Cygnus asks suddenly, jolting Bella from her thoughts.

“Er, yes,” Bella decides, then pauses. Her eyes flicker down to the book, now closed. “Well—I was wondering why you hid it, actually. Your textbook.”

“Ah…” Cygnus’s gaze drops to the wood of the desk. “Your aunt had rather a nasty habit of going through my things, and I’d written a few…unsavory remarks about my siblings in this particular book. None of it true, of course. Just a few minor frustrations.”

“Oh,” Bella says, recalling the little quip at Alphard.

They settle into another stretch of awkward silence. Cygnus coughs uncomfortably, sweeping the book off the table and going to slot it into some free nook in the cabinet. When he turns back around, he seems surprised that Bella is still there.

“So,” Cygnus begins haltingly, “you’re well, I gather?”

Bella’s not certain she likes this turn in conversation, but she’s clearly missed her opportunity to leave. “Yes…?”

“Good, good.”

Another spat of painful quiet. Bella begins to inch toward the door.

“I heard…there was an incident,” Cygnus starts again. “Apparently, something went awry with your boggart lesson?”

“How do you know that?” Bella barks out before she can stop herself. Since when has her father paid attention to this sort of thing? And who exactly is monitoring her so closely at Hogwarts?

Cygnus stiffens at her tone. “Your Head of House wrote to us out of concern that perhaps you were frightened of a family member.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bella scoffs.

Cygnus doesn’t seem to think so. Still serious, though looking considerably more downcast, he responds, “Your mother thought so, too. I gather that’s not the issue?”

“No,” Bella answers stoutly. “It wasn’t anything serious. And I wasn’t frightened. I would have destroyed the boggart if the Defense professor hadn’t stopped me.”

“I see…”

Does he? Somewhere along their little chitchat, Cygnus stopped looking at her at all. He’s cowered by the cabinet like he can’t bear being apart from it, like he’s adrift at sea and it’s the only thing keeping him afloat—like he’s afraid of Bella and it’s the only thing protecting him from her.

Bella knows Cygnus is afraid of Druella in the same way an office worker is afraid of crossing his superior. Cygnus is six years younger than Druella, the substitute groom when Alphard decided at the very last second he no longer wanted to be married. Cygnus has been suffering under his brother’s choice for all of Bella’s life. It’s no wonder he’s so wary of Druella, so reticent to living under the same roof as her—but, still, they had her. They had Andromeda and Narcissa. Bella always thought that even if her parents didn’t like each other, they at least liked their children. Apparently, even that’s a bit of a reach.

Bella has Cygnus’s hair, his fine nose, his soft jaw—but she’s most like Druella. Cruel like her. It makes sense Cygnus is afraid of Bella, too.

“I’d better go,” she says at last. “I have summer assignments to complete.”

Cygnus merely nods, happy to let her leave.

Bella’s fourth year begins with far less commotion now that Andromeda has her own friends to bother during the train ride.

She secures an empty compartment easily enough, then goes off to gather Pandora and Jane. They exchange pleasantries, then a few stories they’ve accumulated over holiday. Once they reach a lull in the conversation, Bella decides now is the time to enact her plan.

That little run-in with the Dark Lord last year has prompted Bella to reconsider the slim yet frustratingly extant possibility that she may end up in Azkaban. As such, she’s thrown herself back into researching how to break out of Azkaban, should the almost negligible yet not totally negligible chance that she’s jailed passes. After a few weeks of thumping her head against the few books she was able to scrounge about Dementors and prisons in the family library, Bella’s decided the only way out is the one Sirius accidentally stumbles upon: by becoming an Animagus.

“So,” Bella begins casually, clearing her throat, “do you remember when we opened the Chamber of Secrets and accidentally unleashed a basilisk within the school?”

Pandora blinks once before nodding.

Jane gives her an exasperated look. “As if we could forget. What is it, Bella?”

“Well…I was thinking, in case something like that were to happen again in the future—”

“How could something like that possibly happen again?” Jane protests immediately.

“You mean to say there’s a second Chamber of Secrets in the school?” Pandora says, practically buzzing with eagerness.

“It could!” Bella insists to Jane before shooting Pandora a wary look. “And no. There’s not a second one. I hope.”

Pandora looks at her quizzically. “Are you cer—”

“Anyway,” Bella continues hotly. “I was thinking, if we were ever to get ourselves wrapped up in something dangerous again, we ought to be prepared. Have a reliable way of getting ourselves out of it, which is why I’ve brought these.”

She pulls out a small moleskin pouch from her pocket. Unbuttoning the flap, she cards through a few of the long, fluttering leaves within before taking out three. One is quickly passed to Pandora, and another to Jane.

Pandora looks at the leaf curiously, tugging the two ends taut between her fingers.

Jane’s lips quirk into a slight frown. Her gaze slips back up to meet Bella’s. “Mandrake leaves?”

“I’ve been researching how to become an Animagus, and the first step is to keep a mandrake leaf under your tongue for an entire month. The earlier we start, the better,” Bella says proudly as she pops a leaf into her mouth.

Her nose scrunches as a bitter, medicinal taste floods her mouth. Swallowing the urge to spit the thing out, Bella manages to maneuver the leaf under her tongue, hoping that the taste will soon fade away.

She’s disappointed to find that neither Pandora nor Jane have put the leaves in their mouths.

“Er, why?” is all Jane says when she catches Bella’s probing look.

“I just explain—!” Bella gags as that bitter flavor roots itself further in her mouth. She spends a good minute or two coughing, then chugging down some water that Pandora conjures, before shooting the two a deeply suspicious look. “That was—unrelated to the mandrake leaf. I just had a tickle in my throat.”

Pandora and Jane exchange unsure glances.

“Like I said, if we become Animagi, we’ll be certain to get out of a tight situation! Jane, imagine if you had been a—a cat when the basilisk came out. You could have—”

“Still been petrified?” Jane finishes dryly.

“Gotten away with your quick reflexes,” Bella says, narrowing her eyes.

“But what if she wasn’t a cat?” Pandora questions immediately. “What if she turned into…a manatee? Wouldn’t that have made it a worse situation? Now, you’ve got a basilisk and you’re on dry land, and—”

“Well, obviously, if your Animagus was a manatee, you wouldn’t turn into it in that situation,” Bella bites.

“Then what would have been the point of becoming an Animagus at all, if we couldn’t turn into it in that situation?” Pandora continues seriously.

Bella sighs. “Look—even if it’s not applicable to every dangerous situation, you’ve got to admit that being an Animagus is a useful skill. Sure, your options are perhaps limited if you’re a manatee. But that at least means you lessen the risk of drowning, if you’re catapulted into the Great Lake or something. It is useful. There’s a reason people become Animagi, after all.”

“Well, yes,” Jane grants, “but why do we have to be those people right now? Besides, don’t we need to fill out an application at the Ministry in order to register as Animagi? I feel like—”

“Er, so, I was thinking we don’t do that, actually,” Bella interrupts.

Jane’s brows draw together. “Don’t become Animagi? But you just—”

“No, I mean, don’t register. With the Ministry.”

Pandora’s pale eyes widen with a mixture of surprise and interest.

“What?” Jane cries out. “Bella—that’s breaking the law—!”

“I’m aware,” Bella hisses. “And would you lower your voice!”

“I’m not breaking the law,” Jane says immediately, albeit in hushed tones.

“Okay, fine, then you can register later on your own if you want, but I want this to be a secret for me. It’s not a big deal. People don’t register as Animagi all the time,” Bella says despite the fact she only knows of one person who’s never registered as an Animagus—and Sirius isn’t even one yet.

Jane gives her a disbelieving look. “You’re basically saying people break the law all the time.”

Bella shrugs. “Yeah, that too.”

“That’s a rubbish argument! Just because a lot of people break the law doesn’t make it right!”

“Just because a lot of people follow the law doesn’t make it right, either,” Bella argues back.

“What?” Jane says, looking very appalled indeed. She spins to Pandora, frantic. “Tell me you’re not actually considering this!”

Pandora’s still looking at her leaf. “Well…”

Jane throws up her hands in defeat, slumping against the plush cushioning of the compartment seat. “I can’t believe this…”

“It’s an interesting idea,” Pandora says thoughtfully. “I wonder… Is it possible to influence the form you’ll take as an Animagus? I’d like to see if I could become a parakeet. I might be able to make headway in my experiment, then. I’m fairly certain Artemis and Apollo are Muggle parakeets. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why they haven’t succeeded in casting a single spell.”

“Yeah,” Bella says unsurely. “The only reason…”

“Besides, it sounds fun.” Pandora smiles at the two of them before gingerly placing her leaf inside her mouth. She doesn’t flinch at all from the bitter taste. Bella’s almost impressed. “And like Bella said, we can register whenever we’d like. It’s a long process, isn’t it? So, we’ve got loads of time. I’m sure McGonagall would help if we asked.”

Jane grumbles quietly to herself before sighing and plopping her own leaf in her mouth. She grimaces at the taste. “Oh, all right,” she murmurs as she works through the flavor. “It is interesting, and it’ll probably be useful… But I, at least, am definitely getting registered later.”

“Suit yourself,” Bella shrugs. “Now, remember, we have to keep the leaves in our mouths for an entire month. Full moon cycle. I’ll be keeping track—my Astronomy chart’s finally come in handy—and don’t just get rid of it once the month is over. We’ll need to put our leaves in a phial, which will have to be struck by the ray of a full moon—”

“Oh, great,” Jane mutters, “it’s one of the complicated rituals.”

“Well, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it,” Bella says.

“This is so exciting!” Pandora exclaims, already pulling out a small booklet she records all of her experiments in. “I’ll have to come up with some hypotheses to test—and check out a few books from the library! Do you think Flitwick would mind if I skipped out on the welcome feast?”

The remainder of the train ride passes in a flurry of Bella’s explanations, Pandora’s questions, and Jane’s worries. All too soon, it’s evening and they’re filing into the Great Hall, Pandora having been convinced that she should at least have something to eat before going off to bury her nose in a few dozen books.

The Sorting is uneventful, save for one boy, Octavian Flint, who bursts into tears upon being Sorted into Hufflepuff. How rude, Bella thinks, eyeing the boy while lightly clapping (at Jane’s insistence). The rest of her House seem to be more sympathetic to his plight than offended, so Bella figures he’ll get over it soon enough.

Dumbledore says a few welcoming words, and they’re free to gorge themselves on the feast that’s been prepared. Bella quickly loads up her plate with roasted potatoes, scotch eggs, a few pieces of braised chicken, and just about every dessert she can get her hands on.

She’s in absolute bliss as she gobbles down every last crumb, and hardly notices when Jane stiffens at her side.

“Oh, no,” Jane whispers, turning to Bella with wide eyes.

She spares the bespectacled girl a glance before returning to her treacle tart. “What is it?”

“I swallowed mine.”

“What?” Bella responds with confusion, wrinkling her nose. “Aren’t you supposed to swallow food?”

“No, the leaf!”

Bella blinks, then slowly feels around for her own mandrake leaf, which seems to have disappeared along with the pumpkin juice she gulped down earlier. “Bugger.”

“Is it a big deal?” Jane asks worriedly, brows furrowing. “Were the leaves expensive?”

“They’re not,” Bella grumbles. “I have a lot. It’s just annoying is all. I forgot about mine, too. We need to be more careful.”

Jane’s gaze wavers back to her food unsurely. “Are you certain we can’t take it out for meals?”

“No—it has to be for an entire month. Uninterrupted.” Bella glances over at the Ravenclaw table, where Pandora is simultaneously shoveling spoonfuls of shepherd’s pie into her mouth and speed-writing in her small notebook. “Hopefully Pandora’s is fine.”

When dinner winds down and the Prefects begin to usher the students to their respective dormitories, Bella and Jane find an opportunity to pull Pandora aside.

“Hullo!” the blonde says cheerily. “Did you want to come with me to the Ravenclaw tower? I’m sure my dormmates won’t mind if you want to bunk.”

“No,” Bella responds glumly. “Jane and I accidentally swallowed our mandrake leaves. We just wanted to check if yours was fine or not.”

“Oh, no, I swallowed mine, too,” Pandora smiles.

Bella sighs. “We’ve got to be more attentive. I have more leaves, but if we keep swallowing them I’m going to run out.”

Pandora nods fervently. “I was thinking about this during dinner. There’s an easy way to prevent this from happening again. We only have to minimize any disruptions in our mouth, which means: no brushing teeth and no chewing.”

“No chewing?” Bella says dubiously.

“No brushing teeth?!” Jane cries out, horrified.

“If we want to be serious about this,” Pandora says, “which I am, of course.”

Jane and Bella exchange glances.

“I’m, er, not that serious about it, honestly,” Jane says nervously.

“I am,” Bella insists, “but I think this is taking it a bit far, Pandora. I’m sure we can figure out how to continue as normal with the mandrake leaves. It just takes a bit of getting used to is all.”

Pandora shrugs. “If you say so. But you’d both better be ready for the next step in one month, too.”

“Er…” Jane begins.

“We will,” Bella promises. She digs out her pouch and passes out a new set of leaves. “Here—this time, no swallowing. It’s only a month. We can manage that.”

She presses a leaf into her mouth, firmly clamping her tongue over it. She will see this through.

Bella goes through three more leaves before deciding there might be some merit to Pandora’s suggestions, since the Ravenclaw hasn’t needed a new leaf since their first night back at Hogwarts. It’s her future on the line, so Bella reckons she can go a month without brushing her teeth and swallowing bits of scrambled egg whole instead of chewing first.

Besides, at the moment, she’s got a fair bit more to worry about than the finer methods of mandrake leaf retention: Edward and Andromeda.

They’re working on a project for Defense together. Assigned partners. It was Edward who told her (when Bella rescued him from Yaxley’s clutches during their first week back), after asking if she was related to Andromeda. Clearly, something is afoot, if Andromeda didn’t tell Bella herself. She's certainly hiding something, and Bella’s resigned herself to finding out precisely what.

“You know,” Jane drawls with boredom, “it could be that your sister just didn’t think it was worth mentioning to you.”

Bella hardly hears her, too intent on spying on—sorry, keeping an eye on—Edward and Andromeda. She’s at a table just barely hidden behind a jutting bookcase, Jane and Pandora on either side of her. Andromeda and Edward are a few tables down, closer to Madam Pince’s counter. They both appear to be working diligently on whatever project they’ve been assigned. There are a few books spread out in front of them, ink pots left open, a roll of parchment that’s been scribbled on now and again. But their study session has been frequented by far too much conversation than Bella feels is necessary.

“Look, they’re talking again,” Bella points out with annoyance, gesturing at the two. “They’re working on a project. There shouldn’t be this much back-and-forth.”

“We’re supposed to be working on our Transfiguration essay,” Jane mutters glumly. She’s the only one of the trio with her textbook and parchment out.

“It’s not very surprising, is it?” says Pandora, who eagerly took to Bella’s little operation the moment it was phrased as an observation. “Nearly all relationships begin with talking, right?”

Bella glances at her, frowning. “They’re not—Pandora, you must stop using the word relationship.”

Pandora cocks her head, confused. “I thought we were observing the beginnings of a relationship?”

“No, we’re—there is no relationship. We’re here to make sure it stays that way. Andromeda and Edward can’t become friends.”

“But it seems they already are?” Pandora says, looking ahead. “They’re whispering to each other now.”

“What?” Bella barks, snapping to attention.

Jane lets out a world-weary sigh.

Edward’s budged his chair closer to Andromeda, using the lack of space to lean toward her ear. Andromeda, for whatever reason, seems completely at ease with this horrendous intrusion into her personal bubble.

Bella narrows her eyes. “This isn’t good. There’s no reason he has to whisper to her.”

“Perhaps it’s to share a secret,” Pandora wonders. “Friends share secrets, don’t they?”

Bella turns to her once more, exasperated. “They’re not friends. The whispering is—clearly, Edward is taking advantage of Andromeda’s courtesy.”

Pandora’s brows furrow. “But, why?”

Bella struggles to find a reason. “Well…because…”

“I think I know what they were whispering about,” Jane interrupts.

Bella whips to her in an instant. “Really? What?”

Jane inclines her head. When Bella turns her gaze back forward, she finds that Andromeda is looking directly at her. There’s a furious scowl brewing across her lips. Edward’s gaze locks with Bella, and he smiles smugly. That cheeky bastard.

“Bollocks,” Bella says.

“This isn’t scientifically sound anymore,” Pandora agrees, “now that they’re aware of the experiment—”

“This isn’t an experiment!” Bella exclaims.

“But you have a hypothesis?” Pandora responds, confused.

“Maybe we should leave before your sister hypothetically curses us into oblivion?” Jane suggests.

Bella purses her lips but relents. The trio gather their things and quickly hurry out of the library, Andromeda’s blazing glare following them every step of the way. Guilt peeks into Bella’s heart. Just a smidge. The regret mostly follows from being caught.

Once they’re out, their paths diverge: Pandora heading up to the Ravenclaw tower, Bella and Jane winding down to the Hufflepuff common room.

“I don’t understand what you’re so worried about,” Jane remarks smartly. “They’re just working on a project together. I know you don’t like Tonks very much, but I doubt he’d do anything to jeopardize their grade. And, honestly, your sister doesn’t seem the type to let that happen.”

“I—well, I know that, of course,” Bella huffs. “It’s just that…he’s not a good influence. You saw what he did in the library!”

“What? Point out that we were spying on them? You can hardly fault him for that. We were spying on them.”

“No—he was leering at me, Jane. He did that on purpose. You don’t know him.” Bella’s gaze narrows. “He’s wily.”

“Wily,” Jane repeats doubtfully. “He’s a second year.”

“You don’t know him,” Bella insists. “He’s awful—truly.”

“Even if he is, it’s just a project,” Jane consoles as best she can. “They’ll be done with it soon, and I doubt they’ll talk to each other after this. I’d be too embarrassed to talk to someone if they pointed out my older sister was spying on me.”

Bella looks at Jane hopefully. “You really think so?”

“That was supposed to get you to see the error of your ways, not reinforce your plan,” Jane sighs. “But, yeah—really.”

Bella relaxes considerably. She doesn’t mind enduring a spat of Andromeda’s fury, if it means the two second years will part ways once this blasted project is over.

“How about we focus on ourselves for a bit?” Jane continues. “We’ve got our own problems.”

Bella shrugs half-heartedly. “Like what? Transfiguration homework?”

“Er, no—well… That, too. But I was mostly talking about, y’know,” Jane’s voice drops to a whisper, “the mandrake leaves.”

“Oh, right!” Bella says, then frowns. “Is that a problem? I’ve been managing mine just fine.”

Jane looks away guiltily. “I, er, swallowed mine again during dinner.”

“What?” Bella complains. “We’re falling behind! Pandora’s almost halfway through her month.”

“I can’t follow Pandora’s method,” Jane says, shuddering slightly. “I can’t just go a month without brushing my teeth or chewing my food. There has to be another way. How’ve you been keeping yours intact this past week?”

Bella’s gaze drops and she mumbles out, “Well… I, er, realized that Pandora’s method might hold water after all…”

“No,” Jane gasps, horrified. “But your breath doesn’t smell bad at all!”

“I found a spell for that. Freshens up your mouth for you. I can teach it to you, if you want?”

Jane’s worry doesn’t decrease in the slightest. “And meals? Have you really not been chewing?”

Bella sighs. “Look—some sacrifices have to be made—”

“It’ll be a miracle if none of us contract gingivitis by the end of the month!”

“What’s that?”

Jane groans. “Just—give me another leaf. I’ll figure something out.”

Whatever Jane figures out seems to work because the next week goes by without anyone needing a new mandrake leaf—that is, until Bella accidentally swallows hers while having a spot of ice cream after dinner. It’s hardly her fault that after a few days, the mandrake leaf disintegrates into what is basically just a pile of sour mush. If things go on like this, Bella will be stuck repeating this first step for the better part of the year.

She decides to take a small break before starting on a new mandrake leaf, which is how she finds herself on an empty Quidditch pitch after supper.

See, Bella’s been reigning her temper in an effort not to end up as a deranged and sadistic criminal. Unfortunately for her, there’s an itch she occasionally gets when the world is particularly stress-inducing or someone is being incredibly stupid and irritating. It’s an itch that could be relieved with a simply bat-bogey hex but probably shouldn’t. The next best way to get rid of that itch, Bella has found, is batting Bludgers through the sky with as much force and wrath as her body can muster.

She hovers in the air, settled securely on one of the school regulation broomsticks. She’s only released one Bludger, and it hurtles around her madly. Every time it comes close, Bella gives it a great whack with her bat and watches with satisfaction as it goes bounding back. It never stays down for too long, something that Bella appreciates. Most opponents give up far too easily, but an enchanted flying ball has no concept of exhaustion. Over and over, it hurls itself at Bella. Over and over, she hits it back, bat crunching deliciously against its side, until every looming worry in her head is replaced by that movement, that sound.

Once her arms start to burn, Bella decides to pack it up. She touches down on the pitch and magicks the Bludger back into its case. She’s hardly clasped the buckle around the ball when she notices a student streaming forward. There’s a determined glint in the older student’s gaze, dark hair furiously swishing behind her as she power-walks right toward Bella.

Bella’s eyes flicker around the pitch, wondering if there’s some other poor, unsuspecting soul that this girl’s after. Unfortunately, Bella’s the only one in her general direction. She hurries up with wrangling the Bludger back into its box, but by the time she’s managed to fight the feisty thing under its strap, it’s far too late.

The student, a Hufflepuff with almond-shaped eyes and dark hair pulled back into a low, tight ponytail, regards her keenly. “Hello,” she begins politely, “I noticed you took out the Bludgers, and—”

Bella’s eye catches sight of a golden badge pinned to the older witch’s robes. She sighs before beginning a rote explanation: “McCormack gave me permission to take them out. I’m putting them back right now, so—”

“No, no,” the girl interrupts, lips spreading into an ear-splitting grin, “it’s just—you’re brilliant! You’re the best Beater I’ve seen yet!”

Bella’s certain this girl must be daft, if she thinks what has basically been a series of rage-induced swings can qualify as what a Beater does. “Er, okay?”

“And you’re Hufflepuff!” the girl squeals, gesturing at Bella’s robes.

“Right…”

“I’ve been searching for you,” she continues. “You’re exactly who I’ve been looking for.”

Bella’s beginning to feel faintly uncomfortable. “I’ve, er, got to go—” where? “—somewhere else…”

“You’ll come to tryouts, won’t you? For the Hufflepuff Quidditch team?” she finishes hopefully.

Oh, bugger. Bella should have realized. She’s always had a mild interest in flying, and perhaps she would have seriously considered the offer were it not for the fact that the Hufflepuffs were on a two-year losing streak. Bella’s reputation has only just begun to crawl out of the hole she dug it into back in first year. Truly, there’s no need to cement her place as part of Hogwart’s biggest team of losers.

“I’ll see,” Bella tries, already sidling away, “if I have the time.”

The girl nods fervently. “I’ll be hosting tryouts later this week, Saturday afternoon, about two o’clock. Right here, of course.” She gestures around, still smiling albeit now with a touch of nervousness. “Oh—silly me, I almost forgot to introduce myself. I’m Sovanna Chey, the—”

Bella’s already walking away. She makes a mental note to avoid the Quidditch pitch on Saturday. Hopefully, this’ll be the last she sees of Sov—ah, no point in remembering the name, is there?

Turns out it’s hard to forget the name Sovanna Chey when the person it belongs to keeps popping up everywhere.

“Black!” Sovanna calls out, speeding over to the Ravenclaw table (yes, Bella has been reduced to eating at the Ravenclaw table in hopes of avoiding Sovanna). “There you are! I’ve been looking all over—oh, is this your friend? Hello!”

“Hullo,” Pandora waves, beaming.

“Don’t smile at her,” Bella hisses, tugging down Pandora’s hand.

“Oh, sorry,” says Pandora, who continues to smile with pleasant fascination. “Is this the Quidditch Captain you were talking about?”

Sovanna just about sings with happiness. Her gaze brightens, and she clasps her hands together excitedly. “You’ve been discussing me! Have you been thinking over my proposition, Black?”

“No,” Bella answers stoutly.

Sovanna’s face falls a smidge. “Ah… Busy, is it? I suppose fourth year is a rather busy time. I’m sure McGonagall’s already started preparing you for O.W.L.s…”

“Oh, not at all,” Pandora says happily.

Bella stifles a groan.

Sovanna gives an uneasy smile. “Other extracurriculars, then?”

“Nope,” Pandora continues with blissful ignorance.

Bella nudges her sharply, for which Pandora sends her a confused look.

“I see,” Sovanna says. “Well, in any case, I wouldn’t want to interfere with your schedule, Black. I’ve already waived tryouts for you, of course. You’re welcome to join whenever is most convenient. I suppose, if making practices are an issue, I can find a better time for you? Do you prefer evenings?”

Bella’s unimpressed. Dryly, she asks, “Are you really going to change the whole team’s schedule just for one person?”

Curiously, Sovanna seems to grow more unsure. “It is a bit too sudden, isn’t it? I should probably ask everyone else first, though it was already quite the hassle setting up our current schedule…”

“Look,” Bella says sharply, letting her spoon clatter against the bowl of chowder she’s been picking at, “can’t you find another Beater? You just had tryouts, didn’t you? Surely there was at least one decent player.”

Sovanna’s hesitant smile is tight and flustered. She lets out a nervous laugh. “Well, there were only two students who showed up. Unfortunately, both second years without much, or any, experience. I actually offered them positions as reserves, but they refused after they found out about our…reputation.”

“Naturally,” Bella drawls. “Who in their right mind would want to join a losing team?”

Sovanna winces. “Right…”

“Why have you been losing so much?” Pandora asks curiously. “Statistically speaking, I would think the Hufflepuff team should have won at least a single game at this point.”

“Yes…” Sovanna croaks out. “Strange, isn’t it? In any case, I’ve got to head to class now. Black, do think it over. I’m certain we can break our losing streak if you were to join. I’ll check in with you later, yeah?”

With that, the older girl spins on her heel and quickly shuffles away. Bella turns to Pandora approvingly.

“That was great,” she tells the Ravenclaw. “Just a few more tactless questions like that, and I’m certain she’ll feel too ashamed to continue pestering me.”

“I wish she would have answered,” Pandora sighs. “It is curious, isn’t it?”

Bella shrugs. “Not really. Some people are just born without any talent.”

Pandora, naturally, rejects the premise and begins to spout some or the other nonsense about nurture and nature. Bella can’t be bothered to pay attention; she’s got far too much on her mind to worry about, and Sovanna’s unwelcome intrusions into her daily life are certainly not helping.

Bella finds herself hesitating before stepping into or out of any room for the rest of the day, worried that Sovanna may indeed make good on her promise to check in later. It’s not that Bella hasn’t said no already; it’s just that the older girl is far more desperate than Bella’s prepared to handle. Certainly, one good bat-bogey hex could fix all of this, but Bella knows that if she starts down that path she’ll never stop. She’ll simply have to keep rejecting Sovanna’s offers—perhaps with a bit more bite next time.

She’s hardly stepped into the library when Gideon pops out from behind a bookshelf like an enthusiastic gopher.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he begins.

Bella scowls at him. “You know Jane and I study here every Tuesday.”

He follows her over to a spare table, taking a seat opposite her despite the hefty glare she sends his way. “And where is Bowen this fine evening?”

“Finishing up at choir,” she grumbles, thumbing open her charms textbook to get a head start on the essay Flitwick’s assigned. “Do you at least have work to do, or are you just going to sit there like an idiot?”

He snorts. “You’ve got such a way with words, Bella.”

“Do not call me—”

“Oh, Black!” comes Sovanna’s voice.

Bella groans as the seventh year rushes over, dark hair fluttering behind her. Sovanna’s gaze is bright and eager, any and all discomfort from Pandora’s earlier questioning long forgotten. She comes to stand just a few paces away from Gideon, who looks up at her curiously.

Do not hex her, Bella silently chants to herself. The grip she has on the edges of her textbook is so tense and strong it seems just enough to snap the cover. Do not hex her. Do not hex her.

“Sorry to intrude,” Sovanna begins apologetically. “I don’t mean to keep interrupting you when you’re with your friends.”

“We are not friends,” Bella spits out immediately.

“Eh,” Gideon says.

Sovanna’s smile wavers somewhat, though she quickly decides it’s best not to press. “Right—anyway, I just spotted you and was wondering if you’d given joining any thought? I actually talked to some of the others about switching to evening practice, and—”

“Chey,” Bella begins through gritted teeth, “how long will it take for you to understand that I want to be left alone?”

“Oh,” Sovanna chirps, looking considerably crestfallen. “I—well, of course, I know you’re busy, but—”

Truly, Bella can’t figure out if it’s determination or stupidity that propels Sovanna. “I’m not busy, I just don’t want to join. I am not linking arms with your pile of losers, Chey. Do you get it now?”

Sovanna’s expression crumples, mouth shrinking into a small, sullen line, gaze casting down. “Right… I’m sorry, then, for wasting your time.”

Mild discomfort itches at some barren corner of Bella’s heart, but she has far more to worry about than a Quidditch captain’s feelings. She has three essays to complete before the week’s end, a presentation for Herbology—oh, and perhaps a new angle to approach mandrake leaf retention since Pandora’s ended up swallowing hers, too. 

“Not joining Quidditch?” Gideon inquires, watching Sovanna sulk off.

“It’s none of your business,” Bella grinds out.

Gideon merely shrugs. “I just think it’s a good choice on your part is all. I’d feel bad about destroying a new player’s self-esteem so thoroughly.”

Bella’s gaze snaps up to meet his. “What?” she bites.

“What?” Gideon mimics, sporting that infuriating little grin of his. “Gryffindor’s going to win, of course. Idowu’s even cut down on our practices. Figures we don’t need much of it, since it’s Hufflepuff we’re up against.”

Bella doesn’t care if the rest of the school thinks of the Hufflepuff team as a joke, if even her fellow Hufflepuffs think of themselves as jokes. She refuses to live in a world where Gideon Prewett thinks she’s a joke.

“Overconfidence is a killer, Prewett,” she snaps. “You’d better tell your captain to reinstate those practices, so at least your lot has a fighting chance. We will be winning.”

He seems amused. “We?”

Bella’s already gathering her things, intent on tracking down Sovanna as quickly as possible. She can’t have gone far.

“I’m Hufflepuff’s newest Beater,” she says, looming above where he’s kicked back his chair. “It’d be wise of you to arrange a bed with Pomfrey. I’m saving my first Bludger for you.”

As always, he’s unperturbed. Snickering, he says, “How sweet. I didn’t know you were such a romantic—”

“Shut up.”

That following Saturday, Bella arrives at the Quidditch pitch ten minutes late and is appalled to find that, besides Sovanna, she’s the only one there.

“I thought you said ten o’clock sharp,” she says accusingly.

Sovanna winces. “Ah, right… I told the others to make it this time, but I suppose they’re a bit busy…”

“This time?” Bella repeats, a sinking feeling drawing into her stomach. “Do they usually not show?”

“Not usually,” Sovanna protests, “but perhaps more than I’d like.”

They fall into a tense silence. Bella quietly stews next to Sovanna, who anxiously waits for the rest of her team to arrive. The morning is bright and sunny, the air just neighboring on crisp—good Quidditch conditions, really, and totally squandered by the lack of players. Bella’s already beginning to regret hunting down and (hastily) apologizing to Sovanna earlier this week. Perhaps she should have stayed out of this after all.

After another twenty minutes of dawdling, a few more players arrive. Bella recognizes one of them as a fellow fourth year: Cyril Cragglerook, a boy with close-cropped dark hair and bright blue eyes. He’s got his broomstick but doesn’t have his uniform on, though perhaps that’s not quite necessary for practice.

The two girls behind him do have their uniforms. The taller one is a surly looking girl with deep, olive skin and a sheet of pin-straight black hair that’s been messily pulled back into a bun. The other girl whistles as she walks forward, broomstick tight in hand; her hair, a soft honey brown, is arranged in ringlets that gently swish as she approaches.

“Oh, wonderful!” Sovanna sighs with relief, either not realizing she’s still missing two players or having given up on the rest. “I’d like to introduce the newest member of our team, Bellatrix Black. She’ll be our Beater, of course. Black, these are our Chasers, Cyril Cragglerook and Delbahar Shah, and our Keeper, Beatrice Midgen.”

Cragglerook greets her. Shah’s frown doesn’t lift in the slightest, and she merely grunts in Bella’s direction. Midgen, the girl with ringlets, simply nods and gives a brief wave.

“Hi,” Bella ends up saying sourly.

“Where are Davies and Carrasco?” Sovanna asks, looking to and fro as though the players in question might miraculously descend from the heavens any moment now.

“Hogsmeade trip today,” Shah answers with an ever-suffering sigh.

“Oh, is that so…” Sovanna says despondently instead of snapping and throttling someone. “Can’t be helped, I suppose. I’m sure it’s something important.”

Several of the remaining players exchange exasperated looks. Bella finds a feeling all too similar to dread creeping over her shoulders. How exactly are they supposed to crush Gryffindor into the ground next month if half the team is missing?

“That reminds me,” Midgen begins with a drawl Bella is certain she’ll soon find annoying. “I won’t be making evening practices next week. Gobstones Club is holding a tournament—cash prize, you see—and I thought I’d kip on there and see how I do.”

“Right,” Sovanna says somewhat queasily. She lets out a weak laugh. “Well, the promise of a prize is certainly enticing. Perhaps I can have our weekday practices moved to the mornings? Can you make it then?”

“You mean before breakfast?” Cragglerook cries out. “But that means we’d have to start by six at the latest!”

“That’s far too early,” Shah agrees. “Some of us need to sleep, Chey.”

Sovanna merely nods glumly. “Of course, of course… I suppose it’s only a week you’ll be gone anyway, Midgen. We can make do. No need to go ahead and change the whole schedule, right?”

Bella gapes. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “You must be joking!”

Sovanna, looking worried that perhaps she’s overstepped a third time, says, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything is wrong!” Bella barks out. “You’re just letting them all have their way! No wonder you lot are on a losing streak—just look at you all—”

“Oi!” Midgen begins with protest. “And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Do I really need to spell it out?” Bella snaps. “You’re skiving off practice just for the chance to win some paltry Gobstones reward. None of you are willing to put in the effort to wake up earlier to accommodate that—oh, and two players, one of whom is the Seeker, have completely missed practice without giving any prior notice simply to faff around Hogsmeade.”

“What’s so wrong with any of that?” Midgen says immediately. “We’re only human, you know. Sometimes we need breaks. Sometimes we want to pursue other hobbies.”

“It’s not so big a deal,” Cragglerook adds. “So what if we’re on a losing streak? I’m sure we’ll bounce back soon. ‘Sides, it’s only a game, after all.”

Bella’s eye twitches. “Only a game? You do realize that while you’re all having a jolly good time skipping practices and prancing in the fields, your captain is having to endure the ridicule that comes with the fact that she leads a bunch of good-for-nothing layabouts?”

“Hey!” Midgen cries out, terribly affronted.

“Black, that’s enough,” Sovanna says at once. “You’re going too far—”

“I’m the one going too far?” Bella says indignantly. She comes forward and angles her head down at Midgen. “Listen well, if you skip practice next week in favor of Gobstones, you’re off the team.”

“Black!” Sovanna protests.

“You can’t make that call,” Midgen denies at the same time. She whirls to Sovanna and says, impetuously, “You must boot her from the team! This attitude is completely unsportsmanlike.”

Sovanna’s expression crumples in a moment, brows drawn, lips tight. Her gaze wavers back to Bella unsurely.

“You’re overestimating your value, Midgen,” Bella calls out loftily. “Chey needs me. She doesn’t need you.”

“I…” Midgen looks back to Sovanna, who sheepishly looks away. “This isn’t fair.”

“No,” Bella disagrees. “What isn’t fair is that Chey’s been letting you all walk over her. You can’t just sod off whenever you please and put in a quarter amount of the effort and still expect us to win.”

“This—!” Midgen lets out a frustrated cry. “This is completely out of order. You have no idea how things work here. You can’t just waltz in and suddenly decide that we all have to listen to you. This is preposterous!”

“If you don’t like it, then leave!” Bella challenges.

Midgen’s eyes blaze. Her lips curl into a derisive sneer and she says, “I will!”

“What—!?” Sovanna begins, panicked. “Hold on a minute, I’m sure—”

“No, this is completely unfair,” Midgen cries out. She points at Bella. “If you don’t kick her out, then I am leaving. Shah, Cragglerook—if you’ve any sense of solidarity, you ought to come with me. We can’t allow some—some interloper to simply have her way.”

Cragglerook shifts, scratching the back of his neck. “Er, I really like Quidditch, though…”

“Thing is, Black’s not wrong,” Shah shrugs.

Midgen purses her lips before swinging back to face Bella and Sovanna. “I’m still leaving—and I’ll be talking to Davies and Carrasco, too. I’m sure once they learn about what you’re doing, they’ll quit with me—”

“They don’t need to quit,” Bella cries out, “because they’re off the team, too!”

“Black!” Sovanna gasps.

Midgen settles into a stony silence. Bella glares at her, every fiber of her being burning with frustration.

At last, Midgen jerks her head away and tells Sovanna, “Your driving this team into the ground, Chey. Good luck without a Keeper, Chaser, and Seeker.”

With that, Midgen stalks off. Sovanna slumps to the ground, cradling her head in her hands.

“Well,” Shah begins, clicking her tongue, “shall I put in word with McCormack that we can’t play?”

“What, why?” Bella says sharply.

Shah gives her an exasperated look. “Er, because we’ve just lost half our team?”

“We only have a month before the game,” Sovanna moans from the ground. “How are we supposed to find new players? I’ve already hosted tryouts, and hardly anyone showed!”

“We’ll find more,” Bella insists. Her gaze darkens considerably. “I will find more.”

“These are the only three I have left,” Bella says to Jane and Pandora, fanning out the remaining mandrake leaves between her hands. “So, we really can’t afford to mess it up this time.”

They’re in a small alcove in the library, having convened to pass out new leaves after all three of them accidentally swallowed theirs while sleeping. Rather than take a leaf each, Pandora and Jane merely stare at Bella’s hands.

“What is it?” Bella asks.

Jane sighs. “It’s just that—I think we ought to take a break from this. We’ve been having these leaves in our mouths for the better part of two months. I can hardly remember what it feels like to have my mouth not taste so bitter.”

“I agree,” Pandora says, “though mostly because it’s been getting hard to stay cognizant of the leaf when we all keep getting distracted by projects and clubs. Don’t you think it would be better to complete this first step during the summer, Bella? I’ll be bored out of my mind then, so I can surely dedicate a month to making sure the leaf stays under my tongue.”

Jane doesn’t seem too thrilled about the prospect of continuing their little endeavor into the summer, but begrudgingly nods as well. Bella considers it for a moment. Truth be told, she’s gotten quite sick of the taste as well; and with all the Quidditch nonsense she’s now found herself embroiled in, perhaps it’s best to put this on the back burner.

“Oh, fine,” Bella relents, slipping the leaves back into her pouch. “I suppose the summer makes more sense, but let’s make sure to do it the month before we return to Hogwarts. That way we can await the electrical storm together—”

“There’s a storm involved, too?” Jane groans. “Tell me we don’t have to be struck by lightning.”

“Of course not,” Bella assures, “just pelted with rain.”

“That’s not much better…” Jane grumbles quietly.

“Since we’re settled on that, let’s move on to the next thing on our agenda,” Bella continues, clearing her throat.

Jane and Pandora exchange glances.

“Since when do we have an agenda?” Jane asks.

“I didn’t receive anything by owl,” Pandora agrees.

Bella frowns. “Well, I figured it was obvious, of course. We need to talk about the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.”

“We do?” Pandora questions.

“Yes,” Bella insists. “We’re sorely lacking players. I need to find three before next week, or McCormack won’t let us play.”

“Is it really the end of the world if you simply don’t play?” Jane asks. “You weren’t too keen on joining to begin with, and no one would fault Hufflepuff for being unprepared. Perhaps the team can sit out for this year and prepare for next?”

“No,” Bella says immediately. “It’s evolved far past that. This is something I have to accomplish. I must destroy the Gryffindor team.”

“Well, good luck with that, but I’m not joining.” A shadow crosses over Jane’s face. “I’ll never touch another broomstick again, not after I got bucked off during Flying our first year.”

“I’d join, but I don’t think the Ravenclaws would be too keen on me helping a rival team,” Pandora shrugs.

“No, I—” Bella sighs, “I wanted you both to help me figure out how to recruit new players. Hufflepuff’s reputation has been dragged through the mud, and Midgen’s been spreading libel about me—”

“It’s slander, not libel,” Pandora interjects unhelpfully.

“Midgen’s been telling everyone that I’m a nightmare to play with,” Bella corrects grumpily, “so hardly anyone wants to join the team. I need to find a Chaser, a Keeper, and a Seeker as soon as possible—and then I need to train them to actually be good.”

Jane looks a bit concerned. “I thought Chey was Captain?”

“I’ve been named interim Captain,” Bella waves off.

“By who?”

“Me.”

“What? Can you do that?”

Bella shrugs. “Does it matter? This team is my responsibility now, and I won’t have them lose on my watch. I’ll never live it down if Gi—Gryffindor beats us! I only need to find three half-decent players. It can’t be that hard, can it?”

“Have you asked everyone in Hufflepuff?” Pandora says.

“What? One by one?”

“That’s the most thorough way, isn’t it?”

Bella struggles with the thought. “I—I could. But I have a feeling approaching people like that will put them off.”

“There is one way,” Jane starts, hesitant.

“What?” Bella presses.

“Enid…”

Bella frowns.

“Everyone likes Enid!” Jane insists. “If you talk to her and ask her to help promote the Hufflepuff tryouts, I’m sure you’ll gather a few good players.”

“Fawley’s hardly going to agree to anything I have to say,” Bella points out. “She’s still bitter about being petrified—and finding out I was the one who put a stop to it, not her. Couldn’t you talk to her, Jane? She still likes you.”

“I suppose I could try,” Jane says unsurely, “though I’m sure she’ll realize I’m only asking on your behalf. Could you at least come with me? It’s your plan, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“Fine,” Bella huffs out.

Which is how she finds herself in the Hufflepuff common room later that day, with Jane and Nola quietly mediating while Bella and Enid glare at each other from across the room. After the fourth time Jane returns with a question about the arrangement, Bella’s decided she’s had enough.

“This is ridiculous!” Bella bursts, stamping forward to eclipse Jane and Nola. “Are you going to help or not?”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to entertain the thought if you’re going to be so rude about it, Black,” Enid sniffs imperiously.

“Oh, that’s rich,” Bella scoffs. “Despite what you might think, I’m actually trying to help our House’s standing. Or do you not care that everyone thinks our Quidditch team is a joke?”

“Of course I care about Hufflepuff’s reputation,” Enid says, appearing slightly offended, “but I won’t just blindly advertise anything that has to do with our House. I’m well aware that our Quidditch team is, er, lacking. I don’t want to convince people to join something that might end up disappointing them.”

“It won’t—”

“Let me finish,” Enid interrupts, earning her a scowl from Bella. “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to endorse a losing team. Still, I will spread the word about your tryouts—but that means you had better win, Black.”

Bella raises herself to her fullest height, eyeing the blonde critically. “Have I ever lost, Fawley?”

Even with Enid advertising a second round of Hufflepuff Quidditch tryouts, the pickings are slim. Certainly better than before, but still not quite as bountiful as Bella hoped. She manages to find a decent Chaser and Keeper, two fifth years who’ll likely be more than enough to deal with the Gryffindors after a few rigorous practices. It’s just the Seeker spot that Bella’s having a rough go of filling.

She’s sequestered in the library, poring over her notes from tryouts, having narrowed down the position to two candidates. There’s Sienna Gill, a seventh year simply looking to try something new before she graduates, and Jakob Gunnarsson, a third year whose only real experience with Quidditch was Flying back in first year. The two are just about evenly ranked in terms of skill; Sovanna favors the seventh year based on age alone, but Bella’s not so certain. Joining just for a fun experience is all well and good—but Bella must win this game. From what she remembers of Gunnarsson, he seemed a tad solemn: a little seriousness might be just what this team needs.

Circling Gunnarsson’s name on the list of candidates, she sets aside the roster in favor of re-reading a letter from her father. Bella’s never written to him before, until last week, when she asked if he has any tips for whipping a Quidditch team into shape. Cygnus used to play for the Slytherin Quidditch team during his time at Hogwarts, though Bella has no idea his position or how good he was; she only knows that Druella despises the sport, but more because Cygnus always preferred going out for a friendlies match than accompanying her to an event.

Still, it’s evident Cygnus has some talent for the sport because his reply to her is seven pages thick, filled with old maneuvers and tricks from his days at Hogwarts and a long list of recommended reading—oh, and a note at the very end to expect the very latest Nimbus model before the end of the week, as a congratulatory present for her acceptance into the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. It’s a bit much, Bella feels, but she won’t pass up a good broomstick. The spare Comets provided by the school were hardly ideal to win with.

Bella reviews the first few books from Cygnus’s letters—Chasing Victory: A Comprehensive Guide of Offensive Strategies in Quidditch, Everything You Need to Know About Beating Bludgers, and Tactics to Trick the Opposition—and promptly hurries to the necessary shelves in the library. It takes a her a good moment to track down the Quidditch section, and she’s dismayed to find someone’s already there.

“Bella,” Gideon greets.

“Ugh,” she responds, elbowing past him to reach the first book on her list.

Gideon shadows her curiously. “Checking out books about how to play Quidditch? Not a great sign for the Hufflepuffs, I’ll admit.”

She scowls at him. “I’m just doing research—and as if you’re not here for books about Quidditch, too.”

“Not strategy ones,” he protests. He holds out the book he’s just picked up. Across a glistening gold cover, the title reads, Wimbourne Wasps Wins! “It’s about the Wasps’ latest win at the League Cup.”

How droll. He reads this stuff for fun, is it?

Bella rolls her eyes and continues to find the other two books. Once she has them in hand, she stalks back over to her table. She’s hardly flicked open to the first page of Chasing Victory when she realizes Gideon’s not only followed her all the way back but is also going through her roster.

“Stop that!” she cries out, leaping to her feet and snatching back the sheet from him. “That’s confidential!”

Gideon scoffs. “As if we’re not going to watch you lot practice anyway.”

“You can’t do that,” Bella protests. “That’s—against the rules, surely.”

“It’s not,” Gideon shrugs. “Idowu likes to have an idea of how the opposition plays.”

As much as she hates to admit it, this is actually useful information for Bella. She ought to prepare a few fake plays in case the Gryffindors watch one of their practices. Or should she do the same, and watch the Gryffindors, too? Or would they simply put on a show for her sake? How does anything get done in this blasted sport if they’re all playing mind games with each other?

“Are you in charge of the team now?” Gideon asks, scanning over the books and papers spread over Bella’s table. “I thought Chey was Captain?”

“She is,” Bella grumbles. “I’m just helping her is all.”

He leers at her. “Hufflepuff must be in a dreadful state if—”

“Did you need something?” Bella interrupts, biting. Her gaze darkens considerably. “Or have you come to spy on me and cheat your way to victory?”

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Gideon says, rolling his eyes. Bella’s hand itches for her wand. “We don’t need your plays to win. We’re not—”

“Gideon Prewett!” an appalled voice calls out.

Gideon briefly shutters his eyes and groans.

Bella glances over Gideon’s shoulder and spots a very aghast Molly Prewett making her way forward, Arthur Weasley meekly following behind. Bella’s seen Molly in passing, usually at a distance, but with her barreling ever closer it takes everything in Bella not to shudder. The older girl’s rushing at a pace so quick that her red braids swing viciously behind her. She comes to stand directly beside Gideon, brown eyes narrowed into a fierce glare.

“Did I just hear what I think I heard?” Molly scolds. “‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist’? I know Mum already told you that—”

“Molly,” Gideon interrupts, annoyed. “Can’t you lecture me later? We’re in the library, and—”

“You should have thought about that before saying such crude things!” Molly’s warm eyes turn to Bella, and she says, in a much kinder voice, “I’m very sorry about him. I hope you’re not—”

“Molly!” Gideon cries out. “Come off it, seriously—”

“Believe me, I’m being absolutely serious—”

“You know what I mean!”

Bella’s in absolute bliss. What an incredible ability, making Gideon squirm with discomfort. Bella finds what little fear she held for Molly quickly turn into begrudging respect. A worthy adversary, indeed.

“I was joking!” Gideon complains. “Bella’s my friend!”

Oh, Bella could be very cruel if she wanted. She’s about to say the words—not friends—when Arthur looks over her curiously. He stands lanky next to Molly’s shorter figure, weedy with long limbs and a pair of too-large spectacles hanging at the tip of his nose.

“Right,” Arthur says with recognition. He smiles; it’s a soft thing, faintly familiar. “Bellatrix Black, isn’t it? It’s nice to actually speak to you for once. My mum’s asked after you a few times.”

A stilted feeling hooks into the pit of Bella’s stomach, pleasant surprise and guilty annoyance bleeding into one nauseating emotion. “…Oh.”

Gideon gapes. “Wait—you know each other?”

Molly swats at him. “Close your mouth or you’ll attract flies.”

“My mother’s maiden family is Black,” Arthur answers while Gideon scowls at his sister.

“Not the same branch as my family,” Bella adds stoutly.

Gideon’s eyes light up. “Oh, we have—er, Aunt Lucretia, right Mols? She’s a Black?”

“Yes,” Molly grinds out, giving him a look that Bella is fairly certain is supposed to mean, shut up right now.

Bella’s familiar with Lucretia. The old bat is always punted back to the Blacks during Yuletide events. Seems the Prewetts can’t bear to have her around all-year long.

“She used to pinch my cheeks when I was little,” Bella recalls. “Is she not dead yet?”

“I’m hoping to get her by end of year,” Gideon answers.

Something horrible happens to Bella: she laughs. It’s quick and abrupt, and she smothers it fast enough that anyone who wasn’t really listening might have thought she simply coughed. Still, she has to live with the awful truth that, for one brief moment, she actually found Gideon Prewett funny. There’s no surer omen, she’s certain, that things are going horribly wrong for her.

“Gideon!” Molly scolds, splotchy patches of red coloring her cheeks as she glances at Arthur. “He’s just joking, of course.”

“No, I’m not,” Gideon says, so well-practiced at shrugging off shame that Bella wonders if he’s ever felt the emotion at all. “She’s got one foot in the grave anyway.”

“Gideon,” Molly repeats, voice strangled, “do you have any sense of decency?”

“You’ve known me for years, Mols. What do you think?”

Bella quickly finds herself pitying Molly, whose face reddens to an extraordinary degree as Gideon refuses to stop speaking. It’s bad enough suffering through Gideon’s voice during Divination or in the library. She can’t imagine actually having to live with him, having to wake up to that insufferably brash tone, see that horrible little grin over breakfast… Bella’s thankful, suddenly, that she has sisters rather than brothers.

“Really, though,” Arthur tells her quietly while Molly and Gideon argue, “Mum’s always wanted to know how you were getting on. Actually, there were a few times she wanted to reach out and invite you over. I suppose…she’s a bit afraid of overstepping, or perhaps worried you may not want to. But in the event you do, there’s an extra seat at ours for Yuletide.”

Bella’s been planning on spending winter hols at the castle again, mostly because Andromeda has been adamant on skipping out on the family functions ever since Bella did the year before. Though, truth be told, she doesn’t quite fancy wandering the empty halls of the school again. Once was more than enough.

“I’ll think about it,” Bella says eventually. She doesn’t remember Cedrella much, just that she was there that day Bella broke Arcturus’s staff, just that she tried in whatever meagre way she could to soften the thorny beat of Bella’s heart. “I…”

She can’t bring herself to admit it. I…want? I…miss? She remembers sobbing in Cedrella’s arms, bursting with emotion and memory she couldn’t understand. She remembers Cedrella’s voice, so soft, so gentle, and how tight her embrace was.

“Yes?” Arthur asks patiently.

“She was nice. Your mother,” Bella ends up saying, voice stiff.

If Arthur reads more in those words, Bella can’t tell. He merely smiles, green eyes alight with the same warmth his mother has.

It's clear skies and temperate weather the day of Bella’s first Quidditch match.

The Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors are lined up on the pitch, uniforms crisp and neat, broomsticks tight in hand. Madam McCormack stands between the two teams, waiting to release the balls.

“Welcome to the very first game of the season!” Layla Shafiq announces from the commentator’s booth. Her voice booms loud across the stands, joined by cheers from the students. “We have here, of course, last year’s Quidditch Cup winner: the Gryffindors! At the front stands Captain and Keeper Adisa Idowu. Lined up beside her are fellow Chasers Freya van Weerd, Gideon Prewett, and Rufus Scrimgeour; Beaters Ernest Oddpick and Moira McKinnon; and Seeker Abeni Idowu—our dear Captain’s younger sister and a second year. Is it nepotism or talent? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

Bella eyes the younger Idowu at the end of the line. She’s small and slight, traits that would suit a Seeker, though Bella’s banking on the hope that she’ll be too inexperienced to really constitute a threat.

“Against the Gryffindors we have the Hufflepuffs!” Shafiq continues as a few scattered claps issue from the Hufflepuff stands. “Up front stands Captain and Beater Sovanna Chey, followed by Chasers Iwan Cadwallader, Cyril Cragglerook, and Delbahar Shah; Keeper Rosemary Boot; Beater Bellatrix Black; and Seeker Jakob Gunnarsson. This is quite the change from the previous year’s roster. It seems Hufflepuff has made a few cuts—let’s find out if it was worth it, shall we?”

The stands holler with excitement. McCormack steps forward to deliver a few words, and Bella finds her grip tighten around her broomstick. Her heart rings with anticipation.

Across the line, Gideon grins and winks at her. Bella quickly shoots him a rude hand gesture and subsequently earns her first penalty. In her defense, she didn’t expect McCormack to turn around right then.

“I expect to see a good, clean game,” McCormack says sharply, shooting Bella a warning glance. “Captains, shake hands.”

Sovanna and the elder Idowu step forward and join hands in a firm shake. Bella readies herself on her broom, tense along the handle. Her bat hangs heavy in her right hand. She’s not certain how her fellow teammates are feeling now that the moment is nigh, but she has a clear view of the Gryffindor team. Every one of them seems far too self-assured for comfort.

One shrill blow from McCormack’s whistle, and they’re off. Bella shoots into the sky, hurtling after the pair of Bludgers that have been released. Her broomstick accelerates at breakneck speed, easily overtaking the Gryffindor Beaters. Sovanna follows close behind.

“Chaser van Weerd has taken hold of the Quaffle,” Shafiq announces amid cheers from the Gryffndor stands. “All three of the Hufflepuff Chasers are hot on van Weerd’s trail—Shah and Cragglerook apply pressure from either side while Cadwallader follows directly above to intercept the Quaffle—van Weerd must act quickly if she’s to hold onto—”

Bella spots Gideon and Scrimgeour angling to help van Weerd. Her hands tighten around her bat.

“You take Scrimgeour,” she calls out to Sovanna as she swings with all her might.

The bat cracks against the Bludger, aiming it straight for Gideon’s smug face. Unfortunately, he’s not half-bad at this sport. He makes a hard swerve to the left, just narrowly missing the careening ball. Sovanna’s Bludger quickly follows, driving Scrimgeour away to the right.

“—Black and Chey aim two very well-timed Bludgers, forcing Prewett and Scrimgeour away—van Weerd still attempts to make the pass, but is intercepted by Cadwallader from above—these are quite the offensive plays, have the Hufflepuffs at last decided to take this game seriously?”

Cadwallader ends up taking the Quaffle all the way to the Gryffindor rings, scoring the first goal of the match. The Hufflepuff stands erupt in cheers and chants, and Bella can’t help but grin to herself.

But just as quickly as that grin appears, it fades. Bella soon finds that they’re more than evenly matched by the Gryffindors. For every goal of theirs, the Gryffindor Chasers manage to land two. They’re well-trained, having had far more than the month Bella did to perfect their plays. Bella and Sovanna curb as many of the opposition’s goals as possible, leaning hard into the offensive, but the Gryffindor Beaters, Oddpick and McKinnon, are quick to redirect every one of their Bludgers. The Hufflepuffs’ only hope of winning, really, is to get their hands on the Snitch first.

It’s only too bad, really, when the Gryffindor Seeker plummets from high above the stadium, having at last caught a glimpse of that elusive ball.

“What’s this?” Shafiq hollers from the booth. “Looks like the younger Idowu has spotted something! Hufflepuff has put on a marvelous show, but will victory go to Gryffindor after all?”

Not if Bella can help it. She rears forward with her broom, squeezing every bit of power and speed out of the wood, hurtling forward to drive Idowu away. Sovanna sends a stray Bludger in Bella’s direction, but Oddpick and McKinnon have already given up their position defending the Gryffindor Chasers in order to protect their Seeker. They race above Idowu, not quite fast enough to make up the gap in distance but close enough to drop down and intervene should a Bludger be whacked.

We’re going to lose, Bella realizes dimly. Gunnarsson’s been circling the perimeter of the stadium, only now rushing across the field to catch up with Idowu. He’s just not close enough or fast enough to reach the Snitch.

Bella can see it: small, gold, and fluttering. It zips forward, just a few meters ahead of Idowu. Gunnarsson looms in the distance, diagonal from where Bella’s just received Sovanna’s Bludger. Her broomstick stalls in the air, both hands tightening around the slim end of her bat. Her gaze squints and with one great heft, she swings her bat forward. Wood meets ball. The Bludger streams straight through the air and knocks into the Snitch, sending them both careening in Gunnarsson’s direction.

“No way—!” Shafiq gasps. “Black just hit the Snitch with a Bludger!”

Gunnarsson doesn’t flinch in the slightest, and Bella finds herself relieved at his resolve. Idowu attempts to switch course but the angle is too sharp to be made swiftly. McKinnon manages to corral the second Bludger and attempts to fire it Gunnarsson’s way, but it hardly matters. Gunnarsson’s already resigned himself to being hit by a Bludger.

Luckily, it’s Bella’s that gets to him first. The heavy ball slams right into Gunnarsson, squashing the Snitch against his ribs. The weedy third year promptly gets knocked off his broomstick.

As he falls, the Bludger darts off in a new direction and Gunnarsson plucks the Snitch from where it’s been rammed against his chest. One shaky hand lifts it into the air, fingers tight against the struggling wings.

“I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” Shafiq cries out as the Hufflepuff stands explode with cheers. “GUNNARSSON HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH! HUFFLEPUFF WINS, 190 TO 70!”

McCormack blows her whistle and quickly catches Gunnarsson before he can hit the ground. The players slowly float back down. As soon as Bella’s off her broom, she’s swallowed into a tight huddle with her fellow Hufflepuffs.

“We did it!” Sovanna shouts, grinning so brightly it seems her face might just split in half. “We actually did it!”

Her teammates crowd around each other, hollering with surprise and joy. Bella feels several hands clap her on the back, a handful of voices shouting directly into her ear.

“Gunnarsson’s going to the Hospital Wing for sure, but—”

“—wicked play—”

“—never would have expected—”

“—you see the look on Idowu’s face, hah!”

“—absolutely brilliant—”

Exhaustion sinks into Bella, bone-deep and dizzy, and she sways against the others. She’s winded, hazy with exhilaration, warm from the applause and clamor. Slowly, surely, her own lips tick into a smile and she soon finds herself joining in with the Hufflepuffs as they chant and scream and engrave their victory into the air. McCormack has the two captains shake hands one final time before finally calling the game. As soon as they walk off the pitch, the team is bombarded by their fellow Hufflepuffs, alight with pride and delight.

Bella just barely manages to spot Jane and Pandora’s heads among the stream of students, but she can’t quite make her way to them through the thick crowd. Deciding it’s not worth being trampled, Bella switches course for the changing rooms. She’ll find her friends in the castle after the Hufflepuffs have calmed down a smidge.

She slinks away from the others, broomstick slung over her shoulder, eager to slip into something that isn’t a heavy, sweaty leather uniform.

Just as she’s rounded the corner of the pitch, she hears a voice call out, followed quickly by the kick of dirt as someone jogs to catch up to her.

“Oi!” Gideon says.

When Bella turns around, she’s severely disappointed to find that Gideon Prewett doesn’t appear the slightest bit upset. Not a single shard of despair glances across his face. His red hair’s a mess, flurried from flying across the stadium, and his cheeks are flushed. His eyes are bright, his smile is bright, his whole damnable existence is bright.

“Good match,” Gideon tells her cheerily.

“What?” Bella says, frowning at his lack of tears. She had so been looking forward to kicking him while he was already down.

“It was a good match,” Gideon repeats. His grin grows impossibly wider. “Never seen a Beater knock the Snitch into the Seeker like that. Wicked move. They should call that the Black Bludger Blow.”

Bella doesn’t like what’s happening here, though she can’t tell why. Still frowning, she asks, upfront, “Why aren’t you upset? Gryffindor just lost the first game of the season.”

“We’ll just win the next one,” he shrugs.

Bella’s jaw sets, a hundred and one curses sitting at the tip of her tongue. She struggles to hold them all in. Gideon examines her expression curiously.

“Were you worried I’d be upset?” he ends up asking.

“No,” she spits. “I don’t care about your feelings.”

“Aw, Bella, you’re such a rubbish liar.”

“Shut up,” she scowls. “And stop calling me Bella—we’re not friends.”

“You know,” Gideon begins, “whenever you lie, you glance away at the very end of whatever you’re saying. Just a helpful tip, from me to you: it’s more believable when you actually maintain eye contact.”

“I don’t do that!” she snaps, tamping down the urge to look away.

“Very good,” Gideon nods, “though we still need to work on your tone.”

Bella lets out a strangled note of frustration. How she ever thought she could aggravate Gideon rather than the other way around was beyond her.

He grins, all bright eyes and barely-concealed laughter. Strange discomfort brews in the pit of Bella’s stomach. She doesn’t know why she thought she could upset him, when he’s taken every insult of hers so far in stride, when he seems to drink up her surliness like it’s water rather than poison.

Bella snaps her gaze away, spinning on her heel towards the Hufflepuff changing rooms. “I’m leaving. Bye.”

She marches forward, feet digging into the soft earth with every annoyed step. From behind her, Gideon calls out, “Really, though—good match!”

She rolls her eyes.

Bella witnesses her first snowfall of the season at the Weasleys’ cozy (read: cramped) little cottage at the north end of Ottery St Catchpole.

“Oh, perfect!” Arthur remarks, watching the snow flutter and daintily set over the cottage. “Hopefully it’ll pile up and we can make snow-wizards.”

Bella’s too busy keeling over from the rush of Side-Along Apparation to remind him that she is fifteen years old and would rather endure detention with Slughorn than bumble around in the snow like a fool.

Arthur starts forward, levitating both of their trunks behind him. Bella takes a moment longer to catch her breath before following. The closer she comes to the cottage, the worse it seems to become. A thatched roof that seems one gust shy of being blown away; a slipshod arrangement of brick that gives the house a stunted, imbalanced quality; and an overgrown garden full of brittle plants that appear to be slowly dying under winter’s chill.

Arthur knocks on the front door, which is swiftly opened by Cedrella. She envelopes Arthur in a tight hug and murmurs a few words before letting go. She steps aside, allowing Arthur to shuffle past with their trunks, and then it’s just Bella on the front step. She quickly finds herself feeling dour and gangly in her dark school robes and loose hair.

Cedrella appears both changed and not: her brown hair is streaked with flecks of silver, and there are wrinkles gathering at the corners of her eyes. But she’s still soft. Warm. She smiles at Bella, green eyes crinkling, and extends a hand out.

“Bellatrix,” she greets, “it’s so nice to see you. I was ever so surprised when Arthur said you’d be joining us.”

Bella merely nods, stepping inside. Cedrella’s hand rests against the small of her back as the older witch guides her inside.

The cottage interior isn’t so bad, Bella finds. It’s bright and lively, with holly wreaths stuck around the walls, various old pictures and paintings spread over every available surface. There’s an old lumpy couch right across a roaring fireplace, an already set dinner table, something in the kitchen bubbling and brewing.

Septimus Weasley is up by the sofa, welcoming Arthur back home. He’s a tall man, lanky like his son, with a shock of red hair that seems to prefer growing from his chin rather than his head. His gaze catches onto Bella and he shambles over eagerly.

“Bellatrix,” Septimus says, taking her hand in his to shake. “Welcome, welcome!”

“Er, hi,” Bella responds.

“Arthur told me the most curious thing some time ago,” Septimus begins, as if they’re old friends catching up after several years apart, “that you helped the school when the Chamber of Secrets was re-opened?”

“Oh, er…” How much has Arthur told his parents? Surely not that Bella was a suspect at some point?

Thankfully, Bella’s saved from recounting the experience.

“Septimus, please,” Cedrella scolds lightly. “I’ll not have talk of such dreadful things at my dinner table. I’m sure Bellatrix would prefer not to re-live that particular story. It must have been terribly frightening.”

“Ah, of course, of course,” Septimus says apologetically.

“Bellatrix, darling, how about you go freshen up,” Cedrella says, leading her to what must be a spare bedroom simply because of how bare it looks. “Albert and Bilius will be coming back in a minute or two, and we’ll be having dinner then.”

“All right,” Bella agrees, stepping inside the bedroom.

She shuts the door, then simply sits on the bed for a moment. Arthur’s already brought her trunk inside, set snugly against the foot of the bed. Bella’s gaze slides over the simple white sheets, the bare walls, the lone window with a worn curtain drawn over. Her trunk is the only pretty thing in here.

From beyond the door, she hears Bilius and Albert, Arthur’s brothers, return from whatever excursion they were on. Their voices boom through the thin walls of the house, loud and happy. Bella dawdles for a little while longer before snapping her trunk open and digging through for a change of clothes.

She slips on a silver-trimmed velvet robe and very quickly finds herself overdressed for dinner. Cedrella’s in floral-patterned robes so worn that it’s been mended with different swatches of fabric in several spots. Septimus and the boys are all wearing somewhat ill-fitting trousers and the ugliest jumpers Bella has ever had the displeasure of laying her eyes on. Each one sports a horrendous holiday design: a wreath of misshapen holly, a lumpy grey snow-wizard, snowflakes that look more like a splatter of white than any real and intended shape.

“Bellatrix!” Cedrella greets warmly, ushering her over to the table. “Here you are—you might have seen Bilius at Hogwarts? He only graduated last year. And this is Albert, my oldest, visiting from Bath.”

Albert and Bilius look exactly like their brother, though perhaps a tad stockier. Albert gives her a grin and a firm shake of the hand, while Bilius merely quips a quick greeting from the kitchen.

The table is low and shoddy, and Bella is forced to accept the fact that they must prefer it this way if they haven’t already transfigured it into something far more regal. The cutlery is arranged haphazardly, just a few pairs of forks and knives strewn between the plates. There isn’t even a tablecloth. (Bellatrix Lestrange’s first dinner at her new husband’s manor is an extravagant affair: a long walnut table, with gilded china and a row of eight golden utensils, each prepared for a specific purpose. There are at least six courses, and it might have been an enjoyable evening were the conversation not so stiff and awkward.)

Bilius levitates a great platter of roast beef, setting it down at the center of the table. Cedrella quickly follows with bowls of mashed potatoes, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, and gravy. Despite the poor arrangement, it looks rather appetizing and Bella fills up her plate just as quickly as the boys do.

Arthur catches up his brothers on a few happenings at Hogwarts, while Cedrella and Septimus ask after his N.E.W.T.s. Bella listens on intently; truthfully, it’s morbid curiosity more than anything else that has brought her to this slipshod little house at the very edge of town. She watches over the rim of her cup as Septimus delights in Albert’s retelling of a particularly irritating customer.

“—so, I told him he could very well shove his order up—” Albert’s brown eyes briefly glance at Bella, and he clears his throat, “—well, you know where…”

“Surely not!” Cedrella scolds, though there’s a small smile playing at her lips.

“It’s my business, isn’t it? I should get to decide what work I’d like to take on,” Albert says. “The gall of that man, to ask for a brew that complicated and then insist on a discount!”

“It’s good that you told him off,” Septimus agrees. “Word’ll get around that you’re not to be trifled with.”

“Or you’ll lose all your customers to another potioneer,” Bilius suggests mildly.

“Nah,” Albert says with a degree of nonchalance that has Bella thinking he wouldn’t bat an eye even if he lost his business, “I’m the only decent brewer around for miles.”

Bilius snipes that Albert’s surely taking advantage of naive customers who can’t possibly know any better, and the two quickly devolve into some lighthearted bickering. It seems that this is a fairly common occurrence because Arthur and Septimus outright ignore the scene. Cedrella vainly attempts to put a stop to it by giving a few stern looks, but she only succeeds when she brings out dessert. Albert and Bilius eagerly take a helping of pudding each, finally setting aside their argument.

“Shall we play cards after dessert?” Cedrella asks.

The Weasleys exchange hesitant looks. Bella’s not certain what the issue is.

“Perhaps another night, dear?” Septimus suggests.

“But it’ll be a perfect way to unwind,” Cedrella protests.

“You always win, Mum,” Bilius complains.

“Not always!”

“The last time you let me win was when I was eight,” Albert points out.

Cedrella gives a slight, mischievous smile. “Well, I can hardly keep pretending to lose, can I?”

“We should do something in the snow,” Arthur tries. “It’s piled up quite nicely.”

Bella grimaces. Not snow-wizards, please.

Thankfully, Bilius shares her sentiment exactly because he rolls his eyes and says, “Arthur, surely there’s more to your life than constructing misshapen snow-people.”

“It requires skill,” Arthur insists.

“Yeah, the skill of not losing your mind to boredom,” Albert says. “How about we have a round or two of Quidditch?”

Bella brightens in an instant. She leans forward and says, for the first time, “Do you all play?”

“You’re looking at the Gryffindor Quidditch captain of ’60,” Albert says proudly. He sends Bilius a side-long glance and adds, “And that there is the Gryffindor team reject of ’60.”

Bilius scowls at him. Before he can levy his own slight Albert’s way, Bella interjects with a touch of pride, “I just joined the Hufflepuff team as a Beater.”

“That so?” Albert says. “Then you’ll be our fourth player. We can finally have an even two against two.” He glances at Bilius. “How about it? You and Dad, me and Bellatrix?”

Bilius narrows his eyes at him. “You always pair me with Dad!”

“Because you need the help,” Albert replies, clucking his tongue sadly.

Bella’s brows furrow. “Wait, what about Arthur?”

Arthur looks up from his slice of pudding, half-surprised. “Me? Oh, no, I much rather prefer refereeing. So does Mum.”

Cedrella fondly pats her husband’s arm. “Someone needs to keep this lot honest.”

Bella’s gaze travels back to Septimus unsurely. “I didn’t realize you played.”

Septimus winks. “Don’t count me out. These old bones know a few tricks.”

“No, you don’t,” Bilius wails. “Al sucked up all the Quidditch talent in this family, and you know it. It should really be the three of us against him.”

Albert tuts. “Ganging up on one person? That’s hardly fair.”

“Oh, you’re lecturing me on what’s fair, is it? I can’t believe…”

As Bilius and Albert lightly quarrel, Cedrella looks over Bella’s way and says, kindly, “How about I lend you an old jumper of mine? I hardly think dress robes are the most comfortable wear for Quidditch.”

“They’re not dress…” Bella begins before sighing, resigned. “Fine, but I want to choose the jumper.”

Once the pudding has been polished off and the plates cleared away, Cedrella leads Bella into a very sad and small master bedroom. Bella’s dark gaze skirts over the bed and single dresser, both seemingly handmade, then across the various decorations and paintings that crowd along the walls. It’s a mixture of childish drawings and somewhat decent still lifes of meadows. It is better than Hagrid’s hovel, Bella supposes, though pretty much anything is better than that dump.

Cedrella opens one of the dresser drawers and waves Bella over. There are only a handful of jumpers, really, mostly bright colors. Bella rifles through the selection before picking out a pair of slim grey trousers and a forest green jumper that’s only moderately better than the rest because rather than some hideous design it simply bears the initial C.

The older witch steps out for a moment, allowing Bella a chance to change. The material of the jumper is softer than she expects, a gentle touch of wool, and not at all like the scratchy cuffs of her robes. She feels almost as if she’s been swaddled in a quiet hug.

Bella steps out of the room, where Cedrella is pulling out an old, faded Quaffle from a closet. Septimus and the boys have all but vanished, though a faint shout from beyond the sitting room window tells Bella that they can’t be too far.

Cedrella sets the ball against the sofa and looks over Bella approvingly.

“It fits you quite nicely,” she says, though she still comes forward to right the jumper, fussing with stray threads against the neckline.

“Where is everyone?” Bella asks.

“Gone out back to set up,” Cedrella says absently, now attempting to tame the stray locks in Bella’s messy, hastily done braid. “Shall I fix this for you, Bellatrix?”

Bella shrugs, and soon finds herself sitting on the sofa while Cedrella stands behind her, combing through her dark locks. It’s a curious feeling that pools into Bella’s stomach, a simple comfort, fuzzy contentment, as she sits while Cedrella’s nimble fingers work. They’re quiet, save for the brush of hair and Cedrella’s contemplative hums.

“There we are,” Cedrella says happily after a few minutes. “How is it?”

She flicks her wand, and a hand mirror comes racing out of one of the bedrooms. Bella takes it in hand, inspecting her reflection. It’s certainly not the most elegant style Bella’s ever worn. Her hair’s been magicked into so many different styles and shapes that Cedrella’s attempt could hardly ever compare. It’s a simple braid, loose curls tucked carefully against Bella’s ears. It’s passable, just fine.

“I like it,” Bella decides.

Cedrella presses a warm hand against the crown of Bella’s head. With the cant of the mirror, Bella can just make out the older witch’s expression: soft eyes and the curl of a wistful smile.

“I’m glad,” Cedrella says gently. “I love my sons, of course, but I’d always wanted a daughter to do these little things with, you know…”

Bella sets down the mirror. That hazy warmth flooding her heart quickly turns into a dull ache. She stifles the feeling as best she can and asks, “The Quidditch field is out back, you said?”

Faint bemusement travels across Cedrella’s face. “Quidditch field? We’ll just be playing in the garden. Septimus has a few hoops he enlarges for the goals.”

When Bella follows Cedrella out back, she finds that Septimus has indeed magicked two rings so they hang large on opposite sides of the garden, levitating just a few meters past the roof of the cottage. Albert jogs over to Bella and hands her an old Moontrimmer. It’s a bit unwieldy and stutters when she rises, but she quickly adjusts.

They’re only playing with a Quaffle, and it seems the winner will be whoever manages the most goals with their partner. Arthur does a great show of insisting on an honest and fair game before tossing the red ball into the air. Albert’s broomstick roars forward, and he all but knocks his own father out of the way in order to get his hands on the Quaffle.

“Bellatrix!” he shouts, tossing it over.

Bella’s more used to batting balls than catching them, so she fumbles the pass and the Quaffle ends up getting picked by Bilius, who blows her a raspberry.

She frowns and urges her broom forward, at a speed that nears its limit. She can feel the magic of the wood strain against her, but she doesn't stop until she’s caught up with Bilius. She rams against him, forcing him to drop the Quaffle. Albert quickly scoops it up and scores their first goal, mostly because Septimus is doing a very poor job of guarding his goalpost.

Albert cheers and rushes by Bella to give her a quick high five. Bilius loudly begins to complain about fouls and the fact that he’s stuck with Septimus, of all people. Albert responds to these very valid grievances with his own raspberry.

Bella laughs. They go through this cycle a few more times, with Albert single-handedly scoring goal after goal; Bella angles into more of an offensive role, driving Bilius away so he can’t interecpt Albert in the slightest. By the end of it, she and Albert have managed upwards of a dozen goals. Arthur, at last, calls the game in their favor and they touch down against the ground.

“Good game,” Septimus says sagely.

“Good game?!” Bilius cries out, offended. “You didn’t block a single one of their goals!”

Albert roars with laughter. Bella quickly finds herself joining in, beaming just as brightly as the rest, all disdain for the simple house and ugly sweaters forgotten. She’s so flush with warmth and thrill that she hardly feels the winter cold.

“You do realize that a friendly match is supposed to be just that—friendly,” Bilius mutters as he comes up beside her. He rotates his left shoulder roughly. “Merlin’s beard, I didn’t think you could ram into me that hard. No wonder you’re a Beater.”

“No wonder you never made it past tryouts,” Bella shoots back.

Albert snorts. “She’s got you there.”

“I’d like to state, for the record, that I chose not to join the Gryffindor team because of O.W.L.s—”

“Fat lot of good that did, considering you only managed four O.W.L.s in the end,” Albert interrupts.

Bella bursts into laughter once more while Bilius launches himself at Albert, knocking them both into the snow. The two tussle against the ground, spraying snow and dirt alike.

“Bellatrix!” Albert gasps out dramatically, reaching a hand out to her. “You must rescue me from this git—we’re teammates, aren’t we?”

She’s so taken by the moment, so enamored by the lighthearted air, by the laughter that’s bubbling up all around them, that she actually does reach forward to try to pull Bilius off his brother. Unfortunately, the lad’s not so easy to pry off, and Bella goes tumbling into the snow, too. She shrieks with delight as she falls, and when she scrambles back up, she does so with a clump of snow in hand.

All too soon, they devolve into a snowball fight. Arthur joins in after a bit of egging on, and the four run through the field, snow streaking through the air. Bella’s grinning so hard she finds her face beginning to ache. As she hurtles toward the front of the house for cover from Bilius’s onslaught, she spots Cedrella and Septimus sitting together, watching on fondly.

“If it weren’t for the hair, I’d almost take her for a Weasley,” Septimus chuckles quietly to his wife.

Bella’s smile falters. Suddenly, Cedrella’s braid feels heavy against her head.

Her mood enters a significant decline after that first night. Hardly a day passes before she’s snapping at Bilius for dawdling too long by the broom closet or brusquely avoiding Cedrella’s attempt to tidy her hair again. What makes matters worse is that no one’s upset with her for being so surly; Cedrella merely ushers Bilius away, and Septimus only asks if Bella’d like some extra dessert.

It’s sickening how sweet they all are. It only makes Bella more sour.

“All right there, Bellatrix?” Arthur asks her later in the evening. Though he looks almost exactly like Septimus, as do his brothers, it’s Cedrella that he resembles most. Eyes as green as moss, so careful and caring, like he’s been quietly noting her sulking all through the evening.

“Yes,” Bella grinds out, because what else can she say? She’s no idea what set off this foul mood of hers. Perhaps it was nothing at all, just the mere fact of her nature. Against the Weasleys, so soft and warm, she’s little more than the jagged cut of a shadow that doesn’t quite mesh in.

“If you’re certain,” Arthur shrugs, though that gentle look doesn’t fade in the slightest. “We’re going to go tobogganing on Stoatshead Hill in a mo, if you’d like to join.”

“I think I’ll head to bed early tonight,” Bella mumbles out. The last thing she wants is to putter around on the sidelines while the Weasleys crowd around their sorrowful little sled and take turns cheering each other on.

Arthur’s hopeful expression crumples somewhat. Bella would feel bad if she weren’t already so indignant about the whole affair. He’s the one who invited her here: why should she feel so guilty about ruining the mood? Didn’t he realize that was an inevitability, with her around?

She hurries off before she has to hear anymore of his plaintive suggestions. The snow is sparse around the cottage, stamped into dirt, white fading into browns and greys. Bella follows the muddled path around to the back of the house, quietly stewing.

She’s jealous, though she wishes she weren’t. Jealousy implies she’s lacking in something, and Bella feels she’s anything but inferior to the Weasleys.

She wanders over to a snow-strewn bench, clearing away the snow with a quick flick of her hand. The wood underneath is roughhewn, with peeling blue paint and childish drawings scribbled over the broad planks. Etched deep against the wood of the right leg are the initials C+S. It’s such a disheveled, worn piece of wood, better fit for a scrapyard than any decent garden—but it’s so full of love. That’s the problem, really. There isn’t a single thing here that’s untouched by warmth. There’s something well-meaning even in Cedrella’s soft-hearted lecturing, in the way her sons tease and tackle each other. Their house is simple and cramped, only remotely better than Hagrid’s hovel, but Bella feels so small in it, as if there’s a canyon splitting her from the rest. Though it’s hardly the first time she’s ever felt so distant, so alone.

She sinks heavily onto the bench, listlessly searching into the impending dark of the horizon. The sky shutters with deep purples and blues. The stars peek out from the dark, and Bella thinks there is a reason for their blasted naming tradition, after all. Because only the stars far above could match the aching distance in her family, so far removed from each other, as cold and dead as the expanse of space.

“I was wondering where you’d run off to,” comes Cedrella’s teasing, easygoing voice.

Her footsteps crunch lightly against the remaining snow. She’s in a ridiculously festive jumper, holly braided tight into her hair. She comes to sit beside Bella, not even bothering to ask for permission, if Bella would even like her there. That’s how close the Weasleys are, to believe they’re always invited in each other’s lives, to throw their arms around each other and hold tight, too tight.

“The boys are going to the hill to—”

“I know,” Bella cuts in, annoyed. As if being pushed down a snowy hill in a rickety piece of wood will solve all her problems. “I didn’t want to join.”

“I see.” And then, either because she’s too polite or too dense, Cedrella continues, “I’m not very fond of tobogganing either. Too fast for my liking.”

Bella doesn’t respond.

Cedrella’s tender gaze flickers over, and in a perfect imitation of Arthur, she asks, “Are you all right, Bellatrix?”

Bella looks away. She stares ahead stonily, into the overgrown mess the Weasleys have the audacity to call a garden. Her heart pangs painfully. (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange hates her mother, who only speaks to her when it’s to nag about her manners and decorum, or lack thereof. She is jealous of her far prettier, far more popular sisters because Narcissa’s demure smile is enough to catch suitors like flies and Andromeda’s easygoing grin leaves her with an endless supply of friends. Bellatrix knows only to sneer, snarl, or snap. She’s fifteen and looking in the mirror, and she sees her mother’s face hanging over her shoulder, fair as a flower, telling her, Pink doesn’t suit you, dear. Dark colors are best. She’s fifteen and the only friends she has are the ones who don’t want to end up on the wrong side of her wand. She’s fifteen and so terribly angry, but she’s not supposed to be. Anger is unproductive and unladylike. Is it okay, then, if she laughs out her rage? Is it okay, then, if she sings her insults to Portia Travers before cursing her? If she makes her voice sweet, will she finally be allowed to be angry?)

Bella’s angry, too. She wants what she knows she can never get. She’s afraid of her future, frightened that even with the knowledge she has, her sisters will still leave her. Each to their own warm and lovely families. (Bellatrix Lestrange goes from too-empty manor to too-empty manor—to too-cramped cell.) Who is left for Bella? Who will even have her, sharp as she is?

I don’t belong here, Bella wants to say, wants to confess. I don’t belong anywhere anymore. Cedrella was there that day at old Arcturus’s. Perhaps she would understand, but it’s not Cedrella who needs to understand Bella. It’s Bella who wants to know, who has these shards of future stuck between the spaces of her ribs, who hardly understands the cascade of those years—just why does Andromeda choose Edward? That’s where it all goes wrong, right? The first knot in Bellatrix Lestrange’s tangled life.

Bella ignores Cedrella’s question in lieu of her own. Quietly, like the slide of a shadow, the creep of doubt, she asks, “Why did you marry Septimus?”

If Cedrella’s taken aback by this line of questioning, she certainly doesn’t show it. She rears back a bit, leaning against the wall of the house.

“Because I love him,” Cedrella answers rather easily, like it’s some fairytale they’re living in and not a harsh and unfair world.

“But why?” Bella continues, growing frustrated. “Why did you fall in love with him at all? Why not someone who wouldn’t get you disowned?”

“Oh, Bella,” she begins softly, half-pitying. “You can’t choose who you fall in love with. It doesn’t work that way. When you choose, that love becomes conditional and it can hardly be called love then, when it can be taken and given on a whim. True love knows no restraints, no bounds. You love, simply to love, even if you shouldn’t, even if you wish you didn’t. That’s how powerful love is.”

Perhaps Bella would feel less upset about all this if she didn’t understand, but she does. (Andromeda abandons their family shortly after her twenty-first birthday. Still, it’s never Andromeda herself that Bellatrix Lestrange goes after but Edward and Nymphadora Tonks. Narcissa visits only once in Azkaban, then never again. Still, Bellatrix Lestrange—merciless, cold-blooded—forgives her, even going so far as to cover her misdeed in going behind the Dark Lord’s back to enlist Snape’s help in protecting Draco. No matter the lifetime, the memory, Bellatrix will always be weak to her sisters.) Bella knows love, how tyrannical it can be, how it binds and beckons. (Bellatrix Lestrange loves the Dark Lord. She has suffered for him, tortured and killed for him. She would do anything. That’s how deep her love runs. Still, the Dark Lord does not love her back. That’s how powerful he is, to defy what would compel others to madness.)

“I know that,” Bella says petulantly, wishing she didn’t. If Andromeda loves—will love—Edward Tonks even half as much as Bella loves her, then of course she’d go. Of course they would run and elope and never look back. It has never been about who Andromeda loves, just that she loves at all, loves enough to cast aside the people who loved her first.

Truthfully, Bella doesn’t care if Andromeda falls in love with Edward. She just doesn’t want them to leave her behind.

“But you ran away,” she adds, almost accusingly. Only guilty people run. “You chose him over your family.”

Cedrella’s confused. “I—honestly, I don’t know where you’re getting this from, Bellatrix. Is this what the family is saying? I didn’t run away. I didn’t choose one over the other. They made that choice for me, when I was kicked out, disowned. And even then, I came back. My sisters left, but I still wrote them, not that either of them ever wrote back. If they got the owls at all. My mother passed, and I grieve the fact we couldn’t make amends before she went on. My father remained for a long while, and you know full well that I visited him every few weeks. To help him, feed him, make sure someone was still looking after him. I loved my father, loved them all, even though sometimes I wish I didn’t. Perhaps, mostly, I was driven by the selfish desire to convince them to return my love again. Still, it was love, desperate and consuming as it is, that always had me turn back. I never wanted to let them go, not like that—but, understand, they were not my only family. You think of Septimus as an outsider, but who is he if not my family? My husband, my sons… They’re my family, too. Would you have me weigh the value of the family I chose against the family I was born into? Do you know how unfair of an ask that is?”

“I—but that’s not what I’m—” Bella lets out a frustrated breath, ducking away. “Of course they’re your family, too. Of course it’s…a difficult situation. I just—I think, if I were one of your sisters, at that time, and watched you choose someone else, knowing what the consequences would be, knowing that you would have to go… I’d be really hurt.”

Cedrella’s face is the least sympathetic Bella has ever seen: a tired gaze, thin lips. “You believe it was our family who was betrayed in my leaving, but it is the other way around. They betrayed me the moment they rejected Septimus and threatened me with disownment. My parents did not lose a daughter: they gave me up. I did not leave my sisters: they let me go. In one evening, Bellatrix, I lost the entire family I’d grown up with, the only family I’d ever known up till that point. You say you would be hurt? Imagine how hurt I was.”

The words sink into Bella, sharp as daggers. There are so many things she ought to say. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would have hurt you, too. I thought you’d be happy to leave, so long as you had your new love. There are so many things she wants to ask. Would you have stayed if you never met Septimus? Does that even matter? Is this about Septimus, or is this about the love we get and the love we deserve?

The silence goes on, louder for every second that passes uninterrupted.

Eventually, Cedrella says, quietly, “I’m sorry, Bellatrix. It’s a touchy subject. I know you’re only curious.”

That’s how soft-hearted Cedrella is, to apologize even when it’s Bella’s fault. Bella’s heart twists in her chest, wrenches with a familiar ache. The tilt of Bella’s thoughts change, anchoring against what Cedrella said that first night Bella arrived. I’d always wanted a daughter…

Bella’s always wanted a mother. Now, more than ever, something furious claws against her chest. It takes everything in her not to ask, desperate and pleading, Do you think I’d look pretty in pink? (Bellatrix not-yet-Lestrange is fifteen years old, with—) Bella is fifteen years old, with a mangled future, with curls that require more effort than they’re worth to arrange nicely, with a mouth more suited to frowns and sneers than coy smiles, with a body she’s still growing into, a body she dreads will grow into something it shouldn’t be. The curve of her life feels darker than the cut of night: she wants pink, needs pink.

“I’m sorry,” Bella manages after a moment. “I should’ve known it’s…”

She trails off, words left unsaid. Understanding seeps between them, low and gentle.

“Why ask all this?” Cedrella says kindly.

“I don’t know,” Bella mumbles. “I suppose… I thought understanding the past would help me understand what the future might have in store.”

“I rather think it’s best to worry about the present. The future will come to pass whether or not you agonize over it.” Cedrella’s gaze traces over her tenderly. “Is there something in particular you’re worried about?”

“It would take me well into the new year to get through all my worries.” From the corner of her eye, she sees Cedrella’s mouth quirk into an amused smile. “What?”

“I certainly don’t envy being your age. Every problem feels so colossal…”

“Because it is,” Bella insists, with all the snark a teenager can manage.

Cedrella laughs softly. Bella rolls her eyes, gaze turning skyward once more. The past few days turn over and over in her mind. Septimus’s silly jokes, Quidditch in the backgarden, Cedrella’s fingers working through her hair…

Mere survival isn’t enough. Bella wants to live: she wants a rosy future, both her sisters by her side. She wants them all happy. She wants Andromeda breaking into laughter over a cuppa, without Edward dead for being a Muggle-born, without Nymphadora hunted for marrying a werewolf. She wants Narcissa giggling in the parlor, without Lucius jailed for being a Death Eater, without Draco given to the service of a madman.

Mandrake leaves, electrical storms—Bella’s been focused on the wrong thing all this while. The best way out of a cell is to never end up in one, and the person who puts her there isn’t the Wizengamot, isn’t Dumbledore, isn’t even herself.

It’s the Dark Lord. That’s who she’s really up against.