Chapter Text
Bellatrix, quite frankly, did not want to be here. Here, as in on the train, she was fine with going to school.. but a train ride just seemed excessive. She saw it as nothing more than a waste of time. She pulled her knees up to her chest when she finally found a seat, her gaze glued to the window.
She had lost sight of Sirius a while ago, but they got onto the train together so at least she knew he hadn’t missed the train entirely. Which definitely seemed like something he would do. She hoped they would sit together, to make this train ride at least somewhat bearable. However, he was nowhere to be found, and Bellatrix wasn’t going to look for him. She didn’t want to lose her spot, she was comfortable where she was, and if she couldn’t sit next to Sirius she’d rather be alone anyways.
The car door slid open and a girl with curly platinum hair waltzed in and sat down beside her. “You're a Black, right? I'm sitting here now.” She declared. Bellatrix wanted to die.
“Yes and no.” Bellatrix said. “Leave.” The girl blew a raspberry.
“I'm Rita Skeeter, what's your name?”
“None of your business.” She hissed.
“Well, ‘None Of Your Business’, you could be a little nicer.” Bellatrix wanted to throttle her.
“I'm leaving.” She said, Skeeter's eyes widened. She looked like she wanted to retort but the train had already started moving, and the car door locked. She didn't even have the time to stand up. Skeeter smirked.
“You're stuck with me!” She looked so happy. This was Hell.
“God, no…” Bellatrix would've started praying right then and there.
“What'd ya say?” Skeeter cocked her head to the side.
“Leave me alone.” Bellatrix inched to the far corner of the seat, pressing herself against the window.
“Rude. Maybe candy will cheer you up! I'll ask for the trolley.” She grinned. “You are a Black though, right?”
How many hours of this would Bellatrix have to put up with?
☆
They had finally arrived at Hogwarts and for her whole life, Bellatrix thought that everything was set in stone for her. At least, that’s what she was told. She had her whole life ahead of her planned by people that weren’t her, and that wasn’t going to change. She thought She knew her house before she had even been sorted. Slytherin. She had no doubts in her mind when she sat down, the hat being placed on her head.
To her surprise, the hat had to think about it for a good couple of minutes, which made her heart race. Doubt flared up in her mind, panic making her chest tighten.. but it was fine. She knew where she would be, the hat having to think wouldn’t change anything- but it did. It changed everything. One fucking word changed the whole trajectory of Bellatrix’s life.
Gryffindor.
No- No that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. She was Slytherin, she had to be in Slytherin thats- that’s what was supposed to happen, the hat.. must’ve been wrong or something, it had to have been. Or- It had to change its mind because.. if it didn’t.. Merlin, what would her parents think? They’d kill her.
She opened her mouth to protest, but she really couldn’t, there were too many people watching,. it was too loud anyways. She was lightly pushed forward as someone gestured her towards the Gryffindor table. For a couple of seconds she was completely frozen, but she forced herself to keep walking. The rest of the night was a blur, as well as most of the morning. People tried to talk to her, but she could barely muster up any words. She probably snapped at a couple people too, but she was too panicked to really care about it.
She flipped the letter around in her hands. A howler, great. She bit back a harsh sigh, and with ever so shaky hands, she opened it.
“This must be a mistake. No child of the House of Black has ever been in Gryffindor, and no child of our House will ever be in Gryffindor! You disgrace us, Bellatrix.” Cygnus’ voice barked from the open letter. Bellatrix could practically feel him fuming. She was used to these fits from him, often feeling the brunt of them herself. She grimaced, opting not to respond and just let him continue.
“Your mother and I raised you properly enough to know that. You will prove yourself worthy of our last name before the time comes for you to get the Mark. If you fail to do so by the time you reach sixteen, you will no longer be our daughter! Is that clear, Bellatrix?”
“Yes, sir.” She mumbled clasping her hands together, digging her nails into their backs. Bellatrix didn't even know how her mother and father got the news so fast.
“Good girl.” He spat, Bellatrix flinched. Every time she heard those two simple words, it felt like she was getting hit with the cruciatus curse a hundred times worse, yet so much more painful. A reminder of where she stood, where her place was. A reminder not to disobey.
Without even a second to spare, the door was flung open. “Bloody hell, Lily! I know this is our dorm, but maybe a little respect is needed-!” A voice huffed, tugging the red haired girl who had started walking into the room, back towards the door. The girl, presumably named Lily, just kind of shrugged.
“We were out there for like 20 minutes! Whatever that was, is over, and if I was in her place I wouldn’t exactly want to be alone after that, would you?” She tilted her head to the side, grabbing onto the door frame to keep the other girl from pulling her any farther away from the door.
“I mean, I dunno- maybe? Not everyone wants company, Lils..” She trailed off, rolling her eyes, but she had a fond look on her face nonetheless. “You could’ve knocked first, and don’t throw the door open next time either!”
“Well it’s kind of hard not to with Marlene putting all her weight on it!” Lily huffed, turning to look at the aforementioned blonde, who looked like she was about to fall over when the door was initially flung open.
“Don’t look at me! I was trying to hear what they were saying! It was kind of hard with you and Mary whispering so loud, and squabbling like…” Marlene paused, as if trying to think of a worthy insult. “An old married couple!” She seemed so proud of herself.
“Whispering loudly?? What does that even mean? How can you whisper loud???” Lily scoffed, then turning back towards Bellatrix, tilting her head to the side. “Well? Do you want to be alone? We can leave.”
Bellatrix blinked, needing time to process the whole thing. She shifted in her seat, thinking of what to say. Truthfully, she did want to be alone. And she shouldn’t be surrounding herself with this type of.. company anyways. But essentially telling them to “piss off” would be rude, so she felt sort of trapped. "I.. don’t know. No, I guess. Maybe?"
Lily’s lips spread into a grin, she turned to look at Mary, expression smug as can be. "Told you so!" And, she walked into the room. Bellatrix tried to hide a grimace.
Mary groaned, rolling her eyes again. She smiled though, and followed Lily into the dorm room. "Hi." She said. "We're your dormmates. I'm Mary MacDonald. That thing is Lily, and that other thing is Marlene McKinnon."
"I’m not a thing Lily’s a thing." Marlene walked into the room last, closing the door behind them. She flopped onto one of the vacant beds, moving so that she was laying on her stomach, so that she could still face the other people in the room.
"Proudly! Anyways, It’s nice to meet you— uhm.." She trailed off, probably realizing that she didn't know Bellatrix’s name. And she would've loved to keep it that way.
Bella almost relaxed at the change in atmosphere, keyword almost. But her posture needed to be perfect, as did everything about her, even behind closed doors. So? She remained the same. "Bellatrix. Black." Her last name stung on her tongue, like a bad taste in her mouth. One little word that carried oh so much weight.
"Nice to meet you, Bellatrix." Mary held out her hand out for Bellatrix to take, a little awkwardly. Bellatrix regarded it warily, giving an awkward smile but not taking the hand.
It was very easy just by looking at her to tell, her name gave it away too. She was a mudblood, plain and simple. She shouldn’t have been talking to, or associating with her, or any of them for that matter, let alone touching it. She’d be tainted for good, and that would make everything so much worse. She just stared at the hand, looking up and down between it and Mary, trying to make her smile more believable. That was rude too. Although she shouldn’t feel guilty about being rude to mudbloods, her chest tightened either way. "It’s.. nice to meet you too."
Mary pulled her hand away, and Bellatrix didn't miss the hurt expression on the girl’s face, it made her heart sink a little, she didn't know why and didn't want to know.
☆☆☆
A FEW HOURS EARLIER...
Sirius made his way down the aisle, glancing in the car windows to see which ones were occupied and which ones weren't, he finally settled on one that had a single person in it. His hair was dark brown, almost black and seemed almost purposefully messy, the boy had just finished cleaning his glasses when Sirius opened the car door. “Hey. Can I sit here?” Sirius didn't even wait for an answer before plopping down across from him. The boy blinked.
“I was gonna say yes, but I've changed my mind.”
“I'm Sirius.” Sirius ignored him. James blinked again, sucking in his lips.
“James, Potter!” He finally said after a bit of sizing Sirius up. Lovely meeting ya.” He stuck out his tongue, Sirius returned the gesture. They sat in silence for a moment. Sirius noted that the Potter family was one of the blood traitor families that his parents spoke of, he fought back a scowl at the stupidity.
“What house do you want to be in?” James asked. Sirius soured at the question.
“Anything but Slytherin. I think.” He said. “My mother and father'll want me there. But ‘m not a bad person like them.”
“How do you mean?” James quirked up an eyebrow. Sirius didn't really want to get into the details.
“Um. They just… They want me to be the Heir or something… Dunno, it sounds lame.” Sirius had neglected to reveal he was a Black. Having ties to that name gave him an unpleasant feeling.
“Heir?” James hummed. “Are you a Black? They're the only family who cares enough about all that inheritance crap.” Sirius ducked his head shamefully, nodding curtly.
“I don't agree with any of it. It's stupid.” From the top of his vision, Sirius could see James grinning.
“You're all right, Sirius.” He reached over and patted him on the shoulder. Sirius flinched.
“James!” A soft voice called as the car door slid open. James’ voice seemed to brighten more, Sirius looked up.
“Pete! Thank Merlin, I woulda thought you'd forgotten to come. I would've made them stop the train.” James patted the spot beside him. “Sirius, this is my mate Peter Pettigrew, Pete, this is Sirius.”
“Hey-!” Peter greeted, Sirius smiled and nodded.
“Hi.” He said in return. James seemed to notice the air turned awkward, so he spoke:
“Pete's been a close mate of mine since we were little lads!” He patted Peter on the shoulder. He turned to Peter. “Have you seen Marlene? She said she'd sit with us.” Peter shook his head.
“I haven't.”
“Well,” James smacked his lips. “If she doesn't make it, that's her fault and hers alone.” Sirius couldn't help but chuckle. “You'd like her, I think.” He turned to Sirius. “The way we met was similar to how you introduce yourself.” Sirius grinned.
“She seems all right. I wanna meet her.”
“I'll introduce you!” James flashed a grin and pushed his hair back. He seemed to smile a lot, it was infectious. James slung a shoulder over Peter’s and brought the boy closer to him. Sirius stared at the easy display of affection, gestures like that were foreign to him. Him and Bella barely even hugged, as close as they were. She wasn't big on anything of the sort. The car door opened again, Sirius looked over.
At the door, stood a scarred boy whose expression showed utter displeasure at the sight of the three of them. His clothes were slightly disheveled and he had a slightly battered book clutched to his chest. Sirius couldn't stop staring. “Sorry.” The boy said. “Everywhere else was full. May I—”
“Yes.” Sirius surprised himself with how quick he answered. “I'm Sirius.” The boy frowned as Sirius moved over in his seat to make room, it looked more confused than anything, and also annoyed.
“Remus. Remus Lupin.” There was something so captivating about Remus. He had immediately opened his book and craned over to read after introducing himself. Sirius thought it was cute unfair.
“I'm James! This is Peter.” James stuck out his hand, Remus looked up from his book, glaring daggers at James, though James didn't falter, so Remus just nodded and gave in and shook his hand. James urged Peter to shake hands with Remus as well, who went back to reading as soon as the interaction was over. James then pulled out his want to show off some tricks to Sirius and Peter, but Sirius wasn't really paying attention.
Instead, he wanted to talk to Remus more, but Remus didn't wanna talk to him, and Sirius was used to getting what he wanted.
“What’cha reading?” Sirius inched closer. James and Peter were caught up in their own conversation. Remus looked up, annoyed. He stuck his fingers between the pages and closed the book.
“Um. It's called The Chronicles of Narnia.”
“What's it about?” Sirius couldn't care less that Remus didn't want to talk to him at the moment- well, actually, when Sirius asked, Remus’ eyes seemed to have lit up. Sirius considered that a grin.
“Well, it's a series. I'm rereading it, and this is the fourth book and the third published book called The Voyage of the Dawn Treader…” Sirius listened intently as Remus launched into an explanation of every book. He wasn't much for reading, the only reading Sirius had ever done was reluctantly reading upon Black Family history as per his parents’ wishes. He'd never heard of this series before either, and was quite curious. Plus, he'd decided he quite liked Remus’ voice. Sirius hardly even noticed that James and Peter had tuned in as well and that the train had started and stopped, and they were now at the station.
The four were ushered out of the train with the mob by a giant man with a beard. They were grouped into boats and sailed across the Black Lake.
The school was breathtaking, more of a castle than a school. Sirius never really understood why they called it Hogwarts. It was tremendously lame.
No one said a word as they were escorted into the castle and then into the Great Hall for sorting. Headmaster Dumbledore prattled on about how things were to be, rules, and how sorting worked. Sirius didn't care to listen, he'd heard all this from his parents a million times over. Sirius knew he'd be among the first sorted, he just hoped- he prayed he wouldn't get Slytherin. James, Peter and Remus were good people. He was too, right? Sirius wasn't like his parents.
James tapped Sirius on the shoulder, and by the way Remus turned to face him as well. “You three. Let's make a… promise! We’re gonna be best friends from now on, right? We’ll all be together for the rest of our years here.” James held out his pinky finger. Remus, Peter and Sirius all looked back and forth between each other. Sirius was the first to link pinkies with James.
“I solemnly swear,” he paused. “Together forever.”
“Together forever.” James echoed. Peter linked pinkies next.
“Together forever.” They all looked at Remus expectantly. He clutched his book closer to himself and caved, linking his pinky with the rest of the boys’.
“I solemnly swear,” He gave a small smile. “Together forever.”
“Black, Sirius!” Sirius unlinked his pinky, he had completely forgotten where he was at the moment. He spun around and walked up to the chair, sitting down. He scanned the area, James gave him a thumbs-up. But Sirius had to do a double take when he saw… Bellatrix at the Gryffindor table? When did that happen? If Bellatrix Black could be sorted into Gryffindor, maybe he could be too, then he could be with his favourite cousin as well, and help her through whatever her parents threw at her.
But Sirius didn't get any more time to think before the hat called out.
“SLYTHERIN!!!”