The Bitter Black

The Bitter Black

Colors were everywhere. Green spells and bright, sparking, red spells shot across the room like renegade fireworks. Some were potentially fatal, some meant only to temporarily stun their target. There was a tense, horrific air about the entire scene, and yet somehow, beneath it all, something strangely innocent....

It was a wizard's duel, that was all. A silly little game that Narcissa and I, as small children, used to play at during those rare moments when our parents' backs were turned.

And there, in front of me, was my dear cousin Sirius. He had changed so much since we were young, but, then again, so had I. He had been where I had been, after all, and Azkaban did not care about circumstances of guilt or innocence.

Still, beneath all the changes, beneath all the wearing-away that time and unending horror had caused, I could make out vestiges of a younger man. It was this, a familiar light in his dark eyes, that allowed me to be transported into my memory....

***

We arrived for our short visit in a state of semi-scandal that my cousin, for one, seemed to find exceedingly amusing.

"Pity Andromeda didn't come along," Sirius said, grinning as we stepped into Grimmauld Place. "I wanted to congratulate her on her marriage."

I did not bother to fake a smile but instead gave him a disgusted, contemptous look that only caused him to expose more of his dazzling teeth.

"I'm afraid, Sirius, that I have no idea what you are talking about."

He frowned for a moment, then threw his head back and let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Oh, I see. You no longer have a sister named Andromeda, do you?"

My dignified silence was his answer.

"Well, that makes sense," he replied. "I don't have a cousin named Andromeda anymore, either, if I go by my , er--'family tree'."

I merely stepped past him, my shoulder brushing against his, and extended my hand to Regulus, who bent and kissed it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a frown flicker over my mother's face, but I did not openly recognize it. I had gotten the reaction I wanted.

"How are you, Regulus?" I asked.

"I'm doing very well, actually, Bellatrix," he answered, an odd excitement entering his eyes. "I've been following the news a lot. This man Voldemort--he seems to have the right idea about things, doesn't he?"

"Well, I can't admit to having read much," I answered, "but from what Rodolphus has told me, he certainly does."

Behind me, Sirius snorted and muttered, "You would agree, wouldn't you, Bellatrix?"

I whirled around, beginning to become very incensed by his laughter. "Yes. And so would you, dear cousin, if you had any sense at all."

His scornful smile faded gradually. "Rodolphus told you, did he?"

My lips grew tighter, but I nodded.

"I'm not surprised. Can't think for yourself, can you?" He responded to my glare with an infuriatingly pitying expression. "Poor Bellatrix." He reached a hand out and tucked a strand of my hair, identical to his own, away behind my ear. "She only lives to serve."

I slapped his hand away and fought the urge to spit in his face. Instead, I forced myself to ignore the fact that his remark genuinely stung and smiled scathingly at him. "I serve myself, Sirius. That's what strong witches and wizards do, you know. We help ourselves."

It delighted me that he did not have the necessary time in which to develop a good retort, as Mrs. Black bustled over, already towing Narcissa, and began guiding me toward the staircase. She led us to the room we would share, a rather dreary chamber elaborately decorated in a fascinatingly dark manner.

"I'll see you both in the morning," Mrs. Black said, coming as close to affection as ever she dared, and swept from the room.

After she had departed, along with the luggage-toting houseelves, and the door was closed behind her, I sat down on the edge of my bed and hauled one of my suitcases up beside me. I took out a comb and began running it through my thick hair, but stopped when I became bored with the activity. I glanced over at Narcissa, who was busy gazing at herself intently in the mirror.

I dreaded conversation with Narcissa. She was no longer the lively, occasionally mischievous sister of ten years ago; now she was an unbearably haughty, prim and proper young lady. Although she would not marry for several years, she was, in very many ways, already Mrs. Lucius Malfoy.

I sighed inwardly, resenting one of my many faults: I became bored easily, and boredom simply does not suit a true Black. I would have to make conversation with her.

"How is....Lucius, Narcissa?" It was a topic I cringed at, but what else was I to say?

She spoke into the mirror, examining her face. "Marvellous. I can't wait to be married to him. He's going to be very powerful someday, you know." She looked at me briefly in the mirror and feigned interest. "And Rodolphus?"

A fraction of a grimace formed on my face. "How should I know? I don't spend my every waking moment with him. It isn't as if I plan to--to--marry him."

I waited breathlessly, ridiculously, hoping that her response would bring some kind of miraculous relief from a dread that I had inwardly confirmed long ago. Of course, this did not occur.

She turned to me slowly and fixed me with a look that spoke nearly as loud as her following words. "Oh, Bellatrix. Don't be silly."

She continued to stare at me for several seconds, then returned to her reflection. I took my bedclothes from my case and began to undress.

***

Narcissa slept beside me. I listened to her breathe, a bit enraged by the accomodations. Before, when we had been three, instead of two, sisters, we had all slept in our own room; there were certainly plenty in Grimmauld Place. And now here we were, lying, although certainly not cramped, on the same mattress.

I slowly slid my body from under the sheets. The cool floor was a welcome change under my feet. It was so hot that night; I was hot. I quietly crept across the room, taking great caution to ensure that Narcissa slept on, and left the room.

I walked down the hallway, keeping up the pretense in my own mind that I was only going for a nighttime walk, and nothing more. Yet when I reached a certain door, I stopped, and I pressed my ear against it. Upon hearing nothing, I pushed it open.

I tiptoed over to his bed and gazed down at him for a few moments. Then, in a raspy whisper, I said, "Sirius."

He awoke with a bit of a start and fumbled for the lamp on his bedside table. The dim light threw his features into sharp contrast as he sat up in bed, and, for a fleeting instant in time, as I stared at the way the light turned his handsome face into a gaunt, skeletal structure, I was filled with an odd sense of foreboding. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

He squinted at me. "Going to smother me with a pillow, were you?"

"I was considering it," I said, and I sat down on the edge of his bed.

He edged away from me, eyeing me suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

I wasn't sure how to answer for a second; at last, I chose the barest of truths. "I want to talk to you."

He stared for a moment, and his stony expression collapsed into a sharp smile. "All right. Let's talk, Bellatrix." And then, in a clear mimic of myself, he added, "Dear cousin."

"We don't see each other very often during the summer," I said, groping for a topic.

"No," he said. "But if you want to know the perfect truth, Bellatrix, these little two-day visits are more than enough for me."

I almost assured him that the feeling was mutual, but, as that would not have suited my purpose at all, I decided to use my assets. I leaned toward him a bit, letting my sleek hair tumble around my shoulders and my eyelids lower somewhat. "Surely you don't mean that. Don't you think I'm beautiful?"

I thought for a moment that he wouldn't answer, or that, worse, he would respond in a manner less than flattering. He did neither of those things, however. In fact, he surprised me.

"Yes." He said it reluctantly, almost grudgingly, but he said it nonetheless.

"Of course you do," I smirked. I sat back and looked off into space. "So....are you seeing someone?"

"What?"

"A girl. Are you currently dating a girl."

"Oh....no," he said, a bit uncomfortably. "Why do you ask?"

I let a mirthless laugh escape my lips. "Well, I recently discovered that I'm seeing someone."

He raised an eyebrow. "I don't really understand what you mean."

I sighed exasperatedly. "I'm intended, that's what I mean."

"So who have they chosen?" he asked after a brief pause during which I did not look at him.

"Rodolphus," I said dully. "Rodolphus Lestrange."

Sirius made a sound of disgust. "Lestrange. That fanatic? They really thought that one out, didn't they?"

It was a bit ironic, albeit expected, that the only sympathy I should get be from a cousin who had up until now only laughed and scoffed at me.

I faced him. "Could they not have chosen anyone else?"

He shrugged. "Real purebloods are getting a bit hard to come by."

"I know, but--Lestrange."

"You know, Bellatrix, just reading between the lines, I'd say you don't care much for Rodolphus," he speculated obviously.

"It really isn't his fault, I suppose," I said, a bit more morosely than I meant to. "I know other girls that adore him."

"Hm," Sirius snorted. "I'll tell you one thing, I'm not going to be bullied into marriage."

I grinned at him sardonically. "Of course not. Why, you're in love with James Potter."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Moreso than with some of those Slytherin girls."

I laughed. "I hate to tell you this, Sirius, but a boy--can't recall his name, little black-haired, greasy git--told me that James is secretly, madly in love with Lily Evans, the horrid little mudblood."

"James would murder you if he heard you call her that," he informed me bluntly, sounding more than a little irritated.

I was stunned for a moment by the anger in his voice. We had seemed to be, well, on the same page, in a manner of speaking, for a moment, and it had caused me to momentarily forget that he wasn't like the rest of his family, wasn't like myself.

"I only meant," I said, my voice suddenly condescending, "that I don't particularly care that much for her."

"Ignorant term to use, if you ask me," he said.

"Well, I didn't ask you," I replied. I bit my lip for a moment, and decided to just plunge in. "Sirius, what am I going to do?"

He frowned, still a bit annoyed by my vocabulary. "What are you going to do about what, Bellatrix?"

"About Rodolphus!" I exclaimed, and was as shocked as he appeared to be by the quality of desperation in my voice.

"Now just....calm down, Bellatrix," he commanded uneasily. "No need to get so worked up--"

"You don't understand," I pleaded. "None of you--none of you understand! I don't like him, not at all, but it's more than that. I could live with that!"

He was looking at me with greater concern than I had ever seen his face possess before, and, although that wasn't saying much, it gave me the confidence I needed to go on.

"He frightens me sometimes, Sirius!" There. It was out. I'd said it now. "When he talks about Voldemort, he gets this look in his eyes, this--this--" I cast about for words, but nothing came.

"Fanatical?" he offered.

"Yes!" I burst out frantically. "Fanatical! It's this fanatical, intense....fiery look, and it really scares me....And I'm so afraid--I'm so afraid that--"

He was closer to me now. "Say it."

My voice was much smaller when next I spoke. "I'm afraid I'll end up just like him."

"Bellatrix," he muttered, and his hand came out to touch my face. "You don't have to marry him."

"But I do," I argued. "Unless....unless I stop it before it's too late."

An idea struck me, a wretched, forbidden idea that had perhaps been lurking in the back of my mind since my arrival at Grimmauld Place. "Sirius." I took his hand with my own and pressed my face harder against it. "Sirius...."

"Yes?" he encouraged hoarsely.

"You and I....We could run away together." I dropped the suggestion between us as though I was planning nothing more than a midday walk. "Don't you see? We could marry each other. And then....then, we wouldn't have to do exactly as they wanted, but we wouldn't be disgraced either. Your mother--" I laughed a little to lighten the mood, "Your mother wouldn't wipe you off of the family tree."

He seemed to shocked to speak. Finally he stammered, "But--but we're cousins."

"So?" I dismissed the idea, while at the same time sliding my legs up onto the bed and crawling towards him. He withdrew his hand slowly from my cheek. "We're purebloods. We've all been inbred so bloody much it's a wonder we can even speak plainly."

I crept beneath the sheets with him. "You said I was beautiful." He had his back against the headboard now, and I was straddling him, one thigh on either side of his own. "Don't you think you could want me?"

There was no breath between us as our mouths met. His fingers knitted into my hair, which in turn fell around his shoulders, as my hands danced across him, feeling his heart beat in his chest.

His lips were against my neck, where my own blood pulsed madly, and I could feel his palms all over my body, my hips, my breasts. I rocked very slightly against him, insane with the heat, with the passion, with the possibilities that were opening up before me.

"Yes, Sirius," I murmured. "We'll run away together, and then we'll come back. We'll come back and they won't be able to force us to do anything, or to plan our lives when they've got no right--"

He was shoving me away, though I clung to him, and his face was no longer gentle, his voice no longer husky with affection. "That's it, isn't it?" he asked, eyes wide. "That's all this is about. No, Bellatrix. We don't love each other. We're not going to run off together, elope, and then come skulking back."

"But--" I began.

"No," he repeated, and he was furious. "Do you really think you'd win that way? That's not what you want, or what I want." He shook his head slowly. "The only way you'll win, Bellatrix, is to stand up to them. That's the only way you'll ever win."

I was shaking with rage, with horror at his words. "Are you saying," I whispered in a tremoring voice, "that you won't help me?"

"I'm saying that you have to help yourself," he said. "Isn't that what you said earlier? That you help yourself? Were you just saying that, Bellatrix, or is it true?"

I did not answer him. I did not even speak. I leapt from his bed and ran across the room, with him looking after me as I went. When I had left and closed the door quietly behind me, I walked slowly, numbly down the staircase and to the door that led either in or out of Grimmauld Place. I slipped out and watched the house fade behind me.

I stood there, in my bedclothes, with wisps of my hair whipping about my face, and looked at the sky. The very stars and moon seemed to mock me, seemed to carry some distant promise of freedom that I would never attain. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes against them. Then, letting my lips part, and wrapping my arms around myself, I drank in the bitter black.

***

How fast and yet how slow our lives had passed us. How easily it was to recall such memories, and yet how faded and decayed they really were.

"Poor Bellatrix," he had said, all those many years ago. "She only lives to serve."

Well, perhaps that was true, I thought to myself as we fought now, our wands zipping through the air as quick as lightning. Perhaps I had served all my life. Maybe I had followed the wishes of my parents, the interests of my husband, and the commands of the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Sirius stood in front of the veil.

Yes. I had done all of those things. But this--

I raised my wand.

--this was my own.