An Insider's View

Disclaimer: I own nothing, absolutely nothing; everything in this story was somebody else's idea, anything that looks even vaguely new must have been by someone else, I don't get ideas, I probably stole this disclaimer from someone, so I disclaim that to.

Bellatrix Black sat, motionless, in the padded luxury of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Or at least what remained of it, after all the alterations that had been made. The house had passed to her upon the death of her worthless cousin. The Black estate had always been entailed to the nearest blood relation, and that entailment had been long since guaranteed completely, with no concern given to the actions of the prospective inheritors, as a personal favour from the Minister for Magic.

Bellatrix sighed; that had been long ago, when proper regard was given to the purity of blood, and proper respect shown to those who possessed it. It had been before so many of the old wizarding families had abandoned their roots and their heritage so far as to sully their ancient lineage with non-magical blood.

Bile rose in her throat at the thought of it. She could not conceive of how they could bring themselves to merge their lives with the descendants of those who had persecuted and murdered their forbears. Bella suspected that it was because the families had omitted the proper education. It could be hard on a child certainly (she was still of the opinion that it was the reason for MacNair's fragile grip on reality) but it was undeniably one of the most important parts of a child's development and understanding of the world.

Bellatrix remembered her initiation, as she called it, because that's what it really was, an introduction to a more adult state of mind, before it she had seen the world through a child's eyes, naïve, inexperienced and uncomprehending of the way things were and how they should be, afterwards she had been able to understand certain necessities of life that had seemed insane before.

She had been eleven years old, and had received her Hogwarts letter only a month before. Bella had come in from the garden at the end of a July afternoon to find her parents, her grandparents and even her aunt and uncle sitting in the spacious living room all wearing sombre expressions. Her grandmother had explained to her, slowly, that she was to be shown something extremely important. Her aunt handed her a book, no, a diary. It was extremely old and the dark leather had worn away in places, but other than that it was in perfect condition. She flicked through it quickly and saw that rather than one hand writing continuously, there were several different styles of writing, one following another. She stopped randomly at a page and suddenly felt herself being pulled forwards almost sucked into the brown, curling pages.

Bella blinked and stared around herself. Instead of the dying light of a warm summer afternoon, she was in bright, morning sunlight. She shivered as a sudden winter breeze swept past. She was standing in a platform of some sort, built on a pile of roughly thrown together logs and bales of hay and was leaning against a pole. She tried to pull away from it but found that her wrists were tied behind her and around the pole.

A crowd was gathered around her, all of them wearing strange clothes, and some of them looked as if they hadn't washed for weeks. She shouted at them to untie her, but they just laughed and jeered at her.

She was on fire! They had set her on fire!

She struggled against the knots and screamed at the crowd to untie her, they just stood and jeered at her. Men, women, two boys sitting on an upturned cart sharing an apple, calmly waiting for her to be burnt alive. The flames were waist high now, her dress was on fire, and she could feel her hair singing and the flames, strangely cold against her body. She heard herself screaming at them, begging, pleading for mercy and release; beseeching them with no response. She saw the flames rise before her eyes.

And she was back in her living room, screaming with tears rolling down her face and her mother's arms enfolding her and whispering that it was all right, that it was over.

The events after that were hazy, dulled by comparison with the sharply focused images from the diary. She remembered being comforted by her mother.

Then later, she recalled her aunt and grandmother explaining how lucky she was to have two magical parents; and that people who weren't as gifted would be jealous of her, and would try to work against her. They told her that what she had witnessed was the memory of one of her ancestors, when the Muggles had found out she was magical. Most importantly she remembered understanding that Muggles could never understand magic, they would only lash out at it, as they had in the memory she'd shared; and that anyone with a connection to Muggles was a potential threat, a potential return to a nightmare of smoke and fire on a cold winter's morning.

It had been those first intermarriages between magician and muggle that had created the most heinous abomination of all, so-called muggleborn wizards, as if these magical mongrels could ever be the equals of witches and wizards of pure magical stock. No matter how talented their magical parent was or how hard they tried, there was no possible way they could escape the inherent taint of their Muggle ancestors.

Bellatrix smiled wryly; at times she almost pitied their plight. It must be difficult to know that you are fundamentally flawed she mused. Bellatrix did not count herself as an extremist; she was scornful of MacNair and those who held his views that all half bloods and muggleborns had to be exterminated. She was pragmatic enough to understand that there weren't enough pure bloods to sustain a civilization. The only possible solution was to allow them to remain in the magical society, some of them anyway. There would, of course, have to be conditions.

First of all, and most importantly they would have to sever all links with the non-magical world. Then, any of them holding high office would have to resign it in favour of the pure blooded wizards who were eminently better qualified to perform their duties. Any who refused these conditions would have to be treated like muggleborns. Obviously they couldn't be killed; disposing of that amount of bodies would be extremely difficult. With the extra space from the dramatic population reduction, Scotland could be given over to the Giants and Wales to the Dementors. The muggleborns and half bloods who refused the terms would have their wands confiscated and half of them would be sent to the Dementors and half to the Giants. There would be enough of them for each party to have a permanent breeding stock, which would keep them docile until such time when and if they also had to be removed.

Bella sank back into the luxuriously upholstered armchair. Then, she thought, things would finally resume their natural order; and life would be, if not perfect, then close enough.