Beyond All We Do Here

In the morning she sings.

Syllables so sharp and sweet, they cut her tongue like a bird made of broken glass.

They would laugh if they saw her.

Proud Bellatrix Lestrange.

So far fallen.

(at the moment, the cold of the stone cell pressed against her cheek, she cannot recall what they is, or who Bellatrix Lestrange may be, or why she is proud)

She never sang when she was young, she thought it was beneath her.

Narcissa would trill like a lark, and everyone would go on, beautiful, darling they would say.

She had always been stubborn in her silences.

And whenever her obstinacy got her in trouble, (which it often did, she was right and the world was wrong and she'd be damned if she backed down) her little sisters would console her.

She was the old one, the wise one, the one they looked up to.

('But Bella,' she said, 'you promised', but Bellatrix had to go and see Rudolphus and didn't have the time to play stupid games)

She wonders why they aren't here to comfort her now.

In the shadows, white ankles streaked with grime and crossed in some parody of her little sister's half remember demure, she sings.

Each sound something special and sacred and rare.

Ave Adra Ked Avra.

(repeated like a mantra so many times she cannot remember what it means or why it matters)

The song tastes green, like grass, like the air in the slytherin dorms, and a little bit like blood.

She practices, because she is an instrument and must stay in tune if she is to play the music.

She is joined by a chorus each morning.

(the voices that whisper to her in the dark of the night)

And she is not afraid because she once said, (long ago) that only the cowardly and foolish and weak feared who they were and what they may do.

Every voice is her.

Except one.

And she is glad he is with her.

She feels the touch of her master's hand in every chill in the dark.

And it is very cold in Azkaban; the master's hands are everywhere, a multitude, caressing, consoling, whispering the rewards of her loyalty.

She does not love the music because she cannot, anymore than a violin could.

Because she does not, hooded specters do not come and take it and hide it in their robes, with memories of dark eyed girls, masquerades, the feeling of wood under her palm, first kisses, the way the air tastes after a storm.

She does not love him because she cannot; he is the hand that plays her.

But in the long prison nights she wonders if he is what makes Bellatrix proud.

And she is, very proud.

She sits in her cell with her shoulders squared and her head raised and her eyes open.

She lets the world know that Blacks are not so easily broken.

And she sings, so that when she sees sun and feels wind,

(so distant now, she doesn't know what they feel like)

She will be ready and she will serve.