The Other Black Girl

Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters,

Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love.

Birds in the boughs were awake; I listened to their chanting;

Each one sang to his love; only I was alone.

The Desolate City - by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Mayday

I like to freeze people in time, remember them in moments. Small seconds hoarded like treasure from the flood of history. Rabastan, the boy who I would just watch sometimes, watch the way his hair curled on the back of his neck as he sat in the Fudge's hall. I remember as the sun rose on Wulpurgis Day, bright light spilling through the curtains and waking me from my fitful sleep. Next to me Bella was still in her dress as she slept, the white flounces bunched in her hand as her hair spilled out onto the pillow like a dark halo. She smiled to herself slightly as I pulled on a cloak and tiptoed out into the Rosiers' hallway and past the scurrying house elves, the fur lining drawn over my face as I opened the heavy front door. I took a breath of the morning air, tasting the coolness of the dawn before the dew evaporated on the hem of my nightdress. For a second I just wanted to be frozen in the moment, for nothing to ever change but then I felt Rabastan's arm on my back and turned around to smile at him.

We stood for a moment, his hand finding its way to mine as we watched the sun rise over the trees. Although I knew I should ask about the night before something stopped me. Something that made me want to forget about the past and future, forget about the wedding and ball later, forget about the way Bella looked the night before, forget that we were the descendants of the most powerful lineages in the country. Forget that there was anything but this moment and us standing together, a girl and a boy watching the sun rise on a new world.

As we walked back to the house he stopped suddenly and turned to me.

'I've got something for you.' He opened my palm and dropped a necklace: a delicate locket hanging from a long silver chain. I flicked it open and saw a black and white Muggle picture of a man in a uniform smiling back at me. I flipped over the picture and read in a looping hand 'To Dearest Betty- love Ralph' in a different, woman's writing someone had pencilled in the dates 1897-1918.

'Where did you get this?' I asked shivering a little.

'I took it, for you.' He frowned slightly, his freckles creasing.

'But it was someone's! This Betty's.'

'A Muggle's- we obliviated her afterwards.' He kissed me suddenly before I could say anything more. I closed the locket not wanting to look at Ralph's smiling hopeful face and think about what had been done to give me this gift and kissed him back, screwing my eyes tight.

Rabastan would never offer me a gift from one of the Revels again; instead I would watch Bella unload her trophies. She would never take money, although she had hoarded it from any other means since she was nine.

'It's my running away stash,' she would say, tipping the piles of sickles back into a jewellery box and covering them with trains of pearls. 'The moment I turn sixteen I'm out of this prison, I'm going to Paris'

'But what will you do there?' Regulus would ask, always wanting to know the answer to everything as if it would help him understand the world.

'I'll stand on top of the Eiffel tower and I'll shout and shout and there won't be anyone to tell me to be a lady.'

'But what will you shout?'

'Cornelius Fudge is a pathetic pervert!' Bella would laugh and we would look at each other, knowing the Juliana's brother would rue the day his hand found its way to my sister's chest. But on the revels Bella would forget her plans of escape. Instead she hoarded lives, photo albums, love letters, birthday cards. She would pour over them, engrossed, look at gilt embossed frames of mothers holding babies, tracing their outlines with her fingers and then suddenly slamming them down and regaining her usual contempt, professing in the same way she did as we watched Odette's mother hug her at breakfast that people were strange.

I watched as she woke up, her face suddenly becoming alive, the bittersweet taste of Rabastan was on my lips and an odd dull forbidden pain of guilt in my stomach. I did not put the locket in my jewellery box - the pearls and diamonds made it look small and tarnished. Instead I placed it in my pocket, worrying that I might loose it and never be able to return it to its owner, whoever she was. I would have worn it for safekeeping and Rabastan but the family crest still encircled my neck.

************

'I'm in love.'

I turned around in surprise as Juliana and Evan exchanged vows silhouetted against the large glass window of the Rosier's hall. Juliana looked older suddenly as her father lifted off her veil, her mouth a perfectly painted rosebud oblivious to the speculations about the dowry, which always met the appearance of the bride's wedding tiara. Wondering why this had been announced at a wedding of all places.

I put my finger on my lip and gestured to our parents in front of us. Mother's hair was scooped up tightly with a brocade of rubies, a perfect glittering orb. When I was younger I had always been desperate to reach out and touch it, to watch the hair fall down in a golden waterfall like I had seen Narcissa's. But it had been like the rest of Mother, untouchable. Instead I, with Regulus who had been scuffing his feet along the floor and humming to himself, turned to face his elder brother.

'Love?!'

'Yes in love' Sirius whispered, rolling his eyes as it was the most obvious thing in the world.

'With who?'

'Lily Evans'

'Who?' I glanced around to see if the object of my cousin's affection was nearby. The conjured stone benches were packed with what looked like half the wizarding community and I could see James Potter nestled between his parents. He gave Sirius a manic wave, which was returned with an exchange of fervent hand gestures which left the two eleven year olds in hysterics and Regulus and I confused, before Sirius went on.

'My future wife, if she'll have me,' he said matter of factly.

'Is she here?'

'No her parents aren't wizards - don't say anything Meda, I don't care. She's my Lovely Rita and my Eleanor Rigby. '

'Didn't Potter beat you up because you called her a Mudblood?' I whispered, wondering at the fickleness of first year attachment and remembering Lily Evans as a small pouty red-head who lorded over the first years with a mixture of pre-pubesiant wills and a superior record collection.

'Yes, because he likes her too, but James and me have decided we'll share her.'

'Share her!'

'Like those people Uncle Alphard told us about. I know technically Blacks aren't meant to share but Lily's amazing, she has all the Beatles' albums!' Sirius gave me an imploring look.

'And won't Lily object to being shared?' I bit my lip to hide a smile and tried to instead mimic the horrified awestruck expression on Regulus's face at the thought of his brother being attracted to a Mudblood, wondering why I wasn't more distressed myself about this fact.

'That's what Reamus said,' Sirius said pensively. 'Perhaps we'll let her decide between us.'

I opened my mouth to reply but suddenly became conscious of Bella, who had been mysteriously quiet throughout Sirius's announcement of his love life, whispering fervently under her breath.

'Crucio, Crucio, CRUCIO!' She was concentrating harder than I had ever seen her, her eyes flashing with malice as she wielded her wand like a sword. I turned to where she was pointing it to see Fifi Delacour, the daughter of the French Minister for Magic hanging off Lucius's arm and chattering in rapid French. Bella and I exchanged significant glances, which communicated instantly what we were both thinking. We knew that Narcissa could more than control Lucius. Despite being the most sought after boy in the dungeons and the boy that every mother launched their daughters towards at parties, Lucius hadn't bothered with another girl other than our sister for more than five minutes ever since he first saw her hair flicker in the candlelight as she propped the sorting hat on her head. 'It's easy,' Narcissa told us as she straightened her hair with a flick of her wand. 'You just let them think they're in control: they're pretty pathetic really, poor dears.'

Still we had a reputation to keep up. 'Like prowling lionesses,' Sirius would tell me years later with a bitter laugh: 'Woe betide anyone who intruded on your territory - no wonder everyone was so scared of you.'

'We'll deal with her later.' I moved Bella's wand down as forcefully as I could; she resisted for a second and then slipped it into the folds of her dress.

'Where did you learn that?' I asked her wondering if she had seen father doing it to the house elves.

'Roldolphus.'

'Teach me!' Sirius and Regulus both exclaimed.

Bella shook her head. 'I don't teach Gryffindors and Babies,' she said primly with a rustle of her skirt. Her dress was flouncy black silk with a red sash, her hair falling down in glossy curls, which bounced vigorously if slightly untidily. Whilst the boys still looked jaded after the nights revels, Theo almost falling asleep over breakfast and causing Odette to giggle uncontrollably, Bella was as energetic as always. Behind us a dark figure gave a small laugh. I turned around to her and mouthed, 'Who is that?'

She shrugged and mouthed back, 'He was there last night - Evan brought him.'

'Family?' I inquired as a reflex action.

'No idea.'

'Can't be anyone important then.'

'Just because you can't do it!' Sirius grinned evilly, his interest wavering as usual as he looked around for new mischief.

'Perhaps I can, perhaps I'm just waiting for the optimum time,' Bella retorted.

'Yes, as if you've ever been able to wait for anything,' Sirius scoffed.

'You'd be surprised at what I can wait for, Sirius Black,' Bella said enigmatically; she empathised the surname so the sound echoed in my ears.

Sirius smirked and rolled his eyes. 'Scary,' he mouthed sarcastically at me but I turned away to watch the wedding procession. Not willing to get embroiled in the newfound tension, which seem to escalate between the two of them suddenly and without warning and then evaporate as though it had never occurred.

Regulus looked at me worriedly. Whilst his brother and my sister thrived on the tension my youngest cousin faltered at the world we thought we could so easily control. I would catch him sometimes staring awestruck as he watch the rest of us tease and embrace one another, swept away by the storm with nowhere to shelter from the family temperament. 'Did they find you on the doorstep Reggie?' Sirius would scoff nonchalantly at regular intervals, turning his brothers new changeling status into a running joke between him and Bella. Yet there was something inside me that wanted to desperately protect Regulus from his race to live up to his name. So I shook my head at Sirius before he could begin to tease his brother and changed the subject.

'But Sirius, the last time I saw you and Evans together you were asking her if since she'd slap you if you called her Mudblood then would carrot-top be alright!'

'She still slapped me though' Sirius smiled to himself and leaned back in a self satisfied way. Luckily Bella was too busy giving Lucius the evil eye to witness this display of assurance.

'Maybe if you and Potter didn't tease her than she'd like you more,' I said. Sirius gave me an astonished pitying look.

'But we tease her because we like her, that's the only reason boys tease girls. Merlin, Meda, I thought everyone knew that!' he said in the same voice that Narcissa had used to explain to a seven year old Bella that dressing up as a Dementor and jumping out at unsuspecting people at dinner parties was not polite.

'Oh,' I said, without thinking my eyes travelled to Alice De Winter and Frank Longbottom who were sitting together. Where there was usually a brown curly laughing head in between them, today there was a distinct lack of someone to wave madly across the corridors at me. Or distract Madam Pince by knocking over a bookshelf so I could sneak into the restricted section and then claim it was an accident and that he would never help me with my assignment and it was obviously my own fantasies and really Andie maybe you should get some pills for these weird fantasies because who knows what you might start imagining next. Or sit at the back of Defence against the Dark Arts and whisper in Alice De Winter's ear causing her to laugh and me to feel for the first time in my life that there was something I wanted which my blood would not give me. Realising what I was doing and where my thoughts were taking me I turned back to Sirius and said to him and myself:

'We don't love Mud...' I caught his frown. '...Muggleborns it's not done. You know the rules.'

Sirius frowned. 'We're Blacks,' he said. 'I thought rules didn't matter to us.'

***********************************

'I hate Balls,' Bella said, watching the dusk come from the windowsill.

Narcissa had decided that we would be fashionably late to the reception so as to 'make an entrance'. So we had congregated in the guest bedroom to help each other into our robes and admire the diamond earrings Narcissa had been given for her birthday. They fell like sparkling waves in a sea of gold.

'All that standing around looking ornamental and not being able to eat what you want or say what you want or dance when you want or...oh! Where is Sirius?' Bella stomped her foot and threw herself back on her bed with a melodramatic sigh, purposely crumpling her dress.

'Here - me and James are going to go and set fire to Snape's robes, do you want to come?' Sirius's head grinned around the doorway.

'I don't know,' Bella said, her voice suddenly prissier. 'That seems kind of immature. I expect I shall have to keep my dress robes neat and socialise.'

'Snape - didn't his Mother just have another affair?' asked Narcissa as she touched up her make-up.

'Oh, who cares?' Sirius and Bella chorused.

'He's a slimy little git,' Sirius added.

'His Father does our accounts and they're only second generation,' Bella said, wrinkling up her nose. 'These people hardly know how to cause a proper scandal.'

'So are you coming?'

'Perhaps. I'll see what Roldolphus is doing. I might dance with him if he doesn't tell me I'll tire myself out like other boys do.'

We watched them leave and heard a clatter in the hallway as Bella tripped over the Rosier's umbrella stand for the fifth time that day.

'Bellatrix! Why can't you act like a young lady and keep upright, must you trip over everything? You'll be the death of me!' Sirius's said in an eerie imitation of Mother. Bella said something and as they disappeared out of earshot I heard their laughter.

Narcissa and I looked at each other. It was always a certainty that Bella and Sirius would be laughing together; like the sun rising in the morning or the leaves falling off the trees, like Narcissa brushing our hair a hundred times before we slept or like Reggie being teased by Sirius. But we we're Blacks, never a certainty and silently we both wondered if when Bella saw Roldolphus in the ballroom and Sirius saw James they would still be laughing together. It was a bittersweet moment. Sometimes I wonder if life is just that, a series of bittersweet moments.

We walked downstairs to join the rest of the world where nothing seemed to be certain anymore.

************

My corset hurt, the dress was beautiful- a sweeping silk skirt that rustled as I walked and an embroidered bodice with tiny roses creeping up the sides. Yet it was still digging into me so tightly that I felt that I might faint any second. The Ball was glittering; the food endless, the girls' dresses glimmering in the candlelight. I could see Bella standing on a chair and laughing as she held up a champagne glass and twirled her wand casually in her hand, surrounded by the appreciative audience of Roldolphus, Evan and Theo. Narcissa had slipped her arm into Lucius's so that his hand rested protectively on the crook of her back. She was smiling as she made small talk with Juliana's elder brother Cornelius. I glanced around to see if mother was looking and slipped out into the serene garden exhaling as the cold air hit my face.

I felt breath on my back and turned around expecting to see Rabastan. Instead I met the invisible gaze of the dark figure who had laughed earlier. I smiled - because there seemed nothing else to do but smile - and extended a hand.

'I don't believe we've met, I'm...'

'The other Black girl, yes. I was wondering when I'd meet you.' His laugh sent ants dancing up my spine.

'You know who I am.'

'Of course. I've heard a lot about you, but then everyone knows the Black girls, don't they?' I gave no answer and he didn't wait for one before going on, 'Besides, Bella talked about you last night'.

'Bellatrix.' I didn't like how he said her name 'Only the Family call her Bella.'

'Female Warrior: she certainly lives up to her name.' His eyes were green under the hood yet they had reddish tints in the harvest moon. Their gaze was unsettling and I looked away as he spoke again his voice smooth and calculating. 'I noticed you weren't there to congratulate us at the end like your elder sister - why was that?'

I meet his gaze answering the question no one had yet asked. 'Because I don't see why you should be congratulated for revelling against people who can't defend themselves, it doesn't seem very heroic to me.'

'Yes,' he smiled. 'Yes...they said you were the clever one and you don't disappoint. So Miss Black - what would you have us do?'

'I don't know; use your energy to take on something real. Fight like men.' I said kicking the gravel. The darkness was beginning to set in. 'I should go back.' I turned to leave and then stopped, remembering my manners through my sudden irrational anger and turned back to him.

'I'm sorry, never asked you your name.'

He smiled and I felt the ants crawling again down my spine, the sudden blast of cold.

'Lord Voldemort, and don't worry Miss Black. I plan to fight.'

I looked into your eyes

And my world came tumbling down

You're the Devil in disguise

Madonna- Beautiful stranger