Sometimes it hurts to even look at them. It's like looking at the sun - they are great, powerful and it feels like their presence is essential to keeping her alive. They burn so brightly, an eternal, glorious blaze that she wants to bask in forever...
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BELLATRIX'S POV
APRIL, 1962.
The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black is revered even amongst their pureblood peers for their unflinching sense of duty. They are a House united, loyal first and foremost to their bloodline.
There's been a tradition amongst their ilk spanning generations - naming babies after the stars, putting themselves above those whom were bound to the earth.
It's one of many things they take pride in - their traditions, their status, their money, their influence, and above all else, their bloodline. Their House had stood for eons, one of the oldest even among the sacred twenty-eight, becoming a pillar in pureblood society. The Blacks were the pinnacle of societal aspiration. They had it all - they had blood that mattered.
For millenium, blood itself has been at the very core of the magical world. In the old days, blood was frequently used in rituals and rites that have been lost to time, forgotten or forbidden by law. Those rituals, often sparked by cruelty and fuelled by malice, were some of the strongest ever known. They could bind souls together, defy death, and unleash unimaginable power upon the world, the likes of which hadn't been seen since.
Blood was the very thing that sustained all meaningful life - there was nothing, no power and no person that superseded that fact. It couldn't be undone. It had always been the case. The blood of a wizarding family was more than just important. Lineage was everything amongst the wealthy. Those who were fortunate enough to come into new money could never even hope to comprehend the power and influence the old families had.
For them, wealth comes in lineage, in blood. It's not made up solely of galleons and sickles. Wealth resides in heirlooms, in family portraits that whisper lethal advice, in alliances that have spanned decades and in old spell books that contained incantations that existed nowhere else. That was the power of blood.
Bellatrix Black had been born the eldest of three sisters. She was named for one of the brightest stars in the sky - a name that literally meant 'warrior.' She wore her name like armour, using her lineage to protect herself, to perpetually place herself on a pedestal. From the day she had been born, Bellatrix had been destined for two things. The first was to lie amongst the stars, and the second was war.
There was not a day in her life where she had been easy to handle. Her father, Cygnus Black, had initially been disappointed when his wife Druella birthed three girls. He had married Druella with the expectation that she would produce him a son who would become the future head of the House of Black. She came from good stock, a pureblood French family that had been in England for no more than a few generations, but boasted powerful political connections not just in the British Isles, but also all over Europe.
Druella Rosier had been the very image of perfect pureblood lady - she exuded class and elegance, eternally maintaining a polite facade. She was breathtaking, with fine platinum blonde hair that was always pinned up. Druella was a quiet kind of woman, keeping her thoughts to herself and staying out of the way of her husband. Despite all of her merits, all of her hushed charm and dazzling smiles, she had failed where it mattered. She hadn't provided Cygnus with an heir, and that was her shame to bear.
