The Spellfull Sixties

Chapter Sixteen (pt.2): The allmighty Bellatrix

The steps leading to Knockturn Alley were frighteningly icy. Bellatrix hung tight to her mother's hand beneath a black robe, watching Walburga elegantly traverse the dangerous descent. Druella dug her nails between the bricks of a shop wall, giving her daughter the most assurance she could. Though that was hard when she felt as though the world was slipping out from beneath her feet. Walburga, unphased, led the two women past leaky pipes and bent drains, ignoring cracked windows and discarded bottles as they came to the door of the residence belonging to the 'Marvelous Madame Trelawney'. Bellatrix had been concerned when her mother had woken her in the middle of the night, but now she was even more so. She watched her Aunt knock at the already opened door, following the woman inside and up the crooked, weathered stairs to see the strangest room she had laid her eyes upon in her life. Its usual state of madness had been added to by accents of deer horns and dead holly. Across from them, on a sofa, sat Mrs Trelawney with her long hair tied back with a red seasonal ribbon. Her daughter, who Bellatrix gave a strange look, lingered in the corner like a festering bit of meat, sporting a set of very large spectacles.

"Returned, have we?", croaked Trelawney, dressed in a black mourning dress.

"Yes", stated Walburga stiffly, disapproving of the sight of a half-eaten cake on a plate beside the woman's crystal ball, "With the child".

Druella gripped her daughter's hand tighter. "Yes- Bellatrix". The sound of her name sent a shrill discomfort up her spine. "Come child- come-". Bellatrix looked up at her Aunt Walburga, before forcefully wriggling her hand from her mother's grasp. Druella stopped herself from snatching the girl again by the neck of her robe. Bellatrix stepped over rat droppings and bits of sweet rappers, wrinkling her nose at the smell of incense emanating from the woman's now open palm. She guided the girl's hand towards hers, flipping it over. Her brows raised and fell as she read the lines on her palms.

"I did not bring her here for you to read her palm", hissed Walburga, snatching Bellatrix's arm away so that she dangled like a prize catch.

Trelawney didn't move for a moment, before cracking her shoulders, inching her head up to Black. Walburga continued to look down at her through her nose. "Fine", she agreed, "I got nothing from her grubby little palm anyway".

"Grubby!", shrieked Bellatrix, "You should have a look at that thing over there to see grubby!". The young girl quivered.

"My daughter is very grubby", cackled Trelawney, "Go, girl- clean yourself. Don't you realise we are in the presence of royalty". The young Trelawney wasn't quite sure if her old mother was joking or being serious. She decided not to risk finding out and hurried away. Druella watched her slip through the only other door to the room, crashing into something. "Blind as a bat my girl is- but a great divinator she will become".

Trelawney patted her lap, then the blanketed sofa next to her, then the table. She looked around the room, guiding the black eyes with her until she chuckled at herself, reaching into the back of her tied hair. From it, she pulled out a pipe. It was very old and smelled terribly of rotten fruit. Bellatrix covered her nose.

"Seeing is believing", she stated vaguely, before filling the hole of the pipe with a strange powder from a bot by the crystal ball. She leaned towards Walburga. "If you may?".

Walburga brought out her wand, lighting the powder. It fizzed and smoked, seeping purple and blue. Druella edged towards Bellatrix. "What is that?".

"This is a tool used by me and my brethren", she spoke like an ancient wizard. She then inhaled deeply. Her eyes rolled back, and her cheeks fell in. She looked dead for a moment before a great burst of smoke broke from the end of the pipe, filling up the room. It swirled around the blacks, prompting Walburga and Druella to ready their wands, bringing Bellatrix between them. But the fruity mist did not attack. Instead, it lit up, showing four circles. Images arose in them, replaying a scene, a snippet of something. In the first was Bellatrix, not much older, shouting at her sister. Her sister took the hand of someone- a hand that was swiftly cut. The second showed Bellatrix in a white dress. A wedding- and a sea of masks in the crowd. But she seemed utterly unhappy. It made Druella falter, for the first time seeing herself in her daughter's face. Walburgas attention was inadvertently on the final two images, which showed Bellatrix bursting with magical power, standing beside a hooded man, his wand pointed at Hogwarts. Her face was distorted in the last image. Walburga reached for it.