A million little times

Chapter 17 - Say You're Fine I Know You Better Than That

Bellatrix stared at her sister as she stood in line to be sorted, the girl looked like she was about to throw up. It was only once she was sorted into Slytherin that Bellatrix felt able to relax.

Rita grinned at her "Making sure the family reputation stays intact?"

Bellatrix scowled at her. "That's not funny."

"Loosen up Trix."

Bellatrix smacked her gently on the shoulder. "Don't call me that."

"You got it Trix."

Rita dodged the smack that time.

"C'mon let's go check the suit of armor before curfew."

Bellatrix agreed and they got up.

"Want to come Zabini?"

Zabini shook her head. "That's okay I'm gonna start unpacking."

They began to walk towards the kitchens Rita chattering while Bellatrix mostly tuned her out, except for the occasional "mhhmm" or "Okay."

Eventually Rita stared at her unimpressed. "You aren't listening."

"Wow. Took you a while."

"What's up." Rita said, blue eyes looking up into Bellatrix's, eyebrows furrowed.

Bellatrix shrugged. "I've only been away from home for a couple hours. Takes me awhile to recover from them."

"Bad summer then?" Rita questioned.

"no worse than any other summer I've had. But yeah. Bad summer."

As they neared the kitchens Rita grabbed Bellatrix's hand and Bellatrix's eyes shot up in surprise.

If she recognized the look of surprise on Bellatrix's face Rita ignored it. "You have a whole term before you have to see them again. Focus on that."

Bellatrix gave her a small smile and pointed to the suit of armor.

"There it is."

"You grab the parchments from it." Rita instructed, "And I'll keep watch."

She let go of Bellatrix's hand and moved to the corner of the hallway, keeping an eye out.

Bellatrix lifted the helm of the suit of armor and pulled out a pile of loose sheets of parchment.

"Okay I got them."

"Let's go read them." Rita said excitedly as she headed towards the dungeons.

They walked through the common room, which was more full and loud than usual and quickly made their way down to the lower level of the girls dormitory.

"Hi girls!" Rita called out, causing Zabini and Carrow to wave from where they sat on their respective beds.

"Got all unpacked?"

Zabini nodded.

"Yeah, didn't bring as much this year. Mum was packing for me last year and made me bring so much stuff. I think I used maybe half of it."

The other girls nodded laughing and Bellatrix felt a familiar twist in her stomach. It happened a lot when other girls talked about their mothers. How their mothers braided their hair, or sang them to sleep, or packed their trunks for school for them. She knew anger well, but this was a different kind. A painful kind. She hated it.

Rita seemed to notice her sudden change in mood.

"Want to plan how to get back at Dumbledore?"

Bellatrix grinned. "Of course."

Both girls sat on the bed, Rita wearing her pointed glasses so she could write better.

"Okay. We could say that he and Minnie are secretly dating."

Bellatrix shook her head. "It's better if it's something that happened. Something that would genuinely put a dent in his reputation."

"Might not be something we can figure out tonight then."

Bellatrix shrugged. "I guess, but lets try and think of what we could do to find that information."

Rita's eyes gleamed. "He has a brother, I think. Works at Hogsmeade."

"How would we get to Hogsmeade?"

"Good point."

"Don't stress. We'll figure something else out."

"I guess so." Rita said, looking rather discouraged.

"Want me to braid your hair?"

"Sure, thanks." Bellatrix said, going to grab her hairbrush from her trunk.

As Rita plaited her hair Bellatrix realized that for some reason it felt nicer when Rita did her hair than anyone else did. She would probably let Rita braid her hair for hours. Maybe it was because she was gentler than her the house elves, She reasoned.

Bellatrix crawled into her own bed and closed the curtains, while Rita sat on her own bed waiting for sleep to come.

How would she be able to get into Hogsmeade as a second year. Sneaking out would be too difficult, McGonagall had a habit of pacing the grounds as a cat to try and catch young students trying to get out.

Wait. McGonagall. The Animagus. If she was able to transform into an animal, she could get so much information on people. Not just Dumbledore, anyone she wanted to know things about. I mean sure it would be hard, but she was a good witch.

Sleep came easy after that as she told herself she would wake up as soon as the library opened to find some books on the process.