The beginning of the end: Bellatrix Black

Nights of darkness

Tuesday, July 2, 1969

The years passed briefly, without a notice - First, Second, Third, Fourth... and nothing happened. Everything important was slipping from my fingers, or at least so it seemed.

Mother hadn't changed one bit of her spiteful heart, though and I expected nothing less from her. She would do anything to sip the all that she had to turn me into a model of herself - no, not a model - a better version.

She just wanted to prove to herself that she was able to raise one child the right way. By her standards, she had failed on raising Andromeda. Andromeda had distanced herself from our family. Even from her favorite, little sister Cissy.

She spent more time out, with who knows who. Mum though it was Muggles or Muggle-born wizards. I, I had no idea anymore.

Sometimes at night, I would just look out of my window, to the stars and just wander in my mind. What a weird place to visit.

I would think about Tom and how he made me a promise. I would think about whether he would keep that promise. He swore on his blood, of course he would keep it. And then I would think about his cunning smile and bright eyes and I would silently laugh as I dreamed of things that would never happen.

I thought about Andromeda. She was different now. She looked braver, wilder, unstoppable. Mother made no comments on it, she knew it was all out of her reach.

Andromeda hated our family with her guts. She hated us for the way we hated Muggleborns. She was right to do so. Sometimes I hated myself for it as well. I couldn't help it. At some part of my existence Mother had rooted her beliefs into my mind.

Sometimes I thought and knew how wrong it was. Yet this part of me never changed.

Other nights, when the moon was full and bright on the nightsky, I would be able to see what was left of my Secret Garden. My Delphiniums. How they all burned. By my own hand. And then tears would fall down my face. I would repeat to myself that it wasn't my fault. It wasn't.

I remembered for a second the memory Mother's terrible words. How Mother said that wasn't worth even a knut. How I couldn't perform a simple jinx, without putting too much emotion. And Andromeda hid her face in her hair so that she didn't take part in this disaster-to-be.

How a tear fell down Cissy's fair skin. How she shouted out to Mother to protect me. How Mother pushed her to the floor and Cissy's nose started bleeding. And Mother screamed in Cissy's face with all the voice she had, to learn manners, to behave, to pick her battles, to stop fighting someone else's wars. To let the weak ones protect themselves alone.

And then the anger sparkling inside me like fireworks in the cold. How I insulted Mother, how I cursed at her, how I told her truth as I saw it. And then she slapped me. I ran away.

To my Heaven on Earth, my safehouse. Why couldn't I control my temper? Maybe now I could be taking care of my Delphiniums, wasn't it for my emotions.

I wanted to scream and shout at the nothingness. But who cares? My Delphiniums aren't here. I am just lucky that I am here and they aren't. Maybe it should have been the other way round.

I took out the loose board from the floor and there were the only Delphinium seeds I managed to save. Could I?

I threw them away.

I closed my eyes. I wouldn't cry. Not now, not ever. I repeated it in my head till madness.

Mother tried to make a puppet but she created something else.

I could just run away. This is what cowards do. Mother would have been proud of herself, for being right about me. How scared and filled with emotions I was. I could.

How is that some people are born with all the choices for them to make when others have to disguise the catastrophe, they are slowly drowning in. Someone who was born with all the choices and someone who never even thought about owning something so precious.

The only real choice that I could make was on The Sorting Ceremony. And even then the choice was made, wasn't it?

Maybe if I was put in Ravenclaw everything would be different, I thought. So my imagination went wild here. All those endless possibilities. Gone to hell.

So I looked out one last time through the window and I saw my sister Andromeda for the last time in my life, running away.

I broke that mantra, which kept me together every night. I cried with all the tears I had. Until I fell asleep and even in my dream I was drowning. Only his was the voice that kept me alive and breathing. His.