Rhapsody | Bellatrix Black

The Invitation

When Bellatrix went back to Hogwarts, on the very first night, Annabella Avery was bragging that the Dark Lord had been to her parent's house over the Christmas holidays. Most of the other girls were clustered around her, hanging on every word, and Annabella was basking in the attention. Annabella was one of the girls Druella was desperate for Bellatrix to be friends with, but she didn't see the appeal nor the point. She didn't have any friends at Hogwarts, and she didn't need them. Something about the girl unnerved them, even if, at their age, they were not quite sure what it was. Perhaps it was how she looked at people through those heavily hooded eyes, as though they barely existed. Perhaps it was the indifferent, almost bored way she drifted through the halls. The other girls had long since taken to ignoring her.

But when Annabella began to brag about how the Dark Lord was a close friend of her family's, Bellatrix spoke up from her bed by the wall.

"That's not true."

Annabella's head jerked up, distracted from her story. The other girls peered over. It was rare for them to hear from Bellatrix. "Excuse me?"

"The Dark Lord wasn't at your parent's house for Christmas. He was at mine. Perhaps you'd know if your parents had been invited."

There was a sharp intake of breath from the others, and Annabella flushed an ugly red. "The Dark Lord was at my house, so there. I could see him coming in, he went and sat in the dining room."

"He spoke to me," Bellatrix said. She had their attention now, all of them.

Annabella snorted, tossing her dark ringlets. "As if he'd speak to you!"

"He did," she said, and perhaps it was the calm certainty in her voice that made them listen. "He said I have the makings of a Death Eater."

"Did he really, Bellatrix?" Livia Burke asked, her mouth open. The others were gaping too.

Annabella fought fruitlessly to regain control. "As if! Everybody knows the Dark Lord doesn't accept girls. Especially not greasy little idiots like you, Bellatrix Black. And your father is a nobody, especially since your aunt ran away with that blood traitor," she tittered. "The Dark Lord told my father that he's one of his most trusted Death Eaters."

Bellatrix didn't give two hoots about anything Annabella said about her. But hearing her father disrespected made her blood boil. She fougt the anger down, placating herself with the knowledge that a vain little idiot like Annabella would get her comeuppance. "Believe what you like," she said mildly. She took a book from her beside table, lying back against her pillows. But she wasn't reading it. She kept her eyes on the words, but she was listening to Annabella, who was attempting to resume her story.

"Father had everything done extra special for the Dark Lord. We had four turkeys, and lots and lots of visitors-"

She rattled on in the same way until it was bed time, and she was forced to abandon her tale. The lights were turned off and the dormitory was soon quiet, the girls settling into bed. Livia Burke sat on her bed beside Bellatrix's, but hesitated before she pulled the covers down. She bent over the gap between their beds, her white nightgown making her look almost like a ghost in the gloom.

"Was it really true, Bellatrix?" She whispered. "About the Dark Lord saying you could be a Death Eater?"

"I don't lie," Bellatrix whispered back, before sharply pulling her curtains closed.

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Livia sat beside Bellatrix in Charms the very next day, chattering nineteen to the dozen about nothing at all. Bellatrix wasn't stupid. She knew why the other girl was suddenly showing so much interest in her after months of indifference. But it was beneficial to have somebody on your side, and she nodded along to the chatter. January passed, and so did her birthday. Life at Hogwarts was frustratingly boring. It seemed to Bellatrix that it would be years before she could finally make her family proud.

It carried on in the same way for more than a year. Her life returned to its old drudgery, but Hogwarts was a little more bearable now. She had gathered the other Slytherin girls into a small group of friends, though Bellatrix considered the meaning of the word to be different than most other people. Annabella, Livia and the others were not confidantes - she held them at long distance, especially Annabella, who she knew was still deeply envious of her connection to the Dark Lord. Livia was more of a fawning idiot than ever, but she was useful, especially because she could invite her to her house for extended stays in the holidays and impress her mother.

She longed for the Dark Lord to acknowledge her once more, to send a letter, some note of recognition, but nothing happened. Her parents were disappointed too - they had clearly expected her to be considered some kind of protégée, or favourite, but the Dark Lord, on his rare visits to the house, never asked for Bellatrix nor acknowledged her parents again.

Two years had passed when two letters finally came for her at school. She was fourteen now, older and more wary, not sure whether the Christmas meeting had even been real or if she had just imagined it.

The first letter came in a slim white envelope with a blood red seal, her name written in slanting black ink. Her blood began to race when she saw the initials on the seal - L.V.

She waited until it was late to open it, in the privacy of her bed with the curtains shut, all the other girls asleep. The disappointment came in a rush - there was no long letter. It was just a small note on cream parchment. But when she read it, her nerves fizzed.

Miss Bellatrix Black is cordially invited to dinner at Lestrange Manor on Friday the 6th February at 9pm sharp.

It was the signature that really made her heart leap. Underneath the invitation, there was different, curling script in vicious red ink; invited at the request of Lord Voldemort.

Bellatrix stared at the signature for a long time. The first feeling that arose in her was triumphant - here, at last, was proof that it had happened, evidence she could show to the other girls, something she could rub in Annabella's face.

But this feeling soon vanished, replaced by logic. She knew she should not show the other girls. Though there was no insistence on the letter that she keep the appointment private, she knew it was implied. She would be showing immaturity and stupidity to show this off. The Dark Lord would see her as a little girl.

She took a breath and opened the second letter, on which she recognised her own family emblem. It was from her father.

The Dark Lord has personally requested your company, he wrote, and I gave my permission readily. This is it, Bellatrix, the moment we have been waiting for. Make our family proud.

Bellatrix held her letters in her lap, her mind racing.

I will, Father, she thought, a smile rising to her lips at last. I will.