(UPDATE – 8/22/09: I went back today and edited a few bits here and there. It's still pretty much the same, but you might want to read (and review) it again, just in case. (Yeah, you don't really need to... I just enjoy people reading (and reviewing) my stories. Fulfil my wishes?)
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Disclaimer – If I owned it, it wouldn't be called fanfiction, now, would it?
A/N – The ages were figured out mathematically. Bella was born in 1951, Sirius born in either 1959 or 1960. At sixteen, Sirius left 12 Grimmauld Place, when Bellatrix would have been twenty-four. I'm just going to say that for now, Bella has not yet married Rodolphus Lestrange, but has her own flat. Then, Bella kills Sirius twenty-one years later, when he's thirty-seven, and she's forty-five. I think that's about it, so... Enjoyyy!
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Choices
By Drishti Choudhury
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Knock, knock!
Bellatrix Black groggily walked down the stairs to open the door, clutching her dressing gown close around her. She quickly checked the large grandfather clock by the door, 3:27 it read.
"Whoever it is had better have a bloody good reason for coming," she thought, rubbing her eyes. She tied the string of her gown, and pulled the door of her small flat open. A tall, black-haired boy slipped in, his hair and clothes completely soaked.
Startled, yet suspicious, Bella drew her wand from her sleeve, brandishing it at her "visitor". He raised his hands, indicating that he meant no harm.
"Whoa, Bella! Put the wand down," he said. "It's just me."
"Sirius?" asked Bellatrix weakly, lowering her wand slightly, though still not putting it away. "What are you doing here? If Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion find out, we're both going to be-"
"I ran away," Sirius said, abruptly ending Bellatrix's sentence. "I couldn't take it anymore."
"You – you ran away?"
"It was suffocating me, Bella," he answered. "The pureblood beliefs. I thought I would go mad, Bella."
"I always knew you'd be a traitor," she sneered. "Ending up in Gryffindor of all places."
"Bella, please," he whispered. "I need you. I don't know where Dromeda has gone-"
"Andromeda?" asked Bellatrix, her voice raising. "Why would you go to Andromeda's place? Planning to befriend the Mudblood? Babysit her little brat for her? Create a group for the traitors?" She was nearly shouting now.
"Please, Trixie," he said, using the name which he had called her by when they were children.
"Don't call me Trixie!" she shrieked.
"Don't do it, Bella," he pleaded. "Don't join him. He will kill everybody you care about, Bella."
"And who is that?" she asked. "Who do I care about? There is nobody in this world that I truly care about."
"You do, Bella," he replied. "I may have run away, just like Dromeda, but we're still your family. You still love us."
"Not at all," she said. "I could kill you right here, right now, and I wouldn't feel a thing."
"Kill me then," he shot back. "Kill me now, save me from having it done by Voldemort."
"Don't say his name," she hissed. "You aren't worthy enough to say the name of the Dark Lord." Sirius shuddered; he hated the way she spoke his name, hated the way her love and devotion showed in her stormy grey eyes. "He is my master now. I obey his orders, and his orders only." She rolled up the left sleeve of her dressing gown, exposing her pale skin. Sirius blanched; tattooed on her arm was a bright green mark.
"The Dark Mark," he whispered. "Bella, no. You're one of his – you're a-"
"I'm a Death Eater," she finished, rolling her sleeve back down.
"You can't do this," he said.
"You cannot tell me what to do, Sirius," she snarled. "This is my choice. You may have chosen your path as a Mudblood-loving fool, no better than Arthur Weasley. This is my choice," she repeated. "This is who I want to be. This is my future. The Dark Lord is my master."
"It's the wrong path, Bella," he said firmly.
"How will we know which path is right until we take it?" she countered.
"Because," Sirius answered. "Your path is covered with poisonous snakes. It may get you across, but there's no way to know when one will bite you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she spat.
"Slytherins," he said simply. "You're all Slytherins. One mistake, Bella, and he'll kill you. You can't take that risk."
"And he won't kill those who oppose him?" asked Bellatrix. "He'll never have a chance to kill me, Sirius. I won't make mistakes."
"What about Reg?" asked Sirius weakly. "He's trying to join, too. Bella, he'll be killed. You can't let Regulus join, Bella. You need to be there for him, you need to help him, now that I'm gone. He's too young, too innocent. He can't be one of... them. You can't do this."
"Who are you to tell me what to do? You want me to clean up a mess you created?" sneered Bellatrix. "Just because you got cold feet, and ran away, means I have to change myself, and take your place? No, Sirius. Just because you're gone, I won't become his loving, elder sister. If he wants to join the Dark Lord, by all means, let him; I'll gladly welcome him."
"You can't do this," he repeated. "Please, Bellatrix. I'm begging you." He got down on his knees. "Please." Bellatrix delivered a swift kick to his front, and he doubled over, clutching his stomach. He scrambled to his feet quickly.
"What was that for?" he wheezed.
"You are nothing but a traitor, now," Bellatrix answered coldly. She pointed her wand at his throat. "Now leave, before I really do hurt you." Sirius drew his own wand.
"I'm not afraid to fight you, Trixie," he laughed, mockery in his eyes. He took a glance into Bellatrix's own eyes; all he saw was fire and hatred.
"Crucio!" she screeched. Sirius ducked, the curse destroying a small side table behind him.
"You know you always were my least favorite cousin," he taunted, sending several jinxes her way. Two she deflected with a nonverbal shield charm, a third narrowly missing her head.
"The feeling's mutual," she snarled, leaping to her left as Sirius attempted to Stun her.
"Being a Marauder hasn't helped you duelling skills much, now, has it?" she asked, mock-pitifully. "I didn't think so, what with the company you keep. Pettigrew, Sirius? Really?"
"Peter- is a – very –loyal person!" said Sirius, dodging Bellatrix's curses.
"Should have been a Hufflepuff, then," she replied, wrinkling her nose at the thought of a Hufflepuff. They were probably filled with the most duffers and Mudbloods in the school. She had long since graduated Hogwarts, but she still remembered the seemingly-stupid Hufflepuffs, frowned upon by most of the school.
"Levicorpus!" thought Sirius, causing his cousin to fly up into the air, dangling by her ankle, the hem of her nightgown slipping rapidly, exposing her black knickers. "I learned that one from James, another Marauder. I expect Snivelly's told you about it; the aspiring little Death Eater he is."
"Let me the bloody hell down, you prat!" she shouted, seeing her wand lying on the ground below her. "I'm your bloody cousin!" Sirius raised an eyebrow.
"We weren't cousins when you were trying to Crucio me, were we?" he asked. "Just this once, I will let you down. But first I want to have some fun. I won't hurt you," he said, seeing the fear in her eyes, looking vulnerable for the first time. It reminded Sirius that she too was human, as unlikely as it seemed.
"Rictusempra!" he said, calmly pointing his wand at her. He grinned as Bella exploded in giggles, desperately clawing at her stomach as if it would stop the tickling sensation.
"Depulso!" Bellatrix's wand flew to the other side of the room, sliding under a table.
"Finite Incantum. Furnunculus." Bellatrix's giggles ceased, as boils broke out all over her body; arms, face, legs, boils everywhere.
"I'm letting you down now, Bella," said Sirius, mentally saying, "Liberacorpus." Bella dropped to the ground, quickly standing up, her face cherry red. She was glaring daggers at him, and if looks could kill, he'd have been dead within a second; but Sirius didn't care. He walked towards the door, turning back only to say, "We are family, Bellatrix, whether you like it or not."
Bellatrix shrieked, then dove for her wand, snatching it up, and preparing to curse Sirius, but by the time she had retrieved her wand, Sirius was gone.
"Bloody Apparation," she grumbled. "Should've used magic to get the damn wand. We're family, he says. Bloody wanker."
The last thing she thinks before collapsing back in her bed is his name, "Sirius..."
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Twenty-one years later, as she sees Sirius, her cousin Sirius, fall through the cursed veil in the Department of Mysteries, his parting words are all she can think of.
"We are family, Bellatrix, whether you like it or not."
It rings through her ears as she flees the building with her master. She remembers the whoop of joy she gave to cover the silent battle raging inside of her. Her brain was saying that Sirius was nothing but a traitor; and most certainly not a part of her family at any rate. But her heart was contradicting it forcefully, reminding her of their similarities, and the feeling Bella kept deep within her; the feelings that stirred as she saw him fall through the curtain. She pushes thoughts like these away, concentrating on the prophecy.
Hours later, sheltered in a bedroom at Malfoy Manor, her sister's home, she sheds silent tears, remembering the cousin she once had.
She remembers how Sirius had once been, how he had once acted. He with all his arrogance, bravery, courage, determination, enthusiasm, friendliness, gallivanting, hot-headedness, instincts, jokes-
"Stop," she thought. "You'll end up reciting the entire alphabet the rate you're going. Why do you care about the filthy blood-traitor anyway?"
"Because," she realised with a jolt, "he's family."
Going back to her list of adjectives about Sirius, she realised something she had previously overlooked.
"Sirius and I," she thought, going to look at herself in a floor-length mirror by the window, "we are the same people. Two of the very same. The only difference… Our choices. Sirius and I are the same people, who walked on two different paths. Our paths crossed today, and only one of us could pass. This time, it was me. Next time, who knows? It may not be me who continues walking."
A single tear escaped from her heavily mascara-ed eyes...
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Whoop! I actually finished this in less than a day. Most oneshots take me ages to write. Anyway, I hope you guys liked this. Don't forget to drop a review in on your way out!
-Drishti Choudhury
P.S. Why are you reading this? Go and review the story!