Don't Even Try It
Bella/Siri friendship.
Rated T for mild language.
xoxo
Sirius sighed in resignation as he traipsed up the steps of 12, Grimmauld Place, hauling his huge school trunk behind him with great difficulty. No one had been there to meet him at the train station when the Hogwarts' Express had arrived back at King's Cross. That wasn't such a big surprise, all things considered, but it had meant that Sirius had to make his own way home. If Bellatrix had still been in school, he could have begged Druella and Cygnus for a lift home, but she'd left Hogwarts last year, and Andromeda had gone home with a friend before he had the chance to find her.
Now, several hours later, an exhausted, starving, freezing cold Sirius was standing on the threshold of yet another inevitable, violent confrontation with his insane mother. There was an instant in which he contemplated dropping his trunk and just running. Then, tentatively, he reached out a hand and knocked on the door. It flew open instantly, revealing a glowering Kreacher.
"Master Sirius is home," the surly house elf said, in a manner that suggested he would have much preferred Sirius to have perished in mysterious circumstances within the grounds of Hogwarts. "How glad Kreacher is to see Master Sirius," Kreacher continued insincerely. Sirius nearly laughed at this, but settled for glaring at the irritating little creature.
"The feeling's mutual, Kreacher," he told the house elf, to which Kreacher bowed rather sarcastically.
"Kreacher will take Master Sirius's bags to his room."
Sirius frowned, glancing around the hallway warily as he stepped into the house. He was half-expecting Walburga to blast open one of the doors and hex him into next July. Kreacher caught this look, and sneered at Sirius.
"Mistress Black is busy at the moment. She requests that you do not leave the house before she has spoken with you." With this information conveyed to its recipient, Kreacher disapparated, leaving Sirius staring into empty space. He quickly collected himself.
What was his mother doing that was so important that she was not waiting on the doorstep to dole out his punishment? His mother's absence was definitely something worth thorough investigation. Surely Walburga – an arrogant, elitist Pureblood through and through – would not postpone tormenting him for the Sorting Hat's decision to place him in Gryffindor. Even Andromeda, kind and compassionate as she was, had been Sorted into Slytherin. He was an abomination, a failure. He had disgraced the Black family name.
Deciding he was going to skulk around the house for a while and try not to get caught by any of his family members, Sirius set off up the stairs.
"Sirius! Hey!"
Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Taking a deep breath in, Sirius turned to face his younger brother.
"Hey, Reggie."
"Mother's really angry with you!" Regulus crowed. "She says that if I do the same thing, she'll kill us both and then dismember our corpses…what's dismember mean? Is it like, to not remember something, or what?"
Sirius, who hadn't been listening properly, mumbled: "Uh, yeah, something like that."
"Oh, right. Well, mother's up there, so I wouldn't carry on going if I was you!" Regulus giggled childishly and ran off down the corridor. Sirius gritted his teeth in annoyance as he watched his brother go, and then he continued on up the stairs. The risk of being caught by Walburga was not enough to put him off finding out what she was doing.
On the upstairs landing, Sirius could distinctly hear his mother's voice coming from her bedroom. She sounded furious at someone, and despite the shivers that travelled down his spine upon hearing her wrath, Sirius couldn't help but creep along to the closed bedroom door to try to hear more.
"If you don't, you'll shame the entire family! How dare you be so disrespectful! Your mother only has your best interests at heart."
"I know," came a mumbled, choked voice that made Sirius start. Surely it couldn't be Bellatrix that his mother was screaming at? Bellatrix the goody-two-shoes, the one who was always most cherished and indulged, the one who was so wild and fiercely independent that nobody could hurt her? His aunt would never let his mother shout at Bella; she was far too protective of her eldest daughter.
"If you know, why do you persist on giving your parents such trouble?" Walburga demanded. "Your mother is at her wit's end! This is only what is expected of you, Bellatrix."
"I know," Bellatrix repeated pathetically. There were a few loud sniffs from the bedroom, and then Sirius's mother spoke again.
"You must do as your parents dictate, Bellatrix. And really: is there anything so wrong with marrying Rodolphus?"
Sirius gasped and took a step back, his head reeling. Rodolphus Lestrange? The…the Death Eater, rumour had it. Sirius may have only been eleven, but even he knew that Rodolphus Lestrange was a dreadful person – a supporter of Voldemort, the one who wished death and destruction upon all muggles and muggle-born witches and wizards. Bad as the Black family were, with their old-fashioned, discriminatory views, they had never openly endorsed Voldemort. Yet, a little voice inside his head added, rather cynically.
Bellatrix couldn't marry into the Lestrange family. He wouldn't let her.
He didn't have time to think about how he would stop the wedding from taking place, as the door opened before him and he came face-to-face with the towering, fearsome Walburga. She glanced at him derisively, and then said in a menacing tone of voice: "You and your cousin are going to spend the summer at your Uncle Alphard's. Do you hear me?"
Sirius gawped at her blankly for a few seconds, and then his brain kicked into gear. "Yes, Mother." He was tempted to salute her, but thought that might be taking the whole subservience thing a little too far. He didn't want more punishment – everyone knew that Alphard Black was absolutely bonkers. A whole summer with him could drive anyone to insanity.
Walburga nodded and swept past him haughtily. "Pack tonight. You will leave first thing tomorrow morning."
"Yes, Mother," Sirius said again, watching his mother glide down the main staircase, all the time hoping fervently that she would trip on a loose nail in the floorboards and fall headfirst down the stairs.
It was not until his mother was out of his line of sight that he realised that Bellatrix was crying.
Hesitantly, Sirius took a few steps into his parents' bedroom, unsure of what to think. He had never seen Bella cry, not even when she had been sent home from Hogwarts in her fourth year to nurse a broken arm and punctured lung from a rogue bludger. This was, to this day, possibly the bravest thing Sirius had ever encountered, and so to see his cousin sobbing now, at the age of nineteen, was disconcerting indeed.
"Bella…are you okay?" He asked cautiously. Bellatrix jumped: it seemed that she hadn't known he'd overheard the majority of her argument with his mother.
"Y-yes," she mumbled in the same weak tone that she had used to address Walburga earlier. Even if Sirius had not listened in on the dispute, the tiny-voiced answer would not have convinced him.
"That's not true, Bella." He told her, fixing her with what he hoped was a determined gaze. "Tell me."
There was a moment or two in which he could have sworn that he heard her heart beating – but that was, obviously, impossible – and then she turned to him, scrubbing at her dark eyes with the overlong sleeve of her robe. She regarded him carefully, and he held her stare with the blazing bravado of an eleven year-old already well-versed in defiance, even if not all of his unprecedented rebellion was his fault.
Suddenly, it struck him that Bellatrix might be angry at him for being Sorted into Gryffindor. She had always clung firmly to the beliefs and values of their family, and it was entirely possible that she had turned against him. His own mother had done so: what loyalty could he expect from a cousin he barely saw anymore?
Before Sirius could ask if Bellatrix hates him, she spoke. Her voice was still soft and thick with tears, but now there was a tinge of anger mingled with her sadness.
"I am to be made to marry Rodolphus Lestrange," she said. "There's no escaping it, I suppose…" For the first time, she looked up and caught his gaze. He prayed to all the gods he'd ever heard of that she could see how sorry he was. How much he wanted to stop her from hurting.
Once again, she managed to form words before he did. "How did you manage to get into Gryffindor, Siri?" It wasn't asked with malice or fury; it was just a question.
"I don't know. I…I met this boy. James Potter. I guess he's – he's the first real friend I've had who isn't a Black." His eyes filled with tears, silently begging her to understand; to reserve judgement. Bellatrix surprised him with a gentle smile.
"It's okay, you know," she told him. "It just means you have a better chance of getting away from this place than I ever did." There was the slightest hint of envy in her words, but it was directed more at the idea of breaking free than at Sirius himself. Staring at the salty tracks marking her cheeks, Sirius gasped at the idea that flew through his mind.
"We could run away together!" He exclaimed, excited at the thought of being a fugitive. "You can go wherever you like. You're of age, Bella!"
"Yes, but you aren't," Bellatrix pointed out. "Besides, you have to stay at Hogwarts, Sirius. It's the only way you'll learn enough to be able to do what you want with your life."
Sirius scowled. "But you could teach me magic."
"It's not just about magic, Siri. When you finish school, you'll understand that in a way I never did." There was an unmistakable bitterness in her eyes, but it seemed to be directed at herself, rather than Sirius.
"But, Bella –"
"– Don't even try it, okay?" Her voice was fierce now, more like the Bella that Sirius knew than the pale caricature of a woman he had been speaking to just a few minutes earlier. He pouted with a frustration that he could not keep up for long. Partly, it was true, because Bellatrix started laughing at him.
"Maybe we should start packing?" He suggested. She groaned, as if she'd forgotten that six weeks of summer holidays stretched ahead of them.
"Oh damn, we have to go to Alphard's!"
"Yeah. Is he really as crazy as everyone says?"
"Yes," Bellatrix told him. Sirius considered this for a couple of seconds.
"Perhaps we should run away after all," he said, deadpan. Bellatrix fixed him with a mock-reproachful glare.
"Don't even try it."
xoxo
I'm sorry if Bellatrix seems very OOC. Either attribute it to her not having been to Azkaban yet, or to my bad characterisation. Whichever you choose, please review!
As you've probably guessed, I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters used in this story.