Toujours Pur
By Helenia Rowan
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, places, etc. do not belong to us, we are co-authoring this story. Read this and memorize it, we are only posting this disclaimer once. Ms. Rowling can sue us if she is not satisfied, but we have not sued her for making unrealistic boundaries between black and white, good and evil, light and dark. We are quite anticipatory of that shouting match if it comes to it. Leave your comments, or don't, we write for our own pleasure, not your approval. Feel free to flame, there is no roasting marshmallows without a bit of fire.
-Helenia Rowan-
I: Letters
Bellatrix Black was a pureblood born to privilige, brought up from a screaming babe in arms to an aristocratic shadow with fire in her eyes and darkness in her soul. Magic flowed through her veins, and it was obvious from a young age that once she'd been trained up a bit, she would really be something. All her life, Bellatrix had waited for that certain letter, waited with her breath held so long, her lips turned blue.
The sunny afternoon on which the letter arrived should have been the best of her life, but it wasn't.
The owl had dropped it at the threshold, and a house-elf (who's name didn't matter) left it in the little glass dish on the hall table. Bellatrix was up first, so she went to get it. It was the only thing in the dish, with the etchings of seven little serpents around the rim. She turned it over in her hand, as though it might not be real.
She remembered the spring day, seven years ago, when her favorite sister, Narcissa, was born. Nothing special really, just one infant, no different from others, but it would be Druella Rosier's last. Druella said, weeping bitterly into the shoulder of Mrs. Emelyne Malfoy's lace dress, "I'm finished. I'll never give him a son and… Oh God, what's he going to do?", he being Cygnus Black, her husband and patriarch of the Black family. The exchange meant nothing to Bellatrix then, and hadn't for two years after. She'd finally put two-and-two together when her mother covertly laid that little lump of unmoving, uncaring flesh in the fire, and she wept until it was nothing but ash there.
Bellatrix had used her mother's distraction that day to examine her sister. The baby lay small and still in the little cradle, and Bellatrix leaned forward on her toes to see more details. Was the baby dead? No. There was her chest, rising and falling evenly, so she was asleep then. And she really was tiny, much smaller than Andromeda had been. And so, a four-year-old girl decided that she was going to take over the world, and when the baby grew up, there'd be no more scars made by lashing whips of energy flowing from wandtips, no more rules, no more looking at Druella Rosier's smug, disdainful pig-face.
And now, Bellatrix thought, she'd have to leave the baby, who had since then grown to be her favorite sister and partner-in-crime, alone with Andromeda and when Andromeda left, it would just be Narcissa and their mother alone.
The question was, what could be done? She could try and hide the letter, but eventually, someone would find it; besides, if whoever had sent the letters from Hogwarts thought they weren't being received, more would come. No, that was not the way to go.
Narcissa was slim and petite, maybe she could fit in her sister's trunk? But that would be cruel, cramping her in there for hours on end while Bellatrix sat serenely in the train compartment.
There was nothing for it, and now everyone was getting up.
Bellatrix went to her bedroom and pulled one of Mother's favorite dresses about her thin frame, brushing and braiding her thick ebony hair, pulling it up into the neat little knot Father preferred she wear. She rubbed in a bit of the perfume she'd stolen from Mother, touched the bare silver chain at her neck for luck, and floated down the stairs, drifting serenely as though she were a princess in a castle, as happy as you please.
She entered the breakfast room to see Narcissa already seated at the mahogany table. Bellatrix could hear her mother ordering house-elves about in the kitchen, while Cygnus and Andromeda had yet to show themselves.
"Good morning." Bellatrix greeted her sister, sitting in a chair opposite and hiding the letter under the table, slightly in the folds of her skirt.
Narcissa turned up her lips in a small smile, wincing as she shifted slightly.
Bellatrix clenched her hands with ferocious rage. He would pay. She imagined her father's lifeless body, crimson blood staining everything he held dear; his alcohol, his money, and his next shag. A cold,ugly smirk twisted her features as she pictured her father choking to death on his beloved vodka, excess streaming from his mouth as he gurgled it, coughed around it, silently cursed her name, died knowing that there'd been special poison there, direct from his daughters.
"Where?" was all she asked, pointing at Narcissa, trying to control her expression. In reassurring someone, it was best not to frighten them.
The seven-year-old girl shook her head, pointing to where Druella, Cygnus and Andromeda were converging in the doorway, Druella from the kitchen and the other two from upstairs. Bellatrix gave Narcissa a look that clearly read 'this isn't over', before flashing the rest of her family a frigid smile.
"Good morning Mother, good morning Father."
"Good morning, Bellatrix," Cygnus intoned boredly. Druella ignored her eldest daughter, instead glaring at Narcissa. With a swish and flick of her wand, Druella forced Narcissa's long blonde tresses into a tight bun, and with a muttered charm, conjured a bit of thin golden cord to tie it there. Narcissa knew better than to complain, but as everyone sat down at the table, Bellatrix glimpsed her sister pouring disillusioned salt into their mother's tea. She smiled, almost imperceptably, but quickly hid the expression by contemplating her own tea, and her father's which was always doctored with a bit of the vodka the house-elves knew must always be on the table.
As the house-elves laid out fruit and breakfast pastries, Druella pinned Bellatrix with her ice-blue gaze.
"Your Hogwarts letter should have arrived today," Cygnus said from the head of the table, cutting off whatever his wife was going to say and leaving her with mouth open to shape the words and hands clenched beneath the table.
"Yes, Father," Bellatrix replied morosely, laying the letter, and her palms, flat on the tabletop, staring her father down.
"But I don't want to go," she added defiantly, glaring daggers at her parentts, all resignation gone from her face and her voice. She was all fight now: her eyes glowed with it, her shoulders were tense with it and she rested just the balls of her feet on the floor, as though she were about to spring on him.
Cygnus set down his silver fork, all emotions deleting themselves from his face, his eyes two dark stones in his head. Druella's face crumpled into an expression of shocked anger and Andromeda, still half-asleep, looked wide-eyed with fear at her sister. She didn't want to look toward Narcissa, it was better she didn't know what would be seen there.
"Bellatrix, darling," Druella said in her cold tinkle of a voice, "come with me, dear. Your father and I would like a word."
Bellatrix rose from the table, flashing Narcissa a small smile, as if to say that it was all going to turn out all right and she'd fight this time. But she'd promised herself that every time, and every time she'd caved before the unstopable force that was the wand of Cygnus Black. (Druella liked to watch, and to echo the curses her husband threw at her.)
Stepping out into the hall, Bellatrix followed at a safe distance behind her mother and her torturer. She didn't need to look to see where they were going. Her feet had trodden the path to their destination many a time, and her mind tried to block everything out. As they reached the drawing room, Bellatrix had no time to blink, before a silent Reducto shattered the bones in her right arm. She bit her lip but a whimper escaped.
"YOU KNOW BETTER THAN TO DEFY ME AND IN PUBLIC?" Cygnus roared, pacing before his daughter. "YOU, of all people, know my stance on disobedient women."
Spittle flew from his lips as Cygnus raged, back-handing his daughter across the face. Bellatrix was vaguely aware of Druella slamming the oak door as she fell to the floor, but no locking charm was heard.
"You are attending Hogwarts. And tomorrow, Bellatrix," Druella intoned icily, "we're going to Diagon Alley and buying your things. And while we're there, you're going to be polite and you're going to smile nicely and you will only speak when spoken to as a woman should."
Bellatrix glared through her paiin, defiance still evident on her face.
"No," she hissed, voice saturated with venomous hatred.
The kick threw Bellatrix across the polished marble floor. Stars swam in her vision as her head collided with a stone pillar.
"Enough of this nonsense," Cygnus roared, "Crucio!"
Needles of acidic fire scorched throughout Bellatrix's supine form. She screamed, bloodcurdling shrieks of agony echoing throughout the drawing room. He was connected to the Minister himself, he could do this but… Oh God! did this hurt! After what felt like eternity, the curse was lifted. Tremors racked her body and the salty evidence of her weakness stained her face, but Bellatrix managed to glare through it.
Cygnus's visage became purple with fury, and Druella's hand tightened on her wand. Their daughter was proving more difficult by the year, the bouts of this kind of defiance growing more common by the day and if the girl was not beaten into submission, cursed into subserviance, then she'd be a dishonor and a shameful little hole on Aunt Walburga's tapestry.
"Crucio! Crucio! Cruci-"
Cygnus and Druella were interrupted when the door flew open. Bellatrix tried to stand but her trembling was too great. In ran Narcissa, soaked from head to toe in tea and pumpkin juice. Her long blonde hair had been released from their bun and were sodden with cream and egg whites, and her white dress was positively destroyed, stained with red pomegranate and grape.
"Cissy, no," Bellatrix croaked, gathering her strength and springing to her feet.
They'd turn on her now, Bellatrix knew, and they'd do the same to their youngest daughter as they did to their eldest. Narcissa glanced atBellatrix, her expression determined, but her blue eyes, so alike Druella's swam with unshed tears.
Cursing and wailing in pain, Bellatrix reached for her sister's hand and pulled her from the drawing room, down the hall, through the servants' entrance and into the garden.
She collapsed on the cool grass clutching her right arm, and cried.
"Bella?" Narcissa's voice trembled but the little girl stroked Bellatrix's forehead. "I had to, Bella they were hurting you!"
Bellatrix gripped Narcissa's hand as if it were her life line. She stared into her younger sister's face, blue eyes meeting onyx. Even covered with food and drink, Narcissa was beautiful.
"Bella, go to Hogwarts so you can learn magic and free us." Narcissa's voice quavered with repressed sobs. "You'll send me letters, and little chocolate treats because Mother says I'm fat and can't have any, and pictures, and-" Tears slid, unbidden, down Narcissa's pale cheeks as she gingerly embraced her sister.
Bellatrix winced but heldher all the same.
"I'll send you whatever you want, Mother be damned," Bellatrix swore.
She knew that Narcissa was still to be punished, although she also knew her parents would wait until Bellatrix was gone to do so. Tomorrow, Bellatrix would get her school things, and in a few more days, attend Hogwarts to achieve her education, and their freedom. She would make their parents regret every hex, every kick, every insult. She would make them regret their lives and the conception of their daughters. And she would seal that promise with the Unbreakable Vow, once she got her wand and figured out precisely how one cast the thing.
The next few days passed in a blur of packing and purchasing and silent crying in the dead of night. Her wand stayed with her, either beneath her dress or under her pillow.
Bellatrix had seen the Unbreakable Vow performed once before, but there was no allusion to it in any of her textbooks. But she was quite good at making sparks fly from her wandtip, and so, on the night before she was due to leave, when everyone was sleeping, Bellatrix crept to the garden and sent a stream of golden sparks into the branches of a tree, setting it ablaze. She stood aside and watched the flames writhe, monstrous creations of orange and yellow and blue and white, until the sun was rising and the tree was in smoldering ruin. Then, she ran inside and washed the evidence of her discretion away and sullenly traveled to King's Cross, and reluctantly boarded the train.
She stood up in the train compartment, populated by a few other students, and pressed her right hand to the windowpane in a wave to Narcissa, whose face was carefully blank. She smirked defiantly at her parents, all the while holding her wand in a combatative way in case her parents tried anything with her sisters. Years later, both Death Eaters and Order members alike would know this stance as the one she takes on when dueling. Even then, when the girl was no more than eleven, Cygnus looked disconcerted and Druella paled almost imperceptably. And far away, although he didn't know why, a snake-like man was smiling.