Title: Broken and Tarnished Silver

Rating: PG

Song: Blackbird, The Beatles

Character(s): Bellatrix Black/Lestrange

Summary: "A string of pearls that is held by thread, fishing-line thin. Pretty, sparkly, bright. I had always wanted to touch it whenever Mother wore it…"

Words: 686

Note: Another midnight story. Another Bella story. I've become partial to her. Well, in a deranged way.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling and publishers including but not limited to Scholastic Books, and to Warner Bros.

Dedication: This is another one for Katie and Brando. Also to Jackie who has to put up with my constant (addictive, more like) fic-writing. (Sorry Jackie!)

In the back of Mother's closet was a silver box. Pretty and flashy engraved in designs of roses. I always liked the box, it held jewelry, but to my knowledge it could have held the Crown jewels. And I could never touch. Always up higher than I could reach, hidden back behind in a velvet-lined drawer. When mother took it out to look at what rings she would wear I would be sitting cross-legged on the floor by her vanity table, head following her every move. She'd set the box down beside her lipsticks, apply her make-up, and open the box.

It was like chill when she opened it; the air froze. I'd hold my breath and she'd pull out a string of pearls or a golden bracelet, though silver looked much better against her pale skin. I, being the younger of my two sisters, was her pet. "Bella," she'd call in her grand voice, and I'd lift my head, eyes eager. "Bella, which should I wear today?" and I'd always choose the pearls, and when I became older I could put it on for her, the clasp always closing in my fingers, until her hands would reach back and help mine. It amazed me how she could get the hook shut over the hole even from the back.

When I went off to Hogwarts, gratefully sorted into Slytherin, I missed the days when Mother and I would sit on stools in front of her vanity table, windows open and candles lit, she putting on her necklaces. Those days my introverted self wished for to come back. When I arrived home from Hogwarts after my first year I received the news my father had been killed by an Auror. This horrific news struck me deeply, child of a mere eleven swearing on my life and my father's grave that I would rid the world of all the Aurors, whether it killed me or I succeeded, it did not matter. I had to try.

A few years passed and my mother became increasingly ill, my mid-sixth year. Her illness prevented us from going through our routine, our ritual of going through her silver jewelry box. After school ended I was able to care for my mother, who was too proud to receive help from anywhere but Narcissa and me, angry with Andromeda for becoming pregnant and marrying a Muggle. I was twenty years old when Mother died, and it has been a full eighteen years since I have stood in the room of my mother. I still smell the heavy vanilla scent of candles long since extinguished, still hear the ringing from her voice.

I miss her so, and on the table is a reminder of her, still perfect and gleaming. Silver box. I sit down at the vanity dresser, hands trembling as they open the lid of the silver jewelry box. As I open it I see it, stranded alone in the red-wine velvet lining, the only thing left. A string of pearls that is held by thread, fishing-line thin. Pretty, sparkly, bright. I had always wanted to touch it whenever Mother wore it. I take it out of the box and lift it to my neck, but in a shaking fit of memories drop it to the ground, watching it break and the pearls bounce and fly in all directions.

I cry, remembering a long time ago, a hand slapping at my wrist, an angry voice. "Bella! You broke my necklace!" Mother was angry, cat-like. I had never before seen her as livid. It was from then on I was never permitted to touch the silver box my mother had on her table, that was when she began placing the box in the drawer in the back of her closet. I hadn't touched it since then, since I was five. Eventually, Mother fixed the pearl necklace, and there, I broke it again, no hands slapping at me, no voice raised in contemptuous tones. This time I cannot find the pearls, and the fishing-line thin thread has snapped.

Now the silver box looks broken and tarnished.