~ A Talent for Melodies ~
Everyone has a talent, apparently. Everyone has something at which they excel, something for which it seems their hands were personally wrought, something for which they may someday be remembered. Growing up, I didn't believe this. I behaved in the manner my family expected me to, but I never truly excelled in anything. I was a good student in the subjects that interested me but nothing spectacular. At home I slipped into the heart of my family as silent and as unnoticed as death itself, and I waited for my turn to shine.
My sisters did not have to wait. Andromeda was clever, in her own way; she brought glory to the family without even trying. Her grades never slipped. Oh, but she did. She fell, my poor sweet sister, the fading dust of what once was the brightest of stars and now even her name is nothing more than a burn-mark, ash black, upon our Family Tree. She married far beneath our status, lower than contempt. I tried to warn her, to reason with her, but despite her intelligence, my darling sister had a flaw. Her heart was simply too large for her. A heart in itself is something novel to the Black family. Sometimes I wonder if she truly belonged, or whether she had always been the cuckoo sleeping warily beside us. She would never join in when I tormented Cissy, telling me I was cruel, to leave her alone.
Poor Cissy. There were times when I hated her. Sometimes I still do. My baby sister was exquisite. She would enter a room, bathed in gold, and at the merest toss of her silver hair she would be surrounded by fawning admirers, and yet I knew she was as hollow as I inside. Her talent lay not in her beauty but in her eyes. Oh yes, sweet Cissy is adept at telling you your true colours in an instant. There have been several occasions on which she has fixed me with a gaze so piercing it feels as though she can see straight to the other side of my heart, and the scowl she invariably wears as she does so tells me she does not like what she finds written there.
I found my talent quite by accident. Except that once I recognised it, once I had its smooth dark shape committed to memory, I was not sure that I wanted it. But a talent is a talent, and I was expert in mine. I crafted songs from the melody of a scream, warping the jagged strains of sound to something quite beautiful.
Screams, like tears, have different frequencies. Different pitches. It all depends on the emotion that drives them. They resonate differently. Tears of joy, for example, are a different shape, a different texture, to the tears shed after a betrayal. A scream is exactly the same. The purest scream, the one that makes your heart shiver at the sound of it, is always that scream of terror from the unworthy. It's a sound that comes only from the most careful extraction. It's a sound I have heard many times, but every one feels different; every one is unique.
My talents were recognised early on. I was proficient with the Cruciatus Curse, more so than most, so that I alone could achieve that high keening cry that is so delicious to me. At last I had a chance to make my parents proud, to make them sigh with pleasure at my skill, at my gift for upholding the family honour. With every fresh scream I personally wrought to deliver carefully into my master's hands, I felt my star begin to shine that bit brighter. And then I had an accomplice; my Rodolphus, someone who loved me just a little more strongly with every victory of mine, someone who relished every new prey I chose.
Sometimes, of course, I was denied the scream I worked so hard to procure. Defiant spirits are always the hardest to snap, though the reward for success is so much sweeter. But even if I did not manage to secure the rough melody from the person I targeted, I would almost always receive one from someone else, one who had seen all, one who would foolishly, vainly, treacherously, turn their wand on me, and then theirs would be the clearest cry of all as I collected it proudly.
My filthy cousin was one such defiant spirit. He taunted me as I failed, spell after spell, to pluck the scream from his breast; he dared to laugh as I felt my own screech of frustration at my apparent failure welling in the base of my throat; he goaded me with his treacherous tongue, and even as I struck true he would not grant me his scream, he would not offer me that one last glory; even as I struck true and he fell that ridiculous laughter was still painted across his face, and I wanted to strike it from him once and for all, so that never again could he laugh in the face of his own name, never again could he smirk at what should have been his true path, but there were other screams to collect and so I left him where he lay, where he belonged, collecting dust, forgotten and unlamented.
I collected ever more precious and glorious screams over the next two years, some more delicious than others, some barely worth the shattered husk I tore them from, and every new one delighted my master more, every fresh one brought with it the pride and the glory I had coveted since my girlhood. I was invincible; I was supreme; Bellatrix LeStrange, crafter of screams, terror of terrors, commanding the utmost respect.
To be struck down in battle was not something I had planned for, and particularly not by the blood-traitor scum who did the deed, denying me my chance to truly shine, as I have always been denied it. And now I am left an empty vessel, purged of everything; my youth, my life, my glory, and my talent even. I have nothing here. I was robbed even of my last victory; that last glorious scream was snatched from my grasp by the filthy snake who plucked my life from my breast as she did so.
It matters not. I am here. I am waiting. And one day I will collect that final scream, the one that was denied me, and it will taste all the sweeter for my patience.
This is a random one-shot that's been brewing in my head for quite a while – I started writing it a few months ago but I've only now sat and finished it. It's a bit of an experimental one, as I've not really written as Bella before and as she's completely unhinged it's a bit difficult. Anyway, reviews would be very gratefully received.