"Can we go into the candy store mommy?" screamed a little boy, tugging on the sleeve of his mother's jacket. "I want gummy bears." He glared at his mother expectantly, not relinquishing the hold on her jacket. "Scott had gummy bears in his lunch yesterday and I want them for my lunch."
The woman sighed, pulling her sleeve from the boy's small hands. "We're in public," she hissed, straightening her jacket out. "Behave yourself or you won't get any sweets in your lunch."
The boy instantly fell silent, looking angelically at his mother. "Good," she muttered, grabbing his hand. He obediently walked by her side down the sidewalk, staring back at the sweet shop longingly.
With a sharp tug his mother made him turn around and they disappeared around a corner.
Bellatrix Lestrange sat on a wooden bench staring at the sweet shop door wishing she had been that mother. Her gloved hand caressed her firm abdomen remembering the child that once grew there. She could still feel its light kicks as it adjusted itself in her womb.
Serena, that's what the child's name would've been. A tear rolled down Bellatrix's cheek as she recalled how excited she had been at the thought of being a mother. Lestrange had cleared out an entire room of their tiny apartment and painted it a deep blue colour. Bellatrix had spent days adding tiny, glowing stars to the sea of night till the room shone silver. Floating in the corner had been a large orb, shining pure white. The moon, Serena's namesake.
Only Serena was never born.
Bellatrix wiped the tears away from her pale cheeks onto the sleeve of her black leather coat, hiding her face in the billows of her dark hood. After all she had done and seen she was still ashamed to cry.
It had ten years since the Dark Lord's demise and Bellatrix spent those years in hiding, trying to figure out what to do with her life now that everything she lived for had come to an end.
Lestrange was buried in an unmarked grave beside so many of her other friends. All slaughtered by Aurors and Dumbledore's meddling gang. The only person that had ever loved her was dead.
Bellatrix dragged herself across the grass towards the form of her husband. The ground beneath him was soaked in blood. Those cowards didn't even the decency to make his death quick and painless. They cut him up with magic and left him there to die.
Bellatrix snuggled up to his body and laboriously he turned around and stared into her eyes. His face was unmarked, but for the looks of pain that sporadically crossed it. The once deep brown eyes Bellatrix had loved so much were now clouded and full of sorrow.
"It's going to be okay," she muttered, cupping his face in her hands. "You're going to survive this and we'll be together forever. We'll make them pay for what they did to you."
Lestrange laughed but broke into a fit of coughing. "No more killing," he croaked, caressing her cheek. "There's been so much." He broke into a fit of coughing again. Drops of blood covered his hand. He leaned forward and kissed Bellatrix's lips. "I love you," he whispered and fell away. His cloudy eyes staring for eternity into the black of the night sky.
"NOOO!" Bellatrix screeched, throwing herself on top of him. She began to beat his chest viciously. "Don't leave me! Don't go!" Her pleas became wails and she collapsed on his chest, her tears running with the blood that stained his shirt.
Now the tears streamed down her face freely, dropping into her lap. People walking passed stared at her and wondered what a woman that looked so youthful and gorgeous could have to cry about.
Bellatrix couldn't stomach there eyes on her sobbing figure so she wiped the tears on a handkerchief she pulled from her pocket and stood up pertly, straightening out the wrinkles on her cloak. She looked up and down the sidewalk and decided to turn right, towards the busier part of town.
If the ministry were still looking for her they would have a harder time of it in a large crowd of people. Not that a crowd of people could stop Potter. He had followed her to the ends of the earth to avenge the death of his little mudblood friend.
A smile crossed Bellatrix's tearstained face, remembering her greatest conquest. She had tortured Hermione Granger to death in a fit of vengeance. They had killed the one person that meant the most to her and she took away someone that meant a lot to them. A life for a life.
Bellatrix walked down the sidewalk, staring into the shop windows and fingering a bottle of poison sitting at the bottom of her pocket. The Dark Lord had given it to them at the beginning of the Second War in case they were caught. All she had to do was tip the poison into her mouth and it would be death in an instant.
She had been planning to use it for some time now but still hadn't found the right moment. It had been her most prized possession all these years but she knew its time was coming up. She wouldn't be on this earth much longer.
A little girl hopped out of a door and right into Bellatrix's path, yelling and giggling with happiness. Clutched to her chest was a porcelain doll with curly blonde hair and a pressed blue dress. Her mother scrambled out after but stopped short when she saw Bellatrix.
Her eyes flicked from Bellatrix's midnight black hair to her ensemble of black. Bellatrix flashed a bite-me grin and kneeled down to stare the girl right in the eyes. The little girl looked back shyly, holding the doll close.
"How are you today, darling?" Bellatrix asked in the sweetest tone she could muster.
The girl's mother looked terrified, her eyes screamed 'get away from my daughter'. Bellatrix snorted. She knew the mother would do nothing for fear of what Bellatrix could do to her daughter. The muggles could always sense there was something deadly about her.
"It's my birthday and my mommy bought me a dolly," the girl said in that child like innocence people find so endearing. "Her name is Serena cuz that's what my daddy calls me. His little moon fairy."
Taken aback Bellatrix rose to her feet quickly and stared fearfully at the little girl. Serena. Her hand flew to her abdomen as pain ripped through her body. It was just like that day.
Bellatrix stood still as Lestrange slipped her flowing rode over her shoulders. Her hand rested on the bulge that extended from her body and she radiated with happiness.
"I can't wait until Serena is born," she whispered, making sure her wand was tucked securely in her pocket. Aurors were always crawling around outside her home, looking for evidence to throw her in Azkaban.
And she would gladly go there for her Lord if that is what he demanded of her. But for now he needed her, pregnant or not. Everyone was quick to trust an expectant mother. And that came in handy more than once.
Lestrange pulled open the door and standing on the front stoop was a young man breathing heavily. He pulled a wand from behind his back and shot a stunner right at Bellatrix, blasting her stomach. She flew backwards and the last thing she heard was," I'm gonna kill you the way you killed my…"
The little girl jumped back and her mother grabbed the girl's hand sternly, pulling her away from Bellatrix. "Let's go home and have some cake," the mother said dragging the girl down the street.
Bellatrix remembered waking up and Lestrange staring down at her, tears rolling down his face. Something warm and sticky rolled down her inner thigh and Bellatrix knew then that her child was dead. Those bastards had come to kill her and they had killed her unborn child.
Turning around Bellatrix stared into the toyshop window, her breath fogging up the glass. A little doll sat in a wooden rocking chair, her hands placed politely in her lap. Fine, black hair fell loosely across her shoulders and she was wearing a red dress.
"Serena," Bellatrix whispered, touching the glass affectionately, imaging a little girl twirling around and around on a tire swing attached to an old birch tree. Its roots were laid deep in the earth, resting before a large Victorian mansion surrounded by a grove of foreboding trees.
The little doll was exactly as she imagined her little daughter to be. Perfect, quiet, and gorgeous.
Bellatrix moved away from the glass and pulled out her wand. She tucked it into the waist of her black skirt and pulled open the little glass door with the words "Travers' Toyshop" painted ornately across it.
A bell chimed joyously in the back and a little old woman with splashes of paint on her large apron and grey hair walked through a curtain of rainbow beads. She smiled at Bellatrix, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist.
"What can I do for you, dearie?" she chirped. Around her shelves of hand-crafted wooden toys stared down at Bellatrix as if they knew what she was about to do.
"That doll in the front window, may I see it?" Bellatrix asked politely, staring the woman right in the eyes.
"Ahh yes, I call her Miss Maple," the woman said with a touch of familiarity, as if the doll was here friend. "She was brought to me a terrible mess but I managed to fix her up quite nicely. Is she for your daughter?"
Bellatrix stood there silently, not one for the small talk except if she was torturing someone to death. The old woman felt the tension in the air and quietly plucked the doll from her rocking chair and brought her over to the front counter.
"That'll be…" the woman began but froze when Bellatrix pulled out her wand.
"Avada Kedavra," Bellatrix muttered in a bored fashion, flicking her wand. The room flashed green and the woman fell to the rug-covered floor with a soft thump. Bellatrix knew then that was going to be the last murder she committed.
The doll sat on the counter staring at Bellatrix smiling primly. Bellatrix strode across the room and pulled the doll off the counter. There was a pile of blankets on a shelf near the door and Bellatrix grabbed a little black one. As her feet slammed onto the sidewalk she wrapped the doll up and held her as though she was a real baby.
"My little Serena," Bellatrix cooed, tickling the doll's porcelain chin. It was cold to the touch and beautifully smooth. She beamed with pride and happiness as she walked down the sidewalk, finally having the child she longed for.
"How about we go to the park?" she whispered and a passer-by smiled at the mother and daughter.
Dashing in between cars Bellatrix ran across the street and scaled a wall. She landed cat like on soft green grass sloping down into a pond. People walked around the pond feeding stale bread to the ducks and commenting on how beautiful the weather was.
On the opposite side of the water was a playground. For the most part it was empty and as Bellatrix made her way over to it the presence of the poison in her pocket became more demanding.
She cuddled the doll close to her chest, cooing and telling it what a great life it will have. Her little Serena, the only thing in life that mattered to her anymore.
Not that it had been all fun and games. Serena had taken her father's death rather hard, locking herself away and not coming out for hours. But teenagers will be teenagers Bellatrix supposed.
Of course she prayed to the Dark Lord that Serena wouldn't get pregnant while still in school like Bellatrix had. The potion to kill an unborn fetus left Bellatrix sick for weeks.
"Want to see my baby?" Bellatrix a pair of young woman jogging passed. They stopped for a second and peeked into the folds of the blankets.
"She's so… gorgeous," the first jogger said, giving her friend a questioningly look.
"What's her name?" the second one said, shrugging her shoulders. Bellatrix seemed harmless enough to her, just a bit soft in the head.
"Serena. My little moon fairy," Bellatrix whispered, breathlessly, cuddling the doll close. Forgetting the joggers she stumbled down a small slope towards some swings moving back and forth in the light wind.
She sat down upon one and began to pump her legs lightly, humming a lullaby to her little baby. She lifted the doll up and kissed it lovingly on the forehead. "Nothing will ever separate us, my little fairy."
Bellatrix's gloved hands slipped into her pocket and wrapped around the poison, her death in a bottle. The flicked off the cap and lifted it to her lips, telling herself that in death she would be reunited with her husband and child.
The poison touched her lips and ice began spread from the spot it hit. As her last movement Bellatrix pulled the doll close to her chest. She sat there rocking in the swing a single frozen tear clinging to her cheek.