She loved him from the moment she first laid eyes on him. But a babe shrieking in a cot, looking up at her, those inquisitive grey irises boring into her then warm brown ones. Innocent and naïve, both of them, yet holding a kind of wisdom that few others possessed, and running away with it.
He would cry, and only she would be only one able to soothe him.
As they grew, there minds did also, allowing them to escape from the persecution that everyone in their world seemed to allow. What was blood purity, when you had your own blood running through the veins of others? When it all looked the same, spilled upon the drawing room floor? When you were just trying to protect a small child from the horrors that he would be expected to take part in?
He didn't deserve the life he was due to lead.
Some would say she corrupted him, but she just showed him how pure, good and innocent the world could be.
The whole world, muggle and wizarding.
When they came with their wands, she stood in front.
When they came with their words, she stood in front.
When they came with their whips, she stood in front.
When they came with their knives, she stood in front.
He was worth it.
Those pitiful grey orbs, couldn't be exposed to all that. He was her world. In those eight years before his arrival, she could not remember a single minute of happiness. Of joy. Of such pure love.
They played, as he laughed with such...innocence, that it melted her heart. Whilst she thought of all she had witnessed.
Torture, murder, beatings, theft...rape.
Things no child should have upon their conscience. Things no child should even know exist.
She learnt that a heartbeat is easy to stop.
A mind is easy to shatter.
A soul is easy to break.
All just to please a man she had never met, and fit ideals she never believed.
Days of "lessons" momentarily erased in but a few minutes. With that one cheeky grin. She could be whole again. Or at least, pretend to be.
An eye for an eye? What about a soul for a soul? A life for a life? Because that's what she gave him. Throughout all those years, she told him: "Bella is going to do what her Mummy and Daddy want, so that you, my little Puppy, can be your own person."
Throughout his life, he remembered that. She sacrificed everything, for love.
Life may be fleeting, but spent in the right way, it can last a lifetime.
She spent hers as she saw fit. And for that, the little Puppy was eternally grateful.
As the Puppy became a Dog, things changed.
He followed her wishes, and hated himself everyday because of it. But it was the only thing that kept her going.
She may have killed, tortured and made others suffer, but she had saved a life. And that was enough for her to stay alive...for him.
All those years he stood by her. In secret and occasionally out loud. He couldn't risk his happiness for her recognition, she wouldn't allow it.
And slowly, that little girl disappeared.
Replaced by an almost completely hollow shell.
Filled simply by a little Puppy's smile.
And hollowed out by the madness that consumed her.
She did the things she hated,
She became someone she hated,
So that her little cousin could grow,
And win.
The things she had done turned her into someone else.
Someone that stood for everything she hated, and everyone she loved.
She wouldn't see him for years on end.
She got herself put in Azkaban, for him.
She was there, and she was the reason he came out alive.
After he left, she didn't lay eyes on him for another three years, until it was too late.
She didn't mean for him to die, she didn't want him to die.
She was a distraction, the curse was meant for Malfoy.
Yet it landed on the one she loved.
She killed her little Puppy.
She killed the boy who may as well have been her brother.
And that is what shattered her,
That's what made her give up.
The fact that she would never see that cheeky smile again.
That they would never win.
And she lost her brother.