Okay, here's my latest story: A BellatrixSirius one-shot. It's a lot longer than I thought it would be, but I think it came out pretty good. It's rated 'T' because they swear a little and there's hints of things (I'm not good at writting lemony smut scenes, and I'm not sure if I want to have an 'M' rated story yet.)

Here's the story behind this: Last night, I was going to start my story about Bellatrix baby-sitting Sirius. That's when I thought: "How sad is it that she's going to baby-sit the same person she'll kill later." Well, this (and some Within Temptation music) gave me these really horrible plot bunnies that just wouldn't go away. So, I read some BellatrixSirius stories, some of which made me cry, and then I wrote this. I hope you all enjoy!

Before anyone decides to point this out in a review and flame me for being inaccurate, let me say: I'm aware that Bellatrix and Sirius are about 9 or 10 years apart in age. For the purpose of my story, so it wouldn't be as creepy, I made them only 4 years apart. I'm also aware that in the 5th book (this isn't a direct quote, because my grandmother has my 5th book) Sirius says that he hasn't seen Bellatrix, save for a glimpse in Azkaban, since he was Harry's age. Due to this, one of my scenes would be obsolete, but it's called creative license, as are all the fragmented sentences. I just used those to be dramatic.

Warning: Excessive use of "love", "my dear", and "darling"

Italics: Thoughts and emphasis (you'll know the difference)

Enjoy! Reviews are great, constructive criticism is better!

"Would you mind if I hurt you
Understand that I need to
Wish that I had other choices
Than to harm the one I love"

"What Have You Done" Within Temptation

The late afternoon sun shone through the branches of trees, casting odd shadows upon the bank of the river. Light glinted off the water, reflecting upon two children, a boy and a girl, sitting some distance apart. Both had their feet dangling into the slow-moving current and neither was speaking to the other.

"Bella?" It was the little boy who had broken the silence, seized by some sudden thought. Shaking his dark hair out of his eyes, he removed his feet from the water and turned to face the girl.

The girl, possessed with her own thoughts, didn't respond. She had an almost unnatural beauty about her and the boy was so mesmerized for a moment that he forgot he was about to ask her something.

"Bella?"

Bellatrix, startled out of her own thoughts, turned to look at him. "Hmm? What, Sirius?"

Fidgeting momentarily, Sirius looked at the ground and then back up at his cousin. "Bell, do you really, really like Hogwarts?"

Bellatrix laughed. She had just returned for the summer after completing her first year of Hogwarts and Sirius had made it a point of his to ask her everyday if she really liked it. "Yes, Sirius. I really like it. Why do you want to know so much?" Sirius wouldn't be starting Hogwarts for about three more years.

Sirius shrugged and turned his gaze toward the river again. "It's just…I figured you must like it, since…since you didn't write to me at all during the year…" A slightly hurt look passed briefly over his face but before Bellatrix could notice, it was gone. "So…you got into Slytherin?"

Bellatrix nodded, a look of triumph flitting across her features, but this just made Sirius sad again. "What if I'm not in Slytherin?"

A feeling of panic shot through Bellatrix. What if he wasn't? What would that mean for their family?

Disownment. Their family would as good as disown him. Bellatrix knew this, but she made herself stay positive.

"Everyone in our family has been in Slytherin, Sirius. There's nothing to worry about."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Sirius didn't respond, but looked down, fiddling with some twigs in his hand. Bellatrix reached out and turned his face toward hers. "I promise, Sirius."

"Really promise?"

"Yes, Sirius. Really promise."

"Thanks Bell. I love you…"

"I love you too."

Would he really be in Slytherin? Or was she just telling herself what she really wanted to believe?

xoxo

When the hat shouted out 'Gryffindor', she felt the tears running down her face. Sirius was a Black. He was supposed to be in Slytherin…wasn't he?

Wiping her eyes, she looked up momentarily, over the heads of the cheering, shouting Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws, over the thousands of students, straight into her cousin's face. The look on it was a readable as a book. "You lied to me."

She shook her head, closing her eyes as tears seeped out from beneath her eyelids. When she looked up, she saw that Sirius had made his way over to the Gryffindors. He was smiling as though he'd always belonged there.

Blacks weren't Gryffindors.

From that moment on, her cousin was dead to her.

xoxo

"Bella!"

"Leave me the hell alone."

"Please, Bella! I just want to talk to you!"

"Give me one good reason."

"I'm your cousin!"

Bellatrix whirled around, halfway up the staircase. "I don't have a cousin anymore," she spat, pulling out her wand and holding it dangerously close to Sirius' face. "You're dead to me."

"Please, Bella! You haven't talked to me in a year, since I got sorted into Gryffindor! It's not my fault! I didn't ask to be put there."

"But you were put there and that's all that matters!" she shrieked, her voice taking on slight note of hysteria. She moved her wand closer.

Sirius's face shone with that same hurt look he'd had so many years before. "Bell…what are you doing?" She didn't move her wand away. "Bella, I'm not going to fight you. You're my cousin and I love you…I'm not going to…"

"Miss Black." Both Bellatrix and Sirius turned to see Professor Dumbledore walking down the adjacent stairs. "Perhaps you should put that away."

Shooting both cousin and professor a venomous look, she stowed the wand inside her robes.

"Having a family problem? Something I could help with?" the professor continued, looking at them both.

Bellatrix turned, resuming her walk up the stairs.

"He's not my family anymore."

As she turned to afford Sirius one more look, she saw that he had an expression much like her own on his face.

"You're dead to me, too."

xoxo

Bellatrix raised her wand, barely managing to deflect the plate her cousin had just thrown at her.

"What the hell is your problem?" he hissed through gritted teeth, reaching for another plate. "How can you do this?"

Bellatrix smirked, leaning against the wall of the dreary dining room at Grimmauld Place.

"We haven't spoken in seven years and you come here now to tell me you're joining the Death Eaters?"

"You shouldn't care, Sirius. We're dead to each other now. Remember?"

"I was dead to you first. What's to say that I don't still care about you?"

Bellatrix's eyes glittered in a malevolent way. "I'm flattered, really, Sirius. That's why I thought I'd pay you the common courtesy of telling you my intentions."

"You're going to ruin your life."

"You already did that for me, love."

"Your family is going to disown you for this."

Bellatrix laughed in a way that sounded slightly mad. "Not like yours disowned you, dear! My family will thank me. You'd be better off dead for all the love you get!"

"And what about you, love?" he sneered, his anger taking full control now. "Married to someone you completely hate. Oh yes, your life must be wonderful!"

"It's better than it would be if you were a part of it!"

All restraint lost now, Sirius slammed her against the wall she had been leaning against. Shock passed across her face momentarily, but then she smiled. Not the same warm smile she'd afforded him many years ago, sitting by the river. This smile had every undertone of hate.

"You become a Death Eater and there's no going back," he breathed, aware that she might turn her wand on him at any moment.

"Who says I'd want to go back?" Their faces were so close that their noses almost touched.

"Wouldn't you miss what you have?"

"What do I have, Sirius?" she whispered. They were so close now; every word she spoke caused their lips to brush each others lightly. "You? I've never had you. The day you became a Gryffindor and entered the world of Mudbloods and blood-traitors, I lost you forever. So…when did you lose me?"

Sirius laughed as his cousin smirked. Without warning, he pressed his lips to hers, not exactly surprised when she returned the kiss.

"Never," he murmured. "I've always had you…the little girl you used to be, at least."

"But when did you lose the real me, love? Not the fake one."

He kissed her again, much harder, and, seizing the opportunity when she gasped in protest, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth.

He had her pinned to the floor when he spoke next. "As far as I'm concerned, that little girl, the one who loved me, is the real you."

Bellatrix smirked and flipped them over so that she was sitting on top of him, straddling his hips. "Then, my darling, you are seriously disillusioned."

xoxo

He took her on the floor of the dining room that night, knowing that this might be the last time he'd ever see her, knowing that this may have meant nothing to her other than a way to relieve stress.

When they got up, dressed in silence, he knew that he ought to say something, try anything to get her to stay, or at least change her mind, but he also knew it was pointless.

"You'll regret this."

"Good-bye, Sirius."

Now he knew. The same day he finally had Bella was also the day he finally lost her.

xoxo

The next time he saw Bellatrix was seven years later, as they walked her and the other convicted Death Eaters past his cell

She was still as beautiful as she had always been, but her years as a Death Eater had changed her. She had the same dark hair, same dark eyes, same blood-red lips…but she wasn't the same Bellatrix.

When their eyes met, the look in hers suggested that she wasn't surprised that they had met again, but also that she had never imagined that they'd meet here.

As she walked past, Sirius whispered the only thing he could think of.

"I told you, didn't I?"

As the comment left his lips, he saw the corners of her mouth turn up slightly.

xoxo

12 years of sitting, wasting away in a cell, trying, trying to keep all happy thoughts in her mind, away from Dementors, away from her husband, whom she had never loved, who had never loved her.

Because the only happy memories she had were of a little boy with messy black hair and a little girl too pretty for her own good, of the days they spent together, before she lost him and before he lost her.

Bellatrix spent 12 years thinking, realizing that what she had told that little boy with the messy black hair wasn't true. He had lost her long before she had lost him.

She had never stopped loving him.

xoxo

Feeling the cool of the metal bars between her fingers as she looked out of her cell, she wondered if he still loved her too.

xoxo

Five days later, Sirius Black broke out of Azkaban.

xoxo

The next time they saw each other would be the last time, squaring off, facing one another across the stone dais.

For Bellatrix, the love on the outside was gone. He had left Azkaban early and she had remained for two years, two years alone. No, there wasn't anymore love.

"You're going to regret this, Bella!" Sirius shouted, dodging curse after curse thrown at him by the person he could only think of as the little girl too pretty for her own good.

"It's Bellatrix to you. And why would I ever regret killing you, Sirius Black? This will be the best day of my life!"

Sirius smirked, deflecting a curse once more. "But think, my darling Bella. Could you live with the knowledge that you killed me? Would you be able to deal with yourself?"

A maniac laugh from the pretty little girl. "I'll be able to deal with myself far better when you're gone, Sirius. Far better, once I'm not wasting my time pretending to care about you!"

"Pretending?" Sirius laughed incredulously at this. "No, Bell. I don't think you were ever pretending. Now think! Do you really want to kill me?"

Another curse was thrown, dangerously close to his head. "As far as I'm concerned, you've been dead to me for years!"

"As have you to me, Bella. But what about the pretty little girl and the boy with the messy hair? Are they dead to each other?"

Both stopped and stared at the other. For the briefest moment, everything around them seemed to freeze. For the tiniest space of time, Bellatrix and Sirius were not cousin pitted against cousin, one aiming to kill. They were the two little children, sitting by the river.

"Thanks Bell. I love you…"

"I love you too."

A shatter broke their reverie and brought them back to the present and both watched as the prophecy fell against the steps.

Another curse went flying past his face. "I am going to kill you Sirius. The little girl and boy who once loved each other are dead now. You should know that by now!"

Sirius spread his arms wide. He was through playing. "Go ahead then, Bellatrix. Kill me! Knowing that you killed the only person you ever loved, the only person who loved you, will slowly rip you apart inside! My death will be yours as well!"

She aimed one more curse directly at him. Red. Not green, not death, as he had expected all along. She wasn't going to kill him.

"Come on, you can do better that that!" He was daring her to try, knowing that she would never have the nerve to murder him.

The next jet of light, also red, hit him in his chest. He fell backward and, only a moment before it happened, he realized that he would fall through the veil.

He shot Bellatrix, his Bella, one last look as he fell through.

"I still love you."

And that's when Bellatrix realized what she had just done.

Scream of triumph? No. Her scream was one of horror and it took all her self-restraint to not collapse on the floor, force herself to remain standing.

She had just killed Sirius. Her cousin. The only person she had really ever loved.

"What've I done?"

xoxo

Blindly, emotionlessly, she fought the rest of the battle, fought the Aurors, and fought Harry, knowing that nothing she ever did would bring Sirius back.

"You're going to regret this, Bella."

And she did.

"Would you mind if I killed you
Would you mind if I tried to
Cause you have turned into my worst enemy
You carry hate that I feel
It's over now
What have you done"

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