Author's Note: I tried to capture Bellatrix's disjointed way of thinking but I'm not totally sure if I managed it.
Disclaimer: I will own Harry Potter when pigs fly.
*Author's Legal Representation would like to say that the Author makes this statement under the assumption that porcine flight is an impossibility and is not responsible in the case of actual flying swine.
One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her – is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil?
-Wicked, Gregory MacGuire
When Bellatrix is ten she tells her cousin one day she's going to set the world on fire and dance in the ashes. And she will. Bellatrix will do many things but she'll never break a promise.
Her father hits her when she's naughty (She's a naughty, naughty girl) but all she does is laugh. He thinks he can hold her to this pitiful existence, but she knows she's meant for something better (She'll make her mark, change the world, save the world, do something).
People whisper terrible things about her and she just laughs (Laughs and laughs and laughs).
'Not a boy. Cygnus will be devastated.'
'Bellatrix Black, I have to say I wouldn't mind getting a piece of that.'
'Bellatrix Lestrange, she's fucking psychotic I tell you.'
'They say she's his best Death Eater. Apparently she's a True Believer.'
'Did you hear Bellatrix Lestrange broke out of the Az. Gone to rejoin her precious Dark Lord.'
'Dear Bellatrix, who likes to play with her food before she eats it.'
Azkaban's quiet, too quiet. So she fills it up with noise. She screams to fill the silence so she doesn't have to remember she's all alone (All by herself). They call her crazy, insane, mad (Mad, Bad, Beautiful Bella), but she's not ('Yes you are Bella.' 'Shut UP!').
Sometimes she doesn't need to scream, sometimes he fills the silence for her, fills it with long forgotten memories, jokes that aren't really funny, stories, old dreams (There aren't any new ones, they can't dream anymore), arguments, declarations of loathing and love. Sometimes all he does is laugh (That laugh that is filled with more insanity then her screams). He laughs and she screams and they make a beautifully twisted music for all to hear.
When he breaks out and leaves her alone she still screams but it's no longer music, simply the broken cries of a woman who's teetering on the brink of insanity. She denies it, she'd tell you she's just as good or better without him (But she never was able to lie to herself).
After her beloved Lord comes for her she doesn't feel right, there's all these emotions threatening to drown her -Rage, exhilaration, love, envy, loathing, passion (She'll never do anything in halves)- so she tamps them down, smothers them with blood and fear and glory, masks them, even from herself, with the beautiful suffering of others. Whenever she enters a fray she searches for him, searches for him to exact her revenge (Nobody leave Bellatrix Bla- Lestrange behind). She never sees him and she's never able to tell if she's glad that she didn't have to kill him today or sad that she didn't get the chance.
She thinks it's so funny sometimes. She is all over the newspapers, her face is plastered across windows and walls, yet they have all forgotten her ('See papa? Your little girl made something out of herself after all. She's a star.'). They forgot that before there was Bellatrix Lestrange there was Bellatrix Black, and before that there was Bella. Bella, who had two sisters and two cousins who loved her and told her she was beautiful, who held her when she was sad, who promised her promises they didn't keep, who had tea parties, who she defended when her father got angry and who defended her when her uncle did, who bandaged each other up before they could do healing spells. Even most of her family has forgotten about Bella, Narcissa only calls her that because that's what they've been calling each other since cradle. But there are a few, a select few, who remember. ('Remember, remember the fifth of November...' 'Boom.')
Bellatrix Lestrange misses Bella.
Bellatrix Lestrange hates Bella.
Then she does it.
She kills him.
'I won! I won! I killed Sirius Black!' The childish part of her mind screams, as if it was a game of 'Purebloods and Mudbloods' that he'll pick himself up off the floor from and they'll start again.
But it's quiet. Oh so quiet. He's dead and the endless noise he generated just to keep her sane has died with him (She didn't think about that part) and now all she wants is noise. So she laughs, laughs because if she screams she might start to cry and that won't do at all ('Now Bellatrix, quit your snivelling, it's unattractive in a young lady such as yourself.').
She promised to kill him when she was sixteen and they made love for the first time. And she did. Bellatrix did many things but she never broke a promise.
