One Moment
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does.
AN: Captain of the Ballycastle Bats for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition - Round 2
Prompt: Tyrannosaurus Rex: Write about a 'dark' character who needs comfort/affection.
Word Count: 1,842 words
~.~
She was listless; dark chocolate eyes scanned the never-ending gloomy forest, her mood matching the view. The wind howled around her form from atop the magical castle, her body shivered slightly, causing her to tug her robe closer around her body.
Her heart was broken and felt like it was shredded into pieces that would never mend correctly again. Raising a hand to her chest, Bellatrix Black, grasped the front of her robes by her heart. It felt like her heart was going to break out of her chest from the pain. A sob escaped her lips, too quiet for any onlooker, but loud enough to disturb the silence surrounding her.
"Why did you do this to me?" She whispered to herself, "what did I do wrong?"
Her voice sounded so broken, her eyes glistening with tears and a frown tugging at her lips in sorrow. Anyone who knew her would be baffled from the sight of her; her once strong visage turned into a crumpled form of misery.
Try as she might, she couldn't stop her mind from repeating the same memory over and over again. The moment where her heart broke, like glass shattering on the floor.
~.~
Bellatrix expressed herself as a strong, capable young woman to the whole of Hogwarts, only with a few select people did she let her guard down and show herself for who she truly was. One such person was her secret best friend. She had never imagined herself becoming friends with a Muggleborn, but she did, and it brought a whole new perspective to her. Her Black heritage and pureblood background did at first discourage her from mingling with those of Muggle descent, but she took a chance, and it widened her view of the world.
"Bella!" A voice called from behind her.
Turning around, Bellatrix's face lit up with a smile upon seeing her friend coming towards her. Her smile dimmed a bit when she noticed her friend's face wasn't as happy as hers.
Confused, Bellatrix asked, "Are you okay? You seem a little off?"
Her friend seemed impassive at best. She shook her head at her question and replied with one of her own, "nothing is wrong. I just need to tell you something that I've held off for a while now. I think it's time I tell you."
"What's wrong?" Bellatrix asked with a frown, her mind spinning through possible scenarios of the mysterious problem.
"You see Bella. We can't be friends anymore," she said with a straight face.
Bellatrix's mind froze. She looked over at her friend and stared up into her eyes that were blank of any positive emotion, only hate and disgust shimmered in her eyes. Bellatrix couldn't understand how her friend was always happy to see her, but today it was just the opposite. Shaking her head in denial, Bellatrix tried to form a response, however, it seemed like her voice wouldn't cooperate.
"You don't need to say anything. I didn't come here to argue, I just came to state a fact," the Muggleborn replied callously, as if she didn't just deliver a crushing blow.
"But…but we're friends," the words stumbled out of Bellatrix's mouth. "How could you say that? Why don't you want to be friends? Did I do something wrong?"
The Black mentality screeched at her to attack the worm who dared to bring her to her knees, instead, the more childlike mentality calmly told her to wait it out, to try to see what the problem was, see if it could be fixed. Hogwarts and the friendship with the Muggleborn had dampened her dark families mentality, a mentality that her parents had encouraged to flourish. When she moved out of the bubble her parents encased her in, it had changed her view on the world, but now, that world was crashing down around her.
"Well, I could start by saying that we were never really friends in the first place. It was all just pretend," the girl stated, crossing her arms in front of her in exasperation.
It was that moment, that Bellatrix's heart fractured, not quite broken, but close to falling and smashing into a thousand pieces. Her eyes started misting over, tears close to forming but not dropping. Even though she didn't want to, she looked up at her once friend's face again. Her eyes searched hers for a sign that something was wrong, anything that could explain why this was happening. With a heavy heart, Bellatrix found nothing that would explain her friends behaviour, nothing that hinted she was under any form of control. Knowing nothing was wrong, that this was truly her friends choice, cracked her heart even further, with only a thin thread holding everything in place.
"I just wanted to see if a Pureblood from one of the darkest families could change themselves, more specifically if they could be broken out of their 'better-than-you' mentality. Clearly it worked a treat! And now we don't need to be friends anymore." She commented impassively, watching Bellatrix break down in front of her.
Try as she might, Bellatrix could not make any coherent words, she could only gasp and try not to break down, not in front of the liar. Her eyes deadened to murky brown, anguish filling her heart and soul.
Before leaving a broken Bellatrix alone, the girl said her final goodbye, "Bellatrix Black, have a nice life." Then she turned around and walked away.
Bellatrix could only stare at her once friends back with despair. Her cracked heart fell to pieces, she would never be whole again. Try as she might, Bellatrix could not put her heart back together, she needed help, she needed her family to put her back together, and she needed them to do it before it shattered completely. Her feet trudged up the hallway and stairs until she got to the top of the Astronomy tower, her mind playing the conversation on a continuous loop, never giving her any rest, not a moment of peace.
~.~
So here she was, waiting for something, anything, to happen. All that time she thought she had a friend who was her everything. Only now that dream had been ground into dust and blown away with the wind. Never before had she felt this lost and defeated. She didn't know how many times she relived the memory, it was certainly a significant amount. The sun had since dipped low where as it seemed like only a moment had passed since the brightness of before.
Her blank eyes stared across the way, she heard a vague noise behind her but she didn't care to look, her mind was too focused on the pain that consumed her. The footsteps grew closer, soon they were right behind her. She heard a sigh and the person shuffled next to her and sat down with the grace only a pureblood upbringing could produce.
"Trixie…" The person whispered in caution. "Are you okay? You missed our study session, I've been looking for you everywhere."
Bellatrix looked down to see her younger sister Narcissa. Her cute, adorable little sister stared up at her with large blue eyes. She tried not to break down, she tried to keep the strong facade for her younger sibling, but she couldn't. Tears dripped down her cheeks, her eyes held such deep sorrow that is scared Narcissa a little.
"Trixie, tell me what's wrong. Please?" She asked in the timid voice only her big sisters knew.
Instead of answering, Bellatrix looped an arm around her and pulled her into a hug. She needed some comfort, and at that moment her little sister was just what she needed. She could feel her heart lighten just a tiny bit as her sister healed her with just her presence.
Narcissa was a little confused by what was happening, but who was she to deny her big sister a much needed hug. She raised her smaller arms and curled them around Trixie as far as she could reach and rubbed her head into her shoulder with a sigh. She missed these hugs, but she didn't want them at the cost of her sister's pain. She wanted to remove it, anyway she could.
"Trixie, whoever hurt you is a meanie. Don't listen to them. You're better than them!" Narcissa tried cheering up Bellatrix, even if she didn't know the situation, she would help her big sister in anyway she could.
"Cissa…I just lost something, something I found out wasn't really true to begin with," Bellatrix cried, moving her head to lay atop Narcissa's, "it really hurts cissy, and I don't know how to fix it."
Narcissa thought about what to say as silence surrounded them. Her mind was muddled with different things to say, she didn't want to say the wrong thing and hurt her sister more.
"Trixie, everything happens for a reason. The person who hurt you is lesser for causing you this pain. Don't listen to them, listen to me! I'm your family. I will always love you and I will always be there for you. Don't believe a word that person said. And if the thing you lost wasn't real, then you didn't lose it. It was fake and you shouldn't have to pay the price for it, they should. So lean on me big sis," Narcissa spoke warmly with love and compassion.
Bellatrix's mind filtered through what her darling younger sister said to her. She couldn't help but notice that she was right. That twit who pretended to be her friend shouldn't bring her down, she shouldn't have listened to her. She gripped Narcissa closer whilst she thought, glaring at the setting sun.
'Why should I be sad for what wasn't true?' Bellatrix thought to herself. 'Why should I feel like a lesser person for my heart breaking, that fool is inferior to me every single way. Why did I even lower myself to interacting with her? Why did I break my family's motto; 'Always Pure'?'
While she was thinking, she didn't notice her body relax. Narcissa took it as a good sign, a sign that her sister was coming around and starting to feel better. She didn't know how right she was.
Making up her mind, Bellatrix nodded to herself, she concluded that the girl and all those like her were not fit to even talk to her. They were all lesser beings to her now, and she would not make the same mistake again, she would never lower herself to interact with those Mudbloods again.
"Never again!" Bellatrix declared, "never again will those vermin hurt me! They will only be fit to lick the bottom of my shoes."
Bellatrix was irreversibly changed, and not for the better. If that Muggleborn hadn't pretended to be her friend and break off that friendship, that Bellatrix would have been inconceivable. One moment was all it took to alter a person, actions spoke louder than words and Bellatrix had many actions that would tell them just how she felt.
~.~