"Look at me, Cissy, look at me!"
The shout comes from Bella, not an unfamiliar occurrence. In fact, it is so common that I know exactly where to look when raising my head from my dolls, scattered around me in disarray. I know exactly how to smile to let her know that, yes, I am indeed looking.
She's hanging upside down from the top branch of the tallest tree in our massive courtyard, her body swinging back and forth as her arms sway. I'm the youngest sister but I'm also the most maternal and immediately I'm filled with a sense of dread - what if she falls; what if she bangs her head against the tree? But I suppress the fear within in favour of laughing at Bella's smiling face because she's Bella and you have to be happy when Bella's happy; you just can't help it.
I jump up from my dolls and race towards the tree, Bella smiles as I approach.
"Can you see, Cissy, can you see?"
"Yes, of course, Bella! Wow!"
It's funny, Bella's the eldest sister but everyone in the family knows she's the youngest. There's just something about her that's so . . . childish, though many may call it "crazy", like cousin Sirius. Andy says it's because Uncle Orion dropped her on her head when she was just babe. I've found nothing to support this theory but neither have I found anything to discourage it, so maybe she's right.
"I want to show, Andy," Bella gushes. "Where is she?"
"Playing with cousin Sirius, of course," I reply with a grin, gaps showing through in my teeth. "Those two are like peas in a pod, don't ever see them apart. You know that, Bella."
She stops in her swinging motion, and latches onto my hands. "But we are too, aren't we, Cissy?" The wind blows her curly black hair in front of her face, obscuring her view for a moment. "We're peas in a pod?"
I clench her hands in mine. They're no bigger than mine, in fact I think they're even smaller because that's Bella, younger, smaller . . .
She's my sister. "Yeah, of course we are. You're my sister."
…
"Look, Cissy, look!"
That is what she says years later as we stand outside a muggle's burning house. She's dancing around it like the crazed woman she is, like the child she used to be and I can't help but stare, I never could. It's her work of course – the burning house; of course it's her work, Bella loves destruction.
The fire crackles and sparks and I continue to stare and Bella continues to dance. She has that look on her face, like she's done something extraordinary and expects everyone else to go along with it but this time I can't; nothing extraordinary has happened to me in the past year and this is no exception.
My life is falling apart and yet she wants me to look, look and see something that I just cannot. Perhaps it is this that drives me to finally snap, or maybe it's the cackles erupting from Bella, cackles that could almost be mistaken for the lost giggles of our childhood; it could be the heat of the flames, firing me up or perhaps the dirt in my hair (I never did like getting dirty), perhaps . . .
"No, Bella, you look. Look at me, Bella!" I erupt, catching her by surprise. "Look at me!" Her joyous movements deflate and she stares, lost by my outburst, unable to comprehend. "For once in your life look at me!" I conjure up a mirror and leave it to hover in the night's air. I grab her shoulders and yank her around to face it, force her to see. "For heaven's sake, Bella, look at yourself!"
Merlin knows what possessed me to manhandle the infamous, more than a little unstable, Bellatrix Lestrange. It's a fool's action, anyone could tell you that. I may be her sister but Bella has a wild rage and can throw the temper tantrum of a child that usually ends in broken bodies and I know in the end I am no exception to this rule. But . . . she doesn't do anything disastrous, doesn't threaten my life, instead she just does as I said – she stares.
Perhaps if I had been a little more in my right mind I would have stumbled over the bizarreness of this but right now I am just too angry to notice much of anything.
"Can you see, Bella, can you see?" I demand, shaking her shoulders in empathise. "Can you see where this has brought us? Is this what you wanted when you signed our lives away to the Dark Lord?" She doesn't answer. "Is it?"
Bella stares at her reflection in the mirror, mystified, and I remember for the first time that before now she had yet to actually see her reflection. I'd made sure of it. After escaping Azkaban, she hadn't looked at all like my sister, she'd barely looked human, and after the things she'd suffered in that place I'd thought it best to keep the nightmarish results of what had happened there to a minimum. Bellatrix hadn't thought to protest.
"My husband is in jail, Bella," I continue in a deadly voice. "And my son, my baby, has had his fate signed away like a chicken up for slaughter. Regulus is dead! Did you know that, Bella, did that occur to you? Or were you too focused on your beloved Dark Lord to notice? Baby Regulus is dead! Our family has fallen apart, Bella! Our sister isn't even our sister anymore! And Sirius . . . well, Sirius is dead too isn't he?" I rage, all the while receiving no response from Bellatrix but she does stare at my reflection in the mirror which at least means she's paying attention. "How is that alright, Bellatrix? How is that alright?" My voice breaks and I realize suddenly that I'm pleading with her, begging her to for once take up the role of big sister and rock me to and fro in her arms, all the while telling me how it was going to be alright. But I know this is not Bella, this is not my sister.
She turns to face me, hollowed out eyes unreadable, and there is a distance between us, a distance that never used to be there when we were kids. "But it will be alright, the Dark Lord promises this."
And I can tell she believes these words like a muggle prayer, whispered before bedtime. But I do not, because it's only an empty promise and one that will never come to pass. I think deep down we both know that.
Unable to bare the gap between us, the distance, any longer, I take a step forward and fold my arms around her. For the first time in sixteen years I hug my sister and I allow her to see the tears 'big girls' aren't meant to cry.
Bella's stiff as a ramrod at first but then, hesitantly, her arms reach up and around. It's a terribly slow process but eventually I am in my sister's arms once more and she is holding me again, hugging me again. In that moment she is the big sister, in that moment she looks.
We do not whisper words of love to each other – for Bellatrix it would be an act too degrading and I, myself, do not dare – but I can feel it there between us, shrivelled and forgotten as it may be, it's there and there I know it will stay forever.
…
It's over, that's all I can think as I make my way through the throng of celebrating witches and wizards, towards the place where my sister now lies, dead. A few people turn to stare at me but they don't make any move to halt my process – this is a happy time for them and why dampen it with the experience of exchanging barbed comments with the Malfoy witch. Perhaps even some of them feel empathy for me but I doubt it.
I stop in front of her body but I can't look at it, can't bear to see what has finally become of my Bella. If I keep looking ahead I can still picture her childish smile and black ringlets, still hear her giggles from when we were children and see her form swinging on the swing set in the muggle playground near our house even though we weren't supposed to go there. If I look down though, if I look down I won't be able to see that anymore though. That image will be replaced by the appearance of her limp body, forever engraved in my mind.
But still, I hear my sister's voice in my ear, tempting as always with that one sentence. "Look at me, Cissy, look at me!" And foolishly I obey, I look down expecting to see the eight year old Bellatrix from my memories hanging blissfully from a tree, the Bella who I watched turn Uncle Orian's hair pink one Sunday afternoon. Look at me.
But when I look I don't see the little girl I knew or the woman I have come to know. I see only a lifeless body that does not belong to my sister. I look but I do not see her. Perhaps I never did.