A/N: Written for the 'Mirror of Erised' Competition. Kind of drabbleish. Maybe. And I hate myself for having signed up for such a ridiculous amount of contests. Like, twenty. Help.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but a laptop. And that laptop doesn't even work. Half the keys barely press.

This is my first attempt at Bellatrix – she's one of my favorite characters. Except this version is not yet so delightfully crazy. So don't try to measure this up to canon!Bella, please.

Zank you.

Oh. And one more thing. This is AU in that Andromeda is the oldest Black child in this piece. For no reason, really, except that I was stupid and forgot at first. So yeah.

And, as usual, I must say this: my beta is amazing. Thank you, Dragons, so very much. :)

({-:-})

Bellatrix Black is seven years old when she loses her mind.

Before that she's a normal child – delicate and fine-boned as any pureblood should be with big dark eyes and pale skin. "Such a pretty child," her daddy's friends coo as they finger her thick curls, and Bellatrix preens in the light of their admiration.

She's got a quick temperament, of course, courtesy of the volatile Black blood, but it's balanced out by her wit and impeccable charm. Sometimes, late at night, she'll sneak into her daddy's room – watching in awe as the shadows twist and writhe – to practice spell-work with his wand, secure in her knowledge that underage magic is undetectable in a wizard's house. And she's good at that, too.

Overall she's perfect, and she's told that every day.

But then her world changes.

One day she goes out with mummy to pick up Dromeda for the winter hols. On the way they stop in Diagon Alley ("Floo powder," her mother says, "we don't have much left") and when her mummy is chatting up a storm with the shopkeeper, looking haughty all the while, Bellatrix wanders off. Sneaking off down the street as quickly as her slight legs allow, black lacey skirts swishing against her knees, Bella laughs delightedly to herself before ducking into Eloise's Artefacts.

It's her first mistake.

Those sharp eyes immediately catch sight of a pale glint of something at the back of the room, and – store's owner nowhere to be found – the little girl scurries over to investigate.

She sees the mirror itself first, so tall and imposing and dark, before looking inside. And then the world spins from its axis and back again and the stars and the sun grow a thousand times brighter.

Because pictured in that silver surface is a woman – tall, refined, and lovely – black robes wrapped about her form, prone at the foot of a shadowy figure. Bella watches as the woman rises and the man turns, reaching both hands down to lift her to her feet. Even as she recognizes the woman – herself, years from today – his face becomes visible.

And Bellatrix is lost.

Because she sees those eyes – so deep and guarded – and the aristocratic structure of his face and the pale silk of his skin and the lustre of his hair and the length of those delicate fingers and the elegant tilt of his head and the magic, the raw power so primal and strong that seeps from every pore in of this beautiful man –

And she is lost in the longing for this vision of perfection.

Bellatrix spends the rest of her life searching for her obsession, her other half, and when the man once named Tom Riddle marches into her childhood home to recruit her husband for his cause, Bellatrix joins. Because with him she is complete.

So little Bella Black – that clean, innocent girl – is forever gone and in her place is a starving animal hunting for its mate. Once she was impressionable, a blank canvas, but then Tom Riddle's mark of blackness came upon her untainted soul.

And when the light is marred with darkness it can never wash away.

({-:-})