Mad

No one knows how I did it. No one. Not even Rodolphus. No one, except me. People think I don't hear what they say, but I do. I hear every word and I smile inside. Knowing that they fear me, knowing that they loathe me, knowing that they think I can't be defeated. When everyone else went mad, I didn't. I kept my sanity and my beliefs. And they worship me for it.

Everyone feared Azkaban. Rodolphus did. And that little traitor Crouch, feared it so much that he denounced my Lord and begged his father to save him. But he should have known that it was too late. Once you turn to the Dark Side, there is no going back. No matter how much you want to.

My husband was put into the cell next to me. He screamed for the first few hours. Screamed for them to let him out. But the dementors don't have feelings. He fell silent after a while. I never screamed. I never begged. Blacks are too good for that.

I won't deny that there were times when I almost gave up. As the years went by, giving in to the misery of defeat seemed like the wisest thing to do. But I knew I couldn't. I knew the Dark Lord would come back for me. He had promised. I would be ready when he came.

The days turned in to weeks, the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years. We all lost track of the time. It was the same every day. We never saw any sun. We never saw the sky. We never heard anything but the screams of others and the continuous crashing of the waves on the rocks. The steady, never ceasing tumult of them spilling over and over was a reason in itself to drive you to the brink of sanity.

I'll never forget the anger I felt when my cousin got out. The blood traitor of our family deserved to be in there more than I did. He betrayed our family. He betrayed me. And I felt a hatred towards him that I had never felt towards anyone. It burned in my blood, coursing through my body until every fiber of my being was heated up with the anger.

It's amazing really, what adulthood will do to you. Sirius and I were best friends through most of our childhood. We were inseparable. You couldn't find one of us without the other. And then, he got into Gryffindor. I didn't understand at first why I still couldn't be friends with him. My mother insisted that I didn't speak to him anymore. It was only when Narcissa explained it to me, that I understood why I was supposed to hate him.

Perhaps I hated him because my family told me to; perhaps it was because he ignored me after that. But whatever the reason was, I hated him. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to kill him for what he did to our family's name.

He tried to contact me about a year after I had graduated from Hogwarts, but I didn't respond. I was too caught up in my new Death Eater responsibilities to be bothered with an old relative I despised. When he somehow heard that Rodolphus and I were engaged, he sent me a letter to congratulate me. I didn't invite him to the wedding. And that was the last time I ever heard from him. The very last time.

When I got out of Azkaban, Narcissa was shocked to see how incredibly normal I was. I had grown cold towards her for not even trying to get me out of that place. But of course she hadn't. Lucius had never been too fond of me.

Being in the Department of Mysteries was the first real assignment from the Dark Lord that I had had in fourteen years, and I thanked him profusely for it. And when I saw my cousin walk in, my heart suddenly turned blacker than it had ever been.

I will never forget the moment that he fell. It was beautiful. And all I could do was laugh. I took such pleasure in his pain. The look on his face was one that I will remember always. To see the life die out of someone's eyes, and knowing that you did it is more beautiful than anything else in the world.

People talk about me. They wonder how I kept my sanity. They wonder how I didn't go mad. But only I know.

I was always mad.