Hey everyone. This story was written for Advent Calendar and December Writing Club's Count Your Buttons on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For Advent Calendar I wrote for Day One which was Christmas Carol!AU. For December Writing Club's Count Your Buttons I wrote for Aus prompt 4 which was Christmas Carol!AU. I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of A Death Eater's Christmas Carol.
Bellatrix Lestrange was the darkest of the dark and no one who met her would be convinced other wise. She even scared a lot of her fellow Death Eaters that was how bad she had gotten. But that is not what this story is about. This story about trying to redeem Bellatrix and it's outcome is yet to be seen.
The snow swirled around Bellatrix as she stormed through Diagon Alley towards her favorite bar. She and Rudolphus had just had a fight over how loyal she was to their Dark Lord even though he had been defeated by the Potter boy. In her mind if Rudolphus was as loyal as he claimed he would know that their Lord had a plan. Not that he'd shared his plan with Bellatrix after all it wasn't her place to know these things.
"Bella," greeted the bartender as she walked through the door, "get into another fight with Rudolphus?" The man chuckled pouring her her favorite drink without her asking him. Pushing it across the bar he nodded to the seat in front of him.
"I guess you could say that," she muttered picking up the drink and downing in one go. "Another."
The bartender poured another drink for her a small discreet smile that Bellatrix didn't see crossing his features. "Can I ask you a question, Bella?" he said studying the woman in front of him.
Pushing a lock of her curly dark hair behind her ear she eyed him with dark eyes full of distrust. No one had ever asked to ask her a question when she was drinking before. But she found herself kind of intrigued to find out what he wanted to know. "Yes," she said picking up the drink and downing it. Motioning for another drink. "What is it you wish to know?"
Watching tall statuesque dark haired woman the smile continued to grow across the bar tender's face. If she'd have been paying attention she'd have noticed he was the usual bartender. But she wasn't. "Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if had gone down a different path?" he asked.
"A different path?" she snorted motioning impatiently for him to fill her glass again. "That's ridiculous. There is no other path for me than the one that than the one that I'm following now."
Pouring yet another glass for her he pushed the drink towards her. "Are you sure that is the truth of things?"
Downing the drink she went to stand up. This line of questioning was starting to sound like something her sainted sister Andromeda would come up with. She really didn't want to think of her sainted sister at this moment. Even though she stood against everything Bellatrix stood for Andromeda was still her sister and it hurt that she chose to go the way she did.
"Don't go, Bellatrix," the bartender grabbed her arm stopping her in her tracks.
Pulling her wand from it's place of concealment in her waistband of her skit she held it out in defensive position. "Why shouldn't I go?" she demanded of the bartender.
"Because you won't find out about your visitors," he told her hoping to pique her curiosity yet again.
"And if I don't care who is to visit me?" Anyone who knew Bellatrix would have known to stop right then and there. The tone of her voice would have scared anyone but not this bartender.
"You should. They are coming to show you something."
"What if I don't want to see what they are going to show me? What then?"
"It doesn't matter, Bella, they'll come whether you want them to or not. You will be visited by three spectors this very night and they plan to show you what your life could be like if you change your ways now."
Bellatrix laughed throwing down some galleons on the table. "What if I don't believe you?" she demanded. "What if I call your bluff?" She folded her arms across her chest.
"It doesn't matter," the bartender smiled at her. "Expect the first visitor to appear at midnight tonight."
Bellatrix snorted yet again and stormed out of the bar. This was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard in all her years. Yes she believed in ghosts. She'd met them during her years at Hogwarts but she didn't think any of them would come away from Hogwarts. She didn't know that ghosts traveled at all and if anything she didn't believe they targeted one person.
"What's wrong with you?" Rudolphus muttered looking up from his book as she stormed into the house slamming the door shut. "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."
Bellatrix glared daggers at Rudolphus. What did he know about anything? He wouldn't understand the conversation she'd just had with that insipid bartender any more than she could. Storming up the stairs without bothering to answer her husband she didn't take note that her trip from Diagon Alley had taken as much time as it had. The time on the old grandfather clock in the hallway put the time at 11:59 PM. But Bellatrix didn't know this. She changed into her nightgown and crawled into her bed and sleep fast overtook her.
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"Bellatrix," a soft feminine voice called from the bottom of her bed. It was a voice she hadn't heard in years. A voice of someone who to her was thought to be a Blood Traitor. But that couldn't be. If Andromeda was really her she wouldn't have gotten past Rudolphus. If Andromeda was really here she'd be laying dead in the foyer and not sitting up as though she actually belonged here.
"How did you get past Rodolphus?" she demanded of the sister that had betrayed everyone she loved. "You should be dead and not bothering me."
Andromeda's lilting laugh sounded around the room in a way that Bellatrix had never heard it do before. Something seemed a bit off about the way Andromeda looked too. She still had the caramel colored hair and dark eyes Bellatrix remembered her having but that was what brought her short. Andromeda seemed to be glowing in such a way she'd only ever seen the Hogwarts ghosts glow. She hadn't been aware that Andy had been killed let alone turned into a ghost. "I'm the first of your visitors Bellatrix," Andromeda informed Bella. "I don't have to get past Rudolphus because I'm here for you. You are the only who can see me. Which I suppose is lucky for you that you and Rudolphus don't share a room any more." The lilting laugh returned this a bit more louder this time.
"What do you want, Andy?" Bellatrix asked sounding much more like she used to when she was afraid of something when she was but a child. "Why are here to torment me?" She studied the apparition in front of her.
"I'm not here to torment you. I'm here to show you the way things used to be. The before times. The happy days we used to share. The days when you used to care for all of your sister and not just the one. I am, if you will, your ghost of Christmas past in a way. Come with me, Bella." Andromeda held out her hand to Bellatrix.
"And if I don't want to?"
"You have no choice in the matter. It is not too late Bellatrix Lestrange to change your path and make you a better woman." Andromeda, or the thing parading around as Andromeda, held out her hand. "Take my hand and we'll be on our way."
Seeing no other way to get this over with Bellatrix reached out and took the hand that was offered to her. It felt much like Andromeda's hand felt in real life. Soft to the touch but not soft. But that left her mind when the blinding light went up around the two of them. Trying to retract her hand in fear Bellatrix found that Andromeda had her in a vice like grip.
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"You can open your eyes now, Bella," Andromeda's voice told her.
Opening her eyes Bellatrix was surprised to find herself in her childhood home. She hadn't been her since she'd married Rudolphus and she knew the reason why too. She didn't want any reminders of Andromeda making her feel weak. For the holidays she'd always invited her mother and father and Narcissa over to her and Rudolphus's house but being in her old childhood home brought back a bout of nostalgia. She could see the spot on the floor where she'd chipped a tooth as a child chasing her cousin Sirius around one Christmas.
"Do you remember this place, Bella?" Andromeda asked breaking her from her thoughts and memories.
"Of course," Bellatrix snapped turning towards Andromeda. "This is our childhood home. Why would I not remember this place? Do you not remember?"
The answer to the question never came because at this five children ran into the room. Bellatrix could name them each by memory. She, herself, was the oldest of the children. Acting demure and docile. The next oldest of the children was Andromeda, who was trying to imimtate her older sister. Then came their cousins Sirius, and Regulus followed by Narcissa.
"Come on, little Cissa," Bellatrix motioned Narcissa over the brightly decorated tree. "Do you see all the pretty little ornaments and lights on the tree?"
"Pretty," came baby Narcissa reaching out to touch one of the ornaments.
"Don't," chided Andromeda making Narcissa cry.
"They are pretty," Bellatrix told Narcissa turning Narcissa towards herself. "But we don't touch them because they are very breakable and mother would be very upset if they got broken. Alright?"
Cissa nodded still looking on the verge of tears.
"You had always been so protective of us," Andromeda told Bellatrix watching as the blonde girl followed the older dark haired children around. "But you were never mean about it. Not like you'd become later on."
"What do you mean, Andy?"
"You'll see."
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The scene changed to a Christmas they'd spent at Hogwarts. Their mother and father had gone out of the country during the holidays and they like the other students got to spend a holiday at Hogwarts. They'd never spent a holiday at Hogwarts. They'd always gone home for the holidays.
"Do you remember this memory?" asked Andromeda's voice as she watched the older version of her older sister.
"I do," Bellatrix smiled. "This was the first Christmas we spent at Hogwarts. I remember we'd all been excited as soon as mother and father wrote and told us that they were going out of country and we were to stay at school. Don't you remember?"
Andromeda nodded with a smile.
"This was one of the happiest Christmases I can remember," Bellatrix mused to herself as she watched her sister and her unwrap presents and unload stockings that had been sent from their presents. "Can we just stay here? In this memory. I don't want to go on."
"But we have to, Bellatrix. My time here is short and we have one more holiday to visit."
Something about Andromeda's voice sounded sad and Bellatrix knew if Andromeda was sad then she didn't want to visit this next memory. It was one of the memories she regretted the most. The memory that drove a wedge between sisters. Andromeda yet again reached out her hand and Bellatrix felt herself taking it. Not that she wanted to leave this place of happiness. As she caught one last sight of eleven year old Narcissa, fourteen year old Andromeda, and sixteen year old Bellatrix she felt her heart drop knowing what came next.
The blinding light returned with a vengeance. This time she wished she could keep her eyes closed. This time she wished she could lose the ability to hear. But that wasn't to be so. The blinding light left as suddenly as it had come and left her standing there about to face one of her worst memories.
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In front of her was the last time she'd ever talked to her sister Andromeda. Dark eyes met dark eyes and the love that had been between the two sister seemed to be all but lost now.
"The last time we spoke," Bellatrix muttered looking at her younger sister. "Can we go to some other memory? Please Andy. I don't want to see this memory again. I have seen it over and over again in my mind since it's happened."
"But you will see it again," Andromeda told her as though she'd take no nonsense.
It seemed like all of sudden they were far too close for Bellatrix's comfort. Bellatrix wished they'd have stayed afar because being this close just made it all the more worse. She could see the tears streaming down Andromeda's face and knew that she was the cause of those tears.
"You don't even know him, Bella," Andromeda had been saying. "If you got to know Ted I'm sure that you'd love him as much as I do."
"I don't want to know your little Muggle-born friend, Andromeda. Do you know what you have done? Do you know how much of a betrayal of your family you have commited?"
"It's better to betray one's family then betray one's self."
"I disagree."
"I love Ted. We're going to be married."
"You foolish girl! Do you know what have just said to me?"
"It doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to cut me off. None of you do. If you, Narcissa, and our parents would just meet Ted once..."
"I've written to mother and father of your Ted. Do you know what they've said?"
"Bella, please..."
"I'm supposed to be talking to you. But I figured I'd give you one last chance to go back on this foolish promised you'd made Ted Tonks. You can come back and be the perfect Pure-blood daughter you have always been."
"But I don't want to be that woman again."
Bellatrix laughed and shook her head. "Then you don't want to be a part of this family any more," she hissed towards her favorite sister. The sister who'd always seemed to spitting image of Bellatrix. "Now do you?"
"Bella..." Andy reached out to stop Bellatrix from leaving. "Bella please don't go! You're my sister!"
"I have no sister," Bellatrix had snapped as she stormed away to comfort a now sobbing Narcissa who'd overheard the whole conversation.
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Blinking the tears out of her eyes Bellatrix looked around her. She was relieved to find that she was sitting in her own comfortable bed and the only other person there was Andromeda but she looked way older than anything. Kind of like she was fading from life. She reached out in an attempt to keep Andromeda from leaving her. She didn't want to loose her sister again.
"Please don't leave, Andromeda," Bellatrix whispered as the tears streamed from her dark eyes. "I'm sorry about how things went. I really am. Just please try to stay with me."
"My time here is over," Andromeda gave Bellatrix a sad smile. "But the next visitor will take over from where I left off. I think you might remember him too. But please don't act aggressively. It'll only egg him on."
"But who is he?"
"He'll be here at one. Don't keep him waiting or you may find yourself sopping wet. You know how he can be."
Then Andromeda was gone like the light of candle being snuffed out. Bellatrix couldn't help but think why did someone think this was the right thing to do to her? Why was this even happening? She had only ever been the perfect Pure-blood daughter her parents raised her to be. She was only being herself. With these thoughts in her mind Bellatrix went back to a fitful sleep full of the angsty memory she'd just left.
I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter of A Death Eater's Christmas Carol. In the next chapter we get to meet the mysterious second ghost who happens to have a penchant for pranks.