Title: The Woman in Black, at my Funeral
Disclaimer: I own only the characters you cannot recognise.
Warning: Contains very slight DH spoilers, so don't read if you haven't read it.
Summary: The first time I saw her was at my funeral, the second, hundreds of years later, at her Sorting Ceremony at Hogwarts.
I don't think anyone could describe her as beautiful. Gaunt face, pronounced cheekbones, pointed chin, sunken eyes and an aquiline noise tended to prevent that, they were certainly distinguished, but hardly beautiful.
The first time I saw her was at my funeral. She was swathed in black, a black dress – composed of a corset and skirts -, a black cloak, black boots, and her eyes were outlined heavily in black. She was crying, why I still don't know; I'd like to think it is due to the romance of the way in which I died, the tragic romance, though I doubt it. She didn't know me, so why cry over my death.
Something about her drew me to her, like a moth to a flame, and I kissed her, once, gently upon the mouth, at my funeral. No one else noticed me, too busy grieving, even those who'd normally notice someone like me. She couldn't see me at all though, and wouldn't, even under normal circumstance, I've told myself due to eyes clouded by grief, grief that shouldn't even me there, but, and I am loathe to admit it, she was a muggle.
The second time I saw her was her first year of Hogwarts, hundreds of years later. It wasn't the same woman, I suppose, but still, her likeness to the woman in black at my funeral was uncanny. She wasn't Helena Ravenclaw, my first love – she was as different to Helena as can be, both her and the original woman in black were far from the woman who had crushed my heart -, but something about her, in both forms, made me show a devotion to a student, to a woman, I had never bothered with before,
She was a Slytherin, of course, and one of the few I told my terrible little story too. My unrequited love, how I killed Helena and soon followed by my own hand. Two main things I left out of my tale – who Helena truly was and who she is now and the woman in black at my funeral. She was fascinated by the idea of attending your own funeral, though I never gave her many details of that day, and how I still wore my chains as an act of penitence. Not that I could remove them now, but she had asked me why I placed the on before choosing death, why I chose to remain in this exact image. For we can choose the change our appearance – clothes, hairstyle, removing (not creating) wounds and blood – before we are forever captured in this one image. Clearly I had chosen to remain as I had looked upon my death.
She was my one constant companion through her seven years at Hogwarts, and during this time I dreaded the day when she had left. But 'twas inevitable, and I did see her again.
Upon her death, during the battle that ended the Second War of Voldemort, I saw her struck down and killed. Her time had long been over, she had done many cruel, terrible things, but I got to see her once more. And that I was thankful for.
I was hardly the only one who was distressed at the death of Bellatrix Lestrange, or Black as I will always know her. She was high up in the side of this Lord Voldemort, and her death affected him, perhaps one of the factors distracting him enough to be defeated.
But death did not keep her from me. Only two generations later, a much shorter gap than between the original and Bellatrix, one Clementine Lupin made an appearance.
Same hair, same nose, same cheeks, same chin, even same eyes, She was after all, a Black, the daughter of Ted Lupin, grandson of Andromeda Tonks, nee Black, my Bellatrix's sister. Some were afraid of her likeness to her great-great-aunt, but she soon proved to be a much kinder soul. It was odd that she came out looking so Black despite the Lupin and Tonks genes from her father and the Weasley and Delacour genes from her moth (Victoire Weasley). Unlike her father, she was not a metamorphmagus, and I was glad. I wanted to see her true face, every day.
She was a Slytherin, of course, and I was comforted by the presence of another incarnation of the woman in black at my funeral.
I was happy to be assured I would still see her face again, many times in the future, the one constant in my death, though troubled, that I would never know the name of the original.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed. This was inspired off the first paragraph, a drabble about a woman I did a while ago and found, only four days after receiving and finishing the last Harry Potter. The things about the Bloody Baron in there made me very sad so it was reasonably fresh in my mind looking at the drabble and I got the idea of him having another love, after Helena, after his death. Then I realised the drabble reminded me of the Bellatrix I had envisioned from the books, though not exactly on movie!Bellatrix.
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