A/N: This is for the Halloween Contest at the Golden Snitch. Happy Halloween, ya'll.
Little Jacob Grimm turned to his brother Wilhelm as they kept crouched under the bed. There were footsteps coming up the stairs. One by one they plodded up the stairs, calculated and punctuated with a dramatic mania.
"Where are you little Grimms." The voice cooed sweetly.
The children kept hidden, curling into one another. Jacob could smell the sweat off his brother's neck as he wound tighter into a ball into Wilhelm's stomach.
"Get out of my house!" the children heard their father roar. Thankfully, they peeked out from under the covers to watch their strapping father run towards the malicious voice. His footfalls against the wooden patina of the floorboards reverberating threatening and angry.
A flash of green light erupted from the stairs. There was a loud, damp thud. The children kept hidden, cowering in the darkness and echoing silence of the night. The clock on the hallway mantle-piece kept ticking.
And then from the silence – a loud cackle.
Bellatrix Black loved the Brothers Grimm. She loved Mother Trudy, Hansel and Gretel, the Erlqueen. The strong cruel witches showed men that they were better than them, fought swords with magic and wit, and were in general showed people that witches and not wizards to be feared.
Uncle Alphard had gotten her the book of muggle stories. He told Mother that he got it for her to expand her imagination – wizards were now so lazy, there was no drama to the magic unlike in the past. The past, he explained with mischief in his eye, was filled with drama and suspense and horror.
In private, he explained to her that though the Brothers Grimm were squibs, they were still useful.
No doubt, they were – but only as scribes, as passive actors, witnesses to true power.
What she truly learned so far after pouring through the heavily illustrated pages was fear – witches were the boogeyman of the muggles. Not wizards, wizards were bored old men who were too lazy to know what to do with their power. But not witches. Witches were angry, they were ambitious, they were hungry.
Carefully, the eight year old took the eagle owl quill in her trembling hand. The tip of the quill was stained blood red with ink. She peered curiously into the mirror at her impertinent counterpart and dotted her face with red. What perfect warts she had, she thought proudly to herself, fingering the ink dots on her face, smudging red ink across her skin.
Giggling, she ran downstairs towards her mother.
"Mother! I'm a witch!" she hollered, her heels padding against the rich emerald carpet.
Druella Black stared at her daughter in shock. Her mouth soon collapsed into itself, turning into a tight scowl.
"Bella! Wash that off your face! Now!"
After spending, two years in Hogwarts, Bellatrix realised something important. She lacked something. Something different, something with a bit of chutzpah, something a bit terrifying. She stared at herself in the silver rimmed mirror. Dark heavy-lidded eyes gazed back at her lazily, in a somewhat calculating manner. Long dark hair fell heavily around her like a shroud. She looked like mother, a pure-blood heiress.
But being a pure-blood didn't mean that she was a true witch. There had to be something more – something a bit more animalistic, more fearsome.
She glanced at her perfectly trimmed nails and towards her Hawk Owl. Kronus was perched in his cage, feasting greedily on the body of a rat. His black talons had ripped into the body of the rodent, and were dripping scarlet with blood. He looked at her, his large yellow eyes boring into hers, there was blood stained around his beak. Something a bit like that.
She smiled to herself.
It was not working. She had two mudbloods ask her to Hogsmeade in the past month, even when she had made it perfectly crystal clear that she didn't associate with Hufflepuffs, much less mudbloods.
For Salazar's sake, she had been speaking to Rosier about joining the Dark Lord, when muggle-born Fallon had come up to her, slinging his arm around her and then asked her to join him at The Three Broomsticks. It was humiliating. Rosier laughed at her. Nobody laughed at a Black.
She stared into the mirror, stretching out her fingers. Long black nails like talons extended from her hands. The thing was that she still looked like a Slytherin princess. She scowled to herself – she looked too much like mother. Her fingernails, no talons, looked too pristine.
Bellatrix stared into the mirror. Her hair fell long and tender around her face. It was dark and neatly braided, sly strands of hair framed her face sweetly. She stared angrily into the mirror, her reflection cooing back to her. She looked like Narcissa, for Salazar's sake.
Growling angrily, she undid her braid with nimble fingers, tearing off the ribbon violently.
"Meda! Where is that Witches Weekly edition for curling hair?"
It was still not working. Rosier laughed at her and asked her if she had a perm which had gone bad. Flint waggled his eyebrows at her and said that she looked like a sex kitten.
"I am not a sex kitten." She hissed in anger, her hands balling around her wand. Her black talons were cutting into the skin of her palm, she could feel the hiss of pain from her soft flesh, right before the blood would flow.
"Aww, Bella darling, you look absolutely adorable." Rosier laughed at her, his finger touched the tip of her nose. "Look, Flint, Bella's about to blow."
Bellatrix screamed in anger. She threw her wand hand in front of her and screamed the only spell that would come into her mind.
"Crucio." Her voice was loud and shrill. It pierced through the heavy stone walls of the common room alongside the sharp red light which burst out of her wand. She watched imperiously as Rosier crumpled on to the floor in pain, his face collapsing into itself, gasping for air. She felt the spark which she had longer for as a child. A smile creeped across her face like a vine.
There was a light in her eyes, excitement crawled across her being like a lover, growing and blooming in her chest.
"Bella!" Flint shouted, trying to stop her. She turned to him, curled tendrils of hair flinging themselves across her face and growled, deep, dark and animalistic.
There was something bubbling within her. Joy, released frustration, freedom – she opened her mouth and laughed. Peals of laughter, cackling, poured out of her, as she twisted her wand in her hands, changing the degrees of pain exploding across Rosier's body.
Oh, how she howled.
Slowly, the red light grew dimmer. Bella could feel the power sadly seeping out of her fingers. Rosier lay slumped on the ground, gasping in pain, intermittently spitting blood from his mouth.
"I suppose it's time to introduce me, Rosier." She smirked. As she stepped over his prone body, she kicked him in the sternum.
"Oops." She turned to meet Flint's horrified gaze and crowed with laughter.
Years later, she found herself traipsing up the steps of a quiet house. Giggling to herself, she shouted into the darkness.
"Oh little Mckinnons, where are you?" the question left her like a yowl. Cackling to herself on the landing of the staircase, she waited for hurried footfalls to meet her.
Marlene Mckinnon screeched to a halt in front of her but it was too late, all too late. She had been waiting, the spell at the end of her tongue. Before Mckinnon could even open her mouth, Bellatrix had already screamed.
"Crucio." A scarlet jet of light shot out from her fingers and hit Mckinnon in the chest.
And in the silence, Bellatrix howled in laughter.