Author's Note: This is kind of a weird story and though I doubt she will ever read it, it's dedicated to my friend Melody who is turning 18 soon. Happy Birthday!
Goodbye Love, Hello Destiny
It was a beautiful wedding. Of course it was, she was the eldest in her family of all girls. The apple of her parents eye. The perfect child. She got the best grades in the family, and she learned quicker than anyone at Hogwarts. Music played softly in the background, her hand tightened on my arm as we walked, almost as if she was putting all her nerves over this day into me with that firm gesture. People stood and paid their respect as we slowly approached the minister. Her head tilted slightly and she threw me a smile. No one ever looked that beautiful. It made me remember...
"Trix? Trix?!" I had yelled when we were children playing hide and seek. She always hid and it was my job to find her, no matter what. I would look up in the attic, I would look down in the dungeons. I would scour every inch of the manor until I would hear a faint giggle. That's how I always found her. This time she was in the kitchen, hiding in a cabinet.
I slowly opened the door and slipped beside her inside. No one could ever find us when we decided not to be found, not even her sisters. "Found you." I muttered
She turned to me and smiled, she was always so beautiful when she smiled. "I know..." She reached down and took my hand. "I knew you could."
We sat in there for hours, telling jokes and planning tricks.
My mother arrived, it was time for me to go. I opened the door and tried to leave but I felt a tug on my hand. She hadn't let it go.
I turned and before I even realized what was happening, she darted forward and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I was dazed.
She smiled at me and ran away.
That was my first, then mother took me home.
Narcissa is already at the alter, waiting for us to arrive. She smirks at me but when she catches my eye, something changes. She knows, you see. She's always known. We kept it a secret from everyone but she found out.
I nearly tripped over my feet at that look in her eye, but Trix caught me, no one even noticed anything amiss. Trix always caught me, she would never let me fall....
We'd just come home from 3rd year. Trix wanted me to see her room now that it was re-decorated. How could I say no? She took my hand into her black gloved one. Our fingers intertwined, the contrast was amazing. She dragged me up the stairs that we ran our whole child hood, into her room that was once a menagerie of pinks and violets, now silver, black and green.
"Slytherin colours" I mention, taking in the entire room. Our initials are still carved on her bed.
"You approve?" She asks me mischievously.
"I couldn't ask a slytherin to paint in anything else" I answer, joining in this familiar waltz.
"I was afraid it would offend your gryffindor morals."
"My dear Trix. You're just being who you are, and if you weren't slytherin I probably wouldn't love you as much." I answer. Hoping she knows what I mean.
Her hand is still in mine, as if she never lets it go when I'm here. I get pulled towards her slowly, as if the entire world has paused for this moment. Her lips brush mine, but she pulls back.
The clock ticks as we stare into one another's eyes. Faces still only an inch apart. I reach up with my free hand and lightly touch her cheek, lips, nose, hair, memorizing each aspect of her face. She doesn't pull away. My hand glides over her hair and comes to rest on the back of her neck. Seconds pass again until I pull her through the inch of air that separated me from her and tasted her mouth once more. Lips, Tongue, she tasted like the nectar of an addictive wild flower. Once tasted, I would always want, need more.
Time had stopped for us it seemed. What happened in the world passed us by and was separate from us.
~SMASH!!~
Reality caught up with us...
We jumped apart as glass shards covered the hardwood floor.
Narcissa was at the door, hand out as if still holding the cup she dropped in shock.
"Cissa! Don't you ever knock?!" I demanded. I shouldn't get upset though, this is her room too when I'm here.
Trix took her outstretched hand and led her into the room. We didn't worry about the mess, the house elves would clean it.
I stood apart from them. They were sisters, it was their time to talk. I knew this from the desperate look Trix sent me.
They stared at each other, having entire conversations with simply their eyes, Narcissa questioning glances and confusion, met up with Trix' desperate looks and nervous eyes.
They reached some kind of decision that I was not a part of.
"I won't tell mom and dad" Narcissa stood and left. The shards of glass still twinkling on the floor.
She kept that promise to us. She never did tell. Now she looks at me with something akin to pity as we make our slow trek down the aisle. As we approach a defining point in both our lives, I can't help but feel a sense of fate pushing us towards this point, that it'll define our destinies forever. As if Narcissa knows my thoughts, her eyes momentarily shift to her parents and back to me. She remembers the day they found out.
It was the end of Fifth year, Trix' parents always picked me up from the Hogwarts express and brought me to their house for a week before I went home for the holidays. Normally Cissa would move into Trix' bedroom for the week and I would take hers. Ah, the horrors of being youngest. Not this year however, Andromeda has been disowned. I get her room now, as she isn't allowed back.
As soon as we were inside the door of her home, her fingers intertwined with mine. Always her left in my right, her black gloves against my white skin.
We can never see each other much when at Hogwarts. Not alone. So our week together at the beginning of Holidays is like a week in Paradise.
We waste no time getting to her room. We race up the stairs like little children, seeing who can get their first, but unlike when we were children, we won't be playing when we get there.
Her bed is soft. Black covers and sheets with Green pillows. Even after all these months away, it still bears her sent.
I love lying over her on those black covers, making her pale skin seem to glow. I'm always in awe when I unbutton her robes and shirts to reveal more and more of that pale glow. Giving every inch, every centimetre almost religious reverence as I taste her. She still tastes like the same wild nectar, I always considered so intoxicating. I will never get enough of her taste.
I love everything about her, each little sound that she makes as I worship her completely. The connection between us that has always been there seems heightened somehow in this place that represented to me, our complete innocence once.
I screamed something. I didn't know what, but tears of joy filled her eyes and she kissed me, a slow loving kiss, as opposed to the passionate ones we had just shared.
Later we lied together in her sheets, I held her tightly against me, but she didn't seem to mind.
"What did I say?" I asked her, I had to know.
"You said that you loved me" She whispered in awe.
I had never told her that before. I had just assumed it was understood. "I do, you know"
"I know, now." And we slept, I had never felt more content in my life.
I don't know how much time had passed but I felt the covers being ripped off me.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" It was trix' mother.
Trix sat up and pulled the blankets to cover her modesty. "Mother, don't-"
But she was too late, her mother had already pulled me out of bed, was shoving my clothes at me and pushing me out the door. She can be a scary woman sometimes.
"Get out! Get out, get out, GET OUT!!!!" She yelled as she continued to shove me out the door. Trix pulled on a robe and ran after us only to see her mother hand me floo powder. "Go Home! You are NOT welcome here anymore."
Trix had frozen, not comprehending that. Me, not welcome there. I was practically part of the family, I was always welcome there.
I gave her one last smile before I flooed home.
Her mother still won't look me in the eye, even after a year. You would think she would have forgiven me by now. So now we're here. We've reached the alter and Trix' mom has managed to get her revenge on me after all these years. Never piss off a Black, it's never pretty. She decided to punish me for taking her child's innocence. So here I am, at the end of the aisle with the love of my life. Only, I have to give her away now...
"What do you mean you're GETTING MARRIED??!!" I demanded. My eyes blazing. She reached for my hand but I pulled it out of reach, she was getting married, not to me; I wasn't going to fall into any childish first love patterns anymore.
"Mother told father and they're forcing me to, I don't have a choice." She answered, hurt plainly visible on her face that I wouldn't give her my hand.
"Do you love him?" I asked, anger simmering just below the surface.
"I could be happy with him..." She answered knowing that I would do something stupid if she answered otherwise.
"But do you love him??" Desperation and misery, filled my voice as I asked her this.
She looks down, away, anywhere but at me. "I could, if I tried." A part of her died with that answer, I know that now. A part of me died as well because we both knew that was true. She could if she tried.
If I had thought she would do it, I would ask her to run away with me. Throw away the house, the money, the family, everything and just be with me. I know she won't though. Trix was always the sensible one.
We couldn't get away with that; even if my parents didn't disown me, which they probably would, we would be shunned by everyone we held dear, Trix wouldn't be able to handle that.
"When is it?" I asked, my voice raspy with grief.
"Two days, it was all arranged very quickly except...."
I looked up, my tortured Black eyes meeting hers. "Except?"
"Mother thinks you should give me away.... You don't have to if you don't want." She looked ashamed of herself staring at the floor, she is. She knows what she's asking me, though no one else does.
"She wants to punish me, hmm?" I asked, lifting her chin so she'll look me in the eye.
"She wants to punish us both" Was Trix' reply.
I hold her gaze for another moment before letting my hand drop. "Alright.... I'll do it... I'll give you away. I am your cousin, after all."
She slides her left hand down my arm and momentarily entwines her fingers with mine. Now her gloves are white, mine are black. She turned to me and gave me a gentle lingering kiss on the cheek, our hands still tightly interwoven. I kissed her cheek back and I could feel the tears fill my eyes. I fought them back gallantly, I am a Gryffindor after all. I unwound our fingers and gave her away, to him.
The wedding began.
It passed as a blur for me, except for one part:
"Do you Bellatrix Black take Rodolphus Lestrange to be your lawfully wedded Husband?"
"...I do"
My heart finished shattering. It was over.
I gave her away, and after she was beyond my reach I left. Not just the wedding, or reception actually. I went to my house, though not my home, packed my things and left. Her, my parents, my brother, everyone.
I was not going to belong to the family that took her away from me anymore.
The knocker was heavy but it made a loud enough noise to get some attention. I waited a moment and knocked again.
From inside I could her footsteps running for the door. It opened.
My best friend stood there, eyeing my luggage and then my face. He pulled the door open farther, inviting me in. "Hi Sirius."
"Hi James" I answered.
* * * End * * *
Author's Note Again: Please review, please, please please. Also, this is a one-shot but If you want more you'll have to ask nicely.