Chapter One:
That Room On The Top Floor
"Thanks so much, Bella, I owe you one. I left a list of things for you to do on the counter in the kitchen. We'll be back tomorrow, around eleven. We're taking Kreacher with us, so you're all alone." Bellatrix's aunt said, and left in a rush.
"Bellatrix Black, housesitter extraordinaire." she said with a sigh before walking into the kitchen and looking at the list.
Dearest Bellatrix, I would be most grateful if you could do the following things for me:
Clean out that room on the top floor completely
Clean Sirius' room
Clean Regulus' room
Get rid of those bothersome spiders in Regulus' room, they keep biting him and I think he may be allergic
The list went on and on. At the bottom it said,
Thanks so much, Bellatrix. Get all of this done and there'll be a galleon or two in it for you.
The young woman laughed, "A galleon or two for doing all of this? Is the woman mad?" Bella knew she was, and she also knew better than to not do what her aunt said. Her cousins, Regulus and Sirius, had gone with her mother and their mother to visit some family. Her younger sister, Andromeda, was at her friend, Toni's house for the rest of the summer. Bellatrix's other sister, the youngest, was at home lounging about outside. Narcissa would probably go over to Lucius Malfoy's house later. 'The poor girl practically drools over him. He's not too bad, from a respectable, pureblood family, much like my own. Narcissa is most certainly on the right track with her life. She will surely marry Lucius, have a child or two, and be respectable, in the feared Black way of things. Andromeda, on the other hand, can be rather preposterous. Of course, I like her enough, but must she always be so nice to those filthy mudbloods? Someone needs to knock some sense into that girl. I must remember to do that later.' Bella thought. She set about starting her many chores, beginning with the room on the top floor.
Bellatrix was beautiful, and she knew it. You could see in the way she held herself. Her shoulders were back and her ruby lips were pursed in a permanent scowl. Her gorgeous, dark eyes were heavily hooded, as always. You could also see it in the way she walked, light, but with confidence and poise. Her jet-black hair, which had a blue tint it was so black, hung straight down her back with a straight cut just below her hips, which swayed slightly as she walked up the neverending steps.
She entered the said room and looked around, her face showing her disgust. The room was filthy, boxes of unimportant things everywhere, the lighting dim. The room was in shambles. There was a single window on the opposite side of the square, mucky room. She glided over and tried to open it, her attempts useless.
"Damned window!" she cursed before pulling out her wand and muttering a spell. "There, that's much better." Bella said, with a satisfied smirk on her face. It wasn't as suffocating in there, with the light breeze from the window. She looked in the nearest box, which was filled over the top with knicknacks of all sorts that nobody wanted to begin with. She conjured up a chair and began to go through the odds and ends.
Bellatrix was seventeen, the oldest Black of her generation. She would be going into her seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"What the hell is this?" she muttered, looking at the gadget with a confused look. Bella shrugged and threw it in the toss pile she had made. There were other seemingly useless things that she didn't give a second thought to before throwing out.
There were old family pictures. Bellatrix's mum and dad were standing in the back, smiling smugly and looking bored. Narcissa, a short girl with long blonde hair, looked to be about seven. She was just standing there, her head tilted to one side, her mouth forming a straight line and her brows furrowed. Andromeda, a brown-haired girl, looked to be eight. She grinned a little and itched her nose. Bellatrix, who must've been eleven, looked almost exactly the same as she did now. Her black hair long, her eyes dark and downcast, and a scowl plastered on her face.
Another picture contained a madly grinning Sirius, his dark brown hair falling delicately into his face and almost covering his chocolate brown eyes. In front of him was Regulus, looking up innocently and then down at his fingers covered in mud. He wasn't as good looking as Sirius, even at that young age you could tell.
A third picture had only Bellatrix in it. She was sitting in a window seat, at her own house, hugging her knees. She remembered having that picture taken three years ago. She was glaring at Andromeda, who was taking the picture. Bella looked at that picture for a long time, looking into her fourteen year old self's eyes. They were full of contempt and scorn. Finally, Bella looked away. She took the picture and stuffed it in her pocket.
"Such stupid odds and ends. Stupid pictures, stupid plaques and trophies." Bella sighed as she sorted through these things. Hours later she grinned, she had finished the sorting. "Now, for the easy part." she took out her wand and said the cleaning charm. The room was cleaned in no time.
It had gotten gray outside and Bellatrix could feel the moisture in the air. She closed the window just as it began to rain. She walked, in that gliding way of hers, to the kitchen to get something to eat. She could hear the rain pounding harder and harder on the roof of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, even from the bottom floor. She walked over to the nearest window, a sandwich in hand, and stared out at the pouring rain.
It was relentless, coming down in thick sheets. She could see the hard raindrops pop back up a few inches after hitting the ground the first time. It soon got misty from the rain popping back and Bella could hardly see the yard in front of her.
Suddenly, two arms grabbed her around her waist, loosely but tight at the same time. It shocked her out of her reverie.
A/N: Hey my faithful readers, old and new! So, Bella's housesitting and doing chores at the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. She's suddenly been seized around the middle. Any guesses as to who it is? If you guess correctly before I update, the chapter will be dedicated to you. -wink- LOL. So, I hope you like this so far. If you're bored, zoom your way over to my other fanfictions and enjoy Next chapter should be up shortly! Reviews make me update faster, LOL. And remember, CONSTANT VIGILENCE!
P.S. No, I haven't abandoned my other fanfictions. Just taking a break. I'll work on A&TP when I finish with the last chapter of this(I can't believe I'm almost finished with this story when I started it last night!), and then I'll work on KISA. Then Untitled and finally AIOE. Lol. But, with the Bella muse out of the way, I can get back to some real work