A/N:
I've had a lot of fun for a couple of days trying to figure out exactly what made Bella, Meda and Cissy the persons we know them as.
The most interesting was naturally Bellatrix, a mistress of dark arts and lord Voldemort's one-sided lover. Rowling has stated "No one is truly, fully evil than lord Voldemort" or so and therefore I wanted to make Bellatrix a good person who goes trough things a young girl shouldn't and will probably end up being mentally ill (I'll get to that later).
Feel free to review and/or correct my possible errors, this is translated work from my original Finnish script.Enjoy! -Atomism
Love and Power
Bellatrix / 1968
"..And us, the ones who have the power in natural order, and from which it has been forcefully taken away, shall rule them all", Rodolphus said with his dark, soft voice. A victorious smile flickered in his face and he had a dreamy look in his eyes as if he had seen the glory ahead. "Rule them all!" Bellatrix sighed with fascinated tone in her voice.
The two, seventeen-year-olds somewhere between friends and lovers, laid on the green grass of Hogwarts and looked at the beautiful view that opened above them: the dim light of the sun that had already settled to the west, the brightest stars and the soft white lines of the moon.
Rodolphus leaned his head on his black leather school bag and let Bellatrix's head rest on his chest. Bellatrix made little circles with his long fingers to Rodolphus' shoulder and heard as his heart beat a little faster than it should have.
"If, actually when, He begins to rise to power, me and my father are going to fight for His cause", Rodolphus said. Bellatrix listened to him and the evening and didn't answer. For a moment a peaceful silence floated around them.
Rodolphus had always been her good friend and ally, but in their last year at Hogwarts she had begun to feel something a little more towards the boy.
To her, Rodolphus was something very different from what she had used to; caring, friendly and soft, in other words everything that her father wasn't.
It must be that, she thought to herself. She saw Rodolphus as someone who replaced her desire for a loving man, who took good care of her and listened to her thoughts. But Bellatrix didn't want to go to a relationship like that, she feared that eventually she would be bored and hurt him. And the last thing she wanted to do was hurt her friend.
"Galleon for your thoughts", Rodolphus said. Bellatrix had been dreaming.
"It's just.. my dad.." Bellatrix said hoarsely and looked up to Rodolphus.
Rodolphus' free hand wandered to Bellatrix's shoulder, that had a small, yellow bruise when Bellatrix had come back from the Christmas holiday. The strong man's hand fondled the spot with unimaginable tenderness. Bellatrix saw worry in his eyes.
"Rod, it's okay, it really was just an accident", Bellatrix resisted, but didn't deny his touch.
"You're so beautiful, I'd never hurt you Bella", Rodolphus said quietly, as if he was talking to himself.
The words felt like warm daggers in Bellatrix's heart, as if Rodolphus had picked just the right words that her unsure heart needed.
Rodolphus' face came closer, he brought his hand to her cheek. Lips met lips.
It wasn't Bellatix's first kiss, but for a second she felt that something, that had been there since she was born was lifted up. For one single second everything was light, her heart was screaming in pain, but everything was so, very light.
Then their blushed faces parted.
"Rod, I'm so sorry", Bellatrix winced as the realization and guilt flew through her. She teared herself away from Rodolphus' embrace, stood up, and started quickly walking away.
"Bella!" Rodolphus shouted at her back in utter confuse.
"Bella I thought that you.. you liked me! I mean that you had a crush on me!" his handsome, usually so manly face was school-boyish and redden.
"And I still do!" Bellatrix turned quickly around. "And that is exactly the problem, Rod!"
She started walking again towards the main doors even more quickly with her hands pressed on her chest.
"And what's the logic behind that, may I ask!" Rodolphus shouted, but he didn't try to catch her. "Women.." he murmured and wiped the ruins of the kiss from the corner of his mouth.
London's summer was unusually hot and dry. Bellatrix didn't see a single grey cloud that could have threatened the utter warmth.
"I can't understand how muggles survive without cooling spells", Andromeda said. She twiddled her new, custom made Twilfitt and Tattings' green charmed parasol. Bellatrix rolled her eyes and tried to resist the sudden temptation, but gave in.
"Why don't you ask that mudblood of yours?" she asked and gave a derisive laugh that she tried to hide her curiosity with.
Few days before they had left Hogwarts she had seen Andromeda and some Hufflepuff mudblood, she believed his name was Tonks, snogging near the first floor girls' bathroom. She had waited for a moment alone with Andromeda to reveal that she knew her shocking secret, but for Bellatrix's surprise she burst out laughing.
"Tonks? Edward Tonks? You saw that? Oh my", Andromeda laughed so hard she had to put her lace-covered hand in front of her mouth. Bellatrix scowled. Andromeda took deep breaths.
"I had a bet with the Abbot boy about the Holey Head Harpies versus Banchory Bangers game (he's from Scotland) and I lost!" Andromeda rushed to explain. Bellatrix still didn't understand.
They turned to the left through the gates of an old two story Victorian house. There were bunch of colourful flowers in straight lines and a small fake pond.
"The mudblood apparently has a crush on me and my punishment was to go and snog him. You know the Abbots, they have a twisted sense of humour. Besides he was a terrible kisser!" Andromeda huffed and Bellatrix smiled a little. That sounded pretty reasonable for a person like Andromeda.
She knew her sister, foolhardy little Andromeda. Where Bellatrix tried to make sure that no one she loved would have to suffer, Andromeda ran around with no worries and let her dear father fix the mistakes after her.
Once her fellow fifth years had dared her to pull down some muggle boy's pants, but she had decided to do it with magic and to humiliate the boy even more, she had put a boil hex on his face.
Cygnus had solved the situation in the Ministry of Magic with money and laughed to the pathetic muggle with her. Bellatrix didn't even dared to think what would have something like that cost to her, his father least favourite of the three.
"Bella! Meda!" Narcissa ran from the backyard behind a thick hedgerow. She was laughing, as always. She had untied her straight blonde hair, and she didn't have shoes in her feet although she was wearing her light blue party dress. She was thirteen but she looked like a tall small child.
Behind the girl ran a boy, who had a dark brown hair and kind green eyes, just like his bigger brother.
"Rabastan Lestrange!" Bellatrix gasped and thought frantically were they ever informed about any guests. She glanced at Andromeda who looked just as confused as she probably was.
"Miss Black", Rabastan bowed a little. Bellatrix was an adult now, and although her sisters hadn't changed their behaviour, seemed the fourteen-year-old followed the etiquette. She smiled a little.
"Cissy, what's going on? Do we have any more quests?" Andromeda asked.
"Do we have more?" Narcissa giggled. "The house of Lestrange is here, even their grandfather as well as our grand-peré and grandfather Rosier! The adults are drinking tea in the garden." she reported and signed towards the direction the two had just ran from. She had probably expected something else but all she got were Andromeda's indignant and Bellatrix's shocked faces.
"What! But we aren't even wearing our party dresses!" Andromeda raised her voice nervously.
But Bellatrix's stomach felt cold and she couldn't think less about such redundancies as party dresses.
Narcissa's joyful smile froze. "I'll go say that you just came and you're just going to freshen up a bit.. Oh!" Narcissa had noticed Andromeda's brand new parasol. "Could I have one too? Daddy said that.."
"Could you please ask 'daddy' to come upstairs?" Bellatrix interrupted.
"Of course, miss Bell.." Narcissa said imitating the voice of Ruma the house elf and turned around. "Come, Stan."
Bellatrix pulled Andromeda with her inside. "Why are you in such a hurry?" Andromeda asked as they walked up the huge marble stairs to the second floor.
"Don't you understand? The house of Lestrange, Rodolphus, our house, I just turned seventeen!" Bellatrix huffed. At the same time the words reached her mind as well, and as she said it out loud it all sounded even more rational. Her voice cracked "They are going to marry me off, Rodolphus is going to propose me."
Andromeda's face dropped as soon as she realized what she'd just heard. "But you like Rodolphus, don't you?" she tried to comfort her, but without knowing it, made Bellatrix feel even worse. "It's not about that and I wish you, out of all, understand that, Meda."
Bellatrix sat at her dressing table and lined her lips with red. The door behind her opened, Cygnus marched in and shut the door behind him. He stood still as if he was waiting for Bellatrix to tell him the reason of his visit.
Bellatrix settled to eye Cygnus trough the mirror, his father, who she hadn't called her father as long as she could remember. The man was tall, well-proportioned and looked a bit older than his age. He was wearing a brown dinner robe decorated with gold and tied his long, dark brown curly hair. His grey eyes, identical to Bellatrix's, had unmoved look in them, as they stared at Bellatrix trough the mirror.
"How long have you been planning this, Cygnus?" Bellatrix asked quietly and tried to hide her anger. Her beautiful face trembled as if they wouldn't know what shape to take.
"Look in my eyes when you're talking to me, Bellatrix", his dad said and took a few steps forward. Bellatrix turned around but stared at the floor rather than faced his father's cold eyes.
A door slammed on the ground floor; father had come home. Bellatrix breathed long, fearful and calm gasps. Her wand was in her mother's bureau, as well as the muggle's doll she had played with in the morning.
She heard her mother explain and her father shouting. Her eyes tingled and she swallowed.
"Focus", she whispered. She heard her father run upstairs. "Focus, you deserve this, you are a coward if you cry now."
"How long have you been planning this, Cygnus?" Bellatrix repeated as calmly as she could. She was grown up now, but she knew that in his fathers eyes she was just another piece of property. She knew she had only one choice, accept whatever was planned for her. Something inside her still resisted, though, that something wanted to know why. If getting that answer meant confronting her father, be it.
"For a while." Cygnus answered. "You've probably tried every boy in your school and I'm under the impression that Rodolphus was your favourite, hmm, option."
"Me and him are just friends, Cygnus!" Bellatrix said and regretted immediately her own courage.
"Little girl, Rodolphus told me himself how you and him have done things only married couples should do. He wasn't the first boy who slept with you, wasn't he? I'm just trying to make a deal to save your non-existent dignity", Cygnus said, clearly enjoying every lie he spilled.
"Lies! You're lying, Cygnus!"
The pain came immediately and struck her nose. She tasted blood on her red lips and started screaming.
The door slammed open. His father, blinded by pride and anger stood there for a moment measuring Bellatrix as she tried to hold her tears. Then he shut the door so quietly it didn't even squeak.
"Bellatrix", he hissed. "What have I done to you? Why are you letting your mother go trough this? Don't you understand", first slap hit Bellatrix's cheek,"that I work every day" another, harder slap, "to eliminate things just like this?" Third slap hit Bellatrix in her eye so that she couldn't see anything for a moment.
Bellatrix clenched her hands and tried to resist the urge to bury her hit face in them and fall in child's heartbroken cry.
Cygnus came at her, he threw her on the floor and kicked her everywhere he could reach.
"You worthless little slut!" he screamed. "Don't you have any respect for your parents, your house or your blood status?" He intensified every word he spoke with a new hit.
Then happened something that had never happened before: In the middle of Cygnus' treatment Bellatrix's door slammed open and Andromeda stormed in.
"Mommy! Mommy!" Bellatrix screamed. The house was quiet. Her mother didn't come, as she had never before, to help her. Not in the middle of Cygnus' rage.
Everything went blurry and eventually dark. Bellatrix's last thought tasted like blood.
"Stop it! Father, stop it! You're hurting her, stop it right now!" Bellatrix's little sister screamed. She looked like a grown woman, she had a fierce look in her face, that Bellatrix couldn't read nor had ever seen.
Cygnus stopped for a moment and turned to Andromeda. Bellatrix lied on the floor and stayed still, partly in the fear of new series of kicks and mostly because it would have been too painful.
"Meda, go to the garden with the others please. I'm taking care of this", Cygnus said and tried to sound kind.
"You're not taking care of anything anymore, father. Go away or I'll scream so loud everyone will hear!" Andromeda growled. Cygnus was going to say something to her, but gave in and walked away from Bellatrix. She sighed and lifted herself to a slightly better position.
As soon as Cygnus had walked out the door Andromeda ran to Bellatrix and hugged her as tight as she dared. Bellatrix cried for the first time in years and thanked her sister hoarsely.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of this. Episkey. Just say yes and leave with Rodolphus", Andromeda talked silently at the same time she listed different healing and covering spells.
"I don't love him. I don't want to marry her", Bellatrix murmured when Andromeda fixed her smudged make up with her wand.
"You love him more than you love father."
"What about Cissy?" Bellatrix sighed in distress. "I'll make sure he wont touch her, either of you." Andromeda said and stared at her eyes.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"I'm scared."
"I know."
