two -
.:pretty patterns and childhood dreams:.
[warning - very dark.]
[note - this is a slightly au universe, in which andromeda is the oldest of the black sisters, narcissa is the second-oldest and bellatrix is the youngest. tom riddle and the basilisk incident/myrtle's death happened in his fourth year, not his fifth. tom riddle and the black sisters also attended hogwarts in the same time in this fic.]
PRETTY PATTERNS AND CHILDHOOD DREAMS
the introduction -
This is a story about a childhood dream. Oh, childhood dreams. Remember them? Princesses and heroes, happiness and sunshine. A utopia. So innocent, so fragile. So easily broken under the pressure of a dark, dark world.
But every so often, once in a blue moon, the dream itself is dark. Perhaps the child's mind that conceived the dream did not work quite right; what kind of a child would have a dream so black? Perhaps it is simply the things, the deeply dangerous, twisted things that the dream can make a child do that makes it dark. Perhaps it is because the dream does not leave the child, and it becomes an all-consuming obsession.
This is a story about a childhood dream that fits that exact description.
then -
( - or, another now)
The first time Bellatrix cuts a pattern onto herself is the year she turns thirteen.
now -
( - or, when the childhood dreams have evaporated)
You may be thinking that childhood dreams simply disappear into thin air. And it is sometimes so. Sometimes children simply forget, and leave their dreams behind.
But sometimes they don't. Sometimes the dreams morph and change into horrifying, ugly monsters, capable of pushing dreamers right over into the huge, gaping chasm of insanity.
Now, Bellatrix is tortured by her dream. This rather spoils the story, but she is, in the end, convinced that her dream comes true.
But she is also haunted by memories. Little snatches of fractured images, voices ... lying awake all night long, feeling so, so alone. Andri playing with her when they were seven - Andri was always the cook and Bellatrix was the princess. She loved those times. But she doesn't know what they mean now, why they come back and make her relive them, because they don't do anything other than torture her.
And she doesn't want to believe them. She doesn't want to believe that she ever had a shred of a good memory with that Mudblood-lover. She doesn't want to remember all those painful, torturous night either. And so she simply shuts them out and concentrates on her dream. Her dream that came true - so she thinks.
The thirteen-year-old Bellatrix was in love with Tom Riddle. It had always been a dream of hers; when she was a young child, while other girls her age were fantasizing about living on a rainbow and being a princess, she'd daydreamed about marrying a dark, quietly mysterious man. It had never struck her as odd; when you are young, your dreams make sense, no matter how wild or improbable.
And when she'd first come across Tom Riddle, the handsome Slytherin, he was the very manifestation of that dream. It was just perfect. Here was her idol, ready-made and flawless.
He soon became her obsession.
The thirteen-year-old Bellatrix didn't know why she thought that carving pictures onto herself was good. All she knew was that it gave her a feeling of enormous satisfaction that Tom Riddle never had, in all the days and weeks and months and years that she had been pursuing him. It felt like she was dreaming about him again; dreaming about things that would never happen, not outside her little world of childhood dreams.
Except this dream took her further.
the backstory -
( - or, the story itself)
She uses the silver knife she has had since she was a child. She got it from the old hag down the road when she was seven. She hasn't ever used it before, but she's always thought the flower pattern on the handle was very pretty.
Now she examines it in the sliver of moonlight that finds its way into her dormitory window. The patterns are, indeed, very pretty, but she's sure they won' be as pretty as the one she's about to make. She doesn't dawdle. She blows a curl of dark hair away from her face, rolls up her sleeve so she can see her left forearm clearly in the moonlight, and begins to carve.
It takes just a minute. She can feels the knife cutting into her flesh, but ignores the pain. She has no time to hurt.
The picture on her forearm is indeed pretty; of course it is, she'd never have expected less from herself. She looks at it from every angle. Perfect.
A warm sensation floods her body. She feels so light. She tries to give a name to that sensation ... Could it be happiness? No, Bellatrix is above such stupid feelings. Happiness does not exist; happiness is a fairytale. No, this is something else ... satisfaction. Pride. She's proud of herself. The picture looks positively gorgeous.
The smile that has been absent from her face for such a long time twists up her lips. Her muscles feel strange, trying to cope with this odd new expression.
After a few seconds of it, it almost feels ... nice.
"Bella?"
She hastily shoves the knife under her sheets, and bites her lip when she feels it poking her thigh. But she must learn to resist it. She must learn to be strong.
"Bella, what are you doing awake right now?" It's Narcissa. She folds her arms over her chest, frowning at her sister.
"Everyone else is still awake. Including you," Bellatrix replies coolly.
"I was studying in the common room. With friends. I'm not sure whether you've got this word in your dictionary, but -"
"Shut up, Cissy," Bellatrix hisses.
Narcissa shrugs. "Honestly, Bella, you never talk to anyone. Except me, but you never say anything nice." She turns to a mirror on the wall and begins to shake out her hair-pins.
Behind her, Bellatrix scowls; not a single hint of a smile is left on her thin face.
"Get changed, Bella."
"I don't want to. And don't call me Bella," she adds under her breath, but she knows her sister won't listen.
"You must. We don't want Slytherin to look bad, do we? We're always the best, and we can't let the Gryffindors show us up like last year. Doing simple things like wearing your nightgown when you sleep will work wonders for our image, Bella."
Bellatrix glares at Narcissa. She's never really been able to believe that they are sisters by blood. Born in the same year, at that - Narcissa in January, Bellatrix in early December.
She shoots one more angry glance at Narcissa before flipping over on her side. "Goodnight," she says, and her tone makes it clear that it's the end of the discussion.
The picture on her forearm is one of a snake.
. . .
It goes on and on - Bellatrix with her silver knife, at nighttime after dinner. Nobody notices. These cuts aren't real patterns, not like that beautiful snake.
Yet. They're just nicks in her skin, signs of her boredom.
. . .
Two months later, she brings out the knife again.
It's night time - well, morning, really; past midnight. Slytherin has just won a Quidditch game over Hufflepuff. Even Bellatrix, who doesn't usually pay attention to such fucking stupid things like Quidditch knows that. She is the only one without the smell of alcohol on her. She has no time to celebrate silly things like Quidditch, although she grudgingly admits that it is good news for her house... And another little piece of evidence to prove their superiority over Andromeda's.
When she brings out the knife, she doesn't really know why she's going to do it again. Nothing all too terrible has happened. Tom Riddle has not so much as glanced in her direction, that's for sure, but she's getting used to it. She'll still try as hard as she can to catch his attention, though. She's become too attached to him. He's her obsession. More than a childhood dream.
Next to her, Narcissa grunts and turns over in her bed.
Bellatrix doesn't waste any time. She closes her eyes and tries to think of the pattern that she's going to carve today. The snake was lovely, but it's fading; only some vague scars remain. And anyway, Bellatrix doesn't want a snake. This time, it will be bigger and better. This time, it will be closer to her elbow, so that the sleeves of her robes will cover it in the day.
She spends a little more than an hour minutes on it.
When she's done, she holds it up to the moonlight. Beautiful. The blood drips out (drip, drip, drip, like a tap) slowly and rhythmically, like it has its own music. It glistens a deep, wine red. Beautiful. And it is, truly, beautiful. The lines are intricate; the details flawless. Bellatrix thinks that it is the most gorgeous thing that she has seen.
And Bellatrix doesn't find this twisted at all.
a note from the writer -
I'd like to take a short moment to explain this; why Bellatrix doesn't find the horrific act of carving pictures and pretty patterns on her skin very horrifying at all. It is the norm for her. She knows that other people don't do it, yet she goes on believing this.
But in another world, another dimension - Bellatrix's own world - it is perfectly normal. She feels bored. She cuts. She is a jumble of emotions. She cuts. She is beginning to realize that her childhood dream may not work out.
She cuts.
Although you and I may think: How stupid of her, cutting things onto your own arm won't do you any good. But it does for her. Do you have any odd habits? You might always pick up your fork before your knife before eating. You might always breathe in a particular pattern. You might like to eat a certain type of cereal on Mondays and a different type of cereal on the next day. Maybe you simply have a foreign accent in a different country. None of these things will seem odd to you if you do them every day, although you may know that other people don't do them.
This is what the cutting was to Bellatrix.
back to the backstory -
This time, the picture is one of a skull.
Bellatrix has cut deeper into her skin this time, and the wine-red blood is dripping out of her arm and staining her bedsheets quickly. She curses silently. She doesn't need someone finding out what she's up to. She has a feeling that they wouldn't approve, no matter who they are.
"Scourgify."
Bellatrix's magic isn't particularly commendable, but no blood is visible on the bedsheets but for a small, slightly orange stain. Bellatrix dismisses it. Nobody will suspect anything. The house elves are too stupid to think twice of the stain.
She keeps her arm raised and ties some cloth torn from her blanket around her arm just below it, to catch any more blood. She wraps it around carefully until it's tight, using the light of the glittering half-moon and her wand to tie the cloth properly.
There, she tells herself, satisfied as she lies down, her arm still elevated. It's beautiful.
Her mouth twists into a gruesome smile as she thinks of everyone else in the world - not one of them giving a damn about her. She's positive that nobody cares enough to worry about what she's doing now. "But I've got you, haven't I, darling?" she croons quietly to the skull, stroking it lovingly.
She's gone mad.
. . .
When she is sure that nobody is watching, Bellatrix carves over the skull again and again.
She simply must keep the wound fresh and bleeding. And she must not let anyone know. On the fifth night, she curses herself silently for not knowing a spell that could do it for her, because it hurts, God damn it, and it's because the skull her only real companion now that she's doing this to herself.
Every night, when she is sure that her skin is bleeding again, she smiles a smile that mirrors the skull's: Twisted and empty.
the demented dreamer -
( - don't you think that in a way, all of them are?)
By this time, the dream has driven the dreamer mad. Insane. Demented.
But then again, who is to say that Bellatrix wasn't demented all along?
and back again -
( - i apologize, these breaks must be getting tedious for you readers)
The skull lives on for another one and a half years.
Even Bellatrix herself is faintly surprised that nobody has noticed it yet. All through the summer holidays, her family leaves her alone (everyone leaves everyone alone in her family, really) and nobody at school cares much for Bellatrix: she's far from being a teacher's pet, but she doesn't cause enough mischief to be noticed; she doesn't have any close friends, and all her house mates wouldn't give a fuck whether she lived or died. Narcissa pays attention to her, but it's only to snap at her for having a hair out of place or wearing mismatched socks.
And so it goes on. Bellatrix and her silver knife working hard to keep the skull alive at night, and everyone in blissful ignorance.
. . .
She looks like a shell.
"Bellatrix!"
Narcissa has a shocked, angry look on her face. "Bellatrix, you haven't had dinner yet! Get down, don't sneak away like this." She has followed her sister up from the Great Hall.
Bellatrix simply stares at her, her mind working slowly. Narcissa is a pretty girl, she thinks, she would be a pretty girl if she stopped scrunching her nose up like that.
"Bellatrix!"
Bellatrix gives her a look out of those haunted eyes of hers, and Narcissa swears she feels a shiver down her spine.
"No."
"... What do you mean, no?"
"No. Nope. Not eating. I don't -"
"Bella!"
" - feel like it."
Her eyes flash.
"And don't call me Bella."
"Oh, I'm going to call you whatever I want, alright. You are going to go right down there and eat! No wonder you look so skinny and pale. You're never going to be a beautiful woman if you don't eat. See, I'm getting curves."
Bellatrix's expression has not varied in the entire conversation, and Narcissa is slightly unnerved.
"I am not going to eat. And I don't want to look like a beautiful woman, if that's what you are."
"BELLATRIX!"
They are both silent for a while. Narcissa is heaving deep breaths, telling herself to calm down. Bellatrix is watching her with an interminable darkness behind her eyes and all the facial expressions of a piece of parchment.
"Bellatrix?"
For the first time, Narcissa hears ... something in her voice. Bellatrix doesn't. It's almost ... worried. Like she cares about her little sister.
"Just ..."
Her voice trails off. What is there to say? What is wrong with Bella? Narcissa feels so helpless. She is supposed to be the one for Bellatrix, because she's the only real big sister she has. Andromeda isn't a part of the family any more, not really. Not since that day she was Sorted into Hufflepuff. Narcissa winces slightly.
(She won't admit it, but she misses Andri, just a little bit.)
"Just ... be ... make sure you don't ... make sure you stay healthy, alright?"
She retreats, turning her back to her sister and heading back towards the Great Hall. I might as well set an example, she thinks.
There's a worried, nagging feeling in the back of her mind telling her that there is something very, very wrong with Bellatrix.
But it takes the back seat. She has a dinner to eat and friends to talk to. She can't let herself be distracted like this.
. . .
Blood gushes out of her arm. It's nearly midnight, more than twenty-four hours after her confrontation with Narcissa. The full moon shines serenely outside her window, and she can see everything that she is doing perfectly. There's a mirror across from her, at the other end of the room, and she catches sight of herself in it. Her hair is shoulder-length and wild, completely out-of-control. She smiles that empty, manic smile of hers. That is nice. She likes her hair like that.
Somewhere in the deep, sleepy recesses of her mind, the tiny portion that has been spared of insanity, wonders: Why am I doing this?
Because despite everything, Bellatrix can still think logically. And logically, how the fuck is cutting herself going to help her catch Tom Riddle's eye? No, it isn't going to help at all.
But she's gone so far. She's bonded with this skull of hers. She loves it. It's her little pet. And it might not help at all with catching Tom Riddle's eye, but she wants it, it's hers, and nobody is going to take it away from her. And it's going to help her get Tom Riddle. She knows it. She doesn't fucking care about how illogical it is, but the skull will help her.
It will.
(She's sunken into insanity so deep.
But not as deep as she could go.)
. . .
She walks (floats, rather) around like a ghost. Like a little paper doll. She's so light, she could fly. It's like she's shrunken into herself, making her even more invisible than before.
In the little prison of her mind, she and her skull rule the school. She and her skull take down all the Mudbloods and make Slytherin the only house in the school, and all the filthy blood traitors thrown out. And she, Bellatrix, will be the one who rules over everything. And she will have her skull.
All is perfect.
All is absolutely perfect.
And to complete this perfection, Tom Riddle will fall in love with her.
Her heart starts racing, even thinking about it: Tom Riddle will fall in love with me. She chants it to herself everywhere; in the corridors, while she is eating meals, in her sleep ... And in her classes.
"Tom Riddle will fall in love with me."
Sometimes she whispers to herself, to get that shiver, that high, simply from hearing the words. They give her a thrill. "Tom Riddle will fall in love with me," she says to her skull during her History of Magic lesson one Friday. "Tom Riddle will fall in love with me."
"... Miss Lestrange?"
Professor Binns is peering at her over the top of his half-moon glasses, a small frown on her face. "Miss Lestrange?"
The last of his students are filing out of the class. He looks surprised that this girl is not racing out with her friends. This queer, tiny girl, is rocking back and forth gently at her seat. Her lips are chapped and her hair is wild. Her eyes are wide, but they look absolutely empty. They are empty and they are staring into emptiness ... into nothing.
He walks toward her. "Miss Lestrange?"
Then he notices that her lips, her cracked, chapped lips that don't look like they've been taken care of at all, are moving. She's whispering something.
How odd.
"Miss Lestrange!" he calls, more loudly this time. Bellatrix lets out an impatient shriek and covers her ears, rocking back and forth. She's shaking.
"- fall in love with me, he will, my skull, he will, fall in love with me ..."
Professor Binns claps his hands in front of her. There is something deeply troubling, something completely wrong with this child. Going crazy and having an emotional breakdown because of love, he can understand - the students do it all the time in his classes, it's getting so boring - but ... skull?
"He WILL!" Her voice is now a soft, high-pitched and scratchy sound that reminds Professor Binns of fingernails across the blackboard.
- And it suddenly stops.
Bellatrix's eyes snap open and she freezes. She stays in one position for what feels like the longest time, and Binns doesn't move, either. "Miss Lestrange, are you alright?"
"Is it the end of the lesson already?" Bellatrix asks, her voice quite normal. Professor Binns doesn't speak. She is still looking directly in front of her, at the blackboard.
"Why, yes, it is. I'm afraid you're late for your Transfirguration."
"Oh, hello. Professor Binns, is it?"
"... Why, yes." He frowns concernedly. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"Of course I am," she says getting up and walking over to the corridor - well, drifting over, really. She looks so light and fragile, a gust of wind could blow her all the way to the doorway. Professor Binns' frown deepens. Didn't his students usually have chubbier cheeks than this girl?
Oh well. It's nice to look at a face of someone who doesn't spend all day loafing around, not doing any work, he decides.
"You were talking about skulls, Miss Lestrange. Was it a bad dream?" His heart sinks slightly as he says this; maybe she really did loaf around, dreaming and not doing any work at all. What a pity.
"Oh, no, it wasn't a dream."
"... That's good, then," he says, but she doesn't hear him. She's already flown out of the door.
Professor Binns sighs. Why can't his students just all be normal?
. . .
Many, many years after this scene, Dumbledore will speculate that Tom Riddle knew everything that everyone said to anyone else in his school. And he will be correct.
Tom Riddle owned the school. The walls whispered to him, the portraits told them all their secrets and many of his little fans reported every single conversation that they overheard within the walls of Hogwarts.
"Mister Riddle?"
"... Yes, Mrs ... I'm so terribly sorry, I'm afraid I've forgotten your name."
Riddle smiles apologetically at the young woman in the portrait, although she can't see it all too well. It's dark. Midnight. And Tom Marvolo Riddle haunts his favourite room in the whole school.
The Room of Want. That is what he calls it. It is currently lowly-lit, with a few empty picture frames for the portraits to come and go if desired. There is a huge map of the entire Hogwarts grounds on both ends of the Room, and a massive grey snake has been carved on the ceiling.
"It's Milly Worthshire, and it's quite alright, I do forget things very often, too. I'm Merlin's lover," she tells him, smiling and batting her eyelashes none too subtly.
"Ah. I see," Riddle says, adopting the same apologetic tone as before. "How could I ever have forgotten?" he adds after a split second, a note of agony creeping into his usually calm, controlled voice.
"What ... what do you mean?" asks Milly Worthshire concernedly. This boy is such an intriguing piece of work to her ... clever, quiet, and charming. Not to mention rather handsome. She admires him.
"I mean that, well, you're such a lovely character. Milly. I remember you now. I can't apologize enough for forgetting you, especially after you helped to spread the word about my innocence three years ago, when I was in my fourth year ... you know, about the whole basilisk incident."
"That's perfectly fine, no need to apologize!" says Milly, her heart beating, thudthudthud, like a drum. "I'm not a terribly memorable person." She waits for it -
"Of course you are, Milly."
She smiles. She's gotten it. Oh, this Tom Riddle. So charming.
"I'm afraid, though, I am still unsure what you're here for."
"Oh, of course. I'm here to tell you about a little something I heard a girl say to herself in her History class. That's where I usually am, because that particular portrait of me that hangs in that room is rather comfortable." She giggles. "Anyway, though. It was a Slytherin girl. Messy dark hair. She was very skinny." She pauses and adds: "Not a very attractive skinny, though. She looked more like a rogue than anything." She wrinkles her nose and peers at Tom Riddle out of the corner of her eye. When she sees that his expression has remained unchanged, she says: "Definitely not the sort that males would find attractive."
She clears her throat importantly and goes on. "So it was in the middle of this rather boring History of Magic lesson - all of them are boring, really, but it's rather fascinating to watch the students try to keep awake - anyway, it was in the middle of this History lesson. I had never really paid attention to this girl before, because she isn't exactly the most fascinating or attractive thing on the planet, but today she was acting quite odd."
She pauses dramatically.
"Go on," urges Riddle.
"You see, she was talking about you."
"... Oh. And how old is this girl? What year is she in?"
"Her third year, I think."
"And what was it that she said about me?" He's curious now, leaning in to hear more. And Milly can see it. She smiles.
"She said that, well, she's in love with you?"
There is a silence for a few seconds. "Is that all?" Riddle asks, frowning. He looks disappointed. Annoyed.
"Well, no," Milly offers hurriedly. She doesn't want him to dismiss her, because she is wasting his time. She doesn't want him to be annoyed at her. "She was also ... it seemed like she was talking to a skull."
Tom Riddle's expression remains unchanged. Milly gulps and curses herself inwardly. It seemed so much more important in her head.
"What do you mean, exactly?"
She takes a deep breath. "I'm not particularly sure. It's like ... well, she was saying things like 'Tom Riddle will fall in love with me, my skull, he will -"
"Really?" Riddle sounds surprised. He raises his eyebrows.
"Yes," says Milly, relieved that he doesn't seem to think that she's being irritating anymore.
"Well. That is ... interesting." He is silent for a while. "What did you say her name was, again?"
"I'm not sure. She's a Slytherin and she has messy hair. And she's very, very small. Her body, I mean. She always wears really baggy robes."
Riddle frowns. Milly swears that if he had a beard, he would stroke it.
"Thank you, Milly."
She can tell by his tone that he has dismissed her.
"You're welcome, Tom," she replies, and drifts out of the picture frame.
. . .
Tom Riddle sits down and thinks.
A skull.
Of course, he is interested in the fact that this girl seems to be obsessed with him, but he's sure all of them are, to some degree. He smiles.
But a skull.
This is intriguing.
. . .
The moon is shining brightly outside Bellatrix's window. It has been two days since the episode with Professor Binns - although neither of them think much of it. To Bellatrix, well, nobody needs to stick their noses into her business, and therefore Professor Binns will not. She can't wrap her mind around the fact that some people may be concerned for her.
She has her little silver knife in her hand. It has turned slightly red, although whether from blood or rust, she does not know.
"Hello, my skull," she whispers, delicately tracing her fingers over her scar. It has ugly, maroon-coloured bumps on it - dried blood.
She still thinks it's beautiful. It's her only friend.
"You will wake again tonight," she tells it, smiling gently, tenderly at it.
She raises her knife.
"Hello."
She looks up. Tom Riddle's face greets her outside the window.
Wow. Tom Riddle.
Her hollow smile gets wider.
"Hello."
She knew he'd come. She knew it. This is not surprising at all to her. She knew he'd come for her, and he finally has. She isn't exactly sure what brings him here, finally, after all those days and weeks and months of infatuation, but she knows it was meant to be. He was going to fall in love with her anyway. No surprise.
"So you are Bellatrix Lestrange?"
She nods. "Yes, I am. What took you so long?" She sounds hurt.
"... What?"
"What took you so long? I'd been waiting for you for ages." She looks expectant, like she's sure he has an answer to that question.
Riddle catches on immediately.
"I'm so sorry, Bellatrix ... dear," he tells her, a hint of venom in his last word. But Bellatrix doesn't notice it. She doesn't notice many things anymore. She simply nods, for the second time.
"That's alright. I'm sure you get caught up often."
Riddle smiles at her. "But I'm here." He figures he can take a gamble. "And I'd like to see that ... skull of yours."
Even Bellatrix is slightly puzzled by this - and hurt. "Why?"
"Because ... it's a part of you, isn't it?"
"Well, yes. And I suppose you'd like to get to know me as well as you can, after all. Alright then." She holds her hand out to him happily. He raises his eyebrows slightly at it, but shows no sign of all the thinking that is going on in his mind. "It's lovely, isn't it?" croons Bellatrix, and she touches it gently. "My skull."
"Yes, indeed, it's beautiful." And he is telling the truth. He has never seen anything like this. He already knows how useful this Bellatrix girl and that skull of hers are going to be useful to him.
"I'm glad you think so," Bellatrix says happily. "He's my friend. My only friend. The only one closer to me than him is you, actually," she says in a matter-of-fact voice. Riddle resists the urge to snort and roll his eyes. What a stupid girl. How useful she will be to his cause. He allows his eyes to sweep over her. Milly Worthshire was right, she is tiny. Her eyes are large and sunken, and her flesh pale, almost translucent.
"How did you get here?" she asks him, looking out the window. "Are you ...? Oh." Her eyes widen in surprise as she sees that he is suspended in the air by a broom. "That's ..." She can't quite tell what to say about it. She wants to say that it's really quite attractive, but that isn't exactly what she means.
"Bellatrix -" Riddle says, leaning in so that the top half of his body is inside the dormitory. Bellatrix's breathing quickens. This is so exciting. So ... dreamy.
"This isn't a dream, is it?" she says suddenly, interrupting Riddle. He smiles.
"Of course not. My dear." Sarcasm so heavily coats the word 'dear' that he's surprised Bellatrix doesn't pick up on it.
"It is, it is!" she wails, curling into a ball underneath her duvet. "I knew it!" And before Riddle knows it, she's sobbing.
"No, no, no," he says, cursing inwardly. Damn it all. He was just about to get her to do some ... work for him - he smiles at the thought - but she's going to ruin it all by thinking it isn't real.
For a split second, he almost wishes he were less god-like. Less attractive. Less impossible.
But of course, he'd never achieve anything that way. He shoves the thought to the back of his mind.
"No, Bellatrix," he says. "This is real. Perfectly real." He touches her right knee, from which she shrinks away, still sobbing and murmuring under her breath. "Look, you can feel me."
"No," she cries, shaking her head vigorously. "I never feel anything in real life, anyway. You can't be real. This is a dream. And I'm going to have to start all over again." She begins to sob more loudly, tearing her hair out. Why was nothing ever perfect for her?
"I. Am. Real," Riddle says through gritted teeth. This is so frustrating. "I'll prove it, I promise."
"How?" she demands, and suddenly Riddle finds her face right in front of his, her eyes darting around, wild and absolutely out-of-control. "HOW?" she screams, louder.
Someone grunts in the darkness of the dormitory.
Riddle grips her hands and feels something underneath his fingers ... something ... Oh. Her skull.
"Your skull," he tells her, trying to keep her calm. "Your skull."
"What ABOUT my skull?" she wails hysterically. "You have no right to touch my skull, filthy dream. It will be with me when I wake up, not like you!"
"I'll make it wake up," he assures her, struck with a stroke of genius.
She goes quiet. The moon twinkles, lighting her face up so that Riddle can see the shock and awe on her face.
"... You ... You really will?" she says. It's too good to be true, don't trust him, she hears her thoughts whispering, but she ignore them.
"Yes, I will." He takes out his wand. A truly simple animating spell will do the trick, he tells himself.
She leaps excitedly at him, thrusting her arm into his hand. "Do it! DO IT!"
"I will. But please, be quiet."
"Okay," she says quietly, her voice trembling with excitement.
He waves his wand over her skull, the brown scar on her arm.
And all at once, she is so quiet, so entranced. It stretches on for such a long time that it bothers him - surely one cannot be that attached to a stupid scar, no matter how insane?
But he is proud of his work. The skull is alive. It shifts and changes position, and it seems to really be a part of Bellatrix, more than a scar, more than a tattoo.
"Thank you," she says quietly. Then she looks up.
"So ... you are real?"
"Yes," he replies impatiently. This is tiring.
"Oh. Alright. I knew it."
This girl is bizarre. She flops back down on her bed, her eyes widening eagerly.
"We'll take over the world, then," she tell him.
He nods. This is one of the less crazy things she's said the whole time. "We will. I will," he says to himself, but she doesn't notice.
"Me and you. And my skull."
"Yes," he tells her. "We will."
"Where do we start?" she says, so eager, so willing.
"We start together." Her face lights up so bright at those words that he resists the urge to yell at her to stop being so childish. "I'm going to need you to be absolutely willing to do whatever I ask you to, is that alright? And make sure nobody knows of this. Especially not Professor Dumbledore. Is that alright?"
"Yes, my ... my lord. I would never let Professor Dumbledore know. He's such a pro-Mudblood idiot," she spits out venomously."
He smiles cruelly. "Good. Now excuse me, I must go."
"Wait - what?" Bellatrix says, alarmed. "So quickly? But ... we didn't do anything!" She looks close to tears.
"Well, of course, did you expect to take over the world in one night?"
Her eyes are wide. "Well ... no, but surely ..."
"Surely nothing. Goodbye."
And he disappears.
Bellatrix feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She holds her arm out of her, in the moonlight. The skull is moving, shifting quietly.
"He went so fast," she told it mournfully. "I didn't feel like anything had even happened." Her lips tremble. "I thought he would have changed things for me!" she screams at it.
"But he loves me," she continues breathlessly. "He called me my dear. He loves me, skull, he really does, I told you he would, I told you!"
She punches the pillow, giving it all the strength she's got. She feels renewed, like she's been ... changed.
"So he did," she goes on, "he did change me, even though he didn't directly do anything for me. Oh, isn't he perfect?" She steals a glance at the skull and she's sure that it's nodding along encouragingly to her words. "He's perfect. He's just as perfect as I was sure he would be. I told you so. And I feel like ... like I could do anything!" She's spinning on the brink now, her eyes so wild and her brain so, so messed up that she isn't even entirely in this world anymore. "I could do ANYTHING!" she shouts at the top of her lungs into the night.
That is when it snaps.
the snap
You may be surprised that it hasn't happened yet. You may have thought that it had occurred long ago, that snap. And you may not know exactly what that snap is.
I'll tell you. That snap is the sound of someone going mad.
I know, I know. I've made such a big deal about her being insane, demented, out of her mind, and now I'm saying it again?
But this snap is a very clear-cut thing, when the person that has been tip-toeing on that precarious edge has finally fallen over for good. For good. It's irreversible.
It is a little like simply changing the speed of a fan. On speed five, the fan is roaring loudly and noticeably. It's alive and it's working perfectly fine. On speed four, it's a little less than before, all the way down to speed one, when the fan moves so slowly and unhelpfully that it feels like the same thing as no speed at all - but it is still moving, moving, going, no matter how slowly or unnoticeably.
Then there is that click when you turn the fan off, and it is simply dead.
That click is the snap of a mind going properly, fully, mad.
the ending
And how does this story end?
(Perhaps I should phrase it a little better; this is not the end of this entire story, merely the ending of one long, exhausting chapter.)
It ends with Narcissa waking up to the sound of her sister's screams echoing into the night.
Ugh. She rolls over. Why did someone just choose this moment to scream? They could've done it in the morning, or in the evening, when everyone would be awake and -
Her eyes snap open and she sits up suddenly. Someone's screaming? She shivers. It can't be someone breaking into Hogwarts, can it?
She turns and sees the silhouette of a girl with her face turned to the window.
Bellatrix.
Her eyes quickly sweep over the dormitory. It seems to be quite empty - nobody has broken in, or anything like that.
Is Bellatrix just being ...
... insane?
(But she knew her sister was insane for a long time, so that can't be it.)
She decides the best way to find out would be to simply ask. For some unfathomable reason, though, she has a feeling that she shouldn't touch Bellatrix. She shoves it aside. Why not? They're sisters, for goodness' sake. They grew up with each other.
"Bellatrix?"
The silence is deafening. It feels like an eternity before Bellatrix finally turns and regards Narcissa with a haughty, regal air.
"Well, hello, Narcissa," she says, her voice pinched.
"Bellatrix, what is going on? Did you just scream? Do you have any idea what time it is?" Narcissa fights to keep her voice calm, but there is something in Bellatrix's eyes - or maybe the lack of something in Bellatrix's eye - that overwhelms her with panic and an urge to get out of the place, away from her sister.
"Nothing is going on. You simply woke up at a bad time; I never asked you to awaken," Bellatrix replies coolly. "And yes, I did scream, and that is none of your business at all. And no, i do not know what time -"
"Bellatrix! Why you screamed is my business? Did something happen to you? Did you -" she sniggers, she can't help herself "- did you finally become a woman?"
That is when she notices something ... odd on her sister's arm. Bellatrix sees her eyes drift there and covers it up with her sleeve hurriedly. Narcissa decides not to ask.
"No," Bellatrix says. "What happened is none of your business. Stop being such a busybody and go away before I do something to you."
"Oh yeah?" says Narcissa, forcing herself to look straight into the huge, empty, gaping chasms of her sister's eyes. "You can't do anything to me, Bellatrix. You're my baby sister."
Bellatrix's wand is out. "Say that again."
Narcissa's mind is screaming. Run! Run away, beg for forgiveness, stop resisting her, just go and run and hurry and just -
But her rational mind is telling her: No. She is your baby sister after all, and she hasn't got the faintest idea how to do semi-decent magic. Stay put and fight.
"Baby sister," she says, daring Bellatrix to go on.
She regrets it immediately.
The last things Narcissa sees before she collapses, writhing in pain, are two flashes. The first is the flash of surging anger and hatred in her sister's eyes; the chasm was filled for a split second. And then there is the hot, bright flash of white light that shoots out from Bellatrix's wand.
And the last thing she hears, with her eyes closed and in a state of semi-sleep, is There, my skull, I have been changed. I can do anything.
a/n - alsdjfasljdfhsajhjkl
i have extremely mixed feeling about this. it was both fun and a chore to write. i'm so glad it's done, though.
at the very end, i only wanted to hint at how bellatrix changes into the character we know and love/loathe from the books. and ugh that tom riddle scene was awful but he's such an annoying character to get right, especially in this era, and i gave up on re-writing it after the first five tries.
this is dedicated to everyone who distracted me while i was supposed to be working on this - namely, all of my ffn and tumblr friends (you know who you are, yepyep) and all the great challenge-makers who made me write fics for your challenges instead of this one. ;) (yeah, i think you know who you are, too.)