Disclaimer: I do indeed own Harry Potter. All seven of the books, the two schoolbooks, and three British editions, as well as piles of assorted merchandise. My college fund belongs to J.K.Rowling.
A/N: Welcome to another exciting (?) chapter, known to its friends Act One and Act Two as...Act Three. Not very interesting names, I'm afraid, but there you go.

The Plot So Far: Bellatrix decides that she has a ZOMGGrate Deztiny, gets on a train, and makes friends with cheerfully aristocratic Rosier, grumpy-bear Wilkes, whiny and unsympathetic Avery, and enigmatic, (deliberately?) infuriating, possibly psychotic Lestrange. She also thinks about pigeon-related violence a lot.

Those of you who have previously reviewed, please bring your tickets over to the concessions stand for free popcorn, and, by request, Oreos. Those of you who have not previously reviewed...shame on you. ;) Those of you who are reading this for the first time, I hope you enjoy it and post extremely complimentary reviews. Reviews will be rewarded with free popcorn.

Rereading the second chapter, I noticed that I had slipped out of Bellatrix's...unusual...speaking style (and made her sound older than eleven) a bit in places, so I tried to fix that on this one, rambling a bit more, being a bit less grammatically correct, what have you. (I wrote most of Act One in the middle of the night, while extremely tired. Perhaps that had something to do with it. Unfortunately, I'm writing this in the middle of the day, while slightly hyperactive, so there you are.)

I suppose I should warn you that this chapter contains some references to doing rather violent things to one's unfortunate younger sisters and cousins (not shown on-page, though). Possibly a little much for younger readers. But what the hell, it's about Bellatrix. You guys probably expect some violence and disturbing-ness.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy. (muffled singing) Whoever just sat on the Sorting Hat, please, for the love of Potter, stop it.

She had won so much money when the train stopped. Poor Avery might have to explain some things to his mum and dad when he wrote home. Seventy-four Galleons, two Sickles, and a Knut. Shiny, new coins. Poor, poor Avery. He looked so disappointed, as if he'd expected to win four fortunes with three cards and a poker face. People like that, stupid people, were really asking for it. If only she'd had time to win more.

The corridor was intolerable. Full of clumsy, stupid children babbling about idiotic things. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. Some girl had her trunk with her, as if she hadn't heard the announcement "...your luggage will be taken to the school separately." Idiot. As she walked by, Bellatrix quietly took hold of her hair and pulled. The girl shrieked. Bellatrix dropped the hank of hair immediately, save for a few frizzy orange strands that had stuck to her hand. Oh, how nice. She wiped her hand off on someone's robes (they had all changed into their school robes, of course, the Mudbloods and half-bloods were indistinguishable from the rest). Nobody knew it had been her.
There was a hand resting on her left shoulder. A hand, right. On her shoulder, yes. At first she hoped it was only someone in the crowd, that it would be there only for a few seconds, but no luck.
"Bella?" Lestrange had an odd voice, a voice she could recognize even after knowing him for at most nine hours. Like red wine, or dark chocolate. Deep. Sensual. It didn't sound like it belonged to an eleven-year-old boy. Lestrange was enough of an enigma without that voice. And he called her Bella. He called her Bella.
"What?" If he wanted his money back, she wouldn't give it to him. She had won it, it was hers, go away.
"Can I walk with you?" She nearly lost him in the crush of students, nearly shoved one of the boys in front of her aside and gotten away from him. They were getting off the train, piling onto a little wooden platform that was creaking under the weight of so many, many students. Beside her, someone tripped, tried to force their way back up, and was trampled. She paused to look, trying to see the face, noting with pleasure the cuts on their hands, and then her opportunity was gone. Lestrange should just have left her alone, of course, he should have, they hardly knew one another. "How nice of you to ask. Yes. Now kindly shut up." He didn't say anything after that. Just held onto her shoulder for dear life.

"Firs' years! Firs' years! Over here!" Bellatrix broke away from the crowd with the rest of the first years, a few here, a few there, trickling out of the mass of students and toward the voice. Away from the lights of the train, into the pitch blackness where nobody could see a thing and some unlucky boy might fall and break his neck. Stumbling off the platform, onto pebbles she could feel through the soles of her shoes, onto a little dirt track with trees on the other side. She was in the middle of the group, surrounded by people, Lestrange's hand nearly slipping off her shoulder as they walked (she was doing nothing to encourage this, but of course, nothing to discourage it either). Avery and Wilkes and Rosier were all here, presumably, somewhere, unless they had gotten lost...oh, wouldn't it be funny if they'd gotten lost?
"Who's up there? Bella, can you see?" Lestrange was standing closer to her than she'd thought, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Go away. Go away. Don't get obsessed with dear Bella, now. Don't use that name. Don't be too familiar. They were hardly lovers.
"No, I can't. Why would I be able to? How should I--"
"Okay." She could see a little, actually, just enough, someone up front had lit a lantern or a candle or a wand. It was an obvious lie, he could probably see just as well as she could, but she was unsure that he'd noticed. But there was someone, someone tall enough for her to see...

And then the trees on one side of them dropped away (she hadn't noticed that there had been trees), and they were standing on the edge of a cliff looking out over a massive black lake, and then there was Hogwarts Castle, no, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, bright like a toy, like one of Narcissa's useless pretty jeweled things. It wasn't pretty, of course, the stonework was old and falling to pieces, but it was so majestic, so grand, such a nice little symbol of Wizarding power. One thousand years, bringing up the children of the witches and the wizards, grooming them for power and for privilege and teaching them everything they would need to know. She would learn from the masters and from those who had taught the masters, and maybe some day if she was a very good student...oh, she would be such a good student.
Under the eye of Albus Dumbledore. She had heard his name so many, many times. The people's headmaster, the downtrodden and the filthy and the pathetic people. They adored him. He was so wonderfully nice, so understanding. She could see him as having been a pansy like Rosier, always looking for friends... Oh well, it couldn't be helped. She would fake adoration, learn what she could from him, he might well be gone when it was time for her to graduate, off to be Minister and mismanage the country. Some people never learned, did they?
"An' tha's Hogwarts for yeh!" Well, thank you, they could never have figured that out on their own, they were all so slow and needed to be told.
Yeh? What sort of person said that? Was it some sort of accent, did people really talk like that, or was the speaker just a monumental dunce? She could see him (she was sure it was a him, no woman had a voice like they were choking on roaches and gravel) sillhouetted against the night sky, hulking and massive, hints of beard and bushy hair visible around the edges. Oh Merlin. What sort of monster could this possibly be? Surely no teacher...oh no. No no no no no.
"Who is he?"
"I heard he's a professor."
"Nah, he works for the gamekeeper."
The freak must have heard the boys near the edge of the crowd whispering. "Old Ogg retired last year, this is me first year as gamekeeper. Hagrid's the name. Yeh are?" He didn't sound angry, as she'd hoped he might be, just...friendly. To the degree of idiocy. Of course, he was a gamekeeper.
"Kevin Roper."
"Nathan Quidley."
"Herbert Jenkins." None of them were from prominent families, she knew that much. Probably they were there on assistance. So many, many poor boys. And they would be her classmates.
She would look so brilliant next to them. Would they be Slytherins? Slytherin himself wouldn't have taken that muck...she knew the stories...

And they started walking again, through the trees, keeping to the little dirt pathway that they could barely see, they could barely see at all. The light had helped, true, she wasn't stumbling in the dark, but it hadn't helped enough. The other boys and girls were shadows, wraiths, bobbing along the trail, their black school robes identical and their washed-out faces indistinguishable. Was that Avery, up ahead? Were Wilkes and Rosier next to him? "Yeah, that's Avery." She had forgotten that Lestrange had been walking behind her, even with his hand on her shoulder. He was almost silent, maybe he wasn't breathing, maybe the reason he was so odd was that he was a zombie...could zombies read minds? "I know it's Avery!" He was getting on her nerves, and her voice sounded angrier than she had intended. He was quiet after that, anyway, maybe she had frightened him a little, or at least reminded him of what she could do if she lost her temper. That was a good thing, really, that he suspected what she was capable of. He would respect her. She intended for them to be friends. It might be rather hard to be friends with a blood-drenched, mutilated corpse. The pigeons...they had all died...some of them had taken hours to die.
They were at the side of the lake now, and Hogwarts was on the other side. Were they expected to swim? Wilkes and Rosier wandered over to stand closer to Bellatrix and Lestrange, leaving Avery to contend with a group of chattering girls. Good luck, Avery. Why had they bothered? Bellatrix wasn't going to swim across the lake with them, nobody could swim that far, she wasn't going to try--then she saw the boats. There was a little fleet of them (she counted eleven), bobbing up and down on feeble waves, each of them large enough for several people. Were they expected to go across in these?
"C'mon, get in, get in, four to a boat, c'mon now..." The man called Hagrid was ushering the first years into the boats, gently enough, with a bit of an air of desperation in his voice. Children could be so hard to control. One of them was prodding the lake with her wand. Bellatrix longed to knock it out of her hand and watch her face as it sank. Too bad that she was standing so far away. It was time to get into the boats, anyway, Rosier and Wilkes and Lestrange had saved a seat for her on one of the nearest ones. Poor, poor Avery was stuck with three of the giggling girls. Bellatrix mentally stored his expression...so funny.
The boat quivered a little as she got in, the hem of her robes dipping momentarily into the water. Rosier scooted over to make room for her, gathering his robes off the seat to ensure that she was comfortable. They respected her. That was nice. She was almost comfortable when the boat suddenly took off.

Bellatrix had been on boats before, of course, who hadn't? She was used to things being propelled by magic, too. It was the size of the boats that made her nervous. Four to a boat, a boat she could barely lie down in, with sides rising six inches off the benches. You could fall out of a boat like that easily. The lake must be fifty feet deep, you would drown, you would be food for the fishes, and nobody would know you were down there. Rosier was looking nervous, too. She shoved him playfully, and he squealed. Wilkes rolled his eyes, but Bellatrix noticed that he, too, was looking a little pale. Lestrange seemed perfectly at home on the boat. He was trailing his hand in the water, his face supremely unconcerned. She kicked him. He ignored it. She had to work hard to restrain herself from pulling out her wand, and...

She didn't let her relief show when they got off the boats onto the rocky little underground beach. Hagrid had to help some unfortunate boy off his boat. It wasn't her, of course, or any of her dear new friends, they would never do something like that. Well, perhaps Avery would, but she never would. The boy was holding everyone up. Leave him, let's go, we're wasting time. It didn't improve her mood in the slightest when the boy nearly fell in.
They followed Hagrid and his lamp, up through a tunnel, out in front of Hogwarts. The castle was larger than it had looked, she was an ant at the foot of it, an ant that could be stepped on, if Hogwarts the giant moved too quickly. She was being silly. Castles didn't move. She wasn't an ant. It was time to put away childish fantasies like that. She was a Hogwarts girl now.
There was a pigeon on one of the buttresses, ten, twenty, fifty feet into the air. It was looking at her, she was sure of it, it was giving her a rather nasty look with its little red eye. Little red eyes could be popped. They could be poked out. There were pigeons at Hogwarts, stupid gullible pigeons, pigeons that didn't know about her yet. They would know. They would learn.
Hagrid knocked on the door they were all clustered around. It didn't creak when it swung open. House-elves, they had to have house-elves to polish and scrub and oil the hinges.
She was standing at the back of the group, where she couldn't quite see who Hagrid was talking to, even when she stood on tiptoe and peered over the heads of her fellows. It was a witch, a witch with a Scottish accent and a businesslike edge to her voice. A teacher? Another servant?
"I'll take them in, Hagrid. You should go down to the feast, it just started." Hagrid bowed to her--Bellatrix could see a glimpse of her, a tall, middle-aged witch with black hair, over his shoulder--and went in, leaving the first years behind. Good riddance.

They went in with the witch. Bellatrix's first impression of the entrance hall was...light. Light and warmth and noise. The ceiling stretched far higher than she could see, massive and imposing, like a cathedral ceiling, and the staircase could easily have held a hundred students. The other first years were gasping and oohing and ahhing--Bellatrix was silent. But, nevertheless, she smiled, and her black eyes almost gleamed. Before she could take it all in, they were out of the hall and into a much smaller, duller room. The witch gestured for them to sit down. Bellatrix remained resolutely standing, until Wilkes grabbed the hem of her robes and pulled her down. She almost missed the woman's first words, distracted by quietly beating Wilkes up.
"Welcome to Hogwarts. In five minutes you will be taking part in our Sorting Ceremony..." and that was when Bellatrix stopped listening. Oh, yes, the Sorting. She knew about that. Everyone knew about that. Her father had graduated from Hogwarts when she was five, and he had told her everything while it was all fresh in his mind. You tried on a hat. That was all. That was nothing. She had grown up dreaming of trying on that hat, hearing it shout "Slytherin" to the world, announcing her proper place in the Wizarding world. And here it was, and it was anticlimactic. No drama, no tears, nothing interesting at all. What a dreadful letdown.

The witch finished talking and swept out. Bellatrix waited. They all waited. There was a fly buzzing in one of the corners of the room, a little black fly zooming around in circles. Bellatrix longed to swat it. Her hand was shaking a little from the effort of resisting. The pigeons were back in her mind...it was a hard habit to break.
She hit the girl next to her, hard, across the face. The girl shrieked, falling away from her like a sack of flour, twisting back up like a snake. Bellatrix hadn't hit her very hard, and yet there was a nice bruise on her cheek, black on brown, framed by shiny black hair. Like Bellatrix's hair, but in pigtails. Pigtails. A sure sign of a lowly family.
"You hit me." Disbelief. Astonishment. Well, of course, of course dear Bella hit you. Doesn't the bruise prove that? How hard is it to figure out what happened? Poor girl. Slow of mind, clearly, we must pity such people. But hitting her, it had felt so good.
"Oh yes, I did, didn't I?" Bellatrix tried to stop herself laughing. No good. The girl looked offended, that was good, another little human toy for her to play with when she got bored. Poor girl, her life at Hogwarts would be ruined.
"I'm telling Professor McGonagall!" Who was McGonagall? The witch who had been talking to them, most likely. How wonderful, Bella might get a detention and waste a few nights. She took out her anger on her new chew toy's face. The girl got up and moved over to the other side of the room.
"Nice." Was Lestrange being sarcastic? No, he wasn't, his broad, handsome face was sincere, he really meant it. He was a puzzle, hard to read, hard to anger, an annoyance, a friend. They shared a hobby. He was looking at the bruise with the eyes of a connoisseur, a master of the art. She imagined what young Rabastan might look like, and what he might look like with a bleeding lip, a black eye, a burned hand...it was a nice image. Maybe she would ask, later, if they got some time alone. He could probably tell her stories. And she could tell him stories. Andromeda, sprawled on the landing, unconscious, she must have tripped, Bellatrix had sworn she hadn't been anywhere near, and they'd believed her, you didn't just fall down three flights of stairs, but of course, she had, Bellatrix was innocent, there was no evidence at all that Andromeda had been pushed. She might have died. What sort of heartless monster would have PUSHED her? And Cousin Sirius had sworn she had hit him in the eye, twice, three times, and put a hot poker to his hands, but Sirius liked to make up lies. And Regulus was too young, too scared to say anything, even when they found the cuts...Narcissa was never hurt. Nobody would dare touch Narcissa, nobody would mess up that sweet annoying perfection, she was such a little angel. Nobody would dare. Even Bellatrix knew Narcissa was off-limits. Bellatrix herself, of course, was never hurt. And yet they didn't suspect. People were stupid, like pigeons, they didn't understand at all.
Lestrange would understand.
"Isn't it"
"Always." He fell silent as McGonagall came back in, and the girl Bellatrix had slapped had a quick word with her, and McGonagall turned and gave Bellatrix a look that would curdle milk. She was in deep trouble. Avery and Rosier and Wilkes all looked over at her, their faces full of relief that they weren't in her place, and Lestrange tried to give her hand a quick reassuring squeeze. She pulled her hand away just in time. He was so...tender, he had taken such a liking to her. They had only just met. It was odd. She didn't think about it too much, though, they were all getting up and going somewhere else. Fuzzy memories of her father, of cocoa, of late nights and fascinating recollections. They would go into the Great Hall next. To be Sorted.
She felt that there should be music somewhere. Beethoven, maybe. Something dramatic. It was a dramatic moment, wasn't it?

All of the older students' eyes were fixed on the first years as they walked in, pale-faced, single file. The first years themselves were, to a man, staring at the hat in front of them. It was a pathetic, ravaged old thing, patched and dirty and ancient, nearly falling off its little stool. Bellatrix wasn't sure she wanted to allow it on her head. What would they do if she resisted?
It took her a moment to register it, it was so absurd. The hat was singing. Who in their right mind would enchant a hat to sing? She tried her best to ignore it, but the singing forced its way into her mind over all her mental blocks. It should burn, the stupid, happy, inane thing should burn.
The hat fell silent. A few of the students laughed, most (including the girl Bellatrix had hit earlier) clapped. Rosier, a few students ahead of her, couldn't seem to decide whether to roll his eyes, clap, or do both at once. Nobody was taking this seriously. They should be taking it seriously. This was an important ceremony, and they were laughing. Be serious. Be serious. Can't you be serious? The pigeons...they never shut up, either. People either amused or angered Bellatrix, on the whole, with nothing much governing which it was. At that moment, she was furious. Her rage faded quickly, however, when Professor McGonagall pulled a list of students out of her pocket and started calling out names.
"Arkleton, William!" One of the boys stumbled out of the line, collapsed onto the stool, and dropped the hat over his ears.
"RAVENCLAW!" Applause. Arkleton sat down at one of the tables, the one that had been cheering, of course, who cheered for Ravenclaws but the Ravenclaws themselves?
"Avery, Jonathan!" Avery tried to strut over to the hat, but something went wrong and he looked merely idiotic.
"SLYTHERIN!" A different table applauded this time. Bellatrix scrutinized their faces, trying to see some mark of difference, of greatness, but there was nothing. Of course, she wasn't standing so close to them, probably she would see it when she got closer. There had to be something.
More students were Sorted. Bellatrix continued staring at the Slytherins. By that point, some of them were staring back. Avery gave her a little wave. She didn't acknowledge it. Any minute now McGonagall would call her name...go on, it was an easy enough name.
"Black, Bellatrix!" Oh Merlin. Slytherin, please, let it be Slytherin. But of course, it had to be Slytherin, it was inconceivable that it would be otherwise. She was going to make her family proud, of course. She would be sorted into Slytherin.
She held her breath as she strode up to the stool, and with as much dignity as possible, she put on the hat. She caught it before it went over her eyes, relaxing suddenly. Why was she so nervous? She was being stupid...

She expected a little voice. She got one. Such a little voice, though, a childish voice, the sort of thing Dumbledore would add. Was Dumbledore looking at her? Was he watching? Everyone would be watching.
"Oh. Oh, my. SLYTHERIN!" It hadn't taken any time at all. She was in Slytherin. The house of her ancestors. Everything would be all right. She was drafting a letter home in her mind by the time she got to the Slytherin table, sliding into the seat next to Avery, her fellows' cheers ringing in her brain. This was good, this was right, this was how it was supposed to be. More students were sorted. The line shrank by degrees.
"Jenkins, Herbert"
"GRYFFINDOR!" The Gryffindor table exploded in idiotic cheers.
"Lestrange, Rodolphus!" Lestrange looked completely unconcerned, the hat sliding over his eyes. Bellatrix could have sworn he had grinned at her.
"SLYTHERIN!" Yes, yes, that was good, they would be together. "Paternoster, Abby!" It was the girl Bellatrix had hit in the face.
"HUFFLEPUFF!" Well, of course, that was the chew-toy house, wasn't it? Oh, they would meet again. And again.
"Prewett, Fabian!" He had a funny look to him, as if he was held together by rubber bands. People like that were asking for it.
"GRYFFINDOR!" She wasn't surprised.
"Quidley, Nathan"
"HUFFLEPUFF!" Jenkins looked disappointed. Not that Bellatrix was looking, of course.
"Rosier, Evan!" Rosier gave them a little wave as he strolled over to the hat and plunked it on his hairsprayed blonde mane.
"SLYTHERIN!" She was paying more attention to the Slytherins, of course she was, the only names that she bothered to remember or even to notice. And Rosier was one of them, not that she'd hoped that he would be, of course, but it would be nice if the five of them from the train were all Slytherins.
"Skeeter, Rita"
"SLYTHERIN!" An unattractive girl, orange-haired, wearing high heels. Bellatrix cringed inwardly.
"Turkle, Findlay!" What a dreadful name, really.
"RAVENCLAW!" "Wilkes, Edmund!" The last of the five. Avery crossed his fingers, and Rosier held his breath, and even Lestrange looked interested.
"SLYTHERIN!" She hadn't realized she had been so tense until it was over and she slumped onto Lestrange's shoulder like a sack of flour. It had been a tiring night, full of emotion and drama. A hot bath, that was what she needed. And a few pigeons.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed that. I apologize for blatantly skipping over the Sorting Hat song. I tried writing one, but I'm no poet, and in the end it was so ludicrous I decided to write around it. I hope it didn't come across as too much of a cop-out.

Don't ask about the names. Mainly, I wanted to give someone the name Findlay Turkle. Anyway, I only did 12 students, some of whom had canon names--if I run out of students to use as minor characters, I'll use one of the ones I didn't bother naming or giving a house. There are around 40 first years, so.
Yes, yes, I know that Rita Skeeter is canonically blonde. I highly suspect it's a dyejob. And yes, she is canonically around Bellatrix's age, assuming she didn't lie in the Prophet. (Bella would have been forty-three or forty-four in GoF. On the other hand, I decided to mess with the timeline a bit so Bella and the others are a few years younger--explanation below.)

Yes, I'm playing with the timeline on this one. I know I said I would try to keep it canon-ish--I do, in fact, have some logic for this decision. Firstly, on the Black Family Tree, Bellatrix is listed as having been born in 1951, and Rowling has stated that Snape was born in '59 or thereabouts. Secondly, Bellatrix and Snape are mentioned by Sirius as having been members of the same gang, which implies that their school years overlapped by at least one year. (Alternately, Bellatrix could have been a founding member, who left before Snape arrived at school, but other members overlapped. However, the way Sirius said it made it sound rather like they had been at school at the same time, so...yeah.) Thirdly, Rowling has made some math errors in other portions of the books (for instance, Marcus Flint remaining at Hogwarts for a year too long, which was later retconned), although never major ones. Lacking any other evidence, I prefer to interpret the inconsistency as Rowling making a mistake. So, yeah...also, before you lot ask, I hadn't thought about this much when I wrote All In The Family, which has Bellatrix and Rodolphus being born around 1951. (pants) Wow...I really AM a Harry Potter geek. (grins)

Next Chapter: Bellatrix gets to know Hogwarts, takes a Relaxing Bath, and meets her new roomies.

And now drumroll Answering the reviews!
Sienna Rhiannon Chase: What do you think I'm doing? :P kirameru1701: Drunken strip poker! Yes, there will be more poker later on. Rich wizards like poker. Actually, that would be a good idea for a collab.
ILoveRodolphusLestrange: Dante is a reference to the poet Dante. No idea what it means--the idea that Rodolphus's middle name is (unfittingly enough) Dante came from a very old fanfiction that will never be posted because it, frankly, was pretty bad. So...yeah.
tarak795: Well...um...I never did figure out exactly what happened to the pigeons. I guess they sort of...exploded? Don't worry, I have a nice, bloody death planned for Abby Paternoster, although it's pretty far in the future. PM me if you want to chat :) That goes for everyone else, too. I don't bite :P Although I think Bella does.
FaerieEpona: Why, thank you! Yeah, they're probably my favorite characters. Bella is pure pwnage.

As always, please review! Or I'll find out what happened to the pigeons by testing it out on you :P