Some Things Are Meant To Be

by Lady Eponine Black

The three Black sisters have always done everything together, always been as close as the were when they were children. Or, at least, pretended to be. But now Andromeda is gone, having denied her family and gone against everything Bellatrix believed in. And now Bellatrix must learn to forget her sister. Written for the 'Five Stages Of Grief Challenge.'

3. Bargaining

Bellatrix stood by the window in her bedroom, decorated with green and silver in honor of her Slytherin Family Pride, and with black in honor of her family, and feeling to her like a tomb. The stars glancing down on her disdainfully did little to light up her face, cloaked as it was in shadows, or her heart, buried as it was in the thorny web of twisted guilt and lies. She leaned her chin on her elbow and gazed out with grief-dulled eyes at the grounds, draped in the mystery of the night.

She watched the gravel drive leading up to their estate, the bushes and trees lining it making ominous shadows that loomed over most of the road and hid it from her sharp eyes that looked endlessly with the passion of the desperate.

She clutched at the amethyst amulet she always wore around her neck, the sharp points digging into her palm. She relished the pain. Andromeda had given her the necklace for her thirteenth birthday. That had been the year her life had began – the year she had found her Lord. The year also, that things had started to go wrong between her and her sisters, the mark on her arm and the new loyalties in her heart driving them apart.

It didn't matter. She thought. None of that matters now. She leaned out the window, her dark curls half obscuring her face. She scanned the drive, again and again, her eyes narrowed against the darkness. She would not use a spell to light up the night, for fear of finding nothing, seeing that nobody was making their way up the road, no sister coming home. If she comes back, she promised herself, I'll forgive her. If she comes back, everything will be forgotten, I won't say anything, anything at all. I'll never say anything to her about Ted ever again if she comes back. I promise I'll never hurt him. No matter what my Lord says, I'll never kill him if she comes back. Even if he is a mudblood, if she is a blood traitor, I will protect them. If she comes back. I won't tease her about her mudblood friends. I promise I won't hunt down anybody she doesn't want me to. She is my sister. I will do anything - anything - if she comes back.

Outside, the expressionless night wore on, uncaring as Bellatrix promised anything she could think of, if only she could see Andromeda's slim figure walking up the drive. But morning after morning dawned, and nobody appeared to fill the hole in her heart.