Bellatrix was awakened early the next morning by the sound of excited chatter. The four other girls who shared her room had apparently become good friends during her absence last night. She did not separate any particular comments from their conversation, but the talking ceased as soon as she stood up, so she discerned that they had been talking about her.
She stared at them and cocked her head to the side as if daring them to say what they were thinking. None of her roommates said anything and, one by one, they all looked away from her.
Satisfied with this, Bellatrix dressed quickly and tugged her black hair into a pony-tail with a green silk ribbon, then grabbed her school bag, and left the room. The high-pitched gossip returned the second she closed the door. She rolled her eyes at that but did not let it bother her.
Rodolphus met her at the Slytherin breakfast table in the Great Hall. "Hi, Trixie."
Bellatrix smiled politely in response. She poured herself a glass of pumpkin juice and opened her copy of Magical Drafts and Potions, only slightly interested in the subject, but eager to start learning something. But she was almost instantly disappointed by the book's contents.
She showed it to Rodolphus, gesturing at the introduction. "Look at this," she whined. "It's talking to us like we're children...and the potions themselves-" she furiously turned a few pages. "Basic remedies and household brews... my house elves know how to make these kind of things! It's so elementary, do they not want us to learn anything?"
"They're probably going slow so the Mudblood students can keep up," Rodolphus suggested unhappily.
"How kind of them," Bellatrix said with biting sarcasm. "But if they're going to be that way, they should at least organize separate lessons or something."
"What are we talking about?" Rabastan asked, joining them and looking quite cheerful, probably due to the upcoming quiddich match.
"Mudbloods," Bellatrix hissed. The happy expression on Rabastan's face was replaced by one of disgust. "Can I see your potions book?" she asked, hoping that at least by forth year, the curriculum would improve a little.
He handed her his copy of Potions: Grade 4 which Bellatrix flipped through optimistically. "Sleeping drafts... poisonous concoctions... ooh, and forgetfulness potions. Well, at least those are useful." Slightly happier now, she handed the book back with a half-hearted "Thanks."
She snatched a pastry off one of the plates on the table. "I'm going to class a little early, I'll see you there," she told Rodolphus.
Bellatrix was not certain why she had lied, but, eating her breakfast as she walked, she headed, not for the potions classroom, but for the library. Once there, she retraced her steps from the night before, trying to appear as innocent as possible.
She stood in front of the Restricted Section for a several minutes, staring despairingly at the lock and feeling, just as she had last night, that the Dark Arts book was calling her. Noticing a few sets of eyes watching her, however, she unhappily walked away and strolled down the Potions aisle, feigning interest.
She read some of the titles and skimmed a few pages from a sixth year textbook: Advanced Potion Making. A couple of minutes later, she put the book back on the shelf, left the library and made her way to potions class.
Rodolphus had already taken a seat in the classroom by the time she arrived. He raised an eyebrow but did not question her, just motioned for her to join him at the table. She did so, muttering, "Well, who else was I going to sit with? It's not like I'm so popular I have to choose."
He shrugged at that and they took out their books, recalling Bellatrix's earlier comment about their uselessness, and waiting impatiently for the lesson to begin.
Professor Slughorn greeted the class with a warm smile and only the most basic expectations. "Good morning everyone," he said. "Welcome to beginning potions. Well, we have a double period today so we have time for a little review..."
Bellatrix was just deciding that this was yet another lecture that she could tune out, when he said, "...And just for fun, I will give you some questions from my NEWT class to see what you know. I'll award house points for correct answers."
There was a minute of excitement as the students reacted to that news. The Huffelpuffs looked terrified but the Ravenclaw's seemed excited. The Gryffindors eagerly braced themselves for the challenge while Bellatrix and the other Slytherins instinctively kept their expressions casual, even though they were obviously interested.
"Alright, then," Slughorn continued, having captured their attention. "First question: who can tell me the purpose of a Polyjuice Potion?"
A few hands were raised at the Ravenclaw table but it didn't occur to Bellatrix to raise hers. She recognized the name from the Dark Arts book and called out the answer as soon as she remembered it.
"It allows the drinker to temporarily change what they look like, to disguise themselves as another person," she said, slightly paraphrasing what she'd read and happily noting Slughorn's pleasantly surprised expression.
"You need a bit of who you're changing into though, some hair or blood or something," Bellatrix concluded. "Also it takes about a month to brew."
"Marvelous," the professor praised her. "What is your name and house, please?"
"Bellatrix Black," she answered, placing a noticeable emphasis on her last name, knowing he'd recognize it. "And I'm in Slytherin House."
"Very well, Miss Black. Ten points to Slytherin. Now, can anyone tell me why the Polyjuice Potion is such a rare one?"
"It's considered a Dark potion," Bellatrix answered automatically. "Brewing it is illegal in most of magical Britain."
"Another ten points!" Slughorn looked at her approvingly. "If you keep this up, Miss Black, you just might make up the fifty points I took from Slytherin House last night."
"I'll try, sir," she promised, knowing exactly why the points had been taken and determined to recover them. And she succeeded, effortlessly answering questions about Polyjuice Potion, The Draught of the Living Dead, and a love potion that she had read about in the library earlier that morning, and earning her house a grand total of eighty-five points.
The other Slytherins were apparently happy for their house but not for Bellatrix, they sent her bitter glares and pained looks of jealousy. And the students from other houses gazed at her resentfully. It was clear that she had not made any friends here.
"It's not fair. She didn't even raise her hand, not even once," she heard a Ravenclaw boy whisper to a blonde girl at his table.
Bellatrix made sure that Professor Slughorn was looking away and then sent a quick jinx in the boy's direction, causing his chair to topple over and him to fall off it, knocking over his cauldron in the process. She had to force herself not to laugh at him.
When the Ravenclaw stood up, he sent her a dirty look. She didn't hesitate to return it and then stick her tongue out at him before returning to her "perfect angel" charade just as the professor turned around again.
Professor Slughorn instructed them to spend the remainder of the class period working in groups of four to prepare a potion that was supposed to reduce fevers. He was writing something on the chalk board but Bellatrix ignored this and began setting up her cauldron and taking out ingredients.
A minute or so later, Bellatrix had the potion in its early boiling stages and was stirring it counterclockwise with a thoughtful look in her eyes. Rodolphus reached over to add the Rosemary she had measured to it and she smacked his hand away.
"We're supposed to add the Rosemary now," he protested. "If you read what it says on the board, it says you should add a spoonful of it and then stir clockwise."
She had not expected Rodolphus to question her. Not after last night and everything they had been through together. And not after all of the things that she had said and done in the short time they had known each other that he had unconditionally agreed with. And especially not after the display she had just given to illustrate her newly acquired knowledge of all kinds of potions. But Bellatrix somehow managed to keep stirring the potion properly in spite of this shock.
"I know what I'm doing," she growled at him.
The pair of Slytherin boys who made up the rest of their group were two of Rodolphus's roommates who he had introduced as Shaun Avery and Evan Rosier. Neither of them seemed to mind Bellatrix doing all the work for their group, but they both seemed taken aback by her last comment and even a little afraid of her.
She wanted to laugh at their reactions, but, now that she had established herself as the group leader, she wanted to remain that way. With her new status as motivation, she managed to remain calm and concentrate exclusively on her potion.
"Well, is there anything I can do to help you?" Rodolphus asked. His voice showed genuine concern and only a hint of impatience, so, she agreed.
"Sure, can you get some eye of newt from the supply cabinet?" She asked, sweetly. "I can't find mine."
"Of course," he said, only too happy to oblige.
Once he was gone, she removed her own supply of eye of newt from her potions kit and showed it to Shaun and Evan, who snickered at her spontaneous practical joke, and hid it, instead, in a pocket of her school bag.
Rodolphus returned with the eye of newt which she measured while she let the potion simmer for a minute. This was a literal minute, though and the tricky part was counting out sixty seconds while measuring the eye of newt, but she did not trust any of the boys to do either of these crucial actions. Somehow, she managed both tasks and resumed stirring, clockwise this time, with her right hand as she added the eye of newt carefully with her left.
All that remained now was to keep stirring, switching direction every three minutes, and to let the potion cool. As she did so, Professor Slughorn walked by to see how well they were doing with the assignment.
"Well done, all of you," he addressed Bellatrix's group after glancing at their potion with a nod and a smile. "Five points each, that's twenty points for Slytherin."
Bellatrix continued to watch the professor as he made his way to the other groups. Concentrating on the teacher and wondering what he would say to the other students, she unintentionally lost her count of seconds spent stirring the potion. She muttered a swear word and panicked for a few seconds, but, then, her hand instinctively withdrew from the cauldron and began stirring in a different direction. She guessed this meant she did not actually need to count and, therefore, could allow herself the slight distraction of observing Slughorn's comments to the other students.
"Well, it's not bad for your first try," the potions teacher addressed a group of disappointed-looking Huffelpuffs. "If you had stirred clockwise instead of counterclockwise just after adding the Rosemary, your potion would have a much more appealing aroma."
Indeed, while the potion Bellatrix was stirring smelled like honey and fresh flowers, the one the Huffelpuff group had brewed was almost filling the entire room with a scent like old fruit and smoke. Bellatrix smirked at that but her lips instantly returned from that shape back into a serious frown when she recalled the other half of Slughorn's statement.
Rosemary? She thought in confusion. The portion of Rosemary she had measured still sat, unused, inside her potions kit. Her potion had turned out almost perfectly without it. But why did I measure it if...?
Her thoughts scattered as her right hand switched stirring directions and her left hand picked up the spoonful of Rosemary from her potions kit and added it to the potion delicately.
Bellatrix hadn't ordered either of her hands to do either of these things, but she was not worried at all by their independent actions. Perhaps she had achieved a new level of mental magic, one that allowed her to brew potions without even thinking about it. She smiled triumphantly, maybe she really was the greatest student Hogwarts had ever accepted.
Professor Slughorn continued walking around the room and making his observations. He now stood at a table with a group of Ravenclaws including the boy Bellatrix had jinxed earlier. Their cauldron had steam coming from it even though it should at least have been cooling by this point. (Bellatrix knew this because she stuck a finger in her own cauldron and felt that it had cooled to the room temperature.) And, although the scent coming from it was much nicer than the one issuing from the Huffelpuff group's, it still smelled nothing like Bellatrix's, which meant that they had done something wrong.
"Let me see," Slughorn squinted, he glanced back and forth from the chalk board to their cauldron a few times before continuing. "Ah, yes, step five, see. You must have added too much or too little eye of newt. If you had followed my instructions exactly as I wrote them, just like Miss Black and her team did, this would be cooling now and would have a more distinct scent."
Bellatrix, once again, smirked at the other teams' failures. Professor Slughorn explained the Gryffindor team's mistakes (waiting too long to let the potion begin to cool and forgetting the eye of newt altogether) and then returned to the Slytherin table.
Ignoring the rest of her group, which was fine with Bellatrix, he spoke exclusively to her. "Miss Black, I can see that you have both a passion and a talent for potions. It is a pleasure to have you in this class, I only hope I can help to increase your abilities. I have never seen a student follow my instructions so precisely, there are almost always mistakes on the first attempt at potion making. But you... yours is perfect..."
Bellatrix tuned out the rest of this praise because she had made yet another upsetting realization.
Instructions? She hadn't needed any guide lines at all. She had simply followed a series of impulses and a few involuntary movements and ended up with the perfect potion. Rodolphus had said something about the chalk board, and, as she could now see, there were indeed instructions written there.
But Bellatrix had completed the assignment, without a single flaw, all on her own. It was slightly unnerving, but she felt wonderful about it, not terrified as she should have been.
(A/N: I don't know much about other Slytherins Bellatrix's age. Lucius Malfoy, Antonin Dolohov, and the Carrows will be in the sequel though. As for Bellatrix's involuntary movements and rapid learning... ha, you'll see.)