The next couple of days went by in a flurry. Bellatrix spent every morning listening to Rodolphus and his git friends talking and sharing looks of disgust with Theta. The rest of the days she spent in her classes - her least favorite so far being Defense Against the Dark Arts - and skipping lunch. It wasn't much of a problem for her to skip lunch, seeing as her meals were rather here and there at home as well. Some might have thought it would make her more eager to have food every chance she got, but it had forced her to cope without certain meals. Besides, she would have rather gone hungry than be forced to sit with Antonin and Lukas three meals a day. They were right slobs. Bellatrix's evenings were spent in a comfy chair by the fireplace, reading a book of the Dark Arts that she'd checked out of the library - under the excuse that she was getting some extra studying for Defense.

Thursday evening she was doing just that, carefully reading over a certain page in the book, when a very annoyed Rodolphus slumped down on the couch. He kept muttering under his breath about 'that stupid red-headed idiot', and Antonin sat next to him, smirking. Lukas wasn't with them, and Bellatrix figured he was still shoveling food down his throat in the Great Hall. At first, she simply ignored Rodolphus, as his problems did not concern her. However, after reading the same word several times, distracted by his angry muttering, she slammed the book shut impatiently.

"What is wrong with you?" she demanded.

"Molly Prewett," Antonin replied with a chuckle. He leaned forward and took the book from Bellatrix's lap, opening it to a random page and reading it casually.

"What about her?" Bellatrix asked, snatching the book back from Antonin again.

"Don't you hear him?" Antonin asked, chuckling again. "She's a stupid, red-headed idiot."

"Yes, but why?"

"Starts like this-" Antonin began, but Rodolphus interrupted furiously.

"I had to sit next to that Weasley bloke in Potions-"

"Well, that would make anyone sick to their stomach, getting stuck next to a Weasley. However, you don't look sick, you look furious. And you were talking about Molly Prewett?"

"If you'd let me finish!" Rodolphus snapped, causing Bellatrix to sniff in disdain. "Anyways. During class, Weasley decided to steal some of my roots. So, I told him - nicely, mind you-"

"Not nicely," Antonin laughed. Rodolphus glared at him briefly before continuing.

"Just because I told him I'd need new roots, because his filthy muggle-loving hands had been on them, and he needed to go get them. Using a napkin of course. Who knows how my potion would have turned out if I'd used roots touched by a blood-traitor."

"You're ridiculous, Rodolphus. Blood-traitor is not a disease that one catches nor do plants. It's a despicable life choice." Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "Can we skip to the part about Prewett?"

"Oh, right," Rodolphus nodded. "Well, after class, he ran to his friend Molly Prewett. She's a third year, so naturally he thought she could set me straight." he sneered, using a high-pitched voice, obviously meaning to imitate Arthur Weasley. Bellatrix snorted in her attempt to hide her laughter. "So she tried to jinx me!"

"That's all?" Bellatrix huffed. "You're pathetic!"

"That's all? That's all?" Rodolphus replied heatedly. "She tried to jinx me, Bella!"

"At least she's got the right idea," she replied, giving him a mocking smile. Antonin laughed again.

"Oh yes, we all know you hate me, Bellatrix," Rodolphus snarled, standing and storming off to the dormitories. Bellatrix watched him until he disappeared down the staircase and the door swung shut behind him, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Don't take it to heart," Antonin said, standing and heading around the couch. "He's just mad, by tomorrow he'll be same old 'Dolphus."

"Can't wait," Bellatrix grumbled, crossing her legs and opening the book in her lap again.

Before she could get past that same, infuriating word, however, someone else sat down on the couch in quite the grumpy mood. This time, though, it was Theta. She looked absolutely livid, and Bellatrix let out a soft sigh, closing her book yet again.

"And what happened to you?" she asked in slight exasperation. Could no one have a peaceful day?

"Professor McGonagall gave me detention!" Theta ranted.

"Why?"

"Because I told her she needed to keep her nose out of my business."

"Well, I wonder why you got detention," Bellatrix huffed sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Theta glared at her.

"That woman saw me and Lukas walking back here from dinner together, and she wanted to know why we were so late getting back to the Common Room," Theta raved. "'First- and second years have a shorter curfew' she told us. Oh please! Our curfew isn't for another fifteen minutes!"

"Why didn't you just apologize and hurry here?" Bellatrix wondered. "Why'd you make it more difficult for yourself? Just answer to the Professors in the same manner you would your parents and-"

"Honestly, Bella?" Theta interrupted with a short laugh. "That is how I would answer to my Mother. Were you raised at wand point or something?"

Bellatrix glared coldly at Theta, standing and snatching her book from the ground.

"I guess Black's are just a more respectable family than Selwyn's," she snarled, and stalked off towards her dormitory. The confused look on Theta's face was not uncalled for, and Bellatrix was not exactly angry with Theta for admitting she disrespected her parents. The real reason she was angry had to do with the fact that her friend had not been far off in her joking. Yes, Bellatrix had basically been raised at wand point, but she was not particularly eager to let everyone else know she had such a tortured home life. Not even Rodolphus, who had experienced her house firsthand, knew of the abuse that went on. When guests were around, her parents were well-behaved and acted as though they were the world's greatest parents. Obviously, there was no love shown, but the stoniness that Cygnus and Druella usually held with their daughters was put on hold while hosting dinner parties.

When Bellatrix arrived in the dormitory, she saw that two of the beds were already occupied by snoring students, while three were empty. She quickly changed into her pajamas and got into bed, laying her book carefully on the nightstand table. Later, when Theta came up, Bellatrix pretended to be asleep, just for the sake of not looking at her. After a while, she really did fall asleep, and her dreams were not much better than her evening so far.

Bellatrix was walking down the long, empty hallway in the Black Manor, trying to reach the front door. At the end of the hall, being pulled from the Manor, were her two sisters. Narcissa was being carried off by a very stern-looking Ministry wizard, and Andromeda by a much nicer one, who was smiling. Narcissa kept screaming for Bellatrix, reaching out her arms and struggling in the grip of the wizard. Bellatrix started to run. She wasn't sure when she'd started crying, but tears were running down her cheeks.

"Cissy! Cissy! You can't take Cissy away!" she yelled, trying to reach the door before it closed. It seemed, however, that the hall kept getting longer and longer the farther she ran, so that the door was always about ten meters from her the whole time.

The next thing she knew, the door was slammed closed, Narcissa's cries were cut short, and a hand was gripping her shoulder tightly. She spun around to see that it was her father, Cygnus, sneering down at her maliciously.

"You don't get to go with them!" he laughed dryly. "You're old enough to stay with Mummy and Daddy, aren't you?"

"Get off me! Where're they taking them?" Bellatrix demanded, turning back to the door. She gasped when she saw that the front door had disappeared, and instead there was a cold, stone wall. Her head whipped back around to face her father, but he was gone, too.

Cygnus had been replaced by cold, metal bars, and hands were stretching through as though to choke her. She screamed and jumped backwards, stumbling over a lone skull and falling hard to the ground.

"Bellatrix!" someone was saying to her urgently. Bellatrix was distantly aware that she was lying on something hard, and someone was shaking her. The dream was still flashing in her mind, though, so it took another hiss of her name and another shake to fully bring her back to the real world. Theta was leaning over her, looking anxious. The shadows of their three other dorm-mates were behind her, heads close together and whispering urgently.

"What was that about?" Theta demanded, standing back and helping Bella to her feet. Bellatrix realized then that she had fallen out of bed.

"A nightmare," Bellatrix said quietly, crawling back into bed without looking at anyone else and tugging her covers back over her, right to her chin. "I'm fine," she added.

"Bella-"

"Leave me alone, I want to go back to sleep," she snapped, turning away from the other four girls and closing her eyes tight. She heard an impatient huff, then the squeaks as everyone got back in bed. Not long after, it was obvious the others had fallen back asleep. Bellatrix, however, couldn't sleep. She couldn't shake her nightmare. Living with Cygnus and Druella, nightmares were definitely a regular occurrence, but this one had been different. Usually she had nightmares of finally becoming free, just to be dragged back into the depths of the Manor, Cygnus sending a curse at her for disobedience. This dream, though, had been so much more intense than that. Her sisters being taken away from her, her father taunting her for not being able to go with them, and then that dark room with the bars! What had that been? Bellatrix assumed it was a prison, but that didn't explain those hands trying to grasp her throat, or why she'd been in prison in the first place! She certainly had no plans to go there!

Finally, after her tired mind could not take anymore questions from the dream, she slipped back into sleep. This time, it was dreamless, which didn't bother her one bit.