Author's Notes: Really sorry about the slow update. I was on holiday and didn't have enough access to a computer to finish the chapter. It has a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, so be prepared!
The Regrets of Bellatrix Lestrange - Chapter 4
Written by YT12J
The young girl, Bellatrix, was running after her favorite cousin, Sirius. She had always had lots of fun with him and they were the best of friends, though they never showed it at at school. If they did, Sirius would no doubt lose the many friends that he had and the same would pass for Bellatrix. The reason for this was that they had both been sorted into different houses, and the ongoing rivalry between the houses Gryffindor and Slytherin was common knowledge. It made her sad to act so cold towards him at school, but her mother had made it clear that if she didn't make friends with the Pure-Bloods of Slytherin house, then she would be in deep trouble. And being great friends with a Gryffindor was not one of the ways to make friends with Slytherins, even if they were family.
Bellatrix always wondered why there was such a huge rivalry between the two houses. She was only in her first year and saw how cold the Gryffindors were towards the Slytherins. After all, even if a few Slytherins had turned evil in the past, it didn't mean that they were all evil.
Bellatrix shook off these thoughts and focused her attention on her cousin. He was currently holding her favorite hairbrush, and refused to give it back. Even though she got really frustrated, it was only a game and she didn't take it too seriously. They often stole each others possessions just so that they would have an excuse to start chasing each other. This often infuriated their parents, but they didn't care. It was Christmas, and she wanted to spend some time with him. The reason that their parents didn't want them to get too close was that they viewed Sirius as a traitor to their family after how they found out that he was sorted into Gryffindor and was proud of it. At first, they had sought to have Sirius moved to Slytherin, but after a conversation with the Headmaster, they had to admit their defeat, especially seeing as Sirius did not wish to be moved into Slytherin. Sirius had always been reluctant to follow his family belief that Pure-Bloods were the greatest of all magical creatures, and that Muggles and Muggle-borns were no more than animals who did not deserve to live, let alone to be taught magic.
"Catch me if you can." Sirius shouted, while at the same time he was laughing. A frustrated Bellatrix quickly picked up her pace, and before she knew it, she had caught up with him. She had suddenly pulled out her wand and had it pointed at him. He was still laughing, the joy evident on his face. Then the scene suddenly changed, and she was brought to one of her most disturbing memories that would never leave her.
Bellatrix stood there, her wand pointed at Sirius. At the same time she saw him falling, like in slow motion. She felt the grief and guilt welding up in her, especially as she saw the Potter boy who was frozen in position, the shock and horror evident on his face as he watched the last person he could call family die.
Bellatrix wanted to cry, she wanted to weep, she wanted to show emotion, she wanted to follow him into that veil, but the Imperius curse forbid her from doing any of that. Instead, she felt her face being twisted into a horrifying grin directed at Potter as she slowly ran off, seeing that he was on her tail.
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"NOOOOOOOOO! SIRIUS!"
Harry jumped up in shock, on the sofa in front of him he saw Bellatrix lying down, asleep. She was clearly having a nightmare about killing Sirius. She screamed at random moments, and after a few minutes Harry decided that it would be best for him to wake her, otherwise she would be a nervous wreck when the nightmare had finally unleashed it's full horrors upon her.
Sighing, Harry got up from the sofat that he had been resting on and slowly approached Bellatrix. She seemed to be having a fit, and tears were streaming down her terrified face. 'This is going to be awkward.' he thought before softly saying "Bellatrix. Wake up. You're having a nightmare."
When she did not respond and continued to moan, so he decided to lightly shake her. When he did so, she seemed to suddenly snap out of it, and her eyes slowly opened. "Harry." she said, a slightly suspicious look on her face. "Is there a reason that you are still clutching me."
Harry suddenly realized that he had not yet let her go. 'Oops.' He quickly pulled his hands away from her and noticed the slight grin on her face, when he suddenly realized that he could feel his face going red.
"Er yeah, sorry about that, it was kind of an accident."
"Sure it was." she muttered, before literally throwing him on the floor and standing up with a large grin on her face. "Well anyway, how long have we been asleep?"
Harry glanced at his watch before saying "Four in the afternoon. There's no point in going back sleep so you might as well go and do something else for a while Go to the library if you like. I just received an owl with a package full of some reasonably interesting books."
"I wasn't planning on going back to sleep, but you seem pretty disappointed that we can't o to bed. Why is that Harry? Have you suddenly grown fond of me?"
Harry started to blush for the second time that day before saying "Shut up. I'm not growing fond of you and I never will."
"Whatever you say Harry" she grinned. "I'm going to go read one of those books that you mentioned, but if you insist, we could go back to bed and do something else for a change. What do you say?"
'I'd better not reply to that one or she'll get me back' he thought before walking off, leaving a chuckling Bellatrix to her reading.
'Oh boy, I made him blush twice in one day. This is even easier than I thought.'
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The doorbell woke Harry up from the nap he had been taking. He glanced at his watch. It was currently ten to seven, and he was assuming that it was either Ron or Hermione or both. Hopefully, they actually had good news for a change.
He then got up, and dragged himself to the door. Bellatrix was just opening the door when he got there. When the door opened, he saw Ron and Hermione standing there. Then he noticed that they looked like they had been in some sort f battle. He opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione beat him to it.
"We'll tell you what happened in a minute, just let us come inside."
'Oh boy, this can't be good' thought Harry. He escorted them to the sitting room where they all sat down, waiting for one of them to speak. Finally when no-one decided to speak first, Hermione decided to say "Harry, Bellatrix, I guess you're wondering why we look like hell. I suppose I'd better explain.
When we approached Tonks (we went to her first), she agreed with us and mentioned how unlikely it was for any of this to happen, and believed us when we mentioned we had already spoke to you. Then suddenly, Lupin came into the room. He must have been listening to us because he looked extremely angry and he started to shout about how we were traitors to the Order and how disappointed he was at us being fooled by you. He then pulled out his wand and engaged in battle with us.
We thought that we had the advantage because there was three of us, but he is much better than we thought. When we were just about to win, he fired some sort of curse at Tonks, and it blasted into her. The explosion was so powerful that it knocked us all off our feet, and then I managed to stun Lupin and tie him up. I then went to check up on Tonks, and I found that she had broken a large amount of bones and was severely injured. Before I got the healers to come, I used a memory charm Lupin and told everyone in the Order that Tonks was practicing some curses when she did one wrong and blew herself up. She should be alright, but it means that...
Then Ron spoke up when he saw that Hermione couldn't continue. "But it means that she won't be able to have anymore children. The curse damaged her too badly."
Harry felt sadness inside him. 'Tonks must have been devastated when she realized this. She wanted to have some more children, but now she won't be able to. And it's thanks to her own husband that she won't be able to! If I see Lupin again, no matter how well we used to get on, I will kill him, and that's for sure! Poor Tonks, I hope that they made a mistake and she can have children. At least she already has one kid though'
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After Ron and Hermione left, Harry could still feel the sadness inside him. 'How far can evil go? I have now seen it go so far that someone has lost something very important at the hands of her own husband. And to make matters worse, it didn't really sound like he cared that he had almost killed his own wife and the mother of his baby!'
Bellatrix suddenly came into view and sat down in front of him. "Ahh, sitting down feels good after standing up for a while. Anyway, Weasley and Granger should approach the other people soon, but like you said, we need to approach Snape. I don't think it would be such a good idea to take me along the first time, but after you explain my innocence, you can bring me with you. You need to make sure though that you deal with Snape carefully. He is a cunning ma, and could outwit you with some effort. Do not trust him yet, only trust him when you ca tell that he is completely loyal to you, which, knowing him the way I do, won't be for a while.
Harry wasn't really paying attention as he spoke. Instead he was deep in thought, nodding every time that it was required. He wondered if it would really be that easy to approach Snape. Snape may have argued in his favor, but he man still detested him and his family, and if he was not careful, Snape would change his mind about his opinion on Harry's innocence. 'That greasy git would use any excuse he has to call me evil.'
He then noticed that Bellatrix was no longer sitting in front of him. He frowned. 'Where the hell has she gone?' He was just about to call out to her when suddenly, someone shouted behind him "BOO!"
He let out a high pitched shriek, and then spun around to find Bellatrix on the ground laughing her head off. He glared at her for a moment, then suddenly went over to her and fiercely started to tickle her. Her laughs turned into screams as she fought him and tried to get him to stop. She manged to push him over, and then land on top of him when he accidentally dragged her with him. They stared at each other for a minute, lips inches away from each other. Then Harry suddenly realized where he was and shoved her off him, shocked. He then ran very quickly in the direction of his room, leaving Bellatrix laying on the floor, confused. 'The moment was so close yet he pushed me away. I don't know if I actually like him. My head is kind off messed up right now.'
She shook these thoughts off and went towards his small library. It may be small, but some of the books in there were extremely rare and she had no idea how he could have got them. Lately she had been going to his library quite often to prepare for the lessons that she was going to give him. She wasn't sure if she should include some of the Dark Arts. On one hand, they would be very useful to use in a battle situation. On the other hand though, they were highly addictive and she didn't want him delving too deep in the Dark Arts. Plus, Harry would probably refuse to have any lessons on them as he despised the Dark Arts. She was looking through books on them though just in case she wanted to include anything from them.
She sighed, and sat down with a book to read. This particular book was on Animagi according to the cover. She opened it, but suddenly realized that the words inside the book were written in a foreign language that she was not familiar with. 'What language is this?' she thought, frustrated, as she flicked through the book.
"Harry!" she shouted, hoping he knew what language it was written in. A few minutes later, Harry walked in, obviously trying to hide his blush when he saw her.
"What language is this book in Harry? I've tried reading it, but I can't understand it."
Without speaking, Harry walked over and took the book. He looked at one of the pages and then spoke. Except instead of speaking normally, he was speaking in a strange hissing noise. She then realized what was happening.
"Harry, you're speaking in Parseltongue. Snap out of it."
Harry realized what he was doing, and said "I think the book is written in Parseltongue."
"Yeah, okay. I'll read a different one instead."
Suddenly, an Otter came up to them. Harry recognized it as Hermione's Patronus. It spoke with her voice, and said "The Burrow is being attacked Harry! We need your help immediately."
The Patronus dissolved leaving them alone. They stayed where they were for a moment, then looked at each other and in unison said "Let's go!"
Author's Notes: My first cliffhanger. How exciting!
