"Winds in the east
Mist coming in
like something is brewing
About to begin"
-"Winds in the East"
Dick van Dyke
Two weeks later, Bellatrix and Sirius had gathered in the giant fort they had built over the past few months. It consisted of many blankets stolen from the closets of various guest bedrooms, held together by Bellatrix's hair clips and some clothespins Sirius had nicked from an elderly house-elf's nest.
The fort was constructed in a small, hidden bedroom they had found during their routine exploration of 12, Grimmauld Place. Surprisingly, or maybe not that surprisingly at all, they had recently discovered that it was unlikely they'd ever know all of the secrets of their ancestral home.
In the past two months alone they had discovered dozens of new treasures, all of which were in a large hat box hidden under the floorboards in the center of their fort.
Bellatrix and Sirius currently sat across from one another, the hat box between them, digging through their new treasures. Their favorite discovery was a comb that, when slid down the crack between a door and its doorframe, rendered the lock useless. They used it to go into all of the rooms they previously didn't have access to, including a door to a secret passageway that allowed them to move around the house unseen by their parents, the portraits of their ancestors, or the house's many house-elves. The bedrooms of the house's previous occupants held the best things.
From Phineas Nigellus's room came a dusty, half-complete map of Hogwarts and a Slytherin robe from 1858. Ursula's half of the room provided an ancient diamond and gold necklace that Sirius and Bellatrix had seen Jezebel Slytherin wearing in several of her portraits, and an antiquated copy of the Flint family tree. Elladora's room fascinated Bellatrix the most; portraits of the older woman revealed that she looked almost identical to Bellatrix. Items in Elladora's room included a dozen silver daggers and a dusty old photo album that included photos of Elladora's sister, Isla, who was disowned for marrying a muggle, so Bellatrix and Sirius had never seen a photograph of her before. They found a room that they presumed was Isla's; it was filled with Muggle clothing, Muggle photographs, and Muggle books. A discarded Black Family ring with her name etched into the inside was found under the bed. Sirius Black the first's room was equally fascinating; he had died at the age of eight, only two years older than Bellatrix and Sirius were now, and a portrait of him from shortly before he passed away was nailed to the wall in his parents' room. Bellatrix and Sirius pried it off and brought it to their fort, at the request of its subject, and the three of them were becoming close friends.
Other treasures came from the rooms of Sirius II, Cygnus I, Belvina, Arcturus I, disowned Phineus II, Regulus I (who had died five years previously), Dorea, Marius the Squib, Callidora, disowned Cedrella, Charis, Sirius's aunt Lucrieta's childhood room, and their disowned Uncle Alphard. They found old dolls and spell books, descriptions of what used to happen to squibs, picture books, a pair of mirrors that showed the reflection of one another, several more daggers, some vials of black potion, old toys, several diaries, an ancient looking sneakoscope, the oldest model of the broom known to wizard-kind, really old dresses and dress robes, a creepy puppet, and tons of jewelry.
And now, sifting through the things on the floor of their fort, Bellatrix and Sirius sat in silence.
"Did you notice, they're whispering again?" Sirius asked his cousin.
Bellatrix looked up at him. "Yeah, I noticed."
"What do you think they're talking about, anyway?"
"Today I heard your father tell my mother that that Dumbledore man is the new headmaster of Hogwarts."
"Dumbledore?" Sirius asked, disgusted. "Ew."
"Yeah," Bellatrix said.
They sat silently, contemplating this for a few moments. Their parents- and all of their aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents who lived at Grimmauld Place, for that matter - constantly talked about how insane Dumbledore was, and how he was tainting the minds of children, and how his ideas were all wrong. Would this be the headmaster in charge while they were at Hogwarts? Would this man taint their minds, as well?
"They're getting all anxious about something," Bellatrix said, twirling a strand of her hair between her long fingers.
"Grandfather was talking about some 'Dark Lord'."
"What does that even mean?" Bellatrix asked, raising her eyebrows.
"I don't know. He said that the Dark Lord was going to get rid of all the mudbloods and muggles and rule the world."
Bellatrix was silent.
"Father says it's a good thing," Sirius said. "But I don't know why killing people is good."
"Yeah," Bellatrix said softly. "Me either."
"It feels like before a storm," Sirius stated. "It's all quiet and peaceful, but it's too quiet and there's little whispers like the wind starting to pick up, and soon the sky is going to break open and everything will be crazy."
Bellatrix pondered her cousin's words for a moment, and found them to be true. "Before a storm," she echoed softly. "What does that mean for us?"
"I don't know," Sirius said, shrugging it off like he always did. Sirius ironically didn't have the ability to be serious about anything for more than a few minutes.
"Children!" Walburga called. "Come downstairs this instant! The guests will be here in twenty minutes, and you're nowhere near ready!"
Bellatrix and Sirius quickly packed up their treasures, put them in the hat box, and replaced the loose floorboard. They scrambled down the stairs to meet Walburga.
Four hours later, they were still sitting at the table in the dining room. Cygnus was at the head of the table, with Druella to his right and Orion to his left, and Walburga on Orion's other side. They were in the big dining room due to the large number of their guests. On the side of the table facing the wall were Druella, Mr. Romulus Lestrange, his wife, Mr. Roderick Lestrange and his wife. Then came the children, Carmen and Caine Lestrange who were ten, Ced Lestrange who was nine, Rose Lestrange who was eight, Rodolphus and Rasia who were six, and Rabastan and Annie who were five. Next to Annie at the end of the table was Sirius. On the right side of the table sat Orion, Walburga, Mr. Dmitrii Dolohov and his wife Katrine, then Mr. Abraxas Malfoy and his wife Emalia, and then the children, Olga Dolohov who was eleven, Tatiana Dolohov who was ten, Maria Dolohov who was seven, Anastasia Dolohov and Lucius Malfoy who were six, Antonin Dolohov who was five, and finally Bellatrix. The table lined up so that Bellatrix and Sirius were directly across from one another.
After almost three hours of picking at their food, the children were all extremely bored. They weren't allowed to leave the table, and they weren't allowed to speak, either. The older children managed to listen to their parents' conversation with looks of interest on their faces. Anastasia and Maria seemed to be attempting to keep themselves from zoning out. Amorette kept on picking at a bow on her dress, and Rabastan was swirling the uneaten food around his plate with his fork. Sirius was flipping his fork around on his hand, which, luckily for him, his parents had not caught him doing yet. Bellatrix was watching the older pair of Dolohov girls and Carmen Lestrange in admiration, wondering if, when she was their age, she would be able to pay attention to an adult conversation with such interest.
Ten minutes later, she was so bothered by Sirius's fork twirling, she reached across the table in an attempt to snatch the fork from his hands. Her parents didn't notice this, but they did notice the loud clatter that emitted when Sirius jerked his hand away, elbowing his spoon off of the table. Bellatrix felt it hit her foot.
Mr. Lestrange had been talking - Romulus, that is - and he ignored the sound, as did the other guests, and most of the older children, who had been conditioned to ignore such a thing. Cygnus and Druella and Walburga and Orion all turned to glare at the end of the table. "Pick it up," Druella mouthed.
Bellatrix pushed her chair out, causing an even louder sound, and bent under the table to retrieve Sirius's spoon. That was when she saw it. Olga was tapping her foot furiously against the ground as though her life was depending on it, and the other older children - Carmen, Ced, and Tatiana - were engaged in a giant kicking war under the table, the girls sporting bruises that were beginning to show through their white tights, and although pants covered his shins, Bellatrix was certain that Ced's legs were bruised as well.
Bellatrix sighed heavily. Okay, so maybe it never got any less boring.
She got back up and wiped her long black spirals out of her face, smiling politely as she set Sirius's spoon back on the table. Then she swung her leg forward as hard as she could, and felt some satisfaction when her polished white shoe connected with the khaki material of Sirius's best dress pants.
Sirius's focus shifted from the Black family crest that was engraved on his pure silver goblet to his cousin, who was grinning crookedly at him from across the table. A devilish smirk grew on his face as he kicked her back, his equally polished shoe colliding with her white tights. Bellatrix winced slightly.
That was going to leave a bruise.
And so for the next hour, Sirius and Bellatrix delivered the hardest, most violent kicks they could muster onto one another's shins.
They were almost sorry when the adults decided it was time for the guests to go home, and their parents allowed them to get up from the table.
Maybe it'd never get easier, but they could at least count on each other to make it mildly entertaining.