Chapter Twenty One

A/N: Thank you to KeepCalmFanFicExists for reviewing the last chapter.

Bellatrix smoothed down her dress with shaking hands. It was a strange sensation, shaking hands- she had almost forgotten how it felt. In the Arena, her hands had never shaken, for this would have spoiled her aim. She found herself comparing everything to the Arena now- she wondered if that would ever end.

It had been a strange choice, the stylists had told her, but bold and brilliant, a testament to how much she had changed and grown with the Games. Bellatrix had not listened to their chattering for long- in the Arena, it had been much quieter. She preferred that.

Nonetheless, a black gown had been her choice, an elegant arrangement of lace and satin, the colour of mourning. Perhaps she was mourning the lives she had ended, or perhaps the life she had left behind. Perhaps she was mourning what little sanity she had left, or the innocence that had once been a part of her. The Atrium could speculate all they wanted on this matter, for even Bellatrix herself did not know the truth.

She could hear the crowds awaiting her beyond the curtain, could feel their anticipation flooding through the velvet that parted them, but Bellatrix did not care. She still hadn't seen her sister yet. She hoped she was alright.

In truth, however excited she may be to see Narcissa, her nerves over the reunion were three times as prominent. The Games had been an awful experience, which she had only gotten through with the hope that she would see her family again. Now, when they came face to face once more, Bellatrix wondered if her little sister would even recognise her.

Suddenly, a beam of light came through the velvet, as the curtains began to steadily draw apart, their slow movement serving to emphasise the tension of the event, more for the crowd than for the Victor, for whom this evening needed no emphasis. Bellatrix stepped into the centre of the stage, as she had been instructed by Jane Umbridge a hundred times or more. The woman seemed to have spent every waking moment since the Games preparing her for her introduction to Atrium life; Bellatrix had tried not to notice that she was being looked at differently now, for she did not imagine that Umbridge would be the last.

After a painful amount of time, the roaring crowd was revealed in all its glory. The sea of colours was vibrant and strange, after so long seeing only green and black and brown amidst the forest. Bellatrix slitted her eyes, rather like a snake, to try and blur her vision a little, so that she could not see them. All of the crowd was cheering and smiling; none of them seemed to care how many she had killed to earn the title of Victor.

There was a raised platform in the middle of the stage, on which sat an ornate golden throne. It was another piece of ostentatious grandeur for the sake of the Atrium's people, but Bellatrix paid it little heed. She was too busy concentrating on the man stood beside it.

The Minister had always been a name to be feared, mostly because, for the outer Districts, there was no name to match to the face. He was a rumour, as much a story as could be found in books. He had been the one to keep many a child of Slytherin awake in their beds, trembling as if he would burst down the doors to their homes any minute. Bellatrix, like all the others, had had these dreams, and more recently had soothed little Cissy when she woke in a panic.

Bellatrix felt a stab of pain in her heart. That was all home was for now, a collection of memories and a raw stabbing pain.

"Our Victor, Bellatrix Black!" exclaimed the announcer, as she stepped up to the chair. At the Minister's nod, she sat, squirming a little to try and find a comfortable position. That was one of the many reasons Bellatrix hated glamorous things; they were always the least comfortable.

As the final step, the Minister retrieved a circlet from a silken pillow, raising it high into the air and receiving a deafening roar from the crowd in answer. In the brief time she had to see it, Bellatrix observed that the circlet was made of gold, fashioned into a circle of flames. They seemed to lick up into the sky, flickering and changing like real fire- or perhaps that was simply a trick of the light. After all, she had spent so much time in darkness.

The second gift bestowed upon her was a necklace. It was gold, set with emeralds, to represent the colours of Salazar Slytherin's Districts. Bellatrix could not help but smile at that- the poorest of the Districts carried an emblem of the most expensive stone, bar the Atrium symbol of a solitaire diamond.

Of course, Bellatrix knew that she would have no cause to wear such a necklace once she returned home. Few people in District Twelve had any jewellery at all, let alone something as expensive as this. If they had done, they would have sold it long ago for scraps of food. But Bellatrix tried not to think about this and allowed the weight of the gold to comfort her. It felt so very real- not many things felt real anymore.

The applause remained rapturous, even after all this time had gone by. The people of the Atrium seemed incapable of becoming tired by glitter and falseness, even when it seemed to dominate their lives.

Bellatrix's eyes flitted from one face to the next, passing over the crowd, as if she were in search of something, though she could not have said what.

And then she found it.

There, stood five rows back from the front, amongst a crowd of feather-draped women with vibrantly-coloured hair, stood Rodolphus Lestrange.

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