The night was calm, but my pulse was racing with the guilt of leaving Lilith to suffer at her own hand, beneath the stars. Her screams still racked through me, the force at which she hit the ground with her fists and the tremendous surge of power that sprung in flames all about her, still roared in my memory. What disturbed me however was this, The Dark Lord had found a way to occupy Lilith's mind without her knowledge. Granted, she was in a place of vulnerability and extreme emotional instability, but he had actually managed to place false visions in her head, visions that had obviously distressed her to the point of sorrow and angst needed for magical outbursts of such magnitude.

As though my heart could take any more sorrow, I thought to myself. Dawn was coming fast, and soon Lilith would be resting, not beneath the sky this day, for the stars had made a fool of her, but in her hollow, a home she created out of nothing at the command of the Dark Lord, decades ago. It was a safe house, one of many that the generous lord had allowed his followers to dwell within. Of course, Lilith also owns a flat in muggle London. I scoffed. How dare she. It just shows that she doesn't truly care for me or the cause I fight for. Muggle London. What an awful place it must be, like wizarding London, with all its smog and unattainable house prices, but without power, without the safety of a wand by your bedside. How a person can live happily without magic is beyond me, especially when false and fallible magic such as divination is used in its place, the only art form that Muggles have come close to mastering.

I remember laying in bed next to Lilith in Hogwarts, she was sixteen and I was turning eighteen in January, she slept at night back then, it was before she had discovered her Animagus form. I smiled up at the ceiling as she explained all the ingenious inventions that muggles had created to solve problems. Aeroplanes for flight, antibacterial spray for cleaning, washing up gloves for house elves- I still don't get that one. She would laugh at my reactions, I was never very sure about any of it, but those moments, I realise now, when she would transform someone's ink pot into a chocolate frog during an exam, or accidentally stumble into McGonigal's thoughts over dinner at the great hall, were the most precious to me. That sparkle of mischief that danced across her features, then delicate and soft rather than sharp and hardened, as they were now, by all that she has had to endure as a follower of the Dark Lord. Then again, we had all had to endure so very much at his hand.

"I am devoted to him." I whispered to myself.

I stood and walked to the window of the room in Malfoy Manor, where Narcissa had allowed me to stay, while I worked out my own accommodation.

Bird song had not yet erupted, the sun, not yet appeared over the frosted crest of grass fields that covered the ground for miles before me. the horizon was threatening light, but darkness, still held itself above me. I walked back to my bed, irritable, I lay down on it, my hair falling off it at one end so that my feet rested wearily on the pillows where my head should have been. Lilith would not leave my mind.

"What are you up to, my Lily, my naïve flower." I closed my eyes and pushed until I found her mind. It was full of thousands of thoughts, loud and crowded and seemingly in a state of flux. I heard her voice my name although I couldn't see the woman's surroundings, her barriers up:

Bella, she would sneer as I begged for her. She would call me her good slut as I worshiped her with my tongue.

I pulled away instinctively, her words were bitter, but true and ladened in lust. I was shocked. Then, pondering their meaning, I smiled, bearing all my teeth. "Mmm," I purred. "You still love me don't you Lily?" I whispered to myself and imagined a time, when the war was over and the Dark Lord had triumphed, that I would finally be able to hold her in my arms once more, just like we had before I vowed my life in the service of the dark wizard.

Lilith begged me to reconsider when I did, but she was still in school. I was 19, it was 1970, the Dark lord was rising to power and had the Order of the Phoenix to destroy. He sought me out, knowing of my power, of my superior blood status.

And Lilith? She was decedent of the American No-Maj Johannes Jonker, a wand maker. Granted he was a very successful wandmaker. He fell in love with a witch, and they had a son, a son in the possession of magic, to the surprise of his delighted father. The boy grew up to become a journalist, poor thing, writing for both magical and muggle newspapers alike. It was on a research trip to Bulgaria, when he had intended to uncover the unknown elemental magic within the rare wand core: veela hair, and of course he fell in love with his subject. What is more surprising is that she in turn fell for his charisma, his enthusiasm and talent for words. And, at 23:30, On the 8th of March 1952, their baby girl was born.

Both parents had suffered, the father had been outcast my many social circles as the son of a No-Maj and for living in muggle Manhattan, and the mother, for leaving her country and revealing the sacred knowledge of the veela to the world. Lilith used to enthuse: "They were pioneers Bella! They shared their knowledge with the world and now it is a better place for all magic folk! The economy tripled in Bulgaria overnight when wand manufactures realised that veela hair could be used as a powerful wand core, and to this day my fathers research into elemental magic is being taught in schools!" I remember Lilith pushing a thick paperback book in my face, it had a library sticker on it, but I was suspicious that she had put it there herself. "Read it, please. It is so exciting- he discusses transfiguration using the muggle theory of subatomic particles in unison with magical methods!"

Then I seem to remember that some other Slytherin girl in our dormitory threw a shoe at her to shut her up.

The shoe was returned to her as a cockroach cluster.

And now? Now Lilith wanted to marry our two worlds, just as her father and mother had wanted. But it was that thinking that would bring the end of these two 'pioneers.' In September 1963 Lilith arrived at Hogwarts, an orphan of what the Daily prophet deemed to be 'Two Magical Radicals' who had been killed months earlier in a political protest for the integration of muggle kind into the wizarding world.

She left her home, with a suitcase, her fathers wand, and very little money, but Dippit (who was succeeded by Dumbledore as head master only three years later), allowed the little girl to study at the school and live there permanently. She flourished.

I first met her in detention, a first year with the face of an angel. "What's this McGonigal? Didn't do her homework?" I gestured to her. Lilith smiled at me, silent.

"Actually Miss Black, this little girl transfigured all the cages in my classroom into paper." Minerva raised her eyebrow, obviously trying incredibly hard not to praise the Slytherin for her wrongdoing despite its impressiveness and humour. "I thankfully managed to transform them back before the alligator could escape, although, most all the paper on my desk is smattered with parrot dropping."

"If you don't mind me saying, Professor, that beam above your desk is incredibly unfortunately placed. Why, if I were a parrot, I'd have been looking up at that perch from my cage for months, wondering what it would feel like to finally shit on your precious papers."

McGonagall's face was a sight for sore eyes. Her stern lips pursed into a comically thin line and her eyes? Well, if looks could kill, Lilith would have joined her parents then and there. "Miss Jonker! I will not tolerate-"

"Wait, you're Jonker, from the newspaper? You're that American kind with the dead parents?" I cut in, only realising after I had opened my mouth, the insensitivity of my words.

"Miss Black-" Minerva began in a booming voice. But Lilith had already turned the ground at my feel into chewing gum, and I fell straight through the floor, my beautiful raven hair and my entire school uniform, would feel sticky for weeks after.

I heard that Lilith got suspended after that, but since she didn't have a home, that basically just meant no lessons for her. She would sulk in the library and gradually, the students and teachers alike, learnt to leave her in peace there. She would just read and read and read.

It was maybe a month after my 'sticky-situation' that I went over to speak with her in the library, settle our scores. And, without looking up from her book, she brandished her wand. "Back for more, Black?"

"Listen Jonker, I am sorry about what I said, but that prank was uncool on so many levels."

"Well, I haven't quite mastered the whole 'turning hair into candyfloss thing' yet, but maybe you'd like to be my first dry run, Huh?"

Lilith cast her spell, but I threw it aside at some other first year who burst into tears and ran in the direction of the hospital wing. I laughed at the clever jinx but Lilith's small face was deadly serious. I rolled my eyes and took a deep breath. "Lilith, I get it, it feels like everyone is out to get you," I started to speak, and Lilith listened, obviously impressed with the way that I dealt with her curse, "but you have to trust me when I say, you are going to be very board around here by the time no one dares to cross your path."

Lilith considered my words and put down her wand. "You're a Slytherin?"

I scoffed, "Is that even a question?" I bowed in front of Lilith. "Bellatrix of the ancient house of Black, at your service."

"And a pure blood huh? Well then, let me get one thing straight my Grandfather was a-"

"I know." I said bluntly, "I have read your whole life story."

"Oh, and you still wanna be friends?"

I paused and sat next to Lilith, putting my arm around her chair. She didn't react. I put my feel up on the table and broadly gestured to the ceiling as though illustrating my vision for the future. "Think of it more as partners in crime."

Lilith smiled and looked up at me, a flicker of hope, ignited in her eyes.

"You like the sound of that, little witch?"