And if you go,
and leave me down here on my own,
then I'll wait for you.

-Coldplay

*

It starts with our mother, pregnant with you, walking through fields on a quiet summer morning, Narcissa begins. She never expected to meet anything more than a song bird. When she returned to the house, she was covered in burns.

Narcissa looks at her smooth white hands, still unlined after all these years. She's frozen so stiffly I doubt you could knock chips off her. We are sitting in the living room, which reminds me of a slightly cleaner and more expensively furnished version of the Riddle House; dark wood floor, looming fireplace, occult instruments and vintage firewhiskey sitting side by side in a stained glass cabinet. I can tell this a story she does not wish to tell, a story she blames me thoroughly for. I sit patiently, only wanting her to continue.

-She was attacked by a Heliopath. You may wonder what such a creature was doing, tearing its way through a silent English country morning. Father told me later that spirits have all the world to run free in, there is no way of keeping track of them or refusing them entry. In the end, we all have the same chance of being the unlucky one who finds themselves in its path, wherever we might be.

'She returned to the house dragging herself on the knees, skin burned black and red raw, voice so ruined she could barely choke what happened. We were stunned she was still alive. I was four years old, but I still see her crawling across the flagstones like some charred excuse for a human, clear as day.

'We put her to bed, but did not call a Healer. There didn't seem to be any point, she was going to die and at least she would be in her own bed with her family around her. I cried into her sheets and listened to her ravaged snatches of breath and prayed her pain would end soon. But it didn't. She carried on fighting for breath until breathing became easier, and she could speak again and her skin repaired. After a week, she was able to walk all by herself and said that she could still feel you kicking. It was a miracle. We were amazed and overjoyed, the only tears I cried were of happiness. Until the mention of Grandmother's prophesy was brought up. That made us all fall quiet, including me, because even the youngest in the family understood the implications of the prophesy.

I look at Narcissa, my heart pounding like meat thrown against a slab of marble. What Prophesy?

She's there when I sleep. I never dreamed until now, I did not think I knew how to. Dreaming is a weak pastime, for those who indulge in the imaginary, for those fools who love; for those who cannot control their mind. Dreaming can expose you, whisper dead hope and temptation into your soul, smilingly lead you to manipulation. The Potter boy allowed his godfather to die because he followed his dreams.

It's all down to Bellatrix, this change in me. I feel like an oak in a storm. At first, small leaves of understanding swirl away from me, then whole branches of knowledge break and tear, swinging crazily in the breeze. If I do not catch her soon, I will fall crashing to the ground, roots ugly and twisted and bare. It is irrational. It is disgusting. I do not even know what I fear, or why her removed presence evokes such emotion. What is she to me? Just another Snape, another person to weave my lies around before the inevitable kill, a spider to a fly.

But, of course, she isn't. I could pretend I worry for my son, but I do not. There could be a hundred sons, if I ordered it. There is, was, will be, only one Bellatrix Black. The thought of there not being one in this world, that I am to be the one to remove her - that must be what I fear. Yet more foundations are crumbling as I realise it. My power is ebbing away. I cannot contain it within myself anymore, I am losing control of how I use it, of what I am seeking. At first, this was all about the child. I needed her to get to him. But I want her now, only her, to be with me and look up to me and sit by the fire as she used to. The thought of relying on another human being, however marginally, appauls me. She has done this. To get back on the right path, to stop these useless feelings, I must deny myself and she must be eliminated.

So I ought to be satisfied in my dreams; they will not last for long.

-The prophesy was made by our great grandmother while she was on her death bed. She was 102 years old, blind and horribly weak. Our family has wasted many hours of talk arguing she was not in a healthy mind, that it was madness to believe in the prediction of a woman in her state. Yet the threat of the prophesy has remained, an unspoken cloud hanging over the house, the words etched into the skull of every Black who supported Voldemort.

'What our great grandmother divined was this: A child of great importance with be born unto Elladora Black, one who will gain immense power at the womb. This power alone is what will bring about the death of Lord Voldemort and the freedom of all, magical and muggle alike. Yet gaining this power will come at a terrible price to the bearer, who will suffer the greatest tragedy in the wake of the Dark Lord's death. Both paths of destiny are open to the child of Elladora Black; she must chose between personal sacrifice and the sacrifice of countless souls.

I look at Narcissa, see how she shakes with fear and loathing at these potent words. She does not need to tell me the reaction of the Blacks, I can see it perfectly in my mind. Fright. Shock. Terrible shame, that a member of a family so supportive of Lord Voldemort could be his downfall. There would have been meetings at night, behind closed doors, ferverent whispers to kill Elladora, to kill any children she bore. But no. They had to be careful. Purebloods killing purebloods was not the done thing, and the prophesy had left some leeway of hope. The bearer of the power could make a choice. It would just have to be seen to that they received the Darkest upbringing, became a follower of Voldemort, never discovered the power. Of course, no official record of the prophesy would have been submitted to the Ministry, the Blacks did not want their secret discovered.

-After our mother's recovery, they knew the child in the prophesy must be you. One who will gain immense power at the womb, that was what it said. The Heliopath had obviously been meant by fate to transfer some of its power to you. Mother survived not by some miracle but because of your strength. The supremacy of the fire spirit harnessed in you refused to let the vessel that carried it die. You were meant to live, play a role in events to come.

'Remember that day in the park, with all the snow? I was afraid for myself, but curious as to what would happen to you. The Heliopath obviously saw you as its own, avoided you because its kindred cannot harm one other. I was only spared because your arms were around me, it thought my protection must be in your best interests.

And it was, I say quietly. If I were such a threat, why did you let me get so close to you?

She fixes my glare for the first time. Because, she says coldly, I was instructed to. By father. He told me to make sure you stayed on the right journey, by any means possible. He would not have shame brought on his family, not by me, not by you.

It was all an act? I gape. No. she's lying. She felt the same as me, that we could never be parted, that we were blended together.

-Yes, Bellatrix. I kept you as corrupted as I could, and I thought I did a very good job of it, until you turned up today. Now I know that I failed, all our efforts failed. You have set yourself against Voldemort with the means inside you to destroy him. You have enchanted flames within, the flames of an immortal spirit. Surely you've felt them, at times of great pain or happiness?

I remember how I used to love sitting by the fire, how I became a fireball myself when he performed the cruciatus curse on me. I know she's telling the truth, the whole truth. I never knew there was a truth to tell.

I rarely receive letters. Or, rather, I rarely bother to read them. That is Wormtail's job. It is left in his unreliable hands to sort what is important from the general rabble. At first, when reading this one, I thought that he had failed me yet again. On a more thorough inspection, the letter turned out to be one of the most important I had ever received.

While it is imperative you not to give up searching for the traitor, it is Important you realise she will be very hard to Find. Even if you look from Here to America, she will remain So well hidden underground we could never trace her easily. Bellatrix is too cunning for us.

It came to me unsigned, but I recognised the handwriting and what must have happened to the person it belonged to.

Lucius was under the Imperius spell. The layers of the letter perfectly represented his condition of mind; at the surface, all obedience was made to the instructions set to him, underneath he was fighting to throw away the mask and show his true intentions . Perhaps using the code had been subconscious, or perhaps through the dreamy fug he had managed to piece together some desperate plan. I did not know. By conjoining the irregular capitalisation of the words, what I did know was WIFE HAS Bellatrix. And surely, that was all that I needed.

- You have the power, Bellatrix, but do you have the boldness to use it? Think what it would mean. You're what they would call 'evil'. You've murdered, tortured, brought pain and misery to the families of thousands. You seem to think that you've had some sort of epiphany, that you've become this shining embodiment of freedom. Do you really think you committed those deeds under the Dark Lord's spell? I'll tell you why you committed them. Because you like it. Instead of taking away your freedom, he handed it to you on a shiny silver plate and you give it all up for a life of struggle. Only under his rule could you have satisfied that yearning within, so what are you left with now? A half-life, a pathetic clamour for the force of 'good'. Yet you can't even do that properly without reverting to the old ways. The first thing you do is go out and take another life. Face it, Bellatrix. You havn't changed. You need the safety of his law, you need him to sanction the things you do. What are you, without him? You are not yourself, you are a poor reinvention. I would not like to live like that, if I were you.

I stare at her, this frozen queen alone in her cavernous house, alone for many years lost in such sparse thin air, veins solidifying to dark winter cables, eyes set in her head like painted rocks. She needed me as much as I needed her. I prevented her from this, for as long as I was around, I kept her from turning to stone. But what happened when I finally slipped away? She's a Death Eater's wife. They all end up the same, those too scared or brainwashed or delusional to break away. Living for so long without love, or even belief in the existence of love, with the only notion of human relationships being breeding or killing does this to a person. I know. This was me, for sixteen years.

I take a good look at my sister, mentally severing the ties. My foolish dream is over.

-Narcissa. I am what I am. I never professed to be good, I never said I harboured qualms about killing. I still don't. I am prepared to strike you dead this minute, if the need arises. What makes me different from you is, I have realised the world according to Voldemort is very different to that which those who are free live in. Voldemort's Order is based on lies, he claims there is no such thing as good, or bad, or love or hate. His lies controlled me, controlled all of us, and we wreaked our destruction on their false authority. That is not freedom, Narcissa. You are confusing my desire with the truth. The sooner you realise that the sooner you'll understand that I would have killed people anyway, even if I hadn't become a Death Eater. I would have justly been myself, not acting on another's whim with a censored mind. I will always be cruel, and a murderer, yet I also accept that I can love. One thought does not cancel out another, not any more. And that is to be truly free.

For several minutes, Narcissa stares at me, a mixture of blankness and disbelief and incredulity carved into her ice sculptured face.

You don't understand a word I just said, do you?