Chapter 4: Gryffindors indeed
Note:
A short chapter this time... kind of like a filler. I wanted to start
on other things but decided to do that in the next chapter instead. I
hope it's readable anyway. :) Thanks to everyone who reviewed!
The following days were rather uneventful for the sisters. Relatives came by with expensive Christmas presents for them and left well wishes for their father who had yet to come home. The sisters spent most of the days doing whatever they wanted, whether it was having snowball fights outside or ordering the house elves to redecorate rooms until their hearts' content. Surprisingly, most of the time Mrs Gable kept herself out of sight. In the evening they snuggled up together in a warm couch in front of the fireplace. Narcissa usually sat and worked on sketches of white princes while Andromeda read aloud from one of her books. Bellatrix would sit and half listen, half complain about Andromeda's odd taste in books. But most of the time she was silent, staring into the fire and there were times Andromeda and Narcissa wondered where her mind drifted.
It was only the day before New Years Eve that Tiberius Black came home. He was weary and looked tired, then again none of the sisters could remember him being anything else ever since their mother died. Even though Tiberius had never been the warm, doting father they had all wished for his presence at the manor was most welcome. Narcissa and Andromeda even caught Bellatrix on her way to Tiberius' study with a tray of butterbeer and cookies one late night when Tiberius was still up. But whatever hope they had had of parental bonding there simply wasn't any time for. New Years Eve was spent at a ball, one that they weren't old enough to attend. Instead they had been stuck with the other "children", although Bellatrix and Narcissa protested wildly. The following days Tiberius spent visiting many different, unknown people and when he came home he sat down with the girls briefly for dinner before retreating to his study.
As disappointed as they were, Narcissa mostly, it was nothing new to them and on the train back to Hogwarts it was all already forgotten about. Bellatrix hadn't made up with Rod yet but had Jennie to talk to and both Andromeda and Narcissa had gone to catch up with their friends. Things settled down as they came back to Hogwarts and both Bellatrix and Andromeda quickly forgot about that strange night before Christmas.
But some things weren't so easily forgotten, a fact that Narcissa rediscovered around Valentine's Day. She had gotten up one morning, gone to the Great Hall for breakfast and discovered that once in a while people would glance at her and snicker. It didn't take long for her to discover that someone had sent a Valentine card to Gus Broderick, a third year Ravenclaw with a face full of pimples, and signed it with her name.
"I wish that they would just stop," Narcissa sighed and covered her face with her hands in shame.
Helen gave her a comforting pat on the back while using her other hand to spoon up some cereal. The small group of Gryffindor girls seemed to be very proud of themselves as they sat on the far end of the Gryffindor table. Rod and Winston, who happened to be sitting nearby and had heard Narcissa, moved a little closer to her.
"You should get back at them," Rod suggested.
"How?" Narcissa asked.
She didn't get an answer because the next moment Bellatrix had arrived. She sat down between Narcissa and Rod, boldly pushing Rod away to make more room for herself. Rod glared at her and it was only then that Narcissa remembered the fight they had had before Christmas. It had started with something as trivial as homework and Rod's accidental misuse of a spell had caused Bellatrix to suddenly end up looking like a hybrid of a toad and a horse. Narcissa looked at both Bellatrix and Rod curiously and wondered why they still were not talking to each other. It had been a few months after all.
"Win, pass me the butter?" Bellatrix asked.
Narcissa rolled her eyes and Winston just looked puzzled at her request. The butter was out of reach for him but almost right beside Rod. Before Winston could attempt to reach for the butter Rod had grabbed it and pushed it away from him so that it was out of anyone's reach. In fact, he did such good job at it that the butter bowl slid off the table and fell to the floor. A loud sigh came from Bellatrix.
"Oh great!" she exclaimed. "The great Rodolphus Lestrange does it again!"
"As opposed to the oh-so-talented Bellatrix Black who can't even transfigure a slug properly?!"
"It was moving around!" Bellatrix yelled back defensively, her face starting go red out of anger.
"It was SLUG!" Rod shouted, empathising the last word of the sentence. "How fast can it move anyway?"
Narcissa tried desperately to hold back her laughter at this, especially when Bellatrix heard her and shot her a quick but intense glare. If there was anything Bellatrix hated it was when her ego getting bruised. She stood up, hand in her pocket and about to pull out her wand when a strong hand gripped her arm tightly. A frown formed on Bellatrix's face and as she turned around to see who it was Narcissa found herself blushing and letting out a quiet gasp.
It was him... Lucius Malfoy.
"Keep it down you two," Lucius said warningly and did not let go of Bellatrix's hand. He cast a worried glance towards the teachers' table before giving both Bellatrix and Rod an angry glare. Narcissa thought that she was going to die. "Wouldn't want to lose more points, would we?"
"And who's going to beat us?" Rod questioned confidently. "Hufflepuff?"
"Just save it until after the teachers are gone," Lucius answered. He let go of Bellatrix and then started to make his way towards the exit. The dark robe he wore rose slightly as he walked, causing Narcissa to let out a contented sigh.
When Lucius had walked out of Narcissa's sigh, she turned her attention back to her breakfast and her not so pleasant company. Bellatrix and Rod were eating peacefully, their previous fight already forgotten.
"What a bore," Rod muttered.
"Agreed," Bellatrix replied and reached for the marmalade. Narcissa rolled her eyes at them.
"You two are such babies," she said and picked up her book bag. She had not eaten anything yet, but her appetite was gone. "Just because you two are more concerned about fighting over stupid things than winning the house cup..."
"Oh be quiet," Bellatrix snapped. "Before Malfoy comes back and takes off points for excessive nagging."
For the third time this morning, Narcissa rolled her eyes. She promptly left the table without as much as a word to her sister, Rod or Helen. Her front teeth sunk into her bottom lip and she was sure that her cheeks had turned slightly red out of anger. She had just tried to talk some sense into Bellatrix and Rod and an insult was what she got for it.
Sisters can be so ungrateful, Narcissa thought, feeling very much above Bellatrix as she headed up the stairs for her first class.
"The jobberknoll feathers are used for…" Bellatrix spoke aloud as she hastily wrote down the words on the parchment. Suddenly she stopped writing and a confused look appeared on her face. "Used for what?"
"It's used for serums and potions," Andromeda answered only a split second later. She reached for another parchment since hers had already been filled up. "It's also widely used in memory potions and in..."
"Here," Bellatrix cut off, pushing her unfinished Potions homework towards Andromeda. "Write it."
Andromeda smiled briefly at Bellatrix, then opened a thick book and quickly flipped a few pages before she resumed writing. She never took her eyes off the book, in fact she kept reading without having to focus entirely on writing at the same time.
"No thanks," Andromeda answered. "I think I have enough work to do."
"You're a Ravenclaw, you're supposed to fall down on your knees and thank me for giving you the chance to do homework that you won't get until next year," Bellatrix retorted. She caught sight on the enormous pile of books that Andromeda had taken from the bookshelves at the library. "What are you writing about anyway?"
"Oh, just something for History of Magic," Andromeda told. "We have to write about a rebellion... as usual."
Bellatrix just shrugged, remembering that she had a few essays of her own in History of Magic to complete after she was done with her Potions homework. She picked up her quill and was just about to continue doing her homework when she caught sight on one of the books that Andromeda had borrowed.
"Famous wizards and their painty counterparts."
The word paint suddenly brought Bellatrix back to the night before Christmas, when she had followed the noises she had heard and had that unexpected encounter with her mother's portrait. The memory of the scream and Desdemona's face sent a small shiver through her. Without thinking Bellatrix reached for the book and quietly drew it towards her. One glance at Andromeda assured her that Andromeda was too busy with her essay to notice anything. Feeling a little more secure in that she wouldn't be watched, Bellatrix opened the book.
The first few pages merely contained a boring introduction and the list of content was extremely vague. Frowning, Bellatrix turned all the way to the last few pages and the index. There she stopped again, as it occurred to her that she was not sure of what she was looking for.
Screams? Distorted faces? Mothers? Insanity?
Out of the few words she could search for, insanity was the only one that came up with a result. The only thing the book said about insanity was about a Norwegian wizard who's self portrait had run amok and disturbed the other paintings in the house greatly. Unfortunately, the original wizard himself had been insane and apparently he had been too good at painting a copy of himself.
Bellatrix slammed the book shut, causing Andromeda to jump in her seat.
"What was that all about?" Andromeda asked, slightly irritated at being disturbed.
"Nothing," Bellatrix muttered. She simply gathered her things, got up and marched out of the library as quickly as possible. Andromeda watched her leave then turned back to her essay, shaking her head.
Bellatrix was well aware of Andromeda's irritation, even though she had not stuck around long enough to truly confirm it. Perhaps she was frustrated because of the lack of information but Andromeda's irritation disturbed her and against her own will dug into her mind.
She wasn't the one who saw mother screaming with that disgusting face, Bellatrix thought to herself.
Moments later she reminded herself that what she had seen had not been her mother, but merely a portrait. Still, it bothered her. Her mother had been dead for years, leaving Bellatrix with a distinct memory of an elegant and poised woman who could even scold her and be graceful at the same time. Why had that portrait become so different from Bellatrix's memory? So erratic, so…
Frightening.
Bellatrix nearly stopped in her tracks as she thought of that word. Frightening. She had been scared that night. Scared of her own mother. The image of the gentle woman had been replaced by the image of the screaming one. Already before the incident her memories of her mother had started to fade, after all it had been over six years since it happened. Another frightening thought, equal to the thought of the portrait, started to creep inside her as she watched the flickering flames of the torches on the castle walls. Who was to say that her mother had really been that calm and gentle woman she remembered?
I am not scared! Bellatrix suddenly thought and continued to walk.
Her footsteps echoed in the hallway, empty on people and ghosts except herself. The faster she walked, the more she started to tell herself the same thing over and over again. She was not scared. She was just being silly about the whole thing. Magical things failed over the years, the same thing could apply to portraits. She would write to her father and ask him to take care of it. Have the painting repaired or taken away.
There was nothing to be scared of.
"What are you skulking around here for?"
"Yeah, did little Cissy get lost?"
Bellatrix looked up just as she heard a round of giggles. Normally she would not care less about who was giggling and who was the target of the teasings. But the moment she heard "Cissy" her eyes widened and her body seemed to go on red alert. She didn't even have the time to think the thought, instead she dropped all her things and practically bolted around the corner and to the source of all the voices.
It was Narcissa, surrounded by a group of girls and just by looking at their robes Bellatrix knew that those were the same Gryffindors who Narcissa had told her about. One uncomfortable look on Narcissa's face was enough to send Bellatrix into a state of anger. Her entire body suddenly seemed to become warm.
"Get away from her... now," Bellatrix ordered, empathising the last word clearly.
To her enormous surprise, none of the Gryffindors moved. Instead they looked at her as if trying to gain some kind of understanding. One of them, who seemed to be missing a large chunk of hair on her head stepped forwards and spoke.
"But she put a dead toad in my bag!" the girl protested, as if expecting sympathy from Bellatrix side.
It puzzled her a little, these girls didn't seem to have any idea of who she was. Narcissa stood quietly against the wall and watched, equally puzzled. Realizing what was wrong, Bellatrix reached up and drew her long hair back, revealing the green Slytherin badge on her robes. She felt some satisfaction in seeing two of the girls looking somewhat scared upon seeing the badge.
"See this badge? If you don't know already, it means: I don't give a DAMN!"
It hardly took three seconds before all the girls were out of sight. Bellatrix released her hair, thinking that she wouldn't have minded chasing after them and throwing a hex or two. But instead she walked over to Narcissa, who just stared curiously at her.
"You alright?" Bellatrix asked after a while. Narcissa nodded.
"You know… they didn't really do anything to me," she pointed out. "Just cornered me, that's all."
"I knew that."
Feeling a little stupid for overreacting, Bellatrix turned around and started to walk back to get her things. She didn't even say anything as Narcissa followed her. As proud of herself as she was for scaring those Gryffindor girls off by just shouting, she wasn't about to let Narcissa know how just the thought of Narcissa being threatened had caused her to go into attack mode.
"It's late, we should get back," Narcissa suggested.
Bellatrix simply nodded as she picked up her Potions homework and quill. They turned around and walked back into the same corridor but had hardly gone three steps into it when they found out that they weren't alone. Standing a few meters away, facing them directly where the same Gryffindor girls. But this time they were more or less hiding behind two others.
They were both Gryffindors and in Bellatrix's own year, she could tell that right away. One of them was Connor Matheson, a tall and confident boy who was in her Astronomy class and played Quidditch. The other she quickly realized that she knew nothing about. He had too short hair and in the dark Bellatrix could hardly make out his face. But the girl who had stood up and tried to talk to Bellatrix before was hiding behind him. Bellatrix raised one eyebrow, looking at both boys curiously. She would have crossed her arms if not for the fact that the quill and her homework were still in her hands.
"Should have known…" Connor started. "A Slytherin to pick on our first years."
"Stay away from them," the other boy warned seriously.
"Someone needs to get their facts straight," Bellatrix said sweetly, mocking them with her voice. "The way I remember it, your darling little girls cornered my sister."
Behind her, Narcissa uncomfortably shifted her book bag from one shoulder to the other. Knowing Narcissa, Bellatrix figured that she probably thought that this was going to end up in a fight.
"That's not what they told us," the other boy said.
"And they say Gryffindors are known for their bravery..." Bellatrix retorted, gesturing towards the girls who were hiding behind him and Connor.
"David," the girl whined, tugging at the unknown Gryffindor boy whose name was apparently David. He just gave her a quick look and looked at Bellatrix again. As their eyes met each other, it occurred to Bellatrix how strikingly blue they were. She had never seen such blue eyes before.
Like a bad poem, Bellatrix thought cynically and silently reminded herself of how silly it sounded. Standing around there talking to Connor and David didn't seem to go anywhere. Either they had no intention at getting back at her for scaring their little first years or they were really bad at showing it.
"Are you done now?" Bellatrix asked, although she didn't wait for an answer. Instead she took Narcissa's hand. "Let's go."
She started to walk through the corridor and past the entire group of Gryffindors, dragging Narcissa with her. Just when they were about to turn to the left and go around the corner, Connor's voice sounded through the corridors.
"If you ever bother them again, I swear I'll..."
Bellatrix rolled her eyes at the lame threat and simply chose to ignore it.
Gryffindors indeed.