disclaimer ...Not mine. (
a/n ...A Slytherin-y piece. Strange. Bellatrix lectures Narcissa, Hogwarts days.
The Slytherin common room, I have heard, is very cold.
It has slick stone walls and a low ceiling, and the only warmth there comes from the fireplace. The Slytherins' fire does not crackle merrily like the Gryffindors'; it gives a sense of foreboding, a sort of passionate darkness that cannot be masked by the intricate carvings of the mantelpiece above it.
If you search deep enough, they say, you will find that warmth is one thing money cannot buy.
x
The Slytherin common room, I have heard, is very dark.
It is underground where daylight can never touch it, where light is supplied from eerie jade lamps with a scent of cigarettes that the Slytherins have been smoking. These lamps are not open and generous; despite the elaborate designs of snakes, slender and cunning, these lights flicker and are unstable, sometimes liable to spit out burning oil.
If you look closely, they say, you will see that beauty can never hide treachery completely.
x
The Slytherin common room, I have heard, is exactly where they belong.
x
If the Slytherin common room is cold and stony on the outside, then inside it must be unbearably frozen. If the Slytherin common room is dark in the day, then in the night grim shadows must play across the ground in a manner that is not so comforting.
If the Slytherins are vicious on the outside - then imagine what they must be on the inside.
And if Bellatrix and Narcissa Black stalk the school to hex people in the day, then what do they do in the night?
x
It is two in the morning.
All the Slytherin students are in their four-poster beds with the glassy hangings encrusted with stars. Except two.
And these two sit on rough splintered seats, possessing an aristocratic beauty that is all marble and silk and silver - high, prejudiced, regal, the elite - unsmiling.
A voice. Soft, unsure, hesitating; almost unlike a Slytherin. "Doesn't it annoy you sometimes?"
"Yes?" A slightly deeper voice, female though, of somone who is obviously respected but not really listening.
"I said, Bellatrix, doesn't it annoy you sometimes, being so ...perfect all the time? Doesn't perfection exhaust you?"
Bellatrix snickers, the flickering light of the lime lamps giving her hair a slight shimmer, vaguely illuminating a scornful face, a scathing voice. "Narcissa, don't be a fool. Your lovely little 'perfection' doesn't exist."
"Bella, don't be so mean!" Narcissa begs, sounding naively shocked and tear-choked. She is young and only eleven years old, with the shiny blonde waterfall, the delicate blue pools, the sparkling enamel slices to go with it. There is something about her; vibrant but innocent and therefore vulnerable - just a little girl who holds onto her oldest sister's every word because she is stuck in a hugestone castle of a school, a world where her parents are not there to baby her, to spoil her. Narcissa is not in a large, carefully built, brilliantly designed bedchamber; she is in an frosty stone common room with hard ugly armchairs, and she hates it.
"I am not being mean," Bellatrix replies, a little more patiently, but still firm and haughty. "I am simply stating the truth. Don't dream, Cissa. Don't dream. It will take you nowhere."
"But - "
"Goodness. Narcissa. You do know what the family philosophy is, do you not?" Bellatrix wants to know, daintily pressing perfectly manicured white fingers to an equally pale cheek.
"Of course," the reply comes. "Toujours pur
With the air of a natural teacher, Bella inquires: "And toujours pur means ...?"
"Always pure, always pure," Narcissa murmurs nervously. "But Bella ...I am pure. I associate with the right people, I never ever talk to Mudbloods, just like Mother says. And all I want is perfection. Like you. I want a perfect life."
The air is cold.
The fifteen-year-old raises an eyebrow sardonically, knowing her youngest sister cannot see this in the blackness. "Like in a fairy tale?"
"Yes, like in a fairy tale," the first-year whispers eagerly, hoping Bella will understand, knowing Bella must understand.
Narcissa flinches as Bellatrix sneers visibly. The stone floor is cold underneath Cissa's bare feet, as hardened as Bellatrix is, always has been. "Narcissa," says Bellatrix, surprisingly gentle. "This is not a fairy tale. There is no perfection here. You can get close to it, though."
Bellatrix pauses, to ensure that Narcissa is listening.
When satisfied, she continues. "The fairy tales are wrong. Greed is a virtue. Narcissa, you are a Black. We are not Bulstrodes, we are not Parkinsons, and certainly not Weasleys, those blood traitors. We have more responsibilities to fulfill than simply avoiding Mudbloods. As a Black, you have this proud responsibility: Naricssa, I want you to take everything you can get. Nothing will stand in your way, nothing will stand in what you believe in."
"Even love?"
"There is no love, and there is no perfection.Narcissa: you will take power, fortune, fame. It does not matter how you take it; through marriage, hurting Gryffindors, or reaping rewards through your own sweat and blood. Your ends justify your means." Bellatrix stops, passionate embers in her grey eyes, her ebony hair slightly tousled (for once). But Bellatrix will never stop being graceful. She bares pristinely white teeth that are courtesy of nature, not magic. And then she says: "You do understand, Narcissa, do you not?" high and cold.
Narcissa nods. "Yes, Bellatrix." She sighs. "Can I go to bed now? I'm sleepy." She makes to get up.
Bellatrix stops her. "Wait. One last thing. Sit back down." She nods approvingly as her sister obeys. "I have not told you why perfection is nonexistent. You must know this."
"Why, then?" asks Narcissa, with naivete that only a child can possess.
"Because, Narcissa ...everyone and everything falls in the end. Sometimes, when we are children, we believe that everything will be 'perfect'. We are wrong. Nothing lasts forever: not youth, not beauty - not life. I hope you know that."
Bellatrix's fanatical glow is not so contagious. "Perfection doesn't exist, because everything falls and nothing lasts forever," Narcissa repeats dully, half-convinced. It is a mantra, it is their mantra.
She will be convinced in the end. She will search for power and she won't find it, maybe.
So Narcissa troops up to bed, her bare feet enduring cold steps of stone carrying warmth away. At three in the morning, with wide blue eyes and lack of sleep, Narcissa wonders when Bellatrix will fall.
x
Ironically, Bella's gravestone is nameless. It simply reads Perfection, as her mother Elladora wished it to.
Bellatrix, they say, fell a long time ago, before you and I were born.
And the Slytherin common room, I have heard, is exactly where she belongs.