disclaimer ...Not mine.
a/n ...I don't like this one. It's odd and it seems ugly to me, so heavily ...structured. I don't know.But anyway, no matter how much I hate this fic, I still love Bella. Yay. And the x-dividers also seem ugly, but it seems like punctuation won't appear when it's a one-liner. Which sucks. And the line dividers seem so ...huge. Umm, yeah. (Glad I'm so eloquent.)

You are Bellatrix Black.

You're quite beautiful, and you know that, too. But you're beautiful on the outside, not the inside, because your soul is full of the bitter tang of decay, and even so young it's beginning to rot, to fester - to fade. No one knows how much life you have left now.

But why would you care? You have ivory skin, large blue-grey-green eyes, ebony hair. Such beauty - such natural beauty, almost - such aristocratic beauty.

Beautiful Bella, they say.

And you judge your sisters without hesitation.

x

Andromeda has a round face with messy hair, black like your own. Best friends with Alice Longbottom, she's what the Gryffindors call cute; what the Slytherins call disgusting.

You think that she's terrible, dating some dirty Mudblood with a ridiculous name. ("She just is," you say bossily, when asked why.)

So-called Andy - so naive, so happy - blissfully missing the whole point of being a Black. (And yet when she asks you, sarcastically, "What exactly is this Grand Purpose of being a Noble and Ancient Black?" you just wear your twisted sneer and don't know how to answer. How can you tell her; how can she understand?)

Many things irk you about Andromeda.

But the biggest thing, to you,is the way she asks, a little self-righteously: "Where's your heart?"

So you reply, "Where's your brain?" Immature, for once, angry and trying too hard to hide it.

Shallow Bella, they say.

So you raise your head high and pretend to ignore the whispers while cursing your enemies under the table. You are arrogant beyond compare and you like it that way. That is the way it is - that is the way it always will be.

x

Now, Narcissa. The youngest Black sister.

She's not so bad, you think. She's not stupid like Andromeda, not so inane, but she's the youngest and a little weak. Very weak, that is.

You don't like weak people in general. But Cissa is your little sister, with icy blonde locks and a smile as numb as her glass eyes. But she's a closet dreamer, you know, and you are determined to squash this dreamer out of her.

"There is a difference between dreams and ambition," you lecture her imperiously, every night in the stony grey common room.

Usually your youngest sister hangs on to your every word because you are the oldest and strongest. But sometimes, when she's had a bad day with Lucius, she snaps back: "Bella, I know perfectly well what ambition is. I just don't have any."

So you continue, "Narcissa, listen! Dreaming is useless; you never act upon your dreams. But ambition - now, that's getting what you want."

She's silent.

"Cissa, I want you to be happy. Lucius Malfoy has ambition but no loyalty; you have all the loyalty but no ambition. He will never make you happy!"

Narcissa shrugs indifferently. There is a silence.

Finally, you say: "Narcissa, this is important. You are the only one who can make you happy."

Deep Bella, they say.

But no matter how much you lecture Cissa, she marries Lucius Malfoy in the end.

x

Beautiful Bella, they say.

Shallow Bella, they say.

Deep Bella, they say.

You are so shallow. You are so deep.