VI.

Bellatrix Black will be twenty in three weeks. In six weeks, she will be married. She will cease to be a Black and will become a Lestrange. The prospect fills her with an odd sort of bored pleasure. It is a good match; the offspring will be commendable, the purity of the pedigrees will be inarguable.

But she is also bored by the idea of the marriage she will soon make. Rodolphus Lestrange is ten years her senior, and thinks too much like she does. Their choices have been too much the same. She sees a lifetime ahead of tedious agreement and singleness of purpose between them.

She is spending a fortnight at the home of her aunt and uncle, along with the rest of her family; her parents, her sisters. This night, the night of Samhain, they have feasted her in honor of her upcoming wedding.

Bella sighs. Only a very few of the oldest pureblood families still celebrate Samhain. The Blacks, the Potters, the Malfoys; and even among some of them the actual revels are only shabby, debased things – the Potters' harvest-end celebrations, for instance, are more like Halloween parties than proper Samhain rites. Most in the wizarding world have long forgotten their roots. At least the Blacks still feast, but even that is only a pallid remembrance of the full meaning and mystery of this night. Just a few centuries ago, the solemn festival would have been properly honored with blood and fire and sex and sacrifice. It is a pity.

But Bella plans to perform a very small celebration of her own tonight; nothing approaching the sacred terror of proper Samhain rites, of course, just a little mischief. Her plans are really more of a practical joke than anything else, she must admit to herself.

But it's the best she can do, in this late age of palely civilized sensibilities and of full-blooded wizards shamefully weakened by Muggle moral soft-headedness. It is a creeping disease. Nevertheless, her sixteen year old cousin, Sirius, she assures herself, is bound to be infuriated enough to make up for the triviality, at least a little. He will be so angry. At least some of her restless boredom will be assuaged.

She had not seen Sirius for several years; not since she'd finished her schooling at Hogwarts. Her memories of him from school, vague as they were, had been of a tiresomely exuberant, rather coltish thirteen year old Gryffindor, of all the bizarre things. So, in the course of this visit, she had been a bit surprised to find him, at sixteen, very close to being a man.

Now he is attractive; tall, elegant, an odd grace in him, quite unlikely in a teenage boy. He is almost pretty, although, in modesty, she shouldn't think it. Sirius looks so very much like she does now that looking at him is like gazing into a slightly distorted mirror. The family resemblance is extraordinarily striking. He could be her twin.

But these are not the things that interest Bella, or not primarily. During the first formal dinner here in Grimmauld Place, she had noticed that Sirius had taken his place at the table late. Certain significant glances between him and his father told Bella that her cousin's presence at this meal had probably been more compelled than voluntary. She had watched more closely thereafter, her interest sparked.

Young Sirius had been remote over dinner, controlled, carefully armored in an assumed, icy courtesy that had been very much at odds with her indistinct memories of a playful, boyish and remarkably open manner at school. There had been a certain edged irony in his polite congratulations to her on her upcoming marriage. All his contributions to the dinner conversation had been extremely guarded; just the barest minimum required for civilized dining. And then, when the family discussion had come round to the Samhain festivities planned for the end of the visit, and had moved from there to talk of Samhain in general; he had been unable to completely camouflage his utter distaste for the entire subject. And Bella had been able to guess at last what he'd been hiding beneath all those layers of remote disinterest and cool, polite talk. It had been rather extraordinary.

Sirius hated them; hated them all. Bella had been able to see it in his face and hear it in his voice. The entire family. Not any one of them specifically so much; he barely knew her, for example. Just the idea of them, perhaps. Just the thought of sharing the same ancient, carefully bred blood with the lot of them, perhaps.

It had been delicious, really. Fascinating and so amusingly futile. She'd wondered if he'd, perhaps, included himself on his internal list of Blacks to despise. She'd rather suspected that he had.

Quiet inquiry and a bit of strategic flattery to one of the more gossipy house elves, a black-hearted little swine called Kreacher, had confirmed most of her suppositions. Sirius' parents were almost continually enraged with him, she'd learned, and the growing rift between them had been becoming more and more serious in his sixteenth year. A great deal of acrimonious back-and-forth had already taken place over whether he would be attending this current family celebration or not, in fact.

He associated with nothing but the lowest scum in school, or so Kreacher had said, mixed blood bastards and the sons of only the worst Wizarding families. He had severed himself from every one of his own family's events and concerns and associations; he never came home anymore for any of the old festivals; and had openly refused to observe any of the old rites, even though he had taken to observing many Muggle holidays. He regularly snubbed and pointedly avoided the sons of pureblooded families like his own, and had yet to show any interest whatsoever in any of the daughters. His prospects for making any sort of acceptable marriage for himself were dwindling fast; since his reputation was so bad and his attitude toward his familial obligations so derisive. His parents were beginning to suspect that he might simply be mad.

Perhaps he is, Bella thinks. Perhaps he is mad. Surely it is madness to have developed a horror of your own origins, of your own blood, she speculates. Sirius can hardly expect to scrub the very wellsprings of his own identity out of himself. Does he really intend to spend the rest of his life trying? It is deliciously absurd.

Tonight, Bella intends to give her cousin a few more memories to attempt to scrub away. A fine prank on him, a last bit of sensual vandalism before she is wed for her. It will be an excellent joke. She waits in the shadows of an upstairs corridor, outside her silly cousin's bedchamber door, for her impromptu confederate, the house elf, Kreacher.

A week ago, she'd tested Sirius. A few suggestive words, a few naughty hints. A few ribald, rather inappropriate compliments regarding his appealing looks. He had colored a bit at that, but only a bit. Bella had been able to tell that, young as he was, he was already beginning to be accustomed to such blandishments. Physical beauty, Bella knows from her own experience, has many advantages, but it also has its costs. Many people are unable, or unwilling, to see any further than a comely face. It can be like wearing a mask.

And the desires of others can sometimes become more burdensome than flattering. When Bella had managed to corner Sirius alone one night, in a dark alcove of the courtyard at the back of the house, she had dispensed with naughty hints and moved directly into straightforward sexual propositioning. She had made her terms graphic and unambiguous. She had left him no room to mistake her meaning at all.

"Thank you, but no," he'd said. There'd been a sort of cold, perhaps slightly revolted sarcasm in his polite refusal, but not as much blushing embarrassment as she'd hoped. Clearly, he must have had to refuse such plain invitations before. "I'm flattered, but you are soon to be a bride. And, I have to tell you, I myself find the degree of kinship a touch unsettling. If you must have a first cousin, perhaps Regulus would be available. His tastes are less conventional than mine, I imagine."

Bella had laughed at him. His cold rejection had pleased her immensely.

"It is convention I observe, pretty cousin," she'd argued. "On Samhain night, our ancestors - yours and mine, Sirius, dear - would have been glad of the opportunity to concentrate their blood in this way. It is an old magic; a remembrance, if you will. Raise the dead with me, won't you? Subvert nature and bend the world to your will. That's what magic is for. Think of all the outrages we two could commit together."

"I expect you can probably commit outrages without my help, Bella. If you're not a Death Eater yet, you soon will be once you marry Lestrange. I'm not interested. Leave me alone."

"These are only minor differences of opinion. Just politics, cousin – when I speak of pleasure. Regulus won't do. He's too young. And he just might be too willing. It's you I want. Think how much alike we look, Sirius, you and I. Imagine – it would be like fucking yourself."

This time Sirius had laughed at Bella. "And I can manage that without your help, cousin, dear. Along with every other teenage boy in the universe, and all the girls too, no doubt. You might give it a try yourself, if you're really in such need."

"Ah, now you're being nasty. It's so cute. Dead sexy. I knew you could do it.

Sirius had sighed, more bored and dismissive than truly angry. "Please, Bella, can't we stop this? You don't want me; not really, it's just another way to harass the family mental case. I'm very familiar with the impulse, you know; even the house elves around here think I'm a shocking disappointment. You've got the wrong Black, cousin. Trust me."

Sirius at sixteen is tall for his age, and very strong. Though Bellatrix does not know it, his size, quickness, and innate flair for mayhem has made him the most feared Beater on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. He'd ended the conversation by using his superior physical strength to simply set Bella aside and walk away from her; he hadn't even bothered to handle her roughly.

Bella intends to handle him roughly, in a manner of speaking, tonight. It is a festive occasion, and she intends to celebrate, one way or another. And she will not tolerate being dismissed.

Sirius' bedroom door is strongly warded against intrusion. He is still underage, and not legally permitted to use magic outside of school. But the Black home is so carefully secured, redundantly warded, and completely Unplottable, that Sirius could probably perform Unforgivables in it without being detected. Not that Bella thinks he knows any illegal curses. He seems rather a naïve, essentially good-hearted young fool to her. His ridiculous insistence on trying to find some sort of moral center for himself is what attracts her most about him. She intends to throw him well off course tonight.

Her temporary co-conspirator, Kreacher, comes oozing out of the shadows in the hallway. Bella had not even heard the ugly little house elf approach. She raises a finger to her lips to tell the creature not to speak as soon as she sees him. She does not know how to remove her cousin's spells from his door, but she expects that Kreacher does. And she has already determined, through questioning, that Sirius has never thought to order his family's servant not to unlock his door to any individuals who might want to gain entrance. Kreacher is free to do exactly as she wishes.

And he is altogether willing, as well. His cordial dislike for the young heir of the house borders on outright hatred. He makes a few eccentric passes with his hands over the door, mumbles what may be an incantation, and Bella can hear a low crack. The door pops ajar an inch or so. Bella nods to Kreacher, and he nods back, an ugly little smile on his wizened face. Then he discreetly fades back into the shadows of the hall, and so away. Bella's way is clear. She waits a few moments, listening carefully, and then silently slips inside.

The room is dark, but all the curtains at the windows have been drawn back. There is a full moon tonight, and moonlight has flooded the darkened chamber. The head of her cousin's bed is directly under one of the windows, and she can see him clearly, sleeping peacefully in a patch of silvery light. The faint cracking sounds of Kreacher's magic have not awakened him. The moonlight is exceptionally kind to him; he is a handsome boy by any light, but by the light of the moon he is stunning; an intricate and delicate carving of ivory and onyx.

Bella smiles. If she cared anything at all for her cousin, she might be moved by this revealed beauty. But her heart remains untouched; she sees only the aesthetic pleasure in the scene, and is intent only on the damage she can do. She drifts, absolutely silently, to Sirius' side, and slowly, slowly, puts a hand to his sleeping head. Her fingers, white in the moonlight, barely touch the skin of his temple, and then begin to move in a slow, circular motion. She hums a charmed lullaby under her breath; a nasty little spell she knows to deepen his sleep so he won't awaken unexpectedly. Her joke will be ruined if he rouses from slumber too soon.

"Hecate… succuba… sussurra…"

When he is as fully enmeshed in enchanted sleep as Bella can make him, she runs the tips of her fingers over his mouth experimentally. He only stirs a bit at the touch, and his lips part by a small fraction under her caress. She decides it is safe enough to touch him now, and slips her robes off her shoulders, letting them fall, unheeded, to the floor at the side of the bed. She is naked beneath, and her skin is as pale and pearly in the moonlight as her cousin's is. They are, after all, very much alike. She eases into the bed beside him and draws the bedclothes slowly off of him, then carefully opens the loose silken robe he wears. She is pleased to learn that he is naked beneath. How convenient for her that he apparently has the habit of sleeping in such flimsy garments. How overconfident he has been in his door-wards, the naïve fool. She thinks of how they must look together, side by side in the moonlight, all long black hair and long white limbs, and again, a cold, purely aesthetic sense of pleasure touches her thoughts.

Sirius' consciousness and all his absurd ethical sensibilities are absent, temporarily imprisoned in artificially enhanced sleep. But his body, the body of a sixteen year old boy at the peak of health and strength, responds easily to Bella's subtle ministrations. She knows the right ways and the right places to touch. She takes the right liberties; this is not the first time she has worked this little spell. In time, he moans low in his throat for her – not that he knows it is she. When she decides to risk kissing him, simply because his mouth looks so deliciously kissable in the pale moonlight, he sighs a name, and it is not hers.

"Moo-ny-yy …" he breathes softly, almost inaudibly. A faint, blissful smile further beautifies his features.

It is "Moony" that he dreams of when Bella touches him in this criminally intimate way. Who is this "Moony"?

Bella wonders about this, and files the whispered name away in her memory for further consideration later. For now, it is good to know that there is someone, someone he wants, someone he has, perhaps, invested foolish dreams and sentimental notions in. She wonders if he has, by any chance, saved himself for this Moony – some mawkish fantasy of true love, perhaps? He is, after all, quite young. She mounts her defenseless cousin and when she is properly seated, moves her hips in practiced, knowledgeable patterns. The possible opportunity to destroy childish hope along with virginity tonight is exciting to her; her cruelty enhances her physical pleasure and she finds herself on the verge. But that won't do, not tonight. She slows herself.

Her joke is almost complete, and she must concentrate on the matter at hand just now. She hums the same enchanted lullaby she ensnared him with earlier, but now she hums it backward. It won't be long now, she knows, and when the right time comes, she wants him awake. The timing of her joke is very tricky, undoubtedly, but she is sure she can get it exactly right.

And she does. Her timing is hellishly accurate. Sirius' eyes open and full awareness floods back into them just as he enters the irreversible throes of orgasm. Bella can see him throwing off the clinging illusions of dream clearly; she can see it in his eyes. But he cannot throw off the natural processes of his body at will. He sees her. He recognizes her; she sees this recognition in his gaze at precisely the same time that she feels his warm seed flooding her. It is delicious. It is perfect.

She starts laughing at him even before his last pulses inside her are complete, and soon finds that she cannot stop. The expression of horror and shocked revulsion that twists his handsome face is priceless; her laughter becomes shrill, almost like screaming. Sex, blood, fire and sacrifice. It is a suitable Samhain joke, a bit tame, perhaps, but immensely satisfying. Bella could not be more delighted.

"Trick or Treat!" she shouts at him, just like the Muggles say on Halloween, their weak, bastardized version of her ancient, solemn festival. She is laughing so hard she can barely catch her breath.

She does not even feel it when he convulsively throws her off of him, does not even register the sharp thump when her bare buttocks make sudden contact with the hard floor beside the bed.

Sirius is horrified, shuddering; his eyes are the size of saucers as he stares at Bella, laughing naked on his bedroom floor. Clearly, he simply cannot believe that she has bested him in this most visceral of ways. He actually looks sick. A new outburst of screamy laughter explodes out of her throat.

"W-what - the fuck - is wrong with you?" he manages to choke out at last; his voice shaking and guttural. "Why would you do something like this?"

Bella tries to stop laughing enough to talk. A little verbal to-and-fro will be fun too, at this point, she thinks. He is so scandalized; he looks like the world's youngest and most blue-nosed village parson. It is hilarious.

"Why not?" she answers, still giggling. "It was fun. Your first time, I think?"

He expresses his helpless disgust in a sickened croak that answers her question eloquently. His body begins to convulse as the urge to vomit parodies the throes of orgasm. He forces himself to be still, forces his body now to obey his will.

"You evil, twisted bitch," he mutters quietly, already, much quicker than she would have guessed, beginning to accept that what's done is done and thinking beyond it. This is unacceptable, Bella decides. She doesn't want him to get his mental feet back under him quite so quickly.

"I am on my moon, darlingheart," she purrs at him. He stares at her uncomprehendingly, and she knows she's retrieved a little control over him. She presses forward.

"My time. Just think, cousin," she says. "I might be pregnant! Imagine that."

He's still pulling himself together much too quickly for Bella's comfort. That last jibe does cause a jerk of disgust in him, but he is already controlling himself. He is actually beginning to look at her more in speculation than in shock.

"Rodolphus will be thrilled," he says bitterly. "He'll never know the difference."

"Unless I tell him, Sirius, dear. The degree of kinship is, as you've said, a bit too close for convention. And yet, in view of the potential bloodlines, I think exceptions could be made. They'll never believe it wasn't consensual, you know. Being a boy has its disadvantages. Perhaps it is our parents who will be thrilled."

This remark does hit its mark, Bella can see. Sirius is not too distraught to understand how true what she says is. They are both the offspring of the same family, both prime potential contributors to the precious Black gene-pool. Their respective parents value them more for their genetic legacy than for any other quality they have. And they are both the eldest children of their houses. Exceptions could indeed be made; the opportunity to unite the two branches of the family would appeal to both sets of parents very much.

But Bella can also see that her accurate predictions and implied threats are not disrupting her cousin's thinking as much as she would like. He is obviously half out of his mind with fury and humiliation, just as she'd hoped he would be, but there is also a kind of cool calculation in the way he looks at her now, in the way he is visibly taking in her nakedness and vulnerable position on the floor. She suddenly remembers how physically strong he is, and how quick his reflexes are. She rapidly thinks of another comment to make, something that might upset him enough to shut down that detached look of speculation in his eyes long enough for her to get out of this room.

"Tell me, pretty cousin, who is 'Moony'? You mentioned that name, you know, when I kissed you. You whispered it. Someone you love? Perhaps you had hoped it might be this 'Moony' who would be your first? Instead of me, that is?"

All the blood drains instantly out of his face, Bella can see how completely he is blanching even by the pale light of the moon. For the first time, she sees real fear in his whitened features. She thinks to press her advantage.

"Who is 'Moony'?" she croons to him maliciously, once again. "Some delicate little Muggle-born chit who treasures her precious virginity? And you've been so patient with her, haven't you, dear cousin? You've waited so long."

Bella laughs once more. "Perhaps I'll mention that name to a few of my friends. Who is 'Moony'?"

It is a gross miscalculation on her part. Sirius is out of his bed and on his feet so quickly his form actually blurs a bit in her sight. She sees him snatch his wand up from his bedside table; where in her arrogance and her eagerness to complete her prank, she never even noticed it. She has a single fraction of a moment to realize that she herself is naked and unarmed, and then Sirius is on her, one strong hand clamping around her throat, the other pressing the hard tip of his wand into her midsection.

He raises her to her feet in one clean snap, and she is surprised her spine doesn't break in his grip. She gasps for air through her constricted throat and hears him muttering in a low, hoarse voice, intently, purposefully. It's an incantation, she realizes – he is casting a spell. She struggles wildly to get out of his grip, to twist away from the wand that is poking into her side. But she can't; he may look a lot like her, but he is much bigger than she is. Her struggles are useless. He twists her around so that her back is to him, and holds her in place with his arm, her throat almost crushed in the crook of his elbow. His wand hand still presses into her belly, and there is a terrible gathering harshness in the syllables of his incantation.

"… lunare… detumescia …"

It is a curse he is casting; she is now sure of it. She twists in his arms even more madly, and gasps out a few words as best she can.

"Sirius – STOP! It was just a joke. Let go of me!"

But he, apparently, isn't joking at all. The wand pressed to her belly tingles, then grows hot, and then suddenly grows icy; a freezing cold bolt of pain rockets through her guts a moment later. She screams; the pain, though quick and over almost as soon as it has begun, is agonizing.

Outside the bedroom door, the sound of people moving about in the hallway begins. Bella's screams have begun to rouse the family.

"What have you done to me?" Bella spits at her cousin, unaware, in her anger and her fear, of the stirring of the house just beyond the bedroom door he is pushing her toward.

He hustles her out into the hall, she blinks in the brighter light in the corridor and barely registers the faces of various family members staring, astonished, at the ugly spectacle she and Sirius make. He is hauling her toward the stairway, she realizes, and although she tries to wedge her feet against the floor to stop him, she cannot.

It is not until he has her right at the top of the stairs that he takes the time to answer her last question. His voice is surprisingly even and cold in her ear.

"You're not pregnant now, Bella. Nor will you ever be. And the next time you want to come at me, you stupid cow – bring a wand."

Then Sirius throws her down the stairs.

He vaguely hopes she may have cracked her skull on the way down, but doesn't really much care. The question now is how he is going to get out of this hallway before his family manages to get past their initial shock at the scene and attacks him en masse. There is not the slightest doubt in his mind, just now, that they will. He is well past hearing the voice of reason, even in his own internal voice; he is virtually out of his head with rage and fear and self-loathing.

"Get BACK …every one of you," he snarls malevolently at the lot of them, brandishing his wand in a trembling arc. He cannot keep his eyes on all of them at once.

He does not see the people he has lived with all his life, he does not see his own blood all around him. All he sees are mortal enemies, and that he is badly outnumbered. Padfoot is doing most of the thinking in this moment. No one he sees dares to move for a time, all are momentarily stilled by his vibrating, berserk aggression.

Bella moans from the bottom of the stairs, and the moment is broken. Bella's mother advances on him, her face twisted with fury. "You foul –"

The words of a hex fill the air, and Bella's mother is flung to the ground, incoherent with rage and the power of the hex that has been cast on her. Sirius' mother lowers her wand and stands over her sister-in-law.

"If my boy were harming your slut of daughter, they would have been running out of her room, not his, and she would have been defending herself with everything at her disposal. Keep your slattern away from my son!"

She approaches Sirius evenly, as though she is not even mindful of his raised wand and trembling hostility. She reaches up, and strokes his cheek; for a second time that night, Sirius' body betrays him as he instinctively nuzzles his face into the palm of her hand.

"My little boy," she coos. "You have proven yourself worthy after all. You are indeed a Black. My boy, my little boy."

Sirius shudders at her words, and comes to his senses. He shoves his mother backward violently; she trips, laughing with pleasure, over the prone body of his aunt. He quickly raises his wand-hand again; no one else seems to know what to do, and now they are reluctant to approach Sirius lest they anger his mother as well.

He takes advantage of this temporary group paralysis to slip back inside the shelter of his room and quickly shoves his dresser across the door with a flick of the wand. He mutters haphazard warding spells that are highly unlikely to hold for long. Once this is done, he begins to shake so violently that he has to hold the wand with both hands to keep from dropping it. He is absolutely terrified.

Sirius has an undeniably wicked temper coupled with an indisputably loving nature. It is a bizarre combination, and very, very rarely, the two things work together in a genuinely dreadful way. There will be people in his future who will, like Bella, allow the latter to cloud their estimates of the former. His occasional capacity for savage, controlled malice will be underestimated again and again in times to come. But right now, for all the darkness in him, Sirius is still only a sixteen year old boy who has just cut himself off completely from any hope of reconciliation with his own family. If Bella ever tells any of them what he's done to her, they won't just disown him. They'll probably hunt him down and kill him.

Not that she will tell. Not if she hopes to marry in a few weeks – no pureblooded bridegroom Sirius knows of will ever accept a barren bride. Still, Sirius now knows, from first-hand experience, that Bellatrix Black is insane, and there's no guessing what she might do. He has to get out of this house at once.

He hurriedly dresses in street-robes and cloak, stuffing a few of the most vital things he can grab into his pockets as he does, and quickly pulls his boots on. He hears the first angry pounding on the wood of his bedroom door, hears his name called from outside. He needs to get out right now.

He goes to one of the bedroom windows and opens it. He notices that the full moon is setting as he marks the precarious path he can take across the roofs of the adjoining buildings and down to the street below. If he can just get that far …

His door is rattling in its frame now, and he hears his mother's voice just outside, high and shrill, beginning to bellow angry imprecations. He throws a single, frightened, grief-stricken glance at the door, and then turns back to the window.

Now is the time. Sirius is outlined in the fading pale rays of the sinking moon for a moment more, and then a huge black dog stands in his place, front paws on the windowsill. The animal flows up over the casement and out into the night, and its sable coat soon blends perfectly into the darkness; only the dog's pale eyes are occasionally visible in the faint moonlight as it picks its four-footed way across the rooftops.

Sirius Black has run away from home. Twenty long years will pass before he ever sees it again. Bella, in all those years, will keep their shared secret, and although it, perhaps, does fester in her, she never once breathes a word.

But she will never underestimate her cousin again. And the next time she wants to come at him, she will heed her cousin's advice. She will bring a wand.