3. Innocent in a guilty world
Why must I always be so alone? Why does no one try to understand me? If I broke down and started crying, would anyone try to comfort me?
No. They wouldn't.
No one ever tries. I'm a lost cause. No one believes I could ever amount to anything, anymore. Why is it that the world welcomes rebellion with open arms, yet my own, private rebellion is rejected? Am I not allowed to do whatever I want? Believe what I want to? Fight for what I think is right?
People call me ruthless and cruel. I am a symbol for everything that has ever gone wrong with a person. My name is synonymous with murderer.
What makes it so wrong to fight for my beliefs? Am I to accept that I am simply evil? That whatever I believe is wrong? Am I to be labeled as a cold-hearted bitch, just because of the compassion that fills me is different from the masses?
People claim I gain a sick pleasure by torturing others. It is not true. But I am never given a chance to say this for myself. They deserve the pain. They despise what I believe in. They tell me that my way of life is wrong. That I am the one who is terrible, cruel, and heartless. That I have no right fighting for what I believe in, if it is against them.
Who are they to tell me that what I am doing is wrong? They are the ones imprisoning people for believing. It is considered a great insult, or threat to consider someone a Death Eater. So I wear my mask proudly, with enough pride to match those arrogant Gryffindors. This is my rebellion. I am proving that I can be whatever I want to be, and do whatever I want to do.
My sisters have their own ways of rebelling. This is mine. They are not as drastic as me. They do not have such fierce desires, or beliefs. They fight in their own ways. But I, of all my sisters, know that what I am doing is right. I am finally fighting for what I believe in.
The ministry cannot tell me that I am wrong. They cannot tell me that I am evil. For they are the evil ones. They are the ones who show no mercy. They do not want to listen to our cries. They turn a blind eye to our lives outside our protests.
They claim I am a lunatic. I'm crazy. But I'm not. I never have been. But, just because I am different, just because I see the world through different eyes, they say I am wrong.
I was the perfect one. The perfect daughter of all my sisters. The others were failures, and third time's the charm, I suppose. I was treasured and cherished, raised as lovingly as polite social codes would allow. I loved my mother. I loved my father. And those horrible people. They blamed them for everything I did that was "wrong."
They blamed my parents, for me doing what they judged as evil and villainous. My parents. My parents who loved me as much as they could, who encouraged me to fight for what I believed in, who told me that I could do whatever I set my mind to. They didn't deserve a daughter like me, bringing them scorn.
And so, my family is looked down upon. Because we do what we believe is right. But I can't help feeling guilty. My remaining relatives, each of them found a place in society where they were welcomed with open arms. And still, I am the one who is greeted with curses. I brought the hatred upon my parents. My family's name.
My loving parents, who were so proud of me that is pains me to think they might be beside me, telling me it's all right. If only they knew. Their perfect daughter, the one raised with impeccable manners, proper upbringing, and nurturing love, was the one who had failed. I had failed the greatest test of all. The test of society.
And so, I can no longer be called the Black family's pride. My remaining family scorns me. They say I have brought the downfall of the Black line. That I am wrong one. But they will all see one day. One day I will show them what it is like to be a true Black.
A Black at heart.
I, Bellatrix Belle Lestrange, nee Black
2. Ordinary, just short of extraordinary
I was the fluke. The transitional phase. And who can honestly blame them? I'm utterly and perfectly ordinary. Even I am ashamed of myself. It took my parents a mere seven years to realize that I was nothing above average.
I don't blame them. I don't blame anyone but myself. My family is extraordinary. They are amazing. And what am I? I am unspectacular. I do not glow like a wildfire, full of determination and hope, as my younger sister does. I am not perfection; in it's purest form, like my elder sister. I am horribly unremarkable.
My weak shimmer is nothing compared to the fierce glow my sisters give off. I have nothing to make up for my lack of talent. My sisters are far prettier than I, far more intelligent, and far more loved than I have ever been.
So maybe that's why I did not blink at the mention of wedlock. Maybe that is why I said my vows without meaning, but with every intention to uphold them. Maybe that is while I bore a son, just as I was required to. May family expected so little of me, that I could at least do them this one thing.
I wanted to prove I could do something. I could do at least one thing up to the expectations of my family.
My husband is remarkable enough to make up for me being so utterly unremarkable. He was handsome and talented, he was rich and so amazing that I could barely bare to be in his presence. Like my family, the glow he casts is so strong that mine seems to dwindle beneath it. Like a flickering candle against the sun.
I did not have a purpose. I had nothing special about me, nothing that made me different from another face in the crowd. I do not even know why someone so superior would marry someone so inferior. It is one of the many things that keep me up at night, wondering. Why?
I feel so useless. So unneeded in the world. Any maybe that's why I never want to be in the same rooms as my family, my husband, even those wretched Potters burn brighter than I. They all burn so brightly that I feel like I'm suffocating. Like me small flame will simply flicker out.
I need not worry that I am stealing glow from them. It never happens. If anything, I feel tat they steal what little warmth I give away. My weak flicker will die under their roaring flames. There's nothing I can do to stop it. I know that one day, my flame will just go out.
And no one will notice.
My son is extraordinary. He is not as magnificent as his father, who burns with the elegance of a candle opera, nor like my sisters, who burn like a wildfire, tearing apart the forest. His light is not suffocating.
And maybe, that's why I love him so much. He is not so terribly average, like I, that I would be ashamed to know I failed again. And yet, he burns enough brighter than me, that I can feel proud. Proud he is my son.
I give him the love I never had. I give him the care that had dwindled away from my life. I fan his flames with what little care I can give him, and he thrives. He will glow as brightly as his father one day, he will make me proud. Proud that I made this. I created this.
But even so, I know that one day, like all the others, he swallow my glow, too. He will glow so brightly that I simply flicker out, he will engulf me. But I do not mind so much.
Because that is my purpose.
I, Narcissa Nora Malfoy, nee Black.
1. The stars are not falling, they are dying
They used to say I was perfect. And I suppose I might have been. I was beautiful, I know that. Even I could see my own beauty. But I was eldest. I was to set the best example for my younger sister. So I did. I became perfect. Flawless. No one doubted it for a second. I was an angel.
It pains me to say remember how much I loved being perfect. The apple of my parents' eye, their pride and joy. They loved me as much as they could. I was the perfect daughter. I was polite, and lovely, I always did what I was told, and listened when spoken to.
Some people even said I was kind. Much too kind to be in Slytherin. But what did they know? Who were they to judge a Slytherin, when they were not one themselves? I was not kind. I do not know why people thought that. I was polite. I was not rude, nor nasty, but I was not nice.
They say I was brilliant, amazing. I was perfection. I was Head Girl; I had boys chasing me around like dogs, their tails wagging. I had an enormous fortune, waiting for me once my parents died. I was perfect, in every way.
But I was not.
Those who are perfect must be lying. And that's what I was. One big lie. I had failed my parents, for all their love and care. I was not perfect. My one flaw. The flaw that would surely cast me from the family.
I was too perfect. That was my flaw. I was so perfect that I sickened myself. I wanted to rebel. I wanted to cast aside my perfection, and all it's expectations. I wanted to live free of the shackles that bound me. I wanted to fly.
But I was falling. I was falling fast and hard, and the landing was so painful that I couldn't bare it. I was falling in love.
I was falling in love with a poor, Ravenclaw boy. And what worse, his parents were Muggles. He was a Mudblood.
I didn't, I couldn't, admit it. I wasn't perfect. All at once I was liberated, and scorned. My family was not accepting. There was no reason to accept me. I was imperfect, and I was ruining them. And so I was burned away.
My blood bonds were charred by hateful remarks, and my life, burned in the fireplace. I was burned off the Black family tree.
I was officially free. And unloved. I knew my expectations had been passed down. Passed to my youngest sister. And she upheld them until our parents' dying day, I expect she received my portion of the fortune. She was perfection, to them. And I was trash. An old model cast aside in replacement for a new, improved one.
I was not invited to their funeral. I was not invited to see my sisters' weddings. I was not invited to see my nephew.
But they were invited to my wedding. They were invited to my daughter's birth. But they did not come. I was dead to them. And they didn't even come to that funeral.
Now that it's gone, I want it back. My perfection. My family. But they will be lost to me forever. I was welcomed eagerly by my husband's family, but they were not my family, my blood.
I bore a daughter. For a moment I think of how this adds to my imperfection. My family would have wanted a boy. I want to laugh. But instead I cry. I would never be able to have that disapproval.
It seems silly, but I miss them. I miss speaking to them. Even if the words are cold and harsh. I miss my family, my blood. But I'm not allowed back. I'm not welcome back. I'm dead to them.
My perfection had shattered into a million pieces. I was not an angel anymore. And I cry. I cry at night, and I cry at day for my lost family. All I have left is my imperfect baby girl, and my Mudblood husband. But I like to think I am happy.
Even angels fall, and I was among them.
I, Andromeda Alexandra Tonks, nee Black.
0. No one mourns the Wicked
They die alone. With no one to mourn their loss. With no one to cry over them. Because no one mourns the wicked.
AN: Short and rather pointless look at the lives of the three Black sisters. I dislike Bellatrix's the most, and I wish I didn't have to start with hers, but it wouldn't work without her as the youngest, I'm afraid. I actually like Narcissa's the most. Bellatrix's ending was pretty good though. I rather enjoy Andromeda's as well.
Disclaimer: Characters are JKR's. The backwards countdown it based on forsakenphoenix's idea. The "No one Mourns the Wicked" is from the musical Wicked, and it is the title of a song.