Chapter: 2.
Chapter Title: Deception.
Character(s): Bellatrix Black-Lestrange.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter-- but I treat him as if I do. Pets.

Recommended Listening: 9th Symphony (From the New World), 1st Movement (Scherzo) by Antonin Dvorak.

They lied to me all along.

The first lie was from my father. "You're our princess," he told me. "Our queen. The firstborn Black daughter, heiress apparent," he murmured in the mock French that gave the House of Black, French no longer, a regal air. It would all be mine; I would be Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria . . .

Yet, three years later, when I saw him lying there, so innocent, just a baby, a wee widdle baby– I knew my father was dead wrong. His intent grey eyes gazed up at mine, which were full of equal reserve. His mop of black hair and olive skin declared him a Black, and, somewhere, buried beneath the blankets and swaddling, was that which made him a boy, the true heir.

Certainly, his father was older than mine. Had he been a girl, he still would have overruled me.

Yet that was another lie that they told me, that girls were just as equal to boys. "Oh, yes, they have the same amount of power!" my mother had chuckled when I asked, ironically straightening a lace tablecloth in the parlor as she spoke to me. "There's been just as many female Ministers of Magic as there have been male. Medea was a witch, wasn't she? Circe? Great, famous witches!"-- but girls had neat little pressed dresses and white stockings and shiny black shoes that couldn't be worn in the dust and the mud, while Sirius and Regulus playfully scuffed the knees of their pants out in the dirt.

My just reaction to that began a whole tirade of lies. "I'll make you regret it," my mother would tell me, coupled with an "if" statement related to something she could see that I was preparing to do. "I'll teach you otherwise," my father would say. "You won't try that again after I'm through with you," my uncle would even threaten. Even my aunt always began them, but her eyes would bulge and froth would foam at her mouth, and she could barely form the words that screeched out her like an unoiled steel pipe. "IF YOU . . . IF YOU . . . YOU . . . !"

I never regretted it, whatever it was: shoving Regulus down the stairs, pulling Andromeda's hair, setting fire to Narcissa's dollhouse, knocking a table over onto Sirius– which broke his leg rather cleanly, I might add. I was irritated by the punishments– a reprimand, a quick stinging hex from my father's wand, a slap on the face or the arm or the backside, ten minutes spent in a chair by the wall or a day shut up on the hall closet– but I never associated them with their causes. My actions were already effects, with their own causes: Regulus had been following me all day, pleading with me to play with him, Andromeda had gotten a prettier doll for Christmas, Narcissa wasn't paying attention to me, Sirius was . . . Sirius just deserved it.

I sensed the difference in Sirius before anyone else did. It wasn't that he was disobedient to his parents– for I was just as bad, and perfect little Andromeda turned out just as bad as he did– it was that he loathed his parents, and not just with the bitter resentment typical of strictly raised children. As soon as he went off to school, the sickness inside of him that went under the title "nobility" in Gryffindor House and "stupidity" in Slytherin, was titled "subversion" at home and was recognized by the rest of the family.

It's not a lie that I tried my best to cure him of it. I believed another one of those great lies, that my blood somehow inevitably bound me to him, that I had a duty to protect him.

"YOU DID WHAT TO MY SON?" his mother had shouted at me, crouching over his slightly dazed body as his father chanted the countering incantation.

She lied; she knew what I did.

"Sectumsempra," I repeated, nonethless. "It's all the rage in Slytherin. He'd have known what was coming if he'd been in the proper house."

"YOU HAVE SOME NERVE– YOU'RE NOT TO DO MAGIC OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL– WHEN YOUR MOTHER HEARS ABOUT THIS– YOUR FATHER– MY SON–" she gasped on and on, shouting incoherently.

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't lie. You'd have done the same if you'd have just heard what he said to me. The Black blood does not deserve to flow through his unworthy veins. Hence," I smirked, "I saw fit to remove it for him."

She narrowed her eyes in return. That I was the favorite of any family member is truly a lie– and that Sirius was not idolized by his parents, however disappointed they were in him, was the biggest lie of them all. "You are in no position to punish my children." Yet she knew I had a point. I could barely keep myself from smiling in victory when she snapped down at her now-healed son, "What was it you said to her? What have you said about our house?"

It was always about our house. "The truth," he sniffed. He was a liar. "That you're all inbred, ignorant, decaying filth." He was picking up his mother's own choice language.

She trembled for a moment with her great anger, her insult, and then shot him to his feet with a quick shove. His father was still standing by, and soon Sirius was dragged from the room by the arm, off to some private location for what probably would have proved most entertaining in public. Still, I smiled in triumph at what I imagined to be the results of a great win.

Sirius returned shortly and shot me a venomous look. "I hate you, you know."

"Why don't you just kill us all in our beds, then? If you hate us all– I dare you!" I shot back with fury. I doubted he hated me. He was a liar. I certainly didn't hate him. I had never said so.

He blinked, as if taken aback, smirked, and, then, finally smiled at me. It was a sad smile but with an earnestness I could detect in his foolish eyes, so easily roused to show emotion. He was not expecting my own earnestness. "Oh, come on. Do you think I would actually do that? I hate how you think, dear cousin. I hate what you do. But no matter what I say to you, you know I could never really actually hurt you." He raised his eyebrows, "And I hate that it's apparently not the same way with you. Though even you, Bellatrix, I'm sure, could never bring yourself to kill me."

He had flicked his hair back, rolling his eyes as if this were obvious and of no real importance. Yet I had weighed its gravity then.

Nevertheless, it was a lie. He often underestimated me thus.

Parents lied, and everyone knew it, but it was so much harder to catch the ubiquitous lies of children.

Andromeda was another liar, a habitual liar of the worst sort. Sirius at least let us know his feelings, but Andromeda hid them astonishingly well, and I trusted her. She was a good daughter, well-behaved, Sorted into Slytherin like she was supposed to be– a full, right-out lie. So gifted was she at this dissembling the Hat hadn't even noticed. I trusted her in my youth.

I should have noticed what was hidden in her sweetness and affection– that she was not of the harsh Slytherin conduct– and discerned that her conformity was only due to a yearning to be liked or loved by all of us.

"We'll always be sisters, right?" she had inquiringly cooed one Christmas morning as she slid under the quilt of my bed, dragging Narcissa along with her. It was our Christmas tradition, before being allowed to go to our stockings, that we gathered like this– even now, well into our adolescence. Her feet were icy and rubbed up against mine unpleasantly with her insistence than we all lay close even in the queen-sized bed. "And sisterhood's more important than anything else that comes our way, right?" They were foolish questions, I knew, posed by the weak to hear affirmation of things they knew were not true.

"Of course," was all I replied. I had not lied; I could not think of reason that would bring us apart– and, even after all Andromeda had done and had still yet to do, she was still my sister. She had not asked that I love her or accept her.

"Sisters are more important than boys," Narcissa had agreed– and I noted that she, only in her first year, must have noticed how my attentions were to older, male companions and not to her our days in the Slytherin common room.

"Of course," I had repeated.

Andromeda squirmed. I kicked her legs aside. "Let's swear that we'll always be sisters, no matter what." It was a sly vow; Andromeda must have known already that she was slipping to the disfavor of the family– which she had always feared but never tried hard enough to avoid.

We all sweared upon sisterhood. Andromeda broke it straight away, becoming pregnant with a Mudblood boy's child only three years later and leaving with that as her worthy excuse. Narcissa was soon to follow; though no blood traitor, her love for Lucius Malfoy trumped all favor towards me in every instance. They were both appalling liars, Andromeda posing the very suggestion that we might forever remain loyal, and Narcissa with her insistence that family would come before any boy. Only I kept my promise.

Those boys called me a liar– but I never lied. I never told them I meant anything more than what I did. They made it all up in their minds, lying to themselves. It was easy, since they believed in love.

Another lie.

I don't remember the first time. That the first time is important is a lie. That they'll notice is a another lie. As long as they enjoy it, they don't know if you're tight or new or naive. After all– plenty of naive girls aren't new . . . and plenty of new girls aren't naive. I had been living out all of it in my mind for years, and– that the real thing isn't ever as good as a fantasy is a lie– I made myself live my fantasy. I wouldn't have survived night with so many of them if I hadn't.

It was lucky I did survive. They hadn't lied to me when they said that someday I would find my purpose-- but they had said it would be love, marriage, family, or perhaps a career. Certainly I played the role, marrying as I ought-- a weak, easily manipulated fool, Rodolphus Lestrange, who proved useful in that he obeyed my every whim--but the most important person in my life was barely a person.

He told the truth. He demanded we tell the truth. He never lied; surely a man who so valued truth could never lie. He knew when we dissembled and there was great punishment to endure. He was refreshing to behold, a man of cause and of honesty. If the truth could not be endured, it was simply withheld. I adored him.

The others beneath him, those whom I had seen the worst of in and out for years, did not understand this about the Dark Lord. It placed me at a high position beside him, my earnestness and genuine dedication to his beliefs-- not subtle, sly, dissembling sucking-up to his high ambition and position-- impressing him greatly, I his most loyal, his most devoted.

He did not lie when he said the Longbottoms were a threat, that they must be taken care of. I trusted him, and carried out his bidding. He did not lie when he said that I had performed a great service to him.

He did not lie and say that there would be no repercussions. He did say that he was invincible-- and I knew that was not a lie, either.

He disappeared, falling, failing, to a little boy he had half-known would defeat him. The others thought he had lied when he said he was invincible. I knew better.

I

waited my time in Azkaban faithfully. Though my husband and his brother and the others screamed in their sleep at terrible memories, I kept the sober thought of my devotion alive, and, with it, kept most of my sanity.

He had not lied. He was invincible. He rose again, and he freed us, and he rewarded us as he had promised. I scoffed at those liars, those distrustful, faithless types, who had not trusted him. They were liars themselves, incapable of trust as they were incapable of being trusted: Severus Snape, Crabbe, Goyle, Yaxley, the Carrows-- even Narcissa's husband Lucius Malfoy, who had once rivaled me for power beside the Dark Lord. I kept my promise as the Dark Lord had kept his. I was his greatest servant.

He always kept his promises. He does not lie to me. Sometimes, he withholds, but all in good purpose. I trust only him.

I myself have never lied. Everything I've ever said has been entirely true. I believe in my causes. I believe in his causes. I feel the rightness of them.

Yet if he proves to be a liar, like all the others, so would it fit . . .

. . . And I will have been lying to myself just as they did.

Author's Note: As Bellatrix is not omniscient, she cannot tell if she is delusional herself– which, according to the traditional premises of good and evil, she is-- but, well, that's only according to the traditional, isn't it? She is the true fanatic: She does believe in the rightness of her cause. There's something to be respected for that, even if you don't agree with her means. Think about it: If you can kill your own family because they go against your morals (and, sure, you scoff, because your morals aren't the same as hers, but hear me out), you really have a strong cause there. She's proud to go to prison for and die for what she believes in. Heh, if it were something other than a Nazi-like pureblood-favoritism, you might even respect it.