Letter 2
I was born Andromeda Black, daughter of Cephus and Cassiopeia Black. My sisters were Bellatrix and Narcissa Black. Narcissa took after mother: blond and stunningly beautiful from a young age. But Bellatrix and I took after father. We had the same dark hair, the same grey eyes. Though we were a year apart, many thought at first that we were twins, much to her disappointment. Could not any fool see that she was the elder? But that was mere sibling pride. It kept us not apart. We could sit and talk and play with our dolls for hours. Her first stories were about them. She soon outgrew the dolls, but the stories continued.
Bellatrix was always so wild, so alive—yet it never seemed odd that she was obsessed with death. It should have. She loved life so fiercely because she suspected that it could fly away at any moment. She was remarkably perceptive in that. Her stories were her way of discussing it, of expounding on it. She told wondrous tales of people who came back from behind the veil, or the people they came back to. They returned by a promise made in life that had to be kept afterwards, by a magic spell, or by a love that would not die. The middle of the story was often gothic, even grotesque. The poor, imaginary subject often had to go from life to death in some violent or bitterly ironic way. And in her childhood innocence she was wise. She knew, then, to be ambiguous about that return. She knew that it could have its horrors, which she was careful to explain in as gruesome detail as the rest. But she was my Bella and it never occurred to me to worry. I was too busy enjoying the tale.
In hindsight I should have known even then—but there was nothing to know. We blame Voldemort because he tried to conquer death. We forget that the symbol of the brave souls who resisted him was the Phoenix, symbol of resurrection and immortality. It was the unnatural method, the reckless willingness to disregard anything that could make immortality worthwhile—not the quest for immortality itself—that was wrong. Death itself is no more unnatural than the Dark Lord's alternative. Had she so chosen, Bellatrix could have grown to be a great Healer, or to make some great discovery in the Department of Mysteries. She could have prolonged and enriched as many lives as she has destroyed. We Blacks are twisted souls, as a rule, and decay and madness are reoccurring motifs in the family legend. But there is no twist in your soul or preordained doom that makes your choices for you.
She told the stories to me. Narcissa, when she came along, would never stand them for long. And although our parents doted on Bellatrix nearly as much as they doted on Narcissa, they never really wanted to hear what either had to say. But I would listen, rapt, for hours. I would play my part in the games of play-pretend. Sometimes, I even argued with her over how the story should go. She was thrilled to have someone to talk to. Ask any decent pure-blood, and you will see in the way he denies it that his denial is a lie—it is chillingly lonely in a great house.My sisters and I slept little the night before Bellatrix first left us to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She had waited for that day. It was a rite of passage, another step nearer to adulthood. She would have to be continually on her guard, continually vigilant for the family's honor. She would come back for the holidays, of course. But we knew that, once you left for Hogwarts, you never belonged to home in the same way again. Home ceased to be home and became a place like any other. Hogwarts became home. I felt that she was slipping away from me, slipping into another world. I could not follow her yet. I feared that, when I finally reached her again, she would not be my Bella anymore. Even Narcissa listened when she told her last story that night. Bella had decided that it was to be her swan's song. Grown-ups, she believed, had to leave the world of stories behind and live in the real world. If only she had done so.
In the story, there was a man who decided to overcome death. He asked all the wizards of his age how to do it, and offered to pay any price. But no one could tell him how. He read every book he could find, but he could not find the secret. He left his home and traveled. After a long journey, he to a door standing alone. On the door was a picture of a fiery sword. He could not open it. But just before he turned back, he remembered the door and its secret from a book he had read. Walking around to the other side, he found a picture of a snake eating itself. This side of the door opened into a garden. In the garden there was a fruit tree, and a dragon guarding it. He killed the dragon with great effort, and ate a piece of fruit from the tree. Then he lived forever.
She was sorted into Slytherin House, of course, all the Blacks were. It would have shamed the family to do otherwise. And even untamed, untamable Bella knew better than to shame the family, not that she ever wished to. Bellatrix had always believed in doing things merely because they were dangerous, difficult, or liable to shock our elders. But she also believed, in her blood and in her bones, in the honor and superiority of our house. She would never desire to shame us.