Chapter 3 - Blood and Water

Bellatrix's third year was a mixed bag. Andromeda started at Hogwarts and was sorted into Slytherin. It was with some discomfort that Bellatrix realised the hat hadn't vacillated with Andromeda's sorting - it was a lot faster than hers had been. In fact, most of the new Slytherins were sorted very quickly - young Rodolphus Lestrange being the exception. Despite Rodolphus's older brother having been a Slytherin prefect in Bellatrix's first year - she'd learned this on the pureblood grapevine as she couldn't remember Rabastan - he sat, squirming, on the sorting stool for almost two minutes.

Andromeda and Bellatrix were able to speak more freely at Hogwarts than they ever had been at home - and the news Andromeda brought was not good. Bellatrix had known that her sisters were being raped by their father, but Andromeda revealed that Cygnus's attentions had mostly turned to Narcissa. The middle child had been lucky - their father did not favour her. Or perhaps he did favour her - perhaps he hated her less than he hated his other daughters, and so found less satisfaction in defiling her.

The constant presence of Andromeda was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was a reminder of home - and what had happened there. Bellatrix had mentally detached 'school Bellatrix' from 'home Bellatrix', and she did not like having to reconcile the two. However, she adored her sisters. Spending time with Andromeda was pleasant - even if she was a first year - and knowing that she was safe from Cygnus at least some of the time was an immense relief. But Narcissa was quite alone now, and forced to bear the brunt of it.

The onset of puberty, the constant reminder (in the form of Andromeda) that School Bellatrix was also the Bellatrix that had been raped by her father, and fear for Narcissa combined to make Bellatrix's third year a tricky one. Her temper worsened dramatically and she was quick to draw her wand. She had often marvelled at why Druella never drew hers on Cygnus, and promised herself that boys would regret threatening her. She could practice on Hogwarts students, and work up to taking on her father. By the end of her third year, she had developed quite the reputation for hexing, jinxing and fighting in the corridors.

She had not originally set out to be a polarising figure. However, with her sharp temper and ready stinging hex, she quickly made enemies - and not just outside Slytherin.

"I heard," said a Gryffindor prefect loudly, as Bellatrix and the other third year Slytherins waited in the corridor for their potions class, "that Slytherin's where you go if you don't have any talent, but you do have a famous ancestor."

"Are you sure?" Asked another Gryffindor, in a voice of feigned doubtfulness. "Maybe it's just that purebloods get selected for Slytherin."

"No," said the prefect. "Some purebloods are talented enough to avoid being relegated to Slytherin. The Weasleys are always in Gryffindor, and they're purebloods. They get into Gryffindor because they're brave. The Shacklebolts go to Ravenclaw, usually - because they're smart."

"Ah, so only the dregs of pureblood society - the rich layabouts, the ladies of leisure - have to settle for Slytherin?" Asked the other Gryffindor.

It was obviously a put-on performance, designed to infuriate the waiting Slytherins. The fact that a prefect was indulging in this behaviour told Bellatrix that their real goal was to goad a Slytherin into misbehaving, so they could be given detention.

Bellatrix knew this.

It was a blatant attempt at baiting the Slytherins. Doing anything at all would simply play into their hands.

And yet.

"Melofors!"

The Gryffindor prefect's head was encased in perfect orange pumpkin. It took Bellatrix a second to realise that she had done it, and she had to duck away from his friend's disarming spell. She sent a stinging hex back his way, but it came out weak. The pumpkin head jinx had sapped her energy. She couldn't avoid his flurry of knock back jinxes, and she had no idea how to cast a proper shield charm. The first one sent her flying backwards, but she kept hold of her wand. The next two slammed her into the corridor wall, and blood trickled down her cheek.

"Furnunculus! Sorry, Black. I know how important an advantageous marriage must be to a talentless little breeder, but it will be a while before anyone proposes to you," said the Gryffindor cheerfully, as cystic acne erupted all over her chin. "Now, let's have a chat to your head of house, shall we?"

Slughorn was barely able to conceal his delight at the strength of her pumpkin head jinx.

"Oho," he said. "A third year casting a relatively advanced jinx is rare indeed."

"Sir," ground out the Gryffindor. "Fabian's head is encased in a pumpkin."

"Yes, you must control that temper of yours, Black," Slughorn reproached her mildly. "Under the circumstances, I think a fortnight's worth of detentions with me ought to be appropriate - after all, potions is your weakest subject. You may actually find this to be of benefit to you!"

"Sir, if I may - prefects can give out detention too, can't they?" Asked the Gryffindor.

"Well indeed, Russel. However, you are not a prefect. When we get Prewett out of that pumpkin, he may give her extra detention with me."

"Sir, I don't think detention's supposed to be extra tuition," the Gryffindor - Russel - sounded irate. "That's almost like a reward!"

"Need I remind you, Russel, that I am the teacher and her head of house? I shall decide upon the appropriate punishment for Miss Black, thank you. Now, run a long before I give you detention for using four or five knock back jinxes and a pimple on a thirteen year old. You and Mr Prewett are both sixteen, are you not, Mr Russel?"

Before the acne on her chin had cleared, Bellatrix had found a book on shield charms in the library, and convinced Arabella Bulstrode and Hilda Selwyn to practice them with her. After seeing the pockmarking on Bellatrix's chin, Hilda was particularly easy to convince.

Bellatrix's third year ended in a mixture of triumph and disappointment: she won the charms prize with a mark of 100%, beating Molly Prewett and Xenophilius Lovegood (second equal) by a comfortable margin. She also won the transfiguration prize, beating Arabella (who sulked for nearly a week) by just 2%. She won the defence against the dark arts and astronomy prizes as well, just surpassing Arthur Weasley and Sybil Trelawney. With Slughorn's extra tuition, she came second in potions. The only core subjects in which she did not win a prize were Herbology and History of magic. Deputy Headmaster Albus Dumbledore looked like he'd been slapped when he called her name for the fifth time on Speech Day.

Jody Jacknife, the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, nominated Bellatrix as her first choice for her successor. However, Slughorn gave the position to Stuart Craggy. Slughorn took Bellatrix aside and told her that while it was fine for her to play quidditch, the extra responsibilities associated with captaining the Slytherin team were "beneath her" and would "eat into her valuable time come OWLs year." Craggy, he said, would be lucky to pass everything and wouldn't revise anyway - but Bellatrix could get all Os, if she put her mind to it.

The worst thing about the summer of 1964 was that Headmaster Dippet had written to Bellatrix's parents about the pumpkin jinx incident. The very first thing Cygnus did when she got home was to confiscate her wand, and Andromeda's wand for good measure.

*****break*****

At the start of her fourth year, Bellatrix came to blows with Fabain Prewett again. This time, it was over insults traded on the quidditch pitch, as they were both chasers for their respective houses. An errant bludger, hit by a Slytherin beater, had nearly knocked Fabian's brother Gideon off his broom.

The whistle sounded, and the teams were instructed to line up while Gideon had a few free shots at goal.

"Fucking cheating Slytherins!" Fabian had sworn. His light, hazel eyes came to rest on Bellatrix. "That how you keep winning all the school prizes, Black? My sister says you don't even pay attention in class."

"Your sister's a sore loser," Bellatrix snapped. "It's not my fault that I'm naturally intelligent and your sister's just a swot."

"Curious that you'd care about fourth year academic prizes," she said softly. "Have you been watching my every move since I turned your head into a pumpkin?"

"No, Black," said Fabian at the top of his voice, causing a few Slytherins and Gryffindors to look round. "I won't take you to Madam Pudifoots next weekend. I know I'm a pureblood, but I'm not interested in fourteen year old, gangly Slytherins."

Only about two thirds of the resulting laughter came from the Gryffindor team.

"Bella," Stuart Craggy had said in a warning tone. It was his first match as Captain, and he wasn't terribly authoritative yet.

"I'm thirteen and I wasn't asking, you creep," Bellatrix said, knowing it was a weak rebuttal.

"Oi, Fabian, if you're quite done baiting thirteen year old Slytherins," snapped Richard Carter, the Gryffindor captain.

Fabian was quite done - until halftime.

In the second portion of the match, he made several attempts to elbow Bellatrix off her broom. Craggy complained to the referee - Professor Fox, the muggle studies teacher. Fox ruled that only "excessive" elbowing was a foul, and as he hadn't seen it, it couldn't have been excessive.

This emboldened Fabian - and there was really nothing that Bellatrix could do about it, because she was a lot smaller than him. She knew he was trying to prompt her to escalate.

She knew that she couldn't elbow him back, because she was too small and it would have no effect on him. She knew he knew this, and that he was trying to goad her into fowling him properly. She knew this.

And yet.

After catching a particularly striking blow to the ribs, she launched the quaffle at Stuart and feigned a gasping breath as though she was mildly winded. She lost altitude and surged ahead of Fabian, pleased to see Stuart in possession of the quaffle. Fabian was so fixated on Stuart that he didn't notice her circling underneath him like a shark.

She soared toward Fabian, latching onto the tail of his broom as she passed him. Usually, players grabbed the opposition's broom from directly behind, in order to stall another players progress. This move resulted in both brooms facing in the same direction, with one behind the other. Bellatrix had grabbed the tail of Fabian's broom as she surged toward him, not as she followed behind him. Bellatrix's broom was pointed at the sky, Fabian's at the ground of the quidditch pitch. She used the momentum of her upward climb toward his broom in order to keep dragging him up, up, up into the sky. Her broom was climbing sharply as she leant forward, bony, long-fingered hands gripping the tail of Fabian's broom with all her might. But Fabian found his broom surging upwards, backwards, as he leant forward and slipped down the handle, toward the open air below.

Fabian was shocked at the change of direction, and it was all he could do to stay on board. He didn't respond immediately, and Bellatrix was able to gain another thirty or so metres of height. He had nearly slipped off, if she could just gain a bit more altitude…

She felt the Fabian's broom shudder in her hands, as he pulled them into a dive. He was heavier than she, and had gravity on his side. But she had a plan. For a moment, they made little upward progress. Then Fabian grabbed her broom's tail in one hand, and attempted to reverse the move that she'd done to him. When, for a heat stopping moment, both brooms stalled in midair, she knew it was time. She let go of Fabian's broom and swung her own wildly, dislodging his grip.

Fabian hadn't been expecting that move. He'd put far too much power into his dive, because he'd been diving against her climb when they'd been locked in midair. Now, his broom roared toward the ground, diving at a speed and gradient well outside the safe range. He managed to stabilise his broom well before he hit the pitch. At the time, she told herself she knew he'd be fine - he was an excellent flier and a seventeen year old, after all. A small part of her brain didn't care.

*****break*****

Deputy headmaster Dumbledore handled the incident, as Headmaster Dippet was away. He gave her a six month quidditch ban and an entire year of weekend detentions, informing her it was an incredibly lenient penalty considering that she could have killed Fabian and herself.

"Professor!" Fox snapped. "Never in all my years of refereeing have I seen such a dangerous foul!"

Dumbledore held up his hands placatingly.

"Tiberius, just because you do not see a quidditch foul does not mean that it didn't happen," Dumbledore said, blue eyes twinkling.

"Quite right, Professor!" Slughorn put in. "Mr Prewett must have elbowed her at least fourteen times!"

Slughorn regretfully informed her that it was quite impossible to consider her for prefect selection after that stunt. Bellatrix could have laughed - she was still on the quidditch team, and she wasn't expelled. She had no desire to be a prefect and had never sought to be a role model.

In summer at the end of Bellatrix's fourth year, Stuart Craggy and some of their (male) Slytherin quidditch teammates decided to venture into the Black Lake. Apparently, they were trying to find out whether or not mermen and mermaids really lived in the lake. Bellatrix thought this was a disgusting plan - the castle's plumbing network drained into the lake. Eight hundred students, and close to a hundred staff members, all pissing and shitting and draining their dirty bathwater into that lake. Oh, technically the effluent was purified by magic - but it was a far cry from the cold, grey, clean waters off her parents' Northumberland beach house.

However, when Stuart said "I thought you could swim well! Did you lie, or are you just scared of the squid?" Bellatrix found her resolve. She cast a purification charm on herself and - to the immense surprise of Stuart and some of their quidditch teammates - joined them in the lake. That afternoon was a revelation for Bellatrix. She started out quietly confident that, after all her practice in the seas of northumberland, she would not be the weakest swimmer.

Stuart challenged her to dive down and touch a grindylow. When she actually swam off, the boys hooted in excitement. When she returned with a whole grindylow clasped to her chest, Ambrose Mortlake actually shrieked. And so began the game. The boys dared each other to dive to the bottom - none made it, and Bellatrix went last and surfaced holding handfuls of silty lake-washed mud. Mortlake said he didn't believe she'd dived all the way to the bottom, so she invited him to follow her. He surfaced, gasping for breath, long before she reached the bottom. She was, quite simply, the best swimmer of any of them. She challenged them to race and beat them easily when (as she'd suspected) Mortlake could barely hold a proper front crawl, and Craggy couldn't bring himself to put his face in the water. Swimming with one's head above the water seriously hampered one's stroke.

Bellatrix knew that an over reliance on magic could be dangerous. She certainly couldn't use it to keep Cygnus at bay, given the fact that he confiscated her wand when she came home. And even if he didn't, she reflected irritably, Hogwarts didn't teach duelling. "Defence against the dark arts" covered jinxing hinkypunks and breaking the fingers of grindylows, but it didn't cover "repelling one's lecherous, incestuous father." What use was the subject, really? The furthest they'd got on defending themselves against attack by another wizard or witch was a simple disarming spell. The stinging hexes and knock back jinxes that she used when fighting in corridors, she'd had to teach herself. Luckily, Stuart was willing to help her practice.

On discovering that she could swim faster than many fit young men - simply because they lacked technique - Bellatrix decided to hone this skill. Maybe she could use it to escape or defend herself one day. She recalled how she'd stayed out in the rough, rising tide in order to avoid her father - and in doing so, condemned Andromeda.

****break****

Druella, together with her mother and her grandmother, had started menstruating quite early. This fact had consigned Druella to an awful arranged marriage earlier than her pureblood peers, and she was married for most of her Hogwarts years. Bellatrix, by contrast, began quite late. Druella had started bleeding at eleven; Bellatrix not until fourteen, during the summer holiday between her fourth and fifth years. Menstruation spelled Druella's doom; ironically, it was Bellatrix's saviour.

Cygnus's sexual interest in Bellatrix diminished as soon as he discovered that she'd started menstruating - unfortunately, it wasn't gone just like that, but it was waning. She was expected to spend the Easter holidays at Hogwarts, a fact which thrilled her. However, her presence was still required at numerous important pureblood events throughout the festive season, so she'd have to come home for Christmas. She had a sinking feeling that Cygnus and Druella would take her to these events for the same reason that a goblin might wear his finest metalwork to Malfoy Manner - to advertise the goods for sale.

She did not wish to break with tradition, nor bring shame upon her family name. Despite everything, she was proud to be a Black and saw Cygnus and his aberrant desires as a blight upon her noble and ancient magical family. She was also proud of her Rosier heritage, though frowned at Druella's refusal to stand up to her husband. She understood that marriage was her duty to both houses, and did not let herself seriously consider spinsterhood (however much she may have desired it). But she told herself she wasn't ready, not just yet, and that was how she justified undermining her parents' efforts at matchmaking.

During her fifth year, Bellatrix did nothing whatsoever which could risk a marriage proposal. She noted with approval that finally defence against the dark arts incorporated some level of duelling. She spent her spare time secretly duelling with Arabella Bulstrode (contrary to school rules), practicing her charm work by hexing pureblood boys, swimming in the Black Lake (she managed to withstand the cold for the whole of September, but when October rolled around she realised she would need to peruse the library in order to find an appropriate warming charm to cast on herself), and on impromptu Quidditch practice with Stuart Craggy and some of his friends.

Stuart was a halfblood and a nobody - in the highly unlikely event that he expressed interest in her, she could decline him without consequence. Both she and Stuart were fixtures on the Slytherin team, but both felt that more practice couldn't hurt. Stuart had just been made Quidditch Captain and was eager to keep his position. Bellatrix outwardly supported him in this endeavour; privately, she toyed with the idea of usurping him.

One afternoon on the quidditch pitch, Stuart jokingly congratulated her on her muscular forearms.

"It's all this quidditch - and that swimming you do. If you keep it up, you'll be manlier than me," he told her.

Bellatrix had a eureka moment. Both she and Stuart were chasers, and had been practicing accordingly. She told Stuart that for a few days per week at least, they should practice like beaters, not chasers. Her justification was that it would make them stronger and more aggressive - and better at dodging the bludgers aimed their way. Privately, her motives were different: volleying a bludger with Craggy would help her muscle up more.

By December, the Black Lake froze over and warming charm or not, Bellatrix could no longer swim in it. Instead, she suggested to Stuart, Hilda, Ambrose and Arabella that they begin making trips to the forbidden forest. They were unwilling, but easy enough to persuade - when they protested that they could be expelled for such a transgression, Bellatrix reminded them that Richard Carter had only lost Gryffindor a hundred housepoints and earned himself detention when he was discovered in the forest.

"Yes, but he's a Gryffindor," Hilda said irritably. "You know they're the favourites!"

"I don't think you are seriously worried about expulsion," Bellatrix said, a slightly manic glint in her eye. "I think you're just scared of the forest."

So, on one clear, bright, icy-cold Sunday morning, the five set off for the forest. Arabella and Bellatrix were the best at shield charms, so in order to cover all five from attack Bellatrix and Stuart led the group, while Arabella brought up the rear. That first day in the forest, they saw only the glimmer of a fleeing unicorn.

*****break*****

The Christmas holiday was awful. Cygnus and Druella escorted Bellatrix to no fewer than seven Christmas parties: the Malfoys' (ridiculously ostentatious), the Burkes' (try-hards on a budget), the Carrows' (tasteful, if understated), the Flints' (stuffy, sit-down dinner, where of course Bellatrix was seated between two unmarried men - Lucius Malfoy and Rabastan Lestrange), the Lestranges' (small and humble), the Rosiers' (elegant) and the Selwyns' (Hilda's presence improved an otherwise dull evening).

"You may not be ageing well," Cygnus had told her. "But thanks to your impeccable bloodline, I've received some interest from the Malfoys and the Lestranges."

Unfortunately, she was ageing well enough for Cygnus to drunkenly summon her to his bed after the Lestranges' soiree. Perhaps realising that she was almost fifteen and strong enough to do him some real damage, Cygnus didn't even bother to demand that she join him. It was too late for her to react when she heard the imperio.

On her return to Hogwarts, Bellatrix threw herself into her forbidden extra-curricular activities. By late February, snowdrops were peaking through the thinning snow and her little gang of Slytherins had become braver - they stayed out in the forbidden forest for longer, and ventured further into its silent, inky depths. On one occasion, they'd been forced to defend themselves against two forest trolls. On another, they'd encountered a pack of silvery-white wolves.

Coming home from the forest at dusk one Sunday, the five were spied by Arthur Weasley, who was picking snowdrops near the lawn.

"The forbidden forest is out of bounds," Weasley told them, in a cool voice of forced calm.

"Very good, Weasley!" Stuart chuckled. "Been nose-deep in Hogwarts: A History again?"

"Oh, 'the forbidden forest is out of bounds', is it? You're in our year, you incurious little wanker," sneered Bellatrix. "And couldn't afford to buy a bouquet for your blood traitor girlfriend?"

Arthur Weasley turned pink.

"Oh we've all seen you fawning over Molly Prewett," Arabella supplied nastily.

"I'm a prefect, Black," Weasley said coolly. "I can give you detention."

"OOOOHHH!" Stuart, Bellatrix and Ambrose all said in unison.

"Fancy a pumpkin for a head, Weasley?" Arabella asked. "I hear she's rather good at - protego!"

Arabella saw Arthur Weasley going for his wand; she stopped taunting him for long enough to cast a shield charm.

"I think all of you should have detention," Arthur said. "The forbidden forest is out of bounds, and you're not supposed to duel prefects when we're exercising our authority."

"She didn't duel you, you fucking idiot. She cast a shield charm," Bellatrix said scathingly. "Duelling you would be - flipendo!"

The knock back jinx sent Arthur flying.

"Enough," said Hilda, placing a hand on Bellatrix's wand arm.

"Detention tonight, all of you!" Arthur cried. "Black, you can have tomorrow night as well."

"Make me, blood traitor," said Bellatrix.

"Bella!" Hilda hissed warningly.

"I'm serious," said Bellatrix, as derisively as she could. "Selwyn here's willing to take orders from a Weasley. Craggy might be, too - that quidditch captaincy's made him boring. I don't know about Mortlake or Bulstrode, but I do know that I don't answer to Gryffindor weasels in my own year."

Arthur Weasley never came good on his threat of detention.

****break****

By the time her OWLs rolled around, Bellatrix felt she was poised to take first place in all of her core classes except potions and herbology. She didn't much mind that Arabella was snapping at her heels in transfiguration and defence against the dark arts (she'd inadvertently trained the girl up when she'd asked her to be her secret duelling partner). Annoyingly, Arthur Weasley seemed to have spent the entire year studying, and he was also a real threat in defence against the dark arts and history of magic. Regardless, she expected nothing below an E.

Prelims pulled her up short - she scored an A in potions and an E in herbology. She reminded herself that she had an ambitious program - she was taking eleven OWLs (everything except Muggle Studies). To her knowledge, the only other fifth year sitting eleven exams was Lovegood (everything except Arithmancy, which was much harder than Muggle Studies, she thought). Most of her classmates were only doing nine exams.

Grudgingly, she gave up her spot on the quidditch team (which had become less important to her than her solitary forays in the lake and the forest), and drew herself a revision timetable. She was far more concerned with her OWL results than with Slytherin's chances of winning the house cup. The trouble with a house full of Slytherins was that if forced to choose between their own interests and the interests of their house, they chose themselves every time. Without Bellatrix, Slytherin lost the Quidditch cup - actually, they came third. Stuart was furious, but she was unrepentant - all Os in her OWLs mattered more than some silly school game.

During her extra charms and transfiguration revision, Bellatrix hit upon a passage about wandless magic. This, she realised, was the answer to her prayers. It was how she would deal with the fact that Cygnus locked her wand up at the start of each holiday. She became completely isolated from everyone, even Stuart, Arabella and Hilda. All of her time was spent swimming, running in the forbidden forest (which doubled as an obstacle course of sorts - often she'd had to stun trolls and once she'd fled from a spider the size of a kneazle), revising or practicing wandless magic. The only wandless magic she ever dared attempt was simple charms (summoning, unlocking, levitating); it left her drained but grimly satisfied.

She wrote furiously for the entirety of her defence against the dark arts exam, and left feeling confident of an O but secretly concerned that Arthur Weasley may have beaten her. She was pretty sure she'd nailed charms (all the wandless practice had helped) and astronomy, though she was less confident about transfiguration as one of her vanishing spells was imperfect (the chair she vanished left behind a few fibres of cloth).

She rounded the year off with a bang - after her final exam (ancient Runes) she took a leaf out of old Fabian Prewett's book and goaded Arthur Weasley into firing an expelliarmus (pathetic) her way. She blocked it easily and, emboldened by the fact that Weasley had struck first, returned fire with the acne-causing jinx that Fabian had used on her years ago.

*****break*****

Summer was a trial. Narcissa would join her and Andromeda next year at Hogwarts, but during the summer of 1966 Cygnus took it upon himself to make up for soon-to-be-lot opportunities. Bellatrix and Andromeda initially agreed that Narcissa's troubles would be over by September, and there was not much more that Cygnus could do to her before then.

During their first week of holidays, the family quit the Black Mansion for their Northumberland beach house. Bellatrix spent every day secretly practicing wandless magic and running, swimming and doing press ups and crunches in the sand. Druella and Cygnus were horrified by this muggle-like behaviour, but Bellatrix sneered that it would be pathetic to lose a duel because one was too unfit to duck a curse.

"When will you ever need to duel?" Cygnus asked, a nasty glint in his eye. Bellatrix said nothing. It was eighteen months until she came of age, and there was little she could do against him.

But she could do one very effective thing to protect herself at least - and she was doing it.

Bellatrix had never been petite. She was always tall, but well-muscled and solidly built, too. Since she had begun spending all her time on quidditch and exercise, her figure morphed even further in that direction. It had been a gradual process at first, and something Bellatrix had been working on for over a year. For a while, her friends had been noticing small changes in her physique, but eventually not even Druella could miss her daughter's transformation.

Small, pert breasts took on a distinctly pectoral appearance. Slim hips narrowed, prominent shoulders broadened, and her traps flexed menacingly above the sleeveless, v-necked dresses that she wore to pureblood balls (Druella would have preferred her arms and chest covered, but could not find a dress with a waist small enough and shoulders and sleeves large enough to fit her rather burly daughter. Never having cared for schoolwork, Druella wasn't good enough at transfiguration to alter a dress herself). Her forearms became sinewy and knotted and her hands grew larger. Her hamstrings bulged and her quadriceps developed a sharp right angle above the knee. She knew her parents disapproved - but more importantly, so did most pureblood men.

"Bellatrix, you look like one of the White Wyvern's rent boys who dress up like witches," Cygnus had sneered.

I know, Bellatrix thought. Though her exercise regimen stopped her breasts and hips from developing further, her musculature saved her from looking younger than fifteen. If anything, she looked older. And Cygnus was disgusted by it all.

When they left Northumberland, Cygnus banned her from exercising for the rest of the summer. Late at night, she wandlessly cast a silencing charm in her bedroom and did star jumps, push ups and crunches for hours.

****break***

By the end of July, eleven year old Narcissa had completely stopped speaking. Andromeda and Bellatrix agreed that something had to be done. Bellatrix divulged her secret about the wandless magic, and Andromeda positively groaned with relief.

"You can't tell anyone, it's no use if people know I can do it," Bellatrix stressed.

"What are you going to do?" Andromeda asked. "You can't take him on."

"No, but I can find and access my wand, and then I can sneak into his room at night and confund him," said Bellatrix.

"Bella, two wands are better than one," said Andromeda grimly.

They decided they could not afford to alert Narcissa - her selective mutism suggested her mental state was too weak to bear any responsibility at all for their rescue plan.

It took Bellatrix several nights to find the location of her wand. She moved from room to room, wandessly muttering "accio my wand,". Finally, she heard a faint rattling coming from a cupboard door, too high up for any of her family to reach (she was as tall as her father, and taller than her mother and sisters). She returned to bed knowing that after having used so many wandless summoning charms, she'd never summon the strength to wandlessly unlock the door, seize her wand and confund her father.

The next night, she used a wandless alohomora to unlock the cupboard door. Inside was a small, ornate silver box. She had some trouble summoning it, and gave up and awoke Andromeda. With comparative ease, she hoisted her little sister onto her wide, square shoulders. Andromeda grabbed the box and removed it from the cupboard.

On discovering that the box had been charmed to resist alohomora, Bellatrix could have howled. She tried the spell on her father's locked liquor cabinet and found that it worked - so the problem wasn't her wandless magic.

"We should put it back and go to bed," Bellatrix told Andromeda. "We'll search the library for more unlocking charms tomorrow."

"Bella," said Andromeda quietly. "In three weeks we go back to Hogwarts - and this tine, Cissy will come with us. She can't get worse, surely. Is it really worth it?"