Chapter Twelve
I heard wild, panicked moans coming from several rooms down the corridor. I walked toward the sound, instinct deducting what I had not yet consciously known. When I reached the end of the corridor, I found a partially cracked door leading into a darkened room, a study of some kind, that was covered in potions and bottles. Mr. Selwyn must have fashioned the room for his medicinal work on Lucius. There were decanters of firewhisky surrounding the chair he was sitting in. He must have drunk himself into a stupor often enough in here and hid it from the family he was serving.
His beady, black little eyes, drowsy from sleep and drink, suddenly turned to the crack in the door and he spotted me.
"You," he hissed.
A flash of silver crossed Bellatrix's hand, and she pressed a blade to his throat.
"I asked you a question," she said, "And I expect you to answer it—Cissy, close the door."
Casting one more glance at Lucius's bedroom, I slipped through and locked it behind me with a magic ward, then applied silencing charms my sister had been careless not to do.
"Your sister's a fat fucking slag who takes it up the arse, little Bella," Mr. Selwyn snarled, "So cut me if you like, but she's a little harlot and a liar. Whatever she told you I did—"
"You mistake my motives," she remarked, "Your business with my sister is hers."
"Turn your dagger on her then," Mr. Selwyn spat out, panting through the pain, "She's a stupid little bitch—"
"Crucio!"
Mr. Selwyn jerked and spasmed through the pain. He wailed, a noise so shrill and fierce it felt near to bursting my eardrums. He coiled up and fell into the floor, backing my sister against the table from the weight of his body.
"Merlin," I breathed, my hand going up to my throat.
"My, my, that looks painful," Bellatrix said, kicking him over onto his back. She pinned him to the floor with a simple swish of her wand. "You've mistaken me again. I meant to say, your business with my sister is hers. Not that I would allow you to spew such vitriol about her. Honestly, you call yourself a gentleman?"
"I hope you rot," he seethed through clenched teeth.
"We all rot, Thomas," she replied breezily.
"The question," I interjected, "is whether or not you'd like to start that process tonight."
Bellatrix glanced up at me with a smirk upon her face. No matter how old I was, my stomach lit up in butterflies to see it—that obvious, plain expression of approval from her, my big sister. I always stepped in and out of her shadow, constantly weighing the decision to choose my own path or mirror hers.
I loved her so much, I couldn't see the darkness that lived inside of her.
Her hair spilled down her cloak and over her face. Mr. Selwyn's eyes turned glassy as she forced her way into his mind, turning over the events of his recent memories. A flushed, patch of pinks rose across her cheeks and I turned my head in shame. No doubt she was reliving my experience with Mr. Selwyn in his office. It was humiliating, having the story and all its details told was rather like having it happen all over again. When his eyes refocused, she let out a wild snarl and brought the knife down toward his chest. I reacted, my wand in my hand before I was cognizant of it, and I sent the knife sailing out of her palm. It landed with a clatter against the wall.
Mr. Selwyn let out a great sob and promptly wet himself, and I watched the urine turn the front of his robes dark.
"You would call my sister such names," she breathed, "When you have committed such vile acts against her? You—"
"Bella, enough!" I exclaimed.
Mr. Selwyn, pinned to the floor and cringing, was experiencing what was only a partial amount of my sister's rage. I knew I stood in the valley between them, and that I was the only one who could convince her not to hurt him. She shouldn't have seen what happened—I knew it made it that much worse.
Her chest heaving, she stepped back from him and flung her hair off her shoulders so that it cascaded down her back.
"Shall we erase his memory?" she suggested, swivelling to look at me.
I glanced in his direction. On the one hand, I imagined he would never want to look at us or anyone again if he remembered this night. Conversely, he might just be brave enough to report the myriad of laws we had broken tonight. Swiftly, I nodded my head.
She tampered with his memory of the last few hours, instead imprinting upon him that he had drunk too much and fallen down the stairs. And then she levitated him out onto the staircase and let him drop, watching with supreme satisfaction at each thump and slam of his body on the steps. I looked around at the messy room he stayed in, the collection of bottles and glasses scattered across the floor and every surface. The moth-eaten book covers and curtains.
It reminded me that nothing is permanent. That in our world, we could all end up this way. Mr. Selwyn might have loved his daughter, but he was ruled by darkness inside of him. The evil that preyed upon poor girls and delighted in their shame and fear, as if it relieved some of his own for a time. There was a kind of evil inside of me, as I watched my sister torture a man with all the passive observations I would a Quidditch match. I understood what it meant to wield power against someone who had never had to bow to me before, that this was a type of ambition that curled itself around my heart and entangled itself in my brain. I knew that if I let it, I would disappear into it.