TIWSC Writing School: Beauxbatons Exchange Student ,Technique:Flashbacks

Prompt:[action] waiting(used in a metaphorical sense)

W/C:655

The Reviews Corner (Masquerade Ball): Tattoo-write about forbidden love

The first time she saw the girl, she remembered, was on a pavement.

It wasn't a place she'd normally pay attention to, but the wedding had left several trivial tasks in its wake. The ceremony itself had been a tedious affair: with the union of two ancient bloodlines, a few thousand guests from each side had to be accommodated and dealt with, not to mention the friends who'd proposed the marriage in the first place. She'd been forced to visit a Muggle neighbourhood for groceries, and the Apparition point was opposite the store, down a small alley. A small playground stood between the alley and the store. She'd been hurrying across it, desperate to get back to the meeting, when she saw the one-year-old being pushed in a Muggle pram by her mother. Even though she was running late, what she saw stopped her in her tracks. Tiny as the girl was, she saw the red sparks flying out of her fingertips, saw the girl giggling as she made leaves on the street rise up into little tornadoes. The mother seemed to have no idea about what the girl was doing. The girl was a Mudblood, then, but an evidently powerful one.

She almost felt sorry for her. To have such great power, but the terrible luck of having being born a Mudblood, was terrifying.

It had all begun when she was younger. She'd been at Grimmauld Place, invited for dinner, something very common within the Black family. At the age of eight, she'd sat at the table listening to a heated speech about why purebloods were superior. "We're born better than them," her aunts and uncles told her. "It's a great honour to be born into this family. It means you're the best of the best." On that occasion itself, she'd been told about the importance of keeping the bloodline pure, why she needed to marry someone with pure lineage and blood to maintain the great House's purity. However, the only explanation she'd received for their bloodline and status being supreme was their magical ability. The Blacks, and all families related to them who had maintained their purity, were said to have magical abilities that far outshone those of lesser houses. This meant that they were cleverer, more able and therefore best suited to dominate all other people, wizards and Muggles alike. She had accepted it unquestioningly at the time; after all, what eight-year-old didn't like being told that she was special? However, the skills of this infant seemed to deny it. Other people, like Albus Dumbledore and Grindelwald, could have –probably had- obtained their degree of magic through varied Dark Arts. There was no way this baby could have done that.

She inhaled, grounding herself, shaking her head to clear away the memories. Bellatrix was in Malfoy Manor, admiring the girl who stood behind her, defiant and intelligent, alike her in every way except her blood status, something that wasn't her fault. She enjoyed playing with her, testing her limits, just to see how much she could take before she broke. She didn't.

Bellatrix liked her. She was as proud of Hermione as she would have been of her own daughter if she had one then. Of course, any love of such a sort would be forbidden. That didn't stop her from tracking the girl's every move. Even after her escape, which Bellatrix fully expected—Hermione was too smart and Pettigrew too gullible to remain in capture for long—she never really forgot the girl.

If there was one thing she learned from those vivid flashbacks, it was that Mudbloods could be talented. Maybe the realization had been waiting for her, and rightly so; if she had known earlier, she may not have done certain things she had been asked to. Now she was beginning to understand that they weren't all as bad as she'd been told.

Perhaps this one was even human.