Disclaimer: I belong to Bellatrix, not the other way around.
A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, Bellatrix gets a love interest! Whether or not she actually wants one. Also, she's on a train. And she makes some friends. And everybody eats candy and is happy.
For those who reviewed last time, popcorn is available in the lobby for free. You might want to hurry, I think Ron just walked off with a lot of it.
Basically, this chapter is an excuse to introduce some of Bellatrix's Hogwarts friends and give them unimaginative first names. (Evan, however, IS Rosier's canon first name. Yes, I know these things. Yes, I am a Harry Potter geek.)
Yes, I know this one is a little more comedic than tragic in mood. That was kind of intentional, to set up the contrast between the happy, fluffy first chapters, where everyone is nice and alive and (mostly) sane, and the depths of insanity and despair that will come later. And yes, I am blatantly making excuses for my inability to write. I hope you enjoy it.
Bellatrix had never been on a train before. Her family was too important to take trains, filthy Muggle trains, smelling of coal and steam and dirt. The inside was nicer than she would have expected--walnut and brass and red silk, with candles on the walls. Pretty. She could see her reflection in the brass candleholder, distorted so her eyes looked huge and her shiny black hair barely touched her shoulders when she knew it reached her hips. She was still wearing her casual robes, purple silk with a high collar, making her look much older than eleven. Other students brushed past her impatiently, but she ignored them, jolted out of her contemplation only when the train jerked into motion, dumping her on the carpet. One minute she was staring into her own eyes, the next she was staring at the walnut paneling, lying on her side with her hair falling over her face and her right arm twisted underneath her. The floor was vibrating, echoing the wheels underneath it, and incidentally rubbing rather painfully against her face. Her shoulder felt like it was melting into the carpet. It took a moment for her to marshal her thoughts and realize that she was humiliated. If anyone had seen her...if anyone had dared look...she would humilate them. She would. She would make things right, the way they should be. It was a matter of honor, of course it was, it was a matter of dignity.
Seconds passed. She almost didn't dare look up. No one was there, thankfully enough. The corridor looked deserted, the only sign of life the dull murmur of conversation from the neighboring compartments, almost drowned out by the thrumming of the engine. But that wasn't right...couldn't be right...there was someone. There was. He was standing at the end of the compartment, barely visible in the dusty shadows, watching. Not even bothering to hide. It was a little insulting that he hadn't hidden when he saw her look up. Even though it made things so much easier on her.
"You! Down there!" He stared at her vacantly. She was already halfway down the corridor, dragging her trunk behind her, her wand slipping out of her pocket. "I can see you!" He nodded, not bothering to move out of the way. Whack. She had thought she had hit him rather hard, hard enough to shove him into the wall, but he remained standing where he was, his dark brown eyes fixed on her face. Silent. It annoyed her that he was silent. People should talk when you hit them. It made it more fun. She tried again. This time he winced slightly.
"You dropped your wand." Bellatrix glanced around. She had dropped her wand, in fact. It was lying a few feet behind her. Embarrassment and anger trickling down her spine, she picked it up and pointed it at his throat. Inexplicably, he grinned. "Go ahead." No, this wasn't right, this wasn't how it was supposed to go.
"Give me a reason." Feeble attempt. Probably everyone had said that at some time. He just laughed, his eyes remaining fixed on Bellatrix's.
"You're beautiful." Her hand dropped. This was ridiculous, he wasn't worth the time.
"Freak"
"I know." He smiled again, more warmly. Somehow, that was unnerving.
He put one hand on the door of the compartment to their left and pulled. It slid open. Bellatrix waited for him to go in, but he just stood there, waiting for her to walk in first. Visions of his bloody death swam, unbidden, into Bellatrix's mind. They were comforting enough. She stepped into the compartment. He followed her in, yanking the door closed behind him.
There were three other boys sitting in the compartment--a blond and two brunets. The brunets could have been anyone (although they looked about her age), but Bellatrix vaguely recognized the blond. It took a minute for her to remember where she'd seen him.
"You're Rosier. Evan. Evan Rosier." He looked up immediately, excited. Yes, it was the same one from the family photographs, Mother's little cousin or something close to it. Tall, willowy, with wavy ash-blond hair and a receding chin. Aristocratic. Refined. The stereotype of a wealthy boy.
"Bellatrix, right?" She nodded stiffly.
"Bellatrix..." The first boy was still staring at her. From him, her name sounded like a prayer. "Pretty name. You're pureblood, right? Sounds like a pureblood name." Well, of course it did. No Mudblood would be named Bellatrix, would they, now? Honestly, the stupidity of some people...It made her sick.
"Did you figure that out by yourself, or did you have help?" It was almost a relief when he stomped on her foot and she could hit him. Rosier and the two others watched with perverse interest.
When the toad-faced prefect girl came in, Bellatrix had already made up her mind that she rather liked him. It took courage, or a sort of mad suicidal stupidity, to attack her after she'd shown what she could do. And he had hurt a girl. Gentlemen didn't hurt girls.
They were going to be such good friends.
"What are your names"
"Bellatrix Artemis Black"
"Rodolphus Dante Lestrange." Dante?
"Thank you. If I hear any more fighting, those names are going directly to Professor Dumbledore." Bellatrix's nails dug into her hands, a warm trickle of blood dribbling from one palm. Toad Face was going to die, to bleed, to hurt like Bellatrix was hurting with humiliation, her name was going to burn...Yes, that would work, she would burn, bound and gagged with her head in the fireplace.
The door closed behind Toad Face. Lestrange and Bellatrix exchanged glances. He didn't look surprised when she hit him, smearing blood across his face. It was nothing personal, of course, sometimes you just had to hurt someone. He looked like he understood that. Her anger was going away now, a little bit, anyway, replaced by curiosity.
"Dante"
"Blame my mother." She watched Lestrange for a while, taking in the details of his appearance. Brown eyes, dull, dead ones. Shaggy brown hair, uneven and badly cut, reaching his broad shoulders. He was handsome, very handsome, she supposed, or at least looked enough like other men (well, boys) who earned the label to deserve it. (She, as a rule, thought of no one as handsome.) About her height, tall for an eleven-year-old boy. His civilian robes were rather plain, dark red velvet with no frills or decorations. He had finally stopped staring at her, instead glaring at the wall as if it deserved a horrible death at his hands. "Interesting wall?" It took him a moment to answer.
"Oh. Nah, not really." One of the brunets snickered. Bellatrix pointed her wand at his throat, and he stopped at once.
"Put that away, Black, you're going to hurt me and I'm going to have to go to the hospital wing and I'm going to miss my classes and flunk out of school and it'll all be your fault--" Lestrange hit him. (Bellatrix mentally thanked him.) He fell backwards like a bowling pin. Bellatrix regarded him coolly, his bloody death playing through her mind.
"And you are...?" His voice came out as a squeak.
"Jonathan Avery!" She had heard of his family, vaguely. Not as rich as the Blacks, or as prominent, but it wouldn't do to send him home in a body bag. She turned to the other brunet, shorter and slighter than Lestrange, better-looking than Avery.
"And you"
"Edmund Wilkes." He grimaced as she burst out laughing at the name, her eyes shut tightly, her head thrown back, gasping for breath.
They talked for the rest of the train ride. There was a lot of time to talk. They used all of it.
"What house do you guys want to be in?" Rosier, Bellatrix decided almost at once, was too cheerful and friendly for his own good. People like that annoyed her, as a rule, grated across every nerve she possessed. Rosier seemed bright enough, and useful enough, that maybe she could excuse it...He would probably expect her to call him "Evan". But she wouldn't. She wouldn't. Nothing so familiar.
"Slytherin. I'm speaking for all of us, I think." Wilkes looked offended that Rosier would ask such a basic question. Didn't all the young witches and wizards from the good families go to Slytherin?
"Of course, right?" Rosier kept babbling happily, perhaps unaware that he had insulted Wilkes's family. "Doesn't everyone? Everyone decent, I mean, not the Mudbloods." They nodded, listening. "I mean, can you imagine? Mudbloods in Slytherin?" Bellatrix smirked, flicking her hand disdainfully. Avery leaned forward, his eyes wide, excited to know something Rosier didn't.
"There've been some, though. Scum gets everywhere, even in Hogwarts." Lestrange rolled his eyes.
"You sound like Rabastan. Complainer." Bellatrix frowned.
"Rabastan"
"Brother. He's eight." Wilkes almost smiled.
"That little prettyboy with the funny eyes?" Rosier looked uncomfortable, but Lestrange nodded.
"Yeah"
"He cried when the train left." Lestrange's eyes blazed, and he nearly hit his head on the suitcase rack as he stood up suddenly. "That's not true"
"It is." Wilkes's voice was sullen; Rosier edged away from him a little. Avery, who had been sitting next to Lestrange, glowered at them. Lestrange whirled to face him, breathing hard, his face flushed.
"You leave Rabastan alone. You leave my family alone." Bellatrix started laughing again. She couldn't help it. The thoughts were coming back into her mind...wouldn't it be funny if Wilkes had had a knife? They could all knock each other off right there, and then the teachers would find the compartment smeared with blood and their lifeless corpses in a heap...wouldn't it be sad? Wouldn't it be funny?
Wilkes didn't have a knife, though, and none of them knew any spells, so the fight ended there. After that their conversation drifted to Quidditch, and then to brooms. Just as Bellatrix was about to slip back into the pleasant daydreams of blood and tragedy, Avery asked something that whipped her mind back to reality.
"What do you lot want to do when you grow up? I think...I want to be Minister for Magic, maybe I can do some good there"
"Yeah, as someone to blame." They looked at Wilkes, who shrugged. "I hate politicians. They're all corrupt anyway." Rosier looked hurt.
"My uncle William's in Law Enforcement." "Sorry"
"No, it's all right. He's an idiot, mother's always saying so." Bellatrix thought she might have seen him in one of the family pictures. Her side of the family never spoke to people like that, of course, you always got bad seeds. In all the best families. Someone should do something to stamp that out...it wasn't right...she could do it. Squibs and blood traitors and black sheeps. They'd all have to go. She could do it. It would be easy, so easy, with ability like hers. It was simple. She had been born for it.
Maybe the look in her eyes had given her thoughts away. "What do you want to do, Black"
"I want to get rid of people like your uncle." Avery snorted. She kicked him. "I'm serious, gentlemen. That's what I want to do." Rosier frowned.
"Not a bad idea, Bella--" No. Not Bella. That was too close, too intimate.
"Black"
"Not a bad idea, Black, then, but how would you do it?" It was an insulting question. As if she couldn't manage a few spells. Had he seen the pigeons? No. Of course he hadn't. He didn't know about the pigeons. Nobody at Hogwarts would. It was simple, then, she would have to show them. Then everybody would know what she could do to them. They would be afraid of her. That would be good for her, it would make everything easier.
"If you can't think of a way, maybe you should be in Hufflepuff with all the other stupid people." The expression on his face was worth remembering. Hurt. Astonishing that a few words could provoke such a reaction. She was a connoisseur of pain, on the whole, knew how to get the reactions she wanted. (Except with Lestrange. And even he had buttons she could push, he had to, everyone did, she had just seen one of them and it was only a matter of finding the others. And she would find them.) She would remember this, it might be useful. Everything might be useful.
"I'm not stupid"
"Yes, you are." His gaze dropped to his knees. She had won. She would win more. It was like chess, but with thoughts and words and emotions. Easy once you knew how.
"That was low." Wilkes's muttered comment, presumably a heartfelt expression of his deepest feelings, was more amusing than painful. Who would bother?
"It was, wasn't it?" The conversation died out after that. There wasn't much more to say. Lestrange spent a few miles staring out the window--Bellatrix watched him for a while. She could tell that they were going to be good friends, which was irritating. She had no category to put him in, the way she could pigeonhole Rosier as a pansy and Wilkes as a malcontent and Avery as a whiner. He was annoying and fascinating, calm and hotheaded, idiotic or apathetic, couldn't tell which, blah blah blah, as if she cared. The trouble was that she did.
No doubt dear Narcissa would have said that this was a sign that they were a perfect match, but Narcissa was always coming up with nonsense like that. It went with being seven and a complete twit. As far as Bellatrix was concerned, romance was out of the picture. After all, who could honestly be good enough? Honestly? No one. There was no one who could equal her.
Lestrange might make a good second-in-command, though. A good friend.
She had never had friends apart from Narcissa. She had been too different, too bright, too talented. Now, however, she suspected that she had just made four of them. Hooray. What fun they would have.
There was something odd in the way Lestrange was watching the birds outside the window...something predatory.
What fun they would have.
By Avery's watch, it was a little after five when the compartment door slid open and a young woman poked her head in.
"Hungry?" Yes, they were. Bellatrix hadn't eaten before they left, there had been too much to do, sending Kreacher on last-minute errands and packing all of her things, and the hunger pangs were starting. The cart the young witch was pushing had candy, so much candy, pretty candy for those with the money for it. And it wasn't expensive. Just to impress the boys, as if they needed any more, she dug some gold out of her pockets and bought whatever they asked for. Just as a gesture, of course. Between friends. It was the civilized thing to do. It restarted the conversation, anyway.
"You...like chocolate?" Lestrange smirked, ripping the paper off a chocolate frog.
"Obviously." Avery must have decided not to pursue the subject. Lestrange didn't blink much. Bellatrix didn't bother wondering why.
"Hooray. Hengist of Woodcroft, I'm thrilled." His expression unreadable again, he tossed the card at Rosier, who caught it by the tips of his fingers.
"Thanks"
"It wasn't a present. Unless your family's gone poor, then you can think of it as charity." Avery giggled. Bellatrix kicked him again. He annoyed her. She wondered if she could get the window open, quietly testing it with her hand while the others were focused on Lestrange and Rosier...it moved a little, but not enough to put Avery through it. She closed it again, noticing as she did so that Wilkes was giving her a very strange look. Well, he could go ahead and do that, there was no reason to stop him, really. She prodded him with her wand anyway.
"We have not! Why is everyone so determined to insult me?" Rosier was turning dark red, like a pear, his blond eyebrows the places where the pear's skin had been peeled away. It was a nice thought.
"We don't like you," Bellatrix informed him. He looked, pleading with his eyes, at Wilkes, who seemed caught off guard, his face reddening a bit as well.
"Don't give me that, Rosier, I don't mind you much." Rosier laughed ruefully.
"I expect that that's the best I'll get. Good enough." They ate the candy in silence for a few minutes, Wilkes looking more and more uncomfortable with each tick of Avery's silver wristwatch. Finally, things apparently came to a head inside whatever little pocket of his mind concerned being nice to people.
"Sorry!" All four of them looked at him. He glared defiantly back. "What?" Bellatrix laughed suddenly. She couldn't ever help it.
"Give me your cauldron cake." He handed it over. The dark chocolate filling was still a little warm and gooey from the cart. She ate it.
After that, the tension in the air faded while they talked. Avery had some cards, and they played poker for an hour, two hours, maybe three, Bellatrix wasn't counting. The food was gone, anyway, and it was getting dark outside their window. She could see stars. Sirius, of course, that was an easy one to find. The constellation Orion, the first one she had memorized, and...up there, in the corner...her star. Bellatrix. Bright and beautiful...and on fire, irritatingly enough, even though she tried to forget and just think about how beautiful it was. Burning, burning, and one day it would all burn up and there would be nothing left but a shell and a note in the astronomy books, the history books.
She was being stupid. She wasn't going to burn.
She turned back to the game, just in time to watch Avery bet twenty-three Galleons (they didn't have any chips) on a weak hand. Lestrange won the money. Shaking her head, her hair swirling around her face, she returned to the game and, exploiting their fear of her for everything it was worth, won fifty Galleons and three Sickles from her new friends in less than an hour.
A/N: Hope you enjoyed that. It took me longer to write than chapter one for some reason, don't ask me why. Dialogue is hard. (facepalm) Also, don't ask why Bellatrix falls on her face. Mainly, she does it because I wanted to write her falling on her face. Just for comic relief.
I imagined Umbridge would have been in her mid-to-late forties in OotP, which would have put her as a sixth or seventh year when Bellatrix showed up on the scene. Don't think they would have liked each other too much :P Yep, she'll be coming back in later chapters (hooray for blatant foreshadowing!). We couldn't let her get away without Bellatrix getting revenge, right?
Don't ask about the middle names. Wizard names are bloody hard. (On this one I'm inclined to agree with Bellatrix--DANTE?! What was I thinking?)
And now, for your entertainment, I shall...respond to the reviews. Yaay.
toujourspurPAL: Why, thank you! Compliments make me happy :) Make sure to get your free popcorn.
kirameru1701: I was feeling both Victorian and silly when I wrote that. The rest of the story, not so much.
Sienna Rhiannon Chase: Eeep. Okay, okay, I'm updating, I'm updating! I don't want to wind up like the pigeons! Somebody help me.
ILoveRodolphusLestrange: Are you psychic? Actually, I had already decided to introduce Rodolphus in this chapter, AND make him gorgeous and interesting, before I read your review. Weird, huh? (I have a soft spot for the Lestranges. Guess I'm not the only one.) Don't worry, you can keep your popcorn...unless you don't like popcorn or are allergic or something, in which case we also have assorted tasty snacks.
Sheograph: Exactly how I think she'd be as well. Although perhaps that goes without saying. (Writing in-character is hard. Aargh.)
Remember, if you review, you get popcorn, and the entertainment of me responding to your reviews in my A/N. If that actually counts as entertainment. I dunno. Anyway, watch out for the next chapter.
Next Chapter: Will Bellatrix, In Fact, Be A Slytherin? (Yes.)
