longish chapter this time. i think it pretty much explains itself. i had fun writing it and i also cried. D:


The next day was bliss. There was no Lucius, for one. It was just me and Bellatrix. We played quidditch from sunup to sundown, never once stopping. We laughed, we joked, we smiled. Our parents did not interfere, and neither did any siblings. I had my best friend to myself with no interruptions whatsoever. That night, long after the sun had gone down, when we finally went in, we found her family and mine waiting for her with a birthday cake and presents. She got everything she wanted and also got her face shoved in her cake by Sirius, who in turn, got hit upside the head by her broom. Her parents, with slight persuasion from Mere, let Bella stay over for the night.

She in turn, persuaded Mere that she didn't need to stay in a guest room, that she was quite fine in mine.

"I won't be treated like a queen. I'll be perfectly happy on the floor." I could only smile and shake my head at her enthusiasm and spunk at the late hours of the night. With several yawns, and with Rabastan at her heals, my mother fixed Bellatrix up a pallet on the floor beside my bed and left us to our whiles.

I got dressed in my room and Bellatrix took to the bathroom after I gave her a thorough explanation of how I did not wish to relive the train stripping incident. Once I had lain down on my bed, I realised that I wasn't tired. I was not going to sleep any time soon. Tossing around for a few minutes, I rolled over and peered down on the floor into the dark. "Bellatrix."

"What?"

"Today was a good day, wasn't it?"

"You're a moron." I couldn't see her but I could hear her laugh.

"Why, because I enjoy spending time with my friend?" I inquired.

"Yes. Exactly."

I crawled out of bed and slid down onto the pallet beside her. "How does that make me a moron?"

"You're on my leg."

"Oh." I shifted and tried to see her in the dark, but I couldn't make out any more than a silhouette. Giving up, I said "You still haven't answered my question."

"Which was?"

"Oh my Merlin, Bella, don't play stupid."

"Who says I'm playing?"

"I do."

Before I knew what was happening, I felt a huge weight crash down on my stomach, causing me to collapse to the floor. At the same time, my hands were being pinned out away from my body.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, quite taken aback by her actions. It wasn't every day that she attacked me when I couldn't see her.

"Playing." She answered simply. "Obviously you didn't know the meaning of the word and needed it defined." She licked the side of my face and I did all but scream.

Flailing out madly, I pushed her off of me and wiped my cheek. "Don't ever do that again."

"And why not?"

"Because I said so." I retorted, still trying to get her germs off of me.

"Because you liked it."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

I heard some rustling then she was silent for several minutes. Just as I was thinking of crawling back into my bed, something came flying through the air and smacked me in the face. I cradled my nose with one hand and picked what felt like a heavy book up with the other. "What's this?"

"A dictionary. I thought you could use it, since you've got no clue what anything means."

"Why do I…." But I trailed off. Crawling into bed, I found that my nose was bleeding. After stifling it with the edges of my sheets, I finally lay back down, quite happy to go to sleep now.

A sing-song greeting drifted up from the floor. "Goodnight, Rodolphus."

I sighed exasperatedly. "Goodnight, Bellatrix." And threw the dictionary back at her.

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The rest of term passed by without so much as a bump, so did that summer. During those warm days, our little group was back together again. It was as if nothing had changed and as if school had never happened. Bellatrix constantly told stories to her sisters about Hogwarts, stories which were skewed in view in order to add some fun to it from her point of view. She told Narcissa that the giant squid ate blondes and told Andromeda that talking was strictly prohibited in some areas at odd intervals of the day.

Second year went by in another blur. Andromeda joined us at school and it took loads of convincing on my part to get her to speak after she was sorted. Bellatrix then began what she would do every month for the rest of her Hogwarts career: she started writing to her parents. She told them that Andromeda had been successfully sorted into Slytherin, along with a few other things, which she never told me of and refused to let me see.

Lucius and I tried out for the Slytherin quidditch team. To Malfoy's surprise we both made the cut, replacing two older students who had graduated the year before. Lucius was the seeker and I was the third chaser. With little practice, and a bit of bragging, we both rose in ranking in the Slytherin House. We were not quite a force to be reckoned with, but we figured, give it a year or two, work carefully, and we would be running the House. Together, we began laying down plans and making friendships with the right people. We both snuck out on Hogsmeade trips to meet our current superiors and just to prove we had the guts to do it.

Bellatrix, was doing very little work, and already seemed to have the house at her feet. Known as "That fucking little second year that could kill you" she had the older students as afraid of her as they were in awe of me and Lucius. Our new found companions started asking about our little friend that was a girl. I don't quite know how Bella never figured out about mine and Lucius' little side trips and plans for world domination. I figured that she did find out, but just never said anything. She was too busy pissing her dorm-mates off and constantly keeping the older students on their toes. I had to give it to her. While she wasn't going about it in the same way Lucius and I were, she was certainly making a reputation and laying a foundation for herself in the House of Slytherin.

Her sister on the other hand settled in quite nicely and was making a few friends here and there. Andromeda was teased only once. Some older bloke walked by her one day as she was sitting on the sloping lawns. She was reading, like Andromeda always did. He ripped the book from her hand and tossed it into the lake. Bella had just been coming out of the castle and saw it all. Without warning, or much care, she had the sixth year swimming through the Black Lake to get her sister's book out, with his teeth and when he had returned to shore, she rammed his head into a tree, forced him to eat dirt, made him cry, turned his legs to jello, and then made him stagger an apology to Andromeda, whom just meekly took her book back and muttered a small 'Thank you Bella.' Andromeda was never messed with again, or asked out on a date till her fifth year.

Life was good and the school was familiar. The work load was either much lighter, or I had just grown accustomed to it. No earth shattering events took place and second year came and went without so much as a rustle.

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"Just call out for someone."

"What if no one answers."
"Then you call again. Go on, Regulus."

We were standing in the front hall of the Malfoy Manor, fresh from being flooed. My mother had insisted that I pay Lucius a visit and invite him over for the weekend. She constantly reminded me that I needed to keep my friends close to me and not let them meander off during summer breaks. It had only been two weeks since school broke up, so I thought she might be over reacting just a little or either was trying to push aside the fact that Rabastan was sick again by inviting another boy over. She would then hear two sets of footfalls on the stairs every day and could pretend life was going on normally and that Rabastan wasn't wrenching his guts out. I had, of course, not wanted to go to the Malfoy Manor alone. Having only been but once, I didn't know quite what to expect, so I had asked for an accompaniment and Regulus, always eager for the adventure had come to the rescue. We stood now, looking around for any sign of life, but to no avail. I nudged Regulus in the side. Timidly he called out, barely above a normal voice. "Lucius?"

I felt slightly dirty standing in their rather expensively decorated and well polished house with ash traces on my trousers. Either way, Latona Malfoy didn't seem to mind. She crossed over up to us from a hallway that led to somewhere in the back of her house. Whether or not she had heard Regulus' strangled cry, I didn't know. A smile teetering on her lips, she greeted Regulus and myself as if she were accustomed to seeing dirty boys in her house (everyone on earth knew Lucius Malfoy never got dirty if he could help it). "Oh, Lucius?" She asked us. "He's up in his room." She pointed up the stairs against the wall behind her. "Third floor, first door on the left."

I set off, Regulus tagging behind me. Reaching the top of the stairs, I looked back to see that the mother of the house had disappeared. The stairs were enormous and took forever to climb. Finally we reached the second floor. Regulus stopped and leaned against the wall. "There were ninety-seven of those buggers. NINETY-SEVEN!"

"Regulus, keep it down." I didn't think that shouting would prove the most intelligent thing to do, not in this house anyway. It was not like the Black Manor or my own manor. There weren't lots of children always running around at adults' feet. There was just one: Lucius and I highly doubted he frolicked around like a maniac like the Black that stood beside me did.

"Oh don't get your knickers in a bunch." He said, waving his hand at me. "Stop for a minute. I'm buggered."

"Okay fine." And I started walking ahead, very slowly; wanting to get a closer look at a suit of armor I saw standing at the other end of the hall. Walking up to it, I noticed it was over four times my size. Solid gold, it almost touched the low ceiling, missing it by just inches. I heard Regulus panting his way up the hallway. Then I heard a crash.

I looked around to see what he had fallen against now, but he seemed to be just fine and was still on his feet. An inspection of the corridor found that there was nothing for him to have fallen against either, the nearest thing for him to bump in to was the suit of armor I stood in front of. "Don't leave me."

Then there was a screaming voice, loud and pissed by the sounds of it. "DON'T YOU EVER….." Then it trailed off to a whisper. I craned my neck in all directions trying to catch where the sound was coming from.

By now, Regulus had stopped walking and was looking around to. Silently he pointed to the door beside the suit of armor.

I turned back to the face the door with wide eyes. From where I was I could hear once side of the conversation.

"GET YOUR SNIVELLING HIDE UP BOY!" There was another loud crash.

"I SAID GET UP!" Someone scrambled to their feet inside, knocking several things off a shelf in the process.

"HOW COULD YOU LET THAT BOY BEAT YOU OUT FOR THE SPOT?"
A long bought of silence.
"OH HE DIDN'T BEAT YOU! HE DIDN'T BEAT YOU?" What sounded like a body being thrown against a wall. "I'LL BEAT YOU!" Fast footsteps.

I looked over at Regulus and swallowed hard. What was going on in there? I recognized the screaming voice as Abraxas. What was he mad at though and who was he beating the living day lights out of?

"THAT BOY GETTING A SPOT ON THE TEAM IS AS GOOD AS YOU NOT MAKING IT! AND THAT….THAT GIRL!" He said the word girl like it was something foul, bad, something that should never be said by anyone anywhere. "THAT GIRL HAS THE EXACT SAME MARKS YOU HAVE IN EVERY CLASS!"

Another sound of a body hitting the wall followed by the unmistakable sound of a shelf toppling over. There were footsteps again, this time coming near the door. I threw myself behind the armor, urging Regulus to do something, anything.

"Move!" I hissed, pointing at the door. "Now!"

He panicked, looked around wildly, then dashed down the hall with lightening speed, disappearing down the stairs just as the door opened.

Abraxas emerged; straightening out his collar and rolling his sleeves back down. He stood in the door for quite some time. My heart was beating so fast and loud that I knew there was no way he could not hear it. He looked around, up and down the hall, and then looked back into the room. "You disgust me." He spat and headed down the hall the way Regulus had gone only seconds before.

Abraxas disappeared from sight and I collapsed against the wall and slid down beside the suit of armor. I had never been so scared in my entire life. I thought for sure that he was going to catch me and I knew that if he would have, he would have done something horrible. I was breathing heavily and shaking all over. Slowly, I regained control of my body and pushed myself from the floor. My legs were wobbly at first, but after steadying myself against the wall, I could stand straight. I took in a deep breath and looked down the hall. It seemed that wherever Regulus had run off to, he hadn't been found. Everything was quiet, everything except for someone sobbing.

In all my own excitement I had almost forgotten that Abraxas Malfoy had to have been screaming at someone. I pushed myself from the wall and neatly walked around the suit of armor. With apprehensive steps, I neared the room. At first glance, it looked like any old study and surprisingly, everything had been put back in its place. I had expected chaos, destruction beyond belief from what I had heard, but everything was right where it should be. My eyes continued to trace around the room and landed on the farthest corner from the door.

In the corner sat Lucius Malfoy, huddled up, shaking uncontrollably and sobbing hysterically. He was gasping for air and failing to succeed, each breath growing shorter and more rapid than the one before it. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, curled up into a ball.

It hit me like a brick what it had all been about then. I was the boy his father had been shouting about; the one that made the quidditch team and Bellatrix was the girl; that vile horrible word no one should say.

Slowly, I walked toward him. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I could do something. We weren't the best of friends, but we were still friends, no matter how strangely. "Lucius?"

He looked up. The look I saw in his eyes was something I only saw once and I think I will never see again. The image, I knew then, would be forever burned into my mind. He was frightened beyond belief. If his shaking and labored breathing were not enough to cause concern, then his eyes were. "Get out." He muttered and put his head between his knees.

I didn't ask the obvious question: does your father beat you? That much was perfectly clear and it would do no good for me to ask him of it. There was a cut running along one of his hands, and I swore I had seen a black eye. "Lucius….I…" I trailed off. Nothing in my upbringing had prepared me for what to say to a kid who had just been beaten by his father. "I'm…I'm sorry." It was the only thing I could think of to say. It was stupid to say it, hindsight; it wasn't as if he would magically feel better if I said it. He didn't look up at me, so I continued on and took slow steps toward him. I sat down softly beside him, but when I reached out to touch him, he shrank away and drew into an even tighter ball as his breathing worsened.

"Lucius." I reached out again, this time he let me. My hand resting on his shoulder, I looked down at him. He was so shaken and scared. "It's….it's….." I choked on words, holding back. It's okay? Fuck no it wasn't. Nothing was okay about this. "I'm here." I finally muttered. "I'm here."

I sat with him for I don't know how long; minutes, hours. He slowly gained control over his haggard breathing, but was still shaking violently. At one point, he leaned against me and started wailing his eyes out, at another, he was pushing me away, refusing to let me touch him. Occasionally he drew in a sharp breath or two, then looked sideways at me with a look that I didn't even dare contemplate. All I could do was sit there and say "I'm here."

In time, he had calmed down. I patted him on the back. "Mere says you can come over, any time you want this summer." Now, I dearly wanted him to come over, if for nothing but to get him out of reach of his father. I pushed myself off the floor as he nodded bleakly at me. When I reached the door he called out.

"Rodolphus?"

I turned around and looked into those broken grey eyes.

"Don't tell anyone."

I nodded, held his gaze, and headed out of the room.

I found Regulus hiding in a closet in a hallway off the front room. "What happened?" He asked me the minute I found him.

"Not now. Let's get out of here first."

Shutting the door to the closet carefully behind me, I grabbed him by the arm and we headed down the hallway together. Stopping just outside the front room, I pushed him into the shadows created by the doorway as a house elf walked by. There was a knock on the door, which he ran to answer. He let someone in that I couldn't see and escorted him to a door on the opposite side of the room.

"Okay, coast clear." I muttered and we made a mad dash across the foyer to the fireplace. I found the matches to light the fire, neglected on the floor beside the grate and picked them up. "Quick, look for the floo powder." I urged and Regulus complied, fumbling with his hands on top of the mantelpiece as I frantically tried to keep a look out and light a match at the same time.

"SHIT….HIDE!" And we had no choice but to duck into the unlit fireplace and shut the grate before Abraxas walked by. I heard him disappear into the room that the guest had been led in to. "You stay here." I whispered and I slowly slid the grate apart and crawled out from the fireplace. Covered in soot, I crawled around to look on my knees. I could see Abraxas' long shadow against the wall of the room, but that meant that unlike previously, the door was not shut.

I motioned for Regulus to climb out and he followed suit. Then I pointed to the mantle and he went back on his search for the floo powder. I lit the fire carefully, trying not to make the slightest of noises. Luckily, when I struck the match, the man in the room with Abraxas laughed very loudly, disguising any noise.

I heard the sound of footsteps again. I looked around wildly. There was no where for us to hide. The fireplace was currently hosting a fire and there was no way we could close the grate to hide the fire and make it back to the hallway we had come from in time. "Hurry!" I pleaded.

It was then that Regulus found the bag of floo powder. He took it from the mantle and tried to undo the string at the top of the small bag. "Rodolphus, it's not working."

"Keep trying." I urged, throwing the matches aside.

"It's not working. It won't open." He looked up, frantic, mouth agape.

The steps were coming closer and closer, down the stairs. I spared a glance over my shoulder and saw the edge of Latona's heels appear on the stairs. I seized the entire bag from Regulus and threw it into the fire. It roared up, scorching the insides on the fireplace and turning the flames green. Grabbing him by the hand, I lunged into the flames and shouted "LESTRANGE MANOR!"

A minute later found me lying in my kitchen on my back with Regulus on his stomach a few feet away. Mere appeared above me. "So, how did it go?"