Team: Puddlemere United

Position: Seeker

Prompt: You'll be writing about two characters in a competitive/rival relationship (positive or negative). I chose Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange

Word Count: 923

if you look into the mirror and don't like what you see (you have an idea what it's like to be me

In another life, Sirius Black had shared a compartment with James Potter. In another life, he had gotten reinforcement about being a Gryffindor, and that had made him brave enough to actually be sorted there.

In another life, Sirius befriended James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. He gets out of the torture that is his home life and begins to heal. He becomes an animagus for a werewolf and is the best man when a pureblood marries a muggleborn.

In another life, Sirius fights against the Death Eaters and their ideas. These ideas are wrong and disgusting in his mind and he cannot believe why this was taught to him as a child.

In another life, Sirius is a good person.

Not in this one.

In this life, Sirius sits alone until his cousin Narcissa enters and takes him to a compartment with her and her friends. They sit together and laugh about the muggleborns who have no idea how anything works. They talk about the other members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight and how sad it is that so few of them remain.

In this life, Sirius doesn't get sorted into Gryffindor, but in Slytherin, aside his family, where he belongs.

In this life, there is no one to teach him that people other than pureblood are worth the life they are living, the space they take, and the air they breathe. No, in this life, Sirius just sort of slips into becoming a servant of Lord Voldemort.

It seems like the right thing to do. He's protecting their society from the filth that threatens to overhaul their values, right?

He must be doing the right thing, after all, everyone is proud of him. His mother is cheering on him and his father has finally stopped giving him these stares of disappointment. Regulus looks up to him, like Sirius is Merlin himself.

It's a really nice feeling, being appreciated.

During the first raid that both he and his cousin Bellatrix had been on, they had started a little competition.

Who is the most successful? Who made the world a tiny bit better by killing off more Muggles and Mudbloods?

Yeah, they make a challenge out of it. It make it even more fun than it already is. Because what else could this be, if not fun? They are a improving the world a little bit, every single time that they go out, after all.

It brings a smile to all of their faces, because there is no reason it shouldn't.

One time, Sirius alone manages to kill off a hundred Muggles during a raid. No one else has been able to touch his score, and he is quite proud of that.

Or he was, right up until Bellatrix points out that he is way behind when it comes to using them for a bit of pleasure before getting rid of them.

"No one's gonna look at you twice if you use a man, if that's your problem," she says once time, after a meeting, when the two of them are alone. "You're just about the only one who isn't doing it, despite the fact that you are among the better half in other areas. It's quite odd."

And that's when it hits him how horrible the things are he has done since he graduated school. He's not quite sure what exactly of Bellatrix's statement it is, but it makes Sirius realize that Muggles and Mudbloods are still human.

And Sirius has hurt, tortured, and killed so, so many of them. He had made a game out of it.

He feels sick.

Giving Bellatrix a flimsy excuse that she can likely see right through, he Apparates home. It's not like she will realize that he's having a crisis of faith; she is way to convinced of the cause to even think about suggesting the mere idea of such thing.

But Sirius sits at home, curled into a small ball in the quietest corner he has, slowly rocking himself back and forth.

What he's been doing can't have been right. Why had he even done it? Because everyone had been doing it? That's not a proper reason to do anything. Many people can be wrong, after all.

Because his family was proud of him? If the latter, when had he begun to care what his family thought of him?

How had he not seen that the people he had been doing just about everything horrible (but raping) to were just that, people? How could he have missed something so glaringly obvious?

Sirius takes a deep breath. This cannot continue any longer. He does not want to be a part of something like this ever again, but he is well aware that he has no chance of ever getting out. Not without help, at least, and he certainly will not receive it from anyone. They either wouldn't approve of him getting out or not believe he is not a spy.

Slowly, he begins to look for his wand.

He laughs dryly through all the tears, because he still gets away with way less than he deserves, with way less than he has made others suffer through. He deserves to rot in Azkaban, but he is too much of a coward for something like that. Sirius is picking the easy way out here.

He raises his wand to his own neck and mutters the words he has used so often. The same words that he had used to condemned so many, teared countless families apart, and end an incredible number of lies prematurely.

"Avada Kedavra."