Sirius had been right. The sky was dark with black and grey clouds, which were rumbling ominously overhead. Even as he began to follow the cousins, Harry felt his skin prickle as tiny raindrops fell on his arms. As he made his way up the hill he had seen Sirius and Bellatrix disappear, he thought of what strange luck this was. He had always wanted to know more about his godfather and who he was before Azkaban. He had only ever seen the younger him through Snape's eyes- and all hopes of learning directly from the man were crushed after his untimely death in the Department of Mysteries. Harry felt his veins boil with anger once again. But this anger, he realized, was directed at Bellatrix Lestrange. The girl he was following was Bellatrix Black. The difference? About thirty years, half of which were spent in Azkaban.
When he reached the top of the hill, Harry stopped abruptly. He hadn't expected such a quick change in scenery. As the mound of earth sloped back downwards, the few trees that lightly spotted the field became a thickly forested landscape. The expansiveness of it had to be an illusion, he figured, since no parents in their right minds would let two eight year olds cross a massive woodland without supervision. Then again, nothing Harry had learned about the Blacks led him to believe they were in their right minds. For all he knew, they might find it perfectly acceptable to send their children out into an uncharted forest right before a thunderstorm.
In any case, Harry had been expecting the barren field to go on for a little longer, which would have made it easy for him to spot the two children. But the combination of the trees, the undergrowth, and the rain, which was rapidly growing thicker, had blocked them from sight. He swallowed. Logically, it made the most sense for them to be going straight. So, willing himself to keep moving, Harry blundered through the trees, his green eyes open for any sudden flicker of movement that would alert him to the direction they had gone in. He trained himself to watch for a flash of the pearly white fabric of Bellatrix's dress disappearing in the distance, or the dark curls of either child's hair.
He wondered idly if the pensieve would take him to wherever Bellatrix was by itself, or if he would wind up in these woods forever, lost inside someone else's memories. He didn't have to think about this long. Just as he was deciding to round a corner and try another direction, he heard a loud, terrified shriek. At the age they were, a girl's scream sounded the same as a boy's, and Harry couldn't tell whose it was. But he could tell where it had come from. Turning sharply left, he hugged the bend and broke into a run, just as the sky broke into a true downpour. Because he wasn't truly there, Harry was not truly getting wet, however, he could feel each drop as it hit his skin. The rain was creating a sort of mist, making it impossible for Harry to see further than fifteen feet ahead of him.
But he didn't need to see, not yet. He was close enough now that he could hear. He followed a series of increasingly paniked shouts from who he presumed to be Sirius. "Bella? Bella! Get up! Can you hear me? Wait here, don't move, I'll go get Andromeda- I'll go get Aunt Druella- I won't leave you, don't worry..." he was rambling, contradicting himself all the while. By now Harry had slowed down; the little boy was in his visibility range. He was standing on the edge of what appeared to be a sudden dip in the ground. As he approached, Harry could see that it was a little creek, presumably dry an hour ago, which now had a small trail of water trickling through it.
At the bottom of it- it couldn't have been more that three feet deep- Bellatrix was face up, lying limply next to a rock, her lip bleeding. Harry assumed she had slipped on the loose soil above the crevice, falling into the dry creek and hitting her head on the stone in the process. It was both interesting and conflicting how innocent she looked right now. Her face was placidly unconscious and her features were youthful and simple. As she lay there in her muddy white dress, he couldn't help but notice the strangely angelic quality about her. She looked... pure.
Harry knew she was alive, of course. If she wasn't, it would have benefited everyone, but as unfortunate as it may be, Harry knew Bellatrix would meet her fate three long decades later. And in any case, there was still a little color in her skin and her chest was rising and falling evenly. But Sirius didn't know all of this. The poor boy was on the verge of tears as he desperately tried to think up a plan. Harry could practically see his godfather's mind working- he didn't want to leave Bellatrix to go get help for fear he wouldn't be able to find her again. He didn't want to stay there, either, because he didn't know how to help her. Harry felt a pang of sympathy for him. He wished he could run off and get help, but knew from previous experience that he was merely a spectator.
Then Sirius lifted his head, yelling at the top of his lungs, "SOMEBODY! HELP ME!" To Harry's surprise, the response was immediate. He heard a woman shout something as he thought he recognized the sound of a door slamming shut. Then there were footsteps, quick and heavy, coming towards them. Harry looked on as the shape of a tall, full woman appeared through the haze, running to Sirius's side.
"What!- Sirius, explain this!" she demanded, her voice shrill and stern. He had burst into tears upon seeing her, and now pointed feebly down to where Bellatrix had fallen. The woman- whose face Harry had seen hanging from the wall of Number 12, Grimmauld Place- paled, her eyes widening in alarm. "Go- fetch Druella," she said. Sirius looked up at her, wide-eyed. "Go- now!" she barked the order. His mouth opened, his lip trembling with fear and cold.
"I- I can't," he stammered. "I promised her I'd stay." For a moment, the woman looked as if she was about to explode. Then, knowing better than to waste time in argument with her son, she turned around, rushing off and falling out of Harry's line of vision, muttering something along the lines of, "what am I to do?" Alone once again, Sirius's wide eyes turned back to Bella's slight form. Cautiously, the boy bent down beside the edge, slowly lowering himself into the shallow creek so he wouldn't make the same mistake Bellatrix had. As his feet touched the ground, he crouched beside his cousin, lifting her head out of the rising water. He remained this way until Druella and Walburga returned.
Harry focused on Druella. This was the first time he had seen her. She looked young, perhaps thirty at most, with fair, blonde hair and light blue eyes. She was wearing a vacant, grim expression as she fell into step behind Walburga. She had a fragile, dainty build, with pale skin and large, noticeable shadows under her eyes. From the impression he got of her, Harry figured she would be a very pretty woman, had she put any effort into her appearance. In fact, she looked incredibly similar to Narcissa Malfoy, only less put together.
She reached the two children just as Bellatrix was beginning to regain consciousness. Her eyes opened and she groaned, blinking up at Sirius with a curious expression. Sirius cracked a huge grin, immensely relieved she was alive. And Harry watched as the sister-in-laws stopped in front of them.
• • •
Hitting your head on a rock was incredibly painful, Bellatrix discovered. The moment of impact, it hurts for a moment, then its gone. But when you wake up, you're throbbing all over and can barely see three inches from your nose. And you're soaking wet. She groaned as this unpleasant sensation washed over her, opening her eyes. In front of her- she had to blink several times before she was certain of it- was the face of Sirius Black, her own cousin, Sirius Black. He was grinning in such a way Bella found she had to return to gesture in a slight, very confused smile. Before she could speak, she became aware of her mother at her side, lifting her over one shoulder and carrying her out of the creek. She had no choice but to submit, given that she didn't think she'd be able to walk on her own.
Behind her, Aunt Walburga was yanking her son- not hard enough to hurt him, but enough to make him stumble a few feet- after them. She had been lucky, tripping so close to the house. She had been just seconds away from losing the race back home. In a final attempt to close the distance between herself and her cousin, Bellatrix had sped up, not noticing the drop in the ground that she was supposed to jump over in her haste. In fact, the Black Manor was only about a hundred yards from the creek. They lived in the woods, where they would be far from the nearest muggle society.
It was a wonderful place to live. In the daytime, sun would shine down on the leaves of the trees which created shadows on the ground that were fun to dance in. There was lots of open space for a little girl to play in, and there was a field not far from the house that was a good place to run to if she or her sisters ever needed more room. And, according to Uncle Orion, there were threstals in these woods. Bella couldn't see them, but this made them even more fascinating to her. Sometimes she would sit behind the house and gaze out into the open, imagining what the creatures looked like and wondering if they were present. Other times she'd tuck pieces of meat into her pockets when her mother wasn't looking and place them in various spots outside later that evening. They were always gone when she came back to check, but of course, there were many other explanations for how it could have disappeared.
It wasn't long before Druella reached the backsteps of the house. As she began the assent, Bella peered out over her mother's shoulder, her dark eyes fixated on a point off in the distance. She couldn't be sure, but she had thought she had seen the dark figure of a tall man, or perhaps a boy still, standing in the shadows and watching. She had hit her head hard when she had fallen, perhaps this was only her mind playing tricks on her. Bellatrix tilted her head as she stared back at him, her mouth parted in childlike wonder before she was carried inside and lost sight of him.
• • •
And only a few feet away from this mysterious man, Harry stood frozen to the spot as he tried to comprehend what Tom Riddle wanted from Bellatrix Black.