Author's Note:
This is for the Final Round #1 for the QLFC
I am Beater 2 for Pride of Portree
Characters used: Bellatrix (team character) and Andromeda (chosen by me)
Prompts Used:
7. (Colour) cotton candy pink
10. (Word) Embrace
Tasty Muggle Nonsense
Born a boy to hold and carry on the Ancient Name,
Born a girl to serve and raise her sons to do the same,
May Purest blood be blessed this way in perpetuity,
Lest those without this balance fall into insanity.
-Unknown Member of the Black Family, circ. 1783
"Bella! Bella! They're asleep! Let's go!"
Bellatrix Black groaned and rolled on her side. She just wanted to sleep. There were only a few weeks left before school started, and she'd spent every moment getting as much beauty rest as possible. Puberty had hit her hard, and she could use as much time as she could get in the dark embrace of sleep.
Wait a minute.
She was sitting upright in moments.
"How did you get in here, 'Dromeda?" Bellatrix said, narrowing her sleepy eyes.
"That's for me to know and for you to figure out by yourself!" Andromeda Black said cheekily, sticking the tip of her tongue out in the gloom of the darkened bedroom. "So... are you going to come with me, Bella, or am I going to have to go by myself?"
"Don't make me hex you, Droms."
Grumbling a string of curses she knew she wasn't supposed to know yet under her breath, Bellatrix Black swung her legs over the side of the bed and slipped her feet into the flat black loafers she'd left lying perfectly parallel to one another and pulled her wand out from under her pillow. It had been a habit she'd gotten into after being in the Slytherin girl's dorms for two years. Bellatrix did not enjoy pranks unless she was the one pulling them, and the other girls resented her for being quicker on the draw. Gradually, a sense of paranoia had begun to grow in her mind. She heard whispers she knew couldn't be real, even though she could hear them more clearly than her own thoughts. Luckily, these fugues seemed to be few and far between, but afterwards she was always left with a strange sense of fear and disgust at herself for ever believing it to be real.
Still, she knew better than to ask anyone about it. She did not wish to disgrace her father by being sent to St. Mungo's for having an infirm mind.
Bellatrix Black adored her father. As the eldest child, she eagerly adopted Pure-Blooded sensibilities. She'd been elated when her father had told her how proud he was of her for being Sorted into Slytherin.
She only wished her gender was different. The thought of losing her beloved surname made her want to swear off marriage altogether, though it was her duty to wed... and bear children... ugh…
Bellatrix wanted power.
She craved it like she craved chocolate frogs. One was never enough, and she was willing to do anything for more.
She almost hoped that the talks of betrothing her to Sirius Black would go through. Then she would still be a Black, and a younger husband was easier to control. She had some doubts about Sirius, though, whose exploits were shouted through the floo on a weekly basis by her Aunt Walburga.
Bellatrix loved her wand. She loved using magic with impunity at home; her father encouraged her to try out new hexes on the older house elves, who were honestly good for nothing else.
A part of her, however, envied Andromeda's freedom to play in the street, often with muggle children. Their father worked long hours in the Ministry trying to pass legislature to tighten restrictions on lesser creatures and steadfastly fight against the opposition to the Old Ways. Narcissa was a sickly child, taking much of their mother's energy. This was why Bellatrix was expected to keep an eye on Andromeda.
There were, however, times when Bellatrix wondered who was watching whom.
"Come on!" Andromeda pouted, pulling on her elder sister's wrist. "The carnival closes in three hours time!"
It had been all that her sister would talk about for the past week.
"We couldn't get in. We don't have any dirty Mudblood money," Bellatrix had grumbled earlier that week.
"Is that so?" Andromeda had a look on her face that filled Bellatrix with dread. Every time her sister made that expression, something terrible was sure to happen.
"Merlin's hat, Droms!" Bellatrix swore as her sister pulled out a bag of coins that were most definitely not proper Wizarding money.
"Won 'em at marbles, sis!" Andromeda had crowed, grinning toothily. "All thanks to my ace in the hole!"
She held up a large glass orb that whizzed and spun; a piercing blue pupil moving around and around endlessly.
"Oh, no! You didn't! That's Great Aunt Cass's glass eye!" Bellatrix had gasped, trying to hide the smirk that spread across her face.
After that, Andromeda had made her sister promise to take her, and truth be told, Bellatrix was curious. She'd heard about muggle carnivals from her uncle, who was absolutely livid when one had sprung up a mile away from his ancestral manor, about the depraved things they did in their so-called "freak shows." Though she thought of muggles as freaks as well, the thought of seeing what even muggles thought freakish intrigued her.
Of course, if there wasn't enough fun to be had, Bellatrix had no qualms making a bit of fun herself.
"Well, if you're so smart, then how do you propose we get outside? Father always raises the wards before he retires for the evening." Bellatrix smirked triumphantly as she finished pulling on her traveling cloak and tucked her wand into the inner pocket for safekeeping. Her fingers already itched to grasp it, but she controlled the urge.
"Simple!" Andromeda wrinkled her nose and grinned. "Palli!"
A loud pop filled the room and the little house elf appeared on the floor, bowing low.
"Yes? Little Miss calls?"
"Palli, take my sister and I to the front step of the house now. We wish to look at the stars." Andromeda's voice was steady, and there was no trace of falsehood as she lied.
Bellatrix was secretly impressed at this.
"Yes, Miss!" the house elf squeaked, instantly pulling them through space in a manner almost but not quite like Side-Along Apparition.
The cool air hit her face, and Bellatrix looked dubiously at the darkened street around them. Part of her, the pure-blooded lady part, was aghast at being out alone after dark. Another part, however, felt a wicked surge of glee. Somehow, being out at night without her parents gave Bellatrix a sense of possibility that hadn't been there moments before. There was something wild and uninhibited about nighttime, and it filled her with wonder.
An odd, hot-blooded sensation rose in her belly. It was like an itch, a craving, but she couldn't quite tell what it was for, not yet.
"Come, now! It's just this way!" Andromeda was pulling Bellatrix down the street, her joyful peals of laughter bouncing off of the cobblestones. Bellatrix looked back and saw the house elf pulling on her ears with anxiety.
Suddenly, Bellatrix knew what she needed to do.
"Just a moment, Droms, I've always wanted to try this," Bellatrix said, pulling out her wand and advancing on the quivering elf. "Don't you tell Mother or Father where we've gone, or I'll make you wish you were never born, you hear me?"
The elf squeaked and nodded.
Bellatrix pretended to turn away, but then twisted around, pointed her wand at the house elf and shouted, "CRUCIO!"
The effect was instantaneous. The pitiful creature let out a terrible cry of pain and curled up in a tiny ball.
"Bella! What are you doing?!" Andromeda was at her sleeve, pulling on her sister, trying to bring her back to her senses, but Bellatrix could feel her face twisting into a terrifying gash-like smile as a strange sense of calm and control filled her like a drug.
Power.
It was intoxicating.
Pain radiated across her cheek and Bellatrix found herself shocked back into her senses.
"Hey!" she cried, rubbing her face as Andromeda reared back to slap her again. "C'mon. I'm fine now. I was just making sure your stupid house elf doesn't rat us out."
"You scared me for a moment there, Bella. It was like you were... someone else... someone evil." Andromeda's eyes were wide.
They walked in silence until they reached the gates to the carnival.
Bellatrix could see what looked like a thousand tiny flames strung together, though they did not burn the way a proper candle did. They flickered and flashed in a pattern but did not fully light up the area, and Bellatrix wondered why the muggles even bothered with such inferior lighting.
The coins in Andromeda's marble bag were sufficient to get them through the gates, though the ticket-taking attendant looked at them suspiciously when Andromeda simply poured the bag out in front of him instead of counting out the money properly.
"You don't want to be flashing that around, girls," he growled, handing them their admission tickets.
Bellatrix didn't like how he looked at them, but she merely helped Andromeda fill her bag again and tucked it into Andromeda's longcoat. She was Slytherin, after all. Even though hexing the old, ugly man within an inch of his life would have been satisfying, she didn't want to have Aurors swarming around the carnival. The Trace was inconvenient, though if her father's newest initiative passed, pure-blooded families would be exempt from it.
"Ooh! Let's go on rides first!" Andromeda pointed to a bunch of metal contraptions laid out on a grassy field. They were painted garish colors and adorned with more flashing lights. People's faces contorted as the metal cars spun and raced over tracks. Shrieks and screams filled the air.
Bellatrix was curious.
"Are these some sort of Muggle torture devices?" she asked her sister, obviously somewhat impressed.
Andromeda let out a nervous giggle, as though not completely sure if her sister was joking or not.
Somehow the Muggles had figured out a way to voluntarily get their fellow non-magical people to submit themselves to something that would make them scream in terror?
This, she had to see.
They soon learned that there were separate tickets they had to purchase to ride the rides themselves, though Bellatrix was somewhat skeptical at first.
"You say that being spun around and around is... fun?" she asked the man standing by the ride taking tickets.
"Do ya wan' ta go on the ride or don't ya?" he said through a broken mouth with only a few remaining yellow teeth.
In the end, they got on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Andromeda held on tight to the metal lap bar as Bellatrix held up her hands, whooping and hollering with delight as they spun and twisted.
Bellatrix hadn't realized that screaming was something one could do while having fun.
They only had enough tickets to go on two other rides, and after looking each one over, they decided to ride the roller coaster, which boasted an exhilarating three story drop, and then went back to the Tilt-A-Whirl at the end. She'd learned that by pushing her weight into the side of the car, she could make it spin faster and faster until the giddy sensation in her stomach bubbled over into shrieks of delight. Andromeda, however, looked decidedly green once the ride was over, and they moved down a lighted path towards a small, striped tent.
Freak Show, read a large, painted sign.
Bellatrix's heart begin to beat with excitement. What horrors would be inside? Two-headed babies? Horrifying disfigurements? She'd heard so much and was very curious indeed.
There were disgusting things floating in jars, but on a second glance, most of them looked fake. The Bearded Lady had a soul patch. The Siamese Twins were the most interesting. They sang together in the most haunting voices, and Bellatrix could feel a shiver run down her spine.
Bellatrix left the tent feeling rather disappointed, but Andromeda seemed relieved to be outside again.
"We should go," Bellatrix said, her fingers grasping her wand as she idly wondered if she could get away with torturing her sister's house elf again.
"N-no... I'm f-fine…." Andromeda was still a little green as she took deep, cleansing breaths.
"What do you want to do, then?" Bellatrix looked at her sister skeptically.
"Can we at least get something sweet before we go?" Andromeda looked up at her sister with big, shiny, puppy-dog eyes.
For some reason, this filled Bellatrix with a sense of irrational rage and she had to hold back the urge to strike her sister. They were alone, two girls in the dark at a carnival surrounded by strange Muggles. Suddenly, their grand adventure simply didn't seem nearly as fun as it had before.
"Fine!" Bellatrix said sharply. "One treat! You'd better not vomit on me, or I'll hex you!"
Andromeda's eyes were watery, as though she were holding back tears, but then she blinked rapidly, and they were gone.
"I think it's back over this way," Andromeda said, her voice strangely husky as she pointed to their left.
"Well, let's hurry. I can feel the wind picking up." Bellatrix shoved her hands in her cloak, a wave of paranoia washing over her as she glanced around, wondering who was watching her.
Her fingers tightened around her wand and the urge to cast hexes began to worsen until it felt like an itch under her skin. Time seemed to slow, and then stop, filling Bellatrix with a nervous energy. She tapped one foot impatiently, her head snapping from side to side looking for an enemy.
There was nothing.
"Here! I got one for you too!" Andromeda had thrust a large globe of light-pink fluff in Bellatrix's face.
Time began to move normally again. The strange feeling of paranoia dissolved abruptly and the itch under her skin eased up until she could barely feel it.
"What is this?" Bellatrix asked.
"Cotton candy!" Andromeda replied, giggling as Bellatrix took the tiniest of bites, allowing the flavor to touch her tongue before swallowing.
Her eyes widened.
"This is surprisingly... amazing!" she exclaimed, tearing off pieces eagerly until her cheeks were rather sticky. It was most certainly not the pure-blooded way of eating, but Bellatrix found that she didn't care.
They munched on in silence as they began their walk home, and it was only when they passed under the streetlamp a block from their home that Bellatrix noticed something shocking.
"Dromeda… your hair... it's…"
"What's wrong?" Andromeda glanced down at the tips of her hair and gasped.
"It's gone pink! Cotton candy pink!" Bellatrix exclaimed, giggling from behind her delicious cotton candy cloud. "You know what that means, don't you?"
Andromeda looked puzzled and shook her head.
"You're a metamorphmagus!" Bellatrix replied with a grin. "Usually they manifest in infancy, but you've always been a late bloomer, Dromeda!"
Bellatrix patted her own rather developed bosom and pointed at her sister's flat chest for emphasis.
Andromeda went scarlet, which made her new hair color look even more appropriate.
"I'm only just eleven, Bella! There's plenty of time left!"
"Just keep telling yourself that, Droms," Bellatrix said lazily, finishing off the last bite.
They'd reached their front door, which meant that Bellatrix could use her wand again without setting off the Trace. She scourgified their faces and did a once-over on Andromeda, who was a bit worse for wear. Bellatrix noticed with a smirk that the house elf wasted no time bringing them back to their rooms safely before disappearing again.
"So, what did you think?" Andromeda asked cheekily as Bellatrix brushed out her hair, which was now going a dark cerulean blue at the tips.
"I suppose the Muggles have some good things," Bellatrix mused, "but it's not like anyone needs to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl."
"What about the cotton candy, though?" Andromeda countered.
Bellatrix considered her sister's words.
"Well, they're not all bad," she admitted, "but they're still inferior."
Andromeda snorted but said nothing. Bellatrix knew how her sister's eyes lit up when she spoke of Muggle inventions and their society. She did not understand it, but she could see that it made her sister happy.
This would always be a secret between the two sisters, and Bellatrix caught herself wondering if it would ever happen again. Things were changing. The spells of madness and paranoia came on more frequently, like an uninvited guest that outstayed its welcome time and time again. Then there was the man whose name was only said in whispers around the wireless. Her father said that his power rivaled that of Grindelwald, and that he was sympathetic to their cause.
No, Bellatrix knew exactly who she was. She would follow the traditions and customs befitting the eldest daughter of the Noble and Ancient House of Black. There was power to be gained. There would be no time for Muggle carnivals.
Still, as she closed her eyes, Bellatrix's stomach swooped with delight as her memories played out over and over until she drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.