A/N: I jeep like, coming back to this and then forgetting about it LOL, I started it in 2018 and then it's been an on and off thing ever since?...
The Ethical Ramifications Of Murder (Or How Lucius Malfoy Is The Exception That Confirms The Rule)
I. Navigating Hogwarts as a Tired Lesbian: A Guide By Bellatrix Black)
Dear diary,
Today, I narrowly avoided detention for almost killing Lucius Malfoy.
I really hope Mother never catches wind of this one, because I am never in the mood to get (metaphorically) beheaded by her, but for my defence, the git was asking for it. And in the end, I got to kiss a pretty girl, so good for me.
The thing is, Malfoy never learns. I'm not joking when I say that I need more than my two hands to count the amount of times I've caused that motherfucker bodily harm, but he just won't listen! I pushed him down the stairs and hit him with my bad a good hundred times a week, for Merlin's sake, I tried it all! I was at my fucking limit, and desperate times call for desperate measures; right? So yes, I guess torture is a little bit extreme of a solution, and yes, I know that in the end, I did it just so I could kiss Rita, but what about it? It was deserved if you ask me. It's criminal that I'm hot and single, and that the only people in my 'acceptable' dating pool are gay (Rodolphus) or extremely annoying (*shivers* Malfoy). So yes, I crossed the line... a little sabotage here and there can't kill anyone... And then it did... Sigh.
The moral of the story is: Next time, I'll be more careful in my "accidental" murder attempts. I just wanted him to, you know... Suffer a little.
Bella xx
In true Slytherin fashion, Bellatrix Black always appears to be cold and unfeeling, and does not display much emotions besides the perpetual scowl that never seems to leave her face. Of course, Slytherins' supposed inability to do much other than sneer and hex other students has never been anything more than a myth, but Bellatrix sometimes finds herself wondering whether her emotional range exceeds that of a silver spoon.
She knows she isn't the most emotionally competent person there is, and she fears that if it weren't for Narcissa, Andromeda, and her very sparse friend group, she might not be able to love at all.
Most people seem to know better than to get in her way.
After all, she has always been perceived as the most violent of the three sisters, feared by the entire student body of Hogwarts (and probably by a few teachers as well), with years of repressed anger for her parents manifesting in the form of her impulsivity. She somehow manages to secure herself the position of Beater on the house Quidditch team at the young age of twelve, right at the beginning of her second year, in all her five-footed-twelve-year-old grandeur, and she can't help but think about all the ways she's going to use her bat, and by that, she means all the ways she's going to bully others with it (because, again, her reputation isn't based off of nothing). She even starts making a point to carry it with her at all times.
Oh, she remembers how disappointed her mother had been. Druella Rosier has always been about appearances, and is firmly convinced that letting her daughter engage in 'unladylike' activities such as Quidditch can only bring her down, to which Bellatrix could only answer with an eyeroll. No matter how much Druella hates it, she knows that trying to reason with her daughter on this kind of matters would have so much effect as trying to convince her to sit still for more than a minute, so she decides not to bother.
Originally, girls hadn't been allowed to join the Quidditch team, a rule that Bellatrix despised, a rule that was all too old fashioned for her taste, and a rule that the other houses had deemed useless and outdated, and, more specifically, a rule that they had all gotten rid of ages before. Bellatrix, being overly stubborn and wanting nothing short of being able to join the team, decides to form an alliance with her dorm-mate, Rita Skeeter, whom she knows has a knack for misbehaving that can only be comparable to her own. She knows she shouldn't meddle with half-bloods, and should her parents ever learn about it, they'd scold her for ever treating them as equals, but at that moment, she chooses to ignore it. After all, what her parents don't know can't hurt them, right?
"I'm thinking perhaps we could... hex him to death," Bellatrix whispers, holding up her wand in front of her face.
Rita snorts, "Yeah, I'd rather not get sent to Azkaban because you wanted in on the Quidditch team," She pauses for a second, tapping her chin with her finger, "I'm thinking... Something that won't land us in prison for the remainder of our lives."
"We'll have to start by slipping some sleeping draught in his pumpkin juice, to make sure he doesn't wake up during the night," Rita suggests, "If we don't want to get caught, we'll have to wait until curfew to do anything."
"And then we torture him."
"No, we don't, Bellatrix. I'm way too young for prison. Besides, I want to be popular one day, and I don't think that killing the Parkinson sprog will do my reputation any good."
"Fine," Bellatrix says as she rolls her eyes, "But how are we even going to do it? We don't have access to the Potions classroom at night time, and Filch will have our head if he catches us."
Rita smiles, a grin so sinister that Bellatrix wonders whether she's practiced it beforehand, "First, we need a strategy."
The two hatch an over-the-top, meticulous 24-step-plan, one that involves way too many hexes and sneaking out for any authority figure to ever approve of, and settle on alternating between blackmailing and hexing the captain of the Slytherin team, Perseus Parkinson. It briefly comes to their mind that their head of house, Professor Slughorn probably wouldn't be too pleased with their way of handling things, but instead making them of rethink the more unethical aspects of their plan, Bellatrix and Rita are convinced that they should take a stealthy approach instead. According to Bellatrix, they're not guilty unless anyone can prove they are.
They have to do all of the plotting at the crack of dawn, the only source of light being Rita's wand, sitting in Bellatrix's bed with the curtains closed, just in case any of their roommates wake up in the middle of the night and grows suspicious of the constant conspiratorial whispering.
Bellatrix is unable to feel sorry for him. After all, that's all Parkinson deserves for being a giant ponce, and if anything he should be glad she didn't feed him to the giant squid that reportedly lives in the great lake.
Of course, it has never really been her intention for it to go public, but word travels fast around the the Slytherin house, and despite their tendency to isolate themselves, gossip seems to be the one piece of information her fellow house members don't mind sharing with the other houses. By the end of the week, a great portion of students are either afraid of or impressed by her, more than often a combination of both. After all, it's not everyday that a second year overpowers a seven year, all without getting caught or getting detention.
Rita doesn't admit it, but she enjoys all the attention she's been getting lately, just as Bellatrix secretly enjoys being feared by her peers. At that time, she knows better than to let it get to her head.
Dear diary,
I made it to the Quidditch team! Wild, I know right. A little blackmailing here and there did the trick... Is this what Girl Power is?
I have a bat now, which means I can hit any boy that inconveniences me, which is the best thing ever, since boys are VERY annoying. All of them, with no exception... Alexander kissed me yesterday, and I was told I should have liked it but it was meh, you know? I was so mad at him for wasting my time that I considered breaking his kneecaps, but I'm better than that. (I'm not, but it was past curfew and I was tired.)
Rita thinks Rodolphus is cute, which makes me sick. What in the world does she see in him? He probably still thinks money grows on trees, and he's so loud... She could do better.
... Bellatrix
She's only thirteen years old when she meets Lucius Malfoy for the first time. His pale pointy face, blond hair, and icy blue eyes are a stark contrast to his dark robes, and she can't help but think that his face looks obnoxious.
She finds out soon enough that first impressions aren't always wrong.
They're supposed to like each other, or at least pretend that they tolerate each other's presence, so Bellatrix reluctantly lets him join her circle. The two are forced to spend time together, both being part of the Slug Club, but Bellatrix refuses to ever call him anything more than an unfortunate acquaintance, whose existence she'd much rather be unaware of.
She doesn't openly state that she despises him, but that fact is made crystal clear after he tries to hex Andromeda for some derisory reason she can't even bother to remember. Bellatrix is furious that anyone has dared to do so much as touch one of the hairs on her baby sister's head, and, in her defense, Bellatrix reckons he should have known better than to mess with anyone close to her.
So, she doesn't feel a hint of remorse when he ends up in the hospital wing with a broken leg after she sneaks up on him and casts a jelly-legs jinx, sending him toppling down the staircase leading to the dungeons.
Dear diary,
I have done a good deed today.
... Bella xx
At age fifteen, Bellatrix starts wondering what is so great about boys. Each of her dorm mates seems taken with them, and she definitely does not understand why Adelpha Bulstrode refuses to stop rambling about the blue eyes, the glowing hair, or the warmth of Sisyphus Selwyn's arms, or what's so funny about Corban Yaxley's shitty jokes that another of her roommates wouldn't stop gushing about his supposedly uncanny sense of humor. She had always deemed him to be the least amusing being to ever live, but Leandra Fawcett will not stop hysterically laughing at his jokes, to the point that her whole face turns an awkward shade of puce as she desperately tries to catch her breath. Bellatrix sometimes finds herself wondering whether her pumpkin juice has been laced with some kind of laughing potion, but most of the time, she's left staring either in confusion or in disgust at the scene unraveling in front of her.
However, she isn't clueless, far from it. While none of her parents had ever had a proper conversation about courting, as they love to call it, she considers she's kissed enough boys by now to know that she's not particularly fond of them. She'd always been told to give it time, but Bellatrix considers she's wasted enough of hers on boys to know she's not interested.
She watches her roommates do the closest thing to falling in a love a teenager can do, and she thinks of the one person she'd ever be okay getting that close to. Sadly, said person is very far from being a boy, and getting to snog her will be a luxury that Bellatrix, even with all her family riches, will probably never be able to afford.
However, Bellatrix's complete disregard for boys goes unnoticed by Malfoy, who, sometime during the two years they've been forced to interact with each other, has taken an interest in her. It's painfully obvious to Rodolphus, who finds the whole ordeal hilarious. She scolds herself for not noticing sooner, especially since even Narcissa, who is barely a first year, seems to take great pleasure in watching the two interact.
"I don't know if you've noticed but- scratch that, I know you haven't, but Lucius fancies you," Rodolphus says this promptly one day in the middle of their sixth year, on their way to Transfiguration.
"I'm sorry," Bellatrix says, raising an eyebrow, "I didn't quite catch that," she follows, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
Rodolphus sighs. "Listen, someone has to say it. He's fancied you for ages, and while I used to find seeing him pine after you like a lovesick puppy hilarious, it's becoming miserable, quite frankly. You need to put a stop to it before he finds the courage to ask you out."
"Why don't you tell him yourself? I've made my disdain for him quite clear. More than once, actually," Bellatrix has caused Malfoy trouble many times over the years, and much too many for anyone with common sense to ever believe she truly appreciated him. She had thought putting undiluted Bubotuber Pus in his hand cream, which had caused nasty boils to appear all over his hands, and not-so-discreetly hexing him left and right during their Slug Club meetings had been enough for him to get the hint, but she has clearly been mistaken.
Rodolphus hisses at her, "Because he won't listen! He's acting like a little fucking Mudblood."
"Shall I have a go at him with my bat? Perhaps that'll finally knock some sense into that thick skull of his," she snorts. "I reckon I've told him to fuck off enough times over the past years for him to stop pestering me, but I was clearly wrong."
"Yeah, well, you know how he is. Dude's got no self-preservation instincts. Maybe trying out your new bat on him would actually do him some good," he jokes.
Bellatrix is peeved by this, so to say the least. She doesn't understand what in the world has possessed Malfoy to start developing romantic feelings for her (especially seeing the amount of bones he's broken because of her), but Rodolphus' distress makes it quite clear that the situation is desperate. She decides she needs to put a stop to all of this, as soon as possible, and the idea of him ever asking for her hand is all the convincing she needs to start taking action.
"As tempting the idea of breaking his stupid little heart is, I'm not sure my parents would appreciate if I were the reason behind a fallout between the Blacks and the Malfoys."
Bellatrix and Rita are in their dorm room, sitting on Rita's bed, with the former finishing a particularly chronophage Potions essay as the latter paints her nails.
"Right," Rita snorts, "Because I'm sure years of you relentlessly bullying him wouldn't have anything to do with that," she laughs. She pauses, taking a look at her nails. "Oh, and by the way, I've been told your little sister has been caught snogging Pandora Greengrass behind the Quidditch stands. Lovebirds season," she adds, though the implication that Bellatrix would ever get together with Malfoy seems to be much more distressing to her than Andromeda's rumoured homoerotic escapades.
"He's convinced it's tough love," she answers, ignoring her friend's last comment. "Merlin, what a stupid fucking bitch. I wanna hex his bloody arse into oblivion."
"Except that wouldn't make things any better, would it?" Rita asks, as she carefully applies another layer of scarlet nail polish to her toenail.
"I could hide all the Wiggenweld potion in the world and give him a Draught of Living Death," Bellatrix suggests, "Or snatch some Gryffindor's wand and Avada Kedavra his annoying arse with it... Blame it on some Mudblood..."
"Bella, you sound ridiculous."
"Yeah, well, I'll take being called preposterous or going to Azkaban over being married to Malfoy anytime, thank you very much."
"Fair."
Bellatrix sighs, "Well, perhaps I should just... kiss some random girl and let him believe I'm bent. Maybe that'll finally drive him off."
"Yes, a keyword being 'believe'... Everyone knows you're gay, including all the boys you've made out with at some point. I'm fairly sure I heard your sisters talking about it the other day. Narcissa even made a pun about you..."
"Yes, well, Malfoy clearly doesn't," she frowns, "Maybe if I prove to him that I don't like boys, he'll just come around and stop hoping that I'll ever be more to him than an acquaintance who really hates him."
"I mean, sure," Rita shrugs, before pushing her glasses back up her nose with her index, "Good luck finding a girl who'll kiss you just so you can annoy some pre-pubescent git, though. I heard Cedrella Yaxley is pretty bent, but she did date Andromeda last year, so I guess she's off the table."
Bellatrix scrunches up her nose in disgust, "You know, I'd rather not kiss someone who has already played tonsil hockey with my baby sister. I've got standards, you know."
Rita stares at her newly painted nails, deep in thought. "I have an idea."
Rita thinks that snogging Bellatrix in front of Malfoy is the best way to drive him off, and it is the most plausible scenario. After all, Bellatrix and Rita have been inseparable since Second year, and if there was to be one power couple at Hogwarts, everyone agrees that it would be them. Of course, Bellatrix is aware that her eagerness at the idea stems more from her own selfish desire to kiss her best friend than of the need to drive Malfoy away, but after all, there's nothing wrong with killing two birds with one stone.
Dear diary,
If this one doesn't work, I might have to resort to murder.
...A tired Bella