Bellatrix Black sat in a deserted corner of one of Hogwarts’ many corridors. She pressed a sharp, shining blade vertically into her wrist. She wrote with the knife, cutting powerful words onto her skin and leaving deep wounds.
She wanted to do this, however cliché it sounded; she wanted to end her life, and when they had found her, to leave them with a mark of the pain she had endured.
She continued to press the metal into her skin; she grimaced when the blade hit her sensitive palm, but swallowed and thought not of this pain but of the pain of her life.
Though she was a Slytherin she had had a slightly different view of life than her classmates. Many of them were in fact quite courteous with other Slytherins; she preferred to hate all people. When poor Severus Snape was dangling by his legs one day after his OWLS, many Slytherins had gotten angry and tried to harm the certain someone who was harming a member of their house (but instead were stopped by other houses and fought with them instead). Bellatrix had laughed coldly. The only thing that had stopped her from joining in and causing the boy more misery was the fact that her cousin, Sirius Black, was the one holding the wand.
Sirius Black might have been her cousin, but he was part of a long list of traitors to the pureblood Black line. He was a Gryffindor; that was the first thing that made Bellatrix furious. He also hated her, her and the rest of their Slytherin family members, past and present. The only thing she disliked about her way of death was the fact that he wouldn’t meet her afterwards, at least not as soon as she’d like.
And what was afterwards? Afterwards was being passed through a silvery, haunting veil. There was heaven there, and there was hell. Hell was the place all Black family members went; that she knew matter-of-factly. She wondered if the whole family had been placed there, no matter what their actions. She was impassive about spending eternity in flames; spending life in exile was no way to survive.
“Ms. Black.” Words came out of a person’s mouth behind her.
She continued pressing the knife into her skin; by now blood was seeping through the wooden bench that she was sitting on. She ignored the person, and instead focused on letting her soul leave her body as quickly as possible.
“MS. BLACK!” the person said. Bellatrix jumped. The knife fell from her hand, where it fell onto the floor and narrowly missed her foot. She snatched it up quickly, while turning around to meet the interrupter.
Minerva McGonagall was standing a few feet away. her face was pale and she leaned against the wall with one hand for support.
Bellatrix’ eyes widened, and she scowled.
McGonagall was head of Gryffindor House. Bellatrix had counted on her being one of the people who would feel guilty on account of her death.
“Kindly let go of that bloody knife,” McGonagall ordered firmly.
Bellatrix was curious to see McGonagall’s reaction. She set the knife down beside her on the bench.
McGonagall walked closer to get a look at the damage Bellatrix had caused to her arm.
The professor gasped and half-covered her mouth with her hand.
“Why- Ms. Black, why are you injuring yourself with a Muggle device?”
Bellatrix sighed. To have to die to prove her point was enough but to have to explain beforehand…
“A wand seemed meaningless.”
McGonagall raised her eyebrows.
“Please continue.”
Bellatrix found herself explaining all of the problems of her life to this teacher, and why she had wanted to leave them behind…
When she finished they were both crying and McGonagall was standing very close to her. Not close enough to sit on the blood-soaked bench, of course, but close enough to give Bellatrix a well-needed hug.
“Lets get you to the Hospital Wing,” she said, “Surely you don’t want this.”
Bellatrix froze- did she want this? Surely she had spent a long time, perhaps hours doing the damage, did she want her hard work to be taken away with a simple spell?
She did.
Bellatrix didn’t want to actually live in flames until she knew she’d meet her cousin in them.
Author's Note: I have several other fictions on this site. Please review.