Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything in their magical world. These characters and their world belong to the talented J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.
Bella sat on the cold damp floor. Wetness soaked through her robes, but she didn’t care. Truthfully, she didn’t even notice anymore. The room stank, but that no longer affected her either. Food arrived regularly; she could smell it. She never ate it, though. She didn’t want to eat. She didn’t deserve food, but she did deserve the cold and the eternal darkness.
She rarely moved. Her days and nights were spent sitting in that spot. There was really no reason for her to move. She had nowhere to go, and even if she did, she couldn’t see to get there. Karma had finally caught up to her. After all of her years of making other people weak, defenseless, and alone, she became just like them.
Of course, none of that mattered to her anymore. She no longer felt attached to the physical world. Her entire life was now in her head”in her memories.
She had good days and bad days. On the good days she remembered her childhood, growing up with her sisters. They had so much fun as children. They had been so close. They had promised to stay that way forever, but promises are never kept. At least, she had her memories.
She thought of the time they accidentally turned her father pink. She had been in her second year at Hogwarts at the time, and her friend had just taught her a spell to change colors. She had gone home for the summer, and she was really anxious to teach her sisters the new spell. The summers after her first two years at Hogwarts had been really special to her because she was the only one of her sisters who knew magic, and she could teach them things. It had felt so good when they looked up to her.
But that day their admiration had sort of backfired. It was just before dinner, and they were outside. Andromeda and Narcissa were finally starting to get the hang of the spell. Andromeda had turned a tree purple, and Narcissa had turned the family cat green. They were laughing, and enjoying themselves when Narcissa decided to try the spell again. Unfortunately, while she was aiming to turn the front door pink their father Apparated home from work. The spell hit him square in the face, and his whole body immediately turned a bright shade of pink. Narcissa turned a very pale shade of grey.
Bella remembered thinking they were going to be in serious trouble. She doubted that her father would appreciate being turned pink. She also doubted that he would appreciate her using magic when she wasn’t allowed, and teaching her sister’s spells before they were old enough. To her shock, he simply laughed, and then recommended that they not mention it to their mother. She could still remember how relieved she had been in that moment. The innocent relief of a twelve year old, who really had nothing to fear in the first place.
She also thought back to the time she and her sisters decided to explore the forest behind their childhood home. It was another hot summer day, but the girls were a few years older. Bella had just completed her fifth year, Andromeda her third, and Narcissa her first.
They found that they were bored, and anxious to get away from the gloomy mansion. Once in the forest, Bella and Andromeda plopped against a large oak tree. They were content to sit and talk, but Narcissa was determined to explore the forest. There was nothing Bella or Andromeda could do to stop her, so they simply warned her not to go to far, and chatted while they waited for her to return.
Shockingly, she returned rather quickly, but she did not return alone. Strolling behind her was the most beautiful unicorn. Bella and Andromeda had just stared at their sister. It was true that unicorns liked females better than males, but they weren’t tame. It was unbelievable that their little sister would be able to coax one into following her around.
“Can we keep her?” Narcissa had asked, in her charming little girl way.
Naturally, Bella and Andromeda were instantly swayed. So the three Black sisters moved a unicorn into the lower level of their home. It stayed there for three months before it was discovered by the family house-elf, at which time it was returned to the forest, and the girls were grounded.
Bella smiled at the thought. Narcissa had always been considered the most innocent of the three sisters when they were growing up. But looking back, it seemed that she was the one who usually got them in trouble.
Those were the type of memories Bella dwelled on when she was having a good day. On a bad day, her memories became much darker. She was haunted be her horrible deeds. Her mind was terrorized by the heinous things she had done and had done to her.
She remembered the first time Rodolphus had ever attacked her. It was before they were even married. She had spent the day with Narcissa. They were getting ready for the wedding. When they returned to their parent’s house he was waiting for her. He had that evil look in his eye.
Her parents didn’t seem to notice the evil in his stare, or maybe they simply didn’t care. Either way they left her alone with him, hurrying Narcissa up the stairs. He was drunk and furious. She never did find out what he was mad about. But she did find out what the Cruciatus Curse felt like.
He left her lying on the floor in her parent’s living room. She lay there sobbing for hours. No one ever came to check on her, not even her sisters. That was her first taste of being truly alone. Soon after that, it became her way of life.
She was haunted by memories of the night Andromeda left the Black Mansion for the last time. By that time, she was married to Rodolphus and no longer living there herself, but she had been there that night for dinner. She wished she had of stayed home.
It was shortly after Andromeda’s seventeenth birthday, and their parents chose that night to announce that she was to marry Evan Rosier. Of course, they had no idea that Andromeda had already become engaged and had planned on telling them that night.
It had not been a fun dinner. As the years passed, Bella began to forget more and more about that night. She remembered the yelling and the crying. But slowly she began to forget the horrible things they had all said. There was one thing she would remember forever. She would always remember what she, herself, had said to her sister as she walked out the door for the last time. “You are no sister to me. You are nothing to me. You might as well be a Mudblood.”
She would also remember that when Andromeda slammed the door, there were tears in her eyes.
Bella also found herself haunted by the violence of her past. The violence she had committed. She would have nightmares about the Longbottoms, and about her poor cousin, Sirius. Looking back, she couldn’t believe the things she had done.
The Longbottoms had been young. They had a whole life ahead of them. They had a little boy. A little boy who grew up without his parents because of her. Sometimes their screams would echo in her head, and there was nothing she could do to block them out. It was all just part of her penance.
She also, frequently, saw Sirius’ face in her mind. But not the defeated sad man, who died in the Department of Mysteries. She saw the laughing teenager, who used to drive his parents crazy. She saw the little boy, who used to run around her house making a mess of everything. She saw the cousin, who she used to love, dearly. She would be eternally taunted by his smiling face, knowing that she took his smile away forever.
But the worst memory that went through her mind was the memory of her young niece. She could still hear her screams of anguish when she saw her mother’s lifeless body. It was not something the young witch deserved to go through. Her family fought very hard to stay out of the war. They wanted to live peaceful lives. It was sad to think that Andromeda had died because she insisted on showing compassion to the woman everyone believed to be a monster. In the end, they were right because the monster killed the one person who was willing to love it.
Only one thing kept Bella sane when she was plagued by these memories, the simple knowledge that eventually she would die, and be released. She waited for death, and when it came, she would welcome it with opened arms. In death, she would be free, which was something she had never truly experienced before.
In death, she would also be reunited with her sisters. She knew they would be waiting for her. They would forgive her. They always forgave her. Then they would be together again. It would be just like it was when they were children. She would feel loved.
Her sisters were the only light in her darkness, and she couldn’t wait to be with them again, in death.