The Shiny Happy Comment Ficathon!
Winter is coming; daylight is fleeting; for the students among us, end-of-semester hell is just about to rear its ugly head. What better way to combat such woes than with a super-cheerful comment ficathon?
Ergo:
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Ergo:
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Title is from a Janis Joplin song (called, shockingly, "All Is Loneliness").
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Bellatrix's earliest memory is of her mother, pale skin and wide, dark eyes, cooing over her darling firstborn girl.
"You will be beautiful, my love," her mother said. "Beautiful and powerful, of course. They will all be so proud of you. So proud."
Bellatrix's father never called her "darling," but on her eleventh birthday, when she returned home from a day of shopping with the finest Slytherin green robes money could buy, he called her "the pride of the House of Black," which was infinitely better.
Bellatrix grew up in a mansion, a stately, twisted old place with centuries of portraits on the walls: the entire family staring down their noses at her with a regal, cold air. Her mother always stopped to smile quiveringly at them when she walked down the hall, grateful for her inclusion in the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.
"We are so lucky, darling," she murmured one night after dinner. "So lucky to be a part of a family with so much to be proud of. Such pure blood. I had to marry for it but you, my beautiful Bella, you have been born into it. Someday you will understand what that means."
Bellatrix understands what it means the moment she sets foot within the walls of Hogwarts. Half of the students aren't even of pure blood, she can tell that much immediately. She curls into herself on the first night, the curtains of her four-poster providing flimsy protection against the mercilessly gray stone walls. She can feel this place trying to dilute her magic, trying to seep into her veins and make her something ordinary.
"Seven years," she whispers into the stifling air. "Seven years and you can leave. You'll never come back again."
But seven years is a long time to spend being dragged down, weighed on by students and professors and ideas that are so dull, so common. There are so few people in this school who know what it means to feel centuries of magic humming through them. Seven years is a long time to spend being hemmed in. Being flattened. So at the end of seven years Bellatrix bursts out into the real world in a panic, desperate to be among people who at the very least know when to bow down.
Tom will make the world bow down, she knows. Tom will be "my Lord" when all is said and done, and he will make everyone-- even those hopeless Mudbloods who crowd the halls of Hogwarts-- understand what it is to be worthy. Tom reminds her of the simple elegance in a well-cast spell and of the sheer, raw joy in performing the ancient magic. The promises he whispers while the rest of the world waits, unaware, are grand and sweeping and wonderful, and after seven years of dull terror the world bursts back into color before her eyes.
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But this. This is perfect. Flawless Bellatrix POV, I even almost sympathize with her racism! Which... is a job well done, as far as I'm concerned. And this:
after seven years of dull terror the world bursts back into color before her eyes.
This is legit beautiful. It is. I do not know how you accomplished it, but it is actually poignant.
Sigh. Shippery bliss.
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I saw it and I thought, "what madness!" and then, pretty much immediately following on that thought was, "I MUST TRY IT" so, you know. That says something about me I am sure. :P
And I am, er. "Glad that you sympathized with her racism" just sounds a bit off but nevertheless! I am glad, because that was sort of the point. :]
I'm so happy that you liked it! It was such a totally unexpected prompt, you rock for leaving it. :D
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PERFECT BELLATRIX! I loved the snapshots of her relationships with her parents and how miserable she was at Hogwarts. It all made her finding Tom so perfect for her. Great work.
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