Chapter 6
Chapter 6: (Tw: mention of sh scars/injuries/self-harming (scratching/burning))
September 1st, Elmwood institute, 7:30am
Bellatrix doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she knows it wasn’t before 4am. When she wakes up, Pandora is not in her bed and she hears noise coming from the bathroom.
She sits up and feels a sharp pain in her left hand as she presses it on the bed. She winces and looks at her bandaged hand now slightly blood stained.
Pandora comes out of the bathroom, once again wearing way too many colored jewelry and accessories. Bellatrix stands up to go to the bathroom too, not paying attention to the other girl.
“What happened?” Pandora asks. Bellatrix looks at her, not knowing what she’s talking about. Pandora is pointing down at Bellatrix’s thigh where a couple of scars are showing, not completely covered by her jumper.
Bellatrix frowns and quickly pulls her jumper down. She hurries to the bathroom pushing Pandora off the way quickly. “None of your fucking business!”
Pandora sits on her bed to avoid falling on the floor and looks at the bathroom’s door closing.
In the bathroom, Bellatrix locks the door and sits on the floor against the wall on the other side of the room. She pulls her legs up against her chest and violently covers them with her jumper. She’s breathing heavily, her nails digging in the fabric enough for her to feel them on her skin.
She starts muttering to herself. “How could you not think about it? How could you be so stupid? You had one thing to hide. One fucking thing.”
She keeps scratching her legs above her jumper, harder and harder, she feels all her legs burn but she doesn’t stop. Until-
“Bellatrix?” Pandora’s soft voice comes from the other side of the door. Bellatrix freezes, she doesn’t answer.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, I’m sorry if I did.” Pandora waits a little bid, but when she sees that Bellatrix still doesn’t answer, she just says. “I think I’ll go to breakfast now, sorry again.”
Bellatrix hears the dorm’s door close and the room falls quiet. She eventually stands up and pours some water on her face. She looks at her reflection in the mirror and whispers. “Fuck you.”
She quickly dresses up in her usual clothes, this time, she carefully makes sure all the scars are hidden. She checks herself one last time in the mirror, a look of disgust on her face, and gets out of the bathroom.
The dorm is empty, Pandora isn’t back yet. Bellatrix mechanically puts her hands in her pockets and to her surprise, doesn’t feel anything in it. She could have sworn she had put her lighter and pocket knife in her pockets, because she always does. She always has them with her, just like a child never goes out without their comfort plushie, Bellatrix never goes out without her…lighter and knife?
She goes through all her bags in an attempt to find them, every minute without finding them gets her a little more anxious. After dissecting all her bags one by one she goes to her bedside table and opens the first drawer.
At that moment, someone knocks at the door. She hurriedly answers “Not now.” But the door opens anyway. Bellatrix turns around to complain until she sees her sisters getting in. She doesn’t say anything and turns back around to keep searching, opening the second drawer.
“We were waiting for you to go have breakfast.” Andromeda says, leaning against the door frame. Bellatrix distractedly answers. “Yeah, one second.”
Narcissa sits on Bellatrix’s bed. “What are you searching for?” Bellatrix closes the 2nd drawer. “Nothing important, don't worry about that.”
She eventually opens the last drawer. There. She sees the items, grabs them quickly and shoves them in her pocket before Narcissa can see what it is. Obviously they had to be in the last place she looked. Anyway, she pushes the drawer close and hurriedly stands up.
“Got it, let’s go.” She leaves the dorm and waits in the corridor for her sisters to follow. Andromeda looks at her, clearly suspicious, but she doesn’t say anything.
The three girls lead to the dining room where everyone is gathered for breakfast. When she enters, she sees Pandora looking towards her but she quickly looks away, finding a place for her sisters and her further away. She sits next to Andromeda who sits next to Narcissa.
Both of them are deep into a conversation Bellatrix doesn't really try to understand. Her head is spinning slightly, her thoughts spiraling. She doesn't pay attention to anything around.
Mechanically, she takes the lighter in her pocket and hides it under the table before she starts lighting and extinguishing it. She looks at the flame go on and off, again and again, in an attempt to ground herself.
She picked up this habit over time at home. She obviously wasn’t allowed to look unwell in public, so anytime she felt like she wasn’t in control of the situation, she focused on the lighter. It was small, repetitive and gave a physical and visual distraction. It was the best she found to stay sort of calm.
As the flame on the lighter dies out, Bellatrix presses her thumb on the scorching hot metal, feeling the burning sensation until she can’t stand it anymore. She does it a couple of times, which distracts her from everything around. So well that she doesn’t hear Andromeda calling her for the third time.
Eventually, she feels her sister shaking her shoulder slightly and looks at her.
“Trix! What are you doing? It’s not the moment to set fire to the room, yeah?”
Bellatrix frees her shoulder annoyingly. “I’m not setting fire to anything, it's fine.”
Andromeda looks at her hand, her thumb still resting on the top of the lighter. She grabs Bellatrix’s hand and turns it around. The skin on her thumb was bright red, white and swollen. She frows slightly and looks at her sister.
Bellatrix quickly takes her hand away and cuts off Andromeda about to say something. “Shut up.”
Narcissa looks at them confused. “What’s happening?”
Andromeda answers before Bellatrix. “Bellatrix is-.”, “Andy stop.” Bellatrix cuts her off again.
Narcissa frowns and leans forward to see behind Andromeda. She looks at Bellatrix who’s now holding her hands close to herself. “What’s going on?”
Bellatrix answers angrily, but keeps her voice low. “Nothing that concerns any of you. Mind your own fucking business.” And without letting them answer, she stands up and leaves the room, letting her sisters there and her breakfast barely touched.
As she leaves, she passes next to Pandora without even acknowledging her, but Pandora does.
Once in the corridor Bellatrix doesn’t know what to do, so in her anger, she goes to the only place where she knows she can be alone.
Her dorm’s bathroom already feels too small for her, she paces back and forth from the wall to the door in 2 steps, sits on the edge of the bathtub then stands up, looks at herself in the mirror and does it all again. She moves restlessly like a wild animal trapped in a cage for a couple of minutes before eventually sitting down against the wall. She starts playing with her lighter again watching the flame appear and disappear. Everything around feels weird and out of grasp, it’s like everything is blurry and new. The world is spinning all around her and she can’t recognize anything.
She takes off her jacket in a quick motion and rolls up the bit of sleeve covering her shoulder. She grabs the lighter again and lights it. She stares at the flame a little bit before closing her eyes and holding the flame under the upper part of her arm.
One,
two,
three,
four,
five.
She grits her teeth and clenches her fists, pushing through her body screaming to stop.
Six,
seven,
eight,
The burning sensation turns into a comforting feeling. It burns and hurts, but it’s familiar, she knows it. Just like the feeling of seeing a reassuring face in a crowd full of strangers. It burns, but she makes it burn. It’s on her and her only to make it stop,
Nine,
ten.
After ten, she lets go of the lighter trigger and breath deeply.
As usual, the feeling of peace subsides after less than one minute, Bellatrix looks at her arm where the skin is reddened and feels the afterwards burning setting in.
She sighs and mechanically turns towards the bathtub tap and turns on the water, letting cool water run on the burn. She rests her head against the wall and stays there, waiting for the skin to stop hurting.
When she first did it a couple of years ago, she didn’t care about the aftermath, she just wanted something to feel. But the short relief sensation was followed by 2 weeks of her skin burning and peeling, the slightest friction would make her feel like her skin was ripped off. After that first try, she learned how to reduce the following pain.
Around 20 minutes later, her skin stops throbbing. She turns off the water and stares at her arm.
Eventually, she stands up and grabs a towel to dry her arm. She rummages through the medicine cabinet and finds a tube of soothing cream and bandages. She applies some on her arm and wraps a bandage around it.
Andromeda would’ve done it so neat and gently, but Bellatrix doesn’t, she doesn’t care. She does it because she has to, nothing else.
Once she finishes the bandage, she leans against the sink and looks at herself in the mirror, first to the bandage, then down to the scars covering her arms. Her gaze moves from the different lacerated spots of skin, she doesn’t even remember when she made them all, after a while you stop keeping track. The only thing she knows is that she made them, every single one of them.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She whispers, as if she would give herself any answer.
A lot of things are wrong with her, she knows it, only she can’t find a reason for any of them. It’s just who she is. She’s not broken, no, that would be too kind for her. Broken means you once were alright and something made you the way you are. Being broken isn’t on you.
But Bellatrix can’t see a time in her life where she was alright, since as long as she can remember, she always has been… this. Everything in her feels wrong, and it has only ever gotten worse, like a fruit you let rot in the corner of your kitchen. Yeah, that’s it, she is rotten. And there’s nothing she can do to change it. You don’t ‘fix’ something rotten, all you can do is throw it away.
With all that, Bellatrix didn’t see the time, and more than an hour passed since she left the dining room, her sister must be looking for her.
She puts her jacket back on, wincing once again as it rubs against her burn, and walks to the door. But when she grabs the door handle, she changes her mind. She doesn’t want to have to face them, she doesn’t want to have to face anything at all.
She just sits back down, her back against the door. She wishes she could just disappear. To never have to get out of here, but she doesn’t want to be here either, she doesn’t want to be anywhere.
Once again, the world starts to blend around her, her head spinning and throbbing. She covers it with her hands and grabs her hair, praying for it to stop.
She hears someone on the other side of the door coming into the room, and obviously, it has to be Pandora.