A Different Timeline
Sirius
Sirius Black was no stranger to pain. It was not the physical torment that stung the most, but the suffocating weight of his mother’s hatred, her coldness, her refusal to accept him for who he was. Every word she spat was venomous, every accusation a reminder that, to her, he was nothing more than a failure, a stain on the Black family name.
But today, it was different. Today, the pain was unlike any he had endured before.
The sound of his mother’s shrill voice echoed through the corridors of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, her curses a symphony of fury. Walburga Black was never known for her warmth, but today she had crossed the line, her rage boiling over as she stood in front of him, her eyes blazing with disgust.
“Sirius Black!” she screamed, her hands trembling as she raised her wand. “You disgrace this family! You shame your bloodline, your ancestors! You will join the Dark Lord, or I will make you regret it!”
Sirius stood his ground, heart pounding, hands clenched into fists. He had faced her wrath before, but this felt different. This wasn’t just a fight over his refusal to conform; this was about his life.
“I will never join him,” Sirius said through gritted teeth. “I will never follow a man who wants to see the world burn.”
The words hung in the air, heavy with defiance, but his mother’s answer was immediate and brutal. The Cruciatus Curse hit him with a force that sent him crashing to the floor, his body writhing in agony. The pain was overwhelming, but it was the sound of her voice, the malicious satisfaction in her words, that tore at his heart.
“You will suffer for your rebellion, Sirius,” she hissed, her gaze cold and unfeeling. “You will never be free.”
He was barely conscious when the curse finally stopped, leaving him trembling, weak, and gasping for air. His mind swam in and out of darkness, but through the haze, one thing was clear: he could no longer stay. He had to escape.
But there was no way out. Not without help.
Regulus. His younger brother, who had always been more obedient, more willing to fall in line with their mother’s twisted ideals. Regulus had never spoken against the Dark Lord, never questioned the supremacy of blood. Yet, in this moment, as Sirius lay broken on the floor, he knew that Regulus would be the one to offer him a chance at freedom.
With the last of his strength, Sirius dragged himself toward the fireplace, his body protesting every movement. He barely registered Regulus’s presence until his younger brother knelt beside him, his face pale with fear.
“Get up,” Regulus whispered urgently, his eyes darting toward the door as though expecting their mother to return at any moment. “We don’t have much time.”
Sirius blinked, confusion clouding his thoughts. “What... what are you doing?”
Regulus didn’t answer. Instead, he placed his hand on the Floo powder, his voice steady as he spoke the incantation. “Potter Manor.”
Sirius’s heart skipped a beat. “What? Regulus, no! I— I can’t leave you here!”
Regulus’s face tightened with emotion, but he was resolute. “You have to, Sirius. You can’t stay. If you do, she’ll kill you. I won’t be able to protect you.”
Sirius felt a pang of guilt twist in his chest. He had always felt like the protector, the older brother who would shield Regulus from their parents’ cruelty. But now, Regulus was the one offering him an escape. And it broke something deep inside Sirius.
“Regulus, I won’t leave you. I can’t.” The words sounded hollow, but it was the truth. He couldn’t abandon his brother. Not after everything they had been through. They had shared the same suffering, the same hate, the same darkness.
“I’m doing this for you,” Regulus said quietly, his voice tight with emotion. “I know you won’t forgive me for this, but I have to. If I don’t, I’ll lose you forever.”
Sirius’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What do you mean? I’m not— Regulus, I—”
But Regulus was already pushing him toward the fireplace, his grip firm and unyielding. “You have to go, Sirius. You have to go now.”
Before Sirius could protest, Regulus threw the Floo powder into the fire, sending a burst of green flames shooting up the chimney. The heat was unbearable, the flames swallowing him whole.
Sirius reached out, his heart racing as he tried to cling to his brother, to the last thread of family he had left. But Regulus stepped back, his face a mask of sorrow and resignation.
“Go,” Regulus whispered. “And don’t look back.”
The words hit Sirius like a physical blow. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He wanted to stay, wanted to fight, but deep down, he knew it was too late. He couldn’t change Regulus’s mind. He couldn’t make him see the truth.
With a final, desperate glance at his brother, Sirius stumbled into the fire. The flames swallowed him whole, and he was gone.
The days following Sirius’s escape from the Black family home were the darkest of his life, a period marked by self-loathing and an overwhelming bitterness that consumed him from the inside out. For all his bravado and defiance in leaving the twisted legacy of his bloodline behind, he could never truly outrun the hatred that had been planted in his heart by years of abuse and manipulation. His escape had brought him physical freedom, but emotionally, Sirius was trapped in a prison of his own making.
The raw, aching need to hurt anyone who reminded him of his past, of his family, drove him to crueler and crueler acts. His sharp wit, once a source of levity and mischief, became a tool of humiliation. What used to be jokes between friends turned into vicious barbs. The boundary between humor and cruelty blurred, and Sirius was too blind with his own pain to see how far he had fallen. He lashed out at everyone, particularly those closest to him—the Marauders—who had once been his family.
But it was the incident at the Shrieking Shack that truly marked the turning point. The prank, which was supposed to be a harmless bit of mischief, went horribly wrong when Sirius, in his bitterness and impulsiveness, sent Severus Snape to the Shack, knowing full well that Remus Lupin would be in the middle of his transformation. The horror of what Sirius had set in motion haunted him for days. His actions nearly cost him everything. The Marauders, who had once been the only true family he knew, were furious.
James, filled with righteous anger and concern for his best friend, could hardly look at Sirius. Remus, his face pale and drawn from the trauma of the full moon, could barely comprehend the depth of the betrayal. Peter Pettigrew, as usual, remained a passive figure in the background, but the tension was thick enough to suffocate anyone who breathed in it.
For the first time, Sirius found himself utterly alone. His friends, the people he had grown to trust more than anyone, couldn’t understand the pain that drove him. How could they, when the very thing he was running from was so deeply embedded in his being?
As the year wore on, his self-destructive behavior grew worse. His impulsiveness, once a hallmark of his personality, now felt like an uncontrolled explosion that no one could contain. His anger and his hatred for everything that had come from his family—his bloodline, his upbringing, the life that had been imposed on him—became a festering wound, too deep for anyone to heal. Every laugh he gave was sharp, jagged, and hollow. Every joke was a desperate cry for attention, for someone to see the wreck he had become.
But, in the end, it was the intervention of his friends that stopped his downward spiral. The intervention was not a calculated move—no, it was the result of weeks of emotional exhaustion, of constant, anxious glances between James and Remus, of silent conversations where they wondered if they were going to lose him.
James, ever the defender, wanted to lash out, to demand answers, but Remus, with his quiet understanding, knew that Sirius wasn’t the enemy—his own mind was. In the early hours of one cold night, Remus and James staged an intervention, cornering Sirius in the common room.
"Sirius," Remus began, his voice calm, but with a hint of desperation beneath it, "we’ve been watching you. We see what’s happening, and we won’t let you do this to yourself."
James, usually more brash, was quieter this time. "We’re your friends, Pads. We love you. But you’re killing yourself. You can’t keep running from everything, from all of this," he said, his words heavy with the weight of a friendship that had been tested but not yet broken.
Sirius was silent, his eyes red-rimmed, his fists clenched at his sides. He wanted to fight, to lash out and push them away. But the pain in James’s eyes, the quiet resolve in Remus’s, made him falter. He hated that they could see through him, that they knew what he was feeling.
For the first time in months, Sirius allowed himself to listen. The raw vulnerability of his friends made him realize that maybe, just maybe, they saw something in him worth saving.
And in that moment, something in him broke.
The rest of the year was marked by a tentative healing. Slowly, with the help of his friends, Sirius began to address the darkness that had overtaken him. He wasn’t cured—no, it was far from easy. But for the first time in years, he allowed himself to feel hope, to believe that he wasn’t beyond redemption. He started to understand the root of his self-destructive behavior: the deep, rotting hatred for his family, for everything they had forced him to be. That hatred had turned inward, making him cruel to those who loved him most. But now, with James and Remus by his side, he began to see a different way.
His impulsiveness was still there, lurking beneath the surface, but it had been tempered by the realization that not all fights had to be fought with fury. His cruelty didn’t define him—there was still good in him, and he could still fight for that good.
But the war was coming, and when it finally did, it swept away any remaining traces of peace Sirius had fought so hard to rebuild. After graduation, the darkness of the world outside became undeniable. The choices they made now would change everything, and the stakes were higher than ever.
Sirius had long since cast aside any semblance of a normal life, dedicating himself to the Order of the Phoenix. The hatred for his family—his bloodline—had only deepened with time, and he had made it his mission to fight against everything they stood for. The Black family’s legacy, which had once chained him, now drove his every action.
But his anger and distrust would prove to be his undoing.
When the question of who would become the Potters’ secret keeper arose, Sirius’s impulsiveness once again clouded his judgment. His hatred for everything connected to his family, his distrust of everyone who had ever been part of Voldemort’s inner circle, led him to make a fatal choice.
He chose Peter Pettigrew.
It wasn’t because Sirius truly trusted Peter—it was because he saw in him someone harmless, someone who could blend into the shadows. Someone safe. And yet, what he failed to see was that Peter Pettigrew was the very definition of betrayal. He wasn’t harmless—he was the spy, the traitor who would bring about their ruin.
When the truth came crashing down, it was too late. Lily and James were dead, and Peter was gone. But the betrayal didn’t stop there. Peter framed Sirius, setting him up to take the fall for the murders. The guilt and the horror of it all overwhelmed Sirius. The laughter that bubbled up in him was hysterical, hollow, and broken—a release of all the pent-up emotion he could no longer hold inside. The weight of his mistakes had become too much.
His time in Azkaban was a nightmare. For twelve years, Sirius endured the isolation and the madness of the prison, his soul slowly dying as the truth of his innocence seemed unreachable. He never gave up hope, but it was hard—so hard—living in a world where the people he had trusted had turned against him.
But the day came when he saw Peter again—the rat, the traitor. He was hiding under the very same roof as Harry Potter, the son of the friends he had failed to protect. The anger that surged through Sirius was enough to fuel the fire of his escape. It was madness. It was dangerous. But it was also his only chance.
The strength to escape Azkaban, to fight for Harry, was the last thread of humanity left in him. Even though he knew he could never truly clear his name, he would do everything in his power to protect the boy who had become his family.
In the final moments of his life, Sirius found his redemption. The love he had for Harry—his godson, the only good thing left in his life—was enough to give him purpose again. When he died in the Department of Mysteries, it wasn’t as a broken man consumed by guilt. It was as someone who had fought until the very end, protecting the only family he had left.
His death would never clear his name, but it would show that, in the end, Sirius Black was more than the pain that had defined him. He had become a man who sacrificed everything for the ones he loved. And that, in its own way, was his redemption.
Regulus
Regulus stood frozen in the empty room, the echo of his brother’s departure ringing in his ears. His chest tightened, and his breath came in shallow gasps as he fought to steady himself. He had done it. He had sent Sirius away.
But at what cost?
Regulus knew what would happen now. His mother would turn on him. She would see this as betrayal, as weakness. He would be forced to choose: remain in the dark circle of the family’s bloodline or be cast aside, never to return.
But the thought of Sirius—of his brother, broken and bruised, suffering at their mother’s hands—was too much. He couldn’t stand by and watch it happen. He couldn’t lose Sirius like that.
"I did it for you," Regulus whispered into the silence. But the words felt hollow, empty, like nothing could ever make up for the chasm that had opened between them.
As the weight of his decision pressed down on him, Regulus couldn’t help but feel that he had already lost his brother. The gulf between them had widened, a chasm filled with choices, regrets, and unspoken pain. And now, Sirius was gone—far away, safe with the Potters, far from the poison that had stained their family for generations.
But Regulus knew the truth: no matter how far Sirius ran, no matter how far they drifted apart, the darkness of their bloodline would always follow. And in the end, it would consume them both.
The tears came unbidden, silent and hot, slipping down his cheeks as Regulus sank to his knees. The pain of their separation, of the love that had been torn apart by choices neither of them had fully understood, was more than he could bear.
Regulus never believed in the grandiose ideals of blood purity. He wasn’t like his mother, who wrapped herself in the suffocating mantle of tradition, nor was he like Sirius, who defied the family and their twisted expectations. Regulus had always been somewhere in between, trapped by circumstance, too aware of the weight his name carried to ever truly rebel. Yet, helping Sirius escape had changed everything.
He hadn’t known it then, but that single moment—the decision to help his brother flee—had sealed his fate. Walburga never let him forget it.
The first time she struck him, Regulus wasn’t prepared. The slap hit him with such force that his head snapped to the side, his cheek burning. He barely had time to react before she had him in a vice grip, pulling him up by his collar, her eyes blazing with fury.
“You traitor,” she hissed through gritted teeth, her face red with rage. “You disgraced your bloodline. You helped that filthy boy escape. Sirius! He’s nothing. And you’re nothing for helping him.”
Her voice, always shrill and unyielding, was like the screeching of a thousand nails on a blackboard. It tore through him, every word a searing reminder of how little his life truly meant to her.
He tried to speak, to defend himself, but her next words—spoken like a death sentence—froze him in place.
“Crucio!”
The pain hit him harder than any curse he’d felt before, a wave of agony so intense it drowned out every thought, every shred of reason. He collapsed to the floor, his body writhing in a desperate attempt to escape the pain that ripped through him, but there was no escape. His mother’s face was a twisted mask of satisfaction, her cold eyes watching him with impassive cruelty as he screamed, unable to control himself.
It felt like it would never end. And then, just as he thought he might break, the curse lifted, and he collapsed in a heap of trembling limbs, gasping for air.
“You will never disobey me again,” Walburga said, her voice low and venomous. “From now on, you will follow the Black family traditions. The Dark Lord will see you as the heir, and you will serve.”
Her words were like chains, wrapping themselves around him, tightening with every syllable. He had never realized how truly imprisoned he was—until now.
In the days that followed, Regulus found himself trapped in a new kind of hell, one of his mother’s making. She had him under constant surveillance, controlling every move, every breath he took. He could no longer even breathe without her permission.
When she brought him to the dungeons of Grimmauld Place, it was a cold, suffocating place, steeped in the stench of damp stone and despair. The Muggles were waiting for them—dirty, shivering, terrified. The moment Regulus entered the room, he could feel their eyes on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Walburga stood beside him, her face a mask of icy determination. “This is your education, Regulus,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “These are the creatures that plague our world. You will learn to eliminate them. To serve the Dark Lord, you must become ruthless. You will become the very thing that will protect this family. You will never be weak like Sirius.”
She turned toward the trembling Muggles, and with a flick of her wand, she sent them sprawling onto the cold floor. Her eyes flicked to Regulus. “Do it.”
Regulus didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hurt them. But his hand moved of its own accord, and before he could stop himself, he was pointing his wand at one of the Muggles, forcing him to his knees. He didn’t know what to feel—only the cold detachment, the numbness of it all.
Sirius would have never been able to do this. Sirius would have screamed, would have fought, would have rebelled. But Regulus wasn’t like Sirius. Not anymore.
In the back of his mind, though, something twisted with disgust. This wasn’t him. He was just doing what his mother commanded. She had broken him already. He had lost.
That night, as Regulus lay in his bed, the silence of Grimmauld Place wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket. His body still ached from the physical punishment. His mind was a whirl of confusion, of guilt, of pain.
Kreacher, the house-elf, slipped quietly into the room, a rag in hand, and began to clean his wounds. It was always the same. The elf was always there in the dark, tending to him with a silent reverence, as though trying to heal what could never truly be healed.
Regulus didn't speak to him. There was nothing left to say. He wasn’t sure why Kreacher even bothered. The elf wasn’t his friend. He wasn’t even truly his ally. Kreacher just... did what he was told.
Regulus closed his eyes, letting the elf clean his wounds in silence, feeling the cold, clammy cloth against his skin. The pain would never go away—not the physical pain, and certainly not the emotional one. His life was no longer his own. The future he had imagined for himself, the life he had once dreamed of, had evaporated the moment he helped Sirius escape.
He was no longer Regulus Black—the spare. He was a tool, a weapon. A pawn in the hands of his family. A puppet for the Dark Lord to control. And soon, the Dark Mark would brand him, marking him as a servant to a cause that he could no longer even bring himself to believe in.
Regulus understood. He was a fool to think he could ever escape. He was no longer free, and he never would be again. He had sacrificed himself for Sirius, and now, there was no turning back.
He was too intelligent not to understand what came next. The Ministry wasn’t going to bow to Voldemort. Regulus knew that. The world would never give in. There would be only resistance. And he, trapped in the middle, was a part of the violence that would only breed more violence. A vicious cycle.
He would never see twenty.
Regulus wasn’t even sure he would live long enough to see his eighteenth birthday. Once the Dark Mark was on his arm, there would only be two options left for him: Azkaban, or death. He had seen it in his mind’s eye already. No future, no life.
He had already lost.
Regulus lay still in the bed, staring at the ceiling, numb with the weight of his reality. The world he had known—the one where he could have been free—had crumbled away beneath him. In his heart, the small flicker of defiance that had once burned bright now felt like a distant memory.
The truth was, he had always been expendable.
And now, he was just waiting for the end.
He had distanced himself from Sirius—cutting ties with the brother who had dared to run away, to challenge everything that their family stood for. In another 2 years, Regulus took the Dark Mark at 16.
The decision was not one made out of ambition or loyalty. It was survival. Regulus had been cornered by the dark forces of his family, and the Dark Lord had become the only path left. Yet, beneath the mark branded upon his arm, the truth of Regulus’s soul remained hidden, locked away in the quietest corners of his mind.
The other Death Eaters thought they knew him. To them, he was a faithful servant, another tool in the arsenal of terror that Voldemort wielded against the world. But Regulus was not like them. His belief in the Dark Lord’s cause was nonexistent. He never shared the fervor of the others, never believed in the blood supremacy or the twisted ideology of the Death Eaters. He wasn’t loyal—he was trapped. Every day he donned his mask, pretending to be a follower, pretending to be someone he wasn’t. No one ever suspected how much he hated it.
His reluctance, though, was a secret he guarded with his life. He would never let anyone see the turmoil beneath the surface, the constant war waging inside him. He had grown so used to hiding his true self, to pretending to be someone else, that even he sometimes wondered if he could still remember who he really was.
But in the darkest parts of his soul, Regulus knew. He knew the truth. He could feel the weight of his choices growing heavier with every passing day.
It had started with Kreacher.
In another life, Regulus had not only accepted his family’s demands, but he had also agreed to volunteer his house-elf to the Dark Lord’s service, hoping it would keep his family from seeing him as weak. But when Kreacher came back to him that one fateful night, everything began to change. The elf spoke of the cave, of the cursed locket, and of the Inferi in the waters. He spoke of things that made Regulus’s blood run cold.
Regulus listened in silence as Kreacher detailed the events in the cave, the things the Dark Lord had done, and the frightening power he had over the artifact—the locket. Kreacher’s trembling voice had told of how his master had wanted to protect the locket, and the terrible potion that had been used to guard it. Regulus’s mind had raced, piecing the puzzle together, his thoughts colliding like storm clouds.
The locket. The potion of despair. The Inferi.
Regulus had always known there was something more to the Dark Lord’s obsession with these objects, something beyond the search for immortality and power. It was all part of a greater, darker plan. Regulus could feel the pieces falling into place.
And then, it struck him.
The Dark Lord, in his arrogance, had not anticipated the one thing that could destroy him—the same thing that Regulus had always known, even if no one else did. Voldemort was not invincible. He was not a god. The Dark Lord’s very strength—the things he had hidden and locked away—were also his greatest weaknesses. Regulus realized that the locket wasn’t just a trinket. It was a piece of his soul, one of many. It had to be destroyed.
The Inferi, the potion, the dark magic surrounding the cave—it was all connected. Regulus had spent hours pouring over what Kreacher had shared, researching everything he could. He understood now what the Dark Lord had done. It wasn’t just about power; it was about creating something—something evil enough to ensure that Voldemort could never be defeated.
But Regulus saw a way.
He knew what had to be done.
The choice he made in that moment was irrevocable. Regulus realized that if he didn’t act, if he didn’t do something, Voldemort would never be stopped. The very monster who had enslaved him, who had branded his soul, was also the one who would enslave the entire world. Regulus’s entire life had led to this moment.
He had to destroy the locket. He had to destroy the Dark Lord’s soul. But it would come at a price. A price that he was willing to pay.
It was madness. It was suicidal. But Regulus had finally come to terms with the fact that he had nothing left to lose.
He made his plans in secret.
Regulus knew that Voldemort would never let the locket out of his sight. The Dark Lord’s obsession with it was too deep. But Regulus also knew the cave would be the only place where he could reach it. The Inferi were terrifying, but they could be managed. He had to do this alone, even if it meant sacrificing himself.
He could never tell anyone. He could never trust anyone with this plan—not the other Death Eaters, not even Kreacher, despite the elf’s loyalty. It was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.
As he made his way to the cave that night, the cold wind gnawing at his skin, Regulus’s mind was clear. He wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. His entire life had been a series of compromises and forced obedience, but this—this was his chance to finally break free. It wasn’t about the Dark Lord. It wasn’t even about the Death Eaters. It was about destroying the evil that had taken everything from him.
And so, he dove into the cave, the Inferi rising around him, the cold depths pulling at him like a thousand hands. He retrieved the locket, just as he had planned, but it was the potion of despair that would be his undoing. As the potion mixed with the water, filling his lungs, he realized he was not going to make it out.
But he didn’t mind.
He had already died long before the potion took him. The part of him that had lived under the Dark Lord’s rule, that had been a slave to fear and power, had been killed the moment he made the decision to act.
In the end, no one would know the truth.
The Death Eaters would whisper that Regulus had failed—perhaps killed by the Dark Lord for betraying him, or by his own hand for cowardice. Some would say he had run, had tried to escape, only to be punished for his weakness. None of them knew that Regulus had died in defiance, that he had died fighting the monster that had enslaved him.
He had drowned not in the waters of the cave, but in the years of silent suffering, of knowing he was nothing but a pawn.
No one would ever know that Regulus Black had been the one to have the courage to defy Voldemort—and to die trying.
And so, Regulus Black’s life ended before his twentieth year. His name would become a whisper, a shadow, a cautionary tale. Some would say he had been a traitor, a coward. But no one would ever know that Regulus Black had sacrificed everything—not for fame, not for glory, but for the hope that one day, the monster he had been enslaved to would finally be defeated.
And perhaps, in that final moment, that was enough.
The Black Sisters
In another life, the Black family’s dark tapestry was woven with even more tension, resentment, and emotional upheaval than the history we know. Walburga Black, always insufferable in her beliefs, stood as a tyrant over the household, ruling with an iron fist, her eyes ever fixed on the purity of the bloodline. Yet, beneath her proud, unforgiving demeanor, there festered a secret bitterness that twisted her very soul. Her brother Cygnus and his wife Druella three daughters were her only legacy from her father side, but Walburga’s obsession with producing male heirs had left her feeling both humiliated and bitter. The line of the Blacks, so revered for their pure blood, was to continue—yet, there were no sons to carry that legacy.
Instead, she had three nieces: Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa. And none of them were the male heirs she craved. Druella, their mother, too was subject to the cruelty of Walburga’s expectations. Druella had always been able to maintain a measure of grace, even under Walburga’s harsh judgments, but now, she too found herself becoming more rigid, more consumed by the very ideals she had once only tolerated. She began to impose those ideals on her daughters with greater fervor, especially the younger ones, Bellatrix and Narcissa. Andromeda, however, had always been the outlier—the one who refused to be part of this oppressive family structure. As time went on, her differences became more pronounced.
Andromeda had always felt the weight of the family’s demands on her shoulders—her future predetermined, her worth measured by blood purity and obedience. But she had something more precious than her mother or sisters could understand: a will to live her own life, free from the suffocating grip of the Black family’s legacy.
She fell in love with Ted Tonks, a Muggle-born, and made the decision to marry him, leaving everything she knew behind.
Her decision was a betrayal. To Walburga, to the family, and especially to her sisters, who saw her choice as the ultimate act of rebellion. Walburga’s fury was explosive. To her, Andromeda’s departure was not just an act of disobedience—it was a stain on the Black family name, a defection that could never be tolerated. And so, Walburga did what she did best: she burned Andromeda from the tapestry.
It wasn’t just an act of erasure. It was a public shaming, a cruel punishment, a declaration that Andromeda was no longer family.
Druella, unable to withstand the humiliation of having her own daughter sever ties with the family, forbade any communication with the “deserter.” The cruelty of the act shattered the family in a way no one could have anticipated. Bellatrix, still young but already beginning to internalize the lessons of purity and tradition, witnessed her mother’s destruction and embraced her role as the true heir of the Black name. Narcissa, always the quieter one, felt the loss deeply but was unsure how to navigate the growing tension.
As Andromeda walked away from the family, Bellatrix’s devotion to the Black family’s ideals grew stronger. She was her mother’s daughter, and Walburga’s hatred for Andromeda had been passed down to her. The betrayal wasn’t just a rejection of their family’s values; it was a rejection of Bellatrix’s very sense of identity. She saw it as a personal insult, an attack on everything she had been taught to believe in.
From that moment on, Bellatrix’s obsession with family traditions and blood purity intensified. Every lesson, every value, every command from her mother was burned into her mind as an unshakeable truth. She became more fanatical, her hatred for those who defied the family’s ideals turning into an all-consuming rage. Her ambition to uphold the Black name was unparalleled, but it wasn’t just about the family legacy anymore—it was about proving to herself and to the world that she was stronger, purer, and more loyal than anyone else.
It was this madness that led her straight into the Dark Lord’s arms. She became one of the most zealous Death Eaters, a woman who not only followed Voldemort’s orders but embodied his cause with an unyielding fervor.
Bellatrix became the only female to receive the Dark Mark, and her loyalty earned her a place in Voldemort’s inner circle. The more she immersed herself in his world, the more she became consumed by his dark ideology. The line between devotion to her family’s bloodline and her devotion to Voldemort blurred until there was nothing left of the woman who had once been Bellatrix Black.
She was gone, replaced by a woman who saw Voldemort not just as a leader, but as a god. Her love for him was obsessive, intoxicating, and dangerous, and it left no room for any other relationship—especially not with her sisters, who were growing further away from the Black ideals she held so dear.
In contrast to Bellatrix’s fiery passion and Andromeda’s rebellion, Narcissa was quieter, more reserved, and far more focused on her own survival. She loved her family, but unlike her sisters, Narcissa didn’t feel the same compulsion to prove herself as the perfect heir to the Black name. Her only desire was to protect her family, to ensure their safety. She was not one for ideology or rebellion—she simply wanted to keep things in their rightful place.
When Narcissa married Lucius Malfoy, a Death Eater in Voldemort’s inner circle, she did so with a sense of duty, and perhaps even a glimmer of hope that this marriage would keep her out of harm’s way. Lucius was the epitome of everything Narcissa had been raised to respect: wealthy, pure-blooded, and loyal to the Dark Lord’s cause. Her role in the war was to stand at his side, to protect him and their future, as the war escalated around them.
But Narcissa’s detachment from the ideological chaos of her family set her apart. She was not consumed by the same hatred as Bellatrix, nor did she feel the need to rebel like Andromeda. Instead, she focused on preserving her family’s legacy through the quiet, subtle means that would ensure their survival. She had no interest in the dark fanaticism of her sisters or in the ideological wars they waged. All that mattered to her was the safety of her own children, the continuation of the Malfoy line, and keeping her family’s name intact, no matter what the cost.
As the war progressed, the divide between the Black sisters deepened. Bellatrix, consumed by her obsession with Voldemort, would never forgive Andromeda for abandoning the family. Her madness only grew, as did her contempt for Narcissa, whom she saw as weak for choosing family safety over the cause.
Narcissa, though, remained firmly entrenched in her own world, silently watching her sisters as they spiraled into different versions of madness—one consumed by hatred, the other by fanaticism.
And Andromeda—far removed from it all—had made her peace with the choice she had made. Yet, the weight of what she had lost, the family she could never reclaim, haunted her in ways she couldn’t escape.
In another life, their paths had diverged so far from one another that the distance between the sisters seemed insurmountable. Bellatrix would die obsessed with the Dark Lord killing her own niece her sister Andromeda's daughter, Narcissa would survive on the periphery taking care of her son so he didn't end like his father, and Andromeda would live a life of half a live surviving only for her grandson after losing her husband and daughter to war she wanted to escape, forever haunted by the broken tapestry she had left behind.
Their bond—once unbreakable—had shattered beyond repair.