Sacred

Professor McGonagall was barely present. She greeted the first years with far less gusto than she usually did, providing a fraction of the comfort she typically aimed for and exactly none of the showmanship she usually tried to use for the sorting ceremony. She stumbled over names, placed the hat sideways, and was inarguably a disaster. By the time she’d finished, she barely managed to slink, red-faced back to her seat at the head table.

Bellatrix. Bellatrix was the betrayer.

It didn’t make sense to Minerva, and yet made all the sense in the world.

She was angry, volatile, insistent on following in exactly her family’s steps. She’d insisted on going back. Insisted they’d all go back.

She had insisted they’d all go back, hadn’t she?

Minerva wracked her brain. Bellatrix had screamed that she was going back, had screamed that Minerva couldn’t keep her there, but she hadn’t said anything about her sisters. As a matter of fact, the only time she’d even addressed her sisters was when Minerva threatened to take them away from her.

She shook her head.

None of it made sense.

And yet..

Bellatrix had stayed for her sisters’ sake. Had come back to Hogwarts for her sisters’ sake. Everything she did was for her sisters’ sake. Is it so out of the ordinary to think there were no measures she would take to protect her sisters?

She scanned the crowd of students, her eyes settling on the Slytherin table. It was a great deal more subdued than it had been in previous years, with families sitting clustered together talking in hushed tones. She understood that every one of these children had a deep sense of familial loyalty, one that their families most certainly did not deserve. She also understood that the trauma of being separated from those families could rival the trauma they’d already suffered at home. She also understood that not everyone was placed in a loving home. Her eyes drifted to young Lucius Malfoy, who sat hunched over his book and she wondered how he was faring with that cow Augusta Longbottom.

She shook her head and poked at her food absently. She couldn’t eat, she felt positively sick.

She’d been so sure it was Sirius, so sure he was the only child out of the entire lot who could’ve turned on his parents. Her eyes scanned the room until she found him. He was sitting next to James, who was whispering in his ear, but he hardly seemed to paying attention. His eyes were fixed on the Slytherin table, on his brother, who was pointedly staring at his plate.

Sirius was a rebel, she realized, but not disloyal.

She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. The din of the hall quieted slightly, and she glanced at the Slytherin table. The girls were staring at her, Narcissa’s eyes wide and vacant, concern etched on Andromeda’s face. Even Regulus was watching, his face still blank and impassive as always. But it was Bellatrix, Bellatrix’s shrewd eyes that studied her that gave her pause. Minerva’s head twitched, almost imperceptibly. Bellatrix turned away, dragging her sisters into conversation once more.

Minerva left the Great Hall.

She walked the winding staircase towards her office, collapsing into the plush armchair in the corner. She flicked her wand at the door, slamming it shut and took her glasses off, tossing them onto the table.

Everything was wrong.

Fucking.. wrong.

She was mildly surprised when she heard the terse knock on the door, and she flicked her wand once more to open it. Bellatrix strode in, those unruly curls bouncing with every step.

“You wanted to see me?” She said, her voice dripping with disdain.

“Drop the act, Bellatrix,” Minerva snapped. She didn’t have the patience for her, not after everything she’d learned. “I know it was you.”

She took no small amount of pleasure in the flicker of shock and horror that shuttered across the girl’s face before it settled back into surly disdain.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” She said haughtily. Minerva rubbed a hand across her face.

“Oh for, Bellatrix please! I know you reported your family. I know you reported all of the members of the Sacred 28,” She spat the name out as though it was poison. Bellatrix stared at her, her face completely blank.

“What does it matter?” She said after a moment, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. “What does it matter who reported it?” Minerva sighed.

“It matters,” Minerva said slowly. “Because your families are fighting to get you back.” Again, a myriad of emotions flickered across the girl’s face before she settled back into passivity.

“That’s impossible.” She said flatly. “I’ve read the laws, I know.”

“Are you familiar with the Laws of Olde?” Bellatrix froze.

“How do you know about the Laws of Olde?” She whispered. Minerva sighed.

“I know about them because your families are using them as a way to get you back.” Bellatrix did not move, not a muscle.

“That’s not possible.”

“Perhaps,” Minerva said. “But perhaps it is. And if that happens, Bellatrix..”

“They’ll kill me.” She said it with a frankness that startled Minerva, that unnerved her. “I knew the risks.” She said after a moment. “I knew they’d kill me if it ever came out. Even if they don’t get us back, if word ever comes back to any of those families they will hunt me down.” She didn’t look down, didn’t avert her gaze, and Minerva knew if the time came that that happened that she would face death the same way she faced everything.

“Why did you do it?”

She expected Bellatrix to rage, to dissolve into silence, to do anything but begin to talk. 

“They torture us,” She said simply. “In varying degrees. The Black family is the worst for it, that’s for sure, but rest assured that they are all equally as cruel. Walburga, Sirius and Reg’s mum, she’s the worst by far. I’m sure you saw Sirius.” Minerva couldn’t stop seeing his broken body.

“The fact that he managed to get away –“

“He didn’t.” Minerva looked up. Bellatrix shook her head. “He didn’t get away. Regulus dragged him away, got him into the floo in his father’s office and sent him to the Potters.” Minerva’s heart twisted violently. “Walburga nearly slaughtered him for it. I think she would’ve had he not been the only living heir left.” Minerva felt sick. "We are many things, Professor, but we look out for one another. Even when we hate each other."

“Is that why you..” Bellatrix laughed, a horrible, cold, cruel laugh.

“I don’t care nearly enough for my cousins to endanger my life for them,” She said it again with a frankness that unnerved Minerva. But she understood now that it was survival. She didn't care because she couldn’t care, because she needed to survive.

“So then, why?”

“Walburga and Orion favor violence,” Her voice became monotone. “Lacerations, the cruciatus curse, burns, things like that. They need to shape their boys, turn them into leaders, into heads of households. They needed to beat the rebellion out of them so they can become strong men.” Her eyes took on a vacant, faraway expression. “Cygnus and Druella, they needed obedience. We were to be wives and mothers, we needed to be demure, we needed to be.. obedient.”

“The Imperius curse.” Minerva breathed. Bellatrix nodded slowly, and she turned her gaze to Minerva, her eyes still disturbingly vacant.

“It was the only way to get Reinhard to agree to let Rodolphus marry me. In spite of our good name, I was far too contemptuous to be a good match.” She spat the final word out. “The curse allowed him to see I could be controlled."

Minerva hadn’t heard the details of the horrors suffered by the Sacred 28 children. She’d seen Sirius, of course, but everyone knew Sirius was the black sheep, the embarrassment of the Black family. Although it had been shocking to see, the fact that it was him was not overly shocking.

This, however, the extent of what was done, of what was considered normalcy..

“I couldn’t do it to them,” She said after a moment. “I could endure every manner of torture, if it meant that I could shield them from it. I would marry Rodolphus, I would lash out, I would keep myself at the forefront of everyone’s concern if it meant my sisters could get by relatively unscathed.” 

“Then what changed?” Minerva asked.

“Narcissa changed.”

Minerva listened in horror as Bellatrix recounted Narcissa’s problems, how the girl had started waking up in the middle of the night in terror, how she’d stopped eating, started having these episodic fits.

“Uncle Orion had taken a liking to sweet little Narcissa,” Bellatrix could barely contain the venom in her voice. “And instead of helping her, they cursed her into silence.” Every inch of her seemed to vibrate with furious magical energy. Minerva didn’t need Bellatrix to tell her what prolonged use of the Imperius curse could do to a person’s mind. Suddenly, the emptiness and complacency of the young girl, the almost infantile behavior made perfect sense.

“I had to get them out,” Bellatrix whispered. “Even if meant losing everything, even if it meant I would be killed, I had to get them out.”

Minerva sat back in her chair, her mind spinning. It was unfathomable, the horrors they had endured. She stared at the girl in front of her, the girl who wore rage and chaos like armor, who put herself in harm’s way for her sisters.

Minerva would not allow any harm to befall her any longer. Not any of them.

She stood up.

“We’ve got work to do.”