Belladonna

“...And if we’re lucky, Celestina will release our song” Bella explained to the girls, “if she likes it obviously.”

“This is crazy!” Walburga exclaimed, as she finished braiding her hair, “before you know it, you’ll be swimming with the big stars. And my Chucky too!”

“What a wonderful life” Druella sighed while painting her nails.

“Look at you, being overly optimistic about our future” Walburga cheered.

“Oh, no. This is not about our future” she showed her a devilish smile, “this is about getting revenge on Aberforth Dumbledore! He’ll pay for his behaviour... with his blood!”

“Maybe you’re going a little too far” Bella interrupted her, “but yeah. Revenge sounds sweet.”

“I want blood.”

“We must settle with his public humiliation.”

“To Aberforth Dumbledore never showing his face in public again!” Walburga toasted.

Bella couldn’t help by laughing. Although the horrible feeling of loneliness was chewing her stomach. She knew she wasn’t alone. Now, she knew.

“Has Scamander written to you?” Druella asked.

“Yes, he said he had something important he wanted to discuss. Something about our next task. But he said he would rather do it in person.”

“Oh, no!” Walburga stood up, outraged. “You are not dragging Chuck into a new dangerous mission that puts him in another life-or-death situation. No, enough.”

“First of all,” Bella prepared herself to argue, “I didn’t drag him to the war. He did that all by himself. Secondly, I don’t know what Theseus wants to discuss. Maybe he just wants my opinion on some random subject. And finally, I can’t control what Chuck decides to do. Once he is out of Hogwarts, he’ll need a carrier job, and it’s better for him to pursue a nice one at the Ministry with me.”

“Belle has a point” Druella said, “how do you expect him to maintain you if you don’t allow him to have a good job?”

“I don’t expect him to maintain me!” Walburga exclaimed while the blush quickened into her face, “I don’t... We agreed we’d both find a job as soon as we leave Hogwarts.”

“And where will you live exactly?”

Bella knew that Walburga wasn’t as naïve as she seemed to be. She was cunning, but sometimes her kind heart drove her into rushed ideas.

“Chuck said that we could stay with his parents while we save the money...”

“But?” Druella urged her.

“But I think it might be convenient to stay at my parent’s while we save the money for us to run away” she confessed, "it isn't like I don't want to live with him. I just think this is the best for our relationship at the moment."

“But you haven’t told him yet” Belle guessed.

“No, I’m afraid he’ll think I don’t want to live with his family.”

“Why, you don’t” Druella reminded her.

“He has two brothers and three sisters! And he shares a room with the two of them! Where will I sleep, huh? In his sisters’ room? They hate me. And even if I was to share a room with him and his brotheres, they are too muggle-religious-bullshit to allow me sleep in the same bed as him, even if we get married...”

“But you’ll be married...” Druella remarked, “I thought muggles worked the same way as wizards when it came to marriage.”

“They do” Walburga sighed, “but they hate me.”

“What?” Bella yelled, “who could possibly hate you, Walls?”

“They do” she assured them, “I think it’s ‘cause I’m white and a witch. They think that their son is screwing his life.”

“Ha! They would get along with your parents” Druella snorted.

“I understand them though” Walburga sighed, “ever since me and Chuck got together, their son has been through so much trouble. They must view me as a white, rich girl that it’s just playing rebel, while their son almost died for her.”

“But you are not that girl” Bella chimed in.

“I’m not” she agreed, “but we ought to face the facts. Chuck has been in danger after danger since we started dating. His parents have all the right to hate me.”

“Don’t treat yourself like that...” Druella caressed her.

“It’ll be fine.” Walburga forced a smile. “We’ll get married and start a family.”

Bella beamed. Walburga might be young and sometimes a little innocent, but she would be a wonderful mother. Nobody would take care of her children as she would. And Bella was sure of it. Walburga was born to take care of others.

She had never thought of herself as a mother. Sure, everyone expected of a woman to eventually grow up and start popping children out of her body. It was what their families expected of Walburga and Druella. But her papà never encouraged that behaviour on her. If anything, he had encouraged her to stay as far from boys as possible. He might have expected grandchildren someday, but if he did, he had never planned on having them soon. He never forced an engagement on her either, which thanked. She didn't know what she would do if she had been found in that position.

Technically, all the grown things she had done were never encouraged by her father. Going to war, finding a job, start dating. All those things she had seek them on her own. And even if her papà wasn’t happy about it, he just let her do what she wanted.

Sometimes she imagined what would have happened if her father would have been more like Walburga’s or Druella’s. Maybe then, she would have stayed quiet. Maybe she would have never fallen for Aberforth. What would Druella’s mother would have done to her if she had presented Aberforth in her door? She would have punished her deeply and then send Aberforth’s loser ass through the doorway probably. But her papà was charmed by him.

And when he passed away, there was nothing keeping her from treating herself as an adult. She dived into adulthood like she was going for a swim. Except she didn’t know she was swimming with sharks. She had been used to a piranha all her life, what could possibly be different from a shark? Everything, she would learn. Sharks were deceiving and their teeth were so much bigger and cut deeper.

She kept on cursing herself for expecting a shark to bite like a piranha.

Now, swimming again in the kid’s swimming pool, where the dangers were jellyfish and crabs, she had to remind herself to slow down. She had forgotten how to be a child. She had forgotten what it was like for your only worries to be final exams and who was snogging who in the third-floor hallway. But she had to admit that it felt nice not to have that pressure anymore. The one where she worried about what she was going to cook for Aberforth each night or whether she was doing a good job pleasing him. The one where she tried to look older when his friends stopped by, so that they wouldn’t whisper she was a child behind her back. The one where she would play housewife every night, since she was 16, even though he acted like a 20-something boy with her. The one where she tried to prove him that she was smarter than him (she was), but he would always win because he measured wisdom in years and not in knowledge. And she knew this because he would call her smart, but always remark how much he knew of the world that surrounded them and she didn’t. He did so, even when they were breaking up.

“Good rehearsal, lads!” Monty celebrated after they finished playing in the Head Girls’ Office, where they had been playing ever since she didn’t want to set foot in the Hog’s Head again.

“We aren’t lads, Potter” she said with annoyance in her tone.

“There was once a time, Leo” Monty said to the new member of the band, “where we were called The Lion Lads... Those were good times.”

“It was a nightmare” Chuck contradicted him.

“About the thing...” Leonides approached Bella, showing her an old book, as they all abandoned the office “this might be useful to understand why we believe in them.”

Bella had shown her interest in the Deadly Hollows once or twice. With its connection to the Dumbledores and Riddle’s heirloom, she was intrigued.

“Thank you, Leo.”

“She called me Leo!” he exclaimed, “does this mean we are friends now?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“D’you know what you should do?” Monty suggested, “you should kiss her in the mouth. That surely convinced her she wanted to be only my friend.”

Lovegood stared at both of them in confusion, but the two just laughed.

“This is horrible!” Walburga appeared running through the hallway, holding an opened letter in her hand.

She ran to her lover’s arm and let the letter fall into the ground, giving zero explanations. They all stared at them with question marks, but it was Monty who had the courage to pick up the letter and read it.

“Oh, shit. This is bad.”

After those words, Bella took the letter from his hands and read it. The letter was from Cygnus, her brother, and it came with the official Black emblem. The coldness in his perfect handwriting and mocking words sent shivers down her spine.

         Dear sister,

                           I write to you with terrible news about our brother Alphard. Although it will not surprise you, our parents have finally disowned Alphard for good, due to his affairs and acquaintances. He has been erased from the family tree and his allowance has been cut off. I hope this serves us as a lesson, so that we never make his mistakes or follow his footsteps into dishonour and shame. May I remind you that our family is one of the last fully pure ones of the Wizarding World and I intend to keep our bloodline from any stain you might do.

                          Alphard was warned in multiple occasions, but he failed to attain his role as the family heir, a role that I will not fail in. You must have guessed it already, dear sister. Alphard’s disinheritance makes me the heir of this family. And as the head, I will not allow your disobedience or miscarriage in the way to purity.

                          With this power that I was given, I inform you that as soon as you finish your studies you will be married, as well as I will be. Married to someone that father and I will find suitable to your blood status. Any other suiter will be discarded and will not be accepted in this family.

                          May I spell things clearer to you, dear sister: you must leave the man you have been fooling around with in the past two years before the end of the school year or I shall make you. You must have thought you were so sly and so secretive hiding with him, but you were not. And I allowed you to fool around enough, but I will not make the same mistake twice. This is a tough world, especially for a rich, nice girl that has no idea how to live in it. I suggest you let go of any thoughts that you might have of eloping with this man. It will only bring you unhappiness and discomfort. Save me the headache and choose correctly, before I must clean up the mess you will make to his family.

                          You have until June, or you will face the consequences.

                          Your brother,

                          Cygnus III Black.

“Walls...” was all that Bella could articulate.

“I can’t go back now” she cried in Chuck’s arms.

Cygnus’s words were clear. It was in Walburga if she was willing to take the consequences. What he didn’t know was that she’d been prepared for them since she fell for Chuck all those years ago. She’d been ready and she wasn’t going down without a fight.

Who Bella wasn’t so sure that was going to fight back was Druella. The girl had been dating Abraxas for six months now, but she had never declared to the girls she was planning to elope with him, or even confess to her mother that she loved the pureblood boy. They just assumed she would after ending school. But that just didn’t seem to be the case when Bella spotted her and Brax in their dorm hugging while she was crying. The sobs were so loud Bella could hear her from several feet apart and the sorrow in Brax’s whispers reached her from across the room. So, she didn’t bother them. She got that they needed a moment to reassess. A moment for themselves, apart from the rest of the world.

She left the common room with a soaring throat and an ache in her stomach. How could her friends feel so miserable? She felt useless. Everything was happening so fast. She felt like they had run out of time. There was no more time to keep on promising them that when she’d be minister, she would change the law. Her long-term plans were useless. The ship was sinking, and the waters were infested with sharp-teeth sharks ready to devour them.

“Busy!” Minerva yelled when she opened the door to the office they shared.

She was writing a paper, scribbling ferociously with her pen and ink, until she gazed upon Bella and noticed how miserable she looked. That was enough to put her homework aside.

“What happened? Celestina didn’t like your song?”

“No, we have no news from her yet.”

“Then, what is it?”

“Cygnus found out about Walls and Chuck, or apparently he’s known for a while now” she explained taking a seat in front of her. “Now, everyone’s crying.”

“What? What’s he gonna do?”

“He threatened her through a letter.”

“Coward.”

“And Alphard has been disowned” she continued, “due to his affairs and acquittances.”

“Nice way of saying shagging lads.”

“Yes, that was how Cygnus put it. I supposed he was too afraid for it to get registered in paper. Too dangerous because of the tabloids.”

“What are you going to do? How can I help you?”

“I don’t know... I have no idea what to do” she confessed, “distract me in the meantime. What were you doing?”

“I was just making summaries for the NEWTS. Better to start ahead.”

“Ah, the NEWTS... Planning on beating me this year?”

“Are you going to make a competition of our last exams?” Minerva grinned, “because I beat you last year.”

“That doesn’t count” Bella said waving the subject off with her hand. “My father died, and I was absent for half of the year. Plus, you had more time to prepare your exams.”

“Are those excuses you’re throwing around, Rizzo?”

“Don’t challenge me, McGonagall. You’ll lose.”

“I never lose.”

“Yes, you’d have lost” Bella laughed, “multiple times, against me.”

Minerva narrowed her cat-like eyes and grinned with the satisfaction of a competition forming between the two of them.

“Oh, you’re asking for it” Minerva exclaimed, “wanna be academic rivals again?”

“As long as we’re only rivals in academic stuff...”

“Let’s shake hands and start the competition already. The one that has the highest marks in the NEWTS wins.”

“What do we win?”

“Huh... Good question.” She looked around the room searching for the prize. “This old bottle of Firewhiskey will do.”

“What is a Firewhiskey bottle doing here?”

“I don’t know, it was just here.”

“Well, it’ll work.” Bella took the bottle and put it in the top shelf. “Let the games begin!”

“You’re so dramatic.”

Having a competition going with Minerva was the perfect motivation for Bella. It kept her mind out of Cygnus’s evil letter and that boyfriend that had broken her heart. As she was ready to go to class, she realized she had forgotten her DADA book because she had gotten too carried away due to her excitement.

“I’ll be back. I forgot something” she told Walls and Drue and went back to the dorm.

She found her book and went to the radio since Walburga had let it on, when she realized what was playing. Well, maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I ask for too much, but maybe this thing was a masterpiece ‘til you tore it all up. It was her! It was her singing on the radio!

Their song was playing on the radio! The Pitchfork Kids were in national radio, and it was her song about Aberforth. Celestina had done it!

“We did it!” she yelled, “we did it! Get that, Aberforth!”

And before she knew,  she ran around the castle with feral excitement. She didn't care about her classes anymore. 

“We did it! We are playing on the radio!” someone yelled, but it was not her.

It was Monty running down the hallway the same way as she was, though he was yelling the news to everyone that would hear.

“Bella, we are-!”

“-On the radio!” she finished for him, and they started jumping together.

Jumping together and yelling “We’re famous! We did it!”