RP Log: Sirius, Bellatrix, Narcissa, James Who: Sirius, Bellatrix, Narcissa, James Where: This lane in Hampstead Heath. When: 25 October, 1979 What: Sirius tries to get revenge for something Bellatrix took from him. Rating: R for Violence. Lots of Violence. Status: Complete.
As insulting as it was to insist meeting in Muggle London, Bellatrix chose the location for her altercation with Sirius with great care. Out of the way of a great many people, in a section of the Heath little used, she found the wide tree-lined lane to be private enough for them to stage what they needed to with little trouble from random observers or troublesome authorities.
Here, she could impress upon him the great shame he caused his family with flesh and blood. It pleased her that it was because of Regulus that this battle would finally be taking place. Her dear cousin, mindful of his responsibilities to his family, needed support from a stronger cousin. For Regulus - for all Blacks - she would put Sirius down like a sick, old dog.
With her wand slapping impatiently in her naked palm, she waited for Sirius (as well as his second and Narcissa) to arrive. She had chosen her position and now all that remained was to see this done.
Narcissa apparated into the alley and glanced around, wrinkling her nose as she adjusted her gloves. The chill here was simply dreadful, despite her furs and coat. She wasn't feeling particularly well, either. It was probably the elves' cooking yet again, she thought to herself with disgust. Lucius would have to speak with them soon enough.
"Hello," Narcissa said quietly to her sister, walking until she was a few feet behind Bellatrix. Hopefully this would be over in ten minutes or so and she could go back to admiring her Helen of Troy costume for the masquerade. She had no idea if what Bella was doing was the correct thing to do- but thinking about her ex-cousin made her head hurt and she decided not to. It was easier that way.
It had been decided that they would meet up. Sirius needed to know where they stood. He needed to know what she wanted from him so he knew what he would say no about. She had taken something from him and if there was any funny business, he would forget about his morals about hitting girls. Not that she counted anyway.
He and James apparated in together, walking up to the Heath together. He knew he'd ask James to standback soon enough. There was no need to drag anyone else into this that didn't need to be. "You ready?" He asked, as two figures came into sight. He'd know that hair anywhere; it had to be Narcissa. That was a good sign that she was going to behave. Assuming she had a heart, she wouldn't want her sister getting caught in the crossfire.
He took hold of his wand in his pocket, signalling James to stop. He surveyed the area briefly. Certainly looked like she was playing it right. "Are we going to attempt pleasantries or get straight to business?"
James stopped when Sirius indicated he should, but he pulled his wand out carefully. He was surprised to see that it was Narcissa of all people coming as a second to Bellatrix. James had always been under the impression that Narcissa couldn't do much magic outside of straightening her own hair, so unless she was going to "pretty" him to death, he figured it was best to keep his eyes on Bellatrix.
With the arrival of her sister and Sirius with James not long after, Bellatrix merely smiled and unclasped her cloak, letting it pool in the leaves at her feet. She did not want to be encumbered by the heavy fabric if it came to - and she was positive it would - a fight.
"Shall we dispense with the pleasantries?" came her clear, ringing voice, her wand poised in her palm. "I wouldn't want to keep the Healers waiting."
Narcissa's expression changed to one of mild disdain as Sirius apparated in (with James Potter, what a surprise). Bella was more than capable of handling the situation; they were nineteen, for Merlin's sake. She did hope the whole thing wouldn't be too messy, in any case. Pulling her wand out as James did, Narcissa flicked it at Bellatrix's cloak, causing it to float out of the way and fold in midair. "I do hope this doesn't take too long, Bella," she said with another scrunch of her nose. It would be lovely to have time to do something worthwhile today.
"Why don't you check your hair while your sister and I have a little chat then," Sirius said, not bothering to hold the bitter tone back. Although it wasn't specifically aimed at Narcissa, he was in no mood to deal with her whinging either. He kept grip on his wand inside his jacket, not wanting to be hostile first. He didn't want to alarm anyone unduly. His eyes flitted to James, then back to Narcissa. She might not be an expert dueler (was she checking her hair?) but she was a vicious little thing if you got something on her outfit. She'd claw your eyes out.
"I think there's been a minor misunderstanding between us, Bels." He said, returning his attention to the situation at hand. "You need to get your yellowed claws out of my things before you forfeit our little agreement."
James had to force himself to stand still, though it took a great deal of effort on his part. It wasn't natural to let Sirius face something alone, especially something as evil as Bellatrix Lestrange. Even if he was close, he wanted to be closer, but he had made a promise to Sirius and he would keep it. At Narcissa's words, he winked at her for good measure. Harassing Mrs. Malfoy would have to be enough action for now.
"Your things?" she laughed, letting the sound reverberate through her slight chest. He was ridiculous! "As if you have a claim to anything anymore but some poor hand-me-downs left to you by the likes of the Blood-Traitor Potters!"
Pausing to regather her composure, she arched a brow and placed one hand upon her fist. "Go bother someone else with your measly trifles."
"Yes, my things. My brother is not your propery to be exploited. I thought you knew that." Sirius tried to stay calm and collected, but he was already starting to bubble. She always frustrated him. Why couldn't she leave well enough alone? Whatever he'd done, it was his blood, his business and he was not about to get screwed over by a pathetic little girl with delusions of Grandeur. "Clearly you need reminding. Stay away from him." He could do this. He could remain detatched and just get the point across.
Narcissa's expression changed into an even darker scowl at the sheer audacity of that Potter boy. How amusing did he honestly think he was, winking at her like that? She shifted slightly- not enough that he was out of her line of vision- but enough to show that she was fairly annoyed with his puerile antics. As Bellatrix began to insult Sirius' supposed hand-me-downs, Narcissa coughed delicately into her glove (a cough that sounded a lot like a laugh.) Pity Bella hadn't thought to insult his abomination of a leather jacket yet.
If inheriting a bunch of creepy old house-elf head tacked up on a wall was the Black's idea of high class, then James was more than glad to be one of the blood-traitorous Potters. James knew that Sirius was likely thinking the same, and he smirked at Narcissa when she coughed and ran his tongue along his bottom lip lasciviously. He was about to add on another rude gesture but Sirius spoke and it was far more important for him to keep his mind on his friend. He didn't trust Bellatrix any further than he could throw her.
"Your brother - and I certainly can't say as much for you - knows that he has a responsibility to his family and his name. I don't know what you think I'm doing, Sirius, that you didn't do the moment you walked out on him three years ago," she sneered, lips curled over her teeth.
"Same old story, hmm, Sirius? You're blaming everyone else for the problems you create. Well, no one's going to get you out of it this time. You've made your bed - you made his - and now you're both going to have to lie in it."
Anger flared up in Sirius, because as much as he loved to dole out his ability to push peoples buttons, he didn't like it to be turned on him. "And you're fucking with a child who just lost it's father and I'm to blame for that? Oh," He forced out a snort of laughter, "Wait. You couldn't even stop your own father from being killed and now you're just trying to be Mummy figure? You don't have a maternal instinct in your body. You," he punctuated the word with a shrug, "Are a sadistic, fucked up little bitch and as long as I draw breath, you will not get those claws into my things."
He tried to shown his own utter disdain by gesturing to Narcissa idly, "You have no regard for family or these so called traditions you claim to uphold. All you are and all you will ever be is failure and it's only a matter of time before your precious Lord trades you in for a better model. I can't wait."
" ... I don't have to take abuse from a fatherless sodomite -- " and here she looked pointedly at James and smiled maliciously before turning her attention back to Sirius, "like you!" ended in a roar, her arm extended and the tip of her wand pointed between Sirius's eyes.
The twitch of the arm was well warning enough for him to go for his own wand, pulling it from his pocket and aiming it back at her in return. He tutted her, the side of his mouth twitching up in an unpleasant smirk, "We're talking about Regulus and you're making queer jokes? Have you looked at him and his best friend at all?" He took a small, shuffled step forward while attempting to calculate when she was going to lose her temper. While he didn't think she'd go for the killing curse straight off (she really was a sadistic cow, after all), he didn't want to take any chances. "I came here with the intention of letting you ask for whatever it was what you wanted and have this deal done with, because when you finally realise you're too late with him and he was never yours, I'm not going to have that hanging over my head." Every word was calculated from tone to term, but he could already feel his body tensing up in anticipation. "So either ask your question or whatever it was you desired as arranged, or piss off and forget it."
"I want to know what your little gang of shit-arses are, who's your leader and what you call yourselves," she said clearly, arching a brow, clearly unable to leave well enough alone as she finished that with the following ... "And there's a brother concerned for his brother's well-being! Hrmph!"
Sirius had to laugh at that. How dumb were these guys if they didn't even know that? "Eloquent." He snorted, amused by the fact that a purist girl (assuming she was a girl and now just a boy born without it) was coming out with it. "We're the people who are killing your people one by one. We don't require a leader; we actually believe this equality shit and function just fine." That was a slight bending of the truth but it was lying with the truth, which tended to make things more believable. "As for what we call ourselves - I'm Sirius Black and that's James Potter. Thank you for participating."
"You are trying my patience, Sirius Black. I will give you one more chance to answer me honestly, then my hand flies on its own."
"I did answer honestly. You really should have been more careful with your phrasing." He couldn't deny feeling rather smug about it. "No wonder you people are hopeless." He was already thinking of instant curses to go for her with, to the point his palms were a little sweaty with nerves. Things were about to become very tense.
At least Bellatrix was a woman of her word. A breath - nothing more than a moment's lapse in time - passed, her wand flourished toward his right leg, near the knee-cap.
"Crucio!" She was done playing games.
Sirius tried to send a slicing curse out, aimed at her wand hand, the second he saw her draw breath to curse him. Unfortunately, he didn't see if it hit or not; he doubled over forwards onto his knees in blinding pain, wand slipping from his fingers. If his thoughts had been beyond excruciating pain, he'd have hoped James would get it.
James was, however, not exactly quick enough for Bellatrix's reflexes. A silent Accio charm summoned Sirius's wand into her hand as she strode forward, every step making her spell more intense, her power more tactile as it travelled through two wands. She laughed, training his own wand back upon him, letting the Cruciatus travel via nerve endings to center in his chest, right over his traitorously beating heart.
James may not have been fast enough to stop Bellatrix from casting a crucio, but he was sure as fuck fast enough to react when he saw Sirius's wand fly out of his hands. He and Al had practiced spells the other night for just this sort of situation but it was rather more important that Sirius be armed first.
"Expelliarmus!" he cast, following it quickly with a blasting spell. Just as Al had said, they were rather broad, but at least it ought to be enough to distract her and break her concentration for the Unforgivable. James was already moving forward, unable to stay away now that Sirius was hurt. He kept his eyes on Narcissa but he was far more concerned with Bellatrix.
Sirius's wand was lost to James's quick disarming spell but Bellatrix's own flew up, casting a shield charm (if only permitting Sirius a moment's breath) to neutralise the blasting spell. "Little boy, you are a nuisance. Avada Kedavra!"
... and her back was turned upon James, her concentration back to her filthy blood traitor cousin. "Sirius," she purred, "Sirius darling, are you ready to lose your mind and die? Because I'm sick of you ..." A minute pause, and her Crucio was aimed at his temple.
The momentary reprieve was a welcome one; frankly, he could have curled up and just lain there under different circumstances. My wand! He couldn't reach for it, he was short of breath, his nerves were on fire in his legs and feeling more than a little humiliated. This was not how this was meant to go down. "Bitch!" He spat, pouring all of his venom into a single word. He didn't have long to think about it, another wave hitting his temples with the word. He was having enough trouble trying to get his body to listen to him, to not give her the satisfaction but it wasn't working. There was an old wives tale that if you could focus, it helped when you were in pain but it was fucking impossible to focus. He could feel something digging into his skin on the ground, though it took an unbelievably long time for him to focus enough to realise what it was. To his complete and total embarrassment, he could feel water coming from his tightly shut eyes. That was disgusting. She was going to pay for that.
As soon as James heard the beginning of the word Avada he lept out of the way of Bellatrix's aim, falling hard against a tree. He could feel his cheek burn where he'd scraped it against the bark, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for death. Fucking crazy bitch. Staying beside the tree he raised his wand again.
"Oh, don't be ridiculous," Narcissa snapped as she saw Potter raise his wand. It had already been far longer than she expected to stay here. While she gained no joy from watching people - she refused to think of how they were related to her - get tortured, something happening to Bellatrix would be far worse. "Expelliarmus!" Hopefully that would prevent him from annoying her for a bit.
Precision was required to extract every precious ounce of agony from Sirius that she desired. With a flick of her wand, she left the Cruciatus to simply reverberate through his body as she sunk to one knee next to his prone form. Swift movements from her boot caught the glint of silver as she retrieved a small, hidden penknife.
Her free hand gripped his arm and stretched it above his head as she lunged, plunging the knife through his palm and into the ground. There. He would not get up from that right away.
"Now, darling, what are your vigilantes called? Hmm? Tell me quickly and perhaps I'll graciously let you keep your hand - it is your wanking hand, isn't it?" was falsely sweet as she curled her cool fingertips around the nape of his neck and pressed. Hard.
There's nothing like one pain to distract you from another, but that didn't stop the cry of pain becoming rather pronounced nor the dizzying feeling from becoming less so. He was going to vomit on her at this rate, and while comical, probably wouldn't provide the right reaction. He took one look at his hand and grimaced; looking at it was definitely not helping. "The name?" He said, breathlessly, "it's..."
He brought both knees up as hard as he could (which, after years of running around trying not to get caught, wasn't a bad force) and slammed them into her her stomach to push her away. He needed to break concentration and she'd given him an opening, now if he could just not die in the process, they might get somewhere.
For a moment she actually believed he would tell her - he would finally see reason and begin to re-enter some sort of normalcy (even if that meant sacrificing himself and his filthy friends). But, ah, her hopes were too high. Groaning, she was set back onto her haunches with a bounce and a curse.
"You mongrel!" she shrilled, spitting at his prone body and bringing her toe around to dig into his rips. She hoped they cracked.
He took a few seconds to breath, before pulling his hand up. This was not going to plan. Thanking every god he could think of for adrenalin, he pulled the damn thing out (which happened to be a very nice penknife that he was never going to be able to look at the same way again) and tried not to think about whether or not he could move his fingers. Besides, the double vision was not helping. Perhaps it was just blurring, because he couldn't recall Bella being that fat before.
"You bi-bitch!" He coughed out, not appreciating the fact it was her foot. That was it, he thought, despite it all, he was going to get a hit in with this little pain in the arse. He grabbed her foot and pulled hard, noticing in a distant sort of way that his hand was shaking violently. Grabbing at the knife with his good hand, he took a leaf out of her book and gave gutting her a try.
With her foot in Sirius's grasp, she was off kilter and outside of the realm of balance. So when his thrust hit her midsection and went decisively down, she could only gasp, twisting with pain as she tried to pull herself off the knife.
"Hope you weren't p-planing on reproducing," He pushed out, despite his own daze. It felt surreal, as if it was happening to someone else and he was just watching as he jaggedly pulled the knife down, pushing in as hard as he could. It ripped through unevenly, due to the shaking but he couldn't care less. There was enough blood there there to scent the air and cause a gagging reaction. Frankly, if it had gotten any further down, her sex life would be up the creek as well, but he couldn't hold it. He was dizzy, sick and everything hurt. He couldn't really survey the damage beyond red blurring; he wouldn't be able to finish this and stay in one piece.
All that was left for Bellatrix's consciousness was the pain, the scarlet burning across her eyes as she felt down her soaked stomach to the knife that still protruded. She kicked out of Sirius's grasp, catching whatever body part she could on the way down and used the centripetal force to propel forward and bury the knife deep into Sirius's chest, bearing all her weight upon it as she went.
Everything happened so fast after Bellatrix sent the killing curse, and then Sirius was stabbing Bellatrix, and then she was stabbing him, which was what stopped James midstep in his run toward his friend.
"Impedimenta!" he cast, hoping that the spell would stop Bellatrix, and he followed it quickly with a blasting spell aimed for her stomach where the knife had been moments before... (Before she'd stabbed it back into Sirius) It knocked her off of his best friend, and with no regard to Narcissa who was also running toward the two of them, he placed his hand on Sirius's shoulder and apparated the two of them away without waiting for anything else to happen. They landed outside of Mungo's, and he managed to pick Sirius up, despite their similarity in size and carry him inside. The blood caught the attention of several people all at once and it was only a few minutes before Sirius was in a bed being worked over. Lucky for the both of them, a friend from Hogwarts was the admitting nurse, and she allowed James to list himself as Sirius's next of kin so that he could stay with him... not that without hexing him unconscious they'd have been able to pull him from his side anyway.
"Bella," Narcissa whispered hoarsely, feeling bile in her stomach. This simply could not be possible. What had happened to their sister's holiday, and lunch plans? Why was there blood everywhere and why had there been knives thrown about and this was all entirely ridiculous. Vomitting over everything right now would not be an advisable course of action. Narcissa pressed her lips together, willing her stomach to stay put. Kneeling down beside Bellatrix, she used her sister's cloak (the one that had been so carelessly tossed aside) to attempt to staunch the bleeding. "Bella, can you hear me? Bella, you are going to be just fine.." Why did I not bring my healing supplies, Narcissa fumed inwardly. She had not figured they would need them.
Apparating her sister back to Lestrange Manor took far too long for Narcissa's liking - every second felt like hours and the smell of blood was overwhelming. Once within, Narcissa was happy to let the servants do the running to inform Rodolphus and get medical supplies. She needed to find a place to throw up and of course, Lucius needed to be informed that she would be staying with her sister for a bit. Bella would survive this, Narcissa told herself. She simply had to.