Ohmygosh it's amazing! You come up with the most original ideas ever...

This is hilarious!

Wow, amazing! How in Merlin's name do you come up with these genius plotlines? I've been following this on FanFiction for a while now (I'm InvaderGLaDOS, by the way), but the review feature is being really glitchy. Let me just say that I love this, along with War's Descent and Fear's Growth, and I can't wait to see what happens in Chapter 6! :) Your Bellatrix Black has to be one of my three favorite fanfiction characters ever.

Chapter One -- First Sight 

(Fleeting disorientation)

Bellatrix noticed the shirt right off. It was a sleeveless contrivance of white lace, uncomfortably reminiscent of a doily. It hung loosely on her frame, though the rest of her clothes fit perfectly so Bellatrix could only assume that it was meant to do that. Her skin crawled. Bellatrix flexed her fingers, pleased to see that they were still her own. She hoped that the same was true of the rest of her; she didn’t think she could stomach looking like Bella Swan for a whole year. 

She became aware of the crowds only a second later, when a scrawny boy with so many freckles that he could have passed for a Weasley walked right into her. Bellatrix glared at him and he scuttled off, looking terrified. She’d never been in an airport before, and she hated it instantly.

“Bella—”

Irritation seared through her at the hated nickname. Bellatrix fought it down in time to catch the tail end of her… mother’s… sentence. “—do this.”

Bellatrix looked up into the wide brown eyes of her escort. A car moving down the road under a bright sun… A muggle ball game on the television… Bellatrix packing a suitcase with more of the horribly-saccharine clothes of the sort that she wore today… The relevant memories were immediately accessible, floating just below the surface and tainted by worry. “I want to go,” Bellatrix said silkily, in a perfect imitation of Renée’s accent.

“Tell Charlie I said hi,” Renée added (Doors slam, “Just let me go, Charlie…”).

“I will,” Bellatrix replied.

“I’ll see you soon. You can come home whenever you want— I’ll come right back as soon as you need me.” Renée looked at her pleadingly (“She says she wants us to be happy together,” and a lean man with smooth, dark skin beams. “She’s a good kid, your Bella…”).

Bellatrix turned away. The airport was uncomfortably loud; the noise assaulted her ears like ground glass and it was making her jumpy. “I’m fine, mother,” she said. “It’ll be great. Love you.” She made for the line of people heading towards the aeroplane, but Renée pulled her back and into a tight hug. Bellatrix froze.

They stood very awkwardly for a moment, Renée’s arms tight around Bellatrix’s stiff shoulders, and then Renée let go and Bellatrix fled to the metal confines of the aeroplane.

o0O0o

Terry began to pace gleefully back and forth while Bella Swan watched on. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this moment?” she said in a chill whisper. “How long I have plotted and schemed to make this happen? Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse… I read them all! Even Midnight Sun and Bree Tanner.”

“What are you talking about?!”

Terry ignored her. “It was you who inspired me to join the SPDL,” she hissed. “You sparked in me a bile fascination the likes of with this world has never seen! I read Rose Potter because of you! Hogwarts Exposed! The bloody Inheritance Cycle! Countless hours wasted away in horrified fascination, cringing at the worst examples of reality-warping Sueishness ever to blight the earth, and it is all— your— fault!” She wheeled around, coming to a halt inches away from Bella, whose expression now bore a striking resemblance to a concussed rabbit. Terry prodded her in the nose with a single, stubby finger. “And now, dearest Bella Swan, it’s my turn.”

o0O0o

Bellatrix had a very brief layover in Seattle, during which she slipped into a bathroom and Transfigured the abominable lacy top into something more appropriate to both the weather and her own sensibilities, namely a jumper. It was black and warm, and, most importantly, it fit properly instead of being several sizes too large like the glorified doily had been.

Thus fortified, she ventured onto the second plane for the next leg of her journey.

It was raining when she landed in Port Angeles a little over an hour later. Bellatrix approved of rain; it made most other people uncomfortable and she enjoyed seeing other people uncomfortable when she wasn’t. She tilted her head back and let the icy drops splash against her cheeks as she walked the short distance from the tiny plane to the gate.

Charlie was waiting for her. He gave her a stiff, one-armed hug which she returned with equal awkwardness. 

“It’s good to see you, Bells,” he said. Bellatrix resisted the urge to curse him; that nickname was even worse than Bella. “—changed much. How’s Renée?”

“Mother’s fine,” Bellatrix said shortly, trying to get the sticky, black rage under control.

Neither she nor Charlie spoke as he retrieved her bags and fit them into the trunk of his car, a gaudy vehicle with flashing lights on the top. 

“I found a good car for you, really cheap,” Charlie announced after Bellatrix had worked out the seatbelt mechanism and strapped herself in. 

That would be a lot more helpful if I knew how to drive, Bellatrix thought. Aloud she said, “A car?”

“Well, it’s a truck, actually, a Chevy.”

Bellatrix wished Charlie would look away from the road just for a second so she could pick his brain for images of this… Chevy. It would make things so much easier. His eyes never wavered from the road ahead, though. “Where did you find it?” Bellatrix asked.

“Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?”

“No,” Bellatrix said.

“He used to go fishing with us during the summer,” Charlie said hopefully. Bellatrix said nothing, hoping that he would continue on his own. He did. “He’s in a wheelchair now, so he can’t drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap.”

“How charitable of him,” Bellatrix said dryly.

Charlie frowned. “Billy’s a good friend of mine, Bells.” Bellatrix ground her teeth furiously. “I won’t have you making snide remarks at his expense.”

“Sorry, father,” Bellatrix said, affecting a look of deepest regret.

“It’s alright,” Charlie said gruffly. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

Bellatrix drummed her fingers against the car door. “How cheap is cheap?” she asked. Bella Swan didn’t seem the type to have a lot of money lying around, after all.

“Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift.” Charlie peeked sideways at her, looking hopeful (A giant red monstrosity, Charlie writing a check…). 

“You didn’t need to do that,” Bellatrix said, feeling touched.

“I don’t mind. I want you to be happy here.” Charlie stared dead ahead as he spoke.

“Thank you,” Bellatrix said honestly. She planned on Apparating everywhere, of course, but Charlie didn’t know that and it was a very sweet gesture. 

“You’re welcome,” Charlie mumbled, reddening slightly. 

They exchanged a few comments on the weather; apparently it was almost always rainy in Forks (daft name for a town, really), which suited Bellatrix just fine. That conversation quickly petered out, and Bellatrix turned her attention to the scenery flying past. 

Everything was wildly overgrown; it reminded Bellatrix of home, except brighter, as if someone had splashed emerald paint over everything. 

Eventually they reached Charlie’s home, a small, two-bedroom house with a neatly mown lawn that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Quidditch pitch. The cherry-red truck that Bellatrix had glimpsed in Charlie’s memories was parked on the street in front of the house. It was but a banishing charm away from becoming a deadly weapon, and Bellatrix loved it immediately.

“I love it,” she said happily. “Thank you!” 

“I’m glad you like it,” Charlie said, embarrassed again. Bellatrix beamed at him.

o0O0o

“Why are you doing this to me?!” Bella sobbed. 

Terry stood back, arms folded, to admire her handy-work.  The Swan girl had been chained to a wall in the Upper Dungeons— upside-down, because it was more fun that way— and her formerly pale face was turning a lovely shade of puce. Terry tapped her ballpoint pen against her chin pensively. Where to begin, where to begin…

A nasty grin crept over Terry’s face. Ah, yes. She summoned her notebook from the desk on the far wall and began to rifle through it absently. “Chapter one,” she muttered, “chapter one… Ah, here.” Terry cleared her throat. “‘…Tangled, damp hair… Already I looked sallower, unhealthy…’”

Terry pulled her wand out of her sleeve and flicked it towards Bella, who turned right-side-up with a strangled cry. Her face faded back to its usual, ivory-colored perfection unnaturally quickly. “Unfounded body issues,” Terry said, shutting the notebook with a satisfying snap. “We’ll soon fix that.” She raised her wand and pressed it against Bella’s cheek.

“Shall we see what you ought to look like, darling?” Terry crooned. “If you were any kind of a reliable narrator at all?”

Bella sobbed; Terry grinned. Magic crackled momentarily over Bella’s face. Her smooth, creamy skin faded to a sort of semi-transparent off-white color, through which blue veins were clearly visible. Small, faint patches of pimples broke out along her hairline and around her nose. Her voluminous brown hair drooped. Chocolate brown eyes turned to mere brown, looking almost muddy in comparison.

“You know,” Terry said happily, “I’ve never seen anyone with skin quite that see-through. Perhaps you shouldn’t have used the word ‘translucent’ to describe it.” She giggled and conjured a mirror so Bella could see, too.

Bella Swan screamed.

o0O0o

Charlie left her alone as soon as he’d shown her to her room. As muggle bedrooms went, it seemed fairly standard. The floor was rough wood, the walls a revolting shade of pastel-blue. Yellowed lace curtains hung around the window and Bellatrix wasted no time in tearing them down. There was a bed and a desk, upon which sat a computer. Bellatrix pressed the power button experimentally, but it made a loud snapping noise the minute she touched it and refused to turn on. 

No great loss there.

Bellatrix wasted no time in unpacking and Transfiguring Bella Swan’s detestable wardrobe into more palatable clothing. She finished quickly and magicked everything into the closet with a disinterested flick of her wand, then flopped onto the bed and thought about Forks High.

Never having been to a muggle school, Bellatrix didn’t really know what to expect. Madam Pince had taught her the basics of trigonometry, which was easy, and she knew that Ryans had authorized a canon warp to put Bellatrix in a German class rather than Spanish. Everything else she would have to pick up as she went along. Bellatrix looked forward to the challenge. 

She fell asleep soon after, exhausted from the long day and lulled to sleep by the familiar sounds of rain and wind.

o0O0o

Terry nearly skipped down the hallway of SPDL headquarters. Bella Swan was still crying, and a part of Terry’s soul was singing its usual song of triumph. (The play isn’t over by a long shot yet!)

She grinned. It was nearly time for Bellatrix’s first check-up. Hopefully she’d been having as much fun as Terry had. (There are heroes in the world! Princes and heroes in the world…)

“How’s she doing?” Terry asked breezily as she strolled into the Contact Room. The stringy wizard at the scrying pool looked up, blinking.

“Oh, alright,” he said. “Asleep at the moment.”

“Not for long,” Terry said, glancing at her watch. “She never sleeps past— ah, there we are.”

Bellatrix could evidently see them, because she glared up through the murky ink of the scrying pool. “You might have warned me that he calls her Bells,” she said with disgust.

“Forgot,” Terry lied. (And a hero doesn’t come til the nick of time!) “Sorry…” She grinned. “You get to meet the Cullens today! And I’m not telling you how to kill them! And no, Avada Kedavra” (the stringy wizard flinched) “doesn’t work.”

Bellatrix made a very rude gesture, which Terry cheerfully returned. “Have fu-un,” she crowed. 

“Burst into flames and die,” Bellatrix replied flatly.

o0O0o

As soon as Ryans’ face disappeared from view, Bellatrix flung a hand over her face and groaned. The Cullens. 

You volunteered for this.

“Shut up,” she muttered.

Make me.

Muttering darkly, Bellatrix rolled out of bed and dressed without bothering to turn on the lights. The light bulbs would probably explode if she tried, anyway, if the computer was anything to go by. 

Breakfast was a quiet event in the Swan home, apparently. Charlie wished her a soft good luck before leaving for the police station. Bellatrix was left to examine the downstairs in greater detail. None of the furniture matched, and the kitchen cabinets were painted a horrifying shade of yellow.

She perused the pictures over the fireplace in the adjoining living room; a picture with Charlie and Renée in some crowded muggle city, Renée in a wedding dress and Charlie in an uncomfortable-looking tux; Renée and Charlie and, surprisingly, a baby that looked suspiciously like Bellatrix in a hospital; a succession of mug-shots of Bellatrix as a child. Ryans’ replacement job had been thorough.

Bellatrix found a likely-looking book on the shelves next to the television set and slid into one of the armchairs to read. She waited until half past seven before she stood up, slung her book-bag over one shoulder, and Disapparated.

She reappeared with a faint pop just outside of the first brick building. Humming tunelessly, Bellatrix walked in.

It was uncomfortably warm inside, so much so that Bellatrix had to resort to a cooling charm almost immediately. She couldn’t imagine why muggles would possibly keep their buildings this warm, unless it was to deliberately torture themselves, but she pushed the thought away as she examined the office. It was harshly lit by a half dozen long, glowing lightbulbs, which flickered ominously as Bellatrix ventured deeper into the room. There was a little waiting area with padded folding chairs and a large clock on the wall that ticked loudly. Everywhere Bellatrix looked there were little plants in plastic pots, but they were all disappointingly still and non-carnivorous. 

A long counter, half-buried under piles of brightly-colored paper, bisected the room. Three desks stood behind the counter, each with its own computer. The one nearest Bellatrix was occupied by a bespectacled, red-haired woman in a bright purple t-shirt.

Bellatrix cleared her throat, and three of the overhead lights died. The room instantly became more tolerable and the red-haired woman looked up. “Oh, dear,” she said, frowning up at the lights. Her gaze dropped to Bellatrix a moment later, and she smiled. “Can I help you?”

“I’m… Isabella Swan,” Bellatrix said, hiding a grimace. She really hated that name, mostly because it wasn’t hers. The secretary took on a knowing look.

“Of course,” she said. She dug through a stack of documents on her desk. “I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school.” She produced several sheets from the stack and brought them to the counter.

While she went through Bellatrix’s classes and highlighted the best route to each on the map, Bellatrix sorted deftly through her head for any information that might prove valuable. She gleaned a passable knowledge of the school’s layout and little else. Last of all, the secretary handed Bellatrix a slip which she was to have each teacher sign and then bring back at the end of the day.

By the time Bellatrix left the office, other students were starting to arrive. Bellatrix caught some of them sneaking glances her way, but most of them ignored her. She imagined that most of the glancers were curious about her attire, since all of them were wearing macks and she, well, wasn’t. 

Still humming tunelessly, Bellatrix found her way to building three, which took about five seconds. After navigating Hogwarts for seven years, finding her way around a single-level, open, and above all static environment was ludicrously easy.

The classroom was very small. Bellatrix took the slip up to the professor, a tall, balding man whose nameplate identified him as Mr. Mason. He signed it with a flourish and handed her a reading list. Bellatrix scanned it idly as she found herself a desk at the front of the classroom; it had names like Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner… Chaucer she had a passing familiarity with, but everything else was utterly foreign.

Bellatrix waited until someone sat down next to her, a gangly boy with oily black hair, and immediately engaged him in conversation. “Hello,” she said, with exaggerated cheer. “I’m Isabella Swan.”

“Eric Yorkie,” the boy said, looking up and meeting her eyes. Bellatrix made some inane comment about the weather while she rifled through his thoughts. It was difficult, since he seemed disinclined to think about literature, but she found what she was looking for in the end. 

The class itself was rather boring— Mr. Mason could give Professor Binns a run for his money— and Bellatrix amused herself by doodling dead and dying stick figures in the margins of her notebook. Yorkie looked keen to talk to her again, so Bellatrix hurried out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang. To her disappointment, he caught up with her anyway.

“So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?” he said.

Bellatrix gave a noncommittal grunt. 

“It doesn’t rain much there, does it?” Yorkie pressed curiously. 

“Not really,” Bellatrix said.

“Huh. You don’t look very tan.”

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. “Well observed,” she snapped.

Yorkie wasn’t put off in the slightest. “Can you find your way to your next class?” 

“Government with Jefferson, building six, room eleven, straight ahead past the cafeteria then a right, another right, and a very short left,” she said.

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.

“Nice meeting you,” Bellatrix said pointedly.

“Well, good luck,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have some other classes together?”

Bellatrix ignored him.

The rest of the morning passed in much the same fashion. Mr. Varner, the trigonometry teacher, was astonished to learn that Bellatrix could factor equations in her head; Bellatrix was equally surprised that calculators were allowed. It seemed awfully like cheating.

Every single building was hellishly overheated, but Bellatrix was the only one who noticed. She kept the cooling charm up all morning and sat close to windows, where some of the blessedly cool air leaked through the glass.

One girl, Jessica Stanley, sat next to Bellatrix in both Trigonometry and German, and she walked her to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, the top of her head barely coming up to Bellatrix’s elbow, but she had wildly curly dark hair that added another three inches or so to her height.

Stanley half-dragged Bellatrix to the end of a full table, where Bellatrix was introduced to several of her friends. Angela Weber was a mousy girl who smiled vaguely when Bellatrix was introduced; Lauren Mallory a pretty girl who seemed far more interested in staring at a far-off boy than engaging in the conversation; and Mike Newton was a baby-faced boy who had gelled his hair into little spikes, and whose enormous grin reminded Bellatrix forcibly of Rabastan Lestrange. 

And then she saw them.

The mere sight was enough to make Bellatrix’s fingers twitch towards her wand, the Cruciatus curse forming enticingly in her mind.

They were lovely, in much the same way that marble statues were lovely: cold, muscular, and eerily perfect. The glamour they projected was ridiculously strong, and even Bellatrix had to strain to see through it to the emaciated, snow-white corpses underneath. She shuddered. 

There were five of them. Four sat in pairs, the broad-shouldered one with the golden-haired Venus and the lean one with the pixie. The fifth, the most boyish of them all, sat slightly removed from the group.

As Bellatrix watched, the pixie got up with her tray— unopened soda, untouched food— and glided gracefully towards the rubbish bins. She dumped her tray and danced lithely through the back door of the cafeteria, too fast to even look human.

The blatant disregard for the International Statute of Secrecy made Bellatrix’s head hurt. 

“Who are they?” she asked disgustedly, even though she knew only to well.

Stanley looked up to see who Bellatrix meant, and suddenly the youngest one looked at her. His gaze darted from Stanley’s face to Bellatrix’s, then flickered away again. Bellatrix put a bit more strength into her Occlumency shields. No doubt that one was Edward, the mind-reader and her (oh, sweet Merlin) love interest for the duration of this drivel.

Sweet Merlin.

Stanley giggled. “That’s Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale,” she whispered. “The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live with Dr. Cullen and his wife.”

“Have they always lived in Forks?” Bellatrix asked, glancing at the vampires again. None of them were even pretending to eat, and it made her want to kill things.

“No,” Stanley said. “They moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska.”

Alaska. How quaint. For the second time, the youngest one— Edward (Bellatrix shuddered)— looked up and met Bellatrix’s gaze. This time there was curiosity in his expression, and Bellatrix would have bet the contents of the Black family’s Gringotts vault that it was because he couldn’t get through her Occlumency barriers.

“Which one’s the ginger?” Bellatrix asked. He was still staring at her, looking frustrated. She smirked at him.

“That’s Edward,” Stanley said. “Gorgeous, of course, but don’t waste your time. He doesn’t date. Apparently none of the girls here are good looking enough for him.” She sniffed angrily.

The four of them left the table together, all with the same inhuman grace exhibited by the pixie who. Even the brawny one moved like a lithe little dancer. Bellatrix was starting to wonder if this twisted little world even had a Statute of Secrecy or reasonable equivalent thereof.

Leaning to no.

At least Edward didn’t look at her again.

o0O0o

“Please, please stop…” Bella Swan’s voice was little more than a whimper. “Edward’s not like that…”

Terry just smiled sweetly and kept reading.

“‘Like a stalker. An obsessed stalker. An obsessed, vampire stalker…’”

o0O0o

Weber walked Bellatrix to biology after lunch. Bellatrix wasn’t happy about this state affairs, but since Weber had the same class, it was sadly inevitable. Bellatrix compromised by not speaking, which the little wallflower seemed content with.

The biology lab was filled with black-topped tables that looked much too clean to Bellatrix’s potions-trained mind. The whole room, in fact, reeked of muggle cleaning solutions. It was like trying to breathe acid. 

Naturally, the only open seat was next to Edward Cullen. Bellatrix ignored him as she walked down the aisle to introduce herself to the teacher and get her slip signed, but when she turned around she had no choice but to look at him.

He had gone rigid. He stared directly at her, pure hatred in his eyes. For an instant Bellatrix froze, the way a mouse might in front of an attacking snake; then her Noble House upbringing kicked in. She straightened her back and squared her shoulders, letting her hand drift down to where her wand was concealed under a notice-not charm. 

A vampire could cross the room and strike within four and a half seconds, three if they were really determined. Bellatrix could fire a curse just as quickly. If she was forced to sit next to the damn thing, though, she was as good as dead.

Bellatrix curled her fingers around her wand without pulling it out of its holster, and gave it a little flick in the direction of one of the lab tables. To an observing muggle, it would have looked like an innocent readjustment of her clothing.

The lab table burst into flame, and all hell broke lose. In the chaos, Bellatrix sprinted for the door and Disapparated. 

o0O0o

POP.

Bellatrix reappeared and her legs gave way immediately. She let out a whimper, the adrenaline rush dissolving as quickly as it had appeared. Shakily, she rose to her feet, looking around blankly at Bella Swan’s bedroom.

She really wished Madam Pince had warned her about the vampire wanting to kill her.

Bellatrix waited until her legs stopped shaking before she Apparated back to Forks High, where a fire truck had just pulled up to building four. The students were gathered around the parking lot, cheering the flames or chattering amongst themselves. No one had missed Bellatrix in the few minutes that she’d been gone.

No one but Edward. Bellatrix saw him standing at the very edge of the crowd, glaring at her with eyes as dark as her own.

Sweet Merlin.