The Last of the Blacks

Chapter 36: Murder And Control

The first thing Cassie noticed about her aunt Bellatrix is that she had beautiful hair and she looked almost like her aunt Andromeda.Then she noticed how skinny Bellatrix was. Years in Azkaban, Cassie told herself. She wondered for a moment if her father hadn't looked the same that summer.

Summer, said a small voice in her head, which you spent with your aunt, uncle and Dora on the beach. Summer when you didn't care about anything.

"Should I be grateful to the Dark Lord for sending you?" Cassie asked, still looking at her aunt, the woman who had tortured Neville's parents. Narcissa's dress didn't suit her.

"I'm second in command, angel," Bellatrix said. "It's normal for him to send me."

"Is that so? I don't know how long you haven't shown your head to the world, but Voldemort's son and I are second in command."

It was strange to lie in a hospital bed and have this conversation, but she liked the way Bellatrix opened her mouth to say something. Then he closed it quickly.

Cassie smiled slyly. She liked being in Slytherin, but also second in Voldemort's command. Now she could make anyone pay - Bellatrix for torturing Alice and Frank Longbottom; Harry Potter for making her go through all this, for making fun of her, for lying to Sirius ...

"You're a child," Bellatrix Lestrange said.

"And you're crazy, but I'm not complaining, am I?"

"Like the father, so is the daughter. The Dark Lord wanted the two of us to meet. He said that I might like you... Why are you here?"

Cassie didn't answer.

The pain wasn't gone. According to Kol it may never go away. But Sirius and Snape said that she needed rest. After a few days they were sure that she was going to be just fine.

Her friends were here every single minute they had free. They talked about how they wanted their life. No Potter. No Voldemort.

Yet two of them were practically Death-Eaters and the other two were considering to join Voldemort's ranks. Cassiopea had a plan. Repeating the same thing over and over again was as tiring as sitting there in the hospital bed, trying to do magic without the pain.

It was nothing. She knew it was nothing. Yet her body, her magic... Everything reacted as it was the most important thing ever.

"You have beautiful hair," Bellatrix said finally as she sat down on the bed. "Sirius always had a beautiful hair."

"Thanks. You too have a beautiful hair."

"You think?" Bellatrix smiled. "In Azkaban I couldn't take care of it. Now that I am free I can. Someone tortured you."

Cassie nodded.

"Give a name and their dead."

Cassie smiled. "Can you call you Bella or aunt Bella? Bellatrix sounds like you are the big bad wolf." her aunt raised her eyebrows. "You aren't. You were just a child. Like me. Like everyone. And I am sorry you ended up in Azkaban."

She knew. She knew that if she was kind, if she showed them she was on their side, that she was in fact a Death-Eater, she would win their trust.

And right now she needed both Bellatrix's and Voldemort's trust.

"Give me a name, little one."

Angel, little one. Cassie wondered if the next word will be niece or her name, but put that thoughts aside.

Not now.

"Dolores Umbridge," Cassie whispered into the dark hospital room to the woman she could never trust.