Back in my bedroom, I collapse onto my bed. Thoughts fly through my mind like Snitches flitting in and out of sight of a Seeker. I can't cope with this madness. Me? The Dark Lord's assistant, his 'only hope'?
Suddenly my bedroom door bursts open. A tall, pale boy with light blond hair and deep green eyes is standing there.
"Gipsy? What's going on, I-"
He stops as I fly into him, throwing my arms around his neck and burying my head into his shoulder. "Draco! I- I can't-"
And then I burst into tears.
My cousin holds me as I cry. He puts a comforting arm round me and rocks me. "It's ok, Gipsy. It's ok."
Then I tell him, struggling to breath as I take great, racking sobs. "The Dark Lord - he... he wants me to... to k-kill Harry Potter! I can't, Draco. I've never killed anyone! I just c-can't." I'm trembling like a leaf now.
"And if you don't?" Draco asks quietly.
"He'll kill me," I whisper.
No one knows that Bellatrix Lestrange has a daughter. My father, Rodolphus, died years ago in Azkaban. I was only a baby at the time, and I don't remember him at all. All I have left of him is a picture of him. He's scowling at the camera, but then he turns to Bellatrix and his face lights up. Whenever I see this picture, I grow angry, because its clear that he loved my mother so much, but she has a weird obsession with the Dark Lord. It's kind of gross, because he's, like, 70, and she is a lot younger. Apparently I look like my father; dark brown hair, deep grey eyes and cheekbones that could put someone's eye out. But because no one knows that Gipsy Lestrange exists, I'm being enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as Gipsy Black, a long-lost member of the extensive Black family- Bellatrix's side of the family tree. I've never called Bellatrix 'Mother' - she's not really the maternal sort, considering she's been in Azkaban since I was tiny. So I was raised in Malfoy Manor, with Lucius and Narcissa and their son Draco; my cousin.