"Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it; blood shall bring it down." - Jennet Clouston from Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped

Once, in fifth year History of Magick with the Slytherins and Gryffindors, James Potter threw a stone at the back of Lilly Evans's head. She turned around maliciously to Frank Longbottom, whom she thought was the pitcher of the offending stone, and gave him a death glare. The disheartened Frank mumbling something about Lilly being the most frightening girl in school.

Severus Snape looked darkly at the boy, but that was expected of the Slytherin. What was unexpected, however, was James's best friend Sirius Black hissing at Frank to watch what he said. Severus smirked to himself at the irony though thanked his stars none of the Gryffindor boys noticed. James turned to look at Sirius in disbelief, a look that would ask the questions hanging in his mind. But, suprisingly, Sirius was hanging to every word on Binns's lecture and copying notes in his messy scrawl.

Severus knows what Frank has said is not true, and that's what's funny to him. Sirius knows it's not true and that's a thought he'd rather ignore. Because they are fifth years and two grades up the youngest of the Black sisters yawns dramatically in Transfiguration, causing Marion Parkinson to snigger as Professor McGonagall resists the temptation to snap at the girl. Her name is Bellatrix Black, and she is gorgeous, frightful, and bitter.

The youngest within the immaculate unholy trio created by the three Black sisters. There were five bitter Blacks, once upon a time when Cissa picked her scabs and watched the blood drip, when Meda proffessed love for Lucius, when Regulus could look up to his brother and Bella and Sirius could fight playfully. And as Sirius sits in this stuffy classroom surrounded by his Gryffindor housemates and the Slytherins he considered soulmates for so long, the group is falling farther.

Two months earlier, old Octavia Rookwood had giggled to Serprinsa Black that she had seen her eldest daughter, Andromeda, with her hands clasped around those of a muggleborn boy, her lips matching his kisses and her smile recognizable as love. Serprinsa had coolly pushed Octavia's statement off as drunken babbling, but all the denial in the world hadn't kept Andromeda from showing up at the Black Manor and explaining to her mother she was, true to the rumors that had been circulating, married to Ted Tonks. There are scars on Andromeda's arms today to remind her of her mother's nails digging into her arms to keep her from returning to her childhood bedroom.

Andromeda had come looking for her possesions and Mrs. Black told her they'd been burned, and preventing her with force the best way she had known how - with her nails. Andromeda had left her childhood home with an ache heavy on her heart. But Serprinsa had slid to a chamber beneath a marble staircase, a small cubbard-like room that smelled of Andromeda's perfume. The space was littered with Andromeda's bed linens and towels embrodiered with her initials, her sky-blue jewelry box filled with pearls and gold pieces. All her old school books and school marks - laid out into this small space no one but Minnadite, the house elf, knows of. Serprinsa kept a key to the closet on a chain around her neck everyday, and she'd visit it often, the haunting memories of her favorite daughter seeping over her in secret as much as she'd like to have just blatantly pushed her away.

That very Christmas holiday, Sirius would turn up half-frozen on the Potter household's doorstep, fuming with anger enough to melt the icecaps in the Arctic. Olive Potter. James's mother, takes him in, of course, drawing him a warm bath and finding him some of James's clothes to put on. And Sirius never returns to the Black house, but Olive feels tinges of betrayl beneath her agony over her son's death. But greif and old age get the better of her, and the woman who defined mother for Sirius never knew of his innocence. Another person inadvertadly tasting the poison lingered by the family.

Agilia Black, the mother of Sirius, through a raging fit after Sirius's departure. Regulus was the one who found her, raging in the drawing room. Her posture was ramrod straight and her eyes alight with anger, but ever ladylike she sat at the drawing table. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line and her hair still perfectly coiffed. It was the most aged Regulus had ever seen her, and as she calmly explained his wretched brother, her ungrateful son's dismissal, Regulus's heart surged with pain.

He was still a child, Regulus, having been babied the most of the five - especially by Narcissa. But now he was the only left in the cold manor. But as an overwhelming sadness and sense of missing burrowed a whole into his heart, a sense of duty replacing it. He was to right his brother's wrongs, his job to end their mother's agony. It was his job to uphold the family honor, to return pride to the family in place of the embarrassment Sirius brought about.

A few years after that fateful Christmas, the scattered remains of the five - now three, were in attendance to the social event of the bitter winter. The attendance and anticipation level were far higher than even the Rosier's New Year's ball. It was the Black - Lestrange wedding.

The chapel was cold, icy, and the breath fogged in front the people. Of course, Bellatrix would never have it any other way. No one knew how Bellatrix was to follow after her matron of honor, newlywed Narcissa Malfoy, gracefully made her way down the eisle in a gray-blue gown, her blond hair long past her shoulders. But shocked intakes of breath were a commonplace as the youngest daughter swept through the double doors, holding a bouquet of blood-red roses. Her inky-black hair was pinned atop her head and her fair skin looked pristine, and she followed after her sister with such poise. Her eyes matched Rudolphus's the entire service, holding a shining and content look.

But her outstanding beauty was not the cause for shock, but rather her dress. Instead of opting for the traditional white gown, or even cream, she chose a different color. The styling was traditional, but the color was a light ash-gray, as if the dress had been white at one time but she'd rolled in soot. She held a smirk as all the people in attendence reveled in the shock.

Narcissa was in attendance, as was Rudolphus with his layers of clothing hiding his Death Eater's mark. And in the back, leaning in a dark corner, was Sirius. No one saw him, he slinked in a slinked out during the service. No one, that is, except Bellatrix - who caught his gaze as she walked out of the church and kept it til she dissapeared through the double doors. It was the last time she'd see him til her days in Azkaban.

She'd wear ebony in the following months to Regulus's funeral, and be slapped with blame from Narcissa for his death. Narcissa was struggling with Regulus's death moreso than any other person, even his own mother, and felt it fit to blame whoever she could. It was as if Narcissa had aged five years in the two months following his death, and she never returned to her old self.

Even after her child, Draco, was born. She never forgave anyone for Regulus's death, especially not herself, and held tight to the sobbing child during her sister's trial nearly a year afterward. Bellatrix sat among a hysterical Crouch and her tense husband with a calm clarity, her hands not clenched around the chains that bound her, but rather lay slack. It wasn't that she was tired, Narcissa could sense that, but she was acting like she had when Mother would lecture them. She'd sit calm and collected, expressionless, and days later she'd have come up with a plan on how not to get caught the next time.

And when Bellatrix exploded into the courtroom, threating Mr. Crouch, shudders were sent through Narcissa. Her sister's eyes were filled with a rage that had been reserved for her school day bickering with Sirius and the prank-like torturing of her classmates, but somehow the glint was darker. So dark Narcissa could understand why the baby in her arms was crying and rather wished she could as well.

Many, many years later, when Sirius returns to the haunted house he spent childhood years in, there's no one at the door to open it. No house elf to take his coat and send him on his way. No Regulus sliding down the banister and no Narcissa shreiking at him that he'll break his neck from the top of the steps. No Andromeda running into the middle of the hall to tell the two to pipe down, because she's trying to read. And no baby Bellatrix to find in the corner of the study in the back of the house, studying the chess pieces.

As the Order of Phoenix intrude into the house and disinfect it to call it their own, no one stops them. A legacy is dying as they clean up the curtains, a history is being killed as they dust off the furniture. But the house fights back, and will forever be haunted. No matter how much the light can bleed through, no matter how much the years change, it is still the house of Black.

The stars that serve as namesakes for the children never fade as the children themselves struggle and, ultimately, fall.

Author's note: this fic exhausted me. It's okay. The times may be off, my apologies.