To those who are PO'd at me for not updating HDDII, I have a really good excuse; summer school. And in August I'll be on vacation, so the haitus continues =[

But, I've been feeling rather depressed lately, so when I got this idea, I just had to write it, and I do kinda feel better now. I know it starts slowly, but the end makes it better, I promise =]

P.S. The first scene refers to the scene in Snape's Worst Memory.

-()-

When Lily and I first became friends, no one had really understood why. After all, we had nothing in common; she was popular, ambitious, cheerful and outgoing while I was reserved, sarcastic, and rather negative. She was the girl everyone wanted to be, while I was the one people tended to overlook.

It's not that I was ugly; I was actually very beautiful once upon a time. I had dark violet eyes, so dark they almost seemed black like my hair. I had a flawless complexion, if I was a little pale, and high cheekbones too. Looking back, I think that if I'd bothered trying, I might have been quite alluring.

But as I didn't, that hardly matters.

Now, the day I first talked to Lily was the day Snape accidentally called her a mudblood. I was there, and I, along with everyone else, saw the look of hurt that briefly crossed Lily's face before she coolly stalked off. But, to my astonishment, none of her friends rushed off to comfort her. No, they were all laughing with the Marauders and flirting their brains out. One of them even batted her eyelashes at James with a, "I'd have said yes if you asked me, you know…"

I was appalled, but even then it took me a moment to work up the courage to follow Lily, having never spoken to her before. When I finally found her, she was sitting under a large oak tree on the other side of the Hogwarts grounds, crying softly.

She was too busy to notice me, so I awkwardly cleared my throat.

At that, Lily looked up at me through puffy eyes. Her shock at seeing me seemed to stop her tears, and she wiped her emerald orbs, "Can I help you?"

I bit my lip, then spoke, ignoring her question, "Are…are you alright?"

Again, she looked surprised, "Why do you care, I hardly know you."

Even though I felt like saying, "I know, I think I'll leave now", something stopped me from doing it. Perhaps I knew that she really needed a friend, or perhaps I simply realized that I really needed to start talking to people. Either way, I decided to sit down beside her.

"Snape can be a real jerk sometimes, can't he?"

Lily almost smiled back as she shook her head, "No, it's Potter who's the jerk. I can't believe what he did to Snape, I mean, that wasn't a prank, that was pure torture, how could he do that?"

And she looked at me with fresh tears in her startling green eyes, "How could he do that?"

I swallowed, not really knowing how to answer, but when I finally spoke, I said the words that cemented our friendship forever, "Because he's an arrogant toe rag. Besides, I'm pretty sure he was being egged on by Pettigrew; he may not look it, but I'm positive that behind the scenes it's him that's in charge."

She laughed, and then got up, holding a hand to me, "Of course! Pettigrew's to blame for everything, isn't' he?"

I nodded solemnly, "He's controlling the whole universe somehow, I just know it."

Lily grinned at me, "Totally. Now that that's established, I've really gotta go and perform my Prefect duties, or I'll lose the badge. And… thanks. You really cheered my up."

And with a final dazzling smile, she was gone, and I returned to my world of solitude.

-()-

It's not like we became best friends after that, after all, she was a Gryffindor golden girl and I was a shy Slytherin. But when we had classes together, she would always wave or smile at me, and we sometimes worked together. She was the closest thing to a friend I had.

She mostly talked to me when all of her other friends were busy; I don't think she realized that no one else ever did. And when we she did seek me out, it was normally for her to vent about Snape or James.

"You understand me so well," she told me once, "Like a muggle psychiatrist. It's strange how there's no wizard equivalent to a psychiatrist, isn't it?"

I was silent for a moment. Then, "A psycho- what?"

"Not a psycho, a psychologist. A person who helps you with your problems."

I smiled, "Oh, we wizards already have something like that."

"Really? What is it?"

"It's called firewhiskey."

"Good point!"

We laughed together, like normal girls, for a while after that, and hung out longer than usual. We even braided each other's hair.

-()-

But then, in seventh year, things changed. Lily and James got closer, became friendseven, because of their Head duties together. She would spend less of her time complaining about him, and more time gushing over him. Snape was all but forgotten.

Finally, after months of neglecting me, she owled me to meet her by her oak tree. When I arrived, she looked miserable.

"What's wrong, Lily?"

"It's Potter, he's asked me out again. Oh, I'd thought we were past that!"

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I put a hand on her shoulder, "So? What's really wrong?"

Her eyes went wide and she looked at me as if I were crazy, "What's wrong? You know that I don't like him, he's a jerk!"

"He's not", I spoke softly.

"Of course he is! He's arrogant, he's messy, he's cruel, he's thoughtless, he cheats, he lies and he hurts people for his own bloody amusement!"

She stared at me, waiting for me to agree, but I just blinked, "Lily, stop. You know that James isn't like that."

Now her eyes narrowed at me, "What? What's wrong with you, I thought you understood… James is a creep. He hasn't left me alone since fifth year, the bloody stalker. Ugh, I just hate him so much! I just wish he would leave me the hell alone. I mean I- "

"Lily! Shut the hell up!"

At that, Lily looked completely shocked, but she was nowhere near as shocked as I was at my outburst. I'd growled like a wild animal. But I suppose that I'd been bottling up my own emotions and listened to hers for too long; the explosion was inevitable.

"Just stop talking for a moment, if you can bloody manage that."

Lily swallowed, looking almost afraid of me, and I enjoyed the power I held over her, it fed my heart.

"Look Evans, James isn't a jerk. He's handsome, charming, rich, and completely devoted to you. So don't you effing tell me that you want him to leave you alone, because you'd be a bloody miserable old maid if he did. Just stop your bloody complaining, because I would give anything, take anything, do anything to be in your diddle perfect shoes."

It took her a moment to completely understand what I'd said, but when she did, her mouth dropped into a stupid 'O'.

"Oh Belle, why didn't you ever tell me that-"

"That I was hopelessly in love with James?" I interrupted rudely, "Well, I'm telling you now. I love everything about him; his lopsided smile, the way he messes with his hair when he's nervous, his hazel eyes, the way he always moves his hands when he talks, his dimples, his laugh, everything. And you know what? You're the luckiest damn girl in the whole damn world, so… the next time he looks at you in that longing way, with all that love and desire… the way I would kill to have him look at me, don't hurt him. Now goodbye, Lily. You can keep you bloody 'problems' to yourself from now on."

And I stalked off, waiting for her to stop me. Waiting for her to call my name, apologize for being a jerk and tell me that she would try to get James to like me.

But she didn't.

-()-

Barely a week later, it was common knowledge that Lily had finally agreed to go out with James. A month later, they were practically a married couple. Lily never spoke to me again.

And I lost it. I lost all faith in other people; they were all the same. You had to hurt them before they hurt you, or at least, that was what I thought.

I started acting on this principle too. I began talking more to other Slytherins, like Snape (another person who Lily had broken), Mulciber and Avery. I helped them hurt other people, and the weird part was, I enjoyed it. Taking the joys of others helped me feel better about myself, for if I couldn't be happy, what right did anyone else have to do so? My sadistic pleasure became a craving, an addiction. So much so, that I after I finished school I enlisted to join Voldemort, becoming his best Death Eater for torturing people, for making them spill all their secrets and scream for the mercy of death. But none of this filled the gap I always felt in my heart.

Eventually, I married. Not for love, but because I was a Black, and I couldn't disgrace the family by staying an old maid.

The man I married was a fellow Death Eater, named Rodolphus Lestrange. He was mad about me, and I found it disgusting; by that time I'd starting feeling that all Death Eaters should direct all their love at the Dark Lord and the Dark Lord alone. Only he could help her satisfy my bloodlust.

I went on like that for the rest of my life, waiting for something, anything that would let me truly feel happiness again. But I know now that nothing ever could.

On the day I died, the tiny grip I had on sanity completely fell apart. I'd been fighting three students at once, trying to kill them all and enjoying the struggle I could see on their faces. Their names, I believe, were Hermione, Luna, and then there was Lily.

Sure, Lily didn't look the same as she had when I'd last seen her, but there was no mistaking that red hair. Besides, I had fleetingly seen her with James earlier, and he'd held her close. The way he'd never have held me.

When Molly Weasley came to defend Lily, my deranged mind still didn't register that I had been trying to kill Ginny, not Lily.

But hurting the woman and her family promised to be fun, so I fought her with all of my power. And I would have won too, if I hadn't seen James.

That's right, in the moment before I died, before that Weasley killed me, I saw James' face appear out of thin air. Just like that. And he was looking at me with such horror and disgust that I laughed.

He was weak. Just like everyone else. How could I ever have loved him?

Those were my last thoughts, the draining of my one human characteristic; love, before the world went black, and it all ended. I felt no remorse.

-()-

So, if you don't remember, that final scene was from the battle of Hogwarts, and during that last scene where Bellatrix was battling Hermione, Ginny and Luna, Harry was looking on from beneath his invisibility cloak. So, I just added poetic lisence and let his head peak out... plus I made Bella a tad OOC, but I had to, in order to make the story work.

My inspiration for this one, was that Bella had been beautiful once. For some reason, I wondered if her beauty had been more than skin deep, I wondered if she'd been a good person once. Then I got to wondering what could have changed her, and voila! A plot was born =]

Now, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!