𝙽𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚊 #𝟷 - 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚜

                                    

                                          
     Growing up the youngest of three sisters is both a blessing and a curse. 
                          
     There's an unspoken hierarchy to sisterhood, rules that sisters live by according to their ages. The oldest will be the responsible one, always put in charge of watching over the other two. She has to be organised and diligent. Prim, proper, obedient. Homemaking skills are a must. 
                          
     The second is usually the quietest and most often ignored. She might find herself having both too much time and also not enough time at all. She needs to help with the chores, but when an extra pair of hands is not needed, she has to play with the youngest. She will always be flitting between her two sisters, a ball being passed on a field. It is a thankless position, being the middle child. 
                          
     And the youngest, well, she can do anything she wants in the whole wide world because she has no responsibilities, owes no favours to anyone. And I suppose that's exactly what I did. 
                          
     I've always been quite rebellious as a young girl, but even that would be a terrible understatement. Mother said I came out of her already kicking and screaming; there was no need for the doctor to smack me. After that, I never quite stopped. I screamed about everything - when I didn't get what I wanted, and also when I did. 
                          
     We had house elves at Grimmauld Place, but Mother made Bellatrix watch over me whenever she could, said it'll prepare her for motherhood, and like the acquiescent oldest child she was told to be, she did, albeit extremely reluctantly. 
                          
     Bella's love for me was a complicated one. She bathed and fed me, pulled the dresses over my head, all while loathing me for something I couldn't help - being born last. "Just you wait," she would whisper to me when knotting the ribbons in my hair. "I'll get you back when you're older." 
                          
     And get me back she did. When I was old enough to join them in their games, she would yank my arm too hard, or push me while we were playing, or threaten to sell me to the trolls in the forest. 
                          
     I believed her, because Bella had a passion for... dead things. Wilted things. She trampled on flowers, used her magic to turn the petals black. There was once we found a baby bird on the ground in the park. It had fallen out of its nest. Ronnie - Andromeda - had wanted to climb the tree to put it back, but Bella insisted we should put it out of its misery. She found a stone and squashed it to death. 
                          
     Ronnie didn't speak to her for a week after that, but even she knew better than to tell our parents. And so deep down, I believe some part of her truly desired to hurt me, but whether it was born out of hatred for Ronnie and me or herself, I'll never be sure.  
                          
     At the same time, she was also wildly protective of us. The Blacks were very close to the Rosiers and the Bulstrodes and the Flints, so sometimes they would bring their children over to play with us, and if any of them tried to do the same things Bella did to me, she would whip out her wand and point it at them. Try. Try and hurt her. Like I said, her love for us was complicated. 
                          
     There was one thing Bella was particularly stern with me about, and that was the very urgent, pressing matter of blood purity. One day, when I was about five and she was about nine or ten, she brought me to the library and picked out this book. The Pure-Blood Directory by Cantankerous Nott - I believe you're familiar with it - and showed me all the names, asked me to memorise them. "You're only allowed to make friends with these people", she said. 
                          
     I noticed a few of the names had been struck out with ink. "What about them?" I asked. 
                          
     "Everyone except them," she said. "We are special, Cissy. We're one of the only families in Britain with magic blood. Our grandparents have it, and so did their grandparents. Those people with Muggle blood are not as powerful, because it affects their magical abilities. They aren't able to perform spells as strong as ours. They," her fingers slid to each of the struck-out names, "are friends with those Mudbloods."