It was worth it, she thought with shaky defiance. She turned around to face the authority figure and gasped, it was Professor Slughorn, the one teacher whose opinion mattered to her, the only one she cared about pleasing. In that moment, she wanted to hurt herself in punishment for her impulsive stupidity, but instead, she just pocketed her wand and nodded.

"Mr. Lestrange," Slughorn turned to Rodolphus. "If everything is alright here, you're welcome to go ahead inside."

"I'm fine." Rodlophus nodded. "Trixie, are you okay?"

"Yes," Bellatrix answered quickly.

"I'll wait for you in the common room, then." He nodded again and then left them alone.

"Miss Black," Slughorn spoke again. "I would like a word with you."

"Yes, Sir," Bellatrix consented, nervously.

"That spell you just used is Dark Magic. I'd like to assume that you did not already know that, but I do have to ask: did you?"

Lie! A cold, eerie voice commanded inside her head. It wasn't one she recognized, but she chose to obey it:

"No, Sir, I didn't know. It was just something I heard some one say and I thought I'd try it out."

"Hmm, Well, if you hear anything more about the Dark Arts on this campus, you will tell me immediately, yes?"

"Yes, of course, sir." Bellatrix always had been a fantastic liar, and she was pleased with any chance to exercise that ability.

"In the meantime, Dark or not, hexing another student is against school rules. So, you'll be doing detention with me after dinner tomorrow night. I'll see you in class. Good night"

She nodded obediently. "Oh, Professor," she called before he could walk away. "I wanted to ask you something. It's about your, um, Slug Club."

"Yes, Miss Black, what is it?"

"I was wondering if you'd ever consider letting me be a member."

"That's flattering, Miss Black, but I don't usually accept first years."

"I understand that, sir. But you said yourself that I was one of your best students."

The potions master seemed unfazed, so Bellatrix resolved to bring her family into the argument. She knew that Slughorn was one of the very few teachers who actually appreciated the importance of blood status.

"Sir, my family can trace their ancestry back to the middle ages," She pointed out. "The Blacks are some of the most powerful and influential witches and wizards of all time. Not to mention, we're all extremely ambitious pure-bloods."

Slughorn all-but ignored her little monologue, but did seem to give her last few words some consideration before shaking his head in response to her request. "I'm sorry but my answer is still no, Miss Black. Mostly because of your hostile attitude toward students of other houses or of lesser blood than yourself. And because of that jinx I caught you attempting tonight."

"Oh, come on!" Bellatrix whined, completely forgetting her manners and the "obedient student" role she'd been playing. "It's not like I ever actually hurt anyone. And tonight, technically, I jinxed the tree and not Rabastan, not that he wouldn't deserve it if-" Too late, she caught herself.

"Miss Black," Slughorn let out a sigh. "Like so many other curious Slythrins your age, it's clear that you too have a tendency to confuse the terms ambitious and malicious. I suggest you familiarize yourself with both of those words and I will see you in my class tomorrow. That is my final answer. Now, good night."

Bellatrix angrily watched her favorite teacher walk away. "Miss Black," she mocked under her breath, stretching her last name into a two syllable word the way Slughorn did. Slowly, as she walked inside and toward the Slytherin dormitories, she calmed down. By the time she reached the portrait, she had resolved that she would just need to try even harder in her potions class.

"Toadspawn," She sweetly recited the new password for the portrait, which swung open instantly without changing the expression on its face. The portrait didn't have much of a personality In fact, it had yet to do anything other than frown skeptically at the Slytherin students. Bellatrix pondered this and decided that she was going to make it smile someday. That thought was entertaining enough to make a grin appear on her own face, one that she was still wearing when Rodolphus confronted her.

"How'd it go?" He demanded eagerly the second she entered the common room.

"Fine, I just got detention tomorrow night."

"Make sure you actually show up for this one," he jeered with a knowing smile. He was referencing their detention with McGonnagall at the beginning of the year. When Bellatrix had not shown up for it, the teacher had cleverly just subtracted fifty points from Slytherin house. A sum that did not worry Bellatrix at all because she easily recovered them and twenty additional ones in Slughorn's class the day after that.

Despite the teasing, there was also a grave seriousness in Rodolphus's eyes. "What is it?" Bellatrix inquired impatiently.

"That jinx you sent at Rabastan...That was Dark Magic, wasn't it?" He paused long enough for her to nod. "He was just playing with you, Trixie! ...And you saw what you did to that tree. If you'd hit a person with that, you could have cut down to the bone!"

"I know that," she lied. "I missed on purpose. See, I didn't hurt anybody but, this way, everyone will still know not to mess with me." She then changed the subject so he wouldn't have a chance to argue her point, "So, what are you going to make your brother give you in exchange for doing his homework on the train?"

"I thought I'd ask him to teach me legilimency. He's better at it than I am and I want to figure out what went wrong when you and I tried it."

"Oh, that reminds me. Could you try it on me again?"

"What? Why?"

"I've been teaching myself occlumency and I want to make sure it's working."

"I don't know," he said warily. "Remember last time..."

"That was only your first try though," Bellatrix argued. "And we were both scared out of our minds, that's probably why there was all that pain... Please, just try."

"Fine," He agreed after nearly a minute of staring at her pouted lips and pleading eyes. They sat down, side by side on their favorite couch, the one in the corner farthest from the fireplace, and grabbed each other's hands instinctively.

"Promise me," Rodolphus warily directed her. "That you'll tell me if you feel any pain, and I'll stop if you want me to."

"Oh, please," Bellatrix just rolled her eyes, but his staring persisted so she finally consented. "Fine, I promise. Can we do it now?"

"Tell me when you're ready."

"Okay," she shut her eyes for a few seconds and tried to make her mind blank by focusing on nothing at all. Then she opened her eyes and stared into his. "Ready."

"Legilimens!" Rodolphus concentrated but Bellatrix didn't see any flashes of memory or feel any pain at all. Finally he pulled back and she waited anxiously for him to explain what happened. "That block that was in your mind last time..." he said after a minute. "All of your mind is like that now, I couldn't see anything... Did you use occulmency last time?"

"Yes," She could have lied but there wasn't really a need to.

"Why? What were you hiding?" He was being curious, not demanding, but it was still slightly annoying.

"If I used occlumency to hide it from you, does it really make sense that I would just tell you what it was now?" She challenged. He frowned so she quickly made amends. "Look, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I have secrets I don't want anyone to know."

"I understand," he said sympathetically. "Well, I'm going to bed now," he added after an awkward, silent minute. "You?"

"No, I'm going to stay up for awhile."

"Do you want me to-"

"No," She interrupted. "I mean, you can stay up if you want to. But I'd like some time alone if you don't mind."

"Not at all."

The two of them hugged and wished each other "good night" before parting. Bellatrix waited till Rodolphus was out of her sight before she performed a quick Disillusionment charm on herself and sneaked out of the room. She went outside where a few inches of snow still coated the ground. She hadn't thought to bring a coat but suddenly didn't seem to need one, she just keep walking, unaffected by the chill.

She did not know where she was going until she reached her destination: the willow tree she'd found herself underneath on the night she'd acquired the first Dark Arts book.

She took a seat there now, and opened that same book to a page at random. By some extremely bizarre coincidence, the unit was about Unforgivable Curses. There was not a lot of new information there though, and just like the book on the same subject that she'd gotten from Nockturn Alley just before starting school, it did not give her any incantations.

That wasn't a problem though, because she already knew one out of three of them, and it was one that she couldn't wait to try out. Crucio! She said inside her mind, then quietly repeated it out loud. She stared at the book, searching half-heartedly for some new information, while she waited for a bug or a small animal to come along, one that she could use as a practice first-victim.

It was a small grey bird that eventually found its way over to her. Bellatrix waited like a crouching tiger while it settled onto a branch a few feet above her head, then she shot a stunning spell at it. She slowly traced a line in the air, starting at where the bird was currently frozen and stopping at the ground just in front of her. That pattern was copied by the bird's immobilized body, moving only a split second slower than her wand and landing limply at her feet.

She stared at it for a minute, hesitating for a few seconds, before she shouted the incantation again, "Crucio!" The bird cried out with horrible squawks of pain but it didn't move. Couldn't move, she remembered, because she had immobilized it.

With a sigh, Bellatrix released it from the torture curse and then also from its immobilization. She waited until it began to pick itself up, allowed it to believe that it was safe once again and could fly away. Then, she shot another Cruciatus Curse at it just as it lifted its wings to take off. She watched it fall to the ground and struggle there uselessly, twitching and convulsing violently and crying out to no avail.

Was that what she looked like under the curse? Weak? Pathetic? Helpless?

"Never again," Bellatrix said to herself, strongly. She was the one with all the power now and this was yet another curse that she was prepared to use against anyone who tried to hurt or control her in the future.

The bird had stopped screaming during her temporary distraction. "You have to mean it," She reminded herself, bringing her attention back to the curse. She gave her victim a tiny break as she skimmed through what the Dark Arts book said about the Cruciatus Curse.

The bird had stopped squawking, and now ceased writhing too. It's tiny bird-brain took almost a full minute to comprehend its liberation. Bellatrix watched it with cold-blooded amusement as it struggled to balance itself on two shaky bird-legs and attempt to fly off again. She let it get a few inches off the ground before she flicked her wand in its direction again.

As she did that, she uttered a single word. But that one word had more emotion and desire behind it than anything else she'd said in her entire life:

"Crucio!"

(A/N: So, this is the last chapter of first year. Maybe it's as predictable as it is premature, but I really wanted her to try out the Cruciatus Curse, because it's the one that pretty much defines her. If you think Bellatrix, you think "Cruciatus." Every story of this series begins and ends with that word too. The next one "Bellatrix the Strange- 2" imaginative title, huh? will be about her forth year, her early Dark Arts achievements, and some of her relationships. Please look forward to it. I hope you like the story so far. XOXO. -Lia.)