This sort of ties in with a chaptered fic that I'm planning on releasing soon, about Andromeda. I wanted this scene so much, but there will be no place for it in my story. So here's a little oneshot for you to read, and hopefully review :).

Dedicated to BonnieDog for her Bellatrix obsession and amazing fics: I still don't like Bellatrix, I just want to explore her character more.

UPDATE, 11/OCT/2007: Some minor edits to word choice etc., nothing major.

Sticks And Stones

"I know you're there, don't think you can use the element of surprise on me." I say coldly, facing the decrepit brick wall. "Subtlety was never one of your strong points, you know."

I turn around to face her as she emerges from the shadows, hair billowing around her like a dark cloak. She has been tailing me all day, waiting to get me on my own. Her pale complexion fleetingly reminds me of an old Muggle fairytale.

Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow.

There is a deranged, maniacal look in this twisted Snow White's eyes as she glares back at me. The corners of her mouth are curled upwards in a cruel sneer.

"So what if you noticed me, you still walked into an empty alleyway, fool. Little blood traitor Andi's all alone with no-one to protect her from the big bad Death Eater. Stupid girl." She sneers at me in mocking tones.

"You do not scare me. I've been waiting for this moment for too long now to cower with fear. I led you here on purpose, Bella. I thought that much would be obvious, even to you." I return her frosty gaze, our identical eyes wrapped in a battle of hatred.

"Trust me, please, before this night is over you will be begging for my mercy."

A memory flits into my brain, of the last time she said those first three words to me. No, I tell myself, she is not that person anymore. She is evil and deranged, corrupted and cruel.

"You will truly regret the day you married that dirty-blooded fool."

Anger flares through my veins and infects every inch of my body, the famous Black temper consuming me.

"Dirty blood? How can you say that, how can you even entertain that notion, when our own family tree is nought but a collective of murderers, thieves and inbred imbeciles! You are not fit to talk about my husband in that way, you, you bitch!" I half-shriek, losing control at her insult. She smirks at the reaction she provoked in me.

"Sticks and stones, Andromeda. I don't have time to listen to your silly, Muggle-loving notions. Crucio!" She screams her curse, which I easily dodge. I throw back my head and laugh bitterly.

"Surely you don't underestimate me that much! You're going to have to do a lot better than that to catch me out."

At that moment, it starts to pour with rain, falling thick and heavy from dark clouds. As I cast my own spells and dodge hers, I reflect on the last time Bellatrix and I duelled, with broken twigs instead of wands, waving them in the air and shouting nonsense words in a field near our family home.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Flubberybub!"

"Toadywarts!"

"Glubbyglue!"

"Hah! I win again!" smiled Bella, looking down at her sister with unconcealed glee.

"Do not!" I shouted indignantly, although I knew it didn't matter what I said. She was already halfway through her ritual victory dance.

"Do to! I got you with Glubbyglue, so you can't talk. That means you can't cast any spells, which means I win. Nah-ne-nah-ne-nah-nah!" she retorted, sticking her tongue out at me as she kept dancing that ridiculous gloating dance.

"Nuh-uh, I once saw mother use a cleaning spell without speaking! I asked her and she said that you don't always need to say spells aloud, if you're good enough at them!" I replied, finding a loophole in Bella's logic.

"Alright, fine. We'll call it a draw… this time." My sister gave in, pouting slightly.

"Can we play again?" I asked hopefully.

"So you can suffer another humiliating defeat? I wouldn't be so cruel. Besides, Cissy is probably wondering where we are. We should go back home."

Now it was my turn to pout.

"Hey, you said it was a draw! And Narcissa spoils everything, I don't want to have her play with us!" I moaned.

"We can't stay outside much longer: it's raining." Bella pointed out as a few drops of water landed on my head.

I shivered slightly in the chilly air. Wasn't summer supposed to be warm? I hadn't realised how cold it was getting. Thinking longingly of the cloak I had left in my room earlier, I placed my hands on my head trying to block the rain.

"Oh, don't be such a baby, Andi." She scoffed, but handed me her cloak.

"Better to be a dry baby than a wet airhead." I mumbled from under the cloak, which was much too big for me. Bella was only two years my senior, but she was quite a lot taller than me, and the cloak trailed on the grass, getting soaked at the hems.

"Touché," she said. I didn't know what touché meant, but looking back, she probably didn't either.

"I wish you didn't have to start school tomorrow. I'll miss you; Narcissa isn't any fun to play with. She cries if you tag her, can't find a hiding place to save herself and is useless at playing duels." I said sadly, wishing I were old enough to go to Hogwarts too.

"Don't be upset; you know if I could bring you then I would. Cissy isn't that bad. She is only seven and she'll grow out of it soon. And I'll be home at Christmastime." She said, hugging me.

"Yeah, I suppose." I sighed.

"Can I tell you a secret?" She hesitated slightly before whispering in my ear.

"You'll always be my favourite person in the world ever, and nothing will ever change that, no matter what."

"That's not true." I replied mournfully.

"Yes, it is. We will always be as close as we are right now, and when you come to Hogwarts it will be just like at home. It's only two years, and I'll be home for the holidays. Trust me, please." She looked at me, desperately trying to convince herself as well as me.

I knew that this wasn't true, but she so clearly wanted to believe it that I didn't have the heart to press the point further.

"Ok. C'mon, we better go now, you're soaking." I tried so hard to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace.

Bella looked at me worriedly, but didn't say anything more about it.

"Last one home is a puffskein!" I said fake-cheerily, pretending I was OK.

Neither of us was OK; nothing would ever be the same and we both knew it. I knew it on her eleventh birthday in March, I knew it four months later when she got her letter and I knew it as I waved goodbye on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, not bawling my eyes out like Narcissa and mother, but just standing there, feeling truly lost and alone for the first time in my life.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I look into the face of the woman in front of me, seeing next to nothing of Bella-Black-The-Big-Sister-And-Best-Friend, nothing of the girl who gave me her cloak when I was cold and made up 'spells' for our silly games. That Bella left me at the hidden platform ten years ago and never returned quite the same. The girl who came home for Christmas was different, growing colder like the very winter itself.

The woman who is throwing curse after curse at me, and stalked me with the intent to kill me tonight is not my sister. The Dark corrupted her, infatuated her with hollow promises of power and happiness. She is a monster, with a heart of pure stone. A heart as black as her name, as black as the eyes we share.

She gives another shout of Crucio, but this time it hits the target. Pain like I've never felt before writhes through me as I fall backwards, my very core is on fire and my organs are stabbed and sliced. Doubled up on the dirty pavement, I try so, so hard not to give this abomination that used to be my sister the screams she so desperately craves. I fail miserably.

My shrieks pierce the silence and rain falls into my open mouth. I am sure this will be the end, the pain-fuelled creature trying to pass itself off as Bellatrix Black has but to say those two final words. Suddenly, relief. I feel a break from the torture and look up, panting. I expect to see her smiling that sick, twisted Death Eater smile at my pain, but no. There is something more human in her eyes, and is that a flicker of remorse?

"Bella?" I croak, my voice hoarse from screaming, my eyes silently pleading with her.

She looks as though she is about to help me up, but thinks better of it. Instead she turns her back to me and starts to walk away. I get to my feet and walk after her, ignoring the pain in my aching limbs.

"Bella, do you remember the day before you first went to Hogwarts? We were in the field, and it was raining, and you told me I was your favourite person in the world? Please Bella, talk to me. I just want to know why you got involved in all this. Remember, before you went to school, before that Mark was engraved on your arm, before it took you over? I know you're in there somewhere, or I'd be dead by now." I tell her, daring to hope that she might come back to me.

"Don't." Her voice is barely more than a whisper, yet sharp as if she yells. "Don't blame this on me. I never left you: you left me. When you went off with that boy and got yourself disowned."

"I never went off with anyone, you disappeared with your little gang of followers. Antonin Dolohov, the Carrows, Valora Rosier. They all looked up to you, and corrupted you with their crazy ideals. Look where you all ended up, serving the most evil man to ever hit the wizarding world. Was it worth it, in the end, when you look at what you have become? Can you say that you're happy being so cold and callous with human life?"

She slaps me hard across the face.

"I was there for you when you needed me, except you never did once you met him, did you? You went to that – that Mudblood as opposed to me. I may have been on my way to this non-life, but you pushed me away even further." She looks angry and torn and human, and for a moment she is Bella again. But then she turns towards the end of the alley.

"You were wrong," I call after her. "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will fucking hurt me a lot more if they come from you"

She faces me one final time and smiles, neither the twisted Death Eater smile nor the warm Big Sister smile. This one is the bitter smile of a broken person.

"I let you live tonight, but bear this in mind Andromeda Tonks: next time I will not be so merciful." And with that she turns and disapparates into the night, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I don't doubt what she said. I know, tonight I witnessed the very last shred of the sister I used to have bursting out from somewhere underneath the Death Eater. Perhaps for the last time ever.

She truly does have a heart of stone, I reflect, but stone can still be broken, can still be shattered into pieces. It just takes more strength to make it crumble.

It occurs to me that insanity might just be the only saving grace for Bellatrix. The thought scares me more than any War ever did.