A / N : Chapter title is from the song by Eurythmics. Enjoy!

(Also, currently not feeling well, so if you spot any typos or continuity goofs, please let me know.)

Bella traced the edge of the knife with her forefinger, lost in thought. Her hand – sliced open and not even half-healed – was still stiff and smarting, every movement splitting the wound like a torn seam. But the pain felt dull and distant somehow, a lesser priority.

Her lips tingled.

He had touched her. He had touched her.

She smiled, drunk with delight. It had been terrifying, and exhilarating, and . . . not enough. She wanted more. She needed more.

Her finger slipped, and she let out a hiss of annoyance, blood beading on her fingertip. She wiped the knife clean on her robes and stuck her finger in her mouth, considering.

She ought to have disposed of the dagger. That much was obvious – if found among her belongings at school, it would only raise questions, and her parents would know immediately that it wasn't a family heirloom. She should dispose of it.

She knew with sharp-edged certainty that she wouldn't.

It was hers, she thought. It hadn't been given to her, exactly, but it had brought her to him. She pressed the cool silver of the blade to her lips, and closed her eyes. It was almost . . . almost the same . . .

It wasn't the same. Bella let out a growl of frustration and flung the knife across the hall.

Not good enough.

She stayed where she was for a long moment, fighting the angry heat rising in her chest, and the throbbing in her hand. And then, slowly, she smiled. It didn't matter. He had touched her, hadn't he? She traced the smile on her lips and stood up, tugging the knife from its position an inch deep in mortar. She blew the dust off and thrust it into her boot.

Not good enough . .. . but it would do for now.

Malfoy was waiting for her in the common room. She assumed he was waiting for her, anyway. How much time could one person spend studying? In Malfoy's case it would seem to be every waking hour, and it wasn't as if he needed it.

At present he was sitting in front of the fire, elbow-deep in discarded parchment, immersed in A History of Magic. Bella dropped, unnoticed, into the armchair opposite, and frowned.

Cissy was asleep on his shoulder.

You forgot about her.

Well . . . so what? It had been important, and Cissy was obviously . . . fine . . .

Bella pushed aside this irksome inner voice, and tried to ignore her sudden uneasiness. She couldn't remember the last time she'd even thought about Cissy.

"Why is she asleep?"

Malfoy didn't jump, but it was a close thing. He closed the book with such haste that he almost shut his nose in it.

"What?"

"Why is she asleep?"

"Who?"

"My sister!"

Lucius blinked. Following her gaze, he flinched.

"When did that happen?"

"How should I know?"

"Good point. Damn." He rolled up a piece of parchment and tentatively prodded Narcissa, as though she were a dangerous animal that might attack at any moment. When this soft treatment failed to rouse her, he wound the parchment together more tightly and wedged it between them, attempting to pry her off.

Bellatrix snickered. "Oh, that's going to work."

"Have you got any better ideas?"

Bella yawned, reclining into the armchair. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel her master's touch on her lips . . .

"Of course."

"Any you feel like sharing?" Malfoy asked irritably.

"Of course not."

She listened, for a moment, as Malfoy persisted in trying to move Cissy without waking her and then seemed to give up. There was an awkward, protracted silence, and eventually, Bellatrix remembered why.

She dragged herself from her daydream with an effort, and opened her eyes. Malfoy was watching her, wearing an expression that seemed to comprise equal parts confusion and discomfort. At last, he cracked.

"What have you been doing?"

"You know what I've been doing," Bella said lazily.

"You look . . . look at yourself."

Bella raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. Am I your business now? Is that how it works for you, Lucius? You leave me high and dry when it matters, and now you're worried about me? Is poor little Bella in trouble? Oh dear. It would be awful if that was your fault, wouldn't it?"

Lucius scowled. "Don't mistake my disbelief for concern," he snapped.

Cissy shifted uncomfortably in her sleep, slipping into his lap. Lucius grimaced, and made an apparent effort to relax.

"I stand by what I said earl-"

"Oh, shut up," Bella interrupted.

"What?"

"I said shut up. You're off the hook."

Bella scowled. Her memory of this afternoon was fading already, all too quickly. For the first time in her life, waging war on Malfoy just didn't seem any fun.

She stared at him for a long moment.

"It was a test," she said at last. "Wasn't it? I was supposed to get there without your help."

When Malfoy made no response, Bella smiled broadly. "And I did," she continued smugly.

When even this failed to provoke him, she smirked. "Oh, are you sulking? Ugh. Don't blame me, I told you you should have come."

Malfoy's expression remained immoveable.

"Look at yourself."

"What are you talking about?"

"For the love of Merlin, just look at yourself."

Bella sighed, annoyed at Lucius for not rising to the bait. Annoyed at him for having the nerve to puncture her good mood at all, actually. Still, he didn't seem inclined to let the subject drop, so she rose and crossed to the mirror above the fireplace.

She blinked, and her smile faded for the first time since her return from Hogsmeade. Her lips were bleeding, split along the lines of the knife. She didn't even remember that happening, and she had somehow managed to forget the wound on her palm, which was bound up loosely in her cloak, soaking the sleeve to the elbow. Her hair was windswept and wild-looking, the mark left by the Stinging Jinx a livid, violent counterpoint to the unnatural pallour of her cheeks. She looked . . .

There were no words for how she looked.

Had people been staring? She couldn't remember.

"I . . ."

Malfoy cut across her. "Whatever you did to warrant that . . . On second thoughts, forget it. I'm not entirely sure I want to know."

Bellatrix felt her temper flare. "I didn't do anything to warrant that. It went well. He likes me."

Malfoy gave a cough which sounded disbelieving even to her inattentive ears.

"He does! Which is more than I can say for some."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Bella smiled. "Wouldn't you just love to know?"

Malfoy scoffed. "Of course," he sneered. "I'm sure you're privy to all sorts now, on the basis of one moderately successful-"

"Moderately successful?"

"Be quiet!"

Bella's hand was halfway to her wand before he gestured to her sister, and she realized Malfoy might not be simply throwing his weight around. She bit her tongue.

They both watched Cissy for a moment, but she seemed too used to Bella's outbursts to be roused by one.

"Clean up," Malfoy managed at last, in a slightly less antagonizing tone. "For the love of Merlin, she's been asking enough questions as it is. Questions which, while we're on the subject, it is not my job to answer."

Bella waved a hand airily. "Oh, I told her all that stuff years ago, when she walked in on Evan and some airhead in the-"

"Not those questions!" Lucius spluttered. "I was referring to you. She's suspiscious about you."

Bella sat up sharply. "What did you tell her?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know what I'd think, anymore. You're getting weirder by the day."

Lucius frowned. "I didn't tell her anything," he rejoined at last. "She's acquired some strange ideas all on her own. I left her to develop them in peace."

Bella narrowed her eyes. "What kind of ideas?" she asked suspisciously.

Malfoy shrugged. "You're behaving . . . more erratically than usual, shall we say . . . so she assumes some kind of romantic entanglement."

"Ugh. Not with you again? That stopped being funny weeks ago."

"I never found it funny."

"Wasn't it your idea?"

"I thought it was yours."

Bella yawned. "Oh. I can't remember. I just assumed it was one of your stupid ideas." She paused. "It was funny though. Skeeter's face!"

"Your father's face," Malfoy reminded her.

Bella cringed. "Good point. Alright, so . . ."

"Invent some fiction for your sister."

"Got it."

Bella stretched, catlike, flinching as the tip of the dagger pricked her ankle.

"What now?"

"Nothing. I'm going to go clean up. Don't wake her up yet!"

Malfoy gave Cissy's shoulder a cautious prod. "I hardly think I can. She's sleeping like the dead." She twitched, and he hastily withdrew his hand. "Don't be long," he warned, but Bella was hardly listening. Blood was trickling into her boot, and it took an effort not to hobble from the room.

Cleaning up proved easier than expected, once she found herself in her empty dormitory. A change of clothes, salve for the smaller cuts and bruises, some ice on the mark left by the Stinging Jinx . . . she couldn't help but sneer at Malfoy. Honestly. They were only surface wounds. They wouldn't last. It had gone well.

A smaller, somewhat less triumphant inner voice retorted : Surface wounds is well?

It sounded like Andromeda, Bella thought spitefully, as she turned the knife over again in her hands, considering. She watched the candlelight catch the blade, and saw, again, silver flash in sunlight.

She buried the knife deep in her trunk and straightened up. A voice that sounded like Andromeda, she decided, was a voice that wasn't worth listening to.

By the time she returned, Malfoy had managed to free himself from Cissy.

He had also taken her chair. Bella perched on the arm, just to annoy him.

"There you go," she purred. "All cleaned up." She flicked his badge with a fingernail, and smirked. "Aren't I a good girl?"

Lucius stiffened and tried to swat her away.

Bella laughed.

"Oh, relax, I'm not even remotely tempted. What's got into you today?" She snatched at the hand that had swatted her. "Luc-ius . . . you're forgetting your own name now?"

"Of course not. Don't be deliberately obtuse."

"Poor Lucius . . . one day with my sister and you're already losing your marbles. I told you she'd drive you mad." Bella grinned. "But look on the bright side!" She patted his arm. "You dot your i's very prettily, darling."

Lucius prodded her with his wand, tipping her off the armrest. "Haha. Very funny," he said dryly. He frowned at his hand. "Is that a . . . . ?" He began to scrub frantically at the back of his hand.

Bella smiled lazily. "So. How bad was it?"

Malfoy stopped scrubbing. "Your sister? It was . . . interesting."

"What do you mean, interesting?"

Malfoy shrugged. Bella narrowed her eyes.

"What do you mean, interesting?" she repeated. "What did she do? What did she tell you about me?"

Lucius began scrubbing the back of his hand again, in an absent-minded sort of way. "You know what the word 'interesting' means, Bellatrix."

"Not in this context I don't!" Bella snapped. "'Interesting' and 'Cissy' don't belong in the same sentence."

Lucius shot her a sharp look. "I don't see why not. Is it so difficult to imagine your sister is capable of carrying a conversation?"

"Yes!"

Malfoy raised an eyebrow, and Bella felt her fingers curl into fists.

"There's nothing interesting about Cissy," she spat. "She doesn't know anything, she doesn't care about anything. Ribbons and dresses and lovehearts and rubbish, that's all she cares about. And if it wasn't before, it definitely is now!"

Malfoy simply cast her a supercilious smile. "Bellatrix, she's not quite as empty-headed as you make out."

Bella fumed.

"Oh, please! Empty-headed is exactly what she is – you wouldn't know the first thing about it! If she ever had an interesting thought, she'd starve it out!"

Bellatrix bit down hard on her tongue, a moment too late. Malfoy's usual smugness had flickered into uncertainty.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Bellatrix beat him to it. She was at his side in a moment, her wand pressed to his throat.

"You tell anyone," she snarled, "anyone . . ."

He waved her off. "I don't understand. I thought she was ill."

"She is. She'd be fine if she'd just eat like a normal person. She's just being stubborn."

"Stubborn is not how I would describe her conduct yesterday."

"Ugh." Bellatrix turned away from him, kneeling instead beside Cissy.

She was still asleep. Close to, she didn't look any better than yesterday.

"It's for her own good," she murmered. "You don't understand - Cissy needs to be pushed. She doesn't know her own mind." She wound a portion of her sister's fair hair around her finger.

"I'm going to fix her," she said fiercely - and gave a short, sharp tug.

Cissy awoke with a cry. "Bella!"

She sat up sluggishly and then slumped back onto the chaise-longue, defeated.

"Bella, that hurt."

Bella grinned. "Hello, Cissy. Sweet dreams?"

Cissy blinked. "No," she mumbled. "I wasn't dreaming."

Bella rolled her eyes at Lucius, who had suddenly become deeply interested in his Astrology chart. "You see?" she mouthed. "Empty-headed."

When Lucius merely ignored her, she turned back to Cissy.

"Boring."

Cissy stood up, rubbing her eyes. "It wasn't," she said defensively. "It was nice." Her gaze flickered to Lucius, and she turned faintly pink. "I, um . . . I didn't mean to fall asleep."

He waved a hand dismissively, and she smiled as if she had just been made guest of honour at the Slug Club.

Bellatrix grimaced. "Yeuch. Cissy, that's revolting."

Cissy's cheeks deepened to crimson and she plucked nervously at her cloak, as though hoping to lose herself inside it.

"I - I don't know what you're talking about," she stammered, in an unconvincing imitation of indifference.

"You have no taste. Go to bed."

She prodded Cissy with her wand, laughing . . . and her sister swayed. Malfoy looked up from his parchment with a cry of alarm, but Cissy had fallen to her knees by that time, her face paper-white, gripping the edge of her chair for support.

"I'm alright . . ." she mumbled, eyes closed. "Just .. . tripped . . ."

"Are you . . .?" Malfoy was half-out of his seat when he found Bella's wand pressed once more to his throat.

"Don't touch her," she snarled. "Don't you dare." She seized Cissy by the arm and hauled her into a standing position. "You heard her. She tripped. She's tired. Which is why I'm going to put her to bed-" - she tightened her grip - "and we're going to talk about it."

"Bella, I'm-"

"Shut up."

Cissy fell silent at once.