The Madness Within

A tall, white haired boy, with an oval face was standing Draco - staring at Arabella - his grassy green eyes twinkling with hatred. His arms were crossed over his chest smirking
down at her, tears edged to her eyes as she stood up, pushing her way past the young boy and falling into Draco’s arms.

“I need to talk to you.” Draco breathed, almost inaudibly in her ear. “Hadrian is coming to Hogwarts, Voldemort requests it. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Wh-wh-what?” Arabella questioned as she took a step back. “Draco he can’t!”

“Yes, sister I’m accompanying you to Hogwarts. Be a little different from being homeschooled by that lying mother of ours.” Hadrian smiled evilly. “Thank goodness you killed her when you had the chance; I might have done it myself.”

Arabella pulled out her wand pressing it right under his throat, her breathing was heavy and her nostrils were flaring. Hadrian had drawn out his own wand, pointing it at Arabella’s throat too. People were staring and Florean was yelling for them to stop it and to go outside.

Harry, Ron, Fred and George had stood up with their wands pointed at the young boy they had never seen before. Draco joined in and his wand was pointed at Harry, his eyes glistening with fear. A smirk was playing on Hadrian’s lips as he lowered his wand.

“Stop it!” Hermione screeched. “There’s no need for this.”

“Shut up, Mudblood.” Draco snapped. “No one asked your opinion.”

Arabella stood in shock at the language Draco had just used on her friend, she shot him a nasty look and he recoiled, sinking backward. Ron swore at him loudly as Mrs Weasley told him to watch his mouth and tried to intervene but Tiger was too busy attacking the frills on her robes.

“Oh come on, you know you wouldn’t want to risk getting put in Azkaban like our good-for-nothing father.” Hadrian sneered. “How’s he doing anyway? I bet he’s a right barrel of laughs.”

“Hadrian, come on.” Draco urged, pulling his robe. “They’re not worth it.”

At that Hadrian laughed and followed Draco out of the parlour, Arabella watched her little brother walk away from her, once again. She felt her heartbreak all over again, just like the eve of his fifteenth birthday when he entered her room. Hadrian’s arm had been covered in blood, he was grinning ear to ear though, he thrusted his mess of an arm into her face. Tears had sprung to her eyes as she saw the ugly serpent creature etched forever onto his skin.

“Bella, are you okay?” George asked rubbing her back as she stared blankly into Diagon Alley.

“I’m sorry Mr Fortescue, I need to go home. I’m so sorry.” Arabella said quickly, her voice quivering as she picked up Tiger, cradling him in her arms.

“Yes, yes of course dear.” Molly said quietly. “C’mon, children get your belongings.”

Soon they were back at Grimmauld Place and Arabella ran into her father’s arms and hugged him as tight as she could, he chuckled as she released him after several moments, she showed him Tiger and told him that George picked the name, Sirius laughed as Tiger snatched at his hand.

“Bella, we’ve to go put our things in our trunks, Mum wants everything organized for tea. Oh and your Hogwarts trunk is here.” George grinned, his head appearing around the door.

As they trekked upstairs with Tiger settled quietly in Arabella’s arms, they met Kretcher who was roaming around, mumbling about Mudbloods and ‘blood traitors’ being in Madam Black’s house, with his broken in half sweeping brush. Arabella flicked his large ear and told him to have more respect, he mumbled a quick sorry then began sweeping the carpet on the third floor.

Tiger was rolling around on Arabella’s bed with a rubber mouse he had stolen from Crookshanks, George waved his wand, and their clothes began to fold by themselves. Arabella jumped, laughing as she threw herself onto George’s bed, he soon squeezed himself onto the bed too.

They lay in silence for awhile before George plucked up the courage to ask her about the ice cream parlor, she sighed and turned to face him. George did the same, taking her hand in his.

“Hadrian is my brother; he’s only just turned fifteen. He’s a fully fledged Death Eater; he has the dark mark and all. He’s always been big on the dark arts, my mum begged me not to tell my dad if we ever got reunited, she was in the early stages of her pregnancy when my dad got taken to Azkaban. Of course she didn’t know until a couple of weeks later she was pregnant.” Arabella explained, looking into George’s eyes. “He’s a big Voldemort supporter and he's going to be going to be attending Hogwarts too this year.”

“That’s bloody ludicrous! What a fool.” George yelled outraged. “How come you haven’t ever been to Hogwarts and why has he got white hair?”

“We were homeschooled by my mother and I don’t know, my mum had black hair like mine. Ironically his name means ‘dark one’ in Latin.” Arabella laughed darkly.

“And what does your name mean, Bella?” George asked sweetly, flicking her nose and grinning.

“Well it’s English origin, it means ‘beautiful lion’, my mum always said I was named that because of my mass of black hair and because I was beautiful.” Arabella explained cocking her eyebrow before laughing.

“You are exceedingly beautiful and you do have a mass of black hair.” George giggled, running his hands through Arabella's black hair softly.

“Shh…don’t…be…silly.” Arabella breathed slowly as she looked from George’s lips to his eyes, she gulped as he stared at her.

George giggled before leaning toward her, his face was only a few centimeters away from hers, she closed her eyes waiting for George to close the gap, but they were interrupted by Fred apparating into the room and Tiger falling off of Arabella’s bed in fright. She squealed and made her way over to her kitten, not noticing that George was scowling at Fred.