DISCLAIMER: I own nothing except the Original Characters that come along in later chapters.

SUMMARY: This is the story of three sisters who loved and needed each other more than words could ever say say. This is the saga of a young girl who was betrayed by someone she trusted, of a young woman who turned to the Dark to escape her pain. This is the history of the woman who became the Dark Lord’s most trusted lieutenant.  This is the story of Bellatrix Black, the girl who wasn’t always evil.

The green flames encompassed Bella, who had one hand on her trunk and the other firmly on Cissa’s arm. A moment later, they were stepping out of a less familiar fireplace onto the hard, paved floor of a small room off of Kings Cross station.

This chamber had been built to satisfy the insistent complaints by pureblood families at being forced to use Muggle transport to get their children to Kings Cross, and, more specifically, Platform 9 ¾ to depart for Hogearts.

Eventually, the Ministry had given in, and built this room, which was magically connected directly to the platform, and equipped with dozens of fireplaces, one next to the other, so that wizards and witches from around the country could Floo straight here.

Bella pulled her Cissy alongside her as she made her way through the crowd of parents and students, trying to catch a sight of the other half of their family.

Finally! A flash of brown hair, pale skin, and black cloak caught her eye as Andy and Mrs. Black stopped for a moment to look around, giving the two youger girls a chance to catch up.

Mrs. Black’s eyes narrowed. “There you are! Where in Merlin’s name have you been?” she snapped.

“Got lost in the crowd,” Bella panted in response.

“Well, you’d do well not to do so again,” her mother sniffed. Her eyes shifted so that she was addressing Andy and Bella at once. “You have your tickets?” Two nods. “All your things?”

Bella nodded again in sync with her sister, thinking to herself that even if they had forgotten something, she highly doubted they would return to retrieve it at this point anyway, seeing as the train was leaving in fifteen minutes.

“Alright then, I have other things I must attend to, and I can’t afford to spend any more time standing around here. Andromeda, make sure Bellatrix gets safely onto the train.” Her eyes lingered for a moment on each, before shifting abruptly away.

“Narcissa,” she barked, “come along.” And with that, she turned on her heel and walked sharply away, her fine robes billowing in the slight autumn wind.

Sending a cautionary glance her mother’s way, Narcissa quickly threw her arms around both of her sisters. “I’ll miss you two”. Then she pulled away, gave Bella a look that said “Remember, you promised to write” and sprinted to catch up with the foul tempered woman ahead of her.

When their mother was out of earshot, Andy shot Bella a grin, a stark change from her apathetic expression of a few moments ago. “We finally can relax, huh?” she said, lightening the mood between the two of them considerably. Bella returned the smile as best she could; she knew what Andy meant. They had to be consistently prim and proper whenever they were in their mother’s presence, well, as prim and proper as it was possible for them to be.

“Well, we have about fifteen minutes until the train leaves, so we should get our baggage aboard and find ourselves a compartment. Do you want me to sit with you?” Andy continued, in the no nonsense voice that drove Bella absolutely crazy.

Bella resisted a strong urge to roll her eyes. ‘Yeah, I really want to be babysat by my know-it-all prefect sister on the first day of school. Way to build up a reputation!”

“No!” Bella answered, perhaps a bit more forcefully than necessary. Not wanting to hurt her sister’s feelings, she quickly added, “Er, it probably wouldn’t look good for me to be tagging along with my big sister. I don’t want everyone to think I’m some kind of baby.”

“Ahh, I see,” Andy replied good naturedly. “Don’t worry, I understand. If you’re going to be all right…..” she paused, looking pointedly at Bella, who replied with an annoyed sigh.

“Yes, I will be”

“.. Then I think I’ll go look for some old friends from last year to sit with. I assume you can find your way to the train alright,” she added playfully, gesturing at the steam engine a mere ten feet away.

“No, really?” Bella replied sarcastically. “Actually, I do think I’ll need a map”

Andy sighed. “There’s the Bella I know and love. Alright. I’ll see you in Hogsmeade then” Andy turned to the left, and began walking through the mass of people, scanning the crowd for familiar faces.

Bella had been on a train before, but she had never really felt comfortable with the idea. What if a bit of track got damaged? At the speed these trains go, that could be a death sentence. Deciding rather quickly that that was one train of thought she did not want to follow, she pushed it to the back of her mind, and pulled her trunk towards the baggage compartment.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a girl about Bella’s age with flaming red hair barreled into her, knocking her to the ground. Bella, annoyed, pulled herself and turned to face the girl, thinking of a few choice things she wanted to say. But she stopped herself at the girl’s expression. She looked honestly guilty and horrified that she had knocked over someone she’d never met before.

“Sweet Merlin, I’m sorry!” the girl said “ I just tripped, and fell, and, well, you know the rest.” She shot Bella an apologetic half smile, and then jumped to her feet before extending her hand down to Bella, who still lay on the ground. “Here, let me help you up.”

Bella took the hand offered to her and proceeded to pull herself into a standing position.

“Again, I’m really sorry. I’ve always been a real klutz. Oh, my name’s Bran, by the way, well Branwen, if you want to get specific, but no one c-“

Bran was cut off by another voice, similar to hers, but distinctly more annoyed.

“Can’t you go two seconds without running into something? Ah-“ The girl, who looked strangely like Bran, except with honey blond hair instead of red, seemed to have noticed Bella for the first time. “Or, as it seems,” she continued, walking toward Bella, who had just gotten to her feet, “someone” She stuck out her hand and extended it toward Bella, who shook it, still a bit confused. “Sorry about all this. As you’ve already met my sister, I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Avalon, actually, my full name is Avalon Kelly, but, l really prefer Ava; Avalon is a bit of a mouthful, not to mention strange.” She gave Bella a grin. “Bran here has developed the bad habit over the years of running into headlong into things, and people as well. But sometimes it does backfire,” Ava mused, with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Sometimes she runs into something like a pole, in which case the general consensus is that she ends up worse off than the pole- Oh!”

While she had been speaking, Bran had snuck up silently from behind her and shouted in Ava’s ear, making her jump.

Bella couldn’t help but laugh; their bickering was pretty amusing. “Honestly, I think you’re both insane. Call me Bella. My full name’s Bellatrix, but no one except my parents call me that. Well,” she continued, mirroring Ava’s previous playful look. “No one calls me that more than once”

Now it was the sisters’ turn to laugh. “Well, Bella,” Bran put in, emphasizing the name, “I hate to break up the conversation, but we should probably get on the train, unless, of course, you want to stay here; in case you hadn’t noticed, the train leaves in 2 minutes.

That got the other two girls moving. The three made a mad dash for the baggage compartment, dropped off their luggage, and rushed to the passenger portion of the train. Ava pulled open a door to the train. “Hey, Bella, want to find a compartment with Bran and me?” she asked.

Thinking that she didn’t really know anyone else at the moment, well, with the exception of all the spoiled prigs who were the kids of her parents friends, and that these two girls seemed nice, a little strange, yes, but nice enough, Bella agreed. Luckily, the three found an empty compartment towards the back of the train. Just as they sat down, the train began moving with a lurch.

“Whew, that was close!” Bran panted, collapsing quite dramatically onto the red cushion of the seat. ‘’I can’t imagine how horrible it would have been to miss the train. We would have been stuck on the platform for the rest of the year!”

Bella sighed, dropping herself onto a seat as well. “Oh calm down, Miss Dramatic. It’s not like you couldn’t just Floo home if you got stuck.”

Ava took the seat next to Bran, facing Bella.

“So,” Bella began, looking between the two of them, “ are you two in the same year? I mean, you look a bit alike, but I don’t think you look alike enough to be twins, and you’d have to be to be in the same year.”

“Weelll,” Bran said carefully, “We don’t always look like this.

If Bella had been confused before, it was nothing to what she was now. “What in Merlin’s name do you mean?” she asked, raising one eyebrow questioningly.

Bran shot Ava a quick glance, and Ava nodded. What happened next almost made Bella jump out of her seat. Bran’s hair turned blonde to match Ava’s, and Ava’s eyes turned a vivid blue to match her sister’s.

“Wow” Bella couldn’t think of anything else to say. The two girls sitting in front of her now looked exactly alike. If she hadn’t remembered from a few moments ago that Bran was sitting on her left and Ava on her right, she wouldn’t have been able to tell which was which. Something tugged at the edge of her mind, something from dozing through all the droll hours of tutoring over the last several years. And then it clicked.

“You’re both metamorphagi!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide with astonishment. That’s really rare, isn’t it?

“We started looking like we did before when we were about seven. Got a bit tired of no one being able to tell us apart,” Bran supplied helpfully.

Something else registered in Bella’s mind, and she frowned. “Where are you from? I don’t recognize the name ‘Kelly’”

“We moved around a lot, until a few months ago, when Mum got a job working for the Ministry, and we moved to London,” Ava answered, sighing heavily. “You probably wouldn’t have heard of our family. Our parents are a bit..” She trailed off, obviously attempting to find a more polite way of saying what is was she wanted to say. Her sister had no such reservations.

“Barmy,” Bran supplied cheerfully, oblivious to the exasperated look Ava sent her. They’re obsessed with old legends and myths, and they love traveling into the middle of nowhere to try to prove them. That’s why both of us got stuck with names out of Arthur’s time.” Seeing the confused look on Bella’s face, she clarified, “King Arthur, that is. Actually, now that I come to think of it, I think their minds are still back there as well.. “

“Then you must know about a lot of legends, and other stuff like that,” she commented.

Both sisters nodded grimly, and Ava added, “More than any sane person would ever want to know.”

“Could you tell me about some of them?” Bella asked, knowing they had a long, and potentially boring train ride ahead of them.

The two shared one of what Bella had decided to dub “twin looks”, and then Ava started to speak.

“Well, there was this one..”