"Cissy, what are you doing?" she asked, sounding almost exasperated. "Get out of the way."

"No."

Bellatrix’s eyebrows hitched up. “What do you mean, ‘No’?”

"I’m not moving, Bella. You will not harm her."

"Why? Because your little darling Draco turned and found himself a Mudblood girlfriend? How fucking precious." She scoffed. "I always knew the boy was useless. Insolent, pathetic brat."

Narcissa took a daring step forward, her heel stamping hard against the floor. “Be very careful how you speak about my son, Bella,” she spat through gritted teeth. “Very careful.”

Bellatrix’s mouth twitched with distaste. “Perhaps you should be careful about how you speak to me, Cissy.”

Silence followed, and in that silence, tension crackled between the sisters like a wayward firework ready to explode. Tentatively, Hermione rose to her feet and met Bellatrix’s dark, dilated eyes over Narcissa’s shoulder. The Death Eater looked calmly crazed, like a stretched string on the verge of snapping, and, as futile as it was, Hermione toyed with Bellatrix’s crooked wand, clenching it in her clammy palm, just in case. Something changed in Bellatrix’s demeanour, and then she started laughing; a low, merciless chuckle that sounded like ripping silk.

"So that’s how it is, Cissy?"

"It doesn’t need to be, Bella," said Narcissa.

"Oh, I think it does." She widened her stance.

Isolation, Chapter 46