Written for The First Line Challenge issued by The Crownless Queen.
Prompt: 'Are you ready?'
Disclaimer: I own no parts of the Harry Potter universe, that honor belongs to the brilliant J.K. Rowling. I merely play with the wonderful characters.
Full Circle
"Are you ready?"
It is a simple question, really. Three feather light words. But the instantaneous effect they have on the witch to whom the question was posed, it gives them the weight of a two ton Hippogriff.
Hazel eyes seek out their obsidian counterparts when there is no response.
"Bella?" Tone cautious, gentle upon taking in the utterly blank mask on a usually expressive face. Like an alabaster bust of a regal queen, the raven haired witch merely stands there, eyes glassy as they remain fixed on some distant point. Or perhaps they are entirely unseeing of the present and are lost to the past.
"Bella. Are you ready to go?" A hand is placed on a black robe clad shoulder and the small gesture seems to shake the other out of her trance. She blinks once, twice, her head tilting slightly to regard her concerned partner.
"No."
Hermione sighs softly, her hand lifting from the dark witch's shoulder to tuck an errant unruly black curl behind her ear. "Bella -"
But Bellatrix shrugs away from her lover's gentle touch, crossing her arms tightly over her chest as if trying to keep herself from shattering into a thousand pieces.
"There is nothing you can say, pet," she whispers, something haunted in the words, eyes stormy, "I'll never be ready for this."
"Look," the voice of logic and reason seeping through in a desperate attempt to assuage guilt, "I understand how you feel but -"
"You don't understand," the dark witch's words are sharper than they mean to be, "You have no idea what I feel."
"I can imagine," Hermione turns to face her love fully, her expression an odd mixture of stubborness and sympathy, "It's been years since you've seen her. But I know for a fact she wants to see you and I'll be right there with you."
Bellatrix sighs and shakes her head, her expression now one of distress, "It's my fault," her words are strained now, heavy, and Hermione knows she is fighting furiously to keep tears at bay, "Her daughter is dead because of me."
"You did not kill Tonks," the brunette is embracing her now, arms circling around a corsetted waist, rosy cheek resting against porcelain cheek, warm breath ghosting across the shell of Bellatrix's ear.
"No but I did not save her either."
The younger witch wants to hear no more. She grabs tense hands and pulls an unwilling body away from the fireplace, leading her to the living room's sofa and all but shoving her down.
"Bellatrix," it's rare for her to first name her lover and the affect the full three syllables have are what's desired. Pitch black eyes widen ever so slightly as they capture honeyed brown, giving them full attention.
Plump pink lips curve upward into a wicked little smile learned from full red, "You avenged her." War blurred lines, so where once the idea of revenge killing would have seemed barbaric to a school age girl, the battle hardened twenty something year old could dredge up no sympathy for the Death Eaters felled by Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black in retaliation for the murder of the niece she had never known.
A soft snort despite overcast features. "That I did. But I was still too late." Rain clouds continue to obscure orbs of onyx, "How can I face her after that?"
Quiet settles and Hermione's gaze never wavers from that of her lover. In the beginning, when it was all still new, she might have been surprised to see no tears rolling down the cheeks of the former Death Eater. After all that emotion, the heaviness of it, truly it had to go somewhere. Like thunderclouds heavy with summer rains. It must have had to come down. But she knows Bella, her strong dark warrior. She knows the lightning remains encapsulated within the endless depths of those midnight eyes. And will stay there just as they do whensoever conversation drifts towards an unsavory past.
"She has forgiven you," Hermione murmurs, tracing soothing patterns on chilled skin. Despite the lack of tears, it's hard to see her when she is like this. Locked together in a pit of despair with her own pain and the pain she has inflicted on others.
"But have I forgiven me?" For as much iron fortifies the statement, it is broken, fractured, wounded and the anguish spills from hazel eyes where black ones refuse to let fall.
With a wisdom that surpasses age, the very same that years ago made an old tattered hat hesitate momentarily deciding on whether Ravenclaw might be a better fit than the house of crimson and gold, Hermione tilts a proud chin towards her. And despite the sadness rolling down her cheeks, she smiles. A genuine smile that projects just how deep her love is for the one whose sins of the past are still raw and unpardoned within a strong heart that had to relearn how to beat.
"Time heals, Bella," she says softly but with conviction, "And while the scars may linger they serve as a permanent reminder to just how much we can endure without breaking."
Almost instantly, dark eyes land on the crude letters cut into the skin of an otherwise unblemished forearm. With a strangled sound, trembling fingers wrap themselves around Hermione's wrist and lift the appendage to a quivering mouth. Open mouthed kisses, reverent and apologetic are placed on each raised and jagged line and curve. It evokes sparks of warmth that brings forth a soft gasp from parted pink lips.
Bellatrix's hand loosens just enough to slip against a smooth, waiting palm. She allows herself to be pulled back to her feet, finding solidarity in her unexpected partner's touch.
Slow but steady strides are made across the room to return to the hearth where emerald flames still crackle and dance merrily, completely unaffected by the heavy dampness that had filled the room.
Honey meets pitch once more, the darker allowing a rare vulnerablity to show, reserved to be seen only by the witch at her side.
"Don't let go."
Her tone is gruff, but beneath the harsh exterior, Hermione knows lies a small, almost childlike softness that has been concealed, protected from the relentlessly abusive forces that have battered at it for years. The fact that it is still there though, bruised, healing, but still there is miraculous in itself. A deeper sort of magic.
"Never," is the automatic response, that old Gryffindor bravery strengthening the single word in such a way that proves her sorting was in fact correct. Warm fingers tighten around cooler ones as if to further drive the point home.
"Are you ready?"
Where just a little while ago the three words had been formidable, they are now as simple as the inquiry was meant to be.
A curt nod in lieu of verbal affirmation, but it is enough. It is a tight fit into the fireplace, two bodies pressed against each other in an awkward position but Hermione's promise remains unbroken. She does not relinquish her hold on Bellatrix's hand as heatless tendrils of green lick at their skin, before carrying them both at a clearly stated command to the residence of Andromeda Tonks nee Black.