A/N: I don't own the couple I just really like them. This is complete au straight on down to the characters. This is not the accompaniment to Broken Wand this is a complete different piece. I just love boggarts so of course there will probably be a scene with one. Also I love the idea of Bellatrix as a teacher if you haven't read the story Fractures you so should as that's where I first read of Bellatrix as a teacher and it was an epic story.
Dark clouds were rolling over a moonless night as the rain poured down in a torrential of ice and water. It was unusually cold for September, but the cloaked figure walking around the dark streets didn't seem to mind the cold or the water soaking through the fabric and into her robes underneath. The dark witch would never have been caught dead on a muggle street during the day, but on a dreary night such as this where even the crickets weren't making a sound she felt safe enough to take in the mundane sights the muggle world had to offer. It wasn't much, the streets were poorly lit, and there was a bit of muggle trash cluttering what could have been a beautiful park if anyone had bothered to clean it up. Things in the muggle world were just so much less fascinating than the wizarding world; honestly she wasn't sure why her friend Lilly Potter insisted on living here. She knew what Lilly had told her, that she wanted her boys to experience both sides of their heritage, and maybe it was the ingrained prejudices years of having a pure-blood supremacist for a father that made her question her friend's judgement, but she just didn't see the need of it. She had conceded on some fronts, she'd recently discovered her love for muggle entertainment, movies and music alike struck her fancy, but overall she still thought magic was the best way to go.
She pulled her soaking wet cloak closer around her head when she noticed her breath was visible in a passing street light. What a way to start the school year. Term started in less than 24 hours, she should be at the castle preparing her lesson plans; Snape had told her of a boggart he'd found end of last term and she was genuinely excited to test it out on her sixth and seventh years, particularly on Neville and her godson Harry. But she just couldn't seem to gather the usual excitement the school year typically brought for her, she loved torturing the houses with extra homework and hands on training her students considered physically demanding. Around this time every year she was usually immersed in a massive book she'd found in the farthest corner of the library trying to find something to stump the brightest witch of her age. Nothing ever worked, Bellatrix never knew if she should be proud or infuriated that Hermione Granger bested her at nearly every opportunity.
The lovely Gryffindor had been the bane of her existence since she'd first set eyes on her seven years ago. The girl was only eleven and she had managed to curse the one pure-blood who prided herself on an immaculate family heritage. Sure her family had their own blood traitors but they had been struck from the proud Black tapestry and disowned. She was the witch in the family who was descended with the purist blood. But with one look at the little muggle witch Bellatrix knew it was only a matter of time before her name and face were also struck from the Black line. The young girl had looked at her, sat on the stool, placed the hat on her head and changed Bella's world forever.
Magic Soul Binding. That's what it had been called when her father told her about it when she was a child. He'd said the words as if they left a rotting taste in his mouth and a foul odor in the air. It was pure-blood slavery he said, an abomination against all that was pure in the wizarding world. An act of war upon an untainted blood line. Rarely was it spoken of and never in any good light, it bound a purist to a mud blood or a half-blood, to save their species the activists used to say , to preserve magic in the world and keep the rise of squibs down. Her father had told her if she'd ever felt that curse she should eradicate the source immediately. He'd not have a dirty blood taint his lineage. But he was long dead now, only Bellatrix remained as the matriarch of the once proud Black line, there was no one to ridicule her or punish her for being entrapped by a muggle-born.
Bella herself had long since abandoned the ways of pure-blood fascists but she couldn't cope with the implications of bonding to a child. She'd gone to see Dumbledore after the first week and submitted her resignation; it hadn't turned out how she planned. He'd listened to her with those all too clever and understanding eyes and convinced her to give Granger until the end of her seventh year. He explained in detail the detrimental effects being away from a binding could do to her mind and told her she was too powerful a witch to ever give in to that kind of madness. In his words Bellatrix Black would be the most dangerous witch alive if she couldn't convince an eleven year old they belonged together. Bella had never before felt so trapped, not even in her manner with her zany father had her very sanity been at risk.
The irrational fear of losing herself caused her to lash out at the source of her quandary. It quickly became common knowledge that Bellatrix Black hated Hermione Granger, it wasn't until the news traveled to her own ears that Bella realized her mistake. It wasn't Granger's fault she'd been tied to the devil, Granger didn't even know or feel the connection if Albus was to be believed. She'd done the one thing she'd promised never to do after her father had tried to kill her sister Andromeda's husband. She attacked an innocent, albeit not physically, Bella had made Hermione's time in Defense Against the Dark Arts miserable. It had been five years since she'd come to that realization and even though she'd lessened her hostilities the two witches did not get along. It probably didn't help that she'd been forced to give the girl superfluous detentions to keep the voices in her head absent. Bella had quickly understood Albus' worries when the girl was absent from her for more than a few weeks Bella's mind was assaulted by voices telling her to do the most abhorrent things. the longer the girl was absent the harder the voices were to ignore.
Bella stopped walking and looked up into the rain; she would stand here forever if she thought it would help. Her summers away from the Gryffindor were getting even more difficult to deal with, the idiot girl had taken a year off of school her fifth year and Bella had feared Dumbledore was going to have to lock her up to keep her shortened temper in check. She had snapped at everyone and only a potion Albus and his friend Flammel had created had kept her sanity and the voices in check. She was even more irritated that Dumbledore would not tell her where the girl was or why she was not at school. By ancient wizarding laws Bella could have demanded the girl placed in her care the minute she knew what she was to her, she'd come so close to doing that but Albus had assured her the student would be attending her fifth year the next year so she relented.
True to his word Granger did appear for her fifth year, as brilliant as ever it was as if she hadn't spontaneously decided to take a year off for heaven only knew what. Bella was still highly irritated no one would tell her where Hermione went and she'd tried over the entire term to use Legillimency to discern her answer. The girl had obviously read a book about the blasted subject because without doing irreparable damage she could not break through the young woman's barriers.
Hermione would be in her sixth year after tomorrow, it should be the year Bella would tell her of their bond but with the set back of Hermione repeating fifth Bella didn't know what to do. Hermione was of age but how do you tell a student they are linked to you? And there was the slight problem Granger disliked her immensely. Bella wasn't sure if she was strong enough to survive if the girl chose to reject her bond. She wasn't sure she could end her own life either or not do something drastic like kidnap the young woman, she wasn't sure which option boded worse. She wanted to spend the year making it up to her but she just didn't know how, affection was never taught in her family and the only example she had of it was watching her friends with their spouses or children, sometimes love seemed a little beyond her capabilities.