Author's Note: Greetings! Welcome to the final part of The Weekend Trilogy, 'The Aftermath'. Updates will be quite regular and just as its predecessors, 'The Aftermath' will eventually be rated M for...adult content. Unlike 'The Weekend' and 'The Beginning', 'The Aftermath' will be told from both Hermione and Bellatrix's points of view. Also this will be the longer story with seven chapters at its completion. I do hope you all enjoy this just as much as I am enjoying writing it and to those still along for the ride that started back in October of 2017, thanks so much for your support.

Without further ado, the first chapter of 'The Aftermath'. Reviews make the world go round and will be most appreciated. Happy Reading! - bellanoire, over and out!

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.

The Aftermath

I

"Never did I imagine that you would play a major part in a decision that's so hard...do I leave, do I stay, do I go...I think about my life and what matters to me the most...but when you love someone you just don't treat them bad, oh how I feel so sad now that I want to leave..." - Where I Wanna Be, Donnell Jones

'Pack your bags, pet. I've come to take you with me.'

'Hermione,what's going on?'

'Don't do this Bella.'

'I'm in love with your wife, and if you try to stop us, I think I might kill you.'

'Mummy?'

'Who do you love? Who do you chose?'

'Them. I chose them.'

'Oh. Well then.'

The flash of green is painfully blinding, deadly accurate, and frighteningly final as it hits Ron in the chest and forever dims the light in his shock widened eyes. Someone is screaming, the sound high pitched with terror and disbelief. Ron is dead. And Bella is gone. The world begins to crumble at my feet as my focus shifts to my son, standing stock still, watching everything unfold. My hand tightens around my wand as I beckon and coax my child to me. He heeds the summons as if in a trance, turning around when prompted. I aim the wand at the back of his head, the spell on the tip of my tongue...

I wake with a sharp scream, my body jerking violently as if I had been electrocuted, so much so that I almost tumble off of the couch where I realize I had fallen asleep. My breath bursts from my mouth in harsh pants, my skin cool and clammy, drenched in sweat. My eyes burn with hot tears and my hands are trembling.

It takes me more than a couple of minutes to gather my bearings. Blinking rapidly, my blurred vision slowly clears and adjusts to my surroundings. I know I am downstairs in the living room. I can remember sitting here last night after Hugo and I made our impromptu pancake dinner. I remember reading. I remember Ron sitting beside me, remember the irritation his futile attempts at seduction had evoked. But more than anything, I remember the vivid nightmare that had taken root in my brain as I slept, its poisonous tendrils twisting and twining to weave together a scene that had been so real, so terrifyingly real.

My stomach rolls dreadfully and the need to retch prompts me to my shaking legs. I start to dry heave, nothing comes up, but the nausea isn't quelled. In all of the years I have been married to Ron, despite the disappointment, despite the anger, the frustration, the overall unhappiness, I had never thought about, never envisioned, never dreamed of hurting him, causing him harm, causing his death. Oh God. I can't breathe. I've known Ron since I was eleven. We had been best friends throughout Hogwarts, he, Harry, and I. The infamous Golden Trio who seemed to get ourselves in the craziest situations and adventures. It's a wonder we weren't expelled. But we made it, our friendship intact over the seven years, even after Harry began dating Ron's younger sister Ginny, and Ron and I embarked on this awkward sort of courtship that somehow ended with us exchanging vows and Rosie and Hugo being born.

Hugo. My baby boy. In the nightmare, I had made the decision to remove his memories of the crime he had witnessed. Whether to protect him or to cover myself and my dark lover, I don't know. Small details are draining away like water in a sieve. But I know I will never forget seeing the light leave my husband's eyes. I will never forget watching him crumple in a heap on the living room floor. Will never forget my lover Disapparating from the scene with a sharp crack that was as final a goodbye as death, a sound that had cleaved my heart in two.

Ignoring the tumultuous tornado of emotions ravaging my body from the inside, I bolt up the stairs, two at a time, my heart pounding so hard I can feel the thumps in my throat. I throw open the door to my son's room, for one mad second unsure of what I might find. But he is there. Safe and sound. Laying in the center of the bed, his head of russet curls visible beneath the blankets. One hand up by his face, his lips parted slightly. Angelic, always, ever since he had been born. Ron had been ecstatic that this second child of ours was a boy. He had regaled me to near insanity of tales where he and his boy would attend Chudley Canon games, how Hugo would play Keeper for Gryffindor, just like he had. Suffice it to say, he had been more than disappointed that our boy had grown into a sweet and sensitive little bookworm. "Merlin, Hermione, he's just like you," he had said often, not at all masking his displeasure. And while I could have argued that our firstborn, our daughter, was like his twin, I had merely shrugged it off all while continuing to nurture my little boy and his quiet talents and pleasures.

Rosie's room is next and while she is sleeping with her injured arm at a strange angle as if it still pains her even though I had magically mended it before going to make pancakes with her brother, she too is safe. Yes, she really is my husband in a smaller, feminine body, but I love her just as fiercely as I love my son.

My husband. He lays sprawled on the bed we share, arms and legs draped over the duvet all askew as if he went falling through the ceiling and had sloppily landed. But the rise and fall of his chest coupled with that god awful snoring of his that has kept me awake many a night, confirms that he is unharmed. Despite my automatic eye roll, the relief that overcomes me at seeing Ron alive is staggering.

They're fine. They are all fine.

My pulse rate gradually slows as the evidence of my family's safety restores my peace of mind. Yet still, there is a piece of that peace missing. And that piece has wild sable curls, deep ocean black eyes, a wicked red smirk, and my beating heart in her hands. That dream, it was a double edged sword. It made me realize that while I love my family, so too do I love my lover. I love Bellatrix Lestrange. I've always loved her, I've always wanted her. I admired her as a girl, playing this competitive game with her past Hogwarts accolades. I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her in Diagon Alley in front of Morsmordre. When I asked her to train me, for the weeks, the months that went by before the sexual tension between us reached its crescendo, I could not get her out of my mind. For as dominant a witch my Bella is, I was the aggressor. Baiting her and baiting her, until finally she could no longer resist. And the first time I made love to her, a gentle passionate love that made manifest the sheer adoration I felt for her, I knew I had her. The duel we fought for her own heart, as intense as it was, affirmed when she could no longer cast an offensive spell, that she was just as enthralled as I was and still am.

But she had never told me she loved me. She never asked if I loved her. Not until the last time we lay together. Not until she had uttered that forbidden question and I had confessed to it, swept away and flailing in the undertows of her waves of pleasure. She had torn if from within me and I knew then the feelings to be mutual. She had asked the same question in my dream. Coupled with another. The question of a choice. And my answer had aided in the murder of my spouse. It makes me wonder. I makes me wonder if perhaps this isn't enough. Is it enough for her, these trysts on the weekends, hidden in secret from both our husbands? Is it enough for me? I can see the dream version of her, so realistic, can see the look of betrayal and heartbreak on her face just before the Killing Curse is cast. I can hear the possessiveness in her voice. Because Bella is so possessive. I feel it in the way she touches me. The way she looks at me. The way she speaks to me. Someone like her, they are not made to share. Cannot be placated for long. What is theirs is theirs. And I am hers.

Even I have my own bouts of jealousy when I consider her relationship with her dueling trainers, particularly the sole female one. The connection the five of them seem to have that could never include me. When I consider the fact that she had been married longer than I have. Over twenty years. And regardless of whether or not she and her husband have the traditional married relations, it still bothers me to know that after her and I are together, she goes home to him. I wonder if had it not been for this nightmare I've just woken up from, would a variant have been me invading the Estate and killing Rodolphus Lestrange, or me flying into a jealous and possessive rage, storming into the dueling hall and taking out the female duelist, Alecto Carrow, just because I've noticed the way her eyes linger on Bella. And the way Bella sometimes talks about her with this subtle fondness that makes me want to grind my teeth together.

I have to see her. It is well after midnight, nearly two in the morning according to the clock. I have to work tomorrow. But in this moment none of that matters. There is no way after all that has happened in the past few hours that I can let an entire week go by without seeing Bella. There are so many questions that need to be answered. There are doubts that need to be removed. Fears that need to be assuaged. Words that need to be said. The nightmare, it is a wake up call. I need to confront this dilemma head on. I can no longer sweep it all under the rug. I can no longer go on with the monotony of my day to days, just waiting to be shocked back to life on Friday nights. I can no longer go on like this. Perhaps this dream was a sign that I've reached some kind of breaking point. Maybe Bellatrix is reaching one too. I need to know before my subconscious kills off another one of my loved ones.

Unable to help myself, I take another peek into my children's rooms before going back downstairs. Dressed in nothing but my rather baggy striped pajamas that are hardly flattering, my hair a bit of a tangled brown mess, I stand before the fireplace and grab a handful of Floo powder from the pot. It's funny. Usually when I'm due to see my lover, I'm so meticulous with my appearance. Not because she expects it, or has ever really asked me to dress or look a certain way. It is more the aura Bella gives off, I suppose, growing up the way she did. For as wild and as coarse and destructive she can be, even with her untameable mass of curls which are beautiful in their own chaotic right, I have never seen her put together in a way that was not inherently desirable. And I suppose the insecure part of me always wants to ensure she thinks the same of me.

But this is an emergency. I can't be bothered to fix myself up. Not when my emotions are heightened and a very real fear is brewing like a storm within me. For the first time since we began our affair, I feel torn between my family and my lover. As if I'm standing in the middle of the four of them - my children and husband on one side, Bella on the other - and my wrists are locked in opposing grasps, my body being pulled in both directions until I am eventually torn apart.

There is no room for petty insecurities when I am barreling head first into territory that I've been trying to avoid for nearly a year. Finally it is catching up to me. And honestly, the only thing worse than Ron finding out about Bella and I, is me being put in a situation where I am made to choose. The nightmare had forged both disasters together and had ultimately concluded in tragedy.

Was this a premonition? Had I finally developed the ever elusive Inner Eye and seen directly into my own future? Batty old Professor Trelawney would be thrilled at the prospect, wouldn't she? But I am shaken.

I throw the powder into the crackling flames, watching them go from reddish orange to emerald green. I had gotten to Bella's home this way before. She had interconnected our fireplaces even though her perferred method to come by me was Apparation. I step into the hearth, the fire cool against my skin. Careful not to take too deep a breath that would only leave me coughing and sputtering on soot and ash, I call out in a clear and steady voice that belies how anxious I actually feel, "Lestrange Estate."

With my elbows tucked tightly against my body, the sheer speed whips my already tangled hair madly about my head. Other fireplaces and hearths pass by in a blur, most fully extinguished or smoldered down to embers given the late hour. After a moment, I shut my eyes, the nausea from earlier beginning to resurface though this time its due less to my emotional state and more to the fact that I am rocketing through a confined space with no sense of gravity beneath my feet. I've always hated flying.

The flames flare with a roar, spitting me out into a dimly lit bed chamber whose somber, aphotic ambiance I am more than familiar with. Heavy wooden antique furniture cast shadows on the floor, brought to life by the moonlight filtering in through the bow windows that face the western sky. Bella's scent hits me at once, invading my nostrils, curling like smoke, assaulting my senses with essences of dark spices, citrus, and vanilla. It instantly sparks a sinful pulse of arousal between my thighs.

I don't have a chance to attempt to stifle my errant sexual desire because in the next moment, my lover suddenly sits up in bed, her walnut wand aimed precisely at my chest, her hand steady. Eyes like chiseled flecks of obsidian are narrowed on me, brows knitted tightly above them, the muscles of her jaw clenched. A moonlit beam hits her face at an angle, playing with the shrouding contrast of her hair, making her skin seem paler than bone. The magical energy she is throwing off is heated, tense and I remember just how intimidating this witch can be. But along with that memory comes the one of her from my nightmare. The strikingly similar way she stares me down, armed, ready to maim, ready to kill at the slightest bit of movement from whom she assumes to be an intruder.

The weight of every single emotion I have been feeling in the past hour - terror, pain, despair, heartache, frustration, unconditional love, and arousal - it has finally become too much, too heavy to hold back, too arduous to keep at bay.

I burst into tears.

"Hermione?" There are no traces in sleep in her tone, any semblance of slumber probably shocked out of her by my unexpected arrival and my current unstable state. The alarm is evident in the way she calls me by my given name, something she does quite rarely. She immediately lowers her wand as recognition settles over her features and abandons her bed to come toward me. She's wearing nothing but a black satin dressing gown that leaves nothing of her figure to the imagination. Despite my heavy sobs and rapid, panicked breathing, I can't help but notice how beautiful she is.

She is holding me now, somewhat stiffly as she doesn't do too well with comforting others. But it is enough. Her strong arms manage to hold me together when I feel as if I am falling apart.

"What is it?" she asks, her voice firm and even, trying to cut through the barrier clearly blocking my sense of reason. Her breath is warm against the column of my throat, making me shiver slightly in her embrace. "What's happened?"

I burrow my teary face into her sea of curls, breathing in the scent of her as I try to collect myself, trying to draw from her strength, trying not to drown in the intoxicating rush that consumes me whenever I am near her. It merely makes the tears flow freer.

"Hermione. Tell me what's wrong," Bella orders sharply, giving me a rather solid shake as if to stop my downward spiral before it can descend any further.

"You," I finally manage to gasp, the word hoarse and strained, "You murdered my husband."