started from a prompt I wrote in the bellamione discord. the request: college/university roommate greece AU. I tried to do roommate fantasy ancient timey AU.
Bellatrix sneered at the woman before her, dressed terribly plain in a way far too functional. Her white shift was baggy, sleeves long, and her hair unkempt… but for the most part, the girl seemed undaunted, far too put together for someone being glared at.
That didn't make her feel any better about her current situation either.
With a soft exhale, the girl - Hermione, she remembered - rubbed ink stained fingertips across her sweater, unmoved when Bellatrix narrowed her gaze in a further attempt to intimidate her and, hopefully, scare her away from the threshold of her doorway.
She was unmoved still, and Bellatrix might have been begrudgingly impressed, if Hermione hadn't opened her mouth -
"Hey," she said, "if we're going to be living together, the least you could do is give me a sex."
Erm.
Hermione blinked rapidly, "A sex," she said, then squealed, loudly, just shy of manic — "A SEC!"
"Yes," Bellatrix drawled, honey and amusement with just the slightest hint of something so terribly unkind, "I heard you, the first time. And second."
And the air about them, tense and so awkward - for the girl, not herself - began to shift. It was now less about dealing with her unwanted little package, a room-mate sent to keep her… company and in return, learn from her, and more about what she should do with said company. Ignoring her all-together wasn't the right option. The University frowned upon the… abuse and neglect of their given room-mates and she had no desire to craft some sort of cultural lore violation due to a lack of traditional following.
But the girl - Hermione, her mind corrected again - was not obedient. Not soft or shy like Andromeda's assigned Lovegood, or obedient and far too eager to please, like Narcissa's Parkinson. No, out of all the assigned room-mates, she'd been given the one with the gleaming red scarf.
A sorted and gifted Gryffindor, hard to conquer, and more or less a general sulking messy annoyance and Bellatrix hadn't decided whether she wanted to destroy this girl or leave her for someone else.
What would Head Scholar Riddle do?
Best not to show weakness here, while she was in her apprentice-hood.
So, instead, she flared her nostrils and stepped past the threshold, leaving behind the security of her private rooms to step into the shared common area between a senior and their room-mate. "What do you want?"
The girl floundered slightly, stepped back, pushed out of the space but seemed to recognize her act of vulnerability and stopped right before she managed to knock the back of her knees against a nearby table - still slick with polish-oils from the frantic cleaning of the morning servant.
"We need to get along," Hermione's voice was stronger. Good, Bellatrix didn't want to deal with a coward. "The arguing - we've lost time and I've a duty."
"Then be quiet and do it." Bellatrix hissed, already feeling the familiar slow churning heat of annoyance.
"I'm not something, some being, you can just order to silence." Hermione's hiss was vicious, a reminder of her unbecoming sorting, but she lifted her hand to rub at the bound jewels about her wrist all the same - a signal of her status as Bellatrix assigned companion.
An elevation and a curse, wasn't it?
"I can't seem to order you to do anything." A startling contrast from what she'd been told a room-mate was meant to do. Why did Hermione not acknowledge her place and bow like the others? Number one of her year or not, she was a companion first and foremost, not even taken by a philosopher for apprenticeship in role and further task. If the girl wasn't careful she'd end up a vassal.
Not that Bellatrix would have minded, as a vassal Hermione would have been a delight to control. No need to have the little know-it-all moving on with the sort of arrogance of the Potter child. (And maybe, that was where Hermione had gotten her bite, hanging out with the wrong sort who could barely be arsed to understand the rich foundation of their entire system and the glory of academia.)
Still, Hermione gave an exhausted flap of arm, and continued, as if Bellatrix hadn't made her comments at all. "And you've not taught me anything about your major, how am I to know? To decide which family to follow? You aren't the only one who wants to commission me. I could go anywhere, be anyone's room-mate -"
"And yet, you are here, still mine." Because, Bellatrix thought smugly, she would not allow anyone else to claim the desperate girl. "And why should I tell you anything, teach you anything? When you can barely respect the craft?"
The subtle manipulations of their arts and sciences, the sacred mysteries of their blessed halls… all meant to fall into the hands of a girl with barely a lick of respect for her betters.
But, was that not her own fault? This game of push and shove had lost its charm weeks ago, and should Hermione fall, then Bellatrix would be blamed - tossed as easily into the mud as any other ill-bred scholarship given child. She'd end up like Weasley, tumbling down into obscurity as fast as he was into poverty, no longer invited to parlay at forum.
Oh no, she couldn't have that.
"I don't think you know anything of the craft," Hermione hissed then, disturbing tumbling thoughts with her own brand of venom, "You sit here, among your wealth and finery, and you cruise on reputation. The Most Ancient House of Black, it's elder member, is nothing but a sham!" Hermione shook her head then, red faced and furious, unaware of the coiling rage that whipped through Bellatrix belly with enough force to hurt.
Hermione continued, "Head Scholar Riddle gives you far too much credit, I think-"
And that was enough. The girl, in her naivety and all that youth, would not speak of the Lord of their University with the same mouth that had said sex but a few moments ago.
Ah… then something clicked, something that pushed to the surface of her twisted mentality, as a sense of madness struck all to sudden clarity against the front of her skull. There was a lack of understanding between them, not due to Hermione's overall arrogance, but due to her ignorance… and Bellatrix own neglect.
Yes, now she knew just what to do. Now she understood why Hermione raved and ranted, while others relaxed in their dwellings without tension threading their limbs and yells bouncing off empty white walls.
How foolish of her to have taken so long.
She moved with absolute certainty and aggressive suddenness, stepping forward so rapidly that Hermione backheeled into the table behind her. She fell over it, all tangled limbs in that far too large shift and Bellatrix was quick to follow, manipulating the squealing girl until her face was pressed against that polished wood and her body was tucked against Bellatrix own.
Perfect.
"I know what's wrong with you." She whispered, gravel underfoot with the slick tone of the barely sane. "I should have noticed sooner. You don't understand-"
"-Get off, get off, get off-"
"-You New Bloods are all the same. Recently elevated, granted your bag of gold, and escorted through my halls with all the assurances of the olde, those of us who deserve to be here."
Hermione began to buck against her, driving her arse against Bellatrix crotch as she pushed further over her. If the girl wanted to taste the oils of the wood so bad, Bellatrix would grant her the wish. That and, to be frank, she enjoyed the power coiled beneath her, the twist and writhe of muscle against her chest.
Yes, so very perfect.
"We'll start at the beginning. The history of the University. The culture of the halls. The true purpose of the room-mate, and my duty to you."
That seemed to cast confusion through the girl, whose brow furrowed, and struggles slowed. "That's… I've been trying to…"
"Get me to sit and explain that, all this time? But, you see, you won't accept what I tell you as you currently are."
Slowly, she shifted forward, pressed soft lips against the rapidly fluttering pulse of her captured prey.
"First off," Bellatrix growled against salt-slick skin, "You think too much."
She drug the sharp ends of her teeth across that pulse, imagined the ebb and flow of Hermione's life blood and had to push back the constant heady thud, thud, thud of primal need that screeched take her, take, her tAkE hEr!
There would be plenty of time for it, over and over and over again, to ease the flame that pooled low in her belly and tightened.
"So, we'll need to put a stop to that." Bellatrix lifted her head, paused to flick a hot tongue across an exposed earlobe, and enjoyed the soft sound of surprise and the resulting tremble that escaped the girl. "All that thinking isn't allowing us to be companions."
With the bulk of her body pressing down and keeping Hermione's hands trapped at the small of her back, Bellatrix own hands were free to roam, to brush across twitching copper skin and slip up from her belly to cup the underside of warm and heavy breasts. "Second of all, I think you need to understand your place. You are my room-mate. Not the other way around. You owe me deference. Apparently, Sorter Dumbledore did not explain that. Shame on him for that."
She drew fingertips upward, heard Hermione's breath hitch as she brushed them across pebbled nipples. Yes, this was more like it, a nice, quiet, melting, room-mate with lovely curves squirming against her as she was lulled by the darkness of her tone and the power of her grip. A grip that now held Hermione firmly by her chest, a grip that knew just how to manipulate a little wound-up virgins' flesh.
"That's it. You know what to do. Your body was made for this. To submit to me. To writhe under my hands." Bellatrix hissed, "I know what's best for you, for us, and I've been so cruel, haven't I? You need to submit, and I've not given you a chance to do so. You New Bloods need to be taken and conquered. Shame on me for that."
Hermione parted her lips, drew in a shaky breath, tried to spit vitriol but moaned instead, a soft kittenish mewl of 'no' that Bellatrix enjoyed as she rolled hard nipples between pinching sharp nails. Did her little Hermione like pain?
All the better to control her with.
"So, I think we best bond, so you can stop thinking and learn how to listen."
After all, that was why they were all at the University, in the end.
"Lesson one..."