Chapter Twenty-Six: The Tempest
There were many experiences in life which one didn't really need to have. Being tortured with the Cruciatus curse was certainly one of the highest on the list. It was not so much a feeling of a particular kind of torture, but rather as if the concept of torture, the very Platonic ideal of pain, had been inserted into one's nerves and brain by magic. It was unfathomable, and very nearly indescribable, in the agony that it produced.
Hell itself, was that what this was? Alone in the Crimean, in the den of her enemies, Hermione was barely even aware that she had collapsed to the floor. The rush of agony coursed through her veins after the curse, and the only thing in Hermione's mind was a fear of being hit with it again, a fear that vanished the moment she felt a warmth pressing close to her and around her from above.
"Rookwood, she's MINE to bring to the Dark Lord! Mine! Mine! If you drive her to madness or kill her, we will have a duel! Damn it, I want her unblemished for Our Lord! She's my prize, fairly won!"
The words were savage, but the press of Bellatrix's body above her was comforting. The feeling of disassociation into agony rapidly faded with the closeness of the older woman. Hermione's eyes blinked open, just to see her world completely obscured by Bellatrix more or less laying on top of her.
Augustus laughed. "Fine, whatever, Bellatrix. But I don't think you're worried about her being unblemished before the Dark Lord. You've had far too much fun torturing this mudblood, and you have since the moment you first got your hands on her. We all remember what got you betrothed to that boor Lestrange in the first place."
Hermione could feel Bellatrix tense over her. "You wouldn't dare…" Bellatrix pulled away from her, and literally jerked on the chain around Hermione's neck, leaving her scrambling to rise as her breathing was constricted.
"You wouldn't dare," Bellatrix repeated, her expression baleful, glaring at Augustus.
"Have it your way, Bellatrix, but the Dark Lord, you know, one of Potter's friends," he chuckled, and looked at Hermione sharply. "You will be tortured until you are mad with the Cruciatus, and then as a mudblood, given to the executioners to be hung, drawn and quartered like the English traitors of old. I understand you fancied yourself an intellectual, so you will know what that is. Nonetheless, I assure you it was entertaining to meet you, mudblood. I don't know what Bellatrix is doing with you, but I'm sure it will leave you ready for the kiss of Our Lord's wand."
Bellatrix opened her mouth to shout, but then, closed it, and spun around with a soft, angered scream, pulling on Hermione's leash and forcing her, with her agonised, tortured muscles, to follow behind. Augustus Rookwood was laughing as they left, and Hermione desperately wish to know what had passed between them, even as she still felt the comfort which Bellatrix's firm embrace had given her in that moment of agony.
Bellatrix then pulled her into one of the elevators, and the stares and jeers were mercifully over, it was just the two of them in the old elevator going up. There were no cameras or other devices to spy on them, since magic was used in this building, and so the electricity was kept to a minimum. Without even thinking about it, Hermione sagged against Bellatrix.
"Don't get fresh with me, Pet, " Bellatrix said in a low and warning voice, pushing her off.
"I—I'm sorry, Bellatrix, I just…"
"You wanted someone to hold you because you'd just been tortured with Cruciatus, I get it, I have been, too. The Dark Lord does it frequently to his subordinates who displease him. And there was nobody around to fucking hold me, so deal with it, Granger."
Hermione hung her head. The kindness appeared and disappeared again in flashes, and she couldn't figure out if it would last from one minute to the next. Was I getting fresh with her?
But the elevator chimed, and with a jostle, Hermione was forced to follow Bellatrix to the luxurious suite which the elder witch had been given, with a collar tugging her onwards and reminding her regularly of its presence. Mardy was already there, setting out her things with Elfish efficiency, having crossed the storming Black Sea with the strange power of Elfish magic.
Bellatrix locked the door behind them, and then removed the leash from Hermione, but left the chains and collar in place. She looked exhausted, like she was bottling up inside of her a trembling rage. "I'll have Mardy bring some food for you, though I can't say how good it will be. You should try and lay down and get as much rest as you can. I need to meet with Dodson and Terrant immediately to get the plan moving. We don't have much time, and once that Concorde lands in Feodosiya tomorrow, they will expect me to be there to fly immediately back to Voldemort. But it's going to take us at least an extra day to get all of this operation planned, as fucked up and improvised as it will be here, and so the first thing I have to do is find an excuse to delay the plane on the ground for a day. The storm," she glanced out the windows, the sun having more or less set and just a dim imprint of the rough seas and swirl of snow still visible, "will at least help with that."
"It will," Hermione agreed. Unlike before, there were multiple rooms, and she shuffled toward the smaller and less fancy one, curled in against herself. "Bellatrix, will you tell me what Augustus was … Baiting you with?"
"No, I won't!" The dark haired woman shook her her still damp and tangled mane of hair with an imperious glare in her eyes. "It's best to just not ask."
"Thank you for being nice about it Bellatrix," Hermione offered, with a small smile, and then let herself topple onto the bed.
"Mud—pet," the woman actually corrected herself, "we are about to be in quite a fight for our lives. Get some rest." With that, she turned for the bathroom to freshen herself up before going out.
Hermione watched her go before burying herself into the sheets and pillow. Sleep didn't come easily, not after the Cruciatus curse. She still felt savaged and fragile. She wanted to know, so badly, what the exchange between Rookwood and Bellatrix had been about, but Bellatrix clearly wasn't interested in talking about it.
So she dragged herself fitfully up to eat the food Mardy brought, and set out on the night-stand, for her. She tried to distract herself by imagining how she would tell people about what happened so far, and that worked for a little while. But it also made her think of the things that she wouldn't want to share, like being dragged around on a leash by Bellatrix.
Next, she tried thinking about the layout of the Hotel Taurica, and how they would conduct their attacks the next day. That distracted her for a while as well, but in the end it would not suffice, either. Her mind agonised over everything. It especially agonised, most of all, over whether or not she had in fact been 'getting fresh' with Bellatrix Black.
The answer her mind kept coming up with was 'yes', and Hermione groaned in frustration, and perhaps a little bit of need, as she lay chained on another bed, trying to come up with some kind of justification of for how what she was feeling was wrong, and it wasn't really what she was feeling. Of course, that justification eluded her, because it was what she was feeling. Would once matter? You could be dead in two days, if she … Would she be interested? Once the thought came, it would not escape. Hermione wanted Bellatrix. Still wanted her. Existence, the world and everything had come down to forty-eight hours, a prisoner in Yalta. She might as well try to live it.
Bellatrix met James Dodson and Benjamarious Terrant in one of the few cafés still open in the City of Yalta. The two men being seen together would not be unusual, but Bellatrix being with them would be, so she met with Terrant first, and then with the cold night closing in but an address and a picture in hand, apparated directly into a private room in the back of the café while Terrant met with Dodson and went in regularly. Wizard, Janissary officer, and Witch were presented with a meal of Ukha soup, Vinegret with green peas, and Makarony po-flotski, made unusually with mutton, probably for the lack of anything else available.
The waitresses were virtually slaves to the occupation forces, but Terrant and Dodson both had a reputation for being kind, so the service was not lacklustre, though Bellatrix surprised them and her two co-conspirators with an order for a sizeable glass of Kvasya.
"Drinking tonight, Madame Black?" Terrant asked, his skin marking him as a descendant of one of the pureblood wizarding families of Britain whose origins were inside the Empire, and his easy confidence at Dodson's side showing that he was not furiously haughty toward muggles.
"I'll be sober by the morning, and you're going to need it," Bellatrix answered, and then, paused significantly for a moment before delivering the line which would make it clear what was happening. "My sister sent me a letter."
Terrant's face froze for a moment, and then he raised his wand, and tapped it toward the door, to keep the waitresses from coming back in. "Sorry, but we'll have to go on without refills… Madame Black?"
"As you may have garnered by the message I sent from Lvov when I was flying back to my Command, I have decided it is time for a change in direction for Wizarding Europe, and Britain in particular," Bellatrix smiled dangerously. "One that will serve your own intentions, and mine, and those of yourself, General Dodson, and the freedom of your troops and muggle Europe generally."
Dodson's smile froze on his face as he realised, dangerously, what he had gotten into. It didn't matter if he was innocent, or he refused them, he would certainly be killed if anything went wrong at this point. In the classic old Chinese metaphor about the punishment for being late and the punishment for rebellion both being death, perhaps the harshness with which the Janissary Corps was governed had not been wise for Voldemort, but whether or not he cared or was even aware of it was an open question.
Dodson, however, certainly was. "You're talking about a coup d' é tat," he said with a grimly breathless voice. " You had better be committed, you know, Madame Black," he said more informally. "You know the consequences if you are not."
"I am fully committed," Bellatrix answered with a hint of a sneer on her lips. "Calm yourself. This is not quite a coup d'état, but it is close to one. My entire front has gone over under my direction, and I have already secured pardons for all the Wizards and Janissaries who defect, you understand? Within a very short time, a massive offensive will be launched north from the Caucasus region with the objective of quickly seizing all territory south of the Volga and the Don." She took a nice strong drink, suppressing her own fear. She wanted to see her daughter again, after all, and the most delicate time was about to begin.
"We won't be going for the Dark Lord directly," she did not say it was because she felt he could not be killed, since that would demoralise them, "but we will be inflicting the maximum harm. My objective is to put this Army on the Dnepr with my own Army crossing the Don, linking up with us, and pushing north to combine with the Russians around Kursk. We'll have liberated forty million people or more by the time it's done. We'll be the heroes," she added with another drink. "And my sister is in a position to make that stick."
"If we do this," Dodson answered, his eyes growing narrow and sharp, "we are going to have to move fast, and far, quickly. The Janissaries will have to obey without instruction. They need only obey though, a group of high-ranking officers can issue the orders, they will obey in ignorance, they will think it is a dispute between Death Eaters, not a revolt against the Dark Lord. We will have the CIS troops from Sevastopol helping us, quickly?"
"Yes, once we have control of the lines, they can move across them, they are already briefed," Bellatrix answered with a shrug. She only barely picked at her food, as the drink brought a silent lucidity to her.
"What about the ensorcelled troops, Madame Black?" Tarrant asked. "They will fight to obey what the magic has placed in them. Rookwood is their designated commander."
"I will take Rookwood with the Imperious curse, and force him to transfer command. Then we'll have overwhelming weight of force on our side, since the ensorcelled troops will be obeying my directives."
Tarrant nodded. "All right. That means you absolutely have to take Rookwood in the first minute. Can you?"
"That's what my prisoner is for." She looked across sharply at both of them. "Understand that this is the only way out for you. I need you both to move quickly, fast and hard, to put these preparations together. A Concorde is arriving at Feodosiya tomorrow for me, and I'm supposed to be on it."
"We can't execute this tomorrow!" Tarrant exclaimed, shocked. "Forty-eight hours would barely be enough time to put this operation together."
"...We can delay them at least one night, I'll arrange for 'foreign object damage' to the bird on landing," Dodson offered, sounding more confident. "If the Ensorcelled troops are assumed to be on our side, Ben, this a lot more viable than you think. They can simply be ordered to obey Madame Black, and they will."
Tarrant sighed, looked at Bellatrix, and then gave a single nod. "If it's being organised by the Government in Exile, and it has to be for you to know about my talks with them," he acknowledged the connection to Narcissa Malfoy, "then I really have no choice. Do or die, right?"
Bellatrix nodded. "Then we'll meet another tomorrow. The sooner you gentlemen begin laying the pieces, the more we'll have. But by the day after tomorrow, I'm going to have to just seize Rookwood and start the operation. I am running out of time and I cannot keep this house of cards together for much longer in terms of hiding my decision to defect. So I'm going to try even if you're not ready, and I assure you, none of us will like the outcome then." She finished her glass and put it down with a sharp clink.
"Understood."
"Understood."
Bellatrix rose, grabbing onto the back of the chair for support, and smiled a twisted grin. "Tell the men that whatever this exercise you're planning is … That they're going to have fun." With that, she apparated away, to a quiet alley near the hotel.
Drunk, and happy for it, Bellatrix wandered back to the Hotel Taurica. Drunken Death Eaters returning to staff headquarters late at night was hardly an unusual occurrence for one of Voldemort's armies, after all. Especially the ones who had spent fourteen years in Azkaban.
She wandered back into the hotel, the fear of the next two days bearing down on her like an oppressive, dark blanket. Death stood close at hand for both her and the impertinent mudblood who had volunteered to accompany her on this harrowing of hell. But she was a Death Eater, and she was supposed to love Death.
All of that seemed like a lie, now, when she just wanted her daughter, when she just wanted a life. Pausing inside the entrance, after the guards had acknowledged her with their salutes, she looked through the contents of old shelves, the old portraits gathering dust on the walls, while the dining suites were filled with tables, computers, screens, map tables and people who were busy twenty-four hours a day.
Impulsively, Bellatrix thought of how bored the mudblood would be. She felt it was rather pathetic, really, she had known boredom like nobody could fathom in Azkaban. But it was real. The girl liked to read, she would be less miserable the next day if she had some kind of stimulation. So Bellatrix grabbed a few old travel-guides which sat on the shelves, forgotten, for guests of the Hotel in an age which might as well have been antediluvian for all that had changed. Then she headed upstairs, making herself walk. She had reached the point where she was restless, and wanted the exercise, and was feeling better enough that the alcohol alone could quiet the pain where her left arm had been, instead of needing the constant draughts of potions.
Quietly entering the suite, she passed the entrance to the small bedroom, intended for the children of whatever couple might be leasing the suite, that now held the mudblood. Her hair was growing out from the sheer intensity of the recent events being too much for her to trim it, though it was still very short, barely an inch. It made Bellatrix remember the massive, frizzy mane which had marked her so long ago, and how much the mudblood had grown up. Her face was frozen in a bitter rictus of some dream, memory or nightmare in the current circumstances, but so far, so good, she had held up to the pressures of the role she had volunteered for her well, and her continuous impertinence and refusal to give up was impressing Bellatrix more than she'd care to admit.
So the elder witch carefully put the travel guides down on the night-stand to give her something to read, and then crept out to go to bed. There would be so much to do the next day, and at least she was free, and able to fight for her own survival. She did not envy Hermione Granger, waiting for her fate in chains. But the next night, there would be no going back: The chains would come off, and the dawn after that, they'd be in the fight of their lives. Together.
Odd thing to think about, that.
The next day, Hermione had woken up to find herself already alone, Bellatrix having gone out with the break of dawn. So she was alone, in her chains, waiting for the beginning of the fighting—or perhaps for Bellatrix to be found out, and for Rookwood's goons to come to her in her helpless state, in chains, without a wand, and finish actually carrying her to Voldemort, to be tortured until she was driven mad, and then, exactly as he had calmly promised, hung, drawn, and quartered.
But somehow, in the middle of the night, the travel guides had shown up. And so, desperately lonely and lacking in any other kind of stimulation, Hermione curled up until she found a position in which the chains weren't really bothering her, and started to read. With the pillow rolled up and stuffed under her head and the blankets drawn over her, she felt like she was really just taking a day off and relaxing.
As long as she had something to read, she managed to fake being calm. But the calmness was certainly a façade. She was going to die the next day, that was the thought that she could not escape, which all of the reading and efforts to be calm only temporarily held at bay, just to rush back in every unguarded moment. Mardy bringing food did nothing to help, and she spent the day in a kind of exquisite agony, trying to accept her own impending demise.
It would be nice if I had sex with another woman once before I died. That thought also kept coming back, especially the way that she had felt the night before. A frustrated need filled her, and the only thin consolation that she had was that she would die at Bellatrix's side— when did that become a consolation!?
Her mind gave no answer, but it was true. She saw Bellatrix's presence as a consolation. Her stupid infatuation with Bellatrix was probably the reason she had accepted this mission to begin with, and so, it would be the cause of her getting killed. She might as well embrace it, and indulge it, because there was no way out now, there was nobody to condemn her, there was nobody to question there. There was just the waiting, and then Bellatrix's desperate fight to true her boast and give the Dnepr to Nazarbayev in exchange for her life. In less than twenty-four hours there was an excellent chance that she would be dead or worse, and she had simply run out of time to pretend her attraction to Bellatrix didn't exist. She could only live with it.
Then, around nineteen hundred hours that night, the door opened. Hermione froze, not knowing who was there. Tense, and wondering, justly, if she would momentarily truly be in custody, or else dead, she waited to see.
The footfalls and the breath resolved themselves into Bellatrix Black, and Hermione's sigh of relief was so loud it nearly became a groan.
"Are you quite all right, Granger?" Can a querying tone immediately. "I had hoped to keep you from working yourself up into a stupid funk with those books I found, I shall be irritated if it failed to work."
"It did work, mostly. I'm just miserable instead of catatonic," Hermione answered, and bubbled with hysterical laughter. "I don't suppose you could call me Hermione?"
"Would it matter? Would it help make you less scared for tomorrow?"
"Yes, actually," brown eyes flickered as she watched Bellatrix step closer in response to the answer.
"Oh, well, then, Hermione," Bellatrix shrugged, and her words were a bit slurred, Hermione realised. She had been drinking, heavily. "If it will help you fight tomorrow, I'll do anything for you."
"So I get anything to make me fighting fit, but you get drunk off your ass?" Hermione bit back, feeling a bit perturbed or worried about Bellatrix's likely performance.
"It will be fine, " Bellatrix laughed, and sat down on the side of the bed, next to Hermione. She reached for the key on her belt. "I am not going to let myself be drunk in the battle of my life. I just needed something for the pain, and the fact that I am about to inflict the most spectacular betrayal that he has ever suffered unto My Lord. They will remember me next to Judas, if I fail, or even if I succeed and our side is ultimately defeated."
"Isn't that what you want?" Hermione asked. She felt even more nervous, with Bellatrix this close, she could feel her body responding to the other woman. She also knew that having her chains removed meant there was no going back, that the operation would be launched the very next day, because they had run out of time for more preparations.
"Half of me wants to prove that I can do this, sure, Hermione. The other half still hates me, hates myself, for betraying my Lord. He was everything I knew…"
Bellatrix's face clouded over. "I spent fourteen years in Azkaban for him, and now I will betray him."
"He left you in Azkaban for fourteen years, and showed you no thanks for it," Hermione countered. "That is hardly loyalty."
"He gave me Delphini," Bellatrix shock back, but it was without venom in her voice. "That was his thanks."
"A child you can't raise on your own, a child he won't be the father of? A loveless child? He's not capable of love. Have you ever been loved?"
Bellatrix turned away like she had been slapped. "Oh come off of it, Granger. Of course I have."
Hermione felt suddenly bold and reckless, and pushed on. "Was that what Rookwood was talking about?"
"It, Granger, that's…" Bellatrix took a breath. "Yeah, muddy, it was. Her name was Thérèse de Lamar, and she was one of the brightest witches to ever study at Beauxbatons. We met during an exchange programme, where I spent one term at Beauxbatons and she spent one at Hogwarts. Both of us had figured out that you could tune in to muggle stations by fiddling with a Wizarding radio, so we'd sneak off or take advantage of our parents being gone to listen to the songs. I'd go out with Thérèse to clubs in Paris when I was at Beauxbatons, and she repaid me the favour and we would sneak into London to go to clubs, too, take a Floo route from Hogsmeade to Knockturn Alley and then go take the tube to concerts. My family found out and nearly disowned me, and I had to …" She trailed off, sharply, swallowing hard. "Well, that's not important. Anyway, My Lord arranged my marriage to Lestrange to placate my family, so at that point, I owed him everything, since my parents thought I could never be married off after that scandal, but they forgave me when the Dark Lord gave me a respectable pureblood husband."
"Oh… Oh." Suddenly it came together in a flash. There was something between them. "What happened to Thérèse?"
"Rod killed her during the first war to make sure I had no taint as his wife." A savage look crossed her face. "It backfired. I never slept with him again."
"Was there… Anyone else?" Hermione asked, wondering, at what was, finally, an unguarded moment from Bellatrix.
"When we were both being held in the women's cells awaiting trial after the end of the First War, Alekto and I," Bellatrix admitted. "But then that damned bitch copped a plea by denying Our Lord and got let off." With a sigh, she turned to look down at Hermione. "Come on, Granger. Roll over, I'm going to get these chains off and give you your wand. One way or another, you're going to die on your feet now, right? If it's tomorrow or in the future, you've got that now. Tomorrow, we're going to do this, one way or another. There's no going back."
"All right." Hermione obliged her, but her body was feeling an intense need for Bellatrix, now that she knew that Bellatrix was actually interested in women. The act of those gloved hands descending to remove first the collar, and then the chains and manacles, which already in a few days had made her wrists sore—she couldn't imagine how Bellatrix had worn them for fourteen years—brought shivers to her.
So she couldn't resist it. She had been through Cruciatus, the storm, she was probably about to die. As Bellatrix leaned down over her and released her, Hermione craned her head, and planted a kiss directly on Bellatrix's lips. Bellatrix froze in shock, as her lips lingered pressed together with Hermione's for a moment, before the young woman withdrew to fall back on the bed. "Unlike Alekto, I'm going to either win or die at your side tomorrow, Bellatrix. Was that fresh enough for you? We'll be dead tomorrow. I don't want to die without you."
Bellatrix looked down, the drunkenness obvious, but now, something else in her eyes, too. There was a moment of silence, and then Bellatrix slapped Hermione across the cheek. "That was for kissing me without permission," she snarled, but the sound was weak, and seemed to die halfway in her throat.
"We're probably going to die tomorrow and you want your last memory of another woman to be someone who betrayed you?" Hermione asked, desperately. "I don't want to die never having slept with another woman, Bella. Please. It's just… I want you. I've wanted you since the moment you held me down with your thighs. Do you realise how sexy you are, what you can do to me?"
"I wasn't done, muddy," Bellatrix answered, and tossed herself down roughly atop of Hermione, her tongue insistent as she sharply and passionately kissed Hermione, spreading her lips, even if the taste of alcohol on her tongue was overwhelming, the unrestrained, uninhibited nature of it drove Hermione wild.
"That is for being such a damned minx," the elder witch added smoothly as she pulled back. "But if you think I'm going to go for a roll in the mud…"
Hermione, having been freed, was able to reach up, and pull her back down into another kiss. "Why the hell not? Am I any less woman to you? If you lose tomorrow, nobody will care. If you win tomorrow—nobody will care. Fuck me."
For all that, Hermione was still shocked when Bellatrix roughly and quickly started to pull her tattered uniform blouse and undershirt off over her head. She obligingly shifted her arms to let it happen, as her body surged with need at the realisation that this might, in fact, actually be happening to her.
It very much felt like something that was actually happening to her. Bellatrix, though smaller, was absolutely in control. She laid a line of kisses along Hermione's shoulders and neck as she freed her of her blouse and undershirt, and along the upper edge of the sports bra that she wore below them, before pushing that up as well. Bellatrix was like a storm, moving insistently and fast, and giving Hermione no opportunity to respond or have any input on what happened. It would be a ravishing, had not consent and desire been so clearly communicated between them.
It was when one of Bellatrix's gloved hands grabbed her left breast and gently rolled it, the crisp black leather pressing down on her skin, that Hermione moaned for the first time, as Bella left thumb-prints across her breast before Hermione gasped at the shorter witch's lips finding her right nipple. Hermione squirmed in a mixture of need and lust, and spread her legs, knees flexed in the air. Bella took it as an invitation, and descended further down her young lover's body, gloved hands curling around her panties and uniform trousers in a single motion to yank them both off.
For a moment, Hermione was embarrassed that she had spent two days without a bath, but the embarrassment was again replaced with pleasure as Bella revealed she had no compunctions about the matter herself. Instead, she descended between Hermione's legs and placed a kiss. "Just a promise for later, pet," she murmured, and then withdrew, pulling herself up, leaving Hermione to sharply inhale in the wake of her kiss .
Hermione blinked her eyes open to look at the sudden withdrawal of her partner , just to hear boots being kicked haphazardly off and, with a giggle of amusement, a pair of panties and then Bella's petticoats hitting her in the face and blinding her again. She wears petticoats? Hermione thought dumbly.
Bella, her dress flared and hitched and revealing her to now be wearing only stockings below it from the waist down, didn't bother with attempting to remove her corset or dress , nor did it seem to occur to her to remove the engageantes from her arms, but she was clearly putting in some forethought, for when she returned, she only had a glove on her left hand.
Her artificial arm. Her scars. She's too sensitive about them to show them even now, Hermione thought with sympathy, and then lost her breath again as Bella's lips returned to one of her breasts, and the other one was claimed by her hands, with Hermione never being able to tell which hand would be where, if it was a gloved hand cupping her breast or playing with her nipple, or a bare one, the contrast in texture adding to her arousal.
Then, Bella began to kiss her way up Hermione's décolletage until she planted a firm kiss on Hermione's neck that turned into a soft bite that sent electric sparks flying through her body and mind. Oh God… Any vocalisation, though, was buried in the kiss that Bella gave her, now long and lingering, open mouthed, with Hermione, finally able to use her tongue to join in, eagerly entwining with the older woman.
Then, again, Hermione felt the dark witch pull away, leaving her exposed to the cool air of the room, her nipples pricking up in response to it. The only stitch of fabric left on her body was her socks, which Bella in her haste had not bothered to strip from her.
Before the thought of how silly that was could make her laugh, though, Bella was moving again, pushing aside the petticoats and panties she had so carelessly tossed on Hermione. And then, Hermione saw her legs, the legs that had been the start of this passion those years ago, descend around her head, still clad in stockings. Partially clothed, her dress draped down around and over Hermione's face and head like a tent, engulfing her, denying any light to see…
They made love, sharply, and intensely, with Bella descended over Hermione, her hips around Hermione's head, her face down between Hermione's legs, more experienced, showing the needy younger witch exactly how it was done, working her over with tongue and fingers until Hermione found her release in the moment.
It took a minute for Hermione to fully process what had just happened to her, and the mild regret that she had not been so skilled at reciprocating to her lover. "Oh, I'm so, thank you, I'm so sorry I didn't make you orgasm," she found herself babbling.
"Shh," that sultry sharp voice came back, as Bella spun around and planted herself on the bed with her legs spread. "Come here and fix it."
Hermione eagerly crawled down to the bottom of the bed and then came up, between Bella's spread legs and hiked skirt, and took another heady breath of her scent. She had always been a good study, and now she applied herself to learn, just like she would with anything else, even if the thought was mildly ridiculous and sexy all at once.
"Now, come up from below with your tongue, and be firm, I like it that way, I need lots of pressure, that's who I am," Bella instructed gently, and her instructions soon vanished into sharp, quick breaths...
The need of all those years before had finally been satiated, and tomorrow and whatever it brought could go hang. In that moment, Hermione lived. She had followed her heart, and banished her regrets.
Notes:
The unedited version of this scene is available on AO3 where the story is named "There Will Be Love".