I am back!

Many of you asked for another chapter from Bella's POV - so I really hope you enjoy this. As always, thank you for the awesome feedback :)

Chapter 9

POV Bellatrix

Bellatrix stormed into her quarters and let the door fall shut with a loud bang. She slumped onto her couch, let out a loud sigh and buried her head inside her hands. Her mind was still processing the events of the last hours. What in Merlin's name had just happened? Well, she knew fairly well what had almost just happened – The more important question was, how could she let it come so far? How could she let herself lose control like that?

She couldn't deny that she had begun to genuinely enjoy the company of Hermione. The young witch had turned out to be one of the few people that could actually keep up with her intellect. Their conversations had always been fruitful and Bellatrix had found it surprisingly pleasing to have another conversation partner despite Minerva, that would challenge her mind and wouldn't back down from an argument. Hermione was brilliantly witty and even managed to draw one of Bellatrix's genuine laughs from her every once in a while.

What she enjoyed most about Hermione's presence, however, was the way the younger witch responded to her, how her body responded to her teasing, her touches and the sound of her voice. She found it incredibly amusing to watch the younger witch struggling with her obvious attraction to Bellatrix. It didn't need a Legilimens to see her inner conflict washing over her face, whenever she was close to Bellatrix and how much she was fighting to hide it.

She could still see the look of pure panic on her face when Bellatrix had helped her with her posture and confidence that afternoon in the Transfiguration classroom. She had found it quite funny to watch the younger witch freeze completely on the spot, when she had started to get closer to her. How her pupils dilated and her breathing quickened as Bellatrix started to touch her and she how tiny goosebumps erupted all over her body as she quietly whispered in her ear.

It had been a bit of a struggle to hide her own arousal that the rather unexpected, strong responsiveness of Hermione caused her. This had been the first time she had actually come close to lose some of her composure in front of the younger witch. Still, she had managed to stay in control. After all it had just been some innocent teasing, purely for her own amusement.

Her only intention had been to watch Hermione squirm and lose some of her uptight correctness, it all had absolutely nothing to do with the tingling feeling that Hermione's behavior was causing inside her own stomach for quite a while now. She had not enjoyed this in the slightest – well, maybe only a little bit.

After that day, she had caught herself staring at the younger witch even more frequently. She started to notice tiny things about her behavior, the way she slightly wrinkled her nose whenever she was completely immersed in reading a particular interesting book, how she kept biting her lip when she was deep in thought and believed nobody was watching.

And, well, she wasn't blind, and Hermione definitely not unattractive. She had clearly developed some curves over the last year and she found herself especially drawn to her smile. Watching her genuinely smile, was still a much rarer occasion then before the war, but once she did, her smile seemed to spread over her whole face, making even her eyes sparkle and Bellatrix heart beating a bit faster.

It was only now that she realized, she had been referring to the other witch as Hermione that whole time. She internally cursed herself for that thought. What had happened to Miss Granger? She definitely was getting soft.

Still, today shouldn't have happened – wouldn't have happened if Bellatrix hadn't let herself getting distracted by Hermione's words. She should've prevented this from happening, right when Hermione had started to lose control in her lesson.

At first Bellatrix had found her outburst quite amusing, that amusement, however, had quickly been covered by her own rage starting to boil inside her. She knew she was not particularly known for treating her students fair and gentle, still Hermione had gone a step to far. She had gotten so lost in her rambling, that she completely forgot to pay any attention the students around her.

Apart from that, Bellatrix was also a very proud witch. Despite clearly distancing herself from some of her family's values and beliefs, she still grew up learning to appreciate most of the pureblood traditions. Many things that happened to her during her childhood had been incredibly horrible, some of them were still giving her nightmares up until this day. Still, there had also been many good moments, moments that had played a large part in turning her into the person she was today – and while she clearly wasn't very font of herself, it had still taught her how to stand up for herself and gave her magical abilities, many other witches and wizards could only dream of. So, hearing Hermione ranting about how all Purebloods were barbaric idiots, probably raised by wolves, had not exactly left her completely unaffected.

However, what she still couldn't quite forgive herself was how she had let her anger take control and had immediately fallen back into old patterns. She had been able to stop herself in the last second from calling Hermione a mudblood, but the damage had already been done. Time had proven to her that blood superiority had been nothing but pure bullshit, but old habits die hard. Pretending to be an obsessive Death Eater for more than a decade just didn't pass without leaving its marks. Bellatrix had been to proud from apologizing properly, but that didn't stop her from internally cursing herself for that mistake.

Thinking about it now, her disappointment in herself for that remark had probably only been one more factor that had led to her sudden outburst. For a second, when she watched Hermione pressed against the wall, all flustered and heavily breathing, her emotions had taken the upper hand. She was only glad she had come to her senses before it had been too late.

Whatever had been about to happen, it wouldn't. It couldn't.

Over the year Bellatrix had learnt many important lessons, but the most important one had definitely been not to let anyone close to her and to keep her guard up at all cost. Letting people into her life, would only result in them getting hurt – that was the one thing the past had made clear to her.

The last time she had let someone in, had opened up to someone and had trusted someone had ended in Severus Snape dead on the floor. He had died in a foolish attempt to protect her, to keep her cover in place. In the end it had all been for nothing.

All she had ever done was bringing pain and misery into people's life and while there definitely seemed to be a tiny spark between her and Hermione, she just couldn't allow that spark to grow into anything more. No matter what her thoughts about the younger witch were, she definitely deserved better than this. Better than an old hag, drowning in her own self-loathing.

This night Bellatrix's dreams were filled with images she usually tried to suppress by all means. Severus' weak body on the floor, begging her to leave him be and save herself. Alice screaming at her in agony after she broke up with her to jump head over heels into an arranged marriage with Rodolphus, just like her family had expected of her. Her shouting when she thought Bellatrix would actually join Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It was the last time she ever spoke to her. A week later she had been tortured into insanity and the Dark Lord had made her watch, only to let her prove her loyalties. She had never even gotten the chance to explain everything to her properly. Andy's crying when her parents found out about her relationship with a muggle because of a mistake that Bellatrix had made.

When sleep finally released her from her nightmares, she was drenched in sweat. This night had been one of the worst in a while, but it had definitely made one thing even clearer to her. She needed to push Hermione out of her life. As far as possible. It was only for her own good.

Bellatrix did her best to make herself look presentable, but even the strongest spell couldn't completely cover the dark rings below her eyes for long. She quickly drank a potion against the pounding headache that was already beginning to form inside her head and only managed to drink a cup of tea for breakfast.

Then she was on her way to Minerva's office, where she would meet with the ministry officials before they'd observe Hermione's class. She only hoped her actions from the previous day wouldn't affect Hermione too much. She needed to put her complete focus into the lesson and couldn't let any foolish thought or insecurities distract her.

She was pleased to find Madame Miraforum already sitting in Minerva's office. The French witch had transferred to the educational department a couple of moths ago, after working in the Department for rule translation. Bellatrix had worked with her before when she needed help with some especially complicated Runes for a spell she was working on, and found the witch to be a rather quiet but still somewhat enjoyable company. She gave the other witch a friendly nod. Then her eyes fell on the woman sitting beside her and she could feel her stomach dropping.

Sitting beside Madame Miraforum was a tall, slender witch with light brown hair, reaching barely up to her chin. Loretta Katerfield looked exactly like she did six month ago, when Bellatrix had last seen her. Though Last time she had been wearing a considerably less amount of clothes, when Bellatrix had left her still asleep without a word or note after the night they had spent together.

They had met during a conference that Minerva had forced her to attend in her place and had driven each other crazy the whole day. Bellatrix still couldn't quite recall how she ended up naked and panting, pinning the other woman down on the bed. She only knew that afterwards Loretta had attempted to contact her several times. She hadn't reacted to a single one of her owls.

Bellatrix let out a silent curse.

"That has to be a god damn joke."

Minerva raised an eyebrow at that.

"What was that Bellatrix?"

When Bellatrix only shrugged, she pointed at the free chair at her table.

"Please join us. I believe you already know each other?"

Bellatrix and Madame Miraforum only nodded, but Loretta actually had the audacity to address Bellatrix directly.

"You could say that. Professor McGonagall was just telling us about Miss Granger's progress. She actually seems like quite a smart witch. I am surprised she managed to work with you for so long."

"Absolutely none of your concern."

But Loretta ignored Bellatrix's snarky remark and went on.

"Or should I rather say, it's a miracle that you managed to endure her for so long? You seem more like a "One-Night" kind of woman, Bellatrix."

The accusation in her voice was unmistakable and Bellatrix let out a snort.

"Believe me, Loretta, you will find Miss Granger being more than capable to live up to my expectation."

Minerva was watching the exchange between the two women with great interest, but then chuckled slightly and interrupted them.

"I am sure there will be plenty of time to catch up later. But Miss Granger and her class are waiting for us. Shall we?"

Bellatrix only shrugged and got up from her chair. Madame Miraforum and Minerva had already made their way down the stairs, when she quickly grabbed Loretta's arm and hold her back.

"Don't you dare to use this as an excuse to get back at me for anything that happened between u.s" Bellatrix pressed out between gritted teeth, "It was my decision not to return any of your advances. Hermione had nothing to do with it."

When Bellatrix noticed her mistake, Loretta had already raised an eyebrow in question.

"Hermione, huh?"

"Stay out of it. I'm serious. I don't think I'll need to show you what I'm capable of." Her voice was as cold as steel now, leaving absolutely no room for objections. "You really don't want me as your enemy."

With that she turned on her heels, followed Madame Miraforum and Minerva down the stairs and left a slightly perplex Loretta behind.

As it turned out, her worries about Hermione messing up were totally unnecessary. The younger witch had planned a lesson on the vanishing spell, Evanesco, with her 4th year students.

When their group entered the classroom, Hermione was already waiting for them behind her desk. Bellatrix noticed immediately that she was incredibly nervous. She was doing her best to hide it and she was sure none of the other witches even noticed, but over the last months she had learnt to read Hermione pretty well.

At the sight of the overly tense Hermione, Bellatrix couldn't help but feel a slight twitch in her own stomach. But as soon as the students entered the classroom, the nervousness seemed to vanish from Hermione's body.

She stayed focused the whole time, even managed to throw in a joke every now and then. All of her students behaved exceptionally well. They participated eagerly, asked questions and showed clear improvements in their spells by the end of the lesson.

Bellatrix also noticed how much Hermione's general behavior in front of the students had changed. There was barely anything left of the insecure young woman, who hadn't even managed to look their students in the eyes, when something unexpected had been happening. Hermione stood tall and confident, spoke with clear and loud voice and seemed to have her eyes everywhere at once, making sure every single one of her students was paying full attention.

When Hermione ended her class with some encouraging words and released her students, Bellatrix felt a wave of pride wash over her. Beside her, Minerva was smiling widely and Madame Miraforum sent an approving nod in Hermione's direction. Loretta was still scribbling down some notes and Bellatrix was already mentally preparing herself for another fight with her, but when she got up from her chair she only mustered Hermione curiously from head to toe.

"Very well Miss Granger. We will discuss your class in more detail later."

Madame Miraforum nodded in agreement.

"Oui, oui, Miss Granger. That was very well done."

Hermione was beaming almost as much as McGonagall now, visibly relieved at how well the lesson had gone.

It took Bellatrix all her years of trained self-control, not to give in to her emotions and acknowledge Hermione's success as well. But when the younger witch tried to lock eyes with Bellatrix, still smiling proudly, her own face remained completely blank.

Instead she turned to the witches seated beside her, her voice hard and cold.

"Well, I guess this wasn't a complete disaster. I assume my presence here is no longer needed. I will join you at the evaluation later, now I have more pressing matters to attend."

The effects of her words on Hermione were immediate. Her smile faltered, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and hurt flashed over her face.

Bellatrix gulped. She knew her behavior would hurt Hermione, but she still turned around and left the room without another word. It was for the best.