Author's Note:
This is 100% BELLAMIONE. If that's not your cuppa, hit that back button my dude.
This doesn't follow the canon but it is the same universe. I'm just rearranging some stuff.
This is based on a soulmate prompt I found.
PROMPT: People don't age till they meet their soulmate.
ME: WTF? Do they just age all at once when they meet 'em? Does their hair turn silver in two seconds and then they turn to dust? ? ? ?
Also me: I will use two soulmate prompts so they will know when they meet. I have not decided on the second one.
I will not have a regular update schedule because of my muse. Sometimes my muse will caress my cheek and I will only be able to write a paragraph. Then, on nights like last night, she will beat me with an Inspiration Bat until something like this has been typed.
Please review. Tell me about my mistakes and issues with stuff. I wanna get better.
I also have no idea where this fic is going except that it sails the Bellamione flag. So. Ideas are welcome.
I am not from the UK. There are bound to be weird mess ups. I googled everything. Especially the French bit. Google translate.
ANCHORS AWAY!
The door to Rooster Charlie's slammed open and a great whooshing of wind and rain followed behind a black cloaked figure. Save for a few regular patrons who sat nursing their flagons, most didn't bother to look up at the young woman with riotous black curls. Thunder sounded in the distance as the petite woman with dark eyes scanned the room.
It was a shabby establishment, with old paint peeling off the walls, creaky floorboards, dim-flickering lights, and sticky tables. The bar was an old chunk of Cherrywood that must have been beautiful at the opening of the small pub, but its delicate engravings had since worn down, a bare shadow of its former self.
Bellatrix Black strode up to the bar and plopped herself down on one of the shoddy stools. One leg was shorter than the rest, causing her to teeter back and forth a bit.
"Whiskey. Neat." She said pulling some muggle money from inside her robes and placing it on the bar.
The bartender, who was a scraggly old man with gnarled yellow teeth and potbelly, was leaning against the back counter picking his nose with his chubby pinkie. He grunted a wheeze of a laugh.
"Got some ID little lady?"
"Yes," she said slowly, sizing him up and pulling out a tenner and tossing it on top of the other bills.
He squinted at it and then at her, suspicion evident on his face.
"Order sommat else or leave."
He shoved the money back towards her and crossed his arms.
This. This right here was one of the most annoying things about being eighteen for nearly three decades. She was forty-six years old dammit! All she wanted was a bloody drink!
She sighed heavily before requesting a fizzy drink.
The bartender nodded, but was still huffy as he grabbed a dirty glass and wiped it down with and even dirtier towel, before filling it with an already-flat pop. He set the drink down with a smug smile. He probably enjoys putting teenagers in their place. The sod.
Bellatrix contemplated hexing the muggle, but decided against it. Cissy gave her a nice bottle of Fire-whiskey when she closed the abduction case a month ago. It was at home waiting for her… but she really didn't want to wait. When the bartender turned away from her, she summoned the finest whiskey with a wordless and wandless Accio, and slipped it into her robes.
"Oi!" She called to the man, "Where's the loo?"
He gestured to the dimly lit backend corner archway. So she hopped off the wobbly stool, grabbed the pop, and marched herself into the back hallway.
Once in the stall, she dumped the pop and poured herself two fingers worth of amber liquid.
The burn wasn't strong like it should have been. Figures. Watered down. What a cheapskate.
She downed the glass anyway. Then another.
Today wasn't shaping up well. She'd lost the suspect she'd been tracking for two weeks. He had left a steady trail of breadcrumbs to follow in the beginning then he just vanished. Without a warning and without a trace, he was gone. She and the best of her team swept his most recent safe-house three times over for any scrap of evidence(magic or otherwise) but came up empty. It shouldn't have been possible. He was a second-rate, muggle-born wizard with no connections to anyone with the skills needed to evade Bellatrix's team of Aurors.
Bella had graduated Hogwarts as a prodigy. The Brightest Witch of the Age. She could do anything she wanted. And she did. She signed up to be an Auror and passed. Youngest Auror since Tom Riddle. She had moved up the ranks rather quickly, her aim: Head of the Auror Office. Then, head of the MLE. But that dream had hit a brick wall with the name of Gawain Robards.
He was younger than she was, handsome and charming with friends in high places. Gawain had greased the right hands, because he landed the head of the Auror Office after two years. Even though Bellatrix was his senior, even though she was better than he was, he got the position. At first she didn't mind it. She was still young, eternally eighteen, while he was aging like the rest of them. She thought she could wait him out. That she could continue to build her reputation for delivering the dark wizards and witches to the Ministry and eventually, he'd move up and she'd take his position.
She was wrong. He was in his late thirties now, his career lasting far longer than Bella would have liked. He held tight to his position, and rubbed her nose in it every chance he got.
Bellatrix hadn't realized just how fast the time went until she was standing in front of his desk today. Where there once was a tall man with broad shoulders leaning casually against the desk in a clean-cut three piece suit, with a roguishly handsome smirk and wink; where the great wide world was ahead of him and his future was a bright as a Lumos Maxima- she remembered like it was yesterday. Now… Now there was a middle-aged man with salt and peppered hair, a bulging waistline, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he squinted through his reading glasses at the scrolls littering his desk. He'd grown bitter of her success. She knew it. He knew it. And he knew that she knew. Even the smoke lingering around his head knew it.
He tried to keep a tight leash on her, try to pass off her wins as his, but soon enough, everyone knew it was her wit, her skill, her fire that closed case after case. She'd brought down the Cult of Death Eaters- a pureblood fanatic group hell-bent on purging the world of dirty blood- by going under cover and taking them down from the inside. The best part of that case was that she didn't even need a cover. She was a pureblood of high status, and nobody questioned it. It was downright hilarious.
She'd solved a string of grisly sacrificial murders that involved young children that turned out to be some muggle with an actual book on dark arts. He had no magic, but the circles he'd made in flesh and blood could have made some nasty problems had he been a wizard. It was only because the murdered children were muggle-borns that she even got the case in the first place. On that, it was pure coincidence. The wizarding community didn't want to believe a muggle could abduct magical children. Bellatrix's original theory was that the muggle had seen these children performing small feats of magic, and decided they fit his needs. She received quite a bit of hate-mail for that.
Even better, was that Bellatrix had a grasp on muggles that many purebloods didn't. It helped that she took every course in Hogwarts including Muggle Studies. When Andromeda found her soulmate, Ted Tonks, many thought a rift would develop between the family. After all, they were purebloods through and through.
But what most outsiders didn't understand, was that the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black had their own creed: "La Famille Avant Tout". Family Above All.
Ted was brought into the fold, and as a result, Bellatrix and the Blacks became well enriched with knowledge from the muggle world. Soon they built and entire new wing to the Black Library with only muggle literature. They adapted quickly to it and soon many pureblood and influential families followed suit. The wizarding world was changing to fit the new needs of its citizens. And the Black family was coming out ahead. Naturally, Bellatrix was leading them.
Bellatrix was a prodigy in her field, in the wizarding community, and in the new age. She was a witch of modern times. She was a better fit for authority and Robards knew it. And he hated her for it.
"Why haven't you solved this yet?" he muttered shuffling through the piles on his desk.
"It's not like I haven't tried," Bella shot back flippantly, "Yaxley's team sucks at intel. How am I supposed to get the effing bastard if I don't even know where he's from or who he's been talking to? You have me running around in the dark, Gawain, what the hell am I supposed to do?"
"Watch it Black! I am still your commanding officer…"
She barked out a laugh, "Well we both know you've been out of sorts since it happened, so commanding may be a little much for you at the moment. Why don't you take a month off? Clear your head and come back stronger. Let me take over."
Subtlety was never her strong suit, but that may have been below the belt. She knew his wife just died and he wasn't coping well. He didn't even take time off to mourn her.
But he'd been a right pain in the arse for long enough, and she was sick of standing there and taking it like a chump. He'd nit-pick her reports, take every complaint against her absolutely serious, and just make her life a living hell at work. She only felt better when she was in the field, getting her hands dirty.
He stopped rummaging, his papers forgotten. His face tightened in rage.
He needed a reality check. Here it was: Bellatrix Black.
"You're on suspension. Without pay. Indefinitely. Leave your credentials and get the hell out of my office."
"THE FUCK I AM?"
"Now, Black."
Bella slammed her hands on his desk making him jump, "You think! You can't expect me- You can't expect to run this office-"
He launched to his feet, pulled his wand and aimed it right at her face, effectively cutting her off.
"ENOUGH BLACK. Badge. Now! I won't say it again."
She had seen it coming. If she was in any real danger, her wand would have been out and he'd have been down for the count. But she didn't react, didn't grab her wand, and that was how James Potter found them. Gawain's wand pointed nearly an inch from her face, and her hands still on the desk.
"Sir?" Potter said, looking between the two nervously.
"Black is on suspension. Escort her out of the building." He was robotic, the way he said it.
She hadn't reacted to save herself from a false accusation by the head of the department, but this was far from what she expected. She thought he'd throw a fit, maybe they'd get into a row, and then he'd back down, get the time off he needed. That he would finally mourn the loss of his wife Emily. But no. He was being a prick. A gigantic, monumental arse.
"You're a real piece of work, Robards. You and all the sorry saps with soulmates."
She couldn't help that last dig. Even with Potter standing there, frowning his disappointment.
She dug into her robes and pulled out her badge and credentials tossing them onto the desk, knocking papers off the edge.
"Owl me when you pull your head from your arse."
She stalked out of his office with the Potter in tow. The entire office was watching her, of course.
"The fuck you all staring at? Get back to work!" she growled.
She may have had the face of sweet young lady, but she was still the senior here. All the new recruits in the department wouldn't change her status. And she loved it. They feared her, and rightly so, but they also respected her.
That was something Gawain Robards was falling short of.
James shoved his hands in his pockets, his face a bit worn but eyes shone mischievously behind his glasses.
He was a handsome man in his thirties too, like Gawain, but with clean trimmed black hair and an easy smile. He was assigned to Bella's team, and like it or not, he was in charge now.
"Don't let them get lazy while I'm gone Potter." She said shoving the small pile of case files from her inbox into his hands.
Normally he'd make a quip of some sort, but he remained silent staring wordlessly at the red Ministry of Magic 'CLASSIFIED' stamp on the cover of the file.
"Out with it Potter, time is Galleons." She huffed putting her hands on her hips.
"You don't know what it's like yet Boss…" he started slowly, trying not to strike a nerve. When she raised an eyebrow and gestured for him to continue, he said, "You haven't met your soulmate yet. So you don't know-"
"STOP. I don't need another lecture on soulmates Potter, especially from you."
"But if-"
"I said no. Now scram."
He sighed dejectedly, shaking his head.
Bella was brought back to the present when the bottle of watered down whiskey slipped from her hand and fell, shattering on the floor.
She was suspended. Indefinitely. It's not like she needed the money but…
"What the bloody fuck do I do now?" she asked out loud, as if expecting the universe to answer. Hell, she'd settle for the ghost of Rooster Charlie-the ginger haired boy on the pub sign- to glide through the stall wall and give her an answer.
There was no reply.