Thanks for the lovely reviews! I get really excited when I see a new one - it reminds me to keep working on this story, which sometimes seems daunting because there's so many plot points. Well, I did that to myself, so I can't complain!
So, the main POV has switched over to Bellatix, which means we will uncover what's going on with Hermione and the time-line as Bellatrix does. I'm glad some people are liking the long-winded explanations of Bellatrix's past. Just a hint: in the 70's Bellatrix becomes an unknowing witness to some dodgy dealings which directly affect the present (the 90s).
Anyways, please enjoy the story! I feel the plot has been kind of heavy lately, so this chapter is more lighthearted.
For a woman who faced mortal peril on a daily basis, Bellatrix Lestrange seemed to spend a whole lot of time hiding in broom cupboards.
And, qualified as she was on the subject, she was sure that the broom cupboards in the Ministry of Magic were the most rank, repulsive, and claustrophobic of all. The leaking tin buckets and sour-smelling mops were obviously the same ones from twenty years ago (and they'd been ancient even then). Worse, the same unbearably chipper elevator jingle still echoed through the halls, bouncing around her skull like a runaway Bludger.
Stake-outs were definitely a young woman's game, Bellatrix decided, shifting uncomfortably in her seat for the hundredth time. And her youth was long, long gone, leaving her little besides a pang in her spine that hadn't gone away in decades and a head full of thoughts she didn't want to be alone with.
Just as the waiting was becoming unbearable, the door opened. It was Yaxley, and she was almost... not unhappy to see him.
"You have twenty minutes before the shift-change," he whispered. "More, if you're very lucky. Her office is right though Auror HQ, the door at the very end."
He stepped back to let her pass, but couldn't seem to let her go without a parting jibe. "Oh and do try not to make a mess this time. They're still trying to figure out how to piece that door in the Department of Mysteries back together."
Bellatrix cocked her head, giving him a scathing once-over. "I am a professional," she finally said. "You, on the other hand -" she prodded his chest with her wand, watching his flinch with satisfaction, " - are a power-grubbing gutter-monkey in an expensive suit. Now - do try and stay out of my way."
Without waiting for a response, Bellatrix shoved him roughly aside and made her way towards the massive oaken doors at the end of the hall. Above the entry hung a faded plaque which read, 'AUROR OFFICE: Responsibly Serving the Magical Community since 1741.' That sign never failed to draw a derisive snort from the witch. She didn't know which was funnier - 'responsibly', 'serving', or 'community' - but the whole thing was complete and utter bullshit.
Bellatrix had sworn that she'd set this place on fire before ever stepping foot in here again, but the Dark Lord had other plans. So, she made quick work of the wards and soon enough was standing in the cavernous hall beyond, where she'd once toiled among the faceless, pencil-pushing horde. The air was stale with the smell of burnt coffee and dead aspirations; and the sight of all those cubicles - those little cardboard prisons of civility - made the bile rise in her throat.
Walking past her old desk, Bellatrix noticed that they'd tried very hard to remove every trace of her presence. Mindlessly, she picked up the stapler, and grinned at the inscription insistently glued to the bottom: 'This stapler is the property of Bellatrix Black. Sticky fingers get the CHOP!'
If there was one thing the Noble House of Black was good at, she thought, it was Permanent Sticking Charms. Dear old Aunt Walburga had nothing on her.
Neither did the Ministry, for that matter, if their lackluster wards were anything to go by. She'd expected more from Amelia Bones, who had a reputation as a formidable witch, but the protections around her office presented only a momentary challenge.
The Dark Lord wanted Bones, the longtime Head of Magical Law Enforcement, evaluated as a potential target for bribery, blackmail, the Imperius, or - failing all that - elimination. To that end, Bellatrix spent a good fifteen minutes rifling around the woman's desk: she leafed through a meticulously-organized planner, rummaged around a safe-box that held nothing more interesting than a few unregistered wands, and glanced at some files she didn't have time to decode. If Bones had any dirty laundry - and Bellatrix rather doubted that she did - there wasn't a shred of evidence to be found here.
She was just about to give up when a photo fell from a folder and landed on the floor. She picked it up, squinting thoughtfully at the two men waving back at her. The picture was faded, maybe 30 years old, and the wizards were young, sunburnt and grinning. Below, someone had written 'Operation Mooncalf: 1st asset, with handler?'
Bellatrix sighed in frustration. There was something tickling at the very edge of her thoughts, but she couldn't quite grasp it. It never used to take her so long to figure things out, but Azkaban had turned her mind into a quagmire she didn't want to step foot in.
If she hadn't been so focused on the damn picture, she might have noticed it sooner: that faint shift in the aura of the room announcing the arrival of foreign presence. As it was, Bellatrix didn't look up until she heard the soft rustle of a cloak … and when she did, the girl was already standing there.
In a fraction of a second, Bellatrix had stuffed the photo in her pocket and raised her wand, but once again she hesitated to cast. She noticed that the girl looked thoroughly exhausted today. Her robe was draped carelessly over a rather wrinkled muggle T-shirt and there were purple rings under her eyes. It had been weeks since the London raid - the last time they met - and Bellatrix was so busy that she'd hardly thought about it. It was a tough job, after all, being the Dark Lord's only competent servant.
"Fancy meeting you here," the girl said, and there was a smile in her voice that didn't really reach her eyes.
Bellatrix couldn't help but snort at that. "Oh, so it's coincidence, is it?" she hissed, putting the desk between them to escape the girl's shameless staring. "Because I think you're following me. The question is why."
"I have a better question…" the girl countered in that infuriatingly casual way, rounding the desk in pursuit. "Why are you running away?"
She'd never seen anybody try harder to get herself killed than this stupid girl, Bellatrix had to admit. That, or she'd somehow landed in an alternate universe, one where attractive young women routinely went about flirting with dangerously unbalanced Death Eaters.
"I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt," Bellatrix offered mockingly, "And assume you don't know who you're dealing with."
The girl gave her one of those small, wry grins, but it vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by what Bellatrix suspected was a habitual air of thoughtfulness. She'd noticed that expressions shifted like the tides across the girl's face, giving her a strange, mutable quality. But tonight she seemed even more erratic than usual.
"Well your file was quite informative," the girl told her, fingers dancing fitfully across the tabletop. "But I guess there's nothing like hearing it straight from the source…"
She said it in the way one might comment on a rare exotic plant. You just had to see in person. A faded illustration in some dusty tome just wouldn't do.
And is it all you'd hoped? Bellatrix wanted to ask, but didn't. Instead she said: "If this is about that damn Ministry offer, you can tell them to go - "
"I gave them your answer," the girl cut in. "They weren't exactly surprised, but I guess they expected you'd be more, umm…" she gestured vaguely, searching for words, "...open to persuasion."
"Tell me something," Bellatrix asked suddenly, "How exactly does someone like you end up getting pimped out by the Ministry?"
"I - what? I'm not - I mean, it's not like that," the girl stuttered out. It was the first time Bellatrix had seen her so flustered.
"Oh, I think it's exactly like that," Bellatrix smirked, satisfied with finally having the girl on the defensive. "But, what could they possibly have on you? What did you do - forget to renew your broom registration? Steal a candy bar from Honeydukes?"
A shadow fell across the girl's face, and suddenly Bellatrix remembered: the Mintumble sisters, Rockwood's death, time-magic… No, she realized, whatever this little witch was up to was far from innocent.
"I'm not here on anyone's behalf," the girl said quietly. "Not today."
"Then exactly what is it you want?"
Brown eyes flickered searchingly across her face, and for a second Bellatrix thought the girl would throw out another clumsy come-on. But instead she took a totally different tack.
"I've... heard you're very good at finding things."
And that was the last thing Bellatrix expected, unless it was appended to, 'so maybe you could find your way into my bed'.
What the girl actually said, though, was, "Well, I need something found - a book called 'In the Spirit of Time'."
All this sneaking around did seem like a lot of trouble for some book, but the girl's agitated state told Bellatrix that she must really need it. Finally, here was an opportunity to get some answers - and, more importantly, some leverage. She would wait to confront the girl about the conversation she'd overheard at the Ministry until she had this book.
"And in exchange…?" Bellatrix prompted, her treacherous mind supplying all kinds of sordid suggestions - ones she would never condescend to make. It was one thing for the girl to be interested in Bellatrix (inexplicable as that was) but the reverse would be just … pathetic. Like those sleazy, balding wizards who used to flock to watch her Quidditch games when she was still at school. No - Bellatrix may have done some terrible things, but she would never stoop that low.
The little witch wrinkled her brow thoughtfully, perching herself on the table in a girlish way that instantly made Bellatrix uncomfortable. "You get me that book and I'll … ah, I'll find out how Emmeline Vance died."
Bellatrix had to admit it was a good offer. The Dark Lord had been hounding them about it relentlessly, convinced one of his servants was hiding something. "I'm going to need something besides a name to go on," she said.
"I wish I had more to give you," the girl shrugged. "I don't know who wrote it or who's owned it. All I can tell you is that it's early 19th century and passed through Borgin and Burkes in the 70s. Now, I don't really expect you to find it, but -"
"Oh, I can do a lot more with a lot less," Bellatrix interjected, annoyed the little wretch dared doubt her. "As you're going to find out."
The girl gave an abrupt laugh. "I never know if you're flirting with me or threatening me."
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, thinking, here is another one who doesn't know her place. "So far, you haven't impressed me enough to warrant either," she dismissed.
Looking rather affronted, the girl opened her mouth, thought better, and shut it with a snap. Jumping off the tabletop, she gave Bellatrix a last, lingering look and earnestly said, "So far."
Then, she vanished with a pop, leaving Bellatrix to contemplate the fact that apparating within the Ministry was supposed to be impossible.
Despite her protestations to the contrary, Bellatrix couldn't deny she was intrigued. Intrigued enough, certainly, to put aside her pride and pay her old boss a midnight visit.
Borgin had always kept odd hours, likely as much to accommodate his more questionable clientele as anything, so she was not surprised to see the candle flickering in the back room, casting an eerie light upon all of the strange articles in the store. Beside a jar of pickled eyeballs she noticed the Hand of Glory, holding pride of place in the center of the mantelpiece.
Sentimental idiot, Bellatrix thought, knowing he hadn't sold it all these years because it was the last thing she ever brought him. She picked it up, turning it over and wondering if young Draco could find a use for it now.
"Y-you can t-take whatever you want," came a trembling whimper from behind the counter. "Just - please don't h-hurt me!"
Bellatrix turned to him, saw that he was cowering on the floor already, and sighed. She hadn't even taken her wand out. "I just have some questions."
"I don't know a-anything, M-Madame Lestrange. Please - "
He stared at her with that special wide-eyed terror she'd seen a hundred times, on a hundred different faces. It was...unsettling to now be called 'Madame Lestrange' by a man who used to call her 'luv' and 'darlin' in that condescending-old-man way that she used to ignore because he was fundamentally harmless.
But it was gone, whatever human connection they'd once had - she was just a black cloak now, a silver skull-mask, a wand wielding death.
"I need a book. I've heard you had it once. 'In the Spirit of Time'."
Confusion seemed to only deepen his fear. "'In the Spirit of Time?'" he repeated in disbelief. "Is this...is this some kind of test?"
"A test? What the hell are you talking about?"
"No, no, no, no, no…" Borgin shook his head frantically, looking anywhere but at her. "He told me never to tell anyone, and I never have. I never told a soul! You have to believe me!"
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes, suspicion settling like a lead weight in her chest. After all, there were not many who could inspire such terror after so many years. "Who told you that?" she asked quietly.
"The D-Dark Lord," Borgin whispered, eyeing the shadows as if afraid that saying the name would summon the man himself. And for once Bellatrix was really hoping that it wouldn't.
It suddenly occurred to her that the girl must have known - if not, why go to a Death Eater with that request? But then again, why tip your hand to the other side like that? Was it desperation? Distraction? A trap? All she could do was wonder.
Borgin, meanwhile, couldn't seem to stop babbling nervously. It was as if he was trying to stave off her anger with explanations. "He asked me to get it for him, twenty years ago. I swore to never speak of it, and I haven't! I thought you were here to make sure I kept my word!"
"Well, congratulations. You pass," she declared, sparing the man a disdainful glance as she took out her wand. "Obliviate."
There was a strange lump in her throat when she stepped out of the flames into the Malfoys' drawing room. Narcissa looked up as Bellatrix approached, laying down her embroidery on the couch. Her face was drawn with worry, unconvincing in its genteel indifference. Yesterday she'd had book, and potting the day before: all pretexts to wait up for her sister's return.
She opened her mouth, intending, no doubt, to launch another elaborate guilt-trip - but Bellatrix cut her off. "Is the Dark Lord here?"
"He's gone to Switzerland with Pettigrew -"
"Good."
Narcissa gave her a strange look. "Bella, wait -" she began, but her sister had already crossed the room, shutting the door on the rest of her words.
Bellatrix couldn't wait. If she hesitated, she would lose whatever reckless impulse had gotten ahold of her, and then she'd never be able to go through with it. Before she walked into his chambers, she took a moment to steel her mental walls; it would be hard for him to see into her mind from Switzerland, but...you could never be too careful.
Unlike the dolts at the Ministry, the Dark Lord did not skimp on wards; he'd made his room more secure that the Supermax ward at Azkaban, in a house full of alleged supporters he obviously didn't didn't trust an inch.
And he's not wrong, she thought with a pang of guilt, as much for this betrayal as for the relative ease with which she undid his spells. She knew him well enough to know which curses he preferred, well enough to know the devious way his mind worked, well enough to know he'd never guess she'd be the one to break his trust.
It was not the first time. As a matter of fact, it had been a habit with her once, right before the end of the war. And Bellatrix was a creature of habit if she was anything. That, and a fucking disappointment to everyone she'd ever met. The Dark Lord was no different.
She'd be lying to deny the sacrilegious little thrill she felt laying her hands upon his things: his scattered papers, his potions ingredients, each neatly labeled, his antique Alchemy set, his prized Phoenix heart, carefully preserved in its green jar. How odd it was that such a larger-than-life wizard would have such commonplace possessions. How odd it was that he would keep a scrapbook of the Daily Prophet articles that mentioned him, going back decades. The very first, Bellatrix saw, was just a tiny block of text, announcing the arrest of someone named Morfin Gaunt for the murder of three Muggles. The scrap was dated '1943' in the Dark Lord's elegant hand.
Filing away that information for later, Bellatrix began to rummage through his book collection. The one she needed wasn't hard to find; small, black, and rather sloppily bound, it was wedged between two volumes of The Complete Encyclopedia of Dark Creatures: from Acromantula to Zombie.
She couldn't say what she'd been expecting - nothing benign, certainly - but the words beneath the title still made her blood run cold. "A Treatise on the Effects of Time Travel on the Human Soul" was stamped upon the cover in gilded letters.
It was hard to say which disturbed her more, the Dark Lord's interest in this book...or the girl's. There was no author, no date, no writing. Instead, the pages were covered with some strange runic symbols and numerals she'd never come across before.
Bellatrix scowled. Loath as she was admit it, there was only one recourse available now... one slimy, double-dealing, intolerably smug recourse. Snape.
In all fairness, one had to admit the man was not a total incompetent; the care he took to protect his little hovel from intruders was nothing short of meticulous. But there was always something, always some tiny fissure where Bellatrix would seep through like black tar, always some crack she could claw open into an entrance.
She jumped down from the ledge of the second floor window, her spelled boots silent against the floor. Snoring was coming from a room at the end of the hall, and she crossed it swiftly, kicking the door open so that it slammed into the wall.
Snape woke with a startled grunt.
As he groped frantically beneath his pillow for his wand, she cast Lumos, illuminating her face in a sinister blue glow.
"Bellatrix?!" He squinted at her, then at his bedside clock. "It's three o'clock in the bloody morning."
"Is it?" She shrugged, disdainfully picking up a chipped ceramic mug and tossing it aside. "You know, this place is even more of a dump than I remember. Surely Dumbledore pays you enough to engage a house-elf?" Examining his rumpled appearance, she smirked. "Or do you spend it all on hair products?"
Snape rubbed the bridge of his nose, a gesture no doubt perfected over more than a decade in what Bellatrix considered the worst profession in the world.. "Just...tell me what you want."
Removing a bundle from her cloak, she tossed it at him - it hit his chest with a dull thud. "What do you make of that?"
"It's a book," Snape said, his mouth a thin line of exasperation.
"Brilliant observation. No wonder they call you the clever one," Bellatrix snarked. "So, can you translate it or not?"
With a resigned huff, Snape opened the cover, peering at the symbols inside. "Ancient runes are hardly my area of expertise, but.." Whatever he saw must have piqued his interest, because his voice turned thoughtful, and his hands on the pages were suddenly careful. "How did you get this? It looks incredibly rare."
Bellatrix crossed her arms, struggling to contain her impatience. "All you need to know is that I need to know what's in that book. Urgently."
"I hope you're going to give me a better incentive than the …" he eyed her with distaste, "...pleasure of your company."
"I'll...owe you a favor," she promised reluctantly. The words left a foul aftertaste, worse even than Polyjuice.
"Does the Dark Lord know about this?" Snape asked out of nowhere, and Bellatrix silently cursed him for being much too perceptive for his own good.
"No, and unless you want me to tell him about your little arrangement with Cissy, he's not going to find out," she threatened.
It was an impasse, and they both knew it - one of those rare times when mutual loathing was put aside in favor of mutual benefit. Or, as Slytherins called it: friendship...
Bellatrix cut off that train of thought immediately, disgusted with herself.
"I have an acquaintance in Europe who might be able to help," Snape said, "But it will take some time. I'll owl you when I know for sure."
"Fine," Bellatrix shrugged, turning to walk to the door. But she couldn't make herself leave without reasserting their familiar dynamic. "So, does my sister know you sleep in your grandma's nightie?"
"This is a men's nightshirt," Snape bit out stiffly.
Bellatrix barked a laugh. "Of course it is."
Laying down, Snape brought the covers all the way up to his beak-like nose and turned to the wall. "Get out of my house," he muttered.
Bellatrix didn't need to be asked twice. She went out the way she had come, trailed by Snape's echoing demand : "And next time, use the bloody front door!"
Bellatrix woke to the characteristic tap-tap of an owl pecking at her window; it was one of Diagon Owlery's dour-looking messenger-birds, glaring at her balefully through the glass. It wasn't hard to guess who had engaged the owl; after all, there was only one person who sent her mail these days.
What she didn't expect was the little package that had been dropped unceremoniously on her window sill. She eyed the contents with confusion before turning to the note inside the box.
This is a Muggle fountain pen, it read, in case you ever feel compelled to write back. It holds a reservoir of ink in the shaft that you can refill - much more convenient than a quill, no?
The pen was silver and black, beautifully crafted as the poem the girl had sent was beautifully written; both taunted Bellatrix to admit their beauty despite their Muggleness. It was as though, while trying to win Bellatrix over, the girl couldn't help but make her point.
Bellatrix was, of course, terribly offended. Offended and disgusted. Still, the pen made a graceful line on the parchment as she drew a curve, then another, carelessly sketching the silhouette of a woman's back.
"What do you really want from me, Hermione Granger?" she mused aloud, wondering if the real thing looked anything like her drawing.
"Haven't we exhausted that subject already?" came the petulant response from the corner as her cousin's ghost drifted through the wall from the bathroom. "Whoever said hell was bad never had to listen to you moan about girl problems."
"You pestered me for days until I told you, and now you're complaining? Anyways, it's nothing," Bellatrix dismissed, tossing the pen on the table and watching it roll to the floor. "Just another poor attempt at a bribe."
The ghostly Sirius crossed his translucent arms and studied her dubiously. "You're not very convincing, Bella. What I don't get is why you're so hung up on this girl?"
"Me?" Bellatrix scoffed. "I don't get 'hung up' on anybody!"
She shut her eyes painfully tight to dispel the illusion, but when she opened them he was still there. Just hovering. Hovering and smirking.
Knowing how much she hated it, Sirius floated through her desk, stopping in the middle so that it looked like his upper torso was growing out of the wood. "Maybe it's because you have no life, Bella."
"I do have a life. I serve the Dark Lord, I …" she paused, trying to come up with something else, "I chat with Narcissa when it can't be helped, I -"
"Drink your weight in firewhiskey," Sirius interrupted smugly. "That's not a life."
"Well, it's more than you've got," she snapped.
This pronouncement was followed by a long, accusing silence.
"That was really unnecessary, Bellatrix," Sirius said at last, and had he not been relentlessly haunting her, she might have laughed at the pout on his face. As it was, his ghostly self-pity struck her as deeply unsettling.
"Oh, come on..."
"No - I'm going," he announced coldly. "I can tell I'm not appreciated here." And with that, he floated away through the wall, head held high. For all she'd tried to banish him from the house, Sirius came and went exactly as he pleased, usually just in time to deliver some cutting jibe and flounce back to wherever the undead hung out when they weren't pestering the living.
A punishing chill lingered in the air long after he'd gone, unabated even though she lit the fire in the grate, stoking it into a tiny inferno. But even the pulsing dance of the flames did not lessen her silent dread. Bellatrix had seen a hundred unspeakable things in her life, but strangely, none horrified her more than this: proof that death was not the everlasting oblivion she had courted so long. Could there be anything worse than succumbing at last to that sweet endless sleep, only to find yourself trapped in a shadow-world like Sirius, never quite living, but never quite free?
A knock at the door broke the mausoleum-like silence, making Bellatrix flinch.
"Bugger off, Cissy," she called.
"Ummm...this is Draco, y-your nephew..." came the quavering reply. "Do you...do you remember we were going to start Occlumency lessons today?"
Biting off a muttered curse, Bellatrix unearthed a robe from the pile on the floor and tossed it on. As she wrenched the door open, Draco reared back, his hand raised instinctively to his face as if afraid to be struck. The boy acted mostly normal around her nowadays, but in rare moments she would catch him unawares and bring out his underlying fear of her.
She gave him a sour look. "Get in here."
He followed her in with the air of one entering the cave of a sleeping beast, while she rifled around her shelves, bringing a small stone basin to place on the desk between them. "This..." she explained with reverence, tracing the delicate carvings on the surface, "...is a pensieve. Before we begin, you're going to take out the memories you don't want me to see and put them in here."
The boy opened his mouth to ask her something, but she cut him off with a raised hand. "Let me rephrase that - you're going to take out the memories that I don't want me to see. Like you snogging Little Miss Pugface, or those trolls you call friends, or whoever."
"Wait, do you mean Crabbe and Goyle?" he squeaked. "You think I would snog Crabbe and Goyle?!" Just the thought of it made him retch. "Ewwwww…"
"Hey, I don't know what you're into," Bellatrix told him with a shrug. "And that's how it's going to stay, got it?"
The boy said nothing as he pulled out a few silver strands from his temple, turning apprehensive eyes upon her when he was done.
"Put your wand on the table," she instructed, laying hers down as well. "Legilimency and Occlumency are magics of the mind, so you will learn how to defend yourself wandlessly, or not at all. I will attempt to breach your thoughts and you will attempt to divert me to the most harmless memories. Remember, your aim is to distract me rather than kick me out entirely."
Draco furrowed his brow in thought. "Because… if someone tries to read my mind, I want them to think they're succeeding? I don't want them to know I'm an Occlumens?"
It seemed that Lucius' shrewdness and Narcissa's circumspection had brought forth a rather perceptive young man. Offering Draco a satisfied nod, Bellatrix looked him in the eye and thought, Legilimens.
It was, in her opinion, totally impossible to teach someone Occlumency without deeply regretting it. Most people were just a quivering mass of petty vices and ego, overflowing with self-righteousness and lurid fantasies she wouldn't have touched with a ten-foot broom. And teenagers, Merlin help her, were the absolute worst.
For all his grandstanding, the boy was very much still a child, preoccupied with girls, Quidditch, and his ongoing rivalry with Harry Potter. Image after image of their schoolyard squabbles flashed through her mind, until she changed tactics suddenly and dug deeper, right to the core of Draco's well-hidden self-doubt.
She saw Lucius, berating a five-year old Draco for crying over a dead rabbit as Narcissa looked on, disapproving but passive. Lucius, teaching Draco to fly. Lucius, picking the boy up as he fell from his broom for the hundredth time. Lucius, speaking in front of the Wizengamot as the crowd looked on with respect. Lucius, being dragged off to Azkaban, his features contorted with fear. Vicariously, she felt Draco's love for his father, his desperate desire to please, his burning humiliation.
Finally, with a grunt of effort, the boy derailed that train of thought, and she was back to watching him duel Potter in the Hogwarts dungeons.
Draco's curse missed its target, sailing over Potter's shoulder, and hit a bushy-haired schoolgirl straight in the mouth. Her tiny hands tried hopelessly to hide her rapidly growing teeth as she burst out sobbing. Draco chortled at the memory, and Bellatrix had started to laugh along until realization doused her like a bucket of ice water.
It's her. Her as a child.
Having seized on this topic at random, Draco continued to summon more memories of the girl: being taunted by Slytherins, fidgeting in her seat with her hand in the air, punching Draco in the face, dancing in dress-robes at some ball, conspiring with Potter in the back of the class -
"Enough," Bellatrix groaned, wrenching herself from his mind with a painful tug. Bile rose in her throat as she turned away, trying to hide her reaction.
The girl as a child? By Circe, the girl was a child. She was clearly in Draco's year, no more than sixteen, seventeen years old. Bellatrix had known it too - Lucius had told her once - but she'd apparently chosen to forget it. Conveniently.
What the hell is wrong with you? Bellatrix though, self-loathing oozing along her skin like sludge. To think, just this morning she'd been imagining the two of them...imagining...
"I think I'm going to be sick," she moaned, leaning over the waste basket.
"Oh!" Draco squeaked behind her, clearly uncomfortable. "Ummm... just - just hold on, Aunt Bella! I'll have the house elf get you a hangover cure!"
Of course the boy would think she'd been drinking. She hadn't - but that would change very, very soon. In fact, every sober second with this recovered information was agony.
They stood there waiting for the house elf, awkwardly avoiding each other's gaze. Just as Bellatrix was about to tell the boy to get out, he made a strange humming noise, and said: "I didn't know you've known Greyback so long."
"What?" she asked, confused by the apparent non-sequitur.
The boy was looking at something on her desk. "This photo looks old." He picked it up, bringing it closer and squinting at the pair of wizards. It was the photo she'd taken from Bones' office, the one she couldn't quite figure out. "Like really old."
Looking at it now, she couldn't believe it had escaped her before. One of the men was definitely a young Fenrir Greyback, just missing a few scars and that crazed gleam in his eye. But who was that with him?
As luck would have it, Draco supplied the answer. "I can't believe he's standing with Scrimgeour like that - like they're mates or something. Pretty weird."
So, Bellatrix thought, why would Bones have a thirty-year-old photo of Greyback and Scrimgeour?
Pretty weird indeed.
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