First off, apologies for taking so long to get out this first chapter. It just wouldn't come out right, and then I fell sick. It's been far too long since I'd last written for this fandom, also, so you know – this chapter really sucks. Oh well. Hopefully I'll grow out of it. Probably not.

edit: I have (but not without rolling my eyes) changed the settings of this story so that the main characters registered are Severus and Bellatrix, when in reality the story is supposed to focus mainly on Severus and Hermione. I do this to avoid drama that I really don't feel like dealing with. This might annoy some Bella fans out there who aren't expecting so much Hermione, but I say this to you: I'm really sorry. I love Bella too, so I'll make her extra-awesome to make up for this. But it seems the Bellatrix Fans are more understanding than the Hermione Fans (how does that work? We may never know) and many of them also seem to believe that the two main characters in a story are supposed to get together. I don't know why, because that technically means that in the actual series Harry Potter is supposed to eventually end up with Lord Voldemort. I'm so confused. But maybe that's just the leftover symptoms of my flu talking. Okay. Is everybody happy now? Good. I'll go back to writing and stopping my various friends from taking E and passing out in the bathtub or something. I love you all. Bye now.

.x.

chapter 01

"Bloody airplanes," Fleur murmured thickly under her breath. Now matter how often she spoke with Bill, she never seemed able to shake her accent - and when she did it seesawed back and forth, and was more than a little disorienting to anybody listening. She sat back in her seat, closing her eyes, trying to calm herself down.

Meanwhile, Hermione was counting down slowly in her head. One hour to go. Tonks was fidgeting on the other side of her, near the window, playing with the little plastic cup that had held her serving of Pepsi.

Fleur tugged at her seatbelt and released it. Despite the earlier turbulence she had been calm and outwardly uncaring, but had refused to unfasten her belt for a long time. Now she apparently felt it was safe. "I do not like flying," she sighed.

"Neither do I," Hermione agreed faintly, barely paying attention. Fleur was her future sister-in-law, but Hermione was about as friendly to her as she was to the Unspeakables.

"We landing soon?" Tonks asked restlessly. "I hate it, I hate sitting around doing nothing…"

"Go over the files again."
"I already did when we caught our connecting flight," Tonks said, irritably. She stopped talking as a flight attendant passed, making the rounds; she leaned over Hermione and reached over Fleur to hand the attendant her empty cup.

"Here," Hermione said, pulling the file from where she'd stowed it earlier, in the pocket attached to the back of the seat in front of her. "We might as well run through our plan, even though we don't have much going for us. How's that?"

Fleur sat up a little, interested. The young men seated across the aisle were staring at her with open-mouthed admiration, as they had been during most of the ride, but she hadn't even batted an eyelid in their direction. "Oui," she agreed.

Hermione pulled the folding tabletop down over her lap and set the folder on its surface, flipping it open. It did not simply contain the case files, of which there were few, any longer; Bones had added to its contents as much documentation as possible on Severus Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange.

Through reading them Hermione had learned a surprisingly large amount of information about her one-time professor, which felt a little strange - she'd never really had the typical student mentality that stated teachers weren't actually people, but an entirely different species altogether. She had always had a bit of a curiosity concerning them. But Severus Snape had been an object of morbid interest.

Hermione had to admit to herself that that was one of the reasons she was participating in the hunt. The biggest reason was for the space and excitement she craved, away from her family - the other was simple, driven curiosity. As a professor Snape had always fascinated her, and challenged her, and through it all had never smothered her with admiration or support. It made her work her best, and be her best, and she'd appreciated it. She'd known Snape had done it just because he was a mean, bitter person, but she always wondered for his motives. Surely an intelligent man like him could find work wherever he wanted - but that was before she'd discovered his past as a Death Eater, and the black mark on his record. But despite that, what else held him back? The man had been gifted. Why did he stay at Hogwarts?

Hermione thumbed through a few pages. "So, we've got to know our prey. That much is obvious."

"Lestrange, first," Tonks said. Bellatrix Lestrange was her aunt, but that never seemed to matter to Tonks. Duty before blood. "It's shorter."

Hermione smiled. "Right," she said. "Her stay in Azkaban, of course."

"You know what's a little creepy?" Tonks said. "You look at her biography and it's absolutely normal. She got married. Went to everyone's weddings - including my mother's, despite my father - became a dutiful lady of the house, held parties, was adored and respected and admired despite being a bitch, that sort of thing. Went horseback riding on weekends. And yet, she's mad."

"She was good at hiding it," Hermione said, shrugging.

"No," Fleur said, suddenly. Hermione glanced at the other woman, frowning slightly, but Fleur continued without missing a beat. "That is wrong. She was very sane before 'er imprisonment, but solitude did not agree with 'er."

"You've got to be crazy, to do what she did," Tonks pointed out sternly.

"No," Fleur said, unconcerned. "She was not crazy. She was in love."

"Whatever reasons she had for doing it," Hermione interrupted, not in the mood to have an argument about human emotion at the moment, "it was still done. That's why she's on the run with Snape."

Fleur made a disgusted sound in her throat. It seemed she'd never liked the Potions Master - probably, Hermione reflected in dry amusement, because his hair was greasy.

"You know he was almost my godfather?" Tonks asked.

"Really?" Hermione replied, startled by that random bit of information.

"Sure," Tonks said, taking the folder from Hermione to flip through it herself. "My mother asked and he said no. He couldn't stand kids - and me least of all, the older I got."

Fleur chuckled. "So?" she asked. "What are we doing, then?"

"Well," Hermione said, "We're going to land in L.A., take a cab to our hotel, and set up from there. Recent reports from Mulhollish and his team say that Snape and Lestrange are somewhere in the city."

"And they still can't be found?" Tonks asked, looking disappointed at the Ministry's lack of competence.

"They're apparently very good at hiding," Hermione sighed. "It's difficult to discern at times whether or not they're undercover or have already left. Some time ago Mulhollish was in Chicago for two months, only to find that Snape and Lestrange had absented themselves a week into the proceedings and Mulhollish had spent over a month looking for something that wasn't there."

Tonks whistled. "You've got to admit it," she said. "They must be pretty damn good."

.x.

Unlike Fleur, who disliked anything to do with flying, from the crowds to the line-ups to the in-flight cocktails, Hermione quite liked airports. They were orderly, but full of life - people meeting, people parting; people with jobs to do, people just wandering about. The food was ridiculously expensive, of course, but since all costs were being directed towards the Ministry of Magic Hermione didn't mind. She and Tonks sat at a small table within the reach of one of many little airport restaurants, drinking Ministry-paid coffee and pondering their task.

She had no illusions about her job, but she had to face the facts - Lestrange and Snape were on the run, and they were good at it. She hoped dearly that something had not set Snape's suspicions off - she wanted him to think it was Mulhollish or any other auror on the trail, and not a trio of women entirely unsuited to each other.

It was tremendously important that he had no idea who his pursuers were. Hermione would plan her moves in the expectation that Snape was planning his own moves in response to being tracked by a team of aurors instead of herself. It gave her a distinct advantage that would fall apart if he discovered her. Snape knew Hermione, after all, and he also knew Tonks and probably had a good idea of Fleur as well - and knowing the enemy was a powerful weapon.

Hermione had to look at it all from a critical point of view, and because of this admitted that Snape was playing it smart. Him and Lestrange avoided the small towns entirely, sticking to the big cities in order to hide in the crowd. His movements were sharp, erratic, and illogical, which made them hard to predict, and he was blending in the whole time. Hermione almost admired it. There were times when all she wanted to do was run away herself, but had never found the right amount of drive.

Now, though, she was in America. And that was very far from home.

"Fuck's sake," Tonks groaned, angrily destroying her croissant with a plastic fork. "I need to smoke." Fleur was off at a payphone, happily chatting away to Bill, her dialogue moving rapidly from English to French. Tonks glowered at her plate. She'd called, but Remus hadn't picked up - she'd been forced to leave a message. Tonks hated leaving messages.

Hermione dumped a little container of creamer into her coffee and stirred. "We'll be out of here soon enough."

"I can't believe," Tonks said sullenly, refusing to listen to Hermione's encouragement, "that for the first time in my life I'm in L.A., and it's to track down a pair of convicted murderers, one of which is my crazy aunt, and the other one a teacher that didn't like to wash his hair and gave me detention at least once a month when I was at school."

"I think that was partly because you were a rebel," Hermione pointed out.

"And he was a git," Tonks said.

Fleur came back, looking refreshed from her talk on the phone. "How's the family?" Hermione asked.

"Good," Fleur said pleasantly. "Did you want to call?"

Hermione felt herself start to flush, but kept it down. "No time," she said, checking her watch. "We should go meet the cab."

"Yeah," Tonks said, then decisively shoved the remains of her croissant into her mouth. Hermione choked on a little laugh at that - Tonks was the oldest out of the three of them, sure, but she never acted like it. Tonks stood up and stopped just short of colliding with a pretty young woman with long blue hair.

L.A., Hermione noticed, had a sort of funny look to it - golden and hazy. As they'd landed she'd been initially disgusted by the veil of pollution that hung over the city, but now that she was there it was strangely beautiful and iconic. It was hot and sunny, and a great change to what Hermione was used to.

They loaded their luggage onto their cab and left the airport - and Hermione finally felt that she really had escaped.

.x.

He couldn't find it anywhere, and that irritated him, beyond anything else. Focusing on small, mundane things always helped to clear his head, after all, so he set about trying to find it - checking the bathroom, their bags, even poking around the lobby to see if, in the case he had accidentally dropped it, that it was by some miracle still there.

With all of his options run out, he started to pull up the covers. This bothered Bellatrix, who had been slumbering (or, most likely, pretending to) in the motel bed the whole time, a great deal. She mumbled and complained, and resisted, but her efforts were overrun and soon she lay there in the tank top and boxer set she had for sleeping, half-curled up and with her arms over her head, as if she were shielding herself from aerial attack.

"What are you looking for?" she mumbled irritably. He pulled up her pillows and checked under them, then ran his fingers in the crack between the mattress and the headboard.

"My tuner," he answered distractedly.

Bellatrix shivered a little, and peeked at him irritably through her long fringe. "Oh," she said.

Severus paused, looking down at Bellatrix. Her hair stuck up in odd places, and she looked attractively tousled. He'd cut her hair yesterday only after having done his own, to ensure he didn't make too many mistakes with hers; he'd given her a fringe even though she'd protested, under the belief it would look ridiculous. Now she had a hairstyle that was long in the front, and short in the back, and accentuated her thinness rather than mocked it, which her former mane had. He was, all in all, quite proud of it. Bellatrix always had a tendency to stand out, but now he'd been able to help her blend in.

"You should get up," he said. "We ought to leave."

"You think?" Bellatrix asked, grudgingly sitting up in bed. Severus tossed down the blankets and moved to the other side of the room to start going through his bag again. "Yeah," she decided to herself, and crawled out of bed.

Severus was pulling clothes out of his backpack - mostly an array of t-shirts that he flung to the ground. "This is fucking ridiculous," he said aloud. Bellatrix stood at his shoulder, watching his distress with a keen, almost alien interest, before picking up her own bag and emptying out her various cosmetics and toiletries onto the top of the dresser.

"I'll be fifteen minutes," she said. "Then we're gone."

"Right," Severus replied distantly. Bellatrix blinked up at him and then, without warning, raised one hand and ran her fingers up the back of his head. He started in shock, feeling the undeniably pleasant sensation of her nails scraping up along his scalp. Bella didn't usually touch him, and in turn she became infinitely acidic whenever he happened to touch her.

"Your hair looks good," she said admiringly, which was almost as surprising as having her run her fingers through his hair. Then she picked up her toothbrush and paste and wandered into the bathroom. He heard her start the shower.

Severus shook his head and started to go through her things, too, in case he'd missed it when he'd searched her bag before. But no; it wasn't there. It was gone.

It wasn't that big of a loss - it was a pretty shitty tuner anyway, and it had been a thoughtless gift from another musician who'd found himself with a much better one. Still, it annoyed him that he'd actually lost track of it. He packed his bag again, zipping up with a feeling of ill humour.

Bellatrix came out of the bathroom in a puff of steam, looking pale and sickly and her hair only half dried. She pulled a pair of jeans from her bag, not bothering to hide her body from him, as uncaring as he was on the subject of modesty between them. "Find it yet?" she asked, digging through her bag for a bra and a shirt.

"No," he said. "Lost it. Or some asshole stole it."

"Who'd steal a piece of shit tuner like that?" Bella snorted, pulling her shirt on over her head. She leaned against the dresser and looked at herself in the mirror hanging above it, then decisively picked up a canister of hair mousse. She deposited a blob on her palm and smoothed it into her hair, trying to tame her hairstyle.

"Someone who didn't have any sort of tuner at all?" Severus suggested acidly. He bent to pick up some of her scattered clothes, mostly the various shirts, folding them up and moving to pack them into his gig bag, along with his guitar. "Your hair looks ridiculous; stop that," he said, glancing up at her.

She frowned and lowered her hands, letting Severus take over with the mousse. "I've never had short hair before," she said by way of excuse. "I don't know how to style it."

"You'll get used to it," Severus responded mechanically, ruffling it in the back. "Just let it look messy. It doesn't need a lot of effort."

"I know," Bellatrix said. Severus knew that as a young girl she'd been taught to preen and look good for the public eye, but Azkaban had destroyed the good breeding and taught her not to fuss. Now it was her way to do what needed to be done, with little or no flamboyance; and because of that she always betrayed her nervousness when she overdid something.

She ducked away from him once he'd finished, quickly severing contact, and moved to retrieve all that she had left in the bathroom. They packed efficiently, hastily folding jeans, or neatly crumpling up shirts to fit into as little space as possible. Within five minutes they'd destroyed any trace that they'd been there at all, save for the rumpled covers of the bed, and the damp towels. A year on the run had forced them to adapt, and they knew, with a gut feeling of fear, that they had to be quick to survive.