Violet woke with a groan and a pounding headache. She blinked a few times, slowly, and tried to remember the night before. But...she couldn't. Not really, not well. She groaned again, then realized she had no idea how she'd gotten into her bed. That was...worrisome. A moment later though, the door to her room opened, and Bellatrix poked her head in. Violet slowly sat up, staring in confusion as she noted that Bellatrix had a hand over her eyes.
"You decent Ravenna?" She asked. "Didn't strip after Andy left?" Violet glanced down at herself quickly.
"Yeah, I'm good." She reported quickly. Bellatrix let out a relieved sigh and entered the room, quickly closing the door behind her, though she was quiet about it.
"What...happened?" Violet asked slowly, as Bellatrix pulled over a chair. She was holding a bottle, she noticed.
"Someone charmed your drink." Bellatrix said, jaw clenching briefly. "Made it more potent, and heightened the flavor of everything but the alcohol to hide that." She held out the bottle. "Here, hangover cure. Snuck out and got it from the seventh floor room last night." Violet groaned and sat up more, but she took the bottle. It was a bit of a struggle, rather embarrassingly, but she managed to open it and drink.
She felt better almost immediately, which was a relief. How did Hagrid manage? Her friend got drunk on occasion, she knew, how could he handle the bloody hangovers? Well, she supposed he had hangover cures on hand, but still.
"Thank you. What...exactly did I do last night?" She asked slowly. "I remember talking to Viola, and discussing politics...then I think I was making chalkboards and writing on them?" Bellatrix's lips quirked up.
"You gave the entire House a rather comprehensive lecture on your belief that instilling a monarch could reasonably solve all of our problems. Or at least, the tensions between Purebloods and Muggleborns." Violet stared, wide eyed, and felt herself blush deeply.
"The entire House?" She squeaked. Bellatrix chuckled and nodded.
"Well, I suppose there might have been some people already in bed." She admitted. "But mostly, yeah. You were rather coherent, and everyone seemed impressed. Some even took notes." She paused. "Is that what you were working on all afternoon yesterday?" Violet nodded. "Why?"
"I...think there might be a war coming." Violet said slowly. There was no avoiding this conversation anymore, for better or for worse. "Tensions are getting worse, people are getting more upset. I think that the best way to fix things, and prevent a war, is to get a monarchy installed. Elevate a moderate Pureblood family to royalty. The Diggorys maybe, or the Parkinsons even. Get someone who'll listen to both sides. Purebloods won't have to worry about Muggleborns getting more power, Muggleborns will have someone who'll listen to them and won't let a war of extermination happen." Bellatrix was staring at her with wide eyes, and Violet blushed, ducking her head. "It's just a thought that occurred to me yesterday in the bath." She murmured. "I wasn't ready to start pitching it, but I guess getting drunk took that out of my hands."
"Well...we can work on that later." Bellatrix said with a firm nod. "War's probably not going to break out any time soon, and whoever decided to try and do...whatever they were hoping to get out of getting you drunk isn't going to be happy. So we're going to get you fed, then we're going back up to the 7th floor to figure out what, exactly, your elemental affinity is. Once we know what it is, we can work on getting you training in it, and you'll be better prepared if they take more direct action." Violet blinked, then nodded. "And you are never allowed to let yourself get that stressed again without talking to me about it." Bellatrix added, eyes narrowed. "Am I clear?"
"Yes." Violet said, torn between grinning and hiding. Bellatrix smirked and nodded before standing up.
"Good. Now get up, and get dressed, I'll meet you in the common room." Bellatrix said firmly, nodding. Violet watched her leave, then collapsed onto the bed with a sigh.
"...Fuck." She laid there for...a while, then eventually hauled herself to her feet. That was...well that was all kinds of frustrating. Not only had she gotten helplessly drunk her very first night in this time, but she'd apparently gone and told everyone exactly what her plan was. Which...admittedly it hadn't been a big secret. She wasn't some puppetmaster, and she was under no delusions that she could have pulled off a complete rearranging of the government of Wizarding Britain in secret. If nothing else, she'd need help. She may have been heir to the House of Potter, but here that's all she was. She wasn't the hero of the nation, the Girl Who Lived. She was just Ravenna Violet Potter, eldest child of the Lord and Lady Potter. That was powerful, yes, but it wasn't 'rally the entire nation against the Ministry and probably Dumbledore' powerful.
She shook her head and got dressed, glad that the nature of school robes meant she didn't really have to think about her outfit beyond making sure it was clean and not inside out. There was a lot to think about, but maybe if she wasn't low key panicking for hours on end she'd have noticed her drink being tampered with.
With that in mind she shoved her worries down, and breakfast with Bellatrix was rather pleasant, all things considered. She was getting looks from her fellow Slytherins, but she'd been braced for that, and it wasn't anything she wasn't used to back in her old time. Hell, since Slytherins were, generally speaking, a subtle lot, and weren't inclined to let the Staff know that something had happened last night besides, it was actually better than a lot of looks she'd gotten from fellow students in the past.
Breakfast passed uneventfully, and soon enough Bellatrix was leading Violet upstairs and to the seventh floor. Some part of her worried that they'd get caught, or at least noticed, but then again it had taken Umbridge ages to find a lot more students going to the Room of Requirement, and that was when she'd known the DA had existed and was actively looking for them. There was remarkably little supervision of the students before curfew, and she wasn't going to worry about it.
The pair entered the room to find it much the same as it had been the day before during their spar. "Alright, so, Elemental magic." Bellatrix said, clapping her hands as the door they'd come through disappeared. "Hard to master, but I think I've got the best way to figure out what your Affinity is. Which...right, so Affinities, should explain that." She said, when Violet gave her a blank look. "Essentially, every witch and wizard has their own innate inclination towards a specific branch of Elemental magic. Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Lightning, and Ice."
"...but ice is made of water." Violet pointed out.
"It's also cold, solid, and crystalline." Bellatrix said with a slight huff. "Making it is an entirely different process from making water, magically speaking."
"Fair enough I suppose. Sorry."
"No problem. Anyway, so what we're going to do is duel. You should know a basic spell for each element except Lightning, right?" Violet paused, thinking it over, then nodded. "Good. So, I'm going to attack you with a variety of spells, but you're only allowed to use a single basic spell. We'll go for five minutes, and if we don't get results we'll move on to the next."
"What results are we looking for?" Violet asked.
"Elemental magic is largely combat oriented. That's a big reason why it's fallen out of favor more recently, cause by and large that's all it's good for. So the idea is that if you conjure fire when you have a Fire Affinity in combat, it'll do different things. Whips, barriers, shapes, etc. And the same for other affinities. So if you shoot the fire spell at me for five minutes, and it's the same jet of flames every time, then we know you don't have a Fire Affinity and we move on to Water or Air or what have you." Violet nodded in understanding, and stepped into the dueling space, Bellatrix close behind.
"We'll start with Fire. That's my Affinity, so if we share it then it'll be the one I'm most suited to teach you."
"Gotcha. Whenever you're ready."
Bellatrix lashed out, silently of bloody course, with a yellow spell of some kind. Violet quickly side stepped and shot the Fire-Making Charm at Bellatrix, but it merely shot out a jet of fire, like it usually did. She furrowed her brow and kept using the Charm, but each time it had the same simple result, no matter how close she let Bellatrix's spells come to hitting her, or where she aimed the Charm. She was rather frustrated when Bellatrix stopped, but her friend shrugged.
"No big deal, just means that we didn't guess right the very first time." Bellatrix said calmly. "Fire's the most common Affinity in the British Isles, so if anything not having it is going to help you." Violet blinked. Try as she might, she had a hard time imagining anything about Bellatrix being common. "Anyway, let's try Water now." Violet nodded quickly.
The process repeated itself much the same as it had with Fire, but with one key difference. While there were no unusual results, Violet quickly realized a problem with shooting jets of water at her best friend. Namely that Bellatrix was wearing a thin, white, cotton blouse underneath her robes. Said blouse got rather wet two minutes into the duel, and Violet lost her ability to focus shortly thereafter. She kept dodging, and she kept throwing water at Bellatrix, but it was rote, instinctive, and Bellatrix realized something was wrong after the third minute. She kept going though, since her best friend was still dodging and attacking, and the book had said to keep going for five minutes.
Once those five minutes were up though, she narrowed her eyes as both stopped. "Alright, what exactly has gotten into…" Violet barely noticed, and certainly hadn't stopped staring. Bellatrix was wearing a bra, but it was a skimpy thing, that didn't cover much more than the essentials. Bellatrix followed her eyes, then slowly grinned. "Oh...well then." She said with a purr, grinning widely as Violet turned bright red and snapped her eyes back up to Bellatrix's face.
"I...oh Merlin...I…" Violet stammered, but Bellatrix just shook her head and waved her wand, drying out her blouse.
"We'll talk later." Bellatrix said, her purple eyes dancing with mischief that made Violet's stomach fluttery. "Ravenna. But right now there's dueling to be done. Try Air this time." Violet nodded quickly.
"Ventus!" Bellatrix laughed and dodged.
"Well, someone wants to move on fast!" She teased before lashing out with a spell of her own. Another five minutes went without much luck or success, though at least Violet managed to focus this time. Her blush went down as well, another plus in Violet's mind. Bellatrix grumbled, running a hand through her hair, and it made Violet giggle. While she'd never been overly patient herself, Bellatrix really lacked that particular virtue. "Okay...well I think Earth's boring as shit, and it'd mess up this arena to use, so let's go for Ice now." Bellatrix frowned a little at the mention of Ice, but Violet figured it was most likely a frustration thing.
Bellatrix sent a spell out, and Violet responded quickly with the Ice-Making Charm. Instead of sending a spiralling gust of freezing air and ice particles though, the spell dove for the ground and seemed to move like a snake, before creating a patch of ice and frost in a small circle around Bellatrix's feet. Both girls blinked, then Bellatrix grinned and shot a quick warming charm at the ice at her feet before attacking again. Violet dodged to the side and sent the Charm again, and this time a sphere of ice and snow the size of a quaffle went hurtling at Bellatrix's head. A third spell came at Violet, and when she responded a thick wall of ice arose between the two girls.
Violet heard Bellatrix cackle gleefully, and to her own surprise the wall took three more spells from her best friend before it finally came down. "I think we can call it early." Bellatrix said with a grin. Violet grinned back.
"Finally! That's awesome." She said proudly, kicking a bit of the wall that was still standing. She rubbed her brow. "That was more tiring than I'd thought it'd be." She admitted. "But hey, now we know!"
"Indeed. Now I know a few things actually." Violet blinked at Bellatrix's tone, which was rather intense and distressingly close to being a purr, then let out a yelp as the room quite suddenly shrunk, leaving her with her back against the wall. She blinked and suddenly Bellatrix was in front of her, one hand resting on the wall just over Violet's shoulder while the other rested on Violet's hip.
"I...uhm…" Violet stammered, wide eyed. This was rather different from Cho, in quite a few different ways. She didn't think she minded though.
"You tried to kiss me last night." Bellatrix said conversationally, her voice entirely too casual for the way she was gently stroking Violet's hip. At least it was too casual in Violet's opinion.
"I...I did?" Bellatrix nodded slowly.
"Oh yes. I stopped you though. Told you that I wanted our first kiss to be one you remembered. And that I'm going to kiss you so hard you forget how to breathe." Violet swallowed, and licked her lips nervously, noting the way Bellatrix's eyes zeroed in on the movement.
"Well that...seems like a fair trade. Breathing for a kiss I mean." Violet admitted. Bellatrix grinned, then leaned up and quite suddenly they were kissing.
It was entirely different from kissing Cho, Violet quickly realized. Cho had somewhat expected her to take the lead, and she'd been crying and a conflicted mess. Bellatrix was very much none of those things. There wasn't a question in Violet's mind who was in charge of this kiss, and it wasn't her. The rather forceful way Bellatrix had gotten her tongue into her mouth, combined with the firm grip on her hip and the way the smaller girl had her firmly pinned against the wall with her body all combined to drive home exactly who was in charge.
Not that Violet minded. It was rather relaxing to get to well, relax and just react to something, rather than trying to lead or drive everything herself. So she melted against Bellatrix, one hand gently stroking her best friend's thick mane while the other found and gently squeezed what was most definitely the best ass in Hogwarts as far as she was concerned.
Eventually they broke apart though, breathing heavily but holding each other close all the same. Bellatrix stared at her for a moment, then darted up, trapping Violet's lower lip between her teeth. Violet gave a shuddering moan, and Bellatrix seemed to grin before releasing her.
"Mine." Bellatrix growled, hand getting a bit uncomfortably tight on Violet's hip. Violet nodded quickly.
"Yours." She agreed, still breathless. Bellatrix seemed to relax, and she stroked Violet's face gently.
"Merlin but you're beautiful." She said softly. Bellatrix reluctantly stepped away. "And sweaty." She added with a chuckle. A new door appeared. "Go take a bath, while I try and find a book on Ice magic in the library. And try not to plot the takeover of Magical Britain this time, yeah?" Violet blushed and nodded.
"Wait, how come you're not sweaty?" She asked, frowning. Bellatrix smirked.
"Well, someone got me rather soaked about ten minutes ago, in case you've forgotten." She teased.
"Oh...right." Bellatrix chuckled and leaned up, kissing the tip of Violet's nose. "I'll see you at lunch!" She called as she quickly left the room.
Bellatrix skipped her way down the corridor and to the stairs. That had gone even better than she'd hoped. She hadn't really thought Ravenna would turn her down, or refuse, but it was hard to know with drunk people. Just because Ravenna had been ready to kiss her when she was drunk, hadn't necessarily meant that she was ready to do so when sober.
Honestly the only bad part was that she'd had to resist blurting out 'I love you' to Ravenna. She didn't think the other girl was ready for that yet, necessarily. She'd save it for later, when they got more...intimate. It'd be in a week or two, she rather thought. She had a loose schedule for how things should progress after their first kiss. The benefit of dating one's best friend was that you could move faster, since you already knew each other rather well.
She entered the library at a more sedate pace than what she'd left the seventh floor at, and made a beeline for the librarian. "Excuse me, Madam Pince? Where would I find a book on Ice magic?" The librarian blinked at her, then let out a slight huff.
"We don't have any." Now Bellatrix blinked. Well that hadn't been the answer she'd expected. It hadn't occurred to her that there was a topic the Hogwarts library didn't have books about. Not given the scope of the damn thing.
"Not any? Not even in the Restricted Section?" She asked incredulously. Madam Pince huffed again.
"There hasn't been an Ice Mage born in the British Isles in centuries, Miss Black. Not since the days of Merlin himself. As such, English texts on the subject are rare and difficult to come by. On top of that, Elemental magic is combat magic, and not something Hogwarts teaches." She sounded less like she was giving her own reasons and more like she was reciting rote answers given to her. "The Headmaster does not feel that acquiring rare tomes for a novelty topic is worth the school's resources." Ah. A book on Ice magic must have come up at an auction or something recently, given how bitter she seemed about it.
"Understood." Bellatrix said quickly, nodding. "Thank you." Inwardly she was in turmoil though. Dumbledore had thwarted her without even meaning to, which was rather frustrating. And of course Ravenna had the rarest Affinity in their country. What else would her best friend have? Ravenna was amazing and powerful and one of the best witches to ever live so far as Bellatrix was concerned, but she'd be damned if sometimes that didn't make things hard.
Of course, that then left the problem of what to do to train Ravenna. There was one option, a book she had access to, but giving it to Ravenna would be rather drastic. Doing so would have...consequences, on their futures and their families. She'd rather avoid that if she could. She'd try to figure something out in the next couple of weeks. Slughorn was fond of her, and even fonder of Ravenna. In the worst case scenario, she might ask him.
She left the library, mulling over what exactly she was going to do about her best friend. Well, at least the kiss had been simpler than trying to teach Ravenna was turning out to be, she thought wryly.