"WWHHHHHYYYYYYYYY?!" sounded the exasperated and somewhat desperate wail of denial from Bellatrix Black while her wife, armed with buckets, mops and cleaning supplies, glared upon her with impatience while tapping her foot.
"Because it's been a year since the last time!" Hermione thrust a mop into her wailing wife's hands. "Now shape up. In all the time you've spent complaining, you could have cleaned this whole room already!"
Stood in the family room of her ancestral home, Bellatrix was getting ever and ever more obstinate. "It's just going to get dusty again! Why even bother?!"
"It's not just the dust! It's this! What is this?!" Hermione said after stepping over to Bellatrix' favorite sofa near the fireplace. "Why are there empty packets of crisps on the floor?"
"Because I like to snack while listening to the Wireless!" Bellatrix protested. "And those aren't empty! There's still some crumbs in there I might want to eat!"
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "So why are there five of them?!"
"I like different flavours," she returned sheepishly.
Hermione let out a strained grunt. "Good god, you can't even be bothered to pick up some empty packets from the floor!"
Bellatrix snorted. "Next time I'll throw them into the fireplace, then."
"That'll make an even bigger mess! And stink up the whole house with a burned plastic smell!" Hermione challenged. "Why do you insist upon turning our house into a pigsty?!"
"Well, we had house-elves for that until a certain someone decided to have a jacket fitted for all of them!" Bellatrix huffed. "A certain someone whom we shall call Germione Hanger!"
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Oh, no, you're not doing that!"
"What?"
"Funny, really, how my surname is interchangeable between 'Black' and 'Granger' depending on the situation! It really does say 'Hermione Black' on my marriage certificate, Belle!" Hermione glowered.
Bellatrix sputtered sheepishly for a moment.
"I don't know what you're on about," Hermione sighed. "With all the spells you know, it'll only take a day to clean this entire manor house. If we were muggles, cleaning a manor this size would take weeks!"
"Well, we're not muggles, now are we?! And we can do it in mere hours!" Bellatrix challenged, realizing too late that she had walking into a trap with open eyes.
Hermione grinned knowingly. "Exactly! Here's your mop, here's your bucket. You already have your wand."
A grumbling Bellatrix followed her wife to the entry hall. A large set of double staircases led upwards to the second floor. After the start of her rehabilitation, Bellatrix had taken back ownership of her ancestral home: an English manor house in the countryside a few miles away from Manchester. It had stood empty ever since the untimely death of her parents in the early nineties until she and Hermione had moved in. Though the manor was a little too big for the both of them, they had come a long way to restore it to its former glory.
"Right," said Hermione, producing a floor-plan of the house. One for her and one for Bellatrix. On the floor-plan all the rooms were either marked with the letter 'H' or 'B', along with a checklist of things to do in each room. "We'll go through this systematically. I'll start here in the entry hall, you start up in the attic."
"The attic?!" Bellatrix huffed and looked to see the checklist. "Dust, clean windows, sweep floor, clean cobwebs?! Even the cobwebs? An attic is supposed to have cobwebs! It's going to lose all its character! Besides, how am I going to scare Teddy by sending him up to the attic if it's clean?! Clean isn't scary!"
"Teddy is five!"
"How's he ever going to grow a backbone without the life-changing experience of exploring a scary old attic?!" Bellatrix huffed.
Hermione took a few deep breaths. "While you're up in the attic, I'll be cleaning up down here. Doing the windows, mopping the floor, shining the armors and changing the flowers."
"Fuck me, do you want to rip out the floor-boards too so you can clean the underside of them?!" Bellatrix rolled her eyes.
"I warned you when we got married that I would not be some trophy wife!" Hermione challenged. "I would be your equal and we have shared ownership of everything. Right now, I want the house we live in to be cleaned. You only have two more years of house arrest left. Do you really want to turn the house you can't leave into a dusty, smelly, crisp-packet covered cradle of filth?!"
"Hah, that's a good point, pet," grinned Bellatrix. "Since your side won the war and all, doesn't that mean that technically, I would be your trophy wife? And it's well known that trophy wives have to do absolutely bugger all other than being pretty, spend a lot of money and be really good in bed. Since I am superbly qualified at all those three things, I've fulfilled my end of the bargain. If you are looking for me, I'll be on the sofa."
That said, she set her mop aside and crossed her arms while smiling smugly. Hermione said nothing, but Bellatrix could swear that she could see a vein popping on the side of her forehead. Before Bellatrix could walk away, she found the mop and the floor-plan thrust in her hand, while an angry Hermione pointed up the stairs.
"Go clean, thot!" Hermione exclaimed.
Seeing there was no further recourse, Bellatrix let out a defeated sigh and dragged her mop behind her as she went up the stairs and headed towards the attic which was another flight up.
"Every year the same," Bellatrix muttered as she went up the stairs and opened the door to the attic. The attic, a large room which ran the length of the house, held plenty of old furniture placed underneath white cloth, along with trunks of knickknacks, old silverware and some taxdermied old animals. Mostly things were stored here which didn't fit in the new decor of the manor, were just old or simply things to be kept out of sight. She passed an elephant foot umbrella stand which had been in her family since the early 1800's, but Hermione found the thing so distasteful that she wanted it gone, while Bellatrix didn't want to get rid of what was, essentially, a family heirloom. So the compromise was to put it in the attic. The attic was full of 'compromises' like that.
Small windows along the length of the attic gave it a dimly lit atmosphere. Always gloomy and filled with the tantalizing smell of old wood.
So, Bellatrix got to cleaning. Her mop, actually being a sort of non-sentient wand, was waved along the slanted side of the attic roof and magically removed every speck of dust and cobweb wholesale. She'd have to do the windows with her proper wand, but so far the mop was doing its thing.
She waved the mop along another section of the slanted side to clean off more. Every spring cleaning she'd have the same argument with Hermione: around this time of year, she'd treat her with a level of disgust she'd rarely see when refusing to clean... like she was the filthiest woman whom had ever walked on this planet. As if Hermione was wondering how Bellatrix could live in this manor knowing filth was inside their walls. What's next? Scourgifying the lawn?!
She supposed Hermione was quite house-proud. After five years of living here she had made the manor her own, which Bellatrix supposed was only right.
Five years. One as a carer. One as a live-in girlfriend. Three as her wife. Oh, the papers had a field day when their wedding had been announced. 'WAR HERO WAR CRIMINAL ROMANCE SHOCKER!', 'FORBIDDEN LOVE SURPASSES THE QUALITY OF BLOOD', 'CHEEKY SEX ROMPS RUMORED AT BLACK MANOR', 'THE BLACK-GRANGER WEDDING. TRUE LOVE OR IMPERIUS CURSE AFOOT?'
Fuck them. All of them.
Instead, she focused on more cleaning. Best to get it done so she could go back to being busy lazying about on the sofa.
However, when she passed a grandfather clock… another heirloom relegated to the attic for the mere reason of having a muggle-baiting themed hourplate… she came across a familiar sight. In fact, she almost missed it as it had been partially covered by the white cloth draped over the chair next to it. Bellatrix set down her mop and knelt down and pulled the cloth away. In front of her, covered in dust, was her old toy chest from her old room. It was a green steamer trunk, still covered with old faded stickers. Once this had stood at the footend of her bed. Since her old room had been converted into an upstairs guestroom, it must have been hauled up here during the refit of the house.
Bellatrix smiled to herself and didn't need much time to remember the password. "Trixie loves chocolate cake," she whispered and the magical lock opened with a satisfying snick. Opening the lid was like opening a treasure check. Her held her breath when looking upon the many toys from her past and the memories attached to them. On top of the pile lay a music box given to her by her grandmother. She took hold of it and turned the key. Instantly, it sprang to life as a singing ballerina sprang forth and the melody of 'it's a long way to Tipperary' started playing. It made Bellatrix smile a little: the music box played many classic songs and she had often fallen asleep to it when she'd been a little girl.
She did more digging and found a prize she thought she had lost. Bellatrix closed her eyes when she felt something soft. Could it be?
Out of the trunk came a pink plushy dragon. Though it was more of a dirty grey pink considering the abuse her toy had gone through. One of its button eyes was missing and tears in the fabric had been patched up: even when it was damaged, Bellatrix had insisted on having it repaired rather than replaced. She remembered bringing this plushy dragon everywhere with her, but left it behind at home when starting Hogwarts. Funny… it seemed so much bigger back then.
She pressed the plushy against her cheek… it was just as soft as she remembered. Oh, she had held so many tea parties with that dragon. It had been brought along on every family holiday. One time, Andromeda had stolen it and Bellatrix had almost torn Andie's room apart looking for it. In the end, Bellatrix had allowed little Andie to take the plushy to bed with her every so often as long as she promised to take good care of it.
Bellatrix clutched the plushy to her chest, memories of better times overwhelming her. Her mood quickly changed, however. Suddenly, the plushy became a symbol of everything which had gone wrong with her life. Things which could have been. Classes she would never teach, auror training she would never take, magical discoveries she would never make, children she would never have. Tears started to flow when the full weight of her rather poor life choices came bearing down upon her.
The door to the attic opened and in stepped Hermione. "I don't hear sounds of cleaning!" she called out. "Such a surpr…"
Hermione's words died in her throat the moment she saw her wife sat on the ground bawling her eyes out while holding on to an old plushy. Quickly she rushed to her side and sat down besides her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. "Hey… hey…" Hermione whispered. "What's wrong?"
Bellatrix sniffed, laying her head against Hermione's chest. "I'm a broken old woman who fucked up her life," she sobbed. "You deserve better than me…"
"Belle," Hermione held on to her. "We've been over this before."
"You deserve someone who is allowed to leave her fucking house…" Bellatrix sniffed.
"Only two more years, Belle…"
"You deserve someone who can make you happy…"
Hermione closed her eyes and stroked her wife's curly hair. "What makes you think you don't make me happy?"
Bellatrix looked at her with wide eyes.
Hermione smiled at her wife. Truth be told, she had told her this story many times before, but every so often Bellatrix simply needed to hear it. "You know, when I was first assigned your case as a mediwitch carer, I completely balked. I mean, sure, I supported the rehabilitation-act, but the two of us had… personal history. I went to Hippocrates and begged him to assign me to someone else. Dolohov or Rookwood. But he told me that you weren't the only one in need of healing. You weren't much happier about it than I was at the time. But, as time passed, you challenged my convictions, opened my eyes to possibilities. Being attracted to women was one big surprise, that's for sure. But… you made me fall in love with you. Yes… you infuriated me, you insulted me, you made me want to hex you into oblivion. But you also made me laugh, challenged me and encouraged me to grow as a witch. And, come on, who other than you asks someone to marry you on a dare?!"
"Well," Bellatrix shrugged, her tears now drying. "Antonin was being very cheeky."
"Point being, you keep things lively around here," Hermione chuckled. "And good god, do you keep me on my toes. The fire in our relationship will always be roaring."
Bellatrix smiled at her, the dragon plushy still in her arms.
"What happened to the arrogant, infuriating bitch I married, hm? She was here a moment ago."
As if on cue, Bellatrix raised her chin imperiously. "I'll have you know, I'm now done cleaning for the day. I need to fix my make-up."
Hermione raised an eyebrow as the two of them got up from the floor. "You'll need an entire day to fix your make-up?"
"At the very least," she said, thrusting her mop into Hermione's chest.
The brown-haired witch narrowed her eyes. "Belle, you know that Andie and Dora are coming round for dinner this evening, right? Andie always said that her house is far better maintained than the Black manor. Do you really want to prove her right?"
Bellatrix stopped dead in her tracks, glaring at her wife for a moment. A few seconds later, she let out a heavy sigh. "Fine! Give me that damn mop!"
Hermione could only grin as she watched her wife swing the mop around like a whirling, cleaning dervish. And she was certain that the pink plushy dragon would find a permanent place in their bedroom now. But, then again, it did seem rather cute.