Me again, told you I'd be updating soon! This chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but still quite eventful.
I wanted to thank everyone who's reviewed. You guys truly make my day, and reviews are basically my life source at this point. Please know I appreciate each and every one of you.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
"So," Bellatrix said, "you got to steal every single book from the Hogwarts library. But when I did it, it was detention with Pringle. Of course. Stupid, Gryffindor-loving school."
"Lestrange, don't be dramatic. I couldn't have possibly taken every single book."
Though their current location stood to prove the younger woman wrong. Tall, seemingly never-ending bookshelves filled the otherwise rather simple room. It consisted of nothing but a small seating area, fitted with a pair of dark red couches and matching armchairs, all facing each other. In the center stood an elegant wooden table with golden details, supporting a tea set and a flame that had been enchanted to provide the room with an inviting warmth, despite its small size. Having never been inside the Gryffindor common room, Bellatrix couldn't be sure if it was a replica. Though it undoubtedly approached the idea of the place she'd always held in her head, minus the taxidermied lions and smelly teenagers she'd always associated with the house.
"Could've fooled me," the dark witch remarked, running the tip of her finger over a nearby book. "It's an impressive selection. Did you open a library? Is that where we are?"
Hermione signed, already growing tired of the woman's questions. "No, I didn't - and put that down, Bellatrix. Did your mom ever teach you 'we mustn't touch what isn't ours?'"
Bellatrix chortled, "you sound like Snivellus." Reluctantly, in the same manner a petulant child would, placed the book back on the shelf she'd taken it from. "Hey, you had him as a professor, didn't you? Did his students also call him that? 'Snivellus'. It was rather popular when my cousin was in school, and I always called him that whenever the Dark Lord wasn't around, but I always wondered if it lived on."
Hermione shuddered at the idea. Snape had been enough of a nightmare without his students knowing about the nickname. Many likely wouldn't have survived had they dared to call him that. "Uh, no. It didn't," she responded, only then wondering why Bellatrix would be asking such trivial questions. They'd just escaped from Azkaban, a feat only a handful of wizards had accomplished in the prison's history, and she wanted to talk about Snape's nicknames. "We're in my flat, by the way. In case you were wondering."
"Your…flat," the words sounded alien in the woman's mouth, and Hermione wondered if her upbringing had been so privileged that the word "flat" was entirely new to her.
"Is that a problem?"
"No," Bellatrix said casually, "I simply wasn't expecting it, is all. Bringing an escaped convict to your home, especially the one you despise the most? My, Granger, aren't we daring today?"
Truthfully, the idea of bringing the Slytherin to a place that was so personal to her chilled her to the bone. She'd taken every precaution possible, of course. Bellatrix wouldn't be able to exit the place or touch anything deeply personal to her even if she had her wand, nor would she be able to practice any sort of wandless magic. For any being, muggle or magical alike, that peered into the windows, Bellatrix would be completely invisible. And any letter the older witch tried to send would immediately combust in flames the moment it left the property.
The problem wasn't the security risk Bellatrix posed. Rather, the emotional turmoil that was allowing the witch into a place that was so hers. It wasn't her most treasured property; that would be the cabin she was prone to retire to every time she had an existential crisis. But the place carried value to her nonetheless. It was more than the convenient spot in the middle of London where she'd stayed ever since she'd started working as an Auror. It was the homely spot where she'd hosted countless birthday parties, baby showers, and Christmas dinners. Bellatrix, Hermione had long ago decided, didn't deserve a place in her home.
"It's safe, and no one can get in without my permission. Don't flatter yourself, Lestrange, you're simply here out of convenience. Nothing more."
"I figured," Bellatrix responded, "not at all where I expected you would take me, though."
"I couldn't very well take you to the Ministry, could I?"
"No. But, surely, there were other options. Dungeons, abandoned mines, a decrepit muggle warehouse…"
"Here is safer. And besides, people might grow suspicious if I suddenly start spending time in shady, undisclosed locations. No one will find it odd if I spend a lot of time in my own home. Now, if you would be so kind…pensieves require a willing participant."
"You don't say," said Bellatrix sarcastically. Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from replying; lest the two argue and ignore the more important task at hand. "Right, what was it you wanted? All of my interactions with Rodolphus?"
"That would take forever," and she wasn't particularly interested in Bellatrix's love life. "Just the last time you spoke before the battle of Hogwarts, and any interactions you've had since. And remember, I'm doing this because I don't want to enter your mind - but I'll be more than capable to do so if you hide anything from me."
Bellatrix simply shrugged and extended an open palm out in Hermione's direction. "You didn't forget that I would need a wand for this, did you? Maybe I should be allowed to keep one on me at all times, just in case."
The older woman carried a smug grin which, to her surprise, Hermione copied as she handed Bellatrix a wand. "Happy?"
The woman observed the item with rapt attention. "This is a toy."
"Very observant of you," Hermione said, barely containing her glee. "Courtesy of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Mostly harmless, meant for young children to practice before they're able to buy their first real wand. I charmed it so you'll be able to use it for the pensive, but it'll give you a nasty shock if you try to use it for anything else. Feel free to try, though." The image of Bellatrix with gigantic boils all over her face made her wish the witch would try, but Bellatrix managed to contain herself.
"Wonderful," Bellatrix groaned as she dutifully brought the wand to her head and extracted the ethereal strand, elegantly placing the memory on the pensieve's liquid for Hermione's perusal. "Be my guest."
Two figures manifested themselves before Hermione. Both clad in identical black robes, one pacing and the other perfectly still. She recognized the grand drawing room as the one in Malfoy Manor, and the place had visible signs of a struggle yet to be cleaned.
"This must've been after we escaped," Hermione thought. "The battle is days from now! Surely, they must've spoken after this. There's something she isn't showing me."
"I can feel him," muttered Bellatrix, biting her nails. "He's angry, I can tell."
Rodolphus watched his wife passively, making no effort to comfort her. "He won't kill you."
"I KNOW THAT!" Suddenly, Bellatrix stopped. Struck with revelation, she threw herself at him, holding onto his thin arms. "Tell me what happens. I need to know. Is - I know he won't kill me, he can't. But… Narcissa? The baby? Will he-" she gulped. "He-he-he wouldn't-"
"Even if I told you," he said without a hint of compassion, "you wouldn't stop him. I know you, Bellatrix. You would rip your sister's heart out without a second thought if he asked."
"No, nono, I-I wouldn't…"
"No? But you've done it so many times!"
"I've never hurt my sister!"
"But you've hurt so many others, those who you've claimed to care about. How is your sister any different?"
There was a brief moment of silence. "I- he listens to me, I could persuade him I- I'll take any punishment he's planned for her, I don't care. He wouldn't do that…wouldn't do that…wouldn't…"
An overwhelming thud resonated throughout the manor, announcing Voldemort's arrival. The woman wailed, dropping from her husband's arms and landing pathetically on the cold floor. Shaking uncontrollably and holding her head in her boney hands.
"Brace yourself, Bella," mocked Rodolphus, "no amount of pain you've felt in your life will ever compare to what he's about to do now."
The next memory found a weakened Rodolphus sitting before Bellatrix, both in identical chains and staring ahead. The man's head facing towards the ground, defeated, whilst Bellatrix stared blankly at a nearby wall.
"I don't get it," whispered Rodolphus. "You weren't supposed to lose-"
"He wasn't supposed to die-"
"Yes, he was."
"LIAR!"
It was only then that Bellatrix even bothered to look at her husband. "You could've warned him," she spat out. "You knew he was going to…to…and you said nothing!"
"Nothing I could've done would've changed his fate. But you…it wasn't supposed to be this way."
"Clearly, it was. And clearly, you were wrong. Meaning, the Dark Lord wasn't supposed to die. There must still be a way…"
Finally, Rodolphus raised his head. For the first time beaming at his wife, though to Hermione it didn't seem like the type of smile one would give to their beloved spouse. Rather, one reserved for dogs when they learned a new trick. "Yes! There must still be a way!"
"What are you talking about?"
"Bellatrix," he said conspiratorily. "I do not believe your life is destined to end in Azkaban."
Bellatrix had been taken shortly thereafter, and the memory had come to an end. Free from the confines of the pensieve, Hermione staggered back a bit. It took her only a second to locate the other woman. Who, without waiting for an invitation, had slumped down on the couch and placed her bare, dirty feet on the cushion. Hermione grimaced, but Bellatrix didn't seem affected.
"Is he a seer?" Hermione wondered out loud, and the dark witch took it as a direct question.
"In a way, yes. Though he was never able to predict any prophecies. Just brief snippets here and there on things he believed were to come, or so he said."
Hermione's hyperactive mind rushed to make sense of her findings. Rodolphus had known Bellatrix was bound to leave Azkaban, and such a prediction had come true. But there were limited seers able to predict even the smallest details of the future, and if the man's vagueness was an indicator of the extent of his powers, it was unlikely he would've known when exactly Bellatrix was to escape. Much less who she was supposed to escape with.
"I think someone knew about the escape," stated Bellatrix, breaking Hermione's concentration; she didn't mind. Frankly, she'd been thinking the exact same thing. "Maybe someone caught on to what we were doing, and told Rodolphus when the escape would take place?"
"A guard, most likely," Hermione pondered, nodding. "The only ones with direct communication with Rodolphus, unless someone else was sneaking in. Though, without an invisibility cloak, I doubt it."
"They must've been the one healing and framing me for the attacks!"
Hermione wasn't allowed to bask in the victory of their revelation before something struck her. "Rodolphus said you'd hurt someone close to you before, who was it?"
The older woman blinked at her, her face not moving a muscle to indicate what she was feeling. "Why do you care?"
She told herself it was just her curiosity getting the best of her. Though, regretfully, a part of her (an unbearably loud and annoying part of her) told her that she did care to know more about Bellatrix's past. To learn what happened for her to turn the way she did, when her siblings (especially Andromeda) were so different. "Maybe they could be the person we're looking for? To seek revenge?"
Bellatrix chuckled. "She's dead," the declaration rang through Hermione's ears, warning her not to push the witch too hard. "I didn't kill her, mind you. But she's dead nonetheless."
"Any family? Friends?"
"They didn't know about me, or that I had anything to do with her death," the woman explained her plump lips forming into a thin line as worked up the will to continue. "Things were… different, back then. Both her family and mine would've been livid if they knew about our…relationship - yes, Granger, that type of relationship, you can close your mouth know," Hermione hadn't even realized her mouth had propped open until then. "We chose to hide it. What's important is; that she's dead. End of story."
The younger woman could do little more than twiddle her thumbs awkwardly, suddenly wishing she hadn't pried as hard as she had. It wasn't as though she frowned upon homosexuality - rather hypocritical for her to do so, considering she'd left Ron for having similar tastes as Bellatrix. Her sexual orientation was simply something she hadn't wanted to learn about Bellatrix. It rounded her up, in a way, made her more human. And Hermione loathed thinking of her as such, no matter how true she knew it to be.
"You ough to take a shower," she finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "...I left you some clothes and toiletries in the bathroom. You stink. No offense."
"Muggle clothes, yes?" the Slytherin asked, and Hermione nodded. Noting, with triumph, as Bellatrix's face fell. "Of course," the older woman grumbled, and moved to enter the door Hermione pointed at, dragging her feet along the way.
With Bellatrix gone, Hermione pointed her wand at one of her shelves and motioned for the Pensieve to float back to its usual resting place. The elegant marble basin had, strangely enough, been a gift from Narcissa Malfoy. Under the pretense that it was her way of showing how grateful she was for all Hermione had done during the war, but she'd always held some suspicion that the woman had simply been trying to gain her favor in the hopes of a lighter sentence for her husband. It was undoubtedly the most expensive item in Hermione's possession, so she rarely let others use it, and kept it out of harm's way as much as she could. It was the mindful care in which she lowered the Pensieve that stopped her from dropping it entirely when she heard a scream coming from the bathroom.
"Bloody hell," she groaned, leaving the basin on the couch before hurrying to the bathroom. Without bothering to knock, she unlocked the door with a spell and barged into the space. "What is it? Why'd you scream?"
Bellatrix was quiet. Frighteningly so. Standing in front of the running water (and mercifully wrapped in a towel), she refused to acknowledge Hermione's intervention. Rather opting to watch as her own bony finger extended past her body to touch the droplets raining down from the showerhead. Noting the steam engulfing the bathroom, along with Bellatrix's small wince, Hermione could only assume the water had to be scalding hot.
"It's warm," Bellatrix breathed out, so softly Hermione was only barely able to make out her words. "It's warm!"
"Yes. It's a shower, they tend to do that," the Gryffindor mimicking Bellatrix's previous sarcasm, expecting a snide response from Bellatrix. One which, surprisingly, never came. She simply continued to run her fingers through the water, watching with wide eyes as her skin turned a faint shade of red from the heat. "Ah, they don't have showers in Azkaban, do they?"
"If you're a high-risk prisoner, the best you can hope for is a bucket of ice-cold seawater," the woman explained dispassionately.
"But…surely… you've taken showers before…right?"
Bellatrix chuckled. Sincerely, without a hint of mockery or superiority. "Obviously," she paused for such a long time Hermione had already started walking out the door, thinking the woman was done talking. "You forget how it feels after some time. And I didn't think I'd be getting any special treatment under your command."
She remembered the countless days without a solid roof over their heads. Dirty, smelly, without knowing when the next chance for a hot shower would arrive. Not daring to hope - in case the snatchers happened to find them before such an opportunity arose. It had only been a couple of months, and it paled in comparison to the conditions Bellatrix had lived in for years. But she understood the feeling. "I'm not a monster, Lestrange. I gain nothing out of being unnecessarily cruel to you."
"You still could be."
"Sure, and kept you tied up with no food, too. But what for? I brought you here so we could work together. If I wanted you tortured, I could've kept you in Azkaban."
"Wouldn't it be so much sweeter to know that my pain would be by your own hands? I would do it. If only for the revenge," now Hermione didn't know if Bellatrix was trying to make conversation or actually trying to get her to torture her. The latter of which became more promising as the conversation progressed. The older woman, not caring if Hermione wanted to say anything to that, continued. Though not before dropping the towel and stepping into the shower with a soft sigh. "I know I've told you this before. But you are a very odd person, Granger."
Immediately, Hermione averted her eyes. "Look who's talking," Hermione wanted to say, but what came out was a "you're welcome," before she stepped back out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Bellatrix took an ungodly amount of time in the shower, and Hermione wanted nothing more than to start working on the case, but she repressed her urge to force the woman to hurry up. Her hatred for Bellatrix was as palpable as it always had been, and she was well aware that she felt the very same way towards her. And - though she wasn't particularly proud of this - she agreed that there was a bit of an appeal to the revenge Bellatrix had spoken about before.
Therein laid the main motivator keeping her away from cutting off the hot water and denying the horrid woman one of the most beloved pleasures of life. The idea that she could agree with Bellatrix on such a topic - or on most topics, really, - disgusted her. Everyone was capable of cruelty, she knew more than well. But it took a special kind of monster to commit the acts the Death Eaters, especially the one in her bathroom, were guilty of.
Eager to rid her weary mind of all thoughts concerning Bellatrix, she set out to prepare the Pensieve again. When her concentration was broken - again, because the universe was apparently not done showing its disdain for her - this time by a wave of knocks on her front door. Frantic, loud, and came with no regard to her poor neighbors (who, by now, she was bound to get a complaint from).
She opened the door, just enough to peek her head out, "what is it?" she said, at the very same time as the people on the other side started to speak.
"We have a problem," said Kingsley.
"Hermione, are you okay?" Asked Harry, still in his pajamas.
"Minister? Harry? What are you - it's five in the morning I- It's everything okay?" Asked Hermione. She, of course, knew exactly why they'd come. News from Bellatrix's escape were bound to spread rapidly, especially to the Minister. Though she'd hoped to get some more time alone with Bellatrix before dealing with a panicked Ministry.
"It's best if we talk inside," was Kingsley's only warning before he pushed past Hermione and walked inside the apartment, completely uninvited.
"It's Lestrange," Harry explained as he entered. "She's… she's gone, I- is there someone else here?"
There was a stream of laughter from the bathroom. Mercifully light and unlike the mad screeches that both wizards associated with Bellatrix.
"Don't come out, don't come out, don't come out, don't come out."
"I have…uh…a friend, staying with me," Hermione lied, though not convincingly.
Harry fixed her with an odd look. "A friend?"
"A… special friend," the woman forced out. Ignoring Harry's surprised face, she turned to Kingsley. "What's he talking about, sir? What happened with Bellatrix?"
"You might want to sit down," said the Minister.
The Ministry had never worked faster, it seemed. As Kinglsey explained, Yolanda had personally broken into his home in the early hours of the morning (only minutes after Bellatrix's escape) and it had taken them only a handful of hours to inspect Azkaban, round up the guards for questioning, and call forth a team to re-capture the witch. One which included Harry, who Hermione was disappointed to learn had joined with little to no persuasion.
"What about James?" Hermione asked, taking Harry's shaking hands into her own, "Harry, we've talked about this. You don't have to do anything you don't want to-"
"He's with my cousin," he cut in. Right, he'd spoken to them about him. Though she'd never personally met him - nor did she want to, ever. Harry might've forgiven him for the bullying he'd endured in his youth, but Hermione still held her grudges. "Ginny wants to help too. And so do Molly and Arthur and the rest of the Weasleys, so he was the only family member I could think of that could watch after him."
"Wait, what?" Hermione moved to stand in front of Kingsley, who'd been tapping his wand against his palm and staring at the Pensieve. "How many people know?" she lowered her voice, "how much do people know?"
Kingsley debated against himself before answering, and couldn't seem to hold Hermione's gaze for long. "We decided," the man started soberly, "Lestrange poses too large of a threat to keep the investigation a secret. We… had to make a difficult choice."
"It's part of the reason why we've come, really," said Harry. "It's too early for the public to know, of course, but I know the press is alre-"
"The press?" Hermione gawped. "Minister you cannot think this is a good idea!"
Regardless of what Kingsley thought on the matter, the damage was done. Hermione could tell from the Minister's mournful scowl and Harry's defeated stance that there was more to come. Details that, for reasons she knew she was bound to discover soon, they'd chosen to keep hidden for the time being.
"Don't be mad," Harry muttered.
But before Hermione could inquire further on Harry's vague request, the door to her apartment opened. To reveal to the poor inhabitants of the room the radiant, impeccably dressed figure of Rita Skeeter. Floating quill trailing behind and a camera floating in front of her, so quickly that Hermione only noticed it after the flash had near-blinded her.
"Hermione Granger!" Exclaimed Rita with a mischievous grin, "it's been too long."
Only then, in an action that almost had Hermione wondered if she'd drowned in Azkaban and gone to hell, the bathroom door opened. And through the steam and mist, emerged a slender white leg.
