Warning: Chapter contains scenes of substance and/or alcohol abuse.

Love's Odyssey in Death's Design

XII

The seedy pub was noisy, a turbulent din of incessant chatter, raucous laughter, and loud shouting. The smell of alcohol hung in the stiff air, mingled with sweat, cheap cologne, and perfume. It was an odd combination but Hermione did not mind it in the slightest. She was numb, so deliciously numb. Her mind tumbling, swirling under the effects of all the alcohol she had consumed in a relatively short frame of time. It was like greeting an old friend. A friend who had perhaps forsaken her once or twice, or more, but who the bloody hell was keeping track when said friend was always welcomed back with open arms and vice versa. It felt so good, the fire in her veins, the ethanol flooding her system, combating the pain, combating the anger. It was bliss. A perversely grotesque sort of bliss that she simultaneously wanted to end and never end.

"More."

This was not the Leaky Cauldron. This was not Tom, with his almost fatherly concern and morality driven hesitation. The Muggle behind the bar cared nothing about her, cared not from where she had come, not what she was running away from, nor what sort of demons she carried on her back. So long as she kept the money coming, her glass remained unempty.

"Pretty thing like you. You sure do like the good stuff, don't you," he muttered, his reedy voice laced with desire that should have made her stomach churn, that should have raised internal red flags. But instead, she giggled and gestured sloppily at her glass, watching with glazed eyes as the liquid sloshed into the glass, and steadily rose to the brim.

"Cheers," the bartender said with a wink that Hermione would have under any other circumstance ignored. Without even realizing it, she felt herself winking back in a heavily exaggerated fashion, leaning forward slightly as she did so, which earned her a salacious gnash of crooked teeth and a not so subtle brush of a finger to the back of her hand that rested on the sticky wooden table.

One month to the day. She had left the Burrow one month ago, in a fit of impulsive fury, thinking she was solving all of her problems. Thinking she was giving herself the respite she so desperately needed. Thinking she would be able to facilitate everything in her life going to go back to normal.

But there was no such thing as normal was there? Or perhaps there was and she and normality were no longer compatible. Perhaps she had set this entire thing into motion the moment she had stepped into that compartment on the Hogwarts Express and encountered the dark haired bespectacled boy and his redhead friend while on the search for an old warty toad. Had inadvertently and irrevocably set off the chain of events that would inevitably lead her here when she had cried her eyes out in the bathroom just to be jarred from her emotional moment by a full grown mountain troll. After all, that was when the golden trio, in its infancy, had become official.

Perhaps. Perhaps she would take it all back if she could. Then she would be just another overachieving bookworm, who might have been relentlessly teased, who might not have had any friends. But the war might not have been able to effect her in the same way. Maybe? Even with her being a Muggleborn. She might have been able to flee to Australia with her parents, living a far more peaceful life, untouched by all that was going on.

Her parents. A thousand times she had imagined what it would be like when she found them. She would restore their memories and explain things properly amidst tears and emphatic apologies and then, well they would return to England with her and everything would be as it had been. Her childhood home would be restored to its warm, family unit. The telly would be as loud as her father's claps and cheers over a rugby game, the kitchen smelling divinely as her mother cooked a delicious meal. A light hearted discussion over the dinner table, both of them managing to find a way to whittle in mundane facts and tips for proper oral hygiene. And she would smile and nod and promise to floss twice a day and give up sweets for good. Or something like that.

What had never been apart of these near daily musings, what had never crossed her mind since she had briskly walked the length of a street she knew like the back of her own hand to go off with Harry to find and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes, leaving a piece of her heart behind was to finally locate her parents in Australia and for them to not return wth her.

It had taken three weeks to find them. Three weeks of searching the country, crushing disappointment when she could find no leads, hope when dots managed to be connected. Hope that gave way to joy when she was able to identify a Mr. and Mrs. Snyder, two dentists who had relocated to the city of Adelaide just shy of a year ago. She knew Snyder to be the maiden name of her maternal grandmother and used that knowledge to conclude her search.

She had been prepared for awkwardness, she had been prepared for confusion, had been prepared even for anger as a result of the considerably callous manipulation of her parents' minds. What Hermione had not been prepared for in no capacity of the word was to ring the doorbell of the Snyder residence and for her mother to open the door with her belly round and distended in the later stages of pregnancy.

There had been no anger once the memory charm had been reveresed. A little confusion to be sure, but she had been allowed to explain. There were kisses and hugs, some tears. Patting of the rounded belly Hermione could not bring herself to even glance at. Then the subject of returning to Hampstead had come up and the real shock settled in shortly thereafter.

"But darling, we've been here for nearly a year," her mother had said, glancing over to her husband as if this was something that had been already discussed, "your father is in the middle of starting up our own dental clinic and it'll be another month or so before your baby brother is born." More rubbing of the belly. "I suppose there had to be reason why I've been so partial to the name Hermes."

Hermione's heart had nearly stopped beating.

"We would be starting over if we went back now," her father chimed in, his thick brows furrowed in concern mingled thought, "You altered our memories but I doubt you did the old abracadabra to our former colleagues? The neighbors? Our friends? Sweetheart, we've made a good life for ourselves here." He gestured about the house's sitting room which Hermione was loathed to admit was larger and furnished rather more expensively than the one back home. Of course, there were no pictures of her on the walls, no evidence that they had ever had an eighteen year old daughter. She had seen to that quite well, hadn't she. "But of course we love you and we are so happy you found us. We want you to stay with us. You'll love it in Adelaide! You could go to university. It would be a new start for us all."

Hermione had tried her hardest not to cringe as she watched her father's fingers intertwine with her mother's and settle atop the pronounced bump of her midsection. She had wanted them safe from Voldemort. Safe from his Death Eaters. Hermione had not wanted her parents to become just another casuality in a war that had less to do with them and more to do with the boy their only daughter had happened to befriend. She had felt as if she owed it them, their safety. And what had they done? They had taken it by the proverbial horns and started a family without her. Oh, she was furious. And she knew she should not be. It was no fault of their own. Nor was it the fault of the unborn sibling she had always wanted. But the hurt and the anger, the disbelief, it had surged like floodwaters nevertheless.

She had never been prone to tantrums, even as a child but in that moment, she had wanted to yell and curse and cry and smash things all over the floor for good measure. The desire so strong, she very nearly did. But rationality had miraculously won out and no scenes were caused.

And now, here it was, she was back in England, on the Muggle side of things, attempting to drown her seemingly invincible pain and sorrows in alcohol. She sent no word to Harry or the Weasleys when she returned, had not spoken to them since she had Apparated from the Burrow. She did not know when she would, or even if she would for that matter. For the first time in her life, she felt really and truly alone. The magical world and the Muggle world had always coexisted for her. She had always had both, one and the other in equal measures. Now, she had neither.

"Can I tempt you once more, pretty girl?" The bartender's voice cut through her foggy reverie and Hermione blinked slowly, trying to bring some clarity to her blurred vision. How many had she had already, three? Or was it four? More than that? How late had it gotten? Had it always been this quiet? Sure enough, as she glanced around the establishment, there were only a handful of patrons left, most about as drunk as she was - a man slumped over in his seat in the corner, a woman with cheap lipstick smeared over her mouth, a cigarette dangling loosely between the fingers of her hand as she argued loudly with whoever it was on the other line of her cellphone.

The man behind the counter boldly reached forward and tucked a lock of her bushy hair behind her ear. Hermione stumbled backward, nearly tripping over her own feet as she stood from the stool.

"I-I erm think I should be leaving," she stammered plaintively, her head swirling as her equilibrium attempted to right itself, "It's late."

The bartender's eyes hardened and the smirk he wore thinned to a grim line."Why does it have to be like that, love? I thought we were getting on well. You weren't leading me on, were you?"

Had she been? She could not remember. The floor beneath her feet seemed to be moving, the walls spinning slowly. Dizziness settled in between her eyes, the sudden desire to sleep quick on its heels.

"You don't look well at all, do you love?" When had the bartender come from behind the bar? He was standing so close to her, she could smell the sourness on his breath and it made her stomach roll dreadfully, "You need to lay down, don't you? Don't worry there's a little spot in the back."

"N-no," she mumbled, her tongue thick, her mouth dry. What was happening? She had been drunk before, many times, and it felt nothing like this. It was similar to an outer body experience. She could feel her heart pounding and ever fiber of being urging her to flee, but she could not move. Even as the bartender grabbed her roughly by the wrist, pulling her toward the rear of the bar, she could not dredge up the strength needed to fight him off. Her limbs felt like they weighed a ton, her head lolling to one side as she was all but dragged to certain doom. How could she have been so stupid? How could she not have been paying attention to what she was drinking? She couldn't even scream, her throat so tight and dry, and besides who would really try to help her if did?

"Take your filthy hands off of her."

The noises in the background were nearly undicipherably garbled now, but even in her stupor, Hermione became aware of the sudden presence of a female at her side. Wild dark hair came into her line of doubled vision as she was rather harshly yanked, manhandled, until she was standing behind the woman. Safe, she felt safe even as she rocked and swayed violently, trying to stay upright.

"Who the bloody hell do you think you are, bitch?" the bartender squawked, his tone one of outrage and fear, "Mind your fucking business!"

"My Mudblood is my fucking business."

There was no more talking then. A tiny part of Hermione's consciousness wished that she was in a state to fully take in what was happening. But she could feel the rush of movement, feel the pulse of magic as flashes of red light illuminated the semi-dark pub, hear the thuds of bodies hitting the floor, hear the delighted cackles coming from the woman who had protected her from the lecherous bartender. No, not woman. Witch. Bellatrix Lestrange.

She barely stifled the urge to laugh hysterically herself. Where the hell had she come from?

"Come on, girl," Bellatrix groused in irritation, grabbing her by the sleeve of her t-shirt, roughly pulling her out of the pub in the direction of a dark, litter strewn underpass. By now, Hermione could barely keep her eyes open and she tripped, reaching out for the dark witch's cloak to catch her balance, which earned her a grunt of disgust.

"Th-thank you," she tried to get out, the words seizing up in her throat. Who would have thought she would ever in her life be thanking Bellatrix Lestrange for anything. Let alone potentially saving her life. Maybe she was hallucinating, under the effects of whatever had been added to her drink. Oh God she was going to be sick. Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the catalysts to this whole situation. This was all the Death Eater's fault. Her fault she had fled the Burrow, her fault she had even been in the pub in the first place.

"That's all you lot do, isn't it," Bellatrix spat scathingly, sharply wrenching Hermione towards her, so close they were nose to nose, "Blame your own shortcomings on everybody else. It's disgusting."

Hermione barely had time to register and process the acerbic words or even wonder how the dark witch had known what she was thinking before, with a crack, the familiar sensation of being squeezed through a too small rubber tube commanded total attention and the sights and sounds of the Muggle world abruptly disappeared.

Author's Note: Okay, so Bellatrix and Hermione meet again! This was another chapter I was super excited to write. I envisioned their second meeting so many times and in so many situations and I finally settled on one I really like. Come on, big bad Bella swooping in like Wonder Woman to save Hermione from some perv? *swoon* Some of you have managed to connect the dots as to how their connection works for right now and I'm so glad! Even if you haven't figured it out, don't worry! We are just scratching the surface. It gets SO much deeper. Drop a review and let me know your thoughts! Thank you so much for all the reviews, follows, favorites, and overall support. It means so much to me and gives me so much muse and motivation. Until next time loves, -bellanoire, over and out!