This is now my story with the most reviews, favs and alerts, so thank you a lot.
Xxx
You're not easy to love
You're not easy to love, no
You're not easy to love
You're not easy to love, no
Why is everything with you so complicated
Why do you make it hard to love you
Oh I hate it
Cause if you really wanna be alone
I will throw my hands up cause baby I tried
But every day with you is so complicated
Oh why
Sometimes I get you
Sometimes I don't understand
Sometimes I love you
Sometimes it's you I can't stand
Sometimes I wanna hug you
Sometimes I wanna push you away
Most times I wanna kiss you
Other times punch you in the face
Cause every minute you start switching up
And you say things like you don't give a f*ck
Then I say I'm through with you
Take my heart from you
~Rihanna, Complicated~
-x-
I emerge from under a rumpled sheet, my brown hair tousled. I turn my head to the right, where I recognise tender black eyes looking at me. Bellatrix is so beautiful: her skin is fair with a peachy colour, her locks of dark hair frame her face perfectly and produce an eye-catching contrast. I smile and am welcomed with a morning kiss.
"Morning." Bellatrix says softly, her voice a little hoarse after having just emerged from sleep.
"Good morning, indeed. You are a wonderful sight to wake up to." The compliment comes spontaneously to me.
It isn't exactly a flush that appears on Bella's cheekbones, but they take on a somewhat ruby colour that is just too appealing. I can't resist kissing her cheek, which makes the colour darken.
"And you stayed."
Bellatrix nods her head. "I stayed."
I hug her, thankful that she has not left my side while I was asleep. It is the last proof I needed to be persuaded of her affection.
My eyes fall on the part of the sheet that is covering her bosom. I become very conscious of the fact we are both still naked. I extend my finger, tentative, to crook it around the edge of the white sheet.
"May I look at you?" I ask, making sure Bella won't be offended.
"Yes, you may." Bella shows a mischievious smirk.
I smile, glad I am allowed to feast my eyes on the goddess-like body. I pull down the sheet until it is resting just above her hip, and trace the shape of Bella's side with a finger. I sigh in contemplation. The full breasts that are visible are just fascinating to me. I want to caress the pale globes. I want to taste them again, but I resist for the moment, wanting to remember every crease, every curve, every beauty mark on my lover's body, just with my eyes. I find one on Bella's neck and kiss it, and another one above her navel, where I repeat the same movement.
Bellatrix chuckles, surprised by my comical attitude.
"It tickles. What are you trying to do?" If her tone seems scolding, the smile that goes with it breaks the illusion.
"I'm making memories for when I'll need them in the future. I know something such exquisite as this cannot last forever. I'm being provident."
Bellatrix raises an eyebrow, visibly not of the same point of view.
"You're singular, but endearing." She decides.
"Yep, that's me. I won't tell you what you are though."
She nudges me in the ribs. "You won't tell me because it's bad, is that it?" She has a sparkle in her eyes and a curious grin on.
"Not exactly, but I prefer to stay safe and not tease you, you'd have to discipline me again." I give her my best pout.
"You better. Or else big, bad Bella will make one bite of you." She presses a finger on my nose lightly, and then kisses me.
I cuddle into her, resting my head in the crook of her neck, her curls are tickling me.
After a few minutes of euphoria, I feel like talking again. "Bella? Do you sometimes think about the future?"
She frowns. "Yes, a little. The future is something that scares me. I don't think one destiny is meant for one person. Every choice we make can weigh in the balance, so when we are confronted with a decision, the result can change our life, a certain turn in events can lead to a totally unforeseen situation."
"I guess you wouldn't like Professor Trelawney too much, she always repeated divination could tell us our fate and that the outcome of everything was predestined. I thought her classes were rubbish actually."
"I think predictions of certain events can be made, it has been proven in the past and it still happens today, but a slight detail that is modified can demolish the whole hypothesis."
"I sometimes think of how my life could be, ten years from now. I can't see clearly what I would like it to be. But I think I would like to have a home of my own, children…"
"I had a child before."
The revelation escapes Bellatrix's mouth before she realises it. I can see she immediately regrets it, because she covers her mouth with her hand and looks petrified.
I put my hand on her shoulder, comforting.
"You had a child? How come? What… happened?" I hope she won't tell me the child got killed or something tragic of the sort.
"I… I abandoned it." Bella looks at me and I can see the guilt reflected in her eyes.
"Can I ask… why?" I'm cautious with my choice of words, I don't want to upset her, but I am very curious to learn such a big truth from her past.
She seems to hesitate responding for a while, but when she sees the encouragement I am giving her, she starts.
"It was a long time ago. It was a child of love, not my husband's. The consequences would have been terrible if the whole story had been discovered."
"Couldn't you have made it pass as if it was your husband's child?"
"No. You see, from the moment I married Rodolphus, I made it clear to him that I wouldn't associate with him in the bedroom. He was free to see whom he liked in private and it was the same for me too, it didn't cause any problem as long as we were discreet. I declared infertility so people wouldn't find it suspicious that we didn't produce an heir. When I became pregnant, I had to hide it, it would have brought dishonour on both our family names, and a hurricane would have started that we would not have been able to control. I did what I had to do to keep up the appearances. I used a concealment charm during more than 6 months to hide my distended belly. I had to do everything as I would normally have. It was painful, very painful. When I had the baby, I gave it up to a muggle birth clinic anonymously. I never heard any news of it since." She has tears in her eyes by the end of her sentence.
"Did someone know?" I feel my eyes sting too when I see her regretful face.
"Not a soul, I managed to keep it from my sister, my parents, everyone."
The memory of what she has been through makes her emotional. I take her hands in my own and squeeze them, wanting her to continue emptying her heart's contents.
"You must have been terribly lonely and lost." I stroke her shoulder to convey my understanding.
"It happened during dark times. I couldn't raise a child in the circumstances I was in. I lived for only one thing, serving the Dark Lord. It was my destiny, you see, the one my parents chose for me and that I chose too, even if I could have changed it."
"Who was the father Bella? Can you tell me?"
I see her bottom lip trembling before she reveals the name of the man she had loved, but lost forever: "Evan. Evan Rosier."
I bring a hand to my mouth in surprise. Evan Rosier. It was the man who had been killed by Moody in the First wizarding war, just before I was born. It was said he had been a skilled duellist, a fierce combatant. A very handsome man, too. Rosier. I think about the name for a while. It is somewhat familiar to me but I can't pinpoint where I heard it. I gasp when the memory comes back.
"Rosier, wasn't that your mother's maiden name? I read it somewhere."
"Yes, you're so perceptive I can't keep anything from you for too long. He was also my cousin. This was another reason that, to top everything, made it impossible for me to be with him in the open."
"You loved him, Bella?" My eyes are fixed on her and I am giving her my undivided attention.
Her voice breaks when she answers. "Yes, Hermione, yes. It was perhaps the only man I ever loved. It's why I told you I don't do well with feelings. I thought I could not love anyone after him."
"You changed your mind, though?" I am hopeful when I ask.
"You changed my mind." She smiles with some difficulty, and enfolds me in her arms.
She kisses the top of my head, and strokes my hair, until I gradually fall back into sleep.
Xxx
When I wake up, nobody is there, but clean clothes are folded in a pile on her side of the bed. I stand up and quickly put on the jeans, t-shirt and sneakers.
I yelp when I turn around and see the cold eyes of Narcissa Malfoy looking at me as if they are attempting to see through my soul. She is two meters away from me and stands stiff like a statue.
"Bloody Merlin, Mrs. Malfoy, you scared me to death!"
"Oh, please accept my apologies." She says sarcastically. "But I came here to help you, so you shouldn't blame me for too long."
"You? Help me? Somehow I don't see how that's possible."
It's the first time she comes into my cell. I really don't see what she's looking for here.
"I have resources you don't know about, Miss Granger. This house is mine, I have access to what you don't."
"And what, if I might ask, may that be?"
"The key to freedom." She states simply.
I gaze wide-eyed at her.
"You're kidding. You're not really offering to…"
"Release you, yes." She folds her hands together.
"No. It can't be. You're on their side. You wouldn't do that." I find it extremely improbable that she would do such a thing.
"You don't know me very well, do you? But I know you, I know what you can do with the Chosen One, and my interest is that you succeed in doing that." Her voice is grave.
"You want the Dark Lord to fail? Do you realise that, if he knew that, you'd be killed automatically?"
"He won't know. I'm setting you free. I'll have an excuse made-up for this 'mistake'. And then you'll do… what you have to do, to succeed."
"I…I don't know what to say."
I am in the midst of a problematic situation. On one end, I don't want to leave Bellatrix's side, and on the other end, I want to go back to Ron and Harry and put a end to this unending war between good and evil. I deeply want to achieve killing Voldemort.
"Say nothing, and hurry up. We have limited time until my sister or my husband comes back. We're alone now, but it won't last."
"I don't think I can leave without saying goodbye to Bellatrix."
"For heavens! Don't you get it that my sister is using you? She doesn't love you, and she won't let you leave from here, you have my word on that."
"Maybe she hasn't offered to set me free yet, but I believe her when she tells me she cares for me."
"How silly are you really? She did the same thing to hundreds of girls before you. She makes them fall in love with her, than she uses them, abuses them and leaves them for dead. My sister doesn't have feelings. People are toys for her and she throws them away like rag dolls when she's finished sucking the last bit of humanity out of them."
"You're lying. It can't be true." I shake my head, not wanting to believe her.
"Don't you know anything at all? Haven't you learned how she tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom to insanity, and was sent in jail for it? Don't you know she, herself, lost every last ounce of kindness, compassion and judgment during her thirteen years of imprisonment? That she killed her cousin to accomplish a personal revenge and laughed about it afterwards?"
"I know all those things, but I think she feels guilt for them, that it isn't the main part of her that perpetuated those horrifying acts, and that, with help, the good could outrun the evil in her."
"If you really think so, then you're a lost cause. If dying in a pool of your own blood, with the finger marks she left on you and your brain an incoherent mass of cells is what you wish, then I withdraw my offer right away and I won't try to help you again Miss Granger. After all, it's your decision."
My mind is running madly. This chance is something that may happen to me only once. I decide I have to take it, for my sake and the sake of Harry and Ron, and for what we are fighting for.
"Alright, I'll let you help me. What am I supposed to do?"
"Come, stay close behind me."
I follow her up the stairs and through three long corridors until we reach a small austere study.
"This is a portkey." She tells me, pointing toward a set of quills. "When you'll take them, you'll be transported to a forest in northern Scotland, from where you will be able to apparate."
"I don't have my wand."
"I have it." I see the piece of vine wood I held for so many years and that has become a part of me, like a complete body part. I missed it terribly; I have been dependant of it since the moment I became a witch. I extend a hand to touch it.
"Wait. I must make sure you won't attack me first." She takes out her own wand, casts a Protego around herself and then gives the wand to me.
"Thank you Mrs. Malfoy. I won't forget what you just did for me and the risks you've taken."
"Farewell." She says, taking a step back.
I seize the quills in my hand and feel the world spin around me before vanishing into nothingness.
::::TBC… Please Review…