After rewriting this chapter three times now... 🙈
(See the end of the chapter for more notes .)
"What happened with the redhead in the ladies' room, Bella?" Hermione repeated her question when Bellatrix didn't answer and just gave her a piercing look that Hermione couldn't interpret.
Her heart was pounding uncomfortably loudly in the silence of the bathroom and she was sure the Auror could hear it, it was beating so fast. A haze had fallen over Bellatrix's eyes, as if she were suddenly far away and no longer in the room with Hermione, and with every second that the eldest Black sister remained silent, Hermione became even more nervous. She had to suppress the impulse to shift uncomfortably on the counter.
"Bella?" she asked again, wishing her voice didn't sound so damn insecure. She absolutely had to know what had happened with the redhead, otherwise the uncertainty would drive her crazy.
At the same time, she was terrified that the truth would confirm her concerns about the black-haired witch. She knew what she had seen with her own eyes. She hadn't imagined the interaction between the two in the entrance hall. The look the two had exchanged with each other, the red cheeks of the unknown woman and Bella's suggestive grin.
Nor had she imagined the piece of paper that apparently had the redhead's phone number on it. Whatever had happened between the two of them in the ladies' room had at least made the redhead want to maintain contact with Bellatrix beyond the ball - and that certainly wasn't because the two had peacefully washed their hands next to each other.
Hermione's head told her clearly that her concerns were not unfounded, even if her heart desperately wanted her to be wrong. She wanted Bellatrix to tell her so badly that she was wrong, that there was a logical explanation for it, and that she was worried for no reason at all.
At this point, it would even be enough for her if Bellatrix laughed at her for making a mountain out of a molehill. If she would just do anything. Instead, she still stood frozen in front of her, her eyes blank, completely lost in thought.
Slowly losing patience, she tried again, this time much more firmly: "Bella!"
She punctuated her exclamation with a gentle pinch on the older woman's neck, where her hands still lay entwined. She finally seemed to come out of her trance and her dark eyes focused back on Hermione, who raised her eyebrows expectantly as Bellatrix continued to say nothing.
"Nothing," she said nonchalantly.
Hermione narrowed her eyes suspiciously. The answer had come far too briefly and far too indifferently from the dark red painted lips. Something wasn't right.
"Nothing?" she asked incredulously.
Now it was Bellatrix's eyes that narrowed suspiciously. "You don't believe me." It wasn't a question.
Hermione's silence was enough for the dark witch. She sighed, almost annoyed. Her hands disappeared from Hermione's thighs, finding Hermione's hands on her neck and peeling them away from her skin. Hermione tried to ignore the pang in her chest that the dismissive gesture caused.
Bellatrix took a barely noticeable step back, leaving a clammy cold between Hermione's legs, which seconds ago had been warmed by her pelvis pressing against her.
As before, Bellatrix supported herself again with her arms on either side of Hermione and looked questioningly into her eyes, as if she was searching for something.
Although she was still standing very close in front of her, Bellatrix suddenly seemed incredibly far away, the lack of physical contact a clear sign that the dark witch had just distanced herself emotionally, too.
"I burned her phone number, isn't that enough for you?" Even her voice sounded distant, professional, cold.
"It's not about the phone number, Bella," she tried to explain.
"Then what is it about?"
"It's about what happened between the two of you in the ladies' room."
Now her eyes flashed angrily as she repeated, "I already told you that nothing happened between us there."
As if Bellatrix had infected her with her anger, she replied angrily: "Oh, then she just came out of the ladies' room with a very red face, she just turned around to look at you again and looked at you and then she gave you her phone number just like that. Don't take me for a fool, Bella!" She glared back just as furiously, unwilling to back down.
Something dark sparkled in the Auror's dark eyes as she shot back: "I certainly don't think you're stupid, Hermione, quite the opposite. But if I tell you that nothing happened and burn her phone number in front of your eyes, you should believe my word and my actions."
"That doesn't automatically mean I don't trust you."
"Oh really? It sounds exactly like that to me."
"But then why did she blush, why did she look at you like that and why did she give you her phone number? That doesn't make any sense, Bella. I need a logical explanation for this."
"God, so this is the famous brain of the golden trio. Now I can understand why Snape was always so annoyed with you." She looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know whether to love or hate your brilliant mind."
"Stop distracting, Bella."
Bellatrix let out a frustrated breath, "Why can't you just let it go? Why do you need to know every detail of what happened in that damned ladies' room?"
"Because otherwise I'll go crazy. Besides...do you think it's fair that you're allowed to know every detail of what I did with Cissy in here, but I'm not allowed to know the other way around?" Hermione countered, knowing that she had made an unbeatable argument that Bellatrix couldn't counter – other than giving her what she wanted. The truth. Her voice was a little calmer as she added, "You want me to trust you? Then at least be fair, Bella."
Bellatrix's jaw muscles twitched and she could practically see how hard she was clenching her teeth to hold back her anger. She looked to the side for a moment, as if she needed to gather her strength for something, took a deep breath and exhaled, and finally looked Hermione in the eyes with resignation, as if she had just made an important decision. "All right. You want to know what happened in the ladies' room?"
She nodded.
Bellatrix raised a hand and tapped her temple with two fingers before placing her hand back on the counter next to Hermione. "See for yourself."
Hermione's eyes widened. "You want me to…?"
"They still teach you Legilimency at Hogwarts, don't they?"
"No, but…"
"But?"
"But Harry had to learn it in fifth year because Dumbledore wanted him to, and he took lessons from Snape so he could-"
Bellatrix's mouth twitched despite the tense mood as she interrupted impatiently: "Ok ok, you taught yourself, didn't you?"
"Well, at least the theory and the basics. But I wouldn't say that I - "
"Yeah, sure, my little teacher's pet. I don't need any details. Just do it."
"But Bella, what if I -"
"You won't." Seeing Hermione's doubtful look, she exhaled impatiently. "At the risk of sounding arrogant again, I would like to say that I am one of the best Occlumens of this time. If I could keep Voldemort out of my mind, then I will keep you out even more so, even though I think you're absolutely brilliant. Trust me, you won't accidentally end up somewhere I don't want you to."
With a final affirmative nod from Bellatrix, Hermione closed her eyes, concentrated, and whispered, "Legilimens."
She landed in a corner of the ladies' room just as Bellatrix came rushing through the door. As soon as the black-haired woman closed the door behind her and checked that she was indeed alone, she put her hands on her waist, paced restlessly up and down in front of the toilet stalls a few times and finally stopped. She tilted her head back and took one slow, deep breath in and out, as if she needed to calm down. She closed her eyes, took another deep breath and then opened them again.
Hermione was unsure what she was watching exactly. It almost seemed like...No, that couldn't be the case. Or could it? Was Bellatrix Black, the Bellatrix Black, the most feared witch in all of England,...nervous?
"Come on, Bella, pull yourself together, this can't be that hard," the witch started talking to herself. "This isn't your first date after all, you've done this a thousand times before ."
She braced herself with both arms on one of the sinks and looked determinedly into the eyes of her reflection. "Stop freaking out. You can do this, for heaven's sake. You're Bellatrix Black!"
She sat up and adjusted her vest as she looked critically at herself in the mirror. "There, you look good."
She threw her long black curls over her shoulders. "Everything is where it should – Fuck!"
She had just discovered one of her bra straps peeking out from under her vest. Without hesitation, she unbuttoned her vest, took it off, and tossed it on the counter next to the sink.
At that moment the door to the ladies' room opened and Bellatrix cast a withering look at the redhead, who had stood rooted in the doorway when she saw Bellatrix in front of the mirror in only suit pants and a black bra.
She blushed brightly as her eyes darted over Bellatrix's breasts, while the dark witch was still killing her with her eyes: "In or out, honey, but please close the door, it's getting cold."
This brought the young woman out of her state of shock. She closed the door and hurried into one of the stalls. Bellatrix just shook her head in annoyance and began to tighten her bra straps with sure fingers, checking them several times until she was finally satisfied.
She was standing in front of the mirror with her hands on her hips, eyeing her bra critically one last time, when the sound of a toilet flushing was heard and the redhead came out of the stall again, stood next to Bellatrix at the sink and began to wash her hands.
Her gaze slid to Bellatrix's breasts again and remained transfixed on them. Bellatrix didn't look at her, threw the vest back on, fastened the buttons over her impressive abs and was just freeing some of her black curls that had gotten caught in the vest when she said, without taking her eyes off her own reflection: „If you're not careful, you'll have drool running out of your mouth."
The redhead jumped and immediately closed her mouth, which had actually been wide open, and blushed bright red again, which brought an arrogant grin to Bellatrix's lips. The redhead dried her hands in no time and left the toilet, still with a bright red face, closely followed by a grinning Bellatrix.
Hermione opened her eyes as the ladies' room dissolved and she was gently but firmly ushered out of Bellatrix's mind. She met Bellatrix's dark eyes, in which she could see a mixture of impatience and nervousness.
"Satisfied?" Bellatrix asked, looking at her expectantly. Hermione swallowed and slowly shook her head.
Frustrated, the older woman threw her arms in the air, took a few steps back from Hermione and put her hands on her hips as she growled, "What else do you want, Hermione?! I showed you the whole memory, nothing happened that would give you any reason to doubt me and my intentions. What, pray tell, is the problem? Explain it to me!"
Hermione's fingers tightened on the counter she was still sitting on as she braced herself for the words that wanted to come out of her, even though she knew how irrational they were. Her voice sounded strange and hoarse to her own ears as she whispered, breathing heavily, "She saw you."
Bellatrix looked at her in shock. Her dark eyes flickered to Hermione's hands, which the younger woman had just involuntarily tightened around the counter even more because she couldn't get the image of Bellatrix in the ladies' room out of her head.
Bellatrix in front of the mirror, unbuttoning her vest and revealing, piece by piece, her plump breasts, covered in black lace. Bellatrix tightening her bra straps, automatically constricting her breasts. Breasts that rose even more, that moved and that were the perfect size to fit in Hermione's hands. Breasts that looked so soft that Hermione wanted to gently run her fingers over them, and at the same time seemed so firm that Hermione wanted to close her hands around them and knead them to test how firm they actually were. Breasts that Hermione had only seen in a memory. Breasts that the redhead had actually seen.
Hermione's breathing quickened. Whether out of jealousy of the redhead, who had seen more of Bellatrix than she had, or out of lust, because at that moment she wanted nothing more than to pounce on the black-haired beauty and tear her clothes off, she didn't know, but she didn't care either.
Bellatrix's eyes moved to Hermione's chest, which was rising and falling far too quickly in rhythm with her quickened breathing, and her eyes grew dark. Fuck, she knows it.
Bellatrix's entire demeanor changed in an instant and the smile that spread across her lips was devilish: "Oh, I see. The score is still unbalanced, isn't it, little witch? The redhead saw something up close that you were only allowed to see in a memory. Do you think that's unfair, little witch?"
She slowly ran her fingers over the buttons on her vest. Hermione didn't trust her voice for a second and just nodded.
"You want to see what she saw, don't you?" Another nod.
"You want to see it as close as she did, right?" Nod.
Hermione held her breath. Didn't dare hope that Bellatrix would actually give her what she wanted. Didn't dare to breathe, when Bellatrix took a step towards her and undid the top button of her vest. Didn't dare move, when Bellatrix took another step and undid the second button. Didn't dare look away, when Bellatrix took one last step in her direction, the last button opening to reveal smooth pale skin.
Hermione had to stifle a groan as Bellatrix slowly let her fingers trail from her belly button, over her abs, between her breasts and up to her shoulders, where she even more slowly slid them under the straps of her vest and let the garment fall carelessly to the floor.
Although she had already seen Bellatrix in this exact state in the memory and the sight had made her blood boil, it was nothing compared to what the reality of what was right before her eyes and within her reach did to her body.
She felt the slight tug in her abdomen, felt the warmth between her legs and the restlessness in her pelvis as Bellatrix's full breasts rose and fell right in front of her with each of her breaths, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out her hand and touch them.
To feel them rise and fall under her hands. To feel whether they were as firm and at the same time as soft as they looked. To feel Bellatrix respond to her touch.
She bit her lower lip at the thought and looked almost pleadingly into Bellatrix's dark eyes, which never left her for a second.
"Oh, little witch, you're just living up to your nickname."
She moved even closer to her and was now only a step away, but still too far away for Hermione.
"Just look at you, with your big eyes, practically begging me to give you more than the redhead got. It's not enough for you to get the same as she did. You want more, isn't that so?"
A whimper escaped Hermione's lips and it took all her willpower not to let her hands shoot out and grab Bellatrix and pull her towards her. But instinctively she knew that right now she had to play by Bellatrix's rules to get what she wanted – and she was Hermione Granger, she never failed .
"Ok, little witch, you're lucky. I'm in a generous mood today. You can touch me."
Hermione's breath caught in her throat as the older woman stepped back between her legs, right where she had pressed herself against her earlier and had let her hands slide over her bare thighs. But when Hermione could hardly believe her luck and raised her hands to grab Bellatrix's bare waist, Bellatrix's hands wrapped themselves around Hermione's wrists like shackles and held them tight.
Confused, Hermione looked up at Bellatrix, whose eyes sparkled with amusement at Hermione's overeagerness. "Not so fast, little witch. I have one rule."
She looked at Hermione intently. "All the bare skin you see here in front of you is all you get today. You are only allowed to touch my skin, nothing else, and you are not allowed to undress me any further. Understood?"
Hermione nodded eagerly. Bellatrix laughed but made no move to let go of Hermione's hands, "Will you be a good girl and follow this rule?"
She nodded obediently again. Fuck. What was this woman doing to her? Nodding in satisfaction, Bellatrix let go of Hermione's hands, rested her own on Hermione's thighs like she had before and waited.
But now that her hands were free and she had official permission from Bellatrix, she suddenly hesitated. The piercing gaze with which Bellatrix was watching her made her nervous. She bit her bottom lip.
"Could you..." Bellatrix tilted her head and looked at her questioningly, "...could you please close your eyes?"
The older woman seemed to think about it for a moment, but finally followed Hermione's request and closed her eyes in a relaxed manner.
Hermione breathed out a sigh of relief. Something had happened to her the moment Bellatrix had called her "good girl" and she suddenly had felt like she had that afternoon in the café again, and at the same time her body had reacted to that pet name in a way that she didn't want to think about more closely at the moment.
Swallowing her nervousness and double-checking that Bellatrix's eyes were actually closed, she decided to start with a body part she already knew, running her hands over the older woman's as they rested relaxed on her thighs.
She slid over her fingers and her knuckles, gently stroking the backs of her hands and feeling her own breathing calming down. Her hands moved over strong forearms to muscular upper arms. She couldn't resist giving her biceps a quick squeeze beneath the tight skin to test how hard they really were.
"God, Bella," she sighed as the muscles easily withstood the pressure of her fingers.
Frightened, she looked at the witch's face, but Bella's eyes were still closed. Neither her words nor the increased pressure of her touch had caused the older woman to open her eyes or interrupt Hermione's explorations. Only her lips were slightly parted. This made Hermione feel braver.
She hugged Bella's shoulders, which she had already massaged earlier, and also enjoyed their hardness under her hands. She swallowed as she let her hungry eyes follow the silver snake around Bella's neck to her breasts as if it were showing her the way. And follow she did.
She lifted her hands from Bellatrix's shoulders, slid them down her bra straps, to the top swell of her breasts, and moaned as she was finally able to caress some of those wonderful breasts. They were so soft, so delicate and when she applied a little pressure she could feel how firm they were under her fingers.
"God, Bella, you're so beautiful," she blurted out, and she could feel Bella shivering under her words and her touch. She looked at her beautiful face, framed by black curls, her eyes still closed.
Her breathing had quickened a little, but not as much as Hermione had hoped, especially when she compared Bellatrix's reaction to her own from earlier. She wanted to evoke the same reactions in the older woman that the raven-haired beauty could evoke in her without even touching her.
With the snake neckless right in front of her nose, Hermione suddenly had an idea. While Bellatrix's rule meant she wasn't allowed to touch her anywhere she wanted, something else was. She was glad the black-haired woman still had her eyes closed, otherwise she would have seen the cheeky grin on Hermione's face as she put her idea into action without hesitation.
She began with a diversionary tactic, running her hands gently over Bella's abs, which quivered slightly under her delicate touch. Taking full advantage of the room to move she had been given, Hermione traced the two v-shaped lines between her lower abs and her hips, and to her great delight, heard Bella suck in a sharp breath.
She looked up and was pleased to see that Bellatrix's eyes were still closed, but her mouth had opened even wider and she was clearly breathing heavier now. The hands that had just rested calmly on her thighs now gripped Hermione's skin more firmly.
Hermione kept running her fingers over Bella's lower stomach, the touch of which had given her such a delicious reaction, and enjoyed the way Bellatrix's breath was now shaking, even as she continued to try to keep her self-control. It's time to finally break that famous self-control.
While she kept both hands on Bella's stomach, reassuring the older woman that she was playing by her rules, she focused on the snake neckless directly in front of her and activated her magic.
She had to act quickly so Bellatrix couldn't react in time. She brought the adamantine serpent to life with an unspoken spell and slid it from Bellatrix's neck into her cleavage, duplicating it along the way. Both necklesses snaked into Bellatrix's bra, one around her left breast and the other around her right breast.
Hermione didn't take the time to check if Bellatrix still had her eyes closed. She was completely focused on the task in front of her. She let both snakes draw spiral circles around Bella's breasts and heard the older woman begin to pant, felt her hands claw at Hermione's thighs and her stomach tremble even more violently.
She only let the snakes calm down when their silver heads had reached Bella's nipples, where they remained with their mouths open. Only now did Hermione dare to look at Bella's face. Her eyes were still closed, but not nearly as relaxed as before, and her mouth was wide open, which explained the loud gasp Hermione had heard.
She kept her eyes trained on Bella's face as she gave the snakes the next command. With a jerk, the snakes' bodies pulled together so tightly that they squeezed Bella's breasts, and their open mouths pounced on Bella's nipples, found their target and bit down. Hard.
Bellatrix' eyes flew open and she dug her fingers into Hermione's thigh with such force that Hermione seriously wondered if she would have bruises there later. A moan escaped from between the dark red lips that sounded so deep, as if it had made its way all the way from Bellatrix's abdomen up to the liberating freedom.
Suddenly Bellatrix's entire body reared up, trembling, only to freeze at the highest point and finally collapse, powerless. Hermione had never seen anything as beautiful as seeing this powerful and dominant woman completely lose control right before her eyes and under her hands.
She wrapped her arms around Bellatrix, who was shaking and twitching uncontrollably, leaning her head on Hermione's shoulder and desperately gasping for breath.
"Bella, did you just-"
"Take them away, take them away, oh please, take them away," the older woman said frantically through gritted teeth.
Startled, she remembered the two snakes still wrapped tightly around Bella's breasts. "Oh yes, of course, sorry."
With a flick of her wrist, both of them left Bella's breasts, crawled back out of her bra and while one disappeared, the other snaked back to its original place around Bella's neck and became a lifeless piece of jewelry again.
The black-haired woman breathed out in relief and turned her head to the side. Her warm breath hit Hermione's neck. She lovingly brushed her dark curls away from her face and looked at her closely, the one question still at the forefront of her mind as to whether she had really just seen what she thought she had seen: "Bella, did you just...?"
The witch in question slowly calmed down again, swallowed and straightened up. Hermione had never seen her eyes shine as brightly as they did at that moment. Bellatrix ran her hand through her dark curls, exhaled deeply and suddenly fixed Hermione with a look that made Hermione unsure whether she wanted to kiss her or kill her.
The younger witch swallowed nervously as Bellatrix leaned in threateningly, piercing her with her intense gaze and whispering dangerously quietly, "Fuck yes, little witch, I did."
She grabbed her chin so she couldn't avoid her scowl. "You think because you 're oh so smart you can just bend my rules, huh?"
Her face was so close that she could feel her warm breath on her face. "You thought wrong, little witch. You were a bad girl."
Hermione's eyes widened at these words. As before, when Bella had called her a "good girl," she felt those suggestive words that she would never have said herself, deep in her abdomen. Between the tight grip on her chin, the ominous glint in her eyes, and the menacing tone in her voice, she should have felt fear. But she didn't. She saw before her the dangerous witch that so many feared, in all her power and dominance, completely enraged, and she had never been more aroused than in that moment, when she was completely at the mercy of none other than Bellatrix Black .
"And do you know what I do with bad girls?" Hermione seemed to have lost control of her body as it shuddered so violently that she instinctively reached for Bellatrix's muscular forearm for support. Only a last remnant of her barely functioning mind kept her from impatiently asking what Bella would do to her, from pulling her the last bit towards her and begging her to take her, here and now.
She had never thought about it, but as Bellatrix all but hissed the next sentence, she wondered for the first time in her life if she cold come froms words alone: "I make them pay."
In a flash, Bellatrix pulled her off the counter by her waist, knelt in front of her, grabbed the thin chiffon fabric of her dress, and tore the bottom of the dress off with one sharp tug. "It's a good thing Cissy always prefers such fine fabrics, they're much easier to rip," she murmured to herself as she threw the skirt and Hermione's panties behind her with an indifference as if she did that every day.
"Bella!" Hermione exclaimed in shock, now only wearing the floral upper part of her dress apart from her shoes, as the dark-haired witch stood up again and placed her back on the counter without any effort, "the dress! You can't just -"
The rest of the sentence caught in her throat as warm fingers slid between her legs and began to caress her where all the heat in her body seemed to pool. Her eyes fluttered and she moaned deeply and loudly. The sound echoed obscenely in the bathroom as her pelvis involuntarily arched toward the probing fingers.
"Hmmm, so that's how to shut you up." Bellatrix grinned as she shamelessly watched Hermione struggle to keep her composure and catch her breath. "I like you better like this, little witch. Speechless, panting, hot."
Bellatrix's fingers circled unbearably slowly and far too tentative over Hermione's dripping pussy lips, teasing her, playing with her and driving her crazy. "Someone's really wet."
A growl came from the younger woman's throat. If Bellatrix kept talking to her like that, she would get even wetter. But the dark witch was not known for showing mercy.
"Tell me, little witch. What made you get so wet? Hmm? What was it? Was it when I undressed in front of you? When you were allowed to touch my bare skin? When you felt under your soft fingers how much your touch excited me and made me tremble? Or that little trick with the snake necklesses you used to bring me to orgasm?"
Hermione groaned as Bellatrix admitted and openly stated that she had indeed come.
"Answer me." She pulled her hand away.
"E-everything."
"Everything?" Her fingers found their way back between her pussy lips and Hermione couldn't stop the sigh of relief that escaped between her lips.
"Yes and…"
"And?"
"And...y-your words."
"My words? So, you like the way I talk to you?"
Hermione nodded shakily. "I-I didn't know that, Bella." It sounded like an apology. "I-I've never felt like this before."
"You've never been this wet before?" As if to prove it, Bellatrix raised her hand, held her fingers right in front of Hermione's face and wiggled them back and forth so that the white liquid formed strings between her fingers.
She didn't know who was more surprised when Hermione quickly grabbed the hand that was so close to her face and stuck the fingers that Bellatrix had just been wiggling into her mouth.
The older woman's dark eyes widened as Hermione began to suck on her fingers, letting out a sinfully beautiful moan. As if shocked by her own reaction to Hermione's cockiness, Bellatrix jerked her fingers out of Hermione's mouth, grabbed her face with both hands and kissed her so hard that Hermione couldn't breathe. She didn't just kiss her, she actually devoured her, as if she were completely starved and Hermione's lips were the only thing that could satisfy her hunger.
Still on her lips, she hummed, "Hmmm, you taste good, little witch. Tell me, do you taste that good down there?" She grabbed her buttocks with both hands and pulled her forward until she was just sitting with her butt on the counter.
Hermione's heart almost stopped when Bellatrix Black, one of the most powerful witches ever, without breaking eye contact with her for a second, knelt down right in front of her.
Notes:
So, who of you thought, like Hermione, that something had been going on with the redhead? 😁 What do you think about what actually happened, would you have expected it?
Everything that happened between Hermione and Bellatrix after that... well. I completely rewrote that part several times because it felt like either too much or too little. Now it feels somewhat right. What do you all think?