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"Weird!?" Hermione dodged another spell before casting a stunning spell. Bellatrix dodged it easily. "I wasn’t trying to be weird!" |
"You asked me for help!" Bellatrix said, sending a curse. "You assured me it wasn’t about Daphne," she said, casting another curse. "I get it, she was your bully and Daphne’s socially advanced, but––" |
Hermione anger quickly rose. "What’s that meant to mean?" |
Bellatrix paused, looking at her. "I know that you’re sensitive about the fact you’re a vir–" Bellatrix didn’t finish as she ducked out of the way of a nasty curse. |
Hermione’s anger had boiled. "I’m not sensitive over that!" She snarled, casting another curse. "I’m not some fourteen-year-old hormonal child." |
"You don’t have to lie," Bellatrix said. "You’re jealous of Daphne for something!" |
Hermione blocked the stunning spell, sending it back. "I’m not." |
"Don’t lie to me!" Bellatrix snapped, throwing a jinx. "You’ve been jealous of her since the beginning. Why? You never cared enough to say two words about her before, but now that I’m friends with her––" |
"You’re not friends with her! You’re fucking her!" |
Even with the shield, Hermione was thrown back against the wall. She didn’t wait to see if Bellatrix care. Pushing off the wall, she threw a series of spells as Bellatrix’s own rage grew. |
"I knew you were jealous," the witch snarled. "What? You think I’m less of your friend because I fuck Slytherins? Am I dirty to you, now? Do you think I’m falling back into the same patterns as who that bitch was because I’m fucking Daphne?" |
"No!" Hermione said, but it was too late, Bellatrix was lost in her anger. |
"Admit it, you think I’m creeping back into madness, that I’m becoming a terrible person because I actually like someone. It shouldn’t matter that we’re using each other, but you have to get your nose in my business acting like such a goody-goody, all high and mighty before you run off to Dumbledore and tell him to kick me out for––" |
"I want it to be me!" Hermione said, casting a stunning spell. |
Bellatrix was so surprised, she froze as the spell slammed into her chest, throwing her back into a desk. |
Yelping, Hermione ran forward, undoing the spell. "Shit, shit shit. I’m sorry. I thought you would dodge that one." |
Bellatrix pulled away, fixing her robes as she set her wand back in her robes. "You––" |
"Don’t say anything," Hermione said. "It’s bad enough I did." |
"Now I know who you fantasied about in the prefect bathroom," Bellatrix said, before her expression turned mischievous. "How long has that been going on, Granger?" |
Hermione felt herself grow cold and then rapidly hot as she squeaked, pulling away from the witch. "N-no. It was a made-up person. It wasn’t anyone in particular." |
"Stop lying. I can read you like a book," Bellatrix said as she stepped forward. Hermione stepped back, but Bellatrix somehow had manoeuvred her until the back of her legs hit one of the desks they’d pushed back. |
"I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t––" |
"Before the Slug Party? Did you even know before then, how you felt?" |
"I...It’s complicated." |
"When did it start? You can tell me. Did you have a sudden wet dream and realise? Or was it in the middle of Charms? Or was it before the school year?" |
"I don’t know. It happened quickly, before I even realised. It didn’t help seeing you and Daphne at the party, but..." |
"She did look good in that dress, didn’t she? I could barely keep my hands off her that night. But she’s a bit of princess, if you take my meaning." |
Hermione balked. "What are you talking about?" |
"Princess? I just mean that––" |
"You think I have a crush on Daphne?" Hermione said. Before she froze again, watching as Bellatrix’s confusion set in, and then Hermione realised that yes, Bellatrix had thought that, but not any more. For a brief moment, Hermione could have escaped the humiliation of confessing her feelings and begin rejected, and to be subjected to it twice was unbearable. |
She squirmed, going to run for it––but Bellatrix grabbed her and pulled her back, pressing her back against the desks. |
"Who?" Bellatrix asked. Her voice was devoid of all humour. |
"Don’t make me say it." |
"Who do you like," she asked again. It was a neutral tone. One that an Auror might use to interrogate someone. |
"Bella, please," |
"Who, Hermione." |
"You already know who," Hermione said, looking away. She tried to squirm beneath her but couldn’t. The woman held her firm against the desk in a deceptively strong grip. |
"Say it. Tell me." Bellatrix grabbed her jaw, forcing her to look at her. "Who do you like?" |
"You," Hermione admitted. "It’s only ever been you, Bella. Nor Cormac, not Ron, not Daphne, you. I want you." |
Bellatrix kissed her. It was warm and soft and Hermione melted into it, and when Bellatrix’s mouth parted, Hermione moaned into her mouth, tugging her close. |
The kiss was different to one they shared over the Christmas break. That had been short and sweet, something that had Hermione lying in bed at night, touching her mouth as if she couldn’t believe it occurred. |
This one was dizzying, electrifying and Hermione wanted nothing more than to stay in this moment for as long as possible. Except when she pulled away, there was a loud bang and both of them leapt back, wands aimed at the door to find Ginny staring at them, stricken. |
"It’s Ron," she said, rushing over to Hermione, not noticing the wands or not caring as she rushed over. "Hermione, someone poisoned Ron!" |
"So all in all, not one of Ron’s best birthdays?" Fred asked dryly. Hermione ignored him as she sat at Ron’s side. Bellatrix had left them once it was obvious how many of the Weasleys were there. Before she’d left, she’d awkwardly pat Hermione’s shoulder before leaving, looking strangely cross with herself. |
Hermione fixed Ron’s hand, frowning to herself. She shouldn’t worry about Bellatrix when Ron had been nearly poisoned. |
"How exactly did it happen, Harry?" Fred asked. |
Harry cleared his throat, before explaining how Ron had ingested the dosed chocolates Romilda Vane had tried to give him. Hermione looked up long enough to glare at the Weasley twins, who had the decency to look guilty, before Harry continued to explain that he went to Slughorn’s rooms, where the Professor had cured Ron and then offered them a drink...which resulted in Ron’s poisoning. |
"Madam Pomfrey says he’ll have to say here a week or so...keep taking Essence of Rue..." |
"So the poison was in the drink?" Fred asked, and then they began to throw theories around as to why Slughorn would be poisoning Ron. That he was trying to poison Harry, secretly working for the Death Eaters, but Hermione didn’t buy it. |
Neither did Harry. |
It was Ginny who offered the solution, "Didn’t you say that Slughorn had been planning to give that bottle to Dumbledore?" |
Hermione scoffed. "Then the poisoner didn’t know Slughorn very well," she said. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he’d keep something that nice for himself." |
A quiet settled over them and Hermione rose to her feet, stepping back to allow Ginny to take a seat by her brother’s side. Hermione was starting to see a pattern emerging, between Katie and Ron. There was an attacker who didn’t care who got caught in the middle and was recklessly trying to get at Dumbledore. |
She looked to Harry, already knowing where his thoughts were and was beginning to suspect that, at the very least, he wasn’t too far off. She didn’t believe that Slughorn was behind the attacks, if he were, he wouldn’t have been so reckless as to poison Ron. No, it was someone who didn’t take the time to research the people they were using. |
When Madam Pomfrey came out again, ready to tell them off for the amount of guests that were there, Hermione took her leave. Ron was Harry’s best friend and Fred, George and Ginny were his family. Hermione, while a friend, had the least right to be there. |
Leaving, she headed back to the Gryffindor tower and thought over all the information. Ron had been poisoned. Katie cursed. Who would have motive? |
If the attacker was going after Dumbledore, then it was clearly someone working for the Dark Lord or at least trying to gain favour with him. And while Draco had been acting odd, Hermione didn’t peg him as so emotionally blunted to not care if he was killing people. Hurting, maybe. But murder, no. |
He was just a jerk. |
A part of her would have liked to believe it was Pansy, but even she didn’t seem cut out to be a death eater. In truth, between Katie and Slughorn, both people had received their gifts from off campus, so there was no telling who was behind it. |
She should leave it up to the adults. |
In the common room, Bellatrix looked up at her and Hermione felt the rush of this morning hit her. It seemed like weeks ago, she had been in the witch’s arms, kissing her like that there was no tomorrow. Barely a few hours ago. |
"How’s Ron?" Bellatrix asked. |
"Madam Pomfrey said he’ll be fine in a week or so. He won’t be able to play Quidditch at the next match." |
"There are more important things than Quidditch." |
Hermione’s eyes welled up and before she could stop herself, she’d flung her arms around the witch and hugged her tight, crying into her shoulder. Even though she and Ron hadn’t been good friends this year, she still cared for him the same way she did for Harry, and to see that he almost died because someone was acting so careless about innocent lives being affected, just burned her. |
"He’ll be okay," Bellatrix whispered. |
Hermione clung to her tightly. The truth was, the thing that scared her almost as much as seeing Ron there, was that she couldn’t help but think that Bellatrix could get caught up in the person’s next attack, and then what? She’d be at Bellatrix’s side, hoping she’d wake up after being cursed or poisoned? |
Hermione couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. |
Hermione had been right about Ron not being able to play against Hufflepuff. Harry begrudgingly accepted Cormac’s offer to act as Ron’s replacement and apparently it was going horrendously. |
During the last two practice matches, Bellatrix had come back, gritting her teeth, threatening to curse his socks off. Whilst Ginny had assured her that they’d only need to wait until after Hufflepuff before Ron was able to return to Quidditch. |
In the mean time, neither Hermione nor Bellatrix had discussed the kiss from last week. They’d gone back to being friends and Hermione wasn’t sure if she should bring it up and risk newfound rejection as Bella realised she didn’t want to be with Hermione, or if she should continue to let the awkwardness settle and go back to being friends. |
Friends kissed each other, right? She’d seen Lavender and Parvati do it. Though, they had mostly kissed as if it was something silly to do. She didn’t think they did it in the privacy of an old charms room. She seriously doubted either of them stayed up late, retracing the kiss over and over in their mind. |
At least the nightmares had stopped haunting her. Now, she was just filled with strange dreams about Bellatrix. |
"Are you alright?" Ginny asked. "You’re staring off into space again." |
"Oh! Ah, yeah, I’m fine," Hermione assured. |
"You managed to miss Lavender’s scornful look. I think she’s jealous of you visiting Ron." |
Hermione frowned, looking up the table to where Lavender was tossing her a nasty look before whispering with Parvati. In truth, Hermione had noticed the girls were whispering more and more about her, but she’d been far to distracted with classes, Ron and her feelings towards Bellatrix to give more than two moments of thought towards it. |
"She’ll get over it," Hermione said. "I’d be visiting Harry the same if it’d happened to him. Is Ron bummed he’s missing today’s match?" |
"I think he’d be alright with it if Cormac wasn’t replacing him." Hermione could understand that. There’d be few players who hadn’t stressed their annoyance about McLaggen’s "helpful advice’ for each training session. |
Bellatrix yawned as she took her seat beside Hermione. |
Hermione couldn’t help but think she looked nice dressed in the Quidditch gear. Her hair was tied back from face in a thick braid, which had a red and gold ribbon around the ends. |
"You’re sporting the colours," Hermione said, pointing to the ribbon. |
Bellatrix shrugged. "It’s my team." |
"It looks nice," Hermione said and watched as Bellatrix smiled at her. |
Ginny gave an awkward cough before reminding Bellatrix that they were due to head off to the pitch soon. |
"Good luck!" Hermione wished before making her own way to the pitch. |
Hermione settled in, thankful this time she wouldn’t have to sit next to Cormac when she noticed Luna curiously moving into the commentators seat. Of course, Zacharias wouldn’t be able to commentate because he was playing, but Luna was certainly an odd choice. Even Professor McGonagall looked hesitant as Luna moved into the seat. |
At least she’d make for an interesting commentator this match. |
The crowd roared as Gryffindor and Hufflepuff entered onto the pitch. Both captains shook hands and Hermione was pleased to note that Harry seemed amicable with the other captain, before he got onto his broom and flew into position. |
Madam Hooch’s whistle blew as she threw the quaffle into the air, and Zacharias dived for it. "That’s Smith of Hufflepuff with the quaffle," Luna’s dreamy voice began. "He did the commentary last time, of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think probably on purpose..." |
Hermione tuned Luna out as she watched Ginny try to grab the ball, only to miss as Zacharias threw it to Cadwallader who managed to shoot a score. |
Ginny looked pissed as McLaggen began giving her a talking to. Hermione watched as Harry zoomed from his position down to argue with McLaggen as Zacharias made another score. |
It was hard to watch. Turning her attention away, she watched as Bellatrix shot a bludger towards Zacharias, managing to knock him off course and drop the quaffle where Dean caught it. |
Gryffindor managed to shoot a total of four times against Hufflepuff’s seven, and Hermione couldn’t help but notice that the reason Hufflepuff was scoring so well, was that Cormac was busy criticising every player. |
Bellatrix swooped in between Cormac and Ginny, as they began to argue, managing to knock out a bludger from hitting them both. The bludger bounced off the goals and then hit the edge of Cormac’s broom before flying off to the other side of the court. |
It would have been fine, except that Hermione watched in horror as Cormac stole the bat from Bellatrix’s hand, somehow deciding that she needed to be taught how to swing the bat. |
"Oh, look! The Gryffindor Keeper’s got hold of one of the Beater’s bats," Luna’s dreamy voice said. |
Hermione could see Harry moving to intervene, but it was too late, she could see Bellatrix’s furious expression as she reached into her uniform and pulled out her wand, jinxing Cormac before she stole back her wand. |
Madam Hooch’s whistle blew, calling foul––and the game was paused as Bellatrix was benched and the game was set to continue with Gryffindor one beater short. |
Hermione left her spot to head down to the Gryffindor change rooms. Even before she entered, she could hear the witch cursing and hexing anything nearby. |
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