Chapter Text
Chapter 12: Wild in the Darkest Places of Your Mind
22 December
“Dare you to keep up with me, Hermione Granger!”
Hermione rolled her eyes. Midafternoon found her trudging down the sloping grounds past the lake in a thick burgundy cloak after Bellatrix, polyjuiced as Luna in red lipstick and a long black cloak, who was almost sprinting, even in her boots. She was cackling like she was at the Ministry…a strange sound to hear coming from Luna, but less unpleasant in the current context.
“Where are we going?” she called after Bella.
“You’ll see! Or don’t you trust me?” the dark witch answered back playfully over her shoulder and continued down the slope and past the frozen lake, Hermione following without question.
‘I do trust her,’ she realized.
Bellatrix slowed down as they approached the outskirts of the forbidden forest and Hermione caught sight of Luna’s long, wavy blonde hair whipping around a cluster of brambles and out of sight. When she rounded the corner, her heart warmed at the sight. It was a paddock, of sorts, overlooking a small frozen lake, significantly smaller than the Black Lake, and enclosed on all three other sides by thick clusters of trees.
Luna/Bellatrix was petting a thestral on its nose while several other thestrals trotted slowly through the snow nearby. The scene was all at once eerie and…perfect.
“This…is…”
“The thestral paddock. Overlooks the Forest Lake. One of my favorite ‘secret’ spots at Hogwarts—Students are allowed to come out here, of course, but outside of Care of Magical Creatures lessons, most of them never do…can’t imagine why,” said Bellatrix with a wink. Then she took a step toward Hermione. “Can…can you see them?”
Hermione nodded. Through fifth year, she hadn’t been able to, but the first day of term this year, she’d seen them pulling the carriages as Harry and Luna had been able to before her. She assumed it had to do with peripherally witnessing Sirius’s death, and not wanting to ruin the dark witch’s mood, she didn’t elaborate. To her relief, Bellatrix didn’t press further, just nodded and gestured for Hermione to approach the thestrals, reminding her a little uncannily of the witch she was impersonating.
She walked cautiously up to the thestral the other witch had been petting, extending a hand as one might to an unfamiliar dog to communicate she wasn’t trying to hurt or scare it. To her surprise, the creature bent down, extending its long skeletal head to her. When she reached out to touch it, she wasn’t expecting a thin layer of fur that felt like velvet. Did the creature just…smile? Hermione pet the the thestral again.
Meanwhile, Bella stood to the side, taking a few sips of her bottle of polyjuice potion.
“I was scared of them before,” the younger witch admitted.
“Most are. They’re so misunderstood…likely because of their association with experiencing and witnessing death. Even though it’s inevitable, and not the thestrals’ fault, people don’t want to be reminded of it.”
‘Harry and Ron are afraid of you for the same reason,’ Hermione almost said, but didn’t.
“I think for me, it was because I couldn’t see them.” She continued to pet the thestral, lost in thought until she felt a warm, gloved hand on her shoulder and shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.
“Would you like to take a walk with me?”
Hermione nodded and their hands slipped together as though it were the most natural place for them to be.
“So the great and terrifying Bellatrix Lestrange loves magical creatures and the snow–somehow they always miss those details from your biographies,” said Hermione. They were walking down to the forest lake and she was trying to match the witch’s earlier playful mood.
“Hmm…What details don’t they miss?”
“That you’re brilliant and powerful and…were always a bit mad, with a horrible temper. That you were fanatically loyal to…the Dark Lord. You loved him more than your husband, who I think the papers would almost pity if they didn’t hate him, too.”
“Hah. Rodolphus. Another one I barely remember…” she trailed off. They were looking out over the frozen lake, which was clearly very deep given that it was about as dark as the other lake even with a coating of ice over it. Hermione leaned against the other witch, closing her eyes daring to rest her head on Bella’s shoulder–well, Luna’s shoulder, technically–but not really. She felt the dark witch stiffen and then relax.
“My apologies.”
“What for?”
“I must not be…entirely used to being touched like this. Not that I can remember anyway. My first instinct is always to…pull away…but then I realize I don’t want to,” Bellatrix said, adding the last part so quietly Hermione wondered if she wasn’t meant to hear it. But as she had, she squeezed the older witch’s hand in response.
“You know I was never much for snow, but this is nice; thank you…for suggesting we go out,” said Hermione, feeling herself blush.
To her delight, the dark witch squeezed her hand back.
“Never much for snow? You definitely struck me as more of a winter type than a summer type.”
“Well…yes. More of an autumn type, if I had to say. Autumn and spring. I like in-between times. And I never minded winter, really. I think it’s beautiful…but it’s just as beautiful from behind window glass while I’m sat up with a good book and some hot cocoa.”
“Forever the bookworm. Tell me, and know that I am not at all sorry for asking such a difficult question, of all the books you’ve read, is there one you find yourself going back to read over again?” Bellatrix prompted, alighting Luna’s silvery eyes in that moment with a playful sparkle.
“If that’s your way of asking if I have a favorite book—which, by the way, I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me—I’d have to answer, “I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely, and build our castles in the air.”
“Dracula? I’ll admit I didn’t expect that. I would have figured you for more of a Wuthering Heights girl.” The older witch raised one of Luna’s eyebrows.
Hermione didn’t know what surprised her more—that Bellatrix knew Muggle classic literature or that she figured Hermione for Wuthering Heights, which was her second favorite novel.
“That’s my second favorite, actually. Something about Dracula always spoke to me, though. Especially after I got my Hogwarts letter. It’s my favorite book to read when I’m back in the Muggle world and feel lonely…or find myself in this world missing parts of that one…Dracula…and Mina really, given the time and her lot in life, don’t really get a choice to be fully in one world or another without judgment by others or longing for something more…some sense of -integration-. Mina didn’t seem to judge Dracula like the others. She was curious…and if she weren’t beholden to her husband’s opinions or the way society taught her and reminded her again and again to be afraid of what they would call monster…”
“…but a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for,” said Bellatrix, to Hermione’s astonishment.
“You…you’ve read…Muggle books?”
“Dracula and Wuthering Heights are called classics for a reason, dove. I did my share of reading…or should I say, hiding away in the worlds of books, as a child. And now I remember the hiding more than I remember what I was hiding from…but from what you’ve said of my family and their prejudice and cruelty, it makes a good deal of sense wouldn’t you say…? That I would hide in plain sight in the most -forbidden- place…where they’d never dare go to find me.”
“Muggle literature,” Hermione murmured.
“ All the good, spooky gothic novels…the ones that really took you away into their castles and monsters and love stories…I loved Dracula. And Frankenstein. The Monk. And one of my favorites…The Castle of Otranto,” said the dark witch.
“…I fear no bad angel and have offended no good one,” Hermione quoted. “And now here we are. If anyone had told me even three months ago I’d be stood in the snow over holiday recess discussing muggle gothic literature with Bellatrix Lestrange…”
“And yet, speaking of quotes, it is said…There is a reason why all things are as they are.” There was no mistaking the glint of sparkle in her eyes this time–warm and entirely captivating. Then her eyes snapped away like she’d heard something that startled her.
“Hey. Granger. Check that out–over the lake–” Bellatrix nudged her and Hermione stepped forward, confused.
“What? I don’t see an–”
“Between the trees–can’t you see it?”
“No, I–” Hermione was cut off by a cold snowball colliding with the back of her neck. She spun on her heel to find Bellatrix already packing another snowball in her hands.
“Really?! Bel-Luna?! You’re such a child!” she chastised, and then the second snowball hit her. More cackling laughter ensued.
“I can’t believe you fell for that! Don’t Muggles do this, too?”
“Yes, but as I told you, I never really—aaah!” Third snowball. That did it. “Alright, fine!” Hermione called over her shoulder, running off to start making some snowballs of her own.
She threw her first just as Bellatrix ducked behind a tree, the snowball colliding with a low hanging branch. The dark witch cackled in response and sounded slightly further away.
“That all you’ve got, Gryffindor?”
“At least I’m not hiding like a bloody coward!”
“Oooh are you coming to get me?!” Bellatrix taunted, eerily reminiscent of how she’d teased Hermione and the others in the hall of prophecy. She shuddered at the thought and subsequently didn’t notice the next snowball until it smashed into her forehead.
“Oh you’re gonna get it now…oppugno,” she whispered. The spell caused a few snowballs to rise on their own from the ground below and hyper fixate on their as-yet invisible target. She watched them hover for a moment, then disappear into the trees in a V-like formation. Then she heard a gasp of surprise, a muffled thump, and a “Granger I can’t believe you fucking CHEATED” followed by more cackling laughter.
Rolling her eyes, Hermione headed in the direction of all the noise, not expecting the hot breath she suddenly felt against her ear.
“Boo!”
“Bellaaahhh—“
The dark witch knocked her sideways into the snow and topped her in an instant. With focused eyes and a devilish smirk that looked entirely foreign on Luna Lovegood’s face, Hermione couldn’t help but feel a bit guiltily aroused.
“Now who’s cheating?”
“Without my wand, how else am I to cheat? Besides, dove, I believe you started it.” She kept smirking, somehow even more triumphantly.
“What are you, twelve? Besides, you’re the one who—ow, shit, what…?” Hermione trailed off. She’d just felt something sharp pierce through the palm of her glove. Bellatrix’s brow furrowed and she, too, started sifting through the snow and earth trying to find the cause.
“Oh, well fuck me then.”
Ignoring the way the expression made her cheeks flush, Hermione’s eyes traveled to the other woman’s hand, where, in the center of her black leather glove, rested a distinctly broken piece of a very important potion phial.
“When was the last time you—“
“I don’t know; before our walk, I’d wager.”
Hermione froze—a thousand potential near future scenarios bombarding her at once, each one growing more harrowing.
“Okay. It’s okay…we have more potion, right? Back at your room…I’ll just have to go and get some and come back.” The younger witch took a few deep breaths to steady herself.
“Just…promise me you’ll wait here, okay? We don’t know when your transformation is going to wear off and I know it’s hard to understand when you don’t remember, but if anyone sees you—“
“Yes, yes, I know, they’ll kill me, torture me, imprison me, whatever, I get it…just…please go and get the bloody potion so I can get back at least to my -illusion- of freedom?” Bellatrix waved a hand dismissively, like none of it was that big of a deal to her, but Hermione knew she was scared. She could see it in her eyes—now considerably wider and less focused—-or is she starting to change back-?
Either way, the younger witch took off for the castle at top speed, taking the grand staircase two stairs at a time, trying to get to the room of requirement and back without running into anyone and raising suspicion. Aside from nearly barreling into a couple of terrified-looking hufflepuff first years and accidentally sprinting through Nearly Headless Nick, she made it to her destination without being seen. After stowing a bottle of Bella’s polyjuice potion into her cloak pocket and silently pleading her holiday break/empty castle luck wasn’t about to turn around, she headed back downstairs, a bit slower this time, as she’d spotted Mrs. Norris lurking around the fourth floor when she paused to catch her breath.
Then, in the entrance hall, she encountered Hagrid and Professor Flitwick decorating some of the annual large trees. After making small talk with both, she was off, hoping she’d fooled them with her explanation of promising to meet Luna for sledding, though it wasn’t without a twinge of guilt at declining when they invited her to hang a few baubles. There’d be plenty of time to help decorate once she knew Bella was safe.
After a mad dash across the grounds, she heard the first scream down by the lake. It sounded broken off at the end, like an attempt was made to cut off or silence it, but was distinctly a woman in terror or pain, and coming from the direction of the thestral paddock.
She heard another agonizing scream and tore through the brush and snow. Hermione ran as fast as she could, kicking up clods of snow in dusty spirals all around her…hoping she could get to her…hoping she could get to her before anyone else did…hoping she was okay…
When Hermione rounded the corner to the thestral paddock, the scene before her was spooky to say the least. All the thestrals were clustered together to one side as if they’d been herded there, all of them shaking, all of them silent and staring at something over by the lake—staring at—
“Bella!” she exclaimed despite herself. The older witch was backed to the edge of the ice, surrounded by three tall hooded figures–dementors–and they were—
“Shit! Expecto Patronum!” Hermione exclaimed, but her wand emitted only a thin silver vapor. She willed herself to think of something happy. She wasn’t used to spells not working, but she couldn’t be frustrated now or it would only make things worse. She had to help Bellatrix.
Bella. An image of the dark witch excitedly looking out at the snow flashed across her mind and Hermione wielded her wand in the direction of the dementors again.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” This time, Hermione’s otter burst forth and swam through the air after the creatures, scattering them across the frozen lake. She ran to the older witch’s side immediately. Bellatrix was lying on her side, long black curls splayed into the snow, eyelids fluttering.
“Bella! Bella! Please wake up and look at me—it’s okay; you’re okay,” she shook the woman’s shoulder gently but vigorously until her eyes blinked open.
“Her…Mione?”
“Yes, I’m right here, I’ve got you, you’re safe,” she whispered. She cast a warming spell over the both of them, but she could still feel Bellatrix shivering.
“What…what’s happening to me?” She murmured, her voice cracking. She sounded so far away.
“You don’t remember what the dementors did to you all those years, but your body does,” Hermione realized, horrified. In the Muggle world, the phenomenon was called PTSD…she didn’t know if there were a wizarding equivalent. She wrapped her arms around the witch, who was still shaking uncontrollably.
“I feel so…empty…so cold…so empty–but my heart…it’s like it’s on fire,” she sobbed.
“I know, I know,” said Hermione, her arms tightening around Bellatrix. “Let’s get you inside where you’ll be safe and warm and I’ll get us some chocolate and we’ll talk about all of it, okay?”
~Fire on fire, rain on my face
Fever goes higher, what can you do?
Wild in the darkest places in your mind
That's where I needed you (where I needed you)
Where I needed you most
That's where I needed you (where I needed you)
Where I needed you most~