Chapter Text
DEATH EATER WELCOMED AT HOGWARTS
Bellatrix Black, confirmed Death Eater and infamous lieutenant for You Know Who, was given a provisional return to society last week. Ms. Black will serve under Headmistress Minerva McGonagall as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts until such time that the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shackelbolt, determines she is no longer a threat to the Wizarding World. Parents need not worry for the children’s safety, however. While serving her probationary sentence at Hogwarts, Ms. Black’s wand will be heavily sanctioned. Her wand is not active off of Hogwarts grounds and her activities are monitored by Ministry officials.
While the staff at Hogwarts plans to keep the students’ safety a top priority, it seems they are surprisingly (albeit cautiously) optimistic of Ms. Black’s potential for rehabilitation. “She has experienced unspeakable loss— as many of us have. That changes a person,” says Headmistress McGonagall. One might wonder how someone of Ms. Black’s reputation could possibly have experienced loss equal to that she has inflicted…
“Bollocks…” Hermione mutters under her breath. And it is— bollocks, that is. The whole thing. She stares at the cover of the Daily Prophet with a blank expression— watching Black’s picture as she walks up the steps into the Great Hall of Hogwarts and embraces Professor McGonagall as if they are old friends. They were, she supposes, before the first war when Bellatrix Black had been a student. Now, seeing Minerva embrace the monster who had tortured her on the Malfoy’s parlor floor causes Hermione nothing but pain and confusion. Her eyes sting with tears of betrayal.
How could she? Her thoughts surrounding Minerva McGonagall grew more confounding by the moment. She, of course, had been a pillar of strength and wisdom throughout the war. Minerva had vehemently defended her students against the Death Eaters, and specifically Bellatrix Lestrange. Could the type of forgiveness between these two women even be possible? Hermione hadn’t thought so, but the moving picture proves otherwise. She watches, over and over again, as Bellatrix takes hesitant steps up to the front doors of Hogwarts— her wild hair tied back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck with a few unruly curls falling in her face, the dark circles under her eyes and ghostly pallor of her skin slightly more human than before— and into the waiting arms of the Headmistress. The moment is fleeting, however, because the moment Black turns to face the camera, her countenance is as impassive and cold as the stone steps beneath her.
It’s none of my business anyway. She ruffles the newspaper until it’s folded neatly on the seat next to her and focuses her attention out the window of the train.
It’s raining. How fitting.
Her eyes catch on a drop of water on the window— watch it drip, slowly, ever so slowly, until it connects with another drop, and another, to form a flowing rivulet of water on the glass. There’s a pang of mourning in her chest for the single drop lost to the ruthless flow of the water.
She thinks she falls asleep for a little while. One second she’s blinking into the dreary afternoon, and the next she’s being shaken awake by a rough, freckled hand. “‘Mione, you need to get changed. We’re almost there.”
She nods sleepily. She knew this would come sooner or later— the robes, the single file lines in the Great Hall, the speeches, the Sorting Hat— all of it carrying a false sense of normality.
None of it’s real. But then again, neither is she.
She catches sight of the scar on her arm— studies it. It still burns, a dull pain that she’s grown quite fond of. If anything, it serves a reminder— a reminder that she'd fought and won. A reminder that no matter how dirty her blood is, the good side won, and Bellatrix had lost.
So much for closure.
She tears her eyes away from her arm and thrusts herself up from her train seat to head to the lavatory. Ron and Harry both give her a tight smile of encouragement.
The robes feel like costumes. They itch. She feels like a child.
You are a child. A child who fought in a war and won. But even as she thinks it, she knows it’s not true. She hasn’t been a child for a very long time.
She stares at herself in the mirror for a long moment— studying the dark circles under her eyes and the light sheen of sweat beading on her upper lip— and becomes conscious of the nausea pooling in her stomach. Her heart races in her chest and it takes every bit of her willpower to keep her knees from buckling as she grips the sink.
You are stronger than this. Get it together. It’s not the worst attack she’s had, and it passes quickly, but she’s still left panting for breath as her heart settles down and her skin cools once again. Another three breaths and she’s able to straighten her back and return to the train car— just in time for the whistle signaling their arrival at Hogwarts.
Hermione follows a few paces behind Harry and Ron as they disembark and wills herself to keep her eyes forward. Looking around would be too much— too many memories that would flood her mind all at once. As it is, there are too many stones that have been replaced, clean concrete where there were once bloodstains, and a cacophony of voices where there had once been silence.
Well, not silence exactly. She remembers the howling of the wind and the stuttering breaths of the fallen that whispered in the air after the battle had finished. It was a sound of grief— of mourning— tainted with the bitterness of a hard-won victory.
These sounds are different. The laughter, the senseless chatter and the excited clamor of footsteps feels out of place on hallowed ground. It unsettles her— makes her angry for reasons she can’t quite place.
She wishes more than anything that she could be like Harry and Ron— somehow able to compartmentalize— to cope— in a way that she just can’t. When she closes her eyes, she still sees Hogwarts as it was: crumbling bridge, blood stained floors, torn carpets and tapestries, bodies... so many bodies….
She supposes, for normal witches and wizards, that this return to the mundane normality of formal education would serve as a sufficient coping mechanism. In the past few years she’s become reliant on her own mind, her own thirst for knowledge, to get her through. Something about spending hours at a desk with professors preaching knowledge at her suddenly sounds nauseating.
She wonders— not for the first time— if she’s irreparably broken. She’s been through so much— seen and done so much— in the name of good and right that she isn’t so sure she’ll ever be able to identify with those things again.
But she can’t be the only one, can she? She finds herself casting glances around at the other students as they file into the Great Hall for the opening feast. Harry is still chattering with Ron— a little quieter, but bright and charismatic as always. Ron is...Ron— steady, a bit dense, and ever the optimist. Her eyes find Ginny ahead of them, and she’s catching up with Luna and Neville as if nothing had ever happened. Luna and Neville are attached at the hip, just as they had been since the end of the war. Luna is blushing and besotted, and Neville has... grown in personality as much as in physical stature.
Her eyes wander upwards, hoping the familiarity of the faces at the staff table-- Hagrid, Flitwick, McGonagall-- will somehow bring her a sort of comfort, and for a moment it does.
Until she locks with a pair of scrutinizing dark eyes.
She’s dressed in black robes— of course she is— and her hair is left loose with the exception of a braid on the side of her head above her ear. She looks just like she had in the Daily Prophet— her skin slightly warmer and the sockets of her eyes less sunken than during the war, but still as severe as ever. A slight smile pulls at the corner of Bellatrix’s lip, a response to some story McGonagall must be telling. The smile snaps Hermione out of the trance and replaces the daze with a look of indignation. The impassive expression slides back onto Bellatrix's face.
How dare she? How fucking dare that woman stand at the high table with that smile on her face after all she’s done? Hermione turns her face back to the table in front of her. Luckily no one notices her diverted attention and, it seems, no one has noticed the dark haired woman at the table either.
August 25th, 1998
Dearest Diary,
I truly hope you can hear the sarcasm coming through in my writing. At no point, and in no universe, will this insipid piece of Muggle parchment ever be dear to me. I don’t know you— the person I’m writing to— and I don’t particularly want to. I’m merely— as the Muggles say— jumping through hoops, like some sort of circus animal— to keep myself out of Azkaban. I'd rather be back on the couch in that insipid Muggle psychiatrist office.
You know that. I know that. Everyone knows that. This is not going to help me “heal” or become a “contributing member of society.” I’m long past that. I did the time at St. Mungo’s, the potions, the spells, and the exposure therapy. I spent a year in the Muggle world on my own. I’ve been without magic. If that’s not enough, then the chances of me contributing shite are incredibly low. I think the sooner we all agree on that the better.
You already have me here under the watchful eye of every Order member left alive, so what’s the point of forcing me to write about it? It’s not like they’ll let me live long enough for me to make any real emotional breakthroughs. Sure, McGonagall is convinced that I can be rehabilitated, but do you think she can be everywhere at once?
No, of course not. I don’t for a second believe you’re not counting on that.
Bellatrix looks up from the tattered red journal (yes, fucking red ) in front of her when the sound of children entering the Great Hall begins to assault her ears. She takes one last lingering look over the stone walls, fixing her eyes on the floating candles and basking in the last remnants of blissful quiet.
It would probably be better if the damned Ministry of Magic hadn’t spared absolutely no expense to return the castle to its original condition. Perhaps a pile of rubble in a corner? Or maybe a hole in the stone wall? A missing stair, then. Something, anything , to make it feel like the war had actually happened.
To make it seem like her sacrifices had meant something— that her shame came from somewhere and made sense. But it doesn’t mean anything. You picked the wrong side and even though you made a good choice when it counted, and your life is ruined for it. Instead, every physical indication that there had ever been a Battle of Hogwarts has been fixed— the only thing left to prove that the events had occurred was the absence of those that had been killed. Those that I killed. Bellatrix’s finger’s clutch absently at her robes.
Bella finds herself smiling ruefully in spite of herself, listening to McGonagall's animated chatter as she stands with the rest of the staff to watch the students file in and sit with their houses. So many young eyes are drifting towards her and twinkling with trepidation— no, blatant fear . She knows she should be ashamed— that she should shrink away and insist that she isn’t a threat— but who would she be if she did that? Not Bellatrix fucking Black, that’s for sure. Some part of her revels in it— becomes lighthearted and dizzy at the thought of once again being something worthy of fear.
Of once again feeling power .
She inclines her chin and forces her hands to stay by her sides, keeping her face impassively polite as she scans the room for faces that she recognizes. She won’t admit to herself that she’s desperately grasping for any sense of familiarity that she can find.
Her eye is quickly drawn to a shock of red hair— the Weasley boy— followed closely by Potter. The two look… well adjusted, in the oddest way. As war heroes, Bella had been expecting them to carry themselves with a sense of pride and pomposity, but that’s the opposite of what she sees.
Warmth. Humility. A general meekness that comes from experiencing the pain of loss.
She feels a pang of some unidentifiable emotion stab into her chest and looks away from them, her eyes continuing down the line of students.
She’s almost shocked when she sees her— can’t believe she’s actually allowed herself to be a pawn to the Ministry’s pathetic attempt at recovery— but then she thinks better of it. Of course she came back. What better way to hide the grief than to drown yourself in knowledge?
Upon first glance, Hermione Granger looks the same as she once did— thin with high freckled cheekbones and a dainty pointed chin. Fawn colored eyes and rosy lips…
Lips twisted open in a scream. Forehead cinched between her eyes as she writhes on the cold unforgiving tile. Bella’s own mad laughter echoing through the halls of the manor, somehow louder than the girl’s screams. The surge of power coursing through her body as she takes everything that the girl has to give her…
No. Bella shakes her head lightly. She can’t go back to that. She’s just gotten her wand back, and she won’t risk losing it. But the puny spells my wand is allowed are nothing compared to the monster I was. A fucking tease— that’s what it is.
She closes her eyes—breathes deeply— bringing herself back to his study of the Ms. Granger in front of her. She’s dressed in her Gryffindor robes, neatly pressed of course, and her uniform regulation dress shoes— ever the model student. How delicious . Bella winces, shutting the intrusive thoughts off once again.
But Granger looks so… uncomfortable . She’s pulling at the tie around her neck as if it’s choking her, wringing her hands, and running fingers through her neatly tamed mane of curls. Her dark rimmed eyes are darting around the room like a trapped animal mapping out an escape plan, and her friends don’t even seem to notice. Potter and Weasley are too busy laughing with one another and waving to old friends to see their Golden Girl struggling to keep her wits about her.
And then she stops, and she’s staring at Bella.
And she looks— broken. So broken.
So much like the expression she sees in her own eyes when she looks in the mirror in the early morning hours when the nightmares wake her. It’s clear that the war is still just as present for her as it is for Bella— that unlike her friends, she has not put a bandage on her pain and tried to shove it in a closet.
If Granger is still falling apart, even though she had been on the winning side, then maybe Bella isn’t a pathetic excuse for a witch. Maybe she’s still allowed to feel pain. No. You inflict the pain. You don’t feel it.
She doesn’t know how long their eyes stay locked— her breath caught in her chest the entire time— but it could’ve been hours and she wouldn’t have cared. She watches as Granger’s expression shifts from something unreadable into a squint— as if she’s searching for something in Bella’s gaze. She doesn’t know what she expects to find there— there’s nothing left of her anyway.
She only stops her inspection when Weasley grabs her by the arm and pulls her to their table for the feast to begin.
Bella wonders why she should be bothered by the Weasley boy touching her.
The Mark on her arm burns, and as she sits down behind her own place setting, she finds herself filled with an overwhelming sense of shame.
Before she can sink into her usual pit of despair, she hears the tinkling of glass as McGonagall politely calls the banquet to order. A silence falls in the Great Hall as she begins to speak.
“Good evening students, and welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I have a few words to share before we begin the evening’s ceremonies.” She pauses, clearing her throat. “I would like to extend a warm welcome to those of you that are returning to complete your seventh year, and an equally warm welcome to those of you entering Hogwarts for the very first time.”
Minerva continues her welcome speech— announcing quidditch try-outs, forbidden zones, etc— and Bella tunes her out. Turning her brain to elevator music has been a particular talent of hers for decades. She tunes back in when the staff introductions begin.
“And this year, we’d like to welcome a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Black.” The silence in the room shifts— no longer the silence of attentive students, and rather the deafening silence of a room full of survivors of the war she’d helped wage a little over a year ago.
“What in the bloody hell is she doing here?” It’s the Weasley boy, shouting over the silence. His words cause an immediate burst of outrage from the students. It’s chaos— pandemonium even— and Bella revels in it. Yes, be afraid. Scream. Cry. Run away from big bad Bella.
No. She shakes her head, maintaining a straight face and refusing to give them the satisfaction of reacting. It was in the Prophet for Merlin’s sake. Do none of these children read? They have no idea what she’s been through— no idea who she is beneath the shroud of madness that had clouded her for decades. Hell, she barely knows either.
“ Silence!” The echoing sound of Minerva’s voice falls over the students, and slowly the roar of voices quiets down. “Now, I understand what you might be feeling,” she says, her voice brokering no argument, “however, rest assured that Ms. Black’s presence at Hogwarts has been determined by the Ministry and myself to be not only safe, but also an incredible asset to your education. I expect all of you to maintain decency and decorum in her classes and focus on your own education.”
What a nice way to tell them to mind their own fucking business. Minerva always did have a way of bringing a horse to heel.
Bella sits, once again tuning out as Minerva finishes the staff introductions and the students slowly turn their attention to the feast in front of them. It’s not long before the laughter and lighthearted conversation returns.
She spends the rest of the meal with her mind closed off, the only image in her mind a pair of curious caramel eyes.