Dark Desires

Chapter 14

"Bellatrix", Hermione tasted the name while gazing into the dark abyss where the corpse had just disappeared, "why did you kill him?"

"Because I'm insane, remember?" Bellatrix laughingly retorted. Hermione was tired of parading around subjects with the former death eater. Of course, whether Bellatrix was indeed considered medically deranged was up to debate, but that could not be the sole reason for murdering someone, even in Bellatrix's case. No, there had to be something else.

"Please." Hermione was facing the dark witch now, her voice not much more than a whisper.

Bellatrix rolled her eyes and almost decided against disclosing her motives. But something about the girl's beckoning eyes and the soft night-breeze convinced her otherwise. "He became more than I had bargained for." She didn't elaborate further and Hermione was left to decipher whatever this sentence meant.

Before Hermione could really wrap her head around all the unspoken sentences hanging in the air, Bellatrix had slid down onto the wrought iron bench overlooking the pond. She was staring intensely at something in the water while her fingers wrapped and unwrapped themselves methodically around her wrist. What she was thinking about, Hermione could not say, and for a moment she wished she had been the one receiving legilimency lessons from Snape.

The jealousy she had felt for Stefano dissolved as her still-not-entirely-sober mind realised that Bellatrix had killed him because he had done something to her. Exactly what he had done was still unclear, but perhaps she would hear the entire story some day in the future. But for now, she understood as much as she needed to, and her envy was no longer a problem. The dimwit was dead, anyway.

She sat down beside the other woman and for a second, she could feel Bellatrix right there, next to her in all her might and glory. Her smell wafted over her, intense and sudden. It couldn't be. She smelled of cinnamon and passion fruit and mahogany and brown sugar. An odd combination, and one that Hermione had only smelled once before in her life; in an Advanced Potionmaking-class. At the time, she had been too nervous to tell the truth about what she smelled (she had lied, and said that she smelled toothpaste and Ron's expired, sickeningly sweet eau de cologne). But there had been no doubt: cinnamon, passion fruit, mahogany and brown sugar had filled her nostrils. Cinnamon, passion fruit, mahogany, brown sugar, Hermione recited again and again. Cinnamon, passion fruit, mahogany, brown sugar. It was impossible; how had she not noticed this earlier?

Bellatrix's long fingernails bore themselves continually into the pale skin of her wrist, leaving red crescents, and, after a while, tiny droplets of blood. Hermione observed, still in shock at her personal discovery. She didn't know what to say - if she were to mention Stefano, or the smells, or the stupid love-potion that had made no sense to her at the time, but suddenly did. She settled on keeping her mouth shut about the potion, and instead drew closer and, in the same movement, laid her head carefully on the distracted woman's shoulder. The shoulder, and the body attached to it, stiffened immediately. The nails stopped moving and neither of the two women breathed. Hermione shut her eyes, expecting the worst, what was she thinking? She had an imminent death-wish, for certain. Seconds passed. Hermione could not force herself to move.

After what seemed like hours, the body beside her resumed breathing, and the moment of terror was over at last. Hermione opened her eyes again, slowly, deliberately. She had been granted permission to the Underworld. She stood at the gates where the three-headed dog, Cerberus, had decided to let her pass this time, and now she wanted to step inside; dig deeper; poke at some ancient, dark magic; catch Hades at his darkest, deepest, break him open. And, lastly, love him as intimately as the frightfulness of the Underworld would allow. Misunderstood god of the Underworld, an unspoken truce, ceasefire in dark sheets with black nails digging into pale skin and sweat dripping from beautiful crevices of the face.

Hades was a woman, Hermione thought, with black, untamed hair, and the most alluring composition of scents. She placed her hand very, very carefully on Bellatrix's maimed wrist, and concentrated all her power and energy to perform the simple, wandless magic Professor McGonagall had taught her. The droplets of blood melted into the white, soft skin, and the crescent-shaped marks faded until no trace was left on her true love's wrist. 

Now remained only the question of what they would do next.