Archive of Our Own ^beta

War was knocking at her door, a steady rythm pounding right next to her heart. They would be here, soon. But she couldn't have her here. Couldn't bear to hear the halls filled with laughter and shouts of 'crucio' that never stopped, never relented, didn't quiet down until insanity silenced them all. She needed to find her. She had no idea where Harry was, and Ron had said he was off to somewhere that sounded suspiciously like "chamber of secrets". Hermione let them go. She had a different fight in mind.

She apparated in front of Malfoy Manor, white peacocks floating over the grass like little ghosts in the night. Where would she be? They had been here before, not long ago, Hermione knew. Her blood still recalled the taste of Bella's knife cutting into her veins. Carving out the letters. Slicing into someone's heart. She found her in the hallway just in time.

"Going somewhere?" Hermione asked, as the woman spun around, a curse on her lips she had no wand to perform. Hermione supposed killing had become an instinct.

"Come to die at my hands, dear? How sweet.", the woman drawled, wandless maybe but never, ever unarmed. Being conscious alone had become a weapon a long time ago.

"I've come to kill you."

Maybe stating it was stupid, maybe she was jinxing her first murder, but Hermione had never been a liar.

"I see.", the woman replied calmly, smoothing down robes that would undeniably wear blood no matter how this ended. Was she reaching for a weapon? Hermione lifted her wand.

"Bellatrix Lestrange, I hereby-"

"That's not my name."

"What?" Hermione halted, she had never been able to shut the book before the end of the story, and if there was something, anything Bella hadn't yet told her, she had to know. A slow smile spread over the woman's face because she knew, and knowledge was power. But she was willing to share, for once.

"Haven't you heard? I'm back to Black, darling. Since you and your friends killed my husband last summer when you tried to get Holy Potter out of that filthy muggle place... Consider me enraged."

But she didn't look enraged. This was far too close to something else, Hermione could see, because they were standing far too close and she could look right into Bella's eyes. She chased the words but they escaped her, lost to the other woman's smile that would cut apart the letters and twist them into lies. She did love her twisted little games, and if this truly were to be her last one, then she would play it. 

She started circling Hermione, taking in the last thing she would ever see and oh, what a sight. So kind. So gentle. "So powerful.", she said, coming to a halt in front of her. "You could do so much, dearie. If you'd just let yourself." She could walk those halls and own the ministry, tear it down and rebuild it after her own design, if she would just stop being such a goddamn hero. But Bella already knew that she wouldn't. That much was evident, atleast for now. And still Hermione stood there, saying nothing. Frozen in place even as warm lips met her own when Bella kissed her, and people called her cold.

"I believe you were about to kill me.", Bella murmered against her lips, and there it was, life as it can only be seen when it stands right in front of death. Hermione kissed Bella back as if she meant to kill her with this, this crushing passion that had always suffocated Bella until she could no longer breathe, but she could still do this. Her kisses were just like the woman herself, executed with prodigious skill and no conscience. No remorse.

And then there was Hermione, the brightest witch of her age, the one who would change the world and make it all better if only she gave up on being a better person. What is the death of a single conscience if it dies for the good of all? The last thing Bella ever wanted to see was this surrender, the last thing she ever wanted to know was that she had won.

That even in death, she left her legacy with the last person anyone expected. It would be a more permanent memorial than even the Dark Lord could grant his best lieutenant.

Hermione raised her wand and even though some part of her, somewhere deep down knew that Bella wanted this, she took her life and everything that came with it.

"Avada Kedavra."

The words were out before she could take them back, green light flashing and illuminating an everlasting, victorious smile. Hermione gently laid Bella's body down on the floor, to be found by her sister when she came home from the war, home to another casualty.

Hermione felt a flicker of regret before the darkness took over, overshadowing her doubts and anything else that had ever held her back. Nothing would stop her now. She regarded Bella with a small smile of her own. In so many ways, she would always be her first. She stepped over the corpse towards the door, leaving no one alive and nothing behind but for two little words that would fade in the darkness.

"Thank you."