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Chapter Text

For as long as she could remember, Bellatrix knew she was going to marry a man.
Rodolphus Lestrange, to be exact, only five years older and far away enough in the family tree as to not raise too many eyebrows.
The betrothal agreement was signed the day after her first year at Hogwarts, once they knew she was a Slytherin and not a complete dunce, but preparation for that had begun when she was merely a babe. Her third birthday, one of her earliest memories, Rodolphus shows up at the house, his younger brother Rabastan trailing behind. He has two presents with him, a poorly wrapped box of artisan Italian chocolate for Bella and her sisters to share, and a smaller box in neat silver paper. This was just for Bella. Her father had to unwrap the box. Andromeda watched on, solemn six year old eyes, baby Narcissa reaching out for the shiny silver paper. The ring was too big for Bellatrix’s tiny hands, so she’s worn it on a chain around her neck since then. She wonders if she’ll ever grow into it.

Rodolphus is a prefect when she joins Hogwarts, and the light reflects off his prefect badge, blinding Bellatrix when she first sees it. Andromeda sighs and joins a carriage with a Hufflepuff, of all people. Bella can’t go into the prefect’s carriage, but she doesn’t really want to anyway. Everyone’s loud and laughing. They don’t have an image - they don’t care about an image to uphold. Bella tags along with Rabastan, but doesn’t talk to the others in the carriage, Slytherins and Ravenclaws sharing notes on their summer experiments. She stares out the window and recounts the contents of her suitcase in her mind. Her father made sure she’d have everything she’d want to succeed.

Her sorting is relatively uneventful, less than a minute passes before she joins the table of silver and green. Andromeda smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and Bellatrix pretends not to notice. Bella makes a fast friend in Clytemnestra “Temi” Zabini, two pairs of sharp brown eyes and quick-witted remarks that bounce off each other with ease, cutting farther than skin-deep in those who dare to make the girls an enemy. The other girls in her house, Dolores and Rita and Charity, form a tight-knit trio in their first year. Lines are drawn and bridges aren’t crossed until a few years later. Bella and Temi have kept to themselves; the other girls make friends with boys, and not just Slytherin ones. This leads to petty arguments that all come to a head in their third year. Bella doesn’t need to worry about adolescent relationships, not like the other girls concern themselves with.

Rodolphus didn’t get Head Boy like he wanted, Rabastan informs her in the corner of a summers dinner party, as his older brother steadily drinks a magically-replenishing whisky. It went to a half-blood Gryffindor, and Bella wrinkles her nose in disgust. She goes over to Rodolphus, long black gown trailing on the floor, a masquerade of maturity. Thirteen years old, she props Rodolphus up as they walk into the gardens, Rabastan and Andromeda watching from the window. The alcohol catches up with him, and he’s sick in the Malfoy’s fountain, Bellatrix murmuring words of consolation. She’s never been alone with a boy before, but she wears Rodolphus’ ring around her neck.
“Thanks Bella,” he says, eyes not totally focusing on hers. His hand is on her waist as they walk back inside, and Bellatrix sees her father smile. She feels nothing at his touch.

When she comes back for fourth year, everything changes. Rita and Charity and Dolores have fractioned. Charity spends all her time with the Ravenclaws, Dolores has made friends with the Carrow twins in the year below. Bella and Temi watch everything from afar, until alongside them appears Rita. It’s a gradual relationship, and Bella wouldn’t say they’re necessarily friends, but she sits with them at Christmas. Before they break up for the holidays, Slughorn hosts a Slytherin Christmas dinner party. Andromeda and Charity don’t show, and the girls avoid Dolores, lest they get poked in the eye by the giant ruffles on her dress (plus her and Rita still aren’t talking). Bella sees Rodolphus, in his final year, across the room, and they smile at each other. Narcissa, in her first year, watches her sister dance with her betrothed. Rita watches too.

Bella’s first kiss comes at the end of fourth year. She’s sitting with Temi, and Rita’s there too, next to the lake, working on their astronomy homework. It’s not really work for Bella, who’s known the stars before she could walk, but she likes to make her star charts as neat as possible, and that takes time. The O.W.L and N.E.W.T students are nearing the end of their exams, and Bellatrix has cards for her sister and the Lestrange brothers when they finish. She remembers sitting in the library at home when she was younger, watching her mother write a card for her cousin when he finished his N.E.W.T exams. She’s putting the final touches to the chart, delicate calligraphy decorating the page, and takes great satisfaction from seeing how much better it looks than Rita’s messy efforts. A commotion from the castle doors, as a group of N.E.W.T students leave, their final exam behind them. Gryffindors whoop and cheer, Hufflepuffs send small fireworks up from their wands. She sees Rodolphus walking behind them, back straight and face expressionless.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” she tells her friends, and goes over to him.
“Bella, charming as ever,” greets Rodolphus. He smiles with all of his teeth.
“I wanted to give you this,” she says, feeling suddenly shy. She can hear other Slytherin girls whispering nearby. She tries not to look at them, short skirts and eyeliner now in their older years. One of the girls has tied her shirt up high, showing a belly button piercing with a snake charm. Her name’s Anactoria, Bella remembers, as Rodolphus reads out the short message she’d written inside the card. He leans over to kiss her on the cheek in gratitude, but she turns her head, and lips meet lips, a hand rises to a waist, and Bella doesn’t take her eyes off Anactoria. It’s the first time she feels something when Rodolphus touches her. Temi and Rita don’t comment on her flushed cheeks when she returns.

It’s O.W.L. year for Bellatrix. Andy and Rabastan are in their final year. Rodolphus has a position at The Ship, a wizarding private equity firm. Because he’s not around school anymore, Bellatrix doesn’t see him nearly as much, and after her first meeting with Anactoria, she doesn’t wear his ring as much either. Anactoria MacNair is the older cousin of a boy in Bella’s year. She has straight jet-black hair and sparkling green eyes, and as well as the belly-button charm, a lower back tattoo of a snake. The first time that they properly make each other’s acquaintance is at a Halloween party, and emboldened by the firewhiskey that Rabastan had smuggled in (but only let her try in moderation), she goes over to the older girl. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do, or what’s going to happen, but to Bella, it felt like the right thing to do. They’re both dressed as vampires too, a sure omen that they’re meant to talk. They’re meant to bite, to taste each other. She stumbles into her dorm room at 2am, and ignores Rita’s disapproving glare. She doesn’t wash off the lipstick stains until the morning.

Bella doesn’t stop to think about her father’s opinions. She finds it liberating, having something more important than a reputation. Maybe it hurts a little when she sees Anactoria talking with other people in the corridor, a friendly pat on the cheek or arm around the shoulder. That’s me who should be touching her, Bella seethes, longing for the night to fall and she can feel Anactoria’s skin beneath her own once again. She can forget the Black family legacy, the ring on her bedside table, and be her entire self all at once, no façade necessary when the lights are off and the temperature’s high.

The MacNair’s are new money, never at the head of the table, but they’re invited. It’s the Lestrange’s New Year’s Gala, and the Black sisters show up in full force. Andromeda has a deep yellow dress, brown curls pressed tightly against her head, and Bellatrix doesn’t see her for most of the night. Narcissa is in a pastel pink gown, and spends most of her time on the dancefloor. Bellatrix has one dance with Rodolphus, desperately aching for the rush she felt in their first kiss. But looking at him is nothing like looking at Anactoria. She can put on a smile, paint a perfect face, but that doesn’t make it real. She murmurs something about ill-fitting shoes, although he doesn’t seem too bothered at her disinterest, swiftly making his way to the drawing room, where she knows the liquor cabinet is, when she leaves. She tried to ignore the whisky already on his breath when he kissed her cheek. It’d soon be overpowered by another’s perfume, anyway. It’s a good thing Bella’s been here before, because she knows the right hiding spot to take Anactoria. She doesn’t quite manage to tie up the ribbons on her corset correctly afterwards, but it doesn’t matter too much anyway. They assume she was with Rodolphus, seeing as his ring is around her finger. They don’t know it was another woman's touch that left her cheeks red and her eyes sparkling.

Anactoria graduates, and Bella moves on. She’s in her first year of N.E.W.T study, and needs to focus. But her mind keeps wandering, into a bed with blonde curls and green eyes. She tries not to notice when her and Rita’s shoulders brush in Astronomy, or when her amortentia smells of ink. Rodolphus’ ring burns a circle around her finger. Temi seems to notice something is different, but is more focused on her own courtship with a well-to-do Ravenclaw. Rita doesn’t seem interested in anyone, Bella notices, and the two grow closer. What was previously annoying habits turn into endearing quirks, and though her parentage is questionable, Bella can’t seem to get the other girl out of her head. And if the way Rita’s hand edges onto Bella’s thigh under the table, or her eyes keep flitting to Bella’s plump lips whenever they talk is any indication, the feeling is mutual.

Bella normally only goes down into Hogsmeade to get supplies from Scrivenshafts (and restock her secret stash of black pepper imps), but when Rita casually suggests they go for afternoon tea on the next Hogsmeade weekend, she agrees as if it’s an ordinary weekend activity. Nobody needs to know that she spent an hour choosing that v-neck black top and navy silk skirt, or that she left her betrothed’s ring at the bottom of her bedside drawer, next to the one letter she received from Anactoria after graduation.

Madame Puddifoots is not what she expected, Rita is very quick to stress, when they walk in, and though the decor is rather aggressive, Bella doesn’t mind it. They have a heart-shaped table with heart-shaped scones and heart-shaped cucumber sandwiches, so it’s definitely over the top, but Bella realises there’s nobody else she could picture sitting there with. There’s no bar for Rodolphus, her sisters wouldn’t fit around the table, and though she and Anactoria spent a lot of lovely time together, they never really… talked. Bella can talk to Rita. Her eyes provide a nice distraction the from the naked cherubs on the walls, and later she is a nice dessert after the sandwiches. It’s a bit awkward when Temi comes in with her current flame, but Bellatrix carries it off well enough. Bella buys Rita a new quill, and when they walk back up to the castle, Rita’s hand finds Bella’s, at least until they see the now-graduated Rabastan coming out of the Three Broomsticks with some friends. Bella tries to appear sympathetic when she hears Rodolphus has lost his position at The Ship, and Rita tries to act like hearing his name doesn’t make her want to cry.

They have two years of this. Two years of secret trysts in unused classrooms, two years of walking to Hogsmeade with fingers intertwined, two years of knowing every detail of each other’s body, and then comes the final exam. It’s Astronomy, Bella’s favourite, although Rita struggles to draw the charts, she helps her revise, until they get distracted. Bella learns a special charm that means the ink doesn’t get smudged. They spend a lot of time plotting the stars. They get tattoos of stars from a Ravenclaw at a party, which seems to help Rita remember. Bella is one of the first to leave the exam, breathing a sigh of relief under a tree by the lake. She remembers sitting there three years before, walking over to Rodolphus, seeing Anactoria for the first time. This time it’s Rita that walks out of those doors, and comes over to her. This time, it’s Rita who kisses her cheek. This time, it’s their matching stars that sit on her skin, not a ring that doesn’t feel like hers.

Chapter Text

On Friday 13th, Margarita marries Isabella. They’re five years old and inseparable, and in a playground ceremony conducted by Isabella’s brother, Isaac, they exchange rings made of woven grass and put daises in each other’s hair. It doesn’t occur to Rita that two girls can’t get married until she gets home and tells her Mum about her day. She doesn’t talk about her friend Bella so much again after that.

She’s ten years old, and walking home alone. Bella and Isaac moved away two years ago, and she still wears a daisy necklace, Bella has a matching one, that she’ll never see again. Rita’s a bit of an outcast at school, bad luck manifesting wherever she goes. This walk home is an example - an owl has been following her. They’re nocturnal, and majestic creatures like this don’t often fly around her council flats, they stick to the parks on the other side of the city. She’s used to animals like Beetle, her sphynx cat. But the owl is relentless, following her all the way to the door, watching her walk inside with unblinking orange eyes. A letter appears in her postbox the next day. This letter changes her life forever.

Rita’s been on the train a few times before, to places like Brighton and Blackpool, but never one this shiny and red, with such an odd-looking group of people. She’s sure that boy was carrying a frog, and another girl had what looked like rats peeking out the pockets of her cloak. Rita kisses her mother goodbye, a daisy and a cross around her neck, and manages to find a seat in an empty carriage next to some other new kids.

Charity grew up in a ‘half-and-half’ household, she explains, a magical mother and ‘Muggle’ father, childhood sweethearts who reunited after Hogwarts separated them for seven long years. Rita raises a hand to her daisy necklace and smiles. Walden comes from a wizarding family, and his cousin is a couple years ahead of them. She looks into the carriage to check on him, during the journey. Charity and Rita look at her makeup and hair with the green tips in wonder - she’s 13 already, and seems very grown up to their 11. Frank’s also from a wizarding family, and he’s the one who introduces her to the house system. Rita likes the sound of Ravenclaw, and she hopes she doesn’t go to Gryffindor because the colour red washes her out. Frank says he didn’t care as long as it wasn’t Slytherin, and that’s when Walden decided to say that’s where his whole family is, which makes the rest of the journey slightly awkward.

Rita’s a hat-stall. She learns this term afterwards from Charity, and another new girl from across the table with curly black hair gives her a once-over. The hat talks to her for ages,(it talks in her head!), asking her questions that it seems to know the answer for, anyway. Things like ‘What do you hope to get out of coming to this school’ and ‘tell me about yourself on three words’ and ‘if you were an animal…?’. Ok, so maybe not that last one, but sometimes the telepathic discussion did feel in line with those quizzes in her mother’s magazines. She ends up in Slytherin, is delighted to be seated next to Charity, although the side-eyes from the red table behind her aren’t the easiest to ignore. Fifth year prefects show them where to go, their homes for the next seven years, and Rita settles into the green and silver like a second skin. Or maybe a third skin. It’s not the tightest fit, but she’ll make do. Her mother always taught her to make the best of what you have.

Rita becomes friends with the other girls in her house and year, Charity and Dolores. There’s two other girls in their dorm, Bellatrix and Clytemnestra, who have much more affected accents and posher clothes than Rita and her friends. Charity is easygoing and kind, but doesn’t take any nonsense and is always first to defend her friends. Dolores is giggly and emotional, the only member of the group to have brought a cat with her, a Persian cat who hisses at everyone except Dolores and Temi. The three of them become fast friends in the intense way that girls do, nail painting and secret sharing and truth or daring to no end. They do homework together in the library or at the lakeside, share clothes on the weekends,(practice kissing once or twice when they’re in third year), and according to their teachers are like three peas in a pod. But then comes third year. Then comes boys.

Walden MacNair. Gilderoy Lockhart. Galeus Parkinson. Xenophilius Lovegood. One for each of them, and a spare, Dolores explains, as she draws up her Plan of Action. Over the summer, when her sister got married, she realised they’ve fallen behind on the romance front, at their big age of 13. Rita, who’s Mother told her not to touch a boy until she turned sixteen is surprised, but Charity appears so disinterested and Dolores has such a detailed flip chart and eager expression that she puts her Mother’s words aside and listens. However, something gets lost in translation among the way, because Rita and Dolores show up to the Halloween party both expecting to be Walden’s date, leaving poor Galeus Parkinson alone at the snack table. This is only the beginning of a year of bickering and squabbling between Rita and Dolores, both competing for an ideal over a reality, and Charity slowly distances herself from the unnecessary drama. She knows they have time to figure themselves out. She hopes they’ll do it sooner, rather than later, though.

So for the rest of third year, despite their arguments, Rita and Dolores still call each other friend. But a rope can only be so frayed until it breaks, and it turns out their knot wasn’t very tight to begin with. Summer rolls around with a heatwave. The castle aches and groans in the relentless and dry summer heat, the teachers work out an air cooling charm that is maintained 24/7, and tempers are short. The students are given permission to swim in the lake because of the high temperatures, the merfolk and other assorted mystical creatures not wanting to be that close to the surface anyway, preferring to stay down in the cool shadows of the lake floor. The boys are trying to do cool tricks and show off, failing more than succeeding, the girls laughing from the other side of the lake. A sixth year Ravenclaw brings out an enchanted record player, and bubbly music fills the space. One splash is aimed, a carefully pointed aguamenti is cast, and soon a school-wide water fight breaks out. It’s in the chaos of this that Dolores pushes Rita out the way to reach Walden, or perhaps Rita throws some kelp in her eyes first, nobody could really tell, but in the excitement, a fight breaks out. There’s a moment of stunned silence when the first blood is drawn, Rita raising a shocked hand to her shoulder where the ring on the other girls hand grazed, and then the mood changes. It’s lost the slightly light-hearted edge from before. They’re grittier, more feral, a year’s worth of anger bubbling over all at once. Charity can’t just watch anymore, she goes to Rita to pull her back. Walden, who was enjoying the girls vying for his attention, doesn’t actually want them to get hurt, and leads a blubbering Dolores away. Nothing is the same after that, between any of them, and for the first time Rita spends the rest of term just waiting to go home.

Bella and Isaac are staying with their grandma for the summer - their grandma, who lives on the ground floor of the same block of flats as Rita and her mum. She must’ve misplaced that daisy necklace years ago, Bella laughs, and Rita’s smile doesn’t falter. Three years in Slytherin will teach you how to perform. Isaac notices though, the lingering looks and longing stares. He knows there’s unfinished business, and one day, the girls find themselves alone in a room. The first time they’ve seen each other or been alone together for six years, eight when parted, fourteen for the summer, and hey, Isaac points out before he leaves, technically you guys are still married. Bella laughs again - she does that a lot, even when things aren’t funny, Rita has realised - but he says enough. They’re together and fourteen for a summer, first kiss shared under a streetlight, and then it’s time for Bella to leave again. I’ll call, she promises. Don’t bother, says Rita. There’s no phone box in Hogsmeade. Autumn comes, she gets on the red train, it doesn’t seem so shiny anymore. Isabella is a girl of her past, she has to leave once again. This time there’s no coming back and Rita needs to look to the future.

Bellatrix is the first person she sees on the train, sitting in a carriage with a younger blonde girl. Rita soon finds out that this is her sister, a chatty and bright-eyed pretty little thing who seems oblivious to Bellatrix’s scoffs and eye rolls. Rita tries to engage with the younger girl, remembering what she felt like that first train journey to Hogsmeade, but her eyes keep wandering over to the girl with the curly black hair and odd necklace. It’s a ring on a ribbon, antique gold - Rita’s always had an eye for that kind of thing, if not the budget. She almost asks what it is, but Temi, completing the dwellers of this particular carriage, sees Rita eyeing it and almost imperceptibly shakes her head.

Temi and Bella don’t exactly welcome her with open arms, but Rita is nothing but lonely and persistent, and by Christmas she can call them her friends. At night in her head, maybe Bella is more, but during the day, she’s happy with where they are. They study together in the summer out by the lakeside. N.E.W.T exams finish, and Bella goes to greet an older boy, Rodolphus. Rita has seen them around together before. She assumes they’re cousins, but doesn’t actually know the nature of their relationship for certain. She turns to Temi, also watching the pair with shrewd brown eyes, who anticipates her question with ease.
“They’ll be married before you ever build up the courage to ask Bellatrix out,” she says with brutal honestly, not even batting an eyelid. Rita, who thought she’d been hiding any feelings and didn’t realise childhood betrothals still existed, is too shocked to formulate a verbal response. When she turns back to look at the couple, their lips are locked, his hand around her waist. For the second time in two years, Rita can’t wait to go home.

Fifth year only gets worse. Rodolphus has graduated, so at least she won’t have to see his obnoxious face around, knowing what she knows now. On the other hand, Bella no longer wears the ring around her neck, but on her finger, and Rita knows now what it’s for. Every day, she notices as Bellatrix puts it on, until Halloween night, when the other girl comes stumbling in at 2am, moonlight revealing lipstick stains under her collar. Rita saw her disappear with Walden’s cousin Anactoria earlier on in the night, and can’t tell whether she’s feeling more relief or jealousy in that moment (it’s jealousy). Bella disappears with Anactoria again the next weekend, and on her birthday in late November, and soon it’s a pattern that Rita gets used to. She doesn’t know if Temi knows, but every time Bella has a new lipstick stain under her collar or sparkle in her eyes, Rita can’t help but wish it was her who put it there.

“This isn’t about Bellatrix Black,is it?” Charity asks, scrapbook in hand.
“Give that back!” Rita screeches, and they fall into a giggling pile on her bed.
Friendships made and broken can be made again in the absence of scars, Charity and Rita have discovered, and Charity has come to stay with Rita the week before they go back to school to begin their N.E.W.T studies. This means that Charity has found her poetry collection, which Rita didn’t have the foresight to hide - or perhaps her subconscious wanted to share it with somebody, seeing as Rita’s mother wouldn’t take too kindly to the kind of poems Rita’s been writing lately. Stuck on her wall are those currently in progress, and she sticks those finished into a scrapbook, inspiration, notes and photos on the opposite page. There might be some about a girl called Bella in there, but you’d be hard pressed to find out from Rita herself, unless you held the book in your own hand, like one lucky Miss Burbage did in that moment.
“I knew a Bella growing up,” says Rita truthfully. She never was a very good liar to the people she truly cared for. “We were… very close.” A wistful smile passes across her face, and Charity understands, doesn’t see the need to press any further. Dismisses it, even.
“That’s all right then,” she says. “As long as you’re not mixing with the Black family. Dark magic runs through their blood. These poems aren’t half bad, Rita.”

The mood is different when they go back to school for sixth year. Anactoria’s graduated, there’s a space open in Bella’s life, and Rita is determined to fulfil what she needs. She’s never really done this before, flirting and such, not since the whole Walden-Dolores fiasco. Even then, she muses, that wasn’t about a boy. It was never about a boy, not for Rita. She just wanted to feel part of something. Bella could make her feel special, she does, when she looks up beneath her lashes when their knees knock under a table, and Rita knows it’s meant to be. Temi’s words come back to her: ‘married before you ask Bella out’. Rita won’t let that happen.

Potions, under Professor Slughorn. Bella and Rita find themselves working together more often than not, these days. It’s going smoothly, easy talking and casual touches, not crossing the line yet but Rita toes it as much as she can, whilst Bella will let her. She knows what the other girls say about her blood, about her clothes, and hopes that Bella’s dedication to the Black family legacy is still softened from her time with Anactoria. She’s thinking about this one afternoon, as Bella draws a flower onto the desk, when Slughorn announces the next week’s project, and both their heads snap up at the same time, blonde and black curls bouncing in shock. A love potion? Rita and Bella look at each other at the same time. They’re both clever, they both know what’s growing between them, this might the final push. Whether they let it take them over the edge, or cling onto the cliffside, nails digging into the dirt - now, that’s another matter.

January arrives, and they’re still hanging on to what they know. Charity has voiced her concerns to her privately, warning her about the Black family reputation, but Rita doesn’t care. She’s not her mother, Bellatrix can’t be her father, the way she helps her with astronomy and presses her arm against Rita’s when they sit together in the Great Hall. Charity sits with the Ravenclaws now, but they still make time to hang out together. One such day, Bella at Duelling Club, Temi is in the library with her Ravenclaw boyfriend, and Dolores is out showing off her new cat to their housemates. Charity and Rita are painting their nails and giggling, but then there’s a lull in the conversation, and Rita knows what comes next.

“You and Bella are getting closer,” Charity says. “I just want what’s best for you - and attaching yourself to such an antiquated institution of the Black family can’t be healthy. Bella’s engaged! They’re blood supremacists!”

“Bella’s not like that,” Rita retorts. “She just wants to keep the peace between her family and herself.”

Charity raises an unconvinced eyebrow. “So, she’s complicit, is what you’re saying.”

Rita frowns. “What can she do? You know how strict pureblood society is. I think her resistance to turn into her father so far shows that she’s different-“

“Or maybe that’s just what you’re convincing yourself.” Charity sighs, places a consoling hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “The thing that worries me about Bella is that the things she says don’t seem to match up with her actions. That’s a very political, masculine trait - in other words, to me, her inner repulsion towards her father has made her blind to their similarities, and she doesn’t seem to care to improve herself.”

Rita is saved of formulating a response by Temi’s arrival, although from the looks of it she’s been stood there a little while, leaning against the doorframe of the dorm room.

“Charity, darling, there’s clearly a lot you don’t understand about Bella’s family. She’s got such a legacy to uphold, what with Andromeda running off with a Hufflepuff, she’s the eldest now, and her cousin Sirius - that’s the oldest boy of their generation - well, from the sounds of it, he’s a proper rabble-rouser. None of us can attempt to understand the pressures she’s under; perhaps acting in contrary to her own desires is her means of survival. She doesn’t want Rodolphus; he’s a sleazy drunk. She doesn’t what her father wants. Rita,” - she turns to Rita, leaving Charity with a pensive expression on her face - “you and Bella bring out the best in each other. Don’t shy away from the truth.”

“But it’s not the best for her-“ Charity protests, and the sound of footsteps in the corridor make them fall silent.

Bella walks in, eyes sparkling with the rush she gets from beating three students and a teacher in a row at duelling club, her black curls bouncing as she walks, held together by a red velvet ribbon. The pink flush on her cheeks and ghost of a smile that she can’t hide have never seemed more beautiful to Rita. Temi leaves with a nod to Rita and Charity, a squeeze of Bella’s arm, and she goes out quieter than she entered. Charity looks between Rita and Bella, their gazes electric. She sighs, but follows Temi out, knowing she’s done what she can. Rita is her own woman, She can make her own mistakes.

Next weekend is Hogsmeade. Rita jumped on the chance to ask Bella out, and Temi suggested some tearooms that feel like if Dolores was given unlimited budget and total creative control except, like, 1000 percent more extra. Rita didn’t realise that it was such a… romantic setting. But Bella doesn’t seem to mind. Rita tries not to get too excited.

They’re quite subtle about it, publicly, the scandal would be ruinous, but Rita doesn’t mind. The sneaking around makes it more exciting, sometimes. They’re never subtle when it’s just the two of them. Bella and Charity seem like they’ll never get on, but Rita supposes she can manage. Spring comes, then summer, and they’re closer than ever. Bella doesn’t like labels, she says, Rodolphus’ ring abandoned in her bedside table, Rita supposes she can manage. Because when Bella looks at her like that, makes her feel like that, she’s prepared to look back the more awkward elements of their relationship.

Their last Halloween party at Hogwarts. Student unity seems to flourish on that one night of the year, especially among the older students, and although Slytherins and Gryffindors will never truly be friends, Walden and Frank raise a glass to each other from across the room. Their first Halloween party as a... couple? Bella doesn't like labels, Rita has learnt, perhaps because labels are the very constraints her parents adore. But Bella likes Rita. Sometimes she still can't believe it, that a girl of such calibre would deign to talk to her, laugh with her, touch her, but whenever these periods of self-doubt begin to settle, Bella is there to make her feel better. The final night of October passes in a haze of firewhisky and kisses, and when they wake up the next day, matching tattoos of stars - not even a constellation, literally just some random stars - sit on their skin. She gets two years with Bellatrix, and it will never feel enough.