My Professor

Chapter 35

"Bella?" Hermione whispers, utterly taken back by how broken and torn the woman looked before her. She dabbed at the tear with her finger and just like that, the woman was gone...
Leaving Hermione with her single tear.

Hermione didn't know what to do, where to go, why it hurt so much...how could Bellatrix do this...after everything...

Hermione had looked everywhere for the woman, even at her special place but she was nowhere to be seen. Hermione once again stood in Bellatrix's quarters in hopes the witch would return and they could talk this out, because what Hermione was experiencing now, this feeling of emptiness, of loneliness of rejection and worry was slowly eating away at her.

***

Hermione had not seen the witch for three days, no one had and she even noticed how on edge Minerva Mcgonagall was, and Snape managed to be even snappier and moodier than usual. Not to mention the substitute teacher, Dumbledore had found it perfectly okay to let Sybil teach DADA. Sybil Trelawney.
The woman was petrified of her own shadow, and she had no control over the students. Hermione wasn't exactly sure how she managed to juggle both her own lessons and Bella's but that was the least troubling thing on Hermione's mind right now.

Her girlfriend....err whatever she was at this point had completely disappeared.

***

Bellatrix needed time, her mind was foggy and all over the place. The girl did this to her! She'd let her get too close, she became weak, and Bellatrix Black can't afford to be weak! Not with this monster lurking in her mind.
She needed to go back to the old Bellatrix the distanced and lonely Bellatrix, the Bellatrix who scared the hell out of everyone.
That Bellatrix wasn't weak. That Bellatrix was in control.

She sipped at her glass of whisky, sipped at it as though it was a nice hot cup of tea. The barman stared at her in wonder as she did so, taking a sniff of the bottle to make sure he gave her the right drink. It didn't affect her at all, or if it did she hid it extremely well, he's seen some of the biggest and meanest looking men down the whisky, pulling faces and hissing as it burns their throat, and yet here she sat, unaffected.

"Got anything stronger?" She pushes the empty glass towards him, he frowns, noting the sadness in her voice.
"You alright ma'am?"
"I'm fine love, just give me another fill."
"You don't seem fine..."
"Look you seem a nice lad, and I'm not in a great mood so don't push me. Just fill me up."
He noticed the sadness deep in her eyes, but didn't dare push, he could take a warning.
"As you wish." He offers a small smile toping up her glass and passing it back to her.

An older man walks in through the door behind  the bar, tapping the young boy around 20 years old on his shoulder.
"I'll take it from here lad, go make your mother a cuppa."
Bellatrix recognised that voice, looking up she caught the mans gaze.
"I been wondering when I'd be seeing you again..."
Bella furrows her brows, trying to think of how she knows this man, why does he look so familiar.

"I'sppose the years 'ave changed me, but you look exactly the same." He offers a smile, a crooked smile, the same crooked smile as a boy she once knew.
"I'd recognise that smile anywhere." For the first time in three days a smile broke out on Bella's lips.
"Douglas, you've certainly aged."
"And yer tongue certainly hasn't changed." He grins.
"So what brings you 'ere?"
"It's a long story and it was between this place or the one back home..."
"On the run again?"
"You could say that..."
"What from this time?" He leans against the bar, his eyes focused on his friend from years ago. Silence fell between them.
"Look yer don't 'ave to tell me..."
"A girl..." she fiddles with her glass.
"Yer running away from a girl? The way I remember it, they be runnin' from you." He smiles, referring to the time Bella was insistent on fighting all the girls who dared pick on her friend.
"Except this one isn't a horrid bitch and I don't want to fight her..." she smiles.

"She must be somethin' to 'ave you smiling like that."
"She's extraordinary...but nothing can happen, nothing should of happened."
"Why?"
"How's your dad?" She changes the subject, and he knew Bella far too long and knows not to push her.
"Getting on, still talking absolute shite though."
Bella chuckles,
"Good, I hope he never stops." She smiles once again meeting his gaze.
"How's your ma?"
"Oh she's still the same, nothing much has changed with her."

"Doug, your da wants ya." A woman appears from the same door he had, stopping when she notices her husband talking to the attractive Ravenette.
"Alright, I be up now."
"Who she?"
"Oh don't worry love, I'm not into your husband. We're just old friends."
"Aggie, this be Bellatrix."
"Oh, your that Bellatrix! 'is da never shuts up about you." She smiles approaching the pair.
"The stories he tells us about you, your Ma and My Doug here."
Bella chuckles
"Yeah well don't go believing everything he says, he used to sprout utter shit half the time."
"Still does, you wanna come up and see 'im?"
"Of course." She downs the rest of her drink.
"Aye, Evan take care down 'ere will ya?"
"Okay." The boy from earlier on smiles.

Bellatrix rounds the bar, following her friend into the back.
"He your boy?"
"Aye, fine looker ain't he, gets it from me." He grins, Bellatrix chuckles.
"You keep telling yourself that." She smirks.
"You got kids?"
"Nope no children for me. I'd be a shit mother anyway." She chuckles.
"Nah, I reckon you'd be a good ma, a little scary maybe..." Bella nudges the man in the side, earning a chuckle from him as he led her upstairs.