Dark Desires

Chapter 13

"What?" Hermione stopped inches away from Bellatrix, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Long pauses forced themselves between her sentences. "This is a joke; You did not murder someone."

Bellatrix simply stepped aside, letting Hermione see the dead bartender in the doorway. An uncomfortable silence followed, and for some reason, Bellatrix felt nervous. She'd never felt nervous after killing someone before, but something about Hermione's eerie posture made her want to crawl into bed, and turn the lights off.

"Are you insane?" Hermione finally proclaimed into the night. Bellatrix knew she was insane, but for some reason hearing it from the mudblood's lips made her realize exactly what 'insane' meant. And it was not a good thing. "Why do I even ask? Of course you are. I cannot believe you, Bellatrix Black Lestrange!"

"Don't call me that... Black will do", Bellatrix muttered, taken aback and completely off-topic, yet she could not help but squirm under the use of her ex husband's name. The bastard's bloody well be dead when I return, she thought to herself.

"I do not care about your goddamn name for the time being. Bellatrix, you killed a man. Do you understand what sort of trouble we are in?" Drunk and furious, Hermione grabbed Bellatrix's sharp shoulders and shook her violently. She realized much too late that if she didn't watch her steps with the pureblood, she could end up sharing the fate of the bartender. However, Bellatrix didn't resist, nor attempt to strangle her. She was quiet. Something clicked into place inside Hermione when she saw the spark of - could it be pain? Guilt? Perhaps regret? - in Bellatrix's eyes.

"We need to get rid of this body without magic, I will not risk being caught. Help me carry him. I may have a plan." The whole situation was strange, and it became stranger as the two cooperated; Hermione lifting the man's arms, and Bellatrix carrying his legs. They could not risk the shortcut through the hotel, so Hermione maneuvered them to a path leading into the forest. They would have to carry him in a half-moon around the hotel, to the front where the pond lay. Her plan was, briefly summarized, to dump the corpse in the pond, leave the hotel and hope for the best.

The pair had become silent for once, no screaming, no insults, nothing. Somewhere in the night an owl hooted occasionally, and all around them several hundreds of fireflies hummed. The chilly air had sobered them both up reasonably, and the reality of what they were doing was sinking in. Hermione could not believe she was helping a former death eater get rid of a corpse, while Bellatrix, on the other hand, could not believe she felt somewhat guilty for killing the man. The whole situation was off.

"Fireflies", Bellatrix finally pointed out before continuing on a different note, "do you think they were here when the Amarettos lived? Do you think they used this path, like we do?" It was odd hearing her voice in the night, and for some even odder reason, Hermione's cheeks went red at the mention of the small insects.

"Yes, perhaps. Except they were in love. We are carrying a dead... mixologist." Oh, but how she wished they too were in love. No, focus, Hermione. "Watch out, there's a root behind you", Hermione said lamely, in lack of anything else to say. Bellatrix merely snorted, and continued on, perhaps lifting her legs a little bit higher than before. It was not enough, however, because the root was large, crooked and grew from the ground at a weird angle. It seemed to Hermione that the raven-haired fell in slow-motion. She looked like a kid caught red handed stealing cookies from a jar, and with a thud she landed, bum on the forest floor. The younger woman could not help but let a laugh escape from her mouth. Bellatrix's face only made the whole episode funnier, which made Hermione drop the dead body and buckle over laughing.

"Stop that. It's not funny", said Bellatrix grumpily while struggling to escape from beneath the dead man. Hermione, still giggling unabashedly, offered a hand to help her, which was declined with a haughty tsk. Bellatrix freed herself nose in the air, pretending nothing had happened, and grabbed a hold of Stefano's legs once more, this time with her back facing Hermione so she could see where she was going.

The rest of the path around the hotel was done in silence. Bellatrix had taken to brooding, while Hermione was watching the fireflies and wondering about what went through Bellatrix's mind this very second. Finally, the trees thinned out and they found themselves at the edge of the forest. In front of them lay the pond, dimly lit by the fireflies soaring over the surface. It wasn't very large, but it was deep - deep enough to hide a corpse.

"We have to throw him to the deep end", said Hermione. Bellatrix didn't protest, but lead the way across the grass. To their left, the hotel stood grand and threatening in the night. There were lights in a few numbers of the windows, but most of the guests had gone to bed at this hour. If you were sitting by the window, observing the garden, you could barely have made out two strange figures throwing something into the pond, but the darkness would hinder you from seeing what the strange object was, and you would go to bed wondering about these strange figures. What a couple of strange figures, you would think to yourself, or perhaps you would say this sentence to the person you were sharing a room with. But, luckily for these two strange figures, you weren't.

Hermione watched as the ripples slowly disappeared and the fireflies, who had been chased away into the night when the bartender disrupted the surface, reappeared one by one. Relief flooded her body and she glanced discreetly at Bellatrix.

"Good riddance", murmured the dark haired witch under her breath. She was shaking like a leaf, but not because of the temperature, but because of the strain. For the first time in a long time, she was experiencing the unwanted mental and physical side effects of murder, and she wasn't sure she entirely enjoyed it.