Subverted Expectations

Bellatrix flood back into Slughorn’s office- the man himself having long since gone to bed- at around one in the morning, a bit earlier than she usually got back from visits home. With no reason to linger, she strode out of his office and down the corridor towards the Slytherin Common Room. 

To her shock but not surprise, Andy was there when she climbed through the portrait hole, sat in one of the armchairs near the fire with her nose in a book. She looked up.

“Bella. You’re back- earlier than I thought.”

“Yes, well, sorry to disappoint. Don’t let me keep you up, Andromeda. I’ll be off to bed.”

As she walked away, Andy shot to her feet and started after her. “Wait-”

“What is it?”

Andy paused, biting her lip. “Are you okay?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It- Bella. Are you hurt? I’ve got a healing salve in my bag, if you need-”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Andy, I’m perfectly fine.” She still looked worried, so she lifted her arms up and turned around. “See? What on Earth were you worried for, anyway?”

The look of worry was quickly replaced with frustration, which Bellatrix found happened quite often with Andy these days. “Weren’t you at home? With father?”

“I was at home, yes. Father was just introducing me to an acquaintance of his.” Her lips, embarrassingly enough, actually quirked up into an almost-smile at the thought. “I don’t see why that would make me anything but fine.”

“It- you- oh, nevermind. You know where to find me.”

“Yes, I do.”

Andy groaned, and grabbed her bag and her book. “Goodnight.”

She rolled her eyes as she walked past. “Goodnight, Andy.”

That had been- strange. There really had been no reason to worry, because she’d ended up being perfectly fine. Not even a scratch.

Which was strange in and of itself. She wasn’t used to coming back to Hogwarts after short visits home completely unscathed. That was probably why Andy had been so confused.

A year ago, she would’ve apologized to her in the morning, but she hadn’t apologized to Andy for something in over six months and she wasn’t going to start now.

Instead of heading to her dorm like she’d planned, she found herself sinking into the same armchair Andy had been waiting in. She could have been a little- nicer to her, she supposed. She’d apparently waited up for her, anyway. She had just been too distracted to pay much attention to that.

Of course, she had good reason to be. She had been nervous upon arriving at home and meeting a man around her father’s age, which was to say, at least half her own age. Going off the assumption that this was a betrothal matter, this had been concerning, to say the least, though she couldn’t say she expected much better. 

But the man had told her father to leave them, and he had listened, which had been fascinating in and of itself. Her father very rarely ever listened to anyone, especially in his own home, so to watch him actually bow out of the room had been an almost thrilling experience. And then the man had introduced himself to her, and told her she had potential, and that it was a pity her father wanted her to spend the rest of her life as someone’s housewife, because there was so much more she could do.

She, of course, had voiced her shared regret, and he had smiled like a cat that had caught the canary. His name was Lord Voldemort, he’d said, and he had positions open in his new army. He could train her, and watch her progress, and take her away from whatever had been planned for her for something new. Something better. 

She thought that maybe he’d had more to his spiel, but he hadn’t needed to finish whatever recruitment speech he’d had planned. She thought that, possibly, he’d never expected to in the first place.

It had all been so grand, and a little pompous, but she was a pureblood, she could deal with pompous. His ideas, his talk, his stance, and she couldn’t help but want more. 

She wasn’t sure how she managed to get so lost in thought, but by the time someone shook her shoulder and snapped her out of it, sun was already shining through the windows. Cissy looked down at her, worried. “Bella, did you sleep at all last night?”

“Hm?”

“Have you been sitting here the whole night?” she pressed, lips coming tight together and brow furrowing in a way that made her look just like their mother.

“I guess I have,” she shrugged, a little surprised herself. “Ah, well. Shall we head to breakfast?”

Cissy still looked uneasy, but she nodded. “Alright.”

The Great Hall was already full of students when they walked in- she barely registered them as she took her usual seat at the Slytherin table and piled breakfast onto her plate. “How was father?” Cissy asked, looking up cautiously.

She shrugged again. “No idea. I didn’t see much of him, just when I got there and when I left. I’m sure he’s fine.”

She honestly couldn’t care less, but she was never really sure how Cissy felt about their father, so she supposed she might as well throw in a good word about his well-being even if she really didn’t know how he was. Cissy looked relieved. “Oh. Good. Well, I’m- glad everything went alright.”

“Mhm.”

She broke her gaze away from Cissy, her eyes wandering almost instinctively to the Gryffindor table. Emma Green was there, looking like she’d gotten about as much sleep as she had but trying to keep up with the conversation from her fellow Gryffindors anyway. This was a new development- Green had been in the Great Hall much more often now that she had managed to track her down and hex her in the hallways, which meant that she had definitely been avoiding it just because of her. The  thought brought her no small amount of satisfaction.

Green looked her way and caught her eye, paling and hurriedly looking down at her plate. She rolled her eyes- she was going to need to figure out what it was that made the girl so terrified of her.

But not right now- right now, she wasn’t even going to let Emma Green ruin her good mood.

—------------------------------

Her good mood faded about two days later while walking across the courtyard to her next class. She almost missed it- she was in a bit of a hurry- but when it caught her eye she stopped completely in the middle of the square. A younger student- probably a first year- nearly ran into her, then darted around her with a terrified squeak, but she couldn’t bring herself to care as she drew her wand and stormed across the yard.

“Tonks!”

Ted Tonks backed away from her immediately, and Andy went white, coming forward to grab her arm. “Come on, Bella, we were just talking-”

“Oh, yeah? Well, I seem to recall telling him to stay away from you. Or is my memory going funny?”

Andy rolled her eyes. “It might be, you were acting weird enough last night. I started talking to him first, just leave him alone.”

She pretended to consider for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine.”

Now her sister looked really confused. “Bella, are you-”

“I have to go to class, anyway,” she yawned, feigning complete disinterest. Tonks shifted uncomfortably, clearly unsure. “Ta, love. See you at lunch.”

She got about ten steps before Tonks started gagging, and people started screaming.

“Bellatrix!”

She whirled around, robes flaying up around her. “Yes, Andy?”

She tried not to grin too much at the sight of Tonks bent over on all fours, gasping for breath and clawing at his throat.

“What did you do to him?”

“Who, me?” She couldn’t help it now- she let the grin shine through. 

“Bellatrix, you know you did something, just- fix him!”

She rolled her eyes at the teary look on her sister’s face, and waved her wand. Tonks collapsed. “Fine. Your fault anyway for dating a mudblood Hufflepuff. Coward,” she singsonged, and there was a small ripple of laughter through the surrounding crowd.

Just to emphasize the point, she raised her wand for one more quick jinx-

“Leave him alone, Bellatrix!”

The entire crowd went silent, and Emma Green stepped forward, wand drawn, stance a little unsteady but determined. “You’ve already done enough,” she said, knuckles white around her wand.

“On the contrary,” she scowled, “I was just getting started.”

Later, the rest of the people gathered would swear up and down that Green had thrown the first spell, which really proved the hold that she had over the rest of the school. The only people backing up Green would be Andy and Tonks, but that was to be expected- Hufflepuffs never were very good at lying.

To her surprise- and, if she was being honest, which she rarely was, delight- Green held her own relatively well. Well enough to make the crowd stir, and well enough that a few stray spells slipped under her defense. In her defense, she hadn’t really been trying. She hadn’t exactly expected Green to put up a fight.

When a slicing hex hit her side, she stopped playing nice, and Green was unconscious on the ground in less than five seconds. Lucky, lucky her, McGonagall chose exactly that time to come running onto the scene.

She’d expected a detention, but the lost points were aggravating. Now she would have to put in a little more effort in class to earn them back.

Green groaned from the ground, and she grinned. It was so worth it.

—----------------------------------------

“Alright, Miss Black, where are you hurt?”

She scowled up at Madam Pomphrey from the hospital bed. She was fine, but McGonagall had insisted on bringing them both to the hospital wing and get them checked out. Then of course she’d had to sit there while Pomphrey fussed over Green, who was also perfectly fine because she knew what she was doing, thank you very much, and she wasn’t going to give her any permanent damage on school grounds, at least in front of a crowd of people. 

She glanced over at Green’s bed while Pomphrey fixed the cut in her side. The curtains were drawn, but she knew she was awake, probably pale with fear with her in the bed next to her. Poor Green was going to be stuck in here all night.

An idea came to her, and she smiled and then sunk into the pillows with a light groan. “Are you alright?” Pomphrey asked, predictably.

“I’m… a bit woozy, actually,” she muttered, reaching up to rub at her head. She had gotten a bit of a head injury, but she’d never let something like that slow her down before. But Pomphrey was infamous for overnight stays.

Sure enough, she immediately went to check her head, wincing at the cut there. “Maybe you should stay overnight…,” she muttered.

She was worried she might be overselling it when she whimpered a bit, but thankfully Pomphrey didn’t seem to think it was weird. “That might be a good idea,” she mumbled, eyes drifting closed.

“Dear, keep your eyes open for a little bit for me until I can get you a potion to take,” she said, hurrying out.

Ugh. Well, a little potion couldn’t hurt- she was actually a little dizzy and did probably have a concussion, but while she’d been perfectly willing to let life resume as normal, she wanted to talk to Green, and she wanted to do it alone.

Pomphrey came back in and practically forced the potion down her throat. It tasted vile.

“Well, I’ve got a few more patients to check up on, but feel free to get some rest now. I’ll get you another potion before I head to sleep for the night.”

She did seem to think it was weird when Bellatrix muttered a quiet, “Thanks,” but she didn’t comment. The second the curtains closed around her bed, she sat up and grinned, looking next to her where she knew Green was sitting.

She couldn’t wait to have a little chat with Green.