Subverted Expectations

When one is on top of the world, it is only inevitable that they will fall at some point.

Bellatrix had been feeling good these last few days. Things were better than ever with the Dark Lord; things were relatively stable with Emma Green. Most importantly, her girlfriend still didn’t know what she was doing on the nights she didn’t see her; she had no idea she was still seeing the Dark Lord.

(Her relationship with her sisters was rapidly declining. It was nearing the end of the year, and Andy’s relationship with the Tonks boy was still going strong when she had expected it to fizzle out long before now. Of course, she knew Andy was going to come crawling back eventually, but it was taking longer than she’d thought and she missed her sister and now Cissy wasn’t talking to her as much anymore and what had happened what had gone wrong when had she-)

She was doing well in her classes, and Quidditch was as easy as ever. The Final was coming up- somehow, Gryffindor had managed to take second place. Emma, who did not play Quidditch and evidently had no desire to, did have ‘friends’ on the Gryffindor team, leading to a few teasing arguments between them. Personally, Bellatrix wasn’t worried about the game at all- she knew she was the best, and her team was the best, and if they couldn’t beat Gryffindor, something was dearly wrong.

(She hadn’t been showing up to practice- even though she was the best on the team, Robert was furious with her, but it was just that she had better things to be doing, her life was going places and Quidditch didn’t have a place in her future, which was kind of weird and achy and not at all right because she loved Quidditch and she loved flying but she would give it up in a heartbeat to serve the Dark Lord. She was giving it up).

The week of the Final, Robert started demanding the team sit together at meals, which meant not only did she have to go to meals (she had been grabbing food from the kitchens for weeks now, trying to avoid Cissy and literally everyone else), but that she had to interact with her teammates.

But apparently, he wanted to ‘present a united front’ and ‘strategize’, and since she was the most prolific member of the team she just had to be there, so here she was, pretending she wasn’t watching both of her sisters talk to Lucius (why?) and otherwise poking at her food sullenly.

“Aright, team. The big game’s in two days; it’s the last one for some of us, so let’s make it count!” The whole team surreptitiously glanced at her- she was the only one graduating in a few weeks. She knew the last game usually involved a lot of tears, maybe a big dramatic speech; the last week usually involved a lot of practice and a lot of pushing to get to that last finish mark.

She definitely wouldn’t be giving a speech, that was for sure, and she would sooner launch herself off the Astronomy Tower than cry in front of anyone, much less her teammates. It wouldn’t do for them to think she cared, or anything.

“I can’t believe we’re losing Bellatrix next year,” one of the younger Chasers, who’s name she was never going to learn, said. 

“I know,” Robert groused. She could certainly see why- she was miles ahead of either of her fellow Chasers, and the less said about the reserve players, the better. “But the Gryffindor team is losing two Chasers and their Keeper, so hopefully it’ll even out.”

Katherine Connors, she was sure, would be in hysterics by the end of the match- that girl cried over everything. She couldn’t see why, in this case- she’d sustained the most injuries probably in Hogwarts’s entire history during her five years on the Quidditch team. One would think she would have been better off without it.

“We should make sure Connors gets knocked off her broom one last time,” she suggested, catching the girl’s eye across the hall just to put her on edge. It worked- Connors went pale, and gulped, and looked right back down at her plate.

Good to know everyone in the school still feared her, though to be fair, Katherine Connors was significantly easier to scare than most people.

(She’d been picking on Connors for as long as she could remember- she was pretty sure the other girl had sat with her on the train for about two minutes before she’d tried to set her on fire and sent her fleeing. It was just so easy- she was in Gryffindor, she was a wimp, and she never did anything about it.)

“Well, she’ll fall off anyway. But sure, Bella, if tradition means that much to you,” Robert snickered. She almost smiled, and then rolled her eyes at him lest he get the wrong idea.

It would be a shame if he thought she liked him, or anything. That was hardly the impression she wanted to leave behind when she was gone.

—---------------------------------

Bellatrix, faced rather suddenly with the prospect of never playing Quidditch again, was unable to resist the urge to show off as much as possible during the last game.

This did nothing to impact her performance, of course- if anything, the fancy twirls and standing on her broom and what have you served to confuse and exasperate the Gryffindor team. Still, it got to the point where Robert started sending her annoyed looks, so halfway through the game, she did try to rein herself in a little. 

“Hey, Black. Meet me in Gryffindor Common Room after the match, for old time’s sake?” Perry, one of Gryffindor’s Chasers, called during a brief lull in playing.

Tempting. She and Perry were both in the same year, and while normally they literally never spoke, whenever there was a match she became the closest thing Bellatrix had to a rival, which of course meant they usually fucked afterwards. But….

“I’m seeing someone,” she sighed.

“You’re seeing someone?” the other girl scoffed. “If you don’t want to, you could’ve just said so.”

“Oh, bugger off, Perry,” she scowled. “And get back to the game. We just scored.”

She turned tail in the air, leaving her flabbergasted on her broom as she charged across the field to where Connors had just picked up the ball.

Perfect.

Her eyes widened when she saw her flying towards her, which was the appropriate reaction. She didn’t drop the Quaffle- she supposed even Connors had room for improvement- but she did pause momentarily, which was all the hesitation she needed.

She was just here for the Quaffle, she told herself, but if Connors happened to fall off her broom in the meantime, that was hardly a bad thing. In her defense, she wasn’t even really the one who did it- as she grabbed the Quaffle, Robert sent a Bludger into her gut. Some combination of the two sent her toppling off the side of her broom and to the ground below.

She couldn’t help it- she high-fived Robert on her way to the Gryffindor goalposts. Now, she wouldn’t have to hear Connors bawling once the match was over, and Gryffindor was a Chaser down.

Perfect.

After that, the match went on without a hitch. They were already ahead of Gryffindor, and by the time the Seekers started chasing after the Snitch, Slytherin was going to win no matter who caught it.

That they caught it anyway was a bonus, of course, but either way….

“Slytherin wins the game and the Quidditch Cup- please come to the front of the field where-”

She missed the rest of it, because her team had swarmed her, which she had quite forgotten was a tradition for seventh years until this moment. For once, she supposed, she could let Robert sling an arm around her shoulder and lift her up onto his once she had her hands on the cup. This was a familiar song and dance- Slytherin had won most of the years she’d been on the team. But it still felt pretty good.

See? Everything was going well in her life. Why wouldn’t it be? 

—----------------------------------

It took her approximately two hours after the match to figure out where Emma was.

The party had started up in the Slytherin Common Room about an hour ago and was likely to be going on all night; normally they wouldn’t go that long, but whenever they won the Cup it was always a bigger affair. Emma had told her she would meet her down there, and so she had spent most of it so far looking for her, because where-

She almost groaned out loud when she realized. Wasn’t Emma friends with Connors? Was she seriously still in the hospital wing? Honestly, that girl….

And so it was that she found herself ditching the party, which she wasn’t even that into anyway, to trudge up to the hospital wing in the hopes of finding Emma there. Sure enough, she and a little group of Gryffindors were huddled around a bed by the side of the room. Fortunately for her (she did not want to go up to a group of Gryffindors and ask to borrow one of them away), Emma must’ve felt someone’s eyes on her, because she turned around a moment later.

She excused herself from her friends and then hurried over to her, asking in a lowered voice, “Bella? What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you. You said you’d be at the party, I got worried.” 

“Oh! Oh, no, I’m sorry, Kat got hurt- well, you know that- and I was so worried that I forgot-”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t really matter anyway.” It really didn’t- it was just a party. She didn’t even really like parties anyway. “I mean, not that Connors really matters that much either, but we must pick our battles where we can.”

She’d been joking (well, mostly), but Emma immediately huffed at her. “That’s a terrible thing to say, Bella. She’s hurt! I know you don’t really like her, but she’s my friend.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine, won’t she? If she weren’t, she’d be at Mungo’s by now.”

“Well, she still hasn’t woken up, so we don’t really know. She fell really far, which you should know, since you were the one who pushed her,” she frowned.

“I did not! She got hit with a Bludger. If she couldn’t handle a fall, she shouldn’t have played Quidditch.” Or she should have been better at it, but she had a feeling Emma wouldn’t appreciate that comment right now.

“I still think you should’ve tried to catch her,” she said huffily.

“Why would I have done that? It’s Connors.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could really think about them- making fun of Katherine Connors was almost ingrained in her. It was instinctual. She hadn’t even meant it, really- it didn’t matter who it was that fell, she wouldn’t have caught them anyway.

Still, she wasn’t going to say that either because it would probably make Emma even madder than she already was, which didn’t seem like something she could afford right now.

“What is wrong with you, Bella? I can’t- every time I start to think you’re not just like- you’re awful! To everyone! And I can’t keep-” She took a deep breath, and Bellatrix felt her throat constrict.

“Emma, I- you’re not- you can’t. I need you. I’ll- I don’t know what I’d do without you, you know that, right? You can’t just leave me to- you can’t leave me.”

Emma’s eyes watered, and Bellatrix knew she’d bought herself some time. “What do you mean, you need me?”

“I just- everything is- it always feels like everything’s falling apart, and I have you, and I have the Dark Lord, and there’s nothing else I can-”

“The Dark Lord?” Emma whispered, looking horror-struck. Bellatrix’s stomach sank- everything had come pouring out at once, and she hadn’t….

“Yes,” she muttered. “But you don’t understand. He gets me, you know? He’s good for me. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“You don’t- you’ve seen the news, Bella. He’s killing people.”

“Just some Muggles,” she shrugged. “It’s fine. He’s fighting a war here, and people die in wars. Sorry if you don’t get that.”

Emma froze, and then looked at her for a long time, her expression dazed. “I do get that. But those Muggles aren’t fighting him- they’re innocent civilians. And don’t say it doesn’t matter, because I’m Muggleborn, Bella. It seems like you forget that sometimes.”

“Well, he’s not going to kill you. It’s not like any of this affects you.”

“I….” Emma was beginning to look increasingly frantic, and it didn’t take Bellatrix very long to figure out that there was something she wasn’t telling her. 

“What is it?”

Something was warring in her eyes, and her hesitation must have lost, because she sighed and gestured towards the door. “Let’s take this outside.”

Fine by her- she’d rather not let anyone else hear any more of this conversation than they already had. Once they were out in the corridor, Emma took a deep, steadying breath, and took her hands.

“Bella, I- what I’m about to tell you. You have to promise not to freak out. Okay?”

“Okay. Come on, it can’t be that bad.” She didn’t respond. “Emma?”

“Well- that’s the thing. My name isn’t Emma. It’s Hermione. And that’s not the only thing I’ve lied to you about.”

Bellatrix searched for something, anything, to say, and came up empty. How was she supposed to…? What?!

“Maybe we should sit down.”

Yes, that was probably a good idea. If there was more, she would definitely need to sit down for this. She followed Emma- Hermione- into the nearest classroom, and closed the door behind them.