Belladonna

Minerva had all the right to leave with her stiff girlfriend that Ofelia couldn’t stand it. Fine, let’s be true in here. She couldn’t find an actual excuse to hate Poppy. Other than being Minerva’s girlfriend, she had nothing. And that wasn't enough to add her to the “I Hate You” list. She still did it though, for making McGonagall feel upset.

Now, that was a problem. She couldn’t be held responsible for their relationship, but she still felt like it was her business too. However, if she confessed that she cared about Minerva's love life, she might as well have to admit to herself a lot of other stuff as well.

“Are you coming?” Potter woke her from her thoughts.

“Yes.”

The next day, the sun was as bright as the day before. Ofelia couldn't be bothered while she was making breakfast for everyone.

“Where are the others?” Walburga appeared through the kitchen door with Chuck by her side.

“Morning” Ofelia greeted them, and Black gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Ames is coming in a bit and the two lovebirds left last night” Potter responded.

“Did they kiss and make up?” Chuck asked.

“Who knows?”

It was a nice day to enjoy the beach, but as soon as Ames arrived there was no time for having fun. They had to move all the instruments from Charles'a house to the mannor. Nale's drums were the hardest to transport. The key to success was practice, so instead of disturbing the muggle neighbours in town, they were rehearsing there, where the first neighbour was miles away.

“Morning” a sleepy, male voice appeared going down the stairs.

“Oh, hello, Brax” she said, while she was arrenging some of the instruments to start the practice for once and for all. “Didn’t know you were still here. There’s some breakfast left in the kitchen if you are feeling hungry.”

“No, thank you. I must head home now.”

“Oh, you should go then” he gave her a little kiss on the cheek. “If you’re interested, we’re playing at a local bar tonight.”

“Yes, Druella already told me about it” he explained. “I’ll try to pass by.”

He turned to leave but got caught by Walburga in his way out. She smiled at him with some sort of complicity, though he played dumb and left. He looked like he had slept with his party clothes on and his long, platinum hair was all frizzy.

“Speak, bitch!” Walburga practically ordered to Druella, who was coming down the stairs.

“There is nothing to say.”

“What do you mean? You spent the night together” Bella urged too. “Speak!”

“Nothing happened. He is a gentleman” she said with a nostalgic smile in her face. “And I’m engaged, so nothing could had happened even if we wanted to.”

“But you did want too” Walburga insisted.

“We just talked and then we fell asleep.”

“Why are you blushing then?” Bella pointed out. “I had never seen you blush, and now two times in a row. He must have given you some sort of potion or something.”

“The potion of looove” Black teased her.

“Stop it!”

“Oh, Drue loves Abraxas!” Ofelia sang from the top of her lungs.

“I am not in love!”

“Who is in love?” Potter came back, overhearing the conversation.

“No one” Druella answered kind of suspicious.

“Ok… We have to practice, so…”

Minerva and Poppy never fought. They always agreed with everything. Where to spend the holidays, what they were going to eat, what music to listen to while they were making love. They both agreed not to get involved on the war, and they had agreed that if other people had a problem with two girls loving each other, they would hex them and go the other way. But now, as they were travelling on a train back to London, Minerva wondered how everything had gone so south. It wasn’t clear to neither of them why they were arguing so much. Sometimes couples would go through a losing streak and there was nothing wrong with that, McGonagall tried to cheer up.

But when they arrived at cloudy London -even in a summer day-, Minerva didn’t see things getting brighter.

“I think I’m staying with my parents” Pomfrey said something in the first few hours.

“What? You can’t leave me alone in the flat.”

“I need some time” Poppy said in the way that she would always express her feelings, as an ultimatum.

“Time for what, Poppy?”

“To evaluate on things.”

“Evaluate?” Minerva tasted the word in her mouth. “We aren’t one of your potion projects. I’m your girlfriend, for Godric’s sake.”

“Is that so?” Poppy ironized. “Write to me, when you start to behave like it.”

Minerva couldn’t help by blaming herself. She was already making her feel insecure with her life adrift, but now she had pissed her off for real. Poppy had been looking for her at the party to apologize, but she couldn’t find her because she was with Rizzo.

“You don’t have to be jealous” Minerva had assured her when the Ravenclaw girl had found out. “She is not even my friend.”

“Oh, but I know how she bloody stares at you” Pomfrey argued trying to avoid the sour sensation in her throat. “Everyone can notice how she drools over you, since we were young. And you let her because you love the attention, don’t you?”

Those last words sticked to her head all the way back to London. It was true. She knew. She could see after last night that maybe Ofelia had hidden her feelings behind the envy and the competition. Or maybe she had not recognised her feelings yet, even if everyone had already done it. Minerva was quite ashamed to admit that she was guilty too, as Ofelia was not the only one staying late at night wondering how to upset her nemesis. Despite her mature, calm character, Minerva was fearless and crave attention like the moon craved the sun to shine bright. She was as guilty as Ofelia was for encouraging their rivalry and their ruses and therefore their flirting of last night.

“See you when I see you” were the last words Poppy said to her girlfriend before grabbing her suitcase and heading to another platform.

McGonagall didn’t want to go back to their flat. They had rented a place at Diagon Alley to spend the summer together. Poppy lived in Scotland, so there was no way of seeing each other, unless they arranged something like this. Regarding Minerva, she intended to stay as far as possible from her family. After her mother had died, she remained as the only witch in the house. And her father had learned to loathe the magic, blamed everything for it. “If you’re so magical, why don’t you help us win the war?” her father would say every time they would have to hide in the bunkers because of a Nazi attack, “Bloody selfish, they are!” And her little brothers, all muggles too, just repeated what they heard at home. There was no way of reasoning with a man like her father. It didn't matter how many times she had explained that the wizards were fighting a war of their own.

So, instead she had decided to take a train back to Hastings to be with her friends, far away from her recent break-up and far away from her family. As she made her way into the coast of England, her mind insisted to bring back a shiny, blonde girl on and on. Was it so wrong to fill her mind with another girl, even if she couldn’t help it? Maybe it was a way of copying to not think about Poppy. But she didn’t really question it as she arrived to Hastings.

It was already the evening when she got to the bar, where they were going to play. Minnie was surprised by how crowded the place was. Of course, it was full of muggles. Most of them were locals and the others were Chuck’s friends. There were a few wizards from Hogwarts inside the bar as well. Some friends of Potter and Nale from the duelling club that they had invited.

“Oi, Minnie!”

She turned around to see Potter holding his guitar.

“You came” he pointed out. “Is Poppy with you?”

“No.”

“Oh, I see...”

They didn’t need to say more. Potter was good at knowing when to shut his piehole. And he had an awesome intuition too.

Minerva looked around finding Walburga and Druella chatting with Malfoy in the corner, while a muggle, black girl was glaring at the raven-hair one. In the little stage, Charles was finishing to set up his drums with Ames’s help. He wasn’t really helping though. Longbottom was flirting with a muggle girl down the stage. Finally, Ofelia was arranging her microphone in front of the piano in the centre of the stage. Suddenly, the blonde girl caught her eyes and a smile spread along her face immediately. She was such an open book.

“Hi!” she waved at her, glowing like the summer sun.

Minerva waved back and then prepared to walk right up to her. She had planned what to say: “Hey, d’you wanna go outside?” “Hey, I need to talk to you...” “Hey, maybe we could...” But her thoughts were interrupted by Ofelia leaving her eyes, as something else had called her attention. A frown appeared in her face, as she glared at something behind McGonagall. The Gryffindor girl turned around and saw two men standing on the entrance. Two Slytherin wizards looking pretty upset and confused by the gathering. Minerva bet that they weren’t invited.

Ofelia could not believe her eyes. How did they find out about this? Braulio standing there, piercing her with his eyes, like trying to figure out what the hell she was doing in front of all those muggles. And the worst part: Tom Riddle. Of course he would appear there. He had the talent of fixing his life in order to ruin her's. He was there. He was in the bar and he wasn’t even looking at her. He was scanning the place, like not approving it. But he acted like he hadn't noticed her. Fucking liar. Of course he had noticed her. She look stunning. How dare he act all superior to her friends? How dare he show his face after using her in the way that he had done? She wasn't going to sit around and do nothing about it.

“Boys, are you ready for the show?”

“It isn’t the time yet” Chuck took a glance at his hand watch.

“We must start now” she declared. “Longbottom, move” she threw him off the stage, making him fall over the girl he was talking to.

“Oi!”

“Get over it” she rolled her eyes.

“Good evening, fine people!” Potter spoke into the microphone. “We are Lion Lads and we will be entertaining you tonight.”

Ofelia turned to glare at him since she hadn’t agreed to that name, but it wasn’t the moment to argue with him. Chuck marked the beat with his instrument and the show started. They played some muggle songs that they had learned thanks to their muggleborn friend. The crowd sang along, and the ones that didn’t know the lyrics -because they were wizards-, they just enjoyed Ofelia’s voice and Potter’s guitar solos. And of course, the strong beat that Chuck marked.

“Now, if you agree, we will play an original song” Ofelia announced after drinking a glass of water from one galp.

The people cheered out of excitement, but Rizzo was not there to rally the people. She could only see red, even if she was staring right into Riddle’s eyes. Revenge, revenge, revenge. That word repeated in her head on and on. Revenge was a dangerous game that never ended. They were playing it since 1940, and the game would keep going on even with new generations coming, even after they were dead.

“Once upon a time, a few mistakes ago, I was in your sight, you got me alone, you found me...” she sang looking directly into her greatest enemies’ eyes.

Riddle had no expression as always. He would never acknowledge nothing, right? He would never take credit for his actions. But even if he didn’t seem to care, everyone in that bar noticed who she was singing too. Maybe because her eyes seemed to be glued to his face. Maybe because she changed the lyrics to say very clearly: “And the saddest fear comes creeping in, that Tom never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything...” It was soft enough to slip right through her brother’s ear. Perhaps he was really that dense or perhaps he rather preferred to pretend he was. But she was pretty sure that mostly everyone had gotten the message, especially the receptor.

When the song ended with Potter’s solo and a big applause from the crowd, Ofelia didn’t even wait to say thank you. She jumped off the stage and walked through the teen kids to where her brother and his friend were.

“Bella, what do you...?” Braulio began to say, but she didn’t even glance at him.

Instead, she grabbed Riddle by the elbow and guided him out of the bar. He didn’t resist, until they were finally outside and he pushed her aside.

“How dare you appear here?” she yelled trying to hide the tears in her eyes. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

“You wrote a song about me? That’s pathetic” he hissed. “You’re a kid, Ofelia.”

“Yes, son of a bitch! I’m sixteen!”

“If you were so mad about finding me with Prince, you should’ve just said so” he whispered as if it was a damn secret that she was angry at him. “Being jealous doesn't look good on you, little one.”

“Right, jealous” she spat the word. “Like you are jealous of Potter.”

“I'm not jealous.”

“Right.”

“What were you trying to achieve with this?” he questioned. “Did you want to call my attention? Find you got it. Now, what?”

“No, I didn’t want your attention.”

“Then? Did you want for Braulio to find out? That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe...” she bit her lip.

“He would hate you if you told him. Don’t fool yourself.”

She knew that he would play that card. But the truth was that she had had this conversation in her head several times. Enough to know that he was going to lie about it. She knew that he was more scared of it than she was. And she wasn't going to fall for his manipulation anymore.

“Is that so?” she asked with fake innocence. “You think that my father and older brother are going to hate me when they find out how you tricked me into giving you my virginity, how you took my honour, my innocence away. And then, you discarded me. Are you sure that I’m the one fooling myself?”

Tom’s face changed from that expressionless look to a mad look. One of hate. One that said: I don’t like when you use my tricks against me.

“Think about it. You have more to lose than I do.”

“Bella, Tom!” Braulio came out, looking for them.

“I want you out of my house by tomorrow, before I come back” she stated. “If you’re still there, then I’m talking.”

And then she left, before her brother arrived to them.

She walked to the Black Manor. She mooched by the surroundings, the beautiful coast. The waves rising, the moon reflecting in the cold sea water. She found the small place to make bonfires in front of the English sea. She sat next to the wood piled in the centre and with a wave of her hand, the biggest fire grew and shined over the night as if it was always been there. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to use it in public, but there was no one there. No one knew that she could produce fire with her hands. Her father would often ask, checking in if she had her mother’s curse. But she didn’t see it as a curse. For her, it was power and she craved power.

“Nice trick” a voice cheered behind her.

Ofelia turned around, quite scared. She was sure that no one was there. But then she chilled out, when she saw that it just was Minerva. She didn’t know why, but she felt safe that Minerva wouldn’t snitch.

“I wanted to congratulate for the show, but you ran off” Minerva explained, sitting next to her in the sand and offering a can of beer. “You were good!”

“Yeah, I had to kick off some bastard. But now, it’s over” she smiled and then opened the beer to give it a sip. “Agh! Muggle beers suck!”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does. It tastes like troll piss.”

"How do you know that? Have you ever tried troll's piss?"

"No, but still..."

They laughed, as they were arguing again.

“Do you want to talk about Riddle?” Minerva asked cautiously.

“Nope” Ofelia answered. “Do you want to talk about your girlfriend?”

“I think the correct term to use is ex-girlfriend.”

Rizzo’s mind was flying. She wasn’t sure if she had heard correctly, but now she needed the details. She couldn’t believe her own excitement for this.

“Ok, now you have to explain that for me.”

“What? No, you didn’t explain nothing about Riddle.”

“But this is different” Ofelia argued. “You broke up with your girlfriend.”

Ofelia couldn’t understand how Pomfrey would leave someone as amazing as McGonagall. And while she was thinking about that, she realized that she was outraged, but she was also feeling relieved. The kind of relief that one would get when you were about to enter a bar and you were scared that the bouncer wouldn’t let you in. But once you were there, they didn’t even question your age and you enter the bar like nothing. That kind of relief.

And when she understood why, she blushed so hard that Minerva had to stop talking to ask if she was doing Ok. To ask if the fire wasn’t bothering her. The heat never bothered her, but it was not the time to brag.

“Yes,” she lied brazenly, “we should go inside.”

They went inside the Mannor, where -she was sure- their friends would be in their bedrooms getting ready to sleep after a long night. They walked to the kitchen and lightened a candle to illuminate the room enough for both of them.

“How did you realize that you were a lesbian?” Ofelia asked her after three cans of muggle beer, which weren’t tasting like piss anymore.

“I’m not a lesbian.”

“Huh?” Ofelia questioned, sitting on the kitchen counter. “But you like girls.”

“Yes, but I like boys too.”

“Can you do that?”

“Of course,” Minerva laughed, feeling older and wiser, “you can like boys and girls.”

“And what is it called?”

“Bisexuality.”

She said the word that would open Ofelia’s eyes and that would shine in her chest for the rest of her life.

“I think I’m bisexual.”

“Well, you can be whatever you want to be, Ofelia, I’m sure of that” Minerva expressed getting closer to her.

Rizzo was still examinating the term in her mind to notice that the Gryffindor girl was staring right at her. But she did catch the “Ofelia." No one ever called her that. People called her by her last name or Bella, but never by her real name. It felt alien, but it also felt special.

“Do you think you might like girls?”

Well, here goes nothing, Ofelia thought.

“No, I think I might like a girl.”

Minerva’s cat-like eyes met hers and they both understood what they meant with that look. McGonagall came closer, leaning towards her. She rested her arms in the counter trapping Ofelia between them. And although both of them were trembling with nerves, they kissed. One because she had never expirienced something like this and she had never questioned herself in this way. The other one because it was always hard to kiss a girl, to make the first move. But they did it anyways. Both bold, both enchanted by the candle light and the loneliness of the kitchen.

Kissing a girl was different. Bella couldn't tell if it felt better. It was her top kiss until the moment. But since she had only kissed Potter, who she didn’t like, and Riddle, who she hated it, she didn’t have a professional opinion on the matter. She just enjoyed the kiss. Minerva’s soft lips and caring touch. Her hands travelled by her waist without a real destination, touching to explore. Ofelia’s hands, in a rush of boldness, left Minerva’s neck and went to her hair. She undid her bun and let her soft brown hair fell to her back in lovely waves. Rizzo loved the girl’s hair. When it was down, it made her look more fragile, like she couldn’t control everything around her.

“Lucky girl.”

“Huh?”

“The girl you like.”

Ofelia smirked and decided that it was a good idea to keep on kissing another person that was in her I Hate You list.

“Ups, sorry!”

Chuck suddenly interrupted them, as he had come to the kitchen for a glass of water. Mind you, he was in his underwear.

“Sorry!” he repeated while covering his eyes and running out of the kitchen.

The girls looked at each other and couldn’t help by laughing.