The hardest thing in the world wasn’t running from Aurors. It wasn’t the constant threat of bodily harm or even death, not to mention the potential to be thrown back into Azkaban. No, none of that was as hard as seeing her with 𝒉𝒆𝒓.
It wasn’t fear that consumed her body, no she never feared; not anyone, not anything. The feeling was something that sat like a rock in the pit of her stomach and made her throat sore no matter how many times she swallowed. Something completely foreign to the dark witch, a feeling so woefully dreadful she was certain she’d never felt it before. She would have remembered it. But that still didn’t answer the questions of 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔.
Bellatrix placed her hand on her uneasy stomach, feeling nauseous. What was this feeling! How could she make it go away? There had to be a way to make it stop.
But she had already scoured her spell books. Hours looking for such a spell or charm or brew to make the most unwelcome feeling disappear with no such luck.
She recalled just a few nights ago ;;
How it felt like she’d been stabbed through the chest with her own dagger when she looked over from her bar seat at Three Broomsticks and saw them snogging in the corner. The Weasel girl with her hands all over the messy haired brunette. That was when this feeling started, and it hadn’t relented since.
Bellatrix knew that this 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 she was feeling, this unidentifiable, unnameable feeling was selfish. Hermione was happy now, that much was clear -and didn’t she deserve that? Bella knew she did. She knew in her head that Hermione deserved so much better than her, deserved someone to make her happy.
Someone to make her laugh, to hold her when she cried, to let
her cling to them when she had flashbacks, and sing to her when it thundered.
Someone to buy her books regularly because she’s read all the ones at home twice now, to make sure she doesn’t bite her nails when she gets anxious, to limit her to one firewhiskey so she doesn’t polish off the bottle trying to forget, and sit and watch the stars with her until they disappear from the sky.
Someone to pick her up and carry her to bed when she falls asleep on her work in the study, to kiss away her tears when she thinks she isn’t good enough or worth it, and slow dance with her whenever the music fits the mood.
Bellatrix knew Hermione deserved all of that and so much more. Would she be able to give her all that? She hoped so, for Hermione’s sake.
They hadn’t been compatible. In a way they never were; only in their own heads could they have been good for one another. Hermione was the sun, Bellatrix a star. One would rise while the other set. Chasing each other round and round in a vicious cycle of love, hate and toxicity that Bella at one point thought would never end...until it did.
But even knowing she didn’t deserve the younger witch, and never had, despite the fact she knew the other would be happier with someone else; she couldn’t shake this feeling. She still 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 Hermione, but it was now unrequited.
So Bellatrix now knew the hardest thing in the world.
To watch the one you love, love someone else.