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It’s 11:47 when Rita slips out of the Slytherin common room and starts her trek toward the Room of Requirement. Thirteen minutes. That’s all the time she has to exit the dungeon, ascend seven flights of stairs, and somehow avoid the wandering eyes—or rather, the wandering nose—of Flitch’s cat Mrs. Norris.
That being said, Rita can’t afford to get caught and miss her 12:00 deadline. If she does—
She cuts the thought off sharply. Some possibilities are too dangerous to entertain.
Instead of dwelling on ‘what ifs,’ she focuses all her attention on carefulness, peering around every corner as slowly as she can manage with her time restraint. Her heart is hammering in her chest so loudly it feels like it’s echoing off the stony walls.
By sheer luck, she makes it out of the common room without being busted by Narky Norris or any nosy Slytherin Prefects. In fact, she somehow manages to clear the space in record time, her enchanted watch displaying 11:48 above her wrist as the door seals behind her.
She’s barely able to feel relief before she’s met with the long and unforgiving corridor stretching out ahead of her. The hall fights her every step, as if some syrupy charm has been placed over it to slow her down. It takes her four precious minutes to reach the first moving staircase.
When she does, her stomach drops.
Because the staircase isn’t there.
It’s floating a whole floor above her, making its rounds, stopping to pick up kids that aren't even there, all the while she fights the urge to rip her own hair out.
Rita swears under her breath, glancing down at her watch as though it might pause time for her if she pleads hard enough. In her stress, she’d forgotten to account for the rotation schedule. An honest mistake and a stupid one.
She paces the platform once, twice, pulse climbing, every second scraping away at her nerves. Three minutes pass in agonizing slowness before the staircase finally swings into place with a groan.
The moment it docks, Rita is already running.
Her feet hit the steps hard, robes gathered in her fists as she barrels upward. Five minutes. Six flights. To her, it seems an impossible task. And it proves to be.
Midnight strikes when she’s only just reached the fourth floor.
Her watch vibrates sharply against her wrist, the buzz unmistakable, signaling that time’s up. Rita lets out a pained groan, the failure hitting like a physical blow, but it doesn’t stop her. If anything, the loss generates a renewed fervor, waking her up from the inside, forcing her to push harder, run faster. Her legs tremble underneath her, but she doesn’t allow herself to crumble.
In her head, all she can think is that maybe—just maybe—her lady in wait will still be waiting when she reaches the seventh floor. Or, at the very least, Rita can catch her just as she’s leaving, get one last chance to look, one last chance to explain herself.
By the time she stumbles up the remaining three flights, her body is screaming. Her brow is soaked in sweat, her robes have migrated off her shoulders, and her lungs are burning inside her chest, as if she’s been cursed with a Stinging Jinx. Still, she marches forward, forcing her body to carry her down the final corridor.
When she reaches the end of the hall, she stops.
Just for a moment.
Just to quiet her mind.
Pressing her palm against the cool stone wall, Rita shuts her eyes and forces her thoughts into order. Fear has been steadily clawing at her mind, conjuring up images of an empty room, a door that never appears, a missing person past the threshold. She knows she can’t dwell on any of that right now. The room will listen. The room will judge.
In its place, she thinks of long, dark hair. A crooked smile filled with too many teeth. Searching eyes blacker than obsidian.
She paces three times along the wall, those features at the forefront of her mind, heart pounding them into place.
Rita’s never really been good with faces, or names come to think of it—which is rather inconvenient in her line of work—but this one never proved difficult to memorize. She happened upon it once in the dim light of a train car and the next thing she knew, it had its very own home in her head.
The door appears slowly, wooden and familiar, like it’s always been there. The seconds it takes to materialize are unbearable.
The moment the handle has finished forming, Rita lunges for it, wrenching the door open desperately. It slams against the wall behind her, the sound sharp and echoing.
Her eyes snap forward through the opening.
The woman inside jumps, startled by the noise—and Rita’s breath catches painfully in her throat.
She waited.
She came.
The sight of Bellatrix hits her in a million different ways, joy and awe crashing into her so hard she almost forgets how to stand. Love floods her chest, warm and aching and devastating in its intensity.
And then comes the regret.
Sharp. Uncomfortable. Cruel.
Rita looks at the girl she loves so much and freezes, the thought dawning on her that this is the last time she’ll be allowed to feel this way. The last time she’ll stand in a room with Bellatrix like this. The last time she’ll be able to love her freely.
And it’s all her fault.
Bellatrix doesn’t move at first.
She just stands inside the room, spine rigid, shoulders squared, jaw tight, and eyes burning with an alarming amount of fury. For a moment, Rita thinks she might shout. Might hex her. Might turn on her heel and leave the room without saying so much as a word.
But the screaming never comes, the curse is never uttered, and Bellatrix remains where she’s planted, chin held high like she’s above it all.
“You’re late,” Bellatrix says.
The words land flat between them.
“I know,” Rita whispers, shame clouding her reply.
Bellatrix laughs then—a short, humorless sound. “Of course you do. You always know.” She gestures vaguely toward Rita, as though that fact pertains to this very scenario. “You always know exactly what you’re doing.”
Rita flinches. “That’s not fair.”
“Oh, boo-hoo,” Bellatrix mocks back, her annoyance and anger whittled into a particularly nasty spear that strikes Rita straight through the heart. “Poor little Rita Skeeter’s life is so unfair. Give me a break.”
Fire rises inside of Rita’s chest, swirling around bitterly and constricting her organs until she’s nauseous with hate. The tendrils of smoke left in its wake spread throughout her frame, causing her to shake slightly.
“Piss off, Bella. You know I tried my best to get here on time. I fucking—I ran up seven flights in ten minutes just to see you. And you’re treating me like this.” She pauses, glaring up at Bellatrix, who seems entirely unaffected by her plight. “I deserve better and you know it.” She doesn’t and Bellatrix knows it too, but mercifully, the latter keeps her comments to herself.
Sometime between entering the room and arguing, an eerie blackness has engulfed Bellatrix’s eyes. They’re normally dark, yes, but right now, it’s hard to tell where her pupil starts and her iris ends, the whites of her eyes having shrunk immensely.
But that’s not the only place her rage can be seen. Her shoulders have gone tense, no longer being held up with a controlled and practiced amount of rigidness. Instead, they’re drawn high, almost touching her ears. It’s not like anything Rita has ever seen from her.
Looking further down, she can see that Bellatrix’s hands have curled into fists at her sides. Waves of dark magic flow uncontrollably from them, seeping into the air and polluting the room. A mirror shatters somewhere beside them, the sound of glass hitting the floor following suit. It seems to shock Bellatrix for a moment, her expression of anger quickly twisting into surprise. Rita can’t remember the last time she saw her lose control of her magic like this and it seems Bellatrix can’t either.
But the feeling is gone as soon as it comes, Bellatrix opting to take up a look of hurt, sadness bleeding through the cracks of her hard exterior.
“I told you,” Bellatrix says, voice cracking, “I told you midnight was the line. I told you I couldn’t—”
She stops, breath stuttering. Whatever she was about to say collapses under the weight of the moment, leaving something utterly exhausted behind.
Watching the fight drain from her stings worse than the anger ever could.
Rita takes a step forward, tentative, like she’s approaching a wounded animal, scared of spooking it. Bellatrix doesn’t flinch, just stands there as Rita stalks forward awkwardly. They’re only a foot apart now, close enough to feel each other’s warmth, close enough that Rita can see the faint sheen in Bellatrix’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Rita says. The words tumble out instinctively, desperate and useless all at once. “I tried, I really did, the stairs—”
“I know,” Bellatrix interrupts softly.
That stops Rita short.
“I know you tried,” Bellatrix murmurs, gaze tender in a way that feels unbearable.
Rita swallows hard. “I shouldn’t have— I should’ve left earlier. I should’ve planned better. I—”
She breaks off, the apology unraveling in her mouth. Bellatrix watches her for a long moment, then shakes her head slowly.
“No,” she says. “Don’t.”
Rita’s chest aches. “I wanted to be here for you. I wanted to fix it.”
“You can’t,” Bellatrix replies, not unkindly. “And neither can I.”
The truth of that settles between them, heavy and absolute. There’s nothing left for them to explain, nothing they can do. No words are powerful enough to change what’s already happened. Apologies won’t buy them more time. Regret won’t soften the blow.
“I just—” Bellatrix begins again. “I just have one question before…” Before it’s all done and gone.
“Anything,” Rita responds easily. She’d give Bellatrix the moon if she asked, and that’s nothing new.
Bellatrix exhales quietly, as if she’s trying to calm herself down before she asks whatever it is that’s weighing on her.
“Did you… Did you mean it? What you wrote in the article.”
Rita studies her for a second, puzzled. She wrote a lot in that article, a lot of bad.
“Which thing?”
A sigh escapes Bellatrix’s parted lips, as if she’s exhausted even having to specify.
“You called me mad,” she says simply, but Rita can hear the pain underneath it. This has been really bothering her.
“Pretty sure I said reckless,” Rita counters. It's the wrong thing to say, that much is clear.
“Your headline was, and I quote, “Has the Black Family Madness Finally Caught up With its Eldest Heir?”’
Rita snorts. “Bella, come on. You have to know that’s just to get people to read. I don’t actually think that about you.”
Bellatrix bows her head, long, black curls obscuring her face. “Yeah, well, the same can’t be said for the rest of the wizarding world.”
Rita can’t see it, but she knows there’s a deep frown tugging at Bellatrix’s mouth.
“Hey,” Rita says, reaching out. She pushes a stray strand of hair behind Bellatrix’s ear, helping bring her face back into focus. She still won’t meet Rita’s eye though. “I don’t think you’re mad. High strung maybe. Unnecessarily stressed for sure. But you’re not crazy.”
Bellatrix nods. It’s barely there, just a slight shake of her head up and down. It’s not enough.
“Look, Bella—No, look at me, I mean it.” Slowly, hesitantly, Bellatrix raises her head up. Underneath all her hair, Rita can just make out that Bellatrix’s eyes have gone glossy again. “I wrote that article because I was hurt and I was scared for you. I didn’t mean for all this to happen and I didn’t mean a lot of the words I published, okay. I was lashing out because I was upset and it wasn’t fair to you. I can see that now.”
A second head nod comes from Bellatrix, this one more believable than the last. “It’s in the past now. I just…” she makes eye contact with Rita again finally, eyes blazing in earnest. “I didn’t want you to think of me like that.”
“Oh, Bella…” Rita murmurs, scooting even close now, heart hurting. “I could never think anything bad of you. I love you. Wholly and ineffably. I loved you when I wrote that article—even if you can’t tell—and I love you now. When I look at you, I don’t see your flaws, I just see the girl I planned to spend my life with.”
They stand there like that for a moment, a stifling silence settling between them. Rita can still see it now, the future she had arranged, her and Bellatrix walking side by side, even if in private. It’s crumbling around her, but she can’t stop herself from admiring the pieces as they go.
It would’ve been so perfect—at least in theory.
But if this situation has proved anything, it’s that they weren’t meant to be. It was always destined to be the wrong time.
When the quiet becomes noticeably uncomfortable, Bellatrix finally steps forward.
She reaches out, fingers trembling, and cups Rita’s face like she’s afraid she might disappear. Rita leans into the touch immediately, breath hitching as her own hands slide onto Bellatrix’s shoulders.
“I wanted so badly to hate you,” Bellatrix mutters. “Merlin knows I tried. I convinced myself that you writing that article was some elaborate scheme you had from the very beginning to take me down, but I think I always knew I was lying to myself. I just felt so guilty loving you even after all you did to me. Did to us.”
As she talks, the grip Bellatrix has on her grows increasingly painful, nails digging into the soft flesh of her cheek, but she doesn’t move away. Instead, she thinks: Good. Mark me. Scar me. Leave me with a reminder of this moment—the last time Bellatrix will hold me like this.
She continues. “I was so angry with you that I couldn’t breathe, but I also couldn’t bring myself to hate you. Not really. Because the truth is… I’ve always loved you and I think I always will.”
A wet laugh escapes Rita’s lips, echoing through the barren Room of Requirement. Funny, she hadn’t even realized she’d started crying.
“You, Rita Skeeter, are probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me. And I don’t know how to live without you.”
Rita closes the distance between them, tears spilling over her cheeks and onto Bellatrix’s grappling hands.
“I’m sorry,” Rita says again, softer this time. Not an argument. Not a defense. Just the truth.
Bellatrix rests her forehead against Rita’s. “I know.”
They don’t kiss for fear that they would never stop.
They just hold each other tight—desperate to not let go for as long as they have left, possessive over one another for as long as they can be. Eventually, Rita shifts so she can bury her nose in the soft crook of Bellatrix’s neck, breathing in her scent like she won’t survive without it.
She was 13 the first time she got a whiff, a fresh batch of amortentia brewing below her, and she’s 17 the last time she gets the chance.
She’s sure the hair on Bellatrix’s nape is soaked at this point—a pet peeve of hers—but she says nothing about it, just lets Rita sob into her skin until she can’t bring herself to cry any longer.
When her body has stopped racking itself with sadness, Bellatrix’s arms glide down to wrap around her hips, snaking around her body in a boa constrictor-like vise. Like she’s trying to engulf Rita’s body into her own. Rita mirrors her, gripping onto the jutting bones of her hips so tightly that she’s surely leaving bruises.
“Stay,” Bellatrix whispers, voice barely sound at all. It’s the first thing she’s asked Rita in a long time, and she feels no urge to deny her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Rita says with a hysteric nod, tears burning behind her eyes.
They hold each other like that for a long time—long enough that the world outside the room goes fuzzy, their responsibilities long-forgotten. When they finally move, it's a slow and silent affair, their fingers laced together the whole way so they don’t have to part for a moment.
They wind up laying on the bed the room has prepared for them. It’s soft and warm and the absolute last thing they have left.
They lie down fully clothed, Bellatrix curled into Rita’s side, Rita’s arms wrapped protectively around her. Bellatrix tucks her face into the hollow of Rita’s throat, sheltering under her chin, and Rita presses a kiss to her hair without thinking. She can feel Bellatrix’s fingers twisting into the fabric of her shirt, holding on, but she doesn’t say a word, scared to break the tender silence.
Neither of them sleeps.
They just sit there, listening to each other breathe, pretending—for a few stolen moments—that love might still be enough.
It’s hours before Bellatrix’s breathing finally evens out. Rita knows because every time she feels her mind wander, she checks her watch and sees what time has gone by, what precious seconds she’s lost.
The pace of Bellatrix’s breathing is slow and deliberate, the careful cadence of someone used to pretending. Rita recognizes it instantly but doesn't call her out. Instead, she mirrors it, stills her own breath, lets the dark settle around them like a held secret.
The room is quiet. Too quiet. Like it’s waiting for something.
More minutes pass, Rita staring into the shadows above the bed. She lays there, body memorizing the weight of Bellatrix against her the best it can. It’s so familiar, but she can already tell that the impression will fade over time. Vaguely, she wonders if this is how ghosts feel—already halfway gone. She’d ask the Grey Lady but she’s pretty sure after the stunt she’s pulled, the spirit will no longer deem her worthy of visits.
Her throat tightens.
“I know you’re awake,” Rita whispers.
Bellatrix doesn’t move.
Rita exhales shakily, tears prickling behind her eyes for what feels like the millionth time this night. “That’s okay,” she murmurs. “You don’t have to listen. I just—” Her voice breaks. She swallows and tries again. “I just need to say it.”
She shifts slightly, careful not to wake Bellatrix if—on the impossible chance—she truly is asleep. Her hand comes up, resting lightly between Bellatrix’s shoulders, fingers grazing her skin.
“I never meant to hurt you like this,” Rita says quietly. “I tell myself that over and over, like it matters. Like intention changes impact.” A wet sigh slips out. “It doesn’t. I know that.”
Her chest aches, each breath a small, painful thing. “I told myself I was brave to publish that article. That I was doing the right thing. That if I burned everything down, revealed everything, you wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. And we could just be.” She shakes her head slowly. “But really, I was jealous. And scared. And so angry I couldn’t see straight.”
Tears spill freely now, hot and silent.
“I read the article again tonight,” Rita admits. “I thought that if I hated it enough, it might undo it somehow. But all I could see was how well I know you—how easily I could hurt you. Every word I wrote was built from a piece of truth I wasn’t allowed to use, which is why it cut so deep.”
Her fingers curl slightly in Bellatrix’s shirt, a reflex she doesn’t fight. “You’re not crazy,” she whispers fiercely. “You’re brilliant and cruel and soft in all the wrong places. But you’re not crazy. It was wrong of me to publish such blatant lies for the whole wizarding world to see, especially when I knew this was such a sensitive subject for you. So for that, and everything else, I’m sorry.”
Rita presses her face into Bellatrix’s shoulder, muffling a sob. “I thought if I loved you the only way I knew how—loudly, publicly, stupidly—it might change something. Change both our fates. But I can see now that you needed quiet. You needed survival.”
She goes still for a moment, gathering herself.
“I think… I think that’s the part I finally understand that I could never get before,” she says. “This is you surviving.”
Her thumb traces a slow, familiar line along Bellatrix’s arm. She commits it to memory—the warmth, the shape, the way Bellatrix fits so perfectly against her like they really were destined for a life together, rather than something that was never meant to last.
“I would’ve followed you,” Rita confesses. “Anywhere. Even into a life where you weren’t mine in name. I would’ve stood at a distance and called it enough.” Her voice wavers. “But you didn’t ask me to. And I hated you for that.”
She pauses again. Gathers up her courage.
Softly, she says, “I forgive you now.”
The words feel like a release. Like a dam opening its walls to let the stream out.
Rita kisses Bellatrix’s shoulder, barely there. Then her neck. Then her hair. Each one slow. Intentional. A goodbye disguised as affection.
“I hope he’s kind to you,” she whispers between kisses to her cheeks. “I hope he never raises his voice. I hope he never looks at you like you’re something to be controlled.” Her lips tremble. “I hope he never makes you feel small.”
Her hand comes to cradle Bellatrix’s jaw, feeling the tenseness there, like she’s holding herself back from speaking.
“And I hope—” She hesitates. “I hope one day you get to start a family with him and you’ll be able to teach your kids how to love the same way you taught me.”
Rita presses one final kiss to Bellatrix's head, easing her carefully from her arms. For one terrible moment, Bellatrix stirs, and Rita freezes—heart pounding, breath caught—until she settles again, still pretending.
Rita sits up slowly, pulling the blanket back into place around Bellatrix’s shoulders. She watches her for a long time, eyes tracing every line of her face like she’s reading something sacred for the last time.
“I love you,” Rita says finally. The last words she’ll ever utter to Bellatrix Black soon-to-be-Lestrange.
She swings her legs over the side of the bed, standing quietly. Her knees feel weak and her body heavy, the weight of everything she’s leaving behind dragging out her swift escape.
At the door, she pauses.
She doesn’t look back. Just waits there a moment.
She’s sure that if she turns around, the room will read her mind and lock them in together for the rest of time.
She whispers something into the quiet of the room, a French saying Bellatrix taught her when they were just fourth years getting to know each other. It’s hardly even a mumble, more a general movement of lips that's not meant to be heard. “Tous mes vœux de bonheur."
A minute later, Rita slips out of the room, the door dissolving behind her without ceremony—no slam, no echo. Just disapparition.
Somewhere in the quiet dark, love stays behind.
-------------------------------------------
Bellatrix waits until the door is gone.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe any deeper than she has to. The room hums softly around her, warm and dim, like it’s trying to console her.
Only when the silence stretches long enough to ache does she open her eyes.
The space beside her is empty. Vacant. Cold.
Of course it is.
Bellatrix sits up slowly, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. The bed is too large without Rita, leaving her stranded in its center. She presses her hand into the mattress where Rita had been, as if it still might remember her weight—her significance.
It doesn’t.
She exhales through her nose, sharp and controlled. She will not cry. Crying implies regret, and regret implies choice.
She had no choice.
That truth settles over her chest like a weight she’s been carrying for years. Heavy. Familiar. Manageable.
Bellatrix couldn’t stay with her after being flayed raw, her insides displayed for the world to pick apart. Pride aside, she could never trust Rita again, knowing that at any moment she could be exposed again. Ruined.
Somewhere deep inside, Bellatrix always knew this would be how they ended. Not with fire or spectacle, but with quiet parting. With the understanding that some things are just too dangerous to keep.
She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands, straightening her spine out of habit. Survival demands posture. Composure. The sacrifice of comfort. She has learned that lesson well.
Rita’s words echo anyway.
I would’ve followed you.
Bellatrix presses her palm flat against her sternum, steadying herself. That had been the cruelest part—not the accusation, not the article, not even the betrayal. It was the devotion. The willingness. The way Rita had offered herself up so completely.
Bellatrix could never afford to take her like that—keep her from achieving the greatness she's destined for by constantly dragging her down.
Bellatrix moves through the room slowly, touching nothing, only cataloging what was conjured up for their last night together. The walls feel closer than usual, stripped of their warmth. The portraits are gone, as if their life together has been hollowed out. The bed looks ordinary now, dressed in plain white sheets instead of the frilly pink Rita loved and Bellatrix pretended to despise.
The covers have been barely disturbed, as if nothing worth remembering happened here at all.
In the past, when they woke up together it would be to a bare bed, sheets thrown so far across the room, they would opt to cling onto each other for warmth rather than grab them.
She almost chuckles at that—at the memory of tangled limbs and laughter. Messes made together.
“Fool,” Bellatrix murmurs—to herself, to the room, to the ghost of Rita’s voice still clinging to the air.
But the word carries no heat. Just truth.
They knew they would never last, but they went in anyway, aware they’d only be left with heartbreak and the faint soreness of having been loved.
They were on borrowed time the moment they recklessly decided to try. But Rita had convinced her that love was something that could be chosen freely. Something that could be safe. And Bellatrix had foolishly believed her. Because Rita burned so brightly with love—unapologetic and determined, like it was something she deserved to have—that it made Bellatrix want to stand in the light alongside her.
She thinks of the ring waiting on her bedside table back home. Cold. Polished. Laden with expectation. She thinks of the man she is meant to marry—respectable, secure, politically useful. A man who will never know her the way Rita has. A man she will never bleed with love for.
But, she supposes, that is the point.
Love like the one she and Rita shared is not sustainable. It draws eyes. It invites scrutiny. It creates weaknesses people are eager to exploit. Bellatrix has spent her entire life learning how to make herself untouchable; she can’t undo all that hard work now.
Closing her eyes, Bellatrix inhales slowly.
She knows—she knows—that she will never have this again. There’s no second chance for her to be wanted or seen or loved unconditionally. This kind of intimacy is a once-in-a-lifetime mistake. And she’s already made it.
Her jaw tightens. She swallows down the knot lodged in her throat and schools her expression into something calm. Something polished.
Rita was right—this is the price of her survival.
Bellatrix will marry. She will smile. She will play her role as a wife and an heir flawlessly. She will become untouchable again, even if she loses herself in the process.
She would rather live empty than die exposed.
Still—just for a moment—she lets herself remember the weight of Rita’s arms, the sound of her voice in the dark, the way she said goodbye without asking to be forgiven.
Bellatrix sits back down on the edge of the bed and allows herself one sharp, silent breath that almost becomes a sob.
“Goodbye,” she whispers.
Then, she stands and heads to the door, as ready as she can be to leave this all behind and start anew.
But something catches her eye on the way out: the mirror from earlier, standing broken and bare. There’s a pile of glass scattered underneath it, piling up to her shins.
It’s an odd mirror, one Bellatrix hasn’t seen in this room before. The frame is silver with a large, never-ending snake wrapping around it, almost like an ouroboros—consuming itself infinitely. She wonders who summoned it; this doesn’t feel like the type of night either of them would want to look at themselves and be faced with the ugly truth of who they are.
Where the glass should be, is a stone wall, revealed by her erratic magic. In the dim light, she can almost make out letters etched into the material. G + S, E + W, and F + A stare back at her. It seems her and Rita aren’t the first to find shelter in this space. She hopes these people faced a better fate than her. Imagines a G and an S trampling through a field with a little blonde boy in tow, swinging him happily between their arms.
It’s almost cruel, the thought that this room maybe kept other people together, but it couldn’t help her and Rita.
She’s angry again, not at herself or these mysterious people, but at her situation. E and W probably didn’t have to deal with an impending wizarding war and an arranged marriage. F and A probably didn’t have to hide their love from the entire world for fear that they might be cursed into oblivion. But granted that the Room of Requirement was their safe place, maybe she’s wrong. Still, seeing the initials upsets her. Because one of these couples likely got the life she’s always dreamed of, while she’s left to wallow in her misery.
Bellatrix finds herself tracing the markings. They’re carved in pretty deep—deep enough to last.
She wonders how they even got here, last time she checked, the room cannot be altered. Things can be added from the outside or removed if they’re not a conjured object, but she’s fairly certain the layout cannot be messed with like this. It would take magic as powerful as the room to permanently alter something like the wall. Then again, the room is practically sentient, so maybe it… allowed itself to be scarred.
That’s what she’s hoping when she raises her wand, slipping it out of her thigh holster and pointing it at the stone. Sure enough, it allows her to burn R + B into the wall. She’d been a little worried it would fight back, but, no, it happily accepts the marking, hollowing out behind the letters so they can run deep.
When she’s done carving, she admires her handiwork and finds comfort in the fact that her and Rita are no longer alone; they will always have this space and these people. She thinks of a couple stumbling upon this wall in a few years, seeing their letters together, and dreaming up a future for them. It makes her smile.
She silently casts a Reparo, watching as the glass on the floor floats back up and assumes its original position in the frame, safely tucking away her and Rita from prying eyes.
Evidence covered, Bellatrix finally allows her to leave the room, certainty settling over her like armor as the door dissolves behind her.
She knows three things now:
- Her and Rita will always have a place at Hogwarts.
- Love was never meant to last for a person like her.
- And she has survived far worse than losing it.