Chapter 124. A Date. Part 1. Meeting in the Park.
London. Grimmauld Place.
Near a tall tree at the center of a small park, Severus stood holding a bouquet of roses, his gaze lifted to a bright blue sky scattered with a few white clouds.
It would have been a wonderful morning, if not for this inconvenient body. A tired sigh escaped him as he recalled spending the entire night wrestling with the correct proportions for the Cloning Potion. Even after nearly fifteen hours, he had not managed to finish it. All he had to show for the effort was a crude version with reverse control.
The Cloning Potion was a basic brew taught to almost every beginner. Simple to make, but burdened with so many drawbacks as to be nearly useless in practice. The worst was that the clone's strength never exceeded Apprentice rank. Any Journeyman could see through the fake with ease, and there was no point even discussing stronger mages.
But it was the best he could produce at such short notice. He did know one spell capable of creating a genuine copy, but it had its own critical flaw: the copy could not move more than a kilometer from the real body before it vanished.
"I'm used to this, and yet..." Clenching his fist, he smiled crookedly. "...it's still very inconvenient."
"You're early today," a cold female voice said, drawing him back from his thoughts. When he raised his gaze, his smile turned playful at the sight of that familiar cold face and dark eyes.
"I realized one should never make a beautiful girl wait," he said, offering the bouquet. She accepted it silently with a barely perceptible nod. "I put some thought into today. Because of my sudden departure, we missed two whole dates. Consider this an apology..."
The moment he stepped closer, Miss Black clearly expected another kiss. She frowned at him with displeasure but did not retreat, bracing herself to meet his "attack." Without quite meaning to, she leaned slightly forward and closed her eyes. In the next instant a gasp escaped her. Her eyes flew open in shock. She found Severus's impudent smirk inches away; a moment earlier he had gently bitten her earlobe. A telltale flush rose on Bella's pale face.
"Next time, Squirrel."
"What are you..." She drew in a breath, fully prepared to tell him exactly what she thought of his games, but at the last instant she caught sight of the gold bracelet with red gems on her wrist.
"You left yourself open. That's your own fault. And this is my gift, an apology for such a long absence." Taking her hand, he looked warmly into her eyes. She faltered for a moment; he very rarely looked at her like that. "Well? Did I manage to please you?" Only then did Bellatrix snap back to herself. She yanked her hand away and turned sharply to the side.
"Tsk! No, you didn't. I have hundreds of such trinkets."
"I see..." He wrapped his arms around her from behind, that familiar smile settling on his face, the one that irritated her most. Then, leaning close to her ear, he blew softly into it. She shuddered. "Then I'll have to think of something better next time. Something you'll actually like."
"Let go..." She tried to put steel into her voice, but it came out rather weak, and her attempts to break free were halfhearted at best.
"Promise me you'll never take it off, and I'll let you go."
"I... p..." He bit her earlobe again. "...romise!"
"Good." The instant he loosened his grip, she sprang back like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, pinning him with a thoroughly unkind stare, a light flush still on her cheeks. "Then let's go." He offered his arm, barely suppressing laughter, but she eyed it with suspicion and held her distance, afraid he would do it again. After all, her ears were one of her weaknesses, which was why she had reacted so vividly to his harmless flirting moments ago. "Don't worry, I won't bite... probably."
"Isn't this enough already? You're deliberately taking advantage of the fact that I can't fight back properly here."
"A little, yes. But even if you could, you wouldn't succeed."
"Do you think I'm weak?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
No. That's precisely why I fell in love with you. You're more worthy than anyone else of being called a true witch. So enough of these foolish questions. Let's go.
She studied his face for a long moment, as if searching for something. In the end, with a heavy sigh, she shook her head and took his arm.
"You're the strangest person I've ever met, after the Master."
"I'll take that as a compliment," he said with a smile, and they finally set off together along the stone path beside a small flower bed toward the park exit.
"You could. Usually everyone tries to avoid me, even my so-called fiancé. But on our very first meeting you did something that anyone else wouldn't have survived in that alley."
"And I'll keep doing it. I'll never let you go, so you may as well accept it. The moment you caught my eye, you became mine."
"Don't count on it. Or have you forgotten I'm getting married soon?" She glanced mockingly at a small playground where Muggle children were chasing each other.
"That can always be changed, one way or another," he said evenly, and she snorted into her hand.
"To speak so calmly about someone's death... are you truly a light wizard?"
"Who knows? I might as well call myself a gray wizard."
"Gray?" Bellatrix looked at him with genuine puzzlement.
"Neither light nor dark. Grey. I don't shy away from getting my hands dirty, but I do it very rarely, and I try never to touch the innocent. I genuinely don't understand why anyone would destroy Muggleborns. Isn't it simply wasteful? There aren't many of us wizards to begin with, a few thousand at most. Instead of letting that number grow, you destroy your own kind, and each day there are fewer of us. Tell me, why do you do it?" Severus asked calmly, looking into her frowning eyes.
"I understand Tom. He turned his hatred on all Muggles because of a Muggle father who abandoned his mother. She died because of it, and he, a descendant of Salazar himself, ended up in an orphanage. The motive is at least comprehensible. But why do the others hate them?"
While he spoke these words, which she might well have found offensive, he used the seal in Bellatrix's body to read exactly what she felt. To his surprise, although she was angry, it was far less intense than it once would have been. More like echoes of the old Bella. The real Bellatrix, though she watched him with displeasure, was genuinely turning his words over in her mind.
"I wouldn't call it hatred. More of a deep dislike. Imagine someone walked into your home and began dictating their rules. Would you tolerate that?" He only shook his head with a smile. "That's the problem. Almost all Muggleborn wizards treat our traditions and centuries-old foundations with contempt, constantly trying to import something from their world when it's simply not needed. We follow entirely different paths. When Muggles develop their technology, we walk the path of magic. We don't meddle in Muggle affairs, but Muggleborns, like cockroaches, try to crawl into every corner and dictate what must be done, how we're wrong, and why everything should be done differently. That's why there's not a single Muggleborn in any position of importance at the Ministry. They simply will not be allowed to live long enough if one manages to climb that high. You need look no further than Nobby Leach, a Muggleborn who became Minister of Magic. In the end he was cursed and forced to resign."
"But he still managed to hold the post for six full years."
"Only because he conducted himself properly as Minister of Magic. In his final two years he began pushing laws and amendments that struck at the very foundations of the Wizarding World, and so they removed him."
"I see. But the actual genocide of Muggles and Muggleborn wizards, that is mainly Tom's prerogative, and that of his most devoted followers. The others lend their support only for the sake of the bright future that is supposed to follow his victory?"
Having left the park, they made their way along the sidewalk toward a small restaurant nearby.
"Roughly speaking, yes," Bellatrix answered quietly, lowering her gaze to the bracelet. She glanced at Severus with a slight frown. He was still smiling.
"Noticed?"
"It's hard not to." She looked back at the bracelet and began to examine it with real interest. "Not long ago I would have cursed you for this and refused to answer your questions. If you had turned the conversation to the Master, I could have reached for the Cruciatus without a second thought."
"This artifact keeps your madness in check, but it won't rid you of it entirely. Though I'll think of something to help you be free of that family curse for good. If you ever want to turn it off, simply say, 'I love Severus.'" For a moment her right eye twitched. A sudden urge to curse him rose sharply, then faded just as quickly. "Five seconds to suppress it."
"So it was just a test," Bellatrix said with visible relief.
"No, it wasn't."
She very much wanted to hit him again, but restrained herself. She settled for one firm poke in the side before letting it go.
"You really are a strange person."
"You're repeating yourself, but I am what I am. Come on, let's enjoy ourselves. No work talk, or I'll bite..." At those words, she clamped a hand over her left ear and shot him a fierce glare, and he burst out laughing at her reaction.
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