Ours to Catch Chapter 15

Hermione found herself sitting in a plush armchair that looked more expensive than her entire home. Andy had met her at the bottom of the stairs, handed off her letter to an house elf to have owled and then had a small breakfast together. The entire time they ate, both women kept the conversation to Hermione’s studies and Andy’s work. They kept within the safe topics that Hermione was comfortable with. They didn’t broach the real topic Hermione wanted, needed, to talk about.

They had both silently agreed to wait until all four women were together to lay everything out for Hermione.

But once they were done eating, Andy wasted no time in shepherding the young woman towards the room the sisters had agreed to have their meeting. It was a lighter toned room they hoped would help put Hermione more at ease. They were going to come clean about everything and knew the topics would get heavy. They knew the more at ease Hermione felt at the start of the discussion, the more likely she would be to listen to everything they had to say.

“I suppose the best to begin would be to explain what happened with Bella.” Narcissa said after they had all sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. She figured Hermione’s biggest concern was the eldest Black sister, so it would be the best place to start to ease her worries.

“You mean she didn’t torture and kill all those people?” Hermione asked, her fiery Gryffindor sense of justice coming to the forefront.

Bellatrix, faster than what her sisters had anticipated, starting talking. She had an edge to her tone, an edge that said not to push her but her tone was still borderline cordial which meant Hermione didn’t immediately bristle at the harsher than normal tone.

“I did what I needed to keep my family safe.” Bellatrix said with a growl. She held up her hand to stop Hermione from responding. The brunette had already said plenty on what she thought of the older woman, now it was Bellatrix’s turn to actually explain everything and not just give half-explanations like her sisters seemed to like to do. “Uh-uh pet, you’ve had your turn. My sisters have had their turn, now I’m gong to talk. I’ll tell you all the juicy little details they seemed to think you were too sensitive for.” She added, giving her sisters a small glare. She believed if they had all just come out and said everything without bullshitting around the truth and supposed sensitivities, they could have avoided all this wasted time.

“Excuse us for trying to set a pace Miss Granger may have been more comfortable with.” Narcissa said, already offended by Bellatrix’s words; much sooner than she had expected.

Bellatrix completely ignored her and Andy opted not say anything, instead keeping a close eye to on Hermione in case she needed to interrupt her sister for any reason.

“As you already know, I’ve done a lot of things most people would consider horrible and mean and all that shite.” Bellatrix started, giving Hermione a small glare to make sure the Gryffindor wasn’t meant to comment. “We grew up in a different era though, pet. Although, we haven’t quite escaped it yet. Expectations of us were set before we even born. We were raised knowing what we had to do and what our limitations were. We were expected to marry good, full-blooded wizards and to carry on the traditions of our families. To do anything else besides rearing kids was left to the men. There was only one option for us. And I wanted nothing to do with it.”

Hermione’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. The way Bellatrix was talking made it seem she grew up in the previous century. Hermione’s own mother was a dentist, owned her own practice; well she owned it with her father but still. Hermione’s mom was a doctor, women were able to do more than just have kids. But then again, that was muggle lives and even then, women were still struggling to be equal to men. Just by looking at the clothes Bellatrix and Narcissa wore, it was very clear the purebloods of the wizarding world were practically still a few centuries behind. Which meant, the way they treated women was also very much behind on the times.

“In order to keep my sisters safe from Riddle, I needed to be on his side. I saw how he treated those who didn’t side with him and I saw how Dumbledore’s beloved ‘light side’ were practically none better. The safest option was to go with what was expected of me, what all purebloods were expected to do: side with Riddle. But in order to make sure, as a woman, that I was able to protect my sisters and avoid them having to take the Dark Mark, I needed to be the best and do what no one else was willing to do: I got my hands dirty.”

Hermione could understand, to an extent, what she was saying. As a female, with such outdated beliefs on both sides, there weren’t a lot of options for Bellatrix to keep her family safe. And, if Hermione really thought about it, if Bellatrix wasn’t Voldemort’s right hand witch, if she hadn’t been as bloodthirsty and crazed as she appeared to everyone else, could she have kept her sisters from being killed? Could she have really kept Narcissa from having to take the Dark Mark when her husband also taken the Mark? Could she have made sure no raids happened on Andy’s home? Probably not.

“If you hadn’t done all those things, could you have still been his right hand?” Hermione asked, already know the answer. As a female in a male dominated world of aggression and hate, it wasn’t likely.

“What do you think pet?” Bellatrix answered with a look that said Hermione was kind of stupid for just asking in the first place. “I couldn’t even have ran if I wanted to as our parents were still alive and could have taken all access to our money; I wouldn’t have been able to go anywhere that wouldn’t have tried to turn me in.”

“So, what are you really trying to do then?” Hermione asked, “If the Dark side isn’t a place you want to be and the Light side isn’t either, what exactly are you three trying to accomplish?” Hermione asked.

Thankfully Hermione was moving much faster than what the Black sisters thought she would. She was their soulmate, so perhaps she was finding everything they had to say easier to believe right away because she subconsciously already had a deep connection with them and knew on some level they weren’t lying to her.

It also helped that even in the muggle world, women were still mostly seen as below men in the social hierarchy.

“The Dark side wants to preserve the old ways; which is a good thing.” Andy started, knowing Hermione would take the words better from her than from one of the others. “Our traditions with magic is something we want to preserve and that is about as much as we agree with as far as the Dark Side is concerned.”

“Some of our traditions that most, if not all, muggleborns aren’t aware of are done to keep our magic strong, to keep us more in-tuned with nature; which is where our magic originates from.” Narcissa explained. “But muggleborns aren’t taught that, Hogwarts doesn’t teach it and purebloods aren’t bothering to either.”

“The Light side should be more concerned with teaching the muggleborns everything purebloods grew up learning. The muggleborns come to Hogwarts with such a disadvantage that it’s truly unfair to expect much from. Add to that, that they don’t know the traditions to strengthen our magic, it only makes the divide between purebloods and muggleborns strength that much wider.” Andy added.

“What we want pet,” Bellatrix said with a wicked grin, “Is to set up a system so muggleborns can learn the traditions and purebloods can learn more about muggle technology.” Hermione gave the raven haired woman a shocked look. “Don’t look so surprised pet, muggles have had to become good at something in order to make up for their lack of magic.”

“And you want to learn about that?” Hermione asked, her mind blown. She had thought the two Black sisters wanted nothing to do with technology the muggles had come up with; like electricity and appliances and whatnot. Even the Weasley’s didn’t have electricity and that was with Arthur seemingly to genuinely liking what muggles could do. She never in a million years would have thought the Black sisters would have want the same.

“While we may not need nor desire all of what the muggles have managed to create, there are some things that would be nice to have.” Narcissa admitted and Hermione was left shocked once again. “Don’t act all surprised dear, while I personally have no desire to adopt any muggle ways, there is no reason why it can’t be a possibility.” She said with a pointed look towards the middle Black.

“I tried to get them to watch movies with me, but they both can’t seem to sit still long enough or get interested enough to do so.” Andy said with a fond smile.

Hermione’s mind was moving at lightening speed to connect all the dots the sister’s were placing down. First, Bellatrix may have done all those horrible things but she did it to survive, did that make her a bad person? The fact that she even realizes what she did was wrong in the first place meant she wasn’t as horrible as everyone made her out to believe. If she were in Bellatrix’s shoes and her only options to protect her sisters, or to even just survive in the environment she grew up in was to either follow in line with the Dark Lord or marry someone who did, Hermione would probably choose just as Bellatrix had.

“So, instead of getting rid of muggleborns, you want to protect them?” Hermione asked, making sure she understood everything correctly. “Isn’t that what Dumbledore wants as well?”

Bellatrix gave a dark chuckle at the question. This was the second part they were worried about. She finally seemed to be starting to be okay with Bellatrix; or at least she understood why she did what she did.

“Oh, my dear pet, he wants nothing like that.” Bellatrix said with a feral grin. “He wants nothing but power and if being on the ‘Light side’ does that for him, then that’s what he’ll do.”

Hermione immediately bristled at the insinuation she was making about the headmaster, there was no way she was right. Dumbledore was doing everything in his power to keep people like her, muggleborns, safe.

Hermione was seconds away from going into a long winded speech about all the good things Dumbledore had done for their side but was cut off before she had the chance.

“Why don’t we save that particular conversation for after dinner, hmm?” Andy said as she quickly stood from her seat. “I promise we will get into that, but we did just unload a lot of information on you. Why don’t we give you some time to digest what she said and to ask any other questions you may have been holding back on us and then after dinner, we can delve into Dumbledore.”

Hermione was about to argue that she wanted to talk about the man right then and there, she wanted to defend the very person who was fighting to keep them all safe but Narcissa cut her off.

“We have proof of what we’re saying. Spend some time with Andy; this will allow Bella and I some time to gather the memories that we need to gather.” Narcissa explained. “We know you and we know you would immediately go to your friends to talk everything through; but we really can’t have that happen. So, we want to give you insurmountable proof of what we’re saying, of everything, and then we’ll talk about what we exactly we are planning with you.” Narcissa said, knowing full well she was practically dangling food in front of a starved animal. Hermione craved information like no other and the Black sisters were offering information no one else had dared to give her before. They were offering to give her information without holding anything back and all three Black’s knew that was something Hermione had started to get frustrated with Dumbledore about. It was something she could immediately want to take advantage of.

So, with a quick acceptance, Andy was off to go do whatever it was she needed to prepare. Hermione was left alone with the two sister’s she was most uncomfortable around. She knew that was done on purpose and it kind of annoyed her.

“So, pet, what shall we do now that little Andy is gone?” Bellatrix said with a feral grin, ignoring Narcissa’s warning look. “Perhaps we should -”

Whatever Bellatrix was about to say, which probably wasn’t anything good if Narcissa’s glare was anything to go by, the blonde woman cut her sister off.

“Why don’t we go to the library? I’m sure we can find a few books for you to read about these traditions we’ve mentioned that help strengthen our magical core.” Narcissa quickly offered, knowing full well the bookworm would take her up on it. She knew Bellatrix was about to tread into dangerous soulmate territory and while Narcissa wouldn’t mind breaching that topic as well, she knew full well Hermione wasn’t quite ready for that. Taking Hermione to the library was a much safer option for the brunette and would allow her to read away the hours while sisters took turns in gathering their necessary memories.