It’s just like Harry said, a long time ago, when they first started talking about death.
Faster than falling asleep, painful and painless in the same time.
She knows she’s dead because the green spell hit her square in the chest, and it partially is her fault.
Since her wife, Bellatrix, passed away many moons ago, Hermione has become sloppy, negligent and careless.
The first weeks without her soulmate were the worst: the witch hardly ever even left the house, and had it not been for Ginny and Harry’s intervention, Hermione would have let herself die of sorrow and guilt in the heady emptiness of Black Manor.
Instead, her friends once again rescued her, for the sake of the old times. That, and the fact that the Minister for Magic couldn’t just go missing.
Hermione turned in her resignation three months after Bellatrix’s passing, as focusing on the wellness of the wizarding community was too much for a witch who could hardly think about hers.
Bellatrix had been cursed, no doubt on Hermione’s mind.
Too many were the people who wanted her dead, too many the relatives of the victims of the dark witch’s youth wrath.
Right when Hermione and the prime ministers of the European wizarding council had finally signed on the treaty for a better collective contract for House Elves, a gift was delivered to her private residence.
A place only those closer to her knew.
When she apparated back home, Bellatrix had insisted oh so much for her not to open the package.
“It’s not even signed, Hermione. How stupidly naive and thoughtless must you be to trust it?”
“It can’t be from anyone we don’t trust. That’s all I need to know.” Hermione protested, moving closer to the wrappings.
With a flick of her wand, Bellatrix made the package levitate through the air, the same way she did when she first brought the thing inside their home.
“Bella.” Hermione called her lover, with a raised eyebrow.
“If you deem it safe, you won’t mind me opening it, then.”
Hermione sighed. She could tell there was a tinge of jealousy in her wife’s voice, and she was sure it was related to the card that came with the gift.
“Congratulations for your latest accomplishment.
Here’s a beautiful piece for the brightest, dreamingly breath-taking witch of our age.
The handwriting vaguely reminded her of Ron’s.
Hermione hence moved towards her wife, who was making it a big deal at keeping her back directed to Hermione.
The younger witch didn’t let that stop her, instead she encircled the dark witch’s waist from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder as the older witch would usually do with her.
“You know, if I didn’t know you any better I’d say you’re being..”
Bellatrix’s back stiffened, and Hermione quickly changed the ending of her original sentence.
“… envious.” Surely, a better shoot than jealous. She could manage a quirky mocking Bellatrix, but she couldn’t stand being the reason for an irate, hurt one.
“Envious? Whatever of, pet? A necklace? A bracelet?” Bellatrix smirked, purring the words right into Hermione’s ear.
“The jewels in my vault could make whatever is in this wrapping bleach in comparison.”
Hermione simply stated, closing her eyes as Bellatrix’s warm breath caressed her skin.
She squeezes her wife as she further corrected her.
“You said my. It’s our vault, now.”
Bellatrix smiled softly, relaxing in the younger witch’s hold. Then, pecking her lips, she convened: “I always knew you were after my money.”
Hermione slapped her, softly.
They exchanged one last look of complicity before Bellatrix turned her attention to the package. Her long pale fingers opened the carton wrappings, and her fingertips barely even scraped the emerald green pearls of the elaborate necklace before it happened.
The older witch stiffened, making Hermione frown with confusion.
It quickly turned into concern as Bellatrix grasped her own left forearm, and a gut-wrenching scream pierced the silence of their private residence.
“Bellatrix?!” Hermione kept calling her, even as the witch tried to break free from the younger witch’s hug. “No, no, hang in there! Don’t you dare leave me, Bellatrix Black!”
Hermione cried, as she rushed to their bezoar stock, only to find it empty.
A wheeze called her attention, as more strangled coughing came from her wife.
“No! This can’t be it, we can still disapparete to—“
Bellatrix’s fingers closed around a lock of Hermione’s hair, as the witch sat down to straddle her suffering wife.
The older witch barely shook her head and Hermione understood: it would be painful and useless.
The last gift Bellatrix gave her wife, was a vial full of memories - memories Hermione would then consume in the following months.
Hermione held her, kissing her every inch of skin: her eyes, her forehead, her nose, her cheekbones, her mouth.
She wanted Bellatrix to leave this world feeling loved.
Despite the appearance, Hermione never stopped blaming herself.
If only she had listened to her wife… yet she never looked for revenge.
Ultimately, Hermione understood the wizarding community wasn’t ready for the changes she was leading then through, too projected into the future while half of the wizarding world was still grieving their deads from the Magical Wars.
Even by not seeking revenge for the terrible murdering of her wife, Hermione came to meet the wizard who gave her the package.
Ronald Weasley, her childhood friend, whose eyes were under the unmistakable influence of the imperious curse.
Hermione didn’t even try to dodge it.
And here she was, the unmistakable walls of Hogwarts surrounding her with an unnatural blinding-bright light.
“Why am I here?” She asked, talking to herself.
“You’ve died, Hermione.” A celestial voice replied, making her jump with surprise.
The creature in front of her, a bronze-skinned man dressed in nothing but a white tunic, compassionately smiled at her.
“I… yes, I figured. But why am I /here/? At Hogwarts?”
“You chose it as your passing place. People usually pick their childhood home, I’m guessing Hogwarts was your favorite place during your most vulnerable times.”
Hermione nods, giving it a careful look.
It was all exactly as she remembered it from before the war. The reconstruction changed many things of the castle, so this truly had to be the version of it that she experienced.
“I guess so, we surely had so many things happening when we were…” she trailed off, her memories suddenly coming less.
“Where are we going?” She asked the man.
Once again, he smiled and it gave Hermione a sense of peace she’d never experienced.
“People have different names for it. We’re going towards… peacefulness of the senses. The ethereal sunshine.”
“Paradise.” Hermione prompted him, but he only shrugged.
“That’s just a version of what some may call it, yes.”
“Is… do we get to see our loved ones?” She asked, and although her heart surely wasn’t beating, she felt it quiver in her chest.
“Some of them. Those who lived rightful lives.”
Hermione instantly knew the meaning of those words. She loved Bellatrix and she forgave all her deeds, but she knew some things just couldn’t be erased.
What Bellatrix did during her life — during her years as a Death Eater — had tainted her path.
“What if I don’t want to go there?”
The man looked at her curiously.
“Heaven. What if I don’t want to go there?”
“People entitled to the eternal sunshine don’t usually argue their way out of it.”
“But what if I do?” She enquired, with no attempt to hide the preoccupation in her voice.
“I had a feeling you would.”
“She’s not there where you want to take me, is she?” Hermione finally asked.
“She isn’t.” The angel confirmed.
Hermione closed her eyes.
The travel was fast. Surprisingly enough, Hermione found herself at the gates of Malfoy Manor.
A man with dark-red coloured skin studied her and the angel from behind the metal bars.
“We don’t accept visitors, buddy. How long have you been doing this job? You should know better.”
“We’re not here on visit, Curlybeard.”
“She’s staying.” The angel explained, shortly.
As the devil began to mutter, the gates unlocked, and the creature stopped talking altogether.
Said the angel instead, leading the way.
Hermione couldn’t help but notice how, wherever she and the angel laid foot, the tile would light up in bright colour, in sharp contrast with the blackness of the manor.
“She might be a little different from how you remember it. But before I let you in” the angel started, as they stalled in front of the closed doors of the entrance, “I need to ask. Are you completely sure this is where you want to spend the rest of eternity?”
“It’s not really about the place.” She reasoned, making the man smile heartedly.
“Is she who you want to spend the rest of eternity with, then?”
Hermione momentarily thought of her friends: Harry, Ronald, Ginny, Luna. Her parents. Fred, Tonks and Lupin.
She wondered what they might think of her.
“Yes.” She breathed. “Yes, I want to be with her.”
The angel smiled tenderly, although his eyes didn’t hide the pity he felt.
“Alright then. Welcome to your resting place.”
With that, he opened the doors of the manor for her.
In the middle of the hall, right in the same spot where Bellatrix years before had Hermione screaming and crying with pain, was a witch.
Younger than Hermione had ever seen her, no Azkaban tattoo on her skin.
Bellatrix had tears in her eyes, and her hand was caressing the tiles of the floor where Hermione’s blood was shed.
Hermione called her, making the witch start.
There, in the loving, almost worshipping look Bellatrix gave her, Hermione read all the reasons in support of her choice.
Behind closed walls, the angel and the demon were taking.
"I don't get it," said the demon, "This person's lived a perfectly good and virtuous life. Why are you sending them to hell?"
The angel nervously rubbed the back of their head.
"Honestly? We're pretty sure they'd be happier in hell than heaven."
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