Be careful how you touch me, my body is an earthquake.

Ready to receive you, my mind's making glaciers.

Metals for my soldiers, let's be like strangers.

…touching for the first time.

The floorboards are smoldering, the hole goes clear through the floor through to the cellars. Thank Whomever for magic, since muggle contractors would likely balk at the crater that currently resides in our bedroom. There are scars in the walls too.

Chains clink across silken sheets as you suddenly stir from your slumber. Or should I say, concussion. Hours before, we tried to engage in a philosophical conversation while your mouth explored every inch and orifice of my body. You look up at me through a mess of curls, fallen loose from the bun that previously held them together. I gather your body into my arms, careful to not strain your shackled arms, and kiss you gently on the lips. Mornings are reserved for tenderness. You give me a glowing smile.

Another successful night, serving our sentence. Together.

We're both prisoners now. And our crime? Murder. Dismemberment. Debauchery. But our prison is your old home. The same place you shared with Rodolphus.

The battle had ended with the death of the Overlord, by our hands. I recall it as though it were yesterday.

The Overlord brazenly approached us as the his great snake had fallen flaccid. You gently grabbed hair at the back of my head and angled my back against your front, the tip of your wand pressed into my neck. In his blinding anger the Overlord advanced demanding to know how I had escaped, how I had rallied this army, how I killed Rodolphus and how I killed Nagini.

He drew close enough to kiss me. Nonsense anecdotes of villainy are spilling from him but I can't understand any of it since his breath like sulfur and vomit is burning it's way into my lungs.

And he doesn't stop talking: blah, blah, blah, destiny, evil, Harry, death, yadda, yadda, yadda. I try not to flinch as I feel you slip something cold and hard into my hand. Instinctively my fingers wrap around it; it's your knife. The knife you branded me with, the knife that ended Dobby, little house elf lost.

The Overlord goads you to end me, and I can feel your free hand caressing mine that wields the knife, giving a gentle pressure around my fist.

Never jams…no misfires…no incantation…just a quick thrust…

Like cutting into a fresh steak, I puncture the Overlord's heart. Within milliseconds his heart will leak out into his chest cavity, the coronary pressure falling and failing to fill his ventricals. No doubt I've sawed through coronary arteries. He has but mere minutes left on earth before he will drown on the inside. For a moment I contemplate cutting his throat.

No spell, no incantation can travel to his lips while his brain and muscles scramble to find blood to stay alive.

The mighty Overlord rendered dumb as Rodolphus, words frothing from his throat as grunts.

Foolish fool.

Fish eyed and in shock the Overlord stumbles back gaping at your ever-emergent mirth bombarding him with an echoing crescendo. I can't help but laugh either as you cradle me against your chest, and with your free arm, send the bleeding man sprawling, his wand dislodged from his death (dying) grip.

The jalopy sputter of the first syllable of your name as it fails to pass his lips is also quite funny. And I can't help but feel a swell of pride; I've done what Harry and Dumbledore failed to do. I've authored my own epic, and now the triumphant heroine has felled the great beast and soon the princess shall be hers. Bella…

All around us it has gone quiet, the audience quiet in hushed anticipation of the villains final soliloquy. It comes as a single hushed word as the Overlord's heart fails.

"Shit"

Around us is nothing but silence, mouths hanging open by their hinges in utter shock. And one by one the extant Death Eaters begin to surrender, the joy of the resistance members slowly rising. Through the sea of people I can see Arthur wading through toward us. You slide to the floor clutching at my blood-slicked leg, and begin to whimper at his approach.

His wand is trained at your head. "Unhand Hermione, Lestrange. It's over. Try to resist and you're dead." You say nothing, but shoot me an expectant glance like a frightened child.

Adorable.

My fingers embed themselves in your curls and I violently whip your head back. Stay away from her I say and Arthur blanches.

"What? Why? She is a murderer. She deserves the full punishment of the law!"

No one touches her, I say.

"But Hermione, the Overlord is dead. You're free. Send Lestrange to Azkaban to rot!"

I look down upon you before meeting Arthur's gaze once more. Forget about Azkaban, I'll tear her apart. I say.

I will tear your body apart, I tell them. Rip you in half.

I regard you with detachment; you don't know that your sniveling falls on deaf ears. It's not easy, seeing you like this.

We'll continue to forge our own cosmology. It pangs me, this emotion sickness; the touch of your clammy fingers gripping my ankle vice-like.

Bellatrix Lestrange, is mine.

At that moment, the resistance is fully prepared to applaud me…until a putty faced Cormac enters through the main doors. Had he the facial muscles to frown, I'm sure he would've been scowling at the time.

And so here we are, in our own little depraved universe, scarcely contained within the walls of your husband's former home. Under the watch of Dementors once more.

At night when you hold me, your hands running marathons beneath my clothes, I realize that I've never been so in love. The tenderness of your postcoital whimpers, it's enough to melt my heart.

Endless days of sex and violence and they consider our imprisonment a punishment?

I think for a moment on my former self; an impressionable young know-it-all with buckteeth and frizzy hair boarding a scarlet steam engine. A girl whom aimed to please everyone while out-doing everyone at the same time. Stuffy. Insufferable. Mudblood. Could she see me now, tattooed and scarred, stronger than ever, entangled in the arms and legs of a madwoman at least 20 years my senior…

I can only imagine she'd think to herself, oh, it's such a shame.

But that's the way things go. People change as they grow.

You call to me from our bed and I'm shaken from my reverie. Your lustful tongue rolls around in your open mouth.

"Did I ever tell you…that I love you…Hermione."

FINIS

A/N: Lyrics from "Faberge falls for Shuggie" by of Montreal.

:D