A/N. This story came from Once Upon An End's "Speech topic" challenge at .net/topic/44309/13747342/1/. This was his brief:

"Right, so in my school, it's time for speeches. And, as I'm sure you've all been through this before, they give you a sheet full of the most ridiculous, generic, boring, random, and otherwise unpleasant topics imaginable. My challenge for you is to choose a number between 1-34 and whatever number you pick, I'll give you the speech topic on my "Speech Topics" sheet.

I picked Number 27 and Bellatrix Lestrange.

The topic I got back? Success: What It Is and How to Achieve It.


They sat, or sprawled, according to their state of exhaustion and injuries. Only he stood, and was terrible to behold.

'I look at you, my most trusted, my best, and what do I see? My Death Eaters - my Lieutenants - cowed and beaten. Beaten? No, not beaten…DEFEATED' he roared. 'Defeated by a group of teenagers. Teenagers who are blood traitors and…' he could hardly bring himself to continue, so spoke only in a whisper 'mudbloods.'

They cowered, awaiting his wrath to fall upon them – but it didn't. Instead, he spoke again.

'What went wrong?' They all stared at the stone flagged floor, not daring to speak. 'Lucius?' Silence. 'Bella? You are my most able; speak.'

Bellatrix Lestrange looked at the face of her Master, and then lowered her eyes.

'We weren't very good, were we?'

Lord Voldemort raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'Not very good? YOU WERE A SHAMBLES! It was embarrassing to watch! I've seen headless Nifflers perform better than you lot. Who was responsible?'

'My Lord…'

'Yes?' His voice was icy, and she braced herself for the punishment that must surely come. 'Carry on.'

'Well' said Bella, sounding braver than she felt, 'I'm not sure anyone was responsible, you see…there wasn't much…organisation, was there?'

'Much…what?'

'Organisation. The thing is… we don't do a lot of training, do we?' She looked around at her fellow Death Eaters, perhaps hoping for support, but they all averted their eyes. 'We have some very good talent here, but there's no…esprit de corps. We all, sort of, work as individuals.'

She started warming to her theme. 'And another thing, taking tonight as an example; the objective was somewhat…sketchy. "Go to the Ministry, get the prophecy. Oh, by the way, if you happen to kill Potter that's a bonus." Where was the strategy?'

The silence lasted an eternity. Voldemort paced the room, deep in thought. Finally, he turned to her. 'So, what do you suggest?'

Bellatrix fell to her knees. 'If it pleases my Lord, I will volunteer to become...Head of Learning Resources and Personal Development.'

Voldemort sunk to the floor and let out a groan. 'Have we fallen so far it has come to this? Very well, get yourself some training…but only come back when you have the very best qualifications.'

-o0o-

Two weeks passed before their Dark Marks began to burn. On pressing them, twenty of Voldemort's key Death Eaters were transported to a deserted mansion in Little Hangleton, arriving in the hallway. There, arrows directed them to the old ballroom and they entered cautiously.

Tables had been arranged conference style around a projector screen and an old fashioned muggle OHP. Various whiteboards and flip charts were arranged around the walls. In front of each seat at the table were; a pad, pencil, marker and highlighter pens, multi-coloured sticky pads, a plastic beaker and…a name badge. A water cooler gurgled quietly in the corner.

The Death Eaters sat nervously at the table, wands ready, and tried to control their heart rates. This could be very bad.

At exactly nine o'clock Bellatrix Lestrange entered. They stared at her in disbelief; Thorfin Rowell let out a squeak.

Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail, held in place by a yellow ribbon. She was wearing a cotton-print summer frock…and white sandals. She spoke.

'Good Morning everybody, and welcome along! My name is Bella, and I shall be your facilitator for today!'

She gave them a light and sunny smile, showing perfectly white teeth. Her voice was light and sunny, too.

'We – the Dark Lord and I – have invited you along for what we hope will be the first in a series of team building sessions. Now, personally, I'm not convinced that a blame culture is value added, but…as my Lord is looking for me to be proactive...the bottom line is that the performance indicators in our last project did not, at the end of the day, achieve benchmark.'

Lucius Malfoy looked at his wife, and raised an eyebrow a fraction. Narcissa shrugged imperceptibly in return. 'She's your sister' he mouthed.

'Lucius?' said Bella, brightly. 'Do you have something to bring to the table?'

'No' he muttered, looking down.

'Well we will be splitting into workgroups for the brainstorming exercise after coffee so can I ask that, until then, we have just the one meeting?' She flashed him a smile. 'Thank you!'

'So,' she continued, 'although it will benefit us to make this an interactive session, I thought…' she giggled in a self-depreciating manner 'that it might be useful if I were to initialise a process mapping of our key topic for today; "Success: What is It and How to Achieve It" by demonstrating the strategic fit to "Six Sigma".'

'Do you mean you're going to give us a lecture?' said Snape, who was already doodling on his pad.

Bella's smile faltered, just for an instant. 'Severus, or may I call you Sev…?

'You will call me Professor Snape.'

'I hear what you say, Professor Snape - if you consider formal titles to be an indication of competencies. Yes, I shall be starting with a presentation.'

Fixing the smile back on her face she moved across to the OHP, tapping it with her wand so that key phrases appeared as she spoke them.

'Now, team, as I was saying; let us consider the Six Steps to Six Sigma because, at the end of the day, they are best practise, enabling us to leverage success.

Step One – you can take notes if you wish - Identify the product you create or the service you provide.'

Antonin Dolohov raised his hand. 'Does that mean "What do we do"?'

'Yes, in the vernacular' said Bella, her smile becoming a little fixed. 'Obviously' she flashed a look at Dolohov 'obviously, we need to define our core business in order to deliver win-win synergy and maximise return from our key assets.' She looked at Dolohov again. 'People.'

'Step two - Identify the Customer(s) for your product or service, and determine what they consider important.

Now, I think this one is a no-brainer, isn't it?' Twenty faces looked at her in stunned silence. 'It's Lord Voldemort, of course!' Slowly the group began to nod, as they realised who they worked for. 'And as to what the Dark Lord considers important…anyone?'

Augustus Rookwood hesitantly raised his hand. Bella smiled encouragingly. 'Come along Augustus, don't be shy! Touch base with us on this one!'

'Complete domination of the, er, wizard world, and the…umm, destruction of muggle society, leading to the creation of a slave based economy for the benefit of purebloods? Or something?'

'Well done, Augustus, a world class mission statement! Let's give Augustus a big round of applause, everybody; he's certainly cooking with Fiendfyre today!' Augustus blushed and nodded as his colleagues clapped in a desultory manner.

Bella gave him her sunniest smile. 'That's the spirit! Now we know our customer base we can envision;

Step three - Identify our needs, enabling us to provide our product or service so that it satisfies the Customer.

Now, I think this one could be a show stopper…yes, Professor Snape?'

'Just, you know, running an idea up the flagpole to see who salutes…' said Snape with a smirk, 'but what about a wand and a few Unforgivables?'

There was a sharp "crack" as Bella's pointer snapped in her hand. Her smile had a slight edge to it. 'We have already identified our core competencies I believe, Professor. But shall we take a time-out to think outside the box? Can we identify pinch points?'

There was total silence. Walden McNair was trying to check the time without being seen. 'Well, perhaps that's one we can take off-line for the focus groups later.'

Snape's head collapsed onto the table, and he groaned quietly.

'STEP FOUR - Define the process for doing your work.' Bella's right eye twitched slightly, and she had to take several deep breaths before her smile returned.

'Again, something that is not as obvious as it sounds. We have diversity in out teams, but our mindset – 24/7 – must be that we are result driven. I have mentioned this before, but process mapping – within a context of an operational framework and organisation hierarchy - will help us to see the big picture.'

Alecto Carrow raised her hand. 'Yes, Alecto? Do you have an input?'

'Could I be excused, please? Little girl's room?'

Bella gave her a friendly smile. 'We'll be taking a comfort break shortly. If you could just…?

Alecto saw Bella's hand reach towards her wand, and decided she probably could.

'Lovely! Nearly there! Step five – Mistake-proof the process and eliminate wasted efforts.'

'She's going to mention risk management' muttered Snap. 'I know it.'

Fortunately, Bella didn't hear him. 'I believe risk management requires far greater focus than it has historically received.'

Lucius sniggered, and quickly had to change it into a cough. He gave Snape a "thumbs up" when her back was turned.

'Our paradigm must also envision world class performance related benchmarks. But, and this is a key driver, how do we ensure that?'

There was a jerk as Peter Pettigrew's head slipped off his hand and he suddenly woke up. Bella ignored him; he was only on the attendee's list at her Lord's insistence.

'It's very simple. Step six - Ensure continuous improvement by measuring, analyzing and controlling the improved process.

In other words; how perfectly are we doing our customer focused work?'

She was met by silence, again, and Bella was aware that the atmosphere in the room had become soporific. She checked her watch. They had now been going for forty five minutes, and her course tutor had told her this was at the limit of concentration spans for a group of average intelligence.

She gave a small cough, and a bright smile. 'I think we'll break there, shall we? Now, I'll give you a fifteen minute networking window – coffee is available in the Atrium – and I'll see you back in here! We will use Step 6 as the basis for the brainstorming session, where I'm really looking forward to your proactive involvement! Excellent work so far everybody, keep it up!'

She swept from the room, deciding that the first session had gone fairly well. She was convinced that the majority her co-workers were really starting to see the benefits of a structured learning environment.

-o0o-

The Aurors who had taken over guarding Azkaban after the Dementor revolt could not believe their eyes. There, banging on the gates and demanding – begging - to be let in, were twenty of the most wanted criminals in Wizarding Britain.