A/N: This is the sequel to a story I've already written about Bellacine, so if you're picking up here it's like reading GoF without reading PoA. Except you already know the basic plot of PoA anyway, just not the new-and-improved version. I'll do my best to bring you up to speed, but I reccomend you read the prequel first. I'm really bad at story titles. Forgive me.
Disclaimer: If I was JKR I wouldn't be asking you to review. I'D BE ASKING YOU TO STOP WRITING SLASH!!
The owl arrived shortly after midnight, rapping on the closed windowpane with its beak.
The room it hovered outside appeared to be a bedroom, comfortably large but not spacious. It contained bookshelves, a desk, a wardrobe, a bed; the walls were painted a deep Slytherin green that the girl lying asleep on the bed did not care for much—it was a nice enough color on its own, but the connotations of it bothered her. It had only truly bothered her for one year, the thirteenth-going-on-fourteenth of her life, because that was the year she transferred to Hogwarts from Durmstrang Institute and became the second member of an inherently-Slytherin pureblood family to be placed into Gryffindor.
The owl tapped its beak on the glass again, making soft cheeping noises, and she mumbled, "I'm awake, I'm awake, what is it?" while shoving off the sheets and sitting up, slowly. Her disarrayed hair was slightly curly- curly enough to always be annoying- and black, in sharp contrast to her pale skin. Her eyes, once she blinked them open, were dark grey.
"I'm awake, little owl, now shut up before somebody else wakes," Bellacine Black muttered and unlatched the window.
It rocketed in, flying a few laps around the room for no apparent reason. Bellacine glowered at it and leapt up to catch it on its fifth circle of her bedroom. Squawking and struggling, the bird fidgeted in her grasp until she pulled a tightly rolled parchment off its leg. The tiny, fuzzy owl zoomed off the second her grip relaxed and hooted softly at her from its newfound home atop her wardrobe.
"Quiet, please, because if you're from someone I know from Hogwarts no one in my family will be particularly to find you here," Bellacine hissed as she unfolded the paper. Realising it was much too dark to read anything, she cursed and lit a candle.
By the flickering light that tossed high shadows onto the walls she saw it was a letter from a friend of hers, Ron Weasley.
Dear Bella,
Happy birthday! I know it was last Sunday, but whatever. I'll give you your present when I see you next because I think Pig'd collapse trying to carry anything bigger than him. (Pig's the owl Sirius let me have earlier this summer. I wasn't the one who named him.)
Anyway, I'm writing because Dad got us all tickets for the World Cup, which is this Monday night, and I wondered if you wanted to come with us. Harry and Hermione will be coming too. I guess the Malfoys will be going, but I reckoned maybe you wanted to come with us, and you can stay at our house for the rest of the holidays since that's what Harry and Hermione are doing. Don't worry about my parents and the whole Black thing- when I told Mum she freaked out a little, but Fred and George and I convinced her you were okay.
Bellacine's uncle was Sirius Black, an infamous mass-murderer who had escaped from Azkaban the previous summer under very mysterious circumstances—or so the newspapers said. The truth was, he was completely innocent and the murders he supposedly had done were really committed by Peter Pettigrew. She, Ron, Harry, and Hermione had discovered this at the end of last year's term, and perhaps this would have made every Gryffindor treat her altogether differently- at present their opinion of her was somewhere between strong dislike and fear, except for her three good friends- but before they could clear Sirius, Pettigrew had escaped and her uncle was on the run yet again.
She returned to the letter.
So if you want to come, you can come to our house pretty much any time during this week before Sunday evening, which is when we're getting Harry from the Muggles. Hermione is here already and rooming with my little sister, Ginny. You'll have to share a room with them too, sorry, but our house is really cramped at the moment since my brothers Bill and Charlie are home for this month also. Bill works for Gringotts and Charlie works with dragons in Romania.
Hope to see you soon. Send Pig back with your answer. Floo powder is probably best; our house is in Ottery St. Catchpole and it's called the Burrow.
--Ron
P.S. I hope the Malfoys are treating you okay.
Bellacine set the letter face down on her desk, a grin breaking out across her face. She lived with her mother's brother's family- that is, the Malfoys- because her parents had died when she was very young, her father shortly before her birth and her mother slightly afterwards. Her father, Regulus Black, had been a Death Eater alongside his brother-in-law Lucius Malfoy until he was killed by Aurors, and then her mother had died, and she went to the family she had left outside of Azkaban. Her adoptive family (she had kept her surname, but they felt like her family more than the idea of her parents did) was certainly civil to her; the way Bellacine often thought of it was, Draco was their son and she wasn't their child, and the only way they treated her any differently differed here; but since she had left all-pureblood Durmstrang and ended up in bring-down-the-Dark-Lord Gryffindor, they had definitely acted chillier.
There was a little over a fortnight left in the summer holidays , and quite honestly, leaving Malfoy Manor and spending the rest of the summer with her friends sounded like the best idea she had heard in a long time. Hardly anything had been said to her, but there had been a different atmosphere in the house since the previous year.
Bellacine got out a quill and scribbled Sounds great, thanks for inviting me. I'll see you sometime this week, probably earlier. The Malfoys are fine. Thanks again, Bella. She waved the owl christened 'Pig' down off her wardrobe and tied the message to his leg.
"Thanks, featherball," she whispered, and carried him over to her still-open window. He flapped off, plummeting for a few moments, then rising and flying away. Smiling, she settled back down on her bed, but after an hour of turning and tossing she decided she was much too awake to sleep.
Wait a second. How am I going to explain leaving here for the Weasleys' house to them? Oh…they'd really take that well. She could imagine their faces when she sat down at dinner…."Oh, I'm going to my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the summer…yeah, he's a Weasley, who cares?"
Well, there went her summer.
She rose up and crossed the room to her desk again, taking out a fresh sheet of parchment and a Self-Inking Quill, and began to write: Ron, I'm sorry but I can't come to yours for the summer, I can't think of how not to tell them and they won't just let me go….A breeze rushed in the window behind her, blowing the parchment and knocking over a still-open jar of ink on her desk.
Swearing quietly in Russian, Bellacine picked up the candle, bringing it with her as she unlatched her door and stepped into the hall to find something to mop up with. She returned minutes later with a towel from the linen cupboard and set about wiping up the ink and tossing out the soaked parchment. Pulling the chair away from her desk, she set it by the window and collapsed in it, resting her elbows on the windowsill and blankly staring outside.
It was times like this, with nothing to keep her mind occupied, and when the only people who really understood her were miles and miles out of distance that she felt completely alone. Admittedly, she had friends that cared about her, that had written during the summer even though she couldn't initiate a communiqué on her own because she didn't own an owl and couldn't just borrow one without asking, but it looked as if they would be spending the remainder of August together, enjoying themselves, and her other-older- friends, these she hadn't seen since the last Christmas, like Anya Gnedich.
Bellacine sat bolt upright. Anya! Of course! She'd tell the Malfoys she was headed to St. Petersburg for the next two weeks, then do so but only stay for a few days, using their house as a midway base to head to the Burrow.
Brilliant.
The next evening over supper, Bellacine brought up the subject of going to "Russia" for the remainder of the holidays. "…and Anya wrote, it got here late last night, she was the one who asked in the first place," she finished, crossing her fingers under the table even though lies like these didn't count.
Lucius and Narcissa exchanged a look. "I'm glad you're keeping in touch with your friends, that you're friends with the right sort of people," he said at last, "but…I don't know, exactly…."
"What, don't you know anyone at Hogwarts?" Draco asked innocently.
She glowered at him, a silent reminder of the pact they had made, that her would mention nothing about the friends she had made or anything else she had done at Hogwarts. "No one in particular, no, Draco. Besides"-she turned back to her aunt and uncle-"I'll be back at Hogwarts this autumn, so I'll see them, unlike everyone from Durmstrang."
"Yes," her uncle countered, "but you'll likely be seeing some of the Durmstrang students this year regardless. I received the Ministry owl this afternoon, the Triwizard's been reinstated."
"They reinstated the what?"
"The Triwizard Tournament- a competition between the three major European schools: Beauxbatons from France, Durmstrang from Eastern Europe and Hogwarts, of course. The Tournament is played at one of the three participating schools and from each visiting school there is a delegation sent. From these delegations and the host school's students three champions are selected and contest against each other. Hogwarts is hosting it this year."
"But why hasn't it been played before?" asked Draco, his face shining with a secret joy: he could be the Hogwarts champion….
Lucius shrugged. "The reason it's not been held for the past few centuries- well, the various Ministries felt the mortality rate had risen too high, so…." He shrugged again. "They discontinued it. Far too dangerous, they said. Somehow it's been brought back, but in all likelihood it's as dangerous as it always is."
"You're not to enter," said Narcissa.
"But- Mother, I want to-!" he protested.
"No," she said simply. "You aren't to enter, it's still too dangerous, Draco. Bella, I'd rather you didn't either, but-"
"Excuse me," Bellacine interrupted stiffly, "but- look, may I go to Anya's house or not? I need to know soon so I can write to her, let her know I can come."
"What time did her mother say you could come?"
"Erm, three o'clock tomorrow."
They exchanged a look again. "Very well, you may go. Don't bother sending an owl; I doubt it would arrive in time. Use Floo Powder instead- you know where it's kept." His eyes shifted between the two fourteen-year-olds. "Both of you, you're excused. Go."
Before Draco pushed his chair out she was in the hallway, and she was almost upstairs when he caught up to her.
"See? Overprotective at its finest," her cousin muttered dourly. "Finally we get something exciting at school- and, might I add, something Potter isn't already the world champion in- and they ruin it for me. You're not entering either." It was said as a statement, not a question, and she cocked an eyebrow.
"Really? And what authority do you have over me?"
He smiled dangerously. "Oh, not much- but I know one thing for sure."
"What's that?"
"You're not planning on spending the rest of your summer at your friend's place, are you? No, of course not- you want to see your other friends, Potter and Weasley and the mudblood, am I right? Hey, maybe I should tell one of them; isn't that such the responsible thing to do- good to let them know where you are, in case anything happens-"
She stepped towards him suddenly. "No. It isn't. Because that's not happening, Draco, you aren't telling anyone anything until I give you the go-ahead. That was our agreement, wasn't it? You are silent until I say you can talk; in exchange, I don't bother you at school and also I owe you most of our summer essays." That was a bargain that had taken an irksome amount of time, as a few teachers had assigned a different topic to every class for their summer essays, but it was well worth the price. "Unless…you still want those…or can I just get rid of them?"
"They're mine. Give them to me before you leave, and if you try to weasel out, I'm telling."
She shrugged jauntily, smiling. "Of course I will." She meant it, but it was hard to keep a sincere expression on her face- not while attempting to restrain laughter at Draco's "I'm telling" and how like a little child it made him seem.
Bellacine ran a hand along the mantel of the fireplace in the upstairs drawing room. "Where's that stupid little…oh, here it is," she whispered as her fingers brushed against a small silver pot, ornately carved, that contained the Floo Powder.
She removed the lid and took a little pinch in her hand, blowing the dark powder into the recently stoked fire. The flames turned a bright, crackling green; kneeling on the stone floor, blinking rapidly against the light- it was later than she would have wished, almost nine, which was near midnight in St. Petersburg, and the room had been dark till she raked the coals into flames- she thrust her head into the fire, pronouncing "Forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt!" with some difficulty, coughing as she was on ashes. Fireplaces whooshed past her, making her slightly dizzy; that combined with the highly uncomfortable feeling of sticking one's head into the fireplace led her to decide this was going to be a rather brief chat.
The whirling colors stopped and Bellacine found herself staring out of the Gnedich's parlor fireplace. The room was mostly dim, except for—Something white with no precise shape hurtled toward her head. Not sure of what would happen should she recoil, she stayed perfectly still and was promptly hit in the head by a crumpled-up parchment.
After this warm welcome fell and burnt she looked up into a boy's face. Crouching on the mantle rug, staring at her openmouthed, was Vasily, Anya's older brother.
"Bella- sorry- did that hit you- wait-what are you doing here?" he hurriedly stammered. "I was doing all the work I left off- sorry about the parchment, I keep messing this up- what's going on-?"
She quickly explained the situation. "….so is it okay if I come tomorrow and use your house as a sort of landing base to get to the Weasley's?"
"Yes, of course. What time are you coming?"
"Three o'clock tomorrow afternoon my time, so 'round six here. Is that all right?"
"Of course it is," said Vasily. "Just stay for dinner then, if that's when you're coming. With the time difference you can stay as long as you need."
"I don't mean to- to impose," she said nervously, glancing left and right at the green flames around her. Talking to her friend's older brother always made her slightly awkward; he was two years older than the two girls and smart for his age, and she eternally worried she would say something stupid.
"No, no, it's fine." He waved it off, dropping to his knees. "Mother won't mind you coming so sudden, if that matters. I can tell Anya tomorrow. I think they're both asleep or I'd get her, but I had to stay up to finish summer homework. Evil, aren't they, giving homework over the holidays?"
"Very. It is their forte, after all." She glanced over his shoulder to the stack of books and parchment on a table. "What d'you have to do?"
"Read a book for Muggle Studies and an essay for Dark Arts on the Cruciatus Curse; Karkaroff sounds like he's taking half our mark for the first half-term from it, so putting it off probably wouldn't be the most brilliant thing to do."
She nodded. "True. What's the book?"
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," said Vasily. "Ever heard of it? I haven't, or not till yesterday."
"No, never. Look, I'd better be going, I didn't get that much Floo Powder to begin with and I think I've almost used up what I did take. Thanks, Vasily; I'll see you all tomorrow."
"Of course." He stood as Bellacine's head began to vanish, slowly withdrawing, from the fire. "Do zavrat." See you tomorrow.
Chuckling, Bellacine pulled her head out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor. She banked the fire and brushed some soot off the rug. Snuffing the candles, she slipped out of the now-dark room and up the corridor; turned to head up the staircase to bed. She paused, hearing voices on the landing; shadows on the dark violet walls revealed them to be her aunt and her uncle.
"There's something I meant to tell you earlier," whispered Lucius. "It burnt again last night. No- it didn't burn, truly, not like the old days, but for the first time in thirteen years I felt it last night. I truly felt it…."
"Let me see it," Narcissa demanded, and she reached for his arm, lifting his hand in hers.
"No!"
There was a little gust of wind and all the torches quivered; when they steadied and she could see precise shadows again, Lucius clutched his wrist in his right hand, seemingly to hold it away from his wife.
"Why not- this affects me just as much as it affects you, if something were to happen- I've seen it before, Lucius-"
Bellacine shifted her weight on the first step and a loud creak issued out. The air and her relatives' silhouettes were suddenly, eerily still. "Who's there?" called Lucius.
There remained no choice now but to reveal herself, to stave off trouble. "It's me, Uncle," she announced, climbing up to the second landing. "Bella."
A frown flashed across his face, but he didn't appear angry, more…worried. Not quite frightened…."What are you still doing up? It's late."
"It is not late," she protested. "It's hardly ten o'clock at night, since when was that late? And seeing as you asked, I was in the fire, talking to Anya like you told me to."
"When I say it's late, it's late! Go to bed, now."
Bellacine shrugged and continued past them, up the stairs to her bedroom. Somebody's in a temper, she fumed. What's up with that? 'When I say it's late, it's late!' What's going on there that they didn't want me to hear? For it had been quite clear that she'd overheard something they didn't want for her to hear. And what was her uncle talking about, something burning that had not burned in thirteen years?
"Are you packed?" Narcissa repeated the next afternoon as Bellacine prepared to leave, starting a fire. The day had been unusually warm, with no fires lit throughout the manor. "Remember to tell Mrs. Gnedich we say hello, and thank her. I don't know when we're going to see you next-"
"Why not?"
"Well," she said with a smile, "with the Tournament going on this year I expect there will be some event over Christmas, and you don't want to miss that…."
"Yes, I know," she replied, tossing in the Floo Powder. "Good-bye, then." Narcissa said good-bye briefly and then Bellacine walked into the green fire, announcing "Forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt!" as she went.
It felt uncomfortable as ever, like walking into a furnace (albeit pain-free), visions of other people's homes flashing past, a blur of flames and empty, ash-filled grates. Eventually the whirling slowed, then stopped, and she ducked below the mantelpiece, stepping into the parlor of Anya's home.
Anya leapt up from the sofa where she had been waiting, hugging her quickly, then stepped back slowly, shaking her head, though she could hardly disguise a laughing smile. "Bella Regulovna, Vasily tells me our house has become part of your little con artist scheme," she said.
As ever, they spoke in Russian: the native language of Anya and Vasily and a language quickly learnt by Bellacine during her stint at Durmstrang. German was the main language of the school in which lessons were taught, but it was in Russia, closest to the city of Arkhangel'sk, and about fifty percent of the students were Russian on at least one side. Therefore, while German remained, so to speak the language of business (it had been reasoned long ago that German would be easier to learn than Russian; easier to stick with one alphabet) and Russian became the language of day-to-day life, of the students and occasionally of the more forgetful teachers.
"And? "
"And I would like to say that I am not an accomplice to any of this and will be pleading innocent on any and all charges."
"Well then," she muttered, feigning offense; Anya was rarely serious. "How's life? Sorry to…randomly pop up here." She gestured around at the Gnedichs' house; though old and a bit faded, it was still beautiful and decorated formally like any pureblood domicile.
"It's fine, you do it so often regardless," said Anya, brushing at a stray ash with the side of her foot. "Come on, away from the fireplace. My mum has to stay late at the Ministry tonight, they have a lot of work with people trying to arrange Portkeys for the World Cup soon."
Bellacine knew Anya's mother worked for the international department of the Russian Ministry; their father had been killed back during the First War for refusing to join the Death Eaters. Neither Anya nor Vasily held it against her that a great deal of her family had joined. (None of them knew about Sirius; she and her Hogwarts friends reached a consensus over the summer that they would never tell anyone about Sirius's innocence, or protest it to anyone.)
Her friend set off down the hallway, and Bellacine trailed behind her. "And with the Triwizard Tournament back," she added nonchalantly. "That must be a good deal of what she has to do."
She whirled around. "The what is back? The negotiations went through?"
"Maybe," laughed Bellacine. "I wouldn't know…oh, all right, I do. My uncle told me. Hogwarts is hosting this year, and Durmstrang and Beauxbatons both will come. Three schools, hence Triwizard."
"There were rumors, last year, in the spring," she said softly, "but we thought…too dangerous. Karkaroff won't risk it again."
"Risk what, precisely?" But she knew the exact reason: after all, the reason she had left Durmstrang and come to Hogwarts last year was singlefold.
Ilya Fyodorovitch Nevsky had fallen from his broom and died.
It had been the last night of school. They were playing Quidditch, only for fun, not a real game with any weight; there weren't even enough players for seven-person teams. Ilya had fallen, and Fenrir Greyback bit him. Except the werewolf got a bit carried away: Ilya died. What more was there to say?
Oh, yes. It had been her idea to have a game of Quidditch, even though the headmaster had expressly forbidden them to go outside at all that night. (Later, she discovered he knew Greyback was in the area; she had put to vain his effort to protect his students.) So whose fault had it been?
"Bella?"
Whose fault had it been? Hers or Greyback's? Karkaroff's? Who do you blame for the death of a child? Spin the wheel, pick one, skip a few, a hundred, they're all the same in the end—
"Bella?"
This voice was different, weighing more, lower: not Anya. After the voice called her name again she realized she was still standing, completely still, in the unlit hallway, staring at the dark wooden floor. Slowly, she lifted her head.
Vasily smiled slightly at her. "It's okay. You're okay. Nothing will ever happen again."
"Can you swear? How can you swear?" she asked quietly. "How do you know one of us won't die today, or tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow? Did you hear- you heard me, didn't you? The Triwizard is back. Do you have any idea how dangerous that could be?"
Brother and sister glanced at her, then each other.
"It's back," Anya explained to Vasily. "Hogwarts hosting it, Durmstrang and the French school sending delegations. I doubt Harfang ever competed- as Bella says, hence Triwizard."
"You're right; it didn't, not while it existed. Too small."
Harfang had been, until 1903, a school in Iceland servicing Scandinavia, Iceland, and the nearby countries when a power struggle between two candidates for the recently vacated headmaster's seat had shut down the school completely, and so far, permanently. This was part of the reason Durmstrang was so big: an influx of about a thousand additional students back in the1900s from the Harfang reason had almost doubled the size of the school, and those that had come, stayed.
"So I'll try to come to your school, then," he continued. "You know when Durmstrang comes?"
"No idea."
Anya said, "Me too, I want to see what Hogwarts is like."
"Well, you won't," said Vasily. "Not that many people will go, and those that do, will be in the upper years. I don't know how many people we'll take, but probably only as many as we can fit on one of the ships."
"Which could be anywhere from twelve people to the whole school," she muttered. "What they'll probably do is, they'll hold some sort of contest to select the people that will go, because they want the people who have a chance of winning if they get in."
"Exactly," he said, "so I'm going."
The Russian Underground is found in St. Petersburg- if you can find it. Like Diagon Alley, shielded from Muggles unless they are introduced to it, Unplottable, and entirely separate from the rest of the city, a self-sufficient community. Unlike Diagon Alley, the Underground (which, incidentally, is aboveground and has no relation whatsoever to any form of transportation) also contains the Russian Ministry of Magic and court system, Sovyetaskoyii, as well as residential areas; this was where the Gnedichs lived.
They found a place in the Underground for dinner, a Three Broomsticks-esque place tucked between shops on Doginasara Prospekt, the Red Dragon, because neither Anya nor Vasily could cook without covering all of St. Petersburg in a cloud of nuclear fallout. She had learned this through past experience, and through many hours in Potions spent dodging all sorts of interesting concoctions that often exploded.
Professor Mueller did not like Anya Gnedich much.
At the Red Dragon they sat in a booth near the window; when they finished, Vasily went to the bar and paid for their meal. Leaving the pub, they walked past the Ministry and as they did, Mrs. Gnedich exited the double doors in front.
"Vasily! Anya! What are you-" she began, and paused upon seeing Bellacine. "Hello, Bella Regulovna, my children told me you were dropping in. How is your family?"
A tiny woman much shorter than her son and a few inches shorter than her daughter, Mrs. Gnedich had wispy grey-brown hair and pale skin. She looked much older than she truly was, much older than many women her age; Bellacine reasoned this was in part due to the fact that her husband had been killed and her brother sent to Azkaban for life.
Mrs. Gnedich had been born Marya Dolohov, her older brother Antonin married as well and with one son; in a sense, the Gnedich and Dolohov cousins both lived in a fatherless family. But Anton was seventeen already; he remembered his father, if briefly.
"Well, thank you. And yourself?"
She didn't know what it was that made him so arrogant, but the fact remained, Anton was. If he was a kinder person he could be compared to Percy Weasley with his strict semi-obsession with rules, and they were both a little too ambitious, but Percy was nothing like the slightly younger boy. The fact that Anya and Vasily and Anton were cousins did nothing for their relationship; they disliked him just as much as the rest of the school.
Somehow, now being trailed by an adult (no less, a parent) they had nothing of any real significance to say and the talk soon changed to the weather, ambling slowly. Finally the Gnedichs and Bellacine reached the house, but by that time, she realized, she had to leave or she'd likely be showing up at the Burrow in the middle of their supper.
Anya and Bellacine went into the parlor; her things had been left near the hearth and the Floo Powder was, in an interesting show of similitude, on the mantel. Oh astonishment of astonishments. She stood her trunk on end, and Anya hugged her good-bye.
"What, don't I get a hug?" asked Vasily, and then he actually flinched, seeming surprised at himself and acutely aware that both girls were staring openly at him. He laughed. "I was joking. 'Bye, Bella." Anya tossed Floo Powder into the fire.
Bellacine wasn't sure if he was sincere or not. Agnosticism at its finest. "Good-bye."
She stepped into the oddly cool green flames, dragging her upended trunk by one handle, and called, "The Burrow!"
Her last glimpse of forty-two Ikaratina Prospekt was of Anya waving into the fireplace, and then whirling infernal colors took all her vision away.
A/N: Right, I hope I've explained everything well enough for the new readers. As previously said, it'll be better if you go read the prequel but I will try to make allotment for those who don't. If there's anything you don't understand (or that the old readers think I should explain for the new) let me know, please, and I shall make an effort to clarify. On Dr. J& Mr. H.: I had to include it. Moody/BCJ references. Such great fun.