Author's Note: So. I said I took the idea from the Death-Eater-Redemption challenge; but actually, there isn't any redemption going on. (Personally, I find redemption boring - it can be written well, but meeh... nothing for me. If people don't think of the consequences of their choices, they're idiots (that doesn't make me less of one if I do stupid mistakes too.) But I digress
Warning: Death. Still the same as before. Allusions to people above the age of thirty having sexual relations (If you search long enough.) Parenthesis. Sometimes characters lie. Some harmless blood-shedding.
Beta: (Awesome) Mrs. Bates93 - It's her fault if Bellatrix sounds underdeveloped (it's mine, really.) She encouraged me.
.
Cheating Death
.
II. Leaving Home
o0O0o
Mors certa, antiquatis incerta.
(loosely based on a Latin proverb)
o0O0o
Bellatrix, who had chosen her husband out of the few suitors because the name suited her best, had taken to measuring the passage of time by the many wrinkles on her hands.
It was a surprisingly depressive method, but the only reliable one, too. She knew she wasn't getting any younger. The world had changed outside; it must have, because she had only three years of the outside world to add to her 30 years beforehand.
Technically she should be 33. That would be fair.
At some point during the endless imprisonment in the blank cells, chained like a feral beast and humiliated, degraded, contaminated, befouled; she had become an old woman.
When the healer came (what a joke! Healing her, so her life would be extended, so that she could spend more time in her cell. The cell she was prohibited to leave, the cell where she had lost her mind, her body, her children, her face, her everything) and told her she was nearing her 53th birthday, she had laughed in his face. That was barely middle-age. If that was true, she would still be able to bear... puppies. Something about puppies.
Her body was as cold and wet as her mind was. Her room, too. Some time ago, the cold and wet was to be dreaded. Now, the room with the healer in it was – bright, warm, dry, soft, and somewhat muted – seemed to unnerve her. Terrifying, to get used to it, and then to have it taken away again.
He told her of a thing called gannet convention (perhaps similar to a mugwump? Who knew what they called their offices after the war.) Apparently, they were trying to get the prisoners back to the outside world –that was also funny; maybe they would throw in a subscription to the paper too?
When she cackled, for no reason, the healer looked faintly disturbed and prescribed her alone time with a men's-wizard. Before, alone time with anyone else besides her husband, would have terrified her, but that was before they tried using her children to make her a slave. Before the dark Lord punished them, and her, for being useless. Before it all fell apart at the hands of that boy.
She measured the passage of time by the wrinkles on her hands, and the growth of her hair. The dirt had for a long time clung to her body, her cot, the cell, so fully, that time could not be measured –sometimes she remembered her period, other times she didn't – and sometimes she did not have any long fingernails left to scratch a line into the wall because she had bitten them all.
Had she been a muggle, she would have gone insane after a month. So, she wasn't really sure – perhaps she sometimes lost time, had black-outs, and sometimes she could not remember events that had happened.
When one fine day Harry Potter visited her cell, looking exactly like he did when she had last seen him, she thought that she must surely be hallucinating. Or maybe the guards had an even darker humour than her own.
"Hello Bellatrix," the visitor said. "I have come to collect you."
Perhaps Death just loved irony.
o0O0o
When she came to again, the visitor was still there, still looking like Potter, and she was still in her mangy cell.
"Who are you? What do you want from me? Why do you look like Potter? Why have I got visitors? Am I hallucinating?" – she wanted to ask those questions, but her vocal chords got rusty with use, words did not form – what came out of her throat was a terrified croak.
"They are releasing the prisoners of war," her hallucination told her. "The British are finally catching up with most of continental Europe – your sisters helped greatly with your upcoming release."
Free? She would be freed? This was not mockery – this was torture.
They could not, they would not – they would. (Had she thought that they would end their torture on the mental side with the destruction of the Dementors? Who was she fooling? They had kept up a steady stream of humiliation and mental torture; but this, this, this was just plain evil!)
"Can you stand up?"
She gave no sign of having heard the question.
Her opposite sighed. "Stand up," he ordered. "Please."
To refuse direct orders, meant pain. So she did not. She stood. Her chains rattled, the cuffs on her feet slid down and chafed the wet scab – when blood escaped, she tried not to wince.
The being looking like Harry Potter did.
"I was told a healer would look you over," his voice sounded disdainful.
She would have licked her chapped lips, if her mouth was not as parched as it was at that moment – the lip licking would not have helped matters right now.
"What was that?"
Internally she seethed. She was trying, dammit! "He did."
"Oh." The person looked apprehensive. "I suppose, you have also been given water to drink and to wash and food to eat."
She nodded. He began to understand.
"Can you walk?" he asked. "We'll have to, for about 3 miles then we'll be by the boats. If you cannot, we will stay here until you are better."
Would he really be freeing her? The Harry Potter look - alike? Why had he not helped Master, instead of her? And now, now that she was not even beautiful any more. She would trust him, for now. Had to, really. She nodded.
He looked her over sceptically, then shrugged, and held his hand out to her.
o0O0o
When Bellatrix took his hand, and then clung to it like a drowning child to a life buoy; Harry felt even more miserable than seeing the cells. It had nothing to do with logic, since this was his godfather's murderer, Tonks' murderer, the woman who had tortured the Longbottom's to insanity – but the cells were not fit for grindylows, let alone human beings.
"I need you to swear an oath," he told her, while crossing over the quay wall to the boat that would take them to the mainland. "You will be released, but under the dubious care of your husband's brother." Harry probably was not very fair to the woman who had spent the last twenty years in a twenty square metre cell, but right at this moment? He could not care less – the dementors were long gone, but that did not make the atmosphere, the climate, the water any less inviting.
"Who?" the woman asked with one word.
"Harry Potter, of course." he did not understand why she would ask that asinine question. Surely she had not forgotten how he looked?
She stumbled, and brought him to a halt. "What?" – this being the first word she could say very clearly (It might have been, because it was so quick, it almost seemed forced.) "That's not possible."
"You could swear the oath to your rescuer, you know – the name comes out almost like... magic." Harry was not finished with his sentence, when the fury in her eyes brought him back to days long past, when his godfather was murdered, when Hogwarts burned, when Tonks, Lupin, Fred, Dobby, Colin, Lavender, Pansy, the elder Lestrange, Avery and all the others, died, and would never come back.
Was this really a good idea? He did need a companion, and he would not take anyone with better prospects, and Bellatrix was the easiest, belonging to a family of which he was the head. (Or was it the power of stories that made him long for a companion? Would this story fulfil another prophecy? Would he die at the end?)
"I swear on my magic, I was born Harry James Potter on the 31st July 1980."
He flicked his wand and Prongs emerged – the patronus looking around the gloomy place like tasting lemons and then nudging both of them softly towards the boat.
She looked shell-shocked, and he could not blame her – if it had been him, he would look for the catch at the very least, and think that he was dreaming (and who said she did not think exactly that? Maybe mad women did not think rationally; but then again, who did?)
"You did not find the Fountain of Eternal Youth did you?" she asked a long while after – the ocean breeze and fog probably helping her throat more than an elaborate potion would. She did not look him in the eyes, but scrutinised her hands instead.
"No," he said shortly. "And I can't do the same to you. I would give my immortality to you, if I could." He stopped to think about a world where Bellatrix Lestrange was immortal, and shuddered. "Maybe not."
She swallowed. "You said something 'bout release. Are you taking justice into your own hands?"
"No," he answered again. "You're the last prisoner – the most infamous, too – they were scared to release you. Apparently they feared retribution."
Dark clouds approached the coastline. Thunder rolled ominously. Light flashed at random intervals. "They'd better," Bellatrix said viciously.
Harry was sure, it was better to leave it at that.
o0O0o
They would cast out the insanity, the madness, and the deteriorated brain-cells with a three month long therapy session paid by the money in the former Black vault. Bellatrix Lestrange was found to possess more mental disorders than the March hare, and treating one seemed to bring out – not unlike battling a hydra – nine others. She would – of all bizarre reasons! – work as his secretary and coordinate the security detail he had to keep around his house, while he slowly eased his children into the facts that soon he would leave on another quest, and it would probably take a while until they spoke again, beside the weekly call on the looking-glass.
When Lily met her the first time, she was coming over waving the newly arrived most important correspondence a pre-teen could possibly get: the letter from Hogwarts.
"Daddy! Daddy! Look what I've got!" she hollered, running through the kitchen floo in Grimmauld Place, drawing a line of soot behind her, which Kreacher would almost expire over. "You'll never guess!" Face first, she ran into the mad-looking pre-coffee witch, and looked at her in horror. "Are you the death eater who killed Teddy's mum?"
"Lilly!" Hermione who had followed her, scolded, looking apologetic, and seeing as the statement was true and correct in every aspect nothing much more could be said.
Apparently living in the household of the Boy-Who-Lived meant you were exempt from all crimes that you committed. Given that the Chosen One himself had broken several laws including, but not limited to: the Statute of Secrecy, the Peace Treaty of 1854, 1876, 1912 and 1956 with the goblin nation, the non-influence disclosure treaty, the state building act, the usage of the Unforgivables, and all the other now classified acts; that was understandable, it was wartime and inter arma enim silent leges.
But, even medicated, her mind was wide open for intrusions; holes, psychoses and phobia repaired or repressed, Bellatrix, the warrior queen, was a force to be reckoned with.
o0O0o
"Let me get this straight – I believe I may have heard wrong – you are retiring from the forces, because you're writing your memoirs?" Kingsley, head of the Auror forces for about 15 years, and head of the Dragons for about 7 – was above raising his voice. Nevertheless, he could make one feel like a bug to be squashed under his foot, like a pixie looking up to a giant, like every wizard talking to Merlin. "You, Harry Potter, are writing your memoirs?"
"Yes, sir," Harry answered.
"I don't suppose quitting because of personal reason has the same finality?" Kingsley said with a sarcastic undertone.
"Yes, sir," Harry answered the rhetorical question.
"You have petitioned for a secretary to help you with your fan mail, after 20 years of dealing with it yourself, and now you are going to quit?"
"Yes, sir."
"And if I look hard enough, will I find you on International Criminal Databases?"
"Yes, sir," Harry answered, before processing what was said, and stuttering, "Of course not, sir!"
Kingsley shook his head. "Harry, I have known you for a long time. I may seem oblivious to a lot, but I am first and foremost an officer – I notice things. Like your wife. Like certain trips to Gringotts that take hours. Like one of my officers applying glamours to himself. I also know that you are a good man. But Bellatrix? Really?" He looked at Harry. Then he sighed. "Well. I accept your resignation. May I add that if and when you have sorted yourself out –let's just call it your midlife crisis – you have a standing invitation to come back."
Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Thanks. I appreciate... your concern. I'll keep it in mind."
And he left the office, the floor, the building, without once looking back.
Kingsley knew he was not coming back. But one could always hope.
o0O0o
Bellatrix quietly inserted herself into his life. In fact, it was done so quietly, Harry did not notice until after the fact.
In the beginning, he had heard her arguing loudly with Kreacher (and his son – a relatively new development. One day, Kreacher turned up on the door-step and introduced Kreaper, his son. Allegedly, the Black family needed a house-elf, and until their last descendants were buried under centuries of myth, this house-elf family would serve them. Harry had tried to send them away. Harry had given them clothes. Harry had tried to set Hermione on them – but they had stayed.)
Then, Hermione had showed up, every day, to take a look at his research, and talk about avenues he had perhaps overlooked.
"But you have died and come back, before you got one of the Hallows," she said one day, straight out of the floo.
"Have I?" Harry asked, and made her a cup of tea. "But we only have Dumbledore's word for that. And we know he was a bit manipulative."
She had matured, they all had, and it showed in her reply. Instead of "But it's Dumbledore!" it was, "How would lying have benefited him?"
"It would have shown him to be far closer to my parents than he was."
Another time, it was: "So the connection between Voldemort and you – maybe it was far less than we assumed."
"Must you call it a connection?" Harry whined.
"You could have come back due to the Hallow," she continued, ignoring him completely. Why she was telling him this, was anyone's guess, she was probably using him as a sounding board. "Because you owned the Invisibility Cloak, not because of your mum's sacrifice – which was always a point that stupefied: Had there never been a mother to sacrifice her own life for her child? And the second time, you had the ring. You could not die – but the horcrux could. And then the Elder Wand was yours along."
"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it's not relevant to the fact that I don't age at all."
Cue sighing, "Oh, Harry." and a tea service appearing next to him, although Harry had sent both Kreacher and Kreaper on their much deserved holiday.
Finally, there was the time Hermione came by with a folder the size of Mount Doom. (Well, not really. Rather, it was as big and wide so as to hide Hermione completely from view.)
"What's that?" he asked, mystified why Hermione would drag that monster to him. "Laws concerning Immortality?"
"No." she sent him a withering look, "Precedence cases." She slammed the folder on his kitchen table and opened it. Pieces of paper, parchment and post-it notes popped out – opened, the folder defied gravity. "I have been researching."
"That, I can see." Harry's lip curled up with amusement. "Have you been sleeping?"
The withering look does not vanish. "I have been collecting legends. Mostly European, because – I had a feeling. The magic in Asia has evolved differently. Well... I'm saying that, but I just could not find enough substance. Did you know that, for example, the Japanese shinigami – "death spirits" – were imported from Europe? They sometimes have death and immortality, but not in our sense: They reincarnate.
"Now, there is this really insane muggle scientist, called Aubrey de Grey, who thinks people could theoretically live forever. He looks a bit like Dumbledore, and sometimes he sounds like him, too; but in a world where nargles and humperdingers exist, his theories are sound.
"In correspondence – there are of course the Egyptian Gods –who regenerate from the point of one single cell. Bill has these whole stacks of magical theories nobody today can understand, but they all point towards the thesis, that there were, in fact, magical beings that were able to live a long, long time."
She drew in a breath. "It's different with the Hallows."
"Yes," Bellatrix Lestrange confirmed, causing Hermione to jump maybe a foot into the air and making the stacks of papers go all over.
Hermione gave Harry a betrayed look, but Harry just shrugged his shoulders. He had not told his house guest where his youthfulness came from. Seeing as coming out of the shadows like a ghost was her normal thing and Hermione should get used to it already, he was not really sure what her problem was.
"Legend has it, the three Peverell brothers made the objects themselves. How could anyone make an object that produces eternal youth? There is only the Philosopher's Stone," she continued, disregarding the silent communication between the two friends.
"Let's not call it eternal youth," Hermione added. "So far, it only extends 20 years."
Before an argument broke out, Kreacher appeared next to Harry. "Masters be needing something?" he asked.
Harry was about to dismiss him, when a flash of inspiration hit him. "Kreacher, have you ever heard any tales of eternal youth?"
The decrepit old elf grimaced. "There is tales of the Great Ones – saying they never went old. But they vanish, vanish, before Old City go into the water, long before great wizard Merlin is born. I is sorry."
"My grandmother told us the story with the river Styx – they tried crossing over for a lark; but I know the Rosiers used Kǫrmt– the river Thor has to cross to arrive at judgement. The point, however, is that the brothers disrupted the natural order of the universe. They did not die while crossing over. Therefore, they were presented with gifts to punish them. The gods – beings with greater power – have never cared for lesser beings. They would not have cared if Voldemort destroyed England – a lot of people have tried before. They only cared that some ancestor of yours was disruptive. Therefore, they are punishing you," Bellatrix said.
Hermione listened with a thoughtful look.
Harry shook his head. "I don't think speculation is going to be helpful. It maybe this way, it may have another reason entirely. I am still going to leave England, and visit the places where someone might know how to make an immortal die – first to the Sibyl of Cumae by Naples, and then to Alexandria."
"It's your life," Hermione quipped, only to slap her hand over her mouth. "Oops. Sorry. Ron is rubbing off on me."
Harry swallowed. "Too much information," he stated.
o0O0o
Harry was packing trunks, when Ron showed up, bleeding on the carpet of the dining room.
He lost no time in scolding his best friend (that was left for the wife, later) and produced a first-aid kit. He instilled a blood-replenishing potion and disinfection into his best friend, and closed the wound with no undervalued healing prowess.
"It was fine, when I left work," Ron grimaced. "Must have reopened on the way here."
Harry nodded. One time, he had laid on his kitchen floor in his own vomit, until Kreacher had transported him into bed and called a healer.
"Wonder who'll patch me up, when you're gone."
"Ron..."
"I get it," he answered shortly. "I do. I'm not completely governed by my emotions. It's just..." He looked with blood-shot eyes into Harry's. "You probably won't come back."
"I have two-way mirrors," Harry reminded him.
"Not the same," Ron said. "Won't be able to patch me up, won't be coming for a beer after work, and won't be... yeah. Hermione says, I sound love-sick. I probably am."
Harry looked at him askew.
"Eww. Not that way. But. You know," he sighed. "The first adventure without me."
"Ron, are you drunk?"
"Mate. Do you think I could have this conversation sober?"
Harry agreed silently, put away the tools, and grabbed some beers.
"You know. I was ready to die, when I was seventeen," Harry confessed.
Ron sighed. He knew in his heart what was coming, but did not want to acknowledge it.
"Now it's twenty years later." "And I am still ready to die.", was what he didn't say.
Bellatrix found them passed out against each other three hours later.
o0O0o
The summer before Lily went to Hogwarts passed almost within a blink an eye. Soon, they were standing again on platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross, waving and crying, and seeing people they knew from school, work or Diagon Alley.
Lily did not want to let go. James was running around shouting, as always. Teddy was standing next to Victoire – cool as rain, his hands in his pockets, because his beloved was staying with him. Albus, Rose and Scorpius were huddled together talking about snakes. Percy was seeing off Lucy and Molly, Roxanne was trying to evade her shouting mother – she was wearing a belly top and ripped jeans.
Ginny was clinging to Harry, same as Lily, crying like a waterfall. "I'm sorry, Harry," she repeated like a litany. "But... I'll forgive you, I'm sorry. Harry, I am so sorry." He could only hold her, and tell her everything would turn out fine, but he was lying, he was going to leave with the Continental Express to Germany – Apparition was limited across running waters. Also, it was very exhausting.
"I will call," he said, hugging Lilly one more time.
Then, the Hogwarts Express left.
He extracted himself from Ginny's clutches, kissed her goodbye, hugged his friends...
And was gone.
Author's Note: 1) "Mors certa, hora incerta." - Death is certain, the hour is not. (My version is old age...) 2) The laws Harry may or may not have been broken are mostly invented. There are two different ways law can be regarded: As something you can enforce before court, or the natural law of who was in the right. That doesn't matter, however, if it's wartime - In War, the laws are silent (The most famous of the ancient Roman laws, most notably cited by Cicero). 3) Aurors and Dragons are the police and the military force respectively. In state theory, both of them must exist, before a state can be called a state. 4) I just noticed: This chapter has a lot of prententious Latin, and a lot of prententious law shit. Sorry. 5) Mount Doom is still from LotR - If you still haven't read it, you are hereby a philistine. (coincidentally this term originates from the Book of Judges... I am doing it again, ain't I?) 6) Everything Hermione says about her research is correct. Audrey de Grey is, in fact, a legitimate scientist (well mostly). He is 49, and looks like a cross between Dumbledore and Mel Gibson's Jesus. 7) Styx ad Kormt (Greek and Celtic) are rivers dividing the living world from the dead. 8) The Sibyl of Cumae is one of the great prophets of Ancient Europe. And that's all I'm saying about her for now. 9) I have limited Apparition. Why? Because I said so. Also, it would be boring, if someone had instant transportation depending on his magical strength. This is exactly why they invented mana points.
Gosh. This is a long author note. And such a short chapter, too. Does anyone read this things? Thanks again, MrsBates! I feel I annoy you too much...