A/N: So, it looks like I'm on a spree at the minute.
Sanekittens, the start of this one's for you :)
The snake sang hermione's praises into her lord's ear every day like slow dripping honey. Voldemort, rather fond of the witch himself, found that he had began to trust the witch more in recent weeks, whether from Nagini's constant persuasions or the simple fact that she really was just a remarkable asset to his cause. She had singlehandedly all but destroyed Hogsmede and killed the Weasley blood-traitor in one evening. Of course, Bellatrix had gone to retrieve her after long, but he was becoming accustomed to having his best death eater worrying over her wife. Before Hermione, he hadn't seen the dark witch worry for anyone other than her sister, and even then she rarely was open with it.
Hermione helped greatly to keep the eldest Black sister grounded when before she would have been unpredictable and dangerous, to herself as much as anyone else. For that he was grateful also; Bellatrix having her feet on the ground so to speak meant that she could focus more clearly, and her clear focus, in turn, allowed her to control Hermione's own impulses. It was a perfect set up where everybody won. Apart from Harry. But the dark lord cared little about that.
"Fetch Bella," The dark lord mused to his serpentine companion, "I think given the circumstances we should keep this new found pace of attack which the young Madam Black is so skilled at keeping up."
The snake nodded in her approval and her obedience, and slithered across the dark wood table and onto the floor.
Nagini found Bellatrix sitting outside discussing whether or not choice was an illusion with her younger sister.
The younger witch noticed the black snake first and nodded towards it to alert her sister.
"Nagini." Bellatrix said, more to herself than to the snake.
Hermione had told her off the week before last after overhearing Bellatrix calling her 'the snake' in front of her. 'Nagini says she has a name.' The witch had chided her, the snakes eyes following the death eater around the room. Bellatrix had apologised, foolish as she felt. She had only complied out of a sense of debt- when Hermione had first been recovering, Nagini had spent all day and night coiled up on the bed with her, usually where the sleeping witch could loosely hug the serpents massive head to her chest. She had put off at least three attempts other death eaters had made on the young girls life, and Bellatrix, no matter how little she understood about snakes, their language, or their ways of thinking, was immeasurably grateful.
The snake nodded towards the house and Bellatrix assumed she was wanted. She stood, excused herself to her sister, and followed the snake's gaze into Malfoy Manor. She found her lord in the dining room, seated at the head of the large mahogany table.
"My lord." She greeted politely, bowing her head.
"Ah, Bellatrix." The dark lord nodded back cordially. "If you are not otherwise engaged, I would like for you to collect both Dolohov and your wife and carry out a rather large scale raid. I have every faith that given the recent display of your wife's capabilities, the three of you shall be sufficient."
"Yes my lord." Bellatrix agreed, wondering what he meant by 'large scale'.
"Excellent. You are to go to King's Cross station. I wish for you to de-rail a train."
Bellatrix caught herself before the surprise spread the her eyes. "De-rail, my lord?" She asked, unsure of what that would consist of.
"Yes. Any which way you like. Considering the intention is to cause chaos and a healthy does of death, I should like very much for Hermione to deal with the details. I would be most interested to see how she handles it."
Bellatrix cursed inwardly. There went the already less-than-modest record of 19 deaths in one day. She was really going to have to get a handle on this.
"As should I." Bellatrix answered, not lying. She did enjoy watching Hermione cause chaos, however much it troubled her ethics.
"Then that will be all; I believe you will find Antonin in a muggle park in the city centre. He is dealing with personal matters, but they should be more than dealt with by now."
Bellatrix wasn't going to ask. She assured him the job would be done, and apperated to the address her lord had given her, finding Antonin very quickly.
She explained the situation to him as they walked the edges of the park and Antonin agreed that it was likely this was going to be gloriously messy.
Mid step, Antonin stopped suddenly. "Is that... Is that Hermione?" He asked uncertainly.
Bellatrix turned around at the mention of her wife's name and peered in the same direction her company was looking in.
"...Yeah." She said in confusion. She could see her wife's outline sitting on a bench on the fringes of the park.
"What exactly is she doing here? In the middle of all the kiddies?" Antonin asked pointedly, hinting for Bellatrix to go and contain her before something distasteful happened.
Bellatrix eyebrows raised in realisation and without further a word she began striding purposefully towards the opposite side of the field.
"Bella, what an... Odd surprise." Hermione greeted.
"Odd?"
"Well this isn't really your usual habitat." Hermione elaborated.
"A park?"
Hermione laughed. "The outdoors."
Bellatrix smacked her arm playfully and sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. It was the best way Bellatrix could think of to restrain her wife from any sudden movements. "Seriously though, what are you doing?"
"I like to come here when life gets stressful." Hermione said airily, aware that her mental state was being surveyed. She leaned against the warm body beside her in a show of subtle compliance she wouldn't have readily admitted to out loud.
"Oh." Bellatrix said, not having expected such a straightforward answer and relaxing a little. "For the fresh air?"
"No. To watch the dim muggle children, they're hilarious. That one over there that's crying with its mummy," Hermione said, pointing, "Just fell off that thing over there," she pointed the same finger to a set of steps that went up to a metal chute which came back to the ground. "Face first into that kid over there." The younger witch laughed, pointing finally to another toddler who was also crying to its mother.
"That one's face is bleeding." Bellatrix said in alarm, looking at a blonde boy of no more than 3.
"Yeah, the first kid had his mouth open with its wailing and bit half the other kids cheek off when he landed." Hermione laughed in a way that both lit Bellatrix's heart up and low key concerned her.
"How, exactly, did the fist child fall from..." Bellatrix waved her hand at the structure, suddenly suspicious.
Hermione frowned. "I don't know," Hermione replied, "It was strange, almost as if some invisible force hit him right in the stomach and pushed him."
Bellatrix looked at her wife with her mouth open. "Hermione! Are you seriously sitting here using magic to push two year olds off from playing equipment?" She asked, assuming that's what all the brightly coloured little structures were.
Hermione tried to look serious for a moment and before she could answer with some justification, a third infant fell face first into a large square pit of sand.
Hermione burst out laughing as he got himself back up on chubby legs, standing with his mouth open and full of sand, too in shock to cry or brush himself off. His face still frozen in the moment, his father was with him in seconds to check him over.
"I didn't even touch that one!" The brunette said as if she couldn't believe her luck.
Bellatrix watched Hermione with one eyebrow raised and a half smile on her face. She loved her wife more than anything, but she was twisted.
"Well I hate to interrupt the fun, my love, but Antonin is waiting for us. We're going to blow some things up." Bellatrix added upon seeing her wife's reluctance to leave her vantage point, in an attempt to persuade her. Hermione instantly looked more interested.
"Fine." She sighed, getting up and trailing behind Bellatrix back through the grass.
"She came to de-stress." Bellatrix said to the waiting Antonin as they approached, not stopping.
"Fresh air?" Antonin asked sensibly, at the same conclusion she had previously drawn.
"No, to watch the children fall and hurt themselves at her whim." Bellatrix said as if it were a perfectly normal occurrence but with a slight roll of her eyes.
Hermione smiled widely at him as she followed her wife past. He stood staring after them in disbelief for a while before grumbling to himself and following on.
"So, where are we going?" Hermione skipped down the grassy hill along side Bellatrix with a whimsical smile.
Antonin eyed her almost nervously. "We're going to King's Cross. We intend to de-rail a train."
Hermione's mouth opened in a smile of overwhelming joy and her eyes were wide and sparkly like she'd just met her hero.
Bellatrix nudged her, "Our lord has allowed for the decision of exactly how and where the train will be coming off it's rails to you. He is still most pleased, and no slight amount amused at your dealing with Weasley."
Hermione threw her head back and laughed, before skipping on ahead of them down the hill and into the small cluster of trees she assumed they were aiming for.
"Merlin help us." Antonin muttered, watching her blast a stray rabbit up into orbit with a powerful flick of her wrist before disappearing into the tree line.
"Did she use her wand for that?" Bellatrix asked, concerned, looking up into the air for any sign of the rabbit.
"Didn't look like it." Dolohov answered, keeping his eyes forward to hide his amusement.
Bellatrix muttered something unintelligible under her breath, and her company rightly assumed the the witch was as worried as she should have been at the developments of Hermione's less predictable methods of magic.
When they caught up with the younger witch, she was lounging like a panther along a low branch of a beech tree, one arm dangling down towards the ground.
"Right, if anything goes wrong, we meet back here." Bellatrix said firmly, watching Hermione to make sure she was paying attention. Satisfied that the younger witch had heard her, she held out her arms and caught the brunette as she dropped down gracefully from the tree. Steadying her wife with one arm, she held out the other to Antonin who took it respectfully and they disapperated as one from the trees with a crack.
King's Cross was busy. Muggles were crawling everywhere, unaware of the danger. Antonin, Bellatrix and Hermione had found a free bench to sit on, under a disillusionment charm, whilst the latter worked out her plan. It took her a worryingly short amount of time, and Bellatrix had to wonder if she'd thought of doing this before.
"Magical traps." Hermione said, as if it were all that was needed to explain what was going on in her mind.
"Mmm?" Bellatrix asked, not having heard her clearly as she had watched, lost in her feelings of affection, her wife as she had sat deep in thought.
"I said, magical traps. We will lay a disgusting amount of them, all across the tracks, and when the train hits them-" Hermione pushed her fists together and then pulled them apart, opening her fingers in what Bella assumed was her interpretation of an explosion.
"All right," Dolohov said, leaning forward to see her past Bellatrix, "What sort?"
"Anything that will have a similar effect to stupefy." Hermione said with conviction.
Bellatrix's brow creased. "He said to de-rail it, not put it through the roof." She commented, smirking.
Hermione grinned. "It wont get that far." She assured cryptically.
Bellatrix and Dolohov exchanged looks, shrugged, and the three of them began to cover the nearest train tracks in any cursed traps they could think of. The muggles wondered on by oblivious.
"Alright," Hermione said, after almost thirty traps had been layered over the train's narrow path. "We have about four minutes before the train pulls in. I suggest we move."
Bellatrix stood and Hermione and Antonin followed her until they were a good distance away. They watched, anxiously for another few minutes before the unmistakable sound of a train made Hermione's face light up.
It pulled in to view, chugging amiably, and Hermione turned to the two death eaters. "Stay here." She commanded.
Before Bellatrix could grab her, she started sprinting towards the train. She came to a halt just as the train hit the traps, and with open mouths, Bellatrix and Dolohov watched as all of them detonated at once. The front of the train crumpled and then, followed by another four carriages, flew up into the air like the rearing head of a mechanical snake. As it reached the brow of it's ascent, Hermione sent a flash from her wand that made the muggles scatter, and the train went into slow motion, suspended by god knows what the dark witch had done to it.
Antonin didn't get the chance to ask her wife what the hell Hermione was doing before he and Bellatrix had to duck behind cover. Fire exploded from the train's every window as it sailed silently over the platform, glass showering everything, and just as it aligned its self perpendicular to the tracks, Hermione brought her wand down in a hard ark and the train followed, suddenly smashing itself down across the two platforms and all the people on them. Bellatrix watched with her heart in her mouth as the debris flew towards Hermione, only to turn to soft powder as it met with the magical barrier she had quickly erected.
Not quite finished, Hermione raised her wand arm once more and to Bellatrix's disbelief, the train began to scream and crunch its way along the two platforms towards her, wiping out everything, including supporting walls, that stood either side. As it gathered momentum, Hermione turned her back on it and ran back towards Bellatrix, looking thrilled to be being chased by a train that would kill her instantly if it got too close. Bellatrix reached out and grabbed her wife by the arm and Dolohov by the collar and pulled them both in to hastily apparate, seconds before they were all crushed, leaving the destroyed station eerily silent behind them.
