A/N: Terribly sorry that it's been so long my darlings, and quite frankly I have no excuse. It's been a mixture of the ending of school, trying to find a job for the summer since I'm in an entirely different city, and quite frankly not having the motivation to find my outline and write this out. I'm still, unfortunately, not quite as enthusiastic as I would like to be with this chapter. It's just not turning out the way that I want it to, but once May passed I knew that I just had to get this out, happy with it or not.
Siobhan knew that she was being followed. One didn't fight in a war without gaining an odd sort of sixth sense about that sort of thing, so she purposefully slipped down a back alley to catch her stalker. It only took a few moments for her to realize that Connor and Murphy were the ones following her.
Her lips twisted into a darkly amused smile.
Of course.
They didn't seem to realize the danger that they were putting themselves in, giving her a new found appreciation of how the Order felt when she and the others put themselves in harms way without truly thinking about the consequences. But at least she and her friends had had some idea of what could happen.
The newspapers hadn't truly given an accurate account of what Bellatrix was capable of, which made her deeply concerned for Connor and Murphy. The newspapers hadn't reported on half of what she was truly responsible for, only what wouldn't scare the average citizen too badly.
They hadn't reported how she would literally carve out the intestines of the prisoners, only to heal them with them half out, forcing them to live like that for weeks at a time on occasion.
Nor had they reported how she would dissect the corpses of friends and family right in front of the prisoners, reveling in the screams and tears. There were so many other things that they hadn't reported that Siobhan couldn't even count them all.
Just the thought of one of those things happening to Connor or Murphy, or her grandda left her with a sick feeling of sheer terror, something that she hadn't felt for a long time.
Well, there was no sense in sending them back when they would only find another way to insert themselves, and end up resenting her for acting like they couldn't take care of themselves, even though the thought of them up against Bellatrix Lestrange made her throat start to close up out of pure terror.
Let no one say that she hadn't learned something from her own youthful misadventures however, back when it was exciting instead of miserable.
So she sighed and waited for them patiently, and once they had sheepishly situated themselves in front of her gave them a stern look that visibly surprised them, amusing her although she didn't show it.
It seemed like they hadn't yet realized that they weren't dealing with their childhood friend, but a very grown up war veteran.
"Listen to me very carefully," she began, "I don't feel like you fully understand how bad this is going to get. That would be fine, if you weren't determined to see this through with me. As it is," she sighed heavily, "You are both grown ass men, so you can handle yourselves."
At the very least, she would let them handle themselves, even if she wasn't comfortable with it. Now that she thought about it, she may have a few control issues. Well, it worked out well when she needed to plan for war; she would see if it worked as well in what amounted to normal life.
She paused for a moment to allow her amusement to grow before firmly squishing it down, allowing her rage to grow in it's place as her face grew dark and slightly malicious, stepping towards them. "But you will not interfere in what I do."
Because they would be tempted. Probably more than tempted, quite honestly, as she allowed the malice that she had learned in the war to show. They hadn't liked it before, and they wouldn't like it now, but they needed to learn that sometimes it was necessary. It was an ugly thing, but it was a part of her. It was part of how she dealt with Death Eaters.
They both quickly agreed to let her handle it, and they walked the rest of the way to the pub in silence. Siobhan was considering the best way to ward the building, and Connor and Murphy were watching her to make sure she didn't slip back into the slightly psychotic way that she had earlier, torn between concern and curiosity.
Thankfully there was no one in the pub, and she quickly went to work with her athame, both cutting her hand and cutting runes into the wood of the walls this time. She did this without a word to her grandfather, who was watching with a deeply concerned look on his face.
He recognized that look of intense concentration mixed with a hint of danger. Of course he did, it was one passed from his own dear wife down to Lily, and obviously now passed down to his beloved granddaughter.
It was a look that warned him that bad things were coming, and so he busied himself with preparing her a meal, allowing the confused looks of the MacManus boys to pass right over him. If they wanted to know how he could be so calm about his granddaughter bleeding all over his pub, they would have to ask.
Incidentally, Lily had done something very similar twenty years before, although she had asked permission and used animal blood instead of her own.
Using ones own blood, she had explained, links someone to that place until it is destroyed. Lily had ashamedly admitted that she didn't want to be connected like that to his pub, to feel the need to be there so often, and so she hadn't used her own blood and he had certainly not thought less of her for it.
But Siobhan was using her own blood, and that meant that she wasn't leaving, she was planning on staying. Or at the very least visiting enough that the pull to be there wouldn't get painful, and that was more than enough for him to be perfectly calm and composed.
At least until Siobhan turned to face him, deadly serious, and said, "Bellatrix Lestrange has escaped from Azkaban."
He dropped the plate of food that he had been preparing to hand her, his face paling as he stumbled back.
"Shit," she muttered as she leapt forward to grab his arm and steady him. "I'm sorry grandda," she apologized sincerely, "I could have said that a lot better."
But at the same time she felt a bit vindicated by his reaction.
He obviously understood better than the boys what Bellatrix being out meant, and how dangerous she truly was. Here, in her grandfather's pub, warded and as safe as it could get she could finally admit what had truly bothered her about the reactions of Connor and Murphy.
She had told them plainly that Bellatrix had tortured her, had shown them the scars and told them how she liked knives, and yet they still acted as if it wasn't something to be worried about, acted as if her deep seated fear and rage was something that she should hide.
Oh, Bellatrix was undoubtedly in England for now, but she would soon find out that Siobhan wasn't there. And without Voldemort there to rein her in, she would search for her, and soon find her. After all, she hadn't exactly bothered to cover her tracks. She hadn't expected for something like this to happen.
It had been foolish to the extreme, but she had hoped that she could have a happy, simple life. A life without having to worry about people finding her, without people trying to kill her.
Obviously that had been a fools dream.
She had tried being the normal girl, but now it was time for the Commander to come back. She needed to take advantage of this tactical advantage while she actually had it, but she also needed to make sure that her grandda and her boys are safe.
Because yes, they are her boys right now. That may change later, but for now they are hers and she needs to protect them like she did the people in her unit and her friends, although never to the extreme that she was going to need to go to now.
Better yet, perhaps she needs to hide them away like she did her spies, so that even after this is over no one knows that she has a connection to them. It's certainly something to consider.
And speaking of spies, she recognized the haughty owl that soared through an open window to give her a letter. Her best spy had news, and she knew too well that it was unlikely to be good news.
It never was with him.
The Wizengamot is planning on having a witness at your confrontation with Lestrange. They are to hound and harass you until you lash out at them, and then they will arrest you, call you a danger to yourself and society, and strip you of everything before executing you.
It was a short note with no salutation nor signature, but it had the information that she needed, and that is all that mattered to her. And on the back she only wrote two words before giving it back to the owl.
It's time.
It was time to shelve her regrets and do what needed to be done, what she should have done in the first place. This was something that had been years in the making, planned in both anger and despair. It was the result of all of her rage boiled over into one final, bloody conclusion.
Maybe once this was over she could finally have some form of peace.
And for the first time since she had left Hogwarts, she didn't want that peace to come from a body bag. And unfortunately, that meant that she was going to have to show a side to her that she had never wanted anyone to see again, let alone people that she cared about.
It was a side worse than the Commander persona she could slip into like a worn in old shirt. It was what had gotten her through weeks of torture and allowed her to come out victorious.
Connor and Murphy were trying to talk her down, she noted distantly. She considered the twist of their mouths and the way their eyes wouldn't meet hers.
Fear. They were afraid of her. Well, that made them smarter about this situation than they had been so far. But they weren't the ones who should be afraid, and she had never wanted to see them afraid of her.
Siobhan met her grandda's eyes and saw her own steely determination reflected back at her, grounding her in a way that Connor and Murphy's soft, almost desperate words were unable to.
She would win this, she decided firmly. Failure was not an option, not that it ever had been. But it was even less of one now. And for once, failure would occur if she died, so she would have to be more careful than she had ever been before.
She flexed her magic, careful to not let it out of her control. Losing control of herself wasn't an option here either, and so now she was out of two of the many options that she'd had during the war.
Siobhan couldn't help but laugh, just a little bit. She always had loved a challenge, and now here was the greatest challenge that she had ever been faced with. She would win, or everyone she loved would be put in grave danger.
No, it was worse than that. If she lost, if she died, everyone who was important to her would likely be put to death. It would be called a pre-emptive strike, but it would function as a warning to anyone who would call the government's treatment of her unfair or unethical.
The fate of Wizarding Great Britain was fully in her hands yet again, this time by the design of man, not fate. And soon, it would be in her hands by her own design.
A slow smile curved her lips. She did her best when she had something to lose, and now she had everything to lose. So she knew, deep in her heart, that she would win. It was now inevitable.
But first, a honey trap, just to make things interesting.
