Chapter 7
It was crowded in the Burrow kitchen. Everybody had cramped back into the dining area and Mrs Weasley was busy serving them all breakfast. A huge pile of sausages and freshly baked bacon was whizzing around the kitchen, seeking out empty plates as a dozen eggs fried in three separate pans and pieces of toasts were jumping up out of the toaster every few minutes. The room had filled itself with the scent of fresh food, toast and tea and coffee. Hermione, who was the last to arrive, stepped out of the Floo Network and stumbled into the dining area, causing people to look up. Kingsley immediately stood up from his chair and walked around the table. Hermione observed how Ron watched her, with dark eyes, as she limped to the table. She had not bothered healing her injuries yet. There was no time to waste.
"Do you think you can recognise the man that attacked Narcissa this morning?" Kingsley asked and he handed Hermione a small stash of wanted posters. Angry faced of notorious Death Eaters stared back at her and Hermione went through them all. One after the other she put down, not recognising the man she had seen. It wasn't until she reached the last one that she called out.
"This is him!" she cried and threw the poster on the table. Walden MacNair was staring back at them, holding up his Azkaban prison number from his last visit to the prison. He looked evil, twisted. Staring at them Hermione was reminded of how their gazes had locked. Kingsley looked at her and she slammed her fist down on the table. She wasn't sure whether to feel angry, upset or relieved. "I tell you, it's him! That same freaky little moustache and the same build! I looked into this guy's eyes! Walden MacNair wants to bring back Voldemort!"
The sound of thunder rumbled over the house and the unexpected explosion of sound made people turn to the windows, looking outside. Fear filled some of their eyes and others shared nervous glances. It appeared a storm was coming. The thunder was followed by a bright flash of lightening that made Ginny squeal unexpectedly. The yellow flash of light lit up their faces and Hermione briefly glanced at Andromeda. The resemblance was striking. The wind was picking up outside, yanking the trees backwards and forwards. The snow had been erased by the rain that started falling half an hour ago, hammering down against the glass and on the roof. Thick grey mist pressed against the windows, swallowing up the world.
"Just like last time," Harry murmured and everybody fell silent. His green eyes were focused on the window. "The storm is coming."
"Tell me everything you can about Narcissa Malfoy," Kingsley urged and Hermione thankfully accepted a hot mug of tea that landed in front of her before meeting his eyes. "Did she say anything? What did she do when MacNair attacked her?"
"She did nothing. She seems to believe that when Bellatrix returns she can change her," Hermione said and Ron sarcastically snorted. She avoided looking at him, irritating rising up inside. "I am unsure whether she would be willing to support the Order. I think she is conflicted. I did not see Lucius and Draco. She told me her son was out. Lucius was hiding in his library, so she said. But Draco was not present at the Manor."
"That would be because I am here," said an unexpected voice and Hermione's head whipped around. Draco Malfoy had appeared in the kitchen door way, drenched by the rain, and dressed in sober black robes. His sleek blonde hair stuck to his forehead and as Hermione searched his face she realised how little he looked like his mother. She could not find anything in his face that resembled Narcissa. His eyes, his nose, the pointy chin and strong jaw line. It was all Lucius. Draco stepped into the kitchen, bringing a puddle of water in with him. Shy, grey eyes searched the gathered faces; briefly resting on the woman he knew was family but whom he had never met. "May I come in?"
"Let me dry these for you," Mrs Weasley hurried in his direction and followed his body shape with her wand, instantly drying his clothes. A relieved smile appeared on Draco's face. Molly Weasley searched his pale face and cocked her head. Any person who arrived at her house in this weather deserved some kindness in her book. She began scurrying around and the sound of cutlery being taken out of the drawer filled the kitchen. "Have you had breakfast? Sausage? Bacon? Tea?"
"Give him a chance to talk," Ron said sharply and stood up from his chair. Mrs Weasley stopped whatever she was doing and turned around to look at her son. He placed his hands on the table and leant over it. Anybody else could have made it look threatening. Hermione thought it looked arrogant more than anything. "He can start by telling us why the bloody hell he is here!"
"Ron has a point," spoke Harry. His green eyes had fixed on his nemesis though he was not as defensive as Ron. Harry's gaze briefly flashed in the direction of Ginny at this side, who was rubbing her swollen tummy. Her dark eyes were blazing in a similar way as her brothers. He then noticed Kingsley did not seem surprised at all and he looked at the Minister of Magic. "What's Malfoy doing here?"
"He approached me last night, not long after Hermione arrived at the Manor," Kingsley said and Draco Malfoy hesitantly walked into the dining room. He walked up to Kingsley and stood still at his side. His grey eyes momentarily found Hermione's. Their paths had never crossed inside the Manor after Hermione arrived but he had seen her come in as he watched from one of the windows. "He informed me he had overheard the conversation between me, Hermione and his mother earlier that day and he wanted to offer us his help."
"I have no intention of joining sides with the Dark Lord for a second time," Draco answered without making eye contact with anyone. He stared at the floor and could feel the disapproval over his presence. He did not need to look them in the eye to know he was not wanted. "No matter what my family is like."
"I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that Miss Astoria Greengrass never sided with Voldemort and she and her family eventually spoke out against the Death Eaters," Ron sneered and Draco's head snapped up at the mention of his fiancée's name. His grey eyes met Ron's and they stared at each other. The tension filled the room. "Has she ever actually seen that tattoo on your arm or have you been lying to her for the last few years? What did you tell her, the good old Imperius lie?"
"Stop it, Mr Weasley," Minerva McGonagall said unexpectedly and Ron fell silent. "It does not matter what reasons Mr Malfoy has to join us here this morning. What matters is that he has now chosen to side with the Order and he may be able to provide us with useful information in the future."
"Got a brain cell after all?" Ron snapped and Draco sighed in defeat. "Listen, I can put up with this rat being here but don't expect me to trust him!"
"We can argue about trust another time," Hermione said harshly and slowly she stood up. An uneasy feeling overwhelmed her and she slowly walked to the window. Out there the world was changing. She pressed her nose against the cold glass and took deep breath. Dark shadows seemed to move in the strands of mist and she swallowed. Slowly she turned to look at the people sitting around the table. "We have no time. Voldemort may very well be back already. Right at this moment he and Bellatrix Lestrange are calling on their old Death Eater friends and other allies. By tomorrow morning..."
"What do we do?" George asked, speaking out the question that rested on the tip of everybody's tongue. Hermione was struck by how mature he suddenly sounded. He had sold the joke shop he had started with Fred before the war and settled down with Angelina. She looked at him, full of surprise and newfound appreciation.
"The Auror office has been mobilised. Protective guards have been placed at Hogwarts and the Fidelius Charm has been placed on the homes of Andromeda Tonks and the Burrow," Kingsley said slowly "Molly and Arthur have been so kind to offer their home as Headquarters for the Order. The story will be printed in the Daily Prophet this morning. Within the next few hours, the whole Wizarding World will know Lord Voldemort has returned and another war is upon us." He paused and the seriousness of his words filled the room, leaving everybody feeling worried and frightened. "We must remain strong and vigilant at all times. Walden MacNair was not the only Death Eater who escaped and I have no doubts other familiar faces will be quick to join the Dark Lord."
Harry looked from Ron to Hermione and the three of them were instantly thrown back into a whirlpool of memories. The moment they had departure to find the Horcruxes lay fresh in all their minds. They all remembered how they had watched Hogwarts burn. "This time round he has no reason to kill me. During the last war there were the Prophecy and the Horcruxes. Now there is nothing that stands between us. We are now just two mortal souls. Dumbledore is dead. Voldemort no longer has a nemesis like he used to have."
"Perhaps that is a good thing," said Mr Weasley and looked at Harry but somehow his words did not sound as comforting as they had been intended. "We can only hope that this time around we will not come as close to losing everything we hold most dear."
Hermione still stood by the window and her gaze drifted back to the grey shapes outside. Everything was about to change. They were all about to be forced into another war, they would have to face themselves all over again. And whenever she stared into a mirror, meeting her own eyes, she knew she had changed. She remembered walking down the marble staircase, back into the room where Bellatrix had tortured her, left her to bleed. And she had curled up right in that spot, that very spot where the raven haired Death Eater had crept under her skin, poisoned her heart. And as she stood there, turned away from everybody and gazing out into the mist, she couldn't help but briefly smile. Bellatrix Lestrange was back.
~()~
The Daily Prophet had arrived only an hour after the meeting was finished. Several owls arrived at once, soaking wet and desperate for warmth and shelter. Hermione sat by the fireplace in the living room of the Burrow, alone, and stared at the front page of the paper. Three quarters of it was taken up by two pictures; one of Voldemort, the other of Bellatrix. And it was Bellatrix Hermione was staring at. The charcoal eyes, the raven curls and the porcelain skin. As real as she remembered it, as intense as she experienced them in her dreams and fantasies. Her head whipped around when she heard footsteps and Harry and Ron appeared. The latter observed Hermione with the paper and their eyes briefly met but Hermione merely stared at him defiantly.
"We need to talk," Harry sat as he sank down on one of the sofas and also glanced at the paper. Ron sat down in one of the arm chairs and looked at his friends. Harry sighed. "What are we going to do?"
"Fight," Hermione said firmly. "Like we did before."
"How?" Ron asked, sounding somewhat desperate. "We don't even know where he is, where he's hiding. Who says it's just him and Bellatrix? There could be dozens of them by now, hundreds maybe."
Harry picked up the paper Hermione had just put down and gazed at the picture of Voldemort. He knew that face as well as he knew his own. He understood the child Tom Riddle had been; the man he had become and even the monster he had turned out to become. And now he was back and he could not find a reason why. What did Voldemort have to gain from being alive again? What was there to find, to finish, after everything had once ended? He shook his head.
"I don't understand," he said slowly and put the paper down. Voldemort's face haunted him even if he did not look at him. "Most of his followers were afraid of him. Why would one of them resurrect him now? It makes no sense!"
"Revenge?" Ron suggested and Harry sent him a curious look. His mate sat up and Hermione realised he had copied some of his father's hand gestured before he spoke. "MacNair has plenty of reasons to hate you. You brought down Voldemort, you destroyed the Death Eaters. He had nothing left. And perhaps he knows he could never finish you off on his own so decided to find a way to bring him back?"
"There is more to it than that. There has to be," Hermione said slowly and she stood up. A dark look had appeared in her eyes and she looked at Harry and Ron. "I need to get back to the Ministry. I'll send you an owl if I find anything."
"What, now?" Ron said in disbelief and pointed at the window. Heavy rain was battering against the glass and thunder and lightning were alternating each other in a steady frequency. "It's raining cats and dogs out there!"
Hermione had slipped on her cloak and snatched the paper from the table, storing it safely in her pocket. She looked at Harry and Ron. Both were staring at her with the same bewilderment they had done in their Hogwarts days whenever she suggested going to the library. "Like Harry said, it makes no sense. There is something we're missing. Something we don't know. I need to find out what that is!"
She hurried out of the living room, through the dining area where Andromeda was talking to Kingsley. Both of them looked up when Hermione walked past. She had pulled up her hood but turned around when she felt Andromeda's eyes pierce in her back. Their gazes locked and Hermione swallowed hard. Andromeda stood up from her chair and walked up to Hermione.
"You spoke to my sister," she said slowly and Hermione nodded. "What did she say?"
"I…" Hermione hesitated, not sure whether she wanted to repeat the words Narcissa had spoken to her about Bellatrix not wanting Andromeda's blood, even if it meant she would never live again. "She did not say much, Andy."
"She said Bellatrix would never accept my blood, didn't she?" Andromeda said slowly and when Hermione's eyes widened in shock and surprise. "I have known my sisters a lot longer, Hermione. And nothing surprises me when it comes to Bellatrix. I am not surprised Narcissa gave him her blood. I expect MacNair originally planned for it to be my blood, knowing how Bellatrix hated me. That knowledge would infuriate her even more."
"Narcissa gave her own blood so Bellatrix would not be angry?" Hermione sounded sceptical. It was almost funny. Bellatrix was filled with hatred. She had seen it burning in her eyes. "Andy, Bellatrix is always in a permanent state of anger. What difference does it make which one of you made the sacrifice?"
"It doesn't make a difference to Bellatrix, but it makes a difference to me," Andromeda said slowly and her friendly hazel eyes connected with Hermione. Hermione felt a shiver creep down her spine and her mouth became unexpectedly dry. Looking at Andromeda was like staring at a softer, kinder version of Bellatrix. Andromeda's lips twitched into a smile. "It means Narcissa wants things to change."
Hermione nodded slowly but did not answer. She glanced at Kingsley, who was looking at her. "I need to get back to my office. There are some things I want to check. You know where to find me."
She turned her back on Kingsley and Andromeda and walked through the kitchen. Mrs Weasley was preparing lunch and looked up when Hermione filed past her and turned around. Dark eyes searched the young brunette's faces and the motherly instincts and the years of raising her children told her something wasn't the way it should be.
"Hermione, dear, is everything all right?" she asked as she dried her hands on an old tea towel.
"Yes, Mrs Weasley," Hermione forced herself to smile and ignored the sense of guilt for lying. "Everything is quite fine. I am just heading back to the Ministry; see if there is anything I can do to help."
"You should come back for tea tonight. Everybody else is coming back," Molly Weasley suggested and Hermione felt her heart sink in her chest. She had been at the Burrow twice in the last few days and it had left her conflicted and torn. Spending time around Ron only irritated her and she knew they had to work together but she wished she could do that by not having to be around them. Her hand slipped in her pocket for her wand and she sighed.
She decided on a compromise. "I will do my best."
With those words she opened the door and revealed the pouring rain outside. Sighing deeply and clutching her wand in her pocket, Hermione stepped out of the Burrow kitchen and into the world outside. It was misty, dull and grey and the rain hammered down on her head. She closed her eyes, called up the employee entrance of the Ministry and turned on the spot. A second later, she was gone.
~()~
It was unusually busy in The Atrium. Fireplaces were roaring up green every few seconds, revealing a different witch or wizard every time. She recognised some of their faces; co-workers, people she had once seen walking through the corridors of Hogwarts. The anxiety level was high. She had seen those frightened expressions before; the eyes filled with fear. Hermione felt alive being a part of the large moving group as she walked towards the lifts, even though she was surrounded by fear. Reaching the lifts she joined the orderly cue of waiting people and realised that perhaps her own eyes were the only ones not nervously wandering.
After the war the departments at the Ministry had been rearranged and Hermione took the lift to level three before stepping out. Walking into the Department for the Safeguarding of Magical Artefacts she found that it was busy here too Every desk, every office, was full and she smiled to herself when she realised her staff had come in to work and were assisting the Auror office in whatever they needed. She opened the door to her office and stepped inside. After having securely locked it behind her, she immediately walked to her personal quarters and once inside waved her wand and two large bookcases magically swung aside, revealing a large, black vault. There was no safer place than Gringotts but Hermione believed in something safer; herself.
She tapped the vault with her wand, drawing a picture that had become part of her life in a way nobody would ever understand. It was the shape of a skull with a snake for its tongue. It was how she knew nobody would ever be able to open it. She watched it spring open and inside rested a solid silver box on top of some old newspapers and files. Hermione reached for it and picked it up, carrying it to the small table by the fire. She sat down and carefully removed the lid. There, inside, lay the reasons why Voldemort was dead.
Tom Riddle's destroyed diary, still stained by the ink that had poured from its magical heart where the Basilisk fang had pierced it. Next to it lay the golden ring with the black stone. It was Marvolo Gaunt's ring, destroyed by Dumbledore long before anyone truly realised what lay ahead of them. Hermione's fingers trembled as she picked up Slytherins locket and let the chain run through her fingers. Her breath chocked in her throat when she put it back down and let her fingers caress what was left of Hufflepuff's cup. She had been the one to destroy it. And she had become Bellatrix to find it. Her eyes fluttered shut as the sensation of feeling, being, the dark witch washed over her. The next item was a single blue gemstone. It was all that was left of Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem. The gemstone had been found after the war, in what had been the Room of Requirement. Hermione didn't pick it up but merely looked at it. The very last item was a shrunken head of a snake, contained inside a magical class orb. Nagini had perhaps been Voldemort's most loyal pet. Hermione sighed. The Horcruxes were always with her though nobody knew exactly where. Seeing them lying in the box reminded her of what they were facing; Voldemort's hatred for his own twisted self-image that made him hate himself, what he had been, what others were and how he loathed them.
Hermione's hand slipped in her pocket and she took the newspaper she had picked up at the Burrow. She used her wand and carefully cut out the image of Bellatrix Lestrange. Holding the woman's face tenderly in her hands she placed it inside the tin before putting the lid back on. She sighed and placed it back in the vault. She watched how it locked itself and the bookcases moved back into place. She stared at the books for a moment and then turned around and walked back into her office. She sat behind her desk and closed her eyes.
She thought about the conversation she had had with Harry and Ron back at the Burrow. The idea that Walden MacNair had simply helped Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange rise from the dead to get back at Harry made no sense. She rested her head in her hands and desperately tried to erase the raven haired witch's image from her mind.
~()~
"A new dawn awaits us, my friends," spoke the Dark Lord with a low, intense voice. His red eyes were alive with the same fire as they had been before. In the orange gloom of the fire his skin appeared see through. "I stand before you all as I have risen from the darkest depths of death. It has been too long since we were all together. I see the years have been most unkind to you."
The group watching him was small. He had counted only ten faces. Ten of his loyal servants had returned when he called for them. Their eyes, all flickering in the dim light of the room, watched their Master. The table held enough spaces for more of them but a large number of chairs were empty. The walls were bare, made out of solid stone. The only light came from the fire. All windows had been covered by dark curtains. No daylight from the outside world fell in. The darkness had begun.
"It has come to my attention that Harry Potter is still alive. The Boy Who Lived took everything I held most dear and left me to ferment in the pits of hell. And I look upon you all and ask why none of you in my absence even as much as injured the boy. But I have been told he is expecting a child. Another filthy disgusting half-blood to befoul this Earth" said Voldemort and looked around. The faces at the table were familiar. Bellatrix sat immediately to his right. His most faithful and loyal servant. However, she was looking at the table, not at him. "Harry Potter must die."
"My Lord," spoke a man who sat to Bellatrix's right. Lucius Malfoy's blonde hair fell down his back and he sat up straight, his hands neatly folded onto the table. "I rest assured I speak for all of us when I say we are honoured to have you back among us." His grey eyes searched for the man sitting to Voldemort's left.
"Silence, Lucius!" Voldemort snarled and silence followed. "Once again you disappointed me by not seeking a way for me to return and yet you still may prove yourself useful. Am I correct in understanding your wife has spoken to the Mudblood?"
"Yes, My Lord," Lucius whispered softly, without making eye contact. Bellatrix's head whipped up at the mention of the Mudblood and she gazed at Voldemort. Memories flooded back into her mind and a devious grin spread across her lips. Lust ignited in her eyes and she glanced at Lucius. He briefly allowed himself to meet Bellatrix's eyes. "In fact she was present at the Manor the night the sacrifice was made."
Bellatrix leant back in her chair. The tip of her tongue licked along her lips and her dark eyes fixed on her master. "My Lord, I will deal with the Mudblood."
