"You know I don't do well exposed to those I don't particularly enjoy the company of."

Hermione sauntered over from the counter reading the front page of The Daily Prophet, a piece of toast dangling from between her teeth. She bit down and took it in hand, settling in the chair across from Bellatrix who was spending the morning glancing about like a paranoid beast. There was unease behind her eyes, and Hermione wondered if she was aware of its transparency. The loss of their furry housemate was felt, and it was there in how Bellatrix could not quell looking around for her.

Hm, how interesting. And how set in routine Bellatrix had become. Hermione noted it and nibbled slowly through the crispy bits of her breakfast, elbows on the table. This constantly made her housemate scowl, and it brought her some sense of small satisfaction, "Stop talking about yourself like a dog. Are you quite aware you do that? If not, you should really just not do it altogether. 'I don't do well'. You belong in a psychiatric ward but I am not it. So just say it without pretense. 'I don't like him and I don't feel like I want to be around him'."

"I don't like him and I don't want to be around him." She skipped the 'I feel' altogether. Hermione filed another mental note and reached forth for the last cut of bacon, though it was snatched and destroyed just as she touched it by an obviously vindictive Bellatrix.

"Entirely too bad. I don't comprehend what you have against him."

"He was a spy who lived in our house!"

"You are a psychotic who lives in our house. I don't complain about your company." Hermione remarked pointedly and poured them both two cups of tea once the kettle whistled.

"You are astoundingly naive-" Hermione's gaze was entirely cross when Bellatrix stood partially, those nails gouging deep into the wood. One could tell which seat habitually had been hers. It was right in front of the clawed indents at the edge of the table. She seemed to quiet a bit at the searing gaze, the indication that it was too early to begin their morning with a throbbing headache after a good old fashioned Bellatrix meltdown. Those were still frequent, but they had lessened. "How did you win a war with this attitude?"

"Because one survives longer, I have found, with calm and quick thinking than passion and overreaction. The boy deserves as much a chance as you. -Don't scoff at me."

"You completely abandon the reason for my second chance."

"I don't abandon if as much as I believe its truth is you just don't want to be imprisoned any longer. And that isn't something I'll disagree with. The Muggle judicial system is far more understanding. While prisons aren't precisely hotels, they're more humane than life sucking creatures in cells the size of janitorial closets. I value rehabilitation over punishment. We didn't win this war to let ourselves become tyrants." Had Bellatrix been anyone else she would have realized and understood the impressive nature by which Hermione Granger seemed to live. She was, at the very very least, grateful for the child's boundless belief in goodness. It had gotten her off a rather sharp hook, after all. "You were never one for a cage. Not with your mind, your aptitude. What a waste you are in a cage."

"That was almost militant of you. Impressive."

"There isn't anything militant about believing that everyone deserves an opportunity to put into the world the best of their gifts. Like you have often said, and much like I've been witness to, yours are too extraordinary to waste shut up in a room."

"Are you absolutely sure you've finished pandering? I've got a couple things I think you've missed. The color of my eyes and the rather magnificent nature of my incredibly intriguing temperament, not to mention how very striking my face is. My excellent taste in wardrobe, my well-defined cheekbones inherited of naturally superb breeding. My phenomenal ability for memory and brilliant learning curve-"

"Alright," Hermione piped up, slightly pink in the cheeks, "alright. That's quite it."

Bellatrix rolled her dark eyes, smirking pleasantly at the display of embarrassment. As she got up to leave the breakfast table altogether she entwined a hand in Hermione's thick mass of chestnut curls, leaning in to murmur, "Granger's the little teacher's pet."

When they finally got to the Ministry (a world Kerk was brand new to, with his dark, glittering eyes and his jittery expressions, his nervous hands shoved all the way in the pockets of his ill-fitting, too-short, clearly-borrowed slacks) Bellatrix had calmed some and was, instead, disregarding Kerk altogether.

"Our offices are run by Gregor Townsend, who you'll be meeting with once we arrive. It's him you'll be assisting, after all. He needs it more than any of us. Poor man isn't very order-inclined."

"He's a wasteful old has-been of a wizard shoved to the back of beyond more than likely to prevent possible damage or humiliation. That is what she meant to say."

"Is it... what you meant to say?" Kerk asked unsurely, his toes pointing toward one another, legs bent a bit at the knees.

"No. It is not what I meant to say. And perhaps Madame Black should keep her rude, elitist opinion out of everyone else's facts where it isn't wanted."

"I'm deeply offended." Bellatrix growled, but as usual wouldn't deign to do a thing else about it. She had barely even made an effort to look at either of her companions at all.

"She isn't really. That's just become her favorite thing to say. Like a very annoying catchphrase."

He knew she wasn't actually offended. But Kerk didn't think it prudent to remind them that he knew most of their habits far better than they did.

The blinds around Gregor's office were drawn tight, and within one couldn't see an ounce of light to be found.

"Sir?" Hermione called in gently, confused and concerned, and she eased open the door just enough.

"Aye- Her-Hermione. Come in. Just- Jus' yeh."

The room itself had the feel of a funeral and Gregor sat with his elbow pushed against the desk, his hand forcefully straining against his hair as though the tightness of the motion kept him grounded to the world. She clicked the door gently shut behind her and when she noticed the large man's eyes they were bloodshot and watery, framed yet still by tears.

"A foal, lass, a wee one, a lil babe, a foal." His glasses sat atop the desk and seemed to look up at her, strange things she had almost believed could not be removed from his face. She stared at them for a moment and then sat down hesitantly across from him.

"Sir..."

"There innit worse'n killin' something pure as a unicorn, but a foal? One that hadn't even grown his horn in yet, Hermione, jus' a wee little thing-"

"That's the most atrocious thing I have ever heard."

"Hermione, Fudge is going ta put this on 'er. And I believe in what we do here as much as the next wizard but maybe it'd be in yer best interests ta get her away from 'ere."

"No." Hermione said firmly, and before she knew it she reached for his hand, gripping it in hers with a raise of an eyebrow. "No. Absolutely not. If he wants me to play his game I will fairly play it and I will certainly win it. We will not stoop to tactics that could condemn this entirely. No."

He made a great, increasingly wet sound, one that meant obviously he had been crying for some time, and it sounded very uncomfortable in his nose. But Gregor Townsend was a very kind man, one who cared about his job on a level that meant more than counting the galleons he was paid in. He'd become something similar to fond of Bellatrix. She could be less as mirthless as a Centaur missing a hind leg and as vicious as a Three-Headed Dog who had just been neutered, but Bellatrix's reasonable capacity for creatures and her more than enthusiastic field record had swayed his opinion. Somehow, placed forth to settle Centaur property disputes, Unicorn poaching, arguments between Gnomes and Goblins, and even the occasional rogue Acromantula she had handled each one with little complaint. No creature human or human-like would say she was a friendly ball of sunshine when asked about her service, but there had been less incident than he had seen in a long time.

He remembered her from Hogwarts, when he had been much younger than he felt now and much older than he was then. When he had been too serious and slightly somber as a boy who grew up with a large army of brothers, all of them bigger than him, he the youngest of five. Gregor Townsend had been the kind, gentle, soft-spoken child of the family, sorted into Hufflepuff for his admiration of loyalty, his swift capacity for thinking outside the box, and his proclivity for kindness. And he remembered a girl named Bellatrix Black who could be as cruel, cunning, and calm as she was brilliant, curious, and clever beyond measure. Somehow, with that in the back of his mind and Hermione's utter sincerity (and Kingsley's convincing, almost inspiring attitude) she deserved the position she had earned, and she deserved, furthermore, to keep it.

"I'll try all I can to keep him clear, Hermione," his accent had retreated, the calm returning to his deep, shuddering tones, "but there's so little we can do."

She let go of his hand after he had given hers a small, paternal squeeze, frown inlaid so deep in her face her lips felt like a totally straight line, "I know, sir. This has become a muddled mess."

She opened the door finally to let the two in. And for a moment Hermione peered out, because there seemed to be a problem there.

There were not two any longer. Because now there was only one.

"They—They took her to another floor. I don't—I don't know where." Panic lit up Kerk's face, a maddened sort of sweaty, frantic fright that he did not know how to express any way but in trembling gasps and tugging nervously to loosen his tie. "No one said anything to her but she just went and she listened, she did, and she went with her nose right in the air like—"

Hermione gripped him by the shoulders, shook him so drastically his brain was rattling momentarily in his head.

"Where. Did. They. Say."

It was not a question. It was a slicing insistence.

"BOY." Gregor barked. Kerk's focus returned swift as a gazelle leaping across a field, those very alien eyes of his two tremendous black mirrors. "Answer the question. Where's Madame Black?!"

"I don't know, I really—I really don't know." He had begun to shudder, small tears forming at the corners of his eyes. Confrontation tied his stomach up in tight knots, and he wrung his hands fearfully in front of him, "I tried to tell them to stop but she told me not to and I—she knew, she knew what she was doing."

"She wouldn't—"

"No." Hermione cut off quickly, and there was a grave discomfort in her tone, "She wouldn't, not what you're thinking. No. She's playing fair."

And nothing had ever frightened Hermione more.

"Lestrange-"

"Black," Bellatrix scowled darkly, "I've told you, I go by Black."

She hated this. It made her fingers curl immediately into fists. But, she reminded herself, freedom was freedom with a price when you'd been naughty. She kept Granger's words closely in her head, repetitive, assured; don't throw this away on an angry mistake.

"Your surname doesn't change any of- what you are!"

"No, but it's fairly inconsequential, seeing as I have divorced my dead husband. There's reasoning for surnames. After all, I don't get off calling you Cornelius Arsehole, do I?"

He'd lost most of his hair, the old buzzard, and the thinning grey comb over concealed a shiny bald head, the likes of which was bright red. Cornelius Fudge had been a man disgraced, but through the good graces of a few influential members, he somehow had managed to scramble back to occupy a seat in the Ministry. He was as hard to keep away as a cockroach was to kill.

"You've been in a lot of shady goings on, Lestrange-"

"-Black-"

He waved it off entirely and continued, "-and there is no reason one cannot conclude that your new position here isn't for your own twisted benefit."

"Much like yours is, Fudge?"

"No! There is a difference! For one, I did not massacre hundreds!"

"I'll not apologize for my actions. You didn't seem too eager to apologize for yours when you bumbled everything like a blithering duffer and got scores of Muggles killed in refusal to comply with our Dark Lord. You're just standing on the prettier side of the fence, aren't you?"

"If you're not doing a thing besides jabbering at me, I've got ways to get something out of you."

Her eyes slipped over to the bag that sat beside his chair. She had complied with his fool's crusade, his stupid reasoning. She'd let the Aurors who seemed uncomfortable and terrified, haul her to this room. She'd even taken in her surroundings, right down to the ordinary magical bag. It seemed unassuming enough- but she tensed, her spine rigid as a predator who sensed a dangerous threat. Hermione had a bag just like it, and the charm on it- what was he keeping in there? Did he plan to cut her head off? Did he have some ungodly sort of instrument within?

It was much worse.

First it had emerged as a thin, bedraggled strip of black. The grotesque cloth was sliced into tears, the edges of an old cloak. Its hooded visage emerged next, its massive, tall body shrouded in the blackened robes of death itself. The air seemed to retreat from the room, sucked out completely, and its thin, slimy hand was extended, slathered in ashen scabs. The creature finally ascended completely from the recesses of the darkened bag, hovering between Fudge and Bellatrix alike, a cruel shadow of a starved monster suspended in air.

Bellatrix let out a shrill scream, the likes of which none had ever truly heard from her, and flung herself into the corner with her hands clapped over her mouth. She felt her back bump repeatedly against the wall, scrabbling for escape, but the creature floated closer. It stunk of death and suffering. Of captivity. Of hopeless years in eternal nothingness. Fear tasted rancid in her throat, and suddenly she was light, unpleasantly light, despairing in a place deeper than she had felt in years.

She clung, shut her eyes. The first time she had ever held Draco in her arms, and his fuzzy shock of platinum baby hair. The first time she had ever done a hex correctly, and how James Ronaldo couldn't quit burping up slugs. Andromeda hugging her tight, small, fragile, delicate, cheering loudly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BELLA! Tom Riddle's eyes, wise, clever, alight I can give you power. The Siamese cat brushing against her ankles, its very contained purr. Just because you have ceased to care about you doesn't mean everyone else has. Rodolphus, how handsome he'd been when she'd just seen him, a prince, a hollow trophy she could display, her father and her mother, so proud of her, so proud. I just want to be left alone. I just want to be quiet.

She felt these things bleeding out of her skin as she cried, as she shivered. She could not stop the hemorrhage of blissful memories seeping from her pores, and she beat the wall furiously with her fists, sobbing and screaming in equal parts. The creature had curled its fingers in a seeming display of delight, and she eventually degenerated into clawing at her own chest, shredding at the wound that had only just begun to scab. Unicorn wounds were not simple to heal. They festered and lingered for some time. She wanted to keep the happiness. She had taken it for granted and now she could no longer release it. She tried so hard to hold. Anything, anything, anything but the emptiness.

She tore the gash with great ferocity. She would die if she had to. She had to get away. A cup of hot chocolate on her desk, blindly smoking, hot as coals. Little marshmallows poorly arranged into some disgusting excuse for a cheerful face. A note. It's much too cold in there. I left a space heater next to your desk. If you plan to run off, wear a jacket. Stupid Hermione and her humanistic attitude, that idiotic old fool of a Scot and his hot chocolate. These things exited through her every patch of flesh, and she'd eventually scratched so deep at the wound that it was raw, gaping at the edges, weeping dribbles of deep red. She couldn't breathe. Her mind was filling up.

The painful moments came. They began, unbidden. How could she marry a Mudblood?! Hasn't she learned anything from us, Cissy?! Her first failure to To- the Dark Lord, her punishment. CRUCIO! And the way she felt it each time after, every time she misbehaved (which was often, always often, awful Bellatrix, willful, a servant and a jackal at once). The wracking agony as it shredded through her, and how some nights she woke, and the burn imbedded in her bones even now. Shackles biting into her. Azkaban. Dementors, Dementors, Dementors. Suffering. Greyback's glinting yellow teeth, Granger bloodied and whimpering. I'd just like her on my side, is all. Don't you think she'd make an interesting addition? Fear. Cold jabs of it. They'll kill you if they find you. The blurry edges of her vision, the sound her body would have made as it thudded dully to the ground. Hermione. And how she could not remedy this. How she was helpless. How helplessness did not fit her, how it was an ill-tailored suit. How she could fail the one person so adamant about keeping her free, a failure she would otherwise never tolerate from herself.

Somewhere in a deeper distance the door to the room flew open, and held back only by two guards and the sheer will to contain her homicidal urge was Hermione Granger. Fudge immediately scampered aside as she spit and hollered, muted suddenly by the sight of Bellatrix Black weeping heartily, her eyes smudged with inky eyeliner, her fingers weakly digging for the grotesque hole in her shoulder. It had taken the Witch what felt like an eternity to finally find them in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and this, no less, was the scene she had stumbled in on.

Bellatrix's eyes had unfocused, black as her name, black as she took her coffee, black as her sometimes heart, and the sound was inhuman. It was a pain so wrenching that Hermione flung the two away and brandished her wand, shouting an "EXPECTRO PATRONUM!" as a sudden shock of pale silver erupted from the tip. It took the form of a slender otter and rocketed directly at the Dementor. The creature shied away swiftly, and found itself chased into the bottom of Fudge's endless bag.

The chair was thrown aside and crashed over as Hermione dropped to her knees before the still-hysterical woman, earning herself more than a few painful scratches when she tried to subdue her desire to rip her own chest open. She dove to scoop Bellatrix's head into her lap, to let her feel for a substantial grip between agonized whimpers. Her entire body shook, and she sounded like a child who had just experienced the worst nightmare of her entire life, the bogeyman gripping, nipping at her ankles.

"It's okay, it's okay, shush, shush..." Hermione murmured over and over again, smoothing a palm through those wild curls tenderly, "it's alright. It's gone. I won't let it hurt you. Shush, shush, Bella, shush..."

Hermione turned that sharp, golden gaze on the former Minister. Bellatrix's heartfelt sobs had turned into background noise, and she steadied her voice, unwilling to let the anger seep into a tumultuous shake. "I want you to leave and you will never pull this again. Don't tell me if you understand. Just don't stay long enough that I will change my peace-keeping mind, you revolting slug who dares to call yourself a man."