Your Love Is All The Magic I Need
A/N: Don't own a thing, especially not HP. I hope you enjoy Chapter Twenty-Six. Italics denote thoughts. Bold is for spells. This chapter isn't going to be long, let me warn you now. As some of you know I have a prosthesis and it acts up. This week it has hurt off and on causing me to visit my doctor. Long story short, I am hopped up on goofballs due to some minor (and not so minor) inflammation.
Chapter Twenty-Six: Revenge, Black Family style
Tonks stood at the hedge that led into Number Four. She wanted nothing more than to set fire to the house and burn it and everyone inside it to ashes. Then possibly piss on the ashes, or dance a merry jig, or dance the jig and then piss on the ashes, she wasn't sure yet. It was that moment of hesitation that allowed Narcissa to catch up with her. Narcissa appeared with a near-inaudible crack clutching a letter in her hand. "Your mother knew you'd come here." She said indicating the letter, "She hoped I would catch you in time to stop you."
"Stop me? After what they did?" Tonks practically shouted, her hair turning bright red. "They broke almost every bone in his body!"
"I know that." Narcissa said heatedly and then drew in a breath to calm herself, "But you are the daughter of Andromeda Black, the most impulsive of the three sisters. She knows that you would end up doing something rash that would find yourself in hiding or in Azkaban." Narcissa slowly drew her wand, "I, on the other hand, am the Seneschal for Harry Potter and it is my duty and my honor to destroy threats against him."
"There's a ward-line along the property." Tonks pointed out with her finger, "Odds are good that whoever put it up would know if one of us walked across that border."
"'Someone'," Narcissa rolled her eyes, "The only person who could have set it up is the Headmaster." She frowned, "If we come across the line he will undoubtedly show up." She thought a moment, chewing her lip slightly as she worked out what to do.
"Wait, if you're here then who's with Harry?" Tonks asked, the question finally working into her mind. "I thought you were supposed to keep an eye on him when I was on a job."
"He's with his father's portrait and Sirius. I sent word to him that Harry would be there and he floo'd over." Narcissa said waving her wandless hand dismissively, "Now, as for this. I have an idea: the boundary protects the house, why not wait until they leave?"
Scene Break
Harry thought that spending time with his dad's portrait and his godfather would be fun. He was not prepared for just how much time they would spend telling Harry their exploits. James might only be a copy of his fifteen-year-old self, but Sirius had plenty of stories to share of the years between then and James' death.
"-so that was the third time we set Snape's robes." Sirius finished his current story, "Well, at least the third time that year."
James laughed, leaning against his frame, "And now you're working with him? Merlin, that must be fun."
"Not just working with him, I have his dream job." Sirius all but crowed, "When he found out he looked like he was trying to push a walnut down his throat." He looked at Harry, "I think I've done pretty well so far, I've only tormented a few of the Slytherin students."
"You gave Millicent Bulstrode two points for 'having the bravery to be seen in public looking like that'." Harry said, "That was kind of mean. I mean I don't like her, but that was out of bounds." To his credit, Sirius did look somewhat ashamed. James didn't though. He had started laughing harder at that. "Seriously dad, that's like when people make fun of Hermione's teeth."
"These two have never been able to act in a mature fashion." Euphemia Potter said from her portrait, "Minerva would have thrown them both out if she'd had her way."
"Minnie isn't very enthused that I'm a Professor either." Sirius said, "Apparently teaching the firsties to dodge curses by using rags soaked with paint was 'unbecoming'."
"You are a child." Harry said rubbing his temples, "And this is coming from someone who is a teenager."
Having grown a headache, Harry left the room. He decided to take a walk on the grounds of Potter Manor. Harry was glad to be able to spend time with Sirius at Hogwarts, he honestly was, but his godfather's newfound freedom was going to his head.
Sirius looked out the window and watched Harry step out of the manor, "Okay, he's outside. This mission Amelia has me on is going to give me a heart attack. She wants me to make Dumbledore upset enough to make a mistake, so I'm 'acting out'." He said leaning against the wall, "I think I should tell him the truth."
"That'll go over a treat." James said to him, "'Oh hi Harry, did you know I'm acting like a prat because my girlfriend asked me to spy on your headmaster who's been manipulating you this whole time?'." He rolled his eyes, "Stay the course man."
Sirius walked over to the desk and pulled the small bottle of whiskey out of the drawer. Opening it, he took a pull directly from the bottle before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "Amelia is not my girlfriend." He said glaring at James, "She stopped being my girlfriend when she was part of the team that arrested me."
"Sirius, you know as well as I do how miserable she was after that." Fleamont piped up, "Narcissa has told us about how many times she's bumped into her at the Ministry." That made Sirius take another pull of the whiskey. Truth be told, the fact that she had believed that he was capable of betraying the Potters had hurt him almost as much as James and Lily's deaths had.
He still had the occasional nightmare about that day. Seeing his infant godson laying in his crib, finding James on the ground floor by the doorway, Lily in the nursery. He'd been in a walking stupor after that, he barely remembered handing Hagrid the keys to his motorcycle before apparating to Wormtail's safe-house in Manchester.
Cornering that traitor hadn't been the right idea. But it had felt good, right up until he'd opened that pipe up, killing the muggles in the process. The sheer impact of how badly the confrontation had gone had caused him to lose himself. He hadn't felt the blast of the stunning spell that dropped him. In fact, if he tried to recall that day, all he saw was her shocked face.
Sirius and Amelia hadn't been a conventional couple. She was older than he was, she was on her way to becoming a Head Auror and he was- well, people liked Sirius as a person, but no one had ever claimed he was job-minded. Now she needed him, and like the fool he was, Sirius had answered the call.
Could Dumbledore really be doing this? It made sense to Sirius. After all, Dumbledore had set up the Fidelius charm that had hidden the Potters home in Godric's Hollow. He had known that Sirius wasn't the secret keeper and thus, couldn't tell anyone how to get to their home. Those years in Azkaban had been, at least partially, Dumbledore's fault.
He looked back out the window, Harry was now talking with Narcissa and Tonks who had just arrived. "The anti-fun brigade is back." He told James, "Cissy probably spent the afternoon looking at furniture to put in the Potter Wizengamot office."
He was very wrong.
Scene Break
When Vernon Dursley pulled into his driveway that afternoon he could be forgiven for not noticing the two women watching him from across the street. He wouldn't have noticed them because of the spell that in fact was called notice-me-not. He would feel a tingle when he walked down to pick up an errant can that someone, probably the useless twit who lived next door, had left at the edge of his property, but that could be explained as just a shiver from leaving the warmth of his car. However the urge to confess everything he'd done, both to his nephew and as director of Grunnings that was illegal, he would not be able to explain so easily.
That urge to confess filled his mind until he couldn't shake it. So, ignoring Petunia's call to come and read the note Marge had written them from her trip to Berlin, he made his way into his office. Once inside he sat at his desk and began to write.
The words came out as pen hit paper. The nearly endless beatings, locking his nephew in a cupboard, shady dealings at his company, nearly fifteen years of illegal activities. When it was finished he stuffed the letter into an envelope. He wrote his address and then the address of the Little Whinging Constabulary. He walked the letter back to the door and dropped it in letterbox by the door before going to the living room and sitting down beside Petunia.
"What was that Vernon?" Petunia asked her husband as he sank onto the couch beside his wife.
Tell no one anything about the letter. Once it is in the box forget that it exists. A strange voice in his mind commanded him. He shrugged, "Oh, it was nothing Pet." He said as the comforting glow of the television drew him away from the lingering feeling that it had been something important.
Outside of Number Four, the two women waited a moment and then vanished with nearly silent cracks. They arrived at the ward boundary of Potter Manor a moment or so later. "I still say they've gotten off too easily," Tonks muttered as they walked onto the Manor grounds.
"Hardly. Those sorts of people value their reputation beyond all else." Narcissa explained, "Going to a muggle prison will hurt them more than any curse we could devise." As they walked up the path they were met by Harry. "I told you I would be back shortly." She said to the teen-aged wizard, "Why aren't you in the Manor?"
"I got tired of hearing about the 'glory days'," Harry said, kicking a bit of snow off of his shoes as they walked back to the Manor. "Where were you two anyway?"
"Handling some business in London." Narcissa lied smoothly, "The Potter and Black Wizengamot offices need to be cleaned and refurbished."
"I had paperwork. Boring stuff. You'd have been asleep in ten minutes." Tonks said, much more quickly than her aunt. Harry looked askance at her but said nothing, a fact for which she was truly grateful.
"Come on, let's have something to eat before we have to get back to Hogwarts," Harry said leading them to the dining room.
Scene Break
Bellatrix had taken to spending more days than not with Jim. She had even gone into the nearby city where he had his office. Dressed in some clothes he'd found for her at a Sue Ryder shop in town, she blended in well enough that she didn't fear being outed as a witch every time she stopped to look at something. If anything, the slightly shabby, older clothing made her nearly invisible to the passersby, allowing her plenty of time to wander among the people.
Before the contract, and its damnable compulsions that left her alert but unable to resist the pull that forced her to become something she had despised, Bellatrix had spent a great deal of time in both Muggle and Magical London. During her time with Remus, she had often haunted a bookshop he had enjoyed, looking for books that would interest him.
Now she found herself doing a similar thing with Jim. With the small amount of pound notes that he had given her to entertain herself with while he worked, she set aside part of it to find him something. Usually, it was nothing more than a bar of chocolate or a sticky bun, but she enjoyed going back to his office and sharing it with him. Jim, Bellatrix thought with a smile, was not Remus. Jim was a different man, he wasn't wrapped up in self-hatred. They didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, she didn't expect them to.
She could feel the brown eyes of her former lover burning into her as she stepped into Jim's office, a small paper bag in her hands from the local bakery. "He's here again." She said in lieu of a greeting as she set the bag on Jim's desk. "He's in the alley across the street. Sirius promised me that this wouldn't happen again."
Jim rubbed his temples and stood up from his desk, "I'll see what he wants. Or I'll punch him in that ugly mustache and send him on his way." He said to her, "If he was sent by your cousin I will wait until he's in that dog form of his and take him to be neutered." That earned at least part of a smile from his girlfriend and with that Jim walked out of his office and onto the sidewalk. Sure enough, he saw Remus there. He growled in annoyance and crossed the empty street, "Are you here for a reason or do you just like my brickwork?"
"Peace," Remus said holding his hand up, "I'm not here to start any trouble with you or with Bella."
"Bellatrix to you."
"Fine, Bellatrix. I just wanted to offer a word of warning based on something that Sirius had said to me. May we speak in your office?" He asked Jim.
Jim shook his head, "Bad idea. Bella will most likely want to kill you and I do not want to try and get your blood out of my carpet. Just don't shout the word 'magic' and we should be alright." He wasn't willing to let the other man into his office, not now and most likely not ever. Jim hadn't trusted Remus from the beginning and he certainly wasn't going to now.
"Bellatrix is still considered under Ministry control, correct?" Remus began. When Jim nodded he continued, "That means that agents of our Ministry will be keeping an eye on her. Depending on what Sirius told Madame Bones they are probably already doing so. If that is the case tell her to stay near your office."
"She doesn't leave the square until we are on our way home." Jim said, "How much closer do you want?"
"She should stay in your office. They will be watching and if she puts a toe out of line, then something very bad could happen. Has Bellatrix ever told you about what guards our prison?" Remus asked the man, "If a member of our Ministry thought that Bellatrix was falling into bad habits she could wind up back there, or worse they could decide that she is too dangerous to be allowed to remain conscious any more. She could lose her very soul."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," explained Remus, "That the guards of our Prison, are Dementors," Remus nearly whispered the word, "They are dark creatures that feed on the happiness of humans and if given the chance, the soul as well. I am sad to say that from what Sirius has mentioned you've given her a great deal more happiness that I was able to in the brief time you've known her. You've been good for her and I'm not so stupid that I can't see that. Just- just keep her safe."
With that Remus walked deeper into the alley and before Jim's startled eyes, he vanished. Jim shook his head and then crossed the street to tell Bellatrix the warning he'd been given. To his surprise, she didn't seem nearly as worried as Remus had been.
"I'm still being a good little girl; I keep my cuffs on, I haven't thought about slitting a muggle's throat, well maybe the man who runs the cafe, but that's his fault for being a jerk." She looked at him, "I was rambling, wasn't I? Anyway, I'm behaving like a little muggle so they have no reason to harass me, and if they were to try and send me away I would have Bones tear their skins off for it."
"Your cousin was dating that Bones woman when he was arrested, why would you be entitled to more protection?" He asked her.
Bellatrix merely smiled, it wouldn't do to tell him about the voice that had told her to command the Dementors in Azkaban. "We have an arrangement," She said to him, "Now, finish your work so we can go to the Manor, Narcissa said there would be a surprise for us when we got back."