Neville

Neville made his way down several side streets and into an alley like a box canyon. When he was certain he was not being observed he pulled out the blue bit of string he'd been sent in the letter. After a bit of working up his courage, (which mostly consisted of remembering that Parvati's sister and Harriet Matirni both said, that Luna Lovegood said, that he'd "either make it back in one piece or excessively proud of anything he managed to leave behind," and that "the chances were 'even better' if he went alone." And they said, "if Luna Lovegood said it, he could and should wager his life on it."

And while he didn't know Luna Lovegood very well, he did trust Harriet with his injuries, and Parvati with … a portion of his strategic planning. Padma also wasn't shabby at debate, so … while that didn't total up to the idea that he trusted any of them with his life. Effectively … he was going to risk his life anyway, it somewhat amounted to the same thing, mostly.

So he whispered the ominous activation phrase, "Elegant meeting place eleven," and vanished from view.

.

A standard portkey trip later he reappeared not quite standing straight, near some chairs that swivelled drunkenly at the merest touch.

After a second try he climbed to his feet with help only from his own two hands. Once he was standing and had his wand out again he turned to search for the object of his outing.

She was sitting in one of the blasted slippery chairs absorbed in reading … what appeared to be the adoption book.

"What are you reading?" exclaimed Neville.

She gave a start, "My favourite book," said the woman, and snapped it shut and hugged it to her chest. She was gaunt and frail, though her cheeks had a much healthier cast to them than how the newspapers pictured her.

"Where did you get it?"

"My sister brought it, the first time they let her come to see me," said Bellatrix, "at least I think it was my sister, she … said she was, and she knew things no one else should have been able to know."

Neville nodded, The first time? that meant: "She's come back?"

"The last time they let her come again she brought a newspaper and your letter, so I wrote you and they let me send it, and I was permitted portkeys to bring you and send you back."

Neville nodded, "I expected you to be … armed."

Bellatrix shook her head, and held up her wrists, "and if I got hold of your wand, and one of these bracelets off, the other one would still keep me helpless long enough for them to arrive to see what was going on."

That's when Neville noticed that she had not one but two pairs of very tight bracelets on each wrist.

"Magic suppressors?" he said.

She nodded, "With tracking charms."

Usually one set was considered enough. Someone wasn't taking chances with her.

Or were they? "This door locks from the inside, and … it doesn't sound like there are locking charms or privacy wards on it."

Bellatrix shook her head, "There aren't, I have as much food as I could want as long as I stay here or in my room upstairs, I could wander away but where can I go without a wand or money for the knight bus, or muggle money for one of their busses for that matter. And I can't get a job without muggle papers. So all I can do is sit here and do as they say. Or sit here and not do what they say." She tapped the book she still held to her chest.

"You like it?"

"It is not as funny as the jokes you told about what really happened to me, but it is nice."

"I … wasn't trying to be funny," said Neville, "I was trying to explain what I suspected, once I realised that you might be like me."

"Like you in what way?"

"A difficult childhood with the cliche aspects that could make you either the hero or the villain, and perhaps not provide enough help for you to know how to choose which path to take."

"But I had Andromeda," said Bellatrix, "If she'd waited just three months longer before she got engaged, both of us could have escaped, instead of only her."

"Huh?" said Neville.

Bellatrix looked about ready to speak, to explain and get something off her chest that no one else had ever understood. But then something held her back and she motioned to the book again.

An insufficiently broad form of family loyalty probably, or more likely her family loyalty subverted and abused to keep her obedient to orders from a family member, probably not her little sister Narcissa. Or … not originally, so either her mother or her aunt, not that it really mattered from this late date.

If he was going to understand where she was coming from he'd need to keep her talking, and if he were going to keep her talking he needed to remain a sympathetic and interested listener, but not too interested or she might suspect … what he already told her: why he wanted the interview. In retrospect that might not have been his best move given who he was dealing with.

Or it might have been the only move that might have gotten him this interview.

"May I ask before, we go too much further, why you agreed to see me?"

She glanced down, then back up in defiance. If he didn't know better he'd have guessed that wasn't in shame, that was … checking how he was holding his wand.

She'd mentioned that because of the time delay of her captors detecting a bracelet failure and showing up to investigate, it made better tactical sense for her to acquire a wand first, and only then figure out a way to remove two bracelets so quickly that she'd be able to apparate or fight. That meant if she was fighting for an eventual escape, her fighting technique would be to kill or disable so permanently that she'd have long enough to enact some plan to disable two bracelets without the tracking charm on the first one sounding the alarm it had been disabled.

Or, of course, convincing him to help her.

It also meant if nothing else would work, destroying one bracelet (and perhaps part of her wrist) should bring help. Assuming that help wasn't worse than the problem, who would try to harness Bellatrix Lestrange to their plough? Obviously someone who thought that they could keep her harnessed.

Come to think of it, it was odd that her captors were letting him have this meeting, unless they had reason to believe he wouldn't talk, or that he wouldn't survive, or that any talking he did would be useless, perhaps they were going to move her soon anyway, … or they had a harness ready and waiting for him as well.

But only the last showed any possible advantages to them. But where had he any reputation worth the time investigating how to keep him motivated … unless it was just ransom or some form of control over his grandmother. But no one had a twisty enough brain to try rescuing Bellatrix from Azkaban with the inspiration that he'd have tried to hunt her down or that he'd find her before aurors, however that had happened. In which case they were merely upping their game when the pieces fell into place, and the original game had been holding Bellatrix as a means to control or extort Lord Black. And in that case they'd have been ready with an ambush and he'd already be in suppressor cuffs himself.

Besides there were rumours or no love lost between Lord Black and suspected death eaters, and Bellatrix had the mark. He couldn't imagine that would work well enough for anyone to risk.

Something more mundane then. Back to the story Bellatrix told…

Perhaps keeping Bellatrix entertained with a variety of visitors was partly necessary to keep her working steadily, (or whatever counted for steadily in her case.)

Or they wanted her to spill some secret that letting her see her sister hadn't, and who knows who else, and now they were grasping at straws enough to let the child of her last two victims visit her.

If they could cast tracking charms, more than likely they could and had availed themselves of listening charms as well.

Good to keep in mind.

"I think that before we discuss any of the many favours I could request, we should talk long enough for us to get to know each other well enough, for me to narrow it to a list short enough that we could actually get through it in a day and the same for you. Your first request is information about who I am, and how I became such. I imagine once you know me better there are other things you'll want to know, or want me to do for you. Or to tell you about my peers or about history as I was able to watch it or suss it out at the time."

Well, when it is put like that

It would make sense for them to dance around possible favours until they were sure that the other would accede to them, and be able to answer and implement before whoever was monitoring them could respond.

Too bad he didn't know legilimency.

Actually, she probably did. She was meeting his eyes a creepy amount, and keeping her eyes on his face enough of the rest of the time that she … gave a complex vibe that was seemed part that of a frightened child, and part that of … an apex predator that isn't used to its prey noticing and staring it down.

The question was: Was he staring her down, or giving her valuable information?

She grinned.

He glared at her.

She relaxed and leaned back in her chair and let the book slip down to her lap before she glanced at it and moved it reverently to the table.

So … she probably did know legilimency and didn't care that he'd guessed, and probably didn't care that he might try to stop her from learning more by that avenue.

The question was, did he care enough what she might learn, in order to try and stop her.

"What do your captors want from you?"

"They've given me lots of different things to contemplate," she said, "mostly to do with British or European politics."

"Anything interesting?"

"Depends on who your friends are in school," she said, "I hear you run with several other Heirs of Wizengamot seats in your year, Malfoy, Potter, Nott, Bones and Abbot, as well as enough more old families that you're either totally bored with politics, or have enough vested interest through friendship and alliance that anything I could say Wizengamot related would be of interest."

"Perhaps," said Neville.

She smirked, "Not like that. The most interesting questions they've given me so far have been how to keep my cousin Sirius from making several power plays that were actually against his interests, and whether this book would change the shape and priorities of the dark factions, given that one of the publicity stunts was depositing it into the vaults of all the financial donors to the last dark lord, with a letter, supposedly from him, ordering its use as a tutoring and sponsorship text."

That was a bit of cheek he hadn't heard about. And the only people he could imagine doing that were the Weasley twins, and they to his knowledge had never shown the slightest interest in the book, or the debate club, or anything else remotely serious. With the possible exception of trying to keep Ron revising thoroughly enough he had any chance of passing. Luckily for them this year the presence of dementors had kept the weather almost uniformly awful, and Ron's exposure to the adoption book had prompted Ron to begin investigating politics as a more interesting strategy game than chess, which meant he needed to learn history, not as Binns taught it, but as a demonstration of possible plays (some of which had been executed properly and some of which had not), and of all the other subjects as basic information about what the other pieces and players could accomplish, even if not skills for he himself to accomplish.

And if the Weasley twins knew how to make deposits in vaults not their own … the world should have grown noticeably weirder before now. Ergo it wasn't them.

Unless the Weasley twins thought that all the dark families believing that the dark lord was back and had gone subtly but not quite light was the epitome of weird, and … if they'd grown an exponentially large store of patience since he'd last paid attention.

No, it was just too far fetched to be believed… though now that he was alert to the model he'd have keep a closer eye on them. And on everyone else who'd had access to the book before the general public.

Many of their pranks were deployed … strategically. The question was, now that Percy was graduated, what were their next objectives.

This wasn't getting him anywhere. He'd meant to ask her about herself, and getting sidetracked about her captors had led to … evasions meant to keep him interested, or trick him into revealing things about himself, or just meant to get him off the topic most likely to cut their interview short by bringing her captors in.

Alright.

"So … who was your aloof sorcery tutor who seemed always to be away at the moments when you needed him most?"

"As in the sorcerer's apprentice or Pinocchio?" She frowned, "both my parents at times, you?"

"Both gran and uncle Algernon."

She nodded, "And who was your wise old wizard?"

"I'd rather not discuss that without knowing who might be listening."

"You're not ready for him to sacrifice himself to save you and give you the leg up you need," she said, "that's fair, no one ever thinks they are ready, but more often they are not, and never wise enough to realise it and realise their opportunity to betray until it has already passed, whether the hindsight arrives after it is too late or after it was successfully avoided by other means."

Neville smiled, "Or her."

"Him or her?" she said, "Nice."

"Or I am being as vague as possible, just in case."

"Clever, but unlikely, I don't think most English speakers think of being sneaky that way."

Neville shrugged.

"Wise old witch then," she said, "and you're already cunning enough to see the danger of being directly connected to her," she hummed for a moment, "so I may never know until I see her cut down in battle and you rise up twice as determined as before."

"Perhaps," said Neville, "though if you consider the archetype, it doesn't have to be in battle, it only has to be at the hands of mutual enemies."

She tisked, "If Rowena Ravenclaw were your wise old witch the chances are good 'getting cut down in the midst of full scale engagement against the enemy,' might involve a quiet evening doing some investigative spell research that somehow goes wrong. Though how that could inspire you to greatness is a bit beyond what I can imagine."

Neville froze for several seconds, Not his wise old witch, nor was her daughter, but it was an oddly specific guess, and drastically more appropriate to Neville than to anyone who hadn't been there that night. "What do you know about 'Rowena' and how do you know it?"

And the research accident sounded suspiciously like something one of the Patils had told him about Lovegood.

"Hogwarts a history?" she smirked, "Ravenclaw pupils in general?"

Maybe she didn't know anything after all.

Neville shrugged. "So who was your wise old witch, or wizard?"

She grinned, "Regulus of course."

"Who?"

"My cousin, Regulus Arcturus Black," she said, "always sneaking books out of the library and letting Andromeda and I read them. Always implementing the oddest plots that usually worked and even when they didn't, they got Sirius or Narcissa in trouble rather than us. I never did figure out what he had against either of them. Only that … well Narcissa had to develop a silver tongue in self defence of course. And Sirius got his mind set on what family was supposed to mean and went off with his other cousins rather than face Regulus' pranks or his mother's wrath any longer."

Neville nodded.

"Then he joined the dark lord, so of course I and my husband investigated that until we were ready to join also."

"Which didn't turn out well," said Neville.

She frowned, "After Regulus disappeared, I suppose The Dark Lord was my wise old wizard for a while, then he abandoned me also. I kept to my orders for as long as I could, and then hoped against hope he'd fallen in battle and rose up determined to take the fight to our enemies, I … I should have gathered intelligence before I waded in, I … hadn't learned my lessons well enough, I should have … I should not have gone in and without even a decoy mission keeping the aurors busy, which I'd only seen The Dark Lord do twice, instead I should have done what he most normally did, ordered a retreat and conference, picked out important targets and waited for proper opportunities to arise. Or in important cases, wait for distractions to be manufactured. I should never have been caught. I should have been empress for a decade next year, but I never saw myself as the hero that anyone might die to empower, I only saw myself as an excellent minion."

Neville shivered, he was about to snap at her, but from her tone … her guilt at betraying her cause was real, (and she'd been hugging that book) as was her absolute horror that she'd been abandoned by her big sister, her cousin, and the dark lord himself. And only the dark lord could be construed to having died in battle.

"Did Andromeda abandon you?" said Neville, "or did she also surrender the field in a way that you were meant to be inspired by?"

Bellatrix turned red, not blush red but blotchy angry red. She opened her mouth to shout at him but then froze and looked down at the book laying beside her hand.

She took several deep breaths and finely said in a low voice, "and the common enemy was Aunt Walburga. Sirius too then perhaps, I didn't see that."

Neville didn't know what to say.

"And I could have followed her example and married my ravenclaw half blood and been happy."

Neville almost used his gran's quote about about no marriage being particularly easy, but decided it wasn't his place.

"And been in a better position to credibly follow my lord's teachings when the time came."

There was no way Neville was going to go along with that one. If she was willing to admit that torturing his parents to death had been a mistake, that was fine, but she hadn't suggested that attacking Harriet's aunt and uncle at their home had been a mistake on the dark lord's part, and until she did, he wouldn't have much good to say about him. To say nothing about it being a normal tactic throughout that whole period. The only thing unusual about the two instances was that you-know-who had attacked alone and Bellatrix had attacked with a very small contingent, against highly trained opponents and won anyway.

Won anyway, except for not managing to kill the infant present (if that had ever been a goal) and not making it out to fight again another day.

And she saw herself as being the legitimate heir to the dark lord's forces, by virtue of the fact that she perceived herself to have been his second in command when he vanished.

And she hugged the adoption book as if she believed the story about it being recommended by him.

"What do you know about the dark lord's present activities and how do you know it?" said Neville.

Her head snapped up and she looked him defiantly in the eye, "I will not betray my lord's cause a second time."

Oh ichor vile.

Neville closed his eyes and demanded his heart to quit racing, and his thoughts to slow down enough that looking her in the eye wouldn't tell her more than he meant to say out loud anyway. At least that's how someone explained the uselessness of legilimency to him once.

Slow deliberate thoughts, that was key.

So.

Bellatrix Lestrange saw herself as a candidate hero at least as far as it went, she rejected her Aunt's version of blood purism, though she had obeyed to the extent of marrying Rudolphus Lestrange. She had followed other family members even when it led her into associating with you-know-who, who had groomed her to be his second in command and replacement, and he'd died before she was ready and at the moment of truth she'd … followed him blindly into battle instead of taking over his army.

Failing at one's first moment of truth was a common trope, not that it was necessary in real life, but that it was necessary for the reader or audience to understand how difficult it is to not fail at anything in particular, and that keeping on trying was the next most important thing after just trying in the first place, which was perhaps more important than choosing the optimal thing to try first. That bit seemed to be up to the taste or moral upbringing of the author.

So here was Bellatrix, hero and once failed, was she going to try again? Or give up in favour of … mediocrity? Mediocrity was more comfortable for everyone, at least short term, or it wouldn't continue to exist. But consistently through history the winners wrote the history books, so … remembering the context of her enemies' opinions, her actions might not seem as reprehensible as they were painted. If her side had won, who knows what propaganda, or even facts would be spouted about the phoenix faction, He'd already heard plenty. Now that he thought about it, Gran's and Uncle Algie's stories about them were were remarkably evenhanded, given that her son and daughter-in-law died fighting for the phoenix side.

So what are your plans now? Even in it's weakened form, that wasn't a question he dared ask aloud, the Bellatrix he thought he knew would never answer 'mediocrity' but if no one ever held up a mirror that showed her what she was choosing, she might never choose anything out of the ordinary. Or at least never choose anything dangerously out of the ordinary.

"What about Regulus?" he said, opening his eyes and meeting her gaze.

"My lord said, he betrayed the cause. Some said he arrived in battle drunk or crazy. Some that 'he was doing more harm than good.' Others that his duelling had merely progressed to the next level, and no one on his team could keep pace with him. In any event my lord lost patience and killed him without even giving him a chance after the battle to explain himself." Bellatrix looked at him oddly.

"Hmm," said Neville, your track record in this conversation redefining betrayal as 'inspiring defeat' is two out of three, are you going to look deeper again?

She blinked, "my lord killed him," she said resolutely but glanced at the adoption book again.

Neville shrugged, and was about to look for something so say, but she put up her finger to stall him. She kept staring at the book, she'd moved her hand across it as if to pick it up again.

"My lord killed him," she said, "but when I find myself kidnapped from Azkaban, he is again moving to take over Wizarding Britain, but with a much more subtle approach than before."

Riddle. Damn him and his ability re-frame any question until the temperamentally dark and temperamentally light could realise that they agreed fundamentally, though often below the level that either was generally used to thinking.

Riddle, of course it was Riddle, who decided that recruiting three to five Wizengamot heirs from each year and as many as possible likely future candidates for election wasn't fast enough, and he had to go and convert every existing influential family he could gain influence over as easily as writing a bogus 'letter from Lord Voldemort'

"Perhaps," she sighed, "Regulus just had the misfortune to see my lord's next steps before he himself realised what he should be doing."

"Hmm," said Neville.

"Knowing Regulus, he probably started implementing poorly without properly consulting my lord or presenting his ideas to his other advisers."

Like another Black we know.

It wasn't even difficult not to say that one out loud, he might be getting better at this conversing with powerful slytherins thing.

"Maybe my lord had already interviewed him about those plans and rejected them or him, and that's why he arrived in battle drunk or waiting to die."

Another unknowable, Unanswerable. He shrugged. Instead he said, "So what are you going to do now?"

Damn, that was the other thing he was going to not say.

She frowned, "I was going to answer 'do my duty' and mean: escape, breed an heir, foster it to someone I can trust, and turn myself in, not in any particular order, and wait for my lord to return and should he find a use for me he will retrieve me. Yet I find," her fingers drummed against the book under her hand, "that my duty might not be exactly as I thought it."

He'd heard that list from Dobby, and known it to be a lie, no sane person would willingly return to Azkaban.

Which ought to mean no sane person would commit any crime that would land them there, unless they were convinced that they wouldn't be caught. It was so cliche that Gran had told him she routinely voted 'not guilty' unless the accused appeared believably insane, or could articulate a reasonable explanation for believing they had a foolproof plan for avoiding detection or avoiding being caught. Or had a could explain a motivation strong enough that an average person would be willing to die for that cause.

Without such a plan in place, she assumed most defendants were either framed, crazy, or it was a crime of passion and the minimum sentence was more appropriate than the maximum. Terrorists and Death Eaters were the exception, they had an ideology to uphold, and generally they believed that Britain would fall soon enough that any stay in Azkaban would be both brief and worthwhile.

Not that anyone else voted that way.

Or that the strategy would continue to be worthwhile if it became known: how best to act framed, or which details to make sure to include with a false memory charm to ensure that your framed victim seems guilty.

Conversely, perhaps she'd mastered a skill that protected her from dementors despite of all the precautions of the guards.

"Alright," said Neville, "then what is your duty? Or what do you intend to do?"

She frowned, "Read this book again," she said, "my family duty still involves breeding an heir, if the opportunity arises. I'm increasingly uncertain if my release from Azkaban was ordered or orchestrated by my lord. And if my tasks here are punishment or training to be ready to rejoin his forces when the time comes, since I obviously wasn't yet ready to carry on his work last time."

There is no way Riddle could have planned to recruit Bellatrix before she'd even been released. And yet … she… or rather her family did control a Wizengamot seat, and what was one more book in one more vault, the cost of a book was low compared to the value of another seat voting with him whenever it was that she, or her husband, or brother-in-law were ever released.

"Speaking of," she said, "Are you available?"

"Uhh?"

"To help me produce an heir."

"Oh," said Neville. He'd also heard that one before from Dobby. And he'd rejected it as soon as he'd seen her, because she was so frail as to make the idea revolting. Though he wasn't sure if it was revolting because she was older than his mother, or because being that frail meant helping her be pregnant could be a risk to her and therefore to his candidate baby. Not that witches were as fragile as they sometimes appeared. Accidental magic didn't need to be showy to be effective, and general health and hardiness were two things that accidental magic seemed to especially designed for.

Which didn't stop the vicious thought from surfacing that he wished she would die of her own self induced pregnancy if nothing else were handy.

"I'd … let you raise the child," she said, "if you can keep it away from the Notts."

A vindictive bit of himself pointed out the inherent fairness of making the one who'd taken his parents provide him with heirs as replacement family members.

"I … notice you recognise more about having a difficult childhood than most seem to, I think you might could make the best foster parent of anyone I know."

Neville almost called 'bull' but something silenced him, she might be telling the truth, and if she was, it was kind of sad.

"I could write a letter to the Notts, explaining things," she said.

As if the Lestrange family weren't their own pureblood line and hadn't been for several generations. The real question was explaining to his Gran, or to Lady Malfoy, no … she wasn't acting head of Black anymore, Sirius was in charge now. And Neville didn't know what Sirius would do. And any bastard Bellatrix produced might fall under his jurisdiction if both the mother and the head of her family were in Azkaban. Then again, perhaps Lord Nott held similar powers from another angle.

None of which stopped the insistence of a biological part of himself that thought that anything of that sort was a great idea and an example of what nature intended.

Conversely, could she write a letter that would excuse the situation to Parvati, or to anyone who eventually took her place?

It didn't seem at all likely.

"Well?" she said, "what do you think?"

"Uhh, have you considered the virgin birth charm?" he said, cursing his stammer, and his inability to say something sensible like, 'no, thank you,' or 'not on your life, you crazy witch, there's no way I'd curse any of my children by letting them share blood with you.'

Her eyes lit up, "Oh, Do you know it?"

Yes, he did know it, and he knew why he wouldn't use it against his worst enemy, and he wasn't sure she qualified. She did in historical or animal terms of course, everyone knew she tortured his parents into insanity, (or was an accomplice / accessory to that act), what no one knew was that there were others who were more directly responsible for making his life a living hell. But he no longer held her responsible for the actions of those others. There was a time in his past where he would have gladly let her die that way. But he'd learned her past too well, and the context in which she'd acted and he knew what she'd done was an act of war. Perhaps, technically, an atrocity of war. But not a crime in the normal sense. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean it. I … it's not hard, I did learn it, before I understood why it's not a charm, it's a curse."

"Oh?" she said, "why?"

"It's not controllable, or if it is no one has recorded how for a very long time."

"How bad is it?"

"There's only one chance, after that you can't have any children, and whatever you do produce by it are inbred."

She closed her eyes, "of course they're inbred." She sighed, "It's considered line theft if they catch you?"

"It's considered line murder if they can prove you knew what it would do." Which I just admitted.

She nodded, "Alright, never mind, that wouldn't fulfil the duty I'm concerned with."

Neville nodded, "sorry I brought it up, I … said the first thing that came to mind."

She blinked, "I made you nervous did I. Uhh, how old are you?"

"Thirteen."

"Oh," she said, "yes, that sounds right. I'm sorry I brought it up. I wasn't thinking clearly or reckoning on several things I should have been."

"Such as?"

"Having met you now rather than in a year or three," she said, her hands moved in a way that Neville took to mean she could use either hand for wand work, and that she was referring to her bracelets and therefore her current captivity, "that and your wisdom in seeing things about me no one else ever has, and your confidence in coming here alone, all made me reckon you more mature than most boys are at your age."

After all her previous flattery, Neville found himself bristling at being compared to 'most boys,' Harry Potter was emancipated and could and did vote his family seat, at least when he could attend. Harriet was three months younger and her family considered her 'of age,' and The Albus Dumbledore had recognised it at least as far as giving her access to the restricted section. … part of the restricted section.

And neither of them had escorted a princess into the horrors of Salazar's Chamber of Secrets to rescue another princess and a founder's daughter from … he never had gotten a good explanation exactly how the basilisk had kept her virgin sacrifice whole for hours or 800 years. (But then one of the odd properties of basilisk venom was preservation. Perhaps it applied to other aspects of the snake's powers.)

Only that 'Oh, Anabel is a gentle creature, though misguided, and not nearly educated enough for an 800 year old, in spite of living in a school.'

And no matter what she'd done, he couldn't kill an unarmed woman. No matter what she did to him, short of unforgivables, it would not be wise to use either of the only two spells he could be reasonably sure would be lethal, since they were both dark magic for which his family was 'curator and guard' and it would be better if the world continued to remain ignorant of their existence, and allowed several more generations to forget who protected the secret of their existence.

And there was one precedent, perhaps it could even be called a tradition, (or several competing ones), under which fourteen-year-olds and sometimes thirteen-year-olds would engage in certain activities, under certain circumstances, not against their wills so much as without being consulted until near the end of negotiations.

"Suppose I said 'yes'," said Neville, "What then?"

"Well," said Bellatrix, "the carpet in here is nice enough, but … the room I'm allotted upstairs has a very nice bed."

Neville yawned and stretched, and chose not to sit up. Sometimes, when he was this comfortable he liked to review his posture and his mental state in case it held clues for building meditations or memorising comfortable postures that could help him fall asleep easier or at least faster. And sometimes valuable pieces of information were dredged up by his dreams.

Though this time he seemed to have woken up from … one of the least disturbing 'adult' dreams he'd ever had. It had all been rather nice and friendly, instead of portraying him hiding shamefully in a loo or one of his favourite greenhouses, and he wasn't making out in some anatomically impossible way with a toilet or humping a supple green itch berry that somehow was disturbingly hand shaped.

Itch berry weren't a succulent, nor even if they were, would they ever grow hand-shaped, and he'd never been naked in his greenhouse. Nor in any of his father's or grandfather's, nor any of the rest of the garden, except for up and down the path to the fairy ring for midsummer's night, and that hardly counted, since it was only once a year, and all they did was walk the circles and bless the summer, and go back inside. And there would never be any more than that until there was a lord of the Manor and a wife or even sweetheart to play Gaea's avatar. And he'd only been deemed old enough to walk the circles once, before that all he'd managed was … once he climbed into the garret balcony and watched Gran and Uncle Albert walk the circles.

All in all, Neville didn't think wet-dreams ever made particular sense. And this one wasn't actually a wet dream. If anything it might be a 'cuddle dream,' if that was a thing. Neville certainly hoped it was and that he could look forward to more. Most of what he could remember was being a friendly old man who looked a bit like his father, and snuggling in bed with a friendly old woman who looked a bit like…

Bellatrix Lestrange.

Neville sat up, and looked.

The sun slanting in the window might be mid-afternoon sun not mid-morning sun, but that wasn't what had been keeping his back warm.

And he was naked. And if her bare shoulder was any indication, she was too. And she was smiling in her sleep.

Smiling like that ravenclaw girl who …

She opened her eyes with a sudden pout and pulled the blankets tighter before she noticed him and looked up.

"You were letting the cold in," she said apologetically.

"Lady Lestrange?" said Neville. That felt wrong, what had he been calling her last night? No, earlier this morning.

She blinked and stared at him, and the focus of her gaze seemed to turn inward, then she sat up with a start and held out her left hand and rotated it until all the fingers pointed down.

A ring fell off into the blankets with a 'plop'

She cackled gleefully and turned back to him, grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him.

He pushed her away, "What?" he said.

"My hero!" she said, and tried to kiss him again.

"Huh?" he said.

"Apparently," she said, "our little dalliance has triggered something somewhere to annul my marriage. Some of the old families used to use things like that. I … didn't realise one had been used on me, or I'd have whore'd my way free a decade and a half ago."

"Really?" Neville's eyes widened.

Bellatrix frowned, "No, I guess maybe I wouldn't have until … much later. He never made me happy you know. I never liked him. I'm glad to be free of him, and his brother, and their whole family."

Not remembering any positive memories about her life before Azkaban might have more to do with Azkaban than with Mr. Lestrange, Thought Neville, What have I done?

"Even if I still have to serve the rest of my time in Azkaban, plus several extra years for escaping, even though I didn't escape. I told you that already didn't I? I'm repeating myself aren't I?"

Neville nodded.

She closed her mouth and looked at him with concern. Or stared through him, lost in her own thoughts?

Or waiting for me to return her kiss and try to get started again. It was a tempting idea.

"You'll protect us though won't you? If my husband gets out of Azkaban and still wants me or wants me dead or anything? You'll be a Wizengamot Lord by then, My cousin Sirius … I have no idea what he'll do, but … you and Narcissa can convince her Draco to protect me right?"

"I have no idea what I can convince Draco of," said Neville, "What have I done?"

"You've made me a whore, that is carrying your bastard, is what you've done." said Bellatrix, she seemed happy with those appellations, "But now I'm a free whore, and I'll be able to raise her knowing that she's a pureblood from two of the ancient houses, even if I can't tell her which ones. Who shall I be? Amazonia Estella isn't bad, but it's already too closely associated with me. And she'll grow up reading your book. Not mean Aunt Walburga's."

How did she know he'd helped with that book? Even so, it wasn't his by any stretch of the imagination.

Find a different subject.

"How old are you?" said Neville.

Bellatrix blinked, then blinked again, "I've been scared for my life since I was sixteen." She blinked again, "scared for … lesser but no less compelling reasons since I was fourteen or earlier. Why? am I acting … that young? I feel that young without the fear weighing me down. I feel like dancing in circles, do you think the hotel would mind terribly? Do muggles do that?"

Neville coughed, "If you mean dancing naked, I don't think British muggles do that."

"Ah," she said, "how do they celebrate midsummer then?" So that is where her thoughts had gone also.

"I don't think that they do celebrate it."

"Oh," she said, "how dreary for them," she climbed out of bed and pushed several things aside and began to dance, mostly in place.

Neville watched, partly because, in spite of being a quite a bit on the thin side, he knew first hand that she still had a wiry strength, and a gentle touch, (when she wasn't fighting to gain something for which she couldn't articulate a polite request.)

No, she wasn't anything to look at, and she hadn't grace, as if she were still not in practice being allowed to move: To long imprisoned. As well as desperately tired and depressed: Too much dementor exposure. But … she was his first conquest. And he was almost certain she … wanted to be thought of as a conquest rather than as a …

No.

No, that was before she noticed her annulment.

"Bellatrix," he said, "was your magic bound to your husband in some way?"

Her spinning slowed down drastically but did not come to a stop, her head waving did stop and she made several turns with her head tilted over almost far enough for her right ear to brush her shoulder.

"Bound to his family magic more likely," she said, "No, maybe not. Why do you ask?"

"Because last night… No I mean, this morning, you were very subdued. I don't mean below average, I mean below how you are right now."

"So? What do you expect, I'm free! You want me not to celebrate?"

"Not that," said Neville, "was a connection to him, still in Azkaban part of what was keeping you down?"

She straightened and stopped turning, "Perhaps," she smirked, "which means, however much magic he might have been draining from me to stay happy, he isn't getting anymore. I hope he goes crazy. He made me crazy for long enough."

She started dancing again, even more enthusiastically than before.

Crazy is one thing you're not giving a convincing impression of having gotten over.

"Come on, Heir Longbottom, dance with me! Do you know the chant?"

Neville stood, he liked dancing, (When Uncle Algae wasn't in the house) and he'd hardly ever had a chance to practice with anyone who knew what they were doing well enough to help him dance better rather than just laugh at him for being not quite as good as their own tutors had made them come to expect. "Are we really going to dance Midsummer three weeks before Calan Gaeaf?"

"I was thinking of doing a bit more than dancing," said Bellatrix, "besides we celebrated spring this morning, with the creation of our daughter, summer this afternoon seems sort of appropriate, shall I see you at Yule?"

"Merlin," said Neville.

"Or conversely, shall I stop by your Manor next midsummer my lord?"

Wouldn't that create just the stir. Also, if she was calling him 'my lord' instead of you-know-who… Though that could just be standard politeness or a mockery of it.

"Let's assume not. Besides there's not a pressing need for any such thing, nor a way to extend you much protection once you're there until I am of age, or win my emancipation."

"Making you Lord of the Estate," said Bellatrix, "Good point, my lord is wise and knowledgeable beyond his years."

Not by much, thought Neville, but good of you to notice.

Bella swayed over to him and slowed the rhythm of her feet to something he recognised. And she was quietly clicking her tongue in what had to be a waltz.

He hadn't been planning on either walking or dancing the circles, and he certainly wasn't planning on doing anything so sacrilegious as playing Lord of Summer, on the wrong day of the year or on land that wasn't his own, and especially not indoors.

But a waltz he would do, even with a disarmed murderer no … soldier who was pathetically frail looking, even if her coordination and strength belied some of that. He'd waltz with anyone, it had been part of his diplomatic training.

And, he thought irreverently, when would he again get the chance to do something as supposedly dignified as a waltz. Naked.

He matched her tongue clicking rhythm, and copied her sway to the all but silent beat. He took her hand and her hip and swung away.

Carefully, so as not to bump into any furniture.

.

Neville woke and looked around. He was alone. He sat up the rest of the way and looked the rest of the way around. Completely alone.

On the sturdy little table by the bed there was a note and beside it a ring and another piece of folded paper. He read the note, and unfolded the paper to find a ringlet of black hair which unwound to an astonishing degree, with all the curls out of it, it stretched over a yard. He guided it to curl in on itself again and counted the strands. He wound it back up and folded it back into the square of paper. And read the relevant portion of the note again.

"I leave you a token of my debt. Summon me at need. one strand for a muggle, two for a witch or wizard, three for a head of house, four if it must be done before a particular Wizengamot vote, don't send me after children without cause, or my own family."

Neville smirked, that was a lot of mayhem he held within his hand. Then he shuddered and thrust his hand and the tiny makeshift envelope deep into his satchel. A moment later he reached for the ring and was about to do the same when something stopped him.

He narrowed his eyes and instead thrust his hand into his satchel and summoned the black portkey thread. Something else stopped him in time and he put both ring and portkey on the table, before dressing carefully and making generous use of the mirror.

A Lord always looks his best, or has a damn good reason. (Such as having fields to plant or weeds to pull.)

{End Chapter 10}