Disclaimer: Is the Potterverse stuffed full of utterly game-breaking magic with no stated limitations to keep it from being game-breaking, the implications of which all characters blithely ignore? If so, I don't own Harry Potter.
One small thing, an unsigned reviewer thought that 'groke' and 'grok' were the same word. They're not. One is archaic english, the other is martian.
Also there's one more chapter of this installment of this story, to be posted two weeks hence, after which I've got four chapters written of a different story (out of a projected ten).
Chapter 27
Long silence. Clearly, she's thinking through the implications. I can tell because the normal sense of presence I get from an occluded mind vanishes behind deep occlumency. It's good for times when you have to think clearly and dispassionately. At length, in a small voice. "I'll sign the contract." Then, more boldly, "I was concerned that you were a fool. To take on the Dark Lord? However, if you're not the braggart you sound like..? I think I shall stick around long enough to confirm everything you've told me. If it's all true..." She trails off, and then smiles slyly. "Is there a Mrs. Call-me-Mal?"
-oOo-
"I feel like my hair is never going to be right again." She's got a peevish tone in her voice. Bellatrix has been introduced to the muggle concepts of 'peroxide' and 'hair straighteners'. I'm nobody's idea of an expert, but I've helped enough times to have the gist of the matter.
"Well, you're getting a whole new head soon. If it bothers you that much in the meantime, hair growth tonic is a couple of galleons a dose, you can have it back to rights in five minutes when we get home." She's not complaining about the completely non-magical makeup, even praised me for understanding I stood no chance of buying the right stuff on Diagon Alley. The praise was, of course, buried in among a tirade about the fashion choices I made for her. Apparently she knows better than me, even after five years in jail, how a muggleborn witch might dress to accompany her new boss to a meeting. It is a proposition I had enough tact not to rubbish to her face. She had the good grace to stop with that once she saw how muggles were dressing in public, at least.
What I picked out for her was a dove-grey skirt suit, one of the few available with a longer skirt, because as far as I can tell witches - to a woman, muggleborns included - Do Not Do skirts shorter than calf-length. Out and about in Diagon Alley, at any rate. Trousers are right out. I bought Marks and Spencer, to go with the 'newly employed and trying to look professional on a tight budget' image I've crafted for her. So far so good, except it's the late 80s, and everything has honking great padded shoulders. That was the sticking point, really, even if it does conceal her build from casual observers.
Which is the real risk. Bellatrix was a well-known witch before she went to Azkaban, before she was outed as a member of a Death Eater cell. A regular in the society columns of the Prophet and Witch Weekly. A lot of people are going to be able to recognise her from build and gait alone. The trick is making them double-take and think no, not her after all.
The less said about the Underwear Argument - it deserves capital letters - the better. Apparently, among pureblood witches, stays and pantalettes didn't die with the 19th century. (I only know what stays even are from late-night trips down the Youtube/Wikipedia rabbit-holes. Where you'd buy such things I have no idea.) I'm going to guess that they died out for good reason because she shut up after a brief period of wearing the modern stuff. Plus point: not being laced up like a joint of meat also changes her carriage and gait slightly, which will throw off even people who knew her quite well.
The hair, though, has been the subject of a great deal of complaining from the get-go. "Potion hair is never quite the same as natural-grown. Even if it were, It's the principle of the thing. I wouldn't expect a mere man to understand. I'm also not used to all these m- crowds." It's the first shopping Saturday of the New Year and the January Sales: London is pretty busy.
We're walking down Charing Cross Road toward the Leaky Cauldron. Detection of apparition and floo network monitoring is too manpower-intensive to do in normal times. The day that the escape of three fearsome Death Eaters breaks in the Prophet is not normal times. Since she's one of those fearsome Death Eaters and I don't have a license, we've taken the train rather than get caught apparating or flooing in. Bellatrix did not cope well with the kind of crush you get in Leicester Square Underground on a Saturday morning. With hindsight, I should have got a cab from Waterloo. Still, the experience was character-building for her.
(We can floo out, of course, we just have to ask any shopkeeper nicely and pay a sickle for the powder. The ministry thinks our home floo is in Woking, and doesn't have the password. We are not daft enough to keep it lit when not in use.)
Bellatrix has been nervous the whole way. She's been raised to believe the people around her would attack her if they knew what she was. Which wouldn't be so bad, but she has no wand, just a wooden dummy up her sleeve. Today ought to rectify that last thing. There are estate wands in the Lestrange vault, and I have a scam in mind to get her original wand back.
Even so, I suppose some easing of her mind is in order. "You know witch-trials have been illegal since 1735, right? And they hanged the last witch-hunter in England for murder? 1750 or thereabouts. You go up to any of these people and tell them you're a witch, they'll assume you mean the religion. And mostly try and be polite about it. The ones that don't try will just try and be funny at you."
"They made a religion out of us?"
"Sort of. I'll tell you the story later, which you'll likely find hilarious. Anyway, getting back to the point, you can't have any kind of disguise that can be dispelled. If you set a probity probe off, all I have to do is lean in and whisper that you're not a real blonde." Probity probes, like sneakoscopes, can be beaten by occlumency. The term 'security theatre' hasn't been coined yet, but the magical world has the thing in plenty.
She's behind me as I go into the Cauldron, but I can hear the eye-roll. If anyone asks - they probably won't, I've cultivated a reputation for being a brisk shopper, hardly anyone even knows my name - she's my new secretary, working a probationary period. Next time I'm in town, the story changes to her not having worked out, not that anyone will ask.
Just inside the entrance to the Alley there's a stretch of wall that gets used for billposting. It's got three copies of each of the three fugitives' wanted posters.
"That's a terrible picture of m- that horrid, scary, criminal woman." She's lowering the tinted glasses that are obscuring her rather distinctive eye-colour to look at the poster more closely. She looks affronted.
"Nobody looks good in those." Arrest and a few hours in a holding cell will take the photogenic shine off anyone.
Her tone takes a waspish turn. "Not when they take the picture just after landing a stinging hex on your - on a sensitive spot."
I make a mental note not to do that: the Bellatrix in the picture has a definite bear-with-a-sore-arse air about her. When posh girls lose their rag, they really lose it. I can't lipread well enough to divine precisely which obscenities she's screaming at the camera, but they're being delivered con considerable brio. Apparently the Ministry wants the subjects of its mugshots to look like they belong in prison.
"Hmph," she says, after another long look at the poster, which comes with the usual small print warnings about not approaching the dangerous fugitive. She turns away and grabs my arm to get us moving again. A few paces into the Alley - it's actually quite quiet, magic shops don't have a January Sales tradition - she speaks up. "I did actually know that about witch-hunting. I didn't have Binns for history, there were three history teachers when I started. Madam Shafiq, who taught me, quit the year after I took my OWLs. There were rumours about her having a big set-to with Dumbledore."
I'm in the middle of thinking of a follow-up question - wasting a department as important as history down to the single crappiest teacher admits of very few innocent explanations - when I spot trouble. Or at least the potential thereof. I resolve to be proactive, since I foresaw just this possibility.
"Moody!" I call out, hands where he can see 'em. I sense Bellatrix tucking in behind me and to my right, so he can only get a clear look at her with the magical eye. I'm hoping that it works like an x-ray, and that he doesn't recognise people by their bone structure. "I read the news today, oh boy!"
"They won't be so lucky when we make their grade," he growls out, giving the proper response as he stumps over, away from the gaggle of other law-enforcement mages he was with, "You're keepin' your head on a swivel?"
"Always am, Moody, always am. Got something here that I was going to owl you later." Again with the cautious movements, plucking with finger and thumb because my wand holster is a shoulder-rig and right next to my inside jacket pocket, "When you get a spare moment, no rush, have a look over that and get back to me with a time we can chat about it. Again, no rush. If I'm not in, Remus or Sirius will take a message. If nobody's in, you're taking your chances with the answering machine." I levitate a brown manila envelope over to him. Both of my housemates are completely alongside using the telephone now, although Remus is the only one of us who's read the answering-machine manual.
There's a blat of magic from Moody as he scans the envelope - no magic on it at all, there's nothing in there but a completely mundane photo - and he pockets it. "You're up to something," he says, fixing me with a Standard Issue Copper's Stare.
"When am I not?" I retort with a grin, "but ask me no questions and I'll tell you no evasively-worded half-stories about things that are outwith your jurisdiction anyway." I pretty much have to risk the lie: Bellatrix is squarely within an auror's remit, but he's not seeing any magical disguise and she's doing the mousy-girl-new-to-the-job act rather well. The changes in appearance - not least of it dressing like an obvious muggleborn, which Bellatrix Lestrange would never do - are taking her the rest of the way.
I get away with lying to Moody by focusing carefully on the planned shenanigans with the Lestrange money. Which is, indeed, me being up to something. That isn't, come right to it, even criminal: Bellatrix has a perfect right to make withdrawals. The amount she's proposing to take might be in breach of the Lestrange family settlements but that's purely a civil matter. Most of the scams I have running are like that: in poor taste or breach of social convention, and at worst things I could get sued for, not prosecuted.
He snorts in amusement. As far as Moody's concerned anyone trying to be direct and candid with him is hiding something serious, and he finds being asked to trust someone flat-out insulting. Admitting you're up to something minor is a balm to his misanthropy, especially if it doesn't make extra work for him. "One day you're going to meet yourself comin' back, you know that?"
"I always thought I'd get killed on a zebra crossing after proving black was white, myself. Well, you're busy, and the new girl and I have an appointment at Gringotts. I'll wait for you to get in touch?"
"Yeah, you've usually got something interestin' for me to look at." More and more of it, recently, has been Remus's work, I'm more the salesman these days, "And you're right, I'm busy. Mind how you go, Reynolds."
"And yourself, Moody. C'mon, new girl, to the goblins!"
After a brisk walk up the Alley, a cashed cheque at the tellers' counter and the ten-galleon fee for a private appointment, we're shown to a waiting room.
Once she gets to the provided chair, Bellatrix permits herself a brief, ungraceful slump. Occlumency and ladylike poise alike take effort, and an occasional respite is necessary. After a couple of deep breaths, "How long have you known Moody?"
"About a year and a half," I tell her, after a moment to calculate, "Wouldn't say friends, exactly, but we get on fairly well. Civil with each other, small fund of in-jokes, that sort of thing. I'm guessing you know him better for the other side of his character?"
"Very much the bogeyman, if you were raised in a family like mine."
"And, from the other side, the chap they send to arrest the bogeyman."
That earns me a laugh. She sounds a lot less wracked than she did even a couple of days ago. While there's no cure but the obvious for the malnutrition - the nearest thing I've found to a Nutrition Potion is a magically-fortified soup recipe for convalescents - non-specific healing potions make for a remarkably speedy recovery for most things and she only needed a couple of specific remedies to take care of the rest. She has a pretty laugh when she's mildly amused.
(Genuine hilarity is a great whooping bray of a laugh that she's embarrassed by. Sirius and I are both sworn to provoke it as often as possible, on general principles. The good it does her is a handy side-benefit.)
"I really did think we were done for. Just for a moment, there. Moody is good. We were supposed - The Dark- Tom tasked us to take him down, we were studying him when it all ended and those two idiots panicked and - and -"
I make soothing noises. She no longer has the iron-hard certainty of Tom's approval to make everything she did in his cause righteous. She now sees things she laughed at then as the atrocities they were all along. "I know. Hold on to that remorse, it'll weaken the curses. They might have a chance of recovery with your spiteful intent reversed." I hope. I haven't got into the attack on the Longbottoms, whether it's the curse itself or just pure neurological insult that's keeping them under. Bellatrix is rather fragile until we've made her a new, unburnt-by-trauma brain to think about her memories with, so my conscience won't let me pry. For the time being.
She collects herself again. "The point was, Barty and I, we were studying Moody. The Brothers Idiot would charge in like morons if we let them, but Barty and I wanted to be effective fanatics. So we did our homework. What we learned was that behind the reputation, there was an awful lot that the Auror Office never publicised. Some of it they actively suppressed. If you got to see the whole picture, not just the reputation, you discovered that the reality was considerably more frightful than the legend. There was one theory in the Auror Office, Tom had an agent in there somewhere, that Moody was a Seer. It would explain how he was able to take down his targets."
"He might be," I say, "but you couldn't prove it by me. I've seen him in action. He's commendably thorough, is all. None of the usual wizarding slapdashery, he actually turns up having done the reading and research. Which is fortunate, really. It meant that when Dumbledore set him after me, he was quite sympathetic by the time we met face-to-face. He's probably less of a tactical threat than he used to be, what with the leg and getting on in years, but those investigative skills? They age like a fine wine."
"And you just flim-flammed him like that? Called his attention to you and waved a distraction under his nose? I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled."
I shrug. "I've a lot of the same skills myself. He's used to playing against people who've no idea how he does it. He doesn't have many blind spots, but that's one of them. Beyond that, he knows me and that I'm at least somewhat on the side of the angels. I've given him plenty of leads and one quite spectacular arrest in the time we've known each other, so he'll give me room to manoeuvre that he wouldn't afford most people. What I did today was drop him a hint that I've got something he'll be interested in."
"That envelope you gave him?"
"Yep. Photograph of the rune-work that was done on you. If I know Moody, he'll be as outraged as I am once he's parsed the runes. At which point, I hope, he'll be receptive to the idea of helping a bit." I hold up a hand to ward off the building protest, probably about her privacy, "Which you're going to need. New identities are a lot easier with law-enforcement support, and it's one of the things you're buying with that full debrief you're going to do." Nothing a copper likes more than intel on the local villains.
She simmers down. Whatever she meant to say next, she's interrupted by a Gringotts goblin, to whom she gives the appropriate passwords and a smear of blood on the runestone he steps out briefly to fetch. Vault keys are for the ordinary customers. If you can afford it, Gringotts will secure your valuables with something a little better than an easily-stolen physical security token. Her presence here is going to be subject to Gringotts' shaky grasp of bankers' confidentiality, but the Ministry would have to think to ask. Moody might, but he's probably relying on staking out the Alley.
The mine-cart ride down to the deepest vault I've yet visited is pure fun. As a roller-coaster I rate it a solid 8: raw speed, whiplash turns, plenty of ups-and-downs, and the caverns are breathtaking scenery. Seatbelts would be a welcome addition, however, and some padding on the seats wouldn't go amiss. We don't pass through any Thief's Downfall, so clearly that's not an always-on security precaution.
It's when we get to the end of the ride that the shine comes off the experience. I knew intellectually that they had dragons chained up down here, but seeing such a magnificent beast abused like that? The beast's misery and terror is pouring out of it. And what use they expect it to be when they let customers see how to deal with it, I have no idea.
When friend goblin - he hasn't given a name, because why should he? We haven't given ours - is done with the clanker things to drive the poor creature back, he notices my expression, and his ears twitch a bit. He starts looking about for the nearest cover: clearly I'm not concealing my emotions well enough, and he's not one of their vanishingly rare warrior types.
After a deep breath to get a grip, I tell him, "Pass word to either Barchoke or Gobslice that I'll be happy to design better security for this place. Lethal security, of a sort wizards won't know how to beat, that doesn't involve cruelty to an innocent animal. For now: the vault, please." CCTV and various sorts of sensors would be just the start. A few lethal gas dischargers, some motion-sensor-triggered mines, maybe an electrified floor grid. I know the goblins have geothermal power, the spare parts supply contract came up very recently. Even without electronic security, I'm pretty sure razor-wire won't be that hard to enchant, not for goblin smiths.
Once we're in the vault and have a little privacy, Bellatrix is giving me a funny look. "Of all the things you turn out to be soft-hearted about, a dragon?"
I shrug. "A beast that gets a good or at least natural life, and a clean death, I'm fine with that. I'm nobody's idea of a vegetarian. Working animals, well treated? No problem. That poor thing, though? What does it take to make a dragon fear? They did it. They did it enough to train it to expect whatever it is when it hears that clanker sound. They're a bit clueless about things from the upper world, but it doesn't excuse that. I'm willing to put in a bit of effort so they don't have to do it anymore." I'm also pretty sure that it was a wizard who gave them the idea of kennelling a dragon away from the wind and sky: the natural ranges of goblins and dragons don't overlap.
"So not so much a soft heart as firm principles?" Still with that expression on her face that I can't read.
It's actually both, when it comes to animal cruelty, but I decide to pass it off. "My story, and I'm sticking to it. You go telling people otherwise, you'll ruin my hard-man image."
"Bless," she says, and then, "I'm going to need your wand for the next bit."
I step in behind her and reach around her to hold up my wand. "Here's hoping you can use this." I'm making sure I stay out of the line of fire: it's not unknown for wands to react badly to being lent out like this.
"I don't need to get much out of it," she says, taking hold. She sketches a symbol with sparks in the air, and repeats a line of what sounds like archaic French. Password, rather than incantation, at a guess. The low, angry grumble of the magic on the hoard fades from a dull roar to a barely-audible mutter, and she relinquishes my wand back to me. "This will go quicker if we get all the coin out of the way first."
What we're about to do isn't a crime: Bellatrix is still a beneficiary of the Lestrange Family Settlement. The point of having a family trust for wealth is that no one member of the family owns anything outright, so felony convictions - for example, getting sent to Azkaban for being a Death Eater - don't result in ruinous forfeitures to the Ministry. The lower orders can't afford to do this, so they get rinsed if the Law Enforcement Patrol fits them up.
Exceeding her withdrawal limits - usually enforced at the tellers' counter, visiting the vault gets around that safeguard - is a civil matter, in breach of trust. Gringotts are required by contract, backed by treaty, not to interfere in anything that vault owners - and those they allow access - do with the contents during physical access. It's up to the customer to arrange any security they want past the vault door. Bellatrix explained to me that part of her marriage ceremony was accepting a geas - a really old form of magically-binding contract - to respect the terms of the Settlement, and Sirius cleaned that off her along with everything else. Oops.
It's the work of a few minutes to get all the galleons and bullion into a space-expanded, tap-to-shrink chest. I have to work a little harder than someone who can just dump the effort of sorting into a charm, but I can move bulk a lot faster once I get the magic running. I dare say there's not much less than half a million galleons in here, it fills a two cubic yard chest a little over half full. How much extra the bullion adds we'll find out later.
What's left is a thin layer of small change on the floor, a pile of jewelry and other precious-metal pieces too identifiable to sell, a selection of wands from which Bellatrix picks a hickory-wood one that fits quite well, and a menagerie of nasty cursed items.
Apparently only complete headcases like Sirius's mother keep dangerous things as knick-knacks around the house: everyone else stashes them in their vault as an additional hazard for thieves. It's an article of faith among old pureblood families that goblins love gold and have sticky fingers if you don't take precautions. Goblins, for their part, think that gold isn't that interesting a metal - no native electronics industry, and you can't eat it - and they hate thieves.
The cursed doodads are all too identifiable to sell easily, and Bellatrix dismisses them as mostly being useless from a practical standpoint. A lot of them are only kept for sentimental reasons. Apparently there's a hairpin with a pain curse on it - witches have a short way with sexual harassment - in the Black Vault that's kept because it was the first cursed item Bellatrix made. On the same principle that I had some of my kids' first paintings in a keepsake box until the day I died.
All of the Lestrange collection of cursèd tat, however, pales next to the Cup. It's the first horcrux I've been close to - I'm more and more convinced that what was in Harry wasn't one - and to my out-of-the-ordinary sense for magic, the sheer wrongness beggars belief. Inanimate objects don't normally contain minds or souls - most 'talking' enchanted items are magical Eliza programs of one level of sophistication or another - so the twisting necessary to make that happen feels ... not native to this reality. It's not one of the ones Tom enchanted to defend itself or try and resurrect him: this one was meant to vanish into obscurity and be a lifeline of last resort. A small mercy I'm thankful for.
"You're going to destroy this, yes?" Bellatrix doesn't have the same sensitivity I do, but still looks upon it with revulsion.
"Eventually. I mean, who gets fiendfyre right on the first try?"
She snorts her amusement. The safe-box I brought to carry it in is an expensive model, with some of Tom's Borgin & Burke rune-work augmenting it, and it still only mutes the stomach-churning sense of wrong.
"More seriously, though, it's going to have to wait until you're officially Isabelle Ryan. Right now everyone's on alert, and loud flashy magic like fiendfyre is going to be noticed. This is going in a safe-deposit in a muggle bank until the coast is clearer." Literally the coast. I've been poring over maps for offshore rocks where fiendfyre accidents won't hurt anything, and I'm going to have to start physically scouting them in earnest soon.
"Isabelle Ryan?"
"You don't like it?"
"Don't understand it. Or, rather, I understand Isabelle, so I can keep responding to Belle or Bella, but why Ryan?"
"O'Ryan was a bit too on the nose," I deadpan at her. I'm open to suggestions from her, of course, but letting people pick their own pseudonyms results in, as the movie says, eight guys all called Mister Black.
It takes a moment for the penny to drop. She scoffs at the godawful pun. "I suppose that's my purported father's surname?"
"Yep. As well as the thematic fit, it's a common surname. Tens of thousands in Britain, probably more, at least as many again in Ireland, no point even trying to find the father. The legend is going to be that you broke free of your attachment to Rodolphus but not your enslavement to the arsehole-in-chief, who you knew didn't really care worth a damn about muggles or muggleborn because he trusted your enslavement and confided in you. You're going to tell a very touching story in your suicide note. Of your forbidden love for a handsome muggle. Of the Dark Lord chortling as he covered for your assignations. Of how Rodolphus murdered your lover, but was too stupid to realise you were carrying a baby at all, still less someone else's. And of how you made sure she was hidden and safe with a muggle foster-family. I've written your will for you, it leaves nothing but your wand and personal effects to your beloved daughter because you don't want the filthy, tainted money of the Lestranges."
She's nodding along. "Leaving them no cause to go after poor little Isabelle. It's not like she could come in here and clean out the vault, now, is it? Not like she'd know what's going to happen to all the surviving Lestranges once their notes of hand stop being honoured. And, of course, the mayhem will hamper the likes of Dives and Sanctimonia Lestrange from trying to have me killed on general principle."
"Exactly." I hadn't - when I offered to help her rob them hollow - actually realised that it was the whole family's vault, not just her husband's. I'm just going to have to hope that the chaos remains within manageable limits, it's a bit late to back out now. And, as she says, it'll keep them too busy to try and hunt her down. Especially as we're only a week past a quarter day, so the vault was at its fullest until next quarter's rents come in. Three months on the loose change we've left them? Going to be fun.
I go on, "And you won't have a vault of your own for them to find, because you're going to be keeping your money in a real bank instead. If I'm any judge of a pile of cash, you can live off the interest for the rest of your life and leave your children rich, too. It may also take some heat off Sirius. Gives your grandfather an alternative when it comes to settling the entails, if he's willing to legitimise you. I don't know why, but he's really opposed to your nephew inheriting anything, so he was rather disappointed that Andromeda refused to come back in the fold. He's hoping young Nymphadora might be more persuadable when she's old enough. With you outright volunteering, and nobody to say you nay? We might even get him to do it without telling him the truth, if we play up that angle."
"I think I can accept being remembered as an adulteress if it means Rodolphus died a cuckold as well as an idiot. As for the Malfoy thing, your guess is as good as mine. Narcissa may have eloped with Lucius, but it's not like it was an objectionable match once you get past him being entirely insufferable."
I wave it off. "We'll either find out or we won't. Come on, let's get out of here. We need to find a couple of complete strangers to witness your will without wigging out over who you are. How're your confundus charms?"
-oOo-
"Mother's milk!" Bellatrix has thrown open the kitchen door, and declaims this in a full ta-daaa pose. She's wearing the cream satin pyjamas that she insists were the only acceptable at-home selection from the clothes I bought her.
"Once more with clarity?" I pause in my efforts with dinner. Sirius and I had been doing our usual low-effort Sunday, occasionally seeing Bellatrix as she comes in to get more tea and biscuits. I've only bothered being Adult Mal for the last half hour or so, because I need the height to do anything in the kitchen. Bellatrix was over being weirded out by me doing my own cooking by the second day: I know what I'm doing in the kitchen and she enjoys the results. Sirius just likes to watch, if he doesn't have anything better to do.
"Mother's milk. Fourth component for the ritual. It's used in some medical potions for children, so there's a full tabulation in Numerology and Grammatica. We make some other small changes to the rite to constitute me-as-I-am as mother to my new self, and milk makes the fourth corner of the square. Nice work on re-making the De Retz ritual, by the way, and also the alteration to get past the adult teeth coming in will almost certainly work, so we're doing it. I looked an absolute fright during my tooth-fairy years."
I laugh out loud. I gave Bellatrix the file when we got back from Gringotts yesterday and she dived right in. From the looks, she's been up all night with it. And cracked the problem already, judging by the sheaf of notes in her hand, the ink stains on her fingers and the fact that she seems to have been distracted enough to pin her hair up with a pair of dipped quills that have dripped ink on one of her shoulders. I look over at Sirius while pointing at her. "Barely twenty-four hours to get alongside ritual magic she'd never seen before and isn't in the literature. And Tom used her as a mere thug. How was the Ministry losing to someone that stupid?"
Sirius scoffs. "He sent mere thugs to kill everyone smart enough to stop him. All the ones in any kind of authority, anyway. Got it done before anyone knew he was starting a war."
"So, mother's milk, then," I say, turning back to Bellatrix, "It might be a problem to get that for you. I do know a new mother, but I'm fairly sure she'll have weaned her littlun by now." Not to mention the vexed problem of asking Petunia for a sample. Not likely to be an easy conversation, that.
Bellatrix points to her chest. "These ought to still work, and best that all maternal influences in the ritual come exclusively from me, lest we hamper it by a mixed message. Wet-nursing potions shouldn't be too hard."
"I'll take your word for it. Not something I've ever had to concern myself with. Are wetnursing potions a staple apothecary item?"
"No idea," she says, sitting down at the kitchen table next to Sirius and setting down her notes, "but you'll get some strange looks if either of you two go in and ask. I shall brew it here at home."
She's underestimating my immunity to strange looks and social pressure, but, "Point. I'll find a recipe, if we don't have one in the books we've already got. Tea?" I've honestly no idea what we've got in the library these days. The second-hand bookshops of Diagon and Knockturn Alleys do fairly well out of my impulse-buying bibliophile tendencies, not least because I buy anything with a Potter Family bookplate in it. Harry's getting a library of his own for his tenth birthday.
"Please." She sits herself up primly and neatens the stack of notes in front of her. "Also, I need you to fuck me."
Sirius loses a mouthful of tea over the table. Her timing was exquisite. And almost certainly deliberate.
"What." is all I can manage, while Sirius creases up and falls off his chair to wheeze on the floor.
"Not so funny when someone's doing it to you, is it?" Bellatrix has a vengeful smile on her face, "But I'm serious. As a widow still within formal mourning, my late husband's paternity would taint the working if I don't have nova causa interveniens in the form of a completed act of adultery. Has to be you, Sirius is my first cousin and an utter arse."
"Christ, she means it," comes Sirius's voice from under the table.
I'll admit it, I'm lost for words. Bellatrix is on the verge of apotheosis as the Goddess of Wind-Ups. I can't help thinking I'd be willing to give her a go on the strength of this alone.
"On the whole," I say, gathering my wits - she got me good - "And call me a ranting old traditionalist if you will, I'd prefer that sort of thing to be on the basis of actual mutual desire rather than as a tick on a ritual checklist. I will, of course, admit that I cheerfully would," I'm not a complete idiot, after all, and currently running on mid-twenties biology, "but are you sure it'll do anything? Paternity is one of the three Utterly Undivinables."
(So a ritual can't be affected by it: otherwise the results would thereby work as a magical paternity test. The other two Utterly Undivinable Facts are the chastity of a woman and the magic of a child before their 131st lunar month, but they're not relevant here. Neither are any of the Contingently Undivinables.)
She gives me an eye-roll. "The obvious exception being a mother's own working, where the results aren't a divination but valid witness on my own part, which is better and easier if I know in my heart that I'm sincere. And don't sell yourself short, Call-me-Mal. I'd have found a way around it if I didn't fancy you." A brief look of annoyance. I don't think she meant to say that last part out loud. Between the all-nighter and a couple of gallons of tea her verbal filter is offline, or I suspect I'd have been characterised as 'a somewhat acceptable bedwarmer' or similar.
Once I'm over the shock, which takes a moment or two, I'm amused. I've mostly got an eight-year-old libido these days, ie. none, but I have fairly extensive memories of being a heterosexual male not actively offensive to the female gender. Had she - or any other woman that good-looking - tried this on me at twenty, I wouldn't have questioned it in the slightest. Takes quite a lot of mental effort to question it at fifty and dead, with mid-twenties hormones in play. Once I do question it, of course, it's patently obvious what she's doing. As she said, there's always a way round all but a very few problems in magic, so what could her motive be for not bothering in this instance? She's past giving in to infatuations like a teenager. At a guess, she's making a play for a bit more control over her life, possibly being in power-behind-the-throne charge around here. And, while I can totally see it coming, the thing about honey traps? They have honey in them. Delicious, delicious honey.
Time to try and recover at least some of my dignity, and who knows? See if I can't turn this around on her, at least somewhat. "Well, I did promise you a night at the opera, if that'll do for a first date? There has to be at least a first date, as a gentleman I simply refuse to go into rut without at least some of the social niceties observed." There aren't a lot of options in January, but if I can persuade her that musicals count then there are more possibilities. The reaction of a pureblood witch to Cats ought to be one for the books, and I think Elaine Page is still starring.
Bellatrix raises her chin in ladylike dignity. "It will be a second date, thank you very much, making coitus entirely socially acceptable if my grasp of muggle mores is correct. Our first date was chocolates in Azkaban."
"Doomed!" comes Sirius' voice from under the table, followed by a fit of giggles that is cut off by a yelp as his cousin kicks him.
"I also need a small child to amuse," she goes on, "your own working went very well because you had a child present and laughing. I'd like to give serendipity a helping hand, if it can be managed. A little girl, for preference."
"Tricky. The kid in my notes is local and I know his sense of humour, he'd be my first choice. Has experience, too, he won't be overwhelmed." And his identity will be a bit of a surprise for Bellatrix: I'll make it clear to her that his welfare is firmly covered by her contract. Besides, I'm coming to suspect that the narrative we're selling, of Lily as The Witch Who Won (also the title of a Bestselling Book by Gilderoy Lockhart, Gentleman Adventurer) resonates with her. "The only magical baby girl in this vicinity is just starting to teethe, and won't find anything funny for the next few months. The only other witch child I know, her parents aren't in on any of what we're doing so they're out on security grounds."
"You mean Pandora's girl?" Sirius calls up from under the table, "Yeah, good luck getting her without her mother being all over what we're doing."
"Pandora Shaughnessy?" Bellatrix looks intrigued, and her guess is an astute one.
"Lovegood, since she married," I tell her, "and if you knew her back when you'll know what a force her curiosity is."
"I did, and I do." Bellatrix says, "I liked her. But you're right, with magic this interesting we'd need heavy sticks to beat her back from getting involved. Are you sure you can't bring her in? Very bright witch, beneath all the eccentricities."
"With a husband who's a magazine editor with a shaky sense of judgment. He'd try and be trustworthy I'm sure, but he's the sort who'd absent-mindedly publish something disastrous." God knows I like Xeno, and I have every respect for most aspects of his intelligence, but he hasn't the common sense of a hamster. It's a pity: Bellatrix is right about Pandora being an asset. And Luna would be ideal: she is - ironically, given her name - a little ray of sunshine.
"Nymphadora?" is Sirius's other suggestion as he hauls himself back into his chair.
I give him a Look. "We're after the innocent laughter of a child, not the ribald cackles of a young lady who makes indecent advances on men more than three times her age."
Bellatrix has a frown at that last bit.
Sirius dives in before she can say anything. "She doesn't know how old Mal really is. She's only ever seen him looking twenty-something. He gets entertainingly flustered, if you know the signs to spot them."
I'm pretty sure I don't get flustered, thank you very much, just concerned not to upset the girl with unduly harsh rejection. That said, having met the aunt whose unaltered personality she strongly takes after, I'm coming to the conclusion she knows exactly what she's doing, the impudent little madam.
"That's all very well, but Mal's right, she won't do for this." Bellatrix gets the smile back on her face, "Although from the sound of things I rather want to meet my niece. She seems to have the business of discomfiting males well in hand. The little boy will do, if we can't get a girl. It's not as though he's of an age where it actually matters all that much."
"Well," I say, not wanting to get further into the subject, "subject to review of what you've come up with, we'll be able to proceed on the next auspicious date, which is New Moon on the 19th. Twenty-five past five in the morning, worse luck, but an early start won't kill us. Any questions?"
"Yes. How on earth can you afford a diamond cauldron?"
-oOo-
Remus is post-full-moon knackered and out-of-sorts, so his arrival sounds like a car backfiring. It's pissing with rain, so the neighbours aren't likely to hear it. Amusingly, he phoned ahead to make sure he wasn't going to be 'walking in on shenanigans' as he put it.
"Good to see you back," I call out, I've been waiting out back with a nice hot mug of tea and a levitated umbrella. "How's things in the Valleys?"
Remus' own umbrella seems to have got slightly splinched in transit - clearly, it's raining in Wales as well - and it's flapping a bit at the back. "Oh, well enough. Da sends his regards, I mentioned you liked hiking and he said if you need a base camp for the Brecons, owl ahead so he can air out the guest room. He knows some good walks up there, he used to take me when I was a boy."
"Oh, good to hear, good to hear. Take him up on that in the summer, most likely. Anyway, like I said on the phone, you are sort of walking in on shenanigans. You are very carefully not going to recognise our house guest, nor suggest or record in any way that her name is anything other than Isabelle Ryan. She's here being treated for a fatal condition that only alchemy can address, not that anyone's going to ask. In unrelated news, you'll be debriefing a couple of decommissioned Death Eaters whose identities you will also not record in any way beyond codenames. One's friendly and definitely not our new housemate Isabelle despite the striking resemblance. She'll need calming potions and sympathetic treatment: she'll deny it, but she's actually pretty fragile, emotionally speaking. The other is a hostile witness and you'll need to potion him to buggery to get anything. And, ah, don't worry about long-term side effects or damage. I want the fucker decanted, and we've only got a couple of weeks before we have to turn him in to the Ministry. I'm hoping Moody will agree to oblige as a middle-man." It's about time Remus got to do some front-of-house work, he's been hitting the books on interview and cross-examination techniques like a good 'un, and I sprung for an office Pensieve for him to use.
"Oh." He straightens up from his weary slouch. "This is a bit more than shenanigans, isn't it?" And then, after a long pause for thought, "And of course this has nothing to do in any way, shape or form with that photograph you didn't show me last week. Which was never taken, I wasn't here to see it, and this Isabelle wouldn't have appeared in it if it had been taken, which it wasn't."
"That's the spirit. Come on in, I'll introduce you to Isabelle, and you look like a good cuppa wouldn't go amiss. Also, your research on the Fidelius spell needs to kick up a notch. We should look into whether making it a four-handed ritual is a way of bringing it within the reach of mere mortals such as ourselves."
He stops to think again as he steps under the eaves. "It probably would, actually. It's how Lily and James did it. Sirius couldn't remember the details and the Pensieve can't scry it. I wasn't following it up because I didn't think we had a fourth wand."
"We do now, and we're going to need to guard the secret of a couple of child and adult identities being actually the same person." Best we do this early, the difficulty of the Fidelius scales with the number of people who know or potentially know the secret, and it's decidedly non-linear. A secret that only one or two people outside the ritual circle know, and only three or or four more know is even possible, is about as easy as the magic gets.
"I'll get on it. If Isabelle is who I think she is, and as willing as you're implying with that nastiness off her head, she'll probably be better than me at that sort of thing. If she's free to do the work, I can just hand her my notes." He looks down at the difficulty he's having furling his umbrella, and finally notices what he did to it. "Oh, bugger."
-oOo-
"You are a cheeky little bastard."
I put the beers down on the table between us and let Moody take his pick, just as I let him pick which pub we met in. (The Trout Inn, just up the road from Oxford, to my nostalgic delight). "I'll have you know I'm a damn' big cheeky bastard, thank you very much. Barmaid says the scran'll be fifteen minutes."
He puts a little brass Three Wise Monkeys ornament on the table, strokes each monkey's head in turn and I hear magic start to burble out of it like a babbling brook. "Privacy charm. You can speak plain. Or as plain as you ever get, like. Anyway, I think I actually need a whole new word. There's cheeky, and then there's walking a wanted fugitive right past me in broad daylight."
He didn't stun me on sight, so clearly he's not too upset. Still, some ruffled feathers are going to have to be smoothed, here. "Oooh, you're good. I thought this would be a much longer conversation. How'd you miss who she was? Got to admit I was worried, hence the theatrics on the day."
"I was expecting to see tattoos under the hair, would've given any disguise she tried away." He taps the NHS-issue eyepatch he uses to make the infamous Mad Eye muggle-worthy, and I file the datum about the thing's capabilities away. He goes on, after a sip of his pint, "Your photo was the first time I saw 'em up close and square-on. I found myself sympathisin' with the poor brass once I decoded the whole thing. Not a legal defence, mind, so we still have somethin' to talk about, here."
"For your general fund of information, the Qumran Rite cleared it up nicely, and her voluntary and comprehensive debriefing is well under way. Her product will be turning up in your regular packets from Remus quite soon, you'll be seeing sources Postmark and Channel, you'll be able to figure out which is which quite easily. The third one suffered death by misadventure early on, so we're getting nothing from him. Oh, that is a good pint. Shame I can only have one."
"They keep it well here, yes. We do have the slight problem of how long you're keeping her and them other two pig's wanks in the wind? I'm not averse to overtime, lot of nieces and nephews come Christmas, but there are limits. And they're talking about turning the Dementors loose, which nobody wants."
"Couple of weeks, some time on or shortly after the 27th. I was hoping you could take charge of the corpses, and refuse to answer questions about who turned 'em in or where." It won't be murder: magical law still practises outlawry. The declaration was made the morning the story broke. And I suspect that if they get any kind of targeting information, the Dementors will be turned loose, so manufacturing 'sightings' to shift the search away from Surrey is a non-starter.
"Cold." He's only got a light frown. It seems he had no plans of his own to bring them in alive. "Didn't you say she was cooperating?"
"She's chosen to end it all, after what they put her through. Pint of laudanum, and Goodnight Vienna. Quite the heartrending suicide note she's writing, too." It includes a gruesomely worded warning of the curse she cast, fuelled with her own death - which she'll be implying the Dark Lord taught her, to make it extra scary - so people don't ask questions about the various misfortunes her former colleagues will be suffering. The Curse of Lestrange, as it will no doubt come to be known, is going to let us get away with literal murder, and an assortment of lesser incivilities as the mood takes us.
"Can we take the accusation of being up to something as read?" Moody isn't even trying to keep a straight face.
"Oh, all right. Yes, it'll be the genuine corpse of the actual lady. She will, of course, be leaving it before it dies. I cracked the ethical body-swapping problem, she's volunteered to be the first test, and I'm quietly confident of success. She's getting a new life, and says she's going to stick around to make sure her debrief is entirely complete. Plus, I think I might be able to recruit her." Not so much persuading her to turn her coat - she was never genuinely on the other side, her natural inclination being non-involvement - but to put one on in the first place. "She ain't come out and said it quite yet, but she wants revenge. Giving her a new life and some genuine freedom for the first time will add a weight of gratitude into the bargain. Can I count on your support?"
I'm actually pretty sure Bellatrix will be sticking around at least medium-term: our date went very well. Which is all I'm saying about that. And she can't work against the war effort, so she'll probably muck in just for something to do.
Moody takes a considering sip of his pint before replying. "Within reason. Legally she was bang to rights, but I'm with you on the morality, like. She was a puppet, the real villain was the gobshite with his hand up her arse, so yeah, new life. Fine with that. The victims will be convinced she's dead, which will ease their minds some. And I'll be keeping an eye on her, thank you very much, the likes of her get fed deception with their mother's milk. It'd be nice to think you've made her a changed woman, but you won't be the first to get dazzled by a nice set o' chebs."
"I'm, ah, alive to that possibility." And they are very nice, not going to mince words, "Wouldn't be the first time I've personally been dazzled that way, come right to it, though I like to think I've learned from my youthful mistakes. If it eases your mind any, the first thing I did was get her to sign a magically-binding contract that she'll neither fight for the other side nor hamper ours, so long as she lives. Worst she can do at this point is make my life a misery, and that only up to the point it doesn't interfere with me getting on with the war."
He gives me a long, calculating look. I can see him weighing his next words carefully. "Sensible, as far as it goes, and if it's up to your usual lawyerly standards. As for setting her up, your best bet will be to put her through Hogwarts again, the way you're doing with your own new life. A lot of Ministry quill-pushing assumes what comes out of Hogwarts is gospel. I'll put it to Albus for you, he'll eat the redeemed sinner story up like them cheap toffees he's so keen on. And, if you're right about her coming over and she's sincere, which remains to be seen, I'll feel better about there being a couple more responsible adults up there. The hiring decisions lately are making me twitchy."
"That is a good idea, thank you. If she's willing I'll be in touch with her new details." I've no idea if that'll be what she wants, but I have to admit to finding the idea of Bellatrix interacting with her nephew hilarious, "And, hiring decisions? Worse than the pet death eater?"
"Morally, no, but the way the defence job has been going? Only a matter of time before he gets a real wrong 'un to go with the dullards and mental cases he's been getting."
I could do something about that, but I need the job open for the 91/92 academic year so that Tom comes where we can get at him, for a long shot that's worth trying. I'll lift the curse right after, once Dumbledore hires someone acceptable. He's poaching Remus over my dead body, mind.
Moody goes on, "Anyway, since you've carefully not admitted it, how would you have got our girl out, if you did it? Hypothetically, like? We need to plug that hole."
"I'm given to understand that whoever sprung her - there will be a cover story that you can use as a stick to beat certain elements if you wish - took advantage of the fact that Dementors are thick as pigshit and can't tell intruders from staff. The only way you're plugging that security hole is getting rid of them and staffing the prison properly with people who can think past the next meal and tell one human face from another." There are probably measures short of that which might work, but damned if I'm going to help anyone with them. I might have to spring someone else out, after all. Or get in to feed someone a nice liqueur chocolate.
"Eh, thought it'd be something like that. Pity. I'd reached much the same conclusion myself just from interviewing the prisoners. I'll make the recommendation about the Dementors, but policy like that's way above my head."
It'd also require the Ministry to actually develop some competence; neither of us are holding our breath. It occurs to me to get another dig in at the Ministry, "Root-and-branch reform of magical criminal justice wouldn't hurt, either, it'd remove the motive for rescuing morally innocent victims from hell on earth. For what it's worth, though, the methods used to get on and off the island wouldn't even occur to more than one in a hundred mages, the security's acceptably tight if you're not up to the kind of lateral thinking required. Plus, you need a good strong Patronus to get away with it, which rules out most of the real threats."
Moody nods, and drains his pint. "You might not be able to have another, but I can. Same again, please. And a packet of pork scratchings, if they have 'em."
I don't complain about him not standing his round. I have made a lot of work for him.
AUTHOR NOTES
If you're too young to remember late 80s fashion, padded shoulders got bad enough that TV comedians were straight-up mocking them. Wasn't just a female thing: everyone was cutting about with a couple of inches of foam on either shoulder.
The Witchcraft Act of 1735 made witch-trials illegal. And imposed penalties for the fraudulent practise of divination or necromancy. Until 1951, when it was repealed, it was what they charged spiritualists and fortune-telling con-artists with. (It was a defence to be a genuine spirit medium/diviner - the Act only criminalised the pretence. This defence never succeeded at an actual trial, often though it was tried. Look up the Helen Duncan case...)
Witch-trials being illegal didn't stop unofficial witch-hunting, of course. The last recorded swimming of a wizard I could find (who from the evidence had hexed someone pretty badly and refused to lift it, but wasn't asking for the near-drowning he got) was 1863, at Sible Hedingham in Essex. Both offenders got six months of hard labour for what they did. It only wasn't murder because the crown couldn't prove the victim didn't die of something else: he was pulled out of the water alive, and died a few days later. Mal can't remember that case off the cuff but can remember the case of Ruth Osborne, who drowned while being swum at Long Marston in 1751. The ringleader hanged for her murder.
As for the various religions that call their adherents 'witch', I really can't imagine them being anything other than a joke to the witches and wizards of the potterverse, however nice a crowd they actually are in person.
Of course Voldemort had one of his best hit teams studying to take Moody down. While I've damned him for an idiot several times in this story, he wasn't a moron altogether. That study was, of course, the foundation Barty jr. would build on to impersonate the man in Goblet of Fire.
Magical Britain still retains the felony/misdemeanour distinction and forfeiture for felony. Muggle Britain abolished those in 1967 and 1870. And yes, protection against forfeiture was an early use of trust law, and before that the Law of Uses.
The star Bellatrix is also known as Gamma Orionis. Orionis, O' Ryan, geddit? Mal's sense of humour can get a little basic when it comes to puns. (If you're looking at the night sky, it's Orion's left shoulder, on the right as you look at him from the northern hemisphere.)
The cursed hairpin in the Black vault is a shout-out to Delenda Est by Lord Silvere, which I've previously recommended.
Paternity being undivinable: nearly every language has an aphorism to the effect that a child's maternity is a fact, while paternity is only an opinion. The rubrics of divination and ritual magic follow suit. (Divination is a human magic, and we're a species that has evolved concealed fertility and paternity: our magic reflects that.) That it absolutely rules out 'inheritance tests', foundation of several of the most godawful Harry Potter Fanfiction Cliches, is but a happy accident. And, since poor Bellatrix spent the entire last chapter having her flabber gasted by Mal, it let her have a bit of revenge.
(It's also the case that if paternity of a child or the chastity of a woman could be conclusively established, sexism would be very, very different. Not non-existent: I ain't that optimistic. Most cultures care a lot about paternity and do what they can to control it, which means controlling women by eg. calling them scarlet women and sending them curse-mail if it looks like they're stepping out of line, see Hermione's treatment in GoF.)
Undivinability generally has to exist or divination would be utterly broken. The ability to acquire concrete, ascertained information by magical means either has limits or it'd be the field of study because of just how much you could do with it. (Mal is researching it for precisely this reason, and we've seen what he can do with the knowledge of the future he already has). Therefore: the amount of information you can get is constrained, and some things are either utterly or nearly always beyond reach. I drew up the Undivinable Facts - three Utterly Undivinable, and a larger set of Contingently Undivinables (things you can't find out directly but can infer if you take a little trouble over it) and they may or may not be part of the future of this story.
The Trout - just a little way outside Oxford, about an hour's pleasant stroll across Port Meadow, enough to work up an appetite - was an excellent place for a boozy lunch in the early 90s. It's getting good reviews to this day.
Fanfic recommendation: Reunion, by Rorschach's Blot (only on FFN as far as I know) from whence comes the idea of a purported curse on former Death Eaters. It's handled very differently there, of course, but the story as a whole is Blot's usual mix of hilarious and ingenious.