Chapter Twenty-Five: The Pontus Euxine.
The problem with sleeping in a bed on a train, Hermione discovered when she woke up, was that the train moved through the night. It jolted through points and repairs to damaged track, it turned, it ascended, it descended on its journey. All of this contributed to Bellatrix and Hermione ended up closer together when they woke up than when they started sleeping.
Pressed into one wall on top of each other, mostly. And the sleeping draughts had kept them from waking up and noticing it until then. Hermione froze, and tried to think of what to do. But she also couldn't help look at Bellatrix up close and personal. The woman was fabulously beautiful, she had not seen her this close… Since that night in the Malfoy Manor. There were a few fresh lines, a few more grey hairs, but nothing more. She was still absolutely amazing, anyone half her age would still desire her.
Hermione's body seemed very intent on reminding her of that. She started to roll away…
Too late. Bellatrix's eyes were open, looking sharply at her. Then her left hand, still gloved, lanced out and grabbed firmly onto Hermione. "Where do you think you're going, pet ?"
"To get out of your way," Hermione half slurred, shaking off the lingering effect of the sleeping draught. "We rolled over… The train … rocking." The pain in her shoulder from where Bellatrix clenched at her was overwhelming, and radiated into her neck and chest in waves. "Let me go, Bellatrix?" She asked, looking back at the older woman. She wanted to explain that she was in pain, but she thought that might make Bellatrix happy.
When her request got no answer, Hermione rolled back toward Bellatrix.
With her eyes widening in surprise, Bellatrix let go.
"Thank you," Hermione said, taking a few deep breaths as she forced the words out. "I'm sorry I got close to you without asking, and I'm sorry I rolled away with asking."
"I know it was an accident," Bellatrix finally acknowledged, and hauled herself partway up in bed. Bellatrix, of course, had slept in her clothes when she had refused to let Hermione do the same. "Mardy, bring us breakfast and tea, please?"
"Yes, Mistress Bellatrix!"
Hermione had to admit, that by the standards of purebloods, Bellatrix was actually rather polite to her elves. That and her knowledge of some muggle music were complexities to Bellatrix's character that Hermione felt like she was fixating on. So you're not as one-dimensional as anyone thought.
Bellatrix was still impossibly sexy, though. That hadn't changed. If anything, that she was showing herself as something more than a Death Eater was desirable, too. Hermione finally rolled away and softly groaned.
"I didn't see you get drunk last night, Granger," Bellatrix remarked drolly.
"I'm a twenty-three year old woman," Hermione answered, grumpy and impertinent. "I just woke up next to you, and as you had so much fun last night reminding me of, I'm attracted to you."
Bellatrix smirked. "Are you saying I'm too old to get horny?"
"I, uh…" It seemed like Bellatrix always had a comeback. Hermione reached up, grabbed a pillow, and pulled it over her head.
Bellatrix tossed her head back and laughed. "My-my, you need to work on this, Granger."
Hermione sighed and pulled herself up, just in time for the food to arrive. Whether or not it was going to stay hot didn't matter, she absolutely wanted to get her clothes on before eating, particularly with Bellatrix in a teasing mood.
Of course, it was not much of a respite. The train was descending toward Tuapse and once she left the train, Hermione would be a 'prisoner'. Finishing her food and tea, she took the opportunity to quickly wash her face, neck, shoulders, hands, and then get settled into her boots. It was about to become almost impossible to do, after all.
Bellatrix, for her part, finished her own meal, and likewise washed her face before splashing herself with rose-water. Then she ambled out into the front of the coach, and returned a few minutes later. Hermione had tried to read, but she had barely gotten through a page. Outside was a city in utter ruins. The oil transloading terminal had been hit with a nuclear weapon. The main city on the north bank of the river was intact, but the tracks went as far north as possible around the old yard on rough, temporary relayings—slow going. Finally, they descended to the north-side coal and freight docks in the harbour, which were intact. Hermione could not help but look outside, hear the steady click of the coach's dosimeter, see the people living in the ruins of their city, scrambling for anything that would keep them alive, both devastated by nuclear war and then placed under Voldemort's savage occupation. They were like scarecrows draped in rags.
The train came to a halt, and Hermione saw what Bellatrix was carrying. The elder witch had a deathless expression as she held the manacles, the chains, and then approached. She said nothing, as she personally snapped the manacles to Hermione's wrists, and then looped and secured the chain to her waist, and then tightened them, so she could move her hands just enough to feed herself, but no more than that. Hermione's wand was with Bellatrix's on her belt.
With each motion, with each snap of a manacle, or tightening of a chain, Hermione shivered. Bellatrix was so close to her, and when securing the chain around her waist, she was nearly in Hermione's lap. It would have been electrifying if not for the rest of the situation, and Hermione felt a wildly frustrating combination of arousal and fear surge through her.
Then, Bellatrix smiled thinly as she rose, and for a final act, clapped a collar of cold iron around Hermione's neck. "Since magic comes anciently from the Fey, they say this makes it harder for a Witch to cast any wandless magic that she might have," Bellatrix observed in idle amusement. Then she extended the leash. "Come with me, Pet."
Hermione gasped as she was jerked up, and forced to stagger along behind Bellatrix, down and out of the train, to soldiers snickering and watching, to a few Wizards in the garrison there to meet Bellatrix, who laughed at the sight, or who looked with more perverse eyes. The flush was fixed on her. She had no desire for this, it wasn't sexy in the least, but that wasn't how some people would see it, looking at it.
She tried to keep herself calm, to let the flush of shame and embarrassment die away, to focus on other things. The sight in the harbour was certainly worrisome, for the fleet there was stronger than the intelligence estimates had provided. Voldemort's forces had, it seemed, finished the big cruiser of the Project 1164 type Atlant which had been laying unfinished at the Nikolayaev Yard when the Ukraine had been overrun. With her was a group of four frigates of Project 1135 Burevestnik , also seized from the Ukrainian Navy, one of them new. They looked sinister with the Morsmordre hoisted above them, and Hermione knew that with the Russian Black Sea Fleet reduced to the three old cruisers of Project 1134B, the Berkuts, as well as a few missile boats, that soon if this operation did not succeed, their enemies would decisively cut off Sevastopol, and effect the destruction of the city and the garrison.
It's like you chose this method of taking me to the Crimean to prove how critical your help is, Hermione thought. Sometimes it was hard to tell just how much calculation was in the older Witch's head. Only the cruiser was docked, and of course that was where they were headed. With the hills around coated in white, the rough darkness of the Black Sea—the Pontus Euxine of the Ancient Greeks—beckoned ahead. The wind was kicking up, and whomever they had for a port master had hoisted the gale warning.
With a smirk settled on her lips and Mardy apparating her bags aboard for her, Bellatrix ambled up the gangway, tugging Hermione aboard the cruiser as the young woman's hopes faded further at the prospects of an unknown length of time chained up aboard a ship in a storm. She began to understand the degrading intensity of such a punishment, and it had only just begun.
Aboard the cruiser, which had been christened the Gauntlet, Bellatrix had insisted that she kept her prisoner nearby, which had led to her being given the Admiral's suite, and Hermione being stuffed into the small room off of it where the Admiral's flag lieutenant might normally sleep. The ship had not been carrying a flag officer, so it was empty, and she had nothing to do but curl onto the bed, with the weight of the chains pressing down onto the mattress.
When they cleared the breakwaters, the waves immediately came down, thundering against the ship's clipper bow, and slowly sending spray to rise around the superstructure block she was in, obscuring her view of the outside world. Then, the spray would fall back to the decks, and she could look out at the sea, and the deep waves thrumming down her length as the cruiser worked up to speed. The cruiser was an enemy ship and Hermione was all alone on her.
Except, of course, for Bellatrix Black.
400 kilometres across the open sea. They were making about 40km/h despite the weather, Hermione estimated as best she could from the waves and the sea. In ten hours, they would be in a position to apparate to Rookwood's headquarters in Yalta, they wouldn't even need to wait for the ships to arrive in Kerch or Feodosia, if it worked out. That had been a last minute change to the plan by Bellatrix. They wouldn't even need to be at sea overnight.
Of course, the sea could change quickly. Like a middle-class British girl would, she had taken ferries a few times with her family, a few tourist rides on old boats in harbours. She had crossed the Caspian by ferry only months before, what seemed like a lifetime away. But instead of past experiences at sea, her mind fixed on a song that sometimes came on the radio stations that her father listened to. It was by the Canadian singer, Gordon Lightfoot, about a shipwreck…
"When afternoon came it was freezing rain, in the face of a hurricane west wind…" She whispered some of the lyrics softly to herself.
The ship was slowing, the waves surging higher and higher over the deck. Outside, as the deck rose and fall, Hermione could see the stark grey sky, and the vast dark waves, one after the other, never a sight through the porthole that showed both, just one, and then the other. As the ship swung from one wave to another, though, she could briefly make out one of the smaller frigates, her bow plunging into the storm with the spray rising to her masthead height. The lesser ships were definitely struggling with the sea, as ice began to form on the railings outside the porthole from the seas, and the snow swirling down through the storm.
The chains weighed her down to the bed like an anchor on a ship. Her stomach roiled, but mercifully she didn't vomit up the only meal she was likely to get that day. It was more the helplessness that hit her. The waves overtaking the ship boomed into the hull as she took them full-on, trying to keep making way against the storm and stay on schedule. Indeed, if they were delayed by the weather, the risk to the mission could only increase as the risk of whatever Bellatrix had done to disguise her daughter's disappearance in Britain being found out would increase, and so would the risk of someone amongst the enemy realising that Bellatrix's army had defected. Every minute they were late would cause risk.
She kept her eyes focused out the porthole to avoid suffering from disorientation and making herself sicker. As she did, Hermione could see lights flashing nearby, and then they were answered by the bright beams of signal-lights on the frigate. The frigate began to turn to the starboard, to the north, doubtless to seek shelter in Novorossiysk. And then the waves began to pummel the Gauntlet harder, for the scream of the gas turbines deep in the hull began to increase in force and noise, a subtle vibration rising in the hull. The waves met her with their full power, and she met the waves with her full power, the ship driving her knifelike clipper bow headlong into the waves. Now there were no other ships standing alongside, only nearly twelve thousand tonnes of a single cruiser challenging the winter storm. But Hermione grinned. She knew that somewhere up on the deck, Bellatrix had ordered the frigates to turn away to make up time. The woman was leaving nothing to be risked.
It faded quickly, though, that grin which flickered to life sputtered out when she thought of Bellatrix, and between the waves, and the confined quarters, and the chains, thought of herself in Bellatrix's place in Azkaban. Fourteen years… That number came to her like some dark bane of her existence, reminding her of just how much the elder woman had suffered. The feeling made it hard for her to hate Bellatrix, and she was starting to wonder if she ever had.
Up on the starboard bridge wing, Bellatrix stood out in the open with her hair whipping behind her, slicked back by rain and snow. With one smaller coat under another heavier greatcoat, she was bundled up as heavily as anyone could convince her to be, and she held a handleless Navy mug in the Anglo-saxon style with a bubbling hot potion in it to keep her shock under control. The cold wind, conversely, drove back and numbed away her incipient headache.
It also meant that she was free before the sky when the waves pounded the ship, just like they had pounded the walls of Azkaban. She was on deck in the cold and the wet for just that reason, the only way to find peace in the storm was to remind herself as completely of her freedom as she could.
Out here, where the waves did not boom, but instead rose and fell with a steady, surging power over the deck—out here there was peace. Inside the hull, there would not be. Inside the superstructure, maybe only a little. It made her bones ache, though, this cold wind whipping at her borrowed coats. It reminded her how much of her life she had already wasted. The bones of old women ached, not those of young witches with the world at their fingertips.
Of course, one arm hurt for an entirely different reason, the reminder it was no longer connected to her body, and instead gold, cold gold that was perfectly functional but which leached the heat from the stump of her arm, was there in its stead. A particularly large wave tossed a douche of spray across her, and she shifted her legs, spread and braced against the storm, and finished the potion quickly, as it was now quenched from its former heat with a draught of seawater.
She had left Granger belowdecks, and stood up here for hours, letting herself get cold, save for the worried wizards of the Gauntlet 's wizarding contingent, bringing her these potions she requested, thinking they were for the cold, and not for the arm she had completely concealed. Granger, her prisoner, one of the so-called 'Golden Trio', of course got nothing. The impertinent young Mudblood had a bed to lay on and a pillow to rest her head upon and blankets to keep her warm, and that was more than Bellatrix had gotten in Azkaban, where her pillow had been stone, and her bed, the bare floor, her blankets, old burlap sacks.
The storm filled her with energy, and though she was quiet and ached, she was happy to be in it. Peace in the tumult, that was it. The snow and rain lashing her face reminded her that she was alive, and that she was about to do one of those daring things that she could have done years ago, if only she had followed Voldemort.
The younger witch's words cut, and cut sharply. Granger had been right. She could have been strong herself, and instead, she had squandered it. Now she was here on the bridge wing of a cruiser, in her fifties, not sure if she was truly fighting for herself or her daughter or both, with her only companion being the stubborn mudblood who apparently had lusted after her all those years before. Mudslut. What else would get turned on by her own blood flowing to your dagger, while you held her in place?
Still, it required a kind of courage, which made her hesitate to keep baiting Granger about it. The woman was still a girl in some ways… And a woman in others, she had been made brave by this war they had all embarked on. There was something… In the confidence of how she insisted on forgiving, on how she overcame her fear each time to come closer. Bellatrix couldn't exactly place it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. The next few days would be brutal, but, still, she was sure that the mudblood would do her part.
Now that was a strange feeling. Bellatrix began to wonder if she shouldn't check up on her, and make sure that she stayed fighting fit. With a shrug, she finally turned away from the wind and snow, and made her way belowdecks. There, the young witch was in her power. That held no pleasure but a gnawing feeling of concern, that she absolutely had to keep Hermione alive for the sake of the oath she had made. Ironically, too, she mused that Hermione, pathetic mudblood that she was, nonetheless appreciated Bellatrix for a reason other than pity or power. It was an interesting thought.
Hermione watched from the bed as a bedraggled and wet Bellatrix stepped into her room, stripping off the outer layers of her coats and hanging them up, borrowed as they were, they could remain behind. Bellatrix looked sharply to her, and she looked up from the bed to meet the elder woman's gaze. Her soul felt tired from the weight of the chains. How did you survive fourteen years of this? How does anyone? The human capacity for survival was amazing, and incredible. It was obvious that Bellatrix had, but in that moment of misery, Hermione could not see how she had done it. That Azkaban was deeply immoral and nobody deserved to be confined there, she now had no doubt.
She had also started to feel like she was very much going to die. She couldn't help it, not with the storm around her, not with the impending steps into the wolf's lair. In this moment she was far from her friends, and the whole world was against her. A thought had grown in her, seeing Bellatrix covered in spray, that she didn't want to die without knowing another woman.
There, before her, stood the object of her desire, one hand white, one hand, black-gloved. Half human, and half monster. Half good and half evil? If she pulls off this 'strategic turn', certainly. Her mind felt whiplash at the prospect of Bellatrix Black, liberator of millions. "Bella," she croaked, "this is really miserable."
The woman fixed her eyes on Hermione sharply. " So we've gone from Bellatrix to Bella, now? What's next? 'Dearheart'?"
Hermione blushed. "Damnit, Bellatrix, I'm perfectly all right with the fact you're not attracted to me. Can you stop teasing me about it when I may be dead hours from now?"
"I don't intend to die," Bellatrix snapped back. "So just play your part, the demoralised prisoner. I would say you did it fine when I arrived, except for 'Bella'. Far too familiar. Perhaps you don't really want Augustus Rookwood knowing that I make you horny."
Hermione groaned. "Sorry."
"That's more like it," Bellatrix smirked, and on the small desk by the bed, unfolded some food that she had wrapped in napkins, and then sat down in a chair. "Eat," she commanded, simply.
Hermione dragged herself up, the chains clanking, and obeyed. "So what happens now."
"We're running behind, and that's deadly," Bellatrix replied. "I turned the frigates away, but we're still losing time in this story."
Hermione, for that matter, wasn't really sure how the swaying and pitching of the ship let her eat the food without getting sick, but she was starving, and had adapted enough that she somehow kept it down. "I was thankful you did that. I'm thankful you don't want to leave anything to chance."
" Don't you agree, from all of your reading, that sometimes not leaving anything to chance really means taking a calculated risk, even if it seems paradoxical?" Bellatrix looked down at her.
"...I can see the logic," Hermione admitted, coughing as she digested her hastily eaten food.
"Good, because we need a calculated risk now. I've ordered the ship to divert to Feodosiya, but we won't be aboard her for that. I think we're close enough to apparate now."
Hermione stiffened. "Think, in the Calculated Risk sense, you mean."
"Yes," the elder witch admitted. "We can't afford delays."
"Uhm, how far is it?" Hermione thought of the difficulty tables for apparating, published by MinKol, since of course they had done actual research on this.
"Two hundred and seventy-five kilometres," Bellatrix shrugged. "I can do it. I will do it, even with myself and a … Guest." There was a laugh of bemusement in her voice.
Fuck, she really is playing with me. Hermione wondered if it was just for amusement, for kicks, or if possibly Bellatrix was trying to hide her own discomfort with the situation. There was a part of her that really hoped it was the later, that Bellatrix knew fear. Not for the feeling of triumph, but for the feeling of comfort that she was truly another human being.
Hermione pushed herself roughly to her feet, wanting to demonstrate that she was still capable on her own. Instead, she was surprised when Bellatrix reached out to steady her. "Yalta, I have it in my head," Bellatrix murmured, showing her a photograph she had been looking at to memorise the destination. "Are you ready?"
"I'm ready."
"Then I'll let them know." Bellatrix stepped away and left Hermione, for a moment, again alone. The younger witch bowed her head and let her body sway in time with the waves. She could have laughed as I fell back on my ass, but she didn't.
Then Bellatrix returned, and reached out. "Mardy will bring my bags, let's go, we lack nothing."
Trust Bellatrix's magic over this distance… Really, the answer was easy. Hermione extended her hand and took Bellatrix's. "Ready." She smiled bravely, before letting it fade, knowing that it would be impolitic to still be smiling when they arrived in Yalta.
And then, Bellatrix flung them across the waves of the Pontus Euxine, in a snap of magical power.
Once this city had been the home of the Conference which had decided the fate of Europe, with Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill settling affairs together. Now it was the headquarters of an Army in the service of an enemy more evil than even the Nazis they had collectively fought. The headquarters of Augustus Rookwood was in the lavish Hotel Taurica, which dated back to Tsarist times. And now, Hermione and Bellatrix were there as well, with a snap of power that carried them without hesitation the whole distance. Bellatrix, indeed, had a good estimation of her own strength. The brightest witch of her age...
Hermione was greeted by guns pointed at her and Bellatrix, until the woman advanced and provided the counter-sign, tugging on Hermione's leash. Again the flush returned, insistent that she would be humiliated by this. The only ones humiliated will be those we destroy, she thought to focus herself. Around her was the most beautiful city, almost a fair-tale of palaces and churches and resorts and manors of famous people, all of which had fallen into decay, all of which had fallen into the grips of this army to become its garrison. Like Chernosvyat, it had the air of a care-worn fairytale.
We? Her mind was so cruel, sometimes. It ignored the city, and made her focus on something else entirely.
Rookwood, his beard having gone grey, was waiting for them in what had been a dining room, and was now converted to his central map room. Janissary officers moved around in a disciplined fashion, and the maps were updated with the siege. The storm raged outside, but inside it was warm and dry, the lights bright against the storm.
The want of the wind howling, or the damping of the snow falling, though, meant that Hermione could feel the ground shaking. That meant there was heavy artillery in action only thirty-eight kilometres away, at the outer siege lines of Sevastopol. She shivered, and knew what those soldiers on the other side of those lines endured.
"Madame Lestrange, welcome to Yalta," he greeted her… His face twisting into a bemused smirk as he followed the leash back to Hermione. "I see you indeed have quite the prize for the Dark Lord. They called them the 'Golden Trio', didn't they, before Our Lord finished Potter?"
"They did, and this is the second we have got. The Weasel is still at large, but we know he's running operations in the European cities."
"Oh, that bastard." Augustus laughed. "Having fun with yourself, Madame Lestrange?"
"Always," Bellatrix answered, with a glare. "My prize, not your's, August. I want a room where I can keep a watch on her myself. I will deliver her to the Dark Lord as my triumph only."
"Yes, yes, can't trust even my dungeons," Rookwood shook his head with an exaggerated sigh. He had always presented an image of calm normalcy, by Death Eater standards, it was why he had been selected for infiltration duties, and that he had retained the ability after his stint in Azkaban just proved that he was an exceptionally dangerous man, so that Hermione kept her head down and tried to avoid the slightest thought, move, or gesture that would make him suspicious of the situation.
"I just desire my just rewards, as I should support you in receiving your own, August."
"Well, that's one way of putting it," he snorted. "I will summon a Concorde for you, but we're in range of the S-400 batteries in Sevastopol, so you will have to travel to Feodosia to fly out. You might as well have waited aboard your ship instead of apparating so far."
"Perhaps I liked the challenge," Bellatrix laughed. "Is there anything else, or can I be taken to a room now, and leave you to your siege?"
"Well, yes, actually," his face curved into a grin. "One indulgence, if you don't mind – Crucio! "
Hermione's eyes widened in shock and horror, and then white-hot pain tore through her. The last thought she had before the agony consumed her mind was how Rookwood had managed to look like a kindly grandfather while doing it, too. Then there was only fire in every nerve.
Notes:
Probably the most confusing thing in this chapter is the nautical references and warships:
Project 1164 "Atlant" - this is what is called a "Slava-class cruiser" in the West.
Project 1135 "Burevestnik" - "Krivak" class frigate. included in this number are several closely related projects, some with slightly different designations, but sharing the same hull form. They are called Krivak I, Krivak II, Krivak III and Krivak IV in the west.
Project 1134B "Berkut" - "Kara" class cruiser in the west. This is your author's personal favourite warship.
Likewise, the flash of light Hermione saw was a blinker light, which is a large aimed light on a pedestal which a sailor steers toward something he wishes to communicate with. Then you open and close metal shutters to conceal and reveal the light in a coded signal - this cannot be intercepted by enemy signals intelligence.
As a bit of random trivia, the Hotel Taurica was the first hotel in the Russian Empire to have elevators.