Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Barrel of the Gun.
"All Power Grows out of the Barrel of the Gun."
– Mao Zedong, Chairman, CCP.
When Hermione woke up the next morning, she realised that Bellatrix was still with her. The elder witch was curled up against her in the small bed, with the smallest hint of a cute snore which hadn't served to wake her up. Still partially clothed, she was pulled under the covers with Hermione, and though their backs were to each other, they were also touching, pushed up against each other.
Hermione felt that was the most romantic thing she had ever known. There was a tender level of trust in it that she had not expected from… You fucked Bellatrix Black last night. No, Hermione had definitely remembered that, but it wasn't until then that the reason, the consequences, all of it came rushing back. Including an imminent fight for their lives. Somehow, with her back snuggled up against Bella's, she had slept peacefully through the entire night despite how likely her impending demise was.
Considering she only had Ron to compare with Bellatrix, it wasn't really a contest: Last night had been the best sex in her life. She didn't want to get up, but then the alarm on Bellatrix's chronometer began to chime.
The other woman rolled over sharply, and that absolutely perfect moment of peace and calm after waking up was lost. Hermione rolled over to look at Bella. She caught the witch's eyes as she was trying to pull on her panties awkwardly, and for a moment, a shocked expression of surprise crossed her face. Bellatrix Black had very much not reconciled herself to what had happened the night before.
Then the moment of honest shock vanished, and one could visibly see her face go dark as she pulled her emotions back inside. "Go make tea, Granger," Bella ordered, and tried to finish pulling her panties up while keeping her dress down far enough to remain decent. It was a little silly, and made worse by the fact that Hermione, as she got up, was completely naked except for her socks, which she had forgotten to take off before drifting off to sleep.
Then Mardy appeared. "Mardy has brought tea, Mistress, you don't need your…"
"MARDY!" Bellatrix exclaimed, as if she had just remembered something.
The Elf's eyes widened.
"Sorry, just, go," Bellatrix sighed.
The Elf immediately disapparated away, leaving the tray with pastries, tea and milk behind. Hermione was left so confused by the exchange that … Oh wait, I'm naked. Bellatrix was nice to her elf? "Bella…"
"Bellatrix," the dark witch snapped, reserved, but also sounding uneasy.
"Bellatrix," Hermione hastily amended. "You didn't need her to leave…"
"Oh yes I did. Mardy isn't my Elf, she's my sister's Elf," Bellatrix explained with a glare, though her eyes kept wandering back to Hermione, and she couldn't really hide it. "Did… Could you … Cover up?"
"Ah-alright," Hermione grinned and blushed at the same time, and started hastily dressing, which gave Bellatrix a chance to get her petticoats on with Hermione only really able to watch out of the corner of her eye. Whenever Bella looked her way, Hermione got a glare for it, but she didn't say a word.
Having dressed herself in a rather more awkward way than Hermione's practical military uniform allowed for , the two women sat together in the main room of the suite with the tea. There was a real tension in the air between them, for all that Hermione felt a thousand times better than she had beforehand.
And yet, despite that tension, Bella quietly reached out to the table and put the younger witch's wand on it. Hermione had been taking a gulp of her tea, and even as she felt the wonderful surge of hot tea down her throat, her eyes widened in relief and thanks at having her wand back. The awkwardness and tension of the moment vanished.
"You shouldn't be unarmed anymore," Bella said, sounding almost courteous, and taking her cup, rose to walk into the larger bedroom, leaving Hermione behind.
"Bellatrix, thank you!" Hermione called after her eagerly , but she got no reply. It's a lot for her to digest, she decided, and settling her wand back in the holster, eagerly guzzled her tea and ate a few pastries. They might be the last meal she'd ever have, and it was a better last meal than many others might have been over the past few years. Relaxed, calm, eager, she was ready for this fight.
A few minutes later, Bellatrix went to the bathroom, washing her face and spraying rose-water on herself, before leaving it for Hermione. They had almost run out of peace, and war was again calling.
"Alright," Bellatrix began, her face inscrutable, all business, any hint of recognition of what had passed between them now gone. "Here is what I need you to do, Granger. Listen carefully."
To be honest, the entire morning had been as surreal and awkward as hell, but Hermione fixed her attention on Bellatrix and got herself ready. She wouldn't have a second chance. If either one of them died, the Vow would likely make both perish. They were committed.
And when Bellatrix told Hermione what she wanted her to do, Hermione blanched and still almost refused. But she couldn't, she just couldn't, not after that night, not now, when victory was actually close enough to taste. So, with a sense of foreboding, Hermione agreed.
For a moment, when the two women walked together down the emergency stairs and came out into the lobby of the Hotel Taurica, it didn't seem like anything was particularly wrong. Nobody was looking too closely at the woman walking with Bellatrix, and she walked a half step behind Bellatrix, exactly like a junior officer was supposed to. The front was more than three dozen klicks away, after all.
The fact that she was in the black with red pinstripes on the trousers of a Janissary officer's uniform thanks to a rather complicated spell for transfigurating clothes which Bellatrix had executed a few minutes before was, of course, the final component of the arrangement. The fact that Hermione, if she raised her wand, would technically be committing a war crime, did not rest easily on her. Still, it was necessary for success, and Bellatrix had taught her the de-transfiguration spell. The Wizards in the lobby would have known if it was a Witch they didn't recognise. They didn't care a damn about a muggle assigned as an aide to Bellatrix Black.
"Alright, L'tenant," Bellatrix paused, saying the rank like a 19th century Brit would. "Carry on, I'll be meeting with Rookwood alone."
"May You Live Forever," Hermione saluted Bellatrix formally, and then turned and walked out the doors of the hotel, while behind her, Bellatrix turned and headed into the ballroom turned into command post.
The storm was over and the sun was coming up. Hermione was free, she was back in the fight. And when this day was over, they'd either be dead or they'd have made history. In five years, Hermione hadn't felt like this. For the first time in all of this terrible broken-backed war, and especially after the disastrous outcome of the Southeastern Operation which had led to her dramatic break with Ron in Chisinau, she had not had any really confidence in victory. Today, she would either die or get that back. Since losing most of his Horcruxes, it would be the worst blow that Voldemort had known.
Of course, Bellatrix had assigned her to be the diversion. And of course, the diversion had to be as dramatic and expansive as possible. Over the night, Dodson had shifted loyal troops into positions further away from the barracks where the Wizards in Rookwood's Army stayed. Conversely, Tarrant had shifted loyal Wizards away to front assignments. So the barracks, up to the north from the centre of the city, was the target.
It still involved a lot of collateral damage, and the thought of what she was about to do made her queasy. It involved a lot of collateral damage, and there was no way to warn the civilians. She fished around in her pocket for the map to orient herself, as she tried to think of a way of doing it without harming innocent people.
"Hey, what's up mate?" Another Janissary officer called to her.
Damn, I've been standing here to long. Her dislike for what Bellatrix had asked her to do was getting to her. Of course, she had been jonesing for a cigarette non-stop for the last two days anyway, so… "Haven't got my fags, mate. Spare one?"
"A'right," the fellow Brit agreed congenially, and whipped out a pack of Chesterfields; he handed one over and produced his lighter as he looked out over the Black Sea. "Something's up, ain't it? We've been turned out to funny dispositions, and there's a second one of the big bosses up here, the Lady in the Corset. They say she came in with a high value prisoner. Probably got some kind of intel."
Hermione stiffened as she struck up the cigarette and took a long drag of relief, in which she faked her pleasure when her nicotine-starved mind compared it unfavourably to a papirosa. These things are as weak as shit. What's the point of the damned filter anyway? Dead is dead.
"Well, I reckon no matter what's up, it'll be a lot of fun," Hermione grinned as she lowered the cigarette and handed the pack back. "Thanks, mate."
"That's what they said to tell the troops," he agreed, chuckling. "See ya around, mate!"
Hermione waved, and checked her chronometer. Time. Past time, actually. Shit.
She brought the map up, taking another puff on her cigarette, and oriented herself to the bunker. Alright, alright… Ready… She fished her wand out of the inside of her uniform jacket. She had known this spell for years and years, but has refused to use it because of how wildly dangerous and uncontrollable it was. And now, after five years of being a soldier, she was going to use it casually as a mere diversion. Advanced Dark Magic.
Anything to win, that was the motto now, right? Still, in a nod to the muggle laws of war that felt vaguely futile, she repeated the incantation, completed the spell that Bellatrix had taught her, and from a uniform of the Janissaries, she was again in her practical, camouflaged Russian uniform. Now she was committed, now she acted. Now she prayed to a God she didn't believe in that she could control it for as long as necessary.
"Fiendus Incendiari!"
An explosion of fiery chimaeras and dragons tore out overhead, erupting through the streets of Yalta, with windows exploding from the passage of flames, men shouting in shock and fear. Hermione pitted her control of the magic against the hunger of the Fiendfyre for the living. She directed the fire up into the air, to consume the sky, shadowing a broad Moskovska Street in the column of flame above. She held onto it with the desperation of someone who was motivated to avoid becoming a murderer, because she could easily kill hundreds or thousands if she erred. The Brightest Witch of Her Age now faced the abrupt and savage challenge of guiding the Fiendfyre down, until, without igniting the rest of the city, a hideous firestorm descended on the barracks of Rookwood's wizarding continents and the building itself seemed to detonate from the flame consuming around it.
All along Moskovska Street, people lived because she had controlled the Fiendfyre, instead of letting it descend to consume them as it had travelled half the length of the city to reach her target. The building erupted into hell, melting and charring visibly even from the distance at which Hermione was controlling the Fiendfyre, or trying too, as the horrifying beast of flame tried to escape her grasp, spreading to the lines of trucks and armoured cars outside of the barracks and quickly triggering secondary explosions from their fuel tanks, adding to the immensity of the conflagration.
It was perhaps inevitable, for all that she tried so hard, that she began to lose control. She was not a Dark Sorceress, she did not practice the Dark Arts. So it was exactly as Hermione had feared, or even expected, that she lost control of it, and could only watch as the fire erupted outwards from the Barracks, and reached out to consume the surrounding buildings, threatening to rapidly turn the northern part of the city centre into a firestorm. It looked for a moment, as it rocketed from house to house, ripping across the better part of six blocks and turning them all into a hell of fire, that it might be totally unstoppable. Hermione felt frozen in place as she contemplated the prospect that her actions would kill hundreds, or thousands, of innocents.
And then someone in the middle of the inferno, who might be in that moment in the process of burning to death, still had an intact wand and uttered the necessary incantation to bring it to a halt. The destruction was as neat as if an entire wing of bombers had walked napalm incendiaries across the city, but it was done . Guttering flames in dozens of buildings were left behind. The reality was that an enemy Wizard or Witch had saved her from her own moral culpability, strictly for the reasons of foiling her. It was as unsettling as hell to think about.
And then six wizards of the Morsmordre apparated in front of her simultaneously, and she didn't have the think to think . When they took in that the attack had been executed by a single Witch in the uniform of the Russian MinKol, they stared for a blank moment in shock at the wild courage it had required.
"Until my last dying breath," Hermione muttered, dropping the cigarette to the ground and striking the leader with a shout of "Confrigo!"
The fight was on.
Bellatrix had stepped into Rookwood's command post, gotten herself hot coffee from the thermos, heathen, took advantage of the milk to mix it up into German-style Milchkaffee, which was better than nothing, and wandered over to where the fellow Death Eater was reviewing reports. "Augustus."
"Bellatrix," He looked up. "I'll let you know as soon as your damned aeroplane has a time to be ready to leave. You can apparate straightaway there, if you like."
Bellatrix translated that as 'get out of my hair, witch'. Which was fair, she was being bother, though not as much of a bother as she was about to be. "I'd need someone to hold my prisoner while I waited for them to finish the repairs," Bellatrix answered. " Merlin, isn't it something, all of this muggle technology we use now?"
"We can restrict it when we've finished them," Augustus shrugged. "For the moment, we need to just finish putting them and the traitors away. They don't know when to quit, they never know when to quit."
"I suppose you're right, though I have liked the challenge all of these days," Bellatrix admitted, and that was a sincere feeling even now. "Fortunately, we are a far more resourceful breed."
She glanced at her chrono. Time. Bellatrix took another drink of her coffee, and waited for the moment to come. It didn't.
What are you up to, Granger? What's gone wrong? A chill began to settle inside of Bellatrix as she considered the possibility of the damned mudblood failing in her mission. She wanted to be angry, very angry, about it. I gave you everything up to and including the fucking you needed so badly, you damned mudslut. I sullied myself for you and you're still going to fuck it up and get me killed?
All she could do was silently fume inside with impotent rage and wait. Augustus saw her checking her chrono, too. "Again, if you're that impatient, get out of my way and apparate with your prisoner to Feodosiya," he smirked. "I'm sure they can find you a room there to wait in. Did you have fun last night?"
"I don't fuck mud," Bellatrix sneered. "There's a difference between a pureblood woman and a mudslut." The lies came easy, but even as they did, they left Bellatrix feeling uneasy, because she had done exactly what she was claiming that she had not done. She had, in fact, fucked mud. Something in Hermione's insistent confidence had, in a moment of drunken weakness and fear for this day, led her astray. And all for nothing, because they were past go-time, and nothing had happened…
A shrill alarm cut the air. Bellatrix snapped to look back at Augustus, whose response was lost in the sound. "What the hell is that, Rookwood?"
"That's the air-raid siren…"
An officer ran in and saluted. "Sir! There's been an explosion at the Wizard barracks on Vasiljeva Street!"
Rookwood turned away. "What the devil?!"
When he did, Bellatrix whipped out her wand.
"SIR!" The officer's eyes went wide.
"Expelliarmus!" She cried right behind Rookwood, sending his wand flying in the opposite direction that he went flying. Then she spun toward one of the other wizards in the room and used another spell entirely: "Avada kedavra!" The killing curse struck the unfortunate junior wizard dead-on and he dropped, his mortal life snuffed out, to the floor of the post.
A gun barked as another wizard, distracted by the fight, fell dead from gunfire. Dodson's gun.
Rookwood was back up to his feet as a quick Sectumsempra from Bellatrix tore guttering wounds into another of the Wizards that had been with him. He was making a dead run for his wand when Bella got him with the cry of "Petrificus Totalus!" As Rookwood dropped, there was only one witch left in the uniform of the Morsmordre, and she was ready and caught the first of Bellatrix's spells in a block.
The two of them duelled in a quick exchange of block and strike, of shield and Confrigo, taking down several of the muggle technicians who could not get out of the way in time. But the anonymous witch was one, those who had switched sides were many. With several wizards who had defected with Dodson and Tarrant supporting her, Bellatrix easily pinned the woman, until a Janissary sergeant armed with a British L74A1 combat shotgun approached her from behind.
The boom of the full load of buckshot collapsing the young woman in a blasting hail of blood brought an abrupt end to the fighting inside of the Hotel Taurica. She fell, but still she twitched, and so, with the cruel compassion of war, the sergeant levelled the gun at her shattered body, pumped the action, and put her out of her misery. The final boom of the gun and spray of blood settled on the room, and Bellatrix slowly took a deep breath. "Send the signal to all units!"
"At once, Madame Black!" Dodson turned back toward an undamaged bank of radios.
Then she approached the immobilised Augustus Rookwood, with the sneer firmly set on her face. "Just a little bit of a hint for you, Rooky," she laughed. "Nobody makes Bellatrix Black their slave. Not even the Dark Lord."
"IMPERIO!" She tore into his will and mind with sharp precision, pitting her power with her wand in her right, intact hand against his wandless, bound body. She took him over, and she commanded him exactly as she needed to, as outside, the fight now raged as Dodson and Tarrant's men worked to quickly secure the city.
"Up and over to the Pensieve of Command," she ordered. It was a strange device, a Pensieve, with the pool of memories in it—memories from each of the soldiers in an ensorcelled military unit—with a strange old set of bronze interlocking wheels and gears that was mounted inside of it, partially in the pool of memories, and partially out of it. A Telecaster. There was a rumour that the first of these had been invented by the Priestesses of Kaptaria, the ancient civilisation of the Minoans, during the age of Iphigenia. As troops were forcibly conscripted to be ensorcelled to fight for Voldemort, they had some of their memories added to the Pensieve. Then the Telecaster could send to all of those whose memories had been collected, when energized magically, a spell which had been placed into it.
In this case, the Imperious Curse.
In that way, a Death Eater could instantly command an entire Army of muggles to obey his or her will.
"Transfer command of the Fifth Army to me," Bellatrix ordered Rookwood.
"I, Augustus Rookwood, do hereby execute the Change-of-Command Ceremony for the Fifth Army to my fellow Death Eater, Bellatrix Black, per her order, I place the Army at her disposal."
The Telecaster glowed green and spun its gears and wheels, coated slick with the water of memories, until it reoriented a radiant gemstone toward Bellatrix. The woman let out a triumphant shriek.
"The Fifth Army will immediately halt all offensive and defensive combat operations against the forces of the Confederation of Independent States, and will contact the CIS troops in Sevastopol and immediately inform them that Operation Taurida is in Effect. As CIS troops approach the lines, the Fifth Army will welcome them into its defensive perimeters peacefully, and all units will conform their movements to troops of the CIS and General and Colonel-rank officers issuing orders at the brigade level," Bellatrix continued. "Pursuant to the normal operational orders for the Fifth Army, my Chief of Staff, General Dodson, will now issue detailed operational instructions."
She turned away from the Telecaster-Pensieve, and stepped up to Rookwood's side, madness fully in her eyes and a grin on her lips. "You really shouldn't fucking insult me. You shouldn't have pretended I am the old bitch that you can safely ignore. I am still as dangerous as I was when I was twenty, and worse, because of the experience. You see… I am going to make your life living hell now." Bellatrix caressed his cheek, and then stepped away. "Crucio!" She tore into the hapless man she dominated with the Imperius curse, inflicting the fullness of horrifying torture on him. "That's for saying I'd fuck a mudblood!"
"CRUCIO!" Again she ripped into him, "and that's for terrorising and torturing Granger, you cowardly shit!"
"CRUCIO!" She laughed. "You'll be worse off than the Longbottoms by the time I'm done with you!"
"CRUCIO!" She almost doubled over with laughter, now.
Then the crack of a gun split the air once and once more, and a spray of blood exploded from Rookwood's head as the two bullets tore through him at close range. He toppled to the floor of the command post, instantly dead.
Bellatrix stared dumbly.
"Madame Black," Dodson said formally, holstering his pistol and facing her, at parade rest. "Since we're going to be on the same side as the CIS now, we don't need a shambles, we must observe the formalities now . He deserved it, but they would still not like it, and we need you in command, giving orders and making sure your agreement is upheld, for all of our sakes."
She looked at him with a glare, a very dangerous glare.
He met it. "Ma'am, there's still fighting in the city."
"Granger," Bellatrix hissed. Without another word, she dropped the matter of Rookwood's bloody corpse and apparated straight for the firm-fixed image of the young muggleborn witch in her mind.
Hermione had thought she was dead for sure. She had fought them five to one, and gotten three when a Sectumsempra tore through her left shoulder, leaving her left arm flopping uselessly against her side and agony tearing through her body as blood flowed out onto the ground. Toppling into the snow-covered grass between lanes of the road close to the shore, her face planted among abandoned cigarette butts and scattered trash, she struggled to her feet and then managed to collapse to the left to dodge the evil green power of a Killing Curse that otherwise would have finished her, if it hadn't been sent awkwardly by a young wizard who should have tried something less final but easier to execute in the middle of the duel.
Her obligation to keep the fight going, to help the Army defect, pushed her onwards. She struggled to her feet, and blocked the next attack with Protego, the blood soaking through her uniform. Hermione felt her power and her physical energy fade, as she blocked another and another attack.
I am not going to let you down, Bella! I am not! The thought came unbidden, and it forced her through another series of four smart blocks against her opponents, but more people were coming up and she didn't know if they were friends or foes. Her vision was starting to go blurry, and she imagined that like Larissa she was losing a lot of blood from the deep wounds.
Then one of the wizards she was fighting got in an Expulso that detonated with a massive roar of blue energy next to her, tearing into the ground, and violently throwing her. She felt herself flying over the Lenina Embankment and crashing down into the water. The cold sea slamming into her, soaking her, her blood floating into it—for a moment it revived her, as she wondered dumbly how she had managed to avoid a concussion.
She was trying to drag herself out, putting her wand between her teeth to avoid losing it, trying to use her good hand, her mind cursing her: Use a spell you idiot, why are you using your hand? But she couldn't seem to put everything together until she finally remembered to use the levitation charm, and floated up … Directly into the sight of the two wizards running toward where she had gone flying into the sea, ready to finish her off.
As one, they raised their wands. Then a flock of angry, magically generated birds tore into them, biting, pecking, howling down on them from above. In a snap, with a second apparation, Bellatrix Black appeared between Hermione and her tormentors. She ripped into them, completely fresh and unwounded, her bent wand blocking each attack as the terrified wizards tried to understand why a Death Eater was attacking them. They did not know that it was a coup d'état, they did not know that she had changed sides. They were fighting thinking it was an attack on their Army, and it was their duty to fight back, that was all; they were trying to kill a Russian enemy. Now they were suddenly faced with a political dimension they had not imagined.
With a minute, Bellatrix sent one flying back into a fountain, where his collision with a statue dropped him unconscious into the water. The second, she disarmed and bound, and it was over, just like that. She had attacked like a Fury, like a thing of power, her duelling perfectly poised and balanced. She let things get through that she knew would be turned by the magic-repelling potential of her dragonskin corset, and used those blows she ignored to strike harder at them, until both had been neatly disabled.
And then she raised her wand to finish them. "Avada Ked- "
"No, Bella, don't, they're finished!" Hermione screamed from behind her. "They're helpless!"
"Why does it matter, Granger?!" Bella screamed back, stopping in her tracks.
"Because it's wrong, and you've done enough! You're a heroine now, Bella, seize the chance! You don't have to execute people anymore!"
Bellatrix turned toward her with a snort, shaking her head and laughing in bemusement, a bemusement that sounded like she was almost aghast at the prospect of being called a heroine. "Granger, you don't have a damn… Oh Merlin are you wounded." Without another thought, the dark witch dashed to Hermione's side and grabbed her. "Come on, right now."
Bellatrix immediately disapparated Hermione away from the Lenina Embankment and back to the front of the Hotel Taurica, where the medics had set up to handle the casualties. Bellatrix laid her gently down onto one of the stretchers. "Get to her immediately. Sectumsempra, left shoulder, severe blood loss," Bellatrix said, her words clipped, efficient, conveying what the mediwitches needed.
Then she turned, and sucked in her breath. Hermione followed her gaze, and for some reason, smiled like an idiot. The Morsmordre had gone fluttering down from the flagpole in front of the hotel. In its stead, Mardy had produced from Bellatrix's luggage an immense black standard which two of the Janissaries now hoisted. Fluttering in the winter wind, this black flag held the Arms of the House Black, surmounted with a Death's Head crowned with the laurels of victory. Mailed fist and gauntlet brandished a sword over the black chevron and the three Jackdaws.
Toujours Pur. The motto unfurled, and fluttered in the breeze below the Coat of Arms.
Bellatrix stood there in the cold sea air. Her hair fluttered like the standard of her family that was now hoisted above the Hotel and the City. She looked beautiful.
Hermione passed out from the blood loss, her eyes filled with Bellatrix.
Notes:
1. I owe the design of the Telecaster, though the function is slightly different and adapted to Harry Potter magic, to Thomas Harlan and his wonderful "Oath of Empire" series.
2. Taurica, or Taurida, is the ancient name of the Crimean peninsula.
3. Kaptaria is the name that the Minoans had for themselves, as recorded in ancient Egyptian texts. It remains very obscure as the proper name for Minoan Civilisation.
4. The British L74A1 was originally the American Remington 870.
5. The Standard of the House of Black is inspired by this version of the Black Family Coat of Arms:
. /harrypotter/images/1/1e/Toujours_ /revision/latest?cb=20180306014425
6. I will just make here the short note that in political terms, Bellatrix has defected; but in moral terms, nothing has yet changed.