How do you deal with this kind of revelation? It had been years, sure, and years could change things unfathomably. But Tonks had been 'safely' dead in Hermione's mind, in the bitter sorrow of absent friends, and departed heroes. Hermione's memory of her was as cheerful, funny Tonks, and in black, dark times in her mind, of Tonks, splayed out dead alongside Remus on the stones of Hogwarts.

This Tonks sitting in front of her was instead very much alive, and also saying she was in a relationship with Bellatrix Lestrange, the woman whose torture Hermione would take to the grave. Tonks and Bellatrix… Does Not Compute.

Hermione was quick witted enough to decide that bringing up the 'she's your aunt' part first would be an awful idea. In fact, Hermione felt that was relatively unproblematic as part of this. There was a bigger, looming part. "But… Bellatrix. I mean, Tonks…" Where do I start?

Tonks reached out and gently put a finger up. "Please, Hermione." She forced in a deep breath, and continued to speak. "It's very, very different as a vampire."

"Maybe… It isn't, though? Do you love her?"

"I feel affection for her," Tonks answered.

"What a way to dodge the question… Tonks, she's a murderer." Hermione finally lost it and leapt to her feet. "I should … We could go now."

"No!"

"Does she control you?"

"No," Tonks grimaced. "It's not that. It's just that we were together, we had nobody else, we had nobody to rely upon except for each other, and we were here, alone, trying to make a way for ourselves, and we just … We just kept getting closer and closer. I would have never imagined it myself, Hermione, but alright, yes, I do love her. And she loves me. She wouldn't hurt me, she couldn't hurt me, and she's probably in agony about this right now. And yes, to some extent she does deserve it. But she's already died, there's no prosecution of a dead woman. And she hasn't hurt anyone in this life. I've started her on a path toward… I won't call it redemption, but decency. Decency."

Hermione closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, feeling a wash of conflicting emotions. She was so happy that Tonks was alive. She was terrified that Bellatrix Lestrange was going to kill her before the night was over. She was shocked that Tonks was sleeping with Bellatrix… Loving her. Defending her. But isn't that what lovers do? She compared herself unfavourably, in that regard, when it came to Ron. Tonks was mounting a better defence of Bellatrix than she would ever mount for Ron and considering Bellatrix's crimes, as it were, were unfathomably more serious than a bit of relationship disharmony, that made her tremendously embarrassed. You need to get back home and recommit yourself to your man.

Distraction. That was a perfect, utter distraction. She absolutely needed to understand what was going on here, more than any other thing. Be a Gryffindor, Hermione. She pulled away from the wall and straightened. "Are you happy, Tonks? Are you safe?"

"I can't be with my son. Of course I'm not happy. But Bellatrix? Yes, I'm safe, Hermione. I don't think either of us can hurt the other."

Huh, Hermione thought. That was a piece of information that might be useful. She didn't know anything at all about vampires, really—well, others might consider that she did, but she didn't see it that way—and would have to learn, fast. She quietly walked back to the chair, and forced herself to sit down. "Do you want back in from the cold?"

"I'd have no civil rights in Wizarding Britain, particularly the right to bear a wand legally," Tonks noted with sarcasm dripping in her voice. "It's a major hindrance toward deciding to come back, even if I could be sure Bella would be safe here with Valentina supporting her. Voldemort dead and defeated or not, wizarding society is fucked up."

She's got a point. A point that embarrassed and hurt Hermione. She was trying to work within the system, sure. Shacklebolt was a great Minister. Wasn't he? But the reality was that wizarding society was in many ways, deeply dysfunctional. They really would disenfrachise a hero of the war, just because she was a vampire.

Hermione crossed her legs, and looked uncomfortably to Tonks. "So… Not a single person. You don't need to kill people to survive?"

"I would have asked my mother to kill me if I needed to kill people to live," Tonks snapped. "Please, Hermione. We can heal the wounds we create. We feed, sure, but we don't need to drink all of someone's blood, it's… It's different than that. In fact, I try to subsist off of animal blood as much as I can, but it just doesn't taste good, and Bella says it makes me unhealthy, so…"

Hermione closed her eyes and gave a nod. "I accept that. If you can do it without killing… I accept it. We can definitely coexist. Oh God, Tonks, I missed you. I think we really understood each other."

The vampire got up, stepped over to Hermione's chair, knelt down, and gave her a hug while on her knees. Hermione shivered at the lukewarm feeling from her touch. "Please forgive me," Tonks whispered.

"Please forgive me," Hermione shook her head firmly. "I'm being an awful bitch to you." Hermione leaned over, reached out, hugged Tonks back. "Too much shock for one day?" She offered in a light crack.

"I'll accept that." Tonks grinned, though, again, it was slightly disconcerting with the fangs visible.

"Thanks… So, can I … Tonks, if you've gotten Bellatrix not to commit crimes for several years thank you. That's really impressive. I've been trying to work on rehabilitation…"

"I know, I've gotten my hands on copies of the Daily Prophet. Very controversial of you," Tonks grinned through silent tears, which Hermione could see where tinged with blood.

"Right. Only one of us has been totally disconnected from the other." Hermione swallowed. "Well, I guess I'm beating around the bush. Tonks, I'd like to … Let's go back downstairs and talk to her."

"Are you sure, Hermione?"

Hermione looked at the wall, and swallowed. "Yes." A thousand members and emotions flooded in, but she didn't take it back. She wouldn't. She couldn't. She had to face the woman who carved up her arm, and somehow, clawed back from Death, she finally had her chance.

Bellatrix sat in her chair, slumped back, like an exiled Queen facing her ruination. Valentina had shifted to sitting in the shadows in the corner, reading a book to a small, dim lamp.

Bellatrix had a goblet of bloodwine on her side-table. The shadows pulled over her. Her eyes flashed as she looked to Hermione, stepping down in front of Tonks, and slowly walking into the middle of the room to face Bellatrix.

The vampire still had her coat, draped off the chair, but now pulled off. Her clothes were almost the same, down to the engageantes on her arms, with a few subtle differences. Again, Hermione felt that Bellatrix carried the gothic look of a classical vampire almost entirely too well. Perhaps fate laid down her hand, because there's few things that seem more appropriate.

But it was not stately confidence that she held, but a look instead of threadbare pride in the hour of ruination. This woman could never lose her dignity. She had carried it when she sat chained before the Wizengamot, treating the dock like a throne. She carried it now, in the basement of the house that she had created for her exile.

The house of exile, that she expected to again be exiled from, at this hour. Finally, her eyes raised, and mudblood and terrorist, two Brightest Witches of their Ages, faced each other off from a distance of five paces. The silence of the basement den was split only by Hermione's sharp, steady breathing, the lone among them with a beating heart.

Finally, Bellatrix propped herself up and reached for her goblet, glancing to the side. "Tonks, has she already alerted the authorities?"

"No, Bella, she's not done so."

"Mm." Bellatrix looked at the woman in front of her. "Why did you come, really? Not this ridiculous story about dragon eggs, was it?"

"It was …" Hermione started, and was at once cut off.

"I asked you to tell me what you came for! Was it to gloat! Was it to gloat that I am alive to see my defeat!?" She sat down the emptied goblet and leapt to her feet, shaking her right hand. "Come on, Granger. You didn't come here by accident. Fucking mudblood…" She reached for her wand on her belt, before, with a glance to Tonks, sinking back to sit down.

It was a terrifying, absolutely terrifying presentation to stand in front of. Bellatrix was full of bitter rage and one could feel her in the air, tensed up like a live wire, a living threat. Wild, alive, uncontrollable, even when she was technically dead, she came across more alive than many who drew breath. "They tell me you haven't done anything wrong since you came here. No deaths. No torture. Why the change?"

Bellatrix laughed. "Granger, what a question! My Lord is dead, why should I?" She looked up, guileless. "What purpose would killing or hurting others serve at this point? In fact, it would be the work of a fool, since it would attract attention. And I suppose, despite all of my efforts, I managed to attract that attention after all, and so here we are. Is Potter and the Weasel waiting somewhere in a hotel in Tiraspol for the signal? You may not have warned them—but perhaps you don't have to." Another slump.

"Hell no. They're not here at all." Hermione was much too deep in the moment to protest the insult against her husband. Anyway, it was much milder than the ones that Bellatrix slung at her, and she had chosen to endure them several times now for the sake of trying to figure the situation out. It was too much to expect a Death Eater and Pureblood like Bellatrix to stop using slurs, apparently. I imagine this hasn't come up much without any other witches around. At least Tonks is trying to force her.

She had been distracted by Bellatrix's accusation. She thought about what the woman had said, though. Why… Would… She do anything violent? Why, in fact, did Hermione assume that this was a risk at all? After all, Bellatrix had said it herself. Her Lord was dead. Why would she …

"Why would you torture and kill? Perhaps because you like doing it?"

"Oh Gods no," Bellatrix laughed, gripping at the armrest of the chair in which she sat. "Am good at it? Possibly so, yes. But like? What gave you that impression, Granger?"

"I think you damn well know what gave me that impression."

Bellatrix was silent, staring at Hermione. The younger woman reached down, and rolled up her sleeve. "Don't you remember, or do you perhaps need some help of what your idea of girl-talk turned out to be?"

"You were an enemy of My Lord. And you had humiliated me, and stolen what was mine. And My Lord punishes those who fails. What did you expect what happen? I'd give you a medal for succeeding?"

"Absolutely not. But, I did …" Hermione trailed off. Actually, she had no idea whatsoever of what she would do, or what she would want Bellatrix to have done. Why was she assuming Bellatrix was crazy, or wanted to hurt people? In fact, Bellatrix had always been unconventional as a Death Eater, and Hermione could see something of Tonks in the way that she went about her life, and defied all convention. But she had, unlike her sister Andromeda, committed herself to the pureblood ideology when Andromeda had dramatically abandoned it. Why, then, when Bellatrix had never let herself be simply a pureblood housewitch, a brood mare for a line? She had, after all, had no children with Rodolphus Lestrange.

"Are we going to sit here all night while you try to figure out what to say, Granger?" Bellatrix asked archly.

"Absolutely not. Well, Bellatrix. You're here, and I'm here. By law, you're dead, and there's no warrant for your detainer, even as a magical creature."

"I AM NOT A MAGICAL CREATURE, I AM A WITCH!" Bellatrix shrieked. "I still have my wand, and my magic!"

Hermione pursed her lips. "You know the law doesn't see it that way."

"The law is wrong. Tonks knows that, I know that, and the founder of S.P.E.W. sure as bloody hell knows it!"

A blink. "You know about S.P.E.W.?"

"Of course I do! Do you think the Brightest Witch of Her Age wouldn't bother to study her Lord's enemies?" Bellatrix laughed. "Yes, I saw your attempt to ideologically influence the wizarding world very well, Granger. I studied it. Surely that doesn't surprise you?"

In retrospect, of course it didn't. But everything made sense in retrospect. That was useless; Bellatrix had taken her seriously and prepared accordingly, just like Hermione had tried to study Bellatrix for the sake of impersonating her. But she hadn't really fully understood Bellatrix, not in the way that she needed to. That much was clear, because now they were standing there, and Hermione felt distinctly like Bellatrix had the intellectual upper hand, despite how passive and almost demoralised that she seemed.

"Can you believe it wasn't an attempt to ideologically influence the wizarding world, then, but something sincere?" Hermione asked back with a sharp look.

"Oh, precious … The –" Bellatrix cut herself off again. "If you want such credit, why don't you extend to me the credit that I was fighting to make the world a better place, Granger? Instead of assuming I was some lunatic, who tortured strictly for pleasure, I had my own vision, my own aims, in the service of My Lord. I wanted to make this Earth safe for magic."

Hermione impulsively rolled her eyes, but she instead forced her voice to be plaintive, questioning, instead of contemptuous. "Did you really believe all of that rot about muggle-borns stealing magic, Bellatrix? Surely not."

"No, of course I didn't. It's not about that. It's about a world filled with pollution, rotting, burning, stinking rivers, mountains of trash, sewage in the sea. Muggles, muggles, destroying everything they touch. And muggle-born spreading it around further still, creeping into the wizarding world with the same destructive values which gave us a world choked in ash and oil and garbage." Bellatrix looked levelly at her. "That was worth fighting against."

"Was that really what you were thinking of when you carved that slur in my arm?"

Bellatrix reached down to the end table. One of the elves had seamlessly replaced the goblet with another. Hermione wondered if vampires could get drunk…

"No, it wasn't. We lost our way."

"We? Do you really think everyone who followed Voldemort did it your enlightened reasons?"

"That was what the Knights of Walpurgis were about! Preserving the natural world from the baneful influence of muggles!" Bellatrix raged, a fist clenching and unclenching.

"Maybe that's what Voldemort told you, but it was always about his personal power. And you're smart, at some point you realised that. Why did you stay?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"Because," Hermione laughed, and was mildly shocked that she was actually saying this, that she was actually believing this, "for Tonks' sake, I am trying to find some reason to not report you, Bellatrix. But I do want something from you." There was a gnawing sense of guilt that she was really asking about this. What about Neville?

Lie. Get it done. Get out. Betray her later. She doesn't deserve your confidence. It's not a crime to make a false deal with a terrorist.

"Go on."

"You created the scar, can you remove it?"

Now a discomfiting grin came to Bellatrix, and she looked into the fresh goblet, crisp and short but ruby red nails brushing along the sides, looking down at the gently shaking surface of the bloodwine. I wonder why she keeps her nails short… Hermione distracted herself, from the feeling that Bellatrix was playing with her.

"You won't tell? How charitable of you. You want me to undo my handywork?"

"Why should I be at peace with you, if you don't give me cause to be?" Hermione countered. "Would you rather we duel?"

Bellatrix's eyes narrowed. "No."

For whatever reason, that was right out, and Hermione wondered if Valentina had been truthful when describing magic for a witch who was also a vampire. Perhaps. But she was definitely also a threat, and Hermione decided she shouldn't simply blithely assume that she could take the legendary duellist. Still…

"Then, an oath on wands. You'll do your utmost to heal the scar on my arm. I will swear not to report you, until I have first spoken to both Andromeda and Narcissa."

"That's it? That's it!?"

"If you're not going to fight me," Hermione answered, a smirk revealing her own growing confidence, "then I'd say you simply have no alternative."

"She is no officer of the law, but merely a Civil Servant of the Ministry," Tonks noted, leaning on the wall. "Neither mother nor Aunt Narcissa would be under any obligation to obey her, if she went to talk to them, Bella. If it was to tell us to flee, either one of them could make arrangements to come through Floo and international Portkey via Moscow."

Just a while before, Hermione had been thinking about she would have loved the opportunity to try and rehabilitate Bellatrix Lestrange. Now, the opportunity had been impossibly thrust into her lap. Of course, her vision of rehabilitation had been Azkaban, St. Mungo's. Not the challenge of trying to get to the bottom of the mind of a powerful and very free vampire Lady, in an unrecognised country, where there was no law enforcement to protect her from violence.

Actually, isn't that exactly the challenge you want?

Bellatrix, with a sigh, nodded to Tonks' words. Hermione grinned, and presented her wand. "I'll be back tomorrow, then."

"So you will," Bellatrix answered as if acknowledging the inevitable, and prepared to swear the oath. "One thing, though. It's Bellatrix Black now. And so shall it forever remain."

It was wild and mad and crazy, and when Hermione finally got back to her hotel room, she stared up at the ceiling, listening to the air conditioning run until it was much too cold, and she pulled the comforter over; staring up at the ceiling, and wondering what madness had overtaken her, that she'd just sworn an oath on wands, with Bellatrix Black. Another part of her was giddy, for it seemed in the end, she had had the power over the woman who had burned the scar, burned the slur into her arm.

She rather liked that feeling. When she finally slept, on a vampire's schedule, she had no nightmares about that evening in the Malfoy Manor. She was playing a most dangerous game, but for the moment, Hermione felt like it was on her terms. It was a strange thing, staring up at the water-stains on the ceiling of the hotel.

She didn't want to bring in help. She wanted to deal with Bellatrix herself. Bringing in help was admitting that Bellatrix had her, that Bellatrix could control her, that Bellatrix could make her afraid, that she wasn't strong enough to master this woman herself. Facing the vampire down, facing Bellatrix down on her own—dealing with this situation herself.

That.

Meant.

Bellatrix.

Had.

No.

Power.

Over.

Her.

And so even as the practical dentist's daughter part of her gibbered at how wildly dangerous it was, the Gryffindor in her soul insisted they'd make the attempt. Hermione would deal with the situation herself, and finally, put that feeling of helplessness to bed.

Only an hour after dawn, with a spare pillow-case wrapped over her eyes, did she finally sleep, full of all those conflicted emotions, but for better or worse, absolutely determined.