I am black. I am a hundred percent African and Ghanaian to be exact and I am happy that I am black. I say this because over the last few months, black people in the United States still face what their ancestors faced on the plantations to Jim Crow days and it is now televised murder which saddens my heart. From George Floyd to Breonna Taylor.
Why?
Why do their killers walk free and the authorities of the "land of the free" cracks down on its citizens protesting the injustice like they are insurgent groups
I have not uploaded any chapters because I was in my own way standing with the BLM movement. Then Nancy Pelosi and some other senators bent the knee with our Ghanaian Kente cloth around their shoulders to show that racism is disgusting. Then LeBron James and the NBA took a stand to show their disgust for the injustice. Then Chadwick Boseman died and he was such an icon that revolutionized lead black roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that unified actors of all races and Osaka wrapped our Ghanaian Kente cloth around her head and then someone sent me a private message on my Fanfiction account from America that my stories help her get through shitty days so I should post a new chapter.
Her message as well as the other moments of black solidarity highlighted above as well as those I could not mention warmed my heart and I see that if from across the Atlantic, someone with a different skin colour benefits from what I do, I must keep doing it to make her life a tad better. Racism is not only disgusting but it is outmoded and has no place in a modern society where people are able to attain higher levels of learning. I will not attempt to give lecture on racism because the message is gradually becoming as old as time itself but if you read this, love your neighbour not because of the colour of his skin but because his tongue tastes salt and pepper and he sweats and bleeds as you do.
CHAPTER 35
BREAD, LINE AND IRISH
Daphne Greengrass had spent three months on the run ever since her escape from the clutches of Voldemort. Harry Potter was on a personal hunt for her together with the entire wizarding world and now the hunt for the Ice Queen was now intensified because a billion Galleons had been offered to anyone who could bring her alive. Hunters and Snatchers from all over the world were looking for wherever the Greengrass heiress was and were killing and maiming for this crusade but wherever she was hiding, she was really hiding for she could not be found. She had just disappeared into thin air one dreadful morning with the most dangerous class of witches and wizards around her.
It started slowly at first but within weeks, Daphne Greengrass was almost a cult figure. People talked about her from different perspectives and her pictures and other works of art were painted on the streets, statutes and a few Death Eater outposts. The magical community of Britain had been informed by Lee Jordan's newspaper that, she had double crossed Voldemort by saving the life of a family living in her house when they refused to bow to him. The Daily Prophet run by the Death Eaters tried to control the narrative by reporting that she was a traitor to the new regime.
The Lestrange brothers wasted no time in arresting Astoria to torture her in order to extract her sister's location. She was currently in magical shackles and strapped to a burning chair underneath Hogwarts. Her throat was dry and sore from screaming and thirst and all she could think of was killing her torturers. She heard muffled footsteps approaching and she threw her head down, feigning sleep.
"She knows nothing," Rodolphus said quietly when her cell door opened. She could feel them by her side and she sat there in silent anguish.
"Yes brother. Perhaps the talk of her being estranged from her sister is accurate. We have wasted weeks of good torturing exercise on some worthless child!" Rabastan hissed and cast a hex at Astoria which cut the back of her neck open but she sat still and did not flinch. She did not hiss in pain or clench her fist to suppress the agony. She just sat there with her head bowed and endured as she remembered what the person responsible for her torture had taught her.
"When they get you and they will, play dead when they return from a break. They like to talk and are always likely to let things slip. Vital information in a form of updates on certain situations and all that bloody secrets are likely to be uttered. Play dead and live when you get the chance to do so. When you face them on their return to show they could not break you, you acquire nothing," Daphne's voice echoed in her mind as she sat there.
"She will bleed to death. We cannot afford to get on Narcissa's bad side," Rodolphus advised and sealed the gash with a spell. "She can't feel the blood leaving her body but she's alive."
"No sign of Tracey Davies yet?" Rodolphus shook his head and sighed.
"We should find time and go to the Crouch estate," Rabastan spoke after walking about for a while. Astoria smirked underneath the hair covering her face and knew something juicy was cooking.
"Fucking Bellatrix," Rodolphus muttered and spat on the floor in disgust. "We should brother. Just the two of us and her. Finish her for good but not before I rape the shit out of her!" he hissed in passion.
"You can do what you want with her but not until we get a positive read on the Greengrass bitch. The Dark Lord needs results," his brother stated and Astoria heard him walk away from her before stopping.
"Wake that foolish girl up and let her go. She has served her purpose and proven she is not a traitor. The Dark Lord will hear of her loyalty," he instructed before walking away.
"Got you motherfucker," she muttered silently.
HACKNEY, LONDON
Harry James Potter and his two able bodied elves had done what the global wizarding bounty hunting community could not do. They had with the help of Harry's cousin Dudley (now a security analyst) tracked Tracey Davies from an old street camera in the Hackney area.
It was a difficult task finding her for she was acquainted with Muggle devices and did her best to avoid them by causing mists to rise when she saw a camera. She did it with caution so as not to raise suspicion for Muggles were a curious class of humans and one thing she could not afford was a conspiracy theorist ranting that magic was real. She was therefore meticulous in her evasion but Dudley was no stranger to magic and Harry had good instincts like the Seeker he was and so after weeks of watching foggy camera videos, an old camera under a street light that looked broken recorded Tracey stepping out from a mist and entering an apartment building in a highly populated Muggle street.
The elves had wasted no time in apparating away with Harry who had no time to thank an exhausted Dudley and after placing an Imperius charm on a family that lived in a flat across Tracey's new hideout to go on a holiday, the three of them took turns monitoring the apartment. From their observation, they all came to the conclusion that two people were living in the apartment of interest. They all prepared to break into the house and the moment had come.
It was a cold and dark night when they appeared in the middle of the street. It was half past ten but some Muggle homes were still active and the sight of a tall man in a long coat and two smallish things was something worth calling the police to investigate. Kreacher and Dobby hid behind a car and with a snap of their bony fingers extinguished all the lights from the streets, leaving them in total darkness. They all walked towards Tracey's door and paused in front of it when Harry gave them a sign to halt. He drew his wand from his pocket and waved it over the door and chuckled as death dealing wards appeared in front of them. Kreacher made short work of it and when Harry touched the door knob with the tip of his wand, the locks clicked and the door swung opened silently welcoming them in.
They knew where they were going and wasted no time and moved up the stairs like a Muggle tactical team sent to kill a high profile target. They apparated into a vast bedroom and the moonlight showed them two people huddled together in bed. Harry scowled in disgust and drew his wand when he had walked over to them. A floorboard creaked and Tracey snapped her eyes open and fired a spell at the direction of the noise but Dobby deflected it and countered with a jinx. She hit the bed with her palms and the sheets tangled her roommate preventing movement and she herself threw another set of sheets in the air and in the flurry of sheets started to fly about the room, attacking the intruders and looking for a way out. Kreacher sealed the windows to her dismay and banished the elves across the room and made for the door.
"Man the bloody bed!" Harry roared at them and in a flash they jinxed the bed preventing the second person from joining the duel and they watched as Harry grabbed a chair and leaped into the air with it like he was kicking off from the ground at the start of a Quidditch match. It happened within a matter of seconds. Tracey was running for the door, Harry was in the air and seemed to be coming down on top of her in his chair, he tripped her up with jinx and she fell on her back to the floor and watched with dread as her attacker landed on top of her with a hand on the chair with her body trapped underneath it. Harry was sitting on top of her and let out a deep breath and took off his glasses to rub his eyes.
"Lights." Dobby restored the lights in the room and there was a look of surprise on his face.
"You are not Daphne," he said and turned to look at the bed. The elves released the sheets from the body and stared in surprise at their hostage.
"Master Longbottom sir," Kreacher announced.
CROUCH FAMILY ESTATE
Bellatrix had no clock or calendar about her and so to count the days by, she used the blood from her cuts and bruises to count away the days on the walls of her prison. Her ribs were aching from the battering she received some nights before and she could not feel her left legs but funnily, she could move them. Healing spells were not working because of the wards around the estate which she had managed to disable just a small portion which was enough to cast a particular spell upon maximum concentration and as she groggily stood up to stretch her legs she could not feel, she looked at her blood calendar and realized that she had spent three months away from her family.
There was no sunlight. There was no moon light. All that existed was light which partially existed by the burning of torches. She felt the atmosphere grow cold and hissed at the six Dementors that left the cell of her fellow prisoner.
"No lunch for you boys on my end?" she called out. "That's right, toss off you fucking cunts!" she spat and walked to a corner of the cell and crouched low and sighed. The Dementors could not do much to her because it was trite knowledge that she was damaged beyond repair both mentally and emotionally. Time with Harry had changed her emotionally and during her long stint in Muggle prisons she managed to turn off those emotions of happiness and desire to live in hope of a brighter future in order to be ruthless. Then she came back to society and her emotions were changed again; laughter, happiness, benevolent passion and excitement.
When the Dementors came to kiss her, she replaced those emotions with hate and anger making her worthless to them. Bellatrix was so powerful and gifted with her ability to switch her emotions and bury her memories away from her mind. In effect Bellatrix Black was able to conserve some small amount of magic within her and cast a spell if she concentrated. Her experience from growing up around Death Eaters and torturing people had taught her that, the only way around a Dementor was to keep your sanity. No happy memories were required. It had to be hate or a resolve to kill someone. A Dementor's presence alone was enough to drain a person's magic away, no matter how fleeting they were within range, but sanity fueled by anger or dark emotions was a constant in the equation to survive.
A few people knew this and those that knew it but still died in Azkaban or left Azkaban as hollow shells of flesh and bone did not have enough dark emotions to survive, for there is a difference between dark emotions and petty anger or hatred.
"Bombarda or Reducto?" she contemplated as she stared at the wall. She settled on the Reducto hex and stretched her hand at the wall.
"Reducto!" she wheezed and winced in pain from her injury. Nothing happened and she held her head in discomfort.
"Reducto!"
The wall just stared boringly back at her without a single damage. She hissed in frustration and swore as she fell to the ground. After three tries, the wall was still as it was, undamaged by her constant attacks. She glared at the wall in anger and snarled at it like she was facing an enemy.
"Reducto!" she chanted and smirked when she heard a cracking sound. She crawled to the corner of the cell and after feeling about with her fingers for the extent of the crack, she drove her heel into the wall consistently and paused to regain her strength. She could not feel her legs. It was very strange to her as she lay on the floor to catch her breath. She could move her legs but there was no feeling in them and she was wondering what kind of spell her abusers had cast on her.
"Attack!" she hissed and repeated her act of driving her hell into the wall and after a strong blow a small part of the wall gave way and she moaned in delight as sunlight crept in a single ray through a hole the size of fairy's eye ball. She rolled over on her stomach and proceeded to attack the wall with her hands, chipping away at the wall with her fingers till the hole grew big enough for an animal as small as a mouse to pass through.
"Rats are wenderful creatures I tell ye," she muttered mimicking Hagrid the former Groundskeeper of Hogwarts. "They can bend their bones to get through cracks an' all tha'."
She laughed quietly and shut her eyes to regain composure.
"Fucking company Potter keeps," she muttered and pulled some lose strands of hair from her head and twisted them together skillfully till it was strong enough to make a line. She picked some stale piece of bread from the floor and tied her new line around the bread until it was secure, then she threw it through the hole.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word. Mama's gonna buy you a mocking birds," she sang softly as she covered the hole with the bits of stone like a jigsaw puzzle and licked up all the traces of her exercise from the floor before crawling to the corridor and spat it out.
"Oi Irish boy!" she called out.
"McDoogle? O'Leary? McFuckyou? O'Pussy?" she yelled and burst out laughing, her chilling cackle echoing throughout the lower portion of the estate.
"I am so silly," she said between laughs and wiped a tear from her eye.
"Oi!
"Fuck off yer twisted bitch," a deep croaky voice responded. Bellatrix heard him cough and it was followed by the tinkling of chains.
"He speaks," she replied and cackled again.
"The fuck do you want?"
"Well for starters what did you do? You must have done something to really piss the fuck out of Voldemort."
There was a soft chuckle followed by a grunt. "Well if ye must know I did something terrible to his plans for Ireland," he started.
"That fookin' basterd tried ter turn all the fae folk to his side. He would have won by now and when I heard it I went ter see their king and he made me swear ter do something."
"What was his problem? A good no always does the trick," Bellatrix replied in a bored tone and crossed her legs to listen attentively as she lay on the floor.
"Lines have been crossed this time mate. Voldemort does not play by the rules again. The fae never get involved in the wars of men and wizards. It is a rule as old as the hills mi darlin'."
Bellatrix purred at the compliment and moaned in delight. "You know how to charm a lady I must say," she replied and cackled again.
"Anyways", the prisoner carried on, "Voldemort killed a village of fae by contaminating their dust well with goblin and orc blood. Pressure was on the king to do something to save his people but the old rule could not be broken no matter the case, so I stole Ygraine's Grimoire so they could use it as a bargaining chip."
"Bloody hell. I have read something like that somewhere," Bellatrix spoke. "Until you bring the book they won't fight the war. Your offence is attributed to all mankind that is why you are being tortured to give it up. That sounds almost like – "she paused and sucked her teeth.
What is it? Ye were making an interesting deduction.
"I was about to say that almost sounds like someone I know but he's probably murdering people on my account, he and his friend. My little boys," she said dreamily.
"You were a Gryffindor were you not?"
"Aye. The Sorting Hat didn't put me there for no reason lass."
"This is all very exciting, how long have you been here for? Since we are house mates I should at least know my neighbours."
"I have been in this bloody hole since Harry Potter disappeared from the world. He went into hiding after the Battle of Hogwarts and I was captured abou' that time."
"Six years roughly… that isn't bad," she said nonchalantly. "I cannot say the same for the children out there. They actually depend on the fairies and their magic to sleep and dream well lest the ghouls and night monsters invade their sleep."
He grunted in response. "They will be fine."
"Where have yer been this while ago? I know that yer name is Bellatrix and everyone is afraid of yer."
"And what makes you think that I am who you say I am boy-o?"
"I know that mad laughter from anywhere. We heard it in the halls of Hogwarts for six years." Bellatrix chuckled and replied: "I was in prison myself. I did something very bad to Tom Riddle and I had to disappear. I recently came back to civilization and fine company. Now tell me something McPussy, how many people did you kill and who did you kill to infuriate the Lestrange boys? Their attacks on you seems personal than professional and I know them very well to tell when they are not being professional."
There was a soft deep laugh like the quaking of a whale's belly and then he spoke up. "When they got a read on me, I was at me mam's place. I portkeyed her ou' of her home and killed the entire thirty man team that came fer my hide. I found out that there was a woman amongst the dead that day the brothers had a sexual relationship with.
From where she sat Bellatrix smirked in appreciation because she knew what the brothers could do to their "sex gerbil" as they called it.
"I don't regret it. I actually don't. She was the last one left after I beheaded the werewolf. She came at your boy here with all kinds of spells but yer know, we Irish have some tricky spells and we are taught to box with our hands at a wee age. So when she disarmed me I used the werewolf's fookin' nogging as a shield and banished it at her then I stepped away from her line of fire, grabbed her hand when I was by her side and snapped it in half. Then I snapped her wand jammed one piece inside her eye, the other in her neck pulled them out and oh sweet Jesus the blood that flowed," he narrated with so much passion.
Bellatrix was slapping her palms on the floor in excitement as she listened to the gory details and could not help but wish she had been there to witness such a beautiful execution.
"You are such a bloodthirsty Irish warrior," she said softly. "Do your ancestors descend from Boudicca the Queen or maybe the Iceni?" she said in a sultry voice.
"Behave yourself lass. Don't tell me you are touching yer cunny," the prisoner chided her.
"You fucked up my mood Irish. A good gory battle makes me light headed but please continue with your tale," Bellatrix replied and rolled her eyes.
"So with that, she fell on her knees holding her neck and gasping for breath, then I put the pieces of the wand in her open mouth and snapped her neck with it, using the wand pieces to make the twist. I was so bloody angry that her head turned around when I snapped it. The blimey cunt died with her face looking back. Eventually I was caught on my way to Blackpool and the rest is history," he finished.
"Not bad. You got balls McFuckit. Not a lot of boys your age are squeamish proof."
"I am not a boy," he replied. Bellatrix cackled and shook her head. "I am an old soul Irish. You are a boy to me."
He sighed and responded, "Have it your way lass."
"So what has been going on outside?"
"Well Irish, a lot actually. There's something called the Death Games organized by Death Eaters and I was a proud participant of the recently held edition. Me and the best squad in the world. Harry Potter is readying himself to finish what he couldn't some years ago last I heard and the Order has done a good job all this while in fighting the Death Eater forces and there is a notable death as well". She finished and paused for him to process what she had rattled quickly.
"Who died?"
"Dumbledore is dead boy-o." She said flatly
"Blimey."
"Yep. Old Dumbles is gone. Down in the dark where the celery sleeps."
She heard him sigh and she spoke up.
"In the meantime I am waiting for my extraction team to get me out of this place. I cannot feel my legs."
"Toughen up lass. Nobody's coming to save you."
Bellatrix Black smirked and crawled on her belly back to her comfort zone.
"Just a little while," she muttered and put her head on the cold stone floor, thinking about the carnage she was going to cause once she was at large.
Please Review. Wear a mask. Stay alive. 2020 draws its curtains to a close soon.