Hogwarts
In the gathering gloom, the two women looked across the length of the viaduct, hanging in the air over the veritable canyon separating them from Hogwarts castle proper. It would be impressive and difficult to assault in any condition. Knowing that it was rigged with magical charges, and defended by supporters of the Dark Lord, rendered it an immediate and lethal risk to approach. Bellatrix looked from the former Gryffindor house ghost to Hermione, and Hermione reflexively swallowed, and smiled tightly. "You remember what happened to the covered bridge, don't you?"
"I do," Bella acknowledged.
"So, Nick, what's the ingredients?" Hermione flipped out her note-pad and grabbed a pen from one of the pockets of her fatigues, quickly taking down the list. … And one item quickly caught her eye. "Erumpent Horn. Bellatrix, can you reverse the tracing spell?"
"Yes," the older witch leaned closer. "So, we find where they are. How do we get close enough to do anything about them, then? That concoction… Should be stable until it's magically detonated. But there may be wards to magically detonate them, anti-tampering wards where they're placed."
"They're almost certainly placed along the sides of the bridge. Flying?" Hermione suggested. "Of course, we haven't any brooms… We could seize them from the population of Hogsmeade, though." Hermione felt a particular coldness coming over her. She had, over the course of this war, slowly felt her sense of propriety slipping away, and now, having just liberated the contents of an Ollivander's for the sake of the war effort, she was having difficulty justifying not going ahead and also just seizing property. They needed to win, they needed to take Hogwarts without collateral damage.
"No need," Bella murmured. She looked around for a moment, and then dropped down to the ground, and began to hum out in Cumbric: "Epidii, swift wind, carry my message far to the magic I have touched," she directed, and completed her spell with the tip of her wand just lightly brushing the ground, a skilled feat to avoid burying it, or missing entirely.
For a moment, the whole ground around them softly glowed, and then there was a distant rattling, from the direction of the Quidditch pitch. Hermione looked down at Bellatrix, who remained kneeling. "That was magic by divine invocation."
"Yes, it was, pet," Bella answered, smirking, in Cumbric. "Well spotted." Always with the sarcasm…
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Bella, come on, you know that nobody does that anymore…"
"Except Larissa, in calling down the path to Ararat, and dedicating herself to Haldi. Dumblefuck's collection of morons would never teach these things, but before Christendom, before the statute… Don't you understand that the written history of that world has been hopelessly sanitised, of our historical world? The myths are real, all of them. The Gods are real, and yes, they are weak, but here in the Highlands," she grinned, "a witch of my old family blood, whose ancestors worshipped before their altars at the High Days for a thousand generations, can certainly call down a few surprises."
There was an eerie black green glow in the air as Bellatrix rose, and abruptly, deposited around her—Hermione had to throw up a weak shield to avoiding being hit by a few—a great mass of training and racing brooms from the lockers by the Quidditch Pitch came toppling down around her. Most of them were the old loaners. "What the hell? That was black magic." Of course, it had also just solved their flying problem.
"It certainly was," Bellatrix grinned. "Enchanted brooms are magically empowered artefacts. A Dark witch can imprint her own magic on magic she has wrought, for her own future use."
Hermione felt herself go cold. If you can manipulate the magic of an enchanted broom from afar, because you manipulated its magic in the past, could you use dark magic to control me?
Her expression must have been much too blatant to hide. She was looking at Bellatrix, Bella was looking at her. An absolutely pained expression dripped across Bella's face, with her eyes going wide and frantic. "No… no…" she mouthed, whispering. "Never."
The younger witch drew in a breath, forced herself to keep calm. She looked at the real fear, the real shame in Bella's face. In her love's face. The woman she'd already agreed to have a relationship with, to be the mother of her daughter, to…
"Please don't leave me," Bella whispered with a bit lip, and it very nearly made Hermione cry to hear. "I promise you, I…"
"Bella, could you manipulate me with the scar?"
Bellatrix closed her eyes. Nodded, jerkily. "I could. The principles behind the dark magic which lets me summon a magical artefact I've interacted with are like the principles behind…"
"The Dark Mark," Hermione murmured in horror.
"Yes." Bellatrix shook her head in the affirmative in a single convulsive gesture, and then turned away. "Yes. Like the Dark Mark. You don't think I would have let myself be branded without properly understanding the power going into it? Just as someone with the Dark Mark can resist its compulsions, you could resist me if I called you like that. You're not a broom Hermione, you're a woman, a witch. One of the most powerful witches alive. You are not suborned and subjected to my magical whims."
"But you can assert your power over me through the scar."
"Yes, I could."
Trembling, Hermione shot a brief look toward Hogwarts, memories flashing through her. "Then why didn't you during the final battle at Hogwarts? You could have tried to take me out of the fight."
Bellatrix turned and smiled wryly, darkly, sheepishly. "I wanted to beat the 'little mudblood' fairly, Hermione. What kind of pureblood Dark Witch would I be if I needed to use such a mark, put into you in your moment of weakness, to bring you down?"
"You have a twisted sense of honour, but I suppose it was wrong of me to have ever assumed that you had none at all," she was shaking her head, wondering how they had gotten to this point. She was cold, she was chilled to the bone, but… "Bellatrix, should I cut my arm off too? When this is done? Just so I can be sure that there's no compulsion between the two of us? For the sake of my own sanity, a quick blow, just like with you, the replacement could be ready in minutes. Let no inequality come between us, Bellatrix. I'll be your wife, but only as your equal. If you can use the scar to control me, then I ask, for the sake of our love, take my arm."
Bellatrix was crying, damn it all, standing alone on a grassy knoll near the viaduct, with the brooms around them. The other wizards and witches were in position, eating Spetsnaz rations. They were, mercifully, being ignored. They needed it.
Bellatrix dropped to her knees in front of Hermione.
To spare Bella the shame of anyone seeing that, she quickly brought a concealment charm into being around them. "You're not going to talk me out of it, Bella," Hermione said, weakly, but confidently too. She was afraid of the prospect of cutting her arm off, but it seemed like the only true course—Cut the Gordion Knot, slice the baby in two, there was no way to be sure she was really in love except to cut her arm off, right? But the truth and freedom mattered to her so passionately that Hermione had to know for sure, and if that meant half of her left arm or even all of it, then so be it, she wanted to be sure.
And Bella was on her knees in front of her, crying. "I don't want to see you ruined like I myself am ruined, Hermione. Gods damn it, damn it all. What have I done to you? What I have done to deserve you?"
"Existed, apparently," Hermione answered with a smile through the tears that she, too, was now crying.
"Existed, apparently, she says," Bellatrix muttered. "That's where we are. Existing. Hah. Hah! Alright, please, whatever, Gods have mercy, Hermione, this is not your's to bear. I just don't want you to hurt yourself and… Give me a chance to remove it, Hermione? This should be my burden to bear alone. Please give me a chance to remove it?" On her knees, her hands on Hermione's hips, sobbing, like Bellatrix had never really sobbed before, her body, her smaller body, shaking in front of Hermione, from the black gloves on her hands down to the olive uniform skirt which draped around her black boots, the unbuttoned coat splayed wide around her, in imitation of robes—there, sobbing, in abject shame.
"If … There would be …" Hermione closed her eyes. No, she didn't want to cut her arm off. Was Bellatrix really influencing her? Wasn't this proof that she wasn't? She was a ruined mess in front of Hermione, absolutely miserable at the prospect, absolutely ashamed. Didn't it matter, and didn't love involve trust? Hermione reached down—and hauled Bella to her feet. Kissed her.
Those lips, cool in the spring night's air of the Scottish Highlands. Plump, soft, everything she could want. Embraced her close, two warm bodies in the cool night. Their lips parted for a moment, and tongues brushed together. Bella's eyes, somewhere between dark and grey, expressive despite the black-and-white shades of colour, widened. Her tongue thrust, like she couldn't believe it was real again, and Hermione caught it a bit in her teeth, her own eyes alight, playing for a moment, before their lips parted. "Alright," she whispered. "If you can find a way to remove it before we're married, then, I won't have it cut off. But, I don't want to be married to you, unless I am your equal. That also includes kneeling to me, Bella. There's never a need to do that."
Bellatrix sniffed, and laughed softly, composing herself enough to reach up and wipe off her tears. "Alright, then. I'll… I'll find a way. It may even be on the other side of the viaduct."
"It might be," Hermione agreed. It was certainly a copious library, by any measure. "Let's make sure we capture it intact, then. The troops should have finished with dinner by now. We'll get a list of those used to riding brooms, and prepare to get them out. You'll organise the use of concealment charms with the others?"
"Certainly."
"Alright. Then I'll defuse the charges myself." Funny how that muggle word clearly conveyed the intend, even though it would be magical ward-breaking. Funny, too, that Bellatrix had already changed so much in these years of war that the pureblood actually knew exactly what she meant by it, as well. Hermione rather liked that.
"Maybe going back to school is worth it after all," Bella managed a grin at least. She reached up, brushed a gloved hand across Hermione's cheek so very lightly—an erotic shiver shot down the younger woman's spine, remembering all the places that leather gloves on Bella's hands had been—and then she turned away, and fully composed again, began to bark orders. It was good and dark, there was no point in waiting, it was time to take Hogwarts.
Hermione had never been a good broom-rider. Bellatrix, conversely, had been a Chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch Team. Yet, it was Hermione who ended up advancing along the bridge, while Bellatrix directed the operation from the opposite side, thanks to the reality of being in command of the affair.
So Hermione clutched to her broom, feeling the distinctly dark magic floating around her (that was, admittedly, another reason for Bellatrix to have stayed behind, as did most of the Koldovstoretsy who had graduated from the Black Court—the best concealment magics were usually dark) as she worked to break the triggering wards around this charge.
If they succeeded in getting them all without being detected—presumably, even Umbridge was smart enough to trigger the remainder if they were detected—then it would be a simple rush-capture of the viaduct. If they didn't… Well, the detonations if any of the wards were unsuccessfully broken would not only alert Umbridge and her defenders, but also probably kill those who were out on their brooms trying to disarm the others, Hermione herself included.
Fun. Her knees stayed very firmly against the old broom—and it was old, considering it was something that Bellatrix had touched with her magic, one of the beaten up old training brooms that had been there forever—and she delicately worked with her wand. Each sequence had to be perfect, and correctly ordered to the response of the wards. Breaking through them was no easy challenge.
In fact, it was far more dangerous than either of them had really thought about before beginning this course of action, but in retrospect, that was to be expected. Danger had become like an old friend to them all. They had gotten inured to it. The girl who had once been afraid of breaking school rules now floated a hundred metres in the air next to a magical explosive ready to collapse tonnes of rock onto her, that was protected by detonating wards that she was now systematically picking through by careful experimentation and direction.
And she was more worried about her relationship than about the job in front of her, even if she didn't—couldn't-dare let her thoughts stray. Not even in the slightest…
...A bit harder to keep that true than she really liked.
Then the last of the wards dropped away, and she reached up, plucked the charge, and dropped it, letting it flutter away, down into the valley below. They were almost down, and it would not take much more effort for them to successfully clear the bridge for the attack. Who knew what they'd find on the other side, but find it, they would…
The luck ran out for one of the other curse-breakers. The next column down, the last column, just as Hermione was swinging it toward it. One second, she was musing, while she whispered along on her broom, trying to avoid detection. The next second, the magical charges blasted directly in front of her with an enormous concussive effect of blue and green energy.
She whipped her wand into a Protego that saved her life—for the moment. The concussive blast wave in the air blanked her—she felt herself black out—and opened her mouth to screen. "BELL-" before lost to darkness, she spun off the broom, falling into the chasm below.
All so simple. All so sudden.
Bellatrix was exchanging words with Luna, standing on the knoll, her emotions recovered. Well, not really recovered, but patched together enough that she was perfectly focused on the battle, with maybe a little bit of distraction daydreaming about what she would do to Umbridge when she got a-hold of the moronic pink bitch.
Then the charges detonated on the last of the columns. It dropped only two spans of the viaduct, those two which were the furthest from them. They dropped heavy and slow with a terrible roar, the flash of light showing the witches and wizards on brooms, shattered and smashed away by the hammer of the concussive shock in the air.
For only a split second, Bella froze. Then she spun away from Luna, grabbed one of the remaining brooms she had summoned, and leapt on it. Bellatrix had fought in the air on brooms several times, she had learned how to enchant them for the Russian version of the sport, simply as a hobby and a curiosity. She had once, before her arranged marriage, been a Chaser, sure. Sure with her commands, she flung herself out across the chasm instantly. Hermione…!
This was a situation which required split-second thoughts. It required decisiveness, the kind which admitted no hesitation. You either executed what you intended, you sought to obtain your objective, without any maudlin sentimentalism at all. You put everything together and you did it, as plain as day. Or you let everything be wasted.
You let your lover die.
Bellatrix shoved the broom down, gaining speed, in a powered dive, it would outrace someone accelerating under the influence of gravity, without difficulty. How do I find her before she hits the ground?
Perhaps it was the fact that they had just been discussing it that it was so close to mind. She had just sworn she would never use the scar to control Hermione. She had just said she had never influenced it with her magic. That was true, at the time she'd said as much to Hermione. But before even the survival of their relationship, came her girlfriend's life. So within an hour of making those promises, and with no time for hesitation—and Bellatrix was decisive enough to admit no such hesitation, to act as was needful, and damn the consequences—she reached out through the bond, and used a creation of dark magic and a scar carved in hate to find her, to locate exactly where Hermione was as she fell in the darkness through the air, and with the grace of her Quidditch days, pluck her out of the air, and cast an Arresto Momentum to slow the both of them to a halt, while a Protego followed as they reached the ground, to fend off still falling chunks of rubble.
Bellatrix dropped to her knees atop her unconscious girlfriend, then. She breathed sharp and hard, again, and again, as the adrenaline began to fade, and her thoughts processed with horror the fact that she had just done exactly what she had promised not to, and used the link between them. She had been all prepared to show her responsibility and her convince Hermione that it was nothing—that it would never be acted upon. But her love's life came first.
As the full weight of what she had just done hit her, she leaned over as far as she could to be sick. Vomiting in the grass felt like only the beginning of that weight, but in fact, Hermione was unconscious and needed medical care, and the fear of losing her ascended like a vice around her heart. A minute later, Bella dragged herself up, and secured Hermione to her with a few quick rope spells, so they could ride a heavily laden broom together, back to the knoll, while there, Luna had already taken stock of the situation, and sent a team forward along the bridge, while others went to recover the wounded, and shields and Bombarda casts were flung back and forth across the gap.
Bella handed Hermione off to a mediwitch, shaking, pale, trying to take stock of the situation. She had no time to fully process what she had just done, she needed to get control over the battle, and find a way to storm Hogwarts despite the gap in the bridge. It wasn't the entire bridge, it was an approach problem, and… She started to issue orders, getting her teams forward across the bridge, while flipping her own spells across the gap, now with explosions echoing against the warded walls of Hogwarts, dislodged stone and damaged crenallations sometimes crumbling down.
There was a strange horror in it all. She wanted to be at Hermione's side. Everything had happened in minutes—it was only minutes ago that Hermione was fine—and she wanted to know how she was doing. She wanted to help heal her lover.
Instead, she was leading an effort to storm the gap, against all hazards. They were in main battle, just as she had been at her Lord's side when they had taken Hogwarts, and now, she fought to take it back. Turncoat, turncoat, you fucking turncoat.
Then there was a commotion off to the left. It was Luna, returning with several of the MinKol wizards. They were arriving – on trees that they had felled, and enchanted to float. Bellatrix looked from the trees to the gap in the bridge, and flashed a quick hand sign to Luna, which she signed back in the affirmative. They swung out toward the bridge.
"Come on!" Bellatrix pitched her voice with a quick wandless charm—the limits of her power—while raising her wand in the air and casting Lumos, a light to rally to, to make her a target—and charging to the viaduct. "Forward, forward!"
It was a blinding flash of intensity. Everyone was rushing. Shields being cast, spells being flung, explosions detonating off the flanks of the bridge. Rippling booms through the air, lights flashing, spells slung, fires exploding on the deck of the bridge as they tried to reach Luna and her trees.
Men were falling and dying, and Goblins, advancing and then forming up on the sides of the bridge, firing at the enemy, were being caught by curses and killed or blown from the viaduct as their enchanted muskets were blasting back, blowing holes in the outer-courtyard walls of Hogwarts, burying or freezing defending wizards. The assault was in chaos, it was fucked, completely fucked, from the moment the bridge had been blown.
And then Bellatrix was standing there, in the middle of the bridge, snapping her wand to knock aside incoming curses. "Come with me!" She screamed, her voice tearing through the cold night's air as the wind blew through the heights above the valley below. "Come with me, and take this castle!"
Luna dropped the first of the trees into place across the gap, bouncing and flexing and settling as a temporary bridge. Then another, another, another… Bellatrix rushed forward, stumbling, grabbing onto the branches poking out and working her way around them, as her spells tore through the enemies now trying to stop them, alternating between wicked hits of the like of Sectumsempra and shields which served to keep the trees from being set on fire by the increasing desperately efforts of the defenders.
The blonde Ravenclaw soon had the black witch at her side, on the other side of the gap, with a tight knot of Koldovstoretsy around them. They flung waves of power into the enemy, while rushing behind them came more wizards and a platoon of Goblins, forming up. The order to fire in Gobbledegook echoed out, and the first sharp volley blasted through the ragged form of the defenders, their shields already overwhelmed by spells
Human and Goblin side by side, they rushed the last distance, into the courtyard of the castle, through rubble and smoke and flame and ice. Bellatrix dashed at their head, and she came up short.
It was a small band of Slytherin students, under their house banner. There was Umbridge, in her noxious pink, her hands raised in surrender. There were the terrified students, the wounded students, the dead students, as young as the age of thirteen—third year students. Third year students.
Bellatrix screamed in rage and frustration.
"I SURRENDER!" Umbridge wailed.
"Gods but I don't fucking know why you bother to!" Bellatrix exclaimed. Fine, let Cissy deal with her. But this better be good.
Trembling with rage, intensity, hunger, uncertainty, fear, shame, adrenaline, Bellatrix stood there, hand on her wand, looking around the school. Finally, tearing her eyes away, coat and hair alike flapping in the wind, she looked to Luna. "Get Hermione inside. There will be more potions in the Hospital Wing. I'll lead the sweep of the castle. Personally."
