The Plan of Falkirk
It was raining, because of course it was—it was April in Scotland. It was dark, because they'd only located the train hauling the Scottish Parliament west and forced it to halt at Falkirk. This Parliament, which had been elected under the auspices of an Act formed before Voldemort's Coup d'etat, but the elections themselves having been controlled by Voldemort's regime, had met in the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland on The Mound in Edinburgh until the very last hour. They had tried to flee west, but the generous terms of the truce and the abrupt cease-fire had caught them.
The Ministers had used automobiles, trying to stay on the back roads and avoid detection, but they, too, had been blocked by advanced guards. Narcissa did not bother with them; she cared only for the regular members. The station at Falkirk High was a little brick abomination epitomising all the worst of British Rail from the 60s; the MSPs were herded into buses under the watchful eye of the Black Guards, and then taken to Falkirk Trinity Church. The stone edifice would have to be sufficient for the meeting that would be held at it; it was not too undignified of a place.
About a hundred and twenty MSPs were brought in. Their aides milled around in confusion and fear, in the outbuildings, the car park, and the other rooms of the church. There were armed guards everywhere. It was growing late, and only at length after making several requests, did someone in the occupying Army allow a brew-up in the Church kitchen.
She was a Colonel in Russian uniform—but of clearly British origin. Hermione Granger. And, of course she was a witch. Hollow, lean face and shortish kinky hair. Wiry muscles. Sad eyes of a deliberate intellectual that had been washed out to a veteran's sharp stare.
2100 hrs. Colonel Granger stepped along the aisles, speaking quickly to a few of the guards. They came attention. The doors were opened.
Muggle business suit. Conservative. Like you would have worn to meet with the Queen before the War. Coat still on—one of the officers of the Guard takes it for her in a properly gentlemanly gesture. Gloves, those she kept.
Wand at her side.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, sharply patrician features. Taller than Colonel Granger by an inch or two. Hair perfectly coiffed, makeup perfectly done, clothes perfectly unruffled. Absolutely reserved. Absolutely controlled. Absolutely no hesitation. This is the woman whose military invasion of the British isles directed nuclear weapons against a mysterious and evil magical fortress—and in some alchemy of science and magic, raised a neolithic Atlantis back above the sea. She would be like a demigoddess returned to the British people, if she weren't here in pumps with a wristwatch while her troops were carrying AK-47s and tanks were in front of the church instead of knights on unicorns.
Colonel Granger made sure the Guards were at attention. Narcissa Malfoy, the Duchess of Lancaster, walked to the lectern of the church. Colonel Granger steps up to her side. They speak for a moment; Hermione hands Narcissa a cup of water, and it ends up in the lectern so deftly almost nobody notices it. The gloves come off.
Narcissa begins to speak. She's code-switching for this. She's an aristocrat and she can never escape it, but she intentionally lets her accent, the accent of the long-dead Cumbric, come through. It sounds more disarmingly Welsh—like a Welsh aristocrat instead of an English one. "Parliament of the Scots," she begins to address them. "I greet you on a day of general celebration: The Liberation of Scotland is at hand. Our troops even now move further to the south, with no significant resistance. When the physical liberation of Scotland is completed, the moral and spiritual liberation of the Scottish people will also be completed. This is no mere thing, but a breath of fresh air, the 'winds of change' which will allow people to speak their mind and participate in the civil life of their nation again after six years of terror, murder, lies, and repression."
"I come to you plainly with my hands open to work with you. But I will also be honest with you. The elections to this body were conducted by Voldemort's regime. The Scottish Parliament was implemented under a government under Voldemort's power. You cannot say that you hold a popular mandate. You very well know that you were used to perpetuate the system of power within the Morsmordre regime. The independence it granted you was a farce, with a Gauleiter in all but name exercising actual power over your country, which had less liberty despite its nominal independence than it did when it was ruled directly from London."
"I was given the power and authority to rule by decree throughout the British Islands, until a regular government could be restored. This power I would exercise with the utmost reluctance." She raised her hand to quell any immediate response. "You would rightly observe that I am a Witch, and therefore of the magical world which produced Voldemort and his regime. You would be correct. However, the magical world also has the sixteen hundred year history of the Wizengamot, which was formed as Roman rule in Britannia began to collapse, as a body with rights of free debate and deliberation, which even when answering to a King, never bowed from its prerogatives. Voldemort destroyed our culture of participatory and deliberative politics and governance with the wizarding world, as much as he attacked that of Scotland, the British Isles and the world generally. I am coming to you from the parliamentary tradition of the Wizengamot. I fought against Voldemort before he seized Britain, and lost my husband to him then, at a time when in our world he was absolutely triumphant. I fought against him in exile, too, and now I return in triumph, because the spirit of the British people resists the imposition of tyranny."
"I say British most broadly. You are Celts, and I am a Celt, too; I grew up in Yr Hen Ogled, The Old North, and the traditions of the wizarding-folk of these islands are the traditions not of Anglo-Saxon culture, but of a time when we were all the Brythoniaid, the Picts, the Gaels. The Anglo-Saxons came, and indeed, they changed all of us. They gave the wizarding world the modern name of our assembly. They gave a great swathe of our beloved native island a new tongue in which from convenience I speak to you. But they did not exterminate what made us British, they did not extinguish who we are as a people. In the end, the story of these islands cannot be unwoven. But I am not friend of the central power of London. I have seen, personally, the consequences of the central authority the Wizengamot held, when it was subverted. We all saw how Whitehall became the centre of Voldemort's power, after a single night of terror and horror, and the British government's own forms and systems were used to oppress its people. Therefore I do not come here to extinguish the Scottish nation, but to complete its revival. I will not end devolution: I will renegotiate it so that the land where Pictish blood still runs, will take her place as an equal partner in a League of British Nations."
She strategically took a drink of her water, having impressed some with the perfect composure from which she spoke, from memory, so alien to a modern politician. Then she continued, her voice perfectly poised within the strong vocals of the church, the lights on the stained glass banishing the gloom of the night. "Honourable Members, do not waste the opportunity to help me define the future of the British Nations. You are here, where you alone, had some measure of freedom under Voldemort's regime. This gives you the moral obligation to stand with me to realise the interests of Scotland's people. The Scottish nation will judge in history whether or not you were bravely ameliorating the oppression of tyranny, or but a 'Parcel of Rogues in a Nation', based in no small part on how you respond to my call of service today. I will be bringing forward a broad political plan for this League of British Nations. Your support before the Scottish people will allow us to make the first step toward fulfilling this mandate and reestablishing a government which will defend the liberties of our peoples, together, in our shared legacy."
"Understand, that first, there are shared matters of accountability for the crimes which occurred during Voldemort's regime. I am well aware that most of you had little choice. But, to begin this new era, as I said, your mandate must be based on the respect of the Scottish people for your position. Therefore, you must be willing to adopt standards which will bind you, and result in prosecutions if the subsequent investigations demonstrate that any member of this body violated those standards—the definition that we will hold, which separates collaboration of a necessary kind, from criminal conduct. With these standards in place, I will hold my hand out in friendship to you, and constitute this body as a provisional house to affirm the place of Scotland within the new constitutional order, trusting that the majority of your number are men and women of character who acted as necessary to ameliorate conditions for the Scottish nation. Let us face this challenge together, and boldly. We have not run out of history in these islands yet: Together we may still build their prosperous future."
After Narcissa's speech wrapped up, Hermione was able to step out, while Narcissa worked to personally help with housing the Scottish Parliament, a gesture intended to establish her goodwill toward them quickly and immediately. Hermione understood how the game was played. Once, she had wanted to be Minister of Magic, after all, but whether or not that role would even exist as such in the future, no-one could say at the moment.
Honestly, thinking about the future was optimistic. Voldemort was not dead, after all.
Instead, she made her way quietly through the rain to the parsonage. The lights shone brightly in the night. Because of the lack of opposition, mains power had not been disrupted, and the city of Falkirk still had electrical power. Most of the rest of her staff was there. She was handed a stack of briefings altogether much too high.
They had not attempted to enter Edinburgh or Glasgow yet, with the troops instead moving south and shifting around to hold the rail-lines and motorways between the two. Cut off communications, isolate, hold. They would control the distribution of food and enter the cities at will, but hopefully that Narcissa's efforts would quickly bear fruit and see both cities welcome the arrival of the troops.
The coast from Scarborough to Teesside was rough and high, and so had been less impacted by the magically altered bottom conditions throughout the entire North Sea. Landings using a combination of Russian Naval Infantry and Royal Marines from Zabini's fleet were therefore proposed, as well as a desant from a third VDV division (the Russian military only had enough airlift to conduct an aerial desant with one VDV division at a time, but two weeks was enough for the maintenance and regeneration cycle to have them prepared to deploy a different division). From there, they would cut through the North Yorkshire Moors boldly, taking advantage of the fact that at the moment the rugged terrain was undefended. From there, nothing would be in their way to keep them from reaching London and relieving the Goblins. It was a distance of 300km, without opposition it could be covered in two days.
With the surrender of the troops in Central Scotland, there were now only two divisions as serious opposition, one at Carlisle and one at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, hopelessly out of position with no real defensive line established. A third division could come over from Ireland, but Narcissa might yet prevent that from happening.
Jorge Diaz stepped up to her. "Here's something interesting for you, Colonel."
"Sir?" She took the telex printout. Then she saw it straightforwardly. It was a report of crowds of people in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds who were refusing orders by the Morsmordre Government authorities in those cities to disperse. Between the Allied Armies in Scotland, and the Goblin revolt in London, even magical means of suppressing the flow of information had failed. The people of Britain knew that the game was afoot. They were coming out into the streets. And blood will flow in rivers red before capitulation, Hermione thought, grimly. She knew that the men Voldemort had placed in the occupation Government would not hesitate to switch to live fire. Indeed, the fact that they already had not was a sign of just what level of collapse and paralysis the Morsmordre government of Britain was already in.
She looked up. In that moment, anything could happen in the near future. "General, what could we actually do with this information, Sir?"
"Radio broadcasts of instructions. Either to encourage them to fight, or to encourage them to not fight, to avoid the pointless effusion of blood," he answered. "Many people will have functional radios, we're close enough, we have transmission towers to block out enemy jamming and counter-transmission efforts."
"Actually, more than that, Bellatrix has a certain kind of magical talent…" She trailed off. That was terribly familiar in regard to your nominal commander.
"I've heard the rumours," Jorge acknowledged, then smiled faintly. "If you're going up to her room, you should bring the report to her. It is ultimately her decision. Or even her sister's. But she's busy with the politicians, and she gave General Black broad discretion over military matters."
If you're going up to her room. Hermione flushed. Damnit. He knows. "I… Yeah, I'll take it up right now." She tipped a salute to the Spaniard, and then headed up the stairs to the bedroom of the parsonage. The windows were filled with light from the bivouac of command vehicles parked around it; the parsonage was only the centrepiece of a corps headquarters, not the entire affair.
Hermione was shown through the guards with a nod and a salute, though there was a magical ward to alert against polyjuiced substitutes to those known and trusted; likely, there was a room reserved here for Narcissa, as well. She reached Bella's room, and knocked on the door. It had once been the Parson's. "Colonel Granger."
"Come in, 'Mione."
Hermione smiled in spite of herself, and with the documents tucked under her left arm, all proper and regulation, opened the door and stepped inside, quickly closing it behind her. "Bella."
Bellatrix had hung up her coat and jacket and even removed her corset; in a brassiere and a uniform skirt and stockings, with boots kicked off, curled up on the edge of the bed against the pillows—small, absolutely sultry, and absolutely in control of the situation as she tossed her hair back, and grinned knowingly when Hermione sucked in her breath. She held a goblet, and raised it cheerfully. "Communion wine."
"...Bella!?" It wasn't like Hermione was surprised Bellatrix was half naked in a parson's bed with her headquarters having seized a parsonage, while drinking communion wine, but...
Bellatrix waved her hand and briefly cackled. "You're still so easy to work up. Relax, it hadn't been consecrated yet. I'm not one to dare the power in rituals—without a good reason, at any rate. Wine or not, come, sit."
"What… were you doing?" Hermione asked as she walked up to the bed, and sat on it next to Bellatrix.
"Well, to go to bed, you generally have to take off part or all of your clothes," Bellatrix smirked, reaching for her wand and with a small motion, sending the papers over to her lap. "Hmm…"
"How, uh…"
"Hermione, you care about business first, always. You came in here for business, first," she grinned, and leaned up to Hermione, and stuck her wand through her masses of hair against her ear, as she flipped open the documents. "And you'd feel guilty if I fucked you before reading the dispatches."
Well. She's right. I'd feel guilty if she fucked me before reading the dispatches. "There's risings in the cities in the south. Mass protests," Hermione summarised.
"Hmm. Including Manchester," Bella said thoughtfully, reading through the reports quickly. "Now, that's interesting. What did you want my decision about?"
"It's simple, really. We can't get there in time to prevent a massacre, but we should be able to reach them via radio. We've captured some powerful transmitters intact and… You can boost them, if the enemy tries to jam them."
"I finesse electricity. Punching through a bunch of static," she sneered, "is a brutish task, better suited for a high-power transmitter than my magic. Hook it up to a nuclear reactor and take the safeties off. You'll burn through. Send a team to the Darvel transmitting station, and another to Selkirk, that will be sufficient. We've almost occupied both and the enemy is too disorganised to stop us now."
"You know the main masts in south-central Scotland?"
"Of course I do—radio is the only muggle invention I've ever cared about, you know that already."
It wasn't exactly true, but it was close enough in the circumstances, so Hermione let it go. She offered a smile. "Be that as it may, we need to get the signal out, but we also need to choose the signal, do we tell them to fight, or not?"
"What's your recommendation?" Bellatrix asked, strewing the papers away and going for more wine. "Are you suure you don't want a glass?"
"I might be leading a convoy to a radio mast in the next fifteen minutes, Bella."
"Just apparate."
"While drunk?"
"I do it… Sometimes."
Hermione sighed and shook her head and thought. It was not productive to her, but oh-so-very-Bellatrix, that they would end up with such banter leading directly into a decision which would possibly kill thousands of people, one way or another. But Hermione looked back, and thought. Once she would have shuddered at the prospect of asking those unarmed protesters to condemn themselves to death, to tyrannical impositions of torture by the work of magic and cruel humanity alike, massacre and blood in the streets. Save it for us. Save it for the soldiers who know the risk.
But these people wanted freedom. They were out in the streets protesting of their own volition. They had made that choice, now, as the regime around them creaked and floundered in chaos. And their efforts could in fact materially aide in the liberation of the rest of Britain.
Yes, really, she had to harden her heart, but the choice was clear. "We should tell them to resist with everything that they have. Unlike Warsaw in '44, or Budapest in '56 or Prague in '68, we're coming for them, as hard and fast as we can. And, what kind of message would we be sending to the Goblins, that we want to save the lives of humans, but not their lives. Aren't they rightfully British subjects too? Hasn't Narcissa as much committed to precisely that recognition for them?"
"Hmm… Goblins or muggles, Goblins or muggles…"
"Oh God, Bellatrix!"
Bella laughed. "You have the right of it, Hermione. There's barely anything more to say. I mean, really, it's obvious. The more who fight, the faster it's over, the less people die. They can disrupt the organisation of any kind of real line of defence. So we'll broadcast the message."
Hermione calmed, softly shaking her head. She just had to remember that Bellatrix was constitutionally incapable of taking anything seriously, including life and death itself, even her own, but certainly also that of other people. The bed creaked under her as she leaned and shifted to rest against the half-naked older witch. "I know you have an Army to command. But there's got to be some way for you to help broadcast it, if that's what we're to do. If they're going to die, it needs to be as big as possible, paralyse their response, demoralise the soldiers who face the people in the street, raise the masses by the million. Help them to overcome their fear. Can you pour that kind of influence into the broadcast? I saw you transmit Fiendfyre through radar pulses, Bellatrix. What about the essence of Felix Felicis through a short-wave broadcast?"
Bellatrix sat her glass down hastily, and closed her eyes. "I can't be in two places at once. And that's a potion. Though, sure, there's other charms that might … Matter."
"A central studio?"
"If there are direct analogue links, yes."
There was a knock on the door.
"...Yes?" Bellatrix looked up in barely disguised irritation.
Hermione looked to her and whispered softly: "Not happy with an interruption?"
"Hermione, by definition, is already in the room," Bellatrix answered, "so it can't be Hermione. Because I'm talking to Hermione right now. So, Hermione, anyone else is a bloody nuisance."
"Bella…" Narcissa breezed in, done having done the metaphorical equivalent of putting all of the MSPs to bed like a den mother at a summer camp. She stopped. "Hermione. I see I…"
"You interrupted nothing," Bella sighed and sank back on the bed. "Hermione and I were just discussing electrical magic, and emergency broadcasts. There's uprisings in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, and they're spreading."
"I got a copy of the wire as well," Narcissa nodded, and moved rather deliberately to one of the chairs. "What are we going to do?"
"Punch a magical broadcast through encouraging everyone to be brave. Possibly magically. Encouraging them to rise." Hermione looked steadily at Narcissa. "It's the right thing to do. It tells the Goblins in London we're fighting alongside of them. And if we generate a critical mass, we can cripple the country. It may save more lives than it costs."
Narcissa folded her legs and regarded the two with that look she gave Bellatrix, that look which, even though she was the baby sister, made it come off rather like she was looking at a delinquent younger sibling. "What about Ireland?"
"What about Ireland?" Bella bantered back. "It's there. So's Doggerland, now!"
"Stop being surly, I…"
"Oh shit," Hermione saw it clearly now. "The Ulstermen. They've got guns. But we don't want a resumption of sectarian violence in Ireland. It would be a disaster for the future, Narcissa, that you want…"
"Precisely. So if we tell the rest of Britain to rise, we have to make sure that Belfast and Derry don't turn into a warzone between the Orange Orders and the IRA. We'll need to send a team into what is still technically enemy territory."
And Narcissa was looking at Hermione when she said it.
