People's War

"I absolutely don't want her to go! That's deep into enemy territory and there's more than just Loyalists and the IRA there, that's for sure," Bellatrix exclaimed. "Surely we could find any number of potential negotiators?"

Narcissa rolled her eyes. "Bella, you're not the one who decides. That will be Hermione. And she very much wants a future career in politics, it's in her instincts and her talent. Well, I need a military officer who can also be a politician right now. And, she's British to the core, and far more rooted in modern British society than we are; she understands the sensitivities of nationalism in a way most wizards don't."

"It's not about her ability, it's about the risk of being alone in the territory of the enemy, dependent on the goodwill of others," Bella answered, but she didn't get further than that.

Hermione had already heard enough. She sighed and held up her hand. "I appreciate it, Bella. In fact, I don't want to leave you ever again." Rising up, she promptly planted a kiss on Bella's forehead. "But, Narcissa is absolutely right. I want to do this, and I have a reasonable grasp of the complexities in Northern Ireland. One of the reasons I treasure our relationship is because you've come to appreciate me as a talented witch, in a sincere way. Just like I convinced everyone… Before you defected, that it would be a good idea to support your changing sides, well, Bella, I want to have a chance to convince the forces in Northern Ireland to support Narcissa's policies. It's my contribution to this invasion, beyond just my wand." A level look to Bella, a smile. "I'll take care of myself. You do trust me, don't you?"

She could see the dry swallow in Bella's throat, but instead, Bella nodded once, sharply. "Of course I do. You survived when it should have been impossible. I want you alive, yet… What would I be, if I didn't trust you to do that yourself? Nothing at all."

"It's okay to doubt," a step forward, hands reaching out, folding Bella into a hug this time. "But I must ask for your respect when you do. You can't help the doubt. But you can choose to let me pursue my own course."

"And I do."

"Thank you, love. Thank you, thank you, thank you." Squeezing tightly to the other witch, pressing them together until buttons pushing into fabric hurt. The lights outside had dimmed, at least, and a spatter of rain was on the window of the parsonage. Hermione ignored it and focused on Bella's warmth that she engulfed with her arms.

"It's so hard to ever let anything go now. I don't want to be alone like I was in Azkaban, ever again, even if it kills me," Bella mumbled, and Hermione thought she might even be crying, as Narcissa politely turned away.

So, Hermione held her closer, instead. She pressed and held the older woman right up until the point where, leaning into her and hugging her closely, the two just toppled over on the bed. Above her, Hermione could hear Narcissa laugh softly.

"I'm going to leave the two of you here. Hermione, you'll need to leave with dawn. Two step apparation should get you there—I'll issue the necessary orders to start arranging things. Be practical, and be careful, but understand also that I'll be giving you plenipotentiary authority. Make whatever agreements you need to make to get control of the situation."

"Understood, Your Grace."

"Nonsense. Here, in private?" Narcissa looked to them, smiling. "It's Narcissa, always remember that. You make my sister smile, and shake with emotion, and cry, and speak longingly, all in ways I had given hope of ever seeing from her. You are part of the family, Hermione. There's no need for reserve between us in private."

"I… Thank you. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, I will try to find an appropriate and safe escort for you, you should not have to execute this mission completely alone." With that, Narcissa rose, and with a smile, and secretively bemused smile on her lips, stepped to the door, and then showed herself out of the room, leaving behind her Hermione, Bella, a bed, and communion wine that Hermione really hoped was, in fact, still unconsecrated.


The sickening wrench of disapparation and the equally sickening apparation back to reality were never something that Hermione would fully get used to. Instead, it was something she had learned to tolerate, dealing with the feeling inside of herself, churning her guts, that wanted to lay her flat but that she had learned first from Hogwarts and then from serving in MinKol to simply power through. It would never be comfortable.

For the first time in a very long time, she did not wear a uniform. She wore, instead, the robes of a British Witch. Properly this might have made her an illegal combatant, but they marked her as the robes of an Auror of the Ministry before Voldemort's reforms, for a thin fig-leaf. In fact, of course, the Morsmordre cared nothing for the laws of war and taken prisoner she would be in mortal danger no matter what. The gesture of wearing the robes was more important than any particular risk to her person, anyway. She needed to represent what was traditional for these islands, to represent Narcissa, at this point.

Ginny and Luna were with her. They were the ones who could be spared, and really in the circumstances, they were the best escorts that she could have. As her stomach settled out, she gave a nod to the other girls. Looking around, she could see in the darkness the Stena Line ferry terminal, essentially abandoned for the past week since the Army had begun to advance south from Inverness and air patrols threatened to sink any vessels making the crossing from Ireland to Scotland.

A man in robes stood in the middle of the abandoned food court, with an orange scarf tossed around his neck. "Hermione Granger?"

"Mister Styles?" She asked, invoking the name of her contact, who knew if it was real or not.

He stepped forward with a nod. "I have heard of you before, but I wasn't sure if you had survived before."

"Oh."

"Muggle-born exemplar and so on. And fellow Gryffindor." A small grin, and he turned, and cast a Patronus, not a full one, but a lively spark of white light that danced around and raced up, to speak in a disembodied voice. Shortly thereafter, a group of four men in sweatpants and jeans and trenchers, trying to be nondescript and taking advantage of the rain, moved in quickly.

They stopped, and looked to her. Being a member of a Loyal Order—or the IRA for that matter—was mostly a man's game in Northern Ireland. "Colonel Granger?" One of the men finally stepped forward, salt and pepper beard, lean and trim, though, with rationing, it was easy enough for anyone to be lean in even the British Isles these days…

But then, Hermione was no different. She stood up stiffly. "So named, Sir. You understand that I'm here on the behest of the Duchess of Lancaster?"

"I do," he acknowledged. "We have been in touch with her operatives from the beginning, you know, Colonel," he gestured toward 'Mister Styles'.

Of course they have. Narcissa uses every lever, and is ready for every eventuality. She would have primed the Loyal Orders to revolt, if made sense for them to do so. Now that it did not make sense for them to do so, she was having Hermione get them to back down. That was the way the game was played.

Hermione moved to sit at one of the tables, with its 1970s vintage multicoloured plastic bucket chairs on swivels. Good enough, though. Setting down her pack, she took out a Russian Army ration, and nodded to Ginny, who sat with her and did the same. Luna stepped a few feet away, to take up a watching position.

"Let's break bread and drink tea," Hermione offered cordially, gesturing to Mister Styles and the Loyalist men alike. "We've come to the point where a meeting like this can happen."

"We've come to the point where you're preparing to cross the English frontier," the salt-and-pepper man chuckled. "You've come to the point of altering the whole world with magic." He shook his head. "But if that's what it takes to defeat them, that's what it takes."

"We created, when they destroyed," Hermione answered with a thin but proud smile as the ration heaters went to work, and water was boiled, in the cavernous dark waiting room. "We are going home, now. You are aware of the risings in Birmingham, Manchester, and other cities in England?"

The men exchanged glances, salt-and-pepper shook his head in the negative. Hermione would not ask their names, it would be impolite in the circumstances. That Styles was one of Narcissa's agents and had magic to confirm their identities and presumably had grown up a muggle-born from a family connected to the Loyal Orders was sufficient. So far only salt-and-pepper had spoken, and Hermione assumed that was by mutual consensus. "No, we're not aware."

"There's mass risings in the Midlands," Hermione explained. "On top of the Goblin rebellion in London, all the Midland cities are rising. Right now, we're beginning to make broadcasts, calling on them to fight. I will be plain with you, I am here to ask you to not fight."

"And why not? If the Midlands are rising, we can have a rising in the city within the day. We can halt Belfast just as well as a lot of civvies and leftist rabble can bring down Birmingham!" One of the other men in the group exclaimed. He obviously felt, as a member of one of the Loyal Orders, that he was not a civilian. Fair enough.

Hermione leaned in close, small tin cup of tea now picked up in her hands. Her eyes glinted. "Mmmnn. But you'll tear Ulster apart in the fighting."

"And that can be avoided, how?" Mister salt-and-pepper asked, sharply. "Look, Colonel, you're a soldier and I don't doubt a veteran of active fighting, I can tell in your eyes well enough. We all know how bad it is on the Eastern Front. I get it. But we either stand for what's right and we liberate our people, or we're less than dogs. Why wouldn't you want us to fight for the freedom of Ulster?"

"...Because I think that if you hold off, we can secure the freedom of the entire Island of Ireland," Hermione leaned in. "If you move, you will lose your hoarded forces. You will also incite them.."

"They're traitors, let them be incited."

"...Into a savage resistance against the landing of British troops on this island," Hermione finished, her voice flat and harsh like flint. "Come on. Think it through. We absolutely are going to all hang if we're held responsible for this war. The entire world sees us as the equivalent of Nazi Germany. Ireland—collaborated. Scotland—collaborated. Wales—collaborated. But England? Yes, England collaborated, England is where all of this started, where the Morsmordre rose to power. The entire world calls that Britain. If we don't hang together, we'll surely hang separately. The Duchess Narcissa has a plan to restore fair and equitable central government. If we don't have it, I warn you, you will be under the power of the Irish government. If we can't hold the entire thing together, why would we choose Ulster over Scotland and Wales? The strategic situation would require contraction, and contraction to a single island makes the most sense. But Her Grace doesn't want that. She's a Celt herself, she absolutely does not want to see the disunion of these islands. Supporting her political plan is the only way to preserve Union in any form whatsoever."

Salt-and-pepper sank back.

"I need you to tell your units not to rise in response to the radio appeals we're unleashing now to conduct a rising. We couldn't muddy that message in the broadcasts, we absolutely need the Midlands in arms. But I need you to preserve your strength, Sir. We can do it. The British Army will land here soon, but it must be on terms. Her Grace has full plenipotentiary authority from the Crown. Let her negotiate with Dublin. If you don't, the reality is that the Wizards here in Ireland might well side with them in resisting us, and that would be a disaster. While they are not wedded to Catholicism and they are certainly not wedded to the Republic, they are generally speaking Gaelic in culture, language, and outlook. We want to negotiate and we want to present a united front to the world, for all of our sakes. I need your support for that. Look, the rules have permanently changed, in a world where witches like myself are worth a battalion of artillery or more, it doesn't make any bloody sense for the Government to be against the Loyal Orders. We're dangerous just by being born. So if you conform to the Government's interests now as represented by Duchess Narcissa, you give yourselves a strong position from which to secure the right to never be disarmed, like the Südtiroler Schützenbund."

It was the best concession she could give. In fact, the chance of disarming the Loyal Orders any time soon was completely impossible, but the threat of an insurgency was also less in the context of British wizard-folk being actively involved in muggle counterinsurgency operations.

After a tense moment and some mumbled discussion, Mr. salt-and-pepper nodded his agreement. "We'll lay low for now. Best get those troops here quickly, Colonel. It can't last forever."

"No, it can't," Hermione answered, and nodded, rose, and shook their hands.

"Thanks for the meal. Russia's finest," he chuckled dryly.

Ginny and Hermione stood together as they left. The younger witch looked up to Hermione. "They're not happy, you know."

"Yeah. They want to fight. Who can blame them? There's nothing more humiliating than not fighting, when there's fighting to be done," Hermione answered. "We're both Gryffindors, we both feel that."

"Entire thing seems a little bit like a set-up, still," Ginny shrugged, looking around warily.

"That's because it was," Luna interjected, appearing abruptly out of the shadows, her wand out. Hermione stiffened like a rod at the words, her hand involuntarily snapping to her wand holster and drawing it.

To point right at 'Mister Styles', who was pulling off his scarf. He didn't flinch, just staring at Hermione levelly, not giving an inch. "Not that kind of set-up, ladies."

Behind him, out of the shadows, a group of a witch and two wizards, accompanied by a man in a balaclava, arrived. They were not in the uniforms of the Morsmordre. Hermione flicked her wand in a small detection casting, silent. From it, she could not feel dark magic in them, either.

"The Irish Republican Army, I presume," she observed curtly. Hermione quickly, very quickly, thought through the possibilities of what it all meant, and then smiled tightly. "Did you like what you heard?"

"Not just the IRA," the woman stepped forward. "You can call me Aisling, Colonel Granger, and I'm here at the behest of the Irish wizarding community. This gentleman, call him Mister Connolly and that's all you need to know, is certainly here for the IRA though."

"But you heard everything, yes?" Hermione repeated.

"Yes, we did."

"Alright, then you know there's no secrets."

"I wish I'd heard something about an Ireland United and Free in it," the man's voice cut in.

"Ireland United is implicit in our plans. I like to think we're all going to be free, but that's going to take some work and cooperation, Sir. Your country is considered collaborationist by the rest of the world."

He was quieted, as Aisling blanched, and nodded tightly. "You're right, and that's right enough why we're talking rather than fighting you. We have an invitation for you, in fact."

"Go on."

"We'd like you to accompany us to Dublin. You can meet with the Government without the Morsmordre forces on the island being alerted, we've made arrangements. And, they're precious thin on the ground, anyway."

Bella would hate me for this. But she could not pass up the opportunity.

"Certainly." Hermione started to think this has been Narcissa's plan all along-now the Irish thought they knew information they had not been supposed to know, but if Styles was really Narcissa's man, and she had to be to trust Hermione's life to him certainly, then this had been planned from the start. A Slytherin's Slytherin.


They had risen in then Midlands, in the cities of the North, and it was a terrible thing. Bellatrix mostly ignored the reports that General Diaz received, but she heard enough to know that the Russian Army had found in York Minster more than a thousand dead bodies from the Morsmordre released nerve gas into the Church when people had gone there for shelter after suppression of the rising. Six hundred had been found on the outskirts of Leeds, crucified.

Terror had not worked. It rarely did, when people found their liberation close at hand. In Manchester the working class districts fought back so hard that they put the IRA at the height of the Troubles to shame with the quantity of Petrol Bombs and ingenuity with which they were employed in this most deadly game. She had seen footage being smuggled out, and broadcast to encourage others to fight, now that some BBC stations in Scotland were broadcasting for Narcissa's government. In front of Piccadilly Station at Aytoun Street, some of the desperate Mancunians had rigged a trap by dropping live trolley wire from the Metrolink onto the lead tank of a column, electrocuting the crew, and pinning the others behind it as teams armed with nothing more than petrol bombs and a couple of shotguns had attacked the column behind it from the buildings to either flank. There was nothing in the world like the percussive recoil of a tank's main cannon firing into the side of a masonry building from a distance of ten feet, the building bowing and spalling segments of brick as the shell detonated somewhere deep inside. Nonetheless, six tanks were left in flames. Videos like that were edited, though, to encourage resistance. They didn't show that a team of Morsmordre wizards had arrived soon after, and butchered at least two hundred of the attackers.

She was trying to reach them as absolutely fast as she could. She knew that the sooner she relieved Manchester—it was part of the fucking Duchy of Lancaster anyway!-the sooner she'd make Narcissa happy, and the sooner she'd end this entire shitfest the sooner Hermione would be back Hopefully alive.

That brought icewater into her veins. Bella's head snapped up, and looked to the south again. She'd already taken Lancaster. The citadel had been thrown open for her—a good omen. The House Standard of Narcissa as the Duchess of Lancaster flew there now, centred by the Lancastrian Rose. Now her Army was at Preston. She was almost Merseyside, not much longer to Liverpool and Manchester. Since it was Preston in late April, it was raining and foggy.

In fact, the Black Family Manor—Ancient House—was less than fifteen miles away from her command post. The situation was confused and fluid enough that she didn't bother apparating to it. She'd like as not just prompt an enemy attack on the position…

...And she wanted to save returning to it for Hermione being there with her. Something about that just felt important to her.

The enemy had a brigade of artillery around Great Hill, to the south southeast. The shells were slamming down into the centre of Preston as her troops deployed around her to cross the Ribble. Tongues of flames leapt from the buildings, but Bellatrix, calmly in the middle of it, was unconcerned, waiting, thinking. A hundred things were in her head, anyway, though she constantly kept coming back to the urgency of the situation, but urgency was a devious mistress. She waited. A row-house three hundred feet away detonated with a 155mm artillery shell exploding in the middle, the walls bowing out as there was a single tongue of flame, a slap of concussive shock in the air, the roof ripped and flying into the air, billowing smoke joining the rest of the cloud that mingled with fog and rain.

They had pushed so far ahead that it was only constant air attack from the Morsmordre Air Force and that artillery brigade—probably detached from the Division trying to get control of Merseyside from the revolt—that were fighting them. There was no other significant resistance and of course there wasn't, with Lancaster being thrown open for her, she had covered two hundred miles in the past two days. The decision to bypass and isolate Glasgow rather than trying to seize it had indubitably helped.

Diaz stepped up, tapped the wet shoulder of the greatcoat that hung from her, still a size too large. I really should transfigurate that… Or maybe I like it that way. The sleeves hung low around her hands like an old Russian Boyar's.

"General Black, we've got tanks across the two abandoned Rail bridges between the Main Line and the A6."

"Oooh, good." She laughed and spun to face him. "Have they responded yet?"

A brace of shells slammed into the school across the Serpentine, a lake in the Moor Park at the north end of the city, perhaps a hundred yards away. "Clearly not," he observed sardonically. "We did get those two UAVs up that you requested, however."

"Oh, well, that's the important part." Wand stuffed into the hair that spilled out of her cap, she made her way back to the maps, under an awning rigged from the side of a command track. There was hot tea and she took a cup, seeing the positions freshly marked. "Hnf. We're less than fourteen kilometres from their guns, and they have a desultory presence of infantry at best. They've got to fall back now that we've crossed the Ribble."

"You might remember those guns Colonel Granger faced in Norway—the gunners kept engaging even at eight hundred metres."

Bellatrix grimaced. Diaz's words about Hermione facing danger in the past reminded her of what Hermione might be facing right now. But she shook her head. "No, no. They're losing and they know it. And, they haven't been fighting to oppress and massacre a city. They could still ask for terms, and receive leniency."

"You think their morale is breaking?"

"Absolutely. They're fighting out of fear now. You know it. You just don't want to hope enough to believe it."

Fear. The only thing that would make her hesitate, and wonder if she had been a damned fool to defy the Dark Lord. The fear that he could not, in fact, be defeated. The fear that also made her, in the darkness night, wonder if she should have taken the offer of the beast under Ararat. It would make the Queen of Hell, but she could have at least kept her family safe.

Could have defeated Voldemort, then and there.

An officer stepped out of the command track. "Generals, feed from the recon birds. They've started to fall back toward the A675."

Bellatrix's eyes snapped down to the map. Her mind banished the thoughts, she fixed perfectly on the task on hand. Just where I want them. A gloved finger tapped the map at the Belmont Reservoir. "Assemble the Ready Team now. Time for us to disapparate!"