Vengeance is Mine
The three sisters left No.10 Downing Street after breakfast, having changed to the appropriate clothes for the event (in Bella's case, a military uniform, business suit for Cissy, and wizarding robes for Andy, ironically) for the expansive back of a Rolls-Royce limousine. Andy and Cissy sat in the very back row facing forward, and Bellatrix piled in facing backwards, which didn't seem to bother her at all. As they started off, she looked through the pockets and in the wine-cooler.
"No mimosas?"
"Mimosas have to be mixed anyway, and no, Bella, I don't want to be seen drinking an alcoholic beverage with orange juice in it in the middle of major rationing when most people in the country haven't seen citrus fruit in years."
"Every other time I'm been in a limousine in London, there's been mimosas."
Narcissa looked at her sister levelly. "Quite. Stop playing around, Bella."
Bellatrix flashed her a brilliant grin which suggested she had very, very much been playing that up for effect.
That got her an eye-roll from Narcissa, even though Narcissa expected that had been the intention all along. "They've updated the Bible," she continued drolly; "instead of saying 'the first shall be the last', now it says 'the oldest shall be the youngest.'"
"Hmf." Bellatrix stuck her tongue out.
"Thank you for proving point."
Bellatrix smiled airily at her. "When the situation feels this tense, a little humour is called for."
"You'd say that even at the mouth of Hell."
For a moment, Bella's face lost her light-hearted expression, and Narcissa regretted saying that. "Perhaps I already have," Bella mused softly, and fell silent for a moment. But it was harder than that to silence Bellatrix Black. "Yet, for all that, the humour still matters."
It wasn't like she was wrong. In Narcissa's experience, those in the military with a black sense of humour were the ones who stayed the most cheerful in their hearts, in fact.
While the two bantered, Andromeda, the quiet one, the middle child, the one who had been silent until the day she was brave, had remained quiet. Then she looked up, having mulled something over. "Narcissa, I think I've identified an opportunity for you in your negotiations with the Irish."
"Oh?" Now both Narcissa and Bellatrix had their full attention fixed on her. "Do go on, Andy," the younger Black offered.
"You're not framing the situation right. You need to, especially using Brittany and Galicia as an example, frame the Irish agreeing to the League as being a little-EU, not a large-Britain. The European Union was extremely popular in Ireland. But, the European Union, unless it was arrested in its course, also led almost inevitably to a central currency, banking, governance structure, unified military and ultimately to European Federalism."
"I admit, I paid little attention to the European Union in the nineties. By the time muggle politics were extremely important for me to learn, it had already been destroyed by Voldemort," Narcissa acknowledged, now fully fixed on the middle sister. As said. When Andy does decide to speak up, it's best to listen.
"Precisely. But, in that time, it was seen as a way to solve the Irish Question, and promote greater integration in the British Isles without compromising sovereignty—even though it definitely compromised sovereignty. A Celtic League is an easy sell in Ireland—a Celtic league in which English 'counts' and is a part of it is a very tough sell, even though that's the way the wizarding world in the British Isles has operated the entire time," Andy explained. "However, if you package your proposed federalism as essentially being a little-EU, where the Crown is, in part, making it palatable to the English, not subjecting the Irish, then you're playing into something that was popular and is now part of an idealised past in Ireland, because pre-war is an idealised past everywhere at this point."
Andy had taken a very different course in life, but never let anyone doubt my middle sister is a Slytherin, and very intelligent, Narcissa thought, and smiled. "Thank you, Andy. I will play it if it seems to fit with the tone and pace of negotiations. Bella?"
Their elder sister grinned. "You can take the Pureblood out of Slytherin, but you can't take the Slytherin out of a Pureblood..."
The groans were surely a sign her awful puns were working. Perhaps they all indulged in them so much because that ill sense of unease had not yet left the air.
What could one say about the course of the war? Dolohov certainly never imagined that it would all come to this. But who had really had the ability to imagine the course of events which brought them so close to ruination, after so long riding high?
Their arms had won renown and inspired fear and terror across the entire globe. Their armies had rendered insignificant the actions of prior conquerors. Wizards and witches all over the world tripped over themselves to pledge allegiance to the Morsmordre. Their Lord and Master seemed like he must surely be victorious.
Slowly the tide had turned. In Oceania, in China, in Southeast Asia, allies of the Morsmordre began to suffer defeats. Their own armies found themselves stoutly opposed in Anatolia before the gates of Ankara, and upon the Russian steppe. Again and again, they lost the chance to put away the Russian resistance. Then Bellatrix had swept down to the Caucasus…
And defected.
Bellatrix. Pretty much every single Death Eater wanted her, but among men, she only ever wanted Voldemort. Her own husband, she supported with her considerable wealth and ignored his indulging in whores, both before and after Azkaban. She was probably happier that way. They probably both were.
Dolohov imagined she'd been pleased when he bought it from that enchanted bomb. He, like most of the old Death Eaters, had also known that the Dark Lord had given Bellatrix a child. Nobody had foreseen it. But perhaps they should have. Bellatrix was from an old and proud family, and the Dark Lord didn't really love her. He didn't really love anyone. Not even, perhaps certainly not even, the child that he had given to her.
And she was rather interested in witches, anyway, that was the point. Push her aside often enough… So she had begun what was objectively the greatest act of treason in history. Bernadotte, that was a name for a man to compare with Bellatrix in the muggle world—Dolohov was a cultured man, and he knew enough about military history now that it was all their business.
Judas with tits. That was a more common epithet. Actually, Dolohov expected that they were overextended anyway and even without her defection they were going to suffer ugly reverses. They were having to rebuild the infrastructure they had destroyed to keep the armies advancing, after all, and with the damage of the nuclear attacks that had become a serious challenge. It was just that Bellatrix had defected, the entire house of cards had gone crumbling down…
And so there they were, in Diyarbakir. The front line was less than 30km from Tatvan, on the southwest shore of Lake Van—if their enemies had not poured everything into stopping them, and the Indians had not launched their ferocious attack on the flank those few months ago, they should have already taken this true-Ararat. They were only a hundred and sixty kilometres from the front here, but the air raids had died off when the Dark Lord had taken to personally eliminating them.
He knew that it was just a question of reaching the mountain. The Dark Lord could have all the power he pleased then, if he learned to harness what was within it. They just had to get there before the Army ran out of supplies, now that they were cut off from Britain. The rest of Europe would help, but, it was in far worse shape than Britain had been, their industrial power-house stolen from them by the machinations of an altogether worse foe than Bellatrix Black.
Among those three sisters, Narcissa had always been the most dangerous.
He arrived at the audience hall of his Lord and Master, now, as he had been summoned. Increasingly, Dolohov was handling the day-to-day operations of the Army, as Voldemort was consumed more and more by wild fantasies of revenge and betrayal.
And today's summons was unusual. He didn't have the faintest idea of what it was to be about. But he had no fear. Regardless of how awful a death it was, Azkaban had left him unafraid to die.
In the end, Voldemort always knew that he could trust no-one. He may have sometimes felt differently, but those times were wrong, and really, he was certain he had been aware of it always. The Knights of Walpurgis, his Death Eaters, had been inadequate for the task. The world was their oyster, and still they squandered the power that had been given to them all.
He closed eyes now more reptilian than human. The pleasures of the flesh had come to mean little. Nothing mattered except for the power of the Dark Arts. He had devoted himself to their study for seventy years or more now, it was hard to remember exactly how long. His very continued existence was a testament to their power.
Giving Bellatrix the seed of his body had been a mistake. But when the other Death Eaters had been taken, after the Battle in the Hall of Mysteries, her loyalty, her desperate attraction, seemed to deserve some kind of reward. Even Voldemort, though, knew that she didn't really enjoy the act. She had appreciated it for the validation it had given her. His lover. His foremost lieutenant.
Of course she had repaid him with betrayal. His father had repaid her mother—who had given him the most priceless gift imaginable, making his child a wizard instead of a muggle—with hatred. Bellatrix had repaid him with treason. She had wanted more for the child than the child simply existing. It had been about her own power, not love for him.
Well, in a vague sense, he could respect that. He would make her suffer the worst fate which had ever been suffered in the whole history of humanity, if the opportunity permitted (Bellatrix wasn't stupid, and like enough would manage to die, but one should at least make plans). But, she had played him very well. She had made him everything that she was…
...But unless he ruled the world, nothing would be able to do could extinguish her memory. That was a very irritating fact. Her treason had been so grand that she would remain as the greatest treason in history—she'd displace Cassius or Brutus in one of Satan's mouths for sure (likely Cassius), and infamy was certainly only second to fame.
And Malfoy, Malfoy, Madame Malfoy… She had led Lucius into treason. The entire Black Family was hopelessly tainted. It should be wiped from existence. Little Delphini included; when he was triumphant, he would be sure of removing that mistake from existence.
But they had wounded him, and it was a wound of the kind that the Potter boy could not have hoped to inflict. The prophecy had been undone, broken by his power. The boys had died, and with them, had died any hope of his defeat. But so far, he had not gained the power to control the world outright. The honeyed tongue of a Slytherin, the promises, the humiliation, the sly suggestions, the curses and the bribes. He had been able to manipulate to extend his power, as was proper and natural for the Heir of Slytherin. But he had never been able to extend his power absolutely, in a way that had brought him to natural dominion over the whole of the globe.
If you open the Door just a little, and then you can close it again, you can take all of its power. Without that power, his Empire was vulnerable. He could not be everywhere at once, he was not omnipotent or even omniscient. Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix the Traitor had delivered a terrible blow to him, and denied him his wonderful Britain, taken it out of his hands and put it into their hands, into the hands of traitors, because he could not be everywhere at once.
But the power whispered to him, soft and comfortable, soothing and pleasing, and it promised to him the whole world, if only he let it in. Just a little.
His mortal Empire was collapsing around him. He let it in, just a little. And it gave him the power of revenge. The power to retaliate.
"Antonin, you are here, Good." He was barely aware, thinking of the power, feeling the distant power, feeling the consequences of it, barely aware of his own surroundings. "I wish you to reach out to the Lords Lieutenant in the continent, and tell them that they are to magnify the propaganda value of what is now happening in Britain. We have lost Britain—for now. We will regain it soon. Once we have Ararat. Until then, we will terrify Europe into Europe."
"My Lord, what is happening in Britain?"
Voldemort laughed. "My dear fellow—nothing less than revenge. A foretaste of the power I shall soon have."
There were few finer pleasures than revenge, and so much the better against a traitor of blood and oath. Do you think you will be famous, Bella? When I am done with you, not even the memory will remain!
The thirty-six foot high ceiling of One Canada Square's 90,000 square foot lobby reflected, as the rest of the building did, the epitome of the power of the old British financial class. It was clad in fine Italian marbles. Narcissa had gone up to the meeting room. Bellatrix and Andromeda had descended past the terracotta artwork and settled into a former lounge in the basement retail area, which was now serving to cater the talks.
"Kept nice and away from the talks, aren't we?" Andy offered. They were drinking some tea in a corner booth, and Bellatrix occasionally glanced to the security personnel, who were mostly unobtrusive.
"Yes, well, that's mostly my fault, Andy. Though never forget that Cissy has always wanted her big day. If she can make this League last long enough for the biographies to be written about her, she'll have succeeded better than any other witch before."
"Well, Circe."
"Being a demigoddess is cheating," Bella rolled her eyes.
Andy Hmphed and folded her arms. "I suppose we should be thankful to little Cissy forevermore, anyway; she's responsible for all of this."
"I do admit that her becoming Prime Minister made my future much easier. And I suppose she's grounded enough, when it comes to her ego..."
"She inherited the name through marriage, she never became a Malfoy," Andy laughed. "No peacocks."
"Gods, you were in exile from Society, working as a magical barrister somewhere, and you'd heard about Lucius' peacocks?"
"Arguing cases before the Wizengamot," Andy waved a hand. "But it was very hard to get work, as I was blacklisted, so in the end I settled for a Ministry position."
"I'm sorry." What else do you say to the fact you believed in the ideology, for almost all of your adult life, which gave your sister such pain? And oh, you had worked yourself up into hating her, or thinking you did, anyway, for most of that same time. The look on her face must have been awful from the way Andy pursed her lips.
"I think you're sincere about it," she allowed, and leaned back. "Oh Gods, Bella, but it doesn't matter now. None of us turned into a peacock, after all."
"Heh, I…" Bellatrix trailed off. She shot a look in the direction of the security detail men. 'Some kind of incident near the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park…'
Her expression froze. Her stomach constricted. "Andy, you were the best of us at Divination. Care trying to see something in the very near future?"
Andromeda was frowning. "That odd sense out we've been having today? The whole reason we're here and not back at Ancient House… Sure. It's always easier to see something relevant to the future when it's very close to happening already." Her eyes flashed to her older sister again, though. "Of course, Bella, if I must say, it's really rare of you to give a fig about divination."
"I'm worried," Bella said neutrally. "And we might as well do something to pass the time."
Andy reached into her bag of holding and pulled out three bundles of herbs, smartly selecting two groups from each and weaving them together. The barkeep stayed well away when she declared "Pyromantika," and set it alight on the table, gazing intently into the flames. Bellatrix couldn't see a thing, but then she hadn't cast the spell, either. Pyromancy. Quick, difficult, but Andy was good at such things; the herbs were easily obtainable. It might show something, it might not. Probably it would show nothing.
But Andy, responsible Andy, looked as hard into it as she could, and from the quiet, subdued expression on her face, seemed to be seeing something serious. Or at least taking it very seriously, indeed.
At least, Andy settled back, shaking her head. "Oh Gods, I'm sorry, Bella, but that wasn't helpful at all. I saw something very clearly, but it was a city, maybe even Constantinople I think but not exactly Constantinople, and by Constantinople I don't mean Istanbul, but old Constantinople, in Roman times, you know? But, it was not quite. And there was a woman, of greyish skin, red hair, black robes, cat-eyes, not quite human. She watched as the streets flooded with the dead, the living dead, Inferi I mean; and with them spread black tendrils, a cloud, a fog through the city. This woman was a fell sorceress to be sure, for she had an ancient Rabdos, and with it called down red lightning from the sky with such strength and power as to drive back this beast back. But the streets were flooded with the Dead."
Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park. Bellatrix leapt to her feet. "Andy, get up to Narcissa and tell her that Voldemort is attacking, do it now. That was – fuck," another reality, another time, another world, the monster, the horror, the God of the Dementors was surely not limited to some small measure of sidereal space like this single planet in this dimension! A vision of another doom to warn of the impending doom.
She was never happier to be in the uniform that Cissy had started to make her wear.
"Bella, what is it!?" Andy asked, hurrying after.
"The dead. Voldemort is raising the dead." She turned to the confused commander of the security detail, who came to attention to salute. "Get me to your comms section. Now."
"General..?"
"That's an order. Andy, get up to Cissy and let her know." She knew the mettle of the man that she had sold her life to, and taken the mark of. He would not make a pact with a Horror like the God of the Dementors for a small price. If he settled on revenge, his revenge would be epic in scale. And it made perfect sense for him to leave something behind, but she had known, in her time as his Lieutenant, of no preparations. Perhaps he had finally reached Ararat—she should have liked to think the Russians would have provided more warning, would have called them back for the fight—and perhaps this was just … The smallest measure of what chilled her to the bone, of what made her remember savagely miserable times in Azkaban, where misery seemed all consuming, where the waves were unending. Her eyes gleamed darkly as she waved to Andy, who took off without another word, and followed the nervous Captain to the command centre for the talks.
She waltzed in, acknowledging the salutes of the Guards, and reached out to grab one of the radio microphones. "Put this on a general broadcast in the clear."
"Yes, General!"
"This is General Bellatrix Black, British Army. The Government has directed," sorry, Cissy, but you'll forgive me for that, "that I instruct all of the military and civilian security forces in the city to mandate the immediate enforcement of a general curfew, including by our allied Russian forces in the London Metropolitan Area. We have advance intelligence of a rapidly developing attack by the forces of the Morsmordre. All civilians are to immediately seek shelter in the nearest building and lock and barricade all entrances and move to higher levels within buildings if possible. They are not to come out until the government gives them the All-Clear. All security forces should muster according to their local commands in tight battalion strength formations covered by at least two Wizarding folk. All wizards in the city must absolutely repair to the positions of the security forces and provide support. Under the provisions of the State of Emergency now in effect, this includes civilians—anyone with a wand over the age of fifteen. Children should be directed through the Floo network to any destination in a rural area. This message must be repeated immediately through all technological and magical channels as widely as possible."
She released the pickup button on the mic, and slowly handed it back to the radio operator. "Did that go out?" Bellatrix asked, seeming to faintly shake, not from nervousness but from energy.
"Yes it did, General Black.
"Thank you." She closed her eyes. Gods. Gods Gods Gods. Once upon a time she had set out to create a Dark Utopia at His side...
"General, I…" A stuttering voice in the background. She didn't turn around to face him. "General, they're reporting that the dead are rising in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. They're rising, it's a bloody zombie apocalypse out there, God help us!"
Now I've got to fucking stop him, even if it kills me. For Delphini.
For Hermione.
And now you've got to keep your sisters alive.
Save fucking London.
Fuck.
She opened her eyes, and looked at her left arm. Reached out, ripped the glove off, revealing the golden hand underneath. Flexed it. Clenched it. For the first time she was proud, proud that it was anything other than the Dark Mark. Fuck Him.