Secret Treaties
The terrible secret was that she had been thinking about it from the moment she left Britain. It came in a state of anger, as she left Ancient House, this flash of a thought, an idea that was growing inside of her. There definitely never had been any doubt of where she would go. Maybe she had thought there might be, when Ron approached her, but up to the moment that Luna arrived – it had made her cry but it also hardened her resolve.
She felt miserable about it, felt miserable about her choices, yet they were not shaken, she didn't doubt they were right for her. The longer she resolved not to revisit them, not to think twice, to make this irrevocable, the stronger she became. She had walked through Ourense in the light summer rain, and steadily the conviction had grown.
She had been greeted by Bellatrix, reassured, kissed. They had made love. That left her unshakably strengthened in her conviction. In fact, there was also one course forward, one thing to do. She wanted nothing to command her, this was her liberty, her freedom, her choice. If she followed anyone, or assented to any social expectation, it would be by her own damned choice.
Hermione had drifted off in Bella's arms, with that thought refusing to leave her head. The crazy resolution of someone voting to burn the boats and conquer or die—crossing the line in the sand, casting the die on the Rubicon. They were all on the same side, they were all fighting for the same cause. It would not be false to who she was. Not be false to her promises and loyalties.
Her sleep was a wild miasma of mixed dreams and messages. Harry, Ron, Misses Weasley, Narcissa, Andromeda—Bellatrix, Bellatrix, Bellatrix… Delphini, Larissa, Draco. Family found. Her own parents—looking like ghosts from a picture over her shoulder at her choices. What would they think? She had burned bridges before, to conquer or die. She had burned the bridge to her parents.
Hermione woke up far too early, a jolt of her body as she left the world of dreams, and entered a living world of a pleasant smell wafting through the room. Leaping up to at least sit, because all of her instincts and learned reflexes came back to her when she was on campaign and told her to be quick. Simply knowing that she was 'in theatre', it seemed, made it impossible for her to avoid this impulse, even when she had essentially stormed off just to spend time with Bellatrix. Spend time with her, and make it clear to everyone where her heart was.
She had left Britain to burn her boats, really, that was the real reason, and the thoughts of the night before, of that analogy, came rushing back in a storm. Did she regret it? It would have been my nice if my lover wasn't Bellatrix in some abstract way I guess, but fuck that, I love her.
Indeed, the thought that had seized her as she walked through Ourense the night before was still there. It hadn't gone away, it was refusing to go anywhere. Act on it. Ask her. It would be so easy. Make your commitment. Don't let anyone shake it.
The fact that she woke up to an unexpected tenderness from Bellatrix only made those thoughts come back with a vengeance, and she felt consumed by the need to be just as impulsive as Bellatrix was, to reach out to Bellatrix and make it clear to her, make it clear to everyone, that she had made up her mind and there was no going back. In fact, even in the abstract, the idea that maybe someone else could have been better for her, if only things were different—it was a vapour. She didn't want that. She wanted Bellatrix, and she'd have her, too.
Even as those thoughts were still fully forming, Bellatrix was there, and thrust a mug into her hands in a gesture as warm as any she'd known from her lover. "Try it."
"What is it?"
Bella refused to answer until she brought the concoction, sugar and chocolate and whiteness and a sense of that bitter kick of instant coffee, to her lips. It tasted better than it had any right to.
"A soldier's mocha," Bellatrix explained. "Boil the water, let some of the chocolate from an emergency ration bar dissolve, then when it's the temperature for drinking, add your instant coffee and whitener. I've taken a liking."
Hermione felt a little like she were falling in love all over again. It settled her mind and left her convinced that what she had already resolved upon—that there was no going back, that she had made her choice—was absolutely right, and that it was time to follow through with it. Follow through with it in a way just as dramatic as anything Bellatrix had done. Two of us can play that game, she thought with proud readiness, and with a grin and a light heart, teased her lover. "Bellatrix Black, from one of the oldest, most noble and richest families in the world, talking about the fact she's taken a liking to mixing shelf-stable emergency chocolate, nescafe and powdered whitener in a tin cup with boiling water. Do you know you never fail to surprise me?" The thought made her wildly giddy. Do it! Do it! Do it! They'd talked about it before, why would it even be a surprise?
"Good, pet, that's just how it should be," Bellatrix swung down to sit on the bed again, with her own mug in hand. "In fact, I love this. I've always been honest about this. More honest than my parents, who named me Bellatrix and thought I'd be content to be some pureblood broodmare with a name like that. It seems they started lying to themselves from the moment of my nameday."
Hermione smiled wanly, and the two leaned against each other, waking up with the hot muddy brown brew. "It strikes me now that we've barely talked about ourselves. There's been too much to do. We've just lived in the moment, we've made love, we've cuddled, we've rested, we've fought, planned, schemed. Argued, a few times. Electric magic, you still have to start teaching me more than the barest basics and theory of that. There's so much I want to do with you, so much for us to still explore, and … I want to do it all, Bella, I want the time to do it all in."
"Right now. We'll begin right this very morning. And we'll learn as we're doing, at the front." Bella nodded intently, and grinned. "Aren't you quite intent this morning?"
Hermione sighed. The ebullient mood faded for a moment. "...So, we'll be fighting. Fair, I suppose."
"I am the commander of the Army. Cissy would be terribly angry with me if I lost one of her divisions. Also you know I hate losing, pet." The way she said it, a conscious mocking of the way someone might complain about losing a plate of fine china, made Hermione nearly laugh, it buoyed her after reality had briefly punctured her bubble.
So she decided to do it. Maybe it wasn't everything, not at first, but inexorably—one thing leads to another. So she decided to ask for it. The one condition she wanted, the one simple request. The promise that would seal the deal. "Well, I'm with you for anything, forever," Hermione answered, looking at the wall, and drawing a sharp breath. "So I guess Narcissa's letter …"
"Yes, the plan with Harry. I'm still not sure about it. I prefer working through Nagini. Tom thinks he controls her by the fact that he can communicate with her, the only being left in the world who can communicate with her…" Bellatrix, even Bellatrix, shuddered a bit. "Such an awful fate," she muttered. "And that would be exactly the weakness. I can't imagine the darkness coming forth at Ararat would be good for the lake of Anahit on the top; it's simple logic to argue that Nagini's one chance to be restored to a human form for the rest of her life hinges on that lake. As one learns when being a Slytherin, find someone's self-interests, that's the lever to turn them by."
"I don't think anyone is neglecting your idea. It was mentioned. We just all want Harry back."
"There's enough people who want me dead in the world as it is," Bellatrix answered, with somewhat more resignation as she looked at the residue at the bottom of her cup. "But I suppose one more won't hurt."
Hermione froze, and stared hard at the wall. It was far too raw of a reminder, and she heard Bellatrix go silent, as she realised that perhaps she had gone too far. "Bella," Hermione at last forced herself to say, "Harry is my friend. My best friend. I will honour what that means, even if our relationship … Well, Ron came to me after the … Informational session that Narcissa held, I guess. He called me a traitor, and a power-hungry bitch. I came here, so I hope I don't have to convince you, that I chose to stay with you, and damn the consequences."
"You don't." Bellatrix was smiling, almost shyly. It was an expression that she had never seen before, as if Bellatrix were genuinely flattered by the gesture.
"But." Hermione put her hand on Bella's knee, and squeezed firmly. "There's a ground-rule to this relationship, Bella. Even if my friends hate me, it doesn't change my obligations to them as my friends. I'd lose who I am if I abandoned them. We're going to bring Harry back, and we're going to protect him, with our own lives, no matter what the cost is, until he completes his mission, his destiny, until the Dark Lord is dead."
Bellatrix, now, was staring at the wall as Hermione had, frozen in place, still warm under the hand on her knee, but absolutely silent. "We," finally escaped her lips with a soft rasp. "You said 'we'."
No holding back. "Yeah, I did. Consider the request to be a dowry for our wedding, I guess."
Bellatrix jerked up, as if the words had shot electricity through her.
"Last night, I made what was possibly both the best and the worst choice of my life," Hermione explained. "Best and worst, but absolutely no regrets. Some would say I did it completely on the cuff, and I suppose I did, but you've taught me the virtues of following through with things. We had agreed to be a family for Delphini already, and I'd like to make this official." She popped a spare button from her uniform coat out, and tossed it into the air, letting it float as she brought her wand up, and transfigurated it into a simple, bronze ring. Nothing fancy, no precious metal, it was bronze and bronze it would remain.
Bellatrix stared at it tumble through the air as the spell was completed. Hermione caught it, and pressed her hands over Bella's. Leaned in close. Held the ring to them, cupped in her hands, in Bella's hands, a thin band of metal between warm hands, wand set aside, witch to witch. "I've made my choice, and Ron told me to lay in it. Well, I'm going to. First things first, I love you, I love you so much that I am never going to let you go, and live or die I'm never going to forget you. If I'm the one who makes it out, you know Delphini will be raised by an absolutely ferocious set of mothers: Me, Andromeda, and Narcissa. And if it's you, I know that you'll honour my memory, you'll raise your daughter differently than you were raised, you'll give her the chance to love a muggleborn like me, without hate. And if it's both of us, we're going to be happy forever, no-matter what people say about us. So I came here to make this irrevocable. I made my choice and I'm not backing down. I have decided I am brave enough to face the consequences of our love. This is what Gryffindors are supposed to do: To be brave enough to stand against convention. If the rest don't like it, they can stuff it. Marry me, Bellatrix Black."
Liquid pools of eyes stared up at her as the older woman processed it all in the intensity of the moment. A ghost of a smile flickered across her lips. "You said there was a condition."
"Since we are not exactly a conventional couple, yes. Consider it a dowry," Hermione offered. She was light-hearted, but she felt a certain seriousness also creeping through. "I have made my choice, but I will be true to myself. You must swear to me that you will protect Harry with your life. That you'll get him through to the end with the Dark Lord, to help him to win. Especially if I'm not there to help. Especially if I'm not there to help. You are the most powerful witch alive, you know every move that bastard will make. You have your own plan for taking him down, despite the prophecy, which honestly sounds good enough that it might fucking work. I trust you, I love you, I believe the good in your soul is there. And so my condition is that you complete what I've chosen. I've chosen that even if Harry hates me, I will do right by him. And so my requirement for us to be engaged is that you will carry my promise for me. Either at my side, or alone. Get him through this scheme."
"If he can come back," Bellatrix whispered, shaking her head slowly. "If. You're not even sure yet."
Hermione shook one hand loose, but not the other, and pushed it against Bella's lips. "Fate is too much of a bitch to Harry. And if they fail, well, you've promised me vapour. But they're not going to fail. Fate is too much of a bitch to Harry. Promise me." She pulled her finger back, brown eyes evidencing every bit of the intensity in her own heart, the precipice on which she dangled. She isn't going to say no after that, is she? After I've burned my bridges? She can't say no!
"Promise. No turning back for either of us. I accept your proposal. We'll be married, if we survive the war." And then, Bellatrix took the ring, put it firmly on her own finger, thank you very much, Hermione could almost sense from inside of her mind, and leaned forward, and Hermione felt the most amazing kiss, a gentle brush as it began, pulsing with warmth in her lips as they worked closer, opening, tongue insistent. It was far too brief, but it told her everything.
"I accept." Bellatrix took a breath. "We've talked about this before. We've planned it before. We've declared we're a family before. Narcissa made it legally possible. Yes, if he comes back, yes, if he needs my help, I'll get Harry Potter through the war. I'll do it to humiliate my former Master, and I'll do it for you. And I won't let you down." Her grey eyes, pools of darkness, held Hermione's brown ones sharply, gazes locked. "I will do it for you. I will do it for spite. I will do it for love. And most of all, I'll never let you down. I've let so many people down in my life and I'm tired of it. Everyone has a place to which they are pushed, beyond which, they are just getting done being pushed." She squeezed Hermione's hands hard. "I am done being pushed. We will live openly, and I won't let you down. I swear it."
Crying, believing her, trusting her, Hermione kissed Bella as hard as she could.
They went out to Verin together, in the Spanish summer sun. The enemy was coming up from Portugal in the south. There were a series of open valleys, mostly bowl-shaped, in the midst of ridges braided with creeks, Medeiros to the west, and Romariz to the east.
Immediately southwest of Verin, there was a high hill overlooking the village of O Rosal. There, the Galician government troops had placed a battalion of towed 105's, which from that commanding position had for two whole days halted the Morsmordre troops pushing up the valley of the Támega river. The smoke from the gunfire still choked the valley. It was against this advance, fronted predominantly of M47 and M48 tanks of 1950s American vintage, that the central corps reserve of Smerch launchers had been firing on the night that Hermione arrived.
As they apparated to the command post in the midst of the burning town of Verin, Hermione could look out and see the craters to the south, where the first attempt to force past O Rosal had been turned back by the massed Smerch fire. Now under copious clouds of smoke, which were probably magically generated for all that they completely filled the valley of the Támega, hanging low and thick and black in the summer sun, the rumble of the engines warned that another push was being attempted.
"General Black!"
"At ease," she waved, and gestured to Hermione to follow. They could look out to the west, across the Támega, to see a dark column that was coming up the road, concealed by the ridges southwest of the town from view of the enemy. Bellatrix imperiously tapped her chrono. "Five minutes late, but we'll make our due."
Around them, the defenders were mostly using improvised second line vehicles, pickup trucks and light commercial trucks of every description, mounted with machine-guns, automatic cannon, infantry mortars, mortars made out of lengths of iron sewer pipe, and even aircraft rocket pods. However, they were well organised and dug in, with the infantry reasonably well equipped with ATGMs. The ridge north of O Rosal was obscured in the smoke, from the enemy having brought up much heavier 155's to pound the Galician artillery into submission.
"So, when do we begin, General?" Hermione's mouth quirked to a smile. This madness and chaos of war was where Bellatrix was in her perfect element.
"I want to make sure we get that battalion of Challies in place for the counterattack first, and that Councillor Abdulova covered the retreat of the guns properly."
It was an audacious plan by any measure. The main thrust was coming from the east, from Leon. Their jumping-off point had been at Ponferrada. But Bellatrix had left only light covering forces, of local Galician volunteer troops like these who had been previously used for internal policing duties by the Morsmordre, equipped with small arms and improvised combat vehicles. They were motivated to fight for the autonomy of the Galician nation, but they were totally unable to offer serious resistance to fully equipped Janissary divisions.
Bellatrix had instead sent the Galician Regulars and the division of her own Black Guards which had arrived to the south, to Verin. The Galician Regulars were coming up from the west right now, with the lead brigade of Chally 2s only minutes away as they tore up the road. Her Black Guards however were following the second route to the east, 15km north. They were driving headlong along the railway toward A Gudiña, daringly driving tanks through the railway tunnels and cuts on the line, driving at high speed, single-file. It would be incredibly dangerous if they were caught in enfilade, but it Bellatrix was certain that she could smash the Ensorcelled troops coming up from Portugal and cover their southern flank before that happened. A powerful two division counterattack would slice through the comparatively light enemy forces at A Gudiña, and she'd be positioned to launch a strategic-level counterattack toward Benavente, threatening the rear of the main Army invading Galicia.
But a plan like this was frighteningly dependent on not being found out. The first part of that was the patrols by the Mig-31s overhead, the powerful interceptors operating with confidence out of the airbases near Ferrol. Coming in lower down in support of their look-down, shoot-down radars and high speed were groups of air-to-air equipped Tornadoes, the Russian and British forces now operating in close coordination.
The second was preventing, absolutely, any kind of effective communications from the southern force to the eastern. That's what they were there for. Not just effective communications, but actively wrong communications.
Electric magic.
The MinKol detachment, lead by a prim Tatar woman who, were it not for the uniform, were it not for the feat just accomplished, would look like she belonged not within a hundred kilometres of a battlefield, arrived and she saluted Bellatrix. "General Black."
"Councillor Abdulova, I presume?"
"Yes, M'lady." She gestured behind her. "We shrank them and moved them and restored them in the positions you ordered. The gunners are off the hill, too."
There would have never been enough time, never a chance to do it secretly, without magic, and Bellatrix remembered her feat with the tunnel in the Caucasus. She was smiling, the sun and smoke silhouetting her with that bright, dangerous grin, dragonskin corset—more of a magical cuirass—uniform, hair and coat flapping in the summer breeze. "Excellent. Councillor, take your detachment and reinforce the front battalions. When you see the tanks coming up, move over to the offensive immediately without waiting for further instruction."
"M'lady!" With the salute acknowledged, she turned away.
Bellatrix stepped closer to Hermione, and turned to the column of tanks that was now coming into Verin and deploying through the streets of the town in readiness for the push to the south. Thanks to the work of Abdulova's detachment, they would be supported by the 105's firing in enfilade from the west to support the brigade in what would be a meeting engagement, an open-field general tank battle, with the attacking division from the south.
With the column came one military truck, a Kamaz, which pulled up alongside the headquarters. Bellatrix innocently waggled her eyebrows. "Here we go, Hermione," she clapped her gloved hands together, and started back to the headquarters, and straight to the truck, where the soldiers assigned to it were carefully unloading the gear.
Analogue studio gear.
Before, Hermione had seen Bellatrix use her electric magic from her wand, in the open. She'd never seen her actually work through broadcast gear before. And today, they were going to be doing it alongside each other. To control, to manipulate the broadcasts from the enemy Army, to use their own to create a wall through which they could distort and control communications, to keep the enemy troops in A Gudiña convinced until the last that their counterparts in the south were winning, were pushing ahead… That there was no second division of the enemy free and clear to hit them from the southwest, that the Black Guards were vulnerable on their southern flank.
Generators were hauled out and set up to provide guaranteed power. Bowers were being positioned to make sure they would not run out, for as long as the operation took. Because of the bowls that the valleys formed, Bellatrix had insisted they had to be this close to the front, and precisely at Verin, to make it work.
And Hermione trusted her. The little older witch watched intently as the pelican hardcases were opened and the equipment was hauled out. She personally helped inspect it for damage and set it up, and started to direct Hermione in the same.
They were a team.
In five minutes, the set was linked to power and energized, and hooked into their radio aerials, the wires strung and tensioned between the buildings, and leads hooked into the local power grid, which was de-energised because of the fighting, anyway.
Now they energised it with a different power. Hermione looked over the muggle dials and gages and buttons and tried to image Bellatrix as a teenager sneaking off to play with them, to learn a forbidden form of magic, to understand how energy and power and the laws of arithmancy worked through the invisible waves in the air.
And there she was, in fifties but as fantastic as the finest, healthiest movie star or model. She finished giving orders to the divisional and brigade commanders and turned around toward Hermione, and clapped her gloved hands, with a look of a huntress, of genuine delight, on her face.
"Let's do it," she whispered, almost sensuously, almost like she were talking about something else entirely, and grinned playfully at the flush on Hermione's face. Then she spun down into one of the folding camp chairs and reached up into a cardboard sleeve and slipped out an album.
Blue Öyster Cult's Secret Treaties.
Bellatrix flashed a wink to her. The mood was infectious. Britain, Harry, her friends, her choices, they were forgotten. Bellatrix pulled off her gloves, and the bronze engagement ring that Hermione had created for her was on her finger. A gold, artificial finger. Bronze over gold. Good enough for them.
Bellatrix grabbed the needle, spun the record.
Career of Evil, really? Hermione marvelled in almost aghast wonder and a little bit of transgressive delight at the lead track. It was almost like Bellatrix was openly teasing her, completely unafraid of who she was. But wasn't that completely true? This was Bellatrix, she was completely unafraid of who she was. That's exactly what Hermione had signed up for. And it seemed to calm Bellatrix down, put her into a trance as the music from her youth, from when she still might have been the Brightest Witch of Her Age, filled the air around her as she prepared to do something truly magical.
And then blue light leapt from Bella's fingertips into the boards and the controls, light them up, made them move without being touched, manipulated signals, even as she adjusted dials manually, and with her wand in her hair, sometimes took it down to flick a command across the heavens. The sun slipped in under the portico and tarpulin protecting them, the roar of artillery and guns echoed in the bowl of the valley as the tanks swung out to attack. The light gleamed off of her raven-black hair.
And with a gentle voice of wild delight and perfect poise, Bellatrix taught and did at the same time. She flicked her power out across the carrier waves, manipulated frequency and amplitude. She stole the voices and messages of warning, and twisted and manipulated men's voices, magically, through the radio waves, so that when they arrived at their destinations, they were messages of reassurance, calm, even victory.
Before them, the tanks stormed forward, the artillery thundered, the MinKol wizards went over onto the attack. And slowly, Hermione joined her in causing directed chaos across the airwaves, turning the message of defeat and threat into one of victory and clear roads. The answering messages transformed from uncomprehending confidence into promises of support and readiness and wariness. And as long as the aeroplanes overhead kept their recon birds away, there would be no cause for an enemy wizard to apparate carrying a message. Each minute they held up the veil of illusion carried them inexorably closer to victory.
And they listened to Secret Treaties, under the Spanish sun, in the midst of war and chaos.
Just as Bellatrix liked it-perfectly in her element, blazing bright with a dark light, alive as almost no-one really was.
Gods, Voldemort wasted her.
And that, Hermione would never do.