A smokey Spanish summer, in a ruined and desperate town, Army troops all around, in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Even now Chernobyl still had a mythical, horrible air to it. There were probably several equivalents in the world, where nuclear reactors had been outright "cracked" by nuclear bombs going off nearby. But Hermione had witnessed none. And the incineration and ejection of large parts of the core into the upper atmosphere would cause problems, but not the same concentrated problems as in the heart of the beast.

In a way, it was like a foretaste of the horrors of radiation in the war. She could see Larissa lean in with particular interest, and of course; Larissa had taken several hard doses and this was something that her teacher had never before had permission, or perhaps interest, to discuss.

"We didn't know any way of protecting ourselves from radiation, except for technological means. Magic seemed to have no answer for radiation." Flyorov was looking distant. "There were six of us. I was chosen not only because of my family background and my knowledge of developments in Physics, but because of … A theory we had developed at Koldovstoretz, about how magic interaction with electricity. A theory, I might add, that Lady Black carried to fruition independently in the same era, but we knew nothing about, because…"

"Because I was a Death Eater, and not publishing," she murmured, distantly, perhaps Bellatrix for a moment was lost in the paths that she herself had not travelled, just as Master Flyorov was lost in the path he had travelled. A very grim path, indeed.

"An awful excuse for a mind like your's, Lady Black."

"I know," she answered, sharply, and Hermione could see, could tell that it meant more than just a sharp, irritated comeback. It was absolutely true. Those who chose to defend her, and those who chose to pillory her, would both leave her theoretical genius as only a mere footnote to her other deeds and talents.

"There's still time for things to be different. And if Bella's talent is important in this…" Hermione murmured.

"It might be," Flyorov answered. "Allow me to be a professor, one more time."

Larissa smiled wryly. "Of course, Master. You will certainly educate them."

Hermione looked, genuinely curious.

"You see… British magical education is not so good on theory," Flyorov began. "Oh, it is wonderfully applied, but the theoretical framework is terrible. This is common for all forms of British education—most British theoreticians operate from a 'heroic' model at the best of times. Many wrong, old theories are repeated for reasons of conservatism. Application, however, is great. There really is no stronger or more dangerous Dark Wizard in the world like Voldemort. Dumbledore, for all his almost embarrassing eccentricities, was certainly the greatest Light Wizard in two hundred years. But the theory? It's all rotten at the core. We Russians are better at theory. Hermione, are you aware of the Theory of the Miracles of the Quran by Avicenna?"

"Uhm… The Islamic philosopher? A muggle?"

"One does not need to be magical to develop the precise theory of magic," Flyorov answered simply. "Yes, him."

Hermione's eyes widened for a moment. This was, indeed, a radically different view of magic. "I'm aware of the Proof of the Truthful, that is, the theory of the Necessary Existent as the philosophical justification of God."

"That's a good start," Flyorov answered, a charming smile on his lips and a glint in his eye. Larissa was grinning, too. Bellatrix's face was scrunched up, as if she were a bit upset, but also thinking hard, trying to get ahead of the conversation by raw brain-power. "The wājeb al-wojūd. God, in the strict sense of the Necessary Existent. A derivative of Neo-platonic philosophy so, to put it simply, the existence of God provides the reflections through which all other things exist. Avicenna's theory of miracles followed necessarily from this: Soul-stuff, if you will, is part of what the German Idealists would call the Thing-in-Itself. It's your very soul that reaches out to and influences the effect of magic. As Avicenna would say, it is the constitution of Man which allows them to be closer to the truth, or not. A Witch or a Wizard is closer to this knowledge and power than muggles by hereditary birth—we know this. Because it's a matter of one's constitution to perceive of this power. And the very concept of the magical core is wrong—it's about the balance of one's body and the strength of one's will. Exhaustion of the magical core is a bankrupt theory of British magic; there is no magical core. That is your connection to the true reality of the universe. You can simply access it less well when you're exhausted. Numbed. Using something so transcendent for the mundane for long periods of time separates your connection to wonder and mystery."

Now this, this was the kind of conversation that Hermione would have killed for in her later years at Hogwarts.

"Waves aren't matter, though," Bellatrix murmured. "And that's what I discovered. It's about making your magical core—whatever you say it really is—vibrate. That's how electricity and magic mix."

"Right, so you're reaching out to the ideal wave-form, instead of the ideal particle-form. That's it." Flyorov chuckled as Bellatrix immediately narrowed her eyes.

Then she nodded. Grinned. "So. You can inactivate radioactive particulates in the same way I can use electric magic and regular spells at the same time. Because that would act on both elements at once. It's nothing more than that."

Fuck, Bella being smart is hot. Then Hermione caught up and sucked in her breath. Yes, it made sense. It meant there was a clear-cut way for those same fundamental principles to extend to radiation. And it turned Hermione back to the subject at hand, clearly; that had probably been the Russian Professor's intent. "So you thought you could turn off the core. Transmute it. On the basis of this theory—that's what you did, you went into the Reactor, didn't you? But, Gods, you didn't know Electric magic like Bellatrix. You literally were trying to make a theory real on the spot."

"There was some fear it could wipe out all life in Eurasia," Flyorov replied quietly; "so of course we had to try everything. Including, yes, trying to make a theory real on the spot, without hesitation. All of us volunteered for this mission, knowing that we would die, but we had the smallest hope that we would solve the problem first."

He let that fact hang for a moment. "It didn't work, of course," Flyorov then continued, with the rapt attention of them all. "We didn't have the necessary skills or practice to accomplish it. I think, with what she has already demonstrated, and the explanation of the theory that I have given her, that if the Bellatrix of today had been with us, she might have accomplished it. But such wishing is unproductive. My Comrades died, and I was dying. What I discovered in the tunnels, though, was something else." He glossed quickly over what must have been frantic hours of preparation followed by grim and horrible hours of futility. He was alive, he was telling them about it, they didn't need to know, they didn't need to appreciate what it had been. So he left it behind, to his memories of the dead.

"I found myself before a lake, in a dark hall, and saw the Chicken Legged Hut. Then I collapsed. I came to a while later, and I saw myself before the Baba Yaga."

"Did she speak?" Larissa could manage barely more than a whisper.

"Yes. She asked me what the point of souls were, when they were so much trouble to keep safe, and the creatures with them cause so many troubles—that they had created this problem, for the natural world. I realised, after hearing the tale of the Door of a Billion Stars, what she meant by saying souls were so much trouble to keep safe."

"What did you tell her?" Bellatrix asked, into her cups again, a third glass, leaning back now, genuinely fascinated—he had them all.

"I told her the people with souls, the muggles who had done this, would fix what they had broken. That what creates also destroys—and we who have souls were created in this image for precisely that role. We could not help it, but it's the beauty of creation and destruction being the same hands, and anyway she did the same thing, by all the old tales—so I made the Baba Yaga laugh, and she gave one favour. I asked her to help, and she said that she already had, and then she told me—that the degeneration of matter was also a magical problem, not merely a muggle one. That the principle of the transmutation of matter will lead to the transmutation of souls."

"And it is. The Firebird was necessary to reverse it," Bellatrix sipped her wine, with a frozen expression of a drowned woman—absolutely corpselike. Hermione reached out and folded her into a hug. "And tell me, do you think it's an accident that the tunnel to Hell at the bottom of Ararat was found so easily?"

"No, I don't."

"What if… A Dementor is like the fission byproduct of a soul."

Hermione closed her eyes, a horrifying flashback of the cave, of the Door, coming to her. She squeezed Bellatrix tightly, and understood why she looked the way that she did. "oh."

"So if she already helped you, why do you think she'll help you again?" Bellatrix continued, so distantly, her voice so wooden. "Gods are fickle."

"She said that a living dead man can always ask for more Water of Death. It's my privilege." He smiled. "That was my one boon for amusing her."

"You died in Chernobyl," Larissa's eyes fixed her former teacher's. "And the Baba Yaga used the waters to bring you back. To give you a chance to explain."

"And somehow I amused her – perhaps it was my Russian scent – enough to gain this privilege. And it's now that I think we have all the ingredients. You see, the degeneration of matter is also a magical problem—this was not just a literal statement, but also a social and political one. She meant that in the future, the magical world would cause the same problem the muggle world had just caused."

"And by saving me and giving me knowledge of where to go…" He trailed off and wagged his hand. "I can bring Harry back. She already helped me. But until the idea was broached, until we understood precisely what we are dealing with—that Harry is part of Voldemort and Voldemort part of Harry, that the link between them is real—it was not obvious how this would help anyone. But now, it's simple how it will."

"The Water of Death." Hermione stared. "THE WATER OF DEATH!" She exclaimed. "It repairs the dead, so the Water of Life can bring them back to life subsequently. But it kills the living. We will destroy the Horcrux inside of Harry as part of the very same act as bringing him back to life. And that's why Voldemort didn't just burn Harry's corpse—he didn't dare because Harry is his second surviving Horcrux even while dead! Because the Body is a reflection of the soul, the unique capacity of the human being in creation, carrying our own light of the Almighty! Because Harry's soul is immortal, his body can't stop being a horcrux upon death. We have to kill the fragment of Voldemort—and that is the only way to remove it from Harry, we must kill the fragment itself, nothing less will do!"

"Yes," Flyorov agreed. "And so we find our way from philosophy to practical application. But none of this was clear until he put so much effort, an entire military operation, into regaining the head of the poor lad. And our psychological profile said he made his military decisions personally to support his interests in the dark arts—so it quickly became clear that was the only objective of the London operation. And, at last, it all makes sense."

"Why leave a Horcrux where it could be taken, though?" Larissa looked unsettled by it.

It was Bellatrix who answered her. "I am sure some people were tortured to death for failing to convey the full military situation to him—when he didn't care enough to listen anyway. So he simply didn't expect London to fall. But more than that. The creature on the other side of the door can't swallow part of his soul if it isn't there. A Horcrux that's kept somewhere else seems like a very good insurance policy when you go to negotiate your terms of alliance with the God of the Dementors. But he was so paranoid that we might know more than we knew, that he didn't think an honourable grave was sufficient for Harry, so he tried to retrieve his second existing Horcrux. And in the process, told us what we needed to know."

"Why did he think we knew?" Larissa wondered.

"Because invading Britain from Norway when western Russia, when central Europe, were all occupied—it was unexpected to them," Hermione explained as the last threads came together. "It seemed reckless. So we had to have a plan. And that's true; but they just didn't appreciate what the plan really was. It wasn't a plan to defeat him. It was Narcissa's plan to keep Bellatrix safe."

"Riddle always has thought the world revolved around him," Bellatrix whispered, still looking as white as a ghost, and very fragile.

Hermione leaned over, and kissed her cheek.

"How much time do you think we have?" Larissa asked.

"None at all," Bellatrix whispered. "There is something in the air again. I fear he has 'opened negotiations', by whatever rituals make the God of Dementors pay attention to you."

"How do you know? Wasn't in the same for the raising in the Inferi in London?"

"I can feel my left arm like it is still attached to my body, screaming at me," Bellatrix whispered through clenched teeth, "as His power bleeds into me through the whole world. A ghost of the Mark. It tells me nothing, it asserts no power over me. But it hurts."

Hermione wanted to help Bellatrix, wanted to make the pain go away, but what solution was there? There was a faint buzz of a summons to Hermione's radio. With a sickening lurch to her stomach, she knew that Bellatrix of course had to be right. So, she looked up. "Master Flyorov, how long will it take us to get to Chernobyl?"

Master Flyorov looked straightaway at her and forced her to meet his gaze. His words were gentle, anyway. "Hermione, you know that it still involves – especially with no maintenance to the Reactor Sarcophagus for the past six years – it will be the utmost hazard."

Larissa leaned in. "You're not going without me." Her former professor shot her a look.

"I assume I am to remain here in command of the Army," Bellatrix observed, almost hoarsely.

Flyorov gave her a single nod of acknowledgement. "For what it is worth, we must still execute your plan, rely that lifting the curse, ending the snake and restoring Nagini as a human being, will disperse the second remaining Horcrux.

"I am much more worried about whether or not Hermione dies from the radiation than I am about whether or not my theories get any credit for the destruction of Voldemort, Vasily Gregorovich. But good; I am glad we agree. I had thought restoring Nagini to humanity was critical to disrupt her existence as the last Horcrux, but even with what we've discovered today… A horcrux is a horcrux and must be dealt with." She sighed. "I'm going to get up and find out what's going on. You should all get to sleep."

Hermione saw the longing in it, and felt it, too. But Bellatrix was right. She could die much more easily if she were tired, and made a mistake. The night before you went to Chernobyl was not a night to cuddle in bed.

Still, Flyorov offered her a kindly smile. "Lady Black, you yourself have already protected the woman you love. You've shown her your electric magic. Surely you don't doubt that the Brightest Witch of Her Age can shield herself, with that practice and theory combined?"

Bellatrix looked to Hermione, eyes welling with tears. "Shock them all with how great you are, 'Mione," she whispered. "I love you so much." And with a rueful grin, she turned away.

Diyarbakir in late June. The temperature hovered at about 30 centigrade during the day, but rapidly dropped with the evening, so far inland, in a world that had been left so cold. Antonin Dolohov stepped briskly, responding to his Master's summons. Like every Death Eater and Wizard in the city, he had been facing the Dark Lord's wrath of late, with the actually responsible parties dying, and others—in for unpleasant times.

There was something deeply unpleasant about the air in the town that night, and he wondered about the hold of Ararat, only two hundred and twenty kilometres away, from his Master. They had been told the final offensive would begin soon, and there was muttering despite the harshness of the repressions, because it didn't seem like they had the balance of forces to break the front. Perhaps in a few more weeks, they could make their one and (most likely) only attempt.

Dolohov knew better than to doubt his Master so much. The naysayers were making assumptions based on the fact that the Dark Lord had been more and more distracted from handling the course of the war. But that was a state which could change, and change rapidly. If his Master had cause to be interested in the course of the War, he would be. And he was.

And something was up in the occupied city that night, which even with all of the death and destruction, was still the home of one million people living in fear and terror under the Dark Lord's fist, scurrying out of sight at the presence of the Dark Lord himself or his minions, muggles who were lower than Mud to them. Creatures to be killed out of hand at the slightest hint of disrespect.

An ill fog seemed to begin to cover the city, as Dolohov moved into his Master's chambers. What had just been a perception, a sense, before that point, was now becoming a real thing. That was very unsettling indeed. He saw Voldemort standing before a vast, bubbling cauldron.

"So little remains," Voldemort mused, clearly speaking to him. He dropped to a knee. "M'lord."

"Rise, witness the hour of our triumph", Voldemort answered, in a way that made his skin chill and crawl.

Dolohov kept his head lowered as he crept forward.

"The power in the mountain is not like other forms of magic power," Voldemort mused. "You might say, that if you are in touch with it, as you have put me, my good man, it is something that can extend a loan of its power, before the deal is executed."

"M'lord?"

"At some level, it appreciates that its own best interests are not in absolute destruction," Voldemort continued. "This makes it a surprisingly approachable power. And I have the necessary precautions well in hand to make sure that this is an equal exchange. I had hoped for more time…. But here we are. It will do."

Dolohov looked out and saw that the lights in the city were now obscured. Voldemort was dripping his own blood into the cauldron.

Then he reached down into the boiling cauldron, without apparent pain, and pulled something out—an obsidian dagger. Dripping with ooze, he presented it to Antonin. "You will keep this with your life and soul for me. And when we come to the mountain, you will use it exactly as I command, no matter how odd the command is. Do you understand?"

Dolohov, then, was the last reliable man left standing. It would have been an enviable place, if the situation for their cause was not so dire. So he bowed, and gave a single nod. "I will obey unhesitatingly, and instantly, when commanded."

"Very good. Extending a loan from this bank requires a perfect absence of fear." He chuckled at his own joke, as no-one else would, and walked out onto the balcony of the building, bidding Dolohov to follow him. "It is not interested in anything except for souls, and interestingly enough, it's not greedy, Dolohov. One can easily manage a world to supply what it wants, in exchange for its power. And, the more you kill in its name, the larger your Army becomes. A reliable Army, unencumbered by traitors such as the Blacks and the Malfoys."

His voice took on an air, as seductive as it had ever been. "No wand… No incantation. Look at the power it has already lent me, Dolohov." He bid one of the wolf-warriors that Fenrir had created for him to approach, massive and silent, and carrying a box which seemed perfectly square, and carved with sigils that Dolohov did not recognise, but also made out of obsidian, obsidian carved too finely and polished too smoothly to exist. No, worse, it seemed a box forged of blackness itself.

Voldemort opened it in the creature's hands, and removed from it, though they were all larger than the box was—dimensionality didn't matter to this kind of hideous power—the Deathly Hallows. He raised the Elder Wand.

He spoke, and Dolohov cringed in a terrible fear. The incantation he used with the wand was not a human tongue, not a vocalised thing in a way that any muggle could fathom, but to someone who had known their hideous power, it was clear what it was.

It was the speech of Dementors.

As it rolled off Voldemort's tongue into a plain at a right-angle to normal sound, to normal acoustics, a sound and yet not a sound, it reverberated through the old walled city. Then a terrifying thundercrack passed through the sky, buffeting them such that Dolohov and even the werewolves were almost knocked to the ground. He felt a tugging, like his soul wanted to fly free. Around him, little black dust motes of power spun like a gyre, but Voldemort casually flicked the Elder Wand toward him, and the sensation at once left his body, leaving behind a state of hollow relief. Voldemort smiled at him, in bemusement. "I wouldn't want you to leave just when things are getting interesting."

Black whirlpools of these motes formed all across the city.

A wail tore the night, as a million voices cried out at once in fear.

It was abruptly silenced.

The entire population of the city—a million people—dropped down dead, the flesh rent, ripped away, vanished from their bones at once.

And then in the same moment, began to rise again, eye-sockets glowing with an unearthly black light. In a war that had seen the deaths of billions, it was only a statistic, but those deaths had come by fire, blood, technology, radiation, famine, disease.

In a single second, an unfathomable horror of an evil, unearthly dark magic had laid out dead one million people, civilians all. Voldemort had extended his protection only to those he desired alive.

The others never mattered to him at all, except as the resources they had become, souls to sacrifice, and bodies to enslave, far more certain in their obedience than any treasonous 'Brightest Witch of Her Age'.

And then with a soft laugh, he turned back toward his palace. "One more thing, my good man." The neatly and tightly folded cloak of invisibility was grasped firmly in hand, and Voldemort shook it, and unfolded it, like he was dusting a rug. But though it had been folded as flat as a napkin –

Out rolled Albus Dumbledore's body, perfectly restored as if he had just died.

"I thought a new friend of one's would be perfectly suited for bringing an end to the traitors to our cause," Voldemort explained like a laugh.

Dolohov, in the midst of that death, had never seen something so utterly unnerving, so unnatural, so at cross-purposes with how normal magic worked, as the way the cloak unfolded from a veritably two-dimensional state, and a wholly formed man rose up, as if he had been merely sleeping, instead of immaterial.

And Voldemort was laughing.

The city was so very, very quiet.

Notes:

I owe the unfolding or unrolling of the body of a resurrected and puppeted person from a cloak to Thomas Harlan's Oath of Empire series. It truly creates a dreadful picture of horror, at odds with the normal function of the laws of the universe in a way that would seem to be unable to exist, particularly from the perspective of someone actually looking at it with their own eyes.