The Edge of Darkness

Winning, so much easier said than done. Real commanders study logistics, not strategy or tactics, the conventional wisdom of the 20th century. In a way—it was completely undone here. No completely, without the mass armies they wouldn't be in the place that they were. But Hermione knew that by the conventional wisdom, Voldemort, without his industrial power-base, was finished.

She also knew that conventional wisdom was wrong. As long as Voldemort remained alive, he was enormously dangerous. He had devoted himself completely to the Dark Arts. He probably knew more about the nightmare in the bottom of the mountain than everyone else on the planet combined.

And it all came back to Harry. That damned prophecy wouldn't give him any rest. Nor did her own conviction allow her to be anything else than loyal to her friend. And that was why she was standing in front of Ron again. In fairness to him, he was reserved in response. He knew how momentous this was, himself. How utterly dangerous. He didn't appreciate it like Hermione did, who grew up in the shadow of a Europe impacted by the Chernobyl disaster, but he had now lived as a part of the muggle world long enough to know he was signing up for a mission into the heart of their equivalent to Azkaban, some kind of truly dark, sinister place; and that was enough.

"Hermione."

"Ron."

"For Harry?" Ron asked, and held out his hand.

Hermione was acutely aware of Larissa and Master Flyorov watching them. And, it wasn't that hard, really. It would have been better if both of them had just remained Harry's friends, if they'd never tried dating. It would have made all of this easier. And I'm sure Bellatrix wishes she'd never been a Death Eater, at this point. She reached out, took Ron's hand firmly. "For Harry."

It seemed like a palpable feeling of tension left the room. Around them, London was coming back to life. Narcissa was absolutely unflinching about moving quickly to return life to normal. She had used the military to repair damage to the city, and Goblins under contract, and once again had the trains running within three days of the horrifying outbreak. The clearing of bodies had been completed in five days, though the stench of the pyres still hung in the city. Invoking the spirit of the Blitz, demolition of burned out buildings and preparation for rebuilding was underway, within two weeks of the attack.

The Ministry of Magic, where they now stood, had been thoroughly repaired and showed no evidence whatsoever of the raid. The meetings and introductions being done, Ron led them to a room where Tonks was waiting, immediately visible with her pink hair, laying out a bunch of photographs on top of a table. A tea pot was fortunately available. Luna was there, braiding flowers into her hair as she looked over the maps.

Tea gave Hermione the opportunity to distract herself, looking dully at the photographs. A decade ago they would have filled her with horror—they were aerial and on-site photos of Chernobyl and she was going to go there. She waved to Luna, who pointedly ignored it when Ron gave her something of a dirty look—but at least didn't say a word. "Doing alright?" Hermione answered.

"Oh yes." Luna looked up with a positively brilliant smile. "I never thought I'd get to meet the Baba Yaga; as long as I don't end up in her pot it seems like it will be the most wonderful thing that's ever happened."

Oh Luna. Hermione could tell she was perfectly sincere, too.

"So, as kind of our peak of fucked up shit in this war, we're about to all go looking for the Baba Yaga inside of a melted down reactor," Tonks began without preamble, cutting the odd conversation off from possibly getting any more odd. "The Russians kindly arranged to provide all the intelligence they could, mostly photographs from around the period of the construction of the Sarcophagus."

"Needless to say," Tonks continued; Hermione was dimly looking at the pictures, drinking her tea, focused on the woods but with the room itself out of focus. "One complication is that Chernobyl is behind enemy lines. So, our apparating into the exclusion zone will bring an immediate response. Pursuant to a request to Stavka, a major corps-level operation will be conducted as a distraction against the enemy. At the same time, six infiltration groups will be sent behind enemy lines, to join partisans. We will infiltrate under the cover of one of these groups." A pause. A wry grin. "O'course, knowing our luck, we'll still get hit by some kind of Morsmordre group on the way in or out."

"So. Master Flyorov isn't a combatant, though he is a talented wizard. But he's a particularly important part of this operation, so we all need to protect him. His life comes before our's, necessarily."

"Ladies.." He was clearly uncomfortable. Hermione looked up.

It was in time to watch as Tonks grinned ruefully and transformed herself into a lean, dark-haired man, with a killer's air. "Wotcher. I'll go like this, if that will make you feel better."

"It's fine, Master Flyorov. We've been doing this for a long time." Hermione raised her cup.

"I've been there before," he reminded them. "I should have just as well said Comrades, to avoid misconceptions." A faint smile, however grim. "But the reality is that you are all young enough to have children. It's objective fact that this is a greater risk for women than men, you know, so, I am merely asking that you take no unnecessary risks for me, whatsoever. Just get me to the Baba Yaga. Really. That's all. My coming back is optional."

"Master…" Larissa bit her lip, and in that expression on her face, Hermione saw eight years of school, of learning magic, of the Black Court, in a different time, in a time of peace. Eight years of being a girl, an experience for which she would not know Larissa, could never know Larissa. They would be friends, comrades in arms, even relatives by marriage if they all survived the war. But their childhoods they would never quite understand of each other. One was Hogwarts, one was Koldovstoretz, they hadn't experienced them together, and they had met on a train platform, in Nizhniy Novgorod, after the world had already ended, after the nuclear bombs had already flown. They could be the closest of friends forever, but they did not share that essential knowledge. Flyorov did, and perhaps he was one of precious few who did at this point.

After all, the retired professor had seen so many of his former students go off to war. How many of Larissa's class were left? They were all the right age to, unflinchingly, become part of MinKol's front-line uniformed units. They had turned their magic to the service of war—to the defence of the Motherland.

And Hermione would never have Bellatrix's thoughtless honesty, would never just out and out ask how many of Larissa's friends were left. She didn't want to torture one of her best friends, by bringing it up.

But whatever the answer was, it was plain to see on Larissa's face—she desperately didn't want Flyorov to die.

And the old teacher clapped his hands on the table. "Dear Larissa, think nothing of it," he offered gently. "We have one more lesson in the esoterica of our native Russia to learn. It's time we got about it. Neither of us is in a good place to hesitate, or to worry. We will just do what must be done." And his eyes glittered. "And as I said, you have one more lesson to learn."

Larissa wiped at her eyes and straightened up. "Then we review the plan, we memorise it, we make the necessary arrangements, and we fight the plan. We will be in and out, in whatever time the Baba Yaga lets us go." She grinned with ruthless intensity to Hermione, and rose to her feet, using her wand to project from the images, a magical table-top model of the reactor complex and the sarcophagus. "Let's get to our work."

Gods, but I hope we make it through this. This close to a possible end to the war, the idea of peace seemed almost magical, the idea of dying now, worse than ever before. For once, after so many years, she had something worth living for.

I'm sorry, Bellatrix, that we can't be together right now.

Alone, except for a staff that had come to respect and trust her absolutely, no matter how eccentric she was. A staff she had come to trust. The battle rhythm of her staff was perfect, almost divine at this point. But the lack of Hermione's presence—of her cool professionalism around the others, her intellectual and quick-minded analysis—was a constant reminder of that other side of her, the straightjacketed passion which had, at last, exploded in her presence on that one cold night in the Crimean.

Bellatrix could never straightjacket anything about herself. Especially after Azkaban; it was on her sleeve, and there it would remain, for the rest of her life. She supposed that life, after those fourteen years, was just too important to her for her to limit herself in anything.

Memories were strange. The happy memories she did have from childhood seemed so exceptionally distant. Yet, when circumstances had allowed it, she had fallen back in with Andy without another thought. Blood truly was thicker than water. What does that say about Hermione, then?

She's your blood now. That's all there is too it. She looked down over her ration and instant coffee. They were nothing like what a pureblood would consider a meal, but she loved every bite; after Azkaban even the worst muggle attempts at food were delectable. A Pureblood. Delphini's a Half-blood, she's still Heir Black, by Cissy's decree. The whole world turned upside down, and she'd participated in it from the start. She supposed her disenchantment with Riddle had started when the resistance, after the Battle of Hogwarts, had made sure that his real identity was widely known. People had been tortured to death horribly for that. But it had not stopped the information from spreading.

The very same man who had spent decades stoking her hatred of mudbloods and blood-traitors to a fine-honed hot rage that prevented her from really thinking, was himself the son of a woman of the oldest family of England, who had taken a muggle to her bed. It was all a fucking farce. Her precious daughter was one-quarter muggle.

Her wife-to-be was all muggle, but had a magical core just as strong as her own. Well, almost all muggle. I should have her geneaology commissioned, sometime. It would be interesting to see where and when the magic had got in. Bellatrix finished her food. Like most soldiers, and most former convicts, too, she ate fast. There wasn't much time in those worlds for a good meal, and you wanted to make sure that all of it ended up in your stomach.

Getting up with just of the rest of the coffee, the retort pouches empty, she head out of the tent and into the next—the set of tents and awnings that were her command headquarters. The invasion force of Galicia was in the process of being comprehensively destroyed by air attack as it tried to retreat across the mountains with its supply lines cut by her forward divisions. The artillery was thundering in the distance, but that was just a normal morning by this point. Had been for so long that it scarcely could be remarked upon.

Really, her unease was just that Hermione was going into danger, and she wasn't there with her. The sun-baked wind blew dust across the command post, and the steady tick of the geiger counter, reminding them all they were safe—at least in that dust, at that single instant in time-was also to her a reminder of how much danger her lover was in.

Her bones had ached since Azkaban. They ached again, now, maybe they would never stop, but the warm air soothed them. Jorge was there now, and she was glad to see him, glad to have him as her right hand, even though she knew his own loyalties in this situation were a complicated matter. He was on their side, to the death, but Narcissa's plans contradicted the vision of a unified Spain.

Bellatrix had an idea about that. She stepped over to the map tables. "Good morning, Jorge." Only two years ago this informality between them would have been unimaginable.

"Lady Black," he acknowledged.

"The Portuguese forces are still holding in Braganza?"

"They are, M'lady. And we're almost to Tordesillas. Our lead units haven't encountered significant resistance."

"And then we swing to take Valladolid, and from there, we're in position to cut them off completely, and strike south to seize Madrid. Well, until Basque and Catalonian troops come up and give us a real fight."

"Only if the Portuguese refuse to make another attempt to cross the border," Jorge looked at the map, coldly. "We're exposing ourselves quite intensely, otherwise."

"I understand that the Duke of Albemarle led a major air raid on Lisbon yesterday, with the Grand Fleet," Bellatrix answered. "Perhaps it even removed some of the most onerous members of the collaborationist government. Portugal may yet find itself in an agreeable position to switch sides. The wizarding community there has very old ties with our's. Queen Mary—I mean, our Queen Mary, in the sixteenth century—her witch's blood came from the Portuguese community. It had nothing to do with the English wizarding community. But it was through the House of the Duke of Braganza, and the north of Portugal is nearly as Celtic as Galicia. And still, her portrait is on the wall of Hogwarts."

"M'lady?" Admittedly, when Jorge asked that, Bellatrix knew he was hinting for her to get to the point.

"I understand enemy Janissaries are besieging Nantes, but they have almost none left in all of western Europe. As long as they are pinned down trying and failing to make gains in Brittany, we can do much good here. We are in a good position to spread a message of revolt to the people, in Castile. If we can pry Portugal loose, it will be now or never for a revolt in Castile. There's no functional government of the Morsmordre at this point, with Riddle having moved everything to Anatolia in his effort to take Ararat. We need to keep tearing chunks into the enemy. And I have an old friend of Portuguese wizarding extraction…"

"The Duke of Albemarle's mother?"

"Yes—Keep pushing into Tordesillas with the lead elements until we encounter resistance, than alert me, Jorge. I need to use the Telecaster to reach out to Cissy."

Jorge tipped his hand in a salute as Bellatrix turned around. She was about to head into the armoured vehicle where that wonder of ancient Crete was kept, but then she paused, and turned back to him with a grin. "You do want to head the Junta if this all comes together, don't you?"

He turned to her. A smile twitched on his face below the thin moustachio. "After all I have been through, it means nothing to me, M'lady—I'm perfectly content with merely obtaining my revenge, and that I've already done, in your service." A pause.

"But, really, it means everything in the world."

Bellatrix laughed, and turned again. Really, we understand each other perfectly. Friends with a muggle. How strange to live to see myself like that.

International Portkey to Moskva, and then the restored Floo network as far as Bryansk. The beautiful old Railway station at Bryansk-I was partially bombed out, but near to the MinKol headquarters with the Floo connection, and restored enough to serve Army purposes. A little bit of the old, pleasant, light pink paint was left, but the repairs were grey. Inside, they were able to get bowls of meat stew there, and the strong brewed Russian tea that Hermione realised she inordinately missed; she had taken to drinking Irish breakfast tea in Britain, as it was the strongest that she could find, but it was still not quite so smokey. Of course, most of the time she just drank whatever she could find.

Just like she smoked whatever she could find. With a grimace and a guilty expression toward a Bellatrix not there, she wandered off, and in a typical deal of the sort that went down between soldiers, exchanged two British ration packs several packs of Belomorkanals. Returning to the group, she handed one to Larissa.

Her friend grinned back at her. "Draco and Bella will be upset at us."

"If they're upset, and we get back alive, fuck them. If we don't…" Hermione shrugged. She desperately needed that old familiar feeling to soothe her nerves before flying straight to the edge of Darkness.

Larissa nodded in acknowledgement of that. They both lit up. The acrid taste and horrible strength was reassuring in a way. They were back, back to the front where they had both started fighting, and they were about to face far worse carcinogens than any found in the cigarettes.

Tonks caught them, rolled her eyes, but just grinned and waved. "Let's go, they've got the machine ready for us," she said, in Russian. They all reverted to speaking the language, the moment they returned to the country; it just felt natural, now. Even Ron did.

Others left the Bryansk train station to the front on wagons—rake after rake of goods vans or passenger carriages. But their mission was of a different level of importance, entirely. An Mi-8 was waiting for them, the rotors spinning even at idle enough to whip the wind over them. Hermione took a last drag on her cigarette and stamped it out; no smoking and flying and the wind would whip it out if she ignored that, anyway.

They clambered aboard and took their seats. Hermione and Larissa, who had plenty of experience in combat helicopters, took positions by the doors to the passenger comapartment, and left them open, so they could use their wands against troops or enemy wizards on the ground. Such was an engrained habit, even while they were well behind their own lines. They were about to conduct a raid, after all, and the enemy could do the same.

The two women leaned against each other as the hot summer air slowly faded to a cool sharp breeze through the open door, their wands ready as the helicopter headed west, eyes mutually scanning the terrain. Below them, columns of troops heading to the front marched down roads, and column after column of trucks, armoured vehicles, tactical vehicles and tanks could be seen, some trucks hauling artillery, others self-propelled. There were were more improvised weapons, more truck mounted heavy automatics and things like that, too. The reserve stocks were being exhausted, and the military industry was straining to meet the demands of the war effort, even as there were calls for more and more troops, and younger and older men came to the front, and women and girls too. Again and again, a call for more reinforcements for the front went out, and more conscripts were mustered into the service, and sent forward. Now, at least, many of them were Ukrainians and Belarusians from the liberated sectors, eager to get revenge on the formerly occupying Army, and finish the job of liberating their homelands.

Under the golden glow of the sun, they could see the flax growing, the wheat, the barley and rye. They could see, too, the ground that was still freshly churned, where mass graves had been dug, to be filled with the bodies of the executed civilians the Morsmordre had killed, and left to rot along the sides of the roads, for the liberating armies to find as they had advanced. And, no doubt, some other mass graves, for the collaborators and the enemy dead.

Ahead of them, fields gave way to forests and rivers and marshes. This was a part of Chthonic Russia, the birthplace of the religion of the Slavs, of dark forests and sacrifices. Gomel first, but then beyond it, the Pripyat. Hermione occasionally glanced behind her, to see Flyorov sitting, so calm and composed. She didn't know how he did it, and it was such a contrast with Ron, so obviously tense and ready for a fight. Perhaps it was just a benefit of old age, but she couldn't imagine Bellatrix ever acting like that even when she was hopefully a happy grandmother of a Witch celebrating her 120th birthday.

Hermione's steady brown eyes flickered back to the terrain. They couldn't pull away from it for long. Didn't dare. Even if there was no risk, the old habits were too well engrained. She couldn't imagine flying in one of these machines, without being ready to defend it from magical attack at all times. Tonks was keeping the very same guard on the other side; war had changed her forever, too, probably more radically than it had Hermione.

Her nerves and reflexes would probably never calm down. She felt lean, sun-beat, muscled, physically fit and healthy as had seemed impossible in her younger years. Her hair was very tightly pulled back in a bun, to restrain the kinky, frizzy mass. Her freckles were set dark on brown skin, and sunglasses protected her from the glare of the sunlight off of lakes and rivers, as she caught glimpse of drained reservoirs, marked by destroyed dams and valleys caked with mud and silt, cut heavily by rain-driven rapid erosion. She felt good, even as she was grim about her chances, about all of their chances. If death was to come to her, she wanted it now, having managed to make something of herself despite something. She felt alive, and understood very well why Bellatrix acted the way she did.

Understood very well why Larissa acted the way she did.

"Lara?"

"'Mione?"

"If we go down…"

"We go down together," Larissa agreed, and smiled tightly. They were looking out over the forests and marshes and approaching Gomel, now, and the sun was going down. Soon enough she could take her sunglasses off.

Life was beautiful, for all its horror.

And then they headed to the edge of darkness.

Notes:

It's quite explicit that Queen Mary of England was a witch, but JKR also notes that the British Royal Family is not magical. So, it's quite rational to assume the magical blood was in the House of Aviz and carried through the maternal line. Perhaps Isabella the Catholic was so intensely religious to hide any element of suspicion!