The Larch Tree

Hermione woke up early, as most soldiers did. The sound of the guns was not so closer as it had been, though, and it was starting to feel like a little bit of peace. With Voldemort and Dolohov dead, this front, at least, was collapsing quickly. Even their hammered and exhausted and attrited forces were making good progress to the west, in the midst of the enemy chaos and lack of leadership. The walls of the old Citadel of Van loomed above the balcony of her hotel room, and she took a comfortable drag on the belomor and looked at it, thankful that it had never been tested by the Morsmordre.

It had been three days, and she'd made two attempts to quit. Both had failed within twelve hours. But like many in the city, she woke up to see the dawn, smoke her cigarette, and watch the Simurgh rise from the caldera of Ararat.

She could watch the glowing, multi-coloured bird rise, living, happy, brilliant and resplendent in the dawn, celebrating, greeting it. Preparing to go fly off and heal some part of the world from the terrible nuclear exchanges. With the collapse of the Room of Requirement in the temple, there was again no way to get to the top. Perhaps someday, someone would find a way. But there was no way for her to just drink the water and be cured of her addiction again.

Ironic, because now I actually have something to live for. She took another drag on the cigarette. Life loved irony. She had a future. A lover, a daughter. A country to serve, friends to support. Oh God, friends to support.

So many, who needed it so badly.

A smile came to her lips, though. Bellatrix. She had been hospitalised, with severe neurological symptoms—she had been hit by the Cruciatus Curse in short succession at least nine times—and a concussion, and overpressure injuries to her lungs from being flung through the air like she had, and the hypoxia of not being able to draw air into her lungs, and the nearly drowning.

Somehow she'd woken up on her own in the lifeboat. Witches were tough. Somehow, she'd talked. Held herself together.

But she had still needed at least three days in the hospital, even with magical care.

She could hear footsteps behind her, and recognised them, from the noise on the floor, the sound of the shoes. Hermione turned back. "Harry."

"Hermione. No luck quitting?"

"Not the slightest. It will probably kill me," she said humourlessly, but with humour, and turned back to look out toward the lake, shaking her head. "How are things?"

"Luna cooked me breakfast. I just finished eating. You should find yourself, yourself," he offered, and it was somewhat of a dodge of the question, though that had certainly been fair, all things considered. And it was very nice of Luna.

"I'll grab something at the hospital canteen when I go," Hermione answered with a shrug, and flicked some of her cigarette ashes to the wind.

Harry leaned on the railing and looked out. He adjusted his glasses. Shook his head slightly. "I hope I can be honest with you, as your friend."

Hermione flicked the cigarette again. Almost time for another one. "Go ahead. I doubt it will be worse than an artillery barrage."

"There was a part of me that felt awful for you when we thought Bellatrix was dead. I didn't want to see you suffering."

Another drag. She could guess what was coming next.

"There's another part of me that was wildly happy that Bellatrix was dead. I was prepared to put your relationship with her behind us, and move on from it."

"I can't say I blame you," Hermione finally answered.

Harry stared.

Hermione tossed the cigarette to the wind, grabbed a fresh one, lit it up with practised ease, and inhaled sharply before looking back to Harry. "I might well want the same thing, in your place. You've lost so much, and I'm the one who gets the happy ending—with a woman objectively very undeserving of a happy ending. I'm not going to begrudge my friend wishing she was dead. You were also worried about me. Conflicting human emotions are normal."

"You always were the most thoughtful of us." He paused, and then lashed out. "Why couldn't it have been Bellatrix, instead of Ginny!?"

She was glad for the fresh cigarette. Right then, with Harry saying that, it felt so, so good. "I wanted to understand why I fell in love with her, once. But I gave up. Human emotion is stupid and irrational. It rather just happened. And as it turned out, it rather just happened that Bellatrix could hold herself together well enough to fall in love with a muggleborn and actually treat me will enough, once we were in a voluntary sexual relationship, that I appreciated loving her and wanted it to continue, indefinitely. I doubt she was expecting that either."

The words 'sexual relationship' had made Harry flinch, but that was fair. He had just expressed, after all, that he wished Bellatrix had been the one to die. Hermione wasn't getting angry about that, but she wasn't going to sugar-coat her explanation to him, either. He would either get it, or he wouldn't.

"I don't want to lose you as a friend," Harry admitted, plaintively.

"Then—don't. I'll hardly be the first person who's maintained a friendship despite her friends finding her in-laws to be really, really awkward." Another puff of smoke. She sniffed with a hint of laughter. "I'll need an evening in London while she's in the North every so often, anyway. She's damned intense."

She wasn't sure if Harry was going to get angry, or walk away, or what. But instead, he sighed, and she herself felt an immense relief. For all that she was so blasé about it, she hadn't been looking forward to losing him as a friend.

"I'll try to make it work. But I won't do it by just hiding from her. She did fight Voldemort toe-to-toe, after all, I'll…" Harry whirled.

Hermione turned. Bellatrix was there, in a simple regular Russian soldier's uniform—the hospital likely didn't have anything else spare—with a bathrobe tossed over it. She groaned with a mixture of relief and happiness and anxiety and frustration. Perfect timing. "Bella, please tell me you didn't check yourself out of the hospital without permission?"

"I didn't check myself out of the hospital without permission."

It was so deadpan that for a moment, Hermione was going to rush over and make sure she wasn't about to collapse. But the faintest flicker of a grin was on her lips, and Hermione instead burst out laughing.

Bellatrix took advantage of that to walk up to Harry. "Lord Potter."

"Lady Black," he answered. Hermione could tell from his expression that he badly, badly wanted to ask how much Bellatrix had heard.

Bellatrix smiled faintly. "Thank you."

Harry didn't really know what to do, from Bella's politeness and composure. He grimaced, clenched his teeth, and then smiled very wryly. "I admit I am always going to have difficulty understanding this. But if you are happy together, and I see Hermione happy for the rest of my life… Then I very much would like to keep the peace between us, if that's possible."

"It's possible," Bellatrix answered, and walked to Hermione's side. Reached out, grabbed her wife's trembling hand. Turned to Harry. Grinned.

"But, there's one condition."

Harry frowned. "What's that, Lady Black?" One could see from his grimace he was thinking all the worst things he could possibly think about Slytherins.

"If we're going to be cordial and you're going to stay friends with Hermione, I must absolutely insist that you sincerely put aside your hatred for me and help me get her to quit these damned muggle cancer-sticks."

Harry burst out laughing. Hermione grimaced wryly and looked down at the hand from whence Bellatrix wrested the cigarette, dropped it to the floor, and ground it out with one of her boots.

Harry pulled down his glasses, wiped his eyes, adjusted them, and looked up, still laughing, though his laughter was very much tinged with hysteria, as he embraced the absurdity of the situation that he found himself in. "All right, Lady Black. On that one thing, we'll collaborate."

They had been summoned to Astana. An All-Coalition Conference was to be held, to decide the course of remaining operations, try to negotiate terms of peace with Japan and Korea, decide on a policy vis-a-vis with South America, and assign responsibility for peacekeeping operations and line-of-control demarcations in several theatres where it seemed like an immediate halt to hostilities without compromising the core principles of the Coalition might be possible.

Narcissa was going to be there, of course, having established herself as a member of the allied coalition for the liberated British State, in her own right. Indeed, because of Britain's intact industry, only Russia was really in a better place. The Slytherin mastery of the situation by which Narcissa had turned herself from a lonely and helpless exile into one of the five or six most powerful people on the planet was deeply impressive to Hermione.

And a little exciting. Hermione hoped she could be just as effective of a politician, someday. What the hell would your constituency be? Married to a Death Eater…

Well, it was clear that she'd hitched herself to the House of Black.

Bellatrix, even released from the hospital, had been Out Of It. She hadn't been the slightest bit interested in sex, which was fine (Hermione's withdrawal symptoms from nicotine were total hell to her libido), and misery cuddling as one of them dealt with nicotine shakes and the other dealt with the continued work of a brain-healing potion to help deal with the neurological damage, had ended up being really the only way to spend the time.

But there had only been three days of that, before it was time to head to Astana. It was a wonderful July, even if the world would remain cold for a long time to come, cold was relative; July was perfectly warm. And each day, the Simurgh still flew.

By that point, it had become obvious that Bellatrix had recovered to the point to miss the most obvious thing that she had lost. She had adapted to the loss of her left arm, and from the stories that Hermione had heard, it had even saved her life. But the lack of a wand? She was a Pureblood girl, raised in magical society from birth.

So, some messages with MinKol in Kazakhstan had flown back and forth, and Larissa had made some inquiries, and Hermione had smiled, and tugged Bellatrix toward the Floo in Van, that morning. "Come on. We've got somewhere to go."

"The others aren't even out of bed, yet. We haven't had breakfast."

"Well, of course not. We're making a stop along the way that none of them need to make, and, I want to make sure that you have all the time you need."

"All the time I need?" Bella raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, silly; we're going to get you a new wand."

Bellatrix froze, and inhaled sharply. "Ah—ahhh." She was silent, and then a bemused smirk tugged at her plump and full lips. "I suppose waiting to visit Ollivander's would never do. I'm too impatient to be without a wand for several more days, and Ollivander would probably find some way to get revenge on me for looting his shop in Hogsmeade and giving all the wands to Goblins."

Hermione very nearly broke down laughing. "It probably means both of us aren't welcome as customers, yes. Now, Larissa tells me that this is one of the finest wand shops in all of Eurasia, but it's in the middle of nowhere. We're going to Aralsk."

Bellatrix, of course, didn't immediately understand the significance of Aralsk, and merely nodded. "Lead on, pet." She tried to be composed and dignified, but Hermione could see a little of a bubbling, eager girl in her in that moment, just like she perhaps had once been, the first time she had gone to Ollivander's, to get her wand before going to Hogwarts for the very first time. Now properly attired in her proper uniform, they stepped together through the Floo, one Marshal and her aide, that's all.

But they certainly were happy together.

Arriving in Aralsk, so much had changed in the course of the past century. It had started as part of the Russian Empire, and as a port town, and a naval base for the Aral Flotilla, the two tired little police steamers of Tsarist times. It had become a fishing town of Soviet times, with a growing population, in the Kazakh SSR. The lake had receded; the canal had been dug; the lake had receded further. The ships had rusted on the shore, until the frantic rush for scrap metal in the wake of the nuclear exchange had seen most of them broken up, by hand, by women working behind the front, with sledgehammers and brute force, to dump the piles of rusted steel into gondolas on the railway and haul it away.

But the nuclear war had changed other things, too. As it cooled down the climate, the glaciers in the Himalayan mountains grew exponentially, and the rate of evaporation in the desert reduced. For the past six years, the Aral Sea had been steadily refilling. The North Aral was still separate from the South Aral, but the Dike Korakkal regularly overtopped, now, and the canal was once again filled with pristine fresh water, and boats once again descended down the river the ancient Greeks had called the Jaxartes, to carry supplies and goods to Aralsk for transfer to the railway.

Perhaps, as the Simurgh continued to heal the world, the lake would fully recover. It made Hermione smile. Together, then, keeping close, they walked from a Floo connection, down dusty streets that were no longer quite so dusty, to a very old brick building that looked like it belonged in a Caravansarai.

An incredibly ancient looking man of Central Asian extraction, turban wrapped up on his head, wearing long flowing robes, set on a stool behind the counter of a dusty shop filled with wands in racks and boxes everywhere, and puffed on a hookah, while a Samovar happily glowed with magical light beside him.

He looked up at them with hooded eyes, with heavy baggy lids, that were full of secret thought.

"Sir," Hermione began politely…

"Comrade," he interjected in accented Russian, which nearly made Hermione giggle, but fortunately she managed to avoid it, only just. Sometimes Koldovstoretz did a better job of this than the Commissars probably ever hoped for.

"Comrade. My friend here…"

"Has lost her wand in the war," he nodded slowly. "Yes, yes. Hmm. What was the core?" He poured out two small cups of tea, and pushed them over. "Drink," came the insistent word, redolent in the hospitality of the desert.

"Dragon heartstring," Bellatrix answered, with a wistful expression, taking the offered cup, even if her heart wasn't into that, too eager to have a wand again in her hand.

Dragon heartstring. Just like my wands, the younger witch mused. But of course, that was exactly the reason Hermione herself had used it so well, until the Battle of Hogwarts, when Bellatrix had regained it from her.

"That will stay the same," the old man noted. He reached first for a wand of Apple, and investigated it before Bellatrix, at last handing it to her, only for orange sparks to stutter down its length. Apple did not much like Black Magic, and there was still much about Bellatrix that was dark.

"Hmm. A Black Court lass, I see," he mused, and then summoned a wand of Chestnut. This one snapped against her magical core, with a jolt, and Bellatrix softly shook her head.

He frowned. "Well, I only have one left. So popular, you see; but it's rare to pair it with a Dragon heartstring." he called out the next wand. Hidden talents and unexpected effects. Whatever else could, from Ollivander's famous compendium, better describe Bellatrix, and the unexpected story of her electric magic? It was, of course, Larix sibirica, the Siberian Larch. Long, too, more than 400mm, almost unseemly so. "Halfway to a Rabdos," Bellatrix murmured, but the wand gave a reassuring crackling in her hand.

Hermione could feel the electricity shift in the air.

"Well, if anyone can master Larch, I can," she declared a moment later, with growing confidence and comfort, looking to the old man. Somehow, the divine subtly of the magic of wand-making tended to produce a similar class of man, regardless of the country. She turned and cast a simple Lumos, made harder by the fact she did it voicelessly.

The old man smiled. "A silent spell. You challenge yourself from the first. That will be a nice match, then."

Hermione could see the brightening look on Bella's face, as she looked down at the wand, like it was just a little bit of a rebirth, a new beginning. Still a Dragon heartstring, because she couldn't be any other way, because neither of them could be any other way. But now, Larch, and Siberian Larch too, so that they would never quite forget all that happened and all that had been done.

But a new direction for her Bella.

Hermione liked that. She listened, as Bella and the old man haggled over the price, and having settled on something agreeable, Bellatrix gave him more money anyway, to buy up a leather wand-holster that was actually of the proper length, and suited for a straight wand rather than the custom ones for her old curved wand. She traded them to the man, as a curiosity.

Hermione supposed Bella wanted to be done with that part of her past, now, too,, and she couldn't blame her. It was another round of tea, and polite, slow haggling, before they settled the bill, and Bellatrix wandered out again, holding her wand in hand, looking at it, getting a feel for it in the open summer desert's sun, a witch once more.

The house in Astana. They arrived first, and Bellatrix, with considerable intensity and concentration—she was still establishing her bond with the new wand—passed them through the magical lock. She insisted on it, even though it was keyed to Hermione, too.

The city outside was brightly decked with garlands of flowers. People were celebrating the news of the Dark Lord's death, and the string of victories on the Transkavkaz that followed. The decorations on the house had held up through winter. Some British embassy functionaries had been using it for a while since the liberation, but Narcissa had made arrangements, so they all had a comfortable place to stay for the Conference.

Draco and Larissa hadn't arrived yet—so they were alone. They wandered into the dining room after putting down their duffel bags by the door, and for a moment, Bellatrix just silently stared out at the River Esil. Hermione bustled over to the kitchen and started to brew tea.

"I'm sorry."

"huh… Bella?" Blinking, looking up. Seeing and being a little worried at the dreamlike expression on Bella's face.

"I'm sorry. It was truly awful to out you to my sisters like I did, here."

Oh. Well, yes it was, but I wasn't really wasn't looking for an apology, was what first flashed through Hermione's head. She decided to say something else, though. "At the time I was utterly mortified. So, thank you. However, it set us on the path we've walked, so I don't regret it."

"Thank you." Bellatrix looked at her wand for a while, and the expression on her face blossomed again to almost childlike wonder. She lit the samovar with it when Hermione had it ready, and rearranged the chairs to the dining room table, humming softly to herself. Mundane house-witch things.

Peace.

Just getting to know her wand.

Hermione was smiling, and felt close to tears by the end. Such glee in Bellatrix had before only ever been tinged with a frenetic madness. Now it was gone. She leaned against the wall and watched as Bellatrix worked her way through pretty much every single spell she could think of. Fortunately without setting the house on fire. She culminated in an elegant, sharp Protego to confirm that she could defend herself.

Two witches smiled at each other. The younger one shivered with delight, and a deviously sweet little thought. Hermione finished her tea, and pushed off the wall. She stepped up to Bellatrix, set her glass of tea down, and folded her arms around her lover. "By the way, I think I owe you something."

"Hmm?" Bellatrix looked up, not exactly healthy, but with enough light in her eyes to promise a future.

Hermione gently pushed her, and Bellatrix let her do it. Back into their room. Click. Door locked with a wave of her wand. Gently pushed Bella down on the bed.

"Oh you…"

Blouse and skirt and stockings and knickers—Hermione got through all of it, she was a clever witch. Pushing Bellatrix back up against the pillows, down into the covers. She grinned. "You've been so good to me about this. It's probably the reason we're together. You're not demanding during sex. But, it isn't a demand today. I want to make you feel good, Bella."

Bellatrix set her wand on the nightstand and laughed. "Oh, the risks of having a younger lover!"

"...Risks. Hah. You have more energy than I do in bed."

A sniff. A twitch of that cute little nose. "Well, yes, I suppose I do."

Give a Black a chance to preen, and she'd preen. Hermione groaned, with the grin restricted to her eyes, but finished tossing most of Bella's clothes on the floor. The Jackdaw is truly the spirit animal of the lot of them. Well, you've got enough of her clothes off. Complete undressing had never been required for the two of them to have fun. And, Bella seemed to like it that way.

She dove between her lover's legs. Rested her head there, to get Bella comfortable. Twirled gentle little swirls on her inner thighs with her fingertips. Kissed, very gently, with her lips parting black curls, honestly as messy as the one's on Bella's head.

Bellatrix's hands promptly came down, one living flesh, and the second enchanted gold. The second, cool to the touch on the back of Hermione's head, pushing through the mass of her own frizzy hair, pushing her head down—the hand that had saved her life, under the dim dark waters of Lake Van.

They pushed down firmly on Hermione's head. Her lips planted lower than before, and firmly. Hermione shifted and bucked her head a bit to take a breath. Yep. Got her turned on.

Bellatrix could be delightfully predictable, sometimes. And they made love, as intensely and sometimes ridiculously, as they always did.

They'd both lived, and she'd repaid the favour, from the last night in Britain.

...But the afternoon didn't stop there.

That evening, a few guards took up post outside of the house, and a figure dressed in a smart black muggle woman's business suit, of a very conservative cut, arrived at the house, with a simple pearl necklace, gold loop earrings, and a Union Jack lapel pin. Larissa, who had arrived with Draco a few hours earlier, kissed her cheeks and welcomed her with a curtsy.

Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her eyes an icy calm of composure, and the only thing that marked her different from a muggle, really, was the Triquetra which matched the Union Jack on the opposite lapel, the wand holster set demurely against her belt, and the shoes that barely had an inch of lift, with thick platforms so she could run properly in them, and fight.

She stepped over to one of the doors, and quietly opened it. Under all the composure and decorum and the face to the world which serenely promised victory and prosperity, there was a hint of the way that little sisters always were to older sisters.

Still, she would bring a gift. Two murmured spells, a lazy tap of a drawn wand on a gentle course, and two tea cups floated after her into the room. The third was for her.

"Well, at least you remembered to pull a sheet over yourselves."

"I, uh, what…" Hermione groaned. Suddenly a wave of nicotine withdrawal symptoms hit her and reminded her that she had been sleeping comfortably on a minute before, but now, no longer.

"I'm… what someone's in the" blind, urgent groping for her new wand "ro—CISSY!?"

"Yes, you know, I was coming in by Concorde tonight. I had assumed you were briefed on the plan, Bella. But I imagine you're exhausted, particularly with some extracurricular activities in the meantime."

Hermione was looking up, flushed all red in embarrassment and staring almost in awe at the tiny little grin that was planted on Narcissa Malfoy's face.

"Oh Gods, Cissy, walking in on me in my bed with…"

"With your fiancee? I suppose that's more polite than paramour. We will have to get the two of you married soon enough, you know." Narcissa easily moved to sit in one of the chairs in the room, legs smartly crossed, and used her wand to direct the floating teacups, one to each side of the bed. "Now, wake up, and talk with me."

Bella pushed herself up, having not quite completely disrobed she was marginally more modest than Hermione at that point. Still, she reached for her wand to summon a bathrobe, and then glared when Hermione grabbed it in midair and started tugging it on herself, still beet red.

But then Bella held up her wand, and couldn't resist showing it off. The smile of sincere happiness she held, made Cissy smile so hard she almost cried.

"Look, look, Cissy. Siberian larch, sixteen inches, dragon heartstring core. We've been getting acquainted today. That's why the house was all perfect; I actually bothered with all the old household spells we were taught as girls, to set things right."

"I'd heard about your wand, I'm sorry. But I see that Granger was formidable in making quick arrangements to make good the loss, permanently, and so much the better because I do confess it's quite refreshing to see you so happy about something, Bella."

"Uhm, I'm sorry," Hermione murmured sheepishly as she finished pulling the robe on, and still embarrassed for her immodesty.

"Nonsense, you're my sister in law in all but the law," Narcissa answered drolly. "I grew up in a household of three girls, it's nothing I haven't seen before."

Of course, that just made Hermione flush harder.

"Bella. I'd like to get on the same page with you about these coming talks. I've been reading extensively on the Yalta Conference, after the Second World War, and I intend to hit similar high notes, and avoid as many mistakes as possible. Fortunately, there is no real ideological differences between my Britain and the CIS under President Nazarbayev, so we have nothing to worry about in that regard. But I intend for an alliance of two countries—Britain and Russia—to control the course of foreign policy in the post-war world and dictate the course of action in clearing out the Dark Lord's lackeys. And, of course, I need your insight on your former compatriots for this. So drink your tea, and let's begin."

And then she winked to Hermione, and calmly picked up her own glass of tea. "And you should listen carefully, Hermione. I understand you're interested in politics."