A Wedding
3 January, 2005.
Cape Town
Table Mountain had an incredible variety of wildlife, with species endemic to it, and to the 'Back Table', the somewhat lower shelf located close to the main height. The very nature of the world had been changed—the size of the globe, the shape of lands revealed to be different thanks to powerful magics—islands had resurfaced from the sea, and cities, of course, had been obliterated by muggle power too.
But Table Mountain remained, and in the Southern Summer, it was beautiful. The sun baked down on them, and there were flowers and birds in the air. The environment of the Southern Hemisphere had been much less impacted by the war, in comparison with the northern. There were still scars on Cape Town below… But only a single nuke had hit the city, around the Foreshore. And the Morsmordre-aligned government from before had already completed extensive repair and rehabilitation work.
If one squinted, just a little, it looked like a perfectly normal scene.
If she was going to get married in a city which she had no connection to and hadn't visited before the past year, Cape Town might as well be it. As far as a scenic location went, Table Mountain had few to beat.
The Aerial Cableway had been cleared to enter service, but hadn't resumed commercial operations yet, so they even had a private lift to the top. Now they stood near the east face, next to the cairn that marked the highest point, overlooking the Oranjezicht, the bowl of the city below them, Robben Island where Mandela had been imprisoned, off in the distance at sea, over the shoulder of the Lion's Head.
Delphini and Teddy were old enough to be dressed in very nice clothes and try to be serious—especially Delphini as a bridesmaid for Bellatrix, which she was treating as the Most Important Duty she had ever held in her life. Andromeda, in her best robes, had a particular gleam in her eye. Narcissa, standing with Draco and Larissa, had a gently amused and pleased expression.
Hermione's wedding party was smaller than she had ever thought in her life that it would be, until late the year before, anyway. General Diaz had made some arrangements, worked with Narcissa to schedule a summit at the same time, and took advantage of the instantaneous nature of portkey travel to make this possible.
Luna was with him. She was, by all accounts, dating Harry now, and he certainly had not come, which Hermione couldn't blame him for. There were no Weasleys in attendance, and the mere fact reminded her for a moment of Ginny.
But there was Luna, and Jorge. Daphne Greengrass was there, too. They had found a local halfblood priest of the old ways, who coincidentally claimed descent from an Indiscretion by a member of the House of Black some two centuries before, who had been willing to perform the wedding of to witches. Perhaps it was for the sake of advancement, but it didn't really matter to Hermione; they had found him and that was what counted.
Better than nothing, for a wedding party.
Blaise and his mother were present as well. So was Tonks, and Hermione hoped she had come voluntarily rather than getting dragged by her mother.
That was it. An officiant, their daughter, and eleven guests.
Fourteen guests, damnit, Hermione amended with a grin. She saw the three remaining Black House Elves who were all also present as part of the wedding party, not just servants. I'm going to need to work on that one.
That was it.
But standing on the top of Table Mountain, Hermione felt on top of the world. A gentle breeze blew against them, on this day that was much too perfect, splendid beyond reckoning. It was a breeze which had blown its way around the world, to reach them here at the end of Africa.
And, two weeks from now, this land would be formally placed in her charge, in a visit by the King which Narcissa had announced during a speech only two days before (one of her reasons for visiting, which was perfectly legitimate, and only somewhat incidental to her sister's wedding). Lady Bellatrix Black was marrying the future Governor-General of Cape Province, after all.
They both wore dresses (Narcissa would have likely died, otherwise), but not wedding dresses ("I don't want to wear something that makes me think of Rod when marrying Hermione!"), which fluttered in the breeze. Mild atop the Table was not the same as below, and they had, on the cableway up, draped themselves with shawls hung around the shoulders and tied them to complete the ensemble for the cooler heights.
Hermione had never had truly great expectations for a wedding, she hadn't been one of those girls who fantasised about weddings all the time, probably because in her heart, somewhere, she knew she was lesbian and she knew that weddings were for a man and a woman. So she'd brought down on herself an aura of professionalism and …
She steadied herself with a flush. No need to psychoanalyse why you wanted what you wanted at your wedding.
On signal, her wedding party got a little larger. It had been planned this way—Larissa kissed Draco sweetly on the cheek, and with a mischievious grin, walked up to Jorge, who was dressed in a suit and tie instead of his uniform. This was decidedly not an event they really needed photos of people in an official capacity to come out of.
Nonetheless, Larissa couldn't help play it up. "Colonel Larissa Naryshkina, reporting for bridesmaid duty, General," she tipped a salute.
He broke out laughing. "Assume your place, Colonel."
Larissa stepped over to Hermione's side with a grin and a wink, and leaned closer. "Like I said, you only need one bridesmaid—I'm just that good at my job."
Hermione couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing, laughing into the living wind. No, she wasn't sure why the formal trappings had suddenly mattered for her at the last minute, but her family and friends had conspired to make absolutely sure that there were enough of them present to make her feel… Remarkably content about it, actually.
Bella was laughing with her sisters. Her face was shining, she looked like she were in her thirties, not her fifties, with all the natural magical resilience of a witch to ageing crossed with the healing effects of having repeatedly drunk the Water of Life. The happiest day of our lives? Definitely. At least for now.
She was confident they had so many more to look forward to.
The fire was kindled high, and it was Jorge who took Hermione's side, to give her away, in lieu of the father who would not be there, who was gone from her life forever, now. Not exactly traditional. Narcissa, with a brilliant look (the youngest becomes the oldest, indeed…) performed the same role for her sister as they approached the fire, before invocations and offerings to the Gods, crackling with magic.
A magical wedding, like Draco and Larissa's at the old Stone Circle on the Black Family Estate. A wedding of equals, because at this point, both of them could imagine it only exactly that way.
Bonds of an oath of loyalty and love and compassion, slipping into each other's arms with glowing soft blue rings of energy that had drifted out of the smoke and into their arms. She could feel, feel, the old Family Magic, the one thing that separated Pureblood families from muggleborns, the magical bonds and oaths and wards and enchantments which collectively were attuned to the magic of a bloodline, a family. It slipped into her. It joined her magical core. It claimed her, like Bellatrix had, until she had claimed Bellatrix. It burned bright with the recognition that a powerful witch had entered into the House of Black.
No simple passage through the wards for a paramour, now. She shivered, and shuddered, and the hairs of her skin stood on end, and Bellatrix knew what was happening and she was smiling at her, so bright, so happy that she could feel Hermione inside of the house magic, as she could her sisters, but different, closer, more intense, bonded.
Forever, damnit, Hermione thought and declared, triumphantly. Forever. If they try to send you somewhere else when we die, I'll raid Hell for you.
And she meant it, with every fibre of her being.
"...You may now kiss…"
The words jolted her back to life out of drowning joyously in Bella's eyes. She was overcome, though, a moment later, as the shorter witch with mirth on her face, pulled Hermione down, and kissed her fervently and passionately in front of everyone, well, the everyone that mattered.
House magic set apart purebloods and muggleborns, but only because purebloods had spent centuries cultivating it. It accepted Hermione, even though her parents had been muggles, nourished her, welcomed her, slipped into every crack and pore of who she was.
Just like Bella's tongue seemed determined to explore every single part of her mouth, as their lips pressed firmly together.
At last, it was only a want of air that made them both part, and then, Bella was holding her hands with her own, cackling with glee. "My sisters, my kin, my friends, I present to you and announce to you my lawfully wedded wife, Hermione Black!"
Delphini finally lost her dignified stand, and ran up to both of them, hugging at her mothers. "Now," she declared firmly to Hermione, "Everyone has to admit you're my mommy," she nodded, her eyes serious but happy.
And that's your legacy in the world, Tom Riddle. Your halfblood daughter, who will be raised by a lesbian mixed blood couple. That's the only thing you leave behind you. Everything else you have ever done is ashes upon the wind.
It was Andromeda who came forward to perform the next ceremony. "And now, we will complete the adoption under the old rituals of the house," she said, and Hermione grew serious, and wrapped an arm around Delphini, and held her close between herself and Bellatrix.
It was the first time in years and years that Andromeda had reached out to the old family magic like this. She recited the words in the old tongue, in Cumbric, her wand touching gently to Hermione's forehead, and then to Delphini's. A magical adoption, a binding of the magical core like that which already existed between Bellatrix and Delphini.
Now it was repeated, for the sake of her second mother.
Delphini held herself so straight upright and proud as the bonds slipped inside of her, with just the very slightest flinch, and then it was done, and both her mothers hugged her.
They stood together, silently, all three of them, looking out over Cape Town below them. It would be their home for the next six years, while Hermione tried to rebuild the infrastructure and civil society until Cape Province was ready for free elections as an integral part of the British League.
It was beautiful.
But mostly, it was beautiful because they were all together.
Delphini's expression twisted up. "Do I have to go away now so you can have Alone Time?" She exaggerated the last two words significantly.
"No, no," Bella laughed. "That comes later, dear. We have to get drunk in the party first."
Hermione blushed and groaned all at once. There were some disadvantages to being married to Bellatrix, after all. Like the fact that she was the only adult in the relationship, and had to keep Bella from making Delphi as bad as she was!
But, she couldn't complain. She knew what she'd signed up for. I love this. I love her. I love Delphi. I … We lived.
We lived. Sometimes that's all there was to it.
Bellatrix had been perfectly honest with her daughter. First there had been a two and a half mile hike (fairly leisurely, they were all fit) down from where they had been married to the 'Overseer's Cottage', which was really two cottages in close proximity. This had been a vacation rental before the war, and it had been wonderfully refurnished by Narcissa specifically for this night, well, and the following week that Bellatrix and Hermione had it.
There was indeed a party, with a big fire pit in the middle. And they stayed up, drinking and dancing and listening to music and talking, until late into the night, while the cinders and sparks from the southern hardwood crackled up into the heavens under the stars for which the House of Black named, by long held custom, the first and second born daughters and sons (each). Narcissa, the youngest, had been the only one with the freedom of her own name, and of course, Blacks being Blacks, they had chosen something odd.
Bellatrix was proud of Andromeda for naming her eldest daughter Nymphadora. You didn't ape us, but you didn't ape the muggle-borns either. It's not a Black's firstborn name, but it is a pureblood firstborn name. And now those will go to all of our daughters and sons who are born no matter if they are purebloods or halfbloods. Someday, after all, Delphini Black would be Lady Black.
And much sooner than that, she'd be Lady Gaunt.
And Lady Peverell.
And Lady Slytherin.
Well, the magic would recognise her that way. Bella suspected that Hermione and Narcissa alike would think it best for the world to believe she was Rod's child, but there were enough people alive that lying about it was unwise, and it was best to just obscure it, and take it as it came, if it ever ended up spilled and well-known.
At some point in the night, Bella was fairly well drunk, and absolutely ebullient, and Narcissa was standing in front of her and Hermione with Delphini, and Andromeda and Teddy and Tonks. "All right, so. We're leaving now, my sisters," she addressed both of them that way, and Bella smiled. Of course Narcissa would take that sister-in-law thing very seriously. "General Diaz and I will be returning tonight by portkey to Europe, to avoid being away for any longer than we absolutely needed for the wedding and the junket, and I'm afraid."
"And," Andy added with a bright smile, her own ebullience which had overcome the pain of her loss, "Dora,"
Tonks groaned. Her mother would never stop calling her that.
"...And Delphini and Teddy and I will be, as we agreed, staying in Cape Town and exploring and having fun. We'll take the train up to the Great Karoo as we agreed," Andy continued smoothly. "And we'll stay long enough so that we're representing for the rest of the family, when His Majesty arrives to invest Hermione and administer her oath of office."
Bellatrix was nodding, and her hand idly moving and…
Whack.
Getting slapped, apparently.
With her face pink from the alcohol and embarrassment, Hermione hissed: "You need to wait just another three minutes, Bella."
Andromeda had bent her head down, snickering and giggling at the same time. "Sooner than that. Children, let's go, please, before I have to keep you up later explaining some things." With a nod to Tonks, they began to hasten away.
Narcissa, taking up the rear, paused and turned. She winked at Bella. Then, with a flourish, she turned again, and they hustled the children off in the dark, their wands bringing light so they could follow the shorter trail down to the Lodge they had rented on the Constantia Nek for everyone else, leaving Bella and Hermione alone on the mountain (Tonks had transformed herself to sober up, so she could lead them down the trail without falling off it).
Bella was laughing. She always knew Cissy had that side.
And then Hermione was in her lap, shaking her head at her wife. "Damnit, Bella, you're incorrigible. Do you really think Andy wants to explain sex to our daughter for us? Hopeless, hopeless, ugh…"
Bellatrix grinned and leaned forward and kissed 'Mione firmly on the lips. There was absolutely no resistance from her wife. "I stopped."
Hermione groaned and laughed all at once and tugged Bellatrix up, laughing, and kissed her again, and Bella liked that very much, thank you. And it was clear that Hermione was just as frisky anyway, she just hid it better. Like always. Hah! And you say you're not a Slytherin. I always felt Dumbledore messed with the hat, Bella thought as she was tugged and dragged and cuddled and pushed on her way inside the cottage, leaving the fire behind to gently gutter down.
There was a bed there, after all, and soon enough Hermione was pulling her down willingly onto it, and Bellatrix was quite the willing victim.
"Fuck, wedding dresses are hard," Hermione was muttering from behind and around her.
Bella's eyes glinted, and she whispered a spell in Cumbric.
"Wandless magic for taking your clothes off? Really!?" Hermione exclaimed as the laces and the buttons undid themselves and everything fell gently off of Bella.
The elder witch cackled. "You said it was hard."
"I like challenges!"
"You already have to make me orgasm when I'm three sheets to the wind," Bella countered.
Hermione promptly pushed her down into the pillows. "Like that's supposed to make it harder?" She was looming over her wife then, and promptly kissed Bella's nipples, and Bella could feel them harden eagerly in the comfortably cool night air of the cottage (Narcissa had some warming charms set somewhere, but she quickly stopped thinking about those…)
..Or anything at all, really, as Hermione's lips and tongue dove lower, kissing down her stomach, tracing a few stubborn scars of magical origin from the battle at Ararat. They both had them. They both didn't care.
Bella's legs were gently parted by Hermione and the younger witch pressed her head down into her mass of black curls that lay between her legs. "This isn't ever going to get old," Hermione promised softly, and kissed her, and started to lick, and stroke, holding Bella in place as her tongue explored soft skin that it already knew very well.
Hermione kept to her promise, and it was not long before Bella's hips and thighs shook around Hermione's head, and she quivered in bed, in a shaken, exhausted delight. Then, as Hermione looked up, with that hopeful and needy expression she still got when she was vulnerable and happy and nervous like she was on her wedding night—did I do good? Did I pass? Bella could interpret that look so well – she smiled brilliantly.
"You make every dream come true, 'Mione," she promised, and then with a wink used her own hips to topple Hermione to the side, shook lose, and slipped down alongside her to reciprocate. At least for tonight, after all, they wouldn't need to be in any hurry to leave bed. There was peace and rest and a week long honeymoon at the top of Table Mountain ahead of them, and Bellatrix liked that very much.
Bellatrix needed that, very much.
They both did.
15 July, 2005
Cape Town
De Tuynhuys, The Garden House, was Hermione and Bellatrix's (and Delphini's) residence in Cape Town, had been for six months now, and would be for another five and a half years. The lovely two story house with the columnade below her office overlooking the company garden, and two matching wings, was a comfortable and pleasant Cape Dutch style manor overloking the Company Gardens. It was Hermione's Official Residence, as Governor General, and the place that she conducted her administrative functions, since she was not the symbolic authority of the crown, but the actual Governor-General in an executive sense, appointed by the Ministry for Overseas Territories to manage the reconciliation process and work toward the return of Representative Government.
Down in the harbour, lay her 'guests', taking on fuel and victuals as part of the continued effort to slowly bring peace to the savaged world, while around her lived three million people just in the metropolitan area, dependent on her administration and good governance. It was sometimes sobering, but she had voluntarily sought it out, and it was her chance to prove herself.
Up here, in her office, she was acutely aware of how many of the artisans for the fine working of this palace had been slaves. She was pleased that for all the chaos and the end of South Africa as a Union, that she was the one who occupied this office. It was a promise to the Coloured population of Cape Province that the British League was not just another round of colonialism.
"Your Excellency—Presenting His Grace, the Duke of Albemarle," her secretary presented Blaise. He was dressed in his Admiral's uniform, and in all fairness, she had seen him only six hours before, during the welcoming ceremony for the fleet that now lay at anchor in the roadsted of Cape Town harbour. Two British fleet carriers, one the old QE2 and one brand new, sat there alongside the Russian Admiral Kuznetsov, and the light jump-jet carrier Illustrious, with a taskgroup of twenty Russian and British ships, flying the St. Andrew's Cross and the White Ensign. It was a powerful allied display, intended to support provide muscle to the final peace deal with Japan and Korea.
Hermione rose, but her smile was pleasant and informal. "Blaise, a pleasure that you could, in fact, make it for afternoon tea."
"I wouldn't miss it for anything in the world," Blaise assured her, and stepped up and shook hands with Hermione. "How is the Governor-Generalship?"
"Pleasant," Hermione assured him, gesturing to the plans on her desk. "Do have a seat. I'm reviewing the design for an S-bahn for the City."
"An S-bahn?" He settled in, and she poured them both tea.
"Yes, it's a circulator tunnel for the commuter trains. All the lines converge into it, and run with the same frequency as a metro. We're hiring wizards unemployed by the end of the war, and the collapse of a separate magical economy, to dig the tunnels. It will be the first muggle technological project made possible by the use of magic, as a model for cheaper and smarter infrastructure for the world. And, we're building a few new commuter lines at the same time. When we're done, Cape Town won't need its own Metro in the future—it didn't have one in the past and relied on cars and buses-because the commuter rail system it already has will have been expanded to serve both functions." Hermione was very proud of that as a first signature infrastructure project for her administration.
"Ah, now that's the Hermione Black I know. Detail oriented and willing to plan for the future down to the level of minutiniae." He chucked pleasantly, and raised his tea. "How is married life treating you?"
"Best thing that's ever happened and all that," Hermione answered over her own mug, kicked back in her high leather executive chair. "Bellatrix is amazingly funny as the First Lady of Cape Province. The people actually love her, as far as I can tell. She doesn't care about any kind of convention, but manages to keep her conduct together in a way that leaves her perpetual duck-out-of-water-ness charming."
"Prince Phillip, but a little bit more conscientious of what she's saying?"
"Mostly," Hermione agreed with a wry laugh. "Truth be told, I'm astonished you know about the poor old man's reputation, from before the war."
"My mother raised me to be conversant in the muggle world too. She got very good at managing business interests on both sides," Blaise remarked. "So, I'm thankful for that, because it left be nicely placed in this world. I must say, you would think the Duchess of Lancaster had the same sort of upbringing for how well she's done as Prime Minister."
"The elections in March were astonishing," Hermione agreed. Narcissa's Progressive-Conservatives had dominated at the polls and returned seventy percent of the seats at Westminster. It was an absolutely commanding Parliamentary Majority. "But I've always felt Narcissa was the kind of person who lands on her feet no matter what, and did she ever."
"It's true," Blaise agreed congenially.
"Do you think you'll face combat in the east?"
"Both regimes are very unpredictable, so we must be ready for it, certainly. But, we have twenty-five combat ships, five submarines, and five hundred experienced battle wizards and witches with the fleet. It won't be any more risky than the other battles we've fought before."
Hermione nodded. A slightly shy, half-embarrassed smile. "I'm very thankful we've signed a treaty and are delineating the boundary here between Cape Province and the African Federation. I don't want to see more fighting myself. I rather prefer this whole governance thing, to tell the truth."
"It suits you like a fish to water?"
"You could say that! I dreamed it, you know, from a young age, though I never imagined this would be the path that I'd take to it."
Blaise nodded. "I don't think any of us could have. But, any Slytherin would be proud of how you dealt with the circumstances."
Hermione grinned. "Bellatrix has taken to suggesting that I should have been a Slytherin, but Dumbledore…" Her smile flickered into a wince. "Well, that he was rigging the Sorting Hat."
"How very Bellatrix of a thing to say."
"I don't know what he'd think of this," Hermione confided. "Grindelwald would be pleased, this is closer to the world HE envisioned than the world that Dumbledore tried to preserve; and his life work is destroyed and ruined and discredited. But, at the same time, we did what he wanted us to. We defeated Voldemort. How do you feel about all of that?"
"Immensely thankful that my mother didn't let me get mixed up in all of that crap," he answered. "And then got me such a relatively privileged position, but isolated from Voldemort's court, the moment that he did win decisively. Now, she is a very smart woman, you know."
Your mum is possibly also a serial killer, but Narcissa's friend, too. Oh well. Hermione had learned to deal with worse. "She is," Hermione agreed. Then changed the subject. "So, after Larissa gave birth last week, I have some news of my own." The family magic of the House of Naryshkin had done something to the curse, because while there was still just one male Heir Malfoy, he actually had a sister. Romulus and Lucia Malfoy. Larissa was absolutely overjoyed, and especially triumphant that she'd overcome the curse. 'my womb's just as tough as the rest of me,' she'd boasted to Hermione from the hospital, probably drugged out of her mind on painkillers.
"...You're not." Blaise feigned surprise.
"We absolutely are. In fact, Bellatrix is at the fertility clinic today, to find out of the attempted implantation of an embryo actually took."
Almost perfectly on time—the magical world seemed to frequently work that way—the phone rang. Hermione's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she reached for it on her desk. "Hullo, this is the … Oh, Rachel, I asked not to be … Bella's calling, and she won't take no for an answer? Yes," a sigh. "put her on the line." Hermione cupped the speaking receiver and gestured to Blaise in that universal expression of Sorry. "not putting this on speaker-" she started to comment wryly.
Then there was an explosion of sound from the other side.
"HERMIONE WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME? THIS MUGGLE DOCTOR! UGH! THIS MUGGLE DOCTOR—WHAT DID YOU AND DRACO DO TO ME? I OUGHT TO USE A CRUCIO ON HIM RIGHT NOW!"
"Love, calm down, calm down, no, no, can we please not even talk about using Crucios on people?"
"THREE!" Bellatrix screamed back. "THREE THREE THREE THREE THREE THREE!"
Hermione's face went blank. She hadn't really been prepared for that either. Nobody was. Nobody could be. Even though this was a risk with fertility treatments and artificial insemination, especially in older women. "Well, we're rich, and we have house elves and servants to do everything for us," Hermione answered in a bland, overwhelmed monotone. "Also please don't Crucio the Doctor. We did sign consent forms that said this was a risk. And, I don't want to deal with the political backlash."
She then had to hold the phone away from her ear as a torrent of strong language emerged. Blaise had broke down laughing, but was wise enough to laugh in perfect silence, lest Bellatrix get wind that he was in the room and amused by her predicament.
"Love, it's going to be amazing. It's what happens when people actually outbreed for a change and get a healthy mix of genes going," Hermione added after a moment. She couldn't help it. The scar on her arm, which no longer scared or bothered her (they were still working on removing it, but these things took time—though Bellatrix had an entire lab and devoted herself to it regularly)—was still justification in her mind for a bit of needling of her wife.
That triggered another explosion from Bellatrix. Hermione was grinning.
"Yes, love, I understand that I haven't given birth yet and that your second time is going to be triplets and we've barely got enough tits for all of them—that was very clever of you, dear. Yes, I will take the potions that will let me share in breastfeeding, I promise."
More screaming.
"I love you too, dear. I'll see you soon. Yes, I'll clear my calendar for the rest of the day, I promise. Love. Ta!"
She put the phone down and wiped her brow. "Fortunately, she won't apparate in this condition so her driver will have to take her back, thus, we've got a little bit of time for you to make good your escape in. She should probably be calmed down by then. I love her so much. Especially now that we've reached the point where her anger just feels cute. Gods help me thought—Triplets! House elves and servants and a professional nanny and Governress. I couldn't imagine it otherwise. I'm probably going to need a very stiff drink today. And a boozy brunch the day after tomorrow for us to actually finish this conversation if you don't mind, Blaise?"
He chuckled. "Of course. I'll leave you to the marital bliss of finding out the muggle doctors managed to impregnate Bellatrix Black with triplets."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Biologically speaking, it was myself and Draco who impregnated Bellatrix Black. He may just have stopped being her favourite nephew. But he's too stupidly happy of a new father at the moment for the news to shake him, so I had best tell him sooner rather than later."
She tipped a salute to Blaise, and saw him off. Then she stopped by Rachel's desk, and cleared her calendar for the rest of the afternoon, and wandered down into the gardens, admiring the sensible arrangement and blend of European and indigenous plants and appreciating that it was never quite cold enough in Cape Town for the plants down here, close to sea level, to emulate those of Europe and hibernate in the Southern Winter. She didn't think she could ever get enough green again her life. A part of her was tempted to emulate Narcissa in miniature, and run for Premier of Cape Province in the elections after her term with full administrative and legislative powers that was intended to handle the Truth and Reconciliation process and ease the region back into having a normal civil society and democratic governance.
But, Bellatrix probably wanted to raise the children at Ancient House, if she at all could. And Hermione thought that was very fair.
The car rolled up, and the moment it came to a stop, Bellatrix bounded out.
"...Did you wear your seatbelt, love!?" Hermione called out, a glint in her eye.
"I HATE YOU!"
Hermione folded her into a hug, and kissed her passionately. They were both grinning at each other when their lips finally parted.
"Like hell you do," she answered with that smile so brightly on her lips, and hugged Bellatrix tightly in her arms.
An Epilogue
The Sword had brought to Hermione the love of her life. It had given her an adopted daughter, to love alongside of a son and two daughters of her own blood, borne by the love of her life (Larissa said that the boys—they both had just one, while Hermione and Bellatrix had three girls and Larissa ended up with two—the boys were so outnumbered that they needed to stick together. So, Larissa and Draco and Hermione and Bellatrix had kept their sons as thick as thieves).
The Sword had shorn her of her friendships. Apparently, the biggest row that Luna and Harry had was over whether or not to invite the Blacks to their wedding; in the end, only Hermione, Andromeda and Tonks had received invitations, and Bellatrix had forced the matter so that they'd actually go, refusing to even countenance the idea of a boycott because the invitation excluded half of one couple (namely, her). As for the Weasleys, it was worse. She simply never heard anything from them again, and didn't ask, though during the times she spent with Luna she would occasionally hear rambling updates of this and that.
Hermione had wondered about Luna and Harry being together, but in the end it seemed the best. Only Luna seemed to have an uncomplicated ability to deal with the profound disassociation that Harry suffered from, and love him despite it. She was mad enough to deal without a blink with a man-out-of-time who had been six years dead.
The Sword had made Hermione famous. She had decorations on her chest, a formal uniform of a Governor-General, political power, millions of people whose lives were improved or not by the quality of her decisions.
The Sword had made Hermione rich. Bellatrix shared the Black Fortune equally with her.
The Sword had made Hermione powerful. She was one of the most prominent of the young Progressive-Conservatives. As the years went on, their six years in Cape Town, then six years as the Governor-General of Doggerland, supervising the construction of railways and roads and planned cities to accommodate refugees from around the world as new settlers of that land, magically restored above the sea, she became extremely well respected as a competent politician and administrator.
The Sword had given her a daughter to be proud of. Delphini had, of course, sorted to Slytherin the moment that she had the hat touch her head. But Slytherin, the Houses, and Hogwarts were a different place now, with Andromeda as the Headmistress, in the wake of the war.
The Sword had cost her the lives of so many friends. She remembered Alexandra, Ginny, and so many others who had died in the war.
The Sword had cost her her principles. The Progressive-Conservative Party was hardly some kind of right-wing party, but it was more committed to Parliamentarianism rather than Democracy, and there was a difference, a difference that Narcissa Malfoy, the Duchess of Lancaster, was busy teaching a masterclass in, and she ended up, for the sake of practicality, agreeing to many policies she would have never imagined in her naive young days of learning and eager principles and action.
The Sword had brought her together with a War Criminal. Hermione had come to the point of accepting this, but she also knew, that for all the good that Bellatrix did, it didn't change that she had done much evil, too, even to Hermione herself, though after eight years of effort (and in an immensely painful magical ceremony that Hermione wished to remember as little as possible), Bellatrix, who had completely reconciled with her own magical artificial arm, had finally been able to remove the cursed wound on her arm, and restored Hermione to wholeness.
The Sword had damaged her mental health, probably for life. Both Bellatrix and Hermione sometimes woke up crying or screaming in each other's arms in the middle of the night. They were both quick with their wands, and they slept with guns and daggers, and made sure to inspect their own armoured limos before travelling muggle-style, against the seemingly constant danger of assassination.
Bellatrix tried to cope as best as she could. She bought first a deep-water ketch while they were in Cape Town, and then on moving to Doggerland, a large yawl, of fifty feet on the waterline, and sailed the entire family on it on weekends and vacations, with a centreboard keel that could be lifted for the shallow maze of sandbars and pools and brackish lakes and deep channels which now formed the North Sea. She challenged herself against the sea, to overcome her fear of it that had been put into her soul by Azkaban, and she became very good at it. She sailed alone, for the sake of her soul, and with them all, for the sake of her family, and ended up a first class yachtswoman, such that they filled Ancient House with pictures of the whole family out yachting.
And she worked on the effort to change Elahaïs' tether. She spent a lot of time on that, but they, by mutual agreement, didn't discuss it, and let it be. They had a life to live now, and if it ended in thirty years or fifty – well, they would have to take it when it came.
And in 2017, Hermione stood for a by-election, was duly elected to Parliament (under the current arrangements, as the spouse of a peer of the Wizengamot or the Lords, she was very much eligible in her own right for the Commons), and took up a position in Narcissa's government, as the Minister for Magic.
The Sword had given her Tom Riddle's daughter to raise. She could never be too proud of Delphini, or too thankful to be one of her mothers. She was savagely proud about that one.
The Sword had made her one of the elite, in the world envisioned by Grindelwald, which was realised by the efforts of Narcissa Malfoy and muggle power-brokers like the King, and President Nazarbayev, in a world where in the end, both Dumbledore and Riddle and their causes and visions had been utterly defeated. The Sword had, as it always did, pulled down and built up in the same stroke.
Lay by your pleading,
Law lies a bleeding;
Burn all your studies down, and
Throw away your reading.
Small pow'r the word has,
And can afford us
Not half so much privilege as
The sword does.
It fosters your masters,
It plaisters disasters,
It makes the servants quickly greater
Than their masters.
It venters, it enters,
It seeks and it centers,
It makes a'prentice free in spite
Of his indentures.
It talks of small things,
But it sets up all things;
This masters money, though money
Masters all things.
It is not season
To talk of reason,
Nor call it loyalty, when the sword
Will have it treason.
It conquers the crown, too,
The grave and the gown, too,
First it sets up a presbyter, and
Then it pulls him down too.
This subtle disaster
Turns bonnet to beaver;
Down goes a bishop, sirs, and up
Starts a weaver.
This makes a layman
To preach and to pray, man;
And makes a lord of him that
Was but a drayman.
Far from the gulpit
Of Saxby's pulpit,
This brought an Hebrew ironmonger
To the pulpit.
Such pitiful things be
More happy than kings be;
They get the upper hand of Thimblebee
And Slingsbee.
No gospel can guide it,
No law can decide it,
In Church or State, till the sword
Has sanctified it.
Down goes your law-tricks,
Far from the matricks,
Sprung up holy Hewson's power,
And pull'd down St Patrick's.
This sword it prevails, too,
So highly in Wales, too,
Shenkin ap Powel swears
"Cots-splutterer nails, too."
In Scotland this faster
Did make such disaster,
That they sent their money back
For which they sold their master.
It batter'd their Gunkirk,
And so it did their Spainkirk,
That he is fled, and swears the devil
Is in Dunkirk.
He that can tower,
Or he that is lower,
Would be judged a fool to put
Away his power.
Take books and rent 'em,
Who can invent 'em,
When that the sword replies,
NEGATUR ARGUMENTUM.
Your brave college-butlers
Must stoop to the sutlers;
There's ne'er a library
Like to the cutlers'.
The blood that was spilt, sir,
Hath gain'd all the gilt, sir;
Thus have you seen me run my
Sword up to the hilt, sir.