Hannah knew where she was, which was a welcome change from previous times where she had been subject to the mind arts. She remembered the time she had been trapped in a dream version of Hogwarts in the Department of Mysteries, but she was reasonably sure that it did not normally work like that. Hermione had tried to describe what invading someone else's mind was like; she had said that it was like cracking a puzzle, but that did not mean that a puzzle appeared before her. Practicing Legilimency enough, according to her, did not make mental assault into a simplistic process. When she was successfully in someone else's mind, it was not necessarily organized to where she could find things; most of the time she saw a series of scenes that she could not necessarily use.

Joined with Luna and Andromeda, they were in a sitting room with the six Death Eaters standing in front of them. She could wonder how the practically legendary Bellatrix Lestrange could have been broken, but she supposed that the dark witch was still human and still able to feel pain, and there was some amount of pain that would be too much for her; if the Cruciatus was used on her enough she would give in to the Imperius. Hannah was aware that many of them had training in Occlumency, but that really had nothing to do with willpower; that was something that was determined by the individual.

"I'm ready," the older witch said. "Let's get on with it."

Perhaps another day there would be enough time to wonder whether or not she was truly ready to use her sister as a human weapon after having lost her daughter.

Twisting and turning through the pliant mind, she could feel Luna's hand squeezing her own as the three of them found their places. Andromeda would be in charge of controlling the Death Eater, the youngest among them would be in charge of maintaining the link between everyone, and Hannah would be keeping the shields up. She could not shield all the dark wizards at the same time, especially not if all of them were going to be investigated at the same time, so basically everything would rely on their acting ability, their ability to convince those who had taken refuge in the courthouse that their heads were not to be investigated.

I can hold out against a few passive sweeps of our surface thoughts, but nothing more than that.

In the preparation leading up to the event, she had looked through the minds of all six of the enemies, and found that she recognized some of the names, but they were really nothing special, at least not as far as she could tell. It was completely believable that the five wizards would allow Bellatrix to lead them and do most of the talking, if for no other reason than because she was violent and unpredictable, a miniature Voldemort. Whoever it was they needed to convince would have no trouble believing they had decided to deal with her in that manner; apparently it was a common practice with some of the more fanatical loyalists.

They were floating around in the six minds as the bodies were manipulated into walking, a simple enough task. It was something they could share between all of them and have it look organized, and yet natural. 'Bellatrix' led them out of the house and across the street to the courthouse, where the plan was to simply walk up and ask to gain ingress. Though they technically did not know that the Death Eaters within would grant their request, or even hear it, but since they were waiting for reinforcements, they had to have a procedure in place for when the reinforcements arrived. All of a sudden, there was a voice in front of them, and then a man.

"The streets are quiet. Did the six of you defeat the enemy all by yourselves?"

He was using a trick some of them had learned in Burma, where one could sit still and have a spiritual double walk around for him, and apparently it was useful in this circumstance. Joined as she was with Andromeda and Luna, Hannah's thoughts were not entirely her own, but she contributed that it was the first time she had seen anyone use the ability.

"No, the enemy made themselves appear more numerous than they actually were, and we killed enough of their actual forces for the rest of them to flee. There were only six of them using the Imperius over and over to manipulate more and more of the locals. Simply put, they stretched themselves too thin. There was no way for them to control the legions they were attempting to control effectively enough to stop us from killing all six of them. For now, the locals are on standby, awaiting orders."

The description of events sounded too objective, or to businesslike, but they had all decided to leave Bellatrix's dialogue to her sister, who must have some reason to know that she could explain things calmly when it pleased her. She wanted to roll her eyes at herself for thinking that everyone was a stage actor who had to be in the most extreme interpretation of character at all times, but the other two minds reminded her to concentrate, and she did, holding up the mental shields as a cautious sweep came from inside the building.

"Then you have come to tell us that our concerns are at an end?"

"I have come to tell you that your concerns... are just beginning." The witch they were manipulating took out her wand and began to twirl her hair with it as though distracted. "The Dark Lord will not be pleased, no, I think not a bit, to hear that his LEGIONS SWORN TO TAKE ON DEATH ITSELF WERE HIDING IN A NEARBY COURTHOUSE WHILST WE WERE LEFT TO FIGHT AN IMAGINARY ENEMY, no, that sounds rather like something that would irk, him, don't you think?"

As she spoke her magic flared as if by accident, but Andromeda likely carefully planned it; exuding a thin green and black haze that vanished a moment later, though not entirely. There was now no regret between the three of them regarding allowing her to handle the lines and stage directions; she had only amplified the effect of her impassioned outburst by first appearing tranquil.

"Lady Lestrange, the eight of us had no reason to believe anyone was still alive; the better part of valor is discretion and any Slytherin knows that. If the Lord Voldemort needs be informed of some detail of no consequence, then I should have no trouble anticipating his response."

"Faithfulness is how you act when you have no ability to anticipate a response." It was a seemingly uncharacteristic moral nag, but Bellatrix was supposed to value loyalty above all else, willingly going to prison when the war seemed to be over. "I presume we can arrange a celebratory luncheon at the courthouse, then?"

"The court is no place for such things. Wherever will you sit, the prosecutor's bench?" the other Death Eater joked.

"Of course. When our master joins us, he can take his place as judge. I should think he will look especially fondly on the coup removing him from command after this city was only saved by his loyal servants. Perhaps he will even agree it was necessary. I SHOULD THINK, HOWEVER- a change of leadership will be in order." She smiled as if she had only shared a silly thought.

They went inside without further explanation. The hiders out had either summoned or previously prepared the provisions; it appeared that they had been prepared to stay in there for several days, if need be, and it occurred to her that in magical conflicts on any sort of scale, starving the enemy was simply not going to function as a strategy. The other Death Eaters did not greet them right away; it appeared they knew or could guess what was going on; they only set themselves to helping arrange the luncheon. Hannah maintained the shield in case anyone decided to feel them out.

With eight enemies, it was true that they had the numbers advantage, but instantaneously that could be snatched from them; all that mattered was who struck the first blow and how ready the other side was. It was momentarily worrying that Bellatrix had given them a reason to kill her, but it seemed the other dark wizards in the room were playing along, for now. As they assembled around the provisions, in the courtroom as had been a joke the moment before, she updated them on basic details, all of which were complete fabrications. If one or two of them went out to check on the status of the city, that was fine, Professor McGonagall was still out and about, and while she might have a hard time taking on two Death Eaters in direct combat, there was more than enough that she could do to keep them from finding the three witches pulling the strings.

As it happened, two of them did choose to slip out, if for no other reason that to check on the feeling in their dark marks, which would determine the current situation of their master. In their words, he had not chosen to explain what he had on the agenda regarding the coalition's assault on Durmstrang, which had only recently taken place.

"Would've claimed credit for it if they did kill him," Dolohov wagered. "Wouldn't have ended the war right there, but it would've been a pretty substantial blow to our chances. Mark me, I didn't like him either-" One of their minions muttered an agreement. "-but even after Dumbledore died, we still needed him. That was about when everything turned into an international incident. Would've been one thing if we were allowed to keep a lid on things.

The three witches seemed to realize at the same time that it was probably Voldemort who had the idea of blowing up the conflict so that there would still be absurdly powerful wizards that the Death Eaters would need his help to fight. Right around the time that China sent the Xian and pulled out when he killed a few of them when they split up to look for him, they decided he was more trouble than he was worth. That was basically how he won a war against the entire world, not by directly fighting, but by making sure that only a fanatically devoted enemy could justify going after him, and if it was true that he had survived the coalition's assault, then there was no way it was not all part of his plan.

"I should think not," Bellatrix said. "Were he to die during this phase, he would be unable to proceed to the next phase of his plan. Did you believe his death to be possible?"

"Afraid we've had to account for everything. Couldn't tell you why he insisted on staying put in bloody Georgia, but if you're right about this and it really was his intention the whole time to have the coalition attack him, then I'd like to hear about why when this is all over." He seemed to want to take advantage of the current display of relative calm and reason. "You can start to see why he made planning things a nightmare," Dolohov continued. "This way's better for everyone; if he wants to keep his plans to himself, they really don't have to involve the rest of us."

It was such a reasonable suggestion that at least two thirds of them were tempted to go along with it, but the remaining element pushed through.

"Truly, I should not think that the Dark Lord ever factors the dead into any of his plans for the future."

If any of them had been hoping that his most loyal follower would put in a good word for the rest of them, that hope fundamentally had to be misplaced. Their control over the six wands in their possession was tenuous and it was still doubtful they would win the encounter. At the same time, there was a sufficient advantage in simply taking as many as they could down with them. Agreement went through the three minds and they decided the best thing to do would be having their leading witch create a distraction whilst the other five produced killing curses.

"Lux Soli," she incanted, wand already out. Technically, it was for vampires, but enough sunlight in the eyes was bad for anyone. Fortunately for Hannah and Luna, they were not looking with their own eyes and the caster of the conjuration was immune. They sent as many killing curse orders as possible to the minions, and though they could not see where the curses were going, they had already marked the positions of their enemies within the room and managed to hit three with the element of surprise, though there were three left, who immediately responded in kind, killing two before they could be ordered to move. Because two of the curses hit Bellatrix, she was certainly dead, but they had wasted a split-second move and reduced the amount of minions that the three witches had to control.

Moving to cover in the moment of time they had, the four minions took refuge in the jury box, only for it to immediately be set on fire with killing curses flying overhead. Blasting a hole through the wood, a single wand jutted out and took advantage of an enemy in a position where he could not effectively dodge, but the wand in his hand exploded immediately after. Using him as a shield, the remaining three forced their way out and cast more killing curses, only for one to hit, one to be dodged, and the third to be blocked by Dolohov's dark shield. Hannah and Andromeda had enough experience dealing with those, so as they dodged the enemy's counter, for the most part, losing another in the process.

With two remaining, they divided to where Luna was only holding them together while the other two each controlled one, but the enemy's mental attack went through the one she was controlling to her own brain, breaking her concentration and rendering her unable to give orders as she felt blood dripping from her ear. Andromeda threw a conjured spike directly at the dark shield to make his already cast curse veer wide as the order that Hannah had already given her uninjured minion went through, and he hit Dolohov's remaining backup with a strange curse that made him point his wand at himself, subjecting him to a partial transfiguration.

She wanted nothing more than to pull out as an explosive hex aimed between them blasted her minion against the wall, but Luna was holding her in place. As she ordered the minion to recover his wand, Andromeda's minion died as a timber from the ceiling came down on her and Dolohov, though he might have managed to curse her just before that. Either way, the remaining minion who was still moving picked up his wand and caused the beam to explode, which made sure anyone trapped under it was dead. Hannah begged to be released from the mental hold and it seemed the other two realized what had happened to her and they agreed to let her go, though as soon as she was looking through her own eyes again she felt like getting up and moving rather than lying down. I should tell McGonagall that we were successful- mostly.

Apparating to the top of a tall building, she caught sight of the Transfiguration teacher after a couple failed human detection charms narrowed it down. Apparating right next to her, she explained that there was one minion left alive and two Death Eaters they had not killed, because they were sent away before the battle could begin. The older witch only nodded.

"They have not been able to leave the city. They know I am here, but not where I am." Her voice told Hannah not to feel guilty that they had allowed the two to escape as they probably would not have won otherwise.

"I think we should wake up the others," she said. "It's better that they have their wands out than for both of them to be controlling one wizard; I don't think they can take the others by surprise at this point."

"You are probably right, but you seem to have suffered damage. If you do not take your rest, I shall have to stun you."

"After this," she promised. "Where are- where's everyone else?"

"Perhaps not in so many words, Macmillan told me they were out killing Death Eaters."

"Right." She nodded. "Right, that's good. I don't know what else I would have expected."

Without saying anything else, she apparated back to the dwelling where she found Luna and Andromeda standing, in an embrace. It was about then that she remembered it was impolite to disapparate right in front of someone as well as apparating into buildings. To make matters worse, she seemed to have caught them in a tender moment.

"This is making me sound like an old lady, perhaps, but I remember when my daughter was your age. How old are you?"

"Sixteen now," she said.

"Morgana, in those days she would have been crushing on one of the Weasley boys. Not Percy, one of the older two."

"We need to be ready," Hannah said, interrupting. I'm just setting records for rudeness today. "There's still two Death Eaters out there."

"I know," Luna said. "We told our last friend to come join us here. We stand a better chance together."

True to her word, the minion walked through the door within a minute, followed by Professor McGonagall. While she looked out and cast various detection charms, the others were giving more detailed orders to the curse victim; hopefully he could function mostly autonomously since there was only one of him. There had been cases of people living under the Imperius for years, but almost without exception it was a supremely skilled dark wizard to have broken the victim's will, and it was only one will that stayed broken at a time. Once a will was broken for long enough, it was doubtful for it to become unbroken again, but the victim would start making more mistakes, making him less and less useful. And because the courts were stocked with people who never studied how dark magic worked, no one knew why the Imperius Defense was not serviceable in context. Even if Voldemort really was the greatest dark wizard of all time, I doubt he could have every one of his servants under his direct control at all times.

"I don't think they're going to try coming for us," she said after a moment. "They're going to try to leave here and rejoin the other Death Eaters. They've already said 'discretion is the better part of'- it's not really in their nature to hunt us down and try to fight us if they think they might be outnumbered or something."

"Whether or not they're trying to leave," Andromeda started back. "-we should be doing the same. If we rejoin the wizards, and they get there, we shall already be helping. If they fail to escape this city, then we can come back here to kill them after we win. Let's go."

"Miss Abbott is in no condition to be-"

"Stupefy."

Everything was black.

Hannah could not say for sure whether the plan was for her to be thrown over the shoulder and carried to another battlefield where it would not be safe for her to be unconscious, but in her unconsciousness, there was a moment of peace, and for that she was grateful. Whenever she realized she was dreaming when just sleeping normally, she woke up, but magically forced to remain in that state, it was less of an issue. Taking a moment to focus on the damage from the hasty mental attack she had suffered whilst controlling the surviving minion, she hoped it was nothing lasting, but she could see 'rest' prescribed quite a bit for the duration of the battle if not the war.

As she had learned from Ron when Luna suffered the same, there were Healers that specialized in mental damage, but they were hard to find at the moment, so all she could do was remain unconscious. Dreaming, she found herself sitting in the library with Hermione, a stack of books between them. She did not have to look to know that nothing they were researching would be particularly helpful for the war effort. Even if I never had that many happy memories, at least I know what they look like. When this is all over, I'll know that I have what I always wanted.