This, Bellatrix decided, was weird.

This was lounging around an empty field which should contain a manor — which was currently slightly out of sync with this universe due to the fact that Sirius and Lyra had broken the Family Magic, so she was no longer recognised by the wards — watching a thirty-years-younger once-possible version of herself (Lyra was really not the same person she had been thirty years ago, a fact which was becoming ever-clearer by the moment) angrily pacing around her, telling her off for not wanting to kill Tom Riddle.

Or rather, because she failed to grasp the distinction between Bella having no interest in killing Tom, and Bella hypothetically not wanting Lyra to kill Tom. Which she didn't care about, and had never said she did.

I'm pretty sure I was a better listener when I was her age, she remarked to Eris.

The goddess made a vague, inarticulate response which, had it been audible, Bella might have characterised as grumbling under her breath. She was nearly as annoyed about Bella's disinterest in avenging herself on Tom as Lyra was, though Bella was quite certain that was because Eris knew she was right, not because she'd failed to understand Bella's actual intent.

Possibly also because Bella hadn't been able to resist winding the goddess up, just a bit, when she'd first woken up, dragging her into an argument about morality and whether Tom was truly in the wrong, shaping the personality of her five-year-old self, given that Eris had done something very similar to pre-Walpurgis Bella's personality, re-writing her to better suit herself. Maybe worse, that had fucking hurt. Tom's compulsions had been much more subtle, and therefore far less painful.

The grumbling grew louder — more uncomfortable.

Yes, fine, we've already had that conversation, and yes, I apologise for my complete disinterest in expressing any degree of respect even to you. We both know whose fault that is— (Eris's) —but nevertheless...

Oh, shut up, Eris finally responded. You agreed I had every right to do what I did, and he didn't, I don't know why you keep bringing it up.

Mostly to annoy you.

Eris being a goddess and Bella's Patron in no way exempted her from the occasional spot of teasing. If anything, it just made it easier to get to her, sharing the sort of connection they did. And what was she going to do about it, really? Nothing. The answer was nothing. She'd gone to way too much effort to 'restore autonomy' to Bella, she wasn't going to do anything to compromise it, now. She would just sit at the back of Bella's mind being all frustrated, and it was fucking hilarious. Eris was just entirely unaccustomed to anyone taking the piss with her.

Lyra asked you a question.

Had she? Bella hadn't been paying attention. In addition to being really weird, being yelled at by a tiny, irrationally angry version of herself was kind of boring. She was just standing there, though, so she probably had asked something. Her hands were parked firmly on her waist in a highly recognisable disapproving stance, magic whipping around her, her aura sparking almost visibly in her anger. I see someone's coming into her power, she noted. Eris ignored her.

"You're not even listening to me!"

"Only fair, since your entire tirade is based on not listening to me. Well, that and being a moody teenager."

"I am not, and what the fuck are you talking about, all you said was that you weren't going to go back to Britain, and didn't want me to kill Riddle — your exact words were 'I'm not entirely convinced he did anything wrong, really' — yes, I was listening! And let me tell you, that is just too fucking bad, because I've already started recruiting people, and—"

Bella silenced her, much as she would any annoying child. Though she used a far more complex binding than she would have on Cissy or Reggie, just to make her younger self have to work a bit at dispelling it.

Hati crept over in the ensuing silence. "Bella, not to interrupt or anything, but, ah..." He nodded over his shoulder, drawing her attention to the crowd of anxious werewolves watching her argue with Lyra — in English, so hardly any of them understood the words, and from the tone, they could be forgiven for thinking that Lyra was reluctant to cede the vinyard to their control.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't drag you halfway across Europe just to turn around and go back. This argument has no bearing on your taking over the vinyard. She'll key us into the wards after she gets this little fit of pique out of her system." (Magic snapped around her as Bella characterised Lyra's fit of pique as such, but the term was entirely accurate.)

"Er. Right," the wolf muttered, darting a frightened look at the girl. He never had been terribly comfortable with magic, she suddenly recalled. "And, um. Just to clarify...is... This Tom Riddle you've been arguing about is de Mort?"

"Yes," Lyra snapped, finally having broken the silencing upon herself. "The same fucking bastard who stole her from our goddess and turned her into a fucking mind slave, and made her kill off basically our whole fucking Family! And she, for some reason, still doesn't want him dead!"

Bella renewed the hex. Lyra broke it immediately this time, of course, but for a brief moment was speechless anyway, nearly incandescent in her rage. (Ha. She was nearly as unaccustomed to dealing with teasing as Eris.) "Pay attention this time, elfling — I don't have a problem with you killing Tom. All I said was that I don't particularly want to kill him. I don't hold what he did to me against him, and he doesn't belong to Eris so you have no right to expect him to conform to our moral principles."

"But—"

"No, if it comes down to it, she doesn't have any grounds to complain, either. Much as she may try to deny it, she knew when she accepted my dedication that I was already his creature, and she actively encouraged our association because leading his army was the position from which I could cause the most chaos."

Lyra scowled at her, the magic around her calming significantly, though she clearly wasn't quite ready to give up her argument. "What about what he made you do to the House? And don't try to tell me you had to kill all of them. They weren't all like Cygnus."

Bella shrugged. "No. Most of them were like Andromeda. Terribly conventional, hardly lived up to the name at all. Some trees need to be pruned regularly to flourish." Honestly, the Family had grown into a sprawling, bloated mess by the 1960s, the magic in their blood too diluted by centuries of marrying outsiders. They'd been overdue for a culling. If Bella hadn't done it, she was quite certain the Dark would have found some other way to ensure the dead weight was cut out in another generation, two at most.

"So you don't think he deserves to die."

"No."

"But you don't not want him to die."

"Was that even English? I couldn't care less what happens to him. Pretty sure he'd find his current state of immortal powerlessness worse than death, but if you want to kill him, knock yourself out."

"Make that sound more condescending, why don't you."

"Could. Won't. Now, about the wards—"

Lyra muttered an incantation under her breath, her wand suddenly in her hand, flicking toward Bellatrix in a final parting shot, reduced to petulant violence because Bella was right, and Lyra knew it. A jagged bolt of purple energy — one of the more painful dismemberment curses, though slow enough to reverse before she'd lose more than a few toes — spanned the distance between them.

Bella didn't even try to counter it — at this distance, she wouldn't have been able to draw her wand in time, let alone cast the proper shield. Instead she let it wash over her, dragging at the energy of it, unraveling the intent behind it and channelling the magic into the runes carved into her skin instead. It passed over and through her in a wave, prickling as the runes lit in its wake before fading slowly back into dormancy.

She cackled, then added, "That's adorable, sweetie," the endearment specifically calculated to further annoy the girl, just to press home the point that this argument was over, and she had won.

Lyra, though, was thoroughly distracted by the runes, plopping down beside her to examine the scars — slightly raised, but nearly invisible against her naturally pale skin — more closely. "How did you do that?"

"Subsume your curse, or the corporeal enchantment?"

"Uh...both? Obviously?"

"Add me to the wards first. With full permissions."

"Why aren't you already recognised?" Lyra complained, even as she drew her wand and began poking at the hard ward-line. (Crossing the soft line and attempting to access the hidden structure had alerted Lyra that there was something wrong here that required her attention, but they'd been kept out of the space where the manor ought to be entirely.) "I know the Family Magic is broken — and before you say anything, yes, I'm working on it, but coven magic is stupid, okay, and apparently nobody's written about it, like, ever — but we're the same person, same magical signature, you should be able to do whatever you want already."

Bella snorted slightly. "You can't possibly believe that." Not only did Lyra (and Eris) think of the girl as Lyra now, but she'd clearly been fucking around with deep magic in ways that humans...really weren't meant to and, unless Bella was reading her aura very wrong, she'd become shadow-kin at some point— (Yule last, Eris informed her.) —which meant that, similar as they might be, they weren't the same, by name, magic, or blood.

Lyra turned to blink at her. "Way to sound like Severus, there."

"I'm sure Severus sounds like me, not the other way around." Actually, they might both have picked up that particular phrase from Tom, but it hardly mattered.

"Yeah, well, that's pretty much exactly what he said when I told him I couldn't possibly be an omniglot—"

"You are, but you have to stop occluding to pick anything up, you know. And you're kind of shite at mind magic, even for me."

"Er, yeah, that's what he said. Well, the first part, I know I'm pants at that shite. Have you two been talking? And if so, why did he write me to ask you not to kill Nymphadora?"

Of course she hadn't been talking to Severus, Lyra was just being ridiculous, now. "Why would I kill Nymphadora? Isn't she in Carthage?"

"No— Well, yes, she is, as far as I know, but the other one, Meda's Dora."

"Why would I want to kill Nymphadora?" Bella repeated. "And why would Severus Snape give a single bloody fuck if I did or not?"

Lyra sighed, broke off her analysis charms long enough to pull a face. "Apparently Mad-Eye Moody convinced her to come over here and play Black Cloaks with him, hunting you down. And he didn't say so, but I'm pretty sure Snape cares because Dora seduced him. Twice. She was bragging about it last time I was in Hogsmeade. As though seducing Severus Snape is something to be proud of."

Bella considered this for about half a second before deciding, "She could do worse." Granted, Severus was hardly the most trustworthy individual, but he was a hell of a witch. Not really much of a fighter, but he'd been one of the most promising Death Eaters when it came to the craft — potions, mind magic, and freeform casting, mostly. She'd be willing to bet that if he'd had more time to pursue the more esoteric arts (low ritual and weatherworking, for example), he'd have been just as good at those. They did require similar skillsets. Fuck, potions was actually considered a sub-discipline of low ritual by some practitioners. "Feel free to tell him that I had no intention of killing the more interesting of my sisters' offspring, and as long as he's good to her, he's on my list as well."

She'd heard people refer to lists of people they'd like to kill before, but she'd really always thought it made more sense to make a list of people she didn't want to kill. Lyra presumably knew this, as she raised an eyebrow, smirking. "He should've been on the list anyway, I already recruited him for the Conspiracy to Kill Not-Professor Riddle. Also Ginevra Weasley. And Blaise Zabini." As though Zee's kid wasn't already on the list. "Ah, Sirius, Harry, Zee, Meda, Cissy, uh...Theo Nott, and Hermione Granger. They're not in the Conspiracy, but they should still be on the list."

"Fuck, I was already planning on leaving Britain to you, but seriously? At this rate I wouldn't be able to kill anyone in the entire bloody country! Who's Hermione Granger?" The rest of them she knew, or knew of. Though she wasn't entirely certain why Theo Nott should be on the list. (He belongs to Mystery, Eris informed her.)

Lyra broke off her casting again to see Bella's expression as she answered. "Maïa's my girlfriend. My muggleborn girlfriend." Her face must have done something involuntary, because the girl fell to giggling almost at once.

"Excuse me, I think I must have misheard you, I thought you said you have a girlfriend." Because...that was just fucking weird.

"I did. A muggleborn girlfriend."

"I don't give a fuck about that, she could be fucking wilderfolk for all I care — actually, that would make more sense. You mean like...actually dating, snogging girlfriend?"

"Yes...?"

"Why?"

"She asked and I didn't have a reason to say no. Why were you fucking Zee?" Okay, that was fair. But girlfriend carried certain connotations that her relationship with Zee certainly didn't have. Like...romance, and emotional interdependency. "Also, her mother's going to be our Wizengamot proxy, so maybe just don't kill any Grangers."

Seriously? That was funny — much funnier than the Black Heiress dating a muggleborn. With Sirius as their Head of House, the muggleborn thing would hardly raise any eyebrows at all, but the Wizengamot would have a collective conniption if the House of Black actually installed a muggle in their seat. She might have to come back just to see that. "But, no, seriously, this Hermione girl, she's just some normal human muggleborn?"

Lyra shrugged. "She's much smarter than most people — she can actually hold up her end of a real conversation — but yeah, more or less? Not like Zee and Blaise, if that's what you're thinking."

That was what she'd been thinking. Granted, she'd never spoken to Zee's son, but she could hardly imagine Zee raising a normal child, and his sire was an incubus, that was bound to have some effect, as was the legilimens thing. (Eris had complained at length about her Bellatrices always falling in with bloody mind mages, as though mind mages weren't bloody useful.) If she had to guess, she'd expect Blaise to be more similar to Tom than Zee, but that was a relatively minor distinction, compared to the difference between either of them and...normal people. Granted, it had been a while since Bella had spent much time around really normal people, most of the Death Eaters had been a bit fucked in the head in various ways but...

Okay, yeah, the girlfriend thing might actually end up being funnier than the muggle Wizengamot proxy.

"You'll have to let me know how that goes."

"Oh, shut up, I know it's going to be a disaster. She'll probably try to kill me or something." Oh. If Lyra honestly thought this girl might ever try to kill her, Bella was willing to bet she wasn't quite as normal as Lyra thought she was, if only because a normal person with any intelligence at all would know that was suicidal. (Actually, come to think of it, an intelligent, truly normal person would never have asked Lyra to be her girlfriend in the first place.) "But it's not like it was my idea. Besides, I've already decided I'll just make Blaise deal with it, when it starts going badly." Admittedly not a poor solution to relationship drama, throwing the nearest Zabini at it — assuming Blaise took after either of his parents, that might actually work. "Give me your arm, I need your blood. Since apparently we aren't similar enough, despite literally being the same person." The kid rolled her eyes obliviously.

"Oh, hey, that reminds me, I told Liz Potter you're my daughter via blood alchemy."

"Er...why? I mean, yeah, that does seem to be the most recent cover-story, but— Wait, Liz is still alive? I didn't think Harry had any family. Where the fuck is she, and why isn't she in Britain taking care of her House?"

"Because it's the only halfway plausible excuse for your existence, and she's actually Lise Delacour, now. She—"

"She married a fucking veela? That's great."

"Oh, it gets better — she's a practicing blood alchemist, came up with a way to make viable human-veela hybrids. But yeah, she did get herself disowned, so you're stuck with the kid."

Lyra made a face at that, painting a handful of runes on an invisible wall with Bella's blood. Awareness of the wards and the manor hidden away within them flooded her mind. "He's not that bad, really. And he's really more Siri's problem, anyway. And Blaise's, I guess — the two of them have been mind-fucking for months now. How did Potter make veela hybrids? I thought that was... Don't they lay eggs?"

Bella pouted at the absent Delacour. "Yes, they do. And she wouldn't tell me. Or let me examine one of her specimens."

"Rude. I don't suppose you've decided who raised me while you were in Azkaban? We haven't specified, yet."

Bella shrugged. "Clearly not Zee, or Cissy, since you just showed up. I heavily implied that it was Cassiopeia, but I don't actually know where she is, so if I really had made a blood alchemy clone, and I had to find someone to raise it... Probably Mickey?"

"People would actually believe that? Not that I was raised by werewolves — most people probably would believe that — but that you'd let your kid be raised by Fenrir Greyback?"

"Well, the Death Eaters would. The Inner Circle, at least." Lucy, for one, wouldn't even be surprised. "Though I suppose you could call him Mikael Giese. I'm not sure anyone else actually knows his name, so—"

"No, that's great, next time it comes up, I'm definitely telling whoever asks that I was raised by a notorious werewolf terrorist. So, that worked, right? Now I just have to figure out the—"

Bella cut her off, activating the triggers in the enchantments that brought the manor fully back into their plane and dropped the wards preventing their entry. It shimmered into existence, raising exclamations of shock and surprise from the pack, who had been keeping their distance — understandable, probably. If she thought the whole Lyra thing was weird, she could only imagine they found it incredibly disturbing, having two of her around. (Mickey had, after introducing himself, fled to fetch supplies from the nearby town rather than sit around chatting with his tiny human bitch and her even tinier human bitch — a phrase he'd pronounced with a distinct note of horror. He was going to be thrilled to learn he'd been responsible for said tinier human bitch for the past thirteen years.) "I have been here before, you know."

Lyra stuck her tongue out at her. "I'll tell the goblins I was approached by a potential buyer for this place, get them to write something up. So, about the runic augmentation — how does that work? Because I was under the impression that that was supposed to be almost as impossible as human-veela hybrids."

Bella sighed, led the way inside and directed the wolves toward the guest wing before shrugging off her robes, trying to recall everything Tom had told her about the runes carved into her flesh. Enchanting had always been more his interest than hers. "Well, it's not that impossible, anyone could do it, if they knew enough about human anatomy and had a subject willing to spend a few years in constant agony during the trial and error phase." She elaborated on the process for several minutes, describing the function of one set of runes after the next.

Lyra caught on much more quickly than she might have expected. "This one, though, what is this? I don't recognise it."

The symbol in question was on Bella's shoulder. Lyra projected an illusion of it so she could see. "Well, it's broken, for one thing. This line isn't supposed to be there, that's from a cutting curse. But it's one of the symbols Tom developed for the project. It's based on a symbol for depth, integrated into a defining marker for sinew — that's just High Elvish — with a tapering limitation so the effect only applies to the tendons within a specified area, but doesn't terminate abruptly, because that almost always leads to stresses at the termination border beyond which the enchantment is not in effect." And that led to snapped tendons, and muscles torn so precisely they could have been cut with a slicing charm. "Pretty sure the individual tendon or group it's focused on is determined based on the intent behind carving that symbol. And then the whole thing is referenced in the variable array, so I can apply any of the strength or elasticity or tension effects to the tendon without having to manually control that process." Which, because the mediating rune was broken, she did have to do, if she wanted to use those particular effects. It took far too much concentration to be of any use in a fight.

"Ooh, I get it! And then these would be for integration, almost like chaining your spells, making it almost automatic, right? That's really fucking clever, honestly, Riddle was wasted teaching Defense. Want me to fix it?"

"Er...what?"

"You know...excise the rune, heal the spot, re-carve it and re-integrate it into the array? He had to have maintained this, I refuse to believe you've managed to avoid damaging enough of them over the years that any of the elements would still work, otherwise."

Well, yes, he had. She'd maintained some of them, the ones she could see, at least, in the years since Tom's initial decline. She just...hadn't really considered getting the others repaired. Aside from the fact that she would have to explain the entire process and meaning of each symbol and its role in the system to whoever she found to do the work, she was fairly certain there was no one she actually trusted to do it. Well, maybe Zee, but she was pants at...pretty much anything that required her to know how magic worked, and obnoxiously squeamish about blood considering she was a bloody serial killer. Lyra, however, was almost certainly at least as good at enchanting as Bella was herself (probably better — Bella had never had much interest in the subject, and Lyra claimed to have been tutored by Ciardha bloody Monroe), and the alternate version of herself had no reason to betray her, so. She shrugged. "Sure."

"Neat! And you can do the same for me—" Ah, yes, she had been wondering what had prompted the offer. "—seriously, this is like, the best thing ever, I've been wanting to try it out since I saw that memory of you fighting Mickey."

"Ah, no."

Lyra glared at her. "What do you mean no?"

"I mean that's a terrible idea. In case you've forgotten, the British government does kind of want me dead. Not only would it be immediately obvious to anyone who happened to see you use them that you had been in contact with me — there are only two people in the world who could do this kind of enchanting, or could teach you to do it, and the other one's a fucking wraith — but it's also actually impossible to learn to use them without reducing yourself to a bloody pile of broken limbs several times a day, even if you didn't have to go through the development process, and I know you don't have access to the sort of healing attention you'd need to manage it. Plus, I distinctly recall that Tom waited until I'd finished growing to start playing around with this. Something about not wanting to arrest the development of the metaphyseal regions of the long bones."

"Wait, he thought this could affect bone growth? And he didn't think to make you a few inches taller? What a waste..."

"I said arrest, not stimulate." Bella smirked. "But does it really matter how tall you are if you master freeform levitation?"

Lyra's eyes grew very wide at that idea. "No. No it does not. But I distinctly remember a broken arm attesting to the fact that I can't just step off a balcony and fly. Ciardha was really bothered by my trying."

"Well, yes, you were seven." At least, assuming she'd tried that around the same age Bella had. Unlike Ciardha Monroe — the alternate universe thing still struck her as incredibly surreal, at times — Tom hadn't been the least bit concerned, simply told her to jump off something shorter next time. Which...seemed obvious, in hindsight. "You should be able to channel enough magic to manage it in a year or two." Maybe sooner — she had a suspicion that Eris's much greater presence in Lyra might have accelerated her magical development compared to Bella's own, not to mention the shadow-kin thing had probably enhanced her channelling threshold a bit. "Just practice with benches, not balconies, you'll be fine."

"Noted. But are you sure you won't do something for me? Just a little enchantment. Like, I don't know...a balance charm, or something?"

"Anyone could give you a balance-improving tattoo." The girl pouted at her. "I'll get rid of your scars, if you want," she offered instead. Not that she didn't think Lyra would consider the magic itself enough of a reward to fix her runes, but she wasn't entirely opposed to doing something nice for her younger alternative self. Tom had taken care of hers, back when she'd initially defeated Cygnus, but if she didn't have anyone she trusted to cut on her, Lyra almost certainly didn't either. Well, Meda, possibly, but Meda would probably refuse to do it, force her to get an actual healer to look at them. And it wasn't as though Bella wouldn't enjoy the project just as much as Lyra, albeit in a rather different way.

Lyra considered the idea for a long moment, probably trying to decide whether she wanted this badly enough to spend that long lying in one spot (or possibly just appreciating how surreal it was deciding whether to let herself essentially be tortured by her alternate self), but eventually she nodded. Bella had known she would. She'd considered Cygnus's existence to be largely irrelevant once she'd finally made him stop with her, but it had still made her absolutely furious every time she'd seen the scars or had to cover them up, been reminded of the days when she couldn't make him stop.

"Lovely." Should be fun. "Mine first. You won't be in any state to carve runes after yours."

The girl grimaced. Right, she wouldn't have any reason to have altered her perception of pain and pleasure — probably didn't have the slightest idea how, given her complete lack of experience with mind magic. Well, it would still be fun for Bella. And she stood by her assessment that Lyra wouldn't be in a fit state to carve runes afterward, if for rather a different reason than she'd initially thought.

"Fine. Here—" Lyra conjured a few sheets of parchment and a pencil. "—draw the ones that are broken and explain what they're supposed to do..."

"Just a second — Mélodie!" The older of the two wilderfolk pups was by far the less adventurous of the two. Her sister had run off with the rest of the children when they'd entered the manor, but she had been lurking in a corner, keeping a wary eye on Lyra, as though this strange girl and the storm of magic which she'd been at the center of for the majority of the time she'd been here were less dangerous if Mélodie knew exactly where she was. Though she wasn't exactly reluctant to leave when Bella gave her an excuse. "Find Erich. Bring him here."

The pup scampered away, even as Lyra asked, "What the fuck was that?"

"Ah...I'm pretty sure the language is called karjala. I don't really know it that well—" She'd picked up a bit from an ancient crone Tom had been questioning about soul magic, but they'd killed her before Bella had learned her native language fluently. "—but that's fine, Mélodie and Harmonie don't either. I told her to go find Erich, he's one of their mages, could use the healing practice."

"Er...right. So, that omniglot thing, how does that work?"

Bella grinned, started drawing the necessary runes. "Well, magic, obviously."

Lyra made an inarticulate noise of frustration, causing her grin to morph into an obvious smirk. It probably shouldn't be this fun to annoy her alternate self, but Zee had been right, Bella was adorable at fourteen, especially when she was all pissed off and trying to pretend she wasn't. Tee hee.


Shadow-kin — There actually is a word for what a person becomes when they subsume the essence of an element, as Lyra did in her Yule ritual. Lyra doesn't know this. The most noticeable effects (like everything looking weird unless it's in a shadow) have worn off now, but she was still changed by the process, making her more vulnerable to Light magic and sensitive to sunlight.

When Bella says Severus is a hell of a witch, she means in the sense of 'witchcraft and wizardry' wherein witchcraft refers to potions and herbology, certain kinds of healing and enchanting, scrying, ritual and so on. The art of wizardry includes most wanded magic — charms and transfigurations, some kinds of enchanting, and arithmantic approaches to understanding magic. Most mages use both witchcraft and wizardry at least to some extent, including Severus, but he's really, really good at witchcraft, whereas he's just a decent wizard, not particularly outstanding. (Dumbledore could be considered the inverse, an exceptional wizard but a middling witch. —Lysandra)

Karjala is Karelian, a language spoken in a region in the far north-west of Russia (with little bits in eastern Finland). (Karjala is a close relative of Finnish, both members of the Uralic language family, and I could go on forever about how fascinating I find these languages, but nobody wants to read that. —Lysandra) The pack picked up the wilderfolk kids somewhere in Russia, but they don't speak Russian, the only human language they speak is a bit of this.

While it's possible Zee actually told Bella that she was adorable back when they were fourteen, this actually refers to Zee's assessment of Lyra. She and Bella have written to each other since Bella escaped, though they haven't met up in person.

—Leigha