The Mysterious Department

Arc Three- The Mystery Deepens

Chapter Fifteen: Cancel Culture

It was like Bellatrix was an entirely different person. And from the looks of it, she was about to do something extremely dangerous to Hermione. The brunette detective now knew what was happening to the muggles. They were being slaughtered in some sort of ritual of trust and initiation to this club of blood mad inbreeds.

As Bellatrix, with a mad gleam in her eye, danced closer with the knife, Hermione got into a ready stance, picking her fists up, spreading her weight to be more balanced. The clutch hung heavily from her hand as a second weapon.

"How amusing, the mud blood intends to fight," Voldemort cackled, amused by this.

Bellatrix may be a master of the wand, but it hadn't lent for a lot of opportunities for hand to hand combat. Hermione had a lot of experience with it, because guns weren't like wands. They only knew how to do one thing. And when in pursuit of justice, she needed to bring a criminal in, not always hurt them.

So she'd learned to tackle. To punch and to kick. For someone of her size and stature, she could bring the heat if needed. And it was needed now. Despite the dress holding her back, Hermione was able to take on an angry Bellatrix wielding a knife.

The woman lunged at her, tip pointed at her jugular. That was her mistake. She shouldn't have been so open about her move. Hermione stepped in, while knocking the knife wielding hand away with an arm, her free arm grabbing Bellatrix's left shoulder and pushing down, while her heel drove into Bellatrix's instep to cause her to go crashing to the ground.

Within seconds, Hermione had her expertly pinned, one knee in her back, knife twisted out of her wrist, and both hands forced behind the back. Bellatrix's look of shock was priceless. She clearly hadn't been expecting this from Hermione. It was possible that whatever spell was on her, was affecting her to the point of dulling her senses, because she was certain in reality, Bellatrix would have been smarter about this whole fight.

"Y-You dirt!" Bellatrix hissed, beyond aggravated and insulted, and Hermione increased the pressure on her until she was screeching through her teeth. "How dare you touch me! You are nothing! You should be bowing before me, not fighting me on this! Death is all you deserve for you serve no purposes on this world otherwise!" The stuff spouting from Bellatrix's lips hurt Hermione. She didn't want to hear them. Was this really what Bellatrix thought? Hermione's chest clenched in pain but she ignored her feelings. This had to be the work of the artifact. She was certain of it.

"Get off of me!" Bellatrix howled and tried to throw Hermione, but Hermione grit her teeth and pushed down harder.

Hermione's clutch was still tied to her wrist and she took this chance to unzip it and pull out the gun there. She pointed it at Voldemort, heart pounding in her chest.

And while Hermione had Bellatrix pinned to the ground, both of the men by Voldemort's side took out their wands and pointed it at her. But they did not shoot, thinking her gun wasn't any threat.

"What should we do with her, my lord," asked the blonde. "She's assaulted a pureblood!"

"We should kill her right now! Desecrate her corpse for good measure."

Hermione was tempted to put her gun on them too, but she didn't know, who was the biggest threat right now. She had to be smart about this, or else she could cost both her and Bellatrix their lives. A bead of sweat went down her temple.

Voldemort's face was contorted in disgust at her. "You think you are a threat to us, mud blood?" he spat. "We hold such power that-" he rose to his feet, on another speech that she couldn't bare to listen to, so she shot him. Right in his ugly snake like face. The gun shot rang loudly in the small space.

He let out a gasp of shock, eyes widening before he fell onto the floor before him, where so many muggles had just lost their lives.

The two men ran to Voldemort's side, forgetting about Hermione like she counted they would when they saw their lord hurt. They were gasping in shock when they saw the blood pooling around his head where a bullet hole was. Hermione lifted Bellatrix up, holding her by her side. But the woman struggled too much for Hermione to maintain a one armed grip on her. She elbowed Hermione hard in the gut and ran towards the lifeless man on the ground, throwing herself over his form.

"My lord. No!" she cried out. She shook him, as if that could bring him back to life. Panic and horror writ on each inch of her face.

"The filthy muggle killed him! With that steel noisemaker!" said one of the men.

Idiots. How did they not know what a gun was?

When she'd come in through the wards on this house protecting it from weapons and such, she'd been banking on the fact it wouldn't be able to recognize what a gun was. And she was right. These pureblood snobs had never thought to think a muggle might bring in their own weapons.

Though, Hermione was sort of wishing that she had a wand now, because she didn't want to kill any others. She rushed towards the bent over figures, using their moment of weakness to clobber one of the men over his head with the butt of her handgun, allowing her unfettered access to his wand. Just in time.

"You sodding piece of shite!" hollered out the other man, raising his wand at her. His first spell hit her in the abdomen and she went flying into the wall. "I'm going to torture you until you wish you were dead. You've ruined our movement you mud blood piece of rubbish!" his neck veins were standing out with effort of his hatred.

He sent a flurry of spells at her and she sent up a protego to block them. His friend that she had hit, was holding up a hand to his bleeding head. Seeing the blood on his fingers as he took it away, he scowled.

"I'll tear you apart with my teeth for what you did!" he vowed and went at her.

With her gun she sent off several warning shots that had them ducking a bit to avoid her aim. This allowed her to drop her protego as the barrage of spells ended momentarily and she hit the wand wielding man with a stupefy that knocked him out cold. His compatriot did not have a wand, so taking him out was much easier.

The two of them crumpled to the floor like dominoes.

This only left Bellatrix. A Bellatrix who was seething with black rage and unforgiveness.

"You!" she screeched at Hermione, blind to the wand and gun in Hermione's hand, and lunging at Hermione.

"Bellatrix stop!" Hermione cried out, because she did not want to hurt her partner. This was a mistake. Bellatrix grabbed Hermione by the shoulders and slammed her into the wall hard, hard enough to cause the wand and gun to drop from Hermione's hands, hard enough her head knocked into the wall and she saw stars.

And then she was being tossed forwards, falling onto the dais where the knife and another wand lay, henchmen's bodies not too far away. Bellatrix threw herself after Hermione, nearly pinning her to the floor with her weight and strength.

This time, the struggle was no holds barred. Bellatrix was no longer able to be taken by surprise by Hermione's moves. She was ready and she was furious. She was all punches and kicking, snarling and biting and scratching, and ugly vulgar insults.

She was gone. Nothing in her eyes but blackness. Hermione barely recognized her and it scared her. She didn't want to lose Bellatrix but the woman wasn't making this easy. She was an animal. Primal and blood thirsty.

Hermione and her rumbled on the floor, all elegant moves out the window as they struggled to win in this play of dominance. In this fight for their life.

"I'll kill you for it! For killing my lord!" Bellatrix's shrills were ear shattering. "I'll rip you limb from limb and then bring you back to life just to kill you again and again!"

Hermione flung out a fist and caught Bellatrix right in the face. So hard her lip split and still she kept babbling on and on. So, surging up as much might in her body as she could, she bucked Bellatrix's form off of her, and tried to scramble for the wand she saw not far away so she could knock Bellatrix out. But Bellatrix had much the same idea, except with the knife they had been struggling by and that glinted oh so temptingly.

She crawled towards it, snagging the slim wood in her hand, just as Bellatrix grabbed a hold of the knife and came after Hermione, crawling after her body.

Just as Hermione turned around, raising her wand with a stupefy on her lips, Bellatrix drove the blade to the hilt right into Hermione's soft abdomen. The spell died on her screams of anguish and Bellatrix cackled loudly, getting ready to pull the blade out again. Hermione's free hand fell over the handle to keep it there, before with pure desperation she breathed out 'stupefy' and hit Bellatrix right in the face with it. The woman passed out over her, jolting the knife even more as Hemione grit her teeth and tried not to scream loudly.

With a huff, she pushed her body off of her and carefully sat up. She knew a simple epiksey spell wouldn't heal this and she needed to get the two of them out of here and fast. Too bad she didn't know how to apparate.

With a groan of pain, and holding one hand over where the knife was causing a pool of red to seep through her clothes, Hermione hobbled over on her knees to wretch the ring off of Voldemort's finger and pocketed it, before using the legs of the chair to pull herself up.

She left bloody prints on the chair and her breaths were labored as tears pricked her eyes. This shit fucking hurt. But luckily she had a wand. Normally, she would look for a quiet way to sneak out of here, but she didn't have time for that. She had to get out of here fast. She cast a quick spell over Bellatrix to have her unconscious form levitating and then, kicking the door open while holding her side, she quickly cast several bombarda spells into the waiting public.

Screams and panic erupted, as wizards and witches and muggles scrambled to get out of there. The few men that had wands for they were armed by Voldemort, took out their wands now. But Hermione had made sure to note their positions and who they were prior to entering the room. She'd use the confusion to sneak past them. They started looking through the smoke she had caused for who it could be, and she kept low to the ground, taking this opportunity to toss Bellatrix's now light form over her shoulder on her none injured side, because she decided it would look suspicious if she was floating. As they made way to the door, nearly getting hit by a couple of spells on the way out, Hermione deflected a couple of errant spells and tried to resist getting jostled by the crowd. She was weary they would touch her knife but she knew it would be foolish to pull it out as it would cause more bleeding.

It was a good thing most of the people were rushing towards the exit.

"Maybe they're in Voldemort's room. We have to check to make sure he's safe!" shouted out one of Voldemort's armed forces and several ran in that direction. A couple stayed out in the crowd, trying to search the faces for who it could be, but they were pushed in the mad rush.

Hermione hid in the crowd, trying to look small. By the time she got to the door, her face had grown pale now and she couldn't be happier to see the doorway. She knew there were wards up to prevent entry of muggles or wizards with wands in, but she hoped there wouldn't be an issue with them coming out. But, just to be on the safe side, she threw the wand out the door way where it burned as it passed through. She wouldn't need it now, anyways.

Luna and her people would be outside waiting for them and as Hermione thumped down the stairs leading out into cool fresh air, she could already see ministry officials encircling the area.

"Hermione, this way," Luna called out from some bushes out of the way of the main lawn as ministry officials pulled out their wands and held them at the fleeing crowd which were forced to their knees, hands behind their heads as spotlights fell on them.

Hermione followed Luna's voice and as soon as she rounded the corner towards a row of petunias, she was able to hand over Bellatrix's body to Dora who took it with a surprised 'oh' when she saw she was light. "Auntie really does need to eat more. Does she live on air?"

"We need to get you to St. Mungo's," Luna said, when she saw the knife sticking out of Hermione. Dora paled at this, her hair whitening too.

"That would be great, really," Hermione groaned. The stain had spread and she could feel herself growing colder.

"Hold on." Luna grabbed Hermione by the wrist, and it was a good thing she did at that time, because Hermione's legs did not seem to want to support her. She fell onto Luna who held her up and then they were apparating away.


After a three hour stay at St. Mungo's, Hermione was good to go. It truly was a wonder what magic could do. Not even a damned scar was left of her wound. She was discharged and instructed to go home and stay away from exercise for a week, but instead she went back to the department, needing to know what was happening now. She had undoubtedly left a huge mess behind.

"How's everything?" she asked when she got in, fearing the worst.

"How are you, is the better question," Dora bounced over to Hermione, giving her a look over and determining she was okay, pulling her in for a quick hug.

Hermione groaned as it caused pain to lace up her side and Dora pulled away quickly so as not to cause her more discomfort.

"Agent Granger, excellent work," Kingsley stated from where he was standing with Luna. "Not only did you eliminate the threat, but you also snagged the ring before the ministry could get their hands on it."

"Thank you. I was just doing my job," she responded with, ever humble.

"Nearly all the purebloods were captured," he reported, and Hermione wondered if Narcissa and Lucius had been in that statistic. She couldn't imagine Bellatrix would be happy when she found out. "And we've been able to shut down what could have been another movement for war and for murder of muggles."

"I wasn't able to save everyone-"

"But you saved enough. And that's all that matters," he said and she nodded and swallowed away her guilt for all the muggles that had gone in before her and that had suffered an extremely horrid fate.

"Take some time off. We all think you and Bellatrix deserve a rest," he ordered.

"What about Bellatrix? How is she?"

"She's fine. A little rattled but fine," he told her sternly, in a tone that denoted she shouldn't be asking more into this. That lead her to believe Bellatrix wasn't as fine as they'd like Hermione to think.

"Alright. I'll see you all tomorrow," she stated, unsure what to do now.

"You've got the week off," Kingsley told her and then turned to Luna to discuss the affects of the ring.


A week was an awfully long time to do nothing, especially without Bellatrix. It was a slightly crazy notion, since even with them staying at the same manor and working the same job they didn't talk much, somehow Hermione even missed Bellatrix's pestering presence. She hadn't seen head or tail of her and it was beginning to worry her.

Bellatrix had been driven to almost killing Hermione due to the ring. Hermione had recovered, with minimal nightmares and pain from the event, but surely Bellatrix must be going through it mentally trying to come to terms with what she'd done.

It mustn't be easy. And Hermione wished she could talk to her. Find out if she was okay, address the whole trying to kill her thing, and even talk about Bellatrix's past with this purist cult. There was just so much to unpack. And sitting about and doing nothing was not getting her anywhere productive.

When she asked Dora about where Bellatrix had gone, she shrugged. "She's in her room. I know because Ginger brings her food and drink."

"You aren't worried about her?" Hermione was a bit shocked by Dora's lack of concern.

"Of course I am!" she exclaimed, slapping her fork onto the table. "But I was ordered to stay away."

"By who?"

"Kingsley," Dora said uncomfortably and quietly, like she wasn't supposed to admit this.

"Why did he tell you to do that? If someone's hurt or struggling they need someone by their side not everyone avoiding them!" Hermione cried out, irritated that this was the approach.

"She's not alone. He's sending healers through her private fireplace to help her after all she's been through. He just thinks its a better idea for all of us to stay away from her when she's like this," she answered quietly and a bit shamefully like she thought she should be doing more instead of listening to orders.

"That's bollucks!" Hermione felt herself grow even angrier, hands curling up into fists. "Shouldn't the rings effects stopped working on her?"

Dora shook her head sadly. "This isn't a simple artifact, Hermione. It's a strong artifact, and it's effects don't just go away for days. It can take weeks, months, years even to get rid of it."

Hermione's utensils dropped from her hands and she found herself not hungry anymore. "What do you mean by that?" she asked softly.

"It means that Luna did some research on the ring with Kingsely's permission. The purebloods it affected and that are in captivity are still all so upset and in love with Voldemort. Killing him, removing the artifact, and neutralizing it did nothing. They still believe in all those backwards views." She closed her eyes, deep lines furrowing her brow. "Just like when the first Voldemort fell, the loyalty of his followers barely dropped over time and they flocked to yet another man who held the ring. So, if auntie Bella has been affected, it might be a while since she'll be okay again." Dora now looked defeated. "If she ever can."

Hermione slumped back in her seat, chilled to the bone.

Oh.

This was bad. This was very bad.

Hermione might have just lost her partner.