CHAPTER 4: Meeting Bellatrix
Nymphadora Tonks was minding her own business in the generous kitchen of Nº12 Grimmauld Place when Snape marched through the fireplace and shouted, "The Dark Lord has made his move!"
Needless to say, the Order members gathered quite quickly around to hear what he had to say. "What do you mean you left him with Umbridge!" Sirius shouted at him.
"I left him there so I could get here in time to warn you all, you foolish mutt!" Snape spat back, matching Sirius' tone.
"Enough!" Alastor Moody thundered before the two schoolyard enemies drew their wands on each other. "What did Potter say exactly?"
Snape took a moment to gather his composure before responding, "He said, 'He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden'. I think the boy has been shown a vision by the Dark Lord for the purposes of having the dunce retrieve it himself. It would also be the perfect opportunity to kill the boy now that he's out from Dumbledore's beard." Snape finished snidely.
Despite the obvious peril of the situation, Nymphadora struggled to smother her amusement at the image of Harry literally hiding behind Albus Dumbledore's epic beard. "So we tell him I'm here!" Sirius responded before whipping out his wand, "Accio!" A mirror flew down the stairs and landed in his hand. "HARRY!" he shouted into the mirror. Tonks couldn't exactly see what was happening but her mother's cousin certainly wasn't pleased.
"If we are walking into a trap where we can reasonably expect Death Eaters, we should bring Dumbledore with us," Remus Lupin spoke up from his position in the doorway. His nearly two-metre frame was only accentuated by the gauntness in his face and his well-worn clothing. In Nymphadora's honest opinion, the man looked like a character drawn straight from one of the animated Tim Burton films she adored.
"You can wait for Kingsley since I contacted him second," Snape started, "But waiting for Dumbledore may just lead to dead children. When have any of us known the old man to show up when he's needed most? I sent my patronus to the Headmaster the first thing after leaving Umbridge's office."
The Head of Slytherin's words were cutting, but despite Tonks' reflex to counter him, she saw her mentor's face settle into a grim sort of agreement with their resident spy.
The horror of dead children on their minds kept them occupied for the next couple minutes until Tonks couldn't help but venture, "How do we even know they left Hogwarts?"
Snape shifted uncomfortably, "Three students of mine came straight to my office, and told me that a mysterious woman in haunted black showed up and butchered Dolores Umbridge in front of them."
"WOT?" Sirius roared.
"Did I stutter, Black? There was a woman who showed up and killed Umbridge. From what the girl, Bullstrode, told me, this woman taunted the former Headmistress after she was interrupted attempting to use the Cruciatus on Potter."
"THE WHAT!" Sirius wasn't the only one who shouted that one.
"I obviously put everything aside and went to the office in question, having no idea things had become that dire. Truly, I believed she'd try to expel the boy and his little gang, not result to Death Eater-like methods," Snape said a little quieter. "When I arrived, the other children were gone, but there was a large puddle of blood and brain matter upon simple testing did indeed belong to one Dolores Umbridge. There was no evidence of any further violence, which leads me to believe this mystery woman either abducted the children, or accompanied them, since neither hide nor tail has been seen of any of them since earlier this afternoon."
Fortuitously Kingsley Shacklebolt appeared from the fireplace at that moment, "The Ministry's been breached. The Aurors have been alerted, but the breach came from the Department of Mysteries. We must go now! Alastor and I can get us around the security measures in place and straight into the Department."
Tonks put down her cup of cocoa, wondering absently if this was the last time she'd have it, and whatever would her mother say; Andromeda was livid with her for joining the Order of the Phoenix. "Black, you and I must remain." Tonks looked up to see Snape's hand holding Sirius back.
"You think I'm going to coward behind the walls of my mother's home while my godson is in danger? I think not, Snivellus!" Sirius hissed back as he hastily pulled on a coat.
"How would Harry ever forgive himself if you fell today old friend," Lupin said with a slightly more pleading tone. "Please consider this!"
"Moony, I love you, but there is no version of this in which I don't come to his aide. Not one. I will always be there for him; and if I die tonight, I'll die knowing that I did my level best to keep that beautiful boy as safe as I could. How could I ever live with myself if I do anything less than James and Lily?" Sirius whispered as he glanced around the room once more, daring anyone to challenge him.
"Fucking die then, you imbecile," Snape muttered darkly before turning on his heel and flaring his cape while leaving the rest of them to depart. Sirius Black smirked darkly at Severus Snape's retreating figure before turning into the fireplace and intoning "Ministry of Magic."
Alastor Moody shook his head muttering, "Bloody drama queens," before following Sirius through the fire. The rest followed.
The Ministry was a shambles. Tonks openly gasped as the fire spat her out into what seemed a battleground. There were craters all over the place, and distant shouting accompanied by a cackle that could only come from one heinous woman: Auntie Bella.
Lupin, Nymphadora, Kingsley, Sirius, and Moody bolted forward. They were in the Department of Mysteries, but there was damage everywhere. "What did this?" Tonks gasped as she sprinted past a crater in the wall that hadn't cooled down, dripping molten rock.
She didn't get a response as they came across their first corpse: a Death Eater. It looked like he's been blown in half, though he was also missing part of his face. It was grisly, and only Moody resisted the urge to retch a little.
"Whatever did that," the seasoned Auror intoned as he pushed ahead.
A few minutes earlier
"Show some respect Potter, you're talking to your betters," Lucius sneered. Delphi was rolling her eyes at how boring this posturing conversation had become. It really was just a showcase of how much Dumbledore was keeping from the boy, and how much her father's servants could embarrass themselves by trying and largely failing to intimidate a fifteen year old. With a quick jab of her wand, she immobilized both Pansy and Draco. She also placed a couple layers of invisible shielding around them to avoid pointless collateral damage when things got heated. Because she knew that the wands would come out so to speak. She covered the slight hum of the barriers around the two Slytherin teenagers by raising her voice and making her presence known to all present.
"Betters?" Delphi asked with faux innocent tone. The Death Eaters were all instantly on guard at the new voice. They were perplexed as a masked woman as tall as Lucius and wearing darker clothes than them appeared from shadows. She casually summoned the prophecy out of Potter's hand to her own, and swiftly decloaked her disillusionment charm and revealing her towering masked self. Or, as close as she could come to showing herself; the nature of the black clothes she wore made everything but her eyes a functional silhouette. "That's a little bold for a pureblood licking the boots of a half-blood peasant isn't it now?" The children flinched. She was standing between them and the Death Eaters, and the Death Eaters valued the strange little orb, the kids didn't care for it worth a damn.
It was probably the shock of her sudden appearance that prevented the other Death-Eaters from opening up with a barrage of spells. "Who the hell are you?" a baritone voice asked from somewhere behind Lucius.
"That's quite the question isn't it…Rowle?" Delphi trailed off with an honest question.
"Yes," the hulking two-metre tall wall of muscle replied.
"How is Euphemia doing?" Delphi asked with a tone that sent chills down nearly everyone's spine. Not Bellatrix's though, Delphi's playful tone of pure malice came from her after all.
"What the–how the bloody fuck do you know about Euphie?" Thorfin Rowle replied with real anger, and a little fear at the obviously personal malice the new player had for his wife.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Delphi replied airily, mostly putting a cap on her bloodlust for the moment. She waved the prophecy around as she made a wavy hand-gesture. "So, your boss want's this ball right?"
"Yes. And the Dark Lord will have it. It's why he wanted Potter here to retrieve it himself, since only a subject of the prophecy can retrieve it," Lucius replied tersely.
"I didn't though," Harry muttered before Hermione jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. But his voice carried.
"What do you mean?" Bellatrix asked.
"I retrieved it. Plucked right off the shelf," Delphi replied with an obvious smirk in her voice. Despite the Death Eaters only able to see her eerily bright eyes in the darkness framed by her pale blonde and sapphire blue hair, they could see she was enjoying this. "What was it you said Luci? Only a subject of the prophecy could touch it on the shelf?" There were baffled expressions from the few Death Eaters who had unmasked themselves, and less-than-subtle glances to Bellatrix and Lucius from the ones who still bore their anonymity.
"You Lie!" Bellatrix shouted.
"She's not." a high-pitched male said from her side. Bellatrix and Lucius looked to the shorter man with dark eyes in shock. They obviously believed him on this.
"And your authority on the matter is?" Delphi asked politely.
"As if I'd tell you, Mudblood," he replied
Delphi chuckled at that insult, "Oh, if only you knew."
"Did the Dark Lord miscalculate?" Lucius furiously muttered to Bellatrix.
Bellatrix considered crippling her shit of a brother-in-law, but decided it would make them look weak if she doled out internal justice in front of impressionable children likely to spread lies on the off chance any of them left this place alive. Disunity among the Death Eaters severed them very little. The recent Azkaban escapee regarded the new woman with suspicion. There was something about her that was disturbing, and she wasn't exactly sure why; uncertainty was a feeling Bellatrix very much despised.
"Lets test something why don't we? Nobody panic," Delphi added as she reached out with her off hand and snapped her fingers, shattering random orb from one of the other shelves. A misty form of a little girl dressed in a long dress began intoning a prophecy in Swedish. Since nobody present understood Swedish, they just sort of waited awkwardly for the prophecy girl to finish speaking. Lucius looked to Dolohov, but the Russian wizard just shot back an annoyed, 'not all foreigners understand each other, you arse!' glare.
"I assume that had a point?" Bellatrix drawled. "Or were you just showing off?"
"Both," Delphi replied. "It's an honour to meet you by the way. I've admired you all my life," Delphi's words confused the hell out of everyone. "You're sort of my hero, from a certain perspective," Delphi spoke with a surprisingly sombre tone.
"Oh? And why is that?" Bellatrix asked, masking her confusion with a chuckle.
"Depending on how all this goes down, I may just tell you afterwards over a pint at the nearest pub. But until then," Delphi smashed the prophecy on the ground before anybody could say anything. A woman burst forth from the mist and intoned:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."
"So that's a lot to process," Delphi said as the misty woman disappeared and all that remained of the orb was shattered glass.
"The prophecy clearly refers to Potter!" Lucius shouted at Delphi. "There is NO possibility of you being a candidate for this prophecy!"
"Isn't there?" Delphi shrugged. "Would you like me to go line by line?"
Despite tensions being high, none of the gathered individuals were exactly idiots, and the mystery of the prophecy was at the core of each respective struggle. So for the moment, Death Eaters and Students were united in mutual curiosity. "Is there something you'd like to say, Bellatrix?"
"Longbottom. Longbottom was born at the end of July," she said darkly. "It was why we were there after our Lord fell in Godric's hollow."
"You're far more lucid than I was led to believe," Delphi said with a masked smile. But before Bellatrix could reply to such a backhanded compliment, her most famous victims' son spoke up.
"You went after my parents based on this? You tortured them based on two lines said by some woman?" Neville asked with barely restrained hatred.
"And the Dark Lord went after Potter for the same reason, didn't he?" Delphi summed up.
"Yes." the 'authority on prophecies' spoke up again.
"Why do you call him the Dark Lord?" Hermione spoke up with a betrayed tone.
"He worked very hard for that title. It's only fair he be called such. So long as one remembers he's also a human being and shouldn't always be put on such a pedestal," Delphi replied casually.
"So Neville and Harry's parents were Order members, and encountered him a few times, and are both born at the end of July," Ginny spoke up, thinking aloud.
"Right. But None of that explains how Delphi was able to take the Prophecy down from the shelf." Hermione said.
"Your name is Delphi?" Bellatrix smirked.
"Yeah. Blame my mum," Delphi snarked back.
"When is your birthday?" Lucius asked; looking pained at such a mundane question in a situation like this.
"September 30th," Delphi replied promptly.
"That's not July," Ron pointed out the obvious.
"Sept means seven." Luna said, speaking up for the first time. "September used to be the seventh month, it's why it's called September."
"That's a technicality. And false considering the context" Hermione muttered.
"It's a prophecy. It's bonkers from the get go," Delphi shrugged unrepentantly.
"You wouldn't have risked your sanity and life if you weren't sure," Bellatrix growled. She was shaking with rage, her master had been thwarted, again. And it was partially her fault. And this uppity bitch was having a laugh about them. "You obviously fulfil some of the qualities named here, but you're a woman. Unless those tits are fake?" Bellatrix sneered.
Delphi laughed for real. It was more of a cackle, even if it was heartfelt. It was slightly disturbing, especially for Bellatrix, who knew that laugh like the back of her own hand. It was her laugh. There was suddenly a dread in her gut as she looked at this laughing woman who clearly had all the confidence in the world. "Who are you?" Bellatrix.
"First off, I'm a metamorphagus," Delphi replied with a grin at the gasps of those around her. "Secondly, I was technically born with male genitals, which fulfils the prophecy, as archaic as that is. But I've ALWAYS been a girl. It just took me a little while to realise it, and then I was able to make it show to everyone else. It turns out it wasn't just accidental magic, but a dormant genetic quirk from my pureblood mingling with my grandfather's muddy muggle blood." Delphi said with a serious tone for the first time. "The Dark Lord 'marking me as his equal' is a bit more complicated, as is the three instances of defiance bit. But they are both technically fulfilled albeit in a roundabout fashion. And for the last bit, the 'neither can live while the other survives'? That's as vague as it gets. That's a clusterfuck of philosophical interpretations in a bottle there. It may seem simple. But the fact I'm here at all means it's actually complicated as hell. And yeah, I'm holding a pretty crucial part of the puzzle from you all."
Bellatrix was trying to wrap her head around everything the girl just said. She searched her memories, and realised that if her assumption was true, she probably had about year of her life obliviated from her memories before she was sent to Azkaban. If Rodolphus or his beast of a brother Rabastan were responsible for what she was beginning to fear…
The feeling of dread in Bellatrix's gut grew as Delphi's bright eyes locked with hers properly for the first time. Bellatrix took a shaky step forward, mirrored by Delphi, and asked in a soft tone that surprised even her. Her name? Delphi was short for something, and if she was truly what Bellatrix was beginning to suspect, she gasped. The Death Eater master torturer's mind landed on a name that would fit her family's traditions and indeed shorten to the diminutive 'Delphi'. "Is your name Delphini?" Bellatrix asked with nearly maternal tone none in attendance had heard before; not even her husband. The woman's laugh, her irreverent posture and mannerisms, the eyes, Delphi's words that the reveal of having a metamorph hereditary trait in her family if her Auror niece was anything to judge by…it all led to a very specific assumption. The girl was a Black. And Bellatrix may be a madwoman who tortures for fun, but apparently she was something else too that put a whole new perspective on her life; even if she couldn't remember carrying or giving birth to the girl. So despite her better instincts, she let her guard down.
Delphi reached out her right hand tentatively to her mother's left arm just above the elbow and leaned into her personal space. Delphi's voice was tender, but it wasn't private. She wanted everyone else to hear. "Hey mum, I'm going to save you from dad. I'll fix this, I promise you," before anybody could react, her free hand went behind her and made a sharp fist, signalling Harry to enact whatever plan he had concocted while she was distracting the Death Eaters.
As Harry shouted "NOW!" reductor curses flew into the shelves around them, shattering orbs and breaking shelves; causing general mayhem. A couple of the curses were absorbed by Delphi's barrier she placed around Draco and Pansy, leaving the pair unharmed.
Untouched in the middle of the pandemonium, Bellatrix's emotions were being whipped around like a jump-rope. She had a daughter. A Daughter who was fated to apparently kill the Dark Lord. A daughter who's hand was still clasped around her arm. "This is going to hurt, mum. But I'm going to save you I swear," Delphi's voice was far more emotional than Bellatrix had ever heard it. Bellatrix had never been so off-kilter before, especially not in the middle of a firefight. Her daughter, Delphini, she reminded herself, placed her wand on her mother's Dark Mark as her opposite hand tightened around her upper arm. Before Delphi's magic ignited, Bellatrix had an instant where she knew what was about to happen. She began to raise her own wand to protect herself, but it went flying as agony that triumphed over even the Cruciatus curse seared through every nerve in her left arm. She saw a gleam of green fire and the horrid smell of burning flesh before Bellatrix blacked out.
The Death Eaters had chased the children; either they believed Bellatrix a lost cause, or capable of handling Delphi one on one. Delphi looked down at her handy-work, casually raising her wand to send several dark cutting curses towards the elder Malfoy to keep him at bay. The spell she used was in Parseltongue, and it was about as dark as it got; it was called Soul Sunder. Taking a near-blade-like form, it destroyed the soul-magic of whatever the user set it upon. In this case, Delphini had sundered the bond between her Dark Lord father and her mother, by annulling the Dark Mark on her arm. Bellatrix was now free from the Mark, and all it entailed. Unfortunately, Delphi didn't know how to do that without also completely amputating said arm up past the elbow. At least it was cauterized. But the anaemia along with the pain it brought on was too much for the woman still recovering from Azkaban's horrors. Perhaps Bellatrix would have remained conscious had she been in her prime, but those days were long behind her. Delphi pointed her wand downward, incinerating her mother's wand. Delphi may love her mum, but she wasn't an idiot; Bellatrix wouldn't let down her guard again.
The vicious daughter lifted her mother onto her shoulder in a fire fighter's carry. She swished her wand in her left hand to strengthen the immobilization charm on Draco and Pansy. The other children all bolted through the door they came through, followed by the majority of the Death Eaters, except the two masked idiots who took too much glass to the face and throat. They were dead.
"I need you two to stay here. I'll come back for you later," Delphi said as she wiped sweat from her face.
"Don't kill my dad," Draco nearly whimpered to her.
Delphi met his gaze evenly and replied, "If I fight him, and he hasn't killed, maimed, or violated anybody; I'll return to him the same spells he fires at me. I'm not going to promise you more than that, cousin." Delphi shifted the unconscious Bellatrix to emphasise her last word. Draco paled as he finally understood and accepted that Bellatrix's terrifying daughter stood before him. He thought back to those horrible moments in Umbridge's office and realised that she really was going to hurt Pansy to get them to talk.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Delphi nodded to both of them before turning back toward where the fight had fled to. "Delphi?"
Bellatrix's daughter turned around to face the girl she nearly tortured and asked, "Yes, Ms. Parkinson?"
"Please let me keep Luna safe." Pansy rushed out in an almost embarrassed voice. But it was a strong plea none the less.
Delphi raised an eyebrow, "You're aware it's likely you'll be killed if you come with me right? Possibly taken prisoner and violated by the Dark Lord's forces. Because that's who we'll be fighting."
"I owe her," Pansy said. "She stopped me from being tortured by you."
"She did save you back there," Delphi admitted. "You turn your wand on me or your classmates and I'll put an Avada Kedavra into your face, understand?"
"Yes," Pansy breathed.
"I didn't take you for a turncoat. You're parents might be here, and it's entirely possible they'll die tonight," Delphi pointed out. "How do I know you'll keep your word?"
"My father's a rapist. And he's here. And my mum defends him," Pansy confessed.
"Your dad rapes you?" Delphi asked softly, completely taken aback by where this conversation had led.
Pansy vehemently shook her head, "No. Never me. He's never even slapped me. But he made us listen to him…talk about when he did that to a muggle family, all of them. He said I needed to see how weak the Mudbloods were."
Pansy continued with a fierce look in her eye, "It was just his words. I didn't really get it. Not until one of the older boys tried to hurt me like that during the Yule Ball. I stunned the drunk piece of shit, and hexed his cock off. But it was scary, and I didn't really get it until then. He made another girl feel that dread, but worse. That's when it hit me what kind of man he was. And mum supports him."
"And you supported Umbridge and the Dark Lord in school why?" Delphi asked innocently enough.
"Political reasons. I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to be on the losing side, and Dumbledore's getting weak, losing his influence in the Ministry; and continued disasters at Hogwarts weakens his position internationally as well." Pansy sighted, "But if the side against the Dark Lord has someone who can do that," she looked at Bellatrix, "to his most powerful follower without blinking, then maybe it's time to switch sides. Also you horrify me."
Delphi smiled widely at the girl behind her mask, "You know, Pansy, that might just be the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me. Truly."
Pansy didn't know exactly what to say to that, so she just kept her mouth shut.
Delphi waved her hand, undoing the barrier on Pansy and cancelling the immobilization spells. "I'm going to leave Mum here. Don't hurt her or listen to her if she wakes up before I'm gone. After this is all over, I'm going to force you to live this fight from somebody's memories, probably the person who's hurt worst; you know, for empathy." Delphi said to Draco as she fired a stunner into her mother's chest for a good measure before setting up another barrier to conceal and protect her mum for the next hour or so. She tapped herself and vanished from Draco's view, and put herself and Pansy under another disillusionment charm. And then she made herself visible again. "I forgot the important part of my plan, dummy," Delphi muttered to herself.
She reached into her pocket and picked out a rat. She forced him back into his proper form: Peter Pettigrew, "Imperio," She then took a flask out of her infinite pocket as well. She plucked a hair from Bellatrix's head, and put it into the flask. She closed it and shook it up. The two students were watching her mutely, both had a very good idea of how this little plan was going to go. She handed the flask to the imperious Wormtail and said, "Drink all of this and then stand still."
He did. He looked exactly like Bellatrix. "Scourgify, maxima," Delphi intoned as she completely annihilated any trace of Pettigrew from the Victorian suit that the rat somehow thought suited him. With a quick switching spell, Bellatrix was now on the floor clothed in Pettigrew's newly cleansed attire, and Wormtail now wore Bellatrix's Death Eater robes. Delphi looked at her mother's doppelgänger and stepped back to where the children were before everything started, and directed Pettigrew to where Bellatrix was standing. With a vicious gesture, glass shards shredded Wormtail's throat. A quick Reducto to the side of his rib cage, causing a bad wound. Delphi then forced him to where near one of the shelves completely collapsed and levitated it, had him lay underneath it, and then dropped it on him, crushing his chest. And just like that, Wormtail was no more. "There, now when mum disappears, it'll be totally understandable. Because this is fool proof," Delphi congratulated herself.