Breaking the Window

Chapter 16: Breaking the Window

One good thing about being effectively expelled for a month was no morning classes, meaning Hermione could sleep late for as long as she wanted. It was a surprise even to her how much she needed and enjoyed her rest. Working herself to the bone and having an irregular sleeping pattern on top of that had been taking its toll, and the past couple of days she had slept until well past noon.

So decadent.

A pattern had quickly emerged: Sleep in late, breakfast, research, optional lunch, research, dinner brought up, more research, chatting with Trix, sleep. Repeat.

McGonagall had done her a huge favour by expelling her, but probably not in the way she had intended: Hermione now had her hands free to totally devote herself to researching the Fae Mirror. And, now that she was on the clock, that was a huge boon. She only had about four months before the Fae Mirror would stop appearing and her friend would be doomed to follow the path history had laid out for her.

Sat at the pool leafing through her books, she felt the snow still bearing down upon her. Early in December as it was, this was looking to be an inordinately cold winter judging from the early snow fall. Still wearing her ushanka and thick winter coat, she had also donned fingerless wool gloves to keep her hands warm while still being able to handle her books. Despite her clothes, despite the hot cup of tea, she felt herself shivering. Apparently, the weather in 1968 still wasn't a hair better as she saw her friend in the Fae Mirror with a thick wool scarf around her neck.

"Alright," said Hermione as she found the correct page. "I've finally finished the translation. Bear with me, it's a bit rough. 'On the eve of summer solstice, when the moon was its highest, a herbologist was searching through the woods for those plants which bloom in the moonlight. As he followed the flow of magic through the forest, picking up plants to sell at his shop, he came across a most magnificent sight. In the middle of the forest, in a clearing and nestled among the dead roots of petrified willow, lay a pool of pure magic. It bathed the clearing in an eerie blue glow. Yet, the herbologist was not afraid. He was incapable of being afraid.

The only reason why he wasn't afraid, was because of a magnificent unicorn which had sauntered into the clearing. Perhaps this was the unicorn's favourite drinking spot. It mattered not, as the curious creature was drawn to the waters. Yet, it did not drink.

From his perch, the herbologist could just make out the shadow of a figure in the pool looking back into the clearing. But, to his surprise, it was not a reflection of the unicorn itself. Suddenly, the majestic creature whinnied in abject terror and, for a moment, the herbologist thought that it might have spotted him. This was not the case, however, as the direction the unicorn took to flee was towards him. As the creature passed, the herbologist could see that the figure was still there.

More curious than frightened, the man stepped towards the magic pool. To peer. He instantly was given a powerful fright, for staring back at him was a creature of nightmare. A unicorn, yes, but one with skin as black as coal, three sets of clustered eyes as blue as the moon and an expression of baleful malice.

The herbologist, through some form of telepathy or his own intuition, received the impression that this frightful creature wished to harm him in ways man had never known or could even imagine in his darkest dreams.

This pool. This Fae Mirror. It showed him terrors from beyond. A dark mirror of his own world. A land of endless nightmares.

The herbologist dropped his basket and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He ran and ran and ran, all the time swearing that the frightful creature was just behind him, nipping at his heels. He ran into his town, his home, and bolted the door behind him. He refused to leave his home for days.

Later, his son, who was rather sceptical of this fantastical tale, want back investigate the woods his father refused to returned to and found no sign of a magic pool. Next to the man's dropped basket was a normal pool of gathered rain water, no sign that there had ever been an ounce of magic in the air.

The herbologist never returned to the forest."

"Hm," Bellatrix rubbed her chin. "Interesting."

"That is the first documented occurrence of a Fae Mirror and the book places the tale as being written somewhere in the 13th century. Unfortunately, it doesn't give us much new information," said Hermione, slightly frustrated at having seemingly wasted a lot of time translating this story.

"Wait... he followed the flow of magic through the forest, right?" Bellatrix bit her lip. "I wonder if he's referring to magical lay-lines. There's usually a slew of magical plants glowing along the path of a lay-line, so it would make sense of a herbologist to follow them. Hm, the path of the magical lay-lines through the Forbidden Forest is well documented and I just bet that if we find the place were all the lay-lines intersect on the map, it'll be right where we are now. I'll look into it. That might be something we could use."

That made Hermione smile briefly. "That's something at least," said Hermione. "It's just a tad disappointing that the story seemed to be more about that black unicorn than about the Fae Mirror itself."

"But, of course, there are no black unicorns," said Bellatrix. "There never have been. They're creatures of light. It's antithetical to their nature."

"There's been no recorded sightings at all? Could it have been some sort of genetic anomaly?" Hermione mused. "Something like a reverse albino. Or a panther."

"None," said Bellatrix. "A unicorn isn't a normal horse. All of them are stark white with a blonde mane as belies their light magical nature. Trust me, if there were mirrored coal-black unicorns out there which are attuned to sluts, they'd have been seen all over the place."

It was a joke, pure and simple, but Bellatrix did raise a good point. The colour was tied to their magical nature and wouldn't change unless their magical nature would be different too. While Hermione was lost in thought, Bellatrix tapped her fingers on the root she was sat on. "Hermie, I'm going to say something completely barmy. Let's assume two things: the story is correct and the herbologist actually did see a black unicorn in the Fae mirror. And secondly, black unicorns never existed, not in past, present or future."

"Those two assumptions are contradictory, Trix," Hermione replied.

"Not necessarily," said Bellatrix. "Not if we add a third assumption in the mix: Fae Mirrors aren't only a window to other times, but other places as well."

"But there isn't any evidence for…." Hermione started to say, but swiftly caught herself when something fluttered on the edge of her memory. "Hold on…"

Immediately, Hermione tossed herself onto her notes and swiftly grabbed two books which had been marked with yellow post-its. After a quick search, Hermione found the passages she was looking for. "There was another Fae Mirror sighting in the Black Woods around 1877. The huntsman who found it claimed to have seen, and I quote, 'a wondrous land of colour and life, unlike anything I have ever witnessed during my short time exploring God's creation. Praise be to the Lord Almighty, for I have lain my eyes on the Garden of Eden'. Religious rhetoric aside, this is a very different description from most of the other eye-witness accounts, which describes the Fae Mirror mirroring the same location in the future or past, just like ours is doing. It's not a single account either. There's an eye-witness account of a Japanese muggle salary-man who went into the suicide forest around Mount Fuji to hang himself after his wife left him in 1975, but changed his mind after seeing 'an indescribable scene of beauty and wonder, full of colour and life'. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of the Japanese suicide forest, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as a place of wonder. Most recent account is of a dragon-watcher in the forest of Romania in 1994, whom had gotten lost in said forest and spent 'many an hour marvelling at the very fabric of nature itself'."

Bellatrix shifted forward. "Merlin, Hermie, where did you find all of this? And in so short a time?"

"It's just research," muttered Hermione while looking away from her friend. 'Your uncle loved you enough to spend 30 years pulling everything he could find on Fae Mirrors in the hopes that it would help a girl he only knew the name of to change the past.' Truth be told, Hermione felt like a bit of a fraud: Achille Rosier had done most of the leg-work while she and Bellatrix were simply connecting the dots. Granted, to gather all this information could have easily taken her years of research and, as it stood, there simply wasn't time for that.

"Could it be?" Bellatrix rubbed her chin. "Hermie, there's a lot of magical creatures out there. Some beyond fantastical…"

Hermione nodded her head, realizing what Bellatrix was trying to say. "Trix, you might have a point there. There are magical creatures with a clear evolutionary lineage. Kneazles, for example, though magical in nature, but share a common ancestor with the regular house-cat. The fact that they can interbreed only proves that point. Still, there plenty of magical creatures with no clear evolutionary lineage."

At that moment, Bellatrix seemed a bit huffy. "I'll have you know we are well aware of the existence of Darwinian evolution in the wizarding world. And I know what a kneazle is, thank you very much!"

"I didn't mean to suggest…"

"… it's fine," Bellatrix waved her hand, eager to move on. "Point being, they couldn't have sprung into being from nowhere. They must have come from somewhere! What if… they came through the Fae Mirror somehow?"

Hermione bit her lip. Though there was no direct evidence for that claim, the fact remained that forests where Fae Mirrors had been sighted were teeming with magical life, sometimes bordering on the fantastical. One such a forest would be a statistical anomaly. But all of them? No, Bellatrix might be on to something here.

"You realize this is pioneering work, right?" Hermione chuckled.

Bellatrix nodded and gave her a slight grin. "And the two brightest witches of their respective ages are doing the pioneering, across time and space."

Hermione couldn't help but smile at that. "This is going to make for one hell of a dissertation."

In the pool, Bellatrix leaned forward. "I'll do you one better… what if we go there?"

Hermione blinked. "Come again?"

"Think about it," she said, roving her wand over the pool for good measure. "I've been taking some readings and it seems like this pool is a funnel of a magical vortex. It's unmistakable. I mean, every time you apparate, you create an artificial magical vortex connecting one place to another. The very reason why people get so sick from apparating too far is because an artificial vortex doesn't want to exist and is being forced to stay open long enough for the apparition to take place. A portkey is a more stable, permanent magical vortex, but there are also a lot of naturally occurring magical vortices and if this is one side of a funnel… Or a funnel system…"

"… then there's other funnels it's connected to," Hermione finished. "And if it's stable enough to allow for travel or if it can be connected to the right funnel..."

"We could meet up!" Bellatrix yelled out, sounding positively elated. "Either in one of our time-lines or maybe even in this mysterious place that's been described by those eye-witnesses! Oh, Merlin, Hermie, what if we manage to pull this off?! What an amazing adventure it would be! For both of us!"

Hermione couldn't help but smile. Her friend was certainly enthusiastic. She hated to put a damper on it. "If we can manage it. Such things are usually done by ritual, but it doesn't exist. Not yet. We'll have to invent one."

Thing about ancient rituals was that they had to have been invented at some point. Finding one was much easier than creating one, which involved endless amounts of trial and error finding the right words, the right cadence to words, the right wand movements and the right order of doing things in. And where to even start?

"Blood," Bellatrix spoke resolutely. "It'll be a blood ritual."

"Why?"

"Blood is life. Blood is power. Blood is a vessel for magic," said Bellatrix. "Why do you think pure-bloods are so eager to keep their bloodlines unpolluted? Or why blood sacrifices are a thing? Read your history of magic: early apparition experiments involved plenty of magic blood as a spell component. If we are going to make this work, it'll have to be through a blood ritual. Do you have something sharp on you? We could do a bit of a test."

"Are you sure blood of a muggle-born will suffice?" Hermione said with a sarcastic edge or her voice.

"Are you on about that again?" Bellatrix raised an eyebrow. "I apologized for that, which is something I rarely do, by the way."

"Right, sorry, sorry," Hermione said quickly and fished around in her pocket, finding a small pocketknife used for peeling the occasional apple. She unfolded it, the tip looking sharp enough to do the trick. When she looked into the pool, however, she was given a bit of a fright. Trix was holding in her hand an oddly shaped dagger which she had come to be intimately familiar with. Almost instinctively, she made a grab to her forearm, to make sure that the cursed wound hadn't reopened again.

Bellatrix, in the meantime, apparently mistook her reaction for one of admiration. "Cool dagger, isn't it?" smiled Bellatrix. "Picked it up at Borgess and Burke on my last shopping trip. It's actually cursed: if I wanted to, I could inflict a wound which would leave a really ugly scar which reopens ever so often. Sure, I mostly bought it because it looks cool, but I would really love to carve 'I love long big cocks' in the skin of Lestrange's forehead."

Hermione fought to keep her breathing regular. For a moment, she was back on the floor of Malfoy Manor, a sneering, giggling Bellatrix pressing on top of her. She felt her weight on her body, her voice in her ears, the tip of the dagger carving through her skin. Hermione forced herself to think that Trix wasn't that woman. Not yet. And if she could manage it, not ever. Trix was her friend. Her friend. Not her enemy.

"Hermie, are you alright?" Hermione heard Bellatrix say, snapping out of her haze. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"It's... it's nothing," said the young witch. "Shall we begin?"

Hermione hissed when she pressed the tip of her pocket knife into the palm of her hand. A droplet of blood started to form on the blade. On the other side of the Fae Mirror, Trix did the same with that infernal dagger of hers.

"Ready?" said Bellatrix. "On the count of three. One… two…"

On the count of three, two droplets of blood in two different time-lines fell towards the waters of the Fae mirror and hit the surface at almost the exact same time. For a moment, the waters of the Fae Mirror and the blue light turned into bright red very briefly. The Fae Mirror seemed to churn for a moment and the blue magical light seemed a little brighter than before. The two girls shared a look and gently let their hands slip into the water. This time, unlike many moons before, Hermione was almost startled to feel a gentle touch. Bellatrix' hand in the water wasn't solid enough to grasp, but solid enough to brush across her skin.

"I feel you!" Bellatrix giggled, sheer joy on her voice.

"Same," Hermione grinned. "We have a proof of concept!"

They both withdrew their hands, both apparently realizing at the same time that they had just stuck their hands in a pool of water which had a temperature near the freezing point. After both dried their hand, Hermione faced the pool once more. "So. Lay-lines, blood magic and magical vortices. That's three new avenues of research," said Hermione.

"I'll handle the lay-lines and find a map of those. Oh, I know," said Bellatrix. "Over the weekend, I'll ask Sebastian… that's our butler, by the way… to mail me two books from grand-père's library. I'll make copies and bury them in a small box underneath the third root to your left, along with a copy of the map of the lay-lines."

Hermione looked to her side and counted the roots. One, two, three… Ah, there it is. A bit of digging later and Hermione found a box containing a map and two books. Looking at the map, she could see that Bellatrix had already circled the place where they intersected: as they predicted, it was the clearing they were both sitting in. Then, Hermione picked up the first book. "Wellspring of magic. Vortices in the wild," Hermione read the title. This was hardcore theoretical stuff and a staple of advanced magical theory. She herself had attempted to breach this subject in her fourth year, but she lacked a proper theoretical basis. Many of the things described in this book were still a bit over her head… not that she would admit that to Bellatrix, of course, and in all fairness this was a separate field she had yet to fully focus on. That was until she noticed something incredible. "Wait. Thibaud Ludolf Rosier. Your grandfather wrote this book?!"

A nod and a smile from Bellatrix confirmed this. "And the notes?" Hermione asked, after discovering annotations and liner notes on almost every single page.

"Grand-père was working on a third, revised edition, but he never got to finish it before he died," said Bellatrix with some melancholy on her voice.

"There's notes in a different handwriting here," said Hermione, noticing a second set of handwriting among the notes at many places.

"Mine," smiled Bellatrix. "I was planning to finish the work on the third edition in my grand-père's name, but some experiments need to be redone and I lack the means or experience at the moment."

Her friend let out a heavy and mournful sigh. "Yet another thing I won't be able to do." Another flash of pain across her eyes: though she didn't say it out loud, it was clear to Hermione that Bellatrix felt like she was letting her grandfather down. It dawned on her just how different Trix was from the woman she would eventually become. Oh, the similarities were there: there were flares of obsession, streaks of arrogance here and there, as well as the occasional outburst of anger. But nothing that was unhealthy. Nothing that reminded her of the madness of Bellatrix Lestrange. In fact, she was rather impressed with Trix: she was clever, insightful, full of life and passion. That she not only wanted to finish her grandfather's work, but understood it so thoroughly spoke volumes.

"I think your grandfather would have been very proud of you regardless," spoke Hermione with utmost sincerity.

That seemed to be the boost which Bellatrix needed at the moment. She looked up, eyes slightly watery while curls danced over her cheeks. A slight, brief smile was a silent word of thanks. "I miss him," Bellatrix spoke softly.

"I'm sorry," replied Hermione.

"He would have liked you, you know?" she replied. "He cared less about blood and more about intelligence, skill and strength of character."

"I think I generally like your mother's side of the family better," chuckled Hermione.

"Hah!" Bellatrix laughed. "Tell me that again after you've met maman, Hermie. She can be… critical."

"Still," sighed Hermione. "To return to the subject at hand, I do know enough about vortices that if there isn't already an existing natural or artificial one on every side, we'll need a participant ritualist on all active sides of this cosmic door. Meaning, we'd need a third person to break through. Dammit!"

Bellatrix looked away for a moment, tapping her chin while in thought. "Not necessarily…" she muttered.

"Trix?"

"I've just handed in the first draft of my Arithmancy thesis the other day and I think we could put some of the theory in practise," said Bellatrix.

Ah yes, Hermione remembered. There was a copy of Trix' rather mindbogglingly esoteric thesis in her school file. She recalled it was about manipulating numbers to reshape reality.

"Alright, lay-lines are like underground rivers of magic, flowing through the entire forest. Through the Fae Mirror, we are both connected to the lay-line flow in both our times," said Bellatrix. "I would need to take some measurements and do some calculations, but I think that if we carefully place a series of lodestones right into the flow of the lay-lines on both our sides of the Fae Mirror, we could alter the flow of magic to create voidzones."

"Voidzones?" Hermione frowned. "What would be the purpose of that?"

"No, no, that could work!" grinned Bellatrix. "Voids want to be filled, right? It's a universal law. Nature abhors a vacuum. Well, magic does too. Voidzones fill and become high energy zones. Enough high energy zones in the right places at both our locations and…"

Hermione gasped. "… you want to fool the magic into thinking there's the third participant on the other side of the Fae Mirror!"

"It's not purely theoretical. Grand-père has managed to create a portkey that way between two continents on his own without a second person purely by manipulating lay-lines," said Bellatrix. "Granted, this is a bit bigger than that, but with enough of a charge… I should talk to Antonin, perhaps."

Hermione almost did a double-take when she heard the name. There was only one person this Antonin could be. Antonin Dolohov, one of Bellatrix' fellow Death Eaters. Hermione supposed she shouldn't be surprised that Bellatrix would know him before the Death Eater days. Hell, she might have be the very person who recommended him to Voldemort. "Antonin?" she asked carefully.

"Hm?" Bellatrix muttered. "I'm sure I mentioned him before… I think… No? Well, he's a Ravenclaw, one year below me. Durmstrang transfer. Smart. What's important, though, is he that he's really involved with Hogwarts student radio."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "I… don't quite follow."

"Oh, magical resonance as it travels through lay-lines resembles radio waves quite a lot," said Bellatrix. "For the trick we're trying to pull, we'll need to have the purest possible magical resonance and for that we'll need to find a way to 'clear' the signal, as it were. Don't worry, I'll keep the discussion purely theoretical to hide what I'm really after."

"I'll… take your word for it," Hermione took a deep breath.

Great. Hermione couldn't help but wonder if it indeed had been Bellatrix whom had introduced Dolohov to the other Death Eaters. If that was the case, it would seem that by giving Bellatrix a reason to speak to Antonin Dolohov, Hermione had potentially ruined yet another person's life through her good intentions. As if she she needed more reasons to change fate.

"Hermie, take a look at the other book I sent you."

It was then that Hermione noticed the second book in the box: it was much older than the previous one, looked to be leather bound and locked with an iron clasp. After a quick spell to open the lock, she flipped the cover and read the title. 'Blood rites and Bacchanals. Exploiting the power of thy blood'. After flipping through a few pages, she glanced over a few rites described and saw a few of the heinous illustrations. "Jesus, Trix, what have you just sent me?!"

"It's an ancient collection of blood rites from olden times," said Bellatrix. "Compiled in the middle ages. We've already seen that blood is the key, so if we use part of the rites described in this book as a template, it might save us some time."

More pages turned, more horror. Hermione's mouth fell open when she saw an ancient woodblock depiction of a witch holding up the severed head of a goat above a roaring fire. "Trix, these rites… They aren't just black arts… they are vantablack arts! Seriously, books like these might the reason why witch-finders were a thing!"

She saw a flash of annoyance crossing Bellatrix' features. "Magic isn't inherently good or evil, Hermie. It's how you use it and what you use it for which determines that. Dark arts can be used for good and light spells can just as easily be used for evil purposes. Besides, there's far more benign rites in the middle part of the book. Still, you probably shouldn't leave it lying around unguarded. That particular book is banned in most wizarding nations. For really stupid reasons, I might add."

Indeed, shades of the woman she could become were still there: the ruthlessness and the willingness to do whatever it takes. Trix was Slytherin through and through, seeing magic as a tool and generally not being bothered about ethics. The younger Bellatrix might not be a dark witch, but she was certainly a grey one.

They chatted a bit more about mundane things before the Fae Mirror fizzled out for the day. A tired and cold Hermione made her way back to the inn and, after warming herself by the fire somewhat, tossed the books on her desk and crawled underneath the blankets for some much needed rest. Tomorrow would be another busy day of research.

Hermione lay on the cold floor of Malfoy Manor, tears welling from her eyes as she trembled in fear. Above her hovered Bellatrix Lestrange, her expression one of a twisted smile. The dark witch was greatly enjoying seeing her in pain, laughing mockingly at her whimpers and cries. "Please..." Hermione dared to speak, her voice hoarse and tiny from all the shouting. "I've done nothing to you..."

The dark witch's twisted smile transformed into an incredulous expression before it continued to morph into abject rage. "LIAR!" shrieked Bellatrix in her ear after slapping her hard in the face. "You abandoned me! You left me all alone! You are a filthy lying piece of mudblood offal! You never were anything else than offal! You'll pay, you'll pay, YOU'LL PAY! THIEF! LIAR!"

Pain more terrible than she had ever experienced in her short life exploded through her body as yet another Cruciatus curse burned through her nervous system. Impossibly, this one was even worse than the ones she had inflicted upon her just before. Her body trembled while spots flashed in front of her eyes... she had bit her cheek so hard she tasted blood.

"Get used to pain, little mudblood!" Bellatrix shouted. "You'll be feeling a lot of that tonight! I'm going to drive you mad! I'll destroy that precious little mind you are so proud of! It's what you deserve!"

"NO! Please! I haven't..."

"SILENCE! CRUCIO!"

Hermione started awake only to find herself sat upright in her bed while her body was drenched in sweat. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, now realizing where she was and that she was quite safe. As expected, she was in her room at the inn.

Hermione ran a hand through her hair and let herself fall back onto the mattress. Ever since her conversation with Achille Rosier, her nightmares had returned with a vengeance. She relived her traumatic experience at Malfoy Manor almost every night and, also since talking to Rosier, a few of the words Bellatrix had spoke to her on that fateful night stood out.

'You abandoned me', 'You left me all alone'. Though these hadn't made much sense at time and Hermione hadn't exactly been in a position to give them any kind of deep thought. However, now that Achille Rosier had given her some more context the meaning behind it had gotten quite clear: Bellatrix had known whom she was, because she remembered talking to her in 1968. Bellatrix had met Hermione, before Hermione had met her. Obviously, Bellatrix had also been quite resentful towards the young witch despite the fact that the Fae Mirror inevitably collapsing was something that was completely out of her control.

It pained Hermione's heart, for causing her friend such heartache was not something that she had ever intended. She was still determined to change Bellatrix' fate, temporal mechanics be damned!

She turned her head to her side and saw that the sun was already up. She threw her feet over the side of the bed and into her waiting slippers while making a grab for her bathrobe. Her first stop was the door of her room, which she swiftly opened and found the agreed upon breakfast tray waiting for her just outside. She swiftly wheeled it in and enjoyed a bite of Cumberland sausage over a cup of tea when she sat down at the desk and started working. Honestly, these days she barely bothered to get dressed unless it was to run an errand or to go out at night to visit Trix.

Three weeks. Three weeks she had been living this way. Honestly, it had been an inspiring time for her, especially when there was such a clear sense of progress.

If she'd still been in school, Christmas holiday would fast be approaching. As it stood, she had her hands free for experimentation which took up the greater part of her day. Deep in December as she was, she would soon spend a week with her parents, but already had a plan in motion to maximize her time spent with her parents, while sacrificing as little research time as possible.

Both girls had already donated pints of their blood to the cause, slashing and healing the palms of their hands more times than she'd even dare to count. She was slightly worried about going anaemic, so had picked up a few bottles of iron pills at a pharmacy in Dufftown and made an effort to eat more food which was rich in iron-content.

Still, she and Trix were making a lot of progress. It was easy for Bellatrix to share her part of the research by simply burying it in a box to send it forward in time. Unfortunately, the only way for Hermione to do the same was to share it with Bellatrix by telling her over the Fae Mirror. She was forced to do so in a to the point and efficient manner.

To that end, she had decorated the walls of her room with all manner of notes, pictures, pages of books, illustrations and connecting it all with red ribbons. By now, papers covered so much of the walls almost none of the original wood could be seen. A lot of the research was rather dark in nature, which was to be expected when researching blood rites: Hermione had permanently put up a 'Do not disturb' sign on her door outside or the cleaning lady much start to think that she was some sort of cultist... or worse, clean it all up and mess up her carefully crafted setup or sort the papers out of order.

Hermione chuckled. Her room would probably look like the abode of a madwoman to any outsider.

Still, over three weeks of painstaking and intense research later, Hermione actually felt close to a breakthrough. She found she meshed well with Bellatrix: though the two had had some heated debates, Bellatrix had offered plenty of fresh and practical ideas and insights alongside Hermione's more analytical and theoretical approach. Though it sometimes meant she'd had to cut a few corners she preferred not to cut, she couldn't argue with the clear results.

Right now... or right now in 1968? However that worked... Bellatrix had finally cracked one of the problem plaguing them: for a three-way connection through a magical vortex, a person would be needed at the end of every connection point to perform the blood rite. And, of course, there were only two of them.

Apparently with some help from the younger Antonin Dolohov, Bellatrix had calculated the best spots to place the lodestones to alter the flow of magic to suit their needs. However, when Hermione went to place the lodestones in her time-line, some things didn't end up. Hermione was surprised to learn that Bellatrix actually made a few mistakes in her Arithmancy calculations... which Trix had been quite embarrassed about. Correction had been made.

While Bellatrix had been working the lay-lines, Hermione was mostly focused on creating a blood ritual from scratch by using bits and pieces of existing rituals as a baseline, using her earlier experiments as a guide for adjustment. She felt she was so close to the solution now, she could almost taste it. Tonight. Tonight might be when their hard work paid off.

Hermione had to admit that she was getting more and more excited. Not only for helping her friend by preventing her dark path, though that was obviously part of it, but also the fact that the two of them were doing some pioneering work here which had never been done before. She was making sure that every step here was carefully documented.

If this worked, she and Trix could actually meet. Talk face to face. Touch.

Perhaps that was the most exciting thing of all.

Bellatrix had been so engrossed in her work that she never heard Andromeda enter her dorm until her sister was literally looking over her shoulder. As soon as she did, Bellatrix slammed the notebook shut and twisted around. After panic faded, she forced herself to act calmly and grinned at her sisters.

"What's up?" she asked, her own tone of voice betraying her. Looking at the time, her sister likely came to fetch her for dinner. But the look of concern on Andie's face told another story.

"Bella..." asked Andie. "What are you doing?"

"Oh," Bellatrix shrugged. "Just a project I'm working on for Slughorn. I..."

"Bullshit!" Andie interrupted, with a tone of intensity which startled Bellatrix: her sister was always soft-spoken and gentle... sometimes cold, yes, as a Slytherin could be, but never this intense. Her sister took a step forward. "Do you think I'm stupid, Bella? Do you?!"

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes and stepped forward as well, looking her little sister in the eye. There was no way she'd allow herself to be intimidated by Andie of all people. Being just as much a Black as she was, however, she did not back down nor even flinched.

"I don't think you're stupid, Andie."

"Good!" shouted Andie. "Because I know a blood rite when I see one! What are you up to, Bella? Is it for that Voldemort person?! Are you trying to impress him?!"

Bellatrix froze. "What?! No!"

"Then why is Lestrange boasting that you'll be going with him to another rally, hm?!" Andie crossed her arms. "I thought we promised each other we wouldn't return. We've just convinced Cissy to stay away and now you're running right back to him?! What kind of example does that set for her?"

Bellatrix sighed. Of course, the both of them were worried about Cissy and what she was doing might be giving off the wrong impression. She and looked around the room. Finding no prying eyes, she put her hands on her sisters' shoulders and smiled briefly. "I'm only going because Dumbledore asked me to."

"Wha... The Head Master?"

"Yes!" Bellatrix chuckled. "I'm not in the least bit convinced by that idiot clown calling himself 'Dark Lord'. What kind of moron do you take me for? No, Dumbledore asked me to look around a little, see what I can see and then report back to him."

"Bella, these are dangerous people!" Andie spoke, eyes brimming with concern.

"But if we catch them doing something illegal, if Rodolphus is involved and implicated, Dumbledore can bring in the aurors and then I won't have to marry him!" Bellatrix smiled. "Don't you see, Andie? This is my chance. If I find something juicy and damning, I won't have to marry him!"

Andie visibly paled. "Oh, Merlin, Bella! Don't you realize that Dumbledore is telling you exactly what you want to hear? Father will just find someone else for you to marry!"

"No doubt," said Bellatrix. "But that won't be Lestrange. And by now I'm old and strong enough to actually be a part of the conversation. Besides..." She glanced at the notebook for a moment. "Perhaps there's another way out of it."

"Still doesn't explain why you're researching blood rites," Andie narrowed her eyes. "Does this has something to do with the girl you've mentioned? It has, hasn't it?"

Bellatrix said nothing, but her silence told the whole story even if she hadn't wanted it to.

"What is she involving you in? Blood rites..."

"... are dangerous. Are dark arts. Corrupt the soul, defile the innocent, fire and brimstone coming down from the skies, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes and volcanoes, the dead rising from their graves, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!" Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "I've heard it all before. And as a Black, you of all people should know better than to buy into the ignorant mewings of Ministry fops."

Andie rolled her eyes. "There's a reason blood magic is strictly regulated, Bella. You could go to Azkaban."

"If practitioners of blood magic were all arrested, about 75 percent of the wizarding population would be in Azkaban, Andie!"

"That's besides the point!" Andie sighed. "You're toying with your life. Is... is that girl making you do this? Because if she is..."

"Andie..." Bellatrix glowered, raising her chin and daring her sister to continue this line of questioning.

"She is making you do this, isn't she?" Andromeda pursed her lips. "It's this Hermione who put you up to this!"

"ENOUGH!" Bellatrix shrieked in Andie's face. "I WILL DO WHAT I DAMN WELL PLEASE, ANDIE! HERMIONE AND I ARE GOING TO PERFORM AN EXTRAORDINARY FEAT WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE, EVER! GO BACK TO TURNING RODENTS INTO WOOD GOBLETS FOR TRANSFIGURATIONS CLASS AND LEAVE GREATNESS TO THOSE WHO ARE WORTHY OF IT! STAY THE TINY MOUSE YOU ARE, ANDIE! AND BE GLAD I WILL ALLOW YOU TO STAND IN MY SHADOW!"

Bellatrix's chest heaved while Andie stared her down, eye watery and hands trembling. Instantly, Bellatrix's expression softened. "Andie... I... I didn't mean..."

"FINE!" Andromeda shouted back as she turned to rush to the door. "DO YOUR BLOOD RITES! AND BE DAMNED! SEE IF I CARE!"

"Andie..."

The door slammed shut with a resounding bang, leaving Bellatrix to stand in the room feeling her heart constrict with remorse.

"Fuck," she muttered, and made a mention note to make it up to her later. For now, she had work to do. As much as her heart constricted with regret at her outburst, she would have to learn the words to the ritual by heart, as well as the wand movements and even the cadence of her voice. Everything had to be perfectly executed and she could allow no distractions.

If they succeeded tonight then she would see Hermione. In the flesh. The very idea sent a tingling sensation down the length of her spine.