Chapter Fifty-Four | She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not
It was to moth-eaten curtains and scummy walls she woke, stripped of dust but not the rot that accompanied so many decades of neglect.
Her hammer was left leaning against said wall, wand in her sleeve and, remarkably, held snug by the liquid grasp of the phantasm - hijacked on her journey from Yharnam to Britain and seemingly quite content to have traveled to another world.
She stumbled from the room, already noticing the bittersweet aroma of coffee brewing downstairs. Sirius' drink of choice, his need to lead his family to dismay ending in him forgoing even tea out of spite, and having grown to love the stuff. Below that she could scent the usual brew that Albus was so fond of, something sweet and slightly floral, laced with so much bergamot that it wasn't so much tea as it was juice.
Into the kitchen she went, where Sirius turned to say hello and instead dropped his mug, back slamming against the countertop as he drew his wand, bleary eyed.
"What the fuck."
Catherine whirled around, wand pointed into the space behind her, seeing nothing. "What?" She asked, eyes flicking back to him. "There's nothing there."
"Catherine?"
Frowning, she nodded once. "Yes?"
"What's with the…" he gestured to his face, chest heaving. "Mask?"
Sitting at the table, Albus tilted his head at her. "Quite frightful, if I do say so myself."
Her hands rose to slap clumsily at her face, still tired and severely unfamiliar with the fogginess that came with waking, for them to touch against the mask she had claimed in Pthumeru, bone ash and steel mixed by magic into armour meant to intimidate as much as it was to protect.
"Ah."
It came off with ease, almost melting as it was drawn away from her face and then tucked beneath her arm, looking almost comical with the exceedingly wide brim of the hat atop it. Catherine blinked once or twice at the complete absence of change, being able to see through the mask as if it wasn't there in the first place.
Strange magic, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know how exactly the mask had been enchanted, after becoming passingly familiar with the ins and outs of Pthumerian rituals.
Then the memories flooded her, soft and immaterial at first, but then flicking by faster and faster, a rapid onslaught of images of deep, blood-soaked caverns - rooms strewn with viscera and the frigid sensation of a blade plunged into her belly, drawn out and laced with her blood.
She wobbled on her feet, pressing one hand against the doorframe for support and blinking against the deluge of Yharnam's memories that poured into her.
They were disjointed, barely a drop of her blood having touched Catherine's lips, and her soul lingering in some place between. Not quite the Nightmare, and not quite the waking world.
Fearful, Catherine whispered for her, Yharnam's name slipping over her tongue and being replaced by relief when the woman did not appear.
Only her memories then, strangely mundane as they were, and the sudden realization that she could feel the blood thrumming in her veins, sense it as it pulsed with each beat of the heart through the bodies of the men in front of her.
"You alright?"
She hummed, eyes screwing shut, one armoured knuckle gently pressing against her forehead. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, just… echoes, is all."
How frightful it was, she mused, to drink up someone's knowledge and all their practice and take it for herself. Was that how she'd gotten so powerful? Not just the strength gained from their slaughter and Melodie's gentle magic, but the very thoughts she'd pried from the skulls of those dead at her hand?
If she were to drink Albus' blood, what monster would be unleashed in her stead?
Suppressing a shudder and instead choosing to linger on the stark memory of the Great Cathedral tumbling to the ground, Catherine mended Sirius' mug with a twitching finger as she drew out a seat a few over from Albus. "G'morning."
"You look exhausted, Catherine," the man broached, offering Sirius a pinched smile as he levitated the large, silver pot and poured her a mug of steaming coffee, bringing it over and setting it in front of her. "Drink."
"Eh, just thinking." She sipped at the cup, unable to stop herself from wondering if blood would make her more chipper rather than the bitterness that swirled over her tongue.
Blood, blood, blood. It seemed to be the only thing she thought of nowadays, especially after using it as some sort of hackneyed pick-me-up through her near month-long journey through the catacombs.
Maybe she just wanted something mundane.
"About?"
"How to destroy an institution?" Catherine shrugged. She smiled softly at Albus' questioning look. "Blew up the Church, that was interesting."
"And what led you to that decision?"
The mug cracked beneath her grip, and Catherine fixed it with a glare, spiderweb lines disappearing beneath her gaze. "They were experimenting on kids." She turned to him, expression cold. "It was like setting off bombs in the Reichstag. I tore it all down." Taking her mask, she pushed it across the table, the skull staring back at her, crooked brim tilted across its brow and the point curling towards the ceiling. It was the guise of a harbinger, and it filled her with pride.
Dumbledore gazed into his mug, Sirius sitting down across from the man and garnering a short glance, his eyes flitting up for just a moment. "I'm glad we convinced Sirius to spar elsewhere. I believe Grimmauld would not be standing were we to practice here."
"Doubtful."
"The wards here are old. Powerful," Sirius argued.
"If Dumbledore and I were to fight in Hogwarts it wouldn't be left standing, let alone this place."
"You can't be serious."
Her brow raised, and Catherine glanced at Dumbledore out of the corner of her eye. "Would you agree?"
"If you're still growing as fast as you have been… then yes, I would agree." He took a sip, gaze running over her. "Judging by your attire, I'd say you have."
"And why is that?"
"You've been wearing the same leathers for nearly a year. It's been that long for you, has it not? Now you change them, and if I recall, that woman you met once wore that coat. Either she gave it to you or you took it, and both of those spell growth to me, though the other would be of the adverse sort."
"Didn't take it, no. Eileen gave it to me after I saved her life. She's decided to retire, although I didn't give her much choice, what with…" her hand stirred the air, rotating slowly. "Destroying her place of work."
"Was it as impressive as I'm imagining?"
She grinned, vicious and sharp. "Better."
"You'll have to show it to me sometime."
Her grin wavered, but Catherine nodded all the same. "Sometime."
"Well, let's finish our breakfast and then get to work, shall we?" Dumbledore said, addressing them both, inclining his head towards Sirius. "We've an attack to plan."
-::-
Upon the moors north of York the three of them stood, Sirius occasionally casting a wondrous, yet intimidated look at his goddaughter, the eyes of her mask glowing with a soft flame and her hammer glinting in the pale light of the moon.
Earlier she had shown them the phantasm she had found in the Cathedral, his expression upon seeing it that of disgust, fear, and wide-eyed horror to see even the afterbirth of one of the Gods that Catherine had happened across in her travels, remarking 'It feels like it's trying to burn my brain."
Dumbledore had furrowed his brow at the thing, before rubbing his eyes and offering her a pat on the back that spoke of reassurance and the unspoken message that the world of which she was dealing with was an entirely different breed to the horrors he had witnessed in his youth.
They stood before LeStrange Manor, a sprawling country home with one main building, and an auxiliary to the left of it - presumably for permanent guests or servants. A fountain and garden could be seen out front, with massive trees and hedges lining the paths and surrounding the rest of the property.
"Heard Hogwarts is under Ministry control," Catherine muttered, thumbing over the haft of her hammer. "In the papers."
"Undoubtedly, after what has occurred. I should mention, Saul Croaker will be stopping by tomorrow morning to discuss more with us about what we hunt."
Her gaze shifted from the manor to Albus. "He'll help us?"
"Apparently the Department have ways of tracking horcruxes. I'm glad to hear that now, at the beginning of our search rather than further into it."
"Anything'll help," Sirius added. "You said one will be here, one in his mother's home, and the other…?"
"In a cave, I believe, near a vacation site the orphanage he grew up in would take the children once a year."
"Never thought I'd go spelunking to kill him off, but stranger things have happened."
"Now, this isn't the time for small talk, nervous as we may be. Are the both of you ready?"
For a second Catherine wanted to argue that she wasn't nervous, but then remembered that she'd been fighting every day, almost every moment for the last year of her life. Her only respite was the few months puttering about Hogwarts trying to cling to a normal life, and the same spent in the Dream, desperately scrabbling at a semblance of sanity with Melodie at her side.
So she grunted a yes, resting her hammer across her shoulder and walking closer to the ward line alongside the other two.
The plan was to break in - shock and awe - to hit the LeStrange's as hard and fast as possible and capture whoever they could whilst Dumbledore put his own wards up over the place. Once they'd locked it down they could get to searching while Catherine interrogated whoever was there.
She'd told him of the Truth and all it brought, forgoing such mundane things as legilimency for the sake of eldritch knowledge poured directly into her mind, firing to the beat of her thundering heart. It made him nervous, that she knew, not just through the slightest widening of his eyes or the drumming in his chest, but the knowing that made its presence clear.
Catherine watched as Dumbledore raised his wand, something softly speaking in the back of her head that ticked off his process as he began dismantling the manor's wards - the three of them standing before a grand iron gate flanked by hedges.
His movements were immaculate, so precise that they belied his age and the imperfection that should come with his arthritic joints and spur-riddled bones. He had grasped onto them like a tailor and his thread, tugging and tugging until it all began to unravel, sparks emanating across an invisible dome that rose up above and dug deep below, a sphere of energy that curled around the entire property. It was torn to pieces with so much ease that Catherine wondered if he so chose to attack the Ministry, would anyone there be capable of stopping what amounted to an army packed into the body of a single man?
It took half an hour to take the wards apart without alerting those inside, something that would have normally taken a team of Gringotts' finest a day to manage, not including them studying them for a week beforehand.
She couldn't help herself from smiling, a wide, animalistic thing that matched the grinning mask she wore.
With the faintest crackle the wards fell, Albus opening the gate and striding through with purpose, the two of them behind him. She admired the intricate shrubbery along the way, hedges carved into fearsome magical beasts and the fountain she had seen from afar so far beyond ornate that it had entered into the realm of robber baron braggery, with golden inlay sweeping along every curve, each swoop detailed in the manner of the franco-renaissance from which the LeStrange family had taken their name.
It was all very Yharnam, and of that she approved.
They entered through the front door, a startled house elf turning their head to scream when they were struck dumb by a stunner from Dumbledore, the poor thing - covered in threadbare rags, sewn together to form a faint resemblance to clothing - knocked over on its side, a silencing charm catching its fall.
"The lounge should be this way, if I recall correctly," he stated, pointing to their right, past the wide, sweeping stairs that led to the living quarters above.
Following along, Catherine destroyed every painting as they moved, some managing to escape with their lives and carry the message of their arrival to those inside. Dumbledore's wand followed the walls, etching silvery trails into the faintly shining suede that covered them and leaving wards and traps along their path.
Their steps took them to a set of impressive doors, tall and formidable, a faint ember glow pouring out from underneath them.
Catherine kicked them open and dashed forward, ducking under spellfire and grinning widely at the shocked, even terrified expressions on the LeStrange's faces.
They managed to find all three, Rabastan, Rodolphus, and Bellatrix, and she couldn't be happier for it.
Rabastan's leg broke in two places as her hammer smashed into his knee, bone erupting from his calf and sticking out of his trousers like a splintered fence-post. He dropped in an instant, howling in pain, his brother looking over and shouting his anger.
One of Dumbledore's spells nearly caught him in the chest, only Bellatrix's shield stopping it from knocking him unconscious. He whirled around in time for the shield to break, two spells smashing against him and sending him flying across the lounge to crash headfirst into a bookshelf, the back of Rodolphus' head bursting as Catherine's had in the Great Hall, his corpse toppling over with the shelving buried deep in his skull.
Bellatrix's shriek was furious, ungodly in its fury, a sudden whirlwind of spells sparking forth and hammering against Albus' own shield, the sharp green of the killing curse shattering it, cutting through, and just barely missing Sirius as it flew past him.
Her heart stuttered in her chest to see him so close to death, Catherine's feet slamming against the floor as she rushed the woman. She ignored every spell sent her way, shoulder exploding into a misty cloud of gore, guts trailing behind her in a wavering ribbon of blood and flesh, and the emerald light that had adorned her brow at birth simply scattering over her like fireworks.
The joy she felt at seeing Bellatrix's eyes widen as she kept moving forward sparked new adrenaline in her, Catherine's pulped shoulder smashing into her and knocking her on her back.
Dripping with gore, she set to work, the few muscles that remained in her arm jerking it up and down and binding the woman from head to toe, the phantasm opening a hole in the air and letting out a horde of tentacles that tore through the floorboards around the woman, rooting her there and at the same time breaking her arms and legs.
"Set your wards, go," Catherine shouted over Bellatrix's screams, wild hair thrown out around her in a halo, thrashing uselessly against the steel shackles and unearthly flesh that bound her. "I'll get all the information from them that we need."
"Yes," Dumbledore spoke, voice shaky. "Sirius, come."
"Sirius?" Bellatrix shrieked, pain forgotten as she turned her maddened gaze towards the door, the tentacles disappearing into the void and a grin working its way across her face as she set sight on her cousin. "Sirius and Albus bloody Dumbledore come to take us? Do my eyes deceive me?"
Rabastan moaned in the corner.
Head turning, Catherine growled at the two of them. "Go."
"No! It's a family reunion, come say hello Siri! Oh, blood traitor, how I've missed you!"
"Quiet."
"And who's that behind the mask? How scary. And what a big hammer you've got there."
She ground her foot against Bellatrix's ankle, shattering the bones with a single stomp. The woman only laughed, whites of her eyes peeling back as Catherine tore away her mask, gaze all the more curious.
"Potter, Potter, what happened to you now? Killing beasties I heard, killing teachers, ah?" Blood stained her teeth, tongue flicking out to run across them. "Mmm, haven't been put on my back like this in a while. Didn't know you swung that way, kitten."
"Bellatrix."
"Oh, she speaks! Killed my husband, did you?" she said, jerking her head towards the bookcases. "Did me a great favour, there." Bellatrix leaned forward, squinting playfully. "Just between us girls, I never did much like him."
"Well, I'm glad I could help." Toeing at her shattered ankle, Catherine took a blood vial and drank from it deeply, her body starting to knit back together. "I've got some things I need to know from you. Where your Lord is staying, what are his plans, etcetera, etcetera." She waved her hand. "I'm sure you know what I mean."
"You going to torture me, are you?" Bellatrix barked out a grating laugh, all high and childlike. "The Dark Lord has tortured me for fun, dearie, you're not getting anything out of me."
"See, the thing is, is that I don't need to torture you. I don't even need you to think about it, really. All I need to do is look."
Another laugh. "Legilimency? You're a child, I'd like to see you try."
"You won't even notice a thing."
Catherine looked, and she saw.
A child tortured, already different from her peers but no monster, not the monster she would become. Beaten and bruised, parents with lofty expectations and heavier hands - sharper wands than any of her peers.
Bellatrix grew up taking the attention off her siblings, and somehow grew to love the pain.
So she jumped into her role with ease, taking the blows and words meant for Narcissa, Andromeda, and bearing them on her sturdy shoulders. To Hogwarts she went, levying her anger and pain in the only way she was taught, year after year after year after year, until she was told what all girls of her background are.
We've found you a suitable husband.
Everything in her life was embraced with the same animalism she exhibited at home, tearing through the drapery and setting her own room ablaze in a fit of spite addled curiosity, searching in every corner and in the strike of her boot against the chest of her family's elves for some manner of purpose, of enjoyment.
Then he came.
Tall, regal, proud, and above all else knowledgeable. He offered her power, a place, something to strive for in her miasmic life and she took it with greedy fingers, paying no heed to the bodies she began to bury in her wake.
One day he gave her a goblet, something plain and not altogether impressive, but he had stated emphatically how important it was that she keep it safe. So it gathered dust and cooled deep in the bowels of Gringotts, nestled among the mountains of gold and other such treasures kept haven in her vault.
Blinking slowly, Catherine set foot back in her own body, shaking away the feeling of Bellatrix and all the rage that came with it. She'd feel pity for the woman, if it wasn't for the way that she coped, for what she had thrown herself into so willingly and allowed her mind to be poisoned by.
Andromeda had the right of it, running away. Bella simply fell victim to her own pride and the unending need to find something, anything below her, so that she may squash it beneath her foot.
So many had died at her hand, all so she could feel powerful, to no longer imagine she was walking a listless path.
"Thank you for your help."
"I helped now, did I?"
Catherine studied the woman, wondering what she could have been weren't she a victim of circumstance and her own hubris. "Yes." She pointed her wand behind herself at the continued moans from Rabastan, barely in the corner of her view. "Should I kill your brother-in-law? Or are you fond of him?"
"Catherine!"
Turning, she looked at Sirius. "What."
"Dumbledore's setting up the wards, have you found anything?"
"Not here."
"Shite." He tilted his head at Bellatrix. "Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Did you find anything?"
His expression drew grim. "In the basement."
"What, in the basement?"
"Rodolphus' toys!" Bellatrix whooped, throwing her head back and cracking it against the floor. "So many good toys down there. Did you take a chance to play with them, Siri?"
"Watch her."
She stood and began marching, sending a stunner Rabastan's way as she left the room and followed the scent of Sirius' path, chin raised and nostrils flaring as she stomped her way through the manor.
Her steps took her past a grand kitchen, house-elves knocked out in the corners of the room and set down as comfortably as possible - Sirius' work - but through there was a door, thrown open, leading down into a cellar.
One by one she went down into the torchlight, ostentatious wallpaper replaced by equally ostentatious stonework, though the steps that marked her path were scratched through, and her gut began to sink.
It was no wine cellar that she had walked into. Maybe once upon a time it was, but this one was filled with blood stained cages, their floors strewn about with rotting straw and bearing shackles along the walls. Most were empty, but there were a few still occupied.
In one cage was a corpse of a woman, naked and covered from top to bottom in cuts, the skin across her chest flayed and split open to reveal her muscle, her ribs and her still heart beneath it all. The other two cages had more women pressed against the wall, one with her hands raised above her head, tied to the wall-
Not two women.
One held a girl, just around Emilie's age, brown of hair and gray of eyes, arms wrapped around herself and shivering frightfully in the frigid air.
Catherine stared at her, blood curdling as her gaze ran over the cuts and marks and the shakes that weren't just from the cold, shakes that she knew came after the cruciatus and the pain of having your entire body set alight, every nerve ran through with barbs and shocks so awful, so furious that for weeks - for weeks - you would find it impossible to sit straight or so much as move.
A child.
"You're safe now," she found herself announcing, with as soft a voice as she could muster. "I know I don't look it, but you're safe now. You get to go back home. I'll- I'll just-" she pointed towards the door. "I'll be right back. There's a man who will help you. His name is Albus, please, just… just wait."
Her veins were cold as ice as Catherine left the cellar, back up through the kitchens, towards the lounge. Gaze cast to the floor, she was flooded with images of Hemwick, of Emilie staring glassy eyed at the ceiling as her blood pooled around her. Emilie in that same cellar, wrists bound above her head, covered in cuts and shivering not from the cold but from the torture she had endured.
"Hey, did you-"
"One moment, please, Sirius."
The man flinched at her expression, stepping away. "You shouldn't have had to see that."
"Aw, nothing wrong with the toys! They got you all hot and bothered, girlie? D'you like them old, or young?"
Slowly, mechanically, Catherine turned to face Bella. "Quiet."
The woman grinned.
"And… I've seen worse. Far worse. I'd recommend leaving the room, Sirius."
"Catherine…"
"Leave the room, or otherwise remember me for what I'm about to do."
"And what are you going to do, kitten? What could big, bad you possibly do?" Bellatrix cackled, squirming gleefully. "You may have a mask just like ours, but you don't have the stomach for what needs to be done. You don't have the stomach for glory!"
Placing one finger against her lips, Catherine stared her down. "Quiet."
Rabastan woke with a flick of her wrist, the man gasping in shock before it petered out into a pained groan, his eyes cast down to his shattered leg and one hand dumbly pressing against the bone that poked through his bloodied trousers. "Merlin," he gasped, wincing.
"Rabastan, is it?"
"Is that… Potter?" he began to laugh, clutching at his belly. "With a big, fuck off hammer? Really? Bella, did you spike m'drink again?"
"Real as can be!" she sang, leaning towards him. "Potter, Dumbledore, and Siri."
"What are you lot going to do? Send us to Azkaban?" The two laughed together. "Be out in a week."
Squatting in front of him, Catherine slowly reached out and took his hand away from his belly, Rabastan growing quiet. "Your brother is already dead."
"Don't listen to her, Rabastan! It was an accident. Just a little accident."
"Rodolphus is-"
She hushed him, pressing her other finger to his lips. "Is dead."
And then she reached into his mouth, and ripped out a tooth.
Juggling it in her palm, Catherine frowned as he let out a pained moan, but failed to scream. "Ah, that's a shame. No screams? He really does torture all of you, doesn't he? Let's try another."
This time she bent the tooth, snapping the root and cracking the jaw with it, wrenching it out of his jaw with a snap.
"There's the scream."
"Catherine-"
"I said to leave, Sirius."
Bella laughed all the while.
"You've got a lot of teeth, Rabastan," Catherine explained, ignoring the way he groaned, head lolling and blood pooling along his lip. "And I'm not doing this for information, no. I'm just doing this because I can. Now-" she tore another tooth out of his jaw, huffing quietly. "-I plan to do a lot more than this with you, and you can make it a lot easier if you tell me one thing."
"Fuck you."
"Did you, or did you not, hurt those women in your cellar?"
"He did, he did!" Bellatrix chanted.
"Fuck. You."
Sighing, Catherine posed her thumb above his eye. "This won't grow back, just so you know."
She plunged her finger into the socket, popping his eye and stirring up the juice and flesh inside. Rabastan wailed, screaming as loudly as he could as she scrambled it all up and scooped it out, the claw across her gauntlet scraping at his retina as she dragged away the pulped mess and let it ooze out across his cheek.
"Did you, or did you not, hurt those women in your cellar?"
Faintly, behind her, she could hear Sirius shouting for Dumbledore, but all she could focus on was the man in front of her.
"Go fuck yourself."
Tutting, Catherine shook her head. "Voldemort sure does inspire a lot of loyalty in his men. Or is it fear?" she asked, cradling his jaw and pushing his head this way and that, so she could get a better look at him. "How many times has he subjected you to the cruciatus, I wonder, and yet you still follow him. Is it because you're afraid he'll kill you? Or do you just truly believe in him?"
Bellatrix began to shout, words full of spitting anger, at how dare Catherine speak of her Lord that way.
Humming a quiet tune, Catherine took his jaw in both hands and began to pull, Rabastan shrieking as it popped out of the joints and kept dragging towards her, skin stretching. Lines opened in his flesh, accordion cuts as it began to ribbon open, screams turning guttural as his tongue fell into the newly opened gap. With a squelch, she tore his jaw away, spattering her face in blood and looking on with mild satisfaction as his tongue flapped against his throat, jaw light as a feather in her palm.
He continued screaming as she looked over at Bellatrix, tilting her head. "You're next, just so you know."
The woman looked as if her world had come crumbling down, pure, unbridled shock written over her every feature. Her eyes flickered between Catherine and Rabastan, a river of blood staining his shirt and Catherine's blank expression staring back at her.
Maddened, her feet - broken and smashed - kicked against the floor and she lunged for her wand, taking it between her teeth and popping out of existence.
"Look at that," she whispered, taking Rabastan by the head and pointing his gaze towards the empty spot that Bellatrix once occupied. "She ran away. She knows you're dead, do you see? Do you see death coming for you? Because I never have."
Tears ran down his face, and his screams echoed out into the manor as Catherine began to dismantle him like she would a doll. Arms torn from sockets, fingers bent until they could bend no more, ankles twisted until they all but fell off. But she left his eye, lidless, to watch in horror until that final darkness came marching in.
And that was how Dumbledore found her, hunched over his corpse and still pulling at the threads that bound the meat and bone that once was Rabastan, the husk of his brother cooling in the corner and a puddle of blood where Bellatrix once remained.
She got to her feet, dusting herself off and only serving to further spread the blood across her knees.
"It's in Gringotts," she stated, softly walking over to pick up her hammer. "We should burn this place."