Lucius and Orion stalked through the Ministry, their wives at their sides with everyone else disillusioned behind them. All of them were grateful when they reached the Ministers office unscathed.
"Minister," Orion smiled as he helped Walburga into her seat
"Orion, Lucius was most vague, I do hope you're going to explain now," Harold Mitchum looked the man over, not sure what he could trust.
"Of course, Minister," Orion agreed as the charms were dropped.
"Good Gordic. Are you here to stage a coup?" he asked his eyes wide.
"Don't be absurd, Minister." Lucius clucked impatiently, "We're here to give you information to end this war you're currently losing. With assurances of course."
The minister blinked, "What assurances?"
Lucius froze as he attempted to work out how to spin this, cursing himself for not having thought it through beforehand. Hermione interrupted.
"We have a way to ensure the demise of the wizard styling himself as Lord Voldemort. We…" she gestured to the group behind her, "will be leaving, everyone else, should be credited."
"What way?" the Minister frowned.
"I assume you at least partially trust Orion and Lucius?" Harold nodded slowly so Hermione continued, "Good, then perhaps you'll come with us."
The Minister began to nod, sweeping his eyes over the group, "You're dead!" he blurted, when they came to rest on the Prewett twins.
"Ah not quite." Fabian grinned sheepishly.
"I demand an explanation."
"Of fucking course you do," Gideon sighed, "Who's up?"
Everyone turned to look at Hermione, "Looks like it's you, Harpy." Lucius grinned.
"Have I told you today how much I dislike you, Peacock?" she muttered.
"Not today, Harpy, not today. Yesterday….and every other day since I met you, I was beginning to wonder if you were slipping."
She growled before ousting him from his seat, sitting primly next to a visibly amused Narcissa before attempting to convince the Minister that they weren't all insane. It took an insultingly long time. By the end, Lucius was pouting.
Several hours later they stood just outside the Twins wards in an open expanse of ground.
"Right, together?" Fabian checked.
Hermione nodded moving forward only for Harry to pull her back, "What are you doing?" he hissed.
"Oh, Orion's been teaching me fiendfyre, we're going to use that. There was no way Dumbeldore was letting me into the school to play with the basilisk."
"You cannot be serious!"
"Deadly. It's fine, we've practised. The wards'll hold."
"No! You are not going in there to cast fucking feindfyre!"
She arched a brow at her husband, "And you're going to stop me, Harry James?"
He faltered slightly at her tone. "I ah…"
"Exactly." she nodded, ignoring the smirks of everyone else.
"We'll help, Granger, " Blaise volunteered, gesturing to Draco and Pansy.
"Fine. Let's get this over with."
They stepped through the wards, ignoring the looks of unease on the faces of those on the other side and cast. The roar of enraged magic was overwhelming, as was the heat. As the broken fragments of Tom Riddles's soul screamed at them, Hermione wondered if perhaps she had bitten off more than she could chew. Harry would murder her if she died doing this. Fighting to hold on to the spell, the faces of her children flitted through her mind, they needed her to do this, if she didn't, they wouldn't exist. And Merlin did she miss them, none of them had planned on her being away for months. The twins would likely be alright but Alex was old enough to question where she was, and Josh was still a baby, really. Gods, what did they think had happened? Her wand jerked sharply as the screaming ended and the fire ended itself. Around her, the shell-shocked, soot-blackened faces of her unlikely group of allies stared back at her.
"Well..that was overly dramatic," Walburga muttered. It wasn't funny, not really but all of them began laughing until it bordered on hysteria at the relief that that particular part of the plan was over.
"We go now?" Lucius checked, looking over at Hermione once they had gathered themselves.
She nodded, "We need to get him while he's weakest, and we can't give him time to make another one."
"Then let's go." Severus commanded, "He's at the Lestrange estate."
"Want to kill him again?" Hermione asked turning to Harry.
"No thanks, done it once. I'm good."
She nodded, "My turn, I think," Ron volunteered.
Several eyebrows raised, "I'll help if you don't mind," Ginny murmured, "Bastard was in my head."
"And me." Draco muttered, "He was in my fucking house."
Hermione shrugged, "Wonderful, let's go with that." she smirked suddenly, "Something more impressive than an expelliarmus this time?"
Harry pouted as several people laughed at them. Hermione's gathered group just looked confused.
"Are you…going to explain that?" Orion hedged.
"Oh, he was taken out by an expellliarmus last time. Rather anticlimactic all things considered."
"That's…not possible."
Hermione waved him off, "It is, but a story for another time. I assume we'll see you when it's done, Minister?"
Harold Mitchum spluttered for a moment before he gave her a sharp nod and apparated away.
"Right then, how are we doing this?"
"Dissilusion yourselves and between the six of us we can take you," Orion commanded, immediately taking her arm. "Narcissa I expect you to leave once you've dropped them off." He waited on Narcissa's reluctant nod before continuing. "We're…one short? Baby Malfoy come with me."
Draco pouted, "I'm older than they are."
Orion rolled his eyes, "For the next, what? Few days?"
"Fine," Draco muttered, taking his arm as he watched the rest of them pair off. Harry stood on his own, looking confused until Hermione held out her arm
"How safe is this?" he muttered.
"Not at all," Orion replied cheerfully as Hermione gripped his hand and Orion spun them out of existence.
The Lestrange estate was beautiful, Hermine mused as they landed just inside the grounds. Elegant with well-loved gardens, it reminded Hermione of a national trust property her parents had taken to her longer ago than she cared to admit to.
"Stay beside us," Orion commanded, as he began walking briskly towards the main door, the rest of their group following. Slipping inside, they took in the chaos.
"Lord Black!" A wide-eyed teen looked at him, "We weren't expecting you."
"No, I imagine you weren't, " Orion mused, "Where is our Lord?"
The boy faltered, "He is…"
"Dolohov," Lucius growled, "Where is he?"
"He is…indisposed."
"Indisposed?"
"He just sort of…went down. Roddy put him to bed."
Hermione blinked having never thought of Tom riddle doing things normal people did like sleep….or eat, he must do though surely? A startling image of Voldemort as she'd last seen him whinging about running out of toilet paper briefly flitted through her brain. She really did need to get home before she lost what was left of her sanity.
"What room?" Orion replied impatiently.
"Green room."
"Thank you," Orion smiled as he stunned and bound him.
"Cold, Orion," she chided, making him smirk.
"Why thank you, dear. Coming from you, that's quite the compliment, now are you finishing him off or am I?."
She snorted, "Leave him, we'll see what state things are in later but perhaps eternal cohabitation with the dementors is best. Maybe." He nodded, waiting on her to follow him through the house as they began taking out unsuspecting Death Eaters as they went. The look of vindictive satisfaction on Neville's face as he took out the Carrow twins was something that would stay with Walburga for the rest of her life. Privately she vowed to make an effort to befriend Augusta. It would be a shame for the boy's potential to be blunted the second time around.
"Right, Draco, Gin, Ron, you're up," Hermione murmured as they pushed open the door.
"Seems a bit unsporting to murder him in bed," Ron muttered, "He always waited until the end of the school year, did you notice? So there was some honour there."
"Of course mate, he really cared about my education," Harry replied wryly.
Ginny snorted, "Come on, let's go!"
"Fine. I want it noted though that I think this is…unethical."
"Sure Ron, it's noted," Hermione replied with an eye-roll. "Want to get a move on?"
They crept forward, and everyone held their breath. On the bed inside a quite frankly, ridiculously opulent room was Tom Riddle. More human than most of them had seen him, fast asleep.
"This is is so fucking odd," George murmured.
"I know! He..he sleeps." Hermione replied, "Do you think he's ever run out of toilet roll?"
Several people swivelled to look at her like she was insane as the twins and Harry snorted.
"Right," Ginny commanded softly, "On three….."
The explosion was rather pleasing, Hermione thought….even if the results were not. "Who the fuck cast a close-range bombarda!" she demanded as she picked…was that a toe? out of her hair.
Ron turned to look at her sheepishly, "I panicked!"
"Sweet Salazar," Draco muttered, scourgifying himself frantically.
"Splatter goes really fucking far doesn't it?" Susan mused with detached curiosity.
"Apparently." Harry agreed. "There's no hiding he's dead though."
"Nope," Neville grinned cheerfully, "The heads a bit of a giveaway."
"And the random hand….oh and there's a foot!" Fred exclaimed, cataloguing the room.
"There is something very, very wrong with all of you," Lucius muttered.
"Probably" Ginny agreed, moving back towards them, "Was the wolf here?"
"Yes," Fabian replied, "Downstairs and trussed up like a feral turkey. We're taking him before we call the Aurors?"
"Obviously," Severus sneered.
"Wonderful, we'll do that, you call the Minister? If Moody sees us we'll be in more pieces than Voldy."
"You can't stay dead forever!"
"Nah just a wee while. Let the dust settle. He'll be so pleased to see us alive he won't murder us." Gideon replied confidently before wincing at the looks of disbelief on everyone's faces. "Well…we hope," he muttered as they disappeared back down the stairs.
"Someone send the Minister a Patronus," Hermione sighed.
"As soon as you tell us what happened to Bellatrix. I forgot to fucking ask earlier." Harry interjected.
"Oh. Walburga and Orion were responsible for the ah….attempt at correcting her behaviour through ah…the more painful means. She was, after all, responsible for the fall of the House. Cissa and Andy were…less than impressed with her loyalty, so they were responsible for the words. And ah…we'll she did help Voldy take over in Lucius' house so he killed her."
"Wow," Harry muttered. "Your new friends are insane, love."
She shrugged, "I know."
"Now dear…Antonin?" Orion asked with a smirk.
"What do you think would happen if I cast a Diminuendo ? How small do you think he'd go?" Hermione mused, her mind briefly conjuring Dolohov as a borrower.
Orion's grin was shark-like, "Do you wish to find out, dear?"
Hermione cocked her head, thinking about it. "Yes." she nodded.
"Then let us go before the Minister appears and impedes us with bothersome things like morality concerns."
Harry groaned, "You're going to be more deadly the second time around, aren't you?"
Walburga patted his arm condescendingly, "Of course she is. We'll have a hand in her education next time."
He denied it later, but Harry whimpered.
The eventual clean-up was quick, many of the marked Death Eaters had been present in the Manor. Those that weren't, were quickly tracked down. Greyback had been declared missing.
Two days after the full moon, he was declared dead. The unfortunate Dolores Umbridge had been noted to be his last meal. Unfortunately, it was overshadowed when the Headmaster suddenly dropped dead during dinner in the Great Hall. Stress and advancing age were cited as the reason, after all, there was no poison in him, and no one could detect a curse. Headmistress McGonagall took the reins with dignity and began imposing…and sticking to rules. Like no bullying. And a system for house points for teachers to adhere to.
And life moved on.