I realise I am bombing the Ministry of Magic, shortly after, in real life, London was attacked. But I'm not going to change it, because, frankly, I had this all planned out months ago. I'm not being political. I am not smrt enough to be political. Christ.
This has also got to be the worst chapter in the story. It's not organised, it's just… augh. I wish I could just skip this part and go on. But I can't. Absolute shittage.
XII
Tonks had gone out clubbing, and she was glad she did. She stumbled home at four in the morning, reeking of cigarette smoke. She could have brought someone along, but she had waved off his offer and had instead busied herself with ordering another round of drinks for the girls she'd just met. Tonks made friends very easily.
Her blonde hair stuck out in the back and fell in her eyes in the front. She collided with the doorframe in her kitchen, then sat down and went through a whole pack of cigarettes, and lots of water.
Later, sleepless, still smelling rather unwholesome and with red eyes, she went to Gringotts and made a withdrawal. A very big withdrawal, which she then transferred somewhere else.
She left feeling sad.
x
It was early in the morning when Remus finally found Mundungus' current place of residence.
Threats of what lay ahead seemed to be a theme when it came to Bellatrix's wild murders - with Kingsley it had been bloody footprints, but now it was Dung himself hanging out of his window.
Remus broke through the back door to get in and run up the flight of stairs. It was still early - maybe no one had seen the body yet. Besides that, it wasn't exactly in plain view. But he had to move quickly to make sure that stayed the case.
He had to kick open the door to Dung's flat - the trick was to put all of your force into the lock, just above the doorknob. Someone upstairs banged on the floor to get him to stop making such a racket at five in the morning.
Remus pushed the door closed behind him and hurried through the flat. Blood was splattered here and there - when he glanced into the kitchen he saw a liberal amount. But he was mostly concerned with the rope.
The room was cold and a little damp from the morning air. He heaved Mundungus' body up back through the window and letting him fall to the floor. Remus had never particularly liked him, but that wasn't the point. He had still been a member of the Order.
He didn't have very many wounds on him - just a few bruises. The blood spattered everywhere had to be Bella's.
Further inspection of the flat revealed that she had indeed gone through Mundungus' things, just as she had gone through Kingsley's. He found her blood in the bathroom, too. She hadn't bothered with a cleaning charm. He didn't know why.
But women of the Black family were funny like that.
Remus stood in the bathroom for a long time, thinking. I'm next, were one of the things he thought.
He had never hated Bellatrix, but he had never liked her either. Again, he had admired her - but he wasn't the only one. Dozens of people had admired Bellatrix, with her courage and her stubborn resilience, and her beauty. She had dominated the Slytherin and Hufflepuff population of the school, the first years she had attended.
But when she turned fourteen, she took up with the company of Lucius Malfoy.
Not saying that she had become one of his cronies, or vice versa. Rather, Lucius and Bellatrix were like a group of schoolchildren all their own, practically removing themselves from the pecking order and acting on the outer edges, almost oblivious to the goings on of the school. They could be seen skipping meals to experiment on how fast certain objects would fall from the Astronomy Tower, or failing to show up to class because one of them was at the infirmary with some injury they had received pulling a stunt involving a suit of armour, or maybe a spear.
But whenever they spoke, people stopped to listen, or to listen while pretending to ignore them. When a Slytherin was pushed around by a Ravenclaw, Bellatrix struck hard and fast. If someone had trouble with their homework and asked for help, Lucius would probably do half of it.
Bellatrix and Lucius had been among the first of the Hogwarts graduates to be snapped up by the Dark Lord. They were the right sort of people, apparently. Careless, but smart; and strong, in body and mind. They were young and foolish. Remus, who had always felt old and sensible, had often looked at Bellatrix with a longing he couldn't describe.
That longing had stopped when she'd gone to Azkaban. But now it was starting to resurface, ever since he had killed her husband, and she had reacted in the midst of sadness and rage.
People like Bellatrix loved fiercely, in a way Remus never could. He wished he'd remembered his old admiration of her, and had remembered, way back to their schooldays, that when James pushed some Slytherin a year younger than he in the hall, so hard that the poor kid dropped all his books and broke a bottle of ink, Bellatrix had slapped James so hard that she'd been given a week of detention when McGonagall saw the bruise.
Bellatrix had accepted the detention with grace; ignored James's gloating and smiled, smugly, glad that her work there was done.
x
The morning grew late; at a little past nine, something blew up at the Ministry of Magic.
x
Severus answered the phone, even though he didn't want to. He wondered vaguely who it would be, calling to warn him of the news - not many wizards used phone lines.
"Severus!" He took a moment to try and place the voice. It was somewhat static and absolutely hysterical.
"Emmeline?"
"Get your ass to the Ministry now!" Emmeline Vance shrieked into the receiver. "There's been an explosion! Lucius Malfoy has escaped!"
She hung up. Whether by accident or on purpose, he wasn't sure.
"I know," Severus said quietly, staring at the phone, before setting it down and going to get dressed.
x
Severus hadn't done it, but he'd had a hand in it. He'd done his research, had crafted the spells, had given them to the Dark Lord. His contribution to free Lucius had been great.
This was because Severus owed Lucius. Severus was in debt to many, many people, and now he was starting to pay everything back. Hogwarts, The Order of the Phoenix, the Death Eaters, Lucius, Tonks. Severus was mathematical and scientific (as scientific as anyone who scorned the shaky and guesswork patterns of science, at least), and went through life yearning for some sort of homeostasis.
He was almost there. He had one more debt to repay, and then the scales would be even.
x
Tonks was asleep on her living room floor when she got the phone calls, two of them, one after another. She scrambled to get the first one, which was from her boss, and was too tired to fully comprehend what he was saying. The second was from Arthur Weasley, and she was awake enough by then to know what was going on, and that she had to come to the Ministry now.
After she had hung up on Arthur, her stomach churned, her head aches, and she had an urge to start crying. She phoned Severus, to tell him she loved him, and how she was thankful for all the times he'd let her hug him in public; because Severus was not an openly affectionate man and never had been. She sat on the phone, her heart beating like a panicked rabbit's.
He didn't answer. She wanted to put on her coat and go to his house. Instead she put on her coat, and she obeyed her summons.
x
Severus had showed up in a pair of pinstriped trousers and a black turtleneck. He stood in the rubble of the Ministry beside Moody. The structure of the building itself was unharmed, protected by magic centuries old, but everything else had taken quite a beating, especially Level Seven, where the explosion had taken place.
It had been planned - but then again, when Voldemort put forward attacks of such force, they were never random.
They'd been careful. The attackers hadn't set anything off on the main floor because they hadn't dared risk hurting Lucius. And Lucius had caught on quickly; by all reports he'd run for his life and disappeared for the Floo Network. They had tracked him to where he had gotten out - a wizarding pub up north - but he'd Apparated shortly after that.
"Muggle explosives," Moody said with a bit of a snort. People were everywhere, some looking for survivors, other keeping the inquisitive away, and fielding off reporters.
"But they're set off electrically," Severus pointed out. "So how is that possible?"
Moody shrugged. "They probably bound it with some sort of anti-magic protection and then covered it with a chameleon spell to protect that one. And the detonation must have caused that anti-magic spell to spread over a certain radius - that's how Lucius was able to escape. They hedged him very well magically, but he was practically free as a bird physically. In all probability, that's also the reason the damage was so great - magical protections to the building were down. The aurors were all over the place picking up atmosphere samples to see what the hell happened."
Severus snorted.
"It was probably a short period in which the magic was down, however," Moody continued. "Since he escaped through Floo. Where were you when this happened, anyway?"
"Stop implying it was me," Severus said.
"Well, I know it was," Moody said. That was when Hestia came up.
x
"They say it was a woman, but we don't know whether it was or not - anything's possible," Arthur was saying. "Anyway, this woman went right past Security, they didn't even notice her, and then she went through the entirety of Level Seven planting explosives in strategic places. And she left, probably about ten minutes before they escorted Malfoy up. No one saw because the reporters were all concentrating on getting a picture of Malfoy."
"So no picture of our assailant?" Moody asked.
It was ridiculous, and embarrassing. Even after the debacle with the Dark Lord weeks earlier, the Ministry of Magic's security seemed to be shaky and, at best, somewhat pathetic. But maybe, with the lack of activity in the darker scale of things (for, back in the old days, a Death eater attack was once every few days) the Ministry simply thought it had everything under control. But of course, those are damning last words.
"None." Arthur sighed. They had shifted out of the way of the various investigators. Most of the Order of the Phoenix was there, granted admission by members who were part of Magical Law Enforcement. There were other members of other organisations, too - and who knew, they probably overlapped each other. There could be Death Eaters present, masquerading as reporters, for all they knew. "And we know this wasn't a political attack, because it was in Level Seven and not, say, Level Five. It was all for Lucius."
Hestia swore. "This is mad," she said. "Any more leads?"
"We think it might have been Bellatrix." Arthur said. "She's the only viable suspect. It would be easy to change her face. She's very skilled."
"But she's been locked up in Azkaban for a decade," Severus said. "Her skills aren't as good as they might have been - her memory must surely be somewhat fried."
"Who gives a damn who did it, we know it was You Know Who in the end," Hestia said, "we have to concern ourselves with the wounded and the political ramifications. This is a national crisis."
"We know, Hestia," Severus said, "shut up."
"Severus," Arthur said, warningly. Severus looked round at the older man and stared, but said nothing more.