Chapter Thirty-Four

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Hermione and Lily met at the entrance to Bellatrix's office. They stopped, paused, said nothing. It was awkward. What did you say after all that? Hermione wondered.

A shimmer against a nearby wall caught Hermione's attention. It was as though someone was disillusioned there - just a ripple against the stone wall - but Alecto and Arabel were not due to drop the flood pellets for another half hour. Curious.

"Hi," Lily said nervously, diverting Hermione's attention, and then the door opened.

Bellatrix, in her guise as Professor Malvolia, still managed to intimidate. Her round, sweet face was guileless, but there were traces of malice in her eyes.

"Come in," she said.

Hermione glanced back at the corridor but saw no sign of the ripple as Bellatrix gestured them into the office. It was the first time Hermione had been here since her own time period when Defence had been taught by Umbridge. The office looked exactly like you would have expected a teacher's office to look, with textbooks lining the walls and neat piles of marking teetering on the desk. It was almost too normal.

The next thing happened quickly.

A sudden gust of wind blew the office door shut with a loud bang. An unexpected force hit Hermione's shoulder and was repelled instantly by her protective shields. The spell - for they could see it was a spell, a small streak of light - rebounded across the room, towards Bellatrix and dissolved into her midriff. Bellatrix stumbled against the desk, grabbing the ledge to steady herself. Her eyes unfocused briefly and then sharpened.

Hermione stared. Lily stared too. It looked as though someone had just tried to hit her with a spell and it had rebounded and hit Bellatrix. But who? And how?

Bellatrix coughed and straightened. Hermione and Lily watched warily but she showed no signs of experiencing illness or discomfort.

"What are you staring at?" she snapped. "Miss Evans please take a seat over there."

There was a small desk beside the window with several sheets of parchment and an inkwell neatly stacked. Bellatrix gestured towards the desk.

"You will be writing lines. 'I will not abuse my position as the head girl to wander the castle grounds at night.' Five hundred ought to do it."

Lily hesitated, glancing at Hermione. There was only one chair behind the desk.

"Is there a problem?" Bellatrix asked, fingers caressing her wand. Lily didn't know who Bellatrix really was, but she visibly tensed, perhaps some animal instinct coming to the fore that could sense a predator.

"No problem," Lily said, dropping her bag by the desk.

Bellatrix smiled. "Good. Miss Black, please follow me. You will be assisting me in the marking of second-year essays next door."

Stricken, Hermione stared at Lily. Whatever spell had hit Bellatrix could be dangerous, and she didn't want to leave Lily alone.

"Hurry up," Bellatrix snapped, holding open the door that divided her office from her classroom. She turned to Lily and spoke dangerously. "And do not even think of touching anything in my office."

"I wouldn't -" Lily spluttered, but Bellatrix had turned her back. Hermione exchanged one helpless glance with her before following Bellatrix into the classroom. The door slammed closed behind them, and Hermione was alone with Bellatrix.

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As soon as the door closed Bellatrix gave a deep sigh and sank into a chair. She ran her hands through her blonde hair, rolled her shoulders back and rubbed the back of her neck.

"I fucking hate this body," she said to Hermione.

Hermione was frozen by the door, her wand ready in her hand. She moved warily forward.

"Hate who?"

"This," Bellatrix said, gesturing at her body. "This ridiculous body."

Hermione remained silent. There was no point in playing dumb; all she could do was wait and see how Bellatrix behaved to try and gauge what spell she could have been hit with. A truth-telling curse? What could the spell have been, and who could have cast it? The options ran through Hermione's mind, but she didn't take her eyes off Bellatrix.

But Bellatrix didn't seem to be in any hurry to start a fight. She sat down in the teacher's chair behind the desk and kicked off her shoes, closing her eyes briefly.

"Well don't just stand there," she said to Hermione abruptly. "Come and sit down. I don't suppose you've any firewhiskey?"

Hermione shook her head slowly.

"For what?"

"You were in the Great Hall this morning weren't you?" Bellatrix said.

Hermione compressed her lips. She had indeed been in the Great Hall and had been present when Professor Dumbledore told the assembled students that Lord Voldemort had burned down three muggle orphanages in London.

"I don't…"

"Oh for Merlin's sake, things are bad enough without you having an attitude," Bellatrix said.

"I don't understand," Hermione said, taking the chair that Bellatrix was indicating. She sat down, keeping her wand in her hand.

"Do you know where I was last night?" Bellatrix asked.

In fact, Hermione did know. After issuing Hermione and Lily with detention, Bellatrix had remained in the staffroom until 10 PM, after which she had returned to her private quarters. It had proved impossible to get any surveillance charms into those rooms, but Hermione had placed a perimeter ward around the rooms, and so she knew that Bellatrix had neither apparated nor portkeyed nor taken the floo anywhere last night.

"I was here," Bellatrix confirmed. "Right here, grading fucking papers. Do I look like I was meant to spend these years of my life grading papers?"

It was pointless to keep up the pretence, so Hermione decided to push for information.

"No," Hermione said. "You don't. So why…?"

"Didn't I go?" Bellatrix asked. "Because my job is to stay here, keeping my cover nice and tight so Dumbledore has nothing to suspect."

"I thought you were supposed to be spying on me," Hermione said, suspecting a blunt approach might work.

"Yes, but you knew who I was from the start," Bellatrix said, drumming her fingers on the desk with irritation. "And you've been so boring this year. You haven't killed anyone all year."

"It's only December," Hermione said. She wondered if the spell had been some sort of honesty charm or something to make people behave as though they were under the influence of alcohol.

Bellatrix brightened. "That's true. Perhaps if you do something soon the Dark Lord will have a reason to pull me out."

"Why you?" Hermione asked, pushing her luck. "You're one of his best, so why did he send you here? Surely someone else could have done it. Someone less important."

Bellatrix scowled. "He wants me in place for the end of the tournament, someone in place that's on the inside, and you're still a bit of a wildcard. He's waiting for my final judgment on you."

"What do you mean?"

"All that number two stuff, it was all he could do after what happened at the marking," Bellatrix said, yawning. Her pupils were very dilated.

"What do you mean after what happened?"

"Well you took everyone down with wild magic," Bellatrix said. "So you couldn't be a normal recruit, because then anyone who disagreed with him would go straight to you and set you up as a rival to him. And he didn't want to kill you just in case he ended up destroying his best weapon. So he had to make you his number two, formally, so it looked like you were under his control."

Several puzzle pieces fell into place for Hermione at once. The way she had been kept out of the loop on Death Eater business, and the way she hadn't been summoned since her marking. The way Lord Voldemort had tried to arrange a marriage for her, and even the tournament…

"Wait a minute - what do you mean he needed you in place for the end of the tournament?" Hermione said. "Is something going to happen then?"

Bellatrix looked sharply at Hermione, but then her gaze slackened.

"I forgot you wouldn't know," she said.

Hermione's heart beat faster. "Can you tell me?"

Bellatrix rubbed her eyes.

"I don't suppose it would do any harm. He's going to tell you anyway, later on. If he thinks you're safe by then. He needs you to pull it off."

"Pull what off?"

"Hogwarts, of course," Bellatrix said. She yawned again, revealing a row of small, even white teeth. Hermione wondered if the spell has been some form of sleeping spell. Bellatrix seemed to be growing lethargic.

"The Dark Lord wants to take Hogwarts? And he's going to do it at the duelling tournament?" Hermione said. It made sense. The school would be full of strangers, visitors, people from the press and families from overseas. It would be easy for Voldemort to infiltrate. But -

"Why?" she asked. "Why now? Why not the ministry first?"

But as the words left her mouth there came a scream from the office next door, and Hermione and Bellatrix sprang to their feet. Water was flooding under the door and into the classroom in streams and rivulets, spreading across the stone floor. Bellatrix dashed for her office door and wrenched it open before Hermione could cry a warning. A great wave of water flooded through and the impact knocked Bellatrix off her feet, her wand flying from her hand and her forehead smacking into the corner of the nearest desk.

Hermione ran for the door.

"Lily!" she shouted, grabbing the doorframe to keep her balance. Lily was standing on top of her desk, staring at the water rising towards her with terrified eyes. Several sheets of parchment floated by with lines still visible as the ink began to dissolve.

"What's happening?" Lily said, clinging to the curtains to steady herself.

Hermione didn't answer but tried to vanish the water. This shouldn't have happened. This wasn't supposed to have happened. The flood pellets shouldn't have created more than a single metric tonne of water spread over the whole corridor. The water surged upwards as she cast a vanishing spell, and reached her waist, and was forced to grab a desk as she almost lost balance. But Lily looked safe - and most of all, stuck - so Hermione turned away back towards the classroom.

"Where are you going?" Lily cried.

Hermione said not a word but focussed on making her way through the door, keeping her footing in the swirling eddying currents that flowed past her carrying books, parchments and detritus in their wake. She held onto a single, clear image. Bellatrix had fallen, and her wand had been thrown from her hand.

In the classroom, Bellatrix was thrashing and struggling by her desk, clinging onto one corner as the water rose. The currents were strong and this was by far the greatest danger and difficulty, for although the depth was only waist height it was enough to knock a person off their feet without warning. Hermione made her way carefully, and with purpose.

"Get me up!" Bellatrix coughed as Hermione came closer. "I need my wand!"

Hermione reached out and grasped Bellatrix by a fistful of blonde hair.

"What are you -" Bellatrix shrieked, and then Hermione thrust her head beneath the water and held it there.

It was not fast. Bellatrix's eyes remained open beneath the water and she thrashed and kicked until Hermione was forced to cast an immobilising spell upon her after a kick in the stomach left her gasping. Even after that her eyes remained locked with Hermione's, the poisonous outrage and hated emanating from them scorching through her.

The water began to churn and bubble around them, and heated until it was so hot that Hermione could see her hands turning lobster red as Bellatrix drew on her wandless magic. But Hermione was stronger, and Bellatrix was weakening. The rage turned to panic, then desperation, and then finally Bellatrix's blank eyes saw no more.

Hermione thrust the body away from her, shaking. She had seen an opportunity and taken it. Bellatrix had been all but untouchable until this moment, but at what cost would this come? The body of the witch bumped against the desk, and a stream of air bubbles escaped her mouth, and then the black mass of robes slowly sank beneath the surface.

There was no time to think.

The water was still rising.

Hermione made her way back towards the office door, trembling, cold hands gripping the desks as she passed. The water was so high that she had to tilt her chin up to prevent it from reaching her face. Soon she would have to swim. How had this happened? The instant flood pellets from Fred and George had been designed to create only a minor flood, knee-deep at the very most. It should not have reached the office, let alone the classroom.

In the office, Lily was standing on top of the desk in the same position as before, but now almost waist-deep in water. Her wand was in her hand and she was muttering fast incantations as she built something on the classroom floor. Great shimmering panes of glass were sweeping into existence, sealing together into what looked like a great glass box. Hermione watched, fascinated.

"Thank God," Lily said. "Hermione, quick, get in! Where's Professor Malvolia?"

"She's...gone," Hermione said. "What are you…?"

"The doors won't open," Lily gasped. "I tried but they're sealed. I thought Professor Malvolia would know what to do, but I was afraid you weren't coming back. The water's still rising. This capsule should let us keep breathing until help comes."

"The doors are sealed?" Hermione said. She turned to the office door and began to cast every unlocking charm and spell she knew before a floating chair struck her shoulder and for a dizzying moment her head plunged beneath the surface of the water.

"Hermione! Get in!" Lily shouted. Fear struck Hermione, fear for her life, that she would be dragged beneath the swirling mass of water. Claustrophobia, suffocating, rose in her throat and she struggled through the doorway, moving towards the box that Lily had created. It was solid on all four sides but the top was open. Lily climbed gingerly inside from the desk. Her foot slipped on the rim of the glass and she fell but caught herself, panting, and then dropped safely inside.

"Accio Hermione!" she called, but the protective enchantments Hermione kept woven around her repelled the magic, and so Hermione struck out across the room on nothing but her own strength, gasping and choking on the foul-tasting water, her eyes streaming, until her numb fingertips finally struck the edge of the glass. She reached for a chair and grasped it, pulling herself up, teetering on the rim, and then slid down the side into the glass box in a sodden, graceless heap.

The water rose to the top and streams began to flow into the box. But already Lily was chanting, moving her wand in intricate patterns and the glass was beginning to form a ceiling. The water flowed fast, and the puddle they were sitting in became a few inches deep, but abruptly Lily shouted the final syllable of the spell and the glass box closed, and they were sealed inside.

Hermione took great gasping breaths, bracing her hands against the floor. She recognised the spell Lily cast as one that converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, and gradually her hyperventilation began to slow.

"Hermione," Lily said in a small voice. "Do you think Professor Malvolia is alright?"

"I don't know," Hermione lied.

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For the first few minutes, Hermione and Lily caught their breath and tested the limits of their small container. It was about the size and shape of a wardrobe, tall enough for them to stand in but more comfortable for both to sit cross-legged.

Beyond the glass, the water churned and swirled. It had reached the ceiling within minutes of the glass box being sealed, and Hermione knew that only luck and Lily's quick thinking had saved them. The bubble-head charm couldn't last indefinitely, and if the doors had been sealed by somebody who knew what they were doing…

"Did you check the windows?" Hermione asked Lily.

Lily nodded. Her teeth were chattering with cold, and she huddled miserably, arms wrapped around her knees.

"Are you a witch or not?" Hermione said, exasperated. "Here -" she gave her wand a little weave and hot air began to stream out, drying both of their clothing quickly and making the sides of the glass box fog up.

"Do you think it was Grindelwald?" Lily asked, rubbing a small circle on the glass to peer through. Books and sheets of parchments floated past.

Hermione raised her eyebrows, impressed that Lily had come to the same conclusion as her so quickly. "What makes you think that?"

"He tried to kill you at the tournament," Lily said, as though the answer should be obvious. "Who else would try and kill you again?"

Hermione thought ruefully that Lily had no idea how long the list of people who wanted her dead was. But still, she was probably right. Hermione had felt the spell try and attach itself to her before rebounding onto Bellatrix earlier. It was clearly something that lowered the ability to function. Whoever had cast it obviously intended to seal her inside the office - seal them all inside - and render her slow and late to react to danger.

Hermione robes were dry, and the puddle on the floor had vanished. She turned her attention to the door of the office that she could see only vaguely through the water and began to cast, waving her wand in a series of complicated movements. After five minutes she slumped against the glass and gave up.

"I think it's the airtight ward," she said to Lily. "I can't break it from here - it's a blood ward, and the only way to break it involves direct contact."

"I tried vanishing the water," Lily said. "It just made it increase."

Hermione grimaced. It had seemed like such a clever idea from Fred and George at the time to make the water grow exponentially with every attempt to make it vanish. There was a tablet designed to absorb the water back again, but that was locked outside the office where her friends, presumably, were trying to get in.

"Dumbledore will be able to break it," Hermione said finally. "We just have to wait."

She rested her head against the cool glass and closed her eyes, the constant motion of the office items swirling past in the water making her feel dizzy. Bellatrix was dead. At last. The speed and suddenness of her death was shocking, but the relief was profound.

Ivan - if it had been him - would never realise what an opportunity he had inadvertently provided her with.

"So," Lily said, dragging out the word. "Since we're stuck here…"

Hermione groaned and closed her eyes, not even bothering to hide it. "I'm going to have a nap. Wake me when Dumbledore breaks down the door.

Lily made an impatient noise.

"But -"

"I'm tired," Hermione said. It wasn't a lie. She was exhausted and her stomach was aching, painful cramping feeling that she knew was probably a result of Bellatrix's kick. She couldn't even run a diagnostic with Lily here, only hope the baby was fine.

"Does Severus know you're from another time?" Lily said.

Hermione opened her eyes. Lily was leaning forward, eager curiosity in every line of her face. Now the initial danger had passed the old Lily had returned.

"None of your business."

"But -"

"You and I don't even know each other," Hermione said. "Why would I tell you?"

"We're stuck here," Lily suggested.

Things were getting away from Hermione. Too many people knew, and the secret was spreading too far. It would only take one slip for Voldemort to catch a hint from someone else's mind.

"It's dangerous," Hermione said. "Knowing things can get you killed."

"I thought I got killed anyway," Lily said. Her voice was light, and Hermione glared at her fiercely.

"It's not a fucking joke Lily. If you had any idea what I've had to live with, what your death made other people have to live with -"

"Then tell me," Lily said, less lightly. "Tell me, so I can decide what to do about it."

Hermione ground her palms into her eyes. "You don't know what you're asking to hear."

"I'm not asking about the whole war," Lily said. "Just why I died. And how things worked out with James."

"You wouldn't like it," Hermione said. "It's not nice. Nobody likes hearing about how they died."

A book banged noisily into the glass and they jumped. Lily recovered herself, determined.

"I can take it," she promised. "How did we know each other? Were you there when I...died?"

"No," Hermione said flatly. "I was a baby when you died. But I went to school with your son. He was my best friend."

Lily went very still. Her mouth hung open and her eyes were wide.

"You see," Hermione said, pushing on brutally, "he was very lonely, having never known his parents."

Lily didn't move. Her bottom lip trembled, and she looked younger than seventeen.

"See?" Hermione snapped. "Does it feel good to know that?"

"No," Lily said, a little above a whisper.

Hermione sat back against the glass crossing her arms decisively. She didn't feel triumphant, she felt merely very weary, as though she had been wading through that cold water for hours instead of minutes. They had been in this box for less than ten minutes. It could take another hour for Dumbledore to break through.

"Please," Lily said. "I need to know. Please tell me what happened."

Hermione wondered what Harry would have wanted her to do. He was always so reckless, she was sure he would have thrown caution to the winds and blurted out everything.

Sometimes Hermione really wanted to be reckless.

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Back again. Feeling nostalgic for how hopeful I was about finishing this over Christmas. Ha! Holiday me has a very short memory for what term-time feels like.

Thanks for reading

Cas