Fall into Darkness
Chapter 5: Auspice
On the drive to Elderwood National Park, Bellatrix told Nymphadora everything. The disappearing island, the crash, the seven missing days, the shadow-man. The things she had learned. The missing people. The strange call. And finding the driver's license. Naturally, her niece considered her to be certifiable.
Well. Even more certifiable.
More importantly, however, Nymphadora believed that Hermione had been kidnapped. Anything beyond that was another story. But it was enough. Of course, it helped that Hermione had apparently set her phone to record all her most recent calls. Hearing the man's voice again made her hate him even more, but it had been useful in convincing Nymphadora. The driver's license sealed the deal. For now, Nymphadora was on board.
That in itself was a small miracle. To say that her relationship with her niece had been rocky would be an understatement. Andie, sweet Andie, had tried her best to smooth things over between them. She had somewhat succeeded, but when both women were of unyielding principle on the level they were, some bridges were simply too difficult to build outright. Nymphadora had never trusted her, but at least Bellatrix could appreciate that her niece was honest about it. It amused her that there was still plenty of Black in Nymphadora.
Nymphadora drove the car up the winding road towards the national park, which was about a twenty minute drive from Bright Falls. The forest was noticeably thicker here, though the park's entrance was quite welcoming. Asphalt made way for gravel as Nymphadora slowed the car and headed towards the visitor's center. This place was apparently part park and part tourist trap, with plenty of cabins further down the road and campsites even further in. According to Deputy Grant, Lover's Peak was near here. The plan was to figure out how to get there, rent a cabin and wait there until midnight. Truth be told, Bellatrix was starting to feel just how tired she was. Some hours of sleep would help her regain her focus, if her niece would let her.
Nymphadora was first to leave the car after parking at the visitor's center, but put her hands to her hips after slamming the door shut. "I don't like this. I don't like any of this," she sighed.
"You think I do?" Bellatrix replied as the two of them walked into the visitor's center. Apparently deputy Grant had been kind enough to call ahead so the ranger in charge would be expecting them. However, they found the building empty. The visitor center mixture of log cabin and glass house. Loads of crap souvenirs on shelves lined the wall, because there was nothing quite as classic Americana as an overpriced gift shop. Center stage in the gift shop, right opposite to the reception desk, was Buck-toothed Charlie, a rather impressive mammoth skeleton and apparently the park's official mascot. Beyond the gift shop was a cafe, empty of course, and a balcony beyond. The balcony was situated just above a gorge and offered a lovely view over the treetops beyond. On said balcony, was the ranger.
Nymphadora tapped her boot. "What you said in the car, just listen to yourself. Shadow-men? You killed him and his body disappeared. The fact that you've killed someone period?! What am I supposed to think here?"
Bellatrix sighed. Her niece was hostile and the idea that she had killed anything had her hackles raised. This woman wanted nothing more than to put her down and the only thing preventing that from happening was the off chance that Hermione was in danger... which she was.
"All I know is that I'm missing a week, I've been attacked in the forest and someone has Hermione!" Bellatrix hissed. "You heard what was on the device!"
"I'm not letting you out of my sight, dear auntie. Remember that!" Nymphadora narrowed her eyes.
Bellatrix threw up her arms. "Well, it's a good thing this sodding building is made mostly out of glass, then!" she snapped and stepped into the cafe, heading straight to the balcony where the ranger was stood. It took her a few moments to realize that this was the same ranger she had met earlier at the diner. What as his name again? Rudy? Robby? No. Rusty. The ranger with the R in his name was bent over a table on which lay a dog on his side. A golden retriever with a hurt paw was whining softly while the ranger was cleaning the wound.
"Ah, miss Black, nice to see you again. I heard what happened and I'm sorry to hear your friend is missing. But I assure you, we always find everyone who's gone missing alive and safe. It's only a matter of time," he said. Bellatrix nodded in response. Her attention quickly shifted to the dog. Brown intelligent eyes looked up at her. Almost instinctively she raised her hand to gently run her nails across his face and neck. The dog started to wag his tail in response.
Bellatrix had always loved animals far more than most humans. There were no hidden agendas, no lies, no betrayal. A dog especially was a creature where you see was what you got. One of her life's greatest regrets had been to kill a fox out of paranoia. When she had learned that the fox she killed wasn't a transfigured wizard, she had gotten so sick with herself out of self-loathing that she had barely eaten anything for days. Back then, it was one of the first confrontation with herself and the fact that there was something deeply wrong with her. To even think about hurting an animal was anathema to her. Then and now.
"Sorry I didn't come out to greet you," continued the ranger as he wound some bandages around the dog's paw. "But I was treating Max here. Poor boy got his leg caught in a bear trap. Poachers have become a real problem lately and now they're leaving bear traps in the woods. You're not supposed to hunt in the park at all, but that doesn't stop some low-lives. Max got lucky."
The poor dog seemed to be in pain and whined softly again.
"You had a cabin for me and my niece?" asked Bellatrix. Meanwhile, she slowly let some healing magic flow into the dog. Though she tried to keep it hidden, blue arcs of energy soothed the dog's pain and closed Max's wounds underneath the bandage. Max seemed happier by far. And aware that Bellatrix was helping him feel better. Max wagged his tail while licking the back of her hand.
Rusty fished a key from his pocket and handed it to her. "Number 12 up the hill. Quite a nice view on the mountain range. Bit enough for you, your niece and your friend when she's been found. Glad to have you staying with us."
"Oh, before I forget," asked Bellatrix. "I think I might take a stroll out to Lover's Peak to clear my head. How do I get there from here?"
"Lover's Peak? Just follow the trail bending around the mountain. It's marked with signs. And if you ever lose your bearings, just look for the radio-tower in the distance. It's right next to Lover's Peak. Or and do be careful where you put your feet door if you don't want to end up like Max here. I'm a bit worried. There's a lot of campers out there we haven't heard from. It's not like these people are on a schedule, but with these traps out there... well… Just be careful out there."
Yet more missing people?
Wonderful
The golden retriever looked up at her and whined briefly while weakly wagging his tail when Bellatrix stopped petting her.
"Ah," Rusty said. "Max likes you. I've always found dogs to be a good judge of character. And he's such a good boy. Won't need to wear the cone of shame at all, right Max? Max is sort of the local mutt. Has no owner, but loves everyone. And the kids love him too."
Bellatrix petted Max one more time, thanked the man and went inside the visitor's center again where she found Nymphadora waiting for her with crossed arms and tapping foot. Her niece gave her a smug look and held out her hand. Bellatrix sighed and tossed the cabin's key to her. Fine, if she needed to feel in control, then bless her useless heart. Together, the two of them walked back towards the car.
"You can't just meet a kidnapper at midnight," said Nymphadora. "You need to go to the police."
"You're police!" Bellatrix raised an eyebrow.
"You know what I mean!" returned Nymphadora. "I'm qualified for magical criminals, not muggle ones."
Bellatrix huffed. "I'm not going to leave Hermione's fate in the hands of the Keystone Cops. Not while I'm alive to do anything about it. And you're coming with me tonight! You have a wand. I do not!"
"I'm not giving you a wand, so forget it," Nymphadora said as they reached the car. "And I never said I wasn't coming with you tonight! Hermione is my friend!"
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes. "Good."
"I'm driving," Nymphadora shot back as she opened door to the driver's seat.
"You're driving," Bellatrix confirmed.
Nymphadora slowly drove the car further up the gravel path and they passed several cabins. Most of them seemed rented out and occupied, with cars parked in the cabin allotted sparking spaces. Families, couples, whatever. It's not as if Bellatrix would have to interact with these people. Instead, she unfolded a map of the local area she had taken from the visitor's center and searched for the path to Lover's Peak. She glanced out the window to look for the radio tower and quickly concluded that she would have to go back to the visitor's center and take the path across the picnic area into the woods. All she had to do was to follow the signs. Of course, that would be a lot harder in the dark and considering what could be out there, she'd have to be on her toes. Thankfully the radio-tower was a good landmark.
Nymphadora parked the car at the last cabin at the end of the road, indeed on top of the hill. The inside of said cabin was a lot more modern than Bird Leg Cabin on Cauldron Lake. Where Bird Leg Cabin looked to be a time capsule from the Seventies for the most part, this particular cabin seemed be outfitted with all amenities. Hell, even the logs it was was made from seemed newly varnished. The windows were on the small side, but the living room was quite nice with sofas strategically placed around the fireplace and the kitchen being immaculate. A small set of stairs let up to the loft where the bed was located. This seemed to be a cabin meant for couples or singles rather than families. This would have been a nice alternative for the cabin Hermione had booked on Cauldron Lake, but unfortunately, she was now sharing it with that pole-face Nymphadora. Her niece had parked herself on the sofa and never stopped glaring at her.
Bellatrix stepped over to the complimentary fruit bowl to fish one of the green apples. She sank her teeth into it and enjoyed the sour taste, it being the first food she had tasted today. Another apple was quickly a devoured. A third apple, however, was swiftly thrown towards her glaring niece. Truth be told, she'd been aiming for her head. Unfortunately, Nymphadora was quicker than she seemed.
She checked the clock. Six in the evening. Merlin, six more hours of time to kill before midnight.
"So…" Bellatrix turned around to lean against the table while crossing her arms. "How's your mother?"
The question was out before she had a chance to think about it, really. In that very moment, it was crushing to think upon how much she missed Andromeda, seeing her far too little these days. It must have been since… last Christmas? Indeed, way too long. That would be the downside of living on the other side of the world.
Nymphadora snorted. "Really? Mother? You've never cared about her before. Why start now?"
"That's not true! We had an unbreakable bo…" Bellatrix closed her eyes and sighed. Yes. They had an unbreakable bond. Until Bellatrix herself broke it. The dark witch looked away, somewhat uncomfortably. "Forget it. Talking to you is pointless," she spat.
Nymphadora rolled her eyes. "Investing effort into you was pointless. Yet Hermione did it anyway. I'm still not fully convinced you haven't killed her and dumped her body in the lake."
Her jaw squared, her body tensed and a brief snarl escaped her mouth. Like a bat out of hell, she shot forward suddenly, launching herself towards Nymphadora stopping just short of diving on top of her. Her face inches away from her niece, she stared her right in the eyes. "Shut… your… filthy mouth," she hissed. "Or suffer the consequences."
By then, Nymphadora had managed to find and raise her wand, holding it front of her. Her niece had backed up, rolled up in a bit of a ball and held her wand with an ever so slight tremor. Bellatrix grinned wickedly. "If you think that wand is going to stop me, think again." Nymphadora said nothing, but was distinctly nervous.
Good.
The balance of power between them was definitely shifting in her favour.
"Well," she smiled suddenly, raising her hand to gently tap her niece on the cheek. "I'm going to bed. Be a dear and don't let me oversleep, hm?"
There was a grin on her face as she left a dumbfounded Nymphadora sat on the sofa and went up the stairs. After tossing her tired body on the bed, she rolled to her side and quickly sank into a deep, comforting sleep.
"You're late," said Bellatrix without looking up from her flying pan. The focus was required for complete perfection of decidedly imperfect ingredients. Earlier today, she had found some malted milk powder and by adding just enough baking powder, flour, salt, sugar and some proper milk she had fixed up a half decent pancake-mix. Of course, bland pancakes simply wouldn't do. Oh, no. Some apples, some blue-berries and a teensy bit of chocolate bar melted into the mix would be the finishing touch. A second pan with home-made syrup to go along with the pancakes stood simmering on the stove as well, but required very little attention at the moment.
"Sorry, I… oh, that smells nice," said the mudpup as she inched closer to the stove, closed her eyes and took in the aroma of her work sniffing through that dainty nose of hers. Bellatrix wondered if the girl had even experienced proper food in her life before as she seemed to be experiencing acute foodgasm without even having had a bite yet.
"Give me some room to work," Bellatrix spoke with a mildly threatening voice, being only a little bit annoyed at her intrusion. A stark change which had only taken a few weeks.
The girl stopped by every day and usually spent a few hours with her. Sometimes they'd talk. Sometimes they'd just sit. Sometimes they'd go for a walk in the yard. And always they would eat. Truth be told, it pleased Bellatrix just how much the girl had come to appreciate her cooking. Then again, of course she would, since her cooking was sheer perfection. "It's almost done," said Bellatrix. "Fetch a plate and have a seat."
The girl nodded and did as she was told. Bellatrix was true to her word and finished up the pancakes. She pushed three of the round, thick pancakes onto the girl's plate straight from the pan and saved the last one for herself. She motioned the girl to wait until she had filled a small decanter with syrup and put it next to her. The girl, eager to try the food, poured some hot syrup over them, cut out a piece with her knife and popped a pay-loaded fork into her mouth.
The girl closed her eyes again while chewing softly. "Hmmmmmm…" sounded a rather throaty mudpup before she apparently caught herself. "Oh, I'm sorry… it's just so good."
Bellatrix nodded with self-assured appreciation. "It's perfectly fine. I'm no stranger to making girls moan."
Oh my.
Was that a flirt of all things?
Curious. She'd done it without even thinking all that much about it. Still, she supposed it was the girl's reward for praising her cooking so much. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the flirt had gone straight over the mudpup's head as she had long started her second bite and was already cutting into the pancake to prepare for a third.
"So. Miss Punctuality was late today," Bellatrix teased.
The girl took a moment to wipe some syrup off her lips with a napkin. "Again, sorry. Hold up at the portkey hub back in London. I'm not sure if you're heard, but there was a big attack in the muggle world at New York yesterday and, well, security is a little bonkers at the moment, even in the wizarding world."
"Hm. Whatever," shrugged Bellatrix. "You're here now."
"Might stay at a hotel here in Sweden for a week or two," said the girl. "I don't really fancy going through that mess of people again until things quiet down a bit."
Bellatrix snorted. "Could ask the warden if he can put you up here with the inmates. There's a nice cell free across the hall."
"I don't think the warden would approve," chuckled the mudpup before taking another bite. "Even though he tells me you've been a model prisoner."
Bellatrix shrugged. "Don't have much reason to blow my top. We get fed in here, plenty to do to keep the mind occupied, access to the kitchen, plenty of entertainment, our clothes get washed on the regular."
The girl raised her finger for a moment. "I've brought you something," she said, before producing a cloth bag. She put it on the table and pushed it towards Bellatrix. The dark witch frowned and opened the bag, only to find a beautiful leather bound book. Thick and about the size of a paperback, she undid the clasp and found its pages to be blank. After giving the girl a questioning look, she responded with a slight smile.
"It's a diary," she said.
"And what would I use this for?" Bellatrix cocked her head sideways.
"Whatever you want to use it for," said the girl. "Record your innermost thoughts, what happens during the day, short stories. Whatever strikes your fancy."
Bellatrix narrowed her eyes and regarded her with suspicion. "So you can let your superiors spy on me, you mean? Did you think I'd make it that easy for you?!"
"Not at all," said the girl. "It's for you and you alone. If you want to discuss what you write with me, that's fine, but you not obligated to. It's for yourself. To document your journey. If you want to that, is."
Bellatrix snorted. "And why do you think I want to, hm? Tell me that."
"I think you have a very creative spirit, but you just haven't fully realized it yet yourself," said the girl. "Take your cooking, for example. I've been visiting you for months now and I rarely see you outside of the kitchen in the afternoon. I've also been looking into your school records and your old reports show some amazing creative work with unconventional use of magics. I want to nurture your creative side."
"My… school records," Bellatrix eyed her suspiciously. "Well… since you seem to know so much about me, how about you tell me something about you, Hermione Granger. It seems only fair, is it not?"
The girl tensed up a little, but relaxed fairly quickly. "Alright. What do you want to know?"
"How does Hermione Granger fill her day, hm?"
"Work," said the girl. "And, as you know, most of my work is related to you. I work from home most of the time, since it involves lot of paperwork, filing of reports, that sort of thing. The Ministry loves its reports. For every hour I spend visiting you, I spend two hours on paperwork. There's meetings, sharing of experiences. The Program is under a lot of scrutiny, so we do everything by the book. Of course, then there's the coursework. I'm following psychology and psycho-therapy courses at the University of London. Uhm, full disclosure, I haven't actually graduated yet, but I'm a lot further along than the other counsellors in the program. Outside of work I love reading and theatre."
Bellatrix studied her intently. She'd been in Slytherin and, working for Voldemort, she had developed a keen nose for lies and liars. Now this mudpup was none of that. Her reactions to her cooking wasn't faked to garner sympathy. She hadn't lied about the diary. Nor had she lied about herself when describing her daily life. No, this girl was genuine. And genuinely interested in helping her.
That made the girl either a naive fool or a saint. Two things not entirely indistinct from each other.
She looked at the diary again. It was a beautiful thing indeed.
The atmosphere in the entire room changed as the light of the sun made way for oppressive darkness as she felt tendrils of sickness invading her mind. Bellatrix grunted in pain as the diary fell from her hands onto the table. Opposite her saw The Thing That Was Hermione, glaring at her impassively while tendrils of darkness had exploded from her body, wrapped around the table and pieced the side of Bellatrix' head violently.
"Write…" demanded the The Thing That Was Hermione with a distorted, demanding tone.
Bellatrix started awake to sit up in bed and instinctively raised her hand to her forehead. Thankfully there was nothing sticking out of it, though she did wipe the sweat from her brow. A quick glance to the side revealed that it was pitch dark outside. The moon didn't make it through the thick layer of clouds above. A darker night than usual to travel through a part of the park where there would be little to no muggle street lights.
Great. Just wonderful.
One thing of her dream did stand out. The diary. Where was her diary? After Hermione had given it to her, Bellatrix had taken to it and written about whatever struck her fancy every single day. Of course, she had gone through many newer diaries since then, but still she always had it on her. She reached over to her coat and didn't find it in her usual pocket. It was gone. Why didn't she think of this earlier? What had happened to it?
"Oi!" sounded from downstairs. "You up yet?"
"Yes, yes," Bellatrix responded. With a grunt, she rolled off the bed. Having slept in her clothes, she only had to slip into her boots and don her coat before she groggily stepped down the stairs. Though annoying to have lost it, her diary was the least of her worries right now.
"Good. Sounded like you were tossing and turning up there. It's time we made our way to Lover's Peak," said Nymphadora. "Don't try anything, auntie. Remember, I'm the one with the wand."
A snort and a cackle. "Yes. I saw that earlier tonight. You used your wand to great effect."
Nymphadora squared her jaw and there was a twitch underneath her left eye. Her hair turned a slightly darker colour. She then made Bellatrix walk out the door in front of her, into the darkness of the night.
Almost instantly, Bellatrix felt a pervading wrongness upon the air. The summer heat was stifling, yet there was a oddly cold wind blowing in from the forest beyond. The gravel crunched underneath their feet as they walked the path back to the visitor's center. The hair on the back of her neck stood prickled as the sound of the gravel under their feet was way too loud and the forest was way too quiet. She could tell by the way Nymphadora's breath had quickened that her niece was feeling uneasy too.
Cabins which had been occupied before seemed dark and eerily quiet. Sure, it was close to midnight, but not a light was on. Not a voice could be heard. Not a movement could be seen. As the cliche went, it was simply too quiet.
It got worse when they came to the next cabin. Even from a distance, they could see that it had been ransacked. A car was abandoned by the road, crashed into the rocks with its doors on the side ripped from the hinges and tossed across the gravel path. Again, not a soul in sight. Her niece moved to the car and lay her hand on the hood.
"How did this happen?" Nymphadora whispered, her voice still too loud for her tastes. "When did this happen? The engine's still warm and this is close enough to our cabin that we should have heard the crash."
Bellatrix looked nervously to the forest's edge below, beyond the visitor's center. She caught movement there from the corner of her eye. The trees were moving in odd angles, against the wind. "Something's out there," whispered Bellatrix.
Before Nymphadora could reply, a sound so outstandingly alien emerged from the forest that it defied all logic and meaning. Melodic, yet distorted. Loud yet whisper-soft. Incomprehensible, yet so close to a threshold of meaning that it gave Bellatrix pause. What was comprehensible, though, was that the sounds migrated towards the visitor's center in the distance, pushing down trees at it went. The sounds increased, mixing with the splintering of wood and, finally cries.
Cries?
A sound she finally did recognize as a muggle gunshot. And another. And more. Cries for help. Screams.
"The ranger!" Nymphadora shouted and took off towards the visitor's center wand in hand before Bellatrix could stop her. Cursing under her breath, the dark witch followed suit.
They stopped just outside the visitor's center to find it a mess. The visitor center was sturdy, but the impact from whatever had hit it had turned the front of the building into splinters. The ranger patrol car lay flipped on its roof and crushed like a can while exposed wires sparkled eerily. Nymphadora was about to rush forward, but Bellatrix stopped her by pressing her arm into her stomach. A questioning, angry glare later caused Bellatrix to point to the floor.
"Look," she hissed, pointing to globules of oily patches so dark they seemed to swallow all light. Slowly pulsating liquid darkness. It was as if whatever it was was trying to decide if it wanted to be a liquid or a solid.
"What is that?" Nymphadora hissed.
"Focus a lumos on it."
When her niece did so, the globules seemed so suffer into the light, letting out a noise and struggling until it exploded in a puff of smoke. Nymphadora cleared the path to the hole in the building where the front door used to be and the both of them stepped inside.
The air in the visitor's center was heavy with an awful smell as if some rotten drowned thing had crawled up from its grave. In the middle of it all, Rusty lay coughing blood. He propped himself up against a chair in the cafe while a puddle of blood was slowly spreading. Her eyes were drawn to the twisted shape of his bloody, broken leg. Judging by the exposed bone, he attack had been vicious. The dog, Max whined in his pen nearby. Rusty's eyes were wild with fear and terror. "Miss Black. H... help me!" he said, coughing. Nymphadora was wary, eyes wild and looking around. When she decided it was safe enough, she knelt next to Rusty and surreptitiously eased his pain with a healing spell.
"Was this a bloody sasquatch?!" Nymphadora pressed, roving her wand about and jumping at every creak of wood.
Rusty stammered. "It was... it was. So dark. It'll... it'll come back. The lights... It didn't like the light," he said, still holding on to his destroyed torch. "The flood lights. Go to the office... Radio room… Turn them on. It'll keep us safe."
Bellatrix and Nymphadora shared another look. " Whatever has done this can't be far," Bellatrix swallowed hard, glancing around the forest beyond the windows of the cafe.
"Oh, no!" her niece pressed. "I'm not letting you out of my sight!"
By now, Bellatrix had had quite enough of her niece's antics. She crossed her arms and glared at her. "I don't care what you want! Start making yourself useful or fuck off!"
"Do you even know how to turn on the floodlights?"
"Do you?!" Bellatrix returned. "Need I remind you that I'm the one putting myself in danger. You're the one with the wand, remember?!"
Nymphadora, being the do-gooder that she was, was torn between supervising her and staying behind to protect the defenceless wounded muggle. With clear reluctance, she threw up her hands and knelt back down to administer more treatment in secret. Meanwhile, that bloody dog kept on barking. She didn't know if the thing that had done this was attracted to sound, but she didn't want to take the risk. Bellatrix hurried outside and towards the ranger office located opposite to the visitor's center.
Though the ranger office was entirely too dark for her tastes, she found the place deserted. She passed several desks and some storage lockers and looked around for the radio room. Thankfully the radio room was conveniently labelled on the door. Unfortunately, when she entered the radio room, she found all the muggle equipment smashed and an axe sticking out of the panel labelled 'floodlight control'. Now, Bellatrix didn't know much about electronics, but she knew that an axe sticking out of them was very much detrimental to its functioning.
So…
No lights.
Well shit.
About to curse useless muggles and their equally useful inventions on her way back out of the office to rejoin her companions, she was almost knocked to the ground by massive rumbling coming from the visitor's center. It happened faster than she could fully register.
Splintering wood, mixing with those alien sounds. Screams and shout. Male and female. The mad barking and whining of a dog. The telltale sound of a magical explosion. Bellatrix grit her teeth and ran back into the visitor's center. What she saw was an even bigger mess than before: Something had torn a mammoth sized hole in the wall on the side of the cafe. The dog was gone, as was the ranger. All that was left was bloody dragmarks leading outside. But of more immediate concern was her niece.
Nymphadora was huddled in a corner, opposite to the hole and was still trying to press herself through the wall. Her eyes were wide, her body trembled and her hair had turned stark white. Worse yet, her wand had been destroyed. The wand-core hadn't just burned out, it had exploded in her hand. Not only had this turned their own wand into splinters, but the result of the explosion had left her niece with severe magical burns all over her arm all the way up to her neck and cheek. All things considered, Nymphadora was lucky to still have all of her fingers attached to her hand. Her niece still pointed a nonexistent wand at the hole.
She knew she shouldn't walk through the hole. She knew she should grab Nymphadora, drag her back to the cabin and fortify it for the night. But something compelled her to go forward, towards the hole and the darkness beyond. Besides, if it could do this to thick logs, their cabin wouldn't be much of a shelter against it anyway. A small croak escaped from Nymphadora's mouth as if to stop her. Bellatrix turned her head, gave her one last glance and then stepped through the hole.
Where she ended up wasn't exactly a spectacular place. It was a landscaped part of the visitor's center which was fenced off with a low white-picket wooden fence which was now, for the most part, smashed to pieces. The rest was a pond surrounded by grass and several large boulders. The trail of destruction led all the way back to the forest. The trail of blood, however, stopped abruptly in the middle of the grass field. Bellatrix closed her eyes and sighed.
It was above her, wasn't it?
Going into full-on fight or flight mode, Bellatrix adjusted the flow of magic in her body, getting ready for a battle to the death. Though she had no wand, she had plenty of tricks up her sleeve. She looked up… and instantly flitted two meters to the right to avoid an incoming attack.
Above her, on the roof of the visitor's center, was not the creature of darkness, but rather what it left behind. The ranger Rusty, now covered in writhing tentacles of darkness, distorted and vile just as the Stucky muggle had been at the logging camp. It was a good thing that Bellatrix had flitted to the side because the ranger vomited a globule of darkness at her. It landed in the puddle of blood and, from the way it hissed, it was a probably a good thing if it didn't make any contact with any exposed parts of her body.
"Please don't feed the animals," the ranger muttered in a distorted voice. "No littering."
It droned phrases it had once said in life, but there was no life left here. The ranger managed to stand on its shattered leg and moved like a puppet. Bellatrix remembered she needed to get rid of the darkness surrounding the shadow-man before she could permanently defeat it and prepared a focused lumos. Instantly, the ex-ranger moved. Much faster than any normal muggle should, especially with a leg like that. The ranger ran circles around her, around the field in such a way that Bellatrix had nothing to aim her focused lumos at. She folded her hands together, protecting her precious ball of magical light caught in between, but cursed repeatedly. The moment she would take aim, the ranger moved with dazzling speed again and again. And unfortunately, there was pretty much nothing else she could do while having her hands full with the magic ball.
The ranger suddenly lurched forward, causing Bellatrix to raise her arm to form a protective shield around parts of her body. She almost wretched herself when the ex-ranger belched up streams of liquid darkness which collided with her shield. She felt the weight of the darkness shattering against her magic as it dripped down. She heard and smelled the grass burning as the darkness consumed anything organic in its path. Bellatrix gritted her teeth and slammed her shield into the creature's face, knocking it back and giving herself more room to move.
"It is against the law to litter!" protested the ex-ranger, droning mindlessly. Perhaps that was the most disturbing at all. Whatever had done this to him had left this vile facsimile of a man behind… how much of the ranger was still inside that creature, she wondered? How much of Rusty was still crying out helplessly trapped in this thing he had become?
Forcing the ball of light back into one hand while being assaulted almost caused her precious spell to fizzle out, but as her mind raced she thought of a plan.
While keeping an eye where the moving ranger was, she poured more and more magical into the ball of light. The ranger moved from boulder to boulder and she knew she had to wait until it was out in the open. The moment she saw the ranger about to flit in between boulders was the moment she struck. She unfolded her hand and let the light gathered in her orb explode outward. It was just a flash, but it was intense enough to make the creature stagger in pain. Instantly, Bellatrix formed a second lumos on her hand and focused it upon the staggered ranger. The light exploded the darkness away, leaving only the husk of the man who had once been Rusty.
The dark witch let out a shriek as she shot forward and jumped into the air, magical energy swirling around her. Another shout came as she released primal magic from the palm of her hand: magic with such intensity that it separated the rangers head from his shoulders. Blackened blood splattered over the grass as the two parts of the body started to dissolve and burn away to ash, leaving a man-shaped stain upon the grass.
Bellatrix stood there panting. There were sounds again. Proper sounds.
She was safe.
For now at least.
She thought of the way the ex-ranger had decided to engage her. If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn that the second shadow-man had somehow learned from the way she had defeated the first shadow-man and had adjusted its tactics to try something different.
No time to dwell on that, not with Nymphadora left to deal with. Back inside the visitor's center, she still found her sat in the same spot and she wasn't in any better state than before. She was still trembling and she was still badly injured. Bellatrix had a feeling, however, that the mental scars would be far greater than the physical ones. Fortunately, her niece wasn't quite alone. Max, the golden retriever, had escaped from his pen and was stood besides Nymphadora, licking her face. The whole thing would seem rather comical if they both hadn't just almost been devoured by shadows. Her niece had a thousand-mile stare Bellatrix had seen on both comrades and enemies during both wars.
She knelt down besides her niece and patted her cheek to break her from her stupor. Her eyes roved around wildly until they locked with hers. "So d-dark," Nymphadora stammered. "So very… d-dark."
Apparently looking upon whatever the thing was, was enough to break her mind somewhat. Her niece didn't seem to be in physical pain… yet. But that would change the moment the adrenalin had run its course. In the meantime, the girl was trembling and sobbing. She needed comfort and she didn't mind from who at the moment.
Bellatrix allowed her niece to embrace her, being careful to avoid touching her wounds. Nymphadora clutched onto her, tears in her eyes as more sobs came.
"So. Do you finally believe me now?" Bellatrix asked, somewhat mockingly.
All Nymphadora could manage was a weak nod. Her head turned to see her severely wounded arm and the moment she saw it, her chest started to heave. "M… my… my arm…"
Bellatrix had been in this situation before more times than she would have cared to be and instantly made her move. She clamped her hands around her niece's cheeks and looked her squarely in the eye. "DON'T LOOK AT IT!" she shouted. "It's nothing that can't be fixed."
By the expression on her face, Bellatrix concluded that Nymphadora was starting to register the pain of those heavy burns. "Snap out of it!" Bellatrix demanded. "During the first war, Travers got caught in a bombarda and literally had his guts spilling out into my lap. And he didn't cry nearly has hard as you are right! Do you really want to be outdone by a monkey like Travers? Where's your sodding pride?! You're a Black! Act like one!"
Eyes burned, teeth gritted. Good.
Anger was good.
"ON YOUR FEET!" Bellatrix demanded. Bellatrix shifted Nymphadora and supported her under her good shoulder. The girl was still pale as a sheet and could barely move, but a few steps onward and she was pulling her weight. "I should leave you here," Bellatrix hissed, while letting some healing magic flow into her niece's body to ease her pain. "But I'm taking you back to the cabin. For your mother's sake, not yours! Let that be clear."
Bringing the traumatised girl back to their cabin on the hill took agonisingly long, but at least the muggle electricity was still working there. The dog Max had followed them, of course, and the dark witch struggled keeping Nymphadora up while fiddling with the keys. Once inside, Bellatrix plopped her on the sofa and immediately turned to head back outside. "Right," she said. "Turn on all the bloody lights, lock the door and for fuck's sake don't forget to heal yourself! I'm going after Hermione!"
The dog looked up at her expectingly.
"And you," Bellatrix told Max. "You have one job!"
"Arf!" the dog barked in what seemed to be understanding before immediately jumping onto the sofa to cuddle up against Nymphadora and licking her cheek.
Bellatrix was out the door before Nymphadora even had the chance to respond. The sound of her footsteps in the gravel only filled her with more determination. She had a schedule to keep. She had to get to Lover's Peak before midnight and this jaunt to the visitor's center and back to the cabin had already eaten up a lot of her time.
And to get to Lover's Peak, she would have to walk through a very, very dark forest all by herself.