[c/w for blood, violence, and torture]
Time stopped as Hermione stared at Bellatrix, horror and disbelief and paralyzing fear curdling together in the depths of her stomach, and her first thought was No, it's impossible—
How can she be here? She was cremated, I set her on fire myself, I watched her hair curl and her skin turn to ash, it's not possible—
And then, in the briefest space between seconds, she noticed how the firelight flickered on Bellatrix's uncharacteristically wide nose, and her heart stopped cold. This woman had the same figure, the same eyes, the same curly, endless black hair, but as she tossed it over her shoulder, the firelight fell on a heart-shaped face with a widow's peak, a rounded jaw, a supple mouth —
It wasn't Bellatrix.
Relief flooded through Hermione, drowning her fear, even though she still had every right to be afraid, because this wasn't Bellatrix. Had she not been Silenced, Hermione would have laughed, genuine and deep and delighted, because this person could pretend, but Hermione had been through the worst, seen the worst, and she knew that this, right now, would never even come close.
And then, Not-Bellatrix spoke. "How delightful, you all seem to be quite shocked." Her voice was the only thing that betrayed her youth; she sounded gullible, insecure, but clearly trying to bury it under a haughty tone and a jutted chin. "I trust you've been well looked-after?"
Silence. Hermione did not dare glance at Harry or Draco, sure that she would start grinning if she did.
Not-Bellatrix smiled. "Good." She stepped out from behind the table and began slowly walking over to them. She was in all black — Typical, thought Hermione — and her cloak whispered on the stone floor. "I'm sure you have any number of questions for me, so I thought I might as well take care of the greatest hits for you."
Typical, Hermione thought again, and beside her, she felt Harry shift his weight onto his hip. He was probably fed up with this, as well.
"Welcome to my humble abode," said Not-Bellatrix, sweeping her arms wide and smirking. "It's on loan, so if you have any problems with the furnishings, I'm afraid I can't help you. It's certainly a little grim, even for my taste. But I'm sure dearest Draco over here knows exactly where we are, isn't that right, Draco?" Silence. "And who am I, you must be wondering?" Her smirk grew into a grin. "But that would take all the fun out of it."
A knock sounded at the door, echoing around the cavernous hall, and the woman's gaze snapped to it. "Enter," she called out.
In came two men and a woman, all of them dressed in sharp black robes. The first man, Hermione didn't recognize at all, but when she saw the man behind him, she felt as if she'd swallowed an icicle.
It was Leo Marchbanks. The very man whose snide, scowling face had drifted across her coffee table just two weeks before. His chin was weaker in real life than it was in his photograph, and it was the only thing that kept her from keeling over where she stood because this was all the confirmation they needed — they were at the heart of Salvation itself, and odds were, the Potions Master himself was in this very room.
Which brought her attention back to the woman, who looked even younger now that there were more people over the age of twenty in the room. She was leaning against the massive dining table, languid and pleased and on-edge all at once.
"I see our guests are doing well," said the man who had come into the room first. He was clearly their leader, and carried himself with a smug, self-satisfied air that made Hermione want to roll her eyes. "I trust you're keeping them entertained?"
"Oh, yes." Not-Bellatrix shot Hermione a smirk. "But where are my manners? This is Septimus Crane, better known as… Auror Rogers." She broke into a high-pitched giggle, and Hermione felt something rotten turn in her stomach.
But before she could fully process the fact that someone from Octavius Crane's family was apparently one of the leaders of Salvation, Draco shifted beside her, his features contorting with fury. Everyone noticed, and Not-Bellatrix's smirk widened into a grin.
"Ah, yes, you've figured it out, haven't you?" She stepped away from the table and walked over to a blank stretch of wall beside the ornate, empty sideboard. "I might as well… since you'll all be dead soon." And with that, she pulled a hidden switch on the sideboard.
There was a greasy, muffled grinding noise, then, to Hermione's astonishment, the stone wall split and slid back, revealing a large, recessed set of shelves filled with a wide assortment of bottles and vials containing any number of multicolored liquids. Not-Bellatrix reached out and plucked one of these vials from its shelf, then wandered over to Draco. She grinned, sliding the end of the vial along his cheek; the liquid inside was a ruddy, sluggish brown. "Bet you'd never thought you'd see Polymorph Potion anywhere other than your nightmares."
Polymorph Potion? Something stirred deep in Hermione's memory. Hadn't she heard that somewhere before?
"But it takes someone of exceptional skill to brew such a tricky, illegal potion." Not-Bellatrix giggled again, her gaze boring into Draco's. "You were always too much of a coward, a puppet. Mummy and Daddy's shiny little toy." She tapped the vial on his nose and he trembled with anger. His face was becoming quite red. "Not like me. No, where you only played at tradition, at inheritance, I embodied it. I dedicated my soul, my life, to the study of the Dark Arts, to learning magic and potion-craft that you could never even hope to touch. And what did you do? You turned traitor, you went to work for the very people we had sworn to take down. You are disgusting, Draco Malfoy. A disappointment. But how is that a surprise? You clearly take after your father."
Aha, Hermione thought. She's the Potions Master.
Not-Bellatrix's gaze drifted to Harry, and she closed in on him, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look her in the eye. "And you. You foul little Half-Blood, thinking you could undermine the grand designs of the Dark Lord. Luck, sheer luck, that was all you had, you snivelling speck of—"
"Electra," said Septimus, and his voice carried a touch of warning.
Not-Bellatrix — Electra? Hermione thought — stopped short and straightened up, taking a quick breath and tucking the vial of Polymorph into her robes. "Of course," she said, a touch breathless, and recovered enough to smirk again. "Obviously, you can't be allowed to continue. You were getting a touch too close, I'm afraid, what with my stolen notes and Draco's lucky break. We can't have you ruining all of our delightful work, can we, Septimus?"
"No," he replied, and as he smiled, Hermione saw the ghost of Octavius Crane in his face.
"No," Electra repeated, and her attention drifted to Hermione. "Hello, Minister Mudblood. I do apologize for not greeting you before, but I simply… took no notice of you." She grinned, leaning in until she was a mere inch from Hermione's face, and Hermione had to swallow the urge to throttle her. "Thank you so much for joining us, we really look forward to getting to know you better, and to your cooperation in our endeavors."
Hermione felt the smallest flicker of fear, and it must have shown in her face because Electra cooed, tilting her head to one side, her eyes growing wide. "Oh," she crooned. "It has feelings. But not to worry, my dear." She stepped away, tossing her hair over one shoulder. "You won't be suffering at mine or Septimus' hands. No, we've come up with a special plan for you." And with that, she brandished her wand, and Harry winced. Dark red blood blossomed at his exposed wrist, then began to trickle down to the floor in a sickly, curling stream.
"There we are." Electra hovered a small bowl underneath Harry's hand, catching the blood. It pooled thick and heavy, and within a minute, the bowl was halfway full, but Electra didn't stop. "No harm in getting a little more than we need, is there?" she said, and it was several moments before she waved her wand again, sealing Harry's cut and sending the bowl of his blood drifting over to the shelves. "Thank you," said Electra, grinning again, "for your cooperation. See you soon."
Suddenly, the doors opened again, and the hooded figure reappeared. Hermione, Draco, and Harry were dragged from the room, nearly tripping over each other in the process, and led back to the cellar. Once the figure had closed and locked the door, the ropes binding them disappeared, as did the Silencing spells.
Both Hermione and Draco opened their mouths at once, but Harry held up his hand, stopping them. He waited, and after a moment, Hermione heard it as well — the echoing sound of their keeper's footsteps fading up the stairs. Once it was quiet, Harry dropped his hand, cast a wandless Muffliato, and nodded.
"Well, I think it's safe to say we've found the Potions Master," Draco said bitterly, aiming a kick at a nearby wooden crate.
"What was it?" Hermione asked him, her heart pounding as her adrenaline caught up with her. "The Polymorph Potion?"
Draco winced, shaking his head. "It's the predecessor to the Polyjuice Potion, as you probably guessed, but instead of using the Universal Base to start the potion, you use the blood of the person you want to turn into. Because blood is such a powerful ingredient, Polymorph brews much faster than Polyjuice, so you can take someone's blood and have the potion ready within a day or two. The rest of the ingredients are the same, but the key difference between Polyjuice and Polymorph is the time limit." He paused, glancing at both of them. "Instead of an hour, the effects can last a full day between doses. A day and a half, if you have a really talented—"
"So it's blood magic," said Harry, and he seemed much calmer than Hermione would've expected. At Draco's nod, he added, "If it's a predecessor to Polyjuice, how did none of our sensors pick up on it? My team was tested for Polyjuice twice a day."
"When you're making Polyjuice, the Fluxweed and the Knotgrass react with the Universal Base and create a particular type of protein. This protein has no effect on the potion, but it can be detected in the system of anyone who's taken it. When you're testing for Polyjuice, you're testing for the presence of that protein." Draco sighed. "Obviously, if you use blood as your base—"
"The protein never forms, and the Polymorph can pass detection," Hermione finished for him. It all made sense — they must've captured Rogers when he was off duty, drained his blood, and killed him, then had Marchbanks take the Polymorph and pretend to be Rogers. Draco nodded, and she finally allowed herself to look at Harry, to reach out and grip his arm. "See?" she said quietly. "You did everything you could."
Harry looked back at her, then squeezed her hand and stepped away. "So who is she?"
"Bellatrix's daughter," Hermione said at once. "Has to be."
"The resemblance is uncanny," Harry replied, and she could've sworn he was smiling. He looked at Draco. "Is it possible?"
Draco frowned, leaning against one of the pillars. The weak, silvery moonlight made his skin and hair look grey. "I don't know… if Bellatrix had any children, we would've heard about it by now, wouldn't we?"
"Not necessarily," Harry replied, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. "You don't remember them discussing anything?"
"Or," Hermione added, "Bellatrix suddenly wearing very loose robes?" Both the boys turned to stare at her. "What? Bellatrix definitely would've seen pregnancy as a kind of weakness, I'm sure she never would've—"
"France," said Draco, out of the blue. He looked at Harry. "Bellatrix, Rodulphus, and my mum went to France just after Christmas of '97. They said they were doing something on Voldemort's orders, and they were only there for a couple of weeks, but—"
"France?" Hermione interrupted. "Why would they—?"
"That's where the Lestranges come from," Harry replied, now back to looking up at the ceiling. "They're Normans, they came over with William the Conqueror, and the family's been split between here and the Continent ever since."
"So they must've left her with Rodulphus' relatives," said Hermione, cottoning on. "And Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Narcissa came back to finish what they'd started." She glanced at Draco. "You really didn't know?"
He looked her dead in the eye. "No," he replied. "I didn't. But it does make sense. The French have never quite shared our aversion to blood magic. They only banned it about fifty years ago, and there are still plenty of people who practice it. If Electra grew up in a French Pureblood family and showed a talent for Potion-making, it's no surprise that they taught her how to use it."
"And because she's Bellatrix's daughter," added Hermione, "they would've kept her hidden, educated her themselves. You can't very well send the offspring of a famous set of Death Eaters to Beauxbatons. And that explains why no one knew about her."
"Back to the other pressing question," said Harry. He was now walking slowly around the cellar, his gaze still fixed on the ceiling. "Draco, where are we?"
Draco twitched, as if shaking water from his head. "Right. We're at the old Crane Manor, near Stow-on-the-Wold."
"Nowhere near London," Hermione pointed out, then the enormity of their circumstances began to sink in. "Without wands. Bellatrix's insane daughter has your blood, Harry, which can't mean anything good. And no one knows where we are." Hermione forced herself to swallow. Her heart had become a steady drumbeat in her ears, and she felt a fresh rush of adrenaline. "Okay, before we continue, I think I'm starting to panic." She looked at Harry. "Why, in the name of Merlin's saggy left bollock, aren't you panicking?"
Harry snorted. "Because they're complete and utter amateurs, 'Mione."
Hermione stared at him, then at Draco, who sort of shrugged. "What?"
"Amateurs," Harry repeated. "If they knew a single thing about what they were doing, they would've put us in separate cells, kept us gagged and chained, and used some warding that actually packed a punch." And with that, he picked up a chunk of rock and hurled it at the ceiling.
The moment the rock connected, the ceiling lit up in a runemark the size of a bus. It glowed electric blue, bright enough to make her squint, then slowly faded away.
"Anti-Apparition," Harry supplied. "And anti-Portkey, by the looks of it. But not anti-magic." Then, to Hermione's increasing astonishment, he actually chuckled. "Oh, I love Purebloods."
Draco chuckled as well, and Hermione scowled at him.
"Don't take it out on him." Harry's grin was weirdly infectious. "I'm happy — thrilled, actually — because these were the perfect people to kidnap us, Hermione. They've spent their whole lives convinced that Purebloods are the only true wizards, that only Purebloods are capable of any real or effective wandless magic, and they've got their heads so far up their own arses that they don't bother to see what's right in front of them." With that, he snapped his fingers, and the dust-covered sconces lining the walls all burst alight, their flames licking the ancient stone.
Heat flooded Hermione's face and stomach. That was… a lot.
"And," Harry continued, shoving his hand into the front pocket of his jeans, "they're shit at detecting hidden compartments. Or just searching people's pockets, I can't really tell." And with that, he produced his walkie-talkie.
Hermione could've kissed him. Could've tackled him to the ground, could've ripped off his jumper and—
She swallowed thickly, and caught Harry's gaze. He held it for a moment, then gave her the tiniest smirk. That bastard. He knew, he knew—
"Okay, then." She cleared her throat. "So what do we do?"
It was simple. You know, in the way that very complicated things are.
"I really don't like this," Hermione whispered to Harry. She took a step, the floorboard creaked, and she winced. "I really, really—"
"There's nothing to be worried about," Harry whispered back, and she rolled her eyes.
They were about halfway to the dining room. Luckily, all three of them had memorized the route from the cellar, but Draco had insisted that they take a couple detours through a mouldy drawing room, a stuffy office, a blue room that clearly hadn't been blue in years—
"Besides," Harry added, peeking around a corner before he continued. "This is a lot better than some of the plans I've had in the past."
Hermione stared at the back of his ridiculous head. "That's hardly reassuring."
Harry flashed her a grin over his shoulder. "Hey, I'm alive, aren't I?"
Hermione sighed, and they continued along the hall. They must've looked like the Mystery Gang, she thought — creeping around a crumbling old manor in the middle of the night, trying not to get caught as they darted between beams of moonlight.
The main issue, of course, was their wands. Kingsley and the rest of the DMLE team would be arriving at any moment, and the only hope of sneaking them inside would be to disable the security wards. Even though they had only seen a total of four people in the dining room, Draco had warned them that there could be hundreds of others hiding on the upper floors of the mansion. If it came to a fight — and Hermione was sure it would — they could be outnumbered, even with the DMLE, and she, Harry, and Draco, had to be ready to fight.
It didn't help that they had no idea where their wands were. None of them had caught so much as a glimpse of them in the dining room. This was part of the reason for their various detours throughout the vast, empty house — they were checking every hiding-place they could think of, and, though no one said it aloud, looking for Electra's workshop.
They had rounded the east wing of the bottom floor by this point, and as Harry paused to turn another corner, he froze. "Draco?" he breathed.
"Yes?"
"Still want to be the one to let Kingsley in?"
Draco frowned. "I—sure."
Harry nodded, then he straightened up and strode purposefully around the corner.
"Hello," Hermione heard him say. "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost—"
There was a snarl of anger, then a rush of wind and a muffled bang. Then, silence.
Hermione and Draco stared at each other in mute horror before sprinting around the corner to find—
Harry standing above a Stunned, unconscious man — their jailer. He picked up the man's wand with a faint expression of distaste and handed it over to Draco. "There you are. Now get to the front door, and quickly. Someone probably heard that."
Draco's eyes were huge, but he nodded. "See you soon." And with that, he hurried in the direction of the front door, keeping his back to the walls as he went.
It was only then that Harry noticed Hermione staring at him. "What?" he said, slipping back into the shadows.
"Harry, I— How—" She shook her head and followed him, her gaze still fixed on the crumpled form of their jailer. "How on earth did you do that?"
He huffed a little. "Practice. Come on."
Over the next few minutes, they made their way steadily closer to the dining room. They were met only with more silence, more shadows, more dim, grey real estate. Hermione was beginning to wonder if they were the only people in the manor, apart from the handful they'd seen in the dining room. Salvation had had a clear, fully-functioning network of operatives, but where were they? The fact that she, Harry, and Draco hadn't met any guards was nothing short of astonishing, especially given the size of the house. But perhaps it was their remote location—
Suddenly, Harry stopped. His hand froze where it was pressed against the wall, and he cocked his head to one side. "Do you hear that?" he whispered.
It was dead silent. "No," Hermione whispered back, frowning. "What are you—?"
"Listen," he hissed, so she did.
It took a few moments, but then—
Hermione's heart thudded in her throat. "What is that?"
Harry was grinning. "Come on."
They turned yet another corner, and then they were in the hall that led to the dining room. Hermione could see the entrance from where she was standing, and a pale orange flicker bled through the crack at the bottom of the double doors, casting an eerie glow on the dusty carpet. Electra and Septimus' muffled conversation echoed down the hall, and she took a moment to give Harry credit where it was due — not even a Silencing spell; definitely amateurs.
But that other sound. It wasn't the people talking, it was—
"This way," Harry hissed, making directly for the dining room.
Hermione balked. This wasn't the plan, they couldn't just march into the dining room without wands, they hadn't agreed—
Then, to her surprise, Harry stopped some twenty feet shy of the double doors and zeroed in on a blank stretch of wall.
"Remember that latch Electra pulled on the sideboard?" he whispered, scanning the wallpaper, the baseboard. "What if there's something—?"
Hermione was there at once, searching for anything that was out of the ordinary, out of place. She could hear it again, that faint, high-pitched sound, and it was coming from—
"Here," she breathed, pressing a small indentation in the space where the floor met the baseboard. There was a muffled grind and a click, then a door-shaped segment of the wall slid slowly backwards and swung open.
Harry and Hermione stepped inside without a moment's hesitation, and the door closed itself behind them.
They were in a narrow, windowless room with stone walls and a high ceiling, filled to bursting with a vast array of Dark objects and everything one might need in a state-of-the-art Potions lab. Hermione stared in mute horror and fascination at a work table covered in flowers and herbs she had never seen before, at a pile of dismembered dead animals and jars crammed full of dead insects. The shelves lining the room were spilling over with a haphazard collection of jars and boxes, some of them housing creatures and body parts suspended in hazy, yellowish liquid. She realized, after a moment, that one set of these shelves were the same ones that had rotated into the dining room, the ones from which Electra had plucked a vial of Polymorph. Standing there, in the middle of it all, was a massive dull silver cauldron, simmering above a low fire, sending silverish clouds plumes of steam into the air. No doubt, it was a batch of potion made from Harry's blood, and Hermione barely suppressed a shudder as she passed by.
Hermione could hear the muffled conversation from the dining room next door, but that was of little importance, because she could also hear —
"Harry," she whispered, zeroing in on a large desk built into the fair wall below another set of shelves. The shelves were filled with vials containing a dark, thick substance, and they were all labeled with initials. Her stomach twisted a little — were the vials filled with blood? — but she forced herself to keep looking. The desk was covered in sheets of notes and the floorplan for a building she didn't recognize. Hermione opened the top drawer, and there, before her, were —
"Brilliant, Hermione," Harry breathed, grabbing his and Draco's wands. "Bloody brilliant." He grabbed her, kissed her on the forehead, and crossed to the adjacent wall like nothing doing.
Hermione's brain misfired, then she shook herself and grabbed her wand, feeling its warmth spread from her palm up through her arm, her chest. It felt incredible, like regaining a limb she hadn't known was missing — she felt whole again, felt ready for whatever might be coming next. She joined Harry, who was clearly trying to listen in on the conversation next door.
"This will never work," he muttered after a moment, and he started back towards the door, walkie-talkie in hand. "Come on, I have an idea."
His idea — which Hermione didn't love, if she was being honest — was a couple of Disillusionment Charms and a suit of armor.
"Ready?" he whispered, and she breathed, "Yes."
A moment later, the suit of armor propped just a few feet down the hall collapsed, creating the most magnificent avalanche of noise Hermione had ever heard. But there was no time to appreciate it, because the double doors were flung open and Leo Marchbanks charged into the hall, wand up, teeth bared.
This was their moment. Harry and Hermione snuck into the dining room, slipping around the opposite side of the table. They were now directly across from Septimus and Electra, who didn't look at all pleased by the interruption.
"What is it, Marchbanks?" Electra said, her voice sharp.
"Nothing," he spit out. "Suit of armor just fell apart."
Electra rolled her eyes. "Well, come back here, then."
Hermione felt an unexpected shiver of glee. The so-called leaders of this group could barely stand each other!
"As I was saying," Septimus continued, rather imperiously, as Leo came back into the room and closed the doors. "The prisoner has become more and more… uncooperative. We will need to take certain measures, and soon, if we are to—"
Hermione frowned, and she was sure Harry did as well. Septimus couldn't mean any of them, they hadn't—
"Ah, yes," Electra leered, looking all too much like her mother. "How is our favorite pet? Why don't we bring him out to play? That should encourage him to keep to his good behavior."
Septimus grinned and nodded at the other woman who'd come in with him earlier. "Celeste, be a dear and fetch him?"
Celeste sucked in her breath, her disdain showing on her face, but she nodded and left.
There was a bit of a pause, during which Septimus made his way over to the closest fireplace and produced a small pipe. He tapped it on the mantle, and the sound echoed throughout the room. Hermione took a deep breath, her wand beginning to feel a little slippery in her hand.
"So how much longer do you think it will take, Electra?" Septimus filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it with a snap of his fingers. Blue smoke curled around his mouth. "A week? A month? I'm simply trying to understand—"
"Two weeks," Electra said, a hint of warning in her tone. Clearly, they were retreading familiar ground. "But I could work much faster if I could—"
"No," Septimus said sharply. He gave her a hard look. "We've already discussed—"
She scowled, sinking back into her chair. "Septimus, I need test subjects. Without them, we can't know how effective the machine is."
Septimus raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You already have a wide collection of samples. I hardly see why you should need a group of subjects."
Hermione's heart thudded — were the samples the vials of blood? Had to be. Suddenly, she remembered Draco's words: Salvation is planning something big. Harry had asked, A weapon? and now, she was beginning to see the edges of their plan. Whatever it was, it involved blood magic.
"Besides," Septimus added, with a condescending flick of his hand, "that would attract far too much attention. We couldn't just have a huge contingent of Mudbloods vanish from the population all at once. That would certainly turn some heads, especially after that ill-advised stunt of yours on Marylebone."
"That stunt," Electra bit out, "got the Minister right where we needed her."
Before Septimus could reply, the doors opened, and Celeste marched into the room, dragging what looked like a huge pile of dirty rags. It was a man. He was filthy, his lank and unkempt chin-length hair clinging to his unshaven jaw, and there were half-healed cuts all over his legs and arms. Diffindo, Hermione thought at once, then she saw the man's face and nearly gasped aloud.
It was Octavius.
"Brother mine." Septimus gave Octavius a passing glance before going back to his pipe. "Take a seat." He pulled out his wand and used it to knock Octavius to the ground.
Electra laughed, shrill and biting, and waved her own wand. Octavius flew back against the wall with a thud and a grunt, and he lifted one watery eye to look at both of them. There was a spark in his gaze, Hermione noticed, a spark of life, of rebellion.
"Is that all you've got?" Octavius mumbled.
Something ugly flashed across Septimus' face, and he raised his wand again. "Crucio."
Octavius twisted and writhed beneath him, agony ripping through his body, but all he let out was a pained, high-pitched whine. Hermione couldn't imagine what it was costing him.
After several long moments, Septimus let up, and he turned away from his brother. "We hear you've been restless. Belligerent."
"And I've heard," said Octavius, his voice thin and weak, "that you're an arrogant, prancing fool. Are the rumors true?"
Septimus spluttered, his face turning red. And then, Electra let out a giggle.
"Shut up!" Septimus roared, conjuring a gag out of thin air. Octavius struggled fruitlessly as the gag fastened itself around his mouth, and Septimus turned on Electra, brandishing his wand.
She lazily held up her hands, raising an eyebrow. "Relax, Septimus. You can hardly fault me for having a sense of humor."
He let out a hiss of anger, turning back to his brother. "You're a fool, you've always been a fool. Only a fool would be so naïve as to actually help the very Minister we're trying to unseat—"
Electra rolled her eyes. "Septimus, we've already been through this. Octavius didn't know you were involved, otherwise—"
"Technicalities," Septimus spat. He truly looked quite awful. "He's always done this. He's always taken what is rightfully mine. Look at this house! You'd never believe that not twenty years ago it looked like a goddamn castle, but what's he done? He's let it fall to ruin, all to suit his own selfish, Galleon-driven desires— Crucio!"
Octavius twitched and seized against the wall, the gag forcing the screams to stick in his throat, so he emitted only a strange gurgling noise.
Hermione forced herself to take a deep breath, redoubling her grip on her wand. It was hard to watch, even if she couldn't admit to liking Octavius. But she had to be ready, because—
"Expelliarmus!"
In the following couple of seconds, several things happened at once.
Septimus' wand flew out of his hands, and he found himself bound and gagged with impenetrable magical chains. Hermione whipped round and did the same to Theo and Celeste, who could only stare at her in surprise as she caught their wands. With another wave of her wand, Octavius' gag disappeared, and he slumped to the ground, giving her a nod of gratitude.
Their Disillusionment Charms now broken, Harry and Hermione advanced on Electra, who had fallen into a fighting stance, her wand out and her teeth bared.
"You fucking pissants," Electra spat. "How dare you— How dare you—?"
But before she could finish, there was a resounding crash as Kingsley, Malfoy, and what looked to be the entire DMLE hurled themselves into the room.
"No!" shrieked Electra, advancing on Harry and Hermione. "I won't let you!"
And with that, she fired off a volley of curses.
Harry and Hermione immediately stepped into the formation he'd made her practice in the dungeon, and parried Electra's curses while the Aurors removed Leo, Celeste, Septimus, and Octavius. In the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Kingsley and Malfoy coming towards her, and with her free hand she fired a Rebounding Jinx at them, forcing them back into the line of Aurors.
This was her fight, and Harry's. They were ready for it, and they didn't want anyone else to interfere.
Electra was one hell of a force to reckon with. She busied them with curses Hermione had never even heard of, then conjured and transfigured until any other opponent would've withered from sheer exhaustion. But not Harry. While Hermione protected him and redirected the curses, Harry met Electra strength for strength — when she cracked the walls and began hurling chunks of stone at them, Hermione shattered them in midair while Harry fired off a volley of the old favorites, and a few jinxes she didn't recognize (though she was sure at least one of them would've grown Electra's eyebrows).
Even as she fought, Hermione watched it all with a curious feeling of detachment. It didn't seem real, any of it, even when a glancing jinx burned a line down the side of her leg, or when she was firing off so many spells at once that she could hardly breathe. It was just another fight, another thing she could do with her eyes closed and her hands tied, because doing this, standing their ground with Harry by her side — it felt as natural as breathing.
When Electra formed a wall of broken glass — courtesy of the Aurors' entrance — and used it to try to break through Hermione's Shield Charm, Harry conjured a beam of light that melted the glass midair. When she sent a cloud of knives hurling at him, he transfigured them into flower petals and conjured a dragon out of the fireplace. The dragon swept around the room, swallowing Electra's barrage of curses, and when she finally managed to make it evaporate, it buried her in sand.
She Vanished the sand with a wave of her wand and a shriek of fury that was all too reminiscent of her mother, then conjured a volley of blue lightning that forced Harry and Hermione to separate, but not for long. With a sweep of Harry's wand, the lightning turned to bright ribbons of water, and in the smallest space between spells, Harry clenched his fist, and the water hurtled itself onto Electra, swallowing her from feet to neck.
Then, for the first time, Hermione saw a true flash of fear in Electra's eyes, and that's when she knew. She knew that they'd won.
With another twist of Harry's wand, the water turned to chains — the same magic- and Apparation-proof chains that they'd used to bind the others. Electra fell to the ground, her wand rolling away with a clatter.
The room was silent. Heart pounding, chest heaving, sweat trickling down her back, Hermione finally allowed herself to relax, falling out of her fighting stance. She glanced at Harry, relief threatening to overcome her, and found him already looking at her, flashing her a crooked grin that made her feel a bit weak in the knees.
"Kingsley," said Harry, his voice ringing clear and bright in the ruined dining room. "As the highest-ranking Auror on scene, I am going to charge and question the prisoner before she is remanded to Azkaban, pending a formal trial."
"Of course," Kingsley replied, unable to keep himself from smiling.
Harry closed the distance between himself and Electra, staring down at her with a look of thinly veiled disgust.
"Electra Lestrange," he said, and there was a palpable shudder around the room at the mere mention of her last name, "you are charged with high treason, terrorism, murder, attempted murder, grand conspiracy, resisting arrest, and the illegal use of blood magic. Do you accept these charges?"
She stared up at him, her gaze burning with pure hatred, and spat, "Yes."
"Excellent. You will be provided with a barrister, if you cannot provide one for yourself, and the contents of your potions room will be taken into custody." Harry gave Draco a nod, and Draco left the room, followed by a small team of Aurors. Hermione smiled at the thought of how he would react to the treasure-trove of Electra's workroom. "Do you understand?" Harry continued.
"Yes," Electra repeated, somehow packing even more disgust into the word.
Harry nodded, then stooped to pick up her wand. "Septimus Crane," he said. "Strange choice in partner, Electra. He hasn't been back to England for almost ten years. Why him?"
When she didn't reply, Harry cocked his head to one side and said, "We can do this now, or after a couple days in Azkaban and a cup of tea laced with Veritaserum. It's up to you."
Electra seethed. "He was… convenient."
"Expand on that, please."
"He went to Durmstrang with one of my cousins, and our families knew each other through the usual social channels." A sickly, smug smile crawled onto her face. "Of course, he didn't find out about me until very recently. But it took only a little convincing for him to see that our partnership was the remedy to the scourge that has been cast upon our Wizarding world, thanks to your darling little Mudblood princess over there—"
Harry twitched his wand, and a draft of air slapped Electra across the face. "I would encourage you," he said, his voice flat and calm, "to hold a civil tongue."
Electra growled, then shook her hair out of her face and kept talking. "Our plan was simple, foolproof. All we had to do was convince some Mudbloods that we were the solution to all of their problems, that we would restore a Wizarding society that barely even noticed them, barely even remembered that they existed, all to their benefit. I selected Crane because I needed his money, his connections on the Continent — my own family kept me so hidden that I had barely any money, no property of my own. All I had was my knowledge, my talent, and that was what I bargained with."
Harry looked at Hermione and Kingsley and said, "I suppose that answers the question of why the supplies were coming from Europe instead of Britain. They were all businesses intimately connected with the Crane family, going back who knows how many decades. Which is how Octavius made the unwitting mistake of putting us on the tail of his own brother." He turned back to Electra. "So you and Crane enter into a partnership, and you decide that the best way to start getting Muggle-borns on your side was to launch an underground misinformation campaign. But tell me, Electra." Harry made a sweeping gesture to the room around him. "Between the encounter in the restaurant and the raid on your old workshop, we barely have a half-dozen of your soldiers, and me and Hermione didn't run into a single person when we did a bunk from your lovely cellar. So where are the others?"
Electra was scowling now, and it twisted her features into something ugly and dark. "There were… issues of loyalty."
"Issues of loyalty," Harry repeated. "You'll have to expand on that, I'm afraid."
"What few people remained after your little raid left after our attack on… the Minister." Electra sneered. "Typical, snivelling Mudbloods. First sign of actual progress and they wither and balk, claiming that we were taking things too far—"
"But that only accounts for, what, a handful of followers? Our intelligence reports told us that you had operatives stashed in nearly every department and sub-department in the Ministry. So tell me — where are they?"
Electra's scowl deepened, and she said nothing.
And then, in the brief, echoing silence, the pieces slid together in Hermione's brain. Suddenly, it all made sense — the vials, and the little labels with each person's initials. She stepped forward, gripping Harry's shoulder. "Polymorph."
He turned to her with a frown. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it. Why waste time, money, resources, on actually recruiting an army of Purebloods and Muggleborns, when all you really need to convince someone that you're everywhere and nowhere all at once—"
"—are their faces," Harry finished for her, "and their names." He turned back to Electra and snorted. "That is both wickedly smart and astonishingly pathetic."
"You know nothing," she snarled in reply.
Harry laughed, cold and brittle. "I think it's becoming clear that I actually know quite a lot. Now, tell me." He closed the distance between them, pressing the tip of his wand underneath her jaw. "The weapon, the so-called machine you were discussing earlier. What is it?"
There was a muffled thud, then, to Hermione's astonishment, a few of the broken stones near the sideboard rearranged themselves into a doorway, revealing none other than the surprised face of one Draco Malfoy, fresh from Electra's hidden workroom.
"Hi," he said, waving away the cloud of dust threatening to swallow him whole. "I think I might have an answer for you, Harry." And with that, he came over to both of them, holding open a large, leatherbound notebook.
Electra snarled again, but Hermione ignored her, stepping in next to Draco and peering at the spread of diagrams and notes.
It looked like a bomb. A small, deadly, bomb encased in metal, with a place reserved for inserting a vial of liquid.
"It's the same one she used on you, Hermione," said Draco, and his hand went to her elbow. Beside him, Harry frowned, and reached across to flick through the next few pages of the notebook. "Specialized, made-to-order bombs designed to target the individual whose blood is contained in the vial of liquid. Once detonated, whatever is inside the bomb will affect that person and that person alone, rendering them unconscious or ill or—"
"Poisoned," Hermione said, her stomach dropping to her feet. She swallowed, then met Electra's gaze, and felt a powerful, blinding urge to curse, to hurt, to kill—
But Harry got there first. He had his wand to Electra's throat once again, and there was something in his face, in his gaze— "Why?" he spat out, jabbing his wand into her artery, making her hiss. "What's the point?"
Electra took her time. She eventually slid her gaze to his, and a slick grin spread across her features. "A demonstration, Boy Who Lived, of the power of law. To show the Mudbloods what could happen when the government that once protected them decided to do the opposite."
A tingling, edged silence fell after this pronouncement, and it was almost a full minute before Harry stepped away, turning his back on her. "Get her out of my sight," he bit out, and it was as if the entire room came back to life. A team of Aurors descended on Electra, and within moments, they Apparated away, the sound like a clearing bell as it echoed around the room.
Hermione had never been so fussed-over in her entire life.
"I'm fine," she insisted for the millionth time, rolling her eyes when Cornelia only smiled at her and continued taking her blood. "I just need a rest and a good cup of coffee—"
"If you go back to work within the following week, I will personally bribe Mr. Finnegan to booby-trap your entire office, including a little something involving gallons upon gallons of paint." Cornelia raised an eyebrow as she capped the vial, then tapped the point of insertion with her wand, healing it instantly. "Clear?"
Hermione sighed, sinking back into her pillows. "Clear."
A few feet to her right, Draco was getting much the same treatment, and Hermione had never seen Blaise exhibit so much nervous hovering in her life. She smiled as he tried to hand Draco a cup of tea, then he accidentally knocked Draco's chart onto the floor and tried to pick it up, apologizing profusely, only to bang heads with the Healer who had done the same.
A few feet to her left, Harry had been forced to change out of his jeans and was leaning back in his bed. He'd been rolling his eyes enough within the past half-hour that, had they been hooked up to a generator, they could've powered a small city. "What did I tell you?" seethed Healer DeSantos, his wand hovering above Harry's knee. "I told you to take it easy—"
"I was taking it easy," Harry replied, with an air of exaggerated suffering. "It was the wannabe Death Eater who decided to go for the drama—"
Healer DeSantos levitated Harry's cup and smacked him over the head with it, sending a wave of water down Harry's head and shoulders. Hermione bit back a laugh as Harry flicked a Drying Charm over himself with a scowl and said, "I don't know who let you become a Healer, you pestilential pillock—"
Cornelia shook her head as she applied Dittany to a small rope burn on Hermione's arm. "They've been like that since Mr. Potter came in with his injured knee. I've told him that he can see a different specialist, but for some reason, he's never done so."
"Can't imagine why," Hermione replied, holding in a giggle as Harry levitated every medical tool around him and bounced them up and down on Healer DeSantos' head.
She and Harry had barely had a moment alone since the arrest, barely even time to do more than give each other a quick hug, drunk on their success and the relief at finally putting an end to Salvation. Because, they'd realized, once Electra had disappeared from the room, that was what it was — without Electra and Septimus, without the endless supply of Polymorph and all the other potions, all Salvation was, in the end, was an idea. An idea with fading power and a short shelf-life.
The mere prospect of Electra and Septimus' trials made Hermione itch to get back on the stand, to renew her legal license. But, as Minister, she would never be allowed, and she consoled herself with the fact that she would get to testify, to watch Harry testify. It was going to be the trial of the century. Maybe she should call Rita Skeeter out of retirement and offer an exclusive…
Time passed, and eventually, she found herself standing by the window, snatching a breath of fresh air, feeling the buzz of exhaustion begin to catch up with her. It was now almost two in the morning, and her adrenaline was wearing off.
"I'll set off the Decoy Detonator, and you Stun the protective detail."
Hermione smiled, turning to face Harry. "That wouldn't be very Ministerial of me."
Harry sighed, leaning against the windowsill. "No, but it would decrease the distance between us and half a dozen cheeseburgers."
Hermione choked a little in surprise. "Cheeseburgers?"
"My go-to after the end of an assignment." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Nothing like a bruised, bleeding, disheveled man turning up in a restaurant and ordering two cheeseburgers and enough fries to feed half the East End."
"I can imagine," Hermione replied, and it was almost enough to distract from the butterflies that had erupted in her stomach. Of course. This was it. His assignment was over. She no longer needed a security detail, and she'd already been informed by more people than just Cornelia that no one wanted her back at the Ministry for at least a week, at least not until all the leads had been tied down and the DMLE was certain that they had all of Salvation's past members in custody.
And then, the butterflies disappeared and her stomach flipped over, a sick feeling spreading up her throat. She didn't want him to leave. She didn't want to leave him, either.
But she couldn't say it. Not now. Not here. Not when she didn't know—
Harry looked at her, and his smile grew soft. "You'll be all right," he said, as much to himself as to her.
Hermione forced herself to take a breath, and she nodded. "I will."
Some time later, between another round of checking her vitals and swallowing a handful of precautionary potions — "I don't like the little madam's notes on that knockout potion," Cornelia said, "we just want to be sure—" Hermione turned around and realized that Harry was gone.
"He had to get home," said Draco, his tone and his face telling her that he knew far more than he was letting on. "Said he had to meet someone."
Something in Hermione broke off and fell, fell, fell. "Right," she said, and knocked back the rest of her potion, forcing herself to swallow when all she wanted to do was cry.
