Disclaimer: The rights to the Harry Potter series go to J.K. Rowling. All original ideas present in this belong to me.

Chapter Forty-Nine | The Line

It's a brutal chill, fingers stiff and spine twisted into some grotesque facsimile of a stretch as I find myself hunched over, trying to pry my aching body apart as I crawl from the delicious warmth of my bed.

Our bed.

Fleur is fire and steam, a heat within her body so heavily stoked as to make any healer imagine her a few steps from death.

We're both fine.

"I want him dead," Fleur says for the third time. "Fudge has to die."

"He will, but not- "

"Why not now? He's practically in league with Voldemort. Let's just kill him and be done with it."

I sigh, dragging a hand across my face. "He spends all his time in the Ministry. He sleeps there, Fleur. We'd have to attack the de-facto government building of Britain. That'd be like…" I throw my hands up. "Laying siege to Buckingham Palace or Hotel Matignon. It'd be more trouble than it's worth."

"I want him dead. We made a plan, dammit Helene!" Fleur rolls her jaw, muscles flexing angrily. "Bagman, Fudge, and Lucius. I intend to see it through."

"Fleur, you understand what you're asking of me."

"I understand full well." She leans back into her pillow, eyes glued to the ceiling. "Don't tell me that you don't want this as well."

"I do, I just… what if innocents get caught in the crossfire?"

"I…" She cursed, hand clasped to the back of her neck. "I don't know."

"So many people there are just getting by, trying to survive. The Ministry has already painted us with one brush, one that's damn near true. I don't want another tainting us."

"If we could get a war-time minister installed do you understand how much closer we could be to ending this?"

"I- yes, I do."

"You think that's going to happen with Fudge still in power? He needs to be forcibly removed. We're already considered Dark Ladies, what harm could there possibly be in getting the Ministry to finally mobilize their forces?"

"We could die, for one."

She laughs. "You think anyone there is capable of defeating us? No, not even Amelia could take us both on and walk away."

I nod. She couldn't even duel me, and that was a little bit more than a year ago. Amelia doesn't have the power of a primordial God behind her, nor does she have decades of knowledge and experience with some of the most powerful, twisted magics that have ever graced this earth.

"Alright. When? How?"

"I can steal some polyjuice this evening, if you'd like."

"Seriously?" I ask. That would have made second year significantly easier. "Where?"

Fleur goggles at me. "Any reputable potions shop? Where else?"

I shrug. "Honestly, I thought it was regulated."

"It is. It doesn't mean it's not there. You just can't purchase it without a certificate."

"Not exactly purchasing it, are we?"

She grins. "No."

-::-

Stealing the polyjuice is a walk in the park compared to the last month and a half of slaughter. Simply pop into Diagon Alley, hoods up, walk into the potions shop, threaten the owner and then obliviate him when all is done and over with.

Not like there was anyone in Diagon to see it. It's empty, apart from the flood of wanted posters pinned across every building in sight.

Frankly, I believe it to be a massive waste of parchment. I can't imagine how many poor animals had to die just to put my and Fleur's faces up on every available surface.

So, we have the polyjuice as well as a very basic, yet effective plan.

Walk into the Ministry, get as far in as we can without fighting, turn Fudge inside out, leave.

We don't know where exactly he is but one can't apparate within the Ministry apart from the lobby, and even that is heavily regulated.

I imagine the Minister can apparate from whatever safe-room he's locked himself in but anywhere outside of the Ministry building proper?

That would just make our job easier.

Even if the man found his way to Hogwarts and hid in the Headmasters office, we'd still be able to easily get our hands on him. It may be considered one of the most fortified positions in Britain - it is a castle, after all - but Hogwarts is… lackadaisical, when it comes to its ward system.

If it's in lockdown, yes, it's an absolute fright to try and infiltrate.

But on the day to day? It's still a school when you get down to it.

What if an alumni decided to visit? Would they be blasted away by the wards before they could even so much as rattle the gates? No, they're as open as they're going to be, and McGonagall isn't going to put that school on lockdown unless Fleur and I (or Voldemort) show up firing siege spells at the walls.

Now, that would turn us into an unsightly paste.

"So," I ask, dropping the Ministry workers hair into the bottle. "Bottoms up?"

Fleur grimaces as she stares at her own bottle, very much worried about the taste.

I felt the need to explain to her how atrociously disgusting the potion was, more akin to a thick, rancid molasses than anything fit for human consumption.

Ignoring her own inner battle, I toss it back, lips curling and an unsettling shiver running down my spine as the - admittedly less horrible yet no less awful - potion runs down my throat.

Awkwardly, Fleur follows suit, a wretched cough racking her body as she forces it down.

"Merde," she gasps. "You drank this when you were twelve?"

I shrug. "I never said I was a smart kid."

That garners a laugh out of her, the sound still tinged with noticeable nausea - deep in her throat.

We both gasp in unison as the potion takes effect, the much too tight - or much too baggy, in my case - clothes starting to feel a touch more comfortable.

My arms lengthen, legs thickening as my body rearranges itself. I can feel as my organs twist up inside me, how my spine shifts as I grow taller.

An arm and hand sprouts from the twisted stump of my elbow, the flesh rippling as it comes together, lacing over naked bone.

Fascinating.

Soon enough we're both strangers. Fleur wearing the body of a thirty-one year old accountant from Magical Cooperation. I'm tucked into the skin of a secretary from Transportation.

The two were handpicked, both suitably boring enough to go unnoticed, yet able to travel from one Department to another without fuss.

No one stops an auditor, nor do they give a second glance to a passing secretary.

Perfect.

We leave the two women unconscious, pinned to the wall with both an aversion and disillusionment charm keeping them safe and sound.

They should wake up in a few hours. More than enough time for us to kill Fudge and get out.

"I still can't believe they have the entrance to this place in a booth," I mutter the two of us squeezed tight as we cram ourselves in. "Absolutely unbelievable."

Fleur grumbles her agreement, practically slamming twenty-five pence into the coinslot. "Visitors entrance my ass. You sure they can detect the magic of a Ministry employee from the main entrance?"

The lift starts to groan, slowly lowering us into the ground."

"It's the only way to get admittance. This is our only option."

She shuts her mouth, although it doesn't stop her from humming in annoyance as we're dropped off into a throng of rushing employees.

"Let's just- "

As soon as we step foot onto the onyx brickwork a siren rings, shrieking angrily.

"Fuck."

"Think that's for us?"

I look out over the now screaming, frantic crowd to see Aurors streaming out of the hallways, corralling employees against the wall and checking their identification.

"Yup. So much for the polyjuice."

Stamping my foot, I push my hands out as I force the floor to rise, clearing a path through the crowd and pushing the Aurors aside.

We dash forward, ignoring the shouts of fear and anger as we push through the lobby.

The greeter throws his wand up, an incantation on his lips as we simultaneously strike him down, the bright red light of a stunner erupting from both of our wands and colliding with his chest.

He's tossed backwards, wand clattering to the floor as he slides across slick stone, rolling over next to the fountain.

Terribly garish.

Halfheartedly, I throw out an explosive hex, the magic drilling through sculpted brass before it catches, bursting outwards in a deafening halo of pale blue light, chunks of metal scattering about the room.

Fleur pauses. "Why did you do that?"

"House elves, centaurs, and all other manner of creatures kept under heel? Prostrated before wizards as if they're some sort of deity come to earth? It's disgusting."

She nods her approval as we sweep towards the elevator. "Be ready."

"I will."

A half dozen Aurors pour out of the lift as we step up to it, Fleur immediately ducking to the left and sending out a long stream of water siphoned from the fountain.

It curls around two of them, throwing the Aurors into the wall with a resounding thud and knocking them unconscious.

I grin, dodging underneath a cutting hex as it careens past my head, crackling in my ears.

"Fuck." I groan as I watch one of them resuscitate his companions. "This would be so much easier if we just killed them."

"I know," Fleur replies, sending the man sprawling with a well placed binding charm, ropes lashing against his body and pinning him to the floor as if a scene from Gulliver's travels.

She strikes him in the chest with another stunning spell, immediately following up with a salvo of non-lethal, yet nonetheless impactful spells that shatter a pillar the remaining two Aurors are hiding behind.

One is clipped in the head by a block of stone, knocking them to the ground. The other is thrown back, colliding with the wall.

Another well placed spell and they're out for the count.

"Now I know how the last war was never won," I curse, stepping over a body and walking into the elevator. "Stunning is fucking awful."

A stalk of bone and blood waggles at me from the bottom of the lift, a tiny hand of rotten flesh propping one thumb high into the air.

I find myself momentarily horrified that the creatures of the dark have learned what a thumbs-up is.

"Is that-"

"Ignore it," I mutter, slamming my fist against the button.

Office of the Minister of Magic, here we come.

The steady rattle of chains is the only sound to accompany our breathing, slightly laboured and heavy in the air.

It's been easy thus far, but we're sure to be forced to cut through a swathe of Aurors to get to Fudge, if he's not managed to escape already.

Damnable alarm.

I hope he has escaped. Hunting him down like the animal he is would be so much more fun.

"You realize we've just declared war on the Ministry?"

Fleur inclines her head. "Of course. Us against the world."

I shudder, remembering Sirius' grief stricken expression as I tore Voldemort's shade to pieces and crammed it down my throat.

"Us against the world."

The lift dings a bright, happy chime.

We roll forward as soon as the doors open, narrowly avoiding a barrage of curses that obliterate the contraption behind us, metal and wood shearing off and burying itself into the brickwork elevator shaft. The lift careens downwards, grating against the wall all the while.

I ignore the sickening shriek of metal on stone as I summon up a makeshift shield, onyx shattering as it holds back another dozen curses.

"They're really not making this easy for us, are they?" I laugh, pushing down the voice inside me that wails a song of murder. Tear them apart, teeth to throat, muscle and sinew.

I blink, teeth gritted painfully.

No one else has to die today. Only Fudge.

Fleur is also showing signs of that deep, animalistic anger as she smashes an Auror into another with a jet of light, the corporeal substance exploding off the woman's chest and sending her flying.

It's in the way her eyelids quiver, an uncontrollable tic as she wrestles with our mutual bloodlust.

People will die today. After we're done with Fudge.

I'm sure we can find ourselves a few Death Eaters to play with. Seems there's no shortage no matter how hard we work.

I transfigure a sitting chair into a pack of dogs, urging them simply distract - pin down the Aurors.

They comply happily, leaping over one another and rushing towards the smattering of red-robed fighters, one getting dragged to the ground as a dog latches onto his ankle, shouting in pain.

They'll be back up in a day or two. The wonders of magic.

An Auror roars, the sickly green of a killing curse shattering the wall beside me.

Fleur kills him before he can so much as twitch, his skull bursting and peppering the Aurors next to him with lumps of bone and brain.

Someone screams as she begins to tear a path through the Aurors, striking limbs from bodies and even tearing a woman in two, her entrails leaving a shimmering line of blood and half digested food across the tile.

"We were kind to you!" Fleur shouts, spraying a man with acid, hair falling off in clumps and skin melting off the bones. "And this is what you do? Try to kill us? Kill her!?"

She grabs one of them by the throat, wand pressed against the woman's head. "We have been kind. Now your men are dead because of that mistake." Leaning forward, she hovers next to the Auror's ear, causing her to shiver. "Spread the word once this is done. No Auror will die unless they come at us with lethal force. If that's the case…" she grins, forcing the woman to look at the trail of guts sprayed across the floor. "Your friends will end up like her. Do you want that?"

The woman whimpers, shaking her head. "No, I- no, I don't."

"Good."

Fleur stuns her point blank, kicking her unconscious body away from the pile of viscera.

"Anyone else?"

A feeble burst of light strikes the ground near her, and Fleur sighs, setting the man alight.

He screams as the flames lick over his body, skin crackling and the heady scent of something frightfully alike roast pork filling the room.

"Anyone else?"

The Aurors run, dashing past us towards the stairwell leading to the lower levels.

"Fleur…"

"He tried to kill you."

"Yes, he did. He was scared."

She snarls. "And you think I wasn't? He came at us intending to kill, it's only fair I took his own."

"I know… I just- " I sigh loudly, confused. "Alright."

Fleur walks over to me, resting one hand on my shoulder. "I'm happy that you still love, that we both can. But him?" She points at the man's headless, pulped corpse. "He is a casualty of war."

"Is this just the… urges?"

"Damn the urges." Her grip tightens, the touch of this stranger's hand unfamiliar. The voice is reedy and thin, so unlike Fleur's usual sing-song tone.

It lacks fullness. Power. An assured confidence that I know her to bear, no matter how much she argues.

"He tried to kill you. I let him off easy and you know it."

"I do."

She lets go, jerking her head towards Fudges office. "Let's go."

I blast the door down, wood cracking as it flies off its hinges and smashes into Fudge's much too ornate desk. "Fucking pig," I grouse, looking about his office.

It's beyond ostentatious, walls bearing artistically carved detailing inlaid with silver. Paintings that are most likely long-forgotten bribes are hung up all throughout the room, their patrons long gone.

"Nothing."

"Well, we got him out of the Ministry." Fleur wipes her hands across her pants, blood smeared upon cheap wool. "It should be an easy matter to find out where he's hidden himself away."

"We'd have to crack some heads, but it shouldn't be too difficult."

She takes my hand just as Amelia and a small squad of Aurors and Hit Wizards fly out of the elevator shaft, hovering on their brooms.

I wince as she looks upon the chaos, feet returning to solid ground. Her gaze is hollow as it passes over the bodies. People, her people laying in pieces, some so mutilated as to be unrecognizable.

We stand there, silent, as Amelia rolls her wand in her palm.

"Nice try with the polyjuice… why are you here?"

"Fudge has to die."

She points at the bloodied corpses, some of the unconscious Aurors slowly waking up, moaning fitfully.

"What happened to you, Helene?"

I laugh. "A lot."

"You're not going to come quietly, are you?"

"I'm not coming at all. We could leave, right this second if we wanted to."

"No you can't."

"What?"

Amelia gestures downwards. "The Department of Mysteries finally got a handle on your magic. Fixed up the wards."

"Oh." I send out feelers, recoiling against the very familiar wards that greet me. "Blood wards. I thought that was illegal."

"Martial law allows wondrous things."

"We didn't want to kill your men," I interrupt. "But… one of them threw a killing curse. We only wanted Fudge. That's it."

Amelia seems to study me. I can see the anger in her eyes, powerfully intense, but that familiar curiosity is still there. "Why?"

"The Tournament. Voldemort. What other reasons could we have? I don't want the Ministry, Amelia. I don't want to own this country, no matter what you may think. I just want Voldemort dead."

"You… slaughtered people. Tore them to pieces. This? This massacre in front of me? This is tame, compared to what I've seen you do. Is it all mindless, with you?"

"They were Death Eaters." I pause. "And they're not all dead."

She ignored me. "No one should suffer like that, god dammit. No one."

I smile. "I disagree, but that may just be me."

"Just tell me why you're doing this."

"Just tell me where Fudge is and I'll let you go." I look at her pointedly. "I don't want to hurt you Amelia, and you know you don't stand a chance against us."

"Why?"

"Because I want this war to be over as quickly as possible. Voldemort is still out there, hiding in the shadows. That's why I want Fudge dead. He's incompetent, hell, he's unwittingly in league with Lucius and the rest of the Death Eaters, and don't tell me you don't believe that." I put one finger up. "Viktor Krum died because of his choices. This country is falling to pieces, Amelia. If we want people to be safe, we need a war-time Minister who will actually do what needs to be done to make sure that Voldemort stays good and dead, and that his rhetoric, the disgusting bigotry that he and the rest of the pureblood crowd preaches is extinguished.

"Hell, I would recommend you personally if I knew that my word still mattered one bit in Britain, but we both know that there's no place for me in this country anymore." I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. "This is me offering a truce, Amelia. The only people I want dead are Voldemort and the army he's amassing. Once he's gone? You'll never hear from me - from us - ever again. No one will."

"You expect me to believe that? I've seen what you've done. I had to scoop a boy into a bottle to figure out who he was. A fucking bottle. I haven't- " She cursed, hand clenching around her wand. "I haven't seen things like that since the last war, and by god I'm not going to let it keep happening."

I scrunch my eyes shut, casting my face to the ground. "I don't want to hurt you Amelia. You're… you're a good woman. You care about this country, it's people. I know how fucking twisted it sounds coming from me, but I care about you."

She snorts. "Really? Are you even capable of that? I've heard Tom's saccharine words before, I know what your kind is like. You know he came to me in the last war? A Noble House, the Bones. Esteemed throughout British history. He wanted to 'preserve it,' he said. Gave me a chance."

"Bet you told him off." I laugh, looking her in the eyes.

"Come quietly, Helene. I can make sure that you two don't get the death penalty if you just stop fighting. Put you in Nuremgard."

I do my best to quell the tears, push down the heartbreak. This will be like killing my own mother. "I'm sorry Amelia, but this is so much more important than just you."

Her wand erupts, a killing curse splashing against the wall where my head used to be. It explodes loudly, chunks of stone peppering my back.

Fleur moves in unison, spraying a gout of fire from her palm and torching one of the Aurors, who crumbles to ash before they can so much as scream.

The other Aurors attempt to hold their own, but they're cut down quickly.

Two shots of air between their eyes take care of that, splattering the wall behind them with blood, brain clinging to the stone like a fungus.

Amelia continues to barrage us, but Fleur and I bat the spells away, sending them splashing harmlessly against the floor and ceiling.

"I'm so, so sorry."

I strike her in the chest with the friendliest curse I know, the nearly invisible spell bursting from my wand and seemingly passing right through her.

Her eyes bug out, as if they're attempting to leap out of her skull. She wheezes, collapsing to the floor, a hand clutched to her chest. "What did you do?" she gasps, shoulders quivering.

"Heart attack," I whisper, kneeling in front of her. "Amelia, I- you're going to hate me for what I'm going to do, but I can't let you die."

Amelia's eyes widen as she gasps for breath, fingers splayed against the ground. They roll back in her head, mouth agape as her lungs empty.

I watch her as she dies, how she stares through the ceiling and off into the ether.

I know what she's seeing. The shimmering light of a thousand, glorious suns shining down upon a land so fertile as to make Eden seem like a pale imitation. Creatures of resplendent glory walking across an endless field, voices like a choir seeping into the ground and pulling up yet more, wonderful life.

But a part of her, one small part, vile and furious… that one goes below, to a world where a sea of blood is but the foyer - innumerable faceless corpses bowed and hunched, a legion, empty sockets of stretched, sordid flesh glued to a twisting, kaleidoscopic sky.

"Fuck!" I shout, turning away from her corpse as her final breath simply falls from her lips. No fireworks, just a tired gasp.

"God dammit!"

"We had to."

"You're the one who wanted us to come here. We could have waited, Fleur. Waited until Voldemort showed his face, waited until the Ministry let up. Hell, they may have even hired us as mercenaries. This didn't have to happen!"

"Fudge has to die!" she growls, lips curled in anger. "You know he has to die!"

"But she didn't! We didn't have to do this to her if we just waited!"

"That's bullshit and you know it. This was always going to happen."

"Fuck," I mutter, turning back to Amelia, eyes bloodshot and limbs stretched out across the floor. "It didn't have to be this way."

I reach down, deep into the earth and beyond.

It comes easily to me this time, finding Amelia's soul and dragging it from the ethereal muck.

Black smoke seeps from splintered cracks in the ground, spiderwebs running across the floor and trailing up the walls, piles of rubble and shattered brickwork lying in heaps next to bloodied corpses.

I siphon everything that makes up her out of the void and pour it into her mouth, her lungs shuddering as they fill with her essence.

Amelia lets out a rattling gasp as the light returns to her eyes. She tries to jump to her feet, but stumbles, crashing to the ground with a dull crack.

"Shit," I mumble, picking her back up and running my wand over her elbow.

She hisses as her bone knits back together.

"Why? Why bring me back?"

"Because everything I said about you, about what I'm doing… it's all true." I help her to her feet, her knees weak and legs trembling. "You won't speak of what I just did to you. If anyone asks, you were stunned." I laugh aloud, exhausted. "You can tell them I was being sentimental. You know it's true."

She shudders as the magic courses through her, fighting with everything she has against the immutable bond. "You killed them… you killed my men. You think I'll just let this go?" Her words are laced with fury, expression one of anger so palpable as to leave even me unsettled. "I won't rest until I have your head on a pike."

"No. I know you won't. I don't expect you to let this go, not after what happened here today. I don't want you to let this go." My hands creep towards her neck, the urge to snap it lying deep in my bones.

I pull away. "Tell me where Fudge is hiding."

"With Lucius Malfoy."

Fuck.

"Fuck!" I stomp on the head of one of the aurors, crushing it. "Lucius fucking Malfoy?"

Amelia nods, whether from the compulsion of her resurrection or as an honest reply, seemingly entranced by the way the Aurors blood trickles between the cracks in the stone.

I've never seen someone look so broken.

"I'm going to rip his eyes out and feed them to his fucking wife."

"Helene, that means- "

"I know, Fleur. He's with Voldemort. We're going to kill the both of them. I'm going to string Fudge up in Diagon Alley and let the world see him plead for his life. I'm going to make him talk. I'm going to make him tell the world that he sold this country to a genocidal madman, and he's going to bleed for it."

She grins, terrible and so full of awe. "Fudge is mine, you get Lucius."

I can feel a smile creeping across my own face, something hideous. "For you? Anything."

"Lay down." I set Amelia onto the ground, hand pressed to her chest.

She struggles weakly. "Get your hands off me!" Amelia lunges, biting my hand.

I ignore the pain, the way my blood doesn't even well up around her teeth, stagnant. "You're going to get your Auror force back together, Amelia. You're going to build an army."

"To kill you."

I shake my head. "No. You couldn't even try. Not since I killed you. Not since I brought you back."

She spits in my face. "Go to hell."

"I've been." I smile sadly. "It's beautiful."

Amelia… just looks lost. "What happened to you?"

"A power beyond anyone's imagination. Death. Could you imagine it, Amelia? The being itself, a God so terribly powerful as to shake reality."

She closes her eyes, a tired laugh slipping from her lips. "Death? You're insane."

"I wish I was. I wish I was just a kid in a padded cell and all of this was just a bad dream. Some days I wish I wasn't here at all, that I could just slit my own throat and be done with it." I cradle her head in my hands. "But as much as I wish, it won't happen. I can't do it."

"Do you know what it's like to be chosen by Creation itself, Amelia? Do you understand the gravity of that?" I run one hand over her forehead, sweeping her hair back. "It broke me a long time ago. It just seems I'm now catching up."

"Fuck off."

I smile at her, wand pressed against her head. "Somnus," I whisper, Amelia's eyes fluttering closed.

My jaw clenches as everything comes rushing up.

Killkillkillkillkill-

The voices cry out, beings of shattered dreams and the corpses of long-dead gods, urging and cheering and-

"No."

I pull away, but not before setting her head softly against the ground. She looks calm.

I clutch at Fleur's arm like a lifeline. "We need to go."

Silently, she takes my hand and walks with me from the Ministry, the clothes we wear stretching and sagging as the skins we're wearing shift.

We leap down the empty lift shaft, riding on a cushion of air.

The halls are filled with quiet, fearful murmurs as we step out back into the lobby. The few remaining workers stare at us, at the bits of gore knotted in our hair and blood dripping from our clothes.

Some scream. Some flee, bearing towards the exit like a stampede of frightened animals. Most just shirk away, eyes wide and faces pale.

I spot Arthur Weasley among the crowd. Confused. Frightened. Enraged.

His face is as red as his hair, and I can see his wand tucked against his palm.

We walk past him, and I find myself curious.

No one fights us.

Was this what it was like in the last war? Could Voldemort have walked freely through the halls of the Ministry as long as it's protectors lay broken and maimed?

Were people always this afraid of me?

Arthur raises his hand, the tip of his wand glowing, pointed at my throat.

I throw him aside with but a flick of my wrist, scattering the crowd and sending them running, scampering to safety.

Arthur was always one of the bravest men I knew.

"I'm sorry," I say, unable to bear facing him. "Keep your family safe. Voldemort will come for you, and I may not be there to save them."

We climb into the lift, sun trickling in from above as we raise higher and higher.

Fleur's hand rests along the small of my back. "I'm pent up," she says. Her words float through the air like a hymn, sacred and calming. "Should we find some Death Eaters?"

My fingers scrape against my arm, claws tearing the skin and sinking into knotted, rigid muscle.

I like this hand much better.

"Yes."

That night we frolic within the home of the Nott family, painting the walls with such bright, cheerful reds that I fear my face may split.