CHAPTER 11:

COMING TO TERMS

Ignorance is bliss, so the ignorant say. Still, there are some things where that idiom ring true, and Daniela felt it applied to her death. Her mother, her adoptive mother, spoke about it, but thankfully, amongst the fragmentary memories of her life as a human, she didn't remember that. She was glad that the memories she did have included ones she treasured, and that Henric, despite everything she had done, did not discard her.

After returning from Hogwarts, and allaying the fears of her sisters, she and her mother had a heart-to-heart over a bottle of Sanguis Virginis. While it was true that she resented Alcina for turning her into a monster, in mindset rather than body, she was also grateful to Alcina for reviving her and treating her like her own flesh and blood. You could not fake that level of love, Daniela was sure.

This wasn't to say Daniela had shaken off her violent and delusional impulses. Indeed, she was well aware that she was still more than a little detached from reality, not to mention that her morals had loosened. But she didn't mind. While she would not kill those she considered innocent, not intentionally, anyway, she would gladly torture and feast on those who roused her ire.

Her sisters came to comfort her. They had been told of what happened by the Duke and their mother, or at least the cover story, and while they teased her a little about only going after criminals, they understood. Even Cassandra, massive sadist that she was, understood that. Their bond wasn't so easily sundered. They had spent almost half a century as sisters, it would take a lot more to sunder that bond.

They did ask questions about what they were like as humans, and Daniela answered as best as she could. Both Daniela and Bela had been maids for Alcina, albeit with aspirations to be more, while Cassandra had been the daughter of Alcina's gamekeeper, and had continued in the role after he died, despite many in the village considering such a role to be man's work. Despite the fact that Mother Miranda, the woman they looked up to, was a physician AND a microbiologist specialising in mycology.

Of course, if Cassandra as a human would be told that, in half a century, one of her obsessions outside of torture would be a violent video game, she would have simply stared at them. Admittedly, this was partly because the very concept of a video game was an alien one in the 1940s, with the first such games only being conceived in the next decade. And if she could see gameplay of Mortal Kombat, she'd simply be bemused.

The modern Cassandra, however, was having the time of her life.

"GET OVER HERE!" she roared in near-sync with the yellow-clad ninja as he hurled a harpoon at his foe and reeled him in. She grinned as a prompt showed up, demanding that she 'Finish Him', and input the right combo. Scorpion whipped off his cowl and mask to reveal a skull, which then breathed fire on his opponent. "Fatality," she intoned in time with the announcer. "I win, because I'm awesome."

Bela, sitting in a corner of their living room, sketching something on her notepad as she consulted a Polaroid, rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, Cassandra. And I'm sure if you fought Sub Zero in real life, you wouldn't get slaughtered due to your vulnerability to the cold."

"Sub Zero never fought one of us before," Cassandra scoffed. "Besides, if I fought him, I wouldn't face him in open combat. I'd take him by surprise."

"He's a ninja," Daniela pointed out. "Aren't ninja meant to be stealthy? I'm sure they'd realise someone was sneaking up on them."

"He's wearing sky-blue clothing," Cassandra said as she returned to playing her game. "He's a pretty conspicuous ninja."

"Not as conspicuous as Scorpion," Bela pointed out. "Canary yellow? Really?"

Cassandra huffed, but returned to playing her game on the arcade machine the Duke had provided. Daniela, meanwhile, went over to Bela, looking at her sketch. It, and the photo it was based on, was of House Beneviento and the waterfall near it. She felt a pang, remembering that as her favourite picnic spot with Henric Stan. "When did you get this photo?"

"Aunt Donna sent it over with Angie," Bela said. They spoke in other languages at times to practise ones other than their native Romanian. English was more common, but Hungarian, Russian, Italian, French and German were also spoken in the Dimitrescu stronghold. And Donna Beneviento, despite her main hobby being creating dolls, had proven to be an excellent amateur photographer, who provided Bela with photos of landscapes in and around Cioarăfsat, especially when it was too cold for Bela to venture forth herself. Bela fancied herself an artist, and while her works would never get into the Louvre, they were quite good.

"It's rather nice," Daniela mused. "Can I have the painting once you're done?"

"Sure. I usually sell them through the Duke anyway, unless one catches the eye of Mother Miranda or one of the Four Lords," Bela said. She looked up from her sketch and smiled. "You're all right, Dani?"

"Yeah, as good as I can be. I'll be honest, being near a Dementor is not an experience I can recommend. I'm surprised the wizards can even put up with them patrolling Hogsmeade. Plus, I'm still coming to terms with…well, you know."

Cassandra snarled as she lost a battle, and turned away from the arcade machine with a huff. She had to keep her temper after breaking the Street Fighter II arcade machine in frustration not so long ago. "Wizards are inbred retarded man-things, Dani. Science fact. Why else would they allow a bunch of soul-sucking demons be the wardens of their prison? They're either sadistic in a way that makes me pause for thought, and you know that's something, or else they're stupid. I personally think it's stupidity, from inbreeding. And their stupidity nearly got you killed. I've half a mind to go on a very enthusiastic walk through Hogsmeade to make my displeasure known, but unlike the wizards, I'm not stupid enough to tangle with something like a fucking Dementor."

"That's a good idea, Cassandra," Daniela said with a shudder. "I don't recommend the experience, even if it got you your memories back."

"Yeah, well…honestly, I'm fine with being the way I am, Dani," Cassandra said wistfully. "I honestly don't care that much about what I was like as a human. I can count the amount of people I give a damn about on my hands and have more than enough fingers left over for rude gestures. Two of them are in this room. The rest…" Cassandra shook her head dismissively.

"As for me…I will admit I am curious about what I was like before the Cadou," Bela admitted. "But I'm not sure whether that'd work out. Besides, if the only way to regain my memories is being mind-raped by a Dementor…well, it's something I'd want to avoid."

Daniela shuddered once more in remembrance. "Believe me, that's smart. I want to wash out my brain after all that with a nice shower, preferably of some vicious man-thing's blood. Don't get me wrong, I'm still doing those little trips with the Duke, he's just going to ensure I go nowhere near a Dementor again."

"The Dementors are only hanging around Hogsmeade because of that escaped fugitive, right? Sirius Black? God, who names these people?" Cassandra snorted.

Daniela shrugged as she relayed something the Duke told her. "They have a family tradition of naming family members after stars. His full name is Sirius Orion Black, apparently, and he had a brother called Regulus Arcturus. Probably wanted to spice up their names with a last name as boring as 'Black'."

Both Cassandra and Bela giggled at her snark. And it reminded her, even if they were bloodthirsty monsters, they were still her sisters, bound by bonds of love and time rather than genes. She still loved them, even if she had changed. It hurt her to keep those secrets from them, though…


Heisenberg visited later that day, nominally to meet his favourite (and only) honorary nieces. In truth, he came because he had heard, through the Duke, about what happened to Daniela. He'd managed to get Daniela alone while Alcina distracted the other two.

"So, kiddo, you've regained your memories? You managed to come to terms with that shit PDQ," Heisenberg said.

"…I'm still coming to terms with it, Uncle Karl," she admitted. "But he didn't push me away. Henric, I mean."

"And that's good. I knew there was something of the old you left in there. But I didn't know how to draw it out. Then again, using a Dementor would have been a bit much. I've had the displeasure of encountering them before."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I go on sojourns outside this village on occasion, looking for interesting machines and stuff, or else going on holiday. During one such trip, I was struck by a desire to visit Belarus. This was back in the Sixties, during the Cold War."

"Why Belarus?"

"Well, one of the reasons was because I had heard about the Katyn Forest Massacre," the magnetism manipulating machinist said. "The Nazis blamed the Soviets, the Soviets blamed the Nazis, all we knew at the time is that a whole bunch of Polish officers and intellectuals got wiped out. The Russians only owned up recently. 22,000 people, murdered on the orders of the NKVD. I doubt even Miranda and the Four Lords together have killed anywhere near that many. Honestly, I was curious to see stuff for myself. But I encountered some Russian warlock near Katyn Forest who was amassing an army, which included Dementors. Dementors scare the ever-loving fuck out of me. Oh, he also raised zombies from the many, many corpses of the Polish killed there, and that apparently was a major mess for the ICW to clean up. I feared very little from that clusterfuck…save for the Dementors. That aura of theirs, not to mention the fact that they can fucking eat souls…" He shuddered.

"So, how did you beat them?"

"Well, Daniela, I may have been depressed as fuck thanks to those freaks, but I still had my powers, and I'd brought along a lot of metallic shit. It's supposedly impossible to kill a Dementor normally, whether it be spells or bullets…but I made a lot of metal go through them at speeds sound would envy, like grapeshot from a cannon, or a literal blizzard of metal. The funny thing is, I took the scraps of Dementor left over and had a wee look at them. Actually, I should've brought this up with your paramour, but it slipped my mind."

"And what is that?"

"…Well, I did some analyses of the remnants of the Dementors…and I think they're Mutamycete mutants. They have traces of shit you only really see in those infected by the Mutamycete. I never really put much store into it. That being said, next time you meet your squeeze, you can bring it to his attention. He'd probably be interested to know."

"…You retained consciousness while fighting the Dementors, didn't you, Uncle Karl?" On his nod, she said, "I wonder why Harry and I didn't."

"It's probably as simple as the pair of you having more traumatic lives," Heisenberg said. "Dementors disinter your worst memories, and while I have to say being Miranda's dogsbody isn't fun, and I've seen a lot of shit, you two probably were vulnerable because of more acute trauma in your lives. I'm only speculating, obviously. Dunno what it really is." His face fell. "Daniela…kiddo…for fuck's sake, try to avoid the Dementors. Your mother and I aren't on the best of terms, but…we both care for you."

"I know, Uncle Karl. I just…I wish I could confide in my sisters about it. But I know that if I do, there's a chance Mother Miranda could catch a whiff. Uncle Karl…why did she demean his memory, and then try to wipe it out?"

"…Because he was a threat to her, I think. Henric had been infected with the Mutamycete as long as Miranda had been, and from a younger age too. And where she had been obsessed with using the Megamycete to revive Eva, he wished to use it for the benefit of humanity. You probably know enough about this already from your memories. Don't get me wrong, Miranda did care for Henric. But as he grew up, and their opinions differed, what love they had turned to antipathy. Henric simply did not care about Miranda's authority or power. He wouldn't have usurped her unless she really gave him cause to, but I think she feared that happening nonetheless, and Grindlewald coming here was something she took advantage of. With Henric dead, and branded a traitor, it increased her power, removed a potential threat to it. Oh, don't get me wrong. You, me, your mother, we're threats to her too, but Henric had decades of experience with the Mutamycete over us at the time, and he wasn't as subservient to her will. He undermined her, even if it was only because of his qualms."

Daniela scowled, until a thought hit her. "He was her nephew…so…if she ever got Eva back, how would she treat her?"

"Fucked if I know, kiddo," Heisenberg said. "But whatever heart Miranda had, she lost it long ago. Eva's death only started the process. I think the obsession with getting her back at all costs wore the rest of it away. Maybe it was the Mutamycete. Or maybe it was just her own obsession eating up her soul. It's not like I can talk. My empathy's worn down to a bloody stub. I honestly don't give a fuck about the villagers. I only care about a few people. That, and my own freedom. Oh, I restrict my experiments to the dead, but…" He shrugged.

"…I'm going to try and only feed on criminals and the like now. I'm sure my sisters will tease me, but Mother understands," Daniela said.

"I'm glad she does. Alcina and I, we butt heads all the time. But sometimes, I feel like we're the only sane people in this fucking place. Moreau is too childish, and Donna…God, I feel sorry for her, cooping herself up with Angie and the rest of her psycho dolls. And Miranda…all we are are guinea pigs and useful puppets to her." Heisenberg met her gaze, and gave her a sad smile. "So, I hope you find your happiness with him, with Henric, well, Harry. You deserve it, Daniela. Not many people get a second chance like this. Both you and Henric were reborn. The world is a shitty and dark place, but sometimes, life shows that there's a wee bit of light, even in the darkest times."

"…Thanks, Uncle Karl. And I think it'll work out. If he can accept me for what I was, and what I am now…then that's all that matters."

"I know, kiddo. I know…"

CHAPTER 11 ANNOTATIONS:

Some more from Daniela's POV. Keep in mind, Daniela is less delusional now that she's regained her memories, but she will still have her moments. When she puts her mind to it, she can be quite serious, but at other times, she is, if not quite as detached from reality as her canon self, then capable of somewhat childish and even bizarre notions.

I also wanted to show something more of the sisters and their relationships. For all that Daniela is keeping many secrets from them, they still have a fairly strong bond, and I think that, given time, they can be trusted with the secret of Henric/Harry. I also wanted to show what hobbies differentiated them, aside from tormenting and torturing their servants.

Review-answering time! edboy4926: The Potterverse, of course. I'll consider other possible crossovers at a later date.

WhiteElfElder: Why? On Harry's part, he can change into his adult form, and as that technically is his default form, there's little squick. On Daniela's…well, I reckon the insects that make her up simply transform into bodily tissue rather than merely mimicking it. It's disturbing and twisted, yes, but I'm not sure any brain bleach is needed. Besides, their relationship won't get that physical yet: they're only really progressing to second base by this point.

Itharax: It's very simple: I try to write at least 8 chapters or about 20K words before I post a fic. In fact, I finished the next chapter before I posted this fic. That's why you're getting a blizzard of chapters now.

Skull Flame: It only worked with Daniela because of the similar circumstances with Harry. Exposure to Dementors doesn't normally cause such a thing.

Hellraptor: She's still coming to terms with it, and she doesn't have all her memories back yet (nor does she particularly want to, considering one of them is of her rape and murder), but she's managed to adjust to her new existence fairly quickly. Daniela has accepted what she is. As for who the Duke is, well, wait and see.

Lucius Walker: Resident Evil: Village is filled with fascinating and intriguing characters, and the Duke is one of them. He's a delight to write.

No numbered annotations this time.