I'm glad so many of you liked the twist last chapter about Jen and Dora. I was worried how that was going to go over. And if you're concerned this means Jen is now going to turn around and become this sweet, selfless, Harry-like character… well, this chapter is for you!


Chapter 23
In Love with Your Carnage

A curious clack-clack-ing noise came from the other side of the door, and Andi peered at the sheet of wood in confusion. She knew what that sound was, of course; how could she not when Ted loved playing billiards as much as he did? No, what was so strange was the fact that no one should be here at this time of day. Ted, the most likely suspect, she had seen Floo to work. Sirius was off at the Ministry, fulfilling his obligations as a part-time combat instructor for the Auror and Hit Wizard cadets, and with nothing of immediate import pending in the Wizengamot, Cissy had taken the morning to visit with some friends of hers and then planned to spend the afternoon being pampered. Dora had made some vague comments about needing to look up some things for work, a habit she had whenever she wanted to talk about a case that she was forbidden from talking about. With it being a Thursday, Jen was at Hogwarts. And she was on the wrong side of the door for it to be her.

Well, she supposed it could be Kreacher, but why a house-elf would want to play billiards she hadn't a clue.

Shrugging her shoulders, she pushed open the door. It was not as if she were in any danger; with the wards as tight as they were, it could only be one of them, and the only member of the family she had any reason to fear was explicitly barred from entering the house. Her lips pursed. "Aren't you supposed to be at school?"

A shake of her head was all the answer Andi received. Jen looked down the length of the cue and took another shot. Only once the balls had stopped ricocheting did the girl speak. "I don't have class this morning."

Oh, it physical hurt to listen to her adopted niece's rasp! Jen had always had a nice voice, and though she did not often sing, they had on very rare occasions walked in on her when she had the wireless playing and was too preoccupied with whatever else she was doing to realize they could hear her singing along. The attack by her mysterious stalker had changed all that. For the first few days, Jen had only been able to croak a word or two at a time, and Madam Pomfrey had been legitimately worried that that was all she would ever be able to do, that the poison had mangled the nerves in her throat beyond all hopes of repair. Then she had begun becoming more fluid in her speech, saying more words at a time before she had to stop to let her voice recover. The school nurse could only guess that, being a Black, Jen had enough metamorph in her that she was subconsciously reversing the damage done. It was not a guarantee of a full recovery, but it was certainly a promising sign.

Or Jen's voice was returning because its owner had some way of healing nerve damage that no one knew about and was just taking it slow so no one found out about it. It was harder to believe than the metamorph theory, but it did fit better with the expression of resigned disgust that sometimes flitted over her face when she had to talk.

"So you decided to come here and shoot pool?"

"It was something to do." Another shot, and this time the cue ball glanced off the one she had presumably aimed at. Of all the Blacks, Cissy was probably the only one who was worse at the game. "And it was quiet. Needed time to think."

"Think about what?" Now her curiosity was piqued. Jen's words had been quiet, preoccupied, as if she were already only halfway focusing on the conversation and instead had returned to her previous concerns. "It wasn't about your stalker, was it? You know you should just leave that to us—"

"And I plan to. Aunt Cissy might make him suffer more than I would."

"So if it wasn't him," she wondered aloud, "what were you thinking about?"

A ball thumped heavily into the side pocket. Jen did not straighten from her shooting position, instead staying bent at the waist and looking at the hole as if wondering if she could jump into it and hide. Finally, though, she stood, still pointedly not looking at the older witch. "What if…." She trailed off, and more than a minute passed in silence before she spoke again. "What would you have done if sixteen-year-old-you had seen the kind of person you were becoming and decided you didn't want to be her, after all?"

"Are you talking about Bella's… instability?" The girl said nothing, which was as good as a confirmation. It was also clearly something she needed to talk about but did not want to talk about, which was probably the reason she was behaving so skittishly about the topic. "I never told you how Ted and I got together, did I?"

Jen shook her head.

Andi walked around the table to stand next to her niece. "But you must have wondered why my beliefs are so different from Cissy's, and especially Bella's."

"You once said that Walburga encouraged Bellatrix's more violent tendencies, if I remember right."

"You do. That is not to say that my parents disagreed with her opinions themselves, just how she chose to express them. They viewed Muggles much the way Cissy does, as soulless things so far below them as not to be of interest rather than as threats to be destroyed by any means necessary, and Muggleborns as people, but only barely worthy of the name. I…" She grimaced. "…thought much the same, once upon a time. How could I not, raised as I was? I did not have a rebellious older cousin to emulate the way Sirius did, even if he originally regarded me so highly because I was the 'fun cousin' and he was already turning into an incorrigible mischief-maker. And that I had nothing to do with, I'll have you know.

"But Sirius's behavior is not the point. I was sorted into Slytherin, just as Bellatrix was two years beforehand and as Narcissa would be two years later. I was a Pureblood, a Black, and I found myself right at home in the Snake Pit. I did not share the violent view some of my fellows did, but that did not mean I condemned them on moral grounds. Actually, as the years progressed, I found the one person who could have pushed me into agreeing with them that Muggleborns were a plague that needed to be wiped out."

"I know where this is going," Jen said with a scratchy chuckle. "Theodore Tonks, right?"

"Ha! No." Jen looked at her in confusion. "If Ted had behaved that way, I would have transfigured him into a mouse and sold him as a pet before I ever considered going on a date with him. No, it was a different Muggleborn, one named Andrew Shelton. In the late sixties, You-Know-Who was around, people knew about him, and he was gathering support. The war hadn't truly started, but there were already rumors of attacks on Muggles, and, of course, there had been strong anti-Muggleborn sentiment for many, many decades. Shelton was a supporter of a group that called themselves New Wizardkind, who encouraged Muggleborns to stand up for themselves against the discrimination they faced. An admirable purpose, to be sure, except for the fact that rather than limiting themselves to fighting back against blood purists, they vented their anger on Purebloods in general, even those who had done nothing to them and didn't care one way or another. In many ways, they were exactly the same as the forming Death Eaters. The only Purebloods safe from their attentions were those who loudly proclaimed their support for Muggles and Muggle life.

"Ted was not a member of New Wizardkind himself, but he was friends with Shelton, and it meant that he was often nearby whenever a fight broke out. I, being a Black, was one of their targets, and I also knew enough curses to make them regret coming after me. Several other Purebloods, purists and innocent victims both, jumped in on my side, and Ted felt honor-bound to help his friend when the numbers changed to favor us. That was when the staff finally got involved, and everyone got detentions. Since the numbers were almost even, Dumbledore had the bright idea of pairing up Purebloods and Muggleborns. Ted and I were put together scrubbing cauldrons.

"It did not go well. We soon started yelling, and ironically, we eventually wound up hurling the same accusations at each other. Neither of us had taken part in our side's respective bullying, but neither had we spoken up against it. We just stood by and let it happen.

"In another world, that might have been the end of it," she said thoughtfully, "but the Sorting Hat had considered me for Ravenclaw before putting me with the Snakes, and Ted was a Raven. We both wondered what it meant that our groups could behave so similarly when they were diametrically opposed. We started having small, hurried conversations in the library, taking great care not to be seen consorting with the 'enemy', and both of us slowly began to see the issues with new eyes. He saw that the strange customs that Muggleborns view as backwards have reasons for why they are the way they are. They might not be good reasons or reasons he agrees with, but the same can be said about the oddities of Muggle culture. I, meanwhile, saw that there were no inherent differences between Muggleborns and Purebloods, only the societies in which we were raised. Our meetings became amicable as time went by, and in the course of that, we became friends. Prejudice, after all, can only stand so long as you see the other side as strange and scary. Take that away, and you discover that there are always far more similarities than there are differences.

"Inevitably, our friendship came to light, and both of us were cast away by our previous friends. It was not the end of the world, though, and we found other Purebloods and Muggleborns and Halfbloods who disdained the militant stance of both sides." Andi shrugged. "We started dating at the end of our sixth year, and married not quite two years after our graduation. And the rest is history."

That was not to say it ended well for everyone, though, she thought to herself. When the Death Eaters truly did start openly attacking Muggles and Muggleborns, New Wizardkind had struck back, seeing this as proof of their own prejudices. Shelton, along with the rest of the group, had been murdered when You-Know-Who personally attacked one of their rallies.

"That's a nice story," Jen said, her lost expression making it clear how little she thought it applied to her question.

"It is now, but it wasn't then. I had a choice to make once I realized how much nonsense blood purity was. I could take the easy road: forget all that I had learned, stick to how I had been raised, and become a witch just like my mother." Now her niece understood where she was going with this. "Or, I could do what I knew was right, regardless of how much it hurt at the time."

Turning to look at her, Jen softly whispered, "I don't think our situations are quite the same. You had a choice in the matter. Changing your opinions and your actions didn't require changing who you were."

"No, it didn't. But I can't give you any better advice unless I know what has made you so worried."

Silence blanketed them for a time, Jen visibly wrestling with what to say.

"Hypothetically," began Jen, "let's say I'm going to a Muggle dance club, minding my own business, when someone dressed like a Death Eater throws a curse at me. I don't take too kindly to it, so I run after him, fully intent on making him pay for trying to kill me. A Muggle cop shows up and tries to stop me, not knowing what is going on. I don't want to hurt her, but I know that hurting her will best serve my interests. Not only do I have to deal with the Death Eater, there will be consequences should I let her go now that she knows my face."

"The simplest answer is that you shouldn't have chased after the Death Eater to begin with, you know. Leave him to the Aurors." Oh, Andi hoped this truly was an analogy for whatever really happened. Anything would be less dangerous than Jen chasing down a remorseless killer!

"No, it wasn't. Just letting him go so he can try again? That isn't the kind of person I am." The younger witch sighed. "And I like who am, even the bad parts. So I have a vicious streak. I'm fine with that. I don't let people get away with trying to hurt or kill me or mine, and I repay violence tenfold upon them. I'm fine with that, too. I do whatever's necessary to get what I want, no matter what other people might think about it. I'm fine with it. Except this time. Bellatrix would have done it without a moment's hesitation, I'm sure of it, but she's a monster, and I don't want to be like her. But what choice do I have when we're already so much alike? How can I avoid becoming her yet keep the traits we share that I like?"

Laying her arm over the girl's shoulder, she pulled her niece close. In all honesty, it could be much worse. She was halfway expecting a tale of cruelty and horror, hints that Bellatrix's madness was beginning to overtake Jen. Not that it would change anything. She and Cissy had discussed that possibility shortly after performing the blood adoption, when the enthusiasm began to wear off and the consequences came to mind, and they had agreed that it would be their responsibility to fix whatever problems arose. They were the ones who made her potential insanity possible, so it was they who had to be held accountable.

In that light, Jen only being a vicious, violent ball of angst was infinitely preferable.

"Nature isn't the only thing that determines who you become," she answered. "Your choices matter, too. Bella has problems, I won't deny that, but she also made choices that led to her becoming who she is. If you don't want to become like her, you don't have to. Make different choices. Honestly, you already have. She had a talent for dark magic, and she wanted to apply her talents to killing Muggleborns. You plan to use them as an Unspeakable, to study the world rather than to destroy. If you do that, you can't follow in Bella's footsteps."

Jen tilted her head. "Be a supporter rather than a killer," she muttered, understanding audible in her voice. "That… should be possible. Elsie toujou voye je l' sou yo, men lè sa a ankò, gade sa ki te pase l' nan fen an. Li ta ka oke ak sa."

"I have no clue what you just said."

"It's nothing. Don't worry about it." Turning in Andi's arms, Jen gave her a hug and a smile. "Thank you, Auntie. That really is good advice."

"You're welcome?" Why did she get the feeling she was missing something important?


"And… there." Scribbling one last number, Jen pulled away from the chalkboard in her locked – and for this research, warded – pseudo-laboratory. The expression sprawled out across multiple boards, trails of characters and variables splitting off and twisting back on themselves in a way that hinted at three-dimensionality. Yes, it was a sloppy trick, nothing at all like the pristinely organized formulae found in arithmancy books, and she had intentionally left intact terms that should cancel out in the final product, but she would worry about cleaning it all up once she was sure the thing actually worked. Until then, if she needed to twist everything around so the formula would emulate the structure of the spell, so be it. It was not as if anyone else had ever succeeded in this, after all!

It was high time she dusted off this semi-abandoned experiment. She had wanted to describe and modify the Patronus Charm for a year and a half now, but the spell was so complicated that she had never gotten anywhere with it. Worse, each time she tried to cast it, she had to force her blackened magic to become light, which…. Well, the pain was yet another reason she had finally given up. She had put the problem out of her mind for many months to focus on the hunt for the Turk and her classes, and it was not until a few days previously that she flipped through some of her old notes and found a hastily written idea: convince someone to cast the Patronus in front of her so she could examine the structure.

The Buckleys had been even nicer than that. Not only had they shown her the spell, they had also forced her to create a counter to it on the fly. A counter spell that targeted the neutral aspect of the spell, specifically, the one part she could feel and work with. Rather than cut out the pieces she couldn't use, she had all the information about the core she needed to cast the blasted thing and have it remain stable. Without the light magic portions, she was a step closer to making a spell she and other black mages could cast, one far more destructive than the original.

First, though, she had to test it and make sure she got it right.

She moved slowly, deliberately twisting her powers into the spiraling cage that made up the backbone of both the spell and the totemic creature it created. Steel-grey smoke flowed from her hands, and barely had she finished weaving the end before the spell distorted. Four tendrils punched out and turned into smoky legs, and the far end blunted before sprouting a head. The tail that slipped through her outstretched hand felt like a gentle breeze.

Looking at the form of her Patronus, she could not hold back her smile. Oh, that was appropriate. She had always heard that Patroni represented their casters' characters, but she had not realized hers would be so magnificent, nor that it would speak so strongly to her. Kneeling on the stone floor, she wrapped her arms around its neck and nuzzled its smoky form, a gentle pressure keeping her from falling through it.

"You are going to be so deadly when I finish you," she whispered, giving the beast one final squeeze before letting the spell dissipate. That was the hardest part, recreating the shape. Now it got easier, and a lot more fun.

Snatching the piece of chalk off the copy of the Daily Prophet she had brought with her, mostly so she could read more deeply into an article about Lucius Malfoy passing away from a protracted illness, she copied the equation for another spell she had long since defined, one of her specialties. She almost felt sorry for whatever Dementor found itself facing this curse when she was through.

Almost.


The clouds floating above Edinburgh were dark and angry, promising a downpour in the very near future. It was one reason Jen was walking through the shopping district with only Tracey by her side; given the choice between being stuck walking through the rain or being warm and dry in the castle, she would choose the latter nine times out of ten. That meant her large group of friends had split up to take care of their own errands, and she was the only one running low on parchment and ink.

The other reason was because she really wanted to spend some time alone with her best friend. Her everyday life was a tangle of lies and misdirections, and nobody, not even her friends or family, had enough pieces to put everything together and see the real picture. That said, Tracey had more pieces than most, and her darkest friend was one of the few whom she felt she could trust with some of her more disturbing secrets. Tracey and Sirius and Cissy.

"I'm not saying it's impossible," the other heiress said. "I just don't think it makes sense. Before, if this was Lucius? Sure. He was an evil creep, but he knew how to play politics. I could see him making overtures to the Neutral Houses. But Malfoy the younger? Not a chance. He's always been too upfront, too blunt, about how much he looks down on everybody who isn't Dark. And he still is; you could tell just listening to him that he's plotting something and thought we would make good patsies or something. It's why nobody took him up on his offer." Tracey shook her head. "I would just feel a lot better if I knew what he was planning."

"Knowing him, I doubt it's anything good. I doubt we need to worry about it, though. Odds are he'll soon squander whatever favors Lucius had saved up, and then House Malfoy will go the way of Kennewick or Mitchell. Still part of the Wizengamot, just a family that has negligible influence over the whole."

"Maybe." A nasty smile lit up Tracey's face. "Hey, isn't your aunt still technically a Malfoy? She might be able to petition for its absorption into House Black."

Jen shook her head. "No, she can't. Not anymore. Malfoy couldn't cast her out of the family, not when it would also remove him from his new position as Head because he is her son, but he could and did dissolve her marriage to Lucius. Said that by seeking asylum with us, she had abandoned her marital duties as laid out in the contract." Cissy had, understandably, been distraught when she found out about that. From what she said, losing all rights to her son had been her sole reason for not annulling her marriage after she escaped Voldemort's clutches almost two years ago, and now to learn that her caution was all for naught? That had almost crushed her.

"Damn. That sucks."

"Oh, Tracey. You have such a way with words sometimes."

Her friend blew off her mocking retort with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Pfft. You know what I mean. Always figured him to be an ungrateful little bastard. What I want to know is…." Eyes looking over Jen's suddenly widened. "Jen! Watch—"

The world turned black.


Ugh. Blinking her eyes to clear out the gunk that filled them, Jen let her sonar spread out as far as it could. Since this was neither Hogwarts nor Grimmauld Place, that meant a paltry ten feet. Note to self: figure out how to expand my sonar no matter where I am.

That was not to say her short range told her nothing. She knew she was tied to a chair, ropes binding her wrists and ankles to the wood. She knew she was positioned next to a set of mirrors on top of a tiny dais. And she knew she no longer wore the casual clothes she had chosen for Edinburgh but instead a billowing white dress that left her shoulders bare, along with a gauzy veil that was currently swept back away from her face.

Yeah, this guy, whoever he was, had signed his death warrant.

The sound of a shower cut off somewhere above her, and she watched the stairs with cruel anticipation. Soon enough, the stairs began to creak as someone descended. A pudgy man wearing an old-fashioned dress robe turned the corner, and his eyes lit up when he saw her glaring at her. "You're awake! Wonderful! I was getting worried. I didn't think you would sleep this long."

"Who the hell are you?"

The wizard's doughy face melted at her question. "Who… am I? My sweet Jennifer, why would you say something like that? It's me. Jacob."

"Jacob." The name, along with the man's face, finally triggered the relevant memory. The Solstice Ball they had hosted the year before. "Jacob Callahan?"

He smiled at her. She, on the other hand, was still fairly confused. She had had all of, what, one conversation with Lord Callahan? And that had not even been important, just an excuse to ignore the Potters when they showed up at Black Manor for the Ball. He had spent most of that time talking about his company…. "The poison. It was entirely nonmagical. That's how you got ahold of it, isn't it? Through your little import deals with the Muggles."

A sheepish shrug was his answer. "Work in a business like that long enough, and eventually you meet unsavory individuals. I was surprised you survived."

"And I hoped you had already offed yourself." She bared her teeth in a feral facsimile of a smile. "Looks like neither of us got what we wanted."

"Had you passed through the Veil, I would have joined you," he protested. "But I wanted to be sure that we went together. I wouldn't leave you here like that, alone without me."

It was official. This bloke was completely round the bend. "What did you do to Tracey?"

"Your friend?" She nodded, her expression hard. If this dead fool had hurt her best friend…. "She is safe, don't worry about that. I just stunned her and tucked her away in an alcove. She should already be awake. This journey we are on is just for us, darling."

Darling? Yuck. Still, there was one bright spot in all this: it was just the two of them. He had no support, no hostages with which to threaten her. "I suppose I have you to thank for dressing me like some blushing bride, then? How long did you spend just feeling me up?"

"I would never!" So trying to kill her was okay, but the idea of groping her disgusted him? "It's transfigured. I wouldn't dare do anything to defile your purity, my lovely Jennifer. You have to believe me."

"Defile my purity?" The snicker that escaped soon morphed into a long, loud cackle. "You're a decade too late for that, Callahan! I've shagged every man and woman I wanted since I was seven years old! There isn't a sex act you can think of that I don't have more experience in than you."

"That's a lie! An awful lie!" her stalker screamed, staggering towards her. "I know you, my Jennifer! You would never—!"

"Know me? Ha!" Flipping her hair behind her, she boasted, "Even this, the whole tied up and helpless routine? Been there, done that, bored already. The guys who wanted this were all just like you, Callahan: unimaginative creeps, but at least they paid me well for my time. Tell me, are we going straight to the forceful fucking, or did you want me to beg and plead for mercy a little first?"

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Callahan was close enough now, and he was so focused on her face that he could not see the ropes tying her to the chair vanish. She jumped to her feet, grabbed the nearest weapon, and swung with all her strength. The chair slammed into his head and knocked him to the ground. "By the way," she said, hitting him again when he tried to push himself to his knees, "you forgot to set up a safeword. Guess we'll just have to use my regular one."

"Jennifer, please—"

"EHHHHNN! Good guess, but wrong." The flimsy chair broke when she hit him around the shoulders a third time, so she tossed the pieces away in disgust and conjured a titanium club. Which she promptly swung at his face. "Too bad. I actually might have let you go if you got it right. It was Mordecai, in case you were wondering."

Callahan's wand was in his hand, and then it wasn't. Or, more accurately, the wand and the hand both exploded before he could try to point it at her. "Too slow, old man." A snap of her fingers flipped him over, and she raised the rod above her head, the end reforming into a sharp point. This felt deliciously similar to the time she murdered That Bastard; her atop her attacker, ready to stab him in the heart in righteous vengeance.

Wait. This… this was all wrong. This man had attacked her and her best friend, kidnapped her, tried to murder her, and she was going to kill him out of hand? Stab and die, just like that? No. No, no, no. That wouldn't do at all.

She had a better idea.

"It's your lucky day, dear Jacob. Maybe I do need a man like you around, after all." His face paled to a ghostly shade when he saw the evil glint in her eyes. "You're going to help me with a little project."


Creole Corner: Elsie always looked down on them, but then again, look what happened to her in the end. He might be okay with that.

I only showed Callahan on screen once, though I also mentioned him early on in this book; he was one of the wizards Sirius thought had sent a marriage proposal because it was expected of him but not because he was actually interested. If you didn't figure it out before now, that's fine. You honestly weren't supposed to know who he was, and I was careful not to foreshadow anything. Many stalkers are people their victims have met only a couple of times at most, and I wanted that to be equally true here.

Silently Watches out.