Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of its locations/characters.
Should probably point out that in this story, Delphini Riddle doesn't exist.
2nd May, 1998 AD - Great Hall, Hogwarts
Bellatrix swore as she ducked under a stray Stunner, before pirouetting gracefully and firing back an Entrail-Expelling Curse, giggling maniacally as the boy fell to the ground screaming. He looked young, no older than 16 and wore a camera around his neck. She debated internally whether she should finish him off, but decided it would be more amusing to let him bleed out on the floor, watching on helplessly as his comrades fell around him.
Her eyes were drawn to the Dark Lord, effortlessly duelling against McGonagall, Shacklebolt and Slughorn simultaneously. Spells flew from the end of his wand faster than she could count, the air around him seeming to shimmer from the raw power he was radiating. It was like a dance, with not a single wasted movement as he effortlessly switched between defence and offence. A single swipe of his wand tore out the throats of McGonagall's transfigured wolves before raising them again as viscous Inferi and sending them back at the witch that had created them.
She was briefly reminded of the time Aunt Walburga had portkeyed her and her sisters to a theatre in the magical district of Moscow when they were young girls. There they had watched the world-famous, magical ballerina Ivanova Levski seemingly float around the stage; the graceful movement of her feet seeming just as magical as the beautiful, flowing ribbons of light she was conjuring with her wand. For the next few months, both her and Narcissa had decided that they too wanted to tour Europe as magical ballerinas, ignoring Andromeda's claims that all three of them had inherited their mother's chubby thighs and so such dreams were ridiculous.
She was pulled out of her thoughts as the wailing body of Walden Macnair sailed over her head before hitting the wall with a sickening thud, having apparently been thrown by that half-breed, oaf Hagrid. Merlin knows why they hadn't just killed the brute when he was captured, but apparently her master had wanted to torment him further. As far as she could make out, it had something to do with their time at Hogwarts together and an acromantula. Therefore, that apparently meant that Hagrid had to be kept alive to carry Potter's body back to Hogwarts and now here he was tossing Death Eaters around like they were garden gnomes. She wasn't particularly upset about what happened to Macnair - she knew many considered her to be insane, but at least she didn't get her rocks off beheading various animals - it was more the fact that the Dark Lord's seemingly endless need to monologue and grandstand had once again landed them in trouble.
A small frown marred her face as she considered the situation they were in. It seemed that her master had rather misjudged the blood-traitors' response to Potter's death. Rather than dispiriting them, they seemed to be galvanised, perfectly content to make their final stand and die in battle rather than find their place in her Lord's new order. She sighed, thinking of all the magical blood that she, her fellow Death Eaters and their master would have to spill before the battle's conclusion.
She turned her attention away from her internal musings and zeroed in on her next victims. There were three of them - the youngest Weasley bitch, the Lovegood girl that had been imprisoned at Malfoy Manor and Potter's favourite mudblood, Granger. Her eyes narrowed as the three walked towards her nervously, none willing to cast the first spell. She recalled that these three had all fought alongside Potter at that debacle in the Department of Mysteries, meaning that these three weren't your average Hogwarts student but rather had received a decent level of magical training - likely from Potter, or even Dumbledore before his death.
"Mucus ad Nauseam! " cried Lovegood, starting off proceedings. Bellatrix rolled her eyes as she simply side-stepped the sickly yellow beam. The Curse of the Bogies? Was this girl taking the piss?
Fortunately, Bellatrix did not have too long to ponder this, as Granger had conjured a rather impressive flock of yellow canaries that were currently heading straight for her. With a sharp, downwards slash of her wand, Bellatrix incinerated the birds in a wave of purple flames.
Deciding that she had been on the defensive long enough, Bellatrix unleashed a flurry of dangerous curses at the three girls. Curses that severed limbs, curses that broke bones, curses that gouged out flesh. Granger and Lovegood both brought up strong shields covering the trio, whilst Weasley fired two magical ropes back at Bellatrix in an attempt to neutralise her. Calmly watching the ropes sailing towards her, Bellatrix brought up her wand and instantaneously transfigured them both into vipers before banishing them back towards the girls.
Lovegood screamed and staggered off to the side, dropping her wand as she desperately tried to claw at the viper that had attached itself around her throat. Granger had dealt with the second viper, a well-placed Diffindo separating its head from its body, and now ran over to assist Lovegood, leaving Weasley to face off against Bellatrix alone.
Bellatrix stalked towards her victim, a sickly smile appearing on her face as she recognised the look in Weasley's eyes now that she was duelling alone. Fear. The girl's wand-hand was shaking, a mixture of sweat and blood slowly ran down her forehead from a small cut at her hairline. Bellatrix let out one of her now signature cackles, knowing that by the time she was through with her, the cut on her forehead would be the least of her worries.
"St-St-Stupefy! " Weasley shrieked, the shaking of her hand meaning the spell sailed high and wide of its target.
A part of Bellatrix wished that the girl would put up some sort of meaningful resistance. At least Andromeda's daughter had gone down fighting - she could still feel the blood dripping down her leg from where her blood-traitor niece had caught her with a Piercing Hex.
Deciding that she had given the teenager enough time to fight back, she conjured an iron spike and banished it, all in the blink of an eye, giggling happily as it impaled the girl through her stomach. A little higher and she would have killed her, but she didn't want Weasley dying just yet.
Two Bone-Splintering Curses found their mark on each of the girl's legs, a Gouging Curse took out her left eye and an Incendio quickly dealt with that pretty red hair of hers, leaving her bare scalp covered in horrific burns. At this point, she was intending to move onto a torrent of Cruciatus curses, but the thought of physically scarring the girl that Potter had apparently loved appealed greatly to her. A ten-foot long flame whip sprouted from the end of her wand, and she lashed the gurgling bag of flesh that had once been Ginny Weasley repeatedly. It was a shame really, that the internal damage her iron spike had done meant that only blood was spraying out of Weasley's mouth, not screams.
Having marked the majority of the girl's body with thin, painful burns from her flame whip, she turned away, intent on finding out what had become of Lovegood and Granger. She spotted them staring at her in absolute horror. It seemed that Granger had been able to deal with the viper, but the bruises beginning to appear on Lovegood's neck spoke of the damage it had done.
Just as the three of them were about to resume their duel, the two girls suddenly found themselves elbowed out of the way as a sobbing Molly Weasley barged her way through to Bellatrix, wand in hand and tears streaming down her face.
"That's my daughter you bitch! Confringo! Reducto! Bombarda! " Molly shrieked, sending the trio of powerful curses hurtling towards Bellatrix.
Bellatrix threw up a shield, but was still sent staggering backwards as the curses collided with it. Her eyes widened at the power behind the spells, watching how grief had transformed this housewife into a magical powerhouse. She braced herself for the next volley, and was preparing to bring up another shield when she saw someone out of the corner of her eye.
Someone she had seen take a Killing Curse to the chest less than half-an-hour ago.
Potter?
"Depulso! " Molly Weasley cried, and Bellatrix wrenched her eyes away from Potter and could only stand there as the Banishing Charm headed straight for her. Usually, a Banishing Charm should have simply knocked her off her feet and thrown her back five or ten yards. This, however, was no normal Banishing Charm.
Banishing Charms are meant to be invisible to the human eye, yet Bellatrix could see the air between her and Molly distort as the mighty, emotionally-powered spell cut its path through it. The moment it collided with her chest, Bellatrix felt several of her ribs breaking and closed her eyes, just waiting for the deadly impact she was about to make with the stone wall behind her.
Luckily for Bellatrix, during her 'duel' with Ginny, she had ended up in front of one of the Great Hall's gigantic stained-glass windows, each of them depicting a scene from the school's storied history (this particular one showed Godric Gryffindor wading across a river with a Centaur watching on sadly from the bank). Therefore, when Bellatrix was blown off her feet by Molly's curse she wasn't splattered all over a piece of masonry, but rather catapulted straight through the window to land rather unceremoniously in the Black Lake.
The shock of hitting the ice-cold water quickly brought Bellatrix to the conclusion that she wasn't dead, and after a tiring swim to the shore, made no easier by her sodden robes or aching ribs, she collapsed on the bank panting. She swore, realising that she had lost her wand somewhere in the lake, but fortunately remembered the spare she was wearing in the holster on her ankle and quickly began drying her robes and repairing the damage done to her ribs.
Once satisfied she was in good enough condition to continue fighting, she stomped back up towards the main doors fully intent on finding Molly Weasley and leaving her in a worse condition than her daughter. Her thoughts ran amok with various sadistic ideas of how she could torture the Weasley matriarch, but these thoughts quickly came to an end as she strode into the Entrance Hall and turned her eyes towards the Great Hall.
Potter stood there alone, a wand in either hand, one of which she recognised as the legendary wand the Dark Lord had plundered from Dumbledore's tomb. A look of shock was upon his face, but one that quickly turned to joy as he was engulfed by a storm of cheering blood-traitors.
Her eyes quickly glanced around the hall, trying to spot her fellow Death Eaters.
She saw Antonin Dolohov, slumped against the wall with his throat cut.
She saw Lucius Malfoy, head bowed and wrapped in chains.
She saw Rabastan Lestrange, her brother-in-law's body being torn to pieces by a pack of conjured dogs.
She saw Rodolphus Lestrange, the man she married gazing at her through sightless eyes.
Her eyes continued to roam around the hall, taking in the carnage before they settled on a bundle of black robes lying near Potter's feet.
The Dark Lord.
She fell to her knees, not truly believing what she was seeing. Her mind was reeling, every fibre of her being imploring her master to get back to his feet, to strike down Potter and the throng of people surrounding him.
He didn't.
She climbed back up onto shaking legs, each breath being harder to find than the last. Her chest began to ache as the enormity of what had happened struck her. Against all odds, it seemed that they had lost. Again. What happened to her now?
The cold pain in her chest worsened as her mind went back to the years she had spent in Azkaban after the first war: the bitter North Atlantic wind howling through her cold, dank cell; slurping down the sickening, stale gruel they were fed with her rotten teeth; constantly reliving each of her worst memories whenever a Dementor would pass her cell. This time it would be even worse, knowing that there was no Dark Lord out there that would one day reward her for her loyalty.
No, she decided as she turned from the Great Hall and fled - she refused to go back there. But where could she go? She debated trying to make it into Hogsmeade and apparating away, but as she began down the path she stopped. Hundreds of Hogwarts students and their families were wandering down the high street, most of them congregated around the Hog's Head. There was no way she was going to be able to fight her way through all of them.
She span round, desperately trying to figure out where to go when an idea struck her.
The one place they'd never think to look for her. The place where she could hide from both the prying eyes of the Aurors and the Order. The place that seemed to be calling out for her, beckoning her in.
Bellatrix made her decision and ran towards it, never looking back once as she fled deep into the Forbidden Forest.
AN: This is the final sort of prologue chapter, next time we'll be beginning the main story with Harry.
Next chapter: Harry's Dreams