1
The Wizengamot...what was left of it...was a raging storm. The acting...let us not pretend. The reigning Chief Warlock, Amelia Bones, who was still serving as Minister of Magic tried to gain order peacefully. And then by noticable uses of her wand. The shouting stopped only after the Stupefy hit Ginerva Weasley, serving in the Weasley seat. Her mother Molly, serving in the Prewitt seat, set about Enervating her back to consciousness.
"And this is how you run a government without him.", Bellatrix LeStrange (but desperately wanted to be Riddle) nee Black scoffed.
Amelia swung her wand around on her.
"I'm in apple pie order.", Bellatrix defended. She held up her shackled wrists and the chains that bound her to the defendant's seat to demonstrate.
"Bellatrix LeStrange, you are charged with the murder of over 4 billion muggles as well as every wizard on the globe. How do you plead?", Amelia hissed.
The runes of the Circle of Truth under her chair lit up. Bellatrix looked down at them. "I 'plead' that I am not guilty.", she said. The runes continued to glow. "huh", she remarked.
"Are you?", Narcissa Malfoy challenged.
Bellatrix made a face of half disgust at the trick and half exasperation. "Am I pleading not guilty? Of course I am."
"Prosecution!", Bones called. "Make your opening statement."
Andromeda Tonks stood from behind her desk. "Normally, I would seek to horrify the Wizengamot with the sheer depravity of the crime. This helps to convince the members that someone needs to be held accountable, after which I would point their attention to the defendant. Point out how they're a danger to society. Culpable for the crime. All that.
"But we've all been personally touched by the barbarism of this latest act of terrorism by worst Death Eater left alive. The Wizengamot doesn't even have all of its seats filled due to her. Bellatrix LeStrange has destroyed the world. She has stolen our sons, our husbands, our brothers/"
"My fucking father!", Flora Carrow yelled.
"Order!", Bones commanded.
"Well, at least that piece of pedophelia was stopped. Am I right?", LeStrange jested with a smirk.
Amelia glared at her.
Bellatrix held up her shackled hands.
Andromeda continued. "We will prove that the Death Eater Bellatrix LeStrange enchanted a strain of the virus influenza to drain the life out of every male it encountered. We will prove that she then incubated it in a concoction of Felix Felicis and Pepper Up Potion to ensure that fate favored its deadliness and allow the virus to overwhelm every one of the infected by speeding up the virus' attack."
Tonks went back to her seat. Bellatrix opened her mouth, "Oh, is my baby sister finally done yapping? Then allow me to retort."
"Your lawyer should speak in your defense.", Amelia tried.
Bellatrix shrugged. "All dead.
"um, chains? Do you mind if I call you chains? The barristers and advocates for the accused aren't limited to the Circle of Truth. Allow me the courtesy of maintaining that, please and thank you dearies." And with that they added enough length for her to leave the defendant's seat and saunter across the speaking area.
"Ahem.", Bellatrix cleared her throat. "Last I stood here, the Wizengamot thought it had the upper hand. We were desperate looking for the Dark Lord. Cowards coming up with all sorts of excuses until 'I was under the Imperious' stuck. I was the only woman that expressed my loyalty to the only man that mattered.
"And his government allowed him to be vanquished. Laws were passed to capture Harry Potter on sight, and what did the Department of Magical Law Enforcement do? He was not allowed in the Dark Lord's beloved Hogwarts and where was he given sanctuary? So let's not pretend that 'the law' has any more weight than the petty jealousies of the people who pretend it.
"And now that my...the Dark Lord is gone, the only man who ever mattered, the only man who stood immortal...no others matter. None of them matter. And here you are pretending that little Lucy, or Amy, or any of them mattered. They are all dead and the sun still comes up in the east and sets in the west.
"But let's all blame poor Bella. She was pardoned of all her alleged crimes and St. Mungo's was forced to decree her in the most perfect of mental health, but no! Serving the Dark Lord as one of his Death Eaters was stricken from the books. Killing in his name was stricken from the books. Finally bringing to heel all the mudbloods stealing our magic was stricken from the books. So let's blame her for what's left.
"She's the Brightest Witch of Her Age, that alone must make her guilty of the unprecedented! Well, I don't see Potter's little mudblood up here. You can readily identify her, I marked her arm as much as mine."
"She's evil, that alone must make her guilty of the unprecedented! Well you allowed Harry bloody Potter to steal the immortal from life, would he stand here in your little charade if he was not dead?"
"You are all grasping at straws, dearies. And not for solutions either. Because outside those doors are all the women that want your head because you're the government now, so you were supposed to prevent this then. And you hope to satisfy them with mine. So don't think I am going to my condemnation believing that you are serving some lofty goal. Lofty goals passed with the Dark Lord. All you are is mewling sheep letting whatever dog growl you into whichever direction. So you can all go fuck yourselves."
And with that, Bellatrix raised a finger to her nose. "Oh, that's right. All the men are dead. I guess you'll just have to."
Her cackling did not stop after her chains dragged her bodily to the defendant's seat.
2
The crowd of magical reporters could have given any gaggle of papparazzi a run for their money.
"Mrs. LeStrange!", they called.
"My husband's dead. Please call me 'The Lady Black'."
So the most powerful surviving Death Eater just gave you a command that's simple to follow when you wanted something from her. Most people aren't that stupid. "Ms. Black!"
She turned to one of them. "Ooh, aren't you precious. I could just drink your soul and have your body run around the manor as an inferi. Not even a servant inferi at that, just one of the animated corpses to spice up the place."
"Ms. Black, Rita Skeeter - Daily Prophet!", one of them re-introduced herself. "Why do you think the Wizengamot found you innocent?"
The black hair woman's hair frizzled for the blink of an eye before she returned to her care free stance. "I'd like to say it was because I am innocent, but we all know what the Ministry of Magic did to my cousin Sirius Black. So it was probably that I fortunately have a N.E.W.T. in Potions, Transfigurations and a Mastery of Charms as well as a Mastery of Arithmancy. I was able to prove beyond all reasonable, witchly doubt that the equipment in Malfoy Manor that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement found was for strengthening the group they are still pledged to be held accountable to and taking out the opposition one by one, not all in a fell swoop."
"Ms. Black - Quibbler!"
"Didn't we get you all, dearie?", Bellatrix asked. Sincerely.
"um...", the reporter replied. "Ms. Lovegood escaped the Death Eaters after her capture."
"Oh.", she accepted. "Well, go on."
"Are you going to be held responsible for all the suffering you inflicted as a Death Eater?"
Bellatrix scoffed. "Well, I'm certainly not going to be rewarded for it, am I?", she snapped. "But when we were in control of the government not only was everything I did sanctioned but required. As for all that came before, I was officially pardoned. For the law to mean anything, they'll have to find something besides mere membership or status within to convict me and Alecto on...at least, I suspect Alecto. Fenrir's going to rapidly be finding out if something other than silver can kill him and considering the amount of spellfire he took at the school, here's hoping."
"Do you really think males cursed with lycanthropy are able to survive this plague?"
"No." The witch stopped in her walk. "And that's my official statement. If anyone wants to prove Bellatrix Black wrong, even out of spite or revenge instead of pride or saving the magical world, please unleash said werewolf in Daigon Alley at the height of the full moon."
"Without the DMLE posting rewards for you being at large, are you going to return to the Black seat?"
Bellatrix raised her eyebrows. "Considering the needs of my sisters: Cissy to retain the Malfoy seat and the blood traitor to be kept as powerless as she naturally can, particularly after her mudblood stole her magical might, of course. I'm a free woman, and I look forward to helping rule over all of your just like I have for the past year."
"What's next for the Lady Black?"
"Oh, I can't tell you that. If you knew, you wouldn't tell stories about me to your daughters to make them behave. And they had better."