For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.
1986-01-13 03:00 UTC, Azkaban prison
3am again! I need to get a life, thought Hobby, as he popped into Azkaban. The blind spot that wizards had in their view of house-elves was nowhere as evident as here - there was absolutely nothing stopping him from popping in. He wondered if popping out would be as easy, but suspected it would be so only if he was alone. Otherwise it would be trivial for anyone who owned a house-elf to give it standing instructions to get him out if he was ever thrown in.
Unless... unless even that thought had not occurred to them! His head hurt thinking that could be the answer to his current task, but well, he would soon find out.
He turned himself invisible and looked at a map of the prison. He had no clue where Bellatrix was, but he figured a little snooping would find him the bitch who killed Sirius in a past life.
It took him more than an hour of sneaking around, first trying random rooms, then going about it more methodically, before he found her. In the process, he now knew where most of the other prisoners were too, especially Sirius. But not now; time enough for that later, right now he needed Bellatrix to get him something from Gringotts.
He steeled himself for all kinds of backlash from Azkaban's wards, reminded himself that Nick and Penny did know enough to be a good backup plan if he ended up dead right now, took a deep breath, and tried to pop Bellatrix out...
...and it worked! By Toutatis, these wizards are crazy, he thought! How the hell do they ignore house-elves so completely, that even the self-preservation aspect of getting out of Azkaban does not make them think "oh hey maybe my elf can pop me out?"
He really, really missed Hermione now. Ever since the potion puzzle, where she had noted that wizards lack logic and common sense, they had shared a secret laugh over many subsequent examples of this, but this, this particular one, took the cake!
Taking care not to show his amusement on his face, he stood humbly by while Bellatrix woke up. She was instantly awake - five years in Azkaban had not had an effect on her (was she an animagus too, like Sirius?) - and turned to him.
"Who are you?"
"I am Dobby, Mistress Bellatrix. I was Mistress Narcissa's elf". She looked at him sharply, and Hobby realised he had again used "I". Luckily, she missed it because of the implications of "was".
"You were? What does that mean?"
"Dobby is sorry Mistress, but Dobby is being given to you now. Master and Mistress being killed by Dumbledore's people, and Draco is being having his magic stripped and sent away to muggle orphanage. But master being giving a letter to be giving to you in case bad things happen, Mistress Bellatrix", and he proffered a letter that he dug out from somewhere deep inside his filthy clothes.
Of course, he had forged Lucius's handwriting. In it he had written that a very important artifact that the Dark Lord had given to him to aid in his resurrection had been destroyed. Unfortunately, the instructions for how to use it, and indeed the information about what it even was, had only come to him a day prior, and the instructions included the backup plan. In brief, she was to go to Gringotts, get the cup that the Dark Lord had entrusted to her, and then use the letter as a portkey to a site where the materials for a ritual to resurrect the Dark Lord were kept ready.
"And I am to believe this... fiction?"
Hobby was shocked, but he did not know how an elf was supposed to react to this, so he stayed calm. "Mistress Bellatrix, Dobby was being given the letter to being gives to you. Dobby bes not reading the letter Mistress Bellatrix".
"Who gave this to you?"
"My master, then hes be freeing Dobby, then hes be telling Dobby Dobby bes Mistress Bellatrix's elf now, Mistress Bellatrix".
Bellatrix was not convinced. She was sure it was a fake, and started muttering to herself. Apparently the root cause of her suspicions was that, in the letter, Malfoy referred to his wife as Narcissa. She mumbled to herself that he had never, ever, referred to her as anything but Cissy, so this was very surprising.
This was unexpected, and he realised it was lucky she was crazy enough to mumble to herself, otherwise he would never have known. But once again, the blind spot came in useful. Even in her wildest imagination, she could not have dreamt that the elf was anything but what he appeared to be.
So Hobby quietly obliviated and stupefied her, rewrote the letter, set it up as a portkey again, and then woke her up. He had to repeat most of what happened already, but soon they were on their way to Gringotts.
1986-01-13 03:30 UTC, Gringotts, London
The letter had also warned her not to answer any questions from anyone, and to use her blood in lieu of her (missing) key to get into her vault, and that is what she did.
Gringotts was open; apparently it doesn't really close, as such. Everything went smoothly; goblins don't give a damn whose elf is going with whom or even who was supposed to be in Azkaban. Her blood checked out, and that was all that mattered.
Once they were out of Gringotts, she grabbed the letter and, without waiting for Hobby, activated the portkey. She landed at the place where - though she did not know it - the last two horcruxes were destroyed.
Dobby was close behind her, nerves stretched taut for the task ahead. Nick would not be here today; fiendfyre in an open area was not really a problem for Harry, having watched it done twice. But after the unexpected problem with the letter, he was wondering if he should have played safe and asked for backup. Mainly, his mistake was assuming that she would be in bad shape from four years in Azkaban; everything else followed from that.
He popped in, invisible, and turned to her, sending a silent house-elf stunner at her.
Unfortunately, things didn't go quite so smoothly here. What Hobby did not realise was that, along with the cup, Bellatrix had picked up a wand from her vault. Plus, the bitch had a sixth sense of some kind, and probably a seventh and an eighth. She exploded into action, whipped out the wand she had just picked up, and started firing at Hobby. Even though she could not see him.
Hobby was amazed. Truly, this woman was something - God alone knew what kind of training she had had, maybe even duelled Riddle himself for practice!
Had she really been in Azkaban for four years? Must be her lack of any happy thoughts that prevented even the dementors from affecting her; in fact she must have affected them!
But Hobby had no time to reflect on this; he was on the defensive and had an enormous amount of trouble keeping himself safe, leave alone return fire. The only thing saving him was house-elf apparation, but even that was barely working.
Finally, in desperation, he tried an extremely unorthodox stunt. He apparated directly behind and slightly to the right, just high enough to have his hands at the level of her head. He quickly grabbed the back of her head with his left hand hand and her chin with his right, and twisted sharply.
And thus was the wickedest witch, as beautiful as Beauty in her day, and as beastly as any beast ever was, felled by a simple muggle technique.
1986-01-13 07:00 UTC, Ministry of Magic, Minister's Office
Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge (1), was a man whom everyone knew. A politician to the core, you could only like him if you played politics yourself; thus no ordinary citizen could ever like him. And although it may sound surprising, a large part of the middle and lower echelons of the ministry, plus a good two-thirds of the auror force, were really just ordinary people, with ordinary wishes and hopes.
As such, when the minister walked into his office bright and early, and immediately started screaming his head off, about three-quarters of the people who heard him were hoping he had been hurt in some permanent way. Even if they themselves would not find it in themselves to harm him, the idea of him being harmed by something else was strangely uplifting, as though it were an affirmation that there is a God! Such is a politician's lot in life!
In any case, Shacklebolt and Robards rushed into the minister's office. And it was only because "real men don't scream" that neither of them did. If Dawlish had been on duty, there would have been a duet of screams there (because the minister was still at it, loud and clear!)
Once things had settled down, someone called Madam Bones in. She took one look at the body sprawled on the minister's desk, and noticed what the others had failed to: on her forehead were two words, etched in blood, literally cut into her skin: DING DONG.
Curiously, this interested them much more than the bare fact of a current inmate of Azkaban lying dead on the minister's desk. There was no magical residue to indicate how she had died, except some healing magic on her neck.
Sadly, magic could not tell that this healing was done a few seconds after she died! Even more sadly, this forensic limitation was not even known to the wizarding police. It is debatable if even the word "forensic" was known, of course, so this is probably a moot point.
1986-01-13 07:30 UTC, Ministry of Magic, Minister's Office
Word got around very quickly, and pretty soon most of the magical world knew Bellatrix Lestrange had been found dead in the ministry. The details, as is usual in such cases, varied from mild truth to wild imagination. And while, in the muggle world, the next day's newspaper would be expected to throw a balanced, objective, light on the situation, the magical world was not so lucky.
One of the first to know, of course, was Minister Fudge's trusted friend and advisor, Lucius Malfoy. He had rushed in, barely having finished his coffee, breakfast untouched, to be with his friend in his hour of need, and to see how this could be twisted to his benefit. He had no spectacular love for his sister-in-law; indeed their last conversation was somewhat strained, with her accusing him of selling out their lord, and him telling her he was being Slytherin, and she was acting like a Gryffindor - charging right in, and shouting her convictions from the rooftops when arrested.
To a Slytherin, of course, being accused of acting like a Gryffindor was the ultimate insult, and were it not for the fact that she was an under-trial with magic suppressors on all 4 limbs and no wand, Lucius Malfoy may well have ceased to be a factor in our story long ago!
As it was, however, the blond death-eater was egging the minister into a royal snit. Luckily, he had maintained all through that all of the others in Azkaban were under the imperious, but that, in addition, they had all been subjected to loyalty potions by the Dark Lord, which was preventing them from speaking their mind even after the imperius had been cancelled by the death of the caster.
He was now busy reminding the Minister of that fact, and claiming that someone loyal to the Dark Lord still lived, and was punishing the traitors, which proved what he had been saying all along, that the people in prison were not willing death-eaters.
This was, of course, not going to fly, as far as the bulk of the wizarding populace was concerned. But you don't become Minister of Magic listening to the populace, you did it by listening to the Malfoys of the world. And you could not deny that the sound made by the bag being passed to him for his favourite charity, was almost musical.
(Malfoy's reasoning was circular logic, of course, but since money makes the world go round, circular logic is the only type that fits.)
And so, the Daily Prophet had a special edition out in about an hour, with the following headlines: Bellatrix Lestrange killed by You-Know-Why sympathisers (an article of about four column-inches, with some lurid detail about the injuries all over her body, and signs of prolonged torture by cruciatus), and Lord Malfoy claims all marked prisoners are innocent; Minister considering pardoning (this one over 22 column inches, with lots of information about the imperius, the loyalty potion, and so on).
Notes
Yes I know Bagnold was still the minister in 1986, but Fudge fits my story better so I made him minister.