Hello everyone.
I have thought about this story for a long time. I hope that my English won't discourage you from reading, because I know that I still need a lot of practice to be at a satisfactory level. Writing this story is not just a linguistic exercise, it is a kind of therapy for me, so try to endure with me.
Harry Potter is my childhood and I can't deny that for almost 18 years he was one of the few things that kept my mind in check and didn't let me go crazy completely. So for the sake of it, I try to do my best.

The characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling.
Vivian Lake is mine.

In retrospect, she thought, it was a shitty idea.

Blood flowed through her fingers as she squeezed her left arm. Pieces of stones flew around her, smoke and ash obscuring her vision as she entered a room filled with people fighting around this damn stone Arch. Vivian waved her wand at a nearby man in dark robes, throwing him at another wizard. It took her a moment, but she realised that the Death Eaters had attacked the Department of Secrets. There were also children sending curses and spells in every direction, trying to hide in the rows of this stone theatre and other wizards fighting with everything they had. She recognised Tonks and Moody, cursing left and right, holding their own against four wizards.

Harry Potter stood by that damned Arch - she would recognise him everywhere - with another boy. Potter tried to push the boy up, embracing him with one hand around his waist, and his wand and a fucking prophecy in the other. He looked like he'd crawled out from a pit, with torn clothes and a smudged face, but he was walking ahead and shielding his friend. Nearby was Lucius Malfoy, who was fighting another man with scars on his handsome face. The werewolf from Hogwarts, Vivian remembered an article from view years ago about him.

A loud bark of laughter reached her through the whirlwind of the battle, and she focused on the man standing in front of the Arch. Sirius Black, with a broad smile on his face and long hair, looked completely different from his wanted poster, which she had stared at in the Aurors' office for the last two years.

To her surprise, Black abruptly stood on the path of the spell aimed at Potter and fought the Death Eaters around him with a gleam in his eyes. Before Vivian could think about it properly, she started running down the stone stairs, whispers filling her ears. Her left hand shot forward, conjuring up a stone wall between Black and a red spell (probably a stunner) aimed directly at his chest. Turning to see who was the idiot casting, she registered Potter screaming his lungs out, the werewolf who had just fought Malfoy, holding him in place.

But it didn't matter. Not now.

She felt her heart beating in her ears, as well as the whispers coming from behind the Veil. The screams and explosions around her were no longer even recorded, diminished as background noise and ignored. Vivian's attention was focused on the witch in front of her and on the wand aimed at her chest. Bellatrix Lestrange looked everything like insane, dark hair like a halo from hell, with eyes jumping between her face and hand trying to judge the opponent. Vivian didn't give her a chance to react, jumping onto the podium and stabbing the stone with her wand. It went in like butter and plunged deep into the floor.

"Plenum fidem mortis," she murmured, spreading her hands wide.

A silver glow radiated from her wand, embracing the entire podium just in time as the purple spell approached them.

"Watch out!", called the man holding Potter in place, but the curse only hit the silver wall and disappeared.

She risked a glance behind her, noting that Lestrange looked furious and surprised, and aimed another spell at them. Potter was sobbing, appeared devastated. The man next to him was looking no better, his fists clenched and his eyes fixed on the Veil. And then it hit her. Black wasn't there. Her stone wall had disappeared some time ago, but Black was nowhere to be seen. For a split second, her mind became empty.

To all the gods gracing this planet, how did this happen?

It shouldn't be like this.

There was no time.

There was no time at all because Black had fallen into that fucking Arch strait to an afterlife from a nightmare. No one deserved to die like that, murderer or not. Lestrange was casting spell after spell, the explosions grating on her nerves.

What a waste of breath.

Vivian's hands fell as she considered her options. Her fingers itched, tattoos moving from her shoulders to her arms. Magic crackled and sizzled around her as she stood with her back to Lestrange and looked at Potter and his companion. As long as her wand was stuck in the stone floor, her shield would protect them. Now Lestrange was another problem. With a deep breath, she took a step forward and disappeared.

Apparating in front of that crazy witch was risky but manageable. Startled, Lestrange took a step back and was immediately pulled forward by Vivian and collided strongly with her fist. Bella's head fell back, eyes filled with tears, and warm blood spurted from her nose. Bellatrix tried to push herself away from Vivian's embrace to gain some distance between them, but she only managed to point her wand at the other witch. A quick blow to the ribs and a second at Lestrange's temple had the woman on the ground, wand falling from her hand and rolling to the side. Vivian picked it up, conjured some ropes binding the woman and looked at her from above.

And that was it.

The most feared of Voldemort supporters was lying on her back at her feet and screaming profanities in the stone room as if cursing her without a wand could help in the grand scheme of things. Vivian thought it was disappointing, that a rumoured dangerous witch was now reduced to a screaming heap on the ground. Death Eater or not, Bellatrix Lestrange was a pure-blooded witch. Some dignity would be welcomed.

And anger made people do such stupid things.

"I'll murder you, you fucking bitch!" Lestrange roared from the ground, wiggling and trashing, her eyes throwing daggers and a murderous intent rolling from the woman in waves. "The Dark Lord will kill you lot in the cruellest way possible. You'll beg for mercy when I tear you apart. And when we're finished, we'll throw your scraps to the werewolves to eat."

Vivian gave her a sidelong glance as she took the other woman in.

Lestrange didn't know about her at all. Her research at the Department of Mysteries was known only to Callum Skinner, Head of the Department of Mysteries and Fudge. Her training sessions with the Aurors, on the other hand, were well known to anybody interested in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement or the Auror Department. And to the MACUSA. And to the Russian Ministry. The Israeli Ministry wouldn't probably despise her either. She had a reputation.

"Look at me," she bent over the Death Eaters, pulling a strip of cloth from Bellatrix robes and sticking it in the woman's mouth. Muffed curses came from Lestrange, but she didn't pay them any mind. "I eat bitches like you for breakfast." Putting a hand on the woman's chest, she muttered: "Amate maxima."

Lestrange's entire body stiffened, her pupils dilated as she tried to move as far away from her as possible. Panic was written on her face as she tried unsuccessfully to escape. But Vivian didn't pay the woman any more attention as she came again down to the podium without another glance back. Looking around, she saw Tonks levitating two Death Eaters, Moody pulling another three behind him. They greeted her with a wave and a nod, seeing as everything calmed down around them. She spotted Kingsley with a group of children, probably trying to comfort them and looking them over for injuries. Hauling herself up on the podium, she looked at Potter and the werewolf. The boy gaped at her with big green eyes, then looked over her shoulder at Lestrange, who was still thrashing across the ground and again at her. His hair stuck out in all directions, and a thin trickle of blood flowed from his temple. His face suddenly beamed, and Vivian had the impression that he was about to try to hug her. A little embarrassed, she looked at the man standing next to him. Thin scars covered his face, but his brown eyes regarded her with caution, and his hand was still holding a wand, almost not pointing at her. Almost.

"I'll try to pull him out," she said finally, ignoring the silent threat from the werewolf, determination on her face. "But I don't know how far he's gone."

"Can you bring him back?" Potter asked with a glint of hope in his eyes, shifting from the man's grasp and standing beside her. Hug me, and I'll kill you, boy.

"It's not my best idea, but what's life without a little risk?", she told him with an assuring smile.

She felt anything but assuring. Something very cold and slippery made its way through her stomach. Her tattoos looked as if they had a mind of their own, gliding on her skin back and forth. Lestrange's wand lay badly in her hand, the foreign wood under her fingers did nothing to calm her. The curved black wand was probably made of dark oak or walnut, but the core she couldn't recognise. All she could do was pray to the available gods that there was a part of a dragon in it.

"Who are you?", asked the werewolf, looking at her cautiously.

"Vivian Lake. Combat Witch for the Auror Department."

She gave him a small smile when she saw his surprised expression. There was no time, for smiles and chit-chat, though. Some tiny piece of her brain kept saying that this was idiocy. That shred of cells was fortunately squeezed under a rug in a far corner of a dark room behind a wardrobe of her consciousness, otherwise, she would wonder what she was doing in the Room of Death at one o'clock in the morning. And then her memories would eat her alive.

"Whatever happens, don't touch my wand. It's cursed", she said to Potter and the werewolf, mentally preparing herself for the most stupid thing she did in the last fifteen years.

The whispers from the other side were now loud enough to distinguish words from each other.

What did her mother always say?

Never show weakness. They kill to see you fall.

So she raised her head, straightened her back and set her eyes on the Arch. Pulling her hands up, she placed them on the cold stone. Her black tattoos stopped twirling and placed themselves on her wrists. Then she pressed and the marks on her skin shifted and penetrated the stone where they glowed blue. The Veil rose, pushed by an invisible gust of wind, and the voices from behind it faded away at that moment. Some dark shapes appeared on the edge of sight, reaching out to her, inviting her in. Vivian felt the magic tangling around her, the stones and the Veil, a familiar tug in her chest that evoked warmth and peace spreading through her body to her bones. That was it - magic undisturbed by waving wands, or words intended for writing books, and not for casting spells. English wasn't suitable for that at all. Old languages, old customs and rituals, old words had power, value and strength.

What did her father always say?

Always have an escape plan.

"Call for Ambrose Chandler from St. Mungos. Tell him, I need a favour," and without another glance, she stepped through the stone Arch and vanished again out of sight.

*Plenum fidem mortis - latin: protect till the death

*Amate maxima - Latin: to terrify