Violet's quarry was drawing near. He suspected nothing, she was sure. She slipped through the crowd, weaving ever closer until she was directly behind him, within arm's reach. Without hesitation, she struck, moving in a blur.
The man's gait hitched ever so slightly, and he looked this way and that, but not behind him. Shrugging, he carried on. Violet stifled a giggle.
"See?" Violet said to Tracey, having half-skipped back to where she sat sprawled on a metal bench. Violet brandished her prize. "Told you, no Switching Spell needed."
Tracey took the peaked cap and pulled it over her head, grinning. It fell a little low, blocking the top of her eyes, so she had to crane her neck to see the bobby Violet had liberated it from. In its place, he now wore a vibrantly red top hat and appeared to remain completely oblivious to the swap.
Violet settled next to Tracey, crossing one leg over the other. She nudged Tracey. "Not a bad look for you. If you were a muggle, I know the career for you."
"They're different for women."
"Hm?"
"The hats. I don't think they look as good. But maybe the muggles have different fashion tastes, yeah?"
"Well, obviously," Violet said, indicating the crowds around them, thronging like a beehive in one of the largest shopping centers in Edinburgh, on a Saturday no less. She leaned back, rhythmically kicking the air with her foot to relieve the stiff soreness still lingering from a lucky curse a week back, and simply enjoyed the inanity of the moment. After yesterday, it was paradise.
It had been such a long night already.
She tsked inwardly. The silence was making room for dour thoughts. Tracey could usually be counted on to keep a constant stream of conversation but had seemed subdued since sneaking out from Hogwarts earlier in the morning. She'd taken off the hat and was staring at it, squeezing it in her hands.
"Tracey?"
Tracey jolted. "Oh. Sorry. I was just…"
"Thinking?"
"Yeah."
A moment passed. Tracey spoke again, her words little more than a sigh. Violet caught them all the same.
"How do you do it?"
"What?"
"You know." Tracey made an abortive gesture with her arm before it fell back to her side. "What you do. You…"
She made a soft, frustrated sound, still kneading the cap. "You're so different from the rest of us. In a good way! It's like… you're higher, somehow. Above. The little problems we have wouldn't even scratch you.
"I mean, Morgana, you dueled the Dark Lord, again! And now you're just here with me with the bloody muggles, and it just rolls off you. And that's not something little, that's not something normal. It's fighting. It's killing. Grown wizards drink hemlock over that sort of thing. And you can do that one day and steal a hat the next. How?"
"I…" Violet trailed off. How was she supposed to answer that, when her thoughts followed such different paths than other mortals? How was she supposed to answer it when it might not even be true anymore?
They had been clever. They'd found a pattern in the attacks, learned to predict them. They should have remembered Voldemort was cunning too.
Fortunately, Tracey didn't seem to expect an answer. She continued in the same quiet voice as before. "It's sort of why I like coming here, maybe. Or anywhere in the muggle world. I have this secret when I'm here that none of them know about. I can talk to them, flirt with them sometimes, and the whole time I know that I'm special. It's exciting. Powerful, yeah?
"It's like you can have all the best of their world while still being above it, you know? All their problems seem so small to us. It's not like a decent witch would ever starve or not have a place to live. Everything's a struggle for them, but they still find ways to have things even we don't. I'd rather be dead than a muggle, but it's nice to visit their world occasionally. So long as I stay a visitor."
She sighed.
"I suppose you must feel like that in the Wizarding world, don't you?" she said. "I think I'd like to be that way too, if it were possible…"
Violet slowly blinked. She ran a hand through her hair, thinking—about Tracey, about Voldemort. Herself and others.
Intermittently, the disposable dregs tasked with the harassment attacks that were troubling the Ministry so greatly needed to meet with a Death Eater of the Inner Circle to report their effectiveness and receive new targets. And with a combination of Legilimency, deduction, and more conventional forms of interrogation, she and the Unspeakables had determined when and where such a meeting would occur. And so they set a trap. Violet had all but tasted the victory at hand.
"I wasn't aware that you thought that way," was all Violet said.
"Maybe I didn't before, yeah? But everything's getting worse now."
They'd been right. One by one, the Dark Lord's recruits appeared with cracks and flashes, kneeling before not one but two of the Inner Circle. The excitement—Violet's and the team of Magical War's best—was thick. A real blow could be struck here.
"The war?"
"Obviously. My family's fucked. Neutrality's not an option anymore. Father says"—Tracey licked her lips nervously—"says Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback approached him. To talk. None of us are fighters. I mean, I duel, sure, but that's not the same. I don't know what they expect from us. And the Ministry… It was a lot easier to admire your pet tyranny before this. If we go to them, Father will have to work for them instead, no better than the Death Eaters. It just doesn't seem fair. Y'know?"
"Tracey," Violet whispered. "Why didn't you tell me? Listen, next time Lestrange and her mutt show up, you call me, all right? We'll get two-way mirrors. And if that doesn't work, I'll put in a word with Rufus. It'll be fine."
"And that's my point exactly," Tracey said wryly. "For us, it's a no-win situation. For you, it's effortless. Because you have so much power. Because you're not scared to do whatever's necessary. Thank you, though. It means a lot." She laughed. "Man, imagine how surprised they'd be if you showed up."
Violet grinned at the thought. "You asked me how I do it. If you'd asked me a year ago, or even six months, I don't think I would've had an answer. Maybe the part of people that can't handle things was carved out of me an awful long time ago. Maybe it's starting to grow back now—small, mind you—because things have been trying, lately. But maybe that's all right."
The trap was sprung. The enemy fell in droves, exultation on everyone's lips. And then it went wrong.
The anti-Apparition ward shattered, sundered by a runic sequence concealed beneath the earth blazing to life in glyphs of abyssal red. A dozen Death Eaters, half of them Inner Circle, materialized in an instant. One removed his mask. Lord Voldemort met Violet's gaze.
The Ministry sallied forth thirteen to bring home a victory. Of them, only Violet returned, empty-handed. It wasn't one of the good days.
Voldemort had done the impossible on that night, in their brief but furious duel. Once again he had demonstrated magic of the Wyld, but this time not the strange hybrid she had assumed to be attained from Esrid.
No. It had been Winter magic, the same as hers.
Voldemort had laughed when she realized the terrible truth. His control over the magic was tentative and unpracticed, but unmistakable. He wasn't just using Winter magic. He had it. Voldemort had never met with Esrid. Maybe he never met with any fae at all. Maybe he'd stolen it from Violet, through some means she couldn't imagine.
If it had been Violet, if she had allowed Winter's beauty to fall into the irreverent, graceless hands of Voldemort through her weakness or unpreparedness, she would never forgive herself.
She shook herself. For all her melancholy, it was entirely possible—probable, even—that Voldemort had merely stolen a fleeting morsel of power from a minor Winter fae, easily deceived by his cunning into giving up their most precious prize. It could only be such a lesser creature. No fae of meaningful stature would consider for an instant bargaining away even the slightest scrap of their magic. There was simply nothing Voldemort could offer of equal value.
And, in the end, Violet had killed wielders of Winter magic before.
"This helps," Violet said to Tracey. Her lingering smile turned lopsided. "Even for me—and I realize I'm not exactly normal—things recently have begun to… wear. The constant fighting, it's…" It's not like the Wyld, she wanted to say. Fighting witches and wizards wasn't like fighting fae. There were no innocents among the Sidhe, and moments of sorrow were as treasured there as love.
"Yeah?" Tracey said, raising her eyebrows. "Maybe they'll give me a medal when this is all over. 'The Savior's stress relief.' "
Violet smirked. "You do realize how that sounds, don't you?"
"Yeah, yeah." A slightly pink shade colored Tracey's cheeks, and she started looking at anything other than Violet. Finally she settled on something behind her, craning her neck, and she sniffed. "Oh. It's your shadow."
"Tonks?" Violet said, searching for a familiar shock of pink hair in the crowds. Instead she got a splash of black, mournfully cradling Tonks' face. "I wonder what she wants…"
Violet's watched as she approached. She'd taken to following Violet and Tracey on these trips, if she were to call them that, ostensibly as security. Violet thought it might be more because she needed something to do. Even her Auror work couldn't occupy every hour, and since Lupin died, Tonks's personality had grown… erratic. Even so, Violet didn't mind her presence. Nothing about what she and Tracey did here was secret, furtive, or dangerous. It being the opposite of that was entirely the point. And Tonks was good company, though that was more theory than reality since that last day in Grimmauld Place.
Tracey huffed. "I don't know what she's after, following us around like a lost Crup. What could she possibly do compared to you if the Dark Lord actually showed up?"
"Sometimes it's nice to have an extra wand on your side," Violet replied idly, getting to her feet. She called out. "Tonks?"
"Violet." Tonks nodded curtly, gesturing. "A word?"
Not again.
"Sorry," Violet breathed to Tracey. She swore her leg sent a particularly sharp throb of discontent at the thought of more action. But there wasn't a chance in hell she'd blink before Voldemort did.
"What's wrong?" she asked once she'd joined Tonks a few paces away from the bench. Tracey lounged across it, watching the muggles go by with a performative expression of perfect boredom and annoyance.
'There's something I need to tell you." By the tone of Tonks's voice, it wasn't good news.
"Yes? What?"
"Listen close," Tonks said, leaning closer and drawing her wand. Violet tensed, flicking her gaze across the masses of muggles; had the Death Eaters found them?
"Ustulo," Tonks crooned.
Violet's blood flooded with ice.
A toxic stain of darkest magic shuddered, gathering around Tonks's wand in a fraction of a second, even as Violet smoothly slid out of her easy arc of casting. Imperius? Polyjuice? Could Polyjuice even function with a Metamorphagus sample?
A second wave of realization washed over her, more urgent than the first. The precognitive instinct she depended on was quiet; there was no threat.
Not to her.
Tongues of ghostly flame burst into the world, unfolding from Tracey's chest like a pastel flower, immaterial yet flooding the air with heat. Muggles screamed. Tracey jolted, and the bench below her glowed red and yellow and white and crumpled beneath her weight.
Violet howled. Winter's power tore from her throat with a trail of red mist. An ethereal shockwave followed, snuffing out the translucent flames and cooling the twisted bench to black metal coated in jagged ice. The Elder Wand was in her hand without her remembering drawing it, sinister green light shining brightly on the tile floor even in daylight.
Tonks's painfully familiar nostrils flared. "That was for Barty, Potter," she snarled, locking eyes with Violet and opening her mind so forcefully that Violet couldn't possibly fail to understand. Then she twisted, and Bellatrix Lestrange slipped away a heartbeat before Violet's anti-Apparition jinx took effect.
A fae word of black malediction rang in the parched air. As muggles stampeded by in an endless wave of colors and emotion, Violet slowly approached Tracey. The corner of her eye twitched erratically, but her hands were still. An arctic chill had taken her heart.
Painted red fingernails cracked as they clenched around a warped slat, made solid halfway through its collapse like time had stopped. Metal fused with skin seared white, black, red, indented where Tracey's instinctual grasp had deformed the heat-softened steel. Half-suspended from the floor by that hand, she was limp. Patches of her clothes were burned away and merged with blistering skin, juxtaposed seemingly at random with undamaged cloth. Tracey jerked abruptly and her hand was freed from the metal, skin peeling away and leaving slick and red muscle. Barely audible over the cacophony, she made a hoarse whistling sound. Violet dropped to her knees beside her.
The curse was passingly familiar to her: ghostly flames of heat but no substance, intersecting with their target and leaving three dimensional burns straight through the body. Those that could be seen were the least of the true damage. Reddened, bulging, but unbroken patterns across Tracey's limbs revealed where internal flames had destroyed flesh and boiled blood without touching skin.
Mercifully, or perhaps mockingly, her face was untouched by the curse but drawn with agonized terror. She struggled for each pained breath, able to take in only the slightest amount of air, and Violet had no need for Legilimency to read her every thought.
"I guess you—" Tracey's voice dissolved into a dry, hissing rasp. A wretched cough shook her, and she found her breath. Every exhale was accompanied by a tiny shrill of suffering. "Guess you—can't fix everything after all."
Violet took her hand in her own. Tracey's eyes fluttered.
"Always thought you were really…"
Her words died away. Tracey convulsed one more time, then was still. Dead. Because of Violet. Something in her died too.
It occurred to her, in a distant way, that no one she really cared about had ever died before.
The blasted policeman from earlier was pushing his way against the flow of the crowd, looking around with something verging on panic. More muggles would arrive shortly. Leaving the Obliviators to pick up the mess, Violet reached out for the lingering trails of immaterial magic left behind by Bellatrix's apparition, seizing them with ferocious tenacity. Her hand flared a dark blue, and one of the winding cords became visible and hard in her grasp, as if it had frozen. With a final look at Tracey, the Elder Wand alive with reflected hatred, she turned in place and pulled.
#~
"Crucio!" Violet hissed, lashing out with the Elder Wand. Crystals of black ice crawled down from the wood over the back of her hand, flexing with her motions like a gauntlet. More darkness surrounded her, a wreath of Winter magic pulsing red in time with her heartbeat. And she felt nothing.
Bellatrix, still in her guise as Tonks, whooped and swayed away from the Torture Curse. With another crack, she vanished for the ninth time in minutes. Violet followed. The air pressed around her and released, depositing her waist-deep in a rushing river. Her foot slipped on slick pebbles, and she instinctively moved to correct herself before the back of her mind tickled with warning. Following through on her momentum instead, she plunged into the water, the current thumping in her ears, bubbles streaming up around her. White-hot dots plunged after her, carving boiling paths through the water and burning out just inches from her suspended hair.
Finally, something broke through the numbness. Satisfaction. With her saved breath, Violet cast an anti-Apparition Jinx from beneath the water, seizing on the opportunity Bellatrix had until then denied her. She must have run once across Britain and half again. She wouldn't run now.
Violet burst from the water onto the riverbank, wand brandished like a dagger. The stream carved through an open forest clearing, sunlight spilling through an uneven canopy in soft patterns. On the other side of the river a gradual slope eventually rose into a rough, rocky cliff, its uneven silhouette sharp against the late morning sun.
Bellatrix was hiding. Violet bared her teeth and slowly turned, her feet grinding coarse sand beneath them. She flicked the tip of the Elder Wand.
Homenum Revelio!
With a mental impression like walking into a wall, the spell fell back in on itself, blocked by an external force. Irritation surged, but brute force wouldn't be useful here. The Presence Revealing Charm was exploratory in nature and carried no force to overcome resisting magic. The Elder Wand's power couldn't change that. But Violet would not be denied.
Keeping her wand leveled, she opened her mouth and exhaled. A sparkling fog streamed from her lips, spreading outward and leaving a wafer film of ice over the river. It climbed the slope and settled into the underbrush on her side of the river, making clear what was concealed. Shadows lost their potency; branches shuddered, their leaves parting. Violet's eyes flicked from here to there, tracking the gradual progression of the fog. Bellatrix couldn't have Disapparated, not through Violet's jinx, and if she had tried to simply run, the noise would be obvious. No. She was here.
Downstream and partially concealed in the woods, the fog parted and colorful sparks erupted like fireworks. Bellatrix's Disillusionment failed in patches, torn away by Winter magic—in illusion and concealment, none had magic to match the fae.
"Hecatoncheire!"
Smoldering, insubstantial arms erupted from the ground, grabbing at Bellatrix and missing by infuriating hair's breadths, shredding strips from her robes but failing to attain a grasp that would drag her… elsewhere. Skipping back, Bellatrix set off flashes of golden light that briefly disrupted the arms, but she was only buying herself time. Violet cast the curse again and yet more limbs reached out from the trunks of trees and roots, snapping shut on… air.
Bellatrix hovered five meters over the ground, well out of reach. Her legs swayed effortlessly as if swimming through water. Yet another mocking laugh came, one Violet was beginning to truly despise.
"My Lord is great, is he not? See what he teaches me!"
Her voice was transformed. Reverent. Still she appeared as Tonks, and the combination was revolting. Polyjuice shouldn't have survived Violet's magic, but she was utterly uninterested in exploring that mystery. Bellatrix was visible and in reach. That was enough.
"Crucio!" Violet snapped as she curled her left hand. The Torture Curse passed under Bellatrix as she rose further, but a following flash of blue light caught her trailing foot and coated it in crushing ice. She gasped in pain but grinned broadly and struck back, forcing Violet to shield against a storm of dark curses. She slid back under the malicious force of the magic, digging her heels into the loose ground. Curses ricocheted and shattered, spraying umber sparks that melted holes in the icy river and scorched sand to glass.
Drawing on the air's moisture, Violet brought thick slabs of interlocking ice into existence, splintering under the oncoming fury but allowing her to slip away, jabbing upward with the Elder Wand.
Atroxus Igni!
Sticky black and purple flames streamed from the Elder Wand, curving down to the earth like a heavy liquid. Violet could feel her own skin singing under the awful heat, but she only redoubled the destructive intent behind it. She'd gladly suffer worse than that if Bellatrix burned.
The dark fire splashed against a pale blue shield, spitting sparks and fury and clinging without relent, shimmers of heat distortion blurring the air. An orange Blasting Curse flew outward, detonating vaguely near Violet and sending her stumbling. Bellatrix shot forward through the air, shedding her shield and the flames as one. She alighted on the far side of the river and cocked her hip to relieve her frostbitten foot, smirking contemptuously. The expression looked alien on Tonks's face.
"Why?" Violet demanded, forcing her breathing to slow and concentrating on filling her body with Winter magic. Every part of her screamed for vengeance, but Winter favored it cold. If Bellatrix wanted to talk, she would wait. "Just spite?"
Bellatrix shrugged. "Among other things. Such a shame. Even as a halfblood, Draco assured me she was a good Slytherin." Her tongue flicked over her lips, her voice filled with eagerness behind mocking regret. "And her family—tsk, tsk. But that's what comes of consorting with the wrong sort. We can't abide traitors."
She continued in a conspiratorial whisper, holding one hand to shield her lips. "I gave dear Mummy to Greyback just a few hours ago. Do you think she's still alive? He so loves to savor his prey, but he's just an animal in the end, slave to bestial whims. But sometimes a beast is precisely what it takes, don't you agree?"
Violet nodded, finding the frozen mask her face had set into a comforting friend from years past. She rolled her shoulders, savoring the pleasant shivers spreading through her body as gathered Winter magic roiled within. "You would not, I suppose," she said, "be afraid of death."
"I cut my wrists at your age just to flirt with it." Bellatrix laughed breathily. "The sensation… theexcitement… thenumbing cold… well, you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"
Violet arched an eyebrow. "Fascinating," she drawled. "I'll have to keep you alive, then. Even you have to fear something. We'll discover it together even if it takes centuries. I promise."
For just a moment, she thought she could make out a contemplative flicker across Bellatrix's irreverent expression. It faded, and Bellatrix flicked up her wand. She tensed.
"I wager you would make a good attempt of it, too," Bellatrix said. "But… alas… I'm afraid I already found your weakness." She caressed the last word like an incantation and turned her head, watching the cliff's ridgeline, sighing in soft contentment. "Last time… was just a rehearsal."
Violet's conjured fog, slowly continuing its crawl over the terrain, scaled the rapidly steepening boulders and earth, leaving impressions of frost and disturbed foliage. Then it crested the peak, and thousands of sparkling lights erupted as tens of concealing charms failed as one. Bellatrix broke into wild laughter and multiple hostile anti-Apparition jinxes bore down, filling the air with a nearly water-like pressure. Bellatrix held up an ornate brass and iron clockwork lock and clicked it shut, bringing with it a still greater imprisoning weight.
A line of figures in dark robes stood on the high ground, wands raised, sunlight glinting off ornate masks. Now, finally, Winter snapped out a harsh warning inside Violet's mind, of a threat too distant to be seen until it was too late to evade. Bellatrix was right. She'd found a weakness Violet hadn't realized she had.
~#~
Violet sprinted through the woods, half-flying over the uneven ground with effortless grace. She was swift; a big cat would have struggled to keep pace. But the flashing shapes overhead, on broomstick borne, faced no such difficulties. Streaks of magic and menacing energy landed around her, dense foliage dissolving under black acid and corrupting purple stains, flashes of flame and smoke that shook her like almighty slaps, dazing and disorienting—
"Protego Enervo," she gasped, a fraction of a second before a towering lance of silver light seared the sky, weaving between and around the twin trunks of a split birch and filling the living wood with terrible energy that could not be restrained. The tree exploded from the inside, blasting clouds of wood dust outward along with keening splinters larger than Violet's head. A single, still impression lingered in her mind of the debris approaching with lethal intent before the shrapnel slammed to a near stop in the invisible field surrounding her, struck with the lethargy of a fly in amber.
Violet turned sharply to stay away from the ground exposed by the collapse of the ancient tree and flicked her wand up to the sky. The captured splinters accelerated upward, shifting and warping into black masses. At the skyline they burst apart, becoming flocks of ravens that screeched and swarmed about, harrying the broomsticks that zipped overhead. Spurts of flame crossed the sky and poured to the ground around Violet, birds in flames falling like tiny comets. Seizing the moment of chaos, she came to a stop and took off at a sprint in the direction she had just come.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" a young man's voice screeched from just over her, making her duck to avoid the curse. The flier completed his daring maneuver, pulling upward from his dive as branches lashed at his robes and transforming his momentum into a swooping arc that shot him back skyward. "She's here!" the voice repeated, shaky with exultation and nearly deafening from an Amplifying Charm.
Merlin's dangling—that was Draco Malfoy. Once again, softness and humanity had betrayed her. She should have ended the Malfoy bloodline with his parents. He was no threat of course, even if he had found a measure of courage she would not have predicted from him. But in failing to strike down a future enemy she had indulged a sickening mortal weakness that would kill her more surely than a saber through the heart.
Her lips drawing back to bare clenched teeth, she followed the whelp with a hawk's predatory contempt and curled her fingers. The clouds lit up with with the same dazzling lightning that had brought down his mother before him. But by luck or skill he abruptly swerved, and thunder tolled as electric death passed through air alone. Snarling, Violet tore her eyes away as the dark dot of Malfoy blended with the swarming riders above. He was little more than a passing distraction anyway. It was Bellatrix she owed a debt of vengeance.
Idly she flicked aside a Piercing Curse and hurled a stream of freezing water and razor ice into the air, planting her feet firmly on the ground. If they truly believed that numbers alone would bring them victory—as if she had not just months before stood alone against the Inner Circle and Voldemort himself alone!—they would find their misconceptions corrected only in death. There was no sign of the Dark Lord now, and if Violet recalled their last encounter rightly, he would not be eager to take the field without weeks of recovery. They would all pay.
More curses rained down, even as the Death Eaters taunted her with their precise and mesmerizing aerial acrobatics. Finally, Violet scored first blood, and a figure engulfed in flame drove headlong into the ground and certain death. It was taking too long. If only Violet could fly, as Bellatrix and Voldemort could! She would tear the knowledge from Bellatrix's mind, seize it as her right—no, she could not risk destroying her mind before she suffered adequately—no—
As if the thought had prompted her, Bellatrix brandished her wand in a great sweep, turning midair to complete an ornate motion that left trails of rose-red sparks. Then her wand snapped down and she cried out an incantation that rang like a bell long after it should have faded.
All but one with Winter and her precognitive magic, Violet spun gracefully to the side, her wand trailing behind her to catch the sizzling bolt of magic on its tip. Continuing the motion, she swiveled on one foot, intent on flinging the bit of unpleasant energy back whence it came. Her weight settled, and a line of white-hot pain shot from her ankle to her hip, the strength in her leg suddenly failing as its week-old injury reminded her of its presence. She grunted and fell to a knee, her concentration lapsing for just a moment—
It was one moment too long.
The sparking red magic, barely restrained from its destructive intent, now burst free and shot up the length of the Elder Wand into her right arm. Violet screamed. Fiery points of pain crawled up her forearm like heated needles, leaving an impression of uncontrollable tightness in their wake. Her fingers and wrist convulsed, and the Elder Wand spilled from her hand to the forest floor. She squeezed down on the cursed flesh with her other hand, willing Winter's power to halt the invading magic, but her magic was sluggish, her thoughts clouded.
Violet was no stranger to physical pain, but each pulsing throb, crawling a little further each time, was like a hammer striking inches from her ear, shattering any concentration and forcing her to begin again. She stumbled back into deeper foliage, curses thundering down around her. Sharp breaths of cold air, stolen through clenched teeth, provided little clarity. Her vision fuzzed, brilliant lights erupting as the world seemed to contract into a tunnel. The curse—it had to be broken. In seconds all had come undone, the clarity of vengeance lost in Death's looming shadow—
A damp pine bough slapped against her face. Verdant needles laden with crystalline droplets of clear water had an almost unbearable clarity, even as the rest of the world seemed to sag and blur. Finally Violet could feel Winter beginning to rally against whatever dark magic was corrupting her veins, but the stabbing, disorienting pain continued, leaving her nearly insensate, registering only the impact of curses around her, each bringing another jarring crash inside her head. She whipped around, and the world became nauseating streaks of color that lingered for long seconds after she ceased moving. She felt drunk, or maybe the ineffable state of absolute inebriation that drink promised but could never deliver before oblivion. If it weren't for the faint voice screaming in warning in the back of her mind, it might have been pleasant.
Tonks—no, Bellatrix, Bellatrix—alighted just a few inches off the ground in front of her, gleeful. Her wand slashed through the air, her lips mouthing, "Crucio!" and Violet had scarcely recognized the threat before it arrived. A whisper of air slipped through her lips.
Oh.
There were no words to describe the Torture Curse. As the caster, its cruel power bestowed an ecstatic inversion of suffering. A gentle wizard could be made a sadist by it, and it was not the kind-hearted who would think to wield it at all. This aspect of the curse, Violet knew well.
It was a pale imitation of the true infinite depths of the Cruciatus. Of mind-rending torment and the death of courage. In a moment, Violet was nothing. Vaunted discipline and mastery of strange arts was nothing before incomprehensible pain inflicted on mind, body, and soul. Time and space faded, leaving only a nightmarish sea of agony, an endless void that was swallowing her whole. Her flesh tore from her bones and snapped back; fire scorched her veins; dignity fled, and a child's voice, forgotten, wailed.
For all the strength that brought her pride, and for all the merciless hatred which would now never cool, there was no indignity, no weakness beneath her now. The Cruciatus left her as nothing more than a frail and mewling coward who did not beg for mercy only because her thoughts were shattered and her voice lost to screams. There was no fighting it. There was no escaping it. And the greatest suffering it inflicted was to the heart.
Awareness returned, an almost greater cruelty. Irrationally, Violet's first clear thought was self-disgust. Here she lay, in clammy mud without an ounce of purpose, wracked by convulsions that would not allow her to so much as die on her feet. All for nothing. Bellatrix stepped closer, but Violet was not watching her but a point distant. The woods were thawing; dripping water was a constant refrain. Fitting enough.
A pathetic end.
Furiously, Violet forced magic through her body, willing it to obey, demanding herself to stand. Her thoughts had regained their sharpness now, the curse to her arm finally purged by Winter magic. But they served to do nothing but allow her to fully comprehend the utter depths of her own failure as her muscles screamed in protest at her attempts to move, drawing tight and stiff. She hissed venomous fury.
Tonks looked very much like her aunt when her face was flushed with vicious exhilaration. Violet spared the briefest thought for the true owner of those features. Was she still alive? Had Bellatrix taken a loose hair from her robes or torn it from her scalp? How long had Bellatrix been waiting, patient in the face of Violet's laxness?
Well, there was likely only one way she could possibly find out now. Casting her voice firmly, so that the rapidly assembling Death Eaters—a wall of black robes like funereal curtains—could hear, she lent to it the supreme arrogance of the Winter Court. She was beaten, and all knew it, but even from the ground she would remind them that she was above them and their petty concerns. Her magic was beyond their comprehension. Cold and dark places held no secrets from her. And she had known beauty unparalleled in this flawed world. She was born to James and Lily, but she would die as fae. As Aryssa. All coins had two sides.
"Won't you show me your face, Bella?"
With titanic effort, Violet had managed to drag herself up on her right elbow. It was still completely numb and unresponsive, but the rest of her body was slowly regaining its coordination. Her eyes flicked to the left, to the Elder Wand just a meter or two away. It would not be enough. Winter's grace was glorious, but not even it could throw off the Cruciatus's effects so swiftly.
Bellatrix cocked her head, and Violet jutted out her chin, shaking her hair out of her eyes. "It's not like you to hide behind another."
"Do accept my humble apologies, but I'm afraid it's not quite so simple as that." Bellatrix smirked. "I would love to do this personally, but my dear, darling blood-traitor niece must be taught a lesson one way or another. And, personally, I can't think of any way better than watching her beloved little savior die under her own hand, through her own eyes. Can you?"
Violet narrowed her eyes, lashed out with Legilimency, and recoiled in shocked confusion. There was something impossibly wrong with what she had found. Somehow, there was not one mind but two, one dominant and the other…
Puppeted.
"Yes," Bellatrix murmured, running a finger along her long and pointed wand. "Polyjuice could never capture a Metamorphagus's abilities. And it would be so very tragicto let such a rare talent go to waste."
Violet nodded, slowly. "Remarkable."
"Why, thank you. My Lord's mastery of the Dark Arts is unparalleled, but I do hope he will be impressed all the same by my little experiment. But… ah, you're trying to buy time, aren't you?"
Violet sneered.
"There will be time aplenty," Bellatrix said, sniffing haughtily. "The Dark Lord believes you to be too dangerous to take alive, but I don't think he will be terribly upset if it takes a few minutes… or hours… to kill you. Petrificus Totalus! Crucio!"
This time, she was ready. It didn't help at all.
Of tranquility and its cacophonous opposite, certain things were the same. As she jerked and writhed, screams fading to helpless gurgles as her teeth bit down on and pierced the tip of her tongue, a strange and otherworldly yet immediately familiar sensation descended upon her.
Clarity was born in the heart of madness. A core of numb stillness formed in the deepest part of her mind, not shielded from the agony but incapable of comprehending it. There was no pain there, no vigor, no fear. Only cold.
REACH FOR APOTHEOSIS.
The words, which arrived not as words but fragmented shards of information, an inhuman conception tailored for a tormented mind, were like a star in darkness. Violet seized on it, understanding at last. All had been leading here, hadn't it? A pinnacle's pinnacle. Winter rose within her, an ocean forced through a stream. Her heart stopped.
The cold seed within her sprouted, spreading like settling snow. Even the Cruciatius was drowned out, lost to a blizzard of the mind. Magic coursed through her with breathtaking intensity, leaving existence and her place in it as little more than passing shadows. She could feel Winter, and instinctively she knew that it was that connection alone that allowed her to stand it all.
"What in Morgana's name—"
A presence so vast that it defied reason loomed large, engulfing the damp moss beneath Violet and the stars above, shining distant splendor behind a blue veil. Winter at last revealed itself in its true nature; not of timelessness and grace but human blood; an idea—or perhaps a dream—ever entwined with its partner and equal, made real only in effigy and always a part of a whole. Yet an idea could not think, could not plot or scheme, and Winter had defied the restriction of its own nature when Violet was chosen. Something had changed when nothing should ever have.
But, a quiet voice wondered that was very much human, if one dream can become real, what of the other? Oh, Sirius.
The stream of Winter's power surged, as if swelling beneath snowfall, coursing fast and strong. Triumph pulsed like a drum—hers or Winters she couldn't tell—and her eyes snapped open, the world beginning to return. The perspective remained.
Bellatrix had abandoned the Cruciatius, though it would not have mattered, not when Violet was suffused with a presence so far removed from even the concept of pain that to suggest otherwise was comical. She watched cautiously, her head tilted and wand raised. Violet grinned and began to rise.
More snow was falling deep within her, Winter's stream becoming a true sea. A deep breath rushed through her open mouth, seeming to continue long after her lungs were filled. She was so close—so close to it—
Something changed.
A droplet of something black and inky fell through the snow, splattering on the sea's surface and spreading like oil. Her breath caught. More fell, black rain that burned snow more terribly than even Summer fire. Violet's arm gave way and she gasped, cramps wracking her body. A second presence had joined Winter, vast and terrible and wrong.
The fae arose in the image of humans, fractured through Summer and Winter. Even the strangest and cruelest fae had something distinctly person-like about them, comforting and disconcerting in equal measure. Whatever this was, and the part of Violet that was still apart from the poisoned sea had a very good guess, was… Other.
YOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOUYOU
That's not Winter.
Black rain fell in great curtains, a corrosion of something more vital than body or mind. Panic overwhelmed her, of a degree she would never feel for herself. Winter—eternal and mighty Winter—was like a frightened rabbit spotted by a wolf. She fought for herself, straining to undo what had felt as natural as life and separate herself from this toxic power. It was like tearing off a trapped limb.
A final drop fell. The sea was black and calm, like a sheet of obsidian. A voice came, not in fragmented thoughts but simple English words. There had never been a sound more alien.
Hello, Violet. It's such a pleasure. MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE—
Violet tore. Something erupted out of her with a howl of rage.
For all that her near-union with Winter had uplifted her, it now meant nothing more than a longer fall. Reality rudely introduced itself with a wall of pain—the lingering Cruciatus, her cursed arm, the simple absence of the power she had just narrowly brushed—
A storm of furious cursing percolated through her thoughts. Violet twitched, her eyes slowly focusing.
Blurred figures in black robes surrounded her like onyx pillars, supporting a now darkened sky. A ceiling of heavy gray clouds stretched from horizon to horizon and snow fell, as white as cotton. The soft moss on the forest floor had frozen spiky and hard, and droplets of water mid-fall now clung as ice to branches and needles. A single flake of snow landed on Violet's lip as she struggled for breath. It tasted like bitter ash.
One of the figures scrubbed furiously at her fingers, stiffened around her wand and mottled with Winter's touch. Her eyes locked on Violet and she stopped, beginning to laugh.
Oh. Yes. Bellatrix. Violet had managed to forget.
"Little bitch. Maybe I'll let Greyback have a turn with you too. Cruc—"
"Really, Bella," came another voice, bored, acerbic, and undeniably familiar. "You might at least allow me to see what she knows. The Minister's wrapped around her finger. You would have to be a blundering idiot not to recognize the value of such knowledge to our cause. Of course, that is a possibility I would never discount…"
"Or you could simply kill her here and now," a third Death Eater said. "Before she… surprises you again, Bellatrix."
She curled her lip. "No. Try it if you insist, Severus. But I'm not thawing you out if she gets the best of you."
With a barely audible sound of contempt, Snape broke from the circle and approached Violet, moving with nearly the same floating grace on the ground as Bellatrix in flight.
"Try it," Violet rasped, spitting blood from her mouth. The last of her strength had failed her and she could not as much as feel the arm that had been cursed. But she had witnessed something dark and maddening, and it would be her greatest pleasure to share it before the end. If Snape was truly a traitor, it would be as fit an offering to Dumbledore's memory as she could possibly give.
"Pathetic," he said as he knelt over her, rolling his wand between his fingers but avoiding her gaze. "I did think better of you, but I suppose blood will always out in the end."
"I could have killed you," Violet murmured. "At the last meeting."
Snape's dark eyes gleamed. "Indeed. And what a different position you would be in now if you had."
Slowly, he raised his wand, holding it high in a moment of excessive grandiosity. Muffled sounds of appreciation came from the other Death Eaters. Snape paused and turned, bowing deeply to further amusement. His robes billowed with the motion, and Violet caught a glint of glass.
"What do you think?" Snape drawled, still facing away from her. "I hope you sorry lot aren't still pissing yourselves at the sight of her now. Even if Bella managed to get a little too close, somehow or other."
Bellatrix launched a barbed retort, but Violet wasn't listening. With the way Snape was standing, just in arm's reach with his outer robes parted, it was like he was actually trying to show her something… With a tremendous exertion, she forced herself onto her good elbow. Nearly a dozen glass vials were secured to Snape's belt, snug in leather sheathes. One stuck out, just a few millimeters but enough to draw attention to its sparkling blue contents.
"Right," Snape said lazily. "I suppose we should be getting on with things, shouldn't we, Bellatrix?"
Biting down on her already bleeding tongue as the after-agony of the Cruciatius roared in her stiffened limbs, Violet lunged with a vigor she had thought she would never feel again. Her heart hammered as her fingers closed around the vial and pulled it free. Snape wheeled on her, waiting just long enough to give her the time to toss it into the air.
It spun swiftly through its trajectory, glowing against the dull sky. Bellatrix raised her hand as if to catch it, but the charmed glass turned to powder on contact and what looked like a thousand tiny stars spilled free. Everyone started to shout.
Snape's eyes were wide. "That's an experimental—"
Each white point, like grains of glowing sand, began to sizzle, trailing thin smoke from where they coated Bellatrix's robes. Cursing, she hurriedly pulled them off. "Someone stun the little—"
The smoke stopped, and each point began to slowly rise from the pile of shed clothing to bob uneasily at eye level. Bellatrix raised her wand, but the lights darted at her before she could react, turning to white streaks that curved and spun, converging on a point near her hip. There was a deafening bang and Bellatrix screamed. Bits of metal whined as they shot through the air, and Violet gasped as the unseen weight upon her suddenly weakened.
"Move, fools!" Snape bellowed. "It will destroy your enchanted—"
He didn't get a chance to finish. The lights, faster now, shot in all directions, homing in on everything from never-wind watches to two-way mirrors, each artifact exploding with menacing intensity. Confused and angry shouts rang out as closely carried possessions became vicious shards of torn metal and glass. In the chaos, no one but Violet—and Snape, clearly—seemed to realize just what the item Bellatrix had been carrying was.
Rolling over the frozen ground and wincing as her deadened right arm lolled uselessly, Violet grasped the Elder Wand with her left, almost shuddering in relief. She screwed her eyes shut, braced herself, and violently Disapparated through the weakened jinxes.
A hoarse cry tore through her throat as she tumbled through neither here nor there. Every bone in her right arm had shattered.
~#~
Violet slammed into being in a littered London alley and immediately crumpled, her teeth clenched together so tightly she swore she could hear them creak. Wincing, she tried to move her arm but abandoned it when the elbow flopped backward with another wave of grinding agony.
She bit back a briefest impulse for self-pity. A curse must have struck her just moments before she Disapparated, and she hadn't so much as glimpsed it. Then again, she hadn't been at remotely near her best.
Alive. And she owed Snape for it. Bugger.
She rested her head on the irregular bricks of the building behind her, breathing slowly and almost relishing the pulses of pain that radiated through her. There was a sort of satisfaction to it; failure should not come without unbearable consequence. A lock of hair fell into her eyes, and she couldn't find the motivation to shake it free.
A shadow fell over her, and she sighed almost imperceptibly before looking up. A ponderous looking man with with a tweed cap squinted at her.
He teetered under the weight of a paint-stained cardboard box stuffed with Muggle contraptions, all bits of beige plastic and cables and screens tumbled haphazardly over each other. He coughed.
"Er—all right, Miss? You're a bit…"
Slowly, he trailed off, looking unsettled at her robes, at her bloodshot eyes and limp arm, and at her generally wrung out demeanor. Violet's lip curled in bleak amusement. She swallowed, tasting copper, and shrugged her good shoulder. "Lucky, I should think. All things considered."
"Right." The man exhaled, clearly eager to avoid a potential threat to the uninterrupted rhythm of a mundane day. "That's good, then."
He slowly wandered off, casting a dubious look backward. With a lurch, Violet dragged herself to her feet and set off in the opposite direction before more, nosier, muggles showed up. The last thing she needed was to explain a throng of them outside a clandestine Ministry entrance, on top of everything else.
At the back of the alley, shrouded by cobwebs and darkness, was a dented, dingy aluminum dustbin, empty except for a mess of paper at the bottom—mainly memos detailing requests for interdepartmental transparency that had mysteriously become exceptionally lost on their way to the Department of Mysteries' administrative wing. Ignoring the nauseating pain that the motion brought, she contorted herself inside it, tucked her head down, and lowered the lid.
The fact that a dustbin was more dignified, if only slightly, than a toilet did little to convince Violet that the scant few who held sufficiently important positions in and around the Ministry to be informed of its newest and least known entrance didn't deserve something with slightly more gravitas.
After several painful minutes of jolting, banging, and cursing, the dustbin came to a stop. Violet pushed off the lid and climbed out, then watched in mild fascination as it seemed to sink into the solid floor and disappeared. She winced. The splintered bone in her arm was already beginning to knit, but it would be no swift process.
A painfully nondescript office greeted her. Half a dozen partially filled forms were neatly arranged on the desk, and there was a tasteful but not unreasonably large potted plant placed in one corner. One could quite clearly imagine that anyone working here would be concerned with terribly important but terribly boring matters, such as the maintenance of the Floo network or the issuance of certifications for owl breeders. It was likely this was someone's idea of a joke, since no one worked in this room at all.
She took a moment to pause and compose herself as best she could under the circumstances. Allies or not, it would do her no favors to show weakness here. That done, she approached the unremarkable, slightly rough brown door with a muggle-style handle and opened it. The gleaming black tiles of the Department of Mysteries greeted her, a corridor like a hundred others. Violet closed the door. Once again she opened it, this time to a transformed scene that she recognized as somewhere near the Hall of Prophecy. Once more she closed and opened the door.
It opened into an office very much like the one she was already in, though somehow even more devoid of anything resembling a human touch. It was not empty.
"Potter," said the man who was standing not far from the fireplace, unsurprised by her presence. His sandy hair, thick spectacles, and boyish looks, tempered only slightly by middle age, belied his true work. His eyes flicked over her. "Ah. I believe the Minister is away on business in the open Ministry. Some nonsense about another attack on the muggles in broad daylight. I'll see that he is informed of your arrival."
Olen Toft was quiet, academic, and likable. He also had spent the last decade and a half—at least— assembling an unrecognized quasi-military force drawn from the Unspeakables, in preparation for Voldemort's return or perhaps for… other reasons. Now, he headed the Department of Magical War and seemed well at home slowly expanding his power, shielded by the necessary secrecy of such a position. Violet did not trust him; he had made himself indispensable far too adroitly for a man who believed in good faith.
"Don't rush," Violet said. She gestured at her arm. "I need someone to look at this."
"A Healer?"
"Someone who can wrap their head around Bellatrix Lestrange's pet curse."
"I see."
Toft walked to the door to his office and opened it a crack. Violet could make out nothing more than black mist, illuminated by something like moonlight without source. He stared for a long moment, then shut the door and indicated a chair. "It will be a few minutes."
Violet cracked her neck and said nothing. He shrugged and returned to contemplating the fire.
Not long later, the door opened again. Violet twitched at the sound, half expecting Scrimgeour, who was sure to be in a towering mood once he deciphered what had happened at the shopping center and that a Hogwarts student had died. Well, fuck him. He was in no position to question her judgment when she was the only reason the Ministry had survived long enough to stand on its own at all.
He would not be wrong, of course, but Violet would not hear it from him. Besides, he'd only care about Tracey as far as her death could damage Violet's reputation and by extension the Ministry's, and despite the logic to it, something about that irked her even through the numbness that had taken her.
Instead, an Unspeakable—a real one, not Magical War—swept into the room and immediately began conversing with Toft under his breath. Violet shifted irritably, less at being ignored than at the charm on his hood that obscured his words from eavesdroppers.
"Your arm?" the Unspeakable asked after turning to her, voice lost to echoes. "It's cursed?"
"It was," she said curtly. "I broke it. Then when I Disapparated, bone shattered. There might have been a second curse. I can't be certain."
"Very well."
He prodded her arm with his wand, sending a surge of pain through her along with a brief but nearly irresistible urge to rip his heart from his chest for his impudence. She consoled herself by conjuring needle-like formations of ice along the fingers of her good hand and imagining them flaying Bellatrix's skin from her flesh.
Clearly she was still more perturbed by the morning's events than she would prefer to admit.
Long minutes followed of vigorous poking, perplexed mumbling, and Toft staring at her like a bloody vulture. Then Scrimgeour did show up, and Violet had to bite back a groan.
"Thank Merlin you're not dead," he said, a drawn intensity in his eyes. "What the devil happened, and why was a student involved?"
"Two students, do you mean?" Violet asked dryly. "As occasionally inconvenient as that fact may be."
He snorted and shook his head, tossing his lanky hair. "Hardly. If you killed her—"
"If I killed her?" Violet shook off the Unspeakable and swept over to confront Scrimgeour. Though he loomed over her, he seemed almost to diminish in her presence, like a wary wolf unsure whether to strike or flee.
"I'm not accusing you of anything," he said through gritted teeth. "I'm only saying that, whatever you did, it would be a lot easier if you could inform me of it beforehand."
"What I did," Violet repeated, tasting the words on her tongue. "What I did. Tell me—you too, Toft—what, precisely did I do that allowed Bellatrix Lestrange herself to infiltrate nearly the very deepest levels of the Auror Office and Department of War?"
"What?" Scrimgeour exclaimed, spluttering as a rosy glow slowly began to fill his cheeks. "Lestrange is involved? Why am I only hearing this now?"
"She did mention it," Toft murmured. "Potter, what do you mean, saying she penetrated the Department?"
"Oh, it's worse than you think. You're familiar with Nymphadora Tonks? Auror, Metamorphagus, good with a wand? Twice decorated since the start of the war?"
"What?" Now Scrimgeour just looked baffled. "What does some Auror have to do with anything?"
"How about you, Toft?" Violet asked, ignoring him. "Ring any bells?"
"Of course." He flicked a glance over to Scrimgeour. "It does do to take an interest in those under one's command… But Tonks has been on leave for nearly a month; such a tragedy what happened to the Order of the Phoenix, truly…"
"She's been—damn it." Of course; Bellatrix wouldn't have been interested in the minutiae of Tonks' life after the voyeuristic novelty wore off. And she certainly wouldn't have wanted to waste time on games of espionage better left to prospective Death Eaters. Violet worked her jaw from side to side, forcing herself not to respond unthinkingly.
"Well, congratulations," she finally said. "I suppose you managed to mitigate the breach by putting Bellatrix Lestrange on paid leave. Of course, that didn't exactly help Tonks, did it? I would have imagined one bloody person in the whole Ministry might have thought to check that Voldemort's second wasn't wearing her body like a fucking glove. Clearly, I was excessively burdened by optimism."
Predictably, that little revelation went down like poisoned wine. Scrimgeour tore strips off of Toft for failing to catch Bellatrix while they had the chance; Toft retaliated by questioning why he seemed more concerned for that than the well being of a decorated Auror. Violet grimaced and stepped back, the noise making her head throb. She jerked her head at the Unspeakable, who had silently withdrawn to a distance that was relatively safe yet comfortably in eavesdropping range.
"What about the arm?" she asked quietly. As if to punctuate her words, her arm jerked as broken bone clicked into place. She bent it viciously back and forth. It was comforting, in a way, to experience agony but control it when the memory of the Cruciatus Curse was vividly recent.
The void under the Unspeakable's hood turned to her. "Further research would be warranted, ideally. You were correct that you broke the curse. But there are… lingering consequences. Flesh can be taught; to knit or rend itself alike. The injury was sustained when you Disapparated?"
"As I said."
"Indeed. Tentatively, I would suggest that something of that… conditioning nature. It reminds me of the work of the corporeal-separatists of the south of… ah, a subject for another time. If you would prefer a more substantive conclusion, there are certain procedures we could carry out within the Department of Mysteries…"
Violet raised a single, sardonic eyebrow until the Unspeakable shrugged. "Perhaps not."
"What, precisely, do mean by flesh being taught?"
A shout briefly interrupted their conversation. Scrimgeour, red-faced and clenching his fists like they were around the neck of Voldemort himself, tore away from Toft with a final gesture of disgust. He stomped over.
"This cannot continue," he snarled. "We're stretched to the brink. If we can't regain the initiative, we might as well hand the Ministry over now. And, to be blindingly clear, the way to accomplish that is not to charge into a trap alone."
Violet curled her lip.
"Damn it. Why aren't you at Mungo's now getting Skele-Gro? We have to strike tonight—that Auror must have left a hair somewhere in her office; we'll get the Unspeakables on it and track Lestrange to their safe house. We've suspected Voldemort's out of country for days, and if he wasn't with Lestrange that's all but confirmed. This is our chance."
"Oh, positively," Violet replied sarcastically. "Clearly, the logical thing to do after criticizing me for acting rashly is to charge headlong into battle once again. Lestrange couldn't possibly predict us divining Tonks's location."
Scrimgeour drew breath to respond, but the Unspeakable interrupted. "There may be a slight problem there, actually—"
"Why is there an Unspeakable here?" Scrimgeour barked. "This is an unacceptable security breach—"
Toft snorted softly. "As if that's relevant. Besides, Unspeakables know how to keep secrets."
"Yes. For both bloody sides."
"Excuse me," Violet said sharply, tapping her foot on the floor. "I want to hear this. One might say I have an ever so minutely personal stake in it."
"As I was saying," the Unspeakable continued, drawing Violet's focus, "I suspect it won't be that simple. It's not my position to comment on matters of strategy—my expertise is strictly limited to research, you understand—but it is my understanding that you would find it rather difficult to conduct any operations in that field without the ability to Apparate."
"Apparition?" Violet asked sharply. "I Disapparated just minutes ago, through jinxes."
"No doubt. And that would be when your arm broke, yes?"
Scrimgeour scoffed. "Splinching doesn't break bones. You don't need to be a researcher to know that."
"But she didn't Splinch herself," Toft whispered, seeming almost to loom nearer despite not moving. "Did she?"
"Of course I didn't. Couldn't it have merely been a curse that struck me at the last moment?"
"Unlikely. There is a lingering—resonance, perhaps is the word—extending from the tips of your fingers to near the shoulder. Not a curse, to be clear, but the memory of one. There is no magic to break, no curse to lift. Rather, I propose the ethereal nature of the blood and bone of your arm has been altered to be fundamentally intolerant of nonspatial transport. You could test it, of course, but the results may be… regrettable."
Violet drew a breath through her teeth. "You're sure?"
"Quite. Though, again, it could be put to the test."
"Well I'm glad you're sure because I certainly am not." Scrimgeour sounded less than pleased. "Are you saying that even though the curse on her is broken she still somehow can't Apparate without breaking her bloody arm?"
"More specifically, any form of travel not involving continuous and infinitely divisible changes in location would trigger the—"
"Oh, priceless." Vigorously, he rubbed at his forehead before pinching the bridge of his nose. "And how long will this take to fix?"
"Fix?" the Unspeakable repeated, as if the question had not occurred to them. "Well… years, probably."
"What?" demanded Violet and Scrimgeour in near perfect synchronization.
The Unspeakable spread their hands. "The muggles say that we are materially unconnected from our past selves through a process of continual renewal of the body. They're missing most of the puzzle, of course, but physically their claims seem substantiated. Given enough time, the conditioned tissue should be replaced with fresh… never mind. Suffice to say it will take years. Aside from that, there's little to be done. There's no curse to break, not anymore."
Violet twisted away, furiously pacing back and forth. Scrimgeour erupted.
"Years? You're telling me years? The best the Department of Mysteries' bottomless budget can come up with is to wait?"
"There may be another option," Toft said, "given the urgency of the situation. A conventional prosthetic would hardly be suitable, but I recall a project several years back investigating possible enhancements to human limbs. The cephalopodic direction was the most promising, if I recall…"
Violet snapped around, ceasing her pacing. "If anyone else suggests replacing my arm with a fucking tentacle, I'll give them a reason to research prosthetics."
"You can't just dismiss the option," Scrimgeour snapped. "We can't afford fits of vanity. Toft, would it work?"
"The research was promising but was terminated due to a lack of… public appeal. I could pull the old files."
Violet tapped her foot on the carpet; the room's temperature plunged. She cleared her throat into the silence that followed, rolling the Elder Wand between the fingers of her good hand. "Second warning. This discussion is closed."
Winter's power filled her like a deep breath of crisp air. Arctic wind cut through the previously stuffy office. Scrimgeour's eyes bulged and he made a half-movement for his wand before dragging his hand back. The Unspeakable Toft had summoned swept gracefully out of the room.
"I will resolve the problem myself," Violet said. "Further input from you will be neither expected nor tolerated."
"Potter," Scrimgeour said in a warning tone.
"Scrimgeour," Violet mocked, stepping closer. Power thrummed through her, carrying away pain and confused feelings alike. This was the way it should be.
"Potter, what are you doing?"
There was thunder in her ears. A metallic taste collected under her tongue, like lightning in essence. Her tongue flicked over her lips.
"Potter!"
"Po—damn it, Violet, what are those things?"
Violet paused, caught off guard by the revulsion in his voice. She glanced down at herself and hissed.
Through the aura of blue-white light that surrounded her, streaks of oily black writhed like worms. They coiled around her possessively, following her movements and clinging to her form.
A voice whispered, not in her ear.
You're right… this is how it should be…
Swatting at the—things—as if they were somehow solid, Violet forced away the Winter magic. It resisted like a thick liquid, peeling away only with great reluctance. Even once it was gone, and the corruption too, she continued to pat at herself, eyes wide.
Toft was watching her with great fascination.
"What was that?" Scrimgeour demanded. "Now what? Someone get that Unspeakable back here, because if this is what it looks like when a curse has been broken, I'd dearly love to hear what he thinks is an active one."
"A problem," Violet said, shaking her head like a damp cat. Her eyes flicked up to meet Scrimgeour's, and she forced herself to still despite her pounding heart, perfectly neutral. Perfectly cold. "Not yours. I'll handle it."
Again…
"Yes, I can see that," Scrimgeour said, curling his lip. "Just like you handled Bellatrix today."
"As you say."
He groaned. "Fine. How will you handle it?"
She tilted her head from side to side for several long seconds, contemplating what to say. "The details are not important. But I will be unavailable—completely—for an indeterminable period. Bellatrix's curse is one thing, but this is… another."
It was not so easy as that. Scrimgeour, naturally, refused to accept the inevitable and continued to attempt to interject himself into one of Violet's few great headaches that he wasn't already sharing. Once it was clear he wouldn't come around on his own and with faint but undeniable threads of nerves giving edge to her impatience, she finally threw her hands in the air and turned to Toft, staring in challenge. "Would you please offer your expert advice to the Minister as to whether it would be in his best interests to involve himself in the affairs of those on the other side of the Cold Room?"
The man's expression, normally as stoic as the hood he forewent, twitched, but he resolutely said nothing. Violet stepped closer, voice dropping, eyes briefly flaring wide.
"Yes. It was my doing. And two of your refuse before, dabbling in matters beyond them. I will hold no grudge if you do not."
Scrimgeour gave them both an incredulous look as Toft nodded slowly. "Agreed. And, Minister? It would be my professional recommendation—strongly—that you accept Potter's stance on this matter."
Scrimgeour spluttered and argued for some time more, but the battle was won—not that he'd had a chance from the start. She compromised just a fraction, agreeing to spend one more night in Hogwarts to firmly dispel any rumors of her death the enemy might try to spread should she disappear immediately. The journey was slow and frustrating, especially once muggle transportation could take her no farther and she was forced to walk to Hogsmeade, but she refused Scrimgeour's offer of a carpet out of hand.
Night had fallen by the time she reached Hogwarts, the evening meal all but over. Greengrass remained at the Slytherin table long after most had left, running her thumb around the rim of an empty glass and staring at the empty seat beside her.
Violet turned away.
~#~
She had, naturally, thought herself well acquainted with hatred. It so often went hand-in-hand with killing, and she'd certainly done enough of that. She had been very wrong.
Fucking filth.
The low fire twisted around itself like a contorted beast, spitting and snarling. Violet watched with glacial stillness. Her eyes itched and stung, but she remained unmoved.
Warmth inflicted cruelty cold never could. Violet had dared approach the flames and they had betrayed her, leaping out and leaving her burned. It was her mistake, in the end.
Between heartbeats, the fireplace was snuffed out without so much as a wisp of smoke. Scorched wood and dull iron radiated not a scrap of heat. Violet rose. She had always been two, balancing on a precipice between worlds. Perhaps it was fitting that half of her should die. But, for the sake of vengeance and a debt forever unpaid, never be forgotten.
The mirror-ice Satria had given rested discarded to the side. She ought to contact her tonight, for even hours could be crucial. But she couldn't remotely imagine how she would explain everything that had happened, between needing some way to recover in at most weeks from what should take years and, worse, Esrid—
She couldn't touch Winter, not without inviting the Other in. She felt… lost. Uncertain of anything. And she didn't want it to be real quite yet. One night of weakness, and then… she would do whatever was necessary. Until the end.
It would wait until they could speak in person. It had to.
Hours crept by, but the idea of sleep never grew any more palatable. Instead, she arose and slipped out of the common room, driven by restlessness or instinct.
In dark halls splashed with moonlight, tapestries fluttered like ghosts; armor shone like silver; and orange eyes burned like embers.
AN: It's been a while. Hopefully future updates will come more quickly, but the story will continue to completion either way. Thanks for reading!
Takadoshi Uzumaki: I've got one or two original writing projects at various stages. If I ever share one publicly I'll be sure to let readers of my fanfic know.
Dragon King Hecht: Thanks for your review! I do agree with you that Violet's abilities are pretty vague, but it's a bit late to rework them now. I wasn't really thinking ahead very far when I started writing, so there are a few inconvenient leftovers from that stage that I pretty much just have to work with now.
BigDaddyDudders: Thanks! The Denarian Renegade series was indeed an inspiration for Sleet and Hail.