The Good War

by inwardtransience

Despite her best efforts, Elizabeth Potter is repeatedly drawn into situations she wants absolutely nothing to do with. People just refuse to leave her the hell alone. (fem!Harry, dark!independent!Harry, mentor!Snape, F/F, playing with tropes for fun and profit)

123. Fourth Year — Resurrection I

The first thing Liz noticed as she woke up, slow and dragging and unfocussed, was the pain.

It wasn't particularly bad pain, and, she didn't even think she'd been badly injured — she'd been hurt enough times in duelling matches by now to be able to tell the difference, even while under pain potions. Not that it mattered, she definitely hadn't been given a pain potion, the light warm stinging scratches scattered seemingly at random over her skin were mild enough that she shouldn't be able to feel them at all even on a light dose. Light injuries, nothing serious. One knee and one arm had a stiff, throbbing ache to them, pulled muscles, she was peppered with bruises here and there and everywhere, the worst of it on her shoulder and one hip and thigh, pounding with her heartbeat. She thought she'd also been burned, a hot sharp pain spread over a patch of her left arm, a more pins-and-needles tingly feeling through her right hand and forearm she thought was actually from light magic exposure, a more vague, diffuse, numbed feeling around her hips and—

Oh for fuck's sake, her enchanted knickers must have caught on fire again. That felt like it'd only been a light healing job, though, Pomfrey probably wanted to lecture her before finishing it up...

...except, this wasn't the hospital wing. As she woke up further, the ground hard against her, cool smooth grass tickling at her skin, a gentle breeze blowing over her... She was outdoors, somewhere. There were two minds nearby, both familiar — one was definitely a mind mage, active, smooth cool thoughts loud through an inflated aura — but she wasn't quite awake enough to place them. Shifting, gasping a little at the sharp throb of pain through her bruises and wrenched joints, she got an elbow under—

A hard cold stone dropped into her stomach, sudden alertness jolted through her, her eyes snapping open and her hair almost standing on end.

She wasn't wearing pants.

She hadn't noticed until she tried to move, the cloth of her dress shifting against her skin, it—

A low muttered voice from nearby, barely more than a whisper, made her startle, her head whipping around to the source, mind coiled tight ready to spring into a compulsion, intense enough she felt a metallic tingle at the base of her skull — even if all the voice said was, "Miss Potter, there you are." Hunched down on his heels, not quite in arm's reach, was Ollivander, the new History Professor, some of the tension dribbling back out again at the familiar presence. She didn't really know Ollivander that well, but he was...

Liz frowned up at him, suddenly terribly confused. That was Professor Ollivander, the smooth but hyperactive bubbly feel of his mind was unchanged...but he didn't look the same. This man's eyes weren't the funny Seer silver Ollivander had, instead a bright pale blue. The straw blond hair was close to right — she thought it was maybe slightly darker than usual, but that could just be the light — but it was far too short, a messy mop that barely covered his ears, while Ollivander kept the long style of most purebloods. She was generally pretty bad at recognising faces, too used to telling people apart by the texture of their minds, so she couldn't say how his face was wrong, exactly, she just had the creeping, unsettling feeling that it was.

But his mind was recognisable. She didn't understand. "...Professor Ollivander?" The name came out sounding almost like a question.

A little flicker in his mind she didn't know how to read, the familiar-but-unfamiliar man gave her a crooked smile. "Close enough. How are you feeling? There was only so much healing I could do without, ah," a flinch of discomfort, his eyes flicking away for a second, "while preserving your modesty."

"Er..." She pushed herself up the rest of the way to a seat, gritting her teeth against the throbbing from her bruises — and self-consciously straightened her skirt, double-checking she was covered, her fingers twitching with nerves — and looked around, her eyes turning away but keeping a close watch on Ollivander's mind. (Perhaps irrationally, she felt pretty certain he wasn't going to do anything to her, but she was feeling slightly vulnerable right now.) They were...

...in a graveyard? A rather nice one too, and old, alongside gravestones and more complicated monuments were the occasional larger blocky shape of a private mausoleum, the kind of things you mostly saw in places from a couple centuries ago. And some care had apparently been given to the landscaping — there were trees between the rows and lines of bushes here and there, paths of stepping stones, stairs where necessary to navigate the hilly ground. She couldn't see many fine details in the dim glow of the single light spell, an orangish-yellow ball of spellglow floating over a little clearing Liz was sitting at the edge of, but it seemed nice. If somewhat neglected, some of the grave markers visibly slanting, moss caked onto stone, the mausolea crawling with ivy, some of the trees and bushes could do with a trim...

She and Ollivander weren't alone in the clearing — there was another man some metres away, picking at things she couldn't make out on a little stand over there, seemingly in the process of getting dressed. (Which was a very unnerving thought, considering her knickers were missing, but she was trying not to think about that at the moment.) That man's mind was familiar, warm-cool and smooth and tingly and intense, she was certain they'd met before but she couldn't quite place him...

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice coming relatively steady. Considering how unsettling of a situation this was to wake up to, she wasn't quite freaking out as much as she probably should be. She was a little jumpy, her fingers twitching, but, mostly she was just confused.

"Everything will be explained, but I want to be very clear about something first. I'm not certain why, but when you landed here your, well, underclothes were...on fire."

...She was kind of trying not to think about the fact that she wasn't wearing pants the moment, not helping. "Um, I enchanted them. To wake me up from a stunning spell."

"Ah," not-Ollivander breathed, a bright click of realisation in his head, "I see. Then, is it possible your enchantment could have been badly overloaded by a sustained trap hex?"

Trap hex. Right. She only vaguely remembered that — a confusing three-way fight, with Artèmi and Viktor, she'd gotten to the Cup first, seconds after landing a trap triggered... "Yeah. Yeah, that could do it. I, um, got that result once, in testing."

He was a bit bemused by Liz setting her own knickers on fire in testing, and then continuing to wear them anyway, but he didn't say anything about it out loud. "There you have it, then. I healed the damage as well as I could without— Well. You are a Lady of the Wizengamot — it seemed...inappropriate, without permission."

...That was an odd fucking thing to say.

"Before we proceed with the rest of the evening's events, I just wanted to make it clear that... You were not mistreated, while you were unconscious." The word he used was maybe vague, but the tone on his voice and the delicate tenor of his thoughts made it very clear what he meant. "Do you...understand what I'm trying to say?"

She understood, yes, but that didn't necessarily mean... Frowning off into the graveyard, her eyes finding the other man for a second before sliding away again, not really seeing what she was looking at, her chest tight, hesitating. She had to clear her throat before she could find her voice. "Um. Tell me a lie."

His eyebrows ticked up. For a second, he thought, before saying, "I am Maximillian Ollivander."

...Lie. While that was slightly unsettling, she'd kind of already figured that out for herself — she was pretty sure whoever this was had spent the entire school year impersonating her History Professor, for whatever unfathomable reason. "Okay. Now, again, what you wanted to...make clear."

"Nothing inappropriate was done to you while you were unconscious. The changes to your...state of dress are entirely due to the consequences of that enchantment failing."

This time, she felt no waver of deception, at all. As the tension dribbled out of her, she let out a long, shivering sigh. "Right. Right, okay." She rubbed at her face with both hands, trying to shove off the remaining twitchiness — it was fucking uncomfortable that her knickers were missing, but she was certain not-Ollivander was telling the truth, she was fine. "Okay. Um. So...what the fuck's going on? What am I doing here?"

"I required the blood of an enemy." That was the other man, finished getting dressed, now walking in their direction at a smooth, casual pace. He was wearing loose, billowy robes, cast in a perfect black — the sort of effect that required magic to pull off, as deep and featureless as the emptiness between the stars, the lack of contrast almost making the man look like a blank blob somehow cut out of the world, with human hands and face attached. There were layers, the only colour from a jacket or stole or something overtop (hard to tell exactly what it was), the edge of the cloth in thin bands from the crook of his neck all the way down to his ankles stitched with a curling, serpentine pattern in silver thread, glinting, against the black cloth like stars in the sky. Tall, the bagginess and the blackness of his robes making it difficult to get any feel for his silhouette, he was pale — in the way that Liz or Dorea were pale, as though their skin simply resisted proper tanning, or like he just never went outside — and he had one of those long faces with the pointy nose and dramatically-arching eyebrows common to a lot of purebloods. His hair was black, but a more natural sort of black, shimmering slightly in the magical light, framing his face and tumbling across his shoulders in artful curls. There was no sign of facial hair at all, which she knew was actually unfashionable by magical standards. Maybe forties of fifties? An adult, definitely, but it was difficult to guess, magical ageing being like it was.

She'd met enough people, and picked up reactions from others, to be pretty sure that this man was probably rather handsome — but, well, gay, didn't do shite for her. Mostly she was just confused. Feeling his mind and magic on the air, she knew she'd met him before, instinctively familiar, but she couldn't think of where from, who the hell this was. Also, I required the blood of an enemy was a fucking peculiar thing to say...

"Ritual may sometimes be forgiving in the particulars, but for optimal results it is best to embrace the definition of terms as fully as is feasible." As the man stepped closer, not-Ollivander offered her a hand up — she squared herself to deal with the close mental contact before taking it. And she could kind of use the help, her wrenched leg painfully stiff, ugh. "One could make the argument that the precise nature of an 'enemy' is open to interpretation, that the designation might be met in any number of ways, that nearly anyone might do in the correct circumstances. However, to best shape the resonance as designed, the strongest alignment with the necessary intent is ideal — even if said enmity is more a matter of cultural perception than of material fact."

Her hands tightened on not-Ollivander's arm, as much for balance — her hip still not cooperating, hurt to put weight on that leg — as with a sudden spike of nerves. That hint had been enough for the realisation to click into place. "You're the Dark Lord." It wasn't a question, she was suddenly very certain.

...Though he didn't quite feel right. Liz had only met the Dark Lord once before, back in first year — that Hallowe'en didn't count, obviously, she didn't remember that. Or, well, she guessed basically every time she'd been in a room with Quirrell should technically count, but, that time in the forbidden corridor had been the most direct contact, at least. And that had been three years ago now, maybe her memory just wasn't very clear, but he...felt different. It was hard to say exactly how. The presence hitchhiking on Quirrell, and by the end overwhelming the host mind entirely, had been...hot, and sharp, and jittery, and unrestrained, constantly shifting and surging, as though too energetic to hold its own shape. That impression was entirely accurate, she realised now — the mind was given structure by the physical form a person was attached to, literally generated by it, existing as a disembodied spiritual thing did weird shite to you — so, since the Dark Lord did apparently have a body now (somehow), she'd naturally expect that aspect to be gone. But even besides that, it...

Somehow, she did still recognise him, though she couldn't really put her finger on exactly what about him was familiar. Mind magic could be funny like that sometimes. But he was different, cooler and smoother and...she didn't know. Calmer? She got the feeling that actually having a body again had done him some good.

Hopefully, a more stable Dark Lord meant a less murderous one — there was absolutely no way Liz would be able to beat the fucking Dark Lord in a fight, even just survive long enough to escape. Especially since she didn't even have her wand on her.

Except...she wasn't freaking out.

She was tired — like, physically, the maze had kind of wiped her out — and a bit on edge thanks to the whole missing knickers situation, a shade nervous over the fucking Dark Lord standing right fucking there, coming to a stop within arm's reach of Liz and not-Ollivander. (Fuck, had to look up to meet his eyes, why was she so short...) But she wasn't really afraid, though. Somehow, with what were almost definitely weird Seer instincts, she didn't feel like she was in danger.

Which, if she'd ever ended up in the Dark Lord's presence again, especially a Dark Lord that had a body now and could do pretty much whatever he wanted to her, she would have expected to be seriously fucked. This bastard had tried to kill her when she'd been a fucking baby, after all, and their last meeting hadn't gone great either. Sure, he hadn't actually hurt her, but he had made it clear that he would if she made too much trouble for him. And there was no telling what might have happened after he got that bloody rock, if Dora hadn't interrupted — he might have been planning on just killing her right there in front of that magic mirror, she really had no idea. And, well, Dark Lord, Girl Who Lived, she'd kind of always expected that, if he managed to claw his way back to life, he would almost certainly make a point of killing her in particular, to make up for the embarrassment of getting himself blown up if for no other reason. Severus's certainty that he would inevitably be coming back was a fair part of why he fully supported her plans to transfer out overseas, so she'd be safely away from Britain when that happened.

But, standing right in front of him, injured and unarmed and vulnerable, looking him in the eyes — a bright, pale blue, the colour intense enough the irises were clearly visible — she wasn't afraid, she didn't feel like she was in danger.

Confused, sure, and sore from getting beat up in the maze, uncomfortable about not having pants, but other than that she felt...fine.

She didn't understand what was happening.

While Liz was turning over that whole mess, the bloody Dark Lord said, "Ah, so you do recognise me. Hello again, Elizabeth."

"...Hi?"

Not-Ollivander felt somewhat exasperated at that response — in close contact, still using his arm for balance, crackling sharp and hot over her skin — but there was a flicker of amusement from the Dark Lord's smooth, warm-cool mind, his lips twitching. "Quite." His arms moving, one hand disappeared into his opposite sleeve, Liz tensed, her breath freezing in her throat as he pulled out a wand—

She blinked — her wand. Turning it around in his hand, he silently held it out to her, handle first. She hesitated for a second, fighting the wild irrational thought that this must be some kind of trick, before reaching for it, a tingle of energy as her fingers touched the wood, some of the nervousness prickling on her skin and churning in her stomach starting to ease...

This close to him, their fingers only millimetres away, she felt a numb, warm prickle in the scars on her chest. Some lingering echo from that Hallowe'en, maybe?

The Dark Lord didn't let go of the other end of her wand immediately, steadily meeting her eyes. "This is to be a sensitive movement — much will depend on what is to come in the next hour or two. Your release has already been arranged for, but it is part of tonight's performance, and must be executed according to plan in order for the intended effect to be achieved. You may be returning to Hogwarts tonight, unharmed, but that will become more difficult to accommodate if you are uncooperative."

Breaking eye contact, she stared down at her wand — long pale fingers still wrapped around the wood, only millimetres from hers. Her breath thick in her throat, nervously clicking her lip ring against her teeth, she tried to feel out for a hint, anything. She still didn't feel like she was in danger, she thought he was telling the truth, but it was hard to say for certain... "Tell me a lie."

He instantly realised what she was doing (aware she was a Seer), a little flicker of amusement in his head. "I intend for you to die tonight."

...Right, that was a lie, but he could have picked something less unnerving to go with, Jesus. "Okay." She swallowed, skin prickling with a flare of...some kind of feeling, she didn't know what, shook her head. "Um. Yeah, I'll play along."

"Good." He let go of her wand, Liz temporarily released her grip on not-Ollivander's arm to slip it back into its holster — there was really no point in keeping it to hand, under the circumstances. Her hip fucking burning, she only stood on her own for a second before leaning on not-Ollivander again, letting out a little groan, fucking thing... "My daughter did assure me you would be amenable to an arrangement, but I admit, I had expected far more resistance. Some stubborn resolution to exact revenge on your parents' behalf, perhaps."

Honestly, that the fact that the man standing right in front of her had murdered her parents should probably be taken into account when deciding to cooperate with...whatever the hell was going on here, yeah, that hadn't even occurred to her until he'd pointed it out. It wasn't like she'd known them, after all. To her, it was mostly just a point of evidence that he might want to, you know, finish the job — now that she was pretty sure he wasn't killing her tonight, she honestly didn't care. Not getting killed herself was far more important than, what, honouring their memory or whatever the fuck.

...She would wonder if that made her a shitty person, but she was already aware she was a monster, so, whatever.

Also, my daughter? Did the Dark Lord have children? That was a wild fucking idea...

Shaking off that thought, she said, "I'm pretty sure they didn't give up their lives for mine only for me to get myself killed for no fucking reason." Also, that was a good fucking point, and she'd argue as much to anyone who called her on it. It just wasn't the real reason she'd decided to play along, was all.

A funny dark shivering in his head she didn't know how to read, the Dark Lord's lips twisted into a crooked smile. "True enough. My Knights will gather in a circle, here," he said with a wave of his hand, indicating the little open area they were in. "You will stand to the side, there, until my daughter comes to petition for your life."

...So, she had the Dark Lord's daughter to think for getting out of this nonsense alive? or was that just part of the 'performance' too? "Um, could I sit somewhere? My leg is, er, I don't think I can stand for an hour, or however long."

"Ah, yes, of course." He glanced around for a second, before saying, "The stairs just there will do, I think. Barty, get Lady Elizabeth settled, and we may begin."

Liz blinked a little at the bloody Dark Lord calling her Lady Elizabeth, all proper-like, but nobody was paying any attention to that — not-Ollivander dipped his head in a little nod, before turning and starting to lead her off. Walking was harder than she expected, hot pain lancing up her left side with every step, limping badly, clinging on to not-Ollivander's arm. She must have pulled something far worse than she'd realised. It'd happened in the fight over the Cup...she was pretty sure, that whole thing was a blur. She didn't remember it hurting this badly, but, sometimes these kinds of injuries got worse if you let them sit for a bit, get all stiff and swollen up or whatever.

Not-Ollivander was leading her toward the nearest mausoleum thing, at the edge of the little lit-up clearing, a set of stairs leading up to the door probably the ones the Dark Lord had been referring to. It was not that far away, less than a dozen metres, but she honestly wasn't sure whether she'd have been able to walk even that far without help. If this whole thing could be over so she could go back and get proper healing, that'd be great...

(Also, the partly-healed burns from her knickers going up fucking itched.)

The mausoleum thing wasn't huge, by any means — nothing like the big damn halls housing rows upon rows of ashes and relics like she'd heard the Blacks and, like, the Boneses had — only a few metres to a side, probably couldn't hold more than a handful of coffins, even cramming them in there. (Assuming there were coffins in there, maybe there were reliquaries or whatever instead?) It was surprisingly elaborate, the base square and the roof arched, the doorway framed with false columns, a panel on the wall to each side with complicated floral-looking engravings. There were designs in the arch over the door, looping curling tracery with iron (visibly rusting a little), at the centre a window shaped in a trefoil. It was difficult to tell what colour the stone was supposed to be, darkened in patches from neglect and crawling with vines, even discoloured blotches that might be lichen or something, what was probably an inscription of some kind in the long horizontal panel just above the door turned illegible. Definitely not in prime shape, but it was relatively nice-looking regardless, something about the design putting her in mind of an old church in miniature. Had to be bloody old, a century or two at least, but she didn't seen any dates anywhere, so.

There was a set of stairs leading up to the door, the door itself barred with a heavy lock, much more modern-looking than the structure itself. It'd clearly been a while since anyone had paid this place much mind, probably only locked to deal with vandals or something, the stairs crumbling a little at the corners, dirty and patchy with moss. As they approached, not-Ollivander cleaned away the worst of the mess on the stairs with a sweep of his wand, followed by a couple additional charms that had no visible effect. Getting down was a bit of a pain, even after covering herself with a featherweight charm and with not-Ollivander giving her a hand — easing down inch by inch, gritting her teeth against the screaming pain in her hip and the much milder throbbing from bruises here and there. Fuck, what the hell had she done to her hip?

Liz let out a shaky sigh once she was down — the stone much more comfortable than she'd expected, and faintly warm through her clothes, softening and warming charms — self-consciously smoothed out her skirt. Her breath was still hot in her throat, her left leg tense and jabbing, feeling a little twitchy. Over her leg fucking with her, or anxious about whatever the fuck was going on here, really hard to say.

While she was still catching her breath, not-Ollivander said, "I'm afraid there's not much I can do about that hip at the moment — I don't have a potions kit on me."

"I'll live." It hurt like hell, sure, and she did not like the reduced mobility. She definitely couldn't run on this, much less fight...but she didn't think that would be a problem. The bloody Dark Lord hadn't been lying when he said he meant for her to leave here alive, and, well, whoever the fuck this bloke was had even cast fucking cushioning charms for her, honestly. Speaking of this bloke, she hesitated for a second, before saying, "So, Barty. Polyjuice? It couldn't have been illusions or something, I would have seen through that." Or, she would have known his appearance was fake, at least.

"Not to mention Moody," Barty drawled, a little flicker of amusement ringing in the air. And yeah, there was that — Liz wasn't entirely sure what all the Eye could do, but illusions should definitely be useless. "But yes, Lady Elizabeth, it was polyjuice, in conjunction with a ritual to turn any suspicion away from me."

There they go calling her Lady Elizabeth again — bloody weird, considering they had kidnapped her. Had to be the most polite kidnapping by a bloody Dark Lord in history. "I don't suppose the real Max Ollivander is even still alive."

Barty wasn't at all surprised by the accusation, just giving her a mild smile. "Oh, he is — he's being kept somewhere safe, under the effects of Living Death." The sleeping potion, he meant. "We have even woken him up once a month, to allow him a bit of a walk and to eat some real food, to prevent the worst health effects of long-term use. While the plan did require placing me at Hogwarts, my Lord Father would prefer to avoid unduly offending the House of Ollivander."

She felt her eyebrows arch up her forehead — his lord father? Did the Dark Lord have children, plural, and fucking everyone had failed to mention it?

Before she could figure out what the hell to say to that, Barty was continuing on. "Along those lines, it is..." He hesitated for a moment, his eyes turning away from her, an unreadable dark shuffling in his head. "I am pleased we can...be civilised about this. While I can't speak for the rest of my Lord Father's disciples, I, at least, would have taken no pleasure in the end of the House of Potter."

Well, that was a euphemistic way to refer to her murder, but whatever. Liz frowned up at the familiar-but-unfamiliar man, his mind unguarded enough that she could see...

...guilt. That's what that dark feeling was.

In their scheme to bring him back to life, the Dark Lord had been determined to use Liz's blood in the ritual, despite the difficulty in getting their hands on her. Barty had been aware that the Dark Lord hadn't intended for Liz to live through it, and while he hadn't been happy about that, he hadn't been willing to argue with him about it, either. Resigned, like. But then the Dark Lord's daughter had turned up, out of nowhere — apparently Barty hadn't even known she existed until she'd tracked them down one day, what the hell was going on in that family? — and she actually had been willing to argue about it. She'd claimed that Liz would be willing to make a truce, that she could be more valuable to them alive, politically. Of course, selling that to the Dark Lord's followers could be complicated, so she'd come up with the idea of the Dark Lord offering her a favour to make up for abandoning her as a child — letting your 'greatest enemy' go free just because wasn't very Dark Lordly behaviour, but making peace with them at the request of your daughter was very dignified pureblood lord behaviour, so. It'd taken some convincing, but eventually the Dark Lord had agreed to her idea, and the plan had been altered to account for Liz's survival.

From what she was seeing in Barty's head, it certainly seemed like Liz really did have the Dark Lord's daughter to thank for getting out of this alive. She had no idea how to feel about that.

How the hell did the Dark Lord's daughter know Liz would be willing to make a deal rather than fight, anyway? Like, yes, obviously she would, but she didn't think even most people she actually knew would guess that...

And, Barty had been kind of frustrated with the Dark Lord's daughter waltzing in and changing things, making herself indispensable, only more annoyed because she always had to be so bloody reasonable about it. (Annoying people were even more annoying when they also happened to be correct.) But he didn't actually disagree with them letting Liz live, hadn't really liked the plan from the beginning, but after this year at Hogwarts...

There were History classes, yes, but apparently Barty had been watching her far more than Liz had realised. Careful about it, not wanting to attract attention — and indirectly, so she didn't notice — but the plan was for her to win the Tournament so she could be snatched away here, he had to see how she was doing to know if they were on track. (Shaky fucking plan, considering she'd only taken the Cup by the skin of her teeth, but whatever.) Oh shite, she was suddenly remembering him approaching her at the Yule Ball to slip her advice about the remaining Tasks, that must have been why...

Barty didn't approve of the killing of children — despite the fucked legal age of majority in Britain, he thought Liz still counted. And the Dark Lord didn't like it either, for the most part, really the only child he'd ever directly targeted was Liz herself, that Hallowe'en. (She was aware of that already, Narcissa had mentioned it, it was apparently a religious thing.) But it wasn't just that, after the entire school year with her in his class, and keeping an eye on her outside of it, watching, at some point he'd started to actually like her.

He was relieved he wouldn't have to watch her die tonight. It wasn't something he was just saying, for whatever silly pureblood religious reason, he really meant it.

...Not that she had anything to say to that. After a short moment of blank staring, Liz said, "Yeah, civilised, let's call it that. I was never going to fight him anyway — I'd rather not get killed, thanks. If he came back, the plan was always to run off to the Continent or something."

A little jolt of surprise, Barty's eyebrows ticked up. "Really?"

She shrugged. "Sure. Your lord father can have this backward fucking mess of a country for all I care. If playing along with whatever's going on here means he's not going to try to kill me anymore, so I don't need to run away, great — this way I even get to keep my house, not a hard decision at all."

"...I see." He was smiling, curled and crooked, but it was hard to read what exactly he was thinking about that, too much of a jumbled mess. "Well. If you'll excuse me, Lady Elizabeth."

"Yeah, sure." The sooner they were done with whatever the fuck this nonsense was, the sooner she could get some proper healing done...

Barty, whoever the fuck he was — the idea of the Dark Lord having children was still so fucking weird — turned and walked off toward the middle of the little clearing, where the Dark Lord was already waiting. The little stand she'd noticed before was gone now, just the two men and nothing else around. There was no telling how long it'd be until the "Knights" turned up, so Liz drew her wand, cast a mirror charm.

Fuck, she looked like a mess. Her dress grass-stained and torn in a couple places, little scratches scattered across her face and arms, around some of them beads and smears of dried blood. And her hair, her hair was fucking hopeless, a snaggled assymetrical mass around her head — she could see twigs caught in it here and there, from being thrown through the bushes, fuck. Honestly, it would probably be better to just chop it all off and let it regrow, because working this out while not being able to use hair-care charms would be fucking miserable.

And they'd still been calling her Lady Elizabeth, all proper, while she looked like this — purebloods were fucking weird.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Liz set to healing the little scratches she was bloody well covered with, cleaning charms to remove the blood, twigs in her hair, grass stains, dirt on her knees and her arms...and on her face, somehow. There wasn't anything she could do about her leg either — her analysis spells didn't come up with any obvious breaks or anything, the subtle kind of stress damage that the healing magic she knew simply wasn't up to dealing with. She couldn't fix the burns from her knickers going up either, since she'd need a topical potion for that, and obviously there weren't any of those around just now.

Which was unfortunate, because the partly-healed burns itched. A numbing charm helped, a little, Liz sighing at the sudden cool relief. She hadn't even noticed how warm and unpleasant it'd felt until it was gone — probably overpowered by her leg, and just generally uneasy about still not having any pants on. Though, honestly, she was feeling slightly less anxious about that, now that the men were over there, and she knew she was going to be fine — she'd never felt like she was in danger in the first place, thanks to Seer shite, but the bloody Dark Lord and that Barty bloke explicitly saying as much helped — but it was still uncomfortable.

If they could get this shite over with and send her back to Hogwarts already, that'd be great.

Oh hey, some of her false nails were missing, they must have gotten knocked off in the fighting, hadn't noticed...also, she had a fresh raised red scar on the inside of her left wrist, must be from taking her blood for the ritual...

The night was quiet, some rustling of wind in the leaves, an occasional warble from a bird or whatever, a vague buzzing of insects. Really not as much as she would expect, if they were in the middle of nowhere — there was a vague glow on the sky, stars partly washed out, there must be a nearby muggle town, that way. It was a bit cool, now that she wasn't worked up about fucking hell Dark Lord, another swirl of her wand took care of that, gentle warmth pressing in on her as though cast by the sun. She really did like this charm, asking Pomfrey to teach it to her had been a great idea.

And Liz sat there, trying to move as little as possible — she wouldn't be able to feel it happen, thanks to the numbing charm, but wiggling against the stone stairs would exacerbate her burns. Idly running her fingers over her skirt, her lip ring clicking against her teeth, she waited.

It was a little difficult to see from this distance, the little open space only dimly illuminated by the magical light overhead. After a short conversation, while Liz was still healing her scratches, Barty sank to both knees in front of the Dark Lord, holding up one hand. The Dark Lord took his wrist, brushing down his sleeve — there was a dark shape on his forearm that Liz couldn't make out, but she guessed that must be the Dark Mark. (She'd seen Severus's a handful of times, it was in roughly the same spot.) Pressing the tip of his wand to the Mark, there was a brief pause, and then a slippery crackle of magic Liz could feel from here, a funny cool echo tingling through her scars. Whatever magic he was casting through the Mark — it was common knowledge the Dark Lord could do shite with it, though no one was entirely sure what — must be somewhat painful for Barty, letting out a strangled hiss through his teeth. But he hardly even twitched, kneeling there rigid, head dipping a little.

After a few seconds the magic cut off, the Dark Lord returning his wand to its place up his sleeve. He gave Barty a hand up, muttered just barely loud enough for Liz to hear, "And so we shall see who comes." A little bow of his head, and Barty retreated to stand toward the edge of the little clearing. The Dark Lord pulled his hood over his head — the rim of the hood also decorated with the same curling silver embroidery, glinting in the thin light — and folded his hands inside his baggy sleeves. And he stood there at the middle of the little clearing, with his head bowed almost entirely covered by his too-black robes, like a hole cut out of reality, so still he hardly seemed to be breathing.

And they waited.

For Death Eaters to show up, obviously. One ability the Dark Mark was known to have was to pass information along — they could even be given enough to apparate somewhere they'd never been before, somehow circumventing the normal requirements. The Dark Lord could communicate with a single person, or groups of people, or all of them at once, in whatever combination he wished. She assumed that pause had been to gather his intent, to message the exact people he wanted to show up.

Not everyone, Liz assumed. In the last war, the Dark Lord hadn't Marked all of his followers, but there were still a fair few of them, dozens and dozens...maybe even one or two hundred? Nobody knew for sure, exactly. Too many to fit in this little clearing, was the point. She was aware that there'd been an inner circle, close advisors and leaders within the movement, who'd been brought in closer on the planning and the like, and had certain privileges or whatever — presumably the Dark Lord would make contact with everyone eventually, but those would be the obvious people to call in first.

As the seconds silently ticked by, she desperately hoped Severus wasn't on that list. She knew, from earlier discussions about this stuff, that he hadn't been in the inner circle, still young and relatively new to the movement. First just a healer — which was an important job but, you know, not exactly a leadership position — and then after he got his teaching position at Hogwarts a spy. He actually hadn't been at a lot of important Death Eater meetings, selective about when he could leave the school, to keep up appearances. His role as a spy so close to Dumbledore had made him more important than you'd expect, with how new he was, he might have ended up in the inner circle eventually, but he hadn't been by that Hallowe'en.

He was probably freaking the fuck out right now, wondering where the Cup had taken her. She'd needed to take off her anti-tracking ring for the Task, and she assumed he'd stuck his own back-door onto that to find her easily, just in case, but even without it it shouldn't be that hard to find her. But then, the Dark Lord wouldn't want to be interrupted in mid-ritual either — Liz assumed they'd put wards up first, they were probably hidden to any tracking spells here. But, if he suddenly got a call from the Dark Lord, he'd probably guess that the Dark Lord was responsible — he already thought it was a possibility he was responsible for her being entered into the Tournament in the first place (and it turned out he was correct about that) — and it was definitely possible he'd come straight here.

She really wished he wouldn't. She didn't feel like she was in danger, she hadn't felt a lie when she'd been told that she was getting out of this alive — but that didn't mean her safety would extend to Severus. If he did show up, she couldn't help the nasty suspicion he would do something stupid in an attempt to 'rescue' her.

As the seconds dragged by, she got more and more nervous about it, her boots tapping against the stone walkway and her lip ring clicking against her teeth, her breath hot and tense in her throat...

Be selfish for once in your fucking life, please...

Eventually, she didn't know after how long, she heard a muffled pop — apparation, some distance away. (Past the wardline, presumably.) A short pause, and there was another pop, and another, and more. Liz saw movement coming down the walkpath to her left, a figure in dark blue-ish robes resolving as he stepped into the light. He lurched to a halt only a couple steps into the clearing, staring at the Dark Lord.

"Yes, Arnold, it is I." The Dark Lord's voice came low and smooth and slithery, and despite how quiet it sounded it still managed to fill the whole clearing, worming its way into Liz's ears. She felt a faint tingle of magic on the air, some kind of spell to—

...Huh. She knew where Severus had learned that trick now — it felt like the same magic.

Anyway, the Dark Lord told "Arnold" to come see for himself. The bloke pulled back his hood — a blond middle-aged man, unremarkable, Liz didn't recognise him — he walked further into the clearing, the movement a bit stiff and hesitant. Moving slowly enough that a couple more figures were coming into view behind him, also pulling back their hoods as they crossed into the light, the first few unfamiliar to her...

She twitched when she recognised Lord Davis — Tracey's grandfather, and all-around racist abusive bastard. She maybe glared at him, a little.

As "Arnold" approached, the Dark Lord held out one hand — his left hand, palm-down and limp, pale fingers dangling — Arnold loosely placing his hand under the Dark Lord's. Liz could tell the moment Arnold actually got a clear angle on the Dark Lord's face — a pulse of shock rung through the clearing, surprisingly loud, Arnold letting out a little gasp. Then he dropped to one knee, muttered something she couldn't quite make out, kissed the back of his hand. The Dark Lord welcomed Arnold Stryke to the circle, gave him a hand back up to his feet, after another brief exchange he retreated to take a spot around the clearing.

There was obviously some kind of social ritual going on here, but Liz didn't know enough about this weird super formal stuff to get it — but she could do basic pattern recognition, and it was the same every time, so. The men (and they were all men) would uncover their heads before approaching, go down on one knee and kiss the back of the Dark Lord's hand; the Dark Lord would welcome them by name, give them a hand back up, and then they'd take a spot around the circle, letting the next take their turn. Each interaction didn't take very long, but there were a fair number of people in all — and they didn't all turn up at the same time, sporadic bursts of apparation every so often — so it did end up taking a while.

Liz payed attention to every name, tried to remember. She wasn't actually sure whether it would matter, since they were apparently going to be making a truce tonight, but, you know, just in case. There ended up being twenty in total, so she doubted she was actually going to manage that — oh well, she could always put the memory in her pensieve later. At least half of them she recognised the surnames, at least, noble families, some of whom seemed vaguely familiar, must have seen them at some point in the past. Like, Lords of the Wizengamot — that was Lord Nott, the same bastard Sirius punched in the face at the victory party after the passage of the educational reform (Liz was kind of disappointed she'd missed that, but at least Sirius showed her the memory later) — or maybe assistants who she would have stumbled across at some point, parents of students at Hogwarts who might have turned up to a quidditch match or the duelling tournament, or who she'd met at some event she'd been dragged to, whatever.

Corban Yaxley she recognised — he'd been at that party at the Yaxleys' she and Severus and Hermione had gone to, over the summer. Liz wasn't too surprised he was here, it wasn't a big secret he was a Death Eater but she hadn't known he was important enough to be in the inner circle. One bloke the Dark Lord called Augustus Travers, was that the same Augustus Travers she and Rita were pretty sure handled security for that child brothel they'd gathered intel on? Rita had handed everything they had off to the Ministry, recently, supposedly they were planning their raid, hopefully the bastard would be caught up in it. She hadn't known he was also a Death Eater, though — good job that Rita hadn't gotten caught snooping around, she guessed.

She twitched a little when the Dark Lord said the name Bulstrode...but that wasn't Millie's father, Crispin Bulstrode must be some other relative. There were a fair few Bulstrodes, supposedly, could be anyone...

There were women, it turned out, though definitely a minority, and all commoners. There was an Agnes Snyde — one of the oldest generation of people here, with magical ageing could easily be well over a hundred — and a Eustacia Abernathy — a very pretty blonde woman, and probably some kind of relative of Wayne Hopkins in her year at school, who Liz knew was actually in House Abernathy (mages' names were confusing sometimes) — and a Robyn Vane, presumably somehow related to the Director of...Public Works? She thought Vane was Public Works, she didn't pay that much attention. It wasn't really surprising that there were so few women, but it was interesting they were all commoners

Well, except for one, anyway — Bellatrix Lestrange had been in the inner circle, but obviously she wouldn't be showing up.

And there was Lucius, of course, would recognise that unnatural white-blond hair anywhere...

The incoming Death Eaters didn't notice Liz, at first, their attention arrested by the Dark Lord. At least until after they'd paid their respects, taken their spot in the circle, then she might feel attention flick to her — keeping her legs extended straight in front of her, making a lower angle (even though it made her knee hurt worse), self-consciously smoothing down her skirt. Eyes brushing over her, curiosity and confusion and concern, funny cold deep dread, an unpleasant sticky-sharp glee...

Most of them suspected Liz would be dying tonight — it seemed they had rather mixed feelings about that. Rather more than she'd expected, honestly, with all the absurd Girl Who Lived propaganda...but she guessed they were supposedly weird pureblood pseudo-Roman religious types, and murdering children was one of those things they tended not to approve of...

She didn't see Severus.

As the minutes dragged on, one name after another, Liz fidgeting and tense on the step, watching each new Death Eater pull back their hood as they walked into the clearing, dreading it would be him, but...

After what felt like fucking ages — probably felt longer than it actually was, anxious — Alan Rosier took his place in the circle, and there were no more people waiting their turn. There was a pause, for a couple minutes, the Dark Lord seeming perfectly still, quiet save for some low muttering between the people in the circle, attention occasionally brushing over her. Waiting for stragglers, maybe?

Finally, the Dark Lord pulled his hood back again, revealing his pale face and curly black hair, turning in place to look over the circle of Death Eaters, abruptly going silent under his attention. His soft voice slipping through the clearing, "And so, after thirteen long years...we meet again."

The start of the meeting, definitely — the hot tension dribbling out of her, Liz let out a long sigh. Severus hadn't come.

Good. That was good.

(Though, maybe concerning at the same time, when she thought about it. They should maybe figure out a way he could still find her if she was under wards? Maybe his back-door on her anti-tracking ring would do that, but if someone kidnapped her and was smart enough to get rid of any enchanted shite she had...)

"Thirteen years — it needn't have been so long. All know I have immersed myself in the deepest secrets of the Art, you have all here seen the proof with your very eyes, felt it, I made no secret that I had taken...precautions, against defeat. That, should I be struck down, the favour I hold with Our Lady, the bargain I had made, I would be insulated from Death. That I would rise again, in time.

"But I — even I — cannot accomplish such a feat alone. Even the greatest of men may need a hand to find his feet, at his lowest moment. And I had no intention of needing to do it alone: I had prepared, not one, but two," holding up two fingers of his right hand for emphasis, "among you to deliver the aide I would need. Bellatrix Lestrange...and Augustus Rookwood."

There was a stiff, heavy silence, stretching for ten, maybe fifteen seconds. Liz was aware that both Lestrange and Rookwood were in Azkaban, so, kind of fucked himself there.

"And so, I was alone — in this world but not of it, alive and yet not quite. Waiting, year after year, for the aid I needed to come, and becoming increasingly convinced, year by year, that it never would. That I had been abandoned.

"Surely not, I would think to myself, in those early years. Surely those men and women who had pledged themselves body and soul to our cause, and to me, great mages all, possessed of skill enough to find me and resources enough to embark on such a task, surely one, at least, would come. It was no secret that I still lingered, I knew, no secret even where in the world I could be found — in time I discovered I had been caged in with wards, I assumed that whoever had done so acted with purpose. The knowledge was there, for whoever might look for it, the means were available, to all of you standing here now. Any of you, could have come to me — and these...thirteen years...may have been many fewer.

"But you did not, none of you did. You chose to remain here, in comfort...while I suffered, alone. I don't believe any of you can imagine the agony of being torn from one's body, how exhausting to be reduced to a spirit, an ephemeral presence vulnerable to every reverberation on the environment, unguarded and unmoored. It is a great relief, to have physical form again, there simply are not the words to describe it.

"And that is a relief that any of you, any of you," his voice suddenly raising a little, sharp, finger jabbing accusingly out at the circle of Death Eaters, some of them flinching, "could have brought to me much sooner. If you had only fulfilled your obligations, to our cause and to me, if you had only respected the oath you swore before your peers and under Our Lady's eye. But no! You broke your word, every one of you, choosing to not risk your comfort.

"Standing here now after these thirteen long years, looking back on all that lead us to this moment, here, I confess myself..."

It turned out the Dark Lord was a dramatic bastard. There was this whole speech he was giving, of course, a bit of a rolling rhythm to the way he hit different phrases, definitely a performance. But here he paused, stiff and tall, one hand raised — the tension so thick on the air Liz could feel it, the Death Eaters hardly even seeming to breathe. A chill of dread, fearful that their Lord was about to profess them all traitors, what the consequences of that must be.

And it wasn't just a physical performance — she felt that unease too, worming at the edge of her mind. It was very subtle, Liz hadn't really noticed until the Dark Lord took this heavy, tense, dramatic pause, but there was more magic on his voice than just the stuff to carry it to all their ears, the faintest hint of feeling, of thought. This was enthrallment, like when she used her voice as a focus for a mind magic thing, but far quieter and more indirect than Liz had the...dexterity, she guessed, to manage. If she weren't a mind mage herself, she probably wouldn't feel it happening, and it was kind of hard to push it off and not let it affect her.

Honestly, if the Dark Lord weren't trying to make her feel guilty over something she obviously had nothing to do with, she might not have noticed at all. Which was kind of a creepy thought.

"...unsurprised." She felt a loud mix of confusion and relief ringing through the circle, the Dark Lord letting that sit for a moment. His hand slowly moving to his face, a knuckle tapping against his chin, he seemed to think for a moment — an act, definitely, this speech had to have been planned out ahead of time. "I have had much time to consider the events that have led us to this moment here and now. If there is one thing that can be said, of the state I was reduced to over these thirteen long years, is that it gives one endless time to reflect. There was little else for me to do, truly! When one is only thought, it becomes all too easy to become lost in it. And in that quiet, lingering, little more than a spirit haunting the mountains of Albania, in that lonely quiet I knew, I came to understand.

"I can see now, looking back on those late years, that, in the forge of our struggle, I allowed myself to be shaped into something...else. Something I was not meant to be, something I never wished to be. And I understand, looking back, as much bitterness, for my abandonment, that I carried for those thirteen long years, I must admit, I understand it! Even so, I could not expect any less! Is an oath given to a man who has changed so deeply, so fundamentally that it shows on his face—" The Dark Lord gestured to his own face, pale but human-looking — nothing like the alien, red-eyed, almost reptilian caricature Liz had heard described before. "—if he seems in every respect to no longer be the man to whom you have given your word, are you still bound by it? What responsibility does a knight have to a lord who does not uphold his own obligation? Would you respect such a man, who retains such loyalty to one who does not give it in return?

"No, I do not think you would. I would not. And as the madness I had descended into finally began to lift, as though waking from a long sleep...I came to understand. It was not you, all of you, who had abandoned me; it was I, who had repelled you. Those oaths you had sworn, in my zealotry I had begun to use them as chains — and once I was no longer present to pull on them..." The Dark Lord gave a loose, wide-armed shrug. "And so it was.

"And yet...here we stand. After thirteen long years, I have found a way to return myself to life, as I always swore to you I would. And not only have I returned to life, but to my humanity — you can see it in my face, you can hear it on my voice, I know you do. I feel it, liberated, a clarity having returned after what feels like...so terribly long, I had all but forgotten. And you ask, I can see it in your minds: how has this come to be? After so long, alone, after even longer, consumed, how have I come to stand before you now, like this?

"In body, my physical return, my gratitude is owed to one who called out to me, even as I believed all was lost and I would be doomed to dissolve away into nothingness." Turning around, extending an arm out to one of the figures in the circle (very dramatic), he said, "It was Barty who sought me out, who, at my direction, performed all the magics required to return me to physical life. Yes," he said, nodding around the circle, responding to the flickering of surprise and disbelief, some of the Death Eaters giving not-Ollivander double-takes, "I know you all believed him to be dead. But we have both evaded Death, he by means of deceit, unseen and unknown by the rest of our country — and so, locked away from its comforts. When first the bonds that held him loosened, he was free to seek me out. And it only took one, one willing Knight to be my hands when I had none, and hardly a year from the day he first called out to me, here we stand.

"But the spark of revelation, the inspiration needed to shock me out of the mad passion which had overwhelmed all else in those late years, that came from another. For that...I must credit Lady Potter." Liz tensed as she felt attention zero in on her, suddenly hot and sharp and intense. Chuckling a little, low and smooth, the Dark Lord said, "No, I do not mean our guest, here — though she is incidental to events, it was not she who drove them. I speak, of course, of Lily Potter.

"I am certain you have wondered," he said, soft, a low slithering whisper. "It has been speculated over often enough, in the years since, countless theories bandied back and forth. What happened that autumn night, over a dozen years ago now? Many believe they know, give grand proclamations concerning the events of that night — but only I was there. I and one other, of course," with a little sideways nod in Liz's direction, "but only I recall. So I can tell you, with certainty that none other can approach, the cause of my own temporary demise.

"I was bested...by Lily Potter." There were little flickers of surprise from the ring of Death Eaters, Liz felt a few glance at her, attention drawn back to the Dark Lord as he continued. "Blinded by that madness I had sunk into, by that hubris, I underestimated her. She was only a mudblood, after all! And I — I, who had explored the deepest secrets of the Art — I, who was secure in Our Lady's favour, her chosen — surely I had nothing to fear from one such as Lily Potter.

"And yet... Not by some muggle artifice — I might have expected that. Not with the sterile, scientific, soulless wizardry that, should the Light have their way, would be the only method permitted to us. No, when Lily Potter learned that I had designs on her family, she did not reach to those methods — she reached to old magic, deep magic. She herself embraced the Art, with an enthusiastic willingness rarely seen these days even among the oldest families of our society.

"In my madness, in my arrogance, I did not expect such tactics. I did not expect such a woman to be capable of it, to open herself so. And so, when the time came, Lily Potter, a woman we would all have dismissed as a lesser creature, when she must protect her child against impossible odds, she put her trust in divine Magic — and she was answered! And so I was bested, reduced to a powerless shade for a dozen years, defeated by the very Art which I so passionately advocate should be returned to prominence in our society, by one which any of us here would have said should have no place in that same society.

"Now — think to yourselves, honestly — does that not seem to you...a contradiction?"

For a few seconds, the Dark Lord let that thought linger, a whole mix of feelings and thoughts turning in the Death Eaters' heads. Liz had been listening, out of curiosity — trying not to make herself too open, wary of getting too close to the Dark Lord, but nearly half the circle were closer to her than he was — and the impression she got was mixed. Nobody she was close enough to get a feel for expected he would actually admit that Lily had beaten him so badly — which, you know, fair enough, she hadn't either. Though, she wasn't sure if it would be more embarrassing to admit Liz had done it somehow? Pinning it on Lily was probably better than claiming you'd been blown to bits by a literal baby, and also had the benefit of being true. But they were all racist bastards here, so, yeah, that a 'mudblood' had gotten one over on him wasn't the sort of thing one would expect of the top racist bastard.

But that he would admit it was the surprising part — few of the people she could feel from here were surprised that Lily had done some high ritual...thing, invoking gods or whatever the fuck. She was aware that that was actually a common explanation, especially in the Dark, or just in general among people who didn't believe some of the sillier parts of the Girl Who Lived shite, about Liz just being inexplicably super special or whatever. (Though, honestly that story was less believed among the Light these days too, once people started getting an impression of what Liz was actually like in real life, but still.) A rarer version was that some god(dess) had directly intervened, maybe at Lily's plea but without being invoked in some kind of ritual — Narcissa believed something like that, actually — but mostly people believed there'd been a ritual trap that Lily had prepared ahead of time. But even then, a lot of people believed that that ritual would have invited divine intervention somehow, so that whoever she'd called to had answered was still impressive, for people who believed in that kind of thing.

Liz herself was mixed on what the truth of the matter was, honestly. There'd definitely been a ritual of some kind, she had Lily's notes for it — though they were in some kind of cypher or shorthand, she couldn't read most of them, didn't have the Runes knowledge to reverse-engineer it (yet). At this point, she simply didn't know whether there were gods out there, whatever the fuck those were supposed to be. There did seem to be at least somewhat convincing evidence that there was something that couldn't really be explained with the plain mechanics of arithmancy and magic theory and so forth, but at the same time, there wasn't solid proof, either, or really a solid explanation of what this something even was. It was hard to firmly decide one way or the other, Liz simply didn't know enough.

(Though she was increasingly leaning toward the feeling that there was something there, which was a wild fucking thought. And didn't really answer the question of what that something was, so, not really a big help.)

To most of the Death Eaters in reach, suspecting that Lily had invited some divine magic something to intervene that night was one thing — having it confirmed by the only person who was in a position to know, that was something else. And while that wasn't necessarily unexpected to some of them — Liz was aware that one of the traditional explanations for the existence of muggleborns was that they'd been specifically blessed by gods or fairies or whatever, it was only natural that they might have the favour of something, if they only learned to embrace it — it was to others. Uncertainty, suspicion, discomfort, a whole mix of feelings and flickering thoughts shivering through the open space, hard to pick apart.

In time, the Dark Lord started up again, his voice low and sharp, still carrying the subtlest hint of enthrallment, Liz trying to hold it off. "And so, in my long thirteen years drifting, as the madness that had consumed me finally began to lift, I had much time to consider: how, how did it come to this? I could not shake the thought, like a splinter of the mind, a constant distraction twinging away. Lily Potter had embraced the Art, and I did not see it coming. How? Why did this happen? How did I allow myself to so badly lose my way?

"Because I may have been defeated that night, but I had become lost long earlier than that — and that, too, over those thirteen long years, I began to understand." He paused, the anticipation heavy and tingly on the air...also an effect of the barely-perceptible enthrallment he was working, Liz thought. But she didn't think he necessarily had to do that for the Death Eaters to be very curious where he was going with this.

She was kind of wondering that herself, if she was being honest. The feeling she had was that this speech was working around to a racism is bad, actually message, which was...kind of unexpected? She meant, Millie's dad and Narcissa had both said that, while there had been plenty of racist bastards in the movement, that the Dark Lord himself hadn't actually said that kind of thing — or at least that he hadn't in the beginning, might have started leaning that way more toward the end as the culture of the movement shifted around him. She hadn't really been certain whether she should believe that. It hadn't felt like either of them had been lying to her about this stuff, but at the same time, well, the children from known Death Eater families at school certainly came off super fucking racist. (Except for Millie, she guessed, and also Tracey, but that was complicated.) But it sounded like this was coming around to the realisation that Lily had been great, actually, and hey, muggleborns can be proper mages, look at that proof you got right there, clearly he'd been way off about the racist angle...

That was the feeling she had, anyway — and she honestly didn't know what to do with that idea.

"I will tell all of you a secret," he said, his voice sinking to a confidential sort of tone (very dramatic), "something that was once well-known by your fathers and grandfathers, but now is only remembered by the most senior among you. Something that I had long ago left behind, my old life that had become irrelevant once I had given myself fully into service to Our Lady, half-forgotten even by myself.

"I myself, long ago, came into our society...as a muggleborn." That got an instant chorus of shock from the minds all around, even Liz gaping at him — she never would have guessed the fucking Dark Lord was a muggleborn. Though, that was actually kind of funny, when she thought about it, the faces some of the junior racist brigade at school would make if they knew. But the Dark Lord didn't let them linger over that thought, continuing on, a slightly increased weight of the enthrallment on the air cutting off any outbursts before they could happen. "My mother was born to magic, and a tragic story that is, cast out of our world in the chaos of the early years of this century, but that is not a topic for today. Regardless, I had no knowledge of her, then — she died when I was only an infant, leaving me in muggle hands, alone and ignorant. To be raised among other orphans, in destitution.

"Though I was raised away from our world, I was no stranger to magic. As you may know of our guest here," with a smooth gesture of an open hand toward Liz, "I woke as a mind mage very early, so young I can hardly remember it. Young enough that it was clear to all that I was different, I could not manage to present the image of an ordinary child, no matter how I tried. The muggles around me didn't understand my talent — I myself knew not what it was, then — but they could see that I had some...power, over those around me. I was feared, and hated, I was subject to insults and beatings and starvation, a priest even suggested I was possessed by demons and must urgently be exorcised! And so it was, until I had developed the skill with mind magic necessary to protect myself, to provide for myself. I may have been murdered, or simply wasted away, had I not been so gifted, so driven.

"And had I not had Our Lady's favour. Even then, before I knew of our world, I knew Her. I remember clearly when first I felt Her presence — as I'm certain you who have been so fortunate will all never forget, when first you so closely approached the divine. I was seven years old — truly, so young — I had slipped away from the muggles, hidden in a cave on the sea. The entrance submerged, I had needed to dive below the water level to find it, shielded from the sun, darker than the blackest night, still and silent, save for an echo of the waves carried through the stone. And She came to me then, before I even knew Her name...and I have been Hers ever since.

"But still, save for Our Lady, I was alone, the only one of my kind in a hostile world. So perhaps you may understand how thrilled I was to learn that I was not alone — that there were thousands of people so gifted as I, millions, that there was a whole nation of us, dozens of nations! I will admit to feeling some resentment that I was abandoned for all my childhood, but! the revelation was yet overwhelming. And I brought that enthusiasm with me, my joy at finding my people, I brought that into my study of this new world, of its magics, I learned everything I could find. Not just the staid, arithmantic magics our classes were focussed on, even in that earlier generation, but I sought out the hidden magics, the deeper secrets of the Art. Guided by the subtle touch of Our Lady's hand, driven by the desire to better know Her, yes, but also to better know this new world I had found myself in. I so loved it all, with an all-consuming passion I cannot describe. I had found my place, I had found my people, and I embraced them with all I had.

"But it was not long before I came to find...that not all in this world had the enthusiasm that I did. To some, magic is but a tool to be used. The study of magic has become, increasingly over these last centuries, a problem to be solved. All phenomena that we see, it is said, are but a product of natural law — mundane, something that can be analysed thoroughly enough to be described mathematically, nothing but sterile numbers and equations. Something that can be systematised, broken down into pieces like a child's puzzle toy, and put back together in whichever way we like. That it is not some mystery beyond mortal grasp — no, that is but a primitive superstition of a simpler time! — but that it is simply another territory to be mastered, another resource to be exploited. And so so many raised in our world have come to see it, as nothing but another tool, one which may be refined generation to generation, but one no different from any other endeavour of human industry.

"And, aahhh, I thought," with a wry curl to his voice, one finger wiggling in the air pointedly, "this attitude is familiar. I have seen this before. Before I even learned of our society, this is thinking that I already seen much of...among the muggles. For isn't everything that we see but a product of natural law? Mundane phenomena, that can be analysed and described, nothing but sterile numbers and equations? No, all that we see is not some mystery beyond mortal grasp, but a resource to be exploited at our will!

"And so great works can be accomplished with such thinking! Any who have seen the great cities our bereft counterparts have constructed, the wondrous artifice they have designed, unimaginable only a century prior. Urban enclaves stretching for miles and miles, housing millions, industry directed at agriculture to release the peasantry from the land, their labour free to be applied elsewhere, the efforts of but a handful enough to feed those millions, a volume of art and literature orders of magnitude greater than that produced by any previous society, devices that may carry voice and image across the world in an instant, machines by which they may travel across the very sky — muggles have stepped foot on the moon! they have sent their machines to approach the planets above, sent back images of such wondrous, alien beauty the like of which no mortal being has ever seen before. There is no doubt, such scientific thinking has produced great things, any who have eyes may see that.

"But, by the same hand, it has created horrors greater than any this world has seen before. All the world is only a resource to be exploited, after all — and so every forest is but fuel for the fire, every mountain is but ore to be shaped. These isles are unrecognisable for what they were only a bare few centuries ago, consumed and reshaped to feed the insatiable drive of industry, this is no news to any of you. The very face of the land has changed, the shoreline shifted, forest and field and wetland consumed, entire classes of living things extirpated. You may not know this as well, having not seen it, but I tell you now, there are places in this world more badly changed than Britain. Mountains levelled and marshes drained and forests burned, true enough, but worse, there are entire countries which have been so thoroughly poisoned by industrial chemical waste that they have become hostile to living things, sickening and disfiguring those unfortunate enough to be trapped there.

"And indeed, the muggles themselves have begun to recognise the consequences of their zeal to consume all the world. They see this poisoning, this death of the world around them — and it may truly be the death of all the world. The unending and accelerating immolation of wood and coal and oil, it has begun to poison the air so thoroughly the earth has begun to warm, to unnaturally retain the heat given by the sun. The effects of this..." The Dark Lord shrugged. "...catastrophe, nothing short of it. Even we hidden under our wards, will begin to feel the devastation as the environment around us shifts, in the decades to come.

"And yet, though they know the consequences of what they do, though they have turned that very scientific mind to the product of their insatiable industry and have analysed it so, with their numbers and their equations, still they do not slow! No, not only do they continue, but they increase the exploitation, build more, burn more, consume more, ever more! Because the earth itself is but a resource to be used! Even while facing down disaster, they cannot shake themselves of this attitude, it is too fundamental to what their society has become.

"But," he said, his voice dropping, low and whispery and...Liz wasn't sure what to call that feeling exactly. The enthrallment was trying to sink a heavy cold echo of it in her chest (struggling to keep it off, too subtle), but, well, she was shite with feelings. Horror, maybe? Not quite right, she didn't think... "But it was before that understanding was reached...that I saw the doom they were inviting upon themselves. I saw it so clearly in the fires of war. For their great industry, which has developed such wondrous works, has also created the worst terrors this world has ever seen. You all remember... If you were not alive then, you have heard the stories of your fathers' generation, you have read of it. The great explosives the muggles dropped from the sky, more powerful than a blasting curse any mage — even myself! — could summon, falling in a great rain to blanket the earth. Falling on the homes of muggles and mages alike.

"For, in their great wisdom, our bereft counterparts have invented the ability to kill us...by accident. Without even knowing of our presence! After all, in order for their gaze to be turned away by the wards covering our enclaves, they must intend to strike us. But if they should drop these great bombs on a city, they may not aim for us, they might not intend to strike us, but still the bombs may fall among us — for they are but fuel for the fires and steel to deliver it, there is no mind to be turned aside. Their great steel vehicles, each larger than a modest peasant home, when they roll over a village, meaning to grind it to dust beneath their wheels, the mages are crushed alongside the muggles — they do not intend to kill us, they are unaware of our presence, but they roll through our enclaves uninterrupted, as the same wind will reach both muggle and mage. Entire enclaves were so destroyed during the last great muggle war in Europe, ancient structures ruined and archives burned, and thousands killed...by accident, incidental in their drive to murder each other. I'm certain you've all heard the stories.

"I'm certain you've all heard the stories of the disaster that visited Japan. For the muggles, in their scientific brilliance, have rediscovered the secret of Greek fire, but have used it with an efficiency and at a scale no alchemist could ever have imagined. A great bomb that releases a spray of liquid fire, adhering to anything it touches, any attempt to quench it with water will only cause it to spread. Adhering to stone and steel as well as skin. Burning as hot as the heart of a forge, drawing the air around into a gale, soon transformed into a maelstrom of flames, consuming all within its reach — melting glass and metals, bodies reduced to bone ash and puddles of tallow.

"These fires were deadly enough when dropped on the stone and steel cities of Europe — incidentally consuming hundreds of mages in the firestorms unleashed — but it was all the worse in Japan, the cities there still dominated with traditional construction of wood and paper. There was nothing to stop the spread, the very winds generated by the conflagration spreading the fires further and further — entire cities, home to millions, were burned to the ground in a matter of days! So complete was the devastation, so rapid and overwhelmingly powerful, that it swept over the mages of Japan as an inexorable tide, burning all in its path. Ancient temples thousands of years old, libraries of records and literature dating back to the very introduction of the written word to the islands, entire families, every elder and every child, all were consumed in the firestorm, swallowed up without warning, before they could even think to escape.

"Even the buildings of their government were lost — with their leadership inside. Japan was decapitated in a single stroke, their entire society thrown into disarray, only now are they beginning to recover from the devastation and the disorder, a society transformed, all but unrecognisable, and bearing the scars of its near destruction. Such a great blow the muggles managed to achieve, shaking to its very foundations a nation which stood among the oldest and most accomplished in our world...

"...by accident. The muggles who started those fires, which destroyed institutions which had endured for thousands of years in a blink of the eye — they did not even know they were there! Those muggles had no knowledge of magic, as they flew over those cities they did not know what laid below them. They burned it all the same, all but obliterating an entire nation of mages...incidentally.

"And that is not even the worst of their sciences. For even as the fires yet burned, another device of destruction was delivered to Japan. Harnessing the energy of matter itself — a topic which physical alchemy has only begun to investigate in recent decades — they designed an explosive of such power that it might destroy an entire city all at once. The burning of Tokyo required hundreds of firebombs, thousands, but with this device...only one. A great inferno casting a cloud of fire and smoke a dozen miles into the air, consuming all for miles around, not only burning wood but melting metals and incinerating stone, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people reduced to dust in a—" He snapped his fingers, sudden and sharp enough Liz noticed a few of the Death Eaters twitch. "And not only is everything for miles around destroyed, but the very land is left poisoned by the exotic components used in the explosive, causing sickness and cancers — the people who lived in the area at the times the bombs were dropped, muggles and mages alike, are still more susceptible to such diseases, decades later.

"Such a horror they had unleashed, seen with their own eyes, but it did not slow them. They made more of these bombs, and more, thousands of them — and more and more powerful than those with which they'd struck Japan, weapons of unimaginable, cataclysmic destruction. And they spoke of a war that may come, between great powers who possess these weapons, in the thousands. How any total war, a life-and-death struggle between such powers, would result in all the world being consumed in fires as bright and hot as the very sun, the ashes of such an onslaught blackening the sky for generations, those fortunate enough to survive the fires to sicken from the poison and starve to death as crops withered in artificial twilight. They believe, truly, that they have created a power by which they may not only destroy each other, but all the world — and us with it, incidentally. I tell you now, you may not wish to believe it, but the forces they have harnessed, this is a power they have.

"Because they yet have it now! When they realised what they had created, came to understand that, in their pride, they may have built the very device which may one day came to cause the extinction of all life on this planet, there was no epiphany, there was no spark of wisdom to bring restraint. No, they built more! And they are not simply kept in storage somewhere, only to be touched in the most desperate of circumstances, no, they are kept at the ready, loaded into rockets and onto planes, prepared, at any moment, to enact industrial murder on an unimaginable scale. To, perhaps, doom all the world to oblivion.

"Because the earth, everything in it and living on it, is but a resource, to be exploited. There is no intrinsic worth, only utility. And if it comes to seem that exploitation will not benefit them...well, then they have nothing to lose in its absolute destruction."

For a moment, the Dark Lord let a silence hang, heavy and cold and dark with dread. Liz could feel it, prickling over her skin and tightening her throat and sinking in her stomach, even knowing that it was the effect of an enthrallment, trying to fight it off. (Subtle fucking bastard, obviously a much better mind mage than she was, when he actually had a body to do it properly.) And, well, it didn't help that he...wasn't wrong? He was talking about nuclear weapons, she was pretty sure — that shite was seriously fucking scary, when she thought about it. Mostly she just didn't, since it didn't come up very often, but, well. And, she'd never really considered how fucked it was that people just kept making the things, were ready to use them at any time — the Americans, at least, actually had, and she knew now from some of her reading had a habit of threatening to use them now and then when they weren't getting their way — even though it was, just, were they trying to fucking kill everyone?

(The more she learned about the world, the more she understood just how fucked everything was. Someone should really try to do something about that, at some point.)

She was still trying to fight off the Dark Lord's very reasonable dread of nuclear war — if she let the enthrallment get a foothold, it'd be harder to keep it out going forward, but resisting it was difficult when she actually agreed with what he was trying to make her think — when he started up again. "Muggle society was in the process of descending into the worst of their self-destructive scientism as I came into my adolescence, I found myself only further repulsed by a world which had done me no mercy in my childhood. But...I saw an echo of that same scientism, that same exploitative rationalism, it'd already begun to contaminate our world as well, even then. Whether it was something we had developed independently, or which had been carried into our society through what minimal contacts we maintained, or perhaps its roots are so deep they go back to the time before we isolated ourselves, a heritage shared between us producing the same madness, it did not matter which it was!

"We had begun to fall into the same obsession. All magics to be analysed and systematised, any which resist such a sterile treatment to be marginalised as corruptive and dangerous, as the very soul of the earth begins to be seen as nothing but an input to be used, and so that attitude was extended to its physicality as well, nothing but resources to be exploited, and its people, livestock to be raised into their purpose and to be used at will. The same disease had contaminated our society as well, and it was clear, to me, that we were doomed to walk the same self-destructive path, to consume the beauty of the world in pursuit of industry, but only with different means, an aesthetic distinction alone.

"I was disillusioned, I must admit. I was considered a promising student, a prodigy, with my talents and my exam scores, why, I could have a successful career in practically any profession I might wish! But the very idea disgusted me, I could not tolerate the prospect of participating in our collective autocannibalism. I would like to claim that I was brought into the priesthood out of naught but love and loyalty to Our Lady, but I tell you now, my distaste with the path our leaders have been leading us down these past generations, that was the greater part. While I could not stop the increasing disavowal of the Art, our descent into scientism and industry, while I could not stop our peers' drive to exploit the earth and each other...I could choose to not participate.

"I could retreat from society at large, I could dedicate my life in veneration of what mysteries remain, I could spend all my days immersing myself in the Art and teaching what secrets I might glean to whoever might listen — that was a life I could not only tolerate, that was a life I could embrace. And so I left my old life behind, dedicated myself to Our Lady, and in Her eyes I became Melanion.

"But as far as I might have retreated into the quiet contemplation of the priesthood, the world could still reach me there. Zealous in the aftermath of the Communalist revolt, the Light sought to further restrict the Art, the Dark unwilling to too openly resist lest they be seen as complicit. How convenient for the Light, that the old magics might become associated with a movement that meant to overturn the traditional structures of magical society! Their authority had been affirmed, their opponents suspect, despite most of them having no sympathy for the Revolution. What marvellous propaganda, truly well-crafted. And so the old magics, the wild magics, were further circumscribed, those who didn't fit in the Light's image of a harmonious society, the mystic and the death-speaker and the midwife, the nymph and the wilderfolk and the werewolf, driven further into shadow.

"Even those among the great houses, lest they draw suspicion onto themselves, they must speak carefully, the practice of the Art, veneration for the gods of their ancestors and the spirits of their houses and their lands, these are to be kept private. For some things, some traditions, are no longer wise to speak of where one might be heard. For these are old ways, superstitions, phenomena that cannot be reduced to mundane numbers and equations, a mystery beyond the exploitation of mortal men — and so they are corruptive, and dangerous, and must be extirpated.

"I felt it, the greater suspicion being directed to the priesthoods, upon my brothers and sisters. It was as a low-burning anxiety, affecting all at the sanctuary — spiking in intensity whenever the sanctuary itself was trespassed upon by Aurors and Hit Wizards. They had received tips, they said, of some manner of crime being committed there, and what stories they had to tell! of black ritual and soul-shaping and human sacrifice and sexual slavery! What imagination have the Light, when they consider the lives of those they do not understand, have no wish to understand. I remarked to an Auror once, during one such investigation, these ideas he has in his head of what occurs at our sanctuary, he has clearly missed his calling! With such creativity, he might make a fine author of fiction!" There was a low rumble of dark chuckles at that, increasing a little, with bright amusement and hot sparks of disdain, as the Dark Lord added, "If he wished to get his start, I know someone with the Lovegoods, I could make an introduction — I warn you, he never does wear a damn shirt, you know how the Lovegoods are, but he has a great eye for literary talent, honest..."

The amusement quickly dribbled away, as the Dark Lord paced at the middle of their little circle, the dark mood on the air through much of the speech taking hold again. "I so rarely left the sanctuary — I'd entirely left my old life behind, there was nothing for me out there — but I heard from my brothers who sisters who did, increasingly over the years, of being harassed out in the world. It came to be, one of our sisters was even arrested, locked up in Azkaban! We asked the Ministry why they held her, and they told us nothing! nothing of merit that could even be disputed! our questions were met only with suspicion, and further accusation! Lucius, did Éloïse ever speak to you of the incident?"

"Yes, my Lord," the white-topped figure in the circle said, his near-glowing head bobbing a little in the darkness. "I believe you are speaking of Cæcilia, or Deilwen of Keswick. Grandmother claimed it required many discussions and some bribery over the course of weeks to have her released."

"And so it did. The state Cæcilia was in on her return home, it took some months for her to recover. And it was then I realised... I had heard stories, of how hostile the country beyond our sanctuary had become to those who yet kept the Art, who refused, in whatever manner, to submit to the cold scientism infecting our society. From my brothers and sister who left more often than I, but also our visitors — your fathers, some still standing among us here may recall speaking to me of it. And I had left that world behind, I had given my life to Our Lady, I expected to spend all the rest of my days at the sanctuary, away from the business of the rest of our country. I had left the world behind.

"But the world would not leave me behind. I had allowed myself to become blind to it, to how heavy the threat had become. I listened to the stories, from you and your fathers, of hiding your heart away — but I thought, I had hidden away, this was not so terrible, was it? We could endure, we could continue to carry on the old ways, as quiet as we must. But no, forcing us out of the public sphere is not enough for them! they must pursue the Art into our private lives as well!

"Seeing Cæcilia, so deeply shaken by her confinement of months among the dementors...I understood. Those who promote this raw, arithmantic approach to magic, disparage soulful witchcraft in favour of rigid wizardry, those who envision a Light order over society, all our nation redirected into its proper place, resources to be analysed and exploited— They would never be satisfied with our silence! They do not wish us to be quiet, practising the Art out of sight. No! They wish us to be gone! For that spark of wisdom, that gift of knowledge and of mystery and of purpose, passed down to us through uncounted generations, they will not be satisfied until it has been extinguished! Until the last true opposition to their scientism, to the insatiable consumption of all the world, until it has been fully extirpated from the minds of all the peoples of our nation, until the drive to defile and exploit all that is may proceed unabated! It does not matter what fictions they must invent, they will contrive whatever excuse they need, whatever justification to feed us to their dementors, whatever justification to cleanse us from the face of the earth!

"For the Light will not settle," the Dark Lord hissed, his voice dropping again from the intensity it'd risen to for a moment there, turning in place to waggle a punctuating finger at each Death Eater in the circle. "They will not compromise, assured as they are in their own virtue, in the mathematical perfection of their order, in the conviction that they are seeking to root out the lingering evils of a more barbaric age. To them, there can be no compromise — any remaining vestige of the Art, of the old worship, all is a corruption that may spread in time, if any is left behind. And so, those of us who hold that spark of wisdom, who intend to keep it alive, to carry on that light to the next generation, we must be forced to disavow all that is sacred to us, to embrace their cold, mathematical scientism...and those who do not, well, we are an internal enemy, one which must be exterminated. As one would vermin."

The Dark Lord was silent for a short moment, the air heavy and cold, letting the thought sink in — not that Liz imagined any of this was new to any of them, of course, just being a dramatic bastard. And his enthrallment kept trying to worm its way into her, which continued to be extremely frustrating. (Wow, the bloody Dark Lord was really good at mind magic, who would have guessed.) She thought she was mostly just getting the feelings that came with it, that she was holding it off enough that, if the Dark Lord was trying to subtly direct their thoughts, it wasn't working on her. At least, she was pretty sure he wouldn't be trying to make them think he was only sort of correct, so, that must still be her.

Like, she did kind of get what he meant, it wasn't out of nowhere. The Light could be really shitty about...well, any kind of witchcraft that wasn't enchantment or potions — you know, the economically useful kinds — would jump to assuming anyone with an interest in it was only a couple steps removed from sacrificing babies under the moonlight or whatever the fuck. Only bad people would have any interest at all in the Dark Arts, you know, she got that nonsense all the time. And religion, well, they could be very condescending about basically anything except the mainstream, unthreatening mos maiorum cults, like Mother Mercy and the like...or Christianity, if the Light person in question was trying to be nice to muggleborns. (They mostly didn't think highly of native magical Christianity, funnily enough, too weird and syncretic and ritualistic, so Liz suspected it really was just trying to not seem racist.) From what she'd heard, the cult the Dark Lord had come out of — dedicated to Venatrix Trivia, which was a name for Hecate — was one of the weirder, creepier cults associated with mos maiorum, mysticism and drug-assisted rituals and big with the Dark aesthetics, so, she wasn't really surprised that the Ministry might have been harassing them a bit, back in the 50s or 60s or whenever this was supposed to have been.

But on the other hand, she was pretty sure they won't rest until we're all dead was something of an exaggeration, a little bit. Especially since the Light could be huge bloody cowards when it came to actually killing even bad people...though, as Liz had pointed out to Severus ages ago, sending someone to Azkaban was really just execution with extra steps. (Even being as passably sane as Sirius was was not normal, and he was hardly what she would call stable.) Hell, in the war Dumbledore had strenuously argued — in the Wizengamot and, according to Sirius, in Order meetings — against using lethal measures, even against Death Eaters who were actively doing murder, ridiculous. That incident with this Cæcilia person, she could understand how that might have been super fucking scary, sure, that made sense, but she thought he was kind of jumping to conclusions there, with the rest of it.

Though, that didn't mean he was entirely wrong, she didn't think. Most of the Light kids she'd known, if they could push a button that would wipe away all the cultural shite they didn't like, and the people that practised them — fuck, even categories of people they didn't like, like wilderfolk or werewolves or whatever — they'd definitely do it. As long as it was abstracted enough that it didn't feel like it was them killing people, honestly, they were such moral cowards sometimes...

So, yeah, she could kind of see where it was coming from, his characterisation of it was just a bit of an exaggeration. The Light were bastards sometimes, she didn't disagree with that part.

"And so," the Dark Lord started again, still hardly above a whisper but with a hard edge, "I left the sanctuary, with a new purpose. Speaking in coffeehouses and in manors, in cities and on farms, seeking to turn the sympathies of those who could yet be persuaded, and to call out those of like mind who had retreated into private. We were too quiet, I felt — we had allowed the Light to act against us for too long unopposed. We were not so few that we could be so easily overwhelmed, no, we had become too meek, in this new cultural and political climate we had found ourselves in, to openly defend the old ways. We were not so few, if we simply practised openly, showing our numbers, and in so doing demonstrate that the Art and those who keep it are not so threatening... Well, we will not convince those dedicated to the Light, of course not, but we needn't do so. We are not so few — they could not force their will on us all, should we refuse to be silent, should we refuse to simply sit back and surrender this nation our ancestors had built to such modern corruption.

"And find support I did! My words were well-received in many quarters, both common and noble, more than I might have expected — and that was heartening, in those early days. But as I came to be known, as I spoke again and again, drawing new people into the cause, then came the opposition. Heckling, at first, a thrown fruit or stone, a nuisance jinx. Each time, it seemed, we drew more sympathetic ears, yet the hostility also increased in proportion...until one gathering — Coventry, April of Nineteen Sixty-Three — tension broke so high that the square erupted into a riot. People were killed.

"In the aftermath, Randolph Avery," he said, gesturing with one hand to one of the older men in the circle, "advised me, we could not abandon the cause. No, our mission was too important. But neither could we leave ourselves vulnerable — if those who oppose us would come with violence, we must be prepared to meet it with the same. And so, the Knights of Walpurgis were inaugurated.

"It started with only that, speaking, I would go out nearly every day, all over the country, wherever there were people who would hear me, accompanied by a few Knights for security. But the hostility we were met with only grew, and grew, and the drive of the Ministry to force us back into private, of the Wizengamot to legislate the Art out of existence, they only grew more determined, more restrictive! Though I could see, every day, how much it meant to those of like mind I met, all throughout our nation, to see someone speak to their fears and to their desires, to see someone stand up for their heritage that had been so demonised over the last generations, the enmity we drew was inflamed all the same! Not only by the crowds, but we had begun to be harassed, attacked, by the Ministry itself, Hit Wizards appearing at our talks, attempting to break them up, some early Knights arrested in various small clashes and riots. I had hoped, enough of us might see reason, to turn aside from the self-destructive path our leadership had begun to guide us down these last generations, but no! They were only becoming further hardened!

"Until, the Ministry worked up the nerve to raid the sanctuary itself — to violate the truce all such places represent, to assault my brothers and sisters, to defile the most sacred of our spaces and relics, held safe for centuries. And so, in response to this grievous insult...the Knights of Walpurgis went to war."

For a moment, the Dark Lord simply continued pacing at the middle of the circle...or so it looked from the outside, anyway. Liz could definitely feel activity on the enthrallment he was holding them all under, but she wasn't entirely certain what it was doing. She was still trying to hold it off, but she also suspected this part just wasn't working on her, for whatever reason — there was a faint prickle of something happening, making her mind itch (which was an odd fucking feeling), but nothing really happened? Like, trying to cast a charm, and you successfully channel the energy, but the spellform just fails to resolve. The enthrallment shaped to tug at something that simply wasn't there, like, maybe a memory? The vibes on the air were dark and serious and...almost sad? Not quite the correct word, she didn't think, but something like that.

Eventually, his voice in a low soft whisper, the Dark Lord said, "Why do I speak of this to you now, you may wonder. Surely, you all know how our fellowship came to be, how our struggle against the government began — those of you who were not with us then have heard tell of it, at the very least. None of this is a secret. So why do I speak of it now? What does this history have to do with the revelation of that autumn night, over a dozen years ago? It is not the facts of this history that I speak of, but my relation to them.

"Desperation — if there was one word for what I was feeling then, it is this. I had seen the muggles fall into self-destructive scientism, all the mystery of the world stripped away in favour of cold mathematics, reduced to a resource to be exploited. And in our world, I saw the same suicidal madness beginning to take hold. With the increasing favour for arithmantic wizardry and systematised enchantment I saw smokestacks choking the sky with industrial poison. As I watched the dissolution of traditional communities and the weakening of House law, broken in favour of the pursuit of selfish professional accomplishment, or their membership reduced to bodies to be better exploited, I saw bombs falling on London, enormous steel machinery grinding hidden enclaves to rubble. As I heard of the further repression of the old priesthoods, witnessed the violation of sanctuaries held for centuries with my own eyes, I saw the insatiable firestorms that consumed Japan. In their fervour to establish a Light order, a cult of the self zealous in its need to consume all the world as fuel for industry, resources for the rational man to exploit in service to his own self-exaltation, all the mystery and joy and beauty of the world stripped away in favour of cold scientism, practical utility, in their promised future I saw the world consumed in nuclear fire.

"It was that desperation, the fear that all our people have managed to build over countless generations might finally be lost, it was that that compelled me to act — and in so doing, that desperation only grew all the more intense! I had expected opposition, yes, but such vitriol, such violence! Did they not see the meaning of what they were doing? Our enlightened leadership, on the Wizengamot and in the Ministry, did they not see what I saw? Did they not see that they were only working to destroy the bonds that held the core of society together, did they not see they were threatening to snuff out that spark of wisdom, the soul of our nation, that reverence for magic, for life itself? What do they expect a body might become without its soul? Do they intend to so imitate the muggles so far as to descend into the same cannibalistic scientism?

"I did not understand. I still do not, truly. To not see the wonder of the world, the deep power of the Art, to look upon the sacred and feel nothing... I suspect such cold, mathematical thinking is simply beyond me. And that desperation, my disbelief and confusion— Surely they would see, if we could only show them, if we could but give voice to that spark of wisdom, show them that light handed down through generations, surely, surely we could turn away from the self-destructive path we had been set on, surely, if they were forced to look, they would see!

"But they only shut their eyes all the firmer, they cracked down all the harder, their determination to force all the world into their strict, mathematical order only turned all the more zealous. And as I saw this, as we barrelled into war, as people began to die, my desperation burned all the brighter, yes — but my confusion, at their seeming blindness, their unwillingness to see the sacrilege they wish to enact, that confusion quickly turned to hatred. In time, I could no longer grant them the courtesy of assuming they acted out of ignorance, no, this horror they mean to press onto our world, this must be their goal, consciously.

"And you have all felt this hatred too, I know! And why should you not? How many insults must you bear to your gods, to your forefathers, to your very way of life, before such hatred is only to be expected? Is such hatred not called for, when confronted with people who openly proclaim their wish to see all that you value obliterated? To not feel when insulted so, when threatened so, that would require a heart of stone — and I tell you, for all my power, for all my skill with the Art, I am yet human.

"And as the war went on, as the Light became only harder in their conviction, as the list of the dead grew, that hatred only burned all the hotter — and oh! I was consumed with rage! It seemed as a burning coal lodged firmly in my chest, unceasing and unquenchable, at times flaring into an inferno so intense I could hardly even think, overwhelming. It came to be, that I no longer wished to show our opponents the error of their ways, I wished to see them burn. It came to be, that I could spare little mind for our cause, the virtues for which we fought — in time, I only wished for the Light to die, and for it to hurt.

"But this hatred, this maddening rage, it did not only corrupt my mind, no...I came to be corrupted in body, as well," he whispered, the fingers of one hand running over one cheek. "There are dangers to the incautious exploration of the Art, this we all know. For the practitioner is inside of the circle, is part of the magic, as much agent as subject, acting and acted upon. And this is the truth of the world, we would say — the detached, mathematical egoism promulgated by various modern theorists and championed by the Light may claim that man is a being separate from the world, and may act upon it without being affected in turn, but we know this is not so! Even in plain arithmantic wizardry this is not so, for every spell leaves its mark, however minor, on he who casts it, every interaction with the ambient environment leaves an echo on one's soul. And so, one may argue there is an element to this reflexive character in all magic, but it is most fundamental in ritual.

"It is said, Our Lady may punish those who do not show the Art due respect. Before entering the circle one must be cleansed, not only in body but in spirit — I admit to you, my friends, this is what I failed to do. I could not let go of that hatred, that rage, I carried it with me everywhere, a burning coal lodged in my chest. I carried it with me into the ritual circle, confident in my skill, confident in the righteousness of our cause, confident in the favour I held with Our Lady. But for all my power, I am yet human — and I was punished for my hubris as any other.

"And so I was twisted by my own hatred. With each ritual I performed — agent and subject, acting and acted upon — I was corrupted further, and further, that burning coal I carried seared deeper and deeper, everything that I was, all my thought and feeling and dreams and desires, contorted around it. Not all at once, no, one ritual may adjust my character only a little — but then in the next, it was that altered character I brought into the circle. And so the corruption grew, and grew, and grew, incrementally consuming my very being, until I become so twisted that it began to show on my very face, until I hardly even appeared human any longer, had been driven so far into madness that I no longer saw myself as human, that dissociation itself reinforced by ritual, only driving me further and further into derangement.

"And in time, it was not only the Light, those who would remake our world in autocannibalistic scientism, it was not only they I wished to see destroyed — it was everything that, in my madness, I felt reflected that same attitude, carried the same cultural poison. Muggleborns as a class, of course they are suspect, the degradation of their culture even further advanced than ours. Those among the guilds whose interests which, while perhaps not opposed to our goals, directly, were not aligned with them either. Those who might themselves object to the Light's vision for our country, but whose traditional practices they wished to preserve differed from ours — the Mistwalkers, the old communes of the North, the Gaels. Even those among us who have less thoroughly fallen into violent madness, who show restraint. For, as thorough as the corruption of the Light has spread, there could well be traitors among us, we must be vigilant! All are suspect, all are a potential enemy, to be subject to inhuman rage unceasing. And as the war intensified, as ritual followed ritual, I only fell deeper into madness.

"Until that autumn night, over a dozen years ago. There was, some of you may recall, a prophecy — and in a fatal act of hubris, I attempted to strike out at the subject of that prophecy, to prevent it from coming into fruition. In my self-inflicted madness, I must have fallen far out of Our Lady's favour indeed, for it was in that moment, in my attempt to circumvent my own foretold demise, that I caused it to come to pass. And I was struck down...by Lily Potter.

"And in a great stroke of irony, my defeat was brought about by the Art! A muggleborn woman, deep among the Light, who had even fought with them against us — and still she embraced the Art! Not only did she work with such skill, not only was she answered, but that ritual... Lily Potter had such confidence with the Art, such faith in divine Magic, that she fueled her ritual with her very life. How many of you," he asked, pointing out at the circle all around him in a long, sweeping, dramatic gesture, "would have the nerve, the skill, the faith to do the same? I tell you now, as difficult as it may be for some of you to hear, that night Lily Potter proved herself to be a greater mage, to hold a deeper respect for magic, a deeper understanding of its mysteries, than the vast majority of pureblood mages I have ever met.

"And so, over these thirteen long years, I have not been able to shake that contradiction. Even in the madness I had been reduced to, that thought would not leave me alone, eating away at the back of my mind, day after day, year after year. How could this come to be? How had I allowed it to come to be? It took years, unwinding the corrupted, twisted creature I had become, for the hatred and the rage to burn away, to be able to look upon the problem clearly.

"Because, in truth, there is no contradiction. The simple fact of the matter is, in that moment, Lily Potter was the better mage than I. She held the favour of the gods while I, in my hubris and self-inflicted madness, had exhausted what favour I once had. And so I was defeated, reduced to the meanest shade, and the girl—" He gesturing toward Liz with one arm — attention snapped her way, crackling over her skin. She twitched, gritting her teeth, self-consciously smoothed down her skirt. "—lived.

"But for all my failures, for all the directionless, fruitless destruction I had wrought in those final years...Our Lady has granted me a second chance. I stand before you now, born anew, cleansed of the madness I had fallen into. With a new body, forged in ritual this night, yes, but also with a new understanding of our cause, forged in the catalyst of that autumn night, over a dozen years ago. Made complete with a truth I had forgotten, what feels so long ago.

"Alan," the Dark Lord said, turning toward one of the men in the circle. "How is your son, Hilaire? How the years have passed, he must be a grown man now."

Liz could feel the confusion wafting off of Alan (Rosier? she thought?) from all the way over here, half-hidden by the mix of similar feelings from others in the circle. But he still dipped his head in a little nod, said, "Yes, my lord, he is twenty-eight this year."

"Twenty-eight — I still remember when first you brought him to the sanctuary as a small child, what feels a lifetime ago. Did you ever manage to convince him to pursue a more academic discipline?"

"Ah, no, he's a craftsman now — glass and ceramics. I admit, I'm not truly disappointed I wasn't able to talk him out of it, he does beautiful work. And he did meet his wife in the trade, of course."

"A wife! Have you become a grandfather since last we met, Alan?" the Dark Lord asked, with an almost teasing edge to his voice.

"Yes, my lord, Gweirydd is three years old now."

"Ah, wonderful! Congratulations. But pardon me, before I was distracted, I meant to ask — remind your brothers and sisters of your son Hilarie's birth."

There was a brief, uncomfortable pause, before Alan admitted, "My lord, I know nothing of his birth. He was abandoned as an infant at one of the sanctuaries on ar Môr Bychan, near Gwened." Those names were Cambrian, but Liz didn't recognise them — maybe Breton, she knew the Rosiers lived in Brittany.

"And yet, you brought him into your home, and raised him as your own."

"...Yes, my lord."

"Would any of you here now," the Dark Lord said, turning around to look over the circle while gesturing to Alan with one hand, "tell your brother that Hilaire is not truly his son? that young Gweirydd is not truly his grandson? that Hilaire Rosier is no Rosier at all?" There was a short, heavy pause, as he slowly turned in place to gaze out over the gathered Death Eaters, as though actually waiting for an answer. Not like Liz expected anyone would — that'd be a pretty shitty thing to do, and she was pretty sure all these bastards thought they were supposed to be friends, the Dark Lord calling Rosier their brother and all. "No. No, I don't believe you would.

"For we would say, a family is more than blood. Many a time over our history, the great Houses of our nation have taken in outsiders, embraced them so closely they were no longer outsiders at all. I know for a fact that some of you here are descended from adoptees — and yet you are sons and daughters of your House, whether you share blood with your predecessors or not. There are some who may say, no, heritage may only pass by right of birth, from a father to a son of his own blood, but we know family is more than blood.

"Is all that a parent gives to their child blood alone? is all that you share with the rest of your House, past and present and future, blood alone? No, I don't think any of you believe that, truly. To claim such would be to demean the value of all that your forefathers have built, the wisdom accumulated over uncountable generations, the gods you keep and the stories you remember, all that you pray to preserve for the generation after you, and the one after that. No, a family is more than blood, this we know.

"And what of our nation? Can the House of Britain not benefit from a few adoptees, just as the House of Rosier has from taking in Hilaire, or as many of your families have in the past? Or are we but blood alone?"

The Dark Lord fell silent again, letting the Death Eaters mull that idea over — or, more like, giving the enthrallment he was working here time to sink in properly. Honestly, she was kind of surprised he was leaning so hard on enthrallment in this silly overlong speech of his, considering these were his closest followers. But maybe she shouldn't be? This was the Dark Lord after all, mind-controlling people to think and believe as he wanted them to seemed like the kind of thing such a person would do.

Of course, it seemed like he was using his mind-control superpowers to make the Death Eater leadership stop being racist bastards, so Liz wasn't exactly complaining, she was just saying.

Or at least she thought that's what he was doing. She could feel the enthrallment working — she wasn't doing a very good job of holding it off, because she continued to be shite at occlumency — but it was hard to say what it was supposed to be doing, exactly. It was definitely making her feel things, but she continued to be shite with normal people things like knowing what feelings are, so she wouldn't even know what to call it. Kind of a heavy-but-empty feeling in her chest, her skin prickling a little, but then also an almost butterflies feeling and... She didn't know, feelings were hard.

If it was trying to tweak her thoughts, she didn't really notice at all...which either meant she was holding the enthrallment off well enough to stop that part from working, or it just had nothing to hold onto in the first place. Liz wasn't a racist bastard, obviously, and already had a scheme to adopt a bunch of her muggleborn friends — partly for selfish reasons, but still — and she was also kind of effectively muggleborn herself, and thought all this traditional witchcraft stuff was neat, so she didn't really need to be convinced of anything here.

She would wonder what it meant that she kind of agreed with...well, some of the shite the Dark Lord was talking about, at least. But, well, she was already aware she was a monster, and some of it was just him apparently not being a racist bastard anymore, so she didn't think that actually said much.

"Of course," the Dark Lord said, a couple of the men in the ring twitching, "an adoptee must be educated in the history and the practices and traditions of the House which they are being welcomed into. Just as a Rosier, regardless of his birth, must be prepared to take his place in the House of Rosier, so must we prepare the next generation to take their place as the next step in the long history of our nation.

"And that will be no small project, of course! For far too many have had their minds poisoned with the cold scientism and self-destructive egoism of our modern times! those raised under Light domination just as those who come to us from the muggle world! But it is an education that can succeed, should it reach those who need it. Did I not find my way to the Art, despite not having been raised to it? I was not born at our sanctuary, nor were most of my brothers and sisters there — and nor were many of you born to revere Our Lady. No one is born knowing the history and the ways and the faith of their family, no, they must be taught that.

"Lily Potter found her way to the Art — and what a miracle that she did so, so deeply entrenched in the Light as she was! Is it any wonder so few in her position do as she did, with the resources available to them? How can so many, born to mages and muggles alike, be said to have rejected the old ways, if they had never been given the opportunity to embrace them? I'm certain many of you are aware of the shape of the curriculum offered at educational institutions in this country, the culture in these places, no, they never had a chance.

"And the presently ongoing expansion of public education, proceeding even as we speak, those so determined to consume all the world only intend to spread their cold scientism all the further, to penetrate segments of society which they previously could not reach! No. No, the people must be taught — and we must act quickly, before the poison may spread too much further.

"There will be opposition, of course. There will be those who resist, who are so dedicated to their vision of a Light order, blinded by the promise of egoistic materialism, there are some who will resist wisdom, who will oppose our efforts to return the Art to its rightful place, to restore to our nation its very soul. I do not expect those most zealous in their cold scientism to so easily see the error of their ways! No, they will fall upon us, our families and our sanctuaries with callous violence, exerting whatever force they think they must to extirpate the old ways from our nation. When they learn of my return, once again they will come, as they have once before.

"They will come to put us to the sword." As he said so, the Dark Lord drew his wand, holding it up not in a grip to actually cast anything, balanced across his palm and over his loose fingers. Making clear what he meant by sword, Liz guessed — that wasn't an unfamiliar analogy, honestly, there was a lot of symbolism around that, and it came up in poetry and stuff, it was a whole thing. "To feed all who resist their cold, arithmantic Light order to their pet dementors — what irony, the law of a supposedly enlightened society enforced through the use of the vilest of demons! They will come, turning the rigid wizardry they so extoll on their enemies, to be killed or to have their very souls harvested, our relics destroyed and our sanctuaries violated, until any who mean to carry on the light of wisdom passed down by our forebears are gone from the world, your children and grandchildren sequestered in their schools to be fed the same poison, to be inculcated into the same autocannibalistic madness.

"Well, I say, then let them come! It was not their cherished cold wizardry which struck me down last time, and they'll have no more luck at it this time! Instead of the slow, deliberate strangulation we have faced these last generations, let us make it a fight!" he hissed, his hand snapping closed around his wand. Liz tensed, some of the Death Eaters twitched, at a sudden pulse of magic breaking over their little clearing in a wave, sharp and prickling at her skin, heavy and thick and huge, intense enough she could taste it from all the way over here, illusory flickers of colourful lightning sparking in a halo around the Dark Lord, not quite seen. Jesus fuck, she got he was flaring it on purpose, but that was a hell of an aura...

...and also weirdly not that dark? She'd expected the Dark Lord's magic to be, you know, dark, but this felt pretty neutral, actually. But he was a big time ritualist and all, maybe he just did enough light rituals to tug his magic to the middle, who knew. Definitely intimidatingly big, though, which she guessed was probably enough for Dark Lord -ing purposes.

"If they value the sword so much, to wish that it might substitute the practice of magic in its entirety," the Dark Lord holding up his wand, little sparks flickering around the tip, Liz could feel something on the enthrallment tugging at her, simmering in her chest, "if they so love the sword, then let them die by it!" As his voice peaked, there was a sharp lurch in the enthrallment, she grit her teeth against it. Didn't know what feeling was supposed to be, but she wasn't the only one getting hit by it — she heard some hissing from the Death Eaters, minds sparking with a whole mix of feelings and thoughts, which would be difficult to pick out even if there weren't like twenty of them, and half-buried under the Dark Lord's noisy fucking aura. "And let the violence to come serve as a sacrifice, let the blood spilled fuel the transformation of our society, let the soul of our nation be purified in the fires!

"If they wish to fight us, then let us meet them with purpose. For I have well learned the danger if we should lose that purpose, if we should let ourselves be poisoned with hatred, with rage. We must defend ourselves, yes, we must protect all that our predecessors have built, we must not let that light of wisdom, passed down through uncounted generations, we must not let it go out. But we must build too, we must nurture that light, so it may be passed on to those who follow us. We must not only be warriors, my Knights, but we must be teachers as well — for so many have not been introduced to the Art, so many have had no opportunity to feel that light of wisdom on their face, to know magic as we do. We have found our way to Our Lady, guided by those who came before us; and so we must teach, yes, we must rebuild a country untainted by Light order, to create the conditions for it to flourish, we must show those who come after us the way.

"With one hand, let us fight those who oppose us with the sword, but with the other, let us offer the chalice. There will be war, my brothers and sisters, I do not deny that, the Light will not simply stand back and let us do what must be done. But let us hold fast to our purpose, let us be builders, let us be craftsman," here with a little nod to Rosier, "and let us by teachers. Let us carry that light of wisdom into the next generation, so that out of death..." A jab of his wand, and an illusion of a skull appeared over the Dark Lord's head — similar to the Dark Mark, the empty eyes and the jaw gaping open, but without the snake, and in the plain off-white of bone. "...we may seed life." With a wave of his free hand, the illusion began to move, a thick, vivid green snake squeezing out from between the skull's teeth...and then grass and clover and shite seemed to sprout up out of the snake's scales, starting at the tip of its nose and rushing down its body in a wave, moss and clover rapidly spreading over the skull, even some flowers appearing here and there, drooping off the sides of the skull or filling its empty eye sockets, violets and lilies and roses, the snake extending longer and longer as it continued to slip out from between the skull's jaws, looping back around on itself, its jaws opening wide — there was more green inside its mouth, clover and leaves and little colourful flowers — and enveloping the skull, as it swallowed the illusion abruptly breaking apart, a burst of brilliant green and silver sparks drifting to the ground...

...Was the Dark Mark supposed to be a symbol of rebirth this whole time? Somehow, Liz didn't remember that ever coming up before, but she guessed that wasn't much of a surprise — not like people ever took much effort to try to explain what the Death Eaters themselves thought about what they were doing, so.

Once the sparks had faded, the Dark Lord held out his hands to both sides — empty-handed, his wand returned somewhere up his sleeve while she hadn't been looking — slowly turning in place to look out over the circle. "I call to you, my old friends, as I have once before, so many years ago now. Will you walk with me?"

There was a brief pause, before multiple figures in the circle lurched into motion at more or less the same time, walking toward the Dark Lord in the middle, the rest of the circle breaking apart in sections. It was kind of a repeat of the little ritual they'd all done on showing up — sinking down to a knee, kissing the back of the Dark Lord's hand, before he gave them a hand back up — but instead of waiting their turn in line they crowded in around him from all directions at once. It came off way less stiff and formal, and there was more other stuff going on too, clasping hands and hugging and chatter, between the Death Eaters but also with the Dark Lord too. One of the women (Robyn Vane, if Liz remembered correctly) even tipped up onto her toes to kiss the Dark Lord on the cheek which, um, okay then...

Watching them all crowded together and talking and laughing and hugging, Liz could actually believe they were friends now. Some of the language with, like, calling them brothers and shite, that made more sense — she had just written it off as more weird religious stuff, but still.

It seemed like whatever was going on over there might take a little bit. Sitting on her mausoleum step — still soft and warm and comfortable, not-Ollivander's spellwork holding up — Liz frowned off at the group of Death Eaters, clicking her lip ring against her teeth. She really didn't know what to think of that whole big long speech. Hardly an expert with political speeches or whatever, and it could just be the enthrallment fucking with her, but her impression was that it had been kind of...unexpectedly reasonable.

Sure, a lot of it had been weird religious stuff, which she didn't have the context for — but, well, people's religious stuff was just kind of whatever, not really her business. And there'd been a lot of nonsense about what our fathers built and whatever the fuck, that kind of sentiment was silly. That kind of thing often came off super racist, but at least the Dark Lord had managed to get around that implication with his whole adoption metaphor. Still just kind of weird? Like, maybe this was a Liz thing, but even when it wasn't being racist and creepy or whatever, that talk just didn't click for her.

But the actual politics stuff seemed...mostly fine? Or, partly fine, anyway, and the parts she didn't like weren't even that out there. Old witchcraft and stuff was neat, and... Well, she wouldn't put bringing all that stuff back at the centre of everything, but she kind of read those weird priorities as a religious thing? Like they thought it was especially important for religious reasons, which was whatever — she didn't care why someone thought loosening restrictions on the Dark Arts and teaching proper witchcraft again was a good idea, the end result was still correct. She thought. Something she agreed with, anyway. And the Dark Lord had managed to talk himself back around to not being racist against muggleborns, and she'd noticed him even slip non-human beings in there too — as an aside, not lingering on it — which was obviously good. And he'd have a big influence on Death Eater types going forward, what with being their big important cult leader or whatever, and it sounded like he meant to push the whole muggleborns-can-be-real-mages-actually thing, so that was great. Good news all around on that angle, honestly.

The way the Dark Lord had framed his issues with the Light was...kind of weird. She wasn't sure she quite understood all of it, honestly. Some of it was just more religious stuff, you know, accusing the Light of trying to stomp out religious practices they didn't like — which, so far as she could tell, wasn't entirely wrong, but he'd maybe exaggerated how big of a problem it was. (Though that was honestly a maybe, because she wasn't even sure about that, she'd only been here for a few years and didn't know everything.) But the philosophy stuff, about cold scientism and autocannibalistic exploitation and egoistic professionalism or whatever the fuck...

Well, mixed on those. The cold scientism part, at least she knew more or less what he meant by that — the arithmantic analysis of magic, specifically realism, or the Hanoverian School. (There'd been a big conference of realist arithmancers in Hanover in the latter end of the 19th Century, that's where the name came from.) Realism claimed that all magical phenomena could be broken down and explained scientifically, that any magics that were currently beyond human understanding were just due to not analysing them thoroughly enough, or not having yet developed the theories and the maths to properly describe them. Doing science on magic, basically. Since there were so many things realism still couldn't adequately explain yet — wild magic, the basics of ritual magic and arguably graphic magic, things like the Sight, and even light-dark polarisation — it was really more an argument people were making about the nature of the world than anything, competing with other schools of thought in Arithmancy. And an explicitly atheistic one at that, so, a lot of people tended to find dedicated realists kind of annoying.

(It was pretty common for people to use ideas from different schools for different subjects, since different schools were most useful when doing their own kind of arithmancy, but some people got ideological about it, was the thing.)

Dumbledore personally was definitely a realist — that conversation they had about prophecy had been realism stuff — but she didn't really know how common that was in the Light in general. More common than it was in the Dark, at least? It wasn't like it was part of the foundational ideology of the Light or anything...not that the Light even had a foundational ideology, British politics was more fuzzy than that. There were some very loud, stubborn realists in the Light, though, so attaching it to them wasn't necessarily out of nowhere — she just wasn't sure how influential it was, exactly?

The autocannibalistic exploitation stuff, she was pretty sure that was just capitalism. Or, well, that was the vibe she'd gotten, anyway — she'd done a little bit of reading, but she'd hardly call herself an expert on...well, basically anything. But, you know, looking at all the world and the people in it as resources to be exploited, the unreasoning drive to just keep going and going and going, ruining the environment and eventually society starting to consume itself from the inside out, yeah, that was just basic capitalism stuff. The Dark Lord hadn't put it in the same terms as the books Tamsyn and Hermione had recommended to her, but it sounded like the same basic idea.

Not that she thought it even necessarily applied in the magical world? They basically still had a feudal economy, with some more modern stuff bolted on top. There were definitely people who just looked at things and people as resources to be exploited for profit, but...those would mostly just be the nobility? and wealthy commoners? you know, the people who actually owned shite? Who also happened to be the part of the country the Dark Lord's support was mostly pulled from? Liz didn't get it, that using things and people to enrich yourself was bad seemed like the opposite of what the Death Eaters would want to hear, kind of made them out to be the bad guys? She had to be missing something, some cultural thing she just didn't have the context for...

The stuff around egoism and professional accomplishment or whatever the fuck had been a bit baffling at first but, sitting here thinking about it, she thought he was talking about the weakening of House law? Liz meant, there was a whole trend with more Light-leaning people and, like, Common Fate or whoever, to increasingly shift authority over people and business and the like away from the House and more toward the Ministry. The way it worked traditionally, each House was sort of like an independent political thing, which had relationships and deals and stuff with other Houses, and institutions like the government and guilds and whatever else. People didn't have rights as individuals so much as they did as a member of their House — as a part of the relationship between the Houses and the government, the government gave their members certain legal protections, and would also defend them from other Houses when the contract was broken, blah blah, complicated legal theory stuff.

The system worked, mostly, though there were some obvious problems. If you weren't a member of a House for whatever reason — sometimes people were kicked out, most nonhuman beings simply didn't have one to begin with, and muggleborns could have issues too — then you basically weren't protected by the law at all, which could get very bad very quickly. There was also the problem that it put a lot of authority in the leadership of each House...whatever that was like. Different Houses did things differently — some passed absolute authority down parent to child, like tiny little monarchies, there were some (especially Gaelic families) that had a kind of ruling council that made decisions, some of the bigger Houses had whole internal elections, it was complicated. Whatever system they had, so long as they stayed within the law of the country, the internal authority of a House could do pretty much whatever they wanted with their membership. Mess around with whatever property — people didn't own things, their House as an institution did — move people around, make decisions about who was going to live with who and how the children and the elderly were going to be managed, all kinds of things.

And they had total control over external relationships as well — people couldn't sign legal contracts on their own, they needed their House's approval to do basically anything. Marriage was a big one — you couldn't be forced to marry someone, that was against national law, but the leadership of one House or the other could refuse to approve a marriage for any reason and there was nothing the couple could do about it — and another was...well, pretty much any other kind of contract. Business deals, attending a school, apprenticeship agreements, employment contracts, that kind of thing was a big deal sometimes. A large part of what the family law court system did was arbitrate internal disputes, when someone disagreed with their House's authority about how a particular bit of House law should be applied, and most often that had to do with those kinds of contracts.

It was pretty common among Light types and people in Common Fate to want to loosen House control over some kinds of contracts, especially educational and employment stuff. The argument they made was mostly centred on...well, professional accomplishment, as the Dark Lord said — you know, educated professional types having more freedom to pursue their careers however they saw fit, without needing to convince House authorities who might know far less about their field than they did, and might have very different ideas about what their priorities should be. That all did make sense, Liz guessed...but she hadn't missed that the reforms they were talking about didn't only apply to these nice, well-payed, guild-protected professional fields, but with all contracts of this type.

Because, well, yeah, it might suck that you couldn't go for a Mastery or get a job or start a business or whatever without getting your House to sign onto it, but the way it worked now did protect people too. Even for more professional types, maybe you're brilliant with potions or enchantment or whatever field you're going into, sure, but whoever was running your House almost certainly knew how the law worked better than you did — they were more likely to notice it if the contract was written to fuck you over. Also, if there did end up being a dispute, if the House cosigned the thing the House was one of the injured parties, so could press a claim on your behalf, but if you were on your own you were on your own, and most individual people didn't really have the knowledge to navigate Britain's fucking complicated court system. Not to mention, the other party might have more money for bribes than you do, especially since you probably only had access to a small fraction of your House's wealth, so, yeah, pretty much fucked if anything goes wrong, especially if you're dealing with established businesses and institutions and whatever.

And that was if you were a professional — Liz had noticed that the reforms they were talking about would also apply to common labourers, and they were far more likely to get fucked without someone watching their back. While it was mostly advertised as a way to give smart skilled professionals more control over their lives, she was pretty sure that the actual goal was to make it easier for wealthier Houses and guilds and businesses and shite to hire poor people to do shitty jobs for them, on shittier terms thanks to not being backed up by their whole bloody family anymore. Sort of like how they'd needed to break up traditional social stuff so labour could be properly exploited back when capitalism was first taking off in the muggle world, same basic idea, she thought.

She had mixed feelings about that, honestly. Some Houses, their leadership sucked, basically little dictatorships, so wanting to give people an out made sense; on the other hand, stripping away the House's authority over this kind of thing would also strip away a lot of the legal protections people had, when it came to economic stuff, and sharply tip the balance of power toward employers and whoever. Since the Wizengamot were a bunch of backwards bigotted aristocratic bastards, she didn't exactly expect them to put some nice labour protections in place before making a move like this, so chances were a lot of people would end up getting fucked — and professional types had the advantage of there being fewer qualified people and being educated enough to at least follow along with legalese, so the people getting fucked would disproportionately be the poor. So, like, good intentions, but not really taking into account the consequences...

...maybe — that was kind of assuming there that common labourers getting fucked was a side effect and not the actual goal, but she thought that might be the case for some supporters, at least.

Not an expert, and she hardly knew everything about how the legal system and the economy worked, but she thought a better idea would be to make some rules about how the internal structure of a House was supposed to work. You know, so they'd be less likely to be shitty little dictatorships that would stop their members from doing what they wanted to do in the first place. But forcing reforms to internal House law like that would be very unpopular in the Wizengamot, since in doing so they would be undermining their own authority over their families. Arguably even more than the contract reform, since limiting how Houses could interact with outsiders was a different thing from meddling in their internal affairs. The Wizengamot would need to have a very good reason to go along with that, and she didn't think that was super likely.

So, yeah, she didn't think that kind of reform was a good idea either, but she kind of doubted she and the Dark Lord had the same reasons for not liking it. He hadn't talked about this topic that much, but the feeling she got was that it was, you know, leaning into the traditional order, where the balance of power was weighted more toward the Houses, and there were limits to what the Ministry could do to fuck around with them. Less concern about how people would get fucked over, more just reflexive conservativism. Though the philosophical stuff he babbled off about wasn't unconnected — people forsaking traditional social ties in favour of personal advancement was leaning into the kind of realist, let's-use-up-stuff-for-profit kind of thinking he said was poisoning society or whatever — but she had the feeling the Death Eaters' issue about this kind of thing was mostly about preserving House privilege for the sake of it.

It probably helped that at least some of them were literal Lords of the Wizengamot — these kinds of reforms would weaken their personal power. So yeah, not the wrong idea, but for the wrong reasons.

And there toward the end, there'd been a little bit about how the new educational programme kind of sucked, which she didn't disagree with either...and even for some of the same reasons, if she was being honest. At least, he'd said the issue was that the curriculum was too wizardry-focussed — all the Light realist stuff he'd been complaining about the whole time, blah blah — and didn't have nearly enough cool witchcraft, which yeah, being able to learn more cool witchcraft more easily would be neat. Especially since most people wouldn't be going past craft school anyway, at least not for a little while yet, so they wouldn't even be studying wand magic anyway.

It was even worse than that, when she thought about it. She knew from, just, being around people in public at the Refuge, and talking to Muirgheal, that a lot of traditional education in places they didn't have access to proper schooling did involve a lot of old-fashioned witchcraft, passed down through who knew how many generations at this point. Poor people generally didn't know any wizardry, since wands and the education to use them was too expensive, but it was common for them to know all kinds of witchcraft, potions and ritual and enchantment and whatever else — and their education was mostly oral, person to person, so a lot of this stuff had never been written down anywhere either. If people were going to the Ministry schools instead, that old witchcraft was going to be taught less and less, and eventually die out...and since it was an oral tradition, once it wasn't practised anymore it'd be forgotten, completely.

Liz thought that was...kind of sad? She couldn't even explain why, exactly, she just didn't like the thought, was all.

Of course, the solution to that problem wasn't to refuse poor people an education, it was to document this stuff before it died out — and even try to integrate it into the craft school programme where it made sense, to prevent it from dying out in the first place. That wasn't going to happen as things were running now, since the people who were setting the curriculum were the same kind of people who didn't really think much of...well, poor people in general, but definitely not the kinds of witchcraft they came up with to get things done in the absence of wands and shite. But Liz didn't really think that's what the Dark Lord was talking about either — he wanted to teach his kind of witchcraft, would effectively just displace the native stuff anyway.

As far as she was concerned, that was substituting the problem with a new problem. Probably better than, just, suppressing the Dark Arts altogether, but not really fixing it either. And she had other issues with the new educational programme, to do with not teaching in Gaelic and it still being inaccessibly expensive for some people and not letting in nonhuman beings and not continuing through academy, all kinds of things really, there were reasons she hadn't voted for that thing. All that went unmentioned, of course — not that she'd really expected him to mention it, the thing about the schools had just been an aside anyway — and she didn't like his solution to the problem that they agreed was a problem.

She didn't know, really mixed feelings about that long bloody speech, was the point. She'd kind of expected the Dark Lord to sound more obviously evil? and not, just, generally reasonable. Mostly, anyway, obviously the religious stuff and going off about their traditions and their ancestors or whatever was silly, but still. Hell, he'd even made an aside about how completely fucked it was that they fed criminals to dementors, she really wouldn't have expected that...

While she was still trying to turn over how weirdly ambivalent she felt about all this, the Dark Lord's smooth soft voice slithered its way into her ears, the crowd of Death Eaters quickly falling silent as he addressed them all again. "I will not keep you much longer — I imagine it may draw suspicion to some of you for your absence to be noticed. But before we break for the night, there are a few whose contributions must be acknowledged.

"First, young Barty." There was some shuffling in the crowd — Liz couldn't see very well from here, too short and the Dark Lord standing in the middle, but she assumed they were making room for not-Ollivander to approach him. "Were it not for your youngest brother here, I would not be standing before you now. I had all but fallen into despair, certain I would never attain the means to return, when he called out to me. With great dedication and great skill in the Art, he performed the magics necessary to restore me to proper life, multiple rituals over the course of the last year. There are but a handful in all the world who may have done so well.

"You have done exemplary work, and you have have my sincere gratitude." There was a brief pause then, she thought some kind of response from not-Ollivander. Whatever it was, his voice wasn't being picked up by the same spell projecting the Dark Lord's, Liz couldn't hear it from here. "Of course. In recognition of your service to myself and to the cause, you are to be welcomed to the inner court of the Knights of Walpurgis — friends, welcome your new brother."

There was some activity, then, the crowd shuffling around, some chatter she couldn't make out from here. From the few glimpses she managed to catch of not-Ollivander from the crowd, it looked like he was being greeted by everyone in the group in turn, with hand-clasps and hugs and shite. That went on for a little while, before the Dark Lord started speaking again. "We must also thank Lucius, who helped to procure some of the necessary components, as well as a suitable location to brew the catalyst. Some assistance in procurement was also provided by Randolph, Alan, Agnes, and Augustus. Thank you, my friends — your contribution will not be forgotten." Some more chatter, the people who'd been thanked making some kind of acknowledgement, too muddied for Liz to make out, some kind of response from some of the others in the crowd. "The House of Bulstrode has agreed to host us until such time as we may rebuild a proper sanctuary. Crispin, are your Lord and Lady prepared to welcome us this night?"

Bulstrode's voice wasn't amplified by any magic, but the crowd had gone quiet enough, his voice deep and strong enough, that Liz could make out the words anyway. "We are not yet ready to host the entirety of our numbers quite yet, but there is room prepared for yourself and a few companions. If it please you, my lord, I may return some fifteen minutes ahead, so my cousin may prepare to receive you tonight."

"Very well, there will be time enough. I look forward to conveying my appreciation for their hospitality to the Lord and Lady Bulstrode in person." As more chatter went back and forth among the group, she made a quick mental note to warn Millie. She didn't tend to get on with the junior Death Eater types, Liz had a feeling she had no idea what she was about to go home to. "There is one more whose contribution must be recognised, one who must be welcomed among us." His voice raising a little, the magic crackling as he flexed it to carry further, "Mercy Anne — approach and present yourself to this court."

...Wait, what?

There were some sparks of confusion in the crowd of Death Eaters, falling tight and quiet with anticipation. The silence hung for a few seconds, before Liz noticed a figure, shadows shifting outside their little clearing to the left. They stepped into the pool of dim light, illuminated by the glow from above — wearing a plain black cloak, the hood pulled over her head, under the cloak Liz could make out a long white dress, gold detailing faintly glimmering in the magical light. Frowning, she watched the woman approach the Dark Lord and the crowd of Death Eaters, her heart throbbing and unease prickling at the back of her neck.

It had to be a coincidence...though it was kind of hard to convince herself of that. There couldn't be that many mages in the world named Mercy Anne — it wasn't exactly a common name, was it. With her face hidden by her hood, Liz couldn't make out anything from here, and her mind was too far away — at least without extending herself toward her, and she'd feel too exposed doing that, with the Dark Lord's presence being all active and big and intimidating right there — but even without being able to feel her, she still... An instinctive Seer thing, maybe, even though she couldn't see or feel anything, she still—

Liz tensed, as the familiar presence came close enough, nearing the crowd of Death Eaters in the centre of the clearing, to pass into her range — she recognised Tamsyn, instantly.

...

What the fuck was she doing here? Dumbledore thought that Tamsyn was somehow connected to the Dark Lord, and, she'd admitted in a letter ages ago that that very well might be the case — she'd last been in contact with the original Tamsyn in, like, the 60s or something, didn't know what happened to her after that — but she'd said she had no bloody clue what that connection was! Had she neglected to tell her something seriously fucking important?!

Or...had she just lied? That conversation had been through letter, she would have been able to get away with that without Liz noticing. She didn't know...

She didn't know how to feel about this. She didn't understand what Tamsyn was doing here.

The crowd had pulled back from the Dark Lord a bit, leaving an open space at the middle — the open side of the circle wasn't facing Liz, but the gaps between them were wide enough that she could mostly make out the Dark Lord in the middle. As Tamsyn crossed into the circle, she reached up to pull back her hood, sparking off instant flashes of shock from several of the minds around, simmering with confusion. Liz was curious what that was about, but she didn't want to reach that far to look close enough to see...

Tamsyn approached within a couple steps of the Dark Lord. She was mostly blocked by one of the Death Eaters from this angle, but Liz was pretty sure she sank down to her knees — she couldn't see Tamsyn very well, but she could see the shiny white of her dress pool across the grass around her. A second slithery wave of magic rushed out through the clearing, familiar, the same spell Severus and apparently the bloody Dark Lord used to amplify their voice. Worming its way into her ear, speaking in her funny fake American accent, Tamsyn's voice said only, "My Lord Father."

Liz stared through the Death Eater in the way toward where Tamsyn was, hardly even breathing.

...What?!

She couldn't mean literally, they'd talked about that, when she sent Liz the heritage test thing — Tamsyn's father was some muggle bloke, forgot his name, something Riddle. Though, that had also been over letters, but that would be a weird thing to lie about, since it didn't bloody matter, and there was the bit with them ending up being cousins through the Gaunts, and Liz didn't feel a lie now, but she was probably too far away, and she might not feel a lie regardless, if Tamsyn was thinking of it like it was a title or something—

His voice slithering its way into her ears, the Dark Lord said, "Welcome to our circle, my daughter."

...What the fuck was happening?!

A bunch of the Death Eaters felt just as surprised and confused as Liz was. It seemed the Dark Lord was letting them process that for a moment, starting to pace in a little circle around Tamsyn. Once the crackling storm in people's heads had calmed somewhat, he said, "Yes, my daughter — I was as surprised as some among you are now. You may recall, over twenty years ago now I took a trip to the Americas, in an attempt to gather support from certain figures at Miskatonic, or among the remaining practitioners of the old ways in Massachusetts and Virginia. An unproductive trip, all told...or, as it turns out, not so unproductive after all."

Liz picked up some reluctant amusement, there some quiet chuckles. And yeah, okay, the father-daughter thing was definitely a lie — she knew that Tamsyn had been born in the 1920s, this story was made up. Working with Tamsyn's Mercy Anne backstory, maybe? She didn't know, she hadn't really been paying that much attention when Tamsyn had been telling her about it...

"I had no knowledge of her existence before she tracked me down last summer, walking in on Barty and I despite the wards set to deflect attention." Last summer? So Tamsyn had been working with the Dark Lord for a—

She tensed, her back straightening, as something belatedly clicked.

Looking in not-Ollivander's head, she'd seen that the original plan had been to murder Liz after they were done with her — but the Dark Lord had been talked out of it, had been convinced to let her live...by his daughter.

She remembered, that time they met in person, on Valentine's day, the two of them holding hands — Tamsyn's idea, so Liz could be absolutely certain she was being told the truth — telling her that she had no intention of harming her, that she was on her side—

Oh for fuck's sake...

While Liz sat fuming over that — Tamsyn could have just told her what was happening, so she could avoid touching the fucking Cup, but of course she had to make it complicated, why did other Slytherins have to be like this, honestly... — the performance going on in the middle of the clearing kept going. And it had to be a performance, obviously the Dark Lord himself would know the story they were selling was false. Distracted, she'd missed some of it, when she checked back in the Dark Lord was talking about Mercy Anne's contribution to his little rebirth — she'd brewed the catalyst, whatever that meant, and had worked as an intermediary to contact people without drawing suspicion while he couldn't. Some of them had already met her, apparently, those would be the people who didn't seem so shocked and confused by all this...

"While you have done myself and the cause a great service," the Dark Lord said, coming back around to come to a stop in front of her again, "I admit that only causes the...responsibility I feel to twinge all the harder. Perhaps it should not trouble me, as it was no fault of mine that I was not informed as to your existence, but it seems I have found myself quite terribly neglectful of a father."

'Mercy Anne' said, "It does not trouble me — I am pleased just to have found you."

"Still, I feel there is a debt between us. If there is something you wish from me, I would you name it."

There was a brief pause — Liz couldn't see from here, but it felt like a hesitation. All part of the performance, of course, she'd guessed what Tamsyn was going to 'ask' for already. "Anything?"

"If it is in my power to give, I will attempt to do so."

"...Then I ask for Lady Potter's life. Let her go."

Attention slammed down on Liz again, clawing at her skin, she grit her teeth, self-consciously smoothing down her skirt. It didn't last very long, thankfully, their eyes drawn back to the Dark Lord as he spoke. "Ahhh... Now, that is difficult. You have not been long in this country, perhaps you do not realise the role the Girl Who Lived plays in the public consciousness here."

"That's true, but, Father, there is more than one way to neutralize an enemy."

"Ha! True enough! But that depends on Lady Elizabeth herself, I suppose. Let us speak, then, come."

The group shuffled around, letting the Dark Lord through, he started walking straight toward her — those unnaturally black robes still just looked weird. Tamsyn was following behind him at his left elbow — she winked, giving Liz a little crooked smile — the rest of the Death Eaters hanging some metres back. She kind of wanted to glare at Tamsyn, but the attention crackling over her skin was too distracting, uncomfortably aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing knickers at the moment...also, her numbing charm was starting to wear off, the burns itched. Grimacing against the eyes on her, she tried to stand — the bloody Dark Lord (and Tamsyn) standing over her would just be awkward — but her hip immediately spanged with hot sharp pain, she hissed through her teeth—

"Barty, would you give Lady Elizabeth a hand." While one familiar man detached from the crowd, the Dark Lord turned over his shoulder toward them. "As I'm certain you have all heard, she has performed exceptionally well in the Triwizard Tournament, for a student of her age, but she did not get through the Final Task unscathed."

She was distracted for a moment, wondering why the Dark Lord was bothering to say that — it sounded like she was assuring them that she hadn't been harmed since she got here, but did anybody really care? — was almost surprised by not-Ollivander turning up. His wand in his hand, he cast a couple spells, one to lighten her weight, one to, to...

That was a privacy charm.

Crouching down to offer her a hand up, not-Ollivander said, "It's time to make a deal. Play along, and you'll be back at Hogwarts in a few minutes."

"I know." She barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes — honestly, she wasn't an idiot, she had been paying attention to what was going on. "Could you just— My hip is totally fucked, higher up my arm would be better, for balance..."

It was a little awkward, Barty's mind pulsing against hers, her bruises throbbing and her leg stiff and piercing, she really had badly fucked up something there, but she made it up to her feet, fingers tight on his arm and gasping for breath, feeling a bit lightheaded. Fuck, a trip up to the Hospital Wing would be great, thanks — and she bloody well hated that place. Or actually, they'd probably have her recovering in the same rooms they'd put the Champions in after some of the previous Tasks, where people couldn't get at them, that sounded nice about now...

The Dark Lord stopped a couple metres away, the crowd drifting to a halt behind him. Liz tried very hard to avoid glaring at Tamsyn — the Death Eaters would be able to see it, and that might come off a little suspicious, since she'd just asked to spare her life, and all. After a brief pause, he said, "Lady Elizabeth. It seems my daughter wishes we forge a truce."

Liz's eyes flicked to Tamsyn, just for a second before looking straight back at the Dark Lord. His aura was fucking noisy, his mind wafting out through the clearing — he probably needed to do that, to keep his funny voice-projecting spell working, and he might still be keeping the enthrallment up? — but he didn't seem to be intruding at all, his mind parting around hers, like the little waves lapping against the rocky shore of the Lake. Still intimidating, he could squash her like a bug if he wanted to, but he still seemed to be playing nice. Good, that was...good. She didn't really know what he was waiting for from her, so she just said, "Seems like it."

There was another brief, dramatic pause, as the Dark Lord broke eye contact, started to slowly pace back and forth. It was interesting that he'd never seemed to stand still for more than a few seconds through this whole thing, she wondered what that was about. This close to his mind, she was picking up a simmering, almost ecstatic energy — happy to have a body again after so long, enough that it was hard to sit still? Whatever. "My Knights here would have heard rumour of it, though I'm uncertain whether you would have been told. Before your birth — I suspect, in fact, at the very moment of your conception — a prophecy was delivered concerning the two of us."

"I know."

The Dark Lord stopped pacing, turned to give her a curious look, one eyebrow arched. "Oh?"

"Yeah, Dumbledore told me, last autumn." Also, he'd mentioned it earlier, she had been paying attention...

"I see. I admit, I am surprised — Albus Dumbledore is not known to share such critical information." He started pacing again, after a good five seconds or so said, "I don't suppose he told you the full text of the prophecy? I have heard only part of it."

Liz shook her head. "I think he was going to, but I told him I'd obliviate myself if he did." Barty twitched, there were a bunch of flickers of surprise in the crowd, the Dark Lord stopping his pacing again to give her another look. Feeling a little exasperated, she groaned, "Oh honestly, I thought you people would know this one. Prophecies are a fucking trap, the only winning move is not to play — you learned that the hard way, that Hallowe'en."

There were some less than entirely pleased feelings at Liz basically calling the Dark Lord an idiot to his face, but the Dark Lord himself just smirked, letting out a sharp little ha! Turning back to the crowd of Death Eaters, he drawled, "The wisdom of a Seer, there. In retrospect, yes, that was a terribly foolish decision," he admitted, starting up on his pacing again. "I had fallen so deeply to madness then, the prophecy became an obsession — and I was consumed with hubris such to believe that I could outsmart Fate Itself. The prophecy had not been delivered to me, I thought, so I was free to act as I will. Favoured as I was by Our Lady, surely I would be protected. Should I enact my ploy on such a night of power... Foolish, of course, I see that now. It is...peculiar, recalling my own thoughts from that time, so thoroughly lost as I was to derangement."

...Fair enough. When Dumbledore had told her about it, she'd wondered why the hell the Dark Lord had acted on the prophecy like a fucking idiot, but she guessed this was a decent answer to that question. "If it's any consolation, Dumbledore made the same mistake. He still thinks he's right about it too — I tried to tell him he's full of shite, but he didn't listen."

"That is not unexpected in the slightest — Albus Dumbledore has never been receptive to the deep mysteries of our world, or the counsel of those he feels are beneath him." That was probably an overly uncharitable way to put it, but whatever, not like Liz gave a damn. "Regardless, it doesn't matter any longer. I have not heard the entirety of the prophecy, so it is possible I am mistaken, but I suspect it was fulfilled that autumn night, thirteen years ago. It spoke of one who would have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord — that power, I believe, was the protection granted to you by your mother's desperate ritual, and so I was vanquished, for a time."

"Yeah, that makes sense." Did the prophecy literally use the word "vanquish"? Because that just meant defeat — that could mean anything, the Dark Lord being reduced to a creepy disembodied spirit for over a decade could definitely count. Prophecies could be tricky like that, part of why it was better to just ignore them. "Wouldn't know what other power I'm supposed to have, when you could just turn me to a bloody paste with a wave of your hand."

"You might be surprised. One could just as well interpret the cultural weight you hold as the Girl Who Lived to be a power with which I might be defeated. You might not ever come to the strength necessary to end me by your own hand but, under the right circumstances, you might mobilise an entire nation against me — for all my power, even I cannot stand against such odds."

"I don't know about that. You might not have noticed, but I'm kind of shite at politics."

There were a few chuckles from the Death Eaters, the Dark Lord's lips pulling into a crooked smirk. "I suppose that is true enough. But it is that power of yours, unharnessed as it may remain, which is a threat to me now."

"Yeah, well." Liz shrugged, nudging not-Ollivander a little by accident. "Just because it theoretically exists doesn't mean I know how to use it. Or that I have to use it — I'd just as soon stay out of this one, thanks."

"Is that so? No wish to seek justice for the crimes committed against your family?"

...They'd already had this conversation, hadn't they? Not in front of their audience, she guessed, okay. "If given the choice between trying to avenge their deaths and getting myself killed like an idiot, and staying alive, I'm pretty sure my parents would rather I live. That was kind of the point of what they did, that night."

"You are so certain that a contest between us would result in my victory? We can never know what the gods intend — they may yet have surprises set ahead of us."

"Yeah, well, even if I thought I had a chance in hell, I wouldn't bother anyway. My plan for if you came back was to just leave. I hate the smug bastards in charge of this shithole about as much as you do, and I'm not risking my life to keep them in power. Go ahead and burn this country to the fucking ground for all I care, just leave me out of it."

There were some very mixed feelings from the crowd — probably at Liz calling Britain a shithole, Death Eaters did tend to be British nationalist types — Tamsyn rather exasperated, prickling against her skin. But the Dark Lord just smirked, shaking his head to himself, overly-loud mind pulsing with dark amusement. "I have no intention of burning this country to the fucking ground — leaving you out of it, however, is negotiable." He lurched to a stop, turned to face her, his momentum making his too-dark robes sway around him for a blink. "While there is little for me to gain from a truce between us, I suspect I have more to lose in the absence of one.

"Perhaps the gods have no further surprises for us, perhaps I could kill you here and now with no risk of further retaliation — but not without consequence. I fear the Girl Who Lived may prove far more damaging to our cause as a martyr than she ever can be in life. Besides, now that I have been freed of that self-inflicted madness that drove me to strike against your family that autumn night, I find I cannot see the merit in the murder of children. I will do it, should my hand be forced...but I would prefer not to, if at all possible."

...Okay, then. "Well, it is possible — leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone."

The Dark Lord let out a long hum...and then started pacing again, the air cool and heavy with anticipation, the attention of the whole bloody crowd on them. For fuck's sake, why was this taking so long, dramatic bastard... "I hear a rumour, Lady Elizabeth, that you have already begun a secret study of the Dark Arts."

There was some murmuring from the crowd, the eyes on her sharpening, like a physical touch, uncomfortably aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing knickers at the moment, she tried not to grimace. There'd been rumours passing between the more annoying kids at Hogwarts ever since first year about Liz being an evil dark witch or whatever, but apparently these people didn't believe that kind of thing, they were legitimately surprised that she was into that kind of magic. Probably expected her to still be a good little Light girl, despite her very public falling out with Dumbledore, she guessed. Following that thought was enough to keep her from glancing over at Tamsyn too obviously — she was the only one who could have told him about that. Or, now that she thought about it, "Had Barty here spying on me, did you?"

He let out a low, deep chuckle, the spell still carrying his voice making the sound almost tactile, brushing over her skin. Kind of creepy, honestly...but not really any worse than a lot of the empathic legilimens horseshite she had to deal with. Less intrusive than the eyes still lingering on her, honestly, ugh. "It is obvious enough, to those who have eyes to see. There are faint echoes of subsumption on your aura, and your performance in the Seventh Task would suggest familiarity with the use of blood in graphic magic."

"Oh, well, sure, got me there." There were some more flickers of surprise at the specific kinds of magic the Dark Lord had mentioned, a few low chuckles at her just casually admitting it like that. Glancing back at the crowd behind him, Liz shrugged — it wasn't like the actual Death Eaters had any right to judge about this kind of thing.

"Unless I am much mistaken, I suspect you may find a new Britain which seeks to restore the Art to its rightful place to be more to your taste than the present government."

"Probably, yeah." Especially since the Dark Lord was apparently backing off of the crazy racism...

"How curious." As he turned back around to keep pacing, this time he faced back toward the crowd of Death Eaters. "It seems the Light have already lost the Girl Who Lived, before the renewed struggle has even begun! She was lost to them long ago, I suspect — Albus Dumbledore knew not what he wrought when he abandoned her with Lily Potter's cruel relatives, thirteen years ago.

"My daughter speaks wisdom, Lady Elizabeth," he said, turning back to face her. "There is, indeed, more than one way to neutralise an enemy. The matter between us is not personal, on my part. It was not you who struck me down that night, but your mother, and I consider the scales between Lily Potter and myself to be balanced — after all, we have each killed the other once." There was some surprised laughter from the Death Eaters which, you know, fair enough, that was pretty funny. Who knew the bloody Dark Lord could tell jokes? "My concern is for the damage to our cause that might be done through an effective utilisation of such a compelling figure as the Girl Who Lived against us. Should you agree to not act against us, to not cooperate with any such exploitation of your name...then I see no reason we may not come to an accord this night."

Finally, fuck. "Like I said, I don't want anything to do with this. Don't fuck with my friends, and I'll make sure the Light can't use me, if that's all you're worried about."

"You have relatives among the Aurors and the Order of the Phoenix — I cannot offer protection to those who will, by their own will, act against us. I can command the Knights of Walpurgis to not harm those close to you who have not presented us any threat."

...Fair enough. "I wasn't thinking about them, honestly, I mostly meant my school friends. Some of them are muggleborns. I have been thinking about adopting some of them, but..."

"Ah, very good! Yes, I assure you, Lady Elizabeth, that will not be an issue this time. So long as they do not join our enemies, they may be left in peace — and of course, any truce between the Knights of Walpurgis and the House of Potter would apply to adoptees."

Right. Good, that was good. The big problem was... "Severus."

"Ah, and now you make it difficult for me, my lady." The Dark Lord kept pacing for a moment, the air thick and simmering — as much with dread and an odd dark thrill from the Death Eaters behind him as the flickering of thoughts in the Dark Lord's over-loud mind — before he lurched to a stop again, his eyes steady on hers. "Tell him he is no longer welcome among us — should he show himself, I will have no choice but to execute him as a traitor. Should he stay away, I will not demand his death for past crimes, but I can promise no more than that. I'm certain you realise as well as I do, that he will oppose us, he will fight for our enemies. I cannot ask my Knights to soften themselves before such a deadly foe! If he raises his wand to us, he will be met with lethal force, as would any of our enemies who present such a threat as he."

"...I kind of expected something like that, I guess," she admitted. Honestly, that the Dark Lord had agreed to let his past 'crimes' go was more than she could reasonably have hoped for. He was a traitor, and treason got death pretty much anywhere, so.

"Advise him to stay out of it — on the matter of Severus Snape, Lady Elizabeth, that is the best I can offer you."

Liz sighed. She expected convincing Severus to stay out of it this time was going to be fucking impossible, but she could try, at least. Selfless fucking bastard just had to fix things... "All right. We have a deal? I'd like to get back to the Hospital Wing, please."

"Yes, we should let you get to a healer." The Dark Lord stepped closer to her — which only made the weight of his aura even more intense, unexpectedly light-ish magic crackling against her skin, huge and overwhelming, honestly making her a little dizzy — coming to a stop within a step or two. Liz had to look up to meet his eyes, why did everyone else have to be so much taller than her... "To a long peace between our houses, Lady Elizabeth," he said — and he held out a hand.

She didn't hesitate for a second — the sooner this was over, the sooner she could see a healer — clasping arms the way mages tended to do, gripping higher up around his wrist. Sharp, hot needles stabbing in a wave over her skin, nausea bubbling in her throat and a sudden headache pounding behind her eyes, she grit her teeth, glaring at a random spot on the Dark Lord's too-black robes. There was a bit of polite clapping from the crowd of Death Eaters, quieter to her ears than a confused mix of feelings and thoughts she couldn't quite pick apart — definitely some relief in there that they wouldn't be watching a fourteen-year-old girl be murdered tonight (because apparently there were normal people in this lot, who knew), some wariness about the Dark Lord's new political direction, even a bit of disappointment that they wouldn't be watching a fourteen-year-old girl be murdered tonight, it was a lot. The Dark Lord was holding the handshake for a moment, saying something, but she couldn't really make it out, the words burbling in her ears, the unpleasantness swiftly growing worse, a harsh chill setting in through the stinging pain—

She stuck it out for as long as she could, but it was probably only a few seconds before she was pulling her hand away again, the Dark Lord's fingers thankfully loosening to let her go. The stinging and the nausea dropped away immediately, the pounding headache easing to a vague dull ache — but the chill lingered, an unnatural numbing cold settling into her skin. Liz shivered, reached up to rub at the side of her head.

"Is something the matter?"

For a second, she hesitated — she wasn't really sure if admitting this was exactly politic. But, well, they did have a truce now and everything, it was probably fine. "Seer moment, that's all. I get psychometric echoes, and you've hurt a lot of people."

"Ah... Yes, of course, I have heard that your Sight has grown quite sensitive of late. My apologies, Lady Elizabeth, the implications had not occurred to me."

"It's fine," Liz muttered, with a little shrug. "Used to it." That had been an especially bad echo, yeah, but it wasn't as though she'd expected anything less from the literal Dark Lord.

He let out a little hum, maybe sceptical...though she didn't know what that was about. There had been a faint twinge when she'd said it was a Seer thing, but, as loud as his mind was, she was staying well away from it, so she hadn't really been able to make it out. Whatever, probably not important. After a short moment silently watching her, he turned on his heel to face the crowd of Death Eaters again. "Remember this night, my friends. Those who oppose us must be defeated, yes, we must extirpate from our society the cold scientism with which we have been infected. But we must build, also, we must nourish the seeds of the world to come. There is no need to offer the sword to those who may instead accept the chalice — even those who may seem to be the greatest of our enemies," he said, with a gesture back at Liz, "may, under the correct circumstances, instead become allies. Blood will be spilled in the years to come, yes, but we must be deliberate.

"And there are allies to be won! There are still those who keep the old ways, hidden in the quiet places of this country, still those who appreciate the Art! Perhaps not on the same terms we do, of course, but they work at a purpose parallel to ours — and we share a singular enemy. Those who oppose us are powerful enough without driving away those who might be allies. A sacrifice must be made...but let us not bleed our nation, so diminished as it already stands, any more than we must.

"But that is a conversation for another day — and in united company. Mercy Anne," he said, turning to where Tamsyn stood watching. "Escort our guest back to Hogwarts."

Tamsyn bobbed in a shallow little curtsey. "Yes, my Lord Father." In a few seconds, Tamsyn had walked over, taking up not-Ollivander's place at her side. Liz was a little reluctant to take her arm at first, but eased a little at the familiar-feeling mind, the echoes clinging to her no worse than the last time they'd met in person. This whole thing was still very confusing, she didn't know what Tamsyn was doing here, she was still annoyed at her for not fucking telling her about the plot to literally kidnap her...

But — instinctively, Seer shite — Tamsyn still felt like a friend. That Barty bloke hadn't felt like a threat to her, despite having impersonated her bloody History teacher for the whole fucking year, but leaning on Tamsyn was... Well, not comfortable — Liz could be weird about being touched, and being very aware that she wasn't wearing knickers at the moment was still making her feel a bit on edge — but less uncomfortable, anyway.

She still didn't really know what was going on here — but Tamsyn had said, back in February, that she was on Liz's side, and despite everything that happened tonight, Liz was still pretty sure that hadn't been a lie.

Of course, even if Seer shite still liked Tamsyn, that didn't mean getting out of here wasn't fucking miserable. Each step hurt, even swinging her leg between steps making the muscles or whatever the fuck in her hip spang with pain, they hadn't even left the little clearing before Liz's fingers were starting to ache from how hard she was gripping on to Tamsyn's arm, her breath harsh in her throat and sweat prickling on her head and shoulders. It got a little easier as the eyes lifted off of her, attention drawn back to the Dark Lord — he'd started speaking again, but she wasn't really listening, focussing on putting one foot in front of the other — almost like a physical weight being taken away, but it still was not easy.

It got worse with each step, the pain in her hip growing tighter and hotter, her other bruises throbbing with her pulse, growing harder to breathe, making her rather dizzy. They'd made it out of the little clearing, following a little path weaving through the graveyard — but they hadn't made it very far before it got too much, Liz felt herself stumble, with Tamsyn taking some of her weight she didn't fall, but it was still a bad sign. "Stop, stop. Need a break." She inched a bit to the side, making for a nearby headstone, Tamsyn sidling alongside her. Gritting her teeth, she eased up to sit on top of the headstone — a light wandless charm from Tamsyn helped a little, gently pushing her up — let out a long shaky breath as the weight was finally taken off her hip. "Fffuck, what the hell did I do..."

"I don't think anything is broken, but you might have torn something, from the look of it." Tamsyn was still speaking with her silly American accent — Liz didn't think they were still in earshot of anyone, but just in case, she guessed. "Any healer should be able to repair the damage easily enough, but it might still be sore for a day or two." She hesitated a moment, before saying, "I could suppress the pain with mind magic, but you might make the injury worse if you can't feel it. And that would be a bit...intrusive."

Liz was aware, Severus had done something like that when he'd woken her up to talk about the ritual to heal her back. "Yeah, I'm not letting you..." Still a bit out of breath, she had to take a break in the middle of the sentence. "...in that far. I'm still angry with you."

There was a flicker in Tamsyn's head...exasperation, maybe? A quick glance over her shoulder, she cast a privacy charm — and when she turned back to Liz, it was with a bright grin, her mind suddenly shimmering with a smug sort of glee. Abruptly switching to her natural accent, "What do you have to be angry with me about? I'd say that worked out splendidly."

Well, she didn't have to sound so bloody pleased with herself. Glaring over at her, Liz said, "In case you missed it, I was just kidnapped, and...used in some ritual, I wasn't awake for that..."

"Yes, you're welcome, by the way."

Liz blinked. "What?"

"Their original plan was to have you tied up somewhere, and conscious through the ritual. I convinced them that was a bad idea."

That... Well, that would have sucked — Liz did not like feeling trapped. The thought was making her kind of uneasy, she was tempted to thank her, but caught herself at the last second. "You know, you could have just told me I was about to be kidnapped, and prevented this from happening at all."

"Could I have? Do we know the Goblet wouldn't have punished you if you tried not to win?"

She scowled — that was a good point, unfortunately. "I could have worn gloves to prevent the portkey from working." Except, the Cup was supposed to take the winner out in front of the judges, and everything she was taking into the maze had to be approved, they probably wouldn't have allowed that...

Tamsyn shrugged. "Perhaps. But Melanion would have returned, in time — if not tonight, in this ritual with your blood, then at some other time, by some other means. I know you realise that, you've written of it before. But, through cooperating with his scheme, I managed to tweak the ritual such to restore his sanity, making him a lesser threat to Britain at large, and I also secured you a truce, ensuring that you will not be targeted in the coming war. If I had warned you, and stopped this from happening — here, now — I would not have been in a position to achieve either of those. Personally, I'm delighted with how it turned out — I could hardly have expected better results.

"And I saved your life while I was at it, so, you're welcome."

...

It was kind of hard to argue with any of that, honestly.

"I'm still annoyed with you. You lied to me — you said you had no idea why Dumbledore thinks you're connected to the Dark Lord, and that was obviously horseshite."

"Yes, I lied about that," Tamyn said, light and easy. Giving absolutely no sign that she even felt badly about it, unsurprisingly. "I was more truthful the first time we met, but once the contact euphoria wore off I realised that was...inadvisable. You never brought it up again, so I didn't either."

"...I don't remember that very well, honestly." She'd kind of been freaking out at the time, and things that happened while she was on calming potion could be kind of fuzzy. And, well, she'd spent so long avoiding thinking about it, so, it was hard to remember the details.

Her lips tilting into a rueful smile, Tamsyn admitted, "Yes, well, that's probably for the best — like I've said before, if I'd been thinking straight at the time I would have known better than to break into your room in the middle of the night. I told you then that I would try to convince Melanion that we need not be enemies, and I've now done that. So long as you keep the truce, you'll be safe — and I'll be on the inside the whole time, so I'll be able to make certain he keeps his end of the bargain."

Liz made a mental note to look over her memory of their first meeting in her pensieve. She was getting the feeling that she'd missed something important. "Fine, but I'm still annoyed with you, though."

"Fair enough," she said, shrugging. "Are you ready to get moving again?"

After a few more minutes of painful walking, Liz felt the tingly curtain of a wardline sweep over her. A short distance further, and Tamsyn led her over to a gravestone — gingerly picking through the grass, she'd been on her feet long enough she was struggling again — the Triwizard Cup sitting on top, crystal and gold faintly glimmering in the night. "What, I gotta—" A quick gasp for breath. "—bring that back?"

"It's still a portkey. Only the Headmaster of Hogwarts can set a portkey to come through the wards of Hogwarts — but it is possible to alter a portkey to add an intermediate destination without breaking the spell."

"So it'll bring me straight back to the judges' panel?"

"It will. I've already double-checked that the spell is still in good shape, it should be safe." There was a brief pause, something cool flickering in Tamsyn's mind. "The landing might be a little rough, though."

Liz grimaced. "And my hip is already fucked up, that's just great."

"I'm sorry, there's not anything I can do about it." That didn't register as a lie, but whether she actually felt badly about Liz being hurt was hard to tell.

"Can't you just apparate me there again?"

"That would not be wise. I imagine the Valley is swarming with D.L.E. officials at the moment — the Girl Who Lived did just disappear into thin air."

"Ugh." That was going to be fucking pain to deal with. "Never mind, can I just go to Saint Mungo's instead?"

Her mind shivering with amusement, Tamsyn smirked at her. "You will need to face the music eventually. If it's any consolation, I'm certain Pomfrey will insist on dealing with your injuries first — and I imagine Snape will cooperate if you're not in the mood to answer questions."

...She was probably going to need Severus's cooperation, when she thought about it. According to basically everyone, Liz was a pretty shite liar, and she did have a truce to keep up. "Um, would it be breaking our truce if people keep bothering me and I end up having to tell people he's back?"

"I don't recall the terms you agreed on including keeping each other's secrets, do you?"

"Well, no, but..."

Tamsyn smiled. "It's all right, Elizabeth. We would prefer to operate in secrecy for the time being, but we don't expect that to last for very long. Though it would be best not to tell anyone that we're being hosted by the Bulstrodes."

"I plan on telling Millie Bulstrode, just to warn her before she goes home for the summer."

"That's acceptable, but we would rather you keep it from Dumbledore and the Aurors."

Right, that shouldn't be a problem. Couldn't imagine a situation where she'd be cornered into telling them that specific detail. "Okay, I should just...grab that fucking thing and get out of here, then."

"Are you deeply annoyed with me enough that I should give you time to cool off before writing you?"

"...I don't know. I'm going to check the memory of that time you broke into my room in my pensieve before I decide how angry I am with you."

Tamsyn gave her a crooked smile. "I suppose that's fair. Go on, then," she said, nodding at the Cup. "The longer we stand outside of the wards, the more likely it is someone might try a tracking spell that will find you."

Oh shite, of course, hadn't thought of that — leading the Dark Lord's enemies right to his doorstep probably would be breaking their truce. Liz paused, but she didn't really have anything else to say — she really did need to check out that memory before deciding how she felt about all this — so she just shook her head and turned to the Cup. Tamsyn let go of her arm, she wavered a second before finding her balance again. Gritting her teeth, she took a few long, slow breaths — her leg fucking hurt, the landing was going to suck.

Then, the motion smooth and quick, not giving herself a chance to back out, she reached out and grabbed the cup, the metal cold against her skin. With a wrenching motion and a swirl of twisting colour, the graveyard was whipped away, the constant warm pressure of Tamsyn's mind vanished in a blink.

---

Oh hey, Tamsyn's scheming got some results. Look at that.

Only four chapters left in year four, but before starting on the next one I'm going to jump over to do a couple chapters of First Contact. See you guys then.