Ch. 13

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For anyone who reviewed I tried to PM you individually and to any anonymous reviewers who have questions or bring up good points I’ll answer them below:

Maintenance:

Thought

“Normal speaking”

“Spell”

Nonverbal Spell

“Parseltounge”

What can I say? It was hard to write the first part about Bellatrix and I wouldn’t let myself move on until I finished her stuff. Aside from that folks, I have no excuses…so enjoy and try not to be mad at my delay

Bellatrix Lestrange walked into the parlour of the Lestrange Mansion. While it wasn’t nearly as old or prestigious as the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black it did have a certain charm that was sorely lacking in the Black House ever since her dear aunt Walburga’s passing.

The size of the mansion was, of course, to be expected; the Lestranges were not as old as the Malfoys, and certainly not as old as the Blacks. They only had one main family house and two smaller country houses, after all. The Blacks had Grimmauld Place for the male heirs but the Black women were well provided for as well, with a large, well-protected house close to the Malfoys and several smaller houses. But the Lestranges were notable enough to marry their eldest son into the Black family.

The Mansion was acceptable, all things considered. There were five floors total, with the basement and attic both being fit for guests. Well, the basement was fit for Snape, at least. She sniffed, remembering her horror when she discovered that Rabastan and Snape were on good terms, apparently good enough to have converted a section of the basement as a potions lab for the bat. Seems like almost every house has a lab for that half blood. If only that Mudblood had minded her own business Snape would have been ours from day one.

Everyone had assumed that one of Snape’s friends- and she used the term loosely- had brought him to the attention of the Dark Lord.

What no one except herself and the Dark Lord knew was that it had been Bellatrix herself that had first told him about Snape. His blood status was, of course, unfortunate, but the Dark Lord’s overwhelming need for a Potions Master had spurred her to tell him secretly about young Snape’s promise when he was still a Sixth Year.

Bellatrix had been a Seventh Year with Lucius when Snape had started at Hogwarts. Many of the young Slytherins in that year had connections with the older students and Lucius and Bellatrix had pounced at the chance of guiding the lonely and vulnerable boy.

He had had to be taught the unwritten rules of Slytherin since his good for nothing mother disgraced herself and refused to use magic anymore- Snape had known next to nothing in terms of social customs and proper decorum in public. After they left, his years of fighting with Gryffindors did not help his cause either. Under Lucius’s wing Snape proved to be a quick study, but a childhood of being left to himself let his soon to be famous temper loose one too many times for many of the older Slytherin’s tastes.

They had dealt with him, of course. Slughorn was good about letting the upper years handle the House, he hardly ever interfered with the day to day affairs, and the result was a tight-knit House that was reliant on only themselves. Even after she and the other upper years had left, they continued to hold their sway over the younger students.

Bellatrix found herself thinking back to remember what a First Year Snape had been like. Quiet and amusingly cynical. He was hard to intimidate at first; his brute of a Muggle father I’m sure contributed to that. She and Lucius had taken turns in teaching the boy, molding him to be the perfect Slytherin: independent, clever, ambitious, and morally grey.

The Dark Lord had been willing to overlook Snape’s mixed blood in favor of gaining a strong supporter. But the stupid fool had been determined to hold onto his feud with the Gryffindors, and even past that he wanted to attain his Master title in Potions.

While the Dark Lord could certainly understand the boy’s need to prove himself, Bellatrix was furious at the boy’s idiocy. How could a certificate from a washed out old Potions professor compare with serving the Dark Lord, even learning from him?

She found herself remembering the old days, the glorious days before her Master was temporarily defeated by the Potter brat (1). He had been so devious and cunning that it was no wonder that the majority of his followers were Slytherins as few others could understand or admire his ultimate goals. He had grand plans for taking back control of the wizarding world and returning power to those who deserved it instead of the rapidly encroaching Muggles and Mudbloods. The Death Eaters were his most loyal and to be branded was a sign of your high status.

Back then there were hundreds of followers, many were of old Pureblood families that had married into Mudblood lines and wanted to retain their noble heritage. The days of the Pureblood supremacy were quickly dying out as many old families were being withered away with Squibs and intermarriage. The older, frailer members of high society had pledged their funds and children to the cause, but every supporter did not endure the fighting or the raids that the War was infamous for.

Bella had had one of the most honored spots in the Inner Circle. She was his leader in the field. His lieutenant. Trusted advisor. She and Rodolphus became legendary in battle; she had heard that the official order for Aurors was to not attempt to engage her in a duel unless they were backed up with at least three other Aurors.

She owed most of her ability to the Dark Lord, of course. His handpicked leaders, only of the best quality, were instructed by him personally. Due to her family and lineage she had been educated from a young age in the ways of magic, both wandless and with a wand, but she had not showed any affinity for wandless magic. Her spells were much more powerful with her wand so why would she bother learning weaker versions?

Narcissa, when she had been forced to study, had been rather powerful as well, but her sister preferred to fight with words and tricks rather than with wands. Andy, as she recalled, had been a rather powerful witch as well, but she lacked the motivation to flaunt and increase that power.

Under Lord Voldemort’s tutelage, however, she had flourished. She had discovered her affinity for the Dark Arts before Hogwarts but had lacked the necessary time and teachers to develop her skills at school. The Dark Lord had seen to it that her education in magic was no longer lacking.

It had been so easy to follow him she reflected. Intelligent in all the ways of magic, handsome, charismatic, dark, and so very cunning. She blinked, surprised with her own thoughts. Those days are long gone she chided herself.

As the war progressed, many of the Death Eaters, Snape and Lucius among them, had noticed extreme changes in the Dark Lord. Angry and bordering on crazed, his moods shifted too quickly to keep track of up until his defeat.

She snorted, as if the Dark Lord could be defeated. And turned her mind to more recent matters- Snape.

No way was she letting that traitor- and she knew he was a traitor- take her place at the Dark Lord’s side. She had a plan in mind that wouldn’t require any immediate work on her part and would coincide with one of her Lord’s plans.

It seemed as if Pettigrew was finding many ways in which to be useful in recent days.

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Snape lay brooding on the bed in the room behind the portrait. Poppy had insisted that he spend at least one more full day under her care and after making the expected protests, he had relented. After all, there was little he could do with as weak as he was feeling currently.

He felt a faint trace of guilt at how he had pushed Minerva out earlier, or yesterday, there was no sense of time in this room. It’s better this way; in the long run being friendly with me will not endear her to either side.

Along those lines, I will need to request a meeting with the Dark Lord as soon as I am able to regain control of my magic. I must offer something as far as Black is concerned, and I have to carefully question his choice of Pettigrew as an additional spy on Potter.

He wondered if there was nothing to be done to hurry his recovery from the poison. Attempting to use his magic more often might encourage his body to combat the block more quickly, or it might weaken his defenses and prolong his suffering.

Damn. He gave a brief thought to how the Dark Lord had originally planned to use the poison; it would have been a good thought to offer to poison Black with it.

Either way it was a moot point with the poison beyond the Dark Lord’s reach for now. In an effort to relieve his boredom and to do something productive, he began to mentally prepare the poison; starting with the ingredients and moving on to each step he carefully outlined the potion.

Where, then, does the block on one’s magic come from? It must come from one of the naturally magical ingredients for it to recognize the magical core that separates wizards from Muggles, but there’s something else- something that keeps the poison from simply eating its way through the core, something that keeps it bound, only to spring when the person’s magic is tapped. It’s almost as if it was two separate potions acting as one; one to block someone’s magic exclusively and shelter the core and one to react when the magic is required.

Two potions as one…

Snape sat up suddenly, choking on the pain that the movement caused and then ignoring it in light of his current thoughts.

Combining them outright didn’t work; they’re too unique to accomplish their goals as one new creation. I need to mask the Draught of Living Death within the Cruciatus potion, allowing it to lie dormant until it is triggered. The sopophorous beans are key in getting the drinker into a deep enough sleep for the rest of the potion to feign death. Putting in a smaller amount should hopefully slow the time it takes for the body to succumb to sleep. If I’m lucky it will be long enough for the tremors to occur and be believable.

Now to get out of here unnoticed. “Winky!” he called.

The elf ‘popped’ a few feet away from him, shooting him an incredulous look. “If you think I will help you escape, sir-”

“Winky, this is an urgent matter.”

“So is your health” she retorted. Damn he was regretting letting Winky help around so much in the Hospital Wing. Actually, he was regretting calling Winky at all, shouldn’t I have known better than to expect that she would help me leave?

“At least bring me a parchment and quill,” he conceded. Winky looked suspicious as she ‘popped’ away and reappeared moments later, handing the requested items to him. It was always better to win the small battles when possible, a hard learned lesson from his school days.

Winky watched as Snape furiously scratched his ideas out on the parchment, waiting only another moment before ‘popping’ away again, content in the knowledge that Madam Pomfrey would not let him escape again.

Snape hardly noticed her leave, so intent was he on getting all of his thoughts down and outlining the new direction he would take the potion in.

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Hermione sat at lunch, completely oblivious to everything going on around her. When the Headmaster had announced that morning that Professor Snape would be out for a week she had been ashamed to watch her House’s reaction.

Ron was immediately all grins, slapping Harry, Seamus, and Dean on the back. Harry gave a grim sort of smirk and joined Ron in imagining the next couple of classes without Snape to harass them. All down the table there were smiles and high-fives. She turned her gaze to the Head Table where she saw McGonagall looking as angry as she had ever seen her. They’ll get what’s coming to them.

Her morning classes passed rather slowly, especially considering the fact that she was ignoring Harry and Ron for their childish display at breakfast. It was all she could do to distract herself enough to keep her mind wandering to the topics she desperately needed to think on: Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry.

She refused to allow herself the quiet time necessary to sort through her rather confusing thoughts, hoping that if she ignored it for long enough that she would forget it. Often all it took was a glance at her hand for her hidden fury at Umbridge to rise up and consume her mind.

She had decided against going to McGonagall, for the same reasons that she had chided Harry on earlier were now demanding her silence. Besides, personal revenge would feel so much better than simply tattle telling on the toad this early in the game.

More worrying for her, though, was Harry and the ever-looming war. As sheltered as they were at Hogwarts not everything could be kept out, and from her careful perusal of the Daily Prophet every morning, things were slowly escalating.

Little stories in the back of the paper: stores destroyed or ransacked, people going missing, certain departments in the Ministry being drowned in sightings of Dark wizards and questionable artifacts; it was these articles that told the story that the front page editorials wouldn’t. These all added up to one conclusion, and Hermione thought that Fudge was a fool to continue denying Voldemort’s return.

Their education in the one subject that might prove most helpful in the next couple of years was sorely lacking, and Hermione’s heart clenched at the thought of another year wasted. But whenever she tried to talk to Harry and Ron about the war or about practicing their Defense skills, they shrugged her off, or rather Harry shrugged her off and Ron kept on Harry’s good side and followed his lead.

It was infuriating to watch them play chess or talk about Quidditch when they could be doing something useful; either as basic as homework and studying, or as proactive as looking up the hexes and curses they should be learning this year.

But if she was perfectly honest with herself, practicing Defense skills on her own if necessary was not something she would be inclined to do. For as much as she nagged the boys about it, without them she wouldn’t act on her own.

Her society for house elves had fallen on its face rather spectacularly, and with minimal support from Harry and Ron, she had found that her efforts alone had amounted to nothing. She had no doubt that if she were to attempt to sneak out- to where she didn’t know- and practice hexes and curses on her own, she would most likely be caught, and even if she weren’t, nothing practical would come from the practice.

Which left her exactly where she currently was; bossy know-it-all of the group. She grimaced at the rather harsh truth, but it was nothing she hadn’t already been called to her face.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and gave a weak smile as Harry and Ron indicated that it was time to head to Herbology.

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He had noticed that Hermione had been rather subdued of late, but his anxiousness over Harry’s rapidly deteriorating and alternating moods had demanded his attention. Besides, Hermione’s bright, she’ll figure out whatever’s bothering her soon enough and then I’ll wish she’d stop laying into me about doing my work.

It was a hard job; this balancing act that he was always required to stay on top of. But after growing up with five brothers and a sister, Ron had learned all he needed to about silent support and distracting gestures.

He had long ago lost all of his previous hero-worship of the Boy-Who-Lived, more recently his jealousy had accompanied that wide-eyed awe that was associated with Harry. Years of living together had taught him that there was more to his friend than anyone could know. Harry had a much harder life than anyone deserved to, and in between nightmares, visions, and the frequent outburst when he was scared or angry, Ron had a pretty good idea of what plagued his friend in the middle of the night.

He held his tongue though, everyone was entitled to his demons, and Harry’s scars went much deeper than the one on his forehead hinted at. If and when he was ready, Ron knew that Harry would talk to him.

Recently, though, his moods would swing at the drop of the pin and Ron was almost out of tricks with how to deal with his closest friend. Chess and Quidditch could only distract him for so long, and judging by the first couple of classes, Umbridge would do all that she could to bait Harry, not to mention the greasy git and his never ending feud with Harry.

Ron sighed, wishing that Hermione would see what he saw and recognize that he was doing what was best for Harry.

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As he often did when he found himself with a spare moment, Albus Dumbledore felt himself being swept away to the days before the war. Well, before this war. As painful as Grindewald’s deviation from their plans had been, Dumbledore had only barely joined that war at the end, and only then it had been to confront his one time friend. He had been young then, not the wizened and dependable leader for the Light, just another boy who had stepped forward to end that nightmare all those years ago.

In the dark recesses of his mind he could admit to himself that defeating Grindewald had probably been the peak of his life, in terms of power and control went, and he had enjoyed it. He had never fully given up on his dream- his and Gellert’s dream- and relished in the prestige and power that being a hero of war granted him. He continued to stay in the limelight after that, always academically, and always for the greater good, but in all the times it was offered he never accepted the title of Minister of Magic. It was a confining job and demanded a certain flexibility to bend to public demands; the fact that the people wanted him there, though, was enormously gratifying.

It was soon entirely overwhelming, though. As much as he enjoyed the power, he recognized his Achilles heel and took a job at Hogwarts, molding the young minds of countless generations as a professor, and then much later, as Headmaster. It was much more satisfying of a position and it was much easier to keep himself in check at Hogwarts.

Then the first war had broken out. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he had seen the outbreak of the war a long time before it occurred, it was why he created the Order as quickly as he did. It was why he had carefully monitored certain students as they made their way through Hogwarts’ hallowed halls. It was why he started gathering sources and laying the chessboard so early.

Manipulator. Puppet-master. Interfering.

He had heard them all before over the years. Some people, mostly the Ministry, had had a hard time accepting that sometimes the pieces just fell perfectly into place for Albus Dumbledore. Sometimes he had a hand in how the pieces fell, sometimes he had chosen the pieces beforehand, and sometimes everything worked itself out without any help. But he had done what was in his power to ensure that the Order of the Phoenix and her members survived the war.

They had no idea the extreme pressure that he felt every day. Every hour. Every minute. It was never ending. All-encompassing. It was why he went out of his way to find the goodness in others, to overlook their demons and shadows and reach out to them. Maybe in doing so for others, his own shortcomings might be forgotten for a moment.

He allowed himself an indulgent smile; Severus won’t soon let me forget.

Severus. It had been a gift in the first war when Severus Snape had come to him, weeping and penitent, offering him anything in exchange for Lily Potter’s life.

He had been horrified and disgusted at first that a schoolboy grudge could endure so long and so strongly as to disregard an innocent life, but the opportunity had been enormous. Lily and James were two of Dumbledore’s strongest supporters and were vital to the Order. The fact that Voldemort considered them important enough to target them directly was worrying. The war was still fairly young; only in its fourth year, and to lose two key players would devastate the Order. On Snape’s initial request, no one, especially not the Potters, were to know of his activities for the Order.

They had managed to keep the Potters safe and one step ahead of danger for a year and a half before Dumbledore started to notice some slight changes in his spy. In the beginning Snape had been hard to control, difficult to talk to, and overall unpleasant to be around. His reports were succinct and bland and Dumbledore hardly saw the man other than that.

The conditions were necessary, of course; at that time Snape had absolutely no excuse to be anywhere near Dumbledore. They would soon implement a plan and have Snape offer to spy on Dumbledore for the Dark Lord, but that was months away. Snape did not attend any of the initial meetings of the Order and knew of only a handful of members.

But after that first year and a half, Dumbledore noticed a change in Snape’s mannerisms, in his reports. They were barely there, so tiny that at times he wondered if he wasn’t imagining them. It had been after a close call with one of the safe houses that the Potters were using- Snape had managed to get word to Dumbledore only moments before the Death Eaters had surrounded the house, and Lily and James were through the Floo to Hogwarts as Voldemort himself crossed into the threshold of the safe house. Snape had been hidden by a charm in the corner of the room as they had tumbled out of the Floo, disheveled and frightened. Lily had immediately melted into James’s embrace, clinging to him tightly as if to reassure herself that he was still there and not back at the safe house with a Dark Lord who wanted them dead. Remus, Sirius, and Peter appeared soon after that and Dumbledore heard, rather than saw, his spy quietly leave the room.

Snape started to bring more information after that, and not just information concerned with the Potters, as he had previously done: the movements of other Death Eaters, particularly the LeStranges, an increasing number of dark creatures, planned raids on Order homes and the Ministry, but most important was the updated list of members that Voldemort kept and who he would target.

The Order was soon seeing results with this new influx of information. All of the sources aside from Severus that Dumbledore had looked into were too seedy to be fully trusted and very little of the information they provided could be looked into. At the same time, though, Dumbledore had to balance the incoming reports with worthwhile information that Snape could take back to Voldemort.

Already he could see the effort that this double life was taking on Snape, he had seen no physical evidence to suggest a problem with Voldemort, but Snape was a talented Potions Master and healing potions were certainly not beyond his reach. He took more of an effort to talk with the young man and found that he was growing accustomed to Snape’s dark humor and stiff personality. Between the two of them they usually managed to complete a newly patented potion to help Remus control the wolf inside of him once a month, although it had been hard to convince Snape to help him at all.

Soon the war began to really rage; Inferi, raids, rising death tolls, and Dumbledore found himself being pulled in every direction, expected to lead and fight and inspire and offer hope and he was finding it more difficult to do so by the day. His respites usually came when Severus gave his reports- it was just too much effort to keep up appearances and he knew that it didn’t matter to Snape.

After all, he hadn’t ever really looked up to the Headmaster when he was at school, and out of everyone in the Order, besides Alastor Moody, Snape probably had the best grasp of the realities of the war. There was no need for Dumbledore to put on airs when Snape was there and Dumbledore was immensely grateful for the time he had with Severus where he could plan the Order’s next moves with an equal who would argue his points and stubbornly refuse to back down rather than with his lieutenants who would never dare refuse one of his ideas.

It had been both a welcome and completely uprooting experience when Voldemort had finally decided that Snape would be the perfect Death Eater to get close enough to spy on Dumbledore and sent his follower into Hogwarts to apply for a job.

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His hand had cramped from writing as much as he did, and notes were frantically scratched in the margins and anywhere else they would fit as he thought of different combinations or layering spells or additional potions that could work.

Eventually he found himself bored once more and asked Poppy if he could at least get some grading done while he was confined to bedrest. She had initially refused, wanting him to actually rest before he returned to his dungeons tomorrow, but he had insisted that without something to do he would go completely mad and attempt to leave that night.

So he forced his tired hand to refill his quill, striking lines through the odd paragraph or word here and there from the stack. He smirked as he looked at the inkwell that Winky had brought him from his desk- it was the Portkey to his rooms in Voldemort’s castle. He would wait until his strength was more recovered, but it was good to have it on his person should something happen and he needed access to Voldemort or Black.

In the meantime he set the essays aside, they were dreadful anyway, and focused his attention on finding a solution for Dumbledore’s misguided notion that he needed a student’s help so desperately.

When he actually thought about it he couldn’t deny that it sounded appealing. He could never let her grade anything, but some of the more mundane and time consuming tasks: cleaning the cauldrons, preparing ingredients, checking the equipment, taking inventory, could surely be lifted from his shoulders.

But he could never let Hermione Granger be that solution. Most importantly it would put him in a horrible situation with the Dark Lord, and she would annoy the hell out of him. But maybe with another student, another Prefect even, the work could be accomplished in even less time and he could turn this situation to his favor.

It would have to be a Slytherin, definitely not Draco; putting Draco and Granger in the same room in that type of situation would leave him suicidal. Parkinson would have similar results. Bulstrode, Crabbe, Goyle, and Davis were not competent enough in Potions to even consider. Theodore Nott would have been a good option, but his family was already firmly on the Dark Lord’s side. He needed a neutral party. There were really only two students left- Daphne Greengrass and Blaise Zabini. Of the two of them, Blaise was better at Potions, and although his family was tentatively staked in Voldemort’s camp, the Greengrasses could be more aptly called neutral.

But Blaise is much more likely to annoy Miss Granger, Snape smirked. Albus will see that another student is the best option for all involved and will certainly not begrudge me an extra set of hands, and that will take care of any of the know-it-all’s attempts to pick my brains or do extra work relating to the Order. I do love it when a plan comes together so nicely.

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(1)- I know in canon Tom Riddle Jr was supposed to be so changed that by the time he emerged as Lord V no one recognized him or could connect him to who he was in Hogwarts. I’m changing that. In this story he made the Horcruxes while recruiting his Death Eaters, thus some of them remember him at different stages in his transformation from Tom to Voldemort.

I hate putting long things at the bottom because it inflates the chapter length but this is important.

For anyone who is wondering about the relative ages of the characters…

In attempting to find the years that each main character entered Hogwarts so I could attempt to smooth out some stuff I found that very few of the ages/years matched so I have key years below. These are the years and ages I’ll be using in the story from this point on- sorry if they don’t match something from earlier but I’m fairly certain that they won’t contradict anything written so far. Not all the characters are listed below. (Most of the credit for this goes to hp-lexicon):

First year at Hogwarts:

1938ish- (Relative age 68/immortal)

Tom Marvolo Riddle

1963- (relative age 43/ depending on birthday)

Rodolphus Lestrange, Selwynn, Rowle, Macnair, Yaxley, Antonin Dolohov

1965- (~41)

Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix Black (I know I royally screwed the years up with the Black sisters but nothing was working the way I wanted to so this is how it’s going to be)

1966- (~40)

Andromeda Black

1967- (~39)

Narcissa Black

Ted Tonks

1971- (~35)

Severus Snape, Rabastan Lestrange, Wilkes, Mulciber, Evan Rosier, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Petter Pettigrew

1982- (~24)

Bill Weasley

1983- (~23)

Charlie Weasley

1984- (~22)

Nymphadora Tonks

1987- (relative age 19)

Percy Weasley, Oliver Wood

1989- (~17)

Fred and George Weasley, Lee Jordan, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet

1990- (~16)

Katie Bell

1991- (~15)

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini, etc.

1992- (~14)

Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood

The stuff that I promised at the end of ch 12 will still be coming up- I had never planned to fit it all in this chapter.

I wanted to develop a more complete Bellatrix and short of laying it out word for word this was the best I could do. I want a fuller character than the sadistic and insane bitch that is in canon, let me know what you think or if I should abandon that quest.

Dumbledore? Like/hate? I’m not sure how I feel about his section yet…give it some time. We will be seeing more of his pov- I’ve found that he’s interesting to write, and more of the first war needs to be told- I realize that I changed a lot about the first war so bear with me.

Thank you for your patience!

Always,

Sinkme