"Took you long enough," Bellatrix grumbled, pushing roughly past Granger as the girl opened the door to Heaven's Gate to let her inside. "I've only been waiting out here in the freezing cold for bloody ages."

The girl lifted her chin and pursed her lips, the gesture eerily reminiscent of a younger Minerva McGonagall. "Well, what do you expect when you give me such vague notes?" she demanded sulkily. "How am I supposed to know when 'meet me tomorrow night' actually is? I had to sneak out of Charms Revision, you know - pretended I had a sudden onset of the Mumblemumps."

Bellatrix gave an involuntary chuckle, imagining the scene - Granger mumbling uncontrollably, the students gawking, a panicked Flitwick dispatching her to the Hospital Wing. The girl looked appealingly disheveled, flushed, out of breath, still wearing her Gryffindor school robes -

Bellatrix looked away, unsettled by her own response. "You need to change."

Brow crinkling in confusion, the girl waved her wand over herself, transforming her uniform into a set of nondescript black robes. "Good enough for criminal activity, I hope?" she asked, all mock innocence.

"You'll do," Bellatrix told her dryly. "Now just hold still while I disguise your face -"

"Hang on a second," Granger cut in, a hint of panic in her voice as she eyed the other's raised wand. "Why can't we just use Polyjuice?"

"Well, I was going to have you impersonate Rita Skeeter," Bellatrix explained. "But it turns out the woman wears a wig." She cringed, remembering testing the potion, which had made strange synthetic hair erupt all over her body. "Figured that one out the hard way."

The girl seemed to consider this, her gaze jumping from Bellatrix's face, to her wand, and back. "Alright," she said finally. "Go ahead." Drawing near, she closed her eyes and waited.

Entirely too trusting. I could end her life right now, Bellatrix thought perversely, but instead she began the intricate enchantment to transform Granger's features.

"Feels odd," Granger murmured distractedly as Bellatrix's wand traced her jaw. "Sticky. Like honey on my face."

The girl's voice was soft, their position almost intimate in its proximity. Bellatrix could make out every dark eyelash grazing her cheek. "Quiet," she growled.

When she was done, she began to transfigure her own face, the process much quicker on a familiar canvas.

"So, what's the plan?" Granger asked, prodding her altered features as she studied herself in the hall mirror.

"Edgar Bones' work is probably still at the Daily Prophet. In the Records Room. That's where we're going tonight."

The girl nodded as though confirming a hunch. "Yes, I thought it might be that. Given the situation, I wouldn't be surprised if he planned for this…" she trailed off, seemingly absorbed in her own musings.

Bellatrix realized that this was a person who never felt compelled to explain herself, though she could not say if it stemmed from extreme arrogance, or extreme insecurity. Possibly both.

"I'm on a tight schedule here, Granger," she said brusquely, motioning to the door.

The girl drew a deep breath, seeming to steel herself for what she would say next. "Before we do this, there is one thing I have to ask you," she began, and Bellatrix noticed her reflexively finger the wand at her sleeve. "Was it you who cursed Katie Bell?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Bellatrix scoffed, blindsided by the question. "Who the hell is Katie Bell? A friend of yours?" She imbued the word "friend" with a vulgar insinuation.

"She's just a classmate," Granger said, her tone suspicious and hostile. "She was Imperiused, and accidentally touched the cursed necklace someone forced her to take. I saw it happen, and it was terrible." The girl's eyes clouded, pained with the memory. "I want your word that you had nothing to do with it."

Bellatrix raked her hand through her hair in frustration. This was no doubt some new fuck-up of Draco's. "Don't you think I have more important things to do than to go around foisting dark artifacts on children?"

Who the hell did this girl think she was? Bellatrix couldn't decide what pissed her off more: that Granger felt entitled to ask her these things, or that she suspected her in the first place.

"I know you were there," the girl pointed out, her accusing stance undermined by a touch of uncertainty. "That old man…"

"Yes, I was there," Bellatrix admitted, steadily looking the girl in the eye. "But not for her."

Studying her for a long moment, Granger seemed to make up her mind. "I believe you. Using Katie in some convoluted plot to get to Dumbledore is what a coward would do. And you...you are not a coward."

I am whatever the situation requires, Bellatrix thought grimly. "And that means something to you, I suppose?" she tossed out.

"Yes," the girl nodded solemnly, "It does."

A confusing mix of emotions reared up inside her, but Bellatrix pushed them down ruthlessly. "Let me make something very clear," she said, advancing on Granger and forcing her backward until she hit the wall. "I didn't curse that girl. But if it was necessary, I would do that - and much worse - to anyone or anything that stood in the way of me doing my job."

Many a witch would have cowered to have Bellatrix Lestrange force them into a corner, but Granger showed no response aside from a slight tightening of the jaw. She did, however, grip her wand in a white-knuckled fist.

"We have a common interest - for the time being - but I am not your friend. I will not justify or explain myself to you," Bellatrix went on, eviscerating whatever tentative bond they had formed with a surgical precision. "That's the only way this," - she gestured between the two of them - "works. You stay out of my business, and I'll stay out of yours."

Something like pain flashed across the girl's face, but it was swiftly replaced by a cold resignation - as though some unacknowledged spark of hope had been extinguished before her eyes.

"Fine," Granger bit out, pushing Bellatrix away from her with the tip of her wand. "Shall we go? We can't apparate inside the house."

"Actually, I thought we could walk. I fancy a stroll, don't you?"

Bellatrix couldn't help but smirk at the bewildered look on the girl's face. But somehow, Granger managed to restrain the outpour of questions on the tip of her tongue, conjured herself a scarf and a hat, and mutely followed Bellatrix into the biting chill of the night.

They walked a block in silence, passing a crowded kebab stand, a noisy pub, and an alley where a middle-aged tart was plying her trade. And this is why I never come to Muggle London, Bellatrix thought with disgust.

"Are you sure there won't be anyone at the Prophet?" Granger asked suddenly, eyeing her wristwatch. "It's not as late as I thought."

"Oh, there'll be plenty of people. Preparing the morning edition, probably." Bellatrix shrugged, unconcerned. "Just remember to act like you belong there - and if all else fails, curse them."

"I have done this before, you know," Granger reminded her, a hint of annoyance in her tone.

"True," Bellatrix conceded, recalling the first time they met. Besides the Dark Lord, Granger was the only person she'd heard of who had been able to break into Azkaban. Though, perhaps, no one else had a reason to try. "So maybe I should be getting tips from you. Tell me - what is the Granger Method?"

"The Granger Method?" The girl gave a sardonic snort. "Well, first, you spend weeks on research, develop a fool-proof plan, consider every contingency …. and then you get there, everything promptly goes to hell in a handbasket, and you barely make it out with your life."

"Sounds about right." Bellatrix chuckled, stopping abruptly and making the girl trip to avoid bumping into her. "Well, here we are." She gestured to the object in front of them.

The girl looked at her as though she'd lost what remained of her mind. "Bellatrix, this is a postbox."

The Death Eater cast her eyes skyward. "Your powers of observation astound me. No wonder my nephew's so jealous. Come on - in you go." She tried to force the girl forward, but Granger resisted, looking unaccountably terrified. Bellatrix sighed. "Fine, we'll do it together, shall we?"

Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the girl and forced their joined hands into the mail slot. They were yanked off the sidewalk and pulled down through what felt like an exceedingly narrow drain pipe, landing ungracefully on a hard marble floor. Granger shot up with all the agility of youth, turned and offered her hand - which Bellatrix pointedly ignored.

The hallway they found themselves in was dark. A lone torchlight danced in glittering reflections on the granite walls, carving out deep shadows on the girl's face as she regarded the Death Eater, her expression inscrutable. Not for the first time, Bellatrix wondered what was going on in that brilliant head of hers.

They walked in silence as the long hall widened, grew brighter by degrees, and eventually led them to a towering, gold-plated door. It was adorned with the figure of an owl, its wings raised up as though about to take flight, and above it, a motto: Calamus Gladio Fortior.

"The pen is mightier than the sword?" Granger translated the words, her tone slipping from indignation to contempt. "They sure think a lot of themselves for a trash rag that does nothing but push Ministry propaganda. And nonsense conspiracy theories. I really don't understand how anyone could take them seriously."

"Oh come on," Bellatrix scoffed. "Nobody actually reads the Prophet. The quote-unquote serious news is just there so people can pretend they're educating themselves when all they're really after is the personals column and the crossword."

The girl shot her a long sideways look, lips drawn tight as though suppressing a grin, before her composure broke and she gave into laughter.

She stopped abruptly, bringing a hand to her lips as though surprised at herself.

Bellatrix regarded her oddly. "What?"

"Oh nothing." Granger gave an awkward shrug. "I just had this sudden...vision of you. Doing the crossword over breakfast. And it was funny because, well… you never think of the Bellatrix Lestrange doing anything ordinary or human like that - " She stuttered to a halt, seeming to realize what she'd said. "Wait - that came out wrong. What I meant was - "

"Granger," Bellatrix cut in, running her hand over her face in exasperation. "Shut up. Just give me the rats."

"The … the what?" For a second the girl looked entirely dumbfounded, and then the penny dropped. " Oh! Oh, yes. Here - " she waved her wand at the atrocious beaded bag slung over her shoulder, then held it open between them as no less than a dozen dead rats floated out of it one by one, each enclosed in its own bubble charm.

Nodding appreciatively, Bellatrix harnessed the prey with her own "WingardiumLeviosa" and sent the rats soaring up toward the carved owl looming above them.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then, with a series of echoing metallic clinks, the giant owl seemed to detach itself from the door, swooping down upon the offering with a thunderous caw that sent vibrations through the stone at their feet.

Watching the giant golden owl ferociously tearing into the rats, Granger slowly released a shaky breath. "That's some security charm."

In response, Bellatrix merely directed the girl's gaze to the door, which was now standing slightly ajar. They squeezed through the narrow gap, emerging into a large foyer which was empty save a single security wizard - who, given the surprisingly formal tea-set laid out on his desk, they had clearly interrupted mid-break. The man froze as he saw them, a hardboiled egg halfway to his mouth.

"Just follow my lead," Bellatrix hissed to the girl under her breath.

The man seemed to consider, then put down his egg with the greatest reluctance. "You can't be here after hours," He said, full of the dignity of his office, although the effect was rather ruined by the small hail of bread crumbs that fell from his uniform as he stood. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"We're not going anywhere until I get my reward," Bellatrix growled, momentarily surprised that she failed to elicit the usual terror - until she remembered she was wearing a different face tonight.

"Reward? What reward?" The wizard eyed the pair of them skeptically.

Bellatrix pulled out a crumpled flyer, which promised the heady sum of 100 galleons to anyone who had information into the disappearance of Florean Fortescue. "See this?" She threw the parchment down on his desk. "Well, I've got plenty of information, and I want my money!"

"Oh, I'm sure you do, Madam," he placated as he tried to usher them to the door, no doubt used to this exact scenario. "But there's nobody here you can talk to, so you'll just have to - "

"Get your filthy hands off me!" Bellatrix screeched, intentionally causing a scene. "If you won't pay me for what I know, I bet your competitors will!"

Just as expected, the commotion soon drew a curious onlooker. "What's going on here?" demanded a young, oily-looking wizard as he descended the stairs to the lobby.

Before the watchwizard could answer, the boy went on: "I couldn't help but overhear. You've got information? On Fortescue?" There was a hungry gleam in his eyes that made Bellatrix dislike him at once.

"Oh yeah," Bellatrix goaded, "I've got all the gory details. Saw the whole thing from my bedroom window."

"I don't think your boss would appreciate you getting in on her story, Pike," the watchwizard warned, eyeing the boy with obvious distaste.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that Miss Skeeter's on holiday," Pike replied, not looking sorry at all. He turned a supercilious smile upon Bellatrix. "Right this way, ladies."

As he lead them upstairs, the girl turned to Bellatrix and gave her a slow, appreciative nod, as though to say, Nicely played.

They walked past a hall full of printing presses - Bellatrix noted these were manned by an army of scurrying elves - maneuvered through the maze of desks in a bustling newsroom, and finally reached an ornate wooden door.

The reporter gestured Bellatrix inside, but held out his arm before Granger could follow.

"And do you have information as well?" Taking in the girl's blank look, he went on: "If not, you're going to have to wait outside. We can't have several people claiming money on the same tip." His tone was apologetic, but his eyes stayed on Bellatrix, sizing her up like a prize lamb. "It's just the Prophet's policy, nothing personal."

Bellatrix could almost see the gears turning in the girl's frizzy little head. "Give us a moment - we need to discuss this," she told him, grabbing Bellatrix by the arm and pulling her aside.

"This is perfect," she whispered. "Look where he's taking you." She gestured to the plaque above the door, which read Rita Skeeter, Assistant Editor.

Bellatrix raised a questioning eyebrow, and the girl gave a huff of impatience.

"Look, I was thinking, if Bones had a really juicy story - a story he was potentially killed for - don't you think that Skeeter, his former assistant, would likely have known about it -"

"- and done whatever she could to get her hands on his leads and pursue it herself?" Bellatrix cut in. "I guess it's possible," she admitted grudgingly, hating to validate the girl's already overblown ego.

Granger nodded in satisfaction. "Well, you can keep him busy and go through her office."

"And I suppose you want to search the Records Room all by yourself?" Bellatrix could hardly keep the skepticism from her voice, making the girl flush an unflattering shade of pink.

"Don't look at me like that, I know what I'm doing!" Granger whispered furiously.

"Sure you do," Bellatrix sneered. "Well, don't come crying to me when the shit hits the fan. Oh, and you'd better take this." Faking a half-hug, she casually slipped the security pass she'd taken off Skeeter into the girl's pocket.

Leaving a flushed Granger to stare after her, Bellatrix allowed herself to be ushered into the office. The reporter shut the door behind them, turning his ingratiating grin upon her. "Now Madam … what did you say your name was?"

"I didn't." She gave an indifferent flick of the wrist. "Imperio."

At once, the wizard's eyes went glassy and he swayed slightly on his feet. "Go sit over there." She waved him into a corner out of the way, and he obeyed without hesitation.

At a casual glance, Skeeter's office seemed perfectly mundane, lacking all trace of the woman's flamboyant personality. Donning a pair of dragonhide gloves, Bellatrix began a methodical search of the desk drawers - which yielded little of interest - before moving on to the filing cabinets lining the wall.

As much as she lived for a good duel, Bellatrix had always found a zen-like peace in this sort of assignment. She could "read" a room better than most - take in all its little idiosyncrasies and what they revealed about its inhabitant - and this unnaturally tidy office told her that Rita Skeeter knew she was being watched very closely. But by whom?

A banging at the door made her start and drop the file she'd been holding. Someone jiggled the handle, trying to get inside.

"Oh, Piiiiiiiiikey," came the sing-song call, "We're about to head to the Cauldron. You coming?"

Grabbing the Imperio'd reporter by the scruff of his robes, Bellatrix shoved him forward and hissed: "Get rid of them."

Pike opened the door and gave a robotic smile. "You lads go on without me. I'm neck-deep in transcriptions over here, thanks to the boss. You know how she gets."

"Trying to keep you out of trouble, eh? Come on, come have a drink," the wizard on the other side coaxed, though Bellatrix, crouching behind a cabinet, could not see his face. "Dragon Lady will never know."

Pike gave a hollow laugh, and Bellatrix cringed, wondering if his colleagues could tell how peculiar he sounded. "Not tonight, mate. Have a pint in my honor," he said, shutting the door without waiting for a response and turning toward her for further instruction.

Throwing herself into a chair, Bellatrix groaned in frustration. There had to be something here. She could almost picture Skeeter, ferreting things away in some little hidey-hole the way she'd used to stash love-letters under her mattress at Hogwarts…

Her eyes snapped up to Pike suddenly. "Skeeter has a safe," she said. It wasn't a question.

A slight tremor went through the wizard, and his arm rose slowly, pointing to a framed mirror hanging above the desk.

"Open it," Bellatrix commanded.

The wizard swallowed nervously. "I - I don't know how…she made me leave whenever she opened it, but it's strange…" he trailed off, looking confused.

She leaned forward eagerly. "What's strange?"

"Well, the thing is, I could have sworn I heard a sort of … buzzing noise when she did it."

Nodding thoughtfully, Bellatrix gave her wand an experimental twirl, trying to remember what that hag McGonagall had taught them about object-to-animal transfiguration.

Bet Granger could do this in her sleep, a little voice taunted, but Bellatrix refused to be bested by the likes of her. Forcing herself to focus, she aimed at a silver paperweight on the table, painstakingly morphing it into the facsimile of a beetle.

The little creature took to the air with difficulty, made a few lazy circles, and then flew straight into the mirror. There was a sickening crack, and the glass fell away, revealing a shallow compartment full of stacked parchment.

"I ...I don't think you're supposed to break it," Pike cut in unhelpfully.

"Shut up and go back to your corner," Bellatrix growled. Fetching the papers Skeeter had been so careful to hide, she shuffled through them, surprised to see the Gringotts letterhead on each page.

She was looking at bank records. Specifically, the bank records of Rufus Scrimgeour, who had been making transfers into a confidential account every month. Flipping to the last page, she saw that the payments had begun less than a week after the Dark Lord's return.

Before her brain could begin to process this information, the door burst open, admitting a disheveled Hermione Granger.

"We're too late," she panted, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it for support. She looked furious, and bewildered … but there was something else there too, an undertone Bellatrix couldn't place.

She narrowed her eyes. "What happened?"

Running a hand through her frazzled hair, Granger took a calming breath. "The Ministry was here," she explained. "Weeks ago. They took everything - all Bones' work."

"Damn," Bellatrix cursed under her breath, not surprised in the slightest. "How on earth did you figure that out?"

If the girl noticed the clearly Imperiused wizard in the corner, she wisely said nothing. "The records clerk thought I was from the Ministry, returning to check that they weren't keeping anything back." She gestured vaguely, her eyes jumping from object to object as though rushing to keep up with her thoughts. "I didn't see a point in correcting him."

"Well, I hope you Obliviated him at least," Bellatrix snapped.

Granger raised a single dark eyebrow. "Obviously," came the scathing reply.

"You said they came weeks ago. It could have been Amelia Bones," Bellatrix pointed out as the idea occurred to her. "She was investigating her brother's death."

"Oh, I know exactly who it was. The clerk said she looked like, and I quote, 'a cross between a Pygmy Puff and a toad, but twice as ugly'." Granger made a noise of disgust.

Umbridge, Bellatrix realized, covering her unease by tossing the stack of papers to Granger. "Well, I did find something - here look at this."

The girl snatched up the parchment, poring over it greedily, while Bellatrix made another round of the office, looking for anything she may have missed. She paused by a wall of placards, most of them writing awards of Prophet reporters past and present. There were a few framed photographs, the largest and most prominent one of Rita Skeeter posing with several senior members of the Wizengamot.

"Scrimgeour was paying 500 Galleons a month?" Granger's incredulous voice sounded behind her. "Surely that's a lot for a public servant. Could it be blackmail? Paying off an informant, maybe..."

The next picture over brought a vague twinge of recognition. It was just an ordinary snapshot of a much-younger Edgar and Amelia Bones, cheerfully waving at her from the stands at a Quidditch match.

"What do you think?" Granger asked, the question coming on the heels of some monologue Bellatrix had tuned out entirely.

"I've seen this picture before," she mused aloud, taking it down from the wall. "Amelia Bones had it up on her mantelpiece."

Casually turning it over, Bellatrix felt the faint traces of a magical residue… before the photo was abruptly ripped from her hands.

"Yes! This has to be it," Granger muttered, prying the back off the frame and casting a flurry of diagnostic spells, her face scrunched in such comically intense concentration that Bellatrix almost forgot to be offended.

"Look!" Granger seized her forearm, pulling Bellatrix closer to peer at the words appearing slowly on the back of the photograph. "Look at this!"

"Dear Amelia," the letter began in a hurried, spiky scrawl,

"Guess it was only a matter of time before you showed up looking for answers. Mum always claimed I was the most stubborn one of us all, but the truth is that I learned it from you.

If you're reading this letter, I'm probably long, long gone. Finally decided to take Isobel and the kids on that vacation I've been promising them. Except we won't be coming back. I won't tell you where we've gone - it's safer that way. Just picture me on a beach somewhere with a margarita in one hand and a G&T in the other, and know that I'm content.

I can see you standing there, shaking your head, thinking, 'I told you so, you bloody idiot.' And yeah, OK. You warned me not to get involved in this mess, and I hate to say it, but you were right.

When I started looking into Crouch and his decision to concede the election, I thought it would all boil down to nonsense - hookers, drugs, gambling debts. He's such a priggish little bastard, you figure he's got to be hiding some pathetic fetish - but no. It's worse than that. So much worse.

You remember those peace talks with the werewolves that fell apart a few years ago? Well, the official story was that there was a power struggle within their leadership, and the anti-wizard contingent took over. That's when all those werewolf attacks started in Diagon Alley. I remember you saying that they really weren't helping their cause by acting like monsters, and I've learned that that was completely deliberate.

When he was still Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Crouch hand-picked a young hothead named Greyback to lead the opposition and essentially torpedo the peace talks. The Department paid him millions under the table, and agreed to look the other way while he took out the moderate werewolves. They called it 'Operation Mooncalf'. (The guy who comes up with these special ops names should be sacked, by the way.)

So, the Department encouraged this psycho to terrorize civilians, and then started leaking reports to the Prophet that the werewolves were siding with You Know Who. Guess Crouch thought he'd be killing two birds with one stone: make You Know Who look bad to all the purebloods still on the fence, and make the werewolves look bad to all the bleeding-heart 'equal rights' types. And to top it all off, he used the attacks as a pretext to push through that martial law bill.

I just found out they don't need a search warrant anymore to ransack your house and interrogate your family. Crouch sent one of his little thugs over to my place last week, scared Isobel and the kids half to death. This bastard Scrimgeour all but threatened to have me brought up for treason unless I buried the story.

Now, you know me - there's nothing I hate more than corrupt Ministry scumbags trying to play God, and usually I'd be fighting to nail these guys to the wall. But I've got a bad feeling about this one, and I'm not gonna stick around to figure out if that feeling is justified.

I'm leaving this letter as insurance. I hope to be gone tonight, but if anything happens to me, go to the Records Room. I've stashed all the evidence I could get my hands on - you'll know what to look for. Wish me luck.

With love, your brother,

Edgar.

Bellatrix swallowed harshly. Memories of that night - the night they killed Edgar Bones and his family - sliced through her mind like shards of glass. The screaming of his five year old daughter, the thump-thump of the wife's body barreling down the stairs and hitting the ground -

Stop it. Focus on right now. She carefully folded the letter, and put it into her inner pocket. You need to hold it together, or you'll get yourself killed. Not to mention the girl. She fell into mindless, familiar routine - a flick of the wrist, and the room righted itself, erasing all evidence of their presence. Another flick, and Skeeter's assistant was Stunned and Obliviated.

"Bellatrix. Bellatrix!" Granger's hand on her forearm squeezed her anxiously - how long had the girl been trying to get her attention? "We need to leave."

"What?" She bit out, muscles reflexively tensing against the contact.

"There's nothing else here." Granger tugged her toward the door. "Come on!" Although she was putting on a brave face as usual, Bellatrix could see the girl's self control beginning to fray at the edges.

She's afraid, came the sudden realization. And it's not of me.

Listening closely, Bellatrix heard only the familiar chatter of the newsroom beyond, her finely-tuned instincts picking up nothing out of the ordinary. "Why? What's happened?"

"I'll explain later," the girl promised, and, against her better judgement, Bellatrix allowed herself to be pulled from Skeeter's office and down the hall.

The bureau was a frenzy of scurrying elves, whizzing memos, and the frantic click-clack of typewriters rushing to meet the morning deadline. But just as they entered, the chaos gave way to an eerie silence and every head turned toward them in unison, like marionettes on a string.

For a split second, Bellatrix was frozen in shock - and then an ear-splitting alarm blared, she grabbed onto Granger, turned heel and ran in the opposite direction.

They skidded around the corner, barely dodging a terrified receptionist who dropped her coffee pot with a squeal, and took the back stairs two at a time.

"STOP! Intruders!" Came the wheezing call of the watchwizard from earlier as he struggled to catch up with them. Unfortunately, he was accompanied by several colleagues in much better form, and they all had their wands out. Bellatrix gave a groan of frustration. She'd been hoping for minimal fallout tonight, but it was clearly too late for that. Things were about to get messy.

The Granger Method indeed, she though, glaring at the girl as though this was somehow her fault. Granger responded with a half-hearted shrug, seeming unsurprised by this turn of events as she neatly parried a "Stupefy!" someone shot their way.

"Engorgio," Bellatrix bit out. The portly guard began to balloon to enormous proportions, his uniform buttons ricocheting in every direction as the cloth tore at the seams. He filled the hallway like a stopper in a bottle, trapping the flailing limbs of the other guards as they tried to get past.

The scene tore a genuine laugh out of Bellatrix, and she was rewarded by a frown from the girl.

"It's not funny." Granger snapped. "What if he...you know... explodes?"

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "He won't explode. Don't be such a buzzkill."

Smirking at Granger's sour look, she continued to drag the girl down the back stairs, bitterly cursing the anti-apparition wards and the universe in general.

"We'll have to go back through the main Lobby," Granger was saying, in that off-hand, distracted way she had, as though she was really talking to herself. Bellatrix could probably have turned into a potted plant right then without her noticing. "I saw a fireplace in there, I wonder if they've already locked down the Floo..."

They took the last few stairs in a leap, but as soon as their boots touched the floor, the answer to the girl's question presented itself with a sudden burst of green flame in the grate across. Four figures emerged from the haze of soot and smoke.

Time seemed to slow as Bellatrix's mind frantically processed the scene - their stance, the way they moved in formation, the cut of their robes - connecting these disparate fragments like pieces of a puzzle.

Aurors. And not just Aurors, but Hit Wizards.

The pale arc of Bella's sectumsempra was already slicing the air before her target had time to unsheath his wand. The spell found its mark, shredding the man's robes across his torso, turning the grey fabric black with the slow seep of blood.

Beside her, the girl gave a sharp little gasp, her wand half-raised in indecision. She had yet to learn that those precious moments of hesitation, the coin toss between fight or flight when the coin was suspended in motion… those moments could cost you your life.

The bleeding wizard was shoved roughly back into the Floo by his colleague - soon whisked away to wherever he'd come from - and two powerful stunners collided against her hasty Protego, losing some force from the impact but not dissipating entirely.

Snapping out of her daze, the girl finally sprang into action beside her, sending a blasting curse at the opposite wall, forcing the wizards to drop their attack and duck away from the explosion of rubble.

From their previous altercations, Bellatrix knew that Granger was a… solid fighter. More or less. Neither brilliant, nor inspired, certainly, but good enough to help get them out of this mess. Quickly evaluating the odds, she motioned the girl to the figure still kneeling by the fireplace, the one who had helped his injured comrade escape. He looked the youngest of the group, and Bellatrix guessed he was their Trainee.

Fortunately, the girl took her direction without question or comment, engaging the wizard and leaving Bellatrix to deal with the other two: the first, a tall red-haired witch with a scar running the length of her forehead, she recognized vaguely from the war, and the other, a middle aged wizard with a cruel, hawkish face, she was sure she'd never fought before. They studied her carefully in their turn, but their unshaken complacency made it clear they could not see the Death Eater beneath the disguise.

So began the dance. They worked well as a team, taking turns in defensive and offensive plays, before abruptly changing course and attacking together to try and catch Bellatrix off her guard. As she weaved and dodged under this onslaught, her own silent spells coming in a relentless volley, her mind snared on a stray thought:

She'd missed this. Those interminable years in Azkaban, the thing she had longed for more than anything - more than the mundane comforts of freedom, than the authority she wielded over the troops, more even than the Dark Lord's favor - was the pure exhilaration of the fight.

Nothing else gave her this razor-sharp clarity or stilled the quivering shadows in the hinterland of her mind. Now, she spent her days subsisting in the barren stretches between these moments - the only moments she felt really alive.

A thin sheen of sweat had broken out on her forehead with the strain of maintaining a wandless shield while casting a flurry of curses, but her efforts eventually paid off, and she grinned when the red-head's spell rebounded and hit her colleague straight in the chest, the momentary distraction leaving her open for one of Bella's own hexes.

In this break in the battle, she looked over to see Granger land a stupefy on her opponent, it's force sending him reeling into the wall. Their eyes met in silent understanding, and Granger tentatively returned her smile.

But this peace was short lived. All at once, commotion seemed to break out on all sides as the security wizard rushed down the stairs, reinforcements in tow, and the Floo flared to life once again, bringing another team of Aurors to join the fight.

She and the girl had been separated some thirty feet in their separate duels, their easy victory now leaving them isolated and badly outnumbered. Bellatrix watched realization dawn on the girl's paling face, her panicked gaze jumping from the security guards, to the disarmed-but-conscious Hit Wizards, to the Auror contingent, eventually settling on the familiar face of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Seeing him, Granger's eyes went wide. She backed herself into the wall, her wand arm wavering in indecision before throwing up a shield charm with the jerk of a wrist.

Uncharacteristically, Bellatrix also hesitated. The best strategy in these situations was to try and escape under cover of some spectacular distraction - Fiendfyre, or perhaps a well-placed bombarda - but she was so far from the girl that there was no way to make sure they both made it out of the wreckage. Although... surely, surely, everyone was expendable? Was the girl really her problem?

But before she could make up her mind, Granger turned and took off running toward the hallway they had used to come in from the street. At a brusque "Follow her!" from the watchwizard, his underlings ran after the girl, leaving Bellatrix in the now-slightly-less-untenable position of facing five Aurors alone.

Her Fiendfyre roared to life in an instant, swallowing up their oncoming spells in its calamitous tide, but her concentration wavered, just for the briefest of seconds, as her gaze probed the darkness of the hall, passed over the guards, who stood awestruck at the flames, and finally fell on the girl.

She was frozen with her hand on the carved entry door, and the look on her face… was it guilt written there? Or regret? Her lips parted, as though about to call out, but then she simply turned and passed through the gap, disappearing into the darkness.

When it dawned on her that Granger had well and truly ditched her, Bellatrix was

shocked to find that the realization actually hurt. Confused, she clutched at her side, but when her hand came away, it was covered in blood.

It's a trap, her brain supplied unhelpfully.

Snapping out of her daze just in time to hit the ground, Bellatrix felt an Auror's slicing hex graze the ends of her hair - just millimeters away from bringing her career to a permanent end.

For the first time, a small trace of worry began to unfurl in her chest. With her lapse in concentration, the flames of her Fiendfyre had spread through the Atrium, dancing wildly as they devoured the tapestries and furniture. Bellatrix. barely managed to corral them back under her power, directing their rage at her enemies.

It was her cue to leave, but there were just too many of them - reinforcements seemed to pour endlessly out of the Floo - and they kept cutting off her attempts to maneuver to the exit.

Fielding duels on all fronts, she noticed the Auror who'd tried to hit her with the slicing hex go in for another attempt. Sneering, she bit out a furious, "Diffindo."

Her aim ran true, the spell neatly severing his wand arm at the wrist. He seemed frozen as he stared at the bloodied stump in surprise, then gave a bloodcurdling scream and fell to his knees.

All eyes were glued to the scene, save those of Kingsley Shacklebolt. He scrutinized Bella's camouflaged face, gaze trailing down to settle on her curved walnut wand.

Recognition passed over his features at the exact instant she realized she'd forgotten to disguise it. Of course he'd remember it, having been on the receiving end of its wrath many times.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" someone yelled, and for the second time that night, Bellatrix saw her life flash before her eyes as she barely dodged the green blaze.

"STOP!" Kingsley's deep voice boomed through the hall, bringing an abrupt halt to the battle. A chorus of murmured dissent started up, but he silenced them with a gesture. "We need to take her alive!"

Take her alive. That could only mean Azkaban - a fate worse than death, as far as she was concerned, and given that a half-dozen Aurors stood between her and the door, death was looking increasingly likely.

Miraculously, her Protego held against the onslaught of stunners, but she could feel herself tiring quickly. Struggling to stay upright as her vision blurred at the edges - the ache at her side reminding her of the blood she had lost - Bellatrix wondered if she was hallucinating as the floor started to tremble.

Then, a huge slab of granite peeled away from the ceiling, sending the Aurors ducking for cover as they were pelted with falling debris. A deafening caw echoed from the bowels of the building, the rumble grew stronger, and something enormous burst through the wall, leaving ruin in its wake.

It moved through the air with such speed that it took Bellatrix a moment to realize that it was the giant bronze owl they had bribed for their entry. Soaring up to the ceiling, its wings slicing the chains of the hanging chandeliers as though they were string, the owl circled back and dove down upon the Aurors.

"RUN!" Came a familiar voice, and Bellatrix looked up to see Granger emerge from a cloud of dust and rubble like some vengeful spirit, her soot-streaked brow wrinkled in concentration as she trained her wand on the monstrous bird.

Stumbling blindly through the wreckage, Bellatrix saw the girl struggle to control the creature she had somehow bewitched, sending it after the fleeing Aurors.

It was remarkable that the building was still standing, she thought, and right on cue a support column began to give way. She dove underneath it, pulling Granger into the safety of the hallway just as the marble pillar came crashing down.

Bellatrix grasped the wall for support, breathing hard as a spasm of pain shot through her. She could hear the Atrium ceiling splinter and start to crumble around them.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she yelled, grabbing the girl by the collar.

"I was thinking, 'What would Bellatrix do in this situation?'," Granger retorted acidly, shaking off her grip. "Now, come on!"

It couldn't have been more than fifty yards to the end of the hallway, to the edge of the anti-apparition wards, but it seemed like the longest fifty yards of her life. The girl noticed her lagging, and without saying a word, slipped an arm around her waist for support. To her own surprise, Bellatrix let her, telling herself that it was a necessary evil. She pressed the bunched-up wool of her robe against her wound and tried to collect enough focus for a splinch-free apparition to Malfoy Manor.

The girl, however, was quicker, pulling Bellatrix into a reckless and dizzying side-along just as they reached the periphery of the wards.

The landing was sloppy, depositing them in a heap on a threadbare mattress in what Bellatrix dimly recognized as the parlour of Heaven's Gate. Unable to stifle a groan and cursing herself for displaying such weakness, she rolled away clutching her ribs in agony.

A second passed in silence, in indecision, and then Granger gave a deep sigh.

"You're hurt," she announced, abruptly pushing Bellatrix onto her back and forestalling any resistance by drawing her wand. "No, no... don't argue. Vulnera Sanentur," her voice came in a soft sing-song, the healing spell slowly stitching the torn flesh together. Slowly, sensation returned, and she could feel the girl's icy fingers carefully prodding the newly-formed scar though her shredded robes.

"I'm fine," Bellatrix growled, swatting away the intrusive touch.

"No, you're not," came the crisp reply. "You need a blood replenishing potion, at least."

The mattress shifted as the girl stood, and soon Bellatrix heard the clicking of bottles and the slamming of cabinet doors as Granger passed through to the kitchen and began to search her supplies.

Adrenaline flooded her system, insisting she leave right away, but Bellatrix merely sat up and studied the room, seeing the same charts and diagrams Granger had spelled blank on her last visit. A wasted effort as it turned out: Bellatrix couldn't decipher the text, short of recognizing the scribbles as Ancient Runes - a subject she had gladly passed up at NEWT Level in exchange for an extra free period.

Entropy was gradually overtaking this space. The little piles of books and notes had multiplied like mushrooms across the floor, though these were stacked neatly - a half-hearted attempt to stave off the encroaching chaos.

It didn't take Bella's particular skills to deduce what the state of the room revealed about its inhabitant : Granger's project, pursued with such disturbing obsessiveness, was not going well.

Fingers trailing aimlessly across the bed, she felt something small and cold on her skin, and folding back the rumpled blanket, found a single earring buried among the sheets. It was an ornate affair, a sizable emerald surrounded by delicate silver filigree, the kind of thing an old pureblood family would pass down through the generations. Definitely not Granger's style.

Maybe it was a gift, her inner optimist tried to reason, but she dismissed this out of hand.

Of course, of fucking course, there was another woman. She was a fool not to have thought of this possibility sooner, and now - Bellatrix finally admitted, putting a name to the tortuous mix of emotions that had been simmering under the surface - now, she was well and truly entangled.

A distant tap, tap, tap drew her attention, and looking through the doorway into the kitchen, she saw an imposing tawny owl land and perch on the sill. The girl answered the call, ripping the note right out of the owl's beak and slamming the window shut. The bird gave an offended squawk and flew off into the night.

Granger's face gave nothing away as she scanned the parchment. She folded it into her pocket, ran a hand through already-messy curls, released a long breath...and then the facade cracked and, with a muttered "dammit", her fist came down hard on the countertop.

Bellatrix winced.

A shiver of rage passed through the girl, and then her fist unclenched, fingers deftly grabbed the vials off the table, and when she turned around, her face was schooled into what Bellatrix now recognized as a carefully neutral mask. It made her wonder - how much of that brash, heart-on-her-sleeve Gryffindor naïveté was really an act?

"Here," Granger said, standing over Bellatrix with two vials in her outstretched hand, "Blood-replenishing potion and a salve for the pain."

Bellatrix took the bottles but made no move to drink. "Do they know?" she nodded toward the pocket where Granger had stashed her mysterious note.

The girl seemed to size her up. "They … suspect," she began haltingly, her dusty fingers leaving smudges on her cheek as she brushed a curl behind one ear. "Someone thought they recognized you, but they can't actually prove either of us were there. And surprisingly, nobody's dead... so there's a slim chance it might all blow over."

Bellatrix gave a sharp, disbelieving laugh. "Blow over? I seriously doubt that." Bitter experience had shown her there was precious little the Department would balk at to get what it wanted.

Speculatively rolling the vial of blood-replenishing potion between her fingers, her dark eyes snapped up to meet hazel. "You know, when you left," she began softly, dangerously, "I was convinced that you'd lead me into a trap."

Granger swallowed. "It ….it was a trap," she conceded after a pause, "For Amelia Bones."

That, she had not been expecting. "What?"

"That letter - I don't think they knew about the letter. But Umbridge didn't Obliviate the records clerk. As though they were expecting someone to come looking... " Granger gestured vaguely, as though trying to pluck her disorganized thoughts from the air. " I just… had a bad feeling. And then all the pieces kind of fell into place."

Bellatrix sifted through this garbled explanation. "Still, you weren't intending to come back. Were you." It was not a question.

"Yes," she said immediately. Then, off Bella's expression, "Probably. Look, I don't know." Those scholarly hands scrubbed over her face in incoherent frustration. "I just… needed...some time to think."

"Think about what?" Bellatrix followed up evenly, but there was no need. To consider if you were worth it, hung unspoken between them.

"Just to think," Granger evaded. "I did come back though. That has to mean something, doesn't it?"

Bellatrix couldn't help her cynical half-smile. "Of course. It means you still need something from me."

"Jesus Christ, you're impossible!" Granger cried, hands raised in appeal to the aforementioned Muggle deity. "You make it sound like everybody is just using each other all the time. Not everything has an agenda or an ulterior motive. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I just - I just - "

She stopped, a pale hand raised to her throat, as though to strangle the words before they could force themselves out.

"You can't possibly understand the position I'm in," Granger finished softly, looking away.

In an unguarded moment - her eyes downcast, her lashes dark against the pallor of her skin, her gently scowling little mouth - she reminded Bellatrix of an exhausted child on the verge of tears.

Reaching for the girl's arm - intending to frighten, and perhaps, unthinkably, too soothe - Bellatrix just managed to restrain herself. "Enlighten me then," she said instead.

But Granger was shaking her head. "This is so screwed up. Look, I'm sorry." Snatching up the jar of salve, she knelt on the floor in front of the bed.

Shocked into silence, Bellatrix watched her unscrew the lid and dip her fingers into the dark and viscous potion. With slow, deliberate motions, as though faced with a wild animal she didn't want to startle, the girl reached through the tear in her robes and began to spread the salve onto her healing wound.

Bellatrix let out a harsh breath, struck by a confusing mix of sensations. The potion cooled and numbed as it worked it's magic, while the fingertips tracing across her skin seemed to burn her nerve endings raw.

Why was she allowing this? Was she simply that starved for human connection or was it something more?

The girl looked up at her, her eyes round with surprise, her mouth barely parted as though trying to drink in the moment. Whatever the hell this was, Bellatrix could see that they were both caught in it.

"Enough," she whispered roughly.

Granger jerked her hand back. "That should keep it from scarring," she said, suddenly businesslike, tucking a stray curl behind her ear in nervous habit.

Bellatrix tracked the motion, remembering the emerald earring and noting for the first time that Granger's ears weren't pierced. Of course, of course.

Nothing good without a price.

"Actually, there's... something I want to ask," the girl began haltingly, as though unsure if she should push the issue. "You told me you would have known if there was a mole in your ranks. Are you absolutely sure?"

Wrongfooted by this sudden shift of pace, Bellatrix could only nod, intensely relieved that the girl seemed as unwilling as she to address the lingering awkwardness between them.

"But it doesn't make sense otherwise, does it?" the girl insisted. At Bella's raised eyebrow, she went on, "Look at the facts. Crouch and Minchum set up this operation to manipulate the werewolf groups, and Edgar Bones is about to leak the story when he is very conveniently murdered. We know Scrimgeour had the guard removed from Bones' house, but he couldn't have known Vol- " she bit off the word, sending Bellatrix a weary glance, "I mean, You Know Who was going to come for him that very night...unless they arranged it that way."

Bellatrix mulled this over, failing to see what the girl was driving at. "Well, the interests of the Dark Lord just happened to align with the interests of Crouch and Scrimgeour that time. There's a hundred different ways the Dark Lord could have gotten the information without it being 'arranged' as you say."

Granger shook her head vigorously. "That's the thing - it's not just that one time. Years later, Amelia Bones is on the same trail as her brother, but now Scrimgeour's got a lot more to lose. He's not just Crouch's flunkey anymore - his entire political career is on the line. He desperately needs Amelia Bones out of the way, and poof!" the girl snapped her fingers for emphasis. "She's killed right before she manages to get her hands on her brother's evidence."

The girl stood and paced to the fireplace, and when she turned her face was dark with foreboding. "It's not a coincidence," she said forcefully. "Nobody is that lucky."

The conviction in her tone made an impression on Bellatrix. "The blackout zone…" she began thoughtfully. "The night Amelia died somebody high up in the Ministry called a blackout zone on her neighborhood. I assumed that she did it herself, but maybe it was Scrimgeour."

Try as she might to order her thoughts and memories, they seemed to slip from her grasp before she could analyze their significance. Her mind revved and stalled like a broken engine.

The trouble was, she couldn't actually remember why they had picked those specific nights to attack the Bones siblings. She'd been the lead on reconnaissance in both cases, but the intel hadn't come from her. The Dark Lord had simply told them when and where to attack, and she had never questioned it.

"Yes! Don't you see?" Granger demanded excitedly. "It's got to be Greyback. We know he was on the Ministry payroll and he had a working relationship with Scrimgeour. Greyback must be the mole."

This drew an involuntary bark of laughter from Bellatrix. "Never met him, have you? Dumber than a bag of bricks, that one. The Dark Lord uses him and his lot as shock troops, but he'd never accept advice from a werewolf." She scoffed. "It's absurd."

The girl's mouth was a thin line of frustration as she bristled at having her points dismissed out of hand. Digging in the pocket of her robes, she fished out the stack of scrolls they had stolen from Skeeter's safe and tossed them at Bellatrix triumphantly. "Then what about these? Scrimgeour is paying someone off. I bet if we trace this account number we'll find that it belongs to Greyback."

"No, we won't," Bellatrix said with an exaggerated patience, snatching up a scroll and pointing to a string of digits in the lower corner. "This transfer was made to another Gringotts account, and werewolves have been banned from Gringotts for about a hundred years. The goblins hate them more than we do." A smirk found its way onto her lips, and she couldn't resist needling the girl. "Turns out Little Miss Know-it-All doesn't know everything."

"Fine," Granger conceded with a rather petulant eye-roll. "But you've got to admit that someone is making You Know Who -"

"Making?" Bellatrix interrupted, her voice rising to an unpleasant shrill. "You think the Dark Lord can be manipulated into doing the Ministry's bidding? He's not some hired thug, he's the most powerful wizard in Britain!" She stood abruptly and clenched her fists, trying to stop her anger from spiraling completely out of control.

Nearly flinching in fear, the girl caught herself and slipped back into her stoic facade. "Just in Britain? Not the entire world?" She mused, cool and sarcastic. "Starting to lose faith in your dear leader?"

The words pierced some unacknowledged part of her and she growled. The girl was a fool to keep stoking the fire of her rage when Bellatrix was trying so hard to contain it.

"Are you trying to piss me off, mudblood?"

Granger froze, stunned into silence. For a second, Bellatrix wondered if she had actually reached out and struck her, but no - she suspected a slap would have fazed the girl less.

Several times, the girl opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She seemed confused, as though she couldn't quite believe what had happened.

What's the big deal? Bellatrix wanted to shout. It was just a word. Mudblood. She'd used it thoughtlessly hundreds of times, as did everyone she knew. In her world it was as omnipresent and unremarkable as the very air they breathed. If the girl was waiting for an apology, she sure as hell wasn't going to get one.

These thoughts must have shown on her face, because when Granger finally looked at her, her expression fell and she sunk into a battered armchair in the corner of the room. She looked defeated. As though all the fight had gone out of her.

"I…I'm wasting my time," she said, her voice hollow, observing Bellatrix as though seeing her in an entirely different light. "You really are beyond help."

Bellatrix let out a pained, bitter laugh. "Just figuring that out now, are we?" Then, recollecting herself, she stood up straighter and sneered down her nose at the girl. "Besides, I never asked for your fucking help."

The girl closed her eyes, refusing to look at her, refusing her in every way possible. "Just go," she said softly.

There was nothing more to say. So Bellatrix went, buoyed on the high tide of her anger, but just as the door of Heaven's Gate shut behind her, that tide receded, leaving a wreckage of muddled emotions in its wake. She couldn't even begin to parse these out, and wasn't sure she wanted to know what she actually felt.

Then, the faint magic of wards pressed in on her from all sides, shoving her forward off the stoop and into the street. She spun around, wand raised, but the place the old house had stood just a moment ago was now nothing but an empty, overgrown lot. More disturbing still, she could feel herself forgetting that Heaven's Gate had ever been there at all.

It seemed that Granger had once again managed the impossible. She'd broken the Ministry's Fidelius charm on the house and revoked Bellatrix as a Secret-Keeper. The finality of this last vindictive strike shocked her.

Letting out a shout of incoherent fury, she shot a curse at the place the door had just been, but the spell sailed into the empty yard, burning a path through the tall grass.