Almost five years after the Battle of Hogwarts ended in Harry Potter's death and the triumph of Lord Voldemort, Hermione Granger and her surviving friends battle to keep hope alive in a post-apocalyptic world where Muggles now know about magic. Fighting alongside the wizards of Koldovstoretz and Muggle forces in a never-ending genocidal war, Hermione will find herself confronted with a choice that may restore the hope of victory to the free world, and present her with an impossible love.

Lay by your pleading,
The Law lies bleeding
Burn all your studies
And throw out your reading

Small power the word has,
And can afford us
Not half so much privilege
As a sword does

- From "The Power (or Dominion) of the Sword", an English Cavalier Ballad.

This is a Bellamione story. That does mean that Hermione Granger falls in love with an objectively awful person. Nonetheless, this is also very much a fantastical work. Bellatrix Black Lestrange's character here is very much inspired by her in Kuraibites' amazing "Those Gilded Chains we Wear".

In the interest of explaining details in the story, I will annotate each chapter because I use some culturally unfamiliar terms and complicated terminology.

Various forms of contextually appropriate extreme violence and implied crimes are referenced in the story in a suitable context for the setting. You are strongly encouraged not to read this story if violence in the context of unrestricted warfare and political intrigue, including descriptions of some of their attendant horrors, would upset you. This is also a story about moral redemption and the limits thereof.

Bella and Hermione don't see each other after the Battle of Hogwarts until Chapter Eight - this IS a slow burn story. Note that this story ultimately contains very mature content-edited to comply with FFN regulations. An alternative version under a different name does exist on AO3, as well as a Russian translation at ficbook.

На русском:

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Prologue

The first time you slept in the field, it was like a camping trip. There was a lousy smell that seemed like a whiff of hell in the distance, and the choking fumes of fuel, and the tea was boiled on exhaust, but it was exciting. They were going to make a difference. They were being brave and strong. The rules were harsh, but they weren't about being nice or proper. They were enforced by wand and gun and nobody who enforced them cared if you drank or smoke or made dirty jokes while in your bedroll.

But the sky could not be seen, the stars were obscured by some brew of smog and ice fog, and when she bedded down, her mind went to other places. The howl of the wind across their camp seemed to carry her away to memories that she could not resist, that she could not ever really put aside.

On the loess plateau, with the immense mass of fertile dirt eroding away below them, with the distant thunder in the air, she thought back in the moment before sleep to Alma-Ata. To realising that, no, it was the women that she wanted.

To drifting off into memory of the first time that need had awakened in her. Too embarrassing to ever tell anyone. To admit that when that pain was at its greatest, when that knife made the mark of shame she still wanted to hide at all costs, the reason she couldn't bring herself to share a banya with her friends… That she had felt the warmth in those thighs over her own body, so strong. That she had seen the look in those eyes, mad, but almost tender.

That she had realised that she was attracted to women then, not in a dingy strip-club in Alma-Ata playing at one of the boys with all of her new friends, muggle and wizard. It still brought her nightmares to know that she could look back and see, clearly, that she had experienced, even in her darkest moment, a certain kind of shameful and embarrassing animal attraction to Bellatrix Lestrange.

Four years on, she had broken up with Ron after that bitter, horrible night in Chisinau. She had accepted herself. But only in intellectual principle: Blah, blah, I'm a lesbian, it's genetic, I can't help it, it's okay.

Privately, she never intended to help it or accept it. She tossed and twisted in her bedroll until one of her friends came over to check on her. The nightmare was the same as it had often been. She didn't want to let it go. She wanted to die alone, but maybe covered in the blood of her enemies. That was a good sentiment for the times, wasn't it?

Hermione didn't get any sleep that night anyway. In another hour, they were all waking up to shouts and orders and the sound of reserves coming up, the tanks rattling like thunder. There was a war to fight, after all, and as long as she had her shit sorted out enough to wield a wand at the front, that was what really mattered.

Notes:

Alma-Ata was the original name of the largest city in Kazakhstan, which is now called Almaty. City names are changed often for political reasons in the CIS countries.