Ch. 12: In Which Family Gathers

In late March of 1997, Bellatrix received a basket and a letter from a rather constipated-looking, golden eagle.

Dear Hopeless Hufflepuff,

Happy Easter! I hope you're doing well.

Things have been rather hectic, at the manor. It seems like every day brings a new guest. Why, just yesterday we had your youngest godson and a few of his friends. We made up a lovely room for them, downstairs, but they didn't stay long.

If we had kept prisoners in our dungeon, then they certainly would have escaped when our son accidentally left the door open. Thankfully, that didn't happen, and, even if it did, we would have blamed it on one of my husband's colleagues. Incidentally, Mr. Crabbe suffered a terrible, work-related accident, last night. I sent his wife a basket.

On an unrelated note, our son has been muttering about "family" more than usual. This new obsession has revealed distant blood ties to several unexpected families, and he is altogether far too fascinated with the possible repercussions of said ties. He has informed me that this is entirely your fault. Should he find himself unable to hold his tongue upon returning to his schooling this Monday, I will personally hunt you down, no matter what protections you've erected around your home.

If you were smart, I would encourage you to stay home and out of trouble. I have long resigned myself, however, to the fact that you are a Hufflepuff.

I've enclosed a small assortment of gifts. Enjoy them.

Good day,

The Sensible Sister

Bellatrix smiled slightly at the note, tucking it into her pocket. She had absolutely no idea how Narcissa could simultaneously be so careful and so utterly obvious, but it was rather endearing. It also reassured her that the blonde wasn't worried about anyone reading her letters, or else she would have taken her codes far more seriously.

The news, in general, was good. Ron and his friends were safe, Draco had apparently discovered that he was related to quite nearly everyone, and Narcissa was still comfortable enough to send care packages to supposed enemies.

Inside the basket, assorted candies, a bottle of firewhiskey, and a large box jostled for her attention. The box held a broom-polishing kit, and Bellatrix gasped at what was tucked inside – her old wand. She snatched it up, immediately relaxing at the familiar hum of dragon heartstring, and read the attached note.

"I snitched it from Andy's guestroom. You owe me for this."

A quick swish of her wand packed the items away, and, caught up in a flurry of excitement, Bellatrix used magic for everything from clearing the table to straightening the curtains to tucking her hair behind her ears. Bellatrix nearly fainted the next day from magical exhaustion.

After a brief recovery, she began mock duels with the furniture, practicing every spell in her repertoire. Though her remaining leg and the flesh which scraped against her wooden one ached painfully afterwards, she soon moved and cast as quickly as ever. During the day, she fought phantom enemies. At night, she listened to the Wizarding Wireless, and exchanged notes with her scattered allies.

At Hogwarts, a group of students had set up base in a hidden classroom. At Malfoy Manor, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named grew increasingly obsessed with finding Harry Potter. At Muriel Weasley's mansion, Molly heard news from Ron. Their mission was almost complete, and the time to fight was fast approaching.

Bellatrix polished her walnut wand and took to sleeping beside the floo.

It was probably for the best that Bellatrix never recovered her first wand. Though it was her most beloved possession since age eleven, she would have had to burn it. The Mudblood had cast spells with that wand, after all, and there are some things that just can't be washed off.

"The battle's starting at Hogwarts," Molly told her, her face gaunt and green in Grimmauld Place's fireplace.

"See you there," Bellatrix said.

She threw a pinch of floo powder onto the flames, and Molly's surprised face disappeared in a surge of fire. Had she waited a moment longer, Molly might have advised her to floo to the Hogsheade, where fighters entered the heart of the castle through secret passages. If she'd been a Gryffindor, she might have known of the network of shortcuts onto the school's grounds. Bellatrix was a Hufflepuff, however, and an impatient one, so she flooed to Gladrags and disillusioned herself, racing up the hill to Hogwarts.

She passed several groups of Death Eaters during her trip, sending a few whispered, slow-acting hexes their way, but never slowing.

The real fighting was ahead, after all, where her family, friends, and students were risking their lives. Though her fake leg often stuck in the mud and her real one soon ached, worry kept her movements quick. Bellatrix felt some small relief, when she finally caught sight of the battle.

Half their fighters were little more than children, Sixth and Seventh Year students faced off against enemies twice their age, yet they were winning. Bellatrix could see her lessons' influence as Death Eaters struggled to shout spells through sewn-shut mouths and to hold wands without fingers. Some were blinded by splashes of acid, and the rest might as well have been as a few clever students darted about under disillusionment charms. Always, always, they moved.

One cluster of students, however, held their ground. Three Hufflepuffs – Susan Bones, Hannah Abbott, and Ernie MacMillan – formed a ring around the castle wall. Hannah stood in the center, holding a shield that stretched across herself and her friends, but covered only the upper half of their bodies.

Bellatrix raced to their position, tossing spells along the way. "Lesson one, Miss Abbott. Why aren't you dodging?"

Hannah jumped, her shield faltering, but relaxed again at the familiar voice. "We can't, Professor Black."

"Not enough practice?" she asked coolly, hand tightening around her wand.

"Can't move when you're protecting someone. Better to stand your ground and blast them all to hell," Ernie snapped off a Deafness Jinx before smugly adding, "lesson twenty-five."

"At least cover your feet, or do you need a third one-legged professor before picking that up?" Bellatrix said. She added her own shield below Hannah's, then fired at a tall Death Eater with a slight hunchback.

"Sorry, Professor," Hannah murmured.

Bellatrix nodded, scanning the grounds for possible threats. "Now, who was injured? Mr. Finch-Fletchley? Ms. Jones?"

"Not a Hufflepuff, ma'am," Susan Bones said.

Bellatrix blinked. That was unexpected. Hufflepuffs didn't tend to make friends outside of their house, as she could attest.

"Who, then?" she asked.

"Draco Malfoy."

"What?! Why would you protect him?"

"That's not nice," Hannah said. "Isn't he your nephew?"

Bellatrix removed a Death Eater's fingers with a carefully-aimed curse, and said, "Of course. That's why I would save him, but why did you?"

"He took a spell for Hannah," Susan said.

"She has very yellow hair," a familiar voice slurred.

Ernie snickered. "It was a really strong Confundus Charm."

From behind the Hufflepuffs, Draco's glazed eyes stared at Bellatrix's shoulder. "Hey, Aunt Beeella, did you know Hannah's mother was a Malfoy? My mother wasn't even a Malfoy. Wait…was she?"

"No, she wasn't. Not until after marriage," Hannah said softly.

The blond blinked. "Oh, okay."

"I like him better this way," Ernie said.

"Ernie," Susan growled, smacking his side with her free hand.

"What? We were all thinking it!" Ernie said.

"He saved Hannah."

"He's still a git."

Distracted by the two Hufflepuffs' argument, Bellatrix let her attention drift from the surrounding battlefield until Draco said. "Hey, it's Uncle R…ra…dolphin."

Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange approached the group, their spells thudding against Hannah's shield. Bellatrix cursed. "Bones, MacMillan, keep firing. Abbott, keep the bloody shield up. I'll draw Rodolphus off, but Rabastan's on you."

She darted away from the students, calling. "Oh, Dolly!"

Rodolphus took the bait, just as she hoped he would. "Shut up, Bellatrix."

"Make me," she purred, already dashing to the side as he began to fire. The Lestrange brothers favored brutish spells, like bludgeoning and blasting curses – the sort that did a lot of damage and were hell to dodge.

As Bellatrix darted to the side, throwing a Blood-Boiling Curse, she kept an eye on the other fight. Hannah was already exhausted, and her shield grew thin. Ernie stopped firing to raise another one, but that left only Susan to attack Rabastan. Bellatrix split her attention between their fight and her own, but Death Eaters weren't the only ones that could be distracted by conversation.

"Is this how you repay us?" Rodolphus asked, a mocking lilt to his voice. "Andromeda saves your life, and you attack her husband. Whatever happened to loyalty?"

"Andy did not" – Bellatrix ducked under an ugly, purplish spell – "save my life."

"She didn't kill you when she had the chance, and she definitely had the chance. Poor, weak Bellatrix Black bleeding to death on the floor…"

Bellatrix threw a fireball at his head, but it dissipated on his shield.

"Dammit, Susan, finish him off already!" Ernie shouted nearby.

"It's not that easy!" Susan snapped. A quick glance showed that, even with two students holding it, the shield had faded to nothingness at the edges. Rabastan shot a Sectumsempra at Ernie's face, which he only avoided by jumping aside.

Bellatrix growled softly. Ernie was her student, one of her Puffs, and he'd nearly had his throat gouged out. He wasn't the only one. Colin Creevey lay crumpled in the grass, a few feet away. The continuous, desperate screams of one girl could only have come from a bout of the Cruciatus Curse. A furious shout echoed from the castle that seemed oddly reminiscent of Molly's Howlers.

"How's the leg, by the way?" Rodolphus laughed.

He was still the same bully, the same idiot boy who'd cheated in Quidditch decades earlier. Well, Bellatrix could cheat, too, and she was better at it than he'd ever been. When he sent his next Bludgeoner, she shrieked and dropped to the ground.

He laughed, jogging forward to finish her off. "I never did get to thank you for leaving. If you hadn't, I would have been stuck marrying a pathetic, blood traitor Hufflepuff who –"

The Entrail-Expelling Curse hit his gut at point-blank range. Rodolphus had barely seen the flash of light before he was doubled over, vomiting his intestines onto the grass.

Bellatrix staggered to her feet, but one other battle, at least, had been won. Rabastan lay dead in the grass, a hole in his forehead. Susan had dropped her wand, and Bellatrix refrained from complimenting her aim, lest the redhead's sniffles explode into sobbing. Hannah pulled her into a hug, and Ernie, still holding their weak shield, picked up the girl's wand.

As Bellatrix turned to the rest of the battle, she heard Draco ask in mild concern, "Do you think he's alright?"

For the first time in several months, the hands on the Weasleys' family clock shifted away from "mortal peril." Molly slipped Fred's snapped-off, golden hand into her pocket, and hurried to the kitchen.

Just once, Bellatrix Black would have liked to celebrate the end of a war. Were joyful whooping, silly dances, and drunken mistakes so much to ask for? Admittedly, she was far too reserved to involve herself in such things, but sensibility should have been swept away with the rush of victory.

Bellatrix didn't feel victorious. Fred was dead. George had lost an ear. Her oldest godson was permanently scarred. And those were just the people closest to her. There were others, she knew, laid out in the Great Hall: Remus Lupin, Colin Creevey – smaller, now, without his camera – and Professor Vector, to name a few.

They lay in a tidy row, surrounded by weeping loved ones and tokens of affection. But Bellatrix knew that there was another row of bodies hidden down a nearby hallway. They were laid out in an almost identical line, a dozen broken bodies in black robes. Most of them wore masks.

One did not.

Andromeda's brown hair sprawled upon the stone. Her skin stretched tight against high cheekbones, like a white dress that didn't quite fit the woman underneath. Her eyelashes could have been smudges of ash. Andromeda Lestrange had been many things, in her life, but it had been a long time since she had been beautiful.

Bellatrix started, when she saw the others that had gathered around the woman's body. For the first time, all her sisters were together.

"What are you two doing here?"

"I just happened to be walking by," Narcissa said, a slight tremble in her voice. "You know how easily I get lost."

"Are you alright?" Bellatrix asked.

"Fine. Talk to your friend; she needs it more than I ever will."

Bellatrix frowned, but crouched beside Molly. The redhead stared blankly at the body. "Molly?"

"I killed her," Molly said.

Bellatrix had been outside for most of the fighting and hadn't seen Andromeda's death. She kept her voice as gentle as possible. "What happened?"

"She tried to kill Ginny."

"That bitch," Bellatrix grumbled. "If it makes you feel any better, she deserved it."

The redhead closed her tired eyes. "I still…"

"Protected your family," Bellatrix said. "That's all any of us can do."

"She was your family, too," Molly said, gesturing towards the body.

"Not as much as you, the kids" – Bellatrix glanced at the silent blonde, tears slipping down her face – "and Cissy. Do you mind if I go talk to her, for a minute? I promise I'll be back."

Molly nodded. "Go ahead."

She slipped beside her younger sister. Narcissa asked, "Why aren't you with your friend?"

"You looked like you needed someone," Bellatrix said.

"I told you I was fine."

Bellatrix said, "You're crying."

"Didn't you know about my seasonal allergies? They're dreadful, right now. Absolutely-"

"Cissy."

The blonde sighed. "Alright, I...miss her."

"Me too," Bellatrix admitted.

She blinked. "Really? I didn't think, after all this time…"

"She was my sister. I know she was awful to me, awful to everyone, really. She did such terrible things. She killed Sirius, Wakefield, dozens more, and tried to kill me. Still, she didn't try as hard as she might have, and Andy wasn't always so awful. She wasn't any worse than either of us. We used to be so similar. She took my place, becoming heir, marrying Lestrange…I could have been just like her."

Molly stood up, walking over to pull the brunette into a hug. "You aren't like her, Bella. You're too kind, too good, too…"

"Hufflepuff?" Bellatrix finished dryly.

The redhead nodded and smiled against the taller woman's shoulder. "Yes, far too Hufflepuff."

Narcissa chuckled, hiding her reddened eyes with a quick glamour. "She's right, you know. The Hat would have been mad to sort you anywhere else."

Molly Weasley and Bellatrix Lestrange dueled in the same hall where the Sorting Hat had sealed their fate thirty-six years before. As the final spell flew, the mother snarled, the murderer laughed, and neither felt the sting of missed chances.

A/N: I like to think that Bellatrix would be an…interesting influence on her nephew.

Thank you to all my reviewers, particularly those who did so multiple times: Redejeka, krikanolo, Hpdwlotr24, and Debate4life. Also, thanks to cyberswordsmen for giving me advice on these last few chapters. I hope you folks enjoyed this ride through my bizarre, little what-if. Thanks for reading, following, favoriting, and - as always - reviewing!