"-tory..."
Lunaris and I blinked a few times as we grasped a letter from Athena; our owl. Looking over at the side of our bed chambers I found my marshal standing behind our allies and friends, all of them hunching over in a form of pain or discomfort.
"Mistress, I saved your friends from versing the Dark Lord Voldemort..." Bellatrix informed casually, her eyes digging into the side of our face.
~Choosing her as a marshal was a good choice, despite that role being archaic~
Smirking just a smidge I pulled the letter in our hands down and opened it, watching as Harry, Hermione and Dracoria all recovered from the obviously hasty apparition. Whilst reading the letter I hummed in concentration.
'LordLeFay, Emyrs, Grindelwald, Nightingale
It is Gringotts pleasure to inform you that the bequeathment of land to one
'Hermione Granger' has succeeded. Your request for Hermione Granger to be granted noble peerage and station has been accepted by the Lords Advisory Council underneath the jurisdiction of Lord Black and Lord Potter's chosen representative.
The House of Garrowen is now your direct Vassal House and will extend to any Granger for the last 200 years. Lady Garrowen will soon be informed of her new status as Vassal and Lady of her territory; given by the Most Ancient, Most Arcane, Most Noble House of LeFay.
Also, please do be advised, that your current portfolio is idling without any direction in investment. Message your account holder at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely~
Goblin King, Goblin High-Lord, Warrior of the Deep
Ragnok The Wealthy '
Putting the letter away with a small flourish of our hands, we turned to face the newly arrived gaggle of limbs and curses.
"Thank you Bella, I wasn't sure he was dead for certain... This just confirms it." The newly minted marshal smirked happily, her lilac eyes shining in happiness and relief. She was new at her job but that wasn't anything to worry about, in fact, Lunaris and I were hardly certain what her specific tasks required of her.
"I hate... Every single... Wizarding way of transport!" Harry shouted out in annoyance, his right arm clutched against his stomach as he leaned forwards. I snickered at him as he slowly recovered.
"H-how did we teleport? It says in Hogwarts a History that it is impossible whilst inside the castle!" Bella rolled her eyes at Hermione's outburst of incredulity.
Lunaris left it, as usual, to me to explain. "The wards only target apparition that uses the ground as a focus. If you were to jump before you apparate and target the air above the floor as a landing point you can freely apparate inside the castle." My tone was have been more formal than I thought it was as Dracoria was standing with a posture befitting the heir to a noble house; despite having been told before to drop such antics with us previously.
"That- that's-" Hermione was going red in the face at how illogical the protection against apparition is before she got interrupted by Harry... "Brilliant! I can't wait to learn how to apparate just so I can mess with Draco and the Headmaster!" Dracoria, Bella, Lunaris and I all chuckled at the excitement in his voice whilst Hermione stared at him with utter horror painted across her features.
"HARRY!?" Said boy laughed at her apoplectic expression, barely holding himself back from leaning forwards once again and grasping his stomach.
Sighing, we stared into the eyes of Bellatrix, her lilac eyes glimmering with unspoken words of thanks. It had only been a day or two since we'd made her our marshal but she'd already helped us in securing our position with our friend group and ingratiating ourselves with them further. I had to agree with Lunaris, we had made a good choice in appointing her.
"Bellatrix, you've done a very good job in protecting them. Thank you." Her eyes were filling with tears as we spoke our thanks. We continued...
"If you could please contact Lord Malfoy and Lady Malfoy to arrange a meeting between our houses I would be most appreciative. Do not forget to also visit Lord Black and inform him of your circumstances, it wouldn't be good for him to be left in the dark to one of his own family member's positions."
Previously, if she was tearing up, now she was verging on outright breakdown as she was being given a chance to reconnect with her family members. In Azkaban she had known nothing but sadness and shame for being wound up inside the insidious marriage contract that had tainted her magic, mind and will. Now, we were trying to get her to open up and accept more light into her life... Speaking of...
'Lunaris, do you think I should message Lord Black so that he may reinstate the Tonks family?'
~Sis, this is your realm... Hand me a logic puzzle or a magical phenomena and I'm your man... Politics sucks, and you know that's my opinion~
'I know, I was just hoping to get some form of aid from little brother...'
~WE ARE THE SAME AGE!!!~
'I doubt it.'
"Thank you mistress... I'll be back in a few hours..." With a soft pop accenting the finishing of her sentence Bella apparated away, most likely going to accomplish her orders as soon as possible.
Now all that was left was to clear up the mess that our companions had gotten into and gain some clarity as to why Voldemort wanted to kill them.
"So, who wants to explain why you all were facing down a Dark Lord?" Lunaris and I looked between our trio of friends, the sarcastic lilt in our voice doing very little to hide the seriousness of the question.
"""Well...""" They all began...
'Oh dear mother magic, please send me strength for their Gryffindorness.'
~Not likely~
...
(Bellatrix Black's Perspective)
Her heart was beating rapidly inside her chest as she stood on the stoop of number 12 Grimmauld place. So much of her childhood had occurred here in this wretched house. Her father and mother screaming about purity inside their blood, decrying blood traitors and muggles alike. Memories flickered in her mind of hours upon hours of torture and ridicule.
Sirius had suffered the most as a child, being the heir and all. Their father, Orion Black, had always been a sanctimonious asshole that hungered for power and disliked any decision Arcturus Black had made. Lingering images of Sirius being punished via the torture curse flickered across her mind before the darkness of her thoughts receded and the magic of her mistress softly massaged her shoulders.
Bellatrix didn't fully understand what a marshal was or what her true role was at this stage but that mattered very little when she constantly received reassurance of her place in the world. Breathing in the comfort she finally gathered the courage to raise her right hand and delicately knock on the front door.
There was silence for a time, a long time. The street was eerily silent and devoid of all human presence. It had been an intentional choice by the ancestors of the Black family, to create a place devoid of muggles that also used them as a shield against rival families. The ICW never took too kindly to people breaking the statute of secrecy.
She gulped and went to knock on the door again until a slight creaking noise echoed in front of her. The blackthorn door pulled backwards inside her old family home, the dimmed light from inside pooling out into the night's black velvet embrace.
"M-Mistress Bellatrix...?" Looking down she saw the hunched, bedraggled, aged, form of the black family's head house elf. Kreature had changed a lot since she'd last seen him. When she was a girl he was attached to Regulus like a cancerous tumour. The elf was younger, cleaner, more sane back then. Now she could tell that he had fallen alongside the rest of her house as the years wore on.
"Yes, Kreature, I am here."
"But you were, in Azkaban..." The hissing stilt to his voice made her want to wince but she held back the instinctive response.
"Indeed. But due to our Mistress I was saved from the dark contract I was forced into and given a new chance at life as her marshal." Kreature's eyes widened in reverence at her explanation before he pulled the door open fully, his movement gaining a fervour that they lacked before.
"Mistress Bellatrix does house Black great honour by serving liege lord as official Marshal! I informs Master Arcturus and Traitor Master Sirius of your arrival!" His words were fervoured and excited, his words returning to the elf-way that he had used before her mother had gotten a hold of the poor elf.
She stepped inside the house and immediately felt the cold embrace of the family magics wash over her, approvingly. The house seemed to groan and stretch with her presence, as if the mere existence of two Black family members standing in the same house was awakening a dormant bear in the heart of winter. A smile graced her pale face as she watched some aspects of the house clean themselves. Toujours Pur was much more than a family motto, it was how the family magic expressed itself... Purity in heart, mind, magic and blood... The more family members around the greater the house would become.
When she was a child she remembered the house having hundreds of rooms alongside massive training chambers and transport rooms for apparating and flu travel. It was sad to see the house so truncated and claustrophobic, though it would improve with her mistress's intervention of course.
"WHAT!?" A loud booming voice yelled from somewhere in the floors above. No doubt Kreature had just informed Sirius about her. A small stab of pain filled her heart as she tried to shrug off the contempt that she had heard in her cousin's exclamation. She was ready for action though, her wand inside its holster on her right wrist.
"I'm down here Sirius, we need to talk!" She shouted aloud into the house before multiple thuds from upstairs followed the shout.
A minute passed in tense quiet, her lilac eyes stuck to the inner stairwell. Her heart was stuck somewhere between dread and happiness. Sirius used to be her favourite cousin when they were both younger. They liked the same things, did pranks on Regulus and Andromeda fairly often and simply enjoyed each other's company. Now she was painted with the same brush as Mouldy-shorts and the rest of his sycophants, all because her father wanted power and the 'Dark Lord' offered it.
She blinked back tears as the sound of feet pounding down the stairs reach her ears. Rubbing away the water track on her rosy cheeks she looked up and found Sirius staring at her in complete shock. His eyes, steel grey, were filled with a mixture of contempt, hatred and utter confusion. The darker emotions immediately made her want to crawl into a ball and simply hide in a corner.
"Bellatrix...?" Sirius questioned before straightening his posture and adding some strength behind his words. "Is this Bellatrix Black or Lestrange?" Tears slipped from her eyes freely now. She had expected shouting, hatred, vitriolic cursing towards her... Not questions that proved that there was a distinction between her two selves.
"H-hello cousin." She internally cursed herself for how weak she sounded but held back her depressed thoughts as she watched the man in front of her, her favourite cousin, comprehend her state of mind.
"Bella, it's you???" His words came out hopeful and slightly fearful, his volume soft and his tone hurting.
"Yeah Siri, it's me... Solaris helped me get out of the marriage contract that forced me to be a blood purist and maniac." Droplets softly fell from his eyes, making lines down his gaunt face, before he rushed forwards and enveloped her in a hug.
"Magic bless that sweet liege lord of ours!" Sirius cried out as he wept into her shoulder, Bellatrix following in the action as she too cried into his shoulder.
"I owe her everything..." He merely nodded as she spoke, his sobs calming down somewhat as emotions petered out.
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