Chapter Text
Bellatrix’s head snapped up. “What was that?”
The lights flickered. Glass rattled. Lucius turned sharply toward the sound, then glanced back at his wife, who was smiling now. “It seems the house has been compromised,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” said Bella, glaring at her sister. “I suspect we all know why, too.” She reached out and yanked at Narcissa’s sleeve, pressing the tip of her wand under her chin. “Lucius, I’ll take Cissy – draw him to her. You will alert everyone. Make sure the room is well guarded before you begin the ritual.”
“Surely it would be more prudent to wait until the threat is dealt with?” Lucius asked, but she rounded upon him with a grin that was cruel and hungry.
“We have one chance at this, Lucius. One. Do not be the reason we fail, or I will make sure that you spend the rest of your life repenting it.”
He nodded weakly, and left the room with his wand in hand. Bellatrix tightened her grip on her sister, and yanked her from the room and into the belly of the house beyond.
***
Remus stood in the abandoned kitchen, leaning heavily against the counter as Sirius watched him carefully. Two men in dark cloaks lay between their feet, lifeless eyes staring up at them.
“It’s so dirty in here, Moons,” said Sirius, unable to hide the grin on his face. “I bet Lucius has been driven mad by the filth.”
“They’re not together,” said Remus suddenly, lifting his head and his eyes gleaming strangely. Somewhere beneath that calm exterior, his wolf was howling. “Bellatrix has Narcissa somewhere upstairs – but we know the ritual is taking place down here. Severus told us.”
Sirius gripped his wand a little more tightly. “Then I think,” he said carefully, “that we might need to split up, Moons.”
“But Pads…”
His friend shushed him. “No time for that. You go get Draco, I’ll sort Bella.”
“No, I can’t let you –”
“Oh come on, it’s the easy option – you get Voldemort and a hundred Death Eaters to deal with, I get to pay my cousin back for the things she screamed at me in Azkaban,” replied Sirius, his eyes shining. “It’ll be great. A little Black family reunion.”
The pair of them held one another’s shoulders for a moment, before Remus finally relented. “No dying, alright? I mean it, Pads.”
Sirius chuckled. “I solemnly swear that I’ll do my utmost best not to die,” he said, planting a smacking kiss on his friend’s forehead. “Love you, Moons.”
“Love you, too.”
Together, they slipped out of the kitchen door and peeled off in separate directions once they were on the other side.
***
The smell of incense and iron hit Draco even before he could see beyond the great double doors. He hadn’t been in the ballroom for years, and only faintly remembered its polished floors and ceiling-high windows. Now, it seemed alive, thrumming with expectation. Shadows danced across the walls from the flickering torches, but they were not ordinary shadows – they bent toward the centre, as if pulled by some invisible gravity.
Dolohov shoved him forwards roughly. “Move, boy,” he snapped, and Draco walked stiffly, wrists bound tightly in front of him, hoping no one would notice the faint tremor in his hands.
The room was a whirl of green light and murmured incantations. Death Eaters lined the walls, wands raised, eyes fixed on the ceremonial circle at the centre. Lucius was already there, stood to the left of the cauldron and the – Draco’s heart stuttered at the sight of it – stone altar. His father did not look at him; instead, he kept his gaze studiously fixed on the ground.
Draco’s own eyes swept the room, searching desperately for his mother. He could not find her. Your aunt has her, a familiar voice announced inside his head, and he did his best not to jump. She is alive.
Finally, he spotted him: lined with the other Death Eaters was Severus. Not an accomplice, not an observer, but poised, calculating, and ready. Draco’s breath caught. Help was here, he realised. Somehow, improbably… help was here.
As if on cue, there was a harsh scream from the corridor outside. Red and green spellfire could be seen flickering violently through the gap in the door.
“We must begin now,” ordered Voldemort, his voice sounding thin and weak – so much so that there was a ripple of murmured voices.
“Of course, my lord,” said Dolohov, flicking his wand at Draco and sending him rocketing towards the altar. The stone rushed to meet his face, and the boy slipped gratefully into the oblivion of unconsciousness.
***
“What do you think Draco will look like when it’s done, sister?” Bellatrix asked cruelly, slashing her wand at Narcissa again. Still, her sister refused to utter a single sound, even as the purple fire flickered across her chest. “And what shall we do with your precious wolf after we put him down? Would you like to keep his head as a memento, maybe? You could kiss it before you go to bed each night.”
Narcissa said nothing, knowing all too well how much silence infuriated her sister.
“You think you’ll goad me into killing you,” snarled Bella, “but I’m not going to do that. I want you to suffer for your sins, sister. For a very, very long time.”
There was a crash behind her, and she turned to follow the sound. “Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?” asked Sirius, shaking glass from his hair and shoulders as he fired a hex at her.
“No, no, not at all,” said Bellatrix. She looked transported, alive with excitement as she deflected the spell with ease. “I’d love nothing more than a little time with you, my silly little cousin.”
Still held tight by magical bonds, Narcissa watched as the two began raining insults and spellfire upon one another, her eyes fixed on the wand sticking out of Bellatrix’s pocket. She tried to feel it: the want, the direction. It twitched, ever so slightly.
Sirius ducked a jet of red light laughing, boots skidding on the polished floor. “Come on,” he called, voice ringing. “You used to be quicker than that.”
Bellatrix froze, and became utterly, unnervingly still. The smile slid from her face as though it had never belonged there at all. “Oh, Sirius,” she said softly. “You haven’t changed at all.”
She flicked her wand in a tight, economical motion, and the air itself seemed to fold. The curse that followed was colourless – wrong somehow – and Sirius felt it catch him low in the chest like a fist.
He staggered. The laugh died in his throat. Bellatrix tilted her head, watching him with open curiosity now. “Do you remember the tapestry?” she asked lightly. “There are burn marks where your name used to be.”
Sirius swallowed, forcing himself upright. “I bet you cried when I left.”
“I cried when I learned what you really are,” she replied viciously.
The corridor seemed to narrow. The walls pressed in. Narcissa strained uselessly against her bonds, a sound tearing loose in her chest that never made it to her throat, as Bellatrix raised her wand again.
This time there was no hesitation. No warning.
Green light tore through the air. Sirius stepped back – misjudged the space – and felt the drop yawning behind him as his heel hit nothing at all, the edge of the upper gallery vanishing beneath his foot.
For a single, crystalline instant, he thought: Sorry Moony. I tried.
Then, silver light burst into existence.
***
The shield slammed down between Sirius and the curse with a sound like breaking glass, sending the spell screaming into the ceiling where it detonated in a shower of stone. Sirius gasped, lungs burning, as a steady hand closed around his forearm and yanked him back onto solid ground.
“Honestly, Bella,” said the cool, familiar voice. “Still preying on the youngest Blacks, I see?”
Bellatrix spun, fury blazing, and for the first time, uncertainty flickered across her face. “Andromeda.”
“Sirius,” said Andromeda, her wand raised and eyes fixed on Bella. “Perhaps you’d best leave us –” and here she looked at Narcissa, who was staggering to her feet with her own wand in hand, “– to deal with our sister. You’re needed downstairs.”
Sirius nodded, transforming into a great black dog and pounding from the room as Bellatrix screamed curse after curse after curse.
***
If you’d asked them, every single one of Remus Lupin’s students would have said he was a brilliant teacher. Hardly any, though, could imagine their gentle professor – always in cardigans, always handing out chocolates, always speaking with such warmth and care – would ever be any good on a battleground. Shields and defensive spells, surely, could only get a person so far; true bloodthirstiness was needed to excel in a fight to the death.
If only they could have seen him tonight.
Bodies littered the ground, and spellfire scorched the air, as he advanced towards the double doors at the end of the cavernous corridor. The full moon had been and gone this month, yet his wolf prowled just beneath his skin; claws itching, breath ragged. A shadow lunged from the left and he swept his wand in a smooth, vicious arc.
“Oppugno.”
The curtains tore themselves from the windows and wrapped tight around the man’s throat, smothering him where he stood.
Remus hit the doors with his shoulder. Locked. Of course they were locked. Somewhere above him, Bellatrix laughed, and the light at his wrists flared, answering the sound, just as a curse screamed past his head and blasted stone from the frame.
He turned.
Two figures emerged from the smoke, broad and unhurried, wands already raised. They moved with the confidence of men who had never once imagined losing.
“Trix said you’d come running,” Rodolphus drawled, his smile all teeth. “Couldn’t help yourself.”
Rabastan laughed softly beside him. “Always the hero.”
Remus didn’t reply. He lifted his wand, shoulders settling, eyes burning bright and gold-flecked in the firelight.
Rodolphus’s grin widened. “You’re too late.”
The wolf snarled.