Bellatrix is the happiest pet.

And the best.

She wiggles smugly. 

The best pet for the best Lady.

Good girl.

They'll want to monitor the news for reactions to the killing, and she taps Taylor to get any response the Ministry is trying to keep from the public.

The news is very freaked out, moreso than they have been at any murder before. The Final Dawn seems to have risen in their eyes from a lurid tale of serial killers and 'random' attacks to a threat, to extremists, to a dark and shadowy movement bent on destroying all they hold dear. 

They seem, finally, to be taking the group seriously.

(There's even a small paper, floundering like many of the Isles' minor papers are, that takes the bold stance of publishing a letter to the editor in support of elven abolition. They sell out for the first time in decades, despite general outrage and calls for a boycott from people who never read the paper anyways.)

The Ministry makes official statements about addressing this threat, about setting their best Aurors to bringing the perpetrator to justice. 

In private -

The Wizengamot is bothered. Violetta Black hadn't directly held a single seat, but she exerted significant influence over all four seats controlled by her family. One of their members has already been killed. Another of their members, William Avery, has already been demanding Auror resources to find his missing granddaughter.

They're moving to keep votes secret from the public, first, a motion that passes quickly but without much secrecy itself - Sidney Taylor himself is in the room, despite being a mere lobbyist, and all the muggleborn secretaries and aides he's been slowly courting are there as well. 

Not all of his forming cell are aware of what he's doing, of course - as far as they're concerned, it's just gossip, maybe gossip aimed slightly at helping him lean on the sitting members for this or that bit of legislation. A few are aware he might use this information for blackmail. Only one other has been entirely recruited into the Final Dawn so far, but she's helping him work on reeling the others in more firmly - and on expanding out his efforts. 

And this network, frustrated and bothered and tired, innocent or vaguely suspicious or uncaring, feeds them quite a lot of information. 

Several prominent Wizengamot members - the Blacks, yes, but also many others, many of those traditionally considered 'Light' families (such hypocrites, Taylor says, when gossiping with their aides) - are pushing for a national house elf registry, and, more importantly, a way to track elves. They have the Trace, after all, and they've known for a while the Trace could very easily be modified, made more sensitive, less easy to fool. There's push back, mostly in the form of people objecting if this would invade the privacy of prominent families. 

The only member apparently at all concerned with house elf rights is Charles Potter, and he only speaks up after Rosemary Brown proposes what are essentially kill switches. Barbaric, he calls her and all those who agree with her, and several less polite things couched only lightly in the language of politics. 

(No one seems to agree on that objection. Still, the measure gets shot down mostly over concerns about it being used against house elves about their legitimate duties, or to deny children their inheritance.)

The measures still need to be drafted, debated, quarreled over. While Charles Potter is the only one willing to take the floor and rail against his fellow members, the whisper net reveals that there are several members working against the measures indirectly or behind closed doors, ranging from quiet meetings to planning to get ridiculous, contentious things tacked onto any bill. They're a minority, though. Not enough right now. 

Taylor's direct network is concentrated among the aides to members a bit more sympathetic to sapient rights arguments. Still, aides gossip with one another, and news filters over from the purebloods and halfbloods in service to the more traditional, more hardline families. Who's pushing hardest for what. Who's hesitating. Who sincerely believes. Who's an opportunist. Who's scared. Who's reconsidering. 

It's a wealth of information already, even with the Wizengamot cell in its infancy. 

She is well pleased with Mr. Taylor's work here. He should be sure to let her know if he requires any resources or aid, monetary or otherwise.

The day after Rosemary Brown proposes her kill switches, she receives a cursed necklace in her morning post. Leaping out of its packaging, the plain steel band attaches itself forcibly around her throat. Inscribed on the front are the words 'Lessons for the Unenlightened'. If she attempts to remove it or further advocates for the punishment of house elves, sharp teeth grow on the inside, pushing further into her flesh the more she does it.

She's not, unfortunately, enough of an idiot to try to yank it off.

She does, however, go to St. Mungo's and begin seeking out curse breakers, and once she figures out the other clause for it punishing her, starts pushing the edges of those bounds, too, as well as harassing the already dramatically overworked Department of Law Enforcement to help her track the package.

(Taylor isn't exactly at openly, blatantly bribing people yet - he's moving with more subtlety - but he could certainly use a stipend for wining and dining people, as well as for minor gifts. His existing salary makes it a bit hard, right now.)

The curse is exceptionally resilient and has several nasty failure conditions built in if someone who is not extremely experienced in such things attempts to undo it.

A stipend can certainly be arranged. Perhaps to double his current salary? The money will be deposited directly and silently to his vault from her accounts in Europe.

At least one - entirely possibly multiple - of those failure conditions get tripped within the week.

Sidney Taylor finds that an entirely reasonable amount - one he's sure he can go rather far with.

May the Wizengamot carefully consider that lesson.

They're certainly shaken.

(The push for a house elf registry continues along - but it's going more slowly than bills normally do, the necessary marginal, quiet supporters suddenly developing cold feet, its advocates pushing a bit less hard. The absolute hardest and most stubborn advocates for restricting house elf rights further are the four Black seats - held by Pollux Black, Bellatrix's paternal grandfather; by Phineas Black, Violetta's eldest brother-in-law and one of the oldest Wizengamot members at ninety-nine, with no living children; Arcturus Black III, Orion Black's father; and Arcturus Black II, Phineas's youngest brother who's held onto his seat despite wavering health due to all his daughters having married out. The succession of Arcturus II and Phineas's seats is currently unclear, since the family traditionally hasn't wanted them to pass to other families - Phineas's will likely flow to one of his nieces or nephews, but if Arcturus II dies unexpectedly there'll be a bit of an uproar.)

(Of course, Bellatrix had already had two of Pollux's children and one of Arcturus III's - Walpurga, Cygnus III, and Orion - on her list for two of her next three killings.)

She doesn't want to distract from her dear Bella's little drama production by killing any other Wizengamot members while it is ongoing, so that works out conveniently.

Quite perfectly.

She's been debating with herself about what order to do her next few kills in, and how to space them out... Her cousins' parents, her own parents, and perhaps Arcturus II just for the drama... 

(Her birthday's coming up soon, too, on June thirteenth, though she hasn't mentioned it yet. They've got a busy few weeks ahead.)

Alternate the younger generation with the older, perhaps, and do two a week or so. And she could pencil her parents in for the thirteenth as a special treat.

...Oh that sounds fun.

She'll need to make arrangements to get her cousins and then her sisters definitely out of the house while she's going after each family - without implicating herself... Still, Sirius has been an unruly child, and his parents are tolerating him visiting the Potters a lot at least as a 'decent' pureblood family, and it shouldn't be too hard to convince her parents to send Regulus with him, especially in her position as the two's tutor... 

Her sisters can also be fairly easily led astray. Andromeda's been spending a lot of time out of the house anyways, and all Narcissa needs is a library waved in front of her face. Maybe Bellatrix can tease Narcissa about if muggle science libraries could be used in magic development...

Bellatrix sets to planning the next set of deaths - Walpurga and Orion Black - with gusto.

If Bella finds herself needing any extra skills or outside assistance in her plots, she is happy to oblige her.

She's planning on making extended use of those books on muggle torture methods for her aunt and uncle, right now. Perhaps her Lady can demonstrate a few specific ones of these for her ahead of the main act, though...

Just the ones that look like the most fun.

Naturally.

(Bellatrix feels quite ready, after - she does ask her Lady for help keeping an eye on her cousins and locking 12 Grimmauld Place's floo, though, and for arranging for someone other than her cousins finding the actual bodies once she's done and clear. She might have to move a bit faster than she did for her great-grandmother, even with her cousins at a sleepover...)

Both easily done. She orders a parcel of potion ingredients in Orion's name to be hand-delivered late in the morning after.

Brilliant.

And so, after confirming her cousins are off at the Potters - and any back and forth over left behind toys has been settled - 

She goes to pay her aunt and uncle a little dinner visit.

Their house is in London proper, so she needs to be more cautious about getting caught here... It has portraits everywhere, unlike Violetta who loathed the things, and several of them have other frames they can move to - a major risk for exposure, but not one easily handled... 

But most of the portraits are a bit lazy, and Bellatrix has been cramming in studies of ways to freeze them at least briefly. And if she's invited in the front door as a niece looking for a bit of advice - quickly, in a spot of the house with no portraits, petrify both wizards, then immediately snap to get their single house elf, Kreacher, when he pops in - 

(She'll need a different approach with him. He's actually loyal to his family.)

She holds her breath for a few moments after. Lets it out slowly. No alarm seems to have been raised.

She works room by room, quickly, checking frequently to make sure her victims are still out. Freezes all the portraits at once, then hits them with the Killing Curse, works through the entire house that way. And back to her family - stun Kreacher again, he'll be harder to work with if he sees his owners' deaths, so she breaks his bonds and sends him off to her Lady to be converted or killed.

Then to her aunt and uncle.

She studied the muggle devices in enough detail to Transfigure them, now - a scold's bridle for her aunt's the most important in her opinion, the rest is simply pain after humiliation after pain, all layered together. Beatings, burnings, torn limbs, broken bones. She lets Orion die first, relatively simply. He's less horrid. Walburga she stretches out, taking a vicious delight in beating the woman to death. She leaves both bodies spread over the living room floor, severs and hangs their heads - removes the house elf heads as she did Violetta's - and then leaves her Lady's mark across from them.

She's out before dawn, with time to spare before the bodies will be found.

And she is waiting to review Bella's memories.

This was mostly satisfying in a job well done sort of way - Bellatrix loathes her aunt especially, but didn't have the same concentrated energy directed at her. No sense of an overarching theme, just... Rage. Vengeance.

Still fun, though. Still promises to be a nice splash in the papers.

Her Bella is learning fast. Soon her reputation will eclipse her Lady's.

Depends on if her style's unique enough for them to pick up that all these murders have been by a single agent, really, especially interspersed with continuing creature attacks...