all witches burn | Glowfic Constellation

The newspapers have been bestir - almost afire - with lurid tales of attacks on notable politicians the last few months. Some claim to have discovered a pattern of viciousness going back even further, cloaked until now. It sets an itch under Bellatrix's skin, a fascination curling through her mind.

Dark creatures, they're blaming. A sudden surge across multiple groups. Werewolves tore a Wizengamot member to bloody shreds, shown as a discrete shot of grainy grey splatters on a lighter grey floor in the newspaper. Something drowned and strangled a lobbyist who'd been pushing for more detailed, more stringently enforced registration of 'members of known criminal species;' the newspaper only showed the riverbank where she went in. A vampire supposedly left a paper pusher in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures as nothing more than an empty husk that crumbled into dust when touched. More, enough to whip the papers into a frenzy, new material every time the old worries grew stale. A symbol was left at every single crime - a snake curled around a sun, eating it.

And then a month ago -

A letter went out to every newspaper, every tabloid, every gossip rag. A voice took over every radio station, all at once. Smooth. Beautiful. Cultured.

The speaker claimed responsibility for the attacks, called herself the leader of the Final Dawn. A movement, she claimed, to tear out the rot that had seeped to the core of Wizarding society. To build it anew, and bring into the light all hidden things - all crimes, all peoples that the wizards would shove to the edges. She spoke briefly, wonderfully, of freedom, of renewal, of wrongs that must be righted - of justice which would burn its enemies and warm its allies.

Bellatrix's heart hasn't known how to settle since. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone wants to know what she thinks, it seems, the rebellious and disaffected daughter - eldest of her generation - of the Most Noble House of Black, the most respectable members of Wizarding society, the most ardent supporters of human safety, of restrictions on all things dangerous and uncouth.

She's taken to grinning at them and asking what they think will happen. Most of them falter, claim the terrorists will be caught, of course. Executed, them and everyone who supports them.

(Such boring classmates, she has.)

Fay - not Miss Reynolds, pretty Fay who smiles secretly at her, who promised to take Bellatrix on a date the day of her graduation, who said she has a small apartment of her own, and Bellatrix doesn't have to go back to her family's trap before getting her feet under her - she's the only one worth talking to at all, her clever eyes flicking over articles, drawing out patterns idly -

She doesn't find the same points fascinating as Bellatrix does, but, well. She mostly seems somewhat amused that Bellatrix wants to know exactly how each person died. So. Better than anyone else. (And she makes Bellatrix's heart flutter as much as each new report of an attack does, as much as rereading the announcement from the Final Dawn...)

Bellatrix graduates with the rest of her class - top of her class, she has every NEWT and a good number of extra OWLs and it's so hideously boring, magic's fun and delightful but Bellatrix hates being trapped in school for it. The ceremony is labeled as required. There's no punishment she could ever care about - they'll confer her degree anyways - so she skips, grabs Fay by the arm and drags her off with a laugh to some scandalously low brow muggle place, dark and smokey with amazing food, Fay laughing -

Bellatrix hasn't decided for sure to move in with Fay. It's - a big step, and she has enough money from her parents who still haven't disowned her for some reason to exchange it for muggle money and splurge on some ridiculously fancy place Fay recommends. There's three inns in the entirety of Wizarding Britain, all for people with too few connections to stay with a host, and none of them have room service, or glass elevators, or water fixtures, or - anything, Bellatrix is half tempted to empty as much of her family's vaults as she can get away with and run.

Maybe she can get Fay to run with her. The woman's been teacher's assistant for Defense for all of a single year. She can't be that attached.

She's lying in her wonderfully soft bed, figuring out how the television works, when there's a little tap-tap-tap on the glass door to the balcony. Bellatrix levers herself up, groaning, and looks over to see a raven - not a normal mail bird at all, the Ministry can never agree if they're Dark creatures or not -

It's got a letter clutched in its talons and looks kind of annoyed.

Bellatrix raises an eyebrow, sliding out of bed and walking over to open the door. "For me?" she asks, earning herself an unimpressed stink eye.

The raven flaps in, dropping the letter on her desk, and then caws at her. Bellatrix laughs, heading over to the small pile of interesting foods and snacks she got earlier, and says, "Help yourself." She picks up the letter, rubbing the thick parchment between her fingers as the raven helps itself of some snack or another. She opens the flap, pulls out a little card -

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seal-the-deal-with-a-kiss

Exceptionally so.

This war might get very challenging in four years.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

They will have to end it before then.

seal-the-deal-with-a-kiss

A good compromise.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

Quite.

out-of-bones

Fay's agenda steps up dramatically after that. The strikes against the Final Dawn grow more surgical, harder to track - Fay successfully subverts even harder targets than she'd been going after, society rapidly transforming - she only needs to grab a few key points, really, to get the wheels of change turning...

She steals a few of their less well secured funding streams. Successfully mind controls a few of the Dark Lady's agents - manages to get information or cause some chaos with most of those before they're caught.

Dumbledore's likely friends seem turned more and more to her cause, too, and - it's increasingly obvious that Dumbledore's become politically isolated. The tides have shifted not just in favor of a soft revolution, but specifically against him, no matter how he tries to throw in with the new order.

Bellatrix's second anniversary as the Dark Lady's loyal servant passes by.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

She starts guiding the Dawn through a soft transition, arranging for less murder and more mayhem in their activities. They keep the headlines too busy to really stop and question why all these politicians have started to suddenly change their minds, or provide excuses to grasp at. (If Fay really does want to change the world, she might as well help.) This is helped if her more violent recruits are disproportionately the ones controlled or captured.

She celebrates her Bella's anniversary by giving her a new tattoo on her inner thigh, a housecat sitting on a tiger's head, both circled by a snake.

seal-the-deal-with-a-kiss

She giggles about that - teases her Lady about Fay's response, next time Fay seems Bastet naked - and helps the transition to the best of her rather considerable abilities.

out-of-bones

Fay's always targeted the violent cells most stringently - has never actually murdered a single one of the Final Dawn's recruits who didn't have their own bloody history, has disproportionately gone after any who indulged in excess violence, who were sloppy or hateful, who killed bystanders, who hurt people outside of the Dark Lady's orders -

Those, Fay cleans up with a surgical precision.

Their efforts are actually slowly dovetailing rather nicely, and from the foreign news it sounds like Britain's sudden transformation is making waves - Fay probably isn't mind controlling any other governments, but they're inspiring. Other revolutionary movements, other political parties, other calls for reform... It generates more sympathy for the Final Dawn abroad, if nothing else. More places to tap for funding or support, though it's fairly obvious that Fay's tapping the same sources.

And then -

Early that summer, Percival Dumbledore dies of natural causes, his heart finally giving out after a long convalescence spent entirely in Hogwarts, away from the Ministry's occasional calls for his re-arrest. His son Albus is by his side the entire time he spends dying, reportedly, and a rather solemn funeral is held, though Percival's other son refuses to attend...

And then -

A week later, Albus Dumbledore is found dead in his office, apparently of suicide. He's arranged his affairs rather thoroughly. The majority of his estate to Hogwarts itself, to scholarships for students, to job training, to expanding the school into a higher education institute... A few slivers to this or that old friend. He bestows a very notable chunk on a new foundation in his sister's name, which aims to provide therapy and support to children with trauma, especially around magic use.

The magical world mourns, even those who had turned away from him, but -

Not very dramatically. Life's moving on after all, exceptionally quickly so.

The Dark Lady gets a letter. Unsigned. Plain paper. All it says -

I win.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

She laughs to herself for a little while.

So it would seem, says her return note. Won't you come celebrate with us?

out-of-bones

Fay's knocking on her door not much later.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

She opens it with a smile. "Good evening, Ms. Reynolds." The snake on her shoulders flicks its tongue curiously at Fay.

out-of-bones

"Good evening, Miss Dark Lady," she says with a cheeky grin. "I heard a celebration was in order?"

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

"For the death of a hated enemy, always." She steps to the side. "Do come in. Bellatrix awaits us in the sitting room. She was, hm, I believe the phrasing is 'a little too tied up'? to properly answer the door."

out-of-bones

"Aw, did you start without me?" she asks, smirking, and steps in.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

"Only the beginnings. You will find her quite fresh for you; I always reward those who serve me and my purposes well."

out-of-bones

She heads toward the sitting room, a little bounce in her step. "How far does my reward extend, then?"

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

"You can hurt her as much as you desire. But Bella prefers to have sex only with me... or others that I own."

out-of-bones

She hums, thoughtful, and heads into the sitting room, admiring the vista before her with interest. "A rather lovely reward..."

seal-the-deal-with-a-kiss

Bellatrix wiggles as much as she can - which isn't very much. She's been tied standing, limbs spread in an 'X', floating about a foot above the floor. Not many ropes around her body - nothing to detract from the size of the canvas available.

She's gagged, too, so her greeting - or perhaps plea - comes out as a wordless whine.

out-of-bones

She laughs and sets to work.

She uses her wand for anything requiring particularly fine control - especially cuts all along Bellatrix's body, focused on highlighting her curves - and reaches for other magics to mix in. Nudges to send Bella spinning this way or that, bursts of fire or simply uncomfortable heat, daggers of ice, little sparks of electricity running over Bella's oh so sensitive feet... A simple spell to steal her air, how much Bella's allowed to breathe fluttering unpredictably - sometimes mixing rather noxious irritants into the bubble around her head. Blows, squeezing bands - enough to snap bones -

Healing spells too, of course. The most painful or simply uncomfortable ones she knows.

She greatly enjoys burning or cutting or freezing patterns across Bella's skin, it seems, crafting some rather gorgeous artworks out of her canvas. Pays special attention with the fire to Bella's most sensitive spots. Carves bloody runes several times - one likely experimental set gives Bella a very nasty seizure, which Fay spends giggling - one set makes Bella's gaze go distant as every muscle in her body tightens at once, enough that several things in her body break or tear...The majority seem designed to simply provide ongoing flares of different types of pain, some timed to Fay's will, some simply random or on a timed pattern.

She doesn't touch Bella once.

(She glances very frequently at the Dark Lady, an amused curl to her lips, obviously gauging for her reaction.)

---

she-who-cannot-be-named

The Dark Lady has shrugged out of her robes and is clearly enjoying the spectacle from over on the couch, diving into Bella's mind every so often to keep her immersed.

out-of-bones

Wonderful.

Her own breath quickens, skin flushing and pupils dilating, as she keeps working Bella over, though she stays dressed and - other than the litany of painful curses pouring from her - quite proper. She makes sure the Dark Lady has an excellent angle, of course, and then gets to some rather creative uses of Transfiguration and healing magic - bones bending a certain way is really a suggestion when you have magic, after all, and with everything all going swimmingly outside, well, there's likely not much of a downside to outright stealing a bone here or there...

She gives Bella cat ears and a tail, near the end. Fully innervated by nerves, fully functional, quite painful as they rapidly grow (stealing material from the bones Fay removed earlier; for bizarre magical reasons, bone's harder to just grow than flesh and nerves). She lets Bella have some higher brain functions back long enough for them to properly settle into her brain's control - then runs through a series of different torture routines, testing how much she can make Bella's tail thrash or fluff up or stick straight out.

It takes her a very, very long time to run out of ideas. She gently floats Bella over to her Lady after, settling the dazed, weeping pet next to her owner with a soft smile.

---

she-who-cannot-be-named