And soon they're gonna be married on a beach in France. (Ellie maaaay have gotten them matching bikinis in secret. She's planning to surprise Anathema with them when they start the just-them bit of the honeymoon.)

Best summer so far. 

The beach is so beautiful, in the moments Anathema can tear her eyes from her wife. All of her preparations pay off and more. Her dress takes her own breath away - it isn't a muggle-style wedding dress, so they'll be able to use it on other dates, too, but it's gorgeous and flattering and custom tailored, a soft inner silky layer surrounded by increasingly sheer layers in a dark bloody red with little flecks of black gems. She gets Elodie to help with her hair again in a rush of jitters, lets her mom help select and prepare a flower crown for her, blossoms woven into her braids. Jewelry, too - all of it newly brought by her mom. (It's good luck to have new jewelry for a new household, even if they're not actually moving out.)

Anathema feels - light. Pretty. Like everything's gone right, and she has her wife's eyes on her, and nothing could ever top this -

She keeps Ellie's ring in her pocket all through the festivities, heart in her throat. 

Ellie is in dusky green, a full-length skirt and a suit jacket that hugs her curves. She has her hair pulled back with an emerald hairband and a ring carved from ruby in her pocket.

This is the best party.

All of Anathema's plans about dancing and dinner and music and all feel so, so much now, she wants to rush off with her wife, but -

This is special. She'd regret it later, she thinks, if she skipped out too early.

Still... She's very happy when night falls, and the party winds down, and she can pull Ellie aside and thank her for being her wife -

"I had this made for you," she whispers, heart in her throat, pulling the ring from her pocket. Its woven silver band is nearly entirely subsumed by dark runes, and each of the small green gems sparkles.

"Oh," she says, taking it. "It's beautiful."

She takes the ruby ring out from her pocket and holds it out. "This is for you." The light dances like flame in the depths of its facets.

"Gosh," she says, taking it as well and sliding it on. "I love it."

"I love you." Be-ringed kiss!

Kiss!!! "Love you too."

"I'm so glad I married you."

"Marrying you was the best decision I've ever made," she says, kissing her wife again.

"I think we've put in enough of an appearance at this party..."

She giggles. "Plenty."

"Let's head back to the room where it's nice and quiet."

She takes her wife's hand. "Lead the way, darling."

Off they go.

Anathema splurged on an exceptionally nice blue cottage overlooking the ocean - and French wizards don't seem nearly as trapped in the Middle Ages as British wizards. They've got the best room, with a lovely bay window and a massive comfortable bed and most importantly privacy.

The room is significantly improved, though, once it contains Anathema's wife.

Perhaps it could be further improved if they... maybe... take off their clothes?

Very carefully. This dress is nice and Anathema's probably even mostly done getting taller, and she wants to save it. 

(She'll show the same care with Ellie's clothes, of course.)

Quiet bounces.

Slow, gentle care... Can't have them wrinkling, too, so she'll want to hang them up...

The very instant the hangers leave her hands, Ellie tackles her onto the bed.

She laughs, tumbling, and kisses her wife. 

Kisses! And pets, and maybe a little more?

More and more and more. As much more as Ellie wants. 

She wants all of her wife.

Good.

Anathema is very, very tired and very, very cozy as of the next morning. 

Mmmm they should just stay in bed forever.

It's their honeymoon. That sounds like the whole point, really.

Maybe they can send a Patronus to ask for breakfast in bed if they get desperate, but... She has a wife to snuggle.

That sounds like a most excellent plan.

Wiggle kiss.

Oh, distracting wiggles. Breakfast is going to have to wait.

Possibly quite a while.

Maybe they can make it for lunch. If they hurry.

Mmm, Anathema might be even more tired and languid then... 

Though also increasingly starving.

They can have something brought to their room. Ellie will even send the message and answer the door, since she's such a kind and generous wife.

As long as she puts something on first. She's Anathema's right now. 

She'll make a toga out of a towel. It's a bit short, but all the critical bits are covered.

Hm... Sufficient.

She does a showy little twirl before going to answer the door.

Anathema giggles (and makes sure her sheets are covering her sufficiently).

Fay's brought over a quite nice spread, sufficient for a filling brunch and a few leftover snacks over the day. 

(She does look slightly poleaxed when Ellie opens the door in nothing but a short towel, but quickly recovers.)

"Want me to put this anywhere particular?"

"On the table just here is fine," she says, giggling a bit. "We'll take it from there."

She laughs a little. "Alright."

"We'll be out at the beach most of the day," she says, "If you two feel like mingling a bit. If not, I can come check on you around dinner?"

"Yeah. We may be out, but maybe not."

She smiles as she sets the tray down. "Take as much time as you like."

"Thanks. See you later, then."

"See you."

And she's off, leaving them alone.

Ellie drops her towel and crawls back into bed next to Anathema, floating the first tray over.

She laughs, kissing Ellie, and settles in for brunch. 

Later in the afternoon, Ellie stretches and declares that she would like a shower.

Probably sensible at this point. 

Anathema should have a shower too.

Together? 

There's enough room for them both, so...

Perfect, then. (Kiss.) Cleanliness is very important, after all. 

It's next to godliness and all that. But Ellie'd rather be next to a pretty girl.

"Not up for worshipping me?"

"Only for you as you."

Kiss. "You'd be a better goddess anyways."

"The almighty dragon goddess."

"Everyone will fall to their knees before you."

"And I'll eat up young maidens as a sacrifice," she says, playfully snapping at Anathema. "Rawr."

She wiggles and laughs. "They'll be lining up eagerly."

"Come now, I must drag you to my den of watery doom!"

Heeee.

She wraps her arms around her most fearsome wife, swooning. "I'm all yours."

"Yes you are." Off to the shower.

Best wife. 

This honeymoon thing is pretty great.

Absolutely amazing.

Shall they poke their heads out of the room today, before everyone leaves?

"Yeah. I'd like to get a chance to say bye and thanks for coming, at least, before people scatter on their own vacations..."

Playful push. "Gotta get dressed, then."

She laughs. "Okay." Kiss.

She dresses casually, of course, just a tank top and shorts. Then off to the beach?

After Ellie also throws on a shirt and some shorts, yep.

Of course.

She holds Ellie's hand as they head over to their group, waving when they get close.

Her mom laughs and waves from where she's leaning against Elodie, apparently reading.

"Finally decided to face the day?"

"We were just waiting for it to tire itself out before swooping in for the kill."

She laughs. "Learning proper hunting techniques, I see."

"Mama Horntail would be proud."

She laughs. "You're becoming a proper young dragon at last."

"'Mama Horntail'? Is that what you and that dragon were talking about during the task?"

"She thought I was a weird stunted baby who wouldn't be able to fly away from danger."

Anathema giggles. "She was a very protective mama." And kisses Ellie's cheeks. "Ellie's now the danger, though."

"Grrr."

She giggles.

"Only to your enemies, I'd hope."

"Anathema's sacrifice protects the rest of you."

She laughs. "We'll remember her fondly."

"For now... I'm not a jealous sacrifice."

"Ominous."

"Terrifying," she agrees.

"I'm shaking in my boots."

"You're not wearing boots."

"Hm... True."

"So you're not really shaking at all."

"I could be on the inside. You never know."

"Yes, I expect you've got little booties fitted out for your kidneys and such."

She laughs and steps up to ruffle Ellie's hair. "That'd be a bit excessive... Especially since I'm not sure I ever could be scared of you."

"I promise not to eat you."

Smile. "I trust you."

"Well. Good."

Her expression goes very soft, and she brushes some hair behind Ellie's ear.

"I'm proud of who you're growing up to be."

She ducks her head and blushes.

And to Anathema: "Both of you."

Anathema laughs a little, squeezing Ellie's hand. "I like who we are, too." She kisses Ellie's cheek.

"Yeah. We're good."

Giggle.

Then, to her mom and Elodie, since she has been kind of focusing on Fay: "So are you guys still thinking about heading off tomorrow?"

"The train leaves just after nine. The museums of Paris await." They'll be taking muggle transport to avoid scrutiny of Bellatrix.

She laughs. "Elodie's going to have to show me every single type. I still haven't made up my mind what I'm most excited about... Though space museums might be pulling ahead right now - seeing what happens if you brew a potion sensitive to moon phases while on the moon sounds hilarious."

"They don't actually offer day trips, sweetheart."

She snickers and kisses Elodie. "I know. Still, I need some grounding in rocket science before inventing my own - spaceship, was it?"

"That's the one."

"Go where no mage has gone before."

"Don't forget to take pictures."

"I'll need to buy a nice camera first."

"Don't forget to do that too, then."

"I'll be sure to remember."

"Great."

She smiles and turns back to Elodie mostly.

The rest of the evening goes really well. Anathema spends a lot of it talking to the other three - she'll have Ellie to herself for the whole honeymoon after all - and then the next morning they have a companionable breakfast all together that Anathema insists on getting up in time for. Fay leaves a few hours after Elodie and Bellatrix, but, soon enough, they've got the cottage to themselves.

Ellie pulls out a pair of relatively small packages from the bottom of her luggage.

"Now that we're alone..."

"Oh?"

She thrusts one of the packages at Anathema, blushing a bit. "Open it."

She raises an eyebrow and does so.

It's a rather skimpy swimsuit, in red. Ellie has its black twin.

She giggles and kisses her wife. "I see why you waited."

"Wanted to keep this for us."

"Yeah." Nuzzle.

"We should wear them today."

She giggles. "Yeah. We should. The weather's great for it." Kiss!

Kiss!

And change?

Change and kiss!

Eeee she looks even better than Ellie was imagining!

Anathema is a bit stunned at how beautiful Ellie is.

They're such a good pair.

They really are.

Beach?

Beach!

The best looking couple out today by far.

Without a doubt.

She kisses her wife.

Best girl.

Wiggle!

Vacation is a lovely time.

It very much is.

They have over a month to spend on their vacation, meeting up again with Fay and Bellatrix and Elodie for each of their birthdays, but otherwise wandering the coast of France alone. Anathema figures out public transportation fairly easily, expanding the range they can roam in. She has the time of her life.

Sadly, sixth year approaches as time rolls on, and Ellie's birthday meetup marks their return to the Isles so they'll have about a month to focus on getting ready for school.

Anathema's about ready to go home, though. The vacation's been amazing, but...

It'll be nice to sleep in their own bed for a bit before returning to Hogwarts.

And it's nice to see everyone again, too. Anathema is great, really great, but Ellie's missed Fay a bit.

Fay's missed her too. The house has felt empty without them. 

Now they're back, so.

Fortunately.

Though once the girls get settled in - she and Bellatrix do have something to talk to them about. 

All right.

What is it?

She gets them all sat around the table, and: "Shortly after Bellatrix came home, she told me about an artifact Voldemort had tasked her with securing. We went to retrieve it, and managed to get it fully under our control before Voldemort could take it from her. It was a golden cup, we believe to be Helga Hufflepuff's."

"I've been talking to some experts in the Dark Arts abroad over the last year, primarily about the Diary from your second year and Ravenclaw's Diadem. This summer, we took the cup to one of those experts, and confirmed that it at least is a Dark artifact called a horcrux - and given how lightly Voldemort secured the cup, and given the displayed properties of the Diadem and Diary, we suspect those are horcruxes as well, and that Voldemort might have created several more."

"Horcruxes are a method of obtaining immortality by anchoring your soul into objects through a human sacrifice. Usually, the soul pieces are small, only ensuring that their creator will stay tied to the mortal plane after death and have a chance to recreate their body. Voldemort seems to have figured out how to not only split his soul, but also grow the resulting pieces until they can act as forks, possessing people - though they seem to have different amounts of trouble with that."

"We spent some of this summer investigating the cup. We think we know how to identify other objects like it, now, and - we didn't feel comfortable leaving it active too long, even monitoring each other, so we destroyed it."

"Good that you destroyed it. Not great news otherwise."

Anathema nods.

"Do we know how many more?"

Bellatrix shakes her head. "No, not for sure. There's some magically significant numbers he might've been going for - either for number of Horcruxes or for number of soul pieces - but no one's ever made more than one Horcrux and written down what happened. We don't know what the upper limit is, if any, or if there's anything stopping him from creating new Horcruxes to replace destroyed ones, or if there's a rate limit on Horcrux creation."

"We can guess some items he might have targeted as Horcruxes - he seems to be using significant items, which might help the magic hold. Artifacts of the Founders seem likely, especially since he's already used two, and both Slytherin's locket and Gryffindor's sword are unaccounted for. Past that... Culturally, magically, or personally significant items. We need to know more."

"Do we have a plan?"

"Some of one, though we're still gathering information. We need to focus on finding out how many he has and where he's hidden them, mostly, but the Diadem is the only other one we know exists for sure."

Nod.

"I wanted to ask... Do you know what he was planning, that night in the graveyard?"

"I wasn't very aware then, but... I know he was planning to sacrifice you in some ritual he thought would add another layer of immortality to him. He was convinced he had somehow found one of the Deathly Hallows, the Resurrection Stone. I don't know the details of what he thought he was doing with it - the ritual was related to an old one for transferring magical debts though."

"...He did have a stone. I grabbed it before I left."

"...Huh."

"I remember him being angry after, but - not much more specific."

"It's up in our room, I can go get it."

She nods. "They're basically legends, but - I might be able to figure out some clue at least if it actually is one."

She darts upstairs and retrieves the stone from her trunk, then returns. "Here it is."

She takes it, examining it. "...See, here, etched into it," she says, indicating a small carving - a triangle containing a line and circle. "This is the symbol of the Deathly Hallows." She traces the triangle, "Death's Cloak," the line, "Death's Wand," and the circle, "Death's Stone."

She turns it over in her hands three times. It glints. Bellatrix stares at it with a raised eyebrow, then laughs a little and hands it over to Fay. "I think you'll have to do the proper test. There's no shades waiting for me."

Fay smiles a little, taking the stone, and flips it over three times.

And - 

Ghosts, but not quite, manifest around her. They look real, almost, still in the colors of life, just... Faded. Washed out. Translucent.

One of them - the most substantial - an old man in a trim suit, blinks around, then focuses on Fay, a wide smile spreading across his face. "Can it be?" he asks. "Little Fay. You've grown."

Fay smiles more broadly, something soft in her eyes. "Hello, grandpa," she says. "I'm not sure 'grown' is the right word. I was as tall as I'll ever be last I saw you."

He chuckles, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "There's other ways to grow, little sprite."

She nods. "I suppose there are." And, looking at the others - a handful only, not everyone she's lost, but... The most impactful. The ones she missed. And - one she's never even met, a young man in a soldier's uniform, who she blinks at, then - "Grandfather? - Lawrence Reynolds?"

The man stares around, clearly disoriented. "I. Yes. How?" To the shade Fay was talking to - "Father? Where..."

Fay leans forward. "You're dead. You have been for - a long time." She swallows. "I'm your granddaughter. Your son - he grew up to be a great man."

The shade blinks, nodding, and takes a shaky breath.

Fay looks around - and, softly, "I miss you all." One shade, a woman probably in her early twenties, walks over to squeeze Fay's shoulder and smile at her. "But..." Fay smiles a little. "This was - a bit of a test - "

Her great-grandfather chuckles. "Say no more, little sprite. Go about your business. Us dead can rest a bit longer, and if your strange magic's at all repeatable - well, I do say I'd like to catch up sometime."

Fay nods, tears in her eyes despite her smile - and flips the stone the other way. Her shades dissipate, softly, and she takes a deep breath.

"...Well. It certainly works like the Resurrection Stone should."

"Wow."

"There's supposedly a risk of getting obsessed with it, or suicidally depressed from using it too much, but... The stories mostly sound like 'person obsessed with dead person uses the stone to try to talk to their dead and freaks out when this does not solve their actual problem.'"

"I can be cautious."

"Can I try?"

She nods, handing it over. "Keep your Occlumentic shields up," she says, "In case the obsession is both magical in origin and accurately reported."

"Right." She takes a moment to focus, then turns the stone over three times.

And - 

There's only two shades. One of them is faded, barely visible - male, looks a lot like Ellie, not much older than her, early twenties - 

And a woman, indistinguishable from someone alive except for the golden light softly outlining her, shining from her skin. She looks somewhat like Petunia, minus years of bitterness and rage. Tremendously like Ellie. She beams at her daughter, then grins over to Anathema, to Fay - 

"I'm happy for you," she says, laughing, tears in her eyes. "That stone can't keep me here long, but - "

"I'm so happy for you. Proud of you. Love is a wonderful thing."

Her form's wavering already.

"...Mum? Dad?"

"Yes," she says, "My wonderful girl."

The man turns to her, his form fading into reality more, and he grins - his face is a bit more discernible than the rest of him, and his lips move, but he seems far away - then a sudden waver, and, "You've grown. You survived - " 

And he wavers out.

Lily laughs. "Tell Sirius we don't blame him, we still love him," she says, speaking quickly now. "The Hallows are real. They can - "

She almost flickers out, then reforms with an annoyed expression. "You need to - "

Fade.

"You have - "

Flicker.

"...I love you. Please avoid ever permanently dying," she says, glowering at a point none of the girls are in. 

Her form's very faint, now. James is still there, still a shade - still not entirely solid.

"I'll try."

"Goodbye."

Softly: "I'm always with you, Ellie. And we'll meet again, someday. Just - briefly."

And she and James fade out.

"Well."

Hug?

That'd be good, yeah.

"People said I looked like them but-"

"Guess I really do, huh."

She moves around the table to hug Ellie from the other side.

"Genetics are funny like that," she says, softly.

"Yeah."

"What she said- We should write it down. Try to figure it out."

"Ahead of you. I started a transcription spell when it seemed she was actually aware of everything that's happened in the living world. None of the other spirits - including your father - seemed to be."

"Still, there's some things before that I didn't get. We should hopefully be able to review it all in a Pensieve, though... Some of her body language was also - telling, maybe."

"Seemed like something was stopping her from talking."

She puts the stone back onto the table.

Snuggle. "It seemed that way to me, too. And - she seemed aware of it enough that she might've been trying to work around it, with her last words."

"Yeah. Implying that I might- temporarily die."

"...It didn't sound like a metaphor for something."

"No. But these," she taps the table next to the stone. "have something to do with it. So it'll be horcruxes and Hallows we have to find."

Bellatrix nods. "Grindelwald was the last person rumored to have the Elder Wand, though he's in a European prison with no visitors."

"The cloak... That's less sure. It was supposedly an invisibility cloak, remarkably fine, that could hide you from even Death."

"...I have an invisibility cloak. It was my dad's. Still works."

"...And it's made of thestral hair, a creature associated with Death..."

"The Elder Wand's core is supposedly thestral hair."

"Well, marrying into a family with a Hallow would be one way to find out about them."

"Guess so."

"There's no obvious mythical way to identify the cloak, though. It was supposed to be the most subtle of the three."

Nod. "There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, though."

She nods. "There is."

"Which likely just leaves the Elder Wand."

"Which we have no leads on."

"It might be the easiest one to find cold, actually - you could say it's the only Hallow actually confirmed to exist. To the point some people think the Hallows legend was created as an origin story for it, actually, though not everyone believes it's - effectively supernatural."

"The Elder Wand supposedly jumps between bearers. It's the only wand known to shift its loyalty. It jumps when its previous wielder is murdered - which seems to pretty much happen inevitably - and it always switches loyalty to whoever caused that death, either directly or indirectly."

"Grindelwald isn't dead, but... He doesn't still have a wand, or at least he shouldn't. And some of the myths around the wand are... Very non-specific. It's possible that utter defeat, possibly including destroying everything someone stands for, counts - a more metaphorical death."

"So who defeated Grindelwald?"

"...Dumbledore's credited with it."

"...Oh."

"...Voldemort's certainly noticed that, too. But at least Dumbledore's hard for him to take down..."

"That might be why Voldemort's so obsessed with tearing apart Hogwarts."

"Of course, at that point, knowing who likely has the wand doesn't help us get it..."

"Not really, no."

"Pointing out that I don't like Dumbledore and don't see a problem with assassination doesn't really help, does it."

"Not super, no. I don't think we want to jump straight to that without a lot more certainty than we have right now."

"Fair. No one's actually sure what having all three Hallows does, anyways..."

"There's not a whole lot of overlap or really obvious synergies."

"There's some guesses, but... It's worse than myth, since supposedly no one has ever even held, let alone mastered, all of them at once."

"Bet people just made up whatever crazy thing they wanted."

"Pretty much. Usually whatever suited their political agenda - I think Grindelwald's claim was that he'd become the 'Master of Death.'"

"Yeah, like that. What would that even mean?"

"I think at that point whatever fits the propaganda best. He might've been going for 'gets to decide who dies.' I know Voldemort was going for immortality."

She shakes her head. "Terrible."

"Absolutely no creativity whatsoever."

Sadly, they're unable to get much of anything else out of analyzing Lily's words, at least for now. It leaves them with more than they started with, of course, but... There's still a lot of questions.

One thing Fay turns the conversation to near the end is the upcoming school year. 

Defeating Voldemort is more important than their education, but... Anathema's unsure what she and Ellie can necessarily do to help that they can't from Hogwarts.

And the problem might very well come to Hogwarts again.

They have a couple NEWTs left to do.

Yeah. Honestly they probably could've taken the Defense NEWT along with Transfiguration, but Anathema had wanted to spend an extra year in Fay's class and hadn't had a ton else to put in that slot. Still, they have Charms, and the OWLs for their electives, and Anathema decided to start her Potions NEWT in the slot left open by Transfiguration.

Ellie will swap for Herbology, then. See if it gets trickier at the NEWT level.

If they get bored maybe they can study for the History NEWT on their own. 

Wonder who the teacher'll be this year...

Dumbledore's issues finding a replacement professor continued, sadly... His current plan is to take the professor position and teach the upper years himself, with more TAs to handle the out of lecture bits, and their previous TA teaching the lower years as a sort of on the job training. 

He really is desperate.

True.

Sadly, even with a fairly broad net - there's only so many people even vaguely qualified to teach the position, and no one's been willing to try doing two nonconsecutive years for a while. 

Maybe he'll be able to break the curse while he has the position.

That'd be very nice.

Dumbledore should be able to do it, if anyone can.

It'd be nice for future students to have a steadier idea of who their teacher will be... And then Dumbledore could actually hire someone competent.

Yeah...

The two of them did pretty well, but... Yeah. It wasn't ideal. 

Maybe if things work out they can do a History NEWT next year and have a good teacher for it.

Yeah! They'll have a lot of free time after all, what with finishing a lot of their other courses - probably they can't get away with three years of Defense, and Anathema's finishing at least Charms and Music this year, hoping to get caught up enough in Astronomy to take that one too... She probably won't manage to finish Ancient Greek, though, but she'll keep up with it anyways. 

Maybe they can be student TAs for Defense.

Fay can probably arrange that.

Bet she could, yeah.

Sounds fun.

It'll be great practice.

Give them a wider variety of opponents to spar against, if nothing else.

Plus more time with Fay.

There's certainly that.

Yep.

They do still need to get ready for sixth year, though. Clothes - Ellie and Anathema both had pretty notable growth spurts near the end of fifth year, though hopefully that's the last of them. Books, too, especially for their new NEWT classes. Miscellaneous school supplies...

(There's an aura of tension in Diagon Alley. It's not as bad as the height of the Death Eater war last time, but there have already been attacks, and people are worried.)

Hopefully nothing interesting happens while they're there.

Fay's alert, at least, though not blatantly so.

Still, the shopping trip's peaceful - though not too long after they get back, Fay approaches the Potter-Cantas with: "There's an opportunity for you two to get more involved in the indirect parts of the fight, if you want."

"How so?"

"Dumbledore's got a group of his old allies - larger than ours, and he's willing to include the both of you in at least some of the meetings. It'll be a chance for information, if nothing else, but since I'm already in those meetings it's I think more important to get a chance for - networking, essentially. Get people to start taking you seriously, see if you can't get anyone to tell you things they wouldn't otherwise."

"Okay. That sounds good."

Anathema nods. "...The one Sirius lent Dumbledore his old house for?"

Fay nods. "It's under the Fidelius now, like ours."

"One advantage to these meetings is having to hide less around the people at them - though we're still compartmentalizing a lot, in every direction."

"Makes sense. Are we talking about the Hallows?"

She shakes her head. "There's no need. Anyone you'll meet there will know about Sirius, at least - and Bellatrix and I talked it over, and we're going to reveal she's on our side and alive when we bring the Horcrux issue to them."

Nod.

"When are the meetings?"

"They vary, but they're mostly late in the evening or at night. The next one is one I requested, meeting this Saturday. It includes all the people Bellatrix and I feel should and can learn directly from us about the Horcruxes, and the meeting will be focused on those."

"So we'll go together?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Great."

"...How much are we telling them about - why we trust mom and all?"

"Talking about your relationship is up to you, but - we're focusing mostly on her desire to defect to our side."

"Which was because of me."

She nods a little. "Yes, but we don't have to present it that way, and we're hoping to keep the meeting focused on the results she's brought."

She bites her lip, nodding a little.

"So what story should we tell?"

"It depends on how much Anathema wants to share. I'm fully comfortable presenting Bellatrix's defection as due to her relationship with me, though."

"We're planning on hiding the way that Voldemort captured her from anyone who can't reasonably find that out themselves. It'd raise unnecessary questions, and presents a more complicated narrative."

"It would, but- people should know to be careful."

She nods a little. "That's true."

"So maybe we can find another way to bring that up? With the horcruxes and how he's using them to possess people but might not need a horcrux to subvert someone..."

She nods. "That's worth reminding people of at multiple meetings."

"That Voldemort can subvert people without possession is known, though, since he frequently did that in the last war - and Bellatrix will be speaking about her full experience to Dumbledore, Minister Bones, and Aurors Shacklebolt and Moody, in case there's any new information for them."

Nod nod.

" - Is telling the Ministry anything safe?"

"Amelia Bones isn't the entirety of the Ministry, and prior to her election she was peripheral to, though not part of, Dumbledore's group. She's about as trustworthy here as any politician could be - she won't necessarily like giving Bellatrix a full pardon, but she's acknowledged the value of doing so before, and she's receptive to restorative justice arguments."

"If you think it's a good idea, I trust you."

Anathema nods, slowly. "I do too. And I trust mom to handle herself..."

"Thank you."

"And we'll be cautious, at least as much as is practical."

"Good."

Nod.

"The headquarters is under a Fidelius, so we'll need to arrange for you two and Bellatrix to meet with the Secret Keeper - Dumbledore - ahead of the meeting itself."

"When will he be available?"

"Saturday morning works best for him, it seems, with the meeting happening Saturday evening."

"That's convenient, I guess."

She nods. "Do you two want to go over anything else with me and Bellatrix before then?"

"It's gonna be stuff we know already, right? No surprises?"

"No surprises from us, at least."

Nod. "Don't think so, then."

Anathema nods too. "I can let you know if I think of anything, but - yeah, I don't think so."

"Alright."

"Thanks for agreeing to come."

"Thanks for inviting us."

"Yeah. We want to be there."

She nods. "You two need as much information as possible, and... This affects you. You should be able to affect it."

She hugs Fay.

Hug!

Hee.

So when Saturday comes around, the household will be taking a day out.

Minus Sirius; he's foresworn ever stepping foot in his childhood home again. (Bellatrix completely understands the sentiment.)

They meet Dumbledore - only briefly - in a muggle establishment in a small city well away from anywhere they usually frequent. He tells them, "The Order of the Phoenix Headquarters is in Twelve Grimmauld Place in London," and wishes them well and expresses that the meeting is still on.

And then - time to get ready for the meeting itself. They'll be taking the floo. Bellatrix is apparently going through as a cat, so no one gets jumpy and attacks her.

She's not exactly thrilled about that.

She is a cute cat, though. Perfectly sized for shoulder-sitting.

...Well when you put it like that...

(Best Elodie.)

Headscritches.

Purr!

(Okay, she's ready.)

Into the fire, then.

Sirius's home is a narrow, dim townhouse in London. The floo lets out into a formal living room - overstuffed, faded, the portraits all covered. It looks like someone tried to clean, but the dust and grime were ingrained, and there's a foul feel to the air. There's a lanky red headed man waiting in the living room, who smiles at them and says, "Fay! You're a bit early again."

She smiles back. "Good evening, Arthur."

He runs through some identity verification with her, checks her for influence, then: "Everyone's still gathering. We're meeting in the dining room today."

"Alright," she says. "We'll go get set up." She turns to check over her companions, then leads them through the hallway - cramped, incredibly depressing - and to a large dining room in the back of the house.

You can really tell this place was abandoned for a decade.

Anathema doesn't like it at all.

The dining room's no better. There's some people already there - an Auror with an artificial eye and extensive scarring stands out the most, and he looks directly at Bellatrix before meeting Fay's gaze (and running through identity checks again). Professor Lupin is also in one chair, looking somewhat wan, and sitting next to Professors McGonagall and Cleary, who give the girls a firm nod and a warm smile respectively. The seats set aside for Fay and her group seem to be at one end of the table.

Good that they're all sticking together.

Anathema ends up sitting next to Elodie, on the same side as Bellatrix the secret shoulder cat - and then if Ellie's on her other side, that probably leaves Fay next to Ellie...

(She feels a bit awkward.)

They can hold hands under the table.

Squeeze.

(Good Ellie.)

That's what she's here for.

The last members file in over the next fifteen minutes - Minister Bones, Aurors Tonks and Shacklebolt, Headmaster Dumbledore, Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy in last (cat Bellatrix is trying very hard not to look uncomfortable when they enter), Arthur Weasley following them in. Fifteen human-shaped people and one cat-shaped person makes for a crowded room.

Dumbledore introduces everyone to each other, pleasantly, then says he called this meeting at the request of Fay Reynolds, who had information he agreed was vital to share promptly and in full (with those present, at least; he implies others might get a filtered account).

Fay thanks him, then: "I believe I have discovered one of Voldemort's means of immortality," she says, simply. "If not his main one."

There's murmurs about that, and she goes on with, "He has made at least one Horcrux. A Horcrux is an object that securely houses a piece of someone's soul outside of their body. Usually, it houses just enough to tether the primary soul to the mortal realm in the event of that soul's main tether, the body, being destroyed, which creates a window of opportunity for someone to bind that soul to a new body. They're incredibly rare, so we don't know a lot about them, but they are known to be difficult to destroy, generally requiring Dark magic. Most Horcruxes can reportedly influence the minds and emotions of anyone near them, though I have reason to believe Voldemort's can exert a stronger influence."

"I discovered one of his Horcruxes in April this year. I secured it and took it to an international expert who was able to identify it, and who helped me develop a spell that might reveal Horcruxes made by the same person. We then destroyed that Horcrux through Fiendfyre, as it was dangerous to keep around."

"I believe he has made at least two others. One of them was a diary he created during his Hogwarts years, which was capable of possessing anyone who wrote in it and then slowly draining their life in an effort to fully manifest. The soul fragment within used this to open the Chamber of Secrets in the Hogwarts school year from 1992 to 1993, possessing and nearly killing Serpens Malfoy." She nods at Narcissa. "The diary was reported as destroyed by a severing charm, but that wasn't actually the case. It required the Killing Curse to destroy it."

Narcissa scowls. "So he left at least one with an Inner Circle follower, then."

She nods. "Two, actually, but - we'll get to that."

"The third I believe to be Ravenclaw's Diadem. He used this in the spring of 1991 to try and possess a student, but the attempt was repelled by protective wards placed on her specifically against Voldemort. It was then able to possess a house elf who tried to remove it to safety, and we believe it's what he used to possess Madame Maxime in 1994. It has not been destroyed."

"The first one I mentioned was made out of Hufflepuff's Cup - I therefore believe it's likely he's at least sought to make two others out of relics of the other Founders. I don't know how many he's made past that, except for speculation that he might've been going for a specific number of active Horcruxes for magical reasons. There's been no documented case of anyone else making multiple Horcruxes, so we don't know what the limit is, if any."

The other members examine her. No one looks very happy, but it's Minister Bones who speaks up next: "How did you locate the Cup, and which other was left with an Inner Circle member?" she asks, brusquely.

Bellatrix shifts, a bit uncertainly, on Elodie's shoulder.

"One of his lieutenants defected, and has shared this information as a surety of good faith."

She hums. "Directly to Miss Reynolds, then?"

"That is correct."

"Is the source available for confirmation?"

She pokes Bellatrix on the head.

Mrrr.

She jumps off Elodie's shoulder, swirling into her human form, her hand very definitely nowhere near her wand.

(Still, a lot of people react with open shock. Bellatrix isn't meeting anyone's gazes.)

"Bellatrix Black," she says, "if introductions are necessary."

"They're not," Narcissa says. "Hello, Bella."

"Hey Cissy," Bellatrix says.

Arthur Weasley is frowning at her. "Uh - excuse me - why did you defect?"

"...I've never liked Voldemort much, and then he ditched me in Azkaban. Fay gave me a better option," she says, curtly.

"That's all?" Narcissa asks, tilting her head.

"It's enough. You defected because you couldn't get a divorce."

Minister Bones frowns at her. "I'm not questioning your defection. But - your escape from Azkaban was a few weeks before the deaths of your sister-in-law and daughter. Did those not - ?"

Bellatrix tenses.

Anathema glances at her mom - nudges her under the table, then nods a bit.

"...Mintaka's death was faked."

"I don't want it - known she's alive. She'd be in danger. But - the better option Fay gave me involved protecting her."

Minister Bones nods, settling back.

"Voldemort left the Cup with me," Bellatrix continues. "Which makes two Horcruxes with Inner Circle members, and at least two others."

Dumbledore hums. "The most well known Founders artifacts that can't currently be located are Slytherin's Locket and Gryffindor's Sword - and I believe it likely that Voldemort's birth family had hold of Slytherin's Locket for a time... I suspect he would've protected that one more thoroughly, out of sentiment if nothing else, and that it will be somewhere personally significant."

"Who was his birth family?"

"His mother's family was the Gaunts," Dumbledore says, "A pureblood family that died out in the forties, and that was the last to claim provable descent from Slytherin. His father was a muggle."

"I'm guessing that's not, uh, common knowledge among his supporters."

He smiles a little. "That doesn't seem to be the case."

"I hadn't known."

"...I knew but I also never actually cared. He told me lots of weird minor things like that."

" - Oh speaking of him being weird, he can body hop if his current body's destroyed. That might require active Horcruxes, but I don't think it depletes his Horcruxes, or if it does he has a completely ridiculous number, because he acted like being hit with the Killing Curse was something to playfully pout over and not actually avoid. Either whatever Lily Potter did to him went much farther than destroying his body, or he was just laying low for ten years after his supposed death, since his previous turn around had been measured in days."

There's further murmurs.

Minister Bones nods and turns to Ellie, asking questions about her encounters with the Diadem and Diary.

The diadem was like they said, the bit of him in it tried to possess her. Sort of migrating into her head? But he was blocked out.

The diary was a bit different, actually. It was more- sucking Serpens into it and building a new construct for him. He was kind of like a ghost that was turning solid, before the diary was destroyed.

The diary spoke, yes? Did it say anything in particular?

Gloating. Showed how he came up with his name based on a dumb anagram. Boasting about how Serpens was easy to trick, compared her to her grandfather.

Seemed more like a teenager than the current Voldemort.

Did he seem to have any new information since the forties that he didn't get from Serpens Malfoy?

She's fairly sure he didn't.

Interesting...

The conversation then turns to focus on Fay and Bellatrix, mostly about the qualities of the Cup, how to identify Horcruxes... They seem set to go late into the night, and there's a break midway through.

Ellie's having a bit of a headache. But this is important, so she'll stick it out.

Does she want to stretch her legs during the break? Though there's not much interesting in the house, and they've already gotten warnings about the Order still not having cleared out every cursed object the Blacks thought was appropriate to keep in their house...

Maybe just to get a drink. Wandering a minefield is not her idea of a good time.

Fair.

Maybe if they get the library cleared enough to wander in, though...

You know it.

Giggle.

(Bellatrix should be able to navigate it all, actually, but right now she seems kind of busy answering questions...)

They are technically here on business.

Lean.

Fair, yeah.

Lean.

Kiss.

Back to the meeting, then?

Back to the meeting.

They don't learn much else before it's over, though the members of the Order seem to be adjusting to Bellatrix - and to the girls being worth listening to.

Andromeda Tonks and Narcissa Malfoy approach them at the end - they're Bellatrix's sisters, and Andromeda's daughter Auror Tonks is trailing behind them curiously.

(Bellatrix is... Not comfortable with this.)

"Hello." Elodie gets to her sisters before they can get to her.

"Hello," Narcissa says.

Andromeda smiles. "Good evening - Elodie, right? Are you Bella's friend?"

"Yes, that's right. And very pleased to meet the both of you, of course."

"It's our pleasure," Narcissa says.

"It's good Bella has friends," Andromeda says, smiling more gently and glancing over to her older sister.

"One finds they can be helpful for dealing with stress, and she has been under a great deal lately, as I'm sure you can imagine."

Narcissa nods. "Still, surely she'd be willing to see us."

Andromeda takes her younger sister's arm. "Another day." Smile. "When we're not all sighing longingly for our beds."

Narcissa glances over at Andromeda, then sighs. "Another day."

"Perhaps you can arrange a meeting by post?"

"I'd be alright with that," Bellatrix says, softly.

"Alright," Narcissa says, and lets her sister lead her away.

Bellatrix relaxes a bit, sighing.

"All right?"

"Yeah."

"Let's get home."

Excellent idea. Off to the floo.

She relaxes fully once they're home, leaning into her girlfriend.

Hug.

Snuggle.

"Do you want to meet with your sisters?"

"Eventually?"

"Just... Not now."