Belladonna

“Everyone back to the Ministry!” Scamander ordered while his men ran outside. “We have to hold the situation!”

“Not you” Dumbledore stopped his students when he noticed that they were about to follow the aurors. “You’ll go back to Hogwarts now. Use the Floo Network.”

“What? But-” Ames was incensed.

“Do not question me, Mr Longbottom, and do as you’re told.”

He turned around and headed outside without even looking back. Suddenly, they were left along in the Leaky Cauldron. Everyone had left them and they had no other option but leaving. The Floo Network took them to Dumbledore’s office at the Gryffindor Tower.

“We literally just saved their arses! How could they make us go home?!” Ames raged against one of the tables from their common room. “After all, they still don’t trust us.”

“Longbottom, pull yourself together. You’re going to wake up the whole tower” Chuck forced him to sit down next to the window so that the small breeze would hit his face.

“They thought this was some child’s play. That’s why they invited us” Potter realized sitting there as well.

“It was a trap” Bella sighed. “He distracted us with some stupid plan. He let us believe that he was desperate and there is where he strikes. I can't believe I fell for that...”

“Hey, don’t torture yourself. Everyone thought-” Potter tried to calm her down.

“I should have known he...”

She became silent when they heard people going down the stairs. It wasn’t 4 Am yet, so it was weird that someone was actually awake.

“Filipe?” Ofelia called him when she saw that the ones sneaking out in the middle of the night were her brother and his roommates.

“Bella?”

“Where are you going?”

The four boys didn’t answer, after all they were in presence of three prefects. But her brother with a frown in his face scanned her and spoke bravely.

“What are you doing here? It’s late... and you’re unsupervised.”

Ofelia had to admit that the situation didn’t look well. She was alone at night time with three boys. They looked like a tornado had passed through them. If her father had seen her, he might have had a stroke. Her brother had grown up all these years hearing her father’s speeches about decorum and status, naturally his first reaction was to assume... the worse.

“Kids, you better say where were you going” Potter stood up making use of his prefect cargo to divert their attention.

“To the kitchens” one of them admitted.

“That’s too far away.” Potter shook his head. “It isn’t safe to go around the castle.”

“I’m going to sleep” Chuck offered. “I can escort them there.”

After all, the kitchens were in front of the Hufflepuff Common Room.

“Very well then” Monty accepted. “Don’t lose my first years, please. I don’t want to have to explain it to Minerva in the morning.”

“Are you staying, Rizzo?” Ames asked her.

She took a glance at her brother. “No, I’m going too. The girls must be worried sick.”

Her assumption wasn’t wrong. When she arrived to her room, her friends were still awake waiting for her. They were playing magical chess to keep themselves busy, while they expected that their friends weren’t dead.

“Belle, are you Ok?” Walls ran up to her. “Is everyone Ok?”

“Yes, we are” she confirmed as she took off his coat. “The mission was a success.”

“Why do you have that frown then?”

“Because it was a trap” she explained. “While we were being entertained by the acolytes, Grindelwald was murdering the Minister.”

“What?”

She proceeded to explain detail by detail how the night went. The fire at the Hog’s Head, how she caught the time turner while flying and the Leaky Cauldron.

“Wow, slow down” Walburga stopped her. “Did you just say that you were flirting with Albus Dumbledore’s brother?”

“Really? That is the thing that stick out for you?” Ofelia rolled her eyes.

“Walls has a point” Druella marked. “Why were you flirting with him?”

“I don’t know. He started flirting, so I started flirting” she confessed. “He invited me to go outside, but that’s when the news came in so we had to leave.”

“Outside? Outside to do what?”

“I don’t know, Walls. He said smoke.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s thirty” she responded to Druella. “But he doesn’t look like it. I swear he could have studied with Alphard.”

“He’s still older than you by fourteen years” Druella pointed out.

“I know, I know.”

“Oh, somebody likes him” Walburga sang.

“Why, how could I not?” she argued. “He’s hot.”

“I’ll have to see him to confirm it” Black laughed.

“Don’t encourage her” Rosier hit her elbow. “She’s a minor. Who cares if he’s hot? He’s bad news. You understand it, right?”

Ofelia stared at her hands remembering the feeling of power she had when Forth gave her his attention. The feeling of an older man, a Dumbledore, drooling over her.

“Right?”

“Yes, yes...”

The next days, the news were around the castle. Classes were cancelled and there was a service on the afternoon. Dumbledore had to find a substitute for his classes, as he was absent for two weeks trying to hold the situation at the Ministry. And just like that, it was Halloween and they were never called again. They had to continue with their studies following Grindelwald’s movements by the newspaper or small pieces of information that they would pick up in the hallways. But their investigations were always stopped by their duties, like that Halloween where Ofelia had to babysit the third years at Hogsmeade, when she would have rather be at the library or at the magic radio they had set up at the lad’s quarters.

“Oi, kid!”

She heard that glorious voice that enchanted some butterflies to appear inside her stomach. She turned around to see Aberforth standing in the door of his house. He looked different, but it was probably because he had shaved that beard and he had cut his hair just a little bit. It had been a month after all since they had seen each other.

“Bella” she corrected him. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s been a while” he whispered when she came closer.

“It has been a month” she stated. “What happened? Did your brother got scared that we might take his thunder?”

“Yes, that’s probably what happened” he laughed softly. “My brother doesn’t like when someone threatens his popularity.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

“It’s better though. You shouldn’t be involved in this war” he assured her.

“Oh, yes, of course. And it’s clear since you’ve lost more than fifty aurors by now.” she raised her voice. “What exactly are you going to do when Grindelwald-?!”

He covered her mouth with his hand so that she wouldn't keep on talking anymore. “Shh! There are spies everywhere” he explained and pulled her inside the house to keep with the chat.

“What is Theseus Scamander planning on doing when the offensive doesn’t work anymore? You’ll have to attack sometime.”

“It isn’t as easy as you make it sound” he expressed. “The Ministry doesn’t help. They have cut all the supplies. Theseus is doing everything he can with the little he has.”

They didn’t know that. Of course, that didn’t appear in The Daily Prophet. They were losing the war and Ofelia couldn’t allow it. She might as well kill herself if Grindelwald win the war, and that wasn’t an exaggeration of her thoughts.

Suddenly, a cough came from the upper part of the house. Ofelia knew who was the one coughing, but she didn’t say nothing. She had already been disrespectful enough about his son and if he was still coughing, it meant that he was still sick.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” he said and she nodded allowing him to go upstairs.

Found alone, she started to observe the room. She walked around the ground floor finding a small kitchen with unclean dishes and the Daily Prophet of that day. Next to the newspaper, there was an ashtray with at least eight smoked cigarettes. She stepped out of the kitchen and went back to the living room. In the coffee table, there was a book. Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease. She knew that it was a muggle book because the pictures didn’t move.

“It’s a great book” he said standing behind her.

“Oh!” she dropped it accidently. “Sorry.”

He leaned to grab it, but she did as well, so they found each other on the ground.

“Is your son doing Ok?”

“No, he is not” he whispered staring right into his eyes. “He is dying.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be” he insisted standing up. “I’m happy I got to spend this time with him, even if it is in his deathbed.” She didn’t understand, so he felt like he should explain his situation. He wasn’t so sure why. “I didn’t know he existed until like a year ago. His mother and I, we were together in the summer of my fourth year. We were just kids, but when her family found out, they took her away. There were rumours about a baby, but I never found her and I just assumed that she got rid of him. It turned out that she died giving birth to him. It’s a shame, really. But I’m happy his home now.”

“What is wrong with him?” she asked without actually thinking. “If you want to tell me. I mean, it’s personal, so you don’t have to...”

“He is an obscurial” he explained. “He was raised by very religious muggles in the U.S. and he developed a parasite called obscurus that sometimes appears when you restrain your magic. The parasite is slowly killing him, even if he has embraced the magic within him.”

“That’s terrible” she wasn’t sure what to say. Bella was used to being the one with a tragic past, she had never met someone that had a sadder story than her's. “Is there a cure?”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Then, I’m glad you find each other. He’s very lucky.”

“I’m the one who is lucky.”

“That’s so sad” Chuck wiped when he heard what Aberforth had told her. “He’s our age too, right? Maybe we should invite him to one of our parties. Y’know, to give the kid some fun before he passes out.”

“Yes, Nale, let’s go now” Ames ironized. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade and ask Aberforth if he would let his kid go out and play, though he can keep himself up. I bet he will accept.”

“Why do you always have to be so rude? I have feelings.”

“Do you want to know how much I care about your bloody feelings? I...”

They were in the Gryffindor Tower listening to the radio they had intervened, trying to catch the channel that the acolytes used. They had been doing that for at least ten days, but they kept on catching the signal of Slughorn's radio instead.

“This is useless” Potter snapped. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

He stood up, but before getting away he hit the damn thing out of anger.

“We’ll attack Dartmouth. It is where Scamander has been hiding. They won’t know what hit them. Tonight. Half hour.”

The transmission died and they remained silent for a couple of seconds, until they started running around the place. Everyone grabbed their wands and Potter took the Invisibility Cloak before they head out. They didn’t actually have a plan, but they knew that the only one nearby that had a connection with them was living at Hogsmeade.

“Yes?” Aberforth opened the door. “What the f-?

“We need to use your chimney” Ofelia entered the house making him aside.

Credence was sitting on the table. Apparently, they were having dinner.

“Wow!” Forth placed himself in front of the chimney so that they couldn’t use it. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the quarters in Dartmouth. We need to speak to Scamander.”

“How do you know that they are in Dartmouth?”

“We don’t have time for this. Step aside or-”

“We intervened the acolytes' radio” Potter interrupted her, knowing that it would be easier that way. “They are attacking them in less than ten minutes. We have to be quick.”

Forth took a deep breath and stared at them with a queer eye.

“Fine, I’ll go. You stay here.”

“What? No!”

“I said I’ll go!” he yelled and then disappeared.

“Is he always like this?” Chuck asked to the silent corpse sitting next to them.

The boy gave them a weak smile. “Only when he likes the people he’s with.”

A couple of minutes later, fifty aurors appeared outside the Hog’s Head. They had managed to escape the acolytes before they attacked. The team they had worked with entered the house, while the others stayed outside. Their professor searched for them and when he found them, he walked right up to them glaring at them.

“You disobeyed! I told you explicitly to stay out of this and you’ve kept on working behind our backs!”

“What were we supposed to do?” Ofelia wasn’t going to remain silent anymore. “In ten days, we managed to do way more than your whole team in a month.”

“You can consider yourself fired. You aren’t working with us anymore.”

“We weren’t working with you anyways.”

“Miss Rizzo, may I speak with you?” Theseus Scamander took a step between the two of them.

“Yes, sir.”

Aberforth let them go into the kitchen, so Theseus led her into the small room. However, Dumbledore tried to follow them inside.

“In private” Theseus clarified and then closed the door in his face.

He sat down on the kitchen table and without looking at her, he invited her to sit as well. The place looked exactly the same as in the morning, except that the ashtray had more fags now.

“I’m sorry, Mr Scamander. I didn’t mean to step on your-”

He raised his hand asking her to stop talking. “From the moment I met you last year, I knew you were special. Not because of your performance, but because of the twitch in your eyes. What you did today was dangerous and I understand why Dumbledore is mad. But... your bravery and your hard work needs to be taken into consideration. You want to contribute and that can’t be ignored anymore.”

“Are you going to let us fight then?”

“I’m asking you to help me win this war, Miss Rizzo” he corrected her. “I need someone to help me form strategies and deal with the Ministry.”

“I’m sorry, Mr Scamander. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but if I’m not on the battlefield with my mates, then I can’t accept.”

He nodded cautiously.

“It’s easier to be on the battlefield following orders than to lead” he confessed. “I've been carrying all my soldiers into an imminent death, into a massacre... I can’t do that anymore. I need your help to defeat him.”

She knew what he meant. It would not be a battlefield if the acolytes defeated them long before they could even try. Scamander needed someone to help him lead and she had multiple plans that might be the key to win. With his men and his armour and with her ideas and strength, they might have a chance left of saving the Wizarding World.

“I am giving you the chance to be my right-hand man.”

“I take it.”