Belladonna

Everyone saw her now. Belladonna glowed as she flied around making decisions and giving orders to the aurors like she wasn’t sixteen. Theseus Scamander trusted her with every detail and he made everyone consult with her before they presented him with a new plan. She was more than an assistant; she was his right-hand man. She was an apprentice. They had settled a new camp near Hogwarts hiding in the Scottish mountains. It was true what Aberforth had said: the Ministry had cut off their supplies. But Chuck was smart enough to take care of it and manage what they had left. It just needed someone to organize it properly and dispense them. Monty set a proper radio equipment to listen to the acolytes’ channel. Thank Merlin, they hadn’t figured out that that was how their plan was ruined in the first place. So, accompanied by Longbottom, Scamander managed to take down at least ten acolytes’ nests.

They were falling like flies and rumours started to run around about a young girl leading the resistance. A girl cleaning the way so that Dumbledore may finally confront his sworn enemy. However, Ofelia hated being on the bench while her friends were on the field. She wanted to fight and hunt rats too. She knew that eventually she would be face to face with Grindelwald and that was the only thing that helped her sleep at night.

“You don’t know the horror that we saw in that house” Monty explained to Ofelia while drinking a glass of Firewhiskey. “The blood was everywhere, the bodies were completely unrecognizable, the smell... Oh, the smell.”

He had witnessed a house where some acolytes had brutally murdered a muggle family. They were getting more violent, more desperate. But that was Ofelia’s plan: Grindelwald had tried to make her think that he was against the ropes, well, now he was. That was one of the reasons why her identity had remained a secret to the outside. A month on the job and he was already losing everything. Naturally, Grindelwald wanted to see her blood on the ground.

“They left the baby alive” Monty continued. “One may think that it was a way of showing benevolence. But I think it’s the contrary. They left him without a family, alone in the world. They have ruined his life. And they left a scar on his face for him to remember.”

“I saw the pictures” Ofelia swallowed. “It was a part of the report.”

They were sitting next to the fire outside of one of the tents. After the operative of that day, many were allowed to go home and visit their relatives for the weekend. For sure, nobody treated them like kids anymore.

“May I offer you some fuel?” Dorothy Palazzo, one of the aurors, appeared behind them.

She was young enough for Ofelia to remember her from her years at Hogwarts. She was a muggleborn and a former Ravenclaw. And she had a devilish mouth that Ofelia had enjoyed a couple of times when she was stressed by all the work she had piled up.

“Yes, please” Monty accepted the small bag of cocaine the lady had offered them.

Cocaine was the only thing that kept the soldiers going these days. It was a lot of work and –like Monty– most of them had seen terrible things in the past month. The drug helped them to ignore the war atrocities and keep on going. 

“Don’t you want some, Belladonna?” Dorothy asked her biting her lip.

“Not in the mood” she shook her head and drank from her cup.

“Maybe you’re in the mood for something else” she kept on insisting. “Do you want me to give you a back massage?”

“No, thank you, Dorothy” she responded cuttingly, so she just left without saying another word.

“Be nicer” Potter said once he had finished the first line. “She likes you for some reason.”

“You need to slow down with that” she pointed out when he started doing the second line.

But she didn’t insist because she saw the Dumbledore brothers coming out of Theseus’ tent, so she head there.

“Evening, gentlemen” she said as she crossed them.

“Evening” they returned.

“Bella” Theseus said when he saw her enter the tent.

“What did they tell you?”

“Grindelwald has publicly threatened our leader Vicenza Santos. She’ll be attending a dinner tomorrow in England, so we must make rounds and make sure everything is fine” he explained the situation. “I need you to divide the aurors that are at our disposition in three groups as fast as possible.”

“Yes, I’ll do it now.”

“No, do it tomorrow morning. You need to get some sleep.”

“I’ll sleep later” she assured him. “Three groups for what?”

He sighed and took a seat. “One for the inside, one for the outside and one to protect Santos and Jacob Kowalski.”

“Sir, is there a reason why the muggle is always invited to these places?”

Theseus stared at her for a couple of seconds and then nodded. “What I’m about to tell you you can’t repeat it outside this tent.” He waited for her to accept the condition. “The day that the Qillin chose our leader, it chose someone first. The press said it was Dumbledore because they believed that. As he is the counterpart to Grindelwald, he should be the one that the Qillin had chosen first.”

“But he wasn’t” Ofelia couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“No” he denied, “it chose Jacob.”

Oh, Salazar! She was amazed.

“I knew it...”

“What?”

“I knew that Dumbledore wasn’t pure of heart!” she exclaimed. “I need to brag about this to Potter and Longbottom-” but she shut up, when she remembered the condition. “I mean I’ll keep this to myself and myself only.”

“Jacob was discarded to be the leader because he is in fact a muggle, so Vicenza was chosen instead” Theseus continued. “But if your faith is with the Qillin, you’ll believe that he should be the leader of the International Confederation of Wizards.”

“That’s why he’s always invited.”

“Yes.”

“Anything else I should now?” Ofelia asked. “Maybe you can tell me why Dumbledore has a personal fixation with catching Grindelwald.”

“That isn’t my story to tell” he lamented. “Maybe one day you’ll find out.”

“So, there is a reason.”

“Go to sleep, Bella, please.”

“...Grindelwald might be present tonight!” Ofelia announced as she explained the plan to the three groups. “However, the job is to guard. Nobody will attack without Mr Scamander’s permission. Is that clear?”

“Yes!”

The troops prepared to leave. Her friends were leading each group. All of them were wearing the auror’s gala uniform, dressed for the occasion. Ofelia still had a spine pinching her toe because she couldn’t be a part of the action. But she tried to ignore it as she entered Theseus’ tent, where he was almost ready.

“He might appear tonight” he established.

“I know.”

“Last year, I lost my fiancé. He killed her” he confessed. “I know you feel the same way that I do, Bella. This is not about fulfilling a revenge and you have to understand that... for me to let you come tonight.”

“Are you letting me go?” she asked excitedly.

“If you promise to behave...”

“I will, I will, I will!” she jumped and then she stopped because she didn’t want to seem like a baby. “I will.”

“Perfect, then I hope I chose the right size.”

At first, she didn’t understand, but when Theseus showed her a stunning, champagne dress.

“You’ll escort me.”

All of a sudden, Ofelia didn’t care so much about whatever Grindelwald’s intentions were. She was living her dream as she arrived to the English headquarters of the International Confederation of Wizards in a limousine by the arm of Theseus Scamander. The meeting was to discuss who should be the new Minister of Magic, since after two months the Ministry had no leader yet. Well, they had put an improvised Minister to hold back the situation, but it wasn’t working as it should.

“Wow!”

She heard someone gasp behind her, so she turned around to see Aberforth staring at her with a big smile. He wore a black suit that made his strawberry blonde hair stand out.

“Hello, Aberforth.”

“You... You are...”

“You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Miss Rizzo, I take you will be joining our table” Dumbledore appeared to ruin the moment.

“Yes, professor” she rolled her eyes and let the brothers guide her to the table.

She must admit that the meeting was boring as hell. Although she wanted to be part of that world, soon she realized that the worse part of being a politician was the posh parties. They weren’t even discussing the important matter; they were just gossiping.

“If they keep on talking about whoever the hell Allison Chester is, I’ll fall asleep” Forth whispered into Bella’s ear.

“I share a room with two pureblood girls” Ofelia whispered back. “I can handle a little gossip.”

Suddenly, he stood up. “Do you want to dance?”

“What?”

But he didn’t repeat the question. He just took her hand and carry her to the dancefloor. Ofelia always appreciated a nice waltz, specially if she had a good dance partner.

“I must admit that I don’t really enjoy dancing” he confessed as they swung around the room.

“You don’t do it bad at all.”

“That’s an understatement” he brought her closer to him, which made her smile. “We can go somewhere else when all of this is finished. Maybe...”

She was nodding, pleased with his invitation, but she got distracted by some suspicious movement behind Aberforth. She stopped listening to his proposal because she was sure that the woman walking in the crowd was Vinda Rosier.

“Bella?” Aberforth called her, since she wasn’t even looking at him.

“Assassin!” she yelled the code word when she saw that Vinda had raised her wand against Vicenza Santos.

Immediately, all the undercover soldiers took out their wands and protected the Supreme Mugwump. They took her away by a backdoor, while more acolytes revealed themselves. Everyone was ready to fight, while one of the groups escorted the guests outside.

“Sorry we are late” a strong voice appeared through the main door. “But we didn’t receive a proper invitation.”

“Grindelwald...” Ofelia murmured and Forth tried to hide her behind him. “Step aside, grandpa! It’s revenge time!”

“Bella!” Theseus called her out. “What did I tell you?”

“No, vengeance” she mumbled.

“Gellert, I said we end this tonight” Dumbledore asked the man standing in the front door.

“Albus, you’ll have to catch me first.”

And just like that, Grindelwald tried to escape going for Vicenza Santos downstairs, while his followers began the attack. The aurors played offensive as always, while the main team tried to get to the dark wizard. Or more like making way for Dumbledore to go find him. Her friends joined her in the battlefield, and she felt a rush as she was finally fighting with them side by side. The acolytes surrounded them, but they were so surprised by the fact that they were only children.

“Look, Fay, this one can’t even grow a beard yet!”

“Yes” Potter smiled and with a flip of his wand he made a beard grow in the woman’s face. “Of course, you can.” And then he sent her far away.

Bella started to fight against one of the acolytes confunding them. All of them had the same fight style, so it was easy to predict their moves. She kept on fighting using all the charms and protective spells she had learnt. She wasn’t using her curse, she wanted to save her strength for the dark wizard.

“Chuck!” Ames yelled, making his friends turned their heads.

Ofelia saw the exact moment in which the inert body of her friend fell into the ground.

“Shit!”

She forced the acolyte in front of her to faint and ran to where the Hufflepuff was lying. Ames and Monty followed her, as she grabbed the body in her arms.

“No, no, no...” Longbottom denied. “He is not breathing.”

“He has a pulse” Potter told them. “It’s very weak.”

“Someone has to do the mouth-to-mouth thing, quick” she urged them.

“You do it!” Ames screamed.

“I can’t do it; Walburga will kill me.”

“Step aside” Potter pushed them and without a hesitation he started to reanimated him. “Come on, mate!” He gave him mouth-to-mouth breathing. “Come on...”

“Holy Christ!” Chuck breathed coming back and then he started coughing heavily.

“Son of a bitch, we thought you were dead!”

“Oi, don’t insult my mum, Longbottom” he said out of breath. “Bella...”

“Yes?”

“Go get him, tiger!”

She stood up. All the acolytes were gone now following their leader. And Grindelwald was downstairs running from Dumbledore. It was now or never.

“If you die, I swear I’ll kill you.”

“We love you too, Bella” Chuck smiled.