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The Blackest Potter


A/N: I don't have too much to say going into this chapter. It contains what I consider to be my first actual fight scene, since I don't really count the conflicts you've seen so far in my other stories. I hope reviewers will be honest with their criticism, since I'm still learning. Another thing I'm hoping readers will keep an eye on is Bella's character. I don't want to turn her into a Mary-Sue, but I should warn you that she comes as close as she's ever going to right here in this chapter.

A few of you seemed really interested in how Bella will raise Harry. Unfortunately for you, you're going to have to wait at least one more chapter for any significant details about that. Where they lived for a pretty big chunk of the time is mentioned briefly here, but no details until they meet up with Dumbledore.


Chapter 1


"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," a cool female voice said, echoing around the pair in the phone booth. "Please state your name and business."

"Harry Potter and Bellatrix Black. We're here regarding a prophecy."

"Thank you," the voice said. "Visitors please take the badges and attach them to the front of your robes." Two small silver buttons popped out in the change slot. A young man about six feet in height took them, handing one back to his companion. He kept his hair relatively short, in sharp contrast with the relatively impractical ponytail that was common in pureblood culture. "Visitor to the Ministry, you are required to submit to a search and present your wand for registration at the security desk, which is located at the far end of the Atrium."

"You were right, that was easy," Harry said, ignoring the voice's warning.

"Getting into the building always has been," Bella agreed, "it's getting out that will be the problem."

"We could always get lucky," he offered, not really believing his own words. She didn't even dignify his statement with a response.

The disguised elevator stopped a moment later in the Atrium, which was completely empty, mainly because very few employees worked at four thirty in the morning. After disillusioning themselves, they made their way past the Fountain of Magical Brethren and to the security desk, where a bulky wizard appeared to be sleeping.

"That's lucky," Bella whispered. "I wasn't sure how we'd unravel the wards without alerting him, especially since given the completely separate set of defensive wards around his desk." Her tone then changed from that of a co-conspirator to a caricature of a vindictive teacher. "Now go on and unravel the wards around the doorway. If you can do that, then you're ready for your O.W.L.s."

Harry rolled his eyes but stepped forward, pulling his wand out and waving it in a spiral pattern in front of him. Several areas of the doorway lit up in different colors, some brighter than others. Bella nodded approvingly, though her expression shifted to one of confusion when Harry threw up muffling charms around both of them and the doorway.

"The work I'm about to do will be loud," he explained when he caught her look, "and I expect you'll want to yell at me once you figure it out."

With that, Harry hurled a vicious nonverbal Slicing Curse above the doorway, followed immediately by several more. Once he had broken through the wall above the door, he made his way around the doorway on both sides, cutting through the solid stone with surprising ease. Upon reaching the floor, he carefully dug under the doorway with weaker curses until he was finally able to levitate the frame of the door to the side and lean it against the wall.

When he turned back to face her, a massive grin on his face, she couldn't quite bring herself to scold him.

"Couldn't you have unraveled the wards the conventional way?" Bella asked.

"If given a bit of time," Harry said with a casual shrug. "We don't have a lot of that, though, and I couldn't resist."

"Those were probably at least N.E.W.T. level anyway," Bella said, knowing full well that there were professionals who wouldn't be able to unravel those wards.

"We're about to leave the area covered by the muffling charms," Harry warned unnecessarily. After all, Bella was the one who taught him that charm, along with nearly every other spell in his considerable arsenal.

They arrived at the lifts a minute later and took one down to level 9. Bella knew the Ministry quite well, and both of them left the fact that she learned what she had working for Voldemort unsaid. They remained silent until they entered an unremarkable black door into a circular room that was black from floor to ceiling with doors lining the wall. Bella turned and sent a low powered curse into the door they had come through, marking it just before the room began to spin. When it stopped, both Harry and Bella had no trouble picking up on the spell residue on the door, which was now to their left.

"Any ideas?" Harry asked.

"Just try one," Bella said as she looked around. Finally coming to a decision, she turned to her right and went to the door that sat directly across the room from where they had come. "Locked."

"My turn," Harry said, throwing her a smug look. "What are we looking for?"

"Time and prophecy are researched by the same Unspeakables," Bella said, glaring at her charge for his continued lack of seriousness, "so look for anything that might fall under those categories."

Harry nodded and chose the door to the left of Bella's, finding it locked as well. Without pausing, he moved to the next one and opened it. Inside was what looked like the office of an average businessman, except for one wall, which was completely covered by a large bookshelf. Each shelf held a massive glass case that was filled to the brim with a bright liquid. Different shelves had different colored liquids.

"This isn't it," Bella said. "Let's try the next door." But Harry wasn't listening to her. Instead, he had put his wand away and was cautiously approaching the wall. Bella sighed in frustration before silently sending a full body bind into Harry's blurred form. Keeping her wand trained on him, Bella levitated his body out of the room and shut the door.

"What was that for?!" Harry asked when she had released him.

"Did you forget already?" Bella hissed, clearly furious. "We're here for a prophecy about you. And what have I told you about touching magical objects without knowing exactly what their properties are?"

"I wasn't going to-" Harry began.

"Don't be stupid, of course you were!"

Harry blushed. "Fine, I was, I'm sorry. Dunno what came over me." His tone turned thoughtful. "Something about that yellow stuff..."

"Don't let it happen again," Bella growled. "For someone who can throw off my Imperius with ease, you're far too susceptible to compulsions."

"I haven't been in the past," Harry protested, now troubled by what his temporary weakness meant for the future.

"Don't allow yourself to slip up like that again," Bella said, her expression softening. "Dropping your Occlumency shields in here wasn't smart."

"I won't let them slip again until we're back at home," Harry promised, hexing the door as it closed behind them. The room predictably began spinning again, but now two doors had a strong residue of magic marking them.

"We should start marking the locked doors as well," Bella said, tugging futilely at another door before giving up and sending a spell splashing against it.

Harry nodded and tried another door. "Clocks," he announced with a smile, pulling the door wider and motioning for Bella to go first. Both of their eyes were immediately drawn to a large bell jar, in which an egg hatched into a baby hummingbird. The bird grew to maturity before their very eyes and then fell, changing back into an egg at the bottom for the cycle to begin anew.

"The Hall of Prophecy is close," Bella said, still entranced by the bird.

"There's only one other door," Harry pointed out, leading her away. "This whole department is strange," he commented a moment later as they reached the portal. "Everything is just a little bit too interesting."

Bella nodded once, then wordlessly pulled the door open. What greeted them was row after row of dusty, rickety shelves. Atop each shelf were small glass spheres, each no larger than a tennis ball. They were as dusty as the shelves they rested on, but some had their own inner luminescence that showed through, giving the room a disturbingly ethereal quality. In front of each sphere was a small paper label.

"There must be some kind of system for organizing these," Bella muttered to herself, walking around.

"They're organized by date," Harry said, noting the differing amounts of dust from shelf to shelf. "When was this one made?"

"Around five hundred years ago, give or take," Bella replied, checking the tag.

"Then we want to go left. The oldest ones are right over there on the right." Bella didn't question him at all, merely following as he led her through progressively cleaner aisles of shelves, counting along the way.

"D'you think I'll be able to...sense it?" Harry asked in number 97, stopping to inspect a shelf.

"Perhaps," Bella said softly, now studying the shelves intently as well. "Did you feel that it might be here?"

"I'm not sure, but this is the last row," Harry said, pointing out the wall behind the shelf in front of them.

"So it is," Bella said. "Remember, don't touch any prophecies but the one we're looking for."

"I'm aware of that, thanks," Harry said exasperatedly. "There's no need to remind me every five minutes, you know."

Bella sighed and continued her search. The tags had the initials of the person who made the prophecy, the person to whom it was made, and the full names of those that it involved. Bella looked primarily at those, but Harry's name was nowhere to be found.

"I think this is it," Harry said, causing her to turn immediately. The ball in question was glowing slightly, but no more than those around it. "Why's there a question mark in front of my name?"

"The contents should explain it," Bella said. "It might be that it isn't about you after all."

Harry, who had been reaching out to pick it up, stopped. "Wait, is it or isn't it? You said not to touch it if it wasn't about me."

"Your name is right there."

"Yes, right after the bloody effing question mark," Harry snapped, his temper getting the better of him.

"I shouldn't have said it wasn't about you," Bella said. "Look at this, the question mark is written differently than your name. A different person probably wrote it there at a different time. I imagine they couldn't figure out who it was about until you did something that made them realize it had to be you."

"And just what did I do, exactly?" Harry asked rudely.

"Oh, I don't know...survive the Killing Curse?" Bella shot back with equal sarcasm.

"Fine!" Harry said, grabbing the prophecy in one quick motion. He and Bella both winced as they consciously realized what he had done, but there was no reaction.

"Right then," Harry said, letting out a nervous breath, "guess it's about me after all."

"It appears so," Bella said, a relieved smile on her face. "So...shall we?"

"I know I can't take the suspense," Harry said. "Remember the initials of the seer as we're watching. There's no chance of me recognizing, er...whoever it is, but you might. It was obviously made to Dumbledore, so the seer is the only remaining person in question." At Bella's confirming nod, Harry grinned and threw the prophecy at the ground, shattering it. The ghostly form of a skeletal woman wearing a great deal of baggy shawls and gaudy jewelry emerged, more or less the image Harry had expected to see. Her voice, however, was a bit of a surprise. It came out deeper than his own, and quite rough.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not...and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives."

Harry and Bella stood there for almost a full minute digesting the news, particularly the foreboding final line. Neither one was thinking about the seer's identity. Finally, Bella snapped out of it.

"You don't have to do it alone, Harry," she said softly, laying a hand on his shoulder. It was a rare show of support from his normally unconcerned guardian, but Harry had come to expect such gestures from her when he really needed them. They were how he knew she cared.

Harry managed a smile for Bella's sake, but he wasn't feeling too optimistic. He was powerful, and he knew it, but killing the most feared Dark Lord in centuries was no mean feat.

Bella saw through his smile immediately and put her other arm around him, giving him a much-needed hug. Harry immediately returned it and clung to her like a lifeline, his fear stronger than he could ever remember it being. Still, it didn't take much time for him to master his emotions and release his iron grip on her.

"I mean it, you won't be alone. I'll be with you, and we're contacting Dumbledore soon. For all of his flaws, he's feared by Voldemort for a reason."

"You're right," Harry said, a sincere half-smile on his face. "Besides, it's not like I have to kill him today. I've got plenty of time to get to his level, or at least closer to it."

"You'll surpass him someday," Bella promised.

"Maybe," Harry said, as they began to move towards the exit.

"Quite a depressing start to your birthday," Bella commented with a chuckle. "We'll have to make the rest much nicer for you."

"It's still pretty early," Harry said, checking his watch. "Just about five in the morning. Besides, how could my first trip to Diagon Alley be anything but amazing? I've only been begging to go since you told me about it...what, four years ago?"

Bella smiled slightly at him as they continued; now back in the room with the clocks. "Yes, it was around then. Aren't you glad now that you didn't go to Ollivander's for your first wand?"

"He couldn't make me a better wand if he tried. We'll have to see what he sticks me with later, as I'll probably have to use it most of the time at Hogwarts."

"Ollivander could well surprise you," Bella said. "He's very good at what he does. Besides, you know as well as I do that one man couldn't possibly make custom wands for every witch and wizard in Britain."

"I'm quite curious to meet him, though. You've told me so little about him."

"I've only met the man once," Bella said. "But he leaves such a strong impression that I couldn't resist telling you what little I know about him."

"That doesn't sound like you," Harry said slowly. "You love finding out about people. Remember-" He trailed off after opening the door leading back into the circular room. Two men in sweeping black cloaks appeared to be waiting for them. Unspeakables. One was a couple of inches taller than Harry, while the other was somewhat shorter and stockier, closer to Bella's height.

In a practiced motion, Harry dove forward out of the doorway, pulling his wand out and muttering an incantation as two stunners shot where he had been not a second before.

Bella deflected the spells into the ceiling with a well-placed Shield Charm before going on the offensive, sending a barrage of relatively benign hexes towards the two attackers. Before leaving for the Ministry, Harry and Bella had agreed to let their opponents set the ethical standards for any duels they might be forced into. Neither person planned on using anything more powerful than a stunner unless their opponents decided to up the ante. They didn't want to be caught using anything Dark unless they had to, after all. The taller Unspeakable opted to shield Bella's attack while the other dodged aside and moved to attack Harry.

The incantation Harry had muttered was "Declino", a spell that turned his wand into a highly focused shield of sorts. It used the same amount of power as a simple Shield Charm, but all of that power was focused on the tip of the wand, making it able to deflect far stronger spells than a simple Protego. With precise aim, Harry could deflect all but the most powerful focused curses that might come his way. The Unspeakable hadn't seen him cast, or he would have changed his method of attack. Instead, Harry had the element of surprise on his side. The attack came in the form of a fairly predictable Bludgeoning Hex, which Harry promptly returned to its caster with a practiced flick of his wand. Knowing that his opponent would change tactics immediately, Harry used the time to send three spells at him in rapid succession.

The man was shocked immediately after casting the spell to see the bright blue light rocketing right back at him. Hastily, he cast his own shield, which was barely able to deflect the curse into the wall. It would have held against at least the first of Harry's spells, had he followed his opponent's example. Instead, a small flame, the result of a quickly cast Incendio, passed through the man's shield as if it wasn't even there and lit his cloak on fire.

He foolishly looked down to put out his cloak only to realize that his shield (which was concentration-based) was gone just before being blasted off his feet by an overpowered Disarming Charm. The Unspeakable hit one of the doors surrounding them and fell to the floor, unconscious.

Bella, meanwhile, had taken the offensive immediately after seeing that her opponent had chosen to shield himself rather than dodge and attack her immediately. Her strategy for breaking through was remarkably similar to that of her student, but perhaps a bit more brutal. She opted to use a fire whip instead of the simpler Incendio, which made for a considerably more painful result. She stunned the Unspeakable as he was howling in pain, clutching his blistering legs.

"They will have raised the alarm," Bella said once Harry had finished his opponent. "Aurors will be swarming the Atrium, and our emergency Portkeys won't work."

"Isn't there a chance of running into them before then?" Harry asked.

"A chance, but not a big one," Bella replied. "Anywhere else they'd risk getting caught in the hallways, where they can't use their superior numbers. No, they'll be waiting in the Atrium. Eight is my guess, that's the most that ever fought cohesively together in the First War."

"We can get past eight," Harry said. "Well, we can as long as they can't see through our disillusions like those Unspeakables."

"I suppose that's one good thing about old Mad-Eye being dead," Bella mused. "He wouldn't just see through those; our Glamour Charms wouldn't fool him either."

"He was retired anyway," Harry said. "But I did want to meet him after hearing all of your stories."

"He was one of a kind," Bella said with a smile as they finally reentered the lift.

"We're going with an escape strategy, right?" Harry asked.

"Since it's either that or trying to kill them all, I'd say we should escape," Bella said. "We wouldn't want to give them any more reasons to dislike us, after all."

"Can we use divide, conquer and avoid?" Harry asked, referring to his favorite method of escaping against a large number of foes.

"Yes, that should do nicely," Bella replied. "You'll be doing the transfiguration, so don't be afraid to put a lot of power into it."

"I'll have to if I want it to work quickly enough," Harry said. "What spells will you be using?"

"I've got both of my wands, so I think I'll keep a fire whip active for as long as I can to defeat their shields and just send stunners their way until you can help me finish them," Bella said, an eager expression on her face. She liked nothing more than a good fight, and Harry knew she hadn't raised her wand against anyone as anything more than a training exercise since she had killed the chief of Nanultka, the African village that had been their home until his eleventh birthday.

The lift stopped, and an inappropriately cheerful note chimed as the doors opened. Bella led Harry back through the hallway until they could see the removed doorframe from earlier. Beyond that was the open Atrium, where they could see four Aurors waiting for them.

"You're both under arrest," came the predictable call from up ahead, making the pair realize that once again their disillusionments had failed them. "Toss your wands in front of you and come in with your hands up. Otherwise we can't guarantee your safety."

"Ready?" Bella asked quietly.

"Lead the way," Harry whispered back.

They both immediately took off at a run, Bella in the lead with Harry keeping pace a couple of steps back. She was already hurling stunners from both wands at the Aurors, but their conjured shields kept them safe. Harry was concentrating on the cobbled floor, since his transfiguration would involve that material. As soon as they came out into the open, four more Aurors came into view on their left, wands drawn.

Bella slowed to a stop and continued casting with her left while she unleashed a fire whip from her right, aiming exclusively at the shielded Aurors in front of her. Harry had his wand tip pointed at the floor a few feet in front of the Aurors on the left, who were already beginning to cast. He lifted his wand, but felt it stop after rising only slightly, caught on something invisible. The Aurors only had a second to notice that a forty-foot strip of floor had risen a few inches off the ground in a square shape around them before Harry's magic overcame its invisible barrier and he ripped his wand upwards with incredible force. The Aurors could only watch, their mouths agape, as the strip of solid rock rose straight into the ceiling and solidified, trapping them completely. They couldn't attack it for fear of bringing it down on their heads, so they began the tedious process of undoing the impressive transfiguration while Bella continued to keep four fully trained Aurors at bay.

Harry turned to face the remaining combatants and had a second to register their appearances before joining the fray himself. One had taken it upon himself to protect his allies from Bella's fire whip and had conjured a metal shield that he was using to deflect the whip as well as the occasional stunner that came his way. He was tall, even taller than the large Unspeakable from earlier, and had a shaved head and a large gold hoop earring in one ear. Of the other three Aurors, two were clearly novices, unable to concentrate on anything but keeping their shields strong. The fourth, a handsome dark-haired man wasn't even using a shield, but was instead nimbly dodging any spells that came his way, a smile on his face that matched Bella's. It was an impressive feat, since Bella was concentrating her stunners mainly on him while she was forced to dodge his attacks. Her constant dodging meant she was barely aiming with her fire whip, but that actually made the tall black Auror's job more difficult, since he had no way of predicting where she would strike next. Harry decided to start with him.

"Accio!" he cried, summoning the distracted Auror to him. The man was able to fight the spell, but not before stumbling forward a couple of steps, leaving one of the novices open to be hit on the arm by Bella's fire whip, causing him to drop his wand. Harry's next spell was a banisher, which sent the poor fool flying clear over the Fountain of Magical Brethren. He landed on the floor beyond it, down but not out. Harry sent a stunner between the statues to finish him a split-second before he was forced to dive forward under the spinning conjured shield that the tall Auror had sent his way.

Bella had released her fire whip when it connected with the novice and now used her second wand to keep a shield up as she continued her barrage with her other wand. Her main opponent, who she recognized as her cousin, Sirius Black, was starting to show signs of fatigue. However, his remaining ally had apparently found his courage and was now attacking as well. Bella knew that she was tiring as quickly as her cousin, so she prayed Harry would be able to finish his remaining opponent quickly enough to come to her aid.

As he rose from his dive, Harry blocked a banisher that would have forced him face-first into the floor, cast a quick Feather-Light Charm on himself and jumped, sailing over the tall Auror's head and releasing a pair of stunners from the air, which were blocked. From his new vantage point, Harry saw that the four Aurors he had trapped were making good progress in undoing his transfiguration. "Accio Aurors!" he cried, only just resisting the urge to wince has he heard several loud thumps from inside the makeshift prison as they were forcible pulled into the rock. Luckily, his spell had again distracted the tall Auror, tugging on him enough to interrupt his casting.

Deciding to once again use transfiguration to his advantage, Harry pulled up a much smaller wall from the floor to block his opponent's next few spells before manipulating it to send a line of solid stone forward, which his the Auror in the chest. He heard a wet snap, suggesting at least one broken rib. Gasping for breath, the tall man didn't even realize another spell had been cast before he was unconscious.

Harry looked once again at the wall that represented the four trapped Aurors, at least one of whom was still working on escaping. He took a second to solidify the prison and take off his Feather-Light Charm before turning to help Bella.

"Let's go while we can!" Harry called, firing banishing spells at the backs of Bella's opponents. The dark-haired man was able to narrowly avoid his, but his remaining ally was sent head-over-heels into the security desk. The man that had been sleeping there earlier was gone, presumably evacuated.

Bella nodded and dashed to his side, blocking her cousin's hexes as she ran. Sirius growled in frustration before giving chase. The pair ran to the far end of the Atrium, desperate to get to the apparition point. The occasional stunner splashed harmlessly against the walls in front of them, but they never slowed. An "Ennervate" behind them reached their ears just as they found the apparition point. Once there, Bella grabbed Harry's hand and the pair disappeared with a soft pop.

"They get away?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, rubbing his head as Sirius helped him up. He winced as his mind registered the pain in his battered torso.

"'Fraid so," Sirius said resignedly. "Scrimgeour's going to kill us."

"Seems likely," Kingsley agreed. "You revive Shaw and McManus, I'll get Frank and the others out of there."

"Right," Sirius said, pausing over the still form of Michael Shaw. "Reckon Dumbledore should hear about this?"

"I didn't recognize either of them," Kingsley said. "Could be You-Know-Who's latest recruits."

"I'm not so sure," Sirius said. "They were disillusioned, so the only reason we could see them at all were these contact lenses, which aren't too great with details. Besides, they didn't use anything more serious than that fire spell, and the woman stopped it as soon as it made contact with McManus."

"Probably not Death Eater material, then, but we should tell Dumbledore anyway," Kingsley said. With nothing more to add, he turned and began casting on the wall.

Sirius turned back to Shaw, lost in thought.