Chapter Text
"Whatever happens," Bronach murmured to her ward as she maneuvered through the students to reach her, "do not say a single word."
"What?" her ward asked, and Ron and Hermione jerked their heads around to listen in. "What do you mean?"
"Dolores Umbridge is a hateful, prejudiced woman who is devoted to keeping Fudge in office," Bronach said quietly. "If you are not currently number two on her list, you are number three. Let me handle her."
"Who's number two if Harry's number three?" Ron said, and Bronach was already moving away, knowing that Hermione had likely guessed.
"Dumbledore, obviously," the girl said, right on cue. Bronach made sure to take the seat front and center, as she had in Potions, knowing that there was no better way to draw Umbridge's attention.
As she'd expected, the woman was already sitting behind her desk, her outward appearance just as nauseating as it had been when Bronach had first set eyes on the woman all those years ago. But her eyes were cold when they locked onto Bronach's.
If we imprisoned everyone who worked in the Ministry during the war, we'd have nobody left to work here, Kingsley had once told her during an argument. We need the bureaucrats Potter, there's no helping it.
I'm not talking about the people who were low level and went along because to do otherwise was to put themselves or their families in danger, Kingsley, she had retorted. I'm talking about Umbridge- the people at the top who not only cooperated, but the ones who led the fucking charge.
What she did was legal, under the administration, Kingsley had sounded tired. The argument had taken place near the end of his tenure as Minister, and she had been able to see the wear the office had taken on him. We can't charge her just because the laws changed. And everything she has done since has been legal.
She tried to kill me in ninety-five, would have used an Unforgivable on me if Hermione hadn't stopped her. Those were illegal acts in ninety-five. And I'm fairly certain the muggles set plenty of precedents for prosecuting war crimes that were technically legal at the time. You could do it, you just don't want to.
Kingsley had sighed, rubbed his temples, and Bronach had left, knowing that she wouldn't get any further. She had no proof, but it was easy for her to believe that Umbridge had been behind the slow turn of public opinion against her that led up to the accident that transported her to Arda.
Now she was here again, with far more experience than she once had, and Bronach was going to make sure that Umbridge paid for her crimes. Was it unethical, perhaps, to make this woman pay for what the woman Bronach remembered had done? That was a matter for philosophers. Bronach had enough grounds based on the dementor attack to satisfy her personal morality.
"Good afternoon class," the woman said, rapping on her desk to call the class to attention.
Bronach sat through the first few moments, but struck as soon as the course aims were listed out.
"Miss Potter?" Umbridge said, her voice even more saccharine than before.
"I prefer Lady Potter, if you please Madame Umbridge," Bronach said, her tone perfectly even. "As my ward is also in class, I find it reduces confusion. But I wished to clarify something. According to your course aims, there will be no use of defensive spells in class?"
Umbridge shot that down, as Bronach had expected. With the muttering of the students in the background, Bronach persisted. "Apologies, Madame, but does the Ministry feel that students will be well equipped to demonstrate spells that they have not practiced on the practical portion of the OWLs in June? Should students someday be forced to defend themselves with spells that they have never practiced in a secure, risk-free environment?"
The toad's nostrils flared. "Who do you think would attack children like yourself?"
"Semantics, perhaps," Bronach said, lifting her shoulder in a casual shrug that made Umbridge's eye twitch, "but I am past the age of majority and present only due to a technicality. The latest Auror statistics have shown an uptick in burglaries. St. Mungo's placed a warning in the Prophet three days ago about an influx of patients who had an unpleasant encounter with a cursed or enchanted object that was a family heirloom, warning readers to be careful with anything unfamiliar to them. If I recall the curricula correctly, the OWL exams cover a variety of self-defense spells, several shields, and introductory detection spells. Given the statistics and article, does it not seem prudent to practice these spells?"
"As the Ministry-appointed official in charge of this class, I will be the one to determine the curriculum," Umbridge practically spat, gripping her wand tightly.
"And, if I may, what are your credentials?" Bronach smiled sweetly. "Have you a background in education? Defense Against the Dark Arts? Before you were the Undersecretary, were you a Hit Witch? An Auror?"
"Hand, Miss Potter," the witch hissed. "And you may not."
"Apologies, Madame Undersecretary," Bronach pushed false conciliation into her voice. "It's just that you were so concerned with my credentials..."
"Detention, Miss Potter. Tonight."
"It's Lady Potter," Bronach said, dropping the sweetness in her tone. "I have asked you twice. Do not make me ask a third time."
The rest of the class seemed suitably cowed, and bent their heads over their books when Umbridge commanded it. Bronach opened her book and sketched out her latest idea for the ritual to remove the horcrux from her ward's body, taking great pleasure in watching Umbridge's face as carefully inked runes took shape on the page.
As she had expected, her hand was bleeding freely by the end of detention.
Umbridge hadn't noticed that Bronach was writing lines with her left hand, ambidexterity was a skill she'd trained herself into for a variety of reasons, but Bronach hoped she would notice that the parchment bearing her blood would self-destruct should anyone attempt to use them.
It hadn't been all useless though, Bronach reflected as she made her way down the main stairs. Writing the runes to embed the paper with the self-destruct sequence had not carved the runes into her hand, drawing the blood out through a simple cut instead. Considering that she usually resorted to drawing runes with her bloody fingers, or with a brush and a vial of blood if she had the time to prepare, the possibility of a rapid, precise method intrigued her.
Perhaps I could do a new mastery project on it, she thought, wiping the blood off the back of her hand with a handkerchief. The skin underneath was red and inflamed, but already healing well. Bronach didn't expect it would scar.
"I do not need a minder," she told Daervunn as he melted out of the shadows in the Entrance Hall.
"You got detention on your first day," he said dryly falling into step beside her. He glanced at the handkerchief. "Something to be concerned about?"
"Just some light torture," Bronach shrugged, tucking the handkerchief up her sleeve. "Did my ward find her way to you for meditation practice?"
"Halbarad is seeing her and her friends back to Gryffindor Tower," Daervunn said. "You don't do anything without a reason."
"If I had not drawn her attention, it would be someone else," Bronach said shortly. "Someone more...vulnerable."
"Yourself, you mean?" Daervunn said quietly as they turned into a passage without portraits. "This was not your first detention with the good professor."
"When did you begin to suspect?" Bronach asked, not entirely surprised that he had put it together. "And who else suspects?"
"Everyone," the dunadan shrugged. "We do not discuss it, but...to those of us who know you, the similarities are obvious. Your eyes are rather distinctive."
Bronach fisted her right hand, letting the familiar scars drift to the surface, unchanged no matter what else she had done to her hands. Silently, she offered them to him for inspection.
I will not tell lies.
Daervunn snorted as he read them. "Ironic."
Bronach couldn't help a wry grin. "Of all the professions I could have chosen, I had to choose the one that required frequent untruths. Amusing, is it not?"
If she were inclined to be introspective, perhaps some part of her had chosen it out of enduring spite. One last middle finger to Dolores Umbridge: a career built on telling lies in order to preserve the kingdoms and peoples that she loved and worked for.
"I assume you have a plan?" he asked, an unhappy twist to his mouth as she tucked the words away once more.
"Get her before she gets anyone else," Bronach muttered, glad they were speaking in Sindarin. Nobody outside their group could understand it, but they were about to enter a hallway where there were several portraits, all of Slytherin alumni. Quenya would have worked, but it would have been overkill.
"Not much of a plan," he said, gripping her arm to pull her into the shadows at the end of the passage. "Bronach--"
"Already pulling me into dark corners?" she teased reflexively, brushing her fingers across his chest as she grinned. "How scandalous."
Daervunn let go of her, running his hand through his hair with a scowl. "No," he said. "Just...no. I will not let myself be used so that you can pretend."
Offended, Bronach drew herself up. "I would not use you," she said stiffly. "I have never used you."
"No," Daervunn said, sounding apologetic. "No, you have not. We never did anything that we were not both fully consenting to. But I will not let you do this."
"And what do you think I am doing?" she retorted.
"You know me, and I know you equally as well," Daervunn said, his voice steady and his gaze uncomfortably knowing.
"Is that a euphemism for sex?" Bronach threw at him, feeling stripped to the bone under his eyes in a way she rarely ever felt. "Because you can just say that we slept together back in the day. There is nobody to be offended, even if they could understand us."
"I am not talking about the fact that we used to share a bed, when the mood struck," Daervunn said, still terribly knowing, but his voice was rough. "We found each other after the Pelennor, and because there was nobody else, we became the closest confidant either of us had. I would hazard a guess that I was your only confidant. And sometimes we fell into bed together because it was easy. Because it felt good, and damn little was easy and good in those early years after the War. But we never loved each other-- not in that way-- and when I married for duty, you and I respected that, and nobody got hurt. But this is not then."
"I am aware," Bronach gestured at the castle around them. "This certainly is not Esteldin."
"You are running from yourself," Daervunn continued, as if she hadn't interrupted. "You were running then, and I let it happen, because I could see that you were not going to come to any harm by anything we did. But I will not enable you now."
"Funny," she bit off, turning to look at her surroundings in an exaggerated motion. "It seems as if I'm actually standing still."
Pinning her with his gaze, he took a step forward. She took a step back, but the wall was there, stopping her. "You are running. It is what you do, when you feel yourself getting attached, getting too close. You turn tail and run, putting as much distance between yourself and whoever it is. You did so after the Pelennor, you did so after Rushingdale, you did it as the Grey Company aged, and I have no doubt that you ran after the last ships sailed even if I could not see it myself. And you are doing it again, but this time I refuse to be involved. I refuse to let you hurt yourself, especially not using me."
She pushed off from the wall, pain and anger mixing together in a sickening swirl that made her downright dizzy with it, humiliation at being called out making it worse. "Understood," she snapped. "I will be sure to keep an appropriate distance."
"That is not what I meant," he snapped right back, crowding into her space. "You..."
"Then what did you mean?" she hissed, mindful of the way their conversation might echo around the corridor and modulating her tone. "What I do is none of your concern, unless it involves you and the others."
"What is your plan?" Daervunn said as she stepped away from him. "When you have saved the world for once more? What do you intend to do when there are no soul-shards to destroy, when the government is as you want it to be? When will you finally allow yourself happiness? Peace?"
She ignored him, moving hastily down the passage towards the Slytherin Common room, not stopping until she was in her room and safely behind her closed door. Then, Bronach let herself sink to the ground.
Clenching her fists, she rested her forehead against her knees. How dare he, she raged in the privacy of her mind. He was wrong, she hadn't been looking to resume their intimate relationship. But how dare he make her confront what she feared? How dare he shine a light on everything that she was hiding from herself as effectively as if he had stood her in front of a mirror?
"I know you can hold a sword better than that," Halbarad complained, blocking her strike. "You shame your teacher."
"There is nobody here," Bronach grunted, dragging her blade free, "that truly believes I am a swordsman."
"She did improve slightly," Eowyn commented from where she and Faramir were practicing, far more evenly matched.
"Do it again," Daervunn snapped as Halbarad dumped her on her ass in a swift move.
"Taskmaster," she snapped, still feeling sore from their conversation the night before. He, at least, had not tried to approach her beyond adding the same level of comment and correction as he would for any other trainee.
By the time Halbarad and Daervunn were content with her sword skills, Bronach was glad to drop the sheathed blade back into her expanded satchel. Everyone was in-between exercises, and she had an idea.
"Now that I am done being thrashed," she called, rummaging in her bag, "Let me thrash anyone who wants a go, using my preferred kit."
"Pass," Halbarad said, glancing at Daervunn who also demurred.
"Perhaps another day?" Faramir said as Eowyn blotted at the slight scratch that must have resulted from pulling her strike too late.
Bronach turned towards their elven contingent, who had been working amongst themselves, and raised an eyebrow. "Anyone feel up to a round or two?"
The twins clapped Glorfindel on the back with wicked grins. "Our fearless captain was just saying that he is not getting any younger," Elladan laughed. "You two should be well matched."
She shot them a flat look. It was well known that she'd never been evenly matched against Glorfindel, when they'd found themselves matched in an Imladris sparring ring. Even after a century of peace, the elflord and his five thousand years of experience was a formidable opponent.
With a dramatic sigh, she announced the room at large: "Another thrashing to add to my tally, I suppose" as she took up a spot in the area that the Room of Requirement marked out for them. Helpfully, the Room also provided several rocky ledges and a few scraggly bushes for cover, but neither she nor Glorfindel moved for them, mirroring each other on the opposite side of the center marker.
"On my count," Halbarad called from where he and the others had gathered. "Three, two...begin!"
Instead of lunging forward, as had been her wont, Bronach slid backwards. Using its cover, she reached for the Cloak and wrapped it around herself, using a touch of magic to hide her scent and sounds. Readying her knives, she lay in wait.
Glorfindel was not Imladris's best tracker without cause. When he sprung around the rock, sword in hand, she slithered further away, careful to stay under the cloak.
They danced around the arena, a half step ahead and a half step behind respectively, until Bronach flew out from under the cover of the Cloak, jumping down from one of the rocky ledges.
With a clash he brought up his sword to block the descending knives. She used his shoulders as a springboard, but he was steady as a rock. If she stopped, he'd overpower her, but he was almost too fast, putting her on the defensive nearly at once.
Knowing that her knives would not keep his sword at bay, Bronach threw caution to the wind and attempted something that he would have rarely used, but she had a fair amount of practice doing.
Letting an orc inside your guard was dangerous. Grappling with an orc, or an uruk, was considered suicidal. But Bronach's most frequent opponents had been Men, for many years, and it was those skills she called upon now.
Glorfindel, the elves, and the dunedain were all trained in grappling, to the point where it was muscle memory, but they rarely practiced it outside of scripted bouts. Compared to her decades of experience...
This time there was no mud, no rocks, branches or roots to make things more uncomfortable and difficult. She pulled a headbutt so that it was a light tap, then yanked on Glorfindel's shirt and dragged him down, rolling him so that she could attempt to wedge her knee between his thighs in imitation of a far more devastating move.
He rolled with her, using her momentum to keep them rolling as he tried to pin her, but Bronach had perfected the art of being slippery. However, in the end, his greater mass and reach won out, and she lay panting, pinned to the floor as he practically laid atop her to keep her there.
"So much for that thrashing," Eowyn teased, breaking her concentration. Bronach was suddenly aware of how close they were, how intimate the position could have been.
"Thank you for the humbling," Bronach said, slithering away as Glorfindel lifted off her slightly. "Always a pleasure to be knocked down a peg or two. Could you teach me the block you used, the one behind your back?"
"Tomorrow, perhaps?" Glorfindel said, rising to his feet. He seemed wholly unbothered by their previous position, and she both envied and hated him for that ease. At least his general level of dishevelment proved that she hadn't gone easily.
"Of course," Bronach said, turning to their spectators. "Anyone else, now that you have been shown that it can be done?"
After lunch, tired of doing paperwork despite the comfort of the classroom and Eowyn's unhelpful but amusing commentary, Bronach dragged them outside.
"This is...charming," Glorfindel said as he glanced around at the fringes of the forest. "Truly a unique specimen."
"It has all the charm of Mirkwood," Elrohir wrinkled his nose. "Before the end of the Third Age."
"It comes with centaurs, who are highly territorial and who should be offered all due respect, and giant spiders," Bronach informed them, which brought-near universal grimaces. Eowyn's fingers drifted towards where her sword would hang, should she have been wearing it, and the woman scowled slightly when she only touched empty air.
"Do not worry," Bronach tacked slightly away from Aragog's territory. "There are creatures that dwell within this forest that you will find more to your taste."
There were no thestrals in the clearing she recalled Hagrid holding class in, but Bronach had come prepared. Pulling her pilfered bag of dead ferrets out of one of her pockets, expanded for maximum carrying space, she began hanging them around the clearing like morbid and bizarre Christmas ornaments. After a few moments, there was movement from the shadows and the thestrals emerged.
"Meet Hogwarts' domesticated thestral herd," Bronach announced, gesturing to the skeletal horses. "They are visible only to those who have seen death, are capable of flying great distances with a rider, and possess excellent navigational skills."
"Wonderful," Eowyn breathed, eyes wide as she drank in the sight of the horses. "I have felt as if I were missing a limb, for all that Buckbeak was charming."
Without further ado, she waded into the thestral herd, doling out pats and checking conformation. Faramir sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest.
"She does need to be somewhat visible in the castle," he told Bronach reproachfully.
"If you are not capable of enticing your wife inside, I cannot assist you with that," she retorted.
He cast her one further reproachful look before joining his wife, letting her introduce him to the thestrals crowding around her.
"How trained are they?" Halbarad asked, eyes assessing.
"Wagon trained, some rider training," Bronach shrugged. "Certainly not combat trained."
"As if none of us have trained combat mounts," Daervunn snorted.
Eowyn waved Bronach over, separating a mare from the herd. "She will suit you nicely," the woman said. "Go get acquainted."
Obediently, Bronach placed her trust in the skill of the Rohirrim and greeted the mare while Eowyn busily matched the others with their own mounts.
"No tack?" Daervunn asked, running his hand over his mount's neck.
"Not with them," Bronach said, caving to temptation and settling on her mare's back. "They will not let you fall if they can help it."
In short order, they were all astride and putting the thestrals through their paces in the small clearing. Her own mare was blessed with a long and swinging stride, smooth gaits, and a responsive and eager temperament. The others seemed similarly pleased with Eowyn's assignments, and Bronach couldn't help herself.
"Shall we stretch our legs a bit?"
The others looked up at her with expressions of interest.
"A wager, perhaps?" Elrohir goaded, raising his eyebrow.
"Last to the castle and back has to answer the questions about what we were doing?" Faramir suggested, only to be booed by all of them.
"Winner receives a single boon from each of the others," Halbarad said, and added "to be used for something harmless."
It was reasonable enough, and they lined up on a mark at the clearing's edge, facing the castle barely visible through the trees.
"If anyone takes to the air, they automatically lose," Elladan said, glancing at the wings bracketing his knees. "Will the thestrals understand?"
"I suspect they will, if you tell them," Bronach said, leaning forward to whisper the handicap in her mare's ear. It flicked back in acknowledgment, and she settled herself, twining her fingers in the silky mane.
"On the third mark," Daervunn called. "One."
"Two," Elrohir added, his thestral shifting under him.
"Three!" Eowyn cheered, and they exploded into motion.
Her mare shot forward into the fastest canter Bronach dared within the trees, and Bronach narrowed her focus to the route before them. The mare was efficient at choosing the most direct path, but Bronach honed the instinct, balancing them around a tree trunk to shave seconds off. By the time they broke free of the trees, the mare had caught on and Bronach found herself shifting into the half-crouch she'd used when riding messages across the Downs.
They burst out from the cool shadows of the trees into the warm sunlight. In the distance, across the wide expanse of the lawn, the castle sat waiting for them. Her mare moved into a gallop, and Bronach couldn't help but whoop with the sheer joy of it. Eowyn seemed of a similar mind, letting loose a Rohirric cry from somewhere to her left.
Without leaving the ground, they flew past a group of students, and Bronach caught a glimpse of Weasley-red in the crowd but could not linger to see which Weasley it was. Refocusing, she anticipated the upcoming turn, not wanting to waste a single second with the others keeping pace with her.
When they approached the front doors, Bronach threw her weight deep into her seat, and her mare practically slid to a halt as Bronach leaned out to touch the stones as she kneed the thestral around and back into a gallop. They sped back across the lawns, passing the students once more in a rush of shocked cries.
"That was clever," Glorfindel shouted from her right, but she had no time for more than a grin as she slowed for the forest, practically grazing the trees with her knees and calves so close was she shaving the bends around them.
Unfortunately, Glorfindel's thestral was a nose in front of hers as they entered the clearing. The thestrals seemed invigorated by the run, hardly breathing heavily, but Bronach walked hers around, letting it catch its breath as she tried to gauge how warm it was.
"You have lost none of your skill," Halbarad complimented her as he rode in.
"One of these days, we could test that," Bronach said, an idea coming to her. "We have enough to recreate the death of Thuri."
"That we do," he said thoughtfully, tipping his head in contemplation. "How many did you outrun?"
"A full patrol out of Fornost," she said, thinking for a moment. "Before things heated up."
"Less than a dozen, but more than six," he nodded. "We could arrange that."
"We ought to train them in combat first," Faramir said, sliding off his thestral and patting its neck.
"There was not much combat," Bronach said, reluctantly dismounting. "Merely a group of warg-riders and unhorsed archers."
"They would need more than that to take you down," Eowyn frowned. "I have seen you ride."
"We intended for her to go down," Daervunn said shortly. "Thuri needed to disappear, and death was a useful way of accomplishing it."
"There was someone stationed in the trees with a crossbow using orcish bolts," Bronach explained quietly. "I forget who."
"Mincham," Halbarad said after a moment. "Or Amarion."
"Probably Mincham," Daervunn said, exchanging looks with Bronach, who shrugged.
"You are far too casual about this," Faramir told Bronach.
"There were times when it was far easier to fake my death and let the Angmarim think that they had won," Bronach sighed. "It worked out for us in the end, so I made my peace with it."
Faramir glanced at Eowyn, who nodded, and then he repeated. "You are far too casual about this."
"What were you doing?" Harry asked, aware that she was being rude but unable to help herself. The sight of Bronach and her companions riding the thestrals across the lawn had been the talk of the entire school for the rest of the afternoon, and Harry had hurried to the classroom granted to Bronach for answers.
"Riding the thestrals," Bronach said, not even bothering to look up from the circle of fabric in her hands. "Hagrid keeps the only domestic herd in the British Isles."
"What's a thestral?" Hermione asked, slightly out of breath from chasing Harry up the stairs.
"Skeletal horse with bat-like wings," Harry said, at the same time as Ron said "An omen of death."
"You can only see thestrals if you've seen and understood death," Bronach said as Halbarad nudged Harry into a seat, Daervunn taking charge of chivvying Hermione and Ron into their own seats. "I am sure that most of your classmates were quite startled, since they would have only seen the riders, if anything." She paused thoughtfully, and then added. "I do not know if the invisibility transfers to the riders or not."
"Can you ride a thestral if you haven't seen someone die?"
Bronach shrugged. "It is entirely possible. I knew several who rode thestrals before they had seen death. They required one who could see the thestral to guide them up onto their back, but the act of riding does not require the rider to see their mount." She looked lost in thought for a moment.
Elladan muttered, just audible enough for Harry to hear: "You had an eventful childhood."
To Harry's surprise, nobody laughed. Faramir and Eowyn exchanged a troubled look, while the one shared by Halbarad and Daervunn was far darker. Glorfindel's face was unusually solemn, and he watched Bronach steadily.
"Do thestrals fly?" Harry asked, trying to break the odd silence. "I mean, with the wings and all..."
"Oh yes," Bronach looked up with a smile. "It is much like flying upon a hippogriff, but I prefer thestrals of the two. Even with such a noble hippogriff as Buckbeak."
"I am sure I would be able to find a mount for you," Eowyn said with a smile. "If any of you are interested in learning to ride."
"Really?" Hermione said, sounding fascinated. Ron looked a bit uneasy, but Harry couldn't help but think it might be fun. Bronach and the others had certainly looked as if they were having fun as they raced across the grounds.
"The adults should be mostly trained, and we can finish any necessary training to ensure your mount will be capable of carrying a novice," Eowyn told them. "The rest...best you learn together."
"How has your second day been?" Halbarad cut in with a smile.
"All the professors are obsessed with the OWLs," Ron complained as Hermione shot him a dark look. "They've given us so much homework."
"Do you know why Hagrid is missing?" Hermione asked.
The group looked to Bronach, who pursed her lips. "Hagrid is away on business and will return on his own time."
"How do you know that?" Ron asked sharply. "They say you're not part of the Order."
"I would not mention that group within these halls, though within the walls of this room is safer than most places," Bronach said sharply. "But I have my own means of gathering information, and Grimmauld Place is my home. If I wished it to, it would keep no secrets save my own."
"What about Umbridge?" Harry asked, since Bronach had been in detention when she'd come to the classroom to meditate with Halbarad and Daervunn. "Is there something we could do about her? The speech she gave..."
"Quite concerning," Bronach murmured softly. "Unfortunately, she, and by extension the Ministry, are intent on meddling."
"So there's nothing we can do about her?"
"You can hold your temper, and advise your classmates to do the same," Bronach counseled. "The less she has to work with, the more desperate she will get, and desperate people make mistakes."
"You were pretty aggressive in class," Harry challenged. "That's not holding your temper."
Bronach laughed softly, and Harry noticed Daervunn, Elladan, and Elrohir stiffen almost imperceptibly. Eowyn, Faramir, and Halbarad shifted to glance discreetly in Bronach's direction. Only Glorfindel remained unbothered by the sound.
"Trust me," Bronach said, something chilling in her voice. "Should I truly lose my temper, it will be incredibly obvious."