A Year And A Day Book 1 - Consequences A Harry Potter Fanfiction Story by: ShadowedSin

Be Careful What You Wish For...

It's one of the oldest lessons a witch or wizard can learn when it came to their wondrous magickal world. Few ever put much thought of, least of actually think it meant something. Bellatrix Black was raised by an abusive father and a mother who saw her only as a legacy. In a House long having lost its soul it was the young Heir's job to protect her sisters and do whatever she was told.

That all ended when she found the Dark Lord and became his right hand. For once she had power and everything she ever wanted. Fourteen years in Azkaban was the least of her worries when her Lord promised the world to her. That like every wish she had turned to ash when the Dark Lord was killed at the Battle Hogwarts.

What if Bella survived the Battle and with her young daughter in tow made one last wish? A wish to save her life, and her daughters most of all. But also a wish to finally have a life where she was truly happy.

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Early Morning May 4th, 1998 - Western Wales

Bellatrix Black
The night gave way to early morning, and Bella could feel the remnants of her strength slowly leaving her. Even with her increased endurance after breaking out of Azkaban, she was still a shadow of her former self. But in the singular hour she had to listen to Genie she made do with what was handed to her. First, a series of items to do the ritual, and second a portkey to get her to the location to conduct it. Of all the items to choose from, the portkey was made from a pageboy cap. Some sort of random item she was sure a snatcher had stolen off a muggle-born father or grandfather. The stupid thing did its job and as she popped back into reality she found herself in the middle of nowhere in Wales, a lonely outcropping of land jutting out into the Irish Sea in front of her.

"Mum?" Delphini asked as she sat down on a large boulder and watched her mother prepare the regents. Only Old Magick required this amount of preparation and all the while Bellatrix was angry she hadn't put more effort into ancient runes. Covering a piece of rock in a moss knoll with ancient Tartessian Runes wasn't easy, nor was it easy in the middle of a bloody storm. The eldest Black Sister may have been Brightest-Of-Her-Age, yet she still faced the challenge of understanding her allies' queer ethnic magic.

"Yes sweetling?" she asked, looking over at the dirty blond toddler.

"It's cold," she piped up and pulled the blanket over her small body. Bella froze in the middle of her work and conjured a small fire to keep her daughter warm.

The work itself was proving far more daunting than she would have guessed. Not only was there the physical ritual component, but a mental and philosophical part also lay ahead of her. According to Genie any and all wishes she made before if remotely attached to the entity she desired to summon, could come up in negotiation. And, one of the few things she had learned from her mother was to always be careful what she wished for.

Making a circle of salt was easy, and then painting the runes onto the rock wasn't really the hardest. What was going to be the hardest though would be snapping her own wand as part of the ritual itself. Her hand hurt from the cut to her finger to make the blood for the runes, and her small series of notes on the design were already stained ochre from keeping them out of the wind. Now, all that lay were the words, the name, and the intent. The intent was to snap her wand and cut herself off from British Wizardry for the rest of her life.

Her daughter was worth it.

It took nearly two hours, but after reconjuring the flames for her daughter again, she finished. A small rounded stone covered in the proper incantation in Old Irish. The words themselves she'd whisper under her breath as she broke off her connection to magic. If she was lucky, the patron connected to the ritual would answer and appear. If she was even luckier, the patron would kill her or her daughter on the spot.

She glanced one last time over at Delphini who was shivering and staring at the fire while mumbling to herself. Her daughter’s existence was perhaps the only true gift the Dark Lord gave her, and she would cherish it to the end of her days. Now, Bellatrix Black had to ensure her daughter’s survival and give her life away from the infighting of the already corrupt new British Ministry of Magic.

"Just wait for a few minutes sweetling and I'll be done," she walked over to whisper in her daughter’s ear. Bella gave her daughter one last heartfelt hug before turning back to face the stone. Fingering her wand in her right hand she sighed. Of all the things she was going to do, she never thought it would require her to give up magick itself. For a few seconds, she just stared off into space her eyes flickering between her wand and the blood-covered rock. The ring of salt itself was starting to get dislodged by the wind. "SHIT!"

The Dark Witch rushed over and knelt before the stone and set the wand atop it. Letting out a sharp breath she began the incantation and as the words came gurgling out of her throat she could feel how alien they were to her. Three times she had to repeat the words, and thrice she said them. Just as she crested the final syllable she held aloft her wand and began to gently pull down either side. As the pressure increased she could see her wand bend in protest and just as the curve became too much SNAP, it broke in half. A shimmer of bright green light filled her vision as she fell on her back in shock.

"Can't believe I broke my own wand," she croaked and rubbed her eyes.

"Yeah, look at tat, a feckin English witch did sometin right ta get me attention," the soft gravely voice that replied to her came from near her daughter. A quick roll and she was on her feet to see the form of a seven-foot-tall woman sitting beside Delphini. The small dark witchling was asleep against the woman's side and the fire had grown in size with a massive black kettle over it.

"The Morrigan?" Bellatrix asked carefully, licking her lips nervously.

"Tis me." The woman replied, her burning green eyes reading the dark witch carefully before she patted the spot on the boulder beside her.

"I seek asylum for my daughter and myself," the mother said suddenly.

"Yeah, and if I loik yiz story I'll consider lettin ye come ta wit me." Whatever finality that existed in the creature's words, Bella wasn't daft enough to question it.

The Morrigan was a seven-foot-tall woman with black curled hair that fell plaited over her shoulders in thick silver-fitted waves. Her skin was pale in the moonlight, but it shined with a strange unearthly glimmer. Both of her eyes seemed to leak green fire as she leaned forward and bit her blackened lips while stirring something in the pot before her. At her side rested a long black oak spear fitted with a quicksilver color blade. Her limbs seemed almost overlong for her body as the woman opened a leather pack between her feet to toss in more herbs to the pot.

"Sa - speak yer wish mortal," the woman's voice rumbled.

"I wish for safety for my daughter and myself, a new identity and protection from the British Ministry." Her words came out rushed, and she could tell as she said them that already her wish asked for too much.

"Ye ere a fool Bellatrix Black, but I will gran yer wish. Understand dis - it will cost ye, mar than ye ever desire," the woman finished adding to her work in the pot. Gently she picked up the pot without worrying about the heat. A large wooden spoon served it into bowls for both Bella and Delphini. With an indication to eat the eldest Black sister sat down by her daughter to eat.

"What is the price?" she asked.

"You - yer entire self is the price Bellatrix." The woman's words were now darker than before as she rose to her full height, "jus like ye drove people to madness I will take fram ye an' make ye mine."

A single sharpened talon rubbed against her chin and Bella realized it was the woman's right thumb. The massive hand could have smothered her alone, and the woman began to feel horror roiling in her stomach. But she couldn't stop herself from eating the food. Steadily as she ate she could feel her body going still. Her eyes began to burn as did her skin. She wanted to scream to unleash years of pain from her mind and body, but all she could do was gasp. Delphini didn't seem to mind as her mother fell on the ground, nor that her new friend was chuckling at the woman's torture.

Late Morning, November 3rd, 1998 - The Burrow

Hermione Granger
"....Wait." Ron Weasely stated in between eating breakfast, a pile of griddle cakes disappearing at an alarming rate. "You're telling me you aren't a man or a woman?"

"Yes...Morgana - Ron it's not that hard."

"Bollocks, are you a bloke or not?" Weasely asked.

"I AM NEITHER!" Harry snapped hard, their hands resting along their hips, green eyes glaring at their friend.

"I mean it's just confusing and seems kind of nonsensical-"

"Ron - for Merlin's sake, shut up!" Ginny Weasely barked as she slipped an arm around their partner's waist.

This was Hermione Granger's morning, and by the highest powers of magic, she was watching once again as her ex-boyfriend shoved his foot in his mouth. Already six months had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts and Shacklebolt's rise to power in the Ministry. Her parents were still missing because of her plan to obliviate them and she was living in a room given to her at the recently rebuilt Burrow. Like always the emphatic Ronald Weasely decided to speak first before using his brain, a trait she once considered genuine, before she realized it was just annoying.

Harry, was a name in progress for her best friend who'd undergone severe changes in the last six months. No longer was that mop of black hair remotely short, but instead it fell in a long cut reminiscent of her Godfather, Sirius. The young person's body had definitely become more androgynous over the months as they expressed their true self. Hermione could understand the desire to change and to cut out what she was. Trauma was like that, invisible scars that continued to sit over gangrenous flesh and memories. She stared at her and the foundation over it to cover it up. Even now she felt the shadow pain of that fucking knife slicing into her skin.

Blood leaking out of it, and the searing pain of severed muscle and tendon.

Fuck. I need to keep the images under control...

"Mione?" she heard and pulled herself back to the real world.

"Yes Gin?" she asked. Her friend's half-shaved head tilted and looked at her with slight worry. Since the Battle, Ginny began training to join the Holyhead Harpies with Harry while they completed their NEWTs out of school. The two had surprisingly pulled themselves together into a semblance of a relationship, which seemed healthy at least from the outside.

"Where were you at?" she asked.

Brushing aside her own bushy hair, the young woman sighed. Even outside of her preferred braids, her hair was always in her face, and refused to work with her. It didn't help that while much of Wizarding Britain was multi-ethnic they seemed just as useless in black haircare as the others.

"Just trying to pull myself back together," she rolled her eyes, "plus I'm thinking of maybe getting a twist or something. Or even dying my hair red."

"Oh damn, that would be hot!" Ginny replied.

"Thanks, Gin," she replied and considered calling an old friend of her mom's to arrange an appointment.

"Do you miss Ron?" Ginny asked out of the blue.

"Yes and no, he's a good guy but - honestly he's too insensitive for his own good." She shook her head before rubbing her arm gently.

"I agree," she said as they watched Harry exit the room with a growl. "They're thinking of changing their name, something about all the pain they've felt over the years."

Hermione glanced at her friend and offered her a hug whom Ginny accepted wordlessly. "I wish they had told us more about those hellacious fools of an aunt and uncle!"

"Yeah me too Gin," she rubbed her arm again, nearly smearing the foundation. "But Harry's been through so much and Dumbledore manipulated them. Plus Snape didn't help one bit."

"Are they wearing makeup?" she asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

"Yeah, some eyeliner and some mascara...you wanna go shopping later?" Ginny replied and asked.

Hermione considered her words and gave a simple nod. Shopping could easily be therapeutic and honestly getting out of the Burrow away from Ron was probably a good idea. Plus, seeing Harry explore theirself was something that gave her a bit of a smile in her recently dark world.

Midday, November 3rd, 1998 - Inish Eile

Bellatrix Black
Six damn months of tutelage and change. Her body was remade subtly, yet still, recast to the will of her new patron. Time seemed to pass slower than possible on the Island of Inish Eile, and all she could do was fucking experience it! Toddling about the island was boring as hell after the first four weeks and the realization that magical wards kept it out of muggle sight. What was even worse were the mouthy House Elves that made their home at the large ancient pre-Norman castle. Several didn't even speak English to her and instead refused to even listen to a word she said.

Delpini had flourished and fallen in love with the eerie faerie island they found themselves on. The Elves taught her fucking Irish, and she picked it up at rapid speed, far faster than Bella herself. Then there were all the potions, tinctures, and worse she drank, embalmed in, and bathed in. What resulted was extensive pain and honestly torture. All the while the tall form of the Morrigan would appear to remind her of all her foolish actions and follies. Every sin was recounted as the changes began and ended. First, her teeth fell out painfully and regrew as well as her hair. Then as the days passed her eyes began to gain an inner ring of energy light that seemed to always remain with them.

What was worse though was how much her body hurt. Fourteen years in Azkaban destroyed her health with a mix of physical abuse, malnutrition, and steady mental decline. The mental damage remained rotting thoughts and gangrenous feelings necrotic from years of neglect and carefully applied suppression. Whatever trauma applied to her by her foes, and the emotions devoured by the Dementors were covered up by obvious mental irrationality. Yet, somehow Morrigan had started to heal what she could of Bellatrix's mind. For the first time as she sat on a bench facing the great Northern Atlantic. Dark water lapped at the beach just meters away from her feet, and as she leaned against the stone bench she marveled at her place of exile.

An exile she burningly wished for.

Morgana's tits I really have gone completely nutty.

Chewing on her lip Bella casually splayed her body across the bench as she felt a lonely emptiness in her hand. Six months ago she'd snapped her wand to summon her savior, and given up her magic. Today though, today her patron had informed her she was getting a new wand, or "foci' as the faerie called it. Whatever the faerie wanted, Bella was unsure what to make of it. Morrigan or "Erin" as she preferred to be called was about as approachable and friendly as her mother Druella. A stark difference between Erin and her mother was that Erin appeared to actually care about her charge.

In fact, even when she was being cold, there was a sense of carefully planned guidance behind her actions. To the tall fae, Bellatrix Black wasn't an insult or a scandal waiting to happen, she was a protege who needed the right tutelage to prosper. For this, she gave all of her patience as well as being thankful for the rejuvenation both her and her daughter felt. If there was one thing she was most surprised by, it was the fact that her daughter not only did well on the island but that she was flourishing. Already far taller than most two-and-a-half-year olds Delphini was quickly beginning the basics of Irish magicks.

"There you are," she heard the words behind her as the tall form of Erin stepped over the bench and neatly scooted her body over with faerie strength.

"I really do hate it when you do that," she protested momentarily.

"What, pick ye up, den don't be so feckin' small Black, ye bitch too much!" the Irish deity chuckled before laying six long walking sticks into the woman's laugh.

"Is this where you screech about shillelaghs or something stupid?" the Brit decided to deadpan.

"No ye prat," the goddess rolled her eyes, "each o' of these is made fram a different sacred wood," she stated.

"I'm supposed to use one of these idiotic Irish wanna-be wands?" she sneered.

"First, they aren't shillelaghs," she held up her massive black bronze banded cudgel in one hand, "THIS is a Shillelagh, an' I kilt more than my fair share of Sasnachai wit it!"

"So what are they?" Bella asked.

"We call 'em flescá, from an old word meaning wand," she replied and Bella picked up a blackthorn flescá in her hands and felt the warm thrumming of magic therein. For a second she wasn't sure what to do and spied Morgan's smile.

"So how do I cast with these magic sticks?" she pried.

"The center o' the focus is in the head of the flescá wit a magical core goin' down da lengt' o' it," Erin replied carefully while holding a white oak flescá. At the top of each walking stick was a thick piece of shine and rounded stone or metal. Each metal-headed flescá bore a small series of gems fitted into them.

"So what, I hold it below the head and just use the usual motions?" Bella put the blackthorn down and grabbed a rowan flescá with a sharpened bronze base ending in a point for its base.

"Yup," the massive faerie replied before snagging one of the flescá and swinging it over her hand and spat out 'bombarda' a strange snap of magic broke the air as she proceeded through the motions. However, just as the weapon spun between her hands Bella noticed the magic leaving not only the head of the flescá but the base of it as well.

"Flescá are built for rapid battle casting," Erin stated.

"What, can't you trust the local Aurors?" she asked.

"Pffft, Aurors ere usually owned by the Unionists, an' the Guards ere controlled by da Republicans," the faerie sighed.

"So Ireland is one big pot about to boil over," she surmised.

"Correct, an' wit da chaos caused by the maskers, yer facing possible assassinations," Erin nodded.

"Maskers?" Bella queried.

"Oh...most fae call yer lot dat, cuz we tought Deat'eater was too damn stupid o' a name."

"Ah, good to know," Bella gave a small feigned nod of her head.

The older witch graced her hand over the edge and top of each flescá. A yew flescá wound wrapped with a handle made of lambskin and fitted with a green stone and opal at the top. The thing fuzzed in her hand and she rejected it in seconds. Each flescá felt wrong or slipped from her hands until she felt it rest upon a length of rowan a little over a meter long, and its head carved into the shape of a raven. A black hag stone was fitted into the wood under the beak to create a natural finger hold for it and just as she touched it, an arc of energy struck her hand.

"Pick one," the faerie ordered.

The Rowan wood pulsed her hand as she tossed it up and caught it with her dominant hand. She noted the wood of the Ravenshead was different than that shaft and recognized her beloved Black Walnut.

"This one," she said feeling the weight of the flescá in her hands, how it warmed instantly.

"Rowan shaft, fitted wit an obsidian hag stone, and black walnut head." The Morrigan spoke the words elegantly, "A dual-core crafted fram me own hair, an' the heartstring of Wallachian Blackwing."

"You put your hair in this?" Bella asked curiously.

"Yes, I made it fer ye," Erin replied before picking up the rest of the flescaí, and gestured for Bellatrix to follow her. As she did, she pulled the black cardigan she was wearing tighter across her body. The cool of winter was already coming as fall began to die. Even the Morrigan was dressed in a black A-line dress covered in an even longer pair of robes. Black boots and leggings completed it as the woman stormed up the pathway back to her fine ancient seeming manor. Coming within sight of the Castle, Bella noted the dark brown and black-armored figures watching her from above. They were Fianna, wizards tied to the Morrigan's bloodline and served as her guards when she was in residence. One carried a large machine gun as the other a spear.

The doors of the great manor opened for the faerie lady on their own accord as a loud crack signaled the arrival of her majordomo, an aging House Elf by the name of Aisling.

"Does the Lady wish for tea?" the Elf asked in an aristocratic accent.

"No Aisling, I wan ye to alter the wards on the beach to allow apparition," the woman stated just as came within the entrance hall of the great manor. The small elf's sagging ears pricked in worry as her high voice spoke, "Miss if we break the wards the Sluagh."

"Will attack, aye, I know," she stated as she took off her robes before whispering a word in Gaelic and her clothes began to shift from a simple dress to the more common combat fatigues worn by the Fianna. Black tight body armor reinforced with shielding spells and a belted holster for her flescá.

"Wait, what is going to attack the Island?" Bella asked in concern for her daughter.

"Why Irish Dementors little jackdaw," Erin cackled.

"Dementors?!" she said with a gasp. "You surely aren't going to-"

"Pit ye against them, why yes!" the deity chuckled, "the wards will take a week to falter."

"I'm useless against those soul suckers, no death eater can cast a Patronus," Bellatrix protested.

"Wrong," she smiled, "A lie told to ye by that fool Albus, a yer bigger fool of a master." Morgan's eyes narrowed with annoyance.

"I have no happy memories to create such a spell," Bellatrix pointed out.

"Ye can, and will!" the Goddess replied leaving Bella to only think of one thing.

Was my wish really worth fighting the demons of my past?