章 69: Total containment

Just as Gaude was about to leave for the Werewolf Academy, he was stopped by an excited-looking Pandora.

Surprised that she had interrupted him so soon and suddenly, he asked: "Was there something you need?"

Pandora was practically beaming with as she reported: "Mr. Vywin, my team crunched the runes on a few methods we thought of, and the new stasis charm that I developed, should work like, ahem, a charm!"

Gaude perked up at that immediately. In his mind, she said: "Experiment LHSX-0024 is clear to continue."

The Sanguini vampires that had been discovered to be die-hard Lucien loyalists through Legilimentic interrogation suddenly felt a cold shiver run down their spines and an instinctive need to protect their crotch at all costs.

"Pandora, that is excellent news. Let's not delay any further, there is a patient waiting to be relieved of extensive mental damage!"

Gaude dragged Pandora into the torture- ahem, operating room, where Lucien was soon delivered by the elves. Pandora took out your regular ol' pensieve and with a flick of her wand, cast a charm on it. Next, Gaude once again took his time to disconnect, wrap and extract the gooyfied mess that was Lucien's most recent memories and dump it all into the pensieve.

Everything seemed to be fine, but just in case, Gaude asked: "How long will that charm hold?"

Pandora crossed her arms on her chest as she looked smugly at the pensieve while saying: "If the charm is reapplied once a year, indefinitely."

Suddenly, Gaude saw a few sparks flying off of the gems encrusted into the bowl's outer surface. He smirked as he replied: "I think you indefinitely just got into a serious head-on collision, because it's become a whole lot shorter."

Pandora's face was flushed with a rosy hue, as she exclaimed: "That was not supposed to happen! Bad pensieve!", then rushed off while casting a second charm, most likely to go and find out what went wrong.

Gaude shouted after her: "Remember, no hands-on experimental spells, your research assistants are there for a reason!"

Since it seemed that containment was on the right path, Gaude decided to see if he could reconstruct what got broken in Lucien's mind, as a proof of concept.

Gaude used everything at his disposal, but within three hours, he managed to reconstruct a little over one complete memory. Even so, the result was lackluster to say the least – it seemed hollow and lifeless, without the depths of feeling and contemplations attached, quite shallow. It seemed that Gaude was still lacking something if he was ever to achieve perfect replicas.

Once he was finished, he ended both Lucien's and his sister's blood diet and allowed them to come to once more. This time, they were both restrained in the same room, with Gaude ready to once again take notes.

This time, he did something he was still struggling with: he created a Legilimency link with both of them at once, keeping it to surface thoughts to maintain his control and concentration.

Both subjects were restrained heavily enough to be completely unable to move, since the areas of the brain responsible for movement had remained completely unaffected during the procedure.

Mary was the first to speak up. "Where am I? What's going on?"

"Mary?! Is that you? Where are you?", Lucien soon followed.

Gaude scribbled onto the clipboard: 'Mental activity seems to have fully recovered to previous levels. No permanent damage other than complete memory loss from the affected area has been detected. Newly formed memories connecting without issues. Returning subjects to holding area for further observation.'

Finally, Gaude spoke up: "You two have done well. You're free to go."

Mary chimed in quickly, fearing that Gaude would change his mind: "You're letting us go? Thank you, thank you so much!"

Gaude continued: "Into the holding cells. If you behave yourselves like good little test subjects, I might even let you share a cell once in a while."

Mary's tone became extremely sweet as she said: "What? Nonono! Can't you let us go? Please? I promise we'll be good!"

Lucien didn't even get a chance to say his piece, as they were quickly knocked out by house elf anesthesia experts with the draught of the living death. After all, that thing worked on almost any species, after some minor modifications.

At the very least, Gaude finally had definitive proof that removing the damaged bits would restore those that had become comatose from torture to apparent full functionality, which was really all he needed to rope in Dorne for good. That and the bloodline potions made from Dorne's blood.

As if she was waiting for that exact moment, Pandora met stepped into the operating room the moment Heisenberg was swapped for the more amicable Charles.

"Mr. Vywin, this time we really got it. No sparking, no smoke, and definitely no exploding. The mind-goo is safe and snug. If you're interested, I have an initial analysis report ready."

"That is some exceptionally good news, Pandora. But no, right now, I'm more interested in whatever means you used for containment. I have fifteen more patients waiting for me, and I'd like to get started on them as soon as possible."

Fifteen minutes later, Pandora returned with an eager expression. From her pouch, she took out a pensieve. It looked like any other on the market at first glance, but upon closer inspection, there were a few key differences, one of them a completely new rune scheme carved into its surface.

"I am ready, sir.", she said.

Immediately, Gaude started with the extraction. To get a better connection, he got into a high position where his head overlapped with the illusion of Charles before beginning.

It turned out that those that fell victim were much trickier to deal with – since the damage was more extensive, there were a lot more connections to mind. To be thorough and minimize the event's impact on the life of the patient, Gaude scanned through each memory connected to the destroyed portion, rerouting the connections that made sense to link the functional part's memories more thoroughly instead.

He worked bit by bit, until the last connecting strand was cut and he could finally scoop up all that pain and misery infused into a puddle of liquefied memories and thoughts, then extracted it from the vampire's mind and stored it inside the modified pensieve.

He performed a second extraction right after – those were precious research materials he was working on, and there were never too many of those. However, at some point, he started slowing down, and had to stop for bouts as his concentration started slipping. During one of those lapses, he split his consciousness into two, speaking with his own mouth: "A sharp mind potion, please."

After a moment, he heard Pandora's voice as if through a thick fog: "Here you go, sir.", then felt the mouth of a phial on his lips. He had to pull almost all of his consciousness back into his body to drink the potion – he didn't want to die a stupid death of suffocating from potion inhalation.

Once Gaude's mental strength was back up to snuff, he continued the procedure, completing it around two hours later.

After returning to his own body, Gaude spoke as he was stretching his stiff limbs: "Thank you for the assistance Pandora. However, we shouldn't make this a regular occurrence. Your talents have a greater application elsewhere, so instead, I should hire a personal assistant."

Thinking about an assistant, for some reason, Gaude remembered a certain Miss Perkins, who had been engaging in rather harmful practices, if the sharp increase of her visits into the Firepit's medical facilities was any indication.

However, Gaude did don't consider himself a good Samaritan. He took out his Firepit master coin and transmitted a single message: Linda Perkins. Recall to conference room 0.

Next, he took the Floo to the place. After a quick apparition by a Faceless, he was in the conference room where Linda was already waiting.

Once he had double-checked that he was still wearing the Charles Vywin illusion, reinforced with house elf magic, he spoke in his usual measured tone: "I hear that you've been acting up lately, getting yourself into trouble. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to tell you off or lay some misguided fatherly instinct on you. Instead, I'm here to once again, hire you, if you are willing."

This time, the young woman seemed rather reserved, not at all showing her enthusiasm from the previous interview. A small price to pay for forcefully summoning her, Gaude figured.

She asked in a nonplussed voice: "What's in it for me?"

'Might as well give up a few benefits. Whether she'll earn them is up to herself.'

"For one, training in skills you've so far been lacking in. Two, enhancing your physical capabilities beyond human, in a sustainable manner. Three, a team you can rely on and hire for personal missions from your own pocket."

The look on Linda's face hadn't changed by much. She asked: "What do you want from me in return?"

Gaude answered honestly, with a few omissions, while supporting his elbows on the table and touching his fingers together: "I want loyalty, mission-readiness at the drop of the hat, and willingness to work in a team. There will also be a mandatory training period behind closed doors for the entire team."

After Linda had been successfully sent to the Werewolf Academy, Gaude fetched one of Pandora's subordinates to be his assistant and was about to start on the next procedure, but a house elf apparated in and said: "Master, there is a Cygnus Black waiting for you in the lobby."

The only thing Gaude was wondering about after such news was why Cygnus hadn't shown up earlier, with the rest of the Death Eater sympathizing family members. His holding cells were almost empty of Voldemort's goons that were now also Gaude's sleeper agents. Each of them were even equipped with a special piece of parchment enchanted with a derivative Protean charm, allowing them to make nice and tidy reports when the need arose. Until then, they would simply ignore that piece of parchment while still taking it everywhere with them as they went on about their daily Death Eather business, leaving Voldemort none the wiser.

Gaude was already wearing the proper illusion, so he simply had the elf take him there without delay. There was no need to be pretentious and stall for time. He was already holding all the cards in the first place.

Once he arrived, Gaude said: "Greetings, Mr. Black. It is quite unexpected that you've come to visit me personally. Would you care to enlighten me why that is?"

Cygnus' face darkened at Gaude's words. There was also puzzlement after seeing how the elf was dressed. He was practically growling as he said: "You know damn well why I'm here, Mr. Vywin. But if that wasn't clear, I'm here for my daughter, Bellatrix."

Gaude still pretended to be oblivious to the other's motives and spoke: "Good, good. You made it just in the nick of time. Bellatrix will be put in glass at the end of the day."

Cygnus seemed startled by Gaude's statement, but a spark seemed to go off in his mind as he replied: "You can't do that! You swore an unbreakable vow that she'd not be harmed and would be returned to me!"

Gaude replied with a face brimming with justice: "Putting her in glass will in no way harm her. She won't even age as long as she's confined. That is the best she can get from me, without a word of this spreading on the outside. The alternative, for being the main cause for the disturbance in my house, would be a life in Azkaban. I believe there's no need to remind you the political hailstorm this would cause.

I suggest you come and say your last words to her. Behave and you can stay to send her off. I'm not too vengeful of a man, so I suppose she'll be released thirty years from today. So, you better eat your veggies if you want to see her out and about once more."

Cygnus seemed to be extremely indignant, his shoulders shaking with suppressed rage, as if he'd draw his wand at any moment. This lasted almost two minutes, before he finally said: "Fine. Let us do it your way, for now."

Gaude said to the elf beside him: "Take us to the sealing chamber."

The elf took Gaude's hand and Cygnus' sleeve – a guideline for dealing with wizarding purebloods – and a twist later, they were in a different chamber, where a single metal door could be seen. Gaude opened the latch on the door. It opened easily on well-oiled hinges, making barely a sound.

Inside, There was everything a lady could need to survive, albeit in very little variety. Bellatrix was sitting in a leather armchair, filing her nails. Cygnus' stiff expression seemed to relax a bit after seeing all that.

Slowly, as if to make a statement, Bellatrix turned her head to the door, and once she noticed Cygnus, she asked coldly: "Hello, father. Have you come to take me home instead of that good-for-nothing husband of mine?"

"I'm afraid I am not here for that. Mr. Vywin has made it clear to me that it is best you remain here.", Cygnus replied in an aggrieved tone, although, whether it was regret that he couldn't wash his family name clean of the whole incident by making use of Bellatrix somehow or that she would not be returning to her family for a long time wasn't clear.

He then continued: "There has not been any word of your", he paused for a bit, apparently to conjure a whole lot of loathing and indignance, "husband."

Bellatrix finally looked at Gaude, or more precisely, at old man Charles Wywin. She asked voice oozing sarcasm: "What has the great one come to do with me today? Are here to put me into a proper prison cell now, or maybe ask for my father's permission to turn me into your plaything?"

Gaude, unphased, said in a heavy tone: "For your attempts on my life and causing a great disturbance in my house, you'll be put into glass, a form of suspended animation, for thirty years. I have confidence of resolving the issue at hand by that time, and with some re-educating, I'm confident that you'll become a productive member of the society. Now, enough talking. Walk out of the door, twenty steps."

Bellatrix' eyes seemed to glaze over as she did exactly as she was told, walking for twenty steps, then stopped on the spot. An instant later, a fine shimmer appeared in the air around Bellatrix, and her eyes regained their previous luster, quickly supplemented by a large dose of indignant fury.

She stared at Gaude and said venomously: "You… What did you do to me?"

Gaude ignored her completely and instead turned to Cygnus as he said: "Any last words between family?"

His reply, however, was: "No. I have said all I had to say."

Bellatrix deemed both Gaude and Cygnus a waste of air.

With a flick of Gaude's wand, bluish-grey vapor started falling from the ceiling and piling up on the floor. Seeing that it didn't escape her surroundings, Bellatrix tried to rush out of the area, but found herself bouncing against a solid, invisible wall.

She started pounding against it with her fists, shouting: "Let me out! Let me out! Your house will not survive my Lord's wrath if you kill me!"

Cygnus by Gaude's side became agitated as well, apparently Bellatrix's plight had found the last bit of warmth the man had for his family. He shouted: "What is happening to her? You said she'll live!"

Gaude explained: "There's no need to worry. This is simply a part of the procedure. I suggest she take a comfortable position, as she won't be able to move for the duration of her incarceration. Just pray she doesn't develop an itch during that time."

"And you're sure that she can be recovered with her life intact after it's done?"

"Of course. I have tested the method for quite a few times. In fact, the current vapor you see before you is the fifth refinement, resulting purely from the need to obtain greater transparency."

Hearing that, Cygnus said to Bellatrix in a pleading voice: "Daughter, please recover your dignity. No child of mine should ever be seen with such a disorderly appearance."

Hearing his words and the calm in his voice, Bellatrix figured that maybe, just maybe, Gaude wasn't lying about her staying alive. She decided to follow her father's advice, somewhat.

She had barely adjusted her posture when the vapor started solidifying from her feet up, turning into a slightly blue-tinged transparent solid. By the time it reached her waist, Bellatrix had lost her cool once more, but struggle as she might, she was unable to free her hands. A while later, the solid reached her neck. Her eyes widened at that point, and she tried to give one last desperate struggle, but a few seconds later, she was completely encased.

There was a small imperfection near her cheek, where the transparent structure of the crystal seemed to be interrupted by something else, just as transparent, as if somehow, an air bubble had made its way into the mix. It was a single teardrop.

With another flick of Gaude's wand, the ward around the Boron Nitride cylinder dissipated. Gaude made a circle around it, inspecting Bellatrix in her long-term resting place. It turned out that she had flipped the bird behind her back, in one final act of defiance.

As he finished his inspection, Gaude said: "Once you've returned us to the lobby, put her next to Greyback."

Cygnus was not going to let the bewilderment he felt show on his face, but couldn't keep a hint of it out of his voice as he asked: "Do you actually have Greyback?"

"Naturally. We captured him a while ago. His accommodations are not quite as luxurious as Bellatrix, however, he was put in the second attempt at the formula, you see."

Gaude was certain that Cygnus would try a thing or two against him, either to rescue Bellatrix, or since he found out about that, Greyback, possibly for Voldemort's purposes. He wasn't worried, however – an aging lone wizard could never pose much of a threat to him, since his manor was protected by a Fidelius and blood wards among other things.

---

A secluded estate somewhere in Yorkshire.

A man that seemed to be in the autumn years of his prime was sitting in a stone chair decorated with engravings of dragons. If Gaude saw it, he might have ended up scolding the man for stealing his theme, even though the age difference their bodies couldn't be more obvious.

The man spoke in a resonating voice: "I hope you have good news to me, knight. Speak."

Another man, looking like he was about to hit his forties, replied: "My lord, we have indeed found a way to lure out the inheritor of the Vywin legacy. If all goes well, we should have him by midnight."

"Good. Once the boy goes missing, that opportunist Charles will definitely come looking for him. He would not risk losing his only access to the family's fortune. Finally, I will have what was rightfully mine. Ignatius and Belius, you'll come with me. We will set out at sunset."

Ignatius and Belius had strong Path clan lineage, thus they were extremely convenient for getting around. It took them but a thought to go anywhere in the world, as long as they knew the way, making Fidelius one of the few ways to keep them out.

---

Gaude apparated into the orphanage's wards with his army of knights, with the house elf troops on standby, everyone under the cover of stealth.

Unfortunately for the orphanage, there were only so many defenses Gaude could set up for it without either making it impossible for Muggles to function normally in its vicinity or crossing the Ministry's bottom line, even with the Minister's influence on his side.

Gaude could see three unfamiliar men, two of them were holding Adelaide by the arms and the last one was supporting a longsword on his shoulder. As if he had sensed Gaude and his troops being apparated in, he said: "There is no point in hiding. My senses are far superior to what you could ever expect to achieve. Besides, if you try my patience, she and every child here dies."

Gaude didn't really care enough about anyone at the orphanage, but their willingness to go after them due to thinking he did, was a sure indication that they'd come after the people that were his valuable assets and/or property next. It was best to nip the problem in the bud.

Gaude commanded: "Knights, formation Omega-three-five. Begin!"

Immediately, the knights moved about, forming three invisible rows, with every fifth person either a werewolf, part-dragon or artificial true vampire. Then, the lineup rushed at the three. Immediately, Adelaide was beheaded before the man who did the deed turned around and slashed at the knights.

By the time they became visible, they were already dying, their bodies bisected from the waist. It was as if all those protective enchantments and wardstones installed into the armor were just there to participate.

The knights, still at death's door, suddenly disappeared again, this time for good – the emergency portkey had activated, taking them to the medical area.

However, the enemy hadn't wasted time either. From the moment that Gaude spoke, they were looking around, trying to figure out his position. Even though he was in stealth, a vampire's hearing and sense of smell shouldn't be discredited, especially if they were close to a thousand years old, like the two knights Harold had brought with him.

The next instant, Gaude felt sharp claws cutting into his shoulder joint, and a moment later, he was in a different place. In front of him, there was something that so far, he had only read about in the Daily Prophet – a crack of silvery light suspended midair.

Gaude's thunder sense had reached the level of giving him a migraine. He hadn't even managed to recover from the change of scenery before he was already shoved into the crack, barely a split-second had passed since their arrival.

The last thing he could hear was the apparent leader's voice behind him: "It's time for the main family to experience the suffering I did, to live among beasts that could kill you anytime."

The trio disappeared from the vicinity of the crack, not even a trace left behind.

Near the orphanage, one of the knight captains asked: "What are your orders, boss?", not realizing that the one he was asking had already left the world.

About ten minutes later, a person wearing a futuristic-looking suit of armor appeared near the crack. They said in a mechanical voice: "Readings confirmed. Rift is category three, initial stage. Administering experimental solution five."

The suited person took out what looked like a spray bottle and squeezed the trigger. A vapor shot out of the nozzle and seeped into the crack. The crack seemed to react to the vapor, as it started dimming slowly.

After a while, the armored person spoke again: "Total containment of the rift successful. No residual readings detected. Total expenditure: five containers."

A female voice said from the other side: "Damn, that's way too much. At least we have a proof of concept now."