章 5: Prison Break

It had taken more than one obliviation to reset Dumbledore's mind to zero. She'd also thrown in a few harsh leglilimency spikes enhanced by the Elder Wand to soften up his occlumency.

Halfway through her treatment, Dumbledore's brain was so frazzled that he thought she was Ariana come back from the grave to punish him for his sins. There was crying and pleading. It was all quite emotional. Nymphadora really wanted a burger by the time she was done. She was famished.

Now back in her own form, Nymphadora dropped a brain-dead, completely shaved Dumbledore behind a dumpster outside of a shady gas station in the dead of night. The Lockhart treatment. Gotta love it. Normally, stripping someone of all of their memories back to birth wouldn't kill them, but when they were suffering from a fatal withering curse?

Suffice to say, Dumbledore did not have long to live. As a last farewell, she uncorked a bottle of firewhiskey, poured some on his beardless face, and dropped the open bottle onto his chest. He could spend the last hours of his life in a muggle drunk tank. Good riddance.

Even if the magicals did eventually find him, would anyone recognize him? She'd shaved his head and his bloody beard. What was left was not a pleasant sight. Wrinkly turtle might be an apt description for a bald Dumbledore. The man used to be 90% hair.

She twisted and apparated away, immediately putting the dying old man out of her mind. A second later, she appeared in front of 12 Grimmauld Place, ready for another good meal from Dobby and a full night's sleep.

She had a lot to do to prepare for the fallout of Dumbledore's death. She'd thought of waiting and getting the lay of the land, but she wasn't sure when Dumbledore was supposed to get himself cursed by the ring. She felt it was better to be proactive and take matters into her own hands.

Just to be clear, Nymphadora had definitely not killed Albus Dumbledore. If anyone questioned her under veritaserum she could honestly say that. She had prevented him from being saved. Big difference. Albus was still killed by the same hubris that would have originally been a slow death over the course of a year, culminating in his drama with Snape.

Her rewards for her active day? Two of the Deathly Hallows and one dead horcrux. Not bad, not bad at all.

Dumbledore was highly secretive about his horcrux hunt, and she didn't think he had told anyone about it, with the exception of Snape. Whether he already knew at this point in time or if Albus had only told him after he was cursed was the question. Did Albus tell Snape he was going with her?

She didn't trust the man. He was a deceitful snake and his love for Lily Potter was borderline creepy. It might be best to hunt him down at some point, regardless of what he knew. Maybe she could morph into Draco and catch him off guard? A problem for later.

Snape wasn't the priority right now, anyways. First, she had to assume that Voldemort would speed up his timeline for taking control of the Ministry, once Dumbledore's death became public. That meant...

Amelia Bones and Azkaban. This timeline had differences to canon beyond her own parents' death. Instead of escaping from the battle after killing Sirius, Bellatrix was stunned and returned to Azkaban. Why wasn't she killed for escaping in the first place? Pureblood politics and dirty money, as always. They only had to keep her alive long enough to spring her from prison once again.

Despite her personal problems with the Head of the DMLE, Nymphadora knew she was probably the only high-ranking Ministry employee that could be trusted. Her safety was a priority, solely to ensure Voldemort wouldn't be able to steamroll a weakened Ministry.

Azkaban was another question entirely. She wasn't sure what exactly she wanted to do with the Death Eaters that were still imprisoned. Voldemort was planning to hit the prison soon, so she didn't have much time.

"I think I'll just wing it," she mused to herself, "Auntie Bella is the only person I want to keep from him. I read about some rituals that would be perfect for me and her..."

The early bird gets the worm, as they say, so Nymphadora sacrificed her warm meal and bed to prepare for the coming storm. First things first, she needed to pay a visit to the Ministry, and she needed some polyjuice potion. Three doses should do.

Thankfully, the Blacks had pretty much every potion under the sun stored in the cellar in stasis. While she was down there, she stocked up on pretty much everything, even nicking some poisons. Never know when you might need to poison a bitch.

Quick as a shot, she was out the front door and apparating away, yet again. She sighed. There was no rest for the wicked. Moments later, she was at the Ministry. Teleporting everywhere sure was nifty.

Sneaking into the DMLE bullpen was irritatingly easy. She just transformed into an auror, John Dawlish, who would no doubt be skiving off in a bar somewhere at this hour. She walked right in, grabbed some archived prisoner files and transfer orders, and walked out.

No wonder this country was so easy for Voldemort to conquer. Compared to the last war, the DMLE was gutted, with most of the competent aurors actually being Death Eater sympathizers, at the very least. Pureblood nepotism at its finest, gotta love it.

Leaving the ministry, she shifted into the form of a stout old man, with transfigured boring wizard's robes to match. She traversed Diagon Alley, looking for a good target. She soon found Corban Yaxley, senior auror, busy harassing a shop owner. This bastard was a Death Eater, one hundred percent.

She casually walked past the stocky auror, palming her wand surreptitiously. Without breaking stride, she mumbled a low, "Imperio," as they crossed paths. Yaxley's eyes glazed over before he started to follow her from behind, slaved to her will. The shop owner asked no questions and returned to doing nothing, unmolested.

No wonder the so-called unforgivable curses were outlawed by the ministry. They weren't inherently more evil or dark than other forms of magic, but they were bloody effective. Too effective to police properly, hence the ban.

Since waking up in this body, she was pretty sure she'd used the unforgivables just as often as mainstream magic. Whoops. How naughty of her.

She led her new friend over to the apparition check point, grabbed his arm, and, with a twist and a crack, they vanished from the Alley. In an instant, they reappeared at the docks on the mainland that looked over the island paradise known as Azkaban. She shifted back into her Dawlish form and move ahead.

Magical Britain's operational security was right and proper shit. As a former auror, Nymphadora had a decent amount of knowledge about Azkaban. Every auror was forced to take a stint guarding the prison once a year. She knew where all of the defenses were, what the wards did, where they began, and where they ended.

Nymphadora walked up to the only other person present, the Ferryman, and hit him with another imperius. She had never tried to use the curse prior to becoming the owner of the Elder Wand, but even with two wills held under her power, she barely felt any strain. Maybe they were just weak-willed?

Breaking everyone out of Azkaban would be a proper challenge. Voldemort would have to make a deal with the dementors to gain control of the prison because there were too many to fight. How many wizards could even conjure a patronus? Breaking out only one person, on the other hand, was quite doable.

Barty Crouch Jr. had never been brought to trial, thanks to a certain portly Minister of Magic and his trigger-happy dementors. Owing to that incompetence and corruption, the Ministry had no clue how Crouch had escaped from Azkaban in the first place.

Their loss, her gain. Idiots.

Nymphadora was calm as she and her two thralls took the old rickety boat over to the island prison. Anyone other than the ferryman approaching the island from the sea would be mobbed by dementors.

Soon, they disembarked and made their way to the prison, proper. They were met at the gate by the warden, who was bristling with irritation. She commanded the ferryman to wait and he did so without hesitation, standing stock still on the shore.

"Dawlish! Yaxley! What are you two doing here? I haven't received anything from the head office!" he questioned them unceremoniously. It was rare when he wasn't kept in the loop. Why were two senior aurors visiting his prison?

Nymphadora threw up a discreet silencing charm for only a split second so she could cast her next spell without being overheard. She gestured the warden closer with the sheaf of fake DMLE parchments she took out from her bag.

"Imperio," she said quietly, without a hitch in her expression. The warden's eyes grew wide for a second before he succumbed to the curse, none of the surrounding guards any the wiser.

Nymphadora now had three people under the imperius simultaneously and was starting to feel the strain, but felt she could probably manage a few more.

She leaned in and whispered to her newest thrall, like she was telling him sensitive information. She gestured for the warden to guide them and they quickly walked inside the prison.

The warden had a portable ward-stone that repelled the dementors and their effects. They wanted the prisoners to suffer, but there wasn't a chance in hell they'd suffer with them.

As such, walking through the prison was more boring than anything else. Lots of grey stone, screams, and wails. That pretty much summed up Azkaban.

They traversed the dank prison unmolested by guards or dementors and soon found themselves standing outside a specific cell in the high-security wing. Nymphadora threw up silencing, detection, and notice-me-not charms before the warden opened the cell and let her in.

In her younger years, Bellatrix Lestrange née Black was a vision of beauty. After fifteen years spent languishing in Azkaban, she looked like a homeless meth-head. Honestly, Nymphadora was surprised her aunt was still alive. She looked like the walking dead. Did they even let prisoners brush their teeth?

"Wha- you want," Bellatrix stammered.

"No need to worry, dear auntie," Nymphadora said, still in her Dawlish impersonation, "The Dark Lord will be attacking the prison and freeing his supporters very soon!"

Bellatrix looked at her, shocked, before she began cackling uncontrollably. "The Dark Lord is coming! The Dark Lord is coming! I knew it! He's coming for his most loyal! I never lost faith!" Despite barely having enough meat on her bones to stand, Bellatrix's mania empowered her to start bouncing around the room, like a tweaking druggie.

"You're Draco, right? Draco, my dear nephew Draco, here to rescue me using polyjuice potion. How grown-up you are, yes," Bellatrix was fixated on her now, her eyes gleaming ferally. "Such a good boy. Your auntie will make sure to reward you for being such a good boy later, okay?" she crooned.

Ew. Gross. In Bellatrix's current state, such an offer was more than horrifying. Especially when she thought she was propositioning her sixteen year-old nephew.

Never mind the assumption that she was the only other person in the world who would call her auntie, Nymphadora was one-hundred percent positive she wanted nothing to do with Miss Saggy Tits. Well, not yet. There was one ritual in particular that would solve two problems of hers. She just needed one more ingredient.

"Shush for now, auntie. Don't worry about a thing, I'll be taking care of you. This is your own special pre-breakout to the main prison break! Just for you!" she cheered and ushered Yaxley into the cell to began her work.

She cast two body-binds to prevent Bellatrix and Yaxley from annoying her. She plucked a hair from each of their heads and combined them with two separate doses of polyjuice potion. She fed them the potions and their forms slowly shifted to match the other's, like gurgling liquid filling up a saggy balloon. Tsk. Such an inelegant way of shapeshifting. Not at all badass like her!

She magicked their clothes onto the proper bodies before dropping the imperius on Yaxley, in Bellatrix's form, releasing his head from the body-bind in the process.

"Any last words, Yaxley?" she asked.

"The Dark Lord will-!"

"Avada Kedavra," she interrupted. He dropped to the floor with his strings cut. She gave him a chance to go out without screaming like an idiot. Too bad he was too stupid to take it. Sigh. Some people were so ungrateful.

"You see that, auntie?" Nymphadora asked, gesturing to the Bellatrix corpse on the ground, "When you kill someone while they're under the effects of polyjuice, the transformation becomes permanent! Cool, right?" she giggled. Giggling with a man's voice was a little weird, but she could work with it.

"Draco, I'm not sure I understand-," Bellatrix began.

"No need to understand, auntie! Just do as I say! Oh, what am I talking about? I can just make you do what I say! Sorry, still getting used to magic. It's only been, like, a day. Imperio."

She cleaned up the scene of the crime and they were soon on their way. She had a skip in her step as they made their way out. Her auntie, polyjuiced to look like the auror she'd come in with, walked along sedately. The Bella-Yaxley corpse was left behind to throw off anybody that might be looking. It worked for Barty Crouch, right?

The warden escorted them all the way back to the entrance. Nymphadora hit him with a high-powered obliviate and a confundus charm for good measure. They left him behind, bewildered, with the last hour of his memory missing.

They hopped on the ferryman's boat and leisurely cruised back to the mainland. After they disembarked, Nymphadora grabbed her auntie by the arm and they disapparated with a crack.

The third breakout in the history of Azkaban, or so they say. With how easy that was, Nymphadora seriously doubted nobody else had ever escaped. It was all propaganda. Hell, Crouch Senior managed it with his dying wife in tow.

All it took was four imperius curses, some polyjuice, and her own two feet. Easy peazy. No muss, no fuss. She barely even needed her intimate knowledge of the prison or DMLE protocol. Aside from the dementors, she couldn't see what all the hype was about.

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