The white shimmer beneath Cassius's fingertips deepened—like moonlight melting into skin.
Bellatrix's trembling eased, her eyes fluttering as the magic burrowed deeper, peeling apart memories layer by layer.
Her mind was a labyrinth of jagged things.
Dark corridors steeped in Voldemort's voice.
Crushing guilt and fanatical love.
Shards of agony inflicted and received until the two became indistinguishable.
Cassius saw every fracture.
Every warp.
Every place she had been twisted into something rabid and broken.
He exhaled slowly.
This is going to take time.
But he worked quickly, efficiently—cutting rot away, reshaping connections, erasing the scars that had fused her identity to a madman.
Some memories he trimmed.
Some he buried.
Some he overwrote entirely.
And when he reached the core—her name—he did what needed to be done.
"Bellatrix Lestrange is gone," Cassius whispered, magic weaving through the final thread that bound her identity. "No one deserves to be trapped in a name drenched in slavery and madness."
Her breath hitched as he touched that inner knot.
A bright pulse spread from his hand into her mind—soft, warm, clean.
He spoke clearly, with finality:
"Stellatrix… arise."
The name settled like a star descending into darkness.
Her pulse steadied.
Her face, twisted in decades of manic strain, softened—like a mask finally allowed to fall away.
Her shoulders eased.
Her expression became neutral, calm.
Confused, yes—but no longer feral.
Cassius withdrew his hand as Sirius, Remus, and Snape stared.
Sirius took a hesitant step forward, lips trembling between shock and suspicion.
"What—what did you do to her?"
Cassius gently adjusted Stellatrix's head so she lay peacefully on the ground.
"I corrected her," he said plainly. "The Dark Lord wasnt the only one to manipulate Bellatrix, sadly her own family likewise has a hand in this, so rather than suffer the loss of the second pureblood family in britain tonight, and make you lose another family member sirius, i simply chose to remove those manipulations and instead replace them with... well something else."
Sirius flinched—not at the brutality, but at the truth.
Cassius continued.
"I unraveled what they made her into. Scraped the madness off her mind. Removed their voices, their commands, their… fingerprints." His jaw tightened. "I rebuilt the pieces she should've had, not the ones he carved into her."
Remus stared, golden eyes still faintly luminescent from his Lycan form brought out by the moonlight. "Is she… alright?"
"In time? Yes. She'll be herself again—her true self, not the fanatic the dark lord eventually sculpted." Cassius brushed a stray curl from Stellatrix's forehead. "But she'll be confused. Vulnerable. She'll need guidance. Someone to help ground her, help her to make sense of this rapid change to her memory."
Sirius closed his eyes.
Memories of childhood flashed—of Bellatrix laughing before cruelty entered her eyes.
Of family dinners turned arguments turned duels.
Of a cousin who could have been different, who should have been different.
He knelt beside her.
"So… Bellatrix is truly gone?"
Cassius nodded once.
"Forever. Only Stellatrix remains. A witch with her potential, her skill—but without the chains of the Dark Lord. Or the Pureblood maddness of the blacks and lestranges" His voice softened. "She is the last true Lestrange now."
Sirius swallowed hard.
"…What do you want me to do?"
Cassius placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Take a leave from Hogwarts. Bring her to Grimmauld Place. Keep her safe. Help her adjust. Make sure she doesn't feel alone."
Sirius blinked several times, stunned.
"You—you're asking me to—what? Babysit her? Rearrange her entire identity?! Cassius, that's—"
"I'm asking you to save what's left of your family."
Silence.
Long, heavy silence.
Then Sirius looked down at Stellatrix—her lashes still trembling, her expression peaceful for perhaps the first time in her life.
He exhaled a shuddering breath.
"…Alright. Yeah. I'll do it."
Cassius nodded in thanks. "She'll wake in a few hours. Dont tell her the truth, she needs to learn things on her own, in her mind she's the twin to Bellatrix, so the actions of the one were not undertaken by the other. Her memory of tonight will be fogged, but impressions will linger."
Snape sneered softly. "How sentimental. Rehabilitating a murderer."
Cassius didn't even look at him. "If rehabilitation were impossible, you wouldn't be standing here."
Snape went rigid, mouth flattening into a thin line.
Remus chuckled darkly under his breath.
Cassius rose to his feet, glancing around the destruction.
Serepha padded to his side, scales shimmering with faint starlight as her wings tucked close.
"Father, Remus—return to Hogwarts. Report what needs reporting. I'll handle the rest."
Remus nodded.
Snape simply turned away.
Sirius carefully lifted Stellatrix, cradling her with surprising gentleness.
"Apparating from here should be safe?" he asked quietly.
"The barrier has dropped," Cassius confirmed. "Go."
Sirius took one last look at Cassius—an unspoken gratitude in his eyes—then vanished with a sharp POP.
Remus and Snape followed moments later.
The clearing fell into silence.
Cassius exhaled, placing a hand on Serepha's side.
She lowered herself, allowing him to climb onto her back.
But before setting off he sent out one final command in parseltongue which had Serepha breath out a simple violet flame burning the ground where Bellatrix had fallen into a charred pit.
"We're done here."
She rumbled in agreement.
Then, with a beat of her wings, she shot upward—vanishing into the night toward the Forbidden Forest.
The clearing remained still.
Broken trees.
Charred soil.
The corpses of Amycus and Alecto Carrow.
The ruin that was once Pettigrew.
All silent.
Until—
POP.
A new figure appeared at the edge of the battlefield.
Albus Dumbledore's robes drifted around him as he surveyed the devastation, blue eyes dimming with something complicated.
Not surprise.
Not anger.
But worry.
Deep, heavy worry.
He stepped forward, wand casting a soft glow over the shredded remains of the Carrow twins.
"Purebloods…" he murmured, sorrow threading through his voice. "So much potential wasted. As another wizarding family has fallen to history..."
He moved to Pettigrew's mangled body next.
His mouth tightened.
"…And another lost to fear."
He knelt briefly, closing Pettigrew's eyes with a gentle touch—despite the carnage around him.
The air stirred.
The headmaster was unaware overall of what had occured here tonight, only responding after reports of spell casting was sighted in the distance outside the school grounds, however he arrived to late.
To late to prevent deaths, even if they were wanted criminals no one deserved to die... not even dark lords like Tom, or Grindelwald.