A/N: Because I'm an irresponsible FF author and my muse is incorrigible, here is a new story that kept nagging at me to be put down on paper—or rather, to be typed out in a word processor.

This fic will take a major veer away from canon starting at the end of OotP. Elements of the original plot will make an appearance, of course, but...well, you'll see.

I warn all readers from the outset that:

1) I am not reliable in terms of posting chapters on a regular basis. If you choose to follow this story, you will be subject, as I am, to my fickle muse and to the constraints of my busy schedule (in that they make my updates unpredictable).

2) This story is not for the faint of heart. The premise itself is rather dark. There will be graphic violence, torture, vulgar language, sexual content, and other mature subject matter in this fic. It is also, as you will likely have noted, rated M; I have chosen that rating for good reason. Read ahead at your own discretion.

All that being said: here is your first chapter. I hope it's entertaining. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on this intro to the story in a review if you can spare a moment. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise; it belongs to J.K. Rowling and her licensees. This story is written purely for enjoyment and I do not profit from its being written nor from its being shared on this site. No copyright infringement is intended.

rubicon: a point of no return.

Hermione's mood was subdued as she sat quietly in the back of a nondescript cab, headed home from King's Cross Station.

Her parents had sent her an owl earlier in the week making their apologies and explaining that they'd be attending a dentistry conference out-of-town—something about a showcase of cutting-edge equipment and a chance to lecture on the exemplary hygienic standards of their clinic—and as such would be unable to greet her as they usually did at the train station. It was a once-in-a-decade kind of opportunity, her father had written, and so they simply couldn't pass it up.

With their letter and its effusive regret, the Doctors Granger had enclosed more than enough money to cover the cab fare from King's Cross to their London townhouse and a promise to catch up with Hermione as soon as they returned the next week.

Thus, it was with a twinge of disappointment that their daughter had joined the queue for a taxi after Harry, the Weasleys, and the Order members who'd accompanied them had departed. As she waited, Hermione took a few moments to ready herself for a lonely, quiet handful of days in an empty house.

Then, after exchanging a few pleasantries and her destination with a kind-faced, Cockney-accented cabbie, it was no time at all before Hermione was staring out the backseat window of his taxi into the streets of London. She made the odd bit of polite conversation as was expected, but for the most part, Hermione simply sat in tired, contemplative silence.

Her thoughts were preoccupied by a deep concern for Harry. Hermione knew on an intellectual level that her friend had to return to Privet Drive with the Dursleys at the Headmaster's bidding, and for good reason; but on a more emotional one, the thought of Harry having to go back to that place with those people was utterly repugnant to her. Hermione had a fleeting urge to make the return trip to Hogwarts so that she could berate Professor Dumbledore for forcing Harry to endure yet another stay with his reprehensible relatives.

He needs to be with his friends, she thought with vehement conviction. After losing Sirius the way he did and after everything else that happened, doesn't he deserve that one minor privilege? She sighed, a bitter remark floating unbidden from the subconscious depths of her mind to its forefront. Harry's life is seldom so kind.

Hermione continued to ruminate in that vein of thought, gnawing at her lower lip with such unconscious enthusiasm that, when her tongue shot out automatically to soothe the ravaged flesh, she noticed an unmistakable, coppery flavour in her mouth. She licked covertly at her lip a couple of times, attempting to sweep away the taste; but in spite of her efforts, her blood kept welling at the broken skin, refusing to clot. Eventually, Hermione gave a huff of irritated resignation and leaned back in her seat, allowing her head fall back against the headrest and her thoughts to resume their previous train.

Before long, however, the cabbie was pulling up in front of the townhouse where the Grangers lived and Hermione was forced out of her trance as the familiar entrance-way slid into her line of sight. She paid her fare with the money her parents had sent her and, upon quick reflection, tipped the cabbie a bit extra, grateful that he'd seemed to sense her mood and largely left her in peace over the course of the ride. He thanked her with a genial smile and even got out of the cab to help her lift her heavy trunk and Crookshanks's cage out of the boot before he took off. Touched by his thoughtfulness, Hermione gave the man a little wave as he drove away.

Once the cabbie had turned a corner and disappeared from view, the world-weary witch got to work hauling her luggage up the steps to the front door. After she'd accomplished that feat, she then spent a good thirty seconds rummaging around in her handbag for her key to the townhouse. Letting out a quiet yip of triumph when she finally found the elusive thing, Hermione inserted the key into the lock and turned, pushing the door open with her bodyweight so that she could heave her trunk and Crooks's cage through the doorway and set them down on the tiled floor of the little foyer. Crookshanks was hissing up a storm within the confines of his cage, so Hermione immediately let him out, knowing how anxious he must be to stretch out his limbs after being cooped up for so long in the box.

To his mistress's confusion, however, Crookshanks didn't react as he typically did after being released; rather, he butted his head against her shins insistently, hissing and growling. Hermione reached a hand down to scratch the fur behind the cat's ears, frowning thoughtfully as she did so.

Crooks isn't just annoyed, she realized. He's frightened.

Hermione knew that her feline companion had excellent instincts and acknowledged that they'd yet to lead her astray; she would be remiss to start doubting them now. Feeling a prickle of paranoia, Hermione palmed the hilt of her wand and slowly withdrew it from the open, pouch-like handbag that was still slung across her torso.

Besides, she thought, it never hurts to take precautions. Constant vigilance and all that. A flicker of a smile graced her lips as Alastor Moody's infamous motto sprung to mind.

Crookshanks slipped out from under her fingers and disappeared up the steps that led from the secluded entrance-way into the sitting room. Though her view of her cat was blocked by the high wall to her right, Hermione nonetheless heard the muffled thump of his paws hitting the hardwood floor and couldn't help but grin in spite of her mounting anxiety. In the privacy of her own thoughts, Hermione admitted that, perhaps, she had been spoiling her cat a tad much at feeding time. That wasn't to say that Crooks was fat, per se; but that being said, he certainly wasn't a model of feline grace or agility, either.

Without warning, a poignant yowl came from the sitting room, breaking Hermione out of her musings. In fact, the young witch was so startled by the sound that she very nearly jumped out of her skin. As she took a couple of deep breaths to try to slow her racing heartbeat, Hermione's paranoia morphed into full-fledged trepidation and her mouth flattened into a stern, taut line. The door behind her had been left ajar but she paid it no mind; in truth, she'd forgotten about it completely.

In a true moment of Gryffindor courage, the witch began to climb the small staircase to the main level with her wand at the ready, craning her neck to peer around the corner of the wall and into the sitting room above—

—and she promptly let out an ungodly, bloodcurdling shriek of horror, stopping two steps short of the landing.

There, on an Oriental carpet of his wife's choosing that he'd absolutely abhorred, her father lay spread-eagle.

His mouth was slack, drool and something darker crusted at its corners, splotches of ruddy brown dotting his chin and the fabric beneath it.

His neck was bent unnaturally to one side.

His blue eyes were pale, glassy, and chillingly vacant.

Hermione's heart hammered fast as a mockingbird's in her chest cavity, each beat battering her ribs from the inside. Even as she took the final two steps up into the sitting room, bile rose in her throat; but Hermione found herself inexplicably unable to vomit. Her throat constricted in painful cramps and all of the sudden, she seemed to lose the ability to breathe.

For an indefinite moment, Hermione suffocated, and wild, visceral panic clawed and scratched at her insides.

Eventually, though, because it had to...it passed. One second, her eyes were tearing up from lack of oxygen; the next, Hermione's lungs gave a sudden heave, and without even realizing what she was doing, the witch sucked in gulp after gasping gulp of air, crouching and bending over to put her head between her knees as she was hit with a heady wave of vertigo.

Before she'd truly recovered, a jarring, deranged laugh slithered its way into Hermione's ears, freezing her into place and sending a thrill of fear down her spine. After the incident in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione would know that voice anywhere...and unless she was mistaken, its owner was waiting for her in the dining room.

Hermione immediately snapped to attention, wand clenched in a white-knuckled fist as she did her best to ignore the pounding, headache-like pain and the dizziness that accompanied the rush of blood to her head. Anguish, fear, and a steady sense of foreboding pushed their way into Hermione's focus, and for a brief second, she was tempted by the notion of turning tail and running for it.

She couldn't though, and she knew so all too well, because she wasn't an idiot. She had a fairly clear idea of what was waiting for her.

Hermione allotted herself precisely three seconds to pull herself together. Then, she strode determinedly into the dining room, wand raised at chest-level as she braced herself for what she suspected she would find there.

Hermione was a smart girl, so it was no surprise that when she made her entrance, the sight that greeted her was exactly the one she'd anticipated. Unfortunately for her, in this case, foreknowledge was of no help whatsoever.

Because there, at the opposite end of the Grangers' long, family dinner table—still bedecked in its pristine tablecloth and painstakingly arranged place settings—was Jean Granger, Hermione's mother.

To say she was in a bad way was an understatement. Dark, mottled bruises followed the line of her cheekbones; a thin, jagged cut ran down the side of her face; her bottom lip was split and puffy. She stood stock-still, the living epitome of tension as she fixed her daughter with an intense stare.

But though she'd been prepared for it, the most alarming sight of all to Hermione was that of the elegant, wicked dagger that dug lightly into the flesh of her mother's throat.

Its blade was nestled there almost lovingly by a woman in possession of a head of dark, unruly curls not dissimilar to Hermione's, though that was where the resemblance between the two women ended.

The woman holding Dr. Granger hostage had harsh, striking features that were nothing like the Muggle-born's and whose beauty had been whittled away over the years by starvation, neglect, and the woman's own cruelty. She had one arm raised to hold her knife at Jean's throat; the other had shoved itself between the Muggle's back and arms above her bound wrists, so that Hermione's mother could be held flush against the witch's front and rendered effectively immobile. Her wand, thick-handled and curved like a Hippogriff's talon, poked out beside Jean's waist, its aim trained directly at Hermione's chest.

"So!" exclaimed one Bellatrix Lestrange, her faux-innocent tone belied by a clear undercurrent of malice. "The Mudblood has finally decided to grace us with her presence. And just when I was starting to wonder if she would even bother to visit at all!"

Sadistic gratification was written all over the Death Eater's face; she looked as though she was having the time of her life, Hermione reflected with no small amount of disgust.

"So rude of you to keep us waiting, you know," Bellatrix went on, flashing the shaking Muggle-born a leering, yellow-toothed grin over Jean Granger's shoulder. "Especially after I went to so much trouble arranging our little surprise party! I had to Confound two Order members to do it, you know. The killjoys." She rolled her eyes and tutted obnoxiously. "So mean. But I managed in the end. You bought into that letter after all, didn't you?"

Bellatrix's grin widened as Hermione's breath hitched. "Oh yes, Mudblood," she said, using that infuriating baby-voice affectation of which she seemed to be partial. "That was me. Well—but I should give your parents some credit. They were so docile under the Imperius, you know, as all Muggles naturally are. You have such obedient, little darlings for parents, Mudblood, even if they aren't fit to lick the scum from my boots.

"Oh! And, of course, I even left you a little welcome-home present in the front room! I know you saw it, I heard your reaction—did you like it? I had ever so much fun arranging it for you; I thought that you'd appreciate my attention to detail."

Hermione's vision bled scarlet and her fingers clenched reflexively around the curve of her wand. Beyond that, though, she refused to respond to the provocation.

"Hermione." Said girl's eyes snapped to her mother's at the feeble rasp of her name. Hoarsely, Jean told her, "Go, sweetheart. Lea—"

The Granger matriarch winced; Bellatrix had pressed the knife harder into the skin over her larynx, and Hermione could see the faintest hint of crimson peeking out around the blade.

"Ah, ah, ah," crooned Voldemort's most devoted servant, her grip on the dagger's handle tightening noticeably. "That's enough from you, mummy." Her eyes gleamed with maniacal delight in the dim glow that had managed to creep out from around the dining room drapes.

"Bellatrix Lestrange." Hermione stated the name with numb revulsion, her wand trained unerringly on the woman's face even as the rest of her body trembled under the influence of the veritable cocktail of emotions flooding her nervous system.

"Yes, that's me," cooed the ruthless, brilliant lunatic of a witch. "Precocious little Mudblood, aren't you?" Bellatrix nuzzled Dr. Granger's cheek with her own, still sallow and gaunt from years of malnutrition, courtesy of Azkaban. "You must be so proud of her, Mummy Muggle, isn't that right?"

Hermione's mother struggled in vain to escape Bellatrix's grasp, which only resulted in her being squeezed even more insistently. Bellatrix gave a throaty chuckle. "How sweet!" she declared, all venomous, gloating sarcasm. "All that motherly concern. So touching! But you won't be going anywhere just yet, dearie. Of course, your fate depends entirely on your daughter, here."

The eldest Black sister turned her attention to Hermione, a sneer pulling thin lips back to reveal the rather impressive extent of the damage that Azkaban had done to the witch's teeth. "So, Her-mi-on-e Grang-er," Bellatrix toyed with the name, "you have a choice. If you drop your wand and choose to accept your new status as a hostage of the Dark Lord without acting out, Mummy dearest may yet live to see another sunrise. If you refuse..." The witch smiled at the prospect. "Well. Let's just say...she'll get the same as itty, bitty Neville's parents."

Hermione's clenched jaw quivered almost infinitesimally, but Bellatrix still noticed the subtle tick and immediately proceeded to shriek a few discordant giggles.

"Ooh, you've seen them, haven't you?" she crowed, elated by the revelation. "Been visiting St. Mungo's, Mudblood? Do tell me—how's dear Alice? She was a strong one, you know. Lasted for almost a half hour before her mind finally cracked—"

"Bombarda!" cried Hermione, aiming at the ceiling over Bellatrix's head; but to the Muggle-born's dismay, the other witch deflected her hex with a simple flick of her wrist and a well-placed Shield Charm. On its diverted course, the spell struck the door of a cabinet against the wall to Hermione's left and the glass plaque shattered into well over a hundred shards of crystal. They fell to the floor in a tinkling clatter.

"Ooh! Naughty, naughty, Mudblood," Bellatrix scolded with a playful pout, tutting for the second time as she basked in Hermione's failure. "You'll not get rid of me quite so easily, dearie. I've had decades to hone my reflexes, you know, and even if Azkaban set me back a little, I still have years on you. No, no."

Bellatrix's coal-black eyes somehow grew even darker. All traces of amusement deserted them until only unbridled, unhinged bloodlust remained.

"You'll do as you're told," she told Hermione in a lethal tone that brooked no argument, "or I'll torture your precious mother past her breaking point and then slit her throat right before your eyes for good measure."

Hermione's thoughts raced as her heart beat out a staccato. Her mind had played out several different versions of how this confrontation could end, and none of them were looking good so far. Bellatrix was undoubtedly far more skilled than she, through no fault of Hermione's own; it was a colossally unfair match. The only way she could envision herself escaping was by gaining the element of surprise, and she was coming up short on possible diversions. She'd hoped that her Bombarda would bring the ceiling down on Bellatrix and Jean, knocking them both unconscious and giving her time to retrieve her mother and make a break for it; but she hadn't been able to catch Bellatrix off-guard. And now the madwoman would be even more alert for any sign of the Muggle-born's magic.

I need to stall her, Hermione thought to herself, panic jolting through her body as the probability of her impending defeat and capture seemed to grow more certain with each passing second.

"How do I know that you'll let her live if I do as you ask?" Hermione demanded, making one last, desperate gamble for time. As she waited breathlessly for a response, the Muggle-born witch said silent prayers to every deity she'd ever heard of, begging them take pity on her and let Bellatrix take the bait.

And then, in the first, miraculous stroke of luck that Hermione had been granted that day, Bellatrix's fondness for toying with her food before she ate it proved enough to distract her from the younger witch's ulterior motive. Even better: it had set her monologuing.

She'd fallen for Hermione's ploy, hook, line, and sinker.

So, while Bellatrix essentially admitted (albeit at much greater length) that the Muggle-born witch could have no such assurances, seizing the opportunity to indulge in her more sadistic tendencies, Hermione used the precious seconds she'd gained to ruthlessly strip the situation down to its bare bones and come up with the following understanding of its parameters:

1: As previously established, Hermione was outmatched by Bellatrix in skill and experience.

2: Hermione couldn't expect any outside help at this point in time. In the midst of her grief and panic upon discovering her father's murder, she'd missed her chance to use her charmed galleon to send out an S.O.S. to the DA (which would have been a shot in the dark in the first place given that none of its members knew her home address); her skill at casting a corporeal Patronus charm was limited and hadn't advanced to the point of her being able to use it to send a message; and the Grangers' townhouse was not connected to the Floo Network, either.

In short? She was on her own.

3: Also as previously established, Hermione's best shot at survival and escape was to gain the element of surprise in order to distract Bellatrix for long enough to make it to the street.

4: To gain the element of surprise, drastic measures would have to be taken, as Bellatrix was already hyperaware of Hermione's movements.

5: Not only were Hermione's life and freedom in jeopardy, but her mother's life and sanity were also at even more imminent risk.

6: However, no matter how Hermione felt about item 5 or how stubbornly she clung to denial, the hard truth concerning her mother was this: all the odds pointed towards Jean Granger being subjected to the hideous fate of torture and death at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, regardless of whether her daughter made it out alive. Try as she might, Hermione could think of no way to save her mother, and she was not so naive as to believe that Bellatrix or her ilk would show mercy to the Muggle parent of a creature they perceived as an abomination.

With all of the factors laid out so plainly, the only semi-viable path presented itself to Hermione with all of the pleasantness of a hard kick to the stomach, and even as Hermione felt her time running out, it took her a whole five seconds to accept the course of action as what it was: her best option.

Once she had, her eyes pricked hotly and, acting on instinct, Hermione sought the comfort and the guidance of her mother's gaze.

Jean Granger was already focused on her daughter's eyes by the time they turned their attention back to her. She'd been watching the cogs turn in Hermione's brilliant mind for the past minute, willing the girl to come to the same conclusion that Jean herself had reached days ago after having spent just a single hour in the custody of Bellatrix Lestrange and having learnt exactly what the psychotic woman had in store for each member of the Granger kin.

The second the eyes she'd know anywhere met hers, Jean could see that Hermione finally understood what had to happen. The floodgates burst open, and Jean's heart was filled with a painful mixture of hope and sorrow as she watched her beloved daughter come to grips with her newfound realization.

"Mum." Hermione's voice finally cut across Bellatrix's raving, breaking halfway through the word; she blinked rapidly to refocus her sight through the persistent film of moisture that kept spilling over her lower lids. Against her will, her wand hand trembled.

She cleared her throat and tried again, selecting her words with care.

"Mum...you understand what would happen if I tried to bail on you, right? You saw what happened to Dad?"

Bellatrix soaked up Hermione's misery like plant starved of sunlight. "Ah! So the Mudblood sees sense at last," she remarked, triumph and pedantic approval in her tone. The Death Eater tittered and cooed banal platitudes at the Muggle-born and her mother, trying to fan the flames of the drama, convinced as she was that Hermione's surrender was close at hand.

Meanwhile, Hermione's mother blinked once in response to her question. Jean's eyes, which she'd passed on to her daughter down to last, minute, amber fleck, were streaming with silent tears that mirrored her daughter's.

"Then you know what I have to do," said Hermione bravely, ignoring Bellatrix's taunts. Salt water overflowed from her tear ducts, running down Hermione's cold, pale cheeks as a violent tremor rippled its way through her frame.

A sad half-smile and another blink came from Dr. Granger.

"I'm so sorry, Mum. I love you."

Despite the knife at her throat, Jean managed an infinitesimal nod and a slightly wider smile for her daughter.

Hermione took a moment to memorize her mother's face. She made note of the soft, worn creases on either side of her mother's mouth, across her forehead, between her brows; of the wispy, salt-and-pepper curls at her temples; of her eyes...

There was nothing but love and acceptance in those wide, brown eyes.

The sight of Jean's forgiveness sliced at Hermione's heartstrings like the dagger at her mother's throat; but it also gave her strength.

Steeling herself, Hermione racked her brains for anything that would help her to do what was necessary. There wasn't much information available from anything she'd read, but a recent conversation with her best friend rattled somewhere at the back of her mind from where she'd tucked it away for safekeeping.

What was it that Harry'd said? Hermione desperately tried to remember. It was just a little comment, but I remember it being unsettling. Something about—

"Enough, Mudblood. Your time's up," drawled Bellatrix; but still, Hermione paid her little attention. Her brain was whirring away, desperate for the detail that eluded her, hovering somewhere just out of reach—

And then, her mother's swollen, bloody lips mouthed, I love you; and just like that, it struck Hermione like a bolt of lightening.

That's right, she recalled, a chill creeping over her heart like cold, insidious mist.

Bellatrix's impatient warning of "Now drop the wand, or Mummy dearest gets it!" just barely registered with Hermione as finally—reluctantly—she remembered.

Harry had said: "She told me...that you have to mean it."

Hermione could make that work.

"Avada Kedavra."

A wicked jet of emerald light electrified the darkness of the dining room, and time seemed to slow to a standstill. The curse flew over the china-laden table, piercing Bellatrix's instinctive shield with ease, racing towards the space underneath the witch's arm—

—where it struck Jean Granger directly over the heart.

Bella hadn't even had to move her to shield herself.

And then it sunk in.

Bellatrix's lidded eyes flew wide open with surprise. The female Death Eater froze in shock before staggering slightly, instinctively moving to support the weight of her limp hostage.

That was all the distraction Hermione needed.

"Incendio maxima!" shouted the young witch, her pupils dilated from the adrenaline in her veins and her heart pounding as though possessed as grief and rage overtook her body and fed her roiling magic.

A great, white-hot tongue of heat flowed from Hermione's wand and, without hesitation, she brandished it with a harsh slash. The sizzling length of fire split the air like a whip, setting the dining room table and the hardwood floor alight in an instant before it came around for a second pass, lashing out all the way across the table to strike Jean Granger's corpse in the midriff.

Faster than the blink of an eye, the body in Bellatrix's arms burst into flames.

By the time Lestrange fully understood what had happened, Hermione was already halfway out the front door, running for her life. As she leaped from the top step of the entrance-way to the pavement, Hermione heard the demented witch screech a cacophonous exclamation of outrage from somewhere back in the house, and she shuddered with dread as her feet impacted the hard, stone ground.

She took off in a sprint, heading left down the street.

This was the one, final resort she had in the bank. If it failed, she was done for.

The Muggle-born witch skidded to a halt on the pavement a short ways down the road from the townhouse.

Then, as hope swelled dangerously in her chest, Hermione made a very deliberate jab with her wand in the general direction of the street.

One second ticked by.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Four—

—BANG!

And there was her Knight in gleaming, violet armour.

"Welcome to th—Oh, hello, Miss!" greeted a jovial, oblivious Stan Shunpike, who knew Hermione from multiple prior trips she'd taken on the Knight Bus. "Nice to see y—OI!"

Hermione, completely disregarding Stan's nattering, had launched herself onto the loading platform and barged past him onto the bus, knocking the conductor into a golden support bar in her haste. He gave a shout of protest but she continued to ignore him, choosing instead to rush over to the driver after peering frantically out the side window for any sign of Bellatrix.

"I know this will sound insane," Hermione told Ernie the Knight Bus driver, almost frothing at the mouth as she stammered the words, "but I'm being chased by Bellatrix Lestrange, and we need to leave. Now, Ernie!" she implored him desperately, but when the driver fixed his spectacle-enlarged eyes on her, he had a perplexed, disbelieving frown on his face.

"That sounds like a tall tale, Miss—"

—BAM!

Hermione's panicked eyes immediately zeroed in on the rear-view mirror, where the source of the noise became evident and she cried out in dismay. The door of the Granger townhouse had been blown clear off its hinges and into the street; and from the open entranceway, a visibly incensed Bellatrix Lestrange was descending into the street.

She and Stan caught sight of Bellatrix at precisely the same moment, and the latter gave a shout of pure, unadulterated terror as he watched Voldemort's right-hand Death Eater stalk towards them from his perch on the loading platform.

"LISTEN TO 'ER, ERN," Stan hollered, his voice shrill from fright, "AN' GET US THE BLOODY HELL OUT OF HERE, PRONTO!"

With a look of almost comically exaggerated fright on his face, Ernie disengaged the break and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, hard.

Just before he did, however, a great, splintering crash echoed from the back of the bus, and Hermione whipped around, fearing the worst.

In the space of a split-second, the Muggle-born witch met the eyes of her murderous aggressor through the shattered window at the rear of the bus; and for the duration of that split-second, Hermione was convinced that she was going to die, right then and there.

She saw the Avada Kedavra take form in Bellatrix's crazed glare, saw her lips part and her chest expand as she took the breath she needed to utter the incantation—

—BANG!

And then the view out the back window warped into an unintelligible blur of light and darkness as the Knight Bus took off at a ridiculous speed, rounding a streetcorner, racing through the streets of Muggle London, and leaving Bellatrix Lestrange behind in the midday sun.