The Rebirth

Planning

"When did she even have the time to have a child?"
Ron sat down, rather shakily, as Hermione began to pace.
"But Bellatrix? She's hardly mother material." Harry sat opposite Ron.

"You don't know what Ivy meant. Maybe Bellatrix wasn't a great mother, but she became desensitised to it, making herself believe she was a perfect mother." Hermione had momentarily stopped her pacing, before continuing.

"So either way she's mental. Great (!)"
"So what do we do?"
Silence.
How could they plan when they had no idea she existed until a few minutes ago? They had no idea if she was working alone, and above all, they had no idea why she was here, or what she wanted from the trio.
Either way, it wasn't good.
--

"We go to the Black house, see what we can find. There must be some records of Ivy's birth somewhere. We'll check Azkaban too. We need to talk to Hagrid. Clearly Ivy knew him."
The two men sat there, taken aback with Hermione's organisation.
No, it was Hermione. When was she ever not organised?
"Do we go now? I mean the sun will start rising soon, we might as well."

"No. We need to sleep. We can't do anything efficiently without sleep."
"Well we can hardly stay here, she got through our enchantments so she could easily come back!"
"Since seeing Ivy in our garden weeks ago, I've been looking at protection charms - but not your usual ones. This is strong magic, and I mean really strong. Few people in the ministry have been trying it out, says it works well. We'll all sleep here - and Harry, get Ginny to come, she's not safe alone."

So maybe it wasn't permanent, maybe it was flawed and they didn't know what was really going on. But they had something, and where there was Hermione there was a plan. And that was good enough.

--
"I have not just woken up and been removed from my bed at 5am without an explanation! Ron get me tea and Mione tell me what the hell is going on!" A pale, tired Ginny stood in the doorway, a bag in hand.
"Hey, so sorry about this." Hermione hugged Ginny, before picking up her bag and placing it on the table. "You carried out the charm I told you to put on the house?"
"Yes, though I hardly think that level of protection is necessary -"
"Oh it is." Ron handed Ginny a mug of milky tea, just the way she liked it.
"3 words - Bellatrix, child, Ivy."
Ron became covered in tea as Ginny spat out her drink in shock.
"THE LUNATIC HAD A CHILD?!"
"Hard to believe I know. She's called Ivy and she's been following us for the past few weeks - and now she's broken into our house and she's dangerous. And we all need to stick together and plan."
"Wow. It always seems to follow us, doesn't it?" She laughed lightly, but worry was knitted into her expression.
"It really does."