missnovel Chapter 297: Appeal and Proclamation
Chapter 297: Appeal and Proclamation
Orion still stood at the center of the crowd, ringed by several Heads of House, wine glass in hand.
Walburga had formed her own circle by the fireplace with a cluster of wives, red wine in hand, holding forth on something. The women around her laughed, all at the same time, all by the same amount.
Sirius stood beside Orion, but the conversation washed over him in a language he couldn’t parse.
Then Bella walked to the center of the hall.
The crowd parted on its own, opening a path for her without being asked.
She held her wine glass in one hand, the other hanging loose at her side, gaze sweeping the room.
The hall fell silent.
"Everyone." Magic carried her voice to every corner. "Having you here tonight is an honor for House Lestrange."
She scanned the crowd, eyes gliding across each face.
The Black family poise, the social restraint, lasted half a second on her features before a smile replaced it, fierce and uncontained.
"Can you feel it? For centuries, Pure-blood territory has been shrinking! Our traditions diluted! Our voices drowned out! We’ve retreated, again and again, until we’ve reached this point! A Pure-blood child sits in a Hogwarts classroom, and who’s sitting beside him?" Her gaze drove into a point somewhere in the middle of the crowd.
"People who don’t even know where their magic comes from! They crawl out of the Muggle filth, walk into our schools, read our books, learn our spells, and then stand on our land and tell us to our faces: your traditions are outdated, your blood doesn’t matter, you and we are the same."
Her voice rose higher.
"What is the Ministry of Magic doing?"
Her gaze swept from face to face, slow, deliberate, like a roll call.
"Compromising with Muggles. Letting half-bloods into our circles. Binding our hands with their laws. Then turning around and telling the Mudbloods: come in, this is yours too. They call that progress."
The hall was quiet enough to hear the candle flames twitch.
"Progress?" Bella bit down on the word.
"They’re giving away the glory our ancestors won with magic, with brilliance, with blood, piece by piece. They hand Ministry positions to Mudbloods who learned to hold a wand yesterday, and they call it progress!"
Then the smile returned, wider than before, brighter, carrying a joy that sat wrong on a human face.
"But we were born into a remarkable age. Someone has stood up!"
People in the hall held their breath.
"He sees our situation. He sees where the true future of the wizarding world lies. He will build a new order. Not a half-blood order. Not a Mudblood order. Not an order of compromise, not that soft, nauseating order that asks us to play nice with Muggles!"
She switched the glass to her left hand. Her right rose, fingers clenching into a fist in midair, her voice pitched so high it shook. "He will build an order that belongs to Pure-blood wizards! An order for those who truly hold power! Not by the Ministry’s permission! Not by bargaining with Mudbloods! By taking it back ourselves!"
"Some of you are watching from the sidelines. I understand. Watching is safe, smart and respectable. You’re waiting to see who wins before you pick a side."
She looked at every person in the hall. "But let me tell you something."
"That great wizard has given us direction! Given us strength! Given us a name! We are not a huddle of malcontents whispering in the dark! We are the architects of a new age! And the new age will not wait for everyone to be ready. It’s coming. It’s already here!"
Her gaze left the crowd entirely, passing through empty space, fixed on some figure only she could see.
"He won’t wait forever. Neither will we. When that day arrives, whether you’re standing on the right side or kneeling on the wrong one..." She raised the glass before her face. "That’s your choice."
One second of silence.
"To the glory of Pure-blood." Bella’s voice came down to normal volume, but whatever burned beneath it was still going, hot enough to make the muscles at the corners of her eyes twitch.
"To the glory of Pure-blood!" The response erupted, ragged but loud.
Some shouted until their faces flushed. Some were still catching their breath afterward. Some opened their mouths a beat too late but stretched them wider than anyone else.
Regulus stood by the column and raised his glass.
He studied the people applauding.
The true believers were obvious. They clapped hardest, voices thrown widest open. Their eyes shone, their lips trembled, and they needed no incitement. They were already releasing something that had been caged inside them.
Bella had said aloud what lived in their chests, publicly, loudly, in front of everyone.
They would charge to the front lines.
The ones going along were identifiable too. Glasses raised, slogans shouted, expressions on point, the warmth in their eyes no dimmer than the rest. But that full-bodied conviction was missing by a fraction.
And then there were those whose faces showed nothing at all. Glass up, drink, glass down, like completing a procedure. They didn’t need to be roused, because they’d chosen their ground long ago. They didn’t need to be threatened, because they were part of the threat.
But the composition of the crowd wasn’t the point. The point was what Bella had said.
Regulus brought the sparkling water to his lips and took a sip, his gaze resting on her.
Last Christmas, at Malfoy Manor, the man standing at the front of the room had been Abraxas Malfoy.
He remembered that speech clearly. The wizarding world stood at a crossroads of change. The strong set the rules. A great wizard was leading the way.
The language had been polished, the rhythm controlled. Every sentence stoked emotion while every sentence left room to step back.
Abraxas was the shrewd politician. His speech had been a businessman’s pitch to investors. He’d said a great deal, but it all meant one thing: there’s profit in following us.
He’d stayed in the posture of appeal, leaving space for the audience to choose. You could come over, or you could think it over. The crossroads would still be there; sooner or later, you’d decide.
Whether you believed the Pure-blood glory rhetoric was beside the point.
Bella was different. Her speech carried threat. She wasn’t appealing. She was declaring. Issuing an ultimatum.
Abraxas had said we from start to finish. Bella said you.
She was drawing a line for every person in the room. Step across, or be stepped on.
Everyone who’d walked through the doors of Lestrange Manor tonight knew exactly what they were doing. Every one of them knew who the great wizard was.
Bella was Voldemort’s vanguard.
Regulus knew. In 1975, the Death Eaters would act publicly for the first time. The name Death Eaters would appear in the Daily Prophet for the first time, on the front page.
Voldemort would stop hiding. He would step from the shadows into the open and drag everyone onto his war machine: the willing, the coerced, and those who hadn’t run fast enough.
When that happened, many illusions would shatter.
Those who thought they could follow along and see how things went would discover that the option no longer existed. Once you were on, there was no getting off.
Those who thought they could pull out if the tide turned would discover that the cost of leaving far exceeded the cost of staying.
And for some, the illusions would become reality. Power and profit would be redistributed. The weight of Pure-blood families in the wizarding world would peak during Voldemort’s rise.
At the same time, another group would watch their world collapse.
The people sitting in Ministry offices, convinced they had everything under control. The people who believed law and order could solve it all. They would discover that every floor, every office, every voting table in the Ministry of Magic had Voldemort’s people at it.
Bella’s fervor made her speech sound like a madwoman’s ravings, but madwomen didn’t always lie.
Every word she’d spoken would become reality.
Less than two years.
Enough time for him to prepare.
Regulus raised his glass, and across the crowd, his eyes met Bella’s.