[Anguirel]

Tangoing on your own, Bellatrix was discovering, was a boring, frustrating, and painful activity. As she writhed under the effects of her tearaway nephew's hex, she found her limbs coerced constantly upward, her legs ripped into position, and sometimes her entire body floating upwards.

Worse still, a growing crowd of Orcish spectators milled about, leering at her fishnet stockings and occasionally attempting a few hapless dance moves themselves. Bellatrix's only consolation was planning what curses to perform on them once her arms were free.

Then they started singing, and she decided the time for magic was passed. She would take her Beretta pistol from her handbag, she decided, and riddle the lisping, yodelling, tittering, lewd yet vaguely hermaphrotitic hordes with bullet-holes.

As for young Dracomir, he would face the horsewhip.

Her ruminations were interrupted by an extremely bored sounding voice from one of those convenient darkened corners that spring up in previously straight corridors at the behest of the author.

"Imperio, imperio, imperio, imperio," it muttered. "Merlin's beard, there are thirty-one of these ludicrous dolts. This is going to take forever."

"Release me, whoever you are!" Bellatrix shrieked. "Then I'll handle this lot."

"Really?" the voice replied, and the figure of a man, cloaked and hooded in black and of medium height, stepped from the shadows, of course. "But, my dear Bellatrix, I was so enjoying your dancing..."

"Oh, very amusing!" Ms Lestrange shouted back. "I'm in absolute hysterics!"

The Mysterious Figure yawned obnoxiously and non-verbally countered the Tarentallegra curse. Without a moment's pause, Bellatrix produced her gun and emptied its barrel in all possible directions. Those Orcs who had been wounded limped off looking resentful but perfectly resigned; their companions had preceded them, scarpering at the first shot that alerted them, if not to death, then to dismemberment.

Now unimpeded, Bellatrix leapt in front of the stranger and threw back his hood...

"Impatient, Bellatrix," he reproached her calmly. Her face told a tale of annoyance and disappointment.

"Snape."

"You expected someone else?" the other answered coolly.

"It doesn't matter. Look, Snape, you must be working for the Blue Istari right now?"

"Must I? Well, I suppose it is the only way to pass the time," Snape answered lethargically.

"Look, everything's gone wrong. The boy, Felton, my supposed nephew, has quitted."

Snape laughed. "How touching. But self-deluding. It's difficult for a werewolf, however angelic looking, to just hand in their resignation papers."

"We need to talk, Snape, the Ithryn Luin and I. Take me to them."

Snape raised his exquisitely camp stage villainesque eyebrows. "If that is what you want, Bellatrix." He took her hand with decision, but a mocking smile adorned his mouth as they Disapparated.