Everyone Apparated to Auror headquarters, abandoning Gringotts to Delphini. Bellatrix grinned, imagining how enraged the girl would be to find nothing but vacated vaults. It would appear that they'd given way to her, but then she would find that they'd left her nothing.
"We really need to work up some sort of mental shield for everyone against whatever she's doing," Zabini stated. He was the first to speak when everyone arrived. That suited Bella fine as it meant Grindelwald wasn't yelling at her again for what she'd done. It wasn't her fault, after all. The girl had done something to her mind, and she was getting bloody tired of her mind being messed about with!
"It was just Bellatrix's mind which was attacked, so perhaps I can work with her on shields personally," Romeo said.
The Head Auror had a rare talent for natural telepathy so Bellatrix actually did have confidence in his ability to produce flawless mental shields. Hopefully, he could teach them as well.
"Not just Bellatrix," Blaise corrected calmly. "She also did something to me. It lasted about half a minute. Gellert and I had just finished with the deflecting shields when it happened. It was as if I was stuck in a nightmare... or rather several nightmares. It felt as if it lasted for months and months, yet when I returned to awareness at Gringotts with the rest of you, only half a minute had passed according to the wall clock. I understand what Bellatrix went through, because it was so vivid." Zabini's eyes briefly closed, and he visibly fortified himself before continuing. The man never showed emotion, so Bellatrix found this interesting as well as alarming.
"It was as though I experienced all manner of different situations, all horrible. In one, I somehow went back in time to the twenties, and when I attempted to approach Gellert, he was only interested in my assistance in his cause and nothing more. He was appalled by the idea of a relationship with a man, and was very reluctant to admit to his feelings for me. I knew that he had them because...well, to be frank, physical interest is a thing men literally can't hide."
Bellatrix knew everyone would've laughed at that one were the situation not so worrisome, and even Rabastan didn't make a wisecrack.
"I ended up...going a bit psychotic and killing a lot of his followers in rather graphic and brutal ways in order to get his attention. Keep in mind that I've never actually killed anyone. In the end, I think in that one instance, I managed to take mental control of the illusion Delphini was spinning, because Gellert didn't really try to stop me. In the illusion, I knew that this was because he loved me. Of course Gellert would always protect his followers, so I think that was my way of adjusting the situation to show Gellert's caring so that I could stop going bloody mental. That one ended, and in the next I was back in present time. I watched Delphini kill my parents, and it was so vivid and dreadful. Unfortunately, thanks to her, I now know what that would look and feel like, and for that she will pay," Zabini said grimly.
"She repeated that one over and over in different ways before moving on to Gellert being killed." He closed his eyes again, and Grindelwald reached for his hand, uncaring of all the gazes upon them. "I know what your body looks like when it's dead. When rigor sets in and...how foul it can smell. I wouldn't accept that I couldn't restore you to life somehow, and I held onto your body. People kept trying to take it away from me, and I wouldn't let them," Blaise told him.
"Good," Grindelwald said. This caused Zabini to smile, and he relaxed a little as he let out a breath.
"I can't tell you how vivid and real it all felt," Blaise said, turning his gaze from Grindelwald to sweep the rest of the group. "With that being said, it wasn't a matter of Bellatrix being careless."
Damn, was she really being defended? Actually de-fucking-fended?
"It really is a matter of being inside the reality Delphini creates when she grabs your mind. There is no breaking through the illusion. There is no way at the time to even consider that it may not be real. It's not just a vision. It's entirely sensory. You hear, see, touch, and emotionally feel." He shook his head as if still attempting to clear it of the visions of which he spoke. "It is horrible. I can't stress that enough. We need to work up some sort of mental shield that will be able to block such forms of attack. I also think we should be physically bound together with sticking charms when in a battle formation like that again. Had that been the case today, Bellatrix could not have leapt up and disrupted our shield. Although our deflection obviously doesn't protect against that sort of mental attack, it at least keeps us safe while our minds are under attack. In the end, that may be what saves us if the situation ever manages to repeat."
"Good thinking," Gellert praised. His gaze on Zabini's face was intense and full of concern, but he still managed a genuine smile. Blaise returned the smile, and gave a slight nod. "Thanks."
"Brilliant thinking, considering you just went, at least in your own mind, through several months of trauma," Romeo congratulated fervently. "Fuck, it's a wonder you're even thinking at all!" He grinned. "That's your general lack of emotion keeping you stable, if you ask me." He glanced around at everyone else as he explained. "When I first met Blaise, while his family was vacationing in Spain, I actually wondered if he was pretending not to feel shit about anything. So, I broke a rule of mine and looked into his head and...nope, he really doesn't give a shit. The second time I saw him, though, he was already with Gellert. I think his entire ability to feel all goes to him," Romeo concluded with a laugh and an eyeroll.
Bellatrix ended the light hearted moment with a hard truth that everyone needed to be considering. "It's obvious. She's hitting us right where it hurts."
"Balls," Rabastan asked, and she shook her head, not even bothering to tell her brother-in-law to stop mucking about while shit was getting real.
"No. In our love. Zabini obviously loves Grindelwald and his parents. I love Roddy." She glanced around allowing her gaze to pause on each face that surrounded her. Humans, elves, goblins, and Acromantulas stared back thoughtfully as they took in what she said. "The question is, who do you love? She's going to use it."
"So... We put up those shields on the Ministry that we were about to place before Delphini decided to rob Gringotts, then I train everyone in heavy mental wards," Romeo said briskly, giving Bellatrix a nod. She was satisfied to see that her words of warning had rattled even the Head Auror. That was good, because they all needed to be rattled.
"If you have some ideas to add during my mental shield training, I would welcome them, Headmaster," Romeo added to Albus, who nodded.
"As it happens, I already have one thought," the old man said quietly. "When Mr. Zabini spoke of taking some control over the illusion, it put me in mind of a dream versus a lucid dream. It was as if she sent him a dream, and he was able to fight back by becoming lucid to some degree in it and altered it to suit his needs.
"A lucid dreamer can change a nightmare into something less frightening, and this is what he did. There are shields that one can place around their minds before sleep if they are concerned about mental attacks on their dreams. These shields block them from recalling their dreams or having them tampered with. Adding these shields to whatever Mr. Valdez has in mind is what I recommend, and I will be happy to show them to everyone."
"Sounds good," Grindelwald said, nodding. "Dreams aren't a forte of mine or Blaise's, so we are definitely in need of that knowledge." Everyone else nodded eagerly, including Romeo. Bellatrix found herself even more eager to learn from Valdez because he wasn't too proud to take instruction from someone else to expand his own knowledge. Some specialists in a particular field weren't so wise, and she respected him for it.
"But how did Zabini become lucid if he never knew that it wasn't real," Rabastan asked. "Lucid dreaming begins with realizing that you are dreaming in the first place, or so I've read."
Dumbledore merely shrugged. "It is different for each person."
"I suppose, I just didn't like it so much and wanted it to change so badly that I was able to change it, perhaps out of sheer desperation," Blaise said slowly.
Dumbledore nodded. "That's one way, and it seems to have worked at least to some degree."
"Let's get to work on the shields here, then we'll break for lunch, then begin working on the mental wards," Romeo said.
There were so many levels of the Ministry, and each had to be warded separately. Of course, it already had protective alarms and such, but considering those Delphini had already broken through on Azkaban and at Gringotts, Romeo had them basically pretending that there were none at all and starting from scratch. This meant that lunch was very late, and everyone was exhausted. As the mental shields still needed to be learned, that meant energy potions were in order for all.