Bellatrix found herself enjoying the interesting Chinese food less and less. She ate slowly as conversation flowed around her. At her side, Rodolphus was also noticeably silent. He obviously shared her mood, or at least a similarly unpleasant one. She was more stunned and dejected than precisely angry for once.
She didn't know why she felt so crestfallen at the confirmation. Of course Gellert would want Winterhaven here. His skills were rare and useful, two things that could not be turned down these days. Still, the realization literally gave her the sensation of her daughter emotionally slipping away when they'd just gotten her back!
When Winterhaven arrived, Lyra would be spending enough of her time with him, and not dedicating her entire focus and attention to her family anymore. Bellatrix hated feeling as though, in a sense, she was losing Lyra all over again. It was ridiculous and for the most part untrue, but her feelings did not give one bloody damn!
"I would like the two of you to come to the Department of Mysteries over the weekend to have a look at the brain room, the love room, and a few others," Gellert said, his gaze on Regulus and Kreacher. "The place is far less crowded on the weekend, so you won't have as many distractions. It's dead in the evenings save for the guards, and no one will be in the rooms I would like you to study," he explained. "I would like to see if wizarding vampires can sense anything that the rest of us mere mortals cannot."
Something in his words caught Bellatrix's focus, though he wasn't addressing her. "Why the love room," she asked.
It seemed odd to be worrying over love at a time like this. The Dark Lord certainly hadn't understood the concept. Not for himself or anyone else. Perhaps for his snake, but then again, feeling kindred with something did not necessarily mean one had to love it if one did not truly have the capacity to love oneself. It could be a cherished possession, but only as something to own and talk to as he never could to a human rather than something to truly care for in any sentimental way.
Losing the snake meant losing a strong general, and something he could trust, that could not betray him. Considering all that, she hardly saw how love could help to defeat his daughter who had him in Horcrux form, all warm and cozy inside of her.
"Love seems to have killed him the last time so it bears studying, even if the same thing may not work twice," Grindelwald answered.
Bellatrix frowned as she considered. "I suppose it did at that."
"Mum seems to feel it may have been some sort of sacrificial magic instead, which would mean gods were involved, so we are researching other possible options," Gellert said. "As love is more accessible than gods, though, we're hoping we can discover something useful in the love room."
Bellatrix nodded. Though to her mind a bit of a stretch, she supposed they couldn't rule out the gods possibility. Especially considering what Kreacher had recently recalled of his time in the boat with Voldemort and the unsettling conversation they'd had.
Who knew what dark goddess Voldemort would choose to sacrifice to! She gave an inner shudder of repulsion over the fact that even remembering someone else's past conversation with Voldemort could make her skin crawl. At times like this, she couldn't comprehend how they'd ever found him in the least bit charismatic. Then she reminded herself that he was just that good. What he could do to the minds of those he managed to draw in was like a piper calling his ensorcelled townsfolk to him. Not to mention hindsight was a sharp toothed motherfucker, as Rabastan would say.
Grindelwald was too right, though. The love route would be far more manageable, complex as it was. As such, she turned her own mind in that direction as it beat sulking over her daughter's love life. What was it about love that could save another person from the most vicious Killing Curse? How, precisely, did it work?
"Could we come along," Bellatrix asked suddenly.
"Sure," Gellert said. His tone was expansive and he gave her a lazy grin. "Wait… Where?"
She chuckled, shaking her head and arching her brows in mock annoyance. "To the Department of Mysteries to study the love room with Kreacher and Regulus."
Gellert shrugged. "Sure. I don't see why not. Just meet up with Kreacher and Regulus and go in with them. It makes clearance faster, and the guards will have to open up fewer times to allow you lot to come and go."
"Meet up with us here around seven Saturday night," Regulus suggested. "That should give us all time to grab a spot of dinner beforehand while not being out too late at the Department of Mysteries."
Bellatrix nodded even as she made a face at the concept of the "spot of dinner" Kreacher and Regulus would drink for their evening meal, red and coppery. For his part, Rod didn't miss a beat, shoving another spoonful of Chinese pineapple rice into his mouth. It seemed the thought of a blood diet didn't rattle him in the least.
"What are we supposed to be doing in the love room again," he asked Bellatrix, frowning.
"Yeah," Rabastan hastily chimed in. "I don't get it. It sounds stupid, really. And for what it's fucking worth, I can't manage to make myself believe that a heaping dose of WOVE killed the former Dark Lord, either."
"I didn't say all that," Rodolphus said, and Rabastan shrugged.
"I don't know exactly," Bellatrix said. "I just started wondering if we could use love as a weapon. A weapon of the sort that doesn't get anyone killed or sacrificed unless they're the enemy, that is. I'm not trying to turn anyone into Potter's parents, but there should be another way to weaponize strong love if it worked for them."
Gellert studied her with a considering expression, nodding slowly. "I would be extremely interested in that."
At his encouragement, the wheels in Bellatrix's mind began to turn even faster. "What if the six of us could work as some sort of set? Me and Roddy, you and Zabini, Kreacher and Regulus. We've all gone through hell for one reason or other that would've broken lesser people, yet we're here.
"Well, Zabini hasn't gone through as much as the rest of us, as far as I am aware, but the two of you were apart for a very long time, considering he wasn't born yet for most of your life. If the six of us are some sort of destined fighting team as I speculate we could be, the reason you're so far apart in age could have a meaning... Like you could serve as two ends of the spectrum of time, to end this and bring it all full circle."
She fell silent then, a little embarrassed lest she'd just gone out on a very long limb of conjecture. Gellert didn't laugh or object, though.
"They are the furthest apart in age, yet ended up the same age when Gellert took the youthening potion," Kereston said thoughtfully. "That sort of closes the time circle of their prolonged separation if you look at it that way, which ties in with what you said. So far apart, and then it goes around to being the same age again, anyway."
Gellert and Bellatrix nodded their mutual understanding, and Kereston gave a pleased smile. "I like studying and connecting patterns," she told Bellatrix in way of explanation.
"It makes her quite useful," Gellert said and Kereston put down her fork to smack him on the arm. Gellert gave a happy laugh as he attempted and failed to dodge a second arm smack from the little Minister.
"So you're thinking of using our love for one another as a weapon or a shield," Blaise asked Bellatrix, who nodded.
"Yes. Both perhaps, but we shall have to study the room before my thoughts can become more concrete."
"Gel and I have studied it as much as time has allowed, and it keeps feeling as if we're right on the edge of something, but we can never get to it," Blaise said, shaking his head in frustration. "That's why we're having Kreacher and Regulus take a look. Hopefully you three can add something as well."
"Hey, I'm not in one of the loving couples, so I can just stay home," Rabastan declared.
Blaise arched his brows. "You don't have to be involved to make an observation or have an idea, so you should still come along."
"Fine, fine," Rabastan said, heaving a sigh.
"Is Bella thinking that the love shield will work because we have all suffered from Voldemort," Kreacher asked. " If so, it only applies to the four of us, not so much Blaise and Gellert."
Bellatrix shrugged. "That could be one pattern, but there are others. Gellert, for example, could've been pivotal in Voldemort's rise for all we know. Unintentionally and unwillingly, of course, but had Gellert not been imprisoned, I doubt the Dark Lord would've ever risen to power. He was trying to be another Grindelwald, at least he made us believe as much. With Grindelwald still free and active, the world would have no room for another."
Kereston nodded. "Yes, I thought of that before, and I agree. If something is stopped unnaturally that should've perhaps been allowed to happen, the natural repercussions can be nasty, and in this case, Voldemort-sized. Things get way out of hand, and we all have a huge evil mess to clean up."
"If we all do need a direct Voldemort connection, though, Blaise did grow up in fear of him," Gellert said.
"Of course it isn't anything close to what the rest of you went through," Zabini said hastily, an apologetic expression on his face. "But I can't deny it did have some psychological impact whether I like it or not. Not to mention, it certainly did make my parents lose their bloody minds with their killing seven husbands game!"
Kereston's lips twitched. "That was kind of funny, though."
Blaise shot her a scowl. "You didn't have to live with them. Trust me, it got old faster than you'd think."
"Alright, all six of us have some connection that leads back to Voldemort. And all of us have the proper sort of love that can be used as a weapon, if my speculation is at all correct," Bellatrix said.
"What sort is that," Rabastan asked.
"Crazy devoted. It's the sort of love that would die for one another, but instead struggles to live for one another, because we know the one we love wouldn't live without us. It is all. It is psychotic, which is why it could make the perfect weapon."