"Thanks, Bella," Regulus said, giving her a warm smile. "That helped. I'm sure I'll feel myself soon. Perhaps working on trying to discover the uses of Merlin and Nimue's items will bring me fully back to myself."
Bellatrix nodded, and trying not to look as embarrassed as she felt, headed back over to her chair beside Rod. All that hugging rubbish wasn't even in the realm of her comfort zone.
Scanning the array of items on the table, she decided to just begin trying to work with the item to which she was most drawn. Her gaze kept returning to a large raw crystal quartz point, set into a chunk of gleaming silver just at its top. Lifting it into her hand, she wrapped her fingers around it and closed her eyes, focusing only on how it made her feel. Often with wands, how one felt when holding it was an indication of what it did best. A crystal pendant wasn't a wand exactly, but the same concept might apply.
The crystal seemed to nearly hum or vibrate in her hand. It was power. Perhaps it enhanced a person's power.
"May I keep this and play with it for a while," she asked and Gellert nodded distractedly.
"I suppose so," he said. His grudging tone led her to believe that he'd wanted to keep all the items for himself but probably felt a bit like a git for not sharing with friends. Were they friends? That would be nice, she supposed.
"I'd like to do the same with the amber," Mag said, extending the large dark yellow chunk of amber wrapped in heavy silver that she still held.
"Fine, fine," Gellert said, still grudging to share though obviously he saw the necessity for it. He and Blaise couldn't use or even figure everything out at once, after all.
"I doubt every item is enchanted to do something specific," Rabastan said. "I mean they were running around having wars against the Saxons. I'm betting they didn't have time to enchant shit constantly. Likely some of these things do something rather impressive, but the others could just be ornamental or for general standard magic, like this wand here. It just feels like a strong wand," he said, waving the wand in question.
It was the large polished oak wand with the clear quartz ball set into the tip that he'd been eyeing earlier. A small explosion erupted from the tip and Rabastan swore.
"Fuck! Perhaps not standard," he amended. "It appears to be more like a power tool… A fucking blasting rod."
Mag chuckled. "You were saying?"
"Thanks for figuring that out for us without killing anyone," Gellert said drily. Leaning across the table, he plucked the wand from Rabastan's hand. "I'll just be taking that."
"That's right. We do all the work and you reap the rewards," Rabastan grumbled.
"Yes, please. I do enough at the Ministry every day to keep everyone, including you, safe. As such, I hardly have enough time or energy left over at the end of the day to study all this." He gestured at the table of items. "Blaise and I do what we can, but what we can is around ten minutes a day most days."
That blasting rod could be useful if Delphini happened to show up at Azkaban again, Bellatrix thought regretfully as she watched Gellert slipping it up his sleeve. He was probably in more danger than they were, but he was definitely more likely to run into trouble faster.
"What have you discovered thus far that you find useful from the cave," she asked.
"We've focused most of our attention on the Crom Dubh statue, and after Rod's insights, we shall do so even more thoroughly," Gellert answered.
"We've been wearing a bit of their jewelry, but if it does anything in particular, we haven't discovered it yet," Blaise shared. "Hopefully this weekend we will have time to explore some items further… Provided we get decent sleep, of course."
"Which is why we offered to help," Bellatrix pointed out.
Mag gave a nod of agreement.
"He just doesn't wanna share," Rabastan snickered.
"I'll share," Gellert growled. "It isn't as though you could ever put the blasting rod to as good a use as I will. Petty crime is not as important as..."
Rabastan cut Grindelwald off with a belly laugh, reaching to clap the blonde on the shoulder. "Fuck it, Grindelwald. I don't really care. Keep the blasting rod. Plug your ass with the fucker for all I care. I was just fucking with you."
It struck Bellatrix then that Grindelwald was no longer a god for them and likely hadn't been for a while. He was just one of them, a human, even if he did have a few remarkable abilities, and their friend.
"Why are you staring at me like that," he asked her suspiciously. "Stop. I don't like it."
Bellatrix smiled apologetically. "Sorry. It's just...you're right. If there is anything else any of us can do, just say."
"I've noticed you three coming in enough days looking as if you're not getting enough sleep either, so you're doing your bit," Blaise said. "No one ever said you weren't."
Grindelwald nodded. "Just helping to study these items will ease the load some."
"How's it going with Dumbledore's son and his shiny new sword? Is that in progress," Bellatrix asked and Gellert nodded, turning to regard her thoughtfully.
"Yes. Graven is studying the sword of Gryffindor, and I think she's already made a few trial efforts. She is unsatisfied with them, but practice allows things to happen so progress will be made the more she practices."
"And did you ever sort the roles for Lyra and Cassius in all this," she asked.
Grindelwald shrugged. "Somewhat. Things are always subject to change, as Delphini is still such an unknown. My goal is to form such a strike, that it can still work against an ever shifting unknown variable. Though this might sound rather impossible, it isn't if you consider that destroying is always easier than building, and in this particular case that is all we need to do. Destroy the creature that is Delphini."
Bellatrix nodded.
"My goal now is to use Lyra and Cassius as back up to the others, cementing what Wulfric and co. are doing with their abilities. Cassius can lock things into place and Lyra can add her attacks once Delphini is already down as well as using her abilities on the well-deserving minds of any of Delphini's followers."
"Who is the co.," Rabastan asked. "Is that like the six of you?" He looked inquiringly from Blaise and Gellert to Bella and Rod, finally casting his gaze to the corner of the room where Kreacher and Regulus sat on the small sofa.
"We're part of it, but not the main attack. The six of us will combine our powers to form a sort of love shield to protect the others. The others being Wulfric, and Loughness."
"You're involving my son in this," Regulus asked darkly.
"Don't behave as if you didn't know," Grindelwald chided almost gently. "You're a bloody vampire. You can see inside of our heads and you know everything."
He smirked, but the scowling Regulus was anything but amused. "You know I've never been able to read you. Hasn't my family lost enough without more of our lives being risked? Haven't we unwillingly spilled enough blood because of Voldemort?"
"I thought you made Loughness to be special and do great things. I do recall that's what you and Kreacher both said when you decided to have children for house Black, in spite of the fact vampires are technically unable to breed," Grindelwald reminded.
"Your child is lingering in Hogwarts being bored out of his mind just as I was at his age in Durmstrang," Gellert said.
"Just as I was at Hogwarts," Blaise added with an amused smirk.
"The boy's abilities are required." Gellert's tone was matter of fact. "He can help take her, and he will survive it as long as the rest of us do," he promised, blue eyes intense as he leaned toward Regulus.
Bellatrix hardly thought of Regulus's children these days. For the past seven years, they'd been away at Hogwarts, and as children weren't really her bag, it had been easy to almost forget about them. Still, she supposed Gellert had a good point.
Kreacher and Regulus had wanted to create a special child who had the best of wizard and elf blood and as such was better than both. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, and Rabastan had been horrified by the idea, of course. To them it was sullying the pureblood of their family, but to Regulus and Kreacher, the blood was being made even purer. Both insisted that this mixing was combining two powerful magics to create something even better. Whereas mating with Muggles was what weakened the blood.
Though the idea had some logic to it, Bellatrix hadn't been able to overcome her stark horror at the time, so had overlooked, intentionally she supposed, any potential in such a thing. Regulus and Kreacher didn't require Lestrange approval to go ahead with their experiment, however. Working with Dumbledore, and a very expensive goblin Healer, they both donated sperm for artificial insemination and Albus transfigured one sperm into an egg. This ensured they would not need the egg of a woman, and the child would be entirely that of Kreacher and Regulus to continue the line of Black. The Healer did some sort of genetic reversal spell on the sperm and egg so that there would be no trace of vampirism in the genetic code. Granted the magic was advanced and impressive, Bellatrix could only feel horror at the time. The witch that Regulus and Kreacher paid to carry the child birthed twins, a boy, Loughness and a girl, Hydra.
The babies had been tiny, and to Bellatrix's mind, hideously ugly. They had Regulus's soft black hair and many of his human facial features. Their hands sported long elf fingers, though, and they had Kreacher's ears, large round eyes, and distinct long hooked nose. Whatever Albus and the Healer had done with genetics had worked, for at least the babies weren't vampires.
Seeing the distaste of the Lestranges for what he'd done, Regulus kept the children at a distance for the most part. That wasn't too difficult, for children tended to go to bed early, and their Shadow Ops job always had the Lestranges working rather late. Any visits they had with Regulus and Kreacher tended to be well after the children were in bed. They saw them on the holidays, but Loughness and Hydra tended to keep to themselves, giving the Lestranges plenty of room as if they'd heard some unsettling rumors about them or something. Bellatrix couldn't imagine what could frighten children when it came to their past deeds. They'd let the Longbottom brat live, after all.