The Lestranges left Arthur to get some sleep and went home to get their own. As per usual recently, Lyra woke Bella and Rod the next morning by banging on their bedroom door.
Bella groaned as she dragged the blankets up over her head. It didn't feel as though it should be time to wake yet. She was still so very sleepy. It had been a long tiring few days, and didn't they deserve to catch up on their sleep a bit? Apparently not. Lyra banged again.
"Are you hearing me?" she yelled. "I've only been talking to you through the door for forty-five seconds!"
"Is that why I was having a dream about an obnoxious talking woodpecker?" Rod muttered sleepily.
"When people don't get enough sleep, they aren't as sharp. In our line of work, that is dangerous," Bellatrix shouted back. "If you don't let us get enough sleep, that could get us killed!"
"Okay, well I'm not the one sitting in our dining room with a worried look on his face, asking for you both."
"Grindelwald?" Rod called the question as he sat up in bed. His hair was sticking up everywhere, which made Bella grin.
"Romeo," Lyra replied. "So if you'd like I can tell him that you don't care about whatever has him so concerned, and that you'd prefer sleeping to hearing about it."
"Contrary to your unpopular belief, being a brat does not at all become you," Rod grumbled as he tossed back the blankets with a resigned sigh.
"I hope it isn't about the bloody guns," Bellatrix muttered as she regretfully rolled out of bed.
She and Rod hastily dressed and hurried downstairs to discover what had brought Romeo out to speak with them so early. They entered the dining room to find the Head Auror seated at the table with a mug of coffee in front of him, and large dark circles under his eyes. Bellatrix decided not to grumble over being woken up when it appeared Romeo had gotten even less sleep.
"One of Delphini's people turned himself in two hours ago," he began, not bothering with one of those annoying good mornings, which Bellatrix greatly appreciated, considering it really was not. "He wanted to exchange information for a pardon now that Delphini is dead. We weren't interested until he dropped your names, saying he knew exactly why Delphini believed Bellatrix was her mother."
"Skeeter," Bellatrix said. Even after they'd thoroughly killed the woman, she couldn't speak the name without making a disgusted face.
"Though Skeeter did put the word out to the public, someone else put it into Delphini's ear as a possibility first. He says his name is Aymer Dolohov. He professes to be the cousin of Death Eater Antonin Dolohov. He claimed that Voldemort paid him personally, through Antonin, to find Delphini when she was older and suggest that you, Bella, were her mother." Bellatrix shrugged, but Romeo held up a hand, indicating that he wasn't finished. "He was ordered to do so while transfigured into Rodolphus, claiming to have escaped Azkaban just to give her the information and any help he could."
Bellatrix felt herself giving a slow blink as she processed this.
"But why in the hell wouldn't I have broken out of Azkaban earlier if it were that bloody easy?" Rod grumbled. "Convenient timing, wasn't it?"
"She likely wanted to believe so didn't think it out," Bellatrix mused.
"That and she probably knew little of how Azkaban rolls," Romeo added with a tired smirk.
Rodolphus and Bellatrix joined Lyra, Romeo, and Rabastan at the table and Harold breezed in to serve breakfast.
Bellatrix had a sneaking suspicion the elf wasn't tired at all from the fast way he moved, but if he had any bags under his eyes, his plague doctor mask hid them well. Perhaps she should get herself one of those, Bella thought drily. It'd come in useful if their sleep remained this bloody sparse.
"She never mentioned that she supposedly already knew Roddy when she came to Azkaban," Bellatrix told Romeo. "I wonder why."
"Perhaps she knew it wasn't me by then, or perhaps she wanted to keep our little secret," Rod said with an amused grin.
"Perhaps," Romeo nodded.
"But what's the point," Bellatrix asked.
"I figured it was intended to be Voldemort's way of making sure that his daughter tracked down his favorite toys so they'd never get away from him. If she thought she was your daughter, Bella, she'd have an attachment to you that, of course, you wouldn't want, and obviously he'd know that. It was a way to keep sticking it to the three of you." Romeo answered.
"That sounds fucking wrong," Rabastan groaned, making a face.
"I have him cooling his heels in Azkaban so that you three can have a chat with him," Romeo said. "I'd like you to report the details of said chat to Grindelwald. He'll have you question him more if he feels he can get anything else out of him, and if not he'll give you the go ahead to kill. Anyone who served him, and then her, is an obvious danger and needs to go."
"While I'm completely good with that, many people could say we three likewise present such a danger," Rabastan said with a grin.
Romeo chuckled. "So what if you're crazy? All the best people are."
Bellatrix smiled. "I knew I liked you."
Bella was eager to get to Azkaban to question this particular Dolohov. Hopefully, he could give them something useful. If not, he'd pay for it. She made a mental note to ask him about what Delphini had been doing with the Muggles as well, in case whatever it was ever came to bite them. When it came to Muggles, at least wizards like the Lestranges, Grindelwald, and Zabini were more than happy to bite first.
Once breakfast was over, Bella and Rod thanked Romeo for filling them in and allowing them to handle the questioning. Then they were off to Azkaban. To Bellatrix's surprise, Lyra wanted to come along.
"I thought the place annoyed your Aura," Bellatrix drawled, arching dark brows at her daughter.
Lyra frowned back, hands on hips. "I can override that when it comes to the safety of my family. I want to be there just in case he withholds anything and requires a little mind twist."
"Now you're behaving like a Lestrange," Rod said with a proud grin.
Dolohov was waiting eagerly at the bars of his cell when the four Lestranges approached. He was tall and wide shouldered with short dark hair and sharp green eyes. "Why'd they put me in here when I promised to talk," he demanded, tone whiny.
Bellatrix shrugged, smirking. "Why does it rain on a sunny day? Why do assholes pretend to be my husband so they can set Delphini on us? All extremely valid questions, don't you think?" She tapped her wand thoughtfully against her thigh as she spoke.
"But I already explained that to the Aurors. I was told to do so."
Bellatrix nodded. "Yes, but why?! Are you saying you were given no reason whatsoever?"
He gave a nervous laugh. "Did you usually get reasons from your precious fucking lord?"
Bellatrix had to admit that rarely happened, if ever, but she admitted that silently, only shrugging at Dolohov. They were the ones here to get answers, after all.
"What about Delphini, though," Rodolphus asked.
Dolohov blinked. "What about her?"
"Did she tell me...you, anything useful?"
He shook his head. "Not when I was you. Then she just had a lot of stressful questions about Voldemort and your wife. Stressful because I didn't know any of the bloody answers! You know, stuff like what they were like, did they love and want her, basic orphan rubbish." He rolled his eyes. "I just said they never spoke to me much about it, but I was certain they loved her very much."
"Why did The Dark Lord...Voldemort, why did Voldemort leave Delphini with that old lady Rowle to raise, do you know," Rodolphus asked suddenly. "If he left you instructions, it's clear he didn't intend to raise her, but I seriously doubt he knew he'd be killed by Potter in the battle of Hogwarts."
Dolohov shrugged. "He never struck me as the sort who'd want to raise a baby. I figured he planned to deal with her after the raising was all done, you know?"
Bellatrix nodded. That sounded accurate enough. "Do you know who her mother truly was," she asked.
He shook his head. "No bloody idea."
"Try that great big snake he always had with him," Rabastan said, an amused smirk on his lips as he eagerly watched Dolohov's expression for a reaction.
The man made a face. "Well...I can buy that considering some of Delphini's bloody abilities!"
"Speaking of that, you said she didn't give you any useful information while you were posing as Rod. You served her later as yourself, though, did you not?"
Dolohov nodded. "Yeah. Then she had moods where she could talk more. Sometimes she liked to boast. You know, she'd tell us what she'd done to others. In a way, I think it was sorta her subtle or not so subtle way of saying she could do the same to us if she ever wanted to. She always had this friendly, like, nearly sweet way of telling us whatever she wanted us to know though.
"Like the time she told us how she got into the Ministry and headfucked the former Minister...the Granger one. She said she pulled a big one on her, her entire family, and a few of her friends just to see if she could. She said it was to test the limitations of her power, and she discovered that it had no limitations. That made us feel invincible and excited, let me tell you. Even more so than...you know, you lot what served Voldemort in his closest ranks. She was truly something else. She could do so many grand things without even trying."
"What sort of big one did she pull on the former Minister," Rodolphus asked.
"Well, she made her and her closest people believe they'd found a time turner that went back as far as they wanted, not just an hour at a time. She made them believe that they were skipping through timelines with it for various reasons of their own.
"Their hearts' desires were fixed with a little time travel...don't we all want that? She really knew how to give people what they wanted. She played with their minds...even the minds of their kids, making them think various things were happening, things that spun in our favor. Where we were winning, where her father was alive… She did that because they'd all seen her father, and she wanted to look into their minds as they imagined these time journeys so she could see her father from their eyes." He smiled wistfully. "She said it excited her to see her father from the eyes of those who truly knew to fear him. She enjoyed making them see that he could've won, and that she would win now. She let them even believe they'd captured her again, so they weren't even looking for her anymore!"
Dolohov chuckled, eyes gleaming with near pride. "Now that was some genius, you have to admit!"
Bellatrix found herself growing from annoyed to enraged at the way he still talked about Delphini. Oh yes indeed, he was going to die as soon as they'd squeezed every drop of info from him.
"Bella," Rabastan whispered into her ear, leaning into her right shoulder. "You've got the crazy eyes. Ease up, or he'll get scared and stop talking."
She grudgingly nodded and let out a breath. Before anyone could form another question for Dolohov, though, he was asking one of his own.
"How did you lot keep her out of your heads, though? She never admitted it, but she could never get in. We knew this because she never considered the former Minister, or the Ministry itself a threat. She made a joke of getting into it and playing with the Minister just because she could, but she never got to the current lot. That young Grindelwald's old man must have taught him something she couldn't crack."
"He taught us shields, and we had amulets to unravel magic being done in our vicinity," Bellatrix said. "We also made magic proof ointment to apply to our skin." She smirked when Dolohov looked impressed.
"We don't need snake hypnotism to get our shit done," Rabastan said proudly.
There was no harm in telling Dolohov a bit of what he wanted to know, because it would make it easier to get him to talk. They could and would torture him, but the fast willing flow of information at a time like this could even be more immediately satisfying.
Dolohov nodded regretfully. "She may have had the best head games ever, but Grindelwald is better at the art of war. How'd he kill her anyway?"
Bellatrix shrugged. "A pretty sword."
Dolohov's eyes widened as a confused and doubtful look crossed his face. "It can't have been that easy, though."
"Okay, also a touch of something even hotter than Fiendfyre," Rabastan added.
Giving a dead man information was no risk, and he'd be dead as soon as Grindelwald gave the word.