Bad Romance

Chapter 45

Chapter 45: We're Not Broken, Just Bent

The next morning, everyone was relatively hungover, but no one was pussy enough to complain too much. A good breakfast and hangover potions, both of which Harold had at the ready, set everyone to rights.

"Are you ready to meet your grandparents," Bellatrix asked Lyra as she poured herself a second cup of after breakfast coffee.

"I have grandparents," Lyra asked, looking sluggishly up from the newspaper over which she was hunched with her own second cup of coffee. Apparently her hangover potion was working a bit slower than everyone else's. "Well, obviously I have grandparents. I mean...it's nice that they're still alive!"

"We aren't that bloody old," Bellatrix pointed out with an offended frown.

"If you say so," Lyra muttered dubiously.

"Hey, watch that filthy mouth or you'll stop being my favorite niece," Rabastan warned, struggling not to laugh. "And being my only niece doesn't mean shit. I can still banish you from the favorite zone at any time."

"That's right," Narcissa murmured, lip twitching in a slight smile. "We tend to wipe smudges right off of our family tree. Insulting the age of an aristocrat is very dangerous, and may just get you blotted out."

Lyra sighed. "Very well, I'd better apologize. I apologize, beloved psychos."

Lucius choked on his coffee, and Bellatrix strongly suspected it was because he was actually trying not to laugh.

"Apology accepted," Bellatrix drawled. "Now I shall go and write a letter to my parents and Rodolphus's father to invite them to lunch. I won't tell them they have a granddaughter in the letters. They can discover that when they arrive."

In part, Bellatrix felt unsafe writing such news in a letter just in case Delphini wasn't already aware of Lyra's presence yet had the mail watched. A paranoid thought, but these days she was quite comfortable with her paranoia. It also seemed a bit wrong to inform her and Rod's parents via letter that they had a granddaughter they had never heard of. At times, and to the right people, Bellatrix could almost be sensitive.

"Your mum is dead," Lyra asked Rodolphus, turning to him with a look of sympathy.

Growing up around their other relatives had made their daughter very expressive...a practical open book, Bellatrix noted. She still wasn't certain how she felt about that.

"She died not long after your mum's Uncle Orion," Rodolphus replied with a slight frown. "There was an attempt at robbery of our old family home, a magical accident, the robber was never caught. Another interesting thing is that there were four witnesses to the robbery and not a single one is alive now. What started out as obvious foul play quickly got more foul."

Lyra's eyes were wide. "How long were the other four dead after your mum was killed?"

Rod gave her an approving smile. "Sharp thinking," he murmured with a nod. "Not very long. They made their report to the Ministry, and in less than a year none of them were alive. My mother's death was caused when they were defending themselves, and the robber was also throwing spells. They chased him off, and he was never caught. Since he wore a white mask, he was also never identified. The four witnesses were killed in various ways, all seemingly accidents or mishaps, but we never believed it for a moment."

"I bet you didn't," Lyra murmured, shaking her head.

"The elder Lestranges were always supporters of the Dark Lord, if not outright followers, so at that point we did not suspect him," Rodolphus said. "We weren't sure who had done it or why. We suspected the Ministry at one point but, of course, could not prove it. We had no particular reason for the Ministry doing such a thing other than wanting to stop support for Voldemort." He sighed. "Looking back, I am thinking it may have been the Dark Lord himself, though I have yet to understand why."

"I'm sorry," Lyra said sincerely. "Gods, is there no end to the harm this monster has done?"

"Probably not," Bellatrix muttered as she swept from the room to write her letter and send it off to the Blacks and Rod's father. When she returned, everyone was still lazily gathered around the breakfast table though the food was long gone.

"So who were the other witnesses," Lyra asked, refilling her coffee cup.

"Four of my parents' old school friends," Rodolphus said. "My father was away helping my grandfather move, and they were keeping Mum company for dinner."

Bellatrix gave her husband a look of sympathy, dropping a hand onto his shoulder before resuming her customary seat at his side at the head of the table.

Rabastan's face was a blank mask as he sat at the table's foot. His posture was stiff as he stared at nothing. Though he was the most laidback of the three of them, the youngest Lestrange did have feelings, and they were speaking of the still unsolved murder of his mother. It had to bring things back for him just as it had for Rod.

"Perhaps we can discover who was behind it yet," Bellatrix said, including both her husband and brother-in-law in her optimistic glance. It occurred to her then that perhaps it had been tactless of her to go off on her parents for not seeing that something had been done to the three of them when Rod and Rab didn't have a mother to go off on.

In her defense, though, she had been going off for the three of them. They'd all deserved help, and none of them had deserved what was done to their minds. While they had chosen to follow Voldemort so had many, and they were the only ones to make a stand against him once they discovered what he had done. In hindsight, perhaps they should've included others in the attack, she thought.

Then again, would it have mattered? What if the Dark Lord had simply defeated all of them? At the time, they'd believed that six was enough! By all rights five wizards and an elf surprise attacking at once should've been enough to take any single person down, even one as skilled as the Dark Lord himself. Apparently not, though.

Lyra scowled, setting down her coffee cup with a decided bang. "This makes it inconveniently difficult to stay angry with the three of you," she complained darkly. "You've gone through more in half a lifetime than anyone should."

"How could anyone be angry with the three of them," Lucius asked drily. "They're all such peaches, after all."

"Watch that shit or I will throw you out, leaving you cowering with your tail between your legs, hoping Delphini isn't interested in you after all," Bellatrix threatened, perfectly willing to take out her bad mood on Malfoy. He was a perfect target. He gave her a scowl but wisely remained silent, so she gave him a pleasant smile in return.

"Just for the record, we shall be ever grateful for your kind mercy," Rodolphus told Lyra with a grin. She gave an exasperated sigh, but smiled back at her father nonetheless. Harold came in then to ask about what he was making for lunch, and everyone moved into the library so that the elf could clean up without them in the way.