Bad Romance

Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Love Is the Hero

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?