Bad Romance

Chapter 106

Chapter 106: New Discoveries

"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."