toujours pur.

@secretarylestrange​

Caitriona was very much minding her own business when the door to the back room opened, but she had to resist the urge to roll her eyes at Bellatrix’s greeting. Of all the Blacks, former in this case, Bellatrix had always been the most reluctant to acknowledge their families’ close ties. Caitriona wasn’t sure why, but the elder witch always preferred to treat her like a stranger, rather than a cousin. If Narcissa, or even Sirius had attempted such a slight, Caitriona would have had something to say about it, but with Mrs. Lestrange, she held her tongue. She’d never been close to Bellatrix, and now she’d sat through far too many intimate dinners with their husbands to trust her. So Caitriona made sure to fix her small, polite smile firmly in place before turning. 

“Of course.” Caitriona responded as if Bellatrix were any other favored customer of the shop. The parcel in question was already wrapped and secured, carefully labeled in her own father’s handwriting, which intrigued her. He was typically above such a perfunctory role, but she didn’t mention it to her cousin. “You honor us with your patronage, as always.” She kept her voice just this side of saccharine. “Will it just be this today, or did something catch your eye on the way in? Perhaps a preview of some of the goods we’re not offering to the general public?” It was an old family trick, keeping a few artifacts in the back room to pull out when someone needed to be made to feel special.

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She had to give credit where it was due, Caitriona was always capable of putting on the best acts of them all. Bellatrix could read that she wasn’t welcome, that her presence is the room made her cousin uncomfortable. The mere knowledge of that was enough to curl her lips into a smirk. Her head nodding at the acknowledgement that her business was welcome, her galleons were the same as anyone else’s but the added bonus of her blood and marriage made her a more worthy customer. She knew it, she wasn’t blind to it. “Your father always takes such marvelous care of me and my products.” Her comment spoken as she nods to the parcel in question. 

Bellatrix would have much rather taken her goods and been on her way but there was a something in the way that Caitriona offered that made her head eyes narrow slightly. She could never turn down being shown things that could be of use to her. “If you’ve got the time to humor me perhaps you could show me some of the things you’re not offering to the public? I would love to add some things to my growing collection.” Borgin and Burkes always seemed to have the best things in stock, things that she couldn’t get anywhere else unless she was willing to travel further and with her job demand that wasn’t always possible.

“You seem quite busy,” Regulus remarked. Her smirk threw him off a bit as Bellatrix smirking never meant anything good. He had to remind himself to stop being so paranoid around his cousin. Had Bellatrix somehow uncovered his betrayal to their shared master, Regulus would probably be dead by now. Whether his death would be at her hands, that was something he couldn’t be certain of.

“Of course,” Regulus nodded, bowing his head slightly to acknowledge her barely detectable gratitude. “What they did to Narcissa was unforgivable. I could never allow them to keep her there. There is nothing more important than family, as you and I know.” Regulus lifted his gaze, his words actually sincere. He cared about his family more than anything. Even the family members that he wasn’t supposed to care about, like Andromeda and Sirius. 

“Yes, certainly,” he said. As if his refusal wouldn’t spell out unpleasant consequences. 

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“Hmm.” Bellatrix hummed at his statement, nodding her head ever so lightly in agreement with his observation. Being the Secretary to the Minister of Magic meant that she got to spend the better part of her day cleaning up the messes that other people made. Something that she likely wouldn’t do if it wasn’t for the power that it gave her. The information that she had access to. “If I wasn’t busy I’d be worried that I’d run the risk of not having a job. Thankfully the majority of the population remains incompetent to do the smallest tasks and I live to sit behind this desk another day.”

There was a narrowing of her eyes at his statement and yet she found herself finding the slightest of comfort in the confirmation that they could agree family was the most important thing. “It is the most important thing, we must do whatever it takes to keep it safe.” And keeping their family safe meant keeping it pure. 

At confirmation that he would accompany her she stood from her desk she moved to grab a cloak that hung on a coat rack near the entrance, slipping it on before nodding for him to open the door. “Right then, this should be a quick trip. I need to deliver an item that I’ve picked up from Borgin and Burkes that I don’t fancy leaving laying around the mansion.” The Lestranges’ hosted far too many parties for items to be left out where prying eyes and sticky fingers could make themselves at home. 

There were three people in this world that Regulus never dared to outwardly disobey if he could help it: Lord Voldemort, Walburga Black, and his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange. To be on any of their bad sides, especially Bellatrix’s, never went well for Regulus. Thus, when he received the letter from his elder relative summoning him to meet with her in the Ministry, whatever plans he had that day would simply be postponed. Regulus did not question her in his response what she wanted to speak to him about, which left him to speculate. The entire family was still reeling from Narcissa’s arrest and trying in vain to ignore that Andromeda had been arrested as well, perhaps it was that.

Regulus stepped into the office that Bellatrix occupied a little earlier than had been scheduled. Sometimes he was punctual to a fault. He had never seen her at her workplace before and he watched curiously for a moment at the flurry of documents on her desk, which came and went with no signs of lessening. Then her icy tone indicated that she’d sensed his presence.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Good afternoon, cousin. Apologies for any intrusion,” Regulus greeted.

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She didn’t look up even after Regulus had spoken, instead she took her time finishing the paperwork that she had in her hand as though it was the most important thing in the world to her. It was only after she was certain that her work was up to par and she’d sent it off to where it needed to go that she looked up at the boy in front of her. “Ah, but I invited you didn’t I?” The question mostly rhetorical as she didn’t give him the chance to answer before she continued with her statement. “You cannot intrude on someone who invites you to join them Regulus.” A whimsical smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. 

“I received word that you handle yourself with the utmost poise when Narcissa was arrested.” Her words stopping for a moment as she studied the person before her. “Despite wishing that it had been me who had been able to come and fetch her, I suppose that you were a worthy stand-in.” The closest to thank you that he would ever hear slip through her perfectly painted lips. “I don’t take the safety of our family lightly, Regulus. I’m glad to see that you don’t either.” Family was above all the most important thing that either of them had. 

“But I didn’t send for you to inflate your head with my praise. I’d appreciate it if you’d take the afternoon to escort me to the Lestrange vault and then to lunch. Have you the time?”

Narcissa was with Draco in his room when the house elf popped into the room to inform her of her sister’s arrival. It only took her about a week to come to her after her wrongful arrest by the Ministry. If she would have expected anyone to come retrieve her from the Ministry and give them a piece of her mind at the same time, it would have been Bellatrix. Instead, the family had tasked Regulus with getting her out of her Ministry holding cell while Bellatrix remained absent.

Taking in a deep breath, she lifted Draco from the floor, a stuffed dragon held tightly in his arm, and headed out of the room. “Let’s go see Auntie Bella,” she said quietly to the boy, pressing a kiss to his pale blonde head.

When she entered the room, she raised an eyebrow at her sister’s question, setting her son down so he could play on the floor. “Need or want?” She asked, giving her sister a look as she opened a jar on the drink cart that held cookies for Draco. “There’s a big difference between needing one and wanting one. Do I need one? No.” She moved to a chair near her little boy, holding the cookie to him which he grabbed greedily. “However, if by need you mean do I want one because this past week has been Dante’s Inferno itself? Then yes, I think I do need one.”

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She studied Narcissa’s movements, watching how she placed Draco on the floor and tended to him with cookies. Her face never changing from indifferent, as though she wasn’t interested in the display before her. There was no denying that her sister was a marvelous mother and that her nephew was rather adorable but the whole aspect of it all lacked the components that could hold Bellatrix’s interest. She nodded her head at the statement that Narcissa needed, not wanted a drink, before turning to busy herself with making something for the both of them to enjoy.

“I apologize that I couldn’t be the one to fetch you from your cell Narcissa. I’d been sent away on business, no doubt to keep me from catching wind of what was going on. Probably best, I’d hate to get fired because I’d ripped the Minister to shreds for arresting my sister.” Her voice tone never changed, her expression changed ever so lightly though, from one of indifference to one that contained the smallest amounts of rage. If there was one thing that she didn’t take to lightly it was someone making a target out of her family, namely Narcissa. “But I did hear that Regulus had control of the situation, no doubt what the Black family needed him to do.” And that was the closest that anyone would get to a compliment from Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Tell me, Cissy, how was the holding cell? Did they dare to treat you as though you were some common criminal and not a Black?” 

She didn’t make a habit of being spotted in Knockturn Alley because of the rumors that tended to churn, especially when she made her way into Borgin and Burkes. She could have gotten an errand boy, or sent a house elf to pick this up, but the truth was she didn’t trust anyone enough to do that. That was how she found herself entering the door, adorned in a cloak that did a wonderful job hiding her as she lowered the hood and slowly made her way around the store. There likely wasn’t anything that she needed but it never stopped her from looking at the new inventory when she walked in, should something catch her eye. Bellatrix was greeted rather quickly, assured that her item was waiting in the back and she could head back to retrieve it. What she hadn’t expected to catch her eye was Caitriona Burke, her own head turning, dark hues slightly narrowed as she looked her over trying to remember the last time she’d seen the young woman. It she had to narrow it down the most prominent date in her head was Xavier’s funeral, no doubt. “I’m picking up for Lestrange.” She spoke, as though she needed to specify who she was, it wasn’t necessary, after all they’d spent plenty of nights with niceties when her husband had been alive. 

She’d been embarrassingly absent when her baby sister had been humiliated and dragged through the public as though she was some criminal and not a member of the Black family. The decision to send Bellatrix off to the States to handle some diplomatic business on behalf of the Minister had clearly been well-timed so that she wouldn’t have any means of stopping the mess from happening. Crouch was smart, she’d given him that, because if she’d been present there would have been no safe space for the bloke to hide. Still, she’d been behind on getting in to check on how Narcissa was fairing thus as she approached her childhood home she could only hope her mother and father were out, she didn’t need to be reminded that she still had obligations to them as the Lady Lestrange. 

As a house elf greeted her, ushering her into the foyer before running off to find Narcissa she didn’t bother waiting, making herself at home in the large living area. Approaching the drink cart that she was pleased to find fully stocked she didn’t have to turn to see when her sister had joined her. “I was making myself a drink, do you need one?”

Piles upon piles of paperwork sat stacked upon her desk, because there was one thing that Barty Crouch didn’t think about when he’d decided to draw names from a hat to pick who to arrest was the mounds of paperwork that she’d have to fill out. But of course, why would he waste the time to think when he was too busy making sure the Prophet got a picture of his best side. It was bollocks, he didn’t have a good side. She didn’t look up from her pile as she moved through the stacks adding signatures where necessary or waving her wand to send forms back to their departments because the lines that need to be filled in were not optional contrary to popular belief. “You might as well turn back around.” Her tone was like ice, able to chill even the warmest of people. “The Minister isn’t seeing people today and if you’re with the press we have no comments at this time.”