It was oddly enough incredibly fortuitous that the puffy ginger muggle had tried to pick pocket Bellatrix.

Not only had she discovered an incredible power deep within herself that would be incredibly useful for both instilling pants pissing terror into her enemies and inspiring followers, but also without a single penny or imperio Bellatrix had found VIP lodgings for herself and her lover.

Bellatrix even got meal service. Nellie could have too if she would allow it, but she had (rather wisely, truth be told) refused to so much as touch anything made by either of the Thenardiers, and as such she had actually been the one making and taking Bellatrix and herself their food. The inn-keeper and his wife though, in an extreme fear, were waiting on their new tenants hand and foot. They had even very graciously shooed out any and all other guests (although this probably had more to do with their sudden inability to speak in their native language than any overwhelming want to concentrate purely on Bellatrix and Nellie.)

So while Bellatrix had taken to thinking up newer and ever more daring and/or embarrassing tasks for Monsieur Thenardier, Nellie had seemed to rather enjoy berating the madam for her kitchen.

Later on that very first evening, Bellatrix was rather enjoying a foot massage from Monsieur and a show from Nellie as she had taken a stool to stand on and was peering down into the depths of the Thenardier's meat grinder. Madam was very pointedly doing her best to ignore every word out of Nellie's mouth as she (per Nellie's instruction) was pulling out handfuls of rotted…materials and half-heartedly wiping up after them with a rag.

"Really? Is that ash? Ash? Dear Lord, it's a grinder not an oven! How in the bloody blazes do you get ash in a grinder? 's like you been emptyin' your… YOU HAVE, HAVEN'T YOU?" Nellie gasped, pulling her hand up to cover her chest in a display of disgust. Bellatrix knew Nellie Lovett incredibly well, and also knew that it was more for show than anything. There was little, if anything, in the world that could disgust Nellie Lovett, she had just decided somewhere along the line though, probably thinking it over as she skinned some corpse's arse that she would start pretending to be a lady, and every time she did, Bellatrix couldn't help but giggle.

It was beautiful how the inn-keepers still stiffened in terror any time Bellatrix so much as chuckled. She was glad she had laughed that one man to death: now she was free to torture the couple in countless small ways without a bit of effort. How perfect.

"You been dumpin your pipe in here, haven't you?" Nellie tisked at the woman. "Dearie, even filthy ol' you would pale to see the things what have made it into my pies, but I still got more hygiene and good sense than to go emptyin' my ashes into the grinder. The cat's tail in there, the bit of fur on it, that ain't that bad, could do better but it's a near staple of London food. But ashes, love, really?"

Nellie could go on forever, and probably would. But as cute as she had momentarily been, Bellatrix was now just as bored as the chided madam appeared to be and decided to focus on her instead. Really, Bellatrix could listen to Nellie ramble on and on anytime, she only got to look at lovely if manic inn-keepers (who looked unsettlingly like Nellie –maybe they actually were related) this particular weekend, and as such, she would look all she liked.

As the day wore on however the baker and the inn-keeper who looked so much alike, seemed to absolutely hate each other more and more. Bellatrix thought that for all their similarities they should be fast friends. Maybe it was that they were too similar. Neither one could make a single move that the other didn't like, without a quick grasp of a wrist, a bellowing "DON'T YOU DARE YOU BLOODY FUCK!", or a single menacingly raised eyebrow. It was actually incredibly entertaining, well to anyone who wasn't either Madame Thenardier or Mrs. Lovett. Bellatrix was strangely enough starting to bond with Monsieur because of it. By the time Saturday had rolled around the two had spent cumulative hours together watching the only two other inhabitants of the inn squabble, or try endlessly to steal from one another, and had shared many a laugh over it. He was still a horrible filthy thieving muggle in Bellatrix's eyes, but she no longer felt any need to kill him because of it, life would do so soon enough. Why not let him enjoy the time he had left, just a little?

Sure it was far too merciful a deed for the great Bellatrix Lestrange, particularly if she was to become the bloodthirsty ruler of all man-kind and all those even lower, but she had learned more than a few things in her time with the Dark Lord. One being that you can't constantly terrorize everyone into submission. People seemed to think that death eaters were constantly crucio'd for the slightest of indiscretions by the Dark Lord and put up with it only out of a deeply held belief of pureblood supremacy. But really, as boring as it is to admit, a leader is nothing without followers, and people will not follow you if their only reward is reassurance of beliefs that almost anyone could give them while they are being constantly punished with Unforgivables. Granted, the Dark Lord was by no means a kind and generous pygmy-puff, but he wasn't that bad. He offered favors, and money, and Bellatrix was quite positive that if she served him well enough he would gladly have made her Queen of his empire once he had won. If he had won, she tried not to think of it.

No, Bellatrix would let him enjoy his show in between foot-rubs and fetch, and let him enjoy what days he had left. That's how you made a good master to little muggle pets.

It was particularly fascinating to Bellatrix how different Nellie was in this environment. She was always pragmatic, amoral, and given a tendency to sarcasm and snark, but something about Madam Thenardier was pulling out a side of Nellie that truly enjoyed a good spat. For instance, while Madam might not be cooking for Nellie and Bellatrix, she did have to continue cooking for her husband and herself, because for the first time in her life, Nellie refused to share her food. So come their first morning in the inn, as Madam went about making some drudge or other for breakfast, Nellie twirling a bit of sausage on the end of her fork looked over her shoulder with a sneer.

"Really love, if your cooking is anything to go by, I've been making French cuisine for years." This was not the first such comment this morning, not even the tenth. Bellatrix couldn't even keep count of the amount of similar sentiments shared over the day and a half that they had been here. So apparently, even with the threats of magic and rolling pins hanging over the Madam she had had enough.

In a flash, Nellie was ducking out of the way of a scalding hot frying pan as bits of egg and potato littered the floor.

Madam turned quickly for another swing at Mrs. Lovett, who had by this point produced her omni-present Rolling Pin of Doom, and took a swing of her own. Very quickly, the situation changed from a (somewhat) startling brawl, into a full-blown fencing match armed with kitchen utensils.

Bellatrix didn't think she had ever been so entertained in her life. She knew deep down that she should stop the whole thing before one of them got hurt, and eventually confront Nellie about why she felt the need to harass Madam so, but she was having much too much fun watching two attractive muggles fight it out with hilarious muggle weaponry. She did idly wonder however if all muggle altercations were fought with tools a house-elf could set their hands on. It made sense given their primitive nature, and the fact that with every swing and block the women before her looked oh-so-very adept at it.

Monsieur however, failed to grasp how truly wonderful it was and started again in that annoying way of his to drone on and on about "the limey rat" and how she was threatening his beautiful flower whom he didn't happen to have a life insurance policy on.

As the shoulders of dresses started to slip however, and flesh became sweaty, Bellatrix couldn't give two flying fucks about Monsieur and his lack of proper insurance over his family. His endless rabble was really starting to put a damper on the whole show, which was becoming more erotic to Bellatrix by the second.

Bellatrix decided she had far better ideas than just spending the rest of the weekend watching the two bicker, or getting rid of the bodies should one or both of them finally succeed in killing the other. No, her plans involving her two loveliest pet muggles were much more fun for all involved, well except maybe monsieur. The more the little shit continued to nag her though about safety and money, the less she cared about his happiness (not that she cared all the much to begin with) and decided he didn't need to be involved with her brilliant new idea. She would have to get rid of him, so that she could have her two beautiful sweaty pets all to herself and even sweatier. Really, she was being a good Samaritan, thinking of ways to get them to "kiss and make up." Monsieur however was being an absolute tear in her invisibility cloak however and ruining it all.

She could kill him, but then that would probably not leave Madam terribly inclined to go along with Bellatrix's plan. Granted she could always use an imperio on her, but that was dreadfully...rapey, which was never something that particularly appealed to Bellatrix as even she found it to be just to wretched a thing to do. Truth be told, it was an absolute mood killer.

Or, given that she was feeling incredibly generous this weekend, she could just shove him out the door with a handful of francs and instructions to go to a brothel. But that required entirely too much distracting effort to both convince him to leave his "precious flower" and to conjure up some muggle money.

So quickly pointing her wand over her shoulder to the conniving man behind her, Bellatrix stunned him into a wall, and quickly ran after him to shove him into the storage cupboard. Securing the door with a chair, and pleased with her decision, Bellatrix returned her full attention to the two women before her. She wanted to keep watching, really she did, but the ache between her thighs was getting to be far too distracting, and she was also starting to worry that letting the two go on much longer with their blunt weaponry would result in massive bruising or fractured skulls, both of which would absolutely demolish all of her fun plans.

Reluctantly, Bellatrix summoned their weapons and put both women into a full body bind.

It didn't take an instant for Nellie and her big mouth to start going again.

"Bellatrix Lestrange, you bloody arse, untie me right now! You have no right!"

A silencing charm took care of that.

It didn't take care of the look of absolute hatred and fire that Mrs. Lovett was giving her, but all in all, the look was rather...exciting.

The witch turned to the inn-keeper whose mouth was frozen half-open, as if she had been ready to speak and changed her mind. Bellatrix raised her eye-brow in question, and the mouth silently snapped shut. Lips tight the inn-keep merely looked at her and shrugged her shoulders in a silent declaration that she had nothing to say.

Bellatrix was pleased, her newest pet was learning.

"Now ladies, as much as I enjoy seeing you both panting and sweating as you are, I don't want you hurting each other. I'm the only one with that privilege." Bellatrix did not miss the roll of Nellie's eyes. "But obviously, the two of you have some very serious issues we need to work out. So what we are going to do, is the three of us are going to go upstairs, where we'll curl up all comfy cozy, and talk it out girl to girl to girl."

Bellatrix also couldn't help but notice the brief glimmer of recognition in Nellie's eye. For her part, Madam merely looked intrigued. But intrigue was good, Bellatrix could work with intrigue.

"Now, are you both going to be good girls if I unbind you?"

After a sidelong glance at a now obviously smirking Nellie, who had developed enough gall to even wink at her, Madam nodded her head. Turning to Nellie, to make sure that she wouldn't pull a spare rolling pin out of her skirts, Bellatrix caught a wicked smile and the tiniest of blown kisses. She really was a bloody wonder.

Turning on her heel and leading the way up the stairs, Bellatrix unbound the two women, and made her way to the bedroom door.