Murder Most Horrid
Chapter 4: Postmortem
Bellatrix pressed her head against the cold tiles of her shower as the warm water splashed on her body. A strangled groan escaped from the depths of her lungs. For what must have been the thirtieth time this year, she'd promised herself that she'd never ever drink again... fully aware that she would break that promise at the earliest opportunity for alcohol consumption.
There was the sharp sound of metal on tile; Bellatrix realized that the loose cold tap of her shower had fallen off yet again. 'Perfect. Just fucking perfect!'
Thankfully, it seemed that headache from her hangover was starting to subside a just little and Bellatrix figured she would be somewhat presentable at least. Her main concern was to get the awful smell of her one-night lover's cheap perfume off her body. Seriously, the pretty young witch's pungent perfume permeated her entire bedroom; she'd have to leave the windows open while at work to let her apartment air out.
She came out of the shower wearing a towel wrapped around her body and decided to do a quick check of her mailbox before getting dressed. As expected, there was a note from Andy; no surprisingly, she was really worried about her leaving early last night and invited her for lunch at a cafe in Diagon Alley. Bellatrix took a quill and a piece of paper and wrote a quick note back. 'Can't. Working on a case. Talk later. Love you, B.'
It was a lame excuse, and she knew it. Bellatrix loved her sister, but really couldn't use the distraction right now. That didn't stop her from feeling a tinge of guilt after putting the note in her mailbox where it would be picked up by her apartment building's complementary owl service later this morning. Andy deserved better than a quick and lame one sentence apology letter.
After fighting to get her wet and unruly curly mop under control, she left the apartment and floo'ed to the office through the communal fireplace on the ground floor.
As usual, she was the first person to arrive at work and, as expected, there was a note from the coroner lying on her desk. She should have known, as the coroner was quite a night-owl.
The dark witch found her way to the deeper bowels of the office, the very basement. The temperature here was quite a bit lower due to the magical refrigeration needed to keep the bodies and the samples from expiring. After suppressing an involuntary shiver, Bellatrix entered the morgue. Bubbling erlenmeyers and tubes ran all over the lab; to any outsider, it would seem to be the lab of a mad wizard, but to Barty Crouch jr, this was home.
Quite literally. His quarters were right next to the morgue's cold storage.
Bellatrix stood in the doorway while Barty worked, cutting into a body belonging to a Muggle woman murdered with magic, a case Richards had been working on. A radio was on his desk near the slabs, receiving the Wizarding Wireless Network. It was playing a song she had never heard before, though at this hour, when no sane wizard would be listening, the WWN often played music from the Muggle world to fill the dead air.
"I'm movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat a lot of peaches," Barty sung along with the song. "Movin' to the country, I'm gonna eat me a lot of peaches."
Bellatrix winced when Barty yanked on the ribspreader placed in the woman's chest cavity. There was sickening, bone-grinding crunch before Barty reached in and literally ripped the heart out of her chest. Barty tossed the heart onto a scale and jotted down the weight.
"Peaches come from a can. They were put there by a man," sang Barty. "In a factory downtown."
Barty grabbed the heart, aimed and threw it in the air. The heart had a nicely angled parabolic trajectory and landed right back into her chest cavity with a resounding wet plop. The coroner, twirled around his axis, did a fist-pump and whispered a quick 'Yes!', making Bellatrix wonder just how often internal organs would end slipping about on the floor in this room.
His apron was covered in blood as he put away his oversized saws and clamps. A moment later, he was running his wand across the incisions, closing them up. It was then that Bellatrix decided to announce herself by clearing her throat.
"Hello there, Black," said Barty when he finally did look up. "Blimey, you look like you've been raised from the dead."
Bellatrix snorted. "Don't put me on a slab and cut me open, please. Contrary to popular belief, I'm still very much alive."
"You smell of alcohol, cheap perfume and shame," Barty stated.
"I suggest you drop this topic," Bellatrix hissed through clenched teeth. The implied threat was apparently being taken seriously by Barty, as he indeed said nothing more on the subject.
"Here about the other corpse, then?"
"Why else would I be here?"
"My smoldering good looks?" he grinned and wiped away a bit of blood splatter from his face.
"Dream on," Bellatrix replied.
"Maybe you just want to feel my liver," he said as he held up an oversized liver from a tray on the table. "This one is going into my private collection."
The dark witch rolled her eyes. "You love your job a bit too much, Barty."
"Look who's talking, miss work-a-holic-don't-bother-me-at-Yule-time-cause-I-will-be-working-while-sane-people-are-spending-time-with-their-families," Barty licked his lips, an irritating twitch which he had developed over the past years.
Bellatrix ignored the barb and joined Barty at the slab. Pettigrew was just as dead as he had been yesterday, but knowing Barty, he was probably missing a few organs right now. "So, what are your findings?"
Barty went into professional mode and ran his gloved hands over Pettigrew's chest. "I'll tell you one thing, the magic didn't kill him," he said as he pointed out the burn wounds. "Mostly superficial impacts, intended to hurt, sure, but not enough to actually do any serious damage. No, no, no, our rat-faced friend died from something considerably more mundane."
Bellatrix watched as Barty twisted his head sideways. "Blunt trauma to the back of the head, upper neck," he said as he pointed out a bony protrusion and a nasty gash under the hairline
"Did someone bash his noggin in?" Bellatrix asked while she rubbed her chin.
"No," Barty said. "Angle's all wrong for that. He fell on something. Look here, the impact is at the lower part of the skull. Crushed the upper cervical vertebrae. Instant death. Never knew what hit him."
"Fell or pushed?" Bellatrix wondered.
"Hey, it's your job to figure that one out. I don't tell you how to do your job."
"Hm," Bellatrix frowned. "Have you established an exact time of death?"
"Please, what do you take me for?" Barty grinned. "Judging from the lividity, he died approximately at quarter past three in the morning."
"That's nearly an hour before the elf found him, interesting," she rubbed her chin. "I think it's time for me to go back to Hogwarts."
"Maybe you can bring me back another body?" Barty asked. "I still need two kidneys to complete the set."
"Building yourself a girlfriend, Barty?" Bellatrix joked.
Barty suddenly froze. "What have you heard?! It's all slander, I swear!"
The dark witch blinked. "Uhm, it was just a joke."
"Oh, yes, a joke. Hahahaha. Funny. Let's all listen to the funny joke," Barty looked around nervously.
"I'm... going to leave now."
"Perhaps that's for the best."
"Just so you know," said Bellatrix. "Should I ever find myself murdered, I want someone else to perform the autopsy."
"Aw, now you've hurt my feelings, Black," Barty laughed.
"I'd just prefer to be buried with all my innards intact, Barty," Bellatrix said. "Call me boring, but I prefer nobody will play hackysack with my heart after I die."
Barty huffed slightly at the insult. "I would never play hackysack with your heart, Black. You need a lung for that! They squish very nicely."
Bellatrix couldn't get out of the morgue quickly enough. A few moments later, she floo'ed to the entrance hall of Hogwarts, ready to continue her investigation. Unfortunately, she was met with frustration as there were members of the press gathered trying to get answers from students and staff about the murder. The dark witch cursed under her breath, remembering Jensen's request to remain civil. 'Alright, Bella, you can do this,' she told her held and forced a broad fake smile from ear to ear. 'Be a good little girl for mum.'
The moment she was noticed was the moment she was rushed by journalists and photographers alike. Flash after flash, question after question. It was a cacophony of voices, one trying to shout harder than the other to make their question heard.
"I cannot comment on specific details as the investigation is ongoing," Bellatrix droned in a monotonous tone. "But I assure you every effort is being taken to find the culprit and bring him or her to justice."
Not good enough for the horde, not nearly good enough at all. All journalists threw themselves upon her with their inane questions. Worst of all was the Skeeter woman.
"Detective Black, this terrible murder happened right in the heart of a prestigious wizarding academy," Skeeter started. "If mister Pettigrew was so horribly torn apart, how can the Department of Magical Law Enforcment assure worried parents that their children won't be targeted?"
'Torn apart? When did this happen?' Bellatrix wondered, before realizing that Skeeter was trying to goad her into unwittingly sharing details of the murder. The dark witch wouldn't bite, however. "I cannot comment on the details of the case, as the investigation is ongoing," Bellatrix said again. "However, I can assure you that I have no reason to believe the students of Hogwarts are at any risk. Now if you excuse me, I have a job to do."
Led by the Skeeter woman, the journalists effectively blocked her path, vexing the dark witch to no end. "How can you be certain?" Skeeter pressed. "Rumors are the victim had ties to organized crime. The public has a right to know."
More obvious goading. More trying to trick her into giving away details on the case.
Enough.
Enough was enough.
"The public has a right to know bugger all until I'm done with my investigation! Now get out of my way, you bleedin' parasites!" Bellatrix snarled angrily as she pushed through the crowd and pushed through the entrance of the school, where the staff was dutifully keeping the journo's out. It took the dark witch a few moments to calm herself sufficiently. There was undoubtedly a special place reserved in Hell for all journalists, Bellatrix decided.
About ten minutes later, she was pacing through the empty library, trying to figure out where Pettigrew could have hit his head. Bellatrix had the police photographs in hand and studied the position of the body. Two options were open; first, it could be that his assailant never tried to actually kill him, but hadn't counted on Pettigrew having an unfortunate landing. Second possibility, his assailant had wanted to kill him and conveniently bashed his head against something sharp. Both were very valid.
Thing is, there was nowhere in the library where he could have hit his head or where someone could have bashed his head in during a struggle. Whatever he fell on was strong and pointy enough to cause permanent damage. The only thing she could think of were the reading desks and those were on the upper floors.
No, there was only one conclusion. Pettigrew died somewhere else and body had been moved. This would consistent with the lack of residual magical energy as well. The spell that hit Pettigrew hadn't come out of nowhere, after all. The dark witch went back through her notes. There must have been something she had missed.
She left the library and returned to Pettigrew's quarters, the most likely place where he could have been murdered. However, before she entered, she noticed was that her seal had been broken; someone had been inside this room recently.
Bellatrix had an excellent memory and an even better eye for details. The room, messy as it was, had obviously been disturbed. Several drawers had been opened, some drawers that were open yesterday were now closed. One drawer's contents were on the floor, as if the person whom had searched it had become desperate.
Making a note of the intrusion, Bellatrix drew her wand. "Sanguineus Aperio," she whispered, causing a narrow violet beam to emit from her wand. Carefully and methodically, Bellatrix roved it around the room, spending time at sharp or angular edges. As soon as Bellatrix pointed her wand at one of the metal bed-posts, the violet magical light revealed the remnants of splattered blood. The shape of the post was consistent with the wound and the blood that had been on it had been washed off recently. Bellatrix grinned to herself: she'd found the murder weapon, as well as conclusive evidence that the body had been moved.
"Quite," Bellatrix whispered to herself and logged her findings. She would have the bed taken apart and the post booked into evidence. Still, she stood in the room thinking; something still wasn't right.
Almost on a whim, she paced from one side of the room to the other and counted. Then she went back to the corridor and counted the number of paces it took to get to the door of the next room. For good measure, she also counted the paces in the next room and got to the conclusion that there were at least four paces worth of space missing between the two rooms. The dark witch somewhat excitedly examined the north wall of Pettigrew's quarters. She used the same spell she had used the day before on her sister's kitchen door and scanned for any hollow surfaces. To her delight, she did find just that.
Now to just open the magically hidden door. She figured Pettigrew would need quick and subtle access to it, so the key wouldn't be overly complicated. Immediately, she remembered that she still had Pettigrew's wand on him and took it from her coat. One light tap to the wall was enough to reveal a hidden door; simple minds, simple solutions. And Pettigrew certainly had a simple mind, from what she had gathered about the man.
With her wand in front of her, Bellatrix got ready to enter the hidden section of the room. It was against just about any Department regulation to attempt a breach alone without back-up. But, of course, she wasn't just anyone; she was Bellatrix Black. Confident that she could do this on her own, she prepared to enter the lion's den.
The hidden section of the room revealed a metal spiral staircase leading down into a lower section of the castle. Judging from the way it had been crudely bolted into the stonework, she guessed it was a fairly recent addition. On the way down, her wand picked up some minor traps which she deftly disabled. Once at the bottom of the staircase, she found herself in a pitch dark room with no exits and no windows. "Lumos," she whispered, revealing sconces on the wall. A quick wave with Pettigrew's wand lit all of them up simultaneously, but what the light revealed was something she never expected to see. In fact, what she saw took her breath away.
"Bloody hell," she whispered as she viewed the contents of this hidden vault. For a vault it was; this room was enchanted to hold vastly more space than its outsides could ever contain. In front of her were dozens of crates filled to the brim with illegal goods; crates of polyjuice potions, all manner of magical narcotics, as well as crates and crates of Muggle artifacts. A few crates even contained only galleons.
One single crate in particular caught her eye, as it stood in the corner of the room away from all the other crates. After taking the lid off, she found odd things which could only be Muggle in origin. They were elongated metal objects, with a handle on one side and a hollow metal tube on the other. Bellatrix awkwardly picked one of the objects up, and found it to be quite heavy. Some convoluted Muggle mechanism would undoubtedly be inside.
"Secialis Revelio," Bellatrix waved her wand over the Muggle devices. The things glowed a bright pink, indicating the presence of a complicated enchantment laid upon them.
All these Muggle artifacts... Wizards would have no use for those things; why were these even here? This was much, much bigger than a mere school-based black market.
To the side were disorganized shelves with potions, trinkets, charms and other minor things. These would undoubtedly be the items he'd trade with the students. Nestled between the shelves was a small writing desk with several ledgers. After making sure there weren't any unwelcome surprises in the form of magical traps, Bellatrix started flipping through the ledgers to see what she could find. Indeed, most of the items in the crates as well as the galleons were cataloged and accounted for. It became apparent to her that Pettigrew had been trafficking these items and his black market on the school was nothing more than just a project on the side. Pettigrew was obviously just the middle man. In fact, she was almost certain that Pettigrew stole most the items he sold to the students on the Hogwarts black market from the very crates he was supposed to be trafficking.
She had accidentally stumbled upon a major criminal operation. Bellatrix couldn't believe her eyes when she flipped through the ledger; though most items were meant for the overseas black market, a lot of the enchanted Muggle artifacts were intended to be sold to Muggles. This was a major risk to the continued existence of the wizarding world.
On the desk, there was a second ledger which cataloged all his sales to the students; all small-time stuff compared to the other crime she had uncovered.
The first thing she learned was that, besides alcohol, Pettigrew had a second vice; gambling. He had a substantial debt with some underworld traders. Immediately, things started to click in place: Pettigrew was deeply in debt and had probably been strong-armed to hide all this stuff here. And a perfect place it was; who would ever look for this many illegal goods in the middle of a prestigious school like Hogwarts?
She leafed through the second ledger, which kept track of his black market sales. It was a comprehensive list of students and money he had made from them. Most of the time, the items sold were not identified unless the student in question would have a special request. Mostly they were prank items, some illegal alcohol, a rogue bludger or two, some contraceptive potions, polyjuice. Harmless stuff. Also, he seemed to have jacked up his prices considerably a few weeks back, coinciding with a particularly bad day at the dog track. Most of the student names she did not recognize, but many were seen multiple times as part of a steady clientele.
However, she did recognize one name.
The name 'Granger' appeared in the ledger with regular intervals. The item bought was unfortunately not identified, however, her named was ever so often marked with the word 'exchange'. Intriguing.
Her mind was still reeling as she quickly went up the stairs, left the room and sealed it with the most powerful binding spell she could muster, causing heavy magical chains to appear around the door. Immediately, she asked Wonky to lead her to the Hogwarts owlry, where Bellatrix wrote a message to Jensen to set things in motion to impound the illegal goods in the deepest of secret. It wouldn't take long for many constables and inspectors to floo into Hogwarts to examine the goods.
An hour later, after pointing out to the constables what she had found, Bellatrix sat in the library to review her findings in her notebook, pouring over different angles and possibilities. No doubt the Department officers had already hauled the majority of the illegal goods away by now, but Bellatrix herself was still not anywhere closer to finding the murderer. She still had a job to do.
She quickly dismissed the notion that Pettigrew had been murdered by a business partner; they would have run the risk of the entire operation being exposed such as had happened just now. A debtor, then? Someone not connected to the operation. That seemed more likely, but dead men didn't pay any debts, and if a debtor had wanted to make an example for him, it wouldn't have been executed so sloppily. No, no, the person who murdered Pettigrew had to have been unaware of this whole sordid affair.
And so she was back at square one, despite her incredible find, and this time, with more questions than answers. Again, it was time to re-evalute her findings: she had a dead black marketeer whose body had been moved from the place of his murder to the library, where it was stumbled upon by a house-elf. That same black marketeer had gambling debts, a drinking problem and was involved in some very shady affairs on the side. She also had three suspicious students with conflicting accounts of their doings, one of which had been specifically named in said Black Marketeer's ledgers. The most obvious lead to pursue would be the mudblood Granger.
"Ahum, good day, miss Black," she heard a familiar voice say as the person it belonged to approached her. Bellatrix looked up and saw that it was the very mudblood whom she had met the day before.
'Speak of the devil.'
"Miss Granger," she nodded at the young witch. She had exchanged her school uniform for a casual set of clothes and had a thick book in her arms.
'Still cute', the dark witch thought to herself.
"I heard we have you to thank for allowing the library to be re-opened today?" miss Granger said.
Bellatrix looked around her. A cursory glance revealed that they were the only two persons in the library. "You couldn't tell by the look of it."
"Well, I'm afraid the library isn't the most popular place to be on a Saturday for many students," said the mudblood girl.
"Unless it's to have a quick shag between the bookstacks?" Bellatrix finished.
The young witch sputtered for a moment. "Uhm, I, uh, suppose. Would you mind if I'd join you?"
Bellatrix remained silent for a moment. Yes, the mudblood was still cute and, for once, she met someone with hair that was messier than hers. Then there was also the little matter of her name being in Pettigrew's ledger. "Sit," she finally decided when the cuteness had won her over.
Curiously, though, the young witch seemed to be quite a bit paler than she had been the day before. At first Bellatrix thought it had been the poor lighting in this section of the library, but now it was clear as day; it was as if the color had drained out of miss Granger's face completely.
The young witch nodded her thanks and quickly sat down. "Thank you," she said. "I was hoping to speak to you."
"Did you now?"
"I, well, let me just spell it out. I was wondering if I could ask you some questions... for my thesis about the influence of Hogwarts on magical society," Granger asked.
"Indeed?" Bellatrix replied, being slightly amused by this turn of events. "So, would I be part of the successful people or the failures?"
The mudblood seemed to think for a moment. "Well, how would you classify yourself?"
Bellatrix blinked, then laughed. She held up her finger mockingly. "Clever, clever girl."
The young witch took Bellatrix's words at face-value and apparently accepted them as a compliment.
"Well," Bellatrix shifted as she put away her notebook. "I suppose I'm both and... neither. It depends on who you ask."
"Oh?" miss Granger asked, her curiosity obviously piqued. "Could you elaborate?"
"Hm, usually I'm the one asking the questions," Bellatrix huffed, but once again let it slide. The young witch had such a cute smile it melted her heart just a little bit.
"Well, if you'd ask my parents before they died, they'd tell you how terribly disappointed they are in me," Bellatrix shrugged. "If you'd ask my sisters, they'd probably tell you that they're worried sick about me. If you'd ask my cousin, he'd say that I'm evil incarnate. If you'd ask Jensen, that's my boss by the way, and my colleagues, they'd tell you I'm an asset to the team and a good detective. You see, it's all relative. Things are rarely as black and white as you want them to be."
The young mudblood listened intently and wrote down some notes. "That's what others say about you. What if you answered that question for yourself?"
"Perceptive little thing, aren't you?" Bellatrix chuckled as she sat back for a moment. The mudblood was looking at her intently and was actually hanging from her very lips. "Very well. I'd like to think that in my life, I did what I thought was best for me. There's a lot of expectations of a woman in a pure-blood family. For good and for ill, I did what I wanted instead of what was expected of me. Sometimes that had a good outcome, sometimes it hadn't. Some people would say I'm insane and, really, who am I to argue? Mental instability runs in my family, after all."
Miss Granger was sitting on the edge of her seat as she listened to the dark witch speak.
"Aren't you going to ask me questions about Hogwarts?" the dark witch smirked. "That is what your research is about, no?"
"Huh?" the mudblood blinked. "Oh. Oh! Of course, uhm, how would you say that your tenure at Hogwarts has shaped your life?"
"Well," Bellatrix thought for a moment. "I think it was the very fact that I had to leave home and be away from my family. I had a very sheltered childhood. Being away from home brought me in contact with a lot of people with different views than my own."
Miss Granger cocked her head sideways. "Did that change your views on magical society?"
Bellatrix threw her head back and let out a brief laugh. "Hah! Certainly not! Not at first, at least. I lashed out against everyone and everything that was different and strange to me. I was an unholy terror and spent more time in detention than I did in the library. Just ask that old hag McGonagall about me if you're interested. I'm sure she'll have a whole host of stories to share."
"Did you pick on Muggle-borns?" the young witch asked.
Bellatrix snorted. "Of course I did. And half-bloods. And pure-bloods whom I didn't find agreeable. Like I said, I was a terror. It took me a while to realize the freedom I had suddenly gained was changing me. I rather liked being on my own and doing my own thing. I think that was the most important impact Hogwarts had on my life. My family had a path laid out for me and I decided to step off it. That might have led to being disowned, but at least it was a path I chose for myself."
"Do you regret it?" asked the mudblood.
"Regret what? You have to be a bit more specific, miss Granger."
"Picking on Muggle-borns."
The girl looked at her closely, waiting for what the dark witch would say. Somehow, she got the feeling that whatever answer she would give was important to the young woman in front of her. Bellatrix, however, never answered the question. "Are you being picked on?" she asked.
Miss Granger shifted uncomfortably. It was apparently not one of miss Granger's favorite topics to talk about. Bellatrix did understand it; supposedly being a mudblood wasn't much fun for mudbloods themselves either.
"I've seen the badges at Slytherin hall. The Purity Front has a chapter here, doesn't it?" asked Bellatrix. "Have they been making your life miserable?"
"Mine and every other Muggle-born's," the young woman sighed as she looked away. "It never used to be this bad."
The young witch leaned to one side and removed something from her satchel. "Someone slipped this into my book bag this morning," she said softly, almost a whisper. The young witch held out a piece of parchment for Bellatrix to take. Curious, the dark witch unfolded it. It was a crudely written letter.
"Mudblood filth! You are nothing but a dirty thief who steals magic from real wizards like us! Why don't you sink back into the Muggle mudpit you crawled out of! It doesn't matter how high your grades are, it doesn't matter how much effort you put in. No matter how hard you try, YOU WILL NEVER BE ONE OF US!" Underneath the letter was the emblem of the Purity Front; a circle around a plus symbol.
Bellatrix looked back at the girl, and saw that her eyes were ever so slightly watery. The dark witch was about tell the girl to grow a spine, but it occurred to her that miss Granger was not the sort of girl who would be rattled by things like this. No, but she surmised that whomever had written this excuse for a letter had been tormenting her over a long period of time, chipping away at her resolve like a river erodes rock. "It's just words, miss Granger," Bellatrix replied.
The young woman shook her head. "The words are irrelevant. It's the intent behind them."
Bellatrix nodded and took another look at the letter. "If it's intent you want, let's see what we can tell. Hm, everything about this letter screams 'coward'. The person who wrote it uses both anonymity and the Purity Front as a shield, and hides her true meaning behind bullshit rhetoric. Really, it's not about your blood status as all. The girl who wrote this mentions your academic achievements specifically, so I can only conclude that she feels threatened by you. She wants to rattle your chains, miss Granger, and hopes invoking the name of the Front will do just that."
The young woman frowned. "Excuse me, did you say 'her' and 'she'? How can you tell?"
"Here," Bellatrix said and pointed at some of the written letters, specifically the a', o' and l's. "Look at the rounded vowels and the elongated loops. That is usually indicative of a woman's handwriting."
The young woman's pretty face suddenly contorted in a brief pang of rage. "Parkinson!" she hissed the name as if it was a dire curse. "Of course it was her! Why would I think otherwise? Why else would she be near the Gryffindor dining table at breakfast this morning? This is all about that stupid potions exam. I scored a tenth of a point higher than she did and apparently that warrants this... this..." The young woman crumpled up the letter and tossed it into a waste-basket. "God, I spent the entire morning being upset over that letter. Why do I keep letting her to this to me?!"
"Well, there you go," Bellatrix shrugged.
The girl seemed to have calmed down somewhat. "I take it from your choice of words that you don't care much for the Purity Front?"
"They're a bunch of morons," said Bellatrix. "Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong believer in blood purity, but half of the things the Front claims as truth is just plain nonsensical. If you need to lie and make up blatant rhetoric to get your point across, you're not doing your ideals justice. I am proud of my pure-blood heritage. And that pride should be enough."
"There's nothing wrong with being proud of one's heritage," the young woman said. "I just wish some people could be a little less insufferable about it."
'And what heritage do you have to be proud of?' thought Bellatrix. Truth be told, judging from her academic achievements, the dark witch considered that miss Granger actually had plenty to be proud of. Sadly for her, blood purity was not one of those things.
"So instead of celebrating pure-blood pride, we get this inane nonsense that non pure-bloods steal magic. Hah! That was the standard argument when I was your age and it was old even then. Consider this: if magic is finite then with the sheer amount of non pure-bloods that have come and gone before, there wouldn't have been any magic left by now if that was true. And if magic is in infinite supply, well, then it really doesn't matter either way. If you take the logical approach, you can poke a hole through pretty much everything they are saying."
Hermione nodded briefly. "I wish more pure-bloods would think like you do."
"I'm a detective chief inspector," Bellatrix shrugged. "If I wouldn't think logically, I'd be pretty piss-poor at my job. And Blacks aren't slackers, miss Granger. I might be a Black in exile, but I still honor my family name."
The young witch smiled warmly at her. There was a measure of gratitude in her young eyes.
Now, this would be the perfect time to confront miss Granger with the ledger. After all, that was what all this chatting was about, wasn't it? Gain the girl's confidence and then move in for the kill when she least expected it? She had done this hundreds of times before, after all. It was right next to her chair, in her satchel. Bellatrix only needed to take it out and throw it on the table in front of miss Granger.
But then again, she did have such a cute smile.
Going against her better judgment, the dark witch decided not to ruin the pleasant atmosphere and left Pettigrew's ledger where it was. 'Sweet Merlin, I'm such a sucker for a pretty face', Bellatrix sighed. Truth be told, Granger wasn't going anywhere and the dark witch was quite interested in learning more about her.
Before the next question could be asked, Wonky appeared out of nowhere. "Uhm, Wonky is sorry to interrupt these two honorable witches, but the head master would like to see miss officer Black."
"Well, that is that, I guess," Bellatrix said.
"Thank you for your time, miss Black," miss Granger smiled warmly.
"It's been a pleasure."
Oddly enough, even Bellatrix herself was surprised that she had actually meant it.