A Heart to Heart Talk among Friends

"Blaise and I have our next therapy appointment in three days, so I can speak to her about group therapy with the three of you if you're serious about giving it a try," Gellert said.

The two Lestrange men frowned uneasily, but Bellatrix nodded. Though she felt nearly as worried about the process of therapy, she also felt this needed to be done.

"Who the hell would marry Snape, though?" Rabastan complained.

Grindelwald's lips twitched. "You shall find out soon enough."

"Wait, you said earlier that she makes wands," Rodolphus asked suddenly. Grindelwald nodded and Rod's interest grew. "Out of gemstones by any chance," Rod asked and Grindelwald nodded again. "One of the goblin Aurors at Azkaban spoke of a woman named Snape who makes gemstone wands that are twice as strong as wooden ones. I'd been meaning to check into it, but everything has been so hectic recently, as you well know."

"Tell us about it, " Blaise said with a heartfelt nod.

"You can speak with her about wands when we have our first group therapy meeting," Grindelwald replied.

"That a bribe," Rod asked suspiciously, and Grindelwald grinned.

"Not at all. Your wife is clearly going to make you attend therapy regardless. I was just trying to soften it for you."

"Speaking of being busy," Bellatrix said as a thought occurred to her. "Did you manage to use the blood on my dagger to make any progress?" Part of her was still hoping she hadn't severely fucked up by stabbing the shit out of Delphini / Voldemort repeatedly, so if it managed to count for something big, she'd feel a lot better about it.

"Unfortunately, some of the plans I have for the blood can't be implemented without me having a better hold on her location or some pictures of her," Blaise said with a sigh. "I'd hoped the blood would allow us to track her at least to some degree and I've attempted that three different ways thus far with no success. On the bright side, we're working on a fourth and it hasn't failed yet." He gave a dry smile.

"But it hasn't succeeded," Bellatrix asked, because obviously it hadn't else he'd have said it had.

Blaise shrugged. "It's a work in progress, so the fact it hasn't failed is something. We're trying to use blood magic with elementals."

Two very powerful practices combined. Very well, Bellatrix was impressed. Summoning elementals was nearly a lost art. In part, this was due to the fact that schools didn't want to teach real power anymore, and one had to have an affinity with elementals to command them.

"How's that working," Rod asked, eyes narrowed in interest as he leaned toward Zabini. "Which elementals are best used for that sort of thing?"

"Fire, air, and earth elementals are all on her trail. Salamanders, Sylphs, and Undines. We've yet to discover which is best," Blaise said.

Gellert sighed. "It's yet another up in the air thing with not much more actual, tangible progress being made than the dreamwork," he complained. "At least the dreamwork has given us contacts who at times can give us useful information."

"Like the warning about the wand shop break in," Rabastan asked, and Grindelwald nodded.

"Yes, like that."

"So, how's she working with Jekyll's dream enemy or whatever," Bellatrix asked, frowning because things she had no answers for annoyed her.

"It deals with the way she headfucked Bella and your man, right," Rabastan asked, eyes on Grindelwald who nodded.

"Yes, we believe so. As Albus pointed out when we did the shielding work at the Ministry, the state Blaise and Bellatrix were in was very dream-like."

"But we've learned to shield against that at least," Bellatrix said and Gellert nodded. "Though I've had at least one nightmare, so perhaps I'm not doing it properly at all times," she admitted after a slight second of hesitation. She was referring to the Azkaban nightmare she'd had after the trip to the wand shop.

Gellert gave a frown of concern. "What sort of nightmare?"

"It was after the wand shop affair...when I was worried about being used as scapegoats and thus being returned to Azkaban. I had a nightmare about Azkaban and how I felt when imprisoned there." She shrugged uncomfortably, not being one to sit around in a circle and share her latest nightmare.

"Therapy will help with things like that just so you're aware," Blaise said.

"And that isn't the type of nightmare you need to worry about, for what it's worth," Grindelwald added, face relaxing into a relieved smile. "We're more concerned about nightmares from the outside… Those that could be sent by others as they could pose possible threats. Those inner cries from ourselves aren't the sort we need to worry about, annoying though they are."

Bellatrix opened her mouth to ask how therapy was helping with his inner nightmares, because from the look on his face he knew them well. She closed it again before the words could escape, though. He was being decent to them and she liked him, so there was no need to snark about an issue they shared.

"That's good to know," she said instead. "It's just grand to have one less thing to worry about."

These days, it truly was.

"Speaking of things to worry about," Grindelwald said. "I haven't forgotten that I promised to help you all get those pesky Dark Marks removed. I've been researching them more extensively, plus theories on how they're formed. I believe the mark itself is placed like a curse. With that in mind, I think we should have that goblin Curse-Breaker we used to remove your Unbreakable Vows to the former Ministry take a crack at removing them. Otherwise, it's cutting a big hunk out of your arm. That's the route Severus and Regulus both took, but you're all so pretty I didn't want to mar you," he concluded with an amused smirk.

"A curse," Rabastan murmured thoughtfully. "We all heard how impossible those are to remove, but if it's a curse, probably with alarm layers set to go off if tampered with, that makes sense! Hey, how do we know having a Curse-Breaker fucking with them won't just kill us?"

Blaise arched his brows at Rabastan. "Well, it's the Curse-Breaker's job to know what not to…as you say, fuck with. The way the magic works involves a bit of rebound so it would kill the Curse-Breaker instead. With that in mind, I'm sure ours has a method of checking before he does anything deadly."

Rabastan grinned. "Cool. I'm down whenever you can get us an appointment with Mr. Breaker." Rodolphus and Bellatrix nodded in agreement.

"I'll have one of my Gob-Gobs at the Ministry send him a note to pop round to Azkaban and see you as soon as he's able," Gellert said with a cheerful smile. "From my understanding, he has a busy schedule, so if he's only free in the evening, I'll send him around to your manor instead."

"Sounds good," Rodolphus said, smiling back. "Thank you. Also...do you actually call them Gob-Gobs to their faces?"

Gellert nodded, amusement dancing in his eyes. "I like and admire goblins quite a lot, from their astounding abilities to their work ethic, and I get the impression that they like me too. They're my favorites. My little Gob-Gobs."

"So they take the name as a badge of honor and not derogatory," Rabastan asked dubiously.

Gellert nodded. "Yes, but I'd not try calling them Gob-Gobs were I you. I am special, after all."

Bellatrix rolled her eyes and smirked. "That you certainly are."