Dabbling With The Dark

Chapter 25

Nine Days Later

"See? You lot need to pay attention. A gentleman is always supposed to acknowledge a lady's presence in the room before any other," Bella smirked looking around the sitting room before turning back to him. "Now what did you bring me?" she smiled.

Shaking his head with a smile, he held out the bakery box of strawberry cream strudels he'd asked the house elves at Hogwarts for. Sure he'd lied and said they were for him to snack on while he worked on his house, but they didn't need to know that. She opened the box and squeaked happily before closing the lid firmly looking at the LeStrange brothers.

"Hands off or I'll hex them off," she said sending the room into a small fit of laughter.

He was just happy to see her up and about again. Her face was almost fully headled now, the skin and muscle completely repaired thanks to him playing up his injury and getting another bottle of potion from Snape. The area was still slightly red, but even that was fading. That was all that mattered to him. Though they teased each other about it and never openly admitted it, now that he'd gotten to know her he actually did like her a lot. He knew the reverse was true, too.

"Bella, if you're the new standard of what a lady is and Potter is the same for a gentleman then Merlin help the future of the wizarding world," Lucius said.

"You're just pissed off because once everything with the war is said and done Draco is going to be second choice to me even among the pureblood women," he grinned. Lucius snorted rolling his eyes as everyone laughed.

"Already thinking about the spoils of victory, are you, Harry?" Dolohov asked still laughing.

"He's young man. I'd be worried about him if he weren't thinking about it," Yaxley said.

"Hey, I only think about sex every ten seconds, not every six," he replied cracking everyone up. The laughter tripled when he bit his bottom lip at the feel of a wand tip pressed into the back of his skull.

"And whom precisely are you envisioning having relations with so frequently?" Voldemort asked from behind him.

"You, of course, even if it is with lots of Polyjuice involved," he replied.

The Death Eaters all kept laughing and he rubbed the back of his head sniggering when Voldemort actually did use a slight stinging curse on him for the comment. He turned around and his vocal amusement faded even though his smile didn't at the expression on the Dark Lord's face, a smile that said Bella wasn't the only one that had feelings for him that they wouldn't admit to. Voldemort's smile changed to a smirk from hearing that thought from him and he sniggered slightly looking down and then at the man again.

"I know where my loyalty lies and so do you, with finding out and passing on Order information where it's going to do the most good."

"Sit," Voldemort said. All the amusement faded from the room as he sat down next to Bella and pulled out his usual bag of chocolate frogs.

"I found out this morning that Dumbledore is considering asking Hermione's parents to go on holiday for the summer. If he does, he'll be funding it, and though he'd be doing it to make it seem like Hermione will be out of the country, she wouldn't be going with her parents. Dumbledore wants her to travel back and forth between the Order's headquarters and Hogwarts doing research on something called Rift Magic. What is it because I've never heard of it?"