"I cannot find any spells on them," Lucius admitted after casting a detection charm for the fifth time. The dark pearls Narcissa had received from Black glowed briefly before settling back into their usual luster.
Narcissa smiled at him. She looked more relaxed than she had been of late, more beautiful. "Good. I didn't want to think they were a trap. I always admired them when Aunt Walburga wore them."
"Let's see how you look with them now," Lucius murmured, placing a hand on her wrist.
His wife blushed briefly, before she picked up the pearls and slid them around her neck.
They were stunning against her pale skin, Lucius had to admit. Narcissa looked positively regal with them there, and when she turned from side to side and they shone in the flames from her fireplace, Lucius wished he could kiss her throat. He started to lean nearer, but someone knocked on her bedroom door before he could.
Someone. Lucius shook his head as he retreated, ignoring Narcissa's slight pout. They only had one guest at present. "Come in, Regulus."
His cousin by marriage stepped into the room, pausing with his mouth open in mid-word when he saw the necklace Narcissa was wearing. "Good morning, cousins," he said, his voice a little strangled. "What is that?"
"The necklace your mother used to wear." Narcissa caressed the pearls. "Aren't they beautiful? Sirius sent them as a reconciliation gift."
"And you didn't test them?" Regulus's voice was a bit high-pitched.
"Of course we did," Narcissa said. "They passed through house-elf hands before they reached me, and both Lucius and I used detection charms. Lucius is even better with those spells than I am. We uncovered nothing."
Lucius nodded. He had been a bit suspicious of the gift himself, but he had used so many spells that the pearls had been blanketed in residual magic by the time he was done, and he honestly didn't think Sirius Black's traps could have stood up to that. "We've investigated them thoroughly. Is something wrong, Regulus? I was under the impression that our dueling lesson wasn't for another hour."
"There was an owl," Regulus said, and cleared his throat. He held out the arm previously hidden by the doorway, where a beautiful barn owl did indeed sit. "From the Ministry. They noticed that I'm alive, I suppose because of a records update, and they want me to come in and speak to the Aurors."
Lucius sighed. He supposed he should have anticipated this. "I'll accompany you." He glanced at his wife. "Unless you want to come?"
"No. I don't think so."
Narcissa had turned back to the mirror and was admiring the pearls again. Lucius shook his head indulgently. It was a long time since she had had something this beautiful, and of course, the history of the necklace meant that few gifts could have competed with it.
I should get her more gifts in the future, Lucius thought as he led Regulus to the Floo room. And make sure that ones from her estranged cousin do not take so high a place.
"Mr. Regulus Black. You understand that we have questions about where exactly you were that meant you survived but were listed in our records as dead, and the magic that kept you from aging."
Regulus nodded, calmer than he had been in most of his dealings with his cousins so far. Narcissa knew his childhood and all the weaknesses that accompanied it. But the Ministry official in the Records Archive, although leaning forwards over an immense desk of polished wood and frowning at him, knew almost nothing.
Regulus and Kreacher had prepared a story for this, besides.
"I'm not sure how much you knew about my circumstances at the end of the war, Ms. Ossory."
"Let us say nothing." Ms. Ossory, a tall witch with blonde hair coiled in a tight bun behind her neck, dipped her quill into her inkwell and remained still, watching him with wide eyes like an owl's.
Regulus cleared his throat and dipped his head. "My parents were followers of You-Know-Who." He was glad that he had practiced the story, to coax himself into saying "You-Know-Who" instead of "the Dark Lord." "They forced me into his service. I was unhappy for a long time, but saw no way out of it, particularly when I was so young and my parents and most of my friends supported him.
"Then my house-elf, who had also been in his service, came back and told me of a highly magical sanctuary that You-Know-Who himself had designed. My elf thought I could hide there, and You-Know-Who's own magic would keep him from detecting me."
"Where is this sanctuary?" Ms. Ossory asked, her quill scratching steadily away.
"I don't know the name. I saw the place only from the inside, so I'm afraid that I can't say what it's near, either."
"Hmmm. Continue."
"The sanctuary had an immense black lake." Regulus swallowed and closed his eyes, not needing to feign the shudder that ran through his body. "I thought the magic was strongest there, so I went down to the water to take a closer look."
"Foolish of you."
....
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