"Are the boys not here?" Rita asked, looking around her eyes glittering eerily.
"You won't be meeting them unless they want to meet you." Lucius said coldly from where he sat, the only seat remaining for Rita was the least comfortable, the unspoken statement that she was unwelcome and unliked almost too obvious.
"How unfortunate, it might even have reduced the price you had to pay." Rita said with a smile that would have made Harry uncomfortable, but nobody here was unused to her antics.
"You mean you would have written a front page piece on everything you can find out about them and a bunch of lies and half the money you make from that off the commission." Sirius said coldly, arms crossed as he glared at her.
"A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do." She said with a shrug, not even thinking of shame for her actions.
"That's not the point of this meeting." Lucius fixed Rita with a look that wouldn't be wrong to liken to ice, and while most would freeze it seemed as though Rita was unbothered as she smiled brightly, her teeth an eerie shade of white that seemed too unnatural, getting the papers out of her crisp, new handbag, that had to be larger inside than it seemed due to the large stack of paper that she pulled out.
"You're no fun Lucyyyy~" Rita said with a wink that made Narcissa sigh, and Lucius internally uncomfortable. "But anyway, here you go baby, I spied on her for a while, at least long enough to see what she's doing."
Narcissa leaned forwards to grab the papers, Rita being a well known straight flirt not going to make her uncomfortable, but thee others may be uncomfortable taking it from her. The first time they had hired her, Lucius had been the one to take the papers from her, and she had tugged him close and kissed him, making him extremely uncomfortable and he washed his cheek where she kissed for the whole afternoon.
They would have hired someone else, but she, as an illegal animagus, was one of the best people to hire to carry out secret observation work, and the other people who were good were much more expensive as most of them were legal animagus, so you could use your knowledge about her illegal animagus status to get the price down a fair amount.
"Thank you Rita, we will go through everything and contact you later about what you can and can't publish. Remember to show us the article before publishing." Narcissa said with a cold glare, and as she usually had a much softer face than Lucius, her cold glares were much more effective, Rita having a shiver run down her back.
"Yes, right. I'll be waiting for your letter." Rita said with a gulp, rushing to get her things together and leaving as quickly as she could.
"She's finally gone." Lucius sighed, visibly sagging with relief.
"Luci, she hasn't tried to do anything since the first time because I threatened her, so she won't try anything again if she wants to keep her teeth." Narcissa said with a gentle smile, laying her hand softly on his back.
"It's terrifying how quickly you two can change from that cold to lovey dovey like this." Sirius said with a sigh, leaning his head onto his hand, arm resting on the arm of the chair.
"Mhm, because you're not an overdramatic child who can completely swap emotions at the drop of a hat." Remus said, rolling his eyes.
"I'm going to go up and let the boys know they can leave Draco's room now, I sent Harry's potion up with some food and drinks, so hopefully he took it." Narcissa said, handing the papers to Remus as she swept upstairs, the flowing of her purple dress from behind making it look like she was floating.
"I guess we should make a start reading this." Remus sighed, tired, eyes hurting before he had even started reading.
"Is the Moony disappointed he has to read something?" Sirius asked with a very overdramatic gasp, poking Remus lightly on his cheek.
"Yeah right, because I read everything ever written." Remus snapped, swatting Sirius' hand away, eyes closed in over exaggerated frustration.
"Every surface in out house has at least 2 books on it, including our bed." Sirius said, sticking his chin in the air.
"And yet we don't own more than the firs of Lockheart's books and I couldn't even get half way through. I mean, there has to be a limit to how pretentious someone can be." Remus said, the target of his irritation shifting to Lockheart and his self importance.
"There there, Remy, shall we split this up?" Sirius said, his voice monotonous, having heard Remus' rants about the obvious fraud at least 10 too many times.
-----
"Boys? I'm coming in." Narcissa called through Draco's heavy door after knocking firmly with no reply.
"Mother!" Draco called happily, looking up at her, the cauldron they had been working on earlier now empty and several vials of the potion scattered across the floor. Harry was sleeping with his head resting on Draco's lap as Draco drank tea and ate muffins, his cheeks a little pinker than normal.
"I just came to let you both know it's safe to leave the room now, Rita's gone. I'm guessing he took his potion." Narcissa said in a quit voice, walking in the room and closing the door behind her.
"He took it while I was still making the potion." Draco said quietly with a nod. "But he didn't eat anything either, but he did have a drink of orange juice while waiting for me to finish."
"As long as he had something and took the potion, the house elves went a little over the top with the food anyway." Narcissa said, sitting on Draco's bed so her legs were beside Draco on the other side to Harry. "We probably have enough to get that school shut down now, don't worry. I'll contact Khadija's parents about how she's acting strangely and help get it sorted out and offer to help her go to Hogwarts."
"She'll definitely be happy about that." Draco chuckled, leaning back into his bed, Narcissa playing gently with his hair.
"If we can get her back to normal." Narcissa added.
"You, dad and Remus all came back to normal." Draco pointed out, although he knew it wasn't exactly the same.
"We'll do our best for her, Draco." Narcissa said, crouching down and pressing a gentle kiss on his forehead. "Don't spoil your dinner."
And with that she swept out of the room softly to go back down to read through the report with the others.