multiversallogs | a formula, a phrase remains,

Entry tags:

a formula, a phrase remains, — but the best is lost.

Who: Bellatrix, possibly Narcissa and/or Lucius, and Rodolphus
What: definitely not posing for the cover of a romance novel
Where: the Malfoy townhouse
When: shortly after this
Notes: also open to anyone who might be around the Malfoy residence, if you are interested in viewing this trainwreck!
Warnings: silent agonizing, what passes for romance amongst Death Eaters, putting the fun in dysfunctional

After soliciting a location from Narcissa, Rodolphus takes a chance on Apparation; he does not know the city as well as he might, but he can be bold enough when it suits him, as it does now. This is, after all, the most important of things, as he ranks them currently. His priorities have, in the past, differed by one or two significant points, but those are for the most part removed now. Now there is just Bellatrix.

And Narcissa and Lucius, of course. Having startled no one but a few rather surly pigeons with his sudden arrival in the rather isolated Sobek Croix area, he is quick to knock, yet exhibits no impatience. Such things are of course unseemly but more to the point, it might annoy Bellatrix. It's not as if she's unaware of how he feels, so it's unnecessary to show it. He can't help even now touching the wand tucked into the specially made sheath strapped to his forearm inside his sleeve. It is the only part of her he's had for the past months, not counting the time he was mysteriously absent, which he has not yet calculated properly. He doesn't even have the memory of her death. He had been taken long before she had.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bellatrix is already waiting for him. The sound of his knock bids her to rise, and it's abrupt - excited, almost, though not so much for their reunion as she is for her wand, among other things. She passes a hand over the inner pocket of her robe, the weight there, that she might finally share with someone who will take as much delight in it as she. He won't, but she'd never presume otherwise, even as it stared her in the face.

Within seconds she's opened the door. She lingers there, uncertain for a moment, and then the barest hints of a grin form at the corners of her mouth. It's the closest to an earnest greeting he'll get, but it is earnest, if not for the reasons he might prefer. Some small part of her is glad - not for his presence, but for the fact that he's as she remembers him; it's a welcome change from the state of the rest of the family.

Seeing her is not quite the revelation he'd expected it to be, perhaps because of the fact he never saw her dead to begin with — her absence was unnatural, to be sure, but he felt sure she was merely 'away' or at least only slightly more inaccessible than Bellatrix normally would be. In a way he'd had more faith in her ability to defy death than he'd had with Voldemort. He was not an imaginative man, and could not imagine her dead. Therefore, she wasn't.

Isn't. He does not hesitate the slightest in drawing the wand out and turning it adroitly in his hand to offer it to her the proper way. In doing so, however, he does attempt to brush his other hand over hers when she reaches for it. There's that and the familiar way he stares at her to show for his emotions, which might on this occasion, if not any other, be somewhat excusable.

Indeed she isn't - and she well knows she should be, knows that she is, but it doesn't matter, does it. There's no sense in acknowledging what doesn't apply to her now, and death most certainly does not, so Bellatrix merely reaches out to claim her wand by the tips of her fingers, a gentler display than she's shown anyone, anything, in all her years.

Even now, as she winds the fingers of her free hand into the one Rodolphus has extended, the touch lacks any real affection. It isn't apparent straight away, but so soon as she starts back inside it's evident that she's only taking hold of him to tug him inward, away from nonexistent, prying eyes. Her own remain fixed on her wand, back in its rightful place after far, far too long.

"Am I as you remember?"

It's straight to business, as little as there is - no love lost, but none gained either.

He conscientiously closes the door behind him, but it is obviously an afterthought, a function of his typical thoroughness. Similarly he glances quickly at their surroundings without an eye for detail, only staying aware for something that might be out of place. This being the Malfoy residence, there is little of that, and so all his attention is effectively on her. There is a beat before he answers, true to form.

"Yes," he says with that quiet intensity, squeezing her hand just a little before withdrawing, an obvious and polite tactic designed to spare her the need to remove her own hand from his.

There is perhaps one thing out of place between them, and that would be the little tentacle pin attached to the lapel of his robe. It is slowly uncurling, the inner parts colored so it becomes a strange bright mark against the dark fabric. Rodolphus appears to have forgotten he is wearing it and takes no notice of its lazy little movements.

Bellatrix reclaims her hand without sparing that courtesy so much as a thought, dark eyes scanning the room about them, but it's not a matter of taking in the surroundings - she's simply trying to determine whether anyone else is there. It would be so simple as putting the mark to use again, but if they're already gone, she wants them to stay away - for the moment, at least.

Her gaze settles upon Rodolphus once again, and the pin is spared little more than a cursory glance before her eyes lift to meet his, bright with renewed excitement. "And the last you remember? Of our world?" She needs to know this, first - before she can show him anything, needs to learn what he knows, what had happened after - well. After she hadn't been there to learn it for herself, anymore.

"You are dead," he says without inflection, as if it means nothing to him. In this case it does not, since after all, she's right there. The second comment contains a more noticeable tension: "He is fallen."

If he neglects to mention he has been recaptured, it's not really motivated by embarrassment; he's had many years to come to terms with the fact he's not the most competent dueler. It's just mostly irrelevant. The little tentacle-pin stills, then curls up tight.

His first words - the theory of them, at least - she is well acquainted with. She barely bats an eye as she counters, brusque: "I am most certainly not, if I am here before you." It's not quite denial. Bellatrix recalls her own fate quite clearly - for once it's a mere statement of fact. That isn't what turns her gaze gold, though. Her eyes lid until they're all but narrowed, and the faintest hint of a smirk tugs at her lip, though if anything it looks to be nearer the beginnings of a snarl.

"Fallen?"

The slight movement of his head is a stand-in for a shrug. Sometimes, when she has that kind of look on her face, he doesn't feel inclined to move too much, as if motion could be a provocation. Neither does he argue the point of her life or death.

"They did not see fit to grant me details." Why waste breath on a dead man? "We were routed. He is gone."

There is, admittedly, a certain tinge of passivity to what he says, beyond that which is typical for him. While he's not happy about the way things went — he was loyal, but already it's was instead of is. He's had a month to adjust to a complete paradigm shift and now to entertain the tantalizing if highly unlikely possibility that they might have some kind of life together without the Death Eaters. Without him.

"I watched the boy die," Her voice has fallen, now, just beyond a hiss - but it lilts upward again when next she speaks, taking a step nearer. "Surely you are mistaken. Surely you didn't see - or you misheard -" she doesn't need to finish. It's her way of demanding the explanation that he may not have to give; he is not the first to speak of this, to her, and surely not the last to be misinformed. Her fingers clutch, white-knuckled, against her robes, against an object which feels heavier with each passing second.

Though he doesn't reach out to her, his eyes flicker a little when she moves nearer. It's practically the same thing, coming from him. His gaze also moves briefly to whatever she's gripping, but he doesn't inquire yet.

"The boy is alive. I have not seen him but he is alive." Rodolphus confirms, flat in his inability and unwillingness to shield her from this. "They desire nothing of me but my death — lying would serve no purpose."

What makes this terrible certainty so different from the last time's is, of course, his belief that this truly is it, that it's really over, but more than that, he actually desires it. If Voldemort rose again, he would immediately stand behind him and go wherever Bellatrix went, but Azkaban has done its work, as has time.

"If you have not seen him," her words are clipped, but not in anger - rather, it sounds more like she's explaining one of the world's most obvious facts - "it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, anyway.."

In that instant, her voice grows airy. A certain measure of delight finds its place in her features, lips ticked into a smirk that seems almost smug.

"Alive or not, our Master has not fallen."

This once, it isn't a matter of blatant denial, for her.

"I have proof." Her expression does everything to suggest that she expects nothing short of elation.

This being Rodolphus, he only disappoints. Elation is an alien world to which he has never been, and accordingly, nobody from that planet has ever landed on his face, either. So there's some confusion, some uncertainty, and some not insignificant concern, but he just looks back at whatever she's holding and — once more — buries the small, grudging disappointment of his altogether unrealistic hopes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a formula, a phrase remains, — but the best is lost.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

do not adjust your tv it's still me