Disclaimer: It's certainly not mine.
A Conversation of Love
The grand stately home of Cygnus and Druella Black was situated in a hidden nook of wizarding England, protected by numerous magical enchantments that were to ward off muggles and keep any magical passerby from simply coming to call, amongst them unplottable charms of a very delicate and intricate kind. The grand house, with its vast sprawling lawns and numerous shrubbery had a distinct look that said, in everything from its ivy creeping up the side of the house to the silver serpentine doorknockers that visitors were not expected or wanted in any shape or form. The Black's were not known for their forthcoming natures towards even other witches and wizards, but then as far as they were concerned, they were not like other witches and wizards.
The Black family had its origins stretching back to the 13th century, an illustrious accomplishment that few other wizarding families, no manner the extent of their gold or the supposed unblemished purity of their blood, could claim. Cygnus's sister had a family tree displayed in her London home that showed the many generations of noble witches and wizards that the family was descended from and there were few things that Walburga Black liked better than to show off the family tree.
Yet the tree had its flaws, the signs of ill-usage that couldn't be boasted away. Numerous burn marks littered the family tree, at least one, it seemed, every generation or so making its way onto the family tapestry. They were the only signs left of the relations that had once been, the ones who had not towed the family line and had been removed from the illustrious tree of the family line for their disobedience. It was this very predicament that found two of the Black's still awake into the early hours of the night, one no longer home and the other tucked away quietly in his office, drink in hand.
Cygnus Black was pretty sure that he was not drunk. Oh, he had been drunk before, never fall down drunk but enough that he had been able to tolerate, at least to an extent, numerous family gatherings hosted by his dear elder sister. He had even been able to find some of them funny, a right riot of a joke with all of the Black's getting together and stiffly trying to one-up each other on how impressively wealthy and pureblooded they all were. Walburga had never found anything very funny about the matter and had always made her opinions very well known to him.
His sister and brother-in law had never been known for their sense of humor, the former hot-blooded and vicious and the latter silent as the grave and as cold as the marble that rested over it. He was told that he was inappropriately out of line and that his drinking was likely to bring him to an unfortunate end. Well he didn't give much of a damn what they thought and after everything that had happened he figured he would take the bottle. Black's didn't tend to live long anyway. At least that is what Alphard had always said and Cygnus would take his brother's word for it.
So he sat in an office filled with leather-bound books and rolls of yellowing parchment and drank his firewhiskey to the background of a merrily crackling fire. From somewhere up above him, Druella and Narcissa were sound asleep, apparently not in the least ill at ease with the current state of affairs and that suited him find. He rarely sought out anyone else's company these days anyway.
It was rare day when he took the time to worry what his family thought of him or for that matter what might happen in the future with this war that seemed to be brewing. His daughters and wife could concern themselves with paltry affairs between muggles and wizards but he was going to stay out of it. Or at least he should be kept completely out of it but his daughters didn't seem to think so and lately it had been becoming a massive problem.
Cygnus Black was not a man with a strong paternal instinct. He had married young to Druella Rosier, an arrangement more to suit his parents desire to bring more wealth into the family than at his own interests. She had been a very attractive young girl then, tall and slim, with long blonde hair like all of the Rosiers, and pale blue eyes. She still was an attractive woman even over twenty years and three daughters later. Druella was a cold haughty woman but she rarely gave him the time of day more than was necessary after the birth of Narcissa and that suited him just fine. His sister was loud and interfering enough as it was.
The birth of Bellatrix came less than a year after their marriage, a dark-haired little terror that was born screaming and never stopped in an instant her passionate, hot tempered antics. From a young age she had raised hell, from torturing house elfs to hitting and jinxing her smallest sister and younger cousins. She was immensely talented, but he had an abundance of owls from the school on her alone on accusations of bullying and fights. If his experience with children was based on just Bellatrix alone he would have given them all up as a bad job.
But Andromeda was different.
She looked like Bellatrix, was as talented as Bellatrix and at times was as haughty and stubborn as Bellatrix but she wasn't Bellatrix. Andromeda was clever, wise, considerate and unusually for a member of the Black family, well-behaved and calm. She was everything her elder sister could not be and had the distinction of being not just Cygnus's favorite daughter but perhaps the only person he had ever truly loved. Druella could keep the spoiled porcelain doll Narcissa and the hell with Bellatrix, he had only needed Andromeda.
And now she was gone.
With that last somber thought Cygnus Black poured himself another large amount of whiskey. No, he was not drunk but he wouldn't exactly mind getting there and preferably sooner rather than later. He would just finish off the bottle or another bottle, however long it took and then fall into a drunken stupor that would last him well into the next day. Druella wouldn't care if he passed out on the couch in his office; she rarely looked in on him anymore. As far as he was concerned it was best to be dead to the world.
From the street a small crack occurred at the same instant that he was helping himself to more alcohol and a tall dark-hooded figure appeared, their black cloak trailing the ground as they marched up to the house in front of them. At their approach, the gates, magically charmed to permit entrance to any of the family, opened themselves and let them pass within. They silently swung shut behind the figure who made their way up the long tree lined path to the house.
It was well past midnight when Bellatrix reentered the house after a long day away from home. She shrugged off her black cloak as she stepped inside before closing the door behind her. The entire house seemed dark from the vast entrance hall, most of its occupants already in their rooms for the night. That was as well as it should be. The black haired witch was in a mood truly venomous even by her mercurial standards and the slightest disturbance was likely to turn terrible. For the other person at least. Not that Bellatrix at that moment would have protested the slightest chance of letting off some of the anger that had been coursing through her over the past week.
Her long, slim fingers gripped the handle of her wand in a death like vice as she stepped further into the darkened hall, her mind awhirl with an assortment of thoughts. She cast aside her cloak on an ornate snake-embossed stand near the library door, trusting to the house-elves to tend to it in their picking up in the morning. If they didn't take care of it as they should, she could always take out her many frustrations on them. It would certainly not be the first time she had used a house elf as a stress reliever.
For a moment the tall witch merely stood in place, wand still gripped tightly, her dark eyes growing accustomed to the almost complete darkness of her home. Yet she could see a few doors down the tiniest sliver of light emanating from underneath a door. Her father's office was clearly still in use and unless Bellatrix had missed her guess, she was almost definitely sure for what purpose. Her dark eyes narrowed as she approached the room, and then stepping in front of it she rested her hand on the knob for a moment before turning it. The door opened immediately, it was apparently for once unlocked.
"Bellatrix," Cygnus Black inclined his glass towards his eldest daughter from his chair by the fire as she stepped inside his office, the door swinging shut silently behind her dark form, looking for all the world like he had expected her all along. "You're back so soon."
"Don't sound so disappointed," she snapped before knocking some parchment off of a nearby chair and settling herself down in it. With her finely tailored violet robes, head of long shining dark hair, complete straight-backed posture and arrogant bearing she had the look of a dark but radiant queen.
Cygnus raised an eyebrow at her. "I disappointed? Bellatrix I half expected you to have burnt down three muggle settlements and half of wizarding Britian in your rage. Far from being disappointed, I'm glad you have come back in one piece and that there are not a team of aurors trailing in your wake, ready to take you in by any means necessary."
Bellatrix looked contemptuous at his words. "I have a notion that you are making fun of me," she told him. "Well I don't do things half measure like you seem to think. I have an idea of exactly what needs to be done and it takes much more careful planning than just one little upstart mudblood and his little blood traitor girlfriend will be able to stop."
"By that you mean you couldn't find them," was her father's reply. He helped himself to some more whiskey, ignoring the look of venom that his eldest child was throwing his way. "You were outsmarted by your little sister once more." He took pleasure in Bellatrix's look of ire as a small sense of relief and pride filled him at the thought of Andromeda still being out there safe and sound and far from her lunatic of a sister.
"Outsmarted, as if she could manage it! She is hiding like a little rat," she spat out. "They didn't even bother to take the Hogwarts Express, just ran away from the school when the term was over like a pair of cowards. But I will find her and the mudblood Tonks and they will pay."
"And who will make them pay?" her father asked her, his own dark eyes fixed intently on hers. "Will it be you? Or on behest of that Lord of yours?" At the mention of her Lord his daughter's face became more fixed, a look slipping into her face that he recognized only too well. It was the look of a rapid fanatic and it was the look his sister Walburga got any time she was discussing their family line. It was never a look that boded anyone in the family well, for it had led to many a terrible circumstance in the past.
"My Lord has much more important things to do than worry about one little blood traitor and her mudblood lover," she told her father rather fiercely.
"Ahh, good to know," Cygnus said sardonically. He took a generous helping of his drink before continuing. "I'm glad to see he can prioritize so well."
Bellatrix's face had taken on a truly ugly look at his words. She was never one to take an insult to the Dark Lord without some degree of ire but Andromeda's departure or rather elopement from the school with Ted Tonks a week earlier had only made the subject an even touchier one. It was as though by throwing her all behind the dark overlord she could gather back the control over her life that the middle Black sister had taken with her in her absence.
"I can prioritize as well," Bellatrix told her father. "But can you say the same father? You sit here drinking and moping over a daughter who left us all behind for muggle scum. In trying to find them I at least did something. I wanted revenge on the filthy double-crosser to maybe bring back some pride to our name but you just sit here drowning your sorrows over the little bitch." At his look of fury at the word she laughed savagely. "Even when she betrays you, you can't bear to hear her criticized. Narcissa and I have never had such a high position in your esteem as Andromeda did."
For a moment Cygnus Black said nothing. He and his eldest daughter eyed each other with particular dislike, one triumphant, the other contemplative. Then: "I don't doubt it. I can't speak for Narcissa but you've certainly never done anything to have even a moderate position in my esteem, Bellatrix."
"Oh, but I've seen how those you hold in high esteem turn out," she told her father, a smile playing at her thin mouth that was every bit as vicious and cutting as it intended to be. "Out rolling with the trash, she is. Her being your favorite daughter hasn't stopped that and it won't help her when the Dark Lord takes over this world and brings the mudbloods and muggle lovers to their knees." She was smiling with delight now; her eyes truly alit with the faraway thoughts of that day to come.
"And your dear Lord will bring such a glorious revolution about, will he now?" Cygnus asked his daughter. "Him and his small band of followers, yourself included."
"I pride myself to be amongst them," Bellatrix said. "It is not the number of wizards devoted to the cause but the quality of such stock."
Cygnus took a pause in his drinking to answer her. "Of such as yourself and your most considerable powers and the Lestrange brothers can offer him. So we have you, your idiot fiancé and his hot-tempered younger brother. I'm sure that the wizarding world will by falling to their knees in horror and supplication soon enough, my dear."
Bellatrix was looking truly malicious as she continued to smile at him, his words for once brushed aside with ease. "They thought he was just a simple nuisance over the past few years but he has already made a name for himself and has already started to gain more and more powerful followers. Just because the older generation is complacent and set in their ways and my sister is a traitor to all we were raised with does not mean that someone doesn't need to show the Black family is willing to fight for the right cause of preserving their blood purity. But by all means," she added, gesturing to his half-filled glass, "do sit back and enjoy your alcohol and watch the show. It will promise to be a spectacular one."
"I'm sure I can expect nothing else from you, Bellatrix," Cygnus told her wryly. "If there was ever one thing you were spectacularly good at ever since you were born, it was making an unnecessary scene."
His eldest child laughed. "And if you are still alive to see it and haven't drunk yourself into an early grave by then I might just bring you a souvenir," she added spitefully. "You can have your beloved Andromeda's beautiful head to display in this office with your sty of expensive whiskey when I am finished mutilating her body." She got up then and offered him one final, beautiful smile, her dark eyes gleaming. "Goodnight father. Pleasant dreams." With that she swept out of his office, leaving him to his dark thoughts.
It was not beyond his eldest daughter to do such a thing, he considered as he sat there, lost in his musings. He thought he could trust that Andromeda would be careful and smart enough to stay out of any situations that would bring her into close contact with her sister. Still a part of him felt chilled by the thought of Andromeda dying at the hands of Bellatrix. He didn't know what he could honestly do about it. She had made her bed when she ran off with the mudblood and she would of course have to lie in it but it didn't make it any easier on him. After all Andromeda had always been his absolute favorite.
One thing he could do though, he thought to himself as he polished off the last of the whiskey, was get out another bottle after all. This was definitely a two bottle night. He could worry about Andromeda and Bellatrix later.
Assuming he wasn't lucky enough to have the alcohol kill him first.