Disclaimer: The usual. JKR's sandbox, all of it, characters, copyrights et al. I'm just a' shovelling.
Notes: Thanks to Kelly and Kat for de-obfuscating canon details for this poor muggleborn; and another note of thanks to Kat for the French.
Dedicated to everyone who believes Bella and 'Rudolphus were never much of a couple. :p
:siren:
A garden maze, shaped like a perfect circle: a snake eating its own tail, the infinity paradox. Lush, deep greenery, enough to drown in, and amorphous, circuitous paths, more than enough to get lost in, to be forgotten forevermore to life and hope. Beside the maze, a manor looms, tall, stately, a poem painted white and beige, tinted blue by a midsummer night's moon.
Lestrange Manor.
Inside, there is laughter and music; people flirting and gossiping, living it up. A few lovestruck souls idle on the balcony, and there is music here as well, a serenade no less. Quiet looks, a few smiles, and there is life here, too.
But this tale does not begin here. It begins at one far edge of the evergreen maze, where the wild roses grow, an almost-dark place where the moonlight comes through only in wisps, and in that almost-dark place, someone waits, watches.
He waits with all the solemnity of a priest about to deliver a eulogy for one dearly departed, hands clasped loosely in front of his spare, gaunt frame. By the little moonlight there is, it's clear that he is young, perhaps not even fifteen yet. A boy still, but his eyes are mercurial and restless and old as no eyes fifteen years old ought to be.
He has not been waiting long.
Still, he waits, a statue carved of flesh and blood and bone, and watches the darkness shift at the edge of the evergreen maze with troubled dark eyes.
A rustle sounds somewhere behind him, and he inhales, his ears alert, but the rustle is only cloth and the footsteps give away their owner long before the first words escape her lips.
"There you are."
He says nothing, silent, but a few fingers tremble, and a pair of eyes flicker in the shadows.
"They're wondering where you disappeared like that," She drawls, sidling closer, and his eyes flicker again, narrowing. He does not move, does not stir, only breathes. She stops beside him, close enough that he can hear her exhale, and follows his gaze to the maze's entrance.
Perhaps it's just his imagination, but he can almost see her eyes flicker, too.
"Going in there?" she murmurs, a lazy whisper, but there's an excited edge in it even she cannot hide. He's heard that edge many, many times already. "Again?"
"Maybe," he shrugs, statue no more. "Maybe tonight."
"When?" she asks, eyes only for the gateway to the evergreen, everdamned maze, a finger resting loosely at the edge of her almost-parted lips. He has eyes only for her now, and she knows it all too well. "Damnit, when?"
"After midnight," he watches her now, watches her breathe, watches the shape of her face by pale moonlight. "You coming?"
"Perhaps," she whispers, so soft, so low that the words are vapour even before they leave her half-parted lips. Turning, she takes a step away from him, gazing at the slim stone path that leads back to the manor proper. He turns too, watching her.
"Belle," he whispers now, the French lilt rolling lightly off his tongue. "Wait."
"Belle?" she repeats, looking over her shoulder at him, the imperious, lazy drawl creeping into her voice again, her eyes cooling to ice already, "Thought I told you never to call me that."
Still watching, he shrugs, holds out a hand which till now has been kept immobile – a white rose held steady in his fingers, so white it's almost hazy, translucent.
"Bella, then."
"Someone's going soft," her lips quirk up, and she smiles almost sincerely as she reaches for the rose, her fingers cradling the flower's smooth, soft base. A moment, if that, and she winks at him, her eyes suddenly as cruel as he's ever seen them. Obscure latin drips from her tongue, hummed soft and low and fading like that first whisper, and the smile changes, from Madonna to siren.
She pulls the rose from his grip in one fluid, graceful sweep, and a thousand fléchettes sting and cut and burn into his hands. It was a smooth stem so long as it rested in his hand, but even before she pulls, there are thorns on it again, and they cut and slice and flay the skin in too many places to count.
Droplets of blood, red and fresh and shimmering by the pale light, pool at the edges of his fingers, and he opens his hand, palm skywards, and watches the first shimmering red droplet begin its descent into darkness. When he turns his gaze to her, eyes narrow but face expressionless, she is still smiling that cruel siren's smile, tucking the white rose (thornless again, he assumes) behind her left ear. She steps towards him, the smile still lingering on her exquisite features, her arms folded loosely around her stomach.
"Tell me, Lestrange, does it hurt?"
With others, she is content to just watch; for him, she can't help but ask. He remembers putting the question to her once, and she replied it was to see if he could even bother to feel pain, since he never bothered to feel much of anything else. That, and she never could resist a challenge, not when suffering was involved, most certainly not when it was so easy to draw blood.
"It burns, Belle," he returns now, a trace of scorn in his voice, eyes still narrow, but something far deeper than mere scorn burning in them. "Like always."
"Really, now?" she purrs, still smiling as she places her arms around his neck and leans close, close enough that her breath falls warm against his cheek, close enough that he can inhale of her alluring fragrance; close enough to kiss. "It burns, does it, beloved?"
"Yes," he says, a dry murmur, his left hand at the small of her back keeping the both of them steady as he steps back, draws her deeper into shadow. His right (bloody) hand reaches up to touch the petals of the white rose still tucked behind her ear; white bleeds to red, and it burns even worse when he tries to fold his fingers. He exhales, not quite sharply, pulls the bloody hand away behind his back. "It burns."
She chuckles, deep, throaty and seductive, a woman caught in a child's body; she shivers, the chuckle fading away into a not-quite-serene smile, eyes all but closed, when he runs his fingers over her spine, tracing sinuous, serpentine swirls from the small of her back to the edge of her neck, "Mmmm."
"Enough," he breathes, his hand frozen against her pale, icy skin; her eyes flutter open. Slowly cocking her head to a side that a shard of light catches half her face, leaves half in shadow, she blinks, and coos at him, "So soon?" and laughs, leaning back on his arm, "And I thought this is what they called love."
"Obsession is what they call it," he says, wetting his dry lips with his tongue, wishing it were possible to dry his aching throat so easily. As is, the words come out dry, the last one almost hissed, not whispered. "Obsession and despair and misery."
"You know what they say," she replies, her fingers gracing the sides of his face with the lightest of touches as she draws closer yet again, her body pressing against his, "about misery."
He breathes once more, this time in his native tongue, "La misère aime la compagnie, non?"
"Oui. Je veux le vôtre."
She kisses him, and when their lips part, her asks her the question which the kiss almost drowned out.
"My misery, Bella, or my company?"
"Both," comes the hushed reply, and not long after she winks at him again, "Your misery, your company, and you, Lestrange," she laughs, slipping free of his grasp with practiced ease. Back in the moonlight, she smoothes out the wrinkles in her dress, fusses for a good half minute over her hair.
She turns to him, holds out her hands, expectant; he nods his assent. "Flawless. And who - "
" – gets the last dance?" she tucks a stray lock behind her ear with an innocent smile, her cool black eyes leaving his as she turns away and steps back to the stone path, "Promised it to dear Lucius."
"Lucius?" he echoes wryly, still shrouded by the dark, "Must you play everyone for a fool?"
"Everyone who wants to be played for a fool," comes the reply, another peal of laughter as she walks the winding stone path. Stopping at the very edge where it turns and disappears from sight, she half turns and eyes him from over her shoulder. "You're not coming to the grand hall, are you?"
"To watch?" he queries, stepping out of the dark, the last words cold in leaving his lips. "No, beloved."
"Pity, Rodolphus," She sighs, rolling the blood-stained rose in her fingers, watching him, watching him watch her, "Might have been…fun."
And then she is gone, a sharp rhythmic echo of footsteps fading in her wake.
A game, he thinks, only a game.
He stands where he is, watches she just was, and soon turns his eyes to his right hand, palm open; he watches the dry deep-rust-red blood by moonlight, brows furrowed. He watches the new scars, and the old ones.
It's only a simple game, really, a vicious simple little game. No matter they're still children still to play with fire like this. No matter that the edges between the game and addiction, obsession are already blurring too fast for him to keep up.
Swiftly clenching the hand into a fist, he blinks at the pain, surprised perhaps that he can even feel his skin burn a second time. The fist opens, and where the blood once was dry, a fresh red haze breaks the skin, shimmering, red, voluptuous against the old scars.
"La misère aime la compagnie," Rodolphus Lestrange murmurs, holding up his hand, fingers loose, and waits for the first drops to fall.
He is tempted to go, to watch her, to watch everyone watch her, their eyes drawn helplessly to her like moths to a white hot candle flame.
But not yet, not just yet.
Now, he waits for second blood to fall, first blood already drawn and dried for her pleasure, thoughts of a fickle siren on his mind.
Second blood falls, and he still watches, feeding off his own pain.
A fickle, cruel siren who looks a fae-girl, whose dark eyes enchant and innocent smiles entrance, whose lips bleed fire and whose touch bleeds dry ice, a fickle, cruel siren who he almost dares call his own.
Not yet, he thinks. Not just yet.
fin
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Translations:
Belle - beautiful
La misère aime la compagnie, non? - Misery loves company, no?
Oui. Je veux le vôtre. - Yes. And I want yours.