Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I wanted to, but I was outbid on eBay.
A/N: I apologize for the lack of updates; as I believe I've said before, my computer is a sentient, sadistic entity that feeds off my screams of impotent rage. Also, it fell apart.
Then I went on vacation, turned fourteen, came home to be confronted with a massive pile of homework, and was promptly dragged across the country on my mother's business trip. So it goes.
Warnings: Swearing, sexual references, drug references, potentially disturbing injuries/illness, blood, further narratorial lunacy, mental illness, insane rants, blasphemous insane rants, disturbing dream sequence, terrible rock music, Avery's girlfriend is an Auror bitch
---
Testosterone is one of the many wonderful substances produced by the human body that, for reasons yet to be determined, is extremely toxic in high amounts.
It is, in large part, responsible for the male sex drive, puberty, and all those other things that give teenage boys the ability to reproduce, while simultaneously ensuring that they will never get to do so. Mother Nature thinks she's got a wicked sense of humor, and it doesn't occur to anyone to disagree, lest they end up like Rabastan Lestrange, bleeding their guts out into the pity pot, inconveniencing everybody, and severely lacking in the decency required to just die already.
Avery, too, can be blamed for his current state of inconvenient disintegration. The poor sod forgot the cardinal rule of Death Eater-dom: never piss off Bellatrix Lestrange, lest she kill you. Or not kill you. That might be worse, because if you die, they'll at least have the decency to bury you in a deep, dark, scary hole where you'll be eaten, slowly and painfully, by worms while Evan Rosier and Edmund Wilkes, six feet above your sorry resting place, debate the best way to dig you up so that they can laugh at you. It's a fitting fate for Avery, isn't it? So I suppose that I can take consolation in the fact that, though Avery remains alive for the express purpose of making us wish that he didn't, he's currently bitching his head off in St. Mungo's, while the Healers work overtime to sew his head (and other assorted body parts--if you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, double entendres free for the asking) back on before anyone notices that Avery seems to function better without it.
And Avery hasn't even got friends.
Rabastan has friends. I believe I've mentioned them before, as accessories to the crime of being a crime against nature. The straight men. The good boys. Regulus Black and Barty Crouch. (Junior. Any mention of Barty Crouch Senior is strictly verboten among the trio, which of course doesn't stop him, in his bastardly bastardliness, from being one of their favorite topics of conversation. Ah, the wonders of teenage life.) A blond and a tragic victim of the lack of a good noun for black-haired men. 'Raven' doesn't quite seem to cut it. Regulus, for now, and I make no promises about later, does not say 'nevermore'.
Let's meet them, shall we?
It's five in the morning. Does Mr. Crouch know where his son is?
He's up before the alarm clock. It's an annoying habit of his, one that he can't seem to break. Just once in his life, Barty Crouch would like to oversleep. But he can't. Not when he's so conscientious, worried about his O.W.L.s and about his poor mum and, for a good five days now, about Rabastan. His close friends are beginning to consider the dark circles under his eyes (getting a suntan takes time, something he doesn't have, and sunshine, something that he doesn't quite understand) an intrinsic part of his face.
He notices them as he straightens his robes and tidies his hair, strand by individual strand. The average blond man has huge numbers of strands of hair. Barty gets up early for a reason.
His mother notices them when he comes downstairs for breakfast. It's still dark, and Theodosia Crouch's eyes started to go years ago. I don't know how the hell she notices, apart from the unhealthy fixation she has on her only son. It's the 'Walburga Black' syndrome, otherwise known as the 'Why in the hell does every single pureblood heir have a f(insert vowel of choice)cking Oedipus complex?' syndrome. Barty and his mum are not exempt. Did I make you feel dirty? Glad to hear it.
"Good morning, Mother."
"Oh, Barty," she whimpers, exactly the way she whimpered to his father during the happy event of Barty Junior's conception--it's her usual way of saying "Hello, son who has in every way completely failed to disappoint me! What shall you and your amazing talent achieve today? I know, let's make your cold, uncaring father proud! And first, let's have some lovely tasty breakfast that the house-elf was nice enough to whip up for you!"
Barty has a few mouthfuls of breakfast. It's porridge. He hates porridge. He has a sneaking suspicion, however, that his mother will not let him go until he has some lovely tasty breakfast. And the look in her faded blue eyes when he tries to get up not only proves him right, but sutures his skinny arse to the chair while he halfheartedly plays with his food.
By the time he finally bids her a hasty goodbye ("I couldn't live with myself if you were killed by Death Eaters, Barty!"), it's almost five-thirty. The sun hasn't quite condescended to rise, and though he bumps into a few malevolently placed end tables on the way up to the attic, broomstick in hand, he welcomes the darkness. No, that's not a metaphor; he's not 'hiding his guilt' when he hasn't even done anything to be ashamed of. It's simple truth. Have you, Muggles, ever stopped to appreciate exactly how irritating it is to fly during sunrise? You stop to appreciate the beauty of the sun, and then you fall off your broom. The Wizarding population is small enough already.
Like many urban Wizarding houses, the Crouch family domicile possesses a rather handy feature that has helped the Wizarding world to keep its Statute-of-Secrecy violations down to about, oh, one per week. Their attic is larger than it, to an unenlightened eye, needs to be. And it has a trapdoor out onto the roof. Standing outside, now, staring into the night, Barty fails to appreciate exactly how well-designed this feature is. The Muggles next door can't see him, because of the way the roof slopes. He can't see the ground, and the roofs stretch out around him in all directions, like bizarre little hills. And even when the sun isn't quite up, as long as dawn is breaking, he has enough light to fly. He kicks off.
Screw Floo powder. "This," he thinks, "is the best way to travel." London slides underneath him like a smear of multicolored paint gone psychotic, the rooftops mushrooms poking up through the toxic brown tiled leaf litter of the mixed metaphor. He's going fifty, sixty miles an hour, not much by Muggle standards, but Muggle standards look a bit more reckless when you're a hundred feet in the air and sitting on a stick. He flies almost vertically for the first forty feet up, tilting the broomstick forward only enough so as to preclude falling off; he shoots up into the air like the cap from an unwisely shaken bottle of butterbeer. The world turns sideways, then vomits him into the sky.
There, he stabilizes, feeling the hairs settle on the back of his neck. He checks his watch before his compass: he has time to kill before St. Mungo's is open for business. And he decides, now that he's away from his parents and able to contemplate such a thing, to relax and enjoy it.
Sadly, he stays on his broom.
He drifts a bit lower in the sky, watching the world. The sky looks like his mother's eyes, a soapy, elegantly aged blue-gray. Like blue marble, or old china plates, or the color of his nursery walls. He likes that color. It makes him feel welcome. Almost as if there's an unassumingly hospitable maternal tit for him to suck. And there she is, on the horizon, rising up to meet him.
The dawn isn't yet unbearable, not before the sun rises in earnest, and he watches, hovering in the sky, and feeling like an insignificant little speck in contrast to the grand majesty of astronomical events that do not give a shit about him. The sun's rising, slowly, turning the sky from the blue of Theodosia Crouch's eyes to the yellow-blond of her son's increasingly mussed hair. The wind is blowing, fresh and sterile with industrial pollutants. People are waking up in London underneath him, and even though he's too far up to hear their voices, he can damn well hear the sound of their cars. And that annoys him.
"People," Barty thinks, "are such idiots." They've ruined his beautiful, Oedipal sunrise.
He kicks his broom back into action and heads for the ground.
Regulus Black, meanwhile, has decided to go by Floo powder. He gets to sleep in more that way, and there's less risk of being seen. (Unless some Muggle lunatic has gotten into a Wizarding house and is sitting there, tossing Floo powder into the fire, waiting for glimpses of wizards spinning through the flames on their way to destinations unknown. But really, who would do that?) And, most importantly, it allows time for a big, dysfunctional family breakfast. Quality time at 12 Grimmauld Place.
Sirius still lives next door. The lone disadvantage to being Regulus Black is...Sirius Black. Regulus, despite his shock and horror at the prospect of Sirius inheriting the family money, can't help but be a little relieved at times that one day, he will be forced out of the nest to make his own way in the world, the younger and better son's lot in life, and he will no longer have to deal with dear Sirius. Did you know that eagles have two chicks? When the younger chick hatches, the older one bullies it to death.
Regulus is, as yet, unaware that he will shortly become the sole heir to the family fortune.
He is painfully aware that Sirius, whatever his redeeming virtues (not that any of the Blacks can see them, abusive family that they are), would make an utterly appalling head of the family.
The dining room will be abandoned altogether when Walburga goes the way of the rest of her relatives, in the distant future of 1985. Even now, it seems a little odd--not empty by any means, just...different--without the notorious Black sisters. It's been three years, and Regulus still can't get used to the new family dynamic. Cygnus and Druella are sitting as far away from each other as possible, Cygnus with his sister Walburga and Druella sucking up to Orion. And Sirius and Regulus, in complete ignorance or perhaps gleeful acceptance of the law of the eagles, are seated together.
Regulus does his best to ignore Sirius throughout breakfast, but it's getting harder. Sometimes (and this is his dirty little secret) he makes plans to ask Bellatrix, the next time he sees her, to do Sirius in.
He's glad to leave. His parents are fine, there's nothing at all wrong with his parents, really, but Auntie Druella is frankly an embarrassment, and Uncle Cygnus is either feeble or mad, and Sirius...he'd rather not think about Sirius, never mind that he just did. Breakfast is one of the worst times of the day, because everyone has to pretend to like each other, and even in a big house like 12 Grimmauld Place, there's no getting away.
Walburga and Orion insist upon seeing him off ("Make your father proud, Regulus!"), and, out of the corner of his eye as he steps into the fireplace, he can see Druella finishing her letter to Albert Avery, and Cygnus trying not to see.
He gets out at St. Mungo's with as much dignity as he can muster (there's a reason that, with the next remodeling, St. Mungo's will dispense with the fireplaces), using his Quidditch skills to their full extent--why else would his parents have been so proud when he made the Slytherin team? He doesn't fall on his face, anyway. I can't imagine why not. It must be the excellent reflexes born of his worthless pure blood.
Barty's already there, standing near the front desk with a don't-mind-me-I'll-just-wait-forever-shall-I? expression marring his not-very-handsome face. He's cradling something that does not look to Regulus, who does not have sole command of the point of view and, moreover, has never heard of such things, like a large chrome fire extinguisher. (Think 'cheap Muggle coffee emporium'.) He sees Regulus immediately:
"Where have you been?"
"Sorry," says Regulus, who can't help but be amused by Barty's exasperation. "I couldn't get away." He takes a closer look at the dark circles: they may well have outmaneuvered the freckles in the battle for dominance of Barty's face. "How early did you get up?"
"Five."
Regulus laughs. Barty is such a riot sometimes. He's his father's son, through and through, whether or not he has anything to say about a matter that genetics, reproductive biology, and the possible paternal involvement of a teenaged Ludo Bagman have already decided for him.
Sadly enough, there's a long line at the front desk already. At nine in the morning. They say magic has made wizards stupider; it's clearly made them more proficient at killing each other in various ridiculous ways. (Teapot brain, anyone? No? Shame.) I suppose I shouldn't laugh at sickness and death. It's tasteless.
Sickness and death, specifically the sickness and near-death of Rabastan Virgil Lestrange, are funny.
Barty and Regulus get in line. Barty gets a few odd looks from the wizards around him--whoever heard of carrying a big metal thing around in a hospital?--and retaliates by staring. Regulus has never seen anything so terrifying in his life, up to and including Bellatrix and her serial murders of small helpless animals, but possibly barring aging Aunt Druella, tramp extraordinaire. The horror. Being Regulus, he doesn't look away. Being the son of Theodosia Crouch, Barty gives up on the stare after a few seconds and looks away, embarrassed. Being a cynical bastard, I mourn the demise of Barty's character development moment. Oh...wait, he's always been a spineless, neurotic little twit. Never mind.
At least one wizard, the appallingly named Horklephilstein W. Jenkins, a former Slytherin in his mid-fifties, can't help but wonder: "Doesn't that kid look like Barty Crouch?" The obvious irony is completely lost upon him, and our heroes will never see him again. So it goes.
They wait. It's a long wait, so they have a lot of time in which to feel awkward and nervous. It's worse for Regulus, because he knows that the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient and Decrepit House of Black isn't supposed to feel, or be, awkward and nervous. Barty is quite aware that he's not supposed to feel anything of the sort, and bitterly compares himself to his father and, conversely, to his feeble little squeak of a mother. And then he feels bad about insulting his mother. What can I say? It passes the time.
He leans over.
"I apologize for snapping at you," he mutters into Regulus's ear, fully aware of how lame it sounds.
"Apology accepted."
"I know I got up too early."
"I know you got up too early." Regulus condescends to smile. So does Barty. "You were worried about Rabastan, weren't you?"
Barty hesitates, but the part of him that hasn't yet gone batshit insane points out that he's carrying an oversized coffee dispenser, attracting stares everywhere he goes, for the sake of Rabastan and his caffeine addiction. "He's my friend."
"Mine too," says Regulus, and that makes Barty feel a little less self-conscious and Regulus feel as if he's done a good deed today.
"That's why we're here, isn't it?"
"You never know," says Regulus. "We could be here to kill him."
"One doesn't preclude the other," says Barty, and they have a good laugh, and the desk clerk, who was already subjected to this nonsense when Rodolphus and Bellatrix were here, ducks under the desk and takes a nip from a flask of firewhisky.
"Ah, politics."
"Small wonder your father--" Regulus stops too late. Barty, to his credit, refrains from ripping Regulus's head off, settling for a smile that indicates that all activities related to the removal of Regulus Arcturus Black's head will take place in private, at a somewhat later date.
"Small wonder my father what, Regulus?"
"Nothing," says Regulus. "Where did you get that?"
When they, with the assistance of at least three beleaguered Healers, manage to find their way to Rabastan's room--those darn private rooms are just so hard to find, even if you are rich and pureblooded--he doesn't immediately notice them come in.
"Good Lord, Rabastan," snaps Regulus, much louder than he would have ordinarily, "turn the music down."
Rabastan rolls over in bed, snapping at least seven out of thirteen ribs from the effort, and grapples with the radio on his bedside table. The music rises suddenly to a shriek (Barty yelps and covers his ears), before the singer suffers a sudden, fatal heart attack and the music cuts out. Rabastan glares, suspiciously and from an odd angle, at his erstwhile friends. Something in his annoyed squint prompts Regulus to hand him his glasses from the bedside table.
Rabastan stares at the glasses in his hand for a second, shrieks, and flings them across the room.
"She wants! But I won't! No! Won't let her! She said it, not me!"
Regulus and Barty exchange glances.
"That's what I said, I swear to God! No, it isn't right! All wrong! Think I am a man, my boys, or might I be a god? What? What did you say? What did I say? That's an insult, Admiral!"
Barty takes a few tentative steps into the hall, not taking his eyes off Rabastan. Rabastan's hand takes the scenic route on the way to clawing at his eyes, knocking the wizard wireless off the table. His facial muscles do a brief, uncoordinated tango, and he laughs.
"Fuck me like an animal!"
Regulus, always the cool-headed one in an emergency, takes the big metal thing from Barty and pours 'Rabies' a cup of coffee.
---
There will be no coffee for Avery. Avery doesn't even get a private room, because Avery is a vicious, cowardly, murdering bastard, and he doesn't even have the excuse of being mad. He's a bad person, kids. Rosier and Wilkes are also bad people. But I like them and call them Evan and Edmund, because they're slightly better looking.
My hatred of Avery is shallow, but it isn't undeserved.
Even now, he's bitching at his best friends.
"...but I suppose I shouldn't expect any better from you."
Evan looks hurt, but then smiles sadly. Edmund, who, like Rodolphus, is capable of one facial expression at the best of times, rolls his eyes for the seventeenth time so far in the impromptu Death Eater meeting. Avery gives them both an exaggerated look of disgust, but it doesn't work, because he's ugly.
"No," says Edmund, and shows Avery exactly how to give him an exaggerated look of disgust. Behind him, another patient, a penguin-faced man wearing a bandage choker (you know who this is), surreptitiously turns his head to watch.
"Isn't that a little harsh?" asks Evan, feigning surprise.
"Not for Avery, it's not," says Edmund, who has never liked Avery and would hate for you to get the wrong impression.
"Right," Avery pouts, "I get the point. You hate me."
"Yep," says Edmund. "Finally, he catches on."
"Don't think I'm stupid, Wilkes," says Avery.
"We don't think you're stupid," says Evan innocently. The eavesdropper has to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing. It's funny because it's Avery.
"I don't have time for this," says Avery. "Tell me why you're here or piss off."
"Yeah, you've got other things to do," says Edmund.
"Hospital beds to lie in," adds Evan. "Windows to stare out of."
"Healers to seduce."
"You're mocking me," says Avery.
"We wouldn't," says Evan. "We're your friends."
The eavesdropper attempts to turn his snicker into a sudden cough.
"Yeah. Right." Avery looks so wounded that even Edmund has to laugh.
"We're your best friends in the whole wide world, Jonathan."
"That's just lovely," mutters Avery. "Now do me a favor and go away."
"We can't go away," says Edmund. "That would be stupid."
"We haven't even told you why we're here," says Evan.
"So tell me," says Avery testily, "and then piss off."
The eavesdropper, Gulliver Beckett (remember him, dear readers?), hopelessly nosy, sixty-two, recovering from a nasty throat injury, self-inflicted under the influence of the Imperius Curse, and a serious threat to the upper classes, watches as Evan pulls the letter out of his robes. Evan hands it to Avery with a flourish that suggests that he's doing it all for Chekhov's gun's benefit. Avery breaks the seal, noting as he does so that Edmund didn't even bother, when he read it, to make the new seal look like the original, and reads:
Esteemed Mr. Avery,
In regards to the request you made of me three Saturdays previously to today, I must regretfully inform you that I have considered your request and I have also considered my decision--
"Agatha," says Avery in disgust. "Can't she learn to write a proper letter?"
"Keep reading," says Evan. "It gets better."
--and I now have a response to give you, as I hope that the esteemed Mr. Rosier and Mr. Wilkes will do. Or not. One never quite knows where she stands with Mr. Rosier and Mr. Wilkes.
Sit down, if you are not already doing so; I have been informed that, at the time of this writing, you are in hospital, and thus very likely confined to your bed. And in considerable pain. But I digress. This will come as something of a shock to your sensibilities. I know that I should not like to receive this news, were it your unhappy duty to impart it to me. However, on consideration, and the advice of my dear friend, the elder Mr. Lestrange, whose advice I can unfortunately not repeat for reasons of profanity, and of course my dear aunt Mrs. Edmund Wilkes (nee Evelyn Burke), whose exact words to me were: "Tell the little fool that he's out of line, Agatha, we can't have him doing this to you", I have decided that, for societal and personal reasons, and also reasons relating to Miss Agatha Jugson as an individual, and as a member of society, and for reasons relating to your (rumored) impending marriage to Sylvia Mulciber, I have found myself forced to utterly reject your offer.
In short, I find myself unhappily forced to turn down your proposal, to me, of marriage to yourself. I cannot marry you, Mr. Avery.
"Two-timer," says Edmund, watching Avery's expression.
"Not," says Evan, "that you'd want Avery for a nephew, in any case."
I know that, as you read this sorry missive, thoughts must be going through your head. Thoughts of me. I am aware, Mr. Avery, that we have never been bosom friends. Even at Hogwarts, you had your friends, if ever you could have referred to them as friends, which may or may not be dubious (you know them better than I!), and I had mine, though mostly they were Mr. Lestrange. After Hogwarts, we (I admit) went our separate ways; I did nothing very important, and you did even less. And in your idleness, you attracted the love, or avarice, or morbid, masochistic fascination, of Miss Mulciber. I do not know her well, of course, having met her on exactly zero separate occasions, none of them for very long, or indeed any time at all. I know her only by reputation. But it seems that Miss Mulciber is not a woman to scorn, or take lightly. Even though your betrothal (can it still be called a betrothal at twenty-five? I was never sure) to Miss Mulciber has not yet been made official, or announced, or even to the best of my knowledge happened at all, it would still be of dire social and moral consequence to reject her at this juncture.
Besides, she is a second child, as are you. I am the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jugson, both of whom are long since deceased (I suspect murder, as does Mr. Lestrange, who should know). In other words, I am a more desirable marital commodity than yourself, and Agatha has her eye on a certain Mr. Black (in a few short years! Hee hee) for me.
Or, possibly, if that does not work out (he might die. They often do), Mr. Lestrange, himself married, has a younger brother, who is not desirable from a purely political perspective, but whom I like better than yourself, because he does not go about proposing to innocent women, and indeed (if Mr. Lestrange is to believed--and you know how he is!), is probably gay.
Sincerely and lovingly,
Always yours,
the humble Miss Agatha Jugson
The parchment makes a lovely noise as Avery wads it up and throws it at the wall.
"Lunatic woman," he moans.
"Even Miss Mulciber might be a better choice," agrees Evan. "By the way, what's this I hear about morbid, masochistic fascination?"
"Well," says Edmund, smirking despite himself, "think about it. He's unmarried at twenty-five, a mere foot soldier in" (he catches himself, remembering where he is) "the most important political movement of the twentieth century, complacent and stupid, using life when it suits him and otherwise not bothering, and in the hospital with his fingernails dropping off...I'd say he was a fairly good match for her, all things considered."
"Not high on the list of marital prospects for Miss Jugson, then?" asks Evan, playing along.
"I'd say he was just behind, oh, say, Albus Dumbledore?"
"You've made your point," says Avery, who, unpleasant as he may be, does not deserve to find out, after his friends have, that the woman he proposed to behind his girlfriend's back thinks he's worth, at maximum, one slightly-batty letter. There goes plan A. Avery thinks for a minute--did he ever have a plan B?
What was he going to do with plan A after the little bint accepted him, anyway?
In plan-making capacity, Jonathan Albert Avery ranks somewhere behind Bartemius Crouch Jr. on a bad day.
"You're right," says Evan. "I apologize. We have made our point. Your life is barely worth living, isn't it?"
"If you're trying to talk me into suicide," growls Avery, "I have plenty of things to live for."
"Name five," says Edmund. "We'll wait."
---
He catches her in the hallway during lunch break. That, in itself, is odd.
"The old sod must have forgotten his lunch," thinks Sylvia. "He's never out of the office." The joke among the Aurors is that their hard-hearted, cold-blooded boss is a vampire, but Sylvia doesn't believe it. Vampires aren't inherently evil.
Sylvia, however, is.
"Miss Mulciber? A word, if you please?"
"Yes, Mr. Crouch," she recites dutifully, wondering who sold her out and how she can corner them alone in the break room sometime and teach the little bastard a little lesson.
In some ways, Barty Crouch and Sylvia Mulciber are a lot alike. The only difference, aside from age and gender, is conscience: Sylvia hasn't got one. And she doesn't actually care, per se, about the job.
As it turns out, Sylvia is a bit disappointed when she walks out of Mr. Crouch's office. All he wanted to know about was Jonathan. And he didn't ask her to kill anyone.
---
"Your girlfriend is an Auror bitch," says Edmund, somewhat later.
"Shut up," says Avery. "What else do you want? You gave me the letter."
"I mean it," says Edmund.
"He means it," says Evan.
"I don't believe you," says Avery. "That's ridiculous."
"I mean it," says Edmund. "Would I lie to you?"
"You would," says Evan.
"Shut up," says Avery. "That goes for you, too."
Round and round they go, where they'll stop, nobody knows.
Gulliver Beckett, behind them, would like to restate his assessment of Rodolphus and Bellatrix, and all their merry band:
"They're serial killers."
Thank you, Mr. Beckett. We knew that already.
---
By the time they get a Healer back into the room, Rabastan has calmed down considerably. To start with, he's no longer shrieking nonsense and throwing things. That will do for now: there's still room for improvement, but Rabastan's inadvertent lethality would have gone down by fifty percent, if anyone had cared to test it.
"Sometimes they do that," says Healer Worfle. "We've been having problems with this one."
"I can see that," mutters Barty, whose freckles have gone as white as the rest of him.
Worfle nods. "You say you're his friends." From the bed, Rabastan watches them suspiciously; he's turned the radio back on, to the great sorrow of all present.
"We are," says Regulus stiffly, gripping Barty's shoulder--Barty has severe emotional problems and can be unpredictable at the best of times. This is because he has daddy issues.
"Does your friend Rabastan have any previous history of psychotic episodes?"
"Only when he doesn't get his coffee," says Barty, but Regulus has other ideas.
"Actually, he does. He has a history...Sometimes he would do this at school, with little to no warning. One never quite gets used to it. And it seems to be brought on by stress." Regulus pauses, giving the absurdly named Healer Worfle the patented Black glare. "Can I trust you not to disclose this information?"
Worfle hesitates. "Er...that is to say...that's not really my choice..."
"Can I trust you?" asks Regulus, very quietly.
By all rights, this should not work.
Worfle sighs. "Young man, there are some things that a Healer must tell his fellows--"
Funnily enough, it does not work.
Barty leans forward, eyes wide and innocent.
"He's our friend," he whimpers. "I don't want trouble for him."
"If he is involved in any kind of illegal activity--" Worfle looks uncomfortable. So does Barty.
"I," Barty says, very quietly, "am the son of the head of the Auror office. If Rabastan is involved in illegal or life-threatening activity, I promise you, I will be the first to report him."
"Yes," sighs Worfle. "All right. Let's hear what you've got to say."
I must confess, I never thought that the ticket to making something that should not work work was blond hair, an innocent face, and fortunate bloodlines.
"We think," says Barty, in the same quiet voice, "that his sister-in-law, Bellatrix Artemis Black Lestrange, was responsible for this."
Rabastan screams at the sound of the name, picks up the radio, and hurls it at Worfle's head. Propelled by the dubious power of Rabastan's withered muscles, it drops like a stone.
There is a shocked silence. There always is, for the first few seconds.
"I'm sorry about that," says Barty weakly. "I must have made a mistake. Forget I ever said that."
"I'll let it pass," says Worfle. "You were worried and looking for an explanation. It happens." And he sweeps out.
Regulus and Barty stare at each other.
Well, there goes that absolutely correct hypothesis.
Rabastan breaks the silence. He's crying.
"You were right," he whispers, bony hands pressed over his face. "Yes, you were right, you were right, I hate her, I hate her." And, courtesy of his degraded tear ducts, he's crying blood.
Barty supresses his nausea just long enough to rush over and take his hand (but not before quickly wiping it clean). Rabastan jerks it away, sniffling. The blood flow briefly intensifies, then cuts out.
"I've never seen that before," thinks Regulus, trying not to vomit. "Rabastan..." he says after a while, keeping one eye very firmly on Rabastan's wand hand, in case he gets it into his head to throw something. "Are you all right?"
"Does he look all right?" asks Barty angrily, turning his head to glare at Regulus. "I'm sorry, Regulus, but sometimes you just--"
"At least," snaps Regulus, relieved to have someone to yell at,"I don't bring my parents into everything--"
"Oh, really, Mr. Black?"
"Funnily enough, Mr. Crouch, I--"
"Please don't fight in front of me," whispers Rabastan. "Not now."
Regulus and Barty look embarrassed. Sometimes they forget that they aren't the only people in the universe.(How the hell do solipsists make friends?)
"Sorry," says Regulus finally. "We didn't mean any of it. We were just nervous."
"I know I bring my parents into everything," mutters Barty. "I'm trying to stop."
"What would your mother think of that?" asks Regulus, and even Barty grins sheepishly. Rabastan laughs hysterically, but has to take a brief break to find a tissue and cough up a few unnecessary internal organs.
"Thank you for coming to see me, boys." He gives them a teary smile. "You really are good friends."
This is sappy.
"It was nothing," says Regulus briskly. "You would have done the same for me."
"Would I have, now?" asks Rabastan, trying to smirk. "Oh, I suppose I might have, yes. I like you, don't I? I do." More coughing.
"We're glad to hear it," says Barty brightly.
"Somewhat," says Regulus darkly.
"I do," says Rabastan. "Never doubt me, boys." Barty catches the spurt of blood from his eyes (how the hell does he do that? He's a medical mistake) with a handkerchief just in time. Rabastan winces, and his hand trembles as he touches one eye. "I don't know why that's happening," he adds. "It's new, no, it's never happened before. Sickening, isn't it?"
Regulus endeavors to wordlessly convey that he's seen worse. Barty just nods: it is disgusting. "I'm cold," Rabastan adds, shuddering, "so cold." He clutches at the thin blanket, pulling it up over his deformed shoulders and off his feet; he yelps, drawing his legs up to his chest and curling into the fetal position. This doesn't help. Even his knees are sharp enough to kill, and he squeaks in pain. Regulus sighs and shakes his head. Isn't Rabastan pathetic?
---
Hello, dear depraved readers. I'm the narrator, and I apologize for interrupting this scene. It's a lovely little piece of work, chock full of homoeroticism (that's what you want, isn't it?). It even has, for the stranger members of the audience, plenty of blood. Rabastan probably doesn't taste so good, and his feet are as withered as the rest of him, but there are limits. (If you want to be sexually attracted to a Death Eater, I'm sure Lucius or Bellatrix will be happy to oblige.)
There are more pressing matters. Several of them.
Let's start with Rabastan's brief fit of temporary insanity. I'm sure several of you will have guessed that his unnamed and ridiculous chronic disease has finally spread to his brain; his eyes are leaking blood, after all. That's a nice little theory, and I hate to have to tell you that it's completely and utterly wrong. He's always been mad. There's nothing, in itself, unusual about Rabastan's neurons firing randomly, if at all. The Lestranges have a proud tradition of 'marrying' their siblings, one that only ended last century--God knows Rodolphus and Rabastan have enough subtext. Rodolphus is, after all, batshit insane, and Rabastan is still young and pretty enough to be considered a Victorian-style mad heroine. Would that he were a woman. But I digress. Rabastan's madness is genetic, but it comes and goes, and the primary reason is stress.
Wouldn't you love to be traumatized, traumatized again, mutilated, and held prisoner in an unfamiliar room without your brother or your friends to protect you? Given drugs around the clock? And told that the things that you fear aren't real?
And he has so many, many things to fear.
At night, Rabastan is helpless in front of everything that he knows is coming for him. He confronts his inner disorder and his twisted external reality. At night, Rabastan is raped and tortured a thousand times. And who am I to say that any of this isn't happening for real? At night, Rabastan goes mad. And personally, I think he's holding up rather well.
Sometimes the broken things spill over into reality. He can still feel Bellatrix's hands on him. Inside him. And who can blame him if she breaks something?
That's your daily dose of trauma, readers. The next important piece of information I have for you will require a little context.
And, for the record: Rabastan appreciates the drugs.
---
"I want you to do something for me," says Evan.
"Ask someone who cares," mumbles Avery.
"We want you to sleep with Mulciber," says Edmund. "Think you can do that?"
Avery's libido kicks into action. Mere moments later, his bullshit detector punts his libido back into a pornographic never-never land.
"What do you really want?"
"Edmund just told you," chides Evan. "We want you to sleep with Miss Mulciber."
"Give me a break," says Avery, who has known Evan Rosier and Edmund Wilkes since first year, and trusts them even less than he did when they met. "That's ridiculous."
"Ridiculous it may be," says Evan, "but that is what we would like you to do."
"Is there a reason for that?" asks Avery, frowning.
"Your girlfriend," says Edmund, looking around briefly to check that they are alone (former Healer Beckett closes his eyes quickly and pretends to be dead) "is a Ministry spy."
---
Avery's girlfriend is an Auror bitch.
Rosier and Wilkes are absolutely right about that.
Avery is pathetic.
Rosier, Wilkes, and the rest of the English-speaking world are absolutely right about that, too.
---
Sylvia Mulciber isn't an unattractive woman, if you happen to be blind, deaf, and insane. She has a distinctive personality, but then, so does Bellatrix. She's pureblooded, but we all know how little that means in these politically correct days: it means a hell of a lot.
The Mulciber family is not quite as old as the Lestranges, or as distinguished as the Blacks, or as powerful as the Malfoys, but the Mulcibers do have one advantage. There are a lot of them. And in every big family, you get throwbacks.
Sylvia's parents only let her become an Auror on the condition that she would give it up if and when she got married; they didn't foresee any problems in her future in that respect. Mr. and Mrs. Mulciber knew their daughter quite well, and had long since determined that she had no troublesome ideals or beliefs. In other words, Sylvia was joining the Aurors so that she could blow things up with authority. This was right in all but one tiny detail, and that was rather an important detail. Sylvia Mulciber had never wanted to join the Aurors in the first place; Barty Crouch can be a bit weird about that.
She prefers not to discuss the convoluted and embarrassing chain of events that culminated in her sitting in Mr. Crouch's office being offered a job. That, she thinks, is all in the past. Everyone has a dark secret, right? She is, after all, an Auror now, with the solemn duty of killing Death Eaters, who have sexual relations with their mothers. And Avery is a Death Eater, and a motherfucker by any standards except the literal one.
It's a wonderful match. Matches burn things. (Forgive me.)
"What did he want?" asks Prewett during lunch.
Sylvia shrugs. "You know Mr. Crouch."
"Yeah," says the man she knows only as Other Prewett, "and I know that he doesn't call people in for no reason."
"He's a control freak," mutters Sylvia, and she takes a bite of her sandwich. Terrible, she thinks, tomato again; the house-elves will get their arses kicked over this. "He wanted to know what I had for breakfast so he can put it down in his special loony file."
"Tell the truth," urges Other Prewett.
"No," says Sylvia firmly, wondering if Mr. Crouch would care if she jinxed whatshisname into oblivion.
Prewett sighs and puts a hand to his forehead. "We've been through this before, Mulciber. Your hostility is really--"
"Whatever," says Sylvia. "Gordon or Fabio or whichever one you are. You know I don't give a crap what my" (air quotes) "hostility is, or how you feel about it."
Other Prewett, the more sensitive of the two brothers, gets up and moves back to his own cubicle. Prewett gives her one last lingering look.
"I was just curious, Mulciber," he says, and joins his brother. Sylvia registers dimly that he took his lunch with him, mentally swears (she's given up on her own sandwich), and returns to the task of seducing Jonathan Avery.
By the way, their names are Gideon and Fabian.
Gideon and Fabian.
Make an effort, Sylvia.
Bartemius, who is unclear on the basic purpose of the lunch hour, pauses briefly in his rounds to observe Sylvia. He isn't entirely sure what he thinks about her; she's eager, certainly, almost as bloodthirsty as he is, but that, he thinks, is probably not enough to make up for a lack of basic talent. He rather wishes that he hadn't been forced to hire Miss Mulciber, but he had been left with no choice when her predecessor inconveniently dropped dead.
---
Politics is a dirty business.
Yes, Barty, there is a very real risk of going insane.
---
"I'm still not convinced," Barty mutters, "that you're okay."
Rabastan tries to smile, but something goes horribly wrong. "You're so kind. You've always been so kind. Concerned about me. Isn't that lovely? Haha." The corner of his mouth twitches. "I'm fine," he breathes, reaching up to put a hand on Barty's shoulder. "I'm fine, I swear, I can cope."
"Can you?" asks Regulus sharply.
Rabastan takes a brief break to work out the facial muscles involved in smiling, but it still doesn't quite work. Maybe it's the eyes. "You're right," he mumbles, "I can't. I'm pathetic."
"Don't say that," says Barty, looking pained.
"I am in the hospital," Rabastan reminds him. "I'm a crippled pansy who can't talk to his friends for five seconds without crying." Inevitably, this brings a fresh shower of blood. Regulus dabs it off, making very sure not to touch it with his hand. Rabastan would laugh if his lungs hadn't collapsed. "It isn't contagious, is it? No. It's just me." He touches the bandages, running a thin finger over his pigeon chest, checking to make sure that all of his ribs are still where they're supposed to be. "You're better off without me."
"Keep saying that and it might come true," says Regulus. Barty glares at him with a force that suggests that evolution is Lamarckian after all. The Crouches are bourgeois, but not quite upper-class: sometimes Barty just doesn't understand the way Regulus and Rabastan were raised, where snide remarks and coldness are signs of good breeding; then again, sometimes Regulus and Rabastan don't understand Barty's psychotic devotion to rules and regulations. None of us can help our parentage, can we?
Regulus changes the subject. "What were you listening to earlier?"
"The Homicidal Pixies," Rabastan informs him.
"That's new," observes Barty. "What happened to Four Hufflepuffs and a Ravenclaw?"
"I don't like them anymore," says Rabastan, frowning. "They weren't political enough."
Regulus rolls his eyes. "They weren't political enough? What's wrong with you, Rabastan?"
"Quite a lot," says Barty. Rabastan smirks, flicking the wireless with one finger.
---
It is Rabastan Lestrange's solemn and unpleasant duty, as a teenage male, to listen to absolutely abysmal music. Regulus and Barty, who are well-bred enough to never dream of rebellion, are exempt from this law, but at a price: Rabastan is forced, under the Imperius Curse if necessary, to listen to three times as much of it.
---
The song sputters back to life:
Don't try to tell me we're all right
Not now
Let's hear it for the lies and all the happy smiles
Go on,
Tell me what you want me to say
I'm just a worthless pawn in your game
We reach the top knowing that it's always going to be this way
Let's hear it for the regime
Like all bands in the glorious 1970s, the Homicidal Pixies compose their music under the influence of heavy drugs. This, coincidentally, is the optimal state for listeners who enjoy their eardrums.
Terrible. Simply terrible.
"What," asks Regulus with dignity, "is that supposed to be?"
"Ignore the lyrics," snaps Rabastan. "The lyrics aren't important."
"The singing is even worse than the lyrics," Regulus says, shaking his head.
"That sounds like a love song," muses Barty.
Rabastan and Regulus's facial expressions suggest, to the casual observer, that Barty has just cut off their bollocks with a rusty spoon and a pair of tweezers.
Barty has a rather odd idea of love.
Propaganda
Get in line at the office for all the free
Propaganda
Rations running short so they're feeding us
Propaganda
Idiot citizens thinking everything is okay
Propaganda
Propaganda
I hear what you want me to hear
But I'm not buying all your
Propaganda
Come on!
"That," says Regulus, "is not a love song. Not by any stretch of imagination."
Barty turns to face Regulus. Clearly, whatever Rabastan has is contagious, and Barty's coming down with it: note his expression. "Rabastan's musical taste has gone downhill, hasn't it?"
"Terrible," agrees Regulus.
Rabastan folds his arms, pouting. "Set it to the next song, boys. The next song's better."
Regulus fiddles with the wireless.
"Hello, boys. Today, we're going to hear a very special song in praise of the war effort. If you would all listen very, very closely..."
Give us all your daughters
Sell us all your sons tonight
We'll turn them into soldiers
And (beep) up all their lives
For a Galleon, we'll kill your boy
We'll slice him up to die
For a hundred tons of idealism
And a thousand (beep)ing lies
You've worked so hard to raise them
Give them your hopes and visions
Now turn them over to the Ministry
And we'll throw them all in prison...
"I've heard that song," says Barty, looking thoughtful. "That's older than the Suicidal--"
"Homicidal--"
"--Homicidal Pixies, isn't it?"
Rabastan shrugs.
"It does sound familiar," agrees Regulus. "The opening, especially--"
Barty slams his hand on the bedside table so hard that Rabastan gives him an envious glare: his fingers would have snapped in half if he'd tried that. "I have heard that! It's Grindelwald-era, isn't it? A wartime ballad?"
"Or at least a parody of one," Regulus observes. "Those lyrics wouldn't inspire me to join the Ministry."
Rabastan treats them to a sickly smirk. "I don't know, Regulus. Yes, it's truth in advertising, isn't it? 'Send us your kids, we'll kill them?'"
"Remind me never to join the Aurors," mutters Barty.
"Not all of the casualties were Aurors," Regulus points out. "Maybe three percent of them were really Aurors--"
"--in this country," says Rabastan dismissively. "Grindelwald's designs did not include Britain, no, it was just continental Europe for old Gellert."
"Your family was involved, Rabastan," says Regulus, making quite sure not to accuse him in any way.
Rabastan nods darkly: "My family was involved, yes."
Barty, unnoticed by either of them, twitches.
"So much for the Lestranges." Regulus sits down at long last, perching on the end of Rabastan's bed. (This sends earthquakes through the mattress; St. Mungo's, like all reputable hospitals, is notoriously cheap.) "A few of my family members were drafted, but none for long." He sighs, shaking his head. "Then the Ministry got rid of the draft entirely."
"We've heard this in History of Magic," whispers Rabastan, searching frantically for a tissue (Regulus has the dubious honor of being the first to make someone seasick using only a cheap mattress). Barty and Regulus watch, in masochistic fascination, as he spits blood of unknown and dubious provenance into an innocent, lily-white tissue.
"That reminds me," says Regulus, smiling desperately, "you graduated, didn't you?"
Regulus has had only fifteen years' practice at changing the subject.
"Clearly," says Rabastan, dabbing his blue-gray lips with another tissue. "Damn it," he rasps, "what do I have to do, boys? I graduate, yes, and then three months later, hooray, I drop dead! I mean, really, why in Merlin's name did I bother?"
Rabastan touches a nerve, and Barty looks distinctly less cute and innocent as he snaps, "Well, you got your O.W.L.s and your N.E.W.T.s, didn't you? Isn't that good enough?"
They aren't entirely sure, in the second after Barty says that, if Rabastan is still alive. His pallor and expression are rather suspicious.
"Sorry," says Barty, going pale pink. (This, for him, constitutes blushing.) "It's stress."
"We aren't all losing our minds," says Regulus, rather sharply. Barty pretends to hit him, and Regulus pretends not to think that Barty is on the verge of snapping and beating poor frail Rabastan to death out of a misplaced jealousy of Rabastan's ability to drop dead at short notice. (Barty has been rather irritable lately.)
"It's all right," gasps Rabastan, slumping back onto his pillow. "I understand. How are your O.W.L.s going?"
"Badly," says Barty. "I'm taking twelve subjects, remember? I don't have time to sleep."
Barty is exactly the sort of person who crams for his O.W.L.s a year in advance.
"And yet," observes Regulus, "you have time to visit Rabastan in the hospital."
Barty goes even pinker. "You make it sound frivolous."
"You make me sound pathetic," Rabastan says.
"You are," says Barty, with a hint of a smile.
"Alas," breathes Rabastan, "it is my sad fate to be a neurotic cripple with no friends."
Regulus leans over. "Don't frighten him, he mutters, "he hasn't been himself lately and he's so young."
"I can hear you," says Barty. "There's no need to be particularly overprotective. I get enough of that at home."
Regulus and Rabastan aren't surprised. Barty rolls his eyes in a fashion that, quite possibly, suggests that the first person to mention his father without his express permission will be barbecued alive, assuming that bourgeois Barty has heard of barbecue.
"My mother didn't want me to leave," he explains.
"She doesn't want you to go to Hogwarts next year?" asks Regulus, who has heard nothing of this strange development. "What about your O.W.L.s?"
"Worse," says Barty, and the cynicism brigade is out in full force today in his young voice. "She didn't want me to leave the house."
Poor Barty. Daddy issues, exam stress, and enough repression for an entire psych ward of neurotics.
Regulus gives him an understanding nod. "Your mother may be right. It is dangerous."
"No," says Barty crossly, "it isn't." He turns away, arms folded firmly across his chest, as if he's anticipating an army of Death Eaters to descend upon him and mail him back to his parents, one piece at a time. "When has it really been dangerous for us, Regulus? We're kids. Not Aurors. Kids."
"You're so young," sneers Rabastan, but it's playful: Rabastan is shorter and more childish than either of them. "Only fifteen."
"Fifteen," scoffs Barty. "Who'd go after us?"
"I can think of someone who might," says Evan Rosier from behind them. "Hello, Rabastan. Good to see you looking well."
Rabastan, when he sees Evan, is not looking at all well. Quite the contrary; I believe that that sound he just made was the implosion of his liver and gallbladder, but I could be wrong. It could have been his kidneys.
"We thought we'd come see you," sneers Edmund Wilkes, pushing open the door. "Cozy," he adds, taking a few steps inside and glancing around. "Avery would love it in here."
"So he would," says Evan. He glances politely from Regulus, whom he knows by reputation, to Barty, who is, after all, the son of a government official, and thereby firmly upper-middle-class and excluded from Evan's social circle. "Have we met?"
Regulus and Barty shake their heads mutely. I wouldn't have thought that Evan and Edmund were particularly scary, but it's nice to see scum getting its due. Rabastan appears to have died of a sudden heart attack, but then, the last time he saw these men, he was lying on the parlor floor, bleeding to death. He is, indeed, having flashbacks.
Regulus turns the wireless off; it doesn't help Rabastan, and he didn't expect it to, but it certainly helps Regulus.
"I," says Evan, "am Evan Rosier, and this is Edmund Wilkes." Edmund nods shortly. "Who might we have the pleasure to meet?"
"Regulus Black," says Regulus, holding his head high. "And this is Barty Crouch."
Edmund and Evan have had plenty of practice doing double takes. All the same, this is a good one, even for them.
"Junior," clarifies Regulus, after a moment's awkward silence. Barty tries to smile politely, but his eyes would prefer to glower at the intruders.
"That explains it," says Evan breezily. "I thought there was a resemblance--the jawline, the shape of the nose and eyes, there's a distinct similarity there--but I didn't want to mention it. Just. You know. In case."
"In case," echoes Barty quietly. "Of course."
My God, I believe Barty's voice just deepened a half-octave! It's a miracle! Theodosia, Theodosia, he's going through puberty at long last!
"Is Rabastan receiving visitors today?" asks Evan, who has the good sense not to push Barty too far.
---
He can feel her grinding his face into the floorboards. It's coming off easily, crumbling away like soft bread and sweet butter, and he never would have believed that anything could hurt so much. He can feel a bloody smear left behind under his skull; it cuts down on the friction, and what's left of his face slides easily across the wet boards, but it stings like acid, like tears, like fire, and it isn't worth it.
---
Regulus glances at his friend's half-closed eyes, the quick, jerky way his chest rises and falls, and the facial tics that have all come back at once, and decides: no, Rabastan would much rather not see these particular visitors. "I don't think he is," he says cautiously.
"Shame," says Edmund coolly. "We'll just have to come back later, then."
---
He doesn't know how he can see. He knows that his optic nerves were destroyed along with his eyes. But she pulls him up by the shoulder, and shows him off to the waiting crowd, and he can see them all, laughing and hooting and--is that Rodolphus among them?
Oh, God.
Rodolphus comes closer, and closer, and Rabastan can see it in his eyes, a reflection, distorted and blurred but there, impossibly, the bloody rags that are left of his face, hanging off his delicate skull like yesterday's laundry, and he knows now that the only reason that there's no more pain is because he's already dead. And eyeless.
---
"We can give him the message when he wakes up," Regulus says helpfully.
Edmund nods.
"Funny; he was awake when we came in, wasn't he, Evan?"
"I believe he was," says Evan quietly. He moves over to Rabastan, nudging Barty and Regulus aside, and places one hand on Rabastan's forehead.
Rabastan shrieks. His spine arches, without his conscious input, like a snake coiling to strike. His hand goes kamikaze, swooping into Evan's hand and knocking it away. His other hand searches blindly for an ally; Regulus and Barty both lunge to grab it, and he takes their hands gratefully. He wants to thank them, but--
---
--he's back in the nightmare now, and--
---
--the pain--
---
--the fear--
---
--trying to tell them that he's okay. But he isn't, is he? She hurt him, he's hurting, it's a sickness:
"Like butter! It slides like butter! Even the bones don't stop anything, no, they don't, do they?"
"Rabastan," says Regulus urgently, staring into his eyes, "can you hear me?"
Rabastan wants to tell them he's okay, but the right words won't come.
"Yes! Thought you were mine, on my side! Brother, why? Eyes, they're like mirrors--I see everything--shouldn't look, no, not right!"
Evan takes a step back, looking sickened. None of the Rosiers have ever suddenly gone mad in his presence. So much for Rabastan Lestrange.
Rabastan's mind breaks up, floats apart, then coalesces. It shatters at the slightest touch, then runs back together. Have you ever mixed water and cornstarch? Rabastan's consciousness is like that.
Edmund, however, is not at all surprised.
He never is.
Rabastan can feel his brain leaking out his ears as he tries to talk to them.
"It's pretty when we fall down! Like flowers! You know how they die in the winter? Roses always do--you can never keep them alive--trying is pointless and for pussies. Sometimes my fingers bleed. That's why it's wrong, you see," he announces to the world at large. "Better men fuck. I just read. And they're like falling razor blades. The pages are. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. You're really all just jealous. When you're not laughing."
He wants to be coherent, he really does.
"Put me through a meat-grinder and fuck the remains--nuns do that in the sanctity of their little cloisters--I've read Nietzsche, you know." Rabastan smiles brightly. "Sometimes the razors bleed on my face but I can usually ignore that."
"Can you shut him up?" asks Edmund in exasperation.
"Probably not," says Evan. "Silencio!" Rabastan touches his throat, gulps, then hides under the blankets.
They stare at the quivering lump in the bed for a while.
"That," says Regulus at last, "was not how you wanted to meet him, was it, Mr. Rosier?"
If I had a choice, I would tell Evan that that was perfectly normal for Rabastan Virgil Lestrange, and that he was unlikely ever to encounter Rabastan in a state of sufficient sanity to understand what he had to say. It would probably be suicide, but at least it would be noble suicide.
Evan shrugs. "It was quite interesting," he says. "If not particularly informative. And," he adds, "by the way, we've met before."
Evan and Edmund, when pressed, decline to explain. So does Rabastan.
After a while, though, Evan makes them an offer that they can't refuse.
---
"You know," says Barty, as he and Regulus step outside St. Mungo's, "the coffee was a complete waste of money."
Evan nods sympathetically.
"He didn't even drink it," Edmund says. "That was, what, five Galleons down the drain?"
"Ten," says Barty. Regulus tries to put a friendly arm around his shoulder, but Barty is fifteen and he will not be comforted.
"Cheer up," says Evan. "We'll buy the drinks."
---
...to be continued, when and if I feel like it.
I always wanted to say that.
The next chapter will be shorter.
