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Rabastan flooed home, in hopes of finding some silence for the evening. While the rest of his trip in Diagon Alley had been largely uneventful, the few incidences of barely controlled hostilities had chewed little holes in his confidence throughout the rest of the day. In spite of reassurances from Ginny that everything would be fine, he'd found himself watching everyone with a level of suspicion that hadn't been there earlier. By the end, he was tired mentally as well as physically, and in desperate need of some peace and quiet.
The scene he came across in the foyer, however, was closer to barely controlled chaos. Thorfinn and Antonin were bellowing at each other, Antonin's hands fisted at his sides as he shoved his face into the younger man's. Thorfinn was giving as good as he got however, and neither seemed inclined to back down an inch. On the side, Rodolphus attempted placing a calming hand on Thorfinn's arm – which he brusquely shook off, before placing his own hand on Antonin's chest and shoving. One of the Aurors – Dean he thought – was standing on the other side of the room, watching the two men fight and Granger...
Granger was nowhere in sight. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. There was no way she didn't know what was going on, unless she wasn't in the house. He was pretty certain the two men yelling at each other could be heard in the next county over, so unless she was completely deaf it was unlikely that she couldn't hear them. He turned towards the stairs and marched up them, bags still in hand to find the self-appointed warden of their little Bastille.
After a brief stop in his room, he continued down the hall towards the study – which he discovered suspiciously empty. He frowned briefly before continuing towards the office. It was a small room that was located just past the Master suites, used for conducting business when his father had been alive. He hadn't seen anyone in it since his return, but he hadn't really sought it out either. It would make for a handy hide out for someone attempting to avoid, say a giant brawl in their parlor.
He passed the same spot on the wall three times in different directions before it occurred to him that there was a notice-me-not spell on the door. Pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose, he took a deep, calming breath in to relieve his ever growing irritation and anxiety, as the sounds of the altercation increased. Putting all his effort into focusing, he finally put his hand on the knob of the office door, twisting it and throwing himself inside.
As soon as he shut the door, he found himself in blissful silence. Well, perhaps, blissful-lack-of-brawling was more accurate. There was the sound of a fire crackling, and some peaceful music playing in the background, but no blustering or shouting. He leaned his back against the door, closing his eyes and willing the pounding in his head to go away.
"Can I help you with something?"
Granger's aggravation bled into her question, and he opened his eyes to find her staring at him from next to the desk where she was going through a stack of papers. He raised an eyebrow, pushing off the wall, pointing back the way he'd come, "Do you know what's going on out there?"
"Do I know that Thorfinn and Antonin are two seconds away from beating each other to a bloody pulp?" she asked sharply, "Yes. I am quite aware. It's why I came in here, with this" She pointed to a bottle of elvish wine on the desk as well.
"They might hurt each other. They might even kill each other" he responded, walking towards her. She turned away from him and nodded her head, humming.
"They might," she agreed. Rabastan pressed both his hands on the desk and leaned towards her.
"Aren't you at all worried about that?" he demanded. She took three of the papers she had in hand and chucked them into the fire.
"Not particularly. I mean, the paperwork will be a beast, but at least they would both be blissfully silent" she answered. Rabastan scowled.
"So, they can be beaten, starved, and tortured to death in Azkaban and that's not ok. But if they kill each other here, Battle Royale style, that's alright because they annoy you?" he snapped back. She turned, assessing him with a cool stare.
"Thorfinn's right. You are dramatic when you're not getting your way," she responded. With a flick of her wrist she summoned a second glass and poured some wine in it, before pushing it towards him. He blinked at her before taking the goblet and swallowing a healthy gulp.
"Aren't you supposed to be a bit more concerned about them?" he asked. Hermione sighed, chucking five more pages into the fire before drinking from her own glass.
"I am concerned. But Thorfinn and Antonin fight like this once every few weeks, and thus far no one has died. So I just keep holding out hope," she replied, a small smirk around her mouth, pointer and middle finger on her right hand twined around each other facetiously. He huffed, and then chuckled a little bit at her blasé attitude. She turned glittering eyes at him, "There were a grand total of four of you in this giant house growing up, right? You, Dolph, your mom and dad, right?"
He nodded affirmatively, "And the house elves"
She rolled her eyes, "Yes. And the house elves. Well, I grew up in a smaller house than this as an only child. There was me, my dad and my mum. No house elves," she interjected dryly, "And my parents never fought when I was around. So this" she waved her hand nebulously around her, "Is a lot"
"But you signed up for it," he argued. She finished the rest of her glass in a gulp and refilled it.
"Rabastan, what did you think you were going to do after the war?" she asked. He blinked at her.
"I thought...Well, I figured I was either going back to Azkaban or I was going to come back here. Maybe settle down, start a family," he answered truthfully. She smirked at him.
"What do you think I thought I was going to do after the war?" she questioned. He tilted his head, mulling over the question as he sipped on his wine. What would the brainy swot want to do after the war? Revamp the Ministry? Fight for equal rights for Werewolves? Change the world? He said as much to her, and she laughed at him, "Tell me, what were you doing for the last year of the war?"
He raised a brow at her speculatively then, "Mostly managing the ministry, with small interjections of torture and looking for you three"
"Do you know what I was doing for the last year of the war?" she asked, and he shook his head. He'd heard bits and pieces over time, but no one had ever put all the pieces together for him, "I was traveling all over the countryside of Great Britain trying to hunt down horcurxes with teenage two boys in a tent that smelled faintly of cat pee, while attempting to avoid snatchers. We were in the Forest of Dean in the middle of winter, and nearly froze to death more than once. But that might have been a nice change of pace from the actual risk of starving"
Rabastan frowned. It sounded terrible, but then he'd survived 15 years in Azkaban, and he was pretty certain that trumped anything else. As if reading his thoughts she waved her hand at him.
"It was no Azkaban, of course, but it was miserable. So my plans after the war, assuming we survived and won, were finding some nice, quiet little flat and maybe settle down and start a family. I was even looking forward to some quiet job that didn't involve a lot of notoriety or even much mental effort," she answered, catching his eyes with her own, "But that didn't happen. Everything didn't just end with the war"
He nodded. He knew that feeling. Nothing ever ended with a battle. The big fights, the important fights, they happened afterwards and behind desks that passed down sentences or newly created laws. They were the daily drudgeries that changed history – both personal and societal – not the physical fights.
"I didn't come here thinking, 'Oh goody. Now I can have three convicted criminals under my care. What a great way to get back at them!'" she sighed, "I did what I did because no one else would. No one else cared enough to do anything"
"That's an exhausting way to live your life, Granger," he drawled at her. She turned, looking into the fire and sighed, one arm crossed under her chest, palm supporting the other elbow with wine glass in hand.
"You're right. It is. Which is why, sometimes, when I've had a long day, I just let them fight instead of shoving myself into every stupid pissing contest. They're big boys. They can work it out on their own," she answered, voice infused with tired honesty. He looked at her more closely, noting her hair sticking up wildly out of it's confines, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, forearms covered in a dark salve and weary expression on her face. She looked completely drained.
"What happened to your arms?" he asked, swirling the wine around in his glass. She groaned.
"Some tainted mail got through the sorting system. If I never see bubotuber pus again, it'll be too soon," she groaned. He laughed in surprise at her, and she shook her head in his direction.
"I wondered about the post," he replied. She grimaced.
"I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner. It's been a hectic few days, and I just completely forgot about it," she replied, turning back towards the pile on her desk.
"So, owls can make it through the wards then?" he teased her.
"Yes, no magic shock for the owls. But the post comes here and goes through a sorting system. Usually does a good job of looking for any nasty spells or objects, but every now and again something like bubotuber pus manages to slip through. Let's just say, I've had enough slime on my arms to last me a lifetime or two" she shuddered, rubbing her forearms absently. He wrinkled his nose at her, the faint smell wafting towards him at her movements.
"That's...vile"
"Yes. So, keep it in mind when you open your own mail," she replied. He raised a speculative eyebrow at her.
"Assuming I get any. I'm pretty certain the vast majority of my..." Friends? Acquaintances? People he created mayhem with? "...are locked up behind bars. Or are here"
Hermione grasped the pile of paper at the end of her desk, "These are letters to your brother," she said, before putting it back down and grabbing a second stack next to it, "And these are for Antonin" she pointed at a third pile further down, slightly larger than the other two, "And THOSE are for Thorfinn. Acquaintances have nothing to do with it"
"Who...?" he asked, before remembering his conversation with Ron.
Hermione wrinkled her nose, "Have you ever heard of a man named Charles Manson?"
Rabastan shrugged, he had, though he couldn't remember the specifics. He was pretty certain he'd heard Him talk about him once as well, though his memory was a bit hazy, "I've heard the name"
Hermione sighed, dropping the pages back on her desk, "Charles Manson was a serial killer in the States in the late 60s. He...He formed a cult, called it his Family - mostly women. He was only convicted for a few of the murders committed, because most were performed by people he talked into doing them for him" Rabastan shifted uncomfortably, her eyes on him knowingly, "After he was put away for murder, he continued to get thousands of letters from women who claimed to love him, want to marry him, want to be part of his Family"
Hermione gestured towards the stacks of letters, "Your brother and the others... They get similar. And I have to deliver them to them, because that's part of the job of taking care of them. But every day I have to read through their mail before I deliver it to them," she paused looking back at him, "I'm absolutely certain you will end up with similar. And I won't filter it for you. So I suggest you be very cautious with whatever comes your way"
They regarded each other quietly, sipping on their respective glasses in the muted room. Rabastan mulled the conversation over in his head, wondering exactly how much she filtered their mail. Did she remove the pieces that were angry or enraged? Did she decide to only give them the ones that were vile reminders of whom they were? Or did she only give them the weird love letters from women they'd never met and never would?
There was a faint chiming sound in the room, and he noticed her shoulders tense. Taking a chance that it meant there were people close, he smirked at her as he removed the notice-me-not charm on the door. Seconds later it flung open, and Thorfinn and Dean tumbled into the room. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, and hissed, "What are you doing?"
"Well, warden, it seems that your charges need some help," he answered innocently. She growled at him, looking over at the other two men who were shoving each other back and forth. As she drew up to her full, diminutive height, she eyed him speculatively again, before schooling her features into a calm, bright smile.
"You're right, Rabastan. They do," she answered, before brushing past him. Dean and Thorfinn stopped immediately as they took in her expression, looking at her, and then him, and then back again. Both snapped to attention, spines straightened, hands at their sides.
"Dean," she started, "I think we've had this discussion before. You're an Auror, not a five year old. You don't shove the criminals around. If you need to control them you do so with the tools required, understood?"
The dark skinned man nodded silently, stepping towards Rabastan as she turned her attention to the other man, "Thorfinn, how long have you been here?"
His shoulders hunched sullenly, "Six months"
"That's right," she answered, holding up her hand to stave off his impending interjection, "And for 5 and 3/4s of those months I've been telling you not to just walk into anyone's room whenever you feel like it. You are currently quite lucky that Antonin isn't allowed to use his magic, because I'm pretty certain that he would carry through with my threats of removing your dangly bits. Now, I'd really hate to see you confined to your rooms because of your lack of self control. But that's where this is going next. So, please, consider the fact that the only face you might see is that of your grandfather's portrait on the wall of your bedroom for the next six months and contemplate your next few days wisely"
Thorfinn paled and nodded at her, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, before muttering, "Sorry, Hermione"
"Honestly, I don't care if you're sorry. I just want you to stop being a big idiot, and use that brain that we both know sometimes resides in your skull," she answered, tone firm and calm, "Now, stay here and I'm going to get some bruise salve for you"
She glanced back over at Rabastan before leaving the room, bestowing the same bright smile on him as she crossed the threshold into the hall. As she left, he could see Dean shaking his head in his peripheral vision.
"What did you do?" asked Thorfinn, assessing Rabastan from his spot near the door.
"What do you mean?" Rabastan frowned.
"That's...That's her scary smile. That's the 'you've fucked up so bad you're probably going to wake up buried in the garden' smile" replied Dean.
"I'm not sure what happened, but I suggest you repent or flee," said Thorfinn, wincing as he flexed his fingers.
Rabastan scoffed, "And you call me dramatic"
Thorfinn laughed then, a full belly laugh, shaking his head, "It's your funeral. But don't say we didn't warn you"
Rabastan scowled at the two men, before depositing his glass on the desk and stalking out of the room. There was no way she could be scarier than anything he'd already faced. Let her do her worst.