A/N: Everybody say thank you to guest reviewer, Amy! She's earned the first bonus chapter on Parts 0 and 4! Cheers, Amy!
-C
Magnus could see Alphard's good spirits, and although Alphard wouldn't say why, Magnus unofficially kissed his chances of marrying Rohesia Fawley goodbye. Nothing else could possibly make his friend so happy. Nothing else could ever mean as much.
"So, Orion didn't know about the engagement, I suppose?" Magnus asked. "He looked a bit shocked."
"Quite," Alphard said darkly. "My sister got hold of information about Rohesia's politics somehow and manipulated someone into manipulating our fathers. I expect one of the suitors. Wasn't you, was it?"
"Do you think I care what her politics are?" Magnus said with a laugh. "I don't have any politics of my own, anyway. Could have been anyone, though."
"No," Alphard said sternly. "It had to be someone with enough clout to convince my father and Uncle Arcturus about it. Poor Orion, though. I'd been certain Rohesia would have put an end to the house-elf heads on the wall."
Magnus might have laughed if it were worth laughing about. The Blacks were well-respected, and certainly not alone in many of their beliefs, but certain members of the family going back generations had done some…unusual things.
"Maybe Walburga will?"
"Oh, Merlin, no," Alphard said with an uncomfortable laugh. "My sister's been trying to talk our mother into mimicking it in our home since she was about ten. Mercifully, my mother is a woman of good sense and taste. Hey, where can we go so I can smoke?"
February was still cold, but they walked out into the garden, Magnus bundled up, Alphard not bothering. Talking about his family always drove Alphard to the cigarettes, and Magnus felt an idiot for not changing the topic. But he didn't really know what to change it to. Alphard still lived at home, still dealt primarily with his own family concerns as he wasn't involved in politics of philanthropy, and Magnus was his only friend, as far as Magnus was aware.
"Still sneaking around in Muggle circles?" Magnus asked, on a last-ditch effort to change the topic.
"Oh," Alphard said with a soft smile, "not for a couple of months."
Not since he knew his cousin was not going to marry Rohesia.
"You said you were still going to support him," Magnus said coldly, and Alphard blinked, puzzled.
"What?"
"Orion. When it happened, you told me you were still going to find a way to talk Orion around."
"Well, I'm going to try," Alphard said, rubbing his jaw, exhaling smoke with his words. "There's, erm, not a whole lot of hope, but I'll talk to them both. Not together. Dunno if they'll have figured out how to talk about it by then. Without shouting. Rohesia likes to shout when she's upset, you know. If she feels safe to. But, erm, Orion feels the pressure of doing what the family expects, much more than I ever did. I don't know he's going to be talked around, don't know he's able to be talked around. Even if Rohesia could get over the blow to her pride."
"Proud woman?" Magnus asked with a small smile.
"Name me a beautiful, intelligent woman who isn't," Alphard said with a smirk. "Look, there's some hope, and I am going to give it my best, but…well, allow me to have a tiniest bit of hope. I've never dared have it before."
"You'd marry her?" Magnus said, feeling his own chest sinking. "Even if your family cut you off, disowned you, and maybe you even had to get a job?"
"What job?" Alphard said with a small yelp of laugher. "Magnus, she's got enough to support us both. And anyway, once the old guard dies, long as Orion doesn't let my sister knock him about, I know I'll be welcomed back by my own generation. Orion and I have always been close, and Cygnus is a good, sensible brother marrying a good, sensible woman."
Magnus wasn't so sure Orion would be willing to welcome Alphard back with open arms if he married Rohesia, but he'd already been asked not to quell Alphard's glimmer of hope, so Magnus said nothing, thinking only how his own hopes seemed to be going up in smoke with every puff his best friend blew into the garden air.
If nothing else, Magnus thought bitterly, Rohesia did still have a choice. She might not want to marry a man without a knut to his name, might not want to marry someone who was an outcast in their world. Magnus would still have plenty to offer, and without Orion Black in the picture, his biggest competition was Randolph Lestrange.
Well, he couldn't quite compare with Randolph's wealth, but they were about equal in looks, Magnus supposed, and unlike Randolph, Magnus was kind and openminded. Randolph had a reputation for cruelty, and no qualms with causing pain to get his way. Magnus remembered impromptu duels in the garden when they were children, sneaking the wands of parents or older children.
He remembered losing to Randolph, and feeling the pain of the loss doubly because Randolph always gave one last sting as a reminder that he'd dared challenge someone his better. As if Magnus would have forgot.
/-/
Albus Dumbledore calmly listened to Rohesia Fawley give the latest report, Orion Black sitting silently beside her, not looking up, not looking at Rohesia, and certainly not looking at Albus. The young man appeared to be gazing at his own fingers, which was not a behavior Albus had ever associated with Orion. But he'd done quite a lot of it, since Christmas.
"That all sounds very good, thank you both," Albus said when Rohesia finished the report, and he glanced at both of them. They sensed their dismissal, and the pair stood, starting to leave his office. "Oh, one more thing," he said, smiling. They both turned to look at him, puzzled. "Happy Valentine's Day."
Orion appeared as though about to be sick, and Rohesia's nostrils flared slightly as she began to blink rapidly, blurting out uncomfortable thanks before she rushed out of the room. Orion closed his eyes for a moment before following her out slowly, without a word.
/-/
Alphard licked his lips, writing, as he did every year, an anonymous card for Rohesia. It always came to her the day after Valentine's Day, so she had her own special day where she received admiration, separate from the rest of the girls she knew. Of course, a young woman with her beauty would receive many cards of admiration, but Alphard could not help putting his back in the mix, especially with the tickling of hope he had.
Because what if she knew it was him, somehow? If anyone could know, it was Rohesia. No one knew him better, not his brother, not his cousin, not even Magnus. Alphard was convinced she knew him best.
He finished an adequate poem about her beauty, grace, and great intelligence. Not as good as two years gone, but one must move forward. Couldn't just be lazy and recycle his best. Rohesia deserved fresh words each year. He'd do it more often, if he felt he could get away with it.
With a few simple but effective charms, Alphard decorated the card, just enough to be worth admiring without being gaudy. A little lace, a bit of gilding, color-changing spells to the ink.
It would do.
He carefully enveloped the card and addressed it in block letters she wouldn't recognize as his – he thought – and he said he was going out.
He always mailed them from Hogsmeade. He'd started it at school, and so sneaking out to Hogsmeade had been simple enough. But now it was for consistency, and perhaps to make it even harder for her to think of who was sending it. A student could easily send a letter from Hogsmeade, avoid the school owls. And someone who graduated might not keep bothering with that step.
He wondered what she thought of his cards, and he supposed someday he would ask her. Someday, he thought with a smile, when he was her husband, waking up beside her every morning, curling up with her, kissing every part of her face. He felt a rush of excitement as he reached the gate and he had half a mind to sneak to the school, to tell her right away exactly how he felt.
But it wasn't the time, and he went to post his card instead.
/-/
Rohesia hastily wiped at her eyes as she heard and approach, and she could sense it was Orion without him announcing himself. He hesitated, looking down at her where she sat in the Charms Courtyard, and she didn't look up as he approached.
"Rohesia," he said softly, his voice tight, strained. They'd not managed to speak more than a few words at a time to each other since Christmas, and he'd certainly not spoken her name since then. She felt a dull ache as she thought of how he'd whispered that he wanted to find some place in the garden to hide so he could kiss her. And then a moment later, he was engaged to someone else.
"What do you want?" she asked coolly.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Oh, damn him and his utter sincerity. She'd believed that sincerity once. Now she just felt a rush of fury at this supposed apology. What apology could she dare accept after he treated her that way.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know," he said, almost urgently.
"Why would your father do something like that, then?" she said, presuming he was honest and he hadn't known, somehow.
"Apparently he decided your…politics…would be a detriment to the line," he said, rubbing his jaw. "I told him…. I tried to convince him otherwise, after the event, but he…. Well, he didn't listen."
Rohesia's nostrils flared and she finally looked up at Orion, his gray eyes shining with unshed tears, but none of them reaching his voice. That almost made her angrier.
She shook her head and spat, "Are you a man, or aren't you?"
"I'm sorry?" he asked, puzzled.
Oh, that made it all so much worse. Had she said that to Alphard, he would have known in a moment what she meant, he would have been infuriated by it, he would have acted. Orion, he didn't even know what she was talking about.
"Are you going to let someone else dictate your future, or are you going to make your own choices?" she asked coolly.
It seemed to sink in, what she was asking, and his eyes went wide at the thought of defying his father's wishes. Alphard, he would have dropped everything, followed her anywhere. She didn't have a doubt.
And then a tiny voice reminded her Alphard hadn't put in a contract, and perhaps he didn't feel what she felt, after all. But for now, she brushed that off. For now, what mattered was this mess with Orion.
"My family," he said softly, "is…all I have to offer you, Rohesia."
That did it. As far as she was concerned, not only was Orion beyond reaching, but she didn't want him, after all.
"Your family never figured into the offer, as far as I was concerned," she said coldly. "And that you could think so little of me tells me exactly where we stand."
She stood abruptly, scooping up her bookbag and ignoring him as he called after her. She knew her pride was the most hurt by all this, and perhaps she was being too hard on him, but she couldn't see past his unwillingness to fight for her. He couldn't possibly love what he wouldn't fight for.
/-/
Cygnus said nothing when Orion returned, blinking back tears, in the middle of a Sunday. It wasn't lost on Cygnus that it was Valentine's Day, a day when Cygnus would have thought Rohesia and Orion would be all sappy and disgusting.
If not for Christmas.
Orion went straight for the attached bathroom, and Cygnus knew the impromptu mid-day shower was to cover the sounds of Orion's pain, not because he needed a second shower several hours after the first.
Oliver Nott, who had been working on his Ancient Runes project on his bed, looked up, astonished, and said, "Is he alright?"
"He'll be fine," Cygnus said softly.
Eventually, Cygnus thought bitterly. The question was, how far away was eventually?
Rohesia was a very proud girl, Cygnus knew. It was her birthright to be a bit proud, and it didn't hurt that eyes had been on her practically since she was born. She wouldn't take this sort of a snub lightly, and perhaps she shouldn't. But it wouldn't help Orion, who was a man mainly devoid of pride and desire, if he came up against her pride and lost.
Which was probably what happened. And no Alphard around to talk her down.
Cygnus thought about going into the bathroom, pretend to brush his teeth, then ask how he was doing, but it wasn't going to help Orion if Orion didn't feel like talking, and Cygnus felt it might be too soon to press. Instead, he pressed the heel of his hand to his head, thinking of all the things he might say later.
/-/
"We could do a Christmas wedding," Walburga's mother said with a small smile. "A one-year engagement, some sentiment. Gives us plenty of time to build up the excitement."
"No, sooner, I think," Walburga said, careful not to sound anxious. The sooner she married, the more chances they had to have a child, as they could start earlier. She was a fair amount older than Orion, and she would need to get started right away. "Summer. Remember, mother, you'll be announcing Cygnus and Druella's engagement, soon enough. They'll want to marry quickly, perhaps in the winter. There won't be time to have them married in the summer, so we'll want a wedding right away for myself and Orion."
Her mother's eyes were knowing, but she said nothing against the plan, suggesting August. It gave time to do the engagement party for her brother first, gave time for the June events to be over, and allowed time for Orion to get his exam results and learn his place and expectations in the family.
Walburga said that was all fine, and it was.
"Honeymoon will have to be a bit simpler," her mother said thoughtfully. "We won't have time to plan anything grand. But I suppose Orion won't mind. He's never needed to be pampered. What about the family villa?"
"France?" Walburga asked, frowning slightly.
Strictly speaking, she didn't approve of the French. She doubted she'd ever go to the villa, but it sounded as though she wouldn't have much of an option. As she recalled, the villa was suitably secluded. And she thought she might be able to convince Orion to seclude it further. Perhaps even put some more protections and seclusions on the Grimmauld Place property. Walburga liked her privacy, after all.
"France it is, I suppose," she sniffed.
/-/
Isabel smoothed her best friend's hair, letting Rohesia sob into her pillow. She didn't ask what was wrong. She didn't have to. Rohesia had been due for her Head meeting with Professor Dumbledore, and Orion would have been there. On Valentine's Day of all days, it seemed impossible the levy wouldn't break under such a weight. They must have fought, Isabel supposed. Rohesia wasn't the type to simply break down under stress.
If only Alphard were still around. He always knew how to cheer her up. To cheer everyone up, actually. He knew how to have a good time, more than anyone Isabel had ever met.
"Professor Slughorn told me your project was stunning," Isabel said softly, letting her fingers trace through Rohesia's soft, dark hair. "He doesn't know what you're going to do to improve it in the time left. He says it's practically perfect. Of course, I told him I expected you'd marvel him. Have you got something up your sleeve, or have you made a liar of me?"
Rohesia laughed weakly, watery, into the pillow. She tried to wipe her eyes, but when she found she couldn't catch her breath enough to speak, her only answer was a shrug.
Isabel hummed, pressing her teeth into her bottom lip, wondering what to do about her dear friend. Pain was natural, and grieving the loss of something one looked forward to was undoubtedly healthy, but Isabel couldn't stand all these tears, and it was dreadfully unproductive. She summoned the brandy from Rohesia's trunk, pouring it carefully, and entreating her friend to sit up so she could sip some.
It did its work, calmed her enough that she could speak.
"I'm so angry," Rohesia said softly. "More than anything else, I'm so angry with him. It's all about politics, Issy."
"I did suspect," Isabel said with a small frown.
"His family is nervous about my polluting the line somehow, and he won't even stand up to them. He won't just do what he wants. How could he care about me at all if he won't fight for me?"
"Fighting takes many different forms," Isabel said with a small shrug. "Orion's not…. Well, he's not Alphard, darling. Being the head of the family is very ingrained in him. When Arcturus dies, Orion will be the head of the family, whatever his age. And he's been trained to be prepared for that. The politics matter to them. It's not a little thing in his world. And he's not…as strong as Alphard. Not as individual. I don't think it means he cares any less."
Rohesia clearly didn't buy it, romantic that she was and she sniffed, taking a few more sips of brandy as Isabel gently wiped her cheeks for her.
"He can't have ever loved me," Rohesia said stubbornly. "Love fights. And he's not fighting. He can't have loved me at all."
Isabel wasn't sure she agreed, but it wouldn't do any good to argue when her dear friend was like this. Instead, she refilled the glass and rubbed Rohesia's back as she began to calm.
A/N: So, Alphard is hopeful, Orion isn't letting go of his place in the family, and Rohesia is convinced he doesn't love her.
Review Prompt: What do you think love is?
Q&A:
Q: Have you and your friends or family ever had the same love interest? (Amy)
A: Ha, well, family? No. My eldest sister is six years older, so we wouldn't have shared guys. My other sister was basically asexual all through school. Still kind of is. As for friends? How do I put this?
My first boyfriend, let's call him J. Nice guy, the only ex I'm still kind of friendly with. I broke up with him pretty amicably. Then my High School Best Friend, A, was dating J's best friend, S. I broke them up because my Middle School Best Friend, X, was interested in him. X and S didn't last very long, and S and I dated for a while. We broke up before high school, and then through the first couple of years of high school, he dated my Elementary school best friend, K. I also had a tiny friends-with-benefits thing going with J toward the end of high school, so it all came full circle. We were a big ugly, pass-the-boyfriend mess. At graduating, all four of us were like, "Why did we even date him?" Actually, just after I broke up with S, I joined the early-morning choir, which was about eight people. A, X, and S were also in it. That poor choir director.
Cheers!
C