Rabastan Lestrange, The Life and Times of a Dark Wizard
Chapter 4, A Fox And Two Ravens
Rod allowed Rabastan to hang with him and his friends at school, just as he'd promised he would. For this reason, Rabastan never spent time with the students in his own year, unless he was in classes, of course, where he had no other option.
It was far more fun being with the older crowd. Rabastan never felt like a silly little kid even though he was running with boys five years older. One reason was because Rod treated him like an equal and the other reason was that Bella was right and Roddy's friends were rather thick so it was easy to be smarter than they were.
Rabastan's marks were always high in all of his classes except for the one time in History of Magic. The assignment was to write a report about a historical figure you admired and what great thing they contributed to society. Rabastan chose to write about Grindelwald.
He put a lot of work into the paper, and it ended up being two pages longer than it had to be so he was certain he'd even get extra credit, or house points for Slytherin, or something equally as pleasing.
To Rabastan's shock his grade came back as a Troll, with a note scrawled on the front of his paper from Bins saying that he had missed the point of the assignment because Grindelwald's contribution was not a positive one. Old Binns was the one who had missed the bloody point, Rabastan thought wrathfully.
"He's dead," Rodolphus pointed out with a laugh when Rabastan vented about it over dinner at the Slytherin table.
"So what does he matter? You'll be doing great things some day, and he'll still just be dead."
That made Rabastan feel much better.
"Not to mention he was probably terrified of Grindelwald," Bellatrix added with a smirk.
Rabastan smiled happily, because that made him feel better as well.
On the weekends Bella and Rod often went to Hogsmeade, which annoyed him to no end, because he couldn't go. The fact he couldn't go until his third year infuriated him! He'd only be able to hang there on the weekends with Bella and Rod for one bloody year before they graduated and left him!
Most of the time, he'd stay in the Slytherin common room, hanging with anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck there as well. He took the opportunity to talk the Dark Lord up to anyone willing to listen, which many were. That would make Rod proud, he knew.
Once Bella and Rod sneaked him back a bottle of hard butter beer. They were already quite smashed, so he drank it up quick to enjoy the buzz with them. It made his head a bit spinny and to a degree, he felt larger than life.
"We wanted to celebrate with you, because I asked Bella to marry me," Rodolphus informed.
"What, right now," Rabastan asked.
"How are you going to do that here?"
All three of them laughed about that for a while before Rod explained that no. They weren't going to be married for quite some time, but Bella had agreed to marry him.
"Well who else would she marry, silly," Rabastan demanded, a bit more loudly than he'd intended due to the effects of the spiked butter beer.
He'd never had anything stronger than a sip of Champagne to toast in the new year before.
"I didn't have to marry anyone," Bellatrix said, giving Rabastan a cocky grin of amusement.
"Then what if Rod married someone else," Rabastan wondered, grinning back at her over the empty bottle in his hand.
"I'd kill him," Bellatrix said fiercely, dark eyes glittering with rage at the very idea.
Rabastan's grin widened, as he felt he'd won.
Rod grinned and pulled her close for a kiss.
Rabastan sighed in resignation, looking away.
"That would never happen, Babe," Rod said and Bellatrix snuggled into his chest, murmuring something that Rabastan missed, which was probably a good thing.
For months, Bella had worn a silver raven skull on a chain around her neck. Rod had asked their father to have it made for her. She was wearing their family's symbol, so it wasn't as if the marriage thing was a surprise to Rabastan or them or anyone. Still it got him a drink, so he was happy. He couldn't imagine who he'd want to marry. No girls were cool yet, but Rod said that would change soon enough, so he was waiting patiently.
The fact that Bella was going to be a Lestrange one day didn't change anything. Rabastan already considered her one of them anyway, and if she and Rod hadn't gotten married, well that would've been super weird.
On Christmas and Spring break, the three spent most of their days in the tree house, practicing their animagus forms. Rodolphus was certain it could come in handy in many ways, especially in the service of the Dark Lord. He believed the ability would give them more options, whatever that meant. Rodolphus and Rabastan took to their raven forms very easily, but Bellatrix kept turning into a gleaming red fox no matter how hard she tried for black feathers.
"It's about your personality and inclinations," Rod said.
"It's something to be proud of. Foxes are very Slytherin."
"But ravens are smart and they can bloody fly! I wanted to bloody fly," Bellatrix complained bitterly.
It was their final day of Spring break before they were to return to Hogwarts.
"I bet you can have two animal forms if you work hard at it," Rod soothed.
"Two is even better than one."
"I can add, Rodolphus," Bellatrix snapped.
Rabastan grinned.
It was clear she was going to have her feathers in a wad over this one even though she had no feathers as of yet. The idea made him giggle.