Rabastan Lestrange, The Life and Times of a Dark Wizard
Chapter 7, School's Out Forever!
Rabastan was more than glad to be done with school on graduation day. He was eager for the rest of his promising exciting life to unfold, because of course it would be promising and exciting! When he walked across the stage to take his diploma from Dumbledore, he grinned and waved at his parents who sat with Bella and Rod in the audience.
Seeing the four of them made him swell with pride inside. That bit was nearly forgotten by the time he was on the boat, though. As he and the other seventh years slid across the water, he felt himself squirming impatiently. He was beyond ready to be free and have this bit of his life behind him. He was a man and ready to walk the adult path, as it were, at Rod's side. To hell with walking, he was ready to jog it. He just knew there were tons of awesome exciting things ahead of him.
The past two years had been alright, but not as exciting as he'd hoped. During his early years at Hogwarts, all Rabastan had done was look forward to his later years, but they weren't nearly as glamorous as he'd expected them to be. He'd buckled down with classes, and they'd gotten far more difficult after OWLS.
He'd opted to take some rather complex electives, because Rod said the better his education, the more useful The Dark Lord would find his services. That made sense so he'd really applied himself which turned out to be not only stressful but also quite boring. On the weekends, he often had to force himself to go out and meet Rod and Bella in Hogsmeade when he actually just wanted to sleep and rest up in preparation for the next grueling week of studies to come. He hardly had time to shag girls, though he'd worked in a few.
He'd made a few friends along the way mostly in Slytherin with a few in Ravenclaw, but nothing he thought would be long lasting. He didn't really connect to most people, but Bella assured him that was normal. He connected to her and Rod, fit in fine with them, and with them he was free to be himself, to say and do anything he wanted. They would never judge him. They'd always support him. They'd never tell his secrets, and if he needed setting straight they'd do it and mostly he'd listen because they were older, wiser and in most cases had fucked up first so knew a thing or three.
When the boat touched shore, Rabastan was out like a shot, hurrying over to Rod and Bella who stood together waiting for him.
"The parents are throwing you a huge party, so pretend to be surprised when we get home," Rodolphus said.
"A party," Rabastan groaned.
He knew Rod had ruined the surprise to prepare him, because they'd planned to leave directly from school to Hogsmeade to get him puking drunk. It would be his last night of zero responsibility before going to meet The dark Lord in a few days.
"We'll have one or two drinks with the family, eat then excuse ourselves," Rod promised.
"We'll still have our night...So act surprised."
Rabastan sighed, nodding.
"Fine."
The party with the family was actually nice. Better by far than he'd expected and not at all boring. There were aunts, uncles, cousins, and best of all graduation gifts. The gifts consisted of money, posh new clothes, and rare books on his favorite subjects, alchemy and transfigurations.
He hadn't really got into transfigurations until he'd started taking the magic mushrooms with Bella and Rod, then changing the shapes of shit got suddenly brilliant and interesting. The party went on rather late, and Rabastan didn't have the heart to be rude to his parents by bowing out early as he'd planned. As a result, it was nearly midnight before they got to Hogsmeade.
As it turned out, it didn't matter what time one got started to get puking drunk. He drank and danced the night away, telling each pretty witch he took a turn around the dirty floor of the Hog's Head with that he was going to go down in history. He was puking by four in the morning, so mission accomplished. He didn't recall how they made it home, but he woke in the late afternoon in his own bed with a splitting headache, the disturbing sounds of Bella and Rod shagging from the next room filtering into his ears through the pain.
"Fuck off," he howled through the wall, and the sound of his own voice made him clutch his head. He assumed the parents weren't home for Bella and Rod to rudely carry on so. As such, his shouting shouldn't be a problem. Jackdaw, the family elf, had learned to overlook their eccentricities long ago. He'd kindly put a pot of coffee and a cup on Rabastan's bedside table, kept warm with a charm.
"Thanks, Jackey," he muttered gratefully, rolling to pour himself a coffee with shaking hands.
Sitting up slowly in bed, he glanced at the mirror and grinned. The young man grinning back looked like shit, black hair standing up in tufts and eyes utterly bloodshot. He wore yesterday's rumpled dress robes and they definitely looked as if they'd been slept in. He raised the cup of coffee high in a toast, grin widening.
"Here's to the first day of the rest of your life, Mate! May it be epic!"