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The new chapter is here, with more of Rabastan, and I really hope you're going to like it!
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The silence in the room was soon unbearable. Rudolphus was the first one to break it, with his gruff voice.
"I guess the Hide and Seek are over now."
Caroline did her best to maintain her face as she quietly answered with her eyes set on his. "I guess it is."
The silence then spread over the entrance hall again, until it was broken again, this time by Rabastan. "We'll go to our rooms. We have much to discuss. See you later." And with that, he took her forearm and started leading her towards another part of the manor, leaving his brother and his sister-in-law standing in the entrance hall.
Caroline knew where he was taking her. They used to live in the manor with them for a short while before they've decided to move to their own house (a move that enraged Rabastan's mother to no end). As they were heading towards the east wing, Caroline could feel some of the old memories coming back to her, making her feel nostalgic.
Everything seemed so different when they were walking this way the last time. Easier. How she wished now she had the problems she had back then. Her biggest problem at that time seemed to be the continued disagreement between her brother and her fiancé and of course, the disagreement she had with her mother-in-law, who thought Caroline should take the name Lestrange and focus on the family, while Caroline wanted to find at least a small job for herself. Which the Madam Lestrange found utterly unnecessary and disgraceful.
They passed a lot of paintings on their way, and their greetings, together with the echoing of their steps, were the only sources of sound on their way, as nor Caroline nor Rabastan would say a word.
Once they've entered their room, Caroline could only hold her breath. Nothing changed since she had seen it for the last time. And Wixie was standing in the very middle of the room, with all Caroline's things, just as Rabastan commanded.
"We are to live here now. You can join the other elves of the manor," was another cold command towards their small house elf.
In the next moment, Wixie was gone with a snap of her fingers and Rabastan took out his wand and secured the whole room with silence spells before he finally turned to her.
"So, Carol," he started, "where were you?"
His wife looked at him from under her eyes, before she gave him an answer, powered by her mental abilities. "Wales."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't believe you. What would you do in Wales?"
She narrowed her eyes back at him before she raised her chin. "That's exactly why I went to Wales."
He was watching her quite carefully before he spoke again. "Why couldn't I track you there?" And he pointed at her ring as he asked.
"I found a solution," was the only answer Caroline offered. Rabastan eyed her for a moment before he burst out laughing.
"Oh my, darling, you have changed," he managed to say between his laugh, "you're quite tough."
Caroline didn't offer him an answer to that. Did he forget that he actually made her participate in a war? She never chose a side, and she always tried to stay in the neutral zone, but did he even realize that with what he did, he actually made her be a part of it, whether she wanted it or not?
He stopped laughing when he noticed her narrowed eyes.
"Alright," he started, this time with a serious voice, "I know you are probably still a bit mad, Carol." – at that, his wife actually snored at him – "but I think we can make this work."
When she didn't answer, he continued. "You'll stay here. I don't want you anywhere without my consent."
At that, she just gave him an unbelieving look. "Without your consent?" was her reply, with her voice taking a little darker shape.
Rabastan looked at the door again, as if to make sure no one was listening to them and then turned back to his wife.
"Listen to me, and listen carefully," he started, his eyes focusing on Caroline, but tactically avoiding direct eye contact. "You're wanted. The aurors want to interrogate you, in case you know anything about me. I don't know whether he was covering for you, wherever the hell you were, but he can't change the fact, that they want to interrogate you."
He was right. Caroline knew he was, Rufus had told her that. He was, in fact, the one, who reported she was missing, but Rabastan didn't need to know that. But before she had the chance to give it a bit more thoughts, her companion continued.
"And from us, only I, Ruda and Bella know, that you're here."
Caroline eyed him carefully with the last sentence. He was speaking the truth, she was sure of that. But what about Augustus and Antonin? She didn't have the time to consider that though because he spoke again. "And I mean to keep it that way. Lucius will probably come by during this week, so he and Narcissa will know, but that's it. I don't want to draw any unnecessary attention to you, even in between our circles."
Caroline was listening carefully to him as he spoke. She could sense the determination. When he finished, there was dead silence in the room, as they were both eying each other.
Caroline noticed that he was trying to protect his mind from her invasion. "I suppose I owe you a big thank you though," he interrupted the silence again. "I think it was just thanks to the time I've spent with you that I haven't gone mad there."
Caroline knew what he meant by "there". She often had to deal with patients suffering from an encounter with dementors, whether they were former prisoners, aurors after Azkaban service or just visitors of the infamous prison. But the thing he said made her wonder. She never read anything about occlumency having an influence on the fact, how a person deals with encounters with dementors. Could it be possible that occlumency would reduce the effects?
But Rabastan interrupted her thinking one more time. "Oh, come on, Carol. Now you're gonna play silent marriage with me? I admit I've imagined our reunion a little bit differently. "
"I'm not playing anything, Rabastan. I simply don't know what to say to that," said his wife, with an emotionless expression. "And to be honest, I've imagined our reunion differently as well. In various ways, actually. One was, for example, me watching you swallowing some nasty poison."
Rabastan looked at her for a while before he burst to laugh. And Caroline had to hold herself not to let her emotionless expression slip, cause as much as she didn't want to admit it, this laugh just reminded of her of the Rabastan she married all those years ago.
"I've got to admit I really like this tough, new you." And with that, he took out her wand and gave her a look. "But that doesn't change the fact that I'm going to keep this for a while."
Caroline's eyes widened at that. He meant for her wand to be kept from her? And when did even he find himself a new wand? She actually said the last question aloud, as she also wanted to know, whether Bella and Rudolphus were armed as well, and Rabastan gave her an answer. "We have some of the old family's ones from the Gringotts. They're loyal enough not to let a word out about that." She knew. And she was also sure a big amount of money went to their pockets, thanks to this "loyalty".
"Which leads me to another thing," he continued and eyed her again. "Stay in your own mind, while you're here. No entering our thoughts and memories." His eyes and his face was hard now, the same one she knew he used when he wasn't giving space for arguments. He looked her in the eyes and spoke again. "No playing with our minds. I am no fool, Caroline. I know your devotion to me dropped significantly over those years. So trust me that I mean it if I'm telling you that I'm not unable of hurting you."
Two days passed and her husband words were still echoing in her head. I'm not unable of hurting you. He meant every part of it. Even without actually invading his mind, she could sense it. So she did as he told her, and stayed out of his and Bella's and Ruda's minds.
But fortunately for her, Rabastan didn't know, how much Caroline improved her abilities during the years. Her mind magic worked on its own, becoming a natural part of herself, which allowed her to sense their emotions at any time, just like the presence of their minds, without them noticing a single thing. She and Rabastan didn't communicate much. He spent a lot of his time behind the closed door of his study with his brother and sister-in-law, where Caroline wasn't allowed to go. She was actually getting even more bored than she was at Hogwarts, which let her to a pretty foul mood. Once, she even snapped at Wixie, when she came to ask her mistress, what she should prepare for dinner, while Caroline was cleaning her thoughts.
However, she was ripped out of the calm boring routine during one of the nights, a few days after her arrival. She didn't know what was happening at first, but soon she realised it was Rabastan who woke her up. It took her a while to notice, that he was actually still asleep, but was muttering something frantically, his face covered with sweat.
Fear and panic that didn't belong to her appeared in her mind. The shields Rabastan was trying to keep up while staying near his wife were all down and his emotions were just flying towards the witch, and she felt them much more strongly than usual. She took a deep breath and reach into her mind magic. Slowly, she entered the mind of her husband. She knew what was it he was just enduring. The nightmares after returning from Azkaban were something she could recognise anywhere. But even countless amounts of panic attacks she had dealt with during her carrier as a mind healer, didn't prepare her for the image she saw in Rabastan's mind.
Through the eyes of Rabastan, she saw an inside from what looked like a shop after demolition. With blurry vision, she could she people running around her, with spells firing in every direction and people screaming. Chaos was everywhere. Then she heard a scream. Her scream. Rabastan was frozen for a second before he started running towards it, not caring about the spells flying around him. And then she saw it. The image of her laying on the ground, cuddled in pain, as one of the Deatheater, she couldn't recognise due to a mask, was sending another Crusiatus in her way.
But before Rabastan got too close, a curse hit the Deatheater and he was sent away from her. "That's Rabastan's wife, you idiot," she heard a voice with a strong accent, that she safely recognised as the one of Antonin Dolohov. Rabastan was still moving towards her, laying on the ground, when several things happened.
People started appearing in the shop and she heard one of the masked death eaters giving orders to retreat and shouting "aurors!". Rabastan didn't listen to that. He almost reached his wife, who was unconscious on the ground, when a person in auror cloak appeared by her side. Rufus just looked at his sister on the ground, when his eyes fell on Rabastan. Caroline couldn't recall a time she could she more hatred in them. Her brother started sending courses at an incredible speed, barely giving Rabastan any time to block them.
"Rabastan! We gotta go!" she could hear Antonin's voice again. Then, while Rufus still sent course by course in Rabastan's direction, he grabbed his younger sister and apparated away.
Caroline withdrew from his mind. She wasn't prepared for this. This similar scene hunted her for years, although from a different point of view. Her heart was beating fast. She took several deep breaths in order to calm her down and stop her hands from shaking.
Rabastan was still fighting his bad memories and she was just looking at him. Did these memories hunt him the same way as they hunted her? Her husband was still muttering something she couldn't understand, with his face covered in sweat.
Caroline tried to send some calmness into his mind, but it was different than when she used to treat her patients. This time, she had nowhere to send the calmness from.
She took another breath and tried to use her own occlumency abilities to calm herself down. But this fight was difficult. She could feel that if she let her concentration slip, she would face a panic attack of her own.
She was just starting to get her emotions under control, when something hit her and she found herself thrown from the bed, with Rabastan pinching her to the ground, his wand aiming just between her eyes and left hand gripping her neck.
It took Rabastan a few moments before he realised what he was doing. Were it not for the control Caroline gained just moments before, she would probably be terrified of the look in her husband's eyes.
Looking into them, she carefully tried to reach his mind and let some of her newly founded calmness slipped in. "Rabastan," she gasped.
At the sound of her voice, he realised the grip on her neck, which was already forbidding her to breathe, moved his wand out of her face and sat on the ground next to her, breathing heavily.
"I'm sorry, Carol," was the first thing he said, when he raised his sight from the ground and faced her, with a hunted look on his face, still shaking a bit.
"Shhh, shh," she just said and for one moment she wanted to raise her hand and touch his cheek. But instead, she just whispered: "Wixie."
The elf was by her side almost immediately. She looked between her two masters before she turned to her mistress with expectation.
"Wixie, bring me some of my Calming draught and Mind-stabilizing potion," she said quietly and the elf vanished almost immediately. Silence filled the room. Rabastan was still breathing heavily, but Caroline could sense that he also was slowly getting hold of his emotions, thanks to the basic of occlumency she taught him before the war.
Wixie was soon back, handing her two vials with the potions Caroline knew so well. She opened the Calming draught first and brought it to Rabastan's lips. He looked into her eyes and Caroline could feel a sense of doubt coming from him.
I've imagined our reunion differently as well. In various ways, actually. One was, for example, me watching you swallowing some nasty poison."
Caroline just closed her eyes as she's heard her own voice in his mind. But when she opened them again a moment later and looked at him, he was just taking the vial from her and in next second, he drank it all. After that, she just handed him the second one quietly, none of them saying a word.
They were sitting together in silence for some time before Wixie interrupted them with her high voice. "Can Wixie do anything more for her master?"
"No, it's okay. Thank you, you may go," Caroline sent her a side glance and answered quietly, and the elf was gone in next moment.
They sat on the ground for a longer time in silence, with Caroline still carefully sending calming waves in her husband direction. She wasn't sure whether he was aware of what she was doing or not but he didn't seem to mind. And a while later, after they slowly moved back to bed and were already laying with their back towards each other, she heard him murmur a soft thank you.
When she woke in the morning he was already up and out of bed. She just put a housecoat over her sleeping gown and left her room in the direction of the dining room. Rabastan was there, sitting by the table, slowly drinking coffee and reading Daily Prophet. He didn't even raise his sight from the newspapers when he pointed her to the place opposite him, where breakfast with a big cup of coffee was waiting as well.
She raised her eyebrows at that and sat down to the prepared spot. "Good morning."
After hearing her voice, Rabastan actually looked at her and returned the greeting. For a while, they continued their morning in silence, until Rabastan put the newspapers aside and raised a hand with two wands in it.
"After you finish, go get change. I want to see the "progress" you've told me you made," he said with a smirk and slightly waved her wand at her. She swallowed. Before, Rabastan made her train with him regularly. Well, this was about to be fun.