Rabastan did not leave his room the next morning. He lay in bed with the quilts pulled up over him, casting only rare glances at the window. The day was overcast and grey and there was still a faint drizzle of rain splashing against the window and balcony.

He tried not to think of Andromeda.

He tried only to think of the Dark Lord, for at least those could be pleasant thoughts. He lay abed with his eyes shut and entertained his fantasies of being the Dark Lord's favourite until he was breathless, but that always brought him back to Andromeda, and to remembering the look on her face when he had slapped her.

What had he been thinking?

Rabastan's hand clenched automatically into a fist beneath the sheets. He dug his nails into his palm and felt a small rush of relief when the skin broke. Good. He was hurting himself more than he had hurt Andromeda, and he deserved it.

She had never done anything to hurt him, never! If he had slapped Bellatrix, that would have been slightly reasonable, at least – or Rodolphus, he could have justified it to himself if he had hit his brother. But Andromeda had been so good to him.

Well…

You couldn't ever hurt me, you're not strong enough!

It cut him, stung right to his core that she could say something like that to him when she knew how he felt about being called weak. She knew better than anyone, for she had been the one he would confide in when he felt particularly useless – which was far more often than he would have cared to admit. She was the one who he could talk to about his illness, who he had thought would never mock him for not being as strong as her.

But…

And if Bellatrix was to be believed, this wasn't the first time that Andromeda had made some jab about his strength. If Bellatrix was to be believed, she had mocked him, she had called him an invalid…

But Bellatrix is not to be believed!

He pressed the insides of his wrists against his eyes until stars popped before them, taking deep breaths and trying to steady himself. He knew that Bellatrix was a liar, that she loved to embellish and alter stories until they bore little resemblance to the truth. And she had not actually said that Andromeda had called Rabastan an invalid – that had been his own conclusion, though the way Andromeda reacted to it had given him ample reason to believe it was the truth.

But even if she hadn't called him an invalid, she had still said he was weak.

Said it to him, to his face…

A dry sob escaped Rabastan's lips, and he bit his tongue to quiet himself.

Well, obviously he was weak. If he was strong, he wouldn't have been crying over it. Strong men didn't cry. Rodolphus didn't cry – at least, not that Rabastan had seen, not since they had been very small children.

Rabastan would have bet a great deal that the Dark Lord had never cried. Someone like him had probably never even entertained the notion of shedding a tear over someone – not like Rabastan, who was sitting in bed, weeping like a girl, weeping like the useless, weak little creature that he was.

What did the Dark Lord want with him? Why would he want someone who was so obviously a sick, unhealthy boy who would probably die before he could be of any real use? Surely he had been able to tell how ill Rabastan was…

Why would he want someone like him?

Rodolphus had said that the Dark Lord didn't understand and only wanted Rabastan to fight for him, but Rabastan couldn't quite bring himself to believe that was true. Part of it was because it would have quite certainly killed him if he had really tried to believe it, but another part, he was sure, was that he couldn't think of any reason that the Dark Lord would have offered a position as a Death Eater if he hadn't understood something.

Surely, if they were all just pawns that mattered not at all to him, he would have chosen Rodolphus. Rodolphus was strong and hearty and had done well in school – not that Rabastan hadn't done well enough, as he never had much to do except study – and would have been the obvious choice if all the Dark Lord wanted were soldiers…

So the very fact that he had chosen Rabastan instead of Rodolphus surely meant that he could see that there was something… something special about Rabastan that he wanted…

That was what he hoped, in any case.

Why hadn't he been able to explain that all to Andromeda?

Why couldn't he have said it when it mattered? Why couldn't he have told her his reasons instead of just snapping at her like an idiot? If he had just been able to tell her why he wanted to be a Death Eater, if he had just been able to explain what he felt to her, then maybe she wouldn't have gotten upset at him and then maybe she wouldn't have called him weak and then he wouldn't have slapped her.

God, but you're stupid, Rab.

And why hadn't he explained it? Now that he was replaying the whole scene in his mind, it seemed like everything he'd said had been stupid. Your Mudbloods – of course she'd been offended when he said that…

Rabastan sat up in bed and groaned as the blood rushed from his head. He clawed at his bedside table for the bottle of potion that he kept there – just an old wine bottle, filled and refilled with dark, cloudy liquid that the healers had instructed him to take every morning. He took a mouthful of it, and his vision – spotty from dizziness – cleared instantly.

He would go see Andromeda right that very minute, that was what he would do. He would go to her and apologize for hitting her and explain what he felt – and surely after that, she wouldn't be angry at him anymore. Surely if he explained properly, she would be able to forgive him – she was so good, so understanding… and if she did not, then at least he would be able to say to himself that he had tried, and that if she still hated him, it was her stubbornness that was at fault.

Rabastan clambered out of bed, pausing for a moment to cling to the bedpost while the whole world spun and shimmered, then his head cleared and he was able to make it to the door, pausing only briefly to glance in the mirror. He looked as sickly as ever – and unkempt to boot, his hair a mess from sleeping on it – but he didn't care. Andromeda wouldn't care. He could already imagine her, sitting out on the wall, and the smile that would curve her lips when she saw him…

Andromeda would be at the wall, wouldn't she? She wouldn't be out somewhere with that boy from the moors again…

The thought froze Rabastan on the spot. He hadn't even considered that Andromeda might not be waiting for him.

Worse even than the idea of Andromeda not being at the wall in favour of being with the boy, was the idea that she might have brought him there… that she might be right where Rabastan expected to find her, but in the arms of someone else…

The thought sickened him. Images of Andromeda underneath some faceless boy, her skirts around her hips and his hands all over her flooded his mind, filling his vision as clearly as if she had been right in front of him.

Rabastan stood, trembling, for a painfully long moment. He considered flinging himself back into his bed and not ever having anything to do with her again, but no, that was madness. He shook himself a bit, rubbing his temples.

He didn't even have any reason to believe that the boy she had been with was someone she was romantically involved with at all. He might have just been lost and asking for directions. It was silly for Rabastan to drive himself so mad over something that probably wasn't even true.

Satisfied with that belief, he reached for the door, squaring his shoulders and gathering all his bravery.

His fingers had just touched the knob when the door flew open.

Rabastan jumped back, clutching his chest and feeling his heart fluttering wildly from the surprise.

The door had been opened by Rodolphus, who was now standing framed in the doorway with a positively thunderous expression on his face. He looked ready to kill and Rabastan shrank back automatically. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before he could get a single word out, Rodolphus pointed at the bed.

"Sit down," he said sharply. "There's something that you and I need to discuss."