Life in Black and White
Chapter Seven
"Quite the warrior princess this morning, Hestia!" Alasdair commented, sadistically cheerful, shuffling some papers as Daniel slunk away from Hestia's desk, cowed by her high-handed, snapping response to a perfectly legitimate question. Hestia didn't deign to respond, holding her spine unnaturally straight, her chin high. "You're doing it right, Abbott, don't pay her mind. She's had her knickers in a twist all day."
"…Thanks, Alasdair," Daniel cast a look between his two fellow interns, seeming to silently rue his desk's position in between.
Hestia leashed her temper, biting the inside of her lip. "I'm sorry, Daniel." There wasn't any elaboration, and she turned back to staring down some of the backlogged arrest paperwork.
Temper had never been much of an issue for Hestia, but then she'd never quarreled with Sturgis before. More oriented to the agreeable, she'd never really gotten into any sort of a mood resembling righteous fury, but that was exactly where she was now. She was angry and, moreover, had a completely justifiable reason for being so. She could map out exactly what made her angry and what she had to say about it, could anticipate what Sturgis would invariably snarl back at her at some point, and had counterpoints.
Never before had anger been so soundly logical, so well plotted out and placed. Hestia didn't feel like crying; she felt like arguing.
It felt like the fun kind of work, the moments of perfect, logical rightness that made the slog through the convoluted paperwork somehow worth it. And it felt good to know that this was an argument she was more than equipped to win.
Fuck Sturgis, he didn't get to boil her over Rabastan when she'd been so patiently avoiding his distasteful (well, presumably) activities.
It seemed like a very long day for Hestia, waiting on the clock, chewing at the bit to get home and let Sturgis know just how big a hypocrite he really was. It was an even longer one for the two other apprentices who shared the office with her.
When five o'clock rolled around, Hestia didn't dawdle. She marched out of the office with a determination that betrayed a little of her excitement. In a complete turnabout from her cautious, hesitant fear of Sturgis and what he had to say to her, she was in her newly acquired garb of Righteous Fury.
Sturgis generally didn't get home from a normal sort of day at the DMLE until around seven, so Hestia made dinner, clattering around her familiar kitchen, the straps of her high heels still buckled firmly around her ankles. The notion of an adult, sit-down discussion of their problems over a nice cottage pie was probably ridiculous, but Hestia intended it as little more than a pretense.
She went to go brush her hair and ended up dawdling around in her beloved and, of late abandoned, bedroom a little too long, and burned the thing, anyway. She conjured a roast chicken pasty and ate that, instead, after she cleaned up the mess.
And then she waited. She didn't want to be caught sitting down, so she stood in her increasingly uncomfortable shoes, pacing the kitchen, leaning on the counter, washing and rewashing the pan she'd burned the cottage pie in.
She'd just eased herself up to sit on the counter (because if he walked in, she still had a position of advantage) when the door swung open and Sturgis' wand pointed in. She was midway through the motion of hopping off the counter and opening her mouth to greet him when he sent a spell at her. Her body seized in midair and she fell, in a full body bind, facedown to the slightly dingy tile floor.
If she could've screamed, she would've. If she'd had any control of her limbs, she could've stopped her fall, or at least managed to cut some of the momentum before her face collided with the floor. If she could've contorted her face into any number of surprised or confused or enraged expressions, she would have. But she was like a statue on the floor, her mind racing with each of these emotions in excess quantity.
The apologies and explanations were out of Sturgis' mouth even as he unbound her. "I'm sorry, Hestia, I didn't think you were here, the wards were down and I thought there was someone…"
The first thing she was aware of regaining control of was her voice. She screamed, a rough, throaty howl of indignation and rage. A half-second later, when her limbs deigned to obey her again, she hauled herself off the floor, struggling and disheveled, the lower half of her face covered in blood from her streaming nose.
Sturgis seemed to have forgotten why he had been so surprised to find her there, and was spouting sincere, horrified apologies as fast as he could draw breath.
"You attacked me in my own damn flat!" Hestia howled, scrabbling for a tea towel to press to her abundantly bleeding nose.
"You left the wards down! I didn't know you'd be here, I thought someone had broken in!" Sturgis replied, anger beginning to creep past the shock. A thought struck him, and the red anger sapped from his face. "Are you coming home? Did you end it?"
"No," Hestia snapped, leaning over the kitchen sink with the blood splattered tea towel.
"Here," Sturgis said roughly, spinning her around where she stood to face him. He snatched another tea towel and was holding it up to her face, gently prodding at her nose. "Stupid bint, I thought you had some sense, that you'd broken up with that good-for-nothing and were coming home…your nose is broken," he added, the exasperation that colored the beginning of the statement fading out, rather bizarrely, into gentle apology.
Hestia's eyes were watering from the pain. "Why do you hate him so much? I don't understand, you never told me!" She looked up at him and realized, irrationally irritated, that even in her highest heels, she couldn't look him level in the eyes.
Sturgis still had her face cradled in his hands, thumbs gently exploring the delicate, blackening tissue around her eyes, and this proximity ensured Hestia couldn't miss the guarded sort of look that fell over his face. "He humiliated you, broke your heart," he said, in a tone of voice that almost subtitled itself 'not the whole truth.'
"No," Hestia corrected, the syllable short and sharp like a whipsnap. "You hated him before that mess, from the moment I introduced you. Now, I know you're not secretly in love with me and harboring some far flung fantasy of marriage and babies--" Sturgis guffawed shortly in agreement "—so what the hell is your problem?" Sturgis' eyes darted away and Hestia cursed. "Damn it, Sturgis, you have no right to hold Rabastan against me when you can't even tell me why."
His hands finished their examination of her injured face and pulled away. "I have every right!" Sturgis shot back at her. "You were lying to me, Hestia!" Hestia wrinkled her nose in distaste and nearly screamed at the pain, choking on the cry in the back of her throat. Sturgis started at her, concern written on his features, and gently took her hand. "I should take you to St. Mungo's—I'm no dab hand at healing spells, best leave your pretty face to someone who knows an hemostasis charm from a hole in the wall."
Hestia jerked her hand out of his, feeling somehow petty at refusing his help. "I was lying? How dare you criticize me for lying when you lie to me every day!"
Sturgis looked angry and uneasy. "I don't lie to you, Hestia."
Hestia scoffed, dabbing carefully at the tears running out of her blackened eyes. "If you weren't lying, it's just because I learned not to ask questions I knew you couldn't answer." Protests seemed to be beating at Sturgis' lips, but he kept his mouth shut. "So," she said coolly, taking up her handbag from the kitchen table, "You can get down off your high horse, Sturgis." She headed for the door, broken nose in the air.
"Hestia," Sturgis said, his voice taking a turn for the pleading. "Please! He's dangerous, please don't."
"Don't baby me, Sturgis, I'm a big girl," Hestia said, and shut the door behind her.
Rabastan, when properly informed where she'd been and with a full survey of Hestia's bruised face, was immediately sure Sturgis had hit her. Hestia laughed grimly at that. Sturgis and Rabastan were two of the last men on earth she would ever expect to haul off and hit her, probably ranked with her dad and Professor Kettleburn (an incident Hestia's second year had, in addition to scarring the sixth-year Care of Magical Creatures class for life, deprived him of his entire left arm and the stubby remnant of his right), but if the situation had been different and she'd come home to Sturgis with her face in a similar condition, he would've blamed Rabastan just as quickly. Men.
After a suspiciously brief wait at St. Mungo's (Hestia was quietly certain Rabastan had paid someone off to get her name bumped up on the waiting list, but she was too grateful to complain about it) her nose was fixed and they were sent on their way.
Rabastan made her dinner and then left her alone in his townhouse's well-appointed library to study for her fast-approaching examination. Around midnight, though, he ended his self-imposed exile to coax her into bed. "C'mon, Hestia," he wheedled, crouched beside the high-backed leather chair she'd curled into, one of her many law books open on her lap. She smiled at him, bleary-eyed from intense concentration on the tiny text. "C'mon," he said again, leaning his head against her knee, his hands snaking around her calves.
"I need to study," Hestia protested weakly, more of a tease than anything, already dog-earing the page to mark her place.
"Such a workaholic." Rabastan stood up and leaned in to kiss her over the book on her lap. "It's a Friday night!"
"Hey!" Hestia mumbled around his mouth, turning her face away. "I am not a workaholic! I am just in a demanding period in my career. And at least I'm doing something with myself!" she concluded pointedly.
Rabastan grinned at her, ducking his face into her neck and not bothering to deny her half-spoken accusation. "I'm more of a recreational worker—you, my darling, are an addict."
Hestia sighed, a little put off. "It's just we're such a mess lately, I've been going in to work not sure if I'm going to be working nonstop or sent home after an hour. And the Selwyn case…" Rabastan froze, just for a moment, and their position was immediately uncomfortable without the playful air that had dissipated.
"You're involved with that case?"
Hestia was immediately seized with an overriding sense of 'oops.' This sort of excess talking seemed exactly the thing Caradoc would consider 'getting into something stupid.' "Er…I'm really not supposed to talk about it."
"But you're involved?" He drew back, and the humor was gone from Rabastan's eyes.
"Peripherally, I suppose," Hestia admitted grudgingly. "Please don't ask me, I'm not supposed to talk about it."
A smile that was perhaps a little too rigid spread across Rabastan's face. "All right, my love, I won't." He kissed her quick on the lips. "I won't say a word if you put down this book right now and come to bed."
Hestia made a show of consideration. "Well, I suppose that seems fair."
Hestia noticed the mark on Rabastan's arm as they lay there in his bed. She drew her fingers across it and he shivered and pulled away.
"What is that?" she murmured into his chest, reaching out after him. "A tattoo?"
"Yeah," he admitted, the hand that was lazily tracing back and forth on the curve of her hip halting.
"Let me see," she insisted, drawing his arm back. He let her, and seemed steeled for her answer. "Ugh, Rabastan, that's the ugliest thing I've ever seen, what were you thinking?" Hestia made a face in the dark, tracing her fingers over the ugly black tattoo on his forearm. He seemed to relax, and Hestia looked up at him.
"My brother talked me into it, said it would look cool."
"Your brother," Hestia said dryly, and without the faintest trace of affection, "talks you into very stupid things. Can't you get it taken off? It's horrible." There was something about the black skull and snake that seemed vaguely familiar, but she turned her mind away, shivering at the unpleasant image.
"It's a tattoo, Hestia," Rabastan said, a little sharper than she'd heard from him lately. "Of course I can't get it off."
"They can take tattoos off, Rabastan." Hestia narrowed her eyes, rolling off his chest and onto her elbow and tossing her long hair out of her face to look at him.
"Not this one, they can't," he said shortly. "Go to sleep." He tried to guide her back down onto his chest, but Hestia curled away from him, settling down beside instead. He let out a frustrated breath. "Merlin, woman, it's just a tattoo. I'll cover it up if it bothers you that much."
"Fine," Hestia said in a final sort of way, settling down to sleep.
"Fine." They both lay there quietly for a moment.
"I don't want to go to bed angry over my stupid tattoo," Rabastan burst after a minute, sitting up in bed to look over at Hestia. "Like as not I'll wake to find you've hightailed it back to Sturgis."
"You say you don't want to go to bed angry, and then you sit there and pick an entirely new fight with me? Really, Rabastan?" Hestia sat up, too, her anger flaring.
"Oh, like you weren't thinking of it," Rabastan said scathingly, getting out of bed and pulling on his pajama bottoms.
She had been, to her very private shame. But Hestia was a very good Juriswitch in training; she could lie with the best of them, and act indignant at the allegation, too. "I absolutely was not! Is that how it's going to be, then? Every time we argue, you're going to bring up the possibility of me doing a runner? Well, that's a reason to stick around if ever I heard one."
Hestia was burning mad, the kind of angry that didn't bode well for her eloquence. The heat in her face was coalescing into furious, frustrated tears behind her eyes and her reason was deserting her. She burst into tears and jumped out of bed, pulling the sheet with her and making for the toilet. Rabastan caught her halfway, swept her into his arms and muttered apology after apology; Rabastan hated making her cry and the first track down her cheek meant an immediate ceasefire, no matter how riled he'd been. It had always been a quick cheat to end an argument in the pleasantest fashion possible, but right now it just left her feeling hugely unsatisfied.
If she'd been less tired, Hestia might've let the anger that the apologies incited in her slip. She wasn't crying because he'd upset her, she was crying because she was angry and if she'd had a little more energy, she would've made certain he knew that. But, so late at night, it was easier to let him coddle her and apologize and show her back to bed, where she fell asleep in his arms, too tired to seethe.
She had a dream where something burned her stomach in the exact place Rabastan's forearm was resting, and he was gone when she woke. He didn't reappear until nearly eleven, as Hestia was readying herself for a Saturday afternoon shift at Madam Malkin's. He swept her up, spinning around and pinning her up against the wall and kissing her ardently. Apparently the anger from last night was forgotten, and that was all right by Hestia. She'd had enough unpleasantness with Sturgis.
"You smell like smoke," Hestia complained, wrinkling her (blissfully unbroken) nose. He grinned at her, already pulling at her work robes. "Where did you go?"
"Can't have that," he said breathlessly, breezing over her question as he paused to shuck his own outer robe before pushing her back. "Shower?"
Hestia batted him away ineffectually. "I already took one! I need to get to work. And I'm going to walk out of here smelling like an old fireplace if you keep this up."
"Work? It's Saturday." Rabastan frowned at her.
"I have a shift at Madam Malkin's." He nearly choked as she moved to duck under his arms. Hestia frowned at him. "You have a problem with a shopgirl girlfriend?" she asked crisply.
Another too-rigid smile crossed his face as he pushed her towards the door. "No, I just have plans for today. We're not leaving this house."
Hestia sighed.. "I'm going to work, Rabastan." She scrunched up her face, falling back into the familiar role as the responsible, reality-grounded one in the relationship. "Let me go."
"No. You are staying here." His voice had taken on a new determination. A determined Rabastan was a dangerous occurrence.
"I have to go into work, Rabastan. I've already said I would," she grated, looking him hard in the eyes with a firmness she didn't quite feel. She was already feeling the first whispering touches of defeat…was there anything Rabastan couldn't talk her into, she wondered in annoyance.
"Can't we just spend a day together? You're always working!" Hestia deflated further. "I will lock you in this house if I need to, Hestia, you don't need that job. You're going to work yourself into an early grave—just take a damn day off, please?"
"But…" Hestia frowned, biting her lip against the truth. Trying to convince herself it wasn't at all shameful, she admitted, "Rabastan, I need the money. I'm counting on it to feed myself…I'm barely covering next month's rent as it is." She internally regretted the words. Rent brought up the subject of her flat, and that meandered a little too close to a certain flatmate. "I bought a pair of shoes when I shouldn't've, I need to make up the money."
"I will buy you whatever you want. Food, clothes, shoes, whatever," Rabastan promised, gracefully--perhaps ignorantly--skating over the thin ice in his elation to have discovered a new avenue of persuasion. "You just stay here with me today."
"Doesn't that make me a prostitute? Accepting material gain for sexual favors?" Hestia asked, resigned.
"Nah," Rabastan said lightly, already working the buttons down the front of her robes. "It's nothing you weren't going to do anyway. If it bothers you, think of it as replacement wages for the work I'm detaining you from." At her raised eyebrows, he amended, "Or, you know, a gift from a loving boyfriend?"
"True." Hestia smiled wearily.
"Don't worry about money, Hestia, I'll take care of you," he promised earnestly, and Hestia forced a smile. Of course he would; he'd buy her the world and she wouldn't mind at all but for the fact that it was his family's money, and she'd sooner wear rags and walk barefoot than take a gift from them. He noticed the set line of her brow and tickled her gently until she smiled, quite against her will. "I've never seen anyone so upset by the thought of a day off! C'mon, come shower." He pulled her hand, and she pulled away.
"No, my hair's all done. You shower, I'll go Floo in sick. Deal?" She stuck her hand out.
He shook it solemnly. "Deal!" Rabastan agreed, darting off to the shower. "I promise, it'll be a good day off! You might even want to take one every once in a while!"
She Flooed in, feigning (with not too much effort) exhaustion, and crawled back in bed, shedding the rest of her half-undone clothing and fell asleep almost instantly.
While she slept, Diagon burned.
xXx
This was a hard chapter to get done. I'm sorry about the wait, I hope it won't take this long again!
Just a note: it is my belief that, in the earlier part of the war, the Dark Mark on the Death Eaters' arms would not be a widely known fact--only quite late in, after they'd arrested a few, would it be obvious that it was an identifying mark. So don't blame Hestia-- Death Eaters are a new and not fully realized concern and the Dark Mark is not yet widely known, and she wouldn't know it marked her boyfriend as a Death Eater. She's just angry because it's ugly!