A/N: Vanessa's POV
It wasn't a dinner party. If it had been, half our guests wouldn't have been there. Probably a more appropriate term would have been a business dinner, with several of my husband's…coworkers joining us for dinner.
It wouldn't have been so bad, necessarily, except for one particular guest: Bellatrix.
I sat at my end of the table, trying not to listen to what they were all discussing. Severus Snape was the closest thing to a commiserate at the table, as Narcissa had been unable to accompany her husband due to their son being ill.
"And did I tell you McAuley was there?" Bellatrix said with a sneer.
They had been discussing a recent raid on Diagon Alley, about a month ago, and I hadn't bothered listening, but that caught my attention.
"At the raid?" I said, and she looked surprised to hear me speak. "Amy was at the raid?"
"Doing her shopping, apparently," Bellatrix said derisively. "It was hard to believe she used to be a talented duelist. She was pathetic."
I felt suddenly sick to my stomach, but I pressed on. "She hasn't joined the Order, though, has she?"
If she had, I would have to have a word with Peter. Obviously his information wasn't as good as he'd led me to believe.
"No," Lucius said after wiping his mouth on a napkin. "She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"What I do not understand," Severus said softly, "is how you did not manage to capture her as ordered, Bella, if she is as out of practice as you claim."
Bellatrix's nostrils flared.
Amy was always brilliant. Her reflexes were never as good as Sirius's, but she had a very strong Shield Charm, and the power behind her spells was a bit scary sometimes, even in class. Granted, I would have bet against her where Bellatrix was concerned, but I couldn't imagine Amy being incapable of defending herself.
After her lips twisted for a moment Bellatrix said, "I nearly had her, in fact. But the Order showed up."
"And your cousin fended you off to rescue his wife," Severus said, sneering. "How…sickening."
An excellent word choice. I could just picture it, Sirius Black rushing into the fray, seeing his wife injured, tortured knowing Bellatrix, perhaps about to be whisked away to the Dark Lord, and in all his rage and fear he duels the best duel of his life and rescues her, taking her home and cleaning and Healing her before hours of delicious sex to celebrate her return.
I shuddered.
"Does she look any worse for wear from the pregnancies?" Lucius asked casually, although we all knew he was eager to know.
"She looks the same as she always did in robes," Bellatrix said dismissively. "What does it matter?"
"Lucius is fantasizing about forcing her into submission," Jack said, his lips twisted into a smirk. "The minute you said she wasn't as strong as she used to be he felt she was no longer unattainable."
My stomach lurched at the way Bellatrix cackled, cackled at the thought of her brother-in-law raping her cousin's wife! I excused myself, saying quite honestly that I wasn't feeling well, and leaving the room before anyone could argue or ask for explanations. That my husband would make such a joke was disgusting enough, but that it didn't even seem to just be a joke made me actually nauseous. Did they do such things on their raids?
I was pacing the music room when I heard the sound of a throat clearing.
Severus was standing at the door, his face free of judgment.
"I told your husband that it was a reaction to the potions," he said. "I assumed you would not want to see him."
Lying to Severus was pointless, and from what I could tell he didn't lie to me. It was hard to tell with him, but I owed him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. He'd put his life on the line for me to have a chance, put in countless hours of work making potions in an attempt at a long shot to save my life. The least I could do was believe him.
"Difficult, isn't it?" he said. "Even when you stop speaking, even when you try to hate them, they're still your friends."
I raised an eyebrow.
"You're quite mistaken, Severus," I said coolly.
"Am I?"
"Evans was never my friend, and McAuley chose those cretins over me long ago. Caring about her was tedious to begin with, and once she showed her true colors it was that much easier to drop her."
He raised his eyebrows and said, amused, "You're lying."
"Oh?"
"Even if I couldn't see through you…you called her Amy."
"What?" I said, feeling nervous. "I called her McAuley."
"You called her Amy," he said, smirking. "At dinner. I still think of her as Lily."
I didn't know what to say to this, staring back at him, wondering what he'd bother coming in for if all he was going to do was rub in my inadequacies. We stared at each other, both seeming to wait for the other to speak. Finally, he said, "We will be leaving soon. A meeting. Do you feel like seeing your husband before you go or should I tell him you aren't feeling well?"
Weighing my options was difficult. I knew that after this meeting Jack would be gone for an undetermined amount of time on some sort of business for the Dark Lord. If I didn't see him before he left, I didn't know when I would see him again. On the other hand, I was not ready to speak to my husband.
"No, tell him I'm indisposed," I said coldly.
Severus nodded, taking his leave, and I sat on the floor, waiting for the sound of the guests leaving out the front door. When I heard it close, I sighed, picking myself off the floor and going to touch up some of my paintings.
He did not come back that night, which I expected, but after two days of Jack not coming home I began to worry. No one came to tell me that something bad happened to him, and since Christmas was fast approaching I assumed they would think to tell me such a thing.
The house did seem empty sometimes, as did my bed, but he spent so much time away on work for the Dark Lord that mostly I painted, took my potions, and minded my own business as always. I was doing some renovations to the third floor library, including adding a balcony over the freesias.
Christmas morning, though, I woke up to find myself alone again. I had a few gifts, of course. Lucius and Narcissa and even Severus sent me gifts, on top of my mother and brother. Jack had obviously left something with the house-elf before he left, because he left me a pair of earrings.
Surely, I told myself, they would have him home sometime on Christmas. Whatever he was up to, it really shouldn't have taken him this long. I wouldn't have an empty bed again.
The house-elf, without asking, had made my favorite breakfast. The eggs were cooked to perfection, and the toast buttered with a heaping of marmalade. Marmalade was definitely my weakness, but as it was Christmas I decided to indulge myself. I had two pieces of toast, and then I opened my gifts. I received things I didn't need and only vaguely wanted, although Severus did have very good taste in paintbrushes, so that was probably the best of the gifts. My brother got me a gaudy necklace that his wife, no doubt, picked out. I could always stick it in the family vault.
Being alone in the house was typical, but difficult, especially when there was no event to plan for. I toyed with the idea of visiting Narcissa, but I still hadn't gotten over what Lucius had said about Amy, and I didn't want to have to run the risk of seeing him there. There were no other wives in our social circle I could stand to be around for very long. The thought crossed my mind to visit Severus, but I had no idea where he lived.
There was always Peter, I reasoned, pouring myself a drink to go with lunch. Perhaps he would have time to meet up before he was going to the Black's for their silly annual Marauder Christmas party. Although I didn't have anything particular I wanted to say to him, and I doubted very much that he had any new information for me, or he would have gotten in touch.
I snorted, disgusted with myself. How pathetic was my life if I was pondering just hanging out with Peter bloody Pettigrew? No, I could do better than that on my own.
Any other time of year I might have gone painting in the gardens, but winter wasn't the right time for that sort of thing. Dead trees and hedgerows might be someone's cup of tea, but they certainly weren't mine. I had some paintings I could touch up, but I didn't have the right colors for them, and Jack promised to pick up some more paint for me before he came home. Whenever that was.
I decided to take a bath, since I hadn't done that in a while, and I went to my bathroom, lighting the candles with a wave of my wand and stripping off my robes. I turned on the water to fill the tub and faced the mirror while I waited.
Amy might have looked as she always had, but my youth was fleeting quickly. Between stress and the potions themselves, I had aged five years in the last one, and Severus warned me that even the lotions and hair dye spells I used would not mask the effects for long. Already I could see the wrinkles gathering at the corners of my eyes, my mouth, on my neck like rings of stacked necklaces. The grays hid well everywhere but at my temples, as my blonde hair was close to gray to start with. At my temples, though, the grays were obvious, but thankfully my curls hid my temples most days. For once, a reason not to be upset with my unruly hair, for once.
My hands shifted the hair away from my face, showing my temples plainly, and I winced at the sight of a nest of grays, a mess of hairs depleted of shine and softness and pigmentation. Apart from Remus, I bet they all still looked you. He'd never been young to begin with. What Sarah had seen in him was always been beyond me.
Amy and Evans, mothers and still youthful and unblemished.
My nostrils flared at the thought as I slid into the tub, feeling the warm, slightly scalding water soak in my body.
As mothers they should have been losing their beauty fast. Amy had twins, for Merlin's sake! Her body should have been stretched, distorted, ruined. Neither of them should have been getting any sleep, and how could they possibly have time to care for their appearances with so much stress, responsibility, and with their husbands out fighting a war? Evans was fighting in the bloody war as well!
I balled my hands into fists under the water, squeezing tightly. One by one, I released a finger on each hand, feeling the release of tension and trying to channel that feeling, to rid myself of the toxic thoughts. What good did it do to dwell on the unfairness of it all? More productive ways existed to manage the situation, to manage my time.
The bath was a mistake, though. As good as it made my body feel, it left me alone with nothing but my body and my thoughts to occupy me, and neither of those things brought me to good mental space. Perhaps I had simply been alone too long.
Eventually, I got out of the tub and tried to go about my day, but there was nothing much to do. I piddled around until dinner, which was a small-scale traditional Christmas dinner. I finished it slowly, continually and blindly hoping that if I just stayed awake a little while longer Jack would come back, and I wouldn't have to spend Christmas entirely alone.
The longer I waited, the more my head took over my heart and said that I was foolish for even trying to wish for such things. My husband was not a sentimental man, and I firmly believed that I was not a sentimental woman. If I didn't believe that, my life would not have been bearable. If my husband didn't make it home before the end of Christmas, what did it matter?
I asked myself that question a dozen times from different parts of the house before retiring to my room, sitting down at my vanity, carefully removing any makeup still on my face, moisturizing my skin, trying not see the little lines and sags and spots that had caught my attention earlier, before the bath. They were hard not to see, but I'd had a great deal of practice by now. Once my face and eyes were moisturized, I toyed with the idea of brushing my hair, but that would be like accepting that Jack would not be home before bed, as it would make my hair frizzy and even more unattractive than usual.
Instead I changed into a silk nightgown, crawling into bed, pulling the warm covers over me and turning on the light beside my bed, reading over my notes on the Order members I was seeking to destroy. It was disappointing that the plans were still so nebulous, but I knew that was the nature of planning. Everything moved more slowly than desired, but patience and meticulous attention to details would smooth and tease out the shape of the plan as time went on. I did count on that to happen with patience, but my usual patience was wearing thinner all the time. The longer I lived, the less likely I was to continue living. I had to take my revenge before my time was finally up, before Severus was no longer able to find ways to lengthen my life.
I rubbed my tired eyes. Tonight was a bad night. Tonight I believed with all my heart that I would die in the amount of time it took for the potion regimen to finish. Tonight I felt alone and small, insignificant on the horizon of the war and everything acting around me. I felt powerless. I felt ugly.
The last time I felt so comprehensively awful was after Sirius's public humiliation of me that was our breakup. No one was on my side. Nothing went my way. I was completely taken off guard not only by the event itself, but also by the emotions resulting from it. I had never been dumped before, and the vast range of powerful emotions I was assaulted by caught me unawares. I hadn't been in love with Sirius, and yet I felt emptiness knowing we were no longer together, and I felt rage at how it happened, and a holistic sense of betrayal toward Amy and Sarah, abandoning me on behalf of the boys who had structured my public humiliation. Never mind my ongoing frustrations with both girls, they were supposed to support me, to stand by me. That was what I had them for, and they couldn't even do that.
Too angry and frustrated to really get any work done on the plans, I thrust the plans back onto the side table, rolling onto my side, curling into a ball and letting my fury course through me. I had the urge to throw something, to hit something, to break something. But there would be no point in such physical acts, things which would only serve to give my house-elf more work to do. I knew it wouldn't even make me feel better, in spite what my body decided now. Instead, I huddled under my blanket, trembling with rage, expecting to burst any moment.
Most of that rage was focused on Lily Evans, as most of my rage was almost always focused on her. I did spare a bit for Amy, but I had always hated Evans, long before I had to deal with Amy's betrayal. That was something Amy and I had in common once, hatred of Lily Evans. Back then Amy fought the battles, and I didn't bother to discourage her. Now, though, they were thick as thieves, the best of friends. Things really did change in the blink of an eye.
I refused to believe it had really been so long since those days.
The clock struck eleven at night and I came out from under the covers for a moment to look at the clock to be certain I heard it correctly. But it was truly eleven. Jack was not going to be home and I would be alone with my thoughts for perhaps another week yet, alone to dwell on my hatred and bitterness and fear. I would have to find more productive ways to manage the emotions. Even with the revenge plans to channel them into, they did me no good if I was out of control before I sat down for planning.
I could feel a painful stinging in my eyes as tears mixed with my eye cream, infiltrating my eyes. It happened on occasion, but I did not regularly cry, so the sensation always caught me off guard. Tears stung enough on their own, so I closed my eyes to stop the stinging from growing any worse, and I felt the weight of my exhausting in my eyelids. Perhaps there was nothing I could do, not without Jack, but I was determined to find something to do with myself.
I wasn't about to keep crying myself to sleep over my husband.