Rabastan thought that Rodolphus and Bellatrix were sitting far too close together. If he had had the authority, he would have told them to move apart and that they were not displaying propriety. Bellatrix's hand was on Rodolphus's thigh when he came down and he felt a surge of anger.

And perhaps just a touch of jealousy.

He purposefully bumped her chair when he went past her and she glared up at him, moving her hand back to her own lap.

"Rab," Andromeda said, and he bristled automatically. That was his brother's name for him. She had no business calling him by it. Did she think that it was going to make him want her?

No, of course she didn't think that!

She didn't know about him and Rodolphus. Of course she didn't – what was there to know, really? He and Rodolphus hadn't done anything. All that had happened was that Rabastan had had one little fantasy about his brother that didn't really mean anything and there was absolutely no way that Andromeda could know about the fantasy.

"I was so worried about you." She stood up and started to raise a hand, as though to touch his shoulder. He jerked back automatically.

"Don't touch me!"

She looked hurt and her hand fell back to her side. "I- Oh… all right, if you- if you don't want… I just wondered… are you all right? You seemed so ill…"

"I'm fine!" he snapped, then added, hoping that she would echo this to her parents and that it might be enough to end the engagement, "I'm very ill all the time, you know. I'm probably not going to live very much longer."

"Really?"

"Rabastan!" Rodolphus snapped to attention and stared at his brother with an expression of mixed anger and disgust. "Don't you dare say that! You aren't going to die!" He stood up and grabbed him by his shoulders, forcing him to look him dead in the eye. "You aren't, do you understand me?"

"I…" Rabastan stammered. He couldn't even speak properly and his hands began to shake violently when he tried to push Rodolphus away from him.

"Sit down, Rod," Bellatrix murmured. She stood up as well and placed her hands on Rodolphus's waist and her chin on his shoulder. "It's not worth fighting over, you know… Rabastan knows that he's not going to die…"

Rodolphus glared at Rabastan, but sank back into his chair just as Maria breezed into the room with Joseph on her arm.

"Is everything all right?" Maria asked, but she wasn't even looking at Rabastan or Rodolphus or even Andromeda and Bellatrix. Her eyes were on the door to the kitchen, on the house-elf scurrying out, laden with platters of food and on the silver cutlery already set on the table. She was examining it with the intensity of someone who cared nothing about the people she was speaking to and only about the way she was presenting herself to them.

"Everything's fine," Bellatrix said, before Rabastan or Andromeda or Rodolphus could speak up. "We were just talking. The food looks wonderful," she added sweetly and Rabastan wanted to scratch that sweet, sanctimonious smile right off of her face.

She is disgusting.

What could Rodolphus possibly see in her? Rabastan had considered the question before, but now, while he was looking directly at her, he couldn't consider even one real reason that anyone – least of all his brother – would want to go to bed with Bellatrix.

She was pretty, he supposed, but she was such a horrible girl…

"Rabastan? You are all right, are you not?"

It felt like it had been a terribly long time since Rabastan's father had actually asked him a question – least of all one that was as personal as are you all right – and he looked up at Joseph with some surprise. His face was stony and impassive as ever, but he was looking directly at Rabastan and there was a small crease between his brows that made Rabastan wonder what his father thought was wrong.

"I'm all right," Rabastan said quickly. He sat down beside Andromeda's place and lowered his eyes, staring at the table. He pretended that the wood grain fascinated him and there was a silence in which Rabastan was sure that he could feel everyone's eyes on him, then Maria cleared her throat quietly and he heard chairs scraping while his parents and Andromeda took their seats.

He could feel Andromeda's presence beside him while the food was served. He could feel how much she wanted to move closer and rest her hand upon his leg as Bellatrix was doing to Rodolphus. He could feel her worry, feel her sense that she must have done something wrong to put Rabastan in this state…

"Andromeda," Joseph said suddenly, "tell us what happened between you and Rabastan earlier today."

God, no, don't make me go through it again.

"Joseph," Maria whispered. "Why are you asking…?"

"I'm curious," he said curtly. Rabastan looked up and saw that his father's eyes were fixed on him, not on Andromeda.

"Well…" Andromeda said hesitant. "It wasn't anything, really. I overreacted. I panicked. Really, Sir, it wasn't any concern, except that I'd never seen poor Rabastan in such a state before and I was so terribly afraid for him… I wouldn't have wanted him to be hurt, you know."

Poor Rabastan.

As though he was a charity case. As though he was a child that had been put in her care.

How patronizing.

"What were you discussing?" Joseph asked.

Rabastan looked sharply at Andromeda. Her head was turned away from him, but he could tell that she was hesitating, unwilling to say. Thank God, and he prayed that she wouldn't tell. He prayed that Andromeda wouldn't tell, because he knew that his father suspected something and whatever Andromeda said, however much she said, Joseph would take that and twist it to support his theories about Rabastan.

And what were those theories?

What did he suspect? What did he think of his son? What was weighing so heavily upon his mind that he would actually speak, actually ask a question that required an answer? What did he know?

He knows. They all know.

Stop it!

Rabastan put a hand to his forehead and thought that it felt warm.

He was being paranoid. He had no reason to think that anyone knew what he had thought about when Rodolphus was in bed with him – surely, if anyone knew, they would have confronted him about it immediately, telling him that it was perverse and wrong.

Which it was. It was so wrong.

"Why, it wasn't anything much," Andromeda said slowly and Rabastan let out a slow breath, barely daring to believe that she really was going to keep quiet. "We were just talking about… school."

Rabastan thought that it was dreadfully obvious that Andromeda was lying, but Joseph seemed to take her words as truth, for he leaned back in his chair and set to work on his food without another word. Though, perhaps he merely did not want to speak anymore.

The dinner seemed to last for hours. Rabastan could not eat – his stomach clenched and his throat tightened and he was sure that he was going to vomit every time he put a piece of food in his mouth. It all tasted like sickness.

He tried to pay attention to the conversation, but Maria seemed to insist upon speaking only about Rodolphus and Bellatrix's wedding and the subject made Rabastan tremble with anger.

"I think that a June wedding would be lovely," Maria was saying. "Bellatrix will be finished school by then, and it's enough time that it won't seem improper, but near enough that we can start preparations immediately…"

"Is the betrothal finalized, then?" Rabastan interrupted. "The wedding is… definitely going to happen?"

"It's not officially finalized," Maria said with a small giggle. "But we know that it's going to happen. No one is going to break things off now – and you two are happy together, aren't you?" she added, looking to Rodolphus and Bellatrix.

Neither answered, and Rabastan's heart leapt, because he was sure that that meant that they weren't sure. Perhaps Bellatrix didn't really want to marry Rodolphus – and please let Rodolphus not want to marry her, please, please, please.

But they barely had a moment in which they could have responded before Maria was off chattering about what the decorations should be like and what Bellatrix should wear.

"I'll be wearing an heirloom dress, of course," Bellatrix interrupted when Maria started to discuss the benefits of white or blue dresses. "It's what every first daughter in the Black line has been wearing for over a century. It would only be proper for me to wear it, so you needn't worry."

Rabastan heaved a quiet sigh and stared down at his plate and tried not to think that, in just a few years, he would have to consider this for himself.