Rabastan found it difficult to look at Bellatrix after that. Seeing her looking so vulnerable had shaken him – he was so used to Bellatrix being strong and powerful and impossible to tear down that seeing her in such a state had distressed him. Whenever he saw her, he wondered whether her brave face was just a front to hide how she felt.
But he did not dwell on it. He preferred not thinking about Bellatrix, where he could avoid it, and after the fight, Rabastan was sure that he would be able to spend more time with Rodolphus, to remind him that he, Rabastan, should be the most important person in his life. It had given him such hope to hear Rodolphus telling Bellatrix that he cared about him…
But Rodolphus was distant. He did not look at Rabastan over dinner that night, nor did he come to his bedroom to ask whether he needed anything before he went to sleep. Perhaps that should not have disappointed Rabastan – after all, having his brother come to check on him at night was something that he should have outgrown – but he felt strangely empty when he woke the next morning and realized that Rodolphus had never come to see him.
But the emptiness he felt then was nothing – nothing at all – in comparison to what he felt when he came downstairs.
Maria and Rodolphus were sitting in the parlour. Rodolphus's face was stony and impassive, but Maria was smiling more widely than Rabastan had ever seen her, and she was dabbing tears off of her cheeks.
"Mother?" Rabastan said tentatively. "What is it? What's happening?"
"Oh, Rabastan…" Maria said, and her voice was choked with emotion. "Cygnus Black has just left – the date for the wedding has been decided…"
Rabastan felt ill. He clutched the frame of the door and stared from his mother to his brother and back.
No. No, if the date had been chosen, that meant that there was really no going back about it. If the date had been chosen, that would mean that the Blacks would start sending out their invitations to all the far-thrown members of the family, and then there would be no way to stop the wedding. Then, it would be real…
"What- what is the date?" he managed to ask.
"June," Rodolphus said, before Maria could answer, and Rodolphus's voice was as cold and hard as his mother's was thick with happiness. "June twenty-first. The summer solstice. Isn't that just perfect?" The way he said it made Rabastan hope – hope desperately – that his brother didn't think it perfect at all, but it was difficult to tell.
"It's… it's…" he said, but he couldn't think of any words to describe how it was.
Rodolphus stood up. "I'm going to go talk to Bellatrix. She'll be ever so eager to hear all about the plans, you know." His voice was tinged bitterly with sarcasm, which Rabastan heard, and which made his stomach leap, but which apparently was missed by Maria.
"Yes, go tell her, darling," she said. She reached out and touched Rodolphus's arm. "I'm ever so proud of you, you know…"
"There's no reason to be proud of me. I haven't done anything."
Maria dropped her hand as if she had been stung. She looked up at her older son with an expression of hurt and Rabastan had to struggle to keep he sneer off his face. He loved Rodolphus's harshness, and he loved that Rodolphus had the nerve to sting Maria.
"I… I only meant…" she stammered. "I'm proud of you for being such- such a good son… the sort that any mother would want…"
Unlike me.
As quickly as Rabastan's spirits had risen at Rodolphus's behaviour, they came crashing down again. Of course, Maria hadn't meant to imply that Rabastan was an inferior son – or, at least, she would claim that she hadn't meant to if Rabastan dared to ask her – but all of them knew it. Rodolphus was strong and Rabastan was weak, Rodolphus was brave and Rabastan was cowardly, Rodolphus was clever and Rabastan was slow, Rodolphus was going to be married without complaint and without doubt that he would be able to father many children…
"Thank you, Mother," Rodolphus said quietly, then he slipped out of the parlour. Rabastan stood, frozen and staring at his mother with contained hatred.
"Rabastan," Maria said, standing up and approaching him. "Is this not wonderful news? Aren't you happy for your brother? It is wonderful that the wedding should be so soon – and you might be married to Andromeda before the end of the summer…"
That is the last thing that I want.
"It's wonderful, yes," he told her quietly. His voice sounded insincere, almost scornful of the whole matter, but he hoped that his mother would be too consumed by her fine fantasies of having her sons married to the two daughters of the Black family to be able to notice his disgust. "Very… exciting."
"Rodolphus and Bellatrix will make a beautiful couple," she said. She was gazing at the door, where Rodolphus had left, and she sighed dreamily, as if she was the bride, not Bellatrix. "They will be wonderful… and the children–"
"What if they don't have children?" Rabastan interrupted. Blood rushed in his ears and he had to bite on his tongue to stop himself from lashing out any more harshly. Maria looked down at him with surprise.
"Why, what do you mean, what if they don't have children? Of course they will have children. Why would they not?"
"Father says that some men in the family have difficulty fathering children," Rabastan said. He knew it was reckless – he knew that, if Joseph had wanted him to share the information, he would have made the speech at the dinner table, not in the privacy of his study.
Maria went pale.
"Silly…" she said, her voice quivering a little. "The Lestranges are- they are mostly- most are quite capable, and those who aren't have- there are potions that they–"
"Father says that children born with the help of potions are at risk."
"Nonsense!" Maria snapped. Colour was rising in her cheeks again, blotchy and dark. "And Rodolphus is quite strong enough to father all the children that he and Bellatrix want! Don't you think so, Rabastan? Do you think your brother is- is impotent?"
No, I most certainly don't.
"I don't know," he said, and raised one shoulder in what he meant to be an airy gesture of confusion. "I was only thinking that perhaps he might be."
"He isn't!" Maria told him, and her voice was shaking terribly now. "There is nothing at all wrong with your brother, and if there was, there is absolutely no risk in a man taking potions to improve his fertility!"
"How do you know, Mother?"
Maria opened her mouth, glaring down at Rabastan, then snapped it closed again. He saw her clenching her jaw.
"I simply know," she said. "I know… people… who have had children with the assistance of those potions and the children were- were… there was nothing wrong with them, and if your brother needs those potions to have children, he will use them!"
"Fine." Rabastan could not help being a little surprised at the vehemence of his mother's responses. And he wondered who she had known who had used the potions…
"Now, go upstairs, Rabastan, dear," Maria said, and he could tell how hard she was trying to sound calm. "School is starting soon and you ought to be all packed before you go…"
"Yes, Mother," Rabastan told her. He backed out of the room slowly, keeping his eye on her, and just before he turned away, he saw her slump down into her armchair and bury her face in her hands.
He thought about it while he dragged himself back up to his bedroom and began to pack his trunk. Maria was prone to outbursts of emotion – more than ever, when important matters such as her older son's marriage were being discussed – but Rabastan had not expected the idea that Rodolphus might be impotent to put her into such a state.
She is only concerned about the family line not being continued.
But she had him. She ought to know that she had him to carry on the family line if Rodolphus proved incapable. Yes, he was not as strong as Rodolphus was, but surely that didn't mean for certain that he would be incapable of fathering children.
She might know…
"She doesn't know!" Rabastan whispered out loud. "No one knows!"
He would have to stop driving himself mad over what he had done. No one knew what he thought about Rodolphus – not his mother, not his father, and certainly not Rodolphus himself.
Perhaps, he thought, it would be easier to put the matter out of his mind when he was at school. Rodolphus would not be there, and neither would Bellatrix. Letters from his parents would surely be few enough and far enough between that he would be able to put the whole matter of the wedding and of his own fantasies out of his mind entirely.
Of course, he would also have to see Andromeda all the more.
And he wasn't sure how long he could hide what he felt from her.
Out of all the people who he had, in his paranoia, thought might know how he felt, she was the only one who he feared might actually confront him about it.
And, worse, she would be the most difficult to lie to.