Rabastan tried to keep his eyes off Andromeda when they were both dropped off at Platform 9 ¾. She was arguing in a low voice with Bellatrix, who seemed intensely displeased by whatever she was saying. Good. Rabastan felt a small rush of satisfaction every time that insufferably smug smirk was wiped off Bellatrix's face.
"Be good," Rodolphus told Rabastan quietly. Maria and Joseph had not seen fit to go with Rabastan to the station ("You're a big boy; you can go by yourself," Maria had said airily), but Rodolphus was there, with his hand on Rabastan's shoulder, so protective…
"I will be." Rabastan looked up at his brother and felt a wrenching pain in his stomach. It would be months before he would see Rodolphus again. No matter how many terms passed, he could not get used to parting from his brother, knowing that he would not see him again for so long. And even though he tried to tell himself that it was a good thing that he and Rodolphus would be separated, he wanted nothing more than to cling to his brother and never let go.
But he didn't.
Rodolphus squeezed his shoulder gently. "You'll be all right, won't you? You have all your potions, your medicines…?"
"Of course I do," Rabastan said quietly. He didn't want to talk about the medicines that he had to take – ones that cemented his position as inferior to Rodolphus. Rodolphus didn't need those potions just to stay alive…
"Write to me often," Rodolphus told him, then squeezed his shoulder again. "Just one a few more months – you're almost done school, Rab. You realize that?"
"Of course," he said. He wished that Rodolphus would just shut up so that he could spend a few long, glorious moments staring into his eyes. But he didn't.
Rodolphus drew Rabastan into a tight hug and he rested against his brother's body, listening to his strong, steady heartbeat and feeling every breath that swelled in his chest. It was wonderfully, beautifully comforting to be held so tightly. Maria and Joseph never held Rabastan like this – Maria's hugs were bone-crushing and brief, smothering him and then letting go and forgetting that he existed again, and Joseph barely touched him.
Tears sprang to Rabastan's eyes and he ducked his head quickly, hoping that Rodolphus didn't notice.
"I'll see you in June," Rodolphus said, then the train whistle blew, signalling just a few minutes before it left, and Rabastan had to leave his brother, hurry himself onto the train, before he could say any of the things he wanted to. He couldn't even say I love you.
Perhaps that was for the better – perfectly brotherly though the phrase was, it might have been best that Rabastan was not given a chance to say it. Rodolphus might be able to detect a note of strangeness or longing in his voice that should not have been there.
He stood near the doors of the train instead of finding a place to sit down for some time, staring out the narrow window at the platform until the train pulled away. Bellatrix had gone over to Rodolphus and they were immersed in conversation when the Hogwarts Express started to move and Rabastan lost sight of them.
He wanted to be sick. They made him sick, the two of them, so sappy and tender when they were together. They didn't fight anymore, much as Rabastan silently prayed for them to – or perhaps they did fight, but they hid it well.
Rabastan turned away from the doors at last and started dragging his trunk along the car, searching for an empty compartment. Each one he passed was filled with cheerfully chattering students who he very much disliked the idea of spending the journey with.
The last compartment of the car was very nearly empty, and when Rabastan saw that three of the four seats weren't occupied, he started to step in and request to sit down, until he saw that it was Andromeda who was in the fourth seat. He started to step away, but she had already seen him, and she stood up, smiling widely.
"Rab," she said. "Come sit with me."
"No… I don't want to disturb…" he stammered, but Andromeda grabbed his trunk firmly and dragged it in. She was much stronger than he was.
"Come on," she said. "Just because we're going to be married, doesn't mean that we have to hate each other, you know."
He could think of no way to refuse her, so he sank down across from her and tried not to meet her eyes. Stupid, manipulative bitch. She knows I don't want anything to do with her.
"We used to be friends, remember, Rabastan?" Andromeda said, a little more loudly than he thought was strictly necessary. He looked up at her reproachfully, hoping very much that no one was overhearing them. He didn't like having details of his private life being made public – a side effect, he supposed, of being as much in the public eye as all children of Pureblood families were.
"I don't understand why you hate me so much, all of a sudden. You and I both know that I don't want to marry you, so why are you purposefully making this miserable for me?"
"I haven't done anything to you," Rodolphus told her, keeping his voice quiet and hoping that she would take the hint and lower her own. "I'm not falling over myself to marry you, but I don't hate you." Lie.
"Don't give me that, Rabastan." Andromeda sounded disgusted. "You're looking at me like I'm- like I'm not worthy of you."
"I don't think anything like that."
"What do you think, then?" she demanded. She stood up, bearing down on him, and he shrank away. Andromeda was bloody intimidating when she wanted to be. "Because I know that this goes past just not wanting to marry me."
"No, it doesn't!"
"And come to that," she continued, "I don't think you have any proper reason for not wanting to marry me! I think you're just acting this way to be stubborn!"
"I most certainly am not!"
Rabastan was not going to just sit there and let Andromeda berate him like that – he didn't have to. She wasn't his superior. He stood up and pushed her back firmly, and her eyes flashed dangerously. She looked so much like Bellatrix when she was angry.
"All right," she hissed. "Why don't you want to marry me, if you have a proper reason?"
"You tell me why you don't want to marry me!" Rabastan told her. It was a stupid tactic – not likely to win him the fight – but he needed to distract her while he summoned up some sort of answer. Any sort of answer except the truth.
"Fine," Andromeda hissed. She drew herself up tall, squaring her jaw. "I'll tell you why I don't want to marry you–"
"Why, then?" Rabastan taunted. She had taken the bait; he would have time enough to formulate some sort of answer while she told him.
"Well!" Andromeda's face was slightly pink and she shook with anger. "It's because I fancy girls, don't I?"
Rabastan had already opened his mouth to respond with some sharp, cutting remark, when the meaning of what she had just said occurred to him. He stared at her, lip hanging slightly open.
"Don't just stand there like an idiot!" Andromeda's cheeks were quite red now. "You got your answer, didn't you? And you'd damn well better not tell anyone, because my parents would kill me if they knew…"
"You… fancy girls?" Rabastan was having trouble understanding. She had said it simply, plainly, and yet he couldn't quite force the idea to become clear in his mind. "You… fancy them like- like…?"
"Yes," Andromeda said through gritted teeth. "I fancy them like a man would. I'd rather go to bed with a girl than with a boy. Are you happy now, Rabastan? That's why I don't want to marry you – is that good enough for you?"
He nodded dumbly. His mind was filled instantly and completely with images of Andromeda tangled among bed-sheets with another girl, and the idea did not repulse him so much as intrigue him.
"You aren't going to tell anyone, are you?" she demanded. She was reaching for her wand. "I swear, I'll kill you if you tell anyone, Rabastan!"
"I won't," he said, all the anger and defensiveness that he had felt before draining away. To his own ear, he sounded almost absent, thoughtful. And he felt thoughtful.
If Andromeda would rather go to bed with a woman than a man, maybe she'd be able to sympathize with him…
"I think I'm going to leave," Andromeda muttered. She pushed past Rabastan and left him sitting mutely in the compartment.
Maybe, he thought, he would do well to be kinder to her.
There was a chance that she might be the one person who would understand him.