Rabastan didn't know how to approach Andromeda. She kept her distance from him, and he was unsure as to whether she was staying away because she regretted telling him. It must have been frightening, he thought, to tell anyone else about having such feelings.
More than once, he tried, in the privacy of his own mind, to come up with a way of telling her. He tried to think what he would say to make it seem as normal as he could. But how could he say it?
He wished that she would ask him again why he didn't want to marry her. That would be the easiest way for him to tell her – but perhaps that would just make her annoyed that he had not told her in the first place. His heart sped up when he tried to imagine how the conversation would go.
Why don't you want to marry me? he could imagine her saying.
Because I fancy men, he would say, simple and clear, as free of euphemism as it had been when she had said that she fancied women. That was already an oversimplification of the matter, he thought – perhaps it was easy for Andromeda to understand what she wanted, but it wasn't easy for him. He didn't fancy men – not all men, at any rate. He had paid quiet attention to the discussions that girls constantly had over which boys were most attractive, and he had looked at them with critical eyes, judging his own reactions. Some of them were handsome, he thought, but not terribly handsome. They didn't arouse him – even acknowledging their appearance was more of a clinical and objective observation than an admission of his attraction to them. It wasn't really any different from how he could look at women and see that some were pretty and some were less pretty and he didn't care much either way.
And besides, after those two lines of dialogue – "Why don't you want to marry me" and "Because I fancy men" – the image of the conversation that he held in his mind fell apart. He could imagine too many reactions that she might have.
Why didn't you tell me in the first place? she might demand, and Rabastan did not know how he could explain that he hadn't even been able to admit it to himself. He might say that he hadn't told her because he still wasn't quite sure, but then she would scoff at him and tell him not to act like that was his reason if it really wasn't.
Or she might ask something even worse.
Do you fancy anyone particular? she might ask, and what could he say to that?
Andromeda could understand – or, at least, he suspected that she would be able to understand – what it was to be attracted to someone of the same gender, and he expected that that would come with an understanding of what it was like to wish for a relationship that was taboo. But surely she would consider Rabastan's desire for his brother to be too much. Surely she would be as disgusted as anyone else by that.
So Rabastan kept quiet. On the few occasions that Andromeda and he were together – alone on late nights in the Slytherin Common Room, or when there were no seats at the table in the Great Hall except beside each other – he would open his mouth and close it over and over, trying to force out enough words to strike up a conversation that could eventually lead to his confession.
But he never had the nerve.
As weeks went by, time began to blur his memories of what things had been like that winter, with Rodolphus. When, time and again, he could not be aroused by the thoughts of other men (not that he was trying too terribly hard, and he didn't dare to think too hard about Rodolphus), he began to believe that what he had experienced was nothing more than a bit of pent-up frustration that had manifested in the form of being attracted to his brother. After all, his brother was the person who was near him most – surely, if there had been anyone else with whom Rabastan spent a great deal of time, he would have lusted after them instead. He told himself quite firmly that what had happened was not a signal that he really did fancy men, nor that he had any sort of real desire for his brother.
And he almost managed to convince himself.
By spring, when the prospect of returning home and seeing Rodolphus and Bellatrix's wedding loomed, Rabastan had quite come to terms with the whole matter. When he felt twinges of jealously, he told himself that he was only jealous of the emotional intimacy that he and Rodolphus had shared and that Rodolphus would now grant to Bellatrix. It was perfectly reasonable for a boy to be jealous of his brother's wife when the brother had been as important in his life as Rodolphus had been in Rabastan's. It wasn't any more shameful or connected to lust than, for example a child not wanting their parent to remarry.
Thinking of Bellatrix no longer filled Rabastan with the visceral hatred that it had last winter. Bellatrix would make a good wife for Rodolphus, Rabastan thought. And his brother deserved a good wife. She was rich, and she was beautiful.
But thoughts of Rodolphus and Bellatrix would not stop entering his mind. It became murderous work to try to study for his exams, for every time he looked at his books, he wondered what Rodolphus might be doing while he sat hunched over his books. He could not help letting his mind wander and wondering if Bellatrix was spending her evenings lying in Rodolphus's arms. Every time Rabastan's mind was not fully occupied, images of the two of them swam into his thoughts.
But they were not jealous thoughts. No. They were perfectly reasonable thoughts.
The more he repeated that, the truer he thought that it was.
By the time term was over, Rabastan was quite fully convinced that all his thoughts about Rodolphus and Bellatrix were entirely healthy. By the time term was over, Rabastan was quite sure that he didn't love Rodolphus as anything more than a brother, and that he didn't lust after him or after any other man. The idea of marrying Andromeda was not as hateful as it had once been – in fact, he found himself quite looking forward to the next year, when Andromeda would finish school and they would be married. He thought that the relationship would be rather nice, really. After all, perhaps, if Andromeda fancied women, she wouldn't press him into acting like a proper husband and accompanying her to parties and dancing with her and making love to her every night. Not that he wouldn't mind doing that once in a while, but it would be nicer if it wasn't constantly expected of him. He made an effort to smile at Andromeda when he saw her, and he fancied that she smiled back.
He even thought that he was looking forward just a little bit to Rodolphus and Bellatrix's wedding. It would be pleasant, really, to go to a celebration that would end with his brother being quite happy. It would be nice to see Rodolphus happy, yes – that was what he wanted. He wanted him to be happy.
So when he boarded the Hogwarts Express, leaving Hogwarts for the final time and feeling pleasant twinges of nostalgia for the years he had spent there, there were no thoughts of guilt or shame in his mind. He had quite put away all such thoughts. He would not be ashamed of loving his brother, because the love he felt was not lustful.
Rabastan considered asking Andromeda to sit with him on the journey back, but she turned away from him, avoiding his eye, and hurried into a compartment with Narcissa. Rabastan followed her hesitantly, but when he reached the door of their compartment, they had locked it and pulled the shade down over the window.
So he sat alone and stared out the window, watching the countryside roll past and thinking pleasant thoughts about what he would do over the next year – a year of freedom between completing school and needing to be married. He would like to travel, he thought. Perhaps he would go to Italy. The Blacks had a villa there; perhaps they would let him stay there for a time. That would be rather nice.
When the train pulled into King's Cross Station, Rabastan's thoughts were all on that. His brother was quite gone from his mind.
Quite gone, at least, until he climbed off the train and saw Rodolphus and Bellatrix leaning against a pillar. Rodolphus's arms were around Bellatrix's waist and they looked dreadfully intimate.
And all the thoughts that Rabastan had worked all year to force away came back in a rush.