Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
AN: Ugh, trying to survive a ridiculous amount of assignments DDD : Hope you enjoy this new chapter! Thank you so much for your reviews! : DDD
Chapter 7: Entitled
Walburga lay on her bed sifting through old photographs of her and Orion; she smiled nostalgically at medieval themed masquerades where she, by height and hennin hat, towered over a far shorter Orion, who'd recently lost baby teeth.
There was a photo of them and Lucretia all waving from the same window of the Hogwarts Express. He'd been a first-year and so excited, she hadn't minded him insisting on sharing her compartment...though Malfoy and their agemates had been less enthused. He'd always been her dearest friend and loyal playmate and she'd given a razor sharp smile to those that scoffed on seeing him tag-along with her.
There was a photo from Malfoy's wedding reception where he'd accompanied her as her plus one guest. That event had been more than a little awkward, what with her disappointment of Malfoy breaking his promise, a storm breaking out and the lot of them having to shelter back in the chapel which required standing inappropriately close to all manner of people...particularly her still smitten cousin. It was made worse because he was...taller than her by then. And if it had unsettled her having him be eye level with her in his fourth year of Hogwarts (when she'd welcomed him home during the holidays), being face to collarbone with the seventeen year old was very awkward. Little did she know then, he wasn't done maturing and he'd grow taller and broader still in the years to come.
He became someone she couldn't give a playful shove to or wrap her arms around to comfort when his team lost a quidditch match and he was blaming their bad luck on her for not attending.
They'd remained close of course but...the nature of it was...changing…
Had changed...obviously...
And learning now...that he was still smitten...even after all this time...
For the last few days, Orion had been owling her and knocking at Black Manor's door at all hours. She didn't permit Kreacher to admit him.
She still wasn't sure how to mend things...how to make them go back to the way things were...
She looked over at her servant now.
"Missus Lucretia Prewett at the door to see you, Mistress."
She sighed, "Alright, let her see me."
Perhaps, there'd be some way of clearing the air or passing a message or-or something through her.
Not long after, Lucretia appeared. "Hello, dear cousin."
"H-hello."
Was it just her or was there something in that smile?
"Under the weather?" her cousin asked too innocently.
"...s-something like that."
Lucretia's smile turned taunting. "Oh dear, I must tell Orion. Mayhaps he'll have the remedy you ne-"
And then she knew.
"You're a SPY!" she shrieked.
Her cousin winced at her volume and then shrugged sheepishly and agreed as she hovered near the edge of Walburga's bed, "I'm a spy."
Walburga was aghast. "Bonds of womanly sorority-"
"He's my brother...and he says you kissed him."
"Well, the first one was just to prove to him I-"
"So you kissed him twice?" her jaw dropped in delighted surprise and then she snickered, "And you initiated-"
"No, you're misunderstanding-"
"He only told me the one-"
"Oh, so now he's spreading it around?"
Lucretia frowned. "No, I was teasing him and I just wanted to know if he'd made a move. He was moving like a glacier, had to be sure he hadn't frozen up altogether."
Walburga was shocked. "You, you, you KNEW...that he felt like...that and you supported him in this!?"
"...yes, I support him," she affirmed quietly but seriously.
"Conspiracy! It's...not right." Walburga gestured to all the photos on her bed. "That's how it's supposed to be. Simple. Sweet. We were happy. All of us."
Lucretia picked one up that had Malfoy, Walburga, and Orion in it.
"...Orion wasn't happy." The thirteen year old was near the edge of the picture and gave a lackluster smile to the lens before his face darkened. "He was miserable that whole year. Not that you noticed. Obviously."
Walburga faltered. "..."
There came a knock at her window.
On seeing the figure there, Walburga gasped and unlatched it, "You idiot, what're you-"
"Well, if you weren't going to budge for a door, I had to see whether you were willing for a window," Orion huffed. He swore under his breath about it being too narrow and ridiculous and why the hell hadn't they renovated?
"It's the architecture," Walburga bit back defensively. "It's supposed to be like this to preserve the integrity of the estate. Our ancestors designed it as a means of protection against siege."
Lucretia helped pull her brother in where he landed ungracefully on the floor.
"Conspiracy," Walburga growled. She anxiously looked out her window, shuddered at the height, and latched it shut, "You could've fallen, you fool!"
Orion gave her a hard look as he recovered his breath. "Like I wished to do it. You gave me no choice. I had to see you...you kept turning me away...trying to drive me mad-"
"You?! After what you did! You think….you...Urgh! And then putting her up to-to distract me while you-"
"Actually, we didn't coordinate this," Lucretia offered. "I had to get out of the house. I go to visit my parents but he's there...moping. And we all know you're the cause."
"Me?! Nonononono! This is-is you!"
Orion drew himself up and took the accusing finger in stride with an easy smile. "Of course, darling. All me. You were so barely involved."
The mockery in his eyes made her warm...though whether it was simply irritation or...something more, she couldn't say.
"Why would you in-infringe on this? Don't you see this?" she motioned to all the years of sweetness in that film.
They were her comfort. Her bulwark in times of trouble. She wasn't a social butterfly what connections she had, she cherished.
"I see we need to take more photographs. Hard to take me seriously, I imagine, when your mental image of me is this." He held one up of the two of them having a tea party; she was eight, he was four.
His expression was dark as he flicked the photo away.
Walburga felt a stab of hurt.
It worsened when he unceremoniously shoved the photos off her bed to make a place for himself and his sister to sit. He indicated he wanted her to sit on his other side.
Walburga turned on her heel and swept out of the room and down the great stone stairs to the entryway.
All the dogs started barking when they realized she wasn't alone.
"We have company, Father!" she called out tersely.
He looked up from his newspaper, scoffed at the sight of Orion and Lucretia ambling after her, and didn't greet them.
"Sir," they bowed and curtseyed haphazardly to the Patriarch of their household as he ignored them.
He didn't look up, just scratched one great dog's ears as it sat beside him.
But that was Father for you.
It actually meant he was in a fair mood.
To her annoyance, they followed her into the library at a fast enough clip that she couldn't lock the doors behind her in time. She'd been hoping to hole up in there and wait them out.
"I mean, I understand why you distrust him," Lucretia offered. "He entered your bedroom probably hoping to snog you senseless."
"No!" Orion blurted and then relented. "...maybe...yes."
"But I'm your cousin, your friend, and a fellow female and I-"
"You're in league with him!" Walburga hissed.
Orion's eyebrows twitched. "It sounds so sinister when it's put like that."
Walburga tried to compose herself. "Look, all of that...shouldn't have happened."
He moved in front of her. "What did you kiss me back for, then?"
"I-I didn't kiss you again. I disapparated."
He came closer. "No. I kissed you and during said kiss, you kissed me back."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes, yes, yes. You did...darling," the word was harder than the other times he'd said it but it still...
Her face felt like it could melt. She turned her back to him.
That was a mistake because he came up behind her and stroked her arms sensuously. "I know how kisses work, my love. Been on both the giving and receiving end. There's a very different quality to be had when someone kisses you and doesn't want to or when you're kissing them and they don't want it. And that...most definitely wasn't the impression I had..."
She really didn't want to discuss it. Or the Pandora's Box of sensations he'd gleefully opened then…or now for that matter.
She tried to ignore him and his cologne and the weird swirly feeling in her stomach. She crossed her arms and declared, "I think it'd be best if you both just lef-"
He rested his head in the space between her shoulder and neck and made her rue her decision to wear a dress that wasn't a button up to the neck. Too much flesh was touching. He gave off an almost alarming amount of warmth.
Everything in Black Manor was stone, still, cold. He didn't belong here.
"Though, if you don't feel like owning up to that part yet, I'll contain myself to this. Even though we both know the answer." He purred against her ear, "Did you enjoy it?"
She tried to shake him off. "I wasn't thinking!"
He laughed lightly and wrapped his arms loosely around her. If she wanted to break free she could...so why was she staying?
"Perfect! Precisely what I wanted to hear. In fact," he buried his nose against her skin. "I don't want you to think at all. I want you to feel."
She swallowed.
Too close.
He was entirely too close. It was inappropriate.
She turned her head to look at him and deliver a disapproving glare.
It made them even closer.
He smiled easily and her eyes lingered there.
The problem with you, she thought, is that you're fatally handsome and you know it.
The only problem was...she didn't think it and said it instead.
He grinned in delight, "Oh I know, but I like to hear it! Especially from you. Tell me more lovely things. Nonono, don't! I don't want to use them all up at once. I don't have as many I'm sure. It's my turn. You're beautiful." He kissed the flesh near her shoulder. "You're brilliant." "You're strong." "You're dazzling." Each compliment was paid between kisses as he made his way up to her jaw.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
The room was getting awfully hot.
She needed to move away now.
Body move.
Move body!
He gently turned her in his arms and to her own dismay she angled her head up—part of her already hoping…
He'd said the next would be even better..didn't he?
She opened her eyes and found him smirking. "Tell me you enjoy it...my attentions, that is. Tell me it's so and I'll lavish you with them gladly."
He waited.
She wavered.
It'd be unwise.
It'd be terribly unwise.
It could ruin everything.
It would put them somewhere they'd never traversed.
It was a distraction!
A poor decision!
So why?
Why did she try to brush her lips over his the way he'd done days ago?
"Someone's a quick learner," he praised and leaned in.
"Ugh, I really didn't come for this," Lucretia muttered.
Without breaking the kiss, Orion pulled a book off the shelf and lobbed it at his sister.
"Alright, when you finish up here," Lucretia offered. "I'll be suffering in awkward silence with Pollux and the pack of dogs."
Later, Walburga wished she could say she remembered when Lucretia left or how long they were in there or something, but she really didn't think much about anything at all.
She was an idiot. And he was obnoxious.
She felt her cheeks heat as he boldly made eye contact.
He grinned and laughed lightly from across the bistro table and reached for her hand.
She shouldn't have kissed him or let him to-to her. And she definitely shouldn't have allowed it to keep happening.
His thumb rubbed her knuckles gently.
Because it was getting out of hand.
Now, he was starting to kiss her hello and goodbye. Where he used to wrap an arm around her shoulders to pull her from a crowded scene or hall (so she wouldn't be trampled by the masses), he now slipped his arms about her waist. He'd let his lips brush against her ear lingeringly when he made asides or jokes. He'd find excuses for them to touch.
During heated kisses on a divan, he'd pluck the pins out of her plaits and care not where they landed or how mussed she looked from having his hands in her hair.
And all the things they used to do together were...charged with an energy that hadn't been there before.
Part of her worried that it was some delirium of desperation. She had plenty to worry over. Her age, her lack of prospects, the dueling tournament, the stupid romance novels she'd started to read to try and figure out what the hell was wrong with her.
But the heroines all acted like this, this...unsure whooshy feeling was normal! Was to be expected! Sought after!
Walburga didn't like uncertain! Or spontaneous!
He brought her hand up and kissed the palm of it.
Alright. She did like that. That was gallant. That was like the medieval and Renaissance ballads she enjoyed. Little elegant gestures like that didn't send tongues wagging.
And it was rather sweet, if cliché, the way he'd proffer his arm now and when she curled hers with his, he'd lay his other hand over hers...securing it there.
And she didn't terribly mind the way he escorted her through Diagon Alley, always obliging to lift her over puddles and mud. Though...he held her much more snugly against him now than he had in previous assists.
But then he had to go too far!
Honestly, giving her an open mouth kiss in the middle of Flourish & Blotts for all the world to see. Not even an attempt to hide behind a bookcase or better, restrain his passions until they were elsewhere!
It had taken Herculean effort not to slap him then and there for that. If he hadn't done that...that thing that he did that was new when he slanted his head against hers and his tongue...she might've slapped him anyways...probably. She probably should've slapped him.
She might need to slap herself to stop thinking about it.
"Everyone's going to-to-to speculate about us!" she hissed once they were in private at his office, because there were still reports to type and store.
"Good," he returned. And there was something about the triumph that smoldered in his eyes that set her off.
She glared. "Just because you haven't a reputation worth a knut doesn't mean I want mine worn ragged through a bunch of gossips' teeth."
"Marry me and there won't be a blemish on it."
"First, you were being impossible and now, you're being ridiculous."
He scowled. "Speak plain."
"Marry you?" she returned incredulous.
God, he couldn't be serious.
"Flirt that you are, as if I would ever agree to such an outlandish proposal. It's inconvenient enough that you're preying on my desperation to satisfy your unnatural hungers. But as if I'd set myself up for such humiliation at the altar. You...you'd be fancying half the ladies in the pews before the vows were done."
He went very white and then very red with anger. And he didn't speak for a long time. When he did, his volume was very low and rough, "...don't insult me like that again."
She crossed her arms and planted her feet. "How can it be an insult when I've seen you escort one lady to a ball and leave with another in the same night!?"
His nostrils flared and he growled, "...My feelings are sincere and I'll not have you sport with them-"
"Yes, yes. That's all very pretty to say-" She needn't imagine how many skirts swooned for that line. It would just make her feel the more foolish for letting it come to this.
"I warn you, woman, my temper is at its limit-"
That sounded a little more genuine but she wasn't about to quake.
"What care I for your temper? I don't fear it." Orion was a lamb. His side of the family was weak. They'd all suffered paroxysms of fright from witnessing Malfoy's training regiment. Like they'd never witnessed brutality in a day of their lives. Ha! Sheltered and weak.
Orion made a sound of wrath and crossed the room, intending to exit, but fury possessed him and he paused in the doorway there to turn back and hiss, "So you'll take my kisses and not my hand? What mad reason urges you thus? Because trust me, Walburga, if there was ever reason for scandal it's that!" He forced a breath and endeavored to be more level, though he was undeniably strained. "Take me seriously and it's courtship and you've nothing to fear. No disgrace will come to your name and all you value...I-I'd guard them...I'd guard you with my life. W-with everything!"
"Well, forgive me if I don't like being defined in terms of chattel."
He made her sound like a castle and moat. A-a thing! A possession!
"What, because we've shared kisses you think that an everlasting, immovable claim? I'm yours now, am I? Now, you're the only suitor possible for me? What a dreadful hypocrite you are."
So many women at his feet. He got some sort of thrill in the surrender. And once they were fully used, he discarded them.
She knew his patterns. Had years of observation. And she was a quick study indeed. That's why she was always careful not to pull him too near during a kiss, to dig her fingers in his hair, or clutch his shoulders. It made him dangerously enthusiastic in his tender ministrations.
He'd known too many women. Knew the words and routes to the heart that made other women sigh.
He expected his fervent "I love you's" against her lips and throat to melt her into yielding.
Not a chance.
They were not going that far. Ever.
This mess was her fault though.
She really shouldn't have indulged him...or herself. A pox on her newfound fleshly weakness, it had felt nice to be kissed and caressed and held…
She could see how her cousin had fallen into the trap of debauchery.
It was a dangerous mistake. And they were paying for it now. The physicality their relationship had taken on had translated into Orion now, quite obviously, feeling entitled to her.
She looked on him unflinchingly.
Rage wasn't a handsome expression on him. It quite ruined his complexion.
"So...so...what is it you're after...if not a husband?" he seethed.
"To be perfectly honest….I...I don't know!" she admitted. "I don't know if a husband is what I want anymore."
To be more honest, she wasn't sure if she said that simply because she was thinking it and it was such a foundation-shattering thought it slipped out. Or if it was because she was shocked to find that here when she had an opportunity for marriage she wasn't pouncing on it and felt some need to justify it. Or if it was because she was simply feeling spiteful and his assumption that he was some grand catch and doing her a favor needled her into vindictiveness.
It was different.
Before...she'd resigned herself to the idea that marriage might not be in the cards, as it were, for her. That fate and bad luck had descended and all prospects were lost. And she needed to move on or she'd spend the rest of her life lamenting on what hadn't happened for her.
But this…
This was...acknowledgment that...she had a choice in the matter. She didn't have to say yes to anyone who asked. Before it had seemed like...if only one asked, then he had to be the one.
She was raised up on the notion, was weak to it, but...but...who was to say married life was so much better? She didn't like the whooshing uncertainty Orion had introduced into her life, let alone the idea of being owned. Some plaything of a spouse for a man to enjoy, especially if the one in question was her foolish fop of a cousin. He was in love with love. No, that was too generous. He was in love with lust.
He was stunned. He gave her a positively wounded expression that sunk her spirits low before disappearing into the hall.
She awkwardly finished typing up her report, set it on his desk, and then (unwilling to cross paths with anyone of the household) disapparated.
She arrived at the gate of her home and rested against the hard bars of it. She needed to…to...train or...something. Her next bout was sometime during the following week. She wouldn't know when until the newspaper released the next set of scheduled matches.
She needed to focus on that.
Near the end of the tournament, the intensity would increase. As the participants dwindled, the time between matches would shorten.
Yes. Training would...make sense.
She took a steadying breath and tried to ignore the feeling that she might've made a mistake. People of her distinguished family were supposed to make choices...never mistakes…
Training.
Yes.
She needed to train.
Gathering her wits and her skirts, she made her way inside intending to owl Malfoy.
"Damn you, Bathilda Bagshot!" Orion slurred as he knocked backed more whiskey and interrupted dinner for a second time cursing her name. "Hope you rot...suffer...you...you-" he hiccuped, "homewrecker."
"I do hope she's earned all that," Arcturus remarked wryly as he used his knife and fork. "And I'll take care not to get her autograph for you should our paths meet. I take it, you've had a trying day?"
Orion nodded and agreed. "...horrible. She...and then she...said...and I...so I said…" He buried his face in his hands.
"Bathilda Bagshot or Walburga?" Melania asked for clarification as she primly sipped from her wine glass.
"Walburga…" he muttered miserably as he looked up again. "She...she just...I…" He slapped a frustrated hand on the table and made all of their dining ware rattle.
Arcturus sighed, "Son, if she's not interested...then perhaps it's best to abandon this venture altogether and entertain new prospects. I'm certain your mother and I can make inquiry as to whether there are any daughters or debutantes whose temperaments and tastes will suit yours."
Orion grew agitated. "No. She's the woman I-"
"Sweetheart," Melania frowned and echoed her husband, "If she's not interested-"
"Not interested?" Lucretia squawked as she entered the room, having arrived late but picking up the gist of the topic at once. "I have it from a reliable source, they were snogging in Flourish & Blotts!"
Their parents were both startled by that tidbit, and Orion felt his face heat up as they gave him shocked looks.
"In public! Middle of the day? Orion!"
"That is scandalous. Especially for her!" Arcturus growled. "She's not one of those twittering trollops you flirt with at balls. That could injure her reputat-"
"Yes, I'm an idiot, I know...I know. But...now the way she's going on...about not being certain she even wants to be married...let alone to me…I...I don't know what...how to...I..."
Lucretia sat down and took the bottle of whiskey from Orion's side to pour some for herself into a glass. "Well, from what I heard. She didn't push you away, right? She could've made a scene. She could've acted like this was the first time you'd ever put forward such affections—won everyone's sympathy and painted you a lascivious cad. She didn't. She's...physically attracted to you. That's something, right?"
No.
No, it wasn't.
Wasn't nearly enough.
Not when he wanted her to love him.
And his face must've shown his torment.
"Not so nice when you're on the other side of it, hmm? Orion, dear?" his mother scolded.
Arcturus had abandoned his meal in full astonishment of what he'd learned. "In Flourish & Blotts? Right there? In that crowded space? Where were you? There's hardly a place anywhere to stand comfortably let alone for—were you right in front of the cashier? Good God."
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