Say it. A voice growled in the back of his head, something malicious and burning. Say it. Yet everything was moving in a blur of slow motion. Marlene knew. Rodolphus looked at her and could feel it in her his bones that she already knew, even if she didn’t. It could have been the paranoia festering away at him, but in his mind, in that moment, he knew she knew. There would be no covering this up, not anymore. He couldn’t blame this on a lack of sleep and stress, Marlene would know if she didn’t already. No, he had to face this. He had to say it. I was there. Before he could formulate a response, her hand was curling around his quivering arm and he pulled it away and began to shake his head. “P-please, god no– you can’t touch me–” because her hands felt like holy water burning away at his sins. It twisted at his stomach and reminded him that he did not deserve this.
He felt as if he were going to lose consciousness, and part of him hoped he would so that he could avoid this. “I’m stuck.” he cracked, repeating the words she’d just reaffirmed to him. It felt as if his lungs were being deprived of oxygen, as if he couldn’t muster the strength to inhale and replenish them. “I–” inhale, “–I’m stuck Marlene it was me or Rabbit. It was me or Rabbit every time and–” Rodolphus broke himself off, losing himself in his words as he tried to grasp reality. Maybe this was just a disgusting nightmare, maybe managing the scrape by on the very bare minimum of sleep to function had caught up to him and he fell asleep in class, maybe— the thought vanished as another gust of wind blew through him.
Marlene had been gone for six years, and Sirius, although only truly cutting ties with his family recently had gotten out as well. And Rodolphus had always silently resented the fact, because a part of his was happy that they got out. That they found their freedom and beat the game. But the larger part of him, the part he was more embarrassed to admit, was still childishly confused as to why neither came back to tell them how they did it. Rationality told him, they got sorted into a better future. One with a fresh start where they weren’t surrounded with people who come from power unknown and control over the lives of others. He couldn’t accept that though, that something as petty as a sorting hat rewrote their destinies. What if Rodolphus had allowed himself to be put into Hufflepuff, though? How could that have helped him when his heart and soul laid in the chests of the people adorned in green and silver? None of this made sense to him.
“I wanted to wait– to tell you once I knew it would be safe once for you t-” he broke off, turning his chin upwards to stare at the ceiling as he felt his right knee begin to visibly shake. Don’t you do this don’t you dare– Rodolphus Lestrange was born to control his emotions. He didn’t do this and certainly not in open areas, for anyone to witness. No, his pain was to be internalized and dealt with later, when he was alone, when he had a wand in his hand and someone to challenge, anytime but ones like these. “I didn’t know I didn’t–” he had to break himself off again, to suck more air into his lungs and attempt to regain his composure.
“He’ll fucking kill me, Marlene, I’m stuck.” The words came out in an agonizing groan, one that caused him to pull at his hair, to dig his palms into his eyes and try to rid himself of any emotion building but he’d lost all rationality seven hours ago when he was convinced professor Slughorn knew, and was waiting to sell the story to the highest bidder. Rodolphus wasn’t sure if Marlene would take that as his father would kill him or the more threatening choice, the one she wouldn’t be able to say, the dark lord. Both seemed equally threatening to Rodolphus these days. “Oh my god–” his voice was shaking, and he brought his eyes back to Marlene. Bloodshot and desperate and broken.
“I d-didn’t want– I didn’t want him m-making– Rabbit go, I didn’t know–” again his words cracked off at the edges, and he swallowed hard. Razor sharp guilt flashed through him and his lips began to tremble. “Marlene I didn’t know– I didn’t ask– I didn’t think–” but none of that mattered now, because this was the moment Rodolphus knew Marlene would never forget. He felt his chest heaving, and knew it was his body beginning to hyperventilate. His body demanded the oxygen he hadn’t been able to give it. Everything felt numb, his hands which he kept trying to tell his brain to move, his face which was frozen in fear. He was stuck.
“I tried– I tried so hard to save him and I can’t live with myself.” Even whispering the words, silent and broken and told through gasping breathes, Rodolphus felt disgusting for saming them. For trying to tell her that he tried to save Matty because he FAILED. He couldn’t save Matty, and perhaps if he did then the fact he wasn’t there wouldn’t have been as defining to his soul because Elena would have lived as well. Rodolphus didn’t want to be a murderer, and although to this point he wasn’t, Matthews blood has never left him. It was everywhere. When he was trying to take a shower, it would appear again swirling down the drain. While he was trying to sleep he could smell it in the air. While he was sitting in class, he felt it sticking to him. There was no escaping this.
“I can’t live with myself and Elena– she knows Marlene she knows I told her– I told her she can tell– you can tell an auror, I can’t live with myself– and there was never a right time to tell you because I’ve spent six years pining to have you back in my life and– Marlene please you know me–”
Everything was twisting around her, dark and shaking and incomprehensible, because Marlene didn’t get it, didn’t get why Rod looked like this, but something in her—something in the back of her mind was shaking its head, almost sadly, almost like you do, you just don’t know it yet. Before she could summon the courage to chase that thought to its conclusion, Rod was pulling away from her and it felt like a dagger lurching into her heart. She couldn’t remember that ever happening before. Not in seventeen years. It, more than anything else, shook her to her core. It was one thing to not know if she could help, and another thing entirely to feel him pulling himself from her touch, to feel the absence of him so explicitly and starkly. You can’t touch me. Her blood ran cold. Because her hands were too fit for breaking, or because he was terrified of what could happen to them? Rodolphus Lestrange was a forever story for Marlene McKinnon—what could make him look at her like she was the ending?
i’m stuck i’m stuck i’m stuck i’m stuck I’M STUCK and Marlene wanted to scream because yes, yes he was, but hadn’t that been the problem all year? Was it something suddenly insurmountable, something that he was filled to the brim with? Because she could understand that, she could hold him as he shook if that was the case because that burned within her, this sadness and fury at what he should have been allowed to be—but. But. It haunted her. But what if that wasn’t it? But what if something had changed? What, exactly, had him like this? Because she would sit down on the ground and cry with him, holding him, shaking with him, if it was just a straw that broke. But what if it was something more? Why was he looking at her like that? Like she was—she didn’t know. Salvation, maybe, or a goddess to cry for absolution from, someone to whom he owed repentance. They were opposite ends of the scale, but somehow it felt like he was casting her as both. She began to tremble. Pedestals were not made for girls like her, with spirits too wild to catch and fingers shaking too hard to hold her heart together. A goddess was something holy, whose rage quelled seas and churned fires, something to worship—and Marlene was just a whirlwind streaking recklessly through the world, desperately trying to contain her own fallout and never quite being enough.
He was talking about Rabastan. He was talking about Rabastan and she wanted to scream, or cry, or shake him, because she didn’t understand. He was talking about Rabastan and she closed her eyes, almost a prayer, because something in her was shaking with foreboding. It was me or Rabbit every time— and didn’t Marlene know, with a certainty thrumming through every inch of herself, the lengths Rodolphus Lestrange would go to in order to protect his brother? It wasn’t an answer, but it was the beginnings of one, and Marlene felt her heart swallow dread. How far would he go—how far had he gone?
“You wanted to tell me what, Rod?” she asked, voice shaking, choking on his name. She didn’t know when it had started, but she was shaking. Everything inside of her was at war. Things were starting to fall into place but the conclusion—it was too awful to think about. Everything in her heart screamed for it to not be true but the voice in her mind said look closer, the feeling in her gut more panicked. Marlene McKinnon had always lived on instinct and impulse, but never before had her instincts screamed at her BE ON GUARD, PROTECT YOURSELF at the same time that her heart was bleeding for her person before her. Rod wouldn’t hurt her, she knew in her bones, at least never physically—but her heart was much more delicate than her body, and she knew in a sudden, sickening lurch, that it was her heart that her instincts were screaming to protect. Didn’t they know she was in too deep? That she’d never had walls when it came to him? “You didn’t know what?” she demanded, except it wasn’t commanding, not like it was meant to be—it was a desperate plea, her heart begging him to say she was wrong, the rest of her tensed to hear whatever it was, because she needed the truth, even if she did not want it.
There was no real ambiguity left, Marlene knew, but she still needed him to say it. He had to say it. Because until he did, she could still be wrong. Until he did, she could hold in the hurricane threatening to burst out from her chest and lay waste to the world, or maybe just the two of them. Still, his words made her knees buckle. He’ll fucking kill me. Everything in her ran cold, even the parts that were sick with suspicion of what he was guilty of. He, as in his father, or he, as in someone worse? Her gut said the latter, and it nearly shattered her. Romulus Lestrange was a man she despised, a man she did not trust, a man whom she would believe many vile things of, but murder of his heir was not one of them, or at least, was less likely to her than the alternative. Romulus Lestrange, she thought bitterly, was more likely to threaten and torture and trick than to let go a prize such as his heir. The alternative, on the other hand... Marlene knew the whispers and murmurs, heard names linked to it of people whom she remembered disappearing into shadowy rooms with closed doors, knew what the Prophet published but understood that there would be so much more it didn’t... and more than most people in this castle, Marlene McKinnon was aware of the cost a brush with him or his followers could mean. Voldemort. The name caused her breath to hitch and her fists to clench—not because she was scared of the name, not really, but because to think it in this context was an irreversible thing. Headlines were flashing before her eyes. Matthew McKinnon—suspected involvement—Belfort—DEATH EATERS—
He was staring at her and his eyes were bloodshot and her knees were buckling. He’d told her she was doing great, at New Years, and—DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT, she screamed at herself. The memories tasted like ash on her tongue. Everything he was saying was a step short of the uncompromising, irreversible truth, but always a step closer. They were inching towards the climax, or maybe catastrophe—either way, Marlene’s whole world was shaking, one screw away from collapsing around her ears completely. He’d said she was doing great—didn’t he realise she’d built herself on him again, just like she had as a kid? Didn’t he realise that he’d helped hold her together—that with every word, more of her foundation was crumbling? She had to know, she had to—she just wasn’t sure there’d be anything left of her once she did. Maybe Marlene McKinnon was not built for permanence, but something to fall in a strike of wildfire, or blown away to the sea.
He looked scared, but Marlene was numb. Or—no, not truly, not in that she couldn’t feel anything, but that she felt too fucking much and it was crashing over her and overwhelming her and she couldn’t tell what she was feeling anymore because she was goddamn drowning in it. I TRIED I TRIED SO HARD TO SAVE HIM AND I CAN’T LIVE WITH MYSELF and suddenly she was gasping, because those words were mere millimetres off the inescapable, unsurvivable conclusion she had drawn. She felt like her world was spinning, and everything was swimming in front of her. “What?” she asked, something broken and disbelieving and full of raw pain in the whimper. She couldn’t breathe.
And then he said Elena’s name, and something inside of Marlene broke. There was no way to deny what he was saying, no way to convince her instincts they had it wrong, but she still needed him to say it. He had to say it. He owed her that. He owed Matthew that. She could feel herself hitting the floor, her knees finally buckling under the weight of everything with no foundation left to hold her up. As soon as she hit the ground, she was scrambling backwards, anything to put space between them, as if the air dividing them would make his presence on her skin and under it any less pervasive, any less real. “An Auror?” she shouted, and she could feel something hot and stinging in her eyes, though it wasn’t until she felt the warmth on her cheeks that she realised she was crying. She resisted the urge to wipe them away—let them stand, she thought, something savage and something heartbroken inside of her. Let them stay for Matthew. “An Auror, when the entire fucking Ministry—” she broke off, choking on her own sob. She couldn’t believe he’d talked to Elena. Elena. The whole time, this whole time, Elena had been losing her mind and self over her broken heart, crying and blaming herself, while Marlene was building herself on his—on his what? His murderer? The boy who watched him die? Marlene didn’t even know. He hadn’t said, not really, and everything in her was cracking too hard, everything roaring in her ears too loud.
“You have to say it,” she threw at him, literally gasping on air, tears streaming from her eyes, her words not a battlecry like she’d always hoped she could be for Matthew, but something desperate, something pleading. “You have to say it,” she repeated, even to her own ears sounding more devastated than furious. She was a hurricane of emotion and it was tearing her apart at the seams. His words were rattling through her brain and she didn’t know which to pick out, which to approach—because the six years was true, the six years was a yearning she had felt, but that wasn’t an excuse, that wasn’t a reason to let her build herself on him, knowing what he’d done—whatever he’d done. She couldn’t let herself believe he would actually hurt Matthew; she thought her heart might stop beating if so. Marlene please you know me you know me you know me YOU KNOW ME—she squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could stop the barrage of his words running in circles in her head. “Do I?” she asked in a whisper, opening her eyes and staring at him, her words stained with horror and shock and a level of heartbreak she had never known. It felt like she was reliving Matthew’s death all over again, but so much fucking worse, because she had TRUSTED Rod, she had BELIEVED IN HIM, she had BUILT HERSELF ON HIM and let herself find refuge in his soul... and he had known, the entire fucking time, while she was tearing herself apart over her little brother, whilst the Prophet was ripping into her brain with headlines screaming John Belfort’s name—he had held this inside him this whole time and had let her trust in him anyway. Let her feel—NO, she screamed savagely. That was not a thought she could finish. Not now, when she thought she might throw up.
titsay
kaledo-art
tangentwithtanner
pixelskylines
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
