18 Rules for Not Getting Caught || Rabastan & Kingsley, 1976
Rabastan was starting to panic. The drugs he’d taken would have kept him calm enough to get through the crowd if it had taken just a couple of minutes, but it was being drawn out and he was more than acutely aware of the throngs of people pressing in on every side. They brushed past him and against him and he jumped more violently every time, trying to get away. He felt nausea pushing bile up his throat, and it was all he could do to swallow it. He’d have given anything to take more of his pills or hell, just shoot something directly in to his bloodstream to calm the frantic pounding of his heart, but he couldn’t, not where the man in front of him could see. The crowd wouldn’t pay him any mind - they never did - but something looking directly at him would be a problem.
He nodded in response to the bow, inclining his head in return. He had grown unaccustomed to the various nonsense pureblood society had pounded in to his head when he was a child - his brother never insisted he follow all the rules of propriety, especially considering he was unfit for the mass populations of such gatherings for long. It was easier for him to stay something of a silent figure at his brother’s elbow until he found an opening in which to slip away. He wished desperately for Rodolphus now - or anyone who could get him out of this, but he was on his own and that didn’t help make matters better.
It was better to be standing against the window of one of the shops where fewer people were bound to go, but there were still so many of them and there was only a foot or two of distance between himself and whoever the other man was. He was wracking his brain, but the drugs made it swim and his anxiety made it falter. It wasn’t a good combination. He nodded and inclined his head again when Kingsley’s name was supplied, the red flag that had been going off in his brain now wholly justified. “Oh yes, that’s right. You were with my brother in school, I believe.” They were the same age anyway, though that didn’t mean they really knew each other. Still, it was something to say.
He wiped his sweaty palms absently on his trousers before shoving his hands back in his pockets. He had a blade folded in one of them and ran his thumb along the handle, feeling a little calmer for touching it. The question was a distraction, but not enough of one. “Oh… meeting a friend,” he said vaguely. It was close enough, though the wizard he’d sold drugs to was barely more than an acquaintance. “You had uh… plenty to do, I take it?” He nodded to the many bags in his hands. He tried to calm his breathing, but he needed to get out of this crowd, and soon. “If you’ve more to do, I should hate to keep you.”
Kingsley nodded slowly in affirmation, voice brimmed with concern. “Yes, that’s right. I was with Rodolphus in school.” He tried to tamp down a little harder on his Auror radar that was buzzing right under the swell of his skull, nipping uncomfortably in the hollows underneath his ears. The man in front of him was still shifty, and if Kingsley didn’t know any better manners he’d follow the lead up, but as it was the Lestranges were a powerful family and he had nothing concrete to prove, well, anything.
“I have had much to do, unfortunately,” Kingsley agreed with a gracious dip of his head and a polite smile in his tone. “In my own shortsightedness I have put off shopping for many days and I am reduced to my own, shall I say, pack mule.” His arms creaked in protest but he lifted a conglomeration of bags with a wry grin to follow, inviting the other in on the small joke. But Rabastan seemed to be no better than at the start of the interaction, and it would be stretching the bounds of the silly little dance purebloods had to play to extend the conversation much further.
Bowing just the right amount, Kingsley let his eyes dart out over the crowd in a seeming search for an escape route back into the river of people. If Rabastan was made uncomfortable by his presence, it would be in their best interests, both, to take his leave. “I fear you're right-- It was a pleasure speaking to you, Rabastan, but I have to find a way to floo home with my extra bulk.” He looked back down to catch the other’s eye to properly end the conversation. “I send my best wishes to your brother, of course.”










