Fight me
"I knew you were a fool, Narcissa, I just didn't know how big of a fool you were!" he screamed, incredulous.
"Please, Rodolphus. You have to understand, you must-"
"I don't have to do anything!" he yelled. Her imploring eyes disgusted him and he stalked over to refill his glass with more alcohol. What she was suggesting, what she was even daring to think... How could she make him complicit in her actions?
"No, Narcissa. You listen, you understand. I will not do this, I will not help you - I refuse," he said coldly, tossing the whiskey down his throat and letting the burn satisfy him as he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Rodolphus, please, please," she begged him. He should have rejoiced in this, having Narcissa Malfoy at his feet. But this was too much, this was too much entirely. She had no right. "You have to, you're the only one I trust. You are my brother."
That was the last thing he needed to hear and he whirled, sending his glass crashing to the floor with a violent movement of his hand. The sound made her jump and she started shaking slightly as he advanced on her.
"Have you lost your mind, woman?" he said through gritted teeth. "You would turn your back on your entire family? Throw away everything you cherish just for this?" He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, his other hand clenching at his side.
"I... I love him," she begged. He should have rejoiced at this, having Narcissa Malfoy on her knees, begging him. But he does not, even he is not that cruel, to find pleasure in the pain of loving one she is not supposed to love.
"It's not enough," he growls, "You can't- It isn't-" He cuts himself off, exhaling sharply and he pulls both hands over his face, exasperated.
"Don't tell me it isn't enough!" she yells, her voice too high and too shrill and when he looks at her, he realises why. She's crying, tears pouring down her cheeks and it makes his heart clench in his chest to be the cause of it.
"It isn't, Cissy, and you know it," he says savagely. "You would abandon your entire family for him? They would label you a traitor, it doesn't matter what his blood is. You married Lucius, not him!" She lets out a sob and he almost regrets his words, but she needs to hear them. She needs to hear them, she needs to rid her mind of these ridiculous notions. How dare she ask him of this, how could she ask him to betray her family for this?
"You have to help me, Roddie. You're the only one I can trust, the only one who I can turn to," she whispers through her tears. "I... I don't know what to do." And he wants to be angry, he wants so badly to be furious at her, to rage at her. But seeing her like this, broken by everything she feels for this man, for both men, makes it too hard to find anger.
His arms widen, in spite of everything he knows as he turns towards her and she flings herself at him, arms wrapping tightly around his chest. She buries her face in his shoulder and her entire frame shakes against him. He rests his chin on her head, hand coming up to stroke her silvery locks. They are soft, so soft, and it is her hair, he thinks, that makes her so perfect with Malfoy. That, and her eyes. They are perfection, together. Cold, beautiful and powerful, they would rule the pureblood elitist circle but it is not that simple for Narcissa, he knows.
He mutters soothing sounds into her hair, feeling his shirt begin to grow wet with her tears and he lets her hold onto him for as long as she needs to.
"You can't do this, Cissy," he whispers at last. "You can't, and I can't help you." He wishes there is something, anything he could, to make her pain go away. But it is a path she must travel alone - one of acceptance, and of loss. But he knows the aching she feels in her heart all too well, and he wraps his own arms around her tighter, enveloping her in what little comfort he can offer.
If they had known that love could be like this, as powerful in its sorrow as it was in its happiness, they might never have loved so much. But love is never a choice, it only happens. For them, for the ones they love but can't have, it could never be.
"Please, Roddie," she breathes, "Tell me what to do, tell me how to make it stop hurting." He would build a wall of ice around her if he could, so nothing would ever touch her again, but that is not how people are meant to live. And they have both been lucky enough to find love not once, but twice. It is something they have marvelled at, something that they have delighted in, but now, there is only heartbreak and tears.
"I can't do that either. You have to make the choice for yourself," he says quietly. "Who do you love more?" It is a cruel, cruel question he asks, and he knows there is no answer to it even before he asks. He cannot protect her anymore from the decision she faces.
"That's a stupid question," she replies. "But what if he needs me more?" And he knows who she is talking about, without even needing her to say it. He closes his eyes for a moment, stills his hand and breaks apart from her. His fingers move to lift her chin so she is looking straight into his eyes. Her eyes are blurred, the azure colour they usually are dimmed.
"They both do. They both will. This is war, Cissy," he says softly. She shakes her head slightly, a sob falling from her lips.
"Shhh. Listen to me. Listen to me." She stares up at him with an innocence he hasn't seen in years. "You are not going to leave Lucius. That choice was made for you already when you married him." He moves his thumbs over her cheeks to brush away her tears.
"Remember how beautiful you looked?" A ghost of smile appears on her lips and he goes on, "Lucius is your husband. You are a Malfoy now. That is a name you wear with pride."
She bites her lip and her eyes turn glassy with tears waiting to be shed. "But what if... what if I made the wrong choice?" she says, so softly he strains to hear her. He knows her pain and uncertainty like his own.
"You didn't. You made the right one," he says firmly. "Would you really have abandoned your family, your parents, Bellatrix, even me, for him?"
The look in her eyes tells him everything. "Yes." It is a look of love so powerful it could surpass anything, but it cannot win a war, and the wife of Lucius Malfoy, lieutenant of the Dark Lord, cannot entertain thoughts like that.
He wishes suddenly, that he could hate Antonin. He wishes that he could hate his cousin for doing this to Narcissa, for making her feel so much for him, for making her feel enough to turn her back on her own family. But he can't, because he knows that Antonin loves her as deeply as she loves him, if not more. He knows that Antonin would do anything for Narcissa. Antonin is loyal to the cause, but Rodolphus thinks he would sacrifice it all for her, if she asked him to. But she is bound to Lucius by marriage, Lucius has always been the one she would one day marry.
"I'm sorry, Cissy," he whispers. Antonin was her choice, her choice to love and be with. He knows the freedom of love, knows the danger of too much freedom. If they had known that love like this could cause as much sorrow as happiness they might never have loved so much and so freely. But real love is never a choice.
"You don't... you don't have to stop loving him." He never stopped loving her, after all. To tell her anything else would be hypocrisy.
"But you can't think things like this anymore. It's too dangerous. You have to be strong," he cups her face in his hands. "Be strong, Narcissa." And he realises he's not just talking to her.
"You can love both of them but Lucius is the one you married." Just as Bellatrix is the one he married. He has never stopped thinking about her though, and she appears in his dreams, haunting them by night and plaguing his thoughts by day. He wonders where is and how she is and if she still thinks of him, if she still loves him (as much as he loves her). He has pictured in his mind their entire future if he hadn't been born who he was and if he could have chosen to be with her. He has seen it all and imagined it all and in the end it only brought more pain.
"Promise me, Cissy. Promise me you won't think of this anymore," he says firmly. She casts her eyes downwards, and he forces her to look up.
"I... I promise." Rodolphus knows she will probably never stop thinking of Antonin either.
"Good," he says softly, affectionately. He bends down to press a kiss into her hair. "Now, if you plan on waking me again at the three in the morning with a sob story about your love life, I'm expecting breakfast."
She laughs, a bright, tinkling sound of laughter, and it surprises him, that she can so soon after crying.
He smiles in reply, brushing a curl of silver hair behind her ear, "You blind-hearted fool, Cissy."
They are both blind-hearted fools. There is a reason she came to him, of all people, after all. They are fighters, and lovers, and they are trapped between loving two people. One, whom they have married. Those are their soulmates, and they complete them and make them whole. She, with her white king and he with his black queen. But the other love, the one that they never chose but wouldn't give anything change either.
That is a love that could never be, not in their lifetimes. It is a love of heartbreak and tears and all that remains are the treasured secrets of the past.
Yet they will think of them all the time, and dream of what could have been, and mourn of what it would never be. It is pain that divides their hearts and their souls and makes them wish they had never known love at all. But Rodolphus knows both he and Narcissa would not take back anything.
All is fair and love in war but they never sing songs about those that die of heartbreak.