I had so much fun today, and I'm on fire

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*It’s early Thursday afternoon, lovely and sunny, and Diagon Alley is almost empty. That’s one consequence of not only the war but Crouch’s curfews and posters and floating eyeballs and the rest of it--the increasing insanity of a man leading the country like a drunken Ahab at the tiller in a storm. No one’s talking about it, and the Prophet is predictably silent, but the empty alley is telling enough. Witches and wizards are staying home regardless of curfew, and the empty shops (half of them shuttered) are a clear enough indictment of Crouch’s policies as any.

But Bellatrix has been terribly virtuous today and done her part to shore up the economy. Gloves at Twilfits, a lacy little thing or two for Roddy, a new series of quills, invitations printed for the upcoming weekend affair at Lestrange Manor, and more, she can’t even remember what she’s bought. But she’s done now, her purchases materialized at home in their glossy wrappings to be cooed over later, and she hasn’t followed them quite yet. She’s enjoying the quiet, the way her heels on the cobblestones actually echo off the shop windows. It’s fascinating.

But then she catches sight of a familiar face--her heartbeat first quickens, then drops, low, low, lower, she’s gloriously calm, now, a slow smile spreading across her face. Sirius Black is sitting at a little table outside the Blue Beetle, engrossed in a book. There’s no one that matters around to see them and she’s still so tickled about her little gift, her little errand of the other night, that there isn’t even a moment of deliberation. Before she even knows what she’s doing her high-heeled boots have carried her right over and she’s sitting across from him, peremptorily and very prettily, with a wide and toothy smile that outshines even the Lestrange jewels at her ears and throat.*

Woof.

Comments

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*How is it possible, Sirius is wondering, to skate through school without a care, breeze through Auror training, and then suddenly have all that easy talent come to a screeching halt and be forced to take up studying? But that's what has happened. He has to give Peter some credit; Arithmancy is beastly difficult and the wards he's looking into are increasingly complex. But the Auror office has taken to relying on him for wardbreaking, and now that it's a specialty he has to stay current and keep getting better. He could have been a curse-breaker or an obliviator or even played the market and turned into a moderately affluent layabout, but no: some fit of nobility, and the desire to stick with James, had put him at the Auror office. And now he's a bookworm. He can sense the horror at these bald facts bubbling up inside what's left of his sixteen-year-old self, but there it is.

It's better than thinking about Gideon and Fabian, anyway.

He's so engrossed in this loop of self-pity and grief that he doesn't even notice until Bellatrix is there and, just like that, it's all swept away. His first thought is, Oh, not now, but his second is firmer, more decisive--No, I can use this. Last time they talked, she let things slip. Last time they talked, it led to tricking her. It can happen again.*

I don't have any treats for you. Shoo.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*A waiter’s already bringing her a tiny golden cup of thick sugared coffee the consistency of mud--he knows her on sight, as does every shopkeeper in the country. She doesn’t look away from Sirius, doesn’t blink, just raises it to her lips.*

I’m so sorry for your loss.

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*And there it is, in a flood. It only shows on his face for a split second, but that's more than enough for Bellatrix to see it, and now he can't just shrug it off. But he's not going to give her anything to work with, and he doesn't trust his voice, so he just closes his book, puts it in his bag, and takes a sip of his own tea.*

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*Bellatrix takes a moment to enjoy it, that little flash of pain and grief on his face. It's exquisite. She speaks softly, a mad little glimmer in her eyes.*

Closed caskets, I hear. Pity.

You're so wonderfully brave, to be an Auror.

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*He's mastered it now, at least, but the damage is done.*

How nice of you to take an interest. You must be so brave to even read the paper these days, you being just a sheltered little housewife and all. You must tell me what you use on your hands, my girlfriend hates getting dishpan hands and you barely have them at all.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*A complimentary pastry has appeared and she toys with it disinterestedly.*

You're looking well. Considering.

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

Must be all the muggleborn girls I'm sleeping with. Gives a healthy glow, I'm told.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

Has it rotted off yet, or not quite?

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

Oh, hanging by a thread. Lost a tooth the other day, too.

*But this is fruitless; he has to get her angry and make her careless. This silly sparring accomplishes nothing.*

How's Reg doing? I assume you must know. You seem awfully alive and well for him to be doing poorly.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*She's been tearing the pastry into tiny pieces and tossing them carelessly to the pigeons near their table, but now she stops, a bejeweled hand tightening around the little scrap of pastry.*

Worried sick actually. Thinks there’s a Grim after him and his papers.

*And she fixes him with a glare, opaque and murderous.*

He’s a fool in more ways than one.

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*Sirius shrugs, smug and careless.*

His foolishness is your problem, not mine.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*She leans forward, dropping her voice to an angry little hiss of a whisper.*

It'll be your problem too one of these days.

Did you bewitch the dog? Imperio? Don’t tell me you’re an Animagus, you don’t have the fucking patience--whatever you did I’ll find out but I know it was you--

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*His voice is childish and singsong.*

I'm not tell-ing.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

Fuck you Sirius--I'll wipe out every dog on the moors and in this fucking country if that's what it takes, you just try that again and see what happens--

*With some difficulty, Bellatrix stops and rather furiously gets herself together. When she speaks again it's slowly, in an entirely different tone.*

Did they turn the chair, by the way? I do love it when they turn the chair--

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*It's proof. That's all there is to it. It's proof. Even most of the Auror office didn't know, didn't want to see how the Prewett twins ended up, but Sirius made himself look. The chair, the little diorama, there was no way they died that way, there was someone else there and of course it was her, it reeks of her doing, and there's proof, right there, practically a confession, and he's done playing.

He stands and takes out his wand.*

Fuck you, Bellatrix, I'm placing you under arrest for the murders of Gideon and Fabian Prewett--

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*Watching him stand, she lets out a bray of shocked and unladylike laughter.*

You can't be serious--

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*He bowls right over her. Short of the cursing, it's by the book: his pair of cuffs appears and he snatches her wrist up and snaps one manacle around her wrist before she can get away.*

--under the authority of the Ministry for Magic and the Auror office. If you resist arrest, that's additional charges.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*Obligingly, she stands. A voice in her head that sounds very much like her mother's informs her crisply that she can't hiss and spit and kick no matter how much she'd like to, she's in public, and any of all of this will go in the Prophet even if Roddy will get her out in a quarter of an hour, she's got to behave--

But she can't seem to stop laughing.*

What do you honestly think this will prove, you look like a madman--

*And an imperious little tilt of her head to the wide-eyed waiter, even as Sirius is cuffing her wrists.*

Charge it to my vault--yes, all of it--

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

No, no--

*With his hand that's not hanging onto her to prevent her disapparating, he fishes in his pocket for a Galleon. He knows he's overpaying for the tea and he doesn't care, but if this is going to work at all it has to be as clean as he can make it. His tea is his, dammit. And then, when they get in--if Alice is on duty--she cracked that other man, maybe she can crack Bella--and the rote words are pouring out of his mouth.*

You don't have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don't mention when questioned something which you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. I'll side-along you in myself, if that's all right with you.

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

Oh by all means. Do.

You're fucking hilarious, Sirius, you are just too much.

*She doesn't crane her neck to talk behind her--her voice has always been the carrying sort on its own.*

I think this childhood grudge has gone a little far, don't you? I mean I'm as sorry as the next person that Mummy didn't kiss you enough but there's no need to take it out on me--

[fleasaremurder.livejournal.com]

*There's a retort on the tip of his tongue that says far, far too much about himself and his mother than he wants to show to Bellatrix, so instead he does the only thing that will shut her up: he clicks the other manacle around her wrist, not even bothering to pull them around her back, and Disapparates, Death Eater in tow.*

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*Bellatrix has never been arrested before, nor seen the inside of the DMLE.

It's common.

The man from the Prophet, though, looks like Christmas has come early. It seems within seconds there's Apparating colleagues and purple smoke and blinding flashbulbs everywhere. Bellatrix does her very best to look photogenic and, truth be told, is rather enjoying the attention, the considerable Drama of what is happening---and, of course, reassuring herself over and over that there is no proof and this is only a lark and that Roddy will be there any second and that Sirius will be mucking out thestral stalls for the rest of his life if she has even a bit of influence.

It's because of such thoughts that she manages not to snap at anyone, to stay jovial and droll with razor-sharp posture and a thoroughly regal bearing. The photographs, Bellatrix is quite sure, will turn out excellent, and as she's led into another room--very dismal, very common--she hopes that Twinky will have the foresight to have a bath drawn for her when she gets home, and perhaps some very good champagne.*

[gummymummy.livejournal.com]

*Alice had been walking out of the filing room next to the interrogation corridor when she saw them. Everyone knows Bellatrix Lestrange, whether from her family or the high class pages, everyone knows. To see Sirius dragging in his own cousin, a confirmed Society Death Eater, was more than a little jarring.

He didn't have to ask her to follow, natural curiosity made Alice follow anyway. And when Sirius came out and told her what she said, and that in few minutes she would probably be bailed, Alice knew the decision had to be made immediately. Only two things were truly stopping her, even though she knew that number should be much greater: Frank and Andromeda. But there was no time to find Frank or to discuss the finer points of her the conflicts of interest, the least of which was her relationship with Bellatrix's sister.

This work ethic is never what Gideon and Fabian wanted, but the office has already changed without them. Every Auror wants to get the people who got their own. More blind and angry than could ever be professional, Alice walks into the room, sits down, and waits for Bellatrix to make the first move.*

[fatalfrenzy.livejournal.com]

*Bellatrix has been looking around at the shabby walls with the mildly curious expression of a woman in a museum. She couldn't look more out of place here, with the harsh light glinting off her jewelry and rich robes, but she sits prettily, almost enthroned in the rickety chair, and looks up at the Auror without much change in expression.*

And you are?

[gummymummy.livejournal.com]

*For all the information Alice has on Bellatrix, there's nothing quite like seeing her. Her completely detached demeanor is unsettling, and Alice feels she has to match it. Tucking her hair back, she moves from sitting across from Bellatrix to be closer to her in the seat at the end of the table.*

Alice Longbottom.

*For a moment, she considers her conflicts, but the words "Hello Alice" flash through her mind and suddenly she starts her set up.*

You look so familiar, forgive me, you are...?