bait_backup | Come rest your head, come stay with me awhile

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Come rest your head, come stay with me awhile

*Bellatrix has never been maternal--even the suggestion of such a thing would send more than a few titters around a drawing-room and she knows it. She has patted the odd child on the head, certainly--cooed a bit over Draco a handful of times--admonished older children at family gatherings who were misbehaving or loud or simply too close to her. But that is all, and all she has any desire for. So maybe it's odd that at Barty's incomprehensible, dense, very much fucking Bartyesque letter she's immediately set off for the house without so much as a pause for reflection. Perhaps it's odd that an overwhelming urgency, a sense of this is not right is thrumming in her veins and urging her to hurry, as she's always heard it does in the veins of mothers when their children are in need.

Considering her singular fondness for Barty, perhaps it isn't odd. Considering her connection to Regulus, perhaps it's anything but odd.

Either way within minutes she's dressed and ready--robes as grim and utilitarian as she owns, and for some reason she's braided her hair flat against her head as she does when doing the Dark Lord's work--like she's spoiling for a fight. For some reason her hand is wound rightly around her wand and her heart is in her throat as she straightens her cloak around her and Apparates into the ever-shifting house: a grim, black-robed apparition no less frightening for its lack of a mask.*

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*Her voices rises a full octave, immediately defensive.*

This is my house as much as it is yours--and you look like a fucking half-breed, Regulus, look at you--

Excuse me?

*Camping out is never as glamorous as it is in the heads of romantics. From the horror of woodland landscapes to two boys playing cowardly cowboys and indians with the world, tucked safely inside a manorhouse, there is always a point where it becomes depressingly clear how much a real roof over one's head - or, in Barty and Regulus' case, a house elf is needed. Regulus' subtle and stately clothes have been put to shame by wrinkles and his hair looks looser and longer than it has at any other part of his life.

Still, he's no mongrel.*

*For a moment, every trace of screechy familial squabbling and affronted gentility is gone. For a moment, it's clear why Bellatrix has learned the Dark Arts directly from the Dark Lord, why she is his favorite and his dragon and his strong right hand. Even the walls seem to cringe away from her voice.*

WHY ARE YOU HERE. WHERE IS BARTY.

*Bella's terrifying qualities have left Regulus burying his face both physically and emotionally into the skirts of his mother all his life. There are few people whose raised voices are quite as good as hers at sending shivers down spines. He does flinch now, but it's a stronger jolt than the small nervous ticks Bella has grown used to, and now he doesn't look away.

His eyes stay on her in the wake of her demands, and though the nervous shyness is unmistakeably there, there is something irritatingly difficult to put one's finger on in his stare. Certainly not confidence, but something that makes him forget to look quite so often at his shoes. Just when he's been silent long enough it seems he'll never answer, he points up toward the ceiling.*

Toilet. Follow me.

After you.

*There's altogether too much clothes and not enough water. Claw-toes shuffling under slight weight, a proud white brim rising up and circling around Barty almost protectively. Dry tile and interior plumbing have been refitted into an unlikely escape pod. A place to wait and scheme but mostly to eat. They lie curled around him, little snails of plastic and screw-caps and colours. Toothpaste. His supplies are dwindling, their distinctly flattened bellies much like Barty's own. He squeezes at yet another, running a mint-green line down his tongue before mulching his jaw around it, sucking at the taste hungrily. He's crouched over his feast like a raccoon, eyes just as large and bright and alert as they swivel excitedly at the sound of a turning knob.*

*She's taken the journey upstairs to catch hold of her temper in both hands, keep it tightly checked, and it is perhaps fortunate that she's done so. At the sight of Barty, there are no screaming or curses or demands for information. There is only the dryly reported truth.*

Barty, that's revolting.

*He smiles, big and wide with teeth just slightly green from pasty residue.*

It has double the plaque fighting action though. There's even a little diagram of germs being felled by a minty fresh army.

*She's used enough by now to the Crouch boy and his peculiar single-speaker mothertongue. Most of the time it's charming. Now, more than anything else, she is tired and irritated. Bella had come expecting a fight: Order members or the Ministry or god-knows-what closing in, anything. But instead it's two boys rumpled and dirty and starving for absolutely no good reason, and one mad toothpaste-green smile. She sighs.*

You're an absolute fucking mess, the both of you. Admit it.

*Regulus too looks over Barty's dismal dinner and feels the urge to sigh - though though with the frustration evident in Bella's exhale. He hasn't known what to say to Barty lately. He had never been very good at apologies or reassurances, and part of him still wishes Barty would be the first one to realise the error of his ways and apologise for his own risk-taking. Now though, at Bella's side, counting how many tubes of chalky cleaning product Barty has ingested, it seems pretty risky to keep him here too.*

There's still plenty of wine in the cellar... Perhaps Father would let Kreacher come for an evening, he and Mother hardly miss him sometimes, I think.

*She takes a deep, calming breath. It doesn't calm much, so she takes another, then a third. Staring into the intricately worked ceiling, then, she speaks as measuredly as she can.*

Why aren't you at home?

You haven't been--quarreling with your parents, have you?

*She knows Walburga and Orion are less than ecstatic about their son's service to the Dark Lord. That's the only way in which the little scallop is even remotely disobedient, puts even a hypothetical toe over a never-spoken-of line, and the only reason that she can fathom for the extraordinary state of him. But Barty, on the other hand?

Ah. Barty. 'Quarreling with his parents" didn't even begin to cover it.*

*His face softens for a moment. Though familial affection may not be something Regulus would think of, there is a ceaseless fidelity there that makes his heart sink to think of betraying.*

Certainly not. Has anyone said that?

Why else would you be here?

*Barty leans over until his chin meets the edge of the tub, his fingers rushing to its side, scurrying and fidgeting and drumming out a strange little tune against the porcelain. His face is bright with something uncomfortable, a childish and eerily accurate observation.*

We're here because I'm his prisoner. But then everything got too literal and now there aren't any biscuits.

*Comparatively little has been spoken between them lately, unusual considering Barty's propensity for talk and Regulus' reluctance to talk to much anyone else but him. Still Regulus finds something uncomfortable enough in this explanation to force him to edit it.

He may have had Barty stay inside every day, all the while he had been gone most days and nights - to Birmingham, to old castles to search for souls, talking to Dementors whereas Barty talked to no one but him. All the same, those things were done out of necessity, all, and the alternatives have always looked worse to Regulus.*

...No one's a prisoner, that's silly to say. It's better here than the cities now, that's all.

However I suppose we have run out of some things.

Unless Dementors stole all the cities in Britain and kicked everyone out while we were gone, I wouldn't say it's really better.

*She will not shout. She will not shout. She will not shout.*

You're coming to Edred's Hythe. Both of you. Now. Get your things.

What?

*Pinched and head cocked, Regulus looks more like an insect than a human, and certainly not one that can understand what normal people would accept as explanation.*

We can't leave, it's safe here.

From what.

...From the war.

*There's a stilted pause in his words, as though he has just said something ridiculously childlike instead of reasonable. It may be true, the countryside may indeed be safer in times of war, but from his pale lips he could have said 'bad guys' and sounded more legitimate.*

*She may have her own funny turns from time to time, but the boy is not right in the head and that is the only explanation for any of this. All the more reason to get him out of here as quickly as possible, and not to slap him across his stupid face or hex him to pieces as she'd very much like to do.

Bellatrix blinks altogether too many times, and then speaks slowly, soothingly, as if to an extraordinarily stupid child.*

Rodolphus and I will be there. Don't be silly.

...Barty, please climb out of the bathtub. I'm sure we can arrange a proper dinner at Edred's Hythe so you can leave the, ah--

*Barty, even 'entubbed' and frothy with rabid minty freshness, is his, and his hands float nervously upward looking for somewhere to rest or hold on to as Bella attempts to change that. His words are mostly drowned out by hers, but what he lacks in authority he makes up for in the surge of anxiety filling the room. If he were really a man, perhaps he'd close the bathroom door at least, instead he dithers and whisperingly raves.*

*There's a particular texture to Regulus' voice, a feeling that touches the finger tips. It's that waxy, frail impression of Oldness, all the wavering paper-like quality of 90-year-old skin, broken down and vocalized through an ancient record player. Barty hears every word. He hoists himself over the side of the tub.*

I know loads of things, but I know what I know more than what I don't and I'm better for it. If I only knew what I didn't I wouldn't even know YOU - because whose to say you aren't someone else. You'd be easy to fake.

*There's a soft clink of plastic on porcelain as Regulus' flighty hands land on Barty's toothbrush on the edge of the sink. He holds it against his wrinkled robes as though it's a talisman, binding Barty to stay wherever it is.

There's a scary, tickling part of his mind that ponders if there could be any truth in what Barty said, if he could be acted out and replicated and not know. It's happened to Barty, after all, his very body and mind stolen away for a test run by some unknown monster. But then something more stable tells him perhaps there is something else he ought to be focus on for now. So it is Bella he questions, and leaves a new-found paranoia alone.*

Our parents don't know you're here, do they, Bella?

*Her nose wrinkles immediately, and her fine-boned face twists.*

Your parents? Of course not. I've only just Floo'd here and anyway, those doddering idiots don't understand a thing about--

*But immediately, she bites it down. It is stressful, she is learning, to be the sanest and most responsible person in the room. It's an unfamiliar sensation, and Bellatrix wishes briefly and fervently that she had thought to bring Rodolphus along. He'd know the right things to say--he'd have fixed everything already--in fact, he'd have never gotten into this mess in the first place.

A little awkwardly, she reaches out a many-ringed and manicured hand to the sleeve of Regulus' jacket.*

--and you know how many wards Reginald put on the townhouse, Regulus, don't you? And the cursed door that snaps shut on you if you aren't you who say you are? And Roddy won't let anything in, he's much too clever, and he'll look after you--

*For all his worries, Regulus always has been convincible whenever one bothered to appeal to him. His face smooths now, letting go of some of it's tension as he watches the floor and considers these new factors. He doesn't even reject being touched as he usually does, because as long as Barty's father can't find him, what would really be the harm.*

I do suppose there are some securities the city has to offer.

*She could almost cry in relief. Or throw him over her own spindly shoulder and chuck him headfirst into the Floo. She speaks quickly to press her advantage, and gives a little tug on Reg's jacket sleeve.*

Then it's settled. Wonderful. You and Barty will stay for as long as you like, Twinky will have your room made up, Barty, you know, the one with the guillotined windows--

*It's momentary. Barty's face bursting and flashing like a lighthouse, in beats and pauses and frenzied fractions. There's something about it that's almost cartoonishly ear-to-ear and forehead-to-chin. The sort of smile that can warp a face entirely. And then he's there, just as momentary, just as sudden, Reg's other sleeve firmly in his grasp. He answers his unspoken duty with a very excited question.*

The haunted one?

Precisely that one.

We'll Floo.

*Like a child on one of those horrible muggle people-leashes, Regulus is spirited, arm-first, out of the bathroom and down the hallway they came. He still has Barty's toothbrush held against his chest when he's brought before the hearth.*

My things, I haven't packed...

You owe me exactly one kidnap. I didn't pack for it either.

*Not long ago, Regulus had screamed at him about the necessity of their escape. But, now that Barty is smiling again about something, he just looks a little abashed. He doesn't, however, return his toothbrush to him.*

4 Edred's Hythe.

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Come rest your head, come stay with me awhile

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