bait_backup | 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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*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.

Come rest your head, come stay with me awhile

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