You're beautiful, that's for sure, you'll never, ever fade

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*The wars Barty fought when he was seven, as it happens, were a great deal more exciting than the war he's fighting right now. When he was seven, months and years would pass in the space of a single afternoon. There was never a time for rest or thought - every second was a struggle for survival and every minute was an opportunity to throw rocks at girls. It was a world where the rules were dictated less by politics and more by Barty's passing fancies and perhaps dubious grasp on the concept of battle itself, considering how often the tube slide became the twisted, hardened oesophagus of a man-eating giraffe.

There are no oesophagus' to hack his way out of now, no more monkey bar watchtowers or unseen crawl spaces under the ramps. War is no longer continuous action, it's no longer one solid stretch of movement and yelling and laughter. It's not even a sequence any more. It's broken and complicated, a mess of non-action mixed in with small doses of too much. There's also failure. The times when he's split open, the times when he's not even believed and, worst of all, the times when he has to wait.

Waiting is what he's engaged in now. Sitting in the field, under his cloak and mask and a disillusionment charm. It's a nice house. Stately. There are columns by the doorway, and columns always exude instant class. A house with columns means you've made it, as far as Barty's concerned. He's correct of course, the inhabitants, behind their columns and their fancy tall steps and fancy tall door certainly have made it - right into Voldemort's cross-hairs. The wife is a Ministry official, some tired, lined face in a sea of other tired, lined faces. Barty's likely met her before and it's even more likely that he forgot her directly afterwards. He could handle her himself, he's sure. The only thing stopping him from walking across that field is the promise of a companion in tonight's precious revelries.

Bellatrix is a fascination Barty has yet to get over, much like dark matter or the Voynich Manuscript, she's strange and beautiful and distant, a wholly different shape and texture from the others. She's faithful and for that Barty respects her, is frightened of her, is attracted to her - but mostly he is filled with a desperate need to impress.

He picks at the grass listlessly, waiting for the familiar crack of apparation.*

Comments

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*With any of the others, Bellatrix would take her sweet time arriving. The only two people she cares to be punctual for are Lucius, if only for the purpose of upstaging him, and the Dark Lord. The rest can afford to wait for her, as far as she's concerned, especially the younger ones, who spend far too much time drinking and fucking and laughing at Severus's expense.

She feels rather differently about Barty. A truly creative soul such as his comes along once in a lifetime. She recalls a spell that he used at the ICW that turned the enemy's bones into gelatin. Flavoured gelatin.

The boy is brilliant, obviously.

With this in mind, she Apparates into the godforsaken field, hoping that Barty had the good sense to pick an entertaining target. She's dressed to kill, as usual, exposing far more skin than most would consider appropriate for physical activity. Her face is hidden behind her mask, but her cleavage is ample, and the tears in her robes expose a great expanse of leg. She looks quite the sight, a sexy woman with the blank, white face of a killing machine. She smiles beneath the mask as she glances about the field.

Barty is disillusioned, no doubt.*

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Barty pops up like a daisy, on his feet the moment Bellatrix appears. The charm fades slowly now, his contours burgeoning against the grass, filling themselves in with colour and form until his mask materializes eerily before her, Barty's saucer-like eyes smiling behind its holes. There's no need for stealthiness now - if their targets were to look out the window and see them, it would already be far too late.

His silence is forced, his humbleness barely observed, he itches to tell her everything - to tell her of Snape, to spread the word to perhaps the one person who will believe him, but he doesn't, not yet - she's a dangerous person to annoy. He nods to her, and then to her exposed assets, welcoming them both.*

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*She nods back, ignoring the unpleasant way that the heels of her shoes sink into the soft dirt of the field. The house in the distance is, for lack of a better word, splendid, one of those settings that is far more fun to play in than some dirty Muggle hovel. She nods in its direction, too.*

How many inside?

*This is perhaps the least important question Bellatrix could have asked, but the other things she has to say to Barty, the questions about Regulus, are best left for after they've had a bit of fun.

And fun they will have, she's certain. Barty's posture reeks of eagerness, a true honest love for murder that they share and that puts her completely at ease.*

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

Three. Two are married and older with an untold amount of cats, the third a niece, late-twenties, she's only visiting.

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

Let's make the niece wish she'd chosen a different weekend, shall we? I've been waiting for fun like this for far too long.

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Barty is suddenly gripped by a desire to be fun - stronger than the usual urge for playfulness that mark his exploits. He wants to be the definition of fun, the epitome of fun, an anthropomorphic personification of that strange tickle roller coasters and sharp drops incite in the gut. While his mind is busy following this tangent, his mouth fills in the space, first with an affirming laugh and then with words, which tumble out in an over-keen pile.*

I've done doors before, a chimney once, apparation most of the time. But what I really think is missing are windows. Today should be a day for windows. - I even know which is hers. I've been watching.

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*He's so much like a puppy for a moment that Bellatrix smiles, but it's the image that her mind supplies of Barty, streaked with soot and grinning, emerging from the fireplace like some demonic Father Christmas that starts her laughing. Once she starts she cannot stop, torn between the hilarity of the image and the wonderful realization that it's probably not far from reality.*

Today is absolutely a day for windows. Shall we blast the panes to pieces, or unlock one and creep through?

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Barty laughs too, despite the fact he isn't quite privy to the joke.*

Or perhaps we'll turn it soft like mashed potatoes and step through it as though it's not even there.

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

Sounds splendid!

*She gestures to the house, which, though currently still and silent beneath the stars, is on the brink of chaos without even knowing it.*

You know the window; you lead the way!

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Her name isn't important. The reason she's come to stay hardly matters. Her position on the current political climate is irrelevant. Her favourite musicians, the foods she likes, the subjects she excelled in, her hobbies or her lovers - these are all facts that will not be remembered past tonight. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, the only significant detail about her is that she isn't sleeping. Instead, she sits in her bed, stroking her leg absently with the wrong end of a make-up brush and biting her lip. Her room is dark, the only light streams through the shafts of the blinds, so dim that it's barely even ambient.

She can't shake the feeling of being watched. She'd peeked out before, of course, feeling paranoid, feeling silly - and fittingly seen nothing more exciting than the empty expanse of field. That niggling sense, her churning intuition, however, hasn't been sated. The brush plops onto her pillow and she slips to her feet - just once more. Pushing up a shaft with her finger, she peers out, seeing nothing but a faceless palette of white.*

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*Bellatrix has never understood why people look. Whether it be the noise in the closet or the creak beneath the bed, no one ever has the sense to simply run away. They open the closet with quivering hands and peek inside, or lean over the edge of the bed with their hair flopping wildly to make sure that nothing is there. And, of course, on most occasions they see nothing, and laugh at their own foolishness, and lay back down in bed and go to sleep. But once in a lifetime, Bellatrix is the noise or the creak or the bang downstairs, and anyone stupid enough to take the time to look is as good as dead.

She doesn't get a good look at the girl when the shaft moves, but she doesn't particularly care. Her appearance doesn't matter a wit, but Bellatrix drinks in the frightened squeak she gives as she stumbles away from the window.*

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*Almost as though the girl's inquiring finger had been the only thing supporting it, without her, the blinds unhook themselves from the window frame and clatter down like a falling rope-ladder, like some final means of protection cut loose.

Barty stands beside Bella, mask inches from the window pane - and masks, indeed, are the only thing visible. Featureless, disembodied heads, they bob about in the darkness, wavering for a moment as the glass ripples in an unnatural and vaguely gelatinous manner. Barty walks through it easily, leaning in head-first and worrying about his other limbs as they come.*

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*Bellatrix follows without hesitation, wondering fleetingly whether Barty suffered some incident with gelatin as a child that has left the substance so prevalent in his spell-work. She gives little more thought to the idea, though, because the girl's hands are now choosing the least opportune time to fumble with the doorknob. She probably opens doors twenty, thirty times a day, and all of the sudden, when it matters most, she just can't. Bellatrix sneers.*

Levicorpus.

*The girl squeaks again as she flies into the air, suspended before the intruders in a heartbeat. Her nightgown, which is frayed around the hem and collar, starts to slip down, and her flailing arms are incapable of holding it in place.*

[mad-actually.livejournal.com]

*There was in fact an incident with gelatin, involving a spurt of accidental magic, a broken tricycle and a very unfortunate muggle boy. However, the niece, in her upturned nightie and exposed knickers, does not have quite such a squishy fate in store.

Starting with the fraying ends, the dress begins to unwind, unravel and expand, until each loose end is only held aloft by magic. It's then that the net of threads undulates back towards the girl's wiggling form, nuzzling through the pores of her skin, weaving and stitching itself into her body and through her flesh.*

[ruined-siren.livejournal.com]

*There is something oddly inciting about watching the threads weave inside the girl's body, adding to the already pink, puffy, positively chubby vision that is her skin. The anguished squeals that she is making only make her appear more pig-like.

Pig-like. The girl's mouth and nose are, abruptly, transfigured into a pig's snout, and the surprised gasp that she makes comes out a snort, and she snorts again, louder, when Bellatrix mumbles a spell.

The threads — just the threads — light on fire, sizzling and crackling violently beneath her skin as the girl squeals like a dying pig.*

Smells like bacon.