Silence like a cancer grows

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*In the morning, Kreacher had woken Regulus from a fragile sleep. The creak of the door and the tap of hanger on wood as he hung Barty's cleaned and pressed clothes on the back of a chair had been enough to make Regulus prop himself up on his elbow and begin a day of waiting. He's long since stowed the black funeral suit away into the closet, where Barty cannot see it, but it's a wasted effort. Barty had already been awake before Kreacher had come in and opened the blinds, but he's yet to make a single move or single sound to recognise Regulus' presence, or the suits. Still, Regulus locks it away. He likes to think he'll say something sooner if he doesn't have to look at what he wore to bury his mother.

Barty looks small and strange, almost like an imposter tucked neatly under the blankets in one of Grimmauld Place's many spare rooms - his spare room, set aside and always made up just for him. Though he stares toward the window, he doesn't seem to be seeing anything, let alone noticing or caring about Regulus' valiant hiding attempts. To Regulus, his eyes are dull and so unlike him, more grey than their usual invigorating blue and not afraid to stare into the cool daylight. He doesn't even squint, merely looks as though the last thing he had really truly looked at was Bernadette's monument, like he can't bare to look away even after Regulus has led him home and gotten him a night's rest. He blinks still, sometimes he almost sighs, but his silence is so perverse it makes Regulus think he looks cursed, trapped inside a frozen body too full or too empty to notice the surroundings anymore. It frightens him, but he stays with him, never leaving the room once.

He watches him all through the morning and well into the afternoon, and only gives up trying to get him to eat after over an hours' quiet persuasion that gets nowhere and no response. At nine he holds a glass to his lips, but he doesn't drink. At noon he props him up with pillows, but he still looks straight through Regulus as though he's a ghost. At three Regulus begins to wonder what he will do when Barty needs to use the toilet or the shower. At five Regulus shakes him, just a bit, just to see if he'll tell him to stop. At seven, Kreacher brings them both dinner, and at eight neither plate has been touched.

Lamps are lit, Barty still only breathes, his chest heavy and his cheeks pale. When a feathery knock comes on the door, he only hopes it's Bernadette's ghost, because a terrified lump has been in his throat since the morning. He doesn't know how to replace a mother, only how to weather a silence.*

Comments

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*Walburga slips inside without waiting for a reply. Kreacher has reported back dutifully, of course, and she knows more or less what has passed in this room--and what hasn't--and she wears a much softer expression than usual. Walburga has never had much in the way of motherly skill, being herself protected and cared-for like one might a child or a particularly rare orchid, and had only the most distant of relations with her own children--or, now, child. When she thinks anything of him at all other than vague, pleased pride, she is frankly bewildered by Regulus, not least by the troubles he seems to attract. But she is not at all bewildered by this catatonia. It is her old familiar bedfellow--dormant, perhaps, but far from gone. It grins at her nightly from the corners of her bedroom, ready to enfold her again at any time.

In one spidery hand she carries a green-bound book, old and worn and much-loved, and sets it on the night table by Regulus without preamble.*

You might read to him, Regulus.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Regulus sits up straighter when she enters, noting the irony of his own mother's presence through his self-consciousness. Though they only time he has lived away from his parents had been during his years at Hogwarts, he still finds being in bedrooms with either of them particularly foreign and something surely not practised with any frequency among any proper family. For the most part, they stay away from his room and he from theirs, and this common ground of Barty's bedroom just polishes off an already exhaustingly out of the ordinary day.*

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think he is.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*His worry has remained relatively in control all day, under the circumstances, but Walburga's grave and knowing tone makes his brow crease as it's implications bubble up around the surface.*

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the problem, Regulus.





Your father read to me.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*There's a little flare of annoyance, at that, and she lets it show, although her voice is still gentle.*

Does Barty look as though he can read for himself at the moment?

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*His fingers knit together, an unconscious replacement to his urge to fiddle with Barty's blankets. As he looks over at him, they almost appear to share a glance, but Regulus can see Barty's gaze is looking slightly past him.*

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*Sighing, Walburga sits. It appears they're to be in for a long haul, as she tries to explain to her son what she's not even really comfortable thinking about.

And although Walburga only infrequently even thinks of herself as a mother, it still tugs at her heartstrings a bit that the Crouch boy has lost his own.*

Perhaps that's why you ought to read to him? He'll hear it, even if he isn't listening.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*For some reason, some accusation seems to have sprung to Regulus' mind the more Barty's current condition is commented on, and he responds with a breathy flurry of insistence.*

He isn't sick.

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*For a moment, her gaze wanders over to Barty and then flickers away, as if to give him privacy. But her face has softened a bit more.*

Of course he is, darling. He's sick in his heart is all.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think that would do any good, dear.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

But Mother he's - he won't even...

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

--I know, Regulus.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*He gives pause to collect himself. He had intended to keep Barty a secret - as best he could without lying, to simply wait for him to come to his senses in the privacy of his care, and Kreacher's. Walburga's dower calm makes him feel foolish for being panicked and secretive, but he still can't stop the worry.*

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think he would.

Of course he can stay as long as he likes.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

I know. It's terribly sad.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*Not that Walburga had read any of it, of course, or even knew precisely what "it" even was, but whispers here and there had reached her ears. She looks at Regulus pointedly, with an affronted little sniff.*

Dreadful business, that.

They shouldn't be allowed to print such lies at all.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

It was shameful. Barty was right to hate her, I would if someone said something dreadful of you.

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

I should hope no one would dare.

*But she lapses into a slightly pleased silence. After a little while, she indicates the book with a long white finger.*

It may help for him to listen, if he isn't quite ready to talk yet. . .?

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*He takes the book, flipping it back to front a couples times in the cage of his hands and feeling the edges of it's pages. It is a fidget, but he seems thoughtful in the process, not as unconscious as it often looks.*


Mother? ...Were you not speaking with Father for something? When he read to you. Had he done something?

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

Of course not, Regulus. How silly.

*She frowns, softly, her hands finding one another in that rarest of Walburga's behaviors: a small fidget of her own. A bit of honesty falls out with it.*

I was only sad, is all.

This was before you, darling.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

*Regulus looks a bit like a child told for the first time that human beings had existed long before he came to be. Of course it is not truly any surprise to him, he had grown up the youngest even amongst most of his extended family until the most recent bath of distant cousins are usurped his place. Even so, it had never really occurred to him until now that a great deal had happened to his parents before he was there to witness it. It had certainly never occurred to him that his mother might understand the trials of his friend.

His restless surprise earns him a papercut.*

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

Careful, darling.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

It's all right.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

It was around then, yes.

*It's the truth, but only part of it: the inexplicable darkness that had gripped her so tightly and so long had come not with her mother's death but with the birth of her first son. But Walburga is long accustomed to carefully not thinking too closely about any of that, so she only blinks a little before going on.*

It's a terrible thing, to lose your mother. But I am sure he will be all right in the end.

I am, after all.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

Of course not.

But it is only lies and that is all. He'll see that, in the end.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

What if he won't eat. What if he gets -

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*Impulsively, briefly, Walburga reaches out and pats his hand with her own.*

He won't starve, darling.

[spindleform.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Kreacher can do it. He taught me to eat my asparagus when I was young, didn't he? I remember.

[walburgisnacht.livejournal.com]

*Walburga handwaves this asparagus story, not remembering it in the slightest.*

But it's best not to try and force him. He'll come 'round on his own. One must be patient.