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]

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.