coming for the crown

  “ Eh.. can’t say I believe you. I’m not often right about things, “ He responded with a simple shrug of his shoulders. A light smirk appeared on his features at her next remark as he took a brief moment to study her appearance again as if he were trying to figure out the mystery. His shoulders then shrugged, “ I have my theories, of course. I’m just not sure that they really fit. “ Rabastan looked at her with a bit of a mischievous twinkle to his eye. “ Wouldn’t want to go around accusing you of the same sort of things I get up to when I end up looking like hell, “  He had to refrain from chuckling with a purse of his lips, “ That wouldn’t be very GENTLEMAN-LIKE, now would it? “ 

“Fine, believe me or don’t believe me,” Alecto said, crossing her arms with a stubborn ease. “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m right about you being right.” At his appraisal she once more resisted the urge to wipe under eyes; the crossed arms served a purpose. She wasn’t normally fond of makeup, given that it was likely to do this, but at the beginning of the evening Alecto’s cousin had insisted her make-up be done if she wanted to join the outing. She’d ditched the cousin, of course, once she was sure the girl had consumed enough Firewhiskey to not notice. And the night had gone on, and here she was. Alecto met mischief with a smile, sweetly contrasting a sarcastic tone. “Do you often end up with makeup under your eyes, too, Lestrange?” She tossed her hair back off her shoulder in the effort to meet his gaze. “Perhaps not very gentleman-like, but I’m afraid that’s a touch on the money -- lady-like wasn’t exactly in the cards this evening, either.” 

     His head tilted to the side as he studied her for a brief moment. “ Just when I started to think that you could make anything look good, you’ve proven me wrong, “ Rabastan gave a mock sigh of disappointment and shook his head. He then crossed his arms over his chest in a bit of a more casual stance, “ You have me curious now though. What kind of night ends with you looking like that? “

“I do so make anything look good! I love proving people wrong, but you were definitely right before.” It wasn’t hard to let her pout and indignant tone match the feigned disappointment she heard in Rabastan’s -- well, it seemed feigned, anyway. In truth, with the night she’d had it was hard to be completely sure. Still, Alecto shrugged, the movement loose and expansive.  “Any theories? Before I answer, of course.” 

what’s the worst pain you’ve ever been in?

“when i was a girl i had a nasty riding accident. got thrown from the thing, got my leg stepped on. i mean, i suppose i’ve had worse injuries dueling, but there’s something about pain when you don’t expect it, hm?”

what’s your happiest memory?

"i don’t know. i suppose my sorting, for a total cop out answer. not much has happened in my life enough for anything to stand out.”

you can stop one person in the world from speaking. Who is it?

   “ Have a bit of a night, eh? “ Rabastan questioned with a raised brow. “ No offense, but you look like shit. “

“What if this was the style now?” Alecto cocked her head and kept her hands from rubbing her face. “Maybe I’ve meant for all my makeup to have migrated under my eyes..” 

He was running errands - something that good and responsible adults do, or so he was told. He still wasn’t sure that he was good or responsible or an adult. The woman he’d asked to add whipped cream to his hot chocolate ten minutes ago didn’t seem so sure, either. Still, he was out of milk and out of butter, and making pasta ( ‘the bare minimum of nutrition’, as his mother used to say ) required both. He was so focused on trying to remember whether or not he had cream cheese that he didn’t even realize he’d started to drift on the cobblestones until his shoulder jarred against another’s and he stumbled, spilling hot chocolate onto his hand with a quietly muttered ‘bugger’.

There was not a lot you could say when you literally walked right into a Carrow, especially when you were James Potter. Not that he ever remembered Alecto being of a particularly cruel disposition, but she didn’t seem to mind people who were, and that alone disturbed him.

Still, he half-smiled in the confident way he always did when facing down people who’d probably prefer looking at his face if he had a black eye. “ Accidents happen, ” he said amiably, surprised at all that she had said ‘excuse me’ first. “ Your shoulder alright? ”

Alecto let her gaze drift down to his hands, as she could quite nearly feel the heat drifting off the spill of -- was that whipped cream? And felt assured that however annoyed she was to be brought into any contact with another, James Potter was seeing the worst of it. Schadenfreude, ever the comfort. 

However cocky his smile was, after all, he wasn’t strong enough to do any damage to her shoulder. 

When she registered his tone and the oh-so expected words they filled, the eye-roll simply couldn’t be helped. Alecto was not in the mood for polite, and yet for some reason it’s what she read from him, expression aside; she wasn’t in the mood for a brawl in the street over a sore shoulder and some spilled beverage, but really? Neither was she in the mood to play perfectly nice and amiable. Maybe she should learn to halt all polite instincts, to ensure people would have to read her face for moods, not her words. Alecto met his half-smile with a close-mouthed one of her own, as obviously superficial as she could make it. She wasn’t in the mood to have someone see this interaction and mistake a lack of any feeling for sympathy -- but annoyance was far easier to fall into than anything harsher. “Do they?” Alecto tilted her head. “I feel I’ve almost never experienced one. But of course my shoulder’s fine.  It’s not like you could actually do anything to it.” 

Constant vigilance, he said to everyone he’d ever trained. It was, so Al would claim till his dying day, the most important piece of advice anyone could listen to. That didn’t mean he was great at sneaking. There was nothing sneaky about a man like him - he had a pretty big presence and he knew it, but it hardly bothered him. Blending in wasn’t his style any more than it had been his mother’s. There was nothing fun, nothing really worth living for, in blending in.

Al was a little surprised that he’d startled her, though he supposed she would have beeneither way had he announced himself. Anyone would be, had they sat in a quiet place to scream out all their frustrations. He’d considered doing it before, when his mother died, but had settled for risking a silencing spell on his apartment and screamed there, because he knew it would last for hours instead of seconds. He was right. He also trashed a number of dishes, and threw away the pieces rather than putting them together. It had all felt insignificant then.

“ I don’t need your word, ” he said. “ I don’t work for the Ministry anymore, so doesn’t bother me. I was just making sure no one out here was getting murdered. ” He sat down on the bench beside hers and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. He was no therapist. He’d come out here to sit in the quiet and appreciate the silence of Diagon Alley at night time, and keep an eye out in case any muggleborns or half bloods got into trouble. He didn’t mind the silence between them. His curiosity did. 

( it wasn’t meant to sound completely rude when he formed the words in his mind ), “What’s a person like you got to be screaming about?”

She was bad at this. She was bad at allowing violent bursts of emotions; perhaps this was to be expected. After all, she was very good at containing them. But that meant she had no idea what to do in the aftermath. Clumsily putting oneself back together didn’t sound nearly so appealing as falling apart, and it just figured that that was a lesson learned in the company of someone Alecto barely knew, only knew of.

She cleared her throat, smoothed a hand through her hair until it hung shining down her back once more. (These were ways of putting herself back together. These would buy her time.)  It was instinct that tilted her head to study the man’s profile where he sat. It was his words that brought a lifted eyebrow, and a snort as dry as her throat. “You don’t need to work for the Ministry to get my word. I give it all the time. Consider it a party favor, of sorts.” She smirked to herself and let her head loll back until she was facing forward, too; usually pristine posture disturbed by the arms she curled across her chest. “Of course, that might mean it doesn’t mean very much. But I doubt pity parties are expected to have very high quality favors.”  

The question, well, that was the question. Forget Hamlet; what did poor Alecto Carrow have to scream about? Her father, alive as ever, couldn’t be a ghost. Which meant her mother wasn’t sleeping with her uncle, so there went that. She considered and discarded the forward nature of the question -- she deserved it, she figured. Fairness dictated he deserved the biting tone in which she answered. Wasn’t fairness the sort of thing blood-traitors were all for? 

“Don’t tell me you think frustration is limited to code fours, now. “ She shook her head, dislodging some hair in the process, go figure. The night was not meant for Alecto to feel put-together. She’d given that up by letting herself be found. “The problems a person like me has may not be all that bad, but I think I’m allowed to be bothered by them nonetheless.”

Alecto was four years younger than her and from a different house which meant that, by virtue of the Hogwarts sorting system, they should know exactly nothing about each other. Simple, it should have been, rather than the raging dumpster fire that it was. Purebloods knew other purebloods, even more purebloods knew bloodtraitors - it was all about reputation and even when you made great efforts to abandon yours it always came back around to tap on your shoulder. That was true for Doe. It shouldn’t have been. 

But fuck it, Dorcas figured. She’d quietly wished for some kind of meaningful interaction and she got one. Beggars can’t be choosers. 

“S’pose that would make me the cannibalistic old witch living in the woods,” Doe said, half amused at the image herself, half endeared at the thought of living out in the woods in a gingerbread cottage. “It’s paczki. Polish. The muggle story you’re referring to is German and Gretel ended up in the woods because her parents thought it more… efficient to ditch her there rather than feed her. Gretel thought it was an accident. Trusted her parents would never do something so rotten. Surely you don’t feel that much like her.”

Dorcas kicked the cobblestone street with the toe of her shoe, wondering about the line she’d stepped over, and how far she’d crossed it, and whether or not she cared. “What’re you doing outside little Rosa Lee anyway? Little dinky for you, yeah?”

“Well, beg pardon for not knowing the exact origins of muggle fairy-tales,” Alecto intoned, cocking her head in absent thought. Really, she wasn’t sure what difference it made. The story seemed fascinating enough anyway -- she hadn’t really known much of the specifics, aside from the bread-crumb thing. And besides, she figured everyone knew that part, raised on the fairy-tale or not. 

She’d been enamored with wizarding stories as a child, as she’d been enamored with any stories she could get her hands on, but the more hints she found to the brutal nature of muggle fairy-tales made her wish she’d found any books on those in the Carrow library; an unlikely wish if there ever was one. She broke away from her musing to incline her head Dorcas’ way, adding to her earlier statement: “Do extend apologies to your paczki. Wouldn’t want the snack feeling sorry, now, would we? ” Alecto knew she should leave the conversation where it stood -- after all, the words were still innocent enough. So long as she took neither of their backgrounds or tones into account. 

However, Alecto turned almost-empty regard to Dorcas, to her feet tracing the pavement. Maybe the older girl -- the code four -- was more anxious to leave than she was, which was an amusing thought. What could Dorcas have to lose? She smirked, let the expression make its home on a face that normally tried to stay so composed. “Oh, come on, that makes it sound like I knew where I was -- I didn’t think I was outside anything. I’m just out for a walk where I figured I wouldn’t run into anyone.” An incorrect assumption, clearly, but that went unsaid. 

“You’re right. I only considered that if it was yours, I might as well apologize for taking it. But I guess that’s unnecessary now.”

“You only considered apologizing if the drink you were drinking that wasn’t yours was mine? I feel, like, so lucky, thanks. It might be the bare minimum courtesy, but you can still see if it feels alright if you want to give it a go.” 

“Maybe the dose of reality is exactly what they need. Then - maybe then they’ll finally understand what the meaning of responsibility is. Since being hired to work at The Leaky Cauldron wasn’t enough!”

“Hm. I mean, I suppose. I don’t know enough about the reality of working here to conk them with it, I’m afraid. I imagine you’ve tried yourself and it’s yet to work? You could always try firing one of them to make the rest afraid of you -- they’d be more likely to work after that, I think.” 

Having some time to kill before she had to go back and see how her staff were doing at Fortescue’s, Alice waited in line at Sugarplum’s, a line that wrapped around the corner – not that she minded. Trying a new pasty of theirs was bound to be exciting and sometimes on nice days like this, she could forget about things, even for a second, and imagine that she was just a normal girl waiting in line for food. No one and nothing else. The moment passed when who she then recognized as Alecto Carrow bumped into her, a person she’d went to school with as well as was in the dueling club with. Alecto had had an enthusiasm about the club that Alice loved, so she gave Alecto a smile. “It’s totally alright, this line is crazy long and really, it’s getting in the way of the walk ways. Carrow? Right? Alecto?”

Alecto blinked up at Alice before casting a short glance around to realize that, yes, she had found herself somehow mixed up in the line for ... well, it was hard to tell. She hadn’t seemed to have managed to mix herself up with the front of it. She remembered Alice; she wasn’t sure if she’d say fondly, exactly, but the girl had captained Alecto’s favorite club during her younger years. There was always that respect from knowing someone was -- or had been -- devoted to dueling. Not the easiest skill. Mentally, she scanned through all she knew of the girl, and figured there’d be no harm in stopping and allowing the polite conversation. “I hadn’t even noticed it was a line. Though I’ll admit, I had no idea why the sidewalk was so crowded before so that makes perfect sense.” She dazzled a blank smile on, inclining her head towards the older girl. “Yes, Alecto Carrow. Alice Fortescue, if I remember correctly? I think I might; our first names are just similar enough that it just came immediately to mind.” 

“At this point, I’m not even sure. You should ask them. Might give them a mental conk!”

“-- It’d give them a mental conk and you’d want me to ask them? That doesn’t make any sense.” 

“Eh. It’s actually better than what I ordered. It isn’t yours, is it?”

“Always a possibility -- you’ve only clarified what it isn’t. Even if it was, though, I couldn’t very well have it now. ” 

laying on the floor in an odd place, wrapped in a blanket

“S’cold,” Alecto offered to the voice and footsteps she’d heard and couldn’t bring herself to identify. To identify, she’d need to turn her head – since the presence wasn’t one she recognized right from the start, anyway. Oh, well. The festivities had run on for quite some time, and by now Alecto was still self-aware enough to admit that she wasn’t sure she’d even notice Amycus by footsteps alone at this point in the night. 

Maybe it wasn’t cold. In an effort to bring some composure back to herself, Alecto started cataloging things about the way she’d been found, and realized she’d shed her robes at some point, and was left with just one of her dresses. She shook her head out of the hood she’d formed with the excess blanket to look past it, and at the person she could now sort of identify. Was he a housemate? Maybe he was a friend of her brother’s?Not in her year from school, whatever he was. She squinted one eye, like that could help. “Hello –?” The word drawled on; Alecto blew some hair out of her face through pursed lips, and tried her best to look like someone who was not drunkenly wrapped in a blanket outside the bar. “Please tell me you don’t need this blanket. Because I need this blanket.”

desperately trying to put something back together after taking it apart out of boredom/curiosity 

What Alecto wanted to do was fix an unwavering glare on Layla. It felt like the right choice, and oh, did she want to. She could feel her eyebrows wanting to knit together in as unimpressed a fashion as they were capable of, and her mouth was ready to sit immobile and angry. But in the end, she had no motivation to fight, and that won out over her usual instinct to show how little she cared for others’ judgement. Something told her no matter what sort of look she fixed on the other girl, Layla would meet it tenfold, and that was just far too tiring. Her mind was positively taxed as it was. 

“I found it on the table when I walked in,” Alecto said by rote. She did not meet Layla’s eyes – Alecto was sitting, and she refused to look up while justifying her actions. Felt too much like asking for forgiveness, and dumb though the situation was, it surely was not something Alecto would apologize for. Not to Layla, of all people – a family member, maybe, and even then she’d prefer to act as if she had no clue what the issue may be. But playing dumb could be tiring, too. “Figured I needed something to do while waiting for that top secret meeting to wrap up and my father to allow me home. I take it it has?” Alecto snorted delicately, the sound quiet enough to pass off even if her snooty tone definitely left no room for alternate interpretations. “I can’t even put this stupid evidence-whatsit back together, so surely you’ve not been sent out to invite me in.”