@lafemme-lestrange​

Vivienne did a double take nearly strolling in her designer heels straight passed the man begging for coins. It wasn’t until she registered his voice that she back tracked in confusion.

“Marius? Oh my goodness is that you?”

At the sound of his name, Marius bolted in the other direction, only to crash into another witch, whose levitated stack of boxes dropped as her charm was broken by the impact. 

Marius slowly took his time to get up, hiding his face as much as possible and just trying to think of a way out. 

@lafemme-lestrange

Once upon a time in a far away land, there lived a young maiden who dreamed of attending fancy dinner parties in the most glamorous dresses and chatting with distinguished guests. Maybe even meeting her prince charming and dancing the night away under the stars. Unfortunately, that little girl had grown up to discover that her handsome prince was currently doubling as a chair and the reality of these events were never as dazzling as they once seemed.

Tonight would be no different, and Vivienne went through her usual routine sans Finley. She was done up in one of favorite gowns, a vintage, deep emerald number that brought out a subtle green hue to her usually chestnut eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek, low bun with two loose tendrils framing her cheeks. To match, she painted on her best smile, elegant and inviting, and began making her rounds on behalf of her husband.

While a pudgy man from the Department of Mysteries babbled on and on about community progress and limiting muggleborn rights, Vivienne was fortunate enough to catch the eye of a familiar face. She quickly excused herself from the conversation and bid the man whose name was escaping her adieu, then scurried over towards her rescuer.

“Oh I could kiss you.” Vivienne squealed when in earshot. Her chestnut irises sparkled, reflecting her sheer gratitude. “Another second and I swear I would have simply passed out from boredom. Thank you.”

Professor McGonagall needed him to go. Well, Professor McGonagall didn’t want to go. Julian could convince himself that she was busy running a school and that someone who was unofficially assigned to be the Ministry Liaison – totally made up, he knew, but still important even if he were the one really self-aggrandizing it for the most part – should go to an event like this. This has always been the presence Julian had always wanted to have.

But the conversation about having a census or a new passport wasn’t what he had hoped to hear about. He was actually hoping to have an audience with someone he could talk education about. Kingsley Shacklebolt could only do him so many favors, but it still didn’t look great that he was the guy who locked the students inside when there was a murderer in the castle.

He still thought circles about the situation. There wouldn’t have been time to evacuate all the students and he didn’t know that the culprit would be –

But he was interrupted by the very sudden appearance of a very pretty woman in front of him, whose face was painted with more color than what he was used to. A few strands hung close to her face and her green dress made his own outfit look dull. The suit he wore was old, and he was sure his mother had been the one to buy it for him. It was almost a shock to see Vivienne since most of their interactions involved reading frilly romances, though Julian should have known she was coming to such a… high profile event.

He immediately balked at her statement in disbelief. “Wh-what?”

Julian truly thought of himself as a fairly composed person, though the recent events have really tested his composure. He felt a little more useful now that his arm was out of the sling that basically made sure he didn’t fall apart, but he still didn’t feel right. His own tragedy was eclipsed by another, his own lack of focus to be blamed on his declining work ethic.

He only knew where the Shacklebolts lived because he had been invited to see Kingsley himself where he was mostly forced to accept an apology because his own son had been cursed to murder. All of it was very confusing; Julian himself had been unconscious for most of it.

The house elf had let him inside, and he was very direct with what he wanted: “Have you seen Finley? He hasn’t answered any of my letters.”

Sure, Julian understood why Finley would be avoiding him; the guilt is a lot to bear. But wasn’t it ridiculous to drop a friendship completely when the offended party wasn’t even that offended?

@lafemme-lestrange​

Vivienne always made good on her promises of macarons, but Marius hadn’t yet taken any. Instead he just stared at them, but not with the same expectant expression his sister had. He rubbed his eyes before speaking again.

“You know Beatrice—Beatrice and I left to make our own way, right?”

That was one way to preface everything.

“Not that I didn’t miss it here. There just wasn’t anything for me here. Not really. Avery got the business and you were assigned to Finley and all I wanted was to be happier than the both of you.

“And I almost did it. That’s what’s so tragic about all this is the almost. There’s no trying again for me. I didn’t have anything to lose after that. If I couldn’t be happy, then no one else got to be. I wouldn’t have killed Dominique—please, I wouldn’t have been capable anyway—but I just wanted to see her suffer in the way I did. And that kind of thing isn’t something I thought about, it just happened, and I can’t quite rationalize how or why I did it other than just... wanting to watch someone else hurt more than I did?

“So I do owe you something there. For the memory charm. I don’t know. How long ago did I burn Avery at that Quidditch game?”

Marius took a breath and leaned back into the cushions. How the hell was he supposed to keep track of all the months?

“There was a lot of back and forth between Hogsmeade and Diagon—whatever. Sometimes I made it with the muggles, asking them for a bit of help, and they were all perfectly nice to me. I mean, nicer than magical people, anyway. Some witch cornered me, asked me about my business—made a promise about looking for Beatrice’s murderer and immediately betrayed me.  You can’t trust anyone these days, really.

“And I was just so damn pissed that I flipped a table at a Harvest Festival? The one at the village? But for good reason! They literally admitted to me that they were selling Veritaserum cupcakes to the goddamn Ministry of Magic! That’s—I am so sure that’s illegal, and they deserved it, obviously—but not without an Auror dragging me back to the castle and throwing me into a dungeon. This place is just so fucked up in so many ways and it’s like no amount of justice will ever turn it right again. So in prison I was. I thought about asking to write you to try to get me out—but I wasn’t just going to ask. I decided to wait.

“But I wasn’t the only one in a dungeon as a prisoner. I was probably there a few weeks before they threw someone else in—they were accused of an attack at the... the school? I think that place was a school but there were more Ministry people around—and more of them kept getting thrown into the dungeon. Some really liked to scream for help. Like it actually did anything. But maybe it worked.

“A couple of renegades had come to save us. Or one came for me—she was from the Zabini’s. It was a new life for me after that. The family took care of me for... months. It was the first time I felt like I was home, and I had forgotten why I left in the first place. I was falling in love with the Zabini girl... and then I felt guilty.

“I couldn’t save Beatrice and I couldn’t find her killer. I couldn’t make the world any better of a place for her. I wasn’t allowed to be happy until I figured it all out, and maybe the Zabini girl... knew all this. She was always a step ahead of me, and she never turned me out of the house—but I knew when my time had come to leave. I was planning on it on Valentine’s Day, during your party. Maybe I’d take the sleazy way and go home with someone. And there were a few I met where I thought to myself, maybe I could be in love with someone like you.

“I didn’t remember names really. Lots of faces. One of them was an athlete? Another was a girl, one I kissed during that bottle game. I wish I knew. But none of them were the Zabini girl, that’s for sure; I was back on the street trying to scrape enough to get from one place to another. And you know how it is with people like us, you can’t really ask any of your friends for anything. You wait for them to offer.

“And who was going to offer me anything? I didn’t have anything worthwhile to offer, other than the Lestrange family heirloom--my pocketwatch. You would literally have to pry that out of my cold dead hands. And even then, what’s it’s worth to anyone? You can’t really use it, can you? But I really thought I could make it on my own. And I almost did. Fuck, almost.

“I couldn’t keep myself out of other people’s business. This time around, I didn’t even mean to—would you believe I actually know Albus Potter? We met at a bank—well, I accidentally burned him, no idea how that happened since I’ve been without a wand for months now—and I have him some blood... as to not have me sent to that castle dungeon again. He’s so... I can’t even say annoying, can I? I want to punch him in the mouth so bad—but he’s doing some... interesting stuff. With the blood. Because I think I’m helping him—but we’re not like friends—what the hell do I do? Punch him in the mouth?”