#lestrange twins

Sigh, fine I’ll guess I’ll spare some pennies. Thank you for the ask! This is kinda scatter brained and kinda focused on Rodolphus to like parallel/paint how the brothers are together with they are separate and yeah I dunno I threw up

So usually I internalize whatever @florsial (formal apology to you pookie, Im about to act out of line 🫶) says about Rabastan because we tend to agree on things surrounding him but I think we definitely view Rodolphus differently. Which is fine, he barely exists as a character and I think it’s just representative of how we fundamentally view sibling relationships differently. Like I don’t know what it is with me, but I feel the need ti make every sibling relationship I write for either fanfiction or my own work complicated as hell.

So Rodolphus Lestrange. I think he’s a lot like Orion Black. Like he probably even looked up to him kind of when he grew up, (which is kinda funny because Rodolphus probably isn’t much younger than him if at all considering my headcanon that both walburga and Orion were young when they had both their children to kind of get it out of the way) and you can see that in like a lot of how he just is. Hes ‘stoic’ but actually just doesn’t feel a lot of emotions and doesn’t pretend he does, he’s probably like a hair away from being an alcoholic but he doesn’t drink because he knows that (unlike Orion who is very much an alcoholic), hes antisocial and physically annoyed around people because he doesn’t understand why they are as ‘efficient’ as he is and looks down on all of them.

He’s very work oriented, so much so that he doesn’t really have a life outside of it at all. He’s always been the twin the family knew to count on and he always liked having the title so he never had a rebellious stage or any real anger towards his expectations beyond being tired at the end of a particularly grueling work day. I think the only work hes expected to do that he actively doesn’t work towards doing is producing heirs. He doesn’t like kids, he thinks they’re loud and messy and they get in the way of a schedule. It’s like the only thing him and Bellatrix agree on since she also wants nothing to do with kids. (Also quick note on their marriage, I think they pretty much ignore each other and that’s their idea of what they’ll be like forever. When in public together they put on the ‘better than you’ couple mask but in every other scenario they live completely separate lives and actively avoid each other or they’ll find something to fight about.) like the general vibe I could sum him up with is, yes he’s Rabastan’s twin, but everyone who’s ever talked with him assumes he’s like a decade older and just aged well.

So to contrast that with Rabastan, who was never really expected to be anything and never proved anyone wrong, he’s the sort of kid his mother defends no matter what but he father actively tries to forget about. The exact sort Rodolphus looks down on. He can’t help it’s his brother, he’s still below him. And that would be easier to accept if Rabastan stopped proving it over and over. He had to act out in school, he had to move where mother couldn’t find at seventeen, he had to preach to the family that they were ‘immoral’ or whatever, and then he had to preach it to a child, and then he had to marry the child. Like, Rodolphus isn’t a good man by many means, but his lack of feeling or empathy towards people gives him a more head on view of them. And his head on view of his brother is that he’s useless, dramatic, and so desperate to be anything he’ll lie to a little girl to get her to view him that way. And not to say Rodolphus is any better since he witnessed first hand what his brother was doing, he literally walked in on the two hiding away to make out in a corner when regulus was still fifteen and his brother was the same age as himself and just turned back around and never mentioned it to anyone. A truly good person probably would’ve done something. Good thing that’s not what he’s trying to be.

(Also unrelated but I wanna circle back to a point @florsial has that I love about how Rabastan and Regulus are a couple who tries to nuclear and domestic but fails, I feel like that’s a joke on its own especially in this context. The idea that Rodolphus is the nuclear working man so Rabastan must parallel him by being a family man, he just isn’t. Yes he’s closer with his wife than his brother is, and yes that could be something he has over Rodolphus but pretty much no one in their family is proud of Rabastan for his teenage wife and it’s not like their perfect or anything.)

Rodolphus has probably told Rabastan he thinks this only once since he’s usually content to be quiet about it. He probably broke and yelled about how Rabastan will never be anything ro even get his shit together and it won’t matter because no one has hope he will and it hurts because Rodolphus was never given that leeway and it must be fucking nice to have. Rabastan probably doubles back with how much it must be nice for anyone to give a shit about you, to not only exoect things from you but love you even more when you deliver. They probably kept fighting until Rodolphus, as always, gets tired and shuts it down and goes home.

Because even a man who feels nothing has breaking points, especially when Rabastan keeps fucking pushing for one. And that was their relationship a lot of their life, I think. Rabastan desperately wanting to be seen and Rodolphus who is willingly blind. When they were younger that was ok, little kids before hogwarts just played together until father came to take Rodolphus away, growing boys at hogwarts who slowly drift apart when one doubles down on academics and the other found there’s more to do (and not for lack of desperate trying on the seconds behalf.) and then they’re grown up and neither can place what really happened. They’re sure they used to love each other, at least they think so. And they don’t know what happened, because something must have happened. Right?

Vic: You’re toxic.

Kei: Yes.

Gina: . . . I’m slipping under

((Sorry in advance for our difference in writing for these disasters but I’m gonna use this to explain my idea of them but know that I still think yours is very cool and interesting and I genuinely love it so))

Ok I think the best way for me to make words about this is to try and compare them to something. So I’m gonna be the only person to ever talk about Orion Black ever yet again and say with my full chest that Alphard and Orion were more twins than Rabastan and rodolphus the same way Rabastan and rodolphus were more brothers than Alphard and Orion. Lemme explain.

Alphard and Orion are not twins, technically. They were born ten months apart, so they didn’t share the womb but they are the same age. They look exactly the fucking same because of those mixed genes and they were expected to do the same things as the oldest heir blacks. Since they were both the same school year, neither was really treated like the older brother by the rest of the family which lead to them growing up pretty much in tandem to share the title. They were never perfect non-twins, like they didn’t only like each other or finish each other’s sentences or anything, to everyone watching it seemed they didn’t get along at all? Like Alphard was constantly teasing Orion and putting off all his work because he knew Orion would do it and Orion was easily flustered and complained all the time about all the work his brother made him do. But like… if they hated each other than why did they live in each other’s skin. Alphard literally never left Orion alone, he was always there and always had his arm slung around his brother’s shoulders or something. He said it was under the guise of ‘looking out for his little brother because he’s socially inept and has no friends’ and Orion would always just say ‘I’m not your little brother we’re the same age.’ Like there was a bunch of other things being said that he could be worrying about but he just chose to be a brat and that was pretty much their whole relationship. They stayed attached at the hip until Alphard was to be wed at around sixteen and that was the thing he refused to do (because he was gay) and Orion did not understand his firmness on the topic that was really just another duty in his eyes (because he was aroace) and that was the first real divide they had. They never had a divide before so they didn’t know what to do. Alphard wanted to run away, he asked his brother to come with because he didn’t know how to live without him, Orion said no. Alphard had his doubts about his brother valuing their relationship and himself over his family confirmed, Orion had his doubts that Alphard was a childish selfish brat confirmed. Alphard left and they never saw each other again.

Sorry for all the exposition but here’s where I put it to use!

Rodolphus and Rabastan are twins, technically. They shared the womb but were born on different days, Rodolphus first and then Rabastan two days later. (I imagine the pure bloods are very traditional in their treatment of pregnancy and probably have never even heard of a C section, if they baby’s not coming out then the mother just has to wait.) This proved to be a premonition for them as people because just like their birth, Rodolphus was handed off to their father while Rabastan stayed with mommy and got to experience her warmth for so much longer. Rodolphus came when expected with little fuss, Rabastan had to make his own scene and cause so much trouble for his mother in the process yet she continued to love him anyway. They have different birthdays. They are different people. They were raised differently because their mother wasn’t exactly all there and claimed that because her second son stayed with her in birth (forgoing how he nearly killed her doing so) that means he was hers despite him being a boy (traditionally the mother would take charge of the daughters and the father the sons once they come of age, but the Lestranges didn’t do that clearly) ((also cue that TikTok audio where the mother’s like ‘a boy would be the son of France, but you shall be mine’)) and their father didn’t really mind because he has his own son too. The couple weren’t in love but they didn’t hate each other, so they truly didn’t mind raising their children pretty much separately since they both had vastly different ideas of being parents. Rodolphus was raised to learn to be quiet and keep his head down because he went to work with father ever since he learned to stop crying all the time, Rabastan was raised as the center of his mother’s universe while acutely aware she was crazy because it didn’t exactly feel good to have her crazed attention at all times so he learned to act out as much as he wanted becaus he could get away with it and his mother deserved it in his eyes. They saw each other at dinner and were allowed to play whenever they wanted, which they took advantage of when they were young. Rabastan learned early on to resent their father because he was always the one who took rodolphus away, Rodolphus learned early on to resent their mother because she never even looked at him. But as they grew into their chosen parent’s faces, they learned to resent each other as well. (Again cue the TikTok audio for Rabastan that’s like ‘thank you, I look just like my mommy’)

By all accounts they weren’t twins. They stopped even really being brothers when they started hogwarts, if you looked at it a certain way. They lead entirely different lives, adorned completely different faces and roles, anyone who didn’t know them didn’t know they even knew each other. They weren’t like the black brothers where they fought in halls and made a spectacle out of being different, they weren’t like the black sisters who could ignore their differences like an elephant in a room and play pretend that they were sisters despite the looming threat of difference, the lestrange twins were just… nothing. Barely even twins, barely even brothers. They lived in the same dorm room (since I imagine that Slytherin isn’t as populated of a house of that of gryffindor and probably means there’s less kids per dorm, two or three but I usually lean towards two) and it was like all conversation was silenced when they were together. Rodolphus would read on his bed late enough into the night to witness Rabastan stumble through the door with the stink of stolen liquor on him and neither said anything. Rabastan would watch through a key hole as all his family but his mother learned to favor the ‘better brother’ and talk in hushed tones of what their mother’s boy was growing into with Rodolphus in the room and the quieter twin say nothing to deter them. Rodolphus resents Rabastan for having things people value in life that he never even considered having for himself (freedom, love, living in truth) but doesn’t mind enough to make a deal do it because, in truth, Rodolphus doesn’t want those things. The only reason he cares is because his brother them (like true siblings tend to do.) But Rabastan resents Rodolphus for having everything he’s always looked for but never had (praise, adoration, love from someone who wasn’t crazy) and he truly didn’t regret or hold back that resentment because when had he ever regretted or held back anything?

But the reason I chose ti compare the failed twins to the broken brothers is because everyone expected them ti have the opposite relationship. Pure blood twins should be closer than anything, close enough to cause unease in how they are when alone, their seperation should be a disaster. Pure blood brothers should be… quaint, at best. They don’t owe anything to each other, their lives will be completely separate once they marry and have to start fighting for the title of Heir. But it was the last generation’s Black Brothers that were close with the shaking falling out and the Lestrange Twins that were a never kindled fire. And they did follow in their older Black Brother counterparts foot steps in many ways as adults. Alphard broke himself off from the family but kept his own money and power, which he used to live for himself and look out for a younger pure blood child (Sirius) that he saw soemthing worth change in and knew others would seek to destroy. Rabastan distanced himself from the family but kept his own money and power, which he used to live for himself and look out for a younger pure blood child (Regulus) that he saw soemthing worth change in and knew others would seek to destroy. Orion dedicated himself to the role he knew he was born to play and did what he was told when he was told to, no feelings for fuss about it, and was revered as a business man for it but despised as a family man for the same. Rodolphus dedicated himself to the role he knew he was born to play and did what he was told when he was told to, no feelings for fuss about it, and was admired as a business man for it but almost mourned as a family man for the same because Rodolphus didn’t have a family, he just had a wife that he never spoke to.

But at the beginning I said that Rabastan and rodolphus were more brothers than Alphard and Orion as a teen of endearment for them, implying they did have that brotherly idea of each other, and where have I shown it? No where, so here it is now. Where Black siblings always seem to have some huge falling out with a lifetime of silence to follow, most families aren’t that dramatic. Sure Rabastan and Rodolphus were never eveyrthing to each other, but they were still family. When Rabastan feels he has no where else to turn and he can’t stand to look in his mother’s ever fading eyes, he goes to Rodolphus. And just like their school days, Rodolphus will hold his hair when he vomits and have a guest room prepared without a fuss at all. When Rodolphus is at a loss for a scene of people being just so hard for him to understand, unsure of what to do but sure he doesn’t like it at all, Rabastan takes it like he used to take Rodolphus’ veggies under the table. Most things Rodolphus doenst understand are easy enough to either explain or dispel completely by just being his dramatic self and getting people to fall into the line Rodolphus understands again.

Rodolphus and Rabastan both write in cursive but in different ways. I think Rabastan would write really fast so it just passes off as cursive, if you look closer, you would just see curvy lines, no words. (so me) Rodolphus, I think, would be in actual cursive and very purposeful, he tales a little longer to write though.

I'm gonna project a quick possibility here: Rabastan developed a "shorthand" type thing where he writes scribbles but makes some letters clear so you would at least have an idea on what the word is like writing "Idea", and making sure that at least the I or D and A could be actually seen as, yk, and I or D and A. Idk I write me notes like that lol

but yes, they would def write in fancy as lettering!!

Damn not me and Rabastan having the same writing lmao. I also do a shorthand thing where it’s literally just looped scribbles for half the word and then the first and last letters and maybe the vowels are actually legible for later reading. Fun fact I also do that on assignments so that when my teachers read them they’re more likely to score me at least at passing because they can only kind of read what I wrote and therefore can’t say I didn’t get the answer. It’s a cheap trick I made up cuz I’m lazy and don’t feel like trying hard in certain classes and I feel like Rabastan would have had a similar experience in school with his major no fucks given energy to things that don’t grab his attention, so our similar strategies make sense at least to me lmao.

Tiberius: I’m sorry, what?

Vic: I’m a burden and a threat.

Gina: So you’re a bottom?