Fic: "Everything is Lovely Here," assorted Blacks, PG-13
Title: Everything is Lovely Here
Author: scythia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: It's about the Black family. Ergo, death, manipulation, hints of Blackcest, you know the drill.
A/N: Originally for reversathon. Thanks to calvina for the beta. Written pre- HBP; no spoilers.
please excuse the handwriting i am in a terrible hurry they are waiting for me you see and i dont want to miss anything
The youngest daughter is the most beautiful woman in pureblooded society and everyone who is anyone agrees. She has a lovely, even embroidery stitch, and quickly progresses from the basic samplers, in which x’s form and re-form into stars and diamonds, to elaborate tapestries for the walls of the finest of homes.
The first one she makes seems a solid green from a distance.
--And thus an excess of skill meets a dearth of imagination, says her older sister, but their dinner guest looks down his patrician nose at her sister and rises to examine it himself.
Up close it is not solid, not still, is a teeming wilderness of greenery and tiny insects that sigh and shift, every notching of every tiny leaf, every iridescent green-black wing-case and antenna, and through it seems to slip a tiny green garden-snake who can only be seen by the occasional murmur of the leaves, the flashing of tiny silver-thread eyes.
--I think it is subtle and magnificent, says the dinner guest, and within two years they are married.
When Narcissa Black marries Lucius Malfoy and a new constellation flares beneath Mrs Black’s fingers on the great tapestry, Narcissa’s mother remembers her other, older tapestry, when it was her terrible beauty and not her children’s that made the world catch its breath, the glint on the tiny serpent’s eyes in her bridal chamber, when there was only her and her husband and the wizarding world stretched out before them fertile and green and waiting in the shifting darknesses of all its roots and branches
everything is lovely here except you you are not here and you ought to be
It was not supposed to be like this. It was not like this in Salazar Slytherin’s day. In Salazar Slytherin’s day men were strong and pure in intention and women were noble and pure in body and the wizarding world was as ordered as the stars.
This has always been his bedtime story, his almost-dreaming story, but since Andromeda left and Sirius too there has been silence in their house at night and his mother does not come. Regulus misses the cadences of her voice, misses the foot-pad vibrations of Sirius sneaking through the halls, misses the sound of Andromeda’s records, and the only sound in the house is the skittering of the rats in the attic whose presence no one will admit.
Back at Hogwarts he pulls the curtains tight around his bed and whispers to himself it was not supposed to be like this and when above the dungeon ceiling he hears the sound of footfalls he imagines it is his brother above him and untouchable, his magnetic north, and he buries his face in his pillow and gasps strong and pure in intention
but if it is all lies what they told us everything that everyone tells us then why does it matter anyway
--I don’t care if he doesn’t like me any more.
Remus Lupin does not look up from his shrivelfigs.
--If he doesn’t like me any more that’s fine because I don’t like him any more either.
Remus Lupin does not like remedial potions, does not like spending the last few months of his last years at Hogwarts remaking potions only because he has been more tired recently, has taken more time to heal after every full moon now, and when he is tired his hands shake and when his hands shake he breaks things, delicate things like potions vials, and he does not like being trapped down here with Regulus Black firstly because he is a Slytherin with everything that entails and secondly because he has had his fill of the Black family and everything that entails.
--If he doesn't remember how he used to grab me so hard I bruised that's fine because I remember. Tell him I remember.
--Tell him yourself, says Remus, and stalks out, something like rage or nausea crawling along his skin on delicate indifferent ant-feet. He does not think about Regulus and he certainly does not think about Sirius or all the empty things he'd had to say. Instead he thinks about how he will explain to his father this failing grade in Potions, the abandoned shrivelfigs, the botched potions, the fact that he has sent enough owls back unread that none now come for him.
do you remember that time by the coast i lied for you then do you remember do you remember if so why wont you look at me just look at me
In Gryffindor they teach you that everything is black and white, that bravery is always the answer, that loyalty is always true, that every battle has a winner and a loser, that everything comes to an end. Most people Sorted into Gryffindor are never so content in their understanding of the world, are never so happy, as when they are at Hogwarts.
Those are not the lessons they teach you in Slytherin. Most people Sorted into Slytherin are never so content in their understanding of the world as when they are very, very wealthy -- or in Azkaban. Most people in Slytherin are never perfectly happy, but, then, most people Sorted into Slytherin know how to wait. Most of them.
your problem is that you do not know who to trust mother said so and shes right you know but i know where i belong
--You miss him, says Narcissa Black. No, she is a Malfoy now, and it is her house -- his house --they sit in. Regulus’ mother’s tapestry, her favorite one, the green one he thinks is dull, hangs over the dining-room table, a wedding-present.
He does not ask who she means because here, among these people, among his blood, there is only one person whose name they do not speak and it is not Voldemort.
--You miss when he spoke to you. You miss when he didn’t speak to you. He would start fights at the dinner table and the shouts would make your head throb, your blood race, and then he would come to you sullen and proud and you would cry, wouldn’t you, Regulus? Your skin tasting of salt and regret, and he loves the taste of regret, doesn’t he? Don’t you? Regulus?
Regulus makes an odd mewling noise that is halfway between a sob and a gasp and he shudders and Narcissa dabs at the corners of her mouth delicately and says --You may be excused, dear and Regulus stands and sketches out a half-bow to Lucius at the far end of the table who has not looked up from his parchment, not once, and escapes.
Smell of ozone and ash: Bellatrix is in the hall, ready to go out. She looks at him with her hooded cobra eyes and smiles and reaches out to touch him to card his rage as if it were wool with her long tangled fingers until it is fine and ready to be spun.
--It is my cousin my baby cousin the other cousin. Will you come out and play? Will you come out and play with me to-night?
He nods and off he goes dust in her comet’s wake; her hair is a scandal and every other word she speaks is madness but O her rage her rage is perfect
at first i thought she wouldnt stop screaming but then she did she did stop she stopped
The Unforgivables leave little pale blotches no larger than thumb-prints on the softest parts of your flesh but otherwise they burn off vanish like lake mist and you look very peaceful very peaceful indeed.
--Horrible, says James, --How did you know we would find her here? Lily sets her lips in a tight thin line, not looking at Sirius, and says nothing. Sirius crouches above the body and counts every blotch. He puts his hand on the mouth, tenderly, which is as it ended, half-open.
--There’s nothing you can do now, says Remus but his voice makes it a question.
--I know, says Sirius, hears the unease in their voices. --I know.
i told you if you didnt write back it would happen i warned you i would do it see you are not the only one in this family with resolve
It was all going so well until something went horribly wrong and he knows he will never know what it was and then it is over.
Later Sirius means to say yes that’s him that’s my brother, but all that comes out is an odd mewling noise and Peter, who is the only one who would go with him, clears his throat and says it for him --Yes, that’s him, that’s Regulus Black.
They leave together Peter trailing not so much behind but off to the side a ways slantwise the last planet left in his orbit and Sirius is glad that no one is there to see him to see him like this (except for Peter who hardly counts) as he walks home where a wilderness of unanswered letters wait for him, rustling beneath his bed where he has torn them into fragments, counterfeit leaves to forest this green and pleasant land.
everything is lovely here will you come? will you come?
Author: scythia
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: It's about the Black family. Ergo, death, manipulation, hints of Blackcest, you know the drill.
A/N: Originally for reversathon. Thanks to calvina for the beta. Written pre- HBP; no spoilers.
please excuse the handwriting i am in a terrible hurry they are waiting for me you see and i dont want to miss anything
The youngest daughter is the most beautiful woman in pureblooded society and everyone who is anyone agrees. She has a lovely, even embroidery stitch, and quickly progresses from the basic samplers, in which x’s form and re-form into stars and diamonds, to elaborate tapestries for the walls of the finest of homes.
The first one she makes seems a solid green from a distance.
--And thus an excess of skill meets a dearth of imagination, says her older sister, but their dinner guest looks down his patrician nose at her sister and rises to examine it himself.
Up close it is not solid, not still, is a teeming wilderness of greenery and tiny insects that sigh and shift, every notching of every tiny leaf, every iridescent green-black wing-case and antenna, and through it seems to slip a tiny green garden-snake who can only be seen by the occasional murmur of the leaves, the flashing of tiny silver-thread eyes.
--I think it is subtle and magnificent, says the dinner guest, and within two years they are married.
When Narcissa Black marries Lucius Malfoy and a new constellation flares beneath Mrs Black’s fingers on the great tapestry, Narcissa’s mother remembers her other, older tapestry, when it was her terrible beauty and not her children’s that made the world catch its breath, the glint on the tiny serpent’s eyes in her bridal chamber, when there was only her and her husband and the wizarding world stretched out before them fertile and green and waiting in the shifting darknesses of all its roots and branches
everything is lovely here except you you are not here and you ought to be
It was not supposed to be like this. It was not like this in Salazar Slytherin’s day. In Salazar Slytherin’s day men were strong and pure in intention and women were noble and pure in body and the wizarding world was as ordered as the stars.
This has always been his bedtime story, his almost-dreaming story, but since Andromeda left and Sirius too there has been silence in their house at night and his mother does not come. Regulus misses the cadences of her voice, misses the foot-pad vibrations of Sirius sneaking through the halls, misses the sound of Andromeda’s records, and the only sound in the house is the skittering of the rats in the attic whose presence no one will admit.
Back at Hogwarts he pulls the curtains tight around his bed and whispers to himself it was not supposed to be like this and when above the dungeon ceiling he hears the sound of footfalls he imagines it is his brother above him and untouchable, his magnetic north, and he buries his face in his pillow and gasps strong and pure in intention
but if it is all lies what they told us everything that everyone tells us then why does it matter anyway
--I don’t care if he doesn’t like me any more.
Remus Lupin does not look up from his shrivelfigs.
--If he doesn’t like me any more that’s fine because I don’t like him any more either.
Remus Lupin does not like remedial potions, does not like spending the last few months of his last years at Hogwarts remaking potions only because he has been more tired recently, has taken more time to heal after every full moon now, and when he is tired his hands shake and when his hands shake he breaks things, delicate things like potions vials, and he does not like being trapped down here with Regulus Black firstly because he is a Slytherin with everything that entails and secondly because he has had his fill of the Black family and everything that entails.
--If he doesn't remember how he used to grab me so hard I bruised that's fine because I remember. Tell him I remember.
--Tell him yourself, says Remus, and stalks out, something like rage or nausea crawling along his skin on delicate indifferent ant-feet. He does not think about Regulus and he certainly does not think about Sirius or all the empty things he'd had to say. Instead he thinks about how he will explain to his father this failing grade in Potions, the abandoned shrivelfigs, the botched potions, the fact that he has sent enough owls back unread that none now come for him.
do you remember that time by the coast i lied for you then do you remember do you remember if so why wont you look at me just look at me
In Gryffindor they teach you that everything is black and white, that bravery is always the answer, that loyalty is always true, that every battle has a winner and a loser, that everything comes to an end. Most people Sorted into Gryffindor are never so content in their understanding of the world, are never so happy, as when they are at Hogwarts.
Those are not the lessons they teach you in Slytherin. Most people Sorted into Slytherin are never so content in their understanding of the world as when they are very, very wealthy -- or in Azkaban. Most people in Slytherin are never perfectly happy, but, then, most people Sorted into Slytherin know how to wait. Most of them.
your problem is that you do not know who to trust mother said so and shes right you know but i know where i belong
--You miss him, says Narcissa Black. No, she is a Malfoy now, and it is her house -- his house --they sit in. Regulus’ mother’s tapestry, her favorite one, the green one he thinks is dull, hangs over the dining-room table, a wedding-present.
He does not ask who she means because here, among these people, among his blood, there is only one person whose name they do not speak and it is not Voldemort.
--You miss when he spoke to you. You miss when he didn’t speak to you. He would start fights at the dinner table and the shouts would make your head throb, your blood race, and then he would come to you sullen and proud and you would cry, wouldn’t you, Regulus? Your skin tasting of salt and regret, and he loves the taste of regret, doesn’t he? Don’t you? Regulus?
Regulus makes an odd mewling noise that is halfway between a sob and a gasp and he shudders and Narcissa dabs at the corners of her mouth delicately and says --You may be excused, dear and Regulus stands and sketches out a half-bow to Lucius at the far end of the table who has not looked up from his parchment, not once, and escapes.
Smell of ozone and ash: Bellatrix is in the hall, ready to go out. She looks at him with her hooded cobra eyes and smiles and reaches out to touch him to card his rage as if it were wool with her long tangled fingers until it is fine and ready to be spun.
--It is my cousin my baby cousin the other cousin. Will you come out and play? Will you come out and play with me to-night?
He nods and off he goes dust in her comet’s wake; her hair is a scandal and every other word she speaks is madness but O her rage her rage is perfect
at first i thought she wouldnt stop screaming but then she did she did stop she stopped
The Unforgivables leave little pale blotches no larger than thumb-prints on the softest parts of your flesh but otherwise they burn off vanish like lake mist and you look very peaceful very peaceful indeed.
--Horrible, says James, --How did you know we would find her here? Lily sets her lips in a tight thin line, not looking at Sirius, and says nothing. Sirius crouches above the body and counts every blotch. He puts his hand on the mouth, tenderly, which is as it ended, half-open.
--There’s nothing you can do now, says Remus but his voice makes it a question.
--I know, says Sirius, hears the unease in their voices. --I know.
i told you if you didnt write back it would happen i warned you i would do it see you are not the only one in this family with resolve
It was all going so well until something went horribly wrong and he knows he will never know what it was and then it is over.
Later Sirius means to say yes that’s him that’s my brother, but all that comes out is an odd mewling noise and Peter, who is the only one who would go with him, clears his throat and says it for him --Yes, that’s him, that’s Regulus Black.
They leave together Peter trailing not so much behind but off to the side a ways slantwise the last planet left in his orbit and Sirius is glad that no one is there to see him to see him like this (except for Peter who hardly counts) as he walks home where a wilderness of unanswered letters wait for him, rustling beneath his bed where he has torn them into fragments, counterfeit leaves to forest this green and pleasant land.
everything is lovely here will you come? will you come?