RP: So What Are We Now?

[shh_rodolphus]

Date: June 14th, 2005
Characters: Ginny Weasley and Rodolphus Lestrange
Location: The River
Status: Private
Summary: Rodolphus hopes he was right about Ginny's vague reference to Thursday.
Complete: Complete

Comments

[shh_ginny]

"I can't argue with that but I doubt you would have heeded it under the circumstances." Ginny shrugged.

She sighed. "It's not enough to love someone if you lose yourself in it. You had free will, you made your own choices even if those choices were to let someone else control you. Even I had a choice, narrow though it was."

"I already am."

[shh_rodolphus]

"Perhaps something or someone is trying to remind me of my folly the first time I disregarded someone's insight, be it vague or not. I sincerely doubt your dreams mean nothing."

He laughed, and it was bitter.

"I suppose I find it strange that I am not the darkness in your dreams, considering who I am. What would be following all three of us with such determination? Perhaps it is a metaphor for something, or a person, or just...a dream, despite how much I doubt that."

Rodolphus absently ran his fingers over the open page of the notebook that held the scene in the forest.

"I know you are." He said softly. "It is entirely possible that one of your companions killed my wife as well. Should I pursue them for the fury of their spears?"

[shh_ginny]

Ginny turned, leaning over to pull the pencil from his hand and in that motion, curled her hand in the space where the pencil had been, suddenly empathic. "No. My dream isn't a warning. It can't be. You don't understand. In the dream, I'm trying to protect you. The cat. You. Okay? I didn't want to say it but there it is."

She released his hand and stood, raking a hand through her hair as she paced toward the rivers edge. "Ever since... ever since I started having this dream, I've not had any nightmares unless I forget to meditate. I'm not talking your run of the mill scary monster in the closet nightmares here. I'm talking, slammed awake in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. never want to sleep every again nightmares. I think the darkness... its them. Because of what I did."

Spinning around, Ginny said sharply. "Pursue them for what?"

[shh_rodolphus]

Rodolphus was vaguely started when her hand touched his, but he did his best to hide it

[shh_ginny]

"No, I reject the possibility that it's anything more than my subconscious mind telling me I've gone quite mental, thank you."

Her hand went to her head and Ginny drew a deep breath. "It doesn't. All right? Is that what you wanted to hear? It doesn't. It... it overtakes us. He and I. He because he won't run. I because I cannot let him stand alone. I can't. But not you. Not the cat. I push him away..." She turned her back to the wizard, trying to steady her heartrate and when she continued, it was in a more subdued, emotionless tone. "I wake up then."

She walked back to him, standing before him at the bench, looking down. Ginny reached out as if to touch him but drew her hand back. "I was quoting Homer. 'Looking darkly upon Hector, swift footed Achilles answered, 'I cannot forgive you. As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, there can be no love between you and me. Before then to glut with his blood, Ares, the god who fights under the shield's guard. Now the time comes for you to be a spearman and a bold warrior. You

[shh_rodolphus]

"I sincerely doubt you've gone mental

[shh_ginny]

Everything Bill railed at her came rushing back and Ginny stubbornly set her jaw. "He's my friend and he earned that."

She didn't respond any further about the dream, just giving her head a curt shake.

Her eyes narrowed and Ginny took a very deliberate step back, the thin layer of remembered trust in the man before her sheering away at his words and it took everything she had not to reach for her wand. Angry now, she hissed. "You are the last person I'd want forgiveness from. Your friends... the people you think you cared about so bloody much... they were trying to kill me and my patients and I hope they rot in the afterlife. I hope they spend eternity in torment a thousand times worse than what I live with."

[shh_rodolphus]

"I'm sure he has."

He saw rage flash through her eyes at his words, and wasn't surprised.

"I do not think that I cared about them, Ginny. I did. Whether or not it was returned in kind does not matter to me."

Rodolphus looked up at her, his gaze level.

"Perhaps you do not want my forgiveness, but there is likely someone or something you want forgiveness from. People are rarely haunted by entirely justified things. Be angry at me, be angry at everyone who's ever wronged you, but then look me in the face and tell me that that eases your guilt. Hate me, if you will, but at least be honest with me."

[shh_ginny]

A chill raced along her skin. "Maybe people like you believe that but those of us on the other side, we didn't enjoy what we had to do to save ourselves from people like you."

"Be honest with you? That's laughable, really. You don't care about my honesty. You never cared about me. You'd rather I had died if it meant your friends lived, so yeah, you're bloody right I'll be angry." Ginny said sharply. "The only thing I need forgiveness from is believing you... Sod it, it doesn't matter."

[shh_rodolphus]

"You think I enjoyed killing?" Rodolphus said, and looked away.

That wounded him more than he would ever admit, and he bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.

"I don't care about your honesty? Really? Isn't an issue of honesty what made us angry at each other in the first place?"

He stood up and looked at her, teeth clenched.

"If you don't think I care about you, then you need someone to have your head examined."

Rodolphus wiped the blood from his lip, anger glowing in his eyes as he stared at her.

[shh_ginny]

"What made me angry in the first place was finding out that someone I cared deeply for was really Rodolphus Lestrange." Ginny hissed unmercifully, letting the untruth filter in to hide the fact that she'd allowed herself to care for the man in front of her at all.

She steeled herself not to step back when he stood, unwilling to appear afraid or intimidated even as he looked down at her.

Lifting her chin defiantly, Ginny said angrily. "If you do, you have a bloody fine way of showing it!"

[shh_rodolphus]

"What made me angry was the fact that our friendship, all the moments by the river, in Scotland, you helping with my headaches, suddenly turned to ash. I am not saying in any way that they balance out what I've done, but that doesn't mean they mean nothing!"

He half-shouted the last words and his hands clenched into fists.

"How am I supposed to show you I care?" Rodolphus said, forcing his tone to lower. "If I agree and tell you that, yes, everyone I knew as comrades were worth nothing as people, that I'm glad my wife is dead, would that make things better? I cannot change the past, and neither can you. All we can shape is the future. What in Merlin's bloody name do you want from me?"

[shh_ginny]

"Of course they bloody meant something you sodding..." She'd cringed the smallest bit when he raised his voice but the motion of his hands caught her attention and Ginny reached out, curling one hand around his wrist. "Stop that. Please. Rod."

"Well, bloody shouting at me certainly isn't the way." Ginny blinked, unnerved by how quickly she'd gotten angry. She tried to continue on a softer tone. "I don't want you to agree. I won't lie and say I'm sorry Bellatrix is dead though I'd be lying if I said I'd rather you were glad of it."

She didn't let go of her hold but she loosened it, hesitating. "I don't know. I just don't bloody know, all right?"

[shh_rodolphus]

Rodolphus looked down at the hand encompassing his wrist and stared at it for a moment. Letting out a deep breath, his hands slowly unclenched. His short nails had left faint half-moon marks in his palms.

"I'm sorry." He said softly. "I shouldn't have yelled. This is all just...frustrating."

He managed an extremely weak chuckle.

"And I am aware of the severe understatement of my words."

Rodolphus watched her grip slowly relax.

"I don't know either. But I'm quite sure raging at each other is likely not the way to go."

[shh_ginny]

"You know, before... I'd have given anything to see you feel so much but now... Merlin, you have no idea how..." Ginny sighed, knowing she should let go of his wrist but unable to make her hand open. In all the time she'd spent with the wizard in the past, they very rarely touched and it'd only been the warmth of his skin under her hand that had brought her out from behind the wall of blind anger that had engulfed her

[shh_rodolphus]

Rodolphus listened to her in silence, his eyes looking down at the hand grasping his wrist.

"I do suppose that is true." He said quietly, teeth worrying at his lip. "I wish it was as simple as just closing a door or locking a chest. Something that could be done and easily walked away from."

His gaze moved from her hand to her face.

"I know it's hard. It would be unfair to assume that everything could be suddenly alright."

He nodded faintly when she said she needed to think, but was fairly startled when she tightly hugged him before apparating away.

Rodolphus stared at the blank space in front of him for a moment before collapsing down on the bench and for the first time in a very long while, fighting back what he believed could be tears.