FIC: Pigments (The Blacks)
Well, here's the first of my prompts done. (And I really need an icon for all of the Blacks.)
Title: Pigments
Character(s): The Blacks (Sirius, Regulus, Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa)
Prompt: Red
Rating: PG
Word Count:1,551
Summary: Red and the Blacks seem to go together.
Author's Notes: Mention of torture.
***
Andromeda wears red on her wedding day.
It is not the custom among western Muggles to wear such a colour, and Andromeda can tell that her mother-in-law-to-be is shocked by the very idea. But red is the colour that the Blacks wear when they wed, red for fidelity, for affinity, for true love. Andromeda, sensing that she and Ted will need all the good fortune they can get, wears a gold-trimmed gown of richest crimson for prosperity and luck, weaves a red rose in the black braid encircling her head, and secretly offers a libation of sweet red wine to a very bad plaster statue of Aphrodite about an hour before the wedding.
It couldn't hurt, after all. And it might help.
***
Narcissa wears scarves of rose madder, bedecks herself in vermilion amulets, and commands Dobby to hang scarlet curtains at her bedroom windows. She loathes the colour-she prefers cooler shades, such as blues and greens-and Lucius likes it no better, complaining that her suite of rooms resembles the common room of Gryffindor. Nevertheless, she continues to surround herself with it. The colour red, in connection with the proper spells and rituals, is supposed to promote fertility.
She frets sometimes that she and Lucius have yet to conceive a child. It is not merely that they both want one sorely. It is not even that Lucius needs an heir.
The problem, simply, is the war. The first rule of wars is that people die. Narcissa knows that some Death Eaters have perished already-Rosier, Jugson, Wilkes. She worries whenever her husband goes out to another meeting; she wonders, as she waits, whether Aurors are a-prowl that night, and Lucius and his compatriots will wander into a trap.
Would Lucius let himself be taken alive? She is not sure. She is not certain whether she would rather that he fight to the death, or be captured. She does not want him to die; she feels that while there is life, there is still a chance. Yet she knows that in the hands of the Aurors-and later, in Azkaban-Lucius would have no chance at all.
She has nightmares in which she dreams of Dementors grabbing Lucius, giving him the Kiss, and then tossing the mindless, soulless thing that her husband has become at her. More nights than she cares to count, she awakens from her dreams cold with terror. She sleeps with torches burning outside her room, and with every candle lit within it, and hopes fervently that Voldemort will conquer soon so that she and hers will be safe.
In the meantime, she beseeches Lucius to wear a ruby ring she bought him.
She doesn't tell him that she had it enchanted with spells of protection, or that rubies are supposed to convey invincibility.
It's like the fertility amulets and the red curtains. Just for luck. Purely for luck. Of course.
***
Bellatrix stands beside her dying victims, her heavy black hair ill-concealed by the hood of her robe, her pale skin bleached even lighter by moonlight, her dark red lips barely a slash of shadow upon her face. She looks less like the Witch-Queen she sometimes fancies herself than like Snow White gone horribly wrong.
And like Snow White, black and red and white are innate in her. The Black blood and her own black magic are intertwined, and she relishes red affairs-doings that lesser folk would term evil-which end, for her victims, in white shrouds...or in white wardrooms, where Healers act as jailers for the mad. The cool green euthanasia of Avada Kedavra is nothing to her; let fools play with it if they will, but for her it is worthless. Once a victim is dead, he's dead.
Bellatrix always liked breaking toys. She did not, however, appreciate it when the toys stayed broken.
She savours Crucio, for it leaves no wounds-no visible ones, at any rate-and yet it fills the mind with red, raw pain, filling the blood with acidic agony and the mind with images of hideous unspeakables that are all eyes and tongue and teeth. Sometimes, too, she casts Sectumsempra at her victims, and watches the red blood slowly trickle from their bodies into dark pools that shine wetly on the ground. She dabbles her fingers in the blood, and wipes it on their doorposts in a mute mockery of the lambs'-blood the ancient Israelites daubed on their doors to to tell the Angel of Death not to enter. She is the Angel of Death now, and none can keep her out.
***
Sirius's days are filled with fire.
Every day now, it seems, some Death Eater casts Incendio on the home of some harmless Muggle or Muggleborn-or on the unfortunate person himself. Sirius sometimes stops to help those attempting to extinguish the fire (for magical flames can be tricky, ceasing in one spot only to take hold even more firmly in another), and he's seen the arsonists at the back of the crowds-but always with a clear view of their handiwork, and always with a smile of unholy bliss on their faces as they watch the scarlet-orange-yellow flames and listen to the victims' sobs and screams.
Every night, Sirius writes articles about the war-articles so inflammatory that no respectable wizarding publisher will touch them, for fear of incurring Voldemort's wrath. The Quibbler, which has never given two hoots and a tinker's dam about respectability, publishes some of them; Edmund Lovegood helps Sirius smuggle the rest out of the country, so that the world will know the truth about Voldemort, about the Death Eaters, about what is happening in Britain. Sirius has never had any trouble with words-in fact, he's always had a genius for inspiring both rage and laughter-but these articles seem different, like ancient scrolls left by conquered slaves, detailing the cruelty of their masters. It is as if he is setting his words against the histories that Voldemort and his cronies will write if they win, and Sirius can almost fancy that the ink on the parchment glistens like dark red blood.
Another kind of fire consumes Sirius's time as well-the Order of the Phoenix. A phoenix, which is supposed to burst into crimson flames and be born again from its own ashes. Sirius does not care for the symbol; he mislikes the notions of ashes and eternity. It seems to imply that they are going to be fighting this war forever and will be defeated eternally...only they won't know enough to quit. He knows that he himself has never known when to do so.
Sometimes he goes to James and Lily's hearthside to see his godson, but even there the war lurks, ready to surprise him at uncomfortable intervals. He's reminded of it, briefly, when he notes the Protection Charms (which flash white) and the Stunning Spells (which glow red) that Lily and James have placed around their property. He sees it in the sag of James's shoulders and the exhausted way that Lily bows her red head. He sees the magical plants that Remus-or was it Peter?--placed near every window and door to guard those within: yellow oak leaves, grey ash wood, scarlet holly berries, green mistletoe. He struggles to protect Harry even from bad dreams, and carefully bowderises each fairy tale to spare the baby any unnecessary nightmares about evil wizards, or monsters with red eyes.
***
An alchemic transformation is occurring in Regulus.
Everything was fine when he first joined the Death Eaters. But now a reverse alchemy has taken place, turning pure gold to something vile. The mixture that is his life is slowing turning red, the bright red of arterial blood, the purplish-red of that from veins. He sees all of the raids and battles as rituals now, a means of gifting Voldemort with some manner of immortality-physical or historical, it doesn't matter.
He is not willing to fling himself into the crucible of Voldemort's crafting and have his mind and will melt away, becoming indistinguishable from those of all the other Death Eaters. Blacks are pure, not alloys.
He would like to halt, to stop the juggernaut that he can almost feel bearing down on him. But he can't. It is as if he has been caught up in a great red river racing to some sunless sea.
He only hopes that before he perishes-and that is inevitable, for Voldemort is not forgiving, nor does he suffer the disloyal to live-he will have found some way of striking back in some subtle way, and of protecting those most at risk. His idiotic brother, for one.
It is probably a vain hope, and he knows it. It is not even a Slytherin hope. It's the kind of reckless and stupidly brave thing that Sirius used to do all through school.
Still, Regulus reflects, he would like to go out with a bit of a flourish...even if that is uncharacteristic of Slytherins.
After all, he thinks, recalling the crimson emblem of Gryffindor House, isn't the other name for the star Regulus 'Cor Leoni'--the Heart of the Lion?
***
Title: Pigments
Character(s): The Blacks (Sirius, Regulus, Bellatrix, Andromeda, Narcissa)
Prompt: Red
Rating: PG
Word Count:1,551
Summary: Red and the Blacks seem to go together.
Author's Notes: Mention of torture.
***
Andromeda wears red on her wedding day.
It is not the custom among western Muggles to wear such a colour, and Andromeda can tell that her mother-in-law-to-be is shocked by the very idea. But red is the colour that the Blacks wear when they wed, red for fidelity, for affinity, for true love. Andromeda, sensing that she and Ted will need all the good fortune they can get, wears a gold-trimmed gown of richest crimson for prosperity and luck, weaves a red rose in the black braid encircling her head, and secretly offers a libation of sweet red wine to a very bad plaster statue of Aphrodite about an hour before the wedding.
It couldn't hurt, after all. And it might help.
***
Narcissa wears scarves of rose madder, bedecks herself in vermilion amulets, and commands Dobby to hang scarlet curtains at her bedroom windows. She loathes the colour-she prefers cooler shades, such as blues and greens-and Lucius likes it no better, complaining that her suite of rooms resembles the common room of Gryffindor. Nevertheless, she continues to surround herself with it. The colour red, in connection with the proper spells and rituals, is supposed to promote fertility.
She frets sometimes that she and Lucius have yet to conceive a child. It is not merely that they both want one sorely. It is not even that Lucius needs an heir.
The problem, simply, is the war. The first rule of wars is that people die. Narcissa knows that some Death Eaters have perished already-Rosier, Jugson, Wilkes. She worries whenever her husband goes out to another meeting; she wonders, as she waits, whether Aurors are a-prowl that night, and Lucius and his compatriots will wander into a trap.
Would Lucius let himself be taken alive? She is not sure. She is not certain whether she would rather that he fight to the death, or be captured. She does not want him to die; she feels that while there is life, there is still a chance. Yet she knows that in the hands of the Aurors-and later, in Azkaban-Lucius would have no chance at all.
She has nightmares in which she dreams of Dementors grabbing Lucius, giving him the Kiss, and then tossing the mindless, soulless thing that her husband has become at her. More nights than she cares to count, she awakens from her dreams cold with terror. She sleeps with torches burning outside her room, and with every candle lit within it, and hopes fervently that Voldemort will conquer soon so that she and hers will be safe.
In the meantime, she beseeches Lucius to wear a ruby ring she bought him.
She doesn't tell him that she had it enchanted with spells of protection, or that rubies are supposed to convey invincibility.
It's like the fertility amulets and the red curtains. Just for luck. Purely for luck. Of course.
***
Bellatrix stands beside her dying victims, her heavy black hair ill-concealed by the hood of her robe, her pale skin bleached even lighter by moonlight, her dark red lips barely a slash of shadow upon her face. She looks less like the Witch-Queen she sometimes fancies herself than like Snow White gone horribly wrong.
And like Snow White, black and red and white are innate in her. The Black blood and her own black magic are intertwined, and she relishes red affairs-doings that lesser folk would term evil-which end, for her victims, in white shrouds...or in white wardrooms, where Healers act as jailers for the mad. The cool green euthanasia of Avada Kedavra is nothing to her; let fools play with it if they will, but for her it is worthless. Once a victim is dead, he's dead.
Bellatrix always liked breaking toys. She did not, however, appreciate it when the toys stayed broken.
She savours Crucio, for it leaves no wounds-no visible ones, at any rate-and yet it fills the mind with red, raw pain, filling the blood with acidic agony and the mind with images of hideous unspeakables that are all eyes and tongue and teeth. Sometimes, too, she casts Sectumsempra at her victims, and watches the red blood slowly trickle from their bodies into dark pools that shine wetly on the ground. She dabbles her fingers in the blood, and wipes it on their doorposts in a mute mockery of the lambs'-blood the ancient Israelites daubed on their doors to to tell the Angel of Death not to enter. She is the Angel of Death now, and none can keep her out.
***
Sirius's days are filled with fire.
Every day now, it seems, some Death Eater casts Incendio on the home of some harmless Muggle or Muggleborn-or on the unfortunate person himself. Sirius sometimes stops to help those attempting to extinguish the fire (for magical flames can be tricky, ceasing in one spot only to take hold even more firmly in another), and he's seen the arsonists at the back of the crowds-but always with a clear view of their handiwork, and always with a smile of unholy bliss on their faces as they watch the scarlet-orange-yellow flames and listen to the victims' sobs and screams.
Every night, Sirius writes articles about the war-articles so inflammatory that no respectable wizarding publisher will touch them, for fear of incurring Voldemort's wrath. The Quibbler, which has never given two hoots and a tinker's dam about respectability, publishes some of them; Edmund Lovegood helps Sirius smuggle the rest out of the country, so that the world will know the truth about Voldemort, about the Death Eaters, about what is happening in Britain. Sirius has never had any trouble with words-in fact, he's always had a genius for inspiring both rage and laughter-but these articles seem different, like ancient scrolls left by conquered slaves, detailing the cruelty of their masters. It is as if he is setting his words against the histories that Voldemort and his cronies will write if they win, and Sirius can almost fancy that the ink on the parchment glistens like dark red blood.
Another kind of fire consumes Sirius's time as well-the Order of the Phoenix. A phoenix, which is supposed to burst into crimson flames and be born again from its own ashes. Sirius does not care for the symbol; he mislikes the notions of ashes and eternity. It seems to imply that they are going to be fighting this war forever and will be defeated eternally...only they won't know enough to quit. He knows that he himself has never known when to do so.
Sometimes he goes to James and Lily's hearthside to see his godson, but even there the war lurks, ready to surprise him at uncomfortable intervals. He's reminded of it, briefly, when he notes the Protection Charms (which flash white) and the Stunning Spells (which glow red) that Lily and James have placed around their property. He sees it in the sag of James's shoulders and the exhausted way that Lily bows her red head. He sees the magical plants that Remus-or was it Peter?--placed near every window and door to guard those within: yellow oak leaves, grey ash wood, scarlet holly berries, green mistletoe. He struggles to protect Harry even from bad dreams, and carefully bowderises each fairy tale to spare the baby any unnecessary nightmares about evil wizards, or monsters with red eyes.
***
An alchemic transformation is occurring in Regulus.
Everything was fine when he first joined the Death Eaters. But now a reverse alchemy has taken place, turning pure gold to something vile. The mixture that is his life is slowing turning red, the bright red of arterial blood, the purplish-red of that from veins. He sees all of the raids and battles as rituals now, a means of gifting Voldemort with some manner of immortality-physical or historical, it doesn't matter.
He is not willing to fling himself into the crucible of Voldemort's crafting and have his mind and will melt away, becoming indistinguishable from those of all the other Death Eaters. Blacks are pure, not alloys.
He would like to halt, to stop the juggernaut that he can almost feel bearing down on him. But he can't. It is as if he has been caught up in a great red river racing to some sunless sea.
He only hopes that before he perishes-and that is inevitable, for Voldemort is not forgiving, nor does he suffer the disloyal to live-he will have found some way of striking back in some subtle way, and of protecting those most at risk. His idiotic brother, for one.
It is probably a vain hope, and he knows it. It is not even a Slytherin hope. It's the kind of reckless and stupidly brave thing that Sirius used to do all through school.
Still, Regulus reflects, he would like to go out with a bit of a flourish...even if that is uncharacteristic of Slytherins.
After all, he thinks, recalling the crimson emblem of Gryffindor House, isn't the other name for the star Regulus 'Cor Leoni'--the Heart of the Lion?
***