Aurélien Jeannot (aurelien) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-11-07 13:07:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | drunk |
Early Wednesday evening, 16 September 1942, in the Slytherin/Ravenclaw dorms at Hogwarts Castle...
Aurélien Jeannot looked up in shock. Dashwood and Kyteler were blocking his way into the sixth-years’ dorm, where neither of them slept any more. Kyteler was standing against the doorframe, arms crossed across his chest, and Dashwood was leaning against him. “Aurélien, a word with you? Hadrian, darling, this won’t take long, but it does need to be private. Do you mind, terribly?”
Then Dashwood stood up on his feet, and so did Kyteler. “I’ll wait for you in the common room,” said Kyteler pleasantly, kissing Dashwood’s cheek. “And then we can all go up to Enochian together, if the two of you are still speaking.” He walked away, with a lingering glance back at Dashwood.
Dashwood smiled, a very pleasant expression that did not reach his eyes, which Aurélien knew meant bad business. He even held the door open for Aurélien. Aurélien sat down on the chair in front of the desk; the bed had not been made and was frankly a mess, since Dashwood and Kyteler had been having their sweaty reunion there, and he was not about to sit in the effluvia thereof. Of course Dashwood pulled the covers over the bed without comment, sat down, and looked at him frankly.
“Aurélien,” he said, because Dashwood was like that; he used people’s first names, if he knew them at all, like a girl. “You and I, we have a problem or two. This was not what I wanted to come back to. I wanted to come back and spend the afternoon in bed, and then spend the evening collecting hugs and kisses from all of the people I’ve missed, who’ve missed me, and then I wanted to collect my money and get back to my research. Taking care of you is not what I’m here to do. I am very sorry about Claire. I am not so sorry about Martin. I know you are rather confused and all, and we have all been willing to pick up the slack. But you must know I can’t be involved with you in any way if you antagonise the Malfoys.”
Aurélien rolled his eyes at Dashwood. “That salope—”
“Is my friend,” said Dashwood in a soft, dangerous voice. “My friend, Charis’ friend, Alastor’s friend, Nathaniel’s friend, Valeria’s friend, and Isabella’s friend. Among others. And she is Lucius’ cousin, Charis’ cousin, Yvon’s niece, Lady Dracaena’s cousin and…very possibly going to win the war for us. And I told her that I would hurt anyone who called her names. I told her this last night, and she was drunk when I told her this, but I wasn’t. So now I have to hurt you. If you don’t stop. And apologise.”
“I suppose the whores stick together—” Aurélien began, and then suddenly stopped, because Dashwood had slapped him across the face. Hard. It hurt, and so did his head; there was a ringing noise in his ears and he was beginning to develop a blinding headache. Aurélien hauled back and began to swing.
“Go right ahead. Commit suicide if you like,” Dashwood said breezily. “What do you think will happen to you if you strike me, Aurélien? You can hurt me. I’m a terrible coward and I don’t like to fight. You’ll leave bruises all over me. Only I won’t cover them up, like I did with the ones that Martin gave me some years ago. I’ll show them. To Hadrian, and to Warrington, and to Alastor, and I’ll tell them you called me a whore. It will be worse for you than if you’d struck a girl. Which I think is what you’d like to do, really. Do you want to strike Ianthe? You’ll do it the once, then she’ll kill you. But if you hit me…”
Aurélien wanted to slap that smile right off his face. He didn’t want to hit Ianthe, did he? Did he, really? But…why did he want to hit Dashwood? Sure, his head ached, but Dashwood had warned him, Dashwood was just like a cat, you could stroke him as much as you liked, but when his hackles rose you had to let him go, or he would scratch and bite and snarl. And Dashwood had been his partner in crime—literally—for a number of years. Why was he so angry with Dashwood? “You might as well be a girl,” he said contemptuously.
“But I’m not,” said Dashwood. “Best of both worlds, really. It’s not like you to quibble at that. You used to not care how queer people were, or how whorish.” He smiled and crossed his arms across his chest. “Stop fucking up. I will find other people to help with my business, now that I have to be respectable, if you don’t. I don’t like you very much these days. In fact I wonder how I ever did. I feel awful for you about Claire, but Martin? Good riddance. Let Jerry take out the rubbish so we don’t have to.”
“What are you going to do to Colette?” Aurélien grumbled, his face dark red. “Since you’re the Malfoys’ man?”
Dashwood shrugged. “Colette will do worse to herself than I ever could,” he said softly. “As will you, but…I’m letting Rey and Horace deal with her. You, however, have made yourself my problem. You owe me some money, which you haven’t repaid, and the business is good, but it won’t be for long if you don’t clean it up. No-one wants to buy from someone whose product is obviously destroying him. It seems unwise, you know? Have you been sober for more than an hour since Claire died? Or at least make sure that you are not seen drinking anything I made before you put on these theatricals.”
“It’s a pretty trick, you telling anyone else to be sober. Of course you are now, aren’t you? Kyteler’s made you boring. You’re almost a housewife.” Aurélien stared at him. “What kind of world has this become, where the Malfoys align themselves with Mudbloods, like Riddle, and…”
“Whores?” Dashwood shrugged. “I can say it. So could you, if you could pronounce it properly. Try more nonchalance, less contempt.” He sighed. “The Malfoys are interested in talent. That’s who Nicodemo and Dracaena are. The Blacks and their allies have never been kind to Lady Dracaena. As for you, I think it best to remind you that you have traditionally liked slags, sluts and whores, and that I don’t think you’ve slept with any ‘good’ girls, because ‘good’ girls don’t sleep with people like you. But perhaps you can marry Maeve. Oh, but I forgot, you have no title. She’s after a title, you know.”
“I don’t want Maeve,” Aurélien said sullenly.
“Then stop fighting and making yourself a pest to the girls you do like.” Dashwood rolled his eyes. “Do you realise that you fight with all the girls Nat sighs over? It’s pathetic. When are you both going to accept that Ianthe does not want you to save her from anything and in fact is more likely to have to save you? Because I will not bother, you know. I will save what belongs to me. But until you apologise to Liane, I can hardly be seen as your friend.”
“What do you know?” Aurélien hissed, trying to make sense of all that through the blazing white pain in the front of his head, and to figure how Dashwood could guess at it.
“Only what’s blatantly obvious from Claire’s death, the manner of Claire’s death, the way you moon over Ianthe and the fact that I also knew Martin, though not very well,” said Dashwood tartly. “My father approved of him, didn’t you know?” He shrugged. “We have never been competitors, Aurélien; we’ve always each had our market, and split the difference. You don’t want to know what happens if I decide to put you out of business. Fortunately for you, I’m engaged to be married to Hadrian, whose career I must think of, and this is just money.”
“You’ll do anything for money,” said Aurélien. “Don’t try and pretend that you won’t.”
“I will if I have to,” said Dashwood, “but you see, I don’t have to, not now. I’m off the market, bought and paid for, not for rent.” He smiled thinly. “The Ravenclaws are already discussing Claire’s death. A fair number of them have come to the conclusion that it was you who ruined her. Go on acting like this, and you’ll cement it in their minds, and it won’t matter who did it, because Martin and Claire are both dead and you’ll be the one who has to live it all down. Now, Aurélien, go to the infirmary. Before you throw up on my floor.” He got up and opened the door.
“Bitch,” said Aurélien under his breath as he walked out of the room.
“Always,” said Dashwood. “Forget it at your mortal peril, Jeannot.”
fairlight, hadrian and aurelien