For a long moment, Chas simply watched her sister, weighing her options before exhaling in a long breath. "The man I talked to you about before. The one I..." She paused and then lifted her hand, fingers pressing over her heart for a brief moment before she dropped it again. "You know." She sighed again. "He's Barty Crouch. The Minister of Magic." Which part of her thought was explanation enough, but somehow she found herself continuing, "I joined the Death Eaters not particularly because I truly believed in the cause or the Dark Lord, but because it was what I needed to do to protect us... and yes, I wasn't opposed to the cause, or the perks I gained from joining. But my loyalty... well, it was always to you before anyone else."
Chas couldn't look at her sister while she was saying this, she felt too raw and exposed by the revealings of thoughts and emotions she normally kept hidden. Eyes on the ceiling, voice rough, she continued, "That's still true. It always will be. But Barty... I believe in him. He's incredible and strong and confident and I would fight alongside him, for him, without hesitation. Regardless of the fact that we're not even together. If things go badly, they'll go badly for him, too, and I can't just..." Abandon him?
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The fact that it had to do with love, or whatever Chastity was calling it, for a man rather than devotion to the cause - well, that certainly didn't give Patience more hope in terms of talking her sister into running to safety rather than fighting, but it did make it much easier to understand. She gave her twin a little smile. "I don't suppose there's any chance that he'll be trying to get to safety if everything goes under," she said softly. "Maybe he has something, or someone, he'd rather live for, too."
If they were together, and she were certain that the Minister cared about her twin as much as Chastity cared about him, she might suggest that he could live for her. She didn't want to presume, though. She raised her hands to rub her forehead. "I don't want him to die, either, because you care about him.”
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Her first instinct was to say that no, Barty would never run, but then she found herself considering it a moment. "Barty's a Slytherin," Chastity remarked after a moment. "We are usually big on self preservation. He has done so before, managed to keep himself alive when everyone thought he was dead." She paused again, biting on her lower lip as she considered things. "And there's his daughter, too. But..." But then she shook her head. "But Barty is very loyal to the Dark Lord as well. One of his best and most loyal followers." What she thought about saying, but didn't, was that she didn't think she was anywhere near that important to him... if important at all given the way things were between them.
The instant her sister's last word's registered, Chas said almost vehemently, "He can't die." She had leaned forward just in saying it, but almost instantly fell back against the wall, releasing her breath in a rush. Her voice was soft and almost a hint plaintive as she repeated, "He can't die. He won't."