Elsie Prod (puredeadbrill) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-03-01 20:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-03] march, damocles belby, elsie prod (née belby) |
Who: Elsie Prod and Damocles Belby
When: 1 March, 1980; morning
Where: Damocles' flat
What: Elsie breaks the bad news.
Rating: PG
Status: Complete.
The moment Damocles opened his eyes, he realised that he was missing something very important, and as he looked at his alarm clock, he realised that the potion he had brewed overnight was three hours late for him to put in the final ingredient that would make it work. He got up, his hair dishevelled, still in his pyjamas, and rushed to his working space, not even noticing that there was someone on his sofa. He stared down at the cauldron disappointedly. Its original rich yellow colour had turned into a murky brown. He would have to throw this away; there would be no point in progressing with it. When he walked out of the room, he finally noticed that Elsie was there, looking visibly shaken -- and was that bits of mashed potato in her hair? Damocles wasn't sure, but he was very sure that something was wrong. He had never seen Elsie this upset before. He rushed to her, eyebrows furrowed in concern, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What happened? Are you all right?" Merlin -- he hoped nothing happened to their parents, or even Egnorwiddle and his family, for that matter -- or even Demetrius, no matter how much he was starting to dislike his brother-in-law. In. Out. In. Out. Elsie had been curled up on her brother's sofa concentrating only on breathing for the last hour, she guessed, though it could have been anywhere from ten minutes to three hours. The calming draught she had drank was working in the sense that she couldn't feel anything, but that didn't mean she could stop thinking about it. She shouldn't have been tired anymore since she'd slept a few hours after she got back from the Ministry at about three-thirty in the morning. Then, after writing to the Longbottoms, she went over to her brother's; she didn't want him to find out by journal. "Demetrius is dead." Her words echoed in his head for a number of times before it finally registered to him what she was really saying. Damocles blinked at first, in surprise, then opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, then opened it -- but the words could not come out. He was shocked. He didn't realise that such a thing could happen; Demetrius had never been suspected of doing anything illegal, nor did he ever give Damo the impression that he was reckless. "How -- how did it happen?" was the first thing that came out of his mouth. Was it because of them tinkering with the ID cards? He felt that cold feeling of fear and guilt swooping over him, and hoped that it had nothing to do with that. Elsie leaned into him, putting her head into her brother's shoulder. If it weren't for the calming draught, she would be hysterical but instead her eyes were just wet, tears threatening to drop onto her cheeks. "It wasn't my fault," she muttered, feeling his shoulder start to dampen with her tears slightly. She repeated, "It wasn't my fault. He wouldn't listen. I didn't mean to - I was always crap with the blasting curse and-" She stumbled over her words, choking on them, and simply repeated, "It wasn't my fault." Damocles wasn't sure what she was talking about, but it seemed like she was trying to tell him chunks of what had happened. Based on what she was telling him, he was able to deduce that she had killed Demetrius -- though he didn't dare believe it. And he couldn't. Elsie wouldn't kill anyone, because she wasn't that kind of person. She was his sister and based on his lifelong knowledge of her she wasn't the killing type. "Are you sure?" he asked, sounding a bit shaky himself. "Maybe it wasn't you -- maybe you were Confunded --" he trailed off, looking at her hopefully, expecting her to tell him that there was a possibility she was wrong. Elsie shook her head and leaned backward so the sofa was supporting her. Her breathing was irregular and she kept wringing her hands. "He - he knew we were vigilantes." Demetrius' words from the night before rang in her head, the tone of his voice when he was angry that had always both infuriated her and comforted her. "He saw my shoulder, and he thought we - you and me - were the ones that blew up Lestrange Library." The tears glimmered in her eyes, refusing to fall. "They have those dogs, see..." There was an awful pause that came afterwards. Elsie wouldn't lie to him about this --- and immediately, he felt sick to the stomach. Whether they liked it or not, Demetrius was dead because of their involvement with the Order. And, of course, a number of other things -- he knew that Elsie wasn't completely at fault here. Maybe it was because he knew her husband rather well, maybe it was because she was his sister -- it didn't matter, because he believed in her. He didn't think she was the murdering sort at all. From her explanation, he could conclude easily what had happened, and he reached out to his sister to give her a hug. "It's going to be all right," he told her comfortingly, though he couldn't exactly convince himself that it was going to be okay. Elsie felt his arms close around her and she relaxed in them, letting her brother support her now. She felt exhausted and realised that even just sitting up by herself had become a struggle. "No it's not," she said into his shirt. She'd thought that the calming draught would make things a bit easier, since she would otherwise be completely inconsolable and a complete mess, but she couldn't say now that things were at all easier. Her husband was still dead and she felt like she might explode any minute from the weight of it all and it would only get worse as the potion wore off. "It's not going to be all right at all!" She gasped, choking on the air she could barely get into her lungs. "What am I supposed to do now?" He had no answer for that. Damocles had never thought they would ever get into this situation. He, Elsie -- and, well, the rest of his family, no matter how dysfunctional they could get (just like any other families, really), were never the sort to run into trouble the law. It was difficult for him to accept what was going on, even if he knew it was true. And he wasn't sure what to do. Should they tell the Aurors? Of course not; they would turn her in, and there was no way he was going to let that happen. He chewed on his lower lip, trying to figure something out. "Have you told anyone else besides me?" "Alice." She said simply. "An' Frank. And... the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." She knew she should explain right afterward, but she was so tired and felt so much like crawling up into a little ball and sleeping forever there on her brother's shoulder that she didn't continue, subconsciously waiting for the reaction that would surely come if she didn't provide any explanation. Damocles paled, and felt another wave of panic, but he forced himself to calm down. There was no need to start worrying too much -- but he suddenly had a vision of the DMLE taking away his sister off to Azkaban -- for something she didn't even mean to do. "What did they say?" he asked hoarsely. What if they came over to his house to arrest her? Was she only meeting him there because she knew they were going to do something? The possibilities were endless, and all of them were circling around in his mind and making him feel even more frightened for her. It was all so fresh in her mind and she didn't want to share, but perhaps that would help a bit. "Alice told me to." She closed her eyes as she spoke, the scenes running through her head like the Muggle cinema. "They came and I just told them what happened... except opposite." Guilt began to wash over her, guilt that she had used her husband's death and the feeling that if she could do that, perhaps she didn't really care about him. No, she told herself, she had to do it. "So he was the 'dangerous vigilante,' not me." He felt guilty for her for having to do that, and somehow, he also suspected that she did that to protect him, too. It wasn't something black and white; he couldn't decide whether Demetrius deserved it either. But he knew that Demetrius was dead, and that there was nothing to be done about that. It would be pointless to be caught themselves -- and as this crossed his mind, he felt a little disturbed that he would even think that it was all right. And yet, Elsie didn't have much of a choice -- what else what she supposed to do? "You had to do it," he mumbled. He couldn't deny that he felt relieved that she wasn't going to be taken away by the Ministry. "Don't blame yourself." "Okay," she said simply. She wanted to believe him so she let herself, knowing that the questions of right or wrong would come later, perhaps would come always, and now she just didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything. "I'm tired, Damocles," she said, eyes closed again on his shoulder, and before he could say anything else, she had fallen asleep. |