lavinia borgin toes the line. (contraband) wrote in cultureic, @ 2016-08-30 10:34:00 |
|
|||
It started off as just another Knockturn party, a way of dispelling the anger that lay heavy over the neighbourhood lately. Except that tensions were still thick in the air, old resentments having came to the fore. The brick-walled loft apartment seemed split between the ones who liked the Burkes and the ones who liked the Rothbards, all eyeing each other balefully over drinks literally simmering with black smoke. The alcohol was charmed, but it did reflect everyone’s moods nicely. Thankfully, the music was loud enough that it kept everything numb, deadened. Lav certainly felt that way, floating vaguely towards the kitchen for more ice and a refill (the smoke in her drink had gone out, she was very upset about it). Which is where she found Donald Abercrombie, fixture of many of these events, holding court in the kitchen and raising a toast to her cousin’s murder. "Dearly beloved," Donnie began tipsily, "we are gathered here today to celebrate all of the lives that will be saved now that one more murdering terrorist cock knuckle is DEAD!" He raised his smoking glass to the crowd of exactly two people that had gathered before him, then knocked the drink back in one gulp, his week-long commitment to sobriety long forgotten. In his other hand, he held up one purple sock. "I'm going to burn this tonight. It's performance art." In the doorway, a dark-haired woman glowered, seething. A moment later, a jet of light flew across the room and hit the sock, blasting it out of Donnie’s hands and, quite literally, dematerialising in mid-air as it was reduced to nothing. “Shut,” Lavinia found herself saying, as much to her own surprise as everyone else’s, “up.” Donnie's jaw dropped open and he nearly dropped the glass he was holding when the sock just DISAPPEARED. "What the fuck?! That was...I was going to sell the charred pieces for at least 8 Galleons!!" He was exaggerating a bit, but it was the principle of the thing! Her expression set into stubborn defiance, while he marched up to her and pointed a finger in her face. "Last I checked, peaceful performance art wasn't against the law." “I’m no Hitwitch,” she shot back heatedly. (Far from it!) “That isn’t my problem with you, Abercrombie. My problem is you calling my cousin a cock knuckle. You want to toast that to my face?” "Oh I meant that like, as a turn of phrase," Donnie said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. He flicked a lock of hair (this week's color was electric blue) out of his eyes, then put the same hand on his hip. "I could call him much worse, and I'd do it again and again if I could! Sorry I'm not boo-hooing over a confirmed terrorist." He hated how often he had to bring up the t-word to people who insisted on mourning that melodramatic fool. (He would, however, miss having an archnemesis.) Lavinia stared at him for a long, slow moment, her blue eyes cold. If the woman could have frozen the air between them with a Look, she very well would have. At the word terrorist, her fingers tightened around her drink, flexing with anger. She wondered briefly if she could literally shatter the glass between her hands, like angry superheroes did—but then there was a glint in her eye, and Lav flung her smoking drink into the man’s electric-blue hair instead. Donnie was a bit too late to duck or block the oncoming drink, and it all but exploded into his face, leaving him dripping and smoking and covered in bits of glass. "What the fuck!!!" he shouted for what felt like the millionth time that evening. Well, two could play that game. Noticing that his own drink was empty, he quickly grabbed the nearest bottle, screwed open the top, and then proceeded to fling the contents in Lavinia's face. It hit her head-on as well, and their surrounding bystanders withdrew a couple steps with expressions of sheer, total delight: Knockturn loved a scene. Clear liquid was dripping in Lav’s greasy hair, slicking her neck. She took a deep breath and bared a grin at the Gryffindor. Donnie had been in the year below her at school. They cruised in the same parties; she’d never born him any particular ill-will; she always kept her temper in check. All that, of course, soared right out the window as the woman leapt at him, and they collided bodily, slamming back into the table. Glasses and bottles rattled, the others gave them space, and she punched him right in the damned nose. Generally it was a point of honor that Donnie did not hit women; hadn't they suffered enough cruelty at the hands of the patriarchy? But in this case, she started it. He could feel the crunch of something breaking in his nose, the blood starting to flow down his face, the anger coursing through him. He clawed at her face with one hand while his other curled into a fist and he started punching wildly, his elbow sending bottles careening off the table. Spilled liquor and broken glass littered the floor, and he was vaguely aware of the hoots and hollers of the small crowd that had gathered to watch the fight. “Go for the eye, Borgin!” someone shouted, as Lavinia’s nails scrabbled at his skin. Another couple discreetly excused themselves from the kitchen, to get out of the blast zone. He finally shoved her off him enough to buy him time to grab a shard of glass from one of the many destroyed bottles. He brandished it as a weapon, waving it in Lavinia's face. "Don't think I won't!!" he yelled. Merlin if he hadn't always wanted to menace someone with a broken bottle. The woman—drenched and sticky and disheveled, her cheek stinging with a bruise and her eye already swelling—glowered at Donnie, but backed away with another insult on the tip of her tongue. The broken piece of glass made its point. It wasn’t a point she wanted to be on the receiving end of. Just in case. “Fine. Fucking fine!” Lavinia announced to the ceiling, acutely aware of everyone’s eyes on them. It was mortifying. Embarrassment was lurking just behind the alcohol’s haze, if she looked at it too closely. She fished for her wand and then disappeared without another moment’s notice, nor an apology. |