Mad World Mods (madworldmods) wrote in madworldrp, @ 2007-10-14 22:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | bellatrix lestrange, rodolphus lestrange |
rp thread; bellatrix and rodolphus (Backdated)
LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY portionforfoxes)
Who: Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange
Where: Bellatrix's home.
When: June; 1968.
What: A scheduled meeting; a slightly supervised date, if you will, that becomes quite a bit more.
Rating: PG
Status: Completed.
*******************
"Honestly if he wants to marry me, I think that he should see me at my finest," Bellatrix had stated, hands upon her hips with a riding crop tapping ponderously against her stiff black boots. Her father had thrown his hands in the air and her mother, ever the dictator, had said nothing but taken her by the hand and ushered her inside.
Half-an-hour later her hair was less tangled, if still loose and unruly and she no longer smelled of horse and hay, leather and sky. A simple creme blouse and chocolate coloured trousers would have to do. Delicate leather sandals made little sound on the sod. A tea-table, set well back in the garden beneath the wide limbs of her favourite oak tree, was lavishly set and as she strode from the back of her house to take a seat in one wicker chair, the house elves departed in anxious sparks.
He was realizing at the last possible moment that this was all his fault. Far be it for Rodolphus to question the fraternizing rules of his society (though they were not the most important ideals he sought to uphold), but he had the distinct impression that telling his mother of his interest in Bellatrix Black had not been the wisest decision of his life. He'd much rather have taken her out somewhere on his own and expressed his interest in the bluntest, least verbose way possible. But this was how properly raised pureblood men did things, and loathe as he was to go on a supervised date, he knew his mother could be deafening if crossed.
Had Rodolphus known that Bellatrix was being forced out of her riding clothes and into something more appropriate, he would have objected. There was no point in wearing frippery when that was not how one intended to dress when married. He was dressed as he was always dressed, and how he always planned to dress - a surprisingly nice black shirt and trousers. It made him look rather ominous, bedecked in black from head to toe (hair included), a monochrome existence broken only by startlingly green eyes. He didn't notice, however. Rodolphus generally spent very little time in front of the mirror unless he was fighting a cravat.
"Ms. Black." Through all this internal reflection, he'd actually made it past the front door, through the house, and into the back where the lady of his affections sat ensconced in a rather fine garden. She seemed rather smaller than he remembered. Personality had always seemed to make up for it, though. "May I take a seat?"
A softness relaxed her features from their usual sharpness as she smoothed her blouse and smartly tucked one foot behind her calf. It wouldn't be long ...
The aroma of her favourite spiced tea served to calm her -- for she would not admit it to anyone -- but there was a small iron fist that pressed against her stomach, grinding its knuckles into her insides. It was expected (if not embarrassing) to meet formally and in such a controlled environment.
Only half gathered were her thoughts as Rodolphus made his entrance, a looming shade against the pale sunlight. He was bigger than she remembered -- and it made her flash a smile -- if only momentarily.
"Do sit," she replied crisply, composure thusly gained. A flicker of annoyance manifested in her voice and was just as quickly gone. "It would be shameful to our parents if you did not. And there is a fine spread."
"I certainly would not wish to shame your parents," Rodolphus replied a beat later, taking a seat that he very nearly engulfed with his broadness. He had a sort of honest confidence about him - the sort that neither swaggered nor felt awkward. He was who he was, and it suited him well enough.
He ought to have asked her to serve him tea, as she was the lady and he the young gentleman, but he didn't see any point to it, for she couldn't know how he took his tea and it seemed highly impractical for her to have to ask when he could just as easily pour it himself. So he did, without the slightest hesitation or abashment.
"I hope I haven't detained you from other pursuits," he remarked, stirring in a single sugar cube and settling back in his chair.
"No, nor yours," she came back, leaning forward to serve herself. It had crossed her mind to offer to pour his tea, of course, but he seemed self-sufficient and capable as any young man. She would have guessed honey, anyway, with a dash of lemon ...
Though she acknowledged his remark with a nod of her head, she snorted and spoke out of the side of her mouth. "There has been no detaining me, Rodolphus Lestrange. I've only just been riding. Do you ride? Horses, of course."
"I prefer dragons, normally." His reply was quick off the tongue and punctuated by the barest hint of a crooked smile, but he acquiesced to civility and answered the question - "horses, too. When on the hunt." He rarely rode for pleasure alone, for there was a restlessness, he felt, in sitting idle upon an active beast. Bellatrix, he could see, was very much the rider, and he couldn't quite help but give her legs a wandering glance as he sipped his tea. It was hardly his fault - she was the one wearing trousers. Very nice trousers, too. Very nice trousers on very nice legs.
"Such beasts, dragons. So massive, so ..." she trailed off, a knowing smile curving her lip. The porcelain, warm in her hands, was inviting and she took an experimental sip of the amber liquid.
The trajectory of Rodolphus's gaze was not lost on one so observant as Bellatrix. She bounced her foot a few times and swung one leg into the chair to tuck through the wicker arm. "Tsk, tsk. And you with your suit of sables."
If he was meant to feel embarrassed, Rodolphus could not quite manage it, for he merely sat, tea in one broad hand, and returned his attention to her face - which was, by all accounts, as lovely as her legs, and twice as expressive. "You will have to pardon me. I am wholly unused to such scandalous dress." But it was abundantly clear that this remark amused him more than it struck at the heart of the matter, for his normally stoic face, so used to quirks of humor and half smiles, grew indulgent in his mirth and deigned a look of genuine pleasure.
"No, not sable. I shall deign to be the devil tonight."
"Merely a scandal and nothing more? I have not done my duty to you." A laugh, then, for this delicate talk seemed to underscore the ridiculousness of the situation. (She could feel her mother's eyes boring holes into the back of her head) ...
Leaning forward as far as she could, one pale hand lit upon Rodolphus's knee. And squeezed. "That makes two of us."
Were Rodolphus a man overly concerned with gender roles and personal space, he might have been agape at her forwardness... as he was not such a man, he merely left the residue of that smile upon his face, a quirk beneath his cheek that did not wholly explain the sparkle in his eye. Very thoughtfully, he set down his teacup, a motion that took less than the span of a breath, and then reached forward to lay his hand upon hers. It was startlingly rough for a man of his station, and he was not gentle, for the following few moments would require more than the softness a lover's touch.
Under Druella Black's sharp stare, Rodolphus laughed - a sharp, bark of a sound - and disappeared with a crack, taking the eldest Black with him in a fraction of a heartbeat.
They surfaced upon a moor - a dull, thinly sunned place where teacups seemed wholly out of place. "Welcome to Norfolk," he bellowed good-naturedly against the wind.
The frozen, unbreathable air of in between caught up into her lungs and rent at her chest. She always found Apparition sickening though she always recovered quickly enough. Unbidden and instinctual, she clamped her other hand upon his and as the new world materialised beneath them her teacup shattered.
Norfolk. The stark, ravaging beauty of the unruly land drew a sharp inhalation of breath and a wide smile. Her mother would be livid! Combing dark locks of hair from her forehead, she turned at once to her companion and impulsively threw her arms around his chest --
And was, in an instant, recomposed and highly mindful of the man an arm's breadth from her. She would learn the circles of his mind. All of the vast territory that lay within him. But the wind drew circles on her blouse and she threw her arms wide.
"What greater felicity is there, I ask you, than this?"
"Exploring, I imagine." And without a moment's thought, Rodolphus slipped his jacket from him and dumped it unceremoniously about her shoulders, for though he valued her parents' ire nearly as much as Bellatrix's companionship, he doubted a deathly sickness would do much for his marriage plans.
"The moors are treacherous in some places," he warned, stepping off into the grey fog and inhaling deeply the smell of his homeland. "Don't wander far." And though it was a trace of possessiveness that guided his advice, let it not be said that Rodolphus misled her at all; the swamps that lingered just beneath the heavy green of these rich lands were dangerous to man or beast - and it would not do for his future bride (for he had decided already) to go disappearing.
When the heavy cloth met her shoulders, she dropped her arms and inserted them into the proper places. Exploring would, she decided, be agreeable. She stepped carefully, observing the way the fog seemed to enfold him like a lover's arms. Jealousy -- this was his home -- welled up in her. She too wanted to belong to such raw savagery!
"I have heard tales," she said softly, letting her voice disconnect from her body. Dew wet her toes. "Of the bogs spitting out those who come in, oh, after hundreds of years ..." The enigmatic thought was intoxicating. "Bodies as well preserved as mummies."
"I have seen it." His voice seemed to match well their surroundings, low and heavy like the bog-air that settled deep in the lungs and spilled cool over the lips with every breath. "Poor souls who wander too far, only to return to their grandchildren's grandchildren." It was a rich sort of irony, the life that sprang up from such tragedy; one could see it in the macabre curls of the greenery - the rich black of the soil. This was a morbid garden. His childhood playground. Intoxicating in its singularity.
They stepped forward into deeper ground, and he moved closer to her, a hand whispers away from her back, lest she misstep and he lose her forever. "You must forgive me for circumventing the boredom of teatime."
Her lips press tight. What is it like ... she wants to ask. What kind of botched birth, reincarnation, damnation? She could siphon his memory and shake it like a sieve. "And you ..."
His presence was warmth upon her face; she slightly inclined her body toward his as they walked. "Forgive you? I could kiss you. All of the contrived apparatus of fashion. It disgusts me."
The curve of his hip is subtle, but enough so that when he reaches out his arm for her, it is with a disarmingly graceful movement - grace that belies his intensity - the darkness of his eyes as they hold back a kind of indescribable longing. A broad hand, broaching more than just the dictums of social etiquette takes hers, and he stops, holding on tight enough so that she must stop as well.
"Could you?" The smile playing at his lips does not quite reach the rest of his expression, but Rodolphus cannot quite bring himself to betray the way his heart pounds in his chest.
She is swallowed within him and for a moment, her nature bucks against this. He is dangerous for her. She senses a myriad of dark possibilities. But to be held -- to be gazed at in this way -- is its own strong drink. Inhaling, one small hand dares slide around the nape of his neck.
"I could."
Rodolphus had to resist the urge to pull her tight and close - for though he did not sense a fragility about Bella that her peers seemed to hold like badges of honor, he could not discard all pretense of civility just yet; he could not risk losing her favor over such bestial desires - even if such a desire encompassed only the feel of her body against his.
He did dare to accept this invitation, however, and with the meagerest modicum of self-restraint, he slipped a hand behind her, pulling her up closer so that he might know those lips, and the small dip of her back. She was beautiful, and the there was honest in the way he curved around her, all muscle and dark, smooth cloth.
In the connection of their bodies she perceived a mighty current, something electric that was dangerous as it was pleasurable. The kiss stings her lips (and she would not admit to him, not to herself for all the talk otherwise that this was her first, her only). She smiled, daring to step in and let herself be enveloped in the firm, angular planes of his body.
Hand to hip, her cheek hit him mid-chest and she sighed. This was too easy. How could this happen to her so suddenly? Did he bewitch her, here in the vastness of this bog? This beautiful wasteland.
Her brave effrontery stopped there, in his arms, letting the tips of her fingers play a simple beat along his waist.
It was this moment when Rodolphus became very much aware of his decision and how terribly correct it had been. He was hardly a man who acted upon unseen impulses, but he'd known from the moment he'd laid eyes on Bellatrix so very long ago that she would be his, from her soft jaw to the bottoms of her trousers.
Romance was about as strong a suit for Rodolphus as verbosity, and so in these moments, against the wild backdrop of chilled grasses and mournful grounds, he stated, quite bluntly, that which he'd desired for so very long now. "Marry me."
... then let him bewitch her. If she could fill her life with these moments snatched away from that which was prevaricated by mother, by society, by womanhood ...
"I would not be a good wife," was her whisper, so fragile that it could barely reach his ears. "I would anger you, I might even pull a wand on you. I cannot bear much society, I am poor at tea parties and there is nothing fashionable about me."
His fingers are in her hair, a stable force against the sharp lilt of the wind. It's chilling, and he wants to hold her, feel her warm and safe against him; it's an odd possessiveness he holds over a woman he can hardly know, but it would be a lie - such a lie - for him to distance himself once again.
"I will make a poor husband." His admittance is unabashed, honest - they are made for one another in their social misdeeds. "But I will love you as you are."
There it was, then. She would be married.
Her chin tilted and her lips grazed the fine fabric over his softly beating heart. It would be alright, she assured herself, to be open with him. There would be no wrathful rebukes. He had proven himself the equal of her in more ways than one on this day.
"And I you, Rodolphus Lestrange."