JADIS (knifed) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-01-13 19:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! decade: 1970s, ! log, bellatrix black lestrange, rodolphus lestrange |
prompt 7-viii: wedding
WHO: Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange + some guest stars
WHAT: Le very strange wedding
WHEN: October 23, 1971
WARNINGS: feelings
For most people, seeing their fiancé a few hours before the wedding entailed expressions of delight, but Bellatrix's face in the mirror was pure bewilderment. "What happened to you?" Rodolphus considered his freshly shaved reflection. "I put on dress robes." "Your sister's seeing someone new." Rodolphus collapsed heavily into a chair and thumbed through a book. He was vaguely aware he should be with his groomsmen, but there was only one place on earth his mother wouldn't look for him: here. "Please tell me you mean Andie, I refuse to hear more about—" The door swung open. "For Merlin's sake, isn't the hem repaired yet? Bellatrix Black, if you didn't insist on running around we'd all…" Druella stopped short. The pinched expression Bella would have found almost comfortingly familiar was aimed at Rodolphus instead. "What are you doing here? You aren't supposed to see her!" Rodolphus glanced around but there was no question Druella was talking to him. They didn't speak much, he and his future mother-in-law—she had a preternatural instinct and aversion for social discomfort. "I'm marrying her," he reminded her, helpfully. "Not for another three hours! Out." Druella pointed at the door, manicured nails gleaming. "Now. This is extremely indecorous! You're causing me a lot of stress." In the mirror, Bella's shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. Glancing between them, Dolph couldn't help but wonder what genetic farce had made these two mother and daughter. But—knowing that some cosmic thread held them together—he respectfully took his leave. "See you around," Bella choked. As the first dance began, onlookers saw the bride draw closer to the groom. There was a brief kiss with requisite applause, and then she whispered something in his ear. Young love. What she said: "If we'd followed my suggestion, we could have avoided all of this." "What do you mean?" Asked the groom, directing her into a lovely spin. There was a collection of sighs around them. "I love being the center of attention." "So." Ursus had a way of sounding and looking charming, especially when being vile. His hands were soft and he smelled expensive beneath the acrid slice of lingering tobacco. "You've managed to domesticate him." "Oh, I doubt I have that kind of influence." Bellatrix tested a few words in her mouth—father, Mr Lestrange, sir—and settled for nothing. Instead, she managed to smile. "But I appreciate the… compliment." "How unfortunate," he said pleasantly, studying her. His own smile looked trained and impossibly precise. "We are at least grateful that you can't make him any worse." She shrugged with a rustle of silk and tulle, eyes hard. "If I were a betting woman I'd maybe hold off on that one." Hours of dancing, eating and small talk may have been nourishing for some, but Rodolphus had spent the last hour plotting an escape from his own wedding. While patiently ignoring his uncle's unceasing critique of the food, the women, the wine, and the decor, he watched the perimeter of the room. (Once or twice a mass stunning spell crossed his mind.) Then, suddenly—"would you excuse me?" And he slipped through a line in the clotted arteries of the dance hall and past a billowing curtain. The air was icy for October and scraped every cloying particle of cologne from his lungs into the steaming air. He gripped the balcony rail. "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette on hand, would you?" Bellatrix had appeared behind him, and the sour expression on her face (at the conversation with her grandmother recently escaped, at her perfect hiding spot already being occupied) was melting into relief. Sending silent thoughts of gratitude to her accomplice—Andromeda really had a knack for engineering exits—she squeezed onto the balcony, tugging the voluminous dress behind her. His surprise was a momentary aberration on placid features. There was not much room to be made here but he did his best, guiding her to an open spot with genteel grace before yanking a fistful of tulle from where it blocked the curtain. "I would." Despite the evening being in romantic honor of their love, Rodolphus was thoroughly burnt out on sentiment. He pushed a cigarette into his mouth and one into hers, then brushed her coiffed and highly flammable hair out of the way. "Hope you have a light." His wand was somewhere in his robes, but pressed between the two of them, it may as well have been on Mars. Bella nodded. As they both exhaled ribbons of smoke, she was surprisingly quiet—the full rant would emerge a days later, when they were hundreds of miles away. For now, she let out a crumpled sigh and rested her head against his shoulder, inhaling aftershave and cologne, eyes shut against the world. "As much as being the center of attention suits you, never again." He glanced sidelong at her and in a brief moment witnessed only by a heavy moon, Rodolphus smiled. Around her taffeta waist, his arm anchored comfortably. "That suits me." |