JADIS (knifed) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-08-20 23:16:00 |
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"And he has the nerve to blame me when you know Proserpina wouldn't hurt a fly!" This may have been Bellatrix's most absurd statement yet, but she was on a roll, face flushed and gesticulating wildly. "The bird must have provoked her! There's no other plausible scenario." Proserpina, lying on the sofa, head in Dolph's lap, let out a mournful bark. Pointing out that Proserpina had a history of hating mudbloods would likely assuage neither Bellatrix nor the Malfoys. The last thing they needed was a suggestion that their bird had been targeted because it was unsavoury. Besides, he was sure Bellatrix was right. Or, rather, her implication. "Agreed." He offered. Looking down from his pacing wife, he produced a small treat from some inner pocket and let Pina sniff it while he smoothed down her ears. "Large birds are aggressive as hell." Whether this applied to peacocks was, in the face of Bella's anger, irrelevant. "Exactly!" Bella snapped. She flung a couple of pieces of Malfoy stationery covered in Lucius's handwriting at Rodolphus before collapsing into an armchair. "They should be apologising to us, not vice versa." He caught one, but the other floated to the floor just out of reach. In deciding between dog and parchment, he chose dog, and turned the tail end of what he assumed was a very diplomatic letter over in his hands. "Perhaps." Proserpina delicately sniffed the corner of the letter and then turned her nose up disdainfully. "In lieu of that and thinking ahead to the holidays, we can send them a cheque." Bella lit a cigarette. "The letter says four hundred galleons. There's just no way a bird costs that much." "How much?" He had heard her perfectly but Bellatrix was prone to exaggeration. She scooped the letter from the ground and pointed to the line in question. "I'm being serious." He frowned. "We can't complain about the cost." The look on Lucius's face—which he was already imagining—would send him to an early grave. "Agreed?" A long moment passed as Bellatrix sat in contemplation, expression akin to eating a lemon. "Fine," she huffed. "But only if we make it clear that this is not an admission of guilt." Rodolphus looked between sour wife and baleful dog. "Crystal clear." * The voices in the Gallery foyer that afternoon were a blend of familiar and less so; Proserpina stepped out of a portrait daintily, an ear twitching as she paused to sniff the air and listen. Suddenly, she pivoted—now growling and baring her teeth, she charged towards the intruder. The chorus of voices changed in tenor, but she was less interested in sound than the incursion: a hundred plants and animals and potions beyond her comprehension layered over That Smell. It was the smell of the creatures in the concrete city. The smell of the blood that often followed her humans home. She felt the man on one side, the woman on the other, and shoved herself in front of them, teeth snapping. And then the world was spinning around a single point as Pina soared into the air. Rodolphus turned the dog belly-up on his ample arm, a stern expression pointed down at her. "No." Severus, having fallen into a half-crouch, took a long moment to return to his body. That Proserpina was a dog, and not the Marauders with wands, and that she had been contained quite before reaching him, did not seem to have a great effect on the instincts that had kicked in; his flinch had been obvious, reflexive, and bone-deep. Then he realized what had happened, who it was happening with, and where he was. As if he had not just been about to curse their dog, his wand hand slipped quietly back into the sleeve of his robes. Unwilling to immediately meet the eye of either Lestrange, Severus’ gaze lingered on the floor, then flicked up from behind a defensive shank of hair to gauge the room’s mood. “Feisty, isn’t she?” he said dryly, and as if he had not just been spooked in public. Rodolphus was watching him with a curious expression, uncertain what deeper meaning lay in his protege's reaction. Keen eyes followed the movement of his wand hand, the slope of Snape's shoulders, the internal supplication to a well-hidden fear. At his heart, he understood something, but its significance didn't breach the often impenetrable barrier to his mind. "Sorry," he said roughly, maintaining control of the dog. "She doesn't like—" strangers "—halfbloods" Bellatrix cut in. |