InsaneJournal

The clap of the lanky form apparating into the household echoed through the home, announcing Hallam’s arrival. Hallam never made such an entrance, his modus operandi more subtle and sneaky. Tonight his irritation knew no bounds. Every time he tried to act kind towards his mudblood mistake, she had to remind him that she was not a pureblood. Her obsession with the mudblood Slytherin boy had gone too far. How did she expect him to react to her lies? To her betrayal of the family name?

Long streaks of blonde hair pushed through his brown locks, showing off yet another, less dangerous secret he held. He needed to attack the blonde with more alchemies to make it go away. Some might have joked that having a teenager made the hair go white, but the truth was that Hallam had been a blonde all along and only dyed his hair to keep from looking like he was a Malfoy or that Delilah did not belong to him. Dark robes swooshed behind him as he walked into the drawing room, and laid back on the couch.

So many thoughts went through his head about the fight that just happened between him and the girl that it was hurting his head.

For most people the usual sound of apparation told them little about the apparator’s mood, yet when it came to Hallam it told Marcelia more than enough. He was never this loud with his entrances, only something significantly angering or frustrating would cause this.

Standing up from her desk, Marcelia put aside the papers she'd been looking over and swept through the house with the determined gait of a woman with a purpose. When she found her husband in the drawing room, laying back on the couch, she had to wonder what could've gotten him into this state. "Love, what-" She cut herself off as she came closer and saw the burn marks on his robes. Instantly her expression switched from mild concern to a more intense one as she sat by him and gave him a look that asked her question for her. What in Salazar's name happened?

Brows furrowed, he looked over at his wife and then down at his clothing. Hallam had fixed Delilah’s entire flat, fixing everything to look like nothing happened, and had forgotten to fix himself from her last shot at him. “Delilah was not happy with my reaction to her lies and my visit to the mudblood’s parent’s house.” He answered simply to the silent question. Long fingers picked at the charred hole in his clothing, his usual stoic expression replaced with one of annoyance and a touch of being impressed. The girl had worked hard on her dueling skills.

“I was punishing her for her lying and she thought she would stand up to me when I mentioned the boy filth’s parents.” His warded tattoos glowed dimly, but the spell had not been one that had a lasting effect. Part of Hallam wished the girl would at least use an Unforgivable on him and stop running off from a fight.

Another part of him wished that she would just kill him in his sleep so he did not have to deal with any of this anymore. Delilah was his source of shame. Not only did he have to bend his purist ideals to make sure their name was not stained because of her, but he hated himself for actually loving her like a real daughter. To most that would be no excuse for the abuse he laid into her, but in a family such as what he grew up in, that love was enough to bring punishment down on himself from his father if the man ever found out.

As Hallam picked at his robes, Marcelia put her hand over his, slender fingers with immaculately manicured nails gently pushing his hand aside so she could see the damage. Despite the soft touch, there was a flash of anger in her eyes. "She turned her wand on you?" It was a rhetorical question of course, he'd already answered it and his robes told the tale, but she had to say it out loud because of the outrage bubbling.

Hallam knew their daughter better, after all he was the one who dealt with her and had an idea about how far she'd take her rebellions, but while Marcelia could take a lot of Delilah's rebellious moments in stride well enough for the sake of keeping the family name's respect and their secret, and because of her own guilt and regrets, attacking Hallam was never on that list. Anyone attacking Hallam was unforgivable, their daughter doing it was more than a few steps too far. If the girl had the gall to do this...what would her next step be? No, this was getting to be too much. Seemingly calm except for the look in her eyes, Marcelia had to ask. "And what happened to her?"

He looked up at her when her hand stopped his. There was no real damage done, not anything Hallam counted in any way. His features had a soft worry in them, his own cruel beast was one that lashed out with all force in short attacks, and his wife’s was one of the protective bear ready to rip anyone to shreds if there was a hint of danger. Hallam did love his dangerous women.

“She apparated away. Ran from the fight, really. I thought I taught her better that if you start a fight you finish it.” He kept his tone cool and unaffected. “I can only imagine she ran to the muggles, because if she was smart she would know I would find her anywhere within the magical community.” It was an assumption that his daughter was smart enough to go somewhere he did not want to go and maybe protect the disgusting creatures she seemed so protective of.

Anger bubbled up inside him again at the thought. Why did she have to remind him of what she was with these ridiculous decisions of hers? Why did he have to care about it rather than do what the Blacks always did and disowned their children that chose muggles and mudbloods over purity? Though that thought went back to her true heritage. Hallam sighed heavily at his thoughts.

"Yes, but she was also taught better than to start fights with you," she added before pausing to consider the ramifications of Delilah running off. "If she's with the muggles we need to find her. Especially if they're that mudblood boy's, we need to have them watched and something done about them." The only person who'd know they would be coming for the Entwhistles in time would be Delilah. Unless of course she'd told someone else, if so...any protection more than just what their teenage daughter could pull off would be telling.

Marcelia's anger hadn't dissipated, just calmed slightly to a slow seething boil under the surface while she thought. "This changes things, Hallam. Who knows what she might do next. If she's come to the point where she's willing to try and hurt you, for whoever's sake let alone a mudblood's..." Her fingers left the burn mark in his robes they'd been tracing and she took his hand in hers, her tight grip the best indicator of the conflict within. "We have to consider..."

Hallam knew what she was asking. She had finally hit the point and decision he had hit when he first found out the girl’s blood was not even half. On the surface Marcelia and Hallam appeared to be the perfect couple with no disagreements, but inside they were always at a yin and yang state. She was asking the reconsideration of causing an accidental death to keep the mudblood from staining their family any longer, and Hallam was finally at the point where he understood the annoying inner feelings that kept Marcelia from letting him kill Delilah years ago. Though with his realization came the thought that had she not stood in his way, would he have been able to do it? Hurt her, yes; push her to the breaking point, definitely; but could his younger hand have actually went through with it?

No thoughts were showed on his face. He had a hard time saying no to his wife. “If she went to their home, then I already have a spell set-up for recording information..” A fancy way of saying that he had set one of the house elves to the location while he cleaned up Delilah’s flat..

“You are right though… she is at a point of endangering the family.” His brows furrowed again. “She cannot hide forever though.” He looked down, rubbing his thumb over Marcelia’s hand. “She does not need to be permanently silenced though... “ Hallam’s expression softened more, his dark hair turning entirely blonde as the alchemy wore off completely and as if with emphasis to his thoughts. “I don’t think-” He stopped his sentence as he rethought his phrase. “She is far too old to have it not highly suspicious.” His words were logic, while his eyes said what he legitimately could not bring himself to say. Because she was theirs, he could not kill her.

This conversation was feeling like an odd reversed deja vu. They'd spoken of these exact things once, years ago and shortly after they found out the truth about Delilah, but the positions had been reversed. Seeing that look on his face and hearing his attempts to rationalize a decision that wasn't all that logical, it sent pangs through her chest. Marcelia understood was the worst part, she'd done all this herself too, and it was only for her that Hallam had agreed. She knew that, he had done all this for her and not for whatever rationalizing arguments she'd put forth.

But the girl had done it, she'd wormed her way into Hallam's heart somehow, just enough to have him hesitate like she once had. But back then the hurt had been fresh, but so had the love she'd felt for the girl. Now Delilah was no longer a child and Marcelia had had years to distance herself emotionally, the things that had held her back once were starting to disappear. "And when we find her, what's to stop her from trying to ruin us and the family more? From trying to hurt you again, from these...rebellions involving muggles? If she can't be trusted or controlled..." Her tone and voice were soft, though there was just a hint of a hard edge to the plea that came from the anger she was letting herself hold onto. She wanted him to see that he hadn't been wrong back then. "Love, you let us try this once for my sake, and I thank you for that, I do, but there comes a time where we must reconsider and decide if this is past repair and salvation. I don't want our family, you and Hal, to be brought down or ruin because of my..." My mistakes, regrets, desperation. Moment of weakness. If Delilah jeopardized them it would be because once she had been too desperate to make a sounder decision. She couldn't live with either of her Hals hurt because of her.

"Hallam, my alligator, I know. I do. But you weren't wrong years ago, we both knew that. It's not the same this time though, there's more at stake here. She might force you into a situation where it comes down to Hal and I, or her." There was never any doubt in her mind who he'd choose though. "And if there are things we must do to secure ourselves then...we must do them."

“If she is a Selwyn at heart I am sure she will try to use the information against us. I would be disappointed if she did not.” He said in his collected manner. Hallam raised his hand to his lips, tapping his fist to his mouth in thought as Marcelia explained herself.

It as an ironic twist of fate that the couple would switch sides on the argument that was Delilah. The girl had found her way back to his heart when he found the photos from when they first adopted her. Good memories of imaginary deatheater battles where father and daughter stood side by side. Hallam had not had such real affection from his own parents, only from his sister. The secret of delilah’s birth was buried so deep that he had not even told her of it, and only now as she turned 18 and left the house was he regretting not relying on his sister to help him with his problems. He was too ashamed of the facts and that he had been scared he would not be able to have a child to continue the Selwyn line.

The girl had to be controlled, Marcelia was right. They had tried control the only way Hallam had been raised to distribute it. Marcelia tried to speak to his logic and logic said that Delilah would speak to someone, if not have Kevin speak to people. But there was an option that they had now that they had not had years ago. Lady Noir could be a good guise to the release of the information, and turning the tables on old enemies. Hallam would not have to kill her because she might get killed by Lady Noir anyhow.

Blue eyes looked deep into the hard eyes of his wife. “What if we release the information on her blood heritage?” There was a childish smirk on his lips and a hard chunk of gears turning in his head. “Lady Noir is targeting muggles and mudbloods, is she not? Why must we dirty our hands? If Delilah is so obsessed with her muggle nature than we shall let her have it. Our associates might react poorly, but even they can be convinced of the good this move will do. Play the women by their heartstrings by use of the truth that we kept her situation and adoption a secret because of shame and the desperate need for a family line, and let the men grumble.”

Hallam sat forward. “The Deatheaters have been rather inactive. No one really wants to deal with Lady Noir without knowing who she is, and as a father afraid of what she might do to my child-” He said that with sarcasm. “Then I would turn to the vigilante group that we know is still about for help and protection. We get in with the Order and have ears on either side. If we can find out who Lady Noir is first, then we become assets to either our old friends or Lady Noir herself.”

Taking Marcelia’s hand in his, a softness came about his eyes. “There was a time to keep it secret, but it is a better political move to use it to our advantage now. Please do not ask me to take care of it any other way.”

The idea he put forth stunned Marcelia for a moment, and in her head the kneejerk reaction was instant refusal. There'd been plenty of reasons they'd kept the adoption, let alone Delilah's blood, secret from the start. Adopting the girl had been a decision born of desperation from both of them, though Marcelia knew Hallam had mostly agreed to it for her. At the time it had seemed like they wouldn't have a child to continue the line, which was a failure she just couldn't accept of herself. The fact that they had young Hal now was the greatest blessing and joy, but it didn't erase the regret that was Delilah. And if they revealed that their daughter wasn't theirs and on top of it that she was a mudblood...it'd be airing all those old failings to the world. To a woman of great pride, that seemed almost unacceptable.

Almost.

"Hallam...Lady Noir has so far really only targetted couples where wizards or witches were daft enough to marry a muggle. Mudbloods as a whole she's made little dent in, other than to give out meaningless lists and threats. Revealing Delilah won't necessarily make her a target, we'd need to do something more to get her attention." She shook her head at him slightly. "As for the Order...while neither of our families were never implicated in the war...we are related and connected to some that were, not to mention they all have a bias against purebloods, I don't see this managing to get us too deep with the Order though it's fair enough to try." She still hadn't really addressed or given an opinion on the part about revealing Delilah's heritage, and she knew there was no avoiding it.

Looking back at her husband, Marcelia's eyes softened as he took her hand and she had to hold back the emotion. He was asking her something similar to what she'd asked him once. It had been a lot to ask then, and it was possibly even more to ask now. She looked away, though her hand squeezed his a little tighter as she did her best to get rid of her pride, regrets, and fear, and look at this as logically as possible under the circumstances. While she'd voiced her doubts about other parts of his plan, she had to admit that he was right that revealing it was the best move right now if...if they weren't to take care of it themselves.

Marcelia turned back, looking less sure of herself than she usually was, and purposefully didn't look over Hallam, lest the scorch marks on his robes change her decision, before leaning in and kissing her husband. She didn't pull away after, just staying there with their faces inches apart for a moment. After a sigh she gave him a small nod, he'd know how difficult it was for her to agree to air her past failings in public. "It's a better political move, you're right...but I'm doing this because it's you asking and you did it for me once, love."

“She attacked the mudblood children at Hogwarts,” he rebutted but let her finish. Hallam’s logic was fuzzy, he knew that well enough. For a man full of logic and pride in his unmoved nature, lately he had been letting Delilah in past that logic and it was affecting his decision making skills. The girl noticeably wanted so hard to be accepted by them and Hallam had always thought that accepting her would be the downfall of their family name. But what was it now? She was old enough to fight back, old enough to cower and yet fight back. He was sure she was old enough to talk to others about it, so Hallam wanted to mitigate the information, take control away from Delilah in the situation. And above all, he needed to make sure that it would not be his hand any longer lingering on the trigger to remove her from the situation. Hallam only wished it did not have to come to any of this. Had she not went back to that mudblood boy, fell for him, then he could have continued on as he had since before her graduation in fooling himself of her heritage.

Hallam wrapped his hands around Marcelia’s neck, cradling her face, when she kissed him. “Better we take control of this before others, like the mudbloods, try to use it against us.” He nodded. “We will figure out how to make it work for us.”