immortals

It might be your wound

but they're my sutures

She hadn’t lied… Last night after he had told her to go to bed, she had nodded, and she had gone. Curled up on Rodolphus’s chest her mind had spun in circles for hours. Until it was acceptable to get up and start her day. She must have drifted off though, because Andromeda had woken up when Rodolphus had moved, and she had realized she was still wearing yesterday’s dress. There was… Magic. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t know why, or how. All she knew was that she had been laying there, thinking about it, and then she had been in the East Wing. She had been looking for Rabastan. Because if there was someone that she trusted to tell her when she was actually sounding insane, it was him.

Only… It had worked. She needed research. She needed information. She needed to know what it was, and where it had come from. Andromeda didn’t know anything about this. All she knew was how she had died, and how she had come back, and what that meant. She knew that she had talked to Athena Finley about it once. She knew that the blonde witch had offered to try and kill her again. To see if they even could. But she was sure that she could die. She could bruise, she could be hurt. She knew that she could die. If someone put their mind to it.

But she also knew that she had died, and that she had come back. And there was something there. Something about how it had happened. Something about what had changed in her when it had.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought to try it before. She didn’t know why she hadn’t… Or had she? When Desirae had had Jack, and he had been so small, and it had taken him so long to breathe, so long to cry out… She had used her wand for those spells, but he had been fine. Even she had been impressed by how well he had faired. How quickly he had grown and caught up. Arcturus was the same way. He had been born so early, and she had been meticulous about the spells. About monitoring him…

This was different though. They didn’t have magic. She didn’t have access to that. And yet, Rabastan was right. When they were all getting sick, she wasn’t. She lost her magic, she had had a mild fever. She hadn’t felt well for a day or two. But that had been it. She had never felt as terribly as everyone else. She had never been down for the count. She had only missed two days of work.

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

She had gone up to the attic this morning, and she had dug through all of the boxes of things that she had had Faye pack away when she had moved into the master bedroom. The boxes of things that were Blair’s. They were all up here, and she was surprised to find things that also belonged to her sister. The collections of the Ladies Lestrange… But her curiosity for those things was going to have to wait for another time. It was the journals that she was looking for.

And she had found them. Tucked into one of the boxes, under some dresses that Andromeda wondered if Davina might like to have, she had found the journals. Taking them back downstairs she had deposited both of the boys on the floor in her study and had curled up on the settee to read them. She didn’t want to invade her privacy, but she had more questions than she did answers this morning. Running her thumb over her palm as she flipped through the journals, looking for anything that she might have documented. Anything that could point her in the right direction.

The sound of footsteps from the hallway had her looking up from the book on her lap and towards the boys before she turned her eyes towards the door. “Good morning.”

Rabastan Ashmedai Lestrange • 681 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Immortals

it might be my wound

BUT THEY'RE your SUTURES

The wizard had sent Andromeda to bed at nearly three am. He had sent her to the arms of his brother, to the marriage bed where Bellatrix had once slept. The younger Lestrange brother had shared something special and intimate with both of the Black sisters. But they had always been his brother's wives. Even the one that had been promised to him...She wasn't his. Anya helped soothe some of that, but he felt her withdrawing from him, too. She had since Christmas--since she had seen him with Ursula. Women were fickle things. Perhaps men were, too. There was resentment in his heart for Rodolphus. He loved his brother, honored him...followed him without hesitation, but he envied him, too. Rab always had. He had longed first for the love of their father. Then for the love of the beautiful brunette who had been devoted to the Dark Lord... and now, for the family and wife that he wasn't even sure that his brother appreciated.

It felt like a stupid, vicious cycle. The neglect his own father had shown him, he saw manifest itself with Rodolphus. The elder Lestrange did not hate his sons as Ronan had hated Rabastan...but he did not dote on them. Rabastan was not sure he loved them. He wasn't sure his brother loved anyone. For a man who ached so deeply to be loved himself, that was heartbreaking to bear witness to.

The hours alone would have been plagued with visitations from Bellatrix back before the Epidemic had taken his magic. She would have been whispering in his ear, driving him into the darkness, keeping him there. She was gone now. There were days when he did not think of her at all. Others when he was happy for the freedom from her haunting him...then other moments came where he ached for her, for the companionship. He did not do well alone. Azkaban had made sure of that. He had always been one to prefer company, but solitary confinement had seen to it that a part of him was deeply broken, irreparably so. He was a man wounded and scarred. He would never be free of that. Not wholly. Elixirs of sunshine and sweet beautiful young women could ease the suffering. But he would never be healed. Not fully.

Rabastan's mind had not been on the late Black beauty nor on his brother...or envy towards him last night or this morning, though. The sleepless hours between sending Andromeda away and finding his way to The Lady Lestrange's study this morning had been spent reading, researching, and thinking. There were so many unanswered questions. They plagued him, delighted him, occupied him. She had magic. That thought washed feelings over him, drowned him in them. He'd been elated when she had healed the cut on his skin. The experience had been unlike any other he had known. It wasn't as if she performed a healing charm on him. He had not had the experience of his skin knitting itself back together. It was different than that. It was as if what had been done was undone. He had gone from feeling the sting of the cut in his skin to having no sensation at all. The reaction she had shown was as curious as his own experience. It had seemed as if what had been done to him was done to her, but without the effect manifesting.

Throughout the night, the wizard had pulled every necromantic text he could recall that touched on the concept of a fifth element. It had many names from different times and ages. Aether, quintessence, ether, spirit--the name did not matter. The study of aether had been explored for centuries. Medicinal alchemy in the 14th century had been quite focused on the idea that aether was a means of healing and treatment for all of man's illnesses. Rabastan had found a translation of a 15th-century English translation of a continental text that had linked aether with the philosopher's stone.

Nothing was concrete. His understanding of the possibilities was still in infancy, but he was most curious and felt more prepared to discuss what had transpired between himself and Andromeda the night before. When the hour was respectable, he went in search of her. He had an idea of where he would find her...his feet led him from the East Wing to her domain in the castle. Rabastan paused in the doorway of the woman's study. His mind put forward the usual reminder of the fact that she was his brother's wife as she greeted him. He was practiced now, in ignoring any unpleasant feelings on that matter, in repressing the what if's of what life might have been like if she had married him when they were younger. Nothing good could or ever would come of such thoughts. So, they were best to simply not acknowledge.

"Good morning," he reciprocated, giving a small nod of his head towards the witch. "Boys-" Rabastan directed his attention to the little ones, making a silly face at Arcturus. He tried to be good with his nephews. He had not really known how to address them when they were little babies, but as they grew and developed personalities, he did better. He tried to be to them what Antonin had been to him. He tried to show them some masculine example of love in their youth. He knew the wounds he carried in himself from the neglect he had suffered. He was well educated in psychology. It was important to save them from what he could.

"I've been reading about aether," he informed Andromeda as he took a seat in a chair across from her. He had not brought any of his texts with him, but he had his notes that he had accumulated in the hours since they had last seen one another with him.

@ mender • 980 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

immortals

it might be your wound

but they're my sutures

If she could make sense of this, maybe she could use it for something. Maybe she could understand it better, and maybe they could use it to make a difference. Something had to work. They needed some kind of breakthrough, and as much as she knew that she had taken on the Ministry with grand ideas of trying to make things right, she wasn’t sure that that was the answer anymore. She wasn’t sure that that was where she needed to be. And while she knew that Rodolphus was likely to give her that ‘I told you so’ look again, she could take it. She could take him being right. Because there was just so much else to focus on.

She was not a politician. She was, she had been involved enough for years that it hadn’t been impossible for her to tackle that, but she was not a politician by nature. She was a doctor. And a healer. And now, more than ever, she was sure that that was where she was supposed to be.

When he had pulled that knife out of the drawer last night, and he had cut his arm, she hadn’t really known what she was doing. She hadn’t even known if it was going to work. She hadn’t known if she was going to be able to do anything or not. If she had just imagined it. If she had somehow convinced herself that she was going to be able to do this, because Blair could do this. Because she had done it to her. Because she had given her… What? Her life force? Her spirit?

When she said it like that it all sounded ridiculous? It sounded like something that you would find in a teen novel. It sounded like something that was entirely made up. Something that she couldn’t even say without rolling her eyes at herself. But that’s what it was. That was what it felt like, anyway. She had given her everything that she had. She had pushed that into Andromeda, and she had brought her back. Because Andromeda Black had died. And she knew it.

Her breathing had faltered. Her heart had stopped beating. She was gone. And then she wasn’t. Then she had gasped, and opened her eyes, and she was alive. More than alive, she was fine. No signs of anything happening to her. She was perfect. As if the trauma had only been a bad dream.

Andromeda Lestrange didn’t have the answers for it. She didn’t have any sort o explanation. All that she knew for sure was that when she had reached out and pressed her hand to Rabastan’s arm, everything had changed. The world that she had known had changed. Not in a grand way. No one had felt the earth shift on its axis. It hadn’t started spinning in the other direction or anything. But something had changed, and maybe it was the spark of magic where there had been none. Maybe it was as simple as knowing that there was hope.

Because that had been what it had felt like. When she had finally gone to find him last night, she knew what there had been in her voice. She knew that she could have woken Rodolphus. That she could have crawled in bed, and woken him up, and made him talk to her about it, but that wouldn’t have gotten her very far. She didn’t think that she would have tried. And maybe she was wrong, maybe she would have. But he needed to sleep, and she knew that his brother would have been awake. They didn’t sleep. Neither of them. Not as much as they should have.

She had known that he would have been awake, and when he had sliced his arm, she had hesitated. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had wanted to try. She wanted to know what it would do. And then it had worked… Something in her had changed. There was some part of her that was fundamentally different from what she had known all along, and she didn’t know how to reconcile that with the loss of magic. She didn’t know what it was that had protected her? That had retained that in her? Because it was magic. It was most certainly magic.

And she had felt it. When she had grabbed his arm, she had felt the sharpness of the pain that he had experienced. But she had nothing to show for it. There was not a mark on her. There was only the absence of the injury on him.

When she had gone looking for the journals this morning, she had expected him to come and find her. At some point today they were going to have to talk about it. About what they had discovered, about what it could mean. What they could do… It was more what they could do that she wanted to figure out. She didn’t care what happened to her. Not right now, she didn’t care what it meant. She wanted to know what it could do. She wanted to know just how much she could heal. How much Blair could heal.

Death.

The answer was waiting for her in the mirror. Blair had cured Death. But the cost had been her own life in exchange…

Andromeda’s gaze fell away from her brother-in-law and to her sons as he smiled at them. They were growing, they were learning, and she was so proud of them. Could they be different? Could they grow up in a world that wasn’t so indoctrinated with pain, and hate? She had to hope so. She was their mother, it was her job to hope so.

Shifting on the couch so that she was sitting up, Andromeda tucked her legs further into her side as she focused on Rabastan. “Aether?” It was a word that she had heard in the past, but not one that she had used last night, “The alchemical element?” She was a potionologist, not an alchemist. But the term was familiar enough that she knew it touched on what she had said last night, a fifth element…

@ i'm not crazy • 1030 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Immortals

it might be my wound

BUT THEY'RE your SUTURES

Rabastan did not fail to notice that Andromeda was looking thin. She had always been thin--as had both of her sisters and her mother. It was a trait of purist women. It was a responsibility of women in their society--to keep themselves fit. How much did they suffer for it? He could not say. It was not something he thought of often, but with the morning light behind Andromeda, the worrisome thought did flicker through his mind that he could not recall the last time he saw her eat. She cooked for them, still---he and Rodolphus...but eating herself was not something he could recall of late.

Perhaps he could pick up some strawberries for her. He would go by the grocer this afternoon. Maybe there would be some of the little purple grapes for himself and the boys, too. They could all indulge in a sweet little snack. He wiggled a finger in a wave at Roarke, resolving to have Ori or Eri peel the grapes for them since he was sans magic now and could not imagine peeling grapes by hand. The tannins in the skins, though, would probably not be great for the little ones...and he, himself, just preferred grapes without the bitter exterior.

His mind had been easily distracted by the thoughts of food--perhaps he really should have taken breakfast before coming to see Andi. It had been many hours now since dinner. Potions and some unnatural energy that was always upon him were what sustained him now--and while potions did suffice, providing all his body needed, they did not give the pleasure of good food. He still tended to savor meals and be most thankful for them. The things he had consumed in Azkaban to keep himself alive had been utterly disgusting. Rich, luxurious food was a mark of his life on the outside. He liked the reminder.

Reading and information was another luxury he lavished in. He appreciated the stimulation available to his mind. As a prisoner, he had been left with only what he had inside himself for long stretches at a time. He had tried for years to keep himself sharp, to keep hold of his sanity. But parts of it had slipped away. He wasn't completely right anymore. The man was still intelligent--and the longer he was free, the more lucid and acute his brain became. He was not the genius he had once been, but he was moving back towards that. It was a daily progression---little steps towards mastery of his mind and his capacity. He played chess against himself--having multiple games running at once--all in efforts to stretch and strain his ability to think abstractly while maintaining multiple concurrent threads of thought in his mind. It was important to keep up these mental acuity exercises if he was ever to be who he had once been.

Being at the Foundation helped too--surrounded by bright, curious minds, Rabastan felt challenged. He felt understood. The people there were his people, whether they saw themselves that way or not. Or really whether or not they saw him that way or not. They would, in time, when the man grew more familiar than the name--when they saw him for his knowledge and learning rather than the sum of a few infamous events.

Andromeda seemed to be able to see him for what he was already. She came to him with theories, with curiosity--and he met her with openness and without judgment. No matter what she brought to him, Rabastan never looked at her as if she was crazy. He knew her mind and appreciated it. The most recent discovery made between them--the discovery of her magic--was remarkable. He was honored to share this secret with her, to know it. It gave him hope. It ignited his curiosity. Clearly, the exploration of the discovery had kept him up all night and fueled him still.

The witch repeated the word he had offered her and he nodded. "Aether, ether, spirit, quintessence, whatever you want to call the fifth element. The name is not important. Most of the texts I founder were written by necromancers with alchemist leanings, so they favored aether, but what we use between us is of little importance to me. They all refer to the same concept--and what I found most interesting was the connection that was drawn by a number of these individuals between aether and the functioning of a sorcerer's stone. The gist of what they hypothesized was the stone is a conduit for the energy of the aether. It would make sense then that if Blair passed her mastery of the aether to you, that you could wield the energy in a way that could manifest as healing." He leaned towards her as he spoke, the spark of eagerness brightening his eyes--There was a clear excitement in his tone and stature. He believed his percipience and talents with research could be much appreciated by the woman before him...and he was most enthusiastic about gaining a deep and through understanding of what Blair had imbued Andromeda with--so much as one could anyway. 

@ mender • 850 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

IMMORTALS

IT MIGHT BE YOUR WOUND

BUT THEY'RE MY SUTURES

All she wanted was for it to make sense. And Andromeda knew that she was asking so much. She knew that asking for things to make sense was going to be impossible. She knew that she was asking too much of them, of both of them. But she had to find the answers somewhere. And Blair was her best shot. It was her best shot at understanding what she had done, the choice that she had made. She wanted to understand, she needed to understand. Because if she didn’t if she couldn’t… She had wasted too much time already. She had wasted nearly two years.

And maybe she hadn’t needed it before now. Maybe she hadn’t had a reason to wonder. Maybe she would have gone the rest of her life, and never even considered… But the Epidemic changed everything. The Epidemic had changed them all in a profound way, and she didn’t want to be changed again. She had changed too many times over the years. She had changed so that she understood who she was, and what she was doing. She had changed without really changing at all. And she changed on a fundamental, on a cellular, level. She was changed.

Today, she was hopeful. Today, there was a promise of something more. Today, there was a shot a better tomorrow.

Perhaps it wasn’t ideal. Perhaps the way that she had come to these answers wasn’t perfect. And she knew that she was going to have to figure out what to do. She was going to have to talk to Rodolphus about leaving the Ministry. She was going to have to talk about going back to what she was supposed to be doing. They needed a new Minister. They needed an election. They needed all of it. But at the same time, she didn’t know what they were going to do. She didn’t know who, or what, or how. She didn’t know if they had anyone to elect in the interim. She didn’t even have an Undersecretary right now.

They were going to have to worry about those things later. The things that she was trying to put out of her mind. The things that were going to make a world of difference if she really went through with them. For now, though, Andromeda needed to understand herself. She needed to understand Blair. That was what this was about. This was about understanding someone that she had loved. Understanding someone that she owed absolutely everything to. There was no a day that went by that she did not miss her. There was not a day that went by that she did not think about her.

Blair was a part of her, and she was a part of this family. And Andromeda knew what this could do. She knew that this could hurt, just as much as revealing it could help them all. It could hurt Davina in a way that she hadn’t even thought about until this moment. And that was a kind of pain that she didn’t know if she was going to be able to heal. That was a kind of pain that she had to try and understand on a different level. On the level that she had taken as her mother figure. On the level that she had taken as the matriarch of this family. She was the one that held the power to hurt her right now.

And that was the last thing that she wanted to do. That was the last thing that she wanted at all. But here she was. And here were all of the things that she had no control over. And these journals weren’t telling her anything. They weren’t telling her how she had learned to control it. They weren’t telling her how to do anything. She had been a child. Andromeda knew that much. When she had learned to control it. Blair had harnessed whatever it was as a child, and she had learned to do good with it. She had healed Death Eaters after the war. And after the fire. She had healed Davina over and over again.

She had used it for good. And that was lovely. But she didn’t want to hear what she did with it. She wanted to know how. And she wanted to know to what end. She wanted to know everything, and right now, she knew nothing.

Her gaze drifted back to the boys on the rug, and she couldn’t help but want to move to sit down there with them. To pull them to her and kiss the top of their heads and promise that she wasn’t going to let anything happen to them. That she would protect them. She wanted to make them those promises, and she wanted to teach them the things that she had taught their sister. She wanted them to believe that there was good in them. Just because they were Lestranges, didn’t mean they were innately one thing. She wouldn’t allow it. She would protect them from that.

But Rabastan was speaking of the things that she needed to know. Not the worries that came with being a mother in the world that they were living in. He was engaged in this, he had committed to this, and she didn’t even remember asking him to. She had asked for his help last night, and he had promised to speak today, but this? Research, and investigation, and notes. She was so very grateful, though she was a little worried about whether or not he had slept at all. “Like a stone wields the magic, you think somehow she turned me into that conduit? That’s a hell of a magnum opus.”

@ thinker • 955 • andromeda's outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Immortals

it might be my wound

BUT THEY'RE your SUTURES

The Lestrange easily forgot about the Ministry--about the country. He was a true Slytherin. Self-preservation over all else, then family, then friends, then allies. This endeavor with Andromeda hovered somewhere between self and family. Rabastan wanted to help Andromeda understand herself, to master the capacity she had been imbued with...but his motivations were not wholly selfless. Her words from the wee hours of the morning rang in his ears: We’ll get yours back.

And he believed her.

Rabastan had been unsure before. The months that slipped past had eroded his hope. He was never a very optimistic man--and as days had become weeks and those had become months, he had steadily lost faith. He had spent every waking moment of October and November in research, pouring over necromantic texts trying to glean some lost piece of information about the nature of magic and the mastery wixens held over it. He'd found nothing. He'd sent hundreds of tombs to Anya to read--she'd found nothing in anything he gave to her. Though she had taken some initiative that had intrigued him researching the science of genetics. There were fewer resources than he would have liked available on the genetics of squibs and wixens, but he was seeking eager, bright geneticists to bring to the Lestrange Foundation. If the research had not been done, they would do it. They would figure it out.

Now, they had a new tool--a weapon in this war.

He knew nothing of what Blair had done in her life with her capacities beyond the healing she performed to revive Andromeda. Rabastan had never paid any mind to Davina. The potioneer was nothing to him, a boring fly that existed on the wall of far more interesting people's lives. When Andromeda had mentioned that Blair had spent a day locked away--presumably recovering--after healing Davina from some torture, he had forgotten his brother's former sister-in-law as quickly as she had been mentioned. She was immaterial in this. She did not have the abilities that her sister had possessed. He strongly doubted she would have anything of use to add to any investigation towards the ability's mastery.

Mastery was imperative, because then perhaps Andromeda would be able to truly heal him. Not to take away a gash on his arm, but to truly restore him to himself...and he was more than willing to allow her to practice on him. She had asked him last night if there had been anyone in their dungeons to make use of, but he had not wanted someone else to undergo the experience. Because just as there was data to be gleaned from observation, there was data to be gleaned by experience. He knew now exactly what it had been like to be healed by her. Though he could describe that experience, it was much more to actually know--to know that he had not been stitched back together, but that he had been restored. There was a difference...and it felt very important.

The experience and the conversation shared with Andromeda had sent him on a path of research. It had guided his mind and his reading. She had put forward the idea of the fifth element and he had fixated on that. Not just because he had a tendency to be obsessive, but because it made sense. Those infected with Epidemic X who had elemental masteries had lost their magic, but not their connection to the element. The logic of it made sense--so he meant to follow that string of thought so far as it would take him. If Circe willed it, then it might lead him all the way back to himself.

The man did his best to concisely explain the sum of what he had learned last night. There had been other tangents, and there was more to offer Andromeda, but this was what he felt was most valuable and pertinent. His face scrunched up a bit as she made a reply to him. His shoulder lifted in a shrug as he said: "Maybe? It's a working theory." He set his notes aside and locked his hands together, leaning forward to rest his elbows against his knees. "I worried, at first, that maybe you were not changed in your nature, but that there was some lasting, but perhaps limited, effect from the healing she performed on you. As if you had been charmed, but as the effect of the charm was triggered--as in when you tried to burn your hand on the stove--that it would consume a charge if you will...and then eventually the charges could be completely consumed...But the more I thought on that theory, the less it made sense in respect to you having the ability to heal me. So, I went off on a tangent of exploring possessions and the nature of souls. Sorry if this is all seeming scattered, I tried to organize my thoughts before coming to see you. I've read quite a few things since we last saw one another."

"But I have spent a great deal of time, long before today, researching how one might call a soul forth into a body." That statement was a gross understatement. The time he had spent on the task was greater than he had ever dedicated to anything else. It had always been towards the grand end of resurrecting Bellatrix. This wasn't about her, though--and he did not want to linger on any topic that might turn his mind towards the late witch, or musings on how his opinion of her had been soured by her desertion of him since he had lost his magic. "My expertise on the matter leads me to the conjecture that it is plausible that by taking your death into herself, Blair somehow managed to impart into you the healing mastery she possessed. That she shattered herself, as one would do with a Horcrux, and split some part of her nature into you."

@ mender • 988 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

immortals

it might be your wound

but they're my sutures

If she could do it again… That was what she wanted. She wanted to do it again. She wanted to feel it. To try a different type of wound. She wanted to heal something else. And maybe it was just the magic itself. Maybe she selfishly wanted to feel that in her hands again. Andromeda didn’t care if it was going to hurt her. She didn’t care what taking that into herself instead was going to do. She just wanted to help. She wanted to help them all, and she couldn’t help anyone until she understood what she had. And why she hadn’t found it sooner.

Her mind drifted upstairs to her vanity, and to the letter that she had tucked away in the drawer. It was addressed to her. But it was the second one. It had been tucked in the envelope with the other one. And the first had been what she had expected. It had hurt to read, and she had folded it up, and she had put it away. Saved it for Roarke, when he was older, he could read the letter that his other mother had left for her. That he could meet her, in her own words. That he could know her. Someday, someday she would tell him the truth. Someday she would tell him about Blair.

She was his mother, but so was the other witch. And she wasn’t going to cut him off from that. She wasn’t going to erase that from his life. And the thought that crossed her mind. When she had first adopted him, she had considered saying that they were both hers. Lying, and saying that they had the same birthday, that they were truly twins. But she had decided against it. She wasn’t going to erase her like that. She couldn’t. Not when Blair meant so much to her. But that was where her mind kept drifting off to.

For when you’re ready.

That’s what it said. The outside of it. It was addressed to her. For when she was ready. Was she ready?

There was a part of her that thought that she just might be. That she might be ready. That she might just need to know what was in that letter. But what if it wasn’t for this? What if Blair hadn’t known what she had done? Did she know? Had she… Had she healed anyone? After she had saved Andromeda, after everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure that she saw her use magic again at all. She certainly had never used a wand, but it hadn’t been necessary. She had never used a wand unless she was dueling. Andromeda knew that much.

Still, she didn’t think that she remembered seeing her use magic at all. And that was curious… Maybe she had. She had to have. She was a witch, and while Andromeda had been preoccupied for those three weeks, she had certainly never thought that she was going to have to worry about something like that. She had never thought that she was going to have to worry about whether or not she had seen Blair perform any magic. It wasn’t something that had seemed relevant at the time. If only she would have known. But that was how life worked, wasn’t it?

They knew the things that they didn’t need, and they knew nothing about the things that they wished that they did. This was a secret that she knew that she couldn’t keep. Not forever. Not for good. She didn’t know how she was supposed to reveal it though. She couldn’t just say that she could do this. Blair hadn’t told anyone. She avoided using it in ways that people were going to notice. She had never been flashy about it. A touch here or there, she had never completely taken things away, only eased them. Except when she had healed her sister, and when she had saved Andromeda. Family knew. But everyone else… She had hidden it. Andromeda couldn’t just expose that secret now.

And she couldn’t tell anyone anyway. She couldn’t tell a soul outside of those that she called family. The world thought that Blair had died in childbirth. She wasn’t sure how many people knew the truth. Rodolphus, obviously. Rabastan. Narcissa. Davina and Griffith. Carlisle and Sloane. But the circle stopped there. No one that was not family knew the truth. And she intended to keep it that way. They didn’t need to know that she had died. They didn’t need to know that she had come back. No one was running tests on her. No one got to poke and prod at her. She wouldn’t do that. But she would figure out what to do with this. How to help.

When he claimed that it was a working theory she nodded and sat back as he leaned forward. Resting her arm on the top of the settee she took in what he was saying. Charmed would have made sense, a sort of protection, like what Harry had tried to tell her about once, long ago. He had been over playing with Teddy, and they had put him to sleep, and gotten to talking and he had tried to explain it to her, but this wasn’t that. This wasn’t some charm. She couldn’t have transferred a charm out of herself. This was something else, something different.

“No, no, you’re alright.” She wasn’t thinking quite as quickly as he was, but she was confident that the more he kept talking the more her mind would catch up to him. She could make the leaps, if she had to. It just took her more of a running start than it did for him. He had hours of research on her. “Call a…” The witch shook her head a little bit. The world of a necromancer was not one that she wanted to venture into. She was intimately acquainted with Death. She need not summon a soul into a body. “A splitting of souls… Just hers? Or mine too? If she took Death from me, that was a part of mine, and in place she put a part of her own. The splitting of a soul is not impossible, horcruxes tell us that. But a horcrux would mean that she is not dead, and Blair’s gone, I mean, she’s here, she’s in my thoughts, she’s in my heart, but as a figure of speech, she’s not actually here.”

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Immortals

it might be my wound

BUT THEY'RE your SUTURES

He was not being as clear as he hoped to be. His mind was skipping and jumping and his tongue could not keep up. Rabastan needed to slow his thoughts, to organize them, and convey what he had learned and hypothesized effectively. This was not just some theoretical discussion. This was Andromeda. This was not just something that could possibly happen--it was and had happened to her.

Perhaps he should have rested...Slept a bit...Then had breakfast before coming to see her. But those things were so mundane in comparison to delving into this mystery. He was starved for hope far more than anything else. And her healing him, that gave him more hope than he could have ever imagined it would.

There was just so much to work through. He had ideas. He had inklings of possibilities. But this situation was not a common occurrence. References and studies did not exist of the phenomena. Nothing like Epidemic X had ever been documented before. Nor were there references, so far as he had seen or heard of, regarding the mastery of ether. If others before Blair had possessed the ability, they guarded it. They hid the capacity. He could understand why that would have been--particularly if his theory of how Andromeda healed him was correct. She had explained to him last night that she had been unable to cause harm to herself. He had sliced his arm and she had put her hands over the wound. He could not fully understand her experience then. He had heard her gasp, seen her jerk back and stare at her hands. She had told him she felt a burning, sharp pain across her palm---She had not said the words explicitly, but he took it as if she had experienced the sensation of being sliced with the dagger and the subsequent experience and pain associated with the healing of it. To him, it had just felt like he was as he had been before cutting himself. It seemed to him the Mastery of Aether or Spirit or Life or whatever it was they were going to call it took the manifestation of what ailed another and set it against the mender, with the mender having some level of resistance to the manifestation of the ailment.

Rabastan had laid out his thoughts in a somewhat jumbled mess, but he was most grateful for the fact that Andromeda had not fixated on the comment about his work to draw a soul back from beyond the Veil. He did not like others to be aware of his long-standing devotion to her late sister. Bellatrix was a wound to him. One that would not heal, it seemed. It festered, hidden from the world, sometimes more painful and angry than others.

The man was troubled by the ideas he was sharing with Andromeda-- He saw the possible repercussions from them. Did even speaking the thoughts aloud give them merit that might damn the woman before him? He could not bear that thought. No matter what happened, no matter what they learned, he would take no action that would ever lead to Andromeda losing her life. If it was Blair that sustained her, then Blair had willed it so. She had traded a life for a life--and he was glad for it. Blair had been nothing to him. He had known her only the most limited capacity...more than her sister, of course, but they had shared no significant connection. He knew Andromeda had loved her, perhaps, but he did not. He was invested in the woman in front of him, not the woman in the ground.

He shook his head as she asked her questions. "I don't know," he admitted. "I could be completely wrong altogether--I could be seeking to apply what I understand to the problem at hand when really to understand it requires some other mastery." He did not really believe that though. He was a necromancer. He knew Death. The woman before him was Death-touched. His expertise was wholly appropriate...and modesty and pride aside, Rabastan Lestrange was the most accomplished and knowledgeable necromancer in Europe, perhaps the world. Even his years in Azkaban had not changed that.

Andromeda put forward that Blair was not truly within her. Not in a literal sense anyway, and while he was resistant to the implications of the possibility, his tongue formed the question anyway. "Are you sure?" The man's brow arched up as he studied the Black. His voice challenged her. He would accept an affirmative response if she gave it, but he doubted that she could give him a firm yes with the honesty that existed between them.

"No matter what we discern from this investigation, Andromeda, I'm not going to let you die. You live. You. Blair is dead. That is not going to change." He had been compelled to say that. Rabastan needed her to know that he was not going to let her die. He felt the death of her sister too much. Andromeda dying would be too much for the man to bear. He could not fail the witch. "I promise." He did not have his magic, but he had hope again that it would be returned to him...and he would keep her alive if it came to it. He was already working with Ursula to keep a creature alive without its heart. That magic could be transitioned, if need be, it could sustain Andromeda should she decide that she needed to loose Blair from herself. He did not imagine Andromeda would ever do that, knowing that it might cost her her life, not with those two little ones that played between them. Roarke and Arcturus would keep her from pursuing any path too dangerous. He would be harsh with his discouragements if he had too, tell her the risk could leave the boys without any mother at all. He would use his own pain to show her how that destroys a man for his entire life.

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immortals

it might be your wound

but they're my sutures

Understanding was something that was going to come in time. It was something that she was going to have to work towards, and she knew that. Andromeda was not foolish. Unprepared, perhaps, but not foolish. She knew that she wasn’t going to understand overnight. And she knew that she was going to have to figure it out. She knew that she was going to have to discern what it was that came next. She didn’t know if she even had a plan. Or if she wanted one. She had to try and understand this, and she had to do it with only them knowing. Rabastan, because she had tested it on him, and Rodolphus, because she would not keep a secret like this from him. But that was it.

Only the three of them. They were the only ones that needed to know. Anyone else was far too dangerous. There were far too many things that could happen if it got out. And she knew that Blair had kept it close. She knew that it wasn’t something that was discussed or spoken of. Even when she had seen her use it, no one had really mentioned it. No one had talked about what it was that she did, or how, or why. All that she knew was that she had been doing it for her entire life. And she knew where she could get some information. She knew that she could ask Davina about it. But she would have to figure out how…

Perhaps curiosity. Perhaps she could play it as a curiosity of what to look for in her son. An elemental’s ability was genetic, like being a metamorphagus. And she knew that Arcturus hadn’t gotten that trait, though his sister had. So, things were not set in stone. There was nothing that said that Roarke was going to inherit his mother’s abilities, but she could ask Davina about them. She could ask her what she remembered from growing up. What it was that Blair had done, if she had done it. What it was that she had felt when she had healed her. But bringing up Blair at all was difficult to do.

It was a subject that they didn’t breach all that often, and she knew that just bringing it up now was likely to make her sad. It was likely to make everything more difficult for a while. It wasn’t going to easy, but there was nothing that was easy anymore. And talking to her was the only way that she was going to get any information. Information that she wanted to have before she tried to explain this to Rodolphus. Information that she wanted, simply because she wanted to understand herself. She wanted to know what she was going up against, and what she could expect.

This was not something that they could study. This was not something that there were books about. Volumes of information were not available to them. They were going to have to figure it out as they went along. And they were going to have to figure out if there was something that they could do to fix this.

Part of her wished that she had more to contribute to this conversation. But she had gone to bed. She had slept, and she had let herself think on it for a long time before she had fallen asleep, but she knew that it wasn’t that easy. She couldn’t just think on it. She was going to have to read, and research, and everything that she didn’t have time for. “Who knows what it requires. It’s not like we know a whole lot about it yet…” Her mind drifted again to the unopened letter upstairs, but she didn’t want to bring that to his attention either. Not until she had read it and knew what it was about.

The challenge in his voice stopped her answer to his question in its tracks. She desperately wanted to say yes. Yes, she was sure. Yes, she knew that she wasn’t in any danger. Yes, she knew. But she couldn’t. Not if she was going to be honest, and she hadn’t lied to him thus far. “I desperately want to say yes…” It wasn’t really an answer, but it was answer enough. Because she couldn’t give that solid affirmation. She couldn’t just say yes. And that made all the difference in the world. If she could, things would be a whole lot easier.

Her eyes had been on her sons as she had answered him. They were the reason that she wanted to say yes. She couldn’t let anything happen to her, because they needed her. They were the reason that she was here. They were the reason Blair had saved her in the first place. It had been a choice. One of them lived. One of them was mother to those boys. And Andromeda hadn’t even been a part of that decision making. She hadn’t had a choice, Blair had chosen for them, and she had chosen Andromeda. She was their mother. They needed her.

But they lifted again to her brother-in-law as he spoke again. His words echoed her own from the night before. She had made him a promise. They were going to get magic back. She was going to figure it out. They were going to figure it out. The best, and brightest minds in the world. They would find them, and they would get magic back. And he had made her the same sort of promise now. All she could do was nod in response to his words. “I have to stay alive. For them…” She looked back down at her sons as they played together between them. “They are the reason I’m alive in the first place. I can’t jeopardize that. They need me.” The Lestrange boys needed her, Andromeda knew that. There was no doubt there. They needed her. All of them.

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Immortals

it might be my wound

BUT THEY'RE your SUTURES

Rabastan enjoyed the pursuit of knowledge...he always had, but in this moment, he was not patient in it. On another topic, in another time, he would have savored this problem. Taking small sips of its delightful complexity as one would do with a fine glass of wine or well-aged Scotch. But now, he could not enjoy it fully, because his eyes were on what could be attained from it. He needed answers. He needed understanding because he needed his bloody magic back!

He was not himself without it. He had his mind. He had his knowledge--he had unmatched necromantic expertise. And what good was it? He gave advice to others. He mentored Ursula, guiding and helping her in pursuit of her living army. But Rabastan himself was doing nothing. His Inferi were either destroyed or confined, wholly out of his control. His experiments were halted. His efforts to bring Bellatrix back were abandoned. He needed to be himself again. He needed to continue his work. It was important...even if he was sour with Bellatrix these days, what he had accomplished and learned in pursuit of her was a legacy in and of itself. In searching for her, in reaching for her, he had gained a greater understanding of Death. He knew things never known before. He had gathered knowledge together to create the greatest repository of necromantic resources ever established. It did not matter that she was still dead. He was still a Master Necromancer--or he could be if he could wield magic.

It was vexing to be without that defining part of himself. But having this mystery of Andromeda's to distract himself with, to draw hope from. It was good. It passed time in a meaningful way.

The wizard nodded his agreement to Andromeda's assertion that they could not be sure what mastery could unlock the secrets of the magic she now possessed. He pushed her for more information, for insight. He wanted them on equal footing as best as they could be in this. He was laying out all he had come to know in the hours they had been apart. What did she know that he did not? What had she seen in the past that he had been blind to as he ignored his brother's second wife? He asked her plainly: "What do you know? Beyond what happened last night---did you ever speak to Blair about what she could do? Did you bear witness to her healing others?"

Rabastan was not surprised that Andromeda could not firmly respond yes to his probing question. His face went solemn and he cast his eyes from her to the boys and back again. Few words needed to be spoken just now about the implications of the possibility that Blair lived on inside Andromeda. If Andi existed as a Horcrux of a sort for the other woman, there was a chance that Death still had its mark on the Lestrange before him.

The witch spoke of having to say alive. He much agreed and echoed her own word with a firm declaration of his own: "And you will." Rabastan would not push the woman to do anything that would put herself in exceeding danger. He would do not do that, no matter what it might bring him. "We will take understanding this as far as we are able without risking them their mother."

The conversation between them was heavy and laden with emotion. Rabastan sought to urge it away and towards more easily spoken about matters. "Let me see your hands--are they still as they were yesterday? Unharmed? Is there any tenderness in them? Or any mark upon your skin? Do you feel any differently?" He peppered questions at her. The man had ideas he wanted to explore. Experiments he was ready to perform between them, himself again as the guinea pig, to see just how far her newly discovered talents could extend.

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