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[attr="class","cbody"]The decision to come back here was not one that he’d made lightly. It had been months since the Epidemic had left him—had left all of them, apart from Griff, without magic. In that time, he had been waiting for a cure that might not be coming anytime soon. He knew that medical research could be slow. Creating a cure would take time and even then, there was no way of knowing if the first attempt would even work, or how many attempts they would actually get through because they found the real solution to the epidemic.
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Without magic, work on any new curses and spells had needed to be indefinitely suspended. There was nothing that he could create without magic. There were other ways for him to pass his time—he had always enjoyed reading, but there were only so many books in the bloody house. Since the meeting with Potter and Shacklebolt, Andromeda had been talking a lot about clemency and how he couldn’t get caught doing anything illegal. At least she hadn’t told him not to do anything illegal—just not to get caught. Rodolphus didn’t know why that mattered all that much since she was still Minister. Unless she was planning on passing the reigns off to Shacklebolt or something, Sazalar help them.
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At this point, he would not be all that surprised. Rodolphus had not thought that she would like being Minister and as far as he could tell, she hadn’t. He thought that she was much more suited to the foundation that she seemed to enjoy so much. She and Rabastan worked hard on that—it bored him to tears, but he didn’t have anything to do with it. Rodolphus knew that he could have been a board member, but nothing about that place had honestly interested him all that much. He’d leave that to them. It felt like his wife and his brother were spending a fair amount of time together these days. He had noticed that.
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Not that he thought they were up to anything. He didn’t think that he was at risk of losing his wife to Rabastan, though his brother’s attention had seem to fade from the witch he’d said he was going to marry. Where that attention would fall to next? Rodolphus was less certain of that. But he supposed he was not all that surprised that the courting of Athena had fallen through—it had been the talk of engagement that had caught him off guard to begin with.
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But maybe he would have another witch in mind. Only time would tell when it came to Rabastan. It wasn’t really something that he cared to put all that much thought into. His brother would get married or he wouldn’t. Either way, the Lestrange line had its heirs. Now they just had to find a cure to the epidemic, so they didn’t have to concern themselves with the possibility of their sons being Squibs somehow. Figuring out how to deal with that, however, was not his forte. Healing magic never had been.
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Combat had always been what he was more suited for, which was why training the aurors had only made sense when he’d decided to come back here. He would whip them into shape—probably break a few in the process, but that just came with the territory.
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When he heard a knock on the door, he glanced up, expecting Griff or someone like that, but instead seeing a face that he often didn’t in the Ministry. “Better behind a desk than sitting at home,” he said, with a chuckle. Working under his wife was a hell of a lot better than practically being a stay-at-home father—minus the actual parenting. He’d leave that to Andromeda and the house-elves. “You have work here today?” There was a chance he’d had a case to deal with that was small enough that Rodolphus hadn’t been summoned in as well and honestly, better him than Rod. Wizengamot cases got rather dull.
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[attr="class","cbody"]Everything about Andromeda wanting to be Minister had surprised him. It wasn’t something that he had ever thought she would have an interest in. Her passion had lied with healing for as long as he had known her, and he hadn’t seen any reason for her to even want to get involved in politics. Yes, he hadn’t been all that pleased with some of Wentzell’s choices, but he had been keeping everything running well enough. He had gotten the registration going—and before that, had been the one to kill Durant, and that had been particularly satisfying. While he might be a foreigner, and while he might make some questionable choices in his personal life, he hadn’t thought there was necessarily a reason for his wife to think she should take over.
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But she had wanted to anyway. He had quickly realized that she hadn’t been joking and he had told her that he’d support her if that was what she wanted to do. He had just also told her that he was going to promote Griffith into his position and not work for the Ministry any longer. If there was one thing that he could not do, it was work under his wife.
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He was not a stranger to powerful women. He had never known a meek wife, and he had been married three times throughout his lifetime. Bellatrix had been a warrior in every sense of the word. She was not the time to sit home and keep house or raise children. Blair had been similar to his first wife, without the touch of madness. She’d had demons of her own, but she conquered them in her own right and she too had never been meek. Maybe when they had first gotten married, she had been a little warier, but no one would ever call Blair Lestrange weak.
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Neither was Andromeda. She was not the warrior that Bellatrix or Blair had been, but she had her own sort of power. The fact that she wanted more than that was what had surprised him. A higher office in the Ministry—an office in the Ministry at all, just wasn’t what he had expected her to want. But he’d supported that choice, as long as she had been aware that he wasn’t going to work for her. That was just one thing that he had to stand firm on.
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And now he was going back on that. He still didn’t like the idea of working for her, but he liked the idea of not working even less. Without his magic, he didn’t have anything else to do with his time. He couldn’t work on new spells, couldn’t do anything—and if that kept up for much longer, he was going to be even more frustrated than he already was. Going back to the Ministry had been the only idea that he had. Maybe it would prove to be just as intolerable as he’d thought, or maybe it wouldn’t. Rabastan had been working throughout all of this, after all.
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Now that Griff had officially hired him back on, he knew that he needed to tell his wife. What he hadn’t expected when he had first walked in the door was first to be addressed by her assistant’s name—and second, that she would think that something was wrong with the kids. Salazar, this only further proved how badly he needed to get out of the house. She thought he’d come here to tell her something about the bloody babies. That was the sort of shit that happened when he was the one that was technically home. “I don’t know. I’d assume they’re fine,” he rolled his eyes. “That’s not why I’m here.” Honestly.
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[attr="class","cbody"]It was frustrating to know that his wife was even giving the Order the time of day. That she had taken a meeting with Potter and Shacklebolt, instead of just arresting them on the spot. She could have, after all. The Mudblood was a fugitive from the law. She had never registered—Andromeda could have chucked her in Azkaban and could have thrown away the key, and the fact that she had Shacklebolt with her… well, then he was harboring a fugitive. It was as simple as that, really. It would have solved all of their problems.
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But, of course, Rodolphus had known that she wasn’t going to do that. The Potters were a touchy subject for her. When he had been head of the aurors’ office, he had made sure that Griff wasn’t looking for them too hard. If they came out of hiding, if they did something stupid, then obviously they could take them in. But Griff had wanted to put together a team, had wanted to hunt them down, and Rodolphus had been the one to tell him not to. Quietly, of course. He hadn’t needed word getting around about that, but it had been a choice that he’d made nonetheless. Andromeda was the most important person in his life, after all, and her relationship with the Potter family was complicated. If they got captured, if they got killed, she would be upset. As much as he couldn’t empathize with that, he could still try to avoid a situation that would end with her being upset.
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Now they were back, and taking meetings with Andromeda, and he was annoyed by it. He didn’t know why that was. If having to deal with Shacklebolt and Potter got them closer to a cure faster, all the better. Living without magic was not something that he wanted to do for a moment longer than he had to. So as frustrating as it was, he was going to continue to deal with it, simply because it was a means to an end. Hopefully, anyway. And if they proved to be of no use to them, Rodolphus hoped that Andromeda would see that and stop meeting with them. Even if she still didn’t want them arrested because of those very same complicated feelings for the Potters that had kept him from tracking them down.
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This entire situation was just frustrating, and he didn’t like having nothing to do to fill his days. He had left the Ministry because working for his wife was absolutely out of the question. He was not as backwards as some purists—his wives had always been powerful in their own right, not the submissive sorts that stayed in the home. But he was still not going to work under his wife. There were some things that even he couldn’t deal with, and that had certainly made the list.
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But then the epidemic had happened and without magic, he had very little to fill his days—and he did not do very well with being bored. More often, that just made him lash out at people… usually violently. So, when a Mudblood was clearly visible on the street, he couldn’t resist. There was no way to know if he’d resort to violence—Muggle violence on the street was classless. But he could at least see what kind of reaction he would get out of her. “And just who gave you permission to take a break?” His eyebrows were still raised. Rodolphus didn’t honestly care if she was allowed to take a break or not. To him, this was just a way to alleviate his boredom for just a few minutes.
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[attr="class","cbody"]He officially had a job again in the Ministry.
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Well, he supposed that he always had a job. But his seat in the Wizengamot did not feel like much of a job a lot of the time. More often, it just felt like an obligation. Sitting in on trials, voting, all that nonsense. But that wasn’t really hard to do, and it wasn’t as if there were trials every single day or anything like that. Most of the time, he only went in for that when he absolutely had to. When he could skip it, he did. So, to him, that didn’t count as much of a job.
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But he had been thinking about the aurors office and how he had left it. That was one of the first things he had told Andromeda when he had realized she was serious about wanting to be Ministry. He had told her that he was going to promote Griff to take his place, because he was not going to work under his wife. He had no problem with a woman in power—his past wives were proof of that, and Andromeda was no different. But he was not going to work her. That was just not something that he could do.
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She had been fine with that, and Griff had accepted the job. He didn’t know how much the man actually enjoyed it—it was a little dull, admittedly, so there was a chance that Griff missed the fieldwork, but that wasn’t his fault. He had said yes when he had been asked. He had been fine out of the Ministry. He’d had his inventions, had his spells, and that had been enough. But Epidemic X had changed all of that.
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Now, for months, he’d had nothing to fill his days with. Most of the time, he was just at home, reading. Meanwhile, his wife was going into the Ministry every day, and that to him was just backwards. He was not supposed to be the one sitting at home, and that was how he had gotten to thinking in the first place. A job with paperwork didn’t sound all that bad anymore. Not when he had nothing better to do.
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He had decided that he would go into the Ministry and talk to Griff and see what he thought.
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Rodolphus wasn’t angling to get his old job back. He had given it to Griff, and he wasn’t going to just swoop in and take it back—and he also just didn’t want it back. Instead, he’d had another job in mind. Rabastan had enjoyed leading up the training of the hit-wizards. The head of the training program for aurors had left for a private institution, and that left an opening. It was one that he might as well fill, and now he had. He was the new head of the auror training program.
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Molding new aurors, whipping them into shape—literally… okay fine, not literally, would take up enough of his time that he wouldn’t be bored, surely. Now, he just had to tell Andromeda. He had no idea what her reaction was going to be, because he hadn’t told her about this plan.
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It was past lunch now, but he figured that Andromeda would be back already. The little Potter girl was at her desk—a problem for another time, so he didn’t pay her any mind as he went straight to her door and knocked swiftly, before opening it. “Andromeda…” He said in greeting, as he closed the door behind him.
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[attr="class","cbody"]More than anything, he was bored, and that was not something that Rodolphus did all that well with. He couldn’t remember a time in his life where he had been bored for an extended period of time. It had just never happened. Back in his youth, there were plenty of ways for him to keep himself occupied. Witches, invention, torture—whatever he wanted. There was nothing that he couldn’t have, but that had all changed when the Dark Lord had fallen.
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But even when he had been in Azkaban, it hadn’t been boredom that he had felt. That had been a different kind of suffering, admittedly. It had not been easy to endure, but it hadn’t been as hard for him as it had for others. Dementors took and took, and he didn’t have all that much happiness that could be taken away. After all, he wasn’t sure if he really knew what happiness even was. Not really.
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No, he couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had ever felt like this. Boredom was easy to resolve, normally. A witch in his bed, a prisoner in his dungeon, and his needs were sated. It was as simple as that. But now it wasn’t that easy. He had Andromeda in his bed, or anywhere else that he wanted her, but that was all that he had. Rodolphus had nothing to fill his days, while Andromeda was at the Ministry working. It was backwards and it made no sense to him whatsoever. He did not expect her to spend every day at home, obviously. He had never known a meek wife and he would have been bored with a housewife within the week, but… he didn’t like being home.
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He didn’t like having nothing to do while she worked all day long. Originally, he had thought that he couldn’t work in a Ministry under her. But now… without magic, he couldn’t invent, he couldn’t torture—and he couldn’t torture the Muggle way either because of that bloody deal that his wife had made with Potter and Shacklebolt.
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Since then, he had been trying to decide what to do to fill his time and he had, in passing, thought about how he nearly missed all the paperwork at the Ministry at this point. That was why he had decided to come in here today. He might have not wanted to work in the Ministry where his wife would be his boss, but desperate times… and it wasn’t like he would technically answer to her in this position. He would answer to Griff, and somehow, that didn’t bother him at all
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It was still morning, though nearing on lunch, when he made it to the Ministry. He hadn’t been in too much of a rush, figuring that he would catch Griffith before he headed to lunch or something like that. The department looked much as he remembered, though the aurors-in-training looked a little too relaxed for his tastes. He’d rather them look a little afraid that they were doing something wrong, but to each their own, he supposed.
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Eventually, he made it to Griff’s door and knocked, pausing for a reply before pushing it open and stepping inside. “Griff,” he said with a nod, “Are you busy?” He figured it was worth asking, even if he expected that his… whatever Griff was, depending on what Davina was to Andromeda at the time, would make time to talk to him.
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[attr="class","cbody"]It had been over a month since Andromeda had taken that second meeting with Potter and Kingsley, and he still didn’t understand what the hell she gained from getting help from them. Did they know something that she didn’t? Rodolphus doubted it. Unless Potter had been off researching obscure diseases in her absence—hell, maybe she had been the one that had created it, because he knew that was what his wife thought. She knew more about medicine than anyone else that he knew, and she had told him that it was too efficient, that there was a chance it had been manmade. Was that what Potter had on them? She created it so she had the cure?
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Probably not. If that were the case, then Andromeda would have told him, and he also didn’t think that she would be so willingly working with someone that was holding the United Kingdom hostage by refusing to give her the cure or something. No, he didn’t think that was it at all.
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But then, in his mind, there was no good reason to let them help at all. To give them anything. But that was exactly what had happened at that meeting. Sebastian Flint had been fired and while Rodolphus had never been the biggest supporter of him at the school, he was still a Death Eater. Still someone that they could at least marginally trust. Yes, he’d also dismembered a kid at a dance, which was a little bit dramatic, but sometimes dismembering taught an important lesson. The matron had been able to reattach all of the body parts, as far as he was aware. And honestly, the Mudblood might have learned a more valuable lesson if they’d hadn’t reattached his tongue. The world would be better off for it, too.
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Hardly the point, though. The point was that Sebastian had been fired, Mudbloods were back at work—okay, not all of them. Not even half of them… hell, only a handful of them, but that was where it bloody started. Next, Potter and Shacklebolt would be trying to free them all and he had started to think that his wife was going to continue to oblige. Nothing would surprise him anymore.
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Rodolphus had little ways of keeping his time occupied without magic. It wasn’t even that he’d had a job to go to every day that he couldn’t do now. Being a spell inventor was something that often left him with spare time already, but now he couldn’t even do that—meanwhile his wife was at work every day, and he was the one at home. It almost made him regret leaving the Ministry. At least he’d had work to do as the head of the aurors’ office.
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Maybe he would talk to Griff about rejoining the Ministry as a training instructor or something. Trying to shape up new aurors might be amusing enough. There were more than a few that he might be able to make cry, even if he couldn’t actually torture them. It was something to consider, anyway. It would at least be something to fill his time.
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Today that wasn’t something that he was going to do anything about. He’d had to come into Diagon Alley—well through Diagon Alley to Knockturn Alley, for a few supplies, and along the way, he saw a woman sweeping the snow away. A mudblood—maybe this day was looking up. “Is ‘yeah’ really an appropriate greeting, girl?” He asked, his eyebrows raised. Anyone stopping her on the street was her superior in one way or another, even if he was just some halfblood, and he most certainly wasn’t.
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