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[attr="class","ctopline"]I got ice in my veins, blood in my eyes

[attr="class","cscriptde"]hate in my heart

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[attr="class","clyrics"]I seen nights full of pain, days are the same[break]
You keep the sunshine, save me the rain

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[attr="class","cbody"]The events of the last couple of weeks—longer than that, honestly, were ones that he should have expected. Andromeda was much more suited to Rabastan than she was for him. He had told her a long time ago that he was never going to love her. That he could never love her. It was not an emotion that he was capable of. Once upon a time, it had been. Before Azkaban, before years of solitary confinement had made him into a different kind of man, it might have been possible. He had still not really felt emotions the way the rest of the world did. He didn’t know if he had been born that way or if years of his father’s teachings had made him that way by design.
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But the fact of the matter was that Andromeda was a woman. Despite what she wanted to say about what she did or didn’t need, she was not different from other women. She wanted someone to love her back. When she told him that she loved him, he either didn’t answer or told her that he knew. He would never be able to say those words back to her, and he knew it. She knew it too. Rodolphus had given her an out when she had realized that she was pregnant, and she had not taken it. She had said that she didn’t need a man like Colin Ferguson. A man that would be a good father, that would love her and be more of a husband than he could ever be. It had taken longer than he expected for Andromeda to realize that she did need those things. All along, he had known that they would get here eventually. He knew that Andromeda was not the woman that she was pretending to be.
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He had not thought that she would realize that she needed a man that could love her back, and that man would be his brother, though. That was something that had been more of a surprise. He had seen the way that Rabastan acted around her, he knew his brother well enough to know what that meant. But he had not thought those feelings would be returned. He remembered very clearly when Andromeda had wanted wards in their bedroom so Rabastan couldn’t get in and all of the times when she’d implied that she’d feel more comfortable if Rabastan didn’t live with them at all.
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Yes, he had seen those opinions changing over time. Being out of Azkaban had done well for Rabastan and he knew that his brother was more stable now than he had been in a long time. But it was certainly quite the change to go from being afraid of the thought of him being able to come into the bedroom, to spreading her legs for him. Quite a change indeed.
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He had decided that Roarke could obviously not remain in Andromeda’s care given the current state of things. He was his, and his was Blair’s. With Blair gone, and Andromeda switching brothers, there was no reason for her to have Roarke anymore. Arcturus—fine. The fight to get him from her would be impossible, but Roarke was not biologically hers. He would not stand for a cheating, flighty blood traitor to raise his heir. He had enjoyed how much the thought of losing Roarke had hurt her. He had enjoyed her begging more. In the end, he’d conceded to joint custody. For now, anyway. Maybe the ICW would do him a favor and arrest her. There were too many people who had committed crimes in the United Kingdom to arrest them all—but the Minister that had continued the registration of Muggleborns? Maybe she’d be in chains by the end of their trip here.
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But for now, they would be switching by the week. He had the boys until next Wednesday. That was fine. Sophia had been fired—he was not going to have a nanny in this house that was more loyal to Andromeda than she was to him. Instead, he was going to have Lilith watch them. She had experience with children, with the added benefit of being around to shag her when he wanted to. If she trusted herself to take care of them, then he trusted that.
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Since he’d spoken to Dani earlier this week, she had been on his mind—and so had what she’d told him. The concerns that she and other Death Eaters had, because of the ICW and because of the changes in policy that his wife had made. But currently, his mind was more on the ICW. Their arrival gave them something of an opportunity. Perhaps it was time to stir up some trouble. Carefully, of course, in a way that would not lead back to him specifically. Or at least, not give them any proof. They would all likely know who was responsible. But that was fine.
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It was past dinnertime when he left his study to head into the kitchen. He was certain that Lilith was putting the boys to bed and then she’d likely go back to her flat. But he was quite sure that she’d managed to find time to make something for dinner too. Or at least, she’d thought to tell the house-elves to make something, because the familiar smell of good cooking overwhelmed his senses as he got closer to the kitchen.
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As he had expected, a meal was what he found when he made it into the room. Setting the plate down at the island, he poured himself a drink before sitting down. After a quick break from work, his focus could go right back to his plans for the ICW.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]956 ● @ brother ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Drop the World

I seen nights full of pain

days are the same

Rabasatan had not set out to upturn the lives of the Lestranges. It had never been his intention. He loved his nephews. He loved his brother. And, of course, he loved Andromeda. He loved her more than he should have as the brother of her husband. He thought too often about the possibilities of what their lives could have been like if she had married him instead all those years ago. He tried not to. He did not like the pain of those what ifs brought, but the late night conversations, the stolen glances, the meeting of minds and curiosities made it impossible to ignore.

It had been one small step after the other. Since the epidemic struck the country, perhaps even before, he and Andromeda had been reaching for one another. They had been finding companionship and conversation with each other. It had been innocent, at first. But his heart had slipped from within the cage of his ribs and it was hers now. He was hers now. The affair had been dangerous. The night Andromeda had gone back to Rodolphus' bed, Rabastan had believed the woman he loved had made her choice. He thought she had chosen the man she had married.

She hadn't.

That brought him relief and suffering all at once, because he knew change would not come easily. He knew there was danger. Rodolphus was a wild card. While Rab knew his elder brother did not love Andromeda, Rodolphus was not a man made for love. Their father and prison had taken that from him. Where those years made Rabastan desperate for connection, it had left Rodolphus without the need for it. Emotion did not reach the elder as it did with the younger. They had been through so much of the same pain and suffering, but had emerged different--different from who they had been in their youth and different from one another. They both had their jagged edges. They both had their deficiencies. Neither was a whole man, not truly.

But Rabastan was trying to be better. He was surely much better than he had been when they first left Azkaban. Those years in Knockturn with the dementors ever present had been hard ones. He'd been teetering back and forth in and out of insanity. Decades of untreated mental illness and seclusion had done much damage to the man. He wasn't wholly healed. Nightmares still drove him from sleep on the rare occasion when he managed to fall into slumber without a potion. He had to mediate now, regular dosing of elixirs to keep him stable. He went to therapy. He knew he needed the help. He always had. It was why he studied psychology in uni. Rabastan recognized his problems and had always been working to solve them, to better himself.

Being with Andromeda made him better, too. But how did that reconcile with what he was to and had with Rodolphus? Rabastan didn't know. He didn't know where things went from here for him and his brother. They'd talked late into the night after Andromeda told Rodolphus she was in love with Rabastan...after they'd brought honesty to the man. Rabastan had begged for Acturus and Roarke to be treated as equals. He had begged for a place in the boys' lives. He had sworn he was not trying to be father to either. The boys already had a father. Rabastan was something else to them. He had a place, but it wasn't the one that belonged to Rodolphus.

What he knew for certain now was that he had to leave Lestrange Castle. Rodolphus had mandated it---and of course, Rabastan understood that. He needed to go. He had wanted to leave the castle behind for a long time. He had always hated the place, but now that he was actually doing it. The act was bittersweet. Packing was slow without magic. Even with Ori and Eri assisting, there were some things that Rabastan wanted to do himself. He had to. He was taking this opportunity to move the most dangerous artifacts to space above the Coffin House. Without the abilities to apply protection and security wards over his new office, he did not want the tools of his necromantic trade within potential reach of little hands.

It was slow work, especially since he tended to drift into memories when he came across something from decades long past. Rabastan realized he had been at it for many hours when his stomach growled from neglect. There was surely something he could snack on or prepare with his limited culinary skillset in the kitchen. Rabastan could have enlisted Eri or Ori to prepare him something, but the elves were transporting his things to the Isle and the shop. He would have to manage on his own.

The wizard was relieved to smell food when he got close to the center of the house. He hadn't expected to find Rodolphus sitting down to eat, but from the doorway to the kitchen, he gave a small nod of greeting to his brother. "Would you mind if I joined you?" The question was asked simply. He was not tentative around Rodolphus, even now. They were still brothers.

The food smelled delicious. The new girl his brother had caring for the boys seemed to at least know how to prepare a meal. He had peaked in on her with Arcturus and Roarke a few times during the day. Rabastan knew Andromeda did not like a stranger watching them, but the squib seemed to be kind to the children and attentive. He wanted her to be fit to the job she had been tasked. He wanted the boys well cared for always.
   

@ brother • 944 • outfit

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","ctopline"]I GOT ICE IN MY VEINS, BLOOD IN MY EYES

[attr="class","cscriptde"]hate in my heart

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[attr="class","clyrics"]I SEEN NIGHTS FULL OF PAIN, DAYS ARE THE SAME[break]
YOU KEEP THE SUNSHINE, SAVE ME THE RAIN

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[attr="class","cbody"]He did not fully know what to make of the circumstances that had come about. A part of him was unsurprised, yes. Unsurprised that he had been right all along about Andromeda. That he had known that she would need more from him someday, that he had told her that from the start. She had not believed that it was true. She had thought that he was enough—and she had been wrong. She had been holding onto the fairytales of their past, if their relationship had ever been much of a fairytale to begin with. Clearly, she had seen it was one. She had seen it as something that was going to have a happy ending.
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Their affair had been at a different time. They had been different people. He had been a man used to getting what he wanted. He had Bellatrix, but he wanted more than that. He wanted power from the Dark Lord, he wanted any woman that caught his eye, and when he had run into Andromeda in Knockturn Alley, he had wanted her. She was beautiful in a way that was different than her sister, and he had thought to get her on her back, only once. Just once.
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It had turned into so much more than that, seemingly before their eyes. They had rented a flat. Seeing each other was much easier when they had somewhere to go. He had a wife to go back to, and she had a husband. Neither house was a safe place to go. It made the risk of getting caught exponentially higher. Rodolphus hadn’t quite cared if her Mudblood caught them. He thought he could make quick work of him if it came down to it. But still, it had been easier to have somewhere else to go. Somewhere that was theirs. That was what that flat had become. It had become somewhere that was entirely theirs.
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The dementors had not been able to take much from him. They had not been able to get to him, to tear at him, the way that they had been able to tear at his brother, or the rest of the prisoners at Azkaban. The way that his mind worked made sure of that. They could not torment him with bad memories if he could not recall a time in his life when he had ever truly been upset. They could not make him relive his worst moments when he did not feel as if he had any. But they had been able to take Andromeda from him, and that was what they had done. Every chance that they had gotten. Piece by piece, memories had faded away. Happy times were gone—and he did know that those times in that flat were likely the closest to being happy that he had ever been.
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Time went on and he forgot the sound of her laugh when she was drinking wine from the bottle or when she was dancing around the apartment with a bite of sesame chicken caught between chopsticks. He forgot the nights where they had ended up asleep on the floor, never actually having made it to bed—and the look of her body half hidden beneath blankets, wild curls trailing down her bare back. Memories faded to nothing in Azkaban, her face blurred to nothing. It was all that the dementors could take from him, so take they did.
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He had not come out of Azkaban the man that Andromeda had known. She was holding onto that person when she needed to let go of him. It was what he had tried to tell her. He had tried to make her realize that she would need more than him. He was ever a confident man, in most aspects of his life—but he could admit his shortcomings. He was no husband. And finally, she had realized that. Rodolphus had just not thought that it would be with his brother that she realized such a thing.
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And there were things to be expected of him now. Of them. Of this. Things that needed to be done. They needed to leave. He didn’t care where they went. He didn’t care that they would be together and he would be in this castle alone. He did not care. That was the problem, wasn’t it?
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Custody had been determined, and the boys were with him this week. He was sure that Lilith would go home after she put them to bed and throughout the night, he supposed… the elves would deal with them if they needed something. Or he would. Not that he knew how to do that, but he supposed he would have to learn. But that was a worry for later. He had needed to take a break and thankfully, Lilith had managed to throw something together for dinner. For not knowing how to read, she could certainly cook. He knew that she did not cook from recipes, obviously, but there were other ways to learn. He hadn’t necessarily thought to ask how she knew how to cook. Someone must have taught her. There was no way she had taught herself without being able to read.
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It didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was food on the table and something for him to eat tonight. Afterwards, he would go back to his plans. Rodolphus had not expected any company—had not realized that Rabastan was even still here. But then he heard his voice. “If you wish to.” His voice was tenser than normal, though he supposed he had never been the most welcoming brother in the world. There was more food in the serving dish, he was sure that his brother would help himself to it if he wanted some.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]963 ● @ brother ● outfit

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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