unspeakable | jegulus

you lose yourself, you reappear

chapter title: it's alright ma (i'm only bleeding) by bob dylan

cw: torture

The Malfoy library was ostentatiously perfect. As clean and unwelcoming as a museum. All of the books were shackled to the shelves behind neat glass cabinet doors, on bookshelves that locked. A fire was crackling in the hearth against one wall, but, like the fire in the Slytherin common room, it didn't seem to give off any heat. There was a collection of uncomfortable looking sofas and chairs arranged in a horseshoe around the fireplace. Many of the seats were full.

Lucius Malfoy had a smile like tepid water. He was sitting beside a young woman with wild black hair and eyes as bruise-dark as a thunderstorm. Across from him, Walburga Black was smiling (as always) and chattering with a very polished looking man. He was maybe about forty. He had a full head of neat brown hair, and a very sharp set of black robes on.

"James, Regulus! How wonderful it is to see you again." Lucius stood as he spoke and strode toward them. He took both of James' hands in his. James was startled enough he let him do it. There was something off about his expression, something steely and awful in his pale eyes. "Please, join us." He stilled, already rigid with some unnameable emotion, and half-turned toward the man beside Walburga. "With your permission of course, my lord." My lord? A tide of fear rose in James like floodwater. He felt all of the hair on his arms stand on end. He tried not to let it show.

"Yes, join us. Take a seat." The unfamiliar man had an easy way of speaking. Pleasant and unhurried, like a politician. His voice was very cold.

"Thank you," James said with as much warmth as he could manage. He paused, then sat on a chair so he wouldn't have to sit next to Walburga and the man Lucius had bowed his head to, or the woman with wild hair, who had to be Bellatrix. He instantly regretted it. His separation from the group made him feel even more out of his element, like this was an interrogation, like James was a criminal. He could feel their eyes on him. He listened to the crackle of the fire and tried to quell the panic coming alive inside of him.

James was on edge. Walburga seemed perfectly in her element here, which was to be expected for a woman like her. Who would dare to cross the head of the House of Black, the mother of its only male heir? Not some rising politician, for whom the opinion of pureblood witches like her mattered so very much. James couldn't make out what the man was saying to her when they came in, but from the ease in her expression he knew it had been honeyed– flattery perhaps.

"James, darling, this is my niece. Bellatrix Lestrange," she languidly introduced him before anyone else had a chance. Her voice was so soft. She never raised it above a conversational level. Walburga Black was a woman used to being listened to. "Bellatrix, dearest, this is my son's betrothed."

"James Potter," Bellatrix said slowly, like she was savouring the taste of his name in her mouth. She was as beautiful as a sculpture, as all the Blacks were, but there was something odd about her eyes. Her pencil-thin eyebrows were high arches over them. Abruptly he realized they weren't cloudy grey like the rest of her family, or blue like her sister's, but a deep, forbidding slate grey so dark it nearly looked like ink. "A Potter, marrying my littlest cousin, our little Coeur de Lion..."

"I still have to speak to my parents and ask for their permission, but yes, I intend to propose, and I intend to marry him," James said softly. Regulus sat beside his mother, and she instantly ran an affectionate hand over his shoulder. Instead of tensing like he usually did with her touch, Regulus leaned into her hand. He must be scared too. He didn't show it. Regulus looked at ease: haughty, disdainful, and as cold as ice. "You seem to have a problem with that. Why?"