The Fearsome Name of Riddle

Wishing For Someone Else

In the darkness of night, Victoria Malfoy looked across her sitting room into the flickering fireplace. Her sofa was warm and comfortable but contentment would not embrace her. Lucius lived in his own wing of the Manor now, taking his own space after leaving school. He didn't tend to stay there during the day, making regular visits to see her. Though, that did not make Victoria feel less alone, just older. Without Octavian bounding around all she had was an adult son, there was no pretending that she hadn't aged along with everyone else around her. 

Ivan Rosier shifted in his seat and reminded Victoria that he was still beside her. She sighed heavily enough to turn his head and place his book down onto his lap again. Her spy had become her frequent company. Victoria did not resent his present so much, only that her melancholy left her longing for her loneliness. 

"Offended by my presence, Victoria?" Ivan asked, lifting an arm across the back of the sofa which only made her sigh again. 

"Not entirely," Victoria said, relaxing onto his arm as she gave up trying to be irritated. "I just wasn't expecting you to stay so long." 

"You wound me," Ivan chuckled, tucking her hair behind her ear and taking his hand back. "I've been perfectly polite to you. Do you want to sink into your despair so badly?" 

"I'd drown if I did that, far too much has happened." Victoria's voice held a neutral tone as she glanced briefly over to Ivan. If she focused the best she could, Ivan looked sort of like Obsidian under her hands. They had similar builds and after ten years her memory of his face had become blurred. She could pretend for an hour or two that Obsidian Lestrange wasn't dead, that he was still sitting beside her. "And what of your despair? How is your life fairing?" 

“It fairs just fine." Ivan shrugged, never one to talk about his feelings. 

“How is Felix?” Victoria asked, curious about the mysterious two year old Ivan forever left at the Rosier estate. 

"Alive where Myrianna isn't. What do you care about it?" Ivan’s voice grew bitter. His youngest son’s birth had taken his wife's life. Ivan and Myrianna loved like a storybook despite their faults and she doted on Evan until her last breath, but sometimes magic just wasn't enough. 

“He's just a baby,” Victoria said, sitting forward with a look of sympathy. 

“And a murderer already.” Ivan sighed, relenting in his grief as he slumped into the cushions. 

"You cannot get away from him," Victoria told him, turning her gaze to meet his. She reached out for his hand, cold fingers resting on his warm skin. "When Tom killed Obsidian, in an actual murder, I feared that I would never recover. I lost my rescuer, I know that was who Myrianna was to you, but you must find another." 

“Who did you find?” Ivan asked, frowning with a pouty expression. 

“Would you like to fill the post?” Victoria teased, gaining herself a light shove of the shoulder. 

Rosier huffed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He pulled her into a comfortable hug, her back against his chest. A blonde woman back in his arms. Victoria wasn't Myrianna, their hair wasn't even that similar, but in the corner of his eye she was close enough. 

“How is Octavian anyhow?” Ivan asked, picking up his book again. 

"He's doing well," Victoria said softly, a bittersweet feeling lingering in her when thinking of her son. "I get owls from him all the time. They've had their first flying lesson, he found it rather boring because he already knew what to do but his teacher was impressed with him and gave him house points." 

“It hasn't been that long,” Ivan chuckled, amused by how desperately she clung to her boy. “He doesn't need coddling. He's at school, he should be focused on school, not you or anywhere else. Did the boy even sit down long enough for you to teach him how to write properly?”