April 9th, 1891 — Malfoy Home, Wellingtonshire

The idea that November would come into the house he shared with Melody unannounced was so far-fetched that it had never occurred to Ben it was possible. He most likely would have gone weeks without putting it together had it not been for the intervention of his housekeeper. When he'd given her the book intended for Melody and asked her to deliver it with his wife's breakfast tray (his response to Les Miserables) she had eventually come out with the whole story of how Mrs. Malfoy had arrived while he'd been out at work and asked her where he was most likely to see a book if she left it for him. I thought it was a gift; I thought you might be expecting it, she'd said, as though she didn't know perfectly well that Ben wasn't the sort to sit around reading in his free time in the evenings.

So this was a message, but not one from Melody. Ben still didn't know what to think of it — in fact, he knew what to do with this even less than he'd known how to react to a strange coded message from Melody. And he didn't think he could ask anyone for advice about this one, either. Asking married people for marriage advice was one thing, but sharing some strange eccentric thing your sibling had done in the hopes of gaining further insight into their motives seemed like it was crossing a boundary that he didn't want to cross. So he'd decided to just do for November what he would have preferred to have done with Melody, and confronted her about it.

Well, confront was perhaps a strong term. He'd written ahead, arrived precisely on time, and was shown up to her retiring room by one of the servants. He made it only one step farther into the room than where the servant left him, then stood rather awkwardly, framed by the doorway. He was holding this absurdly large book in his arms and he gestured vaguely with it, so that she could not fail to see what it was he'd brought with him, and raised an inquiring eyebrow.

November Malfoy Ursula Black

  

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MJ made this <3

It had taken far too long to orchestrate this meeting with her brother but she had insisted on doing so very indirectly. Obviously Reuben hadn't died in a duel and she'd heard nothing of Elmer's untimely death but she also didn't know if she'd been successful in preventing it entirely or if they'd simply been fortunate enough to both walk away with their lives. As much as she still cared for Elmer if anyone had to die she would have wanted it to be him. If Reuben had died she'd have had his death weighing heavily on her conscience forever and she simply couldn't bear to lose him. Reuben was too full of life to appreciate dying needlessly, he'd have spent his last breath resenting her for what she'd driven him to do. Elmer, on the other hand, had the misfortune of being the 'lover' figure (although she definitely didn't think of him as such) and so it would be more fitting, more poetic for him to have died and she believed he'd see it that way too. She would have begrudged Ben his murder for a while but in time she would have forgiven him. The same could not be said for Elmer, she really didn't think she could have forgiven him if her brother had died.

Despite having wanted this meeting for two whole weeks she really had no idea what she was going to say now that she finally had his attention. She'd been too ashamed of herself to outright ask to see him, fearing his rejection more than anything else, and she couldn't possibly just turn up unbidden. She'd had to resort to further subterfuge by planting one of her weightier possessions in his house so that he would find it necessary to return it in person. There was no logical explanation for how her copy of Les Misérables had made its way into his home naturally but it had to stand out enough for him to notice it and recognize that it didn't belong there. There was a bookplate with her name on it if he failed to recognize it as one of her books which was far more likely than she'd imagined it to be.

When he arrived he didn't immediately say anything and instead gestured to her book, probably in want of an explanation. Nova was all too ready to assume the worst and decided this 'greeting' was irrefutable evidence that his opinion of her was still marred by their last conversation. On top of that she was unexpectedly overwhelmed to see him alive and seemingly well that all of the fear, regret, guilt, despair, and so on that she'd been nursing for almost three weeks came to the surface in an instant. Nova was already halfway to him when she realized what she was doing but she kept on walking until she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a surprisingly tight embrace, undeterred by the awkward bulk of her book in his arms. She began to quietly sob into his shoulder.
""

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   Reuben Crouch

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This was... not what he'd expected, though perhaps that wasn't saying much. He hadn't known what to expect when he'd realized it was November who had left the book in his house, but certainly not this. Aldous' words from his letter weeks ago drifted back to mind as his sister wrapped her arms around him: November is more fragile than either of us. He felt guilt rising in his stomach as she started crying, because he was sure that this was his fault even if he didn't know what had caused it. Was she so distraught over how cool he'd been to her in their parting moments, weeks ago, or was it more than that? Had she been miserable since losing Macmillan as a potential source of comfort? Ben had always thought she was happily married to Gaius Malfoy, but what if that wasn't the case? He remembered how desperate he felt when Melody confronted him about all of the allegations from Witch Weekly, as though by virtue of being married to her he'd lost all rights to ever enjoy a conversation with a woman ever again. Could November be feeling the same way? He thought if that was the case someone in the family would have noticed it, but maybe not. She wasn't typically open about her emotions — which made the fact that she was crying on his shoulder even more jarring.

After a moment of being too startled to do anything, Ben reached up to put one hand on her back and the other lightly on her hair, returning the embrace. He still had the book in his hand, now awkwardly pressed onto her back, but he didn't know what else to do with it. He felt like he ought to say something to comfort her, but his throat was too tight and his mouth was too dry to manage it.

  

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MJ made this <3

She didn't know where to start with words. She felt like exclaiming her relief at his being alive (seeing him alive and whole was quite different from hearing about it) but the need to ask whether his opinion of her was sullied forever was trying to fight for priority. It suddenly occurred to her that though he might be stood before her, it had been a while since she'd seen him and he might very well have dueled and sustained some lasting injury that had healed well enough that it wasn't noticeable. "Were you hurt?" It wasn't until after she said it that she remembered that she only knew about the duel because of Elm- Mr. Macmillan and she'd written to Reuben under a pseudonym. Unless he'd deduced it was her somehow then he probably didn't know she even knew about the duel.

"In the duel?" Her voice grew quieter as she uttered this part, almost sheepishly so. After all, she wasn't supposed to know about it and he'd withheld that knowledge for a reason.

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   Reuben Crouch

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Ben's brow lowered in confusion at her first question, then his eyebrows raised considerably at her second. He let go of her and leaned back so that he could look at her face. "Who told you about that?" he asked, his expression one of concern. There were only so many options, of course, because it wasn't as though he'd taken out an ad in the paper. Of the people who knew the duel was happening, only so many had regular access to November. It wasn't as though Art Pettigrew or Emrys Selwyn would have had the opportunity to say anything. Aldous knew and he might have seen November at some point, but Ben was sure that Aldous wouldn't have said anything about it to her for the same reason that he hadn't. November is more fragile than either of us.

That left a few options, then. She might have figured it out herself, from their conversation two nights before and whatever context clues she'd been able to pick up on before or after, but if that was the case he doubted she would have sounded so sheepish about it while simultaneously so unhesitant about the assertion that there had been a duel. Someone who had firsthand knowledge of the duel might have shared that information with someone else, and it might have worked its way through the rumor mill until it reached her. That was possible, but Ben thought unlikely — nothing had gotten back to him, and he had enough people in his life who were not shy about bringing rumors to his attention when they heard them. If the word on the street was that he'd been involved in illegal duels, he thought he would have been aware of it. Which left only the most obvious possibility: Macmillan.

  

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MJ made this <3

He'd had her promise not to do anything until she'd had time to think about what he'd said, and as she'd understood it, not to make contact with Mr. Macmillan otherwise and so she didn't believe she'd broken her word. She'd resigned herself to the reality that their correspondence was wrong and very much existed outside the realm she entered whenever she wrote or read them. It wasn't happening on another plane of existence and the parchment and ink was very real and even though she still trusted Elmer not to ruin her, she was now wise to the fact that he could intentionally or otherwise and no one would stop to listen to the truth.

Whilst she might think she'd kept her word, she had to admit now that she was faced with confessing to it, that he probably hadn't meant that it was okay for her to write as long as she was doing so with good intentions. "I promised not to do anything until I had thought it through properly, and I did. I wrote to tell him that I couldn't write anymore and-" Nova shifted uneasily as she considered what she'd had planned. She hadn't thought it would come up before he was properly in the door like this but this was the time to do it.

Nova looked over her shoulder at the settee she'd been sat on moments ago. Was there any way to delay it, she wasn't ready, she couldn't do it yet if he was going to be disappointed or mad at her. "And in his reply he mentioned the duel." She lost her nerve at the last moment. She'd have to find another opportunity.

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Ben had been expecting her to say it was Macmillan, of course, but he stiffened as she explained all the same. If he had needed any more proof at all of what a cad the other man was, here he had it. No regard for November's feelings or her well being at all. He had to know how much this news would have distressed her, and if he'd had any regard for her whatsoever he wouldn't have told her. It must have been a selfish impulse, Ben decided. Macmillan had wanted to convey his side of the story and try to justify himself, and he didn't particularly care if it destroyed Nova. Why would he? He'd demonstrated that he didn't care about ruining her already by having made that comment to Ben in the first place. He was an absolute worm of a man. Aldous was right — Ben should have pushed for harsher terms in the duel. He should have killed him. Roman and Aldous could have gotten him out of the ensuing prison sentence, if it came to that.

Gently, Ben pulled November's arms off of him so that he could move further into the room. He was angry, but not at her — she was clearly the victim in this situation, no matter which way he looked at it. Running his free hand through his hair, Ben wandered over to the nearest table so that he could put this damn book down. "Has he written to you since?" he asked. He shouldn't have, because Ben had won the duel — but Macmillan had already demonstrated that he had no honor and no thought for anything other than his own selfish impulses, so Ben wasn't ruling anything out.

  

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MJ made this <3

Nova's heart sank as she realized he was disentangling himself. It was about time they stopped embracing anyway but the timing made it feel like he was doing it specifically at that moment because of what she'd just said. That he then walked away from her only seemed to prove it. After all that she shouldn't have been surprised by his question but she was.

Before answering him she hastily wiped at her eyes - it had fortunately been a small burst of tears that had ceased as quickly as they'd started. If she could help it, they would also be the last she shed for the day. "No, Ben, he has not." She glanced at her feet for a moment to summon up what courage she was able to. "I- I need you to know that it was only ever correspondence." She had desperately hoped that he knew her well enough to know that was all it could ever have been but he clearly hadn't thought her capable of the letters, she feared he'd adjusted his view of her accordingly. "I make no excuse for what I did but it would be irresponsible of me, it has tormented me, to think that you might imagine something far worse than the reality. If you had died because of me..." She had had the luxury of being unconscious for most of the day on which the duel had taken place and so hadn't had to wonder for hours on end without being able to ask anyone, but she'd had plenty of time prior to upset herself.

With a deep, steadying breath, Nova walked over to the settee and from behind a cushion withdrew a sizeable stack of letters bound together with a ribbon. She held them in front of her chest and turned back towards him. "In my letter I also asked him to return my letters and he did so without hesitation. This is all of it." Her cheeks began to redden as she considered what she was about to do and how personal the letters were. In her hands she held ample evidence for Gaius to divorce her, her letters and his letters. It was unlikely anyone would stop to consider that the letters never requested, suggested, or referred to private meetings and if they did they would likely assume those had been burnt. Burning them was what she ought to do but she couldn't bring herself to. She'd never burnt them in the first place because she enjoyed rereading his letters on occasion when the mood struck but she couldn't do that anymore, since the events of Ben's last visit she'd been far too afraid Gaius would somehow happen upon them. So often in novels the indiscretions were discovered after the character had seen the error of their ways and thought they'd gotten away with it. It was almost a given that he'd find them sooner or later.

"You must know that whatever Mr. Macmillan said to upset you, it is not representative of his true nature. He has never asked ungentlemanly things of me, he has only ever shown me the deepest respect. I know that allowing our correspondence to continue beyond my engagement seems to contradict this and I suppose it does, but... There was a time I ardently wished his situation might change so that he could support a wife, but it was not so. If he'd ever asked I might even have been tempted, just for a moment, to consider eloping but he was never so selfish." It was not a dig at her brother, especially as she had reverted to her stubborn belief that he was somehow not at fault, but she heard her own words and shot him a remorseful look.

"Please take them for me." Nova held the letters out making it quite clear what she meant. "Keep them safe. I cannot blame you if choose to burn them but I would rather not know if you have. If you decide to read them... It makes me uneasy to think of it but I would not hold it against you."

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Macmillan not having written since the duel was a thin silver lining — and about the only one that existed in this situation, apparently, because nothing that followed was anything he wanted to hear. It pained him to think that November felt she needed to defend herself or justify herself to him, so even the more tame beginning of her speech hurt him. He'd told her before their last conversation that he could never think poorly of her, but he ought to have expected that she wouldn't have believed it. Even so, he didn't want to hear anything about what her — relationship, for lack of a better term — with Macmillan had been like. Whatever had occurred was his fault, because he had taken advantage of November's sentimentality and her vulnerability, and that was all he needed to know about it.

He almost protested when she drifted off, and he opened his mouth to do so, but before he could find the words she had started walking across the room. Ben shut his mouth and swallowed against how dry it had become. He suspected what was in her hands before she announced what the bundle of papers was, but his stomach dropped at the revelation all the same. So many. He ought to have expected, when he'd heard how long it had been going on, but still. Oh, November, he thought with a surge of grief for her. She really could have been ruined, and it wasn't as though Macmillan would have done a thing for her if she had found herself turned out on the streets. How could she have been so foolish? How could she still be so foolish, to think that despite having revealed their — whatever it was — to Ben in the middle of a street brawl, that Macmillan was honorable? That he was a gentleman? That he respected her?

Then she thrust the bundle of papers out towards him, and Ben stiffened. This was too large of a burden for him to take. He couldn't take her letters. He had been willing to duel for her sake — willing to die for her sake, if it came down to it — but this was something larger, something he couldn't bring himself to even consider.

"Nova, I can't," he said softly, tone almost pleading.

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

"You must." Her voice cracked on the second word. She'd spoken so candidly in such quantity that she felt very vulnerable, so vulnerable that his response felt far more negative that it actually was. Her eyes started to well up again but to her own relief she managed to blink it away. "I cannot keep them here, if Gaius..." The mere thought made her stomach knot tightly. "Please, you are the only one. If you must burn them then..." It hurt to think of all of their letters going up in flames, how she'd never be able to read them ever again, but it'd be more than letters destroyed if they fell into the wrong hands. "I know that whatever you do with them it will be the right thing."

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   Reuben Crouch

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Well, she wasn't wrong about that. Obviously she couldn't keep them in the house and risk her husband finding them. The best thing to do would have been for her to have burned them, but... Well. It wasn't as though people could always bring themselves to do what was best. Ben understood that. That was probably why she'd decided to give them to him, instead of Aldous or Roman. Aldous or Roman would have taken them, Ben was sure, because they loved her as much as he did, but they couldn't have understood. Neither of them would know how intoxicating it was to hold on to a little piece of who you had been, before you decided to give yourself up for someone else. They wouldn't have understood how much it hurt to lose the sliver of possibility that things could be different, even if you knew they weren't ever actually going to be. They wouldn't have understood how trapped you could feel by the littlest thing, like having to burn some letters to keep them from your spouse.

Ben understood. Not for the reasons that November would have thought, but he understood. Nova probably still thought he was acting a rake on purpose, trying to mess around behind Melody's back, because that was what he'd implied when they'd last talked about it. He wasn't — even after their last explosive fight, he still wasn't — but he knew that feeling anyway. Being trapped and feeling like all of the possibilities for the future were closing off one by one and there was nothing left except this.

"Alright," he agreed quietly, though his tone made it clear that he was no less miserable about the prospect of taking them. "They're safe with me, Nova."

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

"Thank you, brother." As relieved as she felt, subconsciously she'd been complacent in her belief that he would take them in the end. It was rare that her brothers denied her anything especially as she seldom asked for the impossible. All the same she felt bad for the apparent distress the prospect was giving him. "I wish I never had to ask it of you at all." A stronger, better person would've been able to deal with it themselves but she'd tried to burn one and her hand had frozen in midair, as if blocked by an invisible barrier. In a much quieter voice she added, "I am sorry I disappointed you."

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He had them in his hands now, and Ben wanted to leave immediately because the prospect of having to stand here and have a conversation with her while holding this ridiculously large stack of letters was painful even to contemplate. In theory he could have set them down somewhere, but that felt wrong. He'd just told her they were safe with him, and he couldn't just discard them so soon after she'd handed them to him, even if he was only setting them down for a minute and even if this room was relatively safe. The idea that all of these papers had once been in Macmillan's hands — that they were either his own letters or things that he had received from November and held onto, possibly for years — made Ben deeply uncomfortable, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

He couldn't leave on that note, though, because what November said next made his heart sting and he couldn't leave it unaddressed. "You haven't disappointed me," Ben said with a deep frown, his tone quiet. "I know how it feels."

  

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MJ made this <3

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--
The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.

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She felt a small swell of relief in her chest when he denied being disappointed. She'd have felt a greater sense of relief if she had wholeheartedly believed him. How could he not be disappointed in her, not have lowered his opinion of her when he'd given every indication that her actions had shocked and distressed him so very much?

You know...? What did he mean by that? Was he saying he knew how it felt to disappoint someone? Was he referring to those horrid things he'd said he'd done leading up to the elopement? How do you bear it? It had been a constant weight on her mind ever since she'd last seen him, how he could bear inviting such scrutiny upon himself when he was innocent, she didn't know. Either her brother was a great deal stronger and more good than she, or he hadn't been lying to her about what he'd done.

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Outfit | Tag: Reuben Crouch | Notes:

  

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How did he bear it? Well, that was a loaded question if ever there was one. Sometimes he felt like he wasn't bearing it very well at all — like he wouldn't survive it, or at least that his marriage wouldn't survive it. But he wasn't going to sit here and tell Nova about the fights that he had with Melody, or how sometimes they went days together without exchanging more than a handful of words. He didn't want to paint the picture that this was hopeless, even if it felt that way sometimes.

"Some days are better than others," he said with a despondent shrug. "You find little things where you can." Ben hesitated a moment, because he had something else that he felt was relevant to say, but Nova had no reason to expect that he would have any experience with this and so he wasn't sure whether or not it was wise to bring it up. If she was really feeling the same way he was, though... well, it was worth the risk to try and point out some little areas of hope, wasn't it?

"Your children must help?" he asked, with eyebrows raised in sympathy.

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MJ made this <3

The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes--
The life still there, upon her hair--the death upon her eyes.

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While it was true Nova couldn't imagine how her brother could handle bearing the burden of the public image that had been forged for him, she also thought he'd carried it with such courage up until this point that it took her aback to hear him speak the way he did. He sounded so... defeated. It didn't occur to her at all that he might be referring to something else, not even when he mentioned her children. She did briefly think it a little odd but then decided on second thought that it was perfectly normal to think she'd find solace in her children for any sort of sadness. Truthfully she didn't use her children or even the thought of them as a balm for her melancholy, she enjoyed wallowing in it far too much.

I suppose. It felt wrong to lie but she could hardly say 'no' as though she didn't care for her children. Besides she was more interested now in hearing about his suffering. Does it trouble you greatly? It sounded as though it did but he hadn't explicitly said it was a consistent source of misery. Nova felt guilty for not having noticed that he was sad, if she'd known perhaps she could've helped somehow...

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Outfit | Tag: Reuben Crouch | Notes:

  

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