March 24th, 1891 — Malfoy Residence, Wellingtonshire

Ben would really rather not have been here.

For one thing, he wasn't looking forward to his first conversation with his sister since he'd intentionally shattered the pedastal she had him placed on. The way she'd left his garden last Monday night was still haunting him, coming to mind and making him feel guilty in the few quiet moments where he wasn't worried about Melody or the duel or Art or Elliott or any of the rest of it. He wasn't worried about what she would say, necessarily, but rather that when she looked at him there would be something different behind her eyes than what he'd always seen there before. It was a situation he'd created for himself, but one he didn't want to face just yet. The wound from their conversation was still too fresh for him to pretend he didn't care what she thought of him.

The other thing was that although he had a whole list of questions for her, he didn't really want to know the answers. Macmillan had implied in his letters that November might have been aware of or even approving of his sentiments, as he called them. If that was the case... well, honestly, he'd rather just die in the duel Friday morning than have to picture his sister fooling around on her husband with Elmer Macmillan. But he thought he ought to know what he was walking into, on Friday. If it was all bluster (it was probably all bluster) then he could just shake it off, but if there was some truth to it — well, he didn't want to get caught off guard because Macmillan had said something intentionally provocative on Friday and end up slipping up. He wasn't really thinking that this duel was dangerous, because he thought he had Macmillan handily beat in the spellwork department, but it was still a duel. A slip could still cost him, and he couldn't afford that.

He'd been greeted by one of the servants when he arrived and shown up to a sitting room — morning room? waiting room? parlor? The various non-bedrooms available in the houses of the rich had always mildly confused him and he'd never bothered to ask for clarification, so while he knew all the names he was never entirely sure what the differences were between them. November was alone, which was good. He'd only have to wait out the servants' exit before he started in on the purpose of his visit, then.

"Good evening, November," he said experimentally, as though testing the water. He didn't exactly know what state of mind she might be in tonight.

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

When penning her letter she'd been so wrapped up in letting her brother know she was still wounded and tormented by their conversation just over a week ago whilst making sure she didn't give the false impression that she wanted nothing to do with him. Once she'd processed the conversation a little more and had the chance to sleep on it, she'd concluded that the truth had to be somewhere in the middle. Once her head was clear she was sure the manner in which he'd spoken towards the end had made it sound as though something had tied his hands.

If he'd behaved so improperly with the other ladies he'd mentioned, why had it been Miss Finch he'd had to marry? It horrified her to think in such a manner but if... If it was the fear of a child then it would've made far more sense for him to have eloped with Miss Scrimgeour who was still unmarried! It was a heinous thing to do but if one was the sort to lose their virtue a fortnight before marrying another man then surely it wouldn't be morally repugnant to a woman such as Miss Finch to simply hope for the best and get married as planned? The few books she'd read that alluded to women in similar situations would have been overjoyed to have been in her situation. He really shouldn't have done what he did with her but she had obviously been obliging, perhaps the reason Miss Finch had been so obliging was because she felt as though there could be no consequences for her actions. Then why had they immediately eloped? Why would he have suddenly wanted to?

It still made no sense. Reuben was obviously hiding something. She still couldn't shake the image of her brother that she'd had before although she'd had to surrender some naivete to the extent of how far he was willing to take a flirtation. The only reason for that, however, was that deep down she'd suspected for a while that there was at least a possibility he'd known women intimately. The subject was incredibly distasteful for her to consider about any man, but especially one of her brothers and so she had never dwelt on it until he'd forced her to. In part out of wishful thinking but also part logic, she'd come to the conclusion that the details were incredibly hazy, the story he'd spun was as holey as a woolen blanket, and at the heart of it he was protecting his wife. Was it something she'd done or was it simply her true, abominable nature he was trying to hide?

And that was where she was stuck, almost back at square one again except now she had to consider and accept to some extent that her brother really did hold some responsibility, that he'd acted improperly. It was so much worse knowing just enough to torture herself with but not enough to eventually make peace with it.

It was no wonder that it didn't occur to her until later that her brother's visit seemed to be almost more urgent in nature than her own had been - she'd given him a day and he'd given her hours. What was the cause of his urgency? The only thing she could imagine he'd want to speak to her about was their last conversation but why wait over a week and then suddenly act with such haste? It could be something else and if it was then she didn't think she knew about whatever it was. Hopefully it was nothing too terrible.

Nova had been on edge all through dinner knowing that her brother's arrival was now imminent. Dinner seemed to fly by and then it was over, and before she knew it she was waiting in the drawing room. The wait then seemed monumental for there was little she could do to distract herself, she'd tried a book but she couldn't concentrate on it. It hadn't actually been all that long of a wait but it had certainly felt unending. He was shown in and Nova almost jumped to her feet. "Reuben..." She greeted him meekly, cautiously.

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She wasn't happy to see him. Under the circumstances, he didn't blame her, but it was difficult to see all the same. Ben briefly kissed her hand in greeting before taking a seat, feeling a little like he was having an out-of-body experience.

He'd come to talk about Macmillan, but he didn't think he could get straight into it without at least partially addressing the elephant in the room first. Particularly if — well, he wasn't going to die, but just in case he did he didn't want to do it without having apologized first — particularly when the discomfort he'd caused her had been entirely unnecessary and she'd been right in all her suspicions.

"I'm sorry about the way our last conversation went," he admitted. "I'm sorry to have shocked you, and I'm sorry for any pain it's caused you to think of it since then."

  

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MJ made this <3

Nova slowly resumed her seat and gazed at her brother with trepidation. When he spoke she averted her eyes to her lap where her hands lay clasped together. So it was definitely about their conversation that he'd come then?

"I'm sorry too." What she was most sorry about was that he hadn't trusted her enough with the truth, that as a consequence her trust in him had faltered. The longer she felt deceived the less likely it was that her trust in him would fully recover.

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   Reuben Crouch

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Ben tensed slightly at her response. She could have meant any number of things by that. Sorry that she'd visited or sorry that she'd asked? Sorry that she knew all that about him? Sorry to learn he wasn't the brother she thought he was, that he was such a disappointment? That wasn't what he’d come to talk about, though, and he didn't have either the time or the emotional energy to get into it.

"I didn't come to revisit it," he continued uneasily. He didn't exactly know how to segue into the main topic, however, so hesitated slightly.

  

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MJ made this <3

What? She looked up suddenly but her confusion wasn't apparent otherwise. She was disappointed to find out that he wasn't there to tell her what she wanted to hear but it was overshadowed by concern. Had something bad happened? If something had happened to a family member she would've expected Aldous to break the news, unless it was Aldous but then wouldn't it fall to Roman? Wouldn't Roman have known first? Anyway, if it was that sort of urgent why wouldn't he have just shown up or left the news to a letter? His visit seemed urgent but not the sort of urgent that couldn't wait all day. "Has something happened?"

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Had something happened? Only about a million things, since the last time they'd spoke. He hadn't expected her to have had knowledge of all of them but he had expected her to at least have been aware of something. Art and Aldous had both heard about the fight in Bartonburg without having to have been told, after all, so Ben knew that people were talking about it. Melody's trip to the hospital would probably be hitting the rumor mill sooner or later, too. Aldous had always done his best to shield Nova from everything, though, particularly anything scandalous about the family, so that must have been at play here. If Aldous didn't think November needed to know about the Bartonburg fight, Ben was more than willing to defer to his judgement on the subject. It did, however, make broaching this next subject slightly more difficult.

"Yes," he admitted hesitantly, without elaborating. He shifted in his chair and reached up to briefly rub his thumb against the bottom of his chin as he considered how to proceed. "November, I need to ask you something," he said eventually. "But before I do, I want you to know that I have every confidence in your character. I trust your judgement and I would never — I could never believe an ill word about you."

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

Her confusion turned to slight surprise and then some more surprise but mostly apprehension. Had she not said almost the same words to him last week? If she didn't know better - which she assuredly did - she'd have thought he was making a joke in very poor taste.

Nova was aware of her faults and was possibly even overly critical of herself at times. Her worst faults were introversion cowardice, and penchant for wallowing in self-pity. However, she was very good at placing the needs of others before herself and conforming to social expectation without complaint. The only way in which she felt she routinely failed was that could never be a socialite. To be charismatic, lively, and able to command the attention of a whole room and enjoy it... She simply couldn't. Weakness was perhaps another of her greatest faults. So what could Reuben be talking about for it sounded very much like he'd heard malicious gossip and if there was anything she was good at it was not attracting the sort of attention Ben was more accustomed to. At least she believed that to be the case, she didn't care to involve herself in gossip it made her very uncomfortable but if there was anything nasty being said about her surely she'd have heard from Ophelia?

She wasn't altogether sure how to respond thus far or whether he wanted her to. At the same time she almost felt envious, oddly enough. Envious that he still had his faith in her after he'd made every effort to destroy that which she held for him. Whatever people were saying there was no way it was anything but idle fiction, but since when did he ever listen to tea room gossip? Had Melody perhaps picked something up somewhere? Had she accidentally insulted someone recently, had she been an ungracious hostess? She thought that would make for very short lived gossip and it was hardly so serious as to trouble her brother, surely? Ah but it was entirely possible, here she was in the midst of a conversation with him and she hadn't even offered him a refreshment! She'd been so caught up in her head that she hadn't thought to ask. Even Reuben - not to slight him but he was a man and probably the most likely of her brothers to neglect social mores - had prepared tea last week! "Would you like some tea or maybe some other refreshment? I apologize for interrupting, I'm afraid it slipped my mind earlier." She wasn't accustomed to hosting people in the evening, would Reuben want tea at this hour or something else?

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Ben blinked. He supposed she must have been nervous, though she wasn't showing it except for this unexpected interruption. Still, he shook his head. He couldn't imagine trying to drink a cup of tea at the moment, and he didn't want this conversation to feel too evocative of their previous one, with two untouched cups of tea set out before them as a pretense. If she'd offered him liquor, he might have obliged, but of course November wasn't going to offer him liquor.

"No, thank you," he said. He pursed his lips and ran his tongue along the inside of the bottom one, trying to think what to say. He needed to get on with it, or she'd probably offer him dessert or something just to fill the silence.

"I need to ask you about any interactions you may have had with Elmer Macmillan," he said solemnly. He was watching her carefully, hoping for confusion. She wasn't an expressive person by nature, but even the slightest upward turn of her brow might have been enough to put his mind at ease that there wasn't anything going on he ought to know about before the duel on Friday.

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

At least she hadn't been letting him sit there feeling parched she supposed. She wasn't truly worried that he'd think less of her because she neglected to offer him a cup of tea, it really came down to how uneasy she felt in his company. It was a horrible feeling and one she'd never experienced in his company, she didn't like it one bit.

If she'd thought she was uncomfortable already it was nothing compared to how she felt by the time she'd heard Elmer Macmillan's name come out of his mouth. She felt as though all the air had been crushed out of her lungs. She knew him long before Gaius but he'd never been an option for marriage and besides... he'd never asked. She shouldn't have allowed any letters to pass between the once she'd accepted Gaius' proposal but... Well she'd reasoned that it was entirely innocent, it wasn't hurting anyone. They didn't have clandestine meetings, they rarely saw each other in public, she'd never even kissed him! However if someone read their correspondence they'd likely assume the very worst and then some.

She'd convinced herself it was so innocent that she didn't even feel guilty about it. Any time Elmer was in the immediate vicinity of Gaius she might feel a little twinge of something but she had compartmentalized it so neatly that it hadn't even occurred to her before. Gaius had never thrown himself at her feet and declared how passionately he loved and adored her so it wasn't entirely a betrayal of his feelings, not really. She'd never even properly considered giving him up, he was the only person she knew who saw the world the way she did, his letters made her feel like the heroines in her favorite novels.

Hearing Ben ask her about him just like that, out loud it... It cheapened it. It made it sound sordid. He hadn't even suggested anything but why else would he be asking her about Elmer Macmillan of all people? He had to know something. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no. In all the years she'd been writing to Elmer she had never really feared discovery; she kept his letters safely tucked away and she hadn't thought twice about trusting him implicitly with, essentially, her reputation and life as she knew it. He'd never been anything but gentlemanly, he'd never demanded anything from her. He wouldn't betray her, and yet here was the situation before her. Had it somehow gotten out? Oh god.

Nova needed to get up and get a breath of fresh air but she was frozen in place by the dread in the pit of her stomach and the fear that Reuben was about to have the same unwelcome epiphany she'd had the last time they saw one another. "You do?" She couldn't lie to him and she wasn't artful enough to manipulate the conversation. She rose to her feet and strode over to the nearest window. He was going to think she was guilty of whatever fallacy he'd heard but she couldn't look at him or she'd die of guilt. As it was she was struggling to keep her breathing even, her hand was now resting just above her stomach trying to steady herself. There were a dozen questions she wanted to ask but she felt as though her mouth was suddenly full of sand and didn't dare.

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   Reuben Crouch

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It wasn't the confusion that Ben had been hoping for, and there was no denial on her features. For a moment there was nothing — nothing incriminating, anyway — and he could still hold on to the hope that she would momentarily dispel the notion that she'd done anything to encourage the louse. Then she rose and went to the window, her body language radiating discomfort. He knew the energy she was putting off, because he'd been caught up in it too many times before. Guilt.

His stomach sank. He didn't know what she'd done with him or said to him, and he still didn't want to believe that she would have actually been unfaithful (even Ben had not been unfaithful, and he had all of the cards lined up to be — an unhappy marriage, a rakish reputation, a slough of women he'd flirted with before readily available to him) but even so this was damning. It meant, too, that he couldn't back out of this duel — something he hadn't even realized he'd been seriously considering until this moment when it was no longer an option. When he'd challenged Macmillan it had only been about the audacity of making such a comment publicly, not any fear that his sister's honor would be in any actual danger. He'd had so much faith in her, but if that faith had been mistaken — if he couldn't trust her to look out for herself, when it came to something like this — if she could be so easily misled by such a loathsome creature as Elmer Macmillan — then a duel was all that was left, to protect her.

Not that that mattered at the moment. He wasn't even angry about her non-answer, only worried for her. "I think you ought to sit down, November," he suggested, not because he intended to ask her any more difficult questions but rather because he was worried that if she stood fretting at the window like that she might faint. She'd always been delicate.

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   Arthur Pettigrew, November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

When he asked her to sit down she didn't hear her brother making a wise suggestion for her own well-being but her brother suggesting she ought to sit down because what he was about to say was bad. She felt a subsequent wave of dizziness wash over her and a ferocious warmth followed. She began fumbling with the latch of the window but was making a meal out of it thanks to her haste and sweaty palms.

Her hands were shaking too much and the latch itself was stiff. After trying for too long she gave up and let her legs collapse beneath her in defeat. Nova stared vacantly out the window as her brain tried to fill in the blanks with increasingly horrific scenarios. If she was ruined she hoped the inevitable death that always followed a ruined woman in novels struck her down quickly.
""

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   Arthur Pettigrew, Reuben Crouch

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Ben chewed his lower lip anxiously as he waited for her to take his recommendation, only she didn't. When she started fumbling with the latch he stood suddenly. She probably just wanted air, which was understandable after this unpleasant turn of the conversation, but if she threw open one of those big windows and then she felt unsteady on her feet — well, he was worried, was all. He wanted to be close enough to intervene, if he needed to... just as he apparently needed to intervene in her romantic life to keep her safe from freefall. It wasn't anything he'd ever expected to do, but it was his duty as her brother, wasn't it? He owed her this, and probably more besides.

She ended up sitting on the floor, and Ben didn't know what to do next. She clearly needed a moment to collect herself, and he was inclined to give it to her now that she was safely away from the windows, but what was he supposed to do with himself in the meantime? If there had been a liquor cabinet in this room he might have made himself a drink, but there wasn't, and he wasn't going to sit around making tea with an unfamiliar tea set while November panicked on the floor.

After a moment, he moved over to the wall and took a seat on the floor about three feet from where she was, leaning his back against the wall and his head up against the windowsill. He crossed his arms over his knees and stared at the ceiling on the other side of the room, saying nothing.

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   Arthur Pettigrew, November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

This was the part where heroine fainted or the chapter ended and the next one opened on her sickbed. Real life unfortunately didn't fast-forward through the ugly, uncomfortable parts though and so she was still very much there and so was her brother, so was everyone else beyond her four falls. Gaius couldn't know yet or else he'd surely have confronted her about it, oh Merlin he'd never look at her kindly again. Who would believe her if she said it had been nothing more than letters? Who was she to suggest the letters weren't bad enough on their own?

She was vaguely aware that her brother had stood up and was walking across the room but it wasn't until he settled near her on the floor that she actually registered it properly. He didn't say anything. For at least half a minute neither did she, not until she finally worked up the courage to speak again. "How bad is it?" Her voice was little more than a whisper and the closest she could get to looking him in the eye was staring rigidly at one of his shoulders.

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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How bad is it? That was a strange question to be asking, Ben thought. She ought to know, assuming that she'd been... interacting with him, encouraging him, whatever she had been doing. Ben had been in her situation before, feeling suddenly caught out in a covert relationship, and his questions had typically been along the lines of what did you hear and who did you hear it from, so he assumed that was what she was asking, too, even though those hadn't been the words she was using.

He hesitated. He could not tell Nova what had actually happened. He could not even imagine saying the word fuck to his sister, and if she had reacted so strongly to just the name he was sure that hearing Macmillan's actual comment would have pushed her well off the edge. Speaking of which — she looked like she was teetering on the edge right now. Maybe he shouldn't answer her question at all, at least not right away. Maybe what she really needed was to be reeled back in from this sudden shock. Besides, when Ben asked questions like what did you hear and who did you hear it from it was because he was trying to do damage control, trying to assess what was public information and what wasn't and plan out his next steps. That wasn't November's problem to solve. That was why he was here in the first place, and why he'd challenged Macmillan. This was his responsibility, not hers. It wasn't like it was even her fault — whatever had happened, Ben placed the blame squarely on Macmillan's shoulders, not on hers. Nova had been misled and manipulated — she wasn't the sort of person who would do anything like this. Not with a happy marriage and two healthy children.

"It's going to be alright, Nova," he said, shifting so that he could look her in the eyes even if she wasn't meeting his. "I'm going to take care of it."

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   November Malfoy

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MJ made this <3

Tentatively she met his gaze, her own full of doubt and fear. How could he begin to 'take care of it' when he couldn't even get Witch Weekly to leave him alone? If there was anything better than casting aspersions on a promiscuous man, it was destroying a fallen woman. Was that what she was now? She hadn't done any of the things people would surely be quoting as fact but it didn't matter, if everyone thought it to be so then she'd forever carry that shame.

"What can be done, it's too late surely?" Nova could feel tears forming in her eyes. How had this happened?

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