September 25th, 1891 - Sanditon Season Close

Cash was going to these things as part of the elaborate scheme to come across as a man who would be marriage-able whenever Lucius decided he ought to be marriage-able — which seemed like it would be sooner than he would have liked. There were enough people he knew here that it hadn't been utterly excruciating — like Ford, and Fitzroy Prewett (as long as Cash didn't associate him with his twin), and Theo Gallivan.

It was a little dangerous to be near Gallivan too publicly. Cash was worried that something would slip out, and then his relatives would catch him, and then — everything would be over. But there weren't many Lestranges here, and he'd danced with a few eligible women and he'd had a few glasses of champagne, and it was practically midnight.

He found Theo by the edge of the ballroom, close to the water. "Did your sister make you come?" Cash asked, with a wry smile. He hadn't seen her, but it seemed likely — this was not any more Theo's scene than it was Cash's.

The wind outside was picking up. Cash could hear it.

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MJ made this!

He’d known Cash was here – had caught sight of him hours ago – but they didn’t do this, not really. It wasn’t like they couldn’t talk, and Theo managed being normal with him in front of the rest of the team often enough to know that he could, but – it felt very different being in the middle of a ballroom and not just the stadium; it always felt very different when they weren’t alone.

It was not actually the middle of the ballroom, admittedly – he had gravitated towards the edge under pretence of being interested in the Sanditon’s scenery, like he could see anything of it through the ballroom light’s own reflection at the windows – but he supposed Lestrange’s company was still sort of a relief. Because the answer to that question was yes, as usual, and Theo returned the grin ruefully to affirm it. “Her and Veronica both.”

He rolled his eyes. “Though if there’s any part of the Season I don’t mind celebrating, it’s the end of one.” He had lowered his tone for that remark, but the joke was almost lost against another gust of wind – it was at least as loud as the music now. Theo glanced out into the dark beyond the ballroom lights, squinting to try and make out the change in the ocean or the sky. The end of the Season – well, this was a sure end to the summer, too.

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Theo was too attractive when he was performing annoyance — the grin and the eye-rolling both — and Cash thought it was lucky that Valeria was all the way across the ballroom, because otherwise — well. Otherwise nothing, because as far as he knew his sister had never suspected him, but if anyone else came close to them he was going to have to do something very heterosexual. Talk about the attractiveness of debutantes, maybe.

He grinned back at Theo. "You and me both," he said, and raised his champagne. "Cheers to surviving." The latest gust of wind had the windows rattling in their frames, and that went against everything he'd heard about the Sanditon.

Cash turned to look out the window too. "Do you see anything?" he asked, squinting. The waves seemed much rougher than they ought to be, but maybe it was nothing.

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MJ made this!

At you and me both, Theo’s grin tugged a little wider. The Season wasn’t really meant for them, anyway: if he didn’t have the Cannons or some sense of duty to look out for Cecily he would come to even fewer society balls. And it would be years, thankfully, before he was even assumed to be eligible. (Or either of them, really: Cash wasn’t that old, and even if he was a Lestrange, he would still be playing quidditch for another half decade at least. Until then, presumably most of the debutantes here had countless other fish to fry.)

He shrugged noncommittally at the question. “I don’t know, I think that tree’s about ready to blow over,” he pointed out, moving a little closer to almost-but-not-actually nudge him in the right direction to see it. Hopefully this was the Sanditon heaping on some dramatic effects for the sake of the evening and not some storm that was going to move across the whole country, or the next few quidditch matches set to be played in the south of England would definitely be interesting.

Theo wasn’t worried, though, even with the howling wind; eventually, his eyes flickered back from the window. “Who did you come with?” he returned, privately wondering whether whoever it was might notice or not if Cash were to disappear from the ballroom for a bit. There was a whole resort, after all, and if this was the close of the season there must be a few deserted corners or empty rooms already... and maybe everyone would be too distracted by this weird unseasonable weather, anyway?

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Cash mirrored Theo's motions; they still weren't quite touching, but if they had been alone he would have just leaned against him, and he hoped Theo knew that. The tree was nearly blowing over, out there in the dark. Maybe Theo's casual tone was right, though — and it wasn't like the weather was that interesting. They usually had better things to talk about. (Or, you know, not talk about.)

He rolled his eyes at Theo's question. "My sister and her husband," Cash answered, his tone supplying how he felt about that — Valeria was fine, as far as Lestranges were concerned, but he had always privately thought that Theseus was rather boring. "They're dancing, I think." He didn't know what else they would possibly be doing, but he hadn't seen them for a few minutes.

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MJ made this!

His sister and her husband were off dancing. “Good for them,” Theo said nonchalantly, by which he meant good for us. He tossed Cash a look, although tried, carefully, not to make it seem too obviously like a look, or at least not one anyone else could read.

“After the next song, I might go exploring for a bit –” he said, in a careless tone; first he’d go tell Veronica he was getting some air so she wouldn’t worry and come find him, and then he would wait outside the ballroom somewhere, and hopefully Lestrange would be able to slip away too, because it seemed very unfair to be this close and not be allowed to touch him. Even if they did nothing else but wander about exploring the hotel or the rest of the resort, at least they would be able to talk freely – not be stuck standing in a ballroom discussing the weather.

A few minutes later, and Theo had made his excuses and left the ballroom, was loitering out by a staircase – and was it just this part of the building or was the wind howling impossibly loudly now? – when there was a roar of noise from the main ballroom, a cacophony of shouts and screams, some distinctive cracks! of disapparition and –

In spite of the people abruptly pushing out past him, Theo ducked back through the ballroom doors. Alright, so maybe the weather had been something to worry about – he found Cash again before he’d digested the changed atmosphere of the room, breathlessly. “What the hell?”

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It was rare that Cash was able to get alone time with Theo outside of the Cannons stadium, and his heart thumped in his chest with a thrill at the thought of it. This was risky — riskier than anything they usually did — but oh, it was a party, and no one would be looking for them, and it wasn't like they had to do anything, anyways.

He watched Theo make his excuses from a distance, and started making the rounds himself. He intended to follow his sponsor after a few minutes, so no one would take any note of it, and then all hell broke loose.

The windows shattered. Cash reached for his wand, heart pumping in his ears, as people around him started to disapparate and scream — and then with an enormous gust of wind and a horrible clattering sound, the chandelier clattered to the floor.

He couldn't breathe. It was too loud. It was too loud, and too much, and his chest hurt, and why was he thinking about a door exploding off of its hinges and his father behind it, and —

There was Theo. Without thinking, Cash had started edging towards one of the exits. He looked at Theo with wild eyes and said, as if that explained any of it, as if he wasn't thinking of flashes of green light, "The chandelier fell."

(Where was Valeria?)

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MJ made this!

The glass was gone from the windows, and there was a vicious wind-tunnel of cold air caught in the ballroom now, that saw him sucking in a breath in surprise. It was easier to focus in on Cash in front of him than try to understand the scale of the chaos in one hasty scan of the room –

The chandelier. Theo nodded to say he’d heard the words, over the clamour; he put a hand, fleetingly, to Cash’s arm, but then peered past him through the ghostly moonlight, the only thing left to illuminate the ballroom. He could see where the fallen chandelier was now, because there was a throng of people forming around it too, some shrieking... “I think someone’s hurt,” Theo said, producing his wand without much registering the motion. An understatement, clearly – there had to be other casualties – but as he said it, he felt a wave of the same kind of horror he’d just witnessed on Cash’s face. People were hurt. The chandelier was at least a place to start: Theo moved towards it without thinking.

He didn’t know what he could do to help, exactly, but he’d – gotten through most of his Auror training, at least; had had some basic field medical training from it; had felt that old instinct kick in, erasing the worst of his panic and replacing any impulse to freeze with the urge to do something.

There was a body trapped under it – Theo felt a tearing tightness in his chest pleading please not Cee, not Cee, not Cee – but it was a man. Alive. The chandelier was embedded in him in a way that wouldn’t make lifting it off straightforward so, backing up to let a healer through, Theo edged around the chandelier to survey it from the other side. There was another body beneath it. His breath hitched as he got close, but it wasn’t Cecily, wasn’t Veronica. A woman, though. Dark hair. Blood pooled out around her head. Her eyes were light, open, staring vacantly. She looked a little familiar. But she must have caught the worst of it – it was already too late.

Waving a few bystanders back so that the people who actually seemed competent enough to help the man could do their work dislodging the chandelier, Theo retreated a step as well, mind still half-caught on looking for his sister and Veronica. “Have you seen –”

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   Cassius Lestrange

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He didn't want to be following Theo towards the chandelier — there was a rabbity instinct in Cash's head begging him to flee — but he wanted to be alone even less than he wanted to come closer to the source of the noise, so he followed. His wand was in his hand, but he didn't know what he would do with it if he had to. There was no real thought going through his brain, just impulses: run, follow Theo, keep your wand in your hand.

He saw Theseus first. Theseus was alive, impaled on the chandelier, and Cash stumbled back to give the healer space — he had lost Theo, except maybe it was just that Theseus' wounds seemed magnified in his vision. Valeria, he thought, and it was the only impulsive thought, like it was pulsing in his veins —

And then he saw her.

She was stuck under the chandelier, hair framed out around her, the same black as his. Her eyes were open, the same blue. Cash dropped to his knees. Blood fanned out underneath her skull. Unthinking, her reached a hand into it, blood coating the fingers — and stuck it to feel for a pulse he knew wasn't there.

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MJ made this!

For a moment, Theo thought he’d lost track of Lestrange – but actually he was closer than he’d thought, had followed him, had actually dropped down beside the body. Why was he – ?

Theo gave himself one more hasty glance of the room (but wherever Cee and Veronica were, at least they were probably still together; at least they hadn’t been standing right by the windows or below the chandeliers) and gravitated back to Cash’s side. He didn’t know why he was checking for a pulse: the chandelier would have crushed her lungs; that much blood from a wound was too much; she was much too still, but... Oh.

Is that, Theo nearly started, but his throat had gone dry. Cash had said it earlier, hadn’t he? He was here with his sister and her husband. The longer he stared, the longer he saw the striking resemblance, the less he knew what to do. It was too late to do anything for her. The wind was still blasting through the ballroom, and Theo was sure there would soon be water streaming in too.

“Cash,” Theo said, clutching at his shoulder from behind him. “Cash. It’s okay. C’mon.” (It’s okay: why had he said that, when it was a total lie? And c’mon: come on where? He didn’t know, but Cash’s sister was dead, so there was no sense in staying with her now.)

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Of course there wasn't a pulse. There had always been the five of them, immutable through marriages and children, exactly who they were. My sisters aren't nice girls, Cash had once told Theo, and it was true, but that had never meant he wanted one of them to die. Valeria was less than a year older than he was, she was safe to talk to, she was not supposed to be dead because weren't her tiny children too young to lose her?

Cash someone was saying, and it was only the familiar weight of the hand on his shoulder that prevented Cash from freaking out and pulling away. He turned towards Theo feeling — and probably looking, with the blood on his hands and wild eyes — like something feral.

He said nothing, but stood up. Maybe they should get out of here.

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MJ made this!

It felt like lifetimes ago that he’d been internally complaining about being here with him and not being allowed any physical contact – now he reached out and grasped Cash’s hand without the slightest care. It didn’t matter any more; no one would think anything of it, no one would so much as notice amidst all this. And Theo was worried, honestly worried, that if he didn’t hold on tightly enough, they might get separated or that Cash wouldn’t follow him.

He seemed untethered enough, his face pale, eyes wide, fingers slick with the blood on them – Theo kept seeing that wild expression even as he turned ahead and steered them out of the ballroom, avoiding people and bodies and the blasted glass from the windows as best he could.

He wasn’t sure he trusted the staircases to hold steady, they couldn’t go outside, apparating wouldn’t go well, not in this weather or in Cash’s current state – so he moved through the building, not knowing where they were headed but looking for somewhere less windowed, a little more safe. Even paying attention as he was, he stumbled a few times, knocking into the corners of furniture, his free hand using the walls as a guide, and finally turning into a darkened room that seemed quiet, and slightly better sheltered. 

Theo let go now, only to cast Lumos, conjuring a weak haze of light for them both. He looked at Cash in it, not knowing what to do that could be a comfort. And Cash wasn’t close with his family, maybe, but he had lost people before. Theo didn’t know who or how or why, but he knew that much. And there was a prevailing precariousness about Cash as a person – like he was always somewhere on the edge, balancing on the brink of things. Theo could say he was sorry about his sister, but what difference would that make, what would that change? “I think we’ll have to wait,” he said, tentative, “‘til the storm stops.”

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   Cassius Lestrange, Clarissa Cosgrove

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Cash wasn't tracking where they were going, because he was trying to separate the sound of windows bursting from the sound of a door blowing off its hinges, the vision of Valeria's body in front of his hands with her crown of blood from the memory of Eli's dead weight slumped against him. He would have followed Theo anywhere, because Theo was holding his hand and because Cash trusted him more in this moment than he trusted himself.

He missed the grip of Theo's hand as soon as the sponsor let go of him. Cash pushed his hands through his hair, never mind that the blood on them wasn't entirely dry, and leaned against the wall. The solid weight of him reminded him that this was real — he was here, he was here and something was happening and Valeria was dead.

"Your sister," Cash managed. His voice felt dry. "Did you find your sister?"

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   Theodore Gallivan

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MJ made this!

There was a smear of blood on the edge of his palm now, too. Theo dropped his hand to his side and lifted his gaze again, tried not to think about it. There was a ball of panic fizzing away somewhere in his chest about – all of this, the storm and what could have started it and how many other people were hurt and what else might have happened – but he thought maybe, if he concentrated, that he could ignore the feeling, push down the fear and just take one thing at a time.

Like this: like Cash right here in front of him, lost and quiet and leaning against the wall. Cash’s sister was dead. They had just seen her dead body under the chandelier, except – oh. Except he was asking about Cecily.

Theo hesitated. “Yeah, I saw her,” he said at last, speaking softly to keep his tone level. “She looked okay.” And, well... she must still be with Veronica. They would be too sensible, since Cee’s last splinching, to try disapparating tonight. Perhaps it was the best possible outcome not to have seen them amongst the casualties in the ballroom, because that meant they were probably fine and had found somewhere to shelter too. If he thought it hard enough, maybe he could make it true.

(It was unfair if it was true, because it could just as easily have been his sister dead, and it felt wrong to be relieved or to be talking about it now. But if it wasn’t, and Cee and Veronica weren’t safe, and Theo wasn’t even out there looking for them, then it would only be his fault if—)

He kept his eyes on Cash instead. One thing at a time. “I’ll go find her soon,” Theo affirmed, as if the effects of the hurricane were what was holding him back, and not the simple fact that he couldn’t just leave him here alone. “Is it alright if I – stay with you until then?”

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Cecily Gallivan was fine. Cash was relieved to hear it, a sudden fracturing in his chest that caught him by surprise. He'd expected to be shut down for longer, but the past several months had thawed him out, with dementors and friendship and letters and Theo and trying.

Theo was looking at him. Cash looked down at his own blood-coated hands, illuminated in the light of Theo's wand. He looked back up at his sponsor. "Stay with me," Cash said, still leaning against the wall. He sank down it until he was sitting on the floor. He wanted Theo to stay. He didn't know what he was feeling or what to do about Valeria — Valeria was dead, there was nothing to do about Valeria, but did Cash have to tell their father? — but he wanted Theo to stay with him.

I love him, I think, and the thought came as a surprise, and he couldn't say it now, but there was a note of truth to it in his mind besides.

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   Theodore Gallivan

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MJ made this!

Theo nodded in relief. “I will,” he murmured in agreement, shifting across to the wall to settle down beside him, near enough to be touching. One arm pressing against Cash’s, Theo laid his wand down, still aglow, on his other side, letting the light reflect dimly off the floor.

And he felt better for being here with him, but at the same time Theo couldn’t think of a single thing worth saying. Not now. I’m sorry would be no use, and the subject too raw, and the longer he sat without saying anything, the more firmly his throat closed up anyway.

So in the end he just reached for Cash’s hand again. Interlacing their fingers, Theo squeezed tight and held on, almost more fiercely this time. Determined not to let go anytime soon, he brushed his thumb across the back of his hand in mindless steadying strokes. As a comfort, it felt infinitesimally small – but at least it was something.

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