✧FOOLS AND FRUSTRATIONS✧

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Morning Mum!

Draco and I had loads of fun yesterday, and Aunt Cissy shared more pictures of you and papa. Did he come yesterday or today, how is he?

When will I see him?
Could Draco come and see Nymeria? He's always wanted a pet but his mother said no.

-Ronan

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Aurora relished in her son's words, she had left Rabastan at about ten. Rory knew she couldn't get any more sleep and honestly—Last night had worried her.

She knew he was acting impulsively, and he's missed the physical interaction with her and not Bella, but she was not risking her health if he had any unknown illnesses.

Instead she was enjoying her daily stretches on the porch, just so Rabastan could find her with a little bit of ease. She was simply waiting for him to wake, he desperately looked like he could use the undisturbed rest, though how beneficial would it be to force a dreamless sleep?
It would let him recover and return back to normal.

What she wasn't prepared for, was him completely out of breath and looking as though he'd seen a ghost. Sure he looked partly relieved to find her, yet he tried to calm his breathing—Having not been so used to being out of shape and weak.

"Ah, good morning...Or almost afternoon. How about we eat some brunch? Bet the elves could make you a full English breakfast?" She was getting better at ready his cues and so she called upon the elves and set in an order. While also ordering herself a BLT.

"Will you join me?" She questioned, coming towards the table and calling upon the shades to block them from the sun's rays. With that as an invitation did he find himself sitting down, as well as taking a sip of whatever was in front of him.

Yet Aurora couldn't help but laugh as the wizard spit out the American ice tea.

"I should've warned you, the children like it and I've been drinking it lately as well." It was far too sweet for his taste, and so he chugged the whole glass of water to compensate the taste before looking to his wife as though she poisoned it.

"Ronan sent a parcel this morning, he's having fun over the Malfoy's...And he's asking how you are." She offers up the letter and Rabastan takes it just as quickly, his eyes scanning for any sort of personality his son might have.

"He asked...About me."

"They always have, it's my fault they don't know much about you. I couldn't—I didn't know that a Dementors torture would be transmitted through our bond. I had to silence my soul so I wouldn't feel it...And by then it was just numbing to think of you." His face had turned instantly white, not only had his wife been alone, but she was also feeling his pain and suffering.

"And just when I think I have it under control, you've surprised me yet again...Did you enjoy your time with Bellatrix?" His eyes couldn't have been any more wide, his mouth moving up and down compared him to a fish out of water.

Good. He was still scared.

"Hm, and only took about a year. I sent a few parcels about that, no point in you spending the time to read them all now. Perhaps if you're bored, it'd just be second-hand anger."

"Rory I'm sorry, gods I am so bloody sorry." For once it was a fully sentenced and she sat back in her seat and held her mug with both hands as she nodded.

"Sorry for what?"

"For it all—The missions—Ruining you—Having you runaway."

"Leaving me pregnant?" Her question automatically caused an apology to escape his lips, and she waited for it to catch on properly and he flinched back.

"What?" 

"Yes, and while I was pregnant I was desperate for anything to numb the soul. Meaning I almost signed an annulment contract... but the high priestess said it wouldn't do any good. That separating soulmates would be worse." Rabastan hadn't dared deviate his eye contact with his wife, and inside she pulled into her belt to retrieve her favorite picture of her and the children.

She herself sat in a chair with Lorelei in her lap, the twins standing behind her, while Cara and Ronan to the side of their mum.

"Lorelei O'Hera Lestrange. She just made it to be only two years younger than Cara. So she's separated from a year from Ronan and Cara...She's a sweetheart, though I think she got your mum's hair more than ours—And her metamorphic abilities are the lowest, or she hasn't gotten the hang of it yet." Rabastan continued to blink, his children were beautiful.

Yet he hated that they were unrecognizable to the point of having to stare for their childish features.

It helped that they were by age, his smile continued to jumble up and to the point where he had to close his eyes for a moment. Rabastan internalized the faces of his children since the last time he had seen them.

Aurora watched in complete patience as he pinched the brink of his nose and offer the photo to point to Ronan. "They're brilliant, Romulus has been an enormous help. In the beginning he would watch Cara, but now it's both Cara and Lori. He named Lori actually." It was unfortunate for the wizard that his eldest already hated him with all his being.

"Do you have any questions? I've been talking all this time..." She felt self-conscious once again, closing her eyes in a single moment of anxiety. How were they meant to pick up their relationship from what it was?

Then it hit her, they shouldn't.

"You...Are you okay?" Her barrier broke, it wasn't that she wasn't asked that on the daily. But damn this whole soulmate thing was biting her in the arse.

"I'm alright...I wish you received all the letters I wrote, or my meeting with everyone yesterday and the day before went better than they did. But it doesn't work that way." He caught how his wife flinched for a moment, and in an almost animalistic way had he turned his head.

"I expected some hatred from Amelia, but she's filled with it."

"Why?" Aurora shook her head as it wasn't her place to fill him in on his best mate.

"McNair and Avery are excited to see you again, but perhaps we'll wait a little yeah? You're starting to gain your color back..."

"When...Can I see Ronan?" Aurora saw the elf coming into view of her peripheral, as she mentioned to cease popping in Rabastan's presence.

"In a few days, perhaps I'll call your friends before you see Ronan. He's the most excited to see you...It's just we have to explain to them why you were gone for so long." Her voice might've been soft, but it still managed to cut deeply in his heart.

What wasn't she saying?

And how would he tell his children of his faults when they were too young to understand the values of a dead Lord and a close to a dead cause.

"Drink, so you can eat...I want you eating a few meals a day." She defused the topic, as she knew outright that at one point during their conversation she'd lose her last remaining straw of sanity.

But it was sort of childish to see him grimace every time she took a sip of her drink. As they were waiting on a second order, Rory replaced his place with hers. Where most of her unfinished meal had sat, it was simply a BLT with some fries—American style fries.

"You need—to eat too."

"I wasn't depleted of natural necessities, they'll make me another one." He felt guilty in eating her food yes, but the way his stomach was expanding was aiding his recovery, he knew that.

He simply didn't like the thinness of his wife.

He took the unbitten portion of the sandwich and returned the plate, causing her to roll her eyes. "Now then, I was thinking of what would could do after lunch...I think a swim would do you good, and some reading—My father suggested some writing to get your hand used to the task again." The man had stilled any and all movement at the mention of her father.

"H-he what?"

"He gave me a few suggestions this morning, oh...And perhaps I should tell you this before I forget." She mumbled, her eyes looking off and away as she felt the growing discomfort rising through her and it was gaining in Rabastan's anxiety.

"Know that a lot happened in the given years, and I'll try to tell you a bit every day...But I didn't leave Britain without visiting my mother." She started, and even though there was another plate of food that had arrived—He still hadn't touched the half inhaled sandwich, all to pay attention he moved the sandwich down to the plate in front of him.

Reminding himself that it was right there.

"What happened?" He whispered, and it caused her to squeeze her eyes shut—She wanted to tell him about Aidan, but it was clearly not the time to discuss it.

"My mother's dead." It took a moment for him to digest what she said, and though he felt relieved in that moment, her previous hint of not leaving the country without visiting her...

His memories mistaken him as he felt himself back to his seventh year at Hogwarts, and how he claimed he never wanted her to kill anyone.

And to hear that his wife had killed her mother?

She couldn't fathom by staying in the country or being left with one relative.

The man started to crack once again, both hands had been cupped over his face as he wept and whimpers in front of his wife.

"I never—I never wanted you—To turn—"

"Raba...Rabastan please calm down." She interrupted, a tactic either used on one another as a way to not fall down the rabbit hole, but his chair skidded back in demand.

"No! You were supposed to be good—A mother!... Not to kill your own! I never wanted that—For you! For the children! I wanted to be there!" His voice had been dark and horrifying, and perhaps Aurora deserved being talked to like that.

But Avery and McNair were not having it for the world.

"Mate. Back up." Rabastan hadn't realized how close to his wife he had gotten, the voice had the wizard look over his position. His looming position of violently spitting and yelling at his beloved wife, only be looked on by his friends, as McNair had been the one to interrupt the two.

"Rory, why don't you take a break for a bit...We'll make sure he finishes eating." Aurora made a move to protest, but she hadn't been able to keep the tears from falling and instead of him seeing her in this state she decided to pick up her pride and take a few minutes by herself.

"Evelyn is here as well, she wants to go over some plans for the children's room." She mumbled her thanks to either of the lads and hurried into the manor, yet Rabastan still caught in looking to where she sat.

"Take a seat 'Bas, it's alright. Rory knows you don't mean it." Avery gestured, his hand patting over his friend's shoulder, only to earn him a flinched gesture.

It was clear that he didn't look entirely the same, and instead looked older. McNair could tell that Rory did fix him up a bit, the haircut was fresh, while his clothes still looked ill-fitting.

"I need to tell her—"

"She knows, come sit, eat. I would've brought the fire whiskey but Rory would've had the skin on my back if I did." McNair had been the one to suggest that they don't let their friend turn to alcoholism, but he sat cautiously in front of Rabastan in Rory's seat while Avery took the middle of them both.

"Right then, did Rory tell you about Amelia? I don't want you to be surprised if she comes storming the place." Rabastan had been slightly babied the past day and it felt nice to be talked to without the coddling.

"N-no...Just that—Amelia hates...Her..."
"That's an understatement." McNair remained silent, still partly looking to his mate and trying to understand how...How he could've done what he did.

Make the choices he had.

Hell McNair didn't even have the relationship that Rabastan and Rory had but he had reason enough to return to his wife and soon to be born child.

"How are you both?" He croaked, he had obviously been crying moments ago and neither men faulted him for it. But Waldon took it as an improvement, to get all the tension out, and Aurora breaking only meant that her point has been reached.

"Elijah and Rosabelle are doing well, Evie is beautiful as always." Avery snickered to himself as he leaned back with his arms crossed. "Wyatt and Maya are fine, though she makes it a game to make me look like the villain to them. They're getting old enough where they know she's mad." McNair rolled his eyes and took the extra cup and pitcher to pour himself a glass of sweet tea.

Little did he know it was Rory's American concoction.

"What the bloody hell is that women drinking, damn..." Waldon cursed to himself as he tried to get the dreaded taste of pure sugar out of his mouth.

"It's American..." Rabastan mumbled, his stomach churning and twisting back and forth as he still felt entirely guilty for pushing her away—Again.

"Was she gone?"

"'Bas we tried looking for her, and the only hint we ever got was when she released her potion. But she didn't come to the release here." Rabastan narrowed his brow as he turned his attention back on up and instead to an inanimate object.

"What potion?" Avery laughed. "Merlin, modest as ever that woman. She cracked Wolfsbane mate. It's a wonder how we couldn't find her." They watched the man settle with this new information, perhaps it was the realization finally hit that Rory didn't need him anymore, but the former inmate shook his head.

"She didn't tell me...Her letters—I never got her letters." Now that stung to either of his friends, all those years documented had gone unknowingly by him.

"Lorelei...She's never—I never met her."

"You will, soon as you gain a bit back, the hell is that on your neck?" While Avery was giving Rabastan the attention of prison tattoo, but all the more reason to promote a good cop bad cop reasoning.

"Any plans for the next few days?" McNair pushed past the topic of anything to do with Azkaban.

"Rory said I needed to...To get better...Before I can see Ronan." McNair nodded, giving him a trial run was all the more reason for the two of them to be there now, but McNair's back straightened as he saw Evie come towards them.

"Love? Is Rory alright?"

"Oh, yeah she's fine...We were just figuring out the children's rooms. Hello Rabastan." The once convicted man had blinked up to the woman with a nice smile, especially when she sat in McNair's lap and kissed his cheek.

"How long do you think it's going to take to fix up the rooms?" McNair asked his wife, and it caused her to pull out her notepad. "We're just going to go to Diagon Alley for a few stops." Rabastan looked down, partly wanting to go but also terrified of the loud noises and crowds.

He still had slight of a roar in his ear from the violent storms and waves crashing alongside the structure.

"We'll keep 'Bas company, why don't you invite Eliza?" Avery suggested, and he heard one of the many complaints from his wife that Aurora was befriending others.

"I'm sure she'd love a project too, alright...I'll leave you lads to it. We'll be back in a bit." She continued off back into the manor, but Aurora never said her goodbyes as she needed a good block of distance.

"I'm such a bastard."

"Well that's not changed." Avery teased, and McNair scoffed.

"Course you're a bastard, you left her with absolutely nothing." Avery rose his brow to Waldon in confusion and a bit of a warning to be careful, but it was ignored.

"I can't feel that sorry for you, I can't. Rory's loyalty was proven yet again, and we catch you yelling at her? Is that what it was like when we weren't here? Behind closed doors, did you always curse her?"

"No! Only once, it was an acci—"

"Bullshite! You cannot play that card any longer, her credibility—her livelihood was on the line! She almost couldn't produce her potion here because of the ties she has to you, because your actions brought her to court." Avery remained silent, although he wanted to ease into their introduction, McNair took his our route and let out almost a decades worth of anger.

"We offered to house her, but she knew it'd screw her over. You're not thick 'Bas, you really aren't. So what went through your ever-loving mind when you went to go after the Dark Lord?" Rabastan's head had bowed down with shrunken shoulders, perhaps it was the active father in McNair that he was honing into. But then he glared off to Avery when he tried to silence him with a hand on his shoulder.

"And to top it all of, you left her with child...With child, in a foreign country, old friends that know she was involved with a criminal."

"McNair..." Avery attempted to ease the tension again, but it was pushed off.

"No, if Rory doesn't let him have it then I will. You might not love your wife the same anymore but I sure as hell do. You fucked Bellatrix, for what?!" The man in the center had been taken by surprise, which left Rabastan to be called out.

And that's when he sobbed further into his hands.

"I-I thought s-she was Rory...T-they told me R-Rory was convicted—That—That they rap—" Either wizard stilled, how long had the guards teased him about Aurora's imprisonment? And although his excuse hadn't meant he was forgiven entirely, it still proved a reason instead of none at all.

"No letters...Nothing from your wife, your siblings for inmates and Sirius to boot." Avery shook his head, they weren't rightly sorry for what happened or what they did for the Dark Lord.

They were sorry that they got caught, and it wasn't all that bad as either found a job in the ministry as the runts that did grunt work.

*

The three fell into better sync than before, and it was indeed a social environment. The conversation could bounce back and forth, but it was dreaded popping sound of the elves that truly caused panic to rise in Rabastan.

"That'd be the ladies coming in with the furniture."

"I should help," Rabastan mumbled after Avery's comment, but then he realized that he didn't know a single thing about his children. So he found his footing and found Aurora in the center of one of the many rooms.

"Rory?" She turned back for a moment and smiled. "Did you take your potion after lunch?"

"Y-yeah...Who's room is this going to be?" She bit the inside of her cheek and tried to bite back the damnable mention of it all, but her anger had long subsided so there was no use into fueling it now.

"Romulus', he and Cara and my little potion masters...He's usually not that picky about what he likes, but I just want them all to be comfortable." He crept into the room and looked over her plans, it seemed simple enough—Perhaps a closer replica to his room in America just this one entirely bigger.

Rabastan was going to reply had a gentle lick not distracted him from his thought process, looking down in confusion had he been met with Nymeria and her whimpering gesture for cuddles.

Perhaps a bit of animal therapy would aid him.

"Loki and Omen are still in America, but I couldn't come without one of them." She mumbled, giving the wolf a boop on the nose before rearranging the room.

"I was thinking that these two have their own little potion station, just to have a cauldron and a shelf for herbs. Cara could use the practice in keeping her station clean." He remained silent, he frowned that he didn't know a single thing about his children.

"What does Halsey like?" Aurora stopped writing her current note and held herself tightly by her chest.

"She goes by Imara now, she likes magical creatures...Which reminds me that I wanted to get the twin's pets before they head to Hogwarts." Rabastan had lost sight of what he was looking for in the question he asked, his little Halsey—Imara, didn't go by it anymore.

It felt like nothing was the same anymore.

"I know. I think I cried for a few days, but I truly don't want her to hate her name either. It's one thing for my father to call me Cassi, but everyone else..." He hadn't realized the strain it caused on his wife, so instead he came closer, offering his support.

"I'm sorry...That I yelled."

"You cannot lose yourself like that with the children Raba, you can't." He realized that he would indeed to fix his midset, he didn't have to argue with his erratic brother.

Or watch his back while sleeping any longer, from either inmates or the Dementors.

"I know."

"I hope you do, because a screaming match between the two of us in front of them will only push them away from you...And I truly do not want to end up like Amelia and Avery, Noah doesn't deserve the torture of it all." She caught that he was rightly confused, and it caused her to sigh even further.

"Amelia had an affair or what not, and Noah may or may not be the byproduct of that affair. He's in Lori's year with...Damn what was Clem's son's name? Caspin? And then McNair's daughter Rosabelle. She's a cutie if I've ever seen one." It was adorable to see his wife fawn over his mate's children, though out of defense against Amelia there was no chance she would get to see them anytime soon.

"Can I help?"

"Of course, the kids have their own Quidditch teams that they like to post banners in their room. It got a little crazy in the house." He smirked. "Hal—Imara?"

"She and Romulus team up for Chaser, Cara is still getting used the idea of a broom, but she joins them once in a while. Ronan will probably follow you with being a beater." He smirked, it seemed like Ronan was going to be his prodigy.

"He looks like you did when you were his age, Cissy and Lucius already said—" She stopped in the instant as his face drastically changed, Aurora knew what she had said wrong.

"Well at least we can agree on that one, and before that arse corrupts our son...I do want to check on him in a bit." He nodded, knowing he couldn't go for a number of reasons.

"What pet do they want?" It caused Rory to perk her lips and shrug.

"Imara has been begging for a Niffler, and I believe they can be trained to calm themselves with their affinity for shiny things. And Romulus rightly favors Omen, those two always read together. But she's getting a lil old to be going to Hogwarts." He nodded at the idea to get them the pets they wanted, especially if Aurora already had the debate with herself over it.

"Ronan and Cara already got their wands, they couldn't attend the camp orientations...But you'll be present for Lori's." He would be present for one of her most memorable milestones, when he hadn't known she existed until this morning.

"Lori's...And what does she like?" A wide smile erupted as it was one of the many lies that would be told throughout the rest of her life.

"She reminds me of Regulus...I haven't seen what your mum looked like when she was young, but I have a feeling it's her. She has the most adorable smile when you praise her." He kept that noticed in the back of his head, and so he, Aurora, Evelyn and Eliza continued to put together the skeleton of what their rooms would be like.

Imara was the oddest, though Rory excused it off as she would read in every nook and cranny of the manor. 

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Date Posted: 02-24-2020

Time: 08:33

Words: 4206

Hey would you look at that, I managed to post before 9!

And now Papa Rabastan knows about Lil Lori!
Suppose that leaves only one more thing to tell him...

See you Friday!!