Private message to Raz

[alt_sinistra]

All my nightmares are about failing you

I’m sorry. You deserve so much better than what I gave you this week. More loyalty, more fairness, more love.

I’m sorry for not telling you I believed you. For not asking how you were. For not shouting my belief in you from the top of the tower until everyone heard. For leaving you alone. For so many other things.

I couldn’t even look up at the stars last night

What do you need? Or want? Will you tell me how you are?

Could we meet somewhere and talk? (I’m at Mum and Dad’s - told them I needed space to think.) Here. Spence. Hogsmeade. Not school. I don’t - I don’t trust being somewhere she’s trying to control. Not until I can tell you what she said, implied. And you can tell me more. This is about my twelfth version of this.

I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to talk ever

I keep seeing Cassie’s face, the tiny bit she showed me. And everything goes blurry and dense and I can’t think at all. Couldn’t think for days. But in between, I know that isn’t you. Can’t be you. Would never be you. That’s not the problem.

She threatened me, if I didn’t do what she wanted. If I didn’t “behave appropriately” with you. My job. Mum’s. I shouldn’t have let that stop me. Should have come to you. Should have realised faster, what she was doing.

I hate more than anything else that I hurt you. That I left you alone. I’m sorry, and sorry isn’t enough. And none of it makes any sense.

I didn’t know I could hate this much.

What do we do now?

Comments

[alt_rabastan]

No, I'm sorry for snapping at you. I regretted it almost immediately. And also for having the sort of wild and ill-spent youth (and adulthood) that apparently makes me a good target for this sort of scandal.


I'm also sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea where to go next. I've received very little information and feedback from either Lucius or Dominic- nothing much encouraging, at any rate. I have, however, had several offers from those who would volunteer to "encourage" Dolores into an early grave, but that's hardly the sort of help either of us needs right now.

[alt_sinistra]

That knack you have, of saying exactly the right thing to derail me entirely? You have managed it again. (I will likely not forgive myself for a bit, but I will try to keep it from taking up time we could do something better with.)

We should talk, though? Because you're right. Cedric asked me some questions, Thursday, that I couldn't answer. Don't know if I should answer. And there's - well. Practical issues.

(And offers? You're right it wouldn't help. Though my scruples in this case seem to have wandered off somewhere. She's a menace to too many people.)

The thing that really bothers me is she implied she'd know, if we were spending time together, in private. Because if that's true, fixing everything else is a lot harder. And I don't even know how to tell.

I love you.

[alt_rabastan]

And I love you.

Far as I can suss out, she decided to spring this on me just as she was making her big play for control of the entire castle. With Tosha so ill, and the Headmistress gone, there was really no one else left to stop her.

I suspect that she knows her "evidence" is false- in fact, I'm sure that she helped to manufacture it. But if I try to drag the Wizengamot into this, she's made it clear that more evidence, and possibly more girls, will surface. The notion of putting both of us through that kind of public scrutiny is just unbearable, especially right before the weedding. I have to hope that once she feels secure, she'll call off this nonsense investigation and we can come up with a plan to oust her for good. I hope that Tosha is well by then, too.

I don't know how she can know if we spend time together, but... I do wonder if it's best that we didn't. Not while we're at the castle, anyway.

Where do you want to meet?

[alt_sinistra]

(That makes me feel much better, love.)

It - the way she went at me makes me think that, too. Thing after thing, just lined up and waiting. Until she could get away with it. And taking such care to keep us apart when she did it.

Ugh. You're right on dragging it out in public. And honestly, I wouldn't trust her not to have something up her sleeve. She - Mum reminded me she worked long enough as Senior Administrator for the Wizengamot to know how to make it work for her, not against her.

Maybe we should take up very public walks around the lake. Or extremely visible Saturday night dates in New London, though she'd disapprove of that, too.

Either would help with the talking, but not the rest of why I love you and want to spend time with you. Or sleep. Which might be a problem. (Before you say anything, when I come back, I will go see Poppy. Promise.)

Spence? More privacy there. And it'd occupy your house-elves. I can meet you whenever.