(no subject)

[alt_regulus]

If I know one thing, I know this.

The dead cannot pass for living.

Comments

[alt_narcissa]

Indeed. Horrible supper conversationalists, for one thing. No sense of style, either.

And that doesn't begin to discuss their incapacity to maintain rhythm while dancing.

Are you back among us, then?

[alt_regulus]

Very true on all counts.

I have hopes that this project is winding down. I might make it through if I thought I could share cognac and cards with you this weekend. What are my chances?

[alt_narcissa]

Oh, well, if it will fortify you for the final push, then I suppose I ought to give you the encouragement you require.

[alt_regulus]

You're too good to me, cousin.

Shall I arrive by lunch on Saturday?

[alt_narcissa]

Do. Shall I air the Stilton or are you still delicate? (Though I warn you that if I do bring it out and you are late, I shall have to be cross with you.)

We may have to leave you to your own devices for a few hours on Sunday; I trust you know how to amuse yourself on the grounds.

Unless you'd rather come with us? It's a rather dreary engagement, but a necessary one for all that.

[alt_regulus]

I think the Stilton will be the right sort of bracing medicine I need, and I promise to do my very best to arrive on time.

What's the Sunday commitment? At this pass, what strikes you as dreary might be the height of entertainment for me.

That does sound pathetic, doesn't it? But after a double fortnight with only an elf for companionship, I suppose my standards have lowered some.

[alt_narcissa]

It's a naming ceremony, actually. The Fudges' first grandson.

[alt_regulus]

Oh, those are always entertaining: parents tense about what their parents will say or insist on, and the children trending from impatience to screaming fury.

We'll make faces at the new sprog and see how long it takes him to start shouting.

[alt_narcissa]

Do you know, I think I'm quite glad, in some ways, you were not about to sabotage Draco's naming ceremony with an attitude like that.

Though I suppose you'd tell me you'd never have dared to induce him to crying. And back then, you didn't have the hook, which I suppose sets you one above everyone else in the pursuit.

Well, suit yourself, then. If nothing else, Barty will be there and the two of you can amuse yourselves chatting up the Ministry stenographers' pool.

[alt_pansy]

Hello.

[alt_pansy]

It's funny isn't it, how fairy tale stories can be so simple, but you can think about them on so many different levels. I think there's a reason we keep telling them over and over, because we can see bits of ourselves in them. The bits we like, and the bits we don't like.

[alt_pansy]

And it's also comforting, because the good people almost always come out all right, even if they make mistakes along the way, and the bad people get what they have coming to them, and everything usually turns out the way it ought to in the end.

Which isn't really like real life at all.

[alt_lucius]

That rather depends on whom you consider to be a bad person, doesn't it, Little Bit?

It's true that bad things can happen to people who don't deserve it, but of course when those wrongs are perpetrated by others, that is where justice does its work.

It's telling, for example, that the theft rate is a fraction of what it was prior to Our Lord's ascendency. It is, by and large, a muggle impulse, as are many other crimes.

[alt_pansy]

Yes, I suppose that's true.

In stories, it's always clear right off who is good and who is bad, and it's not quite as clear cut in the real world. Because I think everyone has a little of both in them, or at least most people do, it's not all one or the other.

I try to be good, Lucius. Really I do.

I'm sorry I didn't answer you the other day.

[alt_regulus]

The theft rate.

[alt_lucius]

I could have cited murder, but I haven't reviewed the latest statistics. I rather suspect that they're a touch high at the moment. Don't you?

Or perhaps I'm feeling charitable and wished only to avoid such an unpleasant topic. I'll leave it to you to decide.

[alt_pansy]

can we pretend I didn't screw everything up and have things just go back the way they were?

I'm sorry.

I don't want it to seem like I'm expecting something you can't give me or seeing something that isn't there, or asking you for things, because I'm not. I just like you for being you and that's enough. That came out wrong. Why is everything I do wrong?

I'd so much rather talk about fairy stories and suits of armour than not talk at all.

Order Only

[alt_sirius]

Kid, you didn't screw anything up.

You've got a bastard for a god-father, that's all.

More to the point, I think your bastard god-father's using you to get at my brother. Emrys knows why he feels he has to bother.

[alt_regulus]

You said your stomach is giving you trouble. I'm sorry to hear it.

Have you been to see the Matron yet? Perhaps she can give you a dyspeptic draught. It helps me.

So what's your favourite story? Is it one from when you were small or something you've read more recently? I'm not trying to get you to say it's that pirate book I sent. I don't mean that kind of book, anyway. I mean the kind you want to read again and again.

[alt_pansy]

I just got back. She did give me something to settle it, although I'm still not hungry.

I'd have to say my favourite story from when I was little was The Swan Princess. Hitty even taught me to crochet so I could practice making the nettle shirts, but it always turned out wonky or I'd get bored and stop. But I remember thinking how incredibly brave the princess was, to work to save her brothers like that, even when she was about to die.

And I thought an entire family of Anamagi were really nift. Even if they had been cursed. I used to make mum read it to me every night.

And dad gave me his copy of The Two Kneazles for my birthday a few months before he died. I didn't really get it when I was younger, but I must have read it a dozen times by now and each time it gets better.