riddlelog | open → i've run campaigns against the light;

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open → i've run campaigns against the light;

a → the ministry

( the time deviants registration department is open for business, and true to its nature as the unholy lovechild of the dmle and the dmac, its main defining trait appears to be 'ruthless efficiency'. well, that and being a little bit understaffed, considering that some parts of the registration seem to be held not just by your betters, but by your way betters.

like bellatrix, yours truly, who completely missed the seminar on work-life-balance, but definitely attended the one on dedication to the cause several times over. she can be found just about anywhere – maybe she just got done snapping at some poor sod, maybe you're unfortunate enough to share an elevator with her, maybe you're sitting across from her at one of the registration desks and looked at her a little funny, maybe you're someone who knows her well enough to be able to tell that she's been on her feet for forty-eight hours and counting –– or maybe you have an actual magical accident to report. whatever the case, she is going to be there, sharp and all cool politeness: )

And what would your problem be?

( and better make it a good one, because getting the trace only really hurts if you annoy her. )

b → wizarding london

( sooner or later, even she will be done professionally oppressing people for a living she doesn't even need too make –– and what better to do with all this fortune than spend it? odds are the actual purchase was made in knockturn alley, but maybe she is en route to some other shop. can't live off of dark artefacts alone now, can you.

anyway, as fate will have it, she manages to walk straight into you, or vice versa, and the newly-acquired item, an especially cursed manuscript wrapped carefully in spell-woven cloth, does as things do when affected by the basic law that is gravity: it goes tumbling. and since bella can't tell if the thoroughly warded cloth is still sitting snug in all the right places, all while being in no position to be involved in someone's rather public maybe-death... )

You mustn't touch it, unless you have a death wish.

( her tone all but implies you do, regardless of whether she was the one to cause the accident or not. )

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[ Bill's on his way back to the Cauldron from Gringotts, where he's just been let go. Not only was he fired, but the goblin who had initially given him his job was fired as well for ever having done so in the first place. Needless to say, he's not in the best mood, and not particularly looking where he's going.

When he bumps into her, he looks up. Bellatrix Lestr-- no. It would be Black in this time, wouldn't it. Great. One of the last people he ever wanted to run into. But he hides his grimace and reaches for her dropped item, stopping short when she warns him and looking back up at her warily. Slowly, he withdraws his wand and wordlessly casts levitate on the manuscript. ]

Cursed, is it? I could remove that for you, for a price.

( She does see the flicker, working in the department that tends to hear the largest amounts of increasingly bizarre lies does the trick –– but she doesn't nail it down as anything remarkable. People know her, by virtue of her position or her blood, plus he looks just about the right age to have attended Hogwarts at around her time there as well.

He also looks a great deal like a Weasley. She nods an affirmative at it being cursed. )

Name your price.

( Bellatrix Black, bless her heart, could very well do that by herself, but that is rather not the point. The point is that the people who do your work for you often wind up the people who commit your crimes later on – plus, in this reality, she isn't entirely given to the murder of blood traitors yet. There is redemption, for those willing to take it. )

[ Bill would normally never offer to do anything for Bellatrix --Lestrange or Black--, but he's out of a job and desperate enough for money that breaking one curse is worth going against his principles slightly.

That doesn't mean he isn't going to try to gouge her on price. ]

That depends on the difficulty of the curse. Do you know any details about it?

( It isn't curfew yet, so the alley is still fairly busy, and Bella doesn't need to let on too much about her clandestine interests, now, does she. )

How would I? I suggest we discuss this – and the price – somewhere more private?

( Not that she will put on much of a fight over the price. If she has enough of one thing, it's money. )

[Oh, joy. He wanted to see his absolute favourite cousin today. Well, actually, he'd read the morning's Prophet and was about to come yell at someone about it in the Leaky Cauldron, but -- apparently the universe had other things on its' mind. He hesitates a little, but likely only Bella would notice that. It's not often he comes into actual contact with family members, these days.]

Funny. Seems like I've heard that before.

Muggle registration was straightforward, really. Name, life history, current occupation. Then documents were provided and away you went. This, Lucius thought as he stepped into Bella's domain, was much more interesting. But of course, Bella would be be where it was interesting. Not that she looked overly interested right now.

Annoyed, really. One could probably blame self-righteous Gryffindors from either the past or the future. Possibly even the present. Some things were eternal. He raised a brow, though, and slipped his wand out of the sleeve of his robe.

"Well, darling, I heard you were short-handed. But if that's a terrible falsehood, I can go away. It's almost time for cocktails." It was barely noon, but whatever.

( And exactly that lack of contact is what Bella pinpoints his persistent desertion on. In her eyes, they offer such a perfect life, and all for the low, low cost of severing most emotional ties and accepting what she thinks of as a natural superiority.

So this is going to be a garbage fire. )

They warned you? My, I am almost jealous.

( She definitely recalls that one time she got a bit too close to a particularly nasty piece of jewellery –– with fondness, because a proper look at the Dark Arts had been a bit of a rare treasure to her. Or perhaps because the memory of the hospital visit has faded with time.

Be that as it may, she reaches for her wand and casts a levitation spell, checking for readily lethal tears in the cloth. )

[Yeah, desertion, sure, never mind that he was disowned. It's understandable he's wanted to give his family as wide a berth as possible.]

Only once. Never more than that.

[Which, well, Gryffindor curiosity being what it is, had not ended well. He probably still has some scars from those times, somewhere.]

Bit of shopping for deadly things, then? How delightful.

"Lucius, it's ––"

Sometimes, it is better to pick your battles, and this, so she reckons, is one of those times. Besides, he is entirely right: they shouldn't be passing up assistance, not if matters are to continue running smoothly. It sounds almost childish, but she wants things to go right, because Riddle is no doubt watching this new department, and while this is hardly her responsibility alone, or her only responsibility, for that matter, she would just rather like to keep her record blemish-free.

"Do close the door behind you."

He did have a knack for showing up at all the right times, and disappearing at all the worst. In terms of intuition, they could almost be evenly matched, except Bella's is wont to be overwritten by some obsession or other. Rare as it is, he makes a good gauge. And as per usual, it takes a solid justification to explain the simple fact that she does like his company.

"As long as you know how to cast the trace, I will gladly have you."

( Admittedly, Bella and Walburga don't see entirely eye-to-eye on the matter of disowning. That is, she thinks it entirely necessarily, in case they don't return. No use wasting any amount of the family fortune, or even worse, land and property, on them.

But she also knows that, for this to stay relevant, the family name needs to carry on. And for that to happen, you have to be willing to... forgive and forget. Or at least pretend to do so, as is the pureblood way. )

Isn't it? I have always considered it so very important to know just what it is that we are fighting.

( Her check seems to have been satisfactory, as she silently summons the book back into her hands. )

Especially if a mistake could easily be fatal.

Edited 2017-09-02 01:00 (UTC)

[It's been sort of a stressful day, what with having to spend a chunk of it shuffled around to different people and filling out new paperwork, but Credence is more or less keeping it together. He's not comfortable in the future, but he's getting used to it. The people who work here in the Ministry of Magic all intimidate him, though, and Bellatrix is no exception.]

I - they said you do the tracking magic? [He swallows.] For the people who aren't from here and now.

[Please don't hurt him, he came to be tagged of his own free will.]

Lucius's brows lifted slightly as he closed the door firmly behind him. It was true; he did have a knack for showing up at exactly the right time and then disappearing when things were about to go straight to hell. He cultivated that knack, keeping his ear to the ground to listen for any changes in the wind. The knack itself, however, stripped down to the most base level, was just his inborn sense of self-preservation - which was really the trait that defined his actions as much as obsession sometimes defined Bella's.

Often defined Bella's. He could see the fine lines of tension around her eyes, and it was not all from irritating Time Deviants. No, Bellatrix wanted to make sure Riddle was pleased with how this went. "I brought someone in earlier today," he said blandly. His grandson - a term that had not yet ceased to be strange to even think about - had gone along with his insistence with just the right amount of pureblooded arrogance. Truthfully, from what little interaction they'd had, Scorpius appeared to be a perfect example of a Malfoy. Perhaps it was the perfection that made Lucius feel as if the boy might be playing a role.

Hardly the point right now, of course, Lucius thought as his lips curved with a slight, arrogant curve. "As you recall, you only have to show me something once."

( aurors weren't exactly made for hunting down those who appeared from the past and decided to break the very helpful, very fair rules put in place by their minister. perhaps it's understandable, then, that rabastan is aggravated to find himself working with the dmac to either a) bring these people in or b) register them, and somehow still be understaffed in trying to do the latter.

rabastan can feel his sister-in-laws pain, though he certainly feels healthier than her when he barges into her office and sees the mess she's become.

poor rodolphus, having to not-marry workaholic. )

You look like you're having a wonderful time, Bella.

( it's time to be social rather than locked up in an office for the rest of their lives. rabastan has had enough of the walls of his office, as much as he likes getting work finished and over with so that he doesn't have to worry about it later. )

( Bellatrix doesn't know who he is, but she knows what he is. In fact, it's already given her quite a headache, because one of the newly acquired clerks, eager as they are to serve this just-conceived department, had quickly notified a different department. Then there had been some feathers ruffled over whose jurisdiction this exactly was, Bella had made her point clear, and all this explains why poor Credence has spent so much time shuffling about with all kinds of people before arriving at her desk.

And here he is, live and in colour –

The American.

Considering that someone had called Immigration on him, she would have expected a bit more swagger, not someone whom she would still label as 'boy' rather than 'man', someone who doesn't quite seem to meet people's eyes. )

I do. ( And, now sounding warm, a tone that takes a good deal of work from her: ) My most sincere apologies, there has been some confusion regarding your status. I assure you it has been resolved now.

( She thinks it below her to even have to ask this, but it's a necessity: )

Have you been informed about the way the trace works?

It's a little strange, the matter of obsession. What, in a parallel reality and some twenty-odd years down the line, will make her look manic, feverish, and unstable, still works brilliantly in her favour now. She looks more alive, almost glowing, and that to spite the lack of sleep that came with stomping a new department out of the ground.

"Oh, my memory serves me well."

He'll make a good addition to the department, as long as she doesn't give into his suggestion of lunchtime alcohol, which is more tempting than she cares to admit, by the way – it's been a day. People, it seems, aren't fond of bureaucracy regardless of the time and place they're from. Who would have thought? Be that as it may, he has her curiosity. If he brought someone, he either adopted a pet project worth a look, or he woke up to find someone in his general vicinity who didn't quite fit.

"Who did you bring?" There is faint hint of amusement to her voice, and he must be very familiar with it. Clearly, this is a most welcome distraction.

There's no need to reply to or refute the first; Lucius is more than aware how well Bella's memory tends to serve her. He's younger than her by just enough years that that memory has dragged some uncomfortable revelations from his early days of Hogwarts, most of which he preferred to ignore.

Alas.

Of course, her excellent memory also means that Bella is well aware that the best way to nip Lucius' spoiled trust fund wizard habits - like lunchtime alcohol even when it hasn't been a day - is to give him an interesting project. An interesting project like dealing with these Time Deviants which, frankly, he's already dealing with in his own manor. He'd much rather deal with them at the ministry.

"Mm, my grandson," he says as he taps his wand lightly on his palm. And isn't that an extremely odd phrase from a very single twenty-six year old wizard? But this is the world they're living in. "Scorpius Malfoy. He was less than pleased that even purebloods are expected to do this, of course, but otherwise..." He shrugs. "Mostly compliant, really."

( bella has learnt some patience over the decade or so that she has been with the ministry thus far, so much is true. in spite of that, inaction is still not necessarily something she is particularly good at. she can't be at a stand-still, can't stand to be unoccupied. sure, the death eaters provided her with the kind of work she took the most pleasure in, and plenty of her waking hours went towards an ever-curious exploring of the darker edges of magic... but secrecy comes at a price, and that price would be a great deal of time spent waiting. so why not channel this restless energy towards the ministry instead?

and that's precisely why bella needs to attend some kind of twelve step workaholic program.

she clicks her tongue and opens her eyes. the quill that had been filling out some paperwork in her semi-presence drops at the flick of her hand. )

Likewise.

( she can't blame him. for her part, she is entirely too happy to have the lestrange-bound aurors deal with any upcoming captures – even if that means her reversal squad might have to do some clean up after. for him, it surely is a step down. less danger, sure, but where is the fun in less danger? )

Are you looking for a distraction?

( how she can flip the switch to alert so quickly is a mystery. might be the lethal dose of sugar in her coffee finally doing the trick. )

She sincerely hopes that he will find a hands-on approach to dealing with the ever-mysterious time deviants entertaining enough. The people she trusts are few, and, after one rather unnerving conversation with one of the displaced a few days prior, she has found herself a little... on edge. She wouldn't put her life in Lucius' hands, he is entirely too self-serving for that, but she is willing to have her back turned, and that is far more than most people get.

Besides, when he did work, and he did as long as it was interesting, she has found him quite reliable.

Something like a smile twists around her lips as he mentions a grandson. It is an odd image, and while she'll hold back for now, there is something to be said for lightly teasing him about it later, like when he brought one of his poncier habits to the front. The story had her interest, but the name has something flicker in her eyes. Being a Black, plenty of people suspected that she would have spent her childhood given to the Dark Arts – but her family's insistence on that front was rather divided. Not between Cygnus and Walburga, no, between whether you're an Heir or a Future Wife To Some Heir. So Astronomy had been the best Bella could get, aside from some rather devious experiments of her own, and anyway, these lessons had stuck.

"Scorpius," and she can't just leave it hanging. "Quite relevant, as constellations go." And that isn't a Malfoy tradition. And she knows that he knows that this isn't a Malfoy tradition.

"And here I was trying to curb your day drinking, when we ought to be celebrating at least two more generations of the Malfoy line."

Unless one's name is actually Malfoy, it's entirely unwise to put one's life in Lucius' hands. It's not so much that he protects himself first - though he's certainly high on the list - so much as the fact that most of his non-magical education was focused on the fact that loyalty to the family is paramount. Which is, he muses, why as irritating as the arrival of family from the future is, he still insists upon making certain they aren't likely to run afoul of danger.

Danger, in this case, quite frequently lies in the Ministry. Danger for the noncompliant could quite easily come from Lucius himself, or the people he counts as close friends. Bella among them.

"Indeed." Astronomy wasn't precisely pressed upon Malfoy heirs, of course, but Lucius had had what many considered an unfortunate interest in divination as a boy; he'd plotted more than one star chart in his day. "I understand from my initial conversation with young Scorpius than my son is named Draco." Which, he thinks, is another quite relevant constellation.

"But I think I'll hold off on the celebrations, as much as I'm certain it relieves my father." He ought to be married by now, after all. He'd already been born when his father was his age.

Once could be a coincidence, twice is the very beginning of a pattern. Her sister, she reckons, could do much, much worse – in fact, her sister could scarcely do better. An heir, Pure, as rich in connections as he is in gold, handsome, well-mannered, some talents that need not be discussed right now, but will certainly not be loathed in a husband, and while she has found him quite willing to raise his wand against someone lesser, she doesn't believe her sister would find herself at the receiving of that. Not for a second does Bella believe she could be the one to introduce this particular drift towards astronomically relevant yet somewhat impractical names into the Malfoy family – for that, she would have to rethink her stance on children as a whole, and to be frank, she would rather drop dead.

"I suppose counting your dragons before they are hatched would be counterintuitive, here." And so far, there isn't even an engagement set, nor has Lucius gone above and beyond in his courting efforts. Even the woman in question, though supported by tenuous evidence, is guesswork at best.

"Did you ask for the years?" Bella herself sees no reason for the rush, as she is steadfast to repeat when the need arises, which would be just about every single of the rare conversations she has with her aunt or mother. Aside from wizarding longevity and general physical health, she wagers she would, should she ever change her mind, have easily another decade, possibly more, before matters became truly difficult. And that ignores all the progress medimagic has made in the last fifty years. No, the real challenge lies in finding someone suitably Pure, someone you can stomach enough to agree to a lifetime commitment in which divorce makes for a high-order scandal, and that does get increasingly difficult as time progresses. Arguably, and she thinks it with some bitterness, this isn't quite as much a problem for the male side of things.

It's the same conclusion Lucius has come to, really. At one time, Andromeda Black might have been the pureblood witch he was most likely to propose to - they were nearly the same age, in the same House, and had liked each other well enough. But that had been before; it certainly wasn't occurring now. Equally, it's never been likely that he'd marry Bellatrix. He likes her, of course, but she's a woman who would almost always have the upper hand with him, and that's hardly how he wants to go on in a marriage.

He supposes he's considered Narcissa, he thinks, as much as he's considered the other options. Increasingly, there aren't really that many, especially since he's taken on the Dark Mark. Poppy Parkinson is suitable, but rather annoying. Still, he could deal with it. Phoebe Greengrass is acceptable as well.

"I didn't," he says, tilting his head a bit at Bella. "It may yet come up, but I decided I didn't wish to know whether I was behind schedule or not." His family certainly believes so, after all. Not just his father, but the more distant cousins who look to him to continue the Malfoy tradition of excellence. The same cousins who thought he was falling down on that job, so to speak, after beginning so well.

"Perhaps I should ask him if you ever marry Dolph," he says instead of dwelling on his irritating relations. "It's still the most popular question I get asked at those parties he's good at avoiding."

"Oh, ask him about our beautiful future children," she says with a voice so dry a desert could learn something. He won't need much more of an answer than that to guess her feelings on that particular matter. Her little deal with Rodolphus has bought her quite a number of years, but she knows very well that the air is getting thinner, and, while focusing on being an asset to the Death Eaters, while putting almost as many hours into an appropriate daytime career, she has managed to neglect the honing of an alternative plan. Sure, she has a manor in her own right, she is financially more than stable, and her family is unlikely to cast her out over a bust engagement, this is one area of her life that will need some work. And soon.

Either way, she can't seem to sit still much longer, so obviously, he has struck a nerve. It's not pacing if it's happening vaguely in his general direction, is it?

"I did speak to one of our little time travellers a few days ago." And she sounds bored and passive, but it's the same kind of passive boredom that occasionally showed up around exam time at Hogwarts. It's a solid copy, as far as a mask goes, most people buy into it. But she is neither Dolph, or is Lucius 'most people'. "He claimed to know me, but he did struggle with my surname."

[Family name schmamily name, there's Regulus. To be quite frank he's glad he's rid of all that heir to the Most Noble Etc nonsense.]

...Of course you have. [There's no heavily veiled sarcasm in that, of course not.]

True. Wouldn't want that.

It wasn't something they spoke of, but Lucius was more than capable of putting two and two together. Bella wasn't obsessed with Dolph the way she was with the Minister, and Lucius sincerely doubted love was something Dolph was capable of - but they got along well, had for years now, and their arrangement would have been a marriage if there wasn't some sort of dealbreaker preventing it. In their society, among their families, heirs were paramount. To say that Bella didn't care much for children was an understatement to say the least.

He watches her pace towards him - and truly, it is pacing, even if she has something of a destination in mind. As she speaks, though, his eyes sharpen a bit, and he tilts his head to one side. Of course he's familiar with that cool, bored, passive tone. He'd cultivated the same one; he'd learned it from her. "Did he," he said as he leaned his hip against her desk. "That's a bit interesting, I daresay. Did he have anything of note to say?"

There had been a brief, and, in retrospect, deeply embarrassing phase in about her fifth year at Hogwarts when Bella had had a wholly unfortunate crush on Dolph. Those times have been gone for almost fifteen years, but this doesn't change the fact that they made a very functional, if somewhat terrifying team. There's a reason why this new department had been made a collaboration between the two of them. But just about nothing can get Bella to change her stance on children –– or so she thinks.

"A Weasley, and every bit as much of a blood traitor as the rest of the lot, so no, interesting isn't the word I would use."

She has since talked reason into herself, the general sense of unease is gone. Likely, he is just a loudmouth with an attitude problem, and that is that. No, it's the changes he has hinted at that still get a bit of an edge on her. "He has left little doubt that whenever he is from, matters are different." Be that as it may, she looks up at Lucius with a smirk. "Apparently, they were taking wands away from their mudblood owners."

Honestly, that was the one good thing she learnt.

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open → i've run campaigns against the light;

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a? a.

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a is for Shenanigans

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a. we're in this together bella

a is for 'argh credence pls let me hug you'

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WHAT TEAM? death eaters.

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