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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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."

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."

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."

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.

Crushes on Dolph Lestrange were, unfortunately, one of the ties that bound them together. Nowadays, Lucius would hardly term it a crush, but some might say that he had a somewhat unhealthy obsession that hadn't quite faded away as much as he might like. Lucius would deny it up and down.

He wrinkles his nose at the name Weasley. Arthur had been an irritant at Hogwarts, Molly Prewett equally so, and they were predictably in the midst of popping out redhead after redhead as if the world was running out. "Delightful," he says. Clearly, what he means is disgusting. Still, the mention of that aspect of the future brings a smile to his face. He supposes something must be done with Mudbloods lest they inadvertantly start up the witch hunts again, but he's never seen any reason why they should be so fully integrated into wizarding society. Witches and wizards they might be, but inferior ones, and no one reasonable would disagree. "If he's a typical Weasley, I'm certain he considers that a catastrophe. At some point I expect their traitorous tendencies to make them what they clearly wish to be."

Which, obviously, is Mudbloods themselves.

"He seemed entirely upset with me," she sighs, smile never faltering. She takes greater care in hiding it these days, live and learn and all that, but there is a, to Lucius not so secret, pleasure in going toe to toe with those she considers below her. Provoke them. Get them to draw their wands on her. And then find that they have nothing, nothing at all, on her. Pleasure turned to disdain: "A coward through and through, of course. He only messaged me, and wouldn't give his first name."

She has since checked on the Weasley state of affairs, had finally remembered Molly's name, and found that plenty more of these ginger blemishes had been cast into the world (well, she had guessed the latter, but guessing wasn't knowing). This had come with the unfortunate side effect of not really revealing the identity of one 'kingweasley' – and neither had the course of this day.

"And he remains unregistered." Considering that this is only the very first day of the new decree, that isn't a surprise. While what she suspects to be the majority of the deviants had shown deference, these things always came with hesitation. Perhaps, he will realise his mistake before matters have to get out of hand.

Edited 2017-09-04 19:16 (UTC)

"In most families one could make an educated guess." But he's fairly sure the Weasleys have more sons than most farmers have chickens.

Truly, though, it's a fool who thinks they can get the drop on Bella Black. He's rather certain he can't. And certainly no one who isn't willing to play dirty has any chance of it. Weasleys always like to think of themselves as pure as the driven snow, and not the way he and Bella consider themselves; no, they think they're good people.

He examines his fingernails. "Likely he'll try to slip through the cracks. I doubt he realizes he outed himself to this particular department head. And we can't have that, of course. If he doesn't appear in the next day or so....we'll just have to look for him." He can't imagine this Weasley child wants either Bellatrix on the hunt - or that he wants the usually bored and lazy Lucius Malfoy taking on a project.

"I suppose that is what it will come down to."

Considering that he has spoken to others, too, though, she isn't as thrilled at the prospect as she could be. She couldn't quite let herself go, not if his death would come with a paper trail, especially if that trail leads to more deviants with ideas above their station.

"I am sure Dolph's department will rejoice."

Go wild, Lucius.

None of them really have the freedom to go as far, as often as they'd like. Dolph would - sometimes - have the excuse of these things just happening in their line of work. Bella, on the other hand, did not quite have the same convenience when it comes to obliviating muggles. The noses of department heads have to appear to be clean.

Of course, Lucius doesn't run his own department. It's probably the first time that thought makes him smile. "No doubt," he says airily. "Not that it would do to rush into things."

On preciously rare occasions, Bella treats herself: there are numerous deeply enjoyable, precariously Dark things to be done that are terribly agonising in the moment, and yet leave no traces. So, if a muggle is in dire need of having their memory altered to begin with, she may as well take her pleasure first – even if she will have to forgo the sweetest moment, that of their death. It is, in her eyes, an acceptable price to pay, and she doesn't envy Dolph his comparative 'freedom', nor does she envy the aurors their relative prestige. The Obliviator Squad had been a very deliberate choice, and she would have made it even if it it had made the rise to head of a department more difficult – the fact that it was a branch of the DMAC, the department chosen for the Blacks, had been the icing and the cherry on top.

"No, we must give fair chances." Waste them, more like. "Even to those we disagree with."

She smiles, almost devious. "After all, not all of them are blessed with such generous and kindly grandfathers."

He'd wondered how long it would take her to cycle back to that - less time, no double, had there not been a Weasel to consider - and he allows himself one brief eyeroll before he shifts, watching one of the assistants wrestle with an imperious-looking Deviant who looks offended at the idea of having to be traced.

After a moment he turns back, raising a brow as he picks up a little statuette on the desk. Mostly he does it because Bella hates it when someone touches her things. "I am very generous," he says. "Especially when I can't help but think the boy's playing a bit of a role for me."

All the worst things in life are temporary, as is this desk, which belongs to the TDRD, and while that is at this point in time to half Bella's responsibility, it's not quite her own office. Which is still blessedly free of random time scum. This may explain why she is entirely relaxed about him touching the statuette. And a little bit amused when it snaps at him.

"We did confiscate that earlier."

Live and learn, Lucius. Her brow furrows, however. "Is he now. In what way?"

He gives it an annoyed look, and then Bella another annoyed look, but really. This? He's used to this. Lucius Malfoy can get the best of most witches and most wizards, but Bellatrix Black has known him nearly forever. Even before Hogwarts, given that he was a Pureblood heir - and her two sisters were his age or younger than that. Dorea Black had ambitions, after all.

"Charming," he says dryly. He sets it back down with the sort of click that doesn't bode well for its continued existence.

Now, though, they're on more equal ground, and he tilts his head a bit. "A more perfect Malfoy I've never met. Perfect behavior, perfect attitude, just the right amount of hauteur. That much perfection can never be real." He'd know, he'd played the role to the hilt up to....oh, about nineteen, really. Then too much time around certain Blacks and certain Lestranges brought more of his true self to bear.

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