per somnum

An untended garden

2006-01-31T21:03:06Z

The hedgemaze and most of the shrubbery are far too well behaved to have become unruly in the absence of regular care, but there are still signs that the Lestrange garden has not seen a groundskeeper for quite a while. Ivy is slowly overtaking the nearest wall of the house, and the climbing roses that were clearly meant to be an artistic accent on a luminous marble statue of a dancing nymph look like they're trying to drag her down into the earth. This is a state of affairs she occasionally takes issue with, but any complaints she makes are muffled and to a largely unsympathetic audience of birds.

Until today, that is. Rodolphus ignores her woeful little, "Sir? Siiiir?" in favor of finding the bench by the well, where he can activate the built-in silencing wards with a simple touch. This accomplished, he still doesn't speak to Regulus immediately, seeming to be in conflict over whatever he'd invited the other man here to discuss.

This too will fall down like everything else.

2005-09-10T17:09:12Z

Transferring the thick liquid from cauldron to flask, his breath harsh and rasping when he hums, Rodolphus is oblivious to the room's darkness. The smell, if he were paying attention, is overpoweringly acrid, as if the fumes of this malevolent philter has penetrated the walls. And he hums from time to time, hearing the melody perfectly in his mind and so not hearing the broken quality of his own voice; gaunt, driven by sick internal engines gathering up every last tiny bit of fuel to burn feverishly through stringy muscles and hardened limbs, he's holding himself together. Barely.

Enough.

The paintings still face the wall, their barely audible anxious rustle occasionally breaking through. When it does he pauses and listens, expression freezing, but whatever he's expecting (dreading?) never happens, so he continues his task.

He's been unreachable for months now, all thoughts of Voldemort and the cause driven from his none too stable mind with Bella's death. Because, in the end, his loyalties were greater than ideals. Blood was thicker than poison water. In the end, one's mind returns to older times, and simpler ways.

In the end, one's mind returns to family.

When you're dead, the grass is greener
over your grave. The wind is keener.
Your eyes sink in, your flesh decays. You
grow accustomed to slowness. Expect delays.

Preparations.

2005-08-09T12:06:34Z

He's turned every painting so they face the wall. The murmur of discontent from most of the paintings' inhabitants is just audible, not enough to be clearly understood.

Upon the table is a wilted lily, several beakers, and a variety of potion ingredients. He stares at them a long time before seeming to remember what he has planned to do. Then, slowly and carefully -- a glimmer of the old him -- he starts to work.

((Hello! If anybody has a hankering to kill Rodolphus, please pipe up here! At this point I could do several things with him, all equally possible and fun to me. :D

A. Someone kills him.
B. He disappears off somewhere to be brought back at some future time for teh angst.
C. He tries to kill someone, and is killed during that. (He does want to kill Rabastan, but he's scattered and doesn't always remember that.)
D. Stick him back in Azkaban.

More suggestions welcome.))

Wrong.

2005-08-06T22:13:06Z

The instant he steps in the bedroom, he can feel that everything is wrong. For a moment he can barely see; it's as if everything has been turned upside down, inverted and sullied. The air is wrong, the walls are too thin. Somebody's eaten my porridge. Somebody's sat in my chair. Somebody's ... somebody's slept, in, in my ... my bed ...

One pale arm, the Dark Mark looking freshly inked against wan, tense skin: outstretched, tangled sheets, stillness. A stale, sweet scent beneath something harsher and burnt. No whimpers.

Bellatrix Lestrange won't have anymore nightmares.

imagine

2005-07-30T08:01:17Z

VI.

Is he someone who dwells in this single world? No:
both realms are the source of his earthly power.
He alone who has known the roots of the willow
can bend the willow-branch into a lyre.

Overnight leave no bread on the table
and leave no milk: they draw back the dead--.
But he, the conjuror, may he settle
under the calm of the eye's lowered lid

to mix death into everything seen;
and may the magic of earthsmoke and rue
be as real to him as the clearest connection.

Nothing can trouble the dominance of
the true image. Whether from graves or from rooms,
let him praise finger-ring, bracelet, and jug.

((From Sonnets to Orpheus, by Rainer Maria Rilke))

evening on the balcony

2005-07-28T15:43:59Z

Pouring a clear spirit into the wide, shallow iron bowl and over the cedar sticks, Rodolphus set it ablaze with a gesture. The wind was strong tonight, whipping the night wildly and sending ripples over the dark waters like the silk dress of a falling woman. The gusts set the flame flickering, but he didn't back away from the bowl.

With the slight, cold smile of a man who believes he's accomplishing something, he lifted his hand and slowly twirled a rose into the heart of the fire.

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

2005-07-14T16:37:14Z

You know, I look at you and it's funny, you don't remind me of myself exactly but you remind me of a certain time I remember what I used to think love was then; that it was like fireworks, the explosions, the highlights, but it is not.

It's time: to go through the seasons together, through change, through the ups and downs, to be able to look at your beloved and say, "We did that together as one, we chose each other above all things." That's love. It's unexplainable. It's a secret that can only be known once you've done the time.

Study

2005-07-14T03:40:21Z

Ever since this afternoon, when Tamarantha gave him the Idea, Rodolphus has been holed up in his study, not an unusual pasttime. Books are spread out before him, cross referenced with notes, potions ingredients scattered over the pages.

And almost hidden beneath a stack of parchment is a Hogwarts prefect badge. The name is hidden, but it starts with a T.

unknown, faceless, unclean

2005-07-09T13:23:52Z

I do not know them.

I shall be investigating the room.

Homecoming ((Queen))

2005-07-09T10:58:33Z

Rodolphus appears in the courtyard of their Venice house with a crack, having returned from Transgression. He hasn't taken two steps when he freezes suddenly, spine going stiff as he stares at the main doors, which are open.

Narcissa is slumped against the doorframe, looking disheveled and pained as she tries to stand. Her nails are digging into the dark wood.

She's an amazing actress, but unfortunately, Rodolphus doesn't know that.

blind pretty things

2005-07-08T10:10:41Z

And now my brother is finally here.

Rabastan. Regulus. Tamarantha. And my Bella.

There will be a reckoning.

This phantom world gave you false signs

2005-07-06T20:37:02Z

But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth.
[...]
I've heard that you can barely see your soul.

((Rumi - Gone to the Unseen))

Unsent letters overflow boxes, boxes in my head. Those of House Black all have dark eyes, even that pink-haired oaf of a halfblood -- on the inside, where the pure meets the taint, there's darkness. Water from deep caves. Water in hidden coves. Water wants. Water must move or die. When I could not see Bella, all those lonely long stretched out shadow days, I could see her eyes. I would have screamed for her if it would have done any good.

A young Black's eyes are like the marbles you use to play a game.
A young Black's eyes are desperate and blank like that of a trapped bird.
A young Black's eyes are screwed shut with pain, tight and inscrutable as the veil he will disappear behind.
A young Black's eyes are always young; they stand the desolation of time and look across the folds to meet my own, the same in every moment although every moment is not the same.
Voices. I will let him hear the voices he will hear in the future that is for me, the past, though the past is not set in stone. But one cannot step into the same river twice, not even Lethe.
A young Black's eyes are like the encroaching tendrils of that widening underworld river. O my Persephone.

......

Strangely, I think I can sleep now. For a while.

consequences, sacrificed queens

2005-07-04T15:28:51Z

Beauty is as close to terror
as we can well endure.

Sleep, numbness; Every angel is terrible!
And so I constrain myself and
swallow the deep, dark music
of my own impassioned plea.
Oh, to whom can we turn
in the hour of need?
Neither angel nor man.

[...]

Strange to be no more of Earth.
To quit half learned habits.
To view roses and their kind
no more in human terms.
To be no more a babe in arms
that ever fear to drop you.
To leave the name you are
known by like a child leaves
a broken toy.
Strange to desire nothing.
Strange to watch the
known world dissolve.

((from The Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke))

Si tu me defends d'y aller, de j'irai pas.

2005-07-02T13:03:21Z

A sixth card for a lost soul: the page of cups, reversed. Even Beauty must perish: / though mortals and gods it have vanquished, / not the fast-steeled heart / it moves of the Stygian Zeus.

Time will say nothing but I told you so.

asphodel in an infusion of wormwood
essence of hellebore
aconite (?)
ground dragon's teeth: UI or HB?
bezoar
fluxweed-- proportions uncertain
hellebore
moonstone

Tamarantha, when you are free, I have a gift for you.

Neither fish nor fowl.

2005-07-01T15:38:03Z

Dark books, autonomous armaments, talking animals, levitation, deities, legends, healers, vampires, werecreatures, warriors, fae, demons, angels, occult machinery.

You hear, but I know.

2005-06-30T20:35:54Z

Sirius.
Derived via Latin from Greek σειριος (seirios) "burning."
Remus.
Meaning unknown. Roman legend. Infanticide. Conflict.
Igor.
Derived from the Old Norse elements yr "yew, bow" and arr "warrior."
Harry.
From Henry, from the Germanic name Heimerich which meant "home ruler", composed of the elements heim "home" and ric "power, ruler."
Ginevra.
Italian form of the Old French "Guinevere," derived from Welsh Gwenhwyfar: gwen meaning "fair, white" and hwyfar meaning "smooth." Betrayal. Adultery.
Narcissa.
Feminized and latinized form of Greek Ναρκισσος (Narkissos), derived from ναρκη (narke) meaning "sleep, numbness."
Andromeda.
Means "to think of a man" from the Greek element ανδρος (andros) "of a man" combined with μηδομαι (medomai) "to think, to be mindful of." Constellation. Sacrifice.
Lucius.
Roman praenomen, or given name, which was derived from Latin lux "light." Morningstar. Pride.

someday it will be ours

2005-06-30T01:29:20Z

In freedom, in our Lord, we are loosed into the night. Hounds of war. My dreams are fluid -- through me, in me, beyond me. I am with her, and she is mine. We are still alive. We will teach you what we have learned. You will know purity.

Gliding through the still air, he made no sound;
Wing-shod and deft, dropped almost at her feet,
And searched the ghostly regiments and found
The living eyes, the tremor of breath, the beat
Of blood in all that bodiless underground.
She left her majesty; she loosed the zone
Of darkness and put by the rod of dread.
Standing, she turned her back upon the throne
Where, well she knew, the Ruler of the Dead,
Lord of her body and being, sat like stone;

Stared with his ravenous eyes to see her shake
The midnight drifting from her loosened hair,
The girl once more in all her actions wake,
The blush of colour in her cheeks appear
Lost with her flowers that day beside the lake.

The summer flowers scattering, the shout,
The black manes plunging down to the black pit --
Memory or dream? She stood awhile in doubt,
Then touched the Traveller God's brown arm and met
His cool, bright glance and heard his words ring out:

"Queen of the Dead and Mistress of the Year!"
-- His voice was the ripe ripple of the corn;
The touch of dew, the rush of morning air --
"Remember now the world where you were born;
The month of your return at last is here."

And still she did not speak, but turned again
Looking for answer, for anger, for command:
The eyes of Dis were shut upon their pain;
Calm as his marble brow, the marble hand
Slept on his knee. Insuperable disdain

Foreknowing all bounds of passion, of power, of art,
Mastered but could not mask his deep despair.
Even as she turned with Hermes to depart,
Looking her last on her grim ravisher
For the first time she loved him from her heart.

((The Return of Persephone, by Alec Derwent Hope))