Thicker than Water (Marauders Era)

7 March, 1980 - Spies

In a dark and slightly damp manor house outside a small muggle village in Wales, nine Death Eaters were waiting, silent and still, their masked faces all angled towards the man at the head of the large wooden table whose pale skin seemed to glow even in the low light. He watched them back, red eyes pinning them each for a long moment, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts as his long fingers curled and uncurled around a handsome yew wand.

His silence was a power play and everyone in the room knew it. This was a game and they were nothing more than pawns to be commanded as the Dark Lord saw fit. So they waited in silence as he watched them, playing with them, practically daring them to speak before he did. Daring them to challenge him. But everyone in that room had been playing this game for a good long while now. And everyone in that room stayed utterly silent and utterly still. They had seen the price of provoking their master before and had no wish to pay it.

This was perhaps one of the more frustrating things they endured. Not that staying silent could compare to any of the horrors other things that were asked of them. Staying silent was even easy sometimes because they all knew that to betray fear in fornt of their master would be to invite his wrath. But then, it wasn't really the silence that grated on their nerves. It was the meaning of these moments that, no matter how many times they played this little game, rubbed some of them just a little bit wrong. Because this was designed to remind them that they were worthless, tin soldiers in the Dark Lord's war. Useful, to be sure, but disaposable at the end of the day. After all, he owned them and his command was their law.

William Selwyn in particular didn't like these tense silences before the meetings began because he was not a patient man. It was a failing his parents had tolerated because they knew that impatience had its uses, especially since he had been raised to be the sort of man who got what he wanted when he wanted it and didn't accept anything less.

He had always assumed this was the product of his pureblood heritage, of being born to a family that was strong and proud and commanded respect. Until that day at the end of his second year in school when he'd seen what his sister's upbringing was like. He had cursed himself plenty of times before now for not noticing sooner, for not doing anything about it sooner.

His third year was when he knew he should have done something. She had been black and blue for over a week over some tiny slip in her grades. That was when he had realized rather suddenly that Lavinia's childhood had been very different from his own. That was when he had realized that the expectations were different.

Lavinia had never been taught to take what she wanted and never apologise for it. She had been taught to accept what she was given without a word of protest or complaint. She had been taught to be submissive. The perfect daughter and someday, the perfect wife. And he should have done something as soon as he realized just how far their mother would go to make sure Lavinia stayed obedient. He should have done something nearly two years before he had.

Two years of watching her come down to breakfast with steps that were too ginger, too measured. Two years of watching her flinch whenever their mother raised a hand. Two years. And he had done nothing.

And when he finally had, on that awful night in early January, it hadn't been because of their mother's abuse. It had been because of their grandmother's. William didn't know how he'd ever been such an oblivious idiot but until that night, he had loved his grandmother fiercely. Afterall, she was kind and doting and boasted endlessly about him and he had lapped it up, his ears somehow deaf to the woman's hatred for his sister. But that night... That night he had hated her.

He had watched as their grandmother had come back from the sitting room with a fierce sort of satisfaction on her face that he hadn't at all understood, followed by their mother, whose jaw was set, her features still and emotionless. But Lavinia had not come out. And he wasn't stupid enough to believe their lie that she had decided to go to bed early. When he had excused himself to go to the bathroom, he'd taken a detour, slipping around to a different entrance to the sitting room just to check. Just in case.