It's Easy/That's A Lie
Title: It's Easy/That's A Lie
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Barty Crouch Jr./Aurora Sinistra
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: ANGST. Inferred past sex. Angst. Angst. Angst. Have I mentioned Angst?
Summary: I won't lie down, roll over and die
It was the revelation no one expected. Bartemius Crouch Junior was a genius, freshly out of Hogwarts, and already on the fast track at the Ministry. The evidence was pathetic, hearsay really, and the harsh, fast and messy trial at the hands of his father shocked polite society to it's core.
There were whispers of disbelief, some claiming it was only done because the son was going to eclipse the father, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, at least in public. One more Death Eater off the street. Countless lives saved. So ran the party line.
For Aurora Sinistra, it was even harder. People looked at her with pity, these...these low-bred mongrels, who dared think less of her, or less of him. She seethed in silence, hiding her pain behind a bowed head and glittering eyes that most considered near tears instead of rage.
The words of advice came in torrents. It seemed everyone had a word of consolation or a story of how they got over heartbreak. Taking the advice like a lady was harder than the interrogations.
"Love's ever-changing. Passion would have cooled in time. Teenage loves are fleeting."
Aurora nodded, and changed the subject as that nosy reporter gave her two knuts worth of nothing. Passion did not cool, not once it was felt. Even the memories shook her in half-forgotten dreams and mornings when she woke moaning into her pillow for memories.
"All you have to do is to pretend you never knew him. Cast him out of your memory."
That idea stung, but she took it with her usual grace and stoicism, laughing at it mentally later, as she graded papers of people she had shared a Common Room with a short time before. How could one forget something like that? To simply cast away memories.
She tried it, once, in a brief fit of insomnia when she could not stop crying. It didn't work. Something was missing. Like she had lost part of herself, without even memories to comfort her. She threw the pensieve from the tower in her only fit of rage.
"Better to have lost him when there were no binding ties."
That had come from her mother, and for once, Aurora had allowed her shock to show on her face, horrified. Yes, there was no marriage agreement, no vows said, but did love mean nothing? Even as she thought it, she said nothing. Pureblood matches were about society not about love. Faithfulness like hers was unheard of even in some marriages.
And so, she withdrew. Away from the advice, the pity, the stares. She went into the very nest of the enemy, throwing herself into her work, speaking to the stars for company. She hid in a place where she was not even allowed to grieve, and then later, not even allowed to mourn.
And when her students or family or friends asked her ow she was doing, she pasted on a smile, drank some champagne, laughed, and said her line, perfecting the mask. "It's easy."
It was all a lie.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Barty Crouch Jr./Aurora Sinistra
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: ANGST. Inferred past sex. Angst. Angst. Angst. Have I mentioned Angst?
Summary: I won't lie down, roll over and die
It was the revelation no one expected. Bartemius Crouch Junior was a genius, freshly out of Hogwarts, and already on the fast track at the Ministry. The evidence was pathetic, hearsay really, and the harsh, fast and messy trial at the hands of his father shocked polite society to it's core.
There were whispers of disbelief, some claiming it was only done because the son was going to eclipse the father, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, at least in public. One more Death Eater off the street. Countless lives saved. So ran the party line.
For Aurora Sinistra, it was even harder. People looked at her with pity, these...these low-bred mongrels, who dared think less of her, or less of him. She seethed in silence, hiding her pain behind a bowed head and glittering eyes that most considered near tears instead of rage.
The words of advice came in torrents. It seemed everyone had a word of consolation or a story of how they got over heartbreak. Taking the advice like a lady was harder than the interrogations.
"Love's ever-changing. Passion would have cooled in time. Teenage loves are fleeting."
Aurora nodded, and changed the subject as that nosy reporter gave her two knuts worth of nothing. Passion did not cool, not once it was felt. Even the memories shook her in half-forgotten dreams and mornings when she woke moaning into her pillow for memories.
"All you have to do is to pretend you never knew him. Cast him out of your memory."
That idea stung, but she took it with her usual grace and stoicism, laughing at it mentally later, as she graded papers of people she had shared a Common Room with a short time before. How could one forget something like that? To simply cast away memories.
She tried it, once, in a brief fit of insomnia when she could not stop crying. It didn't work. Something was missing. Like she had lost part of herself, without even memories to comfort her. She threw the pensieve from the tower in her only fit of rage.
"Better to have lost him when there were no binding ties."
That had come from her mother, and for once, Aurora had allowed her shock to show on her face, horrified. Yes, there was no marriage agreement, no vows said, but did love mean nothing? Even as she thought it, she said nothing. Pureblood matches were about society not about love. Faithfulness like hers was unheard of even in some marriages.
And so, she withdrew. Away from the advice, the pity, the stares. She went into the very nest of the enemy, throwing herself into her work, speaking to the stars for company. She hid in a place where she was not even allowed to grieve, and then later, not even allowed to mourn.
And when her students or family or friends asked her ow she was doing, she pasted on a smile, drank some champagne, laughed, and said her line, perfecting the mask. "It's easy."
It was all a lie.