White Lies

Home. Nott Manor was still not quite home to Isadora, despite her having shared the surname with those who lived there for now nearly a month, give or take. Upon arrival, Isadora took a moment to exhale before moving out of Alexander’s arms. Without further ado she crossed the foyer, reaching out with a shaky hand to the banister of the stairs. She lifted herself up northwards, taking to the half landing before ascending the second set, up onto the second floor. In her mystical daze she let her hand slide off of the banister and her heels muffled themselves on the rugs that ran through the corridors as she made her way towards their room.

Upon opening it, Isadora set down her bag on the chair beside one of the many side tables. She leaned herself briefly against the wall, bringing her hand to her forehead, brushing it up against her hairline, and then she sighed, pushing herself away to cross the room to the adjoining bathroom. In the doorway she abandoned her shoes, making a mental promise to put them away once she had finished. The modern edge to the bathroom was appreciated and made an interesting contrast to the classic style of many other areas of the house. Parting the glass panels of the shower she reached an arm in to twist the dial on the wall. Jets of hot water immediately began to fire out of the large showerhead, misting the glass.

Reaching up behind her, Isadora pulled down the zip of her dress, letting the black garment fall into a puddle around her feet. She slid her arms out of her bra, unclipping it and letting it drop from around her middle, a flash of pink joining the blackness and her knickers followed suit, another swirl of pink amidst the other fabric. Then, lifting her arm to let the grips out of her hair a swathe of blonde draped down her back, coming to tickle at the curve of her behind. She took a moment after letting them land in the fabric she stood on to inspect a shorter piece of hair, the first splits beginning to form in the ends.

She let her hand fall with a twinkle of her fingers, an ache she associated with the burn she had sustained on the first night when they had betrothed herself and Alexander together having not truly healed, sufficing as to rankle with her in times of acute stress such as this. With a breath of a sigh passing between her lips she lifted her feet out from around the dress and stepped into the shower, the scalding water sizzling across her icy skin, if possible sending more mist up into the air. An involuntary moan left her throat as peace found its way within her and she slid her eyes shut as she tipped back her head, letting the water run over her.

The warmth slipped down over her shoulders, tumbling down over the peaks of her chest before running down across the planes of her stomach and legs. Her hands reached out, going in search of the shower gel sat on the porcelain shelf. She squeezed a dollop of the bright green gel into her palm and lifted it up along her arms, spreading the soap across her neck, her torso and the tops of her legs. She turned a little under the jets and let the soap wash away, swirling down into the drain. It was then that the tears began to fall because despite the water, the blood she saw did not seem to clear. The guilt would not abate.

What have I done?

They'd arrived in the entrance hall of the Nott manor. Alexander had grown up in this house, it was this floor where he'd taken his first steps. It was this floor where his ancestors had walked. His Father, his Grandfather, Great Grandfather. Up until now Alexander had been different, he'd walked the halls of the manor as an innocent man, guilt free and pure but now he was just like them. A death eater. A corrupt criminal. A shaded man. A broken soul.

Alexander didn't object when Isadora broke free from his grasp, although really she wasn't free from him. They weren't just bound by marriage but by their act of murder. Alexander hadn't been the one to poison the man but he was just as part of her game as she was, he'd destroyed the evidence and tomorrow Isadora would be reenacting her crime on his orders. Alexander Nott was now a murderer by proxy. Someone would die on his orders, he'd become the cause of a mans death who would simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

'Hi.' Anastasia's voice punctured his clouded bubble, distracting his eyes from Isadora as she walked up the main staircase. 'What's up with her?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing sure looked-'

'Go away, Ana.' Alexander interrupted. Right now the last thing he wanted was his little sister sticking her moronic nose in where it wasn't wanted. Not that she would figure anything out, she lacked the cunning and the cleverness needed to uncover their crime. None the less the sound of her annoying voice rattling against his eardrum wasn't what he wanted to hear first thing after erasing all physical evidence that a man had ever walked this earth.

Anastasia had said some sort of remark back to her brother but he didn't listen, instead made his way along the hallway and down a set of stone steps into the cellar. Alexander would have uncorked the wine by magic but all his energy had been sapped away, if he could he'd never perform magic again but then he wouldn't be a wizard. It would go against everything he believed in. Magic was might and he'd just had a lesson in how mighty of a tool a wand could be.

After taking a swig of a 1969 rosé Alexander slumped down against the stone wall and drank some more. For now he'd sit here, wait for time to pass, try and forget himself for a while before venturing upstairs to sweet Isadora the first class murderer.

Ten minutes or so had passed, the bottle of wine was empty and now lay against the wall, a red droplet collecting around the neck.

Alexander meanwhile had found his way to the bedroom, locked the door and had tugged off his Ministry robes and was sitting on the edge of the Queen-size bed. There was steam escaping a door opposite and the sound of running water confirmed his wife was attempting to wash away her sins. Had Alexander drank another bottle and waited a good fifteen minutes he would have joined her but the effects of the alcohol had not yet kicked in and his mind was too focused on their objective tomorrow.

His wife had chosen the option to murder again, to call for Alexander and then he'd bring the Ministry in and get praised for capturing a werewolf. Pansy would then write an article about how he was a treasure in the ministry, completing the first step of his journey to Minister Of Magic: gain the public's admiration.

But was this all worth it? Forcing Isadora to commit, forcing himself to commit so that he'd find the journey to ascending his throne that little bit swifter? Yes. It had to be worth it. It was going to happen and there was little he could do about it. Then he realised. His Mother needed to know, she was part of his plan but was yet to be drawn into the loop. He'd tell her later, after the alcohol had fully penetrated his blood vessels, numbed his senses and lowered his inhibitions.

Sighing, his shirt unbuttoned, Alexander fell back onto the bed and stared up at the artwork painted across the ceiling.

It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what she was. There was no innocent Greengrass blood flirting its way through Isadora’s veins. Any of that had long been extinguished by her own attempts at dissociating herself from her mother. Malfoy blood was most assuredly the only other option but she felt there was an underlying layer to it. She felt as though there was something else that was poisoning her – not quite her potion but perhaps her ancestry. She was a member of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black. Extant though it was, she had Black blood. She was Narcissa Black’s granddaughter, the great-niece of Bellatrix Black, made infamous as a Lestrange. She felt as though that was the blood she wore within her. She felt as though everything that attended along with that was swollen underneath her skin, ready to burst.

Two pale fits slammed against the white tiling, a thrill of pain shuddering up through Isadora’s arm. She gave a gasp, the sound parting her rosebud lips, and she sighed, turning her hands away from the tile, finding a few drops of that precious stuff grazed against the sharp tile edge. She lifted her hand under the spray, washing away the colour that had splashed its way across the lacklustre palette. Wiping her fingers across the tiles, the scarlet disappeared altogether from the room as though it had not been there in the first place. Isadora bit down on her lip, feeling the last of the soap slip off from her inner thighs, and she knew there was no more hiding, no more waiting for the scalding water to burn her skin free of any and all sin. There was too much of it there. In her genealogy. In her own acts. In the acts dealt to her. None of it legitimised what she’d done.

But it was done.

The spray was shut off, a few drips leaping out from the spout to plop onto her head before falling silent. The girl then stood out, no longer bearing any of the innocence of girlhood. No, she had been dragged forcibly into womanhood by her own kith and kin and sealed her fate with her own choices. She could deal with that, she felt. If anything, she took solace in the fact that this was on her own shoulders. Isadora wrapped one of the fluffy towels Pansy so loved around her middle and scooped up her clothes waiting for her by the shower door. She dropped them into the hamper across the room, knowing the elves would busy themselves with cleaning everything,

Returning to the bedroom, Isadora paused upon seeing Alexander splayed out across the bed like a ragdoll. She shook her head, vaguely imagining the emotional turmoil he was going through. She still couldn’t quite pinpoint where her own emotions where going, flitting between utter despair and pragmatic neutrality with only a moment’s notice. She focused, however, upon the important things and dried her hair, setting the blonde locks into curls with her wand. The Ministry would ignore the magic used by her at home, she knew. She dropped the wand back down on the sideboard and reaffirmed her grip on her towel when she was done, striding over to the wardrobe to go in search of something to wear to bed.

She’d been divested of anything sensible by her mother upon returning from the honeymoon. Her father’s influence had ended rather abruptly and in place of cotton she’d been given sheer lace. The model tonight was a pale pink negligee which was suitably translucent with a little bit of frill at the top to put half-hearted effort into protecting modesty. The underwear that went along with it was barely string and Isadora donned both with muted dissatisfaction. She curls in her hair slowly began to soften as the magic wore off and they spread into loose waves as she returned to the bedroom, abandoning the towel in a different wash basket.

“You had better be aspiring to be Minister of Magic,” Isadora’s soft voice floated over to the bed as she neared, her movement onto it barely even causing the mattress to shift. She laid herself down on her belly next to her husband between his right side and his arm which he’d left thrown out away from him. She extended her arm across his chest, feeling the slight chill of his skin. Leaning in she pressed her lips to his stomach briefly before moving upwards to meet his gaze with her firm, icy grey swirls. “Or better,” she added, "one of those dreadfully canny men that control the Minister.” She leaned down, pressing another brief kiss to his chest in the gap between his collarbones.

“Just forget about it,” she soothed, determined to do so herself. “It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t force him to use it. It was his own stupidity. Remember that,” she took a moment to drape her lips lower down this time, creating a line through the middle of his chest. “Anyone knows not to drink a dittany. You get stomach rot anyway, from that. He should’ve known better.” That was what she was going to tell herself. That she’d been glib, sarcastic and the dog hadn’t gotten it. She hadn’t killed him. He’d done it. After all, he had, hadn’t he? All she could do was admit to making the potion but that wasn’t a crime. Manslaughter was the best they could rankle with. And they never would. They wouldn’t find anything.

“After this though,” she murmured, opening up his cufflinks and taking them off. “We’re going to go and spend time with orphans,” she abandoned the cufflinks across the bed and leaned up, popping a rougher kiss to his jaw. “Or some other such poor unfortunate souls. I’ll wear a nice dress and you can be your charming self and we’ll get you some easier political capital.” She pulled away then and looked at him carefully. “That might spare us a few hundred years off of our time in purgatory, hm?”

If only the Notts could change their name to Borgia. Neglecting the incestuous elements to the family and the disinterest in anything papal, the brutality they would come to exude and the unrelenting determination to get exactly what they wanted… well, if you squinted, the shoe did fit.

---

OOC: If Pansy is particularly against fluffy towels let me know and I'll edit. c;

“You had better be aspiring to be Minister of Magic,” The sound of his wife's voice broke away his thoughts, returning him to the present situation. He had been so entranced by what had happened Alexander hadn't registered the fact that Isadora had finished in the bathroom and had neatly sat herself on the bed. She smelt of something, something flowery but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, however he liked it. It was comforting.

Isadora began to tease him, her fingers lightly sending shivers through his body as they waltzed up from his belly button to the torso. Her lips, cursed, cast a shadow across him as the Ravenclaw lightly kissed chest. Alexander tried to ignore this feeling, this feeling of no control and the subordinate. Only a few weeks ago was he, the great Alexander Nott, the dominant one in the relationship and now the tables had turned.

Alexander wasn't really listening to Isadora's words. He heard them, registered them to a degree but they didn't mean anything, they didn't distract him from the crime they would be comitting the next day. Isadora sure had gotten over that fact (perhaps the shower helped?) but how she speak so lazily about the subject was beyond the death eater. They were now the definition of a dark couple.

Alexander's entire family had been death eaters. His two Grandfathers and one Grandmother had even been captured after the Battle of Hogwarts and spent the rest of their sorry lives in Azkaban. Alexander had vowed to be different, sure he shared their beliefs and had aspired to become a death eater but he was smarter, more cunning and believed that he wouldn't find himself in the sorts of situations they did. The new recruit believed he would have more control over the situations he landed himself into. Apparently not. Today was a near miss, what is that boy reported them? There was still a possibility he could. Alexander could find himself arrested upon walking into the Goblin Liaison Office tomorrow.

'We didn't clean up properly.' Alexander stated, not addressing Isadora as he usually would, his eyes blank and focused on the ceiling still. 'That boy. He knows, he could blab.'

A frustrated groan broke from betwixt Isadora’s lips and she turned over, dropping herself onto her back beside Alexander as his words dripped up into the air, the epitome of worry. She lifted her arms up behind her head and pulled at them a little, feeling the bones inside click. She was beginning to wonder what the Death Eaters even used Alexander for or whether he was a bit part to his mother, there merely to look pretty and youthful, stark against the war hardened features of those spread around the table. In her home. That would always grate. She’d never forget that slight.

“Yes we did,” she said coldly. “The boy won’t blab if he wants to keep his hide.”

Isadora didn’t intend on doing anything to Bertie. If she could keep him scared he’d keep his peace and she full intended on doing that. Outside of that, she also intended to try and learn some memory manipulation charms in order to, if necessity demanded it, deal with Bertie. He was scared enough, scared of her, scared of what he didn’t see, didn’t understand and what his mind had decided had happened. She’d abetted that fear. He wouldn’t say anything. If he did? Would anyone really convict her? She doubted it. Not in this climate. And besides. She didn’t murder him.

She couldn’t, however, say the same for tomorrow. She was tempted, however, to go back on her word. Alexander had met her halfway. Though custom dictated she produce the other half, she was debating whether or not to bother. Anything and everything had been erased by his own thoroughness. She could screw him, conceivably. Isadora would have to live with that, though, if she did. She didn’t know what was worse – a Nott wracked with guilt or an irate one who had been outsmarted.

“I intend to throw some bleach around tomorrow anyway.” She added, rubbing her fingers thoughtfully across her forehead. “A few scouring potions. Whatever.”

Isadora was calm. Painfully, painfully calm. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting her arm flop across the bed, and she sighed gradually. She wanted a retry. She wanted to have not made that potion. She wanted to have stopped him. But what could she have done? She hadn’t been looking at the dog when she’d told him there was something on the side. By the time she had uttered anything to him he’d put the potion on the wound already. He was already doomed. Criminal negligence was probably all they could get her for. But they wouldn’t because no one would pay attention to a boy, anyway. They had done what had to be done. The real crime would come tomorrow. That would be the murder. This wasn’t even a precursor.

“You need to find your balls, Alexander,” Isadora managed, turning her head to look at him. “And use them because you won’t hack it with the Death-”

Isadora paused, her mouth in mid contortion. She sat up, a thought springing into her head almost like a clichéd light bulb flickering on. You could never accuse her of not catering exactly to what her husband needed. She was a clever witch, there was no doubt about it.

“We don’t have to kill anyone,” Isadora turned to her husband. The sentence was one that would relieve them both, no doubt. “No, I have a better idea so listen to me.”

She leaned over, her hair falling over her left shoulder like a shimmering blonde waterfall and she looked at Alexander firmly, resolutely, and without preamble or fear. She realised it was her quarter of the court that the ball was dancing into. This was her domain of intelligence. As shy and as nervous as the normal woman would have been, in understanding her craft, in understanding their options she was coming most rapidly into her own.

“You have one or two options. Either you can brush up on your dark magic and use the imperious curse or you can use a Ministry approved tracking charm if you really want to wear the white hat.” She rolled her eyes. “You use your head, don’t you? Where’s the sense in only getting one? One dead werewolf. Not a lot of use is he? No, so keep one alive. Either unaware or under your,” she prodded him in the chest, “control and you get him to take you to the rest of them. Now that, my dear sir,” she leaned in, kissing his jaw again, “is your payday. Right there.”

Isadora pulled away and dropped back down on the bed beside him. A glow of satisfaction shimmered around her. She had never intended on taking on werewolves. In truth she wanted her career to be consumed by the harassment of the Order of the Phoenix. James Blood was no an enemy to be trifled with, this she knew, but she prided herself on being a little bit sharper than the brutes whom he cavorted with. No, they would come of this on top. She would see to that. By hook or by crook, they would get out of this one. And in part, they already had.

They would live to fight another day.

Alexander was still a little unconvinced about the Ravenclaw boy being too scared to taddle on them. What if the aurors began to investigate the missing werewolf, discovered that he was last seen in Slug and Jiggers. Isadora had mentioned how much of a racket the werewolf's death had made. Wouldn't the aurors want to question those who worked in neighboring shops? Would that Bertie-boy be able to lie to a Ministry Official?

Alexander continued to lay motionless on the bed, ignoring the prodding of his chest. His eyes were staring up at the ceiling still but no longer taking in the artwork of some medieval wizard for all his concentration was processing Isadora's words.

He was rather fond of the not killing plan his wife had cleverly cooked up. It was safe, risk free and would still get him the promotion he deserved. Was t entirely fool proof though? Would any flaws suddenly open up as Alexander and his wife put their dark magic into play. If he decided to place the werewolf under the imperius curse there was the issue in how long Alexander could sustain the unforgivable, would the werewolf be able to fight it off? During his time at Hogwarts the Slytherin had learned the basis of the curse during dark followers meetings but never cast the curse upon anything larger than a conjured snake.

The track charm seemed their safest bet. It was rather complicated in how it worked and Alexander was almost one hundred percent certain he'd gotten a question wrong on the said charm during his Charms NEWT Examination. None the less a little bit of research and practice would be all that's required. It was much easier to practice than the imperius curse, heck he could even practice on Isadora - it'd let him keep a closer eye on her too given what she was capable of.

'That'd work.' He finally said once she'd stopped kissing his jaw. 'The tracking charm.' He rolled onto his side, facing his lady.

'How does it work again? How will I be able to find the werewolf once he's been placed on the tracking charm?' It was a long shot asking her, after all she hadn't yet started her NEWT's and it was most defiantly not covered in the OWL syllabus. Still, there was a chance she'd done some research, being a Ravenclaw and all.