Private Message to Antonin Nikolaevich

[alt_justin]

We've managed to remove a few of the curses protecting the cases on the left-hand side of your old office.

I recommended burning سحر عميق القلب، العقل، نموذج وظاهرة. I say, that's the one with three chapters on muscle calcification and variant spells, isn't it?

There are a few others in that section that promise similar levels of danger. I'm looking up the surest ways to destroy them. It's not quick progress, what, but it is methodical, painstaking, careful and safe.


Does it eat at you, knowing what's left of him is out there? I imagine more than one creature has eaten at him, by now. I thought you'd have made more of an attempt to recover him, honestly.

Perhaps it's not as important to you as you made the others think.

Comments

[alt_antonin]

Clumsily obvious, Юстинка. Have you grown so used to having your wife present to read truth out of your victims' minds that you've forgotten all your subtleties? I am unsurprised what you will use as bait, but I cannot be fooled more than once.

And mind the office. Did you notice the Melanaia curse infused into the back of the cabinet? I don't believe I ever taught you that one, and it's subtle enough that you won't have noticed if you tripped it. Three to four weeks, it usually takes to run its course. How have you been feeling lately? Starting at shadows? Exhausted and weary and taking pleasure at nothing?

Except it wasn't the Melanaia curse at all, and it wasn't on the back of the cabinet.

[alt_justin]

My wife, who killed your son, do you mean? That wife? The one who figured out how to stop him rampaging his way all round the country?

Was it simple grief, by the way? Somehow I don't think so.

I have a different theory. Do you have a complete list of the people he killed? Because Ron's been keeping a catalogue. There are almost sixty victims that we know of. It's a list that now includes the Moons--all of them, including their nine-year-old daughter. My foster-family are on it, as well. The Abbotts. Daphne Greengrass' parents. Mr Peakes. He even killed Cadmus Mulciber for us, though that hardly makes up for the rest. Whole families, servants, children, grandmothers, old men, innocents of all kinds--no one, it seems, was safe from his wrath. Hydra put him down like a rabid dog. She's more merciful than I would have been, after the way he treated her.

Ron also has details about the scenes. You're always meticulous when it comes to presentation, so shall I tell you? I say, not his usual signature at all, if you're wondering. Curious, what, because from what I and my wife could tell, he didn't believe in any of your twaddle about the afterlife.

But that has me thinking about the connections. There are a fair number of apparently random choices, but I believe the thing they had in common was a significance to people whom one or both of you held close. The Moons, my foster-brothers, members of the press, Narcissa Malfoy's assistant, Rachel Brodie's mother, etc. I don't know about all of the ties, but was that the idea?

Though, come to think of it, it's odd, that he decided not to include any of the Sinistra clan. I say, there's jolly well enough of them, one would think he could have found someone to butcher. But he did not. Nor the Diggories.

One has to wonder why. Perhaps he thought you'd be too shattered to ever forgive him if he'd killed any of their number. Perhaps even in his madness, he could not bear to take that chance. Somehow I doubt that.

Possibly they were too well-protected and he couldn't be bothered to honour you with their deaths. If it was you he was honouring, that is.

Or is it because he felt them entirely unworthy of his twisted sort of compliment? A referendum, perhaps, that he could never have expressed if he had a hope of seeing you again? Could it be that for all your declarations of unending, unconditional approval of each other, in some secret corner of his soul, he, too, harboured a seed of betrayal?

[alt_antonin]

An interesting theory. Pity it's completely wrong, but then again, you don't have the information necessary to figure out the correct one. Or what I believe is the correct one, at least.

But then again, you've never understood the way we think, have you? If you did, you wouldn't be so fumblingly obvious in your attempts to lure me. Are you looking to duel me, Юстинка? To rid your world of the danger I represent? Or just in the hopes it will help you sleep more soundly?

You're going about it in entirely the wrong way, of course. If you thought about it, you might be able to score a hit or two; keep trying. But you are very young, and you are working at quite the disadvantage.

Think back over the past few days. What have you been missing? What have you been too slow to realise? You are paying entirely too much attention to the finger, and none at all to what it is pointing.

I'm not surprised, but I am disappointed. Do try to keep up. I wouldn't want this to be boring.