WHO: Amycus Carrow & Alecto Carrow
WHAT: A couple of secrets make for good sibling bonding
WHEN: September '78
WHERE: Agrippa's Apothecary
NOTE: Amycus → Liv

Amycus Carrow was not a happy man. Vivica had returned to school, and somehow, Amycus knew that a whole term without her was not going to be easy. Their wedding had not gone ahead, which was the number one problem. The number two and number three problems were almost as bad: he was expected to earn an living in a Ministry job he neither enjoyed nor knew anything about and he was living in a house that wasn't even his. In short, Amycus Carrow's pride was rather seriously wounded. During to holidays, these fundamental problems were a little easier to ignore, with Vivica's company. Now that he was alone, he had more time to think about them. It had only been a few hours, and he was already going insane. He wasn't going to see his girl until Christmas. Something had to be done.

Standing out the front of his sister's shop no more than ten minutes later, Amycus had a deep frown on his face. He wondered if the rumours were true: if Alecto truly was to become a Death Eater.

Most of all, Amycus wondered why. it was true that she had never shown blatant disinterest in her brother's favourite past time, but Amycus did not feel comfortable about it all the same. Despite he and his sister's differences, he still had the underlying belief that it was his job to protect her. Letting her join the Death Eater ranks…somehow, that did not equate to protection. He sighed, rubbed his temples with his hands, and entered the shop.

Even now, after eighteen years of being in her company, of loving her, hating her, plotting with her, arguing with her and all the rest, Alecto Carrow never failed to take his breath away any time. The way her hair framed her face, the expression she wore wen she was concentrating, which was so similar to his own…despite everything, despite it all, her brother just couldn't help remaining speechless for a moment.

But he had come with a purpose in mind, and it had to be addressed. "Sister," he spoke softly, looking tired, and a couple of years older than he really was.

"I'll be with you in a moment," Alecto called as the sound of dried frog's heads rattled throughout the shop. She was at the counter of the shop, fully concentrating on the order form she was in the middle of filling out and not really paying any attention to the person that was now standing over here. It wasn't until her mystery customer spoke that she raised her head, her heart suddenly pounding very hard against her ribcage.

The last person she had expected to come face-to-face with was her little brother... the last person she had expected to see, well, any time soon. Not after their last confrontation, at least. She thought that it had been clear that she wasn't intending upon seeing him in... well, not within a few mere months, that was for sure.

"Brother," she answered quietly, not sure of where the power in her voice had gone. What in the world did he want? Why would he come to find her? "Good afternoon."

Amycus didn't reply to her greeting of goodwill, but merely invited himself to stand around the other side of the counter. After all, he was not a customer. He glanced around the shop, trying his very best not to smile with pride: it musn't be an easy task to run a shop all on your own, let alone be successful at it. She had stopped what she had been doing (a glance downwards told Amycus that it was some kind of paper work) and Amycus hesitated visibly before pulling her in a very sudden, bone-crushing hug.

He heaved a bit of a sigh as he breathed in her familiar scent, infusing her clothes at the same time with his own; he smelt a little mustier, a little older...quite a lot like tobacco with a hint of the 'old book' smell. He released her after a prolonged moment, looking a little embarrassed. His words caught in his throat, but he forced himself to say them, after another glance around to check that they were alone.

"Are...are the rumours true? That you're - joing - ...us?" He cleared his throat, looking decidedly awkward and out of place.

Alecto didn't know why she hadn't suspected this... although, truthfully, she had been trying to forget about her confrontation with Grayson with all her might lately--and it didn't help that he had just overtaken her with the most affectionate gesture that she had gotten out of him in a very, very long time. That she was overwhelmed with the way that he smelled, the familiar feeling of his arms around her... fuck, why was he letting go?

She was left dizzied by Amycus' hug, the feeling almost distracting her from the fact that she was reminded very suddenly, like a punch in her gut, of the horrible backstory of this matter he spoke of. He obviously had no idea. If he had known what had occured between herself and Wilkes, he would have known that any rumor of her joining was much more than a rumor.

"They are," she admitted, turning away from him. "I am."

Amycus didn't know what he had been expecting when he had asked her the question - but he had not been expecting (or wanting) an answer of this nature. "But," he stammered, a deep frown creasing his pale brow, "But - Alecto - why? Why - do you know what you're getting into?" Amycus was not going to admit that he was trying to protect her, not in a million years. His pride had already been wounded enough for a life time.

Although he knew what a hypocrite he must be sound like, Amycus kept speaking, sounding flat and verging on angry,"Alecto, I need you to consider this very, very carefully. You will not see very nice things, or meet very nice people. There is no-one you can trust, no-one you can rely on, except yourself, and except for Him. It's a huge, violent game and I don't want you to get involved."

Well, if he hadn't want to admit that he was protecting her, than he had sort of failed with his last few words there. Alecto glared down at her hands, which had clenched around the countertop somewhere in between her brother's speech, trying to contain her anger. She knew she shouldn't be angry at him because he was completely ignorant to her reasoning, she knew that he was just trying to look out for her, but fuck, did he have to talk like she didn't know what she was getting herself into?

"I'm not stupid, Amycus, I know what I'm in for," she said through gritted teeth. She would not explode, she would not explode... Another fight with her little brother was the last thing that she needed at the moment to further complicate her life. "Do you think I wanted this? Fuck, how long have you known me? How many times have I told you that I would never get involved? Do you really think that this is what I imagined for my future?"

Amycus deliberated over her words for a moment. Yes - it was true, she had said on several occassions that...well, then, this just didn't make any sense. If she had never wanted to be involved, then why was she....

He reached out slowly, wrapping his fingers around her wrist. His grip tightened quite considerably, just enough to cause discomfort and slight pain. "Then why, Alecto?" His voice was deathly quiet, as if he almost knew what was coming. If she didn't want to join, then it was simple as this: she was being made to. Which meant blackmail. Amycus wasn't stupid.

In the same way that Amycus had always imagined it his job to protect and look after her, she had always felt that she had a duty to protect and look after him. That included not allowing this relationship that they had to cause him harm, affect him like it was her. For all the times she had threatened to tell his slag of a fiancée about them, Alecto never seriously wanted for this to hurt him. That was why she didn't want to tell him now.

...but he knew--or if he didn't know, he now suspected it, sensed it, because his voice had gone dangerous and he was gripping her wrist in a way that determined that he was very serious. It would be no use to keep it from now. Stupid fuck, she was going to wring Wilkes' neck someday, mark her words.

"Grayson Wilkes. He knows. I had to keep him quiet."

"Grayson?" Amycus' frown deepened, and there was a distinctive flash of anger in his eyes. He heaved a great sigh, and released his sister's wrist cautiosly, feeling guilty when he glimpsed the red mark he had left. He did not even need to ask 'he knows what?', because he knew. He and Alecto only shared one secret.

Running his hand through his hair, he shook his head and said slowly, a tone of resignation in his voice,"Like I said, you cannot rely on anyone except yourself. Friendship does not exist amongst the ranks - or, at least, not anymore." He shook his head again, and then his cheeks flushed with anger, and he slammed his fist down onto the counter. "Damnit! How on earth could that bastard possibly know - and if he knows, who else does? What if he tells Aland - fuck, Alecto. Shit."

It took all of Alecto's might not to jump when Amycus burst, shaking the counter as well as the bottles and jars of potion ingredients behind her. She let him rage for a few moments, cursing and ranting, ready to turn on him at any second and scream at him for thinking she hadn't already had these thoughts run through her head a million times.

But she couldn't. She couldn't scream at him. The moment she opened her mouth, all of her anger drained away and--fuck, fuck, this was so wrong. Alecto was overcome once more with the hopelessness she had felt when she had agreed to Grayson's terms, except it was worse this time because she felt her brother's pain at this ten times worse than her own. She shouldn't have told him, she shouldn't have told him...

She needed to leave, get away from him. "I'm sure you can show yourself out," Alecto muttered, shakenly, and brushed past Amycus, walking through the rows of potions and into the back room. She slumped against the wall and pushed the palms of her hands into her face, feeling her eyes sting. Fuck, fuck, fuck...

She was - what? Asking him to leave? Amycus couldn't be alone right now - not in that huge, hollow, life-sucking house, or that huge, hollow, life-sucking office, either. He hated it all, and he needed his sister. And she was walking away?

"Alecto!" He called after her, following her quickly into the back room, but he stopped very suddenly in the door. He was not used to seeing his siter cry - he couldn't even remember the last time that she had in his company. Amycus was stumped for a moment - if he comforted her, would it be welcome? Should he just leave? Amycus chewed his bottom lip before asking softly,"Cigarette?", pulling a packet out of his pocket and waving it around in front of her, looking hopeful.

Fuck him for following her, why did he have to do that? She didn't cry in the presence of others, hell, she didn't cry in the presence of herself--ever. It was embarrassing, it was soft of her, it proved that she was weak. Too weak for a Death Eater and too weak for a woman that demanded of herself the projection of a strong and unaffected image.

She could tell that Amycus was confused by the silence that befell them once his footsteps halted, and she couldn't blame him for it at all. She wasn't sure what to do either, to tell the truth.

Or she could take a cigarette. Fine, whatever.

Both hands leaving her face, she grabbed the fag from his hand and waited for him to light it, taking a deep breath in the meantime. But she looked to the ground, turning her head away from him and letting her blonde hair fall as a curtain around her face. She knew he knew she was crying, but that didn't mean she wanted him to see it. It was fucking shameful.

Amycus flicked his wand at the tip of her cigarette, and it sparked it alight, smouldering slightly. Shoving a fag into the corner of his mouth, he did the same with his and took a deep drag. A puff of smoke blew from his lips, and he pushed the packet and his wand back into his pocket. The long silence dragged on, and Amycus realised how close they were standing: he could feel her breath brush across his neck as she breathed in tobacco smoke and breathed it out again and he could see her chest rise and fall with each one. She wasn't looking at him, and all he could see was the blonde mess of her hair, shiny and smooth, enticing him to touch her. Cigarette between two fingers, he used his other hand to reach out to touch her, running his finger down the angle of her jaw, allowing the silence to continue, and beginning to shake a little. "Alecto," he whispered, not quite sure why he was whispering, but doing it all the same, "look at me."

What did he think he was doing? Why in Merlin's name was he touching her gently, why was he shaking, why was he whispering? Alecto took a long drag on her cigarette and held the smoke in for a moment before she blew it out, expelling it as well as all the air that she didn't have in her lungs from the breath she had lost the second he had reached out to her. He sent shivers through her body, he always had.

Furiously, she blinked her eyes to try to control herself, and felt her chin make an incline towards him, hair falling out of her face and back down her shoulder. It was as confusing to her why she was obeying him as it was why he was doing this, but some unseen power compelled her to oblige.

"What?" she asked, the indignance and venom in her voice watered down almost to nothing by the sight of his face.

Amycus bit his tongue, hard enough to draw blood and fill his mouth with the familiar, disgustingly metallic taste. He had never seen Alecto look so vulnerable, so...hopeless. She was his big sister, she was meant to be in control...Amycus realised suddenly that they had both grown up too fast, that they had both seen things and heard things and done things that no-one their age should ever have. He swallowed, the cigarette between his fingers hanging limply, forgotten.

His thumb brushed lightly across her bottom lip, and before he'd even thought it through, words tumbled from his mouth that had been coming for more than a year,"I love you, and that's why I -" Amycus clamped down on his tongue again, whispering,"Can you keep a secret?", sounding rather like a small boy again.

His words struck a chord in her--when was the last time he had said he loved her? It was... no, she couldn't remember. Nor could she remember the last time she had told Amycus that she loved him. Shit, what had happened to them that they had spaced themselves so far apart from each other? Amycus had used to be her best friend, her favorite person, and it was a stab of confusion in her mind as to where this had disappeared to. She had almost forgotten what this felt like.

Alecto nodded once, shifting her body towards him, and waited for him to speak. "I can."

A small piece of ash dropped onto his shoe, and Amycus was reminded of his cigarette, which he quickly took a deep drag of. There was no going back. "Father didn't kill himself. I did. And I did it for us." Amycus' bottom lip wobbled, and his mind flashed through many memories, many horrible memories, that he had been trying to forget. Their father slumped forward on the desk in his study. Amycus vomitting in the hall. Regulus taking control. Covering up. Playing the grieving son. Being glad that he was dead.

Alecto was quite certain that the feeling she had now was that clichéd feeling of your stomach falling through the floor. Shock and amazement and fear and understanding and a million other emotions flooded her mind and she didn't know what to say or do. One thing that she knew she couldn't do, though, was let her eyes leave his face.

She had never felt a stronger sense of vulnerability in her little brother and she could just... it was plain to see that this was something that he had wrestled with for a long time, and something that he would wrestling with for even longer to come. Her cigarette fell out of shaky hands to the floor and she reached up to touch his cheek, fingers slipping across his skin and down to his jaw, neck, chest. "Merlin, Amycus..." she breathed.

Her fingers slid across his skin and everywhere that she touched tingled and burned and yearned for more. He stood with little stability, shaking from the tips of his hair to the soles of his feet. Amycus wanted desperately to touch her, to hold her, to bury his face deep in her hair, but he couldn't bring himself to move from his frozen position.

"Tell me you don't blame me, Alecto. Please, please tell me you don't blame me," Amycus begged her, looking rather pathetic, dropping his forgotten cigarette onto the ground and stubbing it out with the heel of his foot, forcing himself to move at last.

"I don't blame you."

Her response was instant and certain and strictly sincere, as if this was the one thing she had ever been sure of in her life. Alecto could not blame him for killing their father, because she had a loyalty to him as his sister and because when her brother looked like that, when he had stood here and allowed her to see his own private turmoil over the event... No, she did not blame him. This was Amycus, she could not blame Amycus.

Alecto brought her other hand behind his shoulder and pulled him to her, tightly, wrapping that arm around his back, and buried her face in his dark hair. "I would never blame you."

Amycus' fingers curled into her clothing, and he gripped her tightly, deepening their hug and never wanting to let go. "Thank you," he breathed into her cheek, squeezing his eyes shut and willing himself not to cry. He had not imagined the amount of relief he felt at finally telling her...he could never have imagined the overwhelming volume of emotion he felt.

Amycus inhaled deeply, breathing in his sister's scent and nuzzling his face against the soft skin of her cheeks and neck, realising for the first time how much it had pained him, losing the close relationship with her he had always had.

It was difficult as it had always been, to be this close to Amycus and not grab for more, but for the moment she was content just to hug him tightly and stay there. This feeling was so different that powered this embrace, than the feeling that had powered those that they had shared over the past year. This felt like they were finally, truly united again, in understanding and love and everything which they had lost and which Alecto had thought by now irredeemable. Despite all the hardships and the drama and the anger, this was the best she had felt in a year.

Long fingers gently stroked his hair, her nails lightly running over his scalp in a comforting manner, as she listened to his heartbeat and felt each breath against her chest. Merlin, she had missed him.

After a long moment, Amyucs pulled his head slowly away from her, furiously blinking away the tears that were welling in his eyes. He, like Alecto, did not cry in front of people if he could help it, let alone cry at all. He swallowed, and smiled at her, albeit a little weakly. "I've missed you," he offered almost shyly, his fingers still curled deeply into her clothing, feeling very unwilling to let go anytime soon. The worries of Vivica returning back to school, his job, and the business with Grayson, had disappeared to the back of his mind.

"I've missed you too," she said, returning the smile, slightly stronger than his. Then again, she wasn't the one that was tearing up anymore--she didn't know how she'd done it, but somewhere in the midst of realizing that she finally had her brother back, she'd regained a bit of composure. "I love you, Amycus... No matter what happens, with Wilkes, or with the Death Eaters, or to our family, or between us, I always will. You make it too hard to stop."

She loved him - how long had it been since he had heard that from her? Another flood of relief washed through him. Amycus hadn't realised just how much importance he had placed onto having her approval, her love, her never-ending affection. He pressed his lips to her cheek, quivering slightly as he touched his skin to hers again, murmuring a soft 'We'll get through this', into her ear.

Alecto nodded against his cheek and then, taking a deep breath, her hands finally loosening from his body. She felt suddenly colder as she pulled away from Amycus and--she didn't quite register what she was doing until her lips were already on his, and when she did, she pulled away quickly, feeling for the first time like it was very wrong. This was what had gotten her into trouble, this right here was the reason she was trapped into a deal with a man she despised and another that she never wanted to know... It was still so instinctive an action, to kiss him.

"I need to go," she told him, stepping around him and back into the shop. "Customers--I'll see you later."

Alecto's lips had come and gone before Amycus even had time to respond, to grab at her desperately, make her stay, entwine their bodies together again and never venture away from this very spot ever again. Amycus was left alone, before he had a chance to reply to her farewell, touching his lips and shivering. He knew right then that he wanted her, and he knew that he had to leave before they destroyed their relationship all over again. Amycus scribbled a note inviting her to come and visit his new home soon, and left it on the desk in the back room, before Apparating away.

It was time to deal with a certain Grayson Wilkes.