*Walden drops the Portkey and before the empty beer bottle even shatters on the smooth tiled floor he's moving, briskly and efficiently, through the swinging door and into the coma ward, third floor.
As he expected there are no Healers and only one nurse, a stout and florid-faced man in his fifties bent over one of the patients, fluffing a pillow beneath the woman's head. Avada Kedavra hits him squarely in the back of the neck and he goes down silently. Next, Walden takes a moment to collect himself, to glance around the ward, before he begins. There are no Healers in this room, he remembers, because the little vegetables need maintenance, not treatment. They won't have taken potions, so he's been sent here to clear the ward the old-fashioned way. He's no stranger to this kind of work but it gives him far more pleasure now, in his mask and robes, disposing of vermin of the human sort. Or nearly-human
( ... )
*The empty cigarette pack falls to the ground and Bellatrix steps forward, her spool-heeled boots clicking on the cool linoleum. The mask on her face is cool and serene, her black-robed silhouette anonymously female and foreboding, but she finds her heart is in her throat, her gloved hand secretly white-knuckled around her wand. This is more than serving the Dark Lord, more than killing--but first, to business.
It's not much work, the floor she's asked for: really more of an alcove, and home mostly to young patients who are already dead and nurses who go down quickly. It settles her nerves, the killing of them, soothes her, and she doesn't bother with anything exotic. In fact, she almost rushes through it, working as swiftly and efficiently as Macnair might. It's only when that is finished that she Apparates to the third floor.
She finds it deserted, largely in pieces: bits of hastily conjured brambles and shattered potion bottles and corpses, corpses everywhere--but she won't be one of them, she is quite sure of it. Bellatrix
( ... )
*She's moved on from the ward of dead colleagues. She's two rooms down now, checking for any survivors amongst the beds (there are none so far), when the the pop of someone Apparating sounds. Her first instinct is to shout for help, but she stops herself - there's no telling if it's friend or foe, and when no one calls out, Andromeda's heart sinks. Anyone from the Order or Ministry - if they even know this is happening - would call out. Surely
( ... )
*Door after door goes flying off its hinges, room after room clear of anything but corpses and smashed equipment, but Bellatrix is inexorable: the hall has only so many doors, and behind one of them is her sister, and she will find her, and then--
Well, to be honest, Bellatrix isn't precisely sure. She's consumed wholly by the nigh-gravitational certainty that she must find Andromeda, that she will find her, and what happens after that is hazy, vague, immaterial. Now she knows only each door in turn exploding off its hinges, and her own voice echoing off the linoleum, calling for her sister, screaming for her
( ... )
*Andromeda had known for years that Bellatrix was a Death Eater. Even if she hadn't facilitated the Unbreakable Vow she'd have known, but somehow seeing her in that mask makes it so much worse. The sensible thing to do would be to run; to try and Apparate, for all she's sure that it's impossible (else no one would be left in the hospital, and she can still hear screaming from other floors).
But commingled with the fear is a deep flash of rage as she stares at the mask in the window. Bellatrix, she's absolutely certain, is responsible for what was left of Ted's parents. Angela and Ted Sr had been her family when her own had abandoned her; she'd loved them dearly, fiercely, all the more because they had chosen her as part of their family freely and willingly. And Bellatrix was the reason that they'd been found in pieces.
She's done running.
Her back rigid, she raises her wand and levels it straight at the door. Bellatrix will get through the ward, that's guaranteed, and Andy waits tight-lipped and white with anger until she does.*
*It would've been gratifying if Andromeda had cringed away, or tried to flee; if she had shown some terror, even the barest fragment of respect for who and what Bellatrix is, for who she serves. And perhaps she had entertained some mad, brief fantasy of begging, of pleading for forgiveness. Bellatrix has always enjoyed begging, enjoyed laughing it off. But here, now, perhaps she would be inclined towards mercy, towards benediction and welcome. It's difficult to say. Her feelings are vague and contradictory, her foresight nonexistent, and what she sees now eclipses any of it.
Because now Andromeda is standing straight and tall, and there's fear in her eyes but fury, too, and she isn't budging. Oh, no, she's raising her wand as if she means to fight, and not desperately, either, but deliberately, and that turns this from a game into something else, something worse. It's real now, and Bella's smile disappears under her mask, the playful teasing dying in her throat. The change is visible even in her masked form, the way she stiffens and
( ... )
*Even braced as she is, the recognition of Avada kedavra sends a shock of fear through Andy, a physical jolt of terror down to her fingertips. It was close enough to feel the force of it stir the air against her face, through her hair, but it settles any remaining question of how far Bella's willing to take this. And that's not a surprise, either. Compartmentalized by logic, somewhere on the periphery, Andy understands exactly her sister's side of this. Her whole life, her family, stands as an act of treason against everything their bloodline stands for, and while disownment was enough for their parents, it wasn't, will never, be enough for Bella. It's a cold knowledge, a flat, factual understanding, but it's enough to help steady her. She's always done better when she has the necessary information, and this is no different.
So she does the only thing she can do. Cornered, at a marked disadvantage in experience, she fights back anyway, casting the same curse at Bellatrix as she used on the other Death Eater.*
*It's only a reminder of how close they are, or ought to be, because Bellatrix knows the curse. Of course she knows the curse. Uncle Dearborn taught it to her when she was twelve years old and the memory is strong: the Firewhisky on his breath, the turquoise skull in his study grinning vacantly at the two of them as he demonstrated the wrist movement and bade her try it, how he'd grumbled, quick study and had her practice on one of the Corgis and laughed and laughed to see her master it so quickly, and after Father had come in to collect her to go home Dearborn had said to him in an undertone only good luck--
She deflects Paritero easily, and the laughter that pours from her is shrieking, sawing, mirthless. The curse she casts in turn is much nastier, still one of Dearborn's. Only this one he taught her at eighteen when she was newly engaged to Rodolphus, her place with the two of them in the Dark Lord's service assured and inevitable. It was more serious, then: his voice not slurred at all, the smile gone from his eyes as he said it
( ... )
*It doesn't hurt, not exactly, but all the same Andromeda's eyes sting with tears of sheer terror, so thick her throat tightens with it. She knows this curse, too; Bellatrix wasn't the only one their uncle taught. She's never used it, and it's never been used on her, but there's no question whatsoever of what it is. All her joints, every single one, feels pulled just away from where it ought to be, held in place, in stasis, by the curse, totally and completely at her sister's whim. Bellatrix could kill her like this in an instant, could rip her limb from limb, and Andromeda has no doubt at all that she'll do it.
But she won't beg. If she's going to die - and she is going to die, she doesn't see how she won't, with the floor three feet below her and her wand down there with it - if she's going to die, it will not be begging. Instead she lashes out the only way she can, pinned as she is, and spits down into Bella's face, bitter with fear and hatred that this, here, is how Dora will lose her mother.*
*It isn't the first time someone's spit at her mask. There is a sort that loves their little last acts of defiance, and it is generally amusing. But Andromeda--Andromeda who isn't backing down, not even now, pinned and helpless as she is, Andromeda whose gaze is so furious and unflinching that Bellatrix is forced to look away first--
And that's what does it, really. Because Bellatrix isn't here to kill her sister, to neatly excise her from the world so there won't even be a person linked to the little burn on Walburga's tapestry. If she was, Andromeda would already be dead and she'd have her little bit of closure and be doing the Dark Lord's work elsewhere. But no; Bellatrix is here, ultimately, to punish her, to break her, to get her to beg and cry and plead and confess. But she's defiant and unbroken and Bellatrix looks away first, and that's when it begins.
There's a sob and a scream in it. It is barely recognizable as a spell.*
*The word may be mangled, but the effect isn't. Everything, everything is crashed away in an instant, all awareness of where she is and what's happening and who she is, even the rage and terror at the thought of leaving Ted a widower and Nymphadora motherless. All of it's gone under blinding pain unlike anything she's ever felt, and someone is screaming somewhere but it doesn't matter, barely registers through the bright intensity of the pain.*
*The curse is pouring out of her like a black torrent, that old familiar rush that seems to crackle down her wand arm and into her sister like a current of tangible energy, of power. Andy's screaming and screaming and trying to thrash against the tight hold of the curse that pins her there, and Bellatrix is screaming too, screaming out her own shrieking and unhappy laughter that's all mixed up with sobs. They tear at her throat and her whole body is taut and shaking--but her wand arm is steady, and she does not stop.*
*Roddy is working his way through shattering all the potions in a storeroom when he hears it. He knows his wife is around here somewhere, and typically they are both happy enough to work separately; Bella's techniques are a bit messy for him. But that sound is most decidedly Not A Good Sound, and the cackle would be all right--even normal, for Bella--but there's a horrible little hitching sound interrupting it that he can hear, even down the hall. He gives the rest of the cabinets one forceful, concussive swipe; it's not as thorough as opening each cabinet and cursing each shelf completely, but it'll have to do. He hops over the body of a dead mediwitch, and follows the noise into the little room two doors down.
He's not about to interrupt the curse directly. Doing so would be asking to have it turned on him. He moves around her like one would move around a feeding hippogriff, finally making his way around to her side and putting a careful and light hand on her shoulder.*
*It's not that she doesn't know it's him--of course she knows it's him--it's that Bella is beyond caring, beyond anything but blind and directionless rage. She whips around in a swirl of black robes and casts the first curse she can think of in a voice that's still ragged.*
*He's not a complete idiot, and thank goodness it's not the Killing Curse. The shield charm deflects the curse.*
--Don't be like that, sweetheart, it's just me--
*Protected for the moment, he spares a glance for the object of her anger.
It's not as if it's surprising to see Andromeda; it's not as if he didn't know about her, everyone knows and he better than most, living with and loving Bella, but it is momentarily awful to see someone who looks so similar to his wife still twitching from the aftereffects of the Cruciatus curse.*
--let's move along, now--
*Cautiously, he edges closer to his wife, trying to draw her away from her sister. Any other Death Eater would kill Andromeda and be done with it, but Roddy has never had a taste for the act and that's just as likely to send Bella into a tailspin as anything else.*
*Andromeda has slid slowly to the floor as the curse holding her in place relaxed and fell away, and now Bellatrix is only standing there, wand lowered, listening to the sound of shallow and shaky breaths--her own and her sister's both. She's only frozen for an instant, though, and then she moves quickly: closing the distance between herself and Andromeda with three swift steps and kicking her savagely in the side. Finally, she lifts the mask from her chin just long enough to spit on her sister's prone body.
When she makes her way back to her husband her free hand finds his elbow and tightens convulsively.*
As he expected there are no Healers and only one nurse, a stout and florid-faced man in his fifties bent over one of the patients, fluffing a pillow beneath the woman's head. Avada Kedavra hits him squarely in the back of the neck and he goes down silently. Next, Walden takes a moment to collect himself, to glance around the ward, before he begins. There are no Healers in this room, he remembers, because the little vegetables need maintenance, not treatment. They won't have taken potions, so he's been sent here to clear the ward the old-fashioned way. He's no stranger to this kind of work but it gives him far more pleasure now, in his mask and robes, disposing of vermin of the human sort. Or nearly-human ( ... )
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It's not much work, the floor she's asked for: really more of an alcove, and home mostly to young patients who are already dead and nurses who go down quickly. It settles her nerves, the killing of them, soothes her, and she doesn't bother with anything exotic. In fact, she almost rushes through it, working as swiftly and efficiently as Macnair might. It's only when that is finished that she Apparates to the third floor.
She finds it deserted, largely in pieces: bits of hastily conjured brambles and shattered potion bottles and corpses, corpses everywhere--but she won't be one of them, she is quite sure of it. Bellatrix ( ... )
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*Door after door goes flying off its hinges, room after room clear of anything but corpses and smashed equipment, but Bellatrix is inexorable: the hall has only so many doors, and behind one of them is her sister, and she will find her, and then--
Well, to be honest, Bellatrix isn't precisely sure. She's consumed wholly by the nigh-gravitational certainty that she must find Andromeda, that she will find her, and what happens after that is hazy, vague, immaterial. Now she knows only each door in turn exploding off its hinges, and her own voice echoing off the linoleum, calling for her sister, screaming for her ( ... )
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But commingled with the fear is a deep flash of rage as she stares at the mask in the window. Bellatrix, she's absolutely certain, is responsible for what was left of Ted's parents. Angela and Ted Sr had been her family when her own had abandoned her; she'd loved them dearly, fiercely, all the more because they had chosen her as part of their family freely and willingly. And Bellatrix was the reason that they'd been found in pieces.
She's done running.
Her back rigid, she raises her wand and levels it straight at the door. Bellatrix will get through the ward, that's guaranteed, and Andy waits tight-lipped and white with anger until she does.*
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Because now Andromeda is standing straight and tall, and there's fear in her eyes but fury, too, and she isn't budging. Oh, no, she's raising her wand as if she means to fight, and not desperately, either, but deliberately, and that turns this from a game into something else, something worse. It's real now, and Bella's smile disappears under her mask, the playful teasing dying in her throat. The change is visible even in her masked form, the way she stiffens and ( ... )
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So she does the only thing she can do. Cornered, at a marked disadvantage in experience, she fights back anyway, casting the same curse at Bellatrix as she used on the other Death Eater.*
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She deflects Paritero easily, and the laughter that pours from her is shrieking, sawing, mirthless. The curse she casts in turn is much nastier, still one of Dearborn's. Only this one he taught her at eighteen when she was newly engaged to Rodolphus, her place with the two of them in the Dark Lord's service assured and inevitable. It was more serious, then: his voice not slurred at all, the smile gone from his eyes as he said it ( ... )
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But she won't beg. If she's going to die - and she is going to die, she doesn't see how she won't, with the floor three feet below her and her wand down there with it - if she's going to die, it will not be begging. Instead she lashes out the only way she can, pinned as she is, and spits down into Bella's face, bitter with fear and hatred that this, here, is how Dora will lose her mother.*
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And that's what does it, really. Because Bellatrix isn't here to kill her sister, to neatly excise her from the world so there won't even be a person linked to the little burn on Walburga's tapestry. If she was, Andromeda would already be dead and she'd have her little bit of closure and be doing the Dark Lord's work elsewhere. But no; Bellatrix is here, ultimately, to punish her, to break her, to get her to beg and cry and plead and confess. But she's defiant and unbroken and Bellatrix looks away first, and that's when it begins.
There's a sob and a scream in it. It is barely recognizable as a spell.*
Crucio--
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He's not about to interrupt the curse directly. Doing so would be asking to have it turned on him. He moves around her like one would move around a feeding hippogriff, finally making his way around to her side and putting a careful and light hand on her shoulder.*
Bella, come on now, that's enough--
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Sectumsempra!
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--Don't be like that, sweetheart, it's just me--
*Protected for the moment, he spares a glance for the object of her anger.
It's not as if it's surprising to see Andromeda; it's not as if he didn't know about her, everyone knows and he better than most, living with and loving Bella, but it is momentarily awful to see someone who looks so similar to his wife still twitching from the aftereffects of the Cruciatus curse.*
--let's move along, now--
*Cautiously, he edges closer to his wife, trying to draw her away from her sister. Any other Death Eater would kill Andromeda and be done with it, but Roddy has never had a taste for the act and that's just as likely to send Bella into a tailspin as anything else.*
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When she makes her way back to her husband her free hand finds his elbow and tightens convulsively.*
Roddy--
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