FIC: Remember Remember (the Fifth of November)
Title: Remember Remember (the Fifth of November)
Author/Artist: hikarievandar
Prompt: #74 - ‘Make it Rain’ by Ed Sheeran by RZZMG
Pairing(s): Background Frank/Alice and Rodolphus/Bellatrix
Word Count: 1236
Rating: R
Warning(s): Torture
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: I’d never heard the song before claiming started, and now I love it even if this is what it created in my head. It’s a great song to have playing in the background while reading this. Thanks, as always, go to my beta for her eternal patience, and to the mods for running such a great fest.
Summary: Gunpowder, treason and plot. This is the memory the Aurors will use to seal Rabastan Lestrange’s guilt.
He’s the one who brings the wards down. They fall in a shower of purple sparks, releasing a wave of magic that smells like honeysuckle. Rabastan looks down at the ward-stone that rests beneath his hands. It’s cracked and disfigured now; charred even without a flame - he’s not sure this is the purpose Professor Babbling had in mind when she’d told him he had a “gift for Runes”. Such a gift that, in all honesty, he’s a little offended at how easy this particular stone was to break. He’d heard rumours that the Longbottoms had lightened the security around their little cottage since the Dark Lord’s fall, but he still thinks that this should have been harder.
He stands slowly. His sister-in-law is cackling with glee. Her red-painted lips are stretched wide in a smile that’s more terrifying than attractive, and her skirts swish around her ankles as she jumps and dances in her excitement. They are, with his actions, a step closer to recovering their Lord - or so she says. She and Rodolphus, both. His brother, though, doesn’t look half as enthusiastic at the prospect as his mad wife. Perhaps it’s occurred to him, as it has Rabastan, that the lives they’re about to take are the lives of purebloods. Of family.
This isn’t about hunting down Muggles or filthy Mudbloods. This is personal. Frank Longbottom is a cousin only twice removed. In another life, Rabastan would have presented a gift to Longbottom’s son on his naming day; the children Rodolphus might have had (had his wife not been such a lunatic) would have played with the lad. In their youth, in the days before Rabastan had even heard of the Dark Lord, he and Frank and Rodolphus had played together. They’d hunted frogs in the gardens of Longbottom Manor and slipped them into Cousin Augusta’s tea; they’d thrown practise Quaffles at each other from their toy brooms.
They’d been friends, once.
The only reason he’s here now is for another friend. For Regulus, who’s missing, and for the hollow look that’s been in Barty’s eyes ever since. There’s whispers on both sides about what happened. Some say their Lord killed him, but Rabastan doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t want to believe that they’re so expendable. The stories that say Reg was taken by the Order make more sense - at least, that’s what he tells himself. The only truth he knows for sure is that he doesn’t know what the truth is anymore. That, and that the hollow-eyed wraith Barty has become over the last few months frightens him even more than Bellatrix.
He winces when Rodolphus tells his wife to shut up. It’s never a good idea. On any other night, such words would have been a recipe for disaster, but fortunately she’s too flushed with premature victory to make a scene. Muggle fireworks are going off in the night sky behind her, scenting the rain with gunpowder. What, exactly, is being celebrated on such a cold, dank night, Rabastan has no idea, but Bellatrix seems to have taken it as a sign of their impending success.
“We have to move quickly,” Rodolphus continues. “They’ll have felt the wards fall.”
Rabastan looks down at the blackened ward-stone again, and swallows his guilt as he falls into step behind his brother and before Barty. Barty who is twitching and mumbling; acting like his off his head on Pixie Dust. Bellatrix leads the way. She skips down the winding path through the Longbottom’s garden (lush and green and quite likely Frank’s pride and joy), jumping over the growing puddles, and with a shriek of laughter, she raises her crooked wand and blasts the front door off its hinges. The noise is masked by a raucous explosion from the village green at the end of the street, and the whitewashed walls of the cottage reflect red and green and gold.
This, Rabastan thinks as he enters, will be the memory the Aurors use to seal his guilt if (when) they’re caught.
He watches the fireplace crumble under a well-aimed bombarda from his brother’s wand. Frank turns, wand raised, to protect his wife - she’s huddled over something she’s carrying - but he’s brought to his knees by Bellatrix’s first curse. The Cruciatus, her favourite. He starts to scream.
It’s noise after that. Noise and violence, and the weight of Frank’s son - he doesn’t even know the boy’s name - in his arms as they torture his parents. In between frantic bursts of questioning, Barty is getting creative. He’s using curses Rabastan hasn’t even heard of before to boil the vitreous fluid in Frank’s eyes and peel the flesh from his feet. His questions go unanswered. So do Bella’s. So do Rodolphus’.
In his arms, the boy is screaming like he’s being tortured too - Rabastan’s robes are soaked with tears and snot and he’s half-tempted to dash the boy’s brains out against the wall, but he’s a pureblood and he’s Frank’s son and he can’t he can’t he can’t.
He can’t even turn away. He casts a silencing charm on the boy instead.
Eventually, it stops. The questions and the screams and the laughter all stop. Silence rings in his ears, and he scrunches his eyes closed and shakes his head until that stops too. All that’s left is harsh breathing and the patter of rain on the windows and in the open doorway. It’s heavier now, and if he concentrates, he can hear it gurgling in the gutters (or is that blood in someone’s throat?). The fireworks have stopped. They’ve been replaced with the sound of thunder rumbling like distant applause (for the worst show on earth).
When he opens his eyes again, there’s blood all over the tiled floor. It’s trickling from Alice Longbottom’s mouth (he thinks her name is Alice) and from Frank’s ruined eyes. The smell of it - how could he not smell it before? - is thick in his throat, overpowering even the lingering gunpowder from outside. The stench of human waste makes his eyes sting.
At least, that’s what he tells himself. He almost believes it.
“Check them,” Rodolphus commands.
He obeys.
He’d wanted to be a Healer, once upon a time, before Runes had taken over and he’d turned toward-crafting instead. And he’s not as book-smart as Barty, but he still remembers enough to have passable, rudimentary Healing skills.
The Longbottoms, though, are far past anything he could even hope to do. Far past being helped by anyone, he thinks, as the results of his basic diagnostic charm come in. Frank’s wife has screamed her larynx to shreds. They’re both suffering from heart tremors and muscle spasms and someone, at some point in the confusion, did something to sever their magical cores.
He looks into Frank’s ruined eyes. He attempts Legilimency. There’s nothing. No one. The same with his wife.
He looks up at his family (these people are his family) and his last remaining friend, and for a moment he barely recognises them. He shakes his head. Baby Longbottom wails silently into his neck.
“You’ll get nothing from them now,” he says.
Lightning flashes and, lit up in stark white, the anger on their faces is the most frightening thing he’s ever seen. And so it remains for the three days he manages to hide before the Aurors catch up with him; the three days before he meets his first Dementor.
Author/Artist: hikarievandar
Prompt: #74 - ‘Make it Rain’ by Ed Sheeran by RZZMG
Pairing(s): Background Frank/Alice and Rodolphus/Bellatrix
Word Count: 1236
Rating: R
Warning(s): Torture
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: I’d never heard the song before claiming started, and now I love it even if this is what it created in my head. It’s a great song to have playing in the background while reading this. Thanks, as always, go to my beta for her eternal patience, and to the mods for running such a great fest.
Summary: Gunpowder, treason and plot. This is the memory the Aurors will use to seal Rabastan Lestrange’s guilt.
He’s the one who brings the wards down. They fall in a shower of purple sparks, releasing a wave of magic that smells like honeysuckle. Rabastan looks down at the ward-stone that rests beneath his hands. It’s cracked and disfigured now; charred even without a flame - he’s not sure this is the purpose Professor Babbling had in mind when she’d told him he had a “gift for Runes”. Such a gift that, in all honesty, he’s a little offended at how easy this particular stone was to break. He’d heard rumours that the Longbottoms had lightened the security around their little cottage since the Dark Lord’s fall, but he still thinks that this should have been harder.
He stands slowly. His sister-in-law is cackling with glee. Her red-painted lips are stretched wide in a smile that’s more terrifying than attractive, and her skirts swish around her ankles as she jumps and dances in her excitement. They are, with his actions, a step closer to recovering their Lord - or so she says. She and Rodolphus, both. His brother, though, doesn’t look half as enthusiastic at the prospect as his mad wife. Perhaps it’s occurred to him, as it has Rabastan, that the lives they’re about to take are the lives of purebloods. Of family.
This isn’t about hunting down Muggles or filthy Mudbloods. This is personal. Frank Longbottom is a cousin only twice removed. In another life, Rabastan would have presented a gift to Longbottom’s son on his naming day; the children Rodolphus might have had (had his wife not been such a lunatic) would have played with the lad. In their youth, in the days before Rabastan had even heard of the Dark Lord, he and Frank and Rodolphus had played together. They’d hunted frogs in the gardens of Longbottom Manor and slipped them into Cousin Augusta’s tea; they’d thrown practise Quaffles at each other from their toy brooms.
They’d been friends, once.
The only reason he’s here now is for another friend. For Regulus, who’s missing, and for the hollow look that’s been in Barty’s eyes ever since. There’s whispers on both sides about what happened. Some say their Lord killed him, but Rabastan doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t want to believe that they’re so expendable. The stories that say Reg was taken by the Order make more sense - at least, that’s what he tells himself. The only truth he knows for sure is that he doesn’t know what the truth is anymore. That, and that the hollow-eyed wraith Barty has become over the last few months frightens him even more than Bellatrix.
He winces when Rodolphus tells his wife to shut up. It’s never a good idea. On any other night, such words would have been a recipe for disaster, but fortunately she’s too flushed with premature victory to make a scene. Muggle fireworks are going off in the night sky behind her, scenting the rain with gunpowder. What, exactly, is being celebrated on such a cold, dank night, Rabastan has no idea, but Bellatrix seems to have taken it as a sign of their impending success.
“We have to move quickly,” Rodolphus continues. “They’ll have felt the wards fall.”
Rabastan looks down at the blackened ward-stone again, and swallows his guilt as he falls into step behind his brother and before Barty. Barty who is twitching and mumbling; acting like his off his head on Pixie Dust. Bellatrix leads the way. She skips down the winding path through the Longbottom’s garden (lush and green and quite likely Frank’s pride and joy), jumping over the growing puddles, and with a shriek of laughter, she raises her crooked wand and blasts the front door off its hinges. The noise is masked by a raucous explosion from the village green at the end of the street, and the whitewashed walls of the cottage reflect red and green and gold.
This, Rabastan thinks as he enters, will be the memory the Aurors use to seal his guilt if (when) they’re caught.
He watches the fireplace crumble under a well-aimed bombarda from his brother’s wand. Frank turns, wand raised, to protect his wife - she’s huddled over something she’s carrying - but he’s brought to his knees by Bellatrix’s first curse. The Cruciatus, her favourite. He starts to scream.
It’s noise after that. Noise and violence, and the weight of Frank’s son - he doesn’t even know the boy’s name - in his arms as they torture his parents. In between frantic bursts of questioning, Barty is getting creative. He’s using curses Rabastan hasn’t even heard of before to boil the vitreous fluid in Frank’s eyes and peel the flesh from his feet. His questions go unanswered. So do Bella’s. So do Rodolphus’.
In his arms, the boy is screaming like he’s being tortured too - Rabastan’s robes are soaked with tears and snot and he’s half-tempted to dash the boy’s brains out against the wall, but he’s a pureblood and he’s Frank’s son and he can’t he can’t he can’t.
He can’t even turn away. He casts a silencing charm on the boy instead.
Eventually, it stops. The questions and the screams and the laughter all stop. Silence rings in his ears, and he scrunches his eyes closed and shakes his head until that stops too. All that’s left is harsh breathing and the patter of rain on the windows and in the open doorway. It’s heavier now, and if he concentrates, he can hear it gurgling in the gutters (or is that blood in someone’s throat?). The fireworks have stopped. They’ve been replaced with the sound of thunder rumbling like distant applause (for the worst show on earth).
When he opens his eyes again, there’s blood all over the tiled floor. It’s trickling from Alice Longbottom’s mouth (he thinks her name is Alice) and from Frank’s ruined eyes. The smell of it - how could he not smell it before? - is thick in his throat, overpowering even the lingering gunpowder from outside. The stench of human waste makes his eyes sting.
At least, that’s what he tells himself. He almost believes it.
“Check them,” Rodolphus commands.
He obeys.
He’d wanted to be a Healer, once upon a time, before Runes had taken over and he’d turned toward-crafting instead. And he’s not as book-smart as Barty, but he still remembers enough to have passable, rudimentary Healing skills.
The Longbottoms, though, are far past anything he could even hope to do. Far past being helped by anyone, he thinks, as the results of his basic diagnostic charm come in. Frank’s wife has screamed her larynx to shreds. They’re both suffering from heart tremors and muscle spasms and someone, at some point in the confusion, did something to sever their magical cores.
He looks into Frank’s ruined eyes. He attempts Legilimency. There’s nothing. No one. The same with his wife.
He looks up at his family (these people are his family) and his last remaining friend, and for a moment he barely recognises them. He shakes his head. Baby Longbottom wails silently into his neck.
“You’ll get nothing from them now,” he says.
Lightning flashes and, lit up in stark white, the anger on their faces is the most frightening thing he’s ever seen. And so it remains for the three days he manages to hide before the Aurors catch up with him; the three days before he meets his first Dementor.