Entry tags:

! [1980-07] july, frank longbottom, rodolphus lestrange

Who: Frank & Rodolphus
Where: Ted's basement
When: 27 July 1980

Status: Complete
Rating: R



The first thought that crossed his mind was that Ted would never forgive him for this.

Then there was no more time to indulge in guilt, as the portkey was tossing them back from nothingness into the Tonks' living room -- or, rather, what had once been the room where a happy little family used to gather in both good times and bad, where he used to twirl a little girl around before taking her out for ice-cream, where Andromeda often found them chuckling into their beers after a day at the office. This, while identical in its dimensions and location, was not that place. In the days leading up to this moment, Frank had transformed the room into something plain and spartan: odds and ends had been boxed and stored elsewhere in the house, furniture had been moved and the windows, already shuttered, blackened. The place that received them was dark and close; the air hung thick and heavy over the bare wooden floors and the table with its two hard-backed chairs.

Even as he waited for the world to come to a standstill around him, Frank could feel the wards reform around them. They had been adjusted to let only two people in, and now that he was here with a fettered Rodolphus beside him, he altered it again so that only he would be able to pass through them. Then there was a second layer, designed to keep his prisoner in, and Frank shoved the bound man to the floor in order to bring those wards up.

Rodolphus hit the floor hard, all knees and ribs and momentum. He had no business falling anywhere, at his weight, but the universe didn't seem interested in these important facts and let him drop and then slide a bit, so that blood draped across the floor beneath him in an ugly smear. Despite his pain, he pushed his chin up so that he could get a look around. It was a plain room with chairs, table, window. Very similar in some ways to that which he'd kept Marlene in before her death.

He was not afraid.

"And now what, Longbottom?" He jeered in a lapse of spitefulness. "You are going to kill me? Torture me? It won't bring your precious friends back." He analysed the room for any sign of weakness or weapon, but otherwise remained still. Rabbits ran at the first semblance of freedom, and in so doing often got their necks pounced or their heads hexed off. He was still. Patient. Calm.

"Haven't decided yet." He sounded distracted, almost disinterested -- his eyes also made a quick study of what could be seen in the non-light. His gaze was allowed to rest skyward, narrowed as he beheld the indistinct line of an exposed beam, then dropping away and settling on the fallen man's figure as he finished with the ward-work. "Maybe I'll just let you steep here while I go back to your library and finish the job that I started months ago. What do you think?"

A growl of rage slipped out, unhelped, and then silenced again as Rodolphus caught hold of himself. He'd kill Frank. He'd kill him for that. Some way, some how, he would see his dead face and terrorise his wife with it before he slit her throat. But he got regained control. He held his emotions at bay and tried to rationalise the situation, even through pain and the stale smell of his blood and saliva where they'd dredged into the floor.

"Snape will never allow it." Even after this treachery, he knew this (he hoped it). Rodolphus could draw few motivational parallels between the half-breed and himself, but he was certain that while humans may have been worth nothing to him, books were worth everything. He could understand it to a degree. "He has put too much. damned. work. into it." His argument was punctuated by his effort; muscles flexed and strained against the incarcerous's rope, attempting to find weak spots and break them. Rest assured when he was free that Frank would suffer.

"He might never allow it, but he doesn't have much say about it either." For all that Snape was their inside man, whatever attachment he had to the library meant very little as far as Frank was concerned. It was a bastion of the way of life people like Rodolphus were trying to impose on this country -- and so it was a strategic target. If it had to fall again, then one renegade Death Eater's hand-wringing would change nothing. "-- we've gotten very good at arson. That's your legacy."

As he spoke, he relieved Rodolphus of his wand with a simple summons, catching the stretch of worn wood out of the air. It was slid up his sleeve, along the length of his forearm, occupying the space his own usually took up -- neither broken nor vanished into the ether, but out of Rodolphus' grasp nonetheless. A gesture with his own lifted the man from the floor and deposited him, still bound and prone, on the table.

It was not in Rodolphus's nature to deal well with captivity, and as he had rarely had to suffer it, the intolerance was made worse with every insufferably reminder that he had no control over his surroundings. He shoved himself hard onto his chest but, to his anger, the wand wriggled itself free and into the hand of his enemy, leaving him with a more poignant sense of defencelessness than being bound and on his face in the ground could possibly accomplish.

He struggled harder against his bonds, almost certain that he had leeway on one side, when he felt himself fighting gravity and then smacking into a wooden table.

"New wards," he barked, almost in a laugh. "I shall be pleased to send you home in a matchbox to your wife. Perhaps I can salvage bits of Fenwick to pack you in." Something resembling fear lingered at his periphery, but he refused it access. He would get free. He had too much to accomplish and too many people relying upon him. It was simply a matter of finding out how.

Even as Rodolphus snarled his threats, the cords that restrained him were changing. Where before they were slender, lying noose-like around his neck and hands, now they withered away from his throat, growing thick and rough as they wound themselves further around his wrists.

"Never let it be said you weren't gracious in your revenge," was said with equal parts mirthless humor and quiet loathing, the latter for the reminder of one of Lestrange's many crimes. He would pay -- and it was not a thought that flared with the heat of a rage that needed satisfaction now, but rather remained a constant, matter-of-fact reminder.

He would pay.

And with that, the ends of the rope were sent flying up to the beam. In a mockery of constrictor snakes, they wrapped themselves around it, enough tension running down their length to bring Rodolphus' arms, if not his entire body -- yet -- sharply up.

A sharp growl was Rodolphus's instinctive response as his torso was jerked out of his control and upwards. It occurred to him that he might have to model Iago's impressive behaviour should there be any hint of veritaserum -- but he wished to wait until the last second than presume. Biting off one's tongue was no simple matter.

He was not yet consciously afraid. His psyche wasn't meant for such indulgences -- but he deigned to feel some worry, deep down. There would be no easy escape from Frank Longbottom. As much as Rodolphus scorned him, he was not a fool and not so blinded by disdain that he was unaware of the difficulties he faced. Already he was persuing the room for weapons and escapes; he may have been trapped but his wits were returning to him quickly.

A similar thought crossed Frank's mind. Having already witnessed firsthand how resolute a certain breed of the Death Eaters could be, he had little doubt that this one could and would take such drastic measures to safeguard truths that he intended to pump him for (or rather, perhaps more accurately, pummel out of him) -- he had little doubt of it and even less of an intention to allow it to happen. Too much was at stake here.

With a twitch of the implement in his hand, he tautened the rope so that Rodolphus' torso lifted several degrees off the tabletop. The other man was scanning his surroundings, and as his gaze traveled over him, Frank stepped forward, grabbing a fistful of his hair and sharply pulling his head up to deliver the first of several blows to his mouth.

He was unused to being unable to protect himself (the adjective helpless did not sit comfortably in his mouth, much less his mind), and with every blow Rodolphus turned into Frank's fist -- a painful mark of pride allowing him to control some part of the abuse, even in so meagre a way as this. It was a pursuit he was sadly skilled at after decades in a household where physical punishment was the most common vehicle of discipline, and though he hurt, though blood leaked along the edge of several teeth as knuckles slammed into him again and again, any precursors to fear trickled away into mundane coping skills. If anything, this was the easiest sort of attack to abide. His mind was blank, his features affectless.

His knuckles throbbed, his skin tore and bled, and again came the impression that this man was made of iron. The thought angered him; Rodolphus' apparent indifference drove his fist again and again. The ache of bone hitting bone would not bring back the dead, nor would it right any of the wrongs committed by him, but perhaps this crude brutality would begin to show him that he, despite all the purity and good breeding, was as human, as breakable as all those who had fallen victim to the Dark Lord's schemes.

There was a crack, and with a short grunt of exertion, Frank withdrew his fist and shook out his hand, looking at the damage he had left on Lestrange's face. And then dropped the heel of his hand against the soft bridge of his nose before stepping back and making a sharp gesture with his wand. The table was sent across the room, scraping against the floor as the rope tightened and ripped Rodolphus into the air.

A breath escaped Rodolphus as the destruction of cartilage brought with it the necessary pain, and he closed his eyes as he bled, teeth gritted against an enunciation of pain. There would be more soon, he was sure of it, and to waste energy in noise now was to sacrifice too much. Harder again came his breath as the table was stolen out from under him and his body left to the mercy of gravity. His weight worked against him and rope bit into his clothes, tearing fine fabric and rubbing the flesh beneath ragged before he came to a stop. It was difficult to breathe against the tearing, biting, ripping twine, and he swallowed his sounds of pain carefully before allowing himself a second to pull in fresh air, to cool the blood that burned against his shirt. He could bear this. He had to for his sanity.

But already his hands were shaking with effort. It did not bode well.

The shoulders were not designed to withstand such weight when positioned so abnormally. Grimly Frank wondered how long it would take for him to hear the grotesque pop as joints snapped out of place, if he'd even have to bother with adding weight to drag Rodolphus down when the man's own bulk would work with gravity and do the job just as well. For a long moment, he merely watched the other man struggle to resist, then, keeping a careful distance as to avoid a kick, robbed him of the journal that was still tucked safely away with a simple summons. It was given a quick once-over before he stored it away with the man's own wand, adjusting the grip on his own as he braced himself for what would come next.

As the seconds wound on, Rodolphus's breath struggled in his chest until it was escaping in short, sharp puffs through his nose. His eyes were closed now, as he focused on breathing without struggling -- too much movement and he'd lose his shoulders to the rope... to Frank. He wasn't willing to lose just yet.

His desperate attempts to remain cool and collected were fraught with distraction; a shuddering breath evoked rough spasms of pain along his lats and he had to stay still, had too, with every ounce of willpower he could afford himself. Still, he said nothing, too focused on staying silent and still to comment on the appropriation of his journal. There was nothing there to be worth reading.

Frank wasn't sure what he intended to do with the journal. Mock Rodolphus' cronies with it? Attempt to break through the wards, or have him write in it himself? He didn't know -- but it didn't matter, not yet. What was important right now was that he was taking what means Rodolphus had left to him to recruit help, to escape: first his wand, now the little book, both of which were in his possession now. Watching Rodolphus as he willed himself into some semblance stillness, Frank found himself hoping that the realization that he was alone and helpless had begun to squeeze the hot-cold grip of panic around his gut.

And if not, surely it would begin to do so now as he wrenched one bloodied tooth from Rodolphus' mouth with a pull of his wand.

A noise escaped Rodolphus's mouth before his brain forbade it, and with that long moan of agony, he lost, in quick succession, the other points of pride to which he'd been clinging. His breath was gone, in an instant, and he was struggling, blindly, suddenly, against the binds that held him. Reason clawed its way up from thought to effort, but by the time he'd willed himself to stillness, he could hear the sickening pop-crunch that was his shoulder as it abandoned the socket. He howled, writhed, and the other shoulder followed suit -- but he didn't care now; reason was snuffed out and he was a writhing, vicious animal, lashing out with teeth and legs towards an unreachable Frank. He tasted blood and though it nauseated him, he couldn't stop thrashing. It was amazing, saddening, how -- in one instant of pain -- he could lose it all.

The sound of bones as they were wrenched from their normal anatomy was unsettling in the most visceral of ways, and blood greased the creases in Frank's palm as he tightened his fingers around the stolen tooth, sublimating his own irrepressible revulsion into that one twitch of movement. He could not, would not stop at the first real signs of distress from this man -- remember, he told himself as he ripped out the second tooth. Then the third, the fourth.

Every fresh wave of pain (which were, as he would reflect later on hindsight, not as painful as some things he had or would experience) brought on a subsequent tremor, which dominoed into something truly awful. His shoulders burned and scraped against themselves in protest, and the ropes chewed harder into his chest and ribs, and he tried very hard to breathe slowly and stay sane and drag himself back from the brink of whatever bad place he was teetering precariously over... but he couldn't manage a semblance of sanity. Not now. Not when he knew that no help would come and not when his ability to speak was being robbed from him one tooth at a time. Rodolphus was not prone to overreacting but now was the time for panicking, and though he railed against that instinct, there was only so much peace rational thought could bring. He swallowed air viciously and bled on himself and clenched what remained of his teeth in a violent effort to silence himself. For a moment, it was successful.

And for a long moment, Rodolphus was allowed to hang there, shaking in the manacles that had pulled his joints apart and breathing air that was bloodied as he took in breath after breath. Frank turned away, briefly ridding him from his sight as he deposited the teeth on the table with a slap of his palm against the flat grain of wood, which soon became the more familiar knotted surface of his wand as he switched it into his soiled hand. His grip was tight; the scrapes on his knuckles stung; his expression was molded into something stark and inflexible.

A steadying breath that was the quieter, deeper counterpart of Rodolphus' own was taken before he turned back to the twitching, suspended figure, one simple wordless spell cutting the bonds and sending the massive man onto the floor. Even as limbs and bulky flesh crashed against the unyielding surface below, Frank was moving forward, positioning himself behind Rodolphus in order to grasp each shoulder at a time and, with a hoarse growl of exertion, roughly shove those dislocated arms back into place.

Then the original bonds were returned, with an additional loop sliding around his ankles so that Rodolphus was trussed with his back curving backwards, limbs nestled behind him. He wasn't going anywhere, and thus satisfied, Frank drew away, sparing not a single word before exiting the room, leaving Rodolphus alone with his thoughts and his pain.

***********

It took more willpower than he'd expected to go back into that room. In the hours that stretched out after the sounds of abuse dealt to bones and cartilage and the sight of someone like Rodolphus Lestrange thrashing at the end of a rope, Frank had simply remained in the property, defaulting to the garden outside. He couldn't stomach the idea of lingering among his friend's things when he had this polluting him, and so the overgrown plants outside received him as he sat and thought and waited. In a mindless way, he had even fiddled with the portable radio in order to cast a replayed broadcast of Resistance Radio, and as he listened, knees drawn to his chest and rubbing his grazed knuckles, the voices of those he knew so well cemented the purpose that'd picked up some hairline fractures along the way.

But if we do not stop this threat, if we do not overcome the Death Eaters... your children's children will know the stain of You Know Who on their lives.

I see Rodolphus Lestrange for what he is: a child-killing Purist who will stop at nothing to see the Dark Lord rise to power, gorged by the blood of innocent people.

The sounds from the outside world were swallowed up and muffled by the spells that enveloped the room. It was disconcerting, as though stepping into a vacuum separate from the rest of the world; and necessary for what was going to happen. Even the sound of the door as he pushed it open and scraped it shut again seemed almost smothered.

Rodolphus was shivering where he'd been left. Some part of him yearned for sleep but his pride (and sense of survival, if he was going to be honest with himself) forbade it. His echoed howls of pain at having his shoulders forcibly reset had long since died away and he had been alone in this room, cold and nestled uncomfortably against stone and the smell of his own blood and the discomfort of his limbs' unavailability. He was tired and in pain and though normally he'd have used that pain to keep him focused -- to keep him sane -- he was growing blurry and dull. The room had been utterly silent but for his own sharp breaths (a man of his size was not meant to be trussed up this way and his lungs were unforgiving in their judgement).

He had resisted the urge to yell. He had resisted the urge to use his Lord's name in vain, though he knew it might save him. Love went beyond all suffering and if he was a bad man, he was, at least, a faithful servant.

And then there was a noise and he felt himself shifting towards it despite all reason. He would not speak. He was not the most prideful of men, but he had dignity and that dignity would bind him to behave appropriately -- or as appropriately as one could under these circumstances. The movement sent spasms through every strained muscle and then he was again still.

A silently cast spell pulled the ropes from existence, and as they wasted away into nothing, Frank lowered himself onto one of the two chairs. Already he could see that the man before him, for all physical abuse rained on him, would not simply speak of matters that either helped Frank or hurt himself; it would be absurd for him to gesture at the second chair and tell him to sit. And so he waited, as though curious to see what Rodolphus would do now that he was free of the bonds that had restrained him.

His limbs fell into use again, though they were strangely heavy beside him. His shoulders burned with the movement, his thighs groaned as they winced against the floor, curving already so that he could hulk, possessive over them. He had freedom now, and he would use them. He didn't care if Frank had a wand -- Rodolphus Lestrange was not a man of inaction, particularly when he'd been nothing better than a caged animal for hours upon hours. He could scarcely tell if a day had passed. A week.

Gathering what little strength he had in an instant, he threw himself as hard and fast at the other man as he was able, all fists and anger; but he could not control his body after its lengthy distortion, and his strength had waned. A noise of frustration escaped him, but he did not stop. Could not stop.

It was like watching an injured beast throwing itself against its assailant in some mindless rage, lumbering and unthinking under all the fury and pain. Frank would have taken the matter up with his own fists, but there was the fact that time was precious and he himself had to get out of here in one piece; and so a slight, quick gesture with his wand was made in order to send Rodolphus crashing into the wall just opposite. "We've already done this. Time for that's passed," he said. He hooked his foot around a leg of the unoccupied chair, dragging it forward in a silent order (no doubt this was not an invitation to sit).

He caught his breath against the wall and attempted to will himself to think, rather than just react. Rodolphus was not typically a victim of instinct, but these were exceptional circumstances and he had to fight a very strong lashback of being released with the person who had made him helpless for longer than he cared to accept. Right now his body hurt and he had no control over it. A rational man would let the muscles calm themselves and wait until a better moment. He was a rational man. Ergo.

His body shuddered with the restraint, and he gathered himself up from the floor and leaned heavily against the wall behind him, a headshake in response to the proferred chair (though he was well aware it was not a suggestion). "If you have something to say it can be said now and here."

"I have nothing to say to you, Lestrange," -- for it was Rodolphus who would do the talking, and that fact was implicit in his tone.

If he wanted to cower in the corner like an animal, however, fine. Let him. Whether he sat or not had little bearing on what Frank was going to do.

Hackles raised, Rodolphus now pieced together the important, abrupt details of his stay. Of course. This was now where he was to be interrogated. His heart raced as he realised the tools of his redemption had been painfully removed. Iago's wise precautionary tale fell upon deaf ears, for he no longer had teeth with which to sever -- his incisors could do the trick but his forejaw possessed not the requisite strength. Hell.

Pulling himself to his feet, Rodolphus took hold of the chair and dragged it back towards the wall, ostensibly to take a seat as far from the traitor as he was able. There, in one swift, smooth motion, he slammed the chair into the wall, grabbed a large chunk of the wood, and shoved it through the soft tissue beneath his mandible; pained noises of some sort were already erupting from him and blood drenched his throat, but there was no time -- a swift jerk of his arms and wrists and the torque across his jaw pitted muscle against wood.

The wood won.

Pain exploded across his throat as bone divorced itself and he howled in a wretched cacaphony of victory and agony. It was a sacrifice the sort he hadn't thought himself capable of until this moment. And he was blinking and breathing and bleeding and somehow he'd fallen down and wooden shrapnol splayed across his tongue. He had to believe it was worth it with every ounce of his being and still tears of effort clung to his eyes. It was worth it.

-- for Christ's sake.

This time there was none of that grudging respect he had felt when witnessing Mulciber's acts of self-harm, only a flaring of temper as he jumped to his feet, the chair shoved away and teetering over with a loud crash as he reached Lestrange's shuddering form. His hand lashed out to drag that shard of wood out of the grip of Rodolphus' flesh, his blood hot and red and thick as it coated his hands and sunk into the fabric of his sleeves. Rodolphus was not going to get out of this so easily, and he said as much to him, growling it into his ear as his wand did what work was necessary to stop the haemorrhaging and crudely knit flesh back together.

Rodolphus lashed out at Frank, whose proximity gave him use for his adrenaline and endorphins; his wide palms searched for something, anything, to grab, and he jerked himself this way and that, refusing to allow magic to fix what he'd so viscerally destroyed. He would not speak, not today, and he did not possess the requisite ability to prevent veritaserum -- if that was indeed what Frank had, he could think of no more dangerous alternative (though he should have known legilimancy was as useful a weapon). He could feel flesh and bone realigning roughly, and he fought it with every ounce of his strength. He was no traitor.

But there was no stopping the spell once it'd been cast -- torn fiber merged with torn fiber, bone with bone, and for all of the twisting, writhing resistance put up by the man, the polar ends of the wound pulled themselves toward each other. The end result was not by any means pretty, but the healing was strictly utilitarian -- and if it meant that with it Rodolphus retained the strength to lash out and strike him, so be it. Under the force of his wrenching grasp, Frank fell across him, the muscles of his neck straining and pulling painfully as he gathered his arm to his chest, before bringing it up and dashing his elbow into his solar plexus.

Rage erupted from him, but Frank was no doll to be tossed about and overcome with what little strength Rodolphus had left to him. He fought and clawed and pounded but there was no ignoring the outcome of this unpleasant encounter: he failed.

For all his struggling and self-injury, Rodolphus's face had been pieced back together in a functional mockery of its previous self, and he was now curling into the ground gasping for air in the aftermath of a single elbow-blow. It was humiliating and he felt suddenly old and defenceless as he struggled for use of his limbs and lungs. He wanted to kill Longbottom so badly now he could scarcely see, but instead he had nothing but the ground to greet him, the smell and taste of his own blood to comfort him. He needed time and rest to recouperate, and he had neither. How had he been debilitated so quickly (and it was not a credit to Rodolphus's sanity that he considered the span of his torture quickly)?

The time, the succor that Rodolphus needed, was not going to be given to him. Now, thought Frank: now, as every limb of his quaked from exhaustion and pain, as he fought for the air that had been so violently forced from his lungs, as his mind danced a frenzied fit under the weight of this recent failure of his. Now, as Rodolphus was so bleakly vulnerable, his jaw in hand's reach.

Frank kept his elbow driven in the relative softness of Rodolphus' abdomen, both to restrain Rodolphus and to anchor himself as he clamped his hand around his jaw to twist his face toward him. "You think your antics will protect your secrets?" he said in a low rasp, bringing the tip of his wand up and pressing into Rodolphus' temple as he sought the man's gaze.

-- there.

And the Legilimens was cast, unrefined and crude as it tore into Rodolphus' mind.

Confusion at first spilled across his features and then realisation and Rodolphus struggled as best he could against this violation; he had fifty years of memories that belonged to no man but himself.

And yet he could do nothing.

The mental magics were beyond him; they always had been and they always would be, no matter what this experience was to teach him. There were flashes of the meeting with his master, remembered emotions that spilled through him harder than he remembered feeling them the first time. Love, loyalty, affection, devotion; they tumbled like dirty waters down his spine and he struggled against them more so than even Frank, who lay outside these memories somewhere he no longer could sense. And there was Corbina and there was Chloris, affection and anger and depression at different memories ripped out of time into a mangled amalgam of confusing snapshots. He couldn't breathe and he hadn't the self-consciousness to be grateful that Frank's lack of control made the memories haphazard and telling of little more than his own weaknesses.

A flash of a younger version of his father than he'd seen in decades, and he balked, a pained noise escaping him somewhere in the chest.

He refused to demand the auror stop. He would not degrade himself. Memories were less painful to the ego than admitting that pain.

His own brow flattened and his teeth ground together as he received the impact of memories that swelled and flowed like a tidal crash against his own mind. What working knowledge Frank had of Obliviation encompassed a minute familiarity -- if that at all -- with Legilimency and his own clumsiness with the spell could only have worked with the added synergy of a mind that heaved with the panic of pain and fear and hatred combined. Rodolphus' was such a mind, and the images that flowed from him were almost overpowering in their disorder and the strength of the emotions that lay behind them.

Some were fainter; others were stronger and evoked an acridity in his own mouth. Frank tightened his fingers on Rodolphus' jaw in a reflexive, physical attempt to brace himself in preparation for the next flood of remembered images as he cast the spell, focusing on those that had resonated most strongly.

A noise of protest came unbidden, but Rodolphus was pinned and struggling amounted to excrutiating pain (which he could only inflict upon himself to a degree before his body rebelled) and no escape. Memories were pouring forward against his will and it was an unpleasant realisation which created the strongest feelings from him.

The birth of his son (and his heart lurched as he felt the child in his hands again) and his wedding night with Bellatrix (he struggled violently at Frank's encroaching on that one harder than any before it). His father again, as he'd known him as a boy, and this one lingered, an embarrassing recollection of his own fears and humiliation and scars. The murder of the Prewetts followed suit, dragging along all relevant grief and rage. For a man who was outwardly so reserved, the admission of these emotions was horrifying. His privacy was violated, his hidden away feelings dragged screaming to the surface.

His father again, some weapon in hand. Rodolphus bled beneath it, again and again and again. Corbina, blacked eyes. A compassionate cigarette shared between empathetic siblings. Another beating. "Stop!" He choked out, though it was difficult to sound commanding when every syllable was fraught with miserable pain.

Rodolphus' own horror and shame and dread was imprinted on him, a monochromatic afterimage that scored Frank's mind and prickled beneath his skin. Aversion choked him at the recognition of Bellatrix, whom he wanted to see torn limb for limb for what she'd done -- and then rage gripped him deep in his belly as he recognized the Prewetts and saw, felt how they were murdered.

So many. So many deaths. And now -- Rodolphus, begging him to stop.

"No," was his response, short and final and panted as he clung to those final images that had preceded the plea. Those were the ones he wanted Rodolphus to see again. "Legilimens."

His hands were reaching out blindly for stability, and he found the wall, and he found Frank, and willed himself to fight the compulsive weakness in which he wanted to indulge. He would not ask again, he refused. These were just memories.

Memories of beatings at an age he was too young to recognise, dredged up from places Rodolphus had buried long ago in boxes rotting from disuse. Discipline, he reminded himself in the short respites between pounding visuals and the emotions that threatened to drown him. Discipline was now how it had felt at the time. A time when he was too young to speak properly but old enough to be a man.

His hand clutched at Frank as he steadied himself, but Frank's was a blunt tool and he couldn't escape the sickening lurch of each memory as it was cast into relief against the next. Bellatrix's hysterectomy sprang to mind amidst all these barbaric paternal memories and in one short, sweet moment, the keening pain it tore open was enough relief that he could breathe. But his tormentor had not been sated and they were falling back again to Rodolphus's youth. Brilliant memories of exquisite punishment for any and all wrongs, and though he had learned quickly (precociously, even) how to appease his father, there was no pride against which to contrast the disapproval. It was so thick he could breathe it, so repressive it seemed to sink the air that surrounded them, and yet Frank pushed on and on. He would not yield.

Rodolphus's palm was hitting the ground, and he couldn't remember how it got there.

His own hand had scraped down, exchanging bone and the skin of Rodolphus' ruined jaw for the tattered collar of his shirt, clasping it and twisting the fabric with uncontrollable jerks of his wrist and fingers as the moving images were yielded to him and assimilated. He wanted to retch, he wanted to submit to the burning of his eyes and weep, but most of all he wanted Rodolphus like this always, his features distorted, his body rebelling and out of his control as his mind spewed these things that so hurt him.

As though he'd just completed some endurance sport, his own breath was a struggled thing, drawn with effort and expelled just as forcefully. He didn't even have to recast the spell, but simply wait for the deluge to wear itself out, and he dragged his gaze away and shoved himself backwards on the floor.

Rodolphus was on his knees and then his side, and then there was a wall and he pressed against it for relief, one hand out to steady himself and the other curling around his middle, a poignant reminder that there was no denial strong enough for this physical pain. He felt nauseated but it went beyond his stomach; his soul (and for all the rage and murder and damage, there was a soul deep down) ached. His memories were fresh and raw, even without Frank's meddling hand. He wanted comfort and he could scarcely remember where he was, too preoccupied were his nerves with soothing him after such an ordeal.

They were not up for the task.

His face hurt. His shoulders hurt. His breath hurt. And in spite of everything he'd suffered at the hand of his father -- in life or relived doubly through legilimency -- his loss hurt. He wanted Alcander back, for all his spite and cruelty, and in that wanting he lay. Still. And silent. And hurting.