Schrödinger's Lestrange (lupusmalus) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-07-28 01:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! [1980-07] july, frank longbottom, josephine pepper (née savage), rodolphus lestrange |
Who: Frank & Rodolphus & Jo!
Where: Ted's basement
When: 28 July 1980
Status: Complete
Rating: R
The arrival of the two former Aurors was met with some resistance by the wards that swathed the house before they relented and allowed them through. As soon as the ground beneath his feet was a stable, solid thing again, Frank released Jo's elbow, which he had gripped easily in order to bring her from the city street corner he'd told her to meet him at. His wand replaced her arm in his hand as he instantly felt the inner wards which kept the man they'd come to see in, and finding them intact, he canted his head in the direction of the room-turned-cell and started in that direction.
He'd neglected to tell her whose house this was, and firmly ignored the pictures that waved at them from the walls of the hallway as he led her to the door of what had once been a living room. Now, beyond the still-locked door, lay a four-walled prison, fortified and dark and spartan, rid of all personal knickknacks and furniture save for a table and one chair. There'd been a second, but Rodolphus himself had smashed it, and Frank had gotten rid of it so that he would not return to see the man impaled on a shard of wood from some last ditch attempt to save himself and everything that he carried in his head.
Sparing Jo one final, thoughtful glance -- she was among the many who had history with Lestrange -- he undid the spells that kept the door bolted shut, the creak as it swung open a familiar sound as he stepped into the oppressive darkness within.
A wasting away Rodolphus Lestrange lay curled in the corner of one room, bound there by shame and injury and, most importantly, taut cord that bit into the thick strands of muscle -- his only only weapons in this place made impotent by hunger and thirst and pain. He had managed scraps of sleep since the previous night, small fragments of rest that ultimately hurt him more than helped; relaxed muscles pressed harder into the sharp wire binding him and he awoke startled, pained, and, though he wouldn't admit it, afraid. Rodolphus's bravery, his will, was based on two things: strength and faith... and the first was failing him drastically, leaving only the memory of his Dark Lord to keep him sane through the night.
Soon enough, it was not pain that started him awake from his meagre lapses into unconsciousness, but thirst. His throat and tongue burned for water, and his eyes seemed dryer every time he opened them to stare blindly into the black room. It might have been days. He couldn't tell anymore. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Another brief, uncomfortable spell of 'sleep' and Rodolphus was waking again, though now it was to the sound of metal scraping metal, to the shudder of unwilling hinges. Frank.
But there was a second gait, and Rodolphus knew, deep down, whom he'd brought with him.
Though Frank’s explanation of the situation had been terse and ‘need to know’, Jo was happy to accompany him on this mission to eke out of Rodolphus Lestrange what he so happily wrung from others.
Blood.
His precious, pure, unadulterated blood.
She knew better than to ask questions. This was business, and with a nod of understanding to Frank, she walked forward to kneel and placed her hand gently on Rodolphus’s shoulder. A breath of thick, salty, alkaline air burned her nose. Again, words managed to fail her. This was the moment she had dreamed of since the first time he so intimately tortured her. She would not let herself fall to its magnanimity.
“Are you thirsty, Rodolphus?”
He did not speak. His pride still lingered within, despite his destroyed appearance and weakening limbs. Being bound before Josephine was a more vicious sacrifice than Frank had yet exacted from him, and he would not acknowledge her, not yet, though his insides begged him for water. His throat ached for it, his stomach strained and lurched at the suggestion. He would not ask. He would not drink. He would not succumb. He had his faith and it would hold him.
She stood, her expression thoughtful, before she used the toe of her boot to nudge him onto his back. The desire she felt for him so long ago was gone - in its place lay cold hatred, clinical distance - and she knelt beside him again, shrugging out of her light jacket. With a flick of her wand it was transfigured into a long, dark towel that she placed over his eyes.
"Rodolphus. I asked if you were thirsty."
At the corner of his lips dried blood was made whole again as his swollen tongue dampened in anticipation of what he refused and saliva escaped in a narrow trickle. He wondered that he had moisture left to salivate, but that seemed a secondary concern now. Rough fabric blinded him, and he struggled uselessly, a vain attempt that succeeded only in crushing his fingers beneath him, in straining much-abused shoulder-joints. He was tired and wished to sleep (but the thirst kept it just beyond his grasp, no matter how heavy his eyes became) and he wished for Josephine to leave.
When he spoke, it was in broken, dry syllables that cracked with the effort of opening his jaw. "I should have killed you when I had the chance."
His answer was irrelevant, but he spoke it anyway, knowing that, even on hindsight, he would not have killed her.
"You are a liar, Rodolphus. A liar, a murderer, a thief of goodness in people. You prey on their fears, their hopes, their desires ... you cross boundaries that ought never be crossed. You wreck lives. You create monsters. You venture into the homes and private lives of people who are a thousand times your better, despite their lacking blood purity."
Her wand swung inches above his face, hovering between his nose and lips.
"And for what? For families that break even though you spill pure blood to maintain your dominance, for incest, for reactionary ideology, for power. In France we would cut off your head. You will not take the power from good people, Rodolphus. You will not live off the fat of the lady while you segregate others. You are an antique creature. It is time that you be put away ... "
And as her speech died away, her wand flourished and she uttered a quiet "Aguamenti!", gentle enough that the water would not drown him entirely, but with enough volume that it would be more than uncomfortable.
His reply ("I deny nothing"), spoken in half-formed guttural rasps, was drowned out by water, and Rodolphus's reaction was an horrible one. His body leapt at the substance it so desperately needed while his brain, convinced it was drowning, sent shocks of desperation to his stomach, his thighs. Water filled his nostrils and his mouth, but he couldn't swallow it, only struggle and feel as it swamped his lungs, only to drain out again and flow over the sides of his face and onto the floor, lost. Water became a necessity second to air now and he screamed (for there was no other noise he could make against the invasive force), gurgled, thrashed; he thrust his hip, trying to find his side and breathe but inhaled water again, again, again.
As the water abated, she fell to her knees beside him and wrenched his chin to her, flapping aside the towel as she directed his gaze to be full of nothing but her.
"You deserve this. You deserve so much worse." And then, "What in the fucking fuck do you have to say for yourself?"
His mouth was wet but he couldn't swallow, he could scarcely breathe, even as liquid poured from his nose and mouth and onto unforgiving stone. He could see Josephine, though dehydration dimmed his senses; the curve of her cheek, the hair he'd touched, the skin he'd bitten. Even now, in this destroyed power scheme, he was possessive; but his hands were bound and his limbs weak. He had nothing to offer her but that which would fuel her hatred.
"I regret nothing," he gasped, lungs struggling to succumb to his desire to speak.
"Hopeless," was a scoff. "Absolutely, incontrovertibly hopeless."
There was a moment of hapless silence as she considered his face, before a set of brass knuckles were pulled from her back pocket. Making a fist around them as she held onto his chin with the other hand, she brought them down upon his chin, his temple, the soft bridge of his nose.
"Do you set yourself at a pin's fee? Are you willing to give your life so vaingloriously? You will not be mourned, Rodolphus, there will not be enough pieces of you left."
He howled, without the presence of mind for shame; the crunch of an already damaged jaw sent splinters of bone into his mouth, dislodged from where they'd been messily pieced back together. And his nose was broken and blood gushed from his nose, the pungent taste of salt above all else puckering his lips and tongue. It was nauseating and he retched, though there was nothing to spill but blood, and it spattered across Josephine -- one final claim to her soft curves that he could not follow up.
And with his temple he crumpled; his sight blurred, his howl turned to a moan that poured slowly from him in the wake of more blood, more saliva (the last traces of his precious water). He clawed at the floor beneath him, breaking already short nails against unyielding rock. He mumbled but there were no words; only wet noises of pain and understanding.
She stood again, listening with satisfaction to his howls as the bloody brass knuckles dangled from her fist. Her wand was on him again, another silent Aguamenti, this time aimed not straight up his nose but firm on the side of his face.
"Rennervate! You will fucking speak when you're spoken to, Rodolphus."
He wanted the water so badly he was sick with desperation, and he twisted his head this way and that for a taste -- just a taste of it. But his only purchase was the blood-tainted drips that managed to splash into his mouth, a saline mockery of refreshment that he couldn't bear. His muscles were fatiguing and fighting and shaking and no amount of self-restraint would stop them bucking her grasp for the water. Humiliation was a falling third to how viciously thirsty he was, and even the memory of a disapproving father could not stop him now. But he maintained a shred of will, a thread of self-control, and he would not speak.
"Pathetic! Where is your strength now ... Rennervate!" and her knife, the pretty curved thing she received from Pepper, was in her hand and plunging into his shoulder, there to stay. "Is this how you broke Marlene? Is this how you killed her parents and her siblings ... is this how you tell Greyback to maul the good people that are left?" Her hand still on the handle gave the thing a vicious twist. She knew she should ask him things, things that could be useful to their fight, but she left that to Frank. This was far too personal.
Ennervate kept him conscious but his strength was depleted; her words burned into his psyche and though he had no shame, no remorse, they hurt and he did not know why. Perhaps because they were spoken by his favourite toy; another creature he'd put some semblance of time into and who had betrayed him. What other expectation he could have had, he did not know, but still the betrayal burned. Gideon. Severus. Josephine. He was tired.
Slumping forward, he could do little but groan into Josephine's neck as blood poured from his destroyed shoulder; the joint had been stressed already to the point of collapse, and now, where blade bit and twisted, he was left with nothing. His breath was ragged at her ear, wet with blood and soured with salt. He was too weak to drag himself away, and in this debauched intimacy, he felt alone. He answered her now, in one devastating syllable: "yes."
And as his blood ran sluggish down her shoulder, her hand found the back of his neck as she braced and brought the knife out. Her voice was quiet as her lips pressed against his ear, "As long as I live you will never be safe. I will hunt you."
Rodolphus's moan died hot against her ear and his chest sunk harder into hers as he began to lose control of his vision. Her hair was a fuzzed mass of browns, her skin a canvas of white and reds. He remembered to breathe. He felt her words spill over him. His reply was disjointed and made with effort, dulled by missing teeth and a twice shattered mandible. "I'll be waiting."
She pushed against his chest, loosening his weight against her as she rose and gave final consideration to the man who lay broken in his massive heap upon the floor. She wanted to release him. She wanted to dare him to fight her. But she picked up her knife, wiped the blade clean on the black towel that was her jacket, and walked to the far edge of the room to signal to Frank that she was ready. That this was over.
Frank, who had taken that one sole chair and relegated himself to the bloodless task of mixing water and salt, looked up when the immediate sounds of struggle faded into the hungry gasps of a man desperate to fill his lungs and dominate the pain that racked his body, and Jo's footsteps on the floor. He had little understanding of the undercurrent that ran deeper than her naked need to hurt Rodolphus, and even less interest in learning more about it (now -- doubtless it was a result of being preoccupied with his own grievances and own need for retaliation), but he had been only too willing to let Jo inflict wounds he could never hope to approximate. Surely the pain was more sharply poignant when dealt by one Lestrange had such history with.
As she came to linger by the door, he got to his feet, tin bowl in hand and held levelly so as to not spill its watery contents. He paused by the vulnerable body. "Will you last the night, Rodolphus?" he asked, name dropped flatly out in order to get his attention in case it had already flickered out.
From where he lay wet and crumpled and exhausted, Rodolphus deigned to turn his chin up at Frank. Strength leaked from his shoulder and he had a difficult time forming words with a twice destroyed mouth, but somehow, some way, he managed, and even forced a smile up into the corners of the slash that comprised his mouth. "For you, Longbottom, I last two."
He might even, he thought, even as he said, "I'll take that wager."
A step back, and then he was setting the bowl on the floor, removed enough from Rodolphus so that he could not knock its contents away with a clumsy drop of his hand, but close enough that he, in his debilitated state, could crawl to it. "Water."
There was a tic at Rodolphus's side at the mention of water, but even after so horrendous an ordeal, he was thirsty. Damned thirsty, and even the desire to spite Frank couldn't make it go away. Denying his bodily desires had been something he'd practised for a long enough time that had this been purely a want, he'd have been just fine. Unfortunately, it was something along the lines of a need, and try as he might to put the idea of water out of his mind, all he could think about was the curves of the bowl and how wonderful it would be just to have the smallest sip of water. He hesitated, and then moved over, trying and failing not to crawl. His ego could not take much more of this, but he'd worry about it after he'd gotten that sip.
Revulsion hit immediately as salt-water hit his tongue, and he had to struggle not to retch. Though adept in the art of torture, he was not familiar with the physiological effects of salt, and so, to spite his captor as fully and as angrily as he was able, He tipped the bowl up and drank the entire contents, using will alone to keep from vomiting it straight back up. His stomach knew that this was not what he should be drinking, and a headache blossomed out in an instant, but he felt this victory, miniscule and self-damaging as it was. He needed something to which he could cling.
Though emphasized by his throaty, frantic slurps, it was a quietly grotesque scene, and Frank remained impassive throughout. Knowing how heavy the solution was in brine made his own tongue thick in his mouth, his throat dry, but rather than turn away, he merely waited until Rodolphus had drained the bowl before speaking again.
"How're your odds looking now?"
"Even," came the raspy reply, and Rodolphus curled against the ground as his stomach complained. He felt very certain he'd be ill soon, and if he wasn't ill who knew what misfortune lay in store for him? (And here were silent fears that he'd bleed out before two days were through). He just wanted Frank to leave so that he could commiserate on his own. But his wants were likely not the top of the priority list, given this was a torture session. He was cognisant of that fact. And still, he wished.
The bowl was retrieved, refilled, and resettled on the floor. "Not from where I'm standing," he confided in a low tone before straightening and turning half-away from Rodolphus. Wards and locks were released with a gesture from his wand, and he waited for Jo to step out before he headed toward the door himself. The ropes he'd bound him with at first were no longer necessary -- if Rodolphus succumbed and forced himself to drag down more of that salt-thick water, he would be worse off than he was now -- and so his concern as they left lay with the securing of the location, rather than the man the four walls contained.
There was a groan, followed by a click as the locking mechanism sprang into action, and then the wards snapped up again as the aurors abandoned Rodolphus to his silence and his misery.