Frank struck him with the back of his hand, the sound of knuckles and the flattened plane of his fingers as they met Rodolphus' cheek a sharp slap deadened by the heavy silence permeating the room. In his pocket was the small vial he'd obtained from Severus, its precious contents to be used on Rodolphus if all went according to plan. Of course, Lestrange had to be conscious for it to have any effect, and Frank had found him in his contortion of a fetal position, his breath shallow, unresponsive to the sound of his voice.
And so, pain. Sharp and stinging -- and it did the trick just fine.
Rodolphus awoke slowly -- more slowly than a smack to the face ought to have taken, but he was existing in a time-sink now. His senses were growing dead and blunted and his body was processing stimuli so slowly now that he scarcely felt the pain until several seconds later. His eyes opened, and they were dry and red and dull and he stared for a long time before he recognised the angles of Frank's shadow. His healing knowledge was poor at best but he knew that blood loss coupled with nothing but brine (and he knew better than to drink it, but desperation and spite had made the body act of its own accord) was destroying him internally. He didn't know it but his kidneys couldn't handle the salt. His blood was losing water to try and compensate for the overload. He was shutting down to the point that Frank no longer had to bind him.
The world was growing very unkind.
Frank was not worth effort, and so Rodolphus made only the vaguest noise of acknowledgement. He had to preserve his strength to stay alive, because when all of this was said and done, he would walk out of here a free man. The Dark Lord would see to it.
Unfortunately for Rodolphus, Frank did not mean to let him quietly ruminate on the freedom he was so desperate for. Not, at least, in the privacy of his own mind. "Water," he said, and that one single word was followed up by his sliding of an arm beneath the other man's head. Rodolphus' nape was allowed to settle in the crook of his elbow, propping him upwards so that he could receive the cool contents of the tin mug that was pressed to his bruised and broken mouth.
The intimacy of Frank's aid was almost as humiliating as the aid itself, and if Rodolphus had been capable of struggle, he might have attempted it. He was familiar with the mind of a torturer, and he'd been in Frank's position more times than the universe would like to admit, but it changed nothing of his distaste for the situation (but who, really, would find torture tasteful?). His head rolled away from the other man in silent protest, but he had neither the strength nor the real will to refuse the water. When the body was dying, it paid no attention to the mind, and so his cracked lips opened against the protest of mangled jaw-bone and ripped tongue to accept water that he knew would be his downfall.
He hated himself as he gulped it down, he hated himself as 'thank you' tore unbidden from his ruined throat. He hated that he was grateful for it, and he hated his desperation. He wanted to live. More than anything, he wanted to live, and in that knowledge he let potioned water splash down his throat, burning wounds and offsetting his headache by the smallest fraction.
They all wanted to live. Frank wanted to live without the threat of wizards such as Rodolphus Lestrange darkening the homesteads of good men and women -- and he wanted it enough to do this thing that he was doing, sullying himself in order to get answers and further incapacitate the enemy's ranks. To get revenge. To protect Lily. Perhaps the sum of all these did not excuse him, but nothing else could be done, and so he had hammered this formidable man until he was but a pathetic cast of himself, trembling in his arms as he was fed water poisoned with veritaserum.
The rasped words of thanks went unacknowledged, for Frank closed his ears to them, not wanting this sort of gratitude. He almost liked Rodolphus better when he was threatening him with Alice's life. Almost.
"More," was said with an accompanying push of the mug. "All of it, Rodolphus."
The struggle against the demand was a pittance of what he'd once been capable of and Rodolphus loathed his weakness; he deserved punishment for succumbing to the complaints of the body. He could only imagine his father's scorn if he could see him like this. The thought of that man's sneering face was enough to steel him against more water, and he shook his head, coughing, spluttering liquid down his chin and scarred chest. "No," he choked, pushing away weakly. He could not remember any time in his life that he'd been so powerless, and it burned away the vestiges of his ruined pride. How could he have let it come to this? He should have killed himself that first night. Now he wasn't even strong enough to do that.
What was to become of him? He'd be returned a pathetic shadow of himself? Bellatrix would coax him back to health? The Dark Lord would punish him, oh Merlin how he would punish him for his weakness -- but he would earn back his Lord's favour. He would be good in His presence again. Faith would be his bastion.
What remained of the water slopped over the rim of the mug -- but no matter. Enough had been put into him, and in his weakened state, Rodolphus would only succumb more rapidly to the effects of the potion. He would struggle against it, he would know that he had no choice but to give answers that needed to remain unspoken, and that, Frank knew, would be more damaging to his psyche than any number of physical blows. Already he had surrendered his memories and the emotions that colored -- or stained -- them; now he would speak.
The cup was set aside, and he shifted, withdrawing his arm and the support it gave from Rodolphus' neck, letting him settle on the floor as he himself sat back, watching him closely. Finally, after a long moment, he broke the silence with the sound of his own voice. "Do you understand yet why you're here?"
With a soft noise of pain, Rodolphus crumpled back against the floor, shifting as best he could to take his weight off the shoulder Jo had so utterly ruined. He focused on breathing at first, at keeping himself from tasting blood and filth, but there was little point. He breathed in dirt. He smelt himself on the ground. He knew what was to come, and acrid water spilled into his mouth as he vomited. There was no escaping veritaserum.
"Snape betrayed me." It was a simple sentence, but it told more than Rodolphus liked. That he trusted Snape to begin with was now a painful admission. He would see to it that the man was tortured slowly and then fed to the wolves.
Frank had seen too many of his own friends and colleagues retch up the contents of their stomachs as their body rebelled against them, and Rodolphus heaving beside him now did little in the way of repelling him. Lestrange was not the apollonian figure he prided himself on being; he was sweat and blood and vomit, just like any other man. His body would fail him. His body had failed him.
"Why Lily?" A hand reached out to clasp Rodolphus' shoulder, the one that was still intact (-- relatively, for both had at some point been snapped out of socket and shoved back in again), gripping it tightly as he rolled him back toward him. "What is the full measure of your interest in her?"
"I obey my master," came the immediate, ragged reply, and Rodolphus did not struggle against his flapping tongue yet. No, it was the next bit he did not wish to divulge, but he had no choice, and though his hands clutched at the ground and his stomach tightened, he spoke as easily as if this conversation had been his own idea.
"He wishes all July births to be terminated. From our information her child is due soon."
The words plowed into him, resonated dully, and the bottom went out of his heart as their implication became immediately clear. All July births -- but no, there had been no patronus, no shaking, ringing journal. Alice was safe. Alice and their unborn child were safe. And that knowledge did nothing to suppress the urge to abandon this man to his shit and stench and return to his wife's side, but suppress it he did, replacing it with a protective, almost paternal, anger that would have to see him through what remained of his time with Rodolphus.
"Why? What's the reason behind this new culling?"
A groan, and Rodolphus adjusted again; but it seemed there was no part of him that didn't hurt unbearably. The question was a pointless one, and if he had been capable of humour he would have laughed, though he knew not why or to what end. His answer, again, immediate:
"Our master does not waste his time explaining reason." As if this was the stupidest expectation in the world. As if Rodolphus was capable of questioning the Dark Lord's orders.
"You fucking mindless pack animal," was a low, rough snarl, emphasized by the furrow of his fist into the shoulder Jo had mangled with her knife. "And if it had been your child, would you do it? Is that the sort of man your father taught you to be?"
Life flared in Rodolphus's eyes, in the form of anger and pain; the wound on his shoulder was but a bare ache compared to the wound Frank ripped open with so careless (or perhaps poignant) a question. He wanted to ask Frank what the hell he thought he knew about his father (as if those flashes and extremes of emotions were any indicator of what he'd learned as a child). He wanted to sneer and lash out. But he answered in time, almost affectless but for the rasp of his barely wetted throat.
"Yes, if it was ordered" and it was both a relief and a discomfort to admit. He would kill Marius if the Dark Lord ordered it, and though he should have felt shame, he couldn't. The Dark Lord would never order him to make that sacrifice. It made the admission all right. He was loyal and his master rewarded loyalty. He had to believe that or he had nothing, was nothing. "My father taught me to be a man of duty and reason. Shedding tears over duty would have wrought nothing but scorn." He struggled again against the floor (these things were none of Frank's business) but his shoulders would not hold his weight and he collapsed again with a growl of pain.
Frank's response was a short bark of humorless laughter. "Your father beat you to a pulp," he returned. Like father, like son. "Shall I remind you?"
Rodolphus jerked, and insisted, through gritted teeth: "A father has every right to discipline his child." Had he believed otherwise he would never have left Corbina and Rabastan to the merciless hand of their father. It was a necessary truth; any other would have broken him, and he was not a man who, despite the current situation, could ever be accused of easily breaking.
Frank did not want to know more, but this was a particularly raw nerve he'd uncovered. To not exploit it would be stupid; his time, his effort, everything he was putting into this, would be wasted if he did not take advantage of this gaping weakness that, for all of Rodolphus' attempts to rationalize it, had festered. "Were you a bad child, then? What did you do to deserve all of these?" He motioned at the scars -- the old ones, faded but never completely gone -- that littered his chest.
Hatred smeared across the backs of Rodolphus's eyes and again he dug his palms into the ground, ignoring the pain of broken nails as he struggled to rise. Frank could knock him down again, again, but he had to try, he had to force his dried, abused muscles to obey him. He pleaded with them inwardly and managed an inch, though much of his energy went into speaking, which he had to do, no matter how desperately he resisted. He hated Frank for asking questions with no value whatsoever. He hated himself for answering.
"I was a child with lessons to learn." A grunt as his shoulders refused his commands and his elbows shook. The rest of him was not cooperating and as his frustration grew, his answers became breathless, angry. "I was taught them. I was taught --" he collapsed, fingers crumpling beneath him in several loud snaps as he groaned in anguish, still speaking despite himself "-- duty, tradition, manners. My father was strict." Shaking in pain now, he tried diversion next. "Should you not see to your wife? She is due soon as well, isn't she?"
"Manners, Rodolphus." His wand glowed red-hot, the reek of burning flesh filling his nose and mouth as he drove it into the gaping wound in Lestrange's shoulder. "She's none of your business." Finality in his voice. "Manners -- duty, tradition. Did you teach them to Marius like that? Did you break your little boy to instill those lessons?"
"NO." And Rodolphus inwardly justified the vehemence as a product of the excruciating pain throbbing through his ravaged shoulder and not his emphatic, deeply buried objection to reusing his father's time-honoured methods. He turned away, ostensibly to seek some other method of escape, but he could feel the heat rising to his cheeks, and the danger of emotion behind his eyes and he hated Frank too much to give him the satisfaction of dredging up feelings from however far he'd thrust them.
The glowing wand tip was pressed into the soft crevice that ran along the underside of his mandible, the pressure behind it meant to force Rodolphus into turning back and looking at him.
"Why not?" he breathed. "Weren't they good lessons? Look how well they worked with you."
A noise of pain and though he struggled, Rodolphus was forced to acquiesce. He was bleeding again, from somewhere... the metallic tang of salted blood was in the air and, though suffocating, was a reminder that was alive -- and he clung to life with voracity, even here, even through this torturous question and answer session.
He could not filter his words, he could not lie, and he was growing too weak to muster up rage at his tormentor. "I am not my father," he spat, and the struggle grew apparent with every syllable. His eyes drifted to the wall and he thought of Marius, whom he'd sent away as a child. He regretted that action now, for the first time. He shuddered at the barest recollection of his motive: fear. "I sent him away." Struggling. It seemed all he knew how to do. Words shoved forcefully through his mouth filled him with resentment at his memories.
The wand went cold, and Frank lowered it before rising to his feet and moving away from Rodolphus. "Why did you do that?" he asked. That flatness in his tone hinted correctly at how much he did not care -- but if such confessions pained Rodolphus, so be it, he would ask and he would listen. "Why did you send him away? Scared you would become your father?"
His gut wrenched, and a sharp breath brought in dirt and blood. Rodolphus was so tired of the blood. He was tired of the smell and taste and the way it consumed him from the inside out. He was thirsty and sleepy and Frank's pestering was eating at him in ways he hated to confess. And yet that vile potion made him speak. Again and again. Stop formed upon his lips but remained unvoiced and there there was not enough gritting of his teeth and strain against his lips that could stop one syllable from escaping: "yes." The admission tore into him, and he stared, hatefully, blankly on as his mouth snapped shut, as his eyes gathered up every speck of moisture left to him. He closed them in revulsion; if there was one thing his father was happy to beat a child for it was crying. His weakness sickened him.
It was, he knew, an agonizing admission, and yet, even as he witnessed Rodolphus break down in that withered, horrible way, he experienced not one tinge of sympathy. Every painful truth that had been uprooted and shared with an enemy -- he wanted Rodolphus to feel the full measure of it, to feel shame, to realize that his situation was so far beyond desperate. He wanted him to die just as his faith left him.
"I'll pass the message on," he said quietly, "when we find him." And kill him. "It's only a matter of time -- look how well we're weeding your family out of the picture."
Something snapped. Rodolphus was too tired and too hurt and too sick not to be goaded. He didn't want Frank laying a single damned finger on his son or his sister or his grandchild, and the hatred twisted his features as he put every last shred of energy he had into shoving himself -- not upwards but -- forward, lashing out to grab Frank's outstretched wand, knowing that this was his final chance to free himself and save those he loved. Rage gurgled in his throat, mottled with salt and blood and the vestiges of acid and water.
It was a feeble, pathetic attempt, requiring only the slam of the heel of his hand into the back of Rodolphus' head to send him sprawling back onto the floor. He could feel the dead weight of the man against the toes of his shoes, but rather than nudge and prod at him in some mockery of triumph, save for sliding his wand back up his sleeve, he remained still.
Then, starkly: "You can't save them anymore."
Five short words but Rodolphus understood. His last burst of effort left him in a heap on the stone, unable to force movement through his failing body. Too many cells had collapsed upon themselves in desperate efforts to counteract ingested brine. Too much abuse had been torn across his shoulders. He was bleeding inside and out. He was dizzy and half blind. It would not be a dignified death in battle or in bed, but a pointless one that would leave him crumpled and dirty upon the floor, a broken mess of a man who still, even now, prayed for the Dark Lord to intervene. He wanted to hold his grandchild. He wanted to give Corbina away at her wedding. He wanted to touch Bellatrix one last time.
He exhaled, short and sharp and shallow. Tears clung to his lashes and he was ashamed, but he could not move to hide them. If he couldn't protect them he was of no use, and he was unequipped to accept that lingering, humbling fact. He was of no use.
Frank sunk into a crouch before him, arms draped across his thighs as he watched Rodolphus. The man had recognized what lay behind his words; the twitching of his body, his ragged, shallow breathing, and that dampness that coated the hollows beneath his eyes all proved thus, betraying what little privacy he thought he had left to him as the realization of his own mortality was made a physical, tangible thing.
He was going to die. This they both knew.
"Know that we won't stop with you." Reaching out and turning Rodolphus' head was an easy thing, for there was little resistance left in him. "You've taken too much from us, you and your kind, and blood calls for blood." The words soured his mouth -- and yet they were true, for such was the world they lived in. "You killed Marlene. You killed the Prewetts, and Benjy. You killed too many, Rodolphus, and the price of that will be high. You think your Lord will stop and save your little sister when it's time to pay up?" A pause. "He won't lift a finger."
His eyes closed a long moment, humiliation at being watched as his body caved in to fear -- and now it wasn't for his own death, but for his family, the only thing that could compare to his love of his master -- drenching his face. When he opened them again his fire had leaked away into his eyelashes and he was, in this moment, wholly and utterly vulnerable. The veritaserum still plagued his tongue and what he rasped out was no longer fixed and fervent certainty, but hope. All that he had remaining to him with power and dignity stripped roughly away.
"He must."
"He hasn't saved you."
Pain spilled over every wrinkle, every hard earned scar that Rodolphus had sacrificed for his master. Every treacherous memory rose unbidden; the dead wife he had neglected to follow his Lord across the world. The son he had passed away to foreigners to relieve him of familial duties while he built Voldemort's army. Bellatrix's ability to bear children. His father. His sister. Sacrifices to His cause. There was still time.
"I am not worthy of saving." But the veritaserum must have been wearing off now for he could not imagine how it would be so.
At last, something they agreed on. The smile that tilted his lips held no warmth, no humor; it did not touch his eyes. "No, you're not," he responded. "You're the fodder he would build on. All of you are. Replaceable, Rodolphus."
There was no response. Rodolphus's eyes closed again and he kept them closed, unwilling to face what was so obviously the truth. He thought only of the family he left behind and how he had failed them. And how disgusted his father would be by the sight of him like this. There was nothing left for him to give, and still, and still he yearned to repent, to save them, to prove himself worthy to his master, to his father. There was no more to be scraped from this shadow of himself. He was helpless.
Rocking forward brought his knees to the floor, steadying Frank as he reached for Rodolphus. This was it, he thought; it had all culminated in this, him sitting here, the stony desire to end this life sitting heavily in his chest as he peeled Rodolphus from the ground, propping him up one final time. There was a blade in his hand, cold and unfamiliar to the fingers that gripped it, but it did not shake, for it had one destination, one purpose, and in that Frank would not falter. He would not.
Sitting upright, even supported by Frank, was agonising. His body was unwilling. His mind doubly so. But he fought for coherence before what he knew would be his end.
"Coat," he rasped.
Frank's grip on his shoulder tightened as he sought to still his swaying. His voice was quiet. "And would you grant me my last request?"
But the coat was summoned nonetheless, his wand thrown aside with a clatter as he grabbed the forgotten garment out of the air. He settled it over the breadth of Rodolphus' frame, keeping one hand on him, and then leaned back.
-- and then the blade found flesh in the space of a heartbeat. Newly scarred skin, sclerosed bone, muscle and vessel alike: all of it gave way to the metal that slammed up the underside of his jaw. A single, powerful thrust was all that was required to have it rent right through the floor of his mouth -- and then the roof of it, and further up still, up and up and upward until the hilt was nestled by flesh and could go no further.
Rodolphus was granted seconds only before the knife penetrated his brain, his last thing of value, and in those seconds there were no flashes of his life, there were no moments of realisation or epiphany. There was only silence and the smell of metal and blood, and there was misery. Fear. He was dead before his body slumped over, a heavy, lifeless sack of nothing.
And in his hand, in his broken fingers, (which had found their way into the coat in the heartbeats before his death) the thin, cold, line of Gideon's dogtag lay twisted. Repented.