Interrogation
Who: Pepper, Edgar and Roman Where: The Ministry, holding cell 13-B When: Saturday May 3, afternoon What: Roman has answers, Pepper and Edgar have unresolved anger issues questions Rating: PG-13? Depends exactly how vindictive they get Warnings: Scary Pepper is scary. Angry Edgar is angry. Status: Gdocs/Complete
It was only early afternoon on Saturday and already Pepper was half-tempted to just go back home and curl up in bed, with or without those accursed drugs. He ached, not in a good way, and the ache was making him cranky, and he hadn't slept well so he was tired on top of it - but there was work to be done and this, at least, he would enjoy. A bag full of books and a bearded dragon would get in the way a bit though, so he stopped home long enough to drop them off, change into his blue hit wizard robes and knock back a shot of whiskey (following it with the last of the milk to get the smell off his breath) before heading back in to the Ministry itself, making his way through the labyrinthine corridors to get to the DMLE and locate Edgar.
"Damned things..." The usual muttered protestations of Edgar Bones doing his reports and filing, but most of the time they went unheeded. Edgar tended to do all of his less important work at home (and didn't that just make his wife feel like the most special woman in the world?), but today had been slow and he had time to spare. Perhaps it was because everyone was lying low after the attacks, or perhaps it was simply because everyone else had stolen the more fun assignments before he'd arrived, but everything was all laid out now. His journal lay to one side, still open at the page where he'd summoned Pepper. The things might be a nuisance, but they were a damn sight less annoying than those tags that Fenwick was making them wear. Edgar's hung around his neck, lying over his robes -- clearly secrecy only mattered so far.
Working on Selwyn was likely to be lengthy and unpleasant, and Edgar didn't much have the patience for it. The idea of the Death Eaters appalled him: after all, he fought them as an Auror and an Order member, which meant his temper was roughly half the size of a normal Ministry worker. They might have made a mistake assigning him to this...but nobody would know until it was all over which way Bones had gone. He looked up as he heard footsteps approaching, setting his quill down for just a moment. Edgar expected Pepper, but this was the middle of the afternoon at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement -- it could literally be anyone arriving.
It was hardly surprising to find Edgar at his desk surrounded by papers; he made a very studious picture, with half the desks around him empty for the weekend and that whole pompous stiff upper lip, lower lip, spine, etc, thing he had going on. It made Pepper want to mess things up somehow just to annoy him. He resisted the urge somehow, temper shorter than usual today - and that was probably saying something. He could stop from snapping at his co-workers, they had a long history of mocking each other, but faced with an actual Death Eater, he could see things turning quite vicious sometime in the very near future. "Let's get this party started!" he announced, a note of very cold cheerfulness colouring his tone in interesting fashions. "We've got all afternoon before we even hit overtime."
Edgar nodded. "Merlin forbid we should only be paid fair wage for this...that said, should we even be getting paid for doing this kind of work? Seems more like a hobby to me." Even with Rufus mysteriously missing from his desk -dead perhaps, or kidnapped- Edgar still had to glance over his shoulder. His own propensity to talk about hurting suspects often rubbed Scrimgeour the wrong way, even if talking about it was far more preferable to actually doing it -- apparently, this time, there might be a two-for-one deal in the making. He didn't like the feeling inside him, the cold and slimy movement in his stomach that seemed to herald the rulebook being thrown out of a nearby window: he was filled, it felt, by the Eels of Naughty Behaviour, and currently listening to them seemed like a far better idea than actually adhering to protocol. "Let's go, then."
His quill standing upright now in its inkwell, Edgar headed off for the lifts: Pepper would follow without being led around like a puppy.
The puppy comparison would have seriously rankled if Pepper could read minds - luckily for Edgar he didn't. He drew even with the Auror as they headed down to the basements, ignoring the ache in his abdominal muscles at all the standing and walking. First thing when they got to the cell he was going to summon a goddamned chair to sit down in. They passed through the checkpoint to the holding area without trouble, passing empty cells and those filled with petty criminals alike - even this early in the weekend they had a few in that were just detoxing, and the usual assaults and the like. Selwyn was further down. He stood at guard, wand ready, as Edgar unlocked the door, unwilling to take any chances with some idiotic escape attempt.
Roman was sitting in the back of the cell, his hands rubbing over his face as he groaned yet again. He couldn't believe he had been so stupid as to think that they would've just let him go on the grounds of confounded, or the fact that he had actually allowed himself to become confounded, it was boggling to the mind that he had let his guard down. He knew how everyone else about him at his moment, and to think that they would forget it and not do anything was just naive on his part, and idiotic. He dropped his head back and looked up at the ceiling, banging it against the wall a couple times for a good measure. He heard the door turn and he dropped his head forward, not bothering to move, it would be futile anyway. He had no wand, and would be killed before he even got a chance to go near the door. He had studied these sorts of cases and now he was going to become one, well, only if he couldn't help it. "Yes?" he asked, managing to sound arrogant and in charge even though he was sitting in a cell in the middle of the ministry. "Something I can help you with?"
Oh, this was going to be fun. Edgar hadn't been able to dismiss the guard outside -- somebody needed to be there to watch the cell at all times, but -once they were both inside, and the door had been shut- Edgar turned back and waved his wand idly. A hazy pink mist covered the doorway, and hung there looking innocent and feminine in contrast to the dank cell. He stepped forward a few feet, the tone of condescension that he usually used on Pepper sounding positively flirtatious in comparison to the utter disdain he held for the man sitting in front of him.
Edgar smiled, much like a Red Cap might. "Yes, there is a little something you can help us with. I can't promise you're going to like it, but you can be helpful all the same." He pulled a notebook and a quill out of his robes which, when dropped, sprang to life and hovered about three feet in the air -- even without eyes, it seemed to watch Selwyn.
As promised to himself earlier, Pepper waved his wand idly to summon a swivelly desk chair upholstered in dark blue, easing himself down onto it casually to hide the fact that it was more necessary than he'd like. "Well, you might like it," he commented, voice light and airy as though they were on a friendly social call. "You never know. And face it, it's not as though your friends were trying very hard to get you back when we came across you. We could get on a lot better than that." The last sentence was vaguely menacing, though that could have just been in his mind. He was, after all, perhaps the one person who knew without a doubt just what he was capable of.
Roman sat up a little bit more when he noticed the pink mist settle over the door and he almost frowned, but then kept his face calm, collected as he tilted his head to the side innocently. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said allowing himself to frown then, in confusion almost. He needed to play stupid first, like he was innocent in all of this matter even though he wasn't. "Like I told the guards, I was confounded, I don't know how I got there," he said earnestly as he moved to stand up before shaking his head as if to clear it. "This is all just a misunderstanding."
Edgar didn't need to speak, in order to convey the air of utter disbelief he felt over Roman's words. The look on his face was more than enough, but to drive the point home he raised his wand. "Indeed," he replied, trying to keep a companionable tone of voice. "Forgive me if, in my haste to circumvent the accepted legal practices, I don't take your word for that." He flicked his wand sideways, the charm Levicorpus running non-verbally across his mind.
"You were seen, indeed captured, at a crime scene, dressed in the vestments of the Death Eaters. You claim it was a simple misunderstanding: with all the extra blood in your head now, could you perhaps explain this massive coincidence? A predilection for masks, perhaps?" His neutral tone was, perhaps, a little off-putting: normally people betrayed a little emotion in moments like these. To his right, the notebook and quill lay dormant, evidently waiting to note down Roman's words and actions, and not Edgar or Pepper's.
"Singed robes, spell damage, cuts and bruises, enough internal damage to be coughing up blood," Pepper added, idly kicking the chair back and forth across a sixty degree circle segment. "And priori incantatem didn't exactly turn up an innocuous lumos, either." Actually he wasn't sure what priori incantatem had turned up - there were a lot of reports to read and only so much time to do it in, and he'd been busy trying to memorise other facts and sift through the information to get it straight in his mind. He was willing to bet it hadn't been innocuous though. "Do you think you've had enough time here to concoct a reasonable conspiracy theory in which someone purposely tried to frame you, or shall we leave you hanging a while longer?"
If Roman had been less stubborn he would've stopped and probably admitted to the fact that he had been there out of his own free will, but he had never not been stubborn and so he blinked, frowning a little bit more, his eyes flickering to the wand as he shook his head. "Fuck," he said as suddenly he was upside down and his head was pounding all of a sudden from the blood rushing to it. He dropped his hands down and managed to place his palms flat on the ground and bend his head a little bit, trying to stop the pounding before he looked at the men. "You do know who I just represented in trial right? Arcturus Black!" he said his voice a little high as he shook his head. "I lost and I've been getting messages that I would pay for my crimes, but..." Roman trailed off. "I never thought they were real so I burned them. But this..." he said shaking his head again as he swallowed and looked at the two men with wide eyes. "The last thing I remember was that I was at home, about to go to bed, and then I find myself here, injured and in these," he said pulling his robes out as he shook his head. "I know how these things work, trust me I've seen the memories and read the reports. But I honest to Merlin did not do anything!"
If Edgar was less of a gentleman, less well brought up, then he might have been moved to swear. As it was, he turned his back on the prisoner and started to pace -- slowly enough to look like he had some purpose, but quickly enough to work off the nervous pent-up energy he was accruing. He'd just gone and done it now, hadn't he? If this was the story he stuck to, then they were going to have a very difficult time pushing anything in his trial. Edgar bent, his lips only millimetres from Pepper's ear.
"If he sticks with this Imperius story, then you know where that leaves us." So much left unsaid in that sentence, but -as he'd said to Remus Lupin earlier- Pepper was good at noticing what people didn't tell him. "Arcturus Black is no more involved in this than I am a ballerina."
Edgar's irritation was obvious to Pepper, but the Slytherin just smiled pleasantly, glancing at Selwyn with a liberacorpus that made the prisoner fall unexpectedly to the ground. That looked painful. "You know the Wizengamot isn't going to buy that, Selwyn," he said, clasping his hands and studying how the fingers interlaced. "In fact they're pretty much going to be out for your blood. Even if you were innocent you'd almost certainly end up in Azkaban, and I think we all know you're not innocent, don't we?" He moved a hand to grasp the back of the chair to aide in rising gracefully to his feet, taking a couple of steps forward to stand over the heap of Death Eater on the ground. "Think about everything the Death Eaters have done lately. A lot of people are very, very angry."
If Roman hadn't had his hands on the ground then when the spell was released he would've hit the ground, as it was, he groaned at the jarring sensation in his back and his stomach as he rolled over and pushed himself up again, coughing, tasting blood and swallowing it. Never show weakness. He turned his head and frowned. He didn't say anything, knowing that Pepper was correct as he moved to sit on his butt again, looking up at Pepper. "You'd send an innocent man to prison to prove a point?" he asked coughing again, wiping his hand on the back of his mouth. "Maybe I would be better off with the Death Eaters," he said shaking his head in wonderment, as if the idea had never crossed his mind before.
Edgar grinned. "Really? That sounds like terribly volatile talk to me, my lad." He cleared his throat, resisting the urge to laugh -- or perhaps to shout, it was difficult for even him to tell at the moment. "The Death Eaters an attractive prospect for you, are they? You don't -look- very innocent, after all...all we're trying to do is find the truth. If justice is so abhorrent to you that you'd consider joining an organisation that calls for the extermination of an entire section of our society? Well, you don't sound all that innocent to me, my boy."
He was almost beside Roman by now, alternating (very briefly) between pity and anger. He showed neither on the surface, preferring to fall into the universal persona that all policemen slipped into when in front of suspects, but inside he was bubbling -- he knew the man was guilty, and he just needed to prove it. "Let's talk about your experiences, then. You say you don't remember anything at all." A quick turn of the head. "Is that usual, Mr Pepper? I'm so behind when it comes to Dark Magic, it not being my speciality or anything."
Not that it was Pepper's, particularly, though he did have a rather... variable collection of books, as Aloysius had noted. "Very unusual, I should think," he replied blandly, leaning against the wall and spinning his wand through his fingers. "Imperio definitely doesn't come with any memory loss, nor does a confounding charm. Obliviation does, obviously, but one would have to be very skilled with the spell to get that sort of... convenient precision. It takes a lot of training to be an obliviator, you know." Selwyn's coughing was making him very tempted to see if he could locate the source of that internal blood leakerage with some quick, hard impact, but he put off the temptation. He could always give into it later, if he didn't co-operate.
"That's not what I meant!" Roman said shaking his head slightly. "This isn't justice! You're not letting me have a lawyer or anything!" he said sounding scared as he did it. "Was this even legalized?" he demanded moving to sit back against the wall as he coughed again, his stomach aching up as he continued to shake his head as if the very idea was not something he could comprehend. He rubbed his face and shook his head. "I don't know how any of these things work!" he cried out looking up at the two men. "I'm just a lawyer, nothing more! I just got my license ten days ago!" he said sounding almost desperately hysterical at this point. "All I know is that I was at my house and then I was here and that's it. They could've smacked me over the head, Obliviated me, or done something else. I don't own these," he said pulling out the robes with a disgusted look. "I don't own the mask, for the love of Merlin I didn't do anything!"
Edgar slammed his fist against the wall beside him. "You're a lawyer, aren't you?!" he yelled, his composure finally cracking. "I don't see why you can't represent yourself there, sunshine!" The desperation that was radiating from Selwyn was beginning to get to Bones and, quite frankly, he had a great deal more paperwork to be getting on with upstairs that demanded more of his attention than the man sitting in front of him. "What I want are names, names of the people you've entered into terrorist activity with and I would like them off you now...please!"
His wand was raised high above his head now, in the typical dueller's pose: even in the heat of a furious tirade, Edgar Bones apparently never forgot the little touches that made him such a gentleman.
It would probably not be a good idea, Pepper decided, to comment on either Edgar's loss of temper or the stinging pain that was sure to be in his hand thanks to his little hissy fit. Indeed, he appeared not to react at all, still leaning casually against the opposite wall, musing idly. "It's a pity we can't cut him open," he considered aloud, gazing at nothing in particular. "The blood would be so hard to get out, though, and I'm not sure I really want that sort of filth on my hands. Not just because he's a Death Eater, he's a Death Eater who's denying it." He straightened up, grabbing Edgar's hand by the wrist to perform a basic healing spell before finally turning back to look directly at Selwyn. "Even if we let you go, would they want you back? You fucked up bad. The way I hear it, they don't act nice to people who fuck up."
"I cannot represent myself!" Roman said voice a little high pitched at that. "I'm emotionally distressed, I could be forced into admitting something that I'm not!" he said. He needed to keep with the story, keep away from anything that might make him seem suspicious. If they hurt a so called innocent man then they would not look good, especially if he let it slip to the papers like he was planning on doing it. "I don't know anything," he said seeming to draw in on himself as he took int he wand and then at Peppers words. "I'm not a Death Eater!" he said shaking his head again and again. "I'm not!" he said looking down at the ground, unable to help the roll of his eyes at Peppers words. If only the other man had a true idea of what his peers really thought of him.
"You were there," Edgar hissed. His teeth were pressed together tightly, resisting the urge just to curse the man there and then. He couldn't do it, not with Pepper standing right there -- morally, ethically and professionally, it was all a bit dubious. After giving the man half a dozen lectures on the need to control themselves, Edgar just couldn't whip out his wand and start letting blood. On the other hand, if Pepper was the one who started, then Edgar was really just speeding up the process. He was the merciful one, who wanted to spare Roman Selwyn any undue grief. He was the patriarchal figure in all of this. "You ARE a Death Eater, and you have names for me. I want those names, and I want them now from you. I did say that I'd only ask nicely the once, and you had nicely beforehand."
He turned his back, and nodded at Pepper.
It was really sort of a pity that he wasn't capable of telepathic communication, it would make things like this so much easier. Next time, they'd have to take a moment beforehand to discuss limits and acceptable procedures and time limits and technical details like that. Still, they were locked in the cell with a privacy fog over the door, and Edgar knew what he was like, and people did say it was easier to apologise than ask permission. A quick flick of his wand sent Selwyn into the air and then dropping again, hitting the ground with a painful-sounding thud. He dropped down to be closer to the Death Eater's level, balanced on the balls of his feet with his arms resting on his knees lazily. "You do not want to test me," he assured him softly. "I might not be as bad as your lord and master, but I'm still a vindictive bastard who's rather pissed off about that little show on Wednesday night. Names. Now."
Roman was beginning to think that perhaps it was time to come clean because it really was becoming pointless. The two of them seemed smarter than he was willing to give them credit for. He opened his mouth, about to say something when suddenly he was raised and dropped, the motion jarring him and he cried out slightly, unable to stop as pain ran up his side like fire and he wrapped arms around it and shook his head, clearing it out. "I don't have names, but I have lots of places," he said continuing to look at the ground. "Lots of places where people can be found, both alive and dead," he said looking up eventually with a smirk. "Of course, anything more that that is going to cost you," he said grinning at them. He wasn't stupid, he knew they needed it signed before anything could be done. "I could be nice right now, but fair play so I guess I won't," he said tilting his head to the side. "But that family might not last much longer and pieces are so much harder to find that than full bodies."
Perhaps, just perhaps, Edgar's temper could have withstood the jeering tone. He might even have been able to ignore the false sense of the upper hand that Selwyn thought he had. He could have forgiven a thousand different things, but that disgusting smirk was one thing that drove him mad -- however short a trip that might have been just recently. He slashed his wand sideways, a non-verbal 'Expulso' exploding from the end of his wand with a bang. It might have been intended to hit Roman, but that was unlikely: at this range, anything Edgar fired would have hit its mark, and the Blasting Hex crashed into the stone less than three inches from Selwyn's face: it blew a neat hole in the stone, but otherwise left him untouched.
"In case you're not aware, boy, that's International Questioning Technique #164: carry on, or the hex gets closer." Edgar's wand was still trained on the young wizard, aching for him to give the pair of them a reason to step up their investigation. The fragment of a name, the hint of a plan and Edgar Bones would have all the excuse he needed. "Mr Pepper is, as he might have mentioned, the vindictive bastard. Me? I'm the noble, upstanding Auror -- you do remember what the Aurors were given permission to use on terrorists, don't you?"
Pepper was fairly certain that International Questioning Technique #164 was not in any book Rufus had ever read. Personally, those were the kind of books he preferred. Picking up smoothly where Edgar had left off, he tilted his head slightly, injecting a pleasant note to his voice as he asked, "Now, why don't we start with that list of places? With plenty of details and specifics, if you would, before I decide to see if I can find exactly which internal organ you're bleeding from in a variety of unpleasant ways." Stomach muscles starting to ache, he stood up again and returned to his comfortable seat.
Roman flinched away from the spell, unable to help himself as the wall exploded next to him and he scowled. "That almost hit me you know," he said sounding completely nonchalant, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. He shifted, moving to sit on his knees as he shrugged a shoulder. "I thought it was in How To Lose Your Temper Rule 101, or maybe how to kill someone, I'm not quite sure. Murdering tends to all blur into one long line of enjoyment and life long fulfillment," he said with a happy, and sightly sarcastic sigh. He frowned and shrugged his shoulders. "You mean the same spells I like to use on stupid mudbloods?" he asked tilting his head to the side playing stupid for the moment before turning his head to look at Pepper. "Well the thing is, I'm not feeling to good, like I might not be able to write or even sign anything, so we might have a few problems with actually getting the confession to stand in court," he said shaking his head. "It would be such a shame wouldn't it. Turning into Death Eaters to get some information for the night, only to find out it's worth nothing," he said making a 'tsk'ing sound and leaning back. "So what are our options now boys?"
The notion that they were "turning into Death Eaters" amused Pepper, and he made no attempt to hide it, chuckling a little at Selwyn's posturing. "Don't worry, I'm not turning into anything, though your concern is touching. Option number one would be a little sweet talk with a dictaquill, much like the fine example we brought with us especially for this meeting. Option number two would probably be something like a swift kick in the gut, and option three, just because you asked so nicely, would be for us to decide to get the information some other way, go off down the pub for a drink, and let you rot in Azkaban with a life sentence. Or possibly a Kiss, depending just how the Wizengamot's feeling."
How the Wizengamot was feeling didn't matter all that much to Edgar. Selwyn's attitude was, in the polite parlance of the pureblood, 'trying his patience' (even if that patience was long gone, and the real description for it was 'raving bloody furious') and he just didn't have the wherewithal to put up with the sneering, biting tone any further. Pepper's implied threats were a great technique, and he knew it had been a good idea to have the Hit Wizard working on the questioning...but anything implicit wasn't going to be enough now.
He was wrestling, internally, with a hundred different factors: the fact that he was a decent man, a good Auror and someone who despised the Dark Arts in all its forms. Recently, though...hadn't he become convinced that, in the right hands, even the Unforgivables could be a force for good? "Perhaps...if you're not feeling well now, sunshine? A little dose of the Cruciatus might convince you that there are far worse states that you could be in than you are right now. Option number four, which my colleague so magnanimously neglected to mention, is that I Crucio your arse into the floor until you're screaming a confession off these thick, soundproofed walls. It's a little bit of option three, mixed with my own personal feelings about what rights we should afford terrorists." His smile was humourless, though for the moment he was only placing the threat of the curse on the table.
Roman's smile fell as a scowl twisted his features into something ugly at the mention of the Crucio. That they would dare to think about doing something like that to him. Didn't they understand that he was better than them simply because he knew how things should work in this world. They should be cowering before him, begging for his forgiveness for their insubordination and nothing like this. "All of those sounds very fun and enjoyable, but you're forgetting option number five," he said shaking his head. "I don't talk, I don't sign and all you'll do is torture someone. And when I get out of here, then I will talk, and I doubt people will like the idea of the Ministry attacking a poor innocent man simply so he can be used as a scapegoat."
"Actually," Pepper corrected, "Option five ends with you going before the Wizengamot anyway, accusing one of the most upstanding and highly respected Aurors of things which he's blatantly incapable of, and after a review of the evidence, going to Azkaban. Unless you want to take veritaserum before you make your statement, that is...?" He let the question hang in the air a moment before rising to his feet again, strolling idly across to the other side of the cell and, as promised, kicking Selwyn hard in the stomach. "Talk."
Roman raised an eyebrow at that and nodded his head. "Fair enough," he replied leaning forward slightly. "Of course, if I'm going down, I am going to make fucking well sure that I drag someone down with me, and regardless of whether or not I am a death eater, wasn't there something about basic human rights a while back which I thought you were supposed to be following. Of course that might be the non-corrupt Aurors and Hitwizards, which I highly doubt either of you are a part of," he said shaking his head watching as Pepper walked over, and kicked him. He hunched over immediately with a groan, shaking his head as pain ran through his nervous system and he groaned, coughing as he moved to his hands and knees, attempting to get the pressure of off his stomach. "Fuck," he muttered shaking his head, sure they had gotten a rib. He turned his head to scowl at the other man before he smiled. "You would fit right in with the Death Eaters, you know that right?" he asked innocently. "I would suggest joining them, assuming you're not a filthy mudblood."
"Pureblooded myself, although I can't speak for my friend here." Pepper's comment about Edgar being a respected Auror had filled him with a curious warmth -- even if he'd only meant it as a way of intimidating Selwyn, it was a nice gesture. Bones made a mental note to buy Pepper a drink at some point, then filed it away to be addressed later. The notepad was busy scribbling away, although what exactly it was writing down of Roman's words was open to speculation. "But that's neither here nor there: were it up to me, the purebloods would all be gone tomorrow. Roman Selwyn, you are suspected as a member of a terrorist organisation and, as such, have no basic human rights. Your comments about killing mudbloods were of particular interest...don't worry, I'm sure the quill took that part down most diligently."
Even as a pureblood gentleman, the word 'mudblood' offended him. He stared down at the man, contempt coursing through his veins and the desire to make him feel some kind of remorse for the things he had undoubtedly done was burning strong. With the space of a moment, he'd acted: not even looking for Pepper's permission, or some motion that might indicate his complicity, he'd stabbed his wand forward. "Crucio!" The word was a simple statement -- filled with venom, but neither screamed nor whispered. Edgar was furious, but still in control of his actions...whether or not that made his choice even worse was up for debate.
This was the second time a normally-by-the-book Auror had used the cruciatus in front of Pepper, and far from shocking or appalling him, he was actually sort of amused. That probably said something about him, but he wasn't particularly bothered about it either way. Unblinkingly he just folded his arms and leaned back against the wall to wait, watching Selwyn as though he were a somewhat interesting bug on the sidewalk. "I prefer having coworkers I can actually trust, ta anyway. I hope that hurts. I've never been subject to the cruciatus myself, but I've heard several interesting blood boiling analogies. Just tell us any time you want to make this stop, yeah?"
"Right," Roman replied, disbelief written all over his face at the thought that one of them might be anything less than the filth they were. Of course even if they were he doubted they would be welcome, there was only so much taint that could be removed from someone. "Then you'd be dead as well," he replied raising an eyebrow before rolling his eyes. "You have no concrete proof on me, and don't give me that bullshit about the robes, anyone can make these. Maybe I'm just a distraction for something bigger planned," he said shrugging his shoulders. "After all, we didn't destroy Hogsmeade yet did we?" he asked tilting his head to the side slightly. All of a sudden pain flew through his body and he screamed as his arms lost control as he dropped to his back, back arching and fingers and feet scrabbling on the ground as he attempted to find some sort of ground so he could push all of the pain away and just forget. He could hear Pepper talking but ignored it as he made a hissing sounds through clenched teeth, small grunts of pain falling from his lips as his legs and arms moved without his permission.
"We, Mr Selwyn? My my, you do give yourself away!" Edgar snorted dryly as the prisoner twitched at his feet, letting the curse drop after a dozen seconds or so. There was no sense in overdoing it, unless the man kept up the uppity attitude. "Now, we'll try again. You know we're serious about this: start talking. Who were you in contact with? Direct superiors. Upcoming demonstrations -- tell me what I want to hear, and Mr Cruciatus gets to go home for the night."
He glanced at Pepper, his eyebrows raised slightly. Were they doing the right thing? He didn't bother to actually ask the question -- Edgar already knew that they were doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and Octavius Pepper would be a terrible choice as someone's moral compass.
It was, after all, not very hard to figure out that Pepper's moral compass pointed somewhere east-south-east. He raised an eyebrow back at Edgar implacably, as if to say, I'm not bothered, seems to be going fine so far, then turned back to Selwyn. It was a well-known technique in the forces to bombard a suspect with questions to wear them down, and one that he rather liked. "Link names to attacks, if you would. Who's done what. Who gives alibis. Training bases. Hidden rooms in houses."
Roman relaxed panting as the curse was dropped before he coughed and rolled over, and continued to cough, feeling more blood come up his throat and eventually he spat, a glob of it hitting the floor as he swallowed before raising a hand to rub over the back of his mouth, before looking up with a scowl. "What's in it for me?" he asked, voice raspy as he did so. He didn't want to give in, but he didn't like pain and coughing up blood was never a good thing. He didn't want to die, not right now at least.
Another flick of the wand, and Edgar's Cruciatus was re-instated. The glint in his eyes was perhaps, to people of a weaker disposition, a little disturbing: they were so close to an answer now, and just a little more cajoling would pull the prize right out of Selwyn's protesting mouth. In this case, 'cajoling' was a euphemism for 'utter and indescribable agony', but the premise was still the same.
"What's in it for you, my lad," Edgar said, his voice rising now out of necessity and the eventual betrayal of emotion, "is that this pain stops! I'd think that's enough of an incentive, even for a weasel like you, isn't it?!" He laughed: a short, hard bark that owed nothing to Edgar actually finding anything funny. "Or do you want to see how familiar we are with the OTHER Unforgivables, eh?!"
Pepper actually stared at Selwyn in complete and utter disbelief at the question. The man was apparently a few herbs short of a potion if he actually thought there was anything in this for him. All he could possibly do was go with the path of lesser suffering rather than greater. He let Edgar hold the second Cruciatus for a few seconds before gesturing for him to stop - Selwyn probably couldn't even hear what they were saying under that much pain, let alone answer. Hunching down again, he stared at him for a moment in utter disdain before speaking. "You're coughing up more blood now than when you came in. That's not a good sign for you. A bit longer with the Cruciatus, a few more kicks to the gut and your organs are going to start taking some serious damage. I suggest you quit with the games right now and give us what we want." Of course, it wouldn't do to let the bastard think that he was the good cop here. Pepper rose to his feet again to punctuate the speech with another swift kick. It was rather more primal than using magic, and in a way that was part of its appeal. The focus of a wand and spell divorced you from the anger.
Roman screamed again when pain ripped through his body and it felt like all of his bones were trying to leave his body and he wished they just would. He twisted on the floor, teeth clenching down again to try and muffle the pain. He was not going to show weakness in front of these men, he was better than that, better than they were. It was released a little later and he lay there panting, a small groan falling from his lips as he shook his head. "Imperio and The Killing Curse," he said chuckling as he shook his head. "And you're calling me the bad guy here," he said as he rolled over onto his hands and knees again, only to drop to the side when he felt a kick at his side and he coughed. "Hit me again and I'll be dead from organ failure," Roman said coughing up more blood before he moved to sit back on his heels and dropping his head back. "Devon, there's a safe house," he said before dropping his head forward and coughing. "That was a freebie, the rest'll cost you a pretty penny."
Edgar growled: with a flick, he caught Roman within a Hovering Charm -- lifting him a good six feet in the air and flipping him onto his back in the process. As Roman slowly revolved there, Edgar rapped his wand against the palm of his other hand. "Devon? How very specific, only narrows us to a whole county. How about this transaction for you? You'll tell us everything, we'll give you nothing but our hearty thanks...and if you don't like that deal, I'll stab you in the eyes with my wand. Yes? No?"
"Something small and sharp works better," Pepper volunteered, eying Selwyn and trying to gauge how much damage he had taken. No matter how they were representing themselves to him, they really didn't want to make it too obvious that they'd been playing this game. "Especially if you can accurately summon a syringe to drain the fluid. Personally, I've always wanted to try sensory deprivation, but we do have better things to be doing with our time than hanging around in a basement jail cell." He glanced at his watch deliberately, not really actually processing what it said, more for the gesture than anything else.
Roman moved and he attempted to grab something to hold himself down but he hovered there instead growling in the back of his throat as he coughed again, blood forming in the back of his throat as he turned towards the two men and spat and coughed some more needing to be able to breath. "Okehampton," he said after a moment consideration before shrugging his shoulders. "Do it then," he said staring directly at Edgar, his eyes open and full of a challenge. After a moment he dropped his head back and coughed again before snorting. "Kinky," he said shaking his head. "I don't swing that way though, sorry," he said coughing again and spitting again.
Edgar scoffed, apparently making his opinions on which way Roman swung clear. "You're a hilarious young man, I'm sure. Unfortunately, you're not the one with the wand here." He was almost --almost-- tempted to Cruciate him again, to teach him a lesson about where his sarcasm was going to get him...but down that road lay a very dark future that Edgar wasn't entirely sure that he was ready for. And, in fairness, Selwyn had given them a town. From there, it wouldn't be hard to find what house was being used by the Death Eaters. On the other hand, one town wasn't enough to lead a sustained attack, and certainly not worth the effort they'd expended. Edgar sighed.
"Crucio..."
Again, Pepper counted the seconds the curse lasted before nodding at Edgar. He knew the Auror, what he believed and what he was capable of, and there was a reason he'd earlier implied to Selwyn that no one would believe his account of what had happened. He was willing to go along with this - hell, he was enjoying it - but it was in Edgar's best interests to limit the Unforgivable use. He'd take over the spell himself, but the decree had been explicit in its wording - Aurors. Not hit wizards. There was bending the law, and then there was shattering it completely and scattering the pieces. "I wouldn't touch you with someone else's dick, Selwyn," he told him contemptuously. "Keep talking, or I'll start experimenting with more ways to cause pain without leaving marks."
"Oh I am well aware of that fact," he said shaking his head. "And here I thought I was just hiding it all this time," he said coughing again before pain ran thought his body and he began to twitch in midair again, another scream followed by flecks of blood exiting his mouth as he shook his head, whimpering slightly by now, his stomach seemed to be crawling up his throat, dragging his heart lungs and everything else with it. "Fuck," he said when the curse ended and shook his head and shuddered, his body twitching still as pain settled into his joints and stayed there. "But you would touch someone, fucking faggot," Roman spat out. "Do it then, or are you all talk?"
Though he didn't admit it, one reason Pepper liked the DMLE was that he didn't actually make much of an effort to hide his sexuality, but no one had ever really... called him on it. Possibly it was because he was six foot tall and had a reputation for being a fucking bastard, but even in the rather conservative social setting they lived in he'd never actually come up against that sort of thing. So when Selwyn called him a faggot he didn't reply, but simply grabbed the Death Eater's hand, pressed his wand to the tip of one finger and started alternating stinging and burning hexes in under his fingernail. Strong ones. "Talk," he repeated coldly.
Roman tugged his hand, trying to get it away from Pepper and then he felt the spark and the burning underneath one nail and he groaned, biting his lip as his fingers attempted to curl in around each other and he shook his head. "Fuck off and don't touch me," he said through gritted teeth, not wanting to be near the other man. He tugged his hand again, this time harder wanting to get rid of the pain and the feeling of the other man's hand on his.
The tugging was largely ineffectual; the instant Pepper felt resistance, he bent the knuckle of his thumb against the inside of Selwyn's wrist and pressed hard, clamping his grip down. "Do you know what bastinado is?" he asked, continuing the spells. "The bottom of the feet are extremely sensitive. It's why people are ticklish there. Turns out there's also a hell of a lot of tendons and small bones there. So there's this ancient form of punishment where they whip the bottom of a prisoner's feet with... a cane or a ruler or a whip, something like that. It's supposed to be really fucking painful, but the bonus is, it also leaves almost no marks whatsoever. And, on the plus side for you, I wouldn't have to touch you to do it. So, really, let's talk about options, shall we? Give us names."
Roman cried out at that, pain spiking through his wrist to his arm and mingle with everything else going on at this body right now. He listened to the other speak and his frown deepened. It did not sound good and his toes clenched at the very thought of anything striking them. They were stunning, just like the rest of them and he scowled. He was silent for a few moments before he sighed. "Fine, get me medical treatment and I'll tell you names," he said swallowing down some of the blood in his throat. "As well as assurances that I won't be killed," he continued on. "Food, new clothing, a shower would be required as well," he continued. "Also, an unbiased trial where they will hear me out fully."
"Tell us names and you'll get medical treatment," Pepper countered. "As for the rest... we have a vested interest in you getting to trial alive, after that it's not in our hands. Food is fine but we really don't have the time to ship in an unbiased jury from the jungles of South America. You'll have to make do with the Wizengamot. Don't worry, there are plenty of purebloods on it, I'm sure some of them will sympathise."
Roman rolled his eyes. "Get me medical treatment or I die," he said coughing again, and not just for effect, he was coughing up blood, that was not a good thing, not by anyones standards. "And put me down," he said sick and tired of being strung up like a stuck pig waiting to be slaughtered, even though he was perhaps beginning to feel a bit like one.
Edgar sighed; despite everything, this man's continued arrogance was really grating on his nerves. He was already torn over his use of an Unforgivable in what was technically illegal circumstances -he wasn't in a life-threatening situation, after all, but that was neither here nor there in terms of the long game- and it would have been difficult to convince himself to use the Cruciatus simply to teach Selwyn a lesson in manner. Apparently, the most agonising curse that the wizarding world was able to come up with wasn't quite enough to persuade Mr Selwyn to open up his secret little heart.
"Selwyn," said Bones finally, allowing the captive to hang there in silence for a few minutes, the finest response to his demands at being let down. "Allow me to be entirely clear on this. Mr Pepper's little diversions with fingernails and little hexes are all well and good, but quite frankly it's child's play compared to what I'm authorised to use. You've got a long time before anyone is going to come and check on you, nobody to act on your behalf and well-being and, I'll be honest here, you've managed to piss me off sincerely enough to ensure that you will be in complete and almost symphonic pain until the moment I leave." He was only millimetres away from the Death Eater's face now, with a cold fury in his voice that would be lost on Selwyn but perhaps somewhat of an unexpected development for Pepper. "The only way that you stand any chance of leaving this cell with all your bones in the same place they are now -not to mention entirely free of boiling lead- is by being a good boy and doing everything we ask you to."
Roman watched the other man, his entire face carefully blank even though the muscle under his left eye twitched every now and then without his control, his hands tensing as he listened to him speak. He wasn't stupid, he knew how these things worked, he had read the cases about them. "You need me," he said eventually, his voice even and low, looking at Edgar before glancing over at Pepper for a brief moment. "And unless I get treatment, I am not going to be telling you anything," he said, flinching slightly at the thought of the boiling lead.
"You'll get treatment." Pepper didn't so much drop Selwyn's hand as shove it away in disgust, moving back to lean against the wall again. "First thing tomorrow morning. If you give us more." That was almost a lie - he'd get treatment either way, it would just be faster if he co-operated. They could hardly send him to trial battered and broken. It... wouldn't look good, for them. "Co-operate and I'll pass the order on. Otherwise..." He let the sentence trail off, shrugging his shoulders lightly.
Roman sniffed at that, taking his hand back and rubbing it on his robes as if it would get rid of whatever he had gotten by touching the other man. The corner of his lip pulled up into a scowl and he shook his head. "Treatment first."
"How much do you think we need you, Selwyn?" Edgar asked, apparently in all seriousness. "You've already given us one lead, that's enough to be getting on with. What if we decided to just cut our losses and make do with what we have? I mean, you're fucking annoying enough to give up on. Why don't we leave you to the Dementors?" He sat down on the ledge that passed for a seat in the room (Pepper's drawn-up chair notwithstanding), almost underneath the suspended Death Eater. "They're far more effective than we are at wearing a man down. How long do you think it'll take for you to go mad in Azkaban? Left alone with every awful thing you've ever done. I don't imagine that's a long list, hmm?" Edgar smiled, although Selwyn couldn't see him from that angle.
"How do you know I'm even telling the truth," he said turning his head towards the other man as he scowled. "To get me into Azkaban you need a trial, and if you think I won't tell everyone about this little session, you're wrong," he said. Even if convicted, somehow he was going to make sure that everyone knew exactly how they had gotten the information. In every gory detail. "You're right, it's not a long list, and nothing to convict me on," he said. He'd never killed anyone, he'd cast the Crucio once and he worked as an active member of the Death Eaters. Nothing more.
Edgar sighed, holding on to Selwyn as he stood up again. The pressure on the suspended man sent him spinning in place, the balance disturbed by Edgar Bones' not inconsiderable frame. He stowed his wand back in his robes, pacing across the room to take a stand next to Pepper again. "All right, this has gone far enough," he said, his eyes gleaming slightly -- though why exactly wasn't precisely certain. "I'm going to leave you in the hands of Mr Pepper for a few minutes, while I go outside and convince that guard out there to go off and have himself a tea break. He's been down here for hours, I imagine...shouldn't be too difficult to get him to bunk off for a quick five minutes."
He turned his back on Selwyn and Pepper and headed for the door. Edgar spoke as he went, though he didn't turn back. "Would you like to add anything to our colleague outside, Pepper?"
Pepper took a break from smirking cheerfully at the prisoner to glance at the Auror, expression vaguely innocent and thoughtful for a moment. "Tell him to get a Healer in first thing tomorrow morning," he suggested, gaze flicking back to Selwyn as he added, "As a gesture of... good faith." Something like that, anyway. He didn't bother commenting on Selwyn's threats to tell everyone what they were doing. There were ways to get around that, all sorts of ways, and though some were good only for thinking about for entertainment value, others were entirely feasible. They would deal with that later though. For now, there was still Selwyn to deal with.