WHO: Rabastan Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange, Roxanne Douglas and Thad WHAT: Dealing with some tresspassers WHEN: Earlier today, 21 January WHERE: The edges of the Lestrange property WARNINGS: Violence, torture, death
Roxanne had a bad feeling.
She’d had a bad feeling since the beginning of the year — a bad feeling that grew and grew until it made her gasp sometimes, the pressure of it behind her rib cage, the swooping of it in the pit of her stomach, the squelching of it between her toes. She’d known, months ago, that the Muggleborn Registration Commission wouldn’t end well for her, that Dolores Umbridge’s face would be the last she saw if she stuck around or, worse, that face would be the last her entire family would see if she dragged them into it.
But she was realizing, too quickly, that this wasn’t her year. The world was pulling her in, closer and closer to something terrible.
“Perhaps we should split up,” Roxanne said distantly, as she considered her surroundings.
“What?” asked Thad with a start, his voice gone high. “That’s the last thing you should say right now! We don’t even know where we are!” He was really starting to regret joining forces with Roxanne. Had the forest gotten even darker?
Unbeknownst to them, their wandering had brought them ever closer to danger. When they tripped a ward at the edge of the Lestrange property, it was Rabastan and Bellatrix who were there to receive the alert.
“Must be the Order,” Bellatrix muttered and shot a glance at her brother-in-law. “Or some idiot muggle.”
“Either way, this should be fun,” Rabastan replied, eager to inflict damage on whoever was foolish enough to trespass on Lestrange property. He hoped it was the Order — he hadn’t had much of an opportunity to clash with Lupin and his ilk lately.
It didn’t take long for the two Death Eaters to materialize on the property with their wands drawn. It took even less time for them to spot the trespassers, and he greeted them by hurling a fireball in their direction.
The heat and crackle of the fireball announced its presence before colliding with Roxanne’s rucksack, the force of it sending her stumbling forward a few steps. With a mournful sigh, she flung her rucksack from her shoulders and sent it flying at the two Death Eaters with a little help from her wand.
Thad screamed and promptly ducked behind a tree.
A blasting curse made quick work of the rucksack, strewing its contents across the grass. Another sweep of her wand, and Bellatrix sent the smoldering remnants hurtling back toward their opponent.
“What have we here?” she asked, turning her attention to the man behind the tree. “Come out and fight.”
“At least this one isn’t a coward,” Rabastan said, his focus honed in on the woman. It was clear these two weren’t Order — not unless the Order had become very desperate of late. Now that the most interesting option was ruled out, he found that he didn’t particularly care who they were. It had been too long since he’d had any real fun.
He aimed a powerful slashing hex at the woman’s ankle. “You’ll have to do better than a rucksack, I’m afraid.”
The shield Roxanne threw out was too slow for the former contents of her rucksack. She patted at her now smoldering hair as the slashing hex obliterated her shield with such force that the skin of her ankle still split open and she wondered if, perhaps, she’d still have a foot if not for the shield.
“Thad, I really wish you would help,” Roxanne said, calmly.
But Thad was busy trying to remember how to apparate.
“Well,” she said when it became clear he was ignoring her. So much for their alliance. She pointed her wand at one of the trees — not the one Thad hid behind, of course — and ripped it from the ground with a mumbled apology, set it ablaze, and aimed it at the newcomers.
With a smirk, Bellatrix summoned the wizard from behind the tree and placed him quite literally in the line of fire. A second charm halted it as it barrelled into him, leaving him pinned to the ground fire rapidly encroaching. “Nice of you to join us,” she said, already halfway to sending a bone-shattering hex at the other intruder.
The bad feeling Roxanne had seemed as all-consuming as the fire when her tibia shattered beneath her, sending her to other knee with a choked sound.
“This is because you said we should split up,” Thad cried from under the tree, his skin hot and his wand arm pinned beneath him. “You might as well have said you’d be right back!”
Roxanne decided she was ignoring Thad now and pointed her wand at ground beneath the two Death Eaters’ feet. It began to shake and crumble.
The earth beneath Rabastan’s feet trembled and gave way, and each step he took to distance himself from the epicenter of the curse seemed more unsteady than the last. Aiming his wand at the ground, a series of marble stepping stones burst through the crumbling dirt and grass, allowing him to hop from stone to stone with ease.
His attention snapped back to the woman who had caused all this. Tilting his head, he decided to drop the lightweight curses in favor of the Cruciatus.
With a crack, Bellatrix disapparated and reappeared to the woman’s flank on sturdy ground a moment later. She listened with a grin behind her mask as her screams ripped through the air. In the distance, she was sure she could hear the horses baying in confusion, but that made it all the more satisfying.
She turned her attention to the man on the ground. “Any last words, Thad?”
“I, uh, won’t be right back?” Thad answered, his voice lilting up in panic as the flames from the tree caught fire. He’d managed to wriggle his wand arm free from under the tree and had remembered how to apparate so he disappeared with an underwhelming pop.
Rabastan took the faint pop as a sign to ease up on the Cruciatus. He sneered down at the woman, twirling his wand between his fingers as he watched her recover from the pain. Then, glancing up Bellatrix, he said, “Well, if we lost one, we have to kill this one. We just can’t have idiots traipsing across the grounds.”
“It only takes one to send a message,” Bellatrix agreed, staring dispassionately down at the woman. She leveled her wand at her chest. “This one can send the message to everyone else.”