WHO: Dante & Val Avery WHAT: They are very Sad and Angry WHEN: morning, 10 April WHERE: the Avery estate WARNINGS: Nothing beyond some vague threats of death and revenge!
Dante didn’t go home immediately after the discovery of his brother’s body. He left his father and Thorfinn with the burning flat and his brother’s body. It was the coward’s way out, but Valkyrie didn’t sound like she wanted him around. She’d made her feelings clear on where she stood with Dante. She had Thor, most likely. His father had a better (potential? future?) son in Thor, too.
He’d needed space -- air, somewhere to breathe, somewhere to fall apart, because he knew he wouldn’t get that sort of space at home, not between his family’s grief and anger. There was no answer at Violet’s flat or on her mobile, which left him feeling hollow and alone. He thought about Vic, but he didn’t think he could face her anger as well.
Instead, he went to the little house he’d bought for himself and Violet. It was still largely empty, but he had a bottle of whisky. He didn’t need furniture. The house would be full of life one day, and Keats wouldn’t be there to see it.
Keats would never be there again. It didn’t seem real. After all they’d been promised -- glory, power, honour, prestige -- Dante couldn’t fathom a future with any of that if it meant a future without his brother.
He stayed away until the next morning, and when he came back, he sought out his sister first. They were the only ones left; they couldn’t afford to drive a wedge between them. He knocked uncertainly on her door. “Val?” There were dark circles under his eyes, giving away how bone-tired he was.
Val jerked awake, though she didn't even realise that she had managed to fall asleep at some early morning hour. Thor's arm was wrapped around her, but she heard Dante's voice calling her name. And suddenly, everything came rushing back to her.
Keats was dead.
Her stomach churned, and her eyes struggled to fill with tears — she had cried far too much the night before, and she felt void now.
Val slowly got away from Thor's grasp, and tiptoed to her door, opening it just enough to catch a glimpse of her eldest — and now, only — brother.
"Dante," she mumbled quietly, before slipping out into the hall and closing the door behind her. "Thor is sleeping," she explained, gesturing towards the door.
And then her gaze fell to the floor, keeping her concentration purposefully away from the general direction to Keats' room. "You didn't come home last night," she stated the obvious.
For a long moment before Val opened the door, Dante considered just leaving. Even after she did and confessed that Thor was there, he almost told her to go back to sleep. She’d earned her privacy after everything that had happened.
He didn’t drag himself away, though. Val was the only sibling he had left now.
“Couldn’t…” Dante swallowed and shrugged a shoulder. “Didn’t know how to be here without…” He left the word unspoken, but he knew Val could fill in the blanks. “Didn’t know how to face anyone. You. Mother.” Even their father, though that relationship was fraught with more tension at the moment. “I’m sorry.”
"Don't," Val started, inhaling sharply. She looked up at him, to look him in the eyes, and her breathing increased at a rapid pace. She gulped nervously and shook his head, holding one hand up. "Don't you dare say that. Not to me, not to mother, and especially not to father."
Some part of Val's brain knew that she was being irrational. Dante didn't deserve to be treated like this from her, and it really wasn't his fault, but he was the one that she could direct her anger towards. She'd been planning a party for Keats! She wanted him to have the best party! There were going to be bouncy castles! She wanted the attention on the middle Avery — but she had never envisioned that it would be under this circumstance.
She shoved some hair behind her ear haphazardly and inhaled again. "I just — it shouldn't have been him. It never should have been him." Her eyes glossed over just a bit, and she blinked away, her gaze falling on a particular painting of Keats' that hung in the hallway.
Hours before, he might have snapped back at his baby sister, but all of the fight had been drained from him now. His shoulders slumped and he stood there, letting her say whatever she wanted to him. It wouldn’t make her feel better and it wouldn’t bring Keats back, but it was all he could give to her.
Finally, Dante sighed. “No, it shouldn’t have been,” he agreed. Just like he shouldn't have gone to Azkaban, he thought. It shouldn’t have been Keats, this time. Keats was supposed to have a brilliant, beautiful life. “I should have protected him better, I should have --” He cut himself off when his voice cracked. “I should have been there with him.” Instead he wanted to say. He hadn’t even known.
Val couldn't hold it together anymore, and even though she wanted to yell at Dante more and more and more and more (for things that were completely out of his control, her brain reasoned), she was suddenly out of words. Instead, Val reached to her brother and hugged him tightly around his middle, letting her head get buried in his chest as she weeped openly and without a care in the world.
She didn't care that she was getting snot all over his shirt or that he might have been uncomfortable. She just wanted to be in her brother's arms, to feel like she was being protected from the dangers of the world. And if one brother couldn't be here, then at least there was another… until when, Val briefly wondered.
Some minutes later, Val finally pulled back, rubbing at her eyes, and sniffling a bit. "Who did it?" she managed to whimper. "Who killed him?"
It was Val’s tears that finally brought his on. He’d been too full of blind rage and shock before, but seeing his little sister break down made his heart ache and tears well up in his eyes. He’d caused her so much pain over the last few years. It was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do. If something happened to one of them before he could make that right again, he’d never forgive himself. He’d never forgive himself for Keats as it was.
He was still rubbing her back gently, trying to soothe her, when she pulled back. “We know where he was,” he admitted, “but I’m not sure who…” Dante frowned. Which one of the Aurors was behind it? It had to have been one of them, based on what that hooter account had said. That was what his gut told him. “We’ll find them,” he reassured her, “and I’ll make them pay. You have my word on that. I won’t let you down again.”
There were only two Aurors that came to her mind and one of them especially salivated like a rabid dog when it came to matters relating to their family. A flash of anger sparked through Val as images of Madeline Savage swirled through her brain and though she had no confirmation that it could be her, Val wanted that sorry excuse of a human dead all the same. Jasper Williamson's death would be marginally less, but satisfying, anyway.
She finally nodded, and brushed away her tears with purpose. "Kill them both," Val said, knowing full well she didn't have to specify exactly who to Dante. "Thor said he set the place on fire but I want them to never be able to breathe again."
Val almost felt like she could have done this on her own.
“I know.” Dante wanted the same thing. Whoever had done this would pay -- with more than just their own lives, if he had anything to say with it. He would take the people they cared about down, too. He would destroy their loved ones, one by one. Piece by piece.
He leaned in and kissed Val’s forehead. “I want you to promise me something, first.” He didn’t wait for her to answer before he continued: “I want you to promise you won’t do it yourself. I can’t lose you too. Please -- no matter what Dad says, or what Thor says, you can’t -- let me do this. I can’t lose you.”
For a moment, she wondered if Dante was a Legilimens and shot her brother a brief look, but she relented. "I'll leave the honours to you," Val replied, finally nodding. "But you have to promise me that it'll be as painful to them as it is to us. Worse even."
Both of her brows perked up at the mere thought, and yet Val managed to force herself to smile. "I won't do it, but promise me."
“I promise. I’m going to sever their ties one by one until they’re alone. And then I’ll finish it.” There was something cold and hard in his voice as he imagined the millions of ways to make them hurt as much as losing Keats hurt. There were more ways to torture someone than the Cruciatus, after all. There were more ways to cause pain and despair. Perhaps he should have found some sort of consolation in the fact that Keats died doing their Dark Lord’s work, but Dante wasn’t sure what had been gained in the loss. All he could see was a loss of life, a loss of blood, a loss of the future he’d been promised.
He stepped away then, glancing at the door. He should let her get back to her … boyfriend, for lack of better terms. “Tell Thor to contact me if he wants to help when he wakes.” He was about to turn back down the hallway when he remembered one more thing: “And if you hear from Violet, will you tell her I’m looking for her? I went by her flat but she didn’t answer, and she hasn’t picked up her mobile.” It was beginning to worry him, but with everything that had happened over the last day, Dante hadn’t spared anything beyond a few moments to check up on her. He assumed she’d show up, or would answer his call, maybe she was just relaxing -- but it was starting to unnerve him, her silence. “I just -- just let me know, all right?”
A moment of guilt struck her in that moment, the uncertain tone to Dante's voice. She had a vague inkling that Violet had probably made up her mind right now, but then she was angry, anyway. What kind of decent person doesn't check in on someone after they'd just lost their brother?
She nodded, however. "Yeah, I will. Don't worry." Val smiled again, and she reached for the doorknob. "Hey Dante?" she waited briefly before continuing. "Please don't die."