WHO: Owen Dearborn & Rabastan Lestrange. WHAT: A friendly chat in the elevator. WHEN: The late morning of 23 December. WHERE: An elevator in the Ministry of Magic. WARNINGS: Violence.
Rabastan Lestrange had a lot on his mind.
He was lost in thought as he drifted through the halls of the Ministry, almost bowling over some poor terrified secretary who went pale at the sight of him. His coworkers and subordinates almost always regarded him with fear, but it had worsened after the Phelan incident. Rabastan usually found it amusing, but today it was simply irritating. He pushed past the petrified woman and strode over to the lift, eager to get some fresh air.
Rabastan stepped into the empty elevator, his thoughts on this upcoming Christmas dinner with Carmichael as the doors began to close — until a hand shot out and stopped them. When the doors opened up again, he was face to face with Owen Dearborn.
The two men stared at one another, sizing each other up like two distrustful cats. Then, Rabastan lifted an eyebrow and smiled a sharp, unkind smile. “Don’t just stand there, Dearborn,” he said at last, gesturing to the space beside him.
There was a song that played over the credits of the live action Beauty & The Beast by Celine Dion called How Does a Moment Last Forever, which Owen knew because Kevin had watched that movie every other day for a month earlier in the year. Well, Celine, Owen Dearborn had an answer for you, and it involved an elevator door opening to have Rabastan Lestrange standing inside. In that moment, Owen could also see the future, and it involved Jeremy fixing his nose again, Baz having multiple heart attacks, and Chelsea and Gwen both using a lot of punctuation marks at him.
Time started up again, and Owen got onto the elevator.
He didn't say anything at first -- Owen's mind was filing through a multitude of accusations and insults as he tried to figure out what might be safest to lead with. (He wanted to lead with his fist, but that didn't seem like the wisest plan.) He finally settled on, "So how about this weather?"
“You don’t want to talk about the weather,” Rabastan replied, clucking his tongue in disapproval. The elevator doors closed with a ding, and he gave the former Auror a sidelong glance as his mouth twisted into a smirk. “Why don’t you try again?”
"What do you have against the weather? I love weather," Owen protested, staring straight forward at the closed elevator doors after pushing the button for his floor and hoping this would be a fast trip. "There's always so much weather." (He had no idea what the weather actually was like outside.) "You'd think you'd appreciate that, after Azkaban."
Rabastan looked straight ahead at the doors, but there was still a slight quirk of his eyebrow. “There are a lot of things I appreciate now that I’m out of Azkaban,” he said lightly, though there was a veil of bitterness draped over his words. “The weather, Quidditch, a strong drink, a spot of murder.” He let a beat pass before he added, “None of them live up to what happened to poor Caradoc, though.”
And just as Slim Shady had before him, Owen snapped back to reality as the elevator defied gravity, and in a split second had Rabastan shoved up against the wall of the lift, his wand out and pressed into Rabastan's neck. "It's so funny to you, isn't it? Lestrange has got jokes for days. I've got a joke for you too. Knock knock, who's there, oh, it's Rabastan Lestrange going back to Azkaban so he'd better appreciate those things now while he can."
“Careful, Dearborn,” Rabastan warned, jabbing his wand into Owen’s gut. There was laughter rolling beneath his words, and his amusement was plainly written on his face. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt the tip of a wand near his pulse point — it likely wouldn’t be the last. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this dance. Don’t you remember?” He gave the younger man a sickle-sharp smile. “Oh, that’s right. I guess you wouldn’t.”
The wand in his stomach was easy enough to ignore in the moment, but Rabastan's follow-up question was what gave Owen pause. His glare softened unintentionally as he tried to process the implications the other man was making. He kept his jaw clenched to silence the sputter of questions on his tongue -- all of his interactions with Lestrange had been over the journal, or from the "gifts" he'd owled in, or that time that his friends refused to let Owen duel him. That was it. "You must be going senile in your old age," Owen finally replied, his grip on Rabastan's shoulder tightening despite the resolve on his face faltering.
Rabastan’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. He tilted his head back against the side of the elevator as his smile widened. “I’ve been here for months, Dearborn. Do you really think this is the first time we’ve run into each other?”
"I've sort of made it a point to avoid you," Owen replied, his tone much more confident than he felt. Rabastan was just fucking with him again. It was another story meant to get under his skin, like all of his tales about how he'd killed his father, like all the murders he'd taken credit for that he hadn't actually committed. It was a game. It was just a game. But in the moment, the game felt a lot like Tetris, and all the pieces were falling into place more easily than Owen wanted them to. "You're full of shit."
“Do you really believe that?” Rabastan asked. “This doesn’t feel like deja vu to you? What about that time we ran into each other in the records room? I think that was about, oh, five weeks ago.” He let out a huff of laughter as he withdrew his wand, shoving it back in his pocket. “Have you felt sore lately? The effects of the Cruciatus linger even if you can’t remember the particulars.”
Owen slowly lowered his wand and took a step back, trying to blink the memories that Rabastan was describing back into existence. There was nothing there. None of that had happened. Right???
But maybe this explained that weird pain in his shoulder from a month ago that he'd chalked up to sleeping on it weird. Or maybe he actually had slept on it weird. He looked up at Rabastan again, and then quickly glanced over at the row of buttons displaying how many floors they had left.
"Did I do this last time?" he asked, throwing an uppercut at Rabastan's face with his free hand.
Rabastan should’ve seen it coming, but the blow still surprised him. His ears rung as pain bloomed across his cheekbone. “That was a mistake,” he snarled, yanking Owen forward by his forearm and slamming him hard against the metal wall of the elevator. His wand was back out in a heartbeat, and the elevator was soon illuminated by the red flash of the Cruciatus.
********
Lilly Ahooja was looking forward to this week being over. The intern's arms were loaded high with paperwork she was taking down to storage for the new year's turnover, and another four piles of folders and binders following behind her. She was thrilled to finally be getting out of here, and to spend the holidays at home with her family and without worrying about working for a government that was full of Death Eaters who would probably kill her without a second glance.
She heard the screams before the doors of the lift opened. The elevator doors pulled back like curtains on a stage unveiling the horrifying scene before her, with Death Eater and Department Head Rabastan Lestrange casually cruciating Former Auror Owen Dearborn, who was flailing around the floor of the elevator like a fish who'd been yanked out of the water and dumped onto land.
"I'll, uh…" Lilly stuttered, her eyes wide and terrified as they stared over the collection of folders stacked in her arms. "I'll get the next one. Or the stairs! I'll take the stairs," she squeaked, not sure if they could hear her over Owen yelling.
Rabastan hadn’t heard the young intern at all. No, he was too absorbed in the Cruciatus, and there was a manic gleam in his eyes as he watched Dearborn convulse under the pain of the spell. He wanted Dearborn to hear his taunts, though, and that’s when he broke the curse — only to notice that the elevator doors were wide open.
Well.
“I’ll let you remember that one,” were his mocking parting words. Dusting some non-existent dirt off the front of his robes, the Death Eater stepped over Owen’s crumpled form and exited the lift. Suddenly, he was in much better spirits.