FIC: "Chronic Charm of the Grotesque" for luciusmistress Recipient: luciusmistress Author:injustice_worth Title: Chronic Charm of the Grotesque Rating: PG/PG-13 Pairings: John Dawlish/Alecto Carrow Word Count: 4915 Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *I’m… not exactly certain? Pardons… Not much made explicit; any warning’d be more in the suggestions and general content, then perhaps for knives and a bit of blood…*. Summary: Dawlish finds himself compelled to renew an old acquaintanceship, and rediscovers the joy of knives. Author's Notes: Dawlish just gets himself into all kinds of trouble with the ladies. Tsk. This hazes (in potentially suspect fashion) through time, present being at some point during DH, ranging back to Dawlish and Alecto’s schooldays. To the one known as the Mistress o’ the Lucius, grazie for the very-open prompt, and hope this isn’t too far afield (sorry ’bout the lack of sexy-sexy, in particular). Suppose I owe apologies to Amycus, who was going to be much more involved than he is; that’d be part of a longer story, I suppose, and he’ll have to deal. ON ANOTHER NOTE. The line from “Black No. 1” more or less sparked much of this, but The 69 Eyes’ “Sleeping with Lions” would probably be a more apt song for the pair, overall. Just sayin’.
“I went lookin’ for trouble, and boy… I found her.”
-Type O Negative, “Black No. 1”-
Clawing out from a haze of unconsciousness—sleep or daze or, no, no, some deep confounding—his first clear thought is that this must be a nightmare. There is a grin he horribly seems to recognize, recalled from a face years ago, and there swimming into out of into focus is the face itself, scarcely changed from memory, only more insistent. Beyond the face, he barely notices stone walls grime moss a nondescript nowhere, a place removed from the world where it is only his rising consciousness and this, this nightmare.
But he sees the firm presence of her, that physical being so long unseen but never fully forgotten, and he knows that he no longer dreams. This familiar horror stands for actuality.
“Why, John, dearie, you’re awake!” The voice, a grating sort of chirp, wavering between threat and fondness.
He tries to move but cannot, tries to speak but can scarce feel his own throat. He can only think, and even the double-stranded thought wavers, at once “You bitch,” and “Alecto, darling, you’re looking as noxious as ever.”
Without surprise, he notes that she holds a knife dangled half-negligently in her hand. Almost as if forgotten, but he knows better. Memory of pain desired and repeated, hot lash of recollection and even in his current haze, his numb defeat, he finds an old sense of pleasure and some fresh pulse of yearning.
“Darling.”
Disgust and desire. And when she draws the knife into action, he doesn’t flinch against the sudden steel, only drops back into blackness as a sharpness touches his mind.
How long had he been under, held inside himself against his will? The war was… When had the war begun? Weeks ago, years? Dawlish could not recall the march of time. He had spent inconceivable minutes in fog, wandering in a place beyond time. Events had occurred without his comprehension, his body had moved without his will, and since almost the war’s beginning, life had grown into a dream in which Dawlish could play no active part, could only rehearse incidents scripted by some other voice.
Those other voices. The curling-elusive commands that he could just match to a face, though he cringed from brushing too close against these vile whispers, and always the voice was changing: new command, new commander. As if they passed him around, used him freely as an agent for one and then another’s will. Not that the commands were ever much different. And not as if he had any hope of resisting one more than another.
This was the war, for Dawlish. This was what he would remember, if he survived and if his memory did not dissolve. A haze. Entrapment in the prison of his body, because his consciousness existed apart from action and physicality. His body ran on according to these outside instructions, to whispers that curdled his consciousness but to which his body readily responded, moving about as if on customary business. When it first began, he had watched scenes slip by as in a dream; as the war continued, he lost even the outline of scenes. He had fallen too far back, and the dream became utter fog.
It was his particular weakness, the Confundus. Every man, every Auror had his weakness. There was no shame in the fact. No shame. Dawlish had known of this susceptibility since his early training, but despite all efforts had never been able to shield himself against the charm. He may have been dashing, upstanding, and keenly skilled in every other aspect (so he would readily boast), but this charm had proven time and again to be his downfall. Oh, he could stand up against the Imperius well enough, could largely tear away from those controls, but the Confundus left nothing to grip, nothing that Dawlish could sense to fight. Instead, it propelled him immediately into a space beyond comprehension in which all was haze and disconnect. Try as he might, he had never mastered a defense against its call.
Every man had his weakness. Dawlish had his. Simple fact.
The problem was that the Death Eaters had stumbled upon this vulnerability. A chance spell had proven remarkably effective and was turned quickly to their advantage. Once discovered, the weakness became inescapable, the spell almost constant. As soon as he began to shake free of the haze, some vague figure would rise to level a fresh command, and Dawlish’s mind was bound again. Each time, he seemed to fall more easily, to remain longer in its hold. Each time, he found it harder to stumble or wander his way out.
Somewhere in his mind, Dawlish wondered whether he might soon wander too far, and never return.
Recently, the voice directing his actions had become more consistent. At first, he hadn’t noticed much, had simply assumed that in his ever-receding state, the voices had blended into one command. But this voice had itched at him, and his memory had begun to buck, insisting that this voice was particularly known. Gradually, the voice had been placed with a face, with memory, though in his haze he never saw her, could only entertain fragmented visions of her self.
And then the slow awakening, and he had seen her on the surface. The face that could kill, in its own hideous sense. Because even though she had been older, older than he remembered, the face had seemed little changed, its essence bearing quite the same mark as in younger years. As if time had scarcely influenced her growing, or had only enhanced what had already been in place. She was, no doubt, what she had always been.
A terrible (beautiful) thought.
The image of her stuck hanging in his mind, even after unconsciousness and drifting returned; his memory had been solidified, refreshed with the sight, and his thoughts circled its image insistently. Nothing alive should look like that, the insurgent flesh that couldn’t possibly stream with living blood, must rather have been clay, formed from the earth of some riverside grave, saturated soil slapped over the skull. If there was a skull, even. Dawlish had the vague idea that if he pushed his fist against her forehead, the flesh would simply give way and then spring back, as if untouched. She was monstrous, and something more than human. Something base and something beyond, and all of this, Dawlish knew, could be grasped only by the daring, and only by those chosen.
Merlin, he was disgusted, and Merlin, he had missed her. Terrible attraction of the grotesque.
“Darling, darling, where has your face been?”
Dawlish could remember every face (save those encountered since the war’s beginning, but he had begun to consider that time not his own, to decide that it didn’t enter the count). He remembered names, he remembered personalities, strengths, weaknesses; he connected these to faces. And he remembered where he had first seen each face. Hers had been in the halls of Hogwarts, his third year.
He had missed glimpsing her at the sorting ceremony—he had missed most of the ceremony, having focused on catching the eye of a slender Hufflepuff nearer his own age—but it was difficult not to notice the unsightly girl in the corridors, even surrounded by so many students. There was no spectacle so jarring among the student body, nothing that looked so utterly wrong. She didn’t belong here; she didn’t belong anywhere among humanity.
What a sight. What a sight.
He had laughed, of course, elbowing Perkins and smirking. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a troll.”
“Yeah, well, least it’s right where it belongs. Let the Slytherins have it. Her? It. Trolls belong in the dungeon, yeah?”
“Good lord, little girl, what are you?”
She had only looked up at him, eyes wide. And right then, it must have begun. Because he had expected tears or stammering or discomfort, but she giggled. She giggled. And it wasn’t emptiness or nervousness. There was such confidence, such lack of care for the insult, that he had been interested. Almost.
More immediately, he had been offended that she should show such defiance—he was a third year, a Gryffindor, and what did she think she was? “You little—”
She had turned and dashed away, still giggling, casting a last look back over her shoulder, while Perkins shook his head and clucked his tongue. “It’s a shame, what this school’s coming to. But I think she likes you, Dawlish.”
“Sod off.” Dawlish had smirked, offering a sharp shoulder-punch, and that had been the end of it.
Almost the end. Save that the giggle, the face would return in glimmers at odd times. He rarely saw her in the corridors, and scarce noticed her when he did, but that image…. Hard to shake its impression. And he began to suspect that he didn’t want to lose it.
For several years, he had gone on ignoring her, seeing her only now and then in the hall or in those brief mental flashes. And as he went through one girl and another, through every shade of youthful beauty that Hogwarts had to offer, she remained removed. That hideous smile lingering ever in the margins.
Sixth year, things changed.
Dawlish had always reveled in female company. With his appearance (flawless, he called it), his athleticism, his self-proclaimed magnetic personality, his lineage (pureblood, and the family itself well-established, well-known), he had never found any trouble in securing it. Through his years at Hogwarts, he had tried many shapes and sizes of beauty, preferring the tall and curvaceous, lauding green eyes, his taste in hair dependent on mood. The image of a future wife—properly austere, possessed of social graces—flitted at the edge of his mind, but this remained a background concern. More important to try many and sate his desires, to catch all beauty he could. Rarely was there a time when John Dawlish went about without a young woman on his arm, boasting coolly of each conquest.
After a time, though, he found himself yearning for something a bit different. He relished beauty, but what was the good of beauty unbroken, of day after day after day of the gorgeous? Was it not better to jar the monotony, to seek something different, if only on the side?
Oh, especially on the side, something to juggle and hold in contrast with the others. Something different and dark, even disgusting. Something to keep secret, something glorious in its incongruity. With all his power of choice, could he not select from the lowest ranks? He could, indeed, and so he would grasp all kinds, mastering a goddess one night, a gargoyle the next. Once formed in mind, the idea became a challenge, and Dawlish set out to secure fulfillment.
And so he had found her, that giggling face so hideous. She wasn’t difficult to locate, stood out as sharply as when first he had seen her. The only trick proved to be in finding her apart from her brother; the two rarely moved separately, and seemed to care little for the company of others. Perhaps no one else would have them. Dawlish himself had no particular interest in Amycus, barely noted him, for while Alecto stood full-body in a war against beauty, her misshapen flesh existing in defiance of the world and its aesthetics, Amycus only sulked in moderate unpleasantness. Dawlish had no desire to deal with the brother, and so sought to corner the girl alone.
Dawlish could be patient. Moderately. And he watched, and he waited, and finally, he caught her between classes. “You.” She had stopped, but hadn’t looked back. “Carrow.”
Now she turned, and for a moment only stared at him as if interrupted. He almost expected her to dart away, or perhaps to giggle again (he had almost hoped for that). And she was grinning, certainly, as if balanced on the edge of laughter, but she surprised him again, crossed her arms and spoke. “Why, John Dawlish, what ever could you want?”
Interesting. And dull as she might have looked, there was some expectation and an almost-knowledge in that voice. Dawlish smiled. “Miss Carrow, has anyone ever told you you’ve an absolutely charming giggle?”
It hadn’t taken much to make himself clear: this was not a typical relationship. This wasn’t even a relationship, and certainly, it was nothing to be spoken aloud, shared with the school. It was simply to be a matter of secret meetings snatched at chance moments (trips to Hogsmeade proved to offer a marvelous sort of freedom, though dim corridors held an excitement of their own). There was nothing certain in this, there was to be nothing expected from it. He was not entranced with her, he only wanted to try something different, and if she said anything, anything, he would ruin her.
She was surprisingly quick to catch on, and she had agreed readily. Indeed, Dawlish had never expected her to do otherwise. Undoubtedly glad to have the chance with him, however meaningless that chance was. She even seemed to relish the secrecy. What most girls would have flaunted seemed to strike her as a delicious secret, and in all the arrogance of youth (an arrogance he would never lose), Dawlish never truly thought that Alecto might tell.
And somehow, the secret had indeed stayed. No one knew (he did wonder whether she had told her brother, though he never asked and never heard, assumed the silence was kept), and for two years they met in abrupt encounters, never offering acknowledgement otherwise.
Together, they explored violence and uncaring, an intimacy fueled by contraries. His flesh crawled at the sight of her, he recoiled at the touch, and the more he felt, the more he desired. There was an intensity here not experienced with any others, and a closeness that decorum or supposed integrity would not otherwise allow. Alecto held no illusions regarding purity, and was as quick as Dawlish to drive for physical contact. The typical rules of young courtship mattered as little to her as to him, perhaps because this was no courtship, perhaps because she had no such experience and knew to expect none. How could she hope for a true wooing, after all, a proper relationship? She had to create her own advantages. Lovely girls might be complacent or afraid, but Alecto was bold, unashamed and willing to explore all. Above all, Alecto invited violence: it was she who had begun to bite, for instance, and she who had suggested the knives.
Suggested. She hadn’t suggested; she had initiated through action. One evening, pulling Alecto into a side passage, Dawlish had been greeted with a streak of pain and the glimmer of steel. He had choked back a yelp, standing stunned in momentary fury and a not-yet-comprehended thrill. The unexpected.
She had giggled. “Sharp, Mr. Dawlish?”
For a moment, he hadn’t believed, and even as he felt blood trickle down his face, he had scarce thought it possible. “Mad bitch cut, she cut—”
Then she had reached up to stroke the cut, her inexpert touch almost gentle against the sting. Tracing the cut, focusing his attention purely on its presence, on the fact that it existed and that her touch both soothed and exacerbated the pain. Then the contact had ended, and she had licked his blood off of her finger as she watched him, eyes wide. “Dear me, I suppose we’ll have to do something about this, won’t we?”
She had done it. She had actually done it, and now that he knew, now that he felt it, he understood it to be a new breed of pleasure. “Darling, you are full of surprises.” And he was eager for more.
Bloodshed became a customary component of their encounters. There was an added danger in this use of knives, a stronger risk of detection. They had to keep the cuts shallow, able to be healed at a moment’s notice. But each stroke and strike rang delicious, and he felt her blood and his own time and again, tasted this sign of her life. Each time was a thrill, each encounter left him aching in the memory of sharpness.
And no one had known, and then he had left Hogwarts. There, it ended. He had never forgotten the pain, had perhaps never fully put her out of mind, but that component of his life had passed and gone. She and her knife fell into the unimportant past.
Until now. Now, when he opens his eyes, she is there. For a time he will subside, either into darkness or into that haze of a distant daily life no longer his own. Then she appears. Every time he awakens, it is to the sight of her. As if this is all that remains. The monstrousness of some subterranean being, resilience of all putrid earth. He cannot bring himself to speak or even move, feels himself separate from any body, yet he can see her.
After a time, he realizes that she speaks, offers words that are not commands but reports. Difficult to piece out the truth, and most details are incomprehensible, but a general picture swims into sight. He knows now that the Ministry has fallen (Scrimgeour is dead? he cannot process this for a time, laughs when he first hears, then wonders that it truly should have happened), that the Death Eaters have taken control. That, as suspected, he continues to carry out duties as a supposed Auror, though these duties are scripted by Death Eaters and he scarce sees these times himself. He does not know his particular duties; he does not wish to know.
Somewhere, time passes. How long has it been, exactly? And where is he? No answers to these questions, and he won’t ask. But each resurfacing is a little more like consciousness, and with each he seems to more clearly process Alecto’s words and to piece out his own thoughts, even to feel some sense of his body again.
Finally, one day or one time or he knows not what, he awakens to feel weakly connected to himself. Even before daring to gaze upon the world, he feels the presence and aching of his body, feels the chains by which he is bound, and shivers in physical discomfort. At last, something more real than haze, at last. If it isn’t a pleasant sensation, it is a hopeful sign. To find himself. Whether he has the power to truly act…
Dawlish opens his eyes to find the nowhere-room that he has vaguely glimpsed. And he sees her. She is talking, and he only half hears; something about him, about Hogwarts, perhaps. Reminiscing? He tries to hold the sense, but it proves difficult, his awakening is still slow. “…and you ought to’ve seen the little children when we told them, when we said they’d pay for—”
He doesn’t recognize his own attempt to speak until he finds that she has stopped short, her face bursting into a grin. “Oh, Mr. Dawlish, you’re awake! You’re really awake! Oh, good!”
What had he said? No matter. “What in…” But he doesn’t know where to begin. What to ask beyond what has been said, and how can he ask anything of the enemy? She is worse now than ever she was, not only grotesque in form but opposed in alignment. She is the other side. (Though occurs to Dawlish that his own alignment is now in question. If he seems to act for the enemy, if only his ensnared sense of self remains opposed, where does he fall?)
“Did you decide to join the conversation, dearie? So glad you did!”
“I don’t…” It doesn’t hurt to talk, only feels strange. His speech not out of use (he must talk during the day, another uneasy thought, their use of his voice), but unused to following his own instruction. It takes a moment to collect and order words.
And the matter of what to say. He almost asks why he should be here, what it is she—No, not she. They. Because he has become vaguely aware of another presence—a second guard—assumes it must be Amycus. Who else could be with her? So. They. Why ask what they thought they were doing? Hadn’t she already told him? He knew well enough; best not to give them the satisfaction of begging for information.
All right. But say something. “I must have…” Focus on the words. “Forgive me. I must have drifted off.” He closes his eyes, opens them. “Where were we?”
“Oh! Oh, why, dear, you really ought to be more attentive.” A chastising tone. He could almost smirk. “But I’ll forgive you, this once.”
“You are too kind.”
“Anything for you, Mr. Dawlish.” Amazing, how close the sound comes to memory. Had she always sounded like that? “We were talking about our day at Hogwarts. What a lovely time it was!”
“The school…?” He has heard it mentioned, but cannot connect the pieces.
And now another, her brother (the tone suggests that it is indeed Amycus) from outside Dawlish’s vision, “Alecto and I have the honor of teaching the kidlings at Hogwarts.”
Dawlish almost laughs. Does laugh, he realizes when a shock courses through his body and another figure shoots into his vision. Amycus, indeed, and no more distinguishable now than before. Dim and furious, face gathered into some imitation of a scowl and he jabs a wand toward Dawlish. Merlin, doesn’t help that he looks ridiculous.
“Think that’s funny, do yeh?”
Another shock, and finally Dawlish’s laughter straggles off into coughing. “Not… Not… funny. I’m sure it’s dead serious. I’m sure you make a capital instructor.”
He laughs again, can’t help himself, and the shock is more painful this time.
Then Amycus is gone again, Alecto shoving herself into the picture. “Oh, let him be, Amycus. You thought it was funny.”
“I did not, never.”
“Well, I did.” She tittered. “Who would’ve thought, the two of us, and your scores were always worse than mine, even.”
“The Dark Lord chose us for a reason…”
Now deadly serious. “Of course, he did. But Mr. Dawlish doesn’t know that.”
“Sodding bastard wouldn’t, for all he thinks of himself.” Dawlish recognizes a sulking tone, and stops himself just short of laughing again.
“You just leave the sodding bastard to me, then.” And now she turns back. “Amycus is right, you know. The Dark Lord gave us the privilege of keeping Hogwarts in line.”
The world turned upside-down, once again. And just what did it mean? If the other side now controlled the school, it these two were in charge… Merlin protect those children. “My congratulations.”
“Thank you, dearie. See, isn’t he polite?”
From a distance, Amycus grunts a response.
Just go along with her. Until the world becomes clearer, he must go along with her. Like carrying on any average conversation. “And what is it you teach?”
What might have been a sweet smile on any other face looks rather like rubbish on her. “Oh, Muggle Studies. And of course, we see to the school’s discipline. Chains for children!”
Of course, Muggle Studies. She could hardly fake her way through anything else. (How her brother manages anything at all seems a great mystery to Dawlish.) And hadn’t she always shown some fascination with Muggles? Odd in a demented way, he had thought, and is now certain. Dawlish had never been terrifically fond of Muggles, never care much for them one way or another—though, of course, he stands against their decimation, of course, the actions of the Death Eaters (and now his own actions, correct?) have been extreme.
Somewhere, Alecto has resumed speaking, but Dawlish misses the words, phasing into recollection, those days of knowing her and hearing her, words recalled.
Because she had been interested. She’d chattered on about collected objects, treasures that she held dear: cuddly toys crafted in Muggles’ approximations of magical beasts, pamphlets related to some Muggle religions (she had been particularly keen on those denouncing witchcraft), a children’s book about a teddy bear and a, had it been a pig, maybe a tiger? And on and on. For all her fascination with the objects, however, she had voiced nothing but venom regarding the Muggles themselves. She would speak calmly of their uselessness while toying with her knife, while playing against his skin. And he had only half minded, had been more concerned with the sense of that steel. What of her controlled ranting? She had been a strange girl (if “girl” was ever a proper term for her). Her ideas were demented, and who cared how she had come across those objects, or why she had kept them? Dawlish hadn’t cared.
It occurs to him now, however, that a girl willing to do what he has seen from her do might be willing to undertake actions far more deviant, more alarming. Perhaps these objects had been trophies of a sort, procured through the force of her own hand.
Lord.
What ever does she teach the children about Muggles? Dawlish catches a sudden glimpse of models, Muggles carted up to the school for in-class demonstrations. The resistance capacity of a Muggle in the face of the Cruciatus. The accompanying visions collect and explode in mind, and Dawlish winces.
It is only after wincing that he notes the presence of some distant pain.
“What’s the matter, dearie?” Alecto’s voice from above, leering, and Dawlish pulls back to himself. Alecto is closer than she had been, and the distant pain suddenly seems more immediate. “Too deep?”
There it is. The knife raised in her hand, and he hadn’t even noticed its movement. He bleeds, a gash across his chest. Deeper than any they had ever dared before.
Well. Well. Speak.
“Messy, darling. I hate to see myself in such disarray. Especially in front of you.” “And your brother,” he almost adds, but the less said acknowledging Amycus, the better. Besides, he can’t see Amycus. Best to focus on what he can see, to handle the outside one piece at a time. Amycus might as well not be there. The world itself might as well not be there, for all Dawlish can see and sense.
“Dear me. I am sorry.”
“Oh, no harm. But I should hate to bleed all over myself.” As if it matters, as if he isn’t already filthy… But he is talking, only talking and moving through a situation. He is stuck here, stuck with her.
And a realization. This cut is the first sensation that he has felt, really felt, in a long time.
How long has it been since he has moved freely? How long has he been here, and when will it end? As if it could ever end. What awaits on the outside can be no relief; whichever side wins the war, Dawlish isn’t foolish enough to expect reprieve. Whatever the victory, he will emerge on the losing side. Either he was an enemy from the start who has been put to use, or he is a traitor who has fallen so weakly to the enemy’s control. Imprisonment, banishment, death seem likely expectations. He can hope for no more. Even from acquaintances and relations, any forgiveness will be more akin to pity, the thought of which stirs Dawlish to sickness. He wants no, needs no pity. Fuck them and their pity, the job he’ll no longer have, the shattered prestige for which he had so long striven…
Everything has already broken. He sees this with a sudden clarity. This is the end of his life.
While he yet lives, then, while he is able to sense himself… He might yet make something of his life. Perhaps there is another way to take this situation. Perhaps these waking moments, what few he has, may yet be made endurable.
Because these few waking moments are his own. However tightly he may be chained, it is in these moments that he has his mind and feels his body, in these moments that he can make choices, however miniscule. This is all of the John Dawlish that he has left, and if this isn’t freedom, it’s as close as he’ll find.
If this is his life, should he not use it to his liking?
Watching her, Dawlish speaks, and his voice seems steadier, more natural. “Perhaps you might clean the wound?”
It only takes a moment for the grin to curl over her face, and then she is moving. The knife disappears from view, she disappears from view, and then he feels her against his chest, pressing close. And this is actuality. The roughness of her tongue, the strange massaging of his chest as she ingests his life-blood. Her presence. All control and attention, movement and pulse, and his own body, entire, seems to shudder in response.
She appears again and sets her lips roughly against his so that he tastes the heat of his own blood. He feels crooked fingers brush through his hair, crooked fingers clench against his cheek. The scent of her so close. When she raises her eyes, her expression is hideously thrilled and somehow tender. And whatever she is, monster beast terror enemy grotesque, she is his, this is actuality. And for the first time in so, so long, he feels like John Dawlish.
“I’m so glad to have you back, dearie. Now we can play again.”
“As often as you like.” And even as his senses curl, Dawlish smiles.