Wedding Tears; Funeral Tears
Chapter One: Hopeless
Numb.
My skin was prickling with the reality of my life. The fact that it had strayed so far from anything I had ever considered to be in my potential future was so real, I could feel it, a force, all around me.
A few simple events, and time itself seemed no longer to exist. The past and future were now just more parts of the present.
“Would you consider marrying me?”
Tisha raised her eyebrows.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Am not.”
When I finally looked at Morticia properly, I could see straight through her look of apparent calm. She was excited, ecstatic.
She was perfect.
“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I might consider it.”
Was I to make even the smallest of movements, I was sure I would feel reality pressing against my skin as it pressed against my mind.
It was solid.
No, not solid…
It was liquid. I was drowning. I was being consumed.
Gideon,
Alright, it’s bad news. I won’t be back in time for Bill’s birthday. Don’t give him my present just yet; I’ll visit Molly’s bunch when I come home. I really can’t put this trip off. With Jam McKinnon gone, they needed a replacement and Caradoc’s been planning this for weeks. It’ll be worth it if we bring down Tate and Dolohov though, right?
Other than that, things are going fine “ the Irish are coming around, so that’s all good. Especially considering that about half the Order now owe me money.
Just to be safe, please don’t contact me again until Dearborn and I get back. And apologise for me about Bill’s birthday.
Fabian
At the same time, I couldn’t be more lost. While feeling everything, I somehow managed to feel nothing at all.
As I drowned, I also fell. My reality was full, and yet devoid of a single thought, a single feeling, a single touch. What should have meant the world to me seemed to mean nothing. Every concern and care I had seemed drawn from my grasp, beyond reach. My life, the Order, Molly and the family, and the slight possibility that my brother might still live, were so important it ached. Yet I was too detached to feel it.
But that wasn’t a bad thing.
I reminded myself of this.
Dear Mr. Prewett,
It is with respectful grief that I must inform you that Trainee Healer Morticia Cornfield-Prewett has suffered an untimely death while on duty in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries during the attack on Monday 19th November.
Deepest regrets,
Healer Hippocrates Smethwyk,
Nancy ‘Nipper’ Nit-Tocker Ward: Bites, Nibbles, Nips and Gnaws
Detachment made it harder for You Know Who to see inside one’s mind; repression of emotions, and being apart from one’s memories just made obstacles in Legilimency. Memories were all open to a skilled Legilimens, but thoughts and feelings impossible to interpret.
That was the theory of it, anyway.
I clung to the feeling of being lost. Every emotion I had, I took and shuffled. In my mind, I split everything apart. I mutilated the desires, the passions, and the fears, and took it to the point where nothing had a target. I had changed everything in my head, so when You Know Who looked inside, he would see anger without objective, misdirected hatred and grief, and a desire to be reckless. Then, he would think my mind could be used, that he could manipulate me into revealing secrets. He would think he could draw out my desire to survive, although by now I truly doubted there was any of that left.
He would believe that, as a Death Eater, I could be useful.
At least, that was the theory of it.
At the time, I saw no other option.
G,
I don’t have much time.
You’re right about Fabian “ he was meant to come with me. I waited, but he didn’t arrive. Last time I saw him was at least a month ago, but I see him rarely anyway.
Don’t contact me again until further notice.
C. D.
I didn’t know why I had planned this fool-hardy plan, and even less why I went through with it. I knew how it could work out; in the worst possible scenario, I could find myself tortured for information. I knew I might never see the dawn. But still, I went. I thought perhaps it was simply because I felt reckless, and wanted to be out there doing something dangerous. I thought maybe, somewhere inside me, deeper than the drive to live, I truly wanted to die.
All I knew was that, whatever my inane reasoning, I had found myself standing there.
Waiting. Just waiting.
The Death Eaters would soon arrive.
:oOo:
Then, He came.
It scared me that I felt nothing, save hints of bemusement and a distinct feeling of being impressed upon seeing the heartless mass murderer and evil dictator in person. The very same humanoid, yet somehow serpentine monster who was responsible for the devastation which swept both my mind, and the rest of the wizarding world.
It scared me that, despite the odds, I did not feel compelled to attack this soulless beast. I wasn’t burning to curse him, even to shout miserable words in his uncaring face.
I should have felt angered, I should have felt fury.
I should have felt fear, mounting and mounting, as Death Eater after Death Eater appeared. Even without Voldemort there, I would be fighting a losing battle, if it came to that.
Nothing.
Most of the Death Eaters, hooded, robed, masked, and without visible identity, had apparated to the scene by the time their fearsome, statuesque leader so much as looked at me, deciding now to properly recognise my presence.
“Has Dumbledore sent a messenger?” asked Voldemort, and I got the idea that he spoke to provide a bit of a show, to test my boundaries and work out why I was here without asking directly. Without giving away the upper hand.
I didn’t answer. I just stared, standing there plainly, not even ready to defend myself. The creature’s eyes seemed to be of blood, while his body appeared devoid of it; so inhuman were his characteristics that it seemed impossible for him to actually be a person.
He wasn’t a person.
He wiped out light with darkness.
“No, of course not,” Voldemort told them and I with the most elegant of sneers. “He would not send one of his fighters to their death “ well,” he paused for effect, “not on purpose. His precious Order has suffered far too many losses than they can afford already.”
Around the circle of Death Eaters, many gave nearly soundless expressions of amusement and contempt, and something then unidentifiable stirred inside me.
“I do wonder who, of my followers, has been foolish enough to allow himself to be followed,” Voldemort went on, and I knew that how I had discovered this place was no mystery to him. “He would do well to hope that good will still come from the situation. Have you informed the Order of your whereabouts?”
“I haven’t,” I told him. My voice came out croaky, unused. “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here.”
“Such an act would seem foolish,” Voldemort said to me. I didn’t respond. Something within me churned. A voice in my head, however tiny, was telling me to do something, be it fight, run or at least stand my ground, and as if he had heard this and taken it as invitation, Lord Voldemort’s wand was out immediately. He was within my head. It seemed completely effortless.
I had known this would happen. I had known that, no matter what, there was no preventing it. Still, it felt strange, like failure as I attempted to keep my expression, to stand firm, but at the same time put up no defence against his intrusion. It didn’t hurt exactly, but there was an alien sensation in my head, in my brain, in my mind.
And then the memories came forth.
My mother, sitting properly upright like a doll, while reading me a bedtime story when I was four.
Fabian, five, dividing up a piece of cake, using a fork as measurement to make sure each slice was exactly the same.
My father, sending us out of his sight, to do whatever uncouth activities children did.
The images flashed by in a rush, and I barely had time to recognise each one before it disappeared. Again, something churned in my belly. It wasn’t fear; it was something else. I wanted to cry and lash out at the same time, but the feeling was so distant. So very distant.
Fabian and I at my father’s death bed.
After what seemed like hours, but at the same time could only have been several, long moments, the memories began to slow down. I could actually see them, and watch them. They were more recent.
“Who is that?” asked Voldemort, and as his cold voice pierced the scene, I was reminded of the present. I must have stumbled, and could barely make out the red pin-pricks that were his eyes when I tried. I stared forwards.
“My sister,” I replied. The feeling within me grew stronger. It spoke, but I couldn’t hear the words.
“What is happening?”
“She’s getting married,” I explained, strained.
The memory changed again. I could barely hold on. I felt myself working hard, but it was all I could do to remain upright, and keep Voldemort’s emotionless eyes even vaguely in view.
“Who is that?”
“My mother.”
“What is happening?”
“She is writing a letter.”
“To whom?”
“My brother.” It was only a couple of weeks previous. There had been no reply.
The memory changed again, so quickly it felt almost violent. Morticia.
“Who is that?” I had to consider this for a moment, my mind having been greatly slowed.
“My wife.” I had not even gotten close to being used to those words, that title. We were not even married yet. Our engagement had been a beautiful reminder of the bliss that was to come. When Voldemort was dead. When this man, lazily exploring my memories, had been finally defeated.
“What is happening?” Again, I had to think.
“She is laughing.” The morning I had proposed, when Morticia was half-dressed and in a hurry. Inside me, somewhere, a barely articulate thought bubbled up.
No…
I couldn’t do anything, anything at all. The memory changed.
“Who are they?”
“My nephews. And my brother,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“What is“”
“Breakfast,” I interrupted. I wanted to get it over. “Breakfast on my birthday, last year.”
The memory changed swiftly.
“Who is that?”
“My brother,” I replied. It was the last time I had seen him, one week before Morticia died, two weeks before he and Dearborn were pronounced as ‘missing’, just like Jam McKinnon.
There was a pause. Blackness. I was worried that I had passed out “ that I had failed. I had done nothing, however. Very faintly, I heard sounds “ murmurs, laughs perhaps.
“What is happening?”
“He’s saying goodbye,” I told Voldemort. The voice inside me, whatever it was, was much more audible. I was struggling, determined, terrified of losing focus.
Injustice. Intruder.
“Where did he go?” inquired Voldemort further.
No! Out! Out!
“I don’t know,” I replied. When he had left, he had been going to Ireland, but I knew that was not what Voldemort meant.
“Where is he now?” he asked smoothly.
Stop. Leave. Intruder. Injustice. Monster.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
Turn back. Run. Fight. Out!
“I don’t know.” I didn’t allow my voice to falter.
“And this brother,” Voldemort went on calmly. “What is his name?”
Out. NO!
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer. The voice told me to say one thing, and Voldemort expected another. I couldn’t see into the future. I could see only that moment, and my mind, in its present confusion, couldn’t make a decision, or come up with anything.
He knows why you’re here.
At the slightest hint of resistance from me, the situation changed again. My memory faded, but something else was coming up.
It was dark. I didn’t recognise the area. A figure was sprawled on the ground, whether dead or alive it was difficult to say. The man lifted his head, his face mostly hidden by the darkness, although I knew who it was.
He seemed to barely have the energy to sit up, and yet once he had, he slid backwards as quickly as he could, scooting along the ground, as far away as possible. He turned his head to the side, wincing in anticipation, his knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped tightly around them.
A curse was shot, and for a split second, red light bathed the scene. For that moment I saw his face, before the Crucio hit.
The body convulsed, unable to shy back from the pain of the curse.
The form, the room, the memory disappeared.
That was not my memory, but I wanted it back.
Like a slap in the face, the presence that was Voldemort removed itself from my head, and the real scene came back into view. At some point, I had dropped to my knees, but still I looked into Lord Voldemort’s gaze, to see a self important flash of victory.
I saw. And I felt. To some degree, my mind was again mine, and in the thick mist, which kept me lost, I had found something to cling to.
It would seem that Voldemort had won, and I had lost.
But really, it was the other way around.
I had felt that there was nothing, but now?
Now there was a glimmer of hope.
:oOo:
Prewett’d: Wedding Tears, Funeral Tears by Mind_Over_Matter
Chapter Notes: The Gauntlet was so much fun “ a million trillion ‘thank-you’s to MithrilQuill, who organised the thing, and was my guide. This is the darkest story I have ever written, and I am incredibly glad that I have. It was a challenge, of course, but completely worth it in every way.
Just as a side-note, this is my second published story starring the Prewetts, and I’m writing another. They all come together into a series, which is what the ‘Prewett’d’ bit is all about.
Thanks to Chislarina, who looked over this chapter! *Waves*
AND finally, this first chapter covers the first and second prompts.