The Night Before

The Night Before

The pair of rings on the mantelpiece glittered in the dim light of the red-shaded lamps, a thick gold band and a thinner one set with a yellow stone surrounded by diamonds. Rabastan had carefully removed them from the stunned woman after he had finished tying her to the chair in which she now sat shaking in terror at the scene around her.

'I have no interest in stealing them, I assure you,' he said the first time she had woken, 'but if your fingers swell they'll hurt you, and we wouldn't want any distractions.' They didn't have time for distractions. They didn't have time for this.

The cry had come as Frank Longbottom had finally slipped into unconsciousness, a faint sound from one of the upper floors of the tall stone house, drifting down to them as they worked below. It might have been going on for longer, but Rabastan had not noticed over the screaming, and the others - well, the others had been utterly concentrated on the task in hand. They had not been unsuccessful. Frank was a highly-respected member of his profession, the sort of man to be trusted with such important secrets, dedicated, disciplined, prepared to go to any lengths in the service of his cause. The sort of man, in short, to give Aurors a very bad name indeed if anyone had ever stopped to think about it. Too few people stopped to think these days; Rabastan himself tried to avoid it. And Frank had been nicely forthcoming, in the end. He had resisted at first, naturally, confident in all that anti-interrogation training, as the Ministry called it. He'd even said so, when Rodolphus roughly brought him round after they'd secured him, screaming that he'd see them in Azkaban for this, he'd see them thrown to the Dementors, see them kissed for the treacherous bastards they were.

'How dare you say that?' young Barty Crouch had yelled, his adolescent frame flailing as he lunged at the elder man. 'It's you that's the traitor, you and your kind, betraying everything we ever - everything - ' Barty stopped, panting, brought up short by Rodolphus' hand on his shoulder moving him gently aside as Bellatrix stepped in front of Longbottom.

'Oh God, no,' Frank had whispered, the solid face suddenly shrunken into his robes, the curled hands clenching impotently on the chair.

'What a welcome, Longbottom. Hardly what one would expect from such an ...old house.' Bellatrix smiled, and waved a hand towards young Crouch with casual elegance. 'But I must agree with my fellow; we are not the traitors here. We are the loyal, and we shall be rewarded for our loyalty. I might also point out that as to bastardy our blood is quite as pure as yours and considerably better favoured.'

Frank spat at her feet and went reeling back in his chair as Rodolphus cuffed his face, his head smacking dully against the wooden back.

'What a shame we can't gag you,' Bella said, 'but that might make it a little hard for you to talk.' She smoothed her shining hair back from her face. 'Now, it really is time we made a start.'

It was hardly difficult. Three of them worked at once, the fourth serving as a Legilimens standing back a little and concentrating hard on Longbottom's eyes as the babble of words flowed forth from the pain, watching for those tiny moments when the lies and the defiance failed, moments that grew more and more and longer and longer as they worked, as they found the weaknesses to crack, drove their splinters deeper and deeper until they had taken all they could. The chair had broken, and Frank sprawled on the floor in its wreck before he convulsed in his final scream and flopped back unmoving. Crouch touched a hand to his face.

'He's still breathing,' he said. 'Shan't we bring him back to carry on? He could tell us more.'

'I don't think so,' Rodolphus said quietly. 'I don't think he has any more.' He glanced at Bellatrix, who straightened, breathing heavily, and shook her head.

'The question is,' said Rabastan, 'was it enough?'

'I - ' Rodolphus began, and broke off, listening. A faint sound came from above, the cry, Rabastan realised, of an infant child.

'The boy!' Crouch said gleefully.

Rabastan cocked his head at his brother.

'Go and look. Barty, you keep your wand on Frank, I'll wake the other one.' Rabastan walked across to Alice. Rodolphus had stunned her fairly heavily after she had woken up while they were dealing with her husband and started screaming. It had been rather distracting, although Bella hardly seemed to have noticed. She was still holding her arms around her middle, recovering, her chest heaving, her pale skin flushed pink and beaded with sweat. The Cruciatus curse did rather take it out of one, and unlike the other three, she had had no rest. Bellatrix had little skill in Legilimency, and in the other task she was beyond compare. Again and again she had struck, sometimes listening as her colleagues called out a weakness seen in the eyes, more often sensing the breach herself and driving the agonised man on further and further through truth and into madness. It had been quite a performance. Rabastan peered more closely at Alice, who was finally coming round. Bellatrix stepped across to join them.

'Alice, how nice to see you again,' she said, her low voice still a little ragged. 'We won't keep you long - your husband was very helpful. But there are just one or two things we'd like to confirm.'

'A bit of corroboration,' Rabastan said. 'I'd hate to think Frank had lied.' Alice followed his glance across to her husband who lay motionless at Crouch's feet, a think trickle of blood running from his mouth, his open eyes showing only white.

'What have you done to him?' she cried, and Bellatrix drew herself up, her dark eyes feverish with delight and looked down at the woman in the tatty chair,

'Oh don't be jealous, Alice. It was nothing we won't happily do to you.' She raised her wand as young Crouch and Rabastan stood motionless and staring, and then the door opened.

'Bellatrix, wait! Look what I've found.'

Bellatrix Lestrange heard her husband's voice, and stopped. Slowly she lowered her wand and turned to where Rodolphus stood in the doorway. In his arms, he held a child, sleeping once again.

'The son?' she gasped.

'The son.' Rodolphus confirmed. 'I found him upstairs. Had to kill the house elf - bit messy I'm afraid.'

Bellatrix gave a ragged laugh.

'Bring him in.'

Rabastan looked around him. The room was a wreck, furniture smashed where it had been thrown against the walls as the four of them had fought to subdue the Longbottoms. Crouch, still hovering over Frank, was staring greedily towards them, at Bella lifting her thick dark hair from her collar, at Alice horror-struck and silent, at the door where Rodolphus stood cradling the infant.

'I think it would be persuasive if she watched,' he said, stepping through the broken furniture to lay the boy on the floor before his mother.

'Yes!' hissed Crouch, but Rabastan's voice was stronger, and he said ,

'No.'

'What?' said Rodolphus. 'Why on earth not?'

Rabastan breathed in. Bellatrix had said nothing. She was watching Alice, a look of calculation on her beautiful, haughty face, but he had seen the hesitation as she turned, the moment of uncertainty, not as her nerve had failed, but as she reckoned the new situation. Passionate, arrogant, impulsive Bellatrix might be - and no wonder when one thought of her heritage - but she did think. Alice moaned, as Bella looked across to Rabastan.

'Go on,' she said.

'There is still a chance,' Rabastan said, 'that this might go wrong. 'Not a big one, but a chance. He's told us a lot, she'll confirm it, and we'll have everything we need to know. But it's a long way to Albania, and God only knows how long it will be coming back. Bringing Him back. And in that time, it might go wrong, and if it does go wrong I can assure you that things will not go better with us if we have harmed the child. No, brother,' he said, turning to Rodolphus, 'don't call me shy. I'm not afraid of Azkaban. The Dark Lord will return, even if we fail, and he would come for us, but there must be something for him to come for.

'It's one thing to withstand the Dementors' presence, Rodolphus, to keep your mind while all around are losing theirs, but it's quite another to be kissed. You know that. There's no defence to it, no bravery or magic when they've got your wand and they've got you tight and that hood comes down, and it's little use we'd be to the Dark Lord, a few weeks in a rotting shell and then death.

'So let's get on and leave the boy. We can have plenty of fun without him.' Rabastan stopped and looked at the others. Crouch's freckles showed like drops of blood against his face gone milk-white, and even Rodolphus looked suddenly unsteady as Alice sobbed silently in the chair behind him.

Bellatrix's glance flickered down to the child, and then lifted to her husband, her heavy-lidded eyes dark and cold.

'He's right,' she told Rodolphus. 'Take it back upstairs.' Rodolphus bent to lift the boy and made his way back across the splintered furniture. 'Wait,' Bellatrix said suddenly, and turned to Alice. 'You have a sleeping draught in the house?'

'Yes,' Alice gulped.

Bellatrix sighed. 'Where?' she demanded impatiently.

'In - in the bathroom cabinet. At the top of the stairs.'

'Get it, Rodolphus, and give him a good dose. We don't want him waking again and bursting in.'

Rodolphus vanished, and Rabastan heard his heavy tread as he carried the child upstairs. Bellatrix pushed back her sleeves and nodded her head at Barty Crouch where he stood still watching Frank.

'Leave him now. It doesn't look like he'll be troubling us for a while. Shall we begin?'

Crouch hurried over to join them, and Rabastan took up his position in front of the immobilised woman, ready for those flickers of feeling that would confirm the truth, that would lead them to the Dark Lord and his rich rewards. Alice's pretty plump face was wet and red with her tears, but the heaving sobs had lessened. She raised her head to Bellatrix.

'Thank you,' she whispered, and slumped weakly back against her bonds.

'Oh don't thank me,' said Bellatrix. 'I'm sure the child won't, not if he's anything like the blood-traitor you and his father are. Not when he learns how very helpful you have been. Now,' she held up her wand, 'it will take the potion a couple of minutes to take effect, so do something for your son while you still can, and try not to scream.' She looked across at young Barty, at his childish, rapacious grin as he pointed his wand with both hands at Alice's head, and at Rabastan, who waited, watching the slim white hand, waiting for it to move.

'Don't regret our chance with the boy, Barty,' Bella said. 'We'll always have other opportunities.' She lifted her wand and struck.