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After the End

"Tell me, does being in such close proximity to a Muggle-born disgust you?"

The young witch looked at him expectantly. Rodolphus wondered what she expected. Some sort of declaration that he had seen the error of his ways? Most of his former "comrades" would probably have given just that, hoping that it would get them free. He had no intention to do so. It would be futile anyway so why embarrass himself?

Hermione Granger, Head of the Commission for Truth had long, curly brown hair and a distinctively feminine figure visible even with robes that hid more than they revealed. Disgust wasn't among the things he felt towards her.

"Not at all, Miss Granger. I was in much closer proximity back when I used to cut up Muggle-borns on a daily basis."

In an involuntarily movement, she reached for her left arm, for a moment lost for words.

Muggle-borns were so predictable, Rodolphus thought. Allusions to this were always successful if you wanted to freak them out.

"Not what you're probably thinking," he added. "I used to work as a Healer and conditions like appendicitis are common in wizards too, especially Muggle-borns."

Granger began to leave through her files probably trying to check if he had really worked as a Healer in the past.

"Yes, you actually did work at Saint Mungo's," she stated after a while. "Why did you leave? Have you already been working for Lord Voldemort and harmed patients in his name?"

Rodolphus pictured Bellatrix' reaction to hearing this name spoken by a Muggle-born and suppressed a sigh. She was off, serving her Master in the afterlife now, if she was lucky, or unlucky. Better answer Granger's question.

"There've been problems and I've been accused of being responsible for them. My wife's affiliation. I only joined the Dark Lord afterwards."

Granger made a note on her writing pad. "Indeed? You have been sentenced to life in prison for the torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom, is that correct?"

"Yes," Rodolphus merely said.

As if she didn't know that. Neville Longbottom was a good friend of hers and Rodolphus was sure she had asked him about it before.

"Have you been subjected to torture yourself after your arrest?" Granger wanted to know.

"This, Miss Granger, is a question that should never be asked in polite pure-blood company," Rodolphus told her.

He had never cared about these rules or propriety and this definitely wasn't a conversation "in polite pure-blood company" but he had no interest whatsoever in telling her. He was a Slytherin but even Slytherins had standards. They didn't do everything to improve their position. Well, some Slytherins at least didn't and he was one of them.

Granger made another note on her pad. She didn't press the point.

"I'd like to ask something concerning Muggle and Muggle-borns," Rodolphus said. "Does Lucius Malfoy's release last month have anything to do with the fact that all the people he has tortured to insanity have belonged to one of those two groups?"

The pardon for Malfoy was one of the few things that made Rodolphus truly angry nowadays. The slimy bastard had considered pointless Muggle torture a form of entertainment, had brought about the deaths of numerous people via underhanded means including the almost-death of Harry Potter's girlfriend. And yet, he had never been in Azkaban for more than a few months and was allowed to walk free once again.

Granger seemed obviously flustered now.

"Obviously not," she said her voice slightly higher than normally. The adult Ministry official seemed to be replaced by the school girl she had been only a little while ago. A well-trained Auror would have told him that he wasn't in a position to ask questions of his own. "The Malfoy family has defected from service to Lord Voldemort and helped our side in numerous ways thus showing active repentance."

"I see," Rodolphus said.

So Malfoy had probably betrayed some of the lesser known Death Eaters of the Second War. Not much of a surprise. The only infuriating thing was that this actually allowed you to regain your freedom under the new regime. Didn't they value courage above anything?

"I think that's all for today," Granger said. She had obviously realised that she wasn't entirely in control of the conversation anymore.

"Ron, Neville, I'm finished here," she called out.

The two Aurors, barely past Hogwarts age themselves walked into the room. Rodolphus wondered if they had any clue of the things young people had been forced to go through before they could call themselves Aurors in the past. Longbottom's last year at Hogwarts might qualify as Resist and Survive-training, spending the year in a tent with Harry Potter however did not.

They undid his chains and walked out of the room on either side of him, following Granger. Both wizards had their wands raised. "You know what'll happen if you try to escape," Weasley said.

"Considering that you've told me at least five times, I think I do."

The Aurors were allowed to kill him right away if he tried to flee. Sometimes, Rodolphus wondered if shortening his sentence this way wasn't worth a try.

They walked upstairs to his cell in silence. Weasley was watching Granger's backside more intently than he watched Rodolphus. Some proper Auror training would have done him well. Longbottom however had his eyes on him and looked alert.

Rodolphus cast him a sideways glance. He had inherited the Fawley-looks almost completely. Only the chestnut brown eye colour was a feature the Longbottoms were known for. His bearing however greatly resembled his father's.

For a moment, he wondered if the fourth-year girl who had been coughing blood from Rookwood's Garrotting Gas had survived and if she had found the chance to speak to Longbottom. "Tell Neville I tried," she had said to Rodolphus when he had brought her to Hogsmeade and handed her over to people who'd take her to Saint Mungo's. Her young companion, a third-year boy from Hufflepuff had already been dead.

So absurd. Attacking a school full of children who were the future of the very society they were fighting for. Of course they had wanted to fight the people who constantly abused them. How could Alecto have been so stupid anyway? It had nothing to do with the Dark Lord himself. Or maybe, it had had everything to do with the Dark Lord himself.

The Aurors pushed him back into his cell and locked the door. Without another word, the three former Gryffindors left.

Rodolphus was alone with himself once more. No matter how pointless and annoying Granger's questions were, they provided a welcome distraction. He was looking forward to those meetings even though he'd never admit it. There was no one he could admit it to anyway.

The walls between the cells were too thick to have a proper conversation without shouting though he and Alecto Carrow in the cell next to him sometimes tried. They had shared something resembling an affair which had begun during their initiation ceremony. She had actually enjoyed having the Cruciatus curse used on her by Rodolphus and one thing had come to the other. This was a rare gift to have bestowed upon you; few people got the chance to practice the curse on someone who was actually willing.

After Azkaban, when Bellatrix obsessions with the Dark Lord had been such that she refused any intimate contact with her husband, Alecto had been there for him once more. He had never claimed that he loved her and neither had she but hearing a woman tell him once in a while that Bellatrix should be glad she was married to him or that he was the only one she trusted enough to live out her fantasies with was comforting.

Too bad they had so little to tell each other which they were prepared to share with fellow inmates, House Elf guards and Aurors.

Rodolphus' attempts to give Alecto advice concerning the Hogwarts situation had never born much fruit. Still, Rodolphus was glad Alecto was the one in the cell next to him and not one of those other idiots.

He looked around his cell. Some things had changed in comparison to his first imprisonment. The hole in the ground had been replaced by a real toilet, the sink always gave water now, not only sporadically as it used to and he had soap as well as a few other hygiene items. There was a proper bed to sleep on instead of a heap of straw in the corner. The House Elves regularly threw new sheets into the cell; Rodolphus was responsible for actually changing them himself. The same went for cleaning. Utensils were provided; everything else was up to him.

The last time Rodolphus had cleaned anything the Muggle way had been back at Hogwarts in detention but stuck in his cell, he was glad about everything he could do.

The Dementors had left Azkaban for good. Nothing and no one influenced the thoughts and feelings of the prisoners anymore but Rodolphus wasn't sure if that was an improvement. He now knew that his feelings weren't caused by creatures whose presence he had to survive. They were real.

Last time, he had still believed he was fighting for something worthwhile. A world that embraced magic completely rather than rejecting all but some aspects of it. A world where people like him were in charge rather than being pushed around, dismissed from their job and looked down upon by newcomers who had no right to usurp such positions.

Under the influence of the Dementors, he hadn't been able to believe it for long. He wouldn't be in charge, Voldemort was. They were nothing but slaves, and Rodolphus' wife was the one slave he had chosen for his bed.

So much great life had been lost, terminated or destroyed, for a mere lie.

This time, there were no Dementors but that didn't mean he was feeling any differently. They had been his most loyal servants but had it mattered to him? It had not, not at all. Voldemort had killed Rabastan in a fit of pointless rage. Potter and his friends had broken into the Lestrange vault and stolen something of utmost importance to the Dark Lord. He wanted someone to pay, anyone. Every person who had not been quick enough to leave the room had died.

He remembered as if it had been yesterday, the blind panic, the disbelief. Bellatrix and Lucius (of course) had been the first to flee. Rodolphus hadn't grasped it at first. The Dark Lord killed traitors, everyone knew this. But loyal supporters? This couldn't be. Rabastan had pushed him away, before he could make up his mind. When the flash of green light went into their direction, he had stood between it and his brother. Rabastan had fallen while Rodolphus stumbled out of the room numb with shock.

This had been the end, the true end of it all. Any vestiges of delusion Rodolphus had saved through Azkaban were gone but it had been much too late. There had been no way back.

He still wasn't sure if Rabastan had shielded him on purpose or if it had happened like this by accident. If he had meant to do it, Rodolphus didn't know if he could feel grateful. And yet, he knew that there had been one person, at least one person in his life who had truly loved him.

Now he was gone.

Rodolphus sat down, hiding his face in his hands. True tears didn't want to come even if he would have welcomed them. So many years of carefully cultivated self-control weren't easy to forget about not even when you were sitting all alone in your cell.

If he had lost his brother to an Auror's curse, to some rebel's sneak attack, it would be so much easier to bear. But not this, not this pointless murder by the man they had served all those years, the man they had sacrificed so much for. Even after all those months, he couldn't grasp it.

Rodolphus got to his feet once more, began pacing around his cell. He had felt nothing but numbness afterwards. Even Bellatrix' continued love for Voldemort hadn't inspired any kind of feeling.

Rodolphus had hoped someone would kill him in the battle to finally free him. The thought of a life under the rule of his brother's murderer had been unbearable. Voldemort wasn't fit to rule a country anyway. Sooner or later, there would have been a rebellion. Rodolphus hadn't bothered to put up a real fight. Instead, he had ended up attempting to get all those children out of the school who had returned to fight in an attempt at misguided bravery. In some cases, he had succeeded, others had refused. For many, his help had come too late.

No one had killed him but he wasn't forced to live under Voldemort's rule either.

Rodolphus remembered those final moments very well. Harry Potter's supposed death, Alice's boy running to the front and declaring that they wouldn't give in. Rodolphus had been sure that Neville Longbottom's fate was sealed. Foolish but brave. This was exactly what Alice would have done in his place. Rodolphus wondered if anyone had told him so. They were always talking about his father alone, even at the trial no one had mentioned Alice's name.

Either way, Longbottom hadn't died. Instead, in a true Longbottom action, he drew Godric Gryffindor's sword out of the head and slew Voldemort's snake which he had cherished more than any of this Death Eaters.

And deep down, behind his carefully groomed shields of Occlumency Rodolphus had felt jubilant. Something inside him had known that this was the beginning of the end for Voldemort. No one would believe him that if he told them which was why he didn't bother. He was no Lucius Malfoy.

Bellatrix had walked ahead. Rodolphus had been certain that Molly Weasley was no match for her. He had only met her once before, at Saint Mungo's many years ago. Right after Alice had saved her two oldest sons from Bellatrix and other Death Eaters. She hadn't seemed like a fighter.

Sometimes, first impressions could be wrong. She had won and Bellatrix had lost. Her mocking laughter had still been on her face when the deadly curse hit. If he tried hard enough, Rodolphus was almost able to pretend she had been happy as she died.

Voldemort's scream. Had he truly cared after all? Why couldn't he let her know that in the living years?

Rodolphus had run to her side, ignoring the others. He didn't care anyway. He had checked if she was truly dead or if there was anything he could do. After Rabastan's death, he hadn't believed that he could feel any worse but he had. It could always go worse. Overcome by despair, he had bent over her, called out her name, hoped that his healing magic could safe her one more time.

There was nothing. She had left this world forever.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter and Voldemort had started talking and duelling. All eyes were fixed on them; no one cared about Rodolphus and his fallen wife.

No one but him. Neville Longbottom's eyes were fixed on them rather than on the final duel. He stepped over to them, his wand raised.

Rodolphus never intended to put up a real fight but he didn't want to surrender either. Longbottom should get the feeling he had defeated him, it was important to him; he knew how they were thinking. Rodolphus fought with simple duelling spells he knew Longbottom was able to handle. Like the boy's Defence teacher rather than his enemy. When Longbottom won his wand, Rodolphus expected him to cut off his head like the Longbottoms of old had done if they wanted to restore their family honour.

Neville however, was Alice's son as well. His idea of justice was different. Already in chains, Rodolphus had watched the final confrontation. Potter had come out of it victorious.

"It's over," Longbottom said.

Rodolphus didn't respond but he knew it was true and he was glad that this was so. Enough magical blood had been shed.

Then he was brought back to Azkaban along with his fellow prisoners. He had been there ever since.

There had been four of them, now only one was left.

Barty, kissed by a Dementor. Rodolphus had hoped he might find a cure if Voldemort won, in his foolish first months after Azkaban. He didn't have the chance to do this anymore and probably, it was impossible anyway. He'd spent the rest of his life in the cellar room at Saint Mungo's where the victims of the Dementor's kiss were kept. Barty probably wasn't the only one after all the Dementor breeding in the war.

Rabastan, murdered by Voldemort himself in mindless rage.

Bellatrix, killed in a duel against one of the many people she had wronged.

As he had done so many times before, Rodolphus thought he could have saved them all. If he had actually come to Bellatrix' aid in her duel, she might have survived. It had been foolish of him to underestimate her opponent. He could have saved her.

If he hadn't allowed Rabastan to stand between him and Voldemort's curse, if he hadn't been stupid enough to be in this room in the first place, Rabastan could still be alive.

And Barty, young Barty. He had known that this was too much for him, that he wasn't a torturer. If he had insisted that he stayed behind, if they had simply left without him, he could have been spared his cruel fate.

Rodolphus could have saved them all but he had failed them, each and every one of them.

He remembered those months after the end of the First War so well. Four conspirators, four brilliant young pure-bloods. They had never been so close. (And they had never breathed so freely with Voldemort still around though none would have admitted this even to himself or herself back then.)

And why, why hadn't they been able to come up with a better plan? Rodolphus couldn't count the times he had asked himself that during his various imprisonments. There would have been so many more intelligent things to do than go and torture a couple of Aurors from one of the oldest and most popular pure-blood families. They could have found him themselves. If Frank Longbottom was able to do so, why not them?

They could have been the nucleus of a new movement, this time led by true pure-bloods. Instead, they had tortured two Aurors to insanity and gone to prison for it. Rodolphus could only think of one answer to the question why. Voldemort had clouded their minds so much they could think of nothing but the most violent solution.

In the end, it all came back to him. They had all died for him and nothing Rodolphus could have done would have prevented this from happening. Just like nothing he did could prevent Voldemort from taking advantage of his wife.

Enough, Rodolphus decided. He took the scrubber and began to scour the floor of his cell. He wanted the cleanest one in the block. Whatever you do, do your best, his family's motto demanded.

He had striven to be the best Healer at Saint Mungo's, the most successful torturer in Voldemort's ranks and now the owner of the cleanest cell in Azkaban prison.

This was all he could to until the Mud-sorry Muggle-born returned with more questions about the war. More questions she wanted to have answered in her quest for the truth understandable only to herself.