QLFC Round 11
Kenmare Kestrels
Beater 2
Prompt: "I'm not really surprised you murdered him." Also, your story must begin and end on the same word.
Word Count: 1981
Optional Prompts: 11) frost 12) pancakes
BETAs: Queen Bookworm the First, marauderX
(A/N: For a bit of setting on the fic, it's a later AU after the Cursed Child. Hope you enjoy!)
-0-
Anything can get you killed. If there was one thing Bravo had learned in his line of work, it was that.
Everything you do leaves a trail. Your breath frosting in the frigid night air, a hair that just so happens to fall from your head. Your footprints, your gait, your glance. Everything can be traced back to your identity, and then to the next one, and then to the next.
Bravo was a regular onion, with layers and layers of protection surrounding him. Shells of identities, forged papers that could bury a small country with their sheer mass. A paper man with paper people. Identification papers were all that mattered anymore, and Bravo had plenty to spare.
One day he would be a bored businessman, who eats too much and gets paid too little. He would apply a small mustard stain to the corner of his mouth and gnaw down his nails, stay unshaven for a day and fumble his way through the turnstile at the Tube. He would turn a few heads, but not the ones he didn't want to. The next day he would be a lanky college student looking for work, and the next an old man with trembling knees and crooked teeth. All of his shells kept their papers in their front pockets, ready to whip out at a moment's notice.
Bravo could be anyone he wanted because he himself didn't exist. He was an alias, a code name. No memories, no emotions, all skill. He didn't question because he didn't have to. Missions led to missions. The cycle continued. He couldn't complain, and he always complied.
He was busy fumbling with his tie on a park bench, satisfied to watch the world go by. He could tie it perfectly well, but at the moment he was posing as a young man in a spiffy, too-small suit. Maybe he was trying to impress a girl, as the wilted flowers at his side indicated. They were petunias, too general to be noticeable. Thick glasses framed his face, weary sunlight glancing off of the lenses. Bravo had noticed that no one seemed to look beyond glasses.
All the better to hide his eyes, his only trait that would give him away. Bravo's eyes were tombstones, a thousand miles deep and filled with the reeking stench of death that had mothers tugging their staring children away from him. Sometimes his eyes helped him for a role, but more often than not they caused him trouble. Today he was wearing green contact lenses, but they did little to mask the deep pits.
His tight Muggle attire cinched at all the wrong places and he shifted uncomfortably on the bench. It was a stark contrast to the flamboyant clothes of the wizards who bustled past, their robes flowing behind them. Only the upper crust of the Wizarding world still wore their traditional robes, so Bravo knew these were Voldemort's pets. They chattered in a chorus of mumbles, feigning that nothing was wrong. Bravo knew better. Everything was wrong with the world.
The new Ministry told him that the world was sick with a disease and Bravo was the cure. He didn't think that death could lead to life, having seen death so many times before. Whatever helped them sleep at night, though. He had his mission and then the next one. Death goes on.
Death lurked like so many shadows, festering in the darkness. Even if it was out of sight it itched at your mind, like the slightest movement over your shoulder. Voldemort's new order loved to hide things out of sight, though. Illegal operations, assassinations, and recently, Muggles.
In their rightful place, Bravo thought with a wry smile. He didn't know what he believed on the whole incident because he didn't believe anything at all. Sentiment slows you down. Progress keeps you up and running.
A harried-looking witch sat beside him, crossing her ankles. She looked oh-so prim and proper with her blood-red robes and cakelike makeup, and he disliked her instantly. Bravo glanced her way for a second and her beady eyes fixed on him, mouth curling in a sneer. He was sure her papers were pristine, boasting her pure blood and sour attitude in print. He recalled the thought of paper people again, an idea that amused him.
If they were paper people, he was holding the match.
"What are you looking at?" She scowled, the very picture of unpleasantness. Bravo wished for a moment that he could kill her, but unfortunately she wasn't his mission. He took a half-second to summon up his accent.
"Nothing." His voice fell to a low mumble as he dropped his gaze to his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman's sneer deepen until she was nearly snarling.
"Nothing, ma'am. You Muggles don't know your place, do you? I should have you flogged for this, impudent swine!"
Bravo didn't fear the pain. He had long since separated himself from his emotions, the joys and the agony that life entailed. Only the thrill of a kill remained, the satisfaction of a mission well done. And, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, his pride.
"Well, speak, you buffoon! You're lucky you haven't been shipped off to the Poles with the rest of your lot! Better to be out of sight, you worthless cows," the woman's tirade continued, her cheeks flushing with excitement. Her eyes flashed as she waved lacquered, clawlike nails in his face.
If he truly were a Muggle he would be trembling in his boots—if he wasn't stooped over in a Polish labor camp, that is. A pure-blooded Voldemort supporter could vaporize him without a second glance and without having to fill out an ounce of paperwork. Bravo could kill her in sixty different ways where she sat, though, so he supposed that made them even.
"Whoever you're trying to catch had better run off the way she came, because I'd rather snog a Mandrake than sit next to you!"
The flowers have done their work well, Bravo thought with a faint smile. The woman stood with a huff and stormed out of sight, body tensed with bottled-up anger. The sight was comical and Bravo allowed himself a laugh. It was a brash, humorless sound, and he shut his mouth quickly.
In one small gesture, he slipped his wand from the sleeve of his jacket and spun it between his fingers, an odd habit of his. To pass the time, he imagined how he would assassinate the woman if she came to sit next to him again. Perhaps a finger-strike to the throat. Relishing the feeling of her windpipe crumpling under his fingers, he sat back and enjoyed the view.
His mark would come walking down this path any minute now, like he did every day. Another lesson Bravo had learned: habit gets you killed. It was all too easy to track down his mark, to learn his tells and his routines. Bravo could list off every label on his mark's robes. He could recall the last fifty restaurants his mark ate at, what he had ordered, and how much he had eaten. He could tell you how much syrup he poured on his pancakes in a particular morning down to the milliliter. Bravo was nothing if not thorough—then again, he was nothing at all.
Bravo had allowed himself to be seen a few times over the last month or so by his mark. In the city everything was innately familiar. The faces you see always remind you of an obscure date or location you can't quite place, so Bravo had made sure he wasn't a newcomer. Being so close to the man was thrilling, adrenaline pumping in his veins despite all of his efforts to keep his emotions in check.
A patter of footsteps echoed on the path and Bravo forced himself to keep his head down, sliding his wand back into his sleeve. He knew his mark's gait perfectly, and there was no doubt who the approaching figure was. A pulse of anticipation rushed through him and he took a few deep breaths to clear his mind. He wasn't Bravo, he wasn't anything. He was a face in a crowd, as mundane as the bench he sat on. He was the bleak gray sky, the monotony of a day in the office his mark had surely just been freed from.
When Bravo raised his head, he was nothing but a mission. Nothing but a kill.
He stood with trembling knees, all part of the act, and gathered the petunias. They really were pitiful, all of their color leached out by the dim sky and the drabness of the day. But this would be a day people remembered. If the petunias didn't have color, his mark's blood would.
Bravo pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and jabbed at the screen with his left hand, holding the bouquet in his right. He wandered into the middle of the path, absorbed with something on the screen. Stepping forward, he stumbled slightly on a protrusive rock and staggered into his mark's chest. He had measured the rock perfectly to ensure his fall would be genuine. The flowers scattered across the road, trampled by Bravo's feet, and he caught himself on his mark's shoulders.
Glancing up, Bravo forced his mouth into a surprised 'o.' "I'm so sorry, sir, so sorry…" he muttered, ducking his head and getting down on his knees to gather up the flowers, which looked even worse than before. Their smushed stems clung to the pavement and he pried a few off with his fingernails before his mark swooped down to help him.
"No trouble at all, lad. No luck with the girl?" His mark gave him a kind smile, gathering a fistful of petunias.
"The rottenest luck you can get," Bravo remarked ruefully, tucking his head lower.
"Cheer up! Once you hit rock-bottom the only place you can go is up." His mark smiled again, handing him his collection of flowers.
"And you're going to hell." Bravo pulled his wand out of his robes, aiming it for the center of his mark's chest.
A thousand thoughts darted through Bravo's mind as the scene played out before him. His mark recoiled, shocked. Bravo had studied his reactions for so long he could anticipate every twitch, the way he raised his hands, his feet shuffling back. His mark was Pinocchio and Bravo was the puppet master. Every motion was a direct response to Bravo's, and in that moment, Bravo knew he could control him.
The spell was silent, the jet of green so bright it seared Bravo's eyes. He was used to it, though, and turned his head away as the life slipped from his mark. His mark's skull collided with the concrete, a resounding thwack and the crack of bone. Quickly, Bravo stood and dialed a number into his cell phone. It connected on the first ring.
"Bravo here. Scorpius Malfoy has been terminated."
The small buzz of the cell phone filled the otherwise silent pause. "I'm not really surprised you murdered him. Would it be too much to just set him in the middle of the moor? Joking, Bravo. For Voldemort and valor, eh?"
"For Voldemort and valor."
Bravo turned and ran as the first scream echoed behind him, a young woman's piercing cry splitting the sky. Already he was leaving his mission behind, his identity behind. In minutes he could be on the other side of the world, a farmer in a small New Guinean village. His mind was on the next identity, the next mission, the next kill.
Voldemort might be the Minister, or whatever title he fancied for himself, but Bravo knew who really ruled. Because for all that he had studied his mark, whose name was fading into the recesses of Obliviated memories, he had studied Voldemort even more.
Voldemort was the true mission. And if he knew the way the Dark Lord thought, he could do anything.