Author's Note:
All the characters of this story belong to J.K. Rowling, I just gave a little more life to the almost unknown characters of Evan Rosier, Wilkes, Avery and Rodolphus Lestrange :) The song is called "out of control" and belongs to the Rolling Stones.
Charakters: Evan Rosier, Severus Snape, Adrienne Wilkes, Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange
Out of control
"I was young
I was foolish
I was angry
I was vain
I was charming
I was out there
Tell me how have I changed
Now I'm out
Oh out of control"
The Rolling Stones
London, 1981, January 2nd – Evan Rosier
The silence in our flat is scary.
Severus and I are living here, but so much has changed ever since we moved in… These walls haven't heard laughter for such a long time.
Strange, it's me who says that. I've been blessed with a lot of humour and optimism, at least for Slytherin measurements.
I stare at the living room. I haven't done this for some time. These pictures everywhere. Pictures from our school days.
Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. Hieronymus Avery. Adrienne Wilkes. And the both of us, of course, Severus and me. Often, and so often with a smile.
The mirror shows a different picture now. An empty pair of brown eyes stares back at me from a pale gaunt face. That's not you, Even, I think, not for the first time.
And I can't disagree.
I've always pictured myself in a different way. Light-hearted. So obviously happy that older housmates wondered if I really belonged to Slytherin – because no one of the Snake's House has got a reason to laugh in this school runned by Gryffindors! -. Being a cushion at the many arguments between my friends. – „Bella, get Avery down! What's happened now?" „He's a bloody jingoistic bastert, that's what happened." – or beeing the arguing person myself because I dared to spend my time with half bloods and blood traitors – "Merlin, Even, Sirius of all persons! Couldn't you find someone else who shares your passion for… electric guitars?" - . Actually rather devoted to the liberal party than to the conservative racist ligue, the Dark Order my family pushed me into.
The Dark Mark has never been a part of my self-perception. The Dark Order was never to play a big role in my life. Why do you have parents that keep there noses out of everything and deal with the darkness only financially when your own uncle drags you to the Dark Lord with his own hands eventually?
Well, fine, that's not perfectly true. The first contact to the Dark Lord happened without the help of my uncle…
We should have known that Lucius Malfoy wouldn't return to Hogwarts without a reason. When he showed up at the beginning of our sixth year for an intership and cared to win the elite of our year for the work on a theatre play, we couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was planning. We didn't see that it was the best opportunity to find out who of the talented elite witches and wizards were possibly willing to join the Dark Order. And he found what he was looking for. So he brought us, Severus, Bellatrix, Adrienne, Avery and me, to the Forbidden Forest six months later, where we met the Dark Lord for the very first time…
Of course, an affection for the Dark Arts lures young interested wizards into his circle of decay.
We had done our best to learn the Dark Arts since our fourth year. Top secret, of course. It's not easy to lay eyes on the forbidden material with Albus Dumbledore watching over his sheeps. But with the Dark Lord as our master, we learned fast and efficient. He bred his own elite...
Thinking about this causes me to snort mockingly. His own elite, of course. Trained appropriate in a way so we can use the Dark Arts to his favours without using them against him. Wonderful. Severus and I, we are 21 years old, and we are masters of Legilimency, but we can't save our minds from Him entering and abusing.
Ha. This bitterness doesn't belong to my self-perception either. Sarcasm, yes – you can't avoid it when you're spending so much time with Severus Snape - , but my sarcasm used to be peppered with flippancy. This exhausting resignation, this helpless bitterness caused by the war – this has never been a part of me. Not until now.
Strange enough. We seem to win this war, but when I look at the few unmasked faces during the Death Eater meetings, when I look at Severus or Rodolphus or Narcissa, then I see faces as pale, eyes as fearful and hounded as the faces and eyes of the ministry's fighters that I use to meet when I visit my friends – Bella and Sev – at work at St. Mungo's to bring them some coffee to cheer them up.
How the hell did I get here? How did I turn from a cheerful talented wizard and gifted musician at the Magical Theatre Circle to this bitter exhausted warrior in a war that I never wanted to fight in? How did I end up fighting for ideals that are not mine?
„When did you eat the last time?"
"Sev! Merlins pants, when did you come in?"
My best friend puts his cloak on a chair. "It must have been between two of your many desperate sighs."
He's as pale as I am. Merlin, I don't want to know where he's coming from. Should he have been working at St. Mungo's until now, it's alright. Should he have been meeting Dumbledore again, then I really hope that the Dark Lord as got other things to do than checking my mind to find possible traitors.
„So… when?"
„What do you mean?"
„When did you eat the last time? And don't roll your eyes, you look like shit, to put it mildly."
"Stop playing the healer." Typically him. Didn't he and Evans – pardon, now she's Mrs. Potter – start working at St. Mungo's originally to study at the potion's laboratory? Now that the situation is officially called a state of emergency, they are medimagicians and worry about perfectly healthy people.
„Do you want to faint at Adrienne's?", Sev asks indignantly and helps himself to a cup of coffee. I bite back my comment that these loads of coffee – black! – he's drinking won't replace regular meals.
There's the other problem I pushed aside…
„Honestly, I don't even wanna go there…" I sit down next to him. Severus faces me with a sceptical expression.
„I'm sure you don't. But it's her birthday-"
"I know. But I'm seeing her every day, Salazar, I need her to give me a break."
Sev doesn't answer, he just stares into his cup. I sigh.
I know, he doesn't want to visit Adrienne either. Our friend has changed since she became a victim of auror Emilina Potter during the civil war in 1978. Since the healers couldn't help her. Since she's tied to a wheel chair. Severus avoids her since she attacked the Auror Headquarters and almost killed his mother. I would like to avoid her since she clings to me that hard. As if I could save her soul – ts, I don't even get along with myself. She ties me to her with her causeless jealousy – are we a couple? Definitely not. Do I have a girlfriend? Definitely not. Could I afford to give my heart to someone without the risk of my loved one to be a possible aim for the Dark Lord? Well, he wouldn't care, I'm sure. The real danger would be Adrienne…- and she knows I won't just leave. What kind of friend would tell his invalid friend that she makes him sick?
Sev sighs as well.
„You've got a rehearsal with one of your choire girls, don't you? Let's try to stay for an hour and just leave."
The sound of the drawing room door closing behind me sounded to final when I left Sev, Rodolphus and Avery at the staircase of the Wilkes' house.
How the hell did this happen now? And what am I doing here?
I mean, it had been obvious that we wouldn't be able to leave after one hour. This time it wasn't even our fault. It was because even Bellatrix Lestrange can't handle someone calling her a bad friend and accusing her to have denied magical help after an auror's curse that got our friend Adrienne Wilkes into a wheel chair.
I really don't want to know which reproaches of Adrienne got Bellatrix to use Dark Magic. Severus is going to kill her for that, they vowed to each other that they would never use Dark Magic to heal Adrienne…
But now our friend is walking toward me – she's walking! I haven't seen her walking for three years… and I don't know if I should rather be happy or horrified.
"You… you really did this?"
„It worked", Bellatrix answeres.
„Yes, it did", Adrienne agrees with a beaming face and moves her legs with sparkling eyes.
"That's great!"
"I know… it's…"
„This changes everything." At least my voice decides to sound happy – Adrienne being able to walk means me being free. "I guess you won't need my presence here anymore, right? In that case I hope you don't mind me leaving you earlier tonight?"
„Leaving?" The sparkle in Adriennes eyes is sharper than before.
"Yeah, I told you that I have a meeting with a colleague of mine. I can't delay it again. You understand that, don't you?"
While I'm moving towards the door, I see Bellatrix vaguely shaking her head from the corner of my eye.
„Colleague?" Adrienne sounds alarmingly controlled. „Oh, I see…"
The coldness in her voice… She uses to sound like this before she uses Cruciatus… I've got to get out of here!
Bellatrix seems to think the same thing, before I can even reach for the doorknob, she pushes past me and opens the door.
"I know this colleague of yours. Well… we'll see…" Adrienne reaches for her wand. I stumble backwards towards Bellatrix who turned back to us.
"Adrienne, give it a rest", she cries with a hint of fear in her voice, but our friend ignores her.
"You don't really think that I'll watch you letting me down." She draws her wand and I can't help but to gasp of pure fear. If I know two women I don't want to face when they are angry, then those two in this very room. I'm quite unlucky in Adrienne's case. She's so obvious a Death Eater and scholar of the Dark Lord…
I've said right from the start that I don't want to join the Dark Order!
"No, don't come any closer!"
"Adrienne!" Bellatrix moves quickly, the door closes once more.
"We'll see whom you're going to lose your heart to", Adrienne hisses and points her wand at me. "And if I have to… make sure personally… Obsero!"
„No!"
The last thing I notice ist he blue flash of light that hits me, and my numb racognizing the spell: Dementor's curse…
I fall into the blackness. Warm, soft darkness covers me and from far, far away I hear a hoarse female voice. Sounds like she's singing… on the other hand, almost everything is connected to music for me. Something keeps me from laughing about this. Strange. I'm sure I'd usually laugh about this…
Voices, panicking voices… there are also men… I can't really put an order to these things… a muffled bang gets me to wake up. There's light, fire in the fireplace, very close to me, but I'm freezing…
Above me there are the worried faces of Rodolphus and Avery and Severus… I remember those three. What happened? Why am I lying here?
„How're you feeling?" Avery asks quietly.
"Dunno… somehow… empty…" Oh Merlin… Adrienne… walking… Guess I was even happy about it… but now… I return Rodolphus gaze. "I don't feel anything…"
London, 1981, August 29th
It's pure irony. The most reluctant Death Eater who is the most unwillingly to do his tasks suddenly is as cold as ice so he can fulfill the Dark Lord's orders without a bad conscience.
It's paraox. The healers in St. Mungo's said, „partial loss of soul and emotion". Well, a few emotions have returned. I don't feel nothing anymore, that's a good thing. And during the first minutes, the hatered was soothing. It was more than nothing.
But on the long run… I don't have a bad conscience, but I hate what I do.
And I hate Adrienne, even though she tied me to herself with her curse. According to Sev, my first words in the hospital were: 'Where's Adrienne? I want to torture her and break her neck!'. I don't remember it myself, there are only fragments of a memory.
Severus introduced me to life again. I'm grateful about that. He even makes me laughs every now and then. But when I thought I had lost my humour before this… thing happened… compared to now I was a potion for happiness then.
Severus will leave soon. He will work as a teacher in Hogwarts (this really was a reason to laugh!). Who know's if it was Dumbledore's or the Dark Lord's idea? It won't make life any easier. But what's easy in life?
I loathe myself for the things I do. I hate myself for kneeling at the Dark Lord's feet. For burning down houses on his orders. For torturing an innocent woman. For taking a man to his execution or for executing him personally just because he doesn't want to join us.
The world will be a better place without me. I thought this for a long time, and now I don't have a reason to stay.
I can't help anyone, I can't do something positive in this war. The only thing I can do is destruction.
So I'll act reasonable for once and start with myself.
Downstairs in my desk my last will is waiting to be found. I don't have much to give, but what I have is close to my heart. Well, close to the place where I once knew a heart was 9 months ago.
Letters, lyrics and poems fromm y creative time for Severus because I know that he likes lyrical stuff (even though he would rather choke than admitting this). Score and sheet music for Rodolphus because he's the only one who can read them and treasures them. Old pictures for Bellatrix, because she's a nostalgic person deep down in her heart. And my attempts of drawing for Avery because he treasures everything artistic containing ink and paper.
Do I have to say that I ignored Adrienne? I didn't even prepared a letter with poison for her. At the moment I don't have the strength for two murders.
The Dark Lo- Voldemort, Salazar, it's Voldemort, he has got every reason to think of me as a blemish in his elite. I don't even try to commit suicide in a magical way. Is there a better thing to break with the racists of the Dark Order? Could I end myself in a better way, ignoring poisons and wands and using a simple knife?
One last long look over the rooftops of London. The soft touch of the knife's blade. Soon it will be over.
A song is running through my mind. „I was out in the city, I was out in the rain. I was feeling down hearted, I was drinking again…" Dying with the Rolling Stones. It's only rock n roll, but I've always loved it. Yeah, I guess I'm really a blemish for the Death Eaters.
And damn, I'm proud of it.
I slowly place he blade on my wrists.
„No I'm out, oh out of control", I humm.
The first red warm drops are falling onto the stones of the rooftop while I'm saying goodbye to the world.
The first thought I have as I wake up, covered with warm white sheets and with the strange clean smell of hospital in my nose which I surprisingly recognize at once, and as I see Severus' desperate black eyes, ist hat I should chose a pistol for the next try…
Tbc.