Quidditch League Fanfiction Challenge – Round 8: Kill 'em with Fluff! Cruciatus Curse

Prompts:

3. (song) Anywhere But Here by Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors

9. (picture) preview/909-31-2650/Broken-Window

11. (poem) The Poet to Death, by Sarojini Naidu

Summary: Rabastan is not dependent of his brother but he doesn't deny that being close to Rodolphus has always brought him comfort and after all, his brother has always been there for him. Rabastan is remembering things during the torturing of the Longbottoms. /Alternative title: No One to Stop Us Now

A/N: What-the-feck-is-this? Slight(?) Lestrangecest if you squint and seriously… I-I can't write fluff…! And this was supposed to be a fluffy fic! *goes sobbing in the corner*

Tarry a while, O Death, I cannot die

While yet my sweet life burgeons with its spring;

Fair is my youth, and rich the echoing boughs

Where dhadikulas sing.

It has always brought me comfort.

Having a brother.

The fact I always had my brother by my side when I needed him. Every time I needed him actually. I found it so natural that the abnormality of our close bond never crossed my mind.

Just like when we had been merely children of this pretentious family and I had got caught in the garden with grass stains in my better clothes. It had been embarrassing, tripping like that while there were guests over.

Rodolphus had stood up for me and held my hand when our Father scolded us before I had been sent into our room. He had got slapped. Or at least that's what he told me anyway later that night. I think he lied. He had been so exhausted I was sure Father had used Unforgivable on him.

…

Just like when we had been at school – Rodolphus was a sixth year student, I was on my second year – and he had cursed the students who had bullied me and since he was older than them they had never had a change against him. A tall and burly Slytherin student with menacing eyes he had been then. And he never really changed from that.

He had held my hand in the Headmaster's office where we had been called after the staff found out he had been punishing, as he put it, the younger students. In my eyes he was so perfect and strong and what he did to them… It was right. He got detention for that time and they wrote a letter to our Father. He never brought up what Father had written back to him.

…

Just like when I had finally hit seventeen and followed Rodolphus to my very first Death Eater meeting albeit he had recommended me to stay behind. They had tattooed the Mark to my inner forearm and my throat was raw for all the screaming. Bella, my brother's fiancée, had laughed at my face and called me ridiculous brat.

Rodolphus hadn't sided with her. He had held his hand on my arm and sat by me until the pain lessened. He had got called too attached to me and accused for being too soft to be a follower of the Dark Lord for that but he had ignored them.

I was happy he had done that. He always meant the world to me.

The wind howls in from the cracked glass windows. I feel like a broken glass at moment actually. This isn't the first time I'm participating in a mission. But this time the Dark Lord hadn't send us. The Dark Lord had disappeared, and we are working on our own. The idea just isn't whole for me yet. It can crumble down any minute and I'll be a nervous wreck.

I hold the hand of my brother, my courageous older brother who has always been there for me. He's warm and steady and just him being here helps me to concentrate on the task in front of us. He knows, he has always known, what's up and I don't doubt him.

But as embarrassing it is, I'm tense, flushing bright pink, and clinging on him for support like always. Bella and Crouch are here, too, but neither of them pays attention on us. Rodolphus smiles his trademark lop-sided smile and reassuringly runs his thumb over the back of my hand. He doesn't mind that I'm clingy. He's used to it by now and it makes my life a little easier; I know he's not going to ever push me away.

I suppress my chuckles when he quizzically cocks his eyebrow at me. He hasn't shaved in months; he has been too busy while doing tracking missions. He has started to look like our Father, and I find it amusing. But Rodolphus is still better looking than him. I don't even hear the screams of the Aurors when I look at him and all good times coming to mind and making me feel all warm inside. The noises on the background come to my ears so faintly it's like gentle buzzing.

"It's going to be okay", Rodolphus whispers in his calm, baritone voice, mistaking my staring as a hesitation. "We're doing the right thing, Rabastan. For the Dark Lord, remember?"

I give a smile and a nod. Rodolphus is a simple man, a man of few words in both public and private. But he doesn't need to say more to make me understand. He and Bella have a plan, and I'm the one to follow it. I tighten my grip of his hand and for the first time in days the real, soft smile appears on his face. He encourages me with those simple gestures.

On the other side of the room Bella is overjoyed by the power she has. Her thrilled, mad cackling is the most booming voice and it fills the peaceful night. The cries of the Auror couple are barely audible anymore. Just gasps and whimpers, not even words anymore. And I smile as I see Rodolphus grinning a little.

I raise my wand and smile since when this is over…

"Crucio…!"

…we can go back home together.

North to the lights to watch the snow fall

East to the city we can see it all

South to the ocean

West to the mountains

It doesn't matter where we go

As long as we're together what we don't know

Won't stop us now

I'll take you anywhere but here

And I hold Rodolphus' hand, already ready to apparate the hell out of here and just curl up on the couch with him. Bella is running like a madman on the chilly street while her lips are curled up into a wide grin like it's a Christmas morning. Barty follows us, more hesitant to join our spree, but I can see a slight smile on his face as well.

No one is there to stop us now.