A/N: Written for The Ultimate Death Eater Contest, round three, which can be found at the HPFC forum. I chose the character Rodolphus Lestrange and the prompt "there was a strange beauty in chaos."
I also wanted to mention that this is non-linear, and using a (as my beloved beta-reader mew-tsubaki kindly informed me about) sandwich-effect. Thanks for everything, mew!
The Lingering Hint of Innocence
"You all right, Rab?" Rodolphus shoved his hands deep in his pockets and looked up at his younger brother perched up on a top branch in the oak tree just outside their garden.
"Go 'way," Rabastan mumbled, shuffling around so that he faced the other direction, away from Rodolphus. His voice sounded as though it was laced with tears, and Rodolphus crawled through the hole in the hedge.
When he was three branches up, Rabastan turned around and looked at him, dried tears making his cheeks look papery.
"I said 'go,' Rod. Don't wanna talk t'you," he said, his eyebrows pulling together, knitting themselves tightly above his eyes.
"Don't need to talk. Just here t'keep you company."
"I'm not in need of any company; I'm fine."
"'Kay, I see. But what if I need company then?" Rodolphus asked, winding his arms around the trunk of the tree. Rabastan always had been better at climbing trees than him and he was getting better and better at admitting that.
Rabastan sniffed. "Stay then."
The look in the man's (first Rodolphus had felt an urge to call him "boy," but then he had figured out that Winston actually was two years his superior) eyes made Rodolphus smile to himself and rise from the chair in which he had been sprawling.
"Brother, he won't talk if you curse his tongue out, you know that," he said to Rabastan, all the while keeping his eyes firmly on Winston. The bloke's face was a show in itself.
Rabastan grinned wolfishly. "I'll never get to try this curse, will I?"
"Oh, I don't know about that. As soon as he has talked…" Rodolphus let his voice trail off, and now Winston was practically shaking.
"Please," he choked, and Rabastan's and Rodolphus' eyes met and Rodolphus knew exactly what his little brother was thinking.
"Please what, Winston?" Rabastan asked, and Rodolphus' smile didn't falter.
He couldn't decide whether it was a good or a bad thing that his cell faced Rabastan's. When their eyes met in the dark, through the bars, and he saw his little brother's sunken cheeks and hollow eyes, how his dark hair had become long and ragged, how he looked so dead—he hated it. Then he wished not to have to see Rabastan ever again, because time passed and he feared that one day he wouldn't see Rabastan stand up again. But when he sat in the back of his cell and tried to make his hands stop shaking, then he longed so bad for Rabastan to look at him, and when he heard those all-too-common screams bounce against the slippery walls, then he could have killed to hear Rabastan whisper just anything.
Rabastan nodded, so as to confirm that Rodolphus had noted Winston's speech, and Rodolphus gave him a small smile. Of course he had heard, because even though Winston had panted heavily and interrupted every other word with a "please," it had been the one thing the brothers had wanted to get out of him.
Rabastan's smile reflected in Winston's eyes, which widened.
"No, no, you promised—"
Then his head exploded.
"That's a new one, Rab?" Rodolphus asked while pushing a lock of hair out of his face.
"Yes, I've been dying to try it," Rabastan answered, still grinning.
Rodolphus knew they would have to clean up, sooner or later, but he couldn't really get himself to do it. There was some strange beauty in it, the way Rabastan's pale face had been covered in tiny droplets of ruby red blood, how chaotic it all had looked: Winston's headless body still bound to the chair but thrown across the floor in the way a child would throw away the toy it had grown tired of, Rabastan's boots amidst it all, shining black, and the high windows through which only a small beam of moonlight shone.
"The sun's soon gonna go down," Rodolphus said.
"Yeah?" Rabastan asked, not once having looked down at Rodolphus from where he sat.
"Shouldn't we be goin' back in?"
"I'm never gonna go back in."
"Why?"
"Because I hate them and they hate me."
Rodolphus chewed on a ringlet of his hair. "I don't hate you. We're brothers."
It was quite for a long while; there was rustling in the branches above Rodolphus, and Rabastan's face showed between the leaves. He slowly seated himself on the same branch as Rodolphus. "But can't you stay here with me then?"
"What should we eat? And we're gonna freeze to death."
Rabastan bent forwards, digging his nails into the bark. "Mm," he mumbled.
"But, Rab. I'm your brother. I'll always be, no matter what."
"You will?"
"Yes."