Captain of the Harpies, season 6. Thanks to my squad for betaing.
Ignotus is roused by a loud clap of thunder. There's something wrong; he can feel it in the pit of his stomach. He throws the blanket off and feels around for his wand. Using the wand-lighting spell, he can see his brother, Cadmus, isn't in the small room they sleep in. Ignotus frowns.
Immediately following another clap of thunder, Ignotus hears the pounding on the front door. Climbing to his feet, he extinguishes his wand and stumbles his way to the door. In the heavy rain, a person stands. Ignotus rubs sleep out of his eyes and blinks again.
"Your brother—my sister—"
Ignotus takes off before the man has a chance to finish, not even considering waking his parents or changing out of his sleepwear. The man doesn't hesitate in following Ignotus. The entire trip is quiet; he just hears the sound of his own labored breathing, the rhythmic claps of thunder, and the sound of puddles splashing as his feet hit the ground. It isn't but a few minutes until the house he's looking for comes into view.
He's ushered inside, where there are candles burning. He feels his cheeks heat up when he realizes how muddy his sleepwear is now; he hates looking anything besides his best. The embarrassment dies down when a door opens and closes and he hears the sounds of a baby screaming.
Only a few months ago, Cadmus had announced that his betrothed was expecting. Their parents' and Rosalind's parents were both rightfully furious. Once their anger died down, they had moved the wedding date up so the child wouldn't be born out of wedlock since there was no question about the paternity of the child. Rosalind and Cadmus have been madly in love for years.
Rosalind's mother greets him. There's something about how she carries herself that Ignotus can't put his finger on. She says, her voice laced with sorrow, "It's a boy."
Ignotus closes his eyes. He's barely fifteen summers old, but he knows that childbirth is risky and it's common for women to die. He knows the answer before he asks the question, but he's hoping for a different answer. "And Rosalind?"
She shakes her head once. "It won't be too much longer. Your brother refuses to leave her."
"May I?" he asks softly.
When Rosalind's mother nods, Ignotus follows her directions to the room. He can hear the sounds of murmuring through the door. For a brief moment, he hesitates.
The scene he opens the door to is heartbreaking. He can hear Rosalind's laboured breathing from the doorway. There's a few candles that light the room. He can't imagine what his brother is going through; the two of them had just been so happy their wedding was a fortnight away. Now he's watching her die because of their love.
"Cadmus," he says.
His brother whips around to face him, his wand in his hand. It takes Ignotus less than three steps to cross the room. He wraps his arms around his older brother and starts to pull him away.
Cadmus fights his hold. His voice is raw and thick when he says, "I can save her, brother. I just need to find the right spell!"
"Magic can't save a life it's not meant to," he whispers, keeping his hold tight. He would reprimand Cadmus for exposing magic to non-magic people, but he can't because he would probably do the same if he was in his brother's place.
"It saved Mother!" Cadmus exclaims as he breaks free.
"Mother wasn't this close to death."
Still, Cadmus makes the wand movements of another spell and Ignotus doesn't try to stop him. Rosalind remains unmoving on the bed, her breathing becoming more and more labored. Cadmus shakes harder and harder the more spells fails to heal her.
He watches as his brother collapses on the floor next to the bed, sobs wracking his whole body. Ignotus has no doubt that it's Rosalind's final moments. When Rosalind's chest stills, Ignotus approaches again.
"Come, brother, you have a son to look after," he says.
Cadmus doesn't resist as Ignotus half-leads, half-drags him from the room. Her parents are awaiting them when they exit, her mother holding the baby. His brother chokes on his spit and reaches for the child. Cadmus manages to stop shaking as the baby is transferred into his arms. A gold chain dangles from his hand as he holds his son for the first time, something Ignotus failed to notice before. His voice is thick and scratchy as he whispers reassurances to the boy.
"I'm afraid that Magnus will be staying with us," Rosalind's father says, interrupting Cadmus' ramblings.
"He will need a wet nurse and your family hardly have the coin for that," her mother adds.
While Ignotus knows this to be true, he can't help but think it's unfair for both Cadmus' love and child to be taken away in the same day.
"He's my son," Cadmus argues, the shaking returning. Ignotus hovers to make sure the child is safe. "You can't take my son from me. He bares my last name."
"Your dalliance took the life of our daughter. We will not let it take our grandson," Rosalind's father says, narrowing his eyes at Cadmus.
His brother opens his mouth to speak, but Ignotus cuts across him. He chances a look at the couple. "They never denied you rights to see him, Cadmus. This isn't a battle you want to fight."
Cadmus looks like he's going to fight when Rosalind's mother takes Magnus out of his arms, but he doesn't. He silently allows Ignotus to guide him home. Once they're in the safety of their home, they sit on the floor, listening to the rain still falling. It's near dawn when either of them speaks.
"I love her," Cadmus whispers brokenly, gripping the necklace tightly. "This feels like a nightmare. I don't want to live without her." He looks at Ignotus, tears welling in his eyes again. "Please take this hurt away from me, so that I can go on and have my life."
Ignotus bites his lip briefly. "I wish it was that easy, brother."
He hasn't felt this uneasy since his nephew's birth. There's something about the way Death just gave them their heart's desire that doesn't sit right with him. Especially the stone he gave Cadmus; it had to be a trick.
The moonlight is fading as dawn approaches. He watches as his brother turns the stone over in his hand, testing Death's gift as Antioch had just tested his own moments before. Cadmus gasps, looking more alive in that moment than he has since his future wife's death. "Rosalind."
With the hand the stone's not in, Cadmus reaches out in front of himself. All harmony between the brothers end with this motion.
"Stop this madness, Cadmus," Ignotus snaps, reaching for the stone. "Rosalind died. Nearly a year ago."
"Leave it, Ignotus," Antioch says, standing in the middle of the bridge they created.
Cadmus snatches his hand back when he realizes his brother's intention. "I can bring her back. That's what Death said. That's what this stone is for. I can bring her back."
"I don't know how you stand this madness," Ignotus tells his oldest brother, gesturing to Cadmus. Then to Cadmus, he says, "The dead can't come back to life. It's a childish dream to think otherwise."
Antioch laughs humorlessly. "I would allow him to make his own decisions. You should try it sometime."
Ignotus' cheeks flush with heat. He's always been the most mature one of his siblings, and has often spent his youth trying to make decisions for them both.
"Go on ahead," Cadmus says. He flips the stone again. "I will bring you back, my love."
Ignotus opens his mouth to argue, but Antioch speaks first. "I assume you can make your way home." When Cadmus gives a distracted nod of his head, Antioch smiles. "Then what are we waiting here for, Ignotus? We still may make it to the village by tonight if we hurry."
There's an argument on the tip of his tongue that he bites back. His brother has a point; Cadmus can make his own choices. He follows Antioch over the bridge, but each step feels like he's hammering a nail in Cadmus' coffin.
When Ignotus knocks on Cadmus' door, he refuses to turn away. He's tried looking in on his brother a few times a month since Death gave his gifts, but Cadmus never answers and Ignotus never spells the lock open. But today, he feels the need to go inside the house that Antioch paid for. He feels something wrong in his bones, and his instinct has always been right.
What he finds inside makes him vomit. Cadmus' body sways slightly from the wind coming through. Ignotus cuts the rope with a spell and lowers him with another. He kneels beside his brother's unmoving body.
"Why couldn't you have lived for your son?" he asks angrily. He wipes at the tears falling down his cheek.
He isn't expecting an answer, but he hears his brother's voice. "I couldn't handle looking at him and seeing her."
Ignotus turns. Cadmus' ghost is floating near the chair that's by the fireplace. Ignotus motions towards Cadmus' dead body. "This was no solution, brother."
"You've never been in love," Cadmus counters. He looks at the rock that's lying on the floor next to his body. "I died when she did. Death's gift only showed me that."
"You leave a magical child with non-magic people—your own child," Ignotus snarls. He's never been this angry at his brother before. "You know what they do to our kind. You should've lived for him."
His brother laughs humorlessly. "Rosalind said nearly the same thing when I explained everything to her."
"Yet you still chose death."
"Magnus has you to look after him. Better you than me; at least he has a chance to grow up happy," he says sadly. "I couldn't give him a life when I was nothing more than a shell of a living being."
Ignotus glares at his brother. "I'm not his father, Cadmus. They won't accept me raising him. You're forcing me to choose his life or the one I built here!"
"My apologies, brother," he whispers. It's the closest Cadmus has come to asking for forgiveness, and yet, it still doesn't sound like he's truly sorry. "Just don't let Magnus find the stone."
Cadmus disappears before Ignotus can say anything. Ignotus is left alone with his own thoughts. It's well into the night before Ignotus leaves his brother's house, the beginning of a plan forming in his mind and the stone in his hand.
There has to be something good that come from this. He will make sure of it.
Hogwarts assignment 10, task 5: Write about someone who believes in miracles
Chocolate Frogs: Cadmus Peverell
Pokemon: pokeball - all that glitters (nothing is gold), prompts: harmony, nail, embarrassed
Photograph: 11. Write about a person who is quite downcast or depressed
Cooking: onion - Action: Crying, Genre: Angst
Film: 21. Youth
Scavenger: 9. (action) laughing, (word) moonlight, (word) madness
Geek: stand 3 - character can see the dead, stand 4 - dangle, lock, carry
Insane: 663. "Please take this hurt away from me, so that I can go on and have my life."
365: 245. Characters from only one era
Character Appreciation: 29. (dialogue) "I don't know how you stand it."
Disney: S3. Write about a moment where things change forever.
Book club: Eddie: (event) birthday, (word) nightmare, (word) forgiveness
Showtime: 36. (emotion) Grief
Days: Brothers Day - Write about brothers
Buttons: W4 - Dalliance
Lyric: 1. And I had a dream
Sophie's Shelf: 16. write about someone self-absorbed
Emy's Emporium: 9. Temur Khan - write about someone losing everything they have