Challenge: Someone aka Me's The Hunger Games: Fanfic Style Competition II (round 2) on HPFC

Characters: Alice Longbottom, Frank Longbottom, Bellatrix Lestrange

Prompts: Word - astray/emotion - relief/dialogue - "You're freezing!"/pairing - VoldemortBellatrix/setting - Knockturn Alley/weapon - hatchet/subject: Ancient Runes

Word count: 1,215

A/N: VoldemortBellatrix is only implied in a passing comment. Trigger warning for implied torture.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to have a hatchet buried in your back?

You married Frank right out of school, because you knew you'd never want anyone else. He became an auror, because you wanted to be one. He didn't want to be one at all, not really, but he had been in love with you for so long and knew you so well, that he couldn't bear to put your life in the hands of any other man. "You're too reckless, Alice," he told you once, after a particularly dangerous mission that had fallen horribly off task. "You need me to keep you stable. Anyone else would only tempt you to fall off track with some unrealistic plan for saving everyone. It's not safe, Alice, only you haven't learned that yet."

He was right, like usual, even though he was depressingly cynical about it. You didn't object, though, and you never would. It just wasn't something you were willing to complain about. After all, he might have fallen for your cherub-like features and short pixie-cut hair, but you fell for him because you owed him. You never would have glanced twice at him if he hadn't offered to tutor you in Ancient Runes, a subject you were struggling awfully with in your O.W.L. year.

You only recognised him because of what were, frankly, abnormally large ears. Later, you'd realise his eyes were beautiful, hazel flecked with bits of gold and red, and that his jaw was particularly strong and attractive. At first, though, you didn't care to look at him twice. In fact, the first thing you ever said to him, though it came from the lips of a well-meaning newly sorted Gryffindor, were an insult: "So, are those actually your ears, or did someone hit you with a poorly performed elephant transfiguration?"

Now, standing in a patch of absolute darkness in the middle of Knockturn Alley, you were certainly regretting some of the choices you'd made.

Frank had suggested the date. He'd planned everything perfectly, even convincing his stubborn mother, Augusta, to keep an eye on baby Neville. You didn't regret agreeing at all; what you did regret was storming out of the restaurant, making an unnecessary scene when he'd been nothing but civil. You couldn't help being hot-headed – after all, Scottish stereotypes had been practically drilled into your mind since your late father had remarried a witch from the Highlands – and he didn't fault you for it; in fact, he'd come right after you, chasing you through Diagon Alley to where you stood now, having been led astray by shadows and the ways in which they twisted reality to do their bidding. Just one more thing for you to regret later.

"I'm just being rational, love. We don't want to leave Neville with my mother, do we? She almost broke me, I can't imagine what she'd do to him."

"I know what you mean! But, Frank, being an auror is all I ever wanted when I was growing up. I can't step away just because circumstances have changed."

He looked at you with such intense sadness in those warm eyes that you wondered if you'd gone too far this time. "I thought that – maybe – me and Neville would be enough for you by now."

"Oh, Frank, honey. That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I mean – oh, honey, I just meant it's not as dangerous now as it was before what happened to Lily and James. Most of the Death Eaters are gone now, for one. There's only so many followers a man can corrupt forever."

"I know how this works, Alice. There are always more monsters to kill. It's you that has to choose to lay down your arms, or you'll die trying to find the end of something that's endless."

"Something endless?" A high cackle broke through the darkness, and suddenly you feel cold, vicelike hands grip your arms. "I think I like the sound of that!"

"Alice," your husband called, and you could hear the terror in his voice, for that exact thing you were discussing had just happened. Trying to calm him, to provide some relief – to convince him this wasn't something that would doom you both – you grimace and pull against the grip of your captor.

"Do you mind? You're freezing! Let go of me, you brute!"

A relieved sigh cuts through the shadows, and you smiled at your success. Reckless, my foot, you think – and then gasp in a combination of horror and annoyance as your wand flew out of its' holster, tearing through the leather as it went. Only an exceptionally powerful witch could have broken through the wards around it.

A near white hand was suddenly illuminated by a too-bright ball of light, one that blossomed and rose above the group, casting your captors into the eerie shadows that were more usual to performance than to reality. Her thick lidded eyes blinked lazily at you, but you could see the mania within their black depths. "Bellatrix Lestrange."

"Shut it, blood traitor," she snapped at you, turning her wand on your husband, "Where is he?"

"Who?"

"You know who. Crucio!"

A weirdly high male chuckle sounded behind you, easily heard over Franks' grunts as you tugged at the hands that bound you. "Think she'd put as much dedication into finding you if you vanished, Rabastan?"

"Quiet, Crouch," a gruff tone responded, and then, suddenly, you understood.

"Voldemort was destroyed! He's nowhere!"

"Liar. But that's alright. I can play with your ugly little hubby, can't I, Allie." And then she renewed the intensity of the curse, and Franks' grunts became louder.

"He's dead!" you shrieked, angry and desperate. "Don't hurt him, don't hurt him, your stupid boss is dead!"

Frank was starting to sweat, despite considerable practice fighting the effects of the Unforgivable curse. Bellatrix broke the curse. Then she turned her wand on you.

"Impressive, how heartless you can be. I'm impressed. We could've used more people like you, Longbottom, in the war."

You spat in her face.

It was the last thing you should have done – and one of the last things you'd ever choose to do.

Now, the world is white. It's all bright lights and smiles, and people who speak to you in that special condescending manner, the one reserved for infants and mentally challenged people. Nothing is difficult, nothing hurts. They keep you beside a man you know, but also don't. You like to hold his hand. It makes you feel like things are good.

There's another man, a boy, really. He comes sometimes. He's always with an old woman, her with her ugly hat and stubborn expression. And when he comes, he always seems so very sad, that you have to do something. So you save up wrappers from candy the nurse gives you, and you give them to him like they are a precious secret, one for your eyes only – and for his.

And sometimes, the sedatives wear off. They wear off and you start to remember that he's dead, he's dead, you don't know what happened, no, really, you don't, and please stop hurting him, and then you think,

So that's what it's like to have a hatchet buried in your back.