AN: Entry for the Marauder's Era Competition Round Three. Challenge: Your character gets a detention. My Character: Rabastan Lestrange. Prompts: Shiny, Controlling, Before, Speciality, Memorised.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
It was a normal Tuesday morning, and Rabastan Lestrange was waiting for his fellow fourth year Slytherins to get ready for breakfast. He was sat on one of the hard leather chairs facing the lake in the common room, with his back to the stairs descending to the dormitories.
"Ah, little brother!" a deep voice rumbled as a hand was placed upon Rabastan's shoulder.
Craning his neck slightly, Rabastan turned to appraise his older brother, Rodolphus.
"Rudie," he greeted, "you don't usually seek me out before breakfast…"
Rabastan let his statement tail off, he knew his brother would tell him what he wanted with him without any encouragement. As the younger brother, he was expected to do Rodolphus' bidding.
"I need you to fetch something for me, it's very important. I'd go myself, but if Filch saw me there again…" he scowled, "well, I can't go."
"What do you need?" Rabastan sighed, rising from his seat to feel less intimidated by his brother's greater height.
"Knew I could count on you!" Rodolphus exclaimed, clapping Rabastan on the shoulder again.
Rabastan quirked a brow, imploring his brother to get to the point.
"It's just a few seeds I need, but they must be retrieved tonight, three nights before the full moon so that they retain their most potent effects. I don't take Herbology anymore, so it'd look really suspicious if I were caught snooping about-"
"I don't have Herbology today either," Rabastan started.
"I know, but it'll be a whole lot less suspicious for a fourth year student to appear interested in the plants than a seventh year was given a detention for loudly declaring that the old bat, Sprout permanently smells like dragon dung and ought to be checked out in St. Mungo's for infectious diseases!" Rodolphus ranted.
Rabastan rolled his eyes, unable to argue with his brother's point.
"Maybe you ought to start to consider the consequences your actions may have in the future, dear brother," Rabastan started, but after a quick glare from Rodolphus he hurried on to his next point, "but sure, I'll get those bloody seeds. Which plant?"
Rodolphus shuffled on his feet slightly, almost guiltily.
"The Venemous Tentacula."
"What?!" Rabastan grabbed his brother by the arm of his robes and dragged him into a more secluded corner of the common room.
"What in Salazar's name do you need those for?! They're a Class C non-tradeable substance, Rudie!"
Rodolphus shook himself free of his brother's hold, and spoke in a cold voice, "that is no concern of yours, little brother."
He went on in extensive detail to illustrate how to extract the seeds without losing a limb, but Rabastan listened with only half an ear, still in shock. "Right, got all that memorised? Great, I expect you to get them to me by eleven p.m."
Before Rabastan could protest any further, his brother had swept from the common room.
Checking the time, Rabastan sighed as he realised his friends must have gone up to breakfast without him whilst he was distracted by his brother. With a feeling of foreboding, he made after his brother and exited the Slytherin common room, trying to think only of breakfast.
Rabastan had been distracted all day, wondering what in Salazar's name his brother would need with Venomous Tentacula seeds, let alone how he was going to harvest them from the murderous plant.
By the time he got to Charms, his last lesson of the day, he was nervous and twitchy.
Professor Flitwick was instructing them on how to deflect hexes. It was supposedly a simple circular movement, but Rabastan couldn't seem to pull it off with his twitchy hands.
After he was hit with the twelfth successive stinging hex, Professor Flitwick sent him off to the see the young Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing.
"Off you go now, before those welts split and you're left in a rather raw state – quite literally!" the little Professor had squeaked as he waved Rabastan out of his classroom.
Great, Rabastan though, now I'm going to be late for dinner.
Madam Pomfrey sighed deeply as she rather unceremoniously examined the welts left by the stinging hexes, shaking her head slightly before bustling into one of her store cupboards. She returned with a small vial filled with a bubbling, blue potion.
Rabastan eyed it suspiciously, thoroughly put off by its vibrant colour.
"Really now, just drink the potion. It doesn't even taste that bad, and the welts will be all but gone in hours. If the stinging persists you can return this evening and I'll give you a salve, but that shouldn'tbe necessary," the matron said.
Smiling slightly, Rabastan accepted the potion and downed it quickly. He muttered his thanks and hurried from the Hospital Wing. The matron had now given him an excuse to leave the dungeons this evening, and the stinging already seemed to be subsiding.
On his way down to the Great Hall for dinner, Rabastan spied his brother with Bellatrix Black. She was also a seventh year Slytherin, and strikingly beautiful, though a little mad.
Rabastan frowned as he watched them; they were in a dark corner behind the staircase leading up to the second floor. The angry look on Bellatrix's face told him that he definitely wasn't witnessing an amorous exchange. Rodolphus looked like he was trying to calm her down, pacify her even.
Narrowing his eyes, Rabastan hurried down the staircase into the Entrance Hall, analysing the scene he had just witnessed.
At dinner, Rabastan watched the seventh years closely. Bellatrix had shot him quick, suspicious glares frequently throughout the meal, but Rodolphus' gaze had stayed trained on his food. As his brother attempted to slip out of the Hall unnoticed, Rabastan slunk after him.
"Hey," he shouted after his brother once they reached the relative isolation of the dungeons.
Rodolphus slowed to a stop, turning to face his younger brother.
"You don't need those seeds at all, do you?" Rabastan accused.
Rodolphus' eye twitched, "I do need them. At least, I do need to acquire them."
Rabastan growled in frustration, "She's just controlling you, Rudie! She knows you like her! Merlin, you're being manipulated by a woman, a crazy one at that!"
Rodolphus' wand was out faster than a niffler could dive for gold. Rabastan raised his hands in surrender.
"Get those seeds, Rab," Rodolphus whispered darkly.
"What does she even need them for?"
Rodolphus shrugged, "couldn't tell you in all honesty. Bellatrix, she, ah – I suppose you could say experiments are somewhat a speciality of hers… It won't get traced back to you, but trust me, Rab, you don't want to disappoint her."
Rabastan scowled at the wall in defeat, "fine," he huffed, before stalking off to the common room.
After dinner, Rabastan had stayed in his dormitory, telling his dorm mates that the welts covering his body from their Charms lesson were still causing him pain, and that he was going to try and sleep it off.
At about ten p.m. his dorm mates retired to their dormitory, and checked in on Rabastan. He painted a pained expression onto his face.
"Still causing you trouble, mate?" asked Yaxley.
"Yeah, swear they're cracking, the pain just keeps increasing, y'know?"
Another of his dorm mates, Flint, glanced over from the bathroom door, "Pomfrey probably has something to sort you out. Remember when the Gryffindors made my cauldron blow up last year and I got that rash everywhere and my hair fell out? She fixed me right up, she did."
Rabastan sat up, "you know what, Flint? That's not a bad idea."
He made a show of getting out of bed and putting his shoes and robes on, "I don't know how long she'll be, so don't wait up for me or anything, guys."
His dorm mates all shrugged and nodded before returning to their business. As Rabastan reached the door Yaxley wished him luck, and he hid a grim smile.
Fortunately his dorm mates had spread the word of his ailment to Slytherin house, so when he ascended the stairs into the common room, the sixth year Prefect smiled at him with sympathy.
"Off to see Pomfrey?" she asked kindly.
"Yeah," Rabastan muttered, blushing red under the older girl's scrutiny.
"Well, hope she can help you out! Stinging hexes can be quite nasty, especially en masse."
"Uh huh…" Rabastan scurried towards the exit, quickly glancing around to confirm that neither his brother nor Bellatrix were in the common room, though no doubt they would be later.
It was a short walk from the dungeons to the Entrance Hall, but Rabastan was still hugely relieved as he made it to the great oak doors without coming across anyone. He cracked open one of the doors and slipped outside, nervously glancing about before letting the door shut to.
The grounds were dark, and Rabastan didn't dare cast Lumos with his wand, instead trusting his footing as he scurried like a scared rabbit towards the greenhouses.
Rabastan paused at the door to Greenhouse Three and double checked that Professor Sprout wasn't hanging around. Bracing himself, and attempting to quell the shaking of his hands, he snuck into the giant greenhouse.
The humidity and stench was almost overwhelming, made more potent by the lack of chatter usually occurring during a Herbology class. Rabastan ducked around some plants he was unable to identify, muttering to himself the whole time about how underqualified he was to perform this task.
He'd never handled a Venomous Tentacula before, and only the thought of Bellatrix's wand being trained on him kept him nervously inching forwards.
Although he struggled to recall Rodolphus' instructions – why he didn't double check this in the library, he had no idea – the adrenaline pumping through his body helped him avoid the swipes of the evil plant, and he cast a quick Diffindo to somewhat dull the plant's reflexes.
Rabastan was uncertain how much time passed, but eventually he stepped away from the plant, fist clutching at several hard, shiny, rattling seeds. He was sweaty, covered in dung, and had a few scratches on his arms and face to add to the fading welts, but he was triumphant.
Allowing himself a small congratulatory huff of relief, Rabastan slumped back against the table, exhausted. Suddenly, he remembered he was working to a deadline. Again the image of Bellatrix's dark eyes and wand flashed through his mind.
Thrusting the seeds into the pocket of his cloak, Rabastan dashed out of the greenhouse and across the grounds of Hogwarts towards the looming castle.
He reached the great oak doors, and clutched at the handles with his sweaty, clammy hands. Without applying any force whatsoever, the doors swung open, and Rabastan jumped back in surprise.
"Well, well, well," a voice cackled menacingly.
Rabastan's stomach dropped as the grizzled face of the caretaker, Filch, entered his vision.
"This should fetch you a tidy number of detentions young man. Out of bed after curfew, out of the castle after curfew… ooh the headmaster will be interested to hear how you got that dung all over you, I'm sure…"
Rabastan's face went white, and his heart raced. His fingers clutched at the Class C non-tradeable Venomous Tentacula seeds in his pocket. How in Merlin's name would he face Dumbledore and explain those?
He gulped. Never mind Dumbledore… How in Merlin's name would he face his brother and Bellatrix Black and explain this?
Thanks for reading!