Hey guys! Happy Easter!
Hope you enjoy.
Disclaimer: It's all JKR's.
Chapter 21:
Alice awoke in a small, dank room that smelled slightly of dead rats and other dead things that she didn't want to think of. She was tied with thick ropes, to a rickety canvas chair. After a moment of trying to regain her bearings, she noticed the curly haired man that she met at the bar lounging in the corner of the room. His face, though heavily shadowed, did not look happy by any means.
"Why did you bring me here? What are you going to do?" Alice rasped. The young man did not reply, only twiddled his wand between his fingers.
"What the hell are you going to do!?" she screamed. At length, he turned.
"You're not showing. I'm surprised...I'd have thought that you might have at least started by now." He growled. Something in his tone made her want to cry.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"What do you think I mean, you thick-" there was a loud crash above them that made the young man's head whip around. She could see him better in the harsh light streaming from above wherever they were. His features were thrown into sharp relief, the shadows turning his face into a tense, skeletal mask. Alice gasped.
"What?" he cried, turning back to her.
"N-nothing. Nothing." she stammered.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked. She chewed her lower lip.
"No." her answer came out in a squeak. After a second of dead silence, he laughed, his breath stirring the stale air.
"My name is Cygnus Betelguse Lestrange." Alice opened her mouth to introduce herself.
"Don't bother, Rosalind," Cygnus barked. "I know who you are."
"Rosalind?"
"Shut up." He spat. Alice, who understood what it meant to take orders, shut her mouth immediately. Cygnus began to pace back and forth slowly, his shoulders clenched. He reminded her rather strangely of a large cat. A very large, very upset cat.
"You've got to understand, Rosalind," he was drawing a rather large bowing knife from his jacket. Alice eyed it and the wand with equal fear. "This isn't anything personal. It's just business."
He pointed the knife at her, pointed his wand at the knife, and muttered a spell. The blade erupted in venomous looking black fire. He muttered another short phrase, and the knife flew at Alice.
"Well," he said, his words almost completely drowned out by her cries of pain. He waited a full few minutes before brandishing his wand and screaming "CRUCIO!" Alice's screams filled the air of the little room as though they were some kind of noxious gas.
"Maybe it is just a little...personal."
...
Felix didn't consider himself a violent man. But every time he saw Alice's face, he knew that his non-violent temperament could only last for so long. He hated her, he thought, almost happily. Not even hate, he despised her. As though she could take the attention of the Master away from him...
He loathed the way that she laughed, and the way that she carried herself, and the way that she pined after the Master all the time. He wanted to strangle her. The Killing Curse was too easy for her, Felix decided. She'd need to die the old-fashioned, painful, bloody way. The way Muggles die.
"Of course." he muttered, fumbling unconsciously for the knife he liked to feel between his fingertips. "Of course...the way piggy, snouting Muggles die-"
"Felix?" he heard the Master's voice from down stairs. He dropped his coat, the pockets of which had been rifling through until moments ago, and bounded down the stairs.
"Yes, Master?" he asked. Albus sighed deeply.
"Where's Alice?" he asked. "I haven't seen her all day." Felix's lip curled at the mention of her name.
"Nor have I, Master," Felix replied. "Perhaps she's decided to deprive us of her company, and leave us for good?"
"I doubt it," Albus said. "But it is odd that she missed a meeting. And that she hasn't even been back at the house. No note, nothing."
"That is rather strange, Master. Perhaps if I were permitted to try and find her, I'd beat some sense into her when she tried to leave us without a note, phone call, or anything letting us know where she is." Felix said slickly.
"Perhaps..." Albus sounded vague.
"Perhaps I should teach her a lesson in who her better is," Felix was getting louder, his usually calm face twisting into a mask of fury. "Perhaps we should allow her no mercy-"
"Felix!" Albus cried. The taller man blinked a few times, and looked at his young Master.
"Yes, Master?" Albus sighed again, this time less out of weariness and more out of frustration.
"How many times have I told you not to call me Master. And please. Don't do anything to Alice. She's clearly wandered off. Just try to find her before tonight." he said. Felix nodded slowly.
"Alright." Albus gave his third, and deepest sigh, and walked away from his older compatriot. Felix's black eyes bored into his back.
"Master."
...
"What the hell are you doing?" Snape shouted. Rosalind turned from papering the wall.
"What?" she asked.
"You're papering my office!" he cried. Rosalind winced.
"Just this corner. That's where the baby's going to be sleeping." she said, as though this should have been evident to Snape from the very beginning. His jaw worked, but no sound came out.
"And I chose the least cheery paper. My child is going to grow up without cheery nursery wallpaper!" she said. Snape looked at the paper for a moment. It was baby blue with cerulean stripes, and had rubber duckies everywhere, doing various things that rubber duckies do. He looked at his daughter.
"That's the least cheery?" he croaked. She laughed, a spontaneous sound that made Snape realize how long it had been since he heard it. He looked more closely at his daughter.
She had aged quite a bit for sixteen years old, with purple sleeplessness beneath her eyes, and lines already forming on her forehead and around her mouth. Her youthful bow mouth was lagging and grey, (she hadn't put makeup on in weeks) and her beautiful hazel eyes that had always been bright and dancing with life were like dull panes of glass in an old, dark house. Her skin too, showed itself to be less of a tone and more a pallor.
"Father?" her voice, harshened and unmusical, broke him from his thoughts. "Father, are you quite alright?"
"Y-yes..." he said. "Rosalind..."
"Yes father?" she asked, somewhat confused. There was a long pause where he only stared at her with a very mournful expression. How could I let this happen to my daughter, he thought. My own child.
"Nothing." he said at length. "Get to class."
...
Cygnus was angrier, if possible than before. He grabbed the drippy canvas sack from the floor, and heaved it over his shoulder. Thank Merlin for apparation he thought. He staggered under the weight of the canvas, and after a few seconds, disappeared into the night.
...
"She's completely gone."
"What do you mean, she's completely gone?" Albus said. Felix shrugged.
"Just what I said. She's completely, totally, one hundred and ten percent gone." he replied. Albus' eyes were wide, confused.
"I couldn't find her any-"
A deafening crash stopped both of them. The door sounded as though it had been broken down. They both ran to the front hall, where they found what they thought could have been Alice's bleeding, mutilated body. It was difficult to tell however, as she had no face left. There was a damp piece of paper pinned to her chest. Albus snatched it.
Next time, it read, it will be your precious little Rosalind.
Albus grabbed the note and crushed it in his shaking left fist. After a moment of staring at the dead body in the foyer, he closed his eyes and fell to the floor, hearing only the sounds of Felix screeching and the drip-drip of the blood as it thudded to the floor.
Thanks for reading! Hope you all have a happy and healthy Easter!
~Joanna and Bronnie