One Day at a Time
Of His Own House
The green killing curse flew from my wand and hit my intended target. Seginus fell to the ground, dead, while Sev and Harry regarded me with shocked, bulging eyes. I stared unbelievingly at my brother, whose light blue eyes had gained the same glassy look as Paige's after her death. I was shaking all over as I stooped to pick up my fallen Death Eater mask.
"Get Harry somewhere safe," I tried to say as nonchalantly as I could, only my voice was shaking, too. "I can't go mowing down Death Eaters all day to defend you." It seemed that one arm of the battle, at least, had moved closer and numbly I ran towards it, desperate for something, anything, to tear Seginus's glassy blue eyes from my mind.
Before I even realized what was happening, something had hit my legs and I was crashing towards the floor. I tried to convince myself to focus on casting spells and blindly aimed a stunning spell in the direction of the offending hex. I turned towards my attacker just in time to see my spell fly over his head. "I've got you now, you Death Eater," Flitwick crooned. I snarled a frostbite hex in his direction which he reflected, causing molecules of ice to rain down on both of us. I rolled to a standing position, sidestepping a curse of his which cracked the stone tiles I had been standing on.
I didn't want do duel him. I just wanted to run, as though running would somehow cause me to wake up from this nightmare. The Charms professor seemed determined to not let me escape his grasp, though, and with another hex another set of stones beneath my feet broke into pieces.
With a jab of my wand, a variation of the Bubble-head charm encased his head. Instead of providing fresh, breathable air, it removed the surrounding air, leaving him to helplessly try and breathe the nonexistent air. With another jab of my wand, I removed the curse. I didn't want to kill him, just deter him from fighting me enough that I could flee the duel. The Bubble-head variant only seemed to cement his desire to attack/incapacitate/injure me, though.
"Don't mess with me, Death Eater," the normally peaceful, friendly Head of Ravenclaw snarled. Suddenly it felt as though an invisible lasso was wrapped around one of my legs, trapping me. I sharply turned in a poor attempt to break free from the spell, but Flitwick jerked his wand in the opposite direction and, almost as though the lasso was attached to the tip of his wand, I felt it pull on my leg. With a sickening cracking sound and sudden, shooting pain, my leg crumpled beneath me. "Frappez!" Flitwick squeaked, and a burst of blue light let forth from his wand. The force of the spell, almost equivalent to a bludger at full speed, hit my hand and my wand went skittering towards his feet.
I tried to make a leap towards my wand, but from my position on the floor I couldn't gain enough velocity to approach anywhere near it.
With a derisive wave of his wand, glowing gold cords suddenly sprung out of the ground and wrapped themselves tightly around me. "Silencio," Flitwick murmured, before turning and leaving my completely incapacitated from on the floor behind him.
My attempts to move or wriggle free of the bonds were immediately foiled by the fact that they were so tight and all-encasing I could barely move a single muscle. I couldn't scream for help, for a "fellow" Death Eater to unbind me, because of the silencing spell. All I could do was lie helplessly on the floor, with terror coursing through my veins at the realization that I was going to be caught and all I could do was wait for it, with nothing but my thoughts for company.
I had been haunted by Paige's dead body, but now it was Seginus's that seemed to be in front of me whenever I closed my eyes. Did I actually kill him? Surely I can't have actually just killed my brother, I mentally pleaded. There seemed to be something very different about killing anonymous Muggles and killing someone I knew, someone with both a name and a face.
The din from the nearby battle slowly faded away, until I couldn't hear anything anymore. Still I laid on the cold stone tiles, waiting for somebody to stumble across me. "I found another one. Right where Flitwick said he left her," an auror's voice echoed down the hall as she walked towards me. She had mousy brown hair and a heart-shaped face that was smeared with dirt. She had been clearly been one of the participants in the battle herself, and she now cast a levitating charm to move me.
The Great Hall was no longer the site of a battle, but instead the site of the aftermath. Professors, Aurors and older students were milling about, either healing, being healed, or simply trying to find out the details of what had occurred. The wall the Auror was taking me towards was being given a wide berth and upon approaching I realized it was the prisoner of war section; there were about half a dozen bound and unmasked Death Eaters kneeling there with hanging heads, almost as though they expected to be executed on the spot.
The mousy-haired woman unceremoniously ripped off my mask and pushed my hood back, before turning and leaving me in the evenly spaced line of Death Eaters. "I'm going to call some extra Aurors to deal with all of these Death Eaters," she yelled to someone I couldn't see. "We should have someone read them their rights while we're waiting."
"I'll do it. I want to help," I heard a quiet voice reply. My insides froze when I realized that the quiet voice belonged to Hermione Granger. She started at the opposite end of the line, always standing over a meter away from the Death Eater to whom she was speaking. Every person closer she moved towards me, I felt my face burn with more and more shame. I fervently wished that desiring something enough could make it happen, because if it could, I would have been a million kilometers away from where I was currently kneeling.
The bushy-haired gave a horrified gasp when she moved to stand in front of me. "P-Professor Colburn," she disbelievingly squeaked, her jaw agape. My face burned with shame, and I kept my gaze directed at her feet, as though hundred kilogram weights were weighing my eyes down. "You have the right to remain silent," her voice shakily started, and it seemed as though she was near to tears. "You have the right to a speedy trial. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
I didn't hear the rest of her words, though, because I suddenly noticed Sev passing through the Great Hall. The din of the Great Hall seemed to fade as every ounce of my focus was dedicated to him. My eyes remained glued to him, but his eyes only flickered once in my direction, so quickly that I almost doubted he had even seen me before he strode out of the Great Hall. "P-Professor Colburn, you have to indicate if you've heard and understood your rights," Hermione's quavering voice suddenly came back into focus. I gave a jerk of my head which could be interpreted as a nod, and without another glance at me she despairingly swept off towards a conglomerate of professors and students.
A small group of uniformed Aurors suddenly burst into the Great Hall and menacingly swept towards us, the captured prisoners. The one who took a place in front of me was a middle-aged wizard with silver hair and merciless black eyes. He took out a floating piece of parchment and quill before turning to me and barking, "State your name." I glared up at him. I had had a
silencing charm put on me, did he not realize that? "State your name" he repeated, through gritted teeth. I continued glaring at him, when he suddenly reached out a hand and slapped me hard across the cheek. I looked at him lividly as he angrily ordered, "You will give me your name!"
Attempting to squash the rage in my eyes and ignore my stinging cheek, I mouthed, "I can't talk."
"Don't sass me, Death Eater," he snarled.
"I can't talk!" I mouthed again, angrily.
"Hey, Dan, some of 'em have had silencing spells put on 'em," the young Auror next to him casually reminded him.
He frowned and with a wave of his wand cancelled the silencing spell. "Thank you for that," I angrily spat.
"I told you to not sass me, scum. Now state your name," the silver-haired Auror glowered.
"Liseli. Colburn," I hatefully hissed. The floating quill immediately wrote something on the floating piece of parchment.
"A Colburn, eh? I think there's another one of your lot in the line-up. Hey, Rob, bring over the other Colburn. We can have a little family reunion." My eyes went wide. Not Tarazet, not Tarazet, I silently pleaded against all odds. The other auror complied with the first auror's orders and disappeared down the line of Death Eaters. To my shock and relief, when he returned it wasn't with Tarazet. It was with Deneb. "Ah, a family reunion," the Auror taunted.
"Yeah, well, if you're looking for Seginus and Matar they'll be in the 'not-moving' pile," I spat with a pained tone, furious at his taunting.
Deneb, who had stubbornly been refusing to look at anything but his feet, now jerked his head up towards me. "Seginus and Matar are dead?" the disbelieving look in his eyes became mingled with a restless, scheming look as soon as I nodded.
"Two other Colburns are dead?" the Auror raised an eyebrow in an interested look. "Well, that'll make our work easier. Seems it's always the whole family that turns out rotten, doesn't it, Rob?" he turned towards the younger Auror to his side, again, and I felt my blood boiling with rage.
"Sure does. Think we're missing one, though. The, uh, the one who, oh gosh, what'd he do," the younger Auror was snapping his fingers, trying to remember. "Oh yeah, the counterfeiter. Well, we'll get him eventually."
"Tarazet is no Death Eater," I hatefully hissed, afraid for my brother.
"Sure, of course you're going to say that. We'll get our evidence for it, eventually. You slimy Slytherins can't slip through our fingers forever," the older Auror stated it as a casual fact.
"Please, I beg of you, I am no Death Eater!" Deneb suddenly burst out, his restless eyes glancing between the two Aurors standing in front of us. "I'm like you. I have a respectable job at the ministry. My oldest brother—Seginus Colburn, a Death Eater—put me under the Imperius Curse, and I couldn't throw it off. I was only let free of it when he was killed in battle. I'm innocent, I swear!" I felt a wave of disgust, able to see through his lies as clearly as one can see through a glass of water. I had not known beforehand that Deneb was a Death Eater, but upon reflection it wasn't surprising that someone as ambitious and manipulative as him would take any opportunity to make connections and get ahead.
"Plead your case to the court," the Auror said, with a dash less hostility than he had directed towards me. "We should start apparating them to the holding cells. Let's start with the sassy one," he jerked his head towards me. He made a sweeping motion with his wand and the cords around my legs disappeared. "Don't try anything. We have the right to kill Death Eaters," he menacingly articulated. He roughly grabbed my upper arm and pulled me up from my kneeling position. With a jolt of pain, my leg immediately buckled underneath me, and I painfully landed on the stone floor. "I said don't try anything funny," he glared at me.
"Well I'm sorry if my leg is broken," I snarled with as much dignity as a bound prisoner lying on the floor can. He cast a levitating charm on me, clearly annoyed. With another spell, he bound me to both him and the other Auror, with the goal of keeping me from escaping. Like that, I was taken to the boundary of Hogwarts, apparated to the Ministry, and dumped in a holding cell.
The holding cell seemed to be a place without answers. The only person I saw in the first day was the guard who stopped by to give me my meals. I asked him what was going to happen, what I was being charged with, when my trial was going to be, whether I would be allowed to have a lawyer, when somebody was going to stop by to heal my battle injuries, and whether the death sentence had been reinstated because of the Dementor's abandoning of Azkaban. The guard always ignored my questions and left my cell without speaking a word. I spent my time staring numbly at the cinderblock wall. I did not need a Dementor in the vicinity for Seginus's death to be continuously replaying in front of my eyes.
The next day, the guard stopped by between meal times and informed me that I had a visitor. "Who?" I asked, both overjoyed and nervous at the prospect of a visitor. It could be a friend, come to support me. It could be a former friend, come to tell me how disgusted and ashamed they were by me. It could be someone from the ministry, come to tell me what my punishment would be, the idea of which terrified me to no end; the ministry was known for being inordinately harsh in sentencing suspected Death Eaters.
"Follow me," the guard gruffly ignored my question, magically binding me as though I would attempt to escape in the guard-infested area. He led me to a plain, windowless room with a door on each side. "We can hear and see everything you do," the guard menacingly glared at me before slamming the door shut.
"Tarazet," I ecstatically articulated my brother's name. He was not wearing prisoner's robes. He had either not been at the battle or had escaped capture.
"Hello, Liseli," he gave a sad, helpless smile. I wish I could say that this situation was familiar, just a reversal of the time that he had been imprisoned. Unfortunately, and it pained me to remember, I had never visited him when he was in jail. I had been too ashamed, too angry at him, and too afraid of being suspected of criminal activities myself to do so. "How—how have you been?" he tried to say it casually, as though we were not conversing in the visiting room of a prison.
"Not too great." I gave a small laugh before understating, "It's no five-star hotel, here."
He exasperatedly shook his head. "They treat prisoners like the scum on the bottom of their shoes.
I swallowed nervously, my burning question on the tip of my tongue. "How much did you hear about the battle?" I blurt out, afraid of the answer.
"There was a Daily Prophet article on it," Tarazet stated hesitatingly. "I was going to show it to you, but the guards wouldn't let me bring anything in," he rolled his eyes in an annoyed matter.
"What did the article say? Did they mention my name?" I exasperatedly rested my forehead in one of my hands.
My brother gave the smallest of nods, and I buried my face in both of my hands. Did they mention that I killed Seginus? Does anybody even know that I killed my oldest brother? I thought, my mind bursting with questions. "They listed all of the Death Eaters who were captured. I mean, they listed everybody they captured and accused of being a Death Eater." He seemed to have just remembered that we could be heard. "Deneb's name was on the list, too. I don't know if you knew that or not."
I nodded. "They put Deneb and me together when they arrested us. Called it a family reunion," I bitterly remembered the Auror's taunting voice. "They accused you of being a Death Eater, too. They said they'd find evidence for it eventually," I warned him.
My brother frowned and pursed his lips. "I already gathered that from the last Daily Prophet article that said I was a suspected Death Eater. Let them look for their evidence. I'm no Death Eater," he confidently lied.
"What else did the article say?" I asked, slightly heartened that it didn't seem to have accused me of murdering Seginus.
"They had a bunch of comments from eyewitnesses, and discussed how well the Professors were healing. Your—friend, Hagrid, had his hut set on fire, but he's fine." It seemed as though it took him a great deal of effort to say the word 'friend' without a disgusted sneer. Tarazet opened his mouth before closing it again and averting his gaze from my face, as though unable to meet my eyes. "There's something else I should tell you, too. It wasn't in the article, but you have a right to know." A final moment of hesitation and then, "Seginus and Matar—they…were both killed in the battle."
I closed my eyes. I could still see Seginus's still body, and his unmoving eyes. "I—I know. How did you find out?" I kept my eyelids shut as I asked my question; I couldn't bear to look at him.
"I was notified as their next-of-kin. Or, I mean, their only next-of-kin that wasn't…imprisoned," a pained look crossed his face and he rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers.
Cautiously, almost afraid of his reaction, I stated in an attempted light tone, "I know it's always supposed to be sad when someone dies, but I suppose it could be worse. It's not like you or I actually liked them."
Tarazet gave me a look as though he suspected I was telling a sick joke. After waiting a moment, as though he was expecting me to leap in and defend my previous comment, he replied in an obvious tone which indicated he still wasn't sure that I was entirely serious. "Liseli, they're our brothers. It doesn't matter that we didn't like them, they are—were—family."
I looked down at my hands which were clasped in my lap before meekly replying, "I know."
Seemingly satisfied with my answer, if still a bit confused that I had said such a thing in the first place, he took a long, raspy breath and continued talking, "I've started making arrangements for them. The funeral's going to be Wednesday, and I was hoping you'd come. For me, if nothing else," he gave me a sad glance mingled with worry, as though expecting a longer argument.
"I'll come," I said softly, almost as though attending their funeral would be a form of repentance.
"Thanks," he flashed an appreciative smile that quickly withered. After many moments of silence he finally gave me a sorrowful look, and whispered in a voice so low the words practically didn't make it across the table to my ears. "Damn it, Liseli, how could you let yourself be caught?" I felt a pained pang in my heart, but I didn't know what to say so I remained silent. "After my stay in Azkaban, you're the only friend I have left," he continued in his hopeless, impossibly quiet voice. He sounded exactly like my thoughts when he had been arrested over fifteen years ago; I had been angry that he had been arrested, and both terrified and terribly saddened by the realization that I might lose my youngest brother.
Tarazet stood up and brushed his hand over his eyes in what he clearly intended to be a nonchalant way. "I should probably go," he stated in a hollow voice. "I'll try and visit again."
The guard led me back to my cell, where Tarazet's unhappiness was added to the list of miserable memories replaying in front of my eyes. Yes, he cares about you now, my mind horribly taunted, But how will he feel when he finds out you murdered your oldest brother?
…
Disclaimer: The title is an allusion to the quote: "A person's enemies will be of his own house" (also translated as: "A person's enemies will be the members of his own family.")
A/N: So I actually wrote two versions of this chapter, and this is just the one I decided on posting. What do you think? Do Tarazet's and Liseli's actions seem in character? Feedback is always appreciated! Speaking of, thank you to Mark Darcy, angelofire, SchwarzShifter, Leslie, gothicflower and tibys for reviewing!
Also, as a general heads-up, I think this story is going to be fully wrapped up within a few more chapters.