How to Destroy a Castle, and Other Stories
Plot Bunny 9 - Walburga Inc.
Marauders get stab-happy, muggleborns pretend to be purebloods in the future.
Warning: Death is entirely present. This is the most depressing thing I've written. Not too depressing, though. It has a determined ending.
I do not own Harry Potter. Please note these stories are disconnected. Although this does connect to PB3.
Sirius always did have an odd sense of humour. It was his idea to name the taskforce after Walburga Black, its first target.
Did you ever consider Sirius Black capable of murder, they would ask later, when James and Lily lay six feet under and Peter was bowing to the Dark Lord's feet.
No more so than myself, the werewolf would answer evenly, even as Veritaserum clouded his senses.
It was his idea, after all. James may have brought up the problem, but he gave the solution.
Late at night, he would remember cool water not yet dry on his hands as an impatient Sirius popped out of the grate, gave Peter a small heart attack, and proceeded to squeeze them all so tight a few blood vessels may have been irreparably burst.
It was meant to be a one-off. They were fools to think so.
Rabastan Lestrange – they said he chickened out. There were still sightings of him 20 years later, usually in Croatia. Not possible, not when the sightings have both hands attached. A left-facing skeletal hand lay buried in a certain part of the Avon, if you knew where to look. For Peter's peace of mind. Necromancy indeed. The hand never left.
Killian Gamp – an easy hit. One curse to the back and he was gone. Things got easier when you attacked at night, with no worry of fairness.
Evan Mulciber – taken down in the open, on a busy street. His assailants were masked in green and blue. Never discovered. Four women, they said. Remus knew he was onto something when he asked to borrow a few locks of Dorcas's hair. Killed only three days later. Evan felled within another two. Doris rode again. It was awkward, but it worked.
Leta Lewinsohn – perhaps it was because she was a half-blood that they went after her. The Aurors ruled it a suicide. It was, in a way, but she never would have done it without help.
Leviticus Nott – fell down a flight of stairs. Supposedly, a tragic accident from an old, respectable man. It took James a week to get the grease off his fingers, however easily it could be vanished from polished marble. Wards were always difficult to break into, but they succeeded. How ironic that the thing that gave them the most trouble saved them in the end. No man could ever get past the Nott wards, they said.
Polly Jorkins – missing without a trace. Bertha may have been a gossip, but Polly was plain cruel at school, and only grew worse. She walked into an alley for reasons unknown and never came out again. Perhaps that was when Peter began chickening out, when instead of a simple curse or knife they spent hours clearing away the blood. Perhaps that was when Peter decided they were no better than the Dark Lord, anyway.
It all came crashing down the day before they were set to off Rodolphus Lestrange. Everything blew up in their faces and by the end, James and Lily were gone and Harry good as.
Oh, Sirius, why. Why did you go after him? You could have waited. We could taken him down together.
Remus finished the Lestrange job alone and nearly lost an arm for it. He was too late, anyway. Frank and Alice were long gone by the time the bombs went off, and even then, they spared Bellatrix. The Aurors ruled it an accident, even as the werewolf was dragged in to testify.
It took all of 12 years for Sirius to come back. Remus tried his best to teach Harry, he really did, and when Sirius arrived they did together, but it was so hard. So hard with Dumbledore breathing down their necks. So hard with the peaceful, light way already heavily ingrained in Prongslet's mind. So hard without James.
And then Sirius fell through the veil.
Remus tried to move on. He found someone else to love, had a child. Fought and fell. He fervently hoped things wouldn't be too awkward in the afterlife, or whatever it was that awaited him.
He willed the sum notes of Walburga Inc to his son, in case he should ever need to use it, wishing desperately that the book would fall apart before it was ever needed.
Fifteen years later, Teddy picks up a book. Walburga Inc. is written on the front in messy handwriting, somewhat smudged. In his younger years, Teddy often wanted to open it, to see, to know. It's one of the few things his godfather never let him look at. Not until he really needed it.
But Harry wasn't here, he thinks bitterly, and nor was Ginny, or Gram. Not even Bill or Fleur. They're all gone. Minister Granger tried, she really did, but you cannot reason with a Dark Lord. How ironic that even with a muggleborn minister, some should still find it in them to forcibly enslave the population who couldn't prove any muggle ancestry. That the term blood traitor would come to mean something else entirely. That they would kill their once-saviour in broad daylight and declare him a criminal.
Teddy's hair hasn't been blue for months now. Not since he walked through the door to find Lily's and Louis's blood mingling on the kitchen tiles. Not since they took the last vestiges of his birth family, and the bulk of his adopted one, and stomped on them like bugs.
Victoire sits next to him, sad and broken. She's meant to be working the mines, lacking in muggle blood as she is. And part creature. They hate the creatures too. How lucky she is to be but one eighth Veela, for she certainly wouldn't survive with more. She's on precarious ground as it is.
How did this go so wrong?
A week later, after rescuing one unfortunate pure-blood child and walking in on another massacre, the first kills are made. How strange it is that every name, neatly inked onto the page in painfully familiar handwriting, is pureblood, yet he stands, now, attempting to cram into the trash three bodies, grown and yet knowing of magic for no longer, less, even, than he has. How strange it is to be doing this accompanied by a thoroughly murderous Victoire and surprisingly scheming Scorpius Malfoy.
Roxanne is staring at them in shock through the window. Perhaps they're all a little young for this, but it's all they have. At least it's better than Roxy focussing on her dead family. George and Angelina fought to the end, and Fred gave everything up to keep Roxanne safe, but that won't make it hurt any less, and nor can it erase the puddles and splashes of crimson or the empty, glassy eyes.
He grabs a knife from his bag. It's messier than magic but safer, even as the gore splatters up his pale arm and stains his shirt. He wonders how, exactly, Scorpius knows how to dismember a corpse, but then again, he is Lucius Malfoy's grandson. It was his idea to kill rather than capture, after all, pointing out that they may as well use the book, quoting passages with cool efficiency. Victoire suggested they watch the remaining houses. Scorpius just took it to the logical conclusion.
Perhaps Teddy should feel uncomfortable, being in Peter's place. But all he feels is burning pain and determination.
He's never going to let it happen again. Never.