A/N: Enjoy! Also, thank you Ash, who suggested the fic end the way it does. My version was a lot less angsty, but I like hers a lot better!

Title: Deadly Discoveries

Summary: There's been an information leak, and Gideon and Fabian are sent to investigate. But what Fabian finds completely blows his mind.

Genre: Family, Action, Angst

Characters: Fabian P., Gideon P.

Word count: 1,800

Warnings: Canon character death

Betas: Aya Diefair, VanillaAshes

It was bloody freezing.

That was the main thought going through Fabian's mind as he waited for Gideon to finish with the wards. Well, if he was being honest, there was a little bit of worry, too. What they were doing wasn't easy, or safe, but it wasn't supposed to be too dangerous. And of course, he could feel that glorious thrill of adrenaline as he waited impatiently for Gideon.

But mainly, the cold was on his mind. It was the very beginning of January, 1981, a particularly cold January, too. It had snowed and snowed and snowed all throughout the festive time, and while Gideon had the fun task of cracking the blood wards, Fabian had to make sure they left no footprints in the white blanket.

That, and holding the light for Gideon to work. Fun jobs, right? He could see his breath coming out in small white puffs in the light from his lumos.

"You almost done?" Fabian asked, shuffling back and forth on the spot. "I don't think I can feel my foot anymore."

"Shh," Gideon chided. "I'm almost done."

"Why is it you're always the one cracking the blood wards?" he grumbled.

"Because I'm older."

"By two minutes and thirteen seconds."

Yes, he was acting rather immature for the twenty-six-year-old adult he was supposed to be, but a couple of recurring jokes would lighten the mood and remove some of the tension and fear that was growing during this January night.

"There we go!" Gideon whispered-exclaimed and Fabian felt the wards open up just slightly for them.

"Finally!"

His brother shot him a glare, but he could tell from his eyes that he wasn't mad at him at all, just amused. They swiftly made their way across the grounds as quietly possible—a few silencing spells they had cast beforehand helping. Fabian cursed these stupid Pureblood manors with their ridiculously large grounds. Mother and Father had quickly gotten rid of their 'manor' to move into something far more appropriate size-wise and, more importantly, far less obnoxious.

It was true that the brothers could simply have Apparated from the edge of the wards and directly into the house, as Gideon's magic was usually on point, but they didn't want to take any useless risks. The less magic they used, the better. Magic, especially spells that left important traces, could easily be tracked, and they didn't definitely want that.

Finally, after what seemed like a far too long run across the grounds, they reached the porch. Gideon took out his lock-picking kit while Fabian quickly covered up the tracks they had made in the snow with as little magic as possible. Just as he was finishing, he heard the lock click open. They were in.

Fabian followed Gideon through the front door. As soon as he entered, he shivered; it seemed like it was colder inside than out. How was that even possible?

"It's bloody freezing!" Fabian whispered, and the sound echoed throughout the Hall and up the stairwell.

"Shh!" Gideon said once more, shooting furtive glances around the room. But it wasn't necessary: they were alone. There were no lights turned on, or house-elves bustling around. Even the paintings were all covered with white sheets. All was completely still, as planned.

Dolohov Manor—or perhaps Dolohov Domain, the Purebloods did love their alliterations—was abandoned, as the owner, Antonin Dolohov lived in You-Know-Who's quarters. But they had recently learnt through intelligence that the Death Eaters actually made a lot of effort to make it look abandoned so that no one would go rummaging through it. This had led the Order to believe that there truly was something to look for in it.

So, Dumbledore had sent the lock-picking duo, Gideon and Fabian to go hunting around. They didn't really know what they were looking for, but hopefully they were going to find something. They weren't too much at risk as barely anyone ever came over according to the magic sensors they'd placed around the grounds a couple of weeks ago. Whenever someone came, it was always during the daytime, so the nighttime was supposed to be safer, hence them rummaging around an abandoned house at one in the morning.

But nevertheless, precautions were absolutely necessary.

"You want to split up?" Fabian asked.

"We'll be here all night long, otherwise," Gideon told him with a grin. "Come on. I'll do the ground floor, you do the first floor."

The two brothers separated. Fabian quickly made his way up the stairs in the dark, with only the faintest lumos to light his way. Already, he could feel the Manor air change with the little magic he was using. Hopefully, the traces would fade within the next couple of days so that nobody could never tell someone had cast spells here.

He randomly picked the left corridor and entered the first room. It seemed to be a simple bedchamber. There was a bed, a chest of drawers and a vanity. Fabian looked through the drawers and the vanity, but everything was empty. Trying the next room, he saw it was exactly the same thing, and just as interesting-objectless as the first one.

Fabian frowned as he opened a third room which was once again the same. Purebloods were known to hoard bits and bobs collected over the years and generations. Where was all of Dolohov's stuff? Hopefully Gideon's search was more fruitful than his.

It suddenly occurred to him that maybe it was a trap. Maybe they'd purposely gotten information on this manor, that it was actually an ambush: slip the information, have them come over, then ambush them. It had happened before.

Cautiously, he decided to keep on looking. Now wasn't the time to get nervous and ruin the chance they had to find precious information that could help their cause and end this bloody war.

He moved out of the current room and continued to make his way down the corridor.

The next room was slightly more furnished, and Fabian had a bit more to look through, but apart from some expensive looking jewellery and perhaps a few books that would have ended up in the Restricted Section at Hogwarts, there wasn't much.

He was really starting to wonder what the point of this expedition was after a whole corridor of disappointingly empty rooms when he realised he'd been looking in entirely the wrong place. There, at the end of the corridor, he could see a glass cabinet filled with odds and ends.

He made his way towards it and peered inside. More jewels, a couple of china plates and—wait. What was that? He looked back to the object on the left. He was crouching now, as the object he had seen was on the very last shelf.

Fabian brought the light closer to the shelf, shining it on the object. A locket. Nothing special about it, and very similar to the countless others he had found just a couple of minutes ago, but this one had caught his attention.

Fabian had always had a certain sensibility to magical auras. He could simply tell if there had been magic in a place, person, or object recently, and this locket in front of him radiated something. Some strange aura he'd never crossed before.

Frowning, he brought the light a little closer. Was that—Was that Slytherin's blazon? It was as if the locket was beckoning him, begging him to pick it up. So, against his better judgment, he pried the glass open, reached in and took it out.

The locket started to whisper things to him but he couldn't make out anything of the hushed syllables. It was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye; you know it's there, but you can't entirely tell what it is. This was exactly like the sounds at the very back of his mind. But Fabian was sure of something: this was dark, dark magic.

However, there was something about this locket that rang a bell. An enchanted object that told you dark things... He'd read about it somewhere, maybe in one of those books Mother and Father had that dated back from centuries ago.

Suddenly, he remembered what it was. Oh, Merlin. If it truly was what he thought, this was far, far bigger than what they had imagined. Far bigger than anything they could have even conceived, but it made so much sense! There was no time to warn Gideon. Given the nature of the locket, he had to tell Dumbledore now.

"Expecto patronum," he whispered and his familiar heron burst out of his wand. It didn't matter if he performed magically loaded spells now. They had found what they needed and they had to leave now. But first, a message to Dumbledore was absolutely necessary.

"Dumbledore, I have found what we were looking for. I think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is trying to become immortal. I have—"

A scream cut him off. But the scream was as familiar as his own.

"Gideon!" he cried.

The heron took off just as he was rushing through the corridor and down the stairs. The sound of spells was becoming louder and louder as he ran through rooms trying to find his brother.

"Gideon!" he yelled once again.

"Fabian!" was the cry coming not too far off.

He could also hear other men's voices. Deeper, gruffer. Death Eaters. Oh, no. How could this have happened? They had taken so many precautions. Fabian stuffed the locket in his pocket. Though it was massively important that he brought this back, Gideon was his priority right now. He always was.

Finally, he reached the Dining room and shot in, brandishing his wand. To his horror, he saw five Death Eaters shooting curses at his brother. Flashes of green, blue and red were lighting up the room like a horrendous firework.

"So, there are two of you!" Dolohov screamed over the sounds of the fighting.

"Where were you?" Gideon cried to him, completely ignoring Dolohov.

"I'll tell you later!" Fabian promised. A promise that he failed to keep.

Everything happened so quickly. It seemed, at first, that they were winning, that there was a chance to escape but soon the five Death Eaters were cornering them and Fabian realised that this was the end.

Was it an ambush? The locket in his pocket seemed to suggest that it wasn't: there had truly been something to find. As the spells continued to back them up into a well, he hoped Dumbledore had received his half-message, that their ineluctable death would not be in vain.

With a glance at his brother, Fabian fell down to the ground first. His last thought before as the green spell hit him square in the chest was how thankful he didn't have to watch his twin die.

For THC – Round 5 – Slytherin

Class: Potions

Category: Extra Standard

Prompt: [Multiple Characters] The Prewett Twins (Fabian and Gideon)

Word Count: 1,800