House: Slytherin
Category: Short
Prompt: Unforgivable
Word Count (excluding A/N): 997
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A knock on the door.
Alice paused in fixing her robes. Turning over her shoulder, she called, "Frank, don't go yet. Let Amelia see Neville before he's shipped off to his Gran's."
An answering shout came from the living room of their little home, and Alice hurried to the door, grinning at the prospect of seeing her old friend after so many years apart. She threw open the door, ready to welcome Amelia in— but instead of a smiling petite blonde on her doorstep, there stood four figures clad in black robes and bone-white masks led by none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.
Alice's grin faltered, vanishing completely as it sunk in exactly who was on her doorstep. Then she spun and shouted, "Frank! Take Neville and go! It's—"
But Bellatrix flicked her wand and Alice found herself silenced and frozen, unable to move or make a sound.
"Oh, Longbottom," the Dark witch sneered as she motioned the other Death Eaters to enter the house. "I couldn't have you warning your hubby — it'd spoil all the fun!" Cackling, Bellatrix lifted her wand, and Alice cringed, instinctively trying to curl away from the witch and the pain she promised.
Yet she didn't feel any pain strike through her, only the light sensation of a spell being lifted. When she gazed up at her captor, a question in her eyes, Bellatrix smirked. "I want to hear you scream, pet. And you will scream. Crucio!"
Pain.
Excruciating pain.
Alice writhed underneath the Cruciatus, her blood burning, her bones grinding together, her spine snapping, her back bending and bowing as her limbs contorted themselves into unnatural positions— and throughout it all, she screamed until her vocal chords bled.
Yet her mental walls remained strong and unshakeable. Frank and Neville escaped. She knew they had. They'd be okay. They'd bring help. She could survive until then. The thought comforted her, shoring up her mental walls as the Dark curse tore through her mind, searching for any weakness in her defenses. Neville was safe.
When Bellatrix finally lifted the curse, Alice collapsed to the ground, her muscles still spasming as she lay there on the grass. She shut her eyes, trying to gather her strength before Bellatrix began the torture anew; however, the Dark Witch grabbed her hair and twisted it, making Alice cry out in pain, all while purring, "Open your eyes, Longbottom."
Alice shakily did as Bellatrix commanded, and when she saw flames licking at the walls of her and Frank's home, she was unable to hold back a horrified gasp; when she realised it was Fiendfyre, tears formed in the corner of her eyes, though she refused to let them fall. She wouldn't give Bellatrix the satisfaction.
But Bellatrix was already grabbing her chin and forcing her gaze away from the house and to the body lying beneath one of the Death Eaters. Its robes were bloodied and its breathing ragged — when Alice realised who it was, her heart caught in her throat. "No…" she moaned, "Frank… no…"
She was still staring in disbelief at his cold, crumpled body when Bellatrix lifted her wand again. "Crucio."
This time, it wasn't pain; it was agony. Pure, unadulterated agony. Alice thrashed wildly, her eyes rolling back in her head while her own cries echoed endlessly in her ears, her skin peeling back layer by slow layer as her eyes boiled in their sockets. Shrieking, Alice shook as her mental walls shuddered against the Dark curse's onslaught and the pain, the agony, the torture.
After what felt like years, the curse dissipated and Alice sank bonelessly into the ground, her every nerve protesting at the slightest stimulation and her limbs twitching randomly as she was wracked by the aftershocks of the Cruciatus. When Bellatrix leaned closer to Alice's sweaty, filthy form, Alice was unable to shrink away, too exhausted to move.
"Where's your brat, Longbottom?" Bellatrix crooned, and the statement made Alice's blood run cold. Neville. Where was Neville? She'd already lost Frank— she couldn't lose her son too— she couldn't—
Smirking, Bellatrix affirmed her worst fears. "He's dead."
Alice let out an anguished, broken cry; she'd lost her boy, her beautiful baby boy, and it was all her fault. If she'd just let Frank leave, Neville would have been at his Gran's when the Death Eaters attacked…
Tears ran freely down her cheeks as she choked out, "No— no— not Neville— that's— that's—"
"Not fair?" Bellatrix smirked, her eyes glowing as she watched Alice sob. "The world isn't fair. Unforgivable? He didn't last a minute under the Crucio."
Alice shrieked at the thought of her son spending his last moments in terror and agony; she wept, the pain of her body far overshadowed by the pain of her mind. She was so distraught that she offered no further resistance against the Cruciatus: there was nothing left to live for. Not with both Frank and Neville gone. Spidery thin cracks splintered through her mental walls and something deep within her broke, wrenched apart by her terrible loss; confronted by such overwhelming grief, her mind shattered.
After that, everything was muffled, as if she were only an uninterested observer dispassionately watching her own body twitch and jerk and spasm. No further cries left her lips. The dark figure above her threw down its arms in frustration and disappeared, the other dark shapes quickly following suit.
Still lying broken on the ground, Alice smiled serenely, tears streaking down her muddy, bloody, dusty cheeks as she gazed at the empty space where those dark figures had been. She was glad they were gone, though she couldn't remember why. She only knew that they'd taken something important from her, something that she could never get back. And it was somehow her fault, all her fault.
Those dark figures had done something truly unforgivable. Yet she knew she wouldn't blame them; no, she would only blame herself. Her world had shattered around her, and it was no one's fault but her own.