Knockturn Alley. November 10, 1996.
It was a few days after Guy Fawkes day when the wizard decided to take a break from his personal labors of Sisyphus. He did not often crave the company of his fellow men any more. Nor did he require much sleep. But even his mind grew weary, occasionally, of the strain it had been placed under, and needed the relaxation of a change of scenery and thought.
Thus it was that he apparated to Knockturn Alley. He had furthered his attempts to relax by using the polyjuice potion to transform into someone who was not too dis-similiar in looks and body-size from his true self. He looked at his reflection in a shop window. His eyes were normal, and would hopefully remain so for a few hours. Of late, he had been gradually losing control of some of his darker transformations. A punishment, he supposed, for the dark things he had done to himself. He had no idea what the end result would be, if he lived that long. He hoped not to live that long, and wouldn't if he found what he was looking for soon.
He strode into a nasty looking tavern. There were several hags and worse creatures inside. Some of them had disguised themselves as something at least somewhat human. Others had not bothered. A prostitute, dressed in a lasciviously abbreviated version of Hogwarts robes, was trying to proposition a Goblin, who refused her with a rude gesture. She was an idiot to try. Being far smaller than humans, a Goblin would hardly enjoy himself riding the much larger whore, whose relevent anatomy would be far too loose from his point of view.
Selecting a dim booth set far enough away from the general crowd that no-one would likely notice if anything amiss happened to him, the wizard sat down and gestured to the bartender.
"Veela Blood whiskey." He told the bartender. "If you have it."
He slipped the bartender a heavy gold coin, partly under the table. The bartender nodded. Veela Blood whiskey was outlawed in most countries, for various reasons. Some claimed that it's intense aphrodisiac and other mind-altering effects made it dangerous. Others claimed that the method of making it, which involved fermenting grape juice mixed with blood drawn from a Veela who was in the throes of orgasm, classified it as a Dark Arts substance. The wizard could not have given a damn about either reason. His mind and body was his to do with and alter as he saw fit, so far as he was concerned. As for the Veelas, they were not killed in the process of the blood removal. Killing them would, in fact, have ruined this particularmagical property of their blood. They only donated a pint at a time, and were well paid for it. So if he did not object, and the Veela did not object, he did not see why it should be the place of some puritanical busy-body from the English Ministry of Magic to object.
Veela Blood Whiskey was not illegal in the country he had come from. Neither were many other things, such as the so-called 'unforgivable' curses. Standards were vastly different there.
"How much do you want?" The bartender asked him in a low voice. Any one of his customers could have been undercover aurors, and he did not want it overheard that he stocked illegal subtances in his wine cellar.
"A pint, if you have it."
"That's quite a bit. It's powerful stuff. You sure you can handle it?" The wizard simply gazed back at the bartender, who saw something in his eyes that convinced him. "Yeah, I guess maybe you can. Can you wait about 10 minutes? I'll need to bring it out hidden in a case of Nettlebeer."
The wizard nodded, and the bartender bustled off, attending to some of his other patrons. He tapped his fingers impatiently, but sooner than he expected, the bartender came to his table with a small wineglass, and the bottle of Veela Blood Whiskey, which had been transfigured to look like a bottle of common Nettlebeer.
"That's going to be five Galleons then." The bartender told him. It was much more than the wizard would have paid in his homeland, but then, it was not illegal there. Which meant that not only was the price much lower, but that the purity and quality of it were far better, and people were not killing eachother over the right to sell it in particular areas.
He did not care about quality, though. He wanted a good drunk, not an aesthetic experience. He handed the required coins to the bartender, and drew the cork from the bottle in a single, swift motion. A wisp of silvery vapor came out of the bottle, and the wizard sniffed at the boquet appreciatively. The stuff was good, far better than he would have expected. Obviously some black marketeer or the other had come to the conclusion that even in an illegal business, quality paid.
The wizard poured a little of the whiskey into his glass and swirled it around, gazing at the liquid as it gleamed in the light of candles several feet away. The dark purple of the grapes spiralled around the intense red of the Veela's blood. The patterns beckoned to him, as if they were the arms of a desirable, nude woman. Specks of exotic spices danced in the liquid like minute, tempting faeries. Ah, this was the way a man was meant to live. Smiling, he raised the glass to his lips and took a large gulp, letting the flavors play over his tongue for several moments before letting the precious stuff slip down his throat.
That was wonderful, the wizard thought to himself as the stuff warmed his belly. The warmth became heat, just bordering on the brink of pain in it's intensity, and tingling fire traveled out of his stomach. The tingling spread all through his body, but concentrated on his loins. He became aware that he was not only getting drunk, but was very hard, as well. He smiled at the glass and took another swallow. It was good. It was the effect he had been looking for.
He looked at the prostitute with newly appreciative eyes. It would be good, he thought, if he were to buy her for a few hours.Thechanges in his body not only made him insatiable, but inexhaustable as well. He would take her in the alley, or in the lair he had made for himself, or anywhere else he could have her, ramming her until she literally fainted from ecstacy, and then continue to ride her limp body, giving her pleasure even as she lay unconscious. He would ruin her for all other men.
A last thread of sanity prevented him from getting up to approach her. It was his will, which was feircely strong, even under these conditions. He often cursed the intensity of it, for it had kept him alive after things which ought properly to have killed him, but now, perhaps, it was a blessing. He really didn't want to risk impregnating any woman, even a whore, with whatever sort of seed now existed in his loins. God only knew what sort of monstrosities she would give birth to. Just as he would not lower himself to poison chidren, he could not bring himself to sire an innocent baby with the curse he was forced to exist under.
Even if he could not let himself have her, though, it was good just to gaze at a woman, at the way she moved her legs, and her hips, and her eyes, and simply sit back enjoying the feeling of hardness between his legs, as he took another sip of wine. There was a pleasure, of sorts, in the anticipation of sex, just as there was in it's fulfillment. He supposed his balls would hurt in the morning, but he did not care. He had survived infinitely worse pain.
Her eyes were the best feature on her, he decided. Large and dark blue. The same color as the twilight sky, or the robes that wizards of his country wore. They looked almost like her eyes... in the dim light he could pretend that they were exactly the same, that the miracle had happened, and the past 15 years had been erased, and she had come back to him.
He was roused from his fantasy by an unpleasant jolt to his magical senses as the door opened and an unpleasant looking man swaggered in. He choked. The prostitute was not her, after all. It would never be her, not ever, ever again.
As for this man who had come in, the wizard did not like the looks of him. He felt along the pathways the magical jolt had awakened in him. This man had the Dark Mark! The wizard felt fury rise in him, and quickly fought it down with another gulp of the drink. It really would not do to lose control of himself, in front of so many people. He was not ready to show his entire hand, yet.
It would not do to be drunk, either, with a Death Eater around. Surreptitiously gripping his wand, he cast a simple sobriety charm on himself. His head cleared immediately, and the hardness between his legs subsided slightly, though not by much. Perhaps it was the memories that had caused his arousal, just as much as the drink. It didn't matter. He needed a clear head when around this sort of magical vermin.
Slumping over in his seat as if still drunk, the wizard watched as the Death Eater who entered ordered a large mug of Firewhiskey for himself. It was far more than he ought to have drunk, and after getting a refill, the Death Eater got up and approached the prostitute. She seemed to know him, because whatever it was he had proposed to her, was rejected with some angry shouting. He didn't take rejection well, however. Seizing her by one wrist, he began dragging her towards the rear exit of the bar, which opened into an isolated alley.
The bartender began shouting at the Death Eater, who raised his wand threateningly, and said something that made him cringe backwards. The rest of the people in the bar looked frightened, but seemed to know the Death Eater, and tried to pay attention to their drinks, or the cracks in the wall, rather than to the abduction happening in front of them.
Seeing no further opposition, the Death Eater opened the door with an 'Alohamora' spell, and shoved the prostitute through it. She stumbled into the alley, falling and scraping the skin of one bare knee. The wizard heard her cry of pain and fancied he could smell the sharp tang of blood, all the way from where he sat. The hooker stumbled to her feet and tried to run away, but the Death Eater had caught up with her by now. He seized her and flung her violently against the alley wall, before shutting the door behind them with another spell.
Then the screaming started.
It stopped in barely a moment, as the bartender cast 'Silencio' around the door. A few of the other people in the bar looked uncomfortable, but did not seem inclined to intervene. They did not want to incur the wrath of Lord Voldemort by interfering with one of his minions. Truth be told, most of them were inclined to dark wizardry themselves, and really didn't give a damn about the fate of a cheap tart. At least it was not them out there in the alley.
The wizard shifted in his seat uncomfortably. The man he had once been, a long time ago, would not have sat back while this happened. He had fought against evil, with far worse odds. But now he no longer really cared about other human beings. Why should he? They did not care about him. And who really gave a damn if one English wizard killed another. They were so completely unable to get along that they would probably be extinct in a few more generations anyways.
Then he thought what she would say, if she were here. She wasn't, but the prostitute had looked a lot like her. And despite her profession, she might be loved by someone, somewhere. If not now, then perhaps in her past or future.
The wizard shook his head, not really knowing what moved him, as he got up from his booth. Now he was going to have to go and do something stupid. Well, perhaps it was time to send a message to his enemies. If he could frighten them enough, he might be able to panic them into making a mistake that would aid his quest.
That's how he justified it anyways. The thought that he might have far more humanity left than he thought, even after what he had done to himself, was one he did not want to even consider.
He strode towards the door with a determined look. This actually drew far more looks from the other customers at the bar than the Death Eater's abduction of the hooker had. They were different sorts of looks, however. They looked at him as though he were a madman.
Which he supposed he was, in a way. Anyone would be mad after going through the things that he had.
He flung the door open with a violent gesture that actually tore it off one of it's hinges. The Death Eater was only a few yards down the alley. He was still dressed, save for a partly unbuttoned shirt, but the hooker he had pinned against the wall with a Petrifucus Totalis spell was naked. The Death Eater had cut her clothes off with a small, sharp dagger, pressing deep as he did so, so that the dagger cut her skin as well as her clothes. Rivulets of blood dripped down, scarlet against skin that was pure, ivory white. The same shade that hers had been. The sight aroused him, which he did not at all enjoy. The things he had done to himself had given him a definite sadistic bent. He enjoyed the sight of others suffering. But he still felt guilt over it. Perhaps it would have been easier if he were even more of a monster. At least then there would be no guilt.
He gazed at the sight, mesmerized, for a moment, but was roused by the sound of the woman whimpering as the Death Eater peeled a slice of skin from her nipple. Apparently the Death Eater had used a variant of the Petrificus spell that left his victim able to use the muscles in her throat and higher. The wizard watched as she glanced towards him, and looked even more frightened. Perhaps the sights before him had caused his eyes to start to change, then. Well, let them.
Approaching the Death Eater he shouted with 15 years of fury in his voice. "STOP THAT!"
The death eater glanced at him. Being staggering drunk, he saw something odd about the wizard before him, but it really didn't register in his alcohol besotted brain.
"Get out of here." He slurred at the wizard. "If you know what's good for you. If you want a peice of this tail, then by all means stand in line. But I expect it'll be a bit cold before it's your turn. But Necro ain't bad either, so long as it's fresh. After a couple days, forget it."
The wizard actually spent a few moments trying to decipher what this meant, and was quite disgusted when he figured it out.
"I said to STOP!" He told the Death Eater.
"Fuck you." The Death Eater turned from the hooker anddrew his wand, pointing itin a threatening manner. "D'you know who I am? I'm Rodolphus LeStrange. And if you don't know that name, let me tell you that I'm not someone you want to be bothering. I got powerful friends, if you know what I mean."
The Death Eater gestured toward his left arm, indicating the Dark Mark covered by his sleeve. "Now, since I'm in a good mood for getting this bit of pussy, I'll give you a couple of choices. You either leave and mind your own business, or you stand in line and wait for your turn, or I'll kill you, and after I'm done with her, I'll try out that tight looking ass of yours. I've never had it that way before, but hey, I'm not real prejudiced when I'm this drunk."
It was scarcely a moment before Rodolphus realized that this was a mistake. The change which had been creeping over the wizard since he entered the alley, now completely overtook him. Even in his drunken state, and in the dim light, Rodolphus now saw that the eyes of this wizard were not the eyes of anything even remotely human. Lord Voldemort's eyes sometimes looked this strange, but in a different way, and he was used to the Dark Lord. He had never seen anything like the eyes in the wizard before him ever again. He whimpered and backed away. The erection he had had while cutting up the prostitute rapidly deflated as he wet himself.
"WHEN I TOLD YOU TO STOP," The wizard before him roared. "IT WAS NOT A REQUEST!"
Frightened, and unable to think of any really clever spells, Rodolphus took his wand and fell back on an old standard.
"Avada Kadavra!"
A green light flashed, but before it could reach the wizard, there was a loud crack of him apparating, and he vanished before the lethal spell could hit him. Rodolphus was even more frightened for a moment. No way. No-one could move and apparate that fast. No-one. But at least the wizard was gone. He shook his head. Maybe it was just the booze, making the wizard seem to move faster than he really did. Perhaps he could get back to his business with the hooker. Or maybe just leave. He laughed weakly, and turned around to see what the whore against the wall was doing.
The wizard was standing there, in front of her.
"No, no, you..." Rodolphus pointed his wand at him. With an impatient gesture, the wizard waved his own wand, and Rodolphus's vanished from his hand, along with a large slice of skin.
"My wand! Where is my wand? Give it back, you freak!" Despite his fear, his drunkeness and rage made him incautious.
"Your wand is now in the center of the earth, burnt to ashes." The wizard informed him. "Perhaps you'd like to join it."
"No, no." Rodulphus noted that somehow, during the few seconds his back had been turned to them, the wizard had silently removed the Petrificus spell the prostitute had been under. She was now creeping away as stealthily as she could manage. Both the wizard and Rodolphus ignored her. By mutual agreement, she was no longer a participant in the current proceedings.
"No, no, I don't want to go to the center of the Earth." Rodolphus whimpered. "What do you want. Tell me what you want, anything, and I'll do it."
Though, he added silently, he would get his revenge as soon as he told Lord Voldemort about this.
"Good, I'm glad you're being cooperative now." The wizard said, his jovial tone contradicting the inhuman eyes in his face. "I want you to bring a message to your master."
"You mean Voldemort?" The wizard nodded his confirmation. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. Any message you want, I'll tell him for you."
"You won't need to tell him. You just need to bring it to him."
"Yeah, okay, right." Anything to satisfy this freak and get the hell out of here.
"Good. Then take off your clothes."
"What?" Rodolphus actually did not undertand the request, so unexpected was it.
"I said," The wizard repeated patiently, but a dangerous undertone entered his voice. "Take off your clothes. All of them."
Rodolphus was not sure of what was going on. Did the wizard mean to rape him? He didn't seem the type. Before he had started freaking out, Rodolphus had seen him growphysically arousedat the sight of the bleeding whore, who was now gone from the alley, but who knew? Perhaps he swung both ways. It would not be enjoyable, having this freak rape him, but it would be survivable, at least. Better than being apparated to the lava core at the center of the Earth, anyways. And revenge would be sweet.
Rodolphus took off all his clothes, except his shoes and socks. The wizard did not seem to mind this.
"Turn around," He instructed Rodolphus, who was now quite certain what the wizard meant to do. He turned around, and bent over slightly, presenting himself for the act he expected to follow shortly.
Which was not what happened.
"What are you doing?" The wizard said in annoyance."Straighten up. I can't see you."
Completely confused, Rodolphus straightened up. He could hardly be raped in this position. But if this freak did not want to rape him, then what the hell did he want? To have him repeatedly take his clothes off and put them back on again while he watched the performance. He supposed that was no stranger than some of the things he did himself.
The wizard meanwhile studied Rodolphus's flabby back and quivering, white buttocks with something like disgust. How could this Death Eater imagine that anyone would find him desirable, even if they had been gay? Which he most certainly wasn't.
Still, the flab was all to the good. Rodolphus's large size would make it easier to do what he was going to do.
He took out his wand and pointing it at Rodolphus's back, waved it in a short, slashing gesture. Immediately, Rodolphus howled in pain. Bloodgushed down his back, far more than had come from the far cleaner cuts he had made on the prostitute. Had it been only a few minutes before? It seemed like an eternity.
Gasping in pain, Rodolphus spun around helplessly a few times, trying to feel what had happened to him. He had had Bella whip him on several occasions. He was a mashochist as well as a sadist. The whippings hurt a great deal, but this was far worse. He managed to get a finger in one end of the wound, and turned white when he felt the knobby hardness of his own ribs near within the depths of it. Gorge rose in him, and he turned around again once more, just in time to see the wizard dropping a thick, reddish scrap of flesh from his hands onto the slimy pavement of the alley, where he stepped on it with a contempful gesture.
"What... what did you do to me?" Rodolphus croaked.
"I apparated a peice of flesh off your back." The wizard explained in a dry voice, as if discussing arithmantic theory. "It isn't hard, if you have the aptitude. Now turn around so I can cauterize it. I don't want you bleeding to death, and I have to do that several more times."
"You, you said you just wanted me to bring a message to Lord Voldemort."
"And so I did. But I didn't say how." The wizards eyes had become normal again, as if some demon within him were pacified by the atrocity he was committing. "I'm going to carve it into your back, and let your master read it."
Rodolphus turned and tried to flee, but didn't get far. The wizard behind him raised his wand almost lazily, and cast Petrificus Totalis on him, just as he had done himself on the whore. But unlike the spell he had used, this one left him unable to scream. Stopped in midstride, he fell to the ground, the cobblestones breaking his nose, two of his fingers, and five of his teeth.
The wizard strode almost lazily to where Rodolphus lay. "And here I thought you were going to cooperate. Well, I will just have to do this the hard way."
And then thepain truly started. It seemed to last for hours, though it was actually less than five minutes. Rodolphus wished he could lose consciousness or go mad, anything to stop the agony slicing one relentless letter at a time across his back. But neither came. Eventually, he stopped wishing for either. He lay face down for nearly an hour, only dimly aware that the addition of newwhite-hot slashes across his fleshhad stopped, and that he was now alone. When he became aware that his tormentor had left, he raised himself up slightly with his arms, and promptly vomitted. His fingers scrabbled at the slick cobblestones, and a sharp corner from one of them ripped through one of the nails, peeling it off. This pain was even worse than that in his back, thanks to the concentration of nerve ending in the hands. Rodolphus made a barely audible mewling noise, his pupils dilated with shock. He collapsed again, the acid from his stomach's contents burning into his cheek for nearly another hour, before he finally managed to stagger to his feet. Oh, someone was going to pay for this. Just wait until Voldemort found out, he would show this wizard what pain really was.
He saw his pants lying on the ground, but didn't think that he could manage to get them on in his present state. He wrapped them crudely around himself instead, thanking whatever dark gods existed that the freak had not decided to castrate him on top of everything else.Then he staggered his way into the bar. Most of the patrons who had been there before, when he had dragged the hooker into the alley were gone now, but the bartender gave him a very surprised and alarmed look. No doubt he had expected the strange wizard to be the one bleeding or worse. The bartender came over, offering some sort of aid, but Rodolphus couldn't understand what he was saying, and pushed him angrily away.
The agonized Death Eater managed to make his way into the bathroom of the tavern. He spat blackish gobs of blood and a few splinters of teeth into the sink, and had to make several attempts before he was able to turn the faucet. Damn, he wished he had his wand right now. He splashed water on his face, rinsing blood off his skin and out of his mouth.He needed to get the bartender or someone to get Bella or floo him home or something. He needed a mediwizard, or to go to bed. Or something. Though he most definitely didn't need to be whipped by Bella for the next year.
It then occured to him to wonder just what message that damned wizard had carved into his back, that he was so insistent that he show to Lord Voldemort. Rodolphus turned around, and craned his head, despite the pain, trying to see his own back in the mirror. It was not a pretty sight. The message itself was hard to make out. His entire back was covered with crusted blood, and he could see the whitish lumps of his own rib bones at the bottom of some of the letters carved higher on his back. He had to turn several times, and spell the whole thing out, letter by letter. He finally got it deciphered, though, and despite the pain, began to laugh.
It was senseless. It didn't mean anything. Or maybe it did, and only Lord Voldemort would understand it. Regardless, it was something written by a crazy person.
In inch-deep letters, flayed from the flesh on the back of one of the most sadistic Death Eaters, lay the message of the wizard to Lord Voldemort, spelled out one runic letter at a time:
"WHERE IS IT?"
