Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of J. K. Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended. John Wayne quotes are, in order, from In Harm's Way, The Cowboys, The Longest Day, The Big Trail, True Grit, Stagecoach, and 'Neath the Arizona Skies.
This was written for the QLFC – Season 8, Round 3: What's Your Name, Man? – Falmouth Falcons, Captain – Prompt: "Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)" (duel or fight) – Lyric: "I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory."
Many thanks to my team members for encouragement and beta'ing assistance, and especially to CaptainScorose for the suggestions on Fabian's and Gideon's Patronuses!
Also written for…
QLFC "So You Want to Be a Pokémon Master?" – Bulbasaur Starter (Friendship) – Catching 173: Cleffa (friendship that changes someone's life)
QLFC "Quidditch Supplies" – [siblings] Molly & Fabian
MC4A Challenges: FPC;BAON; TOS; Star; Fence; Chim; Link; Hunt; SprBingo
Individual Challenges: Short Jog; New Fandom Smell; Gryffindor MC; Slytherin MC; Magical MC (Y); Criminal MC; Booger Breath; Lunar Era; Writing with Music
Representations: Fabian Prewett; Gideon Prewett; Prewett Family; Antonin Dolohov; Bellatrix Lestrange; Order of the Phoenix; John Wayne Films; Inventing Spells; Friendship; Good vs. Evil; Same Bingo Card
Bonus Challenges: Middle Name; Spinning Plates; Second Verse (Not a Lamp, White Dress)
List (Prompt): Spring Settings (Small Town/Village)
Spring Bingo Space Address (Prompt): 1A (Sunshine)
Chimera: Chrysophylax
Parts (Prompts): Tropes & Themes (Applied Phlebotinum)
Word Count: 3000
Warning: depictions of violence, including against children
if you're looking for trouble (i'll accommodate you)
Holsworthy is a ghost town.
Fabian Prewett paces outside the silent Muggle residence, his keen eyes scanning the deserted street. A flicker of movement registers in his peripheral and he raises his wand, but it's only Gideon, stepping out through the gaping hole left when the door was blasted off its hinges. The dying sun's orange rays play across his brother's pale face, trying vainly to chase away the sickly green glow of the Dark Mark above. Gideon gives a sharp jerk of his head, and Fabian mounts the steps, casting a final cautious glance back down the street.
"Dolohov's been here all right," his brother says in an undertone as Fabian takes in the carnage. He indicates the body of a boy whose only sign of injury is a trickle of black blood flowing from his mouth. Fabian winces, recalling his own turn on the receiving end of Antonin Dolohov's infamous curse, the mortal agony of his insides turning to liquid fire. The volley of potions it took to save him was almost as bad as the curse itself.
This kid won't be so lucky.
Fabian nods curtly, then adds, "Dolohov's not alone, I'd say. Those two"—he gestures at a man and a little girl, both of them drenched with blood—"look more like Travers or Rosier."
Gideon agrees. "Wait till you see the mother." He leads Fabian upstairs, where the body of a woman lies in the hallway, grotesquely contorted and misshapen.
"The work of a Lestrange if I ever saw it. Maybe more than one," says Fabian, and his brother nods. "What was she doing up here?" He thinks he knows the answer and wants desperately to be wrong.
"A baby," Gideon confirms grimly. "Dolohov again."
Fabian's gut twists. He's seen it all so many times he ought to be jaded by now, but somehow the kids always seem to get to him.
"D'you think we should call for reinforcements?" he asks as they return to the landing. They came out here on a tip about Dolohov; they hadn't bargained on a raiding party of three or more of You-Know-Who's finest. He doesn't trust the empty silence.
Gideon's mouth twists up in a wry grin. "Scared, big brother?"
Fabian knows he's supposed to give some gung-ho declaration of defiance. Instead, what comes out is a quote: "All battles are fought by scared men who'd rather be someplace else."
The Prewetts moved to Holsworthy the summer before Fabian and Gideon turned seven. Mr. Prewett had lost his Ministry job in the post-war tussle of pro- vs. anti-Muggle politics, and this house was the cheapest they could find with a Floo-capable chimney. For the twins, however, the real attraction of their new home was the kid next door, Joseph Stratton.
Joe Stratton was a Muggle, a fact they knew because they had asked him (six-year-olds are not known for subtlety). But Joe could do other things. He could sneak out of his house without his parents catching him—a skill his new friends quickly picked up—and he had an in with one of the ushers at the local Odeon Cinema. At least once a week, Joe, Gideon, and Fabian crept into the dark theatre and sat down front where no one ever sat and so no one would ever catch them, and there they craned their necks up at the big screen and waited for John Wayne to ride up, guns blazing.
Joe Stratton loved the Duke. There probably wasn't a boy in America who loved the Duke more than he did. Whenever a new cowboy film made its way across the Atlantic, Joe was one of the first to see it, and his buddies Fabian and Gideon were on either side of him.
Afterwards, they'd head to Joe's backyard to play cowboys. Of course, there could only be one John Wayne—which caused a lot of squabbling—but they worked out a way to take it in turns. Occasionally the twins would talk their sister Molly into playing, though this tended to backfire as Molly would tattle at the slightest provocation. Really, she ought to have seen how much more realistic it was to use Mum and Dad's real riding broomsticks for horses instead of the lame old brooms with sacks over the tops from Joe's garage. Anyway, they'd made Joe promise not to tell.
Cowboy films were the best, but if John Wayne's name was on it, the boys saw it. There was something about the stories, something about him. They couldn't have put a name to it, not at age six, nor at ten, nor even at fourteen when they moved again and left Joe Stratton behind. It was the way the Duke fought for those who were weaker, the way he stood by his principles, the way he never backed down from a fight. It was (though that film wouldn't come out until they were in their twenties) that the Duke had grit.
Gideon acknowledges the quote with a nod. "Guess it can't hurt to have someone else fighting in our corner." He closes his eyes for a moment, then raises his wand and murmurs, "Expecto Patronum." A silvery eagle materialises, flapping its wings as if impatient to take flight as he leans over to whisper a message.
Fabian goes back out to the stoop. He needs the space, his tremendous grizzly bear Patronus would fill half the room, but it's more than that. They've been in this place too long. He doesn't trust the silence.
"Well, would you look here, Dolohov?" drawls a lazy voice. The hairs on the back of Fabian's neck stand up, and his grip tightens on his wand as young Rabastan Lestrange lopes into view. "Seems our handiwork has attracted a couple of blood traitors."
"I wouldn't make a habit of calling me that, son," Fabian replies, his easy tone belying his searching eyes. Rabastan's brother Rodolphus and his harpy of a wife Bellatrix appear in another ruined doorway, and he gives them a nod. "Glad to see the Lestrange brothers are back on good terms. Hated to hear you two had fallen out, especially over something as silly as who deserved credit for the Ross murder. Didn't your mother ever teach you boys to share?"
Rodolphus smiles thinly and doesn't answer.
He feels his brother come up beside him and registers with a glance that the eagle is gone. He hopes it'll get through in time. It has to. Three of them, four with Dolohov, wherever he is. Though I would have sworn those two bloody ones—
A blaze of orange light streaks up from the ground, drawing his eyes upward till it meets an enormous silver bird in flight. The eagle screams as the curse tears it in two, trying frantically to reform itself even as a second blaze slices through it. Within moments, Gideon's Patronus is nothing but silvery wisps vanishing into the twilight.
"Sorry about that," growls Evan Rosier, appearing from behind a bit of shrubbery. "Guess I got a little jumpy." He grins, showing rotted yellowed teeth.
Fabian's heart sinks. They are alone.
"Well, well. It appears we are all assembled."
As one, Fabian and Gideon turn their wands on a burly wizard with a pale, twisted face, striding up the street to meet them. "Dolohov," says Gideon coolly. "How nice of you to drop by."
A hideous grin splits the Death Eater's malformed features. "Not at all. The pleasure is mine. I am your host, after all."
"Well in that case," Fabian retorts, "some of your guests don't seem to be doing so well, Dolohov. They appear to be a bit —how shall I put it?—dead."
Dolohov's grin widens. "Guests? Oh, no, you are mistaken, my dear Fabian. The Muggles are part of the feast. The appetizer, to be precise. Now you are here, let us begin the main course!"
The Prewett brothers barely have time to put up their Shield Charms before five curses come flying at them.
Molly ratting them out over the broomsticks was a setback—partly because Dad tanned the twins' hides so thoroughly they could hardly sit down, and partly because when they went back for them a few days later (Molly was at a friend's house playing dolls or something), they found the door to the broom shed firmly padlocked. This however, did not discourage them for long. Joe could keep his mouth shut (he had, after all, been the one to teach them how to sneak), and Fabian and Gideon were firm believers in 'in for a penny, in for a pound.'
They were still at the age when the phrase 'accidental magic' covered a multitude of sins. If anyone had asked, the gunshot sounds Gideon learned to produce when they fired their toy guns were entirely accidental, a product of his vivid imagination. Similarly, Fabian's trick of making an acorn or a pebble stick to the end of his gun until he 'fired' it, at which point it would fly off in Joe or Gideon's general direction, was quite out of his control. Joe was jealous of the twins' talents, of course, but as his parents always bought him the coolest, most realistic toy guns for his birthday, it more or less evened out. At any rate, he never said anything to the adults, and that was the main thing.
Then came the twins' Hogwarts letters. Playing cowboys with Joe became a summer-only activity, and even then it wasn't as fun since 'accidental magic' had now become 'underage magic,' which, as everyone seemed determined to impress on them, was viewed very differently by the authorities. Joe had also made other friends while they were away, and thus began the sad but natural process of drifting apart.
Underage magic, however, was only a problem away from Hogwarts, and far from diminishing into rosy memories of childhood, the cowboy games moved to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory and became better than ever. If necessity is the mother of invention, then the adolescent male's love for explosions is its annoying younger brother. By their third year, the boys had developed a spell to make Gideon's gunshot sound effects, and by fifth year they were adapting it to add projectiles—sparks, lasers, even something akin to a Muggle paintball. Most of their fellow Gryffindors weren't familiar with the Duke and couldn't make head or tail of the film quotes Fabian and Gideon tossed back and forth. But they loved the games.
Later, when a dark wizard arose who was the epitome of everything the twins' childhood hero had fought against, their spell's projectiles turned deadlier. If they wanted to, the Prewett brothers could make their wands into machine guns.
Gideon's Shield Charm breaks under the onslaught, and Fabian instinctively moves to cover him. They retreat inside, crouching down on either side of the doorway, and Fabian sees his own determined resignation reflected in his brother's eyes.
Then Gideon says, "You can't give the enemy a break," and Fabian finishes, "Send him to hell."
"Sagitto Ferrum Iugis!"
Gideon leaps to his feet as a hail of searing iron shards bursts from the end of his wand. The startled Death Eaters scurry for cover, though Dolohov flicks his wand behind him, sending out a ball of green light. Gideon dodges, and the Killing Curse smashes through the screen door at the back of the house.
Meanwhile, Fabian begins setting up defences. The Muggles' house is hardly an ideal fortress, but it's better than nothing. He Levitates the fallen door crossways over the opening, fortifies it with a Hardening Charm, and Fixes it in place. Then comes a litany of protective spells: "Protego Totalum, Fianto Duri, Repello Inimicum, Antapparo…"
Gideon crouches behind the makeshift barrier, his wand pivoting back and forth along its edge like a cannon. Fabian glimpses the Lestranges darting in and out of the opposite doorway, hurling curses. Most of them fizzle out at the edge of his barrier, while those that make it through deflect over their heads or smash into the ground. The air is thick with the sound of gunshots and the taint of smoke.
"A little help here?" Gideon grunts. He's breathing hard, sweat streaming down his temples. Fabian crouches beside him and peers into the melee. He spots Rosier closing in from the left, ducking behind a Hardened rubbish bin lid, and lets fly a Stickfast Hex that strikes his exposed feet and anchors him to the ground. Curses of a different type spew from Rosier's mouth, and Fabian grins.
A ball of red light breaks through the Shield and hurtles toward them. They dive out of the way, but Gideon doesn't quite make it, and the curse catches him on the ear. He collapses, screaming, and his wand slips from his hand.
Fabian throws himself toward his brother and tries to restrain him; he's thrashing about, banging the side of his head against the floor. Cruciatus, Fabian thinks, hearing the high shrieking laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange outside.
"Gideon! Listen to me, you've got to fight it! You hear me, you got to fight! That's right, and when you stop fighting, that's death. What are you going to do, lay down and die? Not in a thousand years!"
His brother looks up at him through eyes glazed with agony. He grits his teeth and pushes up onto his elbows, groping for his wand.
Fabian looks out, searching for that mane of wild black hair, knowing the only way to stop his brother's pain is to stop her. He sees Rosier, shoes left behind on the ground, charging forward to assault the reinforced Area Shield, Rabastan and Rodolphus hard on his heels. He sends several spells at them and manages to land a Stunner on Rabastan. Bellatrix is nowhere in sight.
Gunshots ring out again. Fabian turns to his brother, but Gideon has collapsed, writhing, back to the floor. Then a strange voice saying familiar words floats through the smashed screen door at the back of the house:
"Young fella, if you're looking for trouble, I'll accommodate you."
Fabian whirls, realising too late that he hasn't seen Dolohov for several minutes. Though he wouldn't have said… The dark wizard's grotesque features leer at him through the twisted wire, and he instantly throws himself in front of his brother, raising his wand. Then the Death Eater stumbles inside, clutching his bleeding wand arm. The barrel of a shotgun is pressed against his back, and holding it…
"Joe? Joe Stratton?"
The last time the Prewetts saw Joe, he'd been a gangly, pimply fourteen-year-old with a rather pathetic attempt at a handlebar mustache. The man in front of him now is clean-shaven, burly and muscled enough to be a fair match for Dolohov in hand-to-hand fighting. But there's something familiar in the face and in the brash, righteous way he holds his gun. And if any Muggle could be brave or foolish enough to take on a dark wizard with a shotgun, it isn't hard to believe Joe Stratton would be the man.
Joe's eyes widen, and then he grins. "Should've known you two would be involved when I saw that fool stick in this fellow's hand. And here I thought I was getting in on my first real shootout. Well, there are some things a man just can't run away from."
He sounds so exactly like his old self that for a second Fabian forgets where he is. He has so many questions, so much he'd like to say. But then comes the electric crackle that means his defensive spells have finally crumbled, and he knows he is out of time.
He renews his assault on the Death Eaters outside, forgetting about defence, wanting only to inflict as much damage as possible. Bellatrix takes a bullet to the shoulder, and Fabian realises with shock that it isn't his. He hears Joe cock his gun as Gideon hauls himself to his feet.
"Thanks, partner," says Gideon with a weak grin.
"Anytime!" Joe replies.
Still, they're outnumbered, and Joe's shotgun, useful in taking Dolohov by surprise, is poor protection here. The Death Eaters break into the house, and spells fly thick and fast. Within minutes, a Killing Curse takes Joe in the chest, and he falls, his shotgun thudding to the ground beneath him. A Reductor Curse takes Fabian's leg below the knee, and he slumps against the wall, trying to stay upright. He cuts his mind off from the pain, as though it belonged to someone else.
Bellatrix and Rodolphus are practically on top of him, and it's all he can do to block their constant stream of curses. From the corner of his eye he sees Dolohov lunging for Gideon, busy with Rosier and the dazed but determined Rabastan, but there's nothing Fabian can do. The burly Death Eater gets his good arm around Gideon's neck and wrests his wand away with his teeth.
Distracted, Fabian doesn't see the Blasting Curse until it hits him, and his wand and wand arm go up in a scorching ball of flame. He slumps to the ground, staring up at the grinning, ghoulish faces of his attackers. It's over.
He's imagined death so much it feels more like a memory. First in the cowboy games they played as children, where the good guys always won and the bad guys always died. Later, on his missions for the Order, the thought hovering in the back of his mind, because war taught him pretty quickly that sometimes the good guys die, too.
But this is how he wanted it, a death fighting for what's right, with his brother and a true friend by his side, a wand in his hand till his hand itself is gone. A death worthy of his hero. And as Dolohov comes to stand over him, his own brother's wand spewing the violet flames that will kill him from the inside out, Fabian knows that's good enough.