A/N:
Written for QLFC Season 10 Round 1
Team : Tutshill Tornadoes
Position: Chaser 2
Prompt: The number 13 - Write about someone getting betrayed
Additional Prompts:
9.[object] bowl
13.[object] feather
Word Count: 1816
13th November 1981
Two hooded figures walked side-by-side on the shadowy country lane leading out of the small town. They moved with the brisk manner of someone who had an appointment, walking close to the barren trees lining the path.
They passed a nervous-looking Muggle man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. As he went past one of the houses, an old woman poked her head out of the door and called, "What are you doing still outside, Mark? It's the thirteenth, for God's sake! Do you want to be the one who has a nasty accident today?"
Alice and Frank Longbottom regarded each other in amusement as they continued down the winding lane. Muggles and their silly superstitions.
Although, Alice thought, peering up at the dark clouds hovering above, the day certainly didn't portend a good end. Harsh gusts of wind tore through the lane, ripping at the naked branches of trees and biting at their faces beneath their hoods. The black, rain-laden clouds promised a heavy storm that had yet to come, and the air was frigid.
Alice herself had felt a sense of foreboding ever since leaving the Neville in the care of his grandmother that morning to set out on this obscure mission.
Although two weeks had passed since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named fell, and despite the jovial mood spreading through the wizarding population of Britain, things had not yet calmed down. There was still the matter of bringing his Death Eaters to justice, which was not an easy task, considering that many of their identities remained unknown. The past fortnight had been a spate of captures, trials, interrogations and sentences. And there were still some stragglers they hadn't yet picked off.
Among them were the Lestranges, who were inarguably some of the most dangerous Death Eaters You-Know-Who had. But they had evaded the Aurors at every turn. However, two days ago a note had arrived with an owl to Alice and Frank's house. Alice knew it off by heart from the many times she and Frank had read it over:
Aurors Alice and Frank Longbottom,
I've learnt of your search for the Lestranges, and I have some information as to their whereabouts.
I will be staying at the Knobbly Knarl inn north of Highgate village for the next week should you decide to meet me. When you arrive, look for the customer with the bowl engraved with a phoenix.
Sincerely,
An ally of the Order
After much deliberation, they'd decided to humour this stranger, rejecting the offers of several members of the Order to accompany them for protection. It was doubtful that this was a trap sprung by escaped Death Eaters; not many had remained loyal to the Dark Lord after he fell. Most had already renounced him; others had decided to exchange the names of fellow Death Eaters to the Ministry for their freedom. Alice doubted there would be any left who would be willing to stage an attack.
Even Dumbledore had declared them safe and told them to come out of hiding. As sad as Alice had been to learn of the Potters' deaths, she couldn't help but think that if You-Know-Who hadn't decided to go after young Harry, he'd have come for Neville. And who knows if Neville would have survived as Harry had?
Alice experienced a pang of longing as she thought of her young son. Despite having seen him just that morning, she ached to hold him. Her hand crept into her pocket, closing around the soft peacock feather Neville had taken off his grandmother's hat when they'd surrendered him into her keeping, reaching for it with the curious enthusiasm of a one-year-old. He'd examined it with avidly interested eyes for a moment, then held it out to his mother with a wide grin.
She'd taken it and slipped it in her pocket. A good luck charm, she'd thought. She needed it, considering the latent dread she'd felt all day.
They'd left the town behind now, and were making their way through the dark countryside, the mown fields and neat farms slowly thickening into forests of close-knit trees. They finally spotted a shabby two-storey building situated at an opening of the forest, which was charmed to look like a normal cluster of elm trees to Muggles. It had a steeply slanted roof, whose tiles looked on the verge of falling apart, and greasy windows behind which faint golden light flickered. A rusty sign swung with loud squeaks in the wind, proclaiming:
The Knobbly Knarl
Alice tried to shrug off the uneasiness as Frank opened the creaky door. Seeming to sense her discomfort, he squeezed her shoulder, and she gave him a thin smile. Leaving their hoods on, they wandered between the tables. The inn was packed; two weeks later, people were still celebrating, even if it was in a shabby place such as this. Raucous shouts sounded, and tankards of Butterbeer and cups of Firewhiskey were knocked together.
The sign that the stranger had given them was obscure at best, so they made their way to the long counter at the back of the crowded room.
"Two Butterbeers, please," Frank told the man at the counter. His eyes flickered keenly around the room, then seemed to focus on a specific point, before they darted meaningfully to hers. She looked out of the corner of her eyes to find a lone figure slouched at a table nearby, a tankard and a bowl of porridge sitting in front of him. He glanced up and met her gaze, a cowl hiding the lower part of his face. Her attention turned to the bowl as he shifted, and as she watched, an engraving appeared on the scratched wood. A phoenix. It lingered, then the image rippled and disappeared.
Exchanging a look, Alice and Frank collected their Butterbeers and walked to the stranger. It was just as well that the place was so crowded; it meant that there was no empty table save the one the stranger himself sat at.
"May we sit?" Frank asked. At the nod they received, they both sank into creaky wooden chairs. A silence pervaded, then, "I was afraid you wouldn't come."
The stranger tugged down his cowl and edged his hood back a bit so they could see his face. Alice sucked in a breath, and she felt Frank stiffen beside her.
"Barty Crouch Junior?" he whispered, every bit as stunned as she was.
He looked away as if embarrassed. "I didn't want to come to you directly. I was afraid my father would find out, and I didn't want to tell him." His lips pressed together in his pale, freckled face. "I don't like what he's been doing. I-it's not right. And I know the Order doesn't really agree with him either, so I thought I'd come to you instead."
Frank seemed to digest this, his eyes searching Crouch's. She looked at the anxious furrowing of his brow, the slight twitching of his fingers. He looked every inch the son going behind his father's back.
"How did you even find them?" Frank inquired, careful not to use the Lestrange' name, lest they should be overheard.
"It was a lucky coincidence. I was on my way to meet some relatives on my mother's side in the country, and I spotted them when I Apparated in a field not far from here. They were slinking into the forest, three shadowy figures, and I followed them out of curiosity, and I-I saw their faces." He swallowed. "They might not even still be there, but… I thought you should know."
Frank and Alice exchanged another glance.
"Could you show us where you spotted them?" she asked him.
Soon, they set out for the forest. The trees stood like skeletons, their intersecting branches stripped of any leaves by autumn. The clouds above were like dark omens, the rain not yet come. As they traipsed through the depths of the forest behind Barty Crouch Jr., their wands held out for light, Alice felt that sense of impending doom that had stuck to her all day fester and grow in the pit of her stomach. She reached into her pocket to clasp that feather in her clammy hand, thinking of her son, who was waiting for her.
As the trees began to space out, Alice caught a glimpse of movement, a flash of white, like a pale hand. Her heart started hammering against her ribs and she brandished her wand—
It happened too fast. Three figures leapt from the shadows of the trees, and her eyes focused on one: a woman, her dark, heavy-lidded eyes glinting madly with triumph as she slashed her wand through the air.
Alice dodged a curse and fired back at Bellatrix, barely aware of what she had cast. In a matter of moments, the eerily quiet forest had turned into an explosion of violence and curses. She ducked under another curse and looked around frantically, searching for Frank. He was duelling the Lestrange brothers strenuously, and they were fighting back with vicious determination. He'd automatically moved in front of Crouch, who stood with his wand held out in a dazed fashion. The boy was barely nineteen and hadn't seen any action in the war. It was obvious that he was a little shell-shocked at this sudden outbreak of violence.
She turned her attention to Bellatrix, who was slashing her wand madly through the air, the unsettling glint she always had in her eyes more prominent than ever. As she shouted out another spell, Alice caught a motion from the corner of her eyes that made her breath catch in her chest, and her heart lodge in her throat. Her eyes were wide with horror as Crouch, seeming to have collected himself, pointed his wand, not at the Lestranges, but at Frank's back. With a simple flick of his wand, Frank's wand flew out of his hand. He barely had time to whirl around in shock before the Lestranges had grabbed him and Disapparated.
Crouch turned his attention to her, and her muscles seized up as she saw the satisfaction dancing in his eyes, the sly twist to his lips. Her frozen state at this betrayal gave Bellatrix the perfect opportunity. She heard her shout something, the haze of shock surrounding her making it hard to distinguish the word. She felt her wand fall from her hand, darkness looming at the edges of her vision. Her last thought was of the lingering dread she'd felt all day, and the old Muggle woman's dire words about it being the thirteenth.
Maybe Muggle superstitions weren't that silly after all.
As the Death Eaters Disapparated with their captives, a single peacock feather drifted in the biting wind in their wake. It hit the forest floor soundlessly as rain began to fall, the sky finally unleashing the storm it had promised all day.