Chapter 30: Torture of the Longbottoms
Frank Longbottom frowned at the front page of the Daily Prophet. It had been two weeks since the attack on Godric's Hollow and the rumored fall of the Dark Lord himself. The rumors were still flying fast across the entirety of Britain, but a sudden and telling lull in Death Eater activity was burgeoning all freedom-loving wizards with hope. That perhaps the most dangerous magical being since Gellert Grindewald had suffered a comeuppance.
Standing at the window, Alice bounced her baby boy Neville carefully. Her mind had been preoccupied these past few weeks on the Potters, even without having to religiously read the paper in the same way as her husband. Lily had been a good mate all through their schooling; the kind and beautiful redhead had served as a bridesmaid at her and Frank's wedding. They had been pregnant together, giving birth to healthy sons within 24 hours of one another…..
"Alice, come away from the window, dearest," Frank murmured. Perhaps it was just the chill in the air, or perhaps it was how night was now falling a full hour earlier even since Halloween. But even with the hardly-daring-to-hope optimism of…. well, a lack of terror, Frank still had a funny feeling in his gut.
Alice listened to her husband and glided over to his easy chair, cradling Neville in her arms. The little boy shrieked before letting out a toothy grin and reaching for his daddy. Frank smiled softly, though there was clear exhaustion to his dimples, as he played with his son's fat little fists. Craning his neck, he allowed for his bride to bend and kiss him softly, sweetly.
"Why don't you put him upstairs to bed?" he murmured against her lips. "When you come back down, I'll put the wireless on. Masterpiece Theatre is playing tonight."
Alice beamed. "Sure." She kissed him again, more soundly this time, before depositing Neville over her shoulder and floating serenely from the sitting room and for the stair. Neville gazed at his father with large, inquisitive eyes, as if attempting to commit the man's face to memory. Frank merely smirked and gave him a cooing wave.
Listening to the quiet rustling of his little family upstairs, Frank set the Daily Prophet across his knees. Briefly, he glanced out the window into the inky blackness beyond, but there wasn't much to see. He did his best to put the case of the Potters out of his head, though it was no easy task. Like his wife and Lily, he too had been friends with James Potter, as well as the enchanting former Lily Evans. The Aurors were working as diligently as they could, while also keeping just about every detail under tight lock and key, lest the investigation be compromised. Frank had wanted to be placed on the case, but Dawlish had declined. Extremely by the book, the Auror Head had not wanted there to be even the slightest whiff of a conflict of interest. Where he himself was concerned, Frank had to grudgingly concede that the man was right. Given his and Alice's friendship with the Potters – which had only grown stronger since both young families had been advised to go into hiding – there would have been the temptation for personal feelings to get in the way of the investigation, on his part.
He listened to the click of the lock from upstairs, then Alice's footfalls as she came sauntering back into the sitting room. Frank held out his arms to her and she deposited herself in his lap, after which he reached around her to put the wireless on.
"Telly too?"
She kissed him gently. "Leave it. I just like listening to the voices. We can envision it in our minds."
Frank chuckled. That had always been Alice's way – to see the glass half-full, and to never do things the easy way. To still allow a little bit of wonder into her life, even as they had grown, married and had a child of their own. He needed that brightness, her light, especially in these dark times. She was really the only reason their exile/hiding had been bearable, at least until the baby came along.
The CRASH was deafening and without warning as the door was suddenly, abruptly kicked in.
Frank nearly dumped Alice off his lap as he struggled to his feet, watching as four cloaked figures rushed into their living room.
"Here, now! What's this?!"
"Stupefy!"
The red bolt of light hit Frank square on, catapulting him completely over the back of the easy chair and he hit the floor hard. The lamp was knocked off the little side table immediately after another shout and Alice's scream, followed by a thud.
Groaning, Frank lifted his head from the floor just in time to hear someone – a woman by the sound of her voice – let out a blood-curdling screech of rage and then the easy chair he had been reclining in moments before was suddenly tipping, falling.
He had just enough strength to roll back towards the wall, but he couldn't swipe his feet out of the way in time and the entire cushioned piece of furniture landed on his legs. Frank felt something break, liquid fire shooting up his thigh and he howled in pain.
"Shut him up!" someone snarled. In the darkened gloom of the sitting room, Frank could make out the silhouette outline of someone standing over him and pointing a wand directly in his face. He squirmed, but his wand was still in his pocket and now pinned under the easy chair.
There was another flash of red light, and everything went darker still.
He wasn't sure how long it was until he came to, grunting and moaning.
"Al….Alice?" he called. From somewhere far, far away, he thought he heard the whimpers of an infant, and his blood turned to ice. Oh, Godric…. If any of these beasts were alerted to Neville….
The sitting room was still nearly black as pitch, only somewhat illuminated by the light of a full moon streaming in through the window. From his vantage point still crushed beneath the easy chair, Frank could not see his wife, yet he could hear her whimpering, sniffling, pleading, begging for her life. Lifting his head, he could see over the rim of the chair's now inverted cushioned bottom to see a Death Eater, wand out, standing over someone – likely Alice.
"Shut up, girl! Crucio!"
A plaintive scream like none Frank had ever heard, not even during the sweltering summer night she had labored for close to eighteen hours to bring their son into the world, was wrenched from Alice's throat.
"ALICE!" he bellowed, wriggling to get free, but it was fruitless. He froze only when he felt a shadow pass over him, and he looked up at the darkened figure now standing over him as well.
"The next spell drives your ribs into your lungs! Now answer me: what happened in Godric's Hollow?!" Alice's tormentor sounded more youthful, as far as Frank could tell from listening to the voice. His sight, meanwhile, was more preoccupied on the woman looming above him.
For it was a woman – even in the dark, he could make out the more svelte, feminine curves. And even with a hood up and over her face, frizzy curls of hair could be seen.
Frank had hunched over case files and the image on the WANTED poster for enough hours to hazard a strong guess as to who this intruder might be.
"Bellatrix Lestrange." Her high-pitched voice in answer only confirmed his theory. She stuck the tip of her wand directly in his face, the tip pressing hard enough to be painful into his nose.
"Where is the Dark Lord? What have you and your Mudblood lovers done with him?! Where is he?!"
Frank couldn't resist the urge to smirk. So the rumors had to be true, if Bellatrix was losing her head even more than she usually did. "He must be dead, I'd wager. Why the concern, Bella? Were you shagging him?"
The goading did its work, and Bellatrix let out another howl that sounded like part-rage, part-grief. "You know where he is! You know where they've taken him and I know it! Crucio!"
Frank yelled as he felt all his muscles spasm up, pain rippling through his body. The fact that he was pinned under the easy chair only made it more unbearable; he was already starting to lose circulation in his legs.
"What did you do to him, blood traitor? What?!"
More screams from Alice.
Bellatrix was clearly starting to lose her patience, if not the last of her sanity. Utterly out of her head, she began flinging out the Cruciatus Curse wantonly, hitting Frank again and again. It was as if her wand was a shoe, and he, Frank, was a bug she kept missing.
"Crucio! Crucio, Crucio, Crucio!" CRUCIO!"
Frank bellowed, writhing against the agony, his shouts lifting in and mixing with his wife's wails until they both sounded like they were part of a demented chorus. Or at least a painfully off-key duet. Neville would be next; they would kill him outright if they didn't decide they might as well interrogate a baby for information he didn't have either, and certainly couldn't communicate to them even if he did.
The liquid fire was immolating him all over. Frank squeezed his eyes shut and all he could see were images of blips of random thought in his mind, coming together and then being sped up in a sickening fast forward. The images then were scrambled out of order, like a card deck being shuffled. He could still hear feminine shrieks coming from close by, and Alice…. Alice….
Who was Alice….?
"CRUCIO! CRUCIO, DAMN YOU! CRUCIO! WHERE. IS. THE. DARK. LORD?!" Bellatrix sounded absolutely beside herself.
Before long, Frank's yells turned to laughter, hysterical giggling, and even as the crippling pain was inflicted on him again and again, he slipped away into unconsciousness laughing.
Someone was pointing a bright light in his face, coming from the pointy end of a stick. The man illuminated in its harsh glare was a stranger to Frank. In the gentleman's other hand, he held a picture of a woman with frizzy black hair, a round face, and rather accentuated lips, almost puckered.
"Come on, now, Frank, I want you to tell me: ….. is this one of the intruders who attacked you?"
Frank's eyes crossed as he attempted to zero in on the picture. His chin felt wet, and one of the strong men with the shiny badges and the bright sticks reached over to compassionately wipe the drool from the dazed fellow's face.
"I've…. never seen that bird before…. in my life," Frank slurred. He turned his head, eyes almost child-like, to take in the Auror who had just cleaned his jawline of spittle. "Who is she?"
Head Auror Dawlish turned back to his colleagues and sadly shook his head, near tears.
"He's as daffy and lost as poor Alice…"
"Alice?" Frank murmured distractedly to himself. He ignored how sharply the men studying him turned back with hopeful expressions in their eyes – ones that immediately fell dejectedly with what Frank said next: "Who's Alice? It's such a pretty name…."
"We have to take them to St. Mungo's, and quickly! They need proper care there!"
Dawlish sighed heavily before nodding in assent and giving the order.
"Everyone! Let's move these heroes out!" As two squadrons of Aurors carried the Longbottoms through their foyer and out the door, guiding the pair like small children, one Auror murmured to Dawlish:
"Bloody hell…. How many times did those Death Eater cunts hit them with Cruciatus?"
Dawlish cringed. "No telling except to say: too many…."
Passing by unnoticed in the tumult of the sundered home, old Augusta Longbottom, while cradling her all-but-orphaned grandson, bowed her head into her chest and bitterly wept.