Here We Go Again
A/N: Again, apologies for the long silence. Life got cruddy. The good news it's NaNo season, and I'll be updating daily on at least one of my fics.
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The next day, Cedrella and Callidora headed for the werewolf-proofed cell that Tenibrus had been thrown into. While they had, of course, known Jinx had arrived looking rather ruffled to tell them of Tenibrus' capture, and both women knew the little elf well enough to know he would not be gentle with the man, they were a bit surprised at Tenibrus' overall condition.
Tenibrus had not been given food or water since he'd been dumped in cage, nor medical care. Not one of the Alliance felt bad about that. On the contrary, they'd done it deliberately. Tenibrus was a dead man walking, his only value in the information he might have that they could wring out of him before he died. Before they started trying to get the information out of him, they had wanted – and needed – to both weaken him a bit so he'd hopefully be more liable to cooperate and to ensure he had no protections, magical or otherwise, against their interrogation methods.
Septimus and Harfang, as much as they might have wanted to get a few licks in themselves, knew better than interfere in their wives' plans. Especially when, as born Blacks, the pair of them were better equipped to get nasty with Tenibrus if it was required. Not to mention they weren't stupid enough to get the womens' ire focused in their direction. Ever.
Both women were armed with only their wands and a single vial of Veritaserum. The day's delay had ensured that there was no possibility of Tenibrus having some potion or spell on him that lessened or negated the effects of Veritaserum. Spells Jinx would have noticed, and potions would have worked through his system by now. Especially with him injured.
And injured badly. Very, very badly. Jinx had … definitely expressed his ire on the man. Cedrella strongly suspected there wasn't a single unbroken bone in the man's body. He was covered head to toe in cuts, bruises, and even a few burns. She shot Callidora a raised-eyebrow look, wondering what the heck Jinx had done that had managed to burn the man. Maybe toss him towards a fireplace? Whatever it was, it spoke to the little elf's rage. Cedrella was fairly impressed.
"Ah, Tenibrus. How kind of you to join us." Cedrella purred, her tone one of pure malice. "I do apologize for our elf's care in retrieving you." Then, with even more venom. "I had expected to find you in here in multiple pieces. Really, Callidora, we must have a word with Jinx about his mercifulness. It's a shameful thing to have in a Black Family elf."
Jinx was not, of course, a Black Family elf, but it hardly mattered if she told Tenibrus the truth or lied through her teeth to him. He was dead, after all. He just didn't know it yet. Or maybe he did, but again, it didn't much matter. What did matter was making it very clear to Tenibrus that he was in deep, deep trouble. Sounding like the damage Jinx had done was not enough was simply a bit of psychological warfare.
"Now. You're going to tell us everything we want to know. How cooperative you are … well, let's just say that we might be inclined to kill you quick and clean if you cooperate. Get stubborn, and well, what a shame. We'll have to practice our spell work on you. We are dreadfully out of practice, after all. It's been a while since either of us have … gone hunting." Callidora chimed in. She somehow managed to sound even scarier than Cedrella had, which was impressive.
Tenibrus remained silent, and pretending unconcern. Cedrella knew it was pretend because the man was sweating a bit and having a lot of trouble remaining blank-faced. He knew the Black family reputation. He knew of the existence of the Alliance. As a pureblood, he knew exactly what that meant and what he'd courted by doing what he'd done.
"Start talking dear, or I start practicing my skinning spells." Cedrella demanded, her voice hard.
"Fuck off, bitch." Tenibrus snarled.
Cedrella almost – almost – hexed him into oblivion then and there. But she hadn't been a Slytherin for nothing. Tenibrus was obviously attempting a time-honored gambit. Piss off your captor and get them to make mistakes. Whether those mistakes led to you managing to escape or you dying with most of the information you possessed undiscovered, you would, in effect, win.
She gave a low, evil chuckle. "Oh. I could almost like him, Callidora. He's actually got a Slytherin bone or two in there somewhere. Rather sad it's corrupted by so much Gryffindor."
That got a sneering snarl out of Tenibrus. "Pah. I'm no Gryffindor."
"Oh really? Because last time I checked, a true Slytherin wouldn't be stupid enough to sign their own death warrant by killing a member of an Alliance." Callidora retored before Cedrella could.
That seemed to cut him, if not deeply. He gave them both a glare. Cedrella sighed theatrically. "Last chance, Tenibrus. Start talking."
The demand was met by silence. Cedrella snorted and shook her head, then traded looks with Callidora, wordlessly agreeing as to who went first and did what. Callidora flicked her wand at the man, hitting him with a wordless spell that Cedrella wasn't familiar with. That hardly surprised her, given that the spell bordered on being Dark.
Cedrella, true to the predictive indications of her wand, had never had a knack for the Dark Arts, and even less interest in studying them for anything other than ways to counter them. Callidora, on the other hand, while not a Dark Arts practicioner, was both much more capable of such spells (not to mention the ones that trod the line between so-called 'grey' and Dark) and more inclined to use them, true to her Black roots.
It took less than a minute after that for the screaming to start.
Some six or seven hours later, the two women finally returned. Cedrella crawled straight into Septimus' lap. While she had not cast a single Dark Arts spell, she also did not truly have the stomach for the after effects of … shall we say dubiously applied so-called Light spells. She'd made sure Tenibrus didn't notice anything amiss, but now that it was over and it was only family there to observe her, she didn't care about maintaining appearances.
Suffice it to say that, between the grief of Dorea and Charlus' deaths and having to torture someone, Cedrella was pretty much done for the day. Fortunately, Septimus was more than willing to take up the slack. He and Harfang very carefully talked about nothing of any true importance at all for a few hours. All the while, both men cuddled their wives until both women had recovered their equilibrium sufficiently to resume dealing with the matters of the day.
At that point, both men gave their wives careful, concerned visual going-overs to make sure they truly had recovered. And both men endured the knowing, half-annoyed, half-affectionate looks they got from their wives for their concern. Which was the confirmation they needed that their wives had rebounded sufficiently. Only then did they even tentatively bring up Tenibrus, his potential information, and his ultimate fate.
"So, did you have any luck?" Harfang asked.
"Quite a bit. Unfortunately, he didn't want to play nicely, which meant getting what we wanted was a bit … stressful." Callidora said. "We got confirmation on most of our list of suspected Death Eaters, and he gave us two names we hadn't pegged as possibilities. He also had a bit of information on Voldemort's plans. Or whatever his plans are at the moment. According to Tenibrus, he has become significantly more … unhinged … in the last few years. Enough so that his own people are noticing."
"Enough so that a few of them have had to be 'reminded of where their loyalties lie'." Cedrella said, her tone making it clear she was quoting Tenibrus verbatim. "He has apparently gotten rather crucio-happy of late in response to a handful or so of his people starting to make noises of dissatisfaction or concern regarding him and his behavior, his aims, and how he's going about getting what he wants."
"Whoever he is, he is definitely suffering some sort of madness, from what we got out of Tenibrus. It's going to make predicting him incredibly difficult. Even for us." Callidora said on a sigh. Even the Black family experiences with madness wouldn't help them much, since its expressions seemed to be very individual. Some people, despite being batshit insane, were fairly predictable in what they would do. Others were not, and you never knew which you were going to get.
"Worryingly, he's got at least the beginnings of backup abroad. A few younger sons of younger sons looking for more wealth, power, and advancement opportunities than their birth rank otherwise permits in the more traditional pureblood families. A few folks who got told to leave and never come back or were outright excised from their family trees for some crime – perceived or actual – or other. Not many, apparently, but even one or two is three too many." Cedrella said.
"Agreed. If you got names and locations, I'll pass them on to our kin abroad. They'll be in a better position to deal with such offal, and probably grateful for the opportunity." Septimus said. The more far-flung (genetically speaking) arms of the Weasley family wouldn't feel the effects of the breached Alliance as keenly as Septimus' closest relations, but they'd still feel it more than enough to get antsy about not being able to do anything of use. Only if Septimus and those most closely related to him died (whether of old age or in defense of the Alliance didn't matter) would those more distantly related start to feel the effects of the Alliance oath more keenly.
"We need to figure out what, exactly, to do with him." Cedrella said. "Aside from killing him, I mean. Do we drop him off in a forest? Dig a shallow grave? Or make as much of an example of him as we can manage?" Her tone made it clear she favored the final option.
And if she was reading Septimus' expression half as well as she normally did, he favored that option too. For that matter, they all did. None of them were in any kind of mood to exercise restraint.
"Right in front of Gringotts? Not on their land, obviously, but just off it. Where everyone will see it?" Harfang suggested. The other three nodded their agreement pretty much instantly.
"Sounds good to me. With a note explaining exactly why he was killed. Just so no one but the most suicidal decide to try to come after us for his death." Septimus fairly growled.
It didn't take them all that long to set it up. Tenibrus' body got strung up on wooden supports like a macabre scarecrow, a brilliant white board tied around his neck bore writing explaining exactly why he'd been killed. The whole thing was portkeyed in such a way the base of the pole buried itself a foot into the ground of Diagon Alley ten feet away from the steps of Gringotts and official goblin territory. To make sure no interfering busybodies (Dumbledore) tried to remove it, they added spells that ensured it could not be removed from where it landed for a full day.
They all knew that regardless of the existence of the Alliance, they'd face backlash for what they'd done. There would always be some that got their panties in a wad about such things. And Dumbledore was the worst of the lot. They figured they had an hour, two at most, before he tried to intervene where he wasn't wanted or needed. He was going to get incredibly short shrift when he did.
Dumbledore didn't disappoint them. He flooed them precisely fifty minutes after Tenibrus' appearance in the Alley. Septimus rolled his eyes at the other three in amused annoyance before he let the floo call go through.
"Was such a thing truly necessary?" Dumbledore remonstrated. At least he didn't waste time getting to the point, for once.
"YES." Was the blunt, emphatic, and rather loud response from all four.
"Don't interfere, Dumbledore." Septimus snapped. "You know the penalties for interference in Alliance affairs, especially this sort of circumstance. People have been stripped of their magic and killed for trying to stop an Alliance's retribution." And not by the Ministry or the members of the Alliance in question, either. Magic itself exacted heavy penalties when magically-enforced oaths got messed with, by anyone. It was even worse if you were stupid enough to break a magically enforced oath.
Dumbledore gave them all one of his patented 'supremely disappointed' looks, but wisely said no more, and retreated back out of the floo. He of course, knew what Septimus had said was true, and they knew that despite his desire to interfere, he wouldn't want to risk getting killed or stripped of his magic.
"That won't be the last we hear of this from him." Cedrella predicted. "He'll keep trying to push the boundaries, find where the wiggle room is."
"Agreed." Septimus said. "Fortunately for us, there is very, very little wiggle room. About all he'll be able to get away with is those looks of his and an occasional whine at us about our methodology – so long as he doesn't stray too far into 'you must not do that' territory when he does. So he'll be very easy to ignore."