Self-Preservation
April 9, 1945
"Well hello Juliet…Have you and Romeo made up?" Faye sounded chipper – too chipper.
It was obvious that she already knew about Jasper and Rosemary couldn't even pretend to entertain her. "Faye, I just heard…I'm so sorry."
Her face fell for a fraction of a second, but she recovered herself quickly. "I'm not sure what you're referring to."
Ah, the denial stage. Rosemary couldn't exactly blame her; Jasper's actions would surely taint the Donohue name, at least temporarily.
"Let me know when you want to talk," Rosemary said softly.
"He's not guilty," she said just when Rose reached the door that led from Faye's dormitory to the Ravenclaw common room. "Grindelwald forced him into it. I know it. Jasper wouldn't do this…"
She realized very quickly that she had no idea what to say. Should she tell Faye about her involvement and release that guilty knot in her stomach? Or should she allow her façade of ignorance to continue and simply play the part of the supporting friend?
"Let's go for a walk," she suggested. At least it would buy her some time to decide.
Faye reluctantly agreed and they made their way outside to the grounds, strolling along the Black Lake like they had done for hundreds of times over their years at Hogwarts. She told herself to confess her secret to Faye, but every time she opened her mouth to do so, her heart started pounding uncomfortably and it felt as though a rope was tightening around her throat.
Façade of ignorance it is.
"Where do you think he's run off to?" Rosemary asked finally, trying to sound as concerned as possible.
Enter feelings of guilt. Again. Because the purpose of this conversation was not only to comfort Faye; it was to prepare for her and Tom's mission that evening and glean as much information regarding Jasper's whereabouts as possible.
Faye shook her head. "I'm not sure…My parents haven't even seen him for weeks. They asked him again and again to visit and he kept saying he was too busy with work. The Ministry dropped by last night and demanded to search the house for him. It's madness, absolute madness…I guarantee they'll be here to question me soon."
"You're probably right," Rosemary admitted. "The Ministry met with us this morning…they're postponing the investigation of the students. That's how I found out about it."
Faye smiled wryly. "I'm sure Riddle's happy about that."
"I'm sure." Suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. She had been doing her best to keep it off her mind and focus on her own crisis. "Maybe Jasper traveled back to Australia or South America," Rosemary said in an attempt to steer the conversation back into a useful direction.
She shook her head. "I have this feeling that he's close so that he can keep an eye on the situation. Maybe he's staying with some of his old friends in Amsterdam – remember Accius Pepperidge and Millicent Lejeune? They moved right after they graduated…Jasper visited a lot. He always loved it there."
It wasn't much, but it was definitely a start. Rosemary was contemplating whether or not to press things further when Faye suddenly barked across the lawn, "You!" Rosemary followed her gaze to see Adam and Markus walking toward them. "You fucking prick!"
"What in the hell is she on about?" Markus looked at Rosemary, and then Adam.
"Don't play stupid!" Faye hissed angrily. "I bet it was you who turned in my brother to get the spotlight off yourself! Well don't you worry, I'm going to make sure everyone at the Ministry knows that you were involved just as much as Jasper was –"
Markus' mouth fell open and he began to pale slightly. "What?"
"They know – the Ministry knows about Jasper and ECB…and how he's been helping Grindelwald," Rosemary explained.
It seemed to take Markus a moment to fully process that bit of news and Rosemary held her breath, terrified that he might drag her into the situation as well. "Fucking hell Faye, calm down. I didn't know he was working with Grindelwald!"
"You're so full of it Avery – fucking coward."
Markus just stood there, gazing at her in disbelief.
"Faye," Adam went to her and put his arm around her. "Calm down, Love. You heard him…he didn't know."
"And you're going to believe him," Faye snapped her fingers. "Just like that?!"
"You've been friends for years. Do you really think he'd do this to you? To your family?"
"If you plan on siding with him, I have nothing to say to either of you." She crossed her arms and turned away toward the lake.
"I'm not siding –" When Faye gave him the finger and Adam's eyes narrowed to slits. "Fine, have it your way then," he snarled.
'Thank you,' Rosemary mouthed to Markus as he and Adam turned to leave.
Tom was proud of Rosemary for manipulating Jasper's possible location out of Faye. It proved that even her friendship with Faye wouldn't get in the way of doing what was best for herself, which was quite reassuring to him. He couldn't help but wonder how far her drive toward self-preservation could push her into darkness. Perhaps he could even use this quality in her at some point to guide her mind to be more in line with his views. It was a tempting thought, that much was certain; he filed it away inside his mind for further contemplation.
They made it out of Hogwarts easily with the use of the Vanishing Cabinet – by far Tom's best discovery of the year – and Apparated from the alley behind Borgin and Burkes to the streets of Amsterdam.
While Tom was busy helping the Ministry prepare for the investigation of ECB at Hogwarts, Rosemary had searched through several volumes of Alumni records in the library to locate the address of Pepperidge and Lejeune and had drawn a map to their house on the edge of the city.
He hoped Faye was right about his location, as they had a long night ahead of them already. But staying anywhere near Britain – particularly in the home of a couple of old friends – seemed incredibly foolish and if Tom was in this situation, his hiding place wouldn't be nearly this obvious. Then again, it wasn't as though Jasper Donohue struck him as particularly clever anyway.
They strode side by side down several zig-zagging streets, the heavy hoods of their black cloaks pulled over their heads to avoid any chance of being recognized. Despite his prior reservations, Tom was glad that he allowed her to come along. Her presence added another layer to the excited adrenaline growing within him; after all, this was precisely what he had always envisioned them becoming…partners in crime, so to speak.
But his feeling of contentment slowly began to erode away as an eerie feeling that they were being followed began to weigh more and more heavily on his mind the further they traveled. He suspected that Rosemary sensed the same from the way that she abruptly doubled their walking pace.
"It's there," she whispered as they rounded the next corner, nodding toward the last house on the row.
But they both hesitated when another cloaked figure stepped from the shadows of the alley half a block in front of them, blocking their path.
Tom moved to reach for his wand when Rosemary suddenly pushed him off of the sidewalk and into the street as a streak of bright blue light shot past them from behind. "Tom watch out!"
He automatically spun to face the assailant while drawing his wand and saw another two shadowy figures standing at the intersection he and Rosemary had just come from.
The duel between them ensued immediately and Tom began by primarily blocking the spells of the two wizards to gauge which of them was the better duelist. When it became abundantly clear that one of them was leagues better than the other, he began to shower them with offensive spells, focusing heavily on the one that seemed more experienced.
Meanwhile, Tom could also hear Rosemary and the third ambusher firing spells back and forth behind him. The confidence and determination in her voice with each spell she spoke her incantations made him proud of the progress she had made in both offensive and defensive magic. He only wished he wasn't so preoccupied at that moment in time and could have witnessed the duel in its entirety.
Soon, the better duelist of the two was lying on the ground unconscious, a pool of blood forming around him that glistened pleasantly in the moonlight.
"Expelliarmus," shouted Tom's remaining opponent.
Tom blocked it lazily and smirked. It was a feeble attempt at best. "Your form is atrocious. Allow me to demonstrate the proper way to disarm – Expelliarmus."
He tried to block it, but failed, and began to run away as Tom pocketed his wand.
"Stupefy."
Tom snorted to himself as the man hit the ground.
Pathetic.
He turned around to look for Rosemary just in time to watch in awe as she successfully struck her foe with a Blasting Curse square in the chest, knocking him back against a brick building. A smirk spread across his face as the man landed face down on the street with a satisfying thud.
"Do you think those were Grindelwald's men?" Rosemary asked as he caught up to her down the street. When he nodded, she added, "Well judging from that, I think Faye was right."
Tom was still reeling from the sight of Rosemary's duel, but managed to pull himself together when they reached the front door that corresponded to the number on her slip of parchment. "We're with the British Ministry of Magic," he said with a knock. "Please open the door…We're looking for Jasper Donohue."
They immediately heard a tired voice reply to them from the other side of the door, almost as if they had been standing there for hours, just waiting for someone to arrive. "The Ministry was here earlier this afternoon. They've already searched our home for him."
"Then I suppose you have nothing to hide."
"Of course we don't. But until you show your credentials, we are not allowing anyone else into our home this evening."
Rosemary and Tom looked at each other and then at the spyhole in the door.
"I thought not. Now I would highly advise you to leave before I inform the authorities."
Of course, it crossed Tom's mind that they could easily force their way into the home. He just wasn't sure how willing Rosemary was to do such a thing. But while Tom stared at her, wondering how best to proceed, Rosemary suddenly placed her ear against the door while gesturing for him to do the same. Somewhere in the house, a baby was crying. Tom gave her a curious look and she smirked back at him in the dark.
It took a moment for the thoughts that must have been running through her mind to click in his head, mostly because he hadn't expected her to take things in this direction. But to his pleasant surprise, she did.
"Hiding a fugitive can earn you 10 years in Azkaban, you know. Of course, that only happens if you're lucky and don't cross the wrong people beforehand." Rosemary said with a surprisingly sinister twist in her voice that sent a pleasant shiver down his spine. "It would be a shame for your child not to know their parents because they were too foolish to know when to stand aside."
They were met with a few seconds of silence until the man he assumed to be Accius slowly opened the door. Tom couldn't explain how, but he and Rosemary were in a sort of perfect unity in that moment where they seemed to know exactly what was going to happen next. It was divine.
'Petrificus Totalus,' said Rosemary.
'Imperio,' said Tom at precisely the same time. And just like that, Accius was paralyzed on the sitting room floor and Millicent was leading them down the hall to Jasper's apparent hiding place.
"Fuck," Rosemary stated plainly as Millicent involuntarily showed them inside the secret room behind the laundry chute at the end of the hallway. "He's gone." She pointed up at the open window.
"Was he here when we arrived?" Tom spun around to Millicent and demanded.
She nodded in a rather disturbing, corpse-like manner. It was only the second time Rosemary had seen someone under the influence of the Imperius Curse, the first time being Warren on the night that she had ended things with Tom.
Tom swore to himself and began pacing around the room.
It was then that Rosemary remembered: "Wait a moment…he has to be close by still – he never passed his Apparition test."
He paused long enough to give her a disgusted look that said 'What kind of worthless scum can't pass his Apparition test?' before hoisting himself through the open window and starting off down the street.
Rosemary followed him out the window just in time to see him sprint down a nearby alleyway and ran to catch up with him. By the time she reached the corner, Tom was one block away and she spotted Jasper one block further.
Chasing after them was rather exhilarating, but it was burdened by the constant urge to cough. She swore to herself she was going to stop smoking so goddamn much.
'Incarcerous!' Tom shouted as their pursuit continued. Because he was in a near-sprint, his form was a bit messy and his spell had suffered accordingly, but still managed to snag Jasper's ankle with the rope, causing him to trip. Rosemary watched as he cast the spell again, this time binding his legs and hands completely.
Tom stopped to catch his breath and Rose finally caught up to them. "Oh Rose, it's you! What a relief," Jasper said as he looked up at her.
Tom smirked. "I wouldn't be relieved if I were you. Stupefy."
It was rather disturbing to see just how natural all of this appeared for him. Rosemary, on the other hand, had yet to wrap her head around anything that had just happened; she hadn't even expected their plan to make it this far. But although she was slightly terrified to see Tom in this light, which was undoubtedly the same version of Tom that was capable of murdering five students, it was also inherently reassuring that he knew exactly what they should do.
"What now?" Rosemary looked up at him. He did seem to be the expert, after all.
"I was thinking Raoul's, actually," Tom said without hesitation. "We have a bit of catching up to do."
"Ah, Rosemary and Tom – what a nice surprise. And who do we have here?" Raoul raised an eyebrow at Jasper, though the gesture was more amused than surprised.
"Jasper Donohue," Tom began in hushed tones, paranoid that Raoul's home was also being watched. "Have you heard –"
"Of course I've heard. And let me say, if I was a less self-assured man, I would be offended by your constant skepticism of my surveillance methods, Riddle."
Tom rolled his eyes and Raoul grinned widely. "Well, come in! Let's question the bastard!"
Rosemary's eyes followed Jasper as Raoul levitated his body upstairs and into his office. "I'll wait here while you question him," she told him suddenly. "I have quite a few things to say to him, but getting the answers to your questions is more important."
The bitterness in her voice made him wonder if, between the two of them, Rosemary was the one Jasper should actually fear more in that moment.
Tom nodded and took her hand, leading her down the hall to Raoul's billiard room that housed a long bar from the turn of the century. "A glass of gin while you wait?"
"You don't think he'll mind?"
He smirked. It was so very Rosemary to worry about manners, even with everything else going on in that very moment. "No. And even if he did, it's not as though he would notice at the rate he drinks through all of this anyways."
She smiled as he poured some Hendricks into a tumbler for her.
"I will likely need to tell Beaumont about your involvement in all of this, Rosemary."
"I know," she sighed before downing half of her glass.
"She what?"
"Yes," Tom nodded. "It was her recipe. She didn't know about Grindelwald's plan, of course…but he on the other hand…"
"I'll be damned." Indeed, the news appeared to come as such a shock that Raoul was actually speechless for a few seconds. "Although, that certainly explains why you went through all the trouble to find this sorry bloke." Raoul looked pointedly in the direction of now-conscious Jasper. "He's fucking worthless."
It was true. While they were questioning him, it had become obvious rather quickly that Jasper knew next to nothing about Grindelwald's regime. Clearly, the only things Grindelwald had dared to trust him with were those that he absolutely needed to know about. And for good reason, Tom supposed; to his significant disappointment, he didn't even need to threaten use of the Cruciatus to get Jasper to start talking.
They did find out two useful bits, however. For one, as they had already suspected, Jasper was merely the middle-man in the much larger ECB scheme. He wasn't able to identify the person (or, as Tom and Raoul suspected, organization) responsible for the mass brewing of ECB, but was able to acknowledge that there indeed was one. And second, to Tom's significant relief, Jasper hadn't spoken about the involvement of Rosemary to anyone – a claim that Tom confirmed with a quick bout of Legilimency. Still, the conversation as a whole was exceptionally unsatisfying.
"Do you know who the informant was?" Tom asked Raoul as they ventured back downstairs.
"Which informant? Clearly Grindelwald's side has one in the Ministry as well. His entire ranks knew almost immediately that their plan had been botched." Raoul sighed. "And of course, that also means that MAGI has destroyed any evidence of their potential involvement already."
Back to square one again.
"What do you plan to do with him?" Raoul asked while leading him into the sitting room.
"The only thing there is to do with him," Tom answered casually, half-expecting Beaumont to be horrified at the suggestion.
Instead he replied, "I thought you might say that." Tom was rather relieved and actually somewhat impressed that Raoul hadn't tried to argue. Then again, Raoul had plenty of secrets and Tom supposed it wouldn't have been that surprising to find out that he too had killed someone at one point or another.
"Keep it simple, will you?" Beaumont told him while lighting a cigarette, settling down in his armchair, and flipping open the Prophet to the investing section. "That's my favorite room in the house and I don't want blood on the fucking carpet."
Rosemary had just finished her second glass of gin when Tom came to fetch her. "Will you come with me?" she asked him.
"Of course."
If she wasn't furious enough at Jasper already, what he said the moment she walked into Raoul's office with Tom certainly pushed her over the edge: "Oh thank Merlin – have you convinced them to come to their senses and let me go, Rose?"
She stared at him in disbelief before marching straight over to him and slapping him as hard as she could across the face.
It took him just as long to recover from the shock of being slapped as it did for her to recover from the shock of slapping him. "What was that for?"
"What do you think it's for?!" she spat.
"Bloody hell – I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" she snapped. "That's all you have to say?! I can't believe you dragged me into this mess!"
"You say that like I wanted to. I didn't have a choice!"
"Of course you did," she rolled her eyes.
"Read the letter in the left pocket of my cloak and tell me I had a choice. Grindelwald threatened to kill my entire family – including Faye."
"That doesn't mean you had to involve me," Rosemary snapped again, well-aware that he was simply trying to appeal to her softness for Faye.
"You involved yourself, sweetheart," Jasper replied darkly. "They needed improvements to the potion that I couldn't make. I needed to bring someone on board that knew what they were doing. It's not like Markus would have been capable of that. "
"Regardless, it appears as though you should have been a bit wiser in who you chose to involve," Tom growled, causing her to jump slightly; she had forgotten he was there with them in the office. He strode over to her and slid a hand onto her lower back before muttering into her ear: "He's not worth your breath, dear. We should end this."
We should end this.
A chill traveled like lightning down her spine. Rosemary knew it was coming and she knew it had to be done; after all, this inevitable ending had been the primary subject of her thoughts while Raoul and Tom were upstairs questioning him.
Could she live with herself? Maybe. Maybe not. But she needed to protect herself, not to mention Tom and Raoul now that they were involved as well…and this was the only way to accomplish that.
"You're right. He's not worth my breath," she hissed while throwing a vicious glare in Jasper's direction. Then she turned her gaze to Tom, feeling just as empty inside as his near-black eyes looked, and whispered. "Do it."
"Hold on a minute…" Jasper's voice sounded panicky. "You're just planning to erase my memory…right? Because that's fine. Completely fine."
"It's not good enough," Tom said coldly with a shake of his head. "Memories can be recovered. Especially memories that someone – like the Ministry, say – would purposefully want to recover."
Jasper looked between the two of them and smiled as though they were joking. "You can't be serious." A few seconds passed and his smile abruptly vanished. "Think of my sister, Rose. She'll never forgive you."
She closed her eyes and did her best not to think of Faye. This was just self-protection; it was nothing personal. And she would make damn sure that Faye would never find out about it.
"Please, Rose."
'Shut up Jasper, just shut up,' she begged him mentally. It struck her in that moment just how thankful she was that Tom was with her to do the things she clearly wasn't strong enough for.
"Avada Kedavra."
She saw a flash of bright green through her eyelids. A few seconds passed and she knew it was over, but refused to open her eyes again in fear that she would see Jasper's dead ones staring right back at her.
"Rosemary." Tom placed a hand on her cheek. "It's over."
For a moment she felt a deep, immeasurable guilt, but the sensation rapidly faded to emptiness. As the reprieve of the emptiness took over, she was reminded that she had no reason to feel guilty, except for concealing it from Faye like she undoubtedly had to. After all, Jasper had brought this on himself.
With her eyes still closed, she wrapped her arms around Tom's neck and pulled herself against him as tightly as she could, as though this simple motion would squeeze those last dreadful traces of guilt right out of her. "Thank you," she whispered.
"You're not sleeping," Tom noted plainly as they lay side by side in his bed a little over an hour later.
She glanced over at him in the dark. "No…I'm not." How could she, after everything that had happened that night?
"Well you should be. Tomorrow is your first day on the job, after all…"
"Right." Rosemary had all but completely forgotten that she would be leaving for London the following morning. At least that meant keeping her distance from Faye for a while.
Tom propped himself up and ran a hand through her hair. "I wouldn't be surprised if they asked you to join the staff permanently after seeing you work. Healer-in-Training Horton has quite a ring to it, don't you think?"
She smiled, despite the feelings of immense conflict in her mind. "Actually, Healer McHughes came to meet me at the job fair last week," she told him. "He wants me to interview for a position in his ward at St. Mungo's."
"That's excellent, Rosemary," he praised her without a hint of hesitation.
How could someone be so perfect for her and yet also so wrong for her at the same time? He was the only one that had ever truly supported her and for that she was eternally grateful. But did that mean that she would be expected to truly support him in all of his decisions – even the most violent ones? Could she actually trust that, like that night, he would do those things because he actually had to and not just because he wanted to for some twisted reason?
She didn't really have an answer, so instead she searched his face for it. And then she searched his lips with hers. He pulled her on top of him, kissing her hungrily, and Rosemary could feel him hardening already when she straddled him. She supposed she couldn't exactly blame him; it had been a week since they last fucked and for them, that was ages. He tore off her nightie and began groping her exposed body, occasionally running a long finger delicately between her legs. Normally this would have driven her mad with desire, but she wasn't really in the mood for foreplay that evening. All she wanted was to be as physically close to him as possible.
Tom seemed to understand that this was what she wanted and sat himself up against the headboard before pulling her in for another passionate kiss and placing his hands on her hips. He let out a short groan as he guided her down over his cock. From then until the moment he finished in her, the sex was a perfect blur of pleasure and intimacy – so very different from the way they had fucked for weeks…So very different from the way they had ever fucked. It was obvious that they were now more connected than ever.
It was in the near-delirium of the aftermath, when Rosemary collapsed beside him and watched him drift off to sleep with a peaceful expression on his handsome face, that the simple truth of everything they were dawned on her:
She knew she loved him too much for her own good. She knew that no matter what seemingly unthinkable thing he did tomorrow or the next day, she would desperately try to wrap her head and heart around it in an attempt to understand. And there were only two ways that could possibly end: either she would break him, or he would break her.
"I cannot let you burn me up, nor can I resist you. No mere human can stand in a fire and not be consumed." – A. S. Byatt
Hey all! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I apologize for the delayed update - I always get a bit nervous writing the fast-paced actiony bits and it ends up taking me forever.
Thanks so much to those of you who left a review recently: Oksanallex, MissVolturiKingsfan, Blerb, x2leoj, gr8rockstarrox, Mrs. WaylandOdinsonBlack, CharlotteBlackwood, RosiePosie15, Lady Ravanna, marly4077, ecl123, and a guest user!
Last thing - CharlotteBlackwood and I are running another promo week on our stamp card dealio! So if you review all three of our stories (TDLR, Craving Comfort, and Unknowns) by Friday at 11:59 pm, you get an extra stamp! :D PM me with any questions on this.