Caranthir stubbed his toe as he was climbing the stairs to the dilapidated mansion that was his family house, if his memory served him right. The distraction of his toe throbbing led to him nearly being decapitated by whatever magic, wand-wavey thing his crazy sister-in-law was throwing around, cackling as she did so.

He already found her exhausting.

"Rabastan, is that you?"

And that was his brother, who was jumping off the second storey window to reach him faster. Caranthir braced himself, and wasn't shocked when Rodolphus threw himself bodily at him. Rolling with the momentum, Caranthir sighed as he unfolded to a casual stance.

"Hello, brother, sister," he mumbled, hoping they would just leave him be and he could return to that magic castle in a few days, without Maglor, and therefore, Maedhros, being all over him to 'meet his family'. He barely wanted to meet Maedhros and the Ambarussa on a good day, there was no way he wanted to meet this insane, cackling, loud family of his that was only related to him by some voodoo thing that a child had pulled out of his ass. Without even reading through the fine print.

And Eru, was the child stupid? No one signed any sort of contracts, and a summoning counted as a contract, without reading through the contract thoroughly and double checking the validity of every minute detail, including the spaces. If Caranthir was more inclined to talk to the child, who he found to be extremely naive and irritating, then he would have lectured him about the grave mistakes he was making.

As it stood, he didn't feel like enduring any more conversation with people who weren't related to him, and so he left the education bit to Maedhros, who was the most likely to have the patience to actually teach the boy.

"Rabastan," Bellatrix called, dancing her way to him, and blasting a few of the obstacles away with a giggle. It was slightly concerning, but Caranthir didn't bother questioning it. Eru knew he had broken a lot of things whenever he had lost control of his temper. "Where have you been? We didn't see you when we escaped."

Caranthir didn't sigh when she threw her arm over his shoulder and peered up at him with dark, dead eyes. "I found myself lost on the mainland," he answered, and then he tripped, because Bellatrix's weight suddenly fell onto him.

Unfortunately, he was walking up the stairs at the time, and so he stubbed his toe, again.

Cursing mentally, he extricated himself from Bellatrix's clinginess, ignored her pout and made his way into the mansion. Perhaps his day would get better if he went to his room and slept, or if he explored the library. Both sounded like better options than spending time with his brother and sister-in-law.

Speaking of his brother, Rodolphus had disappeared, which never boded well.

"Come along, little Rabastan," Bellatrix said, giving him a truly creepy smile and grabbing his wrist. "The Dark Lord's waiting to meet you."

Caranthir didn't freeze, but that was from years of practice of dealing with the unexpected. Maglor had never been predictable, and Celegorm had created enough odd situations that Caranthir had found himself navigating the mess that was his family drama on a near daily basis. Dealing with a Dark Lord of this modern era, where people barely knew how to mould the Song, couldn't be that bad.

Or at least, that's what he told himself.

He got no images of this Dark Lord, not from Rabastan, and his current family didn't seem like they would be telling him anything.

Instead, Bellatrix just hauled him into a dining hall. Caranthir had to admit that the architecture of the place was great - high ceilings, a lot of windows that let in light from the top, a raised dias at the other end of the room and nooks at the edges of the room where he would have lurked had he been a part of the guard for the guest. Or had he been a guest. He would have lurked regardless.

It looked more akin to a throne room, to Fingolfin's throne room in Hithlum, than it did a dining room. The table, large enough to seat at least 20 people, had been moved to the edge of the room, and a huge chair, that was reminiscent of the uncomfortable thing Curufin had made for Fingolfin as a present, was placed on the dias.

And on that chair sat a man.

A pale, bald man who had no nose.

Caranthir wasn't sure what about the man was supposed to be terrifying - it wasn't his visage, nor was it his presence - but he didn't look like any sort of Dark Lord. Morgoth had been large and intimidating and his eyes had glittered like obsidian jewels that sucked the light from the room even when he had been Melkor in Valinor. Caranthir hadn't met him after, but he had seen tapestries of Fingolfin's fight with Morgoth and the way Morgoth had been chained and cast into the void, and the Vala had been monstrous in those.

Sauron brought a different kind of terror, with his fair face and sweet words that twisted and poisoned everyone who listened. He hadn't been much of a problem for any of them, although Caranthir had never met him personally, until he had decided to trick and then torture Celebrimbor. That, in Caranthir's opinion, made Sauron deserve the worst punishments his brothers could come up with.

This Dark Lord, however, he looked… meek. Caranthir could see no muscle on him, he didn't have the look of Sauron - an avid manipulator - nor was his presence too overwhelmingly powerful. He looked like a normal human who was slightly smarter and slightly better than everyone around him, and ruthless enough to take advantage of the fact.

"Bellatrix," the man said, seeming to notice them only now, five whole minutes after they had walked into the room. "And Rabastan. The Dark Lord is pleased to see you have returned."

Beside him, Bellatrix bowed low. Caranthir wouldn't have done the same, he was a prince and bowed to no one but the High King, although even that was in question some days, but Bellatrix's hand shot out and slammed quite violently into his back. Sighing inwardly, and suppressing the way his blood was simmering at the treatment - his temper had always been short - Caranthir followed her lead.

Perhaps he could find out what this Dark Lord was all about, before he headed back to the school. It was a reconnaisance mission, wasn't it? That boy who summoned them was likely caught up in whatever feud this was, or he wouldn't have summoned his brothers of all people, which placed Caranthir in a very valuable position.

"Rise, my most devoted servants," the Dark Lord hissed, his voice sounding like one that would come from a snake. He sounded like Celegorm every time he spoke to the snakes, so perhaps they were speaking the same language.

Caranthir wouldn't know, he wasn't the linguistics expert.

"My Lord," Bellatrix said, loud and fervent and gleeful as she threw herself forward and practically latched onto the arm rest of the throne. Caranthir retreated to the corner, slipping into the shadows while the Dark Lord and the two followers of his who were lurking behind him were focused entirely on Bellatrix.

"He's magnificent, isn't he?" Rodolphus asked, feverish intensity in his eyes that matched the look he had seen in the mirror the day before they had attacked Doriath. Caranthir carefully suppressed the shudder that ran across his body, and did not inch away from Rodolphus, he didn't. "The power that he holds, the way he will control the entirety of the world one day… it's a good thing we joined him."

Caranthir understood none of that. The ice that had crept through his veins persisted, as did the feeling that he was being watched. He cared not for this self-proclaimed Dark Lord, and he doubted that the man could defeat him so completely in a proper fight, but he had none of his usual weapons on him, and Caranthir had never been a frontline fighter. He would always remain a spy, someone who lurked in the shadows and watched, while forgotten, and waited until it was his time to strike.

His outbursts belied his temper, and they hid his patience.

"Why haven't the rest of them joined us yet?" the Dark Lord asked, flicking his fingers to slam the blinds on the windows shut, leaving the room in darkness. Caranthir relaxed every so slightly at the familiar atmosphere, especially when the Dark Lord straightened slightly and projected the image of a leader.

He had always been good at contracts and negotiations and diplomacy.

Caranthir wondered how this leader would hold court.

"Pettigrew, here," the man said, and a rat-faced, snivelling man scurried across the hall to fall at his feet. "Give me your hand."

Pettigrew, an unfamiliar name but one that brought him unexplainable feelings of disgust, held out his hand at the command, using the silver prosthetic to rub his nose like a child. The Dark Lord pushed the sleeve of his robe back, unveiling a black mark on Pettigrew's forearm and Caranthir's breath caught in his throat as the memories rushed to the forefront of his mind.

The man - Lord Voldemort, a self-styled Dark Lord - waged war on Wizarding Britain because he wanted to eradicate muggles, or those who didn't have magic at all. And those who opposed him, well… they had ended up dead.

Except, that boy, the one who had summoned Caranthir and his brothers, had survived.

Caranthir wondered how lucky the boy was.

If any of his brothers had even a fraction of that luck, they would have been able to get their hands on all three of the Silmarils. Eru, if they weren't actually Doomed, they would have succeeded.

It wasn't productive for him to blame the Valar and their Doom since he had sworn an Oath that had caused him to kill thousands in cold blood, but Caranthir had ever been rational when he wanted and irrational against the Valar. Perhaps it was a personal bias, honed from a young age, but he didn't care. Even objectively, he found the Valar's decisions questionable at best.

Caranthir was jerked out of his spiralling thoughts by a burning pain on his left forearm.

The Dark Lord had pressed his finger to the mark on Pettigrew's arm, and the mark on his own arm was burning in response. A series of snaps, whispers in the wind and displacements of air later, the number of people in the room had increased tenfold. Some fell to their knees immediately, others merely bowed their heads slightly.

Caranthir watched as Voldemort stuck his finger on the mark on Pettigrew's arm once again, and the burning sensation intensified. Would the skin burn off? Would his muscles melt under the mark? Caranthir had never fancied himself an amputee like Maedhros, nor did he aspire to be like any of his brothers in fact, and the mark that was on his arm only disgusted him.

"Where is Lucius?" Voldemort hissed, after he had called for his followers for the fourth time. Some of the people on the floor had succumbed to the pain, whimpering and sobbing, but none had dared to plead or beg. "Where is Severus? Where are the rest of my inner circle?"

The first name rang a bell in his mind. Wasn't Lucius the name Celegorm was going by in this world? It was unsurprising that Curufin, Celegorm and him worked on the same side. No, what surprised him was that all three of their hosts were cowards, clearly. Shaking his head, Caranthir wondered why he was the one who had to clean up their messes all the time.

"I will fetch Malfoy from his manor," Caranthir said, stepping forward.

Voldemort barely glanced at him. "Hurry up and fetch him, Rabastan."

Bellatrix nearly hissed from where she had been darting in between the people still bowed on the floor. A lamp that was near her sparked with the anger that spiked in Caranthir and she jerked, elbowing it in the process.

Fire spilled across the floor.

Caranthir stifled a vicious grin.

"Oops," Bellatrix said, cackling lightly as she stepped towards the flames rather than away. "That was accidental."

Not a single person in the room believed her, considering the way she was grinning and peering at the fire like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Caranthir was glad to leave her presence as soon as possible. Before leaving the house, he went to his bedroom and picked all the jewelry, gold and ancient books he could find, placing them in a bag that his memory said was bigger on the inside. Glancing around one last time, he picked up everything that was mildly pawnable from the room and the corridors he crossed as he made his way through the house.

He made it out of the mansion through the back door, avoiding the fire that had spread over the front entrance, and made his way to the edge of the cliff. Far below, he could see a boat that looked suspiciously like a swan ship from Alqualonde, docked at the edge of the rocks.

Caranthir shook his head.

The swan ships would never make it to this place. The mansion was at the coast; there was nothing more to it than that. Based on the way the ship was falling apart, and burned in places, it was entirely likely that it had been docked for years now and no one had seen it. Regardless, it wasn't Caranthir's problem, just like the way the explosion that sounded in the mansion wasn't his problem.

Making his way around to the front, Caranthir closed his eyes and pictured the bleak street where the invisible house that Curufin entered was, and took a step.

The Song warped around him, like it had the past few times he had done this, and suddenly, he was standing in front of the row of houses he had left hours ago. It wasn't that he was going to find Celegorm here, but he knew what kind of patience Curufin had. And he had no doubt that Curufin was about to storm out any time now.

Indeed, just as the thought completed in his mind, a door to nowhere opened in the middle of empty air and out stepped Curufin who hadn't been visible until he stepped out.

"There you are," he sighed, scowling mightily. "You might as well come in."

Notes:

Caranthir is always angry (like Hulk) but he's also very good at controlling his temper, considering he's like millennia old at this point. He's patient, loves negotiation and will definitely take more money from you than he will give. He's also exhausted of having to deal with his family's drama and would rather be in a random corner of the world making money instead.