Evan Rosier breathes in as he walks, taking in the power coursing through the autumn air. Unlike the magic drained quickly from a glass of firewhiskey, what reaches out from the Hogwarts wards resists being swallowed up by Evan's hungry magic.
Quite contrary to the welcome call of the aspen woods around Nott Manor, the ancient power that lurks around the dirt trail leading to the school's gates curls around him in warning. The threads that Evan took in with his breath press against the inside of this body, dragging across Evan's ragged edges without being absorbed.
It had been shock, back in a first year repeated when Edgar had boarded the boats with the other first years and the school's magic had rushed over him then. Had curled around him in that same watchfulness as if it knew just what he was, as if it knew what he could do to any of its wardens.
As if…no, it knows. Just like the aspen trees know their own, the school knows a threat when it stands outside its gates, cloaked in old Death Eater robes that have only been worn twice in over five years.
Edgar tilts his head and surveys the iron wrought gates before him just as much as he surveys the unseen presence that watches. He can almost see it in the eyes of the stone statues perched on each side of the gates. Whimsical beasts, two hogs with outstretched wings that represent the name of the school they guard.
He grins, his face fully visible to what observes him through those lifeless, dark eyes. Evan has no need for his silver mask to hide his visage today, not for what he intends to do.
There is no visible reaction, the statues themselves remain frozen, but something coils out of sight.
"I'm here to save a boy, a former student of yours," Edgar says, to no one in particular but what watches him through those four eyes above the gates. And that is the truth. Felix has been gone for too long. It took Edgar a bit to burn away the drunken haze over his mind, but when he had gone investigating his nephew's absence…Well, it's one thing for some unknown Death Eater to murder a mudblood in their own home. Quite another for an assailant to murder Bartemius bloody Crouch himself.
There is no way that the Ministry would risk letting Felix, nephew and grandson of two known Death Eaters, go without being absolutely certain of his uninvolvement. And Evan doubts that the boy's occlumency is strong enough to last through whatever measures the aurors can justify using to uncover the murder of someone who used to be one of their own.
Whatever's coiling pauses, and Edgar can't help the image of a serpent flicking its forked tongue and tasting the truth lingering in the air. The wards over the gate still radiate with a sense of solidity, so Edgar doubts that he would be able to just waltz through without the school shredding him down to his wand. However, nothing lashes out at him as he stands a few paces away.
"I don't suppose…" The words trail off as the faint sound of conversation filters through the air. Deeper voices, adult men by the sound of it rather than older students who pretend that they are full grown.
Edgar wonders at the chances of a few professors happening to tread towards the gates just as he happens to wait here. It's as likely as an owl randomly finding its way to a magical child around muggles. Those men probably don't, no, unless they're like Rosier, they don't know why they felt compelled to take this particular route out of the school grounds. Unaware of the gentle nudge of Hogwarts itself as it guides them.
The voices are familiar, even if the words are indistinct in their conversation's unimportance. They don't notice the figure standing outside the wards at first, too wrapped up in some argument as they come into view.
Edgar laughs, even with their faces turned away, they're as recognizable as his own reflection in the mirror.
The greasy, black hair of Severus Snape whips as the traitor looks towards Evan. The black eyes above that distinguishable hooked nose widen in sheer disbelief as the wizard comes to a jolted stop.
"Rosier?!" Lucius Malfoy sounds like a man strangling on thin air, his gloved grip on that cane of his tight enough to snap any wood that wasn't reinforced by magic.
Evan's laugh dies as his grin widens to the point of pain. Who knew that the school had such a sense of humor? Or, perhaps pragmaticality. Bringing a Death Eater and two traitors together like this would surely reduce the number of threats to the mudblood students hidden within its halls.
"Severus, Lucius," Evan greets with a voice overflowing with delight, "fancy meeting you here."
Lucius says nothing, staring in horrified silence as color flees his face. Seeing the dead in flesh will do that to lesser men. Severus, however…
"Sectumsempra!" There is no hesitation as the spell flows out of Severus, no frozen horror as the man moves with the fluidity of a duelist as his wand strikes through the air.
As the curse cuts through Evan, he can't help feeling impressed that a handful of years as a potions professor hasn't robbed the traitor of his skills in combat.
His grin remains on his face as blood gushes through the sliced open dragonhide vest and the gash in his robes. The taste of rust creeps up his throat as he swallows it back down. That curse went deep, cutting through one of his lungs if the blood clogging his breath is anything to go by.
When Evan's doesn't fall gurgling and dying, that's when Severus falters. The horrified stillness matching the whitening pallor of his sallow face.
"You'll have to do better than that," Evan says, unfurling fully from his wand and coursing through his body. The cut stitches itself back together, the dark magic meant to keep his wound open making a nice meal as he takes it into himself. Certainly more fulfilling than the muggle lives he devoured long ago.
"Avada Kedavra!" The green curse strikes out towards Lucius, who dodges with an instinctive swiftness as the killing blow flies just past his head. Even in shock, it seems that the Dark Lord's training still's ingrained in that coward's reflexes. No matter, a mortal man like Malfoy can't dodge Edgar forever.
Before the next curse can leave his lips, a flicker of motion catches Edgar's gaze and he looks up in time to see the statues move. Immobile stone flows into motions and the two hogs take flight on their bird wings.
Apparently Hogwarts doesn't tolerate wizards casting killing curses through its gates.
A blasting curse tears through the first flying hog, the shards of stone pelting Edgar's face just as its intact companion crashes into his body, goring its tusk deep into his shoulder. Unlike Severus's curse, the magic in the stone hog bites back when Edgar's own tries to take it in.
So, he pushes out, the same explosive energy of a blasting curse blowing apart the remaining statue. His wand now pointed at the empty space in front of him trembles. His hand shakes as he registers the torn open wound from where the stone tusk tore its way out from the force of his spell.
The same wound closes within the space of a heartbeat and Edger straightens.
"Rosier–Evan, you're alive!" Lucius's desperate voice conveys a sense of false, friendly relief. The cockroach is a Slytherin in that way at least, trying to convince his way out of this situation. "We all thought Moody killed you!"
The aspen wand vibrates with constrained bloodlust, but Edgar holds back, morbidly curious as to how Lucius intends to talk himself out of this one.
"He didn't," Edgar concedes, the blood soaking his robes making it very clear that it wasn't for a lack of trying. Although, the curse that the mad auror used was much, much cleaner than the spells used now.
Severus for his part stays silent, his posture giving away just how ready he is to resume casting curses as he watches Evan with those black, beady eyes.
"Well, I'm glad that's not the case." Lucius lies, his grip on that cane still so very tight. The coward doesn't have a lot of options but his words. Edgar might not be able to force his way past the wards, but the open field within the gates provides no cover for Lucius if he tries to scurry back to the safety of the Hogwarts walls.
"No you're not." Edgar grins again, tasting the blood staining his teeth. He needs one of them alive. One of them to remember his face to give over to the aurors when they question who would be mad enough to stage an attack just outside the Hogwarts wards. The resurfacing of a long-dead Death Eater should be enough to clear away the suspicions around Felix.
Lucius is obnoxious, but more likely to run when Edgar starts casting curses again. Although, if Severus is as ruthless now as he was back then, he would take advantage of Evan focusing his attacks on Lucius to make his own way to the safety of the school.
Theodore would do well being brought up by Narcissa without her husband's worm-like influence.
"You're terrified," the look in Lucius's eyes is so very satisfying, "as you should be. You thought you could get away with pretending you weren't really one of us, just some poor rich bloke who got cursed into serving our Lord." A bit of Edgar's coarseness slips through. No, a bit of Riddle's coarseness, the same bit that emerged in those desolate streets of muggle London and seeped into Rosier's psyche.
"Avada Kedavra!" Lucius pulls his cane apart, revealing the wand attached to its silver serpent head. His snarl's as harsh as the green light that strikes Edgar.
The light warps over him, tugging at the soul embedded within the aspen wand. He doesn't drop like he did with Mad-Eye Moody that day. Doesn't even bother pretending that the curse is little more than a strong breeze against a creature like him.
Edgar gives Lucius a second of horrified incomprehension to see Edgar standing unaffected and impossibly alive before raising his own wand in kind. The returning curse rising up his throat and—
A song, a wail, something lost calling into a darkness that never ends. A darkness that dims the cool sunlight of this autumn day until all Edgar sees is a ball of fire heading towards the three of them.
The wordless melody tears through him as the fire stretches out into a bird's shape. The outstretched wings of a phoenix burning as wildly as its wailing song in Edgar's head. His wand sears against his palm, the stench of burning flesh barely registering in the face of the sight before him.
When the flare of the phoenix's light dies down, an old man's form appears into being. Purple robes ripple in the dying wind and Albus Dumbledore stares with those light blue eyes. The red of his hair is long gone, lost to the time that belonged to a boy with a whole soul. But the white beard and flowing hair fail to make the Headmaster before Edgar appear feeble in age.
Power radiates from the wizard, the only man that the Dark Lord ever feared. Power bright enough to be blinding even if Edgar can still see in vivid detail the Headmaster standing strong before him.
"Evan," the Headmaster doesn't pale, but his expression's taken aback as he seems to absorb the bloody sight of Rosier standing outside the gates of Hogwarts. Somehow, the old wizard looks past the face constructed from the pieces of Rosier's own daughter.
"Edgar," the hitch is near unnoticeable, the heavy grief in those eyes and that voice most certainly not, "what have you done to yourself?"
For a moment, Rosier feels just like that school boy back then, during that first real conversation between them when Edgar first picked up on the coming wisps of war. But then the sharp edges of that question turn, hooking into images of a girl.
A child in bed, his daughter so small as the life inside her nearly flickers out. Edgar's horror and regret cutting deeper into Evan than even the darkest curse. In their grief, they are almost one again, two halves of the same soul drawn towards each other in mutually assured destruction.
If he continues standing in this child's bedroom with her father sobbing beside her, Evan wouldn't even need an incantation, would he? Just follow the coursing threads of remorse that desperately tries to drag them back together.
Evan flees, instinct raising him high into the air, his form unraveling at the edges until he's nothing but a black, raging swarm of magic tearing off towards anywhere but under the pitying gaze of Albus Dumbledore.