blackmarauder (
alwaysimpure) wrote2012-09-15 05:57 am
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What if Peter hadn't been the secret-keeper, but still a traitor?
It wasn't often that Sirius considered, even for a moment, being grateful to his mother. She had made his life misery, she had turned his brother from him, she had messed him up the way only family could. But at least she had also prepared him for pain, definitely for more pain than any growing child should have to experience and through enough that he had been able to withstand more torture than most minds could take since he'd been captured.
A trap, a simple one, but he had trusted Peter and that had made this so easy. Of course he'd trusted Peter. Not because Peter was brave or overly loyal, but because he just didn't seem capable of deceit. Too much the coward, too stupid. he had underestimated him and that's how he ended up here. Some dungeon, who knew where, chained to the wall, wandless and in pain.
Deatheaters weren't gentle captors, especially not to bloodtraitors. He hadn't eaten or drunk, hell, hadn't slept or pissed since this started, not that he had any way of telling how much time had passed. But as long as there was so much importance on getting the truth from him, at least Sirius knew that they were still safe and that gave him strength like nothing else.
There was no one with him at the moment, a short but welcome reprieve. Sirius had closed his eyes, tried to use wandless magic to find some spell to break the chains, hopeless as that was. He'd have been better of focusing his strength on a healing spell, but that had never been his style. Too much of a fighter.
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Tailing a paranoid wizard was never easy, but a stupefy and an obliviate later and Remus had slipped through the doors, his heart high in his chest with fear and thrill in equal parts. The Marauder spirit ingrained in him like a lifelong instinct.
He could smell Sirius everywhere. In the hall, on the stairs, with the sickening thick and heavy scent of blood and sweat and- oh. there was blood on the floor and on instruments he passed. There was no thought from the logical marauder to how reckless or dangerous this was. how easy it would be to get caught. Only one thing mattered, and that was his pa- was Sirius. Was finding him.
The war was a dangerous time for anyone, but Sirius was a Black on the wrong side of it, and worse, well known to be James Potter's best friend. Danger and trouble were tied around his neck like a noose.
The moment Remus caught sight of him, he had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting. There was blood, and black and purple, tinged with sickly yellow-green everywhere.
Remus knew where he was. What the dangers were. That it was unlikely Sirius was here without a guard. So he wasted no time at all and lunged forward, wand already flicking at the restraints to not unlock them, no, banish them, far away, even as he strode the last few steps to be certain he could catch Sirius from his fall.
A growl rumbled low in his throat and hot, salty tears stung at his eyes. How had they caught him? Why hadn't he been found before this? Why had no one told Remus he was missing? Sirius was too heavy for him to carry, but that was easy enough to fix. Unfortunately he couldn't apparate them out of here. The other wizards might follow him, and then they would both be captive.
What he would not give for James' cloak right now.
"Dear Merlin," He whispered "What did they do to you."
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Sirius smiled, never mind the pain and everything else, but then his mind cleared and his eyes widened instead.
"Torture, mostly." Smalltalk. "What are you doing here?"
He had told Dumbledore not to tell James if he ever should get caught. He had included Remus in that, too, once he'd thought about it for just a second. He knew James wouldn't stay in the safety of his own house, wouldn't stay with his family if he knew Sirius was in danger and that would make this whole thing a pointless exercise. And if Remus would get caught...
Sirius knew he could withstand anything they did to him. He wasn't so sure he could see Remus suffer.
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"Explanations later. Hold still." With another wave of his wand, Sirius weighed nearly nothing. Light as a feather, they used to say. There was no time about arguing whether or not he could limp out of here.
Remus was dragging him into his arms as gently as he could and trying to appear far calmer than the jack hammer of his hear betrayed. The den of the beast, his mind whispered. He ignored it again.
The trip back to the door seemed to take a lifetime of ducking back, checking corners, and hoping against hope. Like they would never reach the end. It took five minutes. All in all, a very short span of time. But a lot could happen in five minutes.
When at last they reached the door, Remus gave Sirius a hurried apology, and his months of time trying to gain allies for the Order, racing through forests and wilderness, showed in a very big way when he took off into the trees with Sirius against his side. A three legged race where only one pair of legs was in the running and the other narrowly missed roots and rocks, but always did, just barely.
Not until Remus' lungs were burning and his heart stuttering did he half stumble to a stop, his hand slipping tight into Sirius' with a whispered word and they both thudded to the floor of a ramshackle cottage, ungracefully, painfully. Remus on his hands and knees, dragging in deep lungfuls of air, and still tense, his wand clenched in white knuckles.
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His eyes opened and he saw Remus and slowly things fell back into place. He started to say something, but in the end just ended up coughing, because his throat was sore, and, well, it had been damp and cold in that dungeon.
"How?" he finally managed, his eyes seeking Remus's face. "Where?" And also. "Are you absolutely crazy?"
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Abruptly his hands disappeared, a few bloody shreds of shirt he had managed to remove, dropping to the floor. He cast every protection spell he could think of on his tiny, middle of nowhere cabin and hoped they could not be followed. Hope was all they had these days. Hope and determination.
As soon as he was done, he was checking Sirius' injuries, apologizing under his breath for the race to freedom, for not getting there sooner, for pressing too hard on that bruise, really have to make sure those ribs aren't broken.
"Need to patch you up, Pads. You're a right mess." Worryu, concern, an attempt at something playful that just came out strained. Oh Merlin. What if Remus had not found him?
"Bloody hell, Sirius."
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"It's alright. Doesn't hurt all that much." There always had been a big part of him that liked to play hero. Annoying at times, but the past few days it had helped him keep it together, so he didn't regret that part of his personality.
His ribs didn't appear to be broken, bruised for sure. His eyes were haunted, a lot of things that had been done had been healed or didn't have physical signs, but that didn't mean they hadn't damaged him. It was hard to believe this wasn't just a dream.
"I told Dumbledore not to tell you if I ever got caught..."
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"He didn't. No one told me." Remus' tone was bitter. Damn it why had no one told him? Sirius had to have been missing for a while. The entire place smelled of old blood. Sirius' blood.
"Bloody hell..." He felt a bit like he was stuck on repeat. But the adrenaline still pounding through his veins reminded him that what he had just dragged Sirius out of was a pit of Death Eaters.
"It's a nice lie, but I am not taking it Padfoot. Come on." He grabbed Sirius by the arm, slowly, dragging it over his shoulder to help his friend over to the poor excuse for a ragged bed. There was evidence around the ramshackle cabin of Remus' less sunny days. Claw marks in the floor, rips in the mattress.
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I need more au in my au
"Explanations later. Hold still." With another wave of his wand, Sirius weighed nearly nothing. Light as a feather, they used to say. There was no time about arguing whether or not he could limp out of here.
Remus was dragging him into his arms as gently as he could and trying to appear far calmer than the jack hammer of his hear betrayed. The den of the beast, his mind whispered. He ignored it again.
The trip back to the door seemed to take a lifetime of ducking back, checking corners, and hoping against hope. Like they would never reach the end. It took five minutes. All in all, a very short span of time. But a lot could happen in five minutes.
He could see the door, his blood pounding in his ears as he checked the last corner before they made their break for it. Then pain lanced through his body, the force of a heavy handed dueling spell slamming into him from behind. His world went white with pain a grunt of surprise as he stumbled and fell to his knees. His last sight, before everything went dark was the door, just a short room's length ahead.
The Death Eater who had caught sight of them quickly sent the same spell straight for Sirius, even as Remus was still collapsing. A triumphant, almost gleeful grin on his lips. Their Dark Master would be pleased with him, surely. Not only did he botch an escape attempt, but he caught them another Wizard, a friend of the traitorous Black.
How lucky was he, to be in the right moment at the right time? Even more so when both of them were chained back up and left to wake of their own accord in the dungeon. Remus' wand pocketed as a spoil of war.
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But when he woke up to see Remus chained up so close to him, yet out of reach, to realize that his friend was caught with him... Tears did fall down his cheeks then, leaving bloody trails on his face.
He tugged on the chains with renewed vigor, even though his wrists were sore already. A sob escaped before he bit his lip against it, red-rimmed eyes trained on Remus, as if he could make him be gone if he only stared hard enough. This couldn't be happening.
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It was easy to see the point when realization grimly settled in. His eyes widened for a moment, mouth opening as if to protest and then shutting, along with his eyes. He swallowed, mentally kicking himself for not having come up with a plan. This was all his fault. If he had just gotten some help, or taken a moment to think it through better, then he and Sirius-
Sirius!
Remus' head shot to the side nearly hard enough to give him whiplash, catching the red-rimmed, exhausted eyes with his own, slightly panicked ones. Bloody hell.
He closed his eyes and counted in his head, willing this to be just one of the nightmares he often had these months. But when he opened them again they were both still in chains.
"Sirius- oh, Sirius, I'm sorry." He trailed of, whispered apologies falling from his lips even while he searched for a way out of this. All the information in his head, there had to be something useful here.
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"Damn it, Moony."
He muttered, glancing off to the side. Alright, think fast, he knew they'd not leave them alone for long.
"Pretend you don't know me well. Just in passing."
He had no idea whether that would be a wise move in the end or not, but perhaps it would be better than no plan at all.
"I love you," he muttered, quiet and fast, because he had already thought he'd never get to tell him again.
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So. Now they had to pretend not to know each other. Well. Remus could do that. He was clever and used to having to lie to protect his life. He also knew that it was unlikely to make any difference to the Death Eaters. Either way, they would torture, and likely kill, them both.
If he could last until the full moon. Maybe.. Maybe he could break free. But the Wolf would not discriminate between Death Eaters and Sirius, and if Sirius could have transformed he would have done so by now. Their chains had to be magical. Some form of spell? Or perhaps Sirius was keeping his cover until he was desperate enough?
Remus was about to try and find some way to see if Sirius thought he could shift, when one of the bloody dark wizards stepped into the room.
Too late. Next time they were alone, maybe...
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The face that greeted him when he reached his post wasn't at all the one he'd expected, and he paled, blinking at Black. "...You-" he started dumbly.
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At first he didn't want to talk, but quietly glaring didn't seem as if it was quite potent enough. "Come on. They can't be serious with sending you. Don't tell me that you've got the guts to so much as use a Cruciatus."
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"Whether I do or don't, I'm not here for that. What are you doing here?" As though any of this was his choice.
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So it wasn't exactly going to go down as one of his most inspired moments, joke-wise, but in all fairness it had to be said that it wasn't easy to endure this much torture and still have a sense of humor. At this point it was mostly petulance.
"What are you doing here?"
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"How long have you been here?" He lay the back of his hand against Sirius' head clinically and frowned. He didn't look well.
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He tensed at Severus's hand as if expecting to get hit, then only slowly relaxed again, to make it seem as if he hadn't been worried.
"Don't know, I don't have a watch. Few days, I'd say."
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"When were you fed last?"
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What he did dislike, however, were holier than thou blood traitors who thought that they could actually measure up against The Dark Lord and play the roll of the white knight. So when given the chance to go wild with his dark desires, magical and sharp alike, he agreed to the task with a chipper grin that flashed white teeth and cruel intentions.
"Not falling asleep on me, are you, Black?" His wand flicked idly but he didn't cast another spell just yet, dragging the door shut again behind him.
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Sirius's mother had been fond of prophesying how his tongue would be the death of him. Currently death was pretty low down on the list of terrible things that could happen to him and all he had left in the way of defense, in the way of showing how little they actually got to him was his humor. Although, admittedly, his humor was better when he hadn't been tortured for a few days.
He opened his eyes, fingers curling in so his nails could press into his palms. He wasn't scared of John, he told himself, just not comfortable with being at his mercy.
"People often fall asleep on you?" he asked, faking polite interest.
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She's arriving directly from a lavish social affair, the kind of thing she attends as upkeep on her public life. He can't think it's wholly for his benefit that she's wearing an evening gown. It's an elegant backless thing, with fitted sleeves by necessity, in an unforgiving shape that restricts her movement more than she'd like — but then, this won't require agility, will it? She'll admit that the contrast with his own condition is purposeful. She means for him to glimpse something of her life, of how it's proceeding in accordance with the choices she's made. That she faces him unmasked is a testament to her sense of security. It speaks to her confidence that he will never escape to name his captors.
There is, of course, the necessity of extracting information from Sirius, very specific information wanted as soon as possible. She lives each moment with fevered impatience to fulfill commands, but she could never be impatient with this, with him. She credits her cousin with resilience — no, stubbornness — and thus expects to prise no secrets from him on this occasion. This is for her personal satisfaction. A social visit, to her mind, and on those grounds some formality should be observed.
She flicks her wand, one sharp movement, roughly pulling his restraints forward and up, to their limits. He must be half accustomed to being puppeted around, but she knows how to keep the strain on his joints, not in the chains. She wants him hanging to attention, rather than swinging there limply. His weight's been on his wrists for too long, which alone must hurt, but not quite as she'd like. It isn't enough to rely on prolonged discomfort; pain should be distinct. It should rise and fall like breath.
"Stand when a woman enters the room."
He seems to take a certain pride in his atrocious manners. Among his humiliations will be a forced compliance with the standards of etiquette his mother might expect of him, were she here. Satisfied with his mimicry of posture, Bellatrix performs a straight-backed curtsy.
"Sirius Black," she intones with mock civility, resenting that he retains the family name whilst doing it such injustice, but using it all the same. "Shall we reacquaint ourselves?"
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The word was quiet, just hissed on instinct when he was yanked up, stretched out so suddenly. It was a strain on his shoulders, pain for his wrists and he was damn sure it would be more pain still before long, even if this was all that'd happen. But this was Bellatrix and he knew better than to think this would be even close to all.
Looking at her, he repeated the word, this time slow, this time purposefully. Two can play that game. "Fuck." How would his mother have liked that? Not a lot, by all accounts.
The smile was a testament to his stubbornness, much like his tone, even if his voice was rougher than he'd have liked. "I'd have stood when a woman entered." Bellatrix was free to make of that what she wanted. Actually, no, subtlety wasn't in his cards right now. "I've seen men doing a better job of masquerading as women than you."
Insulting her as a bad drag queen made him feel at least marginally accomplished, even with the situation being what it was.
"I'd rather not, Lestrange." Not using any kind of formal title and very deliberately using her married name. Keeping his own name might be more an act of stubbornness than anything else, but he understood pureblood principles and pride well enough to know that it would smart her in other ways.
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It's good he closed interpretation on that insult, she could have easily taken the first half for a compliment. As it stands, she is not particularly insulted. She's proud, thoroughly proud, but vanity was never her fault. Some things she takes utterly for granted. Her self-image is unassailable. He's missed the obvious mark then, but struck a glancing blow on a very different one. It doesn't show.
"I've seen men do a better job of masquerading as loyal. You are a pampered creature, Sirius. You show a childlike faithfulness to those who make it easy for you, to anyone willing to condone your behavior, but when loyalty becomes difficult, a source of pain? How quickly you run. It's only a matter of time before you betray James Potter, just as you betrayed your family, your birthright, and your truest self."
His truest self; this part she adds merely for the thought that it might wound him. He never was the Black heir he should have been, but an inadequate likeness is still a likeness. In rebellion, he may have grown to hate those parts of himself, as surely as he hates the rest of them.
"You'd rather not? Oh, pity." Her tone is too patient, altogether too forgiving to bode well. He may sense the curse coming. It's a promise crackling in the air between them, even before she casts.
"Crucio."
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"Not quite the same. See, Bella, you can't choose family. I chose my friends and I chose my side."
It wasn't difficult to guess that there was a Cruciatus curse coming. It was in her stance, it was even in her tone, misleading as it was. But what difference did it make that he could predict it? Sirius tried to brace himself, but there was no bracing against this. It made no different that this wasn't the first time it was used, because there was no getting used to this.
Every time the pain hits like fire cursing through each vein, cramping every muscle, feeling as if he's being ripped apart.
He managed silence for a while, a matter of pride proving something only to himself. His lip was bloody from biting down on it and then he screamed after all, because a spell designed to torture, spoken by someone like Bellatrix was more than anyone could take.
He left his head hanging when the pain subsided. It was still there, he knew, and would kick back in if he tried to move at all. Every limb was still protesting and his heart was trying to beat its way out of his rib cage. Much as she deserved a glare, right now it wasn't worth the effort.
Sirius licked his lips and stared at the ground, his hair fallen into his face. His throat hurt and he had to swallow before he could even attempt to speak. "I'd be mudblood if I had a choice."