Revived to Fullest Youth
There will be no masks worn for this performance she begrudgingly admits to herself as she walks between the lavishly decorated walls of Lestrange Manor. On either side of her she is caged by skulls, hung as ornaments to incite praise and fear amongst any that visit. Some are stags and boars, those are the most pleasant, but some resemble her own far more than she is comfortable with.
Will it be mine? she thinks. One day when I’ve played all my cards and been exposed for the soft-hearted traitor to all that I am, will that be my mindless skull decorating Lestrange Manor? Mayhaps she will keep her sister company then, when she walks through her new husbands home, so long as she doesn’t keep you company on the walls too.
She dismisses the thought, hoping to all heavens that her new status as Rabastan Lestrange’s wife is enough to keep her safe. Any paranoid wonderings will not keep anyone safe right now besides.
Instead she recites her orders for the mission in her head. Chose Five. Apparate to the location. Bring me the twins. Bring me them alive.
She failed. It’s not the fact she failed the Dark Lord mission that she is concerned with, it was her plan all along, but how she failed at her own. Right now Fabian should be recovering in Regulus’ picturesque sea-side cottage, as she planned, but Gideon isn’t. Gideon, rather than doing what he was bloody supposed to, had to play the hero, because of course he did. She heard all about his valiant sacrifice, staying to fight off a group of Death Eaters he could never hope to defeat in order to give his brother time. He even looked proud to be the only one in their custody as opposed to him and his brother.
He probably thinks of himself as some God-damned Achilles she thinks harshly. She knows its true. For all the Gideon she once knew was never overly consumed with fairy tales of heroism and dashing saviours, he has always been a Gryffindor, and there is nothing like going down in a flame of glory.
A fool. It is an honest mistake, confusing stupidity and bravery, but at the risk of sounding like a Slytherin, it is a mistake. Gideon was never an Achilles, sacrificing himself for all that is good and pure in this world, all he has done is make a Patroclus of himself. Her Patroclus.
She knows how precarious of a position they are in now, the fine tightrope that has become solid ground to her is now starting to wobble. Should Gideon fall after being her ‘redemption’ for her shortcomings she will fall. It will not be valiant, there will be no songs sung of her, no children will be lulled to sleep of heroic warrior women. It will be ugly, a slaughter. If she were to take on the army of Troy, she will fall.
It is not obscurity she is afraid of. She wants nor need no recognition for her role is this great tragedy. The idea of the fall wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t Gideon she would take down with her.
“This path predicts only my own suffering” Regulus once told her when she asked why he went to the cave, how he can stand to still be here. She began to use that as reason for why she is right where she should be, doing work that nobody wants to do. For all that she has suffered, and she has suffered a lot, she feels like she is taking it from someone else. There is still plenty to go around of course, but she is taking as much as she can.
Yet in all that, she forgot that it is only a prediction. That just because she tries to take any suffering from those she loves, does not mean she can guarantee. Hubris, that’s what it is. She was forgetting the dangers of her position, the dangers of others positions, and this is Mother Magic’s way of reminding her.
She finishes her self-scolding as she approaches the garishly decorated doors to the once-dining room, now a goddamned place of worship. She readies herself to enter, makes sure she has invoked all the shame and fear she can. Do not hide away your heart, sweet sister she hears Marceline saying, and whilst she is sure this is not what she meant, she hopes to make her proud by finally following her advice. She is so used to forcing an expression on her face, faking and controlling every muscle and reaction, she is almost relieved today she does not have to, that it comes naturally. All of those years being a scared little girl hiding her tears from her father now feel redundant, because she knew she would never be able to hide her shame.
She know what she must be, that she must be sorry, but she isn’t worried about that. It will not be aimed where she wants it to be, at who she wants to be aimed at, but it will be real enough.
She opens the doors and takes in her crowd. As with any true narcissist, Lord Voldemort loves making a show of his achievements, of his power. Alicent knows this well, was counting on it even. She knew he would make a demonstration of her failure, have her tears and screams such an attraction that it would divert suspicion from her. After all she doubts many in the room could understand loving so completely you would face the wrath of the Dark Lord to protect that love. Even more so with her, after all none of them even know she loves. They do not know her at all.
She hears Travers and Dolohov dragging the prisoner behind her, hears his chains rattling more than her imaginary ones. He is in pain, she would be able to tell from the sound alone even if she didn’t see what a number the others did on him earlier. But she ignores that. She ignores the gleeful eyes behind masks as they take in her failure. She ignores it all but Him.
Lord Voldemort is an imposing man, she will be the last to deny that. With his pearlescent white skin and blood red eyes he is beyond human, a true God of magic. He radiates more power than anyone she ever has, or ever will, have the misfortune of meeting, even Dumbledore, and for that she comes near to respecting him. She doesn’t truly, she couldn’t, not after the innocent blood she is choking on because of him, but never once has she had to fake awe at his magic. It does make her job easier, worshipping a God rather than a man.
Now, she must kneel before this God and repent. She must lay her body at his feet and hope that he will spare it. She must lay her heart at his feet and hope that he will crush it. Sometimes she wants to beg for it to end, to cut short the torture of service, for a quick mercy in death than a slow decaying in life.
But Gods are not merciful, they never have been. They demand blood and sacrifice without any concessions. Whether it be figures of myth or very real flesh-made abominations of magic, they are all the same. From The Dark lord to Dumbledore, they know only how to take. From themselves, from others, from the world. Not always are they evil (for all she does not like Albus Dumbledore, she knows he is no villain) but always are they greedy. For power, for love, for control. They speak in the language of prayer, accept the currency of blood. She hopes to have given them enough of her own, have given Him enough of her own. Her body, head and heart are oozing blood to the point she is nothing but a dizzy skeleton trying to mimic a women, trying to kill the girl. But it is not in their nature to appreciate what is given, to be thankful. In this Lord Voldemort is the truest God there is.
When his red eyed gaze lands upon her she thinks to freeze up. She is beginning to shake and sweat and she tries to stop - Only a fool would look at the sun without sunglasses. Are you a fool? - but she can’t. There is no protection in this hall, and Voldemort’s fury is more scathing than any sun. She knows how this is taken - Voldemort will interpret this as cowardice, something that he has never accused her of before, and the other Death Eaters will rejoice at one of his favourites, another women who has risen too high, finally falling down to the rest of them. The elder Avery is practically vibrating with glee at seeing Voldemorts punishments when he’s not the one at the end of his wand.
“My Lord” she addresses him dropping to her knees, and hopes she can mimic the same reverence muggles reserved for their Gods.
He flashes cold, white teeth. “Alicent” he says as he hisses the C in her name.
She waits to see if he will continue. He does not.
“I present you one of Dumbledore’s finest, Gideon Prewett, My Lord.”
Voldemort’s eyes seem to flash an even brighter shade of ruby red. “Yes, I can see that. I can also only see one of Dumbledore’s finest. Shall we be expecting the other soon? Is he running late perhaps?”
The crowd of sycophants let out laughs than that, each one more desperate to please than the last. She excuses them of this, it was a funny joke as far as Voldemort’s go.
She keeps her head bowed near to the floor and speaks as quietly as is respectful. “I beg your forgiveness, My Lord, for my failure. I have betrayed your trust with my incompetence. Fabian Prewett was slain during a botched escape.”
The hall is clouded in silent anticipation at that, all apart from pained grunts that come from the prisoner behind her at the confirmation of his bothers death.
She ignores the echo of a little girl begging her not to dismisses. The one who would have called him Gideon. Don’t think about him. Not here, not now. There is no Alicent and Gideon, only soldier and prisoner.
She feels a cold hand amongst her hair and follows the motion through as she is pulled into a more upright kneeling position. Voldemort grabs her chin with him other hand and gives her no where to look but into his own irises, not that she would be foolish enough not to follow his direction, but its only comforting having no option but to obey. Grounding.
She awaits the intrusive presence of the Dark Lord in her consciousness (always the Dark Lord when he’s in her mind) and is not disappointed when she is dragged back to the gory scene of Fabian earlier. She watches herself from a corner of her mind as she sees the body, as her incompetent brother-in-arms incinerates any sign of previous life, as she slashes his throat open and he falls to the forest floor.
(She does not watch as she casts the imperius on some unsuspecting, but entirely deserving, lackey. She doesn’t watch as she readies the corpse. Those are shrouded in the deepest depths of her mind, where she has laid all the protections she can. Those things never happened.)
Suddenly she is present again at Lestrange Manor. Voldemort looks disappointed, likely in her leadership, but not furious and so she knows she has passed this round.
Using the hand on her jaw, Voldemort carelessly tosses her to the side, where she raggedly lands at the feet of Bellatrix.
“My, my, my,” Voldemort says as he slowly starts towards the prisoner struggling at his feet. “It is so nice of you to join us here. A shame the same cannot be said of your brother.”
Bellatrix goddamn cackles in her ear at that as soon as Alicent has righted herself, so much so she may be more worried for the health of her ears after that torture than any punishment that awaits her later. Never one to be outdone. Goddamn Blacks.
The prisoner gives that no response. “Don’t feel like talking? Hmm, that’s okay you will. Trust me” and he steps closer to the prisoner “you will.”
The prisoner looks furious at that, just as she knew he would. He never has taken well to people questioning his honour, his loyalty, his courage. A true Gryffindor.
Yet he does something not even she anticipated he would be foolish enough to do. He spits at the Dark Lords feet.
She should have predicted he would. It is not an original impulse, after all any who are dragged before the Dark Lord are unlikely to be pleased with their situation. She knows Evan, whilst no Gryffindor, always strained under such servitude and had a rash temper to pair it with, had considered it. Yet even then he would have always shown restraint, as did everyone in this hall. She never expected the man in front of her to be the one not to, she honestly thought he was less showy than that.
Voldemort, however, almost seems to be amused by it. At least much more so that Bellatrix who has just cried out twice as loud as she did before.
“Dumbledore will not come to save you now” he tells the prisoner at his feet. “There is no one here to stop you from… Crucio”
Gideon, for all his bravado, screams.
And Alicent, for all her self-control, flinches.
Its only a momentary slip of control, and not one that will be costly to her. If anyone even did spot it they would simply put it down to knowing it will be her next. But she would be lying if she said it didn’t feel costly. For a fraction of a second, she was terrified. She shouldn’t beat herself up about it, she is literally facing an image that has been her worst nightmare for years, one that she has given everything to prevent happening, yet she cannot help it.
Her mind immediately feels overwhelmed by images of her own failures, of how many more there will be. It is possibly the worst time for this to happen, for her to become suffocated with fear. She is being watched, both inside and outside of her mind. She feels all the versions of herself she has killed looking on in horror at who she is, at what she’s doing. The lonely child who recognises the panic of showing too much when its not safe. The overwhelmed teenager who loves like its all she knows how to do when its the only thing she is sure she does not know how to do.
She remembers a conversation with her sister once. They can’t have been old, maybe 11 or 12, or they could have been as old as 16, and she doesn’t remember what had happened either. She just remembers she was scared. It wasn’t important what of, she often looses her memory of what she’s scared of when she’s scared, just that she felt she was drowning under water and nothing would ever be clear to her again.
“Breathe” Marceline says to her. “Don’t panic, its just me, your sister. We won’t let anything happen to us now.”
“How can you be sure I won’t let something happen to us?” She said as soon as she had the air to do so.
“Because I know you. You are my own heart, as I am yours, and you will do everything to keep that heart beating. So just breathe.”
It helps now, although she shouldn’t be surprised. It is for her sister she does this too, to repay the fear she saved her from as a girl by alleviating any fear her sister might feel as an adult. Marceline never left her alone as a girl, not if she could help it, not even when it would have been better for her to do so, so Alicent will do the same now. For her sister she will pull herself together.
All of this feels like a burden she has been consumed with for hours, but it really only lasted the approximately 10 seconds of screaming she hears. Distantly she is grateful He doesn’t feel like elongating the show.
Once Voldemort cuts the spell of abruptly, the prisoner sags.
“Take him to the cells. You know the procedure.” He directs the order at stiff and unyielding Rodolphus, who hurries to command.
Just as Rodolphus grabs a hold of the chains (and honestly, we’re wizards, why have we used chains? They’re dreadfully clanky) the prisoner looks up. Directly into her eyes.
For a split second she could almost mistake them for the Dark Lords eyes himself, all she sees is a bloody red in them. She knows she doesn’t, the prisoner has warm hazel eyes, a delightful mix of green and brown that has always comforted her, but in that split second all she can see in red. Like it is his lifeblood leaking out of his gaze. Gryffindor red.
But then the moment passes and nothing but distain is left in its place. After all, what else would a member of the Order of the Phoenix reserve for one of Voldemorts most trusted?
Rodolphus and the prisoner leave and she feels all eyes turn to her.
She knows what is coming, it is not pleasant but it will be made no more by lying to herself.
So she moves to her knees in front of this real god of blood and magic and securely locks the girl in the backs of her mind. Keep her in the dark, let only the woman remain.
Then the woman begins the first of her screams.