Content Warning: Death Eater Badness


Relief consumed his entire person at the words Sasha delivered to him. The closer she came, the more determined he became to have her in his arms. He had managed to sit up and scoot a bit towards her, wrapping his arms around her weakly. So desperately, Devin wanted to be strong now—he wanted his muscles to not be so fatigued. The torture had left them aching and shakily protesting motion, but he managed to get them around the blonde, his hand locking together behind her and urging her even closer to him. Devin wanted to be strong now, so he could hold her tightly—so he could maybe make her feel the tiniest bit safer. But he did the best he could—and there was no reason, at all, to feel safe from anything. Death was surely upon them now.

Every day of his life, he had lived with the desire to live. He had never wanted to die—never considered suicide…but for a few minutes tonight when he had been writhing under the torture curse, he had longed for death. There had even been moments when he had believed he deserved it. But that had all been wrong. He hadn’t hurt Sasha that way. He hadn’t wronged her---and Merlin, she obviously truly cared for him. He didn’t want to die now. He needed to live—and he needed her to live. The thought of everything being over now was utterly heartbreaking. That single thought caused his insides to twist and turn and crumble worse than anything he had experienced so far.

There was someone who cared about him. He genuinely mattered to someone else for the first time in his life. This could not be the end. He couldn’t have this for just a few seconds. Whatever gods there were out there---if there were any---couldn’t be that cruel, could they? Devin managed to tighten his grip on Sasha, despite the protest his muscles made. His arms shook as he held her. ”I’m so sorry,” he promised again, his face buried into her hair. He had been such a fool for something outside. He cost them everything. His throat was constricting and his eyes were watery once more. It felt so brutally unfair. The apology was whispered again and again, though his voice was hardly audible.

Devin did not look up at the Death Eater. He did not want to see the flash of green light. He did not want to know that it was coming. Because it was surely coming. Rabastan Lestrange was going to murder the pair of them right here in the street. No one was going to do anything about it---and that was smart. To intercede would be utterly foolish...It was barely comprehensible to him that Sasha would have come out here. He would have done it for her, too, but that she did it for him---that blew him away. He wished she hadn’t, but he got to feel things he had never experienced before because she had. He did not dare say—even to himself---that she loved him, but this certainly felt a lot like being loved.

The Death Eater seemed to be just standing there. It was fucked up—to just lord over them this way. But what could be done about it? Nothing. Devin could barely move. Sasha didn’t have that wand anymore. There was no one coming to the rescue. All they could do was wait—and for however long they had, Devin was not going to focus on the mad man towering over them. He was going to focus on Sasha. He breathed in the scent of her, clenching his eyes and focusing on the warmth of her body pressed against him. All of him ached and stun with the reverberations of the torture curse, but he would not pay attention to that. He would not let the fucked shit that this murderous lunatic did to him define the last moments of his life. He would define them---and he would dedicate them to the woman in his arms.

”You’re beautiful,” he choked out—the words a confession of so much more than the compliment they offered. His arms shook and slipped for a moment, before he managed to tighten his grip on Sasha. He lifted his head to kiss her once more, but before Devin was able to bestow that affection, Rabastan seemed to snap back to reality to absolutely go off the rails. The Death Eater was ranting and raving about how they were magic thieves and dirt and scum and worthless. It was all very loud and intense against the still of the night. Magic started flying and the first thing was the stinging hexes.

Devin yelped at the sharp snap of magic against his skin- The little explosion from the hexes birthed welts on his arms and legs. There was no difference in the effect of the spell whether the area of contact was covered by clothes or not. His brain was not working at its best, but it became clear that this was not a coordinated attack. As the cutting curses began to rain down on the pair, Devin did his best to push Sasha down and cover her. He managed to put his back towards the Death Eater and shield her face and chest. He was trying to keep her from as much damage as possible—and really this was hardly painful after what he had already endured.

When the Imperius curse had been lifted, it had all come back to her. Sasha couldn’t believe what she had said--she couldn’t believe what she had done. She had been standing practically right against the Death Eater, his wand had been in her hand. It was the first time she’d had a real wand in her hand in nearly a year and she had used that to torture Devin. If she had been stronger, if she had been able to break free of the Imperius, she could have tried to use it against the Death Eater. That was what she should have done, but she hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t been strong enough to even consider it; there hadn’t been even a flicker of doubt in her mind when she had been under the curse. Sasha hadn’t thought for one second that she was doing something that she shouldn’t be, or didn’t want to be. Breaking free of it was something she hadn’t even had the strength to consider.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself from hurting him, even if that was the last thing that she wanted to do. Sasha didn’t want to admit that he meant anything to her. The lit of people that she cared about was an exceptionally short one and he wasn’t meant to be on it. But their relationship had been growing steadily more complicated in the passing months. She hadn’t meant for it to. It had started out as just sleeping next to each other, and she honestly hadn’t thought too much of that. She hadn’t been fooling herself, or lying to herself, or convincing herself that she didn’t care about him when she did. It had just been convenient--having someone to keep her warm at night. After nights of shivering and feeling like she was going to freeze to death before the sun came up, having him there had been nice. Sasha had deemed it necessarily to all but ignore him during the day to prove a point. But somewhere along the line, it had gotten complicated.

Sasha hadn’t wanted to say that it was because they shagged. She wasn’t going to be that girl, the one that thought a bloke had to care about her because he shagged her, that thought that it automatically meant something more when it usually didn’t. She hadn’t thought that. And she hadn’t gotten clingy afterwards like some girls did. She just could admit to herself that it had complicated things further. It had blurred lines, it had made it harder for her to keep things in boxes and keep feelings separate. Somewhere along the line, things had changed, and tonight she had hurt him. She had come out here to try to help him and she had done the opposite. She had been under the Imperius, yes, but she hadn’t been strong enough to break through it. Part of her had wanted to think that she could be, from what little she’d thought of the spell before today anyhow--but she hadn’t been. And she had hurt him.

Seeing him like this wasn’t something that she was used to. In any other situation, she would likely be incredibly uncomfortable by it. She was used to his clever banter, to him never letting any of her insults get to him--to that cockiness that she didn’t want to admit that she liked. The sight before her was something that she wasn’t used to, but she was a mess too. She was still bleeding from where the Death Eater had struck her, she was still shaking. She barely registered the fact that her shoes were gone, that she was covered in dirt and blood. It didn’t matter right now. None of it really mattered, because they were likely both about to die anyway. In any other situation, she’d be uncomfortable with the tears… uncomfortable with how awful she looked, focused on the fact that her face was throbbing because she wasn’t used to physical violence. But in this situation, none of that mattered. They were probably going to die--it seemed the most likely conclusion to this night.

It was enough to make her want to cry, and she didn’t cry for real. She cried to get her way, but she had not really cried in Merlin knew how long, before today. She didn’t want to die; she wanted out of this situation and back home, and the last thing that she wanted was for all of it to be over. But she had come out here, and now that was likely what was going to happen. She was going to die. Would they even move their bodies? Probably not. It would be a decent way of proving a point. That meant Mari would see her, and her best friend would realize that she was on her own. She didn’t want that to happen either, but what could she do? There was no way of getting out of this that she could see; not unless the Death Eater chose to let them go, which seemed unlikely. At the very least, she didn’t think that she wanted to see it coming. It made it easier to focus on Devin, especially since she needed him to know that she hadn’t meant anything that she’d said, that she hadn’t wanted to curse him. He needed to know that if they were going to die.

She knew that he was more injured than she was, partially because of her, but she didn’t stop him as he wrapped his arms around her. A part of her wanted him to protect her. She wanted to think that he could keep her safe. In general, she did think that of him. When he slept next to her at night, she didn’t feel like anything bad was going to happen. She felt safe. She wanted to feel like that now, even though she knew that neither one of them really stood a chance of stopping the Death Eater from doing whatever he wanted. “It’s okay…” It was really the only thing that she could say. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t have anything to apologize for. She had come out here of her own free will--and before that, even, she had been the one that had purposefully tried to make him jealous by bringing up Jesse. She had been the reason they got into a fight, and the reason that he had left the apartment anyhow. If she hadn’t said anything, they would be asleep by now and not in this situation at all. Sasha had just wanted to see if he would get jealous, and… it had just escalated. She hadn’t even gotten what she had wanted out of the situation.

The compliment that came next wasn’t what she had been expecting. She had never been lacking for confidence, but she knew for an absolute fact that she did not look all that beautiful. Sasha thought that he meant more than that though, which somehow meant more in the moment than anything else would. But it was also something that she didn’t know how to reply to. Even in this moment, when they were probably about to die together, she couldn’t think of anything deep and meaningful to say in response. She didn’t know how to answer him telling her she was beautiful. “That’s a little hard to believe, Wright.” She couldn’t help it. Sass came easier to her than anything else. He was going to kiss her though… she could tell that he was going to, and she would have let him, but the Death Eater’s voice broke the silence, loud enough to startle her, and look toward him in time to see the magic start flying.

She cried out at the sting of the hexes against her, unsure of what to do to avoid them. It wasn’t as painful as her brief bout of the torture curse, but pain was pain to her and she wasn’t the best at dealing with it. Before she could think through of any way to avoid the blows, Devin was attempting to shield her. As much as she knew she shouldn’t let him, when he was more hurt than she was, she let him push her down and shield her. She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t know what to do beside let him try to shield her. She shouldn’t, but fighting him to try to protect him would likely only end up injuring the both of them more.

Rabastan had lost all control of himself and his magic. His spells were raining down everywhere. Fewer and fewer were actually managing to hit the targets, but he did not even notice this inaccuracy. The wizard was ranting and raving—his eyes wild and wide as he screamed at the pair about how they disgusted him. He was just so angry. This was nothing new, but his elixirs normally kept the worst of it at bay. Now, he could not suppress it. So much had been taken away from him—his very best years had been spent locked away in Azkaban. The world was finally set to rights now, but he was no longer himself. He was no longer the person that had been shipped to that cold, horrible island in 1981.

It was not just his anger that was causing him to lose control. The exhaustion from his magical exertion was absolutely draining the man. This diminished the accuracy of his wandless casting and the potency of the spells he was creating. Further, the longer that this drug on, the more he felt the withdrawal symptoms begin to set in. It had been hours and hours now since he had last tasted the beautiful sunshine that flowed from his little yellow vials. Months had passed now since he had experienced this. Withdrawals had not been part of his life since the revolt against Durant. In the work camp, he would occasionally have to go the length of the day without a dosing, but since the purists had been in power, he had been dosing very regularly. In the beginning, Rabastan had been indulgent, letting intoxication completely overtake him for the length of the day.

In those first months when Ares was in power, the Lestrange would drink vial after vial of the Elixir to Induce Euphoria and lose himself in his necromancy. He would sing—and his deep voice would fill the entirety of his mausoleum. The bass tones echoing off the stone and reverberating around him as he worked. He had been confident then that he could find a way to bring Bellatrix back. The work he did in those days was all fruitless. He could easily reanimate an army of Inferi, but those were mindless slaves. He wanted to resurrect the first Black sister. The beauty that he carried in his mind deserved to live and breathe in this new world---in this world where justice prevailed, Bella deserved this world and it deserved her.

But try as he might, he could bring her back…or had not managed to do so yet. He had not spent any time even trying of late. Since Valentine’s Day, Rabastan had given his attentions to Athena and somewhat to his work at the Ministry. He had hopes for his son. The bastard that Alecto had hidden from him was an interesting protégé, if the boy could be called that. There had been no significant bonding between the pair, but Rab had—at the very least—not killed him yet. That was not to say he would…just that he had not yet done so. Perhaps a test of paternity was actually in order…Alecto and Amycus were always undeniably close. The boy could be Carrow and Carrow instead of Carrow and Lestrange—he certainly had that aesthetic.

These children huddled before him were receiving the outburst of so much pent up frustration. Rabastan was barely even aware of who they were anymore. He just needed something to rage at, anything to direct his fury and disappointment. His heart still ached for Bellatrix--even as this figment of his imagination embraced him, whispered to him. He wanted something more. He found companionship with Athena, but that was different than what he had once shared with Bellatrix. Neither woman had ever been to his bed, but with Athena it felt all to be a game--likely for power--and with Bellatrix, she had shared in his delight for indulgences in intoxicants and he followed her eagerly into all matters of macabre madness. 

The torments of Azkaban that his elixirs kept away were pressing down on him. He could not be free of them--he fired off hex after hex at guards long gone with Devin and Sasha as his stand-in targets. The Bellatrix that danced in his mind applauded this, encouraging the outburst, the less grip Rabastan had on reality and on the present, the stronger her appearance grew, the stronger she grew in her control over the Lestrange. His body was moving in jerky, unnatural ways now. The catatonia was creeping up on him. He was not aware of it just yet. It was not absolute in its grasp on him. So, still the rain of curses and hexes continued, fewer and fewer finding their target, more and more fizzling on the ground around the pair of mudbloods.

Devin could not even really feel the magical cuts slashing through his shirt and into his back. His body was so overstimulated from his extended exposure to the torture curse that he could not register the new injuries. Later, he would experience them much more vividly. Once the pain of the Cruciatus had settled into his muscles as a dull ache and was only really tormenting him with the memories that Rabastan had unearthed, then he would feel these wounds. They would sting and burn and shout at him when he next stood in the cold shower he shared with everyone else on his floor. They would linger, unwilling to heal for next few weeks, continuing to smart each time his clothing rubbed against his skin, reminding him over and over of this night. But for now—for now, they were nothing.

The Death Eater was rubbish at actually managing to land spells on the pair of them now anyway. Devin could see in his peripheral that a great deal of magic was raining down out around them, sparking and exploding against the dirt and stone. This man was absolutely off his rocker. The words that the Lestrange was yelling at them did not even make sense to Devin any more. They were not focused insults, but rambling diatribes that the Wright could not follow. He did not even know why he was trying. What did it matter what this purist had to say? Devin was likely to die at the man’s hands, but who he was, that was not defined by this lunatic.

The screeching went on as they huddled there on the ground. It was almost a rest for Devin. Sasha was relatively safe. The pain now was so much less than it had been with the torture curse. This was not so bad. His arms were shaky, but he was keeping himself pushed up off of the girl. He would not just lay down against her—even in this state, he was concerned about her comfort and did not want to hurt her in any way. Despite the sort of men he had seen with his mother—his father being the worst of them—Devin has somehow turned out to be a gentleman. He cared for Sasha—and wanted to do whatever he could to lessen any suffering she experienced. It might have seemed foolish to an onlooker (or even to him if Devin had thought about it) for him to be worrying about the discomfort the weight of his body resting against her now could cause since they were likely to soon be dead, but he wasn’t thinking very logically in this moment. Everything he did was instinct now. Any energy or strength his body had was fueled by adrenaline and the human drive to survive.

So, he just waited, there on the ground, being cut, seared, and burned over and over again by the random curses and hexes that managed to find their mark. The shirt he wore was basically rags now, but he did not feel any chill. Tonight was warmer than many they had experience of late, but tomorrow could be frigid again. There was really no telling with this time of year. The idea of being concerned about the weather was laughable. Devin was so far removed from such mundane worries. Rain or shine, warm or cold, he had never been able to spare much thought about what the weather might be. Thinking of that, worrying over it, that was something reserved for those who did not have to spend their hours antagonizing over where their next meal would come from…or how to keep a rough over their head. When his mum would get all cracked out and they would get evicted by another slumlord, it always was Devin responsibility to find somewhere for he and his baby sister to spend the night. The shelters filled up fast, but he did well to keep her sheltered…until he left for Hogwarts, anyway.

That was the most selfish thing he had ever done in his life—and he would never really forgive himself for it. She was dead, because he had not been there to take care of her. So, he would take care of those around him now for as long as he could. If he survived tonight, Devin would continue his life of penance—doing for others to hopefully make up for what he did not do for that precious little girl. It was impossible not to think about her now. Rabastan had unearthed so many memories in him. The experience of the torture curse was unlike anything that Devin had ever imagined. The physical pain that attacked in the beginning was horrible, but it paled in comparison to the mental fuckery that extended exposure to the curse induced. It was really no surprise that the magic was known to drive victims mad. He doubted he would ever really recover from the experience. If he lived through the night, he would be a different man than the person who had stepped out that apartment building door. Devin had always been jaded, but he had buried down all the horrible things that had happened to him. He had never dealt with all that baggage—and now, he was drowning in it. There was no good way to work through a lifetime of abuse and horror; not when it all was pressing down on you at once.

Devin did not know what to do now. He huddled over Sasha and tried to keep her from as much harm as he could. That was all he could think of to do. What else was there? There was no out. There was no means to fight. They had to simply endure and hope….or perhaps pray…that the Death Eater would spare them. The Wright had never been one to believe in god. His maternal grandparents—not that he had ever met them—were Angelican. He knew this from crass comments his junkie mother would throw out whenever they passed St. Paul’s Cathedral. He had never been into any church at all other than to get clothes or other charity from them. Even before learning he was a wizard, he’d never bought into religion or there being any sort of god. He didn’t think much of it—but when he did, his line of thinking was always more in line with the notion that if there was some supreme deity out watching over everyone, that he, she or it was a right prick and could sod off.

But now, what could it hurt to pray? There was not much else to be done. Letting his head drop down, barely resting against Sasha’s blonde curls, Devin closed his eyes. He had no idea what to say or how a person was supposed to pray. He didn’t think he had to be aloud, so he kept his lips pressed closed. The words formed in his mind:

Not real sure how I’m supposed to do this shit—I mean rubbish—I mean praying. Not that praying is trash….Oh bloody hell…Guess it is pretty easy to tell that I haven’t done this before. I don’t even know what your name is. God? That’s more of what you are, if you are. Guess I shouldn’t be so doubtful, if I’m giving talking to you a go….Hard though, life’s been something of a clusterfuck and haven’t really seen you coming and doing anything about it. Sis dying is a bloody shame, too. Couldn’t just kill Mum earlier and let Jen live? Maybe get her into a nice little family? Ain’t trying to talk about that, though. Here to plead for my life actually. Don’t much want to die, you know? Don’t much want Sasha to either.

Just found out this girl here cares about me…and I care about her, too. It would be great to see where that goes for a bit. Ya know? If you wouldn’t mind, letting us live for a bit longer. Not going to be greedy and ask to grow old with her. Ain’t much of a believer in fairy tales…but I’d like to love her for a while, if you’d let me.

So, yeah—please don’t let this maniac murder us. That’s it really. Just don’t want to die…Please…and if, uh, one of has to go, let it be me. She’s better than dying in the street. Yeah? Okay. Thanks.

Devin did not think his prayer was much a prayer. He had mucked up the beginning quite a bit. Then gotten off on that tangent about his sister—but maybe he had finished up alright. There had been no shortage of sincerity in his last words. He really did want to live. He would still sacrifice himself, if he could, to spare Sasha, but it would be much preferable for them both to see morning.

Sasha hadn’t really thought all that much about the future. Not since they were taken from the school one by one and brought here. She didn’t know how long this was going to last. She didn’t know if they would be trapped here for years, or if the end was in sight and they just didn’t see it yet. She didn’t know those answers and she didn’t think it was worth getting all knotted up and worried trying to figure it out. Even if she didn’t know when all of this was going to end, Sasha had always known that she wanted to be around to see it. She knew that she wanted to survive, to make it through, and that was what she had been trying to do. Merlin knew that she wasn’t much of a survivor. Not really. There hadn’t been anything that she’d honestly needed to survive, before this. She wasn’t tough--wasn’t physically strong, in any sense of the word. Sure, she could make someone cry with the right combination of insults, or even just a look depending on the person. But she had never really had to survive.

And then she had come here. She had known that she hadn’t wanted to die, she had known that she had to learn how to adapt to the situation. Sasha didn’t know if she had actually been doing all that good of a job at that. There was only so much that she could do. There was only so much adjusting that one person that used to have everything could do, when she now had nothing. She was trying. That was all that she could do, was try. When she had first moved into the apartments, the sheer sight of the bathrooms disgusted her--let alone actually showering in them. Once she had actually considered herself to use the shower, the fact that they only had cold water was incomprehensible to her. But she had adapted. There were some things that she had been able to adapt to in the near year that she had been stuck in this place, and she knew that a lot of that was because of Devin. He had been looking out for her even when she hadn’t wanted to see it--he could do very little about the temperature of the water in the shower, obviously, but he had helped in the ways that he could.

That didn’t change who she was, though, and the way that she was. She couldn’t let her guard down or be nice and give him the idea that whatever they had going on actually meant something. It was far easier to be a bitch to him, or ignore him, or do whatever it took to make sure he realized that what they had was… a mutually beneficial relationship, where she didn’t go to bed freezing every night and he… well, he got to sleep with her pressed all up against him every night. Or something. That was the only real benefit that she could see that he got from it, and she had done everything she could to make sure that was… all it was. She had ignored proof that it was more, ignored her own feelings when things started getting complicated. It had got them into this. She had started this whole mess and she knew it. As much as Devin surely thought this was his fault for coming outside, she was the one that had baited him to begin with. She had been the one that had brought up Jesse, literally to see if he could get jealous. And to try to prove to herself that she didn’t care about Devin. She had done that.

Had she known that they would get in an argument? No. She had thought that they would have their usual back and forth, and she would prove whatever she’d needed to, to herself. She hadn’t expected to get upset, for him to get upset, or for the conversation to get as real as it had. But that was exactly what had happened. It had led them to this, and now she didn’t know what was going to happen. She didn’t think that the Death Eater was just going to let them go at this point--she wanted to hope that he would. That he wouldn’t have put her under the Imperius curse, wouldn’t have had her hurt Devin, if he was just going to kill them. Why not have her kill him under the curse, and have him die thinking that it had been her, no curse involved? Why not lift the curse for her to find out she’d killed him, and then kill her too? He had lifted the curse, he had to think that making her life with the guilt was worse. And maybe it would be. It wasn’t that she wanted to die, but she wasn’t sure how she was ever going to be able to forgive herself for torturing him.

She wasn’t sure how he could forgive her either. If they got out of this, she thought there was a good chance that he’d never want to talk to her again. Not like she could blame him for that. This night, if they even made it through it, was going to ruin everything. Change everything. All because of some stupid argument that was completely her fault. Spells were hitting the ground around them--even with her eyes closed she could tell by the noises of them impact. She thought it seemed like more were hitting the ground than Devin, and he was shielding her from really being hit at all. He shouldn’t be. He was more hurt than she was, but fighting him on that wouldn’t have likely done her all that much good. And with how small she was, Sasha wasn’t all that sure that she would have been able to block much of anything anyhow. It was only when she opened her eyes that she was able to see that most of the curses were hitting the ground around them. Had he completely lost it? Sasha couldn’t really get a good look at the Death Eater with Devin blocking her, but her eyes did move to the door to their building.

Sasha didn’t know if it was even worth trying. She didn’t know if they could even make it, or why the Death Eater was barely even hitting them anymore. She knew that it couldn’t be intentional. While the curses crashing around them was terrifying, surely he’d gain more satisfaction from actually inflicting pain on them--physical or otherwise. Scaring them with missed curses didn’t do much of anything. But she didn’t know what could cause him to act like this either… not in the slightest. She didn’t know if running would draw his focus back to them, or if he was so out of it with these random curses that maybe they could get away with it. There was no way of knowing. It was times like these that she very much felt like she was anything but a Gryffindor. If she was braver, she would just risk it if it meant living. But she wasn’t sure if that was what it meant, and she didn’t want to make another wrong choice. Some of them curses would likely hit them on the way in, since they were landing just about everywhere around them, but maybe that was a risk they should be willing to take? “Devin…” Her gaze was still on the door. She didn’t want to be the one that made this decision--she didn’t know what the right thing to do was.

He had prayed. He had prayed with all the sincerity he could manage. Who he had prayed to he wasn’t sure—but he had prayed all the same. The plea had resonated from the depths of his belly—the place that some said the soul resides. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want Sasha to die. Nor did he want this maniac towering over them to hurt her any more than he already had. She would surely be through with him now that his stupid pride had brought this misfortune down on the pair of him. He could have just stayed inside. All this because he had caught all these feelings for her and she wanted to bang Jesse. If she wanted to shag somebody what could Devin say against it? She had every right to do as she wished. He wouldn’t stand in the way of whatever she wanted if they lived through this.

But could she really want Jesse? She had to have some kind of feelings for Devin to have come out here. His mind could faintly recall the scream of her voice—the sharp plea for Rabastan to stop. That memory was fuzzy and far away, but it was real. Wasn’t it? So many images and sounds had bombarded his mind during the eternity writhing under the torture curse: some real, others fake. It was hard to be sure what came from reality and what was twisted cruelty from his mind. But whether she had cried out or not—she was here. She had come to his defense in a situation where there was no real hope or chance of saving him. She threw herself into danger—for him. It could not have been thought out. The girl had no plan. This was all instinct. It was proof that he mattered to her—that she cared…and he loved her for that.

It meant more than he could comprehend or even think of just then to be important to someone. His life mattered to this incredible, perhaps insane woman. No matter what happened now, he was a lucky man. He just really wanted to not die tonight. Life was enough of a ponce to do him that way—to let a girl like Sash give a fuck about him and then kill him as soon as he found out. That would pretty much fit the tune his life had so far…

The torture was hardly torture now. The curses that hit him were weak, barely slicing or searing his skin. Truly, Devin did not even feel them anymore. More and more magic fizzled out mid-air. The babbling from the Death Eater was utterly incoherent now. Stealing a glance back at the man, the sight struck Devin as all too familiar. There was much about Rabastan Lestrange’s appearance that reminded the boy of his mother descending into a withdrawal fit. The man was pasty and pale—sweat pooled on his skin despite the cool of the night. His eyes, they were not focused. The world was slipping away. Devin could see it happening. What kind of fool let himself get into such a state when they clearly did not have to? It wasn’t surprising that Rabastan Lestrange was an addict—but it was surprising that the Death Eater would be going without whatever his drug of choice was for long enough to get to this state. Guess it was easy to get caught up in torturing kids and forget your pick me up.

Sasha said Devin’s name and he quickly gave her his attention. Her eyes weren’t on him, but on the door to their building. Could they make a run for it? Would the lunatic even notice? Devin glanced back at the Lestrange. Rabastan was growing jerky in his motions. There was no elegance to his casting now. Everything about the man seemed stiff and unnatural. His eyes were glazed over. Devin saw no signs that the Death Eater was even aware of them anymore. There were breaks in the mirage of hexes now. Times when that Rabastan stood in an awkward position, half through the performing of a spell, frozen in space and time it seemed. The purist was not really with them anymore. The catonia had taken hold of him. Rabastan was in Bellatrix’s embrace.

Perhaps they could make a run for it…

Was that absolutely ludacris? To run from a Death Eater seemed insane…but to just stay here when Rabastan so clearly had lost touch with reality was surely idiotic. Devin really did not want to make another mistake. He didn’t want to do something that would bring more pain down on the pair of them. He glanced back at the Death Eater again. The spells had stopped. Rabastan stood absolutely still. His arms were bent at unnatural angles—each an opposite way. The man’s entire body was stiff—frozen there. It was absolutely bizarre to see.

How long could such a state last? Devin had no idea—and he did not want to wait around to find out. ”Yes, on three, we’ll get up and go for it,” he whispered, beginning to push up to his hands and knees, still crouching over Sasha. The movements were a struggle and he groaned from the pain and effort of the task. Pausing for a moment to rest his head on her shoulder, Devin drew a shaky, deep breath. He peeked back at the Death Eater. There was no change. The man seemed completely obvious to any movement Devin had made. Maybe this could work...

”I am going to be right behind you—But I need you to just go, do you understand, Sasha? You run with all you have for that door—“ He tried his very best to make his voice stern. Devin was far more worried about the girl than about himself. He knew he was not going to be able to run. Crawl maybe, walk if he was lucky, but certainly not run. But he needed her to get to safety. If whatever trance Rabastan Lestrange was in broke, Devin needed her to be safe. If someone was going to die tonight, it should be him---a piece of trash from Hackney…not her, this posh girl with her family fortune. Because someday, this bullshit life that muggleborns were living would be over. Change would come and she could go back to her life. She had a life worth going back to.

The landscape around him was shifting. The light he had conjured dimmed until it completely faded away. He had not dismissed it verbally, but as the darkness pushed in and took hold of his mind, the extinguishing of the light had occurred. Darkness settled over the dirt and gravel—but Rabastan was seeing something else altogether. This was worse than just being drawn in by Bellatrix. The witch in his mind was even slipping from him. It was pain and loss and rage that took hold now—drawing the wizard back to the worst moments of his life. Onsets like this were rare these days. But still, when they occurred, they were utterly crippling. It was incomprehensibly difficult to shake the shackles of solitary confinement. Those endless days and nights of torment had eroded the purist’s mind. He could never again be what he once was.

Standing here now, Rabastan was caught in the grips of his insanity and tormented by the harsh lashing of withdrawals. He needed a vial of sunshine. The wizard was desperate for it. But his mind could not allow him to retreat home in pursuit of it. Instead, the mental images his broken brain brought to haunt him cemented him to the ground, to this place. The Lestrange no longer perceived the pair of mudbloods in the dirt before him. He was again a prisoner. His own mind bringing back the horrors of Azkaban. Even Bellatrix was lost to him now. Her shrill laughter had faded—the glimpses of her dancing in his peripheral were gone. The brush of curls against his cheek could no longer be felt.
He was alone.

The pressure of the cold stone could be felt. Rabastan believed himself back in the dark, dank cell in the bowels of Azkaban. The chill of the night enhanced the psychosis, validating the twisted notions of his brain. All magic had ceased to flow from gnarled hand and outstretched wand. The still and quiet were absolute. To any who looked upon the Lestrange, all that could be seen of him was the outline of his shadow through the darkness of night. He stood in what was nearly an inhuman stance, arms extended at awkward angles, legs very close together, back hunched. Someone very brave or very stupid could make a move against the man in this vulnerable state. He could not protect himself. He could not protect his wand.

That was unless he snapped out of the catatonia…which could and would happen any moment. The pair of muggleborns had a prime opportunity to escape him now. When he came back to himself, Rabastan would be in a most disoriented state. He would not immediately recall that he had the pair before him before he lost touch with reality. He would think only of his precious vials—only of how to get back to the castle or his mausoleum. They had this chance to escape with their lives.

She hadn’t wanted to die tonight. That hadn’t been something she’d even thought about when they had gotten into this ridiculous fight to begin with. She had just needed to prove to herself that she didn’t care about him--she could piss him off about Jesse and get him riled up and jealous because it amused her, and then she could go off and shag him because Devin didn’t matter to her. That had been her plan. It wasn’t as if she had any particular desire to shag Jesse. It was just something that she thought she could do to prove to herself that Devin didn’t matter. She was just doing her guy-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks thing. First with Wright, then with Jesse, and then it would be out of her system. She had thought that, just maybe, she would be able to convince herself that was true, then everything would just go back to normal. Instead, it had ended up with that fight and her crying and… this. It had gotten them both out here and she thought there was a good chance that they were going to die.

She thought that their bodies would just be found there in the morning. No one was going to move them. Sasha thought that they’d much rather prove a point, to have a good warning of what happened when Muggleborns didn’t listen to the rules. They were going to die out here because she had wanted to rile Devin up and start a fight. That was just all there was to it. Sasha didn’t think that there was any way out of this. How could there be? Devin could likely barely walk at this point, and she was not a fighter. Even the little torture that she’d been through tonight was more than she thought that she could take. She did not have an especially high pain tolerance and she didn’t think she could fight and get them out of this. Maybe if she’d broken through his Imperius while she was holding his wand, it could have been different. She could have cursed him instead of Devin, and then maybe they would be free. But that hadn’t happened. Now they were both on the ground, and she didn’t think there was a way out of this. She didn’t think there was a way to survive until morning.

At least, she hadn’t thought there was. Until the Death Eater’s actions had begun to get more and more erratic. She didn’t know what he was doing or what was going on, but it had started to seem like he was less aware of what they were doing. It wasn’t as if he was really even aiming at them at all. Sasha found it hard to believe that he would just forget that they were there, but they at least didn’t seem to have his full attention anymore. Sasha wasn’t sure if it was worth the risk, but the alternative was to not move and likely die. His attention would either go back to them eventually, or one of his haphazardly thrown curses would be one that was more serious and when it hit its target, Devin would die or she would. Likely the former, since he was blocking her from the majority of the hexes coming their way. She didn’t think that any good would come of waiting it out. She thought that taking an opportunity to ruin while his attention was elsewhere was the better option.

Sasha didn’t understand at all what was happening to him, but Death Eaters were hardly the most stable people in the world. Especially the ones that had been to Azkaban. She had only heard about the horrors of the prison but she thought it was enough to unravel most of the Death Eaters that had been there. It could have just been something like that… she didn’t know. She just knew that they might only have one chance at this, at getting out of this situation alive, and she thought that they might as well take it. Staying still and waiting to die was not a good option in her book. Running might get them killed, but it might not. They might be able to get back to the apartment in time. It was at least worth bringing up… sort of, anyway. This wasn’t the time for words or long plans, but she thought that Devin would know where her mind had gone when she had said his name with her gaze pointedly at the door to their building. Honestly, it was a valid plan even if it wasn’t their building that they were closest to. They could have hid out in another one for a while. Someone likely would have let them into their unit.

But getting back to their own was a better option, and a possible one if they made a break for it and got lucky. A few curses might hit them but nothing that he’d recently been casting in their direction would stop them in their tracks. This was possible. She wanted to believe that it was possible. Sasha nodded as he spoke, and she adjusted just a little too--enough to make it easier for her to quickly get to her feet and go. His next words stopped her movements though, and she shifted to look at him. “Can you even run…” She spoke quietly, but she thought that he’d be able to hear her just fine. She could run. She felt awful even with the only mild torture that she had been through, but she could run.

Devin, on the other hand… between the torture curse and the hexes that had been cutting him up as he blocked her… she didn’t know if he would be able to run. Sasha hadn’t come out here to watch him die because she ran off and made it to the door before he’d even gotten halfway back. If she helped him, it might slow her down a little but it would likely speed him up quite a bit. “I can help you. It’ll only slow me down a little…” Maybe more than just a little, but she wasn’t going to say that. He was much taller than her, weighed more than her, and supporting his weight would be no easy thing, but she still thought that it would get him to the door faster than if he tried to make it there himself. And she wasn’t going to just run and leave him behind.

He could not move. His body failed him once more. His mind broke away from reality and he was gone from this world. Rabastan had no awareness of the conspiracy transpiring before him--the plotting of this two little mudblood victims. He was powerless to stop them. He was completely oblivious to them. They were nothing to him now. He was nothing to his world now. So far away from it he had drifted. This was his curse. This was the punishment he carried with him now even still. Years free of Azkaban's stone walls, Rabastan was still tormented. Could he ever be truly free of that place? Could he ever heal from the damage it had dealt to his body and mind? His brother seemed so whole...Rodolphus had his wife..He had his sons. But Rabastan still warred against these scars. Was the younger Lestrange really so much weaker than his elder brother?

Rabastan did not feel weak. He had endured punishments that Rodolphus had not. His time in solitary confinement was a horror that his elder brother had escaped. Rabastan had earned that extra segregation for his lashing out in defense of Bellatrix. He had always loved her more than Rodolphus had. If Rod ever loved her at all... Not that Bella held any affection for either of the Lestrange brothers--really...sure, she let them have a go at her body now and again. But her mind, her magic, her soul--that all belonged to the Dark Lord...a bloody halfblood. How could a bloody halfblood have captured the devotion of such a witch? It was a mystery that Rabastan had never been able to understand. 

Even now, in his mind, he often argued with Bellatrix about it. The figment of his imagination and himself would have these horrible violent screaming matches about her idolizing Voldemort. Rabastan took the Dark Mark because of her--because of her and Rodolphus. He never would have followed a halfblood otherwise. But in the end, he would have pledged allegiance to a mudblood if she or Rod had asked him to. He did not know how to say no to either of them. He had never had cause to. 

And Merlin had it cost him. It had cost him everything. He had lost the best years of his life. He had lost his sanity. He had lost the chance to marry and raise children...though maybe he could still have a family with Athena....maybe---it was late, but perhaps it was not too late.