WHO: Rodolphus Lestrange and Alexandrakis Smith
WHAT: D:
WHERE: Portugal
WHEN: July 1978



Alex hated the Daily Prophet. It was no longer just a mild irritation or a simple dislike for it, he despised it. It was all he could think about as he felt a rather rough spell connect with his spine and he went crashing to the ground, his wand skittering away from his fingers and make him attempt to scramble for it when he got the strength. His fingers were so close to the wood, so close to getting back his protection, when a foot came down painfully on his neck and left him barely able to gasp for air.

He detested the Prophet.

The pressure was removed from his throat, his wand kicked away, and he was promptly rolled over by the tip of a boot. Alex was in a lot of pain. The sort of mind-numbing pain that almost didn’t feel like pain when it came down to it. His chest felt a little constricted and he was pretty sure he tasted the tiniest bit of blood in his mouth, but things were starting to just blur together and it was like one, dull, aching throb. He went to try and get up once more, but the wand pointed directly at his chest made him freeze in position. Fuck.

It wasn’t that Rodolphus was a bad person it – no, who was he kidding? He really did just get off on this hurting people thing. That qualified you for bad, didn’t it? Well, in that case, he was okay being bad. He had been quite gleeful to find out that the Dark Lord had wanted him to go off and find some poor, helpless reporter to torture to the point of begging for death just to teach the Daily Prophet a lesson on lying. Tsk, tsk. He was very fond of teaching lessons. He had found the boy rather easily, taken him without too hard of a fuss, and the dueling was just borderline pathetic. When he finally managed to get him on the ground, his wand pointed at his chest which wasn’t even daring to rise and fall with breath at the moment, Rodolphus couldn’t help but smirk.

“No wonder you became a reporter. You’re rubbish at this, aren’t you?” He pursed his lips, sighed, and shrugged in a mock-disappointment. “And I thought I was going to have a challenge.”

He flicked his wrist gently, using his wand to lift the reporter up off the ground, and grinned lightly behind his mask. He would have loved to be able to take it off, let the boy look into his face and feel that much more fear, but he knew that it would just run a risk. He wasn’t allowed to kill this one, he couldn’t be cocky. He dangled him there for a moment, clicking his tongue, before he moved a bit closer.

“What’s your name, boy?” When he received no answer, he let out a chuckle of amusement, before quickly slamming him into the ground again. His put his wand to his neck, twisting it against his flesh, and leaned his face down close to his. “Don’t be rude, now. I asked you a question. What’s. Your. Name?”

Alex cried out in pain when he felt his ribs smash into the ground first, followed quickly by his wrists, legs, and head. His mind spun, the world was covered in spots, and he was pretty sure he wanted to vomit. He gasped sharply at the wand prodding against his nerves, whimpering at the twist, and suddenly wishing he’d just stayed home. He didn’t even like his job. He could’ve been back in England, curled up with Gracie – or, well, trying to, at least, given that they – Oh, God, they were still fighting. He was so cold to her before he left and – and – oh fuck.

Just… Just fuck.

His normally defiant attitude melted away. If he was short and cheeky like he always was, there was no way he’d get out of this alive, right? The thought of leaving Graciela on such bad terms – the thought of never seeing her again, never hearing her laugh or smile, the thought of not getting to marry her like he’d planned on… The thought of Zacharias not having a father it… It was too much for him. He clenched his jaw for a moment, trying to fight back the surge of pain and regret in him, before he muttered, quietly, almost inaudibly, “Alex Smith.”

“What was that?” Rodolphus twisted the wand harder, shoving harder, and trying not to laugh as the reporter shouted, “ALEX SMITH.” Brilliant. He pulled his wand off of his throat, standing fully and looking at the mess on the ground before him. “Alex. Short for Alexander, I imagine.” Haha! If only. “That’s supposed to be a strong name, I hear.” He snickered when Alex opened his mouth to speak, but seemed to think better of it and shut it again. “You don’t seem very strong to me, Alex.”

Clearing his throat, he walked around Alex slowly, twirling his wand in his fingers and placing his tongue between his teeth in thought. He was debating how far to take this, how weak to make the boy before he sent him on his way back to the Prophet, but there were so many choices! He felt like a child in a candy shop with a thousand galleons to spend and it was fantastic – albeit a little difficult when it came down to decision making time. He could have placed him under several different hexes, let him feel what the Cruciatus Curse really was like first-hand, invade his mind and drive him slightly crazy… How was he supposed to pick only a few?

“Why am I here?”

The words were spoken quietly, his voice scratchy and rough from having been compressed between Rodolphus’ boot and the concrete floor for a few too many minutes than completely necessary. He tried his best to not smirk, looking down and seeing the reporter begin to gently move himself, getting on his hands and knees, and eventually standing. Impressive – he had thought it was going to be the easily submissive type.

“Pardon?”

Alex tried his best to not roll his eyes. Spitting out a small bit of blood from his mouth, he looked to him with the calmest expression he could muster at the moment, and narrowed his eyes to a glare. “You heard me. Why am I here? I think I have a right to know.” Or at least the way he was viewing it he did. Death Eaters wouldn’t have just randomly targeted a pureblood wizard out of the blue for shits and giggles, would they? He was standing in a room – not a very large room, at that – almost made of complete rock and so dimly lit he had to squint to see more than a foot in front of him. This wasn’t how he had planned the trip to go. He and a handful of other reporters were just covering political crap that they normally did (though, Alex had been a bit more emotionally involved in Portugal’s politics lately and was, more-or-less, anything but pleased with them – damn Gracie getting him actively involved in things…) and just go home a few hours later, where he would sit on his couch, watch the telly, and hope Gracie apologized sometime soon. Because clearly he hadn’t done anything wrong, yeah?

Yeah.

Wrong time to be thinking about it.

Rodolphus grinned, shaking his head and given a bit of a tsk with his tongue and holding out his wand again. “Now, now… All will be revealed in due time, Mr. Smith. Patience,” he flicked his wand, bringing Alex to his knees and smiling as he looked him in the eyes, “is a virtue.”

It didn’t take much to seep into the cracks, pushing some of the most recent and even some of the most buried memories to the surface. He grinned wickedly at the sight of a girl – Graciela, was it? Oh what a dreadful name – and proposal and a baby and … Oh, a death? A death was nice. He would store this all away and use it in due time but he couldn’t stop himself from commenting on the last bit… He just couldn’t!

“Why didn’t you stop Chris, than? You know you could’ve gotten there on time…”

“Shut it,” he hissed in reply, shutting his eyes tightly.

“Ohh, touchy? Why? You know it’s true… If you’d just walked there a little faster… Gotten up a little earlier… It could’ve all been avoided…”

“SHUT IT.”

Rodolphus had not been expecting the fist that connected with the side of his head a moment later. He paused, his hand sliding to his lip and feeling the tiniest drop of blood, and couldn’t help but laugh. A cold, unamused laugh at that, as he took a step back from the seething young lad. “Oh, that,” he said harshly, pointing his wand again. “was completely unnecessary.” Flicking his wand, he muttered the Cruciatus Curse beneath his breath, and grinned in satisfaction when the delightful scream filled the room.

Alex felt as though each bone in his body was breaking and rebreaking, his mind felt torn in half, and he was sure he’d never felt his body twist into such awkward angles. The pain - fuck the pain was intense and he couldn’t see - it was just white, everything was white, and he couldn’t even hear himself screaming anymore. All he could hear was the rush of blood through his body, his heart pounding, and he just needed it to stop. He would have begged for it to could he talk but nothing was forming – not even a simple please.

And then it stopped. As quickly as it had started it disappeared and now he just lay there, panting and sweating. He swallowed, coughed, and leaned over, pushing himself up a bit on his hand, before his stomach lurched and he had to stop himself from getting sick. The cruel chuckle filled the room.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

He wanted to be sarcastic in return, he wanted to spit back that no fucking duh an illegal torture curse would hurt, but all he could do was nod.

“Then I take it you’ll stay in line from now on?”

“Fuck you.”

“Now that’s not very polite,” he said as he flicked his wand once more, recasting the spell and holding it just a little bit longer. He watched as Alex writhed on the ground, his back arched, his neck bent, and his eyes rolled so far back in his head … Oh, he did love this part. He waited for a few more seconds before finally lifting the curse and asking quite coolly, “Do I need to do it again…? Or… maybe…” Rodolphus trailed off, leaving the lingering silence between them for almost a full minute, before Alex forced himself to speak up.

“Or maybe what?”

“Maybe we could find your girl… I hear pregnant women don’t do too well under Crucio though… That would be fun to fi—“

“Don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? You’ll have to be clearer as no one understands fragments.”

“Don’t go near her.”

“Oo, here’s your Gryffindor bravery coming out then. Entertain me and tell me why not.”

“If you touch her, I swear I’ll be sure you’re dead before sunrise.”

There was a long pause, an arched brow, and then a very loud laugh. It went on for a while before drifting to a chuckle and stopping all together.

“… Oh, you were serious?” Shaking his head, Rodolphus crouched beside Alex, and held his jaw roughly in his hands. “Noble as that is, boy, I don’t think you really know what you’re up against. I’d tone down the cocky attitude if I were you.”

Alex glared, ready to spit back some comment, but he stayed quiet. He didn’t know why, but he just knew it was the thing to do. When the Death Eater released him from his grip, he looked to the ground for a moment, almost ashamed that he wasn’t living up to the title of a Gryffindor, and he rubbed his now aching mouth muscles.

“So how long before you kill me?”

“Who said anything about killing you? Did I say that? I really don’t recall…”

“Then what do you want from me!” Alex shouted, watching the man before him. He couldn’t see behind the mask but he knew that he was thinking and before he could ask again, he was heading for the door. Wrinkling his forehead, he tried his best to not ask anymore questions, and waited to see if he returned. It didn’t take long, though when he waltzed back into the room, he was hardly alone. Alex squinted, trying to see who the figure being dragged in was, before it finally registered in his mind.

“Greg!” He breathed an almost sigh of relief, though it was cut short when he saw the wand flick from the Death Eater and his friend dropped to the ground, twisting and screaming in the same way he had. His friend – not a close one, but someone he still talked to and laughed with from time to time – was suffering and he couldn’t do anything. “Stop it!” He shouted over the screams in an almost begging tone. “What do you WANT!”

“We want your paper to stop telling lies.”

“I CAN’T CHANGE THAT! WH—“

“Tell your editors – your supervisors – whomever you can… Be sure to make the message quite clear…”

“I’ll do WHATEVER, just STOP…” Greg had a wife, he had kids, he had a family to go home to and that pain… It could drive someone crazy…

“Alright,” the voice said coolly, lifting his wand. Greg panted, he whimpered, and in a flash of green light, he died.

Alex hadn’t even had a chance to register that he’d stopped screaming.

“Make the message very clear, Alex Smith. I’d hate for you to have to lose anymore friends.”