#*drabble;

So when his mark began to violently burn at the exact moment he’d popped open a new bottle, Emory nearly screamed out as he dropped the bottle. No. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. It kept burning, pain increasing with every passing second until Emory had no choice but to put on his mask and wait for the call as to where to go.

The call never came. Instead, several pops sounded all around him where he stood in the dingy one room shack he called a home. Masked men stood proud, eyes glaring through the intricate masks that hid their identities from him. He recognized a few, ones he knew ranked far above himself. Ones he hoped to stand beside one day.

Confusion wrapped around him, uncertain as to why they would come to greet him in such a fashion. “Fancy a beer?” he half garbled out, his attempt at confidence sounding false even in his own ears. 

Emory nearly shouted as the first spell hit him, searing through his toes to the tips of his hair, almost bringing him to his knees. Yet, the confusion still rang louder. Something was horribly wrong -- they ought to be celebrating, not cursing him!

And then they spoke. Spoke of his failure. Of how disappointed their Lord was with him. How he was no better than the mere bottom feeders. How he didn’t deserve his mark. 

Curse after curse hit his body, twisting and contorting him in unbelievable pain. Caking his exposed skin with the filth he never cleaned from his floor. Scratching up his mask as his face was ground into the floor from the power of the spells. 

Emory always assumed he would never cry out due to pain. He’d gotten into tufts with vampires, more tattoos than he could count now. 

None of it compared to this. 

It never seemed to end, his mind and body and eventually even his mouth screaming in agony until finally the inner most circle of the Death Eaters decided they’d had enough of him. 

They left him there, panting, aching, on the verge of passing out. Or perhaps he had passed out at some point, only to be forced back into consciousness. It was too hard to tell by the time they’d finished. And really, only one thing mattered in the end.

He’d failed. 

The bitch had been found and saved. 

He wasn’t even worthy his Lord’s time and energy when it came to punishment.

For a moment, Alice worried that Moody may not even be here-- he might be out there, looking as well. But no, after two sharp knocks upon his door, his gravelly voice called her in. Wasting no time, she entered.

“I’m going to Tutshill,” she informed him the second the door snapped shut behind her. There was no room for debate left within her words as she stared directly into his eyes. Yet, she could see he didn’t agree even before he spoke. 

“Waste of your bloody time, Prew-- sorry, Longbottom,” he corrected, and even in saying her name, she could tell he didn’t approve of that either. Not too surprising, but Alice didn’t care. Being Frank’s wife did not make her lesser, it made her stronger. “You and I both know this isn’t the Tornados trying to pull one over.”

“We don’t know that they wouldn’t be double crossing us. Not the Tornados. I mean his people. Is it not the perfect set up? The last place we would think to go look would be Tutshill, because of course the Tornados would never take her, Moody. They’re decent, hardworking people.” Frank had been right, there was a smidge of logic to be found, and while she still thought it to be feeble, it was better than anything else she had to go on. “Now, you can assign me a partner, come with me yourself, or I can go on my own and you can sit in here, hoping for a ransom note to fall on your lap with all of the answers. But I cannot and will not sit on my bum and wait around for something that may never come while a good, loving, deserving to live person is out there, possibly dying!” 

She’d snapped. It was perhaps a testament to how much Alice trusted Alastor Moody that she felt the tears finally begin to slide down her cheeks. Yet she made no move to brush them aside, still staring, shoulders squared, at the now blurred picture of Moody. There was no movement for one minute. Two minutes. Three. Alice cried for two of them, her shoulders sagging bit by bit until finally she reached a hand up and brushed the tears away. 

“You’re in no condition to go,” Moody declared gruffly. At the same time, he magicked a handkerchief to her, allowing Alice to clean herself up. 

The moment the tears were more or less dried off, she tossed the piece of cloth onto the arm of the chair across from him. “I’m in no condition to be anywhere but searching for Dawn Withey. The question is whether or not you will approve of it and mark down that I have gone out, and ensure that I come back before fifteen hundred. Or would it prove more prudent for me to speak to Dumbledore about this?” 

Moody huffed, grabbing out parchment and a quill and waving his wand, calling a map to him. “I’m going to stamp you down for certain areas at certain times. You follow this map to a T, you got it Longbottom? Take whoever is free out there, let me know who it is, and go. And from now on, don’t expect to barge in here and take over. I don’t grant favours every day.” 

Alice nodded, taking in the rest of his lecture and advice in with eager ears, entirely focused on him, on the mission at hand. Finally, something productive. 

The search however, proved to be as fruitless as she’d imagined it would be when Frank first suggested it. In the end, she and the fellow Auror she’d gone with came back to the Ministry, exhausted, let down, and Alice was near tears once more as she admitted defeat to Moody. To his benefit, he had the decency to not tell her he’d told her so. Something Alice would keep in mind when speaking with Frank later that night. 

“We’ll find her, Longbottom. Chin up. I’ll owl you in if we catch wind of leads. Go home. Spend time with your husband.”

A whisper of a gasp slipped through Peter’s lips as Lucius Malfoy’s body fell limp in the middle of the Malfoy Mansion foyer. As the Dark Lord slipped his wand into its hidden location of his cloak, he grimaced down at the dying man with disdain. 

“Such a pity. You were never able to give your son the brother you perhaps hoped he’d have. Now he won’t even have a father... truly a pity...” 

Peter couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe this was happening. Near him he could hear the choked sobs of Narcissa, and it took all of his strength not to join her in crying. He couldn’t cry. If he cried, he would die. 

Why did Lucius have to die? 

Peter didn’t like the man, by any means. But as far as Death Eaters went, he was easily one of the most bearable to be around. Frightening, yes, but not cruel for the sake of being cruel. Peter had an odd sort of respect for that. Not that said respect ever would have been returned, but Lucius didn’t go out of his way to make Peter hate himself further either, which was something, at the very least. 

He watched in stunned silence as muscle by muscle, Lucius lost power over his body. Over his very soul. 

Peter assumed he’d never see anything more horrific than the torture the Death Eaters unleashed on muggleborns, but today he’d been proven wrong. He didn’t know what Lucius Malfoy did to earn his sentence, but he’d been forced to watch as a reminder. 

A reminder that failure was not an option. 

“Get rid of these wasteful scraps, would you, Wormtail?” 

A shudder tingled down his spine at the casual words, knowing they were anything but. Numbly, he nodded, shooting Narcissa an apologetic look as she began to plead with him to let her. 

“Jugson, deal with Narcissa. I must be off to do what those who are incapable of have failed at.” 

The moment he disappeared, Narcissa’s thinly veiled grief broke free. Sobbing more openly, she rushed forwards towards Lucius, wand in hand, attempting to heal him, to fix him. And more importantly, to shield him from the two males who threatened to erase him from the planet as far as anyone else knew. 

“Peter, Peter no. Let me. Please, he must be buried properly-- Tristan if you take one more step, I swear, I will not hesitate in hexing you!” 

Peter couldn’t remember ever hearing Narcissa so off balance, so improper, and even more so - he’d never heard her plead in such a way. No matter how much he wanted her to have her way, to give her something to help with the grief, he knew there was no point. Tristan would soon erase all memories she’d had of this day, which left Peter to wonder - why make her watch in the first place? 

Their Dark Lord was sick. Vile. A shared glance between the two males was enough to confirm both felt the same way, but neither had any option but to do as they were told. Both of them directed their wands at Narcissa, Peter to disarm her, Tristan to remove her memories and put her into a deep sleep. 

“I’ll take care of her, you deal with this.” 

Peter swallowed down the bile threatening to rise in his throat as he nodded, bending down beside Lucius, wishing he could do something to fix this. But the reality was, Lucius couldn’t be brought back from the dead. 

“How am I supposed to survive?” Peter whispered pleadingly to him, a tear of his own falling down his cheek. A weak show of emotion he shouldn’t have. Especially not for a Death Eater. 

But if a man like Lucius Malfoy could be killed by the Dark Lord without a second thought, what stopped him from killing Peter? Or having someone else kill Peter? Were they all just faceless pawns to him? Soldiers for a war based on killing as many people as possible?  Peter no longer understood what he wanted out of this. If it were a plead for blood purity, why kill one of the purest, most respected men in the wizarding world? 

Robert practically growled through his tears. He’d left Natalie alone for not even a moment. Only long enough to send out a message for help, and when he’d returned... the unthinkable was found. The one and only comfort was that it’d been silent. She hadn’t been in pain. It’d been so quick. 

But he couldn’t let this go. 

He’d lost too many people now. Marlene. Dorcas. Benjy. Dawn (for no matter how alive she was physically, it didn’t take an idiot to see she was dead inside). Too many others to count. James and Lily had been the last straw. It didn’t matter that Voldemort was gone. No one seemed to understand his followers were still out there, still demented as fuck, still determined to kill. 

He needed his sister as far away from this fucking place as possible -- and yet he’d been too late. 

“Avada--” 

A spell knocked him to the ground before he got the words out, a cruel tinkle of a laugh followed. “You Order members are really losing your minds, aren’t you? Oh yes, we know. We know who all of you are,” she laughed, sending further chills down Robert’s spine as he stood, shooting off curse after curse, all of which she deflected, save for the last. 

It started a fight unlike any other Robert had ever fought. He’d lost too much. It didn’t matter that Caradoc was still alive. He’d lost everything else, too many fractions of his life to keep sane. Each glimpse of Natalie’s lifeless body spurred him on until finally, the Death Eater managed to get his wand from him, leaving him defenseless, bruised, sweating, sobbing, and broken, on his knees. 

“It would be too much of a mercy to kill your worthless mudblood body,” she decided, snapping his wand over her knees and tossing the pieces to the side. “Weep over her, if you must. Spend the rest of your days on the brink of insanity. Know that he will come back. And when he does, we will reign supreme once again. Until then... beware of the shadows, for they will strike when you least expect it.”