Chapter Text
2000
Killing someone was simultaneously the easiest and the hardest thing Theodore Nott had ever done.
The room’s huge windows were blown out and a furious wind whipped through them, making the sheer curtains dance around him, the stark white fabric spattered with arterial crimson. Dressed in out-of-character black as he was, it was difficult to see the blood that soaked him to the skin, but he was covered in it; sticky, drying, fresh. It coated his hands just as surely as it now coated his soul.
Once more, Theo looked down blankly at the wizard on the floor. It was his blood that drenched Theo. Most of it, anyway. The man had stopped breathing finally, struggling and rattling his last, and Theo no longer had to look at the rapid rise and fall of the broad chest, counting down the last seconds of the wizard’s cruel existence… and counting down the last seconds of Theo’s life before he became a murderer.
The wizard who had loomed so large was smaller somehow in death. His hair, so distinct, fanned out behind him where he fell, but dull russet obscured the pale moonlight as he exsanguinated. He was nearly unrecognisable but for his cruel face and wide open eyes.
Now, Theo was waiting for what came next. He’d come here desperate, crawling out of his skin with dread and determination. Perhaps he was always destined to end up here, in this copper-scented, magic-drenched room, a pawn on other people’s chessboards.
The pounding of running feet brought him back from the haze and into immediacy. Someone was coming. He knew those footfalls—the exact strike of heel to toe—he would know that music anywhere.
The locked door burst off its hinges in a storm of vengeful black flame and jagged splinters of oak. He quickly scrambled to rearrange his thoughts and body.
Finally, Draco had come.
Beneath the silver death mask pushed back on his head, Draco’s eyes reflected all of Theo’s desperation—that same acidic panic Theo had felt earlier as he sprinted through the fray and threw himself up the stairs to this room. He had been looking for Draco—of course he was looking for Draco— but he’d found so much more and now Draco was here and everything was fucked up beyond all recognition or hope of repair.
Draco’s mouth formed the shape of his name… Theo, The-o… but he didn’t say it out loud. He must’ve seen the blood, he could see the room—his room—destroyed… but somehow Draco hadn’t seen the body on the floor.
He only had eyes for Theo.
Draco made to rush towards him and it could’ve been as Theo had imagined it—it could’ve been him seizing Draco by the arm and getting them both away, far away from the dick swinging contest that was poised to level a country. They could’ve gone to Greece, and eaten peaches and pomegranates until they forgot about the blood they were supposedly betraying. They could’ve turned themselves over to the Order, and hoped that they asked questions first and fired curses later. Either way, they’d be cannon fodder, but maybe someone would remember at least one of their deeds as good. Whatever that meant.
“Draco,” Theo beseeched him, helplessly. His normally musical voice was lifeless and cracked.
With his next step, Draco skidded on the wooden floor. He looked down at what was under his dragonhide boot, what lay at the foot of his black robes. He stiffened at the sight of the horror before him, and hauled his gaze back up to Theo, his slate grey eyes pleading with him to make sense of the nightmare before him.
Then Draco was on his knees, slicing himself open on the fateful glass that lay glittering everywhere, trying with wand and hand to staunch blood that had already stopped flowing.
“Father,” he breathed, he begged.
Draco hated his father.
But it wasn't hate driving his shaking hands to press bereft red finger prints on pale cheeks. Theo wondered if Draco had ever before touched his father’s face. All their lives, he had always looked to Lucius and waited for words and gestures that would never come. Perhaps his father was incapable of them. Aleksandr Nott was certainly incapable of them.
Theo should leave. Theo should run. Theo should scream, or curse Draco, lest he die on the day of his first kill.
“What did you do?” Draco’s voice shook as he instantly suppressed all of his grief and fury, and maybe like Theo, the fear of what would come next. “What did you do?”
Theo’s teeth and tongue, always so ready with his next witticism would not obey him. His muzzle was blooded, and he could not defend the indefensible. He could not tell Draco that Lucius Malfoy had died any other way, except for at his hand.
Draco drew himself up to his full height, just a few inches above Theo’s, and pointed two wands at Theo’s heart. Theo did not bother to raise his own. It took only two blinks of an eye to welcome his death… but he didn’t want Draco to be the one to do it. It was part of the Dark Lord’s legend that all that killing shredded his soul. This fact was proudly espoused by those who had never truly been backed into a corner, who believed the pretty, idealistic lies of Albus Dumbledore. Those fools had expected the war to end because they thought that only Voldemort would go to those lengths. They had expected to win with an expelliarmus and blind faith in a dead teenager. Chosen, but just a boy, in the end.
Perhaps it was only natural to ignore the vipers striking at one’s ankles when dealing with the anaconda coiling around one's neck. Theo knew this: killing was a part of life. There would always be killing.
And now that Theo had killed, he didn’t want it for Draco. In a perverse way, his father’s dead body on the fine rug could be his way out. Theo had dug him an escape tunnel.
Downstairs, there was an explosion that shook the ancient foundations of Malfoy Manor, reminding them that this was not just a house filled with complex history, but a battlefield. The forces did not yet realise that a general had been toppled and that it was time for all the ‘re’s: retreat, regroup, restrategise, revenge.
“If you don’t do it now,” Theo whispered to Draco, just loud enough for him to hear, gambling as he did. “You’ll spend your days thinking of it, and one day we’ll end up right back here.”
Draco did not flinch. He never did. Not even as he held Theo’s life in his hands. “—And you’ll spend your days looking over your shoulder.”
“So be it.”
Theo took a step back. And another. The curtains billowed around him as another explosion sounded downstairs. He wanted to remember Draco like this—vengeful with bloody knees, wearing black robes and that mask. Not as a smirk in the back of a classroom, not as late night laughter in the dormitories… not as a shaking voice in this very room, asking Theo to promise him impossible things.
Theo’s hand found the sill. He was calm.
“What are you doing?” Draco demanded.
“I’m going to jump. If I survive, you will let me leave in whatever shape I am in.” Theo exhaled heavily. “If I die, let’s call that a win for both of us, shall we?”
He caught it—the barest hint of hesitation flickered across Draco’s bitter face, and it had Theo questioning. Remembering teasing words from their history, that easily took the place of the apology that he would not—could not—spit out:
“Chin up, Draco.”
Theo’s father’s harsh voice echoed in his head, never turn your back on your enemy, Theodore—but Theo showed Draco his back, before he launched himself out the window and into the tempest.
✶
SIX YEARS LATER
Theo tugged at the high white collar chafing at his neck. The similarities between wizards’ robes and the flowing priest vestments he was wearing were not lost on him, and there was surely a deeper symbolism to be noted there, perhaps a poem to be composed, but Theo was more concerned with finishing his cigarette.
It was a beautiful London evening, and Theo tipped his head back to look at smoke curling its way into the fading blue sky, and an undulating formation of migrating birds, enjoying the quiet before his crescendo.
Months of preparation, and months of gentle, careful confunding to get to this moment. Theo was gifted in the art of scrambling the minds of others, but care must always be taken to implant an idea without destroying everything else in the process. The mind was a fragile thing, he knew that better than most. Imperio was always there as a last resort, though it required an untraceable wand, and it was the type of repugnant power that, once tasted, it was easy to get drunk on.
Theo vanished his cigarette and pushed himself off the side of the church with his propped up foot. His flock was awaiting him.
Show time.
St. Etheldreda’s Cathedral had stood in place since the thirteenth century, stalwart as London sprawled and climbed around it like weeds, and Catholicism spread and raped and murdered around the globe. It had the hum of magic in its stones, as many muggle holy buildings did, and Theo felt it there, shivering and whispering into his palms as he threw open the double doors and strode along the nave. Heads turned.
He did so love to turn heads.
With a twitch of the wand up his long sleeve, he locked the doors behind him and nodded at the serene face of the statue of Etheldreda herself—hundreds of years greeting lost souls who walked through these doors, Theo thought to himself that the old girl must’ve seen some serious shit over the centuries. Made by muggle hands, frozen on her plinth as she was, Theo winked at her all the same. One must always pay the proper respects.
The whispers echoed around him, a hum of curiosity as he approached the chancel. He was wearing red, touched with gold. It billowed out behind him like a banner. It was not a time to be wearing red—or so they thought. Red was the colour of martyrs, red was the colour of passion—the colour of love. The colour of Gryffindor courage.
Red was the colour of blood.
Ahead of him, a stained glass window glowed with the last of the day’s light. A living kaleidoscope of colours depicted saints, and sinners. Theo reached the window and bent his knees. Amongst fluttering candle flame and the scent of smoke, he made the sign of the cross in deference to the sinners who came before, and then he took his mark on the pulpit.
There were murmurs. The church was full, he’d made sure of that. Perhaps a hundred people crammed into the pews, wearing their finest. Some wearing colours and vestments like his. Grander, even. ‘Holy men’—what a joke. No matter. These were his guests of honour, all. Handpicked.
There were two wands holstered under his robe. Holstered at his wrist for now was the spruce and heartstring wand that chose a tiny, quivering mess of an eleven-year-old wizard, hidden under an upturned nose and a mop of curls. This would take every ounce of his magic; he would drain himself dry.
“Gentlemen!” Theo called, his voice bouncing off of ancient stone. “And lady,” he added, looking at a primly dressed, dour-faced woman in the second row. “Let us pray.”
Theo laced his fingers together. The crowd bowed their heads.
“In the name of my father, and his son, and all the ghosts you cannot see… etcetera—”
Murmurs of aggravated confusion chorused in Theo’s ears.
“—May the Lord guide my hand, and my wand as I turn towards you all tonight—your deeds and misdeeds—”
The whispers grew louder, the choir growing restless. Eyes stared up at him as he schooled his curving lips into the seriousness the sacrament required. Theo’s ring shone in the candlelight, and he slowly slipped his wand into his hand.
“—May you beg for mercy and receive none.”
“What is this?!” a jowly, bald man in the front row called out. He stood up in fury and made towards Theo. “Who are you, mate? What are you playing at?”
Theo whispered a sticking charm and the bald man’s fine leather shoes fused with the parquet floor. He staggered as he tried to move, and others watched on as Theo raised his wand and pointed it at the man’s irate face.
“Well well well, it appears we have a volunteer.”
Theo knew this man. Knew his story. Knew his mind. Occlumens he was not, but Theo could read minds like they were children’s books: reprehensible, vile. Irredeemable. Theo flicked his wand lazily and shattered the man’s patellas like dinner plates dashed against a brick wall.
The muggle’s screams echoed up to the rafters like he was a choir all alone. Theo grinned widely as the man sagged and bent into grotesque shapes, still stuck as he was to the floor. At this, the room erupted, and Theo stuck several bottoms to pews, but allowed another man to step towards him.
Ah. Him. A leading fascist, and a rapist to boot. All that rot hidden under a nondescript, next-door neighbour exterior. Theo drew out a pine wand, and held it in his left hand.
“Crucio.”
The man collapsed and contorted on the floor under Theo’s wand, next to the man with ruined kneecaps. Theo felt the dark strings that flowed from him into this new volunteer. In Theo’s opinion, the cruciatus curse was a blunt instrument. Lazy. There were much more creative and lasting ways to hurt a person, but somewhere along the line someone boring decided this particular torment warranted a life sentence—so it would serve a dual purpose. An unforgivable curse should bring the aurors running. Until then…
The man stopped screaming when Theo relented, and promptly lost consciousness. Theo’s next act was to raise both the wands in his hand and to twist and charm the candle flames up and up into thin, dancing ribbons, as though he were charming cobras. The flames grew, licking up the walls of the church in burning tongues, spreading—consuming everything like a mythical beast. It was a flashy piece of visual magic—and a completely harmless one—but they weren’t to know that.
Shouts and accusations became screams of existential terror. Bodies clambered over each other to get to doors that wouldn’t open. Theo addressed his flock from behind a wall of flame.
“Sonorous.” Theo pointed his wand at his throat. He needed to be heard over the sweet pandemonium. “Time for another verse! Perhaps the one about foreskins? And David brought their foreskins, and they gave them in full tale to the king, that he might be the king's son in law—no?”
Screaming, so much screaming. And after he'd gone to such trouble to memorise scripture for them.
“Well then—how about…” He dropped his voice lower. “Everything now covered up will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear—whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed from the rooftops…”
Theo lifted his wands, and concentrated every fibre on his final act. With a deep breath through his nose, he began syphoning off the oxygen from the church… until there was nothing within the cage of flames that he’d made them. He took it all. Every screaming, terrified voice was silenced until there was only the roar of flames and a hundred people on their knees with their hands around their own throats.
“This is the valley of the shadow of death, gentlemen and lady. You may know not what you do, but I know—” A drop of sweat ran down his temple and over his cheekbone, almost like a tear, as if he still deserved to cry. “—There will be no deliverance, only justice.”
They were suffocating. Dying. Screaming silent screams, supplicating themselves before him—but it was far, far too late.
Three, two, one…
The cathedral doors exploded open, and Theo grinned at Dawlish’s silhouette standing severe amongst the smoke, in his scarlet robes with his wand held high and a small army at his back. Of course—they always sent Dawlish. An absolute pillock of a wizard, and obsessed with Theo, naturally.
“Welcome weary travellers,” Theo greeted warmly, his words still carrying over the din, as though he really were the head of this chaotic flock, now trying desperately to stampede out the hole the aurors had blown through the cathedral. “You’re just in time.”
Theo parried three stunners with the spruce wand, and kept up his inanimans curse, depriving Britain’s worst of the oxygen they didn’t deserve with the pine.
It was only a matter of time, though. There were six aurors standing in offensive formation, and what looked to be every obliviator on the Ministry’s payroll in attendance. Theo could duel. Theo could parry, and counter...
But no one could block six stunning spells cast at the same time.
Blinding, searing jets of red hit Theo, and for a moment he was raised into the air, glowing with bloody light, his arms out straight, Christ-like, a wand in each hand.
And then there was silence.