lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-11-05 06:35 am
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-11-05 06:35 am
Entry tags:
[Solstitial Shorts]: The Name On His Arm, Harry/Rabastan Lestrange, PG-13
Title: The Name on His Arm
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Rabastan Lestrange
Content Notes: Soulmate AU, angst, violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1200
Summary: Harry’s carried the name Rabastan Lestrange on his arm all his life. He never showed it to anyone at Hogwarts, and he’s doubly glad after learning the man tortured Neville’s parents to insanity. Then comes the battle of the Department of Mysteries.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Solstitial Shorts,” very short fics being posted between the first of December and the winter solstice. Some people challenged me to write this pairing, and I thought it was intriguing.
The Name on His Arm
Harry ducked the Cutting Curse heading his way and raised a Protego shield in front of himself and Ginny. He’d got separated from the rest somehow, which didn’t make sense, because the Death Eaters should be targeting him, not his friends. But then, the rooms were filled with chaos and smoke and screams and figures in masks and cloaks. It was a wonder he and Ginny had managed to stick together.
“Out through the Death Room!” Harry yelled at Ginny.
She nodded, shivering. The bright black curlicues of Michael Corner’s name flashed on her arm as she turned and ran madly through the destruction. Harry followed, hoping that he wouldn’t have to tell Corner his soulmate had been killed on Harry’s watch.
His soulmate was probably out there. On the opposite side. Somewhere.
Harry ignored the thought. He had ignored the thought for eighteen months, since last year, when he’d found out the Lestranges had tortured Neville’s parents into lifelong residents of St. Mungo’s. He was good at ignoring it.
But when they burst into the Death Room and saw Sirius dueling someone who pulled and pulled at Harry’s soul as if they were connected by chains bound to their magic, Harry didn’t hesitate.
“Confringo!” Harry yelled, and blew up the floor between Sirius and his soulmate. Lestrange went wheeling backwards, and Sirius threw Harry a salute and ran on into some other room to help the Order.
Harry wished he hadn’t. He could have used some support confronting his soulmate.
But he had no one. Oddly, they were alone. Other Death Eaters had moved on, seemingly confident that Lestrange would be able to handle Sirius, and Harry had lost Ginny somewhere in the run from the other room into this one, and his other friends had already scattered. It meant that Lestrange, scrambling back to his feet, cocked his head and took his time looking Harry over.
Harry locked his teeth. He hated the slow, considering gaze he was getting. He launched an Expelliarmus at Lestrange, but the man jumped out of the way. His dark hair was long, loose, fine. He had hazel eyes set deep into his face. Harry glared at him.
Lestrange pulled up his sleeve without taking his eyes off Harry. He didn’t have a name on his arm. He had a lightning bolt outlined in an acidic, poisonous green. Harry stared. He knew some people had symbols instead of names, but he’d never seen one.
“I didn’t understand this mark for the longest time,” Lestrange whispered. “I couldn’t find anyone associated with a lightning bolt, and none of my enemies in the war, or the Death Eaters, for that matter, were known for casting spells that caused them. And now I understand it.” His lips quirked. “I find myself…most pleased.”
Harry snorted. “You won’t talk me into surrendering to your Lord.”
“Would you not consider it, Harry?” Lestrange had a creepy voice, deeper than normal and with something jagged in it. Harry had heard Sirius talk that way sometimes. It seemed to be a mark of someone who had screamed his lungs out in the darkness of Azkaban. “If you knew that you would be safe from the war raging around you, if you knew that He would never kill you, if you knew that you could be with someone who makes your soul sing…”
Harry shook his head. “You’re someone who tortured one of my friends’ parents into insanity. I won’t have anything to do with you.”
Lestrange actually looked startled. Harry wondered if he had tortured so many people that he had forgotten about the Longbottoms. “I did…yes, I see. The Longbottoms’ son.” He tilted his head like a great bird. “You would put a friend about your soulmate?”
“When my soulmate’s a murderer and torturer, sure. Expelliarmus!”
Lestrange must not have been paying attention, because Harry’s charm worked, ripping his wand away from him and sending it flying into Harry’s hand. Harry stumbled back, holding the wand and panting in the sudden silence. Lestrange smiled a little.
“You are stronger than I thought you were. More daring.”
“I am a Gryffindor,” Harry said, and then shook his head at himself. He was standing here chatting with Lestrange as if they were the best of friends, when he had actual friends he needed to get back to. He dropped Lestrange’s wand on the floor and raised his foot to stomp on it.
Lestrange moved across the space between them.
Harry didn’t even see him start moving. He just knew that suddenly, Lestrange was holding him prisoner, arms tucked around Harry in a way that held his own arms prisoner, and Harry couldn’t move, even to bring his foot down in the stomp.
Harry snarled and fought, whipping his head back to try and hit Lestrange’s nose with the back of his skull. It didn’t work. Lestrange was just too much taller than Harry, just like almost everyone, the bastard.
“The magic,” Lestrange whispered, sounding like he was drunk.
Harry frowned. What—
Then he felt what Lestrange meant. The buzz between them that Harry had felt when he entered the room and discovered Lestrange fighting Sirius had returned, and swelled around them like the most beautiful of songs. Harry held his breath and fought off the waves of peace that wanted to consume him.
Lestrange had tortured Neville’s parents into insanity. He was a Death Eater. He served the man who had killed Harry’s parents.
That did it. Harry managed to elbow Lestrange in the stomach, and when he released a puff of air, he released Harry, too. Harry whirled around, his hand raised and a snarl twisting his face.
Lestrange had retreated and used either his foot or a bit of wandless magic to roll his wand towards him. He stood clutching it now. Harry eyed him warily, but he didn’t burst back into a duel, even though he could have.
“I shall remember,” Lestrange said, and bowed, and pulled his Death Eater mask down—Harry hadn’t even noticed that it was tilted back on his smooth dark hair—and ran towards the sounds of distant fighting.
Harry knew he should follow him. Maybe he could prevent Lestrange from harming someone else. And at the very least, Sirius had gone in that direction, and Harry’s friends had, too.
But Harry allowed himself a single moment to cup his hand over the name on his arm and close his eyes.
Yes, it had been magnetic, and he could see how soulmates who weren’t on opposite sides of a war could find themselves drawn together so strongly that they would do whatever they had to to be together.
Or even a lot of people who were on opposite sides of a war.
But Harry wasn’t a lot of people.
He smiled grimly, opened his eyes, shoved the notion of a soulmate into the box that held everything else he couldn’t have—like his parents back, and a loving family, and an immediate end to this war—and ran towards the battle.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Rabastan Lestrange
Content Notes: Soulmate AU, angst, violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1200
Summary: Harry’s carried the name Rabastan Lestrange on his arm all his life. He never showed it to anyone at Hogwarts, and he’s doubly glad after learning the man tortured Neville’s parents to insanity. Then comes the battle of the Department of Mysteries.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Solstitial Shorts,” very short fics being posted between the first of December and the winter solstice. Some people challenged me to write this pairing, and I thought it was intriguing.
The Name on His Arm
Harry ducked the Cutting Curse heading his way and raised a Protego shield in front of himself and Ginny. He’d got separated from the rest somehow, which didn’t make sense, because the Death Eaters should be targeting him, not his friends. But then, the rooms were filled with chaos and smoke and screams and figures in masks and cloaks. It was a wonder he and Ginny had managed to stick together.
“Out through the Death Room!” Harry yelled at Ginny.
She nodded, shivering. The bright black curlicues of Michael Corner’s name flashed on her arm as she turned and ran madly through the destruction. Harry followed, hoping that he wouldn’t have to tell Corner his soulmate had been killed on Harry’s watch.
His soulmate was probably out there. On the opposite side. Somewhere.
Harry ignored the thought. He had ignored the thought for eighteen months, since last year, when he’d found out the Lestranges had tortured Neville’s parents into lifelong residents of St. Mungo’s. He was good at ignoring it.
But when they burst into the Death Room and saw Sirius dueling someone who pulled and pulled at Harry’s soul as if they were connected by chains bound to their magic, Harry didn’t hesitate.
“Confringo!” Harry yelled, and blew up the floor between Sirius and his soulmate. Lestrange went wheeling backwards, and Sirius threw Harry a salute and ran on into some other room to help the Order.
Harry wished he hadn’t. He could have used some support confronting his soulmate.
But he had no one. Oddly, they were alone. Other Death Eaters had moved on, seemingly confident that Lestrange would be able to handle Sirius, and Harry had lost Ginny somewhere in the run from the other room into this one, and his other friends had already scattered. It meant that Lestrange, scrambling back to his feet, cocked his head and took his time looking Harry over.
Harry locked his teeth. He hated the slow, considering gaze he was getting. He launched an Expelliarmus at Lestrange, but the man jumped out of the way. His dark hair was long, loose, fine. He had hazel eyes set deep into his face. Harry glared at him.
Lestrange pulled up his sleeve without taking his eyes off Harry. He didn’t have a name on his arm. He had a lightning bolt outlined in an acidic, poisonous green. Harry stared. He knew some people had symbols instead of names, but he’d never seen one.
“I didn’t understand this mark for the longest time,” Lestrange whispered. “I couldn’t find anyone associated with a lightning bolt, and none of my enemies in the war, or the Death Eaters, for that matter, were known for casting spells that caused them. And now I understand it.” His lips quirked. “I find myself…most pleased.”
Harry snorted. “You won’t talk me into surrendering to your Lord.”
“Would you not consider it, Harry?” Lestrange had a creepy voice, deeper than normal and with something jagged in it. Harry had heard Sirius talk that way sometimes. It seemed to be a mark of someone who had screamed his lungs out in the darkness of Azkaban. “If you knew that you would be safe from the war raging around you, if you knew that He would never kill you, if you knew that you could be with someone who makes your soul sing…”
Harry shook his head. “You’re someone who tortured one of my friends’ parents into insanity. I won’t have anything to do with you.”
Lestrange actually looked startled. Harry wondered if he had tortured so many people that he had forgotten about the Longbottoms. “I did…yes, I see. The Longbottoms’ son.” He tilted his head like a great bird. “You would put a friend about your soulmate?”
“When my soulmate’s a murderer and torturer, sure. Expelliarmus!”
Lestrange must not have been paying attention, because Harry’s charm worked, ripping his wand away from him and sending it flying into Harry’s hand. Harry stumbled back, holding the wand and panting in the sudden silence. Lestrange smiled a little.
“You are stronger than I thought you were. More daring.”
“I am a Gryffindor,” Harry said, and then shook his head at himself. He was standing here chatting with Lestrange as if they were the best of friends, when he had actual friends he needed to get back to. He dropped Lestrange’s wand on the floor and raised his foot to stomp on it.
Lestrange moved across the space between them.
Harry didn’t even see him start moving. He just knew that suddenly, Lestrange was holding him prisoner, arms tucked around Harry in a way that held his own arms prisoner, and Harry couldn’t move, even to bring his foot down in the stomp.
Harry snarled and fought, whipping his head back to try and hit Lestrange’s nose with the back of his skull. It didn’t work. Lestrange was just too much taller than Harry, just like almost everyone, the bastard.
“The magic,” Lestrange whispered, sounding like he was drunk.
Harry frowned. What—
Then he felt what Lestrange meant. The buzz between them that Harry had felt when he entered the room and discovered Lestrange fighting Sirius had returned, and swelled around them like the most beautiful of songs. Harry held his breath and fought off the waves of peace that wanted to consume him.
Lestrange had tortured Neville’s parents into insanity. He was a Death Eater. He served the man who had killed Harry’s parents.
That did it. Harry managed to elbow Lestrange in the stomach, and when he released a puff of air, he released Harry, too. Harry whirled around, his hand raised and a snarl twisting his face.
Lestrange had retreated and used either his foot or a bit of wandless magic to roll his wand towards him. He stood clutching it now. Harry eyed him warily, but he didn’t burst back into a duel, even though he could have.
“I shall remember,” Lestrange said, and bowed, and pulled his Death Eater mask down—Harry hadn’t even noticed that it was tilted back on his smooth dark hair—and ran towards the sounds of distant fighting.
Harry knew he should follow him. Maybe he could prevent Lestrange from harming someone else. And at the very least, Sirius had gone in that direction, and Harry’s friends had, too.
But Harry allowed himself a single moment to cup his hand over the name on his arm and close his eyes.
Yes, it had been magnetic, and he could see how soulmates who weren’t on opposite sides of a war could find themselves drawn together so strongly that they would do whatever they had to to be together.
Or even a lot of people who were on opposite sides of a war.
But Harry wasn’t a lot of people.
He smiled grimly, opened his eyes, shoved the notion of a soulmate into the box that held everything else he couldn’t have—like his parents back, and a loving family, and an immediate end to this war—and ran towards the battle.
The End.