40fandoms: Fandom 26
Apr. 7th, 2014 06:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tallulahgs[Title] Shadows
[Fandom] Harry Potter/Malory Towers
[Rating] PG-13 for mentions of torture
[Notes/Summary] The Carrows make everyone do terrible things.
Neville thought he'd got stronger since Hogwarts had got so awful. More like a proper Gryffindor.
As he's running up the Astronomy Tower steps and knowing he'll have no idea what to say when he gets to the top and all the fury and horror and they can't, they can't sticking in his throat so much he can hardly breathe, he knows he's not strong at all.
Out on the tower, the sun is starting to set, the air is chilly and all around him there's soft smooth hills and mountains and it looks so still. It makes him dizzy because in his head nothing is still, everything's shaking and sick and what's he supposed to do? What's he supposed to say?
Mary-Lou is huddled in the corner, knees to her chest, fingers digging into her arms. Neville spots her and wants to turn tail and run away again because he's a stupid coward, but he doesn't, he stands there and he has to say something so he just blurts out, “You can't stay out here, it's not safe outside the Common Room.”
Mary-Lou doesn't look at him, and he feels even sicker. Mary-Lou always looks at you and smiles or asks if you're all right or, or something.
“No one's cross,” Neville says, like this is a stupid fight over lost homework. “They... they all get it, you know, things are... are bad...” He hears his voice crack a little, things are so bad and sometimes he's terrified they're going to get worse and worse until he'll be glad to be dead and he can't think like that, Gran and Harry and Ron and Hermione and everyone would tell him you've got to keep fighting but, what if -
“Everyone knows what it's like,” he says, stupidly.
She doesn't look at him and the things he was trying not to think about Mum and Dad and Cruciatus and a locked ward on St Mungo's and people forgetting who you are, all those things, they rush back and it could get that bad, you could just – snap – you could just - and here there'd be no one looking after you and leading you back to bed when you wandered around in your pyjamas in the middle of the day giving people gum wrappers – here they'd – who knows what they'd -
“Please,” he says, and he pretty much is crying and Mary-Lou blinks and looks at him and her mouth trembles but she knows it's him, she knows who he is and who she is and so he comes to sit next to her, back against cold rough stone, and they both go quiet while they sort of pretend they're not crying that much.
“I'm sorry,” she whispers at last. “I was... I was going to... to face up to them, I just...”
“You haven't got anything to face up to. It wasn't your fault. It was them, the Carrows, they've done it to loads of people.” It scares Neville how much he hates now, how much time he spends thinking about revenge.
Mary-Lou is trembling.
“I want to say it out loud,” she says. Her teeth are chattering a little. “Maybe it will feel less... less awful if I...”
Neville nods like an idiot and they both sort of laugh-cry and the sun sinks lower.
“If I'd been brave,” Mary-Lou says, numbly now, “I would have let them do it to me. They said I could... I could choose that. Or I could... do it to – to Seamus instead. And then I wouldn't be hurt. And so I... so I...”
She is still shaking but she doesn't bury her face in her hands or start crying so much she can't talk or get up and run away.
She just says, “So I chose that. I... I did it and it... it didn't work the first time. They told me I had to mean it. And I was so scared I... it worked the... the third time. I thought... I thought that would... but they said, do it again. Do it again. And he was screaming and he kept telling me to stop. And I wanted – I was thinking shut up, shut up, you're making this so much worse. I'm sorry, Neville, I thought I was brave and I thought I could be brave and it turned out I'm nothing, nothing at all -”
Neville finds they're clinging to each other. He doesn't know who started it or whether he's trying to make her feel better or stop her crying or make himself feel less like jumping off the Tower. (He will never tell anyone he's thinking Mum and Dad – what if they made Mum and Dad do that, what if that's why -)
“You're not,” he says, mumbling it into her hair. “You're not, okay, none of us are, and – and I'm going to make it all better, I promise, and you won't have to even think about any of this any more -”
Which is only the latest stupid thing in a whole line of stupid things he's said, but Mary-Lou is crying and crying and what else is he meant to say, really?
[Fandom] Harry Potter/Malory Towers
[Rating] PG-13 for mentions of torture
[Notes/Summary] The Carrows make everyone do terrible things.
Neville thought he'd got stronger since Hogwarts had got so awful. More like a proper Gryffindor.
As he's running up the Astronomy Tower steps and knowing he'll have no idea what to say when he gets to the top and all the fury and horror and they can't, they can't sticking in his throat so much he can hardly breathe, he knows he's not strong at all.
Out on the tower, the sun is starting to set, the air is chilly and all around him there's soft smooth hills and mountains and it looks so still. It makes him dizzy because in his head nothing is still, everything's shaking and sick and what's he supposed to do? What's he supposed to say?
Mary-Lou is huddled in the corner, knees to her chest, fingers digging into her arms. Neville spots her and wants to turn tail and run away again because he's a stupid coward, but he doesn't, he stands there and he has to say something so he just blurts out, “You can't stay out here, it's not safe outside the Common Room.”
Mary-Lou doesn't look at him, and he feels even sicker. Mary-Lou always looks at you and smiles or asks if you're all right or, or something.
“No one's cross,” Neville says, like this is a stupid fight over lost homework. “They... they all get it, you know, things are... are bad...” He hears his voice crack a little, things are so bad and sometimes he's terrified they're going to get worse and worse until he'll be glad to be dead and he can't think like that, Gran and Harry and Ron and Hermione and everyone would tell him you've got to keep fighting but, what if -
“Everyone knows what it's like,” he says, stupidly.
She doesn't look at him and the things he was trying not to think about Mum and Dad and Cruciatus and a locked ward on St Mungo's and people forgetting who you are, all those things, they rush back and it could get that bad, you could just – snap – you could just - and here there'd be no one looking after you and leading you back to bed when you wandered around in your pyjamas in the middle of the day giving people gum wrappers – here they'd – who knows what they'd -
“Please,” he says, and he pretty much is crying and Mary-Lou blinks and looks at him and her mouth trembles but she knows it's him, she knows who he is and who she is and so he comes to sit next to her, back against cold rough stone, and they both go quiet while they sort of pretend they're not crying that much.
“I'm sorry,” she whispers at last. “I was... I was going to... to face up to them, I just...”
“You haven't got anything to face up to. It wasn't your fault. It was them, the Carrows, they've done it to loads of people.” It scares Neville how much he hates now, how much time he spends thinking about revenge.
Mary-Lou is trembling.
“I want to say it out loud,” she says. Her teeth are chattering a little. “Maybe it will feel less... less awful if I...”
Neville nods like an idiot and they both sort of laugh-cry and the sun sinks lower.
“If I'd been brave,” Mary-Lou says, numbly now, “I would have let them do it to me. They said I could... I could choose that. Or I could... do it to – to Seamus instead. And then I wouldn't be hurt. And so I... so I...”
She is still shaking but she doesn't bury her face in her hands or start crying so much she can't talk or get up and run away.
She just says, “So I chose that. I... I did it and it... it didn't work the first time. They told me I had to mean it. And I was so scared I... it worked the... the third time. I thought... I thought that would... but they said, do it again. Do it again. And he was screaming and he kept telling me to stop. And I wanted – I was thinking shut up, shut up, you're making this so much worse. I'm sorry, Neville, I thought I was brave and I thought I could be brave and it turned out I'm nothing, nothing at all -”
Neville finds they're clinging to each other. He doesn't know who started it or whether he's trying to make her feel better or stop her crying or make himself feel less like jumping off the Tower. (He will never tell anyone he's thinking Mum and Dad – what if they made Mum and Dad do that, what if that's why -)
“You're not,” he says, mumbling it into her hair. “You're not, okay, none of us are, and – and I'm going to make it all better, I promise, and you won't have to even think about any of this any more -”
Which is only the latest stupid thing in a whole line of stupid things he's said, but Mary-Lou is crying and crying and what else is he meant to say, really?
