Siobhán Kennedy (maintains) wrote in valesco,
@ 2009-02-22 14:47:00

Entry tags:

Who: Roderick Dearborn and Alice Longbottom
What: ... :(
Where: Ministry of Magic - labs
When: ... now!
Rating: CG for crying girl.

He had been getting ready to go home (for a fixed meaning of the word, as he was quite planning on dropping by Aland's place after finishing things up) when he'd heard the telltale sound of simpering. It wasn't that Roderick made many girls cry, for that would require him actually speaking to girls ... it was just that the sound was quite distinctive.

Normally he might've just walked by and continued with his business, but it was the location of the sound that caught his attention. The lab -- which meant that perhaps the girl who was crying was Erin. While he was certainly more or less over his awkward obsession with the young woman, he still considered her of some small importance to himself (and to Aland, if the other man would just be honest). He paused in his steps and set down the bin he'd been hefting, walking to the door of the lab and easing it open.

"Erin, are you --" Definitely not Erin. The girl was suddenly not his primary concern, however -- the body on the table was.

He felt his mouth dry considerably and he swallowed, pausing inside of the frame. Maybe he could just slowly back away and come back later ...?

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alongday
2009-02-22 11:32 pm UTC (link)

Alice Longbottom was having a terrible, terrible weekend. An urgent owl from Dumbledore early on in the day yesterday had immediately left her with uneasiness, giving her nervous twitches all day. Frank had tried to assure her that it wasn't anything serious, but with Nigel starting to flutter around in her stomach, Alice couldn't help the figurative and literal butterflies jumping about in her stomach. With all her worries and concerns, she had never imagined anything as severe as the prophecy.

A prophecy! A prophecy? Alice had liked to believe that fortune telling and all that you learned in Divination was real and true (especially when it read good things about you), but her immediate reaction was that it must be a joke, a setup from Voldemort to try and scare them, it had to be some cruel scheme to try and destroy her and Frank, and--the Potters once and for all.

After all, they had each defied him three times.

It was ridiculously scary how well the prophecy described the two families. Alice was due early August, and Lily just a bit before the end of July, but who else could fit the thrice defied aspect of it? No one, any one who faced Voldemort more than once was already dead, just---just look at the body on the table.

Avis had called her in; there was a situation she needed to handle, Erin was detained, and that left Alice to finish the cases left for her. Alice was more than willing to get out of the dreary fog that had dropped onto the Longbottom Estate and had hurried into work. She'd been in the lab a good half an hour before she had even gotten the lab work and paperwork ready to start things, and when she'd pulled off the sheet---to see his face---

Alice stared at Caradoc Dearborn's completely lifeless body through blurry eyes. Why, why did she have to be the one to see this? Did the fates think it was funny to have her be the one to confirm to the Order that they had indeed lost two members that night? That she was going to be the one to nod and tell Emmeline that her boyfriend wasn't missing, that the death eaters had caught up with him, and----

She swiveled quickly at the sound of the door opening, and Alice wiped at her face to try and attempt to hide that she'd just been hysterically sobbing. Of course, Fate wouldn't be getting its full laughs if Caradoc's own family didn't barge through the door right now. "I---Mr....Mr. Dearborn, I'm---"

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maintains
2009-02-22 11:44 pm UTC (link)

"...sorry," he supplied for her easily enough. Roderick could only assume that was what she was attempting to stammer out, at least. She was sorry? He was the one who had risked -- far too much for his nephew, had hit Grayson bloody Wilkes over the head with something rather large and heavy -- only to find him laying on the slab in front of Alice.

It occurred to him that he didn't exactly know who Caradoc's friends were -- no, who they had been -- and could only assume that Alice knew him well. He was fairly certain that was her name, at least. She was one of the ones on the list, one of the ones who Voldemort had particular trouble with. She didn't seem to be taking things well. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a fraction of a moment before taking a step closer to the girl and to Caradoc's body.

He should have known -- well, he had known that Voldemort had suspected his reports, he'd just been very confident in his ability to hide people. Apparently he hadn't hid them well enough, however. He felt irrationally irritated at himself.

"...yes, of course you are." He wasn't about to reach out and comfort her -- that would be awkward for the both of them -- but he considered it for just a moment.

Of course, he also considered oblivating the girl and just finishing her paperwork for her.

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alongday
2009-02-23 12:14 am UTC (link)

Alice wiped at her face again, trying so hard to compose herself as the auror she was supposed to be. It felt like the second she'd officially finished her training, she'd been hit with every possible attack and tragedy. Her best friend was murdered mere weeks after the test and that had taken such a long time to come to terms with (she still got the urge to owl Marlie--). Then the M.A.G.I.C. acts through the entire wizarding world into a frenzy, and the second that ended, they could only rejoice in the news of their child for---for a week before Caradoc's secret was revealed and---

It was never going to end, this war, these terrible things going on in their lives---never.

She pushed her hair back, quickly tying it up to give her hands something to do. She looked a mess, she looked like such a bloody--mess. She had to throw on the biggest set of robes she had to completely hide her burgeoning stomach because of the prophecy, and---Alice sure that the people who were questioning her sanity before were absolutely sure she had none of it now.

"If you'd...if you'd like to be alone..." she muttered, unsure of how close Caradoc and his uncle had been. Alice only knew of their relations because Roderick worked in the ministry, but from the look on his face there was obviously more than a faint acquaintance there.

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maintains
2009-02-23 12:27 am UTC (link)

Roderick probably knew more about what she was going through than he let on. He'd never necessarily been a great advocate of the Lord Voldemort and his ways, but his particular talent had really only seemed useful to the man and it had appeased his family at the time. He hadn't seen a downside until the war had whipped itself up into something that was clearly going to go on for years. He still thought he'd made the most logical choice, though, and at least he had Aland now.

For all that they could never be public, the other man at least gave him a sense of constancy in the world that was apparently changing more and more every day. It was a good feeling. He rested his hands on the edge of the slab that Alice had been working from and glanced over to her just a little awkwardly.

"I don't think that's entirely legal," he reminded her, brow arched. Rules and regulations had to appear to be kept close to his heart so that people would think he was a model employee. He'd heard rumors that Alice wasn't entirely ... stable, so he also thought that perhaps leaving her alone would be a poor decision on his part.

"But I'd like to stay. While you ... work." For both their sakes.

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alongday
2009-02-23 01:33 am UTC (link)

While she worked. She hadn't done any work, and she was going to get in deep trouble from Avis and the rest in the offices if she didn't. The publicity of the case had died down, or maybe it hadn't even been that big of a deal at all, she had just been in the middle of the frenzy. Only a small handful of the wizarding world probably gave a damn about the man on the table and the problems he caused, and now she had to suck it up and do her job. This was a job, finding the cause of death of this---body.

A body, he was just a body now.

Alice pushed away some of the sheets by the end of the table, giving her space to write. She needed to fill out what she knew, the basic information. Name, age, date of birth, estimated---date of death. Flicking her wand, her quill was now set to record her every word.

"The body was found in Lisbon, Portugal," she began, finding that her tone had taken on a stern, icy edge, "in a dumpster behind a bakery---the Portuguese ministry had been informed of the disappearance of the supposed fugitive and immediately informed our own." Alice avoided making eye contact with Roderick as she moved up the table, and she pulled the sheet further off of his body. She almost felt like her eyes weren't here own, that she was seeing anything but what was actually in front of her.

"There are no physical signs of death----closed up injuries, but given the advancement in their healing, aren't the cause---"

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maintains
2009-02-23 01:58 am UTC (link)

It was too easy for Roderick to disconnect after how much practice he'd had with it and he knew it -- he admired the girl for being able to do so as quickly as she apparently had. He took a step back so that she had more room to move and didn't feel quite so much as if he were observing her (even though he was, very keenly). Roderick was glad of his own ability to step back from the situation as she spoke.

Portugal. That was unfortunate, and it made him want to pull a face over everything. He didn't, of course, but he would have liked to. She wasn't looking at him -- that was fine with him -- and she sounded far more professional than she had a few moments ago. He tried to squash the lump of emotion threatening to bubble up from inside of him.

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alongday
2009-02-23 06:25 am UTC (link)

Alice wasn't sure where she'd gained the ability to separate her work from her personal life's emotions, though she supposed she'd been practicing that skill since Marlene's death. She and Frank had been on the scene when arresting Travers, and as much as she wanted to kill him at that moment, she'd done everything by the book so that they couldn't mess it up. The rest of her pregnancy was going to be a bloody thrill if this was how haywire her emotions were going to be. Alice couldn't be sure if she was able to switch her feelings on and off because she was an auror or because of the baby, but---it wasn't something she liked.

After completely examining the body, the only conclusion she could come to at the moment, before an autopsy could be performed for potion and poisoning reasons, Alice believed it was The Killing Curse. She couldn't find any visible symptoms, and the body had been left, discarded, for so long that any remnants of the spell were diminished.

That was it, then. Avis would come in for the final look over, but. Her job was done. Alice turned to Roderick, knowing her eyes were still red from the tears before, and she swallowed roughly as her throat hurt from her crying. She pulled out some parchment, and glad that she didn't have to---God, if she would've had to call Emmeline in to identify the body---Alice slid the parchment over to Roderick, handing out a quill,

"Roderick Dearborn, do you identify this body to be that of Caradoc Dearborn?"

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maintains
2009-02-23 06:31 am UTC (link)

She was surprisingly efficient for someone who'd been crying over a body a few moments before that. He tried to think of exactly how this could have happened - how Caradoc could have gotten himself caught. There were a hundred ways, of course, but he didn't want to think about any of them.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the girl passing him over a piece of parchment -- he glanced down at it and blinked. Oddly enough, his first thought was of Emmeline as well. She probably wouldn't appreciate having him tell her that Caradoc wasn't dead (even if he'd oblivated her) and then having to come in and identify the body. That just seemed cruel.

"..yes, I do," he muttered quietly, scribbling down his messy signature (his writing was like Erin's, oddly enough, so perhaps not all that messy) before passing the paper back to the girl.

"...are you going to be all right?" After all, even if Caradoc had been his nephew, they hadn't been all that close. Being close to people while you were a Death Eater was frowned upon, so he tried to avoid it when he could -- with the exception of Aland, apparently.

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alongday
2009-02-23 07:06 am UTC (link)

She folded up the parchment slowly, trying to find the answer to his question. No, never. And as harsh as it sounded, it wasn't because of Caradoc. She would miss him (and has), she would feel more pain for his family and his close ones, but Alice had come to the sickening conclusion that this war was going to be the end of her. There was no way they were going to get out of this, were they? They'd finally found some sort of light in their son, and now---any sort of hope in anything was literally murdered and dropped in front of her, right in her fucking lap.

"Yes," Alice stoically responded, knowing that it wasn't long before her emotional dam broke and she was back to being a complete and utter mess. She had to finish this paper work and then she could cry, right now she needed to do her bloody job---maybe it'll keep this war from killing her for a little bit longer, maybe it would save some more of her friends but---it was all she could do right now. "I'll be fine."

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maintains
2009-02-24 12:20 am UTC (link)

He knew that she was lying, but ... well, he really didn't know how to react to having a girl crying in front of him again. Roderick nodded just a little tightly, tempted to reach out and touch her arm but restraining himself for the moment.

"If there's anything I can do," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck, "or would you rather I just let you get on with things?" Because Merlin knew that he sometimes buried himself in his work, both inside the Ministry and outside with the Death Eaters, when he was overemotional about things.

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