WHO: SHIT
WHAT: YIKES
WHERE: OH GOD
WHEN: NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN

His first invisibility cloak was beginning to age, and it was with a pathetic realization that Caradoc thought that may be purposeful reality at work. After being stored away, hidden, for so long with other select items from his past that had gone through their own battering, he wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t as strong as it had once had been. Though, he supposed, it was late, and this was Wales; he would be hard-pressed to find any ‘former’ followers of the Dark Lord here.

Determining it safe, Caradoc slipped the cloak off and swept a long glance along the rolling cemetery grounds. It had been almost five years since he set foot in Wales. Five years of avoiding… his birthplace, his past, where many youthful mistakes lay. Even upon returning three years ago under Dumbledore’s command, he had avoided coming here, the country as a whole because it reminded him was how he still struggled to come to terms with the ramifications of his actions so long ago.

Stiff legs kept him standing tall, and it was with a heavy presence that Caradoc stood before a seemingly insignificant headstone. It was simple, and handsome, much like its designated had been, so he supposed he could find solace in whomever had chosen it had been thinking of her.

Since the seventies, Caradoc had teetered on thinking about Dorcas Meadowes far too much, and refusing to entertain the idea of her at all, each with little effect on his conscious or state of being. So he had thought, in light of events concerning old friendships, recent run-ins, and heated domestic squabbles, that it was time to pay a bit of respect, and penance, for his past. Dorcas’ fate, like many other of his old acquaintances, weighed heavy on Caradoc’s shoulders, having grown considerably after going so long unaddressed.

The wind picked up, and for the first time Caradoc heard something rustling at his feet. He hadn’t noticed earlier, but a closer look proved a slew of bloomed flowers, the most recent having obviously just been charmed, were sitting in a neat row at the end of the grave. What was usually a warming gesture struck familiar fear into Caradoc’s heart, and without so much as a second thought he went to roughly stumble back.

But, before he could manage to even stand up straight, a cold spell shot through his limbs and Caradoc felt his body immobilize in its slightly hunched over form. The hood on his robes had somehow managed to stay up, but the anonymity it was currently affording him would soon expire if his ears weren’t deceiving him; footsteps were approaching.

The night was a pleasant one, as far as mid-autumn nights could be in Wales. Derek stood still at the base of the hill before the gates of the cemetery where his once-beloved (his always-beloved) lay buried, his hands in his pockets, before trekking upwards.

This site had long since become a place not just for remembrance, but solitude. In the beginning, he had found the cemetery hard to visit. The memories, the feelings, were too raw, too fresh. In time, that faded, and on the eleventh of January, he faithfully visited, then on her birthday. On the day of their engagement, and once on the day he had told her he wished to be married on. The visits grew, but his purpose changed. If ever Derek needed some time for introspection, to truly box out the rest of the world, he found it at the foot of Dorcas's grave.

Tonight, however, the passing of another year of Derek Dobbs being on this earth concluded, and a day he had looked forward to all of his life now left him restless and unsure as an adult. Though the moods came fewer and far between, he felt melancholy tonight, as he grew yet another year, while the woman he loved would never age. In some ways, he still came to this grave as an act of seeking absolution, but whether it was so the spirits of the dead could forgive him for letting go of those who had left him, or the dark wish he often carried that he would soon join them, he was never sure.

But his stride hitched when he caught sight of Dorcas's grave. A figure lurking in the cold, dark of the gated grounds struck fear through him like an arrow, reverberating as the tail of that arrow did when lodged in its mark. Only a moment passed before the fear turned into a cold fury. There was no one left to pay their respects to Dorcas Meadowes. The other side had seen to that—no one left who deserved to stand on the sacred ground of her grave. That meant that them—one of them— was defiling her with their mere presence—as if they hadn't destroyed enough.

Taking full advantage of the element of surprise, he cast a full body-bind at the figure and watched it fall like a stone, murderous thoughts clouding his mind.

Stalking toward the body on the ground, he raised his foot in preparation to strike when the slant of light on the lower half of the obscured face caught his attention, halted his movement. "No," he breathed, frozen. "No—" Derek bent and jerked the hood covering the face away and stumbled back immediately.

"You!" he snarled, brandishing his wand. "It's not possible."

It was good that he couldn’t currently express a thought or gesture, because the growling sight of Derek Dobbs had left Caradoc pitifully speechless. His pride splintered at getting caught off-guard, his self-preservation screamed that while Dobbs was no Death Eater, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill him, and his guilt burned so deeply within the pit of his stomach that it ached. His thoughts churned quickly, thinking, anticipating... it had been so long, he and Dobbs had distanced themselves from each other after Hogwarts, during the war--- he couldn’t easily figure out what the other wizard would do. And without control of his own body, without the comfort of his quick reflexes or spindling manner with words, Caradoc was left completely in the hands of Derek Dobbs.

That was not good.

He could feel his wand jutting into his thigh underneath his cloak, but it may as well have been lost at the bottom of the ocean for as much help that was. His hands were frozen in their half-clamped form, still preparing to grasp his wand, and his gaze stuck in a mask of dreaded alert. He could not speak, could not move, and was forced to watch Derek Dobbs intensely, something he couldn’t say he had ever thought he would be doing upon this unsanctioned return to Great Britain. Dobbs had been… there were many other people, many other graves Caradoc had been set on visiting, and if he---

He couldn’t, but if he had been able to, Caradoc would have curled his lip up and snarled. Dobbs had yet again unwittingly stumbled upon something he had no right knowing about, and now there was a problem because of it, one that grew larger and larger with each passing second. Caradoc willed his fingers to move, tried his very best to force them alive again, but it was to no avail. Wordless magic was no use without his wand, everything was useless without his wand. Though there was no way for it to be, he bore holes into Dobb’s skull with his gaze. Adrenaline began to pump through his veins as the formerly familiar feeling of danger brewed within.

Caradoc Dearborn was not lying at his feet. Caradoc Dearborn was dead. Not—perhaps not definitively dead, but missing, presumed dead, and after the war, presumed dead was a nicer way of saying something like tortured beyond the brink of sanity and deposited into an unmarked grave.

His initial shock was wearing off, and Derek quickly disarmed him with a mutter, depositing the wand in his pocket. The object was of no use to Derek in determining the truth of his identity. He had no idea of the instrument Dearborn had once been in possession of, and even if he had, the likelihood that the wand would have been replaced in the five years Dearborn had been playing possum was high. But he needed to exercise caution, even in the face of the terrible rage brewing within him. If this person wasn't Caradoc, it was not only himself that had an enormous problem on his hands. If it was Caradoc, it was definitely not only himself that had an enormous problem on his hands.

"I'm going to unbind you," warned Derek as he advanced. "After I restrain you." Thin, reinforced ropes issued from the tip of his wand and wound themselves around forearms and legs over and over before Derek felt comfortable enough to drop his arm and perform the counterspell on the full body-bind. His gaze was baleful and growing stonier by the moment.

"Who are you?" he asked coldly, wand extended.

Dobbs hadn’t mostly been a dull-witted wizard with his wand in the past, so Caradoc knew better than to squander what little advantage he could gain in the few seconds after Derek released him by answering questions. The element of surprise was the only thing he had left, now, as he lay tethered on the ground, wandless.

Really, that was how this had escalated. He would be cursing himself if this situation hadn’t already bloomed into extremely delicate.

As soon he regained control of his limbs, Caradoc wasted little time in freeing himself. Dobbs had been correct in assuming that normal wizards would find it difficult to get out of ropes he created, but most normal wizards couldn’t transform into animals, either. The usual warm feeling of putting on a heavy coat came over him, and now that the binds lay in a pile on the ground, he bound under and between Derek’s feet with a hiss, narrowly avoiding a jet of, what he presumed to be, red light.

But there was one more thing----

As he rose back straight onto two feet, it was with a triumphant smile that his wand was back safely in his hand, and but a few feet separated him and Derek. Perhaps there had been a bit of feline pocket swiping in the chaos of the last few moments. He had the dark atmosphere to thank for that. So, despite taking a sturdy dueling stance, Caradoc’s voice danced with inappropriate lightness.

“You never were good at the whole keeping the upper-hand thing.” Caradoc flaunted his wand at Derek as he spoke. The wind picked up again, but far too quietly to make a noise. It seemed even the life surrounding them was waiting with baited breath to see what would happen next.

The strangled hiss, clenched jaw, and hair standing up on the back of his neck told him this was in fact the person he thought it to be, as no other person in this world, dead or alive, evoked such a visceral reaction from Derek as Caradoc Dearborn.

Of course, he would not have lasted as the hardened, skilled Hit-wizard he was if he relied solely on that kind of feeling.

Refusing to let himself be disoriented by Caradoc, Derek knew every passing second was an opportunity to lose ground against his opponent if he didn't act both quickly and smartly. Whether this person claimed to be who he said, Dobbs and Dearborn had never gone head-to-head as anything more than snide school children working off a grudge—but that didn't mean Derek was unaware of Caradoc's skill. He just so happened to be talented with a wand himself, thought that talent didn't excuse cockiness.

The cool, detached attitude with which he entered every confrontation warred pitifully against the red-hot anger boiling inside Derek. Of all the nerve, of all the injustice in the world— that this wizard got to live, and Dorcas, so many others, had to die—Derek tried to choke down the rage that suffocated him, but the act was in vain.

Mere moments had ticked by, and the time to act was coming to hand. He dared not attack with a spell, for that would lead directly into a duel, and that invited much too much room for chance. Caradoc had escaped those bindings, how, he couldn't have been sure, but another escape could not happen. Derek did his best to ignore Caradoc's baiting, though his grip on his wand tightened.

Decision made, hardly daring to breathe, eyes closed, a strong light flashed suddenly from the tip of Derek's wand, enough to blind and disorient. Shielding his face, he bodily launched himself at Caradoc.

As was usual to his nature, Caradoc without much thought produced a shield charm with anticipation of an offensive magical maneuver. But, he had been wrong, and found that a protego was little help against blinding light, and exceptionally useless against a physical attack. So it was with easy surprise that Derek tackled Caradoc off his feet, and Caradoc once again found himself back on the ground with the wind knocked out of him.

Dobbs was heavy, bulkier than he remembered, and quickly it became obvious that Caradoc would not win this struggle if it continued along this non-magical route. But before that could even happen, he would need his sight back. He could feel Derek attempting to pry his wand out of his hand, and in an effort to stop his advances, Caradoc’s feet kicked against the grass for proper footing while his free hand jammed upward, palm first, into Derek’s jaw.

“Dobbs!” he hissed through his teeth, though it came out strangled. There was a painful amount of pressure on his neck now, enough to make his vision begin to blacken before it could clear. The other wizard’s outline was a dull form looming darkly over him. In an attempt to help relieve the building pressure against his neck, his fingers began to grapple against what Caradoc could only assume was Derek’s hands. “You’re going--- to get yourself--”

Caradoc sputtered for air, the pressure on his neck becoming too much to do anything but struggle against it. Gasping, his mind swirled frantically, helplessly grappling for an answer of survival as his limbs weakened and his body began to shut down. Dobbs had directed all his power into pressing down on Caradoc’s throat, which would have been an opportunity to strike back. But now, his limbs had become too heavy to move. In a matter of moments, Caradoc’s body fell limp, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

The harder he squeezed, the heavier Derek breathed. Wands forgotten, his hands wrapped around Caradoc's neck with ever increasing tightness, and not even the slumping of consciousness leaving the body woke Derek from his vengeance-filled stupor.

His concentration did not break until the lonely call of a night-flying bird pierced through the silence. Hands slackening, he stared down at the body on which he was atop. Fingers clenched into the sides of his robes before Derek wiped the back of one hand against his mouth.

Straightening, he scanned the cemetery, where all lay still as death. Derek glanced over his shoulder, and, satisfied that no one further lurked about, Apparated into the night.