[TW] The Hanging Tree | Rossian

Monday, May 29, 1922
6:00 PM
Cass and Rosie’s Apartment
<3

“Rosie? Rosie!”

Cassian was working late. A bit unusual, but a shipment had come in past the expected schedule and they’d asked him to stay behind and help out. Rosie had wandered her way home on her own, settled in with a book and decided to wait for him before she had dinner. They could go out for once, and there was a small cafe around the corner the two of them liked.

It had been a rough couple of weeks. Between Rosie’s increasing morning sickness that seemed to last all day, and the struggles Cassian had admitted to having, the two were fighting to find their equilibrium and Rosie was eager to provide any sort of normalcy for the two of them.

Of course, the elderly woman next door made that nearly impossible. Mrs. Rousseau was never far from a request, and anytime the woman had an inkling that one of them were home, she was sure to come knocking or yelling across the balcony for them. Rosalie didn’t mind nearly as much as Cassian did, finding the woman harmless if not a little relentless, but even Rosie had to admit that it was starting to feel a little intrusive.

She ignored her name at first, choosing instead to focus on the chapter about nursing her baby and what to expect, when the woman’s voice rang out louder, more frantic and almost panicked. She’d…never sounded like that before.

Rosie sat up a bit in her chair as the woman nearly screamed out her name a third time, and the girl bolted to her feet. Had Mrs. Rousseau fallen? Burned herself? Cut herself? There was a myriad of things an elderly woman could do to hurt herself due to a simple lack of coordination. Out the door Rosie ran, forgetting to ward the place in her hurry as Cassian had always insisted she do, and straight to her neighbor’s flat, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

---

He’d found her. It had taken him a year, but Leo Laurence had found his insolent, greedy, selfish, whore of a daughter. The girl he’d poured his time, money and energy into in the expectation that she would grow to be a respectable and obedient woman had betrayed him. Not only had she dirtied herself, laying down with a mudblood and then running off with him, but she’d stolen his money and used it, he presumed, to support the mutt.

His daughter. His. The girl who was the gem of their circles. The one he was getting offers for left and right. She’d soiled his name, the family name and had become the type of embarrassment he couldn’t even put into words

James had told him to let it go, and to let her be. It was easy for his cousin to say, wasn’t it? It wasn’t his daughter that was out spreading her legs for a halfbreed and making a mockery of their family. It wasn’t his daughter that had defied him.

That girl would pay for every sin she’d committed against him and her mother, with or without his cousin’s support.

He didn’t need permission to discipline his unruly daughter. As for the boy she’d eloped with? He’d pay for it as well. In more than just blood.

The elderly woman was an easy mark. Having found Rosalie through an intercepted letter, it didn’t take Arthur long to notice the neighbor that always seemed to be in need of something and yet held no loyalty towards anyone. She was a gossip-monger, easily placated with money and an assurance that no one would ever know she had a thing to do with it. She didn’t really like the boy anyway, she had said as she quickly snatched the money from Arthur’s hand.

Leo watched his daughter rush into the neighboring flat as he turned the corner, quickly unlocking the door to Rosalie’s apartment with his wand and nodded for Arthur and Thomas to follow him in.

---

“If you need anything else, it’ll have to wait ‘til morning. Have a nice night Mrs. Rousseau.”

Rosalie refrained from rolling her eyes as she shut the woman’s door behind her, wondering why she bothered sometimes. The old woman hadn’t been hurt at all, and had only left her stove on too high, causing her tea kettle to smoke without water in it. Mrs. Rousseau only needed to drop the damn thing in the sink and run cold water over it, but she insisted in her panic she hadn’t known what to do.

Pushing away her annoyance, Rosie wandered back to her own flat, closing the door behind her and flicking on the living room light.

Her blood instantly ran cold.

“Daddy.”

There in the room, stood her father, her uncle Arthur and her cousin Thomas.

Rosalie’s eyes grew wide, horror etching itself across her features as she froze not quite allowing her mind to catch up with what her eyes were seeing.

“There you are Dove,” Leo said, his voice quiet and low, “And your mother lamented we’d never find you.”

Rosie’s breath hitched in her throat as she took a step back towards the door. Fear gripped her at the look in her father’s eyes. A silent rage that roared to life behind honey-brown eyes. She’d seen it before, had been the target of it once, and it struck a terror within the girl that spoke to the knowledge of what she knew was going to happen.

“Daddy, I’m sorry,” she begged, already aware of the gravity of her situation. Her eyes flicked to her cousin who she had always been close with, but his gaze was just as cold and unforgiving as the men he stood next to.

“Sorry?” her father repeated, a look of astonishment washing over his normally stoic features. “What are you sorry for, Rosalie? Stealing from us? Ruining your cousin’s engagement night? Embarrassing our family over that mudblood -“

“Don’t call him that!” Rosie snapped, suddenly finding her courage despite the way her heart hammered against her sternum. Arthur smirked, while her father went strangely silent, before reaching behind him and then tossing the baby book at her feet. “What about his mongrel you’re carrying?” Rosie’s eyes dropped to the book, her breathing coming shallower with every moment that passed.

It was in the moment, as the buzzing in her ears grew louder that she recognized this wasn’t going to end over words. Her uncle Arthur was a sadistic man, if not stupid, and the way he handled his own boys when they stepped out of line spoke volumes about what he planned to do to her, his smirk sealing that idea.

“Where is he Rosalie?”

Blue eyes rose again to meet the darker of her father. She set her jaw, her hand curling into a fist at her side. She didn’t speak, but she stood tall, her chin held high as she glared daggers into the man that disparaged her husband and allowed his brother to disparage the grandchild she carried.

Cassian and their baby were her family now.

These people meant nothing to her. “Get out of my home,” she demanded quietly.

Leo didn’t react, aside from the way his fingers drummed along the back of her sofa. “Where is he?”

A moment of stillness.

In a flash that felt like it moved in slow motion, the girl raised her hand as the men drew their wands. “Bombarda!”

The tiny living room exploded into chaos.

---

7:05 PM

The room had gone silent save for the sounds of Rosalie’s pulse pounding in her ears.

Their living room lay in ruins, furniture and all their possessions laying in pieces around her. With her hands clasped and bound together behind her back, her cousin held her against him by her hair, his wand pressed firmly into the side of her throat as they waited.

She’d fought, but had been no match for the three of them who easily overpowered her. She’d tried to reason with Thomas, appealing to their history as close friends and confidants, but it was as if he’d heard none of it, and had become nothing more than a shell of himself at his father’s beck and call.

Beside them her father and uncle waited quietly, patiently for her husband to return home. Adrenaline coursed through her veins knowing she’d only have seconds to warn him off. The moment he came through that door they’d be on him, and once they had him Rosie wouldn’t be able to protect Cassian from them.

She knew what this meant for her. They’d take her back to Arundel. Punish her, torture her in whatever way they felt suitable. Maybe wait until she had her baby and then sell her off to the highest bidder. If she were lucky they’d just lock her away in the castle for the rest of her days.

But if she could spare Cassian, if she could warn him and help him get away, then she could live with whatever they’d do to her.

She heard him, just outside the door. His familiar saunter as he reached their apartment and the slight pause as he realized the wards weren’t up.

“CASSIAN, RUN!” She screamed frantically at the door, as Thomas yanked hard on her hair and thrust his wand harder against her throat. It wouldn’t deter her. “RUN! RUN!”

Cassian was, in a word, exhausted.

When the boss had said the shipments were late and that he needed some of them to remain behind to ensure production wouldn't be delayed come morning, the man had failed to mention the volume of the shipment. It didn't look like someone had been a little late. It looked like the supply chain was finally starting to catch up on a massive backlog that found the boy heading home hours after it should've been necessary.

And sore.

Very sore. Why was it always lifting? Cass didn't think he gave the impression of a particularly strong bloke. He was no longer the lanky boy who roamed the Hogwarts castle, having bulked up from his new work, but he would hardly consider himself the sort one picked out of a lineup, deciding he was the go-to for strength and endurance. Yet he didn't have a choice. No one had gotten to choose whether they stayed or went, only how fast they worked.

Cassian wasted no time. He and Rosie had plans for the evening, and with how heavy everything else had become, he was earnestly looking forward to the easy evening and a chance to unwind and celebrate the official end of their NEWTs.

One less thing to give him sleepless nights.

Cassian dragged himself across the hallway, eager to arrive at apartment #8, where he could kiss his wife and clean the day's work off him. The boy was extra quiet as he walked by Mrs. Rousseau's, not wanting to alert her to any new opportunities to bother him. The day had been a long one, and nothing would make it longer than that paint-chipped mahogany door at #6 popping open. Suffice it to say, the old woman was the very last person on Cass's list of must-sees for...the...

Evening...

Rosie forgot the wards. Cassian shook his head, realising immediately the absence of frenetic energy and menace that was typically present unless disarmed. Their apartment wasn't a dance hall or a cabaret. They weren't a revolving door for guests to come in and out as they pleased. Following the attack back in Allonnes, he'd become militant about their safety. He'd researched all he could and practised as needed, all to ensure that anyone would have a hard – if not impossible – time getting in without their say-so.

What if he was the bad guy? Or her dad? His wife would need to be more careful.

They'd be in a world of trouble right no--

“CASSIAN, RUN!”

Shit.

Cass was startled by the sudden shriek and the desperation that came with it. His stomach dropped immediately, his nervous system moving into red alert before his mind could begin to process the warning.

“RUN! RUN!”

He did, right into the apartment.

Cassian flung the door open, darting in with his heart sitting high up inside his throat. What he saw stopped him in his tracks. The apartment was a warzone, but as alarming as that was, it wasn't the thing that held his attention. His blood ran cold. He'd thought of the devil, and he appeared with reinforcements. The boy drew his wand at once, impulse overriding any common sense that might warn him they were sorely outnumbered.

"Let her go!"

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Let her go!"

Her heart fell through her stomach like an anchor, dread filling the hole it left behind. Cassian burst through the door at her screams, and rather than running for his life like she had tried to warn him to do, he was pointing his wand at her family demanding her release.

The air left her lungs as panic swallowed her whole. Cassian was strong, so much stronger than she was, but she knew her father and uncle well. She knew the way they reduced people to problems and then erased them without a second thought. To them, Cassian wasn't a person. He was nothing more to them than a halfblood who had dared to take something that was theirs.

Her father and uncle raised their wands in unison at Cassian's challenge, as Thomas dragged Rosie further back into the room, claiming her with the space he created between the two. She kicked at him, tried to hit him with her bound hands, but he held fast to her, never breaking his hold for even a moment.

"Cass..." the soft despair in her voice matched the look in her eyes, asking him why he hadn't heeded her warning. Thomas's hand clenched even tighter in her hair, pulling a few strands from their roots, but she didn't give him the satisfaction of so much as a whimper. With her hands bound, any spell she tried would only burn into her own skin.

She wasn't meant to fight. She was made to watch helplessly while whatever they had planned unfolded.

"You've made quite the impression, Mister McCormick."

Her father's voice was laced with faux decorum, his rage and disgust only just audible in his emphasis. Arthur's eyes narrowed, his wand twitching in his hand with eagerness. Rosie's eyes shot back and forth between Leo and Cassian, breaths coming shaky and uneven as her terror grew.

"As did your parents when they emboldened themselves to show up at our home looking for you."

The man's wand remained steady, pointed directly at the boy that he now sized up, his lips curling in an obvious sneer.

“I suppose it makes sense. It takes a very particular kind of delusion to raise a mutt so presumptuous as to think he could lay his hands on her.”

Rosalie watched Cassian carefully for any sign of the reaction her father was trying to pull from him. "Don't listen to him, love. Just focus - " Thomas jabbed his wand so hard into her throat it made her cough against the force.

“I look at you and wonder which of them failed to teach you your place. Or if it simply never occurred to either of them that you had one.”

Leo took a step back as he swished his wand quickly in Rosalie's direction instead.

"But what more could be expected from a pair of dirty halfbreeds?"

With a fast flick his wrist, white flashed from the end of his wand striking his daughter across the chest. His sectumsempra slashed against her skin as she cried out in pain, his face finally twisting to match the fury behind his eyes.

Arthur moved quickly, a series of spells erupting from his wand toward the boy in an effort to capture him. "Expulso," first, followed quickly by, "Levicorpus." Thomas's eyes widened, his wand shaking in his hand, but he held fast to his cousin who writhed and fought against him.

Leo snapped back to the boy as Arthur's spells flew. "Incarcerous!"

"You've made quite the impression, Mister McCormick."

"You're too kind," he replied dryly, not in the mood for whatever nonsense the man was coming with. Yeah, he bet he'd made an impression. Broke into their castle – more than once – and stole his daughter. Didn't stop there, stole his money, married his daughter, put a baby in her and had no intention of giving her back. He wasn't an idiot. Cassian knew that if her father and the other two were there, it could only be for one reason. They'd come to take his wife and to 'remind him of his place'.

It didn't take long for the latter to come to fruition. His parents had failed to teach him his place. They harboured delusions. He was a mutt. Rosie didn't need to tell him not to listen. Knowing everything that he did about the man and the way he conducted himself, it made it exceedingly easy for Cass to discard his words the moment they hit his ears.

"Scum like you, real rich you thinking you can tell me my place." His place was by Rosalie for as long as she wanted him there. It was struggling with her until life got better, raising a child alongside her, sharing laughs and passion, grief and turmoil with equal eagerness. Things weren't the best, not for the moment, but Cassian didn't imagine things would improve by letting her get taken. Everything he knew told him that things would only get worse.

Way worse.

"But what more could be expected from a pair of dirty halfbreeds?"

Time stood still as the spells began to fly, the world rushing around him as the moment became real. They'd come with force and were prepared to exercise it to the greatest degree. Cass's jaw set, the muscles clenching painfully when he heard Rosie scream.

The movement from the corner of his eyes caught his attention milliseconds before the explosion. It knocked him off his feet, sending him into the stripping wall of their living room. He coughed as his back slammed into the solid surface. With the wind knocked out of him, the boy barely managed to cast a 'protego' to protect himself from being hoisted upward.

Did he stand a chance, three against one? Rosie captured and unable to help? The Ravenclaw in him knew better, but that was his wife, and he'd promised to protect her. Fuck the odds and how poorly they tilted.

"Relashio!" he cast, attempting to have Thomas release Rosie.

It left him open. Small as the moment was, it was enough for Mr. Laurence to slip in with his 'incarcerous'.

The ropes wrapped around him, constricting painfully as they pulled inward.

"Stay away from her!" He yelled, wiggling as he tried to break out of the magical ropes. Even this he knew was futile, but his adrenaline had him unable to give in. If there was any chance he could free himself and rescue his wife, then falling back and letting it happen wasn't an option. He was the man of their house, the provider. If there was no other role he needed to fulfil, this was it.

She wasn't Leo's daughter anymore. She was his.

"She's not going anywhere with any of you!"

Cassian tried to angle his wand despite the way his hand was pressed into his side. If Cass could get the angle just right, he might be able to either vanish or cut the ropes. Either way, he had to be quick. They were one apparition away from taking his wife and disappearing.

If they disappeared.

Julia hadn't minced her words back in her office. She'd said they wouldn't hesitate to kill them. Not managing to break free wouldn't only mean having Rosie taken. It could mean his life. The thought had the blood draining from his face, even as he continued to resist against the rope binding.

Trigger Warning
This post and all those thereafter will have themes of graphic violence, language and death. Read at your discretion.

♫ vibes

---

The cuts seared deep into her skin like fire, drawing blood beneath her shirt that flowed down her chest and covered her stomach. As her scream evaporated into the violence that exploded through the room, shock set in, tight gasps of disbelief taking its place. In and out, as time slowed, each breath matching the slow pounding of her heart, sending more crimson liquid rushing from the lacerations her father had inflicted.

Already tightly restricted, her arms went cold first, followed by her hands, and when Cassian's jinx hit Thomas, she didn't feel the release of his wand against her throat or his hand in her hair. The girl fell forward, landing harshly on her knees as her cousin stumbled backwards. Shouts and flashes of light filled the room, overwhelming in their speed and intensity so that Rosalie couldn't decipher whose was which.

Thomas, having got his bearings was reaching for her again, and Rosie rolled onto her back, scrambling away from him with desperate kicks against the wooden floor. Somewhere in the room, Cassian was shouting for them to leave her alone, and she tried to follow the sound of his voice as Thomas grabbed hold of her ankle. She screamed again, using her free leg to slam her foot into the center of her cousin's face, crushing his nose and sending a spurt of blood rushing from it. He fell back again, shouting with pain as she scrambled faster to Cassian's side.

"She's not going anywhere with any of you!"

He was bound, but still had hold of his wand. Rosie gasped, struggling for breath as the blood continued to seep down her chest, soaking her shirt and causing a deep chill to run through the girl. As she found herself at his feet, she looked up at her father, now crossing the room towards them. "Stop, please!" she cried, struggling to stand and get herself in front of her husband. Surely...her father wouldn't kill her to get to him. Leo wanted her for the control it gave him. He lost that if she were dead. Her legs failed her, only allowing her to get as far as her knees again.

"I'll go home! I will, just leave him..."

The slam of her father's hand across her face stunned her, sending her to the floor at Cassian's feet.

In the same breath, Leo threw his fist into Cassian's stomach. Arthur rushed forward, grabbing the boy by the shoulder to keep him upright, before hitting him twice across the face. "No one taught you," the two shoved Cassian back against the solid wall. Another slam to his stomach, "But I will."

Rosie's world spun as tried to focus on the sounds around her, dazed by the hit she hadn't anticipated. Thomas, from his place on the ground, watched on in what looked like horror, emotion finally crossing his features in place of the cold empty stare he wore just moments ago. "Thomas..." she begged, her voice soft and pleading as her chest and stomach grew colder with every moment. She hadn't wanted to hurt him but she didn't understand what he was doing. Why he was helping them.

They were friends. She loved him. Her cousin's eyes found hers, blood seeping from his nose as the sound of punches, kicks and Cassian's groans grew fainter in her ears. "Please..."

Before Rosalie could realize what was happening, her uncle took hold of her, hoisting her up into his arms. "Boy!" he barked at his son, and the light left Thomas's eyes again. "Grab hold of the mutt."

Rosie's breaths came loud in her ears as every other sound muffled and faded into the background. Her eyes found the figure of her husband, bloodied from their hits, Thomas grabbing Cassian by one arm while Leo took hold of the other, leaning in so he was eye to eye with him. "Look at you," he said evenly, his calm sending another jolt of terror through Rosalie's failing body. Another strike against her husband's jaw as she screamed and begged for them to stop.

"All that noise, and still nothing underneath it." He sneered at Cassian, tightening his grip on the boy's arm.

"We're not finished."

With a nod to the other two men, he drew his wand and the five suddenly vanished from the flat, leaving the room in cold, broken silence.

There was a pause in the chaos, a moment after they realised Cassian was bound where the attacks paused and the room fought to exhale. In that quick beat, he watched the blood trickle down his wife's chest.

When...how...?

He hadn't seen it happen. His breath caught at the back of his throat. The boy had been so caught up in the fast-paced exchange, trying to keep his eyes on all three without being able to focus on any one. Somewhere in the middle of it all, one of them had drawn Rosie's blood, and as he lay there struggling on the floor, the feeling of helplessness worsened. Cassian tried to fight against it with the same desperation he fought against the rope. If he could just free his wand, he could make another attempt. The spell he'd thrown had worked well enough. It had sent Thomas staggering and forced him to release his cousin.

"I'll go home! I will, just leave him..."

Like hell she would.

"Rosie, don't," he insisted. He would...he would find a way, somehow. Letting her go wasn't an option. Having her fall back under her father's control, a slave to his cruelty, was a thought more brutal than he could bear. The thing they'd been running from for nearly an entire year had found them. There was no more trying to avoid or get away, only confronting and protecting her with everything he had.

"You don't have to go anywhere with them!"

She stumbled before him, and he felt his chest constrict, but nothing could prepare him for the moment her father struck her. His blood drew to a quick boil. Cass shuffled to his feet, trying to orient himself to face her when he was suddenly grabbed. With his mind still on Rosie, he didn't have a chance to prepare before the fist slammed violently into his jaw, sending a ripple of pain radiating outward. A bell rang inside his ear, high-pitched and insistent. His eyes darted back to his wife, his mind scrambling through its own pain to ensure she was still alright. The boy barely got a glimpse of her before he was grabbed by the shoulder and forced upright.

One blow, then another. His insides twisted from the impact, drawing out low groans that he'd fought to keep in. He felt the wind escape him as his lungs recoiled inward.

Cassian was no stranger to violence, least of all after the events of their failed run away some years back. That was when he'd gotten his first taste of what might await them outside the safety of Hogwarts with its stony walls and ancient structure.

The attack still took him by surprise.

All this...because they loved each other...?

The taste of metal inside his mouth made him dizzy, as did Rosie's desperate pleas. Try as he did to hold it together for her—to reassure her that he was okay and could handle it—his body was already beginning to shake from the pain.

Cassian gritted his teeth, bracing as the man's hand rose up to strike him again. This groan was a little more contained, mindful as he was of his wife bearing witness. He swung his shoulders wildly, trying to get them off him, but it was no use. The men had a firm hold on him.

"All that noise, and still nothing underneath it."

"Untie me and I'll show you nothing."

It didn't matter that he didn't know how. Cassian had someone worth fighting for and wasn't prepared to roll over and go quietly.

"We're not finished."

Shit.

The cool air of the forest whipped through Rosalie's hair, sending it in chaotic flurries around her face. The area smelled of pine and soaked earth, the woody edge of petrichor hanging low, heavy enough to taste.

As her feet hit the ground, blue orbs sank into their sockets, her face draining of all color, leaving her skin a pale shade of gray. Her lips parted, breath stalling in her throat. The place that haunted her, stalked her nightmares. A place she had never seen but knew well.

A small clearing, surrounded by miles of forest in every direction.

Panic took her, as her gaze met Cassian's, the dread of what she feared was coming taking hold of the girl in a way she hadn't felt since that night at the docks. He had taken their hits, one after another and though their grip on him was tight, he was still standing, still holding his head up.

Arthur dropped Rosie from his arms, letting her land hard on her back. The wind rushed from her lungs, as a sharp pain jolted through her lower abdomen, reminding her of everything that was hanging in the balance. She felt a searing warmth suddenly take hold as her uncle pointed his wand at her, cauterizing the cuts her father had left across her chest. Her shirt, wet with blood still clung to her skin growing cold with the evening breeze that filtered through the trees.

In one smooth movement, Leo shoved Cassian backwards towards Rosalie and as he hit the ground, she rushed to him, made all the more difficult by her bound hands. "What do you say, Arthur? Shall we let him show us?" Her father sneered in a way that sent another flurry of panic through her. He'd said she didn't have to give in, that she didn't have to go anywhere with her father, but how else was she meant to save him? It was possible Cassian didn't realize the dire situation they were in yet, but Rosalie was well-aware. Her father knew she was well-aware.

No one who was brought to this clearing left alive.

It didn't matter what lay in wait for her at home. If she lost Cassian amongst these trees, if he took his last breath here, Rosie knew she wouldn't be able to go on. She'd rather live a life of her father's mechanisms than watch his life be snuffed out under the weight of her family's cruelty.

"Daddy..." she tried again, but her uncle was quicker. He grabbed the rope that bound her hands, dragging her backwards across the ground and deposited her at Thomas's feet. "Make her watch," he said evenly, "so she understands the consequences for betraying her family."

Thomas took hold of his cousin again, keeping her on her knees as he snatched her hair, pulling it painfully tight. She couldn't look away if she wanted to. Her breaths came fast and shaky, her eyes filling with tears as she clenched her jaw, willing herself to endure whatever came next.

As Cassian's ropes fell away, Rosie grimaced at the scorching heat that began to grow between her bound hands. Clasped together, the magic she forced between them seared at the flesh of her palms, flicking at her wrists as she tried to angle her wand hand closer to the ropes. Her body shook against the pain, every nerve ending screaming at her to stop.

"Go on then," Leo said, the words dripping from his lips with a casual cruelty that Rosalie knew well. It was the tone of a man who knew he'd already won, despite the 'chance' he was bestowing upon her husband.

"Show her how this ends."

Where...were they...?

It took a moment for Cassian's mind to catch up to the sudden apparition, and when it did, it struggled to understand what they were doing deep within a grove of trees when just moments ago they were surrounded by cheap and poorly mixed cement. Then it hit him.

The clearing.

The end.

Cass had heard enough about this place to know the odds of leaving there alive. It had come down to this, the final act in a theatrical play that had gone on longer than anyone could've guessed it would. As he took in the scene, Julia's words played inside his head. She'd...she'd asked him to look after Rosie...but they ended up there anyway. A large lump developed in the back of his throat, making it hard for him to swallow as realisation dawned that he was very well entering the final moments of his life.

Even then, his mind went back to Rosie and how he could get her out.

"Go on then. Show her how this ends."

The rope vanished, freeing his limbs. For a moment, the feeling of being constricted remained, echoing along his skin. The sensation was so strong that it took an extra second for Cassian to realise he'd been released. The sudden freedom was dizzying. There was only a little time and a lot of distance he needed to put between them.

This wasn't the time for chivalry. If Cassian didn't track down the men who'd attacked his wife, even after seeing the aftermath of what they'd done, he certainly wasn't about to linger there in the clearing with their lives on the line to prove a point. There was a reason the hat had skipped right over Gryffindor when it made the choice, and that was no clearer than in the moment. In one quick motion, he drew his wand and cast "Accio!" at Rosie.

It wasn't that he didn't see her cousin clinging to her, but that the math told him the pair had a better chance against one assailant closer to their age than two grown men with blood in their eyes.

Both his wife and Thomas came hurtling toward him, but before he could grab her to apparate, a force hit him from the side, slamming him into the bark of the nearby tree. The boy groaned involuntarily as his side slammed against the hard surface. He crumbled on the ground, gritting his teeth as he forced himself onto his hands and knees. The world spun around him, all the more disorienting in the setting sun. The trees shifted around him, the long shadows creeping across the ground to consume him. Cassian shook his head, trying to correct his vision.

"Haven't you learned anything, boy?" Leo sneered as he walked over to him. Without warning, he drove his leg into Cassian's gut, bending the boy as his frame folded. "Keep your fucking hands off her. She's mine to do with as I please. Not. Yours."

With his face so low to the ground, Cassian had no hope of seeing the second kick coming until it was already connecting with his face, twisting him all the way around. The blood that had slowed from the earlier attack gushed freely now.

"Get him up."

Arthur didn't need to be told twice. His levicorpus hoisted Cassian into the air by his ankles, further disorienting him as the blood began to pool in his head.

"You were right," Leo said quietly, the chill sharpening his tone. "You did show me nothing. Baubillious."

Lightning shot from the man's wand, hot and searing. It struck a path across the short distance, jolting into Cassian and wreaking havoc through his system until the boy began to convulse. Veins rose along his skin, most notably along his face as the electricity ricocheted off his nerves and neurones. He couldn't scream. Despite the debilitating pain that arrested him, the sudden surge of electricity forced his jaw shut as his muscles seized.

The man walked over to his daughter, gripping her by the back of her neck before yanking her harshly to her feet.

"Is this what you want? This mutt? Look at him, Dove. Look at the boy you chose over your family." He leaned close, his breath hot against the side of her neck. Go to him.

Leo shoved his daughter forward, his expression hard but otherwise unreadable when she turned briefly to look at him. He nodded her toward her husband, but the moment she staggered forward, he raised his wand again, forcing a second round of searing hot lightning, this one into his only child.

"Arthur, our guest's gone quiet." he said, noting the wall of silence that surrounded the boy. "Bored already? We'll have to fix that, won't we?" He nodded toward his brother, who eagerly stepped forward to carve an 'X' into the boy's chest with a pair of 'sectumsempras'.

"Go on then. Show her how this ends."

From somewhere in the trees, Rosalie sensed what felt like hundreds of eyes on her, lingering just beyond sight and crowding the edges of the clearing. The forest breathed around her, heavy with it, the ground remembering the screams it had swallowed here before.

Stories that had ended too soon.

Names that were never spoken again.

Blood that never washed clean.

Though words were being said and sounds were made, everything faded away except for the soft hush of inevitability. Mouths moved in silence as her pulse echoed in her ears, a hushed whisper beckoning her towards the ending she knew was coming.

She knew it in the same way she knew the shape of his hands, the sound of his laugh, the way he said her name in those quiet moments where their love led the way. It lived in her, carved deep and ancient, passed down in blood and silence and stories no one ever spoke in full.

They were standing on the edge of it now, a thin fragile place where his breath still existed but only just.

All of this because she had dared to step out of line and want something for herself. She'd known this was possible, and she'd still held onto him.

How would she ever live with herself?

Tears flooded her cheeks as she held her breath, her eyes growing wider with horror when Cassian pointed his wand at her. It wouldn't work, she knew it wouldn't -

"Accio!"

She shrieked as the spell caught both her and Thomas, sending them hurtling both towards Cassian at a speed she couldn't process. But before he could grab her, he was slammed back into a tree, crumpling to the ground. She fell in a heap, her cousin struggling to grab hold of her again as she fought and writhed to get away.

"Keep your fucking hands off her. She's mine to do with as I please. Not. Yours."

"Leave him alone!" she screamed, as they pummeled him with kicks, before raising him up into the air and surging his body with lightning. She sobbed as her father grabbed her by the by of the neck, yanking her harshly to her feet. Her eyes never left her husband, begging him to find a way to fight back, to not give in and let. His face was covered in blood, those warm brown eyes already darkening with bruises. She struggled against her father as his hand tightened around her neck.

"Is this what you want? This mutt? Look at him, Dove. Look at the boy you chose over your family."

More tears, her eyes full of apologies for her best friend that had tried to save her from a life of unending cruelty. From the very beginning, through uncertain smiles, starlight and quiet confessions, he had always reached for her like she was something worth keeping. Something good and precious, even when she hadn't believe it herself.

He had tried to give her a way out, and she had let it become his ending.

"He'll always be what I want," she hissed defiantly, her voice cracking with the lump that had formed in her throat, "He's ten times the man you'll ever be." Her father's face was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her face, but her eyes were for Cassian. If it was the last thing either of them ever saw, she wanted it to be each other.

"Go to him."

The shove caught her off-guard and she stumbled, her legs weakened from blood loss and shock. She didn't trust it, knew the moment she tried her father would punish her, but she didn't care. She'd lay down and die right beside Cassian if she had to. She glanced back, hate filling her eyes as her father nodded her on. She steadied herself, her jaw tightening as she held her head up and turned back to her husband. Blue oceans bore into their earthy shores, begging him to hold on just a little longer, when hot white pain blinded her, taking her to her knees again.

Lightning coursed through her body, sharp and sudden, a violent jolt that ripped a gasp from her chest as her knees hit the ground. It stole her breath, left her trembling, every nerve lit too bright beneath her skin as the aftershock lingered and buzzed.

Her fingers clenched around themselves, grounding herself against it. She gritted her teeth, but didn't scream, willing herself to endure. Another two spells against Cassian, his skin splitting open as more blood surged forward. She closed her eyes tightly, biting hard on her lip as she pushed the magic between her hands again, 'incendio' burning her flesh as she tried to angle towards the ropes. If she could just free herself...she was just feet from him. She could get to him, she could -

"Crucio."

Her father's voice came low and emotionless as red cracked through the clearing with a violent snap, slamming into Rosalie with full force.

Her world collapsed.

The pain was immediate, absolute, all-consuming as if every nerve in her body had been turned inside out and set alight at once. It ripped through her without mercy, without empathy, taking hold of every muscle that robbed her of even the illusion of control.

The girl's back arched violently, a broken, devastated cry ripping from her throat before she could stop it, her hands clawing uselessly at themselves as her body betrayed her entirely. There was no endurance, only the relentless onslaught of pain, wave after wave crashing through her, each one worse than the last.

Her baby.

Her baby.

Pain devoured. Her bones, her blood, in the spaces between her thoughts. Her vision blurred, the clearing fracturing into streaks of light and darkness, the shadows at the edge of the forest growing closer and closer. She screamed, something deep and animalistic, a sound the forest bore witness to time and time again.

Her mind clawed for Cassian, desperate, frantic, reaching for anything that might anchor her to something real. Her uncle stepped over her, releasing Cassian and letting him fall violently to the ground beside her.

Even through the blur, even through the tears and the violence of it, her gaze dragged back to her he lay, refusing to let go, refusing to lose him even as the curse tried to rip her apart from the inside out. She clung to the vision of him like a lifeline as another cry tore free, raw and unrecognizable, her body jerking against the force of it.

And then a second cast, red light crashing into Cassian as violently as it had her.

She used it. If there was ever a time for the girl to be strong, this was it. No one was coming to save them.

She grimaced against the pain, choosing to focus on another, and with all the focus she could muster, lit another incendio between her hands, pushing through the flame, letting it grow stronger and hotter as she screamed again.

He could endure, he thought.

For the sake of Rosie, Cassian knew he had to hold himself together. When those blue eyes met his, he could see her fear. He could see regrets, devastation, and a quiet plea for him to leave her there to whatever fate awaited her. The boy knew he needed to be strong enough to remove such thoughts from her and that he needed to fight back, but until the electricity surged its way out of him, he couldn't control the faintest twitch of his muscles.

The darkening clearing went stark white as the pain rose in blinding intensity. Through the haze, he heard her scream.

Always screaming.

From the moment he'd approached their front door, it was all she'd done and was the one thing he couldn't prevent. While he hung there useless, his blood boiling inside his veins, her father continued to have his way with the pair of them.

There was no relief as the spell released him and he fell to the ground, only another worry for Rosie, who writhed next to him under the Cruciatus curse.

He couldn't begin to think about their baby. Their unborn child came secondary to the woman he loved. Cassian couldn't even think of himself. With everything throbbing and his face feeling like someone had driven an axe into it, trying to break it in two, all he could think was how he would rescue her from the suffering he'd caused. Half-blood, unimportant him, having the gall to break into the big man's castle to steal his daughter. And for what? So they could struggle to pay their bills? So they could negotiate what groceries wouldn't leave them homeless? So they could be dragged into a clearing and she could be accused of betraying her family while he lay next to her with limbs that buzzed painfully.

Cassian propped himself onto his elbows, trying to reach for her, but the moment his hand lifted, that chilling incantation breathed new pain into him.

His hand snapped back as his body recoiled.

There were many firsts there in that meadow, the Cruciatus curse among them. It had been covered in his studies. There had even been extra materials on the spell that had caught his interest. Nothing could ever prepare him for the feeling of hot white knives being jammed into every inch of his skin.

The sensation took him from his mind, causing the trees to disappear in the same way his company did.

Rosie's screams fell away, not because her suffering was over but because his own had become all-consuming.

Leo's intent anchored the curse, filling it with venom and potency. They said you had to mean the spell – really mean it – for it to do any damage, and Rosalie's father meant it.

The man meant it when he'd tracked them down; he'd meant it when he had his brother slash lines across his chest. There wasn't a shadow of doubt that he meant every ounce of the suffering he imposed on the boy. It was sharp and intrusive, flooding every inch of him until it all felt like it was on fire.

Try as he did to hold it in, it wasn't long until the man drew the screams from him with his deliberate application of the curse.

The pain became unquantifiable.

There was no limit, only an endless void of further spiralling that robbed him of his ability to process the external stimulus. He couldn't feel the throbbing of the slashes across his chest or the way his blood slowly seeped its way free of him. He couldn't feel the damp earth beneath him, growing saturated with his blood. All that existed was the singular pain and how intimately acquainted he was becoming with it.

Thoughts of escape no longer filled his mind. There were no thoughts at all, only a carnal experience that overrode every system.

She'd never heard Cassian scream.

It drove away every other vibration in her ears. Silenced her own cries. Broke her heart so deeply that she felt her soul sinking into the ground beneath her. It was a sound that caused such a violent inner recoiling that she couldn't make sense of it amongst the pain that surged through her.

The sound hollowed the world out around it. Every voice, every breath, every flicker of light had been pulled beneath the surface of something vast and quiet. His scream remained, suspended in that emptiness, distant and endless.

The curse continued ripping through her body, her muscles seizing and twisting, the sensation of her bones - still whole - fracturing and shattering beneath her skin. None of it tortured her the way his screams did.

Her hands strained against their bindings, fingers curling, twisting, seeking purchase in nothing. Skin split against the fire she'd conjured, heat and friction and something deeper - something angrier - building beneath it.

She didn't feel it. Not the tearing, not the heat, not the way her body convulsed against the curse.

Only the sound of him, echoing through her like a siren, widening, pulsing, until there was nothing left in her that had not been consumed by it.

Something boiled inside of her. Something she had always kept buried. Something that didn't know how to be gentle. Something that was innate to her name. Something that could fight back.

They couldn't fucking have him.

The ropes suddenly snapped free from her wrists and without wasting the only precious second she had, she raised her hand. "EXPULSO!"

The force of the spell erupted from her hand, interrupting her father and uncle's casts and sent them both flying backwards through the clearing. The girl gasped against the sudden relief from pain, staggered and stunned momentarily by the sudden rush.

It was long enough for her uncle to get his bearings.

"Confringo!

"Protego Maxima!"

Her father was climbing to his feet now as the hex was absorbed by her quick shield. Her breath came quickly as he raised his wand. "Expelliarmus!" she shouted, disarming him as he wand went flying into the trees. Her next cast came as a low growl, full of all the rage, anger and betrayal she'd been suppressing for years.

Every time they told her she was too much. Every time they told her to be quiet. Every time they told her who she could be. What she could do. Who she could love. Every time they reminded her that she was nothing without them. Every time they doused her fire, little by little.

Every time they'd tried to make her feel small and insignificant.

When they'd tried to subject her to disgusting men for their own benefit.

When they tortured the man she loved right before her eyes.

She felt all of it, the pain, the humiliation, the heartbreak, the confusion. The ache of wanting so badly to be loved by the people who were supposed to love her more than anything in the world, and being ridiculed for it.

She climbed to her feet, her knees shaky and her body trembling with the weight of everything that now surged within her, boiling, pulsing, throbbing, about to erupt.

"Rosalie..."

"Thomas, grab him!"

The next few seconds happened in slow motion.

Rosie's eyes followed the command to her cousin who hadn't moved from his place on the ground. Their eyes locked, his honey-brown with her bright blue, an echo of all the eyes that had stood as a barrier to who she was and who she was meant to be.

He moved. His arms first, lifting him from the ground, his legs coming quickly behind them.

"No!" She heard her voice but didn't remember speaking the word. It sounded ethereal, far away, and as Thomas rushed for her husband - the only man who had ever truly loved and protected her - Rosalie felt as though she left her body. Shouts were coming slowly, droning in her ears, muddled and intertwining with the sound of her own pulse.

He lunged for Cassian as Rosie raised her hand, a cold cruel surge shooting down her arm.

She had it in her. The Laurences would never put their hands on Cassian again.

"Avada Kedavra!" she growled. A sharp green light exploded from the palm of the girl who had always been so gentle, so forgiving, so loving and so ready to make herself small to please.

It slammed into her once-favored cousin, throwing him backwards in a violent spin as Arthur screamed his grief into the forest.

Before she could even register she had done it, Rosalie rushed down to take Cassian in her arms, and with a quick flash, she apparated them out of the clearing.

An explosion, a deafening silence, flashing lights, spells.

The world grew disorienting. In a second, the pain that had gripped his body vanished, but in its presence alone. Ghost pangs lingered within his limbs, his nerves still firing as if the assault had never ended. Cassian's entire body hummed with violence, unable to forget what it had been made to endure.

The world around him grew dull. The sounds of incantations being bellowed – the aftermath of strikes – they were barely audible. A chill ran through him, several of them, as numbness moved to replace the staggering pain. The blood he never had the opportunity to pay attention to had now soaked the earth beneath him. His life spilled into the soil with each second that passed. The boy's eyelids grew heavy as his vision blurred.

Cass no longer knew where he was. His purpose, his intent – they grew muddled until he couldn't tell where one thought ended and another began.

Disorientation took him. His head spun, the world around him bobbing and swaying to a chaotic beat that he couldn't hear.

The harder he tried to focus, the further clarity slipped. There was someone at his side. Friend, foe? How would he ever know? His sagging body lifted a few inches. It was the last thing he knew before the darkness that lingered in the periphery of his vision crowded inward to extinguish his sight entirely.

Were his mind still firing on all cylinders, Cassian may have recognised it for what it was. It certainly wasn't a first.

Death had come to claim him for a second time, having been robbed of its due when they were back on the dock. He'd been stabbed and bleeding out in Rosie's arms, unable to do anything about it.

The boy's life waned, ebbing like a tide against a gently sloping shoreline. Each retreat was a little further than the last, taking a little more of him and spiriting him away to a distant shore with warmth and hormone-induced calm.

His head lolled to the side as Rosie took hold of him, his body going limp while the last of his consciousness faded.