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ishafelMore crackfic.
Summary: In the 1970s, Methos joins the wrong secret society.
He waits his turn, watching the children in front of him. And they are children, bold and foolish and silly as children always are, and not one of them older than twenty. He wonders what that means, if it's preference or desperation on the masters' part. There is a girl, startingly beautiful, with grey-green eyes and a tangled cloud of dark hair, a boy with the long gloomy face of a medieval saint, another with a square chin and fair straight hair in a queue. All of them wear black, but unlike their leaders their faces are bare, as revealing as the pages of a book.
Methos schools his own face: innocence, curiosity, disgust. He was not so much older than they were when he died the first time, and he plays the part well. It is very dark and very cold, and no one screams when their turn comes-- not yet, at least. He shivers, thinking of it. He has been branded and tattooed both, before, but it always hurts.
The girl has her turn and comes back, brushing past Methos as if he isn't there, her eyes wide and rapturous. The blond boy is shivering when he passes, his face chalky and his eyes unfocused. The saint goes, and the fat, nervous one, and two that are alike enough they must be brothers, and then it is Methos's turn.
The passage is cut into the stone, not natural, and it is completely dark. He has a cigarette lighter in his pocket, and he considers using it, but decides holding it will put him at a disadvantage if it comes to a fight. Eustace Scrubb wouldn't think of this, of course, but he's absent-minded enough not to think of using the lighter at all. Methos closes his eyes and feels his way through.
There is a cave at the end of the passage, dimly lit, and a hooded man in a chair that is not quite a throne. Methos crosses the circle of masked initiates and kneels before him, head bent, hands open and empty at his sides.
"Why have you come?" the hooded man asks him, and his eyes burn the top of Methos's head.
"I have come to serve," Methos says.
"And will you so vow?"
He is a child, in all the ways that matter. Mastery is the least of what a man can accomplish. "I will so vow." Methos has a wand, made of hawthorne and rue and tempered in Quickening fire. He slides it from his sleeve and passes it to the Dark Lord.
They told him the words he needs to say, and he takes a breath before he looks up into the Dark Lord's eyes and says them. "I am yours, Lord, in magic and in mind and at heart, to serve and to protect, until one of us is dead."
Voldemort makes no sound at all, but there is a rustling from the others, a satisfied breath. Methos shakes back the sleeve of his robe and holds out his arm.
Voldemort smiles, and in his eyes Methos sees the filthy water of the Thames, the heaps of burning books in Germany, the dead of a thousand massacres. "I accept your vow," he says, and leans over to press his lips to Methos's arm.
It burns. Not the way a brand does, but like a scorpion's sting. It burns under his skin. Methos sucks in breath. His quickening flares, and the burning is gone, and the Mark is there: it is very black, monstrous against the whiteness of his skin. Methos wants to howl. Eustace Scrubb smiles, and says, "Thank you, my lord."
Lord Voldemort sends them out on errands. Not, admittedly, for dry cleaning or tonic water, but they do his research, they buy spell ingredients and make Charms, and in the first year they are among his Death Eaters, they never once do anything dangerous or even properly illegal. Methos doesn't complain-- not about that, at any rate.
But he sends them out in small groups. Methos understands the theory: it's a test, meant to determine their leadership ability, to test their obedience, to form partnerships. He goes with Malfoy and Black to the library at the Vatican to look for a twelfth-century scroll the Dark Lord wants translated from Middle English. Malfoy complains bitterly about being made to do busy work, and Black paces restlessly, not even pretending to help.
He goes with the Lestrange brothers to a farm in Wales to pick up a barrel of dragon's blood. Rudolphus doesn't say a word the entire trip, and Rabastan smokes endlessly. Neither of them can drive, and the Dark Lord doesn't reimburse for petrol.
Methos and Dolohov and Malfoy put together a decent, if not extraordinary, Polyjuice Potion. Methos and Carrow and the Lestranges hang about in East London, waiting to meet a contact who never shows. Methos and Malfoy and Black go to Hogsmeade and hang about in a pub, watching for likely recruits. Malfoy and Methos drink a great deal and play darts very badly, while Black sits at their table, looking disgusted, but still beautiful.
Eustace Scrubb is one of only a handful of initiates not to have studied at Hogwarts. He's the only one to have been privately educated. Methos is curious about the school, which looms in the distance. When he asks, Malfoy shrugs. "They went on and on about Mudblood Equality," he says. "And how Muggles Are People Too. It was a bit--."
"Revolting," Black snarls. "It was revolting. Merlin forbid they should actually have taught us magic or anything remotely practical."
"Don't listen to her, Scrubb," Malfoy says, smiling sweetly. "She was Hogwarts' Head Girl in her day, you know. First Slytherin one in thirty years."
Black scowls at him. "Piss off, Lucius," she hisses. "Everyone knows you only passed your N.E.W.T.S. because your father bought off the exam board."
Malfoy puts his cigarette out. On Black's hand. Methos has to use to Stupefy on both of them to get them out of the pub before they can tear it down around his ears. He feels approximately ten thousand years old, doing it.
When they report to the Dark Lord afterward, he does all the talking, and he makes sure to stand between them.
"Immortality," Lord Voldemort says, "is a noble goal, a gift bestowed only on the worthy." Methos bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
Malfoy slides smoothly into the spot on his left. "Sorry I'm late," he whispers. "Only I've just met the most amazing girl--."
"Shut up!" Black hisses.
"She's fucking gorgeous," Malfoy continues, ignoring both Black and the Dark Lord. "Honestly, Scrubb, and brilliant, too. She's just graduated first in her class from Hogwarts--."
"My sister just graduated first in her class from Hogwarts," Black snarls. Too loudly. The words echo oddly behind her mask, coming out distorted, unrecognizable. Lord Voldemort scans the ranks, looking for the speaker. No one moves.
They might as well all be back at school, skiving off at Sport and hoping not be caned by the Head, Methos thinks. He taught at Rugby for a little while before the war-- the Crimean War. There weren't girls there, at least. Black has put Methos off teenaged girls for a lifetime.
Lord Voldemort proses on ad infinitum, about the advantages of immortality. Malfoy goes to sleep with his head on Methos's shoulder. One of the Lestrange brothers-- possibly the one engaged to Black-- takes the occasional pull at his hip flask. It is cold and damp and the cave smells moldy.
Methos plots ways for Eustace Scrubb to die: a disfiguring Potions accident, a fall at speed from a broom, a late-night duel with Aurors. He joined the Death Eaters for safety, because no one is safer in a war than the winning side-- but he wasn't expecting to die of boredom.
Lord Voldemort has moved on to denouncing the Ministry, again. Malfoy is drooling and even Black looks a little glazed. Methos conjugates verbs in Aramaic and tries to see down Black's robes.
He makes up his mind to get out, eventually. He spends six months making plans, and then one night he invites Malfoy and Lestrange the younger around to his flat for a drink and a spot of surgery. Lestrange is biddable and Malfoy-- Malfoy is the least dedicated of the Death Eaters, lazy and selfish and constantly taking the piss. Methos rather likes him.
He pours them each a drink. Not a big one. He wants them to have steady hands when they cut the Mark off his arm. "You're insane," Malfoy says, when he's told them what he wants. "Even supposing that it worked metaphysically, that you could just slice it away without the Dark Lord knowing, without him being able to track you..."
"It goes to the bone," Lestrange supplies. "You'd have to cut a huge chunk of flesh away. If it didn't kill you, it would probably cripple you for life. There are no healing spells that good."
"That's not technically true," Methos says. "Slytherin developed something that would regrow amputated limbs, even-- some kind of Charm. It was lost, though, when-- never mind. Let me worry about that."
When he's got the torniquet on, he passes the knife to Malfoy and the bandages to Lestrange. He stands with his arm over the kitchen basin. And in his other hand, he holds his wand. "Okay," he says. "Do it."
"May all the gods you don't believe in protect you, Scrubb," Malfoy says, and the knife slides into Methos's arm.
He has been flayed before. But you can't prepare for pain the way you can for other things. All you can do is close your eyes and try to remember to keep breathing.
Something solid falls into the sink. Malfoy flicks on the disposal a heartbeat after Lestrange's "Cautero!" Methos swallows hard, and opens his eyes. There's not too much smoke, but the smell is apalling. Lestrange is winding gauze neatly aroound his ruined arm. Malfoy is leaning heavily against the sink, watching the water run down the drain.
"Go and wash up," Methos suggests, "and we'll have another drink." Malfoy blinks at him, astonished, perhaps, that Methos is still on his feet-- but he goes. Methos flexes his wrist, surreptitiously. The bleeding has stopped, anyway.
Lestrange's fingers brush his arm, just above the bandage, and Methos slips uninvited into his mind. "You saw Scrubb destroyed today, in London." he says. "Torn apart by Aurors. Even to the Mark on his arm."
"Yes," Lestrange agrees.
"And then you went home with Malfoy, and had a drink to steady your nerves, and then the two of you reported it to Lord Voldemort."
"Yes."
"Good boy. Go and have a wash up."
Lestrange passes Malfoy on the way to the toilet. "Beer," Methos says, and hands him one, touching his hand as he does. Lestrange's mind was as orderly as a museum; Malfoy's is like a shop after a riot. But there is no darkness in either of them. They are only spoiled children, caught in a game with impossibly high stakes.
He'd be sorry for them, if he were the type. He feeds Malfoy the same lines he did Lestrange the younger. Malfoy is more difficult, mostly because he wants to know how Methos did it, and whether he can duplicate it without succumbing to blood loss-- which is unlikely.
After they've gone, Methos puts his wand down the disposal, too. His arm is nearly healed, the new skin healthy and pink. He is going somewhere safe, in his next life-- a university, maybe, or a library. But first he's going somewhere warm, where the beer doesn't taste like house elf piss. And he is never going to answer to Scrubb again, no matter how clever it seemed at the time.
Summary: In the 1970s, Methos joins the wrong secret society.
He waits his turn, watching the children in front of him. And they are children, bold and foolish and silly as children always are, and not one of them older than twenty. He wonders what that means, if it's preference or desperation on the masters' part. There is a girl, startingly beautiful, with grey-green eyes and a tangled cloud of dark hair, a boy with the long gloomy face of a medieval saint, another with a square chin and fair straight hair in a queue. All of them wear black, but unlike their leaders their faces are bare, as revealing as the pages of a book.
Methos schools his own face: innocence, curiosity, disgust. He was not so much older than they were when he died the first time, and he plays the part well. It is very dark and very cold, and no one screams when their turn comes-- not yet, at least. He shivers, thinking of it. He has been branded and tattooed both, before, but it always hurts.
The girl has her turn and comes back, brushing past Methos as if he isn't there, her eyes wide and rapturous. The blond boy is shivering when he passes, his face chalky and his eyes unfocused. The saint goes, and the fat, nervous one, and two that are alike enough they must be brothers, and then it is Methos's turn.
The passage is cut into the stone, not natural, and it is completely dark. He has a cigarette lighter in his pocket, and he considers using it, but decides holding it will put him at a disadvantage if it comes to a fight. Eustace Scrubb wouldn't think of this, of course, but he's absent-minded enough not to think of using the lighter at all. Methos closes his eyes and feels his way through.
There is a cave at the end of the passage, dimly lit, and a hooded man in a chair that is not quite a throne. Methos crosses the circle of masked initiates and kneels before him, head bent, hands open and empty at his sides.
"Why have you come?" the hooded man asks him, and his eyes burn the top of Methos's head.
"I have come to serve," Methos says.
"And will you so vow?"
He is a child, in all the ways that matter. Mastery is the least of what a man can accomplish. "I will so vow." Methos has a wand, made of hawthorne and rue and tempered in Quickening fire. He slides it from his sleeve and passes it to the Dark Lord.
They told him the words he needs to say, and he takes a breath before he looks up into the Dark Lord's eyes and says them. "I am yours, Lord, in magic and in mind and at heart, to serve and to protect, until one of us is dead."
Voldemort makes no sound at all, but there is a rustling from the others, a satisfied breath. Methos shakes back the sleeve of his robe and holds out his arm.
Voldemort smiles, and in his eyes Methos sees the filthy water of the Thames, the heaps of burning books in Germany, the dead of a thousand massacres. "I accept your vow," he says, and leans over to press his lips to Methos's arm.
It burns. Not the way a brand does, but like a scorpion's sting. It burns under his skin. Methos sucks in breath. His quickening flares, and the burning is gone, and the Mark is there: it is very black, monstrous against the whiteness of his skin. Methos wants to howl. Eustace Scrubb smiles, and says, "Thank you, my lord."
*
Lord Voldemort sends them out on errands. Not, admittedly, for dry cleaning or tonic water, but they do his research, they buy spell ingredients and make Charms, and in the first year they are among his Death Eaters, they never once do anything dangerous or even properly illegal. Methos doesn't complain-- not about that, at any rate.
But he sends them out in small groups. Methos understands the theory: it's a test, meant to determine their leadership ability, to test their obedience, to form partnerships. He goes with Malfoy and Black to the library at the Vatican to look for a twelfth-century scroll the Dark Lord wants translated from Middle English. Malfoy complains bitterly about being made to do busy work, and Black paces restlessly, not even pretending to help.
He goes with the Lestrange brothers to a farm in Wales to pick up a barrel of dragon's blood. Rudolphus doesn't say a word the entire trip, and Rabastan smokes endlessly. Neither of them can drive, and the Dark Lord doesn't reimburse for petrol.
Methos and Dolohov and Malfoy put together a decent, if not extraordinary, Polyjuice Potion. Methos and Carrow and the Lestranges hang about in East London, waiting to meet a contact who never shows. Methos and Malfoy and Black go to Hogsmeade and hang about in a pub, watching for likely recruits. Malfoy and Methos drink a great deal and play darts very badly, while Black sits at their table, looking disgusted, but still beautiful.
Eustace Scrubb is one of only a handful of initiates not to have studied at Hogwarts. He's the only one to have been privately educated. Methos is curious about the school, which looms in the distance. When he asks, Malfoy shrugs. "They went on and on about Mudblood Equality," he says. "And how Muggles Are People Too. It was a bit--."
"Revolting," Black snarls. "It was revolting. Merlin forbid they should actually have taught us magic or anything remotely practical."
"Don't listen to her, Scrubb," Malfoy says, smiling sweetly. "She was Hogwarts' Head Girl in her day, you know. First Slytherin one in thirty years."
Black scowls at him. "Piss off, Lucius," she hisses. "Everyone knows you only passed your N.E.W.T.S. because your father bought off the exam board."
Malfoy puts his cigarette out. On Black's hand. Methos has to use to Stupefy on both of them to get them out of the pub before they can tear it down around his ears. He feels approximately ten thousand years old, doing it.
When they report to the Dark Lord afterward, he does all the talking, and he makes sure to stand between them.
*
"Immortality," Lord Voldemort says, "is a noble goal, a gift bestowed only on the worthy." Methos bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
Malfoy slides smoothly into the spot on his left. "Sorry I'm late," he whispers. "Only I've just met the most amazing girl--."
"Shut up!" Black hisses.
"She's fucking gorgeous," Malfoy continues, ignoring both Black and the Dark Lord. "Honestly, Scrubb, and brilliant, too. She's just graduated first in her class from Hogwarts--."
"My sister just graduated first in her class from Hogwarts," Black snarls. Too loudly. The words echo oddly behind her mask, coming out distorted, unrecognizable. Lord Voldemort scans the ranks, looking for the speaker. No one moves.
They might as well all be back at school, skiving off at Sport and hoping not be caned by the Head, Methos thinks. He taught at Rugby for a little while before the war-- the Crimean War. There weren't girls there, at least. Black has put Methos off teenaged girls for a lifetime.
Lord Voldemort proses on ad infinitum, about the advantages of immortality. Malfoy goes to sleep with his head on Methos's shoulder. One of the Lestrange brothers-- possibly the one engaged to Black-- takes the occasional pull at his hip flask. It is cold and damp and the cave smells moldy.
Methos plots ways for Eustace Scrubb to die: a disfiguring Potions accident, a fall at speed from a broom, a late-night duel with Aurors. He joined the Death Eaters for safety, because no one is safer in a war than the winning side-- but he wasn't expecting to die of boredom.
Lord Voldemort has moved on to denouncing the Ministry, again. Malfoy is drooling and even Black looks a little glazed. Methos conjugates verbs in Aramaic and tries to see down Black's robes.
*
He makes up his mind to get out, eventually. He spends six months making plans, and then one night he invites Malfoy and Lestrange the younger around to his flat for a drink and a spot of surgery. Lestrange is biddable and Malfoy-- Malfoy is the least dedicated of the Death Eaters, lazy and selfish and constantly taking the piss. Methos rather likes him.
He pours them each a drink. Not a big one. He wants them to have steady hands when they cut the Mark off his arm. "You're insane," Malfoy says, when he's told them what he wants. "Even supposing that it worked metaphysically, that you could just slice it away without the Dark Lord knowing, without him being able to track you..."
"It goes to the bone," Lestrange supplies. "You'd have to cut a huge chunk of flesh away. If it didn't kill you, it would probably cripple you for life. There are no healing spells that good."
"That's not technically true," Methos says. "Slytherin developed something that would regrow amputated limbs, even-- some kind of Charm. It was lost, though, when-- never mind. Let me worry about that."
When he's got the torniquet on, he passes the knife to Malfoy and the bandages to Lestrange. He stands with his arm over the kitchen basin. And in his other hand, he holds his wand. "Okay," he says. "Do it."
"May all the gods you don't believe in protect you, Scrubb," Malfoy says, and the knife slides into Methos's arm.
He has been flayed before. But you can't prepare for pain the way you can for other things. All you can do is close your eyes and try to remember to keep breathing.
Something solid falls into the sink. Malfoy flicks on the disposal a heartbeat after Lestrange's "Cautero!" Methos swallows hard, and opens his eyes. There's not too much smoke, but the smell is apalling. Lestrange is winding gauze neatly aroound his ruined arm. Malfoy is leaning heavily against the sink, watching the water run down the drain.
"Go and wash up," Methos suggests, "and we'll have another drink." Malfoy blinks at him, astonished, perhaps, that Methos is still on his feet-- but he goes. Methos flexes his wrist, surreptitiously. The bleeding has stopped, anyway.
Lestrange's fingers brush his arm, just above the bandage, and Methos slips uninvited into his mind. "You saw Scrubb destroyed today, in London." he says. "Torn apart by Aurors. Even to the Mark on his arm."
"Yes," Lestrange agrees.
"And then you went home with Malfoy, and had a drink to steady your nerves, and then the two of you reported it to Lord Voldemort."
"Yes."
"Good boy. Go and have a wash up."
Lestrange passes Malfoy on the way to the toilet. "Beer," Methos says, and hands him one, touching his hand as he does. Lestrange's mind was as orderly as a museum; Malfoy's is like a shop after a riot. But there is no darkness in either of them. They are only spoiled children, caught in a game with impossibly high stakes.
He'd be sorry for them, if he were the type. He feeds Malfoy the same lines he did Lestrange the younger. Malfoy is more difficult, mostly because he wants to know how Methos did it, and whether he can duplicate it without succumbing to blood loss-- which is unlikely.
After they've gone, Methos puts his wand down the disposal, too. His arm is nearly healed, the new skin healthy and pink. He is going somewhere safe, in his next life-- a university, maybe, or a library. But first he's going somewhere warm, where the beer doesn't taste like house elf piss. And he is never going to answer to Scrubb again, no matter how clever it seemed at the time.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 04:04 pm (UTC)I did wonder if that oath was the reason that Methos doesn't use magic in Highlander canon: his magic is bound to the Death Eaters until Voldemort dies.
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Date: 2010-01-28 01:00 am (UTC)