Beyond the Darkness

Date: 22 May 2005
Characters: Charles Cornfoot, Miles Bletchley
Location: Diagon Alley
Private/Public: Private
Rating: PG
Warnings: Character Death
Summary: Miles has a mission and Charles doesn't stop him.
Completion: Complete

Like every Tuesday, Charles went into the City to see his solicitor. He had been tempted to skip the meeting and spend some time with the kids, but it was important not to change his schedule, and he'd been making this trip to London every Tuesday for the past five years. After he was done, he walked through London. Again, his trek was customary, and it always ended at the Leaky Cauldron.

He pushed the doors and walked inside. A table and chairs had been fixed a few months ago, he supposed he wasn't the only wizard who still found himself attracted to their past. He walked past the huge hole into the wall and into Diagon Alley. He never walked far because even without being an expert, he knew that most of those buildings were ready to collapse.

He heard a sudden noise, and reached for his wand. "Who's there?" It really didn't matter who or how good he was. Charles would not fight, because it would only postpone the inevitable. Worse, he would put his children at risk. He was a bastard, he had to be while teaching his children how to survive, but he loved them, and he would not let them die in his place.

Miles stood in the shadows, keeping well back behind a pile of rubble that was once a storefront. He had not wanted this assignment at first. He wasn't an assassin. He was supposed to just rough people up for information or cause them severe grief. But straight out assassination? Surely she had her assassins. Were they indisposed? Miles didn't particularly care. But how did one tell Bellatrix that you didn't particularly care for one of her assignments? Miles had been crucioed one time too many by the woman, and he had learned a healthy respect for her.

He'd followed Mr Cornfoot since first receiving the assignment, and was grateful that the man kept to such a regular schedule. London. Every Tuesday. Then a walk to the Leaky Cauldron. Miles wished all his previous targets had been this easy. He had tried to drum up all the hatred towards his own brother and father to make his job easier. That part wasn't hard.

Pointing his wand, he closed an eye and aimed at Cornfoot's head. His foot kicked some debris as he moved to get a better line of sight, and he made a noise. Cornfoot had heard him, but he had his wand on him. "Expelliarmus!," Miles called out, taking the man's wand. It would be so much easier to kill him with his own weapon, he suddenly realised, and he smiled at that little bit of good fortune. Much harder to trace it back.

Stepping out from the rubble, he kept his hood up. He wasn't taking any chances. "You're a creature of habit, Cornfoot," he said. "Even I would have thought you were smarter than that."

Charles almost sighed. Arrogant children annoyed him. He'd been duelling since he was a student, and he'd gone to school with one Tom Riddle, been in his house. Charles was no stranger to duels and he almost wished that he would have the opportunity to teach this youngster a thing or two about wandless magic - possibly through a few well placed and highly painful hexes. Maybe that would also teach the boy how not to get too cocky, but that would mean a more painful death, and he didn't look forward to that. Of course, he couldn't deny the temptation to get his wand back and kill this child. Kill him and run away as far as possible, to live just one more day, one more week, but he knew that he'd be signing his children's death warrant, and he was not that much of a coward.

"Mr.-" He waved his hand toward the man, trying to figure out who it was. At least, it wasn't that bitch Turpin. She enjoyed torture a little too much for Charles's taste, and he wasn't looking forward to a painful death. "You have a job to do. Then do it, and let's get it over," he said.

Miles saw that Cornfoot made no attempt to run, and that there was no sense of fear in his eyes. The fact that he seemed resigned to his fate and just asked him to get on with it made him stop for just a second. Was this some kind of trick? Was this a part of the test Bellatrix was obviously making him undergo?

"Bletchley. You must have known my father," he said in a calm voice. "You must have done something pretty stupid for Mrs Lestrange to want you dead. For a man who has been marked for death, you aren't doing a very good job of hiding. Even I could follow your schedule." He was not used to this calm acceptance of fate. He was used to people grovelling and pleading before he roughed them up and tortured information out of them.

He instantly thought about his father. "You're probably just like he was, aren't you? Too busy with your love of the Dark Lord and the cause to give a toss about your family?" He needed to vent this to help build up enough anger. Just the sheer thought of his father was enough, but he needed to build his own justification for killing a pureblood - a distant blood relation.

"Not going to beg, Cornfoot?" he said, giving the man an opportunity to plead for a reprieve. Isn't that what they all asked for?

"Bletchley." He nodded. "I remember your father and your brother." Both ruthless, but he didn't see it in this boy. They were all boys in his eyes. Maybe he really was getting too old for this. Not that he had a choice.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't beg. Do you want to know what I did to deserve this?" he asked with a cold smile. "I kept my son away from her. I stopped that crazy bitch from taking both of my boys. Rodolphus understood, but it's never enough for her, never until she's taken everything from you. Well, she can take my life, but she won't take my son." Charles looked at him, blue eyes daring Bletchley to kill him. "I won't beg, but if you find it in yourself to do it painless, it would be appreciated. After all, we both know that any begging would be useless." He took another step. "You can't hesitate, that means your death and the death of too many other people." He nodded. "Do it."

Miles let out a low growl. This man seemed to be the complete opposite to his father. Now he was angry. Angry that he had a job to do. Angry that his own father gave him no choice in the matter. Now, when he'd rather just be playing Quidditch, he was here doing exactly what his father had expected of him. The perfect lackey of a Death Eater. He wondered if his own father cared enough to realise that Miles was never asked just what he wanted to do. There had been no choice. Miles wholeheartedly agreed with the ideals of blood purity, but had he been given the choice, he would have stayed on the sidelines.

He saw Cornfoot's icy blue stare give him a piercing look. The gaze reminded him for just a moment of his own son's. Was Bellatrix going to want him to give up his son as well? The thought just suddenly came to mind and he faltered. Fuck that, he thought. Damn responsibilities. For the first time he hoped the kid had enough Gryffindor in him to be a waste to Bellatrix, or that he was never put into the position to have to make that choice.

"Snap out of it, boy," Charles barked. "If I wanted to escape, you'd be dead already. Do you understand that? Do you understand that your daydreaming could cost your own life?" Why was he even doing this? Oh, right, killing this idiot would only shift the job to someone else, someone most likely more ruthless. "Look at me, and focus, only two words. That's all you have to say and it's over." Bloody hell, why was he making it so difficult? Charles wanted this over before he did something stupid like kill Bletchley, or like Apparating away, which he could do even without his wand. "Do it."

Miles growled when Cornfoot barked at him. That stare held anger now, and Miles' anger reared up in automatic response. That temper, just like when his father yelled at him for being lazy, or stupid, or not as good at Troy. No, he wasn't as good at Troy, and never would be. But he was still alive, and he had killed his father - that had to count for something. He knew his focus was not his strong point, but when he could apply himself, he had just those moments of ruthlessness that helped him to survive.

Gathering every last bit of his anger and his hatred, the killing curse hissed out from his clenched jaw, and the blue stare died in a wall of green fire. There was nothing but silence in the alley once Cornfoot's lifeless body fell to the ground, a few swirls of mortar dust blowing away on the breeze. The adrenalin was still surging through Miles, his desire to throw every last hex at the body at the forefront of his thoughts. But he was dead - just nothing now, and no flurry of spells was going to make an ounce of difference.

He didn't know how long he just stood there, staring at the body, but he eventually snapped out of his reverie and put the wand back in Cornfoot's hand, careful to wipe away all traces of his fingerprints. He felt no satisfaction in the kill, and that made him even more angry. Let them think it was a suicide. Much easier, and much less investigation.

Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the ruins of Diagon Alley, punching his fist hard into the ruins of a brick wall and feeling real pain. Now that was more like it. He winced, knowing he had most likely broken something, but right now, that was all that mattered. Grasping the pain, he apparated away.