Alecto Carrow | 28 | Pureblood | Death Eaters | Mia Wasikowska | CLOSED
Beware the wolf in the woods, the stories said, beware locked towers and wicked stepmothers and poisoned apples, but Alecto Carrow was not the sort of girl with the patience for fairy tales or the lessons they taught. Her mother had been; a well-bred young woman of infamous beauty whose fondness for the taste of certain potions and the society of men who were not her dreary husband were the much gossiped about source of the many deficiencies of her children. And how numerous those deficiencies would prove to be; sickly and fussy and ever so greedy, the Carrow children regularly cycled in and out of St. Mungoâs on a merry-go-round of mysterious illnesses and miraculous recoveries, a constant burden on their poor motherâs shoulders.
From a fussy, squalling baby to a toddler prone to sullen bouts of silence and uncontrollable fits of temper, Alecto grew into an unsettling child, a wildfire contained behind blank eyes and a sickly little frame. Smothered by the gloomy isolation of her familyâs country manor where she and her brother had been relegated for the sake of their âhealthâ, she was left to find her own forms of entertainment. Fortunately, she neednât stray far from her sickbed, the walls of that home were lined in sordid secrets that little Alecto collected like her mother collected lovers. She learned of how dreary the life of a mother was and how dire the state of their family affairs, of the many poisons kept within her motherâs drawers and of the mask behind which her father conducted his most important business deals. She learned that the only thing more dangerous than a man in a mask was a womanâs poisonous smile.
Her hungry eyes took note of everything that occurred in her isolated little world; steeped in envy for the sheen of her motherâs hair and the power that lurked in the curve of red lips (how adored such a woman was), envy of her odd, shy brother and the infinite worlds that lurked inside his head, consumed with books and scribbling his madness inside of them (oh, how badly she wanted to crack his thick skull open and see what was so interesting that lurked inside it) and furious that his oddness could be mistaken for cleverness by an absent father.
Alecto was no flower, her mother would sigh as she brushed sweaty hair away from her feverish forehead, no sweet daisy or lovely rose; she was a jealous little weed that wrapped around the throat of beautiful things to strangle the life from them.
There was nothing beautiful about her brotherâs inner world, however. It had only taken stealing into his room while he slept and devouring the secrets of his journals for her to discover what lurked behind that vacant stare. The barest hisses of encouragement in his ear to coax those desires out of the shadows of his mind. It was the family house elf that disappeared first, dissected beneath the trembling fingers and intent eyes of her brother with their fatherâs favorite letter opener while Alecto watched curiously over his shoulder. Â Binky was the first, a parting gift to their mother and her latest paramourâs weak-stomach before the train would carry them away to Hogwarts, but she wasnât to be the last.
Hogwarts was no escape for them, while their health drastically improved away from the confines of their family home (and that ever present bitter-taste on the back of their tongues), under the close watchful eyes of well meaning professors and the scrutiny of their peers, the sickness of their minds lay exposed. To be tarred with the same insidiously strange and unsettling brush as her brother was the plague of being a twin, corrosively intertwined with another life she had yet to choke the life from, but that bond would find a purpose in Alectoâs hands.
I dare you, Alecto would whisper in his ear; push her, burn him, curse her, cut him. I dare you. I dare you. Â Odd little Amycus was never found far from the scene of the accidents that plagued the students who whispered and gossiped behind Alectoâs back â falls from the top step of the Astronomy Tower or the wrong potions ingredient finding itâs way into a volatile cauldron. All it took was the first snowfall of their sixth year, dirty blood tainting the fresh powder and Amycusâ laboured breaths rising in spiralling bursts of silver in the air as red dripped, dripped, dripped from his fingers and Minerva McGonagall appearing out of the storm to seize them by the arms and march them to the headmasterâs office as their victim was rushed to the hospital wing. From outside the door theyâd listened to the rise and fall of Albus Dumbledoreâs voice, to their motherâs crocodile tears and their fatherâs fury.
They left Hogwarts that day under a fresh flurry of snow with Albus Dumbledoreâs decree that they would never return sounding more like a whisper of, I dare you, in her ears.
Caged within the walls of her family home, a familiar illness crept back into Alectoâs life. The raging tide of fever and bile a reminder of her motherâs tender care, the moulding curtains and the grime on the windows a whisper of the decay rotting away at their family estate. There were no servants left to roam the dank halls and dab at feverish brows or ladle soup into her mouth; even her motherâs silks and lace frayed and worn, like the growing lines at the corner of her red mouth.
Salvation would come in the form of another mark, dark enough to burn away the black smear of their expulsion. Those who were loyal to the Dark Lord will be rewarded, He had said, long fingers pinching her chin hard enough to break her skin. To them He would gift wands to replace those broken upon their expulsion and curses dark enough to delight even her brotherâs wicked mind. To them, He would be a teacher and, in the years that followed, for Him they would wage a war from the shadows theyâd been cast into.
Their return to Hogwarts would mark over a decade since theyâd been cast out of the castle and it was with the utmost glee that Alecto set to the task of showing her former teachers just how much she had learnt since. The bloody path that Alecto and her brother left through Hogwarts would stoke an old and festering grudge, but nothing would prove more satisfying than the sight of Albus Dumbledoreâs lifeless body and the knowledge that with his death, a new era had been ushered in.
As the Dark Lord had promised, the spoils of war came to those who waited. Her fatherâs fealty won him a ranking position within the Ministry with just enough perks to slow the steady erosion of his estate but to Alecto something much more valuable had been given. As it turned out she did not need her brotherâs help to wield the wand that would coax her motherâs own stock of poisons down her lovely throat, one after another after another, the strength of her own hatred was more than enough to suffice. Instead it was his turn to watch, alight with curiosity, as their mother writhed and seized in her sickbed.
Almost a month has passed since her motherâs first taste of her own poison and all of that beauty was swift in fading, but if there was one thing the Dark Lord had taught her it was that good things came to those who waited. Alecto may not have been a beautiful thing, but in the manner of weeds (invasive, unwanted) she would not merely survive in the dark, she would thrive.
{ + } Sly, Spirited, Loyal, Curious, Focused
{ - } Vindictive, Manipulative, Short-Fused, Mercurial, Dogmatic
