Summary: A comfortable life, a well-paying Ministry job and a loving family— you would have had it all, had you never met Victor Rookwood.
Instead, blood fills your days and nightmares haunt your nights.
The rise and fall of an Ashwinder Duellist, whose conscience finally caught up with them.
[Y/N-You POV, gender neutral.]
TW: Blood and violence, emotional abuse, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, physical abuse, implied/mentioned child abuse, implied/mentioned animal (magical beasts) abuse.
Chapters: 11 (fully published)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
First chapter: Act I - The beginning
You didn't really know how you got where you were.
Once, you were a regular, naive, boring student and now… now you could hardly look at yourself in the mirror.
It all started in the Defence Against the Dark Arts class, after a mock duel like many you had fought before; but that time your opponent was a boy named Victor Rookwood. You had seen him around before, strutting in the hallways like he owned the place but you didn't really know him, nor did you know any of the boys who seemed to escort him wherever he went.
Not that it mattered. You fought, you won, Victor got mad and threw a tantrum, the lesson was over and your life would go on the same as always, or so you thought.
You couldn't have known that day would have been the beginning of the end— of your end.
As mad as he had seemed in class, Victor Rookwood actually approached you a few days later, all smiles and arrogance, complimenting your skills like nothing had happened. He invited you to the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer and, Merlin knows why, you accepted.
Now, you cringed at the memory. You cringed at how much fun you had had that day with him.
Days and weeks and years blurred together and while life went on, you and Victor were always at each other's side. You knew everything about each other, about your families, about his father’s… business. Even that didn't deter you.
You, a regular no one from a family of regular no ones, didn't mind that your friend was the son of a gang ringleader. On the contrary, you found it fascinating, alluring even.
The first crack came in the middle of a summer night, when the air was warm and the fireflies danced under the moonlight.
You were twenty-two years old, doing odd jobs to make ends meet while you waited for a response from the Ministry; just a few days before, you had applied for a job in the Beast Division, with a stellar recommendation from your beasts Professor. You were hoping to end up in Troll Patrol or Werewolf Capture Unit but anything was fine really.
Victor had hated the idea since the beginning and tried to discourage you in any way he could but you hadn't budged.
You still remembered what you had told him the day he found out you had applied, and the words now felt like venom in the back of your throat: “Victor, I love you and I will always be there for you, but my future is at the Ministry. And if they reject me, I'll become a Dragonologist or something.”
Heh. Jokes on you. Jokes on that placid summer night. Jokes on your dreams and your future.
A tenday had passed since your fight with Victor— if you could even call it that, since he had stormed off without a word.
The night was warm and you couldn't sleep, worried about the long silence from the Ministry.
As you tossed and turned, a knock on the door was bound to change your life.
You had never seen the man in front of you, nor did his name mean anything to you, yet it only took a sentence for you to follow him into the darkness: “Victor sent me. He’s in trouble.”
Your heart raced in your chest as you took the stranger’s arm and, moments later, you were outside the Rookwoods’ mansion.
You had been there thousands of times during the years but the faces that haunted its hallways that night were all but familiar to you. Dozens of people stood watch, as still as statues, as you were escorted into the dining room, into a future that you would've never thought for yourself.
Your friend, Victor Rookwood, stood next to the dining table, his face bloody and raw and his clothes ripped and stained. He smiled a crooked smile when he saw you.
“Good, you're here. We're all here, then.” He growled, his voice hoarse and strained.
You noticed a few known faces in the room: old mutual friends from school, a couple of people Victor had met during the years and that you had gotten familiar with, and… Mr. Rookwood sat on a chair, slouched over the table with blood pooling under his head. He was mumbling something but you couldn't understand him. You couldn't understand anything.
Your heart rate sped up again, as your mind tried to come up with a reasonable explanation.
“See, father? Even [Y/N] came to say goodbye.”
Goodbye? Why would you…— Mr. Rookwood spat a bloody drool and Victor slammed his head —again, apparently— against the wooden table.
You froze. It was as if time itself had stopped.
“Now, now, where are your manners, boy?” he laughed as he quoted what his father used to tell him time and time again, usually before beating him bloody.
Was that what it was? Was that Victor finally snapping? If so, why were so many people there? Why were you there? Why did he send for you?
It took you years to realise what had happened that night, the manipulation and coercion that he used to get you there.
But you didn't know then. All you knew was that your friend needed you and that no matter what your bleeding heart thought, his abusive father deserved everything that was happening to him. Or at least that was what Victor had told you after. After his father was dead, after he had become the new Mr. Rookwood, leader of the Rookwood gang, and he needed you.
Your skills in a duel were unmatched, he said.
He didn't trust anyone else to watch his back, he said.
The Ministry will never hire you now that you're an accessory to murder. He didn't say that, and it took you years to realise that that was the reason why you were really there that night.
He wanted you: your wand, your skill, your loyalty… your dreams were a hindrance he could no longer tolerate.
So you pledged yourself to him; to keep him safe, you said to yourself as you laid awake that night, Mr. Rookwood’s death mask seared into your mind, as guilt and fear and horror bubbled in your guts like a cocktail of poisons.
“My closest friend, my Ashwinder, my Duellist.”
You still remembered his smile while he said that, his hands, still smeared with his father's blood, cupped around your cheeks.
You felt bad for him, then. Now, you wished you had punched him right to daddy dearest.
