Writing Prompt: Avitus tells Amycus that he knows what the twins have done, but not to worry, he's taken care of the problem. No one will ever know. When Amycus goes to see Alecto, she has been obliviated and does not even remember having a twin, let alone that he is the father of her unborn child.
(ooc: So as those who were around when I was here before know, I am off and on with Carrowcest and don’t always write Amycus that way, I usually prefer to write him as extremely interdependent with his sister rather than incestuous, but this prompt is way too good to pass up, hehe)
He’d wanted to ignore the summons. Summons from Master Carrow were never good things. Typically they meant that he was expected to show up at some pureblood function or another and show himself off as the perfect Carrow heir.
That, or his loving Father was just feeling like asserting his dominance… which took on other forms of torture…
But right at this moment, he just wanted to go back to his bed and collapse into it. He had woken from a nightmare about Lecty feeling sick to his stomach and drenched in sweat. He still felt cold all over and he had no idea why. He didn’t get sick. He never got sick.
Still, he’d learned the hard way that you didn’t ignore summons from Master Carrow. So into the manor he went, and into the study that he hated.
“You wanted to see me Father?” he asked.
Avitus’s best black swan feather quill was scritching and scratching along piece of parchment and it never paused in it’s long, elegant strokes when his heir approached. He continued to write, his eyes never lifting to the beautiful little idiot heir who could and should have been so much more.
He allowed the boy to stand there for a long time as he finished his letter, allowed him to shift from foot to foot with discomfort, perfectly well aware that he hated this room and relishing in that small torture of making him remain in it with no hope of reprieve.
Then, as he twisted to re-ink his quill, he finally deigned to begin.
In a business-like tone, he said, “It would appear that you have forgotten some of the first lessons that you were taught Amycus.”
Amycus, who was already starting to feel the walls of this hated room beginning to close in on him, blinked at that. He frowned and said, “Lessons? Whut do you mean, whut-”
“I hired your tutors specifically to teach you a very important set of lessons. A set of lessons about whut you were good for and whut you were to do and how you were to do it,” Avitus went on as though Amycus hadn’t spoken. “And I thought that you’d learned those lessons. I even sent your tutors away with a ‘job well done’ because it seemed you’d learned everything you needed to know so well.”
Amycus had begun to shake. It was slow at first. Just a gradual trembling at the tips of his fingers. But slowly it worked it’s way up to his palms, then his wrists, then his forearms and his upper arms and his chest and until he was eventually shaking from head to toe at every word that his father spoke. They didn’t talk of the tutors. They didn’t speak of the lessons.
Why was he saying these things…
“I… I did…” he whispered. Then he stepped forward unsteadily and half choked out, “I did learn them. I learned them good. I did I-”
“Oh, learned them ‘good’ did you?” Avitus sneered, once again dipping his elegant quill into the inkpot and returning to his letter. “And yet you somehow managed to forget one of the most important ones?”
The walls were beginning to crawl. Dark masses and shapes were slithering and shifting along them. The rug before the fire that he’d had his face shoved into so many times was starting to writhe and bubble…
Amycus closed his eyes tight and begged, “I d-didn’t… I d-didn’t f-forget… I n-n-never f-forget F-F-Father I-“
“Whut is your catechism Amycus?” Avitus interrupted, his pen still scritch-scratching, scritch-scratching along the page. “Whut is the catechism you say every day when you wake and every night before you sleep?”
Amycus blinked at his father in shock, then swallowed hard as a sort of half-relief, half-fear flooded him and said, “I… but I say my catechism Father. I… I do. I do every day. Every day and every night. I do! I swear!”
“Oh really?” Avitus said in what sounded like a truly curious tone, though only a fool would have thought him anywhere near as calm as he appeared.
Amycus nodded so vigorously he looked like he was having a seizure, “Yes! Oh yes Father I… y-you can check! You can check I don’t… I don’t have any diseases! I don’t! You can check I swear! I say all the protection spells every single day just like I’m-“
“Then how is it, Amycus,” Avitus said, nearly spitting out the name, “that you’ve somehow managed to get your little whore of a sister pregnant?”
Amycus reeled backward. He felt a strange tingling sensation that started at the top of his head and slowly crawled down along his spine, through his fingers, across his stomach, down to his toes… He damned near passed out and it was probably only the knowledge of what his Father would do to him that kept him conscious.
For a long, long time, the only sound in the room was the ‘scritch-scratch’ of the quill as it danced across the page in Avitus’s perfect, elegant hand. The quill paused only long enough to gather some ink before returning seamlessly back to the page and the handsome older blonde never looked up even once from what he was writing.
Finally, just as the cloying edges of darkness were pulling tight to Amycus’s pupils, he managed to pull himself back to reality. He blinked several times to bring the world back into focus, reaching out to grip one of the wing-backed leather arm-chairs over which he’d been bent so many times as a child, and finally said in what was barely a whisper, “Pregnant?”
“Yes, Amycus. Pregnant.” Scritch-Scratch. Scritch-Scratch. Dip into the ink well. Scritch-Scratch. Scritch-Scratch. “I’ve dealt with the situation of course. Just as I always deal with all of your situations. But I grow very, very weary of doing so.”
Amycus’s stomach knotted so tight that he thought he’d throw up. The creatures, now black and red, formed of fire and soot, were crawling toward him along the walls. He swallowed back his gorge and begged, “T-took… took care of it?”
He finally dipped his quill into the ink one last time before he scrawled out his name in an elegant, looping hand at the bottom of the parchment. Then, for the first time, Avitus Carrow looked up at his heir. His heir that his little whore had seduced, just as she’d seduced him. Before she’d betrayed him. Like the whore she was.
His ice blue eyes, so like those of his twins and yet more grey, harder somehow and more unforgiving, slid over the beautiful, idiot boy who was in one breath, everything he’d ever wanted in an heir and, at the same time, an utter and complete disappointment to him. And yet despite his stupidity, despite his complete unworthiness, she still spread her legs for him just like every other fucking bint Amycus flashed a smile at.
Finally setting aside the quill and ink, he folded his long-fingered hands neatly before him and said calmly, “Yes Amycus. I took care of it. Just as I take care of everything for you.” He smirked and shook his head, “The Gods alone know that you can’t be trusted to do anathing for yourself after all.”
Amycus blinked several times, trying to clear the black spots dancing before his vision. Pregnant. His Lecty was pregnant. Their night at the townhouse… their night when they’d given in to what had been between them for so long but that they’d always ignored… and he’d put a baby into his Lecty…
Amycus’s hand tightened on the back of the leather armchair very slowly as he whispered, “H-how… how did… whut did you-“
“Well I suppose it is only right to let you see her one last time,” Avitus said magnanimously. “After all, after this she’ll be taken off where she can’t cause any more problems.”
Before Amycus could ask what that meant, his Father called out for his personal house elf and seconds later the little creature appeared holding onto someone that Amycus knew by her look was his Lecty… but that was the only way. There was none of the usual flash of fire in his blood… none of the normal sense of connection, of instant sizzling in his veins when his other half was near. It was as though she were there in front of him, but still miles and miles away.
“Lecty?” he whispered, sinking down to the floor where she’d collapsed the second that the house elf had let go of her.
The beautiful blonde lifted her head and he saw that her face was swollen and bloody from the beating she’d taken. That, unfortunately, was nothing new. Amycus was an excellent healer because he’d had to heal his Lecty after their Father’s many punishments for her transgressions, both real and imagined, as they grew up.
It was the lack of recognition in her beautiful eyes that truly had his heart stopping. She looked up at him at the sound of his voice, flinching back slightly when she saw how close he was, and there was nothing in her gaze but confusion.
“W-who… who are you?” she whispered. She backed up slightly away from him on her knees, wincing and holding onto what was obviously bruised and busted ribs as she did so, and begged, “P-please… please don’t hurt me…”
Avitus smirked as he stood, moving around to stand in front of the desk, holding onto the letter he’d just finished as he said, “Don’t waste your breath boy. As I said, I took care of the issue.” He nodded toward her, “She doesn’t remember anathing. A minor… mishap… with her wand. She’ll never remember you or even whose bastard she carries.” His smirk grew truly evil, “In fact… she’ll never remember anathing… ever again…”
Amycus felt tears coursing down his cheeks though he wasn’t aware of crying them. He just looked at his beloved sister, at the other half of his very soul, and felt a part of him dying to see her like this. She was torn and broken and bloody, but it was her eyes… those confused, terrified eyes, that truly ripped at Amycus’s marrow. The very idea of his Lecty not knowing him, of her not recognizing him…
“Lecty…” he begged, reaching out to touch her with tender, trembling hands. “Lecty… look at me. Look at me, it’s your Amycus. It’s your Amycus Lecty… please…”
Avitus sneered at the pair and shook his head, “Don’t waste your breath boy. I assure you, the whore is gone.” He shot his cuffs absently and went on in a bored tone, “At least mentally, and soon enough physically. I’ve arranged a cottage for her far away.” Somewhere that he could still visit her… perhaps even claim the child as his own as he claimed her…
He shifted his pants slightly and focused back on the problem at hand as he said, “Regardless, she is no longer your concern. Whut is your concern, however, is the fact that the Bloodsworth’s will be arriving within a few days.”Amycus felt his stomach, already churning and convulsing within him, suddenly turn over in shock and threaten to crawl out of his throat, “T-the… Bloodsworths?” he asked.
Avitus rolled his eyes, “Do not repeat everything that I say as though it is a question Amycus, it makes you sound even more stupid than you already are. Yes. The Bloodsworths.” He held up the letter. “This is a summons for your beloved Tutors. I’ve invited them to return and recommence with your education. It’s obvious that you are sorely in need of some continued lessons. And without the whore here to distract you, it should be quite easy for you to handle.”
He’d said it again. Whore. The word Whore in conjunction with his Lecty. And the other things were terrible. They were horrible and evil and made him sick and terrified… But that… saying that word… calling his Lecty that word…
“D-don’t…” he whispered, caressing his hand tenderly along Lecty’s cheek, watching as she slowly began to lean into the tender touch, like an animal accepting tenderness despite being accustomed to being beaten.
Avitus frowned, his brows drawing together as he said, “Don’t?” He resisted the urge to slap the boy’s hands away from the little whore, reminding himself that soon enough she’d be his forever, and said, “Don’t whut boy?”
He slid his fingers back into Lecty’s hair, his thumb tracing along her temple and brow the way that she liked. And her eyes closed and she made the same little half-purring sound the way she always did when he helped her with a headache… and he felt some of the ache in his stomach lessen, felt a measure of hope…
Avtius shifted, then finally said, “Right, that’s enough. Time to get away from the whore Amycus.” He moved forward, reaching for the boy’s arm and growled, “If you think you don’t have your own punishment coming you’ve another-“
The elder Carrow fell back with a gasp of shock when his hand closed around Amycus’ muscular upper arm and he felt a jolt of electricity and power slam into him as though he’d touched a muggle live-wire. Looking down, he blinked in shock at the boy when he saw that his body was surrounded in a halo of writhing blue-white electric fire.
But it was when he met Amycus’ eyes that he actually took a step back. Not once in all of his years had Amycus ever looked at him like that. There was a look of absolute hatred in those normally-dim-witted eyes.
“Don’t. Call. Her. That,” Amycus snarled, still hunched close to his Lecty, one hand still holding her face (that hand the only part of his body not wreathed in electric blue flame). And then he slowly stood, pulling Alecto with him to stand behind him, shielding her protectively as he growled, “Don’t. Ever. Call. Her. That.”
Avitus shifted, swallowing slightly as he tried to regain control of the situation. He straightened his shoulders, pulling out his wand as he growled, “Amycus, you will back down. Now. Do you understand me?”
Amycus cocked his head to the side, eyeing his father very slowly, then said in a disturbingly calm tone, “No… I don’t think I will…”
From one second to the next Avitus was hit with a wave of unharnessed, wandless magical power. There was no spell, no focusing tool… it was just a surge of pure rage and magic channeled through a will to see the other burn.And burn he did. Avitus fell back against his desk, the desk against which Amycus had lost his virginity in the worst circumstances possible, and he began to scream over and over in horrible, agonizing howls that echoed through the halls of the massive manor house as he burned and electrified alive all at once…
Amycus, for his part, saw none of it. He turned as soon as Avitus crumpled, his attention switching back to his beloved Lecty. She’d slid back to the floor and her hands were covering her ears, her head shaking back and forth over and over. He reached for her, lifting her easily into his arms and taking her from the room where their Father burned alive behind them without so much as a backward glance. He didn’t deserve such consideration. He had ceased to exist.
Heading upstairs to his room, Amycus laid Alecto down on the bed with all the gentility one might have held a porcelain doll. He pulled out his wand and began to heal all of her hurts one by one, not even noting the fact that Avitus’s screams could still be heard downstairs. He merely cooed to her, “Don’t worry Lecty, I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you and our baby. I’ll take care of everything, I promise.”
He smiled and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, ignoring the tears sliding down her cheeks, and continued to heal her…