damned_institute | Day 27: Lunch

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Day 27: Lunch

Renji wasn't so certain what this grilled cheese thing was all about, but he liked the sound of some soup. Even if it was strange western soup, well... there wasn't anything bad people could do to soup, in his experience. His good mood was starting to fray at the edges, a little, from the strain of dealing with the Ichimaru issue, and even more from what had been on the bulletin board earlier.

He'd never had difficulty simply writing something before. But...

He shook his head as he entered the line. He didn't want to think about it. He wanted to hold on to the tenuous equilibrium he'd managed to find.

Renji got himself a large bowl of soup, water, and even one of those sandwiches, just to try it. Old habit, recently awakened, had him over to one side of the cafeteria, where the fewest people possible would have the chance to pass behind him. He sat there with his back toward the wall and started eating.

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"What monsters?" Harry asked, feeling exasperated by Bast's lack of understanding. He couldn't believe that anyone had no idea of the difference good and evil and that the Death Eater was just crazy or trying to mess with his head.

He wasn't about to give into it either. He didn't believe the blond and couldn't, however, if some of the rantings could explain what was going on in this place, then he at least had to listen to find out more about it.

Bast was more than happy to move on to another subject. Trying to figure out all that was giving him a mild headache.

"The monsters, Harry Potter. There's all sorts of them. People say that they see huge bugs or cats. There's spiders the side of the hallway and a Dementor. There's all sorts of nasty things out at night. Come on."

Bast headed towards the bulletin board, pointing out Renji's warning to the other wizard.

"See? We go back to our rooms for dinner, and then all the lights go out. When they do, the doors unlock, and we can wander the hallways, but there are all sorts of monsters out there, ones that eat people or tear them up. Look around at the other patients. They didn't get those bruises, broken bones, or hurt places from the nurses or doctors. The monsters got them."

Bast sighed, touching the wand stashed up his sleeve for comfort.

"Severus was here, but he's gone now, I think. So is Raistlin and maybe Yazoo. I've been here an awfully long time, Harry Potter, and most people vanish in the night or get killed. Lots of them. Sometimes they take people, make them think everyone is the enemy, and set them loose so that they kill or hurt the other patients. Other nights, they take patients and do terrible things to them like torture and stuff. They always call the false name then. Mine is Stephen King, not Rabastan Lestrange."

He glanced at Renji's written warning again, thin fingers smoothing it out and the little pinned up replies beneath it.

"You have to be careful, Harry Potter. You do have your wand, don't you?"

((Renji's warning is at: http://community.livejournal.com/damned_bulletin/113751.html ))

Harry half listened to the Death Eater as he read the warnings. His stomach clenched. This place... this all couldn't be true could it? Then why was he here and where were Ron and Hermione? Where was Ginny?! He forced himself not to panic around Rabastan and looked at the other wizard when he asked the question.

Harry felt himself pale but he nodded. "Yeah," he lied. "Of course." He paused. "You... really think you've seen Snape don't you?" he asked, his voice sounded slightly hollow. He didn't want to let the subject of his wand remain the main topic of discuss and he wanted to focus on anything other than the fact that he had been kidnapped and brought to another dangerous place to once again fight to survive. Was it possible Snape was brought to this place before he died? But then people would have noticed him missing. There was no way that it could have really been Harry's old Potions Master.

He looked over the bulletin board, scanning over other conversations and Renji's other posts. His body felt heavy and empty at the same time.

What was he going to do?

"Of course it was Severus. I've known him since I was small. He's the only one of us that I've seen besides you. Everyone else thinks that we're fictional book characters. He's just... gone. I've looked everywhere for him, and no one has seen him. Not that a lot of people knew him in the first place anyways since he's Severus and snarls equally at everyone. But he was nice to me, and ... I miss him."

Bast touched his fingers lightly over some of the messages on the bulletin board, pointing out some to Harry.

"Tomorrow morning there will be a lot of them here that is Person A asking if Person B made it through the night. A lot of them go unanswered since the person died or vanished in the Nightshift. Like I said, the monsters get them or the bad doctors do. Mr Radio and the Head Doctor talk a lot during the Nightshift, each of them sniping at the other. Sometimes they give clues to treasures too, if you know where to look. I've been over a lot of Landel's, so I can sort of find anywhere I need to go. I like the kitchen best since there's chocolate cake there, and the Dementors hate chocolate cake. Oh!"

Bast began patting himself down, finally pulling out a little baggie with a chocolate chip cookie in it from his pocket. Offering it to Harry, he shrugged sheepishly.

"I can't find block chocolate, so this is all I have. Most of the other patients think I'm stupid for wanting cookies, but I knew the Dementors would be around soon enough. Lucky said they liked you, so maybe it'll help."

He wrinkled up his nose then, eyeing the notes thoughtfully.

"That was good, right?"

Harry wasn't sure taking sweets from a Death Eater was a good idea, but neither was being rude to an insane wizard with a wand when you were unarmed. He took the cookie carefully, as if waiting for it to be cursed and attack him and nodded.

"Yeah. It was," he said. "Thanks."

His head was still filled with too many thoughts. Monsters. Dementors. He got chills just thinking about them.

"It... can't have really been Snape though." Harry paused, not wanting to really put what had happened the night before into words. "He died." He said it and still he felt as if it were hard to believe. He remembered the blood and the memories pouring from Snape and the way that his eyes had looked after the wounds had killed him.

The cookie itself appeared to be normal, just the average chocolate chip cookie that Rabastan had gotten famous (or infamous) for conning out of nurses for being good. Either that or he was stealing them at night from the kitchen. Who knew with him?

A pleased smile came at being told he had done good. Since coming to Landel's, a great amount of stress had been put by the staff and Doctor Stegman on that he be 'good'. While having no real concept of that, Rabastan had figured out that if people were happy, they said he was good. It worked in his odd brand of logic.

At Harry's words, that smile faded, the diminutive wizard sidling back a step from Harry again. His lower lip trembled as if about to cry, either some mental damage or acting making his emotions come and go with a quickness.

"You're lying," he whispered. "Severus was alive days ago. He might not be around, but he's not dead! He... he... maybe he escaped! Severus is dreadfully smart, everyone said so. He was alive, living at Hogwarts before that! He... he was a little odd about when I mentioned people saying Dumbledore was dead, but he's not! Neither of them are. You're just... just trying to trick me. Severus isn't dead. He's all I had."

Bast wiped his eyes with his sleeve, sniffling. In truth, Severus had been all he had, even if the Potions Master hadn't been exactly thrilled to find himself saddled with a nutty Death Eater.

"We were going to make potions. He said!"

Harry looked at Bast. At first he looked as if he might pity the man, but as he kept talking all Harry could feel was anger.

"Well that's the sort of person you were working for isn't it?!" he said, his voice raising again. "Voldermort killed Snape because he thought he could get control of Snape's wand, but it turned out all wrong and Snape basically died for nothing. That's the sort of person that Voldemort was, and the sort of people your bother and his wife were! Don't tell me that I didn't see what happened. I was there. Snape died because your boss was too short-sighted to really understand anything that was going on."

Snape's death was the one that seemed the most pointless to Harry, but talking about it made him think of the other bodies that had been laid out on the floor of the Great Hall. He couldn't deal with this anymore. He tossed the cookie back at the Death Eater, not wanting his help, and turned to walk away.

Bast caught the cookie as it was thrown at him, holding onto the plastic bag with hands that trembled. Severus couldn't be gone. That single idea in his mind didn't stop the vicious words coming from Harry Potter though. As the Boy Who Lived spoke, Bast drew back again, trying to make himself smaller as he peered up at the other wizard.

"I guess you never had to do or be anything you didn't want to because of who you were born as, Harry Potter. Or do what everyone told you that you had to do because you were a Lestrange. Or a Black. Or a Snape. Or all my other dead friends. You haven't had that problem, have you?"

Letting Harry go, Bast slunk to one of the open chairs and sat down, turning the cookie package in his hands. He wanted Severus. He wanted Raistlin, Yazoo, or any other of his friends that had left him. For once, Landel's didn't seem like such a great place when he was on his own.

Harry stopped as he heard Bast's retort and turned around. He marched right back up to the Death Eater.

"A Black?" Harry demanded. "My godfather was a Black and he never, ever joined Voldemort or the Death Eaters. Don't you ever say that being a Black means you automatically are completely mindless follower of the Dark Side. Sirius never did anything like that. You don't even understand that, do you? And you don't know anything about Snape either."

He really shouldn't have gone back, should have let it drop, but Harry had never been very good at letting people insult the wizards and witches he cared about.

Rabastan sniffled again, wiping his eyes and staring down at the cookie in his hands instead of at Harry.

"Sirius was strong in ways that some of aren't and never will be. Not all wands have the same core. Sirius was strong enough to lose so much, but he had things to replace it on the outside. Some of us don't. To some of us, the outside is a huge and frightening place that we don't understand."

Bast continued to stare down at lap, sneaking a hand over to snare up a paper napkin to wipe his face.

"Severus didn't let many people know him. He was a broken man in a lot of ways, I think, like me. Or maybe a few. I don't know. I would have liked to."

Bast paused there, twisting the tissue through his hands.

Harry made a frustrated sound. He would have liked to kick Rabastan very much, but even despite his anger that seemed very low. Instead he forced himself to calm down again and look at how pathetic Bast seemed.

He actually reminded Harry a lot of a house elf. That made him think of Dobby and that made him sad. He frowned. Watching Lestrange's grief, or at least what passed for it, made Harry think of his own.

"Look, I'm sorry I yelled okay? I didn't mean to," he muttered his apology. "Bellatrix killed Sirius you know." It had happened years ago, but the same empty feeling got a hold of Harry as he said it. "Why did you people have to tear apart so many families?"

He didn't meant to ask the last question, it just sort of came out.

"It didn't start that way."

Most tended to take Rabastan's child-like views and ways and mistakenly think he was stupid or childish. Granted, his clear moments were often, but he did have them. Crumbling the napkin in his hand, he sighed. Still he didn't look up Harry, just stared morosely down at his hands.

"The world was different then. There was a grace and gentle beauty to it, a gentility if you will. Then it all began to fade when the more social groups began pushing harder to let the Mu... those who were not pureblooded in to places that society had always dictated belonged to only a few. It doesn't sound right to you, I know. I doubt it ever will, but it was like the sun going out, a Götterdämmerung. Things that had once been splendid and beautiful were being reproduced except they were cheap immitations with gilt paint if you can understand that idea.

"What we saw was our way of life, our society dying and being replaced with one that held no place for us. Instead of our pureblooded ladies being nodded to and greeted on the street, they were occasionally pushed off sidewalks or disrespected, things no gentleman would have ever allowed to happen in his presence. We began to lose power and positions that our families had held since the beginning of wizarding society."

Bast shook his head, gaze lifting to the ceiling.

"We did what we were told by a leader what was best, what would save us and our society. What would save the world as we knew it. It was pointed out who was the enemy, anger whipped up into a righteous fury, and we let loose. We had our Cause, and we were protecting our homes, families, children, wives, sisters, or what have you."

Bast wiped his drying eyes again, eyes dropping back to his lap.

"I don't expect you to understand, Harry. I don't. Just remember how many young people you had willing to join your cause, wanting to fight to save your way of life, those you loved, and everything you held precious. To try to stop your Götterdämmerung. Seeing one side of a thing is never a good idea. I did like Sirius though. Hard not to really. He just had a way. He wasn't really ever cruel to me either. To Dolph, yes, but he gave me a piece of candy once when his mother made he and Regulus come over to play."

His fingers plucked at the edges of his napkin, fraying them.

"You lose your parents and godfather. We lost Severus. I suppose everyone I knew is dead, yes? I can't imagine they would hold off on executions for a second war."

"All of that doesn't excuse killing and torturing innocent people. I don't care what your reasons were, there's no excuse for what you've done." Harry glared at Bast, folding his arms again. He didn't hate the man so much, but he did feel a lot of anger at the idea that any cause was enough of a reason for parents to be separated from their kids. He hadn't even allowed Remus to do that for his cause. "There could have been another way for the society you held so dear to be preserved. You could have worked with the Muggle-borns but instead you started killing them."

At least Rastaban had stopped himself from saying "Mudblood", Harry could at least give him credit for that.

"And ..." Harry paused, picking his next words carefully. "We lost Severus." It was the first time he had called Snape by his first name, but it was also just to match Bast's words. He knew that exposing Snape would have been dangerous in any other time and place, but here and after the man's death. "One of the last things Voldemort learned was that Snape hadn't really belonged to him at all."

"They never proved I did any of that. I was guilty by association. A lot of people were put in Azkaban just like me. All they needed was someone to accuse them or be related to the wrong person. Those trials were that way. All you had to have was an accused that said anyone was a Death Eater, and there you were the next minute, right in Azkaban."

Bast didn't seem much bothered by the glare, still not meeting Harry's eyes or even looking towards him. The napkin he was methodically destroying by tearing it into tiny bits now that his tears had stopped looked to have all his attention. Bast twitched when Harry called the Dark Lord by name, a reaction that was universal in the wizarding world when that single word was spoken.

"I always did wonder why the Dark Lord believed Severus was his. Severus never gave in to anyone, bent to anyone's will. Oh, he'd act like it occasionally to get ahead, at least in my opinion, but he never had that near religious zealousness like Bella did or that hunger for more like Lucky or Dolph. There wasn't anything the Dark Lord could give him really that Severus didn't already have except for a title."

Bast shrugged. That would always continue to puzzle him, then again, by his own admission he hadn't known Severus that well.

Harry didn't want to talk about Snape anymore, but his mind was already resting on the memories he had seen the night before. He thought about the one thing that Snape had wanted and could never have, the one person that he had lost and that Voldemort had killed. Harry frowned.

There were other memories that he had seen during his fourth year, and Harry thought to bring it up now, since Lestrange was talking about it.

"I saw your trial," he said after a moment. "In Dumbledore's Pensieve." He thought back to what he had seen in Dumbledore's memory. At the time he had been too shocked by learning what had happened to Neville's parents and the way that Crouch had coldly sentenced his own son, then his focus had been on Crouch's son the one who had put his name in the Gobley, then on Bellatrix the one who had murdered Sirius. He had always paid the Lestrange brothers very little attention when he tried to remember the scene.

Rabastan had been thin and nervous looking, his eyes had darted around the room. Looking at him now Harry could see traces of the man that he had once been, the same way he had been able to see the youthful handsome face of Sirius in pictures in Sirius the man who had escaped the dementors by clinging to his innocence and turning into a dog.

Bast shook his head and smiled with an edge of shyness, raking a hand through hair that hung down to his midback now instead of neatly trimmed as it had been then. Instead of its former shade, the strands were terror white now, most likely a side-effect from being in Azkaban. Dementors for fourteen years was enough to turn anyone's hair that colour.

"I don't remember much of it really, just that it was a surprise. Aurors have bad tempers."

His eyes finally did meet Harry's then, tears dried up and gone. The cloudiness was there again unfortunately, whatever intelligence there had been swept back under the madness of the man's strange mind. Had Sirius stayed a few more years, would he have ended up the same?

"You need to be careful tonight, Harry Potter. I haven't seen the monsters, but everyone else has. Maybe they don't like to try to eat me or I'm too small. If no one else will, I can show you some of Landel's during the nighttime. I'm in room M41. Everyone I know is gone, so I should be there if you get lost or ... something."

Harry's eyes narrowed behind his glasses.

"I don't need help from a Death Eater," he said. Despite everything that the blond was saying, there still remained the fact that this man had followed Voldemort had even believed what he taught, at least enough to help in the torture of two very good people.

It would be like betraying Neville, who had been a true friend to Harry, to work with Rastaban that way.

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Day 27: Lunch

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