Wizengamot session, 11th August 2014Subject of hearing: Murder of Caius Rookwood, 28th December

Wizengamot session, 11th August 2014
Subject of hearing: Murder of Caius Rookwood, 28th December 1968.
Time: 11 AM
Proxies: None
Transcribed: T. Higgs
Notes:Irregular introduction of pensieve material as primary witness.

Memory, memory is a precious, intimate thing, fleeting, always changing. What is truth, in a memory? People misremember facts, misremember events. One witness crosses the other. A blue car, or a red one? It is so hard to remember. Important details such as who said what and when and why are blurred with time and all that remains is a rough approximation of what once happened, what one thought happened.

Yet here they are, trying to unravel the threads of a murder that happened nearly fifty years ago, relying on nothing but memory and secondhand history to tell them what really happened.

Susan Bones pours the silvery liquid into the Pensieve. They watch as it pools and then disperses, as dark shapes and forms appear and solidify out of nowehere. Until nearly a hundred of them are there in that room, looking through the memories of Augustus Rookwood.

The first memories flip by swiftly. A man who looks almost like Augustus, but thicker in form, sterner yet kindlier - a face untouched by the ravages of war - scribbles away at his desk. No no, Helena stop troubling me, this is important, don’t you understand? It could completely change the way we think about magic - what good is lunch going to do me, no, no, leave me alone, good heavens you women are all alike, pestering us for this and that, I’m all right, this is far more important, tell the tradesmen we’ll pay them next month.

 A boy, young and handsome and not-quite cruel but arrogant, tilting his head and laying it on the shoulder of a much younger Augustus, smiling winsomely, don’t be such a fusspot Gus, it’s only one spell, it’s not like the Ministry’ll ever know. 

Red. A rabbit lies twitching on the ground, squealing shrilly in distress. Rodolphus claps Augustus on his back, there I knew we could do it, he kicks the rabbit away, but Augustus stands there, his knuckles growing whiter and whiter, then looks up and smiles shakily, yeah, yeah.

Caius Rookwood, careworn, bloody bastards at the DoM care only for their comforts, a pretty lady, slightly pregnant, massages his neck and tuts in commiseration. They ought to be crowing in delight over these findings, I don’t know what’s bitten them, them and their ridiculous politics. I don’t care, Helena, I’m going to write them a letter to tell them exactly what I think of them and their pusillanimity and if they won’t publish this, I’ll go elsewhere.Merlin, they’re so blind, can’t they see? Can’t they see?

(Everyone in the courtroom sees, the way he will not look at his son, the way he talks around his son, only to his wife.)

Coward, spits Rodolphus, coward. I’m not a coward. Then do it for fuck’s sake, don’t be a nancy. Green. Silence. None of those tortured squeals. More slapping on the back. Another false smile. 

Three men cloaked in black come knocking on the door. Caius Rookwood sends Helena out of the room, she drags her son with her. Raised voices from the hallway. Oh Merlin, Caius why can’t you be a little less obstinate? Why can’t you just give in? Helena sighs, we should go before they find us. She throws floo powder on the fire and steps in, mouthing the directions to her sister’s home, but before she can drag her son along with her, he pulls back and she is gone. He puts the fire out and goes back out.

I saw the chance to show You-Know-Who I was in earnest - I wasn’t playing at being grown up. What better way to show how desperately I wanted to cleanse the world of filth than by killing my father?

(Nobody says it, but they all think it. They have all read Skeeter’s article, though some will turn up their nose and pretend not to have when asked.)

He goes down the stairs, his wand drawn out. 

There he is, sixteen years old and young, so young, clutching his wand with fierce desperation even as his body twitches and writhes on the floor. On and on and on it goes until the white hot flames of the fire turn cold and hot and then cold and he is twisted and untwisted and made and remade and knit and unknitted several times over in the hand of some careless cosmic being who cares nothing for the shattering of a bone here, the tearing of a muscle there, the rupturing of a nerve or a broken mind. 

There is blood, blood everywhere, dark and warm and coppery, sticky, blood and yesterday’s dinner and shit and intestines spilled everywhere. Caius Rookwood is lying on the floor, gasping for breath in short spurts, fingers curling inwards and scratching the parquet floor.

He screams and screams as long as his lungs allow him.

The man clad in black, hauls him roughly to his feet, “Do it,” the man commands.

He shakes his head, “Go away,” he sobs hoarsely, “Let me go.”

“Do it,” his father says, toneless, breathless.

He screws his eyes shut.

The man jerks his arm roughly and he shrieks.

“Crucio,” he sobs, pointing his wand at his father. His father grunts as the curse hits him and he exhales in pain, sweat beads rolling down his forehead, but it isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

The man snarls in his ear, “You have to mean it, boy. Look at him and remember,” he pauses and then whispers, “Look at him. He cares about his research. Not you, not his wife, not his unborn child, not people. Cogs and wheels and whirring thoughts - that’s all he cares about.

“When has he ever listened to you?” the man smiles, cold blue eyes, “When was the last time he looked at you and saw his son, not a stranger sitting in your place? When was the last time he looked at you and knew you?” he pauses and then mouths, “Acknowledged you?

“He loathes you,” the man whispers, “Can’t you see it? Despises you. And who wouldn’t, filth? Who wouldn’t despise you, degraded, perverted, animal that -”

“Crucio,” he roars, cutting the man off before he can say it, hatred like fierce red flames rising up inside him, “Crucio,” he cries.

His father falls to the ground screaming, the man throws his head back and laughs triumphantly - Antinous Lestrange, the crowd feels vaguely uncomfortable, this is a private moment, they ought not to watch this.

“Again,” he commands.

“Please,” tears are streaming down his face, “It’s Christmastime”.

“Again.” 

“Crucio,” he whispers, as the two men standing idly by, shiftuncomfortably, yet do not raise their wands to help him.

“Now tell us,” says Antinous, “Where are the papers?”

Caius Rookwood remains silent and fixes his eyes on the ceiling.

The other man turns - a gasp from the crowd, Charles Nott, of all the people - and looks at the carefully hooded man. 

“You can’t leave them,” says the man underneath the hood, “Kill them.”

Charles draws his wand and although there is discomfort writ large upon his face, he prepares to say the spell.

“Stop,” says Antinous, “Let him do it.”

“I can’t.”

“You can,” Antinous replies, “You can, you will. For yourself. For your mother and her unborn child. And you will never tell. Unless you want to hurt them. Unless you want to see them lying on the floor, bleeding like stuck pigs.”

Augustus looks down at his father, poor man breathing with great difficulty. His father looks at him and nods. 

Green. Silence. Caius breathes no more. The two leave and Antinous turns to Augustus as if to say, mark this, mark this boy. If you fight us, this too will be your fate. If you so much as breathe a word, this will be you, your mother and your unborn sibling lying there.

When they have left, Augustus falls to the floor and sobs over his father’s dead body.