Work Text:
The triwizard champion crowning ceremony was a small venue. Likely because it was actually a trap. Probably. Somehow. Nothing else made sense, though, since otherwise it would be too stupid to do it, and Riddle was many things, but not stupid.
Draco, Pansy, and Aldon all sat tensely in their seats. No one else had been able to come.
“If I were you three,” a voice behind them drawled, “I wouldn’t be showing my face in public for a good long while. Especially not here.” Aldon half-turned to see Caelum scowling at them from the aisle.
“Caelum,” Pansy responded neutrally, “Are you here to support Krum?”
“I mean,” Caelum continued, ignoring Pansy’s question entirely, “you fell for that imposter’s lies for years, and he betrayed all of you in doing it.”
Draco stood up before Pansy could stop him. “You have no right to say anything—”
Aldon was sitting in between Draco and Caelum, so he stood up and got between them before anyone could actually draw wands. Aldon did not want them to get kicked out before the ceremony even started. Luckily, Pansy yanked Draco back down into his seat before he could protest too much.
“Caelum,” Aldon said, not bothering to be polite, since Aldon knew from experience that that wouldn’t work, “go find a seat. Away from us.”
“You can’t just dismiss me!” he responded, looking predictably affronted. Aldon was being directly rude to him in a way that he probably didn’t experience from others very often.
“I can’t force you to leave,” Aldon said glibly, “but I can tell you that we all want you to.”
Caelum, somehow, scowled harder, but instead of continuing to escalate, he turned and walked away. Honestly, Aldon was slightly surprised. He’d have expected it to be a little more difficult than that.
“That might cause problems later if he tells his parents,” Pansy warned.
“He’s not on good enough terms with his parents for that,” Aldon said, unconcerned. “Besides, at this point I’d almost rather deal with his parents. At least they occasionally smile.”
After that, they fell into silence. They were all a little too on edge for idle chatter, especially where they could be overheard. Eventually, someone got up to introduce Riddle onto the stage to begin his speech. Aldon tuned it out mostly—he’d heard Riddle speak enough for an entire lifetime.
Then they started the slideshow, and, for a little while, Aldon completely forgot why they were even there. It wasn’t exactly pleasant to see Rigel in danger, but the way he got out of every scenario was breathtaking.
Because of how absorbed he got, Aldon was just as surprised as most of the crowd was when the explosions started. He got to his feet, and immediately started getting pulled by his elbow in the opposite direction of the explosions.
Pansy fought her way through the frightened crowd towards the stage like she was on a mission, dragging both Draco and Aldon behind her. She must be betting on the explosions being a distraction, Aldon realized as he tried to avoid being trampled. Now that Aldon’s attention was back on the stage, he could see that Riddle’s eyes were locked on the Rod of Zuriel. Like he was waiting for something.
Sure enough, the Rod of Zuriel vanished. Almost instantly, Riddle and a few of the champions shot spells directly at the now empty stand. Aldon’s heart jumped into his throat and he let out a hoarse yell of “Rigel!” almost involuntarily, but, instead of Rigel appearing, the stage that all the champions and Riddle were standing on vanished.
“You can’t approach here,” an auror was shouting repeatedly in front of them, but Aldon’s small group wasn’t the only one that was trying to approach the now absent stage anymore.
Letting the auror argue with others, Pansy led them around towards the back. The stage had been attached to a building which was still standing. After they got past the security, Pansy took off in a full sprint, forcing Aldon and Draco to take off after her.
“How do you know where to go?” Draco yelled up to her.
“This would be the smartest way to go!” Pansy yelled back. “And it’s Rigel!” Nothing else needed to be said.
Pansy and Draco were both ahead of him when they finally turned the corner around the edge of the building. Aldon didn’t think he could run any faster, but when he heard Pansy yell out, “Rigel!” he somehow gained speed.
He turned the corner to see Rigel standing across from Bellatrix Lestrange, both with their wands drawn.
Draco was still running, almost there. But before Draco could reach them, an invisible barrier stopped him. The wards. Wards that Bellatrix and Rigel were somehow on the other side of.
Bellatrix let out a maniacal laugh. “Oh, did you want to help your little traitor friend? Did you get attached while he was lying to you?”
“SHUT UP!” Draco yelled, and he tried to fire a spell at her, but it got blocked by the wards.
“Rigel,” Pansy said desperately, “just apparate away!”
Rigel’s jaw tightened even more, but he didn’t respond and he never took his eyes off of Bellatrix.
Bellatrix giggled out, “Oh, but he can’t. See, Riddle had Regulus put up some extra wards. Including ones against animagi! Isn’t that right, little crow?”
Rigel’s gaze only narrowed. Aldon finally reached the wards himself, but he knew there was no getting through them. He could only watch.
“Yes, that was very clever of him,” Bellatrix said through a smirk. “I guess he does still have some uses.”
Aldon thought, at first, that that was a very odd puttdown of Regulus. Until Rigel asked, “Are you not loyal to Riddle then?”
“Riddle is a pale imitation of my true master,” Bellatrix said, an obsessive smile stretching wide across her face. “My master wants to get his hands on you very desperately, and I would do anything to be the one to give you to him.”
Aldon’s heart skipped, and a thread of panic finally entered Rigel’s eyes as he saw Bellatrix use her other hand to reach inside her robes.
Rigel tried to fire, but it was too late. Bellatrix pulled out an elaborate necklace that looked goblin-made and heavily enchanted. Almost immediately, Aldon could feel something draining energy away from him. Along with Pansy and Draco, he stumbled away from the border as whatever aura the necklace was giving off sucked away at their energy.
The wards must’ve been partially protecting them from the effects of the necklace, because instead of just stumbling, Rigel dropped.
The farther away Aldon got from the necklace, the lesser the effects were, but it wasn’t enough. Even after only a few seconds, he fell to his knees. He could see Rigel’s muscles were occasionally twitching, but not nearly enough for Aldon to seriously believe that Rigel could put up a fight.
“R-rigel—” Aldon tried to call out to him (useless, just as he had been the whole time, yet he couldn’t stop trying), but his voice was only a whisper.
“There are so many fun toys to play with in the Lestrange vaults,” Bellatrix bragged as she strode towards Rigel leisurely, mockingly slow. “Would you like me to show you another one?”
Bellatrix stuffed her wand away in her robes to pull out a long needle.
“A prick of this needle,” she purred, “removes the effects of polyjuice.” She grinned sharply as she knelt down next to Rigel and picked up his limp hand. “Shouldn’t we see who you actually are?” At this moment, Aldon would give just about anything for Rigel’s true identity to remain a secret forever.
Aldon didn’t get that particular wish. Bellatrix’s needle plunged into Rigel’s flesh and Rigel’s face began to change.
“Stupefy!” a voice roared from behind Bellatrix, someone who had clearly gone the other way around the building. The spell passed through the wards and hit Bellatrix as she turned, but kneeling and wandless there wasn’t much she could do and it knocked her out. Bellatrix fell over and the necklace slipped from her hands. Instantly, Aldon found strength returned to his limbs. He stood up and turned to face whoever had just—
Caelum. It was Caelum.
Aldon… had not expected that.
Caelum easily walked through the wards that had stopped all of Aldon’s group (but apparently not Caelum or his spells). He spared them all a glance, but kept walking towards Bellatrix and Rigel, whose face was still sharpening into focus.
“I hope you know that I’m not doing this for you,” Caelum said, still scowling the same, as if he hadn’t just stunned his own mother. “But I’m sure if you got captured I’d be roped into some stupid plan to try and get you out or else I’d never hear the end of—” Caelum’s voice cut out suddenly as Rigel’s features locked into place. No, not Rigel’s. Harriet’s.
Aldon had really not expected that.
“Harry,” Caelum said, in a voice much different than Aldon had ever heard from him, surprised. Before, of course, he caught himself. “Potter. I should’ve expected this ridiculousness from no one but you.”
Despite his words, Aldon noticed that Caelum was hasty and his hands were shaking a little as he fell to his knees and worked the needle Bellatrix had jabbed out of Ri—Harry’s hand.
“Caelum,” she said, getting up almost before the needle was even out, “I need to get out of here.”
Caelum walked over to his mother and pulled a Sow party pin out of her pocket. “This will get you through the wards.” He handed it to her, then turned back to his mother and narrowed his eyes.
“Oblivate summus,” he said, casting the spell a bit harshly at her prone form.
Harry let out a slightly relieved, slightly hysterical chuckle. “I don’t think she saw anything, but thank you.” Her eyes finally drifted over to Aldon, Pansy, and Draco, but it was as if she couldn’t quite even force herself to look at them directly.
Aldon’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“Harry.” It was Pansy who got her voice back first. “Leave. We’ll be fine, but not if you don’t leave.”
As if she’d been waiting for permission, Harry immediately went to leave through the second set of wards, but she got stopped.
“Wait, Rigel!” Draco yelled, voice raw. Harry turned and looked at him. Draco said, intensely, “You told me I couldn’t come after Rigel, but I can come after you, Harry! I’m going to come after you!” He sounded like he was pleading.
Harry looked away as if the sight burned her. Through a choked voice that was trying to be stable, she responded, “It would be safer if you didn’t.”
And then she went through the second wards and apparated away.
Almost entirely in sync, Pansy, Aldon, and Draco all turned to Caelum. He stiffened up the way that deer do when they spot a hunter.
“Hey, what happened here!” an auror, that apparently had gone to run the perimeter, yelled as he came around the other side of the building.
As they all lied to the officer together, Caelum kept sending them nervous glances, which was fair, since Aldon kept sending him smug grins.
He’d joked with Edmund once that Rigel collected heirs like trading cards and Edmund had pointed out that the Lestrange heir didn’t seem to like Rigel much. Apparently, even the Lestrange heir wasn’t actually immune.
Aldon had never seen any sort of benefit to making a true friend of the Lestrange heir, but that had just very much changed. Based on the looks Caelum was sending his way, he was planning to avoid Aldon for the rest of time. Fortunately, Aldon did always enjoy it when his prey tried to get away, and he was sure that Caelum would give in eventually.