milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Ron's been around. Mostly cooped up with Harry and Hermione (Hermione especially, haha) but around.

However, today was one of the first days he felt social in a long while, and thus he'd come down read the notice, freaked accordingly, and sat at the bar.

Then he noticed that his tab had been paid off, and freaked over that, because when it came to money and the fact that he had none, he had a bit of a mental thing...

Bloody son of a...

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"Yes?" he asks as the room temperature seems to plummet about him. Clearly the boy does know his name. He should. It's a name most people in the wizarding world know.

And curse whenever it's brought up. If they're not too busy cowering in fear that is.

"I am who I say I am, if that's what you're getting at."

"So you're proud of answering to the name of a murderer?" Ron asked, with narrowed eyes. "Jolly good for you then."

"You make presumptions boy," Rabastan says in a deceptively calm voice. "I'm proud of my name, and proud to be a true wizard, and I am content to serve him, but that does not extend all the way to what I do in his name."

He waits, wondering if the boy will draw his wand. If he does Rabastan may be forced to do battle. And despite what his job description entails, he'd rather avoid bloodshed if he can.

"There need not be violence boy."

"But there might need to be self-defense for all I know," Ron said, still not taking his hand off his wand, "and if you think I'm going to trust you to follow the rules here, you're bloody mental--it wouldn't be the first time one of your lot disobeyed them."

He added angrily, "And true wizard my arse--you're just another murderer. Least you could do is own up to it."

"I didn't ask you to trust me, Mr Weasley," he says, trying to maintain his inner calm. "Nor do I expect or want you to. I did not come here seeking the trust of others."

He draws in a breath, slowly.

"I know what I am and what I have done. And for who and what I did it for. I admit to it all. All of it. Every last crime."

He gives Ron a searching look.

"Did you expect me to deny everything?"

"...Yeah," Ron said slowly. "Yeah, I think it's a bit hard accepting that there are people out there daft enough to think that just because they're purebloods they can do whatever they want--throw other people's lives away for nothing. I'm a simple bloke, you know? It's hard to wrap my head around that--how easy it is for you lot to be monsters."

It hurts. Unexpectedly it hurts. Oh, he's used to being seen as a sadistic monster living only to do his master's bidding, but it still hurts.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the mask he's worn so many times before.

"We do as we're told..," he says, staring at the mask, running a hand over the smooth surface as he repeats what he's said, to himself and to others. "There is no room for those who disobey."

His expression changes; it's almost as though he's been hypnotised by the mask - or perhaps the self-lectures he's given himself over the years.

"Once a Death Eater; always a Death Eater... It's the only way we know..."

Ron was just shaking his head, now a little more terrified than before.

The only thing worse than a cold-blooded killer was one that was comepletely mental.

"You're off your nut, the lot of you. Absolutely mental."

It might be an apt description for Rabastan. He's tried so hard not to, to give into insanity, but Azkaban can break even the strongest of wills, and drive them into madness.

"Why do you say that, young Weasley?" he asks, not looking up. "What makes you think I'm mad?"

Such a binding thing, this mask... The Mark...

"I know they say I've gone 'round the twist—and I'm sure they're right, but still. Do you really think me mad?"

Warning bells were going off in Ron's head.

Get out. Get away from him.

He looked around, hoping to catch sight of Faith, of Harry--wait no, not Harry--or somebody else on Security...

"Well, for one, you're petting that mask like it's a cat, two, you were in Azkaban for who-knows-how-long, and three, the wide-eyed crazed look is a dead giveaway. I don't really have to take much of a shufti to figure it out."

Then he flinched.

Big mouth = bad. He had learned this in the past.

He backed up against a table.

Rabastan looks up, and smiles. Such honesty from such a young man. He pockets the mask, taking care that it won't fall out and become lost or damaged.

"Fifteen years, or so they tell me," he begins. "Though to me, it could've been fifteen days, or fifteen lifetimes. I don't know."

The smile broadens.

"Azkaban is like that young Weasley. You lose track of time in there. After a while, time loses all meaning. Everything loses its meaning. All you have is your mind and the walls about you to remind you where you are, and why you're there."

He pulls a chair over to him and sits down in it.

"It's your mind, you see. When all you have is your mind to keep you company, things begin to change. Your perspective of the world changes. People... They lose touch with reality. They go mad."

He looks Ron in the eyes; the expression is oddly lucid.

"Everyone in Azkaban goes mad, Ron. It's all a matter of time. Even me, as you so astutely observed."

"One good turn deserves another," Ron said bitterly, though he was shaking quite a bit now, his whole body tense.

So sad, being sent to Azkaban and going crazy.

Also sad was a pudgy-faced boy being practically turned into an orphan. Taking a gum wrapper from his mad mother like it was a treasure.

Ron had no sympathy for Rabastan.

"Should've thought about that before you did what you did to the Longbottoms, then, shouldn't you."

He started backing away.

Nor did Rabastan expect sympathy from Ron. He might be barking mad, but he's still sane enough to not ask quarter from one who will never give it.

"Perhaps. Perhaps things might have turned out differently had I refused Rodolphus' request that I join his little gang of thugs, but I did not."

He looks away, feeling some measure of regret.

"And so here I am. Mad as a hatter and without any quality anyone in their right mind would define as 'redeeming'.

A fitting end, I suppose."

"I'd say so."

He gave the Death Eater a little wave, and kept backing away, as he didn't want to turn his back to him.

"You have fun being a tool of the Dark Lord and being mental."

He says nothing in return. He simply watches Ron Weasley backing away as though Rabastan was made of radioactive waste.

I'm not sure if I would say "tool" so much as "fool", he thinks to himself, mind wandering that well-worn path of "what if?" But then again, what difference does it make?

I can only hope you'll have the sense I never possessed to resist those who will twist you to suit their ends...

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