As it was not common for her to smile, she did not have to work to hold one back as the two men entered the dining room; however, a moment of habitual surprise washed over her as she took in the arrangement of features on Amycus’ face and her father’s. Neither was angry. Amycus had successfully completed the first stage of the plan, and that was what she allowed herself one fleeting moment of surprise over before turning her mind back to the task at hand. Of course he had completed it, there was a reason she had waited years and years for this day to come. She had wanted him to be ready. She had wanted him to succeed.
“Father,” Alecto greeted with a slight inclination of her head towards the man whose life she had starved to end for as long as she could remember. Her voice was as cold as always, as distant, but she knew somewhere in the center of her chest where she felt a chaotic burning ball of finally building that cold was just about the only thing she wasn’t in that moment.
Mr. Carrow grunted at her as he took his seat, the words “miserable” and “bitch” rolling around somewhere in the half mute tones of his muttering. “Where the fuck is my food?” he barked, looking around the empty table with impatient anger in his eyes. “I’m not sitting at an empty dining room table for laughs!” Mr. Carrow began to push back from his seat, ready to rise, and for just a sliver of time Alecto’s heart raced forward before falling back into rhythm. “You can fetch me when–”
The doors to the kitchen flew open. Panting and disheveled, Mrs. Carrow stepped through into the dining room, a platter of meat in her hands. “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” she seemed to beg even before there was anything to beg for. If she weren’t their perfect alibi, Alecto would have killed her just for the infuriating rage she stirred within her daughter with every weak and pathetic move she made, or let someone else make for her.
Mr. Carrow sat. The plate was gently placed on the table. Mrs. Carrow took the remaining steps to her usual seat around the table, and Alecto watched it all unfold like a movie she had written being projected perfectly on a big screen. The satisfaction, the excitement of it all. Time couldn’t move quickly enough to satisfy her. She glanced once more at her brother, their eyes meeting in that strange way they had. That strange, illuminating yet dark connection between the two. She was sure she had never felt happiness before, and that this moment was her first. She almost urged to touch his hand under the table, to say “Finally, we’re here,” but she didn’t.
Her eyes broke away from Amycus’ and she observed everyone sitting where they should have been. Her father was reaching for the roast, her mother sitting nervously waiting her turn. Alecto turned her wand onto her mother from under the table, and almost instantaneously the woman let out a shriek of fear as she was bound in place to her chair, just as helpless as she always was anyway. The noise had startled their father, who dropped the fork he’d been holding with a reverberating clang.
“Now,” she said quietly to Amycus, a smile finally contorting her features. “Welcome home, father,” she said with a sinister slow tilt of her head. Her wand was pointed between his eyes. “Did you have a good day?”
Hours before, their plan was merely words–hushed murmurs, depraved and wanton notions. Amycus implored his sister’s approval with a desire that ran rampant through his being. He could feel her wants reverberate from her body to his, and he, in turn, needed them as well. He strapped them to his own being, and wore them as his own, because he was her, and she was him. The Carrows spanned far beyond two earthly bodies. Where one fell, the other flourished. Two opposites to a whole. Individually, lethal; together, consummate. Even their father, whose blood seethed through both their veins, could not defeat them.
Before his eyes, their whispered scheme was heaving into reality. Amycus sat near his sister, consuming her presence. He stared deep within her, watching every calculated look. How he dreamed of such control, the ultimate power of hinging the beast chained within both their souls, waiting patiently for the proper opportunity. Their time. If this was happiness, pure in its own perverted form, he would spend countless lifetimes working towards this singular moment of requited bliss.
Mr. Carrow’s restlessness pulled Amycus from his thoughts. No, he couldn’t leave. Perhaps Amycus could flee from his seat, divert from the plan momentarily, and wring his arms around father’s neck. But where would that leave mother? And Alecto– no. Their plan was to be executed. He darted his eye back to hers, imploring his sister for some salvation. His knuckles clenched, teeth began grinding… And then mother traipsed into the dining room. Father reclined to his chair, and Amycus released the stifling air from his body. He locked eyes once more with his sister. It was the calm before their storm, the beginning of their story. An overwhelming, insatiable desire to begin was boiling over. Now, now, now.
In an instant, mother was chained to her chair–horror dazzled her face. Amycus sprung from his seat, darting for father. He came from behind, now holding him tightly with arms pinned behind his back. Father tossed and turned, using every ounce of power to throttle his son away, but Amycus would not budge. His strength was the clear victor. “Answer her question,” he barked, eyes flashing to Alecto with a wild, maniacal fervor.