#especially if duncan's dress robe fashion sense screams seto kaiba LMAO

[carewyncromwell]

"WHERE IS HE?! WHAT DID YOU DO WITH MY BROTHER?!"

~inspired by an AU concept by @ag907 // prelude with more context // my main musical accompaniment while drawing this // inspiration 1 and 2 for Duncan's look~

When Duncan Ashe and Patricia Rakepick went to meet with Jacob Cromwell's mother Lane at her home late one Tuesday morning, they were not expecting to see Carewyn Cromwell there. Quite frankly, Lane didn't either -- Carewyn was supposed to be in school, and although she'd been as quiet and gloomy as ever, she'd left on time the way she did every morning. But the tiny nine-and-a-half-year-old had sensed something was off. Lane had taken her time getting ready that morning and so didn't head out to work either before or at the same time that Carewyn left for school, and besides that...the little girl couldn't explain it, but for some reason, she just knew her mother wasn't going to work that day. And that worried Carewyn -- a lot. She took her entire usual route to school, wallowing in unease the whole way...and then, right before taking that last turn to reach the school, the redheaded girl made up her mind. She turned on her heel and ran all the way home, her schoolbag smacking her back the whole way. When Carewyn got home, she unlocked the door and went inside quietly, only to overhear her mother talking to two strangers -- one a woman in her late twenties and the other a man perhaps around Jacob's age -- who Carewyn pretty immediately figured out were from the Wizarding World, judging by their discussion of Hogwarts, Dumbledore, and something called the Cursed Vaults.

What made Carewyn's heart leap into her throat, however, was her mother's own tense, anxious whisper in the midst.

"But none of this explains why Professor Dumbledore expelled my son. However dangerous the Vaults may be...if you, Jacob, and Olivia Green were truly helping Hogwarts by breaking their curses, then the Headmaster would have no good reason to remove Jacob from school..."

Carewyn dropped her schoolbag on the doormat, her eyes very, very wide.

Jacob -- they were talking about Jacob -- ?

"We were helping the school," said the young male. He spoke in a Baritone register brushed with an Scottish accent. "But we weren't the only ones chasing after the Vaults."

"Mind what you say, Mr. Ashe," the female said lowly.

Carewyn gave a start. Ashe? Wasn't that name on those letters that Jacob used to hide -- ?

"...There's also the group called 'R.'"

"Mr. Ashe," the woman said warningly.

"I don't know much about them, and neither did Jacob," said Ashe. "But they're some mysterious sort of illegal group, with ties to Dark wizards -- "

"Mr. Ashe."

" -- and an obsession with the Cursed Vaults. And therefore Jacob and me, by extension."

The woman's voice rose noticeably with both tenseness and anger. "Mr. Ashe, I told you to mind what you -- !"

"And I told you, Rakepick, that I don't care!" Ashe spat at her in return.

"Jacob put so much on the line to protect his mother and sister from this -- do you really want to throw all of his effort to the winds and put those people he loves most in harm's way?"

"Maybe if our positions were switched and Jacob had lost me instead of me losing him, you could convince him with that line of reasoning, but you won't convince me, you underhanded -- !"

This was what made Carewyn snap. She dashed into the room and confronted the two strangers.

Now, of course, just about no one would see a tiny, pale red-haired girl in a polka-dotted mint green dress with a pink bow as anything particularly alarming. And yet for both Rakepick and Duncan, the sight of this poor, flushed child in the door frame, her teeth clenched and her whole body shaking with emotion as she stared daggers into Duncan was enough to make all breath still in their throats. Rakepick even shot to her feet out of alarm.

Duncan himself, though, was left speechless as he stared right back at Carewyn. Her light-less eyes betrayed no tears, but they leaked pain and rage the likes of which he'd only ever seen in one other place...in blue eyes the exact same shade and shape as hers...

Just like Lane Cromwell...Carewyn didn't look anything like Jacob, except for her eyes.

Duncan was only barely aware of Lane trying and failing to soothe her daughter -- all he could do was stare at Carewyn, struggling to come up with a response --

And when he did, he realized -- he could almost feel a small hand scratching at the inside of his head.

Duncan couldn't fight back a choke, his dark eyes bulging.

Legilimency. Jacob's little sister also had -- !?

"Tell me!" Carewyn demanded again, her voice very strained. "Where -- is -- Jacob?"

For a moment, no one could summon a response. Duncan swallowed, staring Carewyn down as he fought to push his heart rate down. He could feel Carewyn trying to grab at his thoughts, almost with tiny, clumsy hands -- almost like Jacob trying to predict his moves, while they dueled together, and yet nothing like it. Instead all it did was bring that memory of Jacob and him dueling back up to the top of his mind -- them mixing drinks with Olivia -- Jacob trying on the red robes Duncan had picked out for him --

No.

Duncan closed his eyes and turned away, his brows knit tight over his eyes. He couldn't bear to think of Jacob wearing those robes. Not when Jacob had been wearing those robes when he --

As she stared longer and longer at Duncan, the little girl amazingly seemed to relax ever-so-slightly...almost as if she'd felt a small snippet of the stormy emotions inside of him. When Duncan opened his eyes again to study her again, his expression was much more closed-off, with his dark eyes narrowed, solemn, and hard as diamonds.

"He's trapped, Carewyn. And if I have any hope of getting him out...I'm going to need your help."