Disclaimer:J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I just play with the characters for a while.

Warning:This fanfiction contains Mature Adult Content such as torture, lemon/lime anddub-con.

A/N: Dramione is one of my all-time favourite ships, and I have always dreamt of writing one myself. The fic begins in the seventh book, approximately around the time when Harry, Hermione and Ron are caught by a group of snatchers and taken to the Malfoy Manor. There will be some changes in the storyline compared to the canon. Furthermore, I'm not going to write about the final battle in any great detail.

This is my very first fic, which I started writing back in 2016. For years, I put the story on hiatus, a fact that I'm not proud of, because I hate it when other authors do exactly that. I started writing again about a year and a half ago, but I promised myself, that I would not publish another chapter until the story was finished, save for some editing. And that's where I am now. I have written a total of 52 chapters, and there will be an epilogue as well. I will edit and post the remaining chapters gradually and hopefully relatively soon (but I dare not make any promises).

Chapter 1

Screams in the dark

March 1998

Draco POV

The screams travelled through the massive stonewalls in the Malfoy Manor. They went through marrow and bone and caused chills and goose bumps. They made the heart beat faster and awakened an ancient urge to fight or flight. It was like the last warning from a hunted animal to the heard, before the animal was killed and eaten by the ferocious carnivores.

A cackling laughter from the torturer made its way through the heavy walls and joined the terrible screams. It was the sound of malicious lust made by a witch, who did what she enjoyed the most, which was torturing her victims into madness. She loved to attack all traces of humanity within the victim, leaving only an empty, soulless cage. The screaming sounded as if the victim was desperately clinging to her last mental defences, before she would let go of this world and embrace the madness. Like many others before her had done.

"Bloody Hell" Draco murmured and pulled his blanket closer around his head.

Nobody knew how to torture like Bellatrix, Alice and Frank Longbottom were living testimonies of her capacity of brutality. The witch with the black curls and crazy eyes truly enjoyed being in the dungeons and torturing every sense and dignity out of the poor soul, who had to suffer the Cruciatus Curse repeatedly.

Another sleepless night awaited him. How he loathed his sore excuse for a life. This present situation was unbearable. He loathed his father Lucius for dragging his family into the realm of The Dark Lord. And he loathed his father even more for falling from grace within the Dark Lords realm, thereby forcing Draco to join the Death Eaters and take the dark mark. He felt a severe hatred towards the Dark Lord for making his sixth year at Hogwarts a living hell by forcing him to undertake this impossible task of murdering the headmaster, professor Dumbledore. Most of all he despised himself intensely for loosing courage and for failing his mission. If only he had escaped before it was too late. He should have bolted while he still could. He remembered how he used to cry in Moaning Myrtles bathroom stall, while trying to find a way to complete the task, all the while he was dreaming of running away and starting all over somewhere new. Somewhere warm with beaches and hot witches. Someplace nobody knew about the Malfoy family nor the Dark Lord.

Unfortunately, these were not very realistic dreams. He-who-must-not-be-named had too many ambitions. The reptile and his minions would very likely try to take over the world, when Great Britain was conquered. There was no such thing as a safe place. Not anymore. And traitors and deserters would be hunted down relentlessly and would meet a cruel and painful death when caught. Draco shuttered by the memory of the many cruel punishments he had witnessed so far.

Earlier this evening the golden trio had been caught when Saint Potter, despite the taboo, insisted on calling the Dark Lord by his chosen name. The snatchers had brought them in immediately. Someone had cursed the Potterboy's face into some blurry ugliness, and the snatchers were too daft to realize whom they had really caught. Draco was summoned shortly hereafter to identify the prisoners. In his usual arrogant way, he had denied any recognition of the prisoners whatsoever, all though he could recognize the Pothead, the Mudblood and the Weasel from a far distance.

He still did not know exactly why he had chosen this very day to be disobedient, though deep down he hoped that the Dark Lord would be defeated sometime, preferably soon. He was sick and tired of this whole situation. Sick and tired that the reptile man and his minions had invaded his childhood home. The more he got to know the Dark Lord, the more he wondered how so many of the old pureblood families could follow someone so unpredictable and, to say it bluntly, raving mad. Clearly, the man had lost his humanity long ago. Draco could barely look at the man without vomiting. His skin was pale and bluish, like the skin of a corpse, his eyes were read and gleaming with evilness, and the nose, the nose was the worst. Just the thought of said nose made his skin crawl. Instead of a nose he only had to holes in the middle of his face, making the impression of a reptile complete.

Back when he was seven years old, he went exploring all the hidden places in the Malfoy Manor. It was a boring, rainy day during the summer holiday. Somewhere deep inside the manor he found a stately, yet secluded room with a large round table surrounded by antique chairs. Later, he learned that this room was used for meetings, whenever shady affairs needed to be discussed.

In the middle of the room he found the portrait of his grandfather, Abraxas Malfoy. The portrait showed an aristocratic, elderly man with long, shining grey hair and intelligent eyes. It was like seeing an older version of Lucius, though while Lucius' eyes shone with slyness and cunning, the eyes of Abraxas shone with a natural authority.

Draco was very happy to finally get to know his grandfather or at least, to get to know the portrait. Fortunately, the feeling was mutual, the portrait was eager to talk to Draco as well. He knew very little about his grandfather, since Lucius rarely mentioned him, apparently there had been some sort of disagreement between the two. Draco spent hours together with the portrait that day. Hours, in which Abraxas told Draco about many of the family's secrets. The first owner of the manor, Armand, was inspired by the way a fox always has multiple escape routes from its foxhole. Inspired by that, he made a secret escape route, which was only accessible with the family ring. Abraxas also told him scary stories about the dungeons below the manor and about monsters and dangerous curses.

When the night came, Draco couldn't fall asleep. He kept fantasising about a vicious monster from the crypts, a monster with pale skin, red eyes and long, spiderlike fingers. A monster which was nurtured by the victim's fear and trembling, before it sucked all will to live out of them. Afterwards the victim became part of a soulless army, an army of emotionless people with cold, empty eyes. This army would follow its master's orders blindly.

The next day Draco wanted to visit the portrait again, but alas, it had been moved, and he had never seen his grandfather since then.

Draco suddenly realized that the monster from his nightmares was a lot like the Dark Lord. They had the same red, evil eyes and spiderlike figure. He wondered if Abraxas was trying to warm him of events to come.

Yesterday, shortly after the golden trio was caught, Bellatrix was summoned. She recognized the Mudblood right away and could easily guess the identity of the rest of the group. To Draco's surprise she did not summon the Dark Lord right away. Instead she was raving about some stolen items from her vault. Avery shoved up after a little while and summoned him-who-must-not-be-named right away, when he realized who the prisoners were.

Several things then happened at once. Draco was disarmed and Saint Potter and the weasel vanished into thin air. Rumour had it, that they escaped due to a deranged, disobedient house elf, and that the elf was hit by an unforgivable curse during the flight. At the same time Bellatrix grabbed Granger and hauled her towards the dungeons. The Dark Lord was not pleased, to put it mildly. Though strangely, nobody prevented Bellatrix from playing her wicked games in the damp and chilly dungeons, thereby making Draco toss and turn in his bed listening to the Mudblod's heart-rending screams.

"Filthy Mudblood! When I'm done with you, you'll not be able to remember your own name anymore."

There was no way of blocking Bellatrix shrill voice out, not even by hiding his head under a blanket. Repeatedly he heard the horrifying laughter. Draco could vividly imagine how she would throw the long, black curls back and cackle maniacally. How come he had learned so many spells and curses during his years at Hogwarts, though not even one to block sound from outside. Right now, it would have come in handy, or alternatively a sleeping draught! A sleeping draught would probably be better after all.

A desperate whining sound made its way through the walls. It sounded like a primal scream.

"Enough", he growled, jumped off his bed and thrust his fist into the stone wall. The pain gave him some sort of satisfaction. He suddenly felt as if he at least was doing something instead of being a passive victim.

Cursing loudly, he attacked the wall repeatedly with his balled fist, when suddenly there was a crushing sound and a sharp burn from one of his knuckles. Merlin, it hurt! He shut his eyes while holding his damaged hand between his legs. He had to brace himself to inspect the damage. Looking at blood and damaged limbs always made him nauseous.

With foreboding he lifted his hand up and studied it. The entire hand was throbbing and warm and even in the dark he could see that one of the knuckles was severely displaced. The wall, on the other hand, was without a scratch. The manor was almost indestructible, even against dark magic. It was probably one of the reasons it was chosen as the Dark Lord's headquarter at this critical moment, aside from Lucius' fall from grace.

He shook his head. Nice job Draco, now you've managed to damage your hand. And it had to be the right hand, of course. He would have to try to mend it as best he could until tomorrow.

He grabbed the wand next to him, and with a lumos he inspected the damages once more.

Apart from the displaced knuckle, the skin was torn, and small droplets of blood dropped to the floor. Fighting back nausea he waved the wand over the damaged hand a couple of times, mumbling a couple of healing spells. It was awkward using his left hand, and none of the spells he tried seemed to do much good. It didn't help that the wand wasn't his; it was Mothers wand. The insufferable git, otherwise known as Potter, had the nerve to disarm him and steal his wand before leaving.

He managed to heal the skin somewhat, but sadly the knuckle was still just as displaced. What he really needed now was Madam Pomfrey and a few droplets of Skele-Gro. However, none of things was available now due to snake face and his minions.

He seated himself in his bead again, pondering his stupidity. How was he ever going to get any sleep with a broken hand? He might as well stay awake. Then his vision suddenly caught the large antique globe next to the armchair. Now, at least, he knew what he could do to fall asleep.

Trying to ignore the constant throbbing from his hand, he went towards the bar globe, which was an old heirloom from Armand Malfoys age. Luckily it was left open from the last time he consumed some of its contents. He grabbed the bottle between his right arm and chest while clumsily trying to remove the lid with his left hand. The lid stuck and he had to change the strategy. Moving the bottle to his left hand, he braced himself and then yanked the lid off with one quick right-handed movement while crying out in pain. For a moment black dots were all over his vision. The dizziness disappeared and he realized he had poured whiskey all over himself. If any fellow Slytherin saw him in the pitiable state, he would never hear the end of it. The mere thought made him cringe.

To Hell with dignity! The Malfoys had already lost so much, both wealth and prestige. That deserved a toast! He filled his glass, swallowed it at once and cherished the burning feeling in the back of his throat as it obscured the screams and the burning pulsation in his hand.

By the way, when was the last time he had heard any screams? He dared not ponder the reason why the screams had already stopped. Bellatrix could go on for days and nights usually. Could she be dead now? Was this really the end of the bushy-haired annoyingly ambitious and self-righteous Gryffindor. The mere thought gave him an empty feeling in his gut and he hurriedly threw another glass down his throat. And yet another. Hopefully Mr. Whiskey could make all these unwanted thoughts go away.

Holding on to his glass he studied his room with a bitter expression. The walls were covered with magical pictures of all his small and unimportant successes during his boyhood. A picture showed a young Draco on his way to Hogwarts for the first time, wearing a new and shiny cape and wand. His parents stood proudly beside him. In another picture he was flying at his new broom wearing the green Slytherin uniform.

This was the room of a little boy, not an almost grown man. The bed linen was Slytherin green and decorated with childish snakes. The curtains had pictures of the best Quidditch players from the Quidditch World Cup of 1994. On the massive shelves made in dark wood were several trophies and goblets. This room was long overdue a redecoration, however, he had thought it a waste of time since, until recently, he had only stayed in this very room during the holidays.

A few new items had found their way to his room during the recent years; the bar globe and a couple of books about blood purity. It was a subject he had studied avidly in the recent years, but that was before he was subjected to the raving mad blood purists every fucking waking hour.

While he was still at Hogwarts, he used to make fun of all the old family members who droned about how he ought to enjoy his student years, because they were the best time of his life. Back then, being in school felt like a walk in the desert. He had longed towards life after Hogwarts. He wanted to gain power and to gain knowledge about the dark arts. Now he realized they were right. Hogwarts had indeed been the best time in his life so far, afterwards his life had been a downward spiral of misery. His father was getting closer and closer to a major breakdown and his mother wore too much make-up in order to hide her bloodshot eyes from crying herself to sleep every night.

Suddenly rage swept over him and he shoved his glass against the wall, making it shatter into a thousand pieces. Then he grabbed the bottle and emptied the remaining content down his throat.

A pleasant, warm buzzing spread in his head and in his body. With uncoordinated movements he put the bottle back in the globe and turned around in order to make it back to his bed. Now the short distance from the bar globe towards his bed felt like an endless journey. As he staggered forward, the floor tilted and came dangerously closer, and he had to lean against the wall for support. He felt pathetic raving around alone in his intoxicated state. He only meant to drink a few glasses to help him sleep, and yet he had emptied the entire bottle. Finally, he reached the bed and collapsed there.

"Nox", he mumbled, his voice slurred. The room went dark and shortly after Draco fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.