Prompt 11 – Don't move
There are so many little scenes or glimpses of something we get to see in the books but J.K. never elaborates on them. That little part in The Deathly Hallows in which Harry sees Voldmort forcing Draco to torture another Deatheater is one of them. So I just had to write down what might have happened.:)
Don´t move
"...You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again? Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure...do it, or feel my wrath yourself!"(DH, page 145)
Terror spread through Draco like ice, leaving him frozen to the spot. He couldn't have moved, let alone spoken, even if he had tried. After a few seconds of silence, which was only broken by Rowle's erratic breathing and the hissing of the flames, the Dark Lord turned and fixed his attention on the pale boy; momentarily forgetting about the man he had been torturing.
"Do you need some persuasion then?"
His voice was drowned by the crackling fire and the blood pressing against Draco's eardrums. But even so he had come to learn what that look meant.
He tried to say something, even tried to raise his wand and do what was expected of him, but his lips had become dry parchment and his hand a heavy stone. The Dark Lord came closer, just took one step, but to him it was as if he had jumped to his throat.
Finally moving, he stumbled back, right into the fireplace. He could feel some embers tumbling against his legs, although the pain was strangely far away. It seemed to belong to another world.
"What's going on in here?"
Draco turned at the unfamiliar, high-pitched shout. To his surprise he saw his mother standing in the doorway, her eyes darting from Rowle on the floor, to the Dark Lord, and settling on him. Without waiting for a reply, she crossed the room and grabbed him by his collar – he felt like a little boy again, having smashed one of the old porcelain heirlooms. In fact, that had happened in this very room.
It was a completely different room now.
"Narcissa."
They had almost reached the door, but the calm and even polite way in which that single word was spoken made them both stop dead.
"Don't move!" His mother whispered into his ear before she took a deep breath and turned around.
Draco had always marvelled at her ability to steel herself for unpleasant duties, but this was absurd. She had squared her shoulders and her mouth was a fine line of determination. Did she plan to reprimand the Dark Lord?
"Yes, my lord?"
Not even her voice trembled. Draco held his breath.
"I fear I wasn't quite ready with Draco yet."
It sounded like an apology but it was an order.
She swallowed.
"I'm sorry to have disturbed you, my lord. But I must take my son with me now."
There was a slight emphasis on my son. As if to stress the fact that the Dark Lord had no children. What a ridiculous thought.
His snake-like eyes flashed with human anger.
"You dare to oppose me?"
It was a whisper, but in the heartbeat that it took him to raise the elder wand, Draco had realised that his mother had gone too far.
"Crucio!"
Narcissa spread her arms in front of Draco before the curse hit her. He fell to the ground when she was thrown against him, whereas she only sunk to her knees in a movement that could easily be described as graceful. As if she had practised this. She screamed, but Draco screamed louder - as if he had fallen into the fire, although he felt no physical pain at all.
The possibility of this sort of torture hadn't come to his mind before. It was far worse than he would have imagined and worse than standing there, all alone with the Dark Lord in front of the fireplace.
And it didn't stop.
Unable to control his shaking knees, he crawled forward; his satin-clad elbows slipping on the floor. Between the third and fourth blow he reached his mother and tried to drag her behind him.
"No! Draco, no...he won't kill me. Not yet. Don't move!"
And with that she threw her arms over him once more; at the same moment as another Crucio! echoed through the room. Draco cried and screamed – but he didn't move. Just like his mother had told him.
