Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JKR, I'm only borrowing for a little while.
AN: Written in October of 2005, this fic is not HBP or DH compliant
I had always been more at peace in the dead of night than at any time during the day, but I now dread nightfall, and the dark. I end up laughing – hoarsely and a little insanely – whenever I think too hard about it. A Malfoy, afraid of the dark. Oh, what my father would say if he were alive to see his son so cowed.
I turn my head slowly to look out through the bars of my cell door, into the two cells across from my own. One occupied by pale skin, and red hair dressed only in tattered pants, the other empty…for now. The man tosses and turns as I watch, futilely trying to get back to sleep – to escape the demons of the dark.
I hear the large door at the end of the hall open, and the resident of the unoccupied cell is dragged back in, the scent of sweat and blood following her. I know her eyes will be bone dry, for we had all become numb long ago and have forgotten how to cry. She's hurled into her cell, her black hair lank and tangled, her once clean-white knickers dirt black. As the cell door clangs shut, I can hear the others in the cells around me scrambling to get to the far back wall of their own prisons, as far from the emotionless Enforcers as they could get, for the Enforcers were known to inflict their own punishments, almost as harsh as the Dark Lord's.
I do not move. I am too tired, too afraid and too resigned to my own pitiful existence to bother trying to hide at all.
The two turn from the girl's cell and walk the two feet across the hall to my own. Voice dead, the man – boy – talks as the woman – girl – unlocks my cell.
"Get up, ferret. He wants to see you."
I stand slowly, working my arms down from above my head so that they pointed straight out in front of me so that the woman can unlock my manacles. As she leans down slightly, I catch a whiff of the shampoo she uses to wash her bushy brown hair, and the fresh, clean scent of it burns my nostrils. She turns from me and heads back out of the cell.
"Come, Draco," she intones, voice as dead as the man's. "He will not stay patient for long."
I lower my head and follow them out of the cell and down the hall, one of the only ones here who can still walk on my own. The red haired man was broken beyond saving and has not been out of his cell in weeks…Percy is the worst kind of betrayer, and death is too good for him. I catch Pansy's eye as she lays on her cell floor bleeding and panting. I pass an endless number of cells…Nott, missing an arm; Blaise, blind and bald; Wormtail, hanging from his cell each night, trapped by magic so he cannot transfigure himself into a rat; Crabbe and Goyle, both thin as sticks and yellow in complexion; Krum, missing a hand…endless names and broken bodies, each injury different. We are only the same in the fact that we own nothing save the undergarments we were captured in, and that we all have an identical clean-white bandage wrapped around our left arms. The only thing the Lord allowed changed weekly to keep clean, for we needed to be kept whole underneath, so we could endure the most excruciating pain.
We exit out of the dungeons – up one flight of steep stairs – and enter into a hallway I have become all too familiar with, with its lush blood red carpets and white walls. Along these walls, the dead are preserved with portraits. Many moving, but some eerily still. Those who could move and talk were vengeful. They spit foul obscenities whenever we pass, at myself as much as at the Enforcers…though the words to them seem to be more pleading, begging, wondering what had gone wrong…
I look at each portrait and feel the sadness I always do when I think of all those who were killed in a pointless war. I cannot stop the names from flashing through my mind…
Dean…Seamus…Lavender…Colin…Denis…Cho…Susan…Justin…Neville…Daphne…and numerous other students, teachers and Aurors. And there, at the end of the hallway by the large doors leading to His domain...
Dumbledore…Snape…Remus…Tonks…Molly…Arthur…Bill…Charlie…Fleur…Fred and George…Ginny…and the Grangers.
The two opened the doors to the room, and ushered me inside. Stepping up behind me, the doors shut with a firm bang behind them. I stand there, staring at the man – boy – in the center of the room as the two walk around me. Brushing past him, they place a hand on each of his shoulders before continuing though a set of doors on the opposite side of the room. As soon as the doors shut, he turns to me and the emptiness in his eyes shocks me, as always. I stand there, head bowed as his walks up in front of me.
"Draco," he says, his voice sending chills up my spine. He holds out his hand to me, as always and I mentally start shutting down.
"Come, Draco. It has been nearly two weeks since I saw you last. Haven't you missed me?"
"Of course, Master." It is the same old routine, the one I know by heart and could utter in my sleep…if I could manage to sleep long enough.
Taking his hand, I am led to a far wall which I notice has already been cleansed of Pansy's blood. He slowly, almost lovingly, lowers me into the chair, straps me down and places my bandaged left arm on the table, likewise, strapping it down. Calmly, He unwraps my bandages and examines the pure unblemished skin there. He nods in satisfaction, and I know that I will not escape pain tonight. And clench my teeth as He begins.
The Dark Mark which once scarred my skin had long been cut off, as with those of everyone who lives in the dungeons. New skin was grown, though slowly, and then the torture started. Every week or so, we are all hauled into this room…where the fire comes and brands us with names…names…so many names of those who perished…those names that He wants us to always know. And the pain is exquisite…first in neat little rows along my arm, and then across those names as more are added…and it is repeated over and over until I think I will die of pain and fire and my arm has certainly been shrunk from the loss of skin…and I scream for Him tonight because a year has been too long to endure this week after week…but no one stops Him because He is the most powerful wizard to ever grace the Earth and because He saved the world from Voldemort, killing him and every one of his followers – who they didn't already have stashed away – with one curse. And His friends do nothing to quell His hatred of we former Death Eaters, for they have lost everything as well…and tonight I weep for the first time in months and unknown to me the names are pouring forth from my mouth and they will never be forgotten and I am sorry and please, no more…and now He has me unstrapped and is tending to my arm, where in a week new skin will be and He can start over.
And with tender arms, He Himself carries me back to my cell and as He leaves I catch a glimpse of something in His eyes, and I realize the Hell that He was put through and for the first time in my life, I feel actual sorrow for this boy who stands before me…for no one should see so much death before the age of eighteen. He must see something in my face as well, for He straightens and His eyes…they lighten…
It is the next day that I know that He has exacted His revenge and will finally begin to heal…for when the Trio enter the dungeons with their wands we one-by-one begin to shed forgotten tears in relief and whisper "thank you" before Death comes to claim us.