Author's note: Content warning for forced drug use and six-fingered man type sadism. Title is thanks to tumblr user quiltingqueer.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. No profit is being made from this work of fiction.
"They won't kill us today."
Padma looks over at her sister, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "You sound certain."
"I am." Parvati sits on her bed, legs curled up under her, hair pulled away from her face in a tight bun that only highlights the gaunt planes of her face and the dark shadows under her eyes.
"Have you seen it?" Padma wants to know. She leans against the headboard of her own bed, eyes sliding closed almost despite herself. She's always tired these days, drained by fear and the stress of trying to control a magic that hates nothing so much as being deliberately called upon. Were she to raise her hands she knows they would be shaking; she leaves them dangling by her sides and doesn't think about it.
"I don't have to," Parvati says. "We're still useful."
Padma cracks one eye open, gaze crossing the short distance between them. The room they share is more a cell than a bedroom, barely large enough for two beds and a tiny wardrobe. It has no windows, not even artificial ones. "Useful," she says dully. "Wonderful. I've always wanted Death Eaters to find me useful."
Parvati doesn't reply, choosing instead to look down at her own hands. The silence that stretches between them is more exhausted than anything else, a heavy feeling filled with weariness and despair and crushed hopes. They have been here for six months now, six months of fearing death around every corner and hushed plans for escape that turned to dreams turned to silence. Six months of being paraded regularly before the new regime's favored officials, robes pressed and tongues kept quiet with threats and potions. Six months of being force-fed veritaserum and made to spy on Voldemort's enemies' future plans. Six months that feel like six years or sometimes six decades; Padma is certain that she is rapidly approaching old age instead of barely past the cusp of legal adulthood.
The sound of footsteps makes itself known outside their door and Padma closes her eye again, hoping against hope that the walker will stop somewhere else. She does not think that they are the only prisoners in this part of the house, though she has never seen anyone but Death Eaters, never heard even the faintest scratch of fellow inmates.
Despite her hopes the footsteps stop, as she had always known they would, just outside the door to their cell. A pause as today's jailer undoes the locking charms on the door and then it swings open silently to reveal Rookwood. She wishes she could be surprised. Rookwood is their most regular visitor, the one who records their visions and interrogates them on their techniques. Behind him scurries Wormtail, potions vials in hand. Padma forces her eyes open all the way and waits for them to declare their purpose, obvious though it is.
"Rise and shine," Rookwood calls, lips twisting into a grotesque imitation of a smile. He leans heavily on a cane, veins clearly visible as his bone-pale hand clutches the top. Wormtail behind him looks as nervous as ever, nose twitching constantly and eyes darting around the room as though they could possibly have hidden something in there that could harm him.
Padma pulls herself to her feet, slate-grey robes falling into place around her. Parvati does the same and the two silently follow Rookwood out of the cell and into the next room. There's no point trying to fight; even if they could overpower Rookwood and Wormtail without their wands and escape the rest of the Death Eaters there's nowhere to go. Every scrap of land for miles is controlled by Voldemort and his forces, every house occupied by those friendly to his cause, every animal a potential animagus spy. They don't need to consult their inner eyes to know that they haven't a prayer of making it.
Rookwood sits them down in their usual places, hard-backed wooden chairs with their backs to the door. The familiar oak table stands between them and him in the room, serving as its most imposing piece of furniture. Like their cell, this room has no windows. Wormtail sets the two vials on the table and retreats, clearly wanting to leave but unable to go without being dismissed. Rookwood doesn't even look at him as he sits down across from the twins, eyes alight with sadistic eagerness.
"Drink up," he says, pulling a roll of parchment and writing utensils from the depths of his robes. "It's a new formula today."
A chill runs down Padma's spine even as she tries to control the trembling that threatens to overtake her. Not daring to meet Parvati's eyes, Padma grasps one of the vials and takes a swallow.
She gasps as the liquid makes contact with her mouth. It burns, searing the nerves of her inner cheeks and all but rendering her tongue completely numb. Even her teeth protest, sending up a dull ache that's somehow worse than the rest of the pain combined. Her eyes start watering and she makes herself swallow. The serum sends a cascade of fire down her throat and into her stomach, warming and burning it at the same time. Sweat springs up at her temples and the small of her back in response to the heat. Beside her Parvati whimpers slightly; she never has dealt well with physical pain.
Rookwood's quill scratches busily over the parchment as he records the obvious physical effects. They are kept here as much as guinea pigs as they are seers, given freely to Rookwood for his sick experiments. Voldemort does not fear for the end of his supremacy, not really. The resistance is all but crushed, the people's spirit broken under a regime of unrelenting cruelty and mistrust. In truth he did not even need to use terror to establish his dominance; all but the most determined lost their hope the moment Harry Potter's broken body turned to ash on a public pyre.
"How do you feel?" Rookwood asks, not pausing in his careful note taking. "Be thorough now."
Padma's tongue moves without her permission, admissions of pain and inner fire tumbling from treacherous lips. Parvati reports the same and in the background Wormtail lets out a soft moan. Rookwood ignores him.
"And your mind? Are you able to think clearly?"
"I don't know." It's hard to think about anything clearly at all anymore, hard to free their minds from the haze of potions that lingers even after the primary effects have worn off. Even as Padma thinks this she finds it coming out of her mouth, the drug serving to break the barrier between her thoughts and her words.
Rookwood pauses in his writing and drums his fingers thoughtfully on the desk, ragged fingernails making no sound. "And the other eyes?" he asks.
"They are above the effects of common potions," Parvati says, as she does each time they are asked variations on this question.
Rookwood's smile is terrible to behold, pale lips stretching to reveal crooked and yellowing teeth. There is genuine pleasure on his face, a pleasure that comes from contemplating what it will take to snap their connection to the mystic arts entirely. Padma shivers again.
"And now, sadly, we must deal with matters of business," he says, the smile leaving his face. He pulls another roll of parchment from his robes, this one no doubt filled with questions from Voldemort and his lieutenants. Padma braces herself for the inevitable onslaught.
He runs down the list clinically, demanding names and locations without once displaying any interest in their answers. The twins take turns seeking the answers, faces creasing in pain and concentration as they bend their inner eyes to their wills. It gets harder each time, the answers more and more obscure and the trance-like state more and more elusive as the mystic arts register their displeasure. One day they will not be able to see any answers at all and they will be good only as experimental subjects.
For three hours they search, casting their attention to the fates in an effort to discern Neville Longbottom's plans (uncertain; he's good at foiling their sight), to find out where Fleur Weasley plans to go next (France again, this time with even more graphic evidence of torture in an effort to entreat her countrymen to act), to learn what Remus Lupin will create next (he has barely lifted his wand since his son died two months ago and this will not change soon). Halfway through Rookwood makes them take another dose of veritaserum, this all the more agonizing because the effects of the first have not even begun to fade. He positively grins when Parvati fails to smother a sob.
When at last he has no more questions they are both shaking, heads swimming with pain and exhaustion. Parvati can barely stand; Padma clenches her fists and manages not to wobble too much. Rookwood escorts them back to their cell, Wormtail still scurrying behind him, looking decidedly green around the edges. It is not compassion that turns his heart, Padma knows, merely the fear that he will be the next test subject.
The twins crumple onto their beds before the door has fully closed. Padma knows that if she only had the strength she would find pain potions on the floor of the wardrobe but even her eyeballs are burning now and she can only moan pitifully. In the end it is Parvati who manages to crawl off the end of her bed and retrieve the potions. They both down them straight, for all that painkillers of that strength are meant to be taken diluted. The burning of the concoction barely registers in their abused throats, and neither so much as twitch when Padma loses her grip on her vial and sends it crashing to the floor.
They fall into agonized sleep, their weariness battling with the fire still searing their insides for dominance over their actions. Padma sleeps without moving, too tired to expend energy shifting positions. Her dreams are filled with screamed curses and whispered threats and the flayed bodies of people she once called friends. She is crying when she wakes up and barely even notices.
Parvati wakes a little while later, still curled up on the floor. She does not bother to get up, just raises her head and meets her sister's eyes. Her gaze is dead, eyes devoid of all but pain and resignation.
"They won't kill us today," she says, and Padma does not have the energy to ask how she knows.