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Chapter 4
I repeated the few words of the spell in my head endlessly. I wasn't sure if I was losing my mind or clinging desperately to my sanity but I carried on anyway. The constant awareness that it was key to my survival gnawing away at the back of my consciousness.
Malfoy hadn't returned to my cell since. He had only been on shift as a guard once and I couldn't decide whether that meant I was simply imagining that a lot of time had passed and in reality it had only been a couple of days or something was wrong.
Both ideas unnerved me so that I would only end up pushing it to the back of my mind in a fit of frustration and occupy myself once again with either my mantra of 'extrico quod puter' or strengthening my wandless magic. I determined that I only had to wait a little longer, just a little longer and Malfoy would find a way to speak to me again.
I had to think that, panicking wouldn't achieve anything but harm to myself and the increasingly frequent torture sessions were doing enough of that without my help. I could at least hope that the torture was a sign of Voldemort's frustration with the way the war was going.
I'd only heard a few mutterings from the guards but as far as I could tell it seemed as though a stalemate had been reached between the Order members and Death Eaters. Not to mention that Malfoy's last note had definitely made assurances that no-one had been killed recently.
The hope that things might not turn out quite as badly as I had thought was vague but it was there. It was at least something to keep the despair at bay when I was dragged yet again into that room that stank of sweat and bloodlust to be subjected to whatever form of torture that the minds of Voldemort's Death Eaters could invent in their minds.
I shook my head jerkily to try and shake my mind free of the memories as they came. Slowly my mind drifted into blankness, my gaze fixed on the immutable dark stones of my cell walls, waiting for sleep.
~&~
Shadows danced past my eyes, time was passing, that much I was aware of but reality seemed to have drifted out of focus. There were only the words, and the hope and the waiting all safely tucked into my mind, on the outside I was alert to only the smallest of noises and movements, I was barely aware of pain and hunger but I tried to tend to both the best I could with shaky, automatic movements.
My consciousness remained in the blissful darkness, ready and eager to come back out once..
Once something happened, what was I supposed to be waiting for again? Wasn't there something important?
Maybe it was the words, those words that had taken on an abstract meaning somehow, why had I even memorised them in the first place?
No, something more important..
With a mental sigh I quickly gave up and drifted back into the darkness.
~&~
My nose twitched, something was nudging at me. With annoyance I could already feel myself waking up and I attempted to bat away whatever was waking me with a feeble hand. Go away…
Stubbornly the nudging became more insistent and I could recognise it this time as something pushing against my lips. Instinctively my tongue darted out and recoiled instantly at the feeling of cold metal and liquid.
Opening my eyes blearily I tried to focus on what was in front of me but couldn't quite manage it, there was only more shadows but I could feel the cool liquid against my lips once more and a sudden flare of synapses brought with it the realisation that someone was trying to make me drink a cup of water.
In quick movements I hadn't even realised I could manage, my hands reached up to grip the cup and tilt it further so that I could gulp the water down, not even stopping to breathe a sigh of gratitude and relief. It wasn't until a firm grip took the cup away from me that it caught up to me and a brutal cough worked its way up from my throat.
Distantly I heard a faint chuckle followed by a murmur that sounded a little like 'Idiot'. When I was finally able to breathe, I lifted my head to find Malfoy looking calmly back at me.
Abruptly I jolted up, accidentally knocking him back slightly, and looked around my cell frantically before finally settling my eyes back on Malfoy.
"W-What the hell?! Since when are you allowed to come in here? What…How…? What the hell Malfoy?!" I choked out, absently wondering if my throat felt so raw from disuse, or from screaming.
For a moment it seemed as if the only answer I would be getting was a small sigh and a roll of the eyes but it only really took a stubborn glare to get him to actually utter some words as well.
"You've been unconscious for a few days now Potter and it really isn't anywhere near as much fun to torture you in that state," he said dryly, "I got sent to wake you up."
"Days?" I asked, slightly alarmed and becoming increasingly aware of how sore I felt now that the adrenaline from seeing Malfoy had dissipated. In fact even moving my fingers seemed pretty impossible in that moment and my head was swimming already.
"Yes, Potter, days." He answered and I almost wondered at the way his tone had softened slightly, only my brain couldn't really focus on anything.
"Right, days." I echoed, not even registering Malfoy's small dry chuckle at my relative incoherency.
"Oddly enough its given us the opportunity to talk again at any rate, they did of course plant various bug spells on me to listen into whatever happened but I've managed to confuse the magic behind them. Whoever is listening at the moment will only hear what they should expect to hear, or rather, what I want them to hear," Malfoy explained somewhat smugly.
"Right…" I replied, showing that I'd heard but unable to process it beyond that, a now familiar sigh echoed in my ears once again.
"You really got yourself into a mess didn't you?" Malfoy asked softly, "I was only gone a few weeks, how did you manage to get into such a state?"
"Urgh, go away if you're going to moan at me Malfoy, my head is already pounding without your whining adding to it,"
"Well then maybe you should be shutting up too if you don't like whiny voices," he countered with an arched brow as if asking why I was railing against the one person helping me. He had a point of course but then again old habits die hard, hence the heated glare he got in return for his comment.
"Never mind Potter, I was only…, never mind. Just try and sit up a little, you need to try and eat some food and I can't be here very long,"
Even with my head feeling as if it was packed with cotton wool I could recognise that the atmosphere had changed, Malfoy's jaw was clenched and I had a distinct feeling of guilt. I attempted to shove it away as I shifted little by little into a more upright position, rationalising that I hadn't even been very mean and that it wasn't like we hadn't said much worse to each other before.
The feeling only increased however as Malfoy helped me and a niggling voice at the back of my mind reminded me that though we had said worse to each other in the past, that was supposed to be behind us and Malfoy hadn't done anything in that moment to warrant a harsh retort.
I finally managed to bite out a short, "Sorry," when he brought a small bowl of soup up to my mouth, noting only vaguely that he glanced at me in surprise as I was a little busy trying to hide my embarrassment by staring intently at the food in front of me.
"What..?"
"I'm just grouchy, alright? I'm this close to collapsing and I barely understand anything right now because mostly I'm just registering pain and exhaustion and general blurriness…so yeah, just ignore whatever comes out of my mouth." I finished, slumping back against the damp wall at my back as the words drained the last of my energy, it would feel so good to just close my eyes right now and go back to sleep…
"Potter…? Potter! Oi, focus you idiot, you go back to sleep now and you might never wake up."
"Huh?" I asked dumbly, my eyelids flickering, and damn it all if it didn't feel like the hardest thing in the world to be trying to keep my eyes open then.
"Just open your mouth, I can do the rest. You'll feel better after you've had some food, trust me,"
My jaw automatically dropped down a little to accommodate Malfoy's attempts to pour soup down my throat, apparently my subconscious still had a firm grip on its survival instincts. Thankfully it didn't take all that long for the blurriness to recede from my vision and clarity to regain a furtive grip on my mind.
"Thanks Malfoy," I slurred
"Well after all this effort I'd be slightly disappointed if there was no longer anyone to actually rescue. Besides you're no fun dead," he smirked and I chuckled slightly in response, finding myself inexplicably glad for the lightness of his remark. It was a welcome reprieve after goodness knows how long slowly sinking into despair.
"There is that," I answered amiably, watching through half-lidded eyes as a soft, genuine smile seemed to flicker across Malfoy's face before disappearing again.
My thought processes became tangled for a moment as I tried to figure out whether the sight had cheered me or baffled me more.
Watching through barely open eyes as he gave me a good-natured smile in return to the one that seemed to have crept onto my face, I wasn't sure whether to be baffled or not. If nothing else came out of this experience then I certainly wouldn't be able to look at Malfoy in quite the same way again, he was more human in my mind now, rather than simply another nemesis to overcome.
"What's our next step then?" I ventured after a moments pause,
"I can't leave you here much longer, that much is obvious," I opened my mouth to protest that I was perfectly able to hold out as long as was required but he silenced me with a sharp glance, his eyes glancing swiftly up and down my body with an eyebrow raised. The silent accusation that I was in no state to be disagreeing with him heavy in the air, making me duck my head a little in quiet acceptance.
"I'm fairly certain I can pull things off at my end but what about you? Is your wandless magic strong enough, hell, are you strong enough?"
"I'll be fine, Malfoy,"
"I don't want you to tell me you'll be fine, I need a realistic estimation of how 'fine', trying to be brave and attempting something you're not capable of will only get the both of us killed," he retorted. I almost recoiled and denied him a real answer, not only being entirely unused to a response like that but also hating the idea of having to admit to weakness. Occasionally someone close to me would try to coax me into to saying something more than the standard 'I'm fine' when they asked how I was and knowing they were concerned I felt they had a right to more information but at the same time I didn't want to cause them worry so I worked on convincing them that I really was alright instead.
Sometimes I had the suspicion that they could all see through me, Remus, Sirius, Hermione and Ron but I comforted myself with the idea that they didn't know anything for certain, not without hearing it from me. It was just better that way, if they were worried about me all the time they might get distracted in the midst of battle, it was only a hazard.
Now I couldn't help but wonder whether by not telling them I was putting them at risk anyway and I had to force myself not to feel resentment towards Malfoy for making me see the logic in dropping my guard every now and then, it would only be unfair to blame on him after all when it was my own issues that were the problem.
Sighing as I saw the determination in Malfoy's eyes, I answered him,
"I'm not as strong as I would wish to be going up against Voldemort's magic but practicing my wandless magic has been one of my only distractions while you were gone and I got pretty damn good at controlling it and channelling more power into it. If you wanted to make an attempt in the next couple days, as long as I had some food and got some sleep in those days then I'm fairly confident I can manage what you're asking of me. If I can't,-" my speech was broken up for a minute as a cough worked its way back into my throat, I winced slightly as it died down again, shrugging as I saw Malfoy's arched eyebrow, "If, I can't then we'll deal with it when we have to, but as it is there aren't going to be many chances and I'd rather get out sooner rather than later," I concluded.
Malfoy's stared searchingly at me for a few moments, as if trying to discern the truth from my eyes but I only met his gaze evenly and it wasn't long before he sighed in acceptance.
"Alright, I'm going to have to trust that you know your own limits. There's some more food there for you," he said glancing to the side where, true to his word, there was another bundle huddled away in the shadows, "there should be enough for you to eat quite well for at least 3 days so don't deprive yourself, I promise I won't leave it any longer than that so do your best to build your strength back up." I nodded in response and he held my gaze in silence briefly before pulling away and straightening up in one swift movement.
"I should leave now, I've stayed longer than I should have already," Malfoy continued, his gaze moving away from me towards the door as if nervously checking no-one was there before looking back at me. "See you soon, Potter," he said with a sardonic smile.
"Soon," I acknowledged with an answering smile, feeling hope and determination burning within me again as I watched him walk back out of my cell.
Don't be mad? I know this took aaages and its shorter than the previous chapters, I managed to get 3 pages typed out reasonably quickly and then everything just seemed to come to a halt and all thought processes dried up :/ everything after that only got typed today and yesterday and rather than waste more time trying to eek out some more I figured I'd let you have what I'd written so far, it seemed like an ok place to end the chapter anyway. I was thinking though, I seem to mention Harry getting tortured every chapter without ever really going any further with it so if anyone feels like this is a huge plothole or something I would be happy to try and sort it out a bit, if you really wanted a torture scene it probably won't be overly graphic, I like horror but I shy away from actually writing the really hardcore stuff. Anyway let me know if you're unhappy with how I've handled it, I can't help but think Harry should be a bit more messed up because of it, maybe I'm just being weird, oh and let me know what you think of the chapter generally of course :) ..blimey thats a long AN, I'll stop rambling now ~xx~
