Songs for this chapter: Skyfall by Adele and Monster Hospital by Metric
DAY TEN
I was hovering somewhere between sleep and some form of awareness. It wasn't really awake-ness… but something close and yet so far from it. It didn't feel like I was in the present, I didn't feel like I was anywhere really. The only thing that kept me tethered to the real world was the twinges of pains in my wrists and ankles. The told me that that perfect little potion had worn off. They reminded me that I hadn't faded away into some other place… yet. I didn't even bother check my watch. I knew instinctively that it was a new day, but I couldn't actually remember what yesterday had been. I didn't much care either.
I was still hanging there limply, dancing in and out of awareness when the door opened. The light flickered on, and it seemed to just keep flickering. In the back of my mind I knew that couldn't be right, but I could not make the picture right itself. It flashed in and out, making everything seem jerky and robotic. Lucius was standing in the doorway, and then suddenly he was standing just a few feet away from me. Then he somehow jumped forward again and he was standing beside me. That didn't make any sense. His mouth looked like it was flapping like a fish. I was so confused.
SMACK!
His hand collided with my face. The lights stopped flickering. I focused on his face and I realized that his mouth wasn't moving like a fish at all. He was talking to me. I tried to listen to him.
"You should know better than to try and undermine the Dark Lord," he snapped. "Pretending to give him information that he already knew was insolent."
He slapped me again and I had no idea why he had done it.
"Now, tell me how Dumbledore knew that the Dark Lord was the one to open the Chamber of Secrets," he demanded.
"I… um… he…" I stuttered trying to get my mind to think clearly. "He, uh… he knew because… of you. I think."
"You will not place the blame on me," he yelled, and he pummeled his fists into my stomach. "I will not be punished for your lies."
"But you… had the b-book," I cried, unable to stop the tears when it felt as if I were breaking into a million pieces.
"The diary?" he asked. "Dumbledore knew that the Dark Lord could control the diary?"
"Yes," I sighed, relieved that he had at least stopped hitting me for the moment.
"Did he know how he could control it?" he asked, swooping in so his face was only inches away from mine. I was surprised to discover that he smelled good. Cologne maybe.
"No," I whispered, I was pretty sure that was a lie, but I didn't want him to know that.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his hands gripping either side of my face tightly, making it impossible for me to look away from him.
"I'm sure," I lied. "He just knew it was his diary, and that Ginny would never do something like that."
He smiled, as if he were pleased with my answer, but then he thrust my head back painfully into the wall and I didn't know what to think.
"Now, tell me how he discovered that the Dark Lord was searching for the sorcerer's stone." He demanded.
"I don't know," I shuddered, knowing he would lose his temper with me for refusing to give an answer. "He found that out before he even knew me. Why would he tell me something like that?"
"I know that he told you,' he shouted before smashing my head back into the wall again.
"I don't know anything," I cried, and it unleashed a fury in him.
He began to kick and hit me, and I found I would rather he just used the cruciatus curse. It would hurt just as much, but I wouldn't be left to lie in a pool of my own blood again. It would feel as if every bone in my body were breaking, but I wouldn't be forced to suffer through it actually happening and the lingering horrible pain of it through the night. He pummeled some of his anger into me, but then he stopped and my foggy mental inventory of my body told me that nothing was broken yet.
"Tell the truth!" he screeched at me.
I didn't answer, and he drew his wand. He cast the curse, and I was sickeningly grateful for it. It was as if he had read my mind. The pain still brined through me, and he was still shouting at me, but I tuned it out. I let my mind get lost as the fire burned through me. My mind began to unravel and I slowly stopped hearing him talking to me. I knew he must still be there because the pain had not stopped, but it felt as if he had already gone.
I got lost in the fire. Things started to sip away as it became the only thing I could focus on. I forgot why I was in pain. I forgot a time when I had ever not been in pain. I forgot what I had done to cause the person to cause me pain. I forgot who I was. I forgot how I had gotten here. I forgot where here was. I stopped trying to remember things, and eventually I realized that the pain had subsided.
As I lay there I realized I wasn't feeling the same type of pain. I felt aches, but not the bright vibrant pain that I could only describe as fire. I opened my eyes to look around but it was dark. I must have been alone. The monster didn't seem to be here. I couldn't remember where the monster came from, or where it might have gone, but it was somewhere that was elsewhere and that was good enough. I sat there, slumped against the wall, wondering about that monster when I heard something bumping around somewhere near me. I think there were banging sounds. It sounded rhythmic to me. I could imagine dancing to it; though at the same time I was not sure I had ever danced in my life. As I slumped further against the wall I started to imitate the sounds I was hearing.
"Bam shika bam shika boom boom boom" I murmured to myself.
I pretended that I wasn't aware of the interment seizures I was having. I was aware vaguely of that the sound sI was making did not make any sense however, so I settled for humming to myself. I could allow that racket to be music couldn't I? I could hum to it and comfort myself with the silly sounds I made while I worried about the monster coming back.
The door opened, and the light came on again. I wasn't alone. I responded to my visitor in the only way that made sense to me.
"Can you please release me?" I sung to him. "Tell the truth!"
"What are you talking about?" the man who had entered asked as he set food and towels on the ground next to me.
I simply hummed at him for a few minutes before I remembered that I was supposed to tell him something.
"Tell the truth," I told him in a singsong voice.
"You aren't making any sense," the voice said shakily as he began to wash me off. Using the towels and water to scrub all of the blood off of me as well as the floor.
"I fought the war." I sighed. "But the war won."
"Please stop that," the man asked in a weak voice as he finished cleaning up everything and set the dirty towel side. "It's not… you aren't right in the head are you?"
"Bam shika bam shika boom boom boom," I trilled to myself once more.
"Tell the truth," I told him with a soft smile, when I realized he was afraid.
He looked at me with big watery eyes behind his pointed nose.
"Tell the truth," I explained.
He looked like he wanted to say something to me. That must be why his lips were flapping uselessly the way they were.
"Tell the truth, just tell the truth and I wont' hurt you," I whispered to him.
"Stop!" he shouted at me, sliding the food onto a stool and hurrying out of the room. scurrying really, like a rat. A rat!
"You're a rat," I called after him. "A RAT!"
I screamed about rats for a long time, struggling to remember what exactly was so upsetting about them. They had fur and tails and little beady eyes, but were they so repulsive? It seemed they should be. I was sure that a rat had stolen something from me, but that didn't seem to make much sense. Why did I had rats? I nibbled on the food the rat had left behind for me while I tried to puzzle it out. It was okay. I forgot what it was as soon as I had eaten it. I drifted off to sleep still thinking about damnable rats, and wondering if there was any importance in it being 10:00 p.m. I hoped the uncontrolled jerking of my muscles would stop soon. Those were a bit annoying.
DAY ELEVEN
This time when I woke up I noticed instantly that I was on the ground. That was different wasn't it? My arms were not chained up. The room wasn't dark, so I could see that the stone beneath me had been stained. The rat hadn't done a very good job of cleaning it up I suppose. I rolled onto my back so I wouldn't have to see it. That was when I saw that I was not alone. There was a man in black robes kneeling beside me. His face was drawn tight like the strings of a purse, and the black curtains of his hair swung forward as he leaned over me. I felt like I knew him, but I couldn't recall a name or any other time that I had actually seen him before.
"Can you hear me?" he asked softly.
I thought I must have nodded because his face loosened just slightly.
"Are you lucid? Wormtail suggested otherwise," he said quietly.
"Lucid?" I asked, genuinely confused by the word. "Wormtail… he's the rat?"
"Yes, he's the rat," he said with a sad smile that did not reach his deep black eyes. "Do you know who I am?"
"Are you a rat?" I asked him softly.
"No, I am not a rat," he said with a gentle shake of his head. "I think I am much more like a snake."
"A snake…" I pondered. "Are you poisonous?"
"No. I'm not. I am not actually a snake." He pushed on. "Can you think of a reason that I might say I am like a snake?"
"Because snakes like to eat rats?" I guessed. "You want to eat Wormtail?"
"No," he said, and his eyes crinkled just slightly like he might start laughing. I was funny. "I wouldn't mind giving him a good thrashing, but I do not want to eat him. I said snake because I wanted to job your memory of Slytherin. Do you remember what Slytherin is?"
My mind raced at that word. It sounded familiar. It was a house wasn't it? My mind slowly pieced things together, like the cogs within a clock beginning to slowly grind once more. I remembered what kind of house it was, and I followed the trail of breadcrumbs he had left me back to rational thought. Suddenly I knew exactly who he was.
"Professor Snape," I whispered, my eyes locking on his once more. "Will I ever get out of here?"
"I'm trying to find a way to extract you, but thus far I have been unsuccessful," he said sadly.
"I'm so hungry," I whimpered, reaching out for his hand, and even though he never would have held my hand at school, he did so now. "I don't want to do this anymore."
"I know you don't," he sighed, using his free hand to pull a bottle of water and an apple from inside his robes. "Take these."
I released his hand to do as he said. I took the food and water and it felt like I had taken something much more precious into my hands. I quickly devoured it and he just watch me with his brow furrowed in concern. When I finished the water he took the bottle back and conjured more water while I worked on the second, magnificent apple he had produced from within his robes.
"I think we should stand you up for a bit," he said as he handed the water back to me. "We should get some blood flowing back through your legs."
I hurriedly downed the contents of the water bottle again, and it helped a bit with the tight dryness in my throat, but somehow it still wasn't enough. I set the bottle down, and then he took my arms and gently supported me as I tried to stand. It took us a couple of tried, but eventually I made it upright. I immediately wished that I hadn't. My legs burned but in a different way than my arms had. It felt as if I would not survive the stinging pain of it.
He helped me to shuffle from side to side and it was a new form of torture. Eventually my legs did start to feel a bit better, but I grew tired very quickly. They wobbled beneath me and I found myself begging to be lowered to the ground once more. I was thankful that he complied.
"When I go back up, I need to tell them something," he said with a sense of urgency in his voice as he conjured more water into the bottle for me. "If I am the one to give them information, then they will keep sending me down."
"I don't' know what to tell you," I sighed as I took the now bottle in hand. "I can barely remember why I am not telling you things. I just know that I am not supposed to. Not to mention that I can't always remember the answers to the questions everyone seems to be asking."
I decided I had said enough and instead I began to drink greedily from the bottle again.
"I know things are getting pretty confused in there," he said patiently, and he brushed his fingers along my temple in such a gentle way that it shocked me. "But I fear that things are going to get very bad very quickly if we don't give them something to stave it off."
"They have already taken everything," I sighed, closing my eyes when I felt the tears come once more. Again I was surprised when he brushed them away. "I have nothing left to give."
"We can give them a lie if we need to, just something," he pressed. "Something that gets him to send me back instead of someone else."
"I… don't," I sighed, opening my eyes so I could look up at him once more. "Tell him that Albus knows he was the one to kill Bertha Jorkins. I think Barty Crouch must have given it away somehow, I don't' remember anyone else that could have tipped him off, but he knows."
"That might do it," he said softly. "I will go tell them that. I have to chain you back up now."
"Can I have more water first," I begged.
He complied easily. He refilled the bottle, and he held it to my lips for me as I drank greedily. He explained somewhat awkwardly what he was doing after that and he cast a charm to relieve the contents of my bladder so I would not have an accident later. When he was done I checked my watch and I saw that it was the 4th of July. I though I might have lost a few days.
I sighed, and I let him put my arms back into the shackles. I tried not to look at my bruised arms, but it was impossible not to notice how swollen and torn up my wrists had become. I focused on Snape and his pained eyes so I would not have to look at myself.
"Stay strong," he whispered quietly as he back away from me.
"For the love of Merlin let me be the one they send tomorrow," he breathed quietly as he slipped out of the room.
I wondered if I was supposed to have heard that. The door had hardly closed when the light clicked off and I fell to sleep. It took far too much energy to stay awake.
DAY TEWLVE
Awareness came upon me quickly, and I thought there must be someone in the room with me to have caused it. It did not take long to realize that I was alone so I began trying to decipher what had woken me so suddenly. I felt around me, and I realized there was a stool beside me. I quickly snatched up the sandwich on it and began to devour it with a ferociousness I had never felt before.
When I finished I checked my watch and saw that it was two in the afternoon on the fifth. I had been asleep for a very long time. I wished there had been water on the stool. I was terribly thirsty, but there was nothing to relieve it. I hummed to myself, trying to distract myself from how lonely it was down here in the darkness.
I didn't bother to keep checking my watch after the first hour, because it only seemed to make the time move slower. As the day went on I wondered if I would be left alone again. I was sitting in the dark, just wondering, when I heard the door creak open. It was deafening in the silence I had grown so used to. I waited to heard the quick sizzle of the light being turned on but it didn't come. The air was heavy with the quiet. The door creaked as it swung closed and there was a clang of metal as it slid back into place. Then it was quiet once more.
I felt someone in the room, and it felt as if they were moving closer, but I couldn't hear anything. I knew he must be close to me because suddenly I could hear breathing. It was quiet and steady, but I could hear it as if a person, who I assumed was male, were panicked. I tried to keep my own breathing quiet and even as I listened.
I thought I was fairly sure who was standing there in front of me, but even with my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could not see him. I considered lighting the face of my watch so it would illuminate him, but I wasn't sure I wanted to confirm whom it was, and I certainly didn't want to have my watch taken away. It was the only thing that kept me attached to the idea of a world beyond this dark room.
"Have you grown tired of your lies yet little girl?" his high voice pierced the silence like a blade.
My breathing increased rapidly, but I stayed silent.
"I have sent some of my best men down here to try and get the truth from you," he said. "And yet you still keep them at bay. Surely my men are not defective. There must be something wrong with you instead."
Still I did not speak. Nothing I said now was going to help me. I understood that well enough not to bother.
"I have been speaking with a dear old friend of yours today," he continued in an almost singsong voice. "And I think I may have discovered the way to break you. Clearly breaking your body will not do the trick. All of the physical attempts have failed on you. Even our attempts to break your mind have failed. You always find your way back from the brink, but I think I understand now. It is your spirit I must break."
I held my breath. I didn't think I wanted to know what his next move would be. I didn't know whom he had spoken to about me. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to know either.
"You see, Draco is far more willing to talk than you are," he explained as if he had read my mind. "He told me some delightful stories about you before you and he became an item. And then he told me of how he finally broke you, like a wild horse made to obey its master."
My breathing hitched. I could not speak now even if I had wanted to.
"I will give you one last chance to tell me everything you know about Albus Dumbledore," he breathed, leaning in to bring his face so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my cheek. Could he see me? I still couldn't see him. "Tell me everything."
"I can't," I choked, mu muscles locking down in preparation for impact.
"Right, because you love him," he sneered. "But he doesn't love you does he?"
"He does," I whispered.
"If he loved you, if anyone loved you, you would not still be in my dungeon." He whispered, and I felt his cold lips brush against the shell of my ear, making me shudder. "No one is coming to save you because no one loves you. No one wants you back."
"That isn't true," I stammered, trying not to let his words sink in.
"Isn't it?" he asked, grabbing the straps of my summer dress and tearing them free of the bodice. "Do you think someone is coming to save you now?"
"Y-yes," I stuttered, wishing that I could get away from him, but knowing that the shackles would hold me in place exactly where I didn't want to be.
"And who might that be?" he asked me silkily as he trailed his wand down the front of my dress.
I didn't understand what he was doing until I felt cold air. I realized belatedly that he had used a severing charm, and now my dress and undergarments had been torn open. I wanted to cover myself but my arms would not reach. I had no modesty left.
"Don't," I whispered.
"Tell me what I want to know and we can stop right now," he said in a hypnotic voice. "I don't want to hurt you. I just want you to tell me the truth. I care about you."
"You don't care about me," I shouted, and I regretted it as he tore my clothes off of me entirely with a shriek of rage. "Albus, he cares about me."
"He doesn't even care enough to send his spy to set you free," he sneered, tossing my cloths on the ground and leaving me terribly exposed before him before he began to drag his clammy, cold, and inhuman hands over my body. I wanted to vomit. "Even if Severus weren't on my side, if he really were working for the Order. Albus would have sent him to save you if he cared about getting you back. You mean nothing to him."
"That isn't true," I said, finding strength in my voice even though I felt none in my body as his hands touched places that were meant only for Cedric, and should not be touched again now that he was gone.
"Enough," he cried, one hand closing painfully on my hip as he pressed closer to me, leaving me with no room for escape.
I felt his robes brushing my legs, his breath on my neck, his chest brushing against mine. It terrified me. Beneath that there was something else. I felt my skin growing hot as I began to panic.
"Don't, don't!" I screamed when his fingers pressed ruthlessly and painfully up into me. I felt like I was burning up from the inside out as my heart raced. "My— Albus wouldn't just leave me here. He would be finding a way to get me out without someone else getting hurt."
"No one loves you," he yelled, his hand twisting in an awful way and it felt like he was actually trying to tear my insides out. It made my blood boil with panic and something else I couldn't describe, the feeling was so intense I almost didn't feel the pain he was causing me. I didn't want his hands on me. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. I wanted Albus.
"My father loves me," I yelled, and I felt the heat pulse to a fever pitch within me.
Suddenly the room was bright again. My skin was alight because I was catching fire. I saw Voldemort's shocked face pulling away from me along with his body in one second, and in the next there was an explosion of brilliant light. I was surrounded by heat and light, and I heard what sounded like the rustling of wings. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I had never felt safer in than when I was enveloped in that light, hearing that sound.
Suddenly the burning stopped and it seemed like I was back in the darkness after such bright light. It was completely silent for a moment and I thought for sure that meant I was still in the dungeon, but then there was an explosion of sound around me. I clamped my eyes shut against the onslaught of it.
I heard male and female voices in a panic around me. They were saying many things that I couldn't make sense of, but I heard my name several times. I opened my eyes to try and take in my surroundings and I realized it was not so dark after all. This room was well lit. It looked like I was in a kitchen, but it was not a room I had ever seen before. I moved to try and get up, but then I remembered that I was not wearing any clothes. I also noticed that I seemed to be bleeding from a particularly embarrassing body part onto the kitchen floor. I reached a shaking arm out and pulled the tablecloth off the table. Silverware and cups came off with it, but I ignored them in favor of wrapping the cloth over my exposed body.
I drug myself up to my feet, and though my whole body seemed to be convulsing with how badly it was shaking I managed to stay upright. I was able to see the room more clearly now, though it was through blurry eyes. It was a definitely a kitchen, a kitchen that was crowded with a fair amount of people, all of them staring at me in shock.
I seemed to have crashed some sort of meeting. I saw Molly and Arthur Weasley, Severus Snape, Professor McGonagall, Sirius, Remus, and Albus. They made a strange circle. Molly stood hunched over the table toward me, with Arthur just behind her. Sirius was standing just a few feet from me with Remus opposite him on the other side of the table. Snape and McGonagall were the furthest from me, standing at the corner of the table watching me with shocked faces. Snape's was the most shocked of all, and Albus was the only one moving. He was walking toward me but it seemed to me that it was happening in slow motion.
"Daddy," I sobbed, and I started to shake even harder.
I was shaking so badly that I started to collapse, but he caught me before I could crash into the floor once more. He pulled me close, and I lost what little control I had of my tears. He held me tightly to his chest, and I could feel that it was hurting me, but I needed him to hold me so I ignored the pain. I clutched him as tightly as I could, and I sobbed great wracking tears into his robes.
I felt him pick me up and start to move me, but I didn't care where we were going. As long as he was going with me it would be okay. He moved quickly, and soon he was trying to set me down on something soft. I just held him closer, and he tried to pull me free.
'No," I sobbed at him. "Please don't leave me alone."
"Okay, okay," he whispered, lowering himself somewhat awkwardly so he could lay beside me on whatever he was trying to lay me on. "I will stay."
"Promise," I demanded, pulling him impossibly closer, my hand locking around a fistful of his robes.
"I promise," he said quietly. "I won't go anywhere."
He held me and I cried. I don't know how I could even produce when I was so badly dehydrated, but they never seemed to end. I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes ached. I cried until I fell asleep.
