Draco woke up cold.
He'd never woken up cold.
And it smelled of something nasty… Something burning. And sulfur? Ugh.
Twippy always kept the fires lit, and his down comforter was always freshly laundered. He crinkled up his nose but short of holding his nostrils closed, could do nothing about it.
SMACK!
Draco's face flew to the side as a hand slapped his face, and his eyes snapped open. The cold, damp rock walls made him think he was in a cave. He could hear a trickling sound, like water running down the walls.
"Stand up, you little wimp."
The raspy voice could only belong to his uncle Rodolphus, who was currently 'missing.' He was still wanted for crimes he had committed during the Dark Lord's reign.
'Damn this darkness', Draco thought as he couldn't decipher how the face had changed after years on the run. Rodolphus might have been wearing his Death Eater mask, but Draco could still tell who he was by the way he carried himself and spoke. He felt a trickle on his face and raised his hand to feel where he had been slapped. Something had cut his face, perhaps a ring?
"Now, wimp!" and he was kicked in the side of his knee, the nerves radiating pain down to his foot and up his thigh.
Draco had a lot of practice with performing under duress during his brief tenure as a Death Eater, so he forced his arms under his chest and pushed himself up.
Apparently, this wasn't fast enough because he heard "Crucio!" before he was hit with a powerful Cruciatus curse. Aunt Bellatrix must have shared her special secret at making the curse especially painful, because the only stronger ones he had ever felt were from her and the Dark Lord.
"Faster!"
Would have been faster if he hadn't Crucio'd my ass back to the ground, thought Draco as he gritted his teeth and forced himself upright. Besides the lingering pain from the Cruciatus curse, his leg was having trouble holding him up.
Finally, he was upright. Draco squinted his eyes at his tormentor, wishing he had his wand.
The Dark Lord's defeat had done nothing positive for Rodolphus, and it was obvious, even through his Death Eater mask. He was missing an eye where a Conjunctivitis Curse had hit him in the final battle, and his patchy beard that showed underneath was a bit more salt than pepper. Losing his wife had put a depraved look to his pouchy good eye, but it was still nothing compared to the madness that had always been in his brother Rabastan's eyes.
"Nephew," Rodolphus began.
"Uncle. Pleasure to see you again." Draco tried to pull off his father's sneer.
"Sure it is, kid. Want to give me some answers?"
"I'd be a lot more obliging if I hadn't just woken up soggy. Where are we anyway?"
"Oh, you'll find out soon. Those answers?"
"Maybe if I knew what kind of answers you wanted…"
"You should know!" His face twisted into a contempt. "You should've come and found me, you flobberworm! This would've been much easier."
"What?" Draco couldn't even keep up his façade anymore.
Why would he have been looking for his crazy fugitive uncle? Was he even his uncle anymore now that his aunt was gone?
"Crucio!" As Draco writhed on the rocky ground again, he continued.
"Don't pretend you have no brains! The Dark Lord knew you better than that! You were his chosen one."
Draco lay on the ground while his muscles twitched from the most recent attack. His mind was reeling from pain and the information wasn't sinking in.
"You were groomed to be his champion from the beginning, and you threw that all away the first chance you got, you sniveling little shrivelfig! Crucio!"
Suddenly, a figure appeared behind Rodolphus. Draco's pained mind couldn't place the voice that radiated menace from behind the mask, but it was familiar.
"Do not tire our guest out, Rodolphus. He will be very willing to help us soon, yes, he will. Feed him something before he passes out and let's go have a drink. I've found us some Ogden's."
As Draco tore into the plain bread and cheese that had been provided for him, the men walked around a bend in the cave leaving him in darkness. Without knowing where he was, how many people were holding him captive, and without a wand, he didn't know how he could escape. He would just have to glean any information he could for a while. He would escape, but for now he would watch and learn.
It's not like anyone could come looking for me, he thought irritably.
The damn ministry had seen to that. His poor mother, stuck home alone, his father, stuck in Azkaban, and himself, in this damn grotto. He felt pangs of despair, and he wondered if he would ever taste the warmth of firewhiskey again.
