oh em gee, y'all.

Yes, its been a long time. No, I haven't forgotten. I birthed two kids, had Covid, got a job, etc. etc. The biggest hangup, however, has been that my computer died a very sad death and I've lost everything I had written originally.

No more excuses! I love you guys.

NaNoWriMo has my butt in gear!

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Draco awoke from yet another nightmare, only to realize that he was living in a different nightmare. The walls were still damp, there was only peripheral light, and the ground was hard. He had thought the nightmares would stick to his dreams now that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had been defeated. Apparently he had been wrong.

Draco took stock of his injuries before opening his eyes again. His eye was puffy, no doubt blackened and bruised. Left leg, still weak from the night he was taken. Fingers – broken. Otherwise, he was as healthy as could be, having been tortured for Merlin knows how long. He had slept something like seven times since his abduction, so maybe seven days? He had no idea how long he had slept, nor if they had been naps or full-fledged sleeps.

Torturing him late into the night – well, he assumed it was nighttime anyway – he figured that his captors would be busy with themselves for a while more. Knowing that he (in fact, everyone) could be broken eventually, he had to think about what his jailors needed from him. Draco's skill at legilimency was good, but not that good.

Draco still wasn't entirely sure what they wanted. He must have been hit in the head at some point, or he was suffering from shock, because his mind wasn't as sharp as he was used to. Something about being important to the Dark Lord.

'The Chosen one?'

He sneered at this.

'Potter was Dumbledore's champion, and he was the Dark Lord's? Sounds entirely too trite to be true.'

Draco sat there ruminating for a long while.

'Potter is probably having tea with the Minister right now, lucky bastard.'

Thus, his thoughts turned maudlin. His family had not had tea with the minister since the position had been filled by Cornelius Fudge. Back before their lives had turned to shit. His father – scapegoat of the year – deteriorating in Azkaban, while his mother languished at home.

A pang of fear struck his heart, as he worried what had happened to his mother. She was under house arrest, so she had been home when he was taken from the manor.

'Had she slept through it undisturbed? How would she fare, worried sick and alone in the big marble mansion? Or had the wards gone off and woken her? Was she even now being tortured as he was?'

Draco sighed and dragged his palms down his face dejectedly, pulling the skin. The broken fingers and blackened eye twanged with pain so he stopped, staring listlessly across the cave.

'Think positive' he chastised himself. There was no way to know if she was okay.

'Better to imagine her at home, patiently waiting for me.' He tried to delude himself. 'Perhaps a distraction?'

He hadn't allowed himself to think of her yet. But she was the only thing to cheer him up at this moment.

He turned his thoughts to Hermione Granger.