Note: I was kind of in a stupor myself when I wrote this, but I think it fits. Enjoy!
As If Afloat, As If Afraid
The fact that Harry was standing there was the only reason I didn't focus on the ground as I usually did in situations like these. As Mother and Lucius got into the car, I gave Harry a quick smile. He was breathtaking in the evening light, his hair reflecting at odd angles and gave his skin an ethereal glow. For that brief moment I saw him I absorbed all of what he was. It was feeling very much like a very permanent parting of the ways. As optimistic as I would love to have been, there was just this feeling like there was no hope of ever going back to Harry again. I was preparing to spend an entire holiday in the dungeon of Malfoy Manor. I knew that, though no one needed say it. My mother knew it. There were tears in her eyes, but she never spilled one.
Sitting across from Lucius for the entire ride home was almost unbearable torture. The silence and the tension were driving me insane with the combination of panic and hate and fear and sadness welling up in me. He sat there staring at me, saying nothing. He was thinking about what it was that he was going to make me do. He always got the same mad glint in his eye every time he thought about my punishments. It was all I could do to keep upright and conscious. I wanted so badly just to faint or go into fatal cardiac arrest or what ever the hell would make him stop looking at me like that. Harry always looked at me with something like love and respect, not at all like Lucius. He was looking at me with undisguised hatred and lust at the same time. That was what tortured me: that the wife sitting at his side was less fulfilling to him than the son he had borne with her.
Upon arriving home, Lucius let his anger show. He dragged me out of the car, up the front stairs, into the house, down the stairs to the dungeon, and threw me into his favourite cell. He shackled my wrists and ankles to the wall before tearing my robes off. I was rather surprised at how quickly he was getting down to it and that frightened me. 'Just think of Harry.' He made it bearable. Lucius was throwing a combination of lashes from his belt and the Cruciatus curse at me. A few long moments of pain. Then blessed blackness.
"Draco? Baby, are you there?" a voice said. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't see clearly. I tried to move my arms, but they ached with every movement. I managed to wipe my eyes. My hands were red.
I was screaming. No. No. No. No. This was not happening. Lucius had beaten me before but never this severely. He had not performed any hurried healing charms. He wasn't going to perform any healing charms at all. He meant to kill me.
"Why?" I think I managed to whimper after a while. I remember wanting to say it but couldn't make my voice sound quite right.
"Harry Potter, son?" my mother said. She was so sweet. She was asking me as though she were asking the name of my latest girlfriend. Or that's how I remember it now.
I nodded in answer to her question. Or the closest thing I could manage to a nod. She seemed to understand. Oh, dear. Harry. 'I have to tell Harry that I love him,' I thought. I wanted to ask my mother for a quill and parchment. I was writing. I don't remember what I said in the letter. Then it was on it's way to Harry.
Laying on the floor was becoming almost comfortable. The pain had numbed me. I was staring up the shaft of the tower that this cell was the bottom of. That was why it was a favourite for Lucius. There was no hope for escape here. The walls had been rendered unscalable by use of some kind of potion or charm. It was a special kind of torture where you could see your freedom but never feel it. That was kind of a metaphor for the Malfoy Way of Life, in a way. You were always chained to someone else's idea of the way things should be. To go your own way was a sin unto itself. And what I had done with Harry Potter, of all people, the Boy Who Lived, was beyond sin. It was mortal sin, and it would cost me my life.
Mother was still there. She was petting me, stroking my hair. Harry used to pet me like that. When we were alone together he would always do little things like that to put me at ease. And whenever someone was wanting to give him shit for anything, he would listen to their side before doing anything about it. I still can't figure out why he had taken five years of some pretty horrible shit from me only to turn around and help stand me on my feet. Harry was the best. Yes, I was going to miss him terribly. Even if in the life after this there is nothing I know I will always miss Harry. Harry had become a veritable piece of me.
Head bouncing on the floor, Mother being thrown out, pulled up by my hair. Someone had shackled me to the wall again. I didn't open my eyes for fear of being read like an open book. As though he couldn't see enough of me as it was, he forced my eyes open.
The room was full of people. Every one of them had a black cape and mask. The Death Eaters had come to finish off a weakling they viewed a traitor. Traitor I may have been, but not to Lord Voldemort or any of his crew. I never claimed to be a follower of Voldemort or any of his practices. I followed along and never answered questions out right. That was one thing that Lucius had taught me well; the gift of bullshitting comes in handy when denying one's roots. No, the only one I had betrayed was Harry. I was throwing out all the hard work he had put forth in making me better. 'I'm so sorry, Harry.'
They were speaking. I still don't know what they said, I was floating in and out of differing states of consciousness. Pain. Cruciatus curse. Nothing, peace. Sting of leather across my chest. Pain. Cruciatus. Peace. Then I was on a table. They took turns with me. I don't know how long it lasted. It seemed for an eternity I lay on the table bleeding and continually violated. Then they were gone.
"Oh, dear." That was a woman that wasn't my mother.
"He's worse than I thought." Who was that man?
"We better hurry before they return."
I was being taken down from the wall. I was laying on something much softer than the floor. I opened my eyes. Nothing was coherent, it was all jumbled and bleary. The man put his hand on my head.
"You poor boy," he said. He was so kind. He didn't hurt me like the others. He was here to help me. How could anyone know where I was and what was going on? How did they get here? How did they find a way in? Were we going to find a way out?
"Shh, you should keep quiet. Everything will be all right," said the woman.
Yes, I suppose things couldn't get any worse than they had been not long ago. These people were here to help me. They were here to take me away from Lucius. They were here to fix me and maybe take me to Harry. I wanted nothing more than to just see him. Maybe hold his hand if that wasn't asking too much.
*****
So what do you think of Draco's disoriented stupor? I rather like it...
Thanks to all who reviewed, you were quite flattering. *blush* Really...
