WARNING: This chapter contains depictions of violence and child abuse and torture.
Hey fam, we are at the Ministry! I understand that for some this chapter will be hard, and perhaps you would just prefer to skip it. Please do that if you need it. This plotline is wrapping up here and will not come back again, except for Yaxley to get what's coming to him, nor is it important for the end of the series. There are a couple of reveals about what Umbridge is doing, but if you just want to know that I can summarize it for you if you prefer to skip this, just let me know!
This chapter is brutal and shows us the extent of evil in Yaxley, but I ended it with something nice, and our next chapter will be Penny leaving the Ministry and being reunited with Snape (yay!) so I hope you stick with me !
We also just passed the 400k word mark! The rest of the book will move quite quickly and we will be onto the HBP YAY! (I can't wait for the Slugclub) Thanks for coming on this journey with me!
The halls of the Department of Mysteries were as eerily quiet as Penny remembered them. Even with her yelping, grunting, and cursing at Yaxley, they did not run into a single other soul. They turned down a corridor Penny did not recognize and entered a room that appeared to be a break room that was dark and empty until Yaxley flicked on the light. Tossing Penny to the floor, Yaxley moved across the room and began rummaging through several cupboards.
Hitting the floor rather painfully, Penny did not bother to try and get back up. All she wanted to do was sink into the floor and let her exhaustion take her. She felt her eyelids droop, welcoming the bliss of sleep, but she would receive no such relief. Having found what he was looking for, Yaxley turned Penny over.
"Get up darling, we don't want to keep your friends waiting, not when they are so eager to see you again."
Pulling her uniform shirt the rest of the way from her, Yaxley then wrapped a bandage around her chest along the length of her mark, affixing it in place before forcing an over- large t-shirt over her head to hide it.
"What's the matter, don't want your co-workers to know the company you keep?"
"Penny, doll, don't tell me you're foolish enough to believe there aren't other supporters of the Dark Lord in the Ministry. You will find yourself greatly disappointed with hopes like that. Didn't your valiant fiance warn you not to let his wound fester? We can't have an infection getting in the way of all the fun we are going to have. Not when I have so much suffering planned for you."
And with those vile words, Yaxley pulled her to her feet and back into the corridor, Penny wishing very much she could shrug the man off and walk herself, but a brute like him got off on making himself feel in charge. Several minutes of stumbling later, Penny found herself in a room she remembered, the one with a chair at its center, the same chair she had been tied to while those men made her use her magic to kill those poor animals. The sight of the chair brought Penny to a sudden halt, but Yaxley just pushed her harder causing her to trip, attracting the attention of those within—the three silent, nameless men from the last time she'd visited.
"Sorry we're late boys, our Penny decided to develop a bit of rebellious streak while she's been away, so I'll be needing you to nip that in the bud for me," Yaxley said, shutting the door behind him and then seating himself leisurely on one of the chairs that had been added to the room. Penny remained where she was, her eyes scanning the table and thankfully finding no animals. Unfortunately, the cursed machine stood waiting, and the men made their way toward Penny without hesitation.
"I see you still haven't learned any manners since the last time I saw you," Penny said as the first grabbed her and she naturally resisted, kicking at him.
In response to her disobedience, the collar answered, shocking her and sending her crumpling to the floor. Penny cried out, clutching at her neck as the pain coursed through her body, making it impossible for her to do anything other than convulsively twitch. With her being incapacitated, they grabbed her by the limbs and hoisted her into the chair, forcing her arms away from her neck so it could spring to life and restrain her.
The collar continued its pulsing for a moment longer as they prepared their torture equipment, Penny's face soaked in sweat by the time it stopped. The man Penny vaguely recalled dubbing Marshall took the long end of the device and prepared to push it straight into her arm in the same manner Umbridge had, but Yaxley stopped him.
"I want you to search her abdomen for a larger pathway, and be sure to poke her a few extra times, so she remembers this pain the next time she thinks to run away from me," Yaxley said, leaning over and giving Penny's face a gentle stroke with the back of his hand.
Without so much as an "Okay" they pushed Penny's shirt out of the way while she gritted her teeth in an attempt to stem her shaking. The anticipation of the pain that was to come as gloved hands slid across her stomach filled Penny with a horrible feeling of claustrophobia. She yanked at her restraints, knowing full well it would do nothing to help her, but she could not stop herself. Every nerve in her body was full of adrenaline, telling her to run, to get free, but she could do no such thing. This realization sent her chest heaving and heart pounding.
The gloved hands pressed around her hip bone a bit before the end of the tubbing was abruptly forced through her skin in the most cruel manner possible. Nothing could have prepared Penny for the feeling of violation. It was wrong, her nerves and flesh screamed in protest at the intruder, and Penny did too, trying desperately not to focus on the pain but it was too all consuming as they wiggled the cursed object beneath her flesh, searching blindly for something that clearly was not there. Marshall pulled out the object and tried a space just beside it, not so much as offering her a warning when he did so. Penny let out another cry of pain, crushing her eyes shut, tears pooling at the corners of them. The wiggling like one does when searching for a rolling vein was unbearable and sent Penny into a flurry of thrashing sobs.
"Stop!"
"Why would we do that when nothing has ever pleased me more than your crying?" Yaxley cooed, kicking his feet onto her chair and reclining back, his hands behind his head, watching her with the utmost satisfaction.
Marshall repeated this process several more times, only stopping when Yaxley bade him to because Penny was getting close to losing consciousness. In order to ensure Penny did not cut his festivities short, he gave her a short reprieve to ensure her alertness before having them start again on the other side. By this point, Penny's voice had all but left her, her screaming nothing more than a cracked, rasping yell of agony. Her body shook both from the pain and an unnatural cold that was setting in, the wet, sticky blood oozing down her side not helping her temperature any.
Yaxley watched with a twisted pleasure as they continued to treat Penny like a pincushion, having no success in locating what they were looking for. Finally, it came to the point that Penny was bleeding so heavily that they were forced to close the wounds on her abdomen. She could have cried tears of joy, but her relief was quickly dampened because their spell had only been a shallow one and relieved none of the pain the wounds had inflicted on her, leaving Penny in a whimpering heap.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" Yaxley said, leaning forward to appraise her injuries. "It's nothing personal, you really are quite special, aren't you?" he continued more to himself than to her. His hand reaching out and tracing the angry red marks on her skin as the other three men changed their gloves and got themselves something to drink. "It's bad luck you just happen to be the only thing that slimy bastard cares for. I want you to remember it was his fault, that his greed did this to you, can you do that to me?" he said.
"You're a real piece of work. The only thing I'll remember is that you're a monster, and monsters always get what's coming to them. I don't care how long I have to wait, I swear I will make you pay for this one day," Penny said, Yaxley turning back to her, his blue eyes betraying some surprise, but then he broke out into loud laughter.
"Such cruel words for such a pretty thing. But you forget that your fiance of yours is as much of a monster as I, one who so effortlessly carved that mark into your chest, so I wonder what it is you have in store for him?"
Penny was the first to look away, she did not want to talk about Snape, to think of the man and his long black hair, not when her wounds were so fresh, and her heart was filled with confused, contradictory emotions. This gesture, however, only served to confirm what Yaxley believed he knew about their situation.
"I imagine it's a hard thing to accept when he's had five years to mold you into exactly what he wanted, but you really mustn't be so easily manipulatable, Penny. Whether he told you I forced his hand or not, securing you as his property played right into what he wanted."
"Say what you will, but you know nothing about him," Penny said quietly, anger welling in her chest at his mockery. But at least it was a welcome change to wallowing in the misery of her aching body.
"I've known Severus Snape longer than you've been alive, since before he started spying on Dumbledore, and I can assure you, it's you who doesn't know him. The stories I could tell you. . . but alas, the trip down memory lane will have to wait, we must get to round two, I have morning meetings afterall."
Reaching for the cup of coffee that was set before him, Yaxley took a long, leisurely drink while Penny watched with wary eyes as the tubing was plucked off the table again. It would almost be a relief to feel it go into her arm, at least there she would have an idea of how long the pain would last. But Yaxley had other plans.
"Lets try her legs this time, if they prove unfruitful, we can return to the arm."
Penny's involuntary wince made Yaxley chuckle softly. "Did you think we were done already, love? We might have been, if you hadn't been foolish enough to run from me. I had so many more pleasurable things planned for us. But seeing as that bastard doesn't like to share his toys, I had to come up with something else for us to do," he shrugged, as though his hands were tied.
"By that I assume you mean you're just a vindictive bastard."
His blue eyes crinkling, he inclined his head at the person beside Penny in response to her backtalk, and the sharp end of the tubing was forced into the top of her leg, through flesh, nerves and angry, stubborn muscle.
Again with the blinding pain, but this time Penny had no resolve, no pride left to keep her from pleading, from allowing him to prey upon her weakness.
"Please, I'll do anything, just stop," Penny begged, her back arching in an attempt to squirm free of her tormentor.
"Mmm, say that again, and with a few more tears," was Yaxley's response.
"You don't have to do this, I'll give it to you willingly," Penny said, looking between the silent men, none of them looking back at her. Her words fell on deaf ears, they had one purpose, to obey Yaxley and they were not much moved by her cries or blood, so long as she remained alive for them to continue their experiments.
The tubing was pulled free and a new location selected, wasting no time in stabbing through her soft, milky flesh of her inner thigh, a place she had always associated with pleasure due to the heightened sensitivity. Now, she cursed it, wishing very much to never feel anything touch it again..
"True, but the problem is I want to, and I'm not a very disciplined man. I don't see a good reason not to do what I want, especially when it pleases me as much as you. But I can empathize, it must be hard, realizing how powerless you are, how powerless Snape left you. He took the only thing you had to barter off the table. Does that make you angry? Do you loathe him for it?" Yaxley asked, looking far too enraptured with the scene before him to even be considered human.
By now, Penny was rendered incoherent and unable to hold any sort of conversation. Sobbing openly, she closed her eyes, trying to imagine something—anything else, anything that was far from this horrible place, begging Merlin to let her body finally succumb to exhaustion and the darkness take her, even if it meant she would not wake come morning. But Yaxley was learned in torment and managed to keep Penny with them, cackling and making disgusting remarks as they moved to her other leg.
When they returned to her arm, the thick, dark liquid squirting through the tubing into the waiting container, Penny was but a shell of a person, awake and alive enough to look with unseeing eyes and to listen to her own teeth chatter so violently anyone would have thought she had hypothermia.
No part of Penny registered when they'd finished, but she became distantly aware that she was being moved again, dragged at first until it became evident she would not be able to walk, so someone else picked up her feet. When they stopped, they opened the door to a cupboard and dropped her inside, locking her in. The room was so tiny, she could not even extend her feet to their fullest extent, so she tried to move them toward her chest with little pain was so severe, Penny thought she might vomit all over herself, so she stopped, and left her legs in their tangled mess, resting her head against the wall and letting exhaustion take her.
Sleep did not last long, the pain in her body forcing her back into the misery of wakefulness often. During these times, Penny cried pathetically, her brain so tired, desiring sleep more than anything, but unable to find it.
"Please, someone help me!" she said to darkness, knowing full well she was alone and there was not a soul around who cared she was trapped in the miserable cupboard, wishing for death merely to find relief from the pain.
Except she was not as alone as she thought. Purring loudly, Fleamont stepped onto Penny's lap, where he'd appeared from, Penny did not know. But she welcomed his company with a hiccup, reaching blindly to pat his head. Placing his two front paws onto her chest, he reached up to sniff at her face, Penny leaning down to kiss his soft nose.
"How did you get into this hell hole? If they find you, who knows what they will do to you."
Fleamont did not seem to take Penny's warning seriously and opted instead to purr more loudly as though welcoming any company that would disturb them. After spending a few moments running his little face over the areas with her wounds, he returned to her chest and tried to squish his face into the neck of her shirt. Peculiarly, he did this for several minutes, his mouth trying to grab onto something. Penny reached in and pulled out the necklace Snape had given her, the one filled with the dittany he used to help her manage her curse and forced her to wear in cases of emergencies.
As soon as it was free. Fremont frantically tried to push it towards her mouth with his head, Penny's slow brain finally catching on. Popping the lid, she downed the entire contents as Fleamont, now content, did a few circles on her lap before settling in for sleep. It only took five or so minutes for the potion to start working, the aganony receding away, Penny blessing Snape for his beautiful brilliance and telling Fleamont maybe marrying him would not be such a bad idea after-all, a set of claws in her leg telling her the cat did not agree.
As soon as she put the lid back on, the vial refilled, Penny letting out actual tears of happiness—Snape had been amazing, wonderful and clever enough to think to enchant it to be refilling. Swearing an oath to whatever god was listening that she would never insult the man again, and resigned to kiss him when she next saw him , Penny pulled the necklace from around her neck and poked the cat, who looked up.
"I need you to keep this safe for me, if Yaxley realizes what it is he will surely destroy it," said Penny, tying it around Fleamont's neck.
He gave a sleepy meow in response and laid his head back down, Penny laying her hand on it and closing her eyes, real rest finally finding her
Though the cupboard was cramped and full of spiders, Penny found herself often longing for the comfort and solitude of it, and waking with a start anytime she heard footsteps headed down the hallway, her heart pounding, expecting the pain and torment that came any time the door was opened and the light blinded her. But most of the time, the footsteps were not from those who disturbed her, probably because they did not even know she was there, except her captors, whom it felt like visited her much too frequently.
Again and again, they strapped her to the machine and milked her dry as often as they could, but they quickly learned she was not a bottomless source and needed enough time to replenish the stores they stole from her, which seemed to irritate their plans and frustrate Yaxley's taste for abusing her. Because the more tired and physically injured she was, the less she produced, and it became quickly evident Yaxley had a quota he had to meet.
After this knowledge was discovered, and much to Penny's relief, Yaxley remained absent for some period of time, how long she never knew, never having any way of knowing time of day or how much time passed, but she dared never let herself get complacent and mentally prepared herself for whatever nightmare awaited her when he finally did return. In the meantime, this meant Penny only had to endure the manhandling of the Unspeakables who forced her into the chair, and other than jabbing the tube into her arm, mostly left her be, except to take some measurements she assumed were related to the substance they were taking from her.
On this particular day, however, Penny's routine changed, and the man pushing her down the halls turned off in a decidedly different direction. By this point in their acquaintance, Penny did not bother to protest or ask where they were going, no doubt she would need her energy for some new horror they were going to bestow upon her. When they entered the room, she found it to be much different than the other she frequented. It was dim, with a large glass window that looked into a second room much like the ones in those interrogation rooms in the police shows Penny's uncle Vernon liked to watch.
At the window stood two people in competition for the person-Penny-loathed-most award, Yaxley and Professor Umbridge. When the door shut behind Penny, Umbridge turned and gave her a slack, toadlike smile, walking across the room and putting her arm around Penny and making her want to shudder, but she refrained, glancing at a Yaxley, who looked much too excited for her liking.
"Oh! Penny, I wasn't expecting you. My apologies for not visiting sooner, I'm quite indispensable to the Minister these days. But Corban assures me you've managed my absence, and I am happy to see you looking so well," Umbridge said, her high tones full of praise and her eyes not even bothering to look at Penny.
The comment made Penny want to laugh, though she had not seen herself, Penny was certain that no one in their right mind and actually looking at her would ever use the word "well" to describe how she looked. Even with the dittany, Penny could feel the lingering effects of the torment and daily milking sessions. Her arms were so often stabbed that the bruising no longer budged even with the dittany, and she was left looking like she had a very abusive boyfriend and an out of control drug habit.
"Quite," Yaxley affirmed. "Our Penny here has been so obliging I thought we ought to reward her and show her what we have accomplished thanks to her efforts," Yaxley said, his voice velvety and full of a malice Umbridge did not seem to notice.
"How lovely," Umbridge said, guiding Penny toward the window so she could see what was on the other side.
Again, Penny could not help but feel 'lovely' was the last word she would ever use to describe anything Yaxley would have in mind for her, but she kept her mouth clamped shut and peered through the one way glass. Looking back, but clearly unable to see them was a large, vicious-looking man with dirty gray hair and whiskers. His beast-like appearance, long teeth and unnaturally alert eyes made Penny jump away with a start.
"Don't worry, Penny, you are quite safe from that disgusting half-breed. I too can never get used to such a repulsive sight," said Umbridge.
"That's a werewolf?" Penny said, turning on Umbridge in bewilderment.
"Certainly, what did you think he was?" Umbridge said with a soft giggle like Penny was a small child who just said something very naive and amusing.
"I would have thought you knew of Fenrir Greyback," Yaxley interjected, sounding very much like he wanted her to know exactly who he was.
"And why would you think that?" Penny said, stiffly, choosing to look back at the creature before her and not at him, all the while feeling guilty for her disgust as her thoughts trailed back to Lupin, wondering why his appearance was so different from the werewolf before her.
"If I am not mistaken, Dumbledore hired one of Greyback's old victims, Remus Lupin."
"Allowing a filthy creature like him into a school," Professor Umbridge added, tutting in disapproval,
"Professor Lupin was a wonderful teacher, he was nothing like that!" Penny said more forcefully than she meant to.
"I imagine his appearance persuaded you that he was not a monster, it's a problem Dolores and I here have been working hard to solve."
"Yes, it's not your fault, of course, Penny, for trusting your professor. He is a vile creature who was allowed to deceive many, but the ministry is here to protect you now from such things, and we can finally better do that because of of you," Umbridge said, turning to Penny and tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear in an almost maternal fashion, but Penny did not miss coldness in her eyes as she smiled down on her,
"What do you mean? Are you saying you've been working on a cure for Lycanthropy?" Penny asked, her stomach filling with dread.
"A cure for what? No, no, my darling, the problem clearly lies with them being able to assume human-like forms to hide their true nature."
"Human-like? They are humans," Penny said, weakly, revulsion bubbling up her esophagus.
"What you have been taught are lies, Penny. To my understanding Professor Snape was the only staff member to protest the hiring of such filth, so I am not surprised by your confusion. But with my re-education plan along with Corban's work here, there will no longer be any doubt that such beasts do not belong among humans."
"But I don't understand," Penny said, turning back to look at Fenrir, who moved away from the window he could not see through because the door within his room had opened and the Unspeakables entered, a young, steely-faced boy being dragged behind them. He surveyed the scene before him, his clever eyes betraying the fact he knew exactly what would come next, but he did not look afraid, did not protest when he was handed over to the werewolf, when the fangs were bared.
"No!" Penny cried, realizing what was about to happen.
Fists slamming against the window, Penny yelled in fury, in desperation, in horror as Fenrir shoved the boy's head to the side, almost like one might when going to kiss their lover's neck. Penny banged harder, yelled more loudly, causing the wolf to pause and glance over his shoulder. But then a strong arm wrapped itself around her chest and pulled her away from the window and Fenrir turned back to the boy, rearing his head and taking a large bite from his flesh.
"He's just a kid. What's wrong with you—" Penny choked, watching the blood hit the floor, knowing the wound was shallow. But even if the intention was for him to survive, he would never be the same.
The scene before her, the violence, the brown of the boy's hair, it brought Lupin's prematurely aged face to the forefront of her mind. Penny thought of how Lupin suffered, how he felt unworthy of love due to this curse, and she could not help but feel irrationally angry for the boy, for what they'd stolen not just from him, but for the pain the memory of this would cause Lupin when he inevitably learned of it.
"He's an orphan in the custody of the Ministry," Umbridge corrected. "While it may appear shocking for one as young and naive as yourself, he is doing a wonderful service that he will be proud of when he is old enough to understand."
The self-assurance in Umbridge's voice disgusted Penny, it made her feel vile, like she was covered in filth and wanted nothing more than to scrub her skin raw, but instead she continued to stare helplessly through the window as the bleeding boy was forced into a chair and an IV full of a greenish liquid was pushed into his arm; Fenrir turning to say something to the kid that they could not hear before exiting.
"Don't blink now, love, or you'll miss the best part," Yaxley whispered in her ear so only she could hear.
Penny watched in trepidation as the green liquid moved through the tube until the last drop disappeared into his arm. For a moment, nothing changed, but then every limb of the boy's body started contorting in unnatural ways, Penny certain if the room had not been sound-proof they would have heard his every bone break and his screaming until he lost his voice.
Her screams lost somewhere in her throat, the boy before them fell to the floor, his form changing so drastically he no longer resembled a human. His head was becoming larger, more bulbous, his shoulders caving, hands and feet covered in fur. When the entire ordeal had finished, what once had been a boy had turned into a hunched creature that was not human, but had not quite completed the transition to wolf. He had a half-formed snout, ears and teeth of a wolf, but his limbs and chest were still oddly-human in shape, though covered with gray shaggy fur.
It wasn't until the boy reached up, his clawed hand feeling his face, snout opening in what was obviously a shriek of emotional agony at what had been done to him that Penny finally lost it, turning her head away and vomiting. Yaxley let go of her and stepped away as the violent retching wracked Penny's body, sending her to her knees.
Voices above her told her that Yaxley and Umbridge were engrossed in a discussion, neither bothered by the intense reaction of Penny, who's brow was covered in sweat, chest heaving for air, and heart thumping so wildly it would surely bounce out of her chest. But she paid little attention to them, her brain yelling in agony as the image of the boy becoming the grotesque creature again and again, crying in misery, etched itself to the inside of her mind so she dared never forget what gross disdain for the sanctity of life and autonomy she'd just witnessed. Crying and dry heaving loudly, Penny was finally forced to get a handle on herself when Yaxley touched her shoulder.
Umbridge was gone and he was pulling her to her feet, her mess disappearing with a flick of his wand.
"Come now, love, get yourself together, our Nina has been dying to see you," he said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping her face with it before it disappeared.
Shaking, and brows furrowed, Penny stared bleary-eyed up at the blue eyes, unable to form thoughts or words, but her feet moved when he pushed her toward the door, down corridor after corridor and into a large dark room who's ceiling Penny could not find. Rattling in the depths of the darkness sent Penny's heart pounding. She did not like this room and wanted very much to leave. But the door snapped shut behind them, several small lights flickering on and illuminating the path just before them.
"I thought it'd be fun to have a little walk down memory lane," Yaxley said, mockery evident in his tone, but Penny did not understand why.
"I don't know this place," she said, goosebumps springing up on her arms.
"We just need to jog that memory of yours a little, don't we?" he said, taking her hand in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture and guiding Penny through the dark and into another room, Penny being much too frightened of what the darkness hid to pull her hand free.
Once inside, he lit its expanse, revealing a room that was the size of a large sitting room and full of an array of games, toys, and tables covered in art. Everything was left on the ground, as though a horde of children had been there just moments before they'd entered but had been forced to leave quickly and intended to return to what they had been doing at any moment. Eye's falling on a table that felt strangely familiar, Penny's head began throbbing painfully as broken images began to force their way to the forefront of her mind, but they were so fleeting she could only grasp the sense of them. Clutching her head, Penny grunted, Yaxley humming in approval beside her.
"That's my girl, let it all come back, don't resist it—take another good look around."
Penny's feet moved forward, a sense of dejavu making her uneasy. There was something at the tip of her mind that she needed to grasp onto, something very important that she'd forgotten. She reached the table that was sized for children and sat down, running her hand across its rough surface, stopping just before she reached the right corner because something was blocking her path. She picked up the object and turned it over in her hand—it was a jade knight from a chess set.
She turned it over and stared at it, suddenly recalling a pair of vibrantly blue eyes, and plaited brown hair. Her brain bursting with agony, a shock of memories flooded Penny's vision. This wasn't just any knight it belonged to Nina—a girl Penny had sat at this very table with. It was all coming back to her; she'd been taken here and tossed into a room full of chattering kids one night after finishing a session in the Neverending room, all of which could not have been older than 11. They'd been wary of her, except Nina, who'd told Penny how they'd all been taken from their orphanage and brought here, promises made by the 'Keepers' that they were here to help them. At first, the kids all loved the room, no longer having chores, being able to play and eat better meals. But it did not take long for them to protest, to want to leave the room and even demand to 'go home'. This all fell on deaf ears and even resulted in punishment, but then just days before Penny showed up, kids started being taken, and when they left they did not return.
It was around that point the Keepers stopped trying to keep up pretenses, often doing a series of evasive tests on them and treating them much in the same ways they had Penny. It was in this place, this room that Penny had tried to ease their fears and worries by telling them stories of Hogwarts, the ghosts, Peeves, and even Dumbledore, Penny promising her friend, Nina, she'd get them all out somehow. But Penny hadn't kept her promise, hadn't even remembered because Umbridge didn't want to be implicated, so Yaxley had done as directed, Penny suddenly recalling him standing over her, mocking her as she begged him not to, him promising to take good care of Nina.
But Nina wasn't here and it looked as though no one had occupied this room in months, yet Yaxley had mentioned Nina over the summer. Getting a handle on her breathing, clutching the knight so hard in her hand she was sure it would break through the skin and make her bleed, Penny whirled around, finding Yaxley standing a ways off, his hands in his pockets, head cocked slightly as he watched her, eyes glittering with need.
"Where is she," Penny demanded, reaching for the wall beside her to steady herself because her head was still throbbing, making her feel off-balance.
"She's with Tommy, I decided a little family reunion would be a perfect way to commemorate what you've done for them," Yaxley said, his wretched mouth stretching slowly into a menacing smile.
The mention of the name Tommy sent another wave of pain through Penny's head as memories of another—Nina's older brother, Tommy returned to Penny. A surly boy who was always frowning and disliked Penny, accusing her of lying to Nina any chance he got—a boy she'd seen today in that chair.
"You wouldn't—" Penny breathed, feeling on the verge of fainting as she tried to process the horror of what Yaxley was suggesting he'd done. "I don't believe you," Penny yelled, finding a sudden surge of energy as she rushed past Yaxley, who let her flee back into the dark room.
Lights flickered into life, revealing a warehouse-like room filled with Merlin-knows-what. Penny looked around frantically, the back towards her left catching her attention due to a strange sound emanating from that direction. As she drew nearer, a low moaning reached her ears. The sound reminded her of a wounded creature, a creature on the verge of death, or wishing for it. It reminded her of herself, tied to that chair, trapped in Yaxley's torment. Rounding a corner, Penny found a wall lined with cages stacked on top of eachother. Penny noted the cages looked as though they'd contained life at one point, but were now empty, except for one larger cage, in which something stirred.
Stepping closer and holding her breath, Penny peered in, finding the boy she'd witnessed be tortured and turned into the creature he now was. He hadn't noticed Penny, his much-too-human hands cradling something. Her eyes adjusting to the light, Penny focused on something akin to a dog sitting motionless there. But something wasn't quite right, it did not look like any dog Penny had seen before, and it seemed to have long brown hair sprouting off its head and middle of its back, much like human hair might.
Upon closer inspection, Penny realized the dog was wearing clothing. Over its golden fur was a yellow dress, the same yellow dress Nina wore in the memories Penny had of her. And then it stirred, a single pupiless-bright blue eye opening, looking straight at Penny, and she knew without a doubt, the creature crammed into the cage before her were Tommy and Nina, the little kids she had met the last time she'd stayed at the ministry. Blue eyes vacant, lifeless, and full of such sorrow looked at Penny, burning their way right through her flesh and into her soul, laying her bare, convicting her of her most grievous sin.
A harrowing understanding flooding Penny's chest, she looked at the poor, vile and damned creatures trapped in a cage barely large enough for a cat, a fate they had been cursed to because of her, stuck in bodies that had been transformed against their will with her magic.
A horrified yell escaping her, Penny stumbled backward, colliding with something solid. Looking up, she found Yaxley's gloating face break into a fit of cackling as he absorbed her shock and looked almost adoringly at what was left of Nina and Tommy.
"See Nina, I kept my promise, I brought Penny back, but she doesn't seem all that happy to see you now that she knows what you truly are. And after you were so certain she'd be proud of you for being brave and offering yourself."
The words resounded, too awful for Penny to process, a loud barking drowning it out when Tommy stirred from his trance-like state, viciously lashing out against the cage, his yellow eyes fixed on Penny and something too eerily similar to "liar!" leaving his lips.
Shoving Yaxley off herself. Penny turned on her heel and ran straight back the way she came. She would have kept running except she found the door they'd entered through locked, so she stopped trying to catch her breath, banging her head against it as she screamed, wishing for nothing more than to make the pain in her chest go away.
Images of the two children side-by-side kept flashing through her mind, making Penny feel like she might suffocate.
"No, no no," she yelled at the room, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I swear!"
Due to the size of the room, her loathsome voice echoed back at her, making her wish she could pluck it from her throat. She'd done this, it was all her fault. Those poor kids had been forced into such an unbearable reality because of her . They weren't monsters, she was . They'd be running and laughing like they should be if not for her. It was a cruel joke that Nina had thought of Penny as her savior, as someone to trust, but instead, she had been her damnation.
It was surely the work of Yaxley to make sure Penny had known them, spent time with them and even become attached to them. It made it impossible for her to distance herself, to find any escape from the pain it caused her to know what they had endured, what they still endured trapped in a cage in the dark.
It was too much for Penny, the world was shrinking, her chest moving frantically but no air reaching her lungs. She was a horrible, awful, evil person, not them. If only she could trade places with them. Black spots were popping up into her vision, she was teetering, the world, her pain, disappearing with a loud thud.
When Penny next woke, she recoiled, expecting some sort of pain, and instead found soft hands lifting her into a sitting position. The face was that of a woman who was speaking to Penny, reaching beneath her shirt, her hands bringing Penny bliss as they took away her pain. It took her a while to realize it was the same healer Penny had met the time before, but she did not bother to relay the fact she remembered the woman and merely sat, lost in the void between consciousness and unconsciousness. It took some time, but Florence was able to heal most of Penny's injuries, making her intensely curious why Yaxley would do such a thing.
Her answer came when another, much more legitimate member of the department arrived to escort a barely-with-it Penny to a room where he sat her at a table and left her a pot of tea and a tray of several fancy looking biscuits. On any other occasion Penny might have stuffed her face and indulged in the tea.
Not today, today Penny only felt nauseous, merely being conscious and aware of her own existence making her want to spew. Staring at the wall before her, Penny sat, her brain disassociating from her limbs and drifting back to the dreams that had comforted her— those warm arms holding her close, the ones belonging to the person who always made Penny feel safe—Remus Lupin.
It wasn't until he snapped his fingers that Penny realized she was looking at the normally smug features of Draco Malfoy. He sat across from her, taking in her appearance with evident disgust and fury. His gray eyes moving from her cheeks, following what she assumed must be a trail of bruising all the way down to her arm, his lip curling when he stopped at the several missing fingernails.
"You've seen better days," he said, his voice startling her
For some reason she had not believed he was real, that he was an extension of her dream and desperate need of her brain to escape reality. After a moment of scrutinizing him, reaching out and touching his hand, Penny burst out into laughter, Draco's insensitive disregard for, well anything really, it was a welcome change to the endless cycle of misery. It reminded Penny how mundane the world outside this hellscape was.
Draco shifted in his chair, looking distinctly uncomfortable by her outburst, clearly uncertain if she'd finally snapped or not.
"Why did you come," Penny finally said, her voice raspy and foreign to her own ears. How long had it been since she last used it? She couldn't be sure, she wasn't even sure how much time had passed since she left Hogwarts.
"Seeing as it's a holiday, I was feeling annoyingly charitable, and I heard I am to congratulate you on your betrothal," he said dryly, his eyebrow arching in that contemptuous, I-told-you-so manner of his.
"What holiday?" Penny asked, her voice breaking and betraying her pathetic state further.
Draco gave her a pitying look that told her he was all too familiar, or at least suspected the tactics Yaxley had employed to torment her. Passing her a small, neatly wrapped gift and a bouquet of flowers he replied, "Christmas Eve," the words almost coming out in a sneer but he managed to catch himself before they did so.
Penny took a long look at the gray eyes watching her and then she reached for the gift, pulled it to her chest and laid her head on the table and openly sobbed. She didn't know why she did it, but she could not stop herself, could not stem the flood of emotions his gesture produced in her. Draco's presence, as simple and begrudging as it was, and even though he'd clearly come to gloat about being right about Snape, it meant more to Penny than anything any of her other friends had ever done for her.
His hand reaching for her head and caressing her tangled mess of hair as he sighed in impatience, Penny allowed her heart to remember, even for a moment, that there was some good in her life, and Draco had come to remind her of it.
AN: If you've seen Fullmetal alchemist, yes I plucked the Nina storyline straight from the anime! FMA has actually influenced a lot of this story.