Written for the History of Magic class, assignment 11, task #2: "Write about a painful death (to watch or experience).
Extra prompt: (object) candle
Written for the April Event: Passover 10th - 17th, with extension (thanks Shannon, you're the best!)
Prompt: (word) blood
WC: 1573
A/N 2: As you can see, it's a little AU. Hope you guys like it.
"You really thought that you're going to get away with this?"
Before he can say anything, everything went black.
.
He opens his eyes for the first time.
Breathing slowly, he turns his head before getting up, to see if he knows where he is.
Everything is dark around him and the only light is coming from a door at the corner of the room.
"Maybe I'm in my house", he thinks, as he gets up from the floor.
"Draco?"
He hears someone calling his name from the cell at his side; he can't see who it is because the walls are made of stone, but the bars are made of some type of metal.
"Theo? Is that you?"
"Yeah mate, it's me." He sounds tired.
"What happened?" The blond asks, trying to remember anything before he ended up here.
"They found out." Theo says and a chill runs down Draco's spine because he knows what he's talking about.
For almost a year he's been acting as a double agent. Being a death eater during the night and a member of the Order during the day. He has been providing information to the Order, trying to end the war.
He thought he was being careful but apparently, they discovered anyways.
"What about Blaise?"
He can hear Theo sighs. "He's on the run. They captured me first, and then they found you. From what I heard, he disappeared from the earth."
Draco releases a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Thank Merlin." After a second, he says, "Are you alright?"
"I've been better. They tortured me in order to gain information but I didn't say anything."
Draco nods, even though his friend can't see him.
"And now what?"
"Now we wait." Theo says.
.
He doesn't know what day it is.
After that brief conversation with Theo, the Lestrange brothers entered the dungeons and used crucio on him until he lost his voice.
He screamed and screamed and screamed but it never stopped.
He only hoped that his mother is safe. Maybe she's with his father and he's keeping her safe. That was the only thing he could thing about, as Rabastan threw another spell on him.
That, and how Hermione is doing.
They started a relationship a few months after he started to help them. She's stubborn and he's persistent and, in the end, she was the one who kissed him first.
As the door to dungeons open and he sees his aunt Bella entering the place, his last thought before he clears his mind is that he's in love and he'll die before he can say anything to her.
.
"Mate?"
He hears Theo but he doesn't have the strength to answer him.
Instead of just using Crucio on him, which is her specialty, Bellatrix tortured him physically, using muggle (how ironic) ways to make him talk.
First, she chained him to the ceiling and used a whip on his back. Then, she released him, only to hold a candle above his mark and burn it.
He knows what pain feels like. This is so much more.
At first, he wanted to leave.
"I'm here."
Now, as his eyes closes, he just want to die.
.
He's starving.
His head hurts and his wounds are infected. There's not one spot on his body that doesn't hurt. His arms are burned and his legs are shaking and he's sure that he has about 3 broken ribs.
But he'll not break. He'll not-
"Hello my dear nephew."
He opens his eyes and sees that his aunt is there.
"As you know, I was searching for your friend Blaise." She says, pulling him up. "You can't help me and your friend can't help me but look who I found!"
She moves to the side and he sees the Lovegood girl unconscious on the floor.
"I found her during one of the rounds and I thought "I think my dear nephew will like to see his friend one last time!""
One last time. These words leaves a bitter taste on his mouth.
"So I hope you're ready because I found some new toys that I really want to play with."
He uses the bars to support his body weight and watches as Bellatrix straps the girl's arms to a piece of wood.
"Oh no." He hears Theo murmurs as he watches the older woman straps Lovegood's legs.
He doesn't have the strength to question what's going on but he doesn't need to imagine any longer.
Bellatrix holds her wand near the wheel located next to the place where the Gryffindor is and says, "During the last round I found these new toys, like I said before. They're muggle artifacts used during medieval times to torture and eventually kill the prisoner."
With a non-verbal spell she makes the wheel turn, waking Lovegood up and dropping some things that she had on her pocket.
"At first I thought how do I use this shit." Another non-verbal spell and this time, Luna screams her lungs out. "Then I did some research and I discovered!"
She turns it again and Draco is certain that the girl screams will haunt him at night.
"They used it to- oh hell, I'll just show it to you boys."
With a cold high pitched laugh, she turns the wheel non stop, making Luna scream and cry, pulling her members apart.
He watches, with a bitter taste on his mouth, as the machine pulls her members from her body, leaving a lifeless corpse surrounded by blood around her.
"Nice, isn't it?" Bellatrix says, as she cleans her face. "This is what I'll do to you and your friend, dear nephew, if you don't give the information that I want."
She uses cruciatus on him some more. Then, turning to Theo, she repeats the spell on him.
"Bye bye!"
His body aches and in the silence, he can still hear Luna's screams echoing on the room.
.
He wakes up as he hears Theo screaming next to him.
It's Avery and Mulciber this time. They are torturing his friend, wanting to know where the damn Blaise and the resistance are.
Theo doesn't say a word, so they used crucio on him some more.
"Oh, you awake boy?"
They turn to Draco, with a devious glint on their eyes.
"Bella did a nice job on you, eh?"
He swallows hard. He doesn't have the strength to do much more.
"Well, we're here to continue the job. I hope we do her justice because let's face it, that bitch can be cruel when she wants." Avery says, turning his neck from one side to another. "But lets keep this a secret, alright?"
He blinks and before he knows it, Mulciber casts a spell on him that makes his skin burn. Avery just watches, waiting for his turn.
He screams again because it hurts like hell.
"First, we'll kill your friend here. Then, we'll find the resistance and kill each and every one of them. Then we'll find your family, bunch of traitors you are, then we'll kill you all. How does that sound?"
As they torture him some more, he decides that enough is enough. He really needs to escape this hell.
.
"Draco?"
He thinks he's dreaming, so he doesn't bother to wake up.
"Draco?"
This time, warm hands cradled his face and he briefly considers to open his eyes, only to decide against it.
It's a nice dream so he doesn't want to wake up.
"Please Draco, I really need you to open your eyes."
The voice is clear. He knows this voice, he loves this voice.
"Granger?"
His voice is rough from the lack of use and because of all the screaming he did not so long ago.
"Yeah, it's me. Please wake up."
He opens his eyes and his eyes hurt from the sudden light.
"Where am I?"
"You're still here at the dungeons at the Malfoy Mannor, but we found you."
He blinks one, two, three times until he can see his beloved witch clearly.
"How- how did you find me?"
She brushes his bangs away from his face and continues, with tears on her eyes.
"When they captured Luna, she activated the mirror we used to communicate with each other and kept it on her pocket."
He looks inside her eyes and his face softens. "You heard it?"
She shakes her head. "No. But I can imagine what happened."
"I'm so sorry." He says and he means it.
"Don't be. It's not your fault." She blinks back her tears and continues. "Anyway, we used a spell to try to find her location and we did it-"
"When they did it, the proud Gryffindors asked for my help. Can you believe it, mate? They asked for the help of a Slytherin!"
He cracks a smile as he hears Blaise's voice behind Hermione.
"You're okay." Draco says and Blaise drops the smirk from his face.
He hears as Porter explains to Theo that the war is not over, but they're close. With the fall of the Manor, the Death Eaters don't have many places to hide, anymore.
But he can't focus on anything besides Granger and Blaise.
"Yeah." Blaise nods and crouches next to Hermione. "And now that you're free, you're going to be okay too."
He closes his eyes and this time, he's not afraid of when he's going to open them up again.