Hello, everybody! Time for another chapter! Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter Twenty-five
The flight back home was entirely silent, and the number of Death Eaters did not dwindle from when we left.
At least Harry got away from him, but even that didn't seem to be an entirely good thing.
I covered my head with my pillow to try to muffle the screams. I hadn't seen Voldemort since the ambush, but Ollivander had not stopped screaming since I had gotten home. He never stopped for breath, and it didn't seem like he was going to stop any time soon.
I couldn't take it anymore. How long could Voldemort torture someone? Was it out of anger for not capturing Harry, or a preparation for when he did?
It was around one in the morning when everything finally quieted. I held my breath, doubting that it had stopped for good.
But after a minute had passed without sound, I gave myself permission to relax. I slumped down on my bed, though I didn't want to sleep. I would have nightmares filled with battles and screaming, so I got off of my mattress and reached under my bed. I pulled out a radio and blew off some of the stale cobwebs, coughing slightly as I accidentally inhaled some of the dust.
I placed the radio on my bedside table and sat back down on my bed. I flicked the switch on the front of the device, and it blinked to life. Static emitted from the speakers, and it squealed as the dile spun. I scrolled through the channels, hoping that whatever popped up would be enough to take my mind off of this current situation and allow me to sleep.
Music and news-both from the Wizarding and the Muggle Worlds-clicked by. I lingered on each one for a second or two before changing over to the next frequency, everything sounding like more of an annoyance than a help.
"We have received report that Lightning has struck the Burrows."
I paused at the voice coming through the speakers. It sounded like that Dean boy from Gryffindor.
"And it sounds like they're celebrating a wedding there," another familiar voice added. Dean's friend, maybe?
The two continued for a while. I didn't know exactly what they were talking about because I tuned in half-way through the broadcast, but it sounded like Dean and his friend dedicated the channel to the Second Wizarding War, delivering reports of the dead and someone they kept calling "Lightning." I figured that they meant Potter. Who else would have such a code name?
My exhaustion finally caught up with me as Dean's and his friend's voices drowned out the resuming sound of Ollivander's tortured cries. I laid my head down on my pillow, overjoyed when I found that I didn't feel the need to toss and turn. Eventually, their voices faded and I was asleep.
The next day, I was forced to bring food to Ollivander like normal, but every part of me trembled with trepidation. You-Know-Who might still be in there.
Wormtail let me into the cellar without a word and locked the barred door behind me.
"Mister Ollivander?" I called.
I received no response, and that scared me more than seeing the possible state he was in. I took careful steps forward, squinting in the low light.
After a few steps, my foot came into contact with something soft, and a quiet grunt answered.
I jumped slightly, and had to double my grip on the food tray to avoid spilling anything. Once I managed to steady myself, I glanced down and found a human silhouette huddled on the floor.
I bent down slowly and quietly placed the food tray on the floor. I drew my wand and lit the tip of it, dispelling the shadows around the figure. The man jumped and lifted his head to face me, groaning as he did so.
"Mister Ollivander?" I breathed, covering up my shock with a whisper.
He was covered in blood and bruises. His skin was littered with wounds that might not heal without magical help. "Draco?" he croaked.
"Yes," I muttered. "I-I've brought you some food."
"Thank you, Draco," he strained, his voice somehow sounding even weaker than before.
The older man grunted as he attempted to sit up, but it was clear that he was unable to do so alone. I straightened up and gently grabbed his arm with my free hand. I helped Ollivander raise himself up and leaned him onto a nearby pillar. Once I made sure that he was steady, I released his arm and retrieved the food tray from the floor. I placed the tray at his feet and stood back up.
I was unsure if I should leave him. He looked so weak. He needed a healer, but it's not like I knew where to get one without getting punished.
Ollivander reached for the small cup of water with a shaking hand. His hand trembled so much that he could barely hold it.
I glanced behind me and found that Wormtail was fixed rigidly at his post. He stared ahead, his back to the door. I swallowed deeply, silencing my nerves, and reached down and carefully taking hold of Ollivander's injured hand. I knelt beside him on the stone floor and helped him press the tin cup to his lips. He gulped down the water like it was the last he would ever drink. "Careful," I warned, slowly taking the cup away from the man. "You're going to choke yourself."
Ollivander panted slightly before uttering in a clearer voice, "Thank you, Draco."
The gate to the cellar clanged open, and I instantly stood, reciting Knox in my mind to dim my wand.
"What's taking so long, Malfoy?" Pettigrew demanded, poking his head through the gap in the door. "Your family is about to have lunch."
"Nothing," I hastily answered. "I was just heading out."
Pettigrew shoved the door open to allow me through. I forced myself to stare straight ahead as I left the cellar. I feared that if I glanced back at Ollivander, I would stay and help him.
My family and I ate lunch in silence. My sickly father sat at the head of the table, his food hardly touched with a half-drunk glass of wine. My mother and aunt Bellatrix sat near each other, tense and quiet.
The meal was soup and sandwiches, and I ate as silently as the rest of them, hardly tasting a bite.
"The Dark Lord wants to attack Potter again," Bellatrix said loudly, shattering the silence like glass. "Trouble is we don't know where he is, now."
"Like Snape said," my father added, "he's at the home of someone in the Order."
"Yes, but which home?" my aunt countered.
I tensed as I remembered the radio station I had found last night. "We have received report that Lightning has struck the Burrows." Wasn't that what they called Weasley's house?
"Are you alright, Draco?" Mother's voice asked.
I glanced up at her. "I'm fine. Why?"
"Your hand is shaking." She gestured to my right hand.
I looked down at my hand and found that it was trembling like it normally does.
Bellatrix eyed me curiously and leaned forward, pushing her food out of the way. "Do you know something, Draco?" she whispered threateningly.
"No," I answered firmly, straining to keep my voice steady. I withdrew my hand from the table and straightened my posture. "I have no idea where he is."
"How on Earth could he know where Potter is, sister?" my mother interrupted.
"Draco," my father gently said, sounding more like my father than he had in a long time. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "If you do know something, you need to tell us, now. Our family are the only ones in the house currently, so if you tell us now, we can resolve the matter privately. The Dark Lord and the other Death Eaters wouldn't need to know."
My shoulders automatically sagged at the softness in his voice. My lips parted and the answer almost slipped out, but I quickly shut them again.
The outcome of this War was more important than my relationship with my father. Especially since he had destroyed any remnant of our relationship the moment he started drinking.
"Do you know anything?" Bellatrix demanded, the threatening blood-lust in her eyes growing more intense by the second.
My muscles coiled even more, and I swallowed the answer down, meeting her gaze.
"What do you know?" she shouted, lunging at me from across the table.
She grabbed the collar of my shirt, dragged me out of my chair and threw me to the floor. My head hit the boards, making my ears ring.
"Bellatrix!" Mother yelled. A chair scraped the floor, dishes rattling on the table as she stood.
"Get out of here, Narcissa," my father said.
"Lucius…" Mother warned.
"I said, get out of here." My father came slowly entered my blurred field of vision. He leaned closer to Bellatrix and whispered, "If you're going to do this, take him to a more private room in case anyone shows up unannounced."
My aunt didn't say anything in answer, but she smirked and gazed down at me, her wild mane of hair covering her eyes.
Lucius walked away without giving me even a glance. Several steps stumbled as they retreated. My heart hammered against my chest. Maybe I should give her the answer now, and spare myself whatever my insane family member had planned.
Bellatrix backed away a few steps and trained her curved wand on me. She waved the instrument, something invisible wrapping itself around me like a snake. I struggled out of the hold, but it only got tighter. She lifted her wand and levitated me a few feet above the ground. She turned her back to me and marched from the room, making me float alongside her like Charity Burbage beside Voldemort.
Lestrange guided me with her wand, floating me into one of our libraries. She lowered her wand, and I fell hard onto the ground, the air instantly leaving my lungs. Whatever force that had wrapped around me, released its hold as the door slammed shut and clicked, locking it.
My aunt turned to me, an intense and frightening smirk on her lips. My chest tightened painfully, my stomach turning to knots as she approached me, her heels slapping against the stone floor.
"You are going to tell me Potter's location," she hissed, raising her wand and aiming it at me.
I scrambled away from her until my back pressed into an unyielding chair. I reached into my pocked and snatched up my own wand. I instantly aimed it at her, but she quickly flicked her wand, throwing mine out of reach.
I didn't see her wave her wand or hear her recite any curse. Her hungered eyes flashed wildly, and I was overwhelmed with pain, like I was dipped in acid. The world disappeared, and I was left alone, drifting in an inescapable world of pain.
"Where is he?" Bellatrix screeched. "Where is Potter?"
We have received report that Lightning has struck the Burrows.
I clamped my mouth shut, forcing myself to stop screaming. I couldn't tell her or anyone. They would not only kill Potter but anyone that stood in their way. The War would be instantly lost; but the pain was somehow pushing the answer steadily towards my mouth. The words created so much pressure in my throat that it was like I had swallowed a stone.
The barrage of torture abruptly ended, and I gasped for air, only to be choked off by a hand wrapped around my neck. I instinctively grabbed the slim hand and tried to pry it away. It was obvious that Bellatrix was the one choking me, but she reminded me too much of my father.
"You will tell me where he is," she harshly whispered into my ear.
The answer, once again, bubbled up into my mouth, but I shoved it back down.
A sharp pain embedded itself into my hand, forcing me to let go of Lestrange's writs. The hand wrapped around my throat grew impossibly tight, and the sharp pain in my hand gradually slid up my arm, coming dangerously close to slitting my wrist.
I started to slip away into unconsciousness, and I pleaded that the darkness would come sooner, so I wouldn't have to feel her hurt me.
"The Burrows?" she exclaimed excitedly, releasing my neck, but I hardly heard her in my gasping for breath. "Where are the Burrows?" she questioned.
I opened my eyes and found her staring down at me with that same, bloodthirsty smirk. What did she mean? I didn't say anything. I couldn't have.
Bellatrix tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips with mocking pity. "You did tell me, Draco. You might not remember, but that's how it usually goes. They make the determination to not say a word, but then the pain becomes a bit too much, and they black out and tell. Don't be ashamed. Happens to everyone!" she cooed. "Never heard of it happening to a Malfoy, though." She trailed off and was silent for a moment before leaning closer to me. "Where's the Burrows?" she whispered.
"I don't know," I croaked. The world started to fade, and I willingly went with it, glad to sleep without dreaming.
"Oh, no, you don't," Bellatrix hissed, the stinging pain in my arm returning.
I cried out and snapped my eyes open, straining to get away from the pain, but Lestrange had me pinned to the floor.
"Where. Is. The Burrows?" she repeated, but I had nothing else to give. Nothing else to make the pain end.
"I don't know," I said through clenched teeth.
"Yes, you do," she muttered harshly, the stinging becoming even worse as it traveled up my arm. "You have to know something more."
I hissed as the pain passed my elbow.
"Is it a location?" she questioned calmly. "Or someone's house?"
Lestrange gasped at something and exclaimed, "So it is someone's house? Whose?"
I made a point about keeping my mouth sealed. Maybe I told her that Potter was at the Burrows, but they didn't know where that was. Potter and everyone there would still live if I kept my mouth shut.
"Whose. House. Draco?" A small amount of panic in her voice this time.
The stinging pain in my arm abruptly left, the sharp tip of a cold blade pressed against my throat quickly replacing it.
When I remained silent, the blade cut into my neck slightly, my determination to keep the answer inside of myself faltering. If I told her, the most important people in this War would die, and if I didn't, she would slit my throat.
I closed my eyes, cementing my decision not to tell her. In all honesty, the thought of Bellatrix slitting my throat didn't make me as afraid as it should.
But one small flick of the blade renewed my fear enough to force the answer out of me.
"Weasley's house?" Bellatrix gasped. "Why, thank you, Draco. You have served your Dark Lord well."
The blade left my neck, and her heels clicked distantly.
"I'll let your parents know, and we will inform the Dark Lord together soon," she called from where I thought the door was.
After a moment, the door opened and feel closed, and I was left alone again. Why was I still alive? I was determined not to answer her, and I thought my silence would have been enough to make her kill me, but it didn't matter anymore. It was done. I had told her information that I wasn't even sure was true, and people were going to die.
I rested on the floor for who knows how long, giving myself a reprieve. I was unbearably exhausted and bleeding. I hadn't looked at the wound on my arm, so I didn't know how bad it was, but stung horribly.
Eventually, I managed to push myself up from the floor and lean against the nearby chair. I glanced down at my bleeding arm and found that the sleeve of my blazer and shirt were torn from the wrist up to the elbow, and there was a long, red gash extending from the palm of my hand , wrapping around the Dark Mark and up to the crook of my elbow. Something slid slowly down my neck, and I reached up to wipe it off. I inspected my hand and found blood smeared on the tips of my fingers.
She had come so close to killing me.
To me, there had to be some explanation as to how the Death Eaters found Harry at Ron's house. They didn't know for sure where Harry was headed, and in the book they put a shield up to protect the Burrows from detection. And Dean and Seamus did host a radio station out of Hogwarts. Hope that makes sense and that you guys liked it, and I'll see you soon for Chapter 26.