Posted: 11/24/15
Beta: the artful scribbler
Interrogation
5th June, 1998
The Malfoys lived in the highest recesses of their palatial home. When Abraxas and Rosamunde were alive they had their rooms in the west wing, while Lucius, Narcissa and Draco occupied the east. This had granted them some much needed privacy and space while they shared their ancestral manor. When both generations were still alive they broke their nightly fast in their separate wings, came together each evening to sup downstairs in the formal dining room, and the noontime dinner could generally go either way, depending on a variety of factors. Since the Dark Lord had commandeered the lowest level of their home, the Malfoys had stopped using the first floor for any of the daily activities that could be classified as living. They now took all of their meals on the third floor in the ample sitting room that adjoined Lucius and Narcissa's bedroom with their son's.
It was a lovely, lofty apartment with a high ceiling, expansive windows, and a soft chromatic harmony. Lucius had asked his wife to fit it up with any decorations she pleased when they returned from their honeymoon, and she had certainly done justice to her privileged upbringing by incorporating a classic refinement fused with modern elegance. Undertaking it with cheerful relish, Cissa had scoured every reputable store from London to Paris, fingering the textiles and matching up fabric swatches with paint samples. Her mother-in-law had generously allowed her to select some articles from the other, less used areas of the manor that she thought might add an old-world touch. Her effort had yielded an airy, pleasant space for the three remaining Malfoys to lounge in a glaucous blend of pearl grays, cool blues and some hints of pastel green. She had taken almost three years to complete the project, refusing to sacrifice her aesthetic taste in lieu of haste.
This sort of deliberate consideration, Lucius was to learn throughout twenty-one years of matrimony to her, was a defining characteristic of Cissa; it was one of her greatest and most cunning features. She was guarded, pensive, ever diplomatic, and sly. She could be charming in an understated manner, but she purposefully came across as a bit vacant. Being underestimated was, in her mind, one of the cleverest ways of attaining what you wanted; and this covert method had certainly played its crucial part in catching her husband's eye, when he was young and stupid and had yet to realize what an asset a crafty wife could be. So while many of her acquaintances and more than a few of her family members thought that she was rather simple, Lucius, to his delight and occasionally to his vexation, had learned over time that this was hardly the case.
When Draco had joined them for breakfast that morning his mother and father wished him a happy birthday and Cissa had supplemented her felicitations with a kiss on his cheek. He accepted their well wishes with a stolid demeanor and a terse comment that expressed his pleasure of the presents he had received from them, and then he went to the buffet to fill his plate with some eggs and toast.
As Lucius and Narcissa had been trapped in their manor for so many weeks and hadn't any access to the shops, Cissa had spent the last few weeks rummaging through every room in the house, gathering up second-hand things that she could reasonably bestow on him in good conscience. It was awful. She had bought a few items for him in the months after Christmas, as she was an avid spender with or without an occasion, but she had planned to procure the bulk of it once he had finished his last term at Hogwarts and he could accompany her to Diagon Alley to pick out what he liked. They had some treasured pieces of jewelry that they had always meant to give him when he reached adulthood, in keeping with their familial traditions. Lucius had gifted him with a beautiful set of cufflinks that his father had given him on his own eighteenth birthday. But, after she had accumulated and wrapped each piece, it only came out to about seventeen presents. Pitiful. The preceding day, before the mudblood had showed up, she was able to hold in every tear, save one, as she had examined the pathetic pile of parcels on her bed. What would Lucius think if he saw her carrying on this way? She removed from her pocket a silk handkerchief with a soft, lacy border and dabbed away the evidence of her weakness.
She would have liked to attribute her son's abrupt manner to the substantial lack of presents at the foot of his bed when he woke, but at this point he couldn't have cared less. He hardly ever smiled these days or expressed enthusiasm with anything. He was sad, she knew. The suffering she experienced at her inability to lavish him with expensive goods was simply a compounding of her yearning ache that the time for being able pull him into her lap and let him cry to her over his troubles was past. He was only seated across the table from her and he seemed completely out of reach.
Bellatrix now joined Lucius and Narcissa in the sitting room, first poking her head inside to make sure It wasn't with them.
"Where is It?" she asked as she came in and sat beside her sister.
"Locked up in the spare room," Cissa informed her.
"Which one?"
"The purple one," she answered, looking up from a spell book and examining Bella coolly.
Bella had her brown untidy curls pinned up in a lopsided bun at the back of her head, and while her deep brown robes displayed vestiges of prosperity, their outdated couture made Narcissa cringe. Azkaban had depleted the freshness of Bella's skin, leaving it dried out with faint wrinkles webbing out from around her large eyes and creating a pair of deep parentheses on either side of her thin mouth. Her teeth had partially decayed as well, giving some of them a blackish border while others were completely rotted away to gaping stumps. And despite all of Narcissa's initial attempts to fill in the hollows with nourishing meals, she was still emaciated. However, of all the physical evidence of her sister's incarceration, it was the internal changes that detracted most from her beauty. She was restless, forgetful, fierce, unreasonable, self-absorbed, ineffectual in every way that didn't pertain directly to her role as a Death Eater, and completely obsessed with the Dark Lord. In short, wizard's prison had shorn away everything that Cissa had loved about her sister in their youth.
"Sorry, Cissy," Bella said softly, shrugging. She pretended to examine her jagged fingernails while she went on, "I should have stayed and helped. I know the Dark Lord wouldn't be pleased if He knew. You won't tell Him, will you?"
"I doubt he'll ask," she replied, as though this was all she could offer. He could almost always tell when he was being lied to after all.
"Did It give you any cheek?" she asked.
"No."
"Did He tell you what time He would come back?" Bella inquired casually.
"I told what you he said yesterday," she reminded Bella. It was an asinine question. Other than the weekly meetings that he held almost every Sunday evening at eight, he rarely told anyone where he would be, or when. Narcissa had noticed long ago how he seemed to enjoy keeping everybody guessing, and having them drop everything at a moment's notice to come when he beckoned.
Martha, a stout witch who worked for the Malfoys, came in, levitating a large tray laden with cold meats, fruits, and cheeses and set it in the center of the mahogany table. On her way out of the room she passed Rumpa, a small pregnant house-elf, who was on her way in with a pitcher of juice and a big flowery tea pot. This house-elf technically belonged to Druella Black, Narcissa and Bellatrix's mother, but she kindly allowed Narcissa to occasionally borrow her since they had lost Dobby. When Rumpa's offspring was old enough to be separated from her, Druella planned on giving it to her youngest daughter. Narcissa hoped the house-elf's progeny was female. Everyone wanted female house-elves, as they were the ones who continued the line of enchanted slavery when they bred. This was why, in general, female house-elves were treated less roughly than males, even more so when they were pregnant. If too many males were born, then a family's source of free labor would die out and then they had to wait to inherit another one; or sometimes, if one pure-blood family had a surplus, they might consent to sell one. House-elves were relatively expensive, especially the females of a procreant age.
When a family's elves had all died off, then they would have to resort to paying servants to cook and clean for them. Martha was a witch with a large pack of children to feed, who lived in a nearby village. Not many witches were available as servants as they exacted high wages, so only the richest people could afford them. Lucius had tried to explain to Narcissa the differences between magical and Muggle servants.
"Since witches can use magic to acquire basic necessities like food and warmth, they don't need the money the way Muggles do, so they can ask higher wages," Lucius had told her matter-of-factly.
"But that doesn't make sense," she had insisted. "If they can use magic to obtain what they need then shouldn't we pay them less?"
"No, because if we don't give them better compensation for their work then they'll just quit, whereas Muggles need the money that they earn to buy everything, so they'll agree to work for less money. From what I hear, they're more submissive like house-elves. They certainly don't give any cheek, as is the tendency of these low-class witches."
She still couldn't understand his reasoning, no matter how he tried to explain it to her. Lucius, like every Malfoy patriarch it seemed, understood all things monetary, whether it was magical or Muggle. It amazed her sometimes how much he knew about the Muggle world, based on the knowledge he acquired in his pecuniary pursuits.
Narcissa almost wished they could hire one of these docile creatures to do the cooking and cleaning, Muggle or not. True, they were closer to animals than people, but for that matter so were house-elves. Martha was so annoying. She was a pure-blood witch whose family had squandered all of their wealth a few generations back - which was inexcusable in and of itself - but it also gave her the most meretricious sense of self-importance. She was constantly speaking to them when she should have remained silent. Lucius and Narcissa had discussed dismissing her numerous times in the five years that Martha had worked for them, and had even taken out advertisements in the Daily Prophet more than once, endeavoring to secure a suitable replacement, but it had never worked out. So the garrulous witch stayed.
As Rumpa and Martha went about setting out and serving their lunch the Malfoys and Bella gathered around the table and tucked in.
Bellatrix made a little sandwich with some crackers, cheese, and sausage and after she'd eaten about half of it, said, "Dolphy isn't feeling well."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Cissa replied. "Is it serious?"
Bella shrugged and said, "I'm pretty sure it's the shivers."
The shivers was the magical equivalent to the Muggles' flu, and it was highly potion resistant. Most wizards and witches were afflicted with it at least once a winter.
"How unusual for this time of year," Lucius contributed. "Has Dolphy gone to St. Mungo's to see a healer?"
Martha, who could never hold her tongue for longer than a few minutes, chimed in with, "The shivers' goin' round, what I 'ear."
Pretending as though Martha wasn't there, Bellatrix said, "I don't think so. No point, really, is there? It will run its course whether you go to a healer or not. Perhaps he should though. Yesterday he wanted to know if I'd go home and take care of him."
"What did you say?" Narcissa asked.
"I can't go home, as you know perfectly well. The Dark Lord wishes me to remain here," she stated.
"Yes, but if you asked his leave to go home and take care of your husband, I'm sure he'd allow it," Lucius pointed out.
"You know I can't do that, Lucius!" she huffed, her chocolate eyes widening with her adamancy. "The Dark Lord needs me much more than Dolphy does. Besides, he has Lorky to care for him." Lorky was Roldophus's house-elf.
"I'm so glad the weather's warming up, aren't you Lucius?" Cissa asked, giving her husband a meaningful look.
"Yes," he answered brusquely, understanding what his wife wanted, but the muscles of his long jaw reflexively tightening up with all of his suppressed words.
"Are you going to go outside and ride your broomstick after dinner, dear?" Narcissa asked Draco.
He just shrugged his narrow shoulders and said, "Maybe."
They were silent a while, chewing, drinking and thinking.
After Martha left the room Bella asked the general company, "What do you think the Dark Lord's going to do with It?"
"I wish he'd kill It," Lucius said.
"Praise Medea," Bella seconded.
"I never imagined something that unnatural could exist," Narcissa offered.
"It's so stupid," Bella said. "I simply can not believe It ever had the ability to help Dumbledore. It can barely string two words together."
"I agree," Lucius said. "House-elves have a better command of English than It does."
Each of them laughed a bit at the accuracy of his observation.
"What are all of those metal things on Its teeth?" Narcissa asked.
"I think I know," Draco said. They all looked at him.
"Some of the mudbloods at Hogwarts had that," he explained. "I think it's called bracers, and it's meant to straighten teeth."
"What's the point of having straight teeth if you have to wear that revolting contraption over them? I'd rather my teeth were crooked than wear anything that atrocious," she replied.
"No, Mother, I think it's only meant to be worn for a while and then, once it comes off, the teeth are straight," Draco clarified.
"What? Straight for how long?" Narcissa asked sceptically.
"Forever, I guess," he said, shrugging again.
"That doesn't make sense," Bella disagreed. "Without a spell, how could it keep them straight once it has come off?"
Draco looked around the table and saw that they were all looking at him expectantly.
"I don't know," he said, seeming a bit offended that they should expect him to be an expert on such a vulgar topic. "Who cares anyway?" He put a large piece of chicken into his mouth as though to remind them all what they were meant to be doing.
He was right of course. It was to do with mudbloods, so it wasn't an appropriate thing to discuss at the dinner table anyway.
But after a while Bella brought It up again. "The Dark Lord mentioned some plans for It. I wonder what He meant by that."
"Obviously he's thinking of having It spy for him," Lucius said.
"Yes, but I was wondering on whom," she said as she brought her teacup to her thin pale lips.
"On anybody he thinks might harbor oppositional plans or ideas against him, probably," Lucius conjectured with complete authority and ease. "People in the ministry perhaps, or even those known to be connected with the Order." He wiped his mouth on his napkin and continued, "In a few weeks the Wizangamot are voting to overturn the Muggle Protection Act, so he may use It to find out how many are planning to oppose it's removal."
"I suppose," she conceded. "It's so creepy. I can't believe It admitted It watched us in the loo."
"Don't use slang, please, Bella," Cissa gently implored.
"Sorry. But does it really matter whether I call it the lavatory or the loo? It was still watching."
"Perhaps," said Draco, invoking a low pitch to indicate suspense, "It's watching us right now." And he comically cast his eyes around the room.
They laughed a little, but then they all glanced suspiciously around and shivered a bit.
"I hope he punishes the voyeuristic miscreant," Lucius stated simply.
"I hope he lets me do it," Bella added, her large brown eyes ablaze with sadistic longing.
When the meal was finished Narcissa piled high a plate of food to take to It.
Perhaps in an effort to cancel her negligence of the previous evening, Bellatrix accompanied Narcissa to the spare room to leave the meal.
When they walked in It was lying on the bed fully dressed, staring at the canopy, humming quietly. It sat up after a moment, awkwardly climbed down from the high bed, and, with a slight hobble, came towards the table where they'd set the food and a cup of tepid tea. It didn't seem to want to look directly at them.
Its right eye and cheek were swollen and had turned a nasty shade of dark blue. The dress that Narcissa had given It to wear was black velvet, a bit too loose on Its petite frame, and the bottom was hanging so low that It had to use a hand to hold the gown up while It walked, to prevent Itself tripping on the hem. It was barefoot, as they had thrown out Its scuffed boots along with all the other tattered clothes It had been wearing when It arrived yesterday, and the ugly piece of Its fake limb was visible as It walked toward them.
"Can I's be comin' out after I's ated?" It asked.
"No," Bella said, speaking quiet roughly to It. "You can come out when the Dark Lord arrives."
"Please," It implored. "I's not be touchin' nuffink."
"I said no, you ugly little cretin!" Bella practically screamed.
The anger seemed to force It back a bit and the next thing Narcissa knew, one of Its feet was caught on a rug and it had toppled over onto Its backside.
Bella threw back her head and released a loud howl of mirth. Narcissa joined her sister in a milder, more dignified fashion. They left the room and locked the door, leaving It to scramble off the floor as best as It could.
~x~}{~x~
Thoughts of the child had kept the Dark Lord up well into the night. At last he had uncovered the mystery of Dumbledore's secret, and the revelations of the previous day had, at turns, elated him when he thought of brandishing her as his own weapon, and then left him weak with accumulated fury. He longed to point his wand at her and torture her until she lost control of every bodily fluid; then he imagined wrapping his long white hands around her scrawny, swarthy neck and squeezing until her engorged lips turned blue. Picturing this manual vulgarity made him feel dirty and he washed his hands every time it permeated him. This was such a beloved aspect of magic to him; he could accomplish everything with a flick of the wrist: cleanly, efficiently and dispassionately. That such an exception to his magic could exist tortured him.
The various ways in which he could use her powers spread before him in a vast expanse of delectability. Annihilating his enemies, tracking down defectors, without having to do any actual tracking himself, he could even have her watch his servants, to test their loyalties, if he liked. But the most critical factor of it all was Potter. He was entertaining high hopes that this most irritating piece of unfinished business could at last be resolved.
He had meditated on these possibilities and come up with a course of action that would simultaneously resolve two of his problems.
It was inescapable that he would have to punish her. His servants needed to see her debased at his command, abject both in pain and position. Something mild would probably be all that was safe to attempt. She had said that in order to spy she needed to be comfortable and calm, so if she was too badly damaged it could impair her functionality. Frustrating as it was, the Dark Lord knew that he had to check his punitive impulses if he was going utilize her gift.
This act of inflicting agony and humility would also allow him to discover whether she was able to find Potter for him. He couldn't trust her to tell him the truth about it as she had gone to Dumbledore for help, and most unfortunately he couldn't, as he would have done any other time, simply peruse her thoughts at his leisure. Trying to penetrate her mind had left his own a bit sore. So questioning her while she was being hurt, sobbing and begging for mercy, would be the best way to deduce her real capabilities in regards to that evasive boy.
Her means of living was another irksome problem. Dumbledore had simply left her to live in the care of a Muggle without having to worry about her running away. Dumbledore, out of the despicable softness of his heart, wouldn't have hurt the child even if she had decided to quit working for him, however, by now, she would know that the Dark Lord had a separate modus operandi altogether. He really thought the safest, most prudent solution would be to have her stay with the Malfoys for the time being, besides, mudblood or no, he wouldn't have any servant of his living with Muggles or even living like them. It would be an appropriate way to continue tormenting the Malfoys for their disobedience and utter idiocy in allowing a house-elf to overcome them. It was also convenient as he was always slipping in and out of the manor in the course of conducting his daily business. This arrangement would simultaneously satisfy his need to keep her close and his desire to keep the Malfoys in a necessary state of suspended subjugation.
He arrived at the manor around four and he was so eager to set eyes on her again he went upstairs to fetch her himself. It was clear from their countenance the Malfoys and Bellatrix were astonished to see him coming into their sitting room. He rarely came up here.
"How is she?" he asked.
"Fine, my Lord," Bellatrix answered eagerly. "Cissy and I just went and checked on It a little while ago, and It's just sitting around waiting for You."
"Excellent," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Take me to her."
They led him to the room, he used his wand to unlock the door, and they followed him inside.
She was on the bed. When she saw him enter the room she had to make another graceless climb down, and, her small hands clutching at the lengthy skirt of her black gown, she took a few steps to meet him. She released her skirt, crossed her arms, and stationed her eyes on a painting behind him.
He looked her over. "Did you have a good rest?'
She nodded.
"Good, good," he intoned softly. "Have you had enough to eat?"
She nodded again.
"Come along downstairs then," he told her. "I have potions for you to drink and questions for you to answer."
He had Nagini with him today. She wound lazy circles around the gathered Death Eaters, her soft sounds like so many sibilant portents of death. The Dark Lord put Narcissa and Draco at a table to take notes of the various poisons he had selected for her to drink and he put Severus in charge of dispensing them to her. At first, he hadn't wanted to dilute the deadly concoctions, but after she started retching and even vomiting - she'd quietly murmured, "tastes like dog shit" while wiping her mouth on her velvet sleeve - Severus had convinced him that really, they wouldn't be able to accurately estimate their effects if she kept heaving them up. So he allowed Severus to add small drops of each one to a small glass of water that he kept refilling. Then they were interrupted every twenty minutes or so while she went to relieve herself. It was a slow process.
He had to ask her dozens of questions to erect a precise image of how it was that she spied, how she 'slipped away', as she called it. Despite her limited vocabulary and almost nonexistent syntax he was relentless. It seemed that she spied by lying down on a soft comfortable surface, drew deep breaths until she was completely relaxed, then her mind, or her spirit, some cognitive piece of her was able to leave her body. She could stand outside of herself, she told him, and watch herself lying on the bed. He wanted to know how she got around in this way, did she fly? She could glide through the air, she said, over landscapes high as a bird if she wished, but that wasn't how she usually went as it took so long. She told him that normally she would just visualize who she wanted to find and then she would be instantaneously with them, wherever they were.
"You can find anybody you like?" he had asked.
She shook her head. "I's gots to be seein' 'em first."
"So how did you ever see me?"
"I's seein' some of yer Deaf Eaters, see. Then I's be followin' 'em to you."
How had she seen his Death Eaters? Dumbledore had taken her to Diagon Alley and pointed out people he knew to be connected with the Dark Lord. He then wanted to know how she had found Dumbledore. She told him that when she had slipped away one morning, just for the fun of it apparently, she had followed a man down an alley of London who "were dressed all funny" and this man had led her into the Ministry of Magic. From then on, she said, she often returned to watch the witches and wizards, to admire the Fountain of Brotherhood, and to fly around with the paper memos.
She told him that she had seen Dumbledore the first time when he had gone to see Toffee.
"Who?"
"You knows. That man 'oo were minister a while back. Mr. Toffee."
"You mean Fudge?" he asked wearily. The Death Eaters couldn't help tittering; each of them were unwillingly enraptured by her ability, but loathe to own it.
She said she liked the looks of Dumbledore. He seemed so kind, so she had followed him to Hogwarts.
"So you liked going to Hogwarts then? You wondered through the common rooms and the classrooms watching the students while they ate and studied."
She shook her head. "I's only goin' to see Dumbledore talkin' to 'is pictures."
"His pictures?"
"Yeah. In 'is office. 'E be talkin' to 'is pictures."
"I believe, my lord," Severus interjected, "she's talking about the portraits of the previous headmasters and mistresses that are traditionally hung in the Headmaster's office."
"Is that what you mean?"
She nodded.
This, it seemed, was how she had convinced Dumbledore that she had the power to spy when she went looking for him. She had repeated to him pieces of a conversation she had overheard him having with his portraits.
"Why did you go to Dumbledore in the first place? You said yesterday that you were in a bad home. Tell me what was so bad about it."
She immediately began to fidget, crossing and uncrossing her arms and kicking the leg of her chair.
"They's was mean," she said quietly.
"In what way were they mean to you?"
She lowered her head a bit and softly told him that they had turned her into their slave. Apparently she was made to do all the cleaning and cooking, and had to constantly mind their children as well.
"There was a time," the Dark Lord began, "two summers ago. It was right after the Ministry officials caught my Death Eaters trying to bring me the orb from the Hall of Prophecies. For about three months every thing was going smoothly; all of my plans were being carried out with barely any interference from Dumbledore, his Order, or the ministry. Why? Had you stopped spying?"
She hesitated a moment and then slowly nodded.
"I want you to tell me why you stopped spying."
Jane reached up and began to gently pull the hair on the back of her head. She started kicking the leg of her chair, gently, rhythmically. He could see she didn't want to tell him.
"I-," she started and then paused. "I were too sad, see."
"Why?" he asked her. "Why were you so sad?"
She mumbled something.
"What did you say?" he pressed her.
"I's sayin' that my friend be dyin'." She crossed her arms and he watched as a tear rolled down her cheek.
"Who? Who was your friend?"
She sniffed loudly and then swiped her sleeve under her nose.
"It be Sirius."
Bellatrix whooped with self-satisfied jubilation. Everyone present knew why this news had made her so pleased, and a few of them laughed aloud at her happiness. She had inadvertently given her master a respite by killing off that blood-traitor cousin of hers.
"How many other members of the Order did you meet?"
She shrugged and wiped another tear off of her face. "Jus' 'im."
He asked her if she lived at headquarters and she told him no, Dumbledore hadn't wanted her to see anybody other than himself and Sirius. Which the Dark Lord thought made complete sense. She said that she had lived close to Grimmauld Place and that Sirius would often apparate directly to her, acting as a go-between for her and Dumbledore.
Who had she lived with? Another old woman like Mrs. Carrington, a widow and a Muggle named Mrs. Churchstreet, but only for about seven months. Mrs. Churchstreet had gone to America, and then she'd lived with yet another elderly woman by the name of Ms. O'Bryan for eight months. This Irish person was currently residing, she believed, in Australia. The Dark Lord noticed a pattern. He could clearly see that Dumbledore hadn't wanted Jane to live with anybody for too long; he hadn't wanted her to establish close emotional ties with anybody that he, the Dark Lord, could then use to hurt or control her. It had been a wise move on Dumbledore's part.
Next he asked for more particulars about her spying. Could she stay out of her body for as long as she liked? No, she said, it varied in length. If she grew too hungry, or tired, or even if she needed to use the lavatory, her body it seemed would bring her back to herself. She also told him that being touched by any living thing, even an animal, would bring her instantly back.
Extracting all of this information from her, and then sifting through her near incomprehensible language in order to extrapolate the meaning, had taken him nearly two hours. Severus had since finished feeding her all the poisons and the Dark Lord had begun to cast an assortment of spells at her while he concluded his interrogation. Once he decided he was finished questioning her, he took her and his Death Eaters off guard when two long thin ropes flew from the tip of his wand and wrapped themselves tightly around her wrists and ankles.
With the ease and skill of a conductor flourishing his baton, the Dark Lord soon had Jane turned around in her chair and tied to it with her bottom in the air. He flipped her skirt up and, with a couple of strategically placed cuts, her knickers fell in pieces to the floor. It was a consolation to him that even if he couldn't kill or torture her with magic, not directly, he still had the ability to manipulate her with it.
Like a flock of vultures circling a cadaverous feast, the assembled servants had risen from their seats with obscene excitement, and began to pace around the mudblood with a focused energy. They immediately grew heady with the prospect of enticing violence and were soon laughing, mocking her pleas for mercy, and passing around bottles of the Malfoys' finest wines. The Dark Lord watched them with pleasure, enjoying their enjoyment.
With a few exceptions, the Dark Lord knew that their love of carnage bound his servants to him with a more intimate embrace than the snake and skull with which he had branded them. They all parroted his lofty ideals of blood purity with a sycophantic dedication but, honestly, it was the love of power that marked them. Deeply.
He knew their vices and fetishes like the back of Nagini. All of their secret urges and desires were laid transparent before him through their eyes. Therefore he wasn't a bit surprised when a few of his servants - ones with more paedophilic passions - made to the rear of his new spy to steal dissolute glances at the rose-colored entrance of her sex. (Untried? he wondered. Food for thought.) He let them look at the forbidden fruit, saw the dream in their eyes of stuffing her mouth with a cloth, pulling a pillowcase over her head, and enjoying the rest of her flimsy unripe body. He had made it clear to them all that she wasn't to be touched, so he let them fantasize for a few more moments. After all, when he was through giving them a show, these servants would most likely just take themselves to a park or to a playground to pluck up whichever adolescent animal caught their fancy and take it home to enjoy it in whatever way they pleased. The Dark Lord knew that many of them were beginning to do this on a regular basis.
He was creating a world for them in which they could play. He was carving out some breathing space where they could safely indulge their whims of people-shaped slaves with plenty of extra room for the bodies to pile up. Without the interference of the Ministry, or that pesky Dumbledore, the Muggles of England would soon be crawling on hands and knees, wearing shackles and collars, in sweet submission like the dogs that they were. If his servants had tastes that ran toward bestiality so be it, as long as there were no more abominable half-bloods being born. The Dark Lord was planning to implement some solid laws to abolish these distasteful practices for good within the next few months.
The Dark Lord had put in quite a bit of consideration about how he was going to inflict this pain and degradation on his spy. Other than deciding how to punish her, he had to think about who would be the safest person to distribute it. He knew perfectly well that most of them would be willing to dispatch this assignment with alacrity, especially Bellatrix. But the Dark Lord was beginning to see that this was what made her, and many of them, so unsuitable for the job.
He was beginning to see that this was what made Bellatrix unsuitable for many jobs. Her dedication was commendable, but her zeal was her undoing. He knew why this was the case, of course, as it was so obvious. It was because she was a woman. Women had too many feelings and that's why they were meant to stay home and take of their children. When she first came to his attention, he was impressed by the wide knowledge and strength of her curses, the swiftness of her reflexes, and her articulate expression of her beliefs. However, it was growing clear to him that her emotional excesses for their cause were clouding her judgment.
Macnair was the next person he had considered, because he was one of the rare wizards who dealt in pain and death without a wand. Ultimately, the Dark Lord had decided that he was too brutal; he was too practiced at breaking flesh and bone, so the Dark Lord had reservations about whether or not he could be trusted to restrain himself to simply beating on it.
He had momentarily thought about asking Severus to do it. Unlike Bellatrix, Macnair, and most of the other Death Eaters, Severus wasn't fond of violence for the sake of it. He could dole it out when necessary, but he wasn't possessed of a torrid need to administer it for pleasure. In this respect he was a good candidate for the job, but the Dark Lord had eventually checked him off the potential list as well. He thought that Severus might consider this task beneath him, and as he was currently residing high in the Dark Lord's good graces, he had decided to grant him a reprieve.
Finally, after all this deliberation, he had decided on:
"Nott."
Theodore Nott stepped out of the assembly and took his place next to his master.
Nott was of a steady disposition, and like Severus, he seemed to consider the deliverance of pain to be a duty, rather than a predilection.
The Dark Lord used his wand to sever and summon a long twine of soft cord which dangled from the drapes that framed the high windows of the parlor. Then he transfigured it from silk to leather. Severus, who had been standing close by, now came forward and addressed him.
"My Lord, I wonder if this leather strap is suitable for the punishment you have in mind."
The Dark Lord took Severus by the arm, steered him toward a corner, and with a lowered voice said, "I don't wish to cause irreversible harm to her, Severus. Do you think this whip will suffice?"
"I think, my lord, it will exceed your expectations. The leather will most certainly break her skin."
"I know she can't be healed with magic, but even some cuts will heal themselves. Eventually."
"No, my lord," he began explaining, "this would score her skin too deeply and that could result in a dangerous, potentially fatal, amount of blood loss. Even if she does survive the event, the wounds will fester. Then, if you wish her to live, she'll have to be taken to a hospital. A Muggle hospital." The Dark Lord's lip curled at this unappetizing prospect. "I think this might be what you have in mind." And pulling out his own wand, Severus transformed the leather whip into a stout wooden board with a thick handle.
Severus smacked the board across the palm of his hand, examining it, and said, "My father used to beat me with one of these. He called it his 'magical quiet-maker.'" Then he looked at the Dark Lord and added, "It was the only attempt I ever saw that brute make at irony." Severus refrained from telling the Dark Lord that his father's board was riddled with holes, which reduced air resistance, and made for a swifter and much more painful impact.
The Dark Lord, having been privy to something like this before, knew that Severus was sometimes prone to these mawkish musings. Weren't they all?
"This should be safe to hit her with for…thirty minutes?"
Severus frowned a little. "Better make it twenty, just to be on the safe side."
The Dark Lord nodded and said, "It's good to know there are a few people I can always rely on to tell me the truth, Severus."
"It's an honor, my lord," Severus answered, knowing this compliment was the closest the Dark Lord could ever come to saying, "Thank you."
The Dark Lord handed the hefty paddle to Nott and told him to wait for his signal to begin.
He walked around the chair until he was facing his tragic little spy. Her face was incandescent with her distress and fruitless struggles, while her eyes and nose ran profusely. He noticed her glasses had slipped off her face and lay on the floor. They had suffered a crack from the landing. She was softly sobbing and whispering, "Please, please, please. I's sorry, please, I's so sorry. Please don't hurts me, please." It was heartening to hear her begging him for leniency. He summoned her glasses from the floor, repaired them, and decided to pocket them for the time being. After all, they would just fall off again if he were to put them back on her.
"Now then," the room fell silent, "I'm going to ask you something, my hairy little mudblood. If the answer is yes, I'll make sure the pain stops. However, keep in mind that if you do say yes, you had better be able to deliver."
He took a few steps back and asked, "Have you ever seen Harry Potter?"
He looked toward Nott and nodded, signaling him to start spanking.