Title: The Unspeakable
Team: Caerphilly Catapults
Position: Chaser 1
Round: QL Daily Prophet Expelliarmus Competition
Prompt: Immobulus – [action] not being able to move (out of fear or literally)
Additional Prompts used: N/A
Word count: 2072
Betas: Dora, Sky
A/N warnings: Muggle torture, including children
Draco shut the door to his chambers, his whole body trembling, as he slid down the door to the floor, where he curled up with his knees to his chest and his arms wrapped around his legs. He put his head on his arms and let his tears flow silently. He didn't dare make a sound. The Death Eaters may have departed from Malfoy Manor after their meeting with the Dark Lord, but he was still here.
He had taken up residence in the State Chambers of the Manor, that in bygone days, before the Statute of Secrecy had hosted the most important guests from the Muggle Royal Court, the last being King Edward I, the only son of King Henry VIII. Now those royal chambers had been claimed by the Dark Lord. Draco thought there was a certain irony in this- given the distaste the Dark Lord had for any Muggles at all, regardless of their so-called rank. Not only that, their dungeon was currently host to Ollivander the wand maker, whom the Dark Lord had imprisoned there so he could regularly torture him for information. Any thoughts Draco had once had about how marvellous it would be to become a Death Eater and serve the Dark Lord in his quest to subjugate the Mudbloods and Muggles had been brutally shattered last year.
The task of killing their Headmaster Dumbledore had had a massive impact on Draco both physically and emotionally. He had flitted back and forth between delight at the honour and horror, as the reality of his situation had set in. In the end, he was unable to do what was asked of him and Snape had to do it, elevating him to the position of the Dark Lord's most faithful and trusted servant. While Draco's family, on the other hand, had suddenly found themselves at the bottom of the pecking order, if they weren't already there after the fiasco at the Ministry of Magic. His father was a broken man after his stint in Azkaban and their fall from grace, both in the general wizarding community and in the ranks among the Death Eaters. Still, Draco suspected that his father, fuelled no doubt by notions from his mad aunt Bellatrix, still harboured the smallest of hopes that their position amongst the Death Eaters could be restored somehow. His mother harboured no such illusions. Her only hope was that the family would survive this war. Not that she had ever been against the ideals of the Dark Lord and his followers but she no longer held as fast to such ideals. If the Dark Lord losing this war meant that her family would be free from tyranny then she would gladly accept that. Draco only cared about his family. He knew it sounded cold and detached but they were the only people in the world who actually cared about him. His so-called friends would give him up if they thought it would serve their purposes. He had, however, learned that he had no taste for torture or death. Despite only caring about his family, he did not want to be the one who inflicted it on other people. And this left him in the precarious situation that he was in now. Such things were going to be demanded of him or his family would suffer.
His return to his family home after Snape had killed Dumbledore had filled him with dread. Yes, he may have succeeded in getting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts which had enabled Dumbledore to be killed, but he hadn't been able to do it. The only reason he and his family were alive was because he had been the one to enable their entry to Hogwarts that night. The night of his return, Draco had sincerely wished he was no longer alive. Having the Cruciatus curse used on him had been the most painful experience of his life, but listening to his mother as it was used on her broke his heart. Draco sniffed hard, trying to stop the tears. He detested this weakness. There was a soft knock at his door.
"Draco?" came the soft, gentle call of his mother's voice. "Draco, love."
Draco got to his feet and hastily wiped the tears from his eyes. He didn't want his mother to worry about him any more than she already did.
"Yes, mother?" Draco said, opening the door to see his mother standing there. She looked pale and tired and Draco could see the fear in her eyes.
"The Dark Lord has requested your presence in the drawing room," she said and Draco noted the slight quiver in her voice.
Draco couldn't speak and merely nodded as he followed his mother downstairs. Draco took a deep breath and carefully shut down all his previous thoughts, employing the Occlumency his aunt Bellatrix had taught him, before entering the drawing room. He was surprised to find the Carrows there with the Dark Lord; he thought they had left with the rest of the Death Eaters.
"So glad you could join us, Draco," the Dark Lord said, although his voice was devoid of any emotion that would indicate someone was glad to see someone. "I have decided that we have grown complacent. We are not generating enough fear among the wizarding community. There are still those who would resist us and of late we have not been focusing on having some fun. The Carrows have graciously agreed to engage in a spot of Muggle torture to demonstrate our power and you Draco can have the honour of joining them. I'm sure you are anxious to redeem your family's standing and this is your chance. I would let Lucius join you alas well, but alas, he has no wand at the moment and he is, of course, supposed to be imprisoned in Azkaban. So, the chance of restoring your family's honour and proving you are not all as worthless and inept as you seem to be is up to you once more. Do you accept? Or do I need to give your family another demonstration of my anger?"
Draco swallowed. He had no desire for another demonstration of the Dark Lord's displeasure, but nor did he think he would prove any better at torture than he had been at killing Dumbledore. Maybe it would be easier if they were some nameless people he didn't know. He hoped so because otherwise he and his family would suffer the consequences. Once more he found himself accepting a task that he knew was abhorrent to him.
The Carrow siblings were sickeningly gleeful as they made their way towards a Muggle house. Alecto pointed her wand at the door and blasted it open. Draco could hear screaming and saw a man come running out of his living room.
"Immobulus," Alecto screamed and the man froze mid-run. Alecto was cackling gleefully as she skipped past him into the living room. Amycus shoved Draco ahead of him and Draco followed Alecto into the living room, somewhat reluctantly. Inside the living room, Draco froze in horror. Cowering in the corner of the room was a mother trying to shield her two young children who were crying hysterically. The mother's eyes widened in horror as she watched Amycus come in, floating her frozen husband behind him.
"Immobulus, Immobulus, Immobulus," Alecto sing-songed, slashing her wand three times at the mother and their two children. The children couldn't have been older than five or six.
"Daddy first," Amycus crowed, pointing his wand at the man, who while immobilised could still scream. "Crucio."
It was awful. The children were screaming and crying, the mother was shouting to her husband who was screaming in agony. Then Alecto hit the mother with the Cruciatus curse. Her blood-curdling screams reminded Draco of his mother when the Dark Lord had tortured them for his failure. Draco stood there rooted to the spot, unable to move, his eyes wide open in horror as he watched the Carrows, who were cackling gleefully. Three times Draco watched the Carrows hit the parents with the Cruciatus curse before the mother and father finally passed out and still Draco had not moved. He might as well have been hit with an Immobulus charm himself.
"Come, come Draco," Alecto crooned. "It's your turn. Don't be shy. Look, you can have the little one. You can't fail at this too. Think of your own family."
Draco raised his own wand and pointed it at the youngest child, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't even think the spell. He was good at non-verbal spells but he couldn't bring himself to inflict such unspeakable pain upon such a small child. He knew, all too clearly, what the pain was like and he knew it was the fate that awaited him and his mother and father when he got home if he failed to do it; but he just couldn't.
Draco felt like he was watching the scene through someone else's eyes. He was unable to make his limbs or his voice do anything. He was vaguely aware of the Carrows taunting him about how useless and pathetic he was, and how much a disgrace his family were as wizards but he still couldn't move. He was still rooted to the spot in horror. He came back into his body with a jolt as he heard the anguished pain-filled cries of the children as the Carrows hit them with the Cruciatus curse. The cries of their children woke their parents up too. And they were pleading and begging the Carrows to leave their children alone and take them instead. But Draco's limbs at last felt like they could move again and he knew what he had to do. He had to protect his family. More than anything else, he had to do what he needed to do to protect them.
He raised his wand once again and slashed it twice through the air. There were two blinding flashes of red light and the Carrows fell to the floor, stunned. Draco moved quickly. He knew he didn't have much time. He wiped the Carrows' memories of him not being able to torture the children and implanted a fake memory of himself torturing the children in their place before they fled and Apparated back near Malfoy Manor when the sound of the police sirens where heard. A few more slashes of his wand and the family were released, Draco wanted to wipe their memories but the story would never reach the Daily Prophet that way, and it surely would if the memories he implanted in the Carrows had occurred. They all must be in agony, but Draco could do nothing to alleviate that. He wasn't sure of what to do. The parents had moved in front of their children to protect them. Knowing that he didn't have much time left before the Carrows woke up he had to act quickly. Draco could indeed hear sirens approaching. A neighbour must have heard something and contacted some of the please-men. He spoke quickly to them.
"I won't harm you," he said. "I've done what I can for you. You tell the please-men, and anyone else who turns up to ask you about it, that three people broke into your house and they tortured you all."
"But you didn't," the father said, still standing in front of his family to shield them.
"I'm trying to protect my family too," Draco said urgently. "You just tell them I did and I was the one who tortured your children and that we all fled together when we heard your please-men approaching."
"Why would you want me to implicate you in something you never did."
"To protect my family. They'll kill my family if they think I wasn't involved. Feel free to say you never saw what I looked like, if you're uncomfortable lying about something I didn't do, but I stood there for way too long letting it happen before I stopped them. I'm just as complicit in this and I'm sorry."
The sirens were very close now and Draco could see the blue flashing lights outside. The Carrows were beginning to stir and the family shot them a frightened look. Draco grabbed hold of each of them and turned on the spot, vanishing the three of them with a crack. Leaving four very bewildered looking muggles behind him.