Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Gringotts, the Leaky Cauldron or anything else in JKR's wonderful world. Except for the little pebble just in front of the front doors of Hogwarts. I put that there. I might own that. Maybe. But probably not.
A/N: Please be advised this is the chapter I warned about torture and murder. While not overly graphic, it does have some scenes that some people may feel they don't wish to read. Double scene breaks will show beginning and ending.
Draco Isn't As Good As He Thinks He Is
Draco Malfoy stepped out of the floo in his family's home with his wand up and ready to use. Only minutes before a raven patronus appeared before him and announced that his mother was in danger at home. He had recognized neither the patronus nor the voice, but he was taking no chances.
Neither of the Malfoy elves answered his calls, lending credence to the warning he'd received. As he stepped out into the hallway, he heard a sound off to his left, towards the main lounge. Silencing his feet, he moved in that direction. As he approached the door he heard quiet murmurs of a woman's voice. Peeking around the edge of the door, the first thing he saw was his mother, sitting on the floor beside a chair, resting on one hip with both hands on the floor in front of her…totally nude. Around her throat was a collar, a leash leading to the person sitting in the chair. Subjecting his mother to this great indignity sat the last person he expected to see sitting in his home as if she owned it, Potter's mudblood bitch, Hermione Granger. He didn't know where she'd been these past few months, nor any of the other members of Potter's Merlin bedamned family, what she'd been up to or how she got through the wards, but he was going to stop her, then use her to find the answers to those questions and a great many others.
Seeing what she was wearing, perhaps he'd use her for a few other things too. Put her in her place and throw it in Potter's face as well, wherever the bastard was.
He strode into the room as he fired off stunner, petrification, and binding hexes at her. He saw his mother frantically shaking her head and mouthing words he couldn't hear but paid no attention to her. Much as he hated to admit it, Granger was just too good to take any chances by being distracted, even by his mother.
As if to prove him right, she casually swatted all three hexes aside with her wand. She smiled at him, a smile without the slightest hint of sarcasm or anything other than true pleasure. "Welcome home, Draco. We wondered when you'd get here."
He stood standing, slack jawed. The only people he'd ever heard of who could do that more than twice in a row were the Dark Lord, and perhaps Dumbledore. He was certain Granger had never been able to.
He brought his wand up again. He was closer now; she wouldn't have time to do it again. "This is the end for you, Mudblood!" He snarled at her as she continued smiling at him.
What felt like a charging erumpet smashed into his back between his shoulders, painfully driving the air from his lungs and sending him flying forward. He crashed limply to the floor almost at Granger's feet, face first. He felt and heard crunching as he flattened his nose on the floor but couldn't draw enough breath to cry out in pain as he lay stunned, all air driven from his lungs.
"I swear to Merlin, Malfoy." Came a hated, disdainful, voice from behind him. "Did you actually believe she was stupid enough to come here by herself? Like you are by not even checking behind the door for an enemy as you walk into the room that was so obviously a trap? I mean, really? And didn't your mother teach you any manners? It's very rude to insult guests in your home."
"Fu…fuck…you, Green…grass." He forced out of his barely functioning lungs.
"Not even in my worst nightmares, Ferret." Came a reply from a woman he'd vowed to get revenge on: Daphne Greengrass, now Black. She'd had the temerity to deny him his due, as befitted his higher station, for years. She'd even hexed him, repeatedly. The bitch thought she was of a higher station, better than him, smarter, more cunning, ambitious.
He'd forgiven her slights however, even offered her the opportunity to spend the rest of her life in luxury and high status by his side as his wife by offering a betrothal contract.
She'd answered him in a cold, hard, deadly voice, that if he signed such a contract, he'd be a eunuch by nightfall. The only reason it would take that long was because she wanted him to think about how it would feel and when and how she would do it.
It wasn't fear of her threat that made him withdraw the contract he told himself, but the idea that she wasn't worthy of such high honor after all.
And then she'd gone and married that damned half-blood Potter, the ungrateful slag!
He saw his wand laying on the carpet where he'd dropped it when he landed, reached for it, gripped the handle in his fingers…
…a boot heel came down on his hand, pressing down hard. He squealed in pain as he felt bones snapping in his fingers and the back of his hand.
"I don't think so, Ferret." Came that voice again. A slender hand came down, grasped the wand, and pulled it from his fingers. "You might hurt yourself if I let you keep this."
The weight left his hand, and he cradled it into his chest. "You stupid bint! I'm going to OOOF!" He curled up around his stomach where the toe of that same boot had just buried itself. He almost made a disgusting display of losing his lunch.
"You shouldn't kick people in the stomach, Daphne." He heard the damned mudblood say, wondering why she had objected to his treatment. She'd certainly never been averse to subjecting him to such things before.
"I am not kicking him in the crotch, Hermione. I like these boots and if I did that, I'd have to burn them because I'd never get the stench and filth off." She sniffed.
I'm going to make her pay for this! He seethed to himself.
"No, I understand that." Granger replied. "However, I was thinking the kneecap. If you hit it sideways and dislocate it, I understand it's quite painful, plus, they can't just walk away." She said in a casual tone. "The pain lasts longer, as well."
I'm going to make her pay too! He swore under his breath as her idea sent a chill down his spine. The thought Greengrass might make use of that idea made it worse.
He keened in a high pitch, back arching as the boot connected again, into his lower back this time.
"Of course, kidney shots are quite debilitating and painful as well." Came some unwanted advice from the damn bookworm as he squirmed in agony, barely able to move, and starting to black out from lack of oxygen he couldn't breathe in because his lungs didn't seem to be working. "You know, there was a movie once, and in it this woman tied a log between a man's ankles and then smashed them against it with a sledgehammer."
Draco quailed at those words. Shut up, you fucking bitch! Greengrass was just crazy enough to do such a thing. He tried to push himself up to a sitting position.
"That's too much like work."
"Just trying to help."
"Come on, Malfoy, you wanker!" Sounded a disgruntled and disappointed Greengrass. "At least put up a fight! Merlin." She murmured in disgust as she kicked his arm out from beneath him as he tried to rise from the floor.
Again, the boot connected, this time with his tailbone, with a pain that shot up his spine to the base of his skull that again drove his breath from his body and the strength from his limbs. He moaned loudly, gasping as he tried to inhale, limp, and in excruciating pain as he once again fell on his face and abused nose.
"He's getting blood all over the carpet Daphne." Granger commented lightly, as if announcing it was time for tea, from her seat on the divan.
"Damn it." He heard from above him. "This isn't nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. The little git isn't even fighting back."
"He's probably in shock or too much pain to be able to fight back, Daph. Or both." Noted Granger in a conversational tone of voice. "That initial bludgeoner, the kick to the kidneys and tailbone, those were incapacitating hits. Crushing his hand certainly didn't do anything to make it feel better, either."
Listen to her, you stupid bitch. He thought. Another couple of minutes of just laying here and I'll be able to move and when I do, that'll be the end of…
"Stupef…"
((((((OOOOO))))))
Hermione leaned back into the divan as she watched Daphne floating the unconscious Draco out of the room. She was fairly certain the other woman was going to kill him, but when she'd inquired as to how she intended to do it, Daphne had merely said, "You don't want the nightmares."
Unlike Daphne, she'd grown up in the modern world, where abuse and assault, casual violence, were not only frowned upon, but prosecuted. It just wasn't done, in a legal sense. People didn't build up an immunity to seeing it and being able to pass it off as if it was just another day.
Daphne, however, had grown up in a world a hundred and fifty years removed from anything remotely modern. It was a world where disciplining a child could be anything from simple spankings to vicious beatings with straps, whips or canes. In magical households the use of painful curses was not uncommon. The authorities would think nothing of it, would help if asked, because that was the way it was in this world.
Blood feuds, while not common, were still practiced, duels still allowed.
In the non-magical world, a man beating his wife would see him in jail and horrify onlookers. In the magical, 'she probably deserved it' would be the thinking.
Daphne hadn't blinked at some of the things she'd seen just at Hogwarts, never mind after graduation, which had made Hermione sick.
They were working to change that attitude, but it was slow and would take years.
Daphne was imaginative, creative, and vindictive. She wouldn't get sick or have nightmares; knew many curses and she was absolutely furious with Draco.
She hadn't asked again.
She sighed, then looked down at the naked woman beside her. Narcissa Malfoy had grown up in that world as well, which would explain the downcast expression she had as she hung her head, her hair falling over the front of her shoulders. She could imagine what Daphne was going to do to her son.
With a wave of her hand, she dispelled the sticking and silencing charms on the older woman. Feeling the sudden freedom of her hands, Narcissa looked up at her before sitting up from the leaning position she'd been forced to maintain. Rubbing her hands together while still looking down, she spoke. "She's going to kill Draco, isn't she?"
"I don't know for sure," she replied, without actually lying, "but after what he did, do you doubt she will?"
The older woman heaved a despondent sigh. "He's my son." She looked up at her captor. "Is there nothing I can do to get her to spare him?"
"He's also a sadistic, murdering, rapist with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and superiority that far exceeds his actual abilities or achievements." Hermione answered. "He chose his path, thinking he could get away with it the way he always did." She shook her head. "Not this time. She called blood feud against him, and after what he did, I can't disagree with her."
"He idolizes his father and Lucius…" she hesitated a moment, "…Lucius taught him everything he knows."
"Maybe you should have taught him as well."
Narcissa looked up sharply at her for just a moment before dropping her gaze. "Lucius wouldn't let…he stopped…I couldn't…" Her sigh was like a deflating balloon as she seemed to collapse in on herself. "Yes."
Hermione thought she knew what the other woman was trying to say. "He hurt you?"
"He always got his way." The dejected woman replied, not denying the assertion.
Hermione sighed as well. More of that casual violence so prevalent in the magical world. "Would you like to get back at him for what he's done?"
"The marriage contract won't let me." The now despondent woman proclaimed. "I must be subservient to him at all times."
Hermione's narrowed and she frowned at that statement, but then she thought for a moment, then the corner of her mouth curled up in an evil little smile. "Well, we'll have to work on that, so why don't we get you ready for when he gets home? Because I think there's going to be a big change in your life."
Lady Narcissa Malfoy, sitting from her position on the floor, gave her a confused look.
((((((OOOOO))))))
((((((OOOOO))))))
Draco's Fate
He opened his eyes to see a bare wooden wall in front of him.
No, a ceiling, he realized. He was lying on his back. On either side of him, and at his head, wood was stacked to the ceiling, except in the wall at his head where there was a window up high. From the smell, the wood was old and dry.
Although he couldn't raise his head very far, it was enough to let him see the top of a doorway, but one with no door visible. So, it was some kind of shed for the storage of firewood. Had that bitch Greengrass taken him to a muggle place?
From his limited view he could tell he had no shirt on, and since he could wriggle his toes and not feel any shoes or socks, he figured he'd probably been stripped and stuck to the floor for some reason. Stupid bitch! When I get out of this, she's going to pay! He flexed his hand that she had trod on. At least she seemed to have healed that and his nose, as well as the areas she had kicked so hard.
The room darkened a bit as someone stepped into the doorway. "Oh good! You're awake!"
"Greengrass, you blood-traitor slag!" he snarled. "What the hell do you think you're doing? And if you've hurt my mother, I'll see you in Azkaban!"
"Your mother is fine; Hermione wasn't going to do a thing to her. As for you, it's not what I'm doing you should be worried about, but what I've done." The woman stated as she stepped up to where he could see her.
He looked up into her smirking face. "When my father hears what you've done…"
She rolled her eyes. "Really Draco?" she exclaimed. "I thought Harry had cured you of that back at school."
He sneered up at her. "He's the head of the Wizengamot, you stupid bint! I can't wait to see that bastard Potter's face when his whore wife is dragged kicking and screaming into the chamber in front of everyone to be punished for kidnapping his heir and assaulting and terrorizing his wife!" He eyed her leather clad body. "Maybe I'll ask him to give you to me as a slave for the pain and suffering you've caused me."
She laughed at him. She actually laughed! "Oh, Draco! Draco! Draco! You silly boy! You haven't even begun to experience the pain and suffering I'm about to give you!" She smiled brightly as she crouched down beside him, the glistening smoothness of her tights covered legs appearing through the slits in her skirt. "And do you think we did this without a plan? If he's not dead already, then Lucius is a muggle by now!"
He stared at her in shock. It couldn't be true, but the way she'd said it with such joyous confidence, could it be? "You're lying!" He meant to sound strong, but even he could hear the quaver of fear in his voice.
Her smile only got wider. "You wish, Ferret." She told him. "While Hermione and I went to your home, Harry paid a little visit to the 'Mot. He was going to cast a spell that would strip all the dark wizards in the room of their magic…if he didn't kill them first." She leaned closer. "Personally, I hope Harry stripped him." She stated vindictively. Her smile turned sinister. "Can you imagine what it would feel like to the haughty Lucius Malfoy to realize he was no better than the muggles he's preyed on all these years? That he no longer could do magic, and never would again? Either way, he's not here and he doesn't know where you are, nor does he have any way to find you." Her smile went from sinister to predatory. "You're mine, Malfoy." She snarled down at him. "I own your arse, and you're going to pay for everything you've ever done to me or my family."
A chill ran down his spine at her look. Whatever she had in mind, he knew he wasn't going to like it. "What are you going to do?" He hated the fear he could hear in his voice, but he knew with a certainty that Daphne Greengrass, the Lady Black, could be a vindictive bitch. She didn't hold grudges: she waited till the time was right, then slowly roasted them on a spit over an open fire.
She held up a wand…his wand. "I'm going to lay this by the door. You can get it when you get free."
Was she going to let him get free? Really? "What's the catch?" he asked suspiciously. There had to be a catch. There was no way she was just going to let him get free and get his wand to be able to fight her. She had to know she couldn't possibly defeat him in a fair fight.
What she held up next had once been a knife, but had been beaten, the edge rolled over in places, the blade bent. Cracks along the edge made it look like it had jagged teeth in places. The tip had been bent back. The whole thing looked both dangerous and useless. She dropped it on his belly. "That's your aunt's dark knife, the one she used to carve Hermione's arm. Harry tried to beat it to where it was so dull it could never hurt anyone again. Its magic made it too powerful for that to work, however. Be careful with it." She smirked at him. "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself. You can use it to get yourself free."
None of that made any sense. Something was very wrong. She'd brought him here, just to let him free himself and walk away? That couldn't be right. She knew what he'd done, she wasn't going to just let him walk away from that. "What are you doing, Greengrass?" he demanded.
She smirked as she stood back up, then gave a flick of her finger and he felt the sticking charm holding him to the floor vanish. That little act worried him. She'd never been able to do silent, wandless casting before. Just what had that ritual at Stonehenge done besides curing Potter? And why had she released him from the sticking charm? What was to keep him from just walking out now?
"Be careful sitting up." She said as she backed towards the door, still smirking. "I wouldn't want you damaging the goods." She stopped and thought for a moment, then smiled. "On second thought, yes, I would. I think I'd enjoy your screams so very much."
Now he was beginning to be truly worried. Daphne Greengrass did not forgive and forget. She did not go to the trouble of capturing someone just to let them go. He slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position.
As he'd surmised, he was nude, not a stitch of clothing, except for a cloth that was now lying across his lap. He leered up at his captor. "Have fun looking at what Pansy had for all those years, Greengrass?" It was his turn to smirk. "Jealous?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, Malfoy! She was either desperate to get the Malfoy money or she didn't know what she was missing. Or planned on taking as many lovers as she could." Her smirk suddenly turned into a sinister smile as her eyes narrowed in a look that chilled his soul. Her next words caused even more of a deepening chill. "To be quite truthful, I did it by hand and I loved every single whack. I had to wash my hands in caustic soap afterwards to get them clean, but it was worth it."
His eyes bulged out and his mouth dropped open at the implications. Heart racing, he stared down at the cloth in his lap, before yanking it away…and screamed.
She hadn't hit him, she'd been hitting the two large round, flat pieces of metal at either end of his stretched-out penis, one just behind the head, the other back at the base, between his bollocks, separating them. A tentative, gentle tug confirmed that, yes, they were large nails holding him to the floor.
"Really, Draco." Her mocking voice came from the doorway. "From the way you bragged in school, I expected to be able to get at least three, possibly four, spikes in. But three inches? Pffft! I get more than that before Harry's halfway in."
He didn't even look at her as he stared at his pierced parts in disbelief. "How could you do this to me?" he wailed in a stunned voice.
Her eyes narrowed; her voice filled with suppressed rage. "How could I do it, Draco? Your father and his friends killed my father and tried to kill my children, husband, and wife." She hissed at him. "You let your friends through our wards, so they could rape my mother to death. You raped, tortured, and killed my sister, a woman you professed to love; who loved you; were courting! How could I do it? It's poetic justice, Ferret. The punishment fits the crime." Her voice lowered. It almost sounded amused. "You have three choices, you bastard: you can stand up and rip it off. Exceedingly painful, but I'm sure they can reattach it as good as new at St. Mungo's. You can cut it off with that knife, which is my personal choice. Even more painful and you'll feel it for the rest of your life, and it will never truly heal…or reproduce, if St. Mungo's can even reattach it. Or you can use that knife to dig the spikes out of the wood, go to St. Mungo's, get them removed, get healed up and have more baby ferrets whenever you want. The least painful way to go, but you'd better be careful of all those sharp little edges. Even a nick will leave you feeling it for a very long time."
She gave him a slight smile. "No matter what you choose, if you walk, or even crawl, out this door, you're free and clear with me."
"Free and clear?" He snarled at her. "You think we'll be free and clear after what you've done to me? I'm going to kill you, bitch! You think I raped and tortured your sister? That was nothing compared to what I'm going to do to you. I'll keep you alive for months, until you're nothing but a broken slag begging me to kill you." He raged. "Then I'll do it to you all over again. Then again, alive until you're nothing but a mindless piece of meat that doesn't respond to anything. And when you're no fun anymore, I'll throw you to a bunch of swine. I'll watch and laugh as they eat you alive until there's nothing left of you but pig shite smeared on the floor of their sty, trampled in the mud of their pen."
He knew there was no way in hell he was going to do either of the first two methods to free himself, but if he was careful, he knew he could dig out the spikes. The knife was damaged but still had sharp edges. He could chisel out pieces of the wooden floor, he just needed to be careful not to cut himself. He was not going to have cursed cuts on his….
"Agghhh!"
He screamed in agony as the numbing charm keeping him from feeling the pain caused by the nails impaling his member vanished. "You bitch!" he screeched as he panted for breath from the pain, trying not to move and make it worse.
"Aww! What's wrong, Malfoy? Does that hurt?" She sneered down at him. "Consider that motivation, you arse."
"Remember what I said, you damned blood traitor whore!" he growled up at her, while panting against the pain.
Once again, she laughed. "Instead of thinking about me, Ferret, you should be thinking about your time limit."
"Time limit? You didn't say anything about a time limit!" he said, as he picked up the knife and examined it, looking for the best place to start cutting with it, trying not to move and increase the pain in his groin.
"That time limit." She smirked.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her raise her hand and point. Out of the tip of her finger a small orange ball of fire shot from it. In wide-eyed horror he watched as it flashed across the length of the shed and splashed across the ends of several of the pieces of firewood. The dry wood there quickly caught fire.
"NO!" he cried, in horrifying realization of what she intended for him. "No, you can't!"
"I just did Draco." She remarked casually with an evil smile. "You better get moving." She glanced around the interior of the shed. "The wood looks like it's going to burn really well. Nice and hot." She looked back down at him and grinned. "It'll keep you warm in this fall air, since you insist on parading around starkers. Isn't that nice of me?"
He whipped his head back around to her, accidentally dragging the blade across the top of his thigh. He didn't even notice. "Please, Greengrass, you can't do this!" He looked down between his legs and tried to dig into the wood beside the front nail. He knew she would do it, just as he'd thought earlier. "Please! I'll do anything you want; I'll give you a vow, money, anything, just please, don't leave me like this!" He cried out as the knife slipped and cut into the stretched skin beside it. He winced at the pain as he frantically began trying to dig into the wood again.
"Oh, I know you're going to do exactly what I want, Draco." He shuddered at the tone of her voice, cold, predatory, filled with anticipation. "You're going to die, in pain, helpless, just like they did, and I'm going to watch and listen as you do." Her tone suddenly changed to something lighter. "But I'm a woman of my word. If you manage to get out this door, you'll have no problems with me. So, you better hurry, Ferret." She paused for a moment them smiled. "It never hurts to beg, however." She said over her shoulder with a little laugh as she left him to the flames.
"Please! Please, don't do this to me!" He whimpered in fear as he scraped frantically at the floor, drops of blood beginning to stain it. Another cut added to it as he looked up to see her walking away, towards a large tree under which sat a small table and chair.
He cried out in pain as he heard a pop behind him, and a burning piece of pitch landed on his bare back. He cut the inside of his thigh as he tried to jerk away from it.
"Greengrass! Please!" He wailed in terror and desperation as his back began to heat up from the flames and tears began to cloud his vision.
((((((OOOOO))))))
Daphne smiled in triumph as she walked away, listening to Malfoy screaming for her. She reached the chair under the boughs of the huge tree, in its cool shade, and sat down beside the table, which bore a bowl of strawberries, another with whipped cream, a flute of champagne and the rest of the bottle.
A small house elf stood by the chair. "Did Tammy do well, Miss Daphne?"
Daphne smiled at the small being. "You did very well, Tammy. Thank you."
Tammy was the young offspring of the two Greengrass Elves who had been killed when Draco and his friends had raped and killed her family. She'd been ordered by her sister Astoria to hide and stay out of sight and do nothing on that fatal day, to report to Daphne later what had occurred and by whom. Now, instead of popping away, she looked up at the much taller woman. "Miss Daphne?" she asked in a tentative voice. "May Tammy stay and watch?"
Daphne looked down at the elf in surprise, then at the shed where she could see Draco's hands continuing to work in a frantic manner between his legs even as he screamed terrified pleas to her. "Are you sure little one? It's not going to be very nice or pretty."
The elf nodded solemnly. "Yes, Miss Daphne, Tammy is sure. Miss Astor tell Tammy bad people should be punished like bad things they do. Bad master make Tammy dam and Tammy sire dead, then help other bad masters hurt and make Mam Ana dead. He hurt Miss Astor a lot before making her dead, too. He laughed at her while he hurt her, Miss Daphne. He should be hurt and made dead for that. Tammy watch him make Miss Astor dead, want to watch him made dead, too."
Daphne looked into her eyes before looking back to the shed. The fire was making its way down the back pile of wood, as well as spreading to the sides. Smoke was exiting out through the window in the back wall but hadn't yet reached a density to allow it to get low enough to come out the door. Draco was silent now, grimly working away between his legs. Tammy had been hurt by him as much as she had. "Of course, you can stay and watch, Tammy."
"Thank you, Miss Daphne." The little elf replied, then turned to face the burning shed before crouching down and wrapping her arms around her knees to watch the tableau before her.
Daphne sat down and picked a strawberry from the bowl, dipped it into the whipped cream and brought it to her mouth. She bit it in two as she looked into the shed, where Malfoy was still working frantically with the knife, trying to dig out the nails in the floor, even as he whipped his head around to look at the fast-moving flames.
Sipping from the glass, she smiled grimly. The fool was too vain to take the simplest and fastest method out of his predicament. Yes, it would be agonizing to simply stand up and rip free of the two spikes, but as she'd told him, St. Mungo's could replace that with magic.
And really, would it hurt more to rip his tackle off than it would to be roasted alive? Probably not, but in his case, 'Vanity, thy name is Draco'. The very idea of emasculating himself would be foreign to him.
She smiled even more when he began to cry, beg and plead for mercy again. She found she enjoyed the sound of it even as she ignored his entreaties. Not going to happen, Ferret. She thought to herself with a touch of satisfaction as she bit into another fruit. You destroyed my family; I'm going to end yours!
She sipped at her drink and finished her piece of fruit as he began to scream, in pain this time most likely. The flames hadn't reached him yet, but the heat must be getting close to unbearable. In his panicked mode of thought, she didn't think he'd considered what he could do if he did just rip himself free. His wand was right there, he could get it and stop the pain and bleeding before going to St. Mungo's. But she knew he wouldn't do that. His vanity was too great and besides, he'd never been that good at thinking under pressure anyway.
She had to imagine, as hard as he was working with the knife, he had to be cutting and nicking himself with it. She shook her head in disbelief; he'd rather curse himself than do the smart, if agonizing, thing. Idiot.
With a wave of her hand, she cast a listening charm on the door frame, then took another strawberry as she leaned back to listen to his whimpers, cries, and screams.
The flames had begun to eat their way through the roof, little tongues of flame appearing as smoke vented though small holes. They were also working their way towards the front of the building, as well as down the faces of the walls of stacked wood.
Draco's screams had a terrified, pained component to them now.
She smiled as she took a sip from her glass.
His hair shriveled against his scalp from the heat before she'd finished her third berry.
She'd started her seventh strawberry when Draco finally decided to do something. The flames had reached the floor in an inferno on either side of him as he maneuvered his legs around to be able to get his knees on the floor. She knew he must be in agony from the heat as he thrust upward, screamed shrilly, and fell back, not having used enough force to tear free.
She grinned as she watched him, enjoying the spectacle, and finished her glass.
She listened to his sobs and screams with a sick enjoyment as he thrust upwards twice more, finally freeing himself before collapsing to the floor in exhaustion and pain. She could only imagine the pain he must have felt as he was being roasted alive. The walls of logs were far enough away, the flames didn't directly affect him, but he was close enough to the heat it could cook flesh.
She smiled in a self-satisfied manner. He deserved every second of it.
His voice was going hoarse from screaming as he dragged himself towards the door…just as the roof at the back collapsed down onto the stacked wood beneath it, causing an avalanche that fell into the center of the floor…and on top of Draco. His screaming stopped instantly.
You're avenged, Mum, Stori. She thought sorrowfully, thinking of her loved ones. A hard, painful death for the little bastard.
A movement at her side had her looking down at Tammy, who raised her arms upward towards her. Without hesitation she reached down and picked up the young elf, setting her sideways in her lap. "Thank you, Miss Daphne." She said as she laid her head against Daphne's chest.
"You're welcome, little one." She replied. You as well Buckle and Bitty.
She sat and watched the fire as the elf slept on her lap, a cooling breeze helping to keep her comfortable from the heat of the fire she could feel from where she sat.
She'd long finished her refreshments before the bonfire had died down to where she could approach comfortably and vanish the remains. She had Tammy remove the table and chair and then the two of them popped away.
((((((OOOOO))))))
((((((OOOOO))))))