The Dawn of Darkness || T. Riddle

Chapter 43: Cells and Secrets

Chapter 43: Cells and Secrets

Dazed and confused, Alden Viridian slowly came to consciousness. The first thing to properly jolt him to his senses was the foul stench of the room around him and the feracious thirst that clutched at his tongue with gripping dryness.

He gagged, opening his eyes and blinking several times to curb the horrid sensation of them being glued shut. But each time he opened them, his surroundings were pitch black. They'd placed something over his head. Some sort of sack.

He fought back the urge to announce to the darkness that it was a shame to cover something so handsome. He wouldn't have been able to anyway, his mouth was too dry and it hurt to even think.

He was lying on a hard, stone floor with some sort of thin material draped over his body. He attempted to sit up, but his body ached at the slightest motion.

Were his captors even aware that they'd taken him and not Abraxas Malfoy by now? Would whoever so charmingly shoved a sack over his head even have noticed in all the commotion of detaining a prisoner?

Despite his groggy mind and a gradually fading headache, Alden just about recalled casting a switching spell on himself and Abraxas back at the Manor. At the last possible moment, he had placed himself between Cassandra's goons, Vali and Grier, before they could even discern that a switch had taken place.

He had no memory after that - save for waking up in this very spot with a damp-smelling sack over his head, dusty fingertips from the cell floor and the taste of flobberworm mucus and nettle essence on his tongue.

A sleeping draught. His memory immediately pieced the potion ingredients together like a mosaic, running them over like a visual textbook in his mind. A terrible effort at the draught, he thought. Ghastly work.

"Far too much wormwood," he muttered to himself, his voice gravelly and low after not speaking for what must have been hours. He smacked his lips together to better taste the flavours. "Gah. Not nearly enough lavender. Does Cassandra have an eight-year-old working for her?"

Alden struggled out of the sweat-soaked blanket loosely embracing him and pushed himself off the ground with his hands and knees.

He was vaguely aware of the sound of people groaning around him and the faint clanging of metal.

"He's awake," someone mumbled a few feet away from him, followed by the shuffling sound of feet moving closer.

"Get Vali and Grier and inform General Dauricus at once," a second voice ordered.

"On it," the first man replied, his hasty footsteps leading out of what Alden supposed was a lengthy prison.

"Nice to know I have an audience eagerly awaiting me," Alden said into the darkness.

"Shut up, Malfoy," a rough voice replied, his gait undoubtedly stepping closer to Alden's cell. "You're going to wish you were never born into that wretched family once they get a hold of you."

"Actually, I sometimes rather wish I was," Alden replied, and he took the other man's silence as confusion when he received no response.

Eventually, after humming the tune to 99 Bottles of Wiggenweld Potion from start to end about three times - despite the last remaining guard threatening to make him mute if he carried on - an upper door clanged open and a chorus of descending footsteps followed.

Those present were strangely silent as they all stopped before Alden's cell and, through the bars, a wooden ladle was forced to his lips under the sack covering his face.