Secrets and Masks

50. This little piggy

TW; scenes of torture

14th January

As fucking usual, Blaise and Malfoy were waiting for Theo.

The cell they were in was small, the walls solid brick and covered in moss and overgrowth. It was very dark inside, there were no windows, the only light came from the two candles that were hanging from lanterns on the East and West walls. The bricks stunk of blood and piss and the ground was sticky, cumulating years of evidence of torture and brutality.

Amycus - although he'd struggled to begin with - was sat as still as the dead in his chair in the corner of the room, head lolling to the side and a single stream of blood dripping down the side of his face from the spell Malfoy had used to knock him unconscious. Thick, unbreakable ropes wrapped around his chest and stomach, binding him to the chair, and two chains coiled around his elbows and wrists, pinning his arms to either armrest.

Blaise had initially suggested that they get started, that Theo had bit the hand that'd fed him with his tardiness and that he didn't deserve to torture Amycus as a result. Blaise wanted to make quick work of their hostage, let Malfoy slice his head from his shoulders and be done with it so he could get back to his wife, but Malfoy had dug in his heels and insisted that they wait for Theo.

Although, the way Blaise was ranting, practically climbing off the fucking walls with anxiety was making Malfoy want to reconsider.

"There were nine flowers, Draco - nine of them!"

Malfoy kept his eyes closed and leaned his head back against the bricks behind him, focusing on the blissful taste of the cigarette in his mouth instead of Zabini's unusually panicked voice.

"And five of them flourished whilst the other four wilted and died - but they didn't wilt in the normal sense. It wasn't slow. They faded quickly, as instant as a light from a candle being blown out."

Malfoy opened his mouth just a crack and exhaled. His eyes slid open as he let the smoke escape, feeling its warmth as it rose past his cheeks and ascended to the ceiling and started to evaporate.

Funny, he'd never been envious of a smoke cloud before, never realised how blissfully appealing it was to just rise and rise, leave everything behind, float upwards through the air and just - vanish, without a fucking care in the world. Some days, he wished he could do just that. Some days, the thought of just fading into nothingness was bliss, absolute heaven personified. The thought of taking those he cared about and disappearing

He'd thought about it a lot in the early days of the war. Thought about grabbing his family - what was left of them - climbing on his dragon's back and disappearing into the clouds, never to be found again. After Daphne, he'd pushed that thought to the back of his mind, forgotten about that old fantasy and focused not on the life he wished he could've had, but on the people he refused to lose - under any fucking circumstance.

But recently, those old fantasies had started to plague him again.

In another life, maybe he could have. But not in this one. Never in this one, he had too many responsibilities. Too many promises had been made. Too many people were counting on him.

So, as he released another smoke-filled breath, he watched the grey steam rise and rise, and eventually, evaporate into nothing, just like his little fantasy. "That was no coincidence, the way they wilted quickly. It meant something. There's a reason that happened."

Poor Blaise had been insufferable all morning. Prattling on and obsessing over the dream he'd had from the moment he'd barged into Malfoy's bedroom in the early hours.

"Do you think it means they're going to die quickly? Instantly?!"

He'd had to listen to Blaise's musing over his morning coffee.