Enclosed

Chapter Fourteen: Potions

"Start from the beginning," Rose encouraged. "Tell me everything you remember about the morning you were kidnapped."

Hugo took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself to revisit his trauma. "It was like any other morning. I was on my way to work an-"

"Were you walking?" Rose interrupted. 

"Of course." Hugo laughed, "I walk to work every morning. You know that."

"I know you do. For the sake of this interview, tell me everything like I know nothing about you or your life. It'll help me keep all my facts straight."

"Whatever you say, boss," Hugo saluted, "I was walking to work that morning when I sensed that somebody was following me. I keep my wand in my boots, so I bent down to grab it and that's when they snuck up on me. There were six of them. One stunned me before I could get to my wand. Someone else knocked me out. Left one hell of a bump."

"Did you get a good look at their faces?"

Hugo shook his head, "It all happened so fast. They were wearing these masks to cover their faces and they didn't say a word."

"Can you describe the masks for me?"

"They were transfigured to match their skin tones. They blended into their face, but it was like a mirage. The mask would shimmer around their features. I remember looking at one of my attacker's faces before they knocked me out and thinking how strange it was I couldn't tell the color of their eyes."

"Did you ever hear about these masks?" Rose asked, Malfoy. 

The Aurors had hidden details from her before and she wouldn't be surprised if they tried to keep something like this from her too. 

"I promised no more secrets," Malfoy reminded her, "None of the extraction victims remember anything from their abductions. This is the first I'm hearing of this, I swear."

Rose believed him. It was astounding that Hugo even remembered this much. For months, she'd been begging for new information and now it was being thrown in her lap. If only it didn't have to be at the expense of Hugo's suffering.

She turned back to Hugo, "What happened after they knocked you out?"

Hugo closed his eyes as if mentally putting himself back with The Reformed. "It took me a while to wake up. I remember I was strapped to a table in a dark room and the whole place reeked like fish. It made my stomach roll. There were people that kept coming in and out of the room, but I wasn't coherent enough to take note of anything."

"When did you wake up fully?"

"I'm not sure. I think it was a few hours after I got there. When I completely came too, the room was empty. It was a small room with no windows and a steel door. Big enough for a table and a machine. There was a cauldron in the corner. It looked like it'd been sitting there for weeks. It was rusted and the potion inside it smelled almost worse than the fish." Hugo rolled his shoulders, scooting further up in the bed. "I don't know how long I was alone before someone came in. They were wearing one of those masks again. They didn't speak to me. Hardly even looked at me. I tried shouting at them, asking where I was and what they wanted with me. They never responded. They added some ingredients to this potion, stirred it a few times, and walked out."

"This may be a long shot, but do you remember what ingredients they added? Could you tell what potion they were making?"

"They blocked my view. I could only tell they were adding stuff because I heard the splash."

"Do you have any idea what kind of potion it was?"

A dark look took over Hugo's face, "It was the potion that took my magic."