I Do What I Want (Drarry)

Emotional Torture

           "What do we do now?" Harry wondered out loud.

           "We make him talk." Severus and Lucius said at the same time. The two of them shared a long look. They knew exactly what to do and how to handle a prisoner. They were deatheaters for a reason. It wasn't like they had tea parties or played dress up with The Dark Lord. Prisoner 101 was one of the first things that they were taught. They could torture someone in their sleep. Neither one of them was sure if that was a good thing or not.

            Severus could still remember the first time that he had been told that he would be evaluated on how well he could make a prisoner talk. He had been partnered with Lucius and he could tell that his friend didn't want to do it either but that was the life choices that they had made. Backing out would have been just as much of a death sentence as mouthing off to The Dark Lord.

            The prisoner had been a teenage boy of a prominent advocate on the light side. The son of a Ministry worker. The boy's pleading still haunted Severus to this day. If he had been a lesser man he would have broken down during the whole process, as it was he barely made it home before the tears had come tumbling down. The boy didn't know anything. That had been the point that The Dark Lord wanted to make. He wanted them to be numb from hurting people who either deserved it or people who were completely innocent. To The Dark Lord, anyone who he said was an enemy, ended up being an enemy. If he wanted someone's wife or brother or best friend to killed, then they did it.

            The actual 'interrogation' had been pointless. It had taken two well-meaning questions for the both of them to realize that the kid had no idea what his mother's political beliefs were or what she even did for the light side. There was one cardinal rule one it came to the 'interrogations', whether the prisoner talked or not, they were to be killed. The revulsion and horror that Severus could see in his friend's eyes were the same feelings that he himself felt. Severus knew that Lucius would crack if he was the one who had to kill the boy. Lucius had just had Draco and he knew that his friend wouldn't be able to actually do most of what was required of them. If Lucius cracked, then his friend would be killed. Severus would not allow Draco to grow up without a father. So Severus pushed aside every single ounce of horror and trepidation that he could and did what had to be done. For months Severus was sure that his hands were stained red with the child's blood. It didn't matter how many times he cleaned himself. It didn't matter how many times he bathed. The red was visible to him. No one else could see it, but to Severus it was there. He wasn't just a murderer, he was a child murderer who couldn't even have made the child's murder be merciful or painless. The boy had died a slow and agonizing death. That was the day that Severus knew he would spend an eternity in hell. That was the day that he knew he was damned and deserved every crappy thing that life could throw at him. That was the day that Severus began his trip down the road to self-hatred.

            If the act itself hadn't been bad enough, the torture had promoted him up in the ranks. At the time, he had been in one of the lower circles but The Dark Lord had been proud of his work. That alone made him sick to his stomach. The worst part of it all was that if he had to do it again, he would. Lucius was his only and his best friend. There was no way that he would lose him over something that Severus could do. There was no way that he could make a father kill a child. Even if he had refused there would have been other deatheaters to take his place. Nothing would have saved that child. Nothing. As strange as it was, that act had brought him and Lucius closer. Lucius never thanked him because that would be acknowledging that he couldn't have done it and a Malfoy never admits defeat but Severus could see the gratitude and shame in those grey eyes and it was enough for him.

            The Dark Lord hadn't been pleased with the little that Lucius had performed so he had not been promoted along with Severus. But Lucius was assigned directly under his command and Severus was grateful for that. No one else would have looked out for his friend otherwise. It was only a little while anyways until his friend's political status rose him up the ranks. Which meant that Lucius could delegate the tasks that he didn't want to do. Severus had sighed in relief during the promotion. He knew that he wouldn't have to worry about his friend much after that.