Chapter 2
The cold of the cellar hits Draco first. It's dank and oppressive, and folds into his skin like a curtain of fog. There are lamps mounted on the wall, but they lend little warmth to the room, casting only wavering shadows and throwing glints of gold on the stone floor.
Draco tightens his hold on Granger's arm and, at Greyback's prodding, jerks her down the stairs, toward the centre of the room where the shackles are. He picks up the iron cuffs, rusted with blood, and snaps them shut around her wrists.
She doesn't fight him, but her voice drags across his mind like a serrated edge.
So you'll torture me now? I suppose I should be afraid, given how recklessly effective you were at incapacitating our classmates last year.
He tenses at that. Her mention of sixth year brings forth images he'd rather bury deep, deep within himself. The memories rise like a tide against his will, rushing out from the neat little compartments he's built within his mind. Dumbledore's corpse swims in his vision, shrunken yet graceful, his arms forever splayed against the empty night sky. He sees Katie Bell suspended in the air, just a faraway speck of red in the blinding whiteness, and Hogwarts burning under the ghostly glow of the Dark Mark.
All the horrors Draco has buried, they all come apart at Granger's offhand remark. He drops her arm from his grip and meets her rebellious stare, acutely aware of Greyback's appraising gaze on his back.
—How else do you see this playing out? The Dark Lord has asked me to do something. I'd be a fool to refuse. Clever as you think you are, Granger, even you can't escape from this prison, at least not alive, and certainly not unbroken.
Out loud he says: "Get comfortable, Mudblood. This is how you'll be spending most of your time."
Greyback growls his approval. He stalks over to Granger, his eyes bright and manic, and runs a craggy fingernail along her cheekbone, dragging it down to her jaw and further into her neck, near her pulse point. “So soft,” he croons, and curls his fingers around her throat, tightening them ever so slightly.
She tries to twist away, but he draws her nearer and laughs, tucking aside a loose strand of her hair. "Such a wild, pretty thing. I think I'll have my fun with you before tearing into your flesh."
Granger sends Draco a panicked look as Greyback leans in to smell her. He whispers in her ear, his other hand wrapped possessively around her waist.
"Enough," says Draco, injecting as much coldness and disdain into his voice as possible. "The Mudblood is mine to torment. If I ever have need of your services, Fenrir, I'll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, I'd appreciate it if you could keep your hands away from the Dark Lord's most prized prisoner."
Greyback's face contorts, looking mutinous, appearing even more animal than usual. A beat passes, and then two. Draco can see him weighing the rewards and repercussions. Finally, he relents, snarling, "Get on with it then, boy. Let's see if you truly have the stomach for it..."
Draco doesn't hesitate. He aims his wand at Granger and mutters, "Diffindo."
She yelps as a deep gash appears on her shoulder. Draco traces his wand in the air, and the wound slices down into her forearm, coming perilously close to the radial artery. She tries to staunch the blood with her fingers but it seeps through, dripping crimson onto the floor. When she looks up at him, her eyes burn with hatred.
Draco tilts his head to the side. "Why were you searching for the sword?"
She curls her lip. "Burn in hell, Malfoy."
"Wrong answer," he drawls, then plunges into her consciousness.
Granger's mind is an organized mess. He can sense the coherence in her memories, the fragile logic threading them together, and yet the true connection between them eludes him. There's a brief scene of her at one of Slughorn's famous parties, which morphs into a message inked in blood: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware. The scene shifts again, and he's inside a gloomy, dilapidated room, seeing it through her eyes. An old grandfather clock chimes from somewhere on his left, and he can see a bucket filled to the brim with rubbish. On its rim gleams a gold chain, catching the firelight from the hearth.
All of it seems useless. There's not so much as a hint as to why she and Potter and Weasley are so intent on finding the real Sword of Gryffindor. He dives deeper, skipping across the surface of her memories like a rock over water. It isn't even hard; Granger's occlumency skills are weak, almost nonexistent. He chases after each thought, perusing each memory it leads to, finding that while Granger can't guard her mind well, she has excellent control over what she thinks. Not even once does she edge toward the thing Draco is most eager to find.
At last, he ends the spell.
Granger's lying down on the ground, breathing hard. The way she's glaring at him, it's evident that his excursion into her mind was a violation she hadn't expected.
He bends down slowly and tips her chin up with his wand. " You were thinking about the Chamber of Secrets. Why?"
That particular memory sticks out to him now that he can examine Granger's recollections in his own head. It's the only one, to his knowledge, with a direct link to the Dark Lord.
His question is met with a stony silence from Granger. She sits up, still holding tight to her arm, her face arranged into a furious sneer. "Nothing you can do to me will make me talk." She gestures to the word Bellatrix cut into her skin. "You'll find that I'm quite capable of withstanding pain."
Draco sighs. "If you insist on being difficult..."
A casual flick of the wand and he's knifing through Granger's mind again. This time, he drives into her memories with ruthless precision. They unfurl under his pressure, and he catches small fragments of images and snippets of conversations, all swirling together in rivulets like oil on running water. But whatever element of surprise he once held is lost. She's ready for him. Her brain speeds into overdrive, information flowing faster than he can keep up with.
He's in Hogwarts during Christmas. Snow falls outside the quiet of the library, and he's writing down potion ingredients in Granger's tidy script. Another memory jumps forward to replace it: a terrifying vista of black night and city lights, with flying masked figures sending spells zipping about everywhere and a deep voice screaming, Death Eaters! They knew, they knew! Next, a sky full of dementors, the cold sinking into his very soul. On and on her mind churns, until finally she slips, letting out a recollection he's quite sure is out of place from her artificial stream of thoughts.
It's a book that gives her away. An old black tome bound in worn leather, titled Secrets of the Darkest Art. She tries to snatch that image away, but Draco hurtles toward it, following it until he stumbles into a scrap of conversation between her and Potter in a threadbare tent.
Harry, the sword's impregnated with basilisk venom...
He knew they wouldn't let Dumbledore pass it on to me even if it was in his will—
So he made a copy...
But the real one—where did he put it?
For now, it's sufficient. He withdraws, and the cellar comes into view again, with its bloodstained floors and numerous manacles bolted to the walls. He takes one look at Granger's petrified face and knows he has struck gold. Whatever information he's just extracted is clearly valuable if she's that afraid of it. For a moment, he frowns, wondering about the significance of a basilisk, an ancient artifact, and a faded old book, until Greyback snaps him out of his reverie.
"Why did you stop? You know the Dark Lord's orders. No hesitation."
"I've found what the Dark Lord requires," Draco says in a smooth voice, straightening up to face the werewolf. "You may leave us now. I need to tend to the Mudblood's wounds."
Greyback's pupils narrow into slits. "I'm not going anywhere. And what kind of person tortures someone and then heals them? Doesn't make any sense."
Draco closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted. "As one of Potter's closest friends," he says, gritting his teeth, "she is a priceless leverage for the Dark Lord. I hardly think he would approve of us leaving her to bleed to death."
Greyback opens and shuts his mouth several times.
“You don’t give me orders,” he snarls.
“Fine. Stay and watch if you’re so inclined.”
Draco lowers himself beside Granger, inspecting her shoulder with a sinking feeling. She’s lost more blood than he’s intended for her to lose. It has drenched her jacket, and her skin is deathly pale. She doesn’t even protest when he raises his wand and begins to heal the cut, just watches him do it with a bitter expression twisting her face.
Halfway through, there’s a gasping noise from behind him. Draco looks over his shoulder to find Greyback doubled over, clutching his newly branded Dark Mark. He suspects it’s the first time the werewolf’s been summoned, given the way he's hissing in pain.
"It seems the Dark Lord is expecting you for an audience," Draco says in a flat tone. "Do let him know I've finished my interrogation."
Greyback throws him a look that promises violence, and stomps up the stairs, cursing. He stops at the top and rasps back, "You'll regret mouthing off to me, boy" before slamming the door shut on his way out.
As soon as he leaves, Granger whirls on Draco. "You can't let You-Know-Who find out what you saw."
He raises an eyebrow at her. "Don't move. You'll bleed all over me." He trails his wand along the rest of the cut, mending the broken skin until only a faint redness remains. The wound Bellatrix inflicted, he leaves alone, thinking it best not to show Granger any more kindness than is necessary. Pulling her to her feet, he says, "Even if I did want to lie for you, Granger—which I don't—it wouldn't matter. He'll check my memories."
She shakes him off; the fury emanating from her like surging waves. Her voice is sharp and icy. "You idiot. You don't even have the faintest idea of what you've uncovered and now you're just going to hand over that information to—to him?"
"Yes," he says. "Because that's what's going to keep me alive."
Granger crosses her arms so tightly he wonders how she can manage to breathe at all. "Even if countless others die because of it?"
Draco sets his jaw. "It's the smartest course of action and you'd know that if you had a shred of cunning and self-preservation in your bones."
"I have dignity, which is something you wouldn't recognize even if it smacked you over the head with a cauldron."
"I don't have a choice!" he snaps, finally losing his patience. Her ineffable self-righteousness is starting to give him a severe headache. Hiding this conversation from the Dark Lord is going to be a pain, and it's a prospect Draco's not looking forward to enduring at all. He lets out a tired breath. “We’re done here.”
For once, Granger shuts up, and she remains that way until he's almost to the top of the landing.
Before he can leave, she asks a single question that gives him pause.
Why did Voldemort ask you to torture me instead of breaking my mind himself?
He stops, deep in thought. It's a question he's considered himself these past hours. Killing Granger is one of the more elegant solutions available to the Dark Lord. He could have drawn out her secrets until she was damaged beyond repair, and lured Potter in with the promise of sparing her life, but for some godforsaken reason, he chose to do exactly not that.
Draco weighs his responses, but in the end supplies her with the only answer he has:
—Because he wants to punish me, as well as you.
I don't—
—Despite what you may assume, Granger, I don't enjoy killing people or torturing them, especially ones I know. Forcing me to do these things is how the Dark Lord controls me.
Draco can sense her contemplating his words, but he doesn’t linger long enough to listen to her response.
The Dark Lord is waiting for him upstairs. He’s seated upon an ornate highback chair—the same one Draco remembers his father occupying during those rare moments when they played chess together. His scarlet eyes gleam in the darkness. They follow Nagini as she slithers along the perimeter of the drawing room, her heavy body scraping against the wood in a slow, deliberate motion. Outside, night has fallen, yet the lamps in the manor remain unlit, giving every little shape and movement a sinister edge.
Draco steps forward and bows, waiting to be addressed.
The Dark Lord stands up, his voice echoing in the empty room as he walks. "Fenrir informs me you've found something of utmost importance hidden in the Mudblood's mind." He pauses to sneer, disbelief curling around his next words. "He says the information might be pivotal enough to change the course of the war."
Draco winces. Although what he discovered is significant, he wouldn't have used Greyback's exact words to describe it. He stares at his feet, pulse pounding in his ears, trying to think of the best way to twist the werewolf's words to his advantage. Nothing comes to mind. He's frozen in fear. Lying isn't an option, not when he knows what's coming next, and he can't stay silent forever.
He steels himself.
"Dumbledore wanted Potter and his friends to have the real sword, My Lord, perhaps because it is imbued with basilisk venom."
The air stills. Draco can feel the silence stretching like a taut wire. Even the snake stops sliding. Then, pain hits him like a tidal wave. He crashes down to the ground, his muscles burning as if on fire. The Dark Lord towers over him, his pale face wild with shock.
"You lie," he hisses, wand slashing down so hard that Draco's spine curves further in tandem with its movement.
"I'm...not lying," he breathes, pain rippling in his chest. He's surprised to see that there's a trace of fear on the Dark Lord's expression. "I saw it—"
His mind splits in two. He can feel the razor shard of the Dark Lord's magic slicing through his brain, tearing his memories, the ones he deems useless, to shreds. Draco slams up his occlumency walls, but the Dark Lord shatters right through them, diving deep into his mind until he finds the memory Draco stole from Granger. He turns it over, parses it into parts—and it feels as though someone is ripping Draco's nerves apart. The conversation about the sword replays in his head over and over again, and with every word he can feel the Dark Lord's anger rising. When he finds the memory containing the book Granger was so anxious to hide, his rage spreads through Draco's mind like wildfire, burning everything until it hurts just to think.
There's black sparkles at the edges of his periphery. He realizes he's passing out, and he almost welcomes the sensation; anything to stop his mind from snapping. But a moment later, the pain ends abruptly. Draco's sprawled on the cool ground, blood pounding in his head. He waits for more curses, more unbearable pain, but it never comes. Only silence reigns. He raises his head cautiously, expecting to see a pair of red eyes boring into him, but the room is vacant.
Lord Voldemort has vanished.
Dread knots his chest.
This was Legilimency as he's never experienced it before, not even during his most brutal sessions with Bellatrix. And all it took to bring it on was Granger's cryptic little memory. There hadn't even been time to occlude his conversations with her. They only went undiscovered because the Dark Lord was too angry—and afraid, he reminds himself—to waste more time.
That unsettles him far more than anything he's experienced today. The fact that the Dark Lord was afraid of something, and that he's already out there, acting on information that Granger warned him not to divulge.