Mister Crouch
“Harry. Harry Potter, wake up.”
A rasping voice whispered in Harry’s ear - he started awake, reeling at the sensation of hot breath against his neck.
“Ah, what a day, hm?” The man gave a breathy snigger, and Harry felt bony fingers brushing the hair off of his face. “Open your eyes, child.”
Ugh. Harry didn’t want to open his eyes, his eyelids felt like led, like they had been superglued to his eyeballs, he didn’t know how long he’d been asleep for, but it felt like a while - although he didn’t feel particularly well rested.
“I said open your eyes, boy!” An open palm caught Harry hard in the ear, he gasped, eyes opening in shock.
Inches from Harry’s face, was a man’s face. He was pale and freckled, with matted straw-like hair, pointy ears and disconcertingly wild eyes.
“Mmm. You have your mother’s eyes.” The man smiled vaguely as if in recollection, before spitting in Harry’s face, and wandering out of his line of sight, which wasn’t very big, as it only included a sliver of slimy stone walls in his peripherals, and a low ceiling with runes carved into it. The man’s footsteps were quite loud against what Harry could only decipher as wet rocky slabs. Harry tried to sit up, but found himself chained to some sort of bed - no, more of a table or (hopefully not) an altar, as beds didn’t tend to be made of rock.
“Who are you?” The words felt sluggish and clunky in Harry’s mouth, and he briefly wondered if he’d been drugged, but then remembered it was probably just the result of having his skull slammed against the countertop at the Dursley’s yesterday… was it yesterday? Harry suddenly realised he had no idea how much time had passed.
“I am The Dark Lord’s most loyal follower, you will call me Mister Crouch or Sir.”
Oh bollocks.
“Where am I, Sir?” Harry knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer, but he might as well try.
“You, my friend, are in my humble abode. Do you like it? I picked this room especially for you.” Harry slowly sat up as much as the heavy manacles would let him, and looked around. It stank, and it was cold and wet. Moss was growing on the walls, and Harry thought he could see bones in a corner, but his glasses were smashed and it was hard to tell. Mister Crouch skipped back over to where Harry was lying, and stroked Harry’s scar with his thumb, sending bile creeping up his throat. “My Lord is not yet ready for you, but he will be soon, and then he will rise again.”
“Surely Voldem-“
“YOU DARE TO SAY HIS NAME?” The man screeched, his voice grated like sandpaper in Harry’s ears. “CRUCIO!”
Pain encased Harry. He was clamped into a vice of flames and ice, his bones twisted and splintered into one thousand pieces, spearing his organs and grinding them up in a mortar and pestle. The pressure of one thousand tons pressed in on him, his head was exploding and reforming over and over, his eyes swelled to balloons and were popped with pins, his muscles split and stretched and snapped and everything roared and shook with fear and rage and pain.
Harry wished for death, for mercy, for anything at all. He didn’t know if he was screaming or shouting or praying, or maybe the noise was all in his head. But he wished for it to stop. Then it did, and Harry could hear was a dull ringing, he could taste blood in his mouth and he could smell it too. He could feel it’s warmth trickling out of his nose and over his lips.
“Ah, Harry Potter’s first unforgivable?” A voice hissed in his ear and cold fingers groped at the side of his face.
~~~
Days passed, or Harry presumed they passed. He had no way of telling time in the windowless room, save the steady drip of a pipe in the corner.
Every so often, Harry would wake up to a house elf leaving a bread roll and glass of water on the damp floor for him, and other than Crouch’s visits, the first few days were total solitude.
Mister Crouch came in to see him every once in while, but the time between his visits was even worse than the things Crouch would do to him during them. Harry would wait, on edge, for the door to swing open, or to be awoken by a stinging hex or a curse of some dark nature. That in itself was torture. The darkness, and that drip, constant and unrelenting, made Harry spiral. He slept a lot at first, and then he couldn’t; kept up by nightmares and fear, he would think instead.
The shackles would grate at his wrists and ankles as he hugged his knees to his chest, preserving warmth, dignity, sanity. Whatever else he had left.
Usually he would fall into a restless sleep in this position, just to be poked awake by that awful wand that Mister Crouch used, and feeling worse of than before he’d slept.
Harry occasionally imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t smashed that plate. Everything would be normal, he wouldn’t have run away. He wouldn’t be trapped here for all eternity, he would be… Harry didn’t really know, not safe, because he never was, but just… better. Better than whatever state he was in currently. What would Ron and Hermione think? And Professor Lupin and Sirius and Dumbledore? Maybe they were plotting a rescue for him, or maybe it was all a bad dream and he was still in bed at the Dursleys.
He longed for the Dursleys.
It was all so strange how quickly things could change.
Mister Crouch loved to use Harry as a play thing, he had gotten bored of talking to the boy after a few conversations, and now he would usually just go into the room with a little monologue about the Dark Lord or something like that, before trying out a new curse on Harry - the most recent had been sectumsempra - or force feeding him some sort of vile potion and cackling as Harry experienced things that devil wouldnt wish on his worst enemy.
~~~~~
“Winky!” Mister Crouch yelled out unnecessarily loudly, a little house elf with big floppy ears popped into the room. “Keep him alive.” Crouch gestured toward the slashes down Harry’s side, and then addressed the boy. “You’re have visitors this afternoon.” Mister crouch flicked his wand toward the flinching boy the chains binding his wrists and ankles lengthened, giving Harry a little more room to stand and move around. Crouch left, slamming the door behind him.
Harry twisted around as the house elf sorted his wounds. He thought he might be numb to the pain by now, but damn it hurt.
“Harry Potter must stay still.”
“Go away Winky.” Harry was sat on bare knees on the mucky slate, he was shaking, but that wasn’t unusual.
“Winky must heal Harry Potter.”
“Heal. It’s always heal, never help. Just sod off already.” Harry waved a chained hand toward the door.
“Winky must not help Harry Potter, but Winky can heal Harry Potter.”
The house elf looked at Harry with her big, round, brown eyes, they were like Dobby’s.
Dobby.
Harry hadn’t thought about Dobby in a long while. He wished more than ever that the house elf would pop into the room and rescue him, but the room was warded against apparition. Mister Crouch had told him that when Harry had threatened to - although in truth, Harry had no idea how to apparate. Maybe it was different with house elves though, Winky had no problem popping in and out, maybe Dobby could too. Harry would just have to find a good time to summon the elf. That time definitely was not now, he would have to wait until his ‘visitors’ had been and gone.
“Er…” Harry begrudgingly let the little house elf tend to his wounds whilst he thought of how to go about it - and then decided against it, he didn’t want to upset the house elf or raise the alarm to Mister Crouch. “Thanks, Winky”
Winky’s eyes went even wider, which Harry thought was impossible. She looked as if she were about to break down. Her knees knocked together and she held her hands over her mouth as big tear drops welled from her eyes.
“Oh. Er- it’s okay Winky.” Harry sighed. “It’s fine, Winky.” Harry tried to drag the elf away from the wall where she was bashing her own brains in.
~~
“Looking smart, darling.” Crouch traced a finger across Harry’s face, whilst Harry tried not to scrunch up his face or wince.
“Place so much as one toe out of line when you meet my guests, and I will cut it off and make you eat it.” Mister Crouch grabbed Harry by his shoulders and growled the last sentence into his ear, before setting him back down and unchaining him.
Deep red bands ringed Harry’s wrists and ankles, he grimaced.
“Come with me.”
Harry limped along with Mister Crouch, his legs felt all fuzzy and his hip kept making a weird noise. Crouch’s slender fingers dug into his arm as he was led barefoot through a draughty corridor to a larger dungeon-like room, with a ring of deatheaters standing, and all heads turned when Harry was led in.
Gleaming silver and ceramic masks encircled him, against a void of black cloaks. Harry counted seven, not including Crouch. A sliver of platinum hair told him which one was Lucius Malfoy, but other than that, Harry wasnt sure who any of them were.
Crouches voice rang out in the quiet room from behind him, “No need for masks, Gentlemen, and Lady.” The man’s eyes seemed to glint at this, “The dear boy wont be seeing light of day anytime soon, and certainly not with enough faculty to tattle, eh Harry?” Crouches hands landed possessively on Harry’s shoulders, and he flinched a little, inciting a ripple of laughs through the cloaked figures, and a few took their masks off.
Lucius Malfoy, Peter Pettigrew, and a lady, who Harry sort of recognised. Everyone else followed, and only two people did not, the masked death eater next to Malfoy got a hard stare from the blonde, and hesitantly removed his mask. Harry’s stomach did several flips. Draco malfoy.
One man, however, didn’t remove his mask, and all eyes were on him. “Would you not remove you mask, I am sure the boy would be able to tell who you were in time, anyway, Sev.” Crouch approached the man as he spoke, and Harryms heart raced a little as he heard the name.
Sev. Like Severus.
Harry looked on in anticipation as the man took his mask off.
Snape.
The night went on, Harry was poked and prodded, he felt like on of Dudley’s poor gerbils. Half expecting one of them to shout at him to “Do something!!” Before trying to cut his tail off. Of course Harry didnt have a tail, and he felt ill thinking of what they might cut off. Mister Crouch had already made plenty of suggestions.
The lady, Bellatrix Lestrange, seemed to be having the most fun by far, cackling and screaming after every crucio. There was a lot of crucios.
Harry lay on his side on the floor, waiting for the next curse, and like clockwork it came. “Crucio!” Bellatrix screeched, splitting the boy’s ears nerves open even just with her voice.
Time seemed to pass so so slowly. It hurt, but Harry was now used to this kind of pain, and his mind began to numb, go comfortably tingly, like static to block out the pain. Then the static faded, and Harry became away of a familiar scolding tone, although far more chaste than his usual verbal artillery, “The arrogant boy will only end up in the same state as the Longbottoms, and be no use to anyone if you cannot cease you’re immature games!” He shot Harry a particularly venomous glare, although the boy was in a bit of a daze, staring hazily and the hard ground his head lay on. “We all know how displeased the Dark Lord will be if you manage to give him some sort of retardation, past what mental faculties he is already severely defecit in.” Snape shot another dirty look at Harry, who was starting to recover.
Over the course of the night, Harry felt that Snape’s behaviour was slightly odd, as if he thought Harry was in on a joke. Ever so often glancing at him with a funny look which was slightly different to his usual oozing black glare.
Harry wasnt sure how it was different, though, the pain was too much to concentrate on anything but the grey of the flagstones and the red of the blood, the word, ‘Snape,’ swimming sluggishly through his mind.
Harry knew Snape was an evil git, and he wasnt that surprised that he was a death eater, but he was extremely confused. Dumbledore trusted this man, and Dumbledore is smart. So how had he been betrayed like that? And now, here Harry’s potions master stood, watching with pleasure as he was tortured, and even occasionally partaking in the action.
And there was something else Harry couldn’t stop thinking about. Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. He was stood stock still the whole time, looking white as a sheet. Until his father nudged him forward to have a turn at Harry.
“Go on, Draco,” Lucius’ slender hand tightened over his son’s shoulder as the boy hesitated, then Harry braced, and Draco raised his wand. Then, he was vomiting. Vomiting big, fat, green slugs.
He would’ve laughed, if the slime wasnt blocking his airways so much, and had he had now discovered that if the hex is not rebound, not cast with a broken wand, and not cast by quite an average wizard, it’s far more potent of a hex.
By the time Harry had stopped vomiting slugs, the death eaters had left, and he was being dragged back to the damp cell, only half conscious from exhaustion.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, that spark of hope, the drive to escape, sputtered out. Dobby, forgotten. Dumbledore, forgotten. As sleep took hold.