Chapter 26 Draco
Chapter 26 Draco
Draco’s eyes were beginning to cloud over but he could see Voldemort had appeared at the door, supported by Bellatrix. He looked awful. He was thin and pale, hunched over on himself like he was being folded in half. His eyes were sunken in their sockets and his skin looked pallid and translucent. His voice was wobbly when he spoke. Bellatrix looked like she might curse them all for disturbing him.
‘What is it Lucius?’ Voldemort sounded irritated and breathless.
‘Apologies my lord, it’s Draco, he is quite unwell. He may need to rest a while.’
‘Fine.’ Voldemort’s mouth was a straight line, he was clearly in pain.
‘Lucius can cover his son’s shift if Draco is too weak to sit silently in a comfortable chair’ Bellatrix sneered in Lucius’s direction.
‘Of course my lord, my apologies for disturbing you. I will take Draco to his room and be back at once.’
Lucius bowed and Bellatrix supported Voldemort as they walked back through the door together.
Lucius rounded on Draco who was still sat in the camping chair. His bones were feeling heavier and heavier. It felt like he weighed several tonnes, he was half surprised that he hadn’t fallen through the floorboards into the foundations of the house. His head was muzzy and he was struggling to develop coherent thoughts. Things had become shapes and sounds and ideas Draco vaguely felt his fathers rough hands pulling him. He was semi aware of his body being flung onto the floor. He was fairly sure he was face down on some wooden floorboards but again he just couldn’t be sure. His head felt like white noise and his eyes couldn’t keep up with how fast his brain was spinning inside his skull.
Draco shuddered awake some time later. He had no idea how long he had been asleep for, it could have been days for all he knew. His head was still sore but he could at least see properly now, he hadn’t recognised the spell his father had used but it was effective whatever it was. Draco was still laid spread eagled on the floor, slowly he turned his body so he was staring up at the ceiling. There was a large circular light fitting, ornately carved metal around the rim and delicate coloured glass in the middle. It was clouded in a veil of wispy cobwebs. Draco imagined the glass creaking free from the crumbling ceiling and smashing directly onto his face. Even that couldn’t make him feel any worse than he already did. He had managed to fail again. He was broken and mutilated and he couldn’t even die right. He felt his eyes begin to fill. All he wanted was Dudley, he just wanted to feel the warmth of him, strong and solid beneath his hands. He needed someone to tell him it was okay, that he had tried his best, not to worry. He imagined it as vividly as his aching head would allow him, Dudley stood before him, slightly taller, so much broader. Calm and sturdy looking at him deep into his eyes ‘you tried Draco, It’s okay, you can get up and we can try again.’
‘Okay’ Draco said out loud to no one.
It took a little while but eventually Draco made it up from the floor, if he was going to destroy this horcrux he needed to get out of this room first, everything else could wait, he’d cross those bridges later but the first step was getting out of this room.
He had no wand, it was probably still laid out on the floor in-front of the cauldron, magic would be no help to him.
Over the next few hours Draco meticulously traced every corner of the room looking for a weak spot, a plaster wall that he might be able to brute force his way through, he kicked at the wooden door with all of his might jarring his knee in its socket. He crawled on his hands and knees clawing at the floorboards looking for a loose one that might take him to the basement somehow. He grew more and more frustrated as every one of his ideas came up short. He started crying at some point, screaming and shouting in anger and frustration, scratching at the door until his fingernails bled. Kicking the walls until he couldn’t hold himself up any longer, eventually Draco retreated to a corner, he curled up in a ball and dreamt of Dudley’s smile.
The next day he woke with a start, some dry bread and a glass of water were on the floor next to him. Draco didn’t want it. Instead he crawled around the floor again testing floorboards one by one listening for a hollow sound beneath. He tapped every square inch of the walls with his bloody hand desperate for even the whisper of an escape route, he knew with every minute he was locked in this room the horcrux was another minute closer to completion and the world a step closer to the abject horror that an immortal voldemort would rain down on it for centuries to come. Draco gave up again several painful hours later and curled up in a corner to sleep.
On his second morning Draco continued to ignore his bread but took a sip of water. The emptiness of his stomach was a comfort to him, a constant reminder that he was suffering, as long as he was suffering it helped alleviate some of guilt.
Draco’s father had not come to see him, nor had anyone else, he hadn’t heard a voice or the sound of another person for 24 hours. He thought perhaps his father had put a silencing charm around the room. It was so quiet it felt like the house was completely empty. Maybe they had left him here and he would simply wither away in this room until he was just bones and dust. Again Dudley spent the day scratching the floor, tapping the walls in a frenzy until he was crying again and his fingers were once more bleeding. He tapped the walls for such a long time that he forgot which one he had already done, it felt like they might be moving. The dents and scratches that adorned the walls seemed to move from one wall to another playing tricks on him.
They were alive and they were taunting him.
Draco continued to ignore his food on days three and four, instead continuing to take small sips of water. The room was empty but for his duffle bag and the large white sheet that had been placed under him when he lost his hand. Draco had taken to laying flat on his back clutching the bag imagining it was the broad torso of someone soft and safe.
Draco’s brain felt like it had turned to liquid and was circling the drain, slowly sinking down into the darkness. The frenzied crawling and falling and scraping and desperate crying and kicking and punching that had marked his first few days of confinement had been replaced with stillness. On days five and six Draco didn’t move, he laid on his back for countless hours moving only when the sheer pain of the stillness burned in his muscles. When Draco tried to imagine Dudley’s eyes, the specific shade of brown that he loved so much he couldn’t do it anymore. The only way he could even remember Dudley’s name was by repeating it to himself, whispering it into the darkness.
Occasionally Draco forgot why he was there, everything outside the room felt very abstract now, like maybe it wasn’t real and his whole life had been lived in this room. But then there were certain moments of absolutely clarity, the horcrux was a short walk away from him beyond the door almost finished now, the fates of the country, the whole world was about to be sealed mere metres away from him and he could do absolutely nothing about it. Sometimes he told himself that when he got out he and Dudley would find a way to stop Voldemort but the fantasy never lasted long. Draco began to doubt he would ever leave the room again.
Draco was terribly weak, his stump was red and sore from being repeatedly pummelled into a wooden door for hours. The fingernails on his good hand were mangled and bleeding several of them hanging off. His legs were so weak he couldn’t stand properly anymore. His muscles ached and his head pounded with lack of nutrition. He could feel bones jutting in areas they hadn’t before, his hip bones in particular, his stomach now concave. Draco had always been skinny and lanky but he must look skeletal now, gaunt and hollow. Empty. Empty in every sense of the word.
On the seventh morning, a lock clicked and the door opened. A man entered the room. The sound of something other than his own breathing was enough to bring a tear to his eye.
‘Fucking hell Draco, what have you done?’ The voice was slow and sounded genuinely shocked.
Was that his fathers voice? Draco couldn’t really remember. He didn’t open his eyes or move from his position on the floor clutching his duffle bag closer. He ignored the man, it didn’t matter now, it was too late anyway. If someone was here that meant the horcrux was successful.
‘Draco? It’s time. We’re going back home.’
Draco said nothing, he didn’t not move either. ‘Home’ he thought, he knew who was waiting for him at home and that alone gave him the strength to speak.
‘I can’t stand on my own anymore.’ He whispered, voice hoarse with lack of use.
The body, his father’s he was almost sure leant down and grabbed his good hand helping him into a sitting position. Draco still didn’t open his eyes. He tried desperately to imagine Dudley and what he would look like, smell like, feel like. Draco tried to use his memories of Dudley as fuel to get back to him again. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. It was his father in front of him, a heavy look of concern furrowed in his brow.
‘What have you done Draco?’ He asked again. Draco gave no answer.
Lucius helped Draco to stand and then pulled Draco’s arm across his shoulders. Lucius bore almost all of Draco’s weight and they hobbled through the deserted house to the fireplace. The cauldron was gone, his hand with it, the horcrux too no doubt. Guilt writhed in Draco’s guts. His father placed him in the fireplace and offered him the bowl of floo powder. Draco just about had the strength to lift some from the bowl and utter ‘Malfoy manor.’