If Paths Diverge

Chapter 9

The whistle of the barbed whip through the air was all the warning he got before it struck him again, hard across the side, curling around to bite into his chest. Voldemort tried to master his gasp as he hysterically counted one hundred ninety-two. His back, shoulders, stomach, and buttocks were searing with molten fire, as if submerged in boiling water, as if bound in red-hot forged iron.

Another strike on his ruined back had him screaming.

Breathe— breathe— breathe—

The blood was pooling at his feet; his torso and legs saturated. His mind was numb with pain, and his consciousness had reached the point where it was as if he was floating, outside of himself, caught in an agonized nightmare.

Another, the barbs gouging under his left nipple, and Voldemort keened.

He just wanted to it stop. He knew his skin was shredded, knew bone protruded and meagre muscle ribboned. His fingers had long since torn deep gouges into his palms, his lips gnawed raw and bloody, his body quaking uncontrollably as it tried to ready for the next hit.

It came, relentless, and Voldemort cried out, his head collapsing onto the stone wall. Everything shook. He tried to master it, but the metal shrapnel slashed too deeply into the wounds already made. His breathing was rapid, shallow, and contributing to his lightheadedness.

"You'll talk eventually."

Another brand of fire struck across his abdomen.

"Won't you, Tom?"

Another, and Voldemort sobbed brokenly.

"You didn't heal this on your own."

He was beyond begging, beyond words at this point. He was unable to do more than exist, throat burning, face stained with tears and discharge.

The cell door opened and Voldemort could think of nothing but the naïve hope that it was Harry, here to save him at last. Please, Harry, help me—

"Merlin, Grayson, that's enough, don't you think?"

Harris, he distantly noted with despair.

Voldemort waited, eyes squeezed shut, for the whip to strike again. One hundred ninety-seven. His breathing was rapid and rough, his skin quaking violently.

"He hasn't talked yet," the devil rasped, out of breath. "He will, though. I'll make sure of it."

"Come on, you know he won't. Why can't you believe that his magic healed him?"

"Because it was too much!" his torturer shrieked, incensed. "His magic only heals him enough to keep him alive. He was almost perfect again when we found him. That wasn't his magic, I know it. Someone came to see him last night."

"Imposible, we—"

"It was Potter," Grayson said, like the fall of an axe. Confident. Final. "And this faggot is going to tell me."

There was silence and then the cretin stepped closer to Voldemort. He flinched, the shackles chaining his arms above him rattled, and he cried out with the movement.

"Doesn't look like he'll be able to say much of anything for a while. Gary," the voice paused, got softer, "I really don't think—"

"It was Potter!"

A blunt object was suddenly slammed into his rectum, coated with his tacky blood no doubt, and forced his face against the wall. Voldemort screamed, fingers scratching against the stone, legs trying desperately to close, but that instrument just pushed deeper, spearing him.