Antithesis

Chapter 17: Blots

Adrian’s Occlumency shields were pitiful at best. Due to the well shrouded secret of his very existence, he was not permitted to visit with a teacher who could fortify his own walls.

Which left his father as the only Legilimens between the Lestranges and the scarce number who were aware of his existence.

Adrian was rather uncomfortable with calling the shriveled, snakelike creature, who looked more like a mandrake root than an actual person, his father, but there was something about drawing closer to the Dark Lord... something which made his skull ache yet sent addictively soothing waves of sensation through his blood and left him dazed and slowly walking ever closer.

The Dark Lord’s residence felt purged of magic. Unlike the ancient noble house of Black, where dark magic oozed and bubbled from the peeling wallpaper, Adrian could scarcely feel its mark on the crown molding or the plastered ceiling.

He knew where his father was, something in his heartbeat drawing louder and yet somehow indiscernible whispers tickling the corners of his hearing. He opened the large door at the end of the stairwell, slipping inside blindly. Adrian paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the lack of lighting. The fireplace was in use, the flickering flames casting dancing shadows and filling the room with the smell of burning pine.

The door slid shut behind him, trapping him inside.

“My Occlumency shields are not yet in place,” Adrian murmured, trying to resist the wavering uncertainty. “I assure you, my Lord, I press to better them.”

He spotted the claw like hand curl inwards from the armrest, holding daintily a bleached wand as long as Adrian’s forearm.

There was a pause in the air.

“You see that you do,” The high pitched voice triggered a ringing buzz in Adrian’s head. “What did you address me?”

Adrian stumbled. “I- I apologize, father, It will not-“

“Crucio.”

His head screeched and his very nerves were alight with fire. It was a baffling sensation, through the agony of pain!pain!pain! the very sense of touch had been distorted and perverted until all that existed was the raging inferno. The smoldering burn which echoed the laughter of Suzie and the thrashing of David’s death throes.

For some illogical reason through the suffocating hell, he envisioned a single sparrow fluttering to the ground with venom in its blood.

He felt the curse release instantaneously. Blood was burning in his veins but he could feel it warm down his arms and legs, filling his fingers and toes which were contorted and cramping.

He was laying on the ground, the cloak covering his still twitching body. His throat was hoarse and raw, blood sliding down from where his tongue had been bitten through. Snot and tears made his face sticky and damp.

He gasped, the sound was humiliating yet he couldn’t prevent it. He breathed heavily, on the verge of sobbing as each joint and socket moaned out in its of suffering. It took him too long to rise to his knees, longer still to manage a crawling position.

“Come here.”

Adrian didn’t dare resist. He dragged himself over the floor slowly, collapsing at one point, his limbs leaden and his fingers trembling violently. He kept moving, forcing himself to crawl, until he reached the large chair and the skeletal homunculus sitting with its talon-edged feet just above Adrian.