The Malfoy Project

𝟏𝟎𝟓 - 𝐇𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬

༻⚜️༺

First, they stripped me. They stood and stared as I undressed down to the skin. I was also made to take off my shoes, which they made me put by the entrance before we entered this cavern of rooms. The cold hit my body like a tsunami, and I tried not to shiver as the stone-faced Auror guards ran their wands over my body to check for any lingering trace of magic.

Once they were satisfied that I was completely defenseless, my hands were bound once again. I could only watch as they dug their grubby hands into the pockets of my clothes, pulling out my watch and wallet. Then they turned their attention to my jacket. From its pockets they removed several things: The first was a package of crystallised pineapples, which I had meant to give Ainsley before she got on the train but had forgotten.

The second was a rose. Crumpled and slightly flattened, but still intact, and red as a polished ruby — as if it had been picked just this morning. Mrs Measlebee's forever rose.

A silent image flashed briefly in my mind, wrapped in candlelit mist: Ainsley across from me at the table, twirling the rose in her hands, closing her eyes as she puts her nose to the soft petals, smiling. She stretches it out to me. Here.

"That's mine," I snarled, attempting to snatch the rose from the guard, but my magical constraints weighed me down like iron chains, and he dodged me easily. "You'll soon have more important things to worry about than a flower," he sneered. His yellow, self-satisfied smile opened a pit in my stomach. He took pleasure in this, I knew. 

For decades, the biggest job of magical law enforcement was not to restore order on the streets, but to clean up the messes the Marked scum left. And we — they — left big messes.

In here, the Aurors had control. They controlled the water we drank and showered with, and the little warmth we had in the form of blankets and clothes. They spoke as they pleased, punished as they pleased. 

I could not fault them. After all, the Death Eaters would have done much worse to them had we — they — won. I understood the hate, the desire to quash what light was left within those they thought beneath them. I understood the dizzy, drunken delight of power, as a cat pins a mouse's tail under its paw. They were gods here, in their dark and sordid kingdom. Sometimes, these gods drove Death Eaters to kill themselves. Or so the stories go.

I, too, understood what it felt like to be a god.

I tried not to think of a certain Hufflepuff boy as I followed them into another chamber. The slimy stone against my bare feet felt like walking on blades, so I focused on that. In the next room we entered, there was a solitary chair placed in the centre. I was pushed roughly into it, and the moment I sat down, clamps grew from its legs, circling my ankles and fastening me down. A loud mechanical buzzing filled the air. Someone grabbed my head, and I felt the droning sound eating away at the nape of my neck.

I watched blankly as tufts of my hair stained the wet floor silver, my heart hammering in my throat as old ghost stories flashed through my mind. Rabastan Lestrange, who managed to slit his own throat on the edge of his cell's rusted padlock. Walden Macnair, who was bestowed a cell with a window but was found a week later hanging from a strip of his clothing, which he had tied around the broken window frame.

When that was done, the clamps disappeared and I was hustled to my feet. They shouted at me to face the wall and place both hands against it. When they saw the etchings on my back, they laughed. I suppose that, unlike Ainsley, gods saw things for what they truly were. Scars were scars, Death Eater was Death Eater.

A jet of ice-cold water was cannoned onto my body, forcing out a cry of shock and pain. They laughed again. I bit down hard on my lip and cursed myself for giving them the satisfaction. I endured the rest of the hosing with my jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut.