Complete and Utter Poppycock

Chapter 19: Tortured

Chapter 19: Tortured

We were shoved and kicked inside the hallway lined with portraits. I never really saw the front of the house. It was mostly the back where I was snuck in by Draco. I didn't even think she recognized me.

She was leading the way across the hall. "My son, Draco, is home for his Easter holidays. If that is Harry Potter, he will know."

We entered a room that I was not familiar with, as I wasn't led inside before until this moment. Right then, I saw Lucius and Draco. My Draco.

"What is this?" Lucius asked.

"They say they've got Potter," said Narcissa. "Draco, come here."

I gulped hard. I saw him get up from the arm chair. His eyes quickly met mine, recognizing me. I looked at him pleading for help. He walked towards me, which was actually Harry.

"Well, boy?" rasped Greyback. He tried to look at Harry, but I could tell he kept staring glances at me. Greyback must've noticed.

"Well, Draco?" asked Lucius. "Is it? Is it Harry Potter?"

"I can't — I can't be sure," said Draco. He kept his distance from Greyback which I knew he feared him just as much as I did. 

"But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!" I never heard Lucius sound so excited. "Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark Lord, everything will be forgiv —"

"Now, we won't be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope, Mr. Malfoy?" said Greyback menacingly.

"Of course not, of course not!" said Lucius impatiently. He approached Harry himself. "What did you do to him? How did he get into this state?"

"That wasn't us."

"Looks more like a Stinging Jinx to me," said Lucius. "There's something there, it could be the scar, stretched right. . . Draco, come here, look properly! What do you think?"

"I don't know," said Draco, and he walked away toward the fireplace where his mother stood watching.

"We better be certain, Lucius," Narcissa called to her husband in her cold, clear voice. "Completely sure that it is Potter, before we summon the Dark Lord. . . They say this is his —" she was looking closely at the Blackthorn wand —"but it does not resemble Ollivander's description. . . If we are mistaken, if we call the Dark Lord here for nothing. . . Remember what he did to Rowle and Dolohov?"

"What about the Mudblood, then?" growled Greyback. They swiveled us around again where the light fell on Hermione, and an inch or two of me.

"Wait," said Narcissa sharply. "Yes — yes, she was in Madam Malkin's with Potter! I saw her picture in the prophet! Look, Draco, isn't it the Granger girl?"

"I. . . maybe. . . yeah."

"But then, that's the Weasley boy!" shouted Lucius, striding around the prisoners. His eyes fell on me. "And your girlfriend! Didn't you date Samus —?"

"So I was right after all, the kid did date her!" Greyback interrupted with a growl. Draco shifted from the fireplace, his eyes turned on me. I looked at him, and Lucius, Narcissa, and Greyback noticed. It was complete silence for a moment. The drawing room door opened. A woman spoke.

"What is this? What's happened, Cissy?" Bellatrix Lestrange walked slowly around us, and stopped on Harry's right, staring at me. She recognized me, I knew, from the night where she killed Sirius.

"But surely," she said quietly, "this is her? This is Samus?"

"Yes, yes, it's her!" cried Lucius. "And beside her, we think, Potter! Potter and his friends, caught at last!"