Padma Medhani Patil (sweet_lime) wrote in afic, @ 2011-05-11 23:54:00 |
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Current music: | Mother Superior - Coheed & Cambria |
Entry tags: | !completed, !solo, character: padma patil, player: sarah |
Who: Padma Patil
What: Awakened, then arrested.
When: May 13, 2005, 3 am, then later, 9 am onward.
Where: A shed on the outskirts of Hogsmeade / The Ministry of Magic
Rating: PG-13
Status: Complete
Padma jerked awake with a start, body rejecting the upright position she found herself in. Her entire body ached, felt stiff and overused, the feeling one got from sleeping in the same position for hours. She couldn't see a thing except light streaming in from a single window to her right. Outside she could see a bright starry sky.
Where was she? In her sleep addled state, she couldn't remember what she'd been doing before she fell asleep. Her hand groped for her wand, and she cried out as pain shot up her arm. She drew her arm to her chest and resumed her search with her right hand. She found it near her shin, and quickly cast Lumos.
She extended her left arm and lowered her wand only to gasp and lose her grip on it. The light on the end went out, and she fumbled for it again in the dark. Recasting the spell, she took a deep breath as she looked at her arm. Her entire left sleeve was drenched in blood, and there was gauze covering what must have been the source of the blood. It was located on the meaty part of her forearm, just over the top of her brand. There was dried blood flaked all along her skin, and the gauze was tinged red.
"No," she whimpered, repeating the word in a desperate mantra. "No, no, no." Tears welled as she struggled to put together the pieces of the situation and realized there were no pieces to put. She didn't know what had happened, and she couldn't remember where she was—and it was more than sleep delirium. Oh gods.
Padma struggled to her feet, woozily gripping the windowsill next to her as she did. She stilled a moment, waiting until she felt capable of walking, and followed another stream of light from what seemed to be a door. She pointed her wand ahead of her as she began peering outside. She took a careful step out. Where was she? What day was it? What time was it?
The last thing she remembered was running into Adrian Pucey a few nights before, and girl time with Lavender. She and Anthony had been fighting and... and Terry was dead. Right? She struggled forward, trying to remember the last moment before she'd been... she'd been...
Padma hadn't been Obliviated. She hadn't. Something had gone wrong planning Terry's memorial, she'd fallen and hit her head and... conveniently wound up in a shed? No. There was an explanation. She'd just go home, get Lavender to help her check on her wound and in the morning she'd go to Mungo's. She didn't know where she was, or what had happened, but she could get to a familiar, safe place and it would be okay. Lavender would help her figure this out.
She tried to ease her breath and calm down. She wouldn't be able to apparate if she couldn't focus. Another deep breath, and she disapparated. When she reappeared in the alley outside her flat, she slumped immediately against the brick wall. She sunk down low on her haunches, for far down that she could touch the ground with her right hand, wand barely clutched there. Taking a shaky breath, she wondered if she's be able to stand and get upstairs.
"Expelliarmus" came echoing down the alley as it was cast against her. She hissed in through clenched teeth, toppling over as her wand was knocked from the hand supporting her body. The loud voice continued, "Don't move on order of the Ministry!" Dazed, and clinging to the ground while it spun around her, Padma wondered if she could even lift her head without vomitting.
"Padma Patil, you're under arrest for breaking the Ministry enforced curfew. On your feet," the Auror demanded. Padma struggled to pick herself up, not wanting to garner the Auror's ire—he seemed like a bit of a prick—but her left arm didn't take as much weight as her right, and the Auror was soon jerking her to her feet. Having her head elevated so fast left Padma—
She woke up with a start, feeling as if she'd had cold water dumped over her head. As her eyes focused, she found herself face to face with another Auror, and a slew of others behind him. Panicking, she tried to stand, but found herself magically bound to the chair.
"How nice of you to join us, Ms. Patil. You'll forgive the use of the Conscius charm, but I'm afraid you just wouldn't wake up on your own, and we really have other Ministry business to get to today." Padma's eyes focused on the man who was speaking, an Auror she recognized, but couldn't place his name or title. He had beady grey eyes and leaned against a table a few meters away, Dictoquill hovering over a pad of paper to his left.
"So, if you'll just answer a few questions," he said with a tight-lipped smile that was altogether lacking sincerity. When Padma didn't protest, still too overwhelmed in her surroundings, he continued. "Why were you out at 3 a.m. this morning?" Still no response from Padma, the man gestured to her clothes with his wand. "Covered in blood and wounded?"
"I—"
"Were you running from something, Ms. Patil? A skirmish, perhaps?" He stepped closer, the Dictoquill and pad following as he did. "Where were you yesterday, Ms. Patil?" Padma struggled to remember, hoping for something more than the blank emptiness, and pain, the action had caused her earlier. "Answer the question, Ms. Patil," he snapped, voice rising as he drew quite close.
"I don't know, I—"
"You don't know? How convenient." The Auror snapped his fingers and another man walked over, cupping Padma's chin in his hand, eyes boring into hers before she had the sense to realize what was going on. She yelled out as if she'd been grabbed on her wounded arm, and she could feel the Auror struggling for entry into her mind. It felt like— Padma gagged at what it felt like.
The Auror felt her mind constrict against him, and a bright memory flew across his mind, a man named Luc, his desperate groping, Cher, desolée. Desolée. Je t'aime..., the feel of being held down, crushed beneath his weight, his breath on her cheek, pushing—
The Auror jerked back as if burned.
"I'm not raping you," he whispered hotly, letting go of her chin, but watching her for a moment, clearly shaken by the memories and emotions that had dripped over from her mind to his.
"What is it, Sanchez?" The beady-eyed Auror snapped. He stepped closer to Padma, peering into her eyes as if he might see the answer despite his clearly not being a Legilimens. "Sanchez," he snapped again, gaze moving to the taller man, not used to his questions going unanswered.
"I don't fucking know, sir," Sanchez said, the swear slipping in as he regained his composure. "She's been heavily Obliviated. There are spots all over her memory..." Sanchez closed his eyes, hand gesturing idly as he tried to explain what he'd seen. "There are empty spots from Obliviation, and it's like— it's as if everything around it's swollen up. It's raw, chafed." Sanchez couldn't look at Patil as he spoke.
"What does rape have to do with this?" beady-eyes asked, eyes boring into Padma again, but she refused to look anywhere but her lap. Her skin burned around her neck and face, and tears were slipping over her cheeks. She felt absolutely humiliated.
"An old memory, sir. What she thinks the pain of Legilimency feels like about now," he clarified at beady-eyes confused look.
"Legilimency doesn't hurt," beady-eyes sneered.
"It hurts when this kind of damage has been done," Sanchez explained. He glanced back over at Padma and wondered what had happened to her, who had done this. Not that he condoned law breaking, but she didn't seem to have been out of her own accord when they'd found her. Hell, she needed medical attention, but Edwards was convinced she was part of the Resistance.
Sanchez had to admit, she was a likely fit. Her file showed her to be defiant to the Ministry, a registered ST with a Death Eater uncle, and she had been friends with Terry Boot. She very likely could have been involved in his escape.
But Sanchez was disturbed because she reminded him of his wife, and if he had ever seen her wife in the state Patil was in, with the mental abuse done to her on top of the physical, he would have killed someone without asking a single question.
"Well, go back in and find out what she knows. She's an ST, she can take a little pain," Edwards growled, hands fisting at his side in annoyance.
"With all respect, sir, if I go back into her mind—if anyone goes into her mind now—she'd going to be irreparably damaged. I'm surprised the person who did this to her didn't cause irreparable damage already."
Reggie Edwards was not pleased. He was seething. He had been so sure he finally had a Resistance member in his hands and he couldn't even question the little bitch. What was Sanchez suggesting? They let her heal? And how long would that bloody take?
"She needs a Healer, sir," Sanchez continued. Edwards ignored him and walked over to the table with Padma's file. There was a long moment where Edwards didn't say anything at all, and Sanchez couldn't help shifting uncomfortably as his gaze met Padma's. She had looked up when the room had grown quiet, apprehension clear on her features. "Sir?"
"Take her back to her cell," Edwards said, turned to wave his hand dismissively at Padma and Sanchez both. He would figure this out and deal with Patil, but first he needed another cup of coffee.