Leoben knows what falling entrails sound like. (ex_notnice309) wrote in an_ill_wind, @ 2009-09-25 23:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | - 1980/09 september, dorcas meadowes, leoben yaxley |
Who: Dorcas Meadowes and Leoben Yaxley
When: Friday, 25 September 1980; night
Where: Ben's stables.
What: :(
Rating: R for violence.
Status: Completed log
In a series of nights that had been particularly cruel to Dorcas, this had been by far the worst. It did not matter that as far as she was aware, Yaxley had done nothing more than feed her veritaserum and leave her chained to the table. Her body and mind offered more than enough torments all on their own. Her face still throbbed from being pummelled by Macnair. Her throat was dry, her lips cracked from thirst. Her body ached from being held so firmly in place for so long. The metal shackles had cut into her wrists and ankles and legs even from what limited, vain struggles she could manage. More from her involuntary shivering and twitching in pain. There did not seem to be any part of her body that was not at least sore and aching, and that was nothing compared to the searing pain in her leg for the night itself. She had forgotten about the full moon. And while it was better than it had been, better than that first awful moon after she'd been bitten, the agony was intense without the muting of a potion. Physical pain, however, was the least of her concerns. Her mind was all but destroyed and even as she cried out and whimpered in pain throughout the night and well into the morning, it was the belief that no one cared enough to come and save her that tormented her above all else. The knowledge that she was utterly alone in the world, betrayed by her only friend. That the few who had bothered to reply to her journal the other night were only offering false sympathy and condolences out of obligation. What did the likes of Lily Potter and Alastor Moody truly care for her anyway? And Fabian... Fabian who had been in on the whole thing. She had cried as she said her goodbyes to him, but now her tears were only for his betrayal. And that she had brought this all upon herself. That it was her pathetic, miserable life that had brought her to this point. She didn't need to fall asleep for the nightmares to come now. They were ever present, in every waking thought. Memories of every horrible thing that had ever happened to her. The deaths of her family, reimagined in excruciating detail. The fight in Hogsmeade relived. Even lesser misfortunes, of which her life seemed to be composed of entirely. And of course, visions of what was to become of her now. Of what Yaxley would do to her. Of knives tearing at her flesh. Of the agony of the cruciatus. She wanted her mum. But her mum couldn't do anything for her now, could she? Even if she were still alive. She was just a Muggle. She couldn't have helped her. She would not have stood a chance against the likes of Yaxley and wasn't that what he'd been saying all this time? No. She loved her mother. She would not... She couldn't... Tears were once again in her eyes as she stared at the ceiling, now pointedly avoiding looking at the knife left on the table as she reached for the only thin comfort she could find. A song her mother had sung to her when she'd been a little girl, the words whispered tunelessly from dry lips. Sleep my baby, at my breast, ’Tis a mother’s arms round you. Make yourself a snug, warm nest. Feel my love forever new. Harm will not meet you in sleep, Hurt will always pass you by. Child beloved, always you’ll keep, In sleep gentle, mother’s breast nigh. It didn't help. It was Friday, and a somewhat short business day at that. Leoben felt content, at best, which was something of a change. He was, at least, mostly relaxed. His attire was similar to the previous day. Casual for him, loose, old, rolled up sleeves. Disposable. As he opened the door, the lights flicked on and he, again, paid no mind to her as he opened his briefcase. She might well not have been there, judging by the careful and precise way he pulled his gloves on. There was more in the briefcase today. One additional item. Leoben walked to the centre of the stable and shot a chain from his wand towards the ceiling. The metal wrapped around the sturdy wood of one of the beams and wrapped itself tightly around the top. The opposite end hung about ten feet from the ground, dangling and lonely in the empty air around it. He summoned the meat hook from his briefcase and fit it into chain. It was only then that Leoben turned his attention to her, adjusting his gloves and only glancing at her face. No greeting. No regard at all, beyond the methodical judgement that a butcher would regard a carcass. Leoben picked up the skinning knife and held the tip of his wand to it, feeling it heat in his hand immediately. "Tell me about your mother, Miss Meadowes," he instructed quietly. As best as she was able, Dorcas turned her head this way and that, trying to watch Yaxley as he entered the stable, as he fussed with his briefcase and the chain. Until she saw the giant metal hook and her gaze turned resolutely to the ceiling so she didn't have to see. So she didn't have to think about just what he was planning. All of her thoughts about how maybe she would be better off if he would just kill her were gone. As miserable and as lonely as her life had been, as pathetic as she was, as much of a burden as she was to everyone around her, she didn't want to die. And she was so scared. The comforting words that her friends had offered her in the journal, the strength they tried to give her, it was all gone with the rest of her memories of them and she had nothing to cling to now. Nothing but memories of her dead family and now he was asking for those too. Memories she didn't want to share but she could see the knife in his hand. And maybe... if she was good. If she did as he asked... She swallowed heavily, although there was nothing but the lump in her throat. "Her name was Louise," she replied softly, looking away from him. "She was a Muggle who met my father in London. After the war. She was..." But that was all she could bring herself to say and she closed her eyes, giving a slight shake of her head. Leoben only let the smallest of frowns touch his lips. The knife was all but glowing in his hand now and without warning, without any further pretence, he pressed the flat end of the blade onto the exposed flesh of her abdomen. "She was what, exactly?" he asked, still eerily calm, relaxed, content. He wanted her to finish. It was good, anyway, that she had cited that her mother had been a muggle. It meant that particular detail was becoming more and more important. Louise the muggle. Not Louise the mother, not Louise the friend. Louise the muggle. That was good. They were getting somewhere. Dorcas screamed as the burning metal touched her stomach. Her back arched instinctively in pain, but that just pressed her broken, shaking body further against the knife. She was desperately trying to pull herself away a moment later, but there was no leeway allowed by the shackles holding her quite firmly in place. The smell of her own burning flesh filled her over-sensitive nose and there was a wave of nausea through her stomach but all she could do was violently shake her head back and forth as tears streamed down her cheeks. "Please! DON'T!" she cried out desperately as searing pain continued to radiate across her stomach. "She was sweet and quiet and kind and never could've hurt anyone or anything and she used to sing to me and read me stories and she took me to mass on Sundays and it was when we used to get away from the house and everyone and... please. Just stop!" The words came out in a desperate, almost incoherent torrent as she gave up all of her fondest thoughts of her mother - the only remotely happy thoughts she had left - so he would just take the knife away. It was not the answer Leoben wanted. They were all positive, fond memories from a child about their mother and he wanted none of it. He sighed and took the knife away, if only because she had answered, that his initial reaction was to at least reward compliance. He moved down, just a foot, so that he was level with her legs. A flick of his wand fixed that, vanishing her clothes altogether. He was not interested in her body beyond simple mutilation and torture. It was the mind he wanted to remold, after all. He sank the still-hot knife into the skin just below her knee, not cutting deep by any means. Just enough to create something of a flap. Something to hold onto. When he'd achieved that (it didn't take very long), he took hold of it and pulled gently, ripping living tissue up, divorcing it from the underlying layer. The blade of his knife fit comfortably between, and then he pushed down, literally peeling and cutting her skin away from her body in a long, even strip. He thought it resembled uncooked bacon a bit. "Your mother made you weak," he said softly, when he was finished, dangling the strip in front of him for a moment before dropping it carelessly to the ground. "She dirtied you. She made you less." The relief at having the knife taken away was short-lived, and only minor at that as her stomach still burned. And then she was naked and cold and she felt so vulnerable and exposed, but that too was a fleeting thought before the searingly hot knife was digging into her leg and cutting and peeling and oh my god, he was going to skin her alive. The scream she let out this time was more a long, plaintive wail as she continued to struggle in vain against her bonds. Once upon a time her response to Yaxley's assertion would have been a vehement, angry denial and even still denial was her intention, even if she couldn't manage angry right now through all of her terror, when she opened her mouth the words that came out were entirely different and unexpected. "It wasn't her fault," she cried out. "It wasn't- She did the best she could." Even if it was not what he wanted to hear, there was still the implied admission that there was something wrong. That she was weak. That she was less. There could be no ignoring of that fact now. Not when it was made so clear with every scream and howl of pain. Leoben appeared unperturbed by her denial. They would get there, he was sure of it. She simply needed persuading. It was the same slow process, hardly an inch away from where he'd started; digging and peeling and pulling and cutting. He thought idly about the sound skin made when it ripped, and how he couldn't hear it over her screams. Again, it was discarded, dropped to the ground without another thought. "She did the best she could and yet, you are still here. You are still right here and you are going to die because she made you weak. You are soiled and sullied by her and you still defend her. Why?" There were more screams and wails and struggles as Dorcas suffered under Yaxley's knife, unable to think of anything but the pain he was inflicting. The pain that seemed to go so far beyond the part of flesh that he was slowly peeling away. Her eyes had been squeezed shut since the first glimpse of flesh dangling between his fingers and her hands were balled into painfully tight fists as she gave another violent shake of her head. She didn't know how to make him stop. Even as his words seeped insidiously into her mind, a constant refrain of just how weak and pathetic she was, she was too consumed by agony to process the simple fact that if she just disavowed her mother he might leave her alone. The pain was instead as effective as veritaserum in getting honest, true responses (or at least what she could believe to be true at the moment) to pour from her mouth in desperate, strung-together words. "Because she didn't know," she wailed. "She didn't- It was my dad's fault! Mum didn't know what she was doing and please please nooooooooo." Yes, her father could be blamed. Her dad who had dragged her sweet, helpless mother into a family where she didn't belong. Her mum hadn't known any better, but her dad... And still, the wrong answer. Leoben gave a short shake of the head and then moved to the opposite side of the first strip. The same process, but deeper this time. He was cutting through muscle this time, pulling it away in bloody clumps as the blade dug through meat. "Yes, well your father was a fool too. Another mistake in pureblood lineage. Your grandmother was a traitor and your father was even more useless. You are the product of idiocy and ignorance. Your defiance of my Lord is nothing short of foolish and vain and you will die because of your worthlessness." It was not an impassioned speech. It was just loud enough to be hard over her screams, matter-of-fact, from a man who thought himself very rational. As agonising as the cruciatus was, Dorcas was beginning to think that this was worse. The pain of the cruciatus at least faded when the curse was lifted. This... this was a whole new kind of agony. Sustained and lingering and even if she refused to look and see what he was doing to her, she could feel every inch of the knife tearing through her leg and closing her eyes was hardly the relief she might have hoped for as she was instead simply left to envision what was happening in her mind. "Yes. Okay. I don't know!" she cried out through her screams, although the words were essentially meaningless, desperate attempts to find something she could say that would make him stop. "Please. Anything- Anything-" She'd say anything he wanted to hear. He just had to tell her what because she didn't know and she couldn't figure it out and everything hurt but she didn't care if she had to disavow her whole family if he'd just make the pain go away. Leoben stopped. Out of obligation of keeping her sane, at least for now. It was the wrong answer. It was the wrong answer because she gave it for the wrong reason. She gave it out of necessity and hope that he would stop. She didn't believe it, not yet. He was quiet for a moment, considering her. And then he reached for his wand and cast a handful of spells. It was older magic, and he'd only used them a handful of times. Just as healers used numbing spells, there was magic out there that could essentially amplify sensation. To test, he scraped his knife against her arm, which was otherwise unharmed, all things considered. He broke the skin certainly, but not enough to cause anything but superficial damage. It hinged on her reaction. Her screams faded into breathy whimpers as she tried to recover her breath once he had stopped skinning her, even if her leg and stomach were both still in pure agony. He wasn't cutting anymore. He'd stopped. And that was all that mattered. That was all she could process through the sound of her heart pounding in her ears. And then there was a sharp, stinging pain in her arm that prompted a long, thoroughly pathetic whine as she tried to jerk her arm away instinctively, thinking he was just starting in on a new area of her body, that the skin of her arm would be next to go. "No. No no no. No more," she pleaded, shaking her head again. "I'll do anything. Just don't- No more." Leoben simply nodded, taking it as a sign that the charm had worked and she would feel much more vividly now. He put his skinning knife down and walked around the table to pull the other knife from the strip. All the better for stabbing. He pressed the tip into the skin of her forearm, directly between the two bones. He only pressed in enough to send dribble of blood welling up. A warning. With the charm though, he didn't actually know how much it might hurt. "You have to believe," he said quietly. "That your efforts against my Lord have only inhibited the future of society. That you are a stain on this earth and it is your dirtied heritage, your muggle mother, that makes you such. That you are as worthless as your line." Yaxley's charm made every last wound feel as if liquid fire was being poured into her body, a sharp contrast with the freezing cold air now acutely felt across her naked body. Even if the knife in her arm paled in comparison to being skinned alive, it was still sharp and agonising and there was another cry from her hoarse throat. At the pain and the fact that she didn't know how to give him what he wanted. She would say whatever he wanted to hear to make him leave her alone, but she didn't know how to make him believe her. She certainly didn't know how to make herself believe and instead she fixated on repeating back the few things she could say with all sincerity. "I'm worthless," she whimpered and oh, she did believe it to be true. "And a stain on the world and...and...I hate myself." Leoben nearly raised his eyebrows in surprise. Well that part had been easy. He didn't think she was capable of lying right now. But it wasn't everything he wanted. He was not finished yet. And so, he put pressure on the knife, forcing it through skin and into muscle another half-inch. "Why, though?" he asked, wanting her clarification, her reason. For as certainly as he'd wiped her memories and gave her plenty of reason to hate herself, that wasn't the purpose behind the exercise. He didn't want regurgitation. He wanted truth. Her cry turned into a howl of pain as he pressed the knife deeper into her arm and it was as if he was driving the blade straight through her. But Yaxley was right about one thing. She couldn't lie, at least not convincingly and even as she tried desperately to just give him what he wanted, her words were once again just desperate attempts at appeasement. "Because I'm pathetic. Because I'm weak and my life's pathetic... because I'm a half-blood. I DON'T KNOW," she cried out. It wasn't a matter of defiance or pride. That had been stripped away from her along with her dignity and self-worth. Her mind just would not accept the reversal of a lifetime spent arguing that blood did not matter, even with as desperately as she wanted it to. As if it were the one, last piece of who she had been that refused to be shattered. Nor could her mind take much more of this sustained, agonising abuse and even as her arm and her stomach and her leg were all burning in pain, she desperately sought some relief within the confines of her own head. Some happier memory to cling to. Some little corner of peace and calm and happiness where she could just forget everything that was happening to her. But there was nothing. Yaxley had taken them all away and all she was left with was one series of misfortunes after another. Leoben sighed and shoved the blade in another inch, which at this point, was nearly all the way through. "I don't believe you," he said softly, disappointment clear in his tone. His tone though, was a harsh contrast to the way he jerked the blade toward her hand, severing muscles and nerves and tendons until he embedded the blade into the bones of her wrist, digging it into them and then leaving it, only to twist it sharply, ninety degrees. "You are worthless because of your lineage, Miss Meadowes," he said, just loud enough to be heard. "And even then, my Lord would have taken you in. He could have made you a servant to his Cause if only you'd believed for him. He could have given you worth. You could have been better." The knife tearing through her arm combined with the sensitising charm was such a shock to her system that Dorcas did not even know how to process it. A powerful convulsion tore through her body as her mouth opened and she let out a positively blood-curdling scream, but the sound quickly faded to a very nearly silent, whimpering exhale of breath as she turned her face away from Yaxley. And when she opened her eyes again, she saw her salvation. Fabian. Her only friend and he had come for her. She was going to be okay. She was going to be rescued after all. The faintest hint of a smile was on her lips as she twisted her uninjured arm in its shackle to try and reach out from the table for him. Everything else had slipped away at the overwhelming feeling of relief that she felt at seeing him again. Even the pain seemed to fade to nothing more than a dull throb that kept pace with the pounding of her heart in her chest. "Fabian," she whispered. And then the slight smile faltered at the memory of what he had done. "Why- How could you?" "Shhh, Dorcas," he replied softly as he moved to the side of the table and took her hand in his and gave it a tight squeeze as his other hand moved to gently stroke her hair. "You need this. You need to pay for all of the bad things you've done. You tried to cast unforgivables, Dorcas. You tried to kill Ben's wife. You need to be punished now." More tears spilled from Dorcas's eyes as she shook her head in confusion. "But- But you did too. You helped." "It's not the same, Dorcas. Haven't you figured that out by now? That magic isn't for you." There was another squeeze of her hand. "Now be good and take your punishment. Don't fight it anymore." "But- He wants me to say- He wants me to believe and I can't. I don't know how," she replied, her voice soft and weak. "It hurts so much." "I know. And you can. You know it's true. Just be good. Be good and it'll all be over soon." Leoben looked on with the first sign of real interest that he'd had since he'd been here. A one-sided conversation. And a distinct lack of pain. Fabian. He waited for "Fabian" to leave, or at least for the pair of them to stop talking, and then he said very quietly, not even touching the knife. If she'd cracked, he wanted to know. "Dorcas, why do you have to die?" he asked, for the first time looking sceptical and interested. For the longest time, Dorcas remained silent, tears still streaming down her cheeks even as Yaxley's voice shattered her hallucination and Fabian faded away. And then the pain came back in its full, agonising force and she cried out, her body spasming at the shock, as if she had just been thrown into a pot of boiling water. The words of her image of Fabian seeped through her fractured, damaged mind, filling the holes with misplaced, confused beliefs. She no longer possessed the sense of reason to see how little sense his words made. She had tried to kill Yaxley and failed because she couldn't cast the killing curse. She couldn't cast the killing curse because she was a halfblood. Because that kind of magic wasn't allowed. Because it wasn't allowed for her kind. Truth and easily imposed suggestions blurred together and she was still confused and overwhelmed, but in the end she was certain of one thing. She deserved this. She deserved to die for everything she'd done. "I... because I'm a halfblood," she replied quietly and then she looked up at Ben, meeting his eyes for the first time since he'd started. "Please. Just... Please. Kill me," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. She was ready for it all to be over, for all of the pain and suffering and misery and everything her pathetic existence had inflicted on the world to end. She only hoped it would be quick. Leoben met her eyes evenly and then in a fluid movement, wrenched the knife from her arm. He flicked his wand at the table the chains disappeared, dissolved really. Another murmured spell, and he bound her feet together, one ankle crossed over the other. It wasn't for containment, but rather to keep the next part balanced. He dragged her rudely off the table and across the ground by the ropes at her feet and then reached for the hook and chain still dangling in the centre of the room. A flick of his wand and a tug, and he pulled an extra length from it, stretching the cool metal like elastic. It was one quick movement and a muted grunt of effort that he shoved the business end of the hook through the thin part of the back of her foot, between the tendon and the bone. And then he let go, letting the chain recoil itself and lift her from the ground. One foot. Two. Three. Four. Until her navel was level with his eyes. He glanced down at her and let her hang for a moment so he could retrieve his skinning knife. There was a gut hook on the opposite side. And again he stood in front of her, cold, almost entirely emotionless. "Once more, Miss Meadowes," he said quietly. "Why do you have to die?" Dorcas didn't move when the chains and shackles that had been digging so painfully into her skin were vanished. She wanted to curl up on herself but movement required a strength and a will she did not possess, not even to mount one last attempt at freedom, not to find some bit of huddled comfort or pull away from the blood that was puddling beneath her side from the wounds on her arm and leg. She had given up. She was broken in both body and spirit and all she could do was wait for Yaxley to strike the killing blow. But that did not seem to be his plan for her, she realised quite abruptly as her body crashed to the ground and she cried out at the fresh wave of pain that tore through her. Her head was spinning from blood loss, from smacking into the unyielding ground, but it was not as if there was much of a mind left to damage. And then there was the sharp, acute pain of the hook tearing through the back of her foot and she screamed yet again, although the sound was weak and hoarse. The terror that consumed her as she was lifted into the air was not of dying, but of being kept alive. Of further torments. Of what cruelties he still planned to inflict. Blood poured over her hand as her arms hung limply towards the floor and she once again succumbed to her delirious hallucinations - far from painless this time - as Fabian reappeared, this time not as her salvation but as an observer to her torture, standing and watching with his arms folded calmly across his chest. "You promised," she sobbed, her voice thick with betrayal and hurt as she desperately pleaded with the figment of her imagination. It was not that she intended to ignore Yaxley, she simply did not hear him. His voice was not enough to cut through the dense fog of her mind. "I was good. You promised it would be over. Please. Fabian. Make him stop. I'm sorry. For everything. Just...make him end this. Please. I don't want to- I just want to die." Leoben remained unmoved, really only rolling his eyes as he realised she had succumbed to another hallucination. He suddenly wished he'd removed the other Prewett from her head too. It was too late now. It wouldn't do anything. He simply he had to bring her back first. She couldn't die in the middle of a fantasy. He wouldn't allow it. She had to know. He flicked at his wand jiggling the chain violently and stepping back to her sway to let the hook move and wiggle in tender skin and muscle. "You will pay attention when I tell you to do something, Miss Meadowes," he growled, deadly calm but for the edge in his voice. Another flick of his wand and he pried the listening device off the table to float in the air, much closer to her now. "Tell me why you have to die." Reality snapped back into focus at the sharp pain of the hook tearing through her foot and she let out another short, breathy scream. The pain was all-consuming, but this time Yaxley's demand managed to filter through it all and compliance came all too easily. "Because I deserve it," she cried out, her voice louder than it had been in some time. Louder and shaking with agony and desperation that he would take her words as the honest confession she believed them to be in her utterly broken mind. What had Fabian told her? "Because I... I used magic that wasn't mine. Because... I fought against the Dark Lord. Because I'm a filthy halfblood and I deserve to die for what I've done. Please." Leoben stood impassively for a long moment before reaching up to still the chain, putting its sway to an abrupt halt. He readjusted his grip on the knife and wasted no more time. He'd gotten what he wanted out of her. He shoved the blade deep into the skin, through tissue and muscle, just below her navel, and then ripped it down an inch. It was deep, but little more than an incision. But another adjustment of the knife in his hand, and then he hooked the gutting end of the blade into the new opening. It took only one swift stroke downward, tearing muscle wide open until he hit her breastbone. The bone stopped the knife, but the work was already done. The hook ripped through the muscle wall that was normally oh so protective of all the body's precious internal organs, normally so easily settled next to each other. Warm, sticky blood bathed his arm and shoulder in the torrent that unleashed from the wound. Gravity did the rest. Leoben moved out of the way before the entire mess fell to the ground in a heavy, wet schloop. Dorcas screamed one last time as Yaxley pushed the knife into her stomach and god, she didn't understand why nothing she said was enough. Why he was still torturing her when she was already so very cold and weak and miserably broken. Why he wouldn't believe her when she herself was so sure that she deserved to die. When she wanted it, not just to put an end to the suffering he was inflicting upon her but so no one else would ever be subjected to the mess that was her life. A life in which she had no friends. No family. No home. A life in which she had just brought one misfortune after another upon herself and the few people who could even stand to be around her. She had killed her own family, not by her hand but certainly by her actions. She had fought against society, against the Ministry, against the Dark Lord. She had cast dark magic. Unforgivables. She had tried to kill. And she needed to pay for what she had done. She understood that now. Why didn't he... And then, as he tore the knife through her body, as her blood and her insides poured out of her, her screams and her thoughts were abruptly cut off and there was nothing more. |