Head of DoMLE, Alecto Black (carrowblack) wrote in linia, @ 2011-09-30 11:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, black alecto carrow, weasley arthur |
Who: Arthur and Alecto
What: Arthur gets tortured
Where: Ministry Holding Cells
When: Friday morning, just before Arthur’s trial
Rating: high, for violence
Arthur knew. He knew and he went anyway. Masochism had to be involved in that somehow.
He just hated the idea of Thomas going to the alley with that week’s supply of dairy products and having no one there to meet him. That was bad business, and bad on their small little friendship. It was bad enough that Arthur said he was never available by telephone. To not show up without any warning? He could have lost his milk man. That was severe.
Get there, tell Thomas he didn’t have the money this week, and he would send him something through the post when he would reorder. That was all the meeting would be. That was all the meeting was. He knew.
Alecto had so gleefully enjoyed dragging him back to the Ministry. Arthur couldn’t particularly blame her, considering he had told her he was going to pay the milk man in the morning. And there he was, with his milk man.
Poor Thomas. He’d probably need another milk man now anyway.
Alecto’s newly added shackles were the only thing that had been added to the hold cells. The stone was still stone, the bars still some kind of un-magicable metal. He’d never actually been in them, but he had to feed people who were while still at the Ministry. Part of his work as an unMarked Ministry employee. Godric, he didn’t miss it.
He’d been stripped of his robes, left in an undershirt and fraying trousers. The furnace chains had successfully made it impossible to sleep. Blistered burns around each wrist and ankle seared under the continual agony, but he refused to cry out, shed a tear, or look like he was in pain. Refused.
Alecto loved that she had arrested Arthur Weasley. She’d enjoyed taunting Ginny Weasley, and now here, the morning of Arthur’s hearing, she was going to come taunt Arthur. And possibly dole out some punishment of her own.
“Arthur,” she said, standing outside the cell, an evil glint in her eyes. “Arthur, your daughter has quite a mouth on her.”
Arthur looked up at Sirius’s wife with dark, swollen eyes. He needed sleep. Desperately. And now she wanted a piece of him, surely. Why else would she be so early for the hearing? “Yes, I know. I’ve taught her well, haven’t I? She is quite good at mouthing off. Partially taught, partially inherited. What did she have to say about my imprisonment?”
He could only imagine. Of course, there were probably a lot of people either worried about him or angry with him. Any and all were justified.
“Oh, Arthur,” she said softly, though cruelly. “Do you really want to test me?” She looked at him for a moment, then slid out her wand, pointing it through the bars at his chains. “Let’s see how you do with a little heat … we do have some time to talk, after all.” She wasn’t normally this soothing with her punishments - that was more Bellatrix’s thing, playing with her toys. Alecto was the sort to just get it over with. But sometimes playing was useful, and she hadn’t yet tested the limits of Arthur. She didn’t want to break him too soon - Bellatrix might have been crazy, but she did have some useful techniques.
Arthur couldn’t explain why he insisted on playing with fire. His deep down desire to die, most likely. Then again, he still firmly believed that they would keep him alive, and do so mostly to continue to use him. For things like this. But like Ginny said, it’s best to know your enemy. If that was her reason for taking PDA, then that was Arthur’s reason for taunting Alecto. To get to know the enemy, and the enemy’s limits.
However, as the chains heated and the shackles burned enough to let the smell of burnt flesh waft through his cell, he did question his judgment. A tender blister on the back of one of his ankles burst, exposing the red-hot heat to the tender of skin.
Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t quiet that scream.
Well, that was easy. Alecto grinned and entered the cell, clanging the door behind her. “You know when I come down here, they know not to listen to the screams,” she said. And it was true, when she walked down the stairs, people fled from the holding cell corridors - they knew what was coming. They knew the screams wouldn’t abate for a long time.
With a swift motion of her wand, she sent a hex at Arthur’s eyes that would cause searing, burning pain. He’d cry, whether he wanted to or not. A shake of the wand, and it was a whip, like she’d used so many times before - even on Sirius. She cracked it through the air. “I think one for every comment that brat of yours made.” She paused. “Maybe two.”
Arthur bit his lip, trying to ignore the second popped blister. He’d have to go to St. Mungo’s for this. Surely third degree burns.
But the moment it felt like his eyes were set on fire he lost all interest in his blister-popping limbs. He drew blood from his lip, biting so hard. A small whimper escaped as the first of the tears fell, his body fighting feverishly to soothe his eyes. His tears made it difficult to see, but he thought he’d seen the wand transform into something long, pliable. “How—” He gasped. Talking had broken his concentration not making noise. “How many times did she lash out at you?”
“You’ll just have to count the lashings,” Alecto said, the enjoyment obvious in her voice. She flicked the whip hard and fast, her aim true, slicing at his right collarbone. “Count,” she commanded.
There was a sharp intake of breath but not scream, he was proud to say. He didn’t want to give her that satisfaction. But he knew he’d have to count.
His watering eyes fell to his right collarbone, to the tatters remains of his shirt sleeve, and the line of blood oozing and getting ready to drop down onto his chest. “One,” he said, stronger than he’d realized he could.
The second caught him on his left side, the third on his right. “I hope daughter dearest learns from her mistakes,” Alecto said, a tiny respite as she planned where to go next. “Tell her next time I won’t be so nice.”
The fourth caught on the right side of his neck.
“Four,” he whimpered. Four was difficult. Four had hit one of those all-important veins that runs between the heart and the brain, to an—artillery? No, that wasn’t right. But now wasn’t the time to remember words he read two decades before in a Muggle anatomy book. Whatever it was, the moment the whip hit, a long stream of blood left his neck, soaking his shirt and chest with blood.
“To me or to her, Alecto?” he asked. He pulled the chains up against his neck to close the wound; too much blood. He screamed at the heat impact, but it served its purpose; the bleeding stopped.
“You.” Alecto said simply. She was still trapped at Hogwarts - literally trapped now, and if Alecto had her way, the child wouldn’t be coming home for the holidays either. Another consequence of her and her father’s actions. It would be better for the students at the castle, she would argue, and once she had Lucius on board, their Lord would see the wisdom of that. Along with the additional punishments she wanted the Hogwarts students to face. “And her.” Without taking a breath, after that, both five and six came crashing down - one on the stomach, the other the right thigh.
He couldn’t look at her any longer. After he’d audibly counted number six, he feel onto his side, his hands and feet out and not touching the stones. He closed his eyes—which were slowly starting to clear a bit—and licked his blood encrusted lips. “Leave her alone. Only do it to me. Mouthing off isn’t against the law.” [end]
Alecto cracked the whip down as hard as she could on the sole of Arthur’s right foot. “I. Am. The. Law.” she hissed.
“SHIT bloody seven,” he wheezed, curling in on himself more. He—really hurt. But it almost reaching a point where he couldn’t feel it anymore. “You’re only the law as long as those with more power than you let you keep it.”
It was bold, very bold, but Arthur was in serious pain, and getting angrier about it.
Alecto didn’t reply to his taunt - at least not verbally. She kicked his foot, his side, then went and stood over him, pressing her heel deep into his left forearm where his Mark should have been. “Of course,” she spat at him, “they will let me keep it.” She twisted her foot on his arm, pushing all of her weight on it until she heard the crack of bone. She stepped back and slashed the whip across his face, leaving a welt running from under his right eye down across his mouth to the left side of his jaw.
The strangled cry that left his lips even surprised him with the amount of pain on his voice. But—he’d never had a bone broken deliberately before. He could feel his hand go limp, his muscles incapable of supporting it, of keeping it a somewhat safe distance from the shackles. He felt his flesh burn, hotter than the pain in his broken arm. He stared at her shoe imprint.
He’d asked for that one. Didn’t make it hurt any less.
Arthur licked the fresh blood away from his lip. “I—believe—we’re up to—eight,” he said said through pained gasps.
His inability to break angered her and she sliced the whip at him, five, six, seven, times in fast succession, getting to the right number. When she’d finished, she was breathing heavily from the exertion of it. No matter that Arthur couldn’t answer; she’d more than made her point. “Remember, Weasley,” she sneered. “This is me being nice. Your daughter keeps acting out and I’ll show you both how mean I can be.”
Arthur nodded his agreement. He was all he could do at that point. The pain had become strong enough he was numb. More tears welled up in his eyes, reigniting the curse on them. The heavy whipping had made his entire body throb until he could no longer feel it, but he could see the blood pumping in the heavier welts. His mind clouded over. Nothing in the room existed, not even the shoe that was still imprinted on his arm. He couldn’t feel anything, not even the burning. He fell into black until one face stood in front of him.
Short, stout, beautifully round, dimpled smile, and curly red hair. His beautiful wife. Arthur, you know better than to taunt an angry woman, don’t you? Stubbornness has never allowed you to win. A sob escaped his lips and he turned more into his side. “I’m sorry, Molly,” he murmured.
Alecto watched him, pleased he’d finally broken. Everyone always broke. No, he hadn’t screamed his way into oblivion, but some didn’t. This was good enough. It had been different, trying to pull it out of him, but what had finally broken him was her tried and true method of short, harsh bursts. Bellatrix could keep the toying, she didn’t toy. But she had still learned so much. Two more sharp cracks against his side, and she was done, gliding effortlessly out of the cell. Finished just in time for the trial - if Arthur could even manage to pull coherent thoughts together. She chuckled as she walked down the hallway, her whip a wand again, smacking it against the bars of occupied cells every few feet.