Disclaimer: If you recognise it, surprise, I don't own it.
Chapter 6– Torture.
Edited: 13/03/2023
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"GUAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
"Hahaha, how many was that, Lockhart? Have you been keeping count?" Digby laughs, basking in my suffering after delivering a Crucio to my bound form once more. T-The pain, it is indescribable. I-I don't think I have ever actually known the true meaning of the word before this very moment. I-If anything, an entirely new word should be made to properly suit this new level of pain and suffering and a new curse for the bastard that inflicts such pain and torture.
B-But with this pain comes another feeling that I have never felt quite so clearly or with quite so much potency, this world I also think I have never felt the true meaning of. Hate. Pure hate. The people in my past life who I thought I hated, those people were practically my friends in comparison to the pure vitriol I feel for this fat despicable piece of shit in front of me. Never, not ever, have I dreamt of hurting another being so much and thought myself actually capable of it.
I want to cut the fat off of him and force-feed it to him. I want to remove his testicles and shove them down his throat, and when he shits them out, make him eat them again. I want to- "Ughh." A harsh sting scorches my cheek, interrupting my train of thought and bringing my attention to the vile animal standing in front of me.
"I believe I asked you a question, blondie. How many times have I cast the Crusiatos curse on you? It is in your best interest to remember. After all, I can only do 7 casts of the spell before marks start to be left on you from the curse. If I go over that number, well, the pain will become even worse, and while I would enjoy that, the marks left by the spell will ruin my plan. So, I ask again, how many?" He says calmly, assured that everything is in hand, and honestly, I can't refute that.
He is in charge here. I have nothing I can do to get out of this except knocking over the chair, but he is right here, and he has his wand on him. So even if the chair does luckily break, I won't have the time to do anything before he uses his wand to restrain me again. I don't see a way out of this.
"F-Five. Y-You have cast the spell f-five times." I sputter out despite my aching body, my voice raspy and dry as hell, my lungs hurt, and a whole host of other body parts are pulsating in pain. Still, if I don't talk, then he is just going to hit me again, or he is going to get the wrong number of times he has cast the Cruciatus curse and cause me even more pain diminishing my capabilities and chances to escape.
"Oh, that many already. I am so sad to see our time together coming to an end, Gilderoy. I will make sure to enjoy the short time we have left together. After all, I have to pay you back for all those years you took care of me. CRUCIO!" He roars. He doesn't even have to shout at all but doing so seems to give him some form of pleasure.
"AARRGgggghh." I begin to scream, but not wanting to give this madman any more pleasure, I stifle my screams by gnashing my teeth together. Blood leaks from my gums from my teeth being tightly clamped together. A pain worse than anything assaults my being, worse than one thousand white-hot knives boring into my skin and anything else that could possibly be imagined.
The worst part is that this spell does not actually cause any physical damage, at least on the surface. But, if I remember correctly, the curse assaults the nerves directly, which means it goes straight to the pain receptors and causes the utmost pain directly at the most vulnerable point.
"W-Why? W-Why are you doing this, Digby? I, I have never been anything but kind to you. W-when you needed a job, I gave you one. S-So why, why are you repaying my kindness with hatred?" I manage to eke out, asking a serious question that I have been contemplating ever since I first woke up strapped to this chair. I know he said that he was a follower of Voldemort, so Digby is obviously the scum of the earth, but that doesn't explain why he was targeting me.
"Why? Why? Well, I suppose I can humour you. It might be fun to tell you about all my achievements under the Dark Lord. Someone should know even if you are going to die. You see, I come from the Noble Pureblooded Digworth family. In fact, I was actually the last of the family, as most of them had died under Gellert Grindelwald and the rest from old age. So I inherited everything though there wasn't much left in the bank as we invested our all with Grindelwald." So why the hell is he monologuing? Am I not in enough pain already?
"But what I did have was the patent to a potion. One of my ancestors had come up with the recipe, and every time someone bought that potion at a store, I received a portion of the profits. So the profit just appeared in my account at Gringotts until one day it didn't." He gnashes his teeth and fires off a curse at random, breaking an expensive-looking vase in the corner. Then, catching himself, he casts a Reparo on the item and continues with his story.
"One day, I couldn't afford to purchase something at a particularly nice store. Not believing it, I travelled to Gringotts to sort out the problem, but when I got there, I was informed that my vault was empty, and in fact, I had been using money I didn't have. Those dirty little Goblins kept allowing me to purchase things without informing me of the problems with my vault, racking up debt with them, which they used to take all of my possessions, leaving me with nothing, not even the Digworth ancestral home." Boohoo, why is he telling me.
"It was only due to a friend, but I found out why I was put in this situation. A dirty little Mudblood had come up with a more efficient recipe for the potion my ancestors created, probably having slyly stolen it from a Pureblood. After submitting it to the ministry, the dirty thing was stealing all of my Galleons. But, unfortunately, I found out too late." He sighs and takes a seat on my sofa, looking down and twiddling with the wand held in his palm.
"Me, a true wizard, cheated out of my birthright by a cunning underhanded Mudblood, I was deserted and destitute, and then, my saviour came for me. He had heard what had happened to me, how I had been unjustly treated, and he came to help me. The Dark Lord was my saviour in my moment of despair. When I was lost, he gave me direction and hope. he gave me something to believe in." Getting really zealous here.
"The Dark Lord led me to the house of that Mudblood, the home paid for with my money, and we attacked and raised it to the ground, and I made sure I paid that Mudblood and his Mudblood family back for his arrogance tenfold. But, unfortunately, the Mudblood died of his injuries before I could get him to sign the patent over to me. you see, I wasn't as familiar with torture as I am now." He smiles down at the wand in his hand with anger in his eyes, seeming to relish in those memories while simultaneously hating them with a passion. He is genuinely a psychopathic man.
"Since there was Mudblood died, and so did his Mudblood spawns, there was no one to inherit the patent, and so the ministry claimed it and now receives those galleons, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I now had a bigger purpose: a greater destiny that made money worthless. So after that, I followed the Dark Lord and made it my very purpose for living to see the world he spoke of come to fruition, a world where Mudbloods knew their place and true wizards reigned supreme over every other lesser being that existed. We Purebloods stood at the top with our superior magic, exactly where we were always meant to be." A maniacal grin stretches across his face as he imagines his utopia, the same utopia he thought to be brought by Voldemort.
At the same time, I know for a fact that Voldemort would have never brought such a vision to fruition as everyone would have been below him.
"But what does that have to do with me? Fine, you became a Death Eater under Volde-" "Shut it, shut your mouth! You don't have the right to speak his name with your dirty half-blood mouth! Your mother was a great witch that taught at Hogwarts, even teaching me at one point, but that was until she revealed herself as the bitch she was. She became a whore and married a muggle! You may have lied about it in your books, but I have been with you for years, and I learnt the truth, your whole family is disgusting, as are you!!" He roars, interrupting me, angered at the mention of his lord from my lips and some underlying rage about the blood that runs through my veins.
I look at him, and he looks back into my eyes with murder in his own eyes. Cowed by the frightening gaze, I lower my head and refrain from speaking any longer. I don't want to limit the time I have left, so keeping him calm and telling his story is my best option. The longer I can prolong my life, the better chance I have of living through this and paying this bastard back tenfold.
"Ahem, now back to my story. I no longer cared about anything but furthering the Dark Lord's goals. Fighting under him was all I needed, and to be honest, I enjoyed torturing those unworthy of magic, Mudbloods and Bloodtraitors alike and massacring those little muggles. I furthered my skills and experimented with spells on them as well, which is how I know how many times I can cast the Cruciatus curse on you without leaving any damage and for how long as well. But everything changed the night of 31st of October 1981, Halloween, when the Dark Lord disappeared all because of the Potter brat, and after that, I had nothing." He looks genuinely mournful as he sits there contemplating, thinking about the man he followed and his disappearance with a sad look on his face, which I find hard to believe.
Still, I guess this guy was more gullible and had more faith than the other Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy, so why the hell is he here and not with the other crazies locked up in Azkaban Prison?
"At the time, I was busy taking my time with some Blood Traitors and making sure they felt the full brunt of their folly, which meant I couldn't be there to aid my lord. I wasn't even there to attack the Longbottoms with the Lestranges being too busy with my work and only coming out of my torture room a full day later. By that time, it was too late. I tried to find the Potter Brat and fulfil my lord's last known goal, but I could find neither hide nor hair of the cursed spawn." His face becomes the picture of evil as pure vicious hatred appears on his face, the emotions he feels for Harry Potter being absurdly strong, being the cause of Voldemort's disappearance.
"I tried to contact the other Death Eaters for assistance, but the truly loyal ones were already in Azkaban and caught. The others managed to either escape the Aurors or were proclaimed under the Imperious curse. Once more, I was lost. I surfed around through the homes of my fellow Death Eaters. Still, one by one, they kicked me out, only afraid that I would be caught by the Aurors and give them up, but apparently, after three years of being passed between them, I was no longer a concern for them, with too much time having elapsed since the Dark Lord's disappearance. So they all cut contact with me and threw me out onto the street." A look of disgust now crosses his face, no anger to be seen, just disgust for his fellow Death Eaters who have failed in some way in his eyes.
"I was out on the street with nothing to my name once more, and this time the Dark Lord was not there to lift me up. I lived a year with nothing and struggled to live every day with each of my former colleagues, cutting off any avenue I had to better my life. They were scared of me getting into a position of power but too afraid to take care of me permanently as the Dark Lord held particular favour for me, being his personal torturer." Pride mars his face as he thinks about his former position, completely dissolving the former anger he was feeling, taking pride in his work under Voldemort.
This man is so dumb. Digby had magic in his palm and couldn't even use it to survive without the aid of money, he is the reason he is in this mess, and it is not my fault if he is such an idiot.