arse-fucked god you pray to, I'll rip your spine out with my bare hands"
Blaise smirked at him. He had clearly regained control of his emotions in the face of Draco's complete loss of his own. "You and what army?"
Draco snarled and lunged forward in his chains. He got as far as an inch in front of Blaise. Far enough that his breath stirred the other boy's hair. It was a calculated distance, on Blaise's part.
"TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT YOU PSYCHOTIC BASTARD!"
In reply, Blaise walked to the wooden lever and pushed it slowly to the middle setting. There was groaning, the creaking sound of a mechanical contraption not used in a long while.
The end result was that Draco was violently slammed back against the wall, spreadeagled. The back of his head throbbing from the impact and his vision became blurry in his right eye. He stared at Blaise with a mixture of disbelief and rage.
"Why, you offering me something, Malfoy?" Blaise asked, calmly.
"Anything," Draco gasped. "You' ll need funds for your cause, yes? Whatever I have, it's yours. You want names, secrets, Ministry secrets, fuel for blackmail, I can get that for you" he knew he was ranting, but could not stop the words from tumbling out. "You want to Recruit me, go ahead. Voldemort wants me, doesn't he? Let him Mark me. Let her go."
Blaise snorted. "We already have you."
Draco shook his head. "You don't. You want compliance, I can give you that. You do it this way, the only way your piece of shit Dark Lord is going to get me to cooperate is very unwillingly."
Blaise seemed to ponder this last suggestion. Draco felt a tiny spark of hope ignite inside him. "Anything in the world I can give to you, it's yours," he added, hoarsely.
"In exchange for her, I suppose? The filthy Mudblood you swore to hate the moment you learned what she was? "
"Yes," Draco whispered, emphatic. He would not think of Hermione. He would not. He would lose all control if he did. She was safe. Blaise had his own interest in her. Draco could see that now. If nothing else, perhaps that would keep her safe for the moment.
"Anything?"
"Anything at all that's mine to give," Draco repeated, his voice breaking.
"Excellent." Blaise clapped his hands together, looking immensely pleased, as if some great drama had unfolded exactly as he had expected.
He walked up to Draco' s tautly stretched body, leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Black hair mingled with white-blond.
"I want to be you," he said, with the type of frenzied awe of a child coming down the stairs to a mountain of unopened presents at Yule. "Do you think you can make that happen?"
Draco drew back and stared at him, stared long and hard and knew that there would be no bargaining with Blaise. There would be no reasoning.
"Her being here is your fault, you know. Wallow in that, Malfoy. I confess that I' ve harboured more than a passing fancy for our charming, Head Girl, but it was your interest in her that sealed her fate. Oh yes, I know all about your sordid little adventure with Fida Mia."
And with that, Blaise reached into a pocket and drew out a small, wooden box.
He flipped it open for Draco's benefit. Inside, sitting on a bloody wad of tissue, was a pair of eyes.
One was green the other was blue. They were Arne Hendrick's eyes and they seemed to be frozen in a final vision of terror.
"And here I thought you Malfoys never married for love"
Draco lost his mind.
He trashed and kicked and roared. Three feet of chain slid through rusted iron loops. Each time he lunged he got as far as halfway to where Blaise stood before the chains could go no further. The manacles bit and ground into his wrists until blood ran down his hands and dripped from his fingers.
"Crucio," Blaise said, sounding almost regretful.
**
Hermione was free.
One minute she was struggling under the effects of the Imperious Curse. The next minute, there was a blackout in her head, followed by a brilliant, agonising flash of pain which she recognised to be Cruciatus.
She knew that pain intimately. It had haunted her dreams since fifth year. Even if she arranged to have her memory of having suffered the spell Obliviated, body memory was another thing. Her muscles and nerves remembered, for all that the flash had lasted mere seconds.
To her initial dismay, she found that she had not been able to