Chapter Text
Visceral
Wrathful
Bitter
Venomous
Choose whatever word you fucking like, but it always ends the same. Smothering every ember of emotion until they rest blackened like coal within the pit of your existence.
Draco Malfoy learned early on that to survive; he would need to obliterate every part of his former self. The Dark Lord had little patience for weakness, so Draco took the softest parts of himself and pressurized them until the only thing left of him was a cold, hard diamond for the Dark Lord to collect in his assortment of prized possessions.
Draco traced a familiar path through the darkened halls of his once-warm home. Since the Dark Lord had taken up residency eight years ago, the smell of flowers from his mother's garden had been replaced with the stench of decay that had slithered over every surface. The rot from hundreds of deaths refused to be forgotten. Even Draco’s private chambers hadn’t escaped the touch of evil; the Dark Lord seemed to resonate through his very pores.
“Malfoy!” Macnair's nasal voice shouted from behind Draco.
Fucking Fantastic. Draco thought to himself.
“What do you want, Macnair?” Draco asks coldly and without slowing his pace.
“The Dark Lord requires your presence. Not so high and mighty are you now, boy?” As a general rule, Draco found most of his Death Eater comrades to be, in a word, greasy. Their general sense of cleanliness was lacking, especially after playing in the filth the Dark Lord provided in abundance. Their view of the world was just as disgusting, and they were nothing but mindless sheep, just waiting for their turn at the slaughter. Macnair was no different as he bared his yellowing teeth in an unpleasant smile.
“Good dog. The message has been delivered. Now get the bloody hell out of my sight.” Draco’s tone drips with disdain as he dismisses the filth before him.
“Dog? We’ll see who’s the dog when our Lord is done with you. Someone needs to put you in your place.” Macnair’s face pinches in distaste as he spews insults at Draco.
With a final look of disdain towards Macnair, Draco changes his course and heads towards his least favorite room in the Manor. The drawing room. A once-light space where his mother could often be found serving tea, visiting with friends, or reading a book now held so much darkness that Draco found it hard to stomach entering the chambers. Striding into the room, he tried to dismiss the peeling wallpaper; congealed and dried blood splatters cover every surface, and bones of people long dead decorate floorboards, so they crunch under Draco’s boots.
Draco halts at the foot of the Dark Lord’s dais and bends to one knee, refusing to meet the crimson orbs of the snake-like creature before him. In his life, Draco considered only three things shameful. He’d done an immeasurable number of dark things in the line of duty, but only three brought him shame.
Letting Death Eaters into Hogwarts
Watching as Hermione Granger was tortured in this very room as he did nothing.
And letting a weak, bigoted beta hold power over him. Only a handful of Malfoy men had been blessed with the alpha genes, and here Draco knelt at the feet of a beta. Every day was a constant battle with his inner alpha, demanding that he take control and refuse to be cowed down by a man he perceived to be lesser.
Get off your knees, boy. We are more than this.
Patience. Draco chides himself.
“Draco… you have…disssspleassed me.” The Dark Lord hisses as he stands shakily from his onyx stone chair.
“Forgive me, my Lord,” Draco says as he trains his eyes on a dark speck of blood near his boot.
“What was your missssion, Draco?” boney white feet with elongated yellowing toenails scrape across the wood floor as they circle Draco’s bowed form.
“To dispatch the band of Order Members spotted outside one of our encampments in Surrey,” Draco answers without an ounce of emotion. He knows precisely what is coming and will not give the sick fuck the satisfaction of seeing an ounce of fear. Fear had been beaten and tortured out of him a long time ago.
“Was your missssion successssful?” Voldemort asks despite having the answer already.
“No, My Lord. The Order seems to have made connections with the Muggle Military. We were not prepared for the use of Muggle weapons.” Draco answers.
“Disssapointing,” Voldemort whispers darkly before gripping the hairs of Draco’s scalp and yanking the fine platinum strands. Claw-like nails dig into Draco’s skin, but he refuses to make a sound. Weakness is not something allowed in the Death Eater ranks. “Crucio.” The fine tip of the Dark Lord’s wand digs into the taught skin of Draco’s neck as the curse rips through his veins, lighting every nerve up from within. He's unsure if this goes on for seconds or minutes, but at the end, he’s heaving in air through flared nostrils and sweat beads at his temple.
“You will fix thisss.” The stench of death nearly makes Draco gag as the Dark Lord breathes against the skin of his face.
Kill. The alpha part of himself commands so viciously that Draco has to clamp down on his control to prevent the predator from entering.
“It will be done, My Lord.” Draco stands swiftly and turns to leave the center of death surrounding him.
“Sssseee that it is.” Draco hastens his step as the slithering voice follows him from the room.
Thwack
Thwack
Thwack
Draco’s shoulders tense and release as he sends blade after blade flying into the target across the training room, and his naked torso is dripping with sweat. In his journey to become a lethal General in the Dark Lord’s army, he’d taken to honing not only his magical abilities but his physical ones as well. He worked his body to the near breaking point until every part of himself was a weapon to be used. He’d used his bare hands to take a life nearly as often as his wand; he’d trained his mind to be as sharp as his blade, and that had served him well as he worked his way up through the ranks.
“I take it you didn’t find what we were looking for.” Theodore Nott, Draco’s closest friend, speaks from the doorway.
Releasing a heavy sigh, Draco turns to meet Theo’s emotionless gaze. “No. There was nothing there.”
“So, you were tortured for nothing. Again.” Theo says it as more of a statement than a question. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, mate.”
“We aren’t giving up Theo. We will find her. I made you a promise, and I will keep it.”
“I know, Drake, but I also see what it’s doing to you,” Theo argues as he fiddles with a blade sheathed in his hip holster.
“Let me worry about that. We took a calculated risk today, and it didn’t work out. It’s happened before, and it may happen again. Pansy and Luna are out there somewhere, and we have to find them. Let’s review what we know.” They’d had this conversation many times but always found themselves pouring over their mutual knowledge after a mission.
“Luna and Pansy were both seen fighting at The Battle of Hogwarts but haven’t been seen since. Their bodies were never recovered, but shortly after the battle, the Dark Lord announced the start of the omega Research Program. You are almost certain Lovegood is an omega, but we don’t know about Pansy. There are five other witches unaccounted for, and based on the age and timing, we should assume they’ve been captured as well. Our recent mission was a cover to search a rumored testing facility, but it came up empty.” Draco tosses his blade from hand to hand as he summarizes their current intel.
“The Dark Lord still hasn’t dropped any hints about the program?” Theo asks.
“No. I’m nothing but a weapon to him, so he would have no reason to share knowledge about a top-secret program with me. Plus, I think he derives some sick sense of pleasure over controlling an alpha. Just like his blood purity bullshit, he wants to be perceived as more than he is, and what better way to do that than belittle the strongest alpha in his ranks.” Draco practically spits as he remembers the way he had to force himself to bow down to the miserable excuse of a beta.
“We need to find out who works in the program. I’ll work on that. I’ve still got a few contacts within the Ministry who could be of some use.” Draco found this surprising as the political climate since the final battle had been one of deep unrest. The Dark Lord had lost control over the Ministry, but he and his followers still reigned terror on the Wizarding world through other means.
Potter and his band of heroes had lost the battle but not the war; they set their sights on the Ministry of Magic. Their continued efforts eventually led to the eradication of the Dark Lord’s influence from the Wizarding government.
“Okay, but be careful, Theo. There are eyes and ears everywhere, and it wouldn’t do to add you to my list of lost friends.” Draco claps Theo on the shoulder as the pair exit Draco’s private training room.
“I have to get back to my post; you be careful out there, Drake.” Theo gives him a concerned look before leaving his friend with thoughts of lost omegas, subterfuge, and impossible situations.