Chapter Text
Pain, why was everything always pain now? He could barely remember what it felt like to have steady hands and a body that didn't ache. He had been friends with pain all his life between the Dursleys and adventures at Hogwarts but now it was a constant knife in his back, a million shocks to his system that just wouldn't quit. His body took pleasure in betraying him with random spasms of his limbs, the shaking uncontrollable. Perhaps a punishment for getting caught by the devil. Who could have guessed the world could be so vindictive against a fourte- no fifteen year old. How could he have forgotten his fifteenth birthday when the Death Eaters had thrown him such a celebration. He shuddered and huddled further into the warmth beside him, his bare back cold in the chilled dungeon.
Maury watched his apprentice attempt some kind of rest even if one couldn't call it sleep. Hurt, sorrow, despair. If only he could do more to soothe those feelings. His own fingers combed through the oily and grimy hair, teasing tangles out as he kept his shackles from Harry's face. Anything to sooth whatever wrinkles he could from that sweet face. The shackles clinked once more, a reminder of his own fate to be helpless once more. The torvak magic on them rendering him incapable of helping. If it wasn't for these shackles he would have ripped this place apart for what they had done to his apprentice, to this child. How Voldemort got in with a torvak Maury doubted he'd ever know but Maury would never forgive himself for falling into their traps again.
Footsteps echoed off the walls, heralding the approach of their jailers. At least a few of them. For all that they loved their cloaks and masks they tended to be lax when it came to dressing for their prisoners. Unconcerned and so cocky that they’ll never leave alive. More arrived than usual and Maury found himself gripping a little tighter onto Harry. “It's too soon! You won't even be able to get anything!” Laughter sounded, as if that was what they were after. They didn't care about the scales, fangs or claws they wrenched from the poor boy. It was only fun to them. “Sorry luv, but it's Halloween and the Dark Lord demands his entertainment. But don't worry, you get to come too this time!” The color drained from Maury’s face. Please don't make him watch again. It was selfish but he didn't think he could take it. It might break him again.
Maury felt his hands wrenched back as the spell shortened the chains back to the wall. He hissed at them with fangs and claws on full display but they just laughed. One time, he just needed one time to claw those overconfident grins from their face and get them out of here. He hissed again and struggled against the shackles to no avail. He wouldn't give up.
Harry gave a gasp, eyes going wide as a boot landed against his side. “Up and at’em Potter! No slackin’ on us now.” Harry could only whimper as he rolled to his side away from his jailors. “Nah uh Potter. To your feet!” He cried out as his hair was gripped and pulled, yanking his head and making him scramble to stand upright as he weakly gripped the wrist that held him.
While only one jailor focused on Harry, the remainder took over restraining Maury who was kept as weak as Harry but definitely had more fight to him. They kept their distance but their wands trained on the dragel the entire time. A simple immobilizing spell was cast on him and he was floated with them as they made their way to the Dark Lord.
Harry's struggles were weak at best as they approached the doors to the main hall. The ‘throne room’ where Voldemort would sit up high and watch the struggles that showed that despite everything, there was still some fight left in the teenager. Maury was floated in behind them, dropped to the floor like a bag of flour and his shackles attached to the floor before he could even get to his knees after the spell was lifted. Harry barely saw that much before he was thrown to the ground. He tried to get up to his knees when a bored word came from the creature sitting above them all and a light hit him. An immediate shriek was torn from his throat as crucio ripped through his body and had him falling flat to the floor once more. It lifted as soon as he hit the floor and he almost cried of relief that it was so short. He did not attempt to move from his position.
“Halloween, Potter. The anniversary of the day you destroyed my body and weakened my spirit. It would have been poetic to do the resurrection on Halloween, wouldn't it have been? But then these months of fun may have never happened and that would be such a pity.”
There must have been some silent command as an all too familiar gloved hand grabbed him under the chin, pinching his jaw harshly, and lifted him. His hands scrabbled against the arm for some sort of leverage as he was pulled to his knees. Harry hated himself as his underdeveloped fangs slid out at once, almost without his consent. His body knew what to do in order to reduce the amount of pain he would be in if he delayed.
“Very good, Mr. Potter. Now hold still.”
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He didn't want to be good! He wanted to fight! But he couldn't. It hurt so much to fight. He used to fight, but no more. He felt the grain of wood of a wand on his lips before the slow tug on one fang before a sharp tug and he felt the slide of bone against gums as roots were severed forcefully. He gave a cry and he barely had a moment to gargle a whimper before the other fangs were being pulled out.
“Tsk. Baby fangs. Barely good for anything. The Dark Lord won't be happy with those.”
Harry wanted to scream that it wasn't his fault! He didn't control how fast they grew back but they seemed to take longer and longer to grow to full size. He fell forward to his hands and spat blood onto the floor, coughing out the building saliva and blood that he had been choking on. His hands curled into balls defiantly, protectively. He knew what was next.
“Now, now Mr. Potter.” One of his hands was yanked forward, leaving him once more hitting the ground as his hand was held up and shaking fingers were slowly pried open. He always shook now a days. He couldn't stop it.
A thumb pressed into the palm of his hand, moving almost as if in a massage. It might have even felt good if Harry wasn't so terrified of what it meant. The right pressure and his claws slipped free, weak and fragile. Harry felt the first sob come free as the wand pressed to his finger. “No, no, please…” He barely whispered out before shrieking as the first claw was pulled from its bed. His tears fell slowly as each finger was given the same treatment. His other hand pulled out from under him to undergo the torture as well. He couldn't even push himself up anymore, any pressure on his finger tips had them screaming at him. So he laid there, shaking and crying and looking at the small pile of bloody fangs and claws kept just in his view. The only things he could feel came from outside of him, the joy, disgust, apathy, fear - that's right, Maury was there - there was nothing inside of him. There couldn't be, not during these sessions.
A weak cough left him as the weight of a full grown man settled on his lower back and a gloved hand, slick with blood, gripped and pressed down on the back of his neck.
“You know the procedure Mr. Potter. Don't make me try to carve them out of you again.”
He shuddered, didn't the man know it was hard? That he was so tired? He felt his skin roll with the pressure of his wings attempting to push through before they finally freed themselves and weakly unfurled only to fall to the ground. The first time he had unfurled them he had been able to knock away a couple of Death Eaters with them, now he could barely lift them.
His gaze moved from the pile of fangs and claws to his wing. He had thought they were pretty when he first saw the color. Maury had even praised the color when he had been looking over the damage to them after he had first been captured. Now? Now all he could see was the translucent webbing with a small smattering of scales here and there, growing in softer and weaker as time went by.
He tensed as one wing was taken in a rough grip and the edge of a dull blade could be felt before forcefully pushing against his scales. This time he yelled as it happened, screaming as the blade pushed his scales backwards till they popped out of their housing. It hurt so much worse than the rest of their ‘harvesting’, he swore he could feel each individual scale being ripped from its housing before its time.
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-Harry had his fangs and claws pulled out and his wings descaled-
“Scream, Harry. Whatever happens, keep screaming.”
That was the advice Maury had given him. Always scream. He didn't say why, just to keep screaming. So he screamed. No matter the laughter or smiles or amusement that surrounded him, humiliated him, he screamed with each pass of the knife until his voice went out.
It was a surprisingly short period later that both wings were let go, or perhaps not so surprising. After all it was so close to the last harvest that he doubted much had grown in. And he was right, when the Death Eater scooped up scales, fangs and claws it barely filled one hand. He could feel the reverberations of the heavy boots stepping away from where he laid.
“Pathetic. Not even enough quality product to be worth attempting to use. Get rid of it.”
The Dark Lord waved his hand away and Harry felt his heart break. It wasn't the first time his torture had become nothing more than an inconvenience to the dark wizard but to know that his pain meant nothing at all, was done just for the sake of doing it, always hurt.
“And now, I thought we'd have a little more… fun this time around.”
Harry shivered where he laid on the floor. What had the Dark Lord conjured up this time? More Crucios? What of other dark hexes and curses that Harry couldn't even dream of?
“I’ve heard you have a rather extreme reaction to Dementors. I thought I'd see it for myself.”
A dark dome encapsulated the area around the two dragels and the entrance of the room. Harry shivered as the temperature dropped and the double doors opened. His arms shook as he pushed himself up to his knees, his arms buckling once and almost having him land on his face before catching himself. There were no Crucios this time as he managed to push himself with his palms till he was sitting. He looked over his shoulder at the doors, just in time to catch the first swish of smoky black material before the door creaked open the rest of the way and there floated the largest dementor Harry had ever seen. His breath quickened and his eyes widened and screams began playing in his head - his or his mum’s?
Please… he had no happiness left to give. Please don't…
Harry spared a look over at Maury who was also staring at the dementor with a look Harry had never seen on his Oret’s face before. It was almost like Maury couldn't see what was in front of him. That his gaze was lost as tears fell down his cheeks, staring at the dementor that decided his mentor was a better snack than Harry.
Harry struggled through his own haze as he watched Maury begin to struggle against his shackles. His face a snarl and Harry could see the shimmer of peach and silver scales begin to cover exposed skin. Atrophied muscles strained against magical shackles as Maury attempted to back away, fangs out and hissing at the dementor threat. It almost looked like his face was changing shape.
There was jeering from all around them. The Death Eaters happy for the show.
At least they were until there was a loud crack and a small shockwave of magic exploded from Maury. The shackles were ripped from the ground at the same time wings burst from Maury's back. The dome around them blown away. Then all of a sudden it was chaos. Death Eaters shooting spells, Maury deflecting them with his wings or managing to neutralize them in some way Harry didn't understand, shields appearing around the other dragel that appeared to get stronger with each spell that hit. Other Death Eaters were attempting to corral the dementor back out of the room so that they would no longer be affected by it.
“Enough of this. Avada Kedavra.”
Harry didn't know how he heard the words of Voldemort but he could only watch in horror as a streak of green shot through the air towards Maury. His Maury. His Oret. The only one who had tried to find and save him. The one who would carefully clean his wounds, who would hold him close and whisper stories of Nevarah as he shook in his hold. Who hand fed him on days he couldn’t even grip the soup bowl. The one who would gently card his fingers through his hair in a tender way Harry had never felt before but brought tears to his eyes. The only gentle touch in this hell.
“ORET!!!”
He screamed, just like he was told to. Screamed and screamed and screamed. The sensation of shattering filled him (was this what you called a broken heart?) and still he screamed. It seemed to be out of his control now.
He felt himself fading. He was already hazy but now consciousness was leaving him. Would Maury be dead when he woke up? Would he be dead? Hope filled him with that thought. Maybe they’d both be dead and away from this place. He barely noticed the bright lights before he felt wings encompass him and his screaming finally stopped as he lost his battle with consciousness.