Kitten Troubles

Chapter 7

His pain was so great that he couldn't even pass into the void of darkness that one visits when they faint. He couldn't scream, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't do anything but endure it.

How Potter could be so cruel as to put him through this kind of torture he had no idea. He wouldn't even have put anyone through this kind of displeasure and that was saying something. Oh sure, he'd have people-both followers and opposers-disemboweled while living. He'd have them endure the worst poison Severus could concoct and he would even have some of them eaten slowly, healed, and then eaten again. None of that compared to this-none of it even hit the same plane of pain. They didn't come close.

How a teenager could watch someone go through this he would never know.

All of these thoughts were stored in a small recess of his mind, to only be found after the searing and gut-wrenching agony had dissipated somewhat.

How long he was in his torment he didn't know. He had no way of keeping track of time and every time he thought he could find a steady breathing or heartbeat to keep track of he would lose count before he could hit ten and would have to start over. It was enough to make him go mad had it only stayed around for a few hours. But even he knew that it had to be longer than that to keep him sane.

It had been that way with the Longbottoms. When Lestrange tortured them to insanity they were left for dead, only to be found by some of his other followers who tortured them some more, believing them to be dead bodies in which to take their anger out on.

What had happened was one of the only things that could surprise him back then. They had brought the married couple back to him to show him their coherency and completely healed minds.

He had kept them in a privately set dungeon to do some research on the two and came up with only one logical answer: the human brain can repair itself with what had damaged it in the first place. It worked somewhat like Stockholm Syndrome: the brain would endure through enough pain to be considered insane and would be broken beyond repair. It would then remain that way-hiding the same parts of thought in a small space that nothing could get through to-until more pain would eventually break its way in and let the sane thoughts take over once more.

Was this what they had to go through when they had been tortured to insanity and back again before being murdered?

Oh sure, he had thought ahead enough to transfigure two of his smaller followers to their shapes and tortured them accordingly until they were just coherent enough to walk around aimlessly. He did that only after changing their memories to match those of the Longbottoms. His tracks had been covered well, for he was the only one to know the truth about the two people that were visited by their 'son.'

When the torment finally started to reach its downfall, it grew slightly in power as if to try to consume his pain and continue to feed off of that for the rest of eternity and to deny the truth. In reality it was burning itself out faster by growing larger. It consumed his entire being now, burning his bones to a crisp and evaporating any remaining moisture in his body. He was sure he was withering away to nothing.

But it did begin to disappear slowly, his consciousness starting to create solid thoughts-even if they were simple ones. But simple was better than nothing at all. Time was the next thing to come into play-he could count to twenty now without pause. Only once did he make a mistake, and when he did he simply started over. After that, he didn't know what he could do as he finally slipped into the unconsciousness he had silently begged for while he still had the ability to think properly. The blackness swarmed up around him and consumed him before he could object.

When he woke up again it was to find Potter leaning over him with a cool rag against his forehead. He shut his eyes again to make sure what he was seeing was really what he thought he was seeing. Sure enough, Potter was still there with the rag.