Gilderoy Lockhart and the Holy Grail

The shivering had become reflexive. Every sound that he heard, every wisp of air across his naked skin, every sensation or emotion that clawed its way from deep inside of him drew a shiver of dread and then of pain from his battered body. He buried his face in his heavily manacled arms as the shivering, brought on by a far-off squeak of metal, ceased. A jagged ripple of pain passed through him as he dared to moved. Something, more specifically, the dagger she had impaled him with, cut into him, biting and tearing, just as she had promised it would. Just as it had what felt like a thousand times before.

Another distant sound, unidentifiable this time, gave him another case of the shivers. Squeezing his eyes closed, he hoped to Merlin that it wasn’t her; it wasn’t his insane torturer. Anyone but her. Even if it was that monster himself. That thing with the face like a snake. With him, it would only be spells, short bouts of terrific pain, mind-numbing, yes, but not that lingering, unabating physical agony that only she could cause.

He didn’t know how long he had been there in terms of days or weeks, only the number of times the witch with the long dark hair and the cruel, yet seductive face had visited him. Twelve times she had come, done unimaginable things to him, and then had gone. He squelched back a sob as he felt the blade move again, sawing into tender flesh. If only someone would remove it. If only...

No longer did he even dream of leaving that dungeon room alive. He knew little of death or the philosophies and mysteries surrounding it. So little of anything did he know. Nothing to appease his captors and his torturers, that was certain enough. He only knew that he was doomed to die in a nearly lightless room, chained and in torment, lying amid his own filth, battered nearly beyond belief or recognition, and bleeding. The only question in his mind was how soon?

He shivered and bile rose in his throat as he caught the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside his dungeon cell.

Too heavy. Too many. Not her.

Not caring who, he did not lift his face, but merely waited, wondering if perhaps someone was coming to give him water or -- Merlin, let it be so! -- to remove that deuced instrument of torment that was cutting him to pieces even as he lay there. He did not dare to hope more than that. Hope had cheated him too often in this wretched place.

The lock did not turn, and for a moment, he thought perhaps they had merely come to look at him, to admire her handiwork, through the narrow and barred window of his cell door, but then he heard a strange sound that was like that of a spell being murmured. He braced for pain and stifled a sob as the blade moved again. If only the blasted thing would stay still!

However, the magically induced pain that he expected never came, but the door opened with hardly a sound. Just enough to make him shiver and no more than that. Still he waited, though his heart hammered hard in his chest, seeming to pound against the filthy stone floor beneath him.

“Lockhart?” question a low voice in faint disbelief. There was a low almost resonant quality to that voice that did not frighten him as he thought it ought.

“Merlin! What have they done to him?” questioned a younger voice in unconcealed horror.

Footsteps came nearer across the stone, but Gilderoy did not dare to lift his head, not knowing whether these strangers were friend or foe, not knowing their intentions toward him. A moment later he heard the sound of retching from the far corner of the room.

“Get a hold of yourself, Potter,” growled the silken voice, though it was much closer to him now.

“There’s a knife handle stick out of his arse,” coughed the younger visitor to his cell before retching again, though more quietly this time.

He suppressed a sob as a warm hand touched his lower back. More cutting. More tearing. More pain.

“Mercy,” he pleaded hoarsely, still not knowing their intent. “Please, I beg of you.”

“Professor Snape...” the second voice began to say, before being interrupted and ignored.

“You will have it, though it may hurt just as much as this,” he murmured. In a louder voice, he said, “Potter, we cannot take him out of here in this state. You will assist me in removing ... this.”

They were going to remove the blade? Gilderoy could hardly believe his ears. Perhaps, just perhaps, they would stop the bleeding too. Or perhaps not. Even just being allowed to die... Even that would be mercy enough.

“All right,” agreed the second voice, this Potter person.

The hand on his back rubbed in a slow, gentle circle as footsteps approached. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but to shiver. It was reflexive. There was nothing he could do about it.

“You will remove the blade. I will stanch the bleeding,” said the one with his hand on his back.

“Then what?”

“One thing at a time.”

There was a moment of silence, as though time itself had stopped, before Gilderoy felt the narrow blade being slowly and carefully removed. Not just jerked out of him, but carefully and pain-stakingly withdrawn. He held his breath for a moment.

“Got it,” said Potter.

“Sutari!” murmured the professor, touching something blunt to his entrance.

He could quite literally feel the bleeding inside of him stop. Sobs wracked his body as he realized that some of the pain had stopped with it as well, that he could move, even just a bit, without it hurting him.

“That’s Lestrange’s work,” commented the one who had healed him, “and her knife as well. We should probably destroy it, or have it destroyed. Now for the chains. Manage the ones at his ankles, if you’re able, Potter.”

“Right.”

Gilderoy lifted his head just slightly to look at the one who was releasing his hands, which had been fettered together for nearly as long as he could remember. The man was hook-nosed and sallow with cold, dark eyes and an unpleasant, grimacing expression. But to Gilderoy at that moment, he was more than any of those things. He was beginning to understand that this was his rescuer. Or at least one of them.

“We’re getting you out of here,” said Snape in a very slow, emphatic tone that was normally reserved for people who only spoke a bit of English or for the very elderly.

“Really?” asked Gilderoy between sobs as the manacles were taken from his hands.

He could feel the ones on his ankles being slipped off as well. Turning his head just enough to look toward his feet, he could see a young wizard, handsome and fierce-looking, but no more than a teenager, kneeling there, casting the cruel chains aside. Another sob ripped forth as green eyes met his and Potter began massaging his ankles to restore proper blood flow to his swollen feet.

“Where are we taking him exactly?” asked the younger wizard. “St. Mungo’s?”

“They still haven’t sufficiently repaired the damage caused by the Death Eater raid.”

“Hogwarts?”

“We wouldn’t have an easy time of it getting him to the hospital wing from outside the wards. And Madam Pomfrey isn’t there during the summer. Not this summer, anyway. She’s volunteering with the Order.”

“Where then?”

“Back to Grimmauld Place, I should think,” answered the professor before looking down at him again.

Gilderoy could hardly follow their conversation, but it felt good just to hear friendly voices again. He squeezed his eyes closed as tears filled them. They were going to take him away from this horrid place. Weren’t they?

The long, lithe fingers of the professor brushed through his filthy, matted hair. There was tenderness in that touch. He could feel it.

“Shouldn’t we tend his other injuries...” Potter began to ask.

“I’ll be able to do so much more efficiently elsewhere,” Snape interrupted. “I’m going to put a Sleeping Charm on him for the journey.”

“Probably the best thing for him after all of this.”

“Dormio!”

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