Opiate of the Tortured

Kenji

Rating: NC17
Genres: Angst
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 17/04/2004
Last Updated: 17/04/2004
Status: completed

The tortured suffer insatiably. Their pain exceeds physical and laments into the soul the agony of life. Madness and death are the only escape.

Chapters

1. Opiate of the Tortured

1. Opiate of the Tortured

Title: Opiate of the Tortured
Author name: Kenji
Category: Angst
Sub-Category: Drama
Summary: The tortured suffer insatiably. Their pain exceeds physical and laments into the soul the agony of life. Madness and death are the only escape.

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author notes: This story is very dark. Please try to keep an open mind when you read it as it is not your regular story. As a fair warning, there is torture(as the name should imply) and sex. If either of these two squick you in anyway then I suggest you not read it.

For those of you who do decide to read it I hope you enjoy it .

*****

They have kept me in this cell for seven days without food or water. There is one small jutted window high above me with bars that are rusted from the ocean spray. The air is cold but humid making my clothes stick to me and having me sweat profusely. I smell of human waste and decay but at this point, at this time, I fail to smell anything at all. I barely see but what is exactly in front of me. I can no longer feel the pain in my legs nor can I feel the abiding ache in my stomach. I have taken to licking the dew off the walls that collects in the early morning to keep myself alive. The guards do not watch or wait above me and I half wonder if they’ve forgotten me.

There is one feeling—one pain that prevails inside me. There is a great sense of loneliness within me. I long to speak to someone, anyone; even my captors will do. I long to use my voice again. I want to revel in the subtle baritone wavering on bass deep sound of my mouth but I cannot bring myself to speak to only myself. That is all I have done these past seven days, speak to myself inside my mind as I wait for it to unravel and perish. I have begun to wish that I were dead rather than suffer here in this dark desolate place.

As such, I have begun to ponder even my very existence. I can hardly call it such, sitting in the cell, my own wastes lying around me, festering and brooding with the same dilapidated irony that I have. No, my life has dwindled down to nothing as I sit here and I wonder why it was even mine to live, to end so docile and peaceful. Surely some god can tell me? I feel blood pumping through my veins but I do not feel heat running along with it. I am an empty shell of a human; I have been decimated and yet I still live. I must serve a purpose, I must have some reason to live and yet I still cannot fathom exactly what it is.

They captured me seven days ago and put me in this cell. I half want to get up and feel that the walls are jagged stone and not soft quilted mattress like I feel they should be, but I am too weak. I have reached the epitome of exquisite torture and not a blade has been laid upon my skin. There is something so sublimely treacherous about the narrow boundaries of soul that inhabit me. They will not let go as I blindly hurl myself to snip their grasp on me. They are selfish and all powerful and I lack the will to fight anymore: I am the deaf man that has given away his world to mediocrity and science. On this seventh day I awaken on the seventh hour exactly. I ponder, how lucky will my day be? I begin to indulge myself with a deliciously splendid death.

I am rewarded at the seventh minute of the seventh hour of the seventh day with a noise that christens the coming of my due reward. The bolt unlocks and I am met with the first solid face of the rest of my life. He is a withered man with a heavy beard and dark hollow eyes. His hands are bony and white as they caress the door like a gentle lover would. His head is lowered slightly and I can see the tears that escape his eyes as they glisten in the dim light.

I am led away from my cell and into a small room with two chairs. One is hard, wooden and manacled. The other is plush, green and hued with silver. It is also occupied. I am seated in the wooden chair facing the tall pale white man before me. His eyes are like nothing I’ve ever seen before and he’s everything that Harry described but more. His expression is alluring and precisely indescribable. Harry could never do him justice; I don’t think anybody that sees his face could ever do him justice. The nails on his hands are beautiful and bright, crisp and clear as they shake my foundation and make me quiver with anticipation. I wish for him to be the one to kill me. I want him to pick up his wand and waste my life away in a lavish green light.

The manacles come around my arms at the elbow allowing me room to move my hands. I’m sure I could clasp them together but would use would that do. My feet are held tight to the chair with equally impressive metal cuffs but my upper body is free—to thrash comfortably I can only assume. My eyes assimilate their position, feasting themselves with his eyes, slithering slits I thought only snakes could have. His head moves in a simple up and down motion and the aide at my side begins his ministrations.

I am suddenly and horrifyingly shocked in the perverse situation that has beset me. I know now, with the nod, that I am not to be killed right off the mat. I am to be tortured to death. I am not even given an ultimatum; I have no chance to divulge information to release me my pain. I am just given a nod that seals me deep in panic and anxiety.

The aid moves at my side and raises his wand. He murmurs a charm underneath his breath pointing it at both of my hands. The feeling that encompasses my hands is velvety soft. My hands are being massaged into a weary, slippery mess of hand and tendon with a splaying of blood and veins. I close my eyes at the sensation. There is nothing like it; it’s as if someone has taken my hands and worried them into heaven where they are beset on pleasure and pleasure alone. I feel my entire body begin to relax and my hands are limp and stupid. Then the charm disappears in one fell swoops of the knife.

I cry out, the pain worsened by the slackened state my hand is in. My eyes fall open and stare at the angular cut across the inside of my hand. It is an incision that begins at the very tip of my thumb and digs deeply across until it stops at the very middle of the butt of my palm. My teeth clench in anticipation of the next cut and the aid does not fail me. His incision runs perfectly down my index finger and to the exact same point that the incision before ended. I try valiantly to move my hand but it won’t respond to the desperate longings of my mind. The pain increases excruciatingly as he proceeds to do the same to the other three fingers. I am reduced to a simpering sobbing mess as I look at my hand through blurred eyes. He has cut the tendons and nerve endings and glazed the bones with perfectly straight lines.

His wand then redirects to my other, untouched hand, and casts the massage charm again. The cohesion of the two feelings, desolate pain and soothing comfort form a tear inside my mind. I can feel the schism enveloping everything that I have grown up to learn. I feel it sucking me into its deep waters but still my simpering soul will not give up. His actions mirror themselves as he relinquishes the massage of my other hand and quickly cuts through the skin. Again, I am unable to move as he slices the knife in perfect arches through the air to make love over and over to my skin, leaving its seed in the sticky warm blood that stays glistening on my skin.

And when it is over the aid steps back and wipes the blade against a damp cloth. His eyes are treaded with remorse and conviction as he falls to his knees and bows his head to his master. His cries mimic my own as he begs his master to let him leave. The master relinquishes and the aid stumbles to the door.

The master stares crudely at my bloody heaping hands and his face relaxes; the master is only ever at home when there is pain and torture and I am but the warm cup of afternoon tea laden with sugar, cream and warm blood.

The blood loss suddenly catches up to me as I begin to shiver uncontrollably. My legs ratchet from side to side in their imprisonments as my stomach convulses in dry wretches. I will death to take me, I will it swoop down on its feathery wings and carry me up into the sky so that I may die in peace. I wretch and wretch and it does not seem to want to subside and the pain in my body increases thrice fold. I feel the schism tear along my mind as the cold enshrouds me. I hang my head and open my mouth to whisper one last time. The lord sits up with rapt attention to hear what I have to say.

I ache one final shiver and say, “…My coat…”

***

I’ve always wondered, when a fish dies naturally, what happens to it? Does it just naturally float up to the surface? Does it shimmer in the light as the sun bounces of its scales? Or do the scales fall off one by solitary one and leave the fish a faceless heap of fish. Its magic is surely gone by then, the scales hold all of the fish’s beauty, it’s proven. Maybe the fish sinks to the bottom like a demon. Perhaps its scales stay on and it rots away on the bottom of the lake to a piece of dirt; like a leaf fallen from a very high oak tree—it turns to dust on the ground, naturally. What if the fish just stays in the middle? What if that fish does not go up, and it does not go down—it just stagnates somewhere, never going anywhere.

It’s the lake that fascinates me. It shimmers in the dawn light and I shiver in anticipation of the day to come. There is no coat around my shoulders and with hindsight; I wish I had brought one. The wind isn’t at all bad but even early October mornings in Scotland are cold, with or without wind. Truth be told, I prefer wind. There’s something magical about the way it whips around your body, invisible and solid. I love it when there’s a gust of wind that picks up sand, or dirt—leaves even. You can see the poetic way it frolics and you can’t help but sigh; wind lifts you up and makes you human all over again.

The rock below me is sturdy, calloused, and unbalanced. I have to use my legs to stay balanced on it as it bucks and rides in the only way a rock possibly could. It’s very cold, the rock, and it sends extra tremors through my spine in its frigidness. I long to feel the ironic warmth of the castle walls but I know I cannot go in there yet.

The trees in the forest are barely swaying as they passively stand guard over me. I feel a kinship with the trees that I feel with no other living thing. I feel like I am right there with them, standing beside them sturdy and rigid as I watch the world go by. And I feel at home with them. There is a willow tree back at home. I used to sit by it everyday when I was little. It was wonderful to lay on my back in the wonderful shade that the tree provided as I thought about anything that came to mind, listlessly. Birds would chirp in it from time to time. I’m sure that a family was raised in it at some point, the mother and father could have taken care of the baby chicks in their nest as I dreamt the day away. My home lay far away from the tree. I journeyed to the tree arduously everyday, quite nearly feeling like I was making a pilgrimage to some holy shrine that, at times, I do believe it actually was.

The wind blows strongly and again I shiver wishing for my coat as I sit in wonder: and as if on a whim, desire seizes me. I bite my lips closed and reach out against the rock. At the very center of my body a tumor of knotted pain and apprehension is engendered, unmistakably desire itself. Desire that resembles the pain of and anxiety that seize a patient behind the ribs in a cardiac arrest. What I felt now, I was certain was not that meek desire, hardly a mole on the slack face of daily life, not that homey desire which sank in the mud of lugubrious fatigue with one lewd, listless grunt. This was desire that could not be assuaged by a thousand repetitions of the act, not a ticket you relinquished after one trip around on the toy train. Desires you could satisfy once and never again, perilous desire that made me wonder uneasily when the sating moment came if Death weren’t stealing up behind my naked, sweating back. This was the desire that I would satisfy if I were the one held pressed up against her back in bed on this cold October morning.

I stand up slowly from my perch and sigh as I wipe the dust off the back of my trousers, weather beaten and old. I plod off towards the woods aware of the straining erection in my pants and the goosepimples spreading finely across my arms. I feel the hair crawl up on my neck and I quake with delight at the prospect of the forest. It’s deep, dark, and rank with the smell of rotting wood and moss; I can’t wait to step into it and hear my feet crunch against the floor.

There is the sound of beating wings somewhere off to my left and I turn to it, following the rich and nearly silent flowing flap. The eagle starts to flap toward me and it unnerves me slightly. The eagle is monstrous and demeaning as it flaps its dark brown wings eagerly toward me. I have no reason to believe that it will attack me but at the same time I have a fear brewing inside my chest that will not go away. I sate myself to stand still and wait for the eagle to do its justice. As it nears I nearly cower but as I stand tall and firm it flies past and the sudden blast of air makes it seem like the eagle flew through me instead of over and around me. The eagle flies back towards the castle as if on a signal from the patrons inside—a signal to me.

All at once as I begin my trek back to the castle—my visit to the forest long forgotten—I begin to think of how an eagle dies. Is it like the fish? Does it fly high into the sky and dive down into a last moment of utter elation? Does it sit in a branch waiting for death like a soldier guarding his life? I wish for the bird to die in flight. I wish for it to enjoy the feeling of the air whipping at its feathers and then dying in happiness. There’s a certain solitude to dying in the air, especially for a bird. Dying is a selfish act; it’s best to be done alone and away from crowds.

What of the eagle that catches the fish in the water? Does its eager will cloud the fact that the fish now must die at its hands? The cycle is rejected and restricted. It is shattered to pieces and torn into ligaments for the bird to survive. But what if the bird actually does the fish a favour? What if by catching the fish, the bird propels it into the air and gives it a bird’s welcome and honorific death. I hope for the fish to die in the air above the clouds as it draws its last futile attempts at oxygen. I wish for it to die revelling in everything that is the sky that I love.

The castle steps are made of stone and chipped and warm. Their old eroded edges entice the old and young to sit on their steps on a warm summer day and bask in the glory of the sun that sets facing them. I am tempted to simply sit on the steps in the shadows waiting for the sun to make its circuit and set on my skin but I hear the commotion of people inside and I know I’ve missed breakfast. I walk through the open door and into the entrance hall noticing nobody is in it. The commotion has moved itself up through the stairs and into classes and I am bound by my allegiance to the school to traverse my way into the Transfiguration room. Mum wouldn’t want me to fail any class for failure to show up, she’d have my hide.

The door stands open and I reach my seat just before McGonagall starts her lecture. The two seats in front of me are painfully empty and I wonder just what Harry and Hermione can be up to. I fear I already know what exactly they could be up to but I refuse to acknowledge it for the simple fear of having to acknowledge my future, without them.

I feel the hardness of my seat underneath me as my mind boils over answer and questions only half listening to McGonagall speak of hand transformations and connotations. There is a swelling in my lower back and I feel a bout of pain spring up accompanied with a supreme feeling of cold. I shiver uncontrollably and I look around me at anybody to see if they notice my suffering. Nobody bats an eye, not even the all-seeing eyes of McGonagall seem to notice my plight of agony. The pain then steeps up my spine convulsing into the base of my neck and staying there. My entire spine is on fire but I fight to keep it in. I try to laugh slightly but that comes out as solid silent chokes of agony. Still nobody notices. I decide to take matters into my own hands and I stand up and run out of the classroom. I notice as I run away that finally some commotion does spring up in the class room but I am too far away to notice exactly why.

I keep a constant rush of running and it helps to assuage the pain a little. When I reach the doors to the medical ward the pain instantly stops and my back relaxes into a sloppy, soggy mess. I feel my knees buckle and I fall to the floor landing hard on my ankle. A wonderful feeling of mellow, somber relief washes over and through my body and I shake my head to clear it up a bit. I take a look around the hallway and notice that nobody is around me and nobody saw me fall. The door to the hospital ward looms above me as I continue to sit on the ground and I brush it out of my mind.

I get up and walk down the hallway, at first walking back to class but then changing my mind. I do not want to be harassed when I come back to class; I ran out, surely everyone will think something happened to me so I must play the part. I walk up the stairs and reach the gryffindors tower blatantly. Just as I walk into the hallway that the fat lady is housed in, I notice the portrait begin to fall back into place. Hurriedly I spring and manage to slip inside of the portrait just as it was about to close and come into the common room. Somebody had opened it before me but a quick glance around at the gold and red common room tells me that they’re hiding. That being the case I decide that it is in my best opinion to hide as well; if that person saw me who knows what rumor they would spread. If I make my way stealthily up the stairs I can hide in my bed with the curtains closed, easily. It comes to my mind then, as I amble cautiously towards the stairs, why I bothered to slip into the common room. I don’t want to get caught so surely I should have thought of the fact that if the portrait were open in the first place that somebody would have to have opened it. There was nobody in the hallway when I reached it so of course somebody was in the common room, why didn’t I think?

I notice who the person that is in the common room is when I reach the halfway point in the stairs. I kneel down to conceal myself in the shadows as I watch Harry remove the invisibility coat off his shoulders and set down a plate of sandwiches and two flasks of what I can only assume is pumpkin juice. Hermione is held wrapped in a blanket on the sofa and her eyes barely move as they watch intently the food Harry brought. I have to strain my ears to hear their conversation as they speak in the calm tones of the mourning and dying.

“—Dobby did you?” Hermione says quickly her blanket muffling the first part.

“He was more than willing to help and it didn’t cause him any trouble,” Harry says seating himself on the sofa and curling into a ball next to her.

“Did anybody see you?” she asks and he shakes his head.

I watch them as they sit in silence a few moments staring at the food on the table before Hermione untangles herself from the blanket and grabs two slices, one for her and one for Harry.

“Thank you,” I hear him say. He chews noisily while she eats as silent as a mouse. Her gaze settles on the fire as it cackles and crumbles hushing the air around it with gentle oranges and bright yellows. Her hair is savage and un-kept. Her eyes are gloomy and empty, even the light of the fire does not reflect into her eyes. Her skin looks clammy and much too pale. I want to slap her cheeks to put some color in them but she looks so fragile I fear even a gentle touch will shatter her.

I watch stonily as her shoulders buck slightly and her eyes tear up as she chews softly. Harry either notices and doesn’t care or is too preoccupied because he does not move from his place. I shiver again at the coldness around me and I half contemplate running up to my room and getting a coat. Instead I stay seated, wish lightly I had brought one with me and continue to watch the two people on the sofa.

Hermione finishes her sandwich and dries her eyes and nose on the blanket. She then rolls over on the sofa and hugs Harry around the middle of his chest. He takes the rest of his sandwich, stuffs it in his mouth and holds her around the shoulders gently running a hand through her hair every so often.

No words are said as she slowly lifts her head and places her lips on his. He does not fight back and kisses her back with equal fervor. My heart breaks as I see her kissing him with such abandon, with such passion. His hands have moved from her hair to her shoulders. He gently moves his hands up and down her arms attempting, to the best of my knowledge, to warm her up. I stay riveted at my spot as she reaches her hands underneath his shirt and pulls it over his head breaking their contact for the briefest of moments. She returns loyally to him as she devours the skin of his neck and I hear him groan gently.

Harry’s hands have slowly alleviated themselves of their self-exile and begin the ascent up her shirt. My neck burns up with heat and I steal a look away to glance at the portrait judging how hard it would be to reach the door unnoticed. Too hard.

Harry’s hands have divested Hermione of her shirt and bra before I even can take time to notice and stare at the pallid, sallow skin that greats me. In my dreams her skin was always white and creamy never so pale. She looks like a princess who’s lost her crown and will never get it back. The desire that was building at the center of my body and spreading thinly through and out to my toes, starts to recede.

I watch as he caresses her gently. His hands are expert masseurs, as they journey over her chest massaging and soothing every single spot but her breasts; his avoidance is subtle but clear. I see her breath hitch horribly as she lets out a peaceful moan against his neck as means to coerce him to do what she wants. He abides, willingly, and his hands traipse over her nipples gently following the pink areoles of desire. They harden at his touch and she moans again, gently running her hands through his hair.

He quickly divests a pace as his breath now hitches; she has taken to rocking on him and from the look on his face, it is deliriously good. He quickly uses his hands to halt her movements and she looks into his eyes with an intensity I have never known. Her lips return to his as his hands slip underneath her skirt. I cannot see what he is doing but she begins to groan deeply inside her soul. Moments later he brings his hands back down along her legs, her plain white knickers in hand. He looks at them appreciatively for a moment before her hands reach out and steal them from his grasp, dropping them on their pile of clothing on the ground.

Her hands assume a position at the top of his trousers, quickly they undo his belt and her fingers curl under the waistband of his boxers and tug downward taking both his trousers and boxers leaving him supremely naked. His penis is erect, stout and ready. She swings a leg over him to try to straddle him but before she can succeed he holds her leg in the air and pulls down the zipper of her skirt. He strips her of her skirt slowly and tantalizingly as his fingers brush along the back of her legs making her quiver.

Once her skirt is fully on the floor she assumes her position as she straddles him, taking him deeply within her in one fell, planned and swift swoop. Her head is thrown back in delight and his eyes close. Her face is plainly, the definition of erotic as her eyes too are closed and her lips clutch her tongue. She begins to rock slowly on him their pace never going beyond scintillatingly soothing. They kiss passionately and he continues to massage her soul through her skin. When he comes I see it in his expression, I see it in his jerking. I see the muscles in her back tighten and I wonder if she experienced the same elation I brought her to in my dreams.

They lay together after they are finished, still joined with Hermione on top of Harry half dozing. His eyes are wide open and he is staring straight at me with a piercing green gaze. I begin to feel a surge of panic run through me when I notice that he isn’t actually looking at me; it seems as if he’s looking through me or around me as if he’s searching for me but can’t quite pinpoint my location.

Hermione stirs on his chest and slips out of their embrace to roll on the ground and put her clothes back on. Harry continues to lie there staring around me, his penis lying limp and his neck slightly bruised.

“Harry, we need to get dressed before everyone starts to come in. That was very risky, we could have been caught,” Hermione’s sensibility shines through.

Harry nods quickly with one last glance in my direction and begins to get dressed as well. When they begin to pick the clothes off the ground their hands reach for the same item at the same time. I have to squint my eyes to see it is but when I notice it I understand their pained faces—a chess piece: a Knight.

Hermione sits down heavily on the sofa fingering the piece. “Why do we do it Harry?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” he says plainly.

“Are we selfish? Are we heartless?”

“I don’t know,” he repeats and sits down on the sofa next to her, intently studying the piece of marble colored white.

“This isn’t how we deal with tragedy Harry. This isn’t us.”

“We’re different now Hermione. We’ll never be the same again, you know that.”

“Yes, I know I do. But I hurts so much Harry. Will he ever come back?”

“I don’t think so Hermione. It’s best that we let him go.”

“But it’s so awful Harry. We’re both missing a piece of ourselves. We can try and try to cover it up but it will always be missing.”

“I know Hermione,” he says as he soothes her. I am trying to hold back my inquiring nature and force myself to bite back the questions that are threatening to spill over into the air. I will not ruin their moment of sadness even if a sense of dread is starting to fill into the deepest recesses of my heart.

“D-Dumbledore still hasn’t said he’s dead. Let’s still have faith Harry,” she says, quivering.

“I know, I know. Faith is the only thing we have left.”

She looks straight into his eyes and says, “We have each other.”

“Yes, you’re right. We have each other.”

She looks down again, a shamed look passing her feathered face. “Do you love me?”

His face turns serious. “I can’t say.”

“Why? Why can’t you say?”

“Because I’m not sure. I want to say yes but at the same time there’s a feeling inside me that begs me to sit back and try to discover. I don’t know what love is Hermione. I feel a strong attachment to you but I don’t know if it’s love. Teach me.”

“It’s not something you can teach Harry. You feel it, or you don’t. Now answer me, do you love me?” His gaze shifts around the room. “Look at me and answer me.”

I see her eyes glisten as she waits for his answer. He does not meet her gaze and she quickly stands up and heads for the portrait. I stand up in outrage ready to kill Harry for hurting her but before I get the chance he takes his charge.

“Hermione wait,” he says and she stops at the portrait her hand ready to get out. “It’s Ron. How do we know that this,” he motions between them as he catches her gaze on him, “is real? How do we know that we haven’t just been brought together because of tragedy?”

Hermione quickly walks back to Harry nearly stumbling on her wayward and loose sock. “This,” she says reaching for his heart, “is why. Because you feel it in here and I feel it in here. You have my heart Harry; right here in yours and nothing will change that. The catalyst might have been our tragedy but what I feel is genuine, is it what you feel?”

“Yes,” he says breathlessly.

“Then you know Harry. You know we aren’t together just because of his death.”

I feel a sharp pain sever into my chest. It feels like a knife has been plunged into my heart and is slowly being driven harder in and out, palpitating like a couple having sex. I stare down at my chest and all at once find that I cannot see it and all I see is the red carpet below me. I try my voice but find its not there. I want to scream in agony but I can’t get my vocal cords to move. My hands don’t move because they aren’t there, there’s invisible all over me and I feel like a set of eyes floating in the luscious common room, lost and afraid.

They are embracing on the floor rocking and rocking as I suffer through insatiable pain that overwhelms me. It is soon that I cannot even see and all I hear are my silent offerings of pain and their soothing quiet words.

~finis~

Author’s Note: I leave you to wonder who exactly told this story. It should be pretty obvious but then again, it could not be. It is confusing, yes, but I decided to leave it so that you could think and make the story more apart of you than I could have written it. I’m sure you have many questions but try to answer them yourselves, gather your own satisfaction.