66Hi!
Thank you for giving my new fic a chance!
This fic will have some dark themes. I can't give very specific trigger warnings yet because the story isn't finished, but there will be canon typical violence (including mild sexual assault) and threats/fear/discussion of non-con. I write for fun and to bring people joy, so if reading scenes that contain any of the above would cause you distress, please don't read this fic.
The eventual smut will have (light?) dom/sub undertones.
To readers of the Stirring, don't worry, I'm still working hard on that fic! The next couple of chapters are dialogue and plot heavy so I'm trying to improve them before I publish. Hopefully this story will keep you entertained for the time being.
Please let me know what you think of this fic in the reviews!
Alice had just needed a sample of soil. A sample the size of a thimble. How could something so insignificant bring her life to this grizzly end? The injustice and stupidity of it was crushing her from the inside out.
The sides of her hands were red-raw from scraping the rope around her wrists against the rough stone floor in a vain attempt to fray it. Pricks of blood blossomed and congealed around the little stones and flecks of dirt that had stuck to the wound.
She tugged with her teeth at the thick cords of rope and was rewarded with a deep throb in the roots of her teeth and jaw.
The snatchers who'd caught her had handed her over to a thin, sandy haired wizard at a door tucked into the thick stone walls on the side of Malfoy Manor, where the lawns sloped away from the mansion. As the wizard led her down a dark passageway Alice had kept her eyes peeled and promised herself she was going to be the trainee auror who came out of the Manor alive with crucial information which would help win the war.
She was not going to be the agent with the shortest tenure anyone had ever had with the Aurory before stupidly letting themselves be captured, tortured and executed.
So far, she'd only seen what appeared to be low-level snatchers and other young wizards who, if they were death eaters, had only been recently initiated because Alice didn't recognise them from any Aurory issued list.
She was still trying to tear her hands apart when a shriek leapt out of her. Antonin Dolohov had entered the dungeon chamber.
He wasn't hard to recognise. Even through his robes, Alice could see the solid ropes of muscle which wrapped around his shoulders and spread down his thick arms. Her heart in her throat, she scurried on her bound feet farther into the corner and resumed frantically scratching her burning wrists against the ground.
Dolohov chuckled. It was a deep, evil sound that made Alice whimper and attempt to wrench her hands apart, her whole body straining with the effort. She let out a strangled cry as he shrugged off his long robes like a boxer shaking off his gown before a match, then he flicked his wand and the ropes binding her limbs disappeared.
It should have been a relief, but something about the way the large man was staring down at her, leisurely cracking his neck to the left and then to the right, made her feel sick.
"Get up," he ordered, so quietly that Alice, frozen with fear, wasn't sure what he'd said.
Then he lunged at her, grabbing her with one large hand around the base of her throat, causing pain to flare across her shoulders. He dragged her up and shoved her against the wall, knocking her skull against the stone with a dull thud. Her stomach contracted violently and her legs wobbled. Dolohov took a step back.
Alice leaned heavily against the wall to prevent her legs from buckling.
He held his wand tip against her cheek and she smelt firewhiskey on his breath as he said softly,
"Subireme. What were you doing outside the Manor walls?"
His wand tingled against her cheek. Alice panted twice heavily before stating,
"I was collecting d-dirt."
A weird feeling of pleasure blossomed in her chest and her eyes widened with shock at what she had said.
"Feel good?" Dolohov asked with a smirk. His wand continued to prickle uncomfortably against her cheek and he asked in the same smooth, low voice, "Why were you collecting dirt?"
Alice bit her tongue as it flexed to try and get the words out and shook her head wildly. Dolohov drew back and her face exploded with blinding pain as he smacked her hard. Instinctively, her hands whipped up to protect herself. She tasted blood as warmth trickled down her chin.
"Why were you collecting dirt?" he asked again as he dug his wand into her cheek, his voice so gentle it was jarring. Alice slapped his wand off her face and clasped both palms against her mouth but Dolohov ripped them away and struck her across the face again. This time it was somehow, impossibly, more painful and Alice cried out.
She'd been terrified that they'd torture her with the cruicatus but it was somehow more disturbing that Dolohov had chosen to use his hands.
"Come on now," he murmured in a disgustingly tender way, as he lifted her bloody chin gently with his hand, "It will feel much better to submit." He rubbed his thumb roughly against her split lip causing it to sting sharply. "Were you collecting potion ingredients?" Alice grabbed at his forearm and tried unsuccessfully to tear his hand away from her face but answered breathlessly,
"No."
The deep satisfying ache spread through her again, this time settling lower in her belly. Alice couldn't help but moan as the sensation soothed her throbbing injuries. Until now, her paralysing fear and the fact that Dolohov was armed with his wand and was twice the size of her had kept her from attacking him, but the shame and frustration that she was crumbling so easily under his control spurred her to action. She pushed against the wall with a grunt, one fist meeting his stomach and the other the hard plane of his chest, before he effortlessly caught her wrists and slammed them against the wall.
"Dolohov, is it necessary to physically assault the captive?" Alice hadn't heard the deep, smooth drawl of her former potions professor in years, but it was impossible to mistake. "You claimed to be proficient at the lengua submission curse."
Severus Snape was standing in the doorway, looking with disdain at Dolohov like he used to at fifth years who put too few porcupine quills in their wit sharpening potion.
Dolohov looked over his shoulder at him and Alice tried to use the opportunity of his distraction to make a bid for freedom. She twisted frantically against his hands pinning her to the wall and kicking out at him wildly. Her efforts didn't even merit a glance back from Dolohov, who casually leaned his lower body away to avoid her blows, his hands solid and unmoving around her wrists. He didn't cower at Snape's remark, instead he chuckled and said,
"I have her under control. She's fucking perfect for this curse. Watch."
He roughly transferred her wrists to one of his hands and pinned them against her stomach, pressing so hard it winded her. She struggled against his new grip and felt a fresh wave of hopelessness. Dolohov dug his wand into her cheek and said,
"Why were you outside Malfoy Manor?"
"To make it plottable!" The words burst from her lips followed by a low, strangled moan as the pleasant heat exploded in her chest and shot upwards to warm her neck and face.
"See, I knew she was a weak little whore," Dolohov spat out, his long features twisting with satisfaction.
Alice's face throbbed with shame as her eyes darted past Dolohov's boxy frame to her former professor. Some emotion Alice couldn't discern flickered across his face before it returned to its usual sneering indifference and he said,
"Well, I hope you're done enjoying yourself because I'm taking her."
Dolohov's eyebrows rose and he smirked as he said to Alice,
"Congratulations, you managed to stir something in the stoic professor."
No. Alice's eyes darted between the two men. Not Snape, he could be cruel, but was cold and indifferent, surely he'd have no interest in her.
She wasn't naive to the particular risks she faced as a woman in the war. After her capture, she'd been terrified of being given to one of the Death Eaters notorious for their violence in that regard, like Greyback, Rowle and if some were to be believed, Dolohov, but there were no reports of Snape being sexually violent. He only used violence when it served a specific purpose, like when he'd murdered the Headmaster last summer.
Snape's face remained impassive as he stated,
"There's a fresh batch of veritaserum which needs testing."
Alice felt herself go numb with defeat. She hadn't trained to withstand even a hundredth of a drop of veritaserum. Williamson had managed to procure one fluid ounce last month, and he'd promised Alice and the five other trainees he'd allocate one or two drops to their training, but then his team had captured the Death Eater Osmont Mulciber and it had all been used on his interrogation.
Dolohov groaned, re-adjusting his tight one-handed grip on her two wrists and shoving them up against the wall above her head, pushing her into the rough stone wall with his hard body.
"Do you really think this witch is worth all the fuckin' unicorn tears that goes into that potion?" He jabbed his wand into her harder, pinning her cheek against her teeth painfully. Then he asked, his voice once again soft and melodic,
"What's your name?"
Alice swung her head, smacking it against the wall so that the "A-" sound her mouth had begun became a grunt of pain.
"Cruci-"
Before Dolohov could finish the curse, his wand flew out of his hand into Snape's and the latter commented,
"That is Alice Duclos, an auror as of three months ago, and if you crucio her brains out the veritaserum will indeed be a waste."
"An auror," Dolohov repeated. His annoyance at being disarmed vanished and his eyes glittered. "What kind of brain-dead auror sniffs around Malfoy Manor, and can't handle two bloody snatchers?"
His comment prompted Alice to scream in anger,
"STUPEFY!"
To her immense surprise, her wandless stunner actually made Dolohov grunt in shock and as he stumbled backwards Alice dashed around him.
"Ah, ah," Snape tutted as if he were admonishing a dog who had jumped on the couch. Immediately, Alice's whole body froze in place, directly in front of the tall, dark wizard. She hadn't considered how she would get around her former professor, she'd just given in to her all-consuming urge to flee. He looked past her to Dolohov and flicked his wand back at him.
"Maybe I should relieve you of the small, wandless witch before you prove yourself incapable of restraining her."
The other wizard chuckled with no humour and muttered,
"Fine, but I get to interrogate the next rebel witch caught."
Snape unfroze Alice with a flick of his wrist. "Walk," he ordered as he gestured down the dungeon corridor.
Alice didn't see any option but to obey. Her wandless magic was generally poor and she'd been surprised that her stunner had had any effect at all on Dolohov. Even if she'd had her wand, the thirty-something year old wizard escorting her through the manor was listed by the Auror department as the most powerful wizard under He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's command, second only to the Dark Lord himself. And, even if it were too depressing for anyone in the department to admit out-loud, now that Dumbledore was dead, Severus Snape was arguably the second most powerful wizard in the whole of Great Britain. Alice didn't think a shaky, wandless expelliarmus and a dash for freedom was going to end all that well for her.