#accio admin

Randall bit his lip and stayed silent for once, just staring the older man down as defiantly as he could manage.  His cheek and lip were killing him, but he knew that if he didn’t give the man what he wanted, the Gryffindor wasn’t leaving here unscathed.  No, he had no doubt in his mind that Norwood would keep to his promise of pain if he lied, and while Randall wasn’t looking forward to this, he couldn’t tell the Ministry about Rhys.  He just couldn’t.  He’d be sent to Azkaban for aiding a fugitive, and Holden would be left alone with no explanation, and Randall couldn’t stand for that.  Any way he looked at it, it was a lose-lose situation for him, so might as well hang on for as long as he could.  

Norwood just stared back at him, slowly setting the parchments down in front of him and folding his arms.  “Mr. Ryan - I’m just going to call you Randall from here on out - I just want to ask a few questions.  Do you agree to be truthful, or should I prepare for other methods of questioning?” he asked, leaning forwards over the table.  Randall averted his eyes, staring down at his lap and setting his jaw in a determined clench, hoping the man wouldn’t do anything drastic this soon after him waking up.  Just then, he noticed it wasn’t just the two of them in the room.  The woman from the speech, another student’s parent, stood silently by the door, along with Amelia’s father.  Randall winced at the sight of the dark bruise on the Hit Wizard’s jaw, knowing it was his fault that was there.  He hadn’t noticed he was staring until a hand shot out and gripped his jaw, forcing him to look back at Norwood.  

He couldn’t stop from letting out a whimper as the man’s grip sent pain flaring through his face, eyes sliding shut as he winced against Norwood’s fingers.  Randall just shook his head, trying to ignore the grip on his jaw as he did, keeping his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see the expression on the High Inquisitor’s face.  He wasn’t going to tell this man anything, he wasn’t going to fuck Rhys over like that.  Not when the world was already falling to bits around them, not when he could help, and most certainly not when it meant breaking a promise.  Suddenly, the other man let go of him with a shove, Randall’s head connecting with the back of the chair with a soft gasp.  “I see how it is,” the High Inquisitor said, voice soft and deadly, still watching the Gryffindor with that piercing gaze of his.  Randall steeled himself, though he wasn’t sure what he was steeling himself for, exactly.

He wasn’t prepared for the sleeve of his shirt to tear, along with the skin underneath, with a single whispered word from the man in front of him.  The cut on his forearm started bleeding immediately, the red blossoming on his white shirt as he let out another whimper at the pain.  “Have you been helping the fugitive known as Rhys Warrens?” the man asked calmly.  When Randall shook his head, eyes already tearing up, the man spoke the spell again, this time cutting into Randall’s other arm.  The Gryffindor could only watch as the blood spread, staining his shirtsleeves, as he kept biting his tongue.  He wasn’t going to tell.  He didn’t tell when Calithra had him under her power, and he certainly wouldn’t now.  

It went on like this for a while, Norwood cutting into Randall’s arms whenever he didn’t answer a question, still remaining calm while the boy fell apart in front of him.  He started screaming when the spell carved into him for a fifth time, sobbing at the ninth.  Then it stopped for a moment, and he caught his breath, finally looking back at the man across from him.  Norwood just looked at him for a minute, before whispering a spell that closed every single cut he’d just placed painstakingly in Randall’s flesh, leaving only lace-thin scars behind.  Once that was done, and Randall made eye contact, the man leaned forward again, leaning on his elbows on the table.  “Let’s try a different approach-” he started, before sliding a photograph across the table and showing it to Randall, “-do you know this man?”  He didn’t have to look to know it was a picture of Rhys, but he did anyways.  He had to, to make the man think he really didn’t know what was going on.  

It was obvious the man was waiting for some kind of verbal response, so Randall shook his head and tried to keep his voice level as he spoke.  “I, uhm, wasn’t he in the newspapers a little while back?” he asked, nodding towards the photo.  “He did something to a muggle town, right?”  He glanced back up at Norwood, quailing a little at the sight of the disappointment in the older man’s eyes.  Sure enough, the man went back to carving into his arms again, face emotionless even as Randall screamed and cried.  After every cut, he stopped and asked how Randall knew the fugitive, but the Gryffindor was falling further into his own little world, dominated by the pain the man was putting him through.

This went on for a while longer, Norwood occasionally stopping to heal the cuts he kept carving up and down Randall’s arms, leaving some of them as scars but most of them not.  The Gryffindor’s face was streaked with tears, shirt spotted with them where they landed.  Finally, it seemed the man was done with the cuts, as he set his wand down on the table between the two of them, just watching as Randall struggled for air he couldn’t quite find.  

Then he slid another couple sheets of parchment towards the Gryffindor, and suddenly there wasn’t any air at all in his lungs.  That was his handwriting, his words, his letter to Brandon after he’d gone missing.  The very letter that had itself gone missing between him sending it with Mira and his owl’s return.  It clicked in Randall’s mind, and even though he was shaking, he felt the anger flare up in him and couldn’t stop the words from spilling out.

“You took him!  You’re the fuckers who took Brandon, and lied about it!” he screamed, yanking at his restraints and lashing out with his legs.  He felt one of his feet connect with something, before suddenly there were metal cuffs around his ankles as well, and he couldn’t move.

So he screamed.

He screamed and yelled and spat, cursing the man for what he’d done, what he’d led the whole school to believe, and Norwood just sat there and let him, face expressionless.  Randall screamed until he couldn’t scream any more, then fell silent, face red and lungs heaving.  Then Norwood picked up his wand again, casting another spell that took over Randall completely.

“Legilimens.”

Then he was in a room with Holden, in the boy’s dorm room, lying there on the boy’s bed, completely wrapped around each other.  Fezzik was jumping around, yipping, and Holden was laughing...

Then it was the Room of Requirement, the first time he’d met with Rhys, and the man was pinning him against the door with a hand over his mouth, hissing a warning...

He was back with Holden again, but they were out in the field now, on that picnic Holden had put together.  They were wrapped in the blanket and each other, and Holden was staring up at the stars but Randall was staring at him instead, heart beating too fast...

Randall opened his eyes to see Norwood standing next to him, throat feeling like he’d been screaming for ages even though he knew it couldn’t’ve been all that long.  Risking a glance past the man, he noticed that the female Hit Wizard and Amelia’s father had gone, leaving him alone with his torturer.  “It seems you do know Mr. Warrens, Randall,” the man said, voice falsely sweet and caring.  Randall just stared at him, eyes wide and confused; he didn't know what had just happened, what that spell had just done to him.

"Legilimens."

Randall was back in the Room of Requirement again, this time when it had transformed into the sparring arena.  He was flat on his back, and Rhys was saying something to him, but he couldn't hear it...

Now he was standing in Professor Cooper's office, staring down at his boggart as it transformed into a dead Holden...

Back to the day on the train, the first time he'd laid eyes on Rhys.  He was standing on the platform, watching as Lane strolled up to the other man before both of them glaring at him...

It was the night of the Yule Ball now, just last night, and Holden was leaning over him on their bed, blue eyes shining.  The boy's fingers skimmed over his shirt, nimbly unbuttoning it, and pushed it off his shoulders before leaning in and kissing him fiercely...

This time he opened his eyes, disoriented.  For a moment, he thought he was in Holden's room, held tightly in his boyfriend's arms, but reality came crashing down on him all too quickly.  When it did, he choked back a sob; he wanted nothing more than to be there, held close and loved and safe, not bothered by the pain.  Norwood, however, didn't seem to care how scared the sixth year was, how badly he was shaking with it, and just continued on.

He leaned in close to the immobile Gryffindor, staring him down, before saying, “It would be wonderful if you would tell me where he is.  Then we could go find him and bring him back, and no one would be hurt.  Well, more than you’re hurt right now.  So, Randall?  What’ll it be; helping me out, or hurting yourself even more?”  Randall, body shaking from the pain and the fear, just shook his head, feeling more tears leak out from his eyes.  He wouldn’t tell the man anything.  Norwood sighed, pointing his wand at Randall again, and spoke a different spell, one the Gryffindor had heard only once in a deserted hallway months before.

“Crucio.”

In an instant, Randall was screaming again, agony taking him over and making him yank ineffectively at his restraints, heedless of when they cut into his wrists and rubbed them raw.  It was just like his nightmares, the ones where he couldn’t move as Calithra tore him apart, and that only had him screaming even more.  Then the spell was lifted, and he gasped for breaths that wouldn’t come, tears streaking his cheeks.  It wasn't long, however, before the High Inquisitor cast the curse again, giving the pain to him in short bursts to punctuate his incessant questions.

The third time broke Randall, the pain pushing him so far over the edge he blacked out for a moment.  When he came to, he could hear someone screaming, but he didn't realise it was him until his throat started really burning.  "I don't know!" he was screaming, over and over and over again, though Norwood certainly didn't seem to hear him.  He just kept casting the curse, kept watching as Randall writhed as much as he could in his restraints.

By the sixth time Norwood cast the spell, Randall was begging for him to stop, for someone to save him, for anything other than the pain crashing over him right now.  His voice cracked and broke on every word torn out of his lungs, before it finally gave out mid-scream, trailing off in a horrible gasp for air.  When the spell lifted this time, he let his head fall forwards, too drained to do anything else.  He barely registered the wetness around the cuffs on his wrists and ankles where the metal had dug in so deep it’d cut him, barely registered the fact that without the metal around his chest, he’d have faceplanted on the table long ago.  

Just like it had when the acromantula venom was pumping through his veins, Holden's face flashed in front of his eyes, forcing another sob from the Gryffindor.  Holden would save him, he had to.  Holden would pull him into his arms and kiss the pain and the fear and the tears away, would make everything alright.  Holden would shield him from the pain, would heal his wounds and help him survive this.  Holden would be his hero.