Title: Alucinatio

Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Narcissa Black Malfoy

Main Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter (Unrequited/One-sided for part one out of three), Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley

Full Summary (Part One): "It's... it's not good," Harry tells them lowly. "They've given him a month's time, only."

There is so much he needs to explain, but his head is foggy and exhausted and he can't think properly, can't think of how to relay all that he's learned.

"Have you heard of Alucinatio?" is what he starts with.

"The Daydream potion," Hermione says. "The person who intakes it experiences very vivid and realistic daydreams of all they could ever want, but is essentially in a severely catatonic state out in the external world, incapable of any basic functions."

Harry nods. "Somebody's given it to Malfoy." He remembers the tattered remains of a black cloak wrapped around Malfoy. "I think it might have been Professor Snape."

They take a minute to process that.

"And... the cure?" Ron asks.

"Tears of anyone the experiencer craves love of," Hermione answers.

General Author Notes:

Warnings for material that may be triggering up ahead, although I will not post anything too graphic. I will provide the warnings before each chapter.

The story is supposed to be divided into three parts. The first part is entirely unrequited Draco/Harry. It's a veeeery slow burn/build in the external real world, but the dreams are nothing but Drarry, so hopefully that's compensation and will keep you sane throughout. Either way, the story is mostly focused on them with some Romione moments inbetween :') loves of my lives

This is my first HP story. I got into the fandom quite recently and hope I don't mess anything up. I'm also not English/British. I'm trying to learn the lingo, but I apologize sincerely in advance if I get anything wrong.

Chapter Warnings: one graphic physical abuse scene, implied/referenced non-con, swearing

Please, please beware of these triggers.

ALUCINATIO

PART ONE

Chapter One: The Daydream Potion

"How many times do you expect me to absolve you, Lucius?" The Dark Lord asks, maintaining a convincing demeanor of repose and calm, and yet Lucius knows better. "Time and time again, you fail. And failure does seem to run in the Malfoy family. Your son, I can see, is no better than you."

Draco's first task had been unsuccessful. Not unsuccessful, per se, as the deed had been done and Dumbledore was dead, but it hadn't been at Draco's hand that he died the way Lord Voldemort had ordered for it to be. Lucius already knows that The Dark Lord had expected him to fail and had given him a severely difficult mission deliberately as punishment for his family, but Lucius senses that he was far more disappointed in the fact that Draco had come very close to fulfilling his task and yet didn't, that it was, in fact, Severus Snape who committed the murder of Albus Dumbledore instead.

Lucius feels the nausea and trepidation roiling in his gut, the pounding of his heart thumping in his ears, the room filling with viscous and suffocating tension and terror. He stares firmly at a spot below near the Dark Lord's feet, unable to meet his gaze. He thinks about apologizing to the Lord again, in the hopes that perhaps he will have mercy on him and his family once more, but he gets the feeling that that will not be the right course of action. The Dark Lord is not at all anticipating for him to seek his forgiveness, and Lucius fears that asking for it will only make him angrier at the moment, so he stands with his hands clasped and his head bowed and stays silent.

He darts a quick, peripheral glance from the corner of his eye, seeing the hazy form of his son standing off to the side along with a few other Death-Eaters. He has adopted the same posture of obedience and fear, keeping his head and his gaze low, shoulders rigid and tense as he waits for the verdict and sentence.

The sentence is one Lucius does not foresee.

"There must be repercussions," The Dark Lord says, his back to everyone. The snake, Nagini, slithers on the ground of the living room beside him. "An example must be set, so that no one overestimates my leniency. Your son's loyalty to me is clearly not whole, and you, Lucius, seem to constantly find it fit to disappoint me."

Lucius swallows. "Not at all, my Lord, I…"

"Silence!" Lord Voldemort bellows, breaking the calm and composed demeanor. Lucius immediately quiets. "I think you will think twice about it from now on when it's your boy who will suffer the consequences."

The blood in his veins freezes to ice, his heart halting to a still.

"My… my Lord?" His voice barely comes out of his dry throat.

He can hear Draco's quickening, panicked breaths from here in the pin-drop silence of the room.

The Dark Lord gestures with his hand in a beckoning wave in Draco's direction.

Lucius' head snaps to his son, his eyes wide and his chest constricting with fear just as Yaxley and Greyback move forward. Draco's face is flooded with terror and panic, his head turning to glance at the direction of the Dark Lord's gesture. He sees the men approaching and stumbles around in a swift, frantic spin. There is a sheen of sweat beginning to glisten on his skin, his chest jouncing high and low along with his rapidly panting breaths as he begins to back away tremulously.

Yaxley and Greyback lurch forward and grab ahold of his biceps in a vice-like bruising grip, jostling him around violently to face them.

"Father!" Draco gasps out, his voice shaky whimper that sends a couple of the surrounding Death-Eaters into a fit of laughter. Lucius feels a flush of humiliation and shame in his body at his son's embarrassing reaction, his gaze roving uncomfortably around at the snickering men and women.

Whatever expression Draco sees on his face causes him to grow ashamed and abashed as well, his head lowering and his eyes flicking sideways to glance in the general direction of the other inhabitants of the Malfoy Manor, their sniggers still resounding throughout the dining room.

Draco swallows hard, his sharp throat bobbing visibly. He looks up into Lucius' face again from beneath his white-blonde hair, and Lucius couldn't quite stop his lips from tightening in reproach. He understands Draco is afraid, but it is not fit for Malfoy men to show such blatant displays of vulnerability and emotion in public no matter the situation, especially not in such a childish manner. He has tried so hard to instill control and composure in his son, and yet, Draco has never quite seemed to have learned.

Draco straightens then, raising his chin in a forced attempt to regain their characteristic Malfoy poise and grace. He schools his expression into a quivering, unstable sort of restraint and repose, but his body is still shaking.

"For every misstep of yours, past and present, it is your son that pays, Lucius," Lord Voldemort warns lowly. "I suggest you watch yourself from here on."

Lucius' eyes enlarged, brows scrunched in desperately controlled horror that must have bled through in his face anyway. His heart is hammering in his chest, the sickening trepidation and panic enclosing its fingers around his gut and heart. They are about to take away his only son, his boy, and they will hurt him in unimaginable ways as punishment for both his and Draco's mistakes and—

"My… my Lord, please, with all due respect, Draco is merely a…"

"Take him away," The Dark Lord orders with another careless wave of his hand, speaking over him as if he isn't speaking at all.

They Disapparate away with his son. Lucius jolts forward, hand reaching out as if he could catch them before they vanished. His hand is trembling, widened eyes staring at the spot where his son stood a second ago, unable to process what had just happened.

It doesn't seem to sink in for a long, long time.

...

Lucius sees Narcissa standing by the window of their bedroom, a glass of wine in her hand as she gazes out contemplatively.

He doesn't know how he will tell her that they took their son away from their living room right under his nose. He stands in the doorway, feeling lost and like his chest has been carved out hollow.

Narcissa has noticed his presence from her peripheral vision. With a single glance in his direction, she puts down her glass of wine and begins to head towards him to greet him with a kiss to his cheek.

She stops at whatever look she sees on his gaunt and vacant face, her brows furrowing in alarm and concern.

"Lucius?" she says as she steps towards him, cautious and slow.

He can't find the words, can't think of where to begin and how to say it, his mind feeling barricaded. He tries, but all that leaves him is a haunted, "Draco…"

For a moment, Narcissa merely stands in silence.

And then she asks, calm and low, "Where is Draco?"

"Narcissa, they…" Lucius tries to continue, but he trails off, weary and quiet. He's trying to breathe, but it's only shallow, the air not fully reaching his lungs.

"Where is my son?" she repeats, but the words come out even softer, merely a tremulous whisper.

"They took him," Lucius finally manages to say, his mouth dry and his throat clogged. He clears his throat, trying to make his voice calm and controlled even when nothing else seems to be so anymore. "They took our son, Narcissa."

"Took him?" Narcissa questions, her breaths quickening in panic, her chest jouncing rapidly. "Took him where , Lucius?"

"I don't know."

"What are they going to do to him?" she demands, now shaking in her body and voice. There are tears filling her reddening eyes, sorrow and anger ablaze in them. "What do they want with him?"

"The Dark Lord wants to use him to set an example for others, and he wants to use him against me," Lucius answers, and then swallows. "He wants to punish Draco and I, and he knows that the worst punishment he could inflict on me…"

Narcissa doesn't seem to be listening anymore. Her knees weaken and she drops down heavily on the bed, her trembling fists bunching up the bedsheets tightly, her wide eyes darting side-to-side as if her mind is racing a million thoughts per second. She is struggling to breathe, the sorrow and horror dripping from her eyes.

Lucius sits down beside her and pick up one of her hands into his own. Her grip is hard enough for his own hand to ache, but he doesn't let go of it.

…

Severus comes to hear of his godson's fate the day after.

It's nearly a week later that Voldemort calls for him.

He now stands before him, hands clasped together in front of him in a show of obedience and respect.

"Being one of my most competent and loyal followers, your services have been of utmost importance to me. You have even accomplished the great endeavor of killing Albus Dumbledore," Voldemort says, pleased. "You must be rewarded, Severus."

"You are most gracious, my Lord," Severus responds, as he is expected to.

"What is it that you ask for?" Voldemort asks.

Severus doesn't have to consider.

"If you accept, my Lord," Severus says. He pauses for a moment. "I wish to see Draco Malfoy."

…

They take Severus' wand and put a brief blinding spell on him to ensure he won't know of the location before they Apparate him.

"The Dark Lord's orders," Yaxley explains. "It's merely a precaution, Severus."

Once he's inside the metallic door, warded heavily against magic, of the filthy cellar they must be keeping his godson captive in, Yaxley passes him his wand through the rectangular gap.

Severus snatches it off his hand and spins around, cloak sweeping around him as he does, away from the ogre-like man outside the door that is peering in, a split-second glimpse of his expression becoming affronted at Severus' cold mannerisms. Severus forgets of his presence as soon as he looks away.

His eyes land on the boy, who has his bare back to the room and is lying on the floor, white-blonde hair tousled and knotted and dirtied with grime. He is trying to maintain a pretense of being asleep, but his battered body is shaking too much for it to be believable in any way. Severus moves towards him, in slow steps forward, until he is standing over him.

He kneels down behind the welted, pale back. "Draco," Severus says quietly.

The tremors of the boy's body cease immediately at the sound of his voice, now merely still.

Draco then turns, looking up to meet his gaze tentatively. The space around his wide grey eyes are bruised red with fatigue and weeping. His face has cuts and wounds all over. "Severus?"

Severus settles down beside the boy, the knee of one leg upturned and the other leg splayed sideways on the ground. "Sit up."

He reaches into his cloak for the jar of salve he brought along.

Draco obliges, sitting up shakily, heels of his palms on the ground pushing him up, but careful not to put any weight on his feet, the toes of which are purple and crushed.

...

"Sick bastards," Draco snarls, his voice shaking with fury and pain. "Crucio'd me, they did, Severus. So many times. Fuck them! Every single one of them." His breaths shudder and hitch in his vehemence and rage, his upper body shuddering and hitching along with them, sounding frantic and on the verge of weeping.

Severus listens silently and calmly to the boy's ire and anguish, rubbing salve into the dark welts across the boy's back as carefully as possible. Draco hisses when his fingers come into contact with a particularly sore wound.

Draco swallows audibly in the quiet of the room. "And father... if father were here…" he grits out, once he recovers. "If he knew of the things they did…"

Severus is fairly certain Lucius would have enough of an idea of the things that were happening to his son here. The elder Malfoy had seemed quite haunted and troubled in his anxiety and worry, but Severus can't see what Lucius would be able to do even if he were present and watching it all.

Despite the unbreakable vow that Severus had formed with his mother, for doing all he could to protect Draco from the harm and danger he was to face during the task, going out of effect after Dumbledore's death, Severus still feels a deep responsibility over the boy. He has never been one who was privy to attachment towards anyone, but Draco has been the only thing Severus has truly cared for after Lily (and by extension, her son, Harry Potter, even if that is a different and far more complicated matter).

Severus is not a soft man, but he has grown a soft spot for the young Malfoy, one that had developed when his godson was no more than an infant who would hide himself in his cloak and laugh. He has never been one that people would confide in, but the Malfoys have become somewhat a close part of his life and he has somehow become the primary confidant of Draco Malfoy.

And yet, all of their hands are tied. Going against the Dark Lord's orders, searching for any way to free Draco is, logically and practically, not the best idea. It is only going to result in all of their deaths, Draco's included, for Voldemort scrutinized every one of their movements and would have no difficulty in finding them no matter where they tried to hide.

This is all he can do, it seems.

"He'd fucking kill them if he could. The things they did... sick fucking lunatics..."

It is there that Severus sees it, no longer listening.

The bruises.

They are dark and deep on both sides of the little that is visible of the boy's hips, merely a glimpse but seemingly finger-shaped by the gaps of undamaged pale skin between them, peeking out from the waistband of Draco's black trousers. They camouflaged with the rest of the wounds on Draco's body.

Severus stills completely for a moment at the sight of it, at the implications it brings to his mind. He's spent a long time in the darkness, long enough to understand certain things that happen at the hands of evil and long enough to understand the signs that they happened.

Yet, Severus finds it desperately hard to believe. He thinks he must be mistaken.

He uses the tip of his wand to pull the waistband of the trousers away slightly in order to take a closer look.

Severus catches it enough to confirm that they are indeed caused by a harsh grip before, as expected, Draco shoves himself away with a gasp of surprise, scrambling away until he is facing Severus. He glares at Severus indignantly, brows furrowed over wide eyes and his mouth twisted in anger as if Severus had infringed upon him severely in some way.

"What the bloody hell are you doing, Severus?" Draco hisses furiously.

"What are those marks, Draco?"

"That's none of your concern, is it?"

Severus grips his bicep and hauls him forward, forcing him to look into his own eyes. The boy tries to thrash his hand off, but Severus holds firm. "I am your Godfather and I cared for you since you were no more than a blubbering child—" In the many ways that your father failed to, but Severus is certain the boy would loathe to hear that. "It is my concern what happens to you, so I ask you again. What. happened. to you?"

Draco's chest is rising and falling, anger still twisting his mouth and blazing in his grey gaze, but there was something else creeping in, something glistening in his sore eyes, reddening the rims of them.

"Just do what you came here to do, Severus," Draco says, an underlying quiver in his voice, still trying to sound hard and irate, but it seems the mask is crumbling because he merely sounds weary. He tries again to make Severus' grip release, trying to jerk his arm away, but it's feeble and half-hearted.

"It can't be what I think it means," Severus says quietly. His chest feels strange, something pushing against the cold control he has managed to develop as merely a young boy and maintain all the way until now.

Draco tries hard to maintain his angry glare and snarl, but it doesn't work. Instead, the anger and indignity is beginning to drain out of him. The twist of his mouth is slowly becoming a crumple of his chin, upturned sneering lips turning downwards in pain and hurt, and the glisten in his fearful eyes is now clearly tears of sorrow gathering together.

Severus' gaze flicks down slowly as the silent confirmation, of the sickening implications he had in mind, from his godson's crumbling expression begins to sink in, along with the burn of disgust and hatred beginning to threaten his unshakeable composure. His hands lower from the boy's arms, curling into fists. He tries to regain his repose and coolness, but it is growing to be terribly difficult at the moment with the ache of rage in his head and the blinding red beginning to color his vision.

How dare they?

How dare they touch a boy, a mere child in their comparison, his godson, in such an abhorrent way?

Outwardly, he has managed to maintain his stillness, keeping his body from lashing out in any explosive way, but the turmoil inside of him is beginning to blind him, and his body is beginning to shake of its own accord with the force of it.

He can sense Draco's gaze on him, watching him try not to lose himself.

"Severus?" Draco says, tentatively, sounding small and afraid.

Severus can't seem to speak, so he glances up at him, at his whitewashed and solemn face, a forced attempt to regain his poise and control of his emotions, but he only looks like a little boy trying to be strong without much credibility.

The boy swallows, Adam's apple bobbing visibly. "However you may feel about me right now…" His voice sounds without much air, coming through a dry throat. He pauses, seemingly finding it hard to get his words out, blinking rapidly as thoughts blindside him. "You—you mustn't tell father about this. Do you understand?"

Surely, the boy doesn't blame himself for this.

"Draco—"

"He will leave me here to die."

A clear and sharp contrast to the boy who revelled in his faith of his father's protectiveness and rage over his suffering a few moments ago. Severus knew that for all of Draco's gloating over his father's status name and using it as a threat against anyone who affronted him, the boy had never quite known where he stood in his father's life, had never been able to see how Lucius cared for him because he had never expressed it to his son in any meaningful way. Lucius loved his son, undoubtedly, but he let too much get in the way of it, and that meant that he often regarded his son with disappointment and embarrassment if the boy ever fell short of living up to his expectations.

Severus himself found that it was difficult to predict the elder Malfoy's reaction and feelings if he were to discover the lengths they went to to humiliate and torture his son. He may choose to dwell in his feelings of secondary degradation and how that affects his already tarnished reputation and image in the eyes of others first, rather than let his grief over the horror and anguish and torment his son suffered through overpower it.

"Please," the boy pleads desperately, his breathless voice cracking, his composure, and loosely held together, on the verge of falling apart once more.

When Severus is able to formulate a proper verbal response, he manages to force out an, "I will not tell."

In the end, he doesn't know how he could have ever said anything about this to anyone.

Draco's face visibly sags with relief, eyes fluttering shut as a tremulous, heavy breath leaves him. He nods, eyes still closed.

There is silence, then.

Severus reaches for the salve again, intending to continue treating his godson.

"Do leave the salve here before you go, Severus," Draco murmurs, weary and quiet, already too far from the boisterous and loud boy he knew. He lays back down on the floor and rolls over, facing the wall and turning his back to Severus. "...I will need it for later."

Severus silently moves forward until he is sitting behind him. He pushes his godson's shoulder slightly so that more of his back is exposed and continues massaging it into the sore parts.

It doesn't take long for the boy to start crying, breaking down as if he had been waiting to be left alone, holding it in too long. His shoulders begins to heave with sobs, rattling his body as he pulls his knees up slightly into himself.

When Severus is done treating his wounds, he moves back up to lean against the wall, unclasps the neck of his cloak and drapes it over Draco's trembling form, and in a rare display of deep affection that has perhaps only ever been reserved for the young Malfoy, places a hand on top of his white-blonde hair in attempt to console. Draco's hands bunch up the cloak from the inside as he cries to the point of being unable to breathe, tugging it in as if trying to soak in all the comfort he could of the gesture.

Draco falls asleep soon after, once his body has exhausted itself. Severus doesn't move from his place for hours, doesn't move his hand from Draco's hair, remaining the still and steady presence that he has always been in his godson's life.

…

"Six hours are up, Severus. It's time to leave." It's Garrison Goyle this time, peering in through the rectangular gap of the door.

Severus doesn't move from his position immediately, a deep reluctance and weariness cementing his body to remain where it is. He looks down at his sleeping godson, his thin torso rising and falling with the cadenced lilts of exhales and inhales.

After a while, he does get up. Hand sliding off Draco's hair slowly, he sits up straight, taking his wand. He hoists himself to his feet and walks towards the door.

"Uh, pass… pass your wand, please," Goyle says.

Severus stares coldly at him for a moment, letting the man's gaze skitter away nervously before he proffers his wand through the gap.

"Severus?"

He stills when he hears his godson's voice from behind him, thick and slurring with slumber.

The door opens behind him, but Severus turns away and moves towards Draco. He kneels beside him.

"Yes, Dragon?" It leaves him before he can think of it, an affectionate term that Severus scarcely uses, if ever, these days, but it was the most natural thing to do until a decade ago, when Draco was eight and his father grew tired of his son being infantilized and Draco asked everyone to only call him by his name. His mother persisted in using the fond nickname to this day against Lucius' opposition, but Severus respected the boy's wishes.

Draco's lips curve imperceptibly into a small smile, before he sobers.

"Will you be coming back?" he asks softly. He sounds a little more confident than he did when he called for him.

Severus loathes to think that Draco ever doubted he would.

Severus knows how the world out there would think of something like this happening to a boy, and a Malfoy boy no less. He also knew they would be even less sympathetic to a Death-Eater. He only wishes that Draco didn't see him as a part of that world.

Yet, when silence persists a little too long, Draco begins to grow uncertain. The hope begins to drain from his eyes, the silver gaze darting away.

"I'd rather know now if you won't than—than to wait, is all."

Severus reaches out to readjust the cloak over his godson's shoulder, covering him properly.

"As soon as I can, Draco," Severus murmurs.

Draco's eyes examine him, perhaps searching for something, perhaps trying to gauge his honesty, before he nods. His eyes slip shut again. Severus watches him return to slumber, something trying to make its way into his chest, but he knows if he gives into it and lets it in, lets it grow so much so that it guides his actions, that it can ruin too much. Everything. And they can't afford any of it at this point.

He stands up and walks out the door, where Goyle stands in wait to cast a temporary blinding spell and escort him out of the house.

…

Harry squeezes his eyes shut, burning agony shooting through the scar on his temple. He lays in his bed, trembling hands clutching at his hammering head. He feels the familiar explosion of anguish that becomes a rage so deep and dark, it seems to fill him like melting hot metals over his insides.

And then he's standing in a room, a foul scent of sweat and blood and vomit permeating through it, bare and empty.

Save for a Death-Eater—Rowle and a familiar trembling pale, slender figure in the corner, white-blonde head bowed as he weeps silently. Yaxley grips Malfoy by the hair and drags him across the floor towards himself. Malfoy is shaking and now sobbing loudly, the knee of his black trousers scraping harshly across the ground, hands shooting up to the grasp on his head, fumbling for the fingers to open, to no avail.

And then he's thrown at his own feet.

He stares down at him, the burn of rage and disgust and disappointment flooding through in his veins and his chest at the sight of him.

"Look at me," he hears himself command in Voldemort's voice.

Malfoy obeys, his face flushed and crumpled with tears and terror, his grey eyes red, bruised and wet, his entire face bruised and wet.

"I wonder, so often," Voldemort says. "I gave you one task, Draco. Only one. You had Albus Dumbledore cornered, did you not?"

The pale, battered boy nods, but he's shaking so much that it hardly looks like one. He feels the back of his own hand collide hard with Malfoy's cheek, forcing Malfoy to cry out in pain and surprise as he jolts sideways to the ground, landing on his arms.

"Is this how you respond to your Lord?" he hisses.

It takes too long for Malfoy to speak. It only makes Harry—Voldemort—angrier.

"N-no, my Lord." Malfoy mumbles, quiet and hardly coherent, swallowing to control himself. He lifts himself up on his palms. Voldemort kneels down and grabs his bicep and snaps him around to face him. Malfoy flinches hard, letting out one gasping, hard sob. He peers into the boy's flushed and crumpled face, eyes squeezed shut with his head turned away, shaking and crying silently.

"You had Albus Dumbledore cornered, did you not?" Voldemort repeats.

"Y-yes, my Lord," he chokes out.

"And you did not kill him."

"-H-he is dead, m-my Lord." His voice breaks through his rapid breathing.

"But did you kill him?"

"N-no, my Lord. Severus Sn—"

"Do tell why," Voldemort says. "I explicitly said he was to die at your hand, and yet it was not at your hand that he died. Why is that so?"

Malfoy doesn't answer. He doesn't know how to, and he knows that his lack of an answer will only result in making the Dark Lord angrier. He begins to tremble even more, whispering, "Please."

Voldemort tilts his head. "Perhaps you find in yourself a distaste for violence and murder, Draco?".

Malfoy shakes his head vigorously.

"And when the time comes, you will not be able to do even the bare minimum in the name of your Lord?"

"No, n-no, my Lord," Malfoy pleads, shaking his head desperately. "No—"

"You have proven yourself useless to me," Voldemort hisses, throwing him back against the ground violently. Draco cries out in pain as his wounded body collides with the hard floor. "But perhaps now your worthless father will feel more inclined to make himself useful."

Voldemort stands up and points his wand at Malfoy.

"Crucio!"

Malfoy's scream, high and loud, resounds through the entire room. He writhes on the ground, finger joints and toes stiffly curling and his arms and legs shaking and throwing out as he thrashed in anguish, trying to find some way to lessen the agony in his body and gaining no purchase.

Voldemort stops after ten whole minutes. Malfoy slumps back down on the ground, crying even harder than he was before, without control or reserve.

"Again?" Voldemort asks.

"Please," Malfoy cries. "Please. No more. Please, my Lord…"

"Again?" Voldemort repeats with more emphasis. He wants Malfoy to say yes.

Malfoy shakes his head with rigor, sobbing and gasping.

"Perhaps you'd prefer Rowle to take over then? And Fenrir too? I suppose they would be far more… enjoyable… for you."

Malfoy's pale face floods with horror, looking nauseated. He glances at Rowle, standing off to the side, but quickly looks away as if he's afraid of provoking him even just by looking at him.

"Again?" Voldemort asks.

…

Harry sits on the edge of his sleeping bag, still trembling as he burns a hole through the ground. Hermione and Ron sit on each side of him, and he could feel Hermione rubbing his arms and back. Ron is holding an empty glass of water, staring at him worriedly. Neither of them speak, understanding that Harry feels incapable of answering at the moment.

Harry knows he's been screaming again. He's been screaming in his sleep ever since Sirius' death, because he watches him die at Bellatrix's hand and watches him go into the veil, over and over, unable to save him or do anything to stop it all from happening. Now there is another death that haunts his dreams and his waking moments, Professor Dumbledore's, at the hands of Severus Snape. He sees a lot of terrible things through his mind connection with Voldemort, but he's usually been able to clamp down on his reaction.

"You were… you were screaming, Harry," Hermione is the one who breaks through the silence, saying the words as if she doesn't know what else to say, but she's hoping Harry will expand on the reason why himself. "Was it… was it about Sirius again? Or Dumbledore? But you were…" She pauses. Clearly he was saying something different this time. In his nightmares about Sirius, he yelled his name and yelled for Bellatrix to not do it and yelled for him to come back. In his nightmares about Dumbledore, he pleaded Snape to not do it and he ran and ran and ran to stop him, never reaching and being able to stop anything. "You kept saying, 'stop it' and 'stop hurting him'."

He feels sickened again, thinking of Malfoy, thinking of his screaming and crying and the pure terror and anguish in his battered face. He is being punished for not being the one to kill Dumbledore, it seems.

"Malfoy…" Harry manages to say.

"Was he hurting someone?" Ron asks, somewhat puzzled as if his name was the last thing he was expecting.

Harry shakes his head. "You-Know-Who…" he says. "He was... hurting Malfoy. They're holding him somewhere and hurting him."

"He could be planting false images again, Harry," Hermione reasons, sympathy in her voice.

"Even if he isn't, Harry, we've already got too much on our plate to worry about a git who willingly chose to work for a madman," Ron inputs. Harry thinks of the Astronomy Tower, the fear and reluctance in Malfoy's voice and how he seemed to be trying too hard to convince himself to kill, and how he lowered his wand before the Death-Eaters came, and thinks that he's not entirely sure anymore if Malfoy ever willingly chose to work for a madman.

Hermione looks at Ron with a stern glare. She turns back to Harry when Ron looks sorry for his insensitivity. "You-Know-Who knows the kind of person you are. He knows you'd want to help anyone, even a schoolmate you hardly like. Harry, you can't...you can't go. It might be a trap. Even if it's real, there i-isn't anything you can do about it."

Harry knows Hermione's right, despite the guilt and sorrow in her voice. At this point, he's not entirely sure if they can afford to go and discover that it was just another trap that You-Know-Who was luring them to. There isn't much of a choice here anymore to go after Malfoy. He tries to believe her, that it's just false images being planted into his head again, just You-Know-Who trying to trick them and bring them to him…

But he stays up all night, thinking about it anyway.

He has never liked Malfoy in the least, but he doesn't hate him. Not anymore. In the last six years, he'd found him a nuisance, like a pest, annoying and irritating and at times downright infuriating when his verbal taunts went too far against himself and his friends. More often than not, however, they often gave it right back, so it wasn't always too difficult to shut him up. He was also his competitor and a source of drive to push himself in Quidditch just to keep Malfoy's mouth shut. He and his friends found him and the Slytherins to be a constant source of anxiety, not exactly of Malfoy—he was hardly worth being apprehensive of—but more of an intense need to maintain their pride and dignity simply on the principle of not giving Malfoy any sort of one-over against them.

But hatred?

Harry knows hatred and what it feels like. He hates You-Know-Who for killing his parents, for everything he put him and the people he loved through, and he hates Bellatrix Lestrange for killing his godfather, and he hates Severus Snape for killing Professor Dumbledore.

What he had always felt for Malfoy was not hatred. Not true hatred. The kind of hatred that sets his entire body on fire until it makes him ill, that makes him want to destroy everything he can get his hands on, ineffably violent and fiery, that he has so much of in him that he doesn't know what to do with it, how to hold it inside of himself without exploding to pieces.

Old childhood rivalry that had bordered on enmity aside, he'd certainly never wish such harm, particularly the kind of harm that can be caused by Voldemort, on Malfoy. Harry hated to see him the way he was in the vision. It was downright sickening and painful.

…

It's three weeks after that Severus is offered another reward for his services, for a compilation of errands and tasks successfully fulfilled.

He asks to see Draco again. He ventures to try his luck and requests for more than a singular visit, but the Dark Lord refuses, as Severus already expected.

He is blinded temporarily, darkness filling his vision. Goyle's hesitant hand on his shoulder guiding him around makes him want to cast a burning spell over it, but he keeps himself reserved and in check against his temptations.

When they reach the door, the blindness spell is lifted.

Severus enters the cell, and the metal door is closed behind him. He takes his wand through the rectangular gap.

His gaze lands first on Draco, in the same position as the last time with his back to the room, but now clad in a large white shirt clearly not his own, that hangs off him like a coat hanger. His hair is grimy with dirt and his shirt has specks and slashes of dried blood. He walks forward and kneels before him, and from here, he can see his sleeping face, bruised and cut. Draco is holding on tightly to the tattered remains of the cloak Severus draped over him weeks ago, as if trying to soak in every bit of comfort and warm he could from it.

He sits behind him and waits for him to awaken, sensing that the boy needs all the rest he can.

The scent of the room is foul and pungent, so he casts a quick cleaning spell all over. He casts one over Draco too, along with a nourishing charm. He places some healing spells over him until the bruises and lacerations fade from his face and body, saving the deeper injuries related to bone and flesh for when he awakens.

And in the silence, he reasons to himself out of his own shame and inhumanity.

To let a young boy, his own godson, go through such suffering without lifting a finger seemed inhumane, indeed.

But the Dark Lord watches their every movement, and the Dark Mark binds them all to him, summoned without will whenever Lord Voldemort wishes. Even if they manage to free Draco, it won't be long before he finds them and kills them all.

Yet, he isn't sure what is better, to take a risk that is hardly in their favor if only to escape the inhumanity of turning a blind eye to a young boy's horrid torment, no less than a mere child in their comparison, or to forsake him in such a manner to be abused and traumatized if only to save Draco's life. The Dark Lord has, after all, commanded that the boy is not to die, if only because he enjoys the particular sort of power and leverage he has over a man, a father, over Lucius Malfoy, but even that is a tenuous decision that he might change his mind on at any point.

Is it really worth it then? Any of it?

"Severus?"

The haunted and exhausted voice cuts through his pondering.

When he glances down into the silver eyes that are just as haunted and exhausted, he wonders again just what the right thing is anymore.

"Dragon," Severus says, soft in a way he hardly remembers being besides a time Draco could hardly remember, as an infant and a toddler.

When the thin, pale hand reaches for him tremulously from outside his own shredded cloak, Draco's face crumpling in desperation and hurt but no tears coming, he can scarcely bring himself to refuse the need of a boy who has been faced with solitary confinement for a month, not receiving a single moment of any tenderness or solace.

Severus gathers Draco in his arms, gripping his biceps and lifting him up. Draco's breath hitches in discomfort and pain as he does, due to the after-effects of the Crucio curse and perhaps others that left his muscles sore and aching. Severus lays him against himself, snow-blonde head over his shoulder. He flicks back his cloak, pulls out a vial from the inner pocket of it, and unclasps its neck to spread it out over the shivering boy.

He closes Draco's fingers around the vial. Sensing the fatigue and frailty from the full weight of his body leaning into his side, Severus tugs his hand up to his lips.

"Drink," he says quietly. "It should ease your discomfort and pain."

Draco obliges in earnesty and eagerness, Severus' grip over his steadying the tremors that might have made it difficult to hold it to his lips. He drinks it all down.

"Slowly," Severus admonishes, not unkindly. He tightens his hand over Draco's fingers in restraint.

When the potion is emptied, Severus places the hand down on Draco's lap and releases his grasp. He takes the vacant vial and puts it aside.

"My… my parents," Draco rasps out.

"They're well, Draco," Severus answers. "As well as they can be given the circumstances."

It seems that's about all the energy he has for a conversation. They lapse into silence again, and the silence lasts until Draco falls asleep again an hour later, feeble and exhausted from the stress on his body and the undernourishment. Nourishing spells can only go so far and are of no use in the long run.

Severus feels his chest and throat constrict, knowing that the boy will not wake up.

Not really. Not for a long time, whenever that may be.

"Alucinatio," Severus murmurs in a low voice, watching his godson's troubled face slacken into peace.

They had no qualms on doing the most horrible thing one can do to someone, and if they can do one of the most horrible things there is to Draco, they can do anything. If there is nothing Severus can do, nothing else, nothing that wouldn't jeopardize Draco's own life and that of his family's, then he can at least do this.

"Your body will react to any severe anguish that is inflicted on it, but your mind will be elsewhere, dreaming of a life that consists of everything you've ever dreamed of in this life."

Severus' expression is blank and stoic, yet the burns of sorrow in his eyes and throat threaten his exterior.

"The spell will be broken only when anyone you've craved the affection of..." Severus loses his words for a moment when he thinks of the fact that there is no guarantee that any such thing will happen, and that it may be that the boy will never wake up. He's thought about it all, every single merit and demerit, but he sees no point in his suffering a life that may or may not last until he finds his freedom. "...when anyone you've craved the affection of sheds their tears for you."

His cheek falls to the side of the snowy hair, and the lead in his bones grow heavy in a way they hadn't since Lily's death. For years, the weight in his bones didn't lessen, even as he had refused to let himself cave to its gravitation.

But perhaps the coming of a certain silver-eyed child was the only thing that's ever eased it.

The tear falls from his eye, but he stares ahead and barely notices the trickle on his cheek.

"You will not suffer," Severus says softly. The hair under his cheek soaks cold and wet.

Author's Note: I hope you like the story! If you have a moment, I'd love to know your thoughts.