Notes: Suddenly I find Bellatrix and Draco fascinating. Particularly together, for some reason. The pairing is a relatively small part of the overall story, and I don't focus on it for too long, so if it makes you flinch, you should be over it fairly quickly. In theory.

Summary: Draco learned Occulmency quickly, but only because Bellatrix gave him a memory that he would desperately need to hide.

Pairing Warning: non-consensual Bella/Draco, reluctant enjoyment, general naughtiness

Draco Malfoy and the Lestrange Lesson

A Harry Potter-ish Fanfic by

Nate Grey (xman0123-at-aol-dot-com)

The first lesson was the hardest.

Draco was only told a time (midnight) and a place (his parents' bedroom), and given strict instructions that no one else, not even the house-elves, should be present in Malfoy Manor. His mother, though clearly uncomfortable with the idea of him training for such dangerous work, eventually agreed and made the arrangements, wanting him to have every possible advantage. She had always been naturally overprotective, a quality that Draco found annoying, though he had come to appreciate it recently, especially with his father locked away in Azkaban.

As Draco waited for his aunt to arrive, he thought back on the warning his mother had given him.

"Whatever you do, don't try to resist her, Draco. The struggle would only excite her, and make things far worse for you in the end."

The naked fear in her eyes as she spoke the words chilled Draco to his very soul, and he knew, without asking, that he was not the first Malfoy to learn Occulmency from Bellatrix Lestrange. Somehow, he could not bring himself to view this as any sort of recommendation, nor did it comfort him in the least.

Bellatrix arrived in the last way that he ever expected: she crashed through the window, nearly giving Draco a heart attack in the process. As he could only see a mass of black smoke spilling into the room at first, he raised his wand, fully prepared to attack. This act struck him as odd later, because even if he'd known the identity of his assailant beforehand, he would have reacted in the exact same way.

Before the spell was fully formed in his mind, an invisible weight crashed into his chest and slammed him hard against the wall. Dazed, Draco feebly pointed his wand in the general direction of the smoke, but he could not focus until his aunt's face finally emerged from the darkness, only inches from his own.

"Hello, sweetums," she cooed, brushing her lips against his cheek as she raised her wand. "We're going to play now. Feel free to scream if you like."

With the first flick of her wand, Draco's shirt was torn in two (and very nearly Draco himself, if the barely visible scar he later discovered was any indicator). The second sent him flying across the room, only to crash ungracefully across the bed.

Bellatrix was on top of him in an instant, the tip of her wand resting against his throat. "The Dark Lord chose you, Draco," she whispered, gently carressing the side of his neck with her free hand. "You could succeed. You might die. You could do both, but whatever you do, you will do so on his orders. I, for one, expect you to live long enough to prove your usefulness. Malfoy you may be, but you are descended from Black blood, which means one of two things. Either you will learn this quickly, or you will learn this painfully, and you will thank me for it later."

The truly startling thing about that statement was that all three turned out to be true.

For the next few seconds, there was a tense silence.

Draco was still catching his breath, and more importantly, he was too busy trying to conceal his fear. But Draco was a healthy, teenage boy, and he had a beautiful, dangerous woman lying on top of him. He was very much aware of the the way her dark hair tickled his bare chest, and the warmth of her breath against his face. Despite the situation and all common sense, his body began to respond. In that moment, he wasn't sure what possibility would frighten him more when Bellatrix first felt his erection pressing against her: she would either become disgusted and furious, or quite the opposite.

To his eternal shame, it was the latter. Thankfully, the only sign she gave right away was a widening of the sadistic smile on her face. Though Draco would never admit it, not only did his forbidden attraction to her become the basis of their lessons, it was also the very reason he was able to learn Occulmency so very quickly: Bellatrix gave him plenty of memories he would desperately need and want to hide for the rest of his life.

She penetrated his mind without warning that first time, and it was horrible. Draco felt as if he were being forced to watch his memories while someone dragged a rusty saw across his chest. But as Draco's mother had instructed, he did not resist that first time.

Not surprisingly, Bellatrix was greatly disappointed when she stopped. "You've been listening to Mum, have you? Make that mistake again and I will take great pleasure in hurting you, Draco." She jabbed her wand deeply into his throat. "Understand?"

"Yes, Aunt Bellatrix," he gasped.

Her resulting smile was not meant to comfort, but to mock. "Call me 'Professor' while I'm instructing you, poppet. You want to get good marks, don't you?"

Draco could not tell if she was being serious or not, and before he could respond, she was inside his mind again. This time, perhaps as punishment, she seemed to progress more slowly, giving Draco more and more time to suffer through the humiliation of being violated. The sensation in no way lessened when she finally ended the mental attack, because he soon realized that at some point during the torture, her hand had come to rest, ever so lightly, on the telltale bulge in his pants. Once Bellatrix was certain that she had his full attention, she began to alternate between squeezing and stroking him, slowly, and with a gentleness he would never have expected her to possess.

It actually took a moment for Draco to catch himself, and to recall that this was very, very wrong. His first thought was to demand that she stop, and failing that, beg her to.

But when he fixed his gaze on Bellatrix's face, the protest died in his throat. She was smiling, of course, but in a knowing way that assured him that there would be no point in arguing or pleading with her. This, too, was part of the lesson, he realized with growing dread. Yet mixed with that dread was an undeniable excitement, as he had never been more aroused in his life. Not even the memory of Pansy Parkinson, stretched across his bed, naked except for two belts that she'd transfigured into strategically placed garden snakes, came close.

It seemed to become a game for Bellatrix after that: she would fondle him for several minutes, then penetrate his mind with increasing force and disregard for his mental state, and go right back to fondling. The attacks would either make Draco black out entirely, or leave him so dazed that he only had the vaguest idea of what was happening around him. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed, but the night seemed to stretch on forever, and at no point did Bellatrix ever display any sign of fatigue or boredom. Draco, on the other hand, was being exhausted both mentally and physically, and no matter how often or how long he passed out, he never felt even the slightest bit rested upon waking. No doubt this was largely because Bellatrix continued to play with his body during the black outs, a thought that only served to frighten him further. Perhaps the only real comfort there was that he never lost his pants at any point, barring any spells that removed and replaced them while he was out cold (Pansy claimed to have invented one, so it only made sense that Bellatrix would know three or more).

When Draco woke up the next morning, he knew at once that the first lesson was over. He had obviously passed out again, and more than likely for a much longer period than the other times. Bellatrix was nowhere to be seen, and had not bothered to repair the window she'd broken (not that he'd expected her to).

Most importantly, his pants were still in place. They seemed uncomfortably tight even now, especially around the crotch, but they were there, at least. That had to mean something.

At least, Draco desperately hoped it did.

He waited for nearly an hour, half expecting Bellatrix to come back and torture him some more, lesson or no lesson, but no one came. Convinced now that the manor was still empty, Draco deeply inhaled his first true breath of freedom since the ordeal.

What he got was a rather unpleasant shock. The pillow his head was resting on had traces of his mother's favorite perfume, and again, despite all reason, Draco was flooded with shame as he felt his erection return with a vengeance. No doubt the pillow had been there the entire time, and he'd simply been too preoccupied to realize it.

He strongly suspected that Bellatrix hadn't.

The ten showers that Draco took immediately afterward only left him feeling wet. A large part of him would never feel clean again, he knew. Worst of all, the distance that existed between he and his father would now be between Draco and his mother as well. She had limited her affection lately, out of respect for his pride, but Draco knew it would have to stop altogether now. He could never allow his mother to know how deeply her sister had tainted him. If nothing else, Narcissa Malfoy was the only person left in his world who saw anything pure in her son, and he could not bear to lose that, too.

Bellatrix never touched him in that way again. Not physically, at least.

The remainder of their lessons consisted solely of her attacking his mental defenses, forcing him to relive the memories that first night if he should fail. And when he did fail, he always woke up to find that same sadistic smile on her face, as if she were not only reliving the memories as well, but thoroughly enjoying them.

Draco got better fast. He had to, or he'd certainly have gone mad.

Bellatrix was proud of him, even told him so, and showed it by simply finding more effective ways to torture him. She was around the manor more often now, whether on Death Eater business or not. She always had the excuse that the Dark Lord wanted Draco and his mother watched, but some of that had to be a lie. She was enjoying herself far too much, for one thing.

Far too often, Draco heard her say, "Cissy, why don't you wear that perfume I like so much?" Much as he hated it, Draco knew that it was good practice for him. Bellatrix always looked directly at him when she made such requests, and if he had not become a decent Occulmens, his mother would have been able to read the hatred in his eyes all too easily.

Oddly enough, Draco received his best lesson in Occulmency from someone who had never taught it to him (though not for lack of trying): Severus Snape.

There was a list of people that Draco felt he was close to. In recent years, it had shortened to just his mother, and maybe one or two fiercely loyal house-elves. Draco didn't really see the house-elves as people, exactly, but despite how badly they were treated, they never seemed to resent him in particular. All that mattered to him was that they saw him as a person, whole and unscarred, worthy of their continued service.

It was a small thing, really.

But the few times when Draco had angered Lucius Malfoy to the point of cruelty, and his young body had fully experienced the Cruciatus Curse, those same house-elves had stayed with him, ignoring all other duties, and returned him swiftly to good health. Draco had always assumed that they'd done it on his mother's orders, but more often than not, she'd had no idea what Lucius had done to their son.

Draco convinced himself, for years, that anyone not on his list was not deserving of his mercy. He was the son of a Death Eater, and mercy was not something he could afford to pass out freely. Too many of the people he encountered, especially at school, would end up dead before he was in a position to really do anything about it, so there was just no point.

This rule worked out fairly well, at least until Draco tried to apply it to Albus Dumbledore.

Draco had assumed it would be easy. He hated Dumbledore, if only because the old man was Harry Potter's favorite and about as un-Slytherin as a person could be.

Ironically, if Draco had had any inkling of how many of Dumbledore's plots concerning Harry Potter had consistently put that same boy in life-threatening danger and through untold amounts of physical and emotional abuse, not only would Dumbledore have replaced Snape and Draco's favorite teacher, but Draco would not have been at all surprised to learn that Slytherin had been the Sorting Hat's first choice for a young Albus Dumbledore.

But the only thing that Draco knew was that when he first pointed his wand at Dumbledore, it was one of the least satisfying things he had ever done.

Because Dumbledore didn't look betrayed, or heartbroken, or even remotely upset.

He looked at Draco the same way that Narcissa Malfoy always had: as an innocent child, deprived of but deserving of all the love that the world could afford to give him. It was also the same way that Dumbledore had always looked at Harry Potter, but Draco wouldn't know that until much later. All he could see in that moment was how terribly easy it would be to lay all of his problems at Dumbledore's feet, and let the old man take care of them all. There was simply no way that Draco could kill such a person. Dumbledore was exactly the type of person that Draco so desperately needed in his own life, but he realized it all too late.

In the next moments, the Death Eaters arrived, and shortly afterward, Snape. What shocked Draco most was that despite their obvious hatred of him, Dumbledore managed to work his charm on them long enough to survive a few more moments, where anyone else would have been dead almost instantly. He truly was the world's greatest wizard.

Snape, however, had clearly been under Dumbledore's spell long enough. Not only did he seem to be mostly immune to it, but after he had done the deed, his gaze met Draco's, and Draco knew that no number of lessons could prevent Snape from reading his mind.

And sure enough, when they were safely hidden away hours later, Snape simply said, "There are only two wizards capable of teaching Occulmency on a level that makes a student's mind truly invincible, Draco. And I've just killed one of them. You shouldn't feel ashamed that he was able to draw you in, even in his last moments. Rather, if you had been able to resist him, then I would say you had all the makings of the next Dark Lord."

Draco spent months trying to determine exactly how Snape had been able to resist Dumbledore (based on his own lessons, it only made sense). It took him even longer to accept that Snape never, ever had.

The End.

Endnotes:

I really doubt this is the way that Draco learned Occulmency, though it might go a long way as far as explaining his loss of interest in Pansy. But then, people threatening to kill you and your family will do that, too. Also, forgive me for assuming that Pansy is any good with Transfiguration, it simply worked for that particular line.

Bella's entrance is inspired by the movies, particularly what I like to think of as the "Apparation smoke." Of course, if knowing a wizard's allegiance was as easy as watching the smoke trail when they Apparate, people would no doubt get dead faster, but it's still kinda neat to watch.

Obviously, Dobby is not among the "fiercely loyal" house-elves referenced here. But somehow I doubt he would be the only house-elf in Malfoy Manor: for one thing, it's a manor, and for another, house-elves with Kreacher's attitude would probably be preferred by the Malfoys. However entertaining they might find a servant that punishes himself, if he's in no shape to serve afterwards, it sort of defeats the purpose.

Interesting fact o' the day: I always thought "poppet" was just a teasing term of endearment. But I recently found out that it can also refer to a doll that you might use spells on in order to impact a person, as with voodoo magic. Curious, that.