A/N: Happy Birthday to my wonderfully amazing best friend and beta, Twistedmaniac. Here's your other present. Please, please, PLEASE, review. It really does keep me fueled. Thanks.
His head dangled limply, almost as if severed at the pale, icy neck, blood pounding in his temples and echoing through his ears. A thin stream of crimson trickled out from his ear, and matching streams bled from his nose and mouth. He took a gasping breath, the air rushing in with a wet noise, and shuddering back out again, slowly and carefully. His chest shook and trembled, as if every breath brought him closer to his final one. And, he thought, it probably did. His black hair soaked in blood and still dangling in his eyes, he raised his head just enough to eye his captor. A face from his youth he knew well. Pulling at his wrists, he struggled against the chain that suspended him from the ceiling and accomplished nothing but making himself sway like a macabre marionette in a child's theatre.
"Hello, Potter. It's about time you woke." Malfoy drawled, pacing a neat rhythm around the circumference of Harry's aura, keeping the perfect distance from his captive, yet allowing his perversion to encroach upon the black-haired boy's personal space just enough.
"Jet lag. You know how it is." Harry coughed, his voice dense and laced with blood and thicker things.
"Aha. You always were hilarious." Draco chuckled.
"Oh wait. Not really." Malfoy threw a sharp right hook and knocked a tooth out of Harry's mouth in a spray of blood.
"And you were always so clever, Malfoy." Harry said, spitting out a mouthful of red.
"One in your position might not want to speak as such, my friend." Draco said, his tone even. He stood back and crossed his arms, eyeing his prey.
"You know, Potter...you're starting to look like the Boy-Who-Wasn't-Doing-So-Well."
"What do you want?" Harry asked, breathing heavily, his voice slurred with the fluid in his mouth.
"I like that you got directly to the point. And I think you know exactly what I want, Potter." Malfoy replied, his cold dark eyes hawk-like in their intensity.
"And I like how you avoid the question." Harry said, struggling to stay conscious as pain threatened to bring him under once again.
"You do know exactly what I want, Potter." Malfoy said, finally losing his composure, just enough to allow his tone to waver.
"We have her, you know. We have all of them but one. The last one."
Harry took this information in and pondered it for a moment. There was no way he could be certain that Malfoy was or wasn't bluffing. As he thought, a sharp pain struck the side of his head, and darkness pulled him under once more.
The year that almost didn't happen. Harry thought to himself as he, Hermione, and Ron tossed their hats to the ceiling of the Great Hall at Hogwarts in a final salute to their now alma mater. Hagrid stood tall above the crowd, dabbing his eyes with the ever-present handkerchief, and Dumbledore held his place regally at the head of all the happenings, like Beethoven at a symphony. Finally, they were done, and they were off to the world.
It's five years later, and we've traveled, we've lived, we've loved, and we've lost. Times have changed, and a war is brewing. Dumbledore is dead and Hagrid is gone. Nearly everyone involved in the graduation scene has chosen a side, and about half of them have already lost their lives. Ron is gone, Ginny missing, the Weasleys all either dead or underground. Harry thought of them, for about the fifteenth time in that day as he crossed the polished wood floors of the train station. The one joy in his life was waiting for him at the end of Platform 13 of Kings Cross Station, and he was heading to meet her. In a greeting reminiscent of a romance film, he swept her up into his arms, inhaling the scent of her hair, breathing her name. That night, they would make love for the first...and only...time.
Harry awoke as a great deal of very cold water was thrown into his bloodied face, breathing out his mouth and sending it out in a spray as he blew it off his lips, and blinked it out of his eyes. His vision cleared, he finally had a chance to look at himself, and he wasn't surprised to see the damage inflicted by the blonde sadist across the room who sat cross-legged and cross-armed, smug as ever. His ribcage was a certain shade of purple that even Dumbledore's robes could never accomplish, and in places it bled, or was nearly dented where he could see (and feel) that the bones were indeed fractured. Carved into the delicate flesh of his stomach was a bloody and inflamed B, for what Harry could only guess. Seamus Finnigan's corpse had looked similar upon its delivery to Grimmauld Place, only his letter had been an H, for what else? Half-blood. Harry was happy to notice that he had retained some article of clothing, as he noted the black shreds of shorts that still covered him, to a degree. He felt pain in places he'd rather not think of, and remembered Draco pounding behind him, forcing himself inside and unrelenting while Harry screamed. Harry closed his eyes and physically turned away from the sight, then cried out in pain as his neck sent up sharp stabbing pains.
"Ready for round two?" Malfoy drawled, caressing a wicked, black leather Cat o'Nine Tails.
"Here we go."
When Harry's back, and other parts of his anatomy,were sufficiently shredded and coated in garnet fluid, Malfoy at last put down his whip and stroked his bicep, flexing like a weight-lifter after over-exertion.
"What's that, they say? 'The beatings will continue until morale improves'? Does your morale feel improved, Potter?" Malfoy sneered, wringing his hands and pacing once more. His coat trailed along behind him, a black trench coat with silver clasp fasteners that looked dated, 1800's at least. His white-blonde hair was slicked back, as he always wore it, with not a strand out of place. He wore a black silk button-down shirt, over well made Italian trousers, and shoes of Italian leather to match. Clearly, he spared no expense. Ever the aristocrat, even when it came down to torture. His Cat o'Nine Tails was even made of the finest dragon-hide.
"You liked watching, didn't you?" Malfoy hissed to Harry's limp form. Slapping the chained man, he laughed.
"Didn't you?!" He shrieked, his eyes blazing with an internal fire that was cold as ice.
Harry could hardly lift his head, but he made a grunt of acknowledgment and prayed that it would be sufficient.
Did he like it? It had nearly killed him. No matter what Malfoy did to his body, the thing that had broken Harry had been what he'd seen that night. Her screaming, their voices, the green light shining in the sky. It would haunt him, remaining behind his eyes, until the day when, he was sure, Malfoy would finally get sick of his new toy and send him straight to Hell.
Harry's eyes fluttered as he woke just slightly, just enough to remember, to recall what the melody behind the peals of Malfoy's laughter was written about, and as soon as he did, he found himself silently praying for Malfoy to get bored fast.
As they arrived home, Harry laughed and swept Hermione up in his arms, her squeals of delight filling the air. Traditionally, he carried her across the threshold of their home, as his father had done so many years before, for his Lily.
This was the night Harry wished he could remember.
Her gentle touch, her fair skin and cascading curls that fell across his chest as she lay on him, the soft cushion of her breast as he rested, exhausted from effort and exertion. The feeling of entwining together in mutual feeling, a feeling that Harry could not put a name to, but that he knew felt right, somehow.
He clamped his eyes closed tighter, wanting to remember nothing but that night. He could feel her around him, and some part of him could smell her, somehow. Feel her warm beneath his fingertips. And then he remembered where he was.
"I am going to ask you one more time. Where is it?" Malfoy asked, for what Harry was sure was not the last time.
"You know, you can't continue to be a hero forever, Potter. There are others searching, and when they find it...when they find you, they will not be happy. You are in Heaven today, Potter. When He finds you, you'll be begging for Hell."
Harry turned his face away from the source of Malfoy's voice, and erased all images from his mind. One leering face came into picture, a face with snake eyes and no nose, a cruel mouth, and a sallow pallor. The face of the one wizard he'd never, and always, feared. Voldemort.
"You're not working for him?" Harry coughed out, asking the vague direction of Malfoy's retreating footsteps.
"What would make you think I was working for that son of a bitch?" Malfoy asked, his tone laced with disdain and hatred.
"Your father was...you were...a Death Eater. It says something."
"The days of the Death Eaters are long gone. It's family versus family, and the Malfoy's are one of few with allies. Ally with Him? Never."
"So, you're just as afraid..."
"Not afraid, Potter! We don't cower in some pathetic cottage like certain people!"
"Then what? If not afraid." Harry asked, spurning on the conversation, feeling bold and encouraged by receiving answers to things he'd wondered for a while.
Malfoy thought for a moment, as if choosing his words very carefully. When he was done thinking, he said in a low, quiet drawl;
"Cautious."
With that, he turned and exited the room, leaving Harry alone to nothing but his pain and his thoughts.
Harry lost track of time and hardly noticed falling asleep as he dangled from the ceiling. When he woke, he was surprised to feel cold cement beneath him, and a strange, light, floaty feeling in his fatigued arms Someone had taken him down. That same someone, he noticed, had left him bandaged, and dosed him with a magical painkiller. But who?
Quiet footsteps lingered in the shadows, Harry could hear small feet tapping on the concrete floor.
"Hello?" he called out, his voice thick and hoarse, hardly sounding like his own.
"Hello." The tiny voice crept from the darkness and was music to Harry's weary ears.
The voice was soft and dreamy, lilting and melodic. Harry knew almost instantly who it was.
Luna Lovegood.
"Luna?" he croaked, straining his eyes to see her through the shadow. Her movements were slight and seemingly deliberate to keeping her in obscura.
"Shh." Luna hissed urgently, freezing in place. Luna had been at Harry's graduation, on the arm of Dean Thomas. The last time Harry had seen her was at Dean's funeral, where she buried yet another member of the once frivolous Dumbledore's Army. Dean's death, Harry had heard, had not been fast, pretty, easy, or however you would term humane. He'd lost limbs and skin, and then been raped repeatedly until the sheer loss of blood pulled him under. Luna, Harry knew, had witnessed at least part of the gore, and part of it had stuck with her, it seemed, as she slowly crept out of the darkness.
Luna's once oddly beautiful face was disfigured as if someone had split the flesh in half and played puzzle with the pieces. Her huge grey eyes sparkled from under unnaturally heavy eyelids, and her mouth had contorted into a permanent smile, giving her the appearance of a deranged circus clown. She wore clean, albeit tattered, robes, and carried a small bundle of rags. Smiling, she placed the bundle before Harry, who, knowing what he wanted it to be, seized it and began unraveling the cloths, every baited breath a silent prayer.
His face fell and twisted in revulsion as he revealed a chunk of thick, bloody tissue with a slimy fibrous cord attached.
Harry dry-heaved on the floor next to him as the metallic scent of blood his his nose like a wave.
"It's time." Luna said quietly, pulling another tiny bundle from within her robes. Harry looked at it with apprehension and worry as he contemplated what to do with it.
Then the bundle moved.
Harry took the warm bunch of cloths from Luna, almost violently in his fervor, and carefully pulled the rags away near a gap in the wrappings.
A tiny infant lay inside, swaddled in bloodied material, sleeping as if there was no care in the world.
"She's healthy?" Harry asked, thinking back to the days of name choosing; Ginevra, they had decided on, one day so many months ago.
"Yes. Sleeping nonstop, though. But she breathes." Luna replied, looking down at the child with a glance of what Harry thought to be envy, but in an instant it was gone and so was his daughter. Luna scooped the baby up and rose from her kneeling position.
"I have to go." She said. "He's coming."
Understanding her fear of Malfoy, Harry nodded and sank against the wall, hitting his head on the stones.
Malfoy stepped into the room again, seconds after Harry watched Luna's robes whip out of the light.
"I have news, Potter."
"Oh?" Harry asked, trying to behave like everything was as it had been before.
"She's dead."