"Ennervate."
The world was pain. His head was pain, was fire. Agony touched his wrists, touched his ankles, and he couldn't focus.
A shaft of moonlight pierced the clouds. In its faint pallid glow, Draco Malfoy saw that he was in the Astronomy Tower. At ruddy Hogwarts. It had been years. He'd thought himself well shot of the blasted rockpile.
He was also half-naked, and his wrists and ankles securely shackled to one of the retaining stanchions. The night air was cold on his bare chest, and he noticed the goosebumps through his painful haze. Malfoy pulled at the bonds, experimentally – the metal was snug, and unyielding. The harsh cold stone raked at his back as he shifted.
A scrape, to one side, caught his arrested attention. Pushing off of a chair was a man. A woman coming up beside him. Another man, beside her.
Harry Potter. The bastard himself. And Daphne Greengrass. Neville Longbottom.
A more unlikely trio Draco couldn't imagine, and admitted to himself that he probably couldn't have imagined it even if he hadn't just come out of a heavy Stupefy.
"You won't get away with this. Whatever it is," he panted. "Are you thick? We're at Hogwarts!"
"It's summer hols," replied Longbottom. "The students are gone. Term's not for a month."
"I'll – what if I scream?"
"Go ahead. Most of the teachers are gone. Hagrid's hut is a half-mile away, McGonagall sleeps like the dead, and Filch found himself a bottle of Diamond Mountain Private Reserve. Who's there to hear?" Longbottom shifted, leaning against a pillar. "And the only ghost in the Tower here is the Grey Lady. She doesn't much care for the cut of your jib. So I'm told."
"The –" He took a jagged breath, fighting for coherence. "The Aurors. They'll find out. Find me."
"Doubt it," Longbottom answered. "The fellow who snatched you was Obliviated. The fellow who he handed you to and did the Obliviating was a fugitive Death Eater with a Kiss-on-sight order, so sad. The fellow who did for him was Obliviated. No trail."
Another deep breath. "What the hell is this about, then?" Draco spat.
"Too many things," said Neville. Potter and Greengrass were quiet, had been quiet, and a tendril of unease came to Malfoy, as he wondered about a rumor or three he'd heard about them. "You hurt too many people. Terrorized too many people, made Hogwarts a hell in your time. You took the Mark. And now you've got some power. And you're invoking your marriage contract clause with Astoria Greengrass."
Damn him. Damn him. But he still had a shot. Malfoy turned his head towards Astoria's older sister, his brow knitted. "These two w-wankers are a lost cause. They've always had it in for me. Frigging Griffyndors. But what do YOU have against me? Her own sister?"
"You'd have no idea." Daphne spoke for the first time. Her voice was low, venomous, thick with a nameless emotion. "I wouldn't imagine you'd remember Margaret Slapin."
Who? He tried to focus on Greengrass, a golden blur in the dim light. "G-got it in o-one, bitch," he murmured, trying to steady himself, realizing that without quite knowing why that his future sister-in-law might be of no help. "Never heard of her."
"She was in the form behind ours. Quiet little thing. Muggleborn. I don't know why that ruddy duncecap sorted her into our House of all places, but there you go." She shifted, leaning closer to Draco. "Of course your clique made her life a living hell, but she was tough. She stuck it out. I admired that."
"Hah. Did you. Not enough to do anything about it," Malfoy sneered. Good. As long as they were still talking and talking – these white light ponces never had the bollocks for more – he figured he had a chance. He sucked in another long breath, his heartbeat slowing.
Daphne shook her head. "No. I didn't. I was in Slytherin too, remember? Bravery not on our dance card?" She folded her arms, hunching inward slightly. "Nor on your wolfpack's. But then there was fourth year." The timbre of her voice changed. Even before, it still had the velvet quality that had drawn the Slytherin boys to try to melt – in vain, as it turned out – the "Ice Queen's" legendary defenses. Now she sounded more like crushed gravel might, were it given sound and volition.
"Slapin," murmured Neville. "I remember her. She was always decent t– "
She held up a hand to Longbottom, her shadowed gaze never once leaving Draco's face. "It was during the tournament. It was Tracey, Tracey and me that found her. Huddled in one of the empty classrooms." Daphne spat, paused, spoke again. "You'd taken turns with her. You and Goyle and Nott and Crabbe. All of you. More than once, each." A dismayed sound came from Longbottom, as he half-rose and drew back perceptibly. "And when you'd all gotten your end away, like you were in a knocking shop – you ... you let fly on her. All over her. Like she was your toilet. And used her school robes for your bogroll when you were done. And left her bleeding."
"That's why she dropped out," said Longbottom in an angry hiss. "I never knew." Potter said nothing, nothing at all throughout this. His arms were folded, a silent sentinel in the gloom.
"That's why she dropped out." She steepled her fingers, touching her fingertips to her lips. "And so much for Slytherin solidarity, yeah? Anyway." Daphne took a deep breath. "That's why I'm here. So you don't do to another girl what you did to her. Ever again."
"So, so that's what?" Malfoy let out a weak laugh, the burning in his wrists and back worsening. "You're going to m-murder me, is that it, you slapper, you and your two nancy boys?" His lips curled back in a half-snarl. "You don't have what it takes."
"We're not here to kill you." Harry Potter had finally spoken. Languidly, almost as if he were bored, as if he faced a tedious chore that nonetheless had to be finished before dinner and a pint.
"Knew it," murmured Draco.
Potter went on as if he hadn't heard Malfoy. "But not because we can't. I've killed. Neville's killed. We've done for better wizards than you." He shook his head. "No, it's not that. It's that –" Malfoy's vision cleared, and he looked into Potter's eyes with sure focus, for the first time. The stark, pitiless eyes of the Master of the Deathly Hallows. Potter leaned in towards the prisoner, a shock of hair falling across his brow. "I've spoken to dead folk, you know," Harry said quietly. "They've told me that dying doesn't really hurt. That's it's easy. That it's quick. I don't want that for you. Either easy or quick."
"S-so." Malfoy took a breath, fighting for control, real fear icing his veins for the first time. "So it's to be torture then."
"Serve you ruddy right," muttered Neville. Animation came into Daphne's empty eyes, before she pursed her lips, turning to look at Harry.
"No. Your Death Wanker idea of fun, not mine. No. I'm not going to torture you." Potter reached behind him, and drew a dagger from a back sheath. He raised it before him, turning it this way and that, his gaze fixed on the play of moonlight on the shining metal.
"That – that was Aunt B-bella's knife!" Draco gasped, twisting in the shackles with a start. "Where did you get that?"
Iron laced Potter's voice as the dagger stopped moving in his grasp, and he raised his eyes back to Malfoy's. "From the belly of a friend. Your late aunt killed him with it. After using it to torture the dearest friend I'll ever have. Better than I ever deserved, anyway," Potter spat out. "Remember that day, do you?" Without taking his intent gaze off of Draco, he offered the knife to Daphne, who took it with an eager grin and murmured thanks. "Odd, innit? It's just plain steel. Not fancy, not enchanted, no magic in it. No magic made it. A Muggle knife. With your aunt. I wondered, sometimes. Anyway, Daph –"
"Thank you kindly, lover. I'll take it from here." Greengrass' voice was back to velvet, warm and slightly husky. "No. Neville'd never do this. And I don't even think Harry would."
"But we'll see it done," said Longbottom coolly.
"But they'll see it done," echoed Daphne. "Anyway, you'll never do that to another woman. No more women. For you, ever." She smiled brightly, starting to cut off his trousers with the keen blade, as a suddenly terrified Draco tore at his bonds, crying out incoherently. The fabric fell to the floor in ruined strips, and she reached down with the knife, sliding the wicked point under his manhood, lifting it slightly. She crooked her head, gazing down at it, pursing her lips, and bobbed it up with the knife a couple times. "No better than it ought to be," she bubbled, her tone suddenly summer-bright.
Anger shot through Potter's voice, the first emotion he'd shown. "And this is how we're doing it," he growled, loathing contorting his features. "Not like a wizard might. Not with a curse. This'll happen to you the Muggle way. Like they'd do a farm animal. Voldemort branded you like one, now we're treating you like one. A thing. To be – well. You know."
"NOOOOOO ... !" Draco screamed, spittle flying from his lips as Daphne bent over him, lifting his flaccid member in her gloved hand. "I'm a Malfoy, Merlin, I'm a MALFOY –"
"The very last," smiled Neville.
His eyes bulging in terror and horror, Draco surged forward as far as the shackles would let him. This was really a trick, wasn't it? Dumbledore's ponce stooge would never do this for real! "You c-can't! Can't do this t-to me! My mother saved your filthy l-life! You know that! Pott – HARRY!"
"Only because Narcissa wanted something from me," Harry snapped back. "She got it. And I let her walk in the end. I owe her nothing. I owe you less than nothing."
He nodded curtly to Daphne, who smiled winsomely back at him. "Thank you, love," she purred.
The kiss of the blade was fire, was jagged ice, was pain unimaginable. He was aware, barely, at the wet sound as what she had severed from his loins fell onto the stone floor with a sodden *plop*. Someone was howling, the victim of an anguish worse than the Cruciatus, and Malfoy dimly recognized that he was the screamer. A flash of amber spellfire, as Longbottom aimed his wand at the ruined stump, a faint grimace on his angular face ...
Draco had no idea how long he'd been writhing, his body wracked, his throat scoured with screaming. A bottle tilted to his lips, and he drank, gulping, eagerly, not even questioning whether it was poison ... or worse. The easing of his throat pain was almost as sharp as the knife had been, and he stared blankly at Harry Potter, not daring to look down to see if it was true. If what had been done to him was real.
Potter nodded, lowering the bottle. "There. That's for the blood loss. Neville saw that you wouldn't bleed out. You'll live. We want you to." He reached up with a cloth, wiping the spittle and blood from Draco's bitten-through lip. "Of course, the special herb Nev put in that potion will ensure that what we just cut off of you can't be regrown with magic. Ever. But you have to take the rough with the smooth."
"Noooooo," Malfoy sobbed, shaking his head.
"Yessssss," retorted Harry, starting to wipe the blade clean on the shreds of Malfoy's trousers before shrugging and letting it drop to the floor with a metallic clatter. "Reckon I won't need to keep that around any longer," he said. "Dobby'd have appreciated the symmetry. Anyway, you're going to live. Daph, you've got cleanup, yeah?"
In the back of the chamber, Greengrass was tying a stained leather pouch to the leg of an owl, murmuring something about a present for Margaret, before nodding to Potter. "Sure, darling. You boys go off now. I'll tie up the last string and kip right along. Curry for dinner?"
"Smashing. Come on, Nev." Harry leaned over to give her a quick, promissory kiss, before the men left.
"Poor dears," said Daphne calmly. "Men have a tough enough time watching this sort of thing. I'm sure they wouldn't want to see the denouement." She waved her wand, and the restraints vanished like mist. Malfoy fell heavily to the floor, sprawled face-down, with a cry of pain. His arms and legs were molten; he could not move save to quiver. She picked up his robes from the chair on which they'd been thrown, glancing at his naked pale form, before replacing them.
"Won't be needing those. So, no more contract: inability to sire children and all, automagically voided, too bad. Tori's safe from you. In any event, there's this darling fellow, rich Muggle, comes from one of those beastly tiny kingdoms in Arabia somewhere. He just loves your type, but not unbroken in. If you know what I mean. And I happen to know that Tracey owns a Pensieve. We'll have something to show Margaret."
Through his anguish, Draco scarcely comprehended her words, and certainly not her meaning. At the tower stairs were footsteps, and a large, bulky form filled his swimming vision. Goyle. Greg Goyle. How could he be working for Potter's gang?
It was at that point that Draco realized that Goyle was naked ... and massively erect. His eyes were blank, glazed, uncomprehending, as he circled around Malfoy's contorted form.
"Just lovely what the Imperius will do to a man, yeah? Go ahead, Goyle, there he is. Do it!"
Without seeing it, Malfoy felt Goyle kneel on the cold stone behind him, and his former henchman's bloated form coming down on top of him.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"