Speaking in Tongues

by Lomonaaeren

HPDM slash, oneshot. Draco thought he had left the darkness of the war behind him, until the snake in his Dark Mark started speaking to him. COMPLETE.

Title: Speaking in Tongues

Rating: R

Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, side Ron/Hermione

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters engaging in sexual activity are 16 years or older.

Summary: Draco thinks that he has put the darkness of the war behind him, until the snake on his Dark Mark starts speaking to him.

Warnings: Dub-con, angst, biting during sex, first-time sex, emotional confusion (all from the fest fic prompt), as well as being set after DH but before the epilogue. Oh, and this story assumes that Draco did receive the Dark Mark and that Harry can continue speaking Parseltongue after Voldemort dies.

Word Count: 13,200

Author's Notes: Thanks very much to my friend Linda for the beta. This was written as a pinch-hit for the hp_yule_balls fest on LJ, for kingzgurl's prompt. This is my first time writing dub-con, so I really tried to make that aspect work. My thanks to the mods for offering me the chance to write this fic.

Speaking in Tongues

Draco opened his eyes slowly. He had been in a wide, dark room filled with flickering shadows that almost smothered the single light, and there had been voices hissing at him that sounded like his Aunt Bellatrix when she got excited, and there had been-

There was nothing. Draco lay utterly still until he got his breathing back under control, and then sat up and stretched as the sheets slid away from his limbs. There was nothing, and it was a dream, and he was in control of himself. A Malfoy was always in control. Draco had drummed that into himself since the war. His excessive emotions during that unfortunate period of his life had been understandable, since he was still a child, but not excusable. The only forgiveness he could find was promising to act in a properly dignified manner and holding hard to that promise.

It had been a dream.

Then the first hiss slid across his skin like a stream of milk.

Draco held still, because a Malfoy did nothing impulsively. Then he pulled back the covers and looked beneath them.

The Dark Mark on his left arm looked like what it was, a hideous reminder of past mistakes. But it also normally looked like a snake wound through a skull. It did not normally look as though the snake had reared up and was tapping its tongue against the skin of his arm, hissing all the while. The hisses curled around Draco's limbs like the tendrils of Devil's Snare and dragged him back towards darkness, and memory.

And panic.

Draco took another slow, deep breath, and the building panic melted down his mind and ran away. He would not do anything so hasty. He sat still instead and bowed his head, rubbing his neck muscles with his right hand.

He needed help. The snake was not supposed to hiss, and therefore it must curl up and go back to sleep as quiescent skin once more.

He immediately thought of Potter.

But the thought brought unwanted images with it, the images of a leaping fire and a broomstick between his legs and a taut stomach under his fingers, and Draco shook his head, sneering slightly. No. Why would he go to a Potter for help? That was entirely beside the rumor that had circulated since the war: that Potter had lost his Parseltongue gift when the Dark Lord died.

There would be an answer to his problem in the Hogwarts library. There was an answer for most problems there, and Draco had always despised those who gave up looking too early. Besides, he had already slept later than he wished to. He rose, dressed himself neatly and quickly and in silence, and slipped out of his room with a smoothness that didn't ripple the curtains on the beds that surrounded his own.

*

Harry took a few steps more, to get fully within the edge of the Forbidden Forest, and then checked over his shoulder. Yeah, no one was watching him from the school. For what felt like the first time in hours, he relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

Something else within him, something that was not his muscles or his brain or his heart but seemed to have flesh and thoughts and a pulse of its own, relaxed, too.

Harry jogged a few steps through the shafts of warm May sunshine, navigating by the trees. Here was the tall oak with the crooked branch; here was the fir that bent as if under a heavy load; here was a tree of some kind Harry didn't know that looked as though it had been stabbed by lightning. And its roots opened up in a semicircle, and in between them was the burrow Harry had come to visit. He sat down and called softly.

The grasses at the mouth of the burrow stirred. A slender grey head poked into the open, tongue flickering as if to taste for the scent of dead mice. Then the body followed it, heaving into the air with a tiny breath that Harry always imagined as a grunt. The large male adder, striped with black markings like bolts of inverted lightning, crawled towards Harry and rested his head on his knee.

"How are you?" Harry asked in Parseltongue, and reached out his hand, letting it hover above the snake's head until he received a small hiss as permission to touch. Even then, Harry only used one fingertip. Cynosure was sensitive.

Harry called the snake Cynosure because he thought the name suited him. When he had asked Cynosure for the name that he used, he had received the closest thing to a blank stare he'd ever got from a snake. Cynosure had explained that his "name" was his scent, the place where he lived, the way he moved, the amount of venom he expended in a bite. His name was his life, and that was much too complicated to be summed up by a single word.

Harry had wished that he had a name like that. His name had suited him for seventeen years-or at least he thought it had; he couldn't really remember what he'd thought about his name when he was a baby, after all-but after the Battle of Hogwarts, he didn't think that was true anymore. It would have been nice to be able to introduce himself with an extra gesture or scent or turn of his head that would show the added bit.

"I am well," Cynosure said. He spoke with a direct, deep, ringing tone, unlike the basilisk, who sounded hysterical in comparison. Now that Harry listened more often to Parseltongue, he was finding differences between the way individual snakes spoke and the way the words translated in his ears. "Have you told anyone else that you talk to me yet?"

Harry shook his head. "No," he said. "They would insist on being worried and so on, and I don't want them to be." There was more to it than that, but Harry didn't think he had the words to make Cynosure understand the atmosphere of the school since the war and how everyone, his best friends included, seemed frantically eager to put the battles and Voldemort and the Death Eaters as far behind them as possible.

Cynosure lashed his tongue three times fast, his way of laughter, and pushed closer to rest more of his body on Harry's warmth. "Do you continue to lie to them?" he asked eagerly.

Harry rolled his eyes. He could see now why Parseltongue had a reputation as being a gift of Dark wizards, if most of the snakes who spoke to wizards were like Cynosure. He seemed to take a positive delight in things that made Harry uncomfortable or that Harry thought were immoral. "Yes," he said. "Because otherwise they would stop me from coming to see you, if they knew I still spoke Parseltongue, or they would want me to talk it all the time and share myself with other snakes. You don't want that, do you?"

Cynosure lashed his tongue three times again.

Harry stroked the back of his neck and began to speak without paying much attention to his words, picking out whatever of the past week he'd felt unable to confess to other people. "I want a grand, destined-to-be love like Ron and Hermione have, but I don't know where I'll find it. I just don't have good luck with that.

"I think I'm going to fail my Charms essay. Every time I look at the paper, all I can think of is how I know spells that can do much more dangerous and important things, and I want to write about them instead.

"I don't know if I want to be an Auror anymore. Wouldn't everything feel like an anticlimax, after killing Voldemort? Or maybe I'm afraid I would like it too much." Harry lowered his voice, though the temporary wards he'd set up would warn him if anyone approached, and, anyway, Cynosure was the only person for miles who could understand him. "If they knew about that-"

"Have you spoken to the other snake in the school?" Cynosure interrupted. He considered Harry's monologues uninteresting and always felt free to break in if he wanted to.

"The other snake?" Harry blinked, derailed. This was a more interesting thing than the sort of notes that Cynosure often added to the conversation. "No. Who is it?"

Cynosure gave him the kind of patient look that he always used when Harry had said something stupid. "I do not have that human thing you call me," he said, which meant a name. Harry nodded. "Why would you assume the other snake had it?"

Harry couldn't even feel exasperated, because he had known that and made the mistake anyway. "Where does it live?"

"In the dungeons," Cynosure said with a certain smugness. Harry wondered if he was happy because there was no danger of the other snake coming out into the Forbidden Forest and stealing his mice. "It likes cold and damp. And darkness. It is always very dark when I hear it speaking," he added in a thoughtful tone.

"Would you know it if you saw it?" Harry asked. "Have you seen it?"

"Only heard," Cynosure answered. "Its voice travels very far. I sought food near the huge stone one day-" that was his usual way of referring to Hogwarts "-but I could not locate it, though I followed its voice."

Harry said nothing and went back to stroking the adder's neck with one fingertip, but he was curious. And finding the other snake promised a kind of diversion for days that seemed to have become all about suppressing certain memories, not telling secrets, and trying to avoid walking in on Ron and Hermione with their hands under each other's shirts.

It won't hurt anything if I look around for this other snake.

*

Draco ran his fingers along the shelf to the place where books on Parseltongue should be-

And cursed, not quite under his breath, when he found a hole there instead of spines. He stepped away, squinting.

"Be quiet," someone at a nearby table said, but in the absent tone of voice that meant it was force of habit rather than anger.

Draco nodded quickly back, already smoothing out his face and his emotions. He was unable to believe he had given in to so wild and vulgar an impulse as to curse because something had not gone the way he expected it to. He should be master of such moments. He should be used to having his expectations dashed.

As he picked his way around the towers of library books that marked Ravenclaws and Granger, he told himself that it wasn't unusual for the books on Parseltongue to be missing. It was considered a Dark gift. Many other books on Dark Arts, or potential Dark Arts, were gone from their usual places because they had been moved to the Restricted Section. Headmistress McGonagall was even sterner about that than Headmaster Dumbledore had been. Draco should have anticipated this. Or he should have avoided forming such a plan in the first place. If he did not form plans, then he could not be disappointed.

But there were other reasons that the books might be missing. Such as that someone had borrowed them and was using them.

Such a strong shiver ran up Draco's spine that he found it hard to keep moving and retain a neutral expression on his face.

But he sat down at the table he'd abandoned again, and he sat straight, and he knew that anyone looking at him wouldn't see his desolation and fear. Of course, most of his neighbors weren't looking at him, but even if they were, they wouldn't see anything. That was the point.

Draco folded his hands in front of him and closed his eyes. He could pretend he was meditating, or resting briefly. It was the first week of May, and the returned "eighth-year" students were starting to panic about NEWTs. Many possible spectators would think that he deserved a brief holiday from his studies, even if that holiday was only a mental one.

Draco knew that he couldn't control all the thoughts people might have about him, but he could anticipate their natural reactions and control those. And that was necessary. He didn't feel easy or settled if he didn't try that tactic.

Sometimes, when he lay in bed at night and felt his thoughts burn with the effort of thinking about every possible objection to his behavior and finding a convincing counterargument, he wondered if he would ever be easy or settled. But he had only a few weeks remaining until he had more of a choice. He would leave Hogwarts, and he could choose a career where he would have only a few eyes watching him.

He had no idea what that career would be. He had no solid anchor to cling to in the constant shifting sand his life had become except the certainty of his past mistakes.

But since he had made those errors, he had no right to complain, either. At least people who hated him couldn't say that he'd moped around since the war and whinged about losing his family's power and prestige.

Draco had nearly soothed himself back into tranquility with those thoughts when he heard the hissing begin again.

Not now, not now, Draco chanted to himself, and tried to sit still. Maybe the snake would give up if it realized that he wasn't paying attention.

But the hisses increased, and this time Draco felt a sympathetic twitch start up in his stomach. He thought he was about to retch in disgust at first, and rose, ready to leave the library. Then he heard a slight growl underlying the urgent hisses, and shuddered. He was hungry, although he had eaten a full dinner last night.

The snake sounded like someone had starved it, and now Draco was reacting the same way. He wrapped his arms around himself and bent at the waist, trying to look sick. It was the best excuse for the horror that he knew he couldn't control in these circumstances.

"Malfoy? Are you all right?"

And of course it was Potter who had come up beside him and was staring at him with concern right now, because the universe hated Draco. Draco shook his head briskly and started for the door of the library. His stomach growled again.

Then the snake gave the most drawn-out hiss yet, which reminded Draco of the way the Dark Lord's snake would hiss right before she struck.

"What's that?" Potter demanded.

He had noticed. He had heard.

Draco, in the collapse of his composure, gave up on thinking that he would be able to hide this from anyone. Potter had already seen the worst. Draco gave into his baser impulses, and ran, the stone walls bearing past him, the stone floor scorching his feet, his arm throbbing with the pressure of the snake's tongue.

*

Harry blinked and stared after Malfoy. He knew what he had heard, but he had no idea why Malfoy had taken off out of the library as if he had seen the Snitch during a game with Gryffindor.

So he has a pet snake? So what? There are probably rules that members of Slytherin House can have them. And I'm sure his roommates would think it was wonderful.

Then Harry hesitated. Now that he thought about it-he hadn't paid much attention to Malfoy this year because doing so would make him remember the war, and his friends seemed so miserable when that happened-he didn't think he had seen Malfoy spending much time with his Slytherin friends. Most of them had come back, but they seemed eager to attach themselves to people who were blameless and whose good reputation might rub off on them. Harry had seen Pansy Parkinson sitting at the Ravenclaw table more than once, and he thought that Blaise Zabini was dating a girl from Hufflepuff.

But Malfoy ate alone, and walked the corridors alone, and came to the library to study alone.

Speaking of which, Harry thought, he left his books behind. He went to collect them, a little self-conscious. People were peering at him from the nearby tables. Perhaps they thought that he wanted to spill ink over Malfoy's parchment and ruin his quills, or something else equally childish.

Then he realized the eyes had already turned away again, fastened anxiously on books and notes. Harry's mouth tightened. Oh, they would say if he asked them that they were just worried about passing the NEWTs. But that didn't explain the people in the library who were sixth-years, or the fourth-year Hufflepuff girl at the next table who had turned almost grey with fear.

They were trying to pretend the war had never happened. A Gryffindor harassing a Slytherin had happened during the war, when the members of Dumbledore's Army who dared to resist fought back against the Slytherins. Therefore, it had to be ignored and buried in the back of their minds.

There are graves and wounds and orphans who'll never see their parents again, Harry thought in savage frustration as he arranged Malfoy's books in a neat pile and stacked his papers together. Oh, yes, that will really go away and stop staring us in the face if we shut our eyes.

Then a word on the parchment he was sorting caught his eye. He frowned and bent closer. Why was Malfoy studying Parseltongue? Or was he? The words were loose and absent, scrawled on the paper the way that someone would scrawl something they weren't thinking much about.

"Harry!"

Harry started and nearly sent Malfoy's parchment flying all over the library. When he looked up, Hermione was in front of him, her smile wide and her eyes darting over the table as if she thought he had left one of the pranks from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes here and was trying to locate it.

"Yes, what?" Harry snapped. He was startled when he was caught off-guard like that, and Hermione knew it, but she responded now by making a little face and shaking her head at him, as if he was a sulky child.

"I just wondered what you were doing here," she said, reaching out to put a possessive hand on Malfoy's pile of books. Harry had noticed that before; Hermione seemed to think that all books were temporarily lent to other people. But he thought the gesture had another motive this time, too. "It's not a place I expect to see you, since you don't seem very worried about the NEWTs." She raised her eyebrow at him.

"Believe it or not, I want some NEWTs so I can have a wider choice of careers," Harry said shortly, and reached out to slide Malfoy's books back towards him. "Whatever I decide to do," he added. He had hidden his Parseltongue from his friends, but not his changing desires about being an Auror.

Hermione clucked and tried to take the books away again. "Oh, Harry, you know you would be a good Auror."

"But it's not what I really want." Harry slid the books back towards him, seeing Hermione's smile harden the tiniest bit.

His muscles tensed-more muscles than he possessed-and his view of Hermione seemed to shift, as if he was looking at her from a different angle.

Or a different pair of eyes.

"Harry," Hermione said in a low, controlled voice, "I don't want you bothering Malfoy."

"I'm not," Harry said, and his exasperation was joined by a rush of darker, less pleasant exasperation that seemed to come from far down in his soul. "I was going to owl his books and his notes back to him, as a matter of fact."

Hermione glanced down as if she doubted that but didn't want to look him in the eye and show him her doubt, and then her face changed. "Why is Malfoy writing about Parseltongue?" she asked.

"I don't know," Harry snapped, folding the parchment. "I didn't suggest it to him, if you were going to say that."

Hermione sighed and took a step back from the table, putting more distance between them than Harry wanted. But then, that distance was already there, since he could hardly tell them about what he was feeling or thinking. Hermione and Ron weren't quite as bad as the others, but Ron had lost a brother and wanted to pretend he didn't remember the moment of his death, and Hermione was willing to playact to oblige him.

"I know," she whispered. "But, Harry, you've been so hostile since the-the war." She was even hesitant to speak the word, as if it would conjure the past back into being. "Can't you admit that perhaps you're seeing danger where there's none? Why do you have to disturb Malfoy?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said. "He panicked and ran out of the library when he saw me, but somehow it was my doing." His hand closed on the parchment that had Parseltongue written on it, though, and he wondered.

"I just don't want to see you go back to your rivalry," Hermione continued seriously. Sarcasm, like books that belonged to others, was something that had no place in her universe since the war. "It disrupted so many people, and it would make them unhappier now, with the disorganized state that Slytherin has been in since the war."

Harry clenched his teeth on the unforgivable reply he wanted to make. It was so hard to row with Hermione, because, in a way, she was right. Other people than Harry had suffered, and if they wanted to forget the war, then he should allow them to. At least it meant he hadn't had to deal with as many autograph-seekers and as much publicity as he'd thought he would have to.

"Yeah, I know," he finally said, when he thought he could. "But I don't want to forget about what happened, either."

"No one ever can," Hermione said with a gentle smile. "That's the problem."

"But people are trying," Harry said, sweeping up Malfoy's books and parchment in a neat pile and tucking them under his arm. Hermione watched him with sad eyes but said nothing. "That's what I can't stand. They think they can bury all that grief and hatred and betrayal and just go on as if nothing happened. That's stupid."

"It might be what they need right now," Hermione said quietly. "To heal."

"Will they ever acknowledge the wounds, though?" Harry asked, but shook his head when Hermione opened her mouth. He really wasn't in the mood for a lecture. "Never mind. I'll owl these back to Malfoy."

He strode away from the library, conscious the entire time of her eyes on his back, and wondering at how much he wanted to get away from them. Everything Hermione said made sense. It certainly made sense that Ron wouldn't want to think about Fred, and even Harry was careful to remind him of Fred as little as possible.

But as a project for the whole world?

I should be allowed to remember if I want to.

A voice that was not his purred agreement in the back of his mind.

*

Draco drew back his blankets as if hypnotized and stared down at the snake. It reared beneath the surface of his skin, tongue lashing so fast that it looked like a blurred arm extending from its mouth. Draco could feel the eyes staring at him, even though the snake frequently turned its head to the side as if it found it difficult to see beyond the surface of his skin.

Then it turned and sank its fangs into the muscle of his arm.

Draco cried out, jerking. Bright red lines raced away from the wound, lines of infection coming impossibly fast. The lines became raised a moment later, like scars, and started to throb. Draco could feel the poison working through him, a slow burning that extended in a river away from his hand towards his chest. When it touched his heart, he knew, his life would end.

He sat still, frozen with a horror so cold it would not allow him to do anything, even make simple motions towards preserving his life.

The scars floated up and out of his skin and then beaded, creating tents of red welts that obscured his vision everywhere he looked. The burning of the poison grew sharper and sharper, like a winter wind blowing against him. Draco shivered and rocked in place. The venom had worked its way up to his shoulder now.

Nothing to do. Nothing to be done. I don't-

And then the red welts melted down the sides of his face like blood, and the sharp burn of the poison faded, and Draco opened his eyes from the most intense dream he had ever experienced. He lay still in the blankets for an endless, drifting time, dreading to look at his arm and see what was there.

Then he rolled over and lifted the sheet in a sudden rush of bravado.

The snake lay still, but its fangs were fastened in the muscles where he had dreamed of their stabbing.

Draco closed his eyes. His forehead was slick with sweat, and his fingers slid off his palm because of it. He shook with surges of cold as sharp as the poison. When he looked again and turned his arm back and forth, there was no mistaking the new angle of the snake for his imagination or a trick of the light.

His reserve had already been broken. He had already expressed emotions unworthy of a Malfoy.

He could admit to himself, now, that he needed help, and that Potter was his best choice among the slim offerings-especially because Potter's owling his books back to him might mean he was well-disposed towards Draco.

After that moment of struggle, lying awake in bed until he could realistically go to the shower, clean away the traces of his fear, and dress himself in correct robes, and then catching Potter outside the Great Hall after breakfast seemed easy.

*

"Potter!"

Harry turned around and raised an eyebrow. Malfoy was striding towards him, head high and nostrils flaring as if he smelled something distasteful. Harry rolled his eyes. Of course. Even when he comes to me out of his own free will, he can't avoid showing that he's disgusted.

Harry considered ignoring the call and walking away. But he had left breakfast rather early, and there was no else in the corridor either to shelter him or to start a fight with Malfoy.

Besides, he had to admit he was curious. He leaned a shoulder on the wall and waited.

Malfoy came to a stop near him and stood there staring at him for a moment. Harry gave him a bland stare back, not handing him any insult or grimace that he could use as an excuse for anger. There, Hermione. I'm doing my part to make Hogwarts more comfortable for him and leave the past where it belongs.

"I need to talk to you," Malfoy said. His voice, absurdly controlled ever since the war-he had even given his testimony to the Wizengamot in a steady tone-wavered now, and he turned away from Harry suddenly to pry with his toe at a crack in the nearest wall.

Harry was confused only until he remembered the hissing he had heard the other night in the library.

Of course, things make sense now. Malfoy probably has a sick snake and needs help taking care of it. He was studying Parseltongue because he wanted to figure out if there was any way of communicating with it. And that neatly solves the problem of the other snake that Cynosure was talking about.

Harry wished he understood why Malfoy had been so hesitant to come to him with such a minor problem in the first place, or why a voice that was not his own whimpered with disappointment in the back of his head.

"You have a snake?" he asked. "I heard it hissing."

Malfoy whipped around to face him, fists clenched as if he was going to hit Harry. Harry stepped back just in case, but the next moment Malfoy was already repairing the cracks in his façade, shaking his head and obviously trying to look cool and bored.

"It's not something I can talk about in public," he said. "Come with me." He set off towards the stairs that led down to the dungeons at such a brisk pace that Harry had to run to keep up.

Maybe snakes are against the school rules, and he's trying to avoid being caught, Harry thought as they practically bounded down the stairs and into the cool shadows of the dungeons. I know he's not been in trouble at all this year. But the situation had begun to seem more and more bizarre, and he wasn't without hope that it would be interesting after all.

Malfoy pulled him into a large alcove not far from the door into the Slytherin common room and looked around with such exaggerated care that Harry had to bite his lip to hide a smile. Then he pulled back the sleeve over his left arm.

Harry lost any impulse to laugh the moment he saw the changed snake. He stepped closer, staring. "What made it do that?"

"I don't know." Malfoy's voice was high with fear, even though his face was as pale and perfect as ever when Harry glanced up at it. "I had a dream this morning that it poisoned me, and I was dying. And when I woke up, it was in this position. I've seen it move in other directions, too." He caught his breath, and waited a few heartbeats before he spoke again. Harry studied the odd shadow the snake seemed to cast, even though it was still two-dimensional and shouldn't have been able to do that. "I don't know what it's saying, because I can't speak Parseltongue," Malfoy finished in a whisper. "I thought you could-but you said you'd lost the snake language. . ."

"That's only what I tell people so they won't bother me," Harry answered idly, and stepped closer, reaching out to touch the Dark Mark.

Malfoy lifted a defensive hand, but before he could cover the Mark, it came to life.

The snake flickered up towards Harry like an uncoiling whip, hissing so fast and so loudly that Harry had difficulty translating. He fell back instinctively, but came nearer again a moment later. The second voice in the back of his head that was not his own was whispering excited words in response. Harry had started to think Parseltongue was that voice's natural language.

If the voice came from the source he suspected-a bit of Voldemort's soul left lodged in his, broken off from the rest-then that made sense. But Harry was afraid it didn't, and so it didn't make sense, and that was one reason he hadn't told anyone about it so far.

The snake calmed down a bit when he came nearer, and its hisses slowed. To Harry's surprise, though, he still couldn't understand what it was saying. He frowned and listened closely, but no, nothing had changed.

"What does it want?" Malfoy asked in a whisper so soft Harry wouldn't have heard it if he had been a few inches further away.

Harry glanced up, and found that Malfoy was pale and sweating, staring at his arm as if it would come to life and slither away from him. Well, he had already dreamed of being poisoned, so that probably didn't seem so strange.

"I don't know," Harry answered. "The language is different from the Parseltongue I'm used to. That usually sounds like English. This sounds like. . ." He listened again. "Like words mingled with music, so it's hard to tell what they're supposed to be, or like an old dialect of English."

Malfoy slid his sleeve back over the snake and moved away so fast he bumped into the far wall. The snake shut up. Harry blinked, trying to shake off the trance that the snake-speak seemed to have put him in, and looked up to meet Malfoy's anguished stare.

"So I exposed my secret to you for nothing?" Malfoy asked in tones like the ringing of an iron bell. While Harry still stared, he turned on one heel.

Harry lunged and grabbed his arm. The second voice, which had begun to hiss in agitation the moment Malfoy started running away, quieted. Harry leaned nearer, his eyes half-shut. It was pleasant, strangely pleasant, to be close to Malfoy like this. The scent of sweat and fear was doing interesting things to Harry's brain.

"It's not nothing," Harry whispered. "Maybe I can't understand your snake because it's a magical one, or because its dialect of Parseltongue is old. I think that's it. But I know someone who can."

Malfoy glanced at him, his eyes narrow and filled with pale light that made Harry forget himself for a minute. "Who?"

*

It appeared Potter's friend lived in the Forbidden Forest. At least Potter hadn't led him to the half-giant's hut, which had been Draco's secret terror. There was one person who hadn't forgotten the war. He still had to hold his breath against the pressure of harsh scents and flying dust in the air as Potter led him in among the trunks and the drooping leaves, but that was better than getting hard glares from small eyes.

"Cynosure?" Potter called, a moment before he dropped into hissing.

Draco's snake hissed from his arm in response. He shut his eyes and covered them with one hand. He would hold firm. He would not break down. He had already done more than he should have in going to Potter, and that was excusable only because there had been no one else available to help him.

A movement in front of him made him look before he was sure he had recovered his composure. A grey snake covered with black marks like fingerprints-he seemed to have been molded by an artist who had clutched him from the sides-slithered forwards to rest its head on Potter's feet, glancing at Draco only once on the way.

"Potter, that's an adder." Draco's voice was too high and shrill. He heard it as if it was a stranger's voice, the way he had trained himself, and he frantically reined his fear in again. Control. Calm. Those were the words he had to live by, no matter what happened. This was only a temporary situation, but he would have to continue living in a world where the Malfoys had lost prestige for the rest of his days.

"No, really, Malfoy?" Potter snapped back, and dropped to the grass as if he sat beside poisonous snakes every day. Maybe he did, Draco reflected, considering how familiar he seemed with this section of the Forbidden Forest. "I call him Cynosure," Potter added. "It fits him. I think that he might be able to help translate what your Mark is saying, since he speaks Parseltongue natively."

Draco bit his lip. He would break into hysterical giggles if he didn't, and that was never a good beginning to anything. "Do you realize how stupid you sound, talking about snakes as if they were people?" he demanded.

Potter gave him a flat stare. "Cynosure's been better company than a lot of people lately," he said. "At least he really wasn't affected by the war, instead of wanting to act like he wasn't."

"That's a reasonable choice." Draco sat down, but left enough grass between him and the adder that he thought he could escape most lunges. "Why would you want to dwell on torture and loss?"

"Forgetting about it isn't moving past it," Potter said, but abruptly shook his head and tugged at his hair until it resembled an abandoned bird's nest. "I'm not having this argument with you," he said, and Draco thought the force of those words was addressed to someone who wasn't present. "Forget it. Pull your left sleeve back."

Draco did, never taking his eyes from the adder. The snake from his Mark hissed again, but as long as it didn't bite him, it was less threatening than this thing.

No, the greatest threat is that I'll act like a frightened child in front of Potter. Draco tried to take a deep breath and sit up straighter.

The adder came close and hissed something at Potter. Potter hissed back, his voice sounding very different than it did when he spoke English. Surprised, Draco glanced at him and saw that his eyes were shut, his face soft and relaxed and-and things that Draco didn't want to think about. If someone had told Draco just then that Parseltongue was the language of Potter's soul, he would have believed it.

Of course, he couldn't believe it because it was a mad thing to believe. He looked hastily away and tried to stare at the leaves that lay on the ground not far away. There were two large ones with pointed edges that he didn't recognize, even though he'd handled dozens of different kinds of leaves when he made potions. How would he go about recognizing them, if he needed to?

With his mind busy, he did manage to lull himself into a tranquil trance-like state, but he was never less than aware of what was happening at the end of his arm. His snake seemed to have taken notice of the adder. They were speaking back and forth now, and Draco shivered as the hissing made his arm feel half-abraded.

Potter asked what sounded like a question-though Draco told himself immediately that he had no idea what a question sounded like in Parseltongue, and he was being stupid for thinking he did-and the adder hissed, followed by the Dark Mark snake. Then the two serpents spoke quietly with one another for awhile. Draco stared at the leaves until his eyes watered.

He bit his lip until the watering stopped, once he became aware of it. That wouldn't do. He had to maintain an impression of control in front of them no matter what happened. Nobody should be able to say that they had seen him as weak, and that most certainly included Potter.

Finally, Potter cleared his throat. Draco glanced at him, and blinked. He had expected to see Potter gloating, or smug, or maybe angry that he had conducted this conversation and found out very little. Instead, he was flushed.

"Did you learn what the hissing meant or not?" Draco demanded, given a better intellectual footing by the sight of his enemy's discomfort.

"Yes," Potter said, and stared at the ground as if he assumed that his task would magically become easier. Nothing happened, of course, except that Draco folded his hands on top of his knees and leaned forwards to stare at Potter expectantly. Then the adder hissed something, and Potter responded with a tap on its neck that sent it scooting back into its burrow.

Draco risked a cautious look at the snake on his arm, but it was still now, curled up in almost its original position.

"Potter," Draco said, when several more minutes had passed and nothing had happened except that Potter's face apparently became hot enough to cook eggs on.

"Fine," Potter said, the word sounding strangled. "Cynosure says that your snake is speaking about desire."

Draco blinked. At the moment, he would have avowed that he would have expected almost any other word in the English language as an explanation for the Parseltongue before that one. "What?" he asked, and he knew his voice was blank and tinny, though he tried not to make it so.

"Desire for food, for companionship, for sex." Potter buried his face in his hands, which Draco half-hoped would muffle his voice. It turned out not to matter. "For-everything that can be desired, basically." He coughed, and then said, as if defending himself to an invisible Wizengamot, "Look, this wasn't my idea. I didn't know what the snake was saying. I only know what Cynosure says he was saying, and snakes can't lie."

"I have no idea what this means, either." Draco had gained control of himself again. Control was everything, and though he still didn't know why his snake should have chosen that moment to wake up, at least he knew what it was saying now. "Why should I?"

Potter dropped his hands from his face. "Well, because it's your life?" he asked. "Because you're the only one who knows how much food you're eating, or how close your friends are to you, or who you let into your bed?" His face promptly flushed again, and he stared off into the woods as if wishing that some magical beast would come swallow them.

Draco opened his mouth to say how offensive it was that he should be expected to know everything about the Dark Mark, when he hadn't created it and had been made to take it against his will, but then Potter added, "Cynosure did say that the snake woke because it had to. It wouldn't have done anything if it thought it had a chance of getting what it needed-or if it didn't express some need of yours." He looked back, at Draco's chest, steadfastly avoiding his eyes. "That's it, really. Since it's a magical creature, it doesn't literally need food or friendship to survive. But it's part of your body, and it's expressing desires that you're harboring."

Draco's mind sprang immediately to how long it had been since he had been able to satisfy his cravings in any acceptable way-

And then he shut the thoughts behind a steel door that he would make sure to bolt with all the mental discipline he knew the moment he returned to the castle.

That way lay madness. He had seen what indulgence got his father. He had seen it what it got the Dark Lord, even. He would not follow the same route and expose himself to the dense longing that Dark magic brought on. He wouldn't even begin to allow himself too many pleasures and thus tempt himself into growing jaded and requiring more. He would act like a good little worker drone for the rest of his life, and he would find some blameless job in the Ministry, and he would go on making sure that no one had anything they could accuse him of.

Anything for a quiet life.

"Yes, well, it can speak of anything it likes," he said, and hoped that the snake could hear him, though so far there was no sign it could understand English. He rose to his feet. "I'm still not going to change anything about the way I live."

"Why, though?" Potter looked up at him, and his eyes were large and strange in the depths of the forest. Green light, Draco thought in fascination, staring down into them. There are green lights in them. "The snake might bite you again," Potter continued. "And I can't imagine that it'll be fun to have your arm start hissing at you during NEWTs, or wake up from dreams like the one it's given you so far."

"Surrendering means loss of power, Potter," Draco said flatly. "I'm surprised you don't understand that, since you had such an objection to it where the Dark Lord was concerned." He turned away and moved rapidly back towards the castle.

Potter didn't catch up to him for a little while, probably because he had to go through some strange ceremonies of farewell with the adder. But soon he was jogging beside Draco. Draco still refused to look around as he felt the grass rasp against his legs more than it should have and heard Potter's heavy breathing next to him.

"You could at least try," Potter panted. "The snake is you, in a way. You'd be surrendering to yourself, not a hostile power who would try to conquer you."

"That's what you think," Draco said, and sped up again. This time, he managed to get back to the Slytherin common room without Potter trailing him, and shut the door firmly behind him, placing his back against it. He could do that. No one else was around. Everyone else had better things to do on a sunny Saturday than talk to mad snakes and Potters.

Draco looked down at his left sleeve. It hid a quiescent snake now, and he was determined that it would stay quiescent.

Only a freak has snakes talking to him. I'm not a freak.

*

Harry didn't know what else he could do. He didn't know why he cared.

Maybe because there had been something lost and lonely behind Malfoy's carefully polished carelessness, as if he had taken to building masks not because he wanted to but because other people would expect it. Harry knew all about other people's expectations by now, and he knew what he had looked like when he was spending his life trying to meet them. Stressed. Strained.

As if he had been able to take Hermione's suggestion to forget about the war seriously.

Over the next few days, Malfoy seemed to spend less and less time in the Great Hall and the library and other places where people could see him. Harry saw him ducking past into the classes they shared or turning sharply away when he had a chance of running into Harry, but that was different. There was never more than a fleeting glimpse of the pointy face, not enough time to confirm Harry's impressions that he had changed, grown paler and thinner.

Finally, he saw Malfoy standing near a window on the third floor, staring out towards the Forbidden Forest. With the breeze ruffling his hair, he looked far more like a tragic hero than Harry thought he had ever managed. Malfoy's hand clutched the windowsill, and his face was entirely without color.

Harry caught his breath. Yes, it hadn't been his imagination. Malfoy looked as though he had been polished by wind and rain down to a diamond-shadow of his former self. Beautiful, but hard enough to cut anything it touched. Including himself.

Harry blinked. I don't think this way. Someone else is thinking these thoughts for me.

A chuckle drifted out of the depths of his mind. Harry shook his head furiously to dismiss it and stepped forwards.

Malfoy's head snapped sideways, and he immediately put his hands up as if they could ward Harry off by themselves. "Stay back," he said. His voice was very fragile.

"Why should I?" Harry prowled a little closer. "I think you're hurting yourself. That practically makes it my duty to interfere." He tried to smile, wondering if Malfoy would appreciate a joke. "Hero of the war, remember?"

You are not, said a voice in his thoughts that was deadlier than the voice of the Dark Mark.

"Go away," Malfoy whispered, and ran so fast that Harry knew he wouldn't stand a chance of catching up.

Harry bit his lip and shrugged angrily, turning towards the library, where Hermione had called for an emergency NEWTs revising session.

Why should I care, anyway? I care about too many things that I shouldn't, and that's just one of them.

*

Draco was swimming in poison.

The stab of the snake's fangs into him had begun it. This time, there were no red lines of infection, no burning line that stabbed for his heart and which he knew would kill him when it arrived there. There was nothing but a soft sigh, as if even magical snakes regretted it when they had to kill someone-

Or is it regretting that it put me out of my misery without giving me more pain first?

And two small puncture marks, which Draco ran a finger around twice before he felt any other effects.

His muscles tensed. His throat froze. He stopped breathing, but for some reason, he was still alive. He knew his fate then, as if the snake had spoken it into his ears in Parseltongue suddenly intelligible. He would be left forever in the same place, walled with magic, kept impossible for someone to find, with his mind able to think, his body aware and able to feel, but unable to move.

How soon will I go mad?

Then that image melted, and another intruded. Draco saw himself moving through life until the snake bit him. It was on an autumn evening when he sat in the Malfoy Manor library with a book and a cup of wine and no one else. He knew from the dusty, neglected state of the library that even house-elves didn't often visit this part of the house. Or perhaps he didn't have house-elves anymore.

He hadn't had the chance to catch his breath from that dreadful revelation when the bite came.

And the house around him crumbled gently to leaves, with the books running down the shelves like trickles of blood and the walls melting like fog. Draco sat in a pile of leaves, and blinked at the world until he realized that he recognized these leaves after all. They were walls, not leaves, and he was in St. Mungo's.

"Will he ever wake up, do you think?" asked someone on the other side of him, sounding wistful.

"I don't think so," said a sharper, snippier voice. "With a case this hopeless, and with as many years as have gone by? No, I don't think so. He can look forward to excellent care, at least, until he dies, perhaps a century in the future."

Before Draco could get his voice back and shout that he was here, he was right here, and ask why they couldn't hear him, the walls changed again, and then he was back in Malfoy Manor, in the dusty library, the book on his lap and good wine in his hand.

And, in his head, the certainty that it would happen, over and over again, and he would never know which was the reality.

The third vision of poison came as a vision of Draco walking calmly and steadily through his life until the snake bit him. And then he became possessed of a mad fancy that what he needed most of all was just ahead of him. It would be possible to catch up with it if he just ran a bit faster. He could do this. He could.

Ignore the burning in his legs. Ignore the horrible certainty that his vision would always flit ahead of him, determined not to be caught. Ignore the pitying glances from people around him, who did not share the hunt and could not understand the secret.

If he could simply catch the transmuting creature that danced ahead of him, now gold, now green, now shadowy, now invisible, and eat it, then he would be content.

If he could catch it.

Again the poison within him manifested itself as certainty, this time the certainty that he never would.

And then Draco woke. All those had been the dreams of only one night.

He sat with his head in his hands after the second week of that happening, and decided, slowly and with much pain, that it might be worth seeking out Potter's help again after all.

On his arm, the snake hissed in what sounded like happiness.

*

Malfoy didn't attempt to meet him this time, or even walk up to him and ask him haughtily to spare a moment of his time. Instead, Harry became aware, as he walked towards the Forbidden Forest to visit Cynosure, that he had a shadow, and the shadow was too white and too silent.

Harry altered his path so that he was going towards the lake instead. After a scant moment's hesitation, Malfoy followed him. Part of Harry licked nonexistent lips and sniffed the air with a nose that he didn't have.

Harry sat down beside the water and tossed a stone into it to watch the ripples. That also gave him an excuse not to watch Malfoy as he settled awkwardly to the shore and dug his fingers into the grass. Harry went on staring across the lake as he asked neutrally, "What is it?"

"It's hissing again," Malfoy whispered, as if afraid that spies were lurking behind the empty air to overhear him and recite his secret in loud voices. Harry heard the rustle of cloth that probably meant he'd pulled his sleeve back. "And giving me dreams that make me forget where the world is, sometimes."

Harry sighed and glanced down at the snake. "I told you, I can't understand it. We'll probably have to go to Cynosure after all-" He didn't want to do that. Cynosure had been extraordinarily scornful of the idea that anyone might not be able to understand magical snakes.

To his astonishment, the hissing that met his ears was clearer than it had been. Harry bent in and listened as closely as he could. This time, it was like hearing a language he'd been familiar with as a child but hadn't studied since; he could make out perhaps one word in three.

And since all the words were basically the same, he had no idea if that was any great accomplishment.

". . .need. . .want. . .desire. . .need. . .much. . .abundance. . .pleasure. . .famine. . ."

It was the second pair of ears he had, the ones that didn't grow on the outside of his head, that were hearing those words, Harry was certain of it.

"I can't tell you anything that Cynosure didn't already tell you," Harry murmured. The snake on the Dark Mark had stopped hissing and was staring up at him as if it recognized him, extending a tentative tongue. "But I can tell you that it needs to be pleased. And since it's you, that means that you need to please yourself. Perhaps eating different kinds of food-"

"I've tried that," Malfoy interrupted. His voice cracked, and he sounded, for the first time, as tired and desperate as he looked. "All it makes me do is hunger for the things that I used to enjoy."

"Well, then, get the things you used to enjoy," Harry said. He realized when he looked up that he must have been peering too closely at the snake on Malfoy's arm, because it seemed that he'd spoken in Parseltongue. He repeated himself in English.

Malfoy's expression closed. "That would be too much like an indulgence," he muttered. "I can't afford it."

"Why not?" Harry asked, but Malfoy didn't answer. Harry sighed in frustration. "Well, then, sex."

Malfoy jerked back and stared at him. Even without the savage polishing that his face had received from harsh dreams and unsatisfied yearning, Harry thought he would have looked that proud, that cold, that offended at the suggestion.

That pure.

The force that had haunted Harry since Voldemort's death tensed. Harry jerked forwards, and found that his hand had risen without his permission to cup Malfoy's cheek. Malfoy moved at the same time so that Harry wasn't actually touching him, but his intention was clear.

"What are you doing?" Malfoy's voice was high and shrill.

"You're a virgin, aren't you." Harry didn't make it a question. It wasn't one. His voice was deep and had a trace of a hiss to it, as if it had come from a lipless mouth. The darkness and the cold inside him swirled into a maelstrom, dragging his spirit down. Or was it warmth and light that he descended to embrace, light and warmth that he needed to melt the coldness within him?

There was coldness before him, coldness that he could melt. There was purity before him, purity that he could consume. There was light before him, if broken and shattered light, that he could drown.

Malfoy stared at him for so long Harry thought he might actually endure another attempt to touch him. Then he jerked to his feet and ran, the hissing of his snake trailing back to Harry like the forlorn cry of someone snatched by enemies.

Harry put his hands over his face and sagged forwards. His elbows hit the warm dirt. He stayed there, uncomfortable as the position was, for a long time.

*

Draco understood the look he had seen in Potter's eyes perfectly well. He understood the reaching hand, and the sudden, unaccountable longing to caress him.

It was desire.

Draco was going to leave desire behind. He could not afford to give into it.

He ran, and it seemed that part of him never stopped running. The separate part of him, the one that could hold still, sat down at the table in the Great Hall with his friends and ate lunch and other meals. That part of him went to classes and worried about NEWTs and never heard the hissing.

But the rest of him could hear it.

The world around him melted and ran like blood down his thighs. The snake bit him again and again, and the poison flowed into his muscles and chilled them. Sometimes Draco woke and didn't know that he'd woken. The deep colors of the dungeons, of his bedsheets and curtains, seemed no stranger than the deep colors of his dreams.

He had dreams of being tied up, of being stalked and hunted and consumed, and of being held down and talked to until he simply dissolved in tears. Then Pansy would shake his arm and he would realize he was in the middle of class and Slughorn or McGonagall or Flitwick had asked a question. He would answer, but sometimes he didn't even manage to speak all the words before the dreams would surge back up around him and bear him away.

He was losing his grip on reality, but he had not surrendered. That was his pride. His snake, or the magic left in the Dark Mark, had had to batter him into submission. Perhaps he would die from the bites and the poison he had received, assuming the poison was real, but he had not yielded. He was not weak.

It went on until he could have said that he moved through a sea of poison and spoken the truth. He expected to look down and see his arms and legs covered with the black and green trickles of venom instead of clothing.

He fell through a complicated system of layers into pain and loss. The memories of the war rose around him strongly enough that he sometimes thought he stood in Malfoy Manor again, with the Dark Lord forcing him to use the Cruciatus Curse on someone who didn't deserve it.

Why could you use the Cruciatus Curse? he asked himself, in the voice of an instructor. At least, he thought he was the one asking him the questions. Perhaps it was the snake, assuming it ever left off speaking Parseltongue. That requires a lot of passion: hatred and anger. Not something a Malfoy should possess. You should always be calm, detached.

Sometimes he thought of an even more terrifying question.

Where has all that passion gone, now that you have decided not to feel it anymore?

He opened his eyes one night, and there was another dream with him, a warm and breathing dream this time. Potter crouched over him, his hands on either side of Draco's head, his knees locked around Draco's legs, his eyes piercing his.

The snake began to hiss again.

*

Harry had never known a need like this one. It had grown on him like a disease, or a fungus.

The second set of muscles in his body that followed the first set had swollen with power that Harry didn't think he had put into them. The second voice spoke more and more often in his thoughts, soft and insistent as a shadow. The thoughts in his head slowed and became crystalline structures, solidified by the need for Malfoy.

What the need was, Harry didn't think he knew yet, except that it was a need to consume. Where it came from, he did know, but he very carefully didn't think the name when he intimidated a first-year Slytherin into giving him the password for that week.

He didn't think when he walked into the Slytherin common room and cast a spell that would allow him to locate Malfoy's bedroom. He must have been thinking-something very specific-when he cast the spells that would tie the curtains shut and allow no movement, light, or sound to pass them, as well as the ball of powerful light that would let him see Malfoy in the darkness, but he didn't remember the thinking.

The craving had grown on him until he dared do nothing but acknowledge it. And now here he was, with Malfoy beneath him, the way he had wanted for days and days.

It was like having a whole feast of fruit and pasties and meats and sandwiches available to him after a summer at the Dursleys'.

Malfoy stared up at him after he opened his eyes for endless moments, as if he couldn't believe that Harry would actually dare attempt this. Then he rolled over, reaching for his wand.

"No," Harry breathed, and pinned Malfoy's wrists down with one hand, while he used the other to hold his head in place as he bent to kiss him.

Malfoy stiffened and thrashed, but Harry had positioned himself carefully-during that thinking he didn't remember-and could simply fall forwards, pinning Malfoy's body to the bed with his own weight. He groaned, letting the groan pass into Malfoy's unresponsive mouth. It was so luxurious to use his weight this way, to force someone to do what he wanted.

Malfoy kept his lips shut, but Harry didn't care, because he knew he could force him to respond, too. He nipped along the line of Malfoy's mouth, pausing now and then to rub it with his tongue. Then he licked down to Malfoy's chin and bit it. The satisfaction of doing so made him gasp.

Malfoy cried out, but the silencing spells on the curtains were strong-more powerful ones than Harry knew, but not more powerful than someone else had once known. Harry reared back, quickly enough that Malfoy was caught off-guard and couldn't move, and spelled Malfoy's hands stuck to the sheets. He thought about doing his legs, too, but he wanted to feel some fight left in his conquest.

He leaned forwards again, and Malfoy tried to slam his knees up against Harry's chest. Harry held back his legs with one arm and smiled at him. He didn't know what he looked like, but it was enough to make Malfoy shut his mouth on the scream he'd been about to utter and blink at him.

"Keep still," Harry breathed. "Or don't, and see how good I can make you feel anyway."

He lapped at Malfoy's neck first, admiring how it changed from less salty near the top to saltier near the bottom, where the sweat had collected in the hollow of his throat. The skin changed texture, too. It was smoother where Malfoy's shirt had covered it. But when Harry spelled the shirt to strips that fell off Malfoy's shoulders, that was no longer a problem.

Harry moved out along the line of his shoulders next, biting often enough that Malfoy flinched, but never in any regular pattern, so he didn't have time to get used to it. Once he locked his teeth into the flesh and sucked for a long time, as if he was a vampire drawing nourishment from Malfoy's blood-or someone drawing poison out of a snakebite.

Malfoy shuddered. Harry looked up, hoping to see some sign of his feelings in his eyes, but they were squinted tightly shut in denial.

Harry sucked again on the bite, for the pleasure of feeling skin and muscle meet in his teeth, and then moved on.

Malfoy's chest was covered with silvery scars. Harry thought several of them might have been caused by the Sectumsempra spell, but not all of them. He ran his fingers along them, and Malfoy squirmed and tried to lift his hands over his head, apparently forgetting they were stuck down.

"You're sensitive," Harry said. He had to say it twice, because the first time, his mouth was so full of saliva and the taste of broken skin that the words couldn't get past. "Let's see what happens when I touch these."

And he ran his fingers up and down, sideways and then backwards, now and then treading onto unmarked skin so that Malfoy stood no more chance of getting used to this than he did the bites on his shoulders. Harry flicked his nipples once, but they didn't seem to be as sensitive. It was his scars that made Malfoy's hair spread out on the pillow, his teeth clench in an attempt to hold back the slight sounds that delighted Harry much more than furious cries, and his head turn back and forth as if he thought he could stop pleasure by saying no to it.

Harry tickled the scars down to his stomach, and then leaned back. Malfoy stared up at him, flushed and pale by turns, his eyes alternating between flaring wide and squeezing shut. He looked so conflicted that a thrill of sweetness ran down to Harry's groin, and he touched his erection lightly, with the intention of teasing himself and no more. His enjoyment was going to happen as a consequence of Malfoy's enjoyment, or not at all.

"Do you want this?" he whispered. "Any of this at all? Do you?"

Malfoy shut his eyes again. Harry, breathing hard, feeling sweat dry under his shoulder blades, wondered if he would say no. The thought chilled the sweetness in his gut, and he tried to sit very still and listen, so he wouldn't miss the tiny acknowledgment that might be all Malfoy could offer out of his inner conflict.

". . .Yes."

Harry snapped his head up. Yes, he had been listening, but that didn't mean that his hopes hadn't fooled him. "What?" he demanded.

Malfoy turned back to him with his eyes wide open now, filled with a challenging light of the sort that Harry had missed since the end of the war.

"I said yes, Potter," he snapped. "How much clearer do you want me to be? Or is teasing someone until they consent and then walking away how you get off?"

Harry laughed giddily and reached down to unstick Malfoy's hands. He could hear the snake hissing as he did so, and he understood the Parseltongue perfectly now, the language blending with the words that echoed and rippled through the back of his head from that second voice.

"You repressed it," he whispered, as he dragged Malfoy up his body and into their first mutual kiss. "You kept down your own need so much that it struggled to find a way to come out, and the snake was the only way it could do so. Maybe that was the most magical part of you." He grinned at Malfoy, and waited for him to react to the insult as he had never done reliably since the beginning of this school year.

*

Draco surged forwards, and knocked Potter to the bed. Potter went laughing, damn him, his clothes flapping around him, his hands sprawling out as if Draco might do anything he liked with him and welcome.

Draco experienced a moment's intense regret that he wouldn't get to tie down an unwilling victim the way Potter had been able to do with him.

Then he put the thought out of his mind and concentrated on what he did have: a truly alert mind for the first time in what felt like months; a hunger growling unsatisfied in his belly that was not for food; the contented hiss of the snake on his arm.

And a warm and willing body in front of him to do whatever he liked with.

He Vanished Potter's shirt, tossed his wand aside, and returned favor for favor, biting Potter on the shoulder so hard he tasted blood. Potter cried out, and his fingers rose falteringly, tangling in Draco's hair as if he didn't know whether to push him aside or hold him close. Draco laughed smugly and shoved a knee between his, rocking cock to cock for a moment in a tantalizing promise.

Potter tried to roll himself so he was on top, but Draco distracted him by starting to pull off his trousers. Then Potter had to pull off Draco's trousers, and they tangled arms and hands and slammed their heads into each other's. Draco's mouth tasted of copper for a moment and his vision swam sickeningly, but even that didn't matter, because the desire was breaking through his skin like flames coming from the inside.

At last the trousers and the pants were gone, and they were rolling and scrabbling over each other again, biting and scratching and pinching, in an attempt to find a position that would please them both. Draco won when he bit Potter's shoulder again, and, keeping his teeth clenched in place, pushed their cocks together and began to wank them both at once.

Their skin slid against each other's, slippery and hot. Draco could feel the heat building between their bodies, in fact, a humid glow that made him shudder in revulsion and delight both at once when he thought about how long he would need to shower afterwards.

I am being tainted by a half-blood's spunk. I'm giving him mine.

Draco laughed, but never moved his teeth, chewing and sinking them further and deeper as he focused his mind on sensation.

Their two cocks together shoved against his fingers, which felt barely strong enough to contain them, even with the help of Potter's hand that had somehow wriggled down to help. The squeaking and the gasping and the grumbling of the bed's old springs as they rocked on top of it wove into a terribly twisted mesh in Draco's ears, not at all the sort of melody that he would have wished to hear the first time he heard sex-but now that he had it, he wouldn't trade it for delicate sighs or refined grunts. The taste of blood in his mouth grew stronger and stronger, and he swirled his tongue in the limited space he had to get more of it. The smell of Potter's skin-common skin, skin marked with dirt and the marks of physical labor-grew worse and worse as they struggled on, strong and sour and sharp and present in a way that no other scent Draco had smelled had ever been. He could see very little except that sometimes he caught a glimpse of Potter's tossing hair and naked chest-not marked nearly enough-and crazed eyes.

Potter came first, spurting into Draco's fist and between his fingers, making his grip suddenly hard to keep. He was crying out his pleasure, and the mixture of sounds changed yet again. Draco felt Potter's free hand claw at his hip, and the sting of new scratches was acute and delicious. The smell and the taste did not change, but Draco saw the way Potter's lips parted and his eyelashes fluttered and his head dropped back as if he was as spent of bodily strength as he was of semen.

Draco rolled to the side and began to rub against Potter's hip, using his body with fine disdain, to show that he no longer felt compelled to keep touching Potter once Potter wasn't participating anymore. A dirty thrill surged through him, because Potter was passive, head turned towards him, mouth gasping, tongue drooping uselessly, and the taste of blood still blossomed in Draco's mouth, and his teeth ached from being kept clenched-

He came.

Pleasure shook him, made him arch painfully and grind his cock into Potter's hipbone harder than he should have. His orgasm welled up from so deep in his belly that Draco thought he could feel his muscles shifting to make room for it. It wrenched a stupid cry from his throat and made him tear a line across Potter's face with his nails, if the shredded skin he felt under them was any indication.

But it also allowed him to understand the hissing of his snake completely, for one moment.

To share the darkness.

Draco opened his eyes and turned his head, even though he wanted to simply lie there and pant in the aftermath of his climax.

He was just in time to see a dark film gleaming on Potter's face, connected by a thin, wavering line of black to his left arm. The snake had reared up to meet it, and it seemed as though the surface of Draco's skin had parted like water, letting its forked tongue meet the line. Draco could have sworn that he saw a shadow leave the snake and trail up along the line like a hooked fish.

Then the blackness vanished, and so did the shadow of the snake. Draco blinked and looked back at his arm. The Dark Mark was still there, but less vivid than it had been.

And Potter lay blinking and looking at him along the corner of his pillow, with something like sanity in his eyes. The scratch Draco had given him extended up over the bridge of his nose and onto his cheek.

Draco opened his mouth and spoke his first uncalculated words for almost a year. "I enjoyed that."

*

Harry swallowed and nodded in return, feeling too worn out to speak. His thoughts, though, were brilliant and feverish and revolved around a hole carved in the center of his mind, reciting the same thing over and over in a few different words.

Will it ever be that wonderful again?

A hand shoved against his shoulder. Harry had the impression that it wasn't the first time Malfoy had tried to distract him from his thoughts. He blinked and looked along the pillow again-

To confront a familiar sneer.

"Get out of here, Potter."

Harry recoiled, more stung by the words than by the scratches and bites that Malfoy had given him. (The one on his shoulder was still stinging, absurdly painful for a bite so small). He stared into Malfoy's eyes, looking for some echo of the fever that consumed him.

Malfoy simply reinforced the sneer and the push, this time almost sending Harry flying into the tied and spelled curtains. "You heard me. Why should I share my most private place with you?"

Harry bit back an angry comment. Already the memories were changing in his head, losing some of their warmth and fading like pressed flowers. The emotions still revolved, though, and now the hole in his mind was filled with uncertainty.

I wanted-but I forced him into it-but he enjoyed it and took control-but it was wrong-

Did I only do this because of the pieces of Voldemort that I carry in my head? Does he know that, and is that the reason he's kicking me out?

Well, fuck him, anyway. Why should I want to stay?

Harry gathered up his clothes, those he could find, looking at Malfoy from the corner of his eye. Malfoy made no attempt to help, or dress. He lounged against his pillows as if he had always been here and Harry had simply intruded in on him being naked and stared at Harry coldly.

This time, Harry thought, gaining back a little heart, it wasn't the coldness that had made Malfoy determined to ignore what Cynosure had said. It was the coldness Harry expected, the arctic flash of contempt when he made a mistake, the nasty smile that would come before an arrogant remark.

And Malfoy's Dark Mark was a little faded.

Just, Harry thought as he gave up on finding his shirt and Transfigured a pillow into a makeshift cloak that he could drape around himself until he reached Gryffindor Tower, like part of Voldemort is gone. Not all of it, but some. The second voice had been a murmur before; now it was a whisper in the back of his head.

It made Harry wonder if they might come together again after all. Their darkness had been reduced, but not banished. Malfoy might want another go, if only to ease the burden he carried.

Will that be the only reason it happens again, if it happens?

He shook his head and released the spells on the curtains, having to mutter multiple Finites. He was sure there were more specific countercharms, but he couldn't remember them. God knew he didn't even remember much about casting these spells.

He slid to the edge of the bed and shivered. It felt cold, and he didn't think that was only because he didn't have a real shirt.

Malfoy sighed impatiently behind him.

Harry clenched his fists and looked over his shoulder. Malfoy lifted an eyebrow at him. "Yes, Potter?" he asked. He pretended to look around at the blankets. "Did you leave something here, besides your virginity?" He smiled at Harry under lowered eyelids this time.

I'm the one who risks my courage by asking. No one else can do it. Malfoy can't.

Harry snatched one question clear of the somersaulting confusion in his head. "Can I come again?"

"That will depend on if you wank, won't it?" Malfoy answered promptly.

Harry rolled his eyes. He should have known that he would be deliberately misunderstood. "Forget it," he said, and started to roll off the bed.

"Wait."

Harry paused and savored the sweet unexpectedness of that question for long moments before he glanced over his shoulder. He tried to make his expression as cool as Malfoy's, though he had the impression that he didn't succeed. "Yes? Was there something?"

Malfoy stared at him. This time, Harry saw his eyes flicker and change before he averted them, and that was enough to satisfy him. At least someone else doesn't know what he should really want, either.

"The answer to your question is perhaps," Malfoy said, and then snapped the curtains about his bed shut.

As Harry made his way out of the Slytherin dorms, sneaking across the common room under a Disillusionment Charm, he heard the muted voice chuckling and murmuring something about pleasure. But Harry ignored it, because he tasted something at once deeper and lighter than that.

Hope.

Which mingled marvelously with the remnant of broken skin on his tongue.

The End.