As per usual, JK Rowling owns all!
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Thank you to Firediva0, my newest fan, for your encouraging words.
This chapter is more emotional than sexy, I just wanted to add a little depth.
I PROMISE the next chapter will be as sexy as the first, my lovelies.
And as always, please let me know what you think!
Enjoy!
Another Friday night found Draco once again sitting at a table in The Belt, though this time he had made sure to choose one closer to the stage. He was hoping to have a better view of Harry this time.
He knew he shouldn't have come back. He had managed to stay away for two whole weeks this time. In the end his resolve broke, as it had over and over again for the last few months, and he made his way back to this dark and sensual environment. If anyone asked, he would tell them he simply changed his mind. Malfoys do not lose control, they simply change course. Not that anyone would ask, mind you. It wasn't that he was hiding his little... venture. Not obsessions; Malfoys didn't obsess either.
Draco had seen all manner of performances here, it turned out to be a fairly well rounded place. Harry had done very well. No, Orion. Draco refused to believe that the gorgeous creature he fantasized about constantly was actually Harry Potter. He had been wrong in his quick assessment that first night. There was no way Saint Potter, Golden Boy, Savior extraordinare would own a place like this, let alone actually dance at it.
Aside from that was the proof Draco had seen with his own eyes combined with all he knew of the Gryffindor. The boy he had known had been so disgustingly pure; too trusting for his own good. Someone with such strong and utterly 'Light' morals would never lower themselves to use their bodies in a manner such as this.
He had also seen Harry's bare skin once before, right after the final battle. Madam Pomfrey had confiscated what she referred to as 'filthy rags that would never see the inside of her infermary'. Draco knew exactly what Harry hid beneath his too big clothing and baggy robes.
Draco had always believed the lies that had been fed to him by his father and his father's Lord. He had believed the tales of Harry's home life. That he was treated as if he was a prince, pampered and spoilt. As a young boy, Draco had wholly believed that the last of the Potters was nothing more than a prat only our for recognition and glory.
That day, standing outside of the infirmary, just out of sight, he had been slapped in the face with reality.
Harry Potter was no pampered prince. The blonde had heard Madam Pomfrey as she had set about healing the other boy, commenting about his inability to avoid conflict and his penchant for danger. Draco had almost snorted in amusement, thinking that he did it all to himself, until he heard the words that turned his views of so many things on their head.
"Harry..." the matron's soft words after the chastisment she had just been spewing took Draco aback. "I hope with this cursed war over you can finally find some peace."
"I know Poppy..." Harry had replied softly, his voice cracking with some emotion Draco didn't understand. "Me too... though I'm not sure I deserve peace after all of the lives that were cost at my expense."
Those words, spoken so softly that Draco had had to strain to hear them, confused and disturbed the blonde. Shouldn't the Golden Boy be rejoicing and reveling in his new found fame as the Defeater of Lord Voldemort?
"Harry, you more than anyone, deserve peace." The Matron said gently, as she rustled something Draco couldn't see from his current position.
Easing forward as silently as possible, Draco shifted just enough to see around the edge of the door. He regretted it instantly. He wished he had never seen what was sitting there on the starched sheets of the hostpital bed.
Harry sat there in only a pair of boxers that seemed a size or so big on him. His body was so thin and frail looking that Draco was truly surprised he had survived the battle, let alone the last few years. The Gryffindor looked almost skeletal, as though he had never truly seen a decent meal in his life, as though he had lived in starvation. Even from this distance the Slytherin could almost count the smaller boy's ribs.
How had he never noticed this? Never seen how truly small Potter was? 'You never wanted to see...' whispered a small voice in the back of Draco's mind.
Almost every inch of his skin was covered in bruises in every shade of the rainbow; cuts and scrapes, some older than others, littered his body. Beneath the bruises and injuries Draco could see the scarring. The way the torchlight of the Hospital Wing flickered made the light dance across the thin boy's body, highlighting the damage that had been inflicted on him. Draco could see the scars criss-crossing his back, as though he had been whipped and beaten repeditively.
The youngest Malfoy was truly horrified by the sight. Never in all of his life, even in his time with the Dark Lord, had he seen so much damage done to one person. The Dark Lord was merciful at least in that his victims, usually, were not tortured before their death. He would use that most unforgivable of spells and end their life painlessly.
Potter must have been tortured for years. How had he survived? Who had done this?
"You'll scar from some of these, Harry." Madam Pomfrey said, as she applied a balm over the worst of the wounds, finally having gotten the bleeding stopped.
"Nothing I'm not used to." Harry said, attempting to reassure the usually stern Matron.
"That is unfortunately all too true." she said as she moved around in front of the boy, working her balm into his chest. "I would give so much to have been able to spare you the pain you have suffered, dear boy." She said, her voice wavering slightly.
"I know Poppy." Harry said, reaching up and touching her hand softly. "You've always been the one to have to put me back together when I'm broken."
"I wish mending was not necessary. I used to love the beginning of term, I truly loved my job." The Matron said as she worked the balm down his arm. "And then you came. And start of term became something that I both loathed and counted down the days for." She said moving to the other arm. "I loathed it with every fiber of my being becasue i knew without a shadow of a doubt that as soon as the feast was over I would be spending all night working and fighting to undo the damage those... those things did to you." She said, sneering the word 'things as if it was a dirty word.
"And looked for ward to it because?" Harry asked curiously.
"Because even though I knew you would be coming to me almost on death's door, you would be coming home finally." Pomfrey said, tilting his face up and working the balm into the gash on his forehead, having saved it for last. "You would be safe from those sadistic muggles you were forced to go to." She said, a sad smile on her face. "Hogwarts is your home Harry. This castle loves you. The staff.." at his look of disbelief she corrected herself. "Well most of the staff, loves you." She smiled affectionately down at her almost constant patient. "I have cared for you and watched you grow into such a brave man. You have survived and won. The lives lost were a tradgedy but no fault of yours. The fault lies with a now dead mad man. Their blood covers his hands and not yours."
Draco's world was profoundly altered by the information he had just overheard. He had been fed lies all of his life. Now that he knew the truth about Harry, he felt so utterly wrong in his own skin. His entire life felt like a lie. What else had he been blind to if he had missed something so glaringly obvious as Potter's abuse.
Draco was shaken from the ghosts of his past by the same waiter that seemed to serve him every night bringing him another Ogden's without being asked. He had come here so frequently that his favorite drink was remembered. He was flattered that he was memorable, but mildly disgusted with himself that he had allowed himself to come here so many times that he was remembered.
As he sipped his drink, the lights dimmed, signaling the start of the next performance, Draco's pants tightening in anticipation of the sensual experience to come.