CHAPTER THREE
Days passed, each one much like the previous. Harry would be roused from a fitful sleep curled on the stone floor, then unceremoniously led to face Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Each day, Voldemort would ask him if he was ready to cooperate. Harry was never entirely certain what he was supposed to cooperate with, but every day his answer was an emphatic no. After the inevitable torture session, Harry was vaguely aware of being Levitated back into the dungeons, after which he usually passed out. Waking later, shaking and feverish, his head would snap up for a moment, searching for the now familiar white-blond head. Upon spotting Draco, he would begin to relax slightly, knowing that he would rather have his school nemesis as company than be completely alone.
Today, Harry took longer than usual to wake up. On some level, he was aware of Draco shaking him, yelling at him to wake up, but another part of him wanted nothing more than to drift peacefully into the inky blackness of oblivion.
"Potter!" Draco's voice sharply pervaded through the mist in his mind. "Damn you, Potter, get up!" Suddenly there was a stinging slap across his face, and his eyes fluttered open wearily.
Draco was crouched beside him on the icy floor, his hair falling across his pale, pale face, breathing heavily. "Potter?" he asked cautiously.
Harry managed to sit up painfully, shoving Draco away when he tried to assist him. Draco rocked back on his heels, glaring daggers at Harry.
"You know, you could make this easier on yourself," Draco spat.
"Oh, you mean by sucking up to old Snake Face? Sorry, Malfoy, but I'm not a coward like you are."
Draco rose to his feet, sneering down at Harry in disgust. "Fuck you, Potter. You think I enjoy being your nursemaid? You can die for all I care." As if to prove a point, he kicked Harry sharply in the gut.
Harry recoiled in shock, curling instinctively into a protective ball, his already jumpy nerves shooting random bursts of pain in his abdomen. He began coughing uncontrollably, a hacking rasp which left a spray of blood on the stone floor.
Peripherally, Harry was aware of Draco crouching back at his side, and was too weak to protest when a hand gripped his shoulder. "Oh my god, Potter, I didn't mean it. You can't die, you just can't." Draco's voice sounded strange, and if Harry hadn't known any better, he would almost have believed that Draco was on the verge of tears.
"Just kill me," Harry managed to gasp, feeling his consciousness beginning to fade. He felt Draco's wand pressing his stomach, heard a soft murmur, and sighed in relief as the pain abated slightly.
"Thank you," Harry said softly, not even caring how entirely twisted it was for him to thank his captor. Opening his eyes once again, Draco's pointy features once again came into focus, his face pinched tightly with something akin to worry. Harry's eyes met his briefly, and the expression was quickly schooled into the usual blank look of disdain.
"Don't thank me," Draco said roughly, pulling back from Harry. "Personally, I couldn't care less, but I doubt the Dark Lord would take kindly to you dying on my watch." He regarded Harry for a moment, an unnamable expression on his face. "Are you able to stand?"
Harry doubted it, but nodded anyway, pulling himself shakily to his feet. He swayed slightly, the stone walls whirring around him like a macabre merry-go-round with flashes of white-blond hair. He heard Draco curse under his breath, then felt an arm drape around his shoulders, steadying him. He leaned against Draco gratefully, once again not caring about the perversity of his gratitude.
"Come on, Potter," Draco said after a moment. "He's waiting." Surely it was only Harry's imagination, but something in his longtime enemy's voice sounded distinctly like regret.
Draco managed to drag Harry up the stairs, stopping occasionally to catch his breath. He felt ribbons of unease tearing through him, a feeling which hadn't left him since the night he was supposed to kill Dumbledore. Victory wasn't supposed to be mingled with guilt, and triumphing over the boy he had hated since age eleven wasn't supposed to be so hollow. It could hardly even be considered a triumph, because triumph was nothing but glory, prestige and power. It didn't look at you with empty green eyes that used to be lit with hatred; it didn't grovel on a filthy stone floor waiting to die. Draco was suddenly struck by a thought; if he could manage to ignite that light again, then maybe all was not lost.
"Hey Potter," Draco whispered silkily as they neared the top of the stairs. "Why don't your friends come and save you? Surely Weasel and your precious Mudblood have thought of some idiotic plan by now?"
He was pleased when Harry angrily shoved his arm off his shoulders. "Don't call her that!" he hissed. Draco almost smiled when Harry, seemingly in a burst of strength, stomped the remainder of the journey unaided.
"Harry, Harry," Voldemort hissed softly, a cold smile on his reptilian face. "Why must you continue to defy me?"
Harry, in spite of feeling as if he could fall over at any second, managed to smile back. "Well, let's see… maybe because you're insane?"
Harry braced himself for the usual burst of pain, but nothing came. Instead, Voldemort was regarding him with a strangely gleeful look. It took only a moment for Harry to realize why.
Three dementors glided ghostlike towards him, and Harry felt the familiar cold fear grip him. Out of habit, he reached for his wand, but of course it wasn't there.
"You can stop this, you know," Voldemort said icily. He, along with the other Death Eaters were all safely behind a wolf Patronus, which bared its teeth as it prowled back and forth to ward off the dementors.
Harry opened his mouth to answer, but found himself paralyzed with fear. The dementors brushed against him with icy fingers, and Harry fell to his knees as his mother's screams filled the air.
"Not Harry!" his mother cried over and over, and all the while Sirius fell through the veil in an endless loop and Dumbledore was struck down again and again by the traitorous Snape.
Harry knew that most prisoners in Azkaban went insane rather quickly, except of course for Sirius, who had been able to take his Animagus form. But unfortunately for Harry, he could no more turn into a dog than a Muggle could turn a teacup into a frog, and he suddenly longed for the welcome release that insanity would surely be.
The dementors lingered around Harry for what felt like hours. For a time he curled into a fetal position on the floor, sobbing bitterly with fear and humiliation. After a while he merely watched the ghostly specters with a vague sort of indifference, the images they conjured no longer filling him with fear. Instead, he felt nothing but a numb apathy, and he wondered if at last, he had gone insane.
Suddenly, the dementors were cast away by someone's Patronus, and a moment later Draco was pulling him back to the dungeons.
Harry allowed himself to be pulled along without a word, finally collapsing onto the hard stones. He shuddered at the loss of human contact, shrinking against the wall.
Draco watched him with a strange expression; his gray eyes almost lost in dark shadows. He raised his wand, and Harry suddenly felt a curious sensation run over his body, almost as if a giant washcloth had brushed over him. Looking down at his hands, he was surprised to see they were no longer coated with grime, and he looked up at Draco questioningly.
Draco shrugged, managing to screw his features into a halfhearted sneer. "I was tired of smelling you, Potter."
Harry simply nodded, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. He felt a weariness that went down to his bones, and pain that seemed to pulsate with every pump of blood. "Don't leave," he managed to whisper sleepily, and he fell asleep before Draco could answer.
But Draco did leave, for he was nowhere to be found when Harry awoke many hours later. A house-elf brought him food and water later that day, watching him nervously before Disapparating out with a crack.
Harry watched the door anxiously. Surely they wouldn't leave him, would they? Anything, even torture, was better than dying of loneliness. He watched the door until his eyelids grew heavy, and he fell into a fitful sleep, the sounds of his mother's screams still ringing in his ears.
Although Harry had no way to keep track of time, he felt as if a week must have passed in which he had no human contact whatsoever. Once, he found himself yelling at the tiny house-elf to stay and talk to him, and it had stared at him with sad doe-eyes before Disapparating.
The room was so cold, as cold as the dementors' hands had been, and Harry shivered in vain, pulling his legs up to his chest for warmth. He could barely manage to eat without retching, so he merely took small sips of water which tasted metallic against his tongue. He was so weak that even his head felt like a cumbersome weight on his neck, so he gingerly lowered himself to the icy floor, no longer able to keep the tears from leaking out of his eyes. Not that it mattered, as there was no one to see him.
Draco opened the door cautiously, afraid of what he would see. On Voldemort's orders, everyone was forbidden contact with Harry Potter for three days, and Draco himself had been kept busy with other duties as if to ensure Harry's solitude.
Harry was lying on his side against the wall, his face pressed into an arm. He raised his head weakly, looking at Draco with dull eyes.
"You left," he rasped accusingly, and Draco was shocked to see tears running silently down his filthy face. Years ago, Draco surely would have pointed and jeered, but now he nearly felt like crying himself.
"Yeah," he said, crouching beside Harry's prone form. "I had to. I…I'm sorry."
Harry's shoulders shook with silent sobs, and Draco knew that Harry could not be well, for the Harry Potter he knew would rather serve a small stint in Azkaban than let Draco Malfoy see him in such a moment of weakness.
Draco gently lifted his face, touching a cheek lightly with the back of his hand. The skin felt inflamed, and he drew his hand back in shock. "Shit, Potter. You're burning up." Harry didn't respond, and Draco pulled himself to his feet with a sigh. Immediately, Harry's hand snaked out, clamping around his leg.
"Please don't leave me again," Harry said in a panicked voice.
"I'll be back," Draco replied, surprised at how soothing his own voice sounded. When Harry's grip didn't loosen, he sighed, continuing. "I need to get you a potion for your fever. I promise I'll be back."
Harry's hand dropped, and Draco turned to leave, uneasy thoughts parading in his mind.