Unwinding

Harry was in trouble and he knew it.

He tore down the corridor, stumbling in the unfamiliar dungeons, desperate and reckless in his search—sanctity—solitude—he needed it now.

He found it in the form of a broom cupboard that stank of decay, throwing himself inside despite the stench and slamming the door shut, barely flinching as his magic crackled of its own volition and cast a Locking Charm, he was too preoccupied with what his body was doing. His breath came hitching in small gasps, sweat made his robes cling to his back, but it was not from the dash to this place, it was not even from the fear of running out on one of Snape's detentions, or the rancid odor of the cramped space he'd forced himself into.

It was all heat, rushing and roaring like a firework gone mad inside him, the threads of the curse, its burning fuse as it sang with a cacophony of pleasure. It felt so good—too good, he knew, but he couldn't think past the scent of mint wafting about his seemingly empty, dizzied head like a fog, a voice whispering through it, purring and promising.

"I forgive you. You're a very good elf; don't worry. You serve your master well in fact; you're your master's favorite."

Why did he have to say that? Making him bow—that wonderful, terrible sensation of the ultimate show of submission to his master, Merlin, Harry had thought he could survive that, but then the prat had to go on to say that he was his favorite. That had simply been too much.

"Fuck,"

Malfoy had made him hard.

It was mad to think about it, that nothing more than a whisper of words and a chaste touch had done this to him. Why should it? House elves couldn't possibly do feel this all the time? Had the curse somehow addled with his libido? He glared down at the offending bulge in his trousers but saw nothing but grey, Malfoy's December sky eyes that made him long for the warm embrace of his body, the smell of spearmint on his skin and the taste of sweat and blood.

He swore again, fighting the pulse of his own body now that implored him to do something with the same irresistible tug of the strings entangled within him. He did do something; he thought about how wrong it was, how right it felt, how stupid it was for him to be in this situation in the first place and how much he would hate himself after he was cured.

But, giving in for this split second, he mostly thought of Malfoy.

He reached down, hand sliding down his chest, abdomen and finally his waistband, setting off a wildfire beneath his fingers. Carefully, tentatively, as if waiting to be caught and accused, likely by his own guilty mind that was too hazed at the moment to take notice to what he was doing, he palmed himself through his trousers, biting his bloodied lip. He remembered Malfoy's gentle fingers on his jaw and his merciless hands in his hair, he imagined them clutching at his head now, fingers tight and grasping as Harry served his Master with an inexperienced tongue and abused lips curling around—

He moaned, the sound muffled in the abruptly stifling room, his hands blindly fumbling at his zipper as he pressed his back further into the cool wall, pretending that it was a hard body he was leaning into, lips skimming over his neck, smirking and bruised. His hand found its way into his pants and wrapped flush around his aching cock, but his clumsy, Quidditch callused hands were nothing like Malfoy's slender, smooth, talented fingers. He groaned, not knowing whether it was from pleasure, frustration, or mortification as he longed for Draco Malfoy's hands to wank him off.

It was disgusting; tossing off in a filthy broom cupboard in the dungeons to thoughts, fantasies about Draco Malfoy, and yet, past his rational self, into the curse, and maybe, if he was being honest, past the curse itself, he loved it. He gasped as he pressed his thumb to the slit at the head of his cock, feeling the pearly pre-come beading out, and then began to stroke himself slowly, pace quickening as words sprung unbidden to his bloodied lips, profanities and pleas, but one word repeated, over and over, ultimately sending him over the edge and spiraling like a rogue firework into the most mind blowing orgasm he'd ever had.

"Master!" he cried out as he came spectacularly into his hand, and he still murmured it reverently as he rode out the last fizzling waves, thrusting into his slickened hand.

It was only ten minutes later leaning on the slimy wall in the cramped space, feeling sticky and sated, did he realize what he said and what effect it still had on him, making his spent cock stir even after the fantastic wank.

Draco Malfoy, his Master.

He felt more tainted now than he had in the hospital wing when he thought he was infected with some deadly, incurable disease. This seemed worse, both deadly and incurable, and deeper, like a parasitic tumor sitting on his conscious, feeding him bursts of pleasant warmth through the ice-cold guilt and unpleasant heat in his face.

He wondered why everything had to be so difficult for him, why he couldn't just love Ginny like he was supposed to and not fancy blokes.

Not fancy Malfoy especially.

But he didn't fancy Malfoy, the curse just did, and if Harry happened to like the way he smelled and the color of his eyes, it most certainly did not mean that Harry fancied Malfoy.

He straightened, casting a Cleansing Charm, staring dully at his wand and briefly considering trying to Scorgify his brain or simply Obliviate himself.

That would have made facing the Slytherin whose very name had just made him come much easier.

He opened the door with a mutter of a spell, peering out into the torch-lit corridor, the darkness of the dungeons more palpable than any other part of the castle, especially in Slytherin territory, the shadows seemed solid, the chill in the air creeping and silent, like a specter slinking across the stone, nearing him, drawing ever closer—

"There you are,"

Harry started, whirling about and nearly poking Malfoy's eye with his wand, who stood unfazed but for an annoyed look, though a smirk pulled at his lips as Harry's chest heaved from both the simple sight of the blond and the fright.

Malfoy was like a light in the dark, his white-blond hair like a beacon in the darkness, pale skin glowing in an almost unearthly way, reminding Harry of stark white skies in January, though his stormy eyes still swam with the coldness of the dungeon and dark secrets it held. No matter how chilled his gaze or the gloom around them, a part of the curse threaded inside him sparked with warmth.

Harry must have been staring like an idiot because the smile faded as Malfoy rolled his eyes, dispersing the vision of unearthly beauty and conjuring the prat Harry knew and scarcely tolerated.

"Really Potter, a simple order stupefied you that much? Can't stand the humiliation?" he sneered.

Harry frowned at the tightening of the curse, "It's not that," he snapped truthfully, hoping Malfoy wouldn't ask just what it was then.

"Well come then, we've been ordered to the library to the book-cleaving, bushy-haired bi—" Malfoy silenced at the threatening flick of Harry wand, turning to prowl into the darkness of the dungeon.

"What about detention?" Harry asked, trotting to catch up to Malfoy's long-legged strides.

"I told Severus that you were going to be ill so I ordered you out of the room. I wouldn't want you to retch all over his delicate ingredients, naturally, don't question it." he added firmly and Harry felt the disbelief and suspicion flare through the cold. He fully expected another months worth of evenings in the dungeons for daring to skive one of Snape's detentions, so naturally he took Malfoy's words as a blatant lie, but the curse had stitched his lips together, he been told not to question it, but he had to question something.

"Why do you call Snape Severus?" he blurted and didn't back down from the disdaining, if not baffled look Malfoy gave him.

"Well, He's my godfather; it's odd to call him anything else." He said slowly, and then smiled, "I believe I've out grown calling him 'Uncle Sev'rus'."

Harry couldn't imagine the Dungeon Bat being called anything as childish as 'Uncle Sev'rus' without poisoning whoever dare utter such a thing. It was also hard to envision a young little Malfoy, unable to pronounce the Potions professor's name. This also made him wonder how close Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape were for Lucius to name him the godfather of his son, though he supposed Death Eaters would be relatively close, it explained why Snape especially favored Malfoy and not all the little Death Eaters in training anyway.

This made him think of Lucius Malfoy, away in Azkaban, the place Harry had put him last summer. Lucius was obviously a Death Eater indeed, Harry had suspected it all along, but had his son known? Did Draco want to follow his father's footsteps? Was he walking along side a Death Eater now?

He stared at Malfoy, who seemed more relaxed in the dungeons than any other place in the castle, walking with both his familiar swagger and an eased air, even as he stood inches away from his arch enemy. Wouldn't he have already killed him if he were? Ordered Harry to turn himself into his precious Dark Lord?

The walked in silence all the way to the library, Malfoy trapped in his own thoughts as Harry witnessed his demeanor become more and more minutely defensive as the ascended toward the library. A part of Harry, obviously the one drunken to insanity through the wrappings of the curse, didn't want Malfoy to have to worry and be on the defense. Harry was here to protect him, so his Master shouldn't—

He growled at his thoughts and blinked when he realized they'd reached the library, it was largely empty but for a few diligent Ravenclaws buried in their books. Hermione fit in perfectly among them, again occupying the space he suspected Malfoy usually claimed as his own from the way his eyes narrowed and lip curled. It was a convenient spot for their situation, hidden from prying eyes and silenced by dust and thick, forgotten pages.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked as they sat down. It would have been much easier to dispel the disgustingly groveling thoughts he was having about Malfoy if he could draw off Ron's temper toward the Slytherin.

"He better be studying," Hermione replied, she was steadily forgiving Ron now, "But he wouldn't have wanted to come even if he wasn't."

She sent a pointed look toward Malfoy, who merely sneered and Harry rolled his eyes. The buzz from his…misadventure in the broom cupboard was fading and the weariness of the day was dragging down on him. He just wanted to flop into bed and not think about Malfoy. In fact, forgetting this entire day wouldn't be unwelcome.

"Well, then," Hermione said briskly, opening her little leather-bound book with a scowl, "Let's get started then, shall we?"

"Started on what, precisely, Granger?" Malfoy drawled, "Do I get to make Potter do things again?"

"No," she said sharply, effectively making his eager smile drop, "It's purely research today."

"Well, that's no fun."

"Stop pouting Malfoy, its nauseating."

Malfoy glared at him and Harry just stared back. It honestly was nauseating; the curse was writhing with need to do something—something fun—apparently to please his master. After giving in earlier, it seemed the curse was taking advantage of his weakened will and trying to make him be the perfect little slave, forgoing the need for direct orders and pulling him to serve Malfoy's every need.

He hated it.

"Anyway," Hermione said loudly, drawing their attention, "I've been speaking with Professor McGonagall and she seems to think my mistake was probably in the incantation."

"What was the incantation again?" Harry asked.

"Purus Sanguine Nolle Tenetur,"

Yes, that was it indeed. His blood seemed to prickle at the words, and they rang like a harp's high note on the curse, echoing and haunting.

"'Pure blood unwillingly bound'?" Malfoy murmured, and Harry and Hermione's eyes snapped to him incredulously.

"What?" he grumbled, shifting back in his chair, "I've studied Latin, it's a pure-blood tradition. But anyway, shouldn't something have been added to the end of that?"

"Why's it even say 'pure-blood'?" Harry demanded.

Hermione watched them for a moment, before lowering her gaze, eyes shining in defeat and Harry immediately felt guilty.

"It probably should, yes." She said softly, "And as for the pure-blood bit, I've told you, Harry, that it was meant to break the bond between a house elf and their pure-blood master, that's the only part I've mastered, except…"

She looked up at Harry and he was afraid she might cry again in front of Malfoy, he balled a fist, ready to punch him again, harder, if he were to dare laugh at her even if Harry was tired of her weepiness. She took a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together and plowed on tearlessly, however.

"That's where my definite mistake was, Harry became bonded to the first pure-blood he stumbled into and that was Malfoy."

"So when Potter was falling all over himself and I caught him, he became my house elf then?" Malfoy inquired lightly.

"Yes," Hermione frowned.

"Brilliant, now I'm actually glad I let you touch me, Potter."

Harry glowered at the bookshelf but refrained to mention how physical Malfoy had been lately, all that chin touching and hair grabbing, not to mention his lack of respect for personal space.

He convinced himself that the gooseflesh pebbling his arms was from revulsion.

~o0o~

The way Granger had told them about the curse, it was unlikely it would be broken anytime soon, so Draco could enjoy having the Boy Who Lived as his house elf for a long time to come it seemed.

And wasn't that fun? At least when the Golden Git didn't punch him, that is. The rest of the night he'd been subdued, likely from Granger's unfortunate news, brooding on his own thoughts with a distant look about him. He complied to Draco's every command with a minimal amount of flustering and not a single glare. Admittedly, he was warily subtle about it, but it was obvious enough for even the ever-oblivious Weasel to realize he was being ordered about. A dropped quill, a carried cloak, Merlin, he'd even gotten Potter to tie his shoe for him! Although now said shoe was in knots that even Draco's more crafty spells couldn't untie didn't discourage him. Potter's indomitable will seemed to be weakening under the curse and Draco was positively delighted, if not almost concerned. Wasn't Potter supposed to be the one to defeat the Dark Lord and in turn earn Draco his freedom?

That was the only thing they shared now, Draco mused as he flopped into bed unceremoniously, the undying will to be free. A curse hung over the both of them, deeper than even the one entangled within Potter.

Expectation is a terrible thing.

Draco soon learned that even though Potter was hopelessly bound by a curse that took away his will on Draco's will, his own indomitable will was still just that—indomitable.

The detentions continued, as did the fruitless research parties with the Mudblood in the library, rather, in his corner of the library that expressly belonged to him and he was graciously allowing them to use. Honestly he was glad it was only he and the Gryffindor Trio that knew about the curse. After all, expectation was a terrible thing and he didn't know if he would be able to comply with the rest of Slytherin's demand for Potter's punishment for just being Potter.

Draco knew that the curse was punishment in itself from the look in Potter's eyes whenever he caught himself using the word 'Master' (to Draco's delight) or effortlessly, almost absently tending to Draco's needs, handing him quills or conjuring him a drink when his voice grew particularly hoarse from ruthlessly cutting down Granger's theories about pure-bloods, or simply from scorning Potter himself.

But he did have an image to keep up, along with a hatred toward Potter. He also took a guilty pleasure in watching him fight, straining against the ties of the curse and glaring at Draco with a fiery hatred. Draco liked that heat, that passion; he'd grown quite tired of cold looks, being in Slytherin after all.

So these detentions, long, cold, and dull, and the meetings, shorter, duller, and maddeningly useless, led to conversations, conversations that did not, for once, end with names being called and glares exchanged.

It started with a question, one that was never exactly answered.

"Are you going to be playing Quidditch?" Potter asked, idly flipping through Quidditch Through the Ages for the hundredth-some time. Draco wondered if he'd ever read anything else.

"Haven't your followers made you captain this year?" he countered, he himself reading a novel Pansy had forced into his hands.

"Yeah, they have." Potter answered without batting an eye. Draco found it harder to get a rise out of him as of lately. He supposed Potter was just getting used to his quipping.

"And the Weaslette is a Chaser, yeah?"

"Why do you always call her that? You're so awful to her."

Maybe not quite.

"I've a hoard of other pet names, if you'd prefer Potter." he drawled. It was true, he'd taken strong, meaning boundless and never-ending, hatred toward her since she'd slapped Potter. Although that should make him like her more, it didn't. At all.

"Shove off," Potter remarked dully, flipping another page and sighing.

"You going to go into professional Quidditch then? I'm sure every team would clamor at the chance to have Harry bloody Potter on their team." He asked, heaving a sigh of his own and wondering when they'd be released, Draco was growing almost bored of taunting Potter.

"Dunno. It all matters,"

If I live, hung in the silence between them and Draco nodded.

"Yeah, me too."

After that, the quiet was less like a screamingly obvious thing and more…amicable, almost. It was never a cold thing though, like the reveries when he spoke to a fellow Slytherin, it was always warm with mutual thoughts, be they morbid or not. Draco liked Potter's heat about everything, even when it wasn't merely getting a rise out of him, he was always quietly smoldering about something, his cause, his loyalty, he was a Gryffindor after all, meaning completely transparent, through and through.

He was burned though, the day Blaise got detention with Snape for doing any number of devious things. Draco supposed it was probably hexing a Gryffindor the way Potter was glaring at Blaise, and the way Blaise smiled back cheekily. Draco resigned himself to an evening of shameless gossip instead of his and Potter's short, meaningless conversations that either escaladed into shouting matches and ruthless orders, or simply remained on the subject of the weather or Quidditch.

"What're you in for Blaise, dear?" He asked, "What curse did you use?"

"I'm offended, Draco Malfoy, for you to assume I'd be so barbaric as to hex a fellow student." Blaise scoffed, but went on unabashedly as he draped himself in the chair beside Draco, "It was a Leg-Locker curse on a Hufflepuff."

"Excellent, choice as always." Draco nodded and Potter snorted from his place in front of them.

"What about you, love?" Blaise inquired, sneering at the back of Potter's bedraggled head. "You've been here nearly a week now."

"The Chosen One here got in a mood and decided to take it out on me." He slipped into the familiar, cold snarl easily, "We exchanged respective blows and Severus found us."

"Ah," Blaise said, but gave him a suspicious look that Draco faced with his usual disdaining façade. Blaise knew that Draco didn't usually lower himself to physical violence, head on at that instead of sneaky blows from behind, but when it came to Potter, many of his standards were dropped.

Blaise pointed that out far too often for Draco to be comfortable.

"So then Potter's causing havoc again, is he?" Blaise murmured, his voice carrying easily through the cavernous classroom. Potter shifted somewhat but made no response. Draco knew in that one twitch, Potter was summoning all the restraint he had.

"He seems to have been off lately, hasn't he Draco?"

"Seems so, didn't he have that little row with the Weaslette? Personally I think the papers were right last year, he's losing it." Draco agreed, smirking when Potter tensed further, he could practically hear his fingers curling into the battered cover of Quidditch Through the Ages.

"From what I hear, they're not such a couple anymore." Blaise drawled, voice rising as he grinned at Potter's back, which was suddenly painfully still.

"Why's that?" Draco asked, his interest infuriatingly piqued, vehemently denied all sorrow at the fact that Potter was a homophobe. He only happened to like it when Potter swore, and that was only because it was so rare that it was fascinating…in an arousing sort of way.

"Well, Pans says that Queenie heard from that Goldstein Hufflepuff that dated the Weaslette said that she said she has concerns about her poor Boy Who Lived."

"Do tell, whatever flaw could Perfect Potter have?"

"It seems the he has a disinterest in snogging and the like, although he's not without his desires."

"Potter's a two-timer?" Draco gasped.

"No, not exactly." Blaise muttered mysteriously.

"What are you on about?"

"Well, according to the Weaslette herself, he's simply not interested in girls."

"You mean he's that much of a Saint he's—"

"Draco, he's one of us, love."

"What do you mean by that?" Draco asked slowly, watching from the corner of his eye as Potter stayed frozen but for the twitching of his hands on his book.

"Love, need I spell it out? Unbelievable as it may be, Potter's a ponce."

The world seemed to freeze for a moment, the echo of a dropped book ringing through the silence that followed. This silence was more than warm in the drafty dungeons, it was scorching. Potter was very, very angry and he had every right to be because once Pansy found out about something, the entire castle was soon to follow.

"Is it true then, Potter?" Blaise called, Draco seemed to be the only one that noticed the temperature rising, Potter's fury pressing down on him. Evidently the ability to sense Potter's swinging moods came with familiarity and as much as Draco was loathe to admit it, over the past weeks of detentions he'd become more familiar with Potter than he ever thought he would.

"Answer him, Potter." Draco ordered, he suddenly wanted to know the answer himself, after all hadn't Potter called him a shirt-lifter? Draco wanted to know more than just Potter's favorite Quidditch team or why he wore mismatching socks on occasion.

And Potter fought, for the first time in awhile, the muscles on his neck standing out and his head twitching to the side, hands clasping so hard to the edges of the table that Draco thought he might fling it over or break it in two.

"Yes," he snapped at last, and Blaise raised his brows appraisingly, scorning the Gryffindor need to tell the truth. It was only Draco who knew Potter would have loved to have lied through his teeth, if he could.

"How long?" Blaise asked, but Potter didn't answer, or even turn around. Blaise's voice didn't have a hold on him.

But Draco's did, a dangerous hold like a noose around both their necks, even if he wasn't commanding him.

"Why is it anyway Potter? Is it because the Weaslette is so much like a bloke that you fancy—"

It wasn't a fist that hit him this time like in the courtyard or with a wall of Potter in the corridor, this was what he was far more familiar, a blast of magic. It threw him out on his seat and skidding across the table behind him, finally landing on his arse with a skull-jarring thud. It was like a long forgotten reflex as he sprang up, brandishing his wand and casting something vicious Potter's way. Potter blocked it with a Protego, but Draco blundered on, storming closer and closer as he hurled curse after curse, blocked hex after hex, until he was close enough to feel Potter's angry breath huffing out.

Potter's wand dug into his ribs and Draco jammed his in the same place, both glaring each other down with barred teeth and nasty hexes on the tips of their tongues. But no more spells were cast, not even insults exchanged as they stood, motionless and out of breath. All the thoughts of ordering Potter off the Astronomy Tower faded from Draco's head when that freshly laundered smell attacked him like an enchantment, like linens hanging in the breeze of a green spring day, green like the color of Potters eyes, so close…

The animosity, the heat had shifted, into something more feral, the silence roaring in his ears and punctuated by every sharp breath Potter took. Potter's lips were still torn from his infuriatingly attractive habit of nibbling on them when uncomfortable, which seemed to be quite often now. They looked like they needed to be soothed, worked over by a pair soft as satin and immaculately unharmed.

Draco never bit his lips.

He could have said any number of words, any numbers of orders to get his way at that moment so that he could leave this detention happy and sated, but he didn't, in a fluke split second of altruism, he didn't take what he wanted.

Instead of pressing them to Potter's he curled his lips into a sneer and murmured, "What you said about the Weaslette is true you know. Though she may be as flat as a ten-year-old boy, she still can manage to shag any guy she wants. Except for you, that is, Potter. I bet that just broke her heart and sent her flying to Anthony Goldstein's cock, didn't it?"

It was hurtful and cutting and true if the look in Potter's eyes were anything to go by. Those eyes, verdant and passionate, were that last thing he saw before, with a jolt of pain, everything went as black as his tainted, sardonic and shriveled heart.

~o0o~

A/N~ Thanks for reading, please review!