What is the nature of the divine? I used to ask myself that. It would have been better, I think, not to find out.
It isn't an easy thing to be the chosen of a god but once you have been nothing else will ever do.
The gods ruin us.
. . . . . . . . . .
Snow looked pretty from the window in Tom's office. You could forget how deadly it was when a fire crackled across the room and your bare feet sunk into soft carpets. The past three weeks had brought home the truth of how snow burned. How cold burned. Draco shivered how as he kept his eyes on the sheets of white.
He'd spent weeks in that cold. Harry knew how to keep a tent warm, but never warm enough. Hermione had a steely resolve that pushed them through nights where he'd been sure they would die. They'd found their target and taken care of it. A long walk out. A long walk back. Warm toes still surprised him and they'd been back three days.
Tom had taken their report from Hermione and hadn't sent for him. The whistle around his neck had stayed cold.
Ron had watched him toy with it and said, "I don't know why you let him make you dance to his tune."
"We've all got demons," Hermione had said fiercely. "Leave Draco alone." She'd set a hand on his shoulder and he'd leaned into that touch. Why couldn't he love her? Why couldn't he look at her mouth and feel the things he felt when Tom passed his knife from hand to hand? She didn't ask anything from him other than he be himself. Why wasn't it enough?
He'd watched her slap someone so hard once he'd buckled under the force of her palm. She'd added words that should have cut her victim's soul to ribbons but all he'd done was laugh and grab her hand to kiss the palm. Draco knew she had a cruel streak under her self-righteous streak. He'd felt it often enough when they'd been children. She just never turned it on him anymore. She never would again.
Tom would. Did.
Draco could feel Tom's measuring eyes on his skin. One step into the office and he'd betrayed every promise he'd made to himself to stop this, to wrest free of this man. All Tom had to do was ask if he'd missed him and Draco could hear himself say, "Yes."
The horrible thing was that he had.
He'd taken off his shirt and stood, unmoving, as Tom ran a finger over the burn. The skin had calmed and healed under a gentle touch that took away the proof he'd been missed in turn. "Someday I may let you keep a scar," Tom said and Draco shivered. Was that a promise or a threat? That was when he had turned away and pretended he was fascinated by the snow.
He'd be happy to never see snow again. It would figure that his hell was an icy one.
"I missed you as well."
Draco told himself the way goose pimples rose on his arms and shivers thrilled down the back of his legs was because it was too cold, even with the fire, to be standing around without a shirt. The way he paid attention to every sound was because he'd been in the field and awareness could be the difference between life and death. It wasn't because he strained to hear Tom move around the room, wasn't because he followed every footstep sinking into that thick carpet until a hand traced a line down the skin he wasn't allowed to keep as anything but flawless.
"How would you like me to hurt you?" Tom asked. "You surely deserve some kind of reward after your exemplary performance." Draco could hear his voice rattle out in a shudder and he could feel his nails dig into palms in fists he didn't remember clenching.
"I don't want you to hurt me," Draco said. "This isn't - "
He stopped at the feeling of the knife. "I should order some of the older Death Eaters to beat you for lying to me," Tom said. He didn't start to cut. He just held the knife and Draco just didn't step away. Tom had moved so close Draco could feel the heat of him hovering just out of reach. If he moved back into the point the blade he'd step into an embrace. If he stepped away he'd be free of this. The metal of his whistle would never wake him again with its agony. He could go back to his room and Harry's relieved eyes and Hermione's kiss to his temple and no one would ever tell him no. He'd probably even still be Tom's feared assistant. He'd come to this room every day and Tom would put his mind to work solving problems and maneuvering to place all of them into eternal power. He'd be a respected, powerful member of this world and no one would ever hold a knife to his throat. The only sensible thing to do was to move forward.
He stepped back.
Tom moved the knife as he pushed back against it so it just hurt, the metal sliding into the top layer of his skin and pulling a gasp from his open mouth, but held it back from gutting him. At least this time.
"Good boy," Tom said. "Let's try this again. How do you want me to hurt you? The knife, or do you have other things you dream of when you wake up at three in the morning?"
"Please don't make me choose." Draco forced the words out. Having to ask, having to be an active participant in his own destruction made it worse. He hated having to beg for even this small mercy.
Tom set the hand that wasn't holding the knife around his throat and began to press and Draco tipped his head back until he had it back against the other man's shoulder, tears in eyes that looked unblinkingly at the plaster ceiling. The angels that had been cast into it when the manor had been built stared down at him as he clung to Tom and asked for everything the man did to him.
. . . . . . . . .
I assume you think by now that you would never do this. You tell yourself that I'm sick and you're well.
We all have demons.
Don't lie to yourself.