Disclaimer: do not own H.P., in case you hadn't noticed.
Another tortuous potions lesson was just about to end when Harry felt tears forming in his eyes, and he didn't even know why. Beside him, Draco became rigid in his seat. Harry could tell that Draco knew the tears were there. But no way was Harry going to let Draco see them. He simply waved his wand and all his belongings packed themselves into his bag and cauldron. Then he left, holding the droplets in his eyes just long enough to get out.
The strange thing was that Snape, sitting at his desk, did nothing to stop him. He just stared at the parchment in front of him, determined not to catch Harry leaving. This, naturally, confused everyone. Harry didn't notice. Draco was too busy longing for Harry to come back to think about Snape.
Frustrated with himself, Harry decided to descend into the darker, gloomier bottom of the school and brood. He had to do something about this thing with him and Draco. It couldn't go on like this much longer. One of them would go insane. Harry felt it would be him, because Draco's skills at hiding emotions far exceeded his own.
As Harry walked past a particularly gloomy door, he could hear sobbing coming from the room behind it. Hoping someone else's sorrows would divert his mind from his own troubles, Harry opened the door. Inside, Krum was sitting hunched over on a chair. He didn't acknowledge Harry's entrance, and Harry decided to speak to him instead of leaving unnoticed.
"Viktor?" He said tentatively. Krum's head shot up, eyes bloodshot and puffy.
"Vat do you vant?" Krum slurred miserably.
"Why are you crying down here?"
"Coz it is more dignified than crying in the great hall." Krum snapped.
"What happened?"
"Vat does it matter to u?"
"I want to know what reduced the greatest seeker ever to tears."
"You vant to mock me, eh?"
"No. I know what its like to hurt and have no one to speak to. Let me try to help you. It can't hurt." Krum was watching him speak, eyes broody as ever. But then he sighed almost in defeat and lowered his head.
"Draco doesn't deserve you."
"We didn't get together because we deserve to be together. It's because we're in love. And we're not even together anymore. He dumped me. It really hurt."
"Severus-." Krum sniffed despondently. "Severus dumped me. He said I was too immature and a slave to evil. Just coz he's brave enough to lie to the Dark Lord while I am not."
"So why are you still in the castle if he dumped you?"
"Hermione and you."
"What?"
"Hermione hates me, but I can't help loving her. The only reason I flirted with Severus and slept with him was that I have to, according to Voldemort's rules." At the puzzlement on Harry's face, Krum continued to explain. "I am an accessory. I help with what I am needed for. Whatever the job may be, if it is issued by a superior Death Eater, I must obey it."
"And Snape can give you instructions?"
"Yes, but he doesn't. He wasn't the one who told me to sleep with him. He did care about me, until he found out I was with him because Lucious Malfoy told me to."
"You get your orders from Malfoy?" Krum nodded. "And why do I have anything to do with you staying?"
"I have some unfinished business to attend to with you." Krum stood and took out his wand.
"What are you talking about?"
"I told you if you talked to Hermione about me flirting with you, I'd kill you. And you did, didn't you."
"No, I didn't! I swear, I didn't."
"And you led Hermione to the dungeons coz I was with Snape. You ruined me. You're the reason I was crying." Krum raised his wand and a disfiguredly crazy look glazed his eyes. Harry closed his eyes, not bothering to fight. He couldn't fight; he had nothing to fight for. His life meant nothing.
'This is it,' Harry thought. 'Two words, a flash of green light and it will be over. I'll be free.' He waited patiently with his eyes closed, sensing and aching for what was about to occur. His death, his freedom, his escape. At last. Death was his chance to get away from it all; to escape from Dumbledore, Voldemort, the death eaters, the Malfoy's, Draco. He wished he could go back to the potions room and give Draco one last kiss. He hadn't kissed him for days.
But it was too late for that. This was his long awaited finale; this was his death staring him in the face, asking him to come quietly. Harry felt the air thicken and his breathing become more laboured as Krum pointed his want to Harry's motionless figure.
"Lucious taught me this spell. Laceraro Turquere Mutilarum," Krum hissed faintly. Harry didn't have time to be confused. His skull had been split with an axe; he knew it. His head had been totally severed in half. A dazzling pain brought him crashing to the ground, and it didn't dull.
"LACERARO TURQUERE MUTILARUM!" Krum yelled in a crazy voice, his eyes almost red with anger and hate and passion. Passion for destruction. Over and over the words reverberated against the stone walls, and each time they pummelled Harry's ears he felt another cut open somewhere on his flesh, he felt more blood spill.
His face, his arms, his hands, his legs, his stomach, his chest, his throat even, were covered in stomach-churning, ghastly lacerations, some deep when Krum's voice had boomed the cutting spell, others that had formed more slowly, painfully slowly, as Krum jeered almost silently the three words Harry feared. Nothing more than these words did Harry fear. Not death, not Voldemort, not losing Draco, just these poisonous words.
Then a tiny thought ploughed through the pain and made contact with Harry's brain. Was Krum going to do what he said? Would he wait till Harry bled out then 'have his fun with him'? The previous thought made way for just one last thought before Harry blacked out- he hoped Draco never saw his body: cut; bleeding; raped and lifeless. Spare Draco, Harry pleaded to no one in particular. Then his head flopped to the side pathetically and he went limp.
***
Draco was sitting at his desk, head lolling sleepily over his potions write- up. Out of the blue his head snapped up with a jerk and he felt as if his skull had been cracked open like an egg on the edge of a frypan. He held his face in his hands and tried not to yell in pain. He could feel blood pouring from a huge wound on the top of his head. He raised his hands a little, gently brushing them through his hair, searching for the blood and the wound. He found no wound, and when he lowered his hands, there was no blood on them.
Confused and in pain, he stood up, only to feel an incredible pain shuddering through his body, and cuts opening randomly all over him. But as far as he could see, there were no actually cuts, just the burning of them opening over his skin. The rest of the class were watching him in confusion, not sure it this was a lame joke or if Draco had finally done his nut. He stumbled to the front of the room with everyone staring at him and when he reached Snape's desk, his head snapped up and he realised.
"Harry needs me," he stated to himself. Without command from his brain, his legs moved him towards the door, which he hurtled through. Draco felt possessed. He had no idea where his legs, and his mind, were taking him. He just ran like his heart would stop if he paused for a single moment. He was running like a hunted fool, adrenalin pumping through him like some poison.
When he found himself delving deeper in the dungeons, he felt a magnetic pull to one of the rooms. With no idea why he was going there, Draco burst in unannounced, throwing the door against the wall. Krum was standing over the limp, horizontal Harry, laughing madly.
"Laceraro turquere Mutilarum!" Krum breathed, and Draco saw a cut open on Harry's exposed lower leg, a matching pain ablaze on his own leg.
"YOU! GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Draco yelled his command. Krum looked up with a crazy glint in his eyes. Draco raised his wand. "PERTIFICUS TOTALIS!"
Krum flew backwards into the wall and slide to ground, paralysed by an excessively passionate bodybind spell. The adrenaline was replaced with pure cold dread as Draco walked to Harry's side, fearing that Harry was already gone. But when he leant down beside the bleeding boy, his chest was still rising and falling and Draco could hear the tiniest breaths escaping Harry's lips.
He wrapped his arms around Harry, trying to scoop him up from the ground. Suddenly Draco felt as though his hair and skin was on fire. Harry moaned in pain, regaining consciousness as he felt the same pain Draco did. Thinking it was Krum, Draco looked at him, but he was still on the ground, unmoving.
With a whirl of colours surrounding them, an incantation- 'Transporta Attrahere'- echoed in their ears. Draco and semi-comatosed, injured and confused Harry found that they were no longer in the room with Viktor Krum. Instead, Harry looked up at the unfamiliar marble walls and pillars, graceful and elegant, tho somehow dark. For a moment he thought it must be heaven, but then he saw Draco and threw his arms around him. Draco peered around fearfully, pushing Harry off him gently, feeling it was time for wands not hugs.
"Where are we?" Harry whimpered. He assumed that because Draco was afraid he must know where they were, and, therefore, the dangers here. The blonde gulped.
"The Malfoy Manor."
Another tortuous potions lesson was just about to end when Harry felt tears forming in his eyes, and he didn't even know why. Beside him, Draco became rigid in his seat. Harry could tell that Draco knew the tears were there. But no way was Harry going to let Draco see them. He simply waved his wand and all his belongings packed themselves into his bag and cauldron. Then he left, holding the droplets in his eyes just long enough to get out.
The strange thing was that Snape, sitting at his desk, did nothing to stop him. He just stared at the parchment in front of him, determined not to catch Harry leaving. This, naturally, confused everyone. Harry didn't notice. Draco was too busy longing for Harry to come back to think about Snape.
Frustrated with himself, Harry decided to descend into the darker, gloomier bottom of the school and brood. He had to do something about this thing with him and Draco. It couldn't go on like this much longer. One of them would go insane. Harry felt it would be him, because Draco's skills at hiding emotions far exceeded his own.
As Harry walked past a particularly gloomy door, he could hear sobbing coming from the room behind it. Hoping someone else's sorrows would divert his mind from his own troubles, Harry opened the door. Inside, Krum was sitting hunched over on a chair. He didn't acknowledge Harry's entrance, and Harry decided to speak to him instead of leaving unnoticed.
"Viktor?" He said tentatively. Krum's head shot up, eyes bloodshot and puffy.
"Vat do you vant?" Krum slurred miserably.
"Why are you crying down here?"
"Coz it is more dignified than crying in the great hall." Krum snapped.
"What happened?"
"Vat does it matter to u?"
"I want to know what reduced the greatest seeker ever to tears."
"You vant to mock me, eh?"
"No. I know what its like to hurt and have no one to speak to. Let me try to help you. It can't hurt." Krum was watching him speak, eyes broody as ever. But then he sighed almost in defeat and lowered his head.
"Draco doesn't deserve you."
"We didn't get together because we deserve to be together. It's because we're in love. And we're not even together anymore. He dumped me. It really hurt."
"Severus-." Krum sniffed despondently. "Severus dumped me. He said I was too immature and a slave to evil. Just coz he's brave enough to lie to the Dark Lord while I am not."
"So why are you still in the castle if he dumped you?"
"Hermione and you."
"What?"
"Hermione hates me, but I can't help loving her. The only reason I flirted with Severus and slept with him was that I have to, according to Voldemort's rules." At the puzzlement on Harry's face, Krum continued to explain. "I am an accessory. I help with what I am needed for. Whatever the job may be, if it is issued by a superior Death Eater, I must obey it."
"And Snape can give you instructions?"
"Yes, but he doesn't. He wasn't the one who told me to sleep with him. He did care about me, until he found out I was with him because Lucious Malfoy told me to."
"You get your orders from Malfoy?" Krum nodded. "And why do I have anything to do with you staying?"
"I have some unfinished business to attend to with you." Krum stood and took out his wand.
"What are you talking about?"
"I told you if you talked to Hermione about me flirting with you, I'd kill you. And you did, didn't you."
"No, I didn't! I swear, I didn't."
"And you led Hermione to the dungeons coz I was with Snape. You ruined me. You're the reason I was crying." Krum raised his wand and a disfiguredly crazy look glazed his eyes. Harry closed his eyes, not bothering to fight. He couldn't fight; he had nothing to fight for. His life meant nothing.
'This is it,' Harry thought. 'Two words, a flash of green light and it will be over. I'll be free.' He waited patiently with his eyes closed, sensing and aching for what was about to occur. His death, his freedom, his escape. At last. Death was his chance to get away from it all; to escape from Dumbledore, Voldemort, the death eaters, the Malfoy's, Draco. He wished he could go back to the potions room and give Draco one last kiss. He hadn't kissed him for days.
But it was too late for that. This was his long awaited finale; this was his death staring him in the face, asking him to come quietly. Harry felt the air thicken and his breathing become more laboured as Krum pointed his want to Harry's motionless figure.
"Lucious taught me this spell. Laceraro Turquere Mutilarum," Krum hissed faintly. Harry didn't have time to be confused. His skull had been split with an axe; he knew it. His head had been totally severed in half. A dazzling pain brought him crashing to the ground, and it didn't dull.
"LACERARO TURQUERE MUTILARUM!" Krum yelled in a crazy voice, his eyes almost red with anger and hate and passion. Passion for destruction. Over and over the words reverberated against the stone walls, and each time they pummelled Harry's ears he felt another cut open somewhere on his flesh, he felt more blood spill.
His face, his arms, his hands, his legs, his stomach, his chest, his throat even, were covered in stomach-churning, ghastly lacerations, some deep when Krum's voice had boomed the cutting spell, others that had formed more slowly, painfully slowly, as Krum jeered almost silently the three words Harry feared. Nothing more than these words did Harry fear. Not death, not Voldemort, not losing Draco, just these poisonous words.
Then a tiny thought ploughed through the pain and made contact with Harry's brain. Was Krum going to do what he said? Would he wait till Harry bled out then 'have his fun with him'? The previous thought made way for just one last thought before Harry blacked out- he hoped Draco never saw his body: cut; bleeding; raped and lifeless. Spare Draco, Harry pleaded to no one in particular. Then his head flopped to the side pathetically and he went limp.
***
Draco was sitting at his desk, head lolling sleepily over his potions write- up. Out of the blue his head snapped up with a jerk and he felt as if his skull had been cracked open like an egg on the edge of a frypan. He held his face in his hands and tried not to yell in pain. He could feel blood pouring from a huge wound on the top of his head. He raised his hands a little, gently brushing them through his hair, searching for the blood and the wound. He found no wound, and when he lowered his hands, there was no blood on them.
Confused and in pain, he stood up, only to feel an incredible pain shuddering through his body, and cuts opening randomly all over him. But as far as he could see, there were no actually cuts, just the burning of them opening over his skin. The rest of the class were watching him in confusion, not sure it this was a lame joke or if Draco had finally done his nut. He stumbled to the front of the room with everyone staring at him and when he reached Snape's desk, his head snapped up and he realised.
"Harry needs me," he stated to himself. Without command from his brain, his legs moved him towards the door, which he hurtled through. Draco felt possessed. He had no idea where his legs, and his mind, were taking him. He just ran like his heart would stop if he paused for a single moment. He was running like a hunted fool, adrenalin pumping through him like some poison.
When he found himself delving deeper in the dungeons, he felt a magnetic pull to one of the rooms. With no idea why he was going there, Draco burst in unannounced, throwing the door against the wall. Krum was standing over the limp, horizontal Harry, laughing madly.
"Laceraro turquere Mutilarum!" Krum breathed, and Draco saw a cut open on Harry's exposed lower leg, a matching pain ablaze on his own leg.
"YOU! GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Draco yelled his command. Krum looked up with a crazy glint in his eyes. Draco raised his wand. "PERTIFICUS TOTALIS!"
Krum flew backwards into the wall and slide to ground, paralysed by an excessively passionate bodybind spell. The adrenaline was replaced with pure cold dread as Draco walked to Harry's side, fearing that Harry was already gone. But when he leant down beside the bleeding boy, his chest was still rising and falling and Draco could hear the tiniest breaths escaping Harry's lips.
He wrapped his arms around Harry, trying to scoop him up from the ground. Suddenly Draco felt as though his hair and skin was on fire. Harry moaned in pain, regaining consciousness as he felt the same pain Draco did. Thinking it was Krum, Draco looked at him, but he was still on the ground, unmoving.
With a whirl of colours surrounding them, an incantation- 'Transporta Attrahere'- echoed in their ears. Draco and semi-comatosed, injured and confused Harry found that they were no longer in the room with Viktor Krum. Instead, Harry looked up at the unfamiliar marble walls and pillars, graceful and elegant, tho somehow dark. For a moment he thought it must be heaven, but then he saw Draco and threw his arms around him. Draco peered around fearfully, pushing Harry off him gently, feeling it was time for wands not hugs.
"Where are we?" Harry whimpered. He assumed that because Draco was afraid he must know where they were, and, therefore, the dangers here. The blonde gulped.
"The Malfoy Manor."
