Wow - I am so annoyed at myself for writing this, while I am glad to have FINALLY gotten out another chapter... I was supposed to be doing my assingment!!! I went to open a file for the assignment, but I saw this instead, thought I'd just have a quick look - now I don't even remember what I meant to open in the first place, I frustrate myself sooooooooo much! lol
Anyways, this chapter is dedicated to PaintTheNight, who was quite right in thinking that I had somewhat given up on writing fanfic... actually I'm thinking I might call this a ...12? shot and leave the rest to your imaginations, because it does at least sound somewhat wrapped up at the end of this chapter, well I think so anyway.
I'll stop rambling now, enjoy :D
It caused a weird jolt in my stomach and I vaulted off the couch as if stung. I turned where I had landed, staring at him unseeingly with my chest heaving as I tried to get control of myself. Part of me was yelling 'what the hell did I do last night' and trying to connect images that the couch had triggered coming back to me, but they only increasingly panicked me. Another part of myself was calmly trying to lull me back onto the couch and into reasonability with 'just sit back down, he's the Dark Lord, he can do whatever he wants, would you rather be dead?' The problem was, I wasn't so sure, or at least I was having trouble convincing myself that I wouldn't rather be dead then sitting on that couch allowing myself to be molested.
All the while as I stood terrorized and torturing myself the Dark Lord gazed evenly back at me, never having moved at all, just waiting for me to look at him I guess, but I wasn't really looking at anything anyway.
"Draco" he called gently, but he may as well have screamed it for the way it shocked me out of my soliloquising stupor. My eyes moved up to focus on his and I started moving back towards him automatically, unable to properly catch my breath as I told myself I was doing the right thing, what I knew was required of me.
Then suddenly, I was lying on the couch, propped against the armrest, the Dark Lord perched beside me trying to pour water in my mouth. I coughed and spluttered a bit, waking up properly and staring bashfully at the man above me.
"Drink Draco, you are quite unwell" he stated matter-of-factly, offering me the glass of water which I took and continued to drink "you fainted, I expect due to magical exhaustion".
'Yeah right', I thought disbelievingly, but managed to keep it to myself. He leaned back and watched me sip slowly from the cup for a moment, one of his hands just resting on my stomach, playing idly over the fabric covering my belly button while he seemed to think, his gaze for once not on me, but somewhere in the middle-distance of the room. All too soon he seemed to come upon an idea and his eyes shifted back to study my face, his fingers slipping down to ghost patterns over my hipbone while he leaned slowly over me and started to undo the top of my robes.
It took every ounce of everything I ever had to not react. To swallow the mouthful of water I had just taken instead of spitting it across the room or choking on it. To lie quietly and steady my breaths, instead of protesting, or flinching, writhing, screaming, panicking, and trying to get away… All things considered I was doing much better then the flashes I remembered of last night.
I picked a spot on his collar and fixed my eyes on it as he tugged the robe away from my shoulders and left me lying bare-chested and shivering. 'Breathe and acquiesce' was my slow and rhythmic chant to help steady my heartbeat and stop me panicking. I knew this was something I had to do, regardless of whether I was a deatheater or not. To refuse would be as good as me bludgeoning my parents to death myself, and I would never. My loyalty was to protect my family at any cost… Any cost.
"You worry too much for one your age" The Dark Lord murmured amusedly, stroking my cheek. I lifted my eyes up to him slowly, concentrating still on controlling my shallow breathing. He smiled once my eyes finally fell upon the mirror in his hand.
"See now Draco" he said, moving his spidery fingers over to point out my clavicle, "I did mark you. You are mine".
I wasn't sure what to say, he kept running a finger around my mark… except that it wasn't the mark that I'd expected, just a snake, curled quite contentedly by the looks, on my collar-bone.
"Do you like it?" he asked quietly, "I know how you dislike 'big, ugly tattoos'" he added teasingly, running a finger over the tattoo, causing the snake to stretch languidly into an 's' and the same crawling jolt of electricity to spread through my body. I didn't flinch this time though, when I figured I could see and understand what the feeling was, I wasn't frightened by it… Not that I was frightened before of course.
"Yes, thankyou" I blushed furiously I'm sure, as I replied to him earnestly but, all the while I couldn't stop thinking – why? Why mark me differently, was I really a deatheater then, why did he do it?
"If I may Draco" he said, gaining my attention but clearly not expecting a reply, "to your mother you may act the purring kitten, all docile and sweet, constantly seeking some ministration. For your father you might be the exuberant puppy, always at heel, aiming to please, living for days off of the happiness of a single word of praise. You must remember though" he said forcefully, splaying his palm across my chest, "that you belong to me now, and I see you as they never could have envisioned. You are not some helpless kitten or puppy; you are untamed potential that no one else has ever seen. You are my colt Draco, already so powerful, but it is only with my training that you will be able to utilize it, be able to be recognised for what you are" he finished excitedly, eyes gleaming, hands gripping my shoulders.
I had absolutely no idea what he was on about, he just mentioned a lot of animals and it was way, way over my head and far away the more I tried to decipher it.
"Last night Draco, you learnt an important lesson" The Dark Lord's velvety drawl pulled me back to the present, and he grasped my face with both hands, "I need you to remember it. Legilimens".
At first nothing happened, I looked back at him somewhat blankly as his eyes bored deeply into mine. Then he simply quirked an eyebrow and stated in a tone that, though it pains me, I could only describe as 'fondly exasperated', "When the Dark Lord seeks access to you mind Draco, I suggest you lower your shields."
"Oh, of course, right, sorry, yes" I stammered, more then a little flustered. My Aunt did teach me occlumency, or rather, she explained the theories and techniques, attempted a practical demonstration - and rather like the Dark Lord's previous attempt, nothing seemed to happen – at least not so far as I could tell. Aunty zapped me with a friendly crucio, mentioned nostalgically that I was 'so like my mother' and went off merrily giggling to tell her so. When I asked mother later she explained that under the right circumstances, some people naturally develop a very strong ability to occlude their minds… and I was her special little boy etcetera etcetera, you know, all the usual maternal things.
The point being that, although I understand occlumency and am apparently quite good at it, I have no actual control over it. I have never 'lowered my shields' per say and I do not possess the slightest notion as to how to go about it. So I squeezed my eyes shut and focused my mind entirely on the chant of 'let him in, let him in'. Again, nothing seemed to happen so after a few long seconds I risked slowly opening my eyes to see if he had made any progress. His smug features looked down upon me, a mixture between amused and impressed, impressed I figure for the natural talent, amused most likely for my natural stupidity.
"Never mind child, I will teach you to open your mind for me" he said, gently stroking fingers along my cheekbone before securing my face in his grasp even more strongly then before,
"This will be easiest on you if you can relax yourself fully", I hardly felt that was likely given his grip on my head.
"however, as I'm sure relaxing is a talent far out of your reach, I regret to inform you that this is going to hurt quite a bit" and with that went any chance that I ever stood of relaxing a little.
"once your body accepts the intrusion, the pain will numb considerably, and after a few sessions you may be able to open you mind to the point where my intrusion will not hurt it at all" He paused then, and I wasn't sure if he was waiting for some kind of reply from me, but I certainly did not have anything coming to mind. The idea that this – these little meetings, where I end up splayed on a couch, had happened before and were going to continue to happen and be considered important lessons, left me feeling… very not good, and clearly incapable of speech.
He gave a last quick smirk, tilted my face towards his, and whispered legilimens once more. There were a few brief happy seconds when I thought perhaps nothing was going to happen again, but then I felt it, a few prods at first in my forehead. It was almost as if they expected to find an entrance to my mind there, it was unpleasant and made me jerk my head around a bit, but not really painful. Things went downhill from there, eventually one harder prod seemed to get the non-existent finger tendril 'thing' in the right place and then it just started pushing, and wouldn't stop. I lost control of myself trying to hurl my head against the unsoftening grip to no avail, my legs pumped furiously to try to crawl up the couch and away from the entering force but found no purchase, my arms scrabbled against the body in front of me though they had no influence on the immovable man. It pushed and pushed and pushed until I was sure something was going to break, that I was going to break, cave in and shatter into a thousand miserable pieces.
Something tore, that's what it felt like, a tiny tear that allowed the tendril to plunge into the entrance it had so desperately sought. I screamed, just once more in shock then the agony because the pain didn't stop but I didn't scream again. I mewled in frantic and pathetic gasps and moaned with every panted breath that escaped me. The thing – the thing! It was thick, like it still couldn't fit in the tunnel it had created for itself and had to pound and push and tear its way further in, but at its end, smaller tendrils like whips spread out across my mind, behind my eyes, zapping and clawing at everything they came into contact with. The natural defences of my mind kept pushing against it, the more they did, the more they were torn painfully apart but I had no control either way.
I could not last, I had no dignity or restraint left and sobbed in violent, ragged breaths, my arms no longer pushing the body away, hands instead gripping at the robes in front of me for support, some stability. I writhed weakly and tried to roll away from the force on the couch, but I was already pressed into the side with nowhere to go. At last it seemed to hit something, causing an electric current to pulse once brutally through my mind. I blacked out for a second, but that offered no respite, the tendril felt as if it was swinging from side to side, trying to widen the path it had travelled, the mini tendrils had spread like a net over my mind and stung as one, burning incessantly. Images began to flash through my mind, I couldn't follow at first, incoherent as I was, but then things slowed down a little, and though every image seared behind my eyes and hurt all the more to follow, I began to watch as the previous day played out in my mind's eye. As the images played the tendrils seemed to stop moving, their work done, and I stayed utterly still, gripping the Dark Lord like he was my one lifeline. Every time a tendril moved there was another whiplash of pain, and overall my mind was torn, invaded and pulverised, definitely not numb, just in agony.
I was waiting for the numb still, when the images reached the clearing and the last man had his head blown off before whatever fatalistic part of my brain decided that it absolutely would not betray Ylva pushed out. Hard.
Can you imagine filling your head with tiny fishing hooks and then ripping them all out at once. I can.
I came back to myself immediately and relinquished my grip on the man, pushing him away, trying to fight him off, kick out, sit up. He moved his body on top of mine, sitting on my hips and overpowering my legs ability to kick effectively. Quickly he secured my wrists in his surprisingly vice-like grip and pressed them down, holding them still against my chest. My breath was harsh and hyperventilating, I looked at him through red tinted eyes, realising that I was crying tears of blood, my nose was also bleeding profusely, and my mouth, especially where I had bitten into my cheeks and tongue.
"Breathe Draco" he said calmly, trying to hold me steady. I couldn't though, couldn't breathe, couldn't listen, couldn't possibly follow the supreme such and such's orders.
"There are no secrets kept from me, you have no need and I will not allow it"
I was too busy shaking my pain filled head about and muttering 'no' a lot. I wasn't ready when he entered my mind again, and it hurt worse, which I wouldn't have thought possible if I wasn't keening about it on the couch and trying not to choke on the bile it raised from my throat, glad that I had nothing to throw up. At least the second time it went straight in, but it still stretched and tore the whole way, everything it touched burning and stinging, raw and over-sensitised. When the little tendrils whipped out again, I kind of… left. I was watching the images, knowing I was in a lot of pain but I wasn't really there anymore, not in control or trying to fight, just watching as he did, as the previous night played out before us, in every fine detail. I was kind of glad at the end to have things in order, and be sure of what happened… except that I wasn't really feeling anything. Even when he pulled fully out at last and I was back to myself looking at him (still I might add, in bloody agony) I didn't really feel as if I was entirely there.
He smiled at my docile form, conjured pillows and blankets and transfigured the couch into a more comfortable bed, tucking me in to lie down comfortably wrapped up. For a minute or so he moved away and I couldn't follow what he was doing, but when he came back he was holding Ylva and my heart stopped. Then he tucked her under the blanket on my chest and with her warm little body against my own, somehow everything was just ok. His next words made things better too.
"Although you do not recall, and I felt no need to subject you to the memory, you actually introduced us last night" he said, gently running a hand over Ylva's sleeping form. "She needed healing spells for her immunity, and feeding. You were quite adamant that if I was to be your lord then I had to do these things for your familiar. You refused to go to bed otherwise, although you passed out as soon as you fell into bed anyway, once I started." He finished, obviously amused.
I couldn't make words come out, so I found his hand over Ylva and gripped it with my own, looking up with all the gratitude I could muster. He squeezed back and sat beside me, freeing his hand from mine to pick up a damp washcloth that I had no idea he had gotten, and wiping clean my bloody face. He worked in silence for a few minutes wiping gently until my face was its pristine porcelain again. It was not until he started dabbing an amazing ointment on my face that removed pain everywhere it touched (I also had no idea where it'd come from) that he spoke again.
"I am not your family Draco, I do not hold you to their traditions and I do not care when you break their rules but I will not interfere in their attempts to hold you to them. I will however, protect the secrets between us, the same as you do – so you can rest assured that you, and your secret" he nodded pointedly at Ylva, "are very safe with me" He whispered, finishing up applying the ointment with a last dab brushed along my lips.
I nodded once, in total acknowledgement of his ownership of me. I know it sounds perhaps unlike me, but I got it now, I understood he was all powerful and I was nothing, no matter how gently or benevolently he pretended to care for me afterwards, the fact was he was prepared to inflict horrendous pain on me, and no doubt anyone that I cared about, if he saw it in his best interest. I would not make it in his interest, I would not deny him or fight him ever again – if I was useful he would protect me, then I would be able to protect Ylva. I looked back into his eyes with total trust, not like the kind of trust you have for a family member, like they will always love you and protect you. No, the kind of trust that says, this man can do whatever he wants to me, and I'll let him, trust him to do as he says, because it makes no difference anyway.
The Dark Lord's face clearly reflected that he knew I had learnt my lesson also, and he was glad. Very, very glad.
"Rest now Draco, no one will disturb us" he whispered gently, and so I did, falling into a surprisingly peaceful sleep with the Dark Lord by my side and Ylva's heartbeat thrumming a placating beat against my chest.
So ah 'the end' for quite a while maybe, let your imaginations run wild!
Katty xx