Trust
Draco was looking forward to going back to school. As far as he was concerned, the pass two weeks were the worse of his life.
The first night he returned home with Harry, he remembered the feeling of dread. He was afraid Harry was going to be hurt, but the boy insisted on going through with his plan.
The Dark Lord marked him first. Even though he remembered feelings of power and happiness surging through his body at the time, looking back, he could only feel the horror. He was embarrassed with his reaction to being marked. It almost seemed impossible to believe he was kissing the robes of that horrible monster.
He asked his father about that when Harry was forced to stay in the basement, little did he know that Harry was actually torturing the same old man that Bellatrix was with their first night there.
"Father, how did you react when you first were marked?" Lucius lifted his eyes from his book and smiled.
"I know it may seem embarrassing, you probably feel like you weren't in control of your body." Draco simple nodded, hoping his father would have the answers he desperately needed."The Dark Lord is very powerful. When he marks you, he isn't just marking you as a loyal follower, but giving you a little bit of that power. The feeling can be overwhelming."
"But why would he want to give away that power? Wouldn't that just make him weaker?" Lucius stood up and approached his son.
"He doesn't lose the power. It's more like he shares it with you. We all sort of share it with each other." He lifted up his sleeve to reveal his own Dark Mark. "This keeps us all connected. That power helped raise the value of the Malfoy name, and made it possible to give you everything you could want. If you stay true on your path, the future Malfoys will have those same opportunities."
"Future Malfoys?" Draco gulped at the prospect. His father always spoke of him getting married to a pure-blood witch and producing an heir, but figured now that his father knew he was gay, he wouldn't expect those things.
"You must produce an heir Draco, you know that."
"But, I mean, Harry." Lucius just eyed his son up. "I'm gay father. I don't want to marry a witch."
"Another reason it is great to be a Malfoy." Draco obviously didn't understand by the confused look gracing his face. "You will simple find a pure blood to be a surrogate for Mr. Potter and yourself. Or of course, whoever you do decide to marry."
"You wouldn't mind if I married Harry?" Draco perked up instantly. The thought of spending the rest of his life with Harry was something he could look forward to.
"Harry is one of us now." His father returned to sit behind his desk. "Is there anything else you need Draco?"
"No father."
"Very well then. I must return to my work. I shall see you at dinner." Draco left feeling a little bit better. He still felt a little uneasy with his reaction to being marked, but thoughts of marrying Harry made him lighten up.
Unfortunately, most of his vacation was spent alone reading. The Dark Lord insisted Harry attend every one of his meetings, at the same time insisting that he didn't. He wasn't comfortable with the idea of his lover being with a bunch of Death Eaters every night, but whenever Harry did return, he would just say he was fine with a quick chaste kiss before heading to bed.
If it wasn't hard enough pretending he wasn't dying to know what his lover was going through, Harry was making things even more difficult by refusing to have sex with him. He always was 'tired' or 'not in the mood' which wasn't like him at all. Normally Harry was insatiable, so this change of attitude was a little unnerving.
So with everything that went on, going back to Hogwarts was looking better and better. There was no way You-Know-Who would be able to keep Harry away from him while he was there. Dumbledore would know the instant a student was off school grounds and he wouldn't risk losing Harry.
Harry's attitude didn't automatically change when they got to school like Draco expected, but he was willing to give the man some time before he questioned his new behavior. He loved Harry and wouldn't want to risk losing him by over stepping his bounds.
That seemed easy enough, but he really had to hold his tongue during the first Potion's class when Harry dropped his potion vile, on purpose. He said it was an accident, but Draco knew better. Harry was trying to get alone with that Professor since he forbidden him to have anymore private lessons with him. He knew Snape had to have some feelings towards his boyfriend, since he knows that he kissed him, but what exactly did Harry feel? Draco thought he just might have to find out tonight.
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It was only my first day back at Hogwarts and Severus already managed to give me a detention. I 'spilled' my potion, and he was quick to use the opportunity to punish me. After thoroughly complaining how unfair our git of a Professor was, I left Draco. I was extremely happy to see the man. It's been two weeks and I missed him terribly.
I was debating whether or not I should tell him about my activities at Malfoy Manor before he inevitably found out from Voldemort. I didn't even tell Draco about the things I was being forced to do, because I know he would try and go back on the plan. Voldemort was having me torture the old man who supposedly knew of the spell I was planning to use, but it was completely pointless. The man was never going to speak.
Voldemort knew that of course, but that wasn't the point. He was trying to push me to my limits. He wanted to break me. He expected me to give up, plead my allegiance to Dumbledore, and allow myself to be murdered rather torture an innocent man, but it wasn't going to happen. The man didn't trust me, but I wasn't going to give away my cover.
"You haven't spoke to Dumbledore at all this year?" Voldemort asked me skeptically after thankfully pulling me away from my torture session with the old man to join a meeting of his inner circle.
"Not much, My Lord." It still made me insane having to refer to him that way. "We only had a couple encounters."
"So when you said you haven't spoken with him, you were lying?" I could hear Bellatrix practically snorting. She was keeping it no secret that she didn't trust me and didn't approve of me being a Death Eater.
"Yes, but I meant we didn't speak of anything that would be of use."
"What, pray tell, did you speak about?"
"He warned me to stay away from Draco. Then I found out he was having me followed. He said he thought Lucius was planning something, wanted to keep me safe."
"It's true, My Lord." Lucius said holding his stern posture and look. "I did find that an order member was following Potter and I when I went to visit Draco."
"Is that right?" He said to no one. He seemed to be in deep thought before he looked up at me again. "That won't do. You will do whatever you must to find out what he is planning. Shouldn't be too hard. You will report to me everything you found out at the end of the school year."
"Yes My Lord." I had no intentions of resuming my relationship with the school's headmaster. He was always good at figuring things out, and if he found out about me taking the mark, he would probably physically force Draco and I apart. I would just have to lie when the time came.
"Go on." He said, gesturing in the direction where the old man lay. I pretended to be thankful for the opportunity, when inside I was ready to throw up.
Which brought me to thinking about Severus once again. He had to live with these actions and thoughts for years. Pretending to enjoy these things, while keeping his occlumency to make sure he wasn't found out. I was only doing it for a short period of time and found it very draining. Then again, I wasn't even sure how often he called upon Severus. He didn't even show up to the meeting of Voldemort's inner circle, which I thought kind of odd. It was rather curious as to why he wouldn't, when school was on holiday so there was no reason keeping him at Hogwarts.
I let my thoughts fade when I got to the Potions room. The door was opened and Severus was sitting at his desk in his office. I closed the door and walked up to him, waiting for him to acknowledge me. After about a minute of pretending I wasn't there, he looked up without saying a word, and didn't show any sign that he planned on speaking, so I said the first thing that came to mind.
"I missed you." He dropped his stern attitude and relaxed, which let me know he wouldn't kill me if I hugged him, so I did. It felt very relaxing to be in his arms once again, and I wondered how I got by the pass two weeks without him. He made all my thoughts of Voldemort go away.
"Harry, we really have to talk." I nodded and followed him into his chambers. Once I got there, he didn't say anything. He stood a few inches from me, cupping my cheek. I thought he was going to kiss me, but let his hand drop down to my sleeve. He ripped the button off when he tore apart the opening, and slid it up. Then my Dark Mark was out in the open.
"So it's true? You actually let him do this to you? What the hell were you thinking Harry?" I pulled my arm away and covered the mark back up as if it burned from being out. I should of known that he would of found out. Voldemort was probably trying to hide Severus from me, that's why he wasn't at the meetings.
"I have a plan." I said defensively and he just pushed me away from him.
"Oh, do you? Is it getting yourself killed, cause if it is, it's working wonderfully." He said in the sarcastic tone I usually love, but now it was just annoying.
"Shut up." It came out more of a whimper than the harsh tone I wanted.
"Brilliant plan." He scoffed and I felt hurt. He just assumed that whatever plan I would have would be stupid. It might have been, but it didn't make me feel any better knowing that.
"I'm going to use the spell on him, you know the one.."
"I know exactly what you're talking about and I thought we already had this discussion once before. I could of sworn I explained to you why that was a dumb idea and would probably never work. Is that not correct?"
"But that's why I did this." I pointed to my forearm. "If he thinks I'm on his side, I can be around him while he's distracted. Then he wouldn't be able to hear me say it. It's perfect."
"Do you honestly think it will be that easy?" He said with one eyebrow raised, obviously still angry.
"It doesn't matter if it will work or not. The point is I'm doing something. I'm tired of have to be protected and looked out for. I'm tired of thinking I'm going to die. I want it to be over with." I could see him soften as I broke out into tears.
"We all want it to be over Harry," he leaned over and wrapped his arms around me, "But this," he lifted up my sleeve once again, "This will be the death of you. You really have no idea what you did to yourself when you let him do this to you. You will always belong to him now."
"Not if I kill him first." He pulled me back into his arms, and cupped my cheek again.
"I wanted better for you. You shouldn't have to live through what I live through." His words were so comforting to me, and I leaned into his touch. I know Draco would be terribly upset if he knew the feelings I harbored for our Professor, but at that moment I didn't care. I leaned forwards and let my lips crush against the mans.
I wrapped my arms around his neck as he deepened the kiss. His hands began to tug at my shirt, and he slipped his hands inside, caressing my bare skin. I could feel the blood rush down to my groin and I know there was no way I was going to stop now. I moved my hands to remove his shirt but by the time I got down to the second button, his hands were in mine, and he was pulling away from me.
"We can't." I really considered punching him at that moment. How could he possibly let it get this far if he was just going to stop me?
"Yes we can." I knew it was hopeless to fight him by the look on his face. He wasn't going to let it continue. "God Sev, don't. I need this."
"I'm sorry, but you should probably go. I'll have a talk with Albus about what we are going to do, but until then, don't come by anymore."
"What do you mean you'll have a talk with him?" Suddenly I wasn't in the mood to spend my night with this man. I hated how he could make me go from lustful to furious in an instant.
"We have to think of a plan to get you out of this safely. You can't possibly think I was going to let you perform your little stunt." I hated when he spoke to me as if I was any other student.
"I don't want his help, or yours for that matter. I'm going to do what I was planning to do, and you're going to keep that old man out of it." I actually sounded pretty threatening, but I don't think he was buying it.
"Am I? Are you going to stop me from telling him?" He was almost laughing, which only made me angrier.
"Voldemort doesn't trust me. I sort of need his trust for my plan to work. I mean, Lucius has helped a little, but it isn't enough. I been racking my brain just to think of something that would undoubtedly give him no reason not to trust me, but so far I had no such luck."
"As much as I would love to hear the details of your little plan, I don't see how this is going to prevent me from telling Dumbledore. If anything, it will only give me more to tell."
"I haven't finished yet. You see, I need to give him something. I thought about giving him some useless information from the Order, but that wouldn't work, because he has you for that. How you managed to gain his trust with all the crap you bring to him, I have no idea."
I could that he was thinking the same thing with the look on his face. Most of the information that Dumbledore allowed Severus to bring to Voldemort, was pretty pointless.
"But there is one thing that I'm sure would work wonders."
"And what exactly would that be?" He said, clearly interested, no matter how hard he tried to pretend he wasn't.
"You. If Voldemort found out where your loyalties really lied, he would have no choice but to trust me. I would be the only chance he had to get information from the order." I could tell I struck a nerve. He paled considerably, as hard as that was to believe. "So if I were you, I would keep my private matters private. If I found out you breathed a word of this to that meddling old man, I won't keep my mouth shut anymore."
I didn't turn to look at his face as I was leaving. I didn't need to. I knew he wasn't going to say a word.
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A/N: My computer broke the other day so I couldn't update as quick as I would have liked..but I managed to fix it (Don't ask me how) so it's all good. The story is getting so close to the end..I don't know if I can let it go!! lol Anyway, reviews are lovely :)