Author's Note: This chapter comes with a mild TRIGGER WARNING for EXTREMELY CREEPY AND RAPE-Y BEHAVIOR. While no actual rape occurs, it still might be troubling for some.


I have little left in myself – I must have you.
Charlotte Brontë


"Good morning, sweet girl."

Lyra smiles and stretches out her hands toward him. Draco's mind goes through a few relevant points about how six-month-olds will recognize familiar faces, but it's all drowned out when she starts—

"Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!"

"Well said." Draco scoops her out of her cot and settles her on his hip. "Did you sleep well?"

"Ba."

"Good."

She grabs a fistful of his hair and Draco doesn't mind the way she tugs.

"So you managed to get the 'B' sound down," Draco says as he carries her out of the bedroom and into the hallway. "How are you doing with 'D'?"

"Ba," she answers.

"Draco?"

"Ba."

"Dra-co?"

She stares at him in contemplative silence for a moment, stuffs her hand into her mouth, then says, "Ba."

"All right, well, you're only six months old so I'll try not to hold this against you. Though just for the record, I was saying my first word at eight months. But no pressure or anything."

Ever since the jailbreak – or, to be more specific, ever since a few dozen war criminals began living in and around the Malfoy Manor – Draco had kept Lyra confined to the east wing, where she is sequestered from anyone who had willingly tortured people. The wing has only a few bedrooms, a study, and a small sitting room they've been using as a dining room. It's not ideal, but it's perfectly serviceable, and a great deal safer.

He enters the makeshift dining room and tucks her into Lyra into her handsome mahogany high chair just as Dobby pops in.

Draco has just asked him to bring breakfast (with a box of raisins for Lyra, because handling small objects helps to improve hand-eye coordination) and fetched Lyra's favorite blue spoon when he hears the door open. He glances briefly over his shoulder, presuming it to be his father, but does a sharp doubletake when he's proven wrong.

Lord Voldemort glides into the room with an unnatural stillness. At once, Draco is filled with dread. He is always filled with dread whenever he and Lyra are in the same room. The trust and obedience the curse forces on him has never been enough to make Draco forget that his very young, very vulnerable baby sister is in the same room with a mass-murdering sociopath.

Draco is sure that he is not meant to forget.

"My Lord," he says stiffly, deftly inserting himself between him and Lyra's high chair.

"Little bird."

As she always does when he's in the room, Lyra starts to fuss and kick. Draco wants to comfort her, but he dares not take his eyes off the Dark Lord for an instant.

"Word from Avery is that the strings you've pulled are working. He's been put on a special committee designed to review the faculty of Hogwarts and report his findings to the Minister in an effort to remove anyone undesirable."

Draco nods.

"And the front page of The Daily Prophet is decrying Harry Potter and his nonsensical, alarmist allegations that the Dark Lord has returned."

"It's amazing what a few well-worded bylaws will do, My Lord."

"Speaking of Harry Potter."

Draco's breath stutters. The Dark Lord has stopped walking, and he is looming down over Draco. He is extremely close, and Draco is suddenly aware of the fact that he is backed into the table.

"You'll be leaving in a few days." He is so very close. His heart is stammering against his ribs.

"Yes, My Lord."

"I confess that I still dislike this plan of yours," he says.

"I know, My Lord."

"I dislike any plan that keeps my right hand so far away."

"There is no alternative, My Lord."

"I especially dislike any plan that puts you so close to Harry Potter."

"I hate Harry Potter, My Lord."

The red of his eyes seems to darken. "I know."

He bends down. Draco's throat tightens.

"You won't forget who it is you belong to, will you, little bird?"

"I…" He swallows a knot in his throat. "No, My Lord."

"This little bird won't forget its cage, will it?"

"No…"

"No," the Dark Lord echoes, and there is a fingertip tracing the curve of Draco's hip and no, please, not now, not here, not in front of Lyra, is this really how it is going to culminate? "No, you won't. Do you know why I know you won't?"

Draco doesn't answer. He shuts his eyes and reminds himself (over and over and over) that long-term memories do not form this early, she will not remember, Merlin, please let her not remember, Draco could not bear it.

"I know you won't forget, because you would never so recklessly endanger your sister's life."

He sees right through the veiled threat. There is fear and anger and resentment and hatred and it is all wrapped up in the dreadful, oppressive nothing. The hand on his hip curls around the crest of the bone.

"You are frightened."

Lyra starts crying.

"I… I am unable to reconcile…"

The Dark Lord ducks his head. He lifts his free hand and knots it in Draco's hair. Draco makes a soft, broken sound.

"Say it, little bird," he says, voice low. "Say what it is you fear."

The words are caught in his throat. "Despite the subservience your curse forces upon me, I cannot reconcile the fact that by – by any definition – you…"

"Say it," he says again.

SAY IT.

Draco squeezes his eyes shut. "Rape." It's such a vile word, an ugly word. It feels clumsy and terrible and heavy.

The Dark Lord makes a low, predatory sound.

"Not a problem I had ever pictured myself confronting," he confesses. "But as always, you are the exception to the rule. The way you command my senses is staggering. You pull me in with every movement, every act of simple, staggering genius. And how could I let you back to that filthy mongrel even for a few days without staking a claim?"

He is too close for Draco to see the expression on his face, but by the way the hand around his hip grips more tightly, he does not want to. His legs feel like they are about to give out.

Lyra keeps crying.

His other hand grips Draco's other hip and pulls, and no, no, no, not in front of Lyra, not in front of Lyra, please no, please no—

Crack, from the doorway and Draco jerks with the force of the sound. The Dark Lord stills but does not withdraw. Draco forces open his eyes. His father is standing by the door, which has slammed against the wall.

He looks absolutely murderous, but he is not moving.

"Hmm," the Dark Lord says. His tone is almost conversational. "Your father's timing is almost too good to be true, isn't it?"

Draco doesn't answer. He can't.

"Do you have something to say, Lucius?"

"Bellatrix and Greyback have brought back the Muggle MP you asked for." His voice is short and his words are clipped, brutal.

"Hmm," he says again. "Shame. Later, perhaps."

And he withdraws, and Draco's weight falls against the table, and he wills his legs to stop shaking.

The Dark Lord walks toward the door to leave but his father does not move out of the way. For several very long seconds they stare at one another in dreadful, electric silence. The murder has not left his father's eyes. It's an entire conversation that goes completely unspoken. A challenge, a counter-challenge, a threat, a defiance. Neither of them back down, but the Dark Lord eventually pushes past and leaves.

Hands shaking, Draco moves around the table and scoops Lyra up. He hushes her as she wails into his shoulder.

"Draco."

Draco doesn't answer. He keeps hushing her.

"Draco."

"Don't."

"Has he forced himself on you?"

"Don't do this."

"Draco, has he touched you?"

Lyra's tiny arms wrap around Draco's neck as far as they can and Draco strokes her back and holds her and breathes in the scent in her downy blonde hair.

"What difference does it make?"

"It makes every damn bit of difference!"

"Don't align yourself against him!" Draco snaps, and it only makes Lyra cry more. "Don't make yourself into his enemy! Don't make me turn on you!"

"Draco," his father snarls, "if he has laid a finger on you, you'll have to kill me yourself to keep me from ripping him apart."

"Do you honestly think you're speaking in hyperbole?" Draco snarls. "Do you think I won't? He made me kill Mother! If your risks outweigh your benefits, you'll have the same fate!"

The conversation is heavy with all the things they cannot, dare not say. His father is almost shaking from rage, and Draco cannot get Lyra to stop crying. He sinks into a dining room chair and holds her close, humming the old French lullaby.

He hears his father take a long, shuddering breath.

"You need to be alive," Draco whispers. "You need to make it out because if I don't, you'll be all Lyra has."

"Draco," he says. He sounds broken.

"Just don't," Draco says. "Please, don't. Please, please."