BlackRose's Page
Chapter 8 - Truth or Dare
----- Harry -----
"Why are you doing this?" he asked.
Three days, as near as he could tell. Cut off, the room bare of window, his only sense of passing time came from the trays of food Draco brought him and he suspected the other boy didn't bring them at regular intervals. But it was the only reference he had and by that, it had been at least three days. And every time he asked it, not really daring to hope for an answer.
"Why what?" Draco asked pleasantly. "Why bother to feed you?" It was the same every time, mocking answers that weren't really anything at all.
Harry was starting to feel the desperation.
"No," he snapped. "Why are you doing this? All of it?"
Draco set the tray down, soup and water, and if nothing else it was in larger portions than what the Dursleys were want to give him when Harry was locked in his room over summers. The Malfoys, he thought humorlessly, weren't very experienced jailors.
But that didn't mean the heavy door wasn't locked fast and Draco's pale eyes glinted up at him, laughing, though the other boy's tone was mild. "I'm not doing anything at all, Harry. Just bringing you a bite to eat. If you don't want it then I won't bother."
"That's not what I meant!" Harry said hastily.
Draco smiled. There was something chilling in the other boy's expression, something Harry didn't like at all. "Let me talk to your father," he tried. He didn't want to, not really, not in the slightest, but anything that might give him answers was better than nothing.
Draco cocked his head to one side. Pushing to his feet, he nudged the tray closer to Harry with the tip of one toe. "Lucius isn't home right now," he said airily. "Just me. And you."
"Where is he?" Harry demanded bitterly. "With Voldemort?"
The other boy didn't flinch and there was something truly amused in his smile. "Eat your meal, Potter. I'll be back for the tray later." And with a rustle of robes and the heavy sound of the door and the lock upon the other side, he was gone.
Cursing, Harry sank back down to the floor, his aching head pressed into his hands.
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He had paced the length and breadth of the room, every inch of it from the door that would no more budge than the stones around it to the tiny curtained off toilet at the other end. Nothing. Not so much as a piece of string.
In the long hours between Draco's visits, Harry spent much of the time sleeping. There wasn't really much else to do, and the constant squinting struggle to see past the immediate range of his unassisted vision made his eyes hurt and his head ache. Laying down, eyes closed, was easier.
His dreams were restless, disjointed things. Hogwarts and muggle school, familiar faces always just behond his reach. Sometimes he thought he heard Hermione crying, other times it seemed it might be Ron. He could hear his name called but he could never find who was calling him. And always, he woke to the same hard stones and the same room, alone in the silence.
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On the fourth day, he made the mistake of loosing his temper.
Draco had come, bearing the usual tray, the door swinging shut behind him without the help of hands. "Why?" Harry had demanded, as he always did, and Draco had said nothing.
Harry, angry and beyond caring, had grabbed the other boy's arm, the tray crashing to the ground in splashes of water and broth.
With a strength Harry never would have credited him for Draco had simply balled his free fist and driven it into Harry's stomach without a word. It sent Harry crashing to the floor as the breath left him, his hands wrapped around his aching middle.
"Why are you doing this?" he gasped again. The words came painful between his aching ribs, harsh and cold in his throat. "*Why*?"
He didn't expect an answer. Not really. Which only made the other boy's smile all the worse; it was a benign expression, suited to the face of a carven saint. Not to the lips of a Death Eater.
It shouldn't have warmed the pale eyes the way it did and Harry couldn't help shuddering.
"Because I can," Draco told him mildly, his slender fingers ruffling Harry's hair in an affectionate gesture before Harry could flinch back. "Because you're nothing. Nobody." He leaned down, the whisper quietly conspiritorial, as though he confided a vast secret. "You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake, Harry. You're nothing miraculous." He smiled, sweetly, pressing his forehead to the other boy's, his hands catching Harry when he could have jerked away. "You're *crap*," Draco whispered, the crude word bitten off with a feral grin. "And until you know that - until you truly *know* it - you are useless."
"Draco..." His own voice wavered, breathless, in the slim space between their faces. The other boy's slim fingers were strong, holding him fast.
"Shhh, Harry." Soft and sibilant, like the hiss of parsel tongue on both their lips. "Hush now." Draco released him, abruptly, stepping back. In his pale eyes Harry could see only his own reflection. "You want answers, Harry? You want to know the truth? You have to forget everything you know, everything you think you know. That's where the truth lies."
"Stop it," Harry grated. "Damn it, Malfoy..." But Draco raised a pale finger to his own lips, shushing Harry gently, the quiet grace of the gesture beneath the glitter of eyes he couldn't read at a distance stilling the voice in his throat.
"You really want truth, Harry?" Draco asked quietly and Harry, throat dry beneath that gaze, could only nod.
"Alright." A hand reached into the depths of a pocket, withdrawing the supple length of a wand, and Harry felt his breath still in his throat. A pale hand pointed it at him, the gesture almost negligent, like an afterthought of motion and no glimmer of emotion changed the other boy's eyes or the solemn line of his mouth. "Truth, Harry."
There were truth spells to unlock the tongue, to strip a mind of secrets and knowledge and lay them all bare. It was the only thing Harry could think of as he struggled up, reaching. "Draco..."
Draco smiled, the motion faint and bittersweet. "Truth," he whispered, soft as a prayer, before drawing breath for the spell.
"Crucio!"
Quotes from last chapter:
Tyler Durden: Where you are right now, you can't even imagine what the bottom will be like.
Narrator: Every evening I died and every evening I was born again. Resurrected.
-- Fight Club