Chapter II : The Long Hard Road out of Hell
[ colloquial title : Fly Away Home ]
you're tearin' at my heartstrings
let me fly away home...
-Jack Williams-
***
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shakey fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goosedown comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to carress his hair.
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinately patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a carress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shaky fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goose down comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to caress his hair.
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinitely patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a caress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body ... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.
Life at Malfoy Manor had been nightmarish enough when all he'd known was pain; but now that he'd learned what gentleness was, each of Lucius's blows stung ten times as deep. Cruel hands. His father's hands. Those hands could stroke his face, or rub his back, or trail gently through his hair, but they did not. They hurt him on purpose, and now he didn't know why. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he'd left Hogwarts, and already he'd been beaten down to nothing - robbed of all the kindness that Severus lavished upon him, and left cold and empty in this nightmare Manor.
He was going to die if he did not leave.
He would go today, while Lucius was away. It was Thursday, which meant that his father would be in London until dark, working with the Ministry. He would go now, without letting so much as a house elf see him. He could simply pack up everything from his school trunk into pillow cases, which would be easier to carry. He could sneak down through the old servants stairs that were never used anymore, as they'd taken to biting ankles. A few stair-bites would be a small price to pay for anonymous freedom, and he could use the window on their bottom landing to slip out the back of the Manor. From there it would be almost easy to make it to the stables unseen. The Manor boasted a fine carriage house, and a team of eight Granian winged horses; tall, lithe animals, and very elegant, all with smooth, shining dapple gray coats and graceful dark gray wings. He would take his favorite of the lot, the one that he had loved since childhood and thought of very much as his own. It would be easier than flying by broomstick, as the horses all bore Disillusionment Charms to keep muggles from spotting them in the clouds, and it would require no magic - something that his father would surely sense had been done in his absence - to load everything he owned onto the horse with him and escape.
It took him much longer than it should have taken any sixteen year old boy to get out of bed. His bones felt as though they had aged a century in the course of the night. Draco gasped when he finally set his weight on his feet; it was agony straightening his abdomen, now, after so many hours of remaining curled in the same position, allowing the bruises to tighten as they would.
For a moment he simply stood very still - a dull ringing had commenced in his ears, rising in a smooth crescendo until it was a roar, and bringing with it a blanket of white that fell across his vision. His whole body was shaking, now; his legs could not support him any longer. Draco collapsed against the hard marble floor with a defeated whimper, his head spinning, his stomach turning over and over again...
He barely managed to drag himself, hand over hand to the waste bin, before he threw up. The cold sweat of exertion had risen up all over his shuddering form, sending chills through him as he huddled back against the great stone wall of his bedroom. He had lost too much blood, this time. There was no way that he would make it all the way to the stables. A little rush of panic seized him, followed by a wave of despair. He was trapped here in this big, cold house, and there was no way that he was going to get away on his own. And Lucius would be back by nightfall. Nightfall. He had to get up, get moving, or it was going to happen all over again...
His body screamed in silence as Draco forced himself to his feet again. His vision blurred, flashed white; but this time he clung to the edge of his dresser, leaning his weight into it and closing his eyes and battling the waves of nausea that rolled over him. He would not fall. He had to make it to the stables. To hell with his things - all he needed was his wand, and the horse. He had neither the time, nor the strength, to rescue anything but himself.
Forcing his eyes into focus, Draco let go of the dresser and put one foot in front of the other. He made it four shaky, unbalanced steps across the floor before his knees gave out again - slamming against the stone floor with such force that two twin jets of pain shot up Draco's legs, through his hips, and buried themselves in his stomach. He choked on the nausea, coughed hard, and looked back at the dresser. It was further away than he had expected. Four steps were better than nothing.
And so it began.
Sometimes he only made it two steps. Sometimes he made it nearly a dozen. Inch by painful inch, Draco made his way across the Manor - collapsing when and where he had to, or clinging to the heavy moldings of the walls for support when he refused to let himself fall. More than once he lost consciousness, struggled back to it, and continued onward with a desperate determination that pushed his broken mind and body to their very limits. It took him the better part of an hour to make it to the biting staircase, which any healthy individual could have reached from his chambers in a matter of minutes. It took him another agonizing fifteen minutes of nips and bites and stumbling to reach the bottom of it. Time ebbed away from Draco as it did within the nightmare of his father's chambers - there was only this moment and the very moment after, when he forced himself forward again despite all odds through the window...
The sun was high by the time he reached the stables, though it did not help to keep warm the chill winter landscape. The horses were inside, thank Merlin; and a hopeless relief washed over him as he finally dragged himself through the stable doors. Good, comforting smells washed over him - dust and hay and the clean, earthen smell of the animals themselves; the scent of leather from the tack in the corner, and warm sunlight on the wood shavings that bedded each spacious box stall. The only sounds were that of the birds and the horses; big, powerful bodies shifting, equine jaws grinding at stray wisps of hay, long tails snapping at flies with a reedy *swish*. Draco leaned against a feed bin and let his eyes adjust to the dim interior lighting.
Only one of the great winged horses had it's head over the stall door; huge, gentle brown eyes peering most curiously down the aisle at Draco. Despite everything, he found a weak smile creeping to his lips. "Hello, Olivia," he whispered.
The horse whuffled to him, pricking her silver ears at the sound of his voice and craning her long, graceful neck towards him. She nodded her head impatiently, and if Draco could have laughed, he would. In the most certain of equine terms, she was welcoming him home. Using the long feed bin along the wall for support, he made his way down the aisle to her stall.
She stretched her nose out to meet him as he reached her; snuffling at his face neck for a moment before she gave him a decisive shove with her head. Luckily he caught himself before he fell - but now Draco was laughing despite the pain in his stomach, and rubbing her smooth, silver neck. "Yeah, I know, I was gone for too long, huh?" Olivia snuffled at his pockets for a treat in response.
He didn't have anything for her, so he scooped a handful of sweet feed from the feed bin and offered it to her, closing his eyes and leaning against her neck as her soft, velveteen lips gobbled the treat from his upturned palm. He had always loved the horses; their quiet, honest ways and their tall, graceful bodies. These animals had ten times his size and strength, and yet they were passive, gentle, majestic with their liquid brown eyes and their powerful limbs and their languid, elegant way of moving. Olivia had always been his darling of the bunch - the most curious, the most stubborn, and also the most affectionate. She made a beautifully spirited lead horse under harness, and yet she had been placid and patient under saddle with him. He'd learned to ride her when he was only four.
Draco brought her bridle down from it's peg, now, sliding it easily over her ears when she'd finished the grain. She took the bit easily, stood quietly as he buckled the noseband and throat latch, and promptly pawed at her stall door with a foreleg when he'd finished. She was obviously ready to go - but was he?
It then occurred to Draco that he had absolutely no idea where he was going, except for Away. He'd never really thought about where he would run *to* - yet now that he did, he realized what his subconscious had been telling him all along. There was only one place in the world for him to go, right now - and that was back to Hogwarts.
Could he get there from here? Draco didn't know how. He knew how to get to London, and maybe if he simply followed the train tracks from there ... but Lucius was in London, and where precisely in London Draco could never be sure. Too close. Too risky. He found himself wishing for a moment that Olivia had Thestral blood in her. At least she was fast. And wherever they went, they had to go quickly. Draco unlatched the stall door, and led the mare down the aisle to the far end, into the sunlight. She tossed her head when they got outside, snorting warm breath into the clean winter air. He hadn't saddled her, and so he led her over to one of the white washed paddock fences. It was hell, climbing up the slats and onto her back, but she stood very still and allowed him to do so awkwardly.
Finally settled on her back, Draco sat up straight. However wounded, his body knew how to sit a horse, and it felt inexplicably wonderful to be up here, again - to look out on the world from between a pair of silver ears, and feel the warm, powerful body beneath him. It took only balance to keep his seat, and his sore muscles relaxed after the torturous marathon of escaping the manor house. Olivia turned her head and pricked her ears at some far off sound, shifted beneath him. Afternoon was fading too quickly. He had to go, and go now.
Gathering up the worn leather reins and threading them by instinct between his pinkie and ring fingers, he clucked softly to the mare, and nudged her belly with his heels. He didn't need to ask twice. She moved forward at a trot, her hooves ringing against the frozen ground. He didn't urge her into the air, not yet - instead he kept to the tree line behind the stable, so as to keep out of clear view of the house.
For a moment, Draco could almost pretend that everything was all right. The mare made everything all right. He and Olivia had gone for countless hacks through these fields and these woods. Whenever things at Malfoy Manor became unbearable, she had been his escape; he ruled the world from here atop her back, guiding her every hoofbeat with the slightest shift of his weight of tightening of his fingers upon her reins. He urged her into a canter, now; felt her collect beneath him, soften against the bit - then the surge of power, and the smooth, rocking three beat gait that spelled out f-r-e-e-d-o-m against the ground. Her strides were huge, devouring the meters between Malfoy Manor and whatever lay beyond it, now. Draco could feel her eagerness, the joy with which she stretched her legs after the long months spent primarily indoors.
Leaning low against her neck, Draco tangled his fingers in her main and let her ease forward into a full gallop - gave her her head and let her run as fast as she pleased. Unlike most winged horses, Olivia did not take to their air every chance she received. She liked to run, and run fast - and the faster the better, right now, as far as he was concerned. "Go on, girl," he whispered into the wind. He didn't care where they were going, yet, and the mare was as happy to be free as he was. She knew, as well as he did, that they were not going back.
They were coming to the edge of the property, now; although Lucius owned a copious amount of land surrounding the Manor, a high stone wall separated the estate proper from the farmlands beyond. He gave her another soft nudge with his heels, leaned forward.
And off they went; over the wall and up, up...
The higher they rose, the colder it got; Draco huddled against the mare's mane for warmth, peered down through the clouds, and gauged his direction. Once he'd aimed Olivia north, he simply hung on; exhaustion had caught up with him. He didn't know how to get to Hogwarts, but he knew it was north. Leaning against the mare's neck and closing his eyes, Draco tried to drive them towards Hogwarts by sheer will alone.
But the Granian didn't need his willpower to aid her on her course. She'd flown it a thousand times in the carriage, bringing Lucius on trips to and from the school. And she flew it now, again, with Draco clinging desperately to her mane, his strength ebbing by the minute, the cold biting into him...
It took the better part of three hours to reach Hogwarts, which gave Draco an ample amount of time to think. Of course Lucius would come looking for him at Hogwarts, but where else could he go? He was sixteen and on his own, with nothing save his robes, his wand, and the stolen animal that carried him ever onward. Yes, Lucius would come for him; and Draco wouldn't go with him. He would stand his ground and shake his head and refuse come hell or high water, and as long as he was under Hogwarts' roof, his father couldn't hurt him. Still unsure if he would even make it to the school, he could only pray, now, and cling to consciousness in the frozen December night.
But with the wind whipping in his ears, he was slipping away - and though his fingers flung tight to Olivia's mane, Draco's mind was burrowing into a deep, warm bed in his beloved dungeons. Severus was kissing his hair, and Draco wanted to explain to him that he couldn't really be here, no, he was trapped in his own bed in Malfoy Manor...
Their landing jarred him; he'd nearly lost his seat on the horse. Only now did he realize that he'd lost consciousness; it seemed nearly impossible to open his eyes, but when he did, he was met with the sight of the great, looming, well-lit castle at the top of the hill. For a moment it seemed that it must be a mirage; their chances of ending up on this very lawn were so slim that they seemed damned near impossible. Somehow, against the greatest odds, he had dreamed his way home.
The trip up the hill was surreal. Draco had all that he could do to simply hold on. He had never been so cold in his life, and all his muscles seemed to have cramped into place - he was sure that if they had not, he would have fallen ages ago. Sheer will alone kept him on the mare's back, step by step... the blood had long ago frozen in rivulets to his face, and he was so very dizzy... the front doors loomed closer, Draco shuddered. Ice on his eyelashes. So hard to think anymore. Hard to breathe...
He tried to dismount when they reached the great front doors; fell hard, the giant iron door knocker catching him in the mouth as he went down on the stone steps. Olivia looked as decidedly concerned as an equine is capable of looking. The blood was streaming freely from his head, again, and now his mouth was bleeding too. Too cold. Too sore. The doors seemed a thousand feet high, when one was huddled at the base of them and looking up. He couldn't stand up again, not even with something to hold on to. Raising one pale, trembling hand, Draco pounded on the doors with all the strength left in him; pounded until he simply could not move anymore.
He lay his head back against the stone wall beside the doorway, curling up and ducking his head away from the bitter wind. Snow had just started to fall in delicate white flakes against the now darkened sky. Draco watched them with glazed and fading eyes, his mind growing as numb as his fingertips until he couldn't feel anything, anymore...
Blinding flash of warmth, light. Voices above him. The huge wooden doors had opened, and now a hundred things were happening at once; someone was yelling at someone else to fetch Madam Pomfrey, another voice said to keep the students in the Great Hall a bit longer, and would someone please catch the horse and bring it to Hagrid? Too many voices all speaking at once, and the torchlight was blinding.
And then a pair of strong, lean arms lifted him up, and a familiar voice said, "Step back, now, I've got him."
Draco snuggled against the gaunt chest as best he could, let his eyes fall closed and his head fall sideways against Snape's shoulder. He was safe. The lights and the voices became a soft, steady blur around him - but Severus was real. Severus was carrying him. Severus was whispering to him beneath the rush of voices that it would be okay, that everything would be okay. And Draco believed him.
He let himself slide into unconsciousness before they reached the hospital wing. He never felt Snape lie him down on the cot, or smooth his hair back from his forehead. Finally safe from the horrors of Malfoy Manor, Draco felt nothing at all.
***
[ colloquial title : Fly Away Home ]
you're tearin' at my heartstrings
let me fly away home...
-Jack Williams-
***
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shakey fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goosedown comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to carress his hair.
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinately patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a carress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.
He woke up to the scent of dried blood.
The sun came creeping over the windowsill long before he was ready for; stretched its long, golden fingers through the gap in his bed curtains to stroke at his eyelids. The warmth felt good on his bruised face, but the dried blood around him was warming, too - a bitter, acrid aroma against the clean scent of bedclothes and heated wood.
Draco pressed his eyes shut tighter against the light and the smell and the hollow feeling of the morning after.
He was something close to comfortable, finally; cradled by the huge bed and the warm velvet blankets, he had finally cried himself into heavy and dreamless sleep. He knew that if he moved even the smallest bit, all the aches and pains would shoot back through his body as though he'd tripped an alarm system; but if he just lay here, very quietly, the pain was no more than a dull throbbing in his bones, a stiffness in his muscles and a bit of leftover nausea.
He wondered how long it would take him to die, if he simply did not get up.
Too long. Lucius would never allow him the peace of dying in his own bed. If Draco died, it would be violent. If Draco died, he would die screaming. His father would make him beg for death before he allowed him that blessed release. He would never be allowed to simply waste away here in blessed, blessed silence.
Draco took a deep breath, braced himself for the pain, and shifted.
A sharp burning down his back to his thighs, a throbbing between his legs, and a rawness inside of him that seemed to spread up into his stomach and outward. He had expected much worse. But there was blood all over him; flecked across his thighs and stomach, caked between his fingers, dried in thin russet rivulets over the side of his face. Draco cringed, but didn't cry out. His muscles felt like rubber; and when he opened his eyes, they met the sunlight with a throbbing somewhere behind his temples.
He had to lay very still for a few more minutes before he could even think about moving again. He used them to think.
He was going to die if he stayed here. Even though his father had charmed the worst wounds shut, he could steel feel the blood oozing from him, inside and out, slowly but surely. His head had hit the head board of the bed so hard that it was still numb just above his hairline. Draco lifted five shaky fingers to the spot, drew them back bloody. Still bleeding. Lucius would never heal him. Lucius liked it when he hurt - the worse, the better. Lucius wouldn't care if he killed him, so long as it hurt bad enough. Lucius had not laid a kind hand on him in sixteen years.
And that's why the Slytherin Dungeon was heaven, wasn't it? That's why Draco was never warmer than in those cold, low slung rooms. Severus always kept a roaring fire in the hearth - a harmless oak fire that smelled good and clean and comforting - and his bed was piled with warm goose down comforters and soft plush pillows. Draco slept there whenever he could, while he was at school; sneaking carefully out of his dorm after everyone else had fallen asleep, and knocking with that quiet, secret knock on the Potion Master's chamber door, and then swept into a sea of gentleness that seemed to go on forever, yet never lasted long enough. Draco had never been touched so tenderly in all his years. It had made a virgin of him all over again, this tenderness. His body, braced for the pain that always came from human contact, had not known how to react, at first; he'd flinched at the brush of unexpected fingers, shied from the hands that sought to caress his hair.
Yes, terrifying in the beginning to be touched at all; but how he'd needed it, longed for it nonetheless. And Severus had been infinitely patient with him; he didn't take offense when Draco pulled away, or whimpered in fear, or simply burst into tears on the spot when a hand brushed some particularly tender or well-abused part of his body. He soothed Draco through every second of it, at first - teaching him how to kiss, and return a caress, and how to relax when the panic began to well up inside of him. Inch by inch, he taught Draco how to trust.
And oh, what those midnights did for his soul. He was whole again, in Severus's arms; dirty, yes, and tainted, maybe, but whole at least, and complete, and safe when he had never felt safe before. To fall asleep cradled against another warm human body ... to rest his head against another chest, and close his eyes, and feel those strong yet slender arms around him - this was more than he ever could have imagined. Nothing could hurt him in those moments, nothing at all. It was Perfect.
Draco took a deep, deep breath and forced his eyes open again. He had to get up. He had to get out of here.
Life at Malfoy Manor had been nightmarish enough when all he'd known was pain; but now that he'd learned what gentleness was, each of Lucius's blows stung ten times as deep. Cruel hands. His father's hands. Those hands could stroke his face, or rub his back, or trail gently through his hair, but they did not. They hurt him on purpose, and now he didn't know why. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he'd left Hogwarts, and already he'd been beaten down to nothing - robbed of all the kindness that Severus lavished upon him, and left cold and empty in this nightmare Manor.
He was going to die if he did not leave.
He would go today, while Lucius was away. It was Thursday, which meant that his father would be in London until dark, working with the Ministry. He would go now, without letting so much as a house elf see him. He could simply pack up everything from his school trunk into pillow cases, which would be easier to carry. He could sneak down through the old servants stairs that were never used anymore, as they'd taken to biting ankles. A few stair-bites would be a small price to pay for anonymous freedom, and he could use the window on their bottom landing to slip out the back of the Manor. From there it would be almost easy to make it to the stables unseen. The Manor boasted a fine carriage house, and a team of eight Granian winged horses; tall, lithe animals, and very elegant, all with smooth, shining dapple gray coats and graceful dark gray wings. He would take his favorite of the lot, the one that he had loved since childhood and thought of very much as his own. It would be easier than flying by broomstick, as the horses all bore Disillusionment Charms to keep muggles from spotting them in the clouds, and it would require no magic - something that his father would surely sense had been done in his absence - to load everything he owned onto the horse with him and escape.
It took him much longer than it should have taken any sixteen year old boy to get out of bed. His bones felt as though they had aged a century in the course of the night. Draco gasped when he finally set his weight on his feet; it was agony straightening his abdomen, now, after so many hours of remaining curled in the same position, allowing the bruises to tighten as they would.
For a moment he simply stood very still - a dull ringing had commenced in his ears, rising in a smooth crescendo until it was a roar, and bringing with it a blanket of white that fell across his vision. His whole body was shaking, now; his legs could not support him any longer. Draco collapsed against the hard marble floor with a defeated whimper, his head spinning, his stomach turning over and over again...
He barely managed to drag himself, hand over hand to the waste bin, before he threw up. The cold sweat of exertion had risen up all over his shuddering form, sending chills through him as he huddled back against the great stone wall of his bedroom. He had lost too much blood, this time. There was no way that he would make it all the way to the stables. A little rush of panic seized him, followed by a wave of despair. He was trapped here in this big, cold house, and there was no way that he was going to get away on his own. And Lucius would be back by nightfall. Nightfall. He had to get up, get moving, or it was going to happen all over again...
His body screamed in silence as Draco forced himself to his feet again. His vision blurred, flashed white; but this time he clung to the edge of his dresser, leaning his weight into it and closing his eyes and battling the waves of nausea that rolled over him. He would not fall. He had to make it to the stables. To hell with his things - all he needed was his wand, and the horse. He had neither the time, nor the strength, to rescue anything but himself.
Forcing his eyes into focus, Draco let go of the dresser and put one foot in front of the other. He made it four shaky, unbalanced steps across the floor before his knees gave out again - slamming against the stone floor with such force that two twin jets of pain shot up Draco's legs, through his hips, and buried themselves in his stomach. He choked on the nausea, coughed hard, and looked back at the dresser. It was further away than he had expected. Four steps were better than nothing.
And so it began.
Sometimes he only made it two steps. Sometimes he made it nearly a dozen. Inch by painful inch, Draco made his way across the Manor - collapsing when and where he had to, or clinging to the heavy moldings of the walls for support when he refused to let himself fall. More than once he lost consciousness, struggled back to it, and continued onward with a desperate determination that pushed his broken mind and body to their very limits. It took him the better part of an hour to make it to the biting staircase, which any healthy individual could have reached from his chambers in a matter of minutes. It took him another agonizing fifteen minutes of nips and bites and stumbling to reach the bottom of it. Time ebbed away from Draco as it did within the nightmare of his father's chambers - there was only this moment and the very moment after, when he forced himself forward again despite all odds through the window...
The sun was high by the time he reached the stables, though it did not help to keep warm the chill winter landscape. The horses were inside, thank Merlin; and a hopeless relief washed over him as he finally dragged himself through the stable doors. Good, comforting smells washed over him - dust and hay and the clean, earthen smell of the animals themselves; the scent of leather from the tack in the corner, and warm sunlight on the wood shavings that bedded each spacious box stall. The only sounds were that of the birds and the horses; big, powerful bodies shifting, equine jaws grinding at stray wisps of hay, long tails snapping at flies with a reedy *swish*. Draco leaned against a feed bin and let his eyes adjust to the dim interior lighting.
Only one of the great winged horses had it's head over the stall door; huge, gentle brown eyes peering most curiously down the aisle at Draco. Despite everything, he found a weak smile creeping to his lips. "Hello, Olivia," he whispered.
The horse whuffled to him, pricking her silver ears at the sound of his voice and craning her long, graceful neck towards him. She nodded her head impatiently, and if Draco could have laughed, he would. In the most certain of equine terms, she was welcoming him home. Using the long feed bin along the wall for support, he made his way down the aisle to her stall.
She stretched her nose out to meet him as he reached her; snuffling at his face neck for a moment before she gave him a decisive shove with her head. Luckily he caught himself before he fell - but now Draco was laughing despite the pain in his stomach, and rubbing her smooth, silver neck. "Yeah, I know, I was gone for too long, huh?" Olivia snuffled at his pockets for a treat in response.
He didn't have anything for her, so he scooped a handful of sweet feed from the feed bin and offered it to her, closing his eyes and leaning against her neck as her soft, velveteen lips gobbled the treat from his upturned palm. He had always loved the horses; their quiet, honest ways and their tall, graceful bodies. These animals had ten times his size and strength, and yet they were passive, gentle, majestic with their liquid brown eyes and their powerful limbs and their languid, elegant way of moving. Olivia had always been his darling of the bunch - the most curious, the most stubborn, and also the most affectionate. She made a beautifully spirited lead horse under harness, and yet she had been placid and patient under saddle with him. He'd learned to ride her when he was only four.
Draco brought her bridle down from it's peg, now, sliding it easily over her ears when she'd finished the grain. She took the bit easily, stood quietly as he buckled the noseband and throat latch, and promptly pawed at her stall door with a foreleg when he'd finished. She was obviously ready to go - but was he?
It then occurred to Draco that he had absolutely no idea where he was going, except for Away. He'd never really thought about where he would run *to* - yet now that he did, he realized what his subconscious had been telling him all along. There was only one place in the world for him to go, right now - and that was back to Hogwarts.
Could he get there from here? Draco didn't know how. He knew how to get to London, and maybe if he simply followed the train tracks from there ... but Lucius was in London, and where precisely in London Draco could never be sure. Too close. Too risky. He found himself wishing for a moment that Olivia had Thestral blood in her. At least she was fast. And wherever they went, they had to go quickly. Draco unlatched the stall door, and led the mare down the aisle to the far end, into the sunlight. She tossed her head when they got outside, snorting warm breath into the clean winter air. He hadn't saddled her, and so he led her over to one of the white washed paddock fences. It was hell, climbing up the slats and onto her back, but she stood very still and allowed him to do so awkwardly.
Finally settled on her back, Draco sat up straight. However wounded, his body knew how to sit a horse, and it felt inexplicably wonderful to be up here, again - to look out on the world from between a pair of silver ears, and feel the warm, powerful body beneath him. It took only balance to keep his seat, and his sore muscles relaxed after the torturous marathon of escaping the manor house. Olivia turned her head and pricked her ears at some far off sound, shifted beneath him. Afternoon was fading too quickly. He had to go, and go now.
Gathering up the worn leather reins and threading them by instinct between his pinkie and ring fingers, he clucked softly to the mare, and nudged her belly with his heels. He didn't need to ask twice. She moved forward at a trot, her hooves ringing against the frozen ground. He didn't urge her into the air, not yet - instead he kept to the tree line behind the stable, so as to keep out of clear view of the house.
For a moment, Draco could almost pretend that everything was all right. The mare made everything all right. He and Olivia had gone for countless hacks through these fields and these woods. Whenever things at Malfoy Manor became unbearable, she had been his escape; he ruled the world from here atop her back, guiding her every hoofbeat with the slightest shift of his weight of tightening of his fingers upon her reins. He urged her into a canter, now; felt her collect beneath him, soften against the bit - then the surge of power, and the smooth, rocking three beat gait that spelled out f-r-e-e-d-o-m against the ground. Her strides were huge, devouring the meters between Malfoy Manor and whatever lay beyond it, now. Draco could feel her eagerness, the joy with which she stretched her legs after the long months spent primarily indoors.
Leaning low against her neck, Draco tangled his fingers in her main and let her ease forward into a full gallop - gave her her head and let her run as fast as she pleased. Unlike most winged horses, Olivia did not take to their air every chance she received. She liked to run, and run fast - and the faster the better, right now, as far as he was concerned. "Go on, girl," he whispered into the wind. He didn't care where they were going, yet, and the mare was as happy to be free as he was. She knew, as well as he did, that they were not going back.
They were coming to the edge of the property, now; although Lucius owned a copious amount of land surrounding the Manor, a high stone wall separated the estate proper from the farmlands beyond. He gave her another soft nudge with his heels, leaned forward.
And off they went; over the wall and up, up...
The higher they rose, the colder it got; Draco huddled against the mare's mane for warmth, peered down through the clouds, and gauged his direction. Once he'd aimed Olivia north, he simply hung on; exhaustion had caught up with him. He didn't know how to get to Hogwarts, but he knew it was north. Leaning against the mare's neck and closing his eyes, Draco tried to drive them towards Hogwarts by sheer will alone.
But the Granian didn't need his willpower to aid her on her course. She'd flown it a thousand times in the carriage, bringing Lucius on trips to and from the school. And she flew it now, again, with Draco clinging desperately to her mane, his strength ebbing by the minute, the cold biting into him...
It took the better part of three hours to reach Hogwarts, which gave Draco an ample amount of time to think. Of course Lucius would come looking for him at Hogwarts, but where else could he go? He was sixteen and on his own, with nothing save his robes, his wand, and the stolen animal that carried him ever onward. Yes, Lucius would come for him; and Draco wouldn't go with him. He would stand his ground and shake his head and refuse come hell or high water, and as long as he was under Hogwarts' roof, his father couldn't hurt him. Still unsure if he would even make it to the school, he could only pray, now, and cling to consciousness in the frozen December night.
But with the wind whipping in his ears, he was slipping away - and though his fingers flung tight to Olivia's mane, Draco's mind was burrowing into a deep, warm bed in his beloved dungeons. Severus was kissing his hair, and Draco wanted to explain to him that he couldn't really be here, no, he was trapped in his own bed in Malfoy Manor...
Their landing jarred him; he'd nearly lost his seat on the horse. Only now did he realize that he'd lost consciousness; it seemed nearly impossible to open his eyes, but when he did, he was met with the sight of the great, looming, well-lit castle at the top of the hill. For a moment it seemed that it must be a mirage; their chances of ending up on this very lawn were so slim that they seemed damned near impossible. Somehow, against the greatest odds, he had dreamed his way home.
The trip up the hill was surreal. Draco had all that he could do to simply hold on. He had never been so cold in his life, and all his muscles seemed to have cramped into place - he was sure that if they had not, he would have fallen ages ago. Sheer will alone kept him on the mare's back, step by step... the blood had long ago frozen in rivulets to his face, and he was so very dizzy... the front doors loomed closer, Draco shuddered. Ice on his eyelashes. So hard to think anymore. Hard to breathe...
He tried to dismount when they reached the great front doors; fell hard, the giant iron door knocker catching him in the mouth as he went down on the stone steps. Olivia looked as decidedly concerned as an equine is capable of looking. The blood was streaming freely from his head, again, and now his mouth was bleeding too. Too cold. Too sore. The doors seemed a thousand feet high, when one was huddled at the base of them and looking up. He couldn't stand up again, not even with something to hold on to. Raising one pale, trembling hand, Draco pounded on the doors with all the strength left in him; pounded until he simply could not move anymore.
He lay his head back against the stone wall beside the doorway, curling up and ducking his head away from the bitter wind. Snow had just started to fall in delicate white flakes against the now darkened sky. Draco watched them with glazed and fading eyes, his mind growing as numb as his fingertips until he couldn't feel anything, anymore...
Blinding flash of warmth, light. Voices above him. The huge wooden doors had opened, and now a hundred things were happening at once; someone was yelling at someone else to fetch Madam Pomfrey, another voice said to keep the students in the Great Hall a bit longer, and would someone please catch the horse and bring it to Hagrid? Too many voices all speaking at once, and the torchlight was blinding.
And then a pair of strong, lean arms lifted him up, and a familiar voice said, "Step back, now, I've got him."
Draco snuggled against the gaunt chest as best he could, let his eyes fall closed and his head fall sideways against Snape's shoulder. He was safe. The lights and the voices became a soft, steady blur around him - but Severus was real. Severus was carrying him. Severus was whispering to him beneath the rush of voices that it would be okay, that everything would be okay. And Draco believed him.
He let himself slide into unconsciousness before they reached the hospital wing. He never felt Snape lie him down on the cot, or smooth his hair back from his forehead. Finally safe from the horrors of Malfoy Manor, Draco felt nothing at all.
***