A Bittersweet Aftertaste
by I Got Tired of
Waiting
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"Do you or do you not want to escape?"
From what? This interminable incarceration? Or the longer one that came before it?
Hiding my amusement at his customary glower took little effort; he wouldn't appreciate the irony of my current situation. Azkaban had not been as egregious as I'd been led to believe; I'd quickly found that one had to have happy memories for the Dementors to take interest. Seeing how few I possessed, they'd mostly left me alone, their weekly visits more to ascertain my continued existence rather than any real harassment. True, five years of mind-numbing monotony, interspersed with the screams and laments of those with something to lose, was not precisely my cuppa, but I'd had my music and my books to amuse me in the interim. Granted it was a limited selection, but my surprisingly loyal sycophant, Fudge, (who had obligingly supplied them) always had been a limited man.
Loyal? Fudge? Perhaps, but I'd always long suspected it was the Malfoy vault Fudge respected rather than the Malfoy heir and, as long I continued to control my empire--even within these cursed walls, I was reasonably assured I would never have to know what bought his continued support. And support me he did. In style. No blank white walls and hard pallets for The Malfoy; no, only the finest silks and the most opulent furnishing my prison made. While I was never very fond of him in any way save what he could provide, I did deeply regret his sudden death as it marked the beginning of the end for me. It didn't take long after his demise for the others to remember I was still alive and, of course--
"Lucius, I will only say this once: this is your only hope; unless, of course, you'd like the house-elves tending your drooling carcass. Perhaps Dobby would enjoy wiping your arse."
Well, yes, there was that. I hid the shudder brought by the sudden vision of the tender ministrations I could expect from their long memories. They have no reason to love me and I'd no reason to respect them--couldn't abide the little buggers, but they did have their uses. No, they would not be kind. However, would I really care when I would not be there to see or feel it, my reason and self sucked from my body by the soul-less wardens who so effectively guard this place? Would I notice anything beyond the fetid breath, the triumphant leaching of all I had ever been and all I could ever be? Did I just say soul-less? Perhaps they'd none of their own, I'd never taken the time to check, but certainly they luxuriated in the detritus of their victims, replete with their sanctioned rape of person--the ultimate mind-fuck, as it were. One could almost admire such single-minded dedication, except when directed at oneself.
I reached out my hand, palm up.
I knew the moment I took the potion from Severus' hands that something was 'off', but at that moment, only minutes from The Kiss, who was I to complain or question when someone, even a former rival for our master's regards, offered respite of any sort. It's not that I wanted to die--far from it; I just preferred my last breath to be on my own terms in my own time and most certainly out of my own body.
The emerald green liquid in its elegant cut crystal vial sparkled like the finest cut gem when held up to the sunlight pouring through my windows overlooking the restless sea. It didn't look like any poison I'd ever seen, but then again Severus was no ordinary Potions master. So perhaps this was one of his 'specials'? The avid gleam in his black eyes, the eager way his emaciated frame canted towards me, wordlessly urging me to drink his assuredly vile concoction, told me my death would not be easy. In fact, given our former relationship, Severus had most likely made it the most excruciating he could devise.
No matter. I'd once blindly loved Tom Riddle before he descended into a madness even a mother could loathe and married a beautiful woman who'd left me long before she left our bed. With such blighted transitions and all the emptiness that followed, how much greater pain could anyone else give me?
I downed the potion in one smooth swallow, the unexpectedly bittersweet aftertaste of roses filling my senses before I collapsed senseless to the floor, my nemesis' victorious chuckling the last thing I heard in that life.
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I didn't like the way they looked at me as I entered his office, like I was some Harry crumb cake ready for consumption with afternoon tea, all buttery softness and sweet sugar instead of a twenty-year-old wizard weary of fighting a foe I was beginning to believe I would never defeat. Especially after the last battle we'd fought, the spells cast had left me drained long after what should have been a normal recovery. I suspected I was reaching the limits of my reserves but had kept quiet about the all-too-real exhaustion I still felt each morning after a night's restless sleep.
Or at least I thought I'd kept it quiet. There was no telling with these masters of secrets. Still, Albus was far too smug and Severus too pleased and Moody too sour; something was definitely 'off'.
"Yes, Albus, you wanted to see me?"
"Ah, Harry, my boy! Please be seated."
As I warily took the chair next to Snape, Albus handed me a fresh cup of tea. While it looked all right, the first tentative sip surprised me; it was perfect. Usually I had to add more milk or remove some of the sweetness or make it stronger; one would think after ten years and thousands of cups of the bitter brew the old man would remember how I take my cuppa, but he never did. Until now.
I was instantly suspicious.
"What do you want?" I asked him baldly, trying in my own weak fashion to mitigate the way Albus had of bowling me over with his unreasonable demands couched in such civilised terms. Sneaking a glance at the others, I was somewhat relieved that things were slipping back into their more normal pattern; Snape frowned and Moody's good eye gleamed with silent approval.
Just as bluntly Albus replied, "Madam Pomfrey tells me your magic was seriously depleted in the last skirmish, something to do with the Sumerian spells Voldemort unearthed. Is this true?"
Blast and scorch my honesty; I could not lie to him and more the fool I for it. Assuming a light tone, I replied, "I admit I've been a bit more tired than normal lately, but this is nothing new. Maybe I just need an extended holiday."
Well, at least Severus and Moody got the joke, but Albus was not amused.
"Harry, I worry about you--"
Liar.
"--and I think you are understating the problem."
Definitely.
"Madam Pomfrey has prescribed a course of treatment for your sleeplessness and continued vitality. It's more important than ever you stay healthy. We will win this thing, but only if you're in top form--"
We, my arse.
"--So to this end I've had Severus make the potions she's requesting you start taking without delay."
Why did this seem all wrong? Allies, these people were supposed to be my allies, so why did I feel like a gopher caught in a steel trap with a fox waiting outside?
"Potions? What potions?" I asked, watching Snape closely.
Crossing his legs casually, he handed over a single vial filled to the brim with a silvery liquid. "There are three potions combined into one, each useful to the other. The first is merely a modified Dreamless Sleep potion, much lighter than the normal formula to reduce grogginess. The second will augment your magic by letting you draw on the powers and strengths of your enemies. The third is bonded into the whole and is designed to revitalise the body during sleep. Despite the obscurer defence elements, it's really nothing more than just a strong tonic. I'd give you the name had I given it one yet."
His calm, no-nonsense explanation did much to assuage my concerns and yet... While I'd never had reason to doubt Severus' integrity, he did sometimes have a way of twisting the truth to suit his needs. And given it was Dumbledore who ordered it? Fah! Moody, on the other hand, would never lie to me, even if it hurt.
"Moody, is this 'just' a tonic?"
I knew Albus would not be pleased by my questioning his veracity, but damn it, I'd learned to trust the instincts screaming at me to watch my step, that Something Bad was about to happen. However, I was unprepared for the depth of his ire; his face thunderous, I could almost see the control he exerted not to hex me on the spot. But if his ultimate goal was to intimidate me, he missed the mark by about three years.
Moody cast a wary glance at Dumbledore and sighed. "No, Harry, it's not only 'just' a tonic, but as Severus says, it could help you defeat Voldemort by augmenting your magic and negating the efforts of your worst enemies."
What an odd way to phrase it, but I somehow knew he spoke the truth. I held the vial up to the light from Dumbledore's window, the potion's silver shimmer shining dully within its cut crystal vial, its iridescent liquid rolling languidly as if stirred by a hidden hand. My future health lies inside? Or 'just' my future?
Did it really matter? All my friends were gone, slain in the name of a war I was rapidly losing heart in waging. There was no love, no tenderness to be found, only unfulfilled needs and battle camaraderie, day after month after year. If this could help end it, even at some hideous cost (and I was sure there was one), it would be well worth it.
Eyes closed and reason stilled, I downed the potion in one long swallow, the unexpectedly bittersweet aftertaste of roses filling my mouth before I collapsed senseless in my chair, Moody's harsh huff of dismay the last thing I heard as the darkness took me.
Hours or days later, I knew not, I awoke to a nightmare, finding myself naked in a warm bed, hopelessly entwined with my sworn enemy of many years, a man whose son I had killed only two months before and whose wife had casually killed my two best friends before dying slowly on the business end of Severus' wand.
Lucius Malfoy.
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Of course they'd known I'd go back; how could I not? Me? Side with the 'light'? Me? Pay lip service to that most insipid concept of impossible 'equality' of all wizards regardless of birth and station when my whole heritage howled in horrified protest? No, I was a Malfoy, damn it, and even if he was mad, Voldemort had been my world before the so-called Battle of the Ministry; he and his ideas were still my masters when I 'escaped'. My loyalty was still unshakable.
But I never got the opportunity to prove it. Waking all snug next to Harry Potter as if we were the most familiar of lovers had been the greatest shock I'd ever received, surpassed only by the jolt of fire coursing through me when he woke and pushed me away from him. The moment his panicked hands touched my bare skin and mine touched his to hold him off, we were lost as the magic imbued in us both flared to the fore, bonding us for life.
I might hate what they did to us, but I admit in hindsight it was a most Slytherin ploy and obviously Severus' idea. Dumbledore wasn't that smart--sneaky perhaps, in the open-handed way all Gryffindors have, but he was not the greatest thinker. How Snape must have laughed as he concocted the plan; what supreme amusement he must have garnered when I eagerly gulped his 'escape'. What better way to thwart one's most worthy opponent and still have him around to feed one valuable information than binding him to his worst enemy in a romantic alliance? And by way of our newly forged bond I gave them everything they wanted. Every scrap of knowledge the harshest punishments in Azkaban had not dragged out of me, I handed to them as if they were gifts from a penniless beggar promised the richest feast. Not that I thought it of any real use; surely the Dark Lord had changed all the passwards and safe locations with my capture and the intervening years?
Or maybe not. Their almost immediate victories in light of my less-than-timely accounts gave lie to that notion.
However, seeing what my life has become, of how little value I hold to either side, I know death, even one slow and protracted, would have been preferable to the half-life I'm forced to live--a taste of the Dementor's curse but with my mind intact. That Severus and Dumbledore tricked me--tricked us both--was easy to hide on the outside with a mein of vast contempt, but inside my most private places there roils an anger and despair so profound they're fortunate the gold shackle they bestowed on my unwilling flesh prevents me from plotting and executing their immediate demise. As does the identical one worn by my mate on his slender wrist, for to harm them is to harm him and even though he's begged in the most piteous way to release us both, I cannot. Severus' Cupido potion saw to that small detail. And if Harry with all his power cannot break the spell either, what makes him think I am any stronger in this matter?
My mate. What a charade. How stupid I've become. The lithe body pressing close to mine right now no more wants me or this bonding than it did a year ago, but we are well and truly caught; I can no more change what has happened than he can. And I believe his desire to break this geas was initially as strong as my own, yet every moment together, every furtive touch, every lingering kiss, every stolen pleasure weakens our firmest resolve to continue loathing the other.
As I'm certain they intended.
No, I can no longer harm Harry, nor them, nor myself. They've effectively imprisoned me yet again, in much the same manner, although to the silk and opulence they've added a passion and fabricated a love so divine I want it, want it with every fibre of my being, want it more than I want my own life. It grows more difficult with each passing day to not reach out for him, to not bury myself in his body and allow myself to feel anything more than the cold pleasure such encouraged couplings bring.
And yet I know I can't let myself take this for myself, can't lose myself in him; I possess nothing but his hidden hatred tempered by a bond not of our choosing. I'd been wrong. Severus had dealt me a pain greater than any I'd ever previously experienced, for I know that any tenderness I receive from Harry's hands, any gentle emotions he exhibits are not real, are not his, rather are a product of a potion and golden bonds. And in light of the changes wrought within myself, I have to ask, what can be worse than an empty promise of love when it is truly desired?
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He watches me and, like now when I feign sleep, my sight dimmed by my almost shut lashes, the grey eyes and harsh planes of his beautiful face soften with emotions I know aren't real. They can't be real, can they? No, our enmity is so deeply entrenched there is nothing strong enough to bridge it. Merlin, what am I supposed to do? I know he loathes me, hates everything I am, everything I fight for, yet this unreasonable desire pulls at me, pulls at him, bringing us closer when neither of us wants it.
You are such a liar, Harry.
I've tried to fight my unhealthy desire, the gods know I have, but beyond a token protest I have no resistance to him. I'm so stupid. I know of his secret contempt, know he scoffs and mocks all I hold dear when I'm not there; his hidden scorn burns through me as surely as his passion ignites me. Yet I want him and all the insubstantial things he gives me as if he cannot help himself. I want the apparent love, want the seeming tenderness, the ethereal gentleness I've never had before but find in abundance at this man's hands and mouth and body.
I can't resist any longer and blindly reach for him, pulling his head down to mine to absorb his soft kisses, helpless to do less than arch into his caressing hands, my body opening for him as if custom made for his pleasure. My pleasure. Our pleasure. He never says a word at moments like this; perhaps, like me, he's afraid of breaking the fragile façade of mutual caring we've so delicately built over the last year. And when our pleasure's spent, captured in a brittle web of dreams, I want to cry for the ensuing emptiness I feel from him. Is this because he feels nothing and can therefore give nothing or is it he believes my lies and thinks I have nothing for him?
You are such a coward, Harry.
This is forever and I find myself wanting to blurt out that I'm sorry, that I never asked for, nor condoned this game Albus and Severus play with both of us, that I would never wish this on my worst enemy--even when I did hate him. But someone had less regard for us both, and sympathy is not something a Malfoy accepts at all, so I keep quiet and wince in the privacy of my own mind.
They use him most cruelly--for information, for their planning, all done with a subtle blood sport the rules of which I don't understand nor engage in. But the after-effects are felt most keenly in his lengthy brooding silences, the way his lips eventually taste mine as if he's trying to drink from the bottomless well of my compassion; it's there when he holds me almost reverently when he enters me as if he's holding back a rage so profound, he knows he could break me with it if he should ever let it loose.
Lucius Malfoy? My worst enemy? Or my salvation?
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After two years it's over, the madmen dead at our hands--not just Harry's, not just mine, and not just Voldemort.
I suppose, given their long-standing relationship, it's a small mercy they died together, not that we had any such charitable thoughts when our simultaneous spells felled them before the Dark Lord's cooling body had a chance to crumple the grass beneath it. No one saw us do it, no one will ever know; the world will say they died nobly for 'The Cause' and, considering the sacrifices made, especially from those not their own, I can't begrudge them the accolades.
The gods know I don't want them.
But I will always treasure the calculated plea for clemency in Dumbledore's face when he realised what we were about, before our spell erased his treacherous twinkle forever, nor will I forget the blatant grin of Slytherin approval Severus wore before the mockery faded from his understanding eyes. I'd always known Snape as a consummate gambler, one who won more than he ought, but this time he'd made the ultimate wager at the most impossible odds with goods he could ill-afford to lose and although, on the surface, it might appear he'd surrendered the mark, I'm quite certain he got what he really wanted--despite the cost to us all. One could always count on Severus to do the noble thing, his last gift to us being the wand held loosely at his side and his final sardonic smile.
I might just miss him.
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Considering how much of my life they'd held with such casual contempt, I suppose I should feel something with them gone--loss, elation, sorrow--I would settle for just about anything. But Albus, with his pathetic attempt to sway me, didn't stir my compassion and Snape, with his knowing smile, left me calm; I almost wish we'd spared him just so I could see that fleeting glimpse of rare mirth on his face again, but it's better this way. Better for them to be the erstwhile heroes, better for the world to not know what they'd done.
No one would believe us anyway.
It's funny in a black sort of way that, for men of such intelligence, they forgot to reckon both sides of the equation. Or at least Albus did. I never was certain how blind Snape was to the gradual changes their plan wrought; however, if he did and if silence implies assent, then he undoubtedly approved of how things progressed, of how we both changed. Looking back on it now and remembering the light of understanding when he died, I'm quite sure he knew, although Dumbledore in his arrogance failed to see the balance we achieved when Lucius embraced my better qualities while bestowing to me his baser instincts.
No, the wizarding world would never know, at least not by my mouth, nor Lucius' I'm thinking, that Dumbledore and Snape were felled by the very paragons they'd created, that we'd evolved through the long dark nights of such sweet captivity, nights that grew increasingly less lonely, an inexorable joining of more than just bodies, yet never uttered, never acknowledged by the light of day.
For to do so would have made it far too real, the stakes too high to gamble on such serendipitous chance.
Our time was long overdue. The gold bonding band fell down my arm catching on my torn sleeve as I pushed a strand of wayward silk off his face. "I hate you," I whispered, angling my head back to gaze up at him, my heart open at last. Even sweat and blood and streaks of filthy effort couldn't mar his fairness nor did our mutual deeds of horror erase his hard-won inner beauty.
He was mine. My mate.
His lips sealing mine with the promise of eternity belied his murmured, "I know. I hate you back."
Well, it was as good a place as any to start forever.
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Finis
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My undying thanks to my betas: Lydia Lovestruck, Aseneth, and N.B. All remaining mistakes are mine.